Ignorant of the laws of the country, this American traveller thought that he might at once call himself the proprietor of the statue, and succeeded in bringing it, in 15 days, as far as the uninhabited town of Piste, two miles from the ruins, upon a wagon constructed for the purpose, hiding it in the neighborhood of the above town, while he informed himself about his supposed rights.
The indefatigable traveller came to Merida, where, in the meantime the Government of the State a.s.serted that the statue was the general property of the nation and not that of the discoverer.
Leaving for a better opportunity the questions relative to it, Dr.
Le Plongeon occupied himself in visiting other ruins, busying himself between the Island of Cozumel and that of Mugeres, until peace should be established in the State, and the Sr. General Guerra should be nominated Provisional Governor.
At the suggestion of the subscriber the Governor allowed the transportation of this statue to the Museo Yucateco, and the Director of the Museo, in compliance with his duty, counting upon the a.s.sistance of an armed force necessary for an expedition of such a dangerous character, left this capital February 1, 1877, to the end of securing the preservation of an object so important to the ancient history of the country. Overcoming the thousand difficulties that presented themselves in opening a road of 6 leagues that was known to the birds alone, over a surface covered with mounds and inequalities, he constructed a new wagon on which the colossal statue was dragged along by more than 150 Indians, in turn, who, in their fanatical superst.i.tion, a.s.serted that, during the late hours of the night there came from the mouth of the figure the words "_Conex! Conex!_" which signifies in their language, "Let us go! Let us go!"
Upon the 26th of the same month and year, the historical and monumental city of Izamal received with enthusiastic demonstrations the statue of the king Chac-Mool. Brilliant compositions referring to it were read, which, in a printed form, will accompany it for the archives of the Museo National. When it arrived at Merida it had a no less lively reception on the morning of the 1st of March, 1877.
A little later it was received into the Museo Yucateco upon the same rustic wagon on which it had traversed the 6 leagues of almost inaccessible country from Piste to ?itas, from where begins the broad road. It was intended to surround it with a wooden fence upon which should be engraved this inscription in golden letters:--
"CHAC-MOOL
The discovery of the wise archaeologist, Mr. Le Plongeon, in the ruins of Chichen-Itza.
General Protasio Guerra being Governor of the State of Yucatan. It was brought to the Museo Yucateco on the 1st of March, 1877, by Juan Peon Contreras, Director of the Museum."
Still later, at the decision of the Governor of the State, Sr. D.
Augustin del Rio, its transfer to the National Museum of Mexico was permitted, where so notable an archaeological monument will show to better advantage, leaving in its place a copy in plaster, made by a skilful Yucatan artist.
The Director of the Museo Yucateco, JUAN PEON CONTRERAS.
MeRIDA, 1877.
NOTE. The unexpected arrival and early return to Vera Cruz of the national war steamer Libertad, which conducted the recovered statue to the Department of State, gave no time in which a copy of it could be taken in this capital, the Government of the State reserving the right to ask of the President of the Republic, who resides in Mexico, to send such a copy to the Museo Yucateco, as a just compensation.
PEON CONTRERAS.
_April_ 6, 1877.
After the defeat of Dr. Le Plongeon"s cherished hopes of exhibiting his statue at Philadelphia, this traveller pa.s.sed his time in investigations among the islands of the east coast of the Peninsula, particularly those of Mugeres and Cozumel. His observations there--as well as much additional information regarding the architecture of Chichen-Itza and Uxmal, and his deductions therefrom--are contained in a communication to the Minister of the United States at Mexico, and are here given in abstract, as throwing light upon the discoveries that have been made, and the inferences which have been drawn from them.
This appeal contains a statement of the wrongs suffered by Dr. Le Plongeon in being prevented from removing his statue and other discoveries from the country; and also a demand for redress and compensation, as an American citizen, for the seizure and appropriation, in the first instance by the government of Yucatan, and afterwards by the supreme government at Mexico, of the work of art which he had brought to light. This statement, with the correspondence which accompanies it, is intended also to be offered to the consideration of the President of the United States for such action as may be considered proper in the premises.
The extracts made are those only which relate to the investigations of Dr. Le Plongeon in the course of his travels; for although great sympathy is due him for his misfortunes and disappointments, a legal statement of his wrongs cannot be discussed in this paper.
EXTRACTS FROM A COMMUNICATION OF DR. LE PLONGEON TO THE HONORABLE JOHN W. FOSTER, MINISTER OF THE UNITED STATES AT MEXICO, DATED ISLAND OF COZUMEL, MAY 1, 1877.
Chichen-Itza is situated in the territories occupied by subjects of Don Crecencio Poot, Chief of Chan-Santa-Cruz. In 1847, this chief and others refused to acknowledge any longer their allegiance to the Mexican Government, and seceded, declaring war to the knife to the white inhabitants of Yucatan. Since that time they have conquered a portion of that State, and hold peaceful possession of the best towns. They have destroyed the princ.i.p.al cities of the east and south. These are now reduced to mere villages with few inhabitants. The churches in ruins, mostly converted into fortresses, the houses abandoned by their dwellers, invaded by rank vegetation, a refuge for bats, owls, and other prowling animals, are crumbling to the ground every day more and more, no one daring to make repairs, lest the Indians should burn and destroy them again. For leagues around the country is deserted. Only a few venturesome spirits have plucked up heart to establish farms where the soil is the richest. They cultivate them with armed servants, so great is their dread of their fierce enemies.
Three miles from Piste, one of the most advanced posts on the eastern frontier, and beyond the military lines, stand the ruins of Chichen Itza. There lay buried, since probably 5000 years, that superb statue, together with other most precious relics, at eight meters under ground, amidst thick forests, unknown to the whole world, not only to the modern, but also to the comparatively ancient, for it has escaped destruction from the hands of the natives. A people, starting from the vicinity of Palenque, invaded all the regions west and south of what, in our days, is called the Yucatan Peninsula, arriving at Bacalar. From that place, following the coast, they ravaged the eastern part of the country, and at or about the beginning of the Christian era laid siege to the _cities of the holy and wise men_ (Itzaes), the seat of a very advanced civilization, where arts, sciences and religion flourished. After a weary and protracted defence, and many hard-fought battles, the beautiful capital fell at last into the power of the invaders.
There, in the impulse of their ignorance, in the heat of their wrath, they destroyed many objects of art. They vented their rage most particularly on the effigies and portraits of the ancient kings and rulers of the vanquished, when and where they could find them, decapitating most and breaking a great many of the beautiful statues wrought by their subjects in their honor, as mementoes by which they remembered and venerated their memories. Chaacmol, whose hiding place they ignored, as they did that of his elder brother, _Huuncay_, whose statue is still where his friends deposited it, 12 meters under the surface of the ground, escaped the fury of the enraged iconoclasts. Not so, however, the effigies and emblems that adorned and surmounted the monuments raised to perpetuate the remembrance of their most beneficent government, and the love they professed for their people. Even these monuments themselves were afterwards disgraced, being used as places for histrionic performances.
The places of concealment of these and other most precious relics, amongst them probably the libraries of the _H-Menes_ or learned and wise men, yet to be excavated, were revealed to my wife and myself on deciphering some hieroglyphics, mural paintings and bas-reliefs.
On the 5th of January, 1876, I conducted the statue of Chaacmol on the road to ?itas, and at about a quarter of a mile from Piste, that is to say, far enough to put it out of the reach of mischief from the soldiers of the post, I placed it in a thicket about 50 yards from the road. There, with the help of Mrs. Le Plongeon, I wrapped it in oil-cloth, and carefully built over it a thatched roof, in order to protect it from the inclemencies of the atmosphere. Leaving it surrounded by a brush fence, we carefully closed the boughs on the pa.s.sage that led from the road to the place of concealment, so that a casual traveller, ignorant of the existence of such an object, would not even suspect it. Many a day our only meal has consisted of a hard Indian cake and a bit of garlic and water.
The queen of Itza is represented under the effigy of an _ara_, eating a human heart, on several bas-reliefs that adorned the monuments she raised to the beloved of her own heart, Chaacmol. The scene of his death is impressively portrayed on the walls which the queen caused to be raised to the memory of her husband, in the two exquisite rooms, the ruins of which are yet to be seen upon the south end of the east wall of the gymnasium. Those rooms were a shrine indeed, but a shrine where the conjugal love of the queen alone worshipped the memory of her departed lover. She adorned the outer walls with his effigies, his totem-tiger, and his shield and coat of arms between tiger and tiger. Whilst on an admirably polished stucco that covers the stones in the interior of the rooms she had his deeds, his and her own life in fact, with the customs of the time, painted in beautiful life-like designs, superbly drawn and sweetly colored. The history of the twin brothers is there faithfully portrayed. There is also a life-like likeness, painted in brilliant colors, of Chaacmol. Unhappily such precious works of art have been much defaced, more than by time, by the impious hands of ignorant and vain fools, who have thought their names of greater interest to the world than the most remarkable drawings on which they have inscribed them.
Chaacmol is there represented full of wrath, the hand clinched in an altercation with his younger brother, _Aac_. This latter, after cowardly murdering the friend of his infancy with thrusts of his lance--one under his right shoulder blade, another in his left lung, near the region of the heart, and the third in the lumbar region--fled to Uxmal in order to escape the vengeance of the queen, who cherished their young chieftain who had led them so many times to victory. At their head he had conquered all the surrounding nations. Their kings and rulers had come from afar to lay their sceptres and their hearts at the feet of their pretty and charming queen. Even white and long bearded men had made her presents and offered her their tributes and homage. He had raised the fame of their beautiful capital far above that of any other cities in Mayapan and Xibalba. He had opened the country to the commerce of the whole world, and merchants of Asia and Africa would bring their wares and receive in exchange the produce of their factories and of their lands. In a word, he had made Chichen a great metropolis in whose temples pilgrims from all parts came to worship and even offer their own persons as a sacrifice to the Almighty. There also came the wise men of the world to consult the _H-Menes_, whose convent, together with their astronomical observatory, may be seen at a short distance from the government palace and museum. This curious story, yet unknown to the world, was revealed to my wife and myself, as the work of restoring the paintings advanced step by step, and also from the careful study of the bas-reliefs which adorn the room at the base of the monument.
You can see photographs of these bas-reliefs in the alb.u.m I forwarded to the Ministry of Public Instruction. We have also in our possession the whole collection of tracings of the paintings in the funeral chamber.
Motul is a pretty town of 4000 inhabitants, situated about 10 leagues from Merida. Having never suffered from the Indians it presents quite a thriving appearance. Its productions consist princ.i.p.ally in the making henequen bags and the raising of cattle.
At the time of the Spanish conquest it was the site of an important settlement, if we may judge from the number of mounds and other edifices scattered in its vicinity. All are in a very ruinous condition, having been demolished to obtain materials for the buildings of the modern village and the construction of fences. It was among these ruins that, for the first time in Yucatan, I gazed upon the incontestable proofs that the worship of the phallus had once been in vogue among some of the inhabitants of the Peninsula.
I discovered emblems of that worship, so common with the natives of Hindostan and Egypt and other parts of the world, on the Eastern side of a very ruinous pyramid, raised on a plot of ground, in the outskirts of this village. Since then, I have often met with these emblems of the religious rites of the Nahuas and Caras, and whilst as at Uxmal, they stare at the traveller from every ornament of the buildings and are to be found in every court-yard and public place, it is a remarkable fact that they are to be met with nowhere in the edifices of Chichen-Itza.
There can be no possible doubt that different races or rather nations practicing distinct religious rites inhabited the country at different epochs and destroyed each other by war. So at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards the monuments of Chichen-Itza were in ruins and were looked upon with awe, wonder and respect, by the inhabitants of the country, when the city of Uxmal was thickly peopled. There cannot be any reasonable doubt that the Nahuas, the invaders and destroyers of the Itza metropolis, introduced the phallic worship into Yucatan. The monuments of Uxmal do not date from so remote an antiquity as those of Chichen, notwithstanding that Uxmal was a large city when Chichen was at the height of its glory. Some of its most ancient edifices have been enclosed with new walls and ornamentation to suit the taste and fancy of the conquerors. These inner edifices belong to a very ancient period, and among the debris I have found the head of a bear exquisitely sculptured out of a block of marble. It is in an unfinished state.
When did bears inhabit the peninsula? Strange to say, the Maya does not furnish the name for the bear. Yet one-third of this tongue is pure Greek. Who brought the dialect of Homer to America? Or who took to Greece that of the Mayas? Greek is the offspring of Sanscrit. Is Maya? or are they coeval? A clue for ethnologists to follow the migrations of the human family on this old continent.
Did the bearded men whose portraits are carved on the ma.s.sive pillars of the fortress at Chichen-Itza, belong to the Mayan nations? The Maya language is not devoid of words from the a.s.syrian.
We made up our minds to visit Ake, the place where the Spaniards escaping from Chichen took refuge in the first days of the conquest. The land where these ruins stand forms a part of the hacienda of Ake. It belongs to Don Bernardo Peon, one of the wealthiest men of the country, but on account of the insalubrity of the climate it is to-day well nigh abandoned. Only a few Indian servants, living in a constant dread of the paludean fevers that decimate their families, remained to take care of the scanty herds of cattle and horses which form now the whole wealth of the farm.
In the first days of March we arrived at the gate of the farm-house. The Majordomo had received orders to put himself and his men at our disposal. The ruined farm-house lies at the foot of a cyclopean structure. From the veranda, rising majestically in bold relief against the sky, is to be seen the most interesting and best preserved monument of Ake, composed of three platforms superposed. They terminate in an immense esplanade crowned by three rows of 12 columns each. These columns, formed of huge square stones roughly hewn, and piled one above the other to a height of 4 meters, are the _Katuns_ that served to record certain epochs in the history of the nation, and indicate in this case an antiquity of at least 5760 years. The monuments of Ake are peculiar, and the only specimens of their kind to be found among these ruined cities.
They are evidently the handiwork of a herculean and uncouth race--the enormous height of each step in the staircase proves it--of that race of giants whose great bones and large skulls are now and then disinterred, and whose towering forms, surmounted by heads disproportionately small, we have seen pictured on the walls of Chichen-Itza. They recalled forcibly to our minds the antique _Guanches_, the ancient inhabitants of the Canary Islands, whose gigantic mummies are yet found in the sepulchral caverns of Teneriffe, and whose peculiar sandals with red straps so closely resemble those seen on the feet of Chaacmol. The edifices of Ake are composed of large blocks of stone, generally square, often oblong in shape, superposed, and held together merely by their enormous weight, without the aid of mortar or cement of any sort.
We did not tarry in this strange city more than eight days. The malaria of the place very seriously affected the health of my wife, and obliged us to hasten back to Tixkokob. We brought with us the photograph views, and plans of the princ.i.p.al buildings, regretting not to perfect our work by a complete survey of the whole of them, scattered as they are over a large extent of ground.
Our investigations in Uxmal revealed to our minds some interesting facts in the lives of the three brothers of the tradition. In Chichen we discovered the place of concealment of the two brothers _Huuncay_ and _Chaacmol_. That of the third brother, _Aac_, was not to be found. Yet I was certain it must exist somewhere. Many persons who are not acquainted with the customs and religious beliefs of those ancient people have questioned me on the strange idea of burying such beautiful objects of art at so great a depth, yet the reason is very simple. The nations that inhabited the whole of Central America--the Mayas, the Nahuas, the Caras or Carians--had, with the Siamese even of to-day, and the Egyptians of old, many notions in common concerning the immortality of the soul, and its existence after its earthly mission was accomplished. They believed that the sentient and intelligent principle, _pixan_, which inhabits the body, survived the death of that body, and was bound to return to earth, and live other and many mundane existences; but that between each separate existence that _pixan_ went to a place of delight, _Caan_, where it enjoyed all sorts of bliss for a proportionate time, and as a reward for the good actions it had done while on earth. Pa.s.sing to a place of punishment, _Metnal_, it suffered all kinds of evils during also a certain time in atonement for its sins. Then it was to return and live again among men. But as the material body was perishable, they made effigies in perfect resemblance to it. These were sometimes of wood, sometimes of clay, and sometimes of stone, according to the wealth or social position of the individual; and after burning the body, the ashes were enclosed in the statue or in urns that they placed near by. Around and beside these were arranged the weapons and the ornaments used by the deceased, if a warrior; the tools of his trade; if a mechanic; and books, if a priest or learned man, in order that they should find them at hand when the _pixan_ should come back and animate the statue or image.
To return to our investigations at Uxmal. On examining the ornaments on the cornice of the Eastern front of the monument known as "The House of the Governor," I was struck with their similarity to those which adorn the most ancient edifice of Chichen and whose construction, I judge, dates back 12,000 years. But what most particularly called my attention were the hieroglyphics that surrounded a sitting figure placed over the main entrance in the centre of the building. There were plainly to me the names of _Huuncay_ and _Chaacmol_, and on both sides of the figure, now headless, the name of the individual it was intended to represent, _Aac_, the younger brother and murderer. And on the North-west corner of the second terrace was his private residence, a very elegant structure of a most simple and graceful architecture, ornamented with his totem. I afterwards found a pillar written with his name in hieroglyphics and a bust of marble very much defaced.
Around the neck is a collar or necklace sustaining a medallion with his name. In the figure that adorns the facade of the palace he is represented sitting, and under his feet are to be seen the bodies of three personages, two men and one woman, flayed. Unhappily these also have been mutilated by the hand of time or of iconoclasts.
They are headless, but I entertain no doubt as to whom they were intended to represent, _Huuncay_, _Chaacmol_ and the queen, his wife. It is worthy of notice that while the phallic emblems are to be seen in great profusion in every other building at Uxmal, there is not a single trace of them in or on the "House of the Governor,"
or its appurtenances.
Yucatan being in a state of political effervescence, we determined to visit the islands of Mugeres and Cozumel, on the East coast of Yucatan, taking our chance of falling into the hands of the Indians and being murdered.
Accordingly, on the 20th of October, 1876, we embarked on board the "Viri," a small coasting sloop, and with the mists of the evening, the houses of Progreso faded from our view and were lost in the haze of the horizon. Contrary winds r.e.t.a.r.ded our journey and obliged us to cast anchor near sh.o.r.e every night. It was not until after ten tiresome days that we, at last, saw the dim outline of Mugeres island rise slowly over the waves. As we drew near, the tall and slender forms of the cocoa trees, gracefully waving their caps of green foliage with the breeze, while their roots seemed to spring from the blue waters of the ocean, indicated the spot where the village houses lay on the sh.o.r.e under their umbrage. Seen at a distance, the spot presents quite a romantic aspect. The island is a mere rock, elevated only a few feet above the level of the sea, six miles long and about one-half a mile wide in its widest parts.
In some places it is scarcely 200 steps across. The population consists of 500 souls, more or less. Its princ.i.p.al industry is fishing. For Indian corn and beans--the staple articles of food throughout Yucatan--they depend altogether on the main land; vegetables of any kind are an unknown luxury, notwithstanding there are some patches of good vegetable land in the central part. The island possesses a beautiful and safe harbor; at one time it was the haven where the pirates that infested the West Indian seas were wont to seek rest from their hazardous calling. Their names are to be seen to-day rudely carved on the _sapote_ beams that form the lintels of the doorways of the antique shrine whose ruins crown the southernmost point of the island.
It is to this shrine of the Maya Venus that as far down as the Spanish conquest, pilgrims repaired yearly to offer their prayers and votive presents to propitiate that divinity. Cogolludo tells us that it was on her altar that the priest who accompanied the adventurers who first landed at the island, after destroying the effigies of the G.o.ddess and of her companions and replacing them by a picture of the Virgin Mary, celebrated ma.s.s for the first time on those coasts in presence of a throng of astonished natives. They gave to the island the name of Mugeres (women). I was told that formerly many of the votive offerings had been disinterred from the sand in front of the building. The soil at that place is profusely strewn with fragments of images wrought in clay, representing portions of the human body. I was myself so fortunate as to fall in with the head of a priestess, a beautiful piece of workmanship, moulded according to the most exact proportions of Grecian art. It had formed part of a brazier that had served to burn perfumes on the altar near which I found it. I happened to use part of that vase to hold some live coals, and notwithstanding the many years that had elapsed since it had last served, a most sweet odor arose and filled the small building.
I had read in Cogolludo that in olden times, on the main land, opposite to the island of Mugeres, was the city of _Ekab_. I was desirous of visiting its ruins, but no one could indicate their exact position. They did not even know of the name. They spoke of Meco, of Nisucte, of Kankun, of extensive ruins of buildings in that place, where they provide themselves with hewn stones. After much delay I was able to obtain a boat and men. We set sail for Meco, the nearest place situated on another island close to the sh.o.r.es of the main land. There I found a ruined edifice surrounded by a wall forming an inclosure, adorned with rows of small columns.
In the centre of the inclosure an altar. The edifice, composed of two rooms, is built on a graduated pyramid composed of seven _andenes_. This building is without a doubt an ancient temple. We next visited Nisucte. There we found the same sort of monuments but built on a large scale. These places have merely been shrines visited by the pilgrims on their way to and from the altar of Venus. The main point of importance gained in visiting these ruins was that this whole coast had been inhabited by a race of dwarfs and that these edifices were their work. We had seen their portraits carved on the pillars of the fortress at Chichen-Itza. We had seen also their pictures among the several paintings. We had heard of the Indian tradition, very current among the natives, that many of the monuments of Yucatan had been constructed by the _Alux-ob_. But not until we visited these places and entered their houses, did we become satisfied of the fact of their existence that till then we had considered a myth. Kankun, where the ruins of numerous houses cover a great extent of ground, must have been the real site of _Ekab_. The dwarfish inhabitants of these cities must have been a very tolerant sort of people in religious matters, since in the same temple, nay on the very same altar, we have found side by side the phallic emblems with the image of _Kukulcan_.
Our explorations in that part of the country were at an end. We were beginning to grow tired of our fish diet, and looked with anxiety for an opportunity to continue our voyage to the island of Cozumel. This island, called by the ancient Mayas _Cozmil_ (place for swallows), was the rendezvous of Indian pilgrims who flocked thither every year to pay homage at the numerous temples, the ruins of which are to be found in the thick forests that now cover it.
The expected opportunity offering we reached the village of San Miguel February 3, 1877. Cozumel is a beautiful island of about 45 miles in length and 12 in breadth. The fertility of its soil is evinced by the luxuriant growth of the thick and impenetrable forests of valuable timber that have sprung up since its abandonment by its former inhabitants and which serve either for purposes of building or ornamentation. Cocoa-nuts, plantains, bananas, pineapples, ananas and other tropical fruits grow abundantly. Vanilla, yams, sweet potatoes and vegetables of all kinds can be produced in plenty, while honey and wax, the work of wild harmless bees, and copal are gathered on the trees. The tobacco, which is to-day the article that engrosses the mind and monopolizes the attention of the planters, is of a superior quality, emulating the Cuban production. On the other hand the thickets are alive with pheasants, quail, pigeons, wild pigs and other descriptions of game. The waters swarm with the most excellent fish and innumerable turtles sport in the lagoons, while curlews, snipe, ducks and other aquatic fowls flock on their sh.o.r.es; and not the least of the gifts with which the munificent hand of nature has so bountifully endowed this delicious oasis of the ocean is its delightful and soft, yet invigorating, climate, that makes well nigh useless the art of the physician.
At some epoch it is evident that the whole island was under cultivation, which is proved by the stone fences that divide it into small parcels or farms like a checker-board. The island, like the whole of the Yucatan peninsula, has evidently been upraised from the bottom of the sea by the action of volcanic fires, and the thin coating of arable loam of surprising fertility which covers a substratum of calcareous stones, is the result of the acc.u.mulation of detriti, mixed with the residuum of animal and vegetable life of thousands of years. The greater part of this island is as yet archaeologically unexplored. I have no doubt that thorough explorations in the depths of its forests and of the caves would bring to light very interesting relics, which would repay the trouble and expense. Rough and rude as is the construction of the monuments of the island, the architecture possesses the same character as that of the more elaborate edifices on the main land.
The same design of entablature, with some little difference in the cornice, the same triangular arch, the same shaped rooms--long and narrow, but all on a miniature scale. They seem more like dolls"
houses than dwellings for man. One of the best preserved of these singular buildings was visited, and two other constructions, consisting of independent and separate arches, the only ones we ever met with in our rambles in Yucatan. The edifice formed at one time, with the two triumphal arches, part of a series of constructions now completely ruined. It was a temple composed, as are all structures of the kind, of two apartments, a front or ante-chamber, and the sanctuary or holy of holies. In this case the ante-chamber measures 59 inches in width by 2 yards and 33 inches in length, its height being 2 yards and 30 inches from the floor to the apex of the triangular arch that serves as ceiling. The sanctuary is entered through a doorway 1 yard high and 18 inches wide, and is narrower than the front apartments, measuring only 34 inches across. The whole edifice is externally 3 yards high, 4 yards 29 inches long and 4 yards wide. If we judge of the stature of the builders by the size of the building, we may really imagine this to have been the kingdom of Liliput, visited by Gulliver. The triumphal arches present the same proportions as the temple I have just described, which is by no means the earliest archaic structure. Old people are not wanting who pretend to have seen these _Alux-ob_, whom they describe as reaching the extraordinary stature of 2 feet. They tell us of their habits and mischievousness, tales which forcibly recall to our minds the legends of "the little people" so credited among all cla.s.ses of society in Ireland. There can be no reasonable doubt but that a very diminutive race of men, but little advanced in the arts of civilization, dwelt on these islands and along the eastern coast of Yucatan, and that many of the edifices, the ruins of which are to be seen in that part of the country, are the works of their hands, as the tradition has it.
The attempt has been made in the previous pages to bring the discoveries of Dr. Le Plongeon and his own account of his labors and inferences into such a form that they may be easily considered by those competent to determine their importance and bearing. The value of the statue called Chac-Mool, as an archaeological treasure, cannot be questioned. It is the only remaining human figure of a high type of art, finished "in the round" known to have been discovered in America since the occupation of Maya territory in the 16th century.
The idols of Copan have expressive human countenances,[89-*] though they are distorted in order to inspire awe and fear in the beholder, but no attempt was there made to depict the graceful proportions of the nude figure. They stand perpendicularly, carved from solid blocks of stone, and are from 10 to 15 feet in height. The figures upon them are bas-reliefs, occupying generally only 2/3 of the length of the front, while the back of the block is a straight surface and is covered with emblems and hieroglyphics. The sculptures of Palenque[89-] have many of them much artistic beauty, but they are all of them attached figures, as it is believed are also the beautiful statues of Nineveh.[89-]
Even the slightest touching makes a figure "in relief." This statue from Chichen-Itza has all the appearance of being intended as the likeness of a man, and much skill is shown in the delineation of the proportions. It is entirely detached, and reposes upon a base carved from the same block of stone as the figure, which gives it a higher rank in sculpture than any other in America, of which we have ocular proof at this day. It is a noteworthy circ.u.mstance in the controversy regarding the seizure of the statue by the Yucatan Government, and afterwards by that of Mexico, that no doubt in regard to its authenticity, so far as is known to the writer, has been expressed on the part of those who would naturally be the best judges of objects found in their own country. Among the Le Plongeon photographs of sculptures from Uxmal is a head in demi-relief, which resembles in the lineaments of the face those of this statue so much as to offer a striking likeness, and this agrees with the theory of the intimate connection of Chichen-Itza and Uxmal, adopted in the communication to Hon. J. W. Foster.
Diego de Landa, second Bishop of Yucatan, in his account of that country written in 1566, speaks of two similar statues observed by him at the same locality, Chichen-Itza, which place he speaks of as famous for its ruins.[90-*] His description is: "I found there sculptured lions, vases, and other objects, fashioned with so much skill that no one would be tempted to declare that that people made them without instruments of metal. There I found also two men sculptured, each made of a single stone, and girded according to the usage of the Indians. They held their heads in a peculiar manner, and had ear-rings in their ears, as the Indians wear them, and a point formed a projection behind the neck, which entered a deep hole in the neck, and thus adorned the statue was complete." He also speaks of the practice of burying articles used by the dead with their ashes,[90-] and he says: "As regards Seigneurs and people of superior condition, they burn their remains, and deposit their ashes in large urns. They then build temples over them, as one sees was anciently done, by what is found at Izamal."[90-]
The statue discovered seems to resemble those spoken of by Landa in all the peculiarities mentioned. He also refers to the custom among the women of filing the teeth like a saw, which was considered by them to be ornamental.[90---]