INDIAN SETTLEMENTS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 543 



of the tribes on the highlands. There can be no doubt that the cul- 

 ture of a nation in northern Central America has always had its 

 influence on the neighboring tribes, and thus we notice frequently, 

 especially in frontier districts, features which remind us of the puculi- 

 arities of the architecture of adjoining districts. The isolated western 

 court of Chama presents very clearly the type of Yerapaz, while the 

 eastern buildings remind us more of the Choi buildings, and thus also 

 the ruins of Pneblo Yiejo, whilst the nearly adjoining ruins of Chacujal, 

 which probably once formed part of the whole, are entirely original. 



In Verap iz we know only of small ruins of edifices, which in their 

 simplicity contrast strikingly with the more complicated disposition of 

 buildings in the settlements of both the lowland and the highland dis- 

 tricts, although they share with them the fundamental type of a court- 

 yard walled in all around or only in part, within which ordinarily small 

 terraced pyramids have been standing. We also know of fortifications 

 attempted in Yerapaz, such as walls closing a narrow pass (at Las 

 Pacayas), or mountain summits fortified or rendered inaccessible by 

 piled-up masses of stone, e. g. Yaltenamit. As I have not examined 

 the few remains of settlements which I know near Elbarrizal and Gua- 

 temala., I am not able to state whether the ruins within the Pokomam 

 territory bear the Yerapaz imprint or the character of the highlands. 



Old Indian establishments for purposes of worship have been com- 

 paratively rare (e.g., Kalamte) and they also (as, for instance, Sajacabaja, 

 Copan) were at the same time arranged for defenses, as of course the 

 temple buildings with their walled-in courtyards and their terraced 

 pyramids furnished groups of buildings that could easily be defended. 

 Palenque I consider, with Charnay, a city for priestcraft and higher 

 culture, also Quirigua and the ruins on the Rio de la Pasion, where P. 

 Artes in 1892, commissioned by the Guatemalan Government, obtained 

 photographs of the monoliths and exhibited them at the Chicago 

 Exposition. 



A survey of the ruins within the Maya territory, as far as they are 

 known to us, convince us that everywhere the fundamental type of 

 inclosed courtyards reappears. In the highlands of Chiapas and 

 Guatemala the disposition of the buildings is compact, since the build- 

 ings bore mainly the character of fortifications, and on that account 

 localities were chosen which were naturally already confined, such as 

 ravines, sudden precipices, etc. In Peten also the buildings are much 

 crowded, evidently on account of warlike events which then occurred, 

 although on the whole the settlements in the lowlands are more open 

 and without any signs of defensive Avorks in the foreground. 



In all Maya ruins the buildings are, if not uniformly, at least very 

 generally, built so as to face a certain direction ; among the lowland 

 tribes, toward the cardinal points. In the Yerapaz tribes and among 

 the Quiches, Tzutuhiles, Uspantecos, Aguacatecos, and other high- 

 land tribes (the Tzendal group, Mame group, and Cakchiquel), the 



