The campaigns were short, sharp, and severe; for as commissariat was unknown, they were generally decided in one engagement, when no pity was shown the vanquished, no quarter given, and what could not be plundered was destroyed. This explains the number of ruined cities which were rebuilt and the new monuments erected after each war. Diaz remarks that the military dress of the warriors consisted of a breast-piece made of quilted cotton, which was completely arrow-proof, and was adopted by the conquerors in place of their heavy steel armour. Their head-dress was a casque ornamented with rich feathers, prominent amongst which were the quetzal. The rank and file wore no clothing except the maxtli in battle, but by painting their faces and bodies in grotesque patterns of brilliant colours, and covering their heads with raw cotton, they presented a fierce and gaudy appearance. Painting the face and body with red, black, and white was universal; on the return from an expedition the warrior’s paint was substituted for tattooing. “Stripes, serpents, animals, and birds,” says Cogolludo, “were the favourite devices for this kind of decoration, according to their military order; the warrior being entitled to a fresh hieroglyph after each notable feat of arms, an old veteran came to have his whole body covered with them.”
Owing to the warm climate the Maya dress was simple and scanty in the extreme. Men wore almost universally the maxtli (a long strip of cotton cloth, wound round the loins); children up to two years of age wore no clothes at all; the baby girls, like those in Java, had a string round their waist, from which depended a shell, the removal of which was looked upon as sinful. The dress of the nobles, both men and women, consisted of loose tunics and flowing mantles dyed in brilliant and variegated colours. The hair was worn short, cut in a fringe on the forehead; no beard was allowed, and the few hairs that made their appearance on the face were immediately extracted. Squinting was fashionable, and mothers ensured it for their daughters by suffering a tuft of hair to hang over their eyes. Their ears, nose, and lips were adorned with jewels. Cranial disfigurement seems to have been confined to the priests and nobles.[109] According to Landa,[110] four or five days after birth the child was laid with the face down on a bed of osiers, and the head compressed between two pieces of wood, one on the forehead and the other on the back, the boards being kept in place for several days until the desired cranial flattening was effected. This Spartan process was often attended with disastrous results. Tamenes practised this flattening on the forehead only, which was thus better adapted to the carrying of burdens. Disfigured Tamenes skulls were found by us at Teotihuacan, and on the pottery of Vera Cruz.
Eligio Ancona draws a mournful picture of the Mayas before the Conquest: “They were much oppressed by the king, the nobles, and in a special manner by the restless and ambitious caciques constantly at war with each other; the education of the youth of both sexes rested entirely with the priests, the clans of the people were ignorant and degraded; men were sold in the market or sacrificed on the altars; women excluded from society and the family circle,” etc. The nation prospered in spite of it all; the country was densely populated, while the monuments everywhere attest that the arts flourished.
What have the Spaniards done for them? Have they relieved their misery, dispelled their ignorance, minimised their vices? The peninsula counted millions before the Conquest; there are not a hundred thousand at the present day, and they are more sunk and wretched than at any time of their existence. For a nation is always found to have the religion and the Government best suited to its character or degree of civilisation; let extraneous institutions, whether civil or religious, however superior, be imposed upon them, they seem only to stultify and dishearten a people they were not intended for.
MESTIZOS’ HOUSE.
Meztizas are one of the chief attractions of Merida; they are looked upon as an inferior caste, but this they seem to accept with indifference, revenging themselves on society by their attractive ways, which it is not given to man to resist; for even those who are not beautiful, and they are few, have a winning grace, a peculiar charm all their own. To a certain extent this is due to their becoming costume, which consists in a loose tunic with short sleeves and square body, leaving arms and neck bare; this tunic, uipil, is tastefully embroidered at the neck, arms, and bottom with red, blue, or green devices; the under-skirt, fustan, is trimmed with rich lace, while their clustering black hair is set off by a silver arrow; they wear rings on their fingers, and chains of gold depend from their lovely necks, often constituting their whole dowry. Meztizos have a quarter at the outskirts of the town allotted to them, where they inhabit oblong thatched cottages decorated outside with a diamond pattern showing where the lines join. It is probable that these huts are identical with those of the Mayas of ancient days, while there is no doubt as to the decorations being like the mouldings of the old palaces. A hamac, one or two trunks to put their clothes in, a butaca or low leather arm-chair, compose the sole furniture of these poor dwellings. From a little distance, the Meztizo quarter looks like a cool, pleasant grove, for each hut stands on ground covering a quarter of an acre planted with ramon. Meridan ladies are never seen out of doors except at church, or during their evening drive. Church hours are unusually early here, beginning at three a.m., when all the bells of the town are set ringing, to awake, I suppose, a slumbering population.
Meridans are sociable and more conversant with the questions of the day than might be expected: two scholars, Eligio and Canon Ancona, have written both of the times preceding and those following the Conquest; while the rising generation of men is studious, intelligent, and manly; literary meetings, periodicals, reviews, concerts, theatres, and dances, keep the population pleasantly occupied. The civility I experienced with regard to my mission was very welcome and flattering to my self-respect, the good canon presenting me with an obsidian sceptre, a marvel of workmanship, now to be seen in the Trocadéro. This people, unlike the Mexicans of the Uplands, are good men of business, and what trade or industry the country possesses is entirely in their own hands. They have the characteristics of a race in its manhood, enduring, self-possessed, patient, and industrious. The only falling off noticeable (due to the climate) is a diminution in their stature, and a disproportionately large female element. Never were their qualities better tested than during their social war, when they stood single-handed and succeeded, after years of hard fighting and sore distress, in recovering their municipal rights.[111]
Their soil may be poor, they may not have mineral wealth like their neighbours, but their thrift and industrious habits bring their own reward. It would be interesting to tell the long struggle of this gallant people to regain their independence; suffice it to say that the risings of the natives began in 1761, to break forth into a formidable insurrection in 1846, which has continued with hardly any interruption to the present day.
