April 6, 1877.
After the defeat of Dr. Le Plongeon’s cherished hopes of exhibiting his statue at Philadelphia, this traveller passed his time in investigations among the islands of the east coast of the Peninsula, particularly those of Mugeres and Cozumel. His observations there—as well as much additional information regarding the architecture of Chichen-Itza and Uxmal, and his deductions therefrom—are contained in a communication to the Minister of the United States at Mexico, and are here given in abstract, as throwing light upon the discoveries that have been made, and the inferences which have been drawn from them.
This appeal contains a statement of the wrongs suffered by Dr. Le Plongeon in being prevented from removing his statue and other discoveries from the country; and also a demand for redress and compensation, as an American citizen, for the seizure and appropriation, in the first instance by the government of Yucatan, and afterwards by the supreme government at Mexico, of the work of art which he had brought to light. This statement, with the correspondence which accompanies it, is intended also to be offered to the consideration of the President of the United States for such action as may be considered proper in the premises.
The extracts made are those only which relate to the investigations of Dr. Le Plongeon in the course of his travels; for although great sympathy is due him for his misfortunes and disappointments, a legal statement of his wrongs cannot be discussed in this paper.
Extracts from a Communication of Dr. Le Plongeon to The Honorable
John W. Foster, Minister of the United States at
Mexico, dated Island of Cozumel, May 1, 1877.
Chichen-Itza is situated in the territories occupied by subjects of Don Crecencio Poot, Chief of Chan-Santa-Cruz. In 1847, this chief and others refused to acknowledge any longer their allegiance to the Mexican Government, and seceded, declaring war to the knife to the white inhabitants of Yucatan. Since that time they have conquered a portion of that State, and hold peaceful possession of the best towns. They have destroyed the principal cities of the east and south. These are now reduced to mere villages with few inhabitants. The churches in ruins, mostly converted into fortresses, the houses abandoned by their dwellers, invaded by rank vegetation, a refuge for bats, owls, and other prowling animals, are crumbling to the ground every day more and more, no one daring to make repairs, lest the Indians should burn and destroy them again. For leagues around the country is deserted. Only a few venturesome spirits have plucked up heart to establish farms where the soil is the richest. They cultivate them with armed servants, so great is their dread of their fierce enemies.
Three miles from Pisté, one of the most advanced posts on the eastern frontier, and beyond the military lines, stand the ruins of Chichen Itza. There lay buried, since probably 5000 years, that superb statue, together with other most precious relics, at eight meters under ground, amidst thick forests, unknown to the whole world, not only to the modern, but also to the comparatively ancient, for it has escaped destruction from the hands of the natives. A people, starting from the vicinity of Palenque, invaded all the regions west and south of what, in our days, is called the Yucatan Peninsula, arriving at Bacalar. From that place, following the coast, they ravaged the eastern part of the country, and at or about the beginning of the Christian era laid siege to the cities of the holy and wise men (Itzaes), the seat of a very advanced civilization, where arts, sciences and religion flourished. After a weary and protracted defence, and many hard-fought battles, the beautiful capital fell at last into the power of the invaders. There, in the impulse of their ignorance, in the heat of their wrath, they destroyed many objects of art. They vented their rage most particularly on the effigies and portraits of the ancient kings and rulers of the vanquished, when and where they could find them, decapitating most and breaking a great many of the beautiful statues wrought by their subjects in their honor, as mementoes by which they remembered and venerated their memories. Chaacmol, whose hiding place they ignored, as they did that of his elder brother, Huuncay, whose statue is still where his friends deposited it, 12 meters under the surface of the ground, escaped the fury of the enraged iconoclasts. Not so, however, the effigies and emblems that adorned and surmounted the monuments raised to perpetuate the remembrance of their most beneficent government, and the love they professed for their people. Even these monuments themselves were afterwards disgraced, being used as places for histrionic performances.
The places of concealment of these and other most precious relics, amongst them probably the libraries of the H-Menes or learned and wise men, yet to be excavated, were revealed to my wife and myself on deciphering some hieroglyphics, mural paintings and bas-reliefs.
On the 5th of January, 1876, I conducted the statue of Chaacmol on the road to Ɔitas, and at about a quarter of a mile from Pisté, that is to say, far enough to put it out of the reach of mischief from the soldiers of the post, I placed it in a thicket about 50 yards from the road. There, with the help of Mrs. Le Plongeon, I wrapped it in oil-cloth, and carefully built over it a thatched roof, in order to protect it from the inclemencies of the atmosphere. Leaving it surrounded by a brush fence, we carefully closed the boughs on the passage that led from the road to the place of concealment, so that a casual traveller, ignorant of the existence of such an object, would not even suspect it. Many a day our only meal has consisted of a hard Indian cake and a bit of garlic and water.
The queen of Itza is represented under the effigy of an ara, eating a human heart, on several bas-reliefs that adorned the monuments she raised to the beloved of her own heart, Chaacmol. The scene of his death is impressively portrayed on the walls which the queen caused to be raised to the memory of her husband, in the two exquisite rooms, the ruins of which are yet to be seen upon the south end of the east wall of the gymnasium. Those rooms were a shrine indeed, but a shrine where the conjugal love of the queen alone worshipped the memory of her departed lover. She adorned the outer walls with his effigies, his totem-tiger, and his shield and coat of arms between tiger and tiger. Whilst on an admirably polished stucco that covers the stones in the interior of the rooms she had his deeds, his and her own life in fact, with the customs of the time, painted in beautiful life-like designs, superbly drawn and sweetly colored. The history of the twin brothers is there faithfully portrayed. There is also a life-like likeness, painted in brilliant colors, of Chaacmol. Unhappily such precious works of art have been much defaced, more than by time, by the impious hands of ignorant and vain fools, who have thought their names of greater interest to the world than the most remarkable drawings on which they have inscribed them.