Many of the stones, or stelæ, may contain history, and as soon as we know the meanings of, possibly, a thousand glyphs we shall be able to make a decided advance in the art of reading the books. Landa in his book explains not the Maya glyphs but the way the priests used these Maya characters for religious purposes. For example, he says Ma-in-kati means “I do not want,” represented in the ancient Maya by three simple glyphs. Written as the priests had arranged, with a glyph for each sound of a Spanish letter, the result is a combination of five glyphs, which, if given their original Maya pictured meanings, leads to the rather surprising knowledge that “no dead animal was seen at this place,” or, literally, “not see tail [animal] death place.”
Besides the Codices and the Chilan Balam, which together are frequently alluded to as the Maya Chronicles, there are some other documents such as titles to land, records of surveys, etc. There is a unique history of the Conquest, written by a contemporary native chief called Na Kuk Pech, whose name means “house of the feathered wood-tick.” The story was written in the native language, by means of Spanish characters, and has been translated recently by Señor Juan Martinez, whose profound knowledge of the Maya language has eminently fitted him for this task.
The history of Chi-chen Itza is of especial interest because this was the Holy City, the Mecca of all the ancient Maya people. According to the Maya Chronicles, one or several tribes set out from a place called Nonual, in 160 a.d., and apparently spent many years in aimless wandering, arriving finally, in 241 a.d., at a place they named Chac Nouitan. Then follows a gap in our knowledge and the next we learn of these people is that in 445 a.d., while they were residing at a place called Bak-Halal, they heard of Chi-chen Itza. It is clear that Chi-chen Itza was already an inhabited city at that time. Soon after this, these tribes moved to Chi-chen Itza, where they lived until about 600 a.d., when, for some unaccountable reason, they abandoned it utterly and migrated to the land of Chan Kan Putun. And this residence was in turn abandoned two hundred and sixty years later, because of some calamity; one Chronicle speaks of a great fire.
For nearly a hundred years, to quote from the Chronicles, “the Itzas lived in exile and great distress under the trees and under the branches.” Then, some of them reëstablished Chi-chen Itza in 950 a.d., while others founded the city of Uxmal or went to Mayapan. The second residence lasted for some two hundred years. About 1200 a.d., the Itzas, under the ruler Ulumil, invaded the city of Mayapan and at about this same time Chi-chen Itza was attacked and depopulated by foreigners—in all probability the Nahuas (Mexicans), who came down from the north. The last event alluded to in the Chronicles is the coming of the Spaniards under Montejo, who found the Mayas already decadent and their cities long ruined and abandoned.
We have no authentic description of the actual condition of Chi-chen Itza when the Spaniards came, but it is known with certainty that Tiho (place of the five temples), one of the ancient cities, the site of the modern city of Mérida, was in ruins. The temples were dilapidated and overgrown with vegetation and great trees were rooted in the walls. The few inhabitants living around these ruins knew virtually nothing of the founders of the city, nor of those who had lived there when it was in its prime.
At the coming of the Spaniards to Chi-chen Itza, about 1541, the city was inhabited by a few people who were, I think, nothing more than campers—inferior people using as shelters the buildings which they had found there and of whose history they were quite ignorant.
While it has no place in this book, the last known migration of some of the Mayas is interesting and it is certain that a considerable number emigrated between the years 1450 and 1451 southward to Lake Peten,[3] where they built a city on an island and there they survived, together with their ancient culture, until conquered in 1697 by the Spaniards, who destroyed all their temples and books and perforce made either good Christians or “good Indians” of all the inhabitants.
Landa says, under the heading, “Various Misfortunes Experienced in Yucatan in the Century before the Conquest”:
These people had over twenty years of abundance and health and multiplied greatly. All of the land looked like one town and they built many temples which can be seen to-day in all parts; and crossing the mountains, one can see through the leaves of the trees sides of houses and buildings wonderfully constructed. After all this happiness, one evening in the winter a wind arose about six o’clock and increased until it became a hurricane of the Four Winds.[4] This wind tore out the large trees, made a great slaughter of all kinds of game, tore down all the high houses, which, as they were thatched with straw and had fire inside against the cold, caught fire. Great numbers of people were burned and those that escaped were torn to pieces by falling trees.
This hurricane lasted until noon of the next day. Some who lived in small houses escaped—the young people who were just married, who were accustomed to build small houses in front of those of their parents or parents-in-law, where they lived the first years.
Thus this land then lost its name, which was U-Lumil-Ceh, U-Lumil-Cutz, Land of the Deer, Land of the Wild Turkey, and was without trees. The trees now seen all appear to have been planted at the same time, as they are all of the same height, and, looking at this land from some spot, it seems as though it had been trimmed off with shears.
Those who escaped felt encouraged to rebuild and cultivate the land and they again multiplied greatly, having fifteen years of health and good weather and the last year was the most fruitful of all. At the time of harvest, there came upon the land some contagious fevers which lasted twenty-four hours. After the fever the victim would swell up and burst open, being full of worms, and of this pestilence many people died leaving the fruit ungathered.
After this pestilence there was another sixteen good years in which they renewed their passions and ravagings. In this way one hundred and fifty thousand men died in battle. After this massacre they were more calm and made peace and rested for twenty years. Then came another pestilence. Large pimples formed and they rotted the body and emitted offensive odors in a way that the members fell off by pieces within four or five days.
This plague has passed more than fifty years ago, the massacres of the wars twenty years before that; the pestilence of the swelling and worms sixteen years before the wars; and the hurricane another sixteen years before that and twenty-two years after the destruction of Mayapan, which, according to this record, makes one hundred twenty-five years since the destruction. Thus by the wars and other punishments which God sent, it is a wonder there are as many people as are now living, although there are not many.
This quaint account by Landa sheds some light upon the condition of the Mayas during the century preceding the Spanish invasion and indicates that the golden age of the race had occurred not many centuries before.