GANN] MAYA INDIANS OF YUCATAN AND BRITISH HONDURAS 53 



axes, with slingstoncs, and stone-hcadcMl clubs, made for the most 

 part of hard limestone. Their defensive weapons were small circidar 

 shields of leather-covered wickerwork and thick cotton breastplates. 



The lower classes probably lived exclusively in thatched pimento- 

 walled houses, identical in construction with those used by the Maya 

 of the present day; naturally, these have completely disappeared, 

 but the former sites of villages composed of such huts may easily 

 be recognized by the presence of half-choked weUs and the great 

 number of malacates, broken pots, weapons, implements, ornaments, 

 and rubbing stones, which are to be found scattered all over them. 

 The priests, caciques, and upper classes doubtless lived in the stone 

 houses, the remains of which lie buried in considerable numbers in 

 the mounds. The walls of these houses were of stucco-covered stone 

 and lime, the floors of hard cement, and the roofs, no doubt, of 

 beams and thatch, as many of them are too wide to have been 

 covered by the so-called "American arch." 



Many of these buildings were doubtless used as temples, but prob- 

 ably the majority of them were private houses.* In one of them an 

 interment had taken place beneath the floor of the house before the 

 structure was destroyed.^ 



The former inhabitants of this part of the Maya area do not seem 

 to have fallen far behind those of northern Yucatan in the arts of 

 sculpture upon stone, stucco molding, mural painting, ceramics, and 

 the manufacture of stone implements and weapons, as excellent 

 examples in all these fields have been found. 



At Seibal, Holmul, Naranjo, and Benque Viejo, cities of the old 

 Empire lying along the British Honduras-Guatemala frontier, examples 

 of sculptured stelae and altars have been found, equal in fineness of 

 workmanship to those found at any other site within the IMa^^a area. 

 Tlie molded stucco figures at Pueblo Nuevo are beautifully executed, 

 while the painted stucco upon the temple walls at Santa Rita is prob- 

 ably the finest example of this kind of decoration yet brought to 

 light in the whole Maya area. The colors used (green, yellow, red, 

 blue, black, and white) seem to have been derived from colored 

 earths and vegetal dyes ground to a paste in small shallow stone 



1 Estava en vn gran Sal<5n, cuyos Techos eran de Paja, y las Paredes de Cal, y Canto, de vna vara de alto, 

 brunidas, como el suelo, y en ellas estrivava d Maderage de lo levantado en la Casa.— Villagutieree, 

 op. cit., p. 392. 



Estava poblada toda ella de Casas, algunas con Paredes de T'iedra, de cosa de mas de vara de alto, y de 

 alliarrilia Maderas, y los Techos de Paja, y otras de solo Madera, Y Paja. — Ibid., 491. 



2 Enterravanlos dentro en sus casas o a las espaldas dellas, . . . Comunmente desamparavan la casa y 

 la de.xavan yerma despues de enterrados.— Landa, op. cit., p. 196. 



