MORGAN] MAYA INDIANS OF YUCATAN. 59 
houses is not well understood; but it can still be seen in New Mexico, 
and it is to be hoped it will attract investigation. 
Speaking of the Maya Indians of Yucatan, Herrera remarks that 
“they are still generous and free-hearted, so that they will make every- 
body eat that comes into their houses, which is everywhere practiced in 
travelling.”? 
This is a fair statement of the Iroquois law of hospitality 
found among the Mayas, practiced among themselves and towards strangers 
from other tribes. When Grijalva, about 1517, discovered the Tabasco 
River, he held friendly intercourse with some of the tribes of Yucatan. 
“They immediately sent thirty Indians loaded with roasted fish, hens, sev- 
ral sorts of fruit, and bread made of Indian wheat.” When Cortes, in 1525, 
made his celebrated expedition to Honduras, he passed near the pueblo of 
Palenque and near that of Copan without being aware of either, and visited 
the shore of Lake Peten. ‘‘ Being well received in the city of Apoxpalan, 
Cortes and all the Spaniards, with their horses, were quartered in one house, 
the Mexicans being dispersed into others, and all of them plentifully supplied 
78 'They numbered one hundred and 
with provisions during their stay. 
fifty Spanish horse and several hundred Aztecs. It was at this place, 
according to Herrera,* that Quatemozin, who accompanied Cortes as a 
prisoner, was barbarously executed by his command. Cortes next visited 
an island in Lake Peten, where he was sumptuously entertained by Canec, 
the chief of the tribe, where they ‘sat down to dinner in stately manner, 
and Canec ordered fowls, fish, cakes, honey, and fruit.”° 
In South America the same account of the hospitality of the Indian 
tribes is given by the early explorers. About the year 1500 Christopher 
Guerra made a voyage to the coast of Venezuela: ‘They came to an 
anchor before a town called Curiana, where the Indians entreated them to 
go ashore, but the Spaniards being no more than thirty-three in all durst 
not venture. * * * At length, being convinced of their sincerity, the 
Spaniards went ashore, and being courteously entertained, staid there twenty 
days. They plentifully supplied them for food with venison, rabbits, geese, 
ducks, parrots, fish, bread made of maize or Indian wheat, and other things, 
a Heer Eictony of America, iv, 171, Wa a, iii, 361. aie 
2Tb., ii, 126. 6Tb., iii, 362. 
3Tb., iii, 359. 
