Mexican archæology

by Thomas Athol Joyce

In a later passage a functionary called Tepeu-Yaqui, who may have been the chief sacrificer, is substituted for the last. All these officials are described as “lords of great houses.” The other divisions of the Quiché were organized on similar principles.

In the same way the Kakchiquel appear to have commenced their migration under priestly guidance; at any rate the election of the first ruler comes at a late period in their “annals.” The insignia of power seem to have been the same; the electors say, “Thou shalt be the first man among the Ahpo-Xahil and among the Ahpo-Zotzil.... We will give to thee the canopy, the royal seat, the mat, the throne, with power over men.” The enthronement of a later ruler is described as follows: “They seated him on the seat ... washed him in the bath, the painted vessel ... clothed him with the robe and the green ornaments; he received the colours, the yellow stone, the pigment, the red earth.” Later the Kakchiquel were ruled by a dual chieftainship, representing the two chief tribes, the Zotzil and Xahil. The Zotzil chief was called Ahpo-Zotzil, the Xahil chief Ahpo-Xahil, and the senior in office was regarded as paramount. Their heirs held respectively the title of Ahpop-Qamahay and Galel-Xahil, and they were supported by an hereditary aristocracy and a number of officials like those of the Quiché. Besides the mat, the canopy was an important insigne of rank, that of the rulers being triple, of the heirs double, and of the highest officials single. The populace was divided into warriors, freemen, tributaries and slaves, and there was also a clan system, similar to that of the Mexican calpulli, though based on relationship rather than on locality. The clans were called chinamitl, and were represented by officials called Ahtzalam, a word translated by Brinton as “Keeper of the tablets”; besides allusions to the clans, there are frequent references to seven cities and to thirteen divisions or provinces. The Kakchiquel were never a large or very important people, and their position among other tribes seems to have varied a good deal at different periods of their history. At times they seem to have paid tribute to the Quiché, though at the conquest they were independent, while at other times they appear to have been able to extract tribute from some of the surrounding nations. Such tribute consisted of gold and silver, worked or unworked, engraved stones, feathers and cacao.

Of the land system among the Maya we know very little. No doubt, owing to the comparative sparseness of the population and the fertility of the climate, the land question had not attained the same importance as in Mexico. In Yucatan at any rate land was common property, and sufficient for the needs of each family was assigned to its representative by the chiefs. The salt deposits on the coast were also common, but were worked by the inhabitants of the locality who paid their tribute in salt.

Little, too, is known of the judicial arrangements; official advocates and a kind of police existed, and important cases in provincial villages were referred to the overlords, whose power was absolute. In the case of minor offences, the local chief had jurisdiction, and if the parties belonged to different villages, the chief of the offender’s village would send satisfaction to the other, or else strife resulted. For many offences, even homicide if accidental, compensation was possible, and the relations of the guilty person would assist him in paying the fine, though the right of retaliation in cases of manslaughter lay with the relations of the deceased. If the injury were obviously malicious, the question was rarely settled without the parties coming to blows. For theft the culprit was compelled to restore the plunder, and if he could not he was enslaved; thus the number of slaves in the community was considerably increased in times of famine, for nearly all cases of stealing were connected with food. Captives of lower rank also became slaves, but any slave might redeem himself, though children born in slavery remained slaves until compensation was paid to their owners. Slaves could be sold, but if one died or escaped soon after his purchase, part of the price paid for him could be reclaimed. The robbing of a minor was considered a particularly disgraceful offence. In ordinary cases a man’s property was divided among his sons, those who had contributed most towards its increase receiving a larger share. Daughters had no right to any of the inheritance, though they were usually given a portion. If there were no sons, the property went to the nearest male relations, but if the sons were still young, guardians were appointed to provide the mother with the necessaries for their education. The arrangements were made in the presence of the local chief and the principal men of the place, and any dishonesty on the part of the guardians involved them in infamy; however, we are told that the system was the cause of frequent quarrels. Matrimonial cases were not infrequent, but the punishment was severe; the male culprit was tied to a post in the chief’s quarter and handed over to the injured husband, who might accept compensation, or take his revenge by smashing the head of his supplanter with a stone. The woman incurred perpetual obloquy, no light punishment, and was usually divorced by her husband. Among the Kakchiquel we read of an execution by fastening a prisoner to a tree and shooting at him with arrows, while among the Tzutuhil of Atitlan hanging and quartering were practised. At the latter locality the chief would send a relation to enquire into offences committed in outlying villages; his decision was without appeal, and in cases involving a fine he received one-half as payment for his services. It is probable that similar systems prevailed generally among the Quiché and Kakchiquel.

There was no special education for the young as in Mexico, at least as far as our knowledge goes, apart from the training given to candidates for the priesthood. Children were taught to have great respect for their elders, and the young and unmarried associated little with the latter. The distinction between bachelors and married men was emphasized by the existence of a communal house where the former congregated for amusement and where, as a rule, they slept.

The Maya preserved their genealogies, and great pride was taken in descent from one of the Mayapan houses. Men bore, in addition to a personal name, the names also of their father and mother. In this way a system of surnames grew up, and community of name was taken to imply community of blood; so much so, in fact, that all over the country a traveller on reaching a strange village would mention his name and immediately be welcomed and entertained as a relation by anyone who happened to bear the same name. As a general rule travellers were well treated, and many of the village chiefs kept open house, a custom which lasted on well into the days of the Spanish régime, as many poor white voyagers found to their advantage. The priests were the guardians of family tradition and genealogies. Similar surnames existed among the Kakchiquel, and each person bore, besides his personal name, the name of his clan or chinamitl.

As regards marriage, Landa states that the Maya in former times regarded twenty as a suitable age, but that the tendency in his time was to marry much younger. According to most authorities, the Maya were monogamous, but one states that polygyny was permitted. Probably a plurality of wives was exceptional and limited to chiefs. As in Mexico, a man never sought a wife for himself, but his father employed the services of a go-between. Marriage was not allowed with a deceased wife’s sister or husband’s brother, and no unions might be contracted between persons bearing the same name, since community of name implied blood-relationship. Further, a man might not marry his maternal aunt. The occasion of the marriage, which was performed by a priest, was celebrated by a banquet in the house of the bride’s father, and the husband remained and worked for his wife’s family for five or six years. Marriage was by purchase, that is to say the man’s parents handed over certain property to the father-in-law, but the presents were not of great value, the real price being the personal service contributed by the bridegroom. We are told that divorce was both easy and frequent.

A somewhat similar system prevails to-day among the Lacandons, though the young man demands his wife in person. If her parents agree, the couple live as man and wife in the house of her father for a year on trial. At the end of the year, the couple, their relations and friends, paint themselves and assume their best ornaments; the bride presents her husband with a stool and five cacao grains, and receives from him a skirt and five cacao grains. Their hands are then joined by the cacique, and a feast follows. The Lacandons are monogamous, and divorce, probably owing to the system of trial-marriage, is rare.

Among the Quiché also marriage was by purchase, but the bride-price was a serious matter, and apparently often amounted to a considerable sum. We are told that the princes grew rich on the gifts which they received in return for their daughters, but the system brought abuses with it, and quarrels arose which became so frequent and serious that the tribe split up into nine “families” and twenty-four “great houses.” The tendency to matriarchy seen among the Maya is even more evident among the Kakchiquel, since if the couple belonged to different clans (chinamitl), the man regarded all the male members of his wife’s clan as either brothers- or sons-in-law, according to age. This would seem to imply that the man passed into his wife’s clan rather than she into his.

Commerce flourished among the later Maya, and there was a good deal of travelling to and fro in the country. The pilgrimages to celebrated shrines along recognized routes have already been mentioned, and also the fact that there was a particular god of travel, Ekchuah. The Yucatec traded salt, textiles and slaves to Uloa and Tabasco, in exchange for cacao and stone money; red shells were imported, and also copper from New Spain. Diaz mentions that the Spaniards found, in a village in Chiapas, a number of prisoners secured by wooden collars who had been captured on the road, and he states that some of these were travellers from Tehuantepec and Soconusco. On the border of Yucatan and in the hilly region of Alta Vera Paz there were well-defined trade-routes, and Cortés after crossing the Usumacinta came to a district, which he calls Acalan, where the inhabitants maintained trade-intercourse, mainly by boat, with Tabasco, and had trade-outposts on the Golfo Dulce and the Honduras border. In the earliest times there must have been much extended intercourse among the tribes, at any rate pendants of sea-shells constitute one of the most frequent ornaments seen on the monuments, and the Quiché seem to have sent an expedition on a long journey to obtain royal insignia, as mentioned above. Much of the trade was performed by direct exchange, but there were certain forms of currency. Cacao formed the “small change,” and Herrera states that 200 of the nuts went to a real. Red shells and stone counters are also mentioned as money, as well as copper bells, the value of which depended on their size. Both Cogolludo and Torquemada speak of copper currency axe-blades, very thin and in the form of an inverted T, which were imported from Mexico. The latter author states that four of these, if new, were equivalent to five reales, but that damaged specimens were only valuable for melting down and went at ten to the real. Feathers were also employed as currency, and in some places cloth, as in Mexico. The system of enumeration employed in commerce was in the main vigesimal. The count proceeded by fives to twenty, by twenties to one hundred, and by hundreds to four hundred; from this point the higher numbers were reckoned in multiples of twenty.