BAS-RELIEFS WITH INSCRIPTIONS, AKAB-SIB PALACE AT CHICHEN-ITZA.
The Chichan-Chob, “Red House” (p. 351), is a small building about a hundred yards north of the Caracol; it stands on a rectangular platform, reached by a flight of twelve or fifteen steps. It is the best preserved monument at Chichen, and might be even now a pleasant residence; for time seems to have respected and to have left untouched its plain, smooth walls, and from its general appearance it cannot date further back than towards the last years of the city in the fifteenth century. Three doorways to the north lead into a corridor extending over the whole length of the building, whence three more openings give access to as many apartments in a perfect state of preservation. Over these doorways, and running the whole length of the corridor, is a narrow stone tablet, on which is graven a row of hieroglyphics very much damaged, of which Stephens gave a faithful reproduction.
The situation of Chichen is due probably to the great cenotés which supplied the city with abundant water, and which differ from the complicated underground passages noted in other parts of the state, being immense natural pits of great depth, with perpendicular sides. Of these cenotés, that for general use occupied the centre of the place; picturesque must have been the throng of white-robed women who peopled its steps at all hours of the day to fetch water for household purposes, carrying double-handled urns on their shoulders or on their hips just as they do at the present day. The other, or sacred cenoté, lies in a tangle of wood on the confines of the city, to which a path had to be opened. We find midway a large broken statue of Tlaloc, similar to the two we reproduce further on; the upper portion of the body and the head are wanting. Near it are ruinous heaps, remains of two temples, their base occupied by immense heads of Quetzalcoatl, who seems to have been the tutelary deity of Chichen. On fragments of walls still standing, I notice bas-reliefs in excellent preservation, one representing a large fish with a human head,[131] and the other a figure of a man after death.
CHICHAN-CHOB, PRISON OF CHICHEN-ITZA.
Landa’s description of these temples would lead us to infer that they were entire in his time, for he says: “Some distance north of the Castillo were two small theatres built with square blocks; four flights of steps led to the top, paved with fine slabs, and on which low comedies were performed.”[132] Notwithstanding Landa and Cogolludo’s testimony, we think they were temples on whose summits the Christianised Indians performed their religious ceremonies, which from fear of anathemas they represented to the good bishop as comedies.
The sacred cenoté lies 150 yards beyond; it is oblong in shape, and the two diameters measure from 130 to 165 feet. The surface of the water cannot be reached, for the wall, some 65 feet high, is entire and perpendicular throughout. The desolation of this aguado, its walls shrouded with brambles, shrubs, and lianas, the sombre forest beyond, but above all the lugubrious associations attaching to it, fill the imagination with indescribable melancholy.
Hither pilgrims repaired, and here offerings were made; for Chichen was a holy city, and among her shrines the cenoté held a conspicuous place, as the following passage from Landa will show: “From the courtyard of the theatre, a good wide road led to a well some little distance beyond (the road was therefore in perfectly good condition), into which in times of drought the natives used to throw men, as indeed they still do (1560), as an offering to their deities, fully believing that they would not die, even though they disappeared. Precious stones and other valuable objects were also offered; and had the country been rich in gold, this well would contain a vast quantity, because of the great veneration of the natives for it. The aguado is round, of great depth, measuring over 100 feet in width and cunningly hewn out of the rock.[133] The green colour of the water is due to the foliage; on its banks rises a small building filled with idols in honour of all the principal edifices in the country, exactly like the Pantheon in Rome. I cannot say whether this is an ancient practice or an innovation of the aborigines, who find here their idols to which they can bring their offerings. I also found sculptured lions, vases, and other objects, which, from the manner they were fashioned, must have been wrought with metal instruments; besides two statues of considerable size of one single block, with peculiar heads, earrings, and the maxtli round their loins.”[134] This passage is very remarkable, but the Abbé Brasseur, who translated it, does not seem to have grasped its true meaning. What, there was a plastered road in good preservation, a temple filled with idols brought thither by the existing natives, more than forty years after the Conquest, there were numerous offerings in honour of the various poliote deities, statues representing the Mayas in their national costume, and yet it is urged that these temples were constructed before the Christian era! Landa’s account ought to convince the most prejudiced; proving the town to have been, if not quite recent, comparatively so, and inhabited when Montejo occupied it for the first time, in 1527, since thirty-three years later (1560) devotees were still visiting its shrines. This is also the conclusion arrived at by Stephens, who had fewer data in support of it.
These pages had already been written when I received Chicxulub’s Chronicles, written at the time of the Conquest, by the Cacique Nakuk-Peck; translated and published by Brinton, Philadelphia, 1882, containing most valuable information whereby my theory is strengthened with all the weight of an official document.