6 EXPLORATIONS OF PALENQUE. 



sion is made to the ancient capital. Was it then the abode of a populous and 

 flourishing community, such as once occupied it, to judge from the extent and 

 magnificence of its remains ? Or was it, even then, a heap of mouldering ruins, 

 buried in a wilderness of vegetation, and thus hidden fi-om the knowledge of the 

 surrounding country? If the former, the silence of Cortes is not easy to be 

 exijlained.'"^ 



There is a dim tradition relating to the origin of Palenque — certainly of 

 doubtful value, but nevertheless of sufficient interest to be mentioned in this 

 place. Indeed, the early history of Central America and Yucatan offers but few 

 points of support to the investigator. " This history, or rather the recollec- 

 tion of it," says Brasseur de Bourbourg, " is merely founded upon a small 

 number of traditions no less obscure than confused. The chronology is defective 

 in the same measure, and that to which we try to link the principal events in 

 the annals of Yucatan is characterized by the most arid laconism."f Such is the 

 avowal of an author well known for the hardihood with which he throws out his 

 speculations, and whose really great learning scarcely can dispel the distrust 

 roused by his extravagant conclusions. Yet, notwithstanding these drawbacks, 

 he has brought to light many interesting details bearing on the former state of 

 those countries, and his works are, and long will be, indispensable to the student 

 of Amei'ican history. What Brasseur states concerning the founding of Palenquo 

 is chiefly taken from a curious manuscript by Don Ramon de Ordoilez y Aguiar, 

 a native of Ciudad Real de Chiapas, who died about 1840, at an advanced age, 

 as canon of the cathedral of that city. The comprehensive title of the manuscript, 

 " Historia de la Creacion del Cielo y de la Tierra " (History of the Creation of 

 Heaven and Earth), discloses at once the unmeasured range of his imagination. 

 The account, as given by Brasseur, is the following : — It was several centuries 

 before the Christian era, when there arrived at the Laguna de Terminos a small 

 fleet of barks, from which a distinguished person, called Votan, accompanied by 

 other chiefs of his race, went ashore. He came from a place called Valum- 

 Votan, or " Land of Votan," which the commentator (Ordoiiez) believes to have 

 been the Island of Cuba. Votan penetrated, apparently unmolested by the 

 natives,! iii^o the country, ascending the Usumacinta, and near one of the 

 affluents of this river Central American civilization is supposed to have taken 

 its origin ; for, during his sojourn in this region, a city arose at the foot of the 



* Prescott: Conquest of Mexico; vol. iii, p. 281. 



f Brasseur de Bourbourg : Histoire des Nations Civilisees du Mexique et de I'Amerique-Centrale ; Paris, 

 1857-9, torn, ii, p. 2. — He refers to a Maya manuscript treating of the principal epochs in the history of 

 Yucatan before the conquest. It was presented by Don Juan Pio Perez, a Yucatec scholar, to Mr. Stephens, who 

 published it with an English version in the appendix to the second volume of his work on Yucatan. The manu- 

 script was written from memory by an Indian, at some time not designated. 



X Brasseur believes they were Tzendals. Remnants of this people still live in the neighborhood of Palenquo. 



