INDIAN SETTLEMENTS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 547 



to be raised without steps they were erected with a steep inclination, 

 and separate staircases led up to the platforms. And it was the same 

 with terraced pyramids that had especially high steps. A casing of 

 smooth mortar formed the outer covering of these walls. Similar appli- 

 cations of liquid mortar formed the floor of the more important places 

 and of the platforms of tumuli. In Utatlau, even now and in spite of 

 the general destruction of the buildings, traces may be seen of paint- 

 ings on the walls, and on some of the platforms the evidently griev- 

 ously injured casing of mortar has been covered by a second and even 

 a third application. 



In the highlands of Chiapas, these last-mentioned architectural forms 

 seem to be wanting, and the tribes of the Mam and the Quiche family 

 appear therefore to be in some way technically opposed to the Tzeudal 

 group. Yet the highland tribes of Guatemala and Chiapas show not 

 only in the manner of laying out their towns, but also in the erection 

 of any definite temples, a surprising uniforn ity. We speak of a 

 temple building consisting of two main structures which are alike, lie 

 parallel to each other, and display on the side that faces the other a 

 small, low terrace resembling a trottoir. Between these two ^lifices 

 the temple court appears, deeply sunk, but spreading out wider beyond 

 the two main buildings and almost altogether walled in, so that the 

 shape of the court assumes a resemblance to a large letter H or !. 

 From El Sacramento in Chiapas to Sajacabaja and Kalamtc these 

 h! -shaped temple courts reappear with the same ground plan, but yel 

 each one has its somewhat modified form. I insert a few slight sketches 

 of such courts (figs. 12 and 10a). 



It is very remarkable that in Iximche this kind of temple building 

 is altogether wanting, or at least there are hardly any traces of such 

 fundamental ideas to be discovered there, and yet the Cakchiquel 

 have displayed in their architecture, which they have developed with 

 great originality, no small correspondence with the same art among 

 their neighbors. Thus we find in Iximche a rectangular, lengthy 

 tumulus ("A" in Briihl's Plan of Iximche, Globus, vol. 66), the platform 

 of which is walled all around, and this shows a courtyard which, 

 relatively to the edges of the tumulus, is sunk deeply. The same 

 manner of building I found twice in Sajacabaja and once in Saculeu, 

 though here not quite according to the type. 



It may be presumed that on all the edifices which have so far been 

 discussed, unless they were intended to serve exclusively for defense, 

 wooden huts must have been standing on the uppermost platforms, 

 which either contained the images of their idols or may have served as 

 reception rooms or residences for eminent personages. Among the 

 lowland tribes of the Maya family, however, architecture has taken 

 a step further in advance by substituting for these mere wooden build- 

 ings structures of stone with durable and habitable inner rooms. The 

 fact that in Yucatan, northeast Chiapas, and in Peten well- stratified 



