“For them, and for old X’Leut as well, the outer world—the prosaic world about the palm-thatched na—no longer existed—only the Wizard Potters as they worked, with swiftly moving hands and fingers, the magic clay, making the enchanted vessels of an ancient people.
“She told them of Aluxob ‘The Little People,’ how they searched in the deep-down caves for the kat, the kut, and the ki, the tiny crystals and the clays that the Wizard Potters used in the making of the ancient vessels. She talked with her eyes, her lips, and her hands. With agile feet alternately moving she showed how the ancient people revolved the shallow wooden disks as the potters of other lands work, with their hands, their revolving wheels. She told them of these vessels—vessels with magic worked into their very substance so that at night they changed into living things called Burro Kat and Hunab Pob; living things that tormented by their doings late night wanderers, thieves and drunkards; bad people generally; even children who, disobeying their parents, stayed out late at night or ran away from home.
“Then, as X’Leut finished, rolled up her xoc-bui-chui, poked the fire in the three-stone fireplace, and started the water to boiling in the earthen kettle, each man-child, introspectively brooding, hurried homeward to ask of his astonished mother if there was anything that he could do to put the house in order before night came. Ah! a guileful woman was old X’Leut, with her ever-young soul and nimble hand! A joy to the children and a solace to the tired mothers.”
CHAPTER XIV
FORGOTTEN MICHAEL ANGELOS
AS I have said, the art of the Mayas, and of Chi-chen Itza particularly, represents several periods of culture. Some of the oldest examples of architecture, stone point-work, carvings, and murals, as well as temple ornaments and personal trinkets display the greatest artistry of design and craftsmanship.
Evidently art progressed until a golden age dawned, comparable in its way to the golden age of Greece. Just as Pericles and Praxiteles chiseled into stone a marvelous grace and beauty which later sculptors have never been able to excel, so these old Maya dreamers and creators have left behind them things more lovely than those of succeeding generations.
Gradually the golden Mayan age waned. Creative genius became more scarce. Sense of harmony and soaring imagination were dimmed. Technique itself became poorer.
And then came the renaissance—the period of Nahuatl influence when Chi-chen Itza probably reached its pinnacle of civic importance and new temples and palaces were built thick and fast. Art was encouraged and new genius arose, akin to that of the ancient masters, yet showing everywhere the influence of the Nahuatl invasion. But while the new art attained a high degree of excellence, it failed to reach the perfection of the older culture.