Mayapán

“ All authorities, native as well as Spanish, agree that the destruction of Mayapan marked the end of strongly centralized government in Yucatan. Indeed there can be but little doubt that this event also sounded the death knell of Maya civilization. As one of the native chronicles tersely puts it, "The chiefs of the country lost their power." With the destruction of Mayapan the country split into a number of warring factions, each bent on the downfall of the others. ”

“ We will touch only upon some of the most important.
GREAT MOUND AT MAYAPAN.
"About thirty miles from Merida are the ruins of Mayapan, which is said to have been the ancient capital of the country. They are spread over an extensive plain, and though covering a considerable area, are less interesting than the ruins of Uxmal. The ground is covered with a dense growth of trees and plants, and every explorer who devotes any attention to Mayapan is obliged to incur quite an outlay for labor in cutting paths and clearing up the ground. ”

“ No one can form an exact idea of the monuments of Mayapan by reading mere descriptions. It is necessary to either examine the buildings themselves (and this is not quite devoid of danger, since the most interesting are [100] situated in territories forbidden to white men, and occupied by the hostile Indians of Chan-Santa-Cruz, who since 1849 wage war to the knife on the inhabitants of Yucatan, and have devastated the greatest part of that State) , or to study my magnificent collection of photographs where they are most faithfully portrayed ”

“ The names of both Pan and Maya enter extensively into the Maya vocabulary, Maia being the same as Maya, the principal name of the peninsula; and pan, added to Maya, makes the name of the ancient capital Mayapan. In the Nahua language pan, or pani, signifies "equality to that which is above," and Pentecatl was the progenitor of all beings. ("North Americans of Antiquity," p. 467.)
The ancient Mexicans believed that the sun-god would destroy the world in the last night of the fifty-second year, and that he would never come back. ”

“ After the destruction of Chakanputun the horizon of Maya activity expanded. Some of the fugitives from Chakanputun reoccupied Chichen Itza while others established themselves at a new site called Mayapan. About this time also the city of Uxmal seems to have been founded. In the year 1000 these three cities—Chichen Itza, Uxmal, and Mayapan—formed a confederacy, [6] in which each was to share equally in the government of the country. Under the peaceful conditions which followed the formation of this confederacy for the next 200 years the arts blossomed forth anew. ”

“ V. Renaissance or League Period (1000-1200 A.D.) . In the Golden Age or Old Empire the civilization of the Maya race had centered about Lake Peten, in the extreme south of the peninsula of Yucatan. In the time of the New Empire the old cities in the south were gradually forgotten and new ones, quite as remarkable, sprang up in the northern portion of the peninsula. Three cities probably shared the sovereign power, forming, by their alliance, the celebrated League of Mayapan. These cities were Uxmal, ruled by the Xiu family, Mayapan, possibly ruled by the Cocom [5] family, and Chichen Itza. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ Nevertheless, part of the later Maya records may be genuine—for instance, when they relate the war about three centuries before the Spanish conquest, when the king of Chichen-Itza destroyed the great city of Mayapan. Though the Central American native kings have too little interest for traditions of them to be dwelt on here, they bring into view one important historical point—that the ruined cities of this region are not monuments of a forgotten past, but that at least some of them belong to history, having been inhabited up to the conquest, apparently by the very nations who built them. ”

“ Mayapan became the centre of Nahuatl worship. The calendar the invaders brought with them must have been the old honored division of the years into 365 days, with 20 months, and their cyclical period of not 20 but 52 years, and it is also known that about the year 1450, the political union of the Mayas was broken into several smaller divisions, some of which presumably would have held to the ancient cycle of 20 years; others may have adopted the Nahuatl cycle of 52 years, and possibly, may have introduced the cycle of 24 years spoken of by Señor Perez. ”

“ Near the end of the thirteenth century Mayapan was conquered by a foreign army of Uitzes, or mountaineers, the reference being perhaps to a raid of one of the [634] earlier Quiché emperors from Utatlan. For a century and a half, a period of contention between rival dynasties and tribes, we have, besides a few reported predictions of coming disaster, only one definite event, the flight of a band of Itzas under Canek, and their settlement on the islands in Lake Peten, where they were found, a most flourishing community, by the Spaniards. ”

“ Mayan chronology fixes the year 258 of the Christian era as the date when the Tutul-Xius, a princely family from Tulha, left Guatemala and appeared in Yucatan. They conciliated the good will of the king of Mayapan and rendered themselves vassals of the crown of Maya. The Tutul-Xius founded Mani and also Tihoo, afterwards the modern city of Mérida. The divinity most worshipped at Tihoo was Baklum-Chaam, the Priapus of the Mayas, and the great temple erected as a sanctuary to this god was but little inferior to the temple of Izamal. ”

“ As may be supposed, we find the various city-sites founded by divine beings who play a more or less important part in the Maya pantheon. Kukulcan, for example, is the first king of Mayapan, whilst Itzamna figures as the founder of the state of Itzamal. The gods were the spiritual leaders of these bands of Maya, just as Jehovah was the spiritual leader and guide of the Israelites in the desert. One is therefore not surprised to find in the Popol Vuh, the saga of the Kiche-Maya of Guatemala, that the god Tohil (The Rumbler) guided them to the site of the first Kiche city. ”

“ Then were the katuns eleventh ahau, ninth ahau, sixth ahau; in the eighth ahau the governor of Chichen Itza was driven out on account of his plotting against Hunac Eel; and this happened to Chac Xib Chac of Chichen Itza on account of his plotting against Hunac Eel the governor of Mayapan, the fortress. Four score years and ten years, and it was the tenth year of the eighth ahau that it was depopulated by Ah Zinteyut Chan, with Tzuntecum, and Taxcal, and Pantemit, Xuchueuet and Ytzcuat and Kakaltecat: these were the names of the seven men of Mayapan 90. ”

“ The titles include that of Ahpop, afterwards held by supreme chiefs, and the insignia consist of canopy, throne, musical instruments, pigments, perfumes, animal head-dresses, heron-plumes and shell and other ornaments, many of which appear in the livery worn by the figures sculptured on the early Maya monuments. The power of the rulers grew, centres of authority, similar to Mayapan, but probably on a smaller scale, were formed, and tribute of gems, gold, feathers and honey was imposed upon the conquered tribes. ”

“ The teeth, like those of Chac-Mool, are filed like a saw. This was the custom among persons of high rank in Mayapan, as it is even to-day with some of the African tribes, whilst the sandals are exact representations of those found on the feet of the Guanches, the early inhabitants of the Canary Islands, whose mummies are yet occasionally met with in the caves of Teneriffe and the other isles of the group. These relics, I am certain, are the last of high art to be found on the Island of Mugeres. The sea is fast eating the base of the promontory where stands the shrine. ”

“ The Maya arch in the foundations of the Franciscan convent at Mérida, built in 1547, with the historical statement that Mérida was built on the mounds of ancient Tihoo. 2d. The traditional destruction of Mayapan in 1420. 3d. The custom of the Spaniards to locate their towns near those of the natives, together with the almost uniform location of the ruins, near the modern towns. 4th. The skeletons and skulls dug up at Ticul were pronounced by Dr Morton to belong to the universal American type. ”

“ Commentary of Señor Perez to Sections 10 and 11.—In the 6th, 4th, 2d and 11th Ahaues the fortified land of Mayapan is attacked by the men of Itza and their king Ulmil, for it had walls, and the people 89were governed in a community. The place was destroyed by foreigners from the Highlands in the 11th Ahau, and Tancaj of Mayapan was also conquered. The correction of the reckoning gives us the 5th, 3d, 1st, 12th and 10th Ahau. ”

“ Sun-god of the Maya of Yucatan, tutelar of the north, 170
Kinich-Kakmo (Sun-bird) . I. Same as Kanich-ahau, which see. II. The pyramid of, ruin at Itzamal, 187
Klaproth, H. J. von. And the Fu Sang fallacy, 3
Knuc (Palace of Owls) . Ruin at Aké, 186
Kuicatecs. Aboriginal Mexican race, 24; a medium through which Maya civilisation filtered to the north, 147
Kukulcan. Maya form of Quetzalcoatl, 83, 167; regarded as King of Mayapan, 152
Kumsnöotl. God of the Salish Indians, 83
L
Lamacazton (Little Priests) . Lowest order of the Aztec priesthood, 116
Landa, Bishop. ”

“ The ruins of Yucatan, those of the state of Chiapas and of the Island of Cozumel, are very splendid remains, and they are all of them situated in a region where the Maya language is still spoken, substantially as at the time of the Spanish discovery.9-*
Don Manuel Orosco y Berra, says of the Indian inhabitants, “their revengeful and tenacious character makes of the Mayas an exceptional people. In the other parts of Mexico the conquerors have imposed their language upon the conquered, and obliged them gradually to forget their native language. ”

“ The chief objection to this theory of the origin and development of the Maya culture, as far as I can see, is that in Guatemala and Honduras no certain traces of a proto-Maya culture have as yet been discovered, but that the civilization springs, as it were, full-blown from the earth. The answer would be that the finest ruins have focussed all attention up to the present, and that earlier manifestations of the culture have not been sought, while the difficulties afforded by environment and climate place serious obstacles in the way of systematic excavation. ”

“ Without attaching very great importance to the last argument, I am inclined to believe that the most plausible conjecture respecting the origin of the Mound-Builders, is that which makes them a colony of the ancient Mayas, who settled in the north during the continuance of the great Maya empire of Xibalba in Central America, several centuries before Christ. We have seen that the ancient Mayas, under the name of Quinames, probably occupied eastern Mexico at that epoch, and in later times we find the Huastecs in southern Tamaulipas speaking a Maya dialect. ”

“ The origin of the prevalence of that number SEVEN amongst all the nations of earth, even the most remote from each other, has never been satisfactorily explained, each separate people giving it a different interpretation, according to their belief and to the tenets of their religious creeds. As far as the Mayas are concerned, I think to have found that it originated with the seven members of Can’s family, who were the founders of the principal cities of Mayab, and to each of whom was dedicated a mound in Uxmal and a turret in their palace. ”

“ Every visitor to Guatemala makes the trip to Quiriguá, not to see the plantation, but to observe the famous Maya ruins hidden in the neighboring jungles.
Like most famous sights which every one travels far to see, they prove extremely disappointing. Their only beauty is that one has to ride horseback through a swamp to reach them, and that they are so completely surrounded with tropical forest, which forms an ideal setting. ”

“ No white man has ever penetrated their zealously guarded stronghold that lays between Guatemala, Tabasco, Chiapas and Yucatan, the river Uzumasinta watering part of their territory.
The Maya language seems to be one of the oldest tongues spoken by man, since it contains words and expressions of all, or nearly all, the known polished languages on earth. The name Maya, with the same signification everywhere it is met, is to be found scattered over the different countries of what we term the Old World, as in Central America. ”