TITLE PAPERS OF UXMAL. 



323 



for tillage and sowing, and which could only serve 

 for horned cattle ; that the said regidor had a wife 

 and children whom it was necessary for him to 

 maintain for the service of the king in a manner 

 conforming to his office, and that he wished to stock 

 the said places and meadows with horned cattle, 

 and praying a grant of them for that purpose in the 

 name of his majesty, since no injury could result to 

 any third person, but, " on the contrary, very great 

 service to God our Lord, because imth that establish- 

 ment it would 'prevent the Indians in those places 

 from icorshipping the devil in the ancient buildings 

 which are there, having in them their idols, to which 

 they burn copal, and performing other detestable sac- 

 rifices, as they are doing every day notoriously and 

 publicly!' 



Following this is a later instrument, dated the 

 third of December, 1687, the preamble of which 

 recites the petition of the Captain Lorenzo deEvia, 

 setting forth the grant above referred to, and that an 

 Indian named Juan Can had importuned him with 

 a claim of right to the said lands on account of his 

 being a descendant of the ancient Indians, to whom 

 they belonged ; that the Indian had exhibited some 

 confused papers and maps, and that, although it was 

 not possible for him to justify the right that he claim- 

 ed, to avoid litigation, he, the said Don Lorenzo de 

 Evia, agreed to give him seventy-four dollars for the 

 price and value of the said land. The petition in- 

 troduces the deed of consent, or quit-claim, of Juan 



