“ He selected for this purpose a site eight leagues further inland from where now stands the city of Merida, and fifteen leagues from the sea. There they erected a circular wall of dry stone, about a half quarter of a league in diameter, leaving in it only two gateways. They erected temples, giving to the largest the name Cuculcàn, and also constructed around the wall the houses of the lords among whom Cuculcàn had divided the land, giving and assigning towns to each. To the city he gave the name Mayapan, which means “the Standard of the Maya,” as Maya is the name of their language. ”

“ Everywhere, both in North and South America, we find the myth of the four brothers who divided the land between them, one of whom is superior to the others and becomes the ruler and instructor of the ancestors of the nation. He does not die, but disappears, or goes to heaven, and is often expected to return. Just so in one of the Maya myths, Cuculcan did not return to Mexico, but rose to heaven, whence once every year he descended to his temple at Mayapan and received the gifts which from far and wide pious pilgrims had brought to his shrine (Landa, Relacion, p. 302) . ”

“ The word cante is translated by Perez and Brasseur as four, and applied to the Tutulxiu, while the intervening word anilo is not translated by either: cante is no doubt the numeral four with the numeral particle te suffixed. But here a serious difficulty arises. According to all the grammars and dictionaries the particle te is never used for counting persons, [107] but only “years, months, days (periods of time) , leagues, cacao, eggs and gourds.” Moreover, what is anilo? We have, indeed, the form tenilo, I am that one, from the particle i (Buenaventura, Arte de la Lengua Maya, fol. 27, verso) ”

“ Thus also Nachi Cocom, who dwelt in the chief town of Zututa in the province Chichen Itza, that called Chichen Itza, and Ah Cahuot Cocom, aiding the word of God and our great King, delivered up their standards and banners for the sake of our great King, for the conquest, and received the Adelantado and the father the priest in their towns, nor did they make war, but abstained from all injury, and laid out churches and town-houses for their followers. ”

“ When the war against the Spaniards began we spread out our forces together with them, and went with my father, Ah Macan Pech, of the first lineage of Yaxkukul, and Ixkil Yɔam Pech, of the first lineage of Cumkal, and I went after them to the war; then began the obligation of tribute to our rulers for the Spanish governors in the town; when we went to the war there was pinole and tuce to drink, because they were disgusted with the Christians ”

“ Copan, Uxmal and Palenque are names which at once evoke the most earnest interest in the mind of every one who has ever been attracted to the subject of the archæology of the New World. This race, moreover, possessed [19] an abundant literature, preserved in written books, in characters which were in some degree phonetic. Enough of these remain to whet, though not to satisfy, the curiosity of the student.
The total number of Indians of pure blood speaking the Maya proper may be estimated as nearly or quite 200,000, most of them in the political limits of the department of Yucatan ”

“ In the year 1544 the Spanish Captain Asiesa was posted in Cauaca, and the chiefs were gathered together from Cauaca for the tribute, and they gave in Cauca honey, pheasants and maize; then they placed in prison the priest Caamal from Sisal, and asked for an account of all the towns; one year he was kept by them in prison; he then served as guide to the Spaniards when they came to Valladolid, and this priest Kamal of Sisal entered as chief at Valladolid, and was called Don Juan Caamal de la Cruz, because he spoke very truthfully ”

“ In former times no one saw Spanish foreigners, not until Jeronimo de Aguilar was captured by the natives of Cozumel; then first the whole of the country became known, because all the country was marched over; but because the whole of the land was not made use of I spoke of it before the king, when there went before the king Ah Macan Pech, Don Pedro Pech, and his followers, and the first of his lineage, and all his chiefs after him; they went after him to honor the king, that he might see the faces of his servants ”

“ In the year 1542, the Spaniards settled the territory of Merida; the first speaker, the companion priest Kinich Kakmo and the king of the Tutulxiu of the capital Mani humbled their heads, and the first families were settled; then first they came under tribute the third time (the Spaniards) came to this land, and they established themselves permanently, and stopped here. The first time when they came here to Chichen Itza they began to eat anonas; never before had anonas been eaten, and when the Spaniards ate them they were called anona-eaters ”

“ The leading authority on Maya grammar is Father Pedro Beltran, who was a native of Yucatan, and instructor in the Maya language in the convent of Merida about 1740. He was thoroughly conversant with the native tongue, and his Arte [74] was reprinted in Merida, in 1859, as the best work of the kind which had been produced.74-1
The eminent antiquary, Don Juan Pio Perez contemplated writing a Maya grammar, and collected a number of notes for that purpose,74-2 as did also the late Dr. Berendt, but neither brought his work to any degree of completeness. ”

“ But regarding the legend I have quoted as, in part at least, [122] based on actual history, we may accept the fact that there was an important emigration from Mexico, and yet not one of either Aztecs or “Toltecs.” It must be remembered that the Huastecas, an important branch of the Maya family, occupied from time immemorial the coast of the Mexican Gulf north of Vera Cruz, and west to the mountains of Meztitlan, a province inhabited by a Nahuatl speaking race, but not subject to the dynasty of the Montezumas. ”

“ It has been observed that foreigners, coming to [28] Yucatan, ignorant of both Spanish and Maya, acquire a conversational knowledge of the latter more readily than of the former.28-1
An examination of the language explains this. Neither nouns nor adjectives undergo any change for gender, number or case. Before animate nouns the gender may be indicated by the prefixes ah and ix, equivalent to the English he and she in such expressions as he-bear, she-bear. The plural particle is ob, which can be suffixed to animate nouns, but is in fact the third person plural of the personal pronoun. ”

“ Tizimin is a town of some importance, in the district of Valladolid, about a hundred miles east of Merida. The “Book of Chilan Balam” which was found there is one of the most ancient known, and appears to have been written about the close of the sixteenth century. It is now in the possession of the eminent antiquary, the Canon Crescencio Carrillo y Ancona, of Merida, who has described it in his work on Maya literature.136-1 It contains 26 leaves, without numeration, and on the 17th this chronicle is inserted without title or prefatory remarks. ”

“ Whatever the primitive meaning and first application of the name Maya, it is now used to signify specifically the aborigines of Yucatan. In a more extended sense, in the expression “the Maya family,” it is understood to embrace all tribes, wherever found, who speak related dialects presumably derived from the same ancient stock as the Maya proper. ”

“ This is the order of the Katuns since the four Katuns during which the Tutulxiu left their home and country Nonoual to the west of Zuiua, and went from the land and city of Tula, having agreed together to this effect.
[109] I have said nothing of the proper names in this paragraph. They are remarkable for the fact that three out of the four are unquestionably Nahuatl or Aztec, and hence they have given occasion for considerable theorizing in favor of the “Toltec” origin of the Maya civilization, and also of the Nahuatl descent of the princely family of the Tutulxiu. ”

“ As history, it is valueless; but as indicative of a long and early intercourse between the Maya and Nahuatl speaking tribes, it is of great interest. As this question will also recur in reference to various later passages in the Maya chronicles, I will discuss it here.
One of the earliest historians of Yucatan, the Doctor Don Pedro Sanchez de Aguilar, states that six hundred years before the Spanish conquest the Mayas were vassals of the Aztecs, and that they were taught or forced by these to construct the extraordinary edifices in their country, such as are found at Uxmal and Chichen Itza. ”

“ This ancient system was obscured by the Spaniards using the word pic to mean 1000 and kinchil to mean 1,000,000, instead of their original significations.
The meaning of kal, I have already explained to be a fastening together, a package, a bundle. Bak, as a verb, is to tie around and around with a network of cords; pic is the old word for the short petticoat worn by the women, which was occasionally used as a sac. If we remember that grains of corn or of cacao were what were generally employed as counters, then we may suppose these were measures of quantity. ”

“ U tunil balcah is an ancient term, not explained in the dictionaries. Balcah (or baalcah) means “a town and the people who compose it” (Pio Perez, Diccionario) , hence people, the world, as the French use monde. From many references in the Maya manuscripts I derive the impression that the last stone in the katun pillar was placed in turn by the towns, each giving its name to the stone and the cycle (see ante, p. 171) .
Assuming the correctness of the figures 1517—and there is no reason to doubt it—then Pech counted the katuns as of 24 years each, as Pio Perez maintained was correct ”

“ The annals of the Aztecs contain frequent allusions to the Huastecs. The most important contest between the two nations took place in the reign of Montezuma the First (1440-1464) . The attack was made by the Aztecs, for the alleged reason that the Huastecs had robbed and killed Aztec merchants on their way to the great fairs in Guatemala. The Huastecs are described as numerous, dwelling in walled towns, possessing quantities of maize, beans, feathers and precious stones, and painting their faces. ”

“ Had they been of Aztec race it would certainly have been noticed, for the Mayas had frequent mercantile relations with these powerful neighbors, they borrowed many words from the Nahuatl tongue, and single chiefs in Yucatan formed alliances with the Aztec rulers, and introduced Aztec warriors even into Mayapan, as is shown by the Chronicles I publish in this work, and also by the fact that a small colony of Aztecs, descendants of these mercenaries, was living in the province of Canul, west of Merida, when the Spaniards conquered the country (Landa, Relacion, p. 54) . ”

“ The name Maya is also found in the form Mayab, and this is asserted by various Yucatecan scholars of the present generation, as Pio Perez, Crescencio Carrillo, and Eligio Ancona, to be the correct ancient form, while the other is but a Spanish corruption.13-1
But this will not bear examination. All the authorities, native as well as foreign, of the sixteenth century, write Maya. ”

“ I am inclined to think that the French critic is right, and that, in fact, there is no true verb in the Maya, but merely verbal nouns, nomina actionis, to which the pronouns stand either in the possessive or objective relations, or, more remotely, in the possessive relation to another verbal noun in apposition, as cah, cuchi, etc. ”

“ They had another temple on another mound in the northern part of the city, and this, from the name of an idol which they worshiped here, they called Kinich Kakmó, which means the sun with a face. They say that the rays were of fire and descended at mid-day to consume the sacrifice, as the vacamaya flies through the air (which is a bird something like a parrot, though larger in size, and with finely colored feathers) . They resorted to this idol in time of mortality, pestilence or much sickness, both men and women, and brought many offerings. ”

“ Then Ah Pech came to the towns in order to see the people governed in them; the Spaniards also came, but on account of the massacre of the foreigners by the people, they passed on and went to Ah Batum Pech of Chel, whom they saw, and passed on, and went to Maxtunil, to Nachi May and Ah Macan Pech; they then returned to their lands to the towns they governed at Yaxkukul; Don Pablo Pech, Ah Macan Pech, was governor of all the district to the west, nor did his captains at all give up their spirits ”

“ In the year 1543 the Spaniards went north of the Chels to procure Maya men for servants [229] because there were no men for servants at Merida; they came to procure men for servants for their bidding; when they reached Popce the tribute was increased by those from Merida, when those who command arrived at Popce, and they went on to Tikom, and the Spaniards remained at that time in Tikom more than twenty days before they departed. ”