[1028] Landa, Relacion, pp. 230-2.
[1029] 'Bolon est l'adjectif numéral neuf, zacab, dont la racine est zac, blanc, est le nom d'une sorte de maïs moulu, dont on fait une espèce d'orgeat. Cette statue était-elle une image allégorique de cet orgeat offert en cette occasion?' Brasseur de Bourbourg, in Landa, Relacion, pp. 212-13.
[1030] 'Kanté, bois jaune; c'est probablement le cèdre.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, in Landa, Relacion, p. 213.
[1031] Landa, Relacion, pp. 210-32.
[1032] 'La charge de Nacon était double; l'un était perpétuel et peu honorable, parce que c'était lui qui ouvrait la poitrine aux victimes humaines qu'on sacrifiait.' Landa, Relacion, p. 161. 'El oficio de abrir el pecho a los sacrificados, que en Mexico era estimado, aqui era poco honroso.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iv.
[1033] Ib.
[1034] Landa, Relacion, p. 166; Herrera, ubi sup.
[1035] The present appearance of the pit is thus described by Stephens: 'Setting out from the Castillo, at some distance we ascended a wooded elevation, which seemed an artificial causeway leading to the senote. The senote was the largest and wildest we had seen; in the midst of a thick forest, an immense circular hole, with cragged, perpendicular sides, trees growing out of them and overhanging the brink, and still as if the genius of silence reigned within. A hawk was sailing around it, looking down into the water, but without once flapping its wings. The water was of a greenish hue. A mysterious influence seemed to pervade it, in unison with the historical account that the well of Chichen was a place of pilgrimage, and that human victims were thrown into it in sacrifice. In one place, on the very brink, were the remains of a stone structure, probably connected with ancient superstitious rites; perhaps the place from which the victims were thrown into the dark well beneath.' Yucatan, vol. ii., p. 324.
[1036] We have seen that even the memory of Cukulcan was neglected in all the provinces of Yucatan but one.
[1037] Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. i.; Medel, in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1843, tom. xcvii., p. 43; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., pp. 44-5.