Incidents of Travel in Yucatan Volume I Part 19

TABLE OF STATISTICS OF YUCATAN. (CONCLUDED) -------------------------|-------------------------------------------- Districts. | PRODUCTIONS -------------------------|-------------------------------------------- Capital | Horned cattle horses, mules, tallow, jerked | beef, leather, salt, gypsum, hemp, raw | and manufactured, straw hats, guitars, | and extract of logwood.

| Campeachy | Salt, logwood, rice, sugar, and marble of | good quality.

Lerma | Logwood, timber, rice, and fish oil.

| Valladolid | Cotton, sugar, starch, gum copal, tobacco, | cochineal, saffron, vanilla, cotton | fabrics, yarns, &c., wax, honey, castor | oil, horned cattle, hogs, and skins.

| Coast | Horned cattle, horses, mules, tallow, jerked | beef, castor oil, hides, wax, honey, | timber, indigo, hemp, raw and | manufactured, straw cigars, barilla, and | salt.

| The Upper Highlands | Horned cattle, horses, mules, hogs, sheep, | skins, sugar, mola.s.ses, timber, rice, | tobacco, in the leaf and manufactured, | spirits, arrow-root, straw hats, cotton | lace, ochre, flints, and grindstones.

| The Lower Highlands | Horned cattle, horses, mules, hogs, sheep, | skins, tallow, dried beef, hemp, raw and | manufactured, and cotton lace.

| The Upper Royal Road | Horned cattle, horses, mules, skins, tallow, | dried beef, logwood, tobacco, sugar, and | rum.

| The Lower Royal Road | Horned cattle, horses, mules, oil of palma | Cristi, tobacco, hemp, and fine straw | hats.

| The Upper "Beneficios" | Sugar, mola.s.ses, rum, tobacco of good | quality, rice, laces, pepper, gum copal, | sarsaparilla, hats, hammocks, ebony, | barilla, gypsum, and skins.

The Lower "Beneficios" | Horned cattle, horses, mules, hogs, skins, | tallow, and dried beef.

| Tizimin | Tortoise-sh.e.l.l, skins, timber, logwood, | India-rubber, incense, tobacco, achiote | (a subst.i.tute for saffron, and a very rich | dye), starch from the _yuca_, cotton, wax, | honey, mola.s.ses, sugar, rum, castor oil, | salt, amber, vanilla, hogs, cochineal.

| Island of Carmen | Logwood.

| Seiba-playa | Timber, rice, logwood, and salt.

| Bacalar | Logwood, valuable timber, sugar of inferior | quality, tobacco of the best description, | rum, a fine species of hemp, known under | the name of _pita_, resin, India-rubber, | gum copal, pimento, sarsaparilla, vanilla, | and gypsum.

POPULATION OF YUCATAN.

Statement showing the number of inhabitants in the five departments into which the state is divided, distinguishing the s.e.xes; taken from the census made by order of the government on the 8th of April, 1841.

|------------------|----------|----------|-----------| |Departments | Men. | Women. | Total. | |----------------------------------------|-----------| |Merida | 48,606 | 58,663 | 107,269 | |Izamal | 32,915 | 37,933 | 70,848 | |Tekax | 58,127 | 64,697 | 122,824 | |Valladolid | 45,353 | 46,926 | 92,279 | |Campeachy | 39,017 | 40,639 | 79,656 | | |----------|----------|-----------| | | | | 472,876 | |------------------|----------|----------|-----------|

NOTE.--"This census is probably not very exact, because, having continually the fear of new contributions, and detesting military service, every one reduces as far as possible the number of his family in the lists prepared for the census. It appears to me that the total population of Yucatan may be fixed at 525,000 souls."--P. De R.

"The best information I have been enabled to obtain goes to show that the population of the state cannot fall short of 600,000 souls."--J. B.

Jr.

SYSTEM ADOPTED BY THE ANCIENT BUILDERS OF YUCATAN IN COVERING THEIR ROOMS WITH STONE ROOFS.

The engraving No. 1 represents the arch referred to in the description of the Monjas at Uxmal; and as the stones are not quite horizontal, but stand nearly at right angles to the line of the arch, it shows how near an approach was made to the real principle on which the arch is constructed.

[Engraving 51: Triangular Arch]

Throughout every part of Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, the same method is to be traced with slight modifications. The stones forming the side walls are made to overlap each other until the walls almost meet above, and then the narrow ceilings are covered with a layer of flat stones. In every case the stones were laid in horizontal layers, the principle of constructing arches, as understood by us, being unknown to the aboriginal builders. This readily accounts for the extreme narrowness of all their rooms, the widest not exceeding twenty feet, and the width more frequently being only from six to ten feet. In a few cases the covering stone is wanting, and the two sides meet so as to form a sharp angle. At Palenque the builders did not cut the edges of the stones, so as to form an even surface, their practice differing in this respect from that adopted in Yucatan, where in every instance the sides of the arch are made perfectly straight, or have a slight curve, with the inner surfaces smooth.

It may now be interesting to inquire if any similarity exists between the American method and those observed among the nations of antiquity in Europe and Asia. A true arch is formed of a series of wedge-like stones or of bricks, supporting each other, and all bound firmly together by the pressure of the centre one upon them, which latter is therefore distinguished by the name of keystone.

It would seem that the arch, as thus defined, and as used by the Romans, was not known to the Greeks in the early periods of their history, otherwise a language so copious as theirs, and of such ready application, would not have wanted a name properly Greek by which to distinguish it. The use of both arches and vaults appears, however, to have existed in Greece previous to the Roman conquest, though not to have been in general practice. And the former made use of a contrivance, even before the Trojan war, by which they were enabled to gain all the advantages of our archway in making corridors or hollow galleries, and which, in appearance, resembled the pointed arch, such as is now termed Gothic. This was effected by cutting away the superinc.u.mbent stones at an angle of about 45 with the horizon.

Of the different forms and curves of arches now in use, the only one adopted by the Romans was the semicircle; and the use of this const.i.tutes one leading distinction between Greek and Roman architecture, for by its application the Romans were enabled to execute works of far bolder construction than those of the Greeks: to erect bridges and aquaeducts, and the most durable and ma.s.sive structures of brick. On the antiquity of the arch among the Egyptians, Mr. Wilkinson has the following remarks: "There is reason to believe that some of the chambers in the pavilion of Remeses III., at Medeenet Haboo, were arched with stone, since the devices on the upper part of their walls show that the fallen roofs had this form. At Saggara, a stone arch still exists of the time of the second Psamaticus, and, consequently, erected six hundred years before our era; nor can any one, who sees the style of its construction, for one moment doubt that the Egyptians had been long accustomed to the erection of stone vaults. It is highly probable that the small quant.i.ty of wood in Egypt, and the consequent expense of this kind of roofing, led to the invention of the arch. It was evidently used in their tombs as early as the commencement of the eighteenth dynasty, or about the year 1540 B.C.; and, judging from some of the drawings at Beni Ha.s.san, it seems to have been known in the time of the first Osirtasen, whom I suppose to have been contemporary with Joseph."--_Manners and Customs of the Anc. Egyptians_, vol. ii., p.

116, 117, 1st series.

The entrance to the great Pyramid at Gizeh is somewhat similar in form to the arches found in Yucatan; it consists of two immense granite stones of immense size, meeting in a point and forming a sharp angle.

[Figure: Stone Arch at Gizeh.]

Of the accompanying plates, No. 2 represents the arches in the walls of Tiryns, copied from Sir W. Gell's Argolis; No. 3, an arch (called Cyclopean) at Arpino, in the Neapolitan Territory; No. 4, the most common form of arch used by the ancient American builders. A striking resemblance will doubtless be observed, indeed, they may almost be considered identical; and it may be added, that at Medeenet Haboo, which forms a part of the ancient Egyptian Thebes, a similar contrivance was observed by Mr. Catherwood. From this it will appear that the true principles of the arch were not understood by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, or Etruscans, or by the American builders. It might be supposed that a coincidence of this strongly-marked character would go far to establish an ancient connexion between all these people; but, without denying that such may have been the case, the probabilities are greatly the other way.

[Engraving 52: Gothic Arch]

[Engraving 53: Cyclopean Arch]

This most simple mode of covering over a void s.p.a.ce with stone, when single blocks of sufficient size could not be employed, would suggest itself to the most barbarous as well as to the most refined people.

Indeed, in a mound lately opened in the Ohio Valley, two circular chambers were discovered, and are still preserved, the walls being made of logs, and the roofs formed by overlapping stones rising to a point, on precisely the same plan as the Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae, and the chamber at Orchomenus, built by Minyas, king of B[oe]otia. No inference as to common origin or international communication can with safety be drawn from such coincidences, or from any supposed coincidence between the pyramidal structures of this Continent and those of Egypt, for no agreement exists, except that both are called pyramids.

[Engraving 54: Arch used by the ancient American Builders]

In the Egyptian Pyramids the sides are of equal lengths, and, with one exception (Saccara), composed of straight lines, which is not the case with any pyramid of the American Continent. The sides are never equal, are frequently composed of curves and straight lines, and in no instance form a sharp apex.

VESTIGIA PHALLICae RELIGIONIS PROUT QUIBUSDAM MONUMENTIS AMERICANIS INDICANTUR.--(_Vid. tom._ i., _pag._ 181.)

Haec monumenta ex undecim Phallis constant, omnibus plus minusve fractis, undique dispersis, atque solo semiobrutis, duoram circiter vel trium pedum mensuram habentibus. Non ea nosmetipsi reperimus neque illis hanc Phallicam naturam attribuimus; n.o.bis autem, has regiones ante pererrantibus, haec eadem monumenta Indi ostenderunt, quodam nomine appellantes lingua ipsorum eandem vim habente, ac supra dedimus. Quibus auditis, haec Phallicae religionis, his etiam in terris, vestigia putanda esse tunc primum judicavimus. Monumenta attamen de quibus huc usque locuti sumus, non, ut bene sciunt eruditi, libidinem denotant, sed potius, quod memoria dignissimum, nostra etiam continente vis genitalis cultum, omnibus paene antiquis Europae Asiaeque nationibus communem, per symbola nota olim viguisse. Quam autem cognationem hic Phalloram cultus his populis c.u.m Americae aboriginibus indicare videatur, non nostrum est, qui visa tantum vel audita litteris mandamus, his paginis exponere.

ANCIENT CHRONOLOGY OF YUCATAN; OR, A TRUE EXPOSITION OF THE METHOD USED BY THE INDIANS FOR COMPUTING TIME.--_Translated from the Ma.n.u.script of Dan Juan Pio Perez, Gefe Politico of Peto, Yucatan._

1. _Origin of the Period of_ 13 _Days_ (_triadecateridas_).

The inhabitants of this peninsula, which, at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, was called _Mayapan_, and by its first inhabitants or settlers _Chacnouitan_, divided time by calculating it almost in the same manner as their ancestors the Tulteques, differing only in the particular arrangement of their great ages (siglos).

The period of 13 days, resulting from their first chronological combinations, afterward became their sacred number, to which, introducing it ingeniously in their reckonings, they made all those divisions subordinate which they devised to adjust their calendar to the solar course; so that the days, years, and ages were counted by periods of thirteen numbers.

It is very probable that the Indians, before they had corrected their computation, used the lunations (neomenias) to regulate the annual course of the sun, counting (senalando) 26 days for each lunation; which is a little more or less than the time during which the moon is seen above the horizon in each of its revolutions; dividing this period into two of 13 days, which served them as weeks, giving to the first the first 13 days during which the new moon is seen till it is full; and to the second, the other thirteen, during which the moon is decreasing until it cannot be seen by the naked eye.

In the lapse of time, and by constant observations, they obtained a better knowledge of the solar course, perceiving that the 26 days, or two periods of 13 days, did not give a complete lunation, and that the year could not be regulated exactly by lunations, inasmuch as the solar revolutions do not coincide with those of the moon, except at long intervals. Adding this knowledge to more correct principles and data, they finally constructed their calendar in accordance with the course of the princ.i.p.al luminary, preserving always their periods of 13 days, not in order to make them agree with the apparent course of the moon, but to use them as weeks, and for their chronological divisions.

2. _The Weeks._

It must not be supposed that the weeks of the ancient Indians were similar to ours, that is to say, that they were the revolution of a period of days, each having a particular name: they were only the revolution or successive repet.i.tion of thirteen numbers applied in arithmetical progression to the twenty days of the month. The year being composed of 28 weeks and one additional day or number, the course of the years, on account of that excess, followed the arithmetical progression of the thirteen weekly numbers; so that if a year commenced with the number 1, the next would commence with number 2, and so on to the close of the 13 years, which formed an indiction, or week of years, as will be explained hereafter.

3. _The Month._

"Month" is called in the Yucateco language "U," which means also "the moon;" and this corroborates the presumption that the Indians went on from the computation of lunations to determine the course of the sun, calling the months "moons." But in some ma.n.u.scripts, the name of _Uinal_ in the singular and _Uinalob_ in the plural is given to the eighteen months which compose the year; applying this comprehensive term to the series, and to each one of the particular names a.s.signed to the twenty days that composed the month.

The day was called _Kin_, "the sun;" and the particular names by which the 20 days composing the month were designated are stated in the following table, in which they are divided into sets of five, for the better understanding of the subsequent explanations.

1st. 2d. 3d. 4th.

Kan. Muluc. Gix (Hix) Ca-uac.

Chicchan. Oc. Men. Ajau (Ahau).

Quimi (Cimi). Chuen. Quib (Cib). Ymix.