112 BUREAU OF AMERICAISr ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



the Kio Grande, or Motagua, and the heights rising above it, another 

 separate territory whose extreme Ijoundaries are formed by the region 

 of Salama on the one side and the Copan river on the other, where in 

 ancient times a branch of the Pipils, a Nahuatl-speaking tribe, was 

 settled. Stoll relates a local tradition which exists in Salama, telling 

 how these Mexicans were first brought from Tuxtla Grande in Spanish 

 times. On this account the people of Salama wear the same costume 

 to-day as those of Tuxtla. This tradition did not seem very credible 

 to Stoll himself. I am inclined to think that too late a date was given. 

 An actual tradition may have existed that the people of Salama came 

 from those regions, )>ut the immigration must have occurred in 

 pre-Spanish times. 



The spread of tlie Nahua tribe toward the south, according to my 

 conviction, proceeded in general from Tabasco, for the Zapotec tribes 

 have probably alwa3^s formed a barrier in the way through Tehuantepec 

 and the Sierra de los Quelenes, which Ahuitzotl, the predecessor of Mote- 

 cuhzoma first succeeded in l^reaking. But from Tabasco the Mexicans 

 must have penetrated at an early date to Chiapas and Soconusco on 

 the roads which Bernal Diaz and his companions who settled at Coat- 

 zacualco easily found later. The Nahuas reached the valley of the 

 Motagua, and farther Honduras, San Salvador, and Nicaragua, by the 

 great overland road which Cortes traveled with his army. The 

 Pipils of Escuintla are probably a receding stream of this migratory 

 wave. A third branch must finally have found its way to the interioi 

 of Yucatan. This is known from historical accounts in the books of 

 the Chilan Balam, and to my mind is made still clearer by the reliefs 

 of Chichenitza. On all of these three highways the Nahua tribes 

 came into more or less close contact with the Maya tribes. An inter- 

 change of cultural elements doubtless took place, and probably 

 resulted still more abundantly from the peaceful journeyings of 

 Mexican merchants, not undertaken for the purpose of finding a per- 

 manent home. One of the most important and most interesting prob- 

 lems of Central American archeology is the question how this giving 

 and receiving was distributed. We shall, however, not be able to 

 approach the solution of this matter until carefully collected and com- 

 plete archeologic material exists from these border regions of inter- 

 mixture, where the Nahua tribes lived as neighbors of the Mayas. 

 What remarkable disclosures may eventually be expected in this matter 

 is shown by the interesting relief tiles from Chiapas in the Mnseo 

 National de Mexico, which are published in the great illustrated work 

 which the Junta Colombina de Mexico issued in commemoration of 

 the four hundredth centenary of the discovery of America. And then, 

 too, the magnificent monuments of Santa Lucia Cozumalhuapa certainly 

 originated at just such a point of contact between Nahuatl and Maya 

 civilizations. 



