554 INDIAN SETTLEMENTS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 



un symmetrical arrangement were not so much the result of negligence 

 as of a set purpose. And how capriciously even the inner rooms of the 

 stone houses may be differently adorned on both sides of the entrance 

 can be seen in the plan of a room in Tical (fig. 15). Even the richly 

 ornamented inner room of the principal temple of Menche displays in 

 the different positions of the entrances relatively to the most external 

 side apartments constant neglect of symmetry. 



(12) In this connection it may be noticed that the Indians of the Maya 

 family showed the same tendency to an unsymmetrical cultivation of 

 development of the individual members in their musical melodies 

 also. 1 



(13) These side ax^artmeuts seem to have been used by the Lacondons 

 mainly for their sacrifices, since it was in these rooms that I found, in 

 1891, most of their sacrificial vessels made of clay. 



Ail the tribes which belong to the Maya family a have certain pecu- 

 liarities in their manner of building, and it is of the utmost impor- 

 tance that within the territory they at present occupy, and according 

 to the limits of the knowledge which we at present possess, no buildings 

 are known to us which betray a foreign style, except only the few at 

 Motozintla, of which I have spoken above. This would justify the same 

 conclusion which I also reached in studying the local names — that the 

 Maya tribes have for a long time already occupied their present homes 

 in northern Central America. 



A comparison of the architectural features which all the Maya tribes 

 have in common suggests also a certain conclusion as to the degree to 

 which their architectural skill had raised among them before the tribe 

 separated. This is a very low degree — walls and terraced pyramids of 

 moderate size, facing a fixed direction, and frequently grouped around 

 a court or square. 



It appears, however, as if the lowland tribes had already parted with 

 the primitive Maya people at a time when the Yerapaz tribes (the Poco- 

 man group) were still in close contact with the highland tribes, since 

 their straw huts (dwelling houses) are in their construction perfectly 

 identical, while the lowland tribes differ in having an advanced wall. 

 At the same time the Choi and Chorti Indians, dwelling near by, still 

 adhere to the rectangular ground plan of the highland huts, while 

 Chontals and Mayas abandon this type in favor of rounded-off ground 

 plans. 



While the Verapaz tribes thus remained on a lower grade of archi- 

 tecture, the tribes of the highlands and the lowlands both developed 

 the art in their own peculiar manner. Among the highland tribes, 

 the Quiche and Mam group made great progress in architecture, 



'Compare the New Journal for Music, year XI (1895), Nos. 7 and 8, and year XIII 

 (1892), Nos. 22 and 23. 



-I have, unfortunately, here to omit the Huasteus, since I have no information as 

 to their buildings. 



