Copán

“ The traditions of the Mayans all agree that Copan was built by the Itzas, the tribe inhabiting Chichen, who had temporarily migrated thence. If this tradition is true, then why do we not find the same characteristic monuments in both places? As far as architectural ornamentation and monuments are concerned, no two sets of ruins could be further apart. At Copan we find a uniform type in costume and feature. There is not a single sign of a warrior or the feathered headdress common in all the monuments of Yucatan. The battle scenes characteristic of Mayan carvings are entirely lacking. ”

“ Yet if we are to believe tradition, Chichen of to-day was built on the return of the Itzas after they had founded Copan. To our mind the only way to explain the peculiar and intricate art of Copan is to assume that it was the first settlement or one of the first settlements of the invading builders, and thus that it is where we have their art in its purest and most unadulterated form. There is sound reason to think that most of the carvings in the ruins of Central America were done by the hands of American Indians. ”

“ At two o'clock we reached the village of Copan, which consisted of half-a-dozen miserable huts thatched with corn. Our appearance created a great sensation. All the men and women gathered around us to gaze. We inquired immediately for the ruins, but none of the villagers could direct us to them, and all advised us to go to the hacienda of Don Gregorio. We had no wish to stop at a village, and told the muleteer to go on, but he refused, and said that his engagement was to conduct us to Copan. ”

“ The ruins at Copan, although in a more advanced state of destruction than those of the Maya cities of Yucatan, have a general similarity to the latter in the design of the buildings, and in the sculptures, while the characters in the inscriptions are essentially the same. It would seem, therefore, that Copan was a city of the Mayas; but if so it must have been one of their most ancient settlements, fallen into decay long before the cities of Yucatan reached their prime. The Maya civilization was totally distinct from the Aztec or Mexican ”

“ But there is nothing in all the sculptures at Copan to suggest the sacrifice of human or any other victims; nothing to recall the revolting traffic in human blood that was common in Mexico down to the time of the conquest; no trace of analogy with the frightful orgies that marred the history of the Aztecs, pervading every phase of their national life, finding constant expression in their decorative art, and filling their picture-written annals with scenes of blood. We would fain believe that the Mayas were a humane and gentle people, given to generous impulses and noble deeds ”

“ Near the frontier of Honduras are the remarkable ruins of Quirigua, which rival Copan in importance and have suffered less from the ravages of the climate. The ruins of temples and palaces contain gigantic stone stelae of very fine workmanship, on which are sculptured human and animal figures representing hieroglyphs of the calendar dates.
Honduras.—Copan, one of the most important seats of Mayan civilization, lies close to the borders of Guatemala. The ruins comprise great buildings, temples, pyramids, &c. and contain sculptures of the highest interest. ”

“ Since the date of this expedition the ruins of Copan have undergone a considerable change. In 1896 the Directors of the Peabody Institute of Massachusetts made an arrangement with the Government of Honduras by which they acquired complete control of the ruins for a period of ten years, on certain conditions, of which one is that a certain amount of work shall be done on the spot during each year. Before I returned to Copan in 1894, two years' work had already been done and very valuable results obtained. ”

“ After a long wrangle we prevailed, and, riding through a coppice, forded once more the Copan River, and came out upon a clearing, on one side of which was a hacienda, with a tile roof, and having cocina and other outbuildings, evidently the residence of a rich proprietor. We were greeted by a pack of barking dogs, and all the doorways were filled with women and children, who seemed in no small degree surprised at our appearance. There was not a man in sight; but the women received us kindly, and told us that Don Gregorio would return soon, and would conduct us to the ruins. ”

“ Probably Piedras Negras, Yaxchilan and Palenque represent, together with some undiscovered ruins, a period of about half a century immediately succeeding the founding of Copan and Quirigua. During this period it may be taken for granted that many of the older immigrants had died and the remnant would be old men. It is very doubtful if in half a century the strangers would have penetrated far into Yucatan or reached the plateau of Mexico. ”

“ This is the account which the Spanish historians have given of Copan; and, as applied to the city, the wall of which we saw from the opposite side of the river, it appeared to us most meagre and unsatisfactory; for the massive stone structures before us had little the air of belonging to a city, the intrenchment of which could be broken down by the charge of a single horseman. ”

“ Accepting the reports of explorers as correct, there is evidence in the ruins that Quirigua is older than Copan, and that Copan is older than Palenque. The old monuments in Yucatan represent several distinct epochs in the ancient history of that peninsula. Some of them are kindred to those hidden in the great forest, and remind us more of Palenque than of Uxmal. Among those described, the most modern, or most of these, are in Yucatan; they belong to the time when the kingdom of the Mayas flourished. Many of the others belong to ages previous to the rise of this kingdom ”

“ After noticing several facts tending to show the former existence of Phallic worship in America, the author of the paper proceeds as follows:—"We come now to Central America. Upon a perusal of the first journey of our fellow-members, Messrs. Stephens and Catherwood, into Guatemala and the central territories of the Continent, I was forcibly struck with the monolithic idols of Copan. We knew nothing before, save of Mexican, Palenque, and Uxmal remains; and those of Copan appeared to me to be unlike them all, and probably of an older date. ”

“ That a civilization once flourished in these regions, much higher than any of the Spanish conquerors found upon their arrival, there can be no doubt. By far the most important work that has been done among the remains of the old Maya civilization has been carried on by the Peabody Museum of Harvard College, through a series of expeditions it has sent to the buried city now called Copan, in Spanish Honduras. In a beautiful valley near the borderland of Guatemala, surrounded by steep mountains and watered by a winding river, the hoary city lies wrapped in the sleep of ages. ”

“ The information given traditionally by the Indians living at Copan, is singularly in accordance with the traditions of the priests and caciques in Mexico and Yucatan with respect to the arrival of a stranger who commanded temples and pyramids to be built and then went away and never returned. ”

“ There is no room for such a belief as to Copan and Quirigua. No American Indians could have carved the stelae there, if their general work is to be taken as a standard of the excellence they attained. ”

“ This is just what we do find in the group of ruins on the Usumacinta River of which we have already given a short account. The first of these is the city of Piedras Negras, the nearest large city to Copan. Here the characteristic Orientalism is already on the wane. The carvings of the buildings are not so strikingly characteristic of the East as are those at Copan. These have given place to carvings more in keeping with native ideas. It is no longer the city of the "builders," but a city the building of which is superintended by them. Yet one would expect some Oriental features to creep in ”

“ Copan and Quirigua preceded Palenque and Ococingo as the latter preceded the cities of Yucatan. Ib. 'The sculptures and temples of Central America are the work of the ancestors of the present Indians,' Tylor's Researches, pp. 189, 184. In age the ruins rank as follows: Copan, Utatlan, Uxmal, Mitla, Palenque. ”

“ Our haste to reach Copan obliged us to decline the pressing invitation of our hosts to prolong our stay, but rather to accept with gratitude their offer of mules and an arriero for the journey to Zacapa, about sixty-three miles distant. We set out next day in the fresh coolness of the early morning, and after a charming ride up a wooded mountain-side we descended some two thousand feet to a hot valley, where we halted for lunch. ”

“ It had more the character of a structure than any we had ever seen ascribed to the aborigine of America, and formed part of the wall of Copan, an ancient city, on whose history books throw but little light.
I am entering abruptly upon new ground. Volumes without number have been written to account for the first peopling of America. By some the inhabitants of this continent have been regarded as a separate race, not descended from the same common father with the rest of mankind ”

“ Both Palenque and Yucatan are also alike remarkable for the comparative absence of idols, statues, implements, and pottery; and, except in the matter of statues, Copan may be classed with them. The human faces sculptured or molded in profile in Yucatan and Chiapas exhibit the same flattened forehead, although the type is much more strongly marked at Palenque. The absence of all warlike subjects is remarkable in the stucco and sculptured figures at Palenque as in all the more ancient remains of Central America. ”

“ This is also true at Copan, where, in spite of the fact that there are many gaps in the sequence, enough monuments conforming to the plan remain to prove its former existence. The same may be said also of Naranjo, Seibal, and Piedras Negras, and in fact of almost all the other large cities which afford sufficient material for a chronological arrangement.
This interval of 1,800 days quite obviously was not determined by the recurrence of any natural phenomenon. It has no parallel in nature, but is, on the contrary, a highly artificial unit. ”

“ The hieroglyphics are similar to those of Copan, but the statues are two or three times as tall. No people have ever been found with any tradition whatever concerning these mysterious ruins. Throughout Yucatan and Guatemala are ruins and inscriptions, but the people and their traditions have been swallowed up by oblivion. Northward out of Guatemala in the state of Chiapas in Mexico is Palenque, the sphinx and Mecca of Central America. This is a fertile, productive country, which was deserted and covered with ruins when Cortez landed. ”

“ The arts and customs of these colonists are seen to have been precisely those of the parent [277] city, as well also as their religion. So late, in fact, was the origin of Copan, that we are led to believe it to have been a city built subsequent to the destruction of the Palencian capital. Some of the edifices, and many of the monuments, still remain: the coloring matter used in the drawings upon the obelisks is also as fresh and as bright, apparently, as it was when first put on ”

“ It extends also into Chiapa and Tabasco, and reaches into Honduras. The ruins known as Copan and Palenque are in this forest, not far from its southern edge. Its vast depths have never been much explored. There are ruins in it which none but wandering natives have ever seen, and some, perhaps, which no human foot has approached for ages. It is believed that ruins exist in nearly every part of this vast wilderness. ”

“ The faces of the figures on the stelae are the faces one can see to-day in Cambodia and Siam. The dress, the ornamentation, the turban-shaped headdress (found on no other carvings but these) are all purely ancient Indo-Chinese. Couple all this with the fact that nowhere else have the counterparts of the peculiar monuments of Copan been found in Central America except at Quirigua, which, but a few miles distant, was probably almost synchronous in its building, and it must be admitted that there is much in our suggestion ”

“ The Indians, with their arrows, javelins, and pikes, the heads of which were hardened by fire, maintained their ground. The Spaniards were obliged to retreat. Chaves, who had fought in the thickest of the battle, was alarmed at the difficulties of the enterprise and the danger to the credit of the Spanish arms, but received information that in one place the depth of the ditch which defended Copan was but trifling, and the next day he proceeded to the spot to make an attack there. The Copanes had watched his movements, and manned the intrenchment with their bravest soldiers. ”

“ In view of the criticisms that have been freely expressed by some of the best scholars of American ethnology, as to the generally accepted view of the civilization of the Mexican and Central American races, it is necessary to be on our guard as to the language employed. In the case of Copan, for instance, all the remains known, occur in an irregularly inclosed space of about nine hundred by sixteen hundred feet, while but a portion of such inclosed space is covered by the ruins themselves. ”

“ 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 ”