The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 5, Primitive History

Landa and Herrera relate that the tyranny of the Cocome monarch at last became insupportable, and his subjects with the aid of the Tutul Xius revolted, captured and sacked Mayapan, and put to death the king with all his family, except one son, who chanced to be absent. The king of Uxmal naturally acquired by this overthrow of the Cocome dynasty the supreme power. Ulmil, the Itza king who led the attack against the Cocomes, seems to have received the second place, while the head of the family of Cheles, before high-priest at Mayapan, was given the third rank as king of Izamal. Nearly all the authorities state that Mayapan was destroyed and abandoned at this time; but the dates they give with the fact that this city is mentioned by the Maya record at a much later period, show that it was still inhabited, though deprived of its ancient power.[998 - On this revolution see: —Landa, Relacion, pp. 48-52, 56. This author calls the Chel prince Achchel, and calls him the son-in-law of a venerable priest in Mayapan. Herrera, dec. iv., lib. x., cap. ii., iii.; Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc., pp. 60, 178-9; Lizana, in Landa, Relacion, p. 350; Villagutierre, Hist. Conq. Itza, p. 28; Brasseur, Hist., tom. ii., pp. 32-40, 48-9. This author calls him Ahalin Chel, and their province Cicontun. Ternaux-Compans, in Nouvelles Annales, tom. xcvii., pp. 31, 35; Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno. Soc., Transact., vol. i., pp. 172-3; Prichard's Researches, vol. v., p. 347; Malte-Brun, Yucatan, pp. 20-1; Stephens' Yuc., vol. i., pp. 140-1.]

The Tutul Xius on their accession to the supreme power, strengthened their popularity by a liberal policy toward all classes, and by restoring those who had been enslaved or exiled by the Cocomes to their former positions. They also permitted the Xicalanca troops introduced by Hunac Eel and his predecessors to remain in the country, and gave them the province of Canul, or Ahcanul, between Uxmal and Campeche, where they soon became a powerful nation.[999 - Brasseur, Hist., tom. ii., pp. 41-2, tells us that their province was called Calkini, and the people, from their ruler, took the name of Ahcanuls; and also that they built or enlarged the cities of Sabacché, Labná, and Pokboc. (See vol. iv., pp. 211-8) The only authority for the latter statement is probably the location of these ruins in a general southern direction from Uxmal. Cogolludo says the natives of Conil and Choàca, called Kupules, were the most warlike in Yucatan. Hist. Yuc., p. 143; see also Landa, Relacion, p. 54; Herrera, dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iii.] The son of the Cocome tyrant, who by his absence from Mayapan at the time of the revolt escaped the fate of his family, on his return was permitted to settle with his friends in the province of Zotuta, where he is said to have built Tibulon, and several other towns. Thus was perpetuated with the ancient Cocome family the mortal hatred which that family continued to feel towards their successful rivals.[1000 - Landa, Relacion, pp. 54-5; Herrera, dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iii.; Brasseur, Hist., tom. ii., p. 42; Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc., p. 143; Malte-Brun, Yucatan, p. 20.]

FABLE OF THE DWARF

The reign of the Tutul Xius at Uxmal was doubtless the most glorious period of Maya history, but in addition to what has been said we have respecting it only a single tradition which seems to refer to the last king and the overthrow of the dynasty.[1001 - Registro Yuc., tom. ii., pp. 261-72. The tradition is given in the form of a dialogue between a visitor to the ruins and a native of extraordinary intelligence, who claimed to be well acquainted with the historical traditions of his race. Brasseur, Hist., tom. ii., pp. 578-88, gives what is probably an extended translation of the article referred to. Stephens, Cent. Amer., vol. ii., pp. 423-5, obtained from a native a tradition similar in some respects, so far as it goes, which is translated by Charnay, Ruines Amér., pp. 369-71.] An old sorceress lived at Kabah, rarely leaving her chimney corner. Her grandson, a dwarf, by making a hole in her water-jar, kept her a long time at the well one day, and by removing the hearth-stone found the treasure she had so carefully guarded, a silver tunkul and zoot, native instruments. The music produced by the dwarf was heard in all the cities, and the king at Uxmal trembled, for an old prophecy declared that when such music should be heard the monarch must give up his throne to the musician. A peculiar duel was agreed upon between the two, each to have four baskets of cocoyoles, or palm-nuts, broken on his head. The Dwarf was victorious and took the dead king's place, having the Casa del Adivino built for his palace, and the Casa de la Vieja for his grandmother.[1002 - See vol. iv., pp. 172 , 192-7 .] The old sorceress soon died, and the new king, freed from all restraint, plunged into all manner of wickedness, until his gods, or idols, abandoned him in anger. But after several attempts the Dwarf made a new god of clay which came to life and was worshiped by the people, who by this worship of an evil spirit soon brought upon themselves destruction at the hands of the outraged deities, and Uxmal was abandoned.

For this tradition we have only Brasseur's conjectural, but not improbable, interpretation to the effect that the Tutul Xiu throne at Uxmal, in the earlier part of the thirteenth century perhaps, was usurped by a chief of another family, known in tradition as the Dwarf, or the Sorcerer. It is not unlikely that the usurping king was of the Cocome family and that he succeeded in his attempt by the aid of the priesthood. Whoever may have been at its head, the new dynasty was in its turn overthrown apparently by religious strife, and Uxmal ceased to be a capital or centre of temporal power in Yucatan, although its temples may still have been occupied by the priesthood. From the fact that the Maya record, or Perez document, speaks only of Mayapan after this period, it is not unlikely that the Tutul Xiu power was transferred to that ancient capital, after the downfall of its representative at Uxmal. 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 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. No definite date is given to their migration – or elopement, for a lady was at the bottom of the affair, as some say – except by Villagutierre, who places it in 8 Ahau, or between 1441 and 1461.[1003 - Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc., pp. 507-8; Villagutierre, Hist. Conq. Itza, pp. 29-31, 401-2, 488-91; Waldeck, Voy. Pitt., pp. 24, 36, 41; Stephens' Yucatan, vol. ii., p. 200; Gondra, in Prescott, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. iii., p. 98; Ternaux-Compans, in Nouvelles Annales, tom. xcvii., pp. 51-2; Squier's Cent. Amer., pp. 547, 550-1.]

Also between 1441 and 1461, Mayapan was finally ruined in the contentions of the factions, and abandoned at the death of a monarch called by some authors Mochan Xiu; the Tutul Xius then seem to have retired to Mani, which was their capital down to the Conquest.[1004 - Herrera, dec. iv., lib. x., cap. ii., iii.; Torquemada, tom. iii., p. 132; Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc., pp. 100, 179; Landa, Relacion, pp. 50-2, 62; Villagutierre, Hist. Conq. Itza, p. 28; Stephens' Yucatan, vol. i., pp. 140-1; Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno. Soc., Transact., vol. i., pp. 172-3. Landa makes the date 100 years before the Conquest, that is 1446. Villagutierre and Cogolludo say 1420. Herrera says 70 years before the arrival of the Spaniards, and 500 years after its foundation. Gallatin makes it 1517 or 1536.] For twenty years after the final destruction of Mayapan the tribes are said to have remained at peace and independent of each other; but the remaining century, down to 1561, was one of almost continual inter-tribal strife, of which there is no detailed record, but which, with hurricanes, famine, deadly pestilence, and constantly recurring omens and predictions of final disaster, so desolated and depopulated the country, that the Spaniards found the Mayas but a mere wreck of what they once had been, fighting bravely, but not unitedly, against the invaders.[1005 - Landa, Relacion, pp. 58-64; Herrera, dec. ii., lib. iii., cap. i., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iii.; Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc., pp. 97-100, 185; Gomara, Hist. Ind., fol. 63; Villagutierre, Hist. Conq. Itza, pp. 35-7; Torquemada, tom. iii., pp. 132-3; Alcedo, Dicc., tom. iii., p. 473; Remesal, Hist. Chyapa, pp. 245-6.]

END OF THE FIFTH VOLUME

notes

1

He affirms (in a work entitled Christian Topography) that, according to the true orthodox system of geography, the earth is a quadrangular plane, extending four hundred days' journey east and west, and exactly half as much north and south; that it is inclosed by mountains, on which the sky rests; that one on the north side, huger than the others, by intercepting the rays of the sun, produces night; and that the plane of the earth is not set exactly horizontally, but with a little inclination from the north: hence the Euphrates, Tigris, and other rivers, running southward, are rapid; but the Nile, having to run up-hill, has necessarily a very slow current.' Draper's Conflict between Religion and Science, p. 65.

2

In answer to the question: 'What was God doing before he made the heaven and the earth? for, if at any particular moment he began to employ himself, that means time, not eternity. In eternity nothing happens – the whole is present.' St Augustine caustically remarks: 'I will not answer this question by saying that he was preparing hell for pryers into his mysteries.'

3

The teachings of the Church were beyond controversy, the decisions of the Church were final; and not only in religion but in legislation and in science 'the pervading principle was a blind unhesitating credulity.' See Buckle's Civilization, vol. i., p. 307. The Bishop of Darien once quoted Plato in the presence of Las Casas. "Plato," Las Casas replied, "was a Gentile, and is now burning in hell, and we are only to make use of his doctrine as far as it is consistent with our holy Faith and Christian customs." Helps' Life of Las Casas, p. 120.

4

As an example of the intolerance displayed by these early writers, and of the bitterness with which they attacked those few thinkers who dared to theorize without letting theological dogmas stand in their way, I translate the following passage from García, who is one of the most comprehensive writers upon the origin of the Americans: 'We would like not even to remember the unworthy opinions of certain veritable blasphemers, more barbarous than the Indians, which do not even deserve the name of opinions, but rather of follies: namely, that, perhaps, the first Indians might have been generated from the earth, or from its putrefaction, aided by the sun's heat, as (Avicena allowing this production to be easy in men) Andres Cisalpino attempted to make credible, giving them less perfection than Empedocles, who said that men had been born like the wild amaranth, if we believe Marcus Varron… Of the formation of man, though of straw and mud, the people of Yucatan, had light; which nonsense is not inferior to the attempts of those who made men by means of chemistry, or magic (described by Solorcano) giving it to be understood that there may be others besides the descendants of Adam, contrary to the teachings of scripture: for which reason Taurelo feels indignant against Cisalpino, whose attempt would be reprehensible even as a paradox. Not less scandalous was the error of the ignorant Paracelso, according to Reusnero and Kirchero, who left to posterity an account of the creation of two Adams, one in Asia, and another in the West Indies; an inexcusable folly in one who had (though corruptly) information of the Catholic doctrine. Not less erroneous is the opinion of Isaac de La Peyrere, who placed people on the earth before Adam was created, from whom, he said, descended the heathen; from Adam, the Hebrews; which folly was punished with eternal contempt by Felipe Priorio, Juan Bautista Morino, Juan Hilperto, and others, Danhavero giving it the finishing stroke by an epitaph, as Dicterico relates: although some of the parties named state that La Peyrere became repentant and acknowledged his error, and did penance, which the Orientals, from whom he took that absurdity, have not done. These, and others of the same nature, may not be held as opinions, but as evidences of blindness published by men of doubtful faith, wise, in their own esteem, and deceivers of the world, who, with lies and fraud, oppose the divine word, as St Clemens Alexandrinus says, closing their ears to truth, and blindfolding themselves with their vices, for whom contempt is the best reward.' Orígen de los Ind., p. 248. García spent nine years in Peru, devoting himself to the study of three points: the history of the natives before the arrival of the Spaniards, the origin of the natives, and the question as to whether the apostles preached the gospel in America. On his return to Spain, he concluded to write only upon the second topic, leaving the others for a future time.

5

Descent of Man, vol. ii., p. 368.

6

The value of proof by analogy has been questioned by many eminent authors. Humboldt writes: 'On n'est pas en droit de supposer des communications partout où l'on trouve, chez des peuples à demi barbares, le culte du soleil, ou l'usage de sacrifier des victimes humaines.' Vues, tom. i., p. 257. 'The instances of customs, merely arbitrary, common to the inhabitants of both hemispheres, are, indeed, so few and so equivocal, that no theory concerning the population of the New World ought to be founded upon them.' As regards religious rites, 'the human mind, even where its operations appear most wild and capricious, holds a course so regular, that in every age and country the dominion of particular passions will be attended with similar effects.' Robertson's Hist. Amer., vol. i., p. 269. Warden remarks that nations known to be distinct, to have had no intercourse, breed similar customs – these, therefore, grow from physical and moral causes. Recherches, p. 205. 'In attempting to trace relations between them and the rest of mankind, we cannot expect to discover proofs of their derivation from any particular tribe or nation of the Old Continent.' Prichard's Nat. Hist. Man, vol. ii., p. 494. 'To tell an inquirer who wishes to deduce one population from another that certain distant tribes agree with the one under discussion in certain points of resemblance, is as irrelevant as to tell a lawyer in search of the next of kin to a client deceased, that though you know of no relations, you can find a man who is the very picture of him in person – a fact good enough in itself, but not to the purpose.' Latham's Man and his Migrations, pp. 74-5.

7

Certainly many of the writers must have been either fools or demented, if we judge them by their work and arguments.

8

Garcia, Origen de los Ind., pp. 7-12.

9

When De Gama established the globular form of the earth by his voyage round the Cape of Good Hope, in 1497-8, 'the political consequences that at once ensued placed the Papal Government in a position of great embarrassment. Its traditions and policy forbade it to admit any other than the flat figure of the earth, as revealed in the Scriptures.' In 1520 Magellan discovered the strait which now bears his name, and 'henceforth the theological doctrine of the flatness of the earth was irretrievably overthrown.' Draper's Conflict, pp. 163-5. St Augustin affirmed that the world beyond the tropic of cancer was uninhabited. 'Ea vero veterum sententia, perspicua atque inuicta, vt ipsis videbatur, ratione nitebatur. Nam vt quæque regio ad meridiem propius accedit, ita solis ardoribus magis expositam animaduerterant, idque adeo verum est, vt in eadem Italiæ prouincia Apuliam Liguria, & in nostra Hispania Bæticam Cantabria vsque adeo feruentiorem nota re liceat, vt per gradus vixdum octo grande frigoris & æstus discrimen sit.' Acosta, De Natura Novi Orbis, fol. 27. 'Lactantius Firmianus, and St. Austin, who strangely jear'd at as ridiculous, and not thinking fit for a Serious Answer the Foolish Opinion of Antipodes, or another Habitable World beyond the Equator: At which, Lactantius Drolling, says, what, Forsooth, here is a fine Opinion broach'd indeed; an Antipodes! heigh-day! People whose Feet tread with ours, and walk Foot to Foot with us; their Heads downwards, and yet drop not into the Sky! There, yes, very likely, the Trees loaden with Fruit grow downwards, and it Rains, Hails, and Snows upwards; the Roofs and Spires of Cities, tops of Mountains, point at the Sky beneath them, and the Rivers revers'd topsi-turvy, ready to flow into the Air out of their Channels.' Ogilby's America, pp. 6-7. The ancients believed a large portion of the globe to be uninhabitable by reason of excessive heat, which must have greatly deterred discovery.

10

Touching the question whether the Americans and the people of the old world are of common origin, see: Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., pp. 1-31; Tylor's Anahuac, p. 104; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. iv., pp. 14-24; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., pp. 1-31; Ramirez, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. iv., p. 54; M'Culloh's Researches on Amer., pp. 175-8; Mayer's Mex. as it Was, p. 260; Domenech's Deserts, vol. i., pp. 66-80; Prescott's Mex., vol. iii., p. 389; Bradford's Amer. Antiq., pp. 237-49, 351, 354, 420-35; Charlevoix, quoted in Carver's Trav., pp. 197-8; Fontaine's How the World was Peopled, p. 17, et seq.; Crowe's Cent. Amer., p. 61; Williams' Enquiry into Tradition; Chevalier, Mexique, p. 134; Wilson's Pre-Hist. Man, pp. 611-14, 485-6; Carli, Cartas, pt i., p. 16; Chamisso, in Kotzebue's Voyage, vol. ii., pp. 405-6; Prichard's Researches, vol. v., pp. 541-6; Humboldt, Vues, tom. i., pp. 22, 31. Innumerable other speculations have been made on this point, but in most cases by men who were but poorly qualified to deal with a subject requiring not only learning, but a determination to investigate fairly and without bias. Adair's reasoning in this connection will serve to illustrate: 'God employed six days, in creating the heavens, this earth, and the innumerable species of creatures, wherewith it is so amply furnished. The works of a being, infinitely perfect, must entirely answer the design of them: hence there could be no necessity for a second creation; or God's creating many pairs of the human race differing from each other, and fitted for different climates; because, that implies imperfection, in the grand scheme, or a want of power, in the execution of it – Had there been a prior, or later formation of any new class of creatures, they must materially differ from those of the six days work; for it is inconsistent with divine wisdom to make a vain, or unnecessary repetition of the same act. But the American Indians neither vary from the rest of mankind, in their internal construction, nor external appearance, except in colour; which, as hath been shewn, is either entirely accidental, or artificial. As the Mosaic account declares a completion of the manifestation of God's infinite wisdom and power in creation, within that space of time; it follows, that the Indians have lineally descended from Adam, the first, and the great parent of all the human species.' Amer. Ind., pp. 11-12. To the works of those modern scientists, such as Lyell, Darwin, and others, who have treated of the unity of the human species at large, I need not refer the reader here. An excellent résumé of the subject will, however, be found in Foster's Pre-Hist. Races, pp. 353-67.

11

'We find on the earliest Egyptian monuments,' says Sir John Lubbock, 'some of which are certainly as ancient as 2400 B.C., two great distinct types, the Arab on the east and west of Egypt, the Negro on the south. These distinct types still predominate in Egypt and the neighbouring countries. Thus, then, says Mr. Poole, in this immense interval we do not find "the least change in the Negro or the Arab; and even the type which seems to be intermediate between them is virtually as unaltered. Those who consider that length of time can change a type of man, will do well to consider the fact that three thousand years give no ratio on which a calculation could be founded."' Crawfurd, also says: the millions '"of African Negroes that have during three centuries been transported to the New World and its islands, are the same in colour as the present inhabitants of the parent country of their forefathers. The Creole Spaniards, who have for at least as long a time been settled in tropical America, are as fair as the people of Arragon and Andalusia, with the same variety of colour in the hair and eye as their progenitors. The pure Dutch Creole colonists of the Cape of Good Hope, after dwelling two centuries among black Caffres, and yellow Hottentots, do not differ in colour from the people of Holland."' Pre-Hist. Times, pp. 587-8. We find 'upon Egyptian monuments, mostly of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries before the Christian Era, representations of individuals of numerous nations, African, Asiatic, and European, differing in physical characteristics as widely as any equal number of nations of the present age that could be grouped together; among these being negroes of the true Nigritian stamp, depicted with a fidelity as to color and features, hardly to be surpassed by a modern artist. That such diversities had been produced by natural means in the interval between that remote age and the time of Noah, probably no one versed in the science of anatomy and physiology will consider credible.' Foster's Pre-Hist. Races, p. 357.

12

Noticias Americanas, pp. 391-5, 405-7. On pages 286-304, he has an argument, backed by geological evidences, to show that America is the oldest continent.

13

'Were we to admit,' say some ethnologists, 'a unity of origin of such strongly-marked varieties as the Negro and European, differing as they do in colour and bodily constitution, each fitted for distinct climates, and exhibiting some marked peculiarities in their osteological, and even in some details of cranial and cerebral conformation, as well as in their average intellectual endowments, – if, in spite of the fact that all these attributes have been faithfully handed down unaltered for hundreds of generations, we are to believe that, in the course of time, they have all diverged from one common stock, how shall we resist the argument of the transmutationist, who contends that all closely allied species of animals and plants have in like manner sprung from a common parentage?' Lyell's Antiq. of Man, pp. 433-4.

14

Lescarbot, Hist. Nouv. France, lib. i., cap. iii.

15

Hist. Conq. Itza, pp. 26-8.

16

Pamphleteer, 1815. Thompson calculates the spreading of Noah's children up to the time of Peleg, when the Bible declares the earth to have been divided. He also shows that this division happened earlier than is generally supposed.

17

Orrio, Solucion, p. 41, et seq. Torquemada also believes Ham to have been the father of the race. Monarq. Ind., tom. i., pp. 21-30.

18

Nieuwe Weereld, p. 37.

19

L'Estrange, Americans no Jewes.

20

Deserts, vol. i., p. 26. 'The Peruvian language,' writes Ulloa, 'is something like the Hebrew, and Noah's tongue was doubtless Hebrew.' Noticias Americanas, p. 384.

21

Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. iv., p. 17.