MAYA: A STORY OF YUCATAN
BYWM. DUDLEY FOULKE
ILLUSTRATED
SECOND EDITION
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1901
COPYRIGHT, 1900
BY
WM. DUDLEY FOULKE
Set up and electrotyped, November, 1900.
Reprinted, January,
1901.
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
page: iii[View Page iii]CONTENTS
- I. THE CASTAWAYS 1
- II. THE FUGITIVES 10
- III. GUERRERO AND AGUILAR 13
- IV. SANDOVAL 21
- V. THE SENOTE 27
- VI. THE WATER CARRIERS 32
- VII. THE FIRST ENCOUNTER 39
- VIII. MEDIATION 45
- IX. HISTORY 48
- X. MAYA'S SCHEME 58
- XI. MAYA AND HER MAIDENS 63
- XII. DREAMS AND DEVICES 69
- XIII. PREPARATIONS 76
- XIV. THE NEW-MADE GOD 82
- XV. THE WEDDING 88
- XVI. AT THE CHAMBER IN THE TEMPLE 95
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- XVII. THE EMBASSY 104
- XVIII. REPROOF--INSTRUCTION 113
- XIX. THE SPY 116
- XX. REVENGE 122
- XXI. RELEASE 127
- XXII. EXILE 134
- XXIII. AHCUNAL 138
- XXIV. LEGENDS 145
- XXV. UXMAL 153
- XXVI. THE CHILD 162
- XXVII. THE GODS' DECREES 166
- XXVII. THE CROSS 174
- XXIX. THE INVADERS 180
- XXX. CONSOLATION 187
- XXXI. CANEK 191
- XXXII. BEREAVEMENT 194
- XXXIII. THE SONG 200
- XXXIV. SUBMISSION 203
- XXXV. THE ORIOLE 207
- XXXVI. THE NUPTIALS 211
- XXXVII. CONCLUSION 215
ILLUSTRATIONS
- THE MEETING OF MAYA AND SANDOVAL Frontispiece
- UXMAL. THE NUNNERY. EAST FAҪADE, WITH HOUSE OF THE DIVINER BEYOND 52
- UXMAL. THE NUNNERY. CORNICE ON SOUTH FAҪADE 154
- UXMAL. THE NUNNERY. PART OF WEST FAҪADE 158
- UXMAL. HOUSE OF THE DOVES 174
INTRODUCTORY
THE peninsula of Yucatan, projecting northward into the Gulf of Mexico, which it separates from the Caribbean Sea, is above all other regions of the earth a fit abode for the mysterious and the supernatural. The Spaniard who dwells amid more genial surroundings will tell you that it is un pais muy triste, "a very sad land." And this it is especially during the dry season, which begins with our winter and ends in May--a season when the forests are stripped of their foliage and innumerable trunks and branches, twisted and gnarled, wave their grotesque arms like hosts of spectres. Upon the ground there is no hint of the green herbage of our more temperate climes, no river, brook, nor glistening of laughing water anywhere; the rain which still falls occasionally near the beginning and end of the long drouth steams page: viii[View Page viii]up from the hot soil or is sucked through crannies of the limestone into pools far down amid the dark recesses of the earth.
For great caverns lie below, profound abysses into whose depths the inhabitants of cities now in ruins used to betake themselves for water until their steps have worn deep pathways in the stone.
It is a low flat land, as monotonous as Sahara--with stunted hills and stunted trees--with a sun which hurls its rays upon the earth till all things hide, or slinks behind a mass of clouds as sullen and sombre as the land--with an air which stifles the throat that breathes it at noonday, and brings the exhalations of miasma with the chill of night--with thickets impenetrable filled with noisome insects and venomous reptiles, but with no shade nor cheer. Apart from the towns and straggling villages which are clustered near the coast, and excepting occasional haciendas, devoted mainly to the culture of hennequin (a variety of the century plant, used for the manufacture of hemp), such toay is the wild land upon which half a hundred ruined cities, many of them vast and beautiful, have already been page: ix[View Page ix]discovered, while perhaps others are still hidden in the wilderness.
For explorations are still going on in the interior, which is inhabited by wild tribes of Indians who lurk in its recesses and sometimes beset the path of the wayfarer or wage a desultory war against the government. And yet the finely chiselled features and delicate limbs of this fierce race bear witness that it is the offspring of a people far different from that which dwells upon the land today. Indeed, the civilised Indians and the Mestizos (descendants of the same Maya stock, intermingled more or less with Spanish blood), who constitute the farm labourers and the artisans of Yucatan, are a people kind, docile, courteous, hospitable, scrupulously clean and fairly industrious, honest and intelligent even after their long service as hewers of wood and drawers of water for their Castilian masters. One cannot compare these Mestizos with the mongrel inhabitants of other parts of Mexico without a feeling that the Maya ancestor must have been far ahead of his Aztec neighbour in those things which go to the making up of character.
Perhaps the "sad land" upon which the page: x[View Page x]Mayas established their abodes was itself one of the causes of their superiority. It was in barren Attica that Greek civilisation reached its highest development. It was upon the shores of New England that our own best institutions first took root. In like manner, it was upon the "Maayha" peninsula, the "land without water" (for this is one of the interpretations of the word), that there were found the noblest illustrations of the culture of our Western continent before the coming of the European.
page: xi[View Page xi]ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE author acknowledges his obligations to the following works in preparing the historical, legendary, and descriptive portions of his book: Land, Relaciones de las Cosas de Yucatan; Cogolludo, Conquista de la Nueva España; Irving, Voyages of the Companions of Columbus; Prescott, Conquest of Mexico ; John L. Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan; Hubert Howe Bancroft, Native Races and Mexico; Desiré Charnay, Ancient Cities of the New World; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Nations Civilisées du Mexique; Daniel G. Brinton, Myths of the New World and The Maya Chronics ; William H. Holmes, Monuments of Yucatan; Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America; Eligio Ancona, Historia de Yulcatan; Alice Le Plongeon, Here and There in Yucatan.
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