Mexican Maize Fields 35 



additional. A daughter was rated at half a tupa. From time to 

 time the village lands were re-allotted, thus keeping the title 

 vested in the community, not in one family or in an indi- 

 vidual. The crop raised in the communal fields was divided 

 into three parts, of which one part belonged to the Inca, one 

 to the priesthood and one to the people. The people's third 

 was rationed among all who had taken part in the sowing 

 and cultivating. If a man was absent with the army, he was 

 given his allowance of maize out of the share set aside for the 

 Inca. If he had not taken part in the village sowing because he 

 was working on one of the church buildings, then his ration 

 was paid to him out of the priests' share of the crop. It was a 

 planned society in which no allowance was made for idlers or 

 for millionaires. 



Perhaps it had been planned too well. Perhaps it made too 

 little difference to the tribes whether they gave the first third 

 of their crops to the Inca or to a Spanish governor, and 

 whether the second third went to the priests of the sun or to 

 the new order of priests who set up a cross and the statue of a 

 woman crowned with seven stars and standing on the crescent 

 moon, in the very temples where formerly hymns to the sun 

 had been chanted. After all, what was all-important was the 

 people's third. So long as that third part remained to the peo- 

 ple, and it was sufficient for their bodily needs, it mattered 

 little whether the rule was with the Incas or with Spain. 



For at least three centuries before the coming of the 

 Spaniards, twilight had fallen on the Maya. Like Copan and 

 Palenque, Chichen Itza was deserted. Where did the Maya 

 go? No one really knows. The Seminoles of Florida have a 

 legend that the founders of their nation were seven hundred 

 Maya who came by boat up the Suwannee to the great Oke- 

 fenokee Swamp where they joined the Creeks. Some time 

 later the two tribes agreed to separate; the Seminoles the 

 name is said to mean "Wanderers" moved south into the 

 Everglades. But seven hundred "Wanderers" do not account 



