Who, then, were these Mayans?
Either they were totally unrelated to the peoples on each side of them inhabiting North and South America (from whom they were so strangely differentiated by their astonishing skill as architects) and invaded Central America, bringing with them from their cradle-land a knowledge of building; or they were akin to all the other tribes of American aborigines, and derived their building capacities from outside sources. We believe that the latter is the truth; and in this chapter we shall endeavour to show what their affinities with the other peoples of America were, following this up by an inquiry into the question of the origin of their architecture.
In the comparison we drew in the last chapter between Egypt and Yucatan, we dwelt on the fact that, while in the former the students of history and archæology found a land which for centuries had been overwhelmed with an intellectual darkness so complete that the people had forgotten they had ever had a civilisation, in Yucatan an actual living civilisation was found by the Spaniards. But the impenetrable darkness which shrouded Egypt's past proved really a blessing to those who set to work to piece together the ancient national life. Once the key to the mystery was discovered in the Rosetta Stone, students could go steadily ahead, undistracted by the will-o'-the-wisps of legend and tradition. Not so in Central America, where every earnest inquirer, whether he would or not, has found himself befogged by a myriad historical fairy tales.
The majority of those who have striven to throw light on the Mayan problem have been about as successful as the boy who tried to find the end of the rainbow by walking towards where it seemed to rest on the hillside. It was a long journey they had before them, and they did not bother to think, but rushed into Dame History's stable and vaulted on to the back of the horse Tradition. He is certainly a most attractive mount: a superb animal, yet quiet to ride and drive. Just, in fact, the easy-going, well-fed, showy park hack, from the well-worn saddle of which the most inexpert rider need fear no falls. There is a raw, nasty-tempered creature in the next stall, but nearly every one has fought shy of him. This is the horse Facts, as hard as his name, with a mouth like iron, and the very devil in his rolling eye.
Just like the park hack he is, Tradition has ambled with its riders up the row and down the row, and carried them nowhere. We will try to saddle Facts and see where he will take us.
The horse Tradition has been taught one trick. He takes the low Toltec fence like a practised hunter; and his delighted riders put him at it again and again, never tiring of taking their turn at clearing it on the back of their noble mount.
"Toltec" has become the password, the shibboleth which admits one to the freemasonry of Mayan archæology. Without it you are a lost soul, a heretic fit only for the rack and stake of the archæological Inquisitors. Among the good people who worry round the Mayan problem, this Toltec rubbish has become a veritable bogy. We are now going to do our best to "lay" this spook once and for all.
But first, what is the Toltec theory, to which whosoever will attain archæological Nirvana must subscribe his "Credo"?
The Toltecs are a people who dropped from the clouds into Mexico at or about the seventh century of our era, bringing with them building specifications, and, being mysteriously possessed of a high civilisation, dotted Mexico and the nearer parts of Central America with marvellous palaces and temples. Tradition has it that they came to Mexico (no one bothers to say whence) in 648 and founded the city of Tula, supposed to be identical (in site at least) with the present town of that name, about forty miles to the north of Mexico City. They flourished for many centuries, increasing and spreading over the whole of Mexico, numbering at the height of their prosperity some four or five millions. Through famine, pestilences, and wars waged on them by other nations of the north they gradually diminished and were finally driven down into Chiapas, Guatemala, and Yucatan. During this enforced emigration they are supposed to have built the city of Palenque and those on the Usumacinta in Tabasco; the many buildings found in Western Guatemala and Southern Yucatan. Finally they reached Chichen Itza, whence they later migrated down the eastern coast of Yucatan to Copan and Quirigua in Eastern Guatemala.
A minor controversy has raged around the question of the site of their cradle city, Tula. Some theorists have held that it was somewhere on the coast: they generously give you the whole eastern seaboard of Mexico from which to choose. One of the enthusiastic Tulaites, deeming it well to hedge, suggests three possible sites, one on the Pacific coast, another on the Gulf of Mexico, and a third on the Atlantic coast of Guatemala, south of Honduras. Toltec bogy or not, this egregious theoriser has at least the satisfaction of knowing that with three sites so far apart he cannot very well help being on the right coast.