The three elder sons, Qocaib, Qoacutec, and Qoahau, were married long after the death of their fathers, and they determined to go as their fathers had ordered to the East on the shore of the sea, whence their fathers had come, 'to receive the royalty,' bidding adieu to their brothers and friends, and promising to return. "Doubtless they passed over the sea when they went to the East to receive the royalty. Now this is the name of the lord, of the monarch of the people of the East where they went. And when they arrived before the lord Nacxit,[XI-13] the name of the great lord, of the only judge, whose power was without limit, behold he granted them the sign of royalty and all that represents it; hence came the sign of the rank of Ahpop and of that of Ahpop Camha, and Nacxit finally gave them the insignia of royalty, ... all the things in fact which they brought on their return, and which they went to receive from the other side of the sea, the art of painting from Tulan, a system of writing, they said, for the things recorded in the histories."
The three princes returned to Mount Hacavitz, assembled all the tribes, including the people of Ilocab and Tamub, the Cakchiquels, Tziquinaha, and the tribe of Rabinal, assuming the authority over them to the great joy of all. Then the wives of the original sacrificers died, and many of the people left Mount Hacavitz and founded innumerable other towns on the neighboring hills,[XI-14] where their numbers were greatly multiplied. The three princes who went to the East to receive the royalty, had grown old and died, but before their death they had established themselves in their great city of Izmachi.[XI-15]
The narrative of the Popol Vuh condenses in the preceding paragraphs, the history of the Quichés during the whole time that elapsed between the scattering of the Nahuas from Tulan before the fifth century, and the final establishment of the Quiché empire, an event whose exact date is unknown—for we have nothing but approximate dates in the aboriginal history of Guatemala—but which, judging by the number of kings that are represented as having occupied the throne afterwards down to the coming of the Spaniards, is thought not to have been earlier than the thirteenth century. The record implies, in fact, that the Quichés lived long in their new home before they acquired power among the surrounding tribes. All this time they were directed by their trinity, Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz, acting through their four chief sacrificers, or high-priests, Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah, and Iqi-Balam, the same who had led them in their migration from the region of Xibalba, and even in their migration to that region from the east. Of course many generations of priests bearing these names or these titles must have succeeded each other in the direction of Quiché affairs during this period; but the record admits the succession of sons to the ecclesiastical and temporal power only after the nation had risen to power. It has been noted, however, that another document mentions several generations between Balam-Quitzé and Qocavib. The surrounding peoples are continually referred to in the Popol Vuh, but for the most part simply as 'the tribes,' although the tribes of Tamub and Ilocab, of Rabinals, of the Cakchiquels, and several others are frequently named, sometimes in a manner that would lead the reader to suppose that these were 'the tribes' subdued, but oftener as if these were from the first connected with the Quichés. From the records of other Guatemalan nations which have never been published, the Abbé Brasseur attempts to throw some light on the history of the tribes among which the Quichés lived so long in a subordinate position, and on the period over which the Popol Vuh passes so rapidly.
MIGRATION FROM TULAN.
The many tribes that left the central region of Tulan did not probably do so simultaneously, but migrated at irregular intervals, so that the final destruction of Tulan may not have occurred before the sixth or seventh century. Juarros even gives a list of four kings, Tanub, Capichoch, Calel-Ahus, and Ahpop, who ruled in that city, although his account taken from that of Fuentes is not worthy of great confidence. According to the records followed by Brasseur, the first tribes to migrate southward towards Guatemala, were those of Tamub and Ilocab together with the thirteen clans of Tecpan, the ancestors of the Pokomams. We have seen, however, that Guatemala was already more or less in possession of the Nahuas before the overthrow of Xibalba, and the vague references to the tribes of Tamub and Ilocab—the oldest Nahua tribes in the country according to all authorities—are insufficient to show clearly whether they were already in Guatemala in the time of Hunahpu and Xbalanque, or like the Quichés proper migrated thither after the fall of Xibalba. The chiefs of Tamub held the highest rank in a kind of confederacy that seems to have been established at this early time. Their capital was Amag-Dan, a few leagues north of Utatlan. The family of Ilocab, the second in the confederacy, had its capital, Uquincat, at a short distance north-west of Utatlan, and was divided into two branches called Gale-Ziha and Tzununi-ha. The third chief of the alliance has escaped the abbé's researches. The thirteen tribes of Tecpan, under the names of Uxab and Pokomam, occupied Vera Paz and the region south of the Motagua, their capital, Nimpokom, being near where the modern town of Rabinal now stands. The western country towards Chiapas was held by the Mames, one of the ancient peoples of Guatemala who were probably found in the country by the first tribes from Tulan. This nation was divided into many bands, whose names and towns are given, the latter including those afterwards known as Quezaltenango and Huehuetenango. One document mentions a succession of nine sovereigns in the Tamub dynasty before the Quiché power began.
The Quichés entered the country at about the same time as the tribes of Ilocab, Tamub, and the Pokomams, but as we have seen in their own record, they had no influence for many centuries among the nations that preceded them. During this period, with the Cakchiquels, the band of Rabinal, and the Ah-Tziquinaha, they constituted a group of small tribes, dwelling on the barren heights of Vera Paz, or the Lacandon country. It is not probable that they were yet known as Quichés, or 'men of the woods,' and all that is known of them is the names of their gods, Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz; of their chief priests, whose names, or titles, were Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah, and Iqi-Balam; and of leaders mentioned by the MS. Cakchiquel, and named Xurcah and Totomay. According to our only authority on early events, excepting the Popol Vuh, the time which was occupied by the Quichés under Balam-Quitzé and his companions in their long struggles as animals against the other tribes, is not that which elapsed between their arrival from Tulan at Mt Hacavitz in the sixth or seventh century, and the establishment of their monarchy in the thirteenth, but rather that between their first coming prominently into notice in the mountains of Vera Paz in the twelfth century, and the founding of their empire. According to this version, the annals of the whole preceding period are included by the author of the Popol Vuh in those of the migration to Mt Hacavitz; Balam-Quitzé and the other sacrificers were not their leaders when they left Tulan, but were given to them much later by their god Tohil to guide the unfortunate people out of their difficulties; in fact, these sacrificers, so called, were Toltec chieftains who fled from Anáhuac at the fall of their empire, joined the partisans who accompanied their flight to the forces of the Quichés, gathered the scattered tribes on the heights of Vera Paz, and were enabled after a century of contest—during which the Quichés were regarded as a nation of brigands, much like the Aztecs at the same time, or a little later, about the Mexican lakes—to subdue the surrounding nations, and thus become masters of Guatemala. There are probably no sufficient reasons to deny that the empire was founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century;—although it should be noted that this gives to the following kings down to the Conquest, as will be seen later, an average reign of only twelve or fifteen years;—the Quichés are known to have claimed relationship with the Toltec sovereigns; and it is quite likely the exiled chiefs and priests of Tollan had an influence on the Quiché institutions; but that the Quiché empire was thus founded by the Toltec exiles, there is, as I have repeatedly shown, every reason to deny.
EMBASSY TO ANÁHUAC.
The first tribes conquered by the followers of Tohil were five of the thirteen Pokomam bands, which were forced to pay tribute. Ahcan was now the high-priest and leader of the bands who were gathered about Mt Hacavitz, and he was the great-grandson of Balam-Quitzé, and the father of Qocaib and Qocavib, mentioned by the Popol Vuh as the founders of the monarchy, and represented by that record as the sons of Balam-Quitzé. It was at his command, expressed just before his death, that the three princes undertook a journey to the East, to obtain from the great monarch of that region, the authority and insignia which should render legitimate the power they were about to assume. Other documents differ from the Popol Vuh in stating that while one of the brothers, Qocaib, thus visited the East, the other brother, Qocavib, directed his course northward to Anáhuac to seek the royal investiture at the hands of the Toltec princes who had remained at Culhuacan. He reached the valley, but such was the state of anarchy he found prevailing there, that he was forced to return without having attained his object, and reached his home long before the return of his brother. He even took advantage of Qocaib's absence to dishonor his wife, who bore him a son. Qocaib, when he came back from his successful mission and was congratulated by the assembled chieftains, saw the child in its mother's arms, and was not a little surprised at its existence, but he seemed perfectly satisfied with the assurance of his wife that the child was of his own blood, and taking it in his arms, he named it Balam Conache, who was the founder of the house of Conache and of Iztayul, and the first to bear the title of Ahpop Camha, or heir apparent to the throne. It is not explained why the younger brother, unsuccessful in his mission, was allowed to become the head of the government instead of the older and more successful Qocaib. A second journey to the East by the two princes is also recorded before their right to the throne was definitely established.
This subject of an eastern monarchy ruled by Nacxit is shrouded in impenetrable mystery. Brasseur claims confidently that the kingdom cited was in Honduras with its capital probably at Copan, and ruled by Acxitl Quetzalcoatl, the last of the Toltec kings, or by his son; the sea alluded to as having been crossed in the journey, must then have been the gulf of Amatique or that of Dulce. The only authority that I know of for this assumption is the vague report by Ixtlilxochitl that Acxitl went southward and established a great empire in Tlapallan, where he died in the twelfth century; and the slight resemblance in the names Acxitl and Nacxit. I need not say that the authority is altogether insufficient, and that it is much safer to give the tale of the mission to the East some mythologic meaning, or to admit that its meaning like that of many of the traditions of this early period in Guatemalan history is wholly unknown.
REIGN OF QOCAVIB.