Each structure, or group of structures, thus elevated, was a fortress. They prove the insecurity in which the people lived; for the labor involved in constructing these platform elevations, in part, at least, artificial, would never have been undertaken without a powerful motive. One of the chief blessings of civilization is the security which a higher organization of society gives to the people, under the protection of which they are able as cultivators to occupy broad areas of land. In the Middle Status of barbarism they were compelled to live generally in villages, which were fortified in various ways; and each village, we must suppose, was an independent, self-governing community, except as several kindred in descent, and speaking the same dialect or dialects of the same language, confederated for mutual protection. An impression has been propagated that Palenque and other pueblos in these regions were surrounded by dense populations living in cheaply constructed tenements. Having assigned the structures found, and which undoubtedly were all that ever existed, to Indian kings or potentates, the question might well be asked, if such palaces were provided for the rulers of the land, what has become of the residences of the people? Mr. Stephens has given direct countenance to this preposterous suggestion. [Footnote: Central America, &c., ii, 235.]
In his valuable works he has shown a disposition to feed the flames of fancy with respect to these ruins. After describing the "palace," so called, at Palenque, and remarking that "the whole extent of ground covered by those [ruins] as yet known, as appears by the plan, is not larger than our Park or Battery" [in New York], he proceeds: "It is proper to add, however, that considering the space now occupied by the ruins as the site of palaces, temples, and public buildings, and supposing the houses of the inhabitants to have been, like those of the Egyptians and the present race of Indians, of frail and perishable materials as at Memphis and Thebes, to have disappeared altogether, the city may have covered an immense extent." [Footnote: Incidents of Travel, Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, ii, p. 355 ff.] This is a clear case of suggestio falsi by Mr. Stephens, who is usually so careful and reliable and, even here, so guarded in his language. He had fallen into the mistake of regarding these remains as a city in ruins, instead of a small Indian pueblo in ruins. But he had furnished a general ground plan of all the ruins found of the Palenque pueblo, which made it plain that four or five structures upon pyramidal platforms at some distance from each other, with the whole space over which they were scattered about equal to the Battery, made a poor show for a city. The most credulous reader would readily perceive that it was a misnomer to call them the ruins of a city; wherefore the suggestions of Mr. Stephens, that "considering the space now occupied by the ruins as the site of palaces, temples, and public buildings, and supposing the houses of the inhabitants made … of frail and perishable materials to have disappeared … the city may have covered an immense extent." That Mr. Stephens himself considered or supposed either to be true may have been the case, but it seems hardly supposable, and in either event he is responsible for the false coloring thus put upon those ruins, and the deceptive inferences drawn from them.
These structures are highly creditable to the intelligence of their builders, and can be made to reveal the manner of their use and the actual progress they had made in the arts of life; but they never can be rationally explained while such wild views are entertained concerning them. Until the actual character and signification of these ruins are made known, such opinions may be expected to prevail concerning them. They spring from the assumed existence of a state of society far enough advanced to develop potentates and privileged classes, with power to enforce labor from the people for personal objects. There is no evidence whatever in support of such an assumption. It is quite probable that small numbers belonging to every pueblo lived a portion of the year in the forests in temporary habitations, engaged in cultivation, or in hunting and fishing; but enough is known from the brief accounts of the early explorers to show us that the body of the inhabitants of Yucatan and Central America were gathered in pueblos or villages. Moreover, they were animated by the same spirit as the Cibolans in what related to personal independence. Rather than live in subjection to Spanish taskmasters, the very Indians who erected these houses with so much labor, as Coronado states of the Cibolans, "Set in order all their goods and substance, their women and children, and fled to the hills, leaving their towns, as it were, abandoned," [Footnote: Herrera, History of America, iii, 346, cf. 348.] preferring a return to a lower stage of barbarism rather than a loss of personal freedom. In 1524 Cortex sent an officer "to reduce the people of Chiapas, who had revolted, which that commander effectually performed, for, when they could resist no longer, these desperate wretches cast themselves with their wives and children headlong from precipices, so that not above two thousand of them remained, whose offspring inhabit that province at this time." The inhabitants of Palenque may have been included in this description. [Footnote: ib., iv, 169.]
The profiles of the Palenque Indians, copied by Stephens from representations in plaster in different parts of the several structures, show that they were flat-heads, like the Chinook Indians of the Columbia River; their foreheads having been flattened by artificial compression. Herrera, speaking generally of the inhabitants of Yucatan, remarks, "that they flattened their heads and foreheads." [Footnote: ib., iv, 169.] Whether it was a general practice does not appear, aside from the Palenque monuments, and the off-hand statement of Herrera.
Another important question still remains, namely, whether or not the Indians of Yucatan and Central America had reached the first stage of scientific architecture, the use of the post and lintel of stone as a principle of construction in stone masonry. The Egyptians used the post and lintel, whence their architecture has been characterized as the horizontal. The Greeks did not get beyond this, although they brought in the three orders of architecture. The round and the pointed arch, used as principles of construction, with all they gave to architecture, were beyond even the Greeks. Speaking of the Governor's House, Mr. Stephens remarks, that "the doors are all gone, and the wooden lintels over them have fallen." [Footnote: Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, i, 175.]
"In some of the inner apartments, the lintels were still in place over the doorways, and some were lying on the floor, sound and solid, which latter condition was no doubt owing to their being more sheltered than those over the outer doorway." [Footnote: ib., p. 178.] The same is true of the House of the Nuns, and of a number of other structures figured and described in Mr. Stephens' works. But lintels of stone are found in some houses. Thus, of one of the buildings at Kabah, he says: "The lintels over the doors are of stone." [Footnote: ib., i, 398.]
In this case there was a stone column in the middle of the doorway, and the lintel was in two sections. Norman, speaking of the ruins at Chichen Itza, remarks that the "doorways are nearly a square of about seven feet, somewhat resembling the Egyptian; the sides of which are formed of large blocks of hewn stone. In some instances the lintels are of the same material." [Footnote: Rambles in Yucatan, p. 128.]
They used sapote wood usually for lintels, a wood remarkable for its solidity and durability. It may safely be said that the lintel of wood was the rule in Yucatan, and not the exception. While they understood the use of the stone lintel, which alone was capable of affording a durable structure, its common and ordinary use was beyond their ability. The use of stone of the size required, overmatched their ability in stone masonry, as a rule. It cannot, therefore, be said that the post and lintel of stone became a principle of construction in their architecture. As the Mayas, who constructed these edifices, were in the Middle Status of barbarism, it was not to have been expected that their architecture would reach the scientific stage.
American aboriginal history and ethnology have been perverted, and even caricatured in various ways, and, among others, by a false terminology, which of itself is able to vitiate the truth. When we have learned to substitute Indian confederacy for Indian kingdom; Teuchtli, or head war-chief, sachem, and chief, for king, prince, and lord; Indian villages in the place of "great cities"; communal houses for "palaces," and democratic for monarchic institutions; together with a number of similar substitutions of appropriate for deceptive and improper terms, the Indian of the past and present will be presented understandingly, and placed in his true position in the scale of human advancement. While the Aryan family has lost neatly all traces of its experiences anterior to the closing period of barbarism, the Indian family, in its different branches, offered for our investigation not only the state of savagery, but also that of both the opening and of the middle period of barbarism in full and ample development. The American aborigines had enjoyed a continuous and undisturbed progress upon a great continent, through two ethnical periods, and the latter part of a previous period, on a remarkable scale. If the opportunity had been wisely improved, a rational knowledge of the experience of our own ancestors, while in the same status, might have been gained through a study of these progressive conditions. Beside this, before a science of ethnology applied to the American aborigines can come into existence, the misconceptions, and erroneous interpretations which now encumber the original memorials must be removed. Unless this can in some way be effectually accomplished, this science can never be established among us.
Our ethnography was initiated for us by European investigators, and corrupted in its foundation from a misconception of the facts. The few Americans who have taken up the subject have generally followed in the same track, and intensified the original errors of interpretation until romance has swept the field. Whether it is possible to commence anew, and retrieve what has been lost, I cannot pretend to determine. It is worth the effort.