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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY—PUBLICATION NO. 4 
days when the water was lower. This may have been 
true, but probably crossings were by boat rather than 
by bridge. Teachtic reappeared as an island, and 
Tzanjayam became a peninsula when the Lake level 
reached its low of about 5,062 feet (reportedly 1920) 
and they remained so until 1932. Though the water 
began to rise in 1930, it was a slow increase until 
1933; Lothrop’s 1932 map (Lothrop, 1933, p. 17) 
shows Teachttc. About 1921, according to former 
officials of Santiago, an Atiteco started to plant corn 
on the newly emerged island. When he was ques- 
tioned by the authorities, who considered this as com- 
munal land, he reportedly produced a title to the 
island, dated 1824, and was permitted to plant on it. 
(The 1866 map of Dollfus and Mont-Serrat shows 
high water again, 5,100 ft., by that time.) Local 
tradition also holds that the island was larger at the 
time of the Conquest, having then an area of 200 
cuerdas (40 acres). Lothrop’s discovery (op. cit., 
p. 4) of ruins 3 feet below the low water of 1932 
indicates a receded Lake level in pre-Conquest time. 
The level at which the Lake surface has stood during 
most of historic time, according to many types of 
evidence, is 5,100 feet. Judging from shore features, 
maps proving it are as follows: in 1685 (?), Fuentes 
y Guzman, 1932-33, vol. 2, op. p. 60; in 1812, unpub- 
lished map made in San Pedro (dated January 18, 
1812, now in Santiago archives) ; in 1866, Dollfus and 
Mont-Serrat, 1868, pl. 16, fig. 2; in 1891, Intercon- 
tinental Railway Commission Survey, triangulation 
figure, Report of 1898, p. 81, and unpublished map of 
Lake Atitlan. Photographs showing the 5,100 feet 
level are as follows: Brigham, 1887, op. p. 156; in 
1904, Termer, 1936, pl. 29, fig. 1. Reports of the old 
residents all around the Lake, the growth of large 
trees (avocadoes especially) only above 5,100 ft., and 
the reentrenchment of streams below this level, all 
lend supporting evidence. Médel about 1550 described 
Santiago as an important village with some 3,000 
Indians, and mentioned subterranean outlets from the 
Lake, refusing to believe Indian tradition that it was 
bottomless and without any outlet. (Médel, Ms. 
1550-60?, p. 65, f. 152). Ponce in 1586 told of a great 
river near Patulul which sprang from the mountain, 
draining the Lake from the southeast shore (Ponce, 
1873, p. 444). Fray Diego de Ocafia, a Dominican 
priest, was probably the first to write (1662) regard- 
ing the origin of the Lake depression. He described 
it as a calderalike crater, resulting from the collapse 
of a giant volcano, and attributed Lake drainage to 
subterranean outlets which controlled the level; he 
wrote that Atitlan volcano was also called “Patulul” 
at that time (Vazquez, 1937-38, pp. 168-169). (It was 
also known as “Suchitepequez”; erupted in 1469, and 
a number of other times to 1856; McBryde, 1933; 
p. 67 and ftn. 4.) Dollfus and Mont-Serrat (1866) 
explained the Lake entirely through blocked drainage 
by volcanoes, as in the case of Lake Amatitlan, and 
cautioned against the crater notion. They were prob- 
ably the first to advance this idea (op. cit., p. 238). 
The United States Army engineers who made the 
Railway Survey in 1891-92, considered both hy- 
potheses, leaning slightly to the crater idea (Inter- 
continental Railway Commission Survey, Report of 
1898, p. 82). Tempest Anderson, an English volcanolo- 
gist, in 1908 reiterated independently the conclusions of 
the Americans (Anderson, 1908, p. 482). The German 
volcanologist, Karl Sapper, wrote in 1913 that the 
Lake, like Amatitlan, was due essentially to blocked 
drainage. Atwood in 1932 concluded that the basin 
was a caldera (Atwood, 1933, p. 664); while Termer 
in 1936 found “no geologic evidence of an old crater 
formation,” and though the rivers Quixcap and Pana- 
jachel must have formerly joined the coastal streams 
southwest of the Lake before being blocked by the 
voleanoes (Termer, 1936, pp. 251-252). One of the 
most convincing arguments against a previous drain- 
age through Santiago Bay is seen in the older ridge 
which stands between the Bay and the Coastal Low- 
lands (background in pl. 47). 
