Mexican archæology

by Thomas Athol Joyce

The “House of the Governor,” Uxmal, Yucatan

First of all I should like to say that the dates are not intended to be more than approximate; even the records of Mexican history are not in absolute accordance, and contradictions become more frequent and serious in proportion with the remoteness of particular events from the date of the conquest. However, the history of the valley can be compiled with some degree of probability when the different accounts are studied from the point of view detailed on p. 19, though the dates of Toltec history, before the fall of the city, are in the highest degree problematical. The books of Chilan Balam give a chronology for the history of the Tutul Xiu which can be related to European time, though they do not agree exactly among themselves, and interpolations of a whole cycle appear to occur in places. The dating which I have adopted, which is in the main that of the book of Chilan Balam of Mani, is a conservative interpretation of these records, and may, I believe, be credited with reasonable probability. The dating of the monuments, the most important question of all, is unfortunately the most problematical, and the chain of evidence by which I seek to assign them a place in chronology has two weak links, one considerably weaker than the other. The first of these is the assumption that the initial dates on stelæ refer to the erection of the monuments in question. In considering this question I would omit Palenque, which is obviously, from the architectural and artistic point of view, one of the latest ruins in the central Mayan area. Further, the dates do not occur on stelæ, but for the most part on mural tablets in temples, and may well be “mythical,” and based upon calculations into past time made at a period when the art of chronology, if such a phrase be permitted, had attained a great development in the hands of a specialist priesthood. At other sites the fact that the dates form more or less connected series, and correspond on the whole to the development of architecture, lends a certain probability to the theory that they are “historical” and the theory receives some support, in a negative way, from the extreme difficulty of assigning them any other reasonable function. The other link, which I frankly admit is far weaker, consists in an attempt to correlate them with the dating of the books of Chilan Balam, and this I will now explain. I have tried to show that the buildings at Chichen Itza may be divided into three main classes, corresponding in a rather remarkable manner to the principal epochs of Tutul Xiu tradition; and I have pointed out that what may be considered the earliest group is distinguished by a date in the “long count” characteristic of the central Mayan region. I have also explained that there is reason to believe that Chichen was inhabited before the arrival of the Tutul Xiu, and the presence of the early Maya in Yucatan is supported by the “long count” date at Tulum. It seems probable that the Tutul Xiu themselves did not use the long count, but reckoned time, as in the books of Chilan Balam, by the “short count,” i.e. by the initial day of the katun alone. It is an interesting fact that in more than one of the versions we find a statement that, after their arrival at Chichen Itza, “Pop was first counted in order,” with the variant “Pop was set in order,” and this is, I think, capable of explanation in one of two ways. In the first place, it may refer to some change in the calendar, necessitated by the fact that the absence of intercalary days had brought the commencement of the year noticeably out of tune with the seasons. In the second, it may indicate the actual adoption of the early Maya month-system, which they found prevailing at Chichen. We may assume, from what evidence exists, that the month-names were never expressed in dating in the Mexican valley, and we know that the Tutul Xiu placed their original home within the realm of “Tulan.” It may be remarked in passing that, whichever explanation be adopted, this was probably the occasion when the change in the “year-bearers,” from the early system to the later, was made, and it may further be noted that such a change would not necessarily affect the katun count. In any case the essential point on which I would lay stress is that the initial date at Chichen belongs to the period before the arrival of the Tutul Xiu. Now the katun expressed in this initial date would be termed in the short count “katun 3. ahau,” and I think it reasonable to assume that this corresponds with the last “katun 3. ahau” of the Tutul Xiu chronology before they arrived at Chichen Itza. It may of course be earlier, but I think this extremely unlikely, having regard to the similarity between such buildings as the Monjas group and those of the central Mayan area. If this assumption be admitted, then the dates of the monuments can be brought into line with historical chronology as appears in the Appendix.

From this it follows that the inhabitants of the Mexican valley received the calendar from the Maya, but, before accepting such a proposition, it will be as well to examine the calendar itself for contributory evidence. We have seen that the Zapotec calendar forms a most important link between the day-signs of the Mexican and Maya respectively, and the suggestion has been made by Seler that the Maya obtained these day-signs from the west via Oaxaca, calling attention to the comparatively simple nature of the Zapotec signs, which agree in this respect with those of Mexico. The Mexican valley as the place of origin of the day-signs may be, I think, disregarded, if only for the reason that certain of the animals serving as such do not occur in that region, and the choice therefore would lie between Oaxaca on the one hand and the central Mayan region on the other. Now the difference in form between the Mexican and Zapotec signs can be explained in many cases by the fact that the Zapotec term is equivocal. That being so, it seems to me obvious that the Zapotec must have borrowed from the Maya and not vice versa. My argument is as follows: The Zapotec signs are simple and obvious; those of the Maya are often highly conventionalized. It would be remarkable, therefore, that the Maya should have translated the Zapotec name in the wrong sense, while it would be perfectly natural for the Zapotec to have made a mistake and to have simplified the sign in accordance with their idea of the meaning of the term. If we add to this the fact that the only two initial dates discovered in the western Maya area are, together with the Chichen date, the latest known, the conclusion seems to me inevitable that early Maya culture, enumeration, and calendar spread together from Guatemala, through Oaxaca to the Tlalhuica country (Xochicalco) and the Mexican valley, becoming attenuated in the process. The question of the development of the calendar itself is interesting. The whole system seems to show traces of several modifications and to exemplify the efforts of a primitive people to adapt their chronology to solar time. The presence of five nemontemi or uayeb days over and above the period of 360 bears the stamp of an afterthought, while the 360-day period, of eighteen months, each of which comprises a full round of the day-signs, is complete in itself and suggests that this was the original “year.” The number of the day-signs, viz. twenty, is obviously based upon the vigesimal system of counting current among these peoples, but the selection of the thirteen numerals which accompany them has not yet been satisfactorily explained. As remarked before, it is obvious that an agricultural population would soon observe that the seasons gradually became out of harmony with the year, and they must have cast about to find some check by which the discrepancy could be corrected. This check they found in the synodical revolutions of the planet Venus. We know that the Aztec and Maya both calculated the reappearance of this planet (as seen in the codex Borgia and analogous MSS., and the Dresden codex), and the glyph which has been identified as that of the morning star appears upon the early monuments. It is worth noting that the early Maya method of calculating time, by means of a long count of days rather than by years, rendered the discrepancy of comparatively small account. The lack of harmony between the year and true solar time would, it is true, affect the seasonal feasts, but these could be transferred from month to month as occasion demanded. As said before, I believe the greater proportion of the inscriptions embody calculations which had as their object the due allocation of the feasts to the proper seasons. I have already made the suggestion that the previous “suns” marking world-periods may typify periodical rearrangements of the calendar to square with solar time, and it is to be noted that both in the Aztec and in the Quiché account the tribes await the rising of the sun while observing the morning star. The first rising of the sun, awaited with such impatience by Aztec, Quiché and Kakchiquel alike, means, I believe, the adoption of the solar calendar, or rather the fixing of a date to form a starting-point for a time-count modelled on solar time; and in the legends of the two first peoples, the morning star is the herald of the “dawn,” which in the Aztec myth is called the “dawn for the administration of society.” The Kakchiquel account seems to hint that the “dawn” was not the same for all the tribes of this people. The translation runs as follows: “Three of our tribes had seen the dawn appear, the Zotzil, the Kakchiquel and the Tukuchi. As for the Akahal they were but a little distance from the place when the dawn appeared to the three nations. At the spot called Tohohil the Quiché saw their dawn, and those of Rabinal saw it at Zamaneb; and the Tzutuhil sought to see their dawn at Tzala, but their labours had not been completed by this tribe when the sun arose. They had not yet finished drawing their lines in Tzala when it arose in the sky, precisely above the place Geletat.” The last sentence at least suggests that some process analogous to observation of the solstice is implied. I think that the passages relative to the appearance of the “dawn” in the various tribal legends are worth careful study, especially in view of the fact that no entirely satisfactory translations of the annals of Xahila and the Popol Vuh exist. As for the books of Chilan Balam, no mention of a “dawn” is made, but it may be argued that the statement “Pop was first counted in order” has the same essential meaning.[11]

The reason for the decline of the early Maya civilization is rather obscure. A glance at the scheme of dating will show how closely the last dates at each of the ruined sites correspond one with another. It does not of course follow that the cessation of initial dates implies the abandonment of the “cities,” for they may have been centres of religious life for years later; indeed Cichen was visited as a sacred place until Spanish times, and the Lacandons of to-day still make offerings in the deserted temples. But the abrupt termination of the dating system at least implies some important change, and it may be that about the beginning of the tenth cycle the “long count” was abandoned in favour of the “katun count” as exemplified in the books of Chilan Balam. In any case none of the buildings show evident signs of forcible destruction, and no traces of a military invasion of Maya territory appear. The instability of Central American political organizations is very marked; there was a strong tendency for a state, composed originally of independent self-contained pueblos, to split up into smaller elements under the slightest pressure applied from within or without. The Maya, to judge from the monuments, had enjoyed centuries of peace, and only in the north-east and north do we find reliefs which give any hint of war. But these may be significant, and no doubt the decline of the old culture was due to pressure exercised by their northern neighbours, a pressure which had its origin in the steady southerly drift of tribes from regions considerably further north, and which led to the occupation of the Mexican valley by the Nahua-speaking Toltec.

A word may now be said concerning the “Toltec” culture of the Mexican valley. The fact that this is related to the early culture of the Maya is, as said before, obvious. Many points of similarity exist in religious symbolism, art (such as the interlaced trapezoidal sign described above), glyphs surrounded by a cartouche, and the bar-form of the numeral five. If my dating of the monuments be accepted provisionally, and also the suggestion that the calendar had its origin with the Maya, then it follows necessarily that the Toltec culture was due at least to Maya inspiration. The myth of the arrival of the god Quetzalcoatl, inventor of the calendar, symbolizes the spread of Maya culture northwards. There are so many instances of the god being taken as the representative of his people, and I have already shown how the high mysterious creator-god Kukulkan seems to have lost dignity when he became personified as a tribal leader. The myth of the immigrant Nahua tribes awaiting the “dawn for the administration of society” at Teotihuacan then represents their first contact with the culture derived from the Maya. So far the matter is simple, but a difficulty now arises. The last Maya date in the long count, at Chacula on the Chiapas border, falls about the middle of the fourth century A.D. The Annals of Quauhtitlan give the foundation of the Toltec state as 752 A.D. The migration-myth last mentioned states that the Toltec were with the other Nahua immigrants at Teotihuacan when the “dawn” appeared. These Toltec are definitely stated to have been Nahua-speakers, while the name of the first Toltec ruler, Mixcoamazatzin, is distinctly Nahua. Finally, the list of Toltec rulers, seven only in number, is far too short to account for the thick stratum of Toltec remains at Azcapotzalco. The only explanation possible surely must be the following: The early Maya culture had slowly crept up into the Mexican valley, through western Chiapas, Oaxaca and Teotitlan, becoming somewhat attenuated in the process. There it persisted for some centuries without striking development, and perhaps gradually deteriorating. Then began the southerly drift of the Nahua tribes, of whom the first to arrive, the Toltec, imposed themselves as a ruling caste upon the agricultural population, adopting their mode of life and culture, and developing the latter in accordance with their own particular genius, but imposing their own language upon the tribes whom they welded into an empire. But the pressure from the north continued, wave after wave of “Chichimec” migration broke upon the valley. The Toltec power fell, and the incursion of the wilder tribes gave rise to migrations, such as those of the Olmec, Quiché and Kakchiquel, which followed for the most part an easterly route, at any rate in their initial stages. In the valley, the history of the Toltec was reflected in the short-lived attempts of the Chichimec and Tepanec to establish empires, but was practically repeated by the Aztec, who also developed, and to some extent travestied, the remnants of the earlier culture of their predecessors. The fall of Tulan had an important effect upon Yucatan. At this period the League of Mayapan was in full flower, but within a century we hear of the introduction of “Mexican” mercenaries, and of political troubles at Chichen Itza, and at this very site we find a group of buildings in unmistakable Toltec style, with decoration in which a personified Kukulkan appears. This Toltec influence spread further still, to British Honduras, where it is exemplified in the frescoes of Santa Rita, and in certain pottery vases (Pl. [IX, 10]; p. 82) with relief ornament in the shape of a descending Quetzalcoatl-Kukulkan figure, similar to the Chichen Itza relief shown in Fig. [87]. In the Mixtec country, too, traces of immigration occur in legends, almost certainly due to the same causes, and the Toltec influence is found in the frescoes at Mitla, which resemble those at Santa Rita, though, be it noted, they are by no means necessarily contemporary with the buildings on which they occur. Thus the Maya culture completed its circle, a branch passing, as I have indicated, from Guatemala to the Mexican valley, and then through Vera Cruz and Tabasco to Yucatan, where it came into contact with a more legitimate offshoot of the early Maya stock. In the west the wave of Toltec influence appears to have reached as far south as Santa Lucia Cozumalhuapa, and the presence of tlaxtli-courts in the Chacula and Alta Vera Paz regions are probably to be attributed to the same agency; for it will be remembered that a body of Toltec, after the fall of their city, are reported to have migrated to Soconusco (p. 11).

Fig. 87.—Stone relief at Chichen Itza, showing Kukulkan-Quetzalcoatl.

(After Maudslay)

The position of the Huaxtec now arises. In them we have a Maya-speaking people, practising certain definitely Maya customs such as tooth-filing and -inlay, and inhumation as opposed to cremation, yet apparently without a script. As far as their art is concerned, the sculptures of the Panuco valley bear a closer resemblance to those of the Maya, especially to certain stelæ at Piedras Negras, than the Aztec. The isolation of this definitely Maya branch would seem to imply that the Maya in the earliest days of all must have spread from Guatemala up the east coast of Mexico as far as Tampico, penetrating into Chiapas, and possibly Oaxaca, and colonizing the Mexican valley, where they found a primitive people akin to the earliest population of Michoacan. In times subsequent to what I may call this proto-Maya movement there took place in the southern fertile region a great cultural development, culminating in the organization of a calendar, the invention of a script, and the construction of the ruined “cities.” The culture developed here spread, as I have indicated on p. 361, but slowly, since the land was by no means overpopulated, and life was easy. For some reason it took a westerly course, via Oaxaca, and never reached the Huaxtec, who remained confined to the coast by the eastern cordillera and held little communication with their western neighbours. In later times, at any rate, they were cut off from the southern Maya by the stream of migration which passed from the valley of Mexico and its neighbourhood eastward, and they may well have been isolated at an earlier period by some similar movement in this direction. At any rate an early tendency towards migration on these lines is seen in the legends of the Tutal Xiu, who left Nonoual in the second century, probably under pressure exercised by tribes to the west.

The chief objection to this theory of the origin and development of the Maya culture, as far as I can see, is that in Guatemala and Honduras no certain traces of a proto-Maya culture have as yet been discovered, but that the civilization springs, as it were, full-blown from the earth. The answer would be that the finest ruins have focussed all attention up to the present, and that earlier manifestations of the culture have not been sought, while the difficulties afforded by environment and climate place serious obstacles in the way of systematic excavation. Further, the art itself affords many indications that it is based upon wood-carving, and the conditions are not favourable to the survival of any remains save those constructed in stone.