544 INDIAN SETTLEMENTS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 



buildings face more generally in intermediate directions, Imt always in 

 such a manner that within each town one certain direction prevailed. 



In eastern Chiapas I have seen at Mazapa and Mbtozintla certain 

 ruins which differ from the Maya type, although the people there now 

 speak Maya languages. Besides other peculiarities, the absence of 

 clearly defined courts must be noticed and the long drawn out charac- 

 ter of the general plan (see fig. 11). Quite near by, at Chimalapal, I 

 saw from a distance old Indian settlements, with clearly defined courts 

 of the Maya type, facing the cardinal points (fig. 13). 



In the Chiapas territory no such clearly defined courts as the Mayas 

 have can be found. The courts, if at all existing, are not completely 

 walled in, the buildings do not seem to face any one direction decidedly, 

 but to be scattered about without any rule. The choice of locality, 

 however, and walls evidently built for defensive purposes, show clearly 

 that the builders intended to give to the whole the character of 

 fortifications. 



In western and southern Chiapas, in Soconusco and southern Guate- 

 mala, I found but few old Indian settlements, and those I did see were 

 so completely ruined that I was not able to discern any striking 

 peculiarities. 



In the territory of the northern Pipiles, in the upper Motagua Val- 

 ley, and in lower Yerapaz, I have frequently seen traces of old Indian 

 settlements, but they were almost completely effaced and beyond rec- 

 ognition. The ruins near S. Agustin Acasaguastlan are long stretched 

 out, resting in one direction on a mountain slope, somewhat like the 

 ruins of Mazapa. They show terraces and half courts and always face 

 the cardinal points. 



2. SINGLE BUILDINGS AND GROUPS OF BUILDINGS. 



I have above called attention to the fact that the Indians of northern 

 Central America lived in the days before Columbus in straw huts, as 

 they do now, and there is no reason to assume that they have changed 

 since in the construction of their houses. There existed, therefore, in 

 those days the same difference in building among the various tribes 

 and groups of tribes as I have been able to see in the present time and 

 to describe elsewhere. 1 



For the larger buildings, however, and especially for the substruc- 

 ture, other materials were employed which promised greater durability. 

 Where civilization was still lagging behind, walls of earth and of stone 

 had to suffice, or terraced pyramids were erected of the same material, 

 and probably bore on the summit wooden structures adapted to the 

 desired purpose. 



The most primitive shape of these walls were y>robably simple walls 



'Contributions to the Ethnography of the Republic of Guatemala (Petermann's 

 MitteiL, 1893, p. 12 ff) and contributions to the Ethnography of Southeast Mexico 

 and British Honduras (same journal, 1895, p. 177;. 



