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BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



The specimen shown in plate 20 and figure 67 is a typical example of 

 this class. 



Incense burners of the second type are smaller, cruder, and probably 

 later in date than those of the first type. Some of these are deco- 

 rated with the entire figure, but more of them with the face only of 

 the god. 



Villagutierre tells us that the Indians of this region as late as the 

 end of the seventeenth century still practiced to some extent the 

 rites of their ancient religion;^ and in the voyages which he describes 



up the Rio Hondo, and to 



Tipu, the Spaniards must 

 frequently have come in con- 

 tact with the ancestors of 

 the present Santa Cruz and 

 Icaiche Indians, from whose 

 territory the specimens 

 shown in figures 68 and 69, 

 typical examples of this 

 class, were taken. During 

 the early years of the Spanish 

 occupancy it is probable that 

 the Indians, even in this re- 

 mote and little visited region, 

 living in a constant state of 

 semiwarfare and rebellion, 

 robbed, enslaved, driven 

 from their villages, with 

 little time to cultivate their 

 milpas, gradually lost their 

 ancient traditions and arts, 

 and, long neglecting, ultimately almost entirely forgot, the elaborate 

 ritual connected with their former religion. Such a decadence may 

 be observed in comparing the incense burners illustrated in plate 20 

 and figure 68. The very marked facial characteristics of the former 

 have given place to the crudely modeled, vacuous face of the latter, 

 resembling the work of a child; while the elaborate dress and orna- 

 ment, each minutest part of which probably had a special significance 

 and symbolism, though retaining to some exteiit the form of their 

 main constituents — -the headdress, breastplate, maxtli, and sandals — 

 have almost completely lost the wealth of detail which gave them 

 significance. 



Fig. 70. — Crude clay figurine found in Mound No. 25. 



1 " Y las dos mas grandes, de Comunidad, y la otra, aun mas grande, que todas las otras, era el Adoratorio 

 de los perversos Idolos de aquellos Lacandones, donde se hallaron muchos de ellos, de formas raras, eomo 

 assimismo cantidad de Gallinas muertas, Brasseros, eon seiiales de aver quemado Copal; y aim se hallaron 

 las cenizas calientes, y otras diversas, ridiculas, y abominables cosas, pertenecientes a la execicuion de sus 

 perversos Ritos, y Sacriflcios." — Villagutierre, op. cit., p. 264. 



