Then, after a lapse of years, “a large number of tribes, with their lords, came to Yucatan from the south.” Bishop Landa conjectures that, although his informants did not know this for certain, “these tribes must have come from Chiapas, many words and the conjugation of some verbs being the same in Yucatan as in Chiapas where there existed great signs showing that ancient capitals had been devastated and abandoned,” possibly by earthquakes, famine, disease or warfare. It has been surmised that the venerable Bishop alluded, in this sentence, to the ruins of Palenque in Chiapas.
Although not mentioned by Cogolludo or Lizana it is accepted that the new-comers were the Tutul-xius. According to an ancient Maya chronicle, “at a date corresponding to 401 A.D., the four Tutul-xius had fled from the house of Nonoual, to the west of Zuiva and came from the land of Tulapan. Four eras passed before they reached the peninsula of Yucatan named Chac-noui-tan under their chieftain, Holon-Chan-Tepeuh,” a name which is equally intelligible in Maya, Tzendal and Nahuatl and means Head-Serpent [pg 211] and “lord of the mountain,” according to Brasseur de Bourbourg, who states that the latter was a sovereign title amongst the Quichés.
Landa relates that, after wandering about Yucatan for forty years (possibly in search of the stable centre) these tribes settled near Mayapan, subjected themselves to its laws and lived in peaceful friendship with the Cocomes. The new-comers brought with them the atlatl or spear-thrower which is minutely described but is evidently regarded as a weapon of the chase.[57] The chronicle goes on to narrate that the Cocom governor, having become ambitious for riches, entered into a treaty with Mexican warriors who were garrisoned at Tabasco and Xicalango by the Mexican ruler and induced them to come to Mayapan and to aid him in oppressing the native lords. The latter and the Tutul-xius rebelled against this action and, having observed the Mexicans and become experts in the art of using their bow and arrow, lance, hatchet, shield and other defensive armor, they “ceased to admire and fear the Mexicans and began to make little of them, and in this condition they remained for some years.”
A lapse of years passed and another Cocom chief formed a fresh league with the Tabasco people. More Mexican warriors came to Mayapan and supported him in tyrannizing and making slaves of the lower class. Then the Tutulxiu lords assembled and decided to murder the Cocom ruler. Having done so they also killed all his sons with the exception of one who was absent; burnt their houses and seized their plantations of cocoa and other fruits, saying that these compensated for what had been stolen from them. The differences which subsequently arose between the Cocome and the Xius people resulted in the final destruction and abandonment of Mayapan after an occupation of more than five hundred years, both tribes returning to their countries.
“The lords who destroyed Mayapan (about 120 years before the Conquest) carried away with them their books of science.... The son of the Cocom lord, who being absent had escaped death, returned and gathered his relations and vassals together and founded a capital.... Many towns were built by them in the hills and many families descended from these Cocomes. These lords of Mayapan did not revenge themselves upon the Mexican warriors [pg 212] but generously exonerated them from blame because they were strangers and had been persuaded to come into the land by its former ruler. They allowed them to remain unmolested in the country and to found a city on condition that they kept to themselves and married in their own tribe only. These Mexicans decided to settle in Yucatan and peopled the province of Can-ul which was assigned to them and they continued to live there until the second invasion of the Spaniards.”
At Chichen-Itza, situated at about twenty-three leagues from the ancient site of Mayapan, there exists substantial evidence of the existence of these Aztec warriors, with indications that they pertained to the Mexican warrior-caste of the ocelots or tigers. It is a recognized fact that the remarkable bas-reliefs, which still cover the walls of the “temple of the tigers” at Chichen-Itza, are strikingly Aztec in every detail. The exact counterparts of the Atlatls, they hold, are visible on the so-called “Stone of Tizoc” in the city of Mexico. Sculptured on the wall opposite the entrance of the temple there are about thirty-six war-chiefs grouped in three parallel rows of twelve each, the majority of whom are apparently rendering some form of homage to a seated personage surrounded by rays, while others are having an encounter with a monstrous serpent. On the side walls and slanting roofs more warriors are figured, many accompanied by a rebus or hieroglyph which evidently records, in Mexican style, individual names. The total number of sculptured warriors seems to have been about one hundred. If each of these represented, as may be supposed, a “count of men,” it is evident that a large force of Aztec soldiers must have lived in Yucatan at one time.
Other interesting monuments at Chichen-Itza deserve a passing mention. Mr. Teobert Maler (Yukatekische Forschungen, Globus, 1895, p. 284) relates that there are two pyramid-temples in the terraces of which the remains of great stone tables have been found. He states that one of these tables was originally supported by two rows of seven sculptured caryatids and by a central row of plain columns with flat, square tops. Traces of paint showed that the figures had been painted, that a yellow-brown color had predominated, but that all ornaments or accessories were either blue or green. The caryatids exhibited a variety of costume and of size and each showed a marked individuality. The second table standing in a larger temple, was originally painted red and supported [pg 213] by twenty-four caryatid figures which resemble each other closely, show no individuality and which seem to have been disposed in two rows of twelve each. Mr. Maler infers from this that, being more highly conventionalized, they were of a later date than the previous examples. If it were not for the circumstance that both tables had the same number of supports their numeral 24 might pass unobserved. As it is, I shall recur to it on mentioning other monuments with figures yielding the same number and disposed, in one case, as 6×4. In connection with these stone tables I recall the fact that, in the Maya language, they were called Mayac-tun.
Mr. W. H. Holmes (op. cit., p. 134) tells us that in one case the continuous table had been formed by a series of limestone tablets averaging three feet square and five or six inches thick, each slab having been supported by two of the dwarfish figures which stand with both hands aloft, giving a broad surface of support. He ascertained that “these slabs were wonderfully resonant and when struck lightly with a hammer or stone, give out tones closely resembling those of a deeply resonant bell, and the echoes awakened in the silent forest are exceedingly impressive.” Mr. Holmes' account of these resonant stone tables is of particular value to me because it throws an interesting light upon the following Maya words: I have already stated that the native name for table is Mayac, and that a stone table is Mayac-tun. The word tun, however, not only signifies stone, but also sound and noise. From this it would seem that stone tables such as Mr. Holmes describes were made expressly for the purpose of emitting sound and employed like the huehuetl or wooden drums of the ancient Mexicans to summon the people to the temple and to guide the sacred dances.
The existence of the word tun-kul, which is either “stone-bowl” or “sound-bowl,” seems likewise to indicate that hollow stone vessels were used at one time as gongs. At the present day the Mayas name the small wooden drum of the Mexicans a “tunkul,” whereas its Nahuatl name is “te-ponaxtli,” the prefix of which, curiously enough, seems also to be connected with tetl=stone. A curious light is shed upon the possible use of some of the many stone vessels found in Mexico and Yucatan by the above linguistic evidence.
In conclusion I quote Mr. Maler's authority for two points concerning [pg 214] Chichen-Itza which are not generally known. First, that its name should be pronounced “Tsitsen-itsa,” and, second, that he saw there no less than five recumbent statues, holding circular vessels. Each of these figures exhibits the same form of breast-plate as the Le Plongeon example now at the National Museum of Mexico (pl. [iv], fig. 1). Mr. Maler states that it seems to have been the tribal mark of the Cocomes, the whilom rulers at Chichen-Itza; but it is interesting to note the general resemblance of this ornament to the blue plaque worn by the Mexican “Blue Lord,” the Lord of the Year and of Fire, “Xiuhtecuhtli,” who is also usually represented with a Xiuh-tototl or “blue-bird” on the front of his head-dress.