Thomas Athol Joyce

“ The victors, conscious of their cultural inferiority, in adopting to the best of their ability the mode of life of the conquered, were careful also to propitiate the local gods, whom they regarded as responsible for the superior culture of the latter; though they attempted, as far as they dared, to subordinate them to their own chief deity. These hill-tribes of primitive hunters seem to have worshipped each a god of its own, who was regarded as its personal leader, who presided over war and the chase and who appears to have been connected with the stars and occasionally with the sun. ”

“ The history of the Quiché exhibits some connection with that of the Kakchiquel, and further displays certain points of resemblance with the early legends of the Mexicans. Though both the Quiché and Kakchiquel accounts give lists of kings who ruled over their respective tribes, yet they furnish no dates, and the lengths of the various reigns can only be conjectured. Quiché history, like the Mexican, begins in myth, with the final or historical creation. The creating-gods fashioned four men out of maize, Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah and Iqi-Balam. ”

“ They found the remains of a people who had for years been living as settled agriculturists, and ruined cities which their untutored minds regarded as something bordering on the marvellous. The agricultural population whom they subdued, more cultured but less warlike than they, told them stories of a powerful empire, stories which no doubt lost nothing in the telling. To this empire they gave the name of Toltec, from the city of Tulan (or Tollan) which was its reputed centre. ”

“ With the possible relations which Mexican and Maya culture may bear to those of the outer world I do not propose to deal at all. The past has shown the futility of speculating upon insufficient evidence, and it is sad to note how large a proportion of the literature dealing with American archæology serves only as a monument to wasted energy and misplaced zeal. It is impossible to deny a certain superficial similarity, often surprising, between the Maya ruins and those of south-east Asia, but these disappear for the most part upon closer analysis. ”

“ As far as the evidence goes at present, it is fair to draw the conclusion that the first settled agriculturists in the Mexican valley were of the same stock as the agricultural people around lake Pazcuaro; that upon them descended a Nahua tribe from the north, coming in sufficient strength to impose their language, who built up a culture which surprised the subsequent immigrants of similar race when, at a considerably later period, they followed in their footsteps. The tendency of rude hunting tribes to rapid development when they adopt settled life has not yet been fully recognized. ”

“ To the Mexicans, as to many primitive peoples, death was not an altogether abhorrent idea, being little more than an incident in the continuity between this life and the next. But the manner of death was more important, since it had a direct effect upon the fate of the soul. The most enviable lot was that of the warriors who died either in battle or in sacrifice ”

“ Students of African ethnography are well aware that nearly all the great kingdoms which have bloomed from time to time in Central Africa have had their origin in the descent of a nomadic tribe upon an agricultural, the former becoming sedentary and developing the arts which they received from the latter far beyond their previous limits. This point however is rather by way of illustration, for it does not wholly suffice to account for the Toltec civilization, though it helps to explain the rapidity with which the Aztec assimilated and developed the remains of it. ”

“ But once the tribe became settled, there was a tendency for the priest to become less and less a man of action, and to concentrate his energies on the elaboration of ritual and the study of astronomy. At the same time there was no sharp division between the temporal and religious authority; the king exercised many priestly functions, and the priesthood possessed enormous influence in national affairs. Priests even engaged in war, and there was a special series of insignia worn in fight by those who had distinguished themselves in battle by the capture of one or more prisoners. ”

“ The four Quiché ancestors however were too perfect to please the gods, being omniscient, so the latter dimmed their intellects, but, as some sort of compensation, provided them with wives. The sun as yet was not created, all the world was dark, and mankind had no knowledge of ritual. So they set out for Tulan Zuiva, where each tribe received its god under whose leadership it commenced its migration. Before the general separation however the need of fire was felt, and the Quiché god, Tohil, who was a thunder-god, provided his votaries with a constant supply, by striking it from his sandal. ”

“ Those who died of other diseases or old age were obliged to embark upon a difficult journey to Mictlan, the underworld, where the god Mictlantecutli held sway. During this they had to pass between two clashing mountains, to run the gauntlet of a great snake and a huge lizard, to traverse eight deserts and eight hills, and to encounter a wind full of stone knives. ”

“ Myths of this nature are far more typical of Peru as a whole than of Mexico and Central America. Another peculiarity of Mixtec and Zapotec worship is the great number of cave-temples, many of them so holy that they became centres of pilgrimage. Some of these shrines were oracular, and one of them, at Achiutla, held such a high reputation that Montecuzoma sent an embassy to consult it at the coming of the Spaniards. Human sacrifice was practised by both these tribes, though to a far less extent than by the Mexicans, the heart of the victim being held to the lips of the idol of stone or wood. ”

“ Those who were drowned, struck by lightning, or who perished by certain diseases such as dropsy or leprosy, found a home in the terrestrial paradise Tlalocan, the home of the god Tlaloc, where food-plants and flowers flourished in miraculous fertility and summer was perpetual. ”

“ Others have exalted their culture to a pitch far above, one might almost say, the human, and have credited them with a knowledge transcending that of latter-day civilization. I do not propose to plunge into the welter of controversial theories, but to regard the matter from a strictly practical point of view, which seems to me to be as follows. The Aztec and their immediate forerunners the "Chichimec" were merely nomadic hunters when they settled in the valley, and their knowledge of arts and crafts, which need a settled life for development, had not advanced beyond a very primitive stage. ”

“ For the manufacture of the new censers, as for the preparation of fresh idols among the early Yucatec, a special hut is built, new fire is made at which incense is kindled in them for the first time, and blood, drawn from the ears of the worshippers with a stone knife, is smeared upon the images of the gods. ”

“ However Mexican religion is in itself rather an intricate subject, and requires studying in considerable detail if a proper view of the life and culture of the people is to be obtained. Religion amongst the Mexicans was the mainspring of all private and public life, and few of the archaeological remains cannot be brought into direct relation with it. Yet even Mexican religion is not as complicated as it appears at first sight ”

“ Maize was also employed for divination in Yucatan, and omens were taken from dreams and the voices of birds. Various minor superstitions were found, of which a few have been recorded. Thus if a man on a journey stumbled over a stone, many of which were placed at the commencement of a road, he made an offering of a green branch to it, and rubbed his knees with a pebble to prevent fatigue. If a traveller feared he might be late in arriving at his destination, he placed a stone in a tree to stay the course of the sun, or plucked out hairs from his eyebrows and blew them towards the heavens. ”

“ The Maya architects did not attempt to handle large masses of stone in the construction of their buildings; no blocks comparable in size with the great lintels of Mitla enter into the composition of Maya temples and in the art of masonry the Maya were far behind the megalithic builders of the Peruvian and Bolivian highlands. The only attempt at stone building, where regularly squared blocks are laid in rows with due attention to the breaking of courses and the bonding of corners, is found at Copan, and that too in only a very small proportion of the ruins of that site. ”

“ A variant legend narrates the special creation of the Centzon Mimizcoa who by fighting might provide the sun with the necessary blood-offerings. The connection of the sun with the war-gods is therefore very close, for war in Mexico was in the main of a ceremonial nature, undertaken with the express purpose of obtaining prisoners for sacrifice, and not necessarily with the intention of inflicting mortal hurt upon the foe. It is in this sense that in a ceremonial invocation to Uitzilopochtli, the warrior-god, the deity is made to exclaim "Through me has the sun risen." ”

“ To some extent it is true that the importance of the guild grew with the expansion of Mexican power, but it would be almost equally true to say that Mexican power grew with the extension of the merchants' sphere of operations. They acted in fact as the pioneers of Mexican political influence, they penetrated fearlessly into hostile countries either openly and armed, or disguised, and for this purpose learned the speech of foreign nations. ”

“ But one of the holiest priests was the high-priest of the sacred Zapotec city of Mitla, who was kept in retirement, for it was feared that death would seize any of the ordinary folk who might set eyes upon him. He was regarded as an inspired prophet and was supposed to hold converse with the gods.
The functions of the Mexican priesthood were manifold; apart from the general care of the temples and the maintenance of the holy fires, the priests were employed in sacrifice, divination, teaching, astronomy and the preparation of manuscripts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Modern research has proved conclusively the existence, at those very localities especially associated with the Toltec, of pre-Aztec ruins, and of a relatively high culture which prevailed throughout the valley (and beyond) for a period considerably longer than that which elapsed between the Aztec immigration and the Spanish conquest. As a mere matter of evidence I cannot see that any name can be given to this pre-Aztec culture other than that of Toltec, and, further, that it is possible to deny at least a foundation in fact to the myths connected with this people. ”

“ A great fire was prepared, into which, after some hesitation, the syphilitic god Nanauatzin (a manifestation of the dog-headed sun-and lightning-deity, the patron of twins, Xolotl) leaped, reappearing later as the sun. Fired by his example, Tecociztecatl leaped after him, but he failed to spring into the glowing heart of the fire and he reappeared as the moon, the surface of which is clouded with the black ashes of the pyre. A variant myth makes Quetzalcoatl cast his son into the fire to become the sun, while Tlaloc throws his son in later and he becomes the moon. ”

“ But on the whole it may be concluded that the Maya, like the Mexicans, dedicated their architectural masterpieces to the purposes of religion, and lived for the most part in dwellings of a more temporary nature. The population seems to have moved about a great deal, probably around the religious centres distinguished by the more extensive ruins, and the construction of elaborate dwellings would have been rather a waste of time. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Naturally the degree to which that influence could be exercised depended to some extent upon the personal character of the king, but it was always a power behind the throne, and when the king himself had been trained as a priest, as was the case with the last Montecuzoma, it had few limits, as the history of the conquest shows. The association of the god Quetzalcoatl with the kingly office invested the ruler with a semi-divine character, and the subordination of war to religion gave the priesthood tremendous power in the direction of military policy. ”

“ Sacrifice was common throughout the Maya region, but the question how far human offerings were made in early times is difficult to settle. There is only one scene upon the monuments which may be interpreted as a human sacrifice, [3] and this occurs at Piedras Negras, but the negative evidence afforded by the other reliefs throughout the Maya region would seem to suggest that the practice was, at most, exceptional. Even the Dresden codex furnishes no definite proof that the rite existed when it was written, though there are scenes which may possibly be interpreted as suggesting the custom. ”

“ The question as to how far Maya buildings were definitely oriented is rather complex. On the whole far fewer indications of the practice occur in the Maya region than in the Mexican. To speak generally the sites at Seibal and in southern Yucatan, as far as surveyed, are more carefully oriented than in northern Yucatan and elsewhere. The buildings at Copan are not oriented, but here and at such sites as Palenque, the surrounding hills and forests obscure the true horizon, and the arrangement of courts may yet be found to square with the apparent point of rising of certain heavenly bodies. ”