THIS SMALL HISTORICAL STUDY OF THE SACRED MYSTERIES PRACTICED
IN REMOTE AGES BY THE MAYAS AND QUICHES
Is Respectfully Dedicated,
AS A FEEBLE TESTIMONIAL OF MY APPRECIATION OF HIS EFFORTS TO
HELP IN REMOVING THE VEIL THAT HAS SO LONG HUNG OVER
THE HISTORY, CUSTOMS AND CIVILIZATION OF THE ANCIENT
INHABITANTS OF THIS WESTERN CONTINENT.
AUGUSTUS LE PLONGEON.
New York, May 20th, 1886.
PREFACE.
The forests of Yucatan and Central America are to-day, for the majority of the people of the United States, even those who call themselves scientific and well informed, as much a terra incognita, as America was to the inhabitants of Europe before its discovery by Cristobal Colon in 1498, when for the first time he came in sight of the northern coast of South America, and navigated along it from the mouth of the river Orinoco to Porto Cabello in the Golfo Triste.
A few, having perused the books of J. L. Stephens, Norman, and other tourists who have hurriedly visited the ruins of the ancient cities that lie hidden in the depths of those forests, have a vague idea that there exist the remains of stone houses built some time or other before the discovery, aver authoritatively that "their builders were but little removed from the state of savagism, and that none of their handwork is worth the attention of the students of our age. Their civilization, they confidently say, was at best very crude. They were ignorant of the art of writing; and the scanty records of their history chronicled on deer-skins, in pictorial representations, are well nigh unintelligible. They had no sciences, no mental culture or intellectual development. They were in fact a race whose intelligence was for the most part of lower order. From what they did nothing is to be learned that has any direct bearing on the progress of civilization." In no wise can they be compared with the Egyptians or the Chaldees, much less with the Greeks or Romans; it is not, therefore, worth our while to spend time and money in researches among the ruins of their cities. It is to Greece, it is to Egypt, to Chaldea, that Americans must go in order to make new discoveries. In those countries must be established schools for study of Greek, or Egyptian, or Chaldean archæology: and American schools have been established at Athens and Alexandria, and expeditions sent to Syria, to the shores of the Euphrates.
But the European scientists, who for many years past have explored those old fields in order to obtain relics to fill the shelves of the museums of their capitals and turned up the soil of the Orient in search of archæological treasures, now look to the Western continent in quest of the origin of those ancient civilizations which they have been unable to find in the countries where they once flourished; and they look with that reverence which true learning begets, on those ancient American temples and palaces that are objects of contempt for some modern American scientists.