# Mexican Archæology/Chapter 14

Table of Contents
CHAPTER XIV—CONCLUSIONS
IT is obvious that the two forms of culture described in the foregoing chapters, Mexican and Maya, were at least very closely related the one to the other; but it is equally obvious that the connection was closer between the Maya and the pre-Aztec inhabitants of the Mexican valley than between the former and the Aztec. Religion in both areas ran on similar lines, and the pantheons included certain more or less otiose high gods, and a rain and thunder agricultural-deity whose worship was of primary importance. The importance of blood-offerings, combined with the late introduction of human sacrifice, the existence of a ritual and solar calendar, both similar in nature, and the habit of constructing buildings of ceremonial importance on lofty pyramidal mounds or terraces are features common to both. Besides this, as far as the later Maya are concerned, we find traditions of a historical nature which make mention of places, such as Tulan and the Seven Caves, which occur in Mexican legends, and at Chichen Itza, where at least one section of the population traced their origin to "Tulan," we have ruins corresponding exactly in style to those found at the pre-Aztec site Tulan in the Mexican valley. Other similarities relating to material culture are equally numerous, as well as similarities in art and symbolism. Many of these have already received attention, but, as a further illustration of the latter, mention may be made of a small detail which is of comparatively frequent appearance on sculptures throughout the Mexican and Mayan area. This consists of a trapezoidal ​figure interlaced with a triangle or another trapezium, and occurs usually as a head-ornament. A series of its manifestations is illustrated in Fig. 86. Here the earlier monuments where it appears are represented by Copan (a), Menché (c), Piedras Negras (b) (for Naranjo see Pl. XXIII; p. 302); in Yucatan it occurs at Uxmal (g); on the fringe of the Mexican valley, at Tehuacan (d) and Xochicalco (e); in the valley itself, at Tenango (k), Xico (m), and, to the north, at Tulan (h); and in the Huaxtec country, at Teayo (f). The sign moreover bears a close analogy to that by which the Aztec expressed the period of a year (l), and the triangular portion of it is exactly similar to a conventional sun-ray. It is perhaps worth noting that at Copan, Uxmal and Teayo it 1s associated with the head of the rain-god. The significance of this symbol is obscure, but its presence over so large an area can hardly be due to coincidence.
| a. | Copan, stela | g. | Uxmal. |
| b. | Piedras Negras. | h. | Tulan. |
| c. | Menché. | k. | Tenango. |
| d. | Tehuacan. | l. | The Mexican year-sign. |
| e. | Xochicalco. (Zouche MS.) | | |
| f. | Teayo. | m. | Island of Xico. |
MAYA The "House of the Governor," Uxmal, Yucatan
From this it follows that the inhabitants of the Mexican valley received the calendar from the Maya, but, before accepting such a proposition, it will be as well to examine the calendar itself for contributory evidence. We have seen that the Zapotec calendar forms a most ​important link between the day-signs of the Mexican and Maya respectively, and the suggestion has been made by Seler that the Maya obtained these day-signs from the west via Oaxaca, calling attention to the comparatively simple nature of the Zapotec signs, which agree in this respect with those of Mexico. The Mexican valley as the place of origin of the day-signs may be, I think, disregarded, if only for the reason that certain of the animals serving as such do not occur in that region, and the choice therefore would lie between Oaxaca on the one hand and the central Mayan region on the other. Now the difference in form between the Mexican and Zapotec signs can be explained in many cases by the fact that the Zapotec term is equivocal. That being so, it seems to me obvious that the Zapotec must have borrowed from the Maya and not vice versa. My argument is as follows: The Zapotec signs are simple and obvious; those of the Maya are often highly conventionalized. It would be remarkable, therefore, that the Maya should have translated the Zapotec name in the wrong sense, while it would be perfectly natural for the Zapotec to have made a mistake and to have simplified the sign in accordance with their idea of the meaning of the term. If we add to this the fact that the only two initial dates discovered in the western Maya area are, together with the Chichen date, the latest known, the conclusion seems to me inevitable that early Maya culture, enumeration, and calendar spread together from Guatemala, through Oaxaca to the Tlalhuica country (Xochicalco) and the Mexican valley, becoming attenuated in the process. The question of the development of the calendar itself is interesting. The whole system seems to show traces of several modifications and to exemplify the efforts of a primitive people to adapt their chronology to solar time. The presence of five nemontemi or uayeb days over and above the period of 360 bears the stamp of an afterthought, while the 360-day period, of ​eighteen months, each of which comprises a full round of the day-signs, is complete in itself and suggests that this was the original "year." The number of the day-signs, viz. twenty, is obviously based upon the vigesimal system of counting current among these peoples, but the selection of the thirteen numerals which accompany them has not yet been satisfactorily explained. As remarked before, it is obvious that an agricultural population would soon observe that the seasons gradually became out of harmony with the year, and they must have cast about to find some check by which the discrepancy could be corrected. This check they found in the synodical revolutions of the planet Venus. We know that the Aztec and Maya both calculated the reappearance of this planet (as seen in the codex Borgia and analogous MSS., and the Dresden codex), and the glyph which has been identified as that of the morning star appears upon the early monuments. It is worth noting that the early Maya method of calculating time, by means of a long count of days rather than by years, rendered the discrepancy of comparatively small account. The lack of harmony between the year and true solar time would, it is true, affect the seasonal feasts, but these could be transferred from month to month as occasion demanded. As said before, I believe the greater proportion of the inscriptions embody calculations which had as their object the due allocation of the feasts to the proper seasons. I have already made the suggestion that the previous "suns" marking world periods may typify periodical rearrangements of the calendar to square with solar time, and it is to be noted that both in the Aztec and in the Quiché account the tribes await the rising of the sun while observing the morning star. 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. The translation runs as follows: "Three of our tribes had seen the dawn appear, the Zotzil, the Kakchiquel and the Tukuchi. As for the Akahal they were but a little distance from the place when the dawn appeared to the three nations. At the spot called Tohohil the Quiché saw their dawn, and those of Rabinal saw it at Zamaneb; and the Tzutuhil sought to see their dawn at Tzala, but their labours had not been completed by this tribe when the sun arose. They had not yet finished drawing their lines in Tzala when it arose in the sky, precisely above the place Geletat." The last sentence at least suggests that some process analogous to observation of the solstice is implied. I think that the passages relative to the appearance of the "dawn" in the various tribal legends are worth careful study, especially in view of the fact that no entirely satisfactory translations of the annals of Xahila and the Popol Vuh exist. As for the books of Chilan Balam, no mention of a "dawn"? is made, but it may be argued that the statement "Pop was first counted in order" has the same essential meaning. ​The reason for the decline of the early Maya civilization is rather obscure. A glance at the scheme of dating will show how closely the last dates at each of the ruined sites correspond one with another. It does not of course follow that the cessation of initial dates implies the abandonment of the "cities," for they may have been centres of religious life for years later; indeed Cichen was visited as a sacred place until Spanish times, and the Lacandons of to-day still make offerings in the deserted temples. But the abrupt termination of the dating system at least implies some important change, and it may be that about the beginning of the tenth cycle the "long count" was abandoned in favour of the "katun count" as exemplified in the books of Chilan Balam. In any case none of the buildings show evident signs of forcible destruction, and no traces of a military invasion of Maya territory appear. The instability of Central American political organizations is very marked; there was a strong tendency for a state, composed originally of independent self-contained pueblos, to split up into smaller elements under the slightest pressure applied from within or without. The Maya, to judge from the monuments, had enjoyed centuries of peace, and only in the north-east and north do we find reliefs which give any hint of war. But these may be significant, and no doubt the decline of the old culture was due to pressure exercised by their northern neighbours, a pressure which had its origin in the steady southerly drift of tribes from regions considerably further north, and which led to the
​occupation of the Mexican valley by the Nahua-speaking Toltec.
A word may now be said concerning the "Toltec" culture of the Mexican valley. The fact that this is related to the early culture of the Maya is, as said before, obvious. Many points of similarity exist in religious symbolism, art (such as the interlaced trapezoidal sign described above), glyphs surrounded by a cartouche, and the bar-form of the numeral five. If my dating of the monuments be accepted provisionally, and also the suggestion that the calendar had its origin with the Maya, then it follows necessarily that the Toltec culture was due at least to Maya inspiration. The myth of the arrival of the god Quetzalcoatl, inventor of the calendar, symbolizes the spread of Maya culture northwards. 'There are so many instances of the god being taken as the representative of his people, and I have already shown how the high mysterious creator-god Kukulkan seems to have lost dignity when he became personified as a tribal leader. The myth of the immigrant Nahua tribes awaiting the "dawn for the administration of society" at Teotihuacan then represents their first contact with the culture derived from the Maya. So far the matter is simple, but a difficulty now arises. The last Maya date in the long count, at Chacula on the Chiapas border, falls about the middle of the fourth century a.d. The Annals of Quauhtitlan give the foundation of the Toltec state as 752 a.d. The migration-myth last mentioned states that the Toltec were with the other Nahua immigrants at Teotihuacan when the "dawn" appeared. These Toltec are definitely stated to have been Nahua-speakers, while the name of the first Toltec ruler, Mixcoamazatzin, is distinctly Nahua. Finally, the list of Toltec rulers, seven only in number, is far too short to account for the thick stratum of Toltec remains at Azcapotzalco. The only explanation possible surely must be the following: The ​early Maya culture had slowly crept up into the Mexican valley, through western Chiapas, Oaxaca and Teotitlan, becoming somewhat attenuated in the process. There it persisted for some centuries without striking development, and perhaps gradually deteriorating. Then began the southerly drift of the Nahua tribes, of whom the first to arrive, the Toltec, imposed themselves as a ruling caste upon the agricultural population, adopting their mode of life and culture, and developing the latter in accordance with their own particular genius, but imposing their own language upon the tribes whom they welded into an empire. But the pressure from the north continued, wave after wave of "Chichimec" migration broke upon the valley. The Toltec power fell, and the incursion of the wilder tribes gave rise to migrations, such as those of the Olmec, Quiché and Kakchiquel, which followed for the most part an easterly route, at any rate in their initial stages. In the valley, the history of the Toltec was reflected in the short-lived attempts of the Chichimec and Tepanec to establish empires, but was practically repeated by the Aztec, who also developed, and to some extent travestied, the remnants of the earlier culture of their predecessors. The fall of Tulan had an important effect upon Yucatan. At this period the League of Mayapan was in full flower, but within a century we hear of the introduction of "Mexican" mercenaries, and of political troubles at Chichen Itza, and at this very site we find a group of buildings in unmistakable Toltec style, with decoration in which a personified Kukulkan appears. This Toltec influence spread further still, to British Honduras, where it is exemplified in the frescoes of Santa Rita, and in certain pottery vases (Pl. IX, 10; p. 82) with relief ornament in the shape of a descending Quetzalcoatl-Kukulkan figure, similar to the Chichen Itza relief shown in Fig. 87. In the Mixtec country, too, traces of immigration occur in ​legends, almost certainly due to the same causes, and the Toltec influence is found in the frescoes at Mitla, which resemble those at Santa Rita, though, be it noted, they are by no means necessarily contemporary with the buildings on which they occur. Thus the Maya culture completed its circle, a branch passing, as I have indicated, from Guatemala to the Mexican valley, and then through Vera Cruz and Tabasco to Yucatan, where it came into contact with a more legitimate offshoot of the early Maya stock. In the west the wave of Toltec influence appears to have reached as far south as Santa Lucia Cozumalhuapa, and the presence of tlaxtli-courts in the Chacula and Alta Vera Paz regions are probably to be attributed to the same agency; for it will be remembered that a body of Toltec, after the fall of their city, are reported to have migrated to Soconusco (p. 11).
The position of the Huaxtec now arises. In them we have a Maya-speaking people, practising certain definitely Maya customs such as tooth- filing and -inlay, and inhumation as opposed to cremation, yet apparently without a script. As far as their art is concerned, the sculptures of the Panuco valley bear a closer ​resemblance to those of the Maya, especially to certain stelæ at Piedras Negras, than the Aztec. The isolation of this definitely Maya branch would seem to imply that the Maya in the earliest days of all must have spread from Guatemala up the east coast of Mexico as far as Tampico, penetrating into Chiapas, and possibly Oaxaca, and colonizing the Mexican valley, where they found a primitive people akin to the earliest population of Michoacan. In times subsequent to what I may call this proto-Maya movement there took place in the southern fertile region a great cultural development, culminating in the organization of a calendar, the invention of a script, and the construction of the ruined "cities." The culture developed here spread, as I have indicated on p. 361, but slowly, since the land was by no means overpopulated, and life was easy. For some reason it took a westerly course, via Oaxaca, and never reached the Huaxtec, who remained confined to the coast by the eastern cordillera and held little communication with their western neighbours. In later times, at any rate, they were cut off from the southern Maya by the stream of migration which passed from the valley of Mexico and its neighbourhood eastward, and they may well have been isolated at an earlier period by some similar movement in this direction. At any rate an early tendency towards migration on these lines is seen in the legends of the Tutal Xiu, who left Nonoualin the second century, probably under pressure exercised by tribes to the west.
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. Further, the art itself affords many indications that it is based upon wood-carving, and the conditions are not favourable to the survival of any remains save those constructed in stone.
The position which must be assigned to the Zapotec raises a question of considerable interest. Their indebtedness to Maya culture is obvious from the consideration of a large proportion of their architectural remains and their art, but certain peculiar features make their appearance. In the first place, no migration legends are recorded, while the fact that certain localities were held to be the entrance to the underworld rather emphasizes the "indigenous" nature of the population. Again, though cremation makes its appearance among the later Maya, the Zapotec, for religious reasons, held out against it, practising, in the main, secondary burial. Finally, certain forms of ornament \ applied to architecture (as at Mitla) and to pottery (as at Cuicatlan) are unique in this part of America. Of interest is the fact that the geometric ornament at Mitla finds an exact parallel in the stucco decoration of some of the early ruins of the Peruvian coast, while the designs of | the Cuicatlan pottery reproduce with equal exactness a favourite textile ornament belonging to the same region. Certain of the Peruvian coast-dwellers preserved traditions of immigration by sea, and these combined facts might be taken as a vague indication of early coasting voyages down the west coast of America. It would be rash to put this forward as a definite theory, but at any rate further investigations in this direction might prove of great interest. The Zapotec at one period seem to have extended considerably further north than in later times, and to have been driven south by the Mixtec who at least contained an immigrant element. The peculiar slab discovered at Placeres del Oro seems to ​bear some affinity with Zapotec reliefs, but here again the "Peruvian" character of the decoration is paramount. Affinities with Peruvian archæology extend into Michoacan, where the practice of providing the mummy-pack of the dead with a false head prevailed, and similarities with Peruvian beliefs may be seen in the Mexican custom of providing the deceased with a dog to convey his soul to the underworld, and in ill-treating dogs during eclipses of the moon. Resemblances also exist between the Peruvian and Maya cultures; certain stone reliefs showing a figure seated in a niche have been found at Manabi in Ecuador (where again traditions of immigration by sea survive), which look very like travesties of some of the Piedras Negras stelæ; while the famous monolith discovered at Chavin de Huantar in the Andes bears a very distinct "Maya" stamp, though it is related also to the art of the Nasca valley. But great caution is necessary in dealing with similarities of this nature, which may arise from no more than a common psychology, and may bear witness only to the "American" basis shared by both cultures.
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. Mere similarity of ornament means nothing when the ornament in question is found to symbolize beliefs of an entirely different character; from the constructional point of view the buildings differ essentially; while the absolute gulf which separates the American language, calendrical system and vegetable ​means of sustenance from those of Asia provides difficulties which must be explained before any theory suggesting contact in any form can legitimately be put forward. The question of the ultimate origin of the American population lies beyond the scope of this book, but it 1s an evident fact that the Americans physically stand in comparatively close relation to the Asiatics. That being so a somewhat similar psychology is natural, and this would lead, subject to modifications produced by environment, to the evolution of a culture and art in which certain analogies might be expected to appear. But what I have elsewhere written of Peruvian culture applies with equal force to that of the Mexicans and Maya. The onus probandi must necessarily be upon those who wish to prove that contact with the external world existed, and the evidence which we possess points rather to the undisturbed evolution of Mexican and Mayan civilization on American soil, and that civilization may therefore be regarded as in every sense American.