Guatemala, the country of the future

by Charles M. Pepper

"The ruins, which are completely hidden in a thick tropical forest, stand about three-quarters of a mile from the left bank of the river Motagua and about five miles from the miserable little village of Quiriguá, from which they take their name. They consist of numerous square or oblong mounds and terraces varying from six to forty feet in height, some standing by themselves, others clustered in irregular groups. Most of these mounds were faced with worked stone and were ascended by flights of stone steps.

"The interest centers in the thirteen large carved monoliths which are arranged irregularly round what were probably the most important plazas. Six of these monuments are tall stones measuring three to five feet square and standing fourteen to twenty feet out of the ground. The other five are oblong or rounded blocks of stone shaped so as to represent huge turtles or armadilloes or some such animals. All these monuments are covered with elaborate carving. Usually on both back and front of the tall monoliths there is carved a huge human figure standing full face and in a stiff and conventional attitude. The sides of the monuments are covered with tables of hieroglyphs, most of them in fairly good preservation. In addition to these tables of hieroglyphs there are series of square or cartouches of what appears to be actual picture writing, each division measuring about eighteen inches square and containing usually two or three grotesque figures of men and animals. The design of these picture writings shows considerable variety and freedom of treatment as compared with that of the large sizes human figures in the execution of which the artist seems to have been bound by conventional rules.

"The largest of the stone animals is perhaps the most remarkable of all the monuments. Its measurement is roughly a cube of eight feet, it must weigh nearly twenty tons and it rests on three large slabs of stone. It is shaped like a turtle and is covered with a most elaborate and curious ornament and with tables of hieroglyphics and cartouches of picture writing. The greater part of the ornament throughout these carvings is formed from the grotesque representations of the human face or the faces of animals, the features frequently so greatly exaggerated that it is most difficult to recognize them, but a careful examination enables one almost invariably to trace back to this facial origin what at first sight appears to be merely conventional scroll work. Forms derived from leaves or flowers are altogether absent; occasional use is made of a plaited ribbon and a very free use of plumes of feathers which are oftenmost gracefully arranged and beautifully carved. The fifteen monuments are divided into two groups; in one the figures are all those of men, in the other of women."

The same authors give the following vivid description of the famed Lake Atitlan:

"Our tent was pitched so close to the precipice that even from my bed I had a grand view into the Lake and could watch the black masses of the volcanoes looming clear-cut and solemn in the moonlight or changing from black to gray in the early dawn; then a rosy flush would touch the peak of Atitlan and the light creep down its side, revealing for a brief half hour every detail of cinder ridge and chasm on its scarred and wounded slopes until with a sudden burst of glory the sun rose above the eastern hills to strike the mirror-like surface of the Lake and flood the world with warmth and dazzling light. Every peak and mountain ridge now stood out clear and sharp against the morning sky, and only in the shadow of the hills would a fleecy mist hang over the surface of the lake far beneath us; then almost before the sun had power to drink up these lees of the night from the deep gap between the hills to the south, a linger of white cloud, borne up from the seaward slope, would creep around the peak of Atitlan only to be dissipated in the cooler air; but finger followed finger and the mysterious hand never lost its grasp until about noon great billowy clouds rolled up through the gap and the outpost was fairly captured although the crater itself often stood out clear above the cloudy belt. It was not, however, until the sun began to lose its power that the real attack commenced and the second column deployed through the gap on the southern flank of San Pedro and then from five o'clock until dark there followed a scene which no pen and no brush could adequately portray. The clouds seemed to be bewitched; they came down on us in alternate black and sunlit masses, terrible in their majesty; then rolled aside to show us all the beauty of a sunset sky, tints of violet that shaded into pink, and pink that melted into the clearest blue, whilst far away beyond the mountain seaward rolled vast billowy masses, first red and yellow and then pink fading to the softest green. Again and again would the clouds roll down upon us, the mist at times so thick that we could not see beyond a hundred yards; then just as quickly it would roll away and reveal a completely new phase of this ever shifting scene of beauty. As the sun sank behind San Pedro all turned again to dark and angry purple with contrasts and reflections like the sheen of a shot silk. Slowly the mists melted away with the fading daylight, Venus hung for a while like a splendid jewel in the air and the mountains turned again to shadowy masses outlined against a crystal sky."

Fascinating History Through the Centuries.

Historically every period of Guatemala is fascinating. Usually the history of the country is divided into the epochs of the aborigines, the Spanish Conquest, Independence, and the era of liberal governments.

Across the centuries the path of history can be traced. A book written in the 16th century by one of the aborigines of the time of the Conquest and called "Popol-Vuh" or "Book of the People," speaks of the Quiches, vigorous and hardy natives of the soil, forerunners of the Guatemalan people as having reached at that time a degree of advance which singled them out from among the other primitive inhabitants of America. Their religious system was in essence a kind of animal worship whose gods were personified by the fox, the coyote, and the wild boar to be soon reemployed through natural evolution by the forces of nature such as the heavens, the earth, and the sea. They left as evidences of their worship the multitude of monuments whose imposing ruins are preserved today. Pyramids which seem to bear traces of Egypt and characters indicative of a remote Asiatic origin; temples, such as the Temple of the Sun, of grand architecture; and the Palace, dwelling of the King, a holy being and the Supreme Arbiter. The latter is among the most notable of American antiquities and it causes admiration through the graduated pyramid, the triangular vault and the arch forming an harmonious whole. The Quiche civilization was an advanced one and its government was a theocracy in which the High Priest was both the Supreme Governor and inherited the name of the primitive god Votan. This theocracy was drawn from among the warriors while the people in complete servitude tilled the fields in order to sustain the worship and raise grand monuments and built numerous cities on the borders of the lakes and rivers.

Agriculture was well advanced. Cacao was cultivated with grand ceremonies and maize or Indian corn which was guarded with profound veneration because according to the ancient tradition man was formed from it. Cotton was also grown and brilliant garments woven from it which were dyed with cochineal and pigments formed from various plants. Tobacco was cultivated and yucca, beans, potatoes, etc. Various textiles were fabricated of the finest quality and many of the palaces and temples were hung with this tapestry.

Ceramics and various kinds of pottery were manufactured both for use and for ornament. The sciences and the arts were developed. The fame of the Quiche calendar exists today. The aborigines also understood painting, sculpture, and music. They made plumes and cloaks from the feathers of the birds and they wrote upon a paper prepared from the Amatl. Their language was liquid and possessed few inflections. It was the most perfect of the six hundred or more languages which the Spaniards encountered in the Isthmus of Central America. They had a literature of their own and from this fragments have been preserved notably the drama "Rabinal Achi."

Spanish Conquest and What Came After.