Another official connected with the council was the orator appointed to bring before it the business of the day. His title was ah uchan, from ucheex, to speak, and it is translated by Spanish writers, the “rhetorician, orator.”[37-3] A similar personage, the ah tzih vinak, “the man of words,”[37-4] was in[38] attendance on the king, and, apparently, was the official mouth-piece of the royal will. Still a third, known as the lol-may, which apparently means “silence-breaker,” was, according to the dictionaries, “an envoy dispatched by the rulers to transact business or to collect tributes.”[38-1]
Very nearly or quite the same organization prevailed in the courts of Quiche and Atitlan. The chiefs of the latter province forwarded, in 1571, a petition to Philip II, in which they gave some interesting particulars of their former government. They say: “The supreme ruler was called Atziquinihai, and the chiefs who shared the authority with him, Amac Tzutuhil. These latter were sovereigns, and acknowledged no superiors.... The sovereign, or king, did not recognize any authority above himself. The persons or officers who attended at his court were called Lolmay, Atzivinac, Galel, Ah-uchan. They were factors, auditors and treasurers. Our titles correspond to yours.”[38-2]
The name here applied to the ruler of the Tzutuhils, Atziquinahay, recurs in Xahila’s Annals. It was his family name, and in its proper form, Ah
iquin-i-hay, means “he who is a member of the bird family;”[38-3] the bird being the totemic symbol of the ruling house.
[39]While the nobles were distinguished by titles such as these, the mass of the people were divided into well defined classes or castes. The warriors were called ah-labal, from labal, war; and they were distinguished from the general male population, who were known as achi, men, viri. These were independent freemen, engaged in peaceful avocations, but, of course, ready to take up arms on occasion. They were broadly distinguished from the tributaries, called ah-patan; the latter word meaning tax or tribute; and still more sharply from the slaves, known as vinakitz, “mean men,” or by the still more significant word mun, hungry (Guzman, Compendio). The less cultivated tribes speaking other tongues, adjoining the Cakchiquels, were promiscuously stigmatized with the name chicop, brutes or beasts.
A well developed system of tribute seems to have prevailed, and it is often referred to by Xahila. The articles delivered to the collectors were gold, silver, plain and worked, feathers, cacao, engraved stones, and what appear as singular, garlands (
ubul) and songs, painted apparently on skins or paper.