164 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VI. 
favour of the Tukuches, and ended by haughtily demanding that the 
Akahales be given up to be put to death. A claim at once so unjust and 
so audacious filled the members of council with astonishment, to whom 
the plot was still a mystery; the Zotzil princes gazed at one anpther 
stupified, but before they had time to come to themselves, the Atzih- 
Winak left the judgment hall, threatening them with the vengeance of 
the Tukuches if they did not at once yield to his demand. Oxlahuh- 
Tzy understood, but too late, the fault he had committed in alienating 
the nobility ; sedition broke out in every part of the city, and he opened 
his eyes only to see the Tukuches rising in their quarters, running 
tumultuously through the streets, provoking the Zotzils, and demanding 
with loud cries the death of the Akahales. 
“The news of the insurrection spread like lightning from the capital 
to the neighbouring regions. All the proud lords whom the iron hand of 
the Ahpozotzil had momentarily compelled to bow beneath his yoke, 
already incited by the intrigues of the Atzih-Winak, took to arms, all 
ready to proclaim him sovereign as soon as victory declared in his favour. 
Horrified at the turn the commotion was taking, the Zotzil princes 
found their courage fail ; in the hope of escaping the consequences, they 
humbled themselves before Cay-Hunahpu, and, in order to appease his 
wrath, sent him the unfortunate Akahales, the nominal cause of the 
troubles with which they were threatened. But these victims failed to 
satisfy the haughty rebel—he desired more illustrious ones. Filled with 
contempt for the king, who thus revealed his weakness to him, and 
measuring him by his cowardice, he declared him to have forfeited the 
throne, and left Iximche, taking in his train all the Tukuche population, 
so as to place, if it were possible, a deeper gulf between them and the 
Zotzils. 
“The women and children withdrew to Tiboquy and to Roxakan, 
the inhabitants of which had declared in favour of rebellion, while the 
Atzih-Winak fortified himself with his vassals in the heights adjacent to 
the capital, from which it was only separated by the river running along 
the bottom of the precipice; there he awaited the arrival of the allies 
by whose aid he hoped soon to re-enter the city, in order to set up his 
throne on the ruins of the Ahpozotozil’s power. But the expectations 
he had formed were far from realizing themselves to his satisfaction ; 
the helpers on whom he had counted were few and came slowly, and 
these delays, while discouraging to his soldiers, gave the royal family 
time to regain confidence and to fortify itself in Iximche. The 
Cachiquel princes of the mountains of Zacatepec, and those of the warm 
