THE ORIGIN OF THE MAYA CIVILIZATION. 409 
One other point tends strongly to confirm the accuracy of this conclu- 
sion, namely, the existence of another tribe, the Totonaca, who occupy the 
coast-plain just north of Vera Cruz, 7. ¢., between the Huasteca and San 
Andres Tuxtla, and who are linguistically and culturally said to be related to 
the Maya. Speaking of their linguistic affiliations, Swanton says: 
“The present tendency of linguistic opinion is to place the Totonac language 
in the Mayan family, thus bringing it into relation with the Huasteca. The long 
friendly relations between the two tribes corresponds with this opinion. Orozco 
y Berra! expressed his belief in the relationship of the two dialects.’ 
The material culture of the Totonaca, moreover, shows strong resem- 
blances to that of the Maya; although this is probably due to actual con- 
tact with the Maya during or after the Great Period rather than to an 
earlier common origin of the two cultures. The so-called laughing heads 
of the Totonacan region, modeled in clay, are clearly Mayan in feeling, 
and in ceramic motives direct connections may be traced.* Says Spinden in 
speaking of Totonacan art: 
“This apparent connection in language is all the more interesting in view of 
the character of Totonacan art, which also shows a strong strain of Mayan feeling 
and technique in certain products but an unmistakable likeness to the archaic 
art of the Mexican highlands in certain other products. ‘The pottery faces in the 
archaic style are advanced beyond the average of such work and probably represent 
alate phase. It is possible to bring forward examples of every degree of transition 
from the archaic style to the classical Mayan of Tabasco and Chiapas. Curiously 
enough it does not seem possible to extend these linking likenesses to the Huastecas.’” 
Finally, in a passage from Brinton, already quoted on page 404, note 1, he 
states that the Totonaca used a hieroglyphic writing and a calendar system. 
Taken together, these several factors point to the former racial unity of the 
Maya and the Totonaca, and in the present connection tend to indicate 
that the region where the Maya civilization originated lay somewhere to 
the northwest of San Andres Tuxtla and possibly even as far south as the 
present habitat of the Totonaca. 
To trace the probable history of the Maya before the separation of the 
Huasteca from the main body of the stock becomes largely a matter of specu- 
lation. Spinden has shown that, coincident with the invention and primary 
dissemination of agriculture, possibly somewhere in and from the highlands 
of central Mexico, there seems to have spread over the greater part of Middle 
America and the northwestern corner of South America, largely restricted to 
arid tropical regions and avoiding the low Atlantic Coast-plain with its heavy 
rainfall and rich alluvial soil, an early homogeneous culture characterized 
by a simple and undeveloped religion, an unsymbolic art, pottery-making, 
and loom-weaving, which he calls the Archaic Horizon.° 
1 See Orozco y Berra, 1864, p. 214. 2 Thomas, I9II, p. 49. 
3 See Strebel, 1884; ibid, 1885-1889; ibid, 1904; and Spinden, 1917, pp. 145-150. 4 Spinden, 1917, pp. 145, 146. 
5 Spinden, 1915, pp. 451-459, 467-469, 1bid., 1917, pp. 43-04; tbid., 19174, pp. 181-188; ibid., 1917), pp. 269-276. 
