74 APPENDIX. 



emperor of Mexico, but under the rule of many little kings, who acknowledged 

 that monarch's sovereignty by the payment of tribute, consisting, as some say, 

 of daughters of the princes and other young women of rank selected for their 

 beauty, but, according to others, of woolen textile manufactures and certain 

 equivalents of money, now called cuzcas. Though there were many petty 

 princes in the country when the Spaniards arrived, it is related that it was orig- 

 inally ruled by one monarch, but that tyranny gave rise to a plurality of chiefs, 

 who brought ruin upon themselves by feuds and persecutions, and ultimately 

 had to abandon the stone buildings and to take refuge in the forests. Here the 

 families lived united in small communities, being governed by the most promi- 

 nent man among them. Lizana bases his opinion that the country was at one 

 time subject to a single ruler on the similarity of the buildings : " They are all 

 of the same architecture and style, and all built upon artificial elevations or 

 Kues, which circumstances lead to the supposition that these edifices, bearing so 

 much resemblance to each other, were erected by the order of one person." It 

 is unnecessary to draw attention to the irrationality of this inference. He 

 comments on the great number of edifices, most of which, he says, are almost 

 entire, of sumptuous appearance, and ornamented with figures of armed men 

 and of animals. Though he considers them in general as extremely old, he 

 speaks of some as looking so new and showing the wooden lintels* above the 

 doors in such a state of soundness that one would imagine they had been built 

 only twenty years ago. " These buildings," he continues, " were not inhabited 

 by the Indians when the Spaniards arrived ; for the former lived in families in 

 scattered huts amid the woods, as I stated. But they used, it is said, these 

 structures as temples and sanctuaries, and in the highest place of each they kept 

 their god, false as he was, and there they made their sacrifices, sometimes of 

 men, women and children. Here they also performed their prayers, ceremonies, 

 fasts and penitences." 



The remainder of the extracts relates to the five pyramids of Izamal,f none 

 of which was in a state of good preservation when Lizana saw them. He 

 mentions the traditions which refer to the origin of these structures, and commu- 

 nicates even the names of the idols formerly placed upon them. Of particular 

 interest is his account of Zamna, or Itzamna, the reputed civilizer of the Mayas 

 and founder of the capital of their empire, Mayapan, destroyed about 1420, only 

 a century before the conquest. To Zamna is ascribed the invention of Yucatec 

 writing. He was buried at Izamal, which became celebrated on that account, 

 and attracted pilgrims from all parts of the country.J 



* Mr. Stephens saw during his explorations in Yucatan lintels of zapote wood still in their places and in a 

 good state of preservation. At Palenque they had disappeared, in consequence of which the tops of the doorways 

 were brolven. The zapote tree furnishes wood of extreme hardness and durability. 



•j- Bishop Landa speaks of eleven or twelve. 



% Landa : Eelation etc. ; pp. 349-365. 



