GREAT DEAGON OF QUIRIGUA, GUATEMALA HOLMES. 455 



The fateful trend. — There is thus another side to the story of the 

 functions of the idols and of the vast religious establishments of the 

 Maya cities. Under the undisputed control of an organized body of 

 wide influence and a religio-political system hoary with age, the peo- 

 ple doubtless believed themselves working for the common good and 

 in obedience to the bidding of dieties whose reality and authority 

 were constantly impressed upon them. They had no means of arriv- 

 ing at a correct knowledge of the truth that the gods of the entire 

 pantheon were mere fictions and that the revered priesthood, although 

 the embodiment of the highest wisdom, the promoters of learning, 

 and perhaps also the conservators of moral standards, was at the 

 same time a body of organized parasites, their position and authority 

 being sustained by the cunning use of the images in stone and the 

 complex system of festivals connected with their conjuration. 



We may not be far amiss in surmising that under the evergrowing 

 requirements of the shamanistic body in carrying forward their am- 

 bitious schemes, the energies and resources of the people were ab- 

 sorbed in larger and larger measure — in quarrying, hewing, trans- 

 porting, building, carving, providing, and serving, and that as the 

 natural agencies of deterioration and decay made inroads on the 

 splendid establishments which they had builded, they were called on 

 to quarr}'^ and carve and build again in an ever-losing struggle against 

 the elements and against the undetected incubus of the ambitious and 

 selfish priestcraft. We can readily conceive that these conditions pre- 

 vailed until the energies and resources of the people were impaired or 

 exhausted, and that gradually the authority of the priesthood and the 

 demands of the gods through them elicited no response from the im- 

 poverished people, so that disintegration and decay rapidly super- 

 vened, and that the end came on apace, as it must come to all struc- 

 tures builded pn sand, and more especially to those builded on the 

 treacherous sands of the imagination. 



It thus appears that to account for the decay of the Mayan culture 

 and the ruin of its wonderful cities we do not have to call primarily 

 on the more drastic agencies of destruction — war, pestilence, changes 

 in the level of the land, floods, and earthquakes, one or all of which, 

 however, may have aided in precipitating the disaster. The seeds 

 of decay were inherent in the system, as they are inherent in every 

 organization and structure of whatsoever kind that involves the long- 

 continued, ever-growing, and unrequited waste of the energies and 

 resources of a people. 



Esthetic significance. — While the great dragon of Quirigua may be 

 regarded as representing the culminating stage of religious art in 

 aboriginal America, it serves also to mark the highest level reached 

 in esthetic refinement. The religious motive was the strong dynamic 

 force which, more than all other agencies combined, can-ied culture 



