Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. I.

by John L. Stephens

This ceremony of el velorio is always observed when there is death in a family. It is intended, as the padrecito told us, para divertirse, or to amuse and distract the family, and keep them from going to sleep. At twelve o'clock chocolate is served round, and again at daybreak; but in some respects the ceremony is different in the case of grown persons and that of children. In the latter, as they believe that a child is without sin, and that God takes it immediately to himself the death is a subject of rejoicing, and the night is passed in card-playing, jesting, and story-telling. But in the case of grown persons, as they are not so sure what becomes of the spirit, they have no jesting or story-telling, and only play cards. All this may seem unfeeling, but we must not judge others by rules known only to ourselves. Whatever the ways of hiding or expressing it, the stream of natural affection runs deep in every bosom.

The mother of the child shed no tears, but as she stood by its head, stanching its wounds from time to time, she did not seem to be rejoicing over its death. The padrecito told us that she was poor, but a very respectable woman. We inquired about the other members of her family, and especially her husband. The padrecito said she had none, nor was she a widow; and, unfortunately for his standard of respectability, when we asked who was the father of the child, he answered laughingly, "Quien sabe?" "Who knows?" At ten o'clock he lighted a long bundle of sticks at one of the candles burning at the head of the child, and we went away.

[CHAPTER XVI.]

Ruins of Nohpat.—A lofty Mound.—Grand View.—Sculptured Human Figure.—Terraces.—Huge sculptured Figure.—Other Figures.—Skull and Cross-bones.—Situation of Ruins.—Journey to Kabah.—Thatched Huts.—Arrival at the Ruins.—Return to the Village.—Astonishment of the Indians.—Valuable Servant.—Festival of Corpus Alma.—A plurality of Saints.—How to put a Saint under Patronage.—A Procession.—Fireworks.—A Ball.—Excess of Female Population.—A Dance.

The next day we set out for another ruined city. It lay on the road to Uxmal, and was the same which I had visited on my first return from Ticul, known by the name of Nohpat. At the distance of a league we turned off from the main road to the left, and, following a narrow milpa path, in fifteen minutes reached the field of ruins. One mound rose high above the rest, holding aloft a ruined building, as shown in the preceding engraving. At the foot of this we dismounted and tied our horses. It was one hundred and fifty feet high on the slope, and about two hundred and fifty feet long at the base. At the top, the mound, with the building upon it, had separated and fallen apart, and while one side still supported part of the edifice, the other presented the appearance of a mountain slide. Cocome, our guide, told us that the separation had happened only with the floods of the last rainy season. We ascended on the fallen side, and, reaching the top, found, descending on the south side, a gigantic staircase, overgrown, but with the great stone steps still in their places, and almost entire. The ruined building on the top consisted of a single corridor, but three feet five inches wide, and, with the ruins of Nohpat at our feet, we looked out upon a great desolate plain, studded with overgrown mounds, of which we took the bearings and names as known to the Indians; toward the west by north, startling by the grandeur of the buildings and their height above the plain, with no decay visible, and at this distance seeming perfect as a living city, were the ruins of Uxmal. Fronting us was the great Casa del Gobernador, apparently so near that we almost looked into its open doors, and could have distinguished a man moving on the terrace; and yet, for the first two weeks of our residence at Uxmal, we did not know of the existence of this place, and, wanting the clearings that had been made at Uxmal, no part of it was visible from the terraces or buildings there.

Descending the mound, we passed around by the side of the staircase, and rose upon an elevated platform, in the centre of which was a huge and rude round stone, like that called the picote in the courtyards at Uxmal. At the base of the steps was a large flat stone, having sculptured upon it a colossal human figure in bas-relief, which is represented in the following engraving. The stone measures eleven feet four inches in length, and three feet ten in breadth, and lies on its back, broken in two in the middle. Probably it once stood erect at the base of the steps, but, thrown down and broken, has lain for ages with its face to the sky, exposed to the floods of the rainy season. The sculpture is rude and worn, and the lines were difficult to make out. The Indians said that it was the figure of a king of the antiguos, and no doubt it was intended as a portrait of some lord or cacique.

At a short distance to the southeast of the courtyard was another platform or terrace, about twenty feet high and two hundred feet square, on two sides of which were ranges, of buildings standing at right angles to each other. One of them had two stories, and trees growing out of the walls and on the top, forming the most picturesque ruins we had seen in the country. As we approached it Doctor Cabot was climbing up a tree at the corner to get on the roof in pursuit of a bird, and, in doing so, started a gigantic lizard, which went bounding among the trees and along the cornice till he buried himself in a large fissure in the front.

Beyond this was another terrace, having on it ruined buildings overgrown with trees. Mr. Catherwood was tempted to sketch them merely on account of their picturesque effect, and while we were on the ground they seemed to us the most touching and interesting of any we had seen; but as they contribute nothing to illustrate the architecture and art of these unknown people, we do not present them.