Tah-Itzá, the country of the Itzás, around Lake Petén.
October 4th.
Petén properly means district, region, circuit.
In common use today in Yucatan, meaning 
he speaks nicely, well.’
The ghastly chapter of the fate of the peaceful population of Cuba has been elsewhere told, and we have here one of its early evidences. But the Cubans were fortunate—it was at: least quick total extermination. The Mayas were to live through 400 years of seizures for sale abroad, resettlements and forced removals from their towns, to receive their conquerors religion, or to add to his wealth and ease.
The pleasant Sunday supplement story of the beautiful maiden, and the temptation arranged for Aguilar by the chief, which of course must have first been given currency by Aguilar himself, as related by Cogolludo, has probably been repeated by every succeeding chronicler. It is a bit hard to visualize, even when buttressed by his reported words on meeting Cortés’ men, asking the Spaniards if they were Christians, and then verifying his devotion to his breviary by asking if it was Wednesday. But beside it should be set off a curiously surviving manuscript, dated Mexico, 1554, in support of a petition for payment for military services under Cortés, by one Cristóbal Doria, of Oaxaca, the husband by a 
legitimate church marriage ” with Luisa, the natural daughter of Gerónimo de Aguilar, had by him, an unmarried bachelor, and free,” by an unnamed Tarascan woman.
So in the ms., but clearly an error for Cuzamil.
The historical problem involved in this paragraph is far from settled. The word xiu is the common term for plant ’ in both Aztec and Maya, and we are told that the Tutul-xius were Mexicans. Their significant symbol was a plant, just as that of the Cocoms was the kambul or pheasant. They were called foreigners by the Cocoms, but they certainly became the dominant element in western Yucatan, and finally at the fall of Mayapán claimed to be the defenders of true Maya,’ and the present paragraph is clearly a Xiu apologia.’ Nevertheless the evidence for very strong Mexicanization of customs and religion around the year 1000 is unquestioned, although the language does not seem to have been affected, as was English by the Normans. And finally, Landa’s statement as to the closer similarity between Yucatecan Maya and the language of the Chiapans is definitely correct, Tzeltal and Maya being the two branches of the Mayance family most nearly alike.
The dart thrower, hulche in Maya, atlatl in Mexican, is a weapon common throughout ancient America generally. The text illustrations above are all taken from the Madrid Maya codex, except the last, which is Mexican. In the first a deer is caught by a spring trap set at a stream; in the next an armadillo is caught in a box trap, and in the next a turkey in a net or noose. The two hunters both carry hulches, the first as he sets out and the other as he returns with the deer on his back. The last figure is an Aztec warrior.
A curious error in the Landa manuscript occurs here, stating that they wore heavy coats of salt and cotton.” The garment is the well-known ichca-huipil, corrupted in Yucatan to escuypil, of heavy quilted or tied ’ cotton strong enough to withstand arrows. Now in Maya taab (with double a) means to tie,’ while tab (short a) means salt.’ The error in the text would seem to have come from a mistranslation by Landa of what was told to him in Maya.
The date at Mayapán has been read as katun 10 Ahau, meaning that the event took place in the 20-year period preceding Oct. 7, 928, or else again in 1185 or 1441. It could hardly be the latter, since Mayapán had just previously been destroyed, as correctly stated by Landa; if the earlier, it might easily record the foundation. The Zilán date reads 7 Muluc, 2 Kayab, denoting 891, as most probable.
Landa is in error here; the proper spelling as given in the 1579 Relations, is Tibolon, at the Nine, as Tiho, the site of Merida, ’ At the Five. Also ti-bul on means only ’ we gambled,’ and not we were played with,’ a meaningless term here; also Maya place names are simple or compound nouns, not verbal phrases like this.
Ah-cambal means one who learns, a pupil.’ Chilán means ‘orator.’
A break in the original here.
This is the famous event of 1536, the death of Ahpulá Napot Xiu, the rain-bringer,’ at Otzomal; see the Maya Chronicles and the Xiu Papers at page … herein.
This reduction of Cochuah and Chetumal was entrusted to Captain Gaspar Pacheco and his son, who had already served against the Zapotecs. For sheer lusting cruelty for its own sake, their record there vies with that of Pedro de Alvarado among the Quichés of Guatemala. For another side of the story, that of the burning and destruction of entire towns to concentrate the Indians near the great central monasteries, and the conduct of the Franciscans and Landa himself in their assumption of Inquisition powers, see elsewhere.
This grammar and ‘doctrina’ was then apparently reformed by Landa, then made the basis of that by Coronel, as printed in 1620. The grammar, of which only one copy has survived, in the present writer’s collection, was then enlarged in the grammar of Gabriel de San Buenaventura, as printed in 1684. There is a persistent assertion that he also composed a large vocabulary which was printed in Mexico City in 1571, and that one copy of this has also survived; but the fact remains yet to be verified. It is also very unlikely that Landa would not have mentioned it, or that Villalpando, could have produced such a work in the eight years of his conversion activities and travels, between his arrival in 1544 and his death at some time between 1551 and 1553 ; as given by Cogolludo.
As to this whole chapter see the Appendix to this volume.
Landa evades saying here that it was under his own leadership and assumed authority that this assumption of full inquisitional rights, with a calling on the plenary civil power, went on. The present work was written by him while in Spain, not voluntarily but under formal charges, and quite certainly to increase his own credit politically. As an outcome, both sides won: the law was affirmed with full clearness, and the friars told not to violate it further; while Landa was officially let off, and then allowed to go back as bishop.
The foregoing portrait of Nezahualpilli, king of Tezcoco, attributed to Ixtlilxochitl, although Mexican, illustrates well the garments here described.
Maya numeration went on to the 6th power of 20, with terms for each period, as we have for our decimal progression, ten, hundred, thousand, million. But whereas we had to adopt the Latin mil, or 1000, to get a term for the fourth place, the Mayas had a separate and distinct term for each multiple up to the sixth: kal, bak, pic, kinchil, calab, alau, the highest calendrical term being an alau of years, or 64,000,000.
Sihil means to be born’ simply; caput-sihil to be born a second time,’ and is the specific term in Maya for baptism, being distinct from caput-cuxtal ‘to come to life a second time.’
The marginal illustration is from the Madrid Codex, in a clause where the act is repeated in like style in four illustrations, and obviously refers to child baptism, the only place in cither codex where the ceremony seems to be referred to. Clearly the actual ceremony was far more elaborate and impressive, this being one of the many cases where the scanty details related by Landa, and the isolated references we have so far been able to identify in the codices and the few post-Conquest Maya manuscripts, like the Chumayel, just barely supplement and touch each other enough to show how much existed, and how full the civilization was, and how little we yet know of it—as it actually was, and how it was lived.
There is a confusion in this section, between child and adult baptism, which latter having necessarily been of a different ceremonial nature, is not given by Landa.
See illustration of this aspersarium on page 79.
The figure in the text, from the Madrid codex, shows the North Star god (so called) in the usual habiliments of Ekchuah, the headbands, corded hamper and pouch, on his travels, also bearing a flint-tipped spear. Ekchuah is the recognized god of the merchants, the beyom or traveling man.’ He is in nearly every case shown with his body painted black, as well as his glyph here in the margin. As such he occurs seventeen times in the Madrid codex, devoted to daily or mundane affairs, and only once in the Dresden.
Landa here again makes the curious mistake before noted, of stating that they wore strong quilted coats of cotton and salt, in two layers. (See page 16.)
The illustration of a copper axe on the preceding page is from the Landa manuscript itself. The axes in the margin above are from Aztec and shown to have been of copper both by the distinctive color, and place-names elsewhere. The three lower figures are all from the Madrid Maya codex, showing a warrior with hulché, or throwing stick, and spears; the god Ekchuah with knapsack and long lance, and the war-god putting fire and sword to a buildint.
We now know that the Mayas knew the exact length of the true solar year as 365.2420 days, that is with a minus error of 0.0002, while our present Gregorian calendar has it as 365.2425, or a plus error of 0.0003. Also that they knew and recorded it on their monuments more than a thousand years before the Spaniards came, and while Europe still had the yet more incorrect method used in Landa’s time, of an even day added each four years.
Every kind of guess has been made as to how the Aztecs and Mayas handled the leap-year correction, until very recent researches have proved beyond doubt that the Mayas, at least, solved it by first establishing a purely mathematical time unit of 360 days, without fractions, and then adjusted not only the various lunar and planetary risings and periods, but also the solar year itself, with its seasons.
We also know that they knew the moon’s period accurately, as 29.5209 days, but we find no evidence on the monuments or in the Maya records of any use of a 30-day month, in the ordinary sense.
This is incorrect; the five last days of the year bore their names regularly, as shown elsewhere by Landa himself in describing the common 52-year cycle used for mundane matters by both Mayas and Aztecs, or 52 x 365 days, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years of each 4-year lustrum ’ beginning with the 6th, 11th and 16th in order of the twenty. Had the last five days been actually nameless, every year would have begun on the same day of the twenty. This also would have thrown their Long Count, or chronological order of days, completely out of order.
Throughout the following pages we have substituted the standard type forms of the characters for the days and months or uinals, for the shapes found in the Landa manuscript, there being no question of their identity. See the present writer’s Outline Dictionary of Maya Glyphs.
In the above names the words chacs, sac, ek, kan mean respectively red, white, black and yellow, the four colors assigned in this order to the East, North, West and South. It is delightful to note Landa’s naive persistence that they always exorcised the evil one in order to worship him. Uvayeyab simply means ‘the couch of the year.’
This may be rendered: Hasten to receive the Lord.”
In the pages following, the manuscript sets out in full each of the successive 365 days, with the names and character together; with each it gives the day of the European month, and also the succession of the Church dominical letters, A b c d e f g. To July 16th, 12 Kan, the 1st of Pop’, he assigns the church dominical A, fixing his calendar as computed for the year 1553, when July 16th fell on Sunday, and the only year between 1525 and 1581 when it did so fall. The present abbreviated transcript of Landa’s work, made in 1566, was thus written thirteen years after the computation was made.
In the manuscript the series of days begins not with the Maya Pop’ the 1st, but with our Jan. 1st; then when it reaches July 15th,with 12 Lamat, it skips a day, to begin the year, incorrectly, with 12 Kan. A year beginning with 12 Kan must end with 12 Lamat, with the next year beginning with 13 Muluc. It therefore seems most probable that the later copyist simply transposed the two halves of the Maya year so as to start with our January, and hence the obvious error. For now that our calendar correlation is definitely established, we know that July 16th,Sunday, 1553, was 12 kan,the 1st of Pop’, and the 12 Lamat then came on July 15th, 1554, to be followed regularly by 13 Muluc on the 16th. And this completely disposes of any idea that an extra bissextile day was inserted every four years.
In addition to repeating the glyphs for the days, the manuscript inserts those for the successive uinals or months,’ as they come. We shall do the same here, using the standard type forms as we have for the day-signs, also showing the forms in the manuscript. We shall also arrange the calendar in Maya form, beginning with the month Pop’.
The book of divination,’ of lucky and unlucky days, called tzolkin, meaning day-count ’ in Maya, ch’olkih in Quiche, and tonalamatl in Aztec, was a period of 260 days, revolving continuously without regard to the calendar. It began with the day 1 Imix and ended with 13 Ahau, successively combining the thirteen numerals with the twenty day-names.
The center of the wheel reads: They call this count in their language vazlazon katun, which means the revolution of the katuns.’
In front, steps very hard to climb.” Then a very large and beautiful plaza; another plaza, and then steps with a chapel on top.
An early distance reckoning for as far as a horse will run without taking breath; roughly 1,200 feet.
So much is available on Chichén Itzá, thanks to the work of the Mexican government under its local director, Señor Eduardo Martinez, and of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, that we have only attempted to confirm Landa’s statements by a few instances of the things he refers to. For those things illustrated on the next page, from among the objects dredged from the cenote, we owe the courtesy of Mr. Willard; they show a repoussé gold plate, and three copper cutting tools.
Such as the tortures at Maní and the burned towns in the east.
Los religiosos was used specifically for the members of the monastic orders, in distinction from the regular clergy, whose heads were the Bishops, in whom alone rested inquisitorial rights.
In confirmation of this I can add the following, from my own visit of 1917. Having already, as stated above, made a full photographic copy of the Xiu volume, and later translating it, I spoke of this to Dona Felipa and others of the family. At once they said: Oh senor, cannot you get back for us these papers? They belong to us; they are the records of our ancestors that have been in our possession from back of the time that we can remember. But a few years ago Don Bernabe loaned them to (as we thought) our good friend’ Don Eduardo Thompson, and we have never been able to get him to return them. Cannot you get them for us? ”
But, soon after the borrowing, Don Eduardo had sold them in the United States, where they still remain, in the keeping’ of a certain institution. One feels quite permitted to ask, what would a Mayflower or Virginia descendant feel if his family papers, records not half as ancient, and not even of royal caste, had been borrowed by a Xiu, and sold as just interesting historical records—to the local Museum in Mérida?
A photographic facsimile of the Calkiní has however been published by the Maya Society, in its Publ. No. 8.
We are using the word Chiefdom ’ as most nearly descriptive here. They were essentially, after the fall of Mayapán, like the independent city states of Italy, or the scigneuries of France, or again like Athens and Sparta. They were essentially also family regimes, clans, baronies or earldoms if one will; but the use of any of these terms is tinged with European political memories. Chieftainship is equally unavailable, as that implies merely the headship of a tribe, frequently a moving one, and semi-barbarous. These were civilized, settled community ‘states,’ with established polity, code of laws, and customs; also with far-reaching trade relationships. As a term for the territorial divisions so covered and ruled, the term Chiefdom thus seems best fitting.
The following paragraphs from the elder Montejo’s instructions, given to his son, in Chiapas, in 1540, probably throw light on this:
You shall make partition to one hundred citizens, and not less, because the provinces are large and the Indians many, and it is necessary that the citizens resist and subdue them; and this (Ti-ho) must be the chief city of all. And after you have made the partitions, and what I have taken for myself, you will leave various towns without assigning them, for persons suiting to his Majesty’s service; for so it is done with all the grants in these new lands.”
Also, you shall make the entries duly of those towns I have taken as for myself and in his Majesty’s name, and my part which is in the province of Tutul Xiu with all attached thereto, the town of Telchac with all attached thereto, the town of Campeche with all attached thereto, and the town of Champotón with all attached thereto.”
The Spanish text of this proclamation will be found as an appendix to volume I of Ancona’sHistorfa de Yucatan; see also Stephens,Travels in Yucatan, II, 446.