I have told in another volume the mythic tale of Votan,[III-1] the culture-hero, how he came to America and apportioned the land among the people. He came by divine command from Valum Chivim by way of Valum Votan, built a great city of Nachan, 'city of the serpents'—so called from his own name, for he was of the race of Chan, a Serpent—and founded a great empire in the Usumacinta region, which he seems to have ruled over as did his descendants or followers for many centuries. He was not regarded in the native traditions as the first man in America; he found the country peopled, as did all the culture-heroes, but by his teachings and by the aid of his companions he firmly established his own ideas of religion and government. So far as his memory was preserved by tradition he was a civilizer, a law-giver, the introducer of the Maya culture, worshiped moreover, after his disappearance, as a god. He came by sea from the east, but with the locality whence he started I have nothing to do here; neither is it necessary to indulge in speculation respecting the four mysterious visits which he paid after his arrival in America to his original home in the Old World, where it is gravely asserted he was present at the building of Solomon's temple and saw the ruins of the tower of Babel. His reported acts in the New World, whose people he came to civilize, were;—the dividing or apportioning of the lands among the people; their instruction in the new institutions they were required to adopt; the building of a great city, Nachan, afterwards the metropolis of an empire; the reception of a new band of disciples of his own race, who were allowed to share in the success already achieved by his enterprise; the subdividing of his empire after its power had become wide-spread in the land into several allied monarchies subordinate in a certain degree to Nachan, among whose capitals were Tulan, Mayapan, and Chiquimula; the construction of a subterranean road or 'snake hole' from the barranca of Zuqui to Tzequil; the deposit of a great treasure with tapirs as sacred animals in a 'house of gloom' at Huehuetan in Soconusco, protected by guardians called tlapianes, at whose head was a Lady Superior; and finally the writing of a 'book' in which was inscribed a complete record of all he had done, with a defense or proof of his claims to be considered one of the Chanes, or Serpents.[III-2]
THE BOOK OF VOTAN.
This document is the authority, indirectly, for nearly all that is known from Tzendal sources of Votan and his empire. Francisco Nuñez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas, claims to have had in his possession[III-3] and to have read this historical tract. He does not describe it, but from his having been able to read the contents, it would seem to have been, if genuine, not the original in hieroglyphics but an interpretation in European letters, although still perhaps in the Tzendal language. Of the contents, besides a general statement of Votan's coming as the first man sent by God to portion out the land, and some of his experiences in the Old World, this author says nothing definite. He claims to have had much knowledge of Tzendal antiquity derived from the work mentioned and other native writings, but he feared to perpetuate this knowledge lest it might "confirm more strongly an idolatrous superstition." He is the only authority for the deposit of the treasure in the Dark House at Huehuetan, without saying expressly that he derived his information from Votan's writings. This treasure, consisting of aboriginal relics, the bishop felt it to be his duty to destroy, and it was publicly burned in 1691. It is not altogether improbable that a genuine Maya document similar to the Manuscript Troano or Dresden Codex,[III-4] preserved from the early times, may have found a native interpreter at the time of the Conquest, and have escaped in its disguise of Spanish letters the destruction that overtook its companions.
The next notice of this manuscript is found in the writings of Dr Paul Felix Cabrera,[III-5] who in the last part of the eighteenth century found it in the possession of Don Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguiar, a native and resident of Ciudad Real in Chiapas.[III-6] He describes the document as consisting of "five or six folios of common quarto paper, written in ordinary characters in the Tzendal language, an evident proof of its having been copied from the original in hieroglyphics, shortly after the conquest."[III-7] The manuscript, according to Cabrera, recounted Votan's arrival with seven families, to whom he apportioned the lands; his voyages to the Old World; and his reception of the new-comers. Returning from one of his voyages "he found seven other families of the Tzequil nation, who had joined the first inhabitants, and recognized in them the same origin as his own, that is, of the Culebras. He speaks of the place where they built their first town, which, from its founders, received the name of Tzequil; he affirms the having taught them refinement of manners in the use of the table, table-cloth, etc.; that, in return for these, they taught him the knowledge of God and of his worship; his first ideas of a king and obedience to him; and that he was chosen captain of all these united families."
Ordoñez, at the time of Cabrera's visit, was engaged in writing his great 'History of the Heaven and Earth,'[III-8] a work, as the learned Doctor predicts, to be "so perfect in its kind, as will completely astonish the world." The manuscript was never published, part of the historical portion was lost, and the remaining fragments or copies of them fell into the hands of Brasseur de Bourbourg, whose writings contain all that is known of their contents; and it must be confessed that from these fragments little or nothing of value has been extracted by the abbé in addition to what Nuñez de la Vega and Cabrera had already made known. Ordoñez was familiar with the Tzendal language and character, with the ancient monuments of his native state, and was zealously devoted to antiquarian researches; he had excellent opportunities to collect and record such scraps of knowledge as the Tzendal tribes had preserved from the days of their ancestors' greatness;[III-9] but his enthusiasm seems rather to have led him to profitless speculations on the original population of the New World and "its progress from Chaldea immediately after the confusion of tongues." Even after rejecting the absurd theories and speculations which seem to have constituted the bulk of his writings, one cannot help looking with some distrust on the few traditional statements respecting Votan not given by other authors, and thinking of possible transformations that may have been effected in Tzendal fables under the pens of two writers like Ordoñez and Brasseur, both honest investigators, but of that enthusiastic class of antiquarians who experience few or no difficulties.
TZENDAL TRADITIONS.
The few items of information respecting the Votanic period not already mentioned, some of them not in themselves improbable, but few traceable to any very definite native source, are the following: The date of the foundation of the empire, according to Ordoñez, was about 1000 B.C. Whether he had any other reason for this supposition than his theory that the building of Solomon's temple, attributed by some writers to that period, took place during Votan's life, is uncertain. The name Tzequiles, applied to Votan's followers by the aborigines,—or rather, it would seem, by the first to the second division of the Serpents—is said to mean in Tzendal 'men with petticoats,' and to have been applied to the new-comers by reason of their peculiar dress.[III-10] To them was given, after the permanent establishment of the empire, one of the great kingdoms into which it was divided, with Tulan as their capital city. This kingdom with two others, whose capitals were Mayapan in Yucatan and Chiquimula, possibly Copan, in Honduras, were allied with, yet to a certain degree subordinate to, the original empire whose capital was Nachan, built and ruled by Votan himself and his descendants. The only names which seem to have been applied in the Tzendal traditions to the people and their capital city were Chanes, or Serpents, and Nachan, or City of Serpents; but these names acquire considerable historical importance when it is noted that they are the exact equivalents of Culhuas and Culhuacan, names which will be found so exasperatingly prevalent in the Nahua traditions of the north. Ordoñez claims, however, that the name Quiché, at a later period that of a Guatemalan kingdom, was also in these earlier times applied to Votan's empire.[III-11]
Of Votan's death there is no tradition, nor is anything definite reported of his successors, save, what is perhaps only a conjecture, that their names are recorded in the Tzendal calendar as the names of days,[III-12] the order being that of their succession. In this case it is necessary to suppose that Votan had two predecessors, Igh and Imox; and in fact Brasseur claims to find in one document a statement that Igh brought the first colony to America.[III-13] Chinax, the last but two of the line, a great soldier, is said to have been put to death by a rival of another nation.[III-14] Nuñez de la Vega notes the existence of a family of Votans in his time, claiming direct descent from the great founder; and Brasseur states that a wild tribe of the region are yet known as Chanes.[III-15]
THE VOTANIC EMPIRE.
Such are the vague memories of the Chiapan past so far as they were preserved by the natives of the region, and collected by Europeans. The nature of the traditions themselves, the sources whence they sprang, the medium through which they are given to us, are not such as to inspire great confidence in the accuracy of the details related, although some of the traditions are not improbable and were very likely founded on actual occurrences. But whatever value may be attached to their details, the traditions in question have great weight in establishing two general propositions—the existence in the remote past of a great and powerful empire in the Usumacinta region, and a general belief among the subjects of that empire that the beginning of their greatness was due to a hero or demi-god called Votan. They point clearly to the appearance and growth of a great race, nation, or dynasty; and they carry us no farther. Respecting the questions who or what was Votan, man or mythic creation, populator, colonizer, civilizer, missionary, conqueror, foreign or native born? When, how, and whence did he come to the central tierra caliente? Who were the people among whom he wrought his mighty deeds, and what was their past history? we are left to simple conjecture,—conjecture of a class which falls without the limits of my present purpose, and to which the first chapter of this volume has been devoted. Doubtless the Votanic was not the first period of American civilization and power, but none earlier is known to us. In addition to the Tzendal traditions there are several other authorities bearing more or less directly on this primitive empire, which I proceed to investigate.