Hubert Howe Bancroft

“ I do not mean to express a decided opinion that the Aztecs were not, some hundreds or thousands of centuries ago, or even at a somewhat less remote period, identical with the natives of New Mexico, for I have great faith in the power of time and environment to work unlimited changes in any people; I simply claim that it is a manifest absurdity to suppose that the monuments described were the work of the Aztecs during a migration southward, since the eleventh century, or of any people nearly allied in blood and institutions to the Aztecs as they were found in Anáhuac. ”

“ Under the earth and a layer of ashes the skeleton lies with its head covered by a little brazier of baked clay, and accompanied by arrows, fragments of double-edged knives, obsidian fragments, bird-bone necklaces strung on twisted bird-gut, smooth stones, some small semi-spheres of baked clay with a hole in the centre of each, and a few grotesque idols. ”

“ The spot bears every appearance of having once been a populous city. Stone foundations are to be seen, covering many acres. Innumerable 600 columns and walls rise up in every direction, composed of both limestone and sandstone. The columns are built in a variety of shapes, some round, others square, and bear every imprint of the work of human hands.... For miles in the vicinity, the basin is covered with broken pottery of burnt clay, fantastically painted and ornamented with a variety of inexplicable designs. ”

“ These tales are classed with other aboriginal fables, interesting but comparatively valueless; but some wandering explorer, by chance or as the result of an apparently absurd and profitless research, discovers in the shade of the tangled thicket, or lays bare under the drifting desert-sands, the ruins of a great city with magnificent palace and temple; at once the mythic fable is transformed into authentic history, especially if the traditional statements of that people's arts and institutions are confirmed by their relics. ”

“ They cultivated the valley, fashioned whatever utensils and tools they needed, very neatly and handsomely out of clay and wood and stone, not knowing any of the useful metals, built their homes and kept their flocks and herds in the fertile river bottoms, and worshiped the sun. They were an eminently peaceful and prosperous people, living by agriculture rather than by the chase. ”

“ The monuments imply a wide-spread religious system under a powerful priesthood; private devotion manifests itself on a scale less magnificent, and one involving less hard work. Of their rites we know nothing. The altar-mounds suggest sacrifice; burned human bones, human sacrifice. Gateways on the east, and the east and west direction of embankments and skeletons may connect worship with the sun; but all is conjecture. No idols, known to be such, have been found; the cemeteries, if any of them belong to the Mound-builders, show no uniform usage in burial. ”

“ No architectural monuments whatever remain within the city limits. The grand palaces of the Aztec 505 monarchs, the palatial residences of the nobility, the abodes of wealth and fashion, like the humbler dwellings of the masses, have utterly disappeared; monuments reared in honor of the gods have not outlasted the structures devoted to trade; the lofty teocalli of the blood-thirsty Huitzilopochtli, like the shrines of lesser and gentler deities, has left no trace. ”

“ The ruins of Palenque have been perhaps overrated; these remains are fine, doubtless, in their antique rudeness; they breathe out in the midst of their solitude a certain imposing grandeur; but it must be affirmed, without disputing their architectural importance, that they do not justify in their details the enthusiasm of archæologists. The lines which make up the ornamentation are faulty in rectitude; the designs in symmetry; the sculpture in 365 finish; I except, however, the symbolic tablets, the sculpture of which seemed to me very correct. ”

“ The absence of all implements of a warlike nature, extending even to the sculptured decorations of idol and altar, would seem to indicate a population quiet and peaceable rather than warlike and aggressive; for though it has been suggested that implements of war are not found here simply because it is a place sacred to religion, yet it does not appear that any ancient people has ever drawn so closely the line between the gods of war and the other divinities of the pantheon. ”

“ The ruins of a great city represent and recall vividly its original state and the populace that once thronged its streets; the towering mound or pyramid brings before the observer's mind toiling bands of slaves driven to their unwelcome task by strong progressive masters; temples and idols are but remnants of religious systems, native fear, superstition, 6 and faith; altars imply victims and sacrificial ceremonies; sculpture, the existence of art; kingly palaces are the result of a strong government, wars, and conquest; sepulchral deposits reveal thoughts of another life ”

“ The difficulty attending antiquarian research in a country where the whole surface is covered with so dense a growth that progress in any direction is possible only foot by foot with the aid of the native 81 machete, may be imagined. A hot climate, a moist and malarious atmosphere, venomous serpents and reptiles, myriads of diminutive demons in the form of insects, all do most vigorous battle against the advances of the foreign explorer, while the apathetic natives, whether of American or Spanish blood, feel not the slightest enthusiasm to unveil the mysterious works of the antiguos. ”

“ I can hardly conceive of structures reared by human hands differing more essentially than the two classes in question. In the common use of adobes for building-material; in the plain walls rising to a height of several stories; in the terrace structure, absence of doors in the lower story, and the entrance by ladders; in the absence of arched ceilings of overlapping blocks, of all pyramidal structures, of sculptured blocks, of all architectural decorations, of idols, temples, and every trace of buildings evidently designed for religious rites, of burial mounds and human remains ”

“ To fully describe a few and point out contrasts in the rest is the only method of avoiding a very tiresome monotony in attempting to make known some hundreds of structures very like one to another in most of their details as well as in their general features. The similarity observed among the different monuments is a very great advantage to the antiquarian student, since it will enable me, if I mistake not, to give the reader in this chapter as clear an idea of the antiquities of Yucatan, notwithstanding their great number, as of any portion of the Pacific States. ”

“ With the invention of printing and the consequent wide diffusion of national annals, the era of unwritten history ceased, and with it all future necessity of searching tangled forest and desert plain for monumental records of the present civilization. That the key of our written history can ever be lost, our civilization blotted out, ruined structures and vague traditions called anew into requisition for historic use, we believe impossible. ”

“ At Tenampua, or Pueblo Viejo, twenty miles south-east of Comayagua, near Flores, is a hill of white stratified sandstone, whose sides rise precipitously to a height of sixteen hundred feet above the level of the surrounding plain. The summit forms a level plateau one half a mile wide and one mile and a half long from east to west. On the eastern half chiefly, but also spreading over the whole surface of this lofty plateau, is the most extensive group of ancient works in the whole region, and in fact the only one of which we have a description at all in detail. ”

“ I quote the following from an article on the antiquities of Vera Cruz, written in 1869, for the Mexican Geographical Society, by Carlos Sartorius:
"On the eastern slope of the lofty volcanic range, from the Peak of Orizava to the Cofre de Perote, at an average elevation of two to five thousand feet above the level of the gulf, there exist innumerable traces of a very numerous indigenous population before the Conquest. History tells us nothing respecting this part of the country, distinguished for its abundant supply of water, its fertility, and its delightful and healthy climate." ”

“ In the more sterile portions of the land, on the top of hills which have no soil are seen the foundations of dwellings, all of stone without mortar, arranged in streets or in groups. They always form an oblong rectangle and face the cardinal points. They are found in clearing heavy forests as well as on open tracts, and the fact that oaks a mètre in diameter are found within the enclosure of the walls, proves that many centuries have passed since the population disappeared. In many parts are found groups of pyramids, of various sizes and degrees of preservation. ”

“ It has been constantly stated and repeated by most writers, that all American aboriginal monuments, the works of the Mound-Builders of the Mississippi, the ruins of New Mexico and Arizona, the Casas Grandes of Chihuahua, the Edificios of Zacatecas, the pyramids of Anáhuac and the central plateaux, Mitla, Palenque, the cities of Yucatan, and finally Copan, all belong evidently to one class and present one type; that all are such as might reasonably be attributed to the same people in different periods of their civilization. ”

“ The Pueblo tribes of New Mexico and the Moquis of Arizona are a wonderful people when we consider the wall of savagism which envelopes them; their towns of many-storied structures are better foundations than usually exist for travelers' tales of magnificent cities; ruins are abundant, showing that the pueblo nations were 617 in the past more numerous, powerful, and cultured, than Europeans have found them; rich mines are now worked, and yet richer ones are awaiting development ”

“ In Yucatan the latter question presents no difficulties, and the former few, compared with those connected with other American ruins. It was formerly a favorite theory that the great American palaces and temples of ancient times, whose remains have astonished the modern world, were the work of civilized peoples that have become extinct, probably of some old-world people which long centuries ago settled on our coasts and flourished for a long period, but was at last forced to succumb to the native races whose descendants occupied the land at the coming of Europeans in the sixteenth century. ”

“ Whatever treasures of antiquity may be hid in the depths of the forest, there can be but little doubt that this enclosure embraced the leading structures or sacred edifices of the ancient town. These walls would seem at least twenty-five feet thick at the base, and are built, like all the Copan structures, of large blocks of cut stone, of varying but not expressly stated dimensions. They are built, in parts 86 at least, in terraces or steps, and painted. Only one authority speaks of the use of mortar. ”

“ The annexed cut is a ground plan of the ruins so far as explored, and we notice at once a novel feature in the wall A, A, that bounds them on three sides—the first well-authenticated instance which we have met of a walled Maya town. A precipitous cliff rising from the waters of the ocean makes a wall unnecessary on the eastern side, but on the other sides the wall is in excellent preservation, stretching six hundred and fifty feet from east to west, and fifteen hundred feet from north to south, from eight to thirteen feet thick, and built of rough flat stones without mortar. ”

“ The summer temperature, although high, is modified by sea-breezes from the east and west; consequently the heat is less oppressive and the climate on the whole more healthful than in any other state of the American tierra caliente. The inhabitants, something over half a million in number, of whom a very large proportion are full-blooded natives of the Maya race, are a quiet and peaceful though brave people, living simply on the products of the soil and of the forest, and each community taking but little interest in the affairs of the world away from their own immediate neighborhood. ”

“ No work is more enduring than an embankment of earth. There is no positive internal proof that they were not standing one, five, or ten thousand years ago. The evidences of an ancient abandonment of the works, or serious decline of the builders' power, are as follows:—1st, the fact that none of them stand on the last-formed terrace of the rivers, most on the oldest terrace, and that those on the second bear in some cases marks of having been invaded by water. ”

“ The blocks of earth are of unequal size, but placed with symmetry, and the perfection with which they have lasted during a period which cannot be less than three hundred years shows great skill in the art of building. It is seen that the edifice had three stories and a roof, with exterior stairways probably of wood. The same class of construction is found still in all the independent Indian towns of Moqui, north-east from the state of Chihuahua. Most of the rooms are very small with doors so small and narrow that they seem like the cells of a prison. ”

“ Mérida, the capital of Yucatan, was built by the Spanish conquerors on the ruins of the aboriginal city of Tihoo, the ancient mounds furnishing material to the builders of the modern town. Only very slight vestiges of Tihoo remain; yet in the lower cloisters of the Franciscan convent, which is known to have been erected over an ancient mound and building, the Spanish architects left one of the peculiar aboriginal arches intact, unless we suppose that they imitated such an arch in their own work, which is most unlikely. ”