Races and Peoples: Lectures on the Science of Ethnography

by Daniel G. Brinton

There can be little doubt that the common ancestors of these tribes moved down from the north, following the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. This is the statement of their most ancient traditions, and it is supported by the presence of one of their tribes, the Huastecas, on the shore of the Gulf, near Tampico. It has been calculated that their entrance into Yucatan was about the beginning of the Christian era.

Physically the Maya peoples are of medium height, dark in hue, the skull usually long (dolichocephalic), the nose prominent, and the muscular force superior. The artist Waldeck compares their features to those of the Arabs.

Their mental aptitudes are reflected in the culture they developed under circumstances not the most favorable. As architects they erected the most remarkable monuments on the continent. The elaborate decorations in stone, the bold carving, the free employment of the pointed arch, and the size of the edifices in the ancient cities of Palenque, Copan, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and others, place them in the front rank among the wondrous ruins of the ancient world.

They were a decidedly agricultural people, cultivating maize, cotton, tobacco, peppers, beans, and cacao. The land was portioned out with care, each house-holder being granted an area in proportion to the size of his family. The cotton was woven into cloth, skilfully dyed, and cut into graceful garments. The dyes were vegetable substances, collected from the native forests. What is not elsewhere paralleled in America, they carried on an extensive apiculture, domesticating the wild bee in wooden hives, and obtaining from its stores both wax and honey.

Their weapons and utensils were mostly of stone. There is no evidence that the Maya tribes had the metallurgical skill of the Nahuas. Obsidian, jade, agate, and chert were the materials from which they made their tools and weapons.

In war and the chase they were expert with the bow, the long lance, and the blow-pipe or sarbacane, a device recurring in both North and South America, as well as familiar to the Malays. The war-club, the sling and the tomahawk or hand-axe were also known to them.

Small quantities of gold, silver and copper were found among them, but not in objects of utility. They were prized as materials for ornaments, and were employed for decorative purposes.

The art of writing was familiar to most of the Maya tribes, and especially to those in Yucatan. The Spanish authors assert that the Quiches in Guatemala had written annals extending eight hundred years before the conquest, or to 750 A. D., and the chronicles of the Mayas which have been preserved, refer to a still more remote past, possibly to about 300 A. D. The script was quite dissimilar in appearance from the Mexican.

Adjoining or near the numerous branches of the Maya peoples, there dwelt several outliving colonies of Nahuas in the Isthmian region, who have left there interesting relics of their culture. The Pipiles near the Pacific coast were the authors of a series of excellent bas-reliefs carved on slabs of stone, which have recently come into the possession of the Berlin museum.[189] The Nicaraos, between the Pacific Ocean and Lake Nicaragua, and on the islands in this lake, were the sculptors of the strange figures in stone pictured by Squier in his travels, and some of which are now in the Smithsonian museum; while the Alaguilacs in Western Guatemala have left ruins which have not yet been explored.[190] All these tribes were Nahuas of pure blood.

On the shores of Lake Managua, to the east and west, were the Mangues, a people of some cultivation, acquainted with a form of hieroglyphic or picture writing, very skilful in pottery, and agricultural in habits.[191] It has been ascertained that they are a branch of the Chapanecs, who dwelt in the province of Chiapas, Mexico.