88 MEXICO, CENTEAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



and peoples show that the Maya nation, at present confined to the Yucatan 

 peninsula, formerly occupied the Tlaxcala plateau. 



On their southern frontier, that is, in the hills whence flows the Rio Cazones, 

 the Huaxtecs are conterminous with the Totonacs, that is, the " Three Hearts," 

 said to be so named because they formerly made a solemn triennial sacrifice of 

 three youths, whose hearts were offered to the gods. According to the national 

 traditions the Totonacs also accomplished many peregrinations at an epoch even 

 antecedent to the wanderings of the Chichimecs and Aztecs, and, like them, at last 

 founded new homes on the Anahuac plateau, but more to the east. Most ethno- 

 logists adopt the views of Sahagun, who groups the Totonacs in the same family 

 with the Huaxtecs and Mayas, while other authorities regard them as quite 

 distinct. Alphonse Pinart also makes a separate division of the few thousand 

 Akal'mans, who appear to speak a peculiar language, and who live between the 

 Huaxtecs and Totonacs in the northern part of the State of Hidalgo and in Vera 

 Cruz, but chiefly round about the city of Huejutla. 



The last group of native races in Mexico proper beyond Chiapas and Yucatan 

 is formed by the various Indian populations who dwell, to the number of about 

 600,000, in the southern uplands and on the Pacific slope between the Acapulco 

 district and the isthmus of Tehuantepec. Here the chief languages, which, how- 

 ever, present but slight differences, are those of the Mixtecs and Zapotecs, that is, 

 " People of Cloudland," and of the "Zapotas" {casiiuiroa cdulia). Like the 

 Tarascans these nations were fully as civilised as the Aztecs, and it was their 

 strong national sentiments that enabled them to offer a vigorous resistance to the 

 Spaniards, and even to maintain a state of semi-independence down to quite recent 

 times. Now, however, they form part of the common Mexican nationality, and 

 by their energetic habits contribute as much as any other native element towards 

 the general prosperity of the commonwealth. Spanish will soon take the place 

 of the local languages as the medium of general intercourse, as it has already 

 become that of popular instruction. The Mixes also, as well as the Zoques, the 

 Chinantecs, and other peoples of East Oaxaca, who are usually grouped under the 

 general name of Chontals, that is, " Savages," are being graduitUy absorbed in the 

 mass of the civilised population. Their Mixe neighbours are said to have such a 

 poor language that it has to be supplemented by numerous loan words taken from 

 the Spanish. Formerly they had to eke out the sense by means of gestures, so 

 that after nightfall, or when the lights were put out, all conversation ceased. 



Doubtless many of the Atzec aborigines were in some respects inferior in 

 culture to the ancient subjects of Montezuma. But, on the other hand, numerous 

 tribes which formerly possessed no culture at all, have now entered the general 

 movement of national development. In any case the multiplicity of idioms still 

 current in Mexican territory, some spoken by a few hundred thousand, some only 

 by a few thousand or even a fcAv hundred persons, prevent all comparison between 

 such many-tongued states, for instance, as Austria-Hungary or the Turkish 

 Empire. In these two states the current languages belong not to small groups, 

 but to powerful nationalities all contending for supremacy in the very heart of the 



