434 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 4 



There are many descriptions of the marketplaces of the Aztet. 

 and these are probably typical of markets among the natives at the 

 time of the Conquest. We have one description of a Maya market. 

 It is hidden in the huge volumes of Oviedo (Lib. 32, Cap. 3 vol. 

 i) : " they had very large markets or plazas, with many merchants 

 and goods; both provisions and food, as well as of all the other 

 things which are bought, sold, and exchanged among the natives." 



A more detailed description is found in Ximenez' " Historia de 

 Guatemala ", tomo 1, p. 94, 1929 ed. 



The rulers took great pains that there should be held great and celebrated 

 and very rich fairs and markets, because at these come together many things ; 

 those who are in need of something will find it there and can be exchanged 

 with those other necessary things: they held their fairs and exhibited what 

 they had for sale close to the temples. The selling and buying is to exchange 

 which is the most natural form of trade ; they gave maize for black beans 

 and black beans for cacao, exchanged salt for spices which were aji or chile 

 . . . also they exchanged meat and game for other things to eat ; they swapped 

 cotton cloth for gold and for some hatchets of copper, and gold for emeralds, 

 turquoises, and feathers. A judge presided over the market, to see that no- 

 body was exploited. He appraised the prices and he knew of everything, 

 which was presented at the market. 



From accounts of the market in Tenochtitlan, the ancient capital 

 of the Aztec empire, we know that judges presided over each market- 

 place, seeing to it that fair prices were asked and given, and it 

 appears that a similar arrangement was common at the Maya 

 markets. 



An important factor in the movement of trade must have been 

 the holy places such as Chichen Itza, Cozumel, and others. At the 

 religious festivals and on other occasions great crowds must have 

 gathered from distant parts, not only to worship, but also to trade, 

 just as we today see thousands of Maya descendants migrating 

 every year to the fair at Esquipulas or the fiesta of San Antonio 

 of Tila. 



Many nations at many times had watched the North Star. Just as 

 the Vikings about the year 1000 A. D. steered by this star on their 

 voyages to Vineland, so the Maya travelers and merchants a thous- 

 and years earlier set their course over mountains and valleys after 

 Shaman-Ek, the North Star, the god-protector of the travelers and 

 traveling merchants. Incense was burned to him, and his image 

 was venerated at wa3^side altars. 



Traders followed the trails from town to town and from market 

 to market. Cortes, when he tried to locate the rebellious Spaniards 

 at Naco in Honduras under Cristobal de Olid, used maps drawn by 

 traveling merchants on fiber paper, and also used traveling traders 

 as guides. 



