Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines Part 23

[Relocated Footnote 1: In the Despatches of Cortes the term King "El rey" is not used in speaking of Montezuma, but Senhor and cacique.

The Valley of Mexico, including the adjacent mountain slopes and excluding the area covered by water, was about equal to the State at Rhode Island, which contains thirteen hundred square miles; an insignificant area for a single American Indian tribe. But the confederacy had subdued a number of tribes southward and southeastward from the valley as far as Guatemala, and placed them under tribute. Under their plan of government it was impossible to incorporate these tribes in the Aztec confederacy; the barrier of language furnished an insuperable objection; and they were left to govern themselves through their own chiefs, and according to their own usages and customs. As they were neither under Aztec government nor Aztec usages, there is no occasion to speak of them as a part of the Aztec confederacy or even as an appendage of its government. The power of the confederacy did not extend a hundred miles beyond the Pueblo of Mexico on the west, northwest, north, northeast, or east sides, in each of which directions they were confronted by independent and hostile tribes.

The population of the three confederate tribes was confined to the valley, and did not probably exceed two hundred and fifty thousand souls, including the Moquiltes, Xochomileos, and Chaleans, if it equaled that number, which would give nearly twice the present population of New York to the square mile, and a greater population to the square mile than Rhode Island now contains. The Spanish estimates of Indian populations were gross exaggerations. Those who claim a greater population for the Valley of Mexico than that indicated will be bound to show how a barbarous people, without flocks and herds and without field agriculture, could have sustained in equal areas a larger number of inhabitants than a civilized people armed with these advantages.]

[Relocated Footnote 2: My learned friend, Mr. Ad. F. Bandelier, of Highland, Ill., has arrived at the same conclusion, substantially, as stated in the conclusion of his recent "Memoir on the Social Organization and Mode of Government of the Ancient Mexicans," 12th Annual Report of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology. Cambridge, 1880, p. 699.

"Taking all this together, and adding it to the results of our investigations into the military organization of the ancient Mexicans, as well as of their communal mode of holding and enjoying the soil, we feel authorized to conclude that the social organization and mode of government of the ancient Mexicans was a military democracy, originally based upon communism in living."]

CHAPTER XI.

RUINS OF HOUSES OF THE SEDENTARY INDIANS OF YUCATAN AND CENTRAL AMERICA.

At the epoch of their discovery, Yucatan, Chiapas, and Guatemala were probably more thickly peopled than any other portion of North America of equal area; and their inhabitants were more advanced than the remaining aborigines. Their pueblos were planted along the rivers and streams, often quite near each other, and presented the same picture of occupation and of village life which might have been seen at the same time in the valley of the Rio Grande, of the Rio Chaco, and probably of the San Juan, and, at a still earlier period, of the Scioto. They consisted of a single great house, or of a cl.u.s.ter of houses near each other, forming one pueblo or village. In some cases, four or more structures were grouped together upon the same elevated platform; and where there were several of these platforms, each surmounted with one or more edifices, one of them was devoted to religious, and a portion of another to social and public uses. But there is no reason for supposing, from any ruins yet found, or from what is known of the people historically, that any one pueblo contained, at most, ten thousand inhabitants. No one tribe, or confederacy of tribes, had risen to supremacy within either of these areas by the consolidation of surrounding tribes.

They were found, on the contrary, in the same state of subdivision and independence which invariably accompanies the gentile organization. Confederacies in all probability existed among such contiguous pueblos as spoke the same dialect, as the Cibolans were probably confederated, and as the Aztecs, Tezcucans, and Tlacopans are known to have been. Such confederacies, however, could not have reached beyond a common language of the tribes confederated.

The great houses of stone of the Village Indians within the areas named, and particularly in Yucatan and Central America, have done more than all other considerations to give to them their present position in the estimation of mankind. They are the highest constructive works of the Indian tribes. It may also be again suggested that, from the beginning, a false interpretation has been put upon this architecture, from a failure to understand its object and uses, or the condition and plan of domestic life of the people who occupied these structures. The design and object for which these edifices were constructed still await an intelligent explanation.

The highest type of architecture which then existed among the aborigines in any part of America was found in the regions named; particularly in Yucatan, Chiapas, and Honduras. Speaking of Yucatan, Herrera remarks that "the language is everywhere the same," the Maya being the language of its princ.i.p.al tribes, but "the whole country,"

he continues, "is divided into eighteen districts." [Footnote: History of America, l. c., iv, 161.]

If this reference is to a cla.s.sification by tribes, it shows that the Mayas had fallen, by the process of segmentation, into this number of independent groups; the pueblos in each district being united under one government for mutual defense. It seems probable, however, that the group was smaller than a tribe. It is difficult in some cases to determine, from Herrera's language, whether he refers to native or Spanish divisions. In like manner, speaking of Chiapas, he remarks, that "this province is divided into four nations of different languages, which are the Chiapanecans, the Toques, the Zelsales, and the Quelenes, all of which differ in some particulars....

There are in it twenty-five towns, the chief of them called Tecpatlan, i.e., (among the Toques).... The nation of Zelsales has thirteen towns.... the Quelnes have twenty-five towns." [Footnote: ib., iv, 189.]

Sixty-three pueblos in three of the four tribes who occupied the small territory of Chiapas is a very large number, except on the supposition that each pueblo consisted usually of a single great house, like those in New Mexico, which is probable; but even then it seems excessive. It tends, however, to show the mode of occupation and settlement of the Village Indians in general. They planted their pueblos on the water-courses, where such existed, each tribe or subdivision of a tribe gathering in a cl.u.s.ter of houses, four or five in number, or in a single house; and, as may he inferred from the descriptions of Las Casas, so near together on the same rivulet that had not the native forest obstructed the view they would have been in sight of each other for miles along its banks. The scattered ruins of these pueblos in Yucatan at the present time, often consisting of a single large structure, confirms this view.

The tropical region of Yucatan and Central America, then as now, was undoubtedly covered with forests, except the limited clearings around the pueblos, and, apart from these pueblos, substantially uninhabited. Field agriculture was of course unknown, as they had neither domestic animals nor plows; but the Indians cultivated maize, beans, squashes, pepper, cotton, cacao, and tobacco in garden beds, and exercised some care over certain native fruits; cultivation tending to localize them in villages. Herrera remarks of the Village Indians of Honduras that "they sow thrice a year, and they were wont to grub up great woods with hatchets made of flint." [Footnote: History of America, iv., 133.]

Without metallic implements to subdue the forest, or even with copper axes, such as were found among the Aztecs, a very small portion only of the country would have been brought under cultivation, and that confined mainly to the margins of the streams.

Las Casas, bishop of Chiapas, who was in Yucatan and Chiapas about 1539, after remarking of the people of the former country that they were "better civilized in morals and in what belongs to the good order of societies than the rest of the Indians," proceeds as, follows: "The pretence of subjecting the Indians to the government of Spain is only made to carry on the design of subjecting them to the dominion of private men, who make them all their slaves".

[Footnote: An Account of the First Voyages, etc., in America, Lond.

ed., Trans., p. 52.]

And, again, he quotes from a letter of the bishop of St. Martha to the King of Spain, to this effect: "To redress the grievances of this province, it ought to be delivered from the tyranny of those who ravage it, and committed to the care of persons of integrity, who will treat the inhabitants with more kindness and humanity; for if it be left to the mercy of the governors, who commit all sorts of outrages with impunity, the province will be destroyed in a very short time." [Footnote: ib., p. 61.]

There are two material questions which require priority of consideration: First, whether or not the houses now in ruins in Yucatan and Central America were occupied at the time of the Spanish conquest; and, second, whether or not the present Indians of the country are the descendants of the people who constructed them.

There is no basis whatever for the negative of either proposition; but it is a.s.sumed by those who regard the so-called palace at Palenque and the Governor's House at Uxmal as the ancient residences of Indian potentates that great cities which once surrounded them have perished, and, further, that these ruins have an antiquity reaching far back of the Spanish conquest.

Mr. Stephens adopts the conclusion "that at the time of the conquest, and afterwards, the Indians were living in and occupied these very cities." [Footnote: Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, ii, 348, 375.]

He also regarded the present Indians of the country as the descendants of those in possession at the time of the conquest. He might have added that as the Maya was the language of the aborigines of Yucatan at the epoch of the discovery, and is now the language of the greater part of the natives who have not lost their original speech, there was no ground for either supposition. Herrera remarks of the inhabitants of Yucatan, that the "people were then found living together very politely in towns, kept very clean ... and the reason of their living so close together was because of the wars which exposed them to the danger of being taken, sold, and sacrificed; but the wars of the Spaniards made them disperse." [Footnote: History of America, iv, 168.] This last statement is very significant.

Mr. Stephens, whose works and whose observations are in the main so valuable, is responsible to no small extent for the delusive inferences which have been drawn from the architecture of Yucatan, Honduras, and Chiapas. If he had repressed his imagination and confined himself to what he found, namely, certain Indian pueblos built of dressed stone, and in good architecture, which are sufficiently remarkable just as they are, in ruins, and had omitted altogether such terms as "palaces" and great cities, his readers would have escaped the deceptive conclusions with respect to the actual condition of society among the aborigines which his terminology and mode of treatment were certain to suggest.

It is sufficiently ascertained that within a few years after the conquest of Mexico, Yucatan and Central America were overrun by military adventurers whose rapacity and violence drove the harmless and timid Village Indians from their pueblos into the forests; thus destroying in a few years a higher culture than the Spaniards were able to subst.i.tute in its place. Nothing can be plainer, I think, than this additional fact, that all there ever was of Palenque, Uxmal, Copan, and other Indian pueblos in these areas, building for building and stone for stone, is there now in ruins.

There are reasons for believing, from the more advanced condition of their house architecture, that Yucatan was inhabited by Village Indians from an earlier, and for a much longer, period than the valley of Mexico. The traditions of the Yzaes of Chichenisa, possibly Chichen Itza, and of the Cocomes of Mayapan, related by Herrera, [Footnote: History of America, iv, 162, 163, 165.] claim a more ancient occupation of Yucatan than the Aztec traditions claim for the occupation of the valley of Mexico. The type of village life among the American aborigines was adapted to a warm climate, and presented in this area its highest exemplification.

The notices of the great houses in Yucatan are brief and general in the Spanish histories. Speaking of its eighteen districts, Herrera remarks that "in all of them were so many, and such stately stone buildings, that it was amazing, and the greatest wonder is, that having no use of any metal, they were able to raise such structures, which seem to have been temples, for their houses were always of timber and thatched." [Footnote: ib., iv, 162.]

This last statement is not only at variance with a previous one quoted above, but is another of the numerous misconceptions which impair so greatly the value of the Spanish histories. The people undoubtedly resided in these houses, which were adapted to such a use only, and were also in the nature of fortresses, thus proving the insecurity in which they lived. Some portion of the tribe may have resided in inferior and common habitations in the vicinity of these pueblos, and under their protection; but the great houses of stone were built for residences and not for temples, and were the homes of the body of the people. There were many of these pueblos, nearly all of them composed of one or two large structures, sprinkled over the face of the country in eligible situations after the manner of Village Indian life. The same adaptation to communism in living in large households is found impressed upon all the houses now in ruins in these areas. They are joint-tenement houses of the American type, and very similar to those still found in New Mexico and on the San Juan. At the epoch of the Spanish conquest, they were occupied pueblos, and were deserted by the Indians to escape the rapacity of Spanish military adventurers by whom they were oppressed and abused beyond Indian endurance. Instances are mentioned by Herrera where large numbers destroyed themselves to escape the exactions of Spanish masters, whom they were unable to resist.

[Footnote: History of America, III, 346.]

The numerous pueblos in ruins scattered through the forests of Yucatan and southward are so many monuments of Spanish misrule, oppression, and rapacity.

The most extensive group of ruins in Yucatan is that at Uxmal. Its several structures are known as the "Governor's House"; the "House of the Nuns," which consists of four disconnected buildings, facing the four sides of a court; the "House of the Pigeons,"

consisting of two quadrangles; the "House of the Turtles"; the "House of the Old Woman"; and the "House of the Dwarf", with some trace of smaller buildings of inconsiderable size, and one or two pyramidal elevations unoccupied by structures. Of these, the "Governor's House" may have been the Tecan, or Official House of the Tribe, from the unusual size of the central rooms The "House of the Dwarf" was probably designed for the observance of religious rites. The remaining structures were evidently the residence portions of the pueblo.

Among the Aztecs, three kinds of houses were distinguished: 1. Calli, the ordinary dwelling house, of which the "House of the Nuns" is an example. 2. Ticplantlacalk, the "Stone House," which contained council halls, etc., of which the "Governor's House" is an example. 3.

Teocalli, "House of G.o.d," such as the "House of the Dwarf." The estufas in New Mexican pueblos took the place of the last two in Mexico and Yucatan.

Ground plans of the princ.i.p.al structures will be given for comparison with those in New Mexico. The pyramidal elevations on which they stand are situated quite near each other, and form one Indian pueblo. The houses are constructed of stone laid in courses, and dressed to a uniform surface, with the upper half of the exterior walls decorated with grotesque ornaments cut on the faces of the stone. Foster states that "these structures are composed of a soft coralline limestone of comparatively recent geological formation, probably of the Tertiary period." [Footnote: Prehistoric Races of the United States, p 398]

The so-called idols at Copan are the largest stones worked by the Central Americans. They are about eleven feet high by three feet wide and three feet deep, each face being covered with sculptures and hieroglyphics. In a field near the ruins, and near each other, are nine of these elaborately ornamented statues. By the side of each is a so called altar, about six feet square and four feet high, made of separate stone. These Idols and Altars have been supposed to have some relation to their religious system, with human sacrifices in the background. From their situation and character it may be conjectured that we have here the Copan cemetery, and that these idols are the grave-posts, and these altars are the graves of Copan chiefs. The type of both may still be seen in Nebraska in the grave-posts and grave-mounds by their side, of Iowas and Otoes, and formerly in all parts of the United States east of the Mississippi.

If Mr. Stephens had opened one of these altars he would, if this conjecture is well taken, have found within or under it an Indian grave, and perhaps a skeleton, with the personal articles usually entombed beside the dead. It was customary among the Northern Indians for the chosen friend of the decedent, with whom he formed this peculiar tie, to erect his grave-post, representing the chief exploits of the departed upon one side, with ideographs and his own upon the opposite side. "The stone," Mr. Stephens observes, "of which all these altars and statues are made, is a soft grit-stone."

[Footnote: Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, 1-153.] Norman had previously described the material used as a "fine concrete limestone."

[Footnote: Rambles in Yucatan, p 126.]

Elsewhere, with respect to the nature of the tools for cutting this stone, he remarks that "flint was undoubtedly used." [Footnote: ib., p 184] Stephens makes a similar statement. The exact size of the stones used is not given, but they were not large. Norman remarks of Chichen Itza that "the stones are cut in parallelopipeds of about twelve inches in length and six in breadth, the interstices filled up with the same materials of which the terraces are composed."

[Footnote: Rambles in Yucatan p 127] He also speaks of "huge blocks of hewn stone used in the doorways." [Footnote: ib. p. 128]

A soft coralline limestone could be easily worked with flint implements when first taken from the quarry, and would harden after exposure to the air. The size and nature of the stones used is some evidence of limited advancement in solid stone architecture.

These structures, as reproduced in engravings by Stephens and Catherwood, may well excite surprise and admiration for the taste, skill, and industry they display, and the degree of progress they reveal. When rightly understood, they will enable us to estimate the extent of the progress actually made, which was truly remarkable for a people still in barbarism, and no further advanced than the Middle Status.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Side elevation of pyramidal platform of Governor's House]

We have seen that the style of architecture in New Mexico brought the Indians to the house tops as the common place of living. At first suggested for security, it became in time a settled habit of life. The same want was met in Yucatan and Chiapas by a new expedient namely a pyramidal platform or elevation of earth twenty, thirty and forty feet high upon the level summits of which their great houses were erected. These platforms were made still higher for small buildings. A natural elevation being when practicable selected the top was leveled or raised by artificial means, the sides made rectangular and sloping and faced on the four sides with a dry stone wall, the ascent being made by a flight of stone steps.

It was not uncommon to find two such platforms and sometimes three, one above the other, as shown in the figure. These platforms, called terraces, were the gathering and the lounging places, of the inhabitants.

The edifices in the regions named are almost invariably but one story high, and but two rooms deep, the walls being carried up vertically to an equal height on the sides and ends, and terminating in a flat roof. The doorways opened upon the platform area or terrace when the building was single, and where it was carried around the four aides of an inclosed court they opened usually upon the court. As their elevation above the level of the surrounding area invested them with the character of fortresses, they were defended on the line or edge of the terrace-walls, or, rather, at the head of the flight of steps by means of which the summit-level was reached. Neither adobe brick, nor rubble masonry, nor timber roofs could withstand the tropical climate, with its pouring rains during a portion of the year. Stone walls and a vaulted ceiling were indispensable to a permanent structure. There were, doubtless, pueblos of timber-framed houses with thatched roofs here and there in Yucatan, Chiapas, and Honduras, as there were further south toward the Isthmus; but the prevailing material used was stone, as the number of small pueblos in ruins still attest. Upon these elevated platforms they enjoyed the same security as the Village Indians of New Mexico upon their roof-tops and within the walls of their houses. They were also raised above the flight of the mosquitoes and flies, the scourge of this hot region. Considering the surrounding conditions, single-storied houses upon raised platforms was a natural suggestion, harmonizing with a style of architecture, the communal character of which was predetermined by their social condition. For the details of this architecture reference must be made to published works, which are easily accessible, its general features and the principles from which they sprang being the only subjects within the scope of this inquiry.

The front elevation of the Governor's House at Uxmal, shown in the engraving, and which was taken from Stephens' work, will answer as a sample of the whole. It stands upon the upper of three platforms, of which the lowest is five hundred and seventy-five feet long, fifteen feet broad to the base of the middle platform, and three feet high.

The second is five hundred and forty-five feet long, two hundred and fifty feet broad to the base of the upper platform, and twenty feet high. The third is three hundred and sixty feet long, thirty feet broad in front of the edifice, and nineteen feet high. The upper one is formed upon the back half of the middle platform, of which last Mr. Stephens observes that "this great terrace was not entirely artificial. The substratum was a natural rock, and showed that advantage had been taken of a natural elevation as far as it went, and by this means some portion of the immense labor of constructing the terrace had been saved." [Footnote: Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, i, 128.]

The three terraces with their sloping walls are shown in the engraving, the house standing upon an elevation forty-two feet above the surrounding area. The ascent from terrace to terrace was made by flights of stone steps, which are not distinctly shown. When newly constructed and inhabited, this structure, from its commanding situation, its great size, and conspicuous terraces, must have presented a striking appearance. It is doubtful whether any of the Aryan tribes, when in the Middle Status of barbarism, have produced houses superior to those in Yucatan.

The house is symmetrical in structure, three hundred and twenty-two feet long, thirty-nine feet deep, and about twenty-five feet high.

It has eleven doorways, besides two small openings in front, and contains twenty-two apartments, two of which are each sixty feet long.

The rear wall is solid, and in the central part is nine feet thick.

A parallel wall through the center divides the interior into two rows of apartments, of which those in front are eleven feet six inches deep and twenty-three feet high to the top of the arch, and those back of them are thirteen feet deep and twenty-two feet high.

Both inside and out the walls are of dressed stone laid in courses.

No drawings of the rooms in the Governor's House are furnished in Mr. Stephens' work. The back rooms are dark, excepting the light received through the front doorway.