THOMAS] INDIAN LANGUAGES OF MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 63 
Orozco y Berra (1: 169) says the language is peculiar to Chiapas, and 
this conclusion is followed by most recent authorities. As we have 
seen, Juarros includes Palenque inthe area in which this language was 
spoken. Brasseur de Bourbourg (1:1, 63-64) hesitates between Tzental 
and Maya (proper), but the inscriptions agree better with the former 
than with the latter. According to the statement of Stoll (2:84), 
Doctor Berendt affirms that later the language spoken there was 
Chol, and this corresponds with Orozco y Berra’s map and with 
Sapper’s conclusion (2). It is therefore an undecided question how 
far northward the Tzental territory extended at the date of discovery. 
If Sapper’s districting of the ruin-types (2: map vu) could be 
accepted as a correct mapping of ethnic divisions, the Chol formerly 
extended over the Chontal area, the Palenque region, and the section 
occupied by the western Lacandon. This evidence is not of a char- 
acter to be satisfactory in deciding this question, however, especially 
as Brinton, and apparently Berendt also, consider them relatively late 
comers to this region. The writer has been unable to find data 
“on which to base a conclusion regarding this .question, but is 
inclined to agree with Sapper in considering the ruins of the middle 
and lower Usumacinta valley as more nearly allied to those of Copan 
and Quirigua than to those of the intermediate Peten region. In this 
comparison, which must be close, details as well as general forms 
must be appealed to. These bring the ruins of Quirigua (which are 
ascribed by him to the Chol) and those of Copan (which he ascribes 
to the Chorti tribe) nearer to those of Palenque, Piedras Negras 
(see Mahler), and Menche in the Usumacinta valley than to those of 
the Peten region. This question will be further discussed, however, 
under Chol. The writer has followed Orozco y Berra chiefly, though 
not exactly, in outlining the area of the Tzental language. 
CHOL 
The authorities differ widely as to the area over which this idiom 
was spoken. Orozco y Berra (1:167) says the Chol constituted a 
tribe established from remote times in Guatemala, which was divided 
into two factions by the incursions of the Maya. One of these divi- 
sions, he says, is encountered in eastern Chiapas, and the other, very 
isolated, in Vera Paz. He maps only the western division, as the 
other division lay beyond the Mexican boundary. Sapper, in his 
map v, which relates to present conditions, limits them to a small 
area in northern Chiapas, but in his map vin, showing the areas of 
the ruin-types, the Chol type is in two sections, of which the western 
covers eastern Tabasco and northeastern Chiapas extending into 
northwestern Guatemala; the eastern division includes the extreme 
northeastern corner of Guatemala and a strip of Honduras along its 
