The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 5, Primitive History. Hubert Howe Bancroft

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nations.

      The history of the Native Races may be most conveniently subdivided as follows; – 1st. The Pre-Toltec Period, embracing the semi-mythic traditions of the earliest civilization, extending down to a date – always preceding the sixth century, but varying in different parts of the territory – when the more properly historic annals of the different nations begin, and including also the few traditions referring to pre-Toltec nations north of Tehuantepec. 2d. The Toltec Period, referring like the two following periods to Anáhuac alone, and extending down to the eleventh century. 3d. The Chichimec Period, extending from the eleventh century to the formation of the tri-partite alliance between the Aztecs, Acolhuas, and Tepanecs in the fifteenth century. 4th. The Aztec Period, that of Aztec supremacy during the century preceding the Conquest. 5th. The annals of such Nahua nations outside the limits of the Aztec Empire proper as cannot be conveniently included in the preceding divisions. 6th. Historical traditions of the Wild Tribes of the north. 7th. The Quiché-Cakchiquel nations of Guatemala. 8th. Miscellaneous nations and tribes of Central America. 9th. The Maya nations of Yucatan.

      The first division, the Pre-Toltec Period, to which the present chapter is devoted, will include the few vague traditions that seem to point to the cradle of American civilization, to the Votanic empire, to Xibalba, and to the deeds of the civilizers, or culture-heroes, in Tabasco and Chiapas. Who can estimate the volumes that would be required for a full narration of all that actually occurred within this period, had the record been made or preserved; – the development, from germs whose nature is unknown, of American civilization; the struggles and misfortunes of infant colonies; the exploits of native heroes; plots of ambition, glorious success, utter failure; the rise and fall of princes and of empires; wars, triumphs, defeats; oppression and revolt; political combinations and intrigues; religious strife between the fanatic devotees of rival divinities; seasons of plenty and of famine; earthquake, flood, and pestilence – a tangled network of events spread over the centuries; – to relate all that we may know of it a chapter will suffice.

VOTAN AND HIS DEEDS

I have told in another volume the mythic tale of Votan,277 the culture-hero, how he came to America and apportioned the land among the people. He came by divine command from Valum Chivim by way of Valum Votan, built a great city of Nachan, 'city of the serpents' – so called from his own name, for he was of the race of Chan, a Serpent – and founded a great empire in the Usumacinta region, which he seems to have ruled over as did his descendants or followers for many centuries. He was not regarded in the native traditions as the first man in America; he found the country peopled, as did all the culture-heroes, but by his teachings and by the aid of his companions he firmly established his own ideas of religion and government. So far as his memory was preserved by tradition he was a civilizer, a law-giver, the introducer of the Maya culture, worshiped moreover, after his disappearance, as a god. He came by sea from the east, but with the locality whence he started I have nothing to do here; neither is it necessary to indulge in speculation respecting the four mysterious visits which he paid after his arrival in America to his original home in the Old World, where it is gravely asserted he was present at the building of Solomon's temple and saw the ruins of the tower of Babel. His reported acts in the New World, whose people he came to civilize, were; – the dividing or apportioning of the lands among the people; their instruction in the new institutions they were required to adopt; the building of a great city, Nachan, afterwards the metropolis of an empire; the reception of a new band of disciples of his own race, who were allowed to share in the success already achieved by his enterprise; the subdividing of his empire after its power had become wide-spread in the land into several allied monarchies subordinate in a certain degree to Nachan, among whose capitals were Tulan, Mayapan, and Chiquimula; the construction of a subterranean road or 'snake hole' from the barranca of Zuqui to Tzequil; the deposit of a great treasure with tapirs as sacred animals in a 'house of gloom' at Huehuetan in Soconusco, protected by guardians called tlapianes, at whose head was a Lady Superior; and finally the writing of a 'book' in which was inscribed a complete record of all he had done, with a defense or proof of his claims to be considered one of the Chanes, or Serpents.278

THE BOOK OF VOTAN

      This document is the authority, indirectly, for nearly all that is known from Tzendal sources of Votan and his empire. Francisco Nuñez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas, claims to have had in his possession279 and to have read this historical tract. He does not describe it, but from his having been able to read the contents, it would seem to have been, if genuine, not the original in hieroglyphics but an interpretation in European letters, although still perhaps in the Tzendal language. Of the contents, besides a general statement of Votan's coming as the first man sent by God to portion out the land, and some of his experiences in the Old World, this author says nothing definite. He claims to have had much knowledge of Tzendal antiquity derived from the work mentioned and other native writings, but he feared to perpetuate this knowledge lest it might "confirm more strongly an idolatrous superstition." He is the only authority for the deposit of the treasure in the Dark House at Huehuetan, without saying expressly that he derived his information from Votan's writings. This treasure, consisting of aboriginal relics, the bishop felt it to be his duty to destroy, and it was publicly burned in 1691. It is not altogether improbable that a genuine Maya document similar to the Manuscript Troano or Dresden Codex,280 preserved from the early times, may have found a native interpreter at the time of the Conquest, and have escaped in its disguise of Spanish letters the destruction that overtook its companions.

      The next notice of this manuscript is found in the writings of Dr Paul Felix Cabrera,281 who in the last part of the eighteenth century found it in the possession of Don Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguiar, a native and resident of Ciudad Real in Chiapas.282 He describes the document as consisting of "five or six folios of common quarto paper, written in ordinary characters in the Tzendal language, an evident proof of its having been copied from the original in hieroglyphics, shortly after the conquest."283 The manuscript, according to Cabrera, recounted Votan's arrival with seven families, to whom he apportioned the lands; his voyages to the Old World; and his reception of the new-comers. Returning from one of his voyages "he found seven other families of the Tzequil nation, who had joined the first inhabitants, and recognized in them the same origin as his own, that is, of the Culebras. He speaks of the place where they built their first town, which, from its founders, received the name of Tzequil; he affirms the having taught them refinement of manners in the use of the table, table-cloth, etc.; that, in return for these, they taught him the knowledge of God and of his worship; his first ideas of a king and obedience to him; and that he was chosen captain of all these united families."

      Ordoñez, at the time of Cabrera's visit, was engaged in writing his great 'History of the Heaven and Earth,'284 a work, as the learned Doctor predicts, to be "so perfect in its kind, as will completely astonish the world." The manuscript was never published, part of the historical portion was lost, and the remaining fragments or copies of them fell into the hands of Brasseur de Bourbourg, whose writings contain all that is known of their contents; and it must be confessed that from these fragments little or nothing of value has been extracted by the abbé in addition to what Nuñez de la Vega and Cabrera had already made known. Ordoñez was familiar with the Tzendal language and character, with the ancient monuments of his native state, and was zealously devoted to antiquarian researches; he had excellent opportunities to collect and record such scraps of knowledge as the Tzendal tribes had preserved from the days of their ancestors' greatness;285 but his enthusiasm seems rather to have led him to profitless speculations on the original population of the New World and "its progress from Chaldea immediately after the confusion of tongues." Even after rejecting the absurd theories and speculations which seem to have constituted the bulk of his writings, one cannot help looking with some distrust on the few traditional statements respecting Votan not given by other authors, and thinking of possible transformations that may have been effected in Tzendal fables under the pens of two writers like Ordoñez and Brasseur, both honest investigators, but

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