The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries

by Stephen Salisbury

I, Augustus Le Plongeon, Doctor in Medicine, member of the Academy of Sciences of the State of California, of the Microscopical Society of San Francisco, of the Philological Society of New York, corresponding member of the Geographical and Statistical Society of Mexico; and of various other scientific societies of Europe, of the United States of America, and of South America; citizen of the United States of America; resident at present in Mérida, Capital of the State of Yucatan, to you, with due respect, say: Since the year 1861 I am dedicated to the iconology of American antiquities, with the object of publishing a work that may make known to the world the precious archæological treasures that the regions of the so-called new world enclose, nearly unknown to the wise men of Europe, and even to those of America itself, and thus follow the perigrinations of the human race upon the planet that we inhabit.

With so important an object, I visited the different countries of the American Continent, where I could gather the necessary information to carry through my work, already commenced, and in part published, “The Vestiges of the human race in the American Continent since the most remote times.”

The New York Tribune published part of my discourse before the Geographical Society of New York, on the “Vestiges of Antiquity,” in its Lecture Sheet No. 8 of 1873.

After traversing the Peruvian Andes, the Glaciers of Bolivia, and the Deserts of the North and North-East part of the Mexican Republic, in search of the dwellings of their primitive inhabitants, I resolved to visit Yucatan, in order to examine at leisure the imposing ruins that cover its soil, and whose imperfect descriptions I had read in Stephens, Waldeck, Charnay, Brasseur de Bourbourg, and others.

The atmospheric action, the inclemencies of the weather, and more than all, the exuberant vegetation, aided by the impious and destructive hand of ignorant iconoclasts, have destroyed and destroy incessantly these opera magna of an enlightened and civilized generation that passed from the theatre of the world some twelve thousand years ago, if the stones, in their eloquent muteness, do not deceive. And unless the few treasures that yet remain, in a state of more or less perfect preservation, be gathered and saved, they will before long disappear completely, and with them the last traces of the high civilization, the artistic and scientific culture attained by the architects and other artists that worked and raised them, under the protection of enlightened potentates, lovers of all that was grand, and of everything that could glorify their country.

The results of my investigations, although made in territories forbidden to the whites, and even to pacific Indians obedient to Mexican authority; surrounded by constant dangers, amid forests, where, besides the wild beasts, the fierce Indians of Chan-Santa-Cruz lay in ambush for me; suffering the pangs of hunger, in company with my young wife Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, have surpassed my most flattering hopes. To-day I can assert, without boasting, that the discoveries of my wife and myself place us in advance of the travellers and archæologists who have occupied themselves with American antiquities.

Returning however to civilization with the hope of making known to the scientific world the fruit of our labors, I am sorry to find myself detained by prohibitive laws that I was ignorant of, and which prevent me from presenting the unmistakable proofs of the high civilization and the grandeur, of ancient America; of this old Continent of Professor Agassiz and other modern geologists and archæologists.

These laws, sanctioned by an exclusive and retrogressive government, have not been revoked up to the present time by the enlightened, progressive and wise government that rules the destinies of the Mexican Republic, and they are a barrier that henceforth will impede the investigation of scientific men, among the ruins of Yucatan and Mexico. It is in effect a strange fact, that while autocratic governments, like those of Turkey, Greece, and Persia, do not interpose difficulties—that of Turkey to Dr. Henry Schliemann, after discovering the site of the celebrated Troy and the treasures of King Priam, to his carrying his findings and presenting them to the civilized world; that of Greece to General Cesnola’s disposing in New York of his collection of Phœnician antiquities (the only one in the world), found in the tombs of the Island of Cyprus. Nor did even that of Persia think of preventing Mr. George Smith, after he had disinterred from among the ruins of Nineveh, the year before last, the libraries of the kings of Assyria, from carrying the precious volumes to the British Museum, where they are to be found to-day. I alone, a free citizen of a Republic, the friend of Mexico, after spending my fortune and time, see myself obliged to abandon, in the midst of the forests, the best and most perfect works of art of the sculptor, up to the present time known in America, because the government of this Nation reclaims as its own, objects found in the midst of forests, at great depths below the surface of the earth, and of whose existence it was not only ignorant, but was even unsuspicious.

The photographs of these objects, and of the places where they were found, are all that, with plans, and tracings of most interesting mural paintings, I can now present: and that after so many expenses, cares, and dangers, unless you, Mr. President, considering the historical importance of my discoveries and works, as an illustrious man, a lover of progress, and the glory of his country, in the name of the nation authorize me to carry my findings and photographs, plans and tracings, to that great concourse of all nations to which America has just invited every people of the earth, and which will be opened shortly in Philadelphia; and with them the material proofs of my assertion that America is the cradle of the actual civilization of the world.

Leaving New York on the 29th of July, 1873, we, Mrs. Le Plongeon and myself, arrived, on the 6th of August, at Progreso. We remained in Mérida from that date, studying the customs of the country, acquiring friends, and preparing to fulfil the mission that had brought us to Yucatan, (viz: the study of its ruins), until the 6th of November, 1874. At that epoch the epidemic of small-pox, that has made such ravages in Mérida, and is yet active in the interior villages of the Peninsula, began to develop itself. Senor D. Liborio Irigoyen, then Governor, knowing that I was about to visit the towns of the east, to seek among their inhabitants the traditions of the past, if they yet existed, or at least among their customs some of those of the primitive dwellers of those lands, begged me to scatter among them the vaccine, to ward off, as much as possible, the terrible scourge that threatened them. I accepted the commission, and to the best of my power I have complied with it, without any remuneration whatever. After examining the principal cities of the east of the State—Tunkas, Cenotillo, Espita and Tizimin—gathering notes upon their commerce, the occupations of their inhabitants, the productions of the places, etc., etc., remaining in them more or less time, we finally arrived at Valladolid on the 20th of May, 1875. This city, that was at one time among the most important of the State, is seen to-day almost reduced to ruins by the invasions of the Indians of Chan-Santa-Cruz. It is situated on the frontier of the enemy’s country, some twelve leagues from the celebrated ruins of Chichen-Itza—the objective point of my journey to these regions. During my perigrinations through the east, I had, more than once, opportunity to observe the profound terror that the inhabitants, as well meztizos and Indians as the whites, have, not without reason, of their fierce neighbors.