DEsirE Charnay

Peten, Tayasal, Tikal, and Copan.

Departure from Peten—The River—The Sierra—Sacluc or Libertad—Cortez’ Route—Marzillo’s Story—Flores—Ancient Tayasal—Conquest of Peten—Various Expeditions—The Town Captured—The Inhabitants Disappear—Monuments Described—Tikal—Early Explorers—Temples—Bas-reliefs on Wood—Retrospection—Bifurcation of the Toltec Column at Tikal—Tikal—Toltecs in Guatemala—Copan—Demolition of Copan—Quetzalcoatl—Transformation of Stone Altar Bas-reliefs into Monolith Idols—End of an Art Epoch—Map of Toltec Migrations.

Peten can be reached from Yalchilan either by going up the Usumacinta, which a few hours beyond takes the name of Rio de la Pasion, or through the woods on the abominable old Indian road described by every traveller. We elect the latter, which, although longer, is easier for our men, who will have mules to carry the heavy baggage.

About noon we come again upon PÉpÉ Mora, who looks worse than ever; but far from thinking of leaving his post, he has thoughts of founding a colony here, and has begun by planting orange-trees and red chermoias. He gives us a sac of smoked dry boar, we tender our thanks and bid good-bye to the good old fellow, whom in all probability we shall never meet again, and about four o’clock in the afternoon reach our first encampment.

The small river which has been our guiding mark is barely 3 feet deep, but its banks are so high and steep that our mules will only venture in after much coaxing, but once in the stream they feel so nice and cool that they are persuaded with great difficulty to leave it. As for the Mariposa entrusted with my wardrobe, notes, and plates, she laid down and completely disappeared all but the head. I thought it was all over with my documents, and was not able to refrain from a cry of horror; it was a false alarm, which, however, obliged us to spend the best part of the night round the fires to dry both clothes and photographs. In the evening we reached the spot where we had left some of our supplies; everything was exactly as it had been left, but we could hear nothing of the wretched horse which had been abandoned.

Next day we took the Peten road, and arrived four days later at Sacluc, now Libertad, the chief town of Peten, and the last inhabited place in Guatemala. It is but a wretched village, like all we have seen in these warm regions; it lacks everything, and we should literally have starved, but for some clerks, who gave up to us an azotea (flat roof) and part of their supplies.

Our road led east-south-east up to this point; but now its direction is north as far as Flores, some thirty miles beyond, which stands on an islet of the lake of Peten. This road is not far from the Sacpui lagoon mentioned by Bernal Diaz in his account of Cortez’ expedition to Honduras, when the Spaniards “passed a village surrounded by a great lake of fresh water. Near it was a river emptying in the lake, which was used by the Indians to go to the Sacpui lagoon (Chaltuna) and Tayasal, capital of Peten-Itza.

“The place,” says the veteran soldier, “has white houses and temples which glitter in the sun and can be seen six miles distant.”170 It is clear that Cortez was on the left bank of the only important river discharging itself in the lake, for he dispatched five Spaniards and two Indians in a canoe to require the cacique of Tayasal to furnish him with boats to cross the river. It proves also that the march was much further south than Palenque, and that Izancanac was not Palenque and still less Lorillard, as advanced by Maler in the “Bulletin de la SociÉtÉ GÉographique, 2^e trimestre 1884,” page 275. His assertion is all the more extraordinary that Diaz’ account shows plainly that Cortez must have gone up the S. Pedro valley to come upon this place, the only one which corresponds to Diaz’ map and itinerary.

It is too absurd to suppose that Cortez, who was provided with a mariner’s compass, whose route lay by Tayasal, should have abandoned the broad level and eastern direction to turn south and encounter the stupendous difficulties of crossing the abrupt range which divides S. Pedro from upper Usumacinta—a dÉtour of more than ninety miles. In that case he would have approached the Sacpui lagoon on the southern and not on the western side, and there would have been no river to cross. We will give Diaz’ own words:

“The villages towards which we steered were on an islet, near a fresh-water lake, which could only be reached by canoes. We walked round two miles and discovered a ford where the water was up to our waist. Here we got some guides, and when Cortez, through DoÑa Marina, asked them to take us to the towns inhabited by bearded men, they answered that they were quite ready to do so. Five accompanied us; and the road, broad at first, became very narrow, owing to a great river which discharges itself in an estuary not far distant. Here the Indians entered their boats to go to the town we were bound for, called Tayasal.”171

The cacique himself came forward and conducted Cortez to his island, who left his wounded horse Marzillo to the care of the Indians. They, after the general’s departure, offered him divine honours and the offerings of their idols, but the invalided animal got worse under such fare and at last died. The affrighted Iztaes raised him a temple and placed in it his sculptured image, worshipping him under the name of Izimin Chac (“thunder and lightning”), because, having witnessed some of the cavaliers shooting deer, they imagined that the flash of their guns proceeded from the animal.172 The name Izimin Chac recalls the pyramid at Izamal called Papp-hol-Chac, “house of heads and lightning.”

Flores, our next stage, is a lovely place built on the site of ancient Tayasal, beautifully situated on a great lake surrounded by a lofty range of hills. The Spaniards found the Iztaes, who had come from Yucatan, established here. All marks of sculpture and architecture have disappeared; nevertheless, we are able to reconstruct its history and show that the monuments were not ancient.

When Cortez passed here, the town still numbered among its inhabitants men who had come with the emigrant column from Yucatan, and this tradition was current two centuries later. They had preserved the ancient civilisation of the Toltecs, and used the same characters to record their history, which were handed down on manuscripts called “Analtes,” exemplified in the Yucatec and Mexican manuscripts.173 “Their idols,” says P. Fuensalida, “were like those of the peninsula.”

Such writers as Villa Gutierre Soto Mayor, Cogolludo, and Remesal174 mention various expeditions sent to subdue this gallant little people, which was the last to surrender to Spanish arms.

The expedition from Yucatan was in 1618, two monks taking part in it to convert the natives. They found at Tayasal the language, the manners, the customs and architecture of Yucatan before the Conquest, with a population of 25,000 to 30,000 souls, which would incline us to infer that the great cities we have visited were larger and contained more buildings than we thought possible.

“These temples,” says Cogolludo, “raised as usual on pyramids, were of the same dimensions as the largest churches in Yucatan, and were capable of holding over 1,000 persons. In one of them stood the Izimin Chac, Cortez’ horse, which seeing, one of the monks, Padre Juan de Orbita, filled with indignation, rushed at the idol and broke it with a huge stone.” But this ill-advised zeal well-nigh caused the destruction of the troop, which was only saved by the friendly interference of the cacique.175

There followed a second, then a third expedition under Martin Ursua (1696), who, on his march to Peten, found a place called Rohbeccan, “a city with edifices filled with idols.”

Tayasal was attacked and taken on the 2nd of March, 1696,176 when the survivors of the struggle retired to the inaccessible vastnesses of the northern islands, their spirit still unbroken.

The more we advance, the clearer it becomes that if numerous towns were found deserted, it does not prove their antiquity, but rather the deep, universal hatred of the natives for the conquerors. This city had twelve temples in 1618, and twenty-one in 1696, so that nine were built during the seventeenth century; among the latter was the finest of all, described by Villa Gutierre Soto Mayor in the following words: “The great temple was entirely built of stones, lofty and square in shape, with a fine balcony of cut stones, and two ogival vaults, each side measuring 20 varas” (about 60 feet).177 This, we think, disposes of the prehistoric temples scattered in the forests of the peninsula.

This temple, although more finely built, recalls the Castillo at Chichen, the chief features of which are reproduced here on a larger scale. Is not this sufficient proof that the monuments were modern, and not the work of an extinct race? We find Tayasal a descendant, a daughter of Chichen-Itza, just as Tikal is its ascendant or ancestress; the latter will give us the key to the chief cause of the Toltec migrations in Yucatan, and will explain the Toltec influence visible in the cities of Coban, Copan, and Quirigua.

Tikal is forty miles north-east of Flores, towards the south of the peninsula. Two explorers have visited it of late; one is the Swiss Bernouilli, whose labours were interrupted by death, but whose documents upon Tikal are as priceless as they are interesting. They consist of twelve pieces of sculptured zapotÉ wood, which were appropriated from the temples and are now in the Basle Museum, where I was permitted to take squeezes of them; many are damaged by the infiltration of water rather than time, nevertheless, a whole panel has been made, which we reproduce the better to elucidate our explanations.

FLORES, LAKE OF PETEN.

The other traveller is Alfred Maudslay, who made Guatemala the main field of his interesting and successful labours. We borrow from his photographs and notes to complete our description. “The buildings at Tikal are of stone laid in mortar smoothed over with plaster (the cement epoch at Palenque, Lorillard, and AkÉ). The walls are generally 3 feet thick; the inner walls rise perpendicularly to a height of 7 feet, then approach each other to form the well-known American vault or pointed arch. No trace of true vaults are found, for the acute angle of the arch, and the enormous weight pressing on it, would not allow the walls to be more than 5 or 6 feet distant from each other; so that the interior of the palaces presents the appearance of long passages rather than apartments.” (Exactly what we pointed out at Lorillard.) “The doors are square at the top and the lintels consist of three or four pieces of wood. Within the apartments are also pieces of the same wood, but smaller, and placed across the ceiling 5 feet distant from each other.”

Some of these small palaces are in a perfect state of preservation, but by far the greater proportion, the lintels of which have disappeared, are a ruinous heap. As usual, the edifices are reared on natural or artificial plateaux, the sides faced with cut stones. The most important buildings are the temples, which rise on high pyramids, the sides divided in receding ranges or stones, shown in our plate.

The faÇade is occupied by a flight of steps leading to the entrance of the temple, which is narrower than the terrace on which it stands, whilst the side of the pyramid corresponding to it is on a steeper slope than the faÇade and remaining sides. (This we pointed out also at Palenque and Lorillard.) The pyramid is 184 ft. at the base by 168 ft.; the staircase is 112 ft. high by 38 ft. wide, giving the pyramid a mean altitude of 90 ft.; the faÇade is 41 ft. by 28 ft. long and about 40 ft. high, counting the decorative wall hidden by vegetation.

All these temples are alike; the characteristic feature about them is the great thickness of the walls, the niches on the sides of the main apartment, and the gradual narrowing of the edifice from front to rear. The interior of each consists of two or three narrow passages running on a parallel line on the sides and abutting on the front corridor, with large openings and wooden lintels beautifully sculptured. The inner walls of the temples are higher than those of the palaces, whilst the vault, also higher, forms a more acute angle. This is owing to the great decorative wall crowning the edifice, the weight of which would have been excessive, had not the builder provided for it by thickening the walls, lengthening the vault, and narrowing the apartment.

“I met no idol, or any object of veneration in these temples,” says Maudslay: a pardonable error, since he had not yet visited Palenque or Lorillard, which would have enabled him to see in all those pieces of sculptured wood representations of religious ceremonies, which replaced the idols seemingly wanting.

“In the open space or court which stands between the temples, are several stones of the nature of stelÆ or small menhirs; some have their front occupied by a human profile and hieroglyphics on the sides. On others, both profiles and hieroglyphics were of very hard cement; the stone had also been smoothed over with it. In this court are likewise several circular altars, facsimiles of those at Copan. Some are scattered among the ruins, but they are generally plain, owing probably to the plaster that composed the figures having fallen, and left the stone surface bare. Circular openings of about 1 foot 9 inches in diameter occupy the centre of the square or court, giving access to circular subterraneous chambers from 6 feet to 10 feet in diameter. They were cisterns.”178 Our plate shows one of the temples having these stones in its court.

On comparing the edifices at Lorillard with this temple, it is seen that the frieze which surmounts the plain wall at the base must have had the same kind of cemented figures, whilst the ground plan at Tikal shows the arrangement of its monuments to have been similar with those at Lorillard. Thus we find at Tikal a rÉsumÉ of all that which we noticed and studied in the various cities we have visited; but here we have a new feature in the altars, which stand in the open air, whilst the stelÆ recall the votive pillars at Teotihuacan which develop in monoliths at Copan and Quirigua.

This analogy is plainly seen in our drawing of one of these stelÆ, representing a beautifully sculptured figure, in high relief, with the usual dress of priests, grandees, and idols. A series of katunes, like those at Palenque, Lorillard, and Copan, are ranged on the edge of the stone. Unfortunately this monument is in a very dilapidated condition; but for the head, which is wanting, it would have been quite as remarkable as our high relief at Lorillard (see end of chapter).

If we come to details, a first glance will show that the superb bas-relief on wood in the next page, is a facsimile of the panels to the rear of the altars at Palenque. The dimensions are almost the same, 6 feet high by 7 feet 6 inches wide: it also represents two figures in high relief, having the peculiar attributes generally seen on American sculptures. The hieroglyphics on the sides are admirably well preserved, and do not betoken a very ancient epoch, for they are just like those at Palenque, Lorillard, and Copan.

QUETZALCOATL AT COPAN. QUETZALCOATL AT COPAN. Unlike similar reliefs at Palenque, where the idol formed the central subject, here it is replaced by a standing human figure, having an elaborate head-dress with fantastic ornaments and huge feathers, recalling Tabasco and Yucatan. In his hand is carried a sceptre topped by a bird’s tail, and the rosette we noticed on the crosses at Lorillard, whilst his left arm is almost hidden by a shield; he wears the usual fringed cape, heavy collar, and large medallion; under this is seen a rich mantle reaching almost to the ground; garters and buckles are around his legs, and shoes cover his feet. The Buddhic religious cloak is seen also on the kneeling priest at Lorillard, and the maniple on the arm is a facsimile of one in the palace at Kabah.

To the right below the inscription are symbolic ornaments, and towards the lower extremity two superb human profiles. Under the left inscription is a figure with a monstrous head, sitting on a stool ornamented with arms, with a back of peculiar shape. Many of the ornaments on this panel are of unknown signification, but a large portion is quite familiar and has been already reproduced by us. The most important figure of all is that to the top of the bas-relief, above the central figure. It is a mask with protruding tongue representing the sun, like that of the Mexican calendar and the central figure over the altar in the Temple of the Sun at Palenque. The flames on the sides of the mask indicate this plainly. Clearly this magnificent bas-relief belonged to a temple dedicated to that great Toltec deity.

We know that the worship of the sun was general with all the American tribes, and if at Tikal we call him the god of one particular race, it is owing to the details which surround him; both pyramids, temples, inscriptions, figures, and emblems particularise him, and give us the right to connect him with the religion of the Uplands and call him Toltec.

We have other panels consisting of scattered pieces collected in various monuments. Some of the inscriptions are in perfect condition, and furnish important analogies. One is a human profile, like the sculptured figures on the great monoliths at Copan; another has fine inscriptions and a characteristic tiger’s head, whilst below is a figure of the usual type and dress sitting on a throne admirably carved. These reliefs are in the TrocadÉro.

To sum up, Tikal is a town which belongs to the Toltec civilisation, the march of which we have followed from their first homes to Ocosingo, Lorillard, and Tikal in Yucatan, where they met, both in the south and north of Guatemala, the first branch, but Tikal being farthest from the starting-point must necessarily be younger than the cities already described; to us, however, it is one of the most important epochs in this original civilisation, inasmuch as it is an intermediary station, a place whence the race branched off, a fact which solves questions and clears up events not hitherto understood.

From Tikal the civilising column advanced towards the north of the peninsula. Material proofs of this exist in the cities ranged on its line of march, for instance, Nohbeccan, seen by Ursua, and also in the historical data, which the reader may see in our chapter on Chichen-Itza.

The uniform expression of the faces in these bas-reliefs is generally calm and pleasant, as at Palenque, where we pointed out that after the almost total extermination of their race, the Toltecs ceased to be a warlike nation and became missionaries of civilisation, bringing the population around them into submission by their persuasive preaching, like the priests of Buddha in India and Java, adopting the language of their disciples, and building marvellous temples in honour of the gods they preached. The bas-reliefs at Palenque, Lorillard, and Tikal tell this story very plainly.

The arrival of the Toltecs in the south of Yucatan is thus placed beyond a doubt; but the explanation given of the abandonment of Chichen by its inhabitants is highly unsatisfactory. That exodus, produced by secondary causes, was determined by the still living tradition that establishments had been formed by their ancestors in the south of the peninsula, and that Tikal, which at that time was perhaps still standing, formed the chief centre. It is more than probable that the caciques of Chichen had kept up some intercourse with one of the cradles of their family, and when they set their face in that direction, it was but an instinctive yearning to return to Peten. To the same Toltec branch is clue also the colonisation and civilisation of the north of Guatemala, Tikal being the central point, whence some directed their march north, whilst others went south.

If we are to believe the priest of QuichÉ, “he saw at Coban a great city which filled him with astonishment.” We have heard nothing of such a place, nor has any other traveller; but if we follow the affiliation, it is highly probable that Coban was a station of the Tikal-Toltec branch, which from this point went east, where they founded Copan and Quirigua in the province of Chiquimula. Copan was standing at the Conquest, as well as Utatlan, Atitlan, Xelahu, Patinamit, and several other Guatemalec cities, which were destroyed by Alvarado. Copan was forced to yield after a desperate struggle to Hernandez de Chaves, one of his lieutenants (1530), and Juarros tells us that Fuentes visited it in 1700, when “the Great Circus still remained entire.”

We follow Stephens179 in the description and illustration of these monuments, and find that the most remarkable are monolith idols, which are only the development of the stelÆ and monoliths at Tikal, and that the inscriptions, bas-reliefs, and idols are like those of the places we have already described, except that they seem to us to belong to a later period, contrary to Stephens, who assigned an original civilisation to them. But Stephens began at the wrong end when he made Copan the first scene of his investigations, and that accounts for his want of insight in not having perceived that these monuments were the outcome of an old civilisation. Later, his better informed judgment enabled him to grapple with the difficulties, and arrive at the truth. We claim but to be his disciple.

The first drawing is a finely sculptured head, which he calls a king; but this bearded man, whose head is locked in a huge serpent’s jaw, whose head-dress consists of wreathed serpents, or a Guatemalec turban, is a personification of Quetzalcoatl, and though the type is somewhat changed the attributes are unmistakable.

We have no reliable description of the monuments at Copan; but from what Stephens says of them, they seem to differ from those we have explored. Juarros’ description of Santa Cruz del QuichÉ, Utatlan, and other Guatemalto-Toltec centres, recalls Mexican cities, which may well be, since they were situated also on plateaux, and must necessarily have had a different appearance from those of the warm regions.

The Toltec branch of the Pacific, although influenced by their surroundings, had preserved the traditions of Anahuac, and reproduced the buildings and the same mode of living suggested by the resemblance of their present to that of their former homes. But these two branches met for the first time at Copan, shown in the mixture of the two different styles, where the palaces and temples seem to us Guatemalto-Toltec, whilst the idols are Tzendal-Toltec, and the stone bas-reliefs of our temples are replaced here and at Quirigua by enormous monoliths of 12 to 20 feet high by 4 wide and 3 feet thick.

At Kabah, which we think coeval with Copan, we noticed the exaggerated ornamentation which marks two different epochs; the same thing happened here, and is a new instance of a general tendency, which may almost be called a law; nor is it necessary to be an archÆologist to affirm of these monuments, that they are not the beginning but the end of an art, for here we see monoliths loaded with all the ornaments and architectural designs which at an earlier epoch had spread over idols, bas-reliefs, and palaces.

The inscriptions not only retain the ancient characters, in which faces and human figures were intermingled, but they sometimes entirely consist of human figures grouped in the most violent postures. This is not all: the same idol personifies several deities, shown in the first we reproduce, where the great central figure, having a woman’s head, emerges from a dragon’s jaw, recalling Quetzalcoatl; whilst the band which surrounds his loins consists of human figures, ranged over a wreath of maize, showing the attributes of the Tlaloc at Palenque, and also of Chalchiuhtlicue and Centeotl, the Mexican Ceres.

The decorative designs of these monuments show at a glance their correlation with the bas-reliefs and monuments introduced earlier in this work. They generally consist of volutes, and the head of a small monster offered by one of the figures to a symbolic bird, as in the cross at Palenque, and a similar figure in the Temple of the Sun; some of the details belong to Lorillard, whilst others are like the wood bas-reliefs at Tikal.

But we will yet take another idol, the better to show these analogies. The figure stands square instead of being carved in profile; the forehead, like that in the Temple of the Sun at Tikal, is less retreating, whilst the head-dress recalls both Tikal, Yucatan, and Lorillard. The ornaments are of the usual type, and the petticoat of the goddess has the diamond design which we saw at Palenque and in the Uplands. The sides of the idol are covered with a series of characters like those on the bas-reliefs at Lorillard, Tikal, and Palenque; the affiliation cannot be controverted.

Again, let us take Stephens’ interesting altar, 6 feet long by 4 feet high. The top is divided into thirty-six tablets of hieroglyphics; whilst the sides are sculptured with human figures in profile, seated cross-legged on a kind of cushion, having a turban or Guatemalec head-dress, with the cranial deformation much diminished, as in the idols. These new types, mixed with others familiar to us, are due to the immigrant Toltec tribes who met after two centuries of wandering, so that this monument shows both: the figures being QuichÉ-Toltec or Guatemalto-Toltec, whilst the symbolical characters are pure Toltec; the latter, be they near the figure, on his dress, or his seat, give the names and titles of the beings they serve to decorate.

Palacio recognised the Toltec civilisation at Copan, since in a letter to Philip II. (1576), “he found these monuments in ruins, but superior to any edifice of the same nature built by the inhabitants of these regions.” Their traditions make them attribute these edifices to emigrants from Yucatan, which he thinks probable, “because of the resemblance between these monuments and those he met in Yucatan and Tabasco.”180 Consequently we see at Copan the end of an old art mixed with another equally old, the combination of which produces a new manifestation in the American civilisation. It is idle to speculate how it would have developed had it not been stopped in its inspiration and destroyed by the arrival of the Spaniards.

We follow Veytia in tracing the migratory movements of the Toltecs from the north-west as far as Tula: but from this point we mark their march towards the south after the breaking up of their empire. Torquemada mentions a sub-division, which fell back on Huaxteca, whilst the main body coasted the seaboard of the Mexican Gulf, building Blasillo, where palaces and temples are still standing, and Comalcalco (Centla). Here they divided; some following the Carmen lagoon entered Yucatan by Patonchan, of which the chief or reigning family were the Cocomes; AkÉ, Izamal, Mayapan, etc., were built by this branch.

The others directed their march towards the south and founded Palenque and Ocosingo, then falling back on the Usumacinta, settled at Lorillard and the more distant Tikal. Here took place the branching off which we mentioned above; one division, from which the Tutulxius were descended, going north, founded Nohbeccan, Iturbide, Labna, Kabah, Uxmal, and Chichen; whilst the other built Coban, Copan, and Quirigua, where they met and amalgamated with the branch which had followed the Pacific coast. The latter, after they had traversed the region inhabited by the Zapotecs (Oaxaca), tarried at Tehuantepec, then resumed their march towards Guatemala, where they laid the foundations of Utatlan, Xelahu, Atitlan, Patinamit, etc., and joined the northern branch at Copan.

As will be seen, this is but a broad outline which leaves out a number of localities we could name, and many others which we do not know, but which we hope will be discovered some day. We have also traced in our map the return march of the Iztas (or Iztaes) from Chichen to Tayasal.

The line in our Map which to the north goes into Huaxteca, shows the course pursued by the Toltec branch mentioned by Ixtlilxochitl and Torquemada; and the monuments in that region, which all bear a resemblance with those of Tabasco and Yucatan, are the works of the Toltecs just as much as those of the above-mentioned states. We wish also to point out that the towns in this region, as yet unexplored, were inhabited and the monuments standing at the time of the Conquest, and that a few years sufficed to dilapidate and deface them.

Nicholas de Witt, who visited Huaxteca in 1543, in a letter (1554) published by Ternaux Campan, says that the region contained great cities and was more thickly populated than any other, but that when he visited it, twenty years after the Conquest, it was deserted and covered with ruins; because some years before, the Spaniards had basely massacred the inhabitants. They had invited all the chiefs to a conference in a large wooden house, and burnt them alive. After this cruel act, the Huaxtecs abandoned their town and retired in the woods.