[71] The physiography and ethnography of the Maya region are summarized in Spinden [a]; Beuchat, II, ii; and in Joyce , ch. viii. Wissler, The American Indian in this, as in other fields, most effectively presents the relations—ethnical, cultural, historical—to the other American groups. Recent special studies of importance are Tozzer [a]; Starr, In Indian Mexico, etc.; Sapper ; and the more distinctively archaeological studies of Holmes, Morley, Spinden, and others.
[72] It is unfortunate that the region of Maya culture was the subject of no such full reports, dating from the immediate post-Conquest period, as we possess from Mexico. The more important of the Spanish writers who deal with the Yucatec centres are Aguilar, Cogolludo, Las Casas, Landa, Lizana, Nuñez de la Vega, Ordoñez y Aguiar, Pio Pérez, Pedro Ponce, and Villagutierre, with Landa easily first in significance. The histories of Eligio Ancona and of Carrillo y Ancona are the leading Spanish works of later date. Native writings are represented by three hieroglyphic pre-Cortezian codices, namely, Codex Dresdensis, Codex Tro-Cortesianus, and Codex Peresianus, as well as by the important Books of Chilam Balam and the Chronicle of Nakuk Pech from the early Spanish period (for description of thirteen manuscripts and bibliography of published works relating to their interpretation, see Tozzer, "The Chilam Balam Books," in CA xix [Washington, 1917]). Yet what Mayan civilization lacks in the way of literary monuments is more than compensated by the remains of its art and architecture, to which an immense amount of shrewd study has been devoted. The more conspicuous names of those who have advanced this study are mentioned in connexion with the literature of the Maya calendar, Note [92], infra. The region has been explored archaeologically with great care, the magnificent reports of Maudsley (in Biología Centrali-Americana) and of the Peabody Museum expeditions (Memoirs), prepared by Gordon, Maler, Thompson, and others, being the collections of eminence. Brasseur de Bourbourg can scarcely be mentioned too often in connexion with this field. His fault is that of Euhemerus, but he is neither the first nor the last of the tribe of this sage; while for his virtues, he shows more constructive imagination than any other Americanist: probably the picture which he presents would be less criticized were it less vivid.
[73] Landa, chh. v-xi (vi, ix, being here quoted).
[74] The sources for the history of the Maya are primarily the native chronicles (the Books of Chilam Balam), the Relaciones de Yucatán, and the histories of Cogolludo, Landa, Lizana, and Villagutierre. The deciphering of the monumental dates of the southern centres has furnished an additional group of facts, the correlation of which to the history of the north has become a special problem, with its own literature. The most important attempts to synchronize Maya dates with the years of our era are by Pio Pérez (reproduced both by Stephens and by Brasseur de Bourbourg ); Seler [a], i, "Bedeutung des Maya-Kalenders für die historische Chronologie"; Goodman [a], ; Bowditch [a]; Spinden [a], pp. 130-35; (with chart); Joyce , Appendix iii (with chart); and Morley [a], , [c] and [d]. Bowditch, Spinden, Joyce, and Morley are not radically divergent and may be regarded as representing the conservative view—here accepted as obviously the plausible one. Carrillo y Ancona, ch. ii, analyzes some of the earlier opinions; while the first part of Ancona's Historia de Yucatán is devoted to ancient Yucatec history and is doubtless the best general work on the subject.
[75] Brinton [f], p. 100 ("Introduction" to the Book of Chilan Balam of Mani).
[76] Spinden ; Joyce , ch. viii. But cf. Morley's chronological scheme, infra; and Spinden [a], pp. 130-35.
[77] Morley [c], ch. i.
[78] Morley , p. 140. In this connection (p. 144) Morley summarizes the various speculations as to the causes which led to the abandonment of the southern centres, as reduction of the land by primitive agricultural methods (Cook), climatic changes (Huntington), physical, moral and political decadence (Spinden). He adds: "Probably the decline of civilization in the south was not due to any one of these factors operating singly, but to a combination of adverse influences, before which the Maya finally gave way."
[79] The culture heroes of Maya myth have taken possession of the imaginations of the Spanish chroniclers, and indeed of not a few later commentators, rather as clues to native history than to mythology. Bancroft, iii. 450-55, 461-67, summarizes the materials from Spanish sources; which is treated also, from the point of view of possible historical elucidation, by Ancona, I. iii; Carrillo y Ancona, ii, iii; Comte de Charency ; García Cubas, in SocAA xxx, nos. 3-6; and Santibáñez, in CA xvii. 2.
[80] The primary sources for the Votan stories are Cogolludo, Ordoñez y Aguiar, and Nuñez de la Vega, whose narratives are liberally summarized by Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], I. i, ii (pp. 68-72 containing the passages from Ordoñez here quoted).