"Eight leagues from this town stand some buildings called Chicheneca. Among them there is a Cu (Maya name for pyramid) made by the hand of hewn stone and masonry, and this is the principal building. It has over ninety steps and the steps go all round so as to reach to the top of it; the height of each step is over one-third of a vara[2] high. On the summit stands a sort of tower with rooms in it.... This Cu stands between two zenotes of deep water. One of them is called the Zenote of Sacrifice. They call the place Chicheneca after an Indian named Alguin Itza who was living at the foot of the Zenote of Sacrifice. At this zenote the lords and chiefs of all the province of Valladolid observe this custom. After having feasted for sixty days without raising their eyes during that time even to look at their wives nor at those who brought them food, they came to the mouth of the zenote and at the break of day they threw into it some Indian women, some belonging to each of the lords, and they told the women that they should beg for a good year in all those things which they thought fit, and thus they cast them in unbound; but as they were thrown headlong in they fell into the water, giving a great blow on it; and exactly at midday she, who was able to come out, cried out loud that they should throw her a rope to drag her out with, and she arrived at the top half dead, and they made great fires around her and incensed her with copal, and when she came to herself she said that below there were many of her nation, both men and women, who received her, and that raising her head to look at some of them they gave her heavy blows on the neck, making her put her head down, which was all under water in which she fancied were many hollows and deeps; and in answer to the questions which the Indian girl put to them, they replied to her whether it should be a good or bad year, and whether the devil was angry with any of the lords who had cast in the Indian girls, but these lords already knew that if a girl did not beg to be taken up at midday it was because the devil was angry with them, and she never came out again. Then seeing that she did not come out, all the followers of that lord and the lord himself threw great stones into the water and with loud cries fled from the place."
During the succeeding centuries there is no record of any effort on the part of the Spaniards to solve the mystery surrounding the well. This is not at all surprising, for from the first they took no kind of interest in questions affecting the Indian past of the country, and their innate avarice was not awakened by any well-founded suggestion that jewels and the precious metals had been cast as offerings into the Zenote. The mineral poverty of Yucatan was so obvious as not to permit of such a belief gaining currency, as is clear from the quotation given above from Bishop Landa. But there was another and a stronger reason why the pool should hold its secret fast. This was the extraordinary mechanical difficulty of dredging operations. As has been said, the height from the brink of the cenote to the water-level is seventy feet, and the basin is a complete and precipitous circle all round; there thus being no means of reaching the water except by some elaborate contrivance of a crane nature. M. D. Charnay in 1881 provided himself, in anticipation of his visit to Chichen with two automatic sounding machines, one of which was capable of bringing up half a cubic metre deposit. Owing, however, to the height of the cenote walls, the depth of the water, and the enormous detritus of centuries, he could do nothing. It has been reserved for our good friend Mr. Edward Thompson, whose earnestness is only matched by his persistence and his contempt for difficulties, to wrest from this ugly hole the full measure of its secrets. Some twelve months back he had set up an elaborate crane apparatus worked by hand-winches which, projecting considerably over the cenote, and moving in a large half-circle, supported a heavy iron dredger. By means of this machinery dredging over the whole surface of the well-bottom has been done to a considerable depth.
The water, regarded still by the superstitious Indians as fathomless, is at present thirty feet deep, but was probably deeper once. The dredging operations have disclosed the bottom of the cenote to be an accumulation of earth and vegetable refuse, into which Mr. Thompson has been able to probe to the depth of over thirty feet. These investigations have once and for all established the fact that the pool was the scene of countless human sacrifices. The quantity of skulls and bones brought up by the dredger admits of no other explanation. For if it was urged, as it may be, that such "finds" point possibly to the cenote having been put to a sepulchral use, the answer is provided by the character of the skulls and bones. In a pool which was regarded in the light of a national Valhalla the majority of the skeletons would almost certainly be those of men, and men, too, of advanced age, chiefs and war-worn tribal heroes. But this is not the case. With scarcely any exceptions, the bones are those of the young. We were privileged by the courtesy of Mr. Thompson to see and handle many of the skulls, and our examination of them satisfied us that they were one and all those of young females between twelve and sixteen years of age. The disarticulated bones all exhibited a like immaturity and sex. From these facts only one deduction is possible, namely that sacrifices in the cenote did occur, and that such sacrifices were of young girls who were hurled by the priests into the chasm, possibly after defilement by the high-priests in the small building at the pool's edge, thus symbolising the simultaneous surrender of virginity and life to the Rain Deity.
It is of course impossible to say for how many centuries before the Spanish Conquest this practice prevailed, but allowing for the natural tendency of the bodies to entirely decay during anything like such a vast period as some writers would suggest is represented by the life of Chichen as a city, the quantity of skulls found in fair preservation seems to indicate a comparatively frequent repetition of this cruel rite; probably many maids each dry season. These grim mementoes of the pagan past are not the only "finds" the cenote has yielded. While the dredging has more than corroborated Bishop Landa's supposition that the mineral poverty of Yucatan forbade the hope that countless ounces of gold and silver lay hidden in the pool's muddy bottom, many archæological treasures have been recovered. There is much reason to believe that, aided by these, Mr. Thompson will be able to give the world an absorbingly interesting reconstruction of pre-Conquest life in Chichen, pieced together with that painstaking zeal which has distinguished all his previous work in other parts of Yucatan.
To these "finds" we shall have reason later to refer more in detail, but of one thing we would speak here. An enormous quantity of lumps of copal, a resin obtained from several small trees or shrubs of tropical America with compound dotted leaves, known to botanists as the order of Burseraceae, have been dredged up. This copal was used as incense in the Mayan temples, and it is certain that it was regarded as very precious, for there is evidence that tributes to overlords were paid by vassal tribes in so much weight of this resinous gum. There thus seems little doubt that part of the ritual at the cenote edge was the casting in of lumps of copal as offerings to the god, and it is more than likely that this custom is referred to unconsciously by the Spanish official reporting in 1579, when he says that "all the followers of that lord and the lord himself threw great stones into the water and with loud cries fled from the place." The pieces of copal recovered are in some cases as large as a human head.
About one hundred and thirty yards to the south-west of the great pyramid is the building known as the Tennis-Court. Running north to south are two immense parallel walls 274 feet long, 30 feet thick, 25 feet high, and 120 feet apart. At each end, some 30 yards from the walls, stand buildings roofless and wall-less on the Tennis-Court side. That on the north still shows traces of elaborate carvings from floor to roof, and on two pillars, where was once a doorway, are figure carvings. The building to the south is not so richly decorated. The clue to the purpose of this vast enclosure is given by a massive stone ring projecting from the eastern wall 20 feet from the ground. A corresponding one on the west side has fallen and lies among the bushes. We found its measurements to be 3 feet 11 inches in diameter, 11-1/2 inches thick, and the diameter of the ringhole 1 foot 7 inches. The ring still in position is obviously of the same measurements: it can be seen in the photograph reproduced. On the flat surface and on its edges each ring is carved with two serpents intertwined. These rings formed an essential part of a ball-game, which seems to have been common to the Mayan peoples in Yucatan and the Aztec subjects of Moctezuma in Mexico. The native name for this pastime was Tlachtli.
The Spanish historian Herrera, in describing the amusements at the Court of Moctezuma, has a detailed account of the game. He writes (we follow the translation adopted by J. L. Stephens): "The King took much delight in seeing Sport at Ball, which the Spaniards have since prohibited, because of the mischief that often happened at it; and was by them called Tlachtli, being like our Tennis. The ball was made of the gum of a tree that grows in hot countries, which, having holes made in it, distils great white drops, that soon harden, and, being worked and moulded together, turn as black as pitch. The balls made thereof, though hard and heavy to the hand, did bound and fly as well as our footballs, there being no need to blow them; nor did they use chaces,[3] but vy'd to drive the adverse party that is to hit the wall, the others were to make good, or strike it over. They struck it with any part of their body, as it hapned, or they could most conveniently; and sometimes he lost that touched it with any other part but his hip, which was look'd upon among them as the greatest dexterity; and to this effect, that the ball might rebound the better, they fastened a piece of stiff leather on their hips. They might strike it every time it rebounded, which it would do several times one after another, in so much that it look'd as if it had been alive. They play'd in parties, so many on a side, for a load of mantles, or what the gamesters could afford, at so many scores. They also play'd for gold, and feather-work, and sometimes play'd themselves away, as had been said before. The place where they played was a ground room, long, narrow, but wider above than below and higher on the sides than at the ends, and they kept it very well plastered and smooth, both the walls and the floor. On the side walls they fix'd certain stones, like those of a mill, with a hole quite through the middle, just as big as the ball, and he that could strike it through won the game; and in token of its being an extraordinary success, which rarely hapn'd, he had a right to the cloaks of all the lookers-on, by antient custom, and law amongst gamesters; and it was very pleasant to see, that as soon as ever the ball was in the hole, the standers-by took to their heels, running away with all their might to save their cloaks, laughing and rejoicing, others scouring after them to secure their cloaks for the winner, who was oblig'd to offer some sacrifice to the idol of the Tennis Court, and the stone through whose hole the ball had pass'd. Every Tennis Court was a temple, having two idols, the one of gaming, and the other of the ball. On a lucky day, at midnight, they perform'd certain ceremonies and enchantments on the two lower walls and on the midst of the floor, singing certain songs, or ballads; after which a priest of the great temple went with some of their religious men to bless it; he uttered some words, threw the ball about the Tennis Court four times, and then it was consecrated and might be play'd in, but not before. The owner of the Tennis Court, who was always a lord, never play'd without making some offering and performing certain ceremonies to the idol of gaming, which shows how superstitious they were, since they had such regard to their idols, even in their diversions. Moctezuma carry'd the Spaniards to this sport, and was well pleas'd to see them play at it, as also at cards and dice."
This account by Herrera of the temples surrounding the playground would be as accurate if it purported to be a description of Chichen instead of Mexico. The two roofless buildings which we found north and south of the court certainly suggested temples, but a more elaborate confirmation of the religious element in this ball-game is found at the southern end of the eastern wall, where stands another building larger than either of those described. This is called "The Temple of the Tigers," from a frieze design, marvellously lifelike, of jaguars (always called tigers in Yucatan) pacing after one another. The building is built to the same level as, and indeed forms part of, the wall of the Tennis Court. Its position, with serpent-columned doorway, facing the arena, indicates that it, too, figured in the ceremonies of the ball-game. Of the front room nothing remains but the two columns and the back wall, out of which latter a doorway leads into an inner apartment. Here are the most remarkable Mayan paintings so far discovered. They cover, or, to be accurate, they once covered (for they are much mutilated), the whole wall space. The colours used are green, red, blue, a reddish brown (the colour of the human skin in all Mayan paintings), and yellow. The designs are coarse in outline, the colours are faded, the plaster is chipped; but the humanity of it all holds you. The method employed in these mural paintings was that of placing one layer of pigment over another. Thus a green shield with yellow bosses studding it was depicted by the shield being first painted entirely over with green, discs of yellow chalky pigment being then placed on the green background. This method, which at the time of the actual painting obviously must have added to the glowing realistic effect, has its grave disadvantages in the detaching of these superimposed layers of paint by crumbling during the passage of centuries. Thus much of the original skill of the design is for ever lost to us.
But it is all very human. Life as it was lived, loved and struggled for; life with all its work and its play, its lights and its shades; the drama of life in those far-off Indian days, is here pictured for you. The long-dead past lives again in that crumbling fresco. By the magic of even that crude draughtsmanship you are transported back through the centuries into the living city. Close at hand you seem to hear the weird chanting of the priests, to smell the resinous incense; from the steaming plain below rise the sounds of hut-life, the grating of the stone rolling-pin (universal sound in every Indian village) on the metate or stone tray as the housewife crushes the maize, the cries of playing children, the barking of the housedogs, the crowing of the cocks. You seem to catch the echo of sharp words of command, of the low, long-drawn, grunting cries of the toilers as they drag huge plinths up the newly banked sides of the pyramid; while from the distant quarry comes the incessant "tap-tap-tap" of nephrite chisels as the masons shape the vast blocks of limestone. On the other wall the artist shows you warriors, shields and flint-headed spears in hand, in the full crash of battle; while above them the women have come out upon the battlements of the city to watch the struggle. Truly is there nothing new under the sun. To one's mind come those lines of Matthew Arnold:
"Men shall renew the battle on the plain;
To-morrow, as it hath been, it shall be;
Hector and Ajax shall be there again;
Helen shall come upon the walls to see."