24 Singing Valleys 



masks, knives, bells of copper and gold,* but many pitiful 

 skeletons, the bones of the rain-god's brides. 



The rise of great cities in Yucatan necessitated a vigorous 

 farming population round and about the cities, to feed the 

 townsfolk. True, the sea yielded fish, and the forests wild 

 game: "Yucatan" means "the Land of the Turkey and the 

 Deer." But, still, the chief staple of food was the maize. The 

 Maya of Yucatan were still corn-planters. They remained so up 

 to the time of the Spanish conquest. 



Ninety-nine percent of what is known of the habits of the 

 Indians of Yucatan is derived from that Apologia of Bishop 

 Diego de Landa which was to inspire Linnaeus. De Landa was 

 sent out by the Franciscans to be Provincial of the Order in 

 Yucatan. He was a militant Christian who, if he could not con- 

 vert, burnt. In July, 1562, he held an auto-da-fe in the town of 

 Mani in which he destroyed, besides recalcitrant parishioners, 

 five thousand idols and twenty-seven Maya manuscript rolls. 

 Nor was his wrath directed only at idols and the books of 

 the pagan priests. His rule was so cruel that even Spain could 

 not stomach it. The Order recalled de Landa, and the Council 

 of the Indies reprimanded him severely. For ten years he re- 

 mained in Spain where he wrote his book, setting down in 

 detail all that he had learned of the Maya from his time among 

 them, and from what had been told him by two converts, one 

 of them a member of the famous Cocom family, one-time 

 lords of Mayapan. 



De Landa's account leaves one in no doubt as to the basis 

 of Indian civilization in Yucatan. The life in the Maya vil- 

 lages was communal. Round about stretched the e/idos, the 

 town fields which were owned by the village and divided 

 among the freed men, each married man being allotted ap- 

 proximately four hundred square feet. Here were grown 

 squash, beans, okra, yams, tomatoes and various fruits. Farther 

 away, where the forest had been burned to make room for 

 them, lay the milpas (cornfields). Because the maize quickly 



* In the Peabody Museum, Boston. 



