156 MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



The Mayas, properly so culled, are of mean stature with robust bony frames, 

 round bead, delicate bauds and feet, and great staying power. The branch of tbe 

 Maya group dwelling in tbe Tabasco forests, and known as Cbontals, or " Savages," 

 a name implying that they had remained aliens to the civilisation of their Yucatec 

 kindred, are a remarkably frugal people. A few roots or bananas with a little 

 maize suffice to maintain tbem for days together under the hardest work as porters 

 or boatmen. Their costume is extremely simple, being limited to drawers and a 

 shirt worn as a blouse. In Yucatan the dress of the men is the same as that of 

 the Spaniards ; but the Maya women, more faithful to the national usages, have 

 preserved the pre-Columbian fashions. The Mayas are a gentle, inoffensive 

 people, and a market-day in a Yucatan town presents an almost unique spectacle 

 in the quiet demeanour, courtesy, and mutual goodwill of buyers and sellers. 



Like all other cultured Indians, the Mayas call themselves Catholics, though 

 mingling with their private worship certain rites which they have assuredly not 

 learnt from the Spaniards. Thus, after burials, they mark with chalk the path 

 leadmg from the grave to the house, so that when the time comes to enter the 

 body of some new-born babe, the deceased may not mistake the way to his former 

 dwelling. From this it is evident that, despite the teaching of the Church, the 

 doctrine of metempsychosis still survives amongst them. They have also preserved 

 the old lore regarding the healing art and the stars. Many astrologers still 

 observe the conjunctions of the constellations, predicting from them the public and 

 private events of life, the results of the harvests, and similar forecastings. Every 

 village has its "cunning man," who reads the future in a quartz crystal globe. 

 Before the disastrous war of 1847, nearly every village had also its Chilun- 

 Balam Book, that is, the " Interpreter of Oracles," and of this work at least 

 sixteen copies are still known to exist. Amongst the natives are certain priests, 

 either very complacent or else very ignorant of the orthodox rites, for they 

 celebrate with the people the misa milpera, or '* field Mass," at which a cock is 

 sacrificed, the four cardinal points being first sprinkled with some fermented 

 liquor, with invocations both to the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity and to the 

 Pah ah tun, that is, the four patrons of the rain and the crops. These tutelar 

 deities have, however, taken Christian names, the Eed, or God of the East, having 

 become St. Dominic ; the White, or Grod of the North, St. Gabriel ; the Black, 

 or God of the West, St. James ; and the " Yellow Goddess " of the South, Mary 

 Magdalene. 



The Maya language, at once guttural and sonorous, and pleasant, especially in 

 the mouth of the women, appears to be the purest member of the linguistic family 

 whose various other branches — Tzendal, Lacandon, Quiche (Kachiquel) — are 

 spoken between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific seaboard. These various 

 dialects, however, differ from each other merely in the admixture of foreign words 

 and a certain variation in the pronunciation and in the final syllables. Pure Maya 

 is at present spoken only in the north-east part of the country round about 

 Valladolid and Tizimin. 



A striking proof of the persistence of the Maya genius is affoixled by the 



