THE MAYA INDIANS OF SOUTHERN YUCATAN AND 

 NORTHERN BRITISH HONDURAS 



By Thomas W. F. Gann 



PART 1. CUSTOMS, CEREMONIES, AND MODE OP LIFE 



INTRODUCTION 



The southern and eastern parts of Yucatan, from Tuluum in the 

 north to the Rio Hondo in the south, are occupied to-day by two 

 tribes of Maya Indians, the Santa Cruz and Icaiche or Chichanha, 

 The number of Santa Cruz was estimated by Sapper in 1895 at about 

 8,000 to 10,000, but at the present day has probably been reduced 

 to about 5,000. The loaiche, the number of whom he estimated at 

 500, and is given by the Guia de Yucatan in 1900 as 803, now com- 

 prise not more than 200. This decrease is due to the policy of 

 extermination carried out among the Santa Cruz for years by the 

 Mexican Government, and the consequent emigration of many of 

 the Indians to British Honduras, Guatemala, and northern Yucatan. 

 The northern and western parts of British Honduras contain between 

 5,000 and 6,000 Indians; those in the north ate partly indigenous 

 and partly immigrants dra\\Ti from Yucatecan tribes who have left 

 their homes after various political disturbances, especially after the 

 occupancy of their towns of Bacalar and Santa Cruz by the Mexican 

 Government. The Indians of the western part of the colony are 

 also partly indigenous, but for the greater part Itzas, who have come 

 in from Peten in Guatemala. 



The objects shown in figures 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 31, 35, 36, 47, 

 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 62, 63, 64, 65, 69, 70, 76, and 77, and in plates 

 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18a, and 19 are in the Liverpool Museiun ; 

 those shown in figures 15, 40, and 41 and in plate 9 are in the British 

 Museum; those shown in figure 45 and in plates 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 

 and 28 are in the Bristol Museum; and those shoMii in figures 67 

 and 68 and in plates 20, 21 , and 22 are in the Museum of the American 

 Indian, Heye Foundation. 



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