PRELIMINARY VIEW.
In the south we have no connected history except for two centuries immediately preceding the conquest, and no attempt at precise chronology even for that short period. The Quiché-Cakchiquel empire in Guatemala was, at the coming of the Spaniards, the most powerful and famous in North America, except that of the Aztecs in Anáhuac, with which it never came into direct conflict, although the fame of each was well known to the other, and commercial intercourse was carried on almost constantly. The southern empire, so far as may be learned from the slight evidence bearing on the subject, was about three centuries old in the sixteenth century, and the nearest approach to chronology in its annals is the regular succession of monarchs who occupied the throne, the achievements of each king given in what may be considered to be their chronologic order, and an apparent connection in a few cases with occurrences whose date is known from the Aztec records.
In a preceding volume of this work I have presented all that the authorities have preserved respecting the manners and customs of the Guatemalan peoples, and their condition at the coming of the Spaniards, including their system of government and the order of royal succession. In a chapter devoted to a general preliminary view of these nations,[XI-1] I have already presented a brief outline of their history as follows: Guatemala and northern Honduras were found in possession of the Mames in the north-west, the Pokomams in the south-east, the Quichés in the interior, and the Cakchiquels in the south.[XI-2] The two latter were the most powerful, and ruled the country from their capitals of Utatlan and Tecpan Guatemala, where they resisted the Spaniards almost to the point of annihilation, retiring for the most part after defeat to live by the chase in the distant mountain gorges. Guatemalan history from the time of the Votanic empire down to an indefinite date not many centuries before the conquest, is a blank. It re-commences with the first traditions of the nations just mentioned. These traditions, as in the case of every American people, begin with the immigration of foreign tribes into the country, as the first in the series of events leading to the establishment of the Quiché-Cakchiquel empire. Assuming the Toltec dispersion from Anáhuac in the eleventh century as a well-authenticated fact, most writers have identified the Guatemalan nations, except perhaps the Mames, by some considered the descendants of the original inhabitants, with the migrating Toltecs who fled southward to found a new empire. I have already made known my scepticism respecting national American migrations in general, and the Toltec migration southward in particular, and there is nothing in the annals of Guatemala to modify the views previously expressed. The Quiché traditions are vague and without chronologic order, much less definite than those relating to the mythical Aztec wanderings. The sum and substance of the Quiché and Toltec identity is the traditional statement that the former people entered Guatemala at an unknown period in the past, while the latter left Anáhuac in the eleventh century. That the Toltecs should have migrated en masse southward, taken possession of Guatemala, established a mighty empire, and yet have abandoned their language for dialects of the original Maya tongue, is in the highest degree improbable. It is safer to suppose that the mass of the Quichés, and other nations of Guatemala, Chiapas, and Honduras, were descended directly from the Maya builders of Palenque, and from contemporary peoples,—that is, as has been shown in the chapter on pre-Toltec history in this volume, from the Maya peoples after they had been conquered by a new power and had become to a certain extent, so far as their institutions were concerned, Nahua nations.—Yet the differences between the Quiché-Cakchiquel structures and the older architectural remains of the Maya empire, indicate a new era of Maya culture, originated not improbably by the introduction of foreign elements. Moreover the apparent identity in name and teachings between the early civilizers of the Quiché tradition and the Nahua followers of Quetzalcoatl, together with reported resemblances between actual Quiché and Aztec institutions as observed by Europeans, indicate farther that the new element was engrafted on Maya civilization by contact with the Nahuas, a contact of which the presence of the exiled Toltec nobility may have been a prominent feature. After the overthrow of the original empire, we may suppose the people to have been subdivided during the course of centuries by civil wars and sectarian struggles into petty states, the glory of their former greatness vanished and partially forgotten, the spirit of progress dormant, to be roused again by the presence of the Nahua chiefs. These gathered and infused new life into the scattered remnants; they introduced some new institutions, and thus aided the ancient peoples to rebuild their empire on the old foundations, retaining the dialects of the original language. The preceding paragraphs, however, gave an exaggerated idea of the Toltec element in forming Quiché institutions, as has been shown by the investigations of the present volume, since, while the Nahua element in these institutions was very strong, yet the Nahua influence was exerted chiefly in pre-Toltec times while the two peoples were yet living together in Central America, rather than by the exiled Toltec nobles and priests.
AUTHORITIES ON GUATEMALAN HISTORY.
The authorities for Quiché history are not numerous. They include the work of Juarros, which is chiefly founded on the manuscripts of Fuentes; the published Spanish and French translations of the Popol Vuh, or National Book, of which much has already been said; and a number of documents similar to the latter, written in Spanish letters, but in the various Quiché-Cakchiquel dialects, by native authors who wrote after the Conquest, of course, but relied upon the aboriginal records and traditions, never published and only known to the world through the writings of Brasseur de Bourbourg, who, in Maya as in many parts of Nahua history, is the chief and almost the only authority.
In the earliest annals of Central America, while the Xibalban empire was yet in the height of its power, we find what is, perhaps, the first mention of the territory known later as Guatemala, in the mention by the Popol Vuh[XI-3] of Carchah, or Nimxob Carchah, a locality in Vera Paz, as the place whence Hunhunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu, the first Nahua chiefs who conspired against the Xibalban monarchs, directed their first expedition toward the region of Palenque. Las Casas also names this as one of the entrances to the road which lead to the infernal regions, the sense probably given to Xibalba in the traditions of the country.[XI-4] And from Utatlan, in the same region, in later centuries the Quiché capital, started Xbalanque and Hunahpu, the descendants of the two chieftains already named, to avenge the defeat of their ancestors, and to overthrow the proud kings of Xibalba. The young princes left behind them their mother and grand-mother, planting in their cabin two canes which were to indicate to those left at home their own fortune, to flourish with their prosperity, to wither at each misfortune, and to die should they meet the fate of their predecessors; hence perhaps the Quiché name of Utatlan, Gumarcaah, 'house of withered canes.'[XI-5] The mention of Guatemalan localities in this connection is not sufficient to prove that the opposition to Xibalba had its beginning or centre in Guatemala, but simply indicates that the Nahua power in those primitive times extended over that region, as did also the Maya power, not improbably. In other words, the long struggle between the two rival powers was no local contest at and about Palenque, but was felt in a greater or less degree throughout the whole country, from Anáhuac to Guatemala, and perhaps still farther south.
EXPEDITION OF XBALANQUE.
Xbalanque's expedition and some subsequent occurrences are related by Torquemada, as follows: "After the people of the earth had multiplied and increased, it was made known that a god had been born in the province of Otlatla (Utatlan), now known as Vera Paz, thirty leagues from the capital called Quauhtemallan (Guatemala), which god they named Exbalanquen. Of him it is related, among other lies and fables, that he went to wage war against Hell, and fought against all the people of that region and conquered them, and captured the king of Hell with many of his army. On his return to the earth after his victory, bearing with him his spoils, the king of the Shades begged that he might not be carried away. They were then in three or four grades of light, but Exbalanquen gave the infernal monarch a kick, saying 'go back, and thine be in future all that is rotten, and refuse, and stinking, in these infernal regions.' Exbalanquen then returned to Vera Paz whence he had set out, but he was not received there with the festivities and songs of triumph which he thought he had deserved, and therefore he went away to another kingdom, where he was kindly received. This conqueror of Hell is said to have introduced the custom of sacrificing human beings.""[XI-6] Brasseur adds on this subject: "Copan, the name of which ('on the vase') alludes mysteriously to the religious symbols of the mixed, or Mestizo, Nahua race, was it then chosen by this prince, whose mother (Xquiq) personified the fundamental idea of this sanguinary worship? However this may have been, it seems certain that the latter city owed its origin to a fierce warrior named Balam, who had entered the country by the way of Peten Itza about fifteen centuries before the Spanish conquest. During the last period of native rule the province of which Copan was the capital was called Payaqui ('in the Yaqui, or Nahuas') or the kingdom of Chiquimula."[XI-7] But all this may be regarded as purely conjectural.
From the time when Xbalanque and Hunahpu marched to the conquest of Xibalba, and succeeded in subordinating the ancient Maya to the Nahua power, for several centuries down to the subsequent scattering of both Nahua and Maya tribes, which preceded the appearance of the Toltec branches in Anáhuac, the history of Guatemala is a blank. That civilized peoples occupied the country at that remote time; that they had been more or less the subjects of the ancient empire; and that they had been brought within the new influences of the Nahua institutions, there can be little doubt; but they have left no record of their deeds, probably not even of their names. The annals recommence with the traditional migration from Tulan, by which the Toltecs established themselves on the central plateaux of Mexico, while the tribes afterwards known as Quichés wandered southward to the highlands of Vera Paz; but five or six centuries were yet to pass before we find any record that may be properly termed history. I return to the traditions of the Popol Vuh, it being necessary to take up the thread of the story at a period even preceding the arrival at Tulan, and thus to repeat in a measure certain portions already referred to in a preceding chapter.
RECORD OF THE POPOL VUH.