SELER] ANTIQUITIES OF GUATEMALA 79 



factories and his cacao plantations in the districts whicli border on the 

 Golfo Dulce, and on the route thither he maintained shelter houses 

 for his native traders and for foreign merchants who came that way. 



As to the ethnologic relations of this ancient district of intercom- 

 munication and migration, the people of Taica, as Cortes spells it — that 

 is, Tahitza — the inhabitants of Peten, the island x^t^' i^oxrfv^ were pure 

 Mayas, who had emigrated from Yucatan, and were doubtless later 

 intruders, and hence continually at war with their various neighbors. 



The location of the inhabitants of the region called " Acalan" is more 

 uncertain. The name, which is occasionally spelled Aculan, ))ut 

 probably by error, is Mexican, and means " land of the boats" (Acallan, 

 as the correct form sounds). Furthermore, two of the cities in this 

 territory had Mexican names. The first, Tizatepetl, means "the white 

 earth mountain" or "village of the white earth". The name may be 

 preserved in the word Sahab, by which a place and a river in this 

 neighborhood are called to-day, Zahcab being the word used in the 

 different Maya languages to express the Mexican word ti^atl. The 

 name of the second city, which is spelled Teutiercas, Teutiiaccaa, and 

 (by Gomara) Teuticcac, is probably to be read Teotl icac, "the upright 

 standing god". "> There they worshiped a female deity to whom 

 maidens were sacrificed. The name of the capital of Acalan alone, 

 Izancanac, belongs to a strange idiom, and, as it seems, to a Maya 

 language. The first part of the w^ord is known to this day as the 

 name of a little lagoon on the north of the Rio de la Pasion, where 

 Doctor Sapper found a settlement of Lacandon Indians. '' It also seems 

 possible to explain by a Maya dialect'" the title of the prince of Acalan, 

 Apaspolon (or Apoxpalon, as Gomara spellb the word). The dialect, 

 however, can not now be determined. '' 



The third territory mentioned in Cortes's letter, that l3'ing between 

 Acalan and Tahitza, was generally called by a Mexican word, Mazatlan, 

 that is, " the deer land." Cortes, however, several times gave Quiacho 

 or Quiache '' as a S3'non3an for this word. It is doubtless the same name 

 as Quehache, given in the historical work by Villagutierre y Sotomayor, 

 by which is designated a branch of the Maya found at the end of the 



a Vatun Chu, idolo derecho, is mentioned as a place of worship in the territory of the Chols. See 

 below. The name of the chief god of the Quiches, Tohil C'abauil, might be translated in the same 

 way. 



h Ausland, 1891, p. 892. 



<■ Perhaps Ahpo xbalon or Ahpo xbol6n. Ahpo or Ahpop is a customary expres.sion in the 

 Guatemala language for "lord" and Xbal6n, or Xbol6n, which means "Mistress of the nine." 

 was, perhaps, the name of the goddess of the country. Cf. the Maya god Ah Bolon Tzacab, the 

 " Lord of nine generations" or " Lord of the nine medicines." 



din their intercourse with Cortes and the Spaniards they appear to have used the Mexican idiom, 

 with which they were probably familiar on account of their Active trade with Tabasco and Xicalango, 

 and which likewise Marina, Cortes's interpretress, spoke fluently. Where Bernal I>iaz repeats the 

 information which the people of Acalan gave the Spaniards, he used exactly the words acales ithat 

 is, Mexican acalli, "ship")— que en su lengua acales Uaman a los navies— and teules (that is, 

 Mexican tecutli, or teuctli, "prince") — (|ue asi nos llamaban a los .soldados. 



e other copies give Quiatleo and tiuiatlia, but they are surely incorrect variations. 



