ZO IN ID eR CAE © © Gar 
of moral standards, was at the same 
time a body of organized parasites, 
their position and authority being sus- 
tained by the cunning use of the images 
in stone and the complex system of 
festivals connected with their conjura- 
tion. 
We may not be far amiss in surmis- 
ing that under the ever-growing re- 
quirements of the shamanistic body 
in carrying forward their ambitious 
schemes, the energies and resources of 
the people were absorbed in larger and 
larger measure—in quarrying, hewing, 
transporting, building, carving, provid- 
ing, serving, and worshiping, and that 
as the natural agencies of deterioration 
and decay made inroads on the splen- 
did establishments which they had 
builded, they were called on to quarry 
and carve and build again in an ever- 
losing struggle against the elements and 
against the undetected incubus of the 
ambitious and selfish priestcraft. We 
can readily conceive that these condi- 
tions prevailed until the energies of the 
people were impaired and their re- 
sources exhausted, and that gradually 
the authority of the priesthood and the 
demands of the gods through them 
elicited no response from the impover- 
ished people, so that disintegration and 
decay rapidly supervened, and the end 
came on apace as it must come to all 
structures overbuilded on sand and 
more especially to those builded on the 
treacherous sands of the imagination. 
It thus appears that to account for 
the decay of the Mayan culture and 
the ruin of its wonderful cities we do 
not have to call primarily on the more 
drastic agencies of destruction—war, 
pestilence, changes in the level of the 
land, floods, and earthquakes, one or 
all of which, however, may have aided 
in precipitating the disaster. The seeds 
of decay were inherent in the system 
[43 | 
which placed unlimited power in the 
hands of alleged representatives of the 
gods, as they are inherent in every 
organization and structure of whatso- 
ever kind that involves the long-con- 
tinued, evergrowing, and unrequited 
waste of the energies and resources of a 
people. 
Esthetic Significance.—While the great 
Dragon of Quirigua may be regarded 
as representing the culminating stage of 
religious art in aboriginal America, it 
serves also to mark the highest level 
reached in esthetic refinement. The 
religious motive was the strong dy- 
namic force which, more than all other 
agencies combined, carried culture for- 
ward through the prolonged stages of 
savagery and barbarism to the border- 
land of civilization. Due to a highly 
centralized religio-political form of gov- 
ernment, the people and their resources 
were readily available in carrying out 
great undertakings, and rapid strides 
in the development of institutions and 
arts were possible. The esthetic faculty 
dependent largely on non-esthetic ac- 
tivities for its manifestations was thus 
afforded its greatest opportunity. 
The arts of taste had their origin, as 
had those of religion, in the state of sav- 
agery; and with some very ancient peo- . 
ples, as the Trolodytes of western Eu- 
rope, decided advance was made in both 
graphic and plastic representation of 
life forms, and this quite independently, 
so far as evidence is available, of any re- 
ligious association or influence. The 
Maya in the beginning may have passed 
through a corresponding stage of non- 
symbolic art but, howsoever this may 
be, it was not until religious symbolism 
gave special significance to the subject- 
matter of representative art, that par- 
ticular advance was made toward the 
higher esthetic expression. With this 
great group, as with the American 
