In this view of the interior of a room in the House of the Nuns, Fig. 54, which was taken from Stephens' work, is shown the form of the triangular ceiling common in all the edifices in Yucatan and Chiapas. It is a triangular arch above the line of the exterior cornice, without a keystone, and with the faces of the stones beveled, and forming a perfect vault over each apartment. But it has this peculiarity, that a space a foot or more wide in the center is carried up vertically about two feet, and covered with a cap of stone, so that the side walls which form the vaulted ceiling do not come together so as to rest against each other. The mechanical principle is the same as in the New Mexican arch, but is here applied in a more extended and more difficult scale. It is the most remarkable feature in this architecture, mechanically considered. When we come to know that this vaulted ceiling was constructed over a core of solid masonry within the chamber, afterwards removed—which was the fact—it will be seen that these Indian masons and architects were still feeling their way experimentally to a scientific knowledge of the art of arts. A projecting cornice or median entablature is seen above the doorway on the exterior face of the wall, which balances somewhat the interior inward projection of the ceiling as it rises, and, since the wall is carried up flush with the cornice, the down-weight of the super-incumbent mass sustained the masonry. The room shown is thirty-three feet long, thirteen wide, and twenty-three feet high to the cap-stone, and the room communicating with it is of the same width, and nine feet long. The apartments back of these are of corresponding size. [Footnote: Incidents of Travel, etc., i, 308.]
There were originally lintels of hard sapote wood over the doorways, upon the decay of which a portion of the masonry has fallen. Those over the doorways through the partition walls are found in place. The proof of the comparatively modern date of these structures is conclusive from these facts alone.
It will be observed that there are six single apartments in the building on the right of the "House of Nuns" which have no connection with the remaining rooms of the building, and that the others are in pairs, a back room connecting with the one in front, and neither with any others. It seems to show very plainly, in the plan of the house itself, that it was designed to be occupied by distinct groups composed of related families, each group a large household by itself. If the communal principle in living existed in fact among them, its expression in the interior arrangement of the house, and in this form, might have been expected. This striking and significant feature runs through all the structures, in these areas, of which ground-plans have been obtained.
The triangular ceiling, in effect is an attempt to extend the lintel in sections across the vault of a chamber in the place of joists, and, so far as the writer is aware, the only attempt ever made by any barbarous people to form a ceiling of stone over ordinary residence rooms. In a wall and ceiling formed in this manner, and carried up several feet above the apex of the triangular arch, there would be no lateral thrust outward of the masonry.
It should be stated that there are neither fire-place, chimneys, nor windows in any of these houses; neither have any been found, so far as the writer is aware, in any ancient structure in Yucatan or Central America. Fires were not needed for warmth; but since they were for cooking, it shows very plainly that no cooking was done within these houses. A presumption at once arises that their inmates prepared their food in the open court, or on the middle terrace, by household groups, making a common stock of their provisions, and dividing from the earthen cauldron, like the Iroquois. The communistic character of these houses is shown by their great size, and by the separation of the rooms, generally in pairs, having no connection with the remainder of the house. Each pair of rooms would accommodate several married pairs with their children; and so would each single apartment, according to the mode of life of the Village Indians. Moreover, communism in living appears to have been a law of man's condition both in the Lower and in the Middle Status of barbarism. Among the Iroquois, one regular meal each day was all their mode of life permitted; hunger being allayed by hominy kept constantly prepared, or such other food as their domestic resources allowed. It is not probable that the Aborigines of Yucatan were able to superadd either a regular breakfast or a supper. These belong to the more highly developed house-keeping of the monogamian family in civilization.
Another custom, usual in the Lower Status of barbarism, seems to have been continued in the Middle Status; namely, of the men eating first and by themselves, and the women and children afterwards. Without a knowledge of tables or of chairs, the dinner was of necessity a solitary affair between the person and his earthen bowl or platter. The time, however, for the dinner was the same to all the men, and afterwards to the women and children. Herrera, in his summary of the habits of the people of Yucatan, drops the remark incidentally, that at their festivals the women "did eat apart from the men." This is precisely what would have been expected had nothing been said on the subject. [Footnote: History of America, iv, 175.]
There are some proofs bearing directly upon the question of the ancient practice of communism in these Uxmal houses. They are found in the present usages of the Maya Indians of Yucatan, the descendants of the builders of these houses, which they may reasonably be supposed to have derived from their ancestors. At Nohcacab, a short distance east of the ruins of Uxmal, there was a settlement of Maya Indians, whose communism in living was accidentally discovered by Mr. Stephens, when among them to employ laborers. He remarks as follows: "Their community consists of a hundred labradores or working men; their lands are held in common, and the products are shared by all. Their food is prepared at one hut, and every family sends for its portion; which explains a singular spectacle we had seen on our arrival [in 1841], a procession of women and children, each carrying an earthen bowl containing a quantity of smoking hot broth, all coming down the same road, and dispersing among different huts…. From our ignorance of the language, and the number of other and more pressing matters claiming our attention, we could not learn all the details of their internal economy but it seemed to approximate that improved state of association which is sometimes heard of among us; and as thus has existed for an unknown length of time, and can no longer be considered experimental, Owen and Fourier might perhaps take lessons from them with advantage…. I never before regretted so much my ignorance of the Maya language." [Footnote: Incidents of Travel, etc., ii, 14.]
A hundred working men indicate a total of five hundred persons who were then depending for their daily food upon a single fire, and a single cooking-house, the provisions being supplied from common stores, and divided from the kettle. It is not unlikely a truthful picture of the mode of life in the House of the Nuns, and in the Governor's House at the period of European discovery. Each group practising communism, for convenience and for economy, may have included all the inmates of a single house, or its occupants may have subdivided into lesser groups; but the presumption is in favor of the larger. Evidence has elsewhere been adduced of the existence of the organization into gentes among the Mayas, with descent in the male line, from which it may be inferred that the occupation of these houses was on the basis of gentile kinship among the families in each, the fathers and their children belonging to the same gens, and the wives and mothers to other gentes. All the facts seem to indicate that communism in living was practiced among the Village Indians in general upon a scale then unknown in other parts of the world, because they alone represented the culture and mode of life of the Middle Status of barbarism. The dinner of Montezuma, before considered, is an illustration.
[Illustration: Fig. 55.—Ground Plan of Zayi.]
Near Uxmal are the interesting ruins of Zayi, which present a new feature in Yucatan house architecture. Upon a low eminence are three independent structures, the second within and above the first or lowest, and the third within and above the second, presenting the appearance, in the distance, of a single quadrangular edifice in three receding stories. But each stands on a separate terrace, and is built against the one within, which rises above it, except the inner one, a single edifice occupying the summit. The outer quadrangle stands on the lowest terrace. The measurements of the several buildings are indicated on the plan. Together they contain eighty-seven apartments, assuming the parts in ruins to have corresponded with the parts preserved. The rooms, as usual, are either single or in pairs. An external staircase upon the front and rear sides interrupts the buildings on these sides from the lower terrace to the upper. The dots in the apertures indicate columns, which are found in this and several other structures. In case of attack, the outer quadrangle was not defensible; but its inhabitants could retire to the second terrace above, and defend their fortress at the head of the staircases, which were the only avenues of approach except by scaling the outer quadrangle, a very improbable undertaking.