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THE LIBRARY
OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

ANTHROP.
LIBRARY

 

 

 

 

 

 

F/zm
M55

ANTHROP,
LIBRARY

TO

JOHN WHITE CORWITH,

MY FRIEND AND COMPANION, WHOSE INTELLIGENT GENEROSITY
MADE POSSIBLE THE \VORK DESCRIBED IN THESE

PAGES, THIS BOOK
IS

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

@351074

 

THE

HILL-CAVES OE YUCATAN

A SEARCH FOR EVIDENCE OF MAN’S
AN'I‘IQUI'I‘Y IN THE CAVERNS
OF CENTRAL AMERICA

BEING

AN ACCOUNT OF THE CORW’ITH EXPEDITION OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF ARCH/EOLOGY AND PAL/E—
ONTOLOCY OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF PENNSYLVANIA

BY

HENRY C. MERCER

CURATOR OF THE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN AND I’REHISTURIC AKCH/‘EOLOGY AT THE
UNXVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN CHARGE OF THE EXPEDITIUN

WITH 5E I/IZVTICFUUR ILL [73‘ 778/! T/ONS

PHILADELPHIA
]. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1896

ANTHROPOLOGY LIBRARI

COPYRIGHT, 1895,
BY

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.

PRINTED av J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANV, PHILADELPHIA, U S.A.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION ...... . . . . . . . . .

CHAPTER II.

THE JOURNEY TO YUCATAN .........

CHAPTER III.

ACTUN SPUKIL, THE CAVE 0F MICE .....

CHAPTER IVI

WET CAVES IN A DRY LAND ........

CHAPTER V.

THE FIRST IMPORTANT EVIDENCE ......

CHAPTER VI.

A FIRST GLANCE AT THE RUINS

CHAPTER VII.

CAVES THAT WERE DOUBTFUL .......

...........

CHAPTER VIII.

ARC HEOLOGY IN YUCATAN ......

CHAPTER IX.

OVER HILL AND DALI-z .

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI..

KABAH, RANCHO CHACK, AND TABI . . . .

......

PAGE

15

21

32

45

58

64

91

8 CONTENTS

CHAPTER XII. “GE

LOLTUN, THE BOOK OF FLOWERS ................. 98

CHAPTER XIII.

CAVES NEAR. OXKUTZCAB ..................... 126

CHAPTER XIV.

ACTUN SKOKIKAN, THE CAVE 0F SERI’ENTS ............ 142

CHAPTER XV.
THE LAST TRENCH AT SABAKA .................. 146

CHAPTER XVI.
A SUMMARY ........................... 160

THE

HILL-CAVES OF YUOATAN.

C H A P T E R I.
INTRODUCTION.

WHEN we realize that the recent science of Prehistoric Archae-
ology in Europe has been largely established on the results of ex—
plorations made in caves, the wonder is that more work of the kind
has not been done in America. After ‘aves were first examined
in Germany, England, and France, it became evident that a large
proportion of these shelters had been visited by the savage races
that came near them in past time. The facts did not show that
many, if any, of the cave visitors were, properly speaking, cave-
dwellers, who for epochs dwelt permanently in caves, and could
not, or would not, build habitations outside, or avoided regions
where there were no caves; but the discoveries proved that, at
least once in a while, some representatives of all the successive
past periods of human culture ventured under the rock arches.
When they did, it appeared that they had built fires and cooked
in the flames the flesh of animals, having eaten which, they threw
the bones about the cave floor; and there these bones, often split
to get the marrow, sometimes carved, or ornamented, or rubbed
into points, have remained to this day, together with charcoal and
ashes, and tools of stone and metal, to prove the underground
feast. \Vhen the builder of the first fires had abandoned the cave,
intervals of time had sometimes succeeded during which the shelter
remained unvisited._ In many cases dust and leaves had blown in,
splinters had fallen from the roof, beds of alluvium had been
washed in by freshets, or stalagmite had incrusted the floor, sealing
11p the human relics below with an envelope of sand, stone, or mud.

Later peoples venturing into the place had been forced by the

limit of light and shelter to halt and build fires upon the same
2 9

10 THE HILL-(“YES OF YUCATAN

spot. If they took no pains to dig deeply into the ground under—
foot, another rubbish layer was formed exactly above the first,
but sometimes Separated from it by an interbeddcd partition of
non-relie-bearing material.

The visits of still later peoples repeated the process, increasing
the number of human rubbish layers already formed, and pro—
ducing a series of them, with the oldest on the bottom and the
latest on top; and these showed, by the kind and make of the
implements they contained, by the pedigree of the associated
bones of' animals, and by their own sequence one above the other,
how, when, and in what order man had lived in the past.

To cut down the cave floors, and, when confronted with the
sides of the subter'anean trench, to study closely the'exposed
subdivisions, so as to compare them one with another, was to
-arry back the human story by regular steps into the remote past,
and so the European student, descending by culture layers from
iron to bronze, from bronze to polished and then to chipped stone,
has worked out the framewxwk of most books written upon pre—
historic archzeology in the last thirty years.

In outer fields of investigation the clues were disjointed and
scattered: the buried city, the mound, the lake dwelling, the
quarry, excavated severally, failed to tell certainly which, among
many sites, was the oldest. But in a cave—formed by nature for
man often before he appeared upon the scene, lasting as long as
he lasted, and where the halting-ground, limited by rock walls,
light and darkness, had remained the same for all Visitors—the
whole archzeological problem was buried in one spot.

Many geological events, as yet but little studied, have left
landmarks in caverns that may prescribe new relations of time
to the whole subject, and the bones of animals, preserved from
frost and weather in the floor deposits, and reaching back into
earlier conditions of species, have given a relative date to human
remains associated with them that nothing can disprove. Con—
tinued investigation has established the fact that of all searching-
grounds known to archaeology eaves best answer the question
which lies at the bottom of the seience,—namely, the question of
sequence, which came first and which next ‘3 ‘V hen and where
was the beginning, middle, and end of the story? And it is
matter for astonishment that, although in Europe the prehistoric

/ \
V 1;: z E55
INTRODUCTION / 11

  
 
 

region has been set in order and classified tlll‘Ol 1 such labors as
those of Schmerling at Engis, MacEnery a1 l’engelly at Kent’s
Hole, and Lartet and Christy in the-Sonfine valley caves, the
whole matter in America has gone thus far without any sys-
tematic investigation of the sort since Lund, in 1820, supposed
he had found human remains mixed with Pleistocene fossils in
the M inas Geraes caverns in Brazil.

In the United States the dispute wages over glacial man in the
East and the still greater antiquity of the Calaveras skull in the
West. It is denied that Koch found arrow—heads associated with
the skeleton of a mastodou in the Missouri mud, and that Indian
matting and pottery belong to the layer of sloth-bones in the
Petit Anse salt—pit in Louisiana. We fancy the bone-carving
Eskimo—the descendant of the French Cave-Man—coming to
America from Europe across a pre-glacial isthmus in the North
Atlantic. We discuss the probability of Asiatics bringing jade
to Central America, of Polynesians drifting to Peru in canoes, 0f
Caribs coming over the eastern sea, of Mayas wandering to
Africa by way of the sunken “ Atlantis ;” while, as far as reason—
able proof goes, we hardly venture to guess whether the Indian
in the eastern United States came there, as the Lenape alleges,
about the year 1390, or slowly developed from a palzeolithic an-
cestor in twelve thousand years. Still in the dark as to these
simpler questions, ethnology searches for an answering inference
in the life and customs of existing savage peoples, while archae-
ology studies mounds, ransacks village-sites and quarries, and
photographs ruins, filling museums with the results.

But we are learning that there are caves in Pennsylvania and
\Vest Virginia full of a new and valuable evidence, and that the
limestone of eastern Tennessee is honey-combed with caverns
which contain hearths and middenl’heaps to testify to the true
relation of peoples and the time of man’s first coming to the
eastern region.1 As far as examined this evidence has repeated

 

1 Sec notices of caves explored in Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Illi-
nois, and Kentucky, in American Naturalist for April, July, and September,
1894; and “ Bulletin of the Department of Archaeology of the University of
Pennsylvania,” for July 4, 1894; also lie-exploration of Hartman Cave, near
Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, in “ Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sci-
ences of Philadelphia,” for 1894.

12 THE HILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

itself and tallied with cave evidence in other parts of the world,
so strengthening the inference that all savage peoples everywhere,
when confronted with convenient natural shelters, have gone into
them and left their trace there, that the question of man’s an-
tiquity in eastern North America seems in a fair way of being
finally settled.

Two years’ study of caves in the Ohio and Tennessee valleys
has simplified the inquiry. The topography of the Appalachian
region has made it possible to eliminate many shelters from the
search and to concent‘ate attention upon others which, by their
position, constitute the key to the situation. As light dawns
over the subject the outlook widens, and threads of inquiry lead
onward into all parts of North and South America.

Meanwhile, the idea of searching 1n the caves of Yucatan or
Chiapas for what the Germans call (1'sz«chic/(ten (culture
layers), or deposited beds of charcoal and ashes, associated with
human relics and denoting epochs of human occupancy, as above
explained, had occupied my thoughts since 1890. But there
seemed a small chance of seeingthis sort of light thrown upon
the problem of man’s antiquity in Yucatan when it had fallen
to my lot in the late autumn of 1894 to search for human traces
in the bone cave at Port Kennedy, Montgomery County, Penn—
sylvania, then for the second time exposed to science by the
chance blast of a limestone quarryman. The attention of the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia had been directed
to the spot where a deposit of mud and stones, choking up the
cavern, revealed the traces of an animal and plant life that had
ended with the advent of modern time. The bones of an un-
familiar race of extinct animals, represented by the sloth, the
tapir, horse, and mastodon, had been ground to powder or broken
and deposited in stratified beds, and their appearance gave evi—
dence of a flood yet unexplained that had overwhelmed the creat-
ures when their day had come, or whirled in destructive torrents
their whitening skeletons. Once for all the contested question of
the antiquity of the human race in North America would have
been settled at this place had we found in the interbedded layers,
forty-five feet below the surface, a jasper chip, arrow—head,
hammer-stone, or potsherd to positively connect the fossils with
the presence of man. But when snow and frost drove us away

INTRODUCTION 13

no such trace had been found, and we were obliged to rest con—
tent with the new and valuable insight given into the condition
of further and more extensive search into American caverns. At
Port Kennedy the layer of the sloth and tapir had formed a
landmark between cave deposits which were ancient and those
which were modern, showing plainly the conditions under which
the investigation was to be pushed back into the extreme past.
\Ve had clearly gone back one geological step, and in some
degree understood how and when those pleistocene layers which
we had as yet failed to find in other caves might be searched for
and found again.

It was the assistance given by Dr. S. \Veir Mitchell to the
plan of exploration, and the interest taken by Mr. J. W. Corwith,
of Chicago, in the work at Port Kennedy, in November, 1894,
that led to the generous offer of the latter to the University of
Pennsylvania resulting in an expedition equipped by him for
similar research in Yucatan.

The Opportunity had come at the right moment. A series of
excavations at the Lookout and Niekajack caves in Tennessee,
at Hartman’s Cave in Pennsylvania, at Thompson’s Shelter in
Virginia, at Cave—in-Rock in Indiana, and at Lake’s Cave in
Kentucky had brought us within reach of a solution for the
North American problem. The question, illumined by the advice
and suggestion of Professor Cope, had become broader, and with
an enlarged perspective we were prepared to extend the scale of
investigation.

In the short time allowed for consultation and preparation I
continually owed warm thanks to the encouraging advice of Dr.
S. Weir Mitchell, whose friendly aid had alone made possible
the work. My gratitude was also due to the iliberal archaeo-
logical and practical help given me then as since by Dr. Daniel
G. Brinton, and to the energetic co—operation of the President of
the Archaeological Association of the University, Dr. “lilliam
Pepper.

Many possibilities were suggested. \Ve might have revisited
the caverns of Minas-Geraes in Brazil, where the previous ex-
plorations of Lund and Claussen seemed to need revision; we
were tempted to turn to an unexplored field in Peru, and review
the work done in lVIeXico. But when Professor Heilprin, of the

14 THE HILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, kindly reported
that he had seen large, dry caves in a small range of hills in
Central Yucatan, our destination was settled. If these eaves,
as Professor Heilprin informed us, contained aboriginal carvings
on their walls, and showed signs of human habitation on their
floors, they would by all past experience, and better than specula-
tion from Spanish chronicles, answer the first question we asked,
How long had man lived in Yucatan i) If they were only easy
of entrance, light, and conspicuous, the first immigrants who
crossed the mountains must have noticed them, when the halt of
one traveller in a thousand, leaving behind him underground a
patch of charcoal and ashes, a bead, a flint knife, or a potsherd,
would tell the tale, while the position of the subterranean shel-
ters onlines of communication between the ruins of Uxmal and
Labna, on the one hand, and Mayapan, Ticul, Mani, and Chi—
ehenitza, on the other, would have forced them on the attention
of the builders of these cities as they passed from one to another.

Chance had offered us the question in a nutshell. If ever
human refuse layers on the floors of caverns were to reveal the
conditions of a lost human chronology, such layers might be
looked for in these caves, the first group of which existed, as we
were told, at Calcehtok, and the second at Tabi, about half-way
on a straight line between [Txmal and T ieul.

(f H A 1’ T E R I I.
THE JOURNEY TO YUCATA N.

THE hope of solving this important question by means of
evidence easily accessible, but hitherto neglected, and the many
chances of a hunt in the subter'anean twilight, preoccupied our
thoughts as, suddenly equipping an expedition, we packed up
provisions, tents, medicines, and instruments, and set out for
Yn 'atan.

Let it be said that with cave—hunting there goes the knowledge
that a -ave once excavated is probably spoiled for future investi-
gation, that the floors lie alvays at the mercy of nitre-diggers,
“relie”-hunters, or (luarrymen, and that other searchers are or
may be in the field to anticipate the enterprise by a just priority.
In this *ase we remembered not only that nature often obscures
the record of caverns or untits them for excavation, but that
fever, objections by officials and land-owners, or the hostility of
Indian guides might upset our ‘alculations at any moment. As
we had started late in the short dry time a 'ailable for exploration,
and as we knew that another expedition had reached the I’enin-
sula ahead of us, it maybe understood why after a week on
shipboard we looked at last at the coast of Yucatan with restless
eyes. \Ve lay at anchor in a green sea, where some palm-trees,
dim in vapor, rose from the shore. But as the line of white
beach was three miles away, it took as nearly twenty minutes in
a tender to reach a narrow pier that “an into deep water over the
sands. Climbing upon it, we stepped quickly along the tarry
planks, and, passing a large building with plastered walls and
a reach of sand, came into the main street of I’rogreso. There
a hot air blew along the houses, shaking awnings at the doors
of shops, where groups of dark men stood in the shade, and
women in white garments sat along the eurbstone with bowls of
cocked meats. There was a market—place full of fruits and fish,
a wooden railway station walled with lattice, and a hotel. But

15

16 THE HILL-(,‘AVES 0F YUCATAN

a glance at the sandy streets and brown faces brought us little
more definite than a pleasing, cheerful impression, and it was not
until our party of five—Mr. Corwith and myself, with Mr. Dar-
lington (secretary and field assistant), Robert Anderson (assist-
ant), and Frank Hauser (cook)—had taken places in little cane-
seated railway-cars and were rolling slowly away from Progreso
and the sea that the appearance of the strange land for a time
possessed our thoughts.

What was in store for us in the flat country that had the look
of a dry swamp, where here and there groups of thirsty cows
looked listlessly from the bushes? The boughs were leafless.
Upon roads following the track we saw ox-earts with solid
wooden wheels, and at dusty thatched stations Indians with trou-
sers rolled up to their thighs, often straining under the weight
of heavy baskets supported by straps across their foreheads, stood
looking at the train. As the day waned we passed fields of
cactus called hencgucn (Agave sisalensis), whose fibre, used for
rope, is the chief product of Yucatan, while sometimes palm—
trees rose against the evening sky, and under dark masses of
foliage we had glimpses of walls, gates of stucco, arches and
colonnades, beyond which lights glimmered after sunset. By
degrees a blue twilight enveloped everything. The thatched
huts faded into faint outlines. \Ve could only smell the perfume
of fires built of unknown woods, as, sitting by the window, in
the warm draught, we looked outward on horizon and sky.

The station-shed at Merida was crowded, and I well remember
our three clear impressions of the attractive throng as we stepped
into it. Its dress was white. It was conspicuously clean. It
was noticeably quiet. At least two—thirds of the faces were
brown, and this fact we observed again when, after finding rooms
at the Hotel Yu rateco, we followed the glimmer of lights to a
plaza to vatch once more the moving crowd, dressed (save a few
men in European clothes) in st 'aw hats, loose muslin sacks, cot—
ton trousers rollcd up at the bare ankle, and sandals. The gen—
e‘al effect of whiteness was largely due to the costume of the
women, the most striking of all the sights we had yet seen.
This was invariably white, and fell about their figures in graceful
folds. Two little borders of delicate embroidery ran across it,
edging the sleeves, which were often rolled 11p, and a long

’I‘HI£ JOURNEY TO YUCATAX 17

fringed scarf of dark blue or purple, covering head and neck,
half hid their features. Alone or in groups, but rarely accom—
panied by men, they hurried past as if upon errands, many of
them walking with bare feet. Not all the brown countenances
were bewitehing nor the figures all straight, but the poetically
beautiful dress was a surprise. That efl'aced every suggestion
of the commonplace, monopolizing our attention while the faces
went by, darker or lighter, as Spanish blood had tinted them
more or less, until for the first time we realized the presence of
a strange ancient race. The people whose remains we had
come to study had neither perished nor been absorbed by their
conquerors.

On the contrary, still comprising more than three-fourths of
the three hundred and ninety—three thousand people in the Penin-
sula, they had rather absorbed the Spaniards, while their lan-
guage—the language of the hieroglyphs at I’alenque and Chiehen-
it-za had conspicuously held its own. Far from wilting, like
their North Ameri'an cousins, at the touch of civilization, the
sturdy, handsome Mayas had turned readily into servants at the
haciendas, farmers, small t’adesmen, porters, and day laborers.
As they had built the ancient ruins, so they still did most of' the
manual work in a climate where European laborers succumb.

 

They must remember something of their past, but how much no
one yet knows. It is doubtful if any modern student has gained
their confidence, and certain that a reward must be in store for
the archzeologist who, living among them as a brother, masters
their language and wins their friendship. But the knowledge we
sought for lay buried in the ground. We asked one question at
least which not even a Maya priest, versed in hieroglyphs and
keeper of annals in the time of l\Ionte_jo, could have answered.
\Vhat earlier peoples, if any, had preceded the Mayas in Yu-
-atan '?

The Spaniards found an ancient city at the site of Merida, the
vestiges of which have been removed to build the present walls ;
and now no temple or door-way or hieroglyphic inscription in its
original setting catches the eye anywhere, so that our first glimpse
of buildings that appeared old reminded us of Spain, like the
gate—way of Governor Montejos’ house, built by the conquerors in
the sixteenth century. And it was only when we had driven out-

18 THE iiiLL-(u-U'Ics or YUcATAx

of the city that structures entirely characteristic of Yucatan eon-
fronted us. These were two of the well-known emotcs or sub-
terranean wells where still pools of water, supplied from under-
ground natural reservoirs, covered the floors of small caves about
twenty-five feet deep. \Valls and gates had been built at their
entrances, and stairs cut down to the basins. The moist air grew
warme ‘ as we descended upon stone platforms by the tanks, where
we could xasily see bottom in the shallow water, but noticed no
sign of current or quick egress, though we looked carefully for
channels along the margin of the pools, in one of which a boy
had just been bathing.

There was something oppressive. in the region about the wells,
where the city had seemed to end suddenly in a thorny, shadeless
thicket. I felt the desire of drawing a long breath as I looked
in vain for a glimpse of distance, a grassy sward, or an open mea—
dow. Tangled, leafless bushes overhung the loose walls of the
roads, and shut out the horizon, proclaimng that we were stand-
ing on the verge of the oft-described forest that envelops the
Peninsula from Progreso to Guatemala. But we saw, not what
we had dreamed of,—a fantastic wilderness of bright colors and
strange growths,—but a brown, monotonous waste, a thing of
unusual import as we soon knew it, balking the explorer with
malevolent power, as it hides what he would find and holds fast

 

what he would take away always his enemy, bitter, unrelenting,
and treacherous.

This was the forest in which other explorers had been forced to
travel with pack mules, cut their way through the close under—
brush, and pitch tents in the insect-ridden bushes. Luckily for
us, we were to work in a subter‘anean shade, ride in native tarts
(volans) over well—known roads, and lodge in comtbrtable rooms.
Thanks to the kind response of the Bishop of Yu'atan to our
letter of introduction from Dr. Brinton, the Governor, Don
Carlos Peon, Sefior Eusebio Escalante, our host at Calcehtok,
and Sefior Eulogio Duarte, had generously supplied us with notes
of recommendation to all the hemp and sugar plantations (hm-1'-
cndas) 011 the line of our expedition, while the. more we heard of
the mountains, the roads, and the haeicmlus, the easier the enter—
prise seemed, the caves themselves continuing to promise every-
thing from their position. There were others in the Penin—

THE JOURNEY TO YUC‘ATAN 19

sula, but those in the sier‘a confronting the migration paths of
any peoples that might ever have inhabited Yucatan included all
the evidence that we could have asked for and all that other caves
could have furnished.1 If the Mayas had been the only ancient
inhabitants of Yucatan, the caves would be found to contain but
one refuse layer. If other peoples had preceded them, other
similar layers, standing for their other respective states of culture
and other periods of occupancy, would be encountered deeper in
the cave earth as we cut down the floors.

This prospect of a discovery near at hand monopolized our
thoughts. There \ 'as an opera at hierida, a museum, an evening
concert on the square. There were cafés and native markets,
religious ceremonies and bull-fights, new friends and promised
acquaintances. 'Less preoccupied, we might have spent a month
at the Hotel Yucateco, but three restless days sufficed to equip us
with our extra provisions and an Indian cook, and found us on
the train for Calcehtok.

A t‘am—ar of the kind used for transporting hemp at the
haciendas was waiting for 11s at the lonely station of San Ber—
nardo, and, leaving the baggage to follow, we jumped aboard a
platform furnished with seats and dragged by a single mule.
Then we whisked across a level reach into the twilight at a rate
that set the wind rushing past our cheeks. For many minutes
bushes hemmed us in, and we passed a gate and entered an im-
mense henequen field. Rolling on towards the slope of a low
ridge, we passed some thatched huts, turned a sharp eorne‘ at a
gate, and drew up in the main court of the hacienda. Piles of
firewood lay along a low building. We saw a chapel and palm-
trees, and near them the arches and columns of a balcony with
stone steps. The chapel bell was ringing as, passing a group of
dusky men, we came to the veranda and went up the steps where
the Indian children were singing their evening prayer. Then, led
by the overseer, we took possession of several bare lofty rooms

1 Stephens saw a blowing cave at Xcokh, near Mani, and other caves at
Kewik and Xul, west of Tekax. The large rotunda at the water cavern of
Xtacumbilxunaan, near Bolenehen Tieul, would have been probably adapted
for cxea 'ation, as also the chambers in the -ave near a mound at Mayapan.
I saw caves along the west side of the railway track near Lepan and Tecoh
in the level region.

20 THE HILL-CAVES OF YUOATAN

furnished with hammock pegs. These were our quarters, gen-
erously offered us by Senor Escalante for weeks or months as we
chose. While Robert Anderson arranged our boxes, bags, and
implements on the floor, our cooks, Frank Hauser and Pastor
Leal, prepared for supper in a neighboring kitchen.

Outside the scene reminded me of Egypt. Long white walls,
arches of stucco, palm trees, swarthy figures in white clothes, and
fluttering searts seemed to speak only of the Nile. But there
was no open desert. The gray forest pressing down from the
hill above was strange, and held the key to questions which were
above all American. The imported coloring of Arabian Spain,
now grown old in the New \Vorld, blended softly into its back—
ground. Behind all it guarded the secret of grotesque ruins,
and worked its enchantment upon the mind of the student of
lost tombs and palaces, hieroglyphs, T oltec migrations, and Maya
legends colored by Spanish priests.

CHAPTER III.
ACTUN sPIfKIL, THE CAVE OF MICE.

WE had expected to encounter a range of mountains at Cal—
eehtok. \Vhat we did see was a low ridge, scarcely higher and
less broken than the hills in northern New Jersey, or the Lehigh
hills at Durham in the Delaware Valley. This was a serious dis-
appointment, for my idea of a conspicuous cave or shelter was of
one that, like the awe—inspiring Nickajaek in Tennessee, looked
out of a perpendicular wall of rock, such as would have compelled
a band of tbot-travellers to skirt its front in trying to get round it
and so forced itself upon their notice. But there were no cliffs
in sight, and the eaves, which had to be hunted for in the forest,
though found on and over the slopes of ridges, opened vertically
down into the ground like wells. It soon became evident that
the conditions for the formation of cliffs, and hence for the ex-
posure of conspicuous vaulted hollows entered on the level, were
absent in the region. The coralline and porous Mesozoic lime-
stone of that part of Yucatan had not been upheaved or faulted,
and, save for the waves of the hill ridges, lay as it was deposited.
As no important rivers or streams existed,l there had been no
erosion of valleys and consequent baring of rock walls by running
water. Caves, when exposed, had been opened vertically—that
is, by the natural weathering down of a level rock surface till a
hole in the roof appeared—rather than by erosion working across
a passage so that you could go in horizontally.

The result of this was a very striking class of underground
chambers from fifty to'three hundred and fifty feet in diameter

 

 

1 Stephens saw a surface rill running from an underground reservoir and
probably losing itself in one of the surface pools called aguadas at Becanchen,
near Pete, but there are no streams marked on Berendt’s map north of Lake
Uhiehankanab, near Pete, save the brooks called Kantena, Xelha, Tetzal, and
a fourth emptying into the sea opposite Cozumel, a fifth seeming to lose itself
in an aguada near Tuluni, and a sixth flowing into the northern salt lagoon
at San Felipe.

21

22 THE HILL-CAVES on YUCATAN

and from fifteen to seventy feet high, more or less brightly lit
by round openings in the ceiling ten, twenty, and fifty feet in
diameter.

Through these skylights fragments of the original crust had
fallen, forming piles of loose stones on the cave floor. When the
downfallen accumulations set sufficiently against one side of the
orifice, it was easy to walk down their slope, but, as a general
rule, a chasm of some feet had to be bridged over in reachng
them, either by descending 011 a rope or clambering down the
root of the alamo-tree, which flourished on the brink of most
of the skylights, often sending its tendrils to the eave'floor.
Where the rock pile was high enough, banana—trees and tropical
evergreens growing upon it swept the brink of the chasmfwith
their boughs, making strange rattlings when the wind blew.
Sometimes the subterranean groves lay far beneath the surface in
rotundas inaccessible from above. Then they were first seen
after a long clamber underground, like gardens beneath the vault—
ings of sombre passages. Doves built their nests in high ledges
by the skylights, and animals found refuge under the rock heaps,
where Indians had built blinds of loose stones to stalk them.

This surprising charm of underground vegetation was in store
for 11s at Actun Spukil1 (Cave of Mice), the first of the caverns
that we visited. It lay on the southwestern slope of the hills,
three miles west of Calcchtok. Horses were offered us, but on
the rocky, slippery path that led to it we preferred our feet even
to the sure-footed little animals who, it was said, slid from rock
to rock without falling. The way wound through a thorny thicket
across the hills. Stumbling along for half an hour brought us
to the summit of the ridge, where we halted for breath and
looked backward over the distant plain. It had a vaporous blue
color like the sea. But the cool hue, deceitful as a mirage, was
one of the illusions of the ever-present forest that enveloped
Yucatan,——a low, tangled, terrible thicket, half-leaved then,
waterless, and full of thorns and wood—lice. From the Gulf 011
the north, southward to Chiapas and Belize, and growing denser

1 Tam means rock in Maya, Ac to cover or be covered with. The Bishop of
Yucatan informed me that little ehicken-coops of stone are also called aetun
by the Indians.

l\("l‘1'_\' Sl’l'Klli. ’l‘lll'] (‘AVIC ()l“ MH‘IG 23

as it erussed the wild region southeast at Lake l’etu, it covered
everything. Revulted Indians still held nut in it against the eon—
querors. Its summer 1 ‘at'age hi<l temple walls fi'mn the searcher

Fm. '2.

 

Aetun Hivukil H'm’e of Him). Ibuiauaitrees :uul lnulerg'rnunll \‘egetalinn in the inner
rntunila. lhmtsnt' [llL‘illlelHrII‘CUll;l11_Lfll‘(ml the skylight.

at a (listanee of a few feet, and rumur tnhl of ruins: buried
in it that vied in wonder with these that \Valdeek and Stephens
(leserilmd, tn th s astonishment of the wurld, halt' a century ago.
Pushing on, We crossed a series of lnw r *aehes, with stoneless

24 THE HILL-(,‘AVES 0F YUCATAN

red clay underfoot, where long—tailed bluebirds hopped in the
leafless tangle. Then the ridge bared again to slope downward,
as we left the regular path, and, skirtng some clumps of cactus
and thorns, heard the “attle of banana-leaves. Presently a
palm grove rose out of a sunken amphitheatre at our feet. We
had reached the entrance of the cave. Approaching the brink of
the chasm and looking down, we found that we were standing on
the rim of what was really the round skylight opening into a large
cavern. As this hole, produced by the caving in of the rock, was
in the middle of the cave ceiling, the abyss shelved inward and
downward underfoot on all sides. The high ground on which the
banana-trees grew was a heap of downfallen stone and rubbish.
Place an egg-shell on its side and, cutting a hole one-fourth its
diameter in the circumference uppermost, pour in sand till a con-
ical heap half filling the inside nearly reaches the middle of the
orifice, and you have reproduced the C(mditions of Actun Spukil,
and, indeed, that of most of the mountain caves we visited. As
there was no place above-ground where the sand had reached the
egg—shell in the present instance, the Indians had made a ladder
of saplings bound with twigs, and we climbed down to find our-
selves in a well-lit underground region that was dry and cool.
The hill of rocks, crowned with banana-trees, rose in the centre,
and the stony-floored shelter went far inward under the overhang-
ing crusts. Natu ‘al arches confronted us, with skylights beyond,
down which vines swung and roots, large and small, made their
way to the ground. \Ve looked over erags into a deeper cham—
ber, where another grove of banana-trees held their fronds
towards the air and light. The black background behind them
was the shadow of a passage that led onward into the dark.
'VVe stopped often to look and listen. After the echoes of rat-
tling palm-leaves came silences, followed by the sound of drop—
ping water and the chatter of birds. Reund about the central
rock pile and downward into the deeper rotunda led a sort of
path. At some places, where passing bodies had given the
rocks a polish, rude steps had been built, and‘ at others the
charcoal-blackened ground was scattered with potsherds.l These

1 Whoever has cooked at a camp-fire knows the value of pots and kettles

and can understand why potsherds—fragments of broken earthen vessels are

 

ACTUN SPUKIL, THE CAVE or MICE 25

abundant g '21_\', red, polished and painted fragments were hardly
noticed, when blocks of stone two and three feet in diameter and

Fin. 3.

 

Aetun Spukil ((‘ave of Mice), in the mountains, two miles west of the hacienda of Chal-
cehtok, Yucatan, four miles from the ruined city of ()xkintok. One of the largest and
most beautiful caverns in Yucatan, containing fifty-nine stone water—dishes and many
relics of the builders of the neighboring,r ruins. View from the first rotunda into the second
rotunda, showing the effect of the skylight upon vegetation underground. Palm-trees tlouiu
ish in the cooler air. Alamo-roots reach the cave floor from the brink of the skylight
eighty to one hundred feet above.

hollowed in the middle caught our eye. Some were broken,
many were set up level on foundations of smaller stones, and

so often found at the sites of habitations: of primitive peoples. When an
earthen pot is broken, its sherds or pieces, generally valueless to the owner,
and almost as indestructible as stone, remain at or near the spot. As clay pots
were relatively abundant in the metalless Age of Stone, and as one pot makes
many sherds, the potslu'ards, coarse or fine, large or small, plain or ornamented,
fortunately bedded in the charcoal and ash heaps of the prehistoric cook, have
an extreme value for the archaeologist. Their make, shape, and decoration
often indicate the cultural status of the unehronieled people who made them,
and their significant absence at the oldest known sites points to an eventful
moment in the human story, when man, for a time ignorant of the art of
makingr vessels of clay, at last disCovered it.
3

26 THE HILL-(“YES 0F YIY‘ATAN

some, resting exactly under falling drops, were full of refreshing
water. ‘Ve tried to eount them, and, after finding fifteen in the
first rotunda, ibllowed a line of them into the other. There,

FIG. 4.

 

Aetun Spukil ((‘ave of Mice). Wall of loose stones at the entrant-e of the large chamber
leading from the inner rotunda.

behind the banana—trees, in the twilight, where the sound of tall—
ing drops echoed, we waited awhile to trace the outlines of a
spacious room. Its entrance was blocked with a wall of loose
stones, built either by modern Indians in time of revolution or

ACTUN SPUKIL, THE CAVE or MM: 27

by their pre—Columbian ancestors. Entering the chamber, we
counted forty-six stone vater-dishes. Some were half sealed by
stalagmite; a few were surrounded by loose, unmortared walls,
which I aftemvards learned were used by Indians as blinds for
shooting doves. One dish was partly glued to its wall by stalag—
mite. In another, photographed (Fig. 5)? the drops fell on that
day—January 29, 1895—three to a minute, but, as all the water
phenomena of the place might have varied in the rainy season, it
would have been unsafe to infer great antiquity for the crusts
without prolonged experiment. Near by a small incrustation had
formed on the decaying stalk of a fallen banana—tree. The water-
dishes, as a rule, with hollows one foot by seven inches in diame-
ter, and often one foot deep, had been worked in blocks of lime-
stone, and, on account of their weight and difficulty of transport,
it was reasonable to suppose that they had been made upon the
spot. Some of the shallower ones might have been used as mor—
tars for corn-grinding, but one or two of the deeper ones had
been cut out of living stalagmite, in inner passages where the
drops fell, and it was evident that most of them had been made
for the purpose of catching water.

Much of the pottery might have been used for cooking and
other purposes, but, when we had followed the broken frag-
ments into several passages, and found pieces not accompanied
by traces of fire in wet niches too small to admit a man’ s body,
the inference was that many of the sherds had formed parts of
vessels set about at the right places to catch dripping water.
(See Fig. 8.)

()ur first trench, dug in the smoothest part of the floor of the
first rotunda, was begun with an indescribable curiosity, but as
we went down, removing the cubic contents of each foot before
cutting into the next, a mass of loose stones, growing larger as
we proceeded, discouraged us.

The first foot disclosed charcoal and ashes, mixed with pot-
sherds. The latter were of many makes, some highly polished,
some coarse and decorated with incisions, some painted with
brown and red lines. (See Fig. 7.) There were one or two small
bones of animals and a rounded wooden object that suggested
some portion of the shaft of a spear or arrow.

The second foot showed beyond doubt that we were cutting

08 THE HILL-(‘AVES or YUCATAN

a

through a layer of rubbish left by man. Native people had
halted for some time at the spot and built fires. The potsherds
found were less varied in make than before. Many of them
were red and highly polished, and we found along with the meta-

FIG. 5.,

 

Actun Spukil ((‘aye of Mice), two miles west of the hacienda ot (‘alcehtok, Yucatan.
Stone water-dishes on the floor of the large chamber leading off the second or inner rotunda.
Masses of limestone, two to three feet in longest diameter, fallen from the cave roof have
been artificially hollowed for catchingr water when placed under dripping stalactites. The
specimens in the photograph have been thickly covered with stalagmitie erust since they
were made. Dishes like these were found by us in nearly every eaye examined in Yuca-
tan. Many are broken. Many may have been recently moved in range of the present drop—
ping. Some may have been carved by Indians since the conquest. Though made on the
spot, we found no trace of the stone cutting tools used to make them in any of the caves.

podial bone of a medium—sized deer1 one hammer-stone of quart-
zite, or hard limestone.

In the third foot the pottery was plainer in style. A broken
stal: gmite and a hard white nodule with battered edges had been

1 All the bones hereafter referred to have been kindly identified by Professor
E. D. Cope.

AC‘TUN sPUKIL, THE CAVE 0F MICE 29

used as hammers. There were no arrow—heads or spear-points,
or even flakes of hornstone. The reddish cave dust through
which we were digging was full of stones and blackened with
charcoal.

In thefmu'th foot the stones grew thicker. hilleh pottery had
slipped down through their crevices, and no importance could be
attached to the depth of any object found. As the larger fallen
masses had grown too heavy to remove without blasting, the
place had become impracticable with our present resources, and
we stopped work at a depth of four and a half feet. The trench,
now twelve feet long and seven feet wide, had clearly exposed
three subdivisions, beginning at the top.

Layer I.——One to four inches thick ; cave dust recently accumu—
lated, with potsherds.

Layer >?.———Tw0 to three inches; an undisturl’md bed of char-
coal and ashes, with potshcrds, as described.

Lag/er J.—Four feet thick to bottom of trench; a mass of
loose stones, mingled with charcoal, ashes, and downslidden pot—
sherds. (See Fio‘. 6.)

It was plain that we had not reached the solid bottom of the
cave, and, though we had passed through one layer of human

FIG. (5.

1. (1-4 INCHES) SURFACE FILM AND CAVE DUST
2. (2-3 INCHES) CHARCOAL AND ASHES

3. (4 FEET) BLOCKS OF STONE GROWING LARGER TOWARDS
BOTTOM OF TRENCH
THROUGH THESE RELICS HAD SLIPPED DOWN FROM NO. 2. WORK

GREW DIFFICULY AT 4‘FT. AND TRENCH ABANDONED AT 42 FEET
ROCK BOTTOM NOT REACHED
SCALE

\_._|_|._.L_L—l
U l 2 3 i 5Ft.

 

Old refuse layer, proving the visits of man to Actun Spukil (Cave of Mice). Face of
trench cut into the cave floor without reaching bottom, February, 1895. The time of the
building;r of the present ruins in eastern Yucatan is believed to be indicated by the contents
of Layers 2 and 3. Bone of deer found in Layer 3 (second foot).

refuse at the top, we feared that another and deeper layer might
exist at an unknown depth underfoot. Turning away in disap—
pointment, we hastened to the second rotunda, where, on the floor
of the dark chamber above mentioned, and near a group of stone
water-dishes, we began a round hole, six to seven feet in diame-
ter, on the blackest part of the cave floor. Here, again, a mass
of loose stones decided us to desist at a depth of two feet, though

30 THE llILL-(‘AVIGS o1? YUeA'rAN

the first foot had disclosed a tin 5 assortment of potsherds, a stone
arrow—head, a hornstonc chip, an obsidian knife flake, and a crys—

FIG. 7.

    

Actun Spukil tt'ave of Mice). Native carvingr representing,r an ape's head on a mass ot
limestone protruding from the floor of a large chamber leading from the inner rotunda.
’I‘Wenty-nine stone water-dishes lie near. The surroundingsr earth is scattered with pot-
sherds and mixed with charcoal.

tal of soft, translucent mine ‘al. (See Fig. 8.) Two subdivisions
of the deposit were exposed.

Lug/(1r ].—Three inches thick; a hard—eaked bed of charcoal
and ashes, containing potsherds, and the probable origin of all the
objects found.

Log/(Ir ..3.—()ne foot nine inches thick; :1 mass of limestone
fragments and cave mould, through the crevices of which objects
like those found above had fallen.

The results of our digging had been vexatious. Probably the
'avern contained the evidence we sought, but the difficulty of
excavation and the doubts that arose from the dmvn-taulting of
layers through beds of loose stones seemed to place the whole
truth out of our reach. Rather than lose time in a laborious
attempt to blast through obstructions to the limestone floor, we
decided to turn a\ “I and trt' another 'ave.

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ACTUN SPUKIL, THE (‘AVE OF MICE 31

For a while longer we wandered about the place which had
withheld its secret from us. Passing by a second bulwark of
loose stones at the lower end of the great room, we photo—
g‘aphed by flash—light the \'alls of fantastic passages that led
onward into the unknmvn. Then we took a last look at the
marvel of underground trees and hanging 1'oots,a11d the floor
tokens about us, where one of the reeks (SOC Fig. 7), covered
with a green mould, had been plainly ~arved into the Shape of
an ape’s head.

CHAPTER IV.
WET (,‘AVES 1x A DRY LAND.

CELEBRATEI) *averns like the Mammoth Cave, or the Grotto
at Adclsberg in Illyria, or that called the \Vyandotte in southern
Indiana, do not impress the traveller at their entrance or gain
in sublimity through the ingress of daylight. I had imagined
the only beauty of caves visible without candles or electric lights
to be in the 'astness of vaults seen at the entrance, as at the
Niekajack in Tennessee, or where you look outward from the
shadow upon the Danube through a festoon of vines and leaves,
as at the Cavern ot‘ Bats in Hungary. Once step inside and
the tints of nature bleach into a dull gray or white, imperfectly
seen by artificial means ; but in these windowed caves slow-
moving ‘ays glowed on weather—tinted forms of stone, and each
plant or tree grew from the floor in full view. Our first sight
of marvels like this at Actun Spukil made a deep impression, but
a wonder more awe-inspiring was in store for us at, Actun Ceh
(Deer Cave), about two and a half leagues westward in the moun—
tains from ()piehen. To get to it on February 1'2, 1895, after a
hot walk, we had to climb down a passage littered with loose
rocks. The opening chambers grew darker and the vaults higher
as we descended, till the fantastic outlines ahead began to catch
the inward glimmer of a light that came from a small opening
between stalagmitie columns. To reach it we crossed several slopes
of crust, and while some of our companions from Opichen, step—
ping lightly on sandals, slipped through the gray portal ahead, we
followed listlessly with the Indians. We had been walking in
the mid-day sun, after spending half the hot morning in trying to
get a cart and mule in the village, and the first appearance of the
cave, whose floors were clearly unfit for excavation, had disap-
pointed us. But the sight of the subterranean chasm ahead stirred
us like a burst of noble music. “'0 had entered an immense un-

derground room by its cornice and were peeping down. The quiet
32

wn'r owns IN A DRY LAND 33

light fell from above as in a painter’s studio, yet, as we watched
its marvellous effect on the icicles of stone, we could not see the
window. Stalagmitcs rose from the floor in receding tiers, and
had the look of mutlled human figures gazing upon the amphi—

l“!(;. 9.

 

 

Aclun (‘eh (\liL‘IlzlllHI, ('ave ot' the Deer.

theatre below. There was no sound of dropping water or chatter
of birds, but unseen boughs rustled above, and the voices of the
Indians made loud echoes. \Vhen we had descended to the
bottom we found a stony floor, directly under the skylight, about
ninety feet in diameter, where, on neighboring masses of white
stalagmitc, our guides pointed to dimly-carved outlines of human
faces and the forms of animals. “re had heard of the carvings
in Opiehen, and the accounts of friends had led us to expect
hieroglyphs, or decorative conventional figures, in the style of
the mural designs at Uxmal and Palenque. “'hat we. saw were
random, sketchy figures, many of which suggested pietographs
of North American Indians. With a few exceptions, there was
little of the mannerism of Yucatan about them, and it' they had

34 THE IIILL-CAYES OF YUCATAN

inscribed a cliff-side on the Susquehanna or Ohio, few of them
would have seemed out of place. Around knob had been marked
with seorings for eyes, nose, and mouth, and just below it dots
for the same features had been set inside the rude outline of
a head. ‘Vc'photographed several of these groups of dots on
the side of a rock new animal sketches (see Fig. 10) that re-

FIG. 10.

 

Carvings on the cave wall of Aetun Ceh.

sembled dee‘ and may have given the cave its present name.
Some of the figures were heart-shaped, and three, at least, sug-’
gested hieroglyphic forms. Some had been partly obscured by
stalagmitie films since they were made.

There vas no water in the cave, and the stalactites were dry,
though their formation may have been resumed in the rainy
season. \Ve found no passages leading on out of the room in
which we stood, and saw no marks of fire or potsherds upon the
floor. Inaecessible as the cave was, and devoid of water for part
of the year as it must have been, we had little reason to hope
that it contained all or a considerable portion of the evidence we
sought, and, a second time disappointed, we went away.

Our reconnoitring thus far had failed to give us a perspective of
the kind of work ahead, but the conditions of Actun Ceh made

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WET (‘AVES IN .1 DRY LAND 35

clearer to 11s at least one subdivision of the subject, and it seemed
important to bear 111 mind the fact that some caves went dry 111
the drv season, 11nd that others dripped water 1111 the vear round.
\Ve learned atterw ards of c aves whi1h were cool and eaves which
were hot; of blow 111g eaves that sent gusts of air from their nar-
row entrances, like the Lookout Cave in T.em1e ssee; of caves
with skylights, and '11ves without; of 1'1ves which were animal
dens, and of those which appeared inaccessible to larger beasts;
and, finally, of '11vcs which furnished water drop by drop from
stal111t1te , and those 111 which long, dark passages led to under-
ground reservoirs supplied f1om below. The hot galleries at
Xhambak (Little Bone), one of the. outlving farms of the hacienda
of Calcehtok, belonged to the latter class. These \1 ere discovered
in 1890, by the engineer, Mr. Purcell, when a large .s'icbo—tree
growing on the farm had been cut down, and the hole produced
by burnincP out its roots had suggested the digging of a necessary
well. l‘houwh the, surrounding surface exposed a ledge of solid
rock, M1. I’urcells shaft descended through a pocket of loose
rubble, and at 11 depth of about twenty feet, and just before reach-
ing water, cut into a small horizontal passage. This led into a
larger 'ave, where one or two individuals had reported discov-
ering a row of skeletons, placed in order, with mortuary 'ases.
To reach the place, we drove in a rolcm about five miles, in a
southeast direction from Calcehtok, and, unloading our candles
and coil of rope, approached the small cemented openifig of the
well. The boards of the floor were taken 11p, and, tying the
rope around my waist, while the others held firm hold of its end,
I descended in my stockings, with knees propped against the
opposing walls, like a chimney—sweep. Just above the water my
feet caught the passage, where, clambering in and lighting my
candle, I crawled for\ '11rd over a wet rock floor into several
broad chambers, none of which were quite high enough to permit
standing upright. Very little cave earth had collected underfoot,
and in two places I walked through broad pools of tepid water a
few inches deep. The heat had become intense, as, crouching in
the candle-light and soaked with perspiration, I could see the floor
strewn with potsherds, but looked in vain for the skeletons laid
in rows or the arranged vases that would have proved the place
to be a burial—cave. At last, at two or three spots I found piles

36 THE HILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

of small fragments of human bones, the remains of possibly five
or six individuals, which showed no signs of burning, and could
not have been buried. They did not penetrate the ground, as we
learned on digging under them, but rested on the surface, and
may have been considerably broken and scattered in 1890, when
the cave was discovered. Some of the potsherds lying near were
large and heavy—rimmed, many were coarse and decorated with
seratchings, and close to several of them and but a few feet
from the bones we found a thin, leaf-shaped blade of horn-
stone, broken on one side and about three inches long. But the
human relies discovered formed but a thin sprinkling on the sur-
face. The rave vas too dark, too narrow, too, hot, and per-
haps too hard to find in the first place to have permitted refuse
beds to grow from the long haltings of men at one spot on its
floor. All that we saw was explained by the presence of the
water. No intention of continued burial on the part of the cave
visitors could be inferred from the human bones, while the other
remains indicated the comings of men who wanted water, and
hence would not have polluted the supply with corpses. Much
as the cave had been visited in ancient times, the present Indians
had been ignorant of its important water supply before 1890, and,
as the passage originally encountered by Mr. Purcell did not cut
across the well and continue on the other side, the inference was
that he had either chanced on the extreme end of the cave or had
tbllowed down an original entrance, which had been purposely
sealed 11p at the spot. There would have been adequate motive
for closing the galleries or injuring the water by burial at the
time of the Spanish conquest or during previous civil wars, when
a few bodies might have been safely hidden by conquered peoples
at the abandoned reservoir. But no trace of the white man was
found on the floor. The flint knife lay on the surface. The rims
of water—vessels found showed the ancient shape rather than the
narrow-necked form now carried to the wells by Indian women,
and it seemed r *asonable to suppose that all objects gathered in
the stifling passages were pre-Columbian.

On climbing up, wet, soot-grimed, and covered with mud
from this steaming hole, the warm upper air seemed deliciously
cool. Oranges, shaken from the trees near by, were the best cure
for our tantalizing thirst, unquenched by draughts of lukewarm

WET CAVES IN A DRY LAND 37

water at the farm, or by corn paste mixed with water offered to
11s by the Indians in calabashes.

After these days, next to imagined flagons of cold beer, the
ideal of refreshment was to stand stripped under a gushing spigot

FIG. 12.

    

 

 

Rim of ancient water-jar; brownish—yellow: Xhambak. Found 011 surface.

behind the chapel at Calcehtok. In a room close by I slept on
a pile of henequen fibre, covered with a straw mat, leaving the
doors open at bedtime, to listen to the lulling sound of crickets,
or watch the ghostly flutterings of large gray moths which flew
in at candle-light. To guard against roving pigs I laid chairs
sidewise across the threshold, since the night when one of the
“ razor—backed” species snorted loud enough to wake me, as, ad-
vancing slowly into the room, he gave a series of powerful neck-
movements that threatened a complete upheaval of myself, bed,
and bedding.

Outside of our work in the caves a sort of languid stupor,
caused by the climate, seemed to have taken possession of us.
The dress and habits of the people and unusual incidents that
often happened passed as in a dream. Novel as were our sur-
roundings at the hacienda, we made no careful observation of
them. The work and its exciting chances monopolized the day,

38 THE IIILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

and when we came home tired and sleepy in the evening, the
charge of note-books, photographic plates, and labels absorbed
our thoughts. There was little time to talk over the after supper
cigar, while sandalled Indians, dressed in white, stepped about to
bring oranges and bananas from the garden, spread a bed, set
a table, or carry water in earthen vases. The morning start
busied us with prepa'ations and vexed us with delays. Little
\ 'as the use of trying to hurry the volavn by packing the tools and
lunch into it at the appointed moment. No one knew where the
mules were till, after half an hour’s vait, a man with a. rope
spent twenty minutes lassoing them in the cattle-yard. XV hen
the driver had brought them to the cart, tied them to the wheels,
gone home, returned again, and leisurely rolled his cigarette before
harnessing the animals, our tempers were spoiled, and the con-
tinued experience decided us to give up volcms and go to the
*aves afoot. Then two and sometimes three Indians, at sixty
cents a day, accompanied 11s. They wore stiff and heavy broad-
brimmed straw hats, a thin sack of muslin buttoning close to the
neck, and cotton trousers rolled up to the thighs, leaving the legs
bare. Their sandals were tied between the toes and across the
instep with harsh thongs of hemp.1 Large round baskets bal-
anced on their backs by straps across their foreheads carried all
our outfit. Leaning forward to support these, and holding
shovels and pickaxes in their hands, they walked fast, rarely
stopping, except to shake sand from their sandals by tapping
the soles.

The dittieulty with downfallen masses of rock confronted us
again at Sayab Aetun, to find which cave several citizens of
Opiehen kindly volunteered to lead the way through the bushes
to a steep slope three miles west of the town. We were in a
shallow valley behind the hill-tops, and had to cut through a
tangle of thorns with flax-knives to see an arch about twenty—one
feet high, that led downward into the ridge and promised us
shade and a cool drink of water, if nothing more. Inside, the
expanding passage, thirty feet broad, looked light, dry, and

 

 

1 To prove that the ancient Mayas wore sandals of this general pattern, the
Bishop of Yucatan afterwards showed me the foot of an earthen statue moulded
to plainly show a sandal fastened from the instep by two thongs between the
first and second and the third and fourth toes.

11'11'1‘ 11.11195 [N 11 11111' 1:111:11 39

comfortable. \ laro'e heap of fallen rocks lay upon the floor,
behind which 111lle1'1e 'an inward between hriutlinoj stalaetites.
Drip water had eolleeted in natural basins, and se1'e1al wate1—

Flo. 12}.

 

.ayab A(tun in the hills three miles 11est of 0111(l1011, Y1K 1111111 showing our trench (ut
into the cave floor till large 111 uses of 111111 1111111L11 rock were rL111hL1l exposing a refuse
layer with ash hands and po’tsheuls, pro1 111g 1' isits of man to the L:11'e. \\ ater drips in the
background.

dishes la1' near the entrance, with potsherds and charcoal. Close
to them and 111 the Llear (la1'light our trench eight feet 101101 and
five feet wide, gave the following results :

40 THE HILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

The first foot revealed traces of fire on the surface, with P013-
tery, the bones of the deer, bat, and peccary, and a shell of Or-
thalious prineeps. None of the abundant potsherds were painted,
though some were decorated with scratches. Certain of the small
fragments of animal bones had been split for marrow. We found

FIG. 14.

 

 

 

 

 

veg/27 r::-, w 4M‘

 

 

Fragments of horse—teeth, probably indicating European contact, found associated with
potsherds and human refuse in the floor deposits of Sayab Actun and Actun Lara.

one flake of hornstone, several nuts, and two horses’ teeth (see Fig.
14) that had probably worked down from the surface in recent
time. Digging was easy in the soft cave earth, which contained
few stones.

The second foot showed more bones, but the pottery was rarer.

\Vlfi’l‘ (“YES IN A DRY LAND 41

\Ve encountered a dark str ‘ak of charcoal and ashes, below which,
nnde ' a fine red cave earth, the rocks began to slope in\ aid and
choke up the bottom of the trench, until our hopes of a satis-
factory result were again disappointed. In the third foot, just
below a second streak of charcoal, the relics, among which we
found the bones of a deer, be 'ame ‘arer still, and two solid ledges
trendcd close together, leaving only a small crevice between.
The layers exposed werr as follows, beginning at the top :

Flo. 15.

l
Iv H‘
p
lllll
l .‘ l'ill‘l
l .il'fl ‘

    
     
  

/ M ‘1 Ft 3m Soft cave eardmnzfi Su’puce
’heartn , porsherda , no .tc.
. ammmd a? charcoal shes,b(m€s and panama;
,. 3 in) SLF! redonzve earth 330 Pntznev‘cts rarer.
”j'q» U Vfirilm) Lower band el‘chaecoal awcl cane:
' ed cave earth. 1 4'

   

   
   

. /

Scale L_._1.__J N2.
/

Sayab Actnn.

Layer 1 (one foot three inches) was composed of soft cave
earth containing potsherds and bones. On its surface rested the
remains of a hearth.

Layer 2 (two to three inches) was a band of charcoal and ashes
containing bones and potshenls.

Layer If (nine inches) was composed of soft, red cave earth in
which the bones: and potshcrds had become ‘arer.

Lugeré (on- and a half to two inches) consisted in a lower
band of charcoal and ashes with a few potsherds.

Layer 5 (one foot) showed red cave earth with a few scattered
potsherds.

  

42 THE HILL-mvns 014‘ YUCATAN

Evidently we had not reached the original bottom of the cave.
One at least of the heavy masses which trended together under
our feet must have fallen from the ceiling, like the loose frag-
ments above ground on the floor. Judging by the size and
number of these, seve‘al sections of the roof had broken off
since the cave was formed, though to what extent they had
filled the original orifice could not be learned without blasting.
As long as they remained where they were, we could not be
certain that we were in possession of all the evidence, since
other human layers, deposited before these masses fell, might
rest under them. Here again exploration was obstructed, as it
is obstructed in many another ~ave. W'hat appears to be the
bottom of the cavity may be only the hard ringing surface of a
fallen block. ‘ I '

But conside *ations more serious than those of lmig delays and
dangerous blastings had forced themselves upon us by this time,
and thr *atencd defeat to the main object of the expedition. The
'aves we had examined were by no means conspicuous. To
reach some of them our Indians had to search carefully, and
sometimes cut paths through the tangled thicket, while the fact
that many were to be entered only by ladders might well have
ruled them out of the explorer’s consideration in other countries.
Though most of them had contained human rubbish, it seemed
unlikely that in any case this rubbish represented the whole
record. Remote and hidden as they were, wandering savages
and migrating peoples might have crossed and reerossed the
mountains without seeing them. Judging them, therefore, as the
student might judge caves in the United States, we were inclined
to be disappointed with the whole series. F or a time our expe-
dition seemed to have lost all chance of success, until an important
consideration not only restored to the eaves all thei“ archzeologi-
:al 'aluc, but seemed to ad 'ance their significance above that of
any others I had ever visited. The consideration lay in the
meaning of the familiar and oft-repeated word “agzca” (water).
The trouble with northern Yucatan is in the ever—suggested want
of water. As far as the surface is concerned, the region is almost
waterless. A few surface pools or ponds, called agaadas or sar—
fcnejas, raught after the rains upon mud deposits or in shady rock

hollows such as those at Macoba near Iturbide at Zaecacal and
7 7 7 7

\VET (SAVES IN A DRY LAND 43

at- Uxmal,l remain stagnating through the dry season to support
birds, animals, and men, and there may be other reservoirs open
to the sky, such as the two celebrated ones at Chichenitza, sup-
plied from subterranean sources.2 Berendt’s map marks six little
watercourses along the coast, but except the rill at Beehanen,3
south of Tekax, I have learned of no interior spring or brook,
much less of a river.

The fresh-water flora and fauna of large flowing streams, to-
gether with the phenomena of island-making and bank-wash-
ing, must be eliminated from the economy of northern Yucatan.
\Vhoever wants water must, generally speaking, go underground
for it, whether by blasting a well through solid rock for his
steam pump, or searching in subterranean passages, where water
drips, flows, or rests in pools. As our Indians filled their cala-
bashes with scrupulous care at- evcry well, for fear of waterless
halting-places on the journey, and as we heard the word “ agua”
repeated from morning till night at the haciendas, an idea of the
need of water, never realized before, grew upon us. l\[uch of the
earliest archaeology of the country seemed to depend upon the
question of what the first—comer (lid, before wells were dug and
cities and cisterns built, to get water. As original immigrants,
coming in the dry season, could not have found a satisfactory
supply on the surface, it is certain that they must have discovered
and ransacked the caves, and this fact gave the wet underground
passages a new meaning. No matter how remote they were, no

1 There are two large ponds near Suschen, north of Valladolid, and, be-
sides the lake Chiehankanab, several pools on Berendt’s map, north and
south of Pete. Stephens saw water-fowl on one of a group of these near Uxmal,
and visited others at Rancho Sehawill, at Macoba, and near Mayapan. Ex -a—
vation in themud showed that one at Noyaxche, near lturbide, had been paved
with stones and contained below its floor-level four wells twenty-flmr feet deep
and five feet in diameter, with small pits around its margin. In these holes
the water had held out in the dry seasons for the ancient inhabitants when the
pool had dried up. That the old )[ayas had made careful use of these rain-
holes was again shown at Rancho Jalal, where ancient filter-holes and cisterns
were found concealed by mud at the aguada.

2 The two deep rock pools at Chichenitza are about three hundred feet in
diameter, and surrounded by precipices from sixty to seventy feet high.

3 Stephens, visiting Bechanen in the rainy season, described a small stream
gushing from a rock crevice near an underground reservoir and losing itself in
a neighboring aguada.

44 THE HILL-CAVEs OF YUCATAN

matter how difficult of access, they were natural and original
sources of water-supply at certain times. The first-comer must
have Visited them or perished, and, if there was any value in the
test of cave layers anywhere, these layers should have proved the
presence not of one race only, but of all the races that ever Vis-
ited the Peninsula. As we could see no reason to contradict this
important proposition, we continued our seareh, digging down
into the cave floors with an interest that grew more intense the
more certain we were that the solution of the problem was within
our reach.

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C H A P T ER V.
THE FIRST IMPORTANT EVIDENCE.

AT last, having thus relieved our minds of anxiety for the
success of the work, we found a cave which fulfilled every desired
condition. It had been first Visited by l\Ir. Corwith 011 February
2, and lay in the midst of a group of mounds and ruins near
the farm of Oxkintok,1 a league and a half northward from Cal-
cehtok, and one of its dependencies. A road turning towards it
led upward into the hills, and brought us at last to a higher level,
surrounded by the upper summits of the ridge. There the earth
had grown less stony, maize grew in the red loam, and across the
clearings we saw signs of ancient habitations. l\Iounds rose over
the thicket, and knolls, littered with blocks of stone that crossed
the road, had been walls of buildings or artificial enclosures.
Several half-fallen vaults were the remains of stone rooms, and
the entrances to other chambers, protected by wasps’ nests, en—
tered the sides of heaps of loose rocks overgrown with briers.
\Vhere the road crossed a series of dressed blocks set on edge, a
high mound called Xemtzil stood on the right, and we stopped
to look at its rough sides, down which stairways, platforms, and
walls had crumbled into rubbish. Beyond, the road led by a row
of Indian huts to a cattle—yard, and there a polite Indian, the
overseer of the farm, greeted us at his cabin-door, and led us to
the cave, a few steps away.

No ladder was used at the entrance, but we walked easily
down the sloping débris of a sunken area, where a path leading
into the darkness under overhanging crusts passed one of the
rude walls resembling those noticed in Spukil. In spite of the
light which glimmered ahead, we needed a candle to get over
the loose rocks and down to the lower level of a large chamber,
seventy-five feet wide and two hundred feet long, lit at the farther

 

1The Bishop of Yucatan gives me the Maya etymology: 01:, three; kin,
days; ink, flint.
4:3

46 THE HILL-CAVES 0F YUCATAN

end by a skylight. On the left, as we entered, lay h ‘avy masses
of fallen rock, but beyond these the smooth floor was almost
entirely covered with a soft cave mould. Groups of very beau-
tiful undisturbed stalactites hung from the roof, and these,
together with the smoother portions of the dome, were tinted
with orange, white, blue, green, purple, pink, and yellow, blending
in intermediate shades. At the inner south-southeastern end of
the room the light came in from a round roof-opening, about
twenty feet in diameter, directly under which lay a heap of stones
on which two banana-trees grew, reaching the outer air with their
tops. \Vhat was once a wet cave, judging from the stalactites, was
new gene "ally dry in the dry season, though water still dropped
at several points, filling two stone dishes, one of which stood
nearly in the middle of the floor, fifty feet from the window.
Here, then, was a rave, easy of access, close to a group of ruins,
and seven hundred and eighty-five paces west of the mound
Xemtzil, furnishing the precious water even in the dry season,
dry enough and light enough for temporary habitation, easy of
excavation, and with a floor unobstructed by downfallen rocks.

The charcoal and ashes scattered underfoot in all directions
promised the solution of the problem we had come to solve, and,
hardly able to restrain our excitement, we began a trench, fifteen
feet long by six feet- wide, in the middle of the floor, running
at right angles to the long diameter of the awe, and fifty feet
north—northwest of the skylight. If only no heavy fallen masses
lay buried in the loose earth to obstruct us, our success was
certain.

The Indians, throwing down theirshovels and piekaxes, had
lifted off the heavy baskets strapped to their heads, and one by
one the objects contained in them were placed upon the floor,—
a coil of rope, a tape—measure, several small pointing-trowels, a
bottle of India ink and a pen, muslin bags of two siZes rolled
in a bundle, tin plates, knives and forks, and kettles containing
our luncheon of boiled black beans, rice, and chips of fried bamn.
A bag of oranges comprised our dessert, and these, when rolled
out in a heap, ‘atching the rays of light from above, seemed to
radiate a golden flame that lit up the whole cave.

Opening the India ink, we labelled a white muslin bag OX. 1—1,
to mean Oxkintok Cave, first trench, first foot, and, as the In-

THE FIRST IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 47

dians cut into the earth with piekaxes and shovels, we lit the
candles and, leaning down, looked closely at the loosened lumps,
from whose sides projected the sharp angles of potsherds.

The first. foot revealed a soft red cave mould, with charcoal
and ashes. In it some of the fragments of pottery were, polished
and finely made. There were small bows, as identified by Pro-
fessor Cope, of two species of bats, of birds, of a very small
‘abbit, a jaw of a mouse (Peromyscus), and shells (kindly named,
with all others referred to in this volume, by Mr. H. A. Pilsbry,
of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philzulelphia) of Planorbis
liebmanni and Cyclotus dysoni.

The. seeondfoot,first sir inches, showed less frequent p(,)tsherds
and more small bones of bats and mice. There was a round
stone, possibly a hammer. As in the other caves, we were cutting
through a deposit of rubbish left by men who had built fires and
cooked with earthen vessels at the spot.

In, the second foot, second xiv inches, the potsherds had become
quite r2 re. The small bones still continued, with now and then
a larger splinter.

The shells, Chondropoma largillierti, Cyclotus dysoni, Macro—
ce'amus coneisus, Streptostyla biconi at, and Glandina cylin-
dracea, were found indiscriminately in the upper and lower six
inches of the second foot.

In the third foot potsherds had become, very rare. Only one
or two were found, and with them the left humerus of a medium—
sized deer and a large Fulgur—shell (Fulgur perversum). The
bat bones continued. \Ve seemed to have come to the end of the
soft cave loam, and had reached a harder red soil, like clay.

Thefourthfoot revealed no pottery at first. \Ve found many
small snail—shells (Heleeina fragilis, Cyclotus dysoni, Chondro-
poma largillierti, Orthalicus princcps, Bulimulus superastrus,
Glandina eylindracea), several bones of birds, the wing and limb
of a bat, and two small potsherds, which may have fallen down
from above. The small bones ermtinucd. The clayey soil con—
tained a few bits of charcoal, and, though the digging was still

25

easy, the work went on slowly. When the broad blade of the
piekaxe was wanted the Maya Indians used the sharp point, lift-
ing the long—handled shovels from the arm’s end to pour off the
earth, as they would have emptied a ladle of soup, or stopping to

48 THE IIILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

pile the blades full with their hands; but a word of explanation
or COI’l‘OCthll was always answered with an obliging smile. It
was impossible to be seriously provoked with them.

The fifth, foot, first sir inches, revealed no pottery, but many
small bones, among which Professor Cope and Mr. Pilsbrvafter-
wards identified those of large mice, a rabbit, a bird, and snail—
shells (Glandiua eylind‘aeca). The digging y'as still easy. \Ve
found a piece of egg-shell, but it was doubtful whether the
mellow earth contained any more charcoal.

1n the fififla,, foot, second six inches, the observed conditions were
the same. \Ve found the bones of birds, mice(Pcromyseus, large
and small), and the jaws and other parts of rabbits.

The sixth foot, fi rst sir inches, showed numerous humeri-of mice
(Peromyscus, two species), the bones of deer (two kinds, small
and medium sized), the scapula of an iguana, the pelvis and hu-
merus of a ‘abbit, a f ‘agmcnt of the hypo-plast'al bone of a
tortoise, and, along with the jaw of a small mammal and the
bones of an opossum, seve'al small snail—shells (Bulimulus super—
astrus, Chondropoma largillierti).

The second sir inches of the sixth foot showed the humerus and
ulna of an unguieulate mammal, the jaw of a weasel, various
bones of several species of bird, the remains of a rabbit, and
abundant bones of mice, along with Bulimulus and Chondro—
poma shells, as before. The remains of these animals and shells,
though broken and scattered, showed no trace of fire or sign of
cookery. We seemed to have got below the limit of human inter-
ference with animal life.

By this time the Indians were unable to throw the shtwelfuls
out of the pit, and we made use of their back—baskets, tied to
lengths of rope, as buckets. \Vhen these were hauled up the
sides, full of earth, portions of the upper wall of the trench were
scratched away and fell backward.

In, the seventhjbot I could find no regular hearth, and indeed
no positive sign of charcoal and ashes. No pottery had been
seen since the fourth foot. The small bones continued, and there
were a very few larger fragments, some of which appeared to
have been split. Again we found remains of a small deer, and
with several lower jaws of two species of mice (Peromyseus)
there were the jaw of a rabbit, the femur of a medium—sized bird,

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THE FIRST IMPORTANT I‘IVIDICXCE 49

the lower jaw and upper canine of a mink, the lower jaw of a
lizard (lguanidze), and a verteb ‘al fragment of a colubrine snake.
In, the eighth foot the minute bones were much seareer. I found
a small potsherd, but on careful examination concluded that in all
probability it had slipped down from the layers above while the
men were clambering the sides of the trench or hauling up baskets.
The soil was still red and comparatively soft, containing very few
pieces of limestone. The only possible signs of man found were
minute black particles resembling charcoal, and small and rare
fragments of bone that seemed to have been split for marrow.

The -ninfhjbof,first sir inc/ms, revealed very few bones in the
red earth. There was the shell of )Iacroce‘amus eoncisus, but
no trace of man.

In the ninth foot, second sir inc/H's, we found a potsherd, but as
it had black earth sticking upon it, and as all the earth around
and under it when found was red, it had certainly fallen from
above. \Vc sc‘aped off the bottom of the trench here and found
red clay, apparently undisturbed, all over the floor. In it there
were t‘accs of a whitish powdery substance, which was probably
decomposed limestone, and we found one deli -ate snail—shell and
some f'agmcnts of small bones. No sign of man was discovered,
and by this time it was perfectly clear that we had got beyond all
sign of humanity from above. If we were to encounter man
below this depth, we would find him under new conditions. If
palzeolithic peoples had existed in Yucatan we were within a few
feet, possibly a few inches, of their t 'aces. Prepared for a sur—
prise at any moment, we went on slowly into

The tent/I foot. In it bones were so s ftll‘CC that those found we
fl-arcd might have slid from above, until, on sc‘aping the floor
clean at nine and a half feet, we unquestionably found several
small fragments of bat or mouse bones and the shell of Bulimulus
(species undctcrmined) bedded in the undisturbed earth. There
was not the slightest sign of humanity.

In the clcrent/I foot the little bones were very scarce, but several,
among them a bone of a ‘abbit, were positively found, on again
scraping the floo ' and scratching into it. There were one or two
small shells. The whole floor deposit in the cave, covering an
area of at least one hundred feet square, was probably as free
from stones and as soft as the part we were now considering, and

50 THE HILL-(:n'ns or YUCATAN

the discovery of a human trace undisturbed at this depth would
have been so important that we began to take precautions to
eliminate the chances of mistake through objects falling from
above when the trench was widened, or from other causes.
After carefully removing all the loose earth at the bottom of the
pit and paring off an inch or two of the hard undisturbed soil
below it, we went over the whole floor surface for three or four
inches with the trowel, and then, kneeling down, candles in hand,
scrutinized the ground upturned.

When in the til-('(ft/L foot, at a depth of eleven feet six inches, we
had scratched into the undisturbed bottom in this way, we found
some bones of animals, apparently larger than bats, a fragment
of stalaetite about five—eighths of an inch in diameter,aiid small
fragments of limestone; then the bone of a bat or bird, some
small hnnps of a dark substance, or black oxide resembling char-
coal, a small snail-shell, and a lump of limestone two inches in
diameter. At the inner end of the trench the soil became hard
and gritty and contained pieces of limestone. I found there
a small bone, and a little scratching discovered thick masses of
limestone splinters, some of them discolored almost black, as if
by the action of oxide.

As we toiled 011, in the light of waning ‘andles, smeared from
head to foot with clay, with the chief secret of Yucatan almost
in our possession, the thrilling interest of the moment got the
better of weariness. Not knowing what important revelation to
expect, we went downward into the thirteenth jbot. \Vhen the
floor was cleaned otf and examined at twelve feet two inches the
mass of limestone splinters had grown thicker at the inner end
of the trench, and mntained a number of well-preserved little
bones. By this time we had made up our minds, from the depth
of the undisturbed deposit passed through, that if any t‘ace of
earlier humanity existed below 11s, the next few feet would dis-
close it. But all hope of any such discovery had to be given
up when we reached rock bottom on the inside of the trench, at
twelve feet nine inches. As the ledge vas not level but sloped
dowmvard gently toward the middle of the lave, more work \ 'as
required to lay it bare along the full length of the trench.

T liejbm'tcenth foot reached the rock in the middle of the trench
at thirteen feet two inches, and at the outside of the trench at

THE FIRST IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 51

fourteen feet four inches. There were bones of the 'abbit, the
mouse, and a small bird close to the rock bottom, at about thirteen
feet three inches, and a snail—shell (Cyclotus dysoni) at thirteen
feet. A piece of stalactite and the tooth of a small rodent lay on
the rock, and in earth loosened by digging I found the knuckle-
bone of a small animal, but was not certain that it had not fallen
from above. The small bones found were better preserved than
the larger ones, which were gene ‘ally broken or had lost their
cha‘acteristic shape. ()11 the bottom the loose pieces of lime-
stone were decomposed in some places, and formed a layer by
themselves on the outside of the trench six inches thick, in
the middle fifteen inches, and on the inside twenty—seven inches
thick. Next above the splinters the mealy red earth was com-
pa ‘atively pure, but on close examination, inside the trench,
neither it nor the layer of splinters showed the slightest sign of
human life.

The trench now finished had settled one important point: that
no human t ‘ace, no blackened film, showing the comings and
goings of men on an earlier cave floor, existed below the limit of
the hearth deposit encountered near the surface. Yet one question
remained before we were done with downward excavation. . Had
we reached the bottom of the cave 2’ The trench, tapering down
gradually from the top, had decreased at the bottom to a length
of seven feet three inches and a width of two feet three inches.
But the rock laid bare echoed as solidly to the blows of the pick—
axe as did the outer walls of the cave. Had the ledge been a
dislocated mass large enough to give so solid an echo, the ceiling
would probably have shown signs of its downfall, while if one
such mass had fallen from above, others equally large must have
gone with it, to account for the absence of breaks and hollows in
the ’illllts overhead. Though not certain, it was probable that
we had reached the true bottom of the cavern.

The main question of the excavation was answered. No fossil
man, antedating the maker of the superficial rubbish by a geo—
logical epoch, had been found in the cave. But other inquiries
hardly less important remained. Now that the whole ar‘ange-
ment of earth bands was clearly exposed, it was necessary, if we
were to grasp the meaning of the discovered human rubbish and
fix its association, to subdivide and classify the layers one from

L“: ,

52 THE HILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

another, studying their contents as we advanced into them inch
by inch with the trowel. To do this footholds were made in the
SIdes of the trench by wooden props set in notches 3 and after many

hours careful work by the light of candles socketed in the clay

the following series of subdivisions (see Fig. 17) was positively

    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
      
    
   
 
 
 
  
   

  

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mm“.—
=t‘/=V=' -/

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Mm:—

;. (2- 5 IN. ) SURFACE RFILM,
2CAVE EARTI-I, POTSHE

(810 IN.) UPPER HEARTH, STRATIFIED,
POTTERY COM MON
3. (10 IN.) DISCOLORED CAVE EARIH,
CHARcoAL, POTTER
. 4, 3- 4 IN.) LOWER HEARTH, STRATIFIED,
. POTTERY RARE, RESTING 0N THIN uNoERCRusT
OF FIRE HARDENED CLAV

' 5. (2 FT.) DISCOLORED CAVE EARTH, DARK
CHARCOAL COMMON

a. (2 FT) DISCOLORED CAVE EARTH, LIGHTER
CHARCOAL RARE

ANIMAL BURRO
FULL OF CHARCOAL "
AND ASHES

   

ANIMAL BURROW®
CHARCOAL, ETC.

7. (a FT.’2 IN.- 5 77.) PURE CAvE EARTH. NO WATER
LINES, BONES 0F MICE(COMMON) LIMESTONE
SPLINTERS. NOJRACE or MAN

8. (s mu- I FT. 3 IN. —2 FT. 3 In.) LIMESTONE SPLINTERS,
BONES or mouse AND BIRD, SNAIL SHELL. NO TRACE or MAN

LIMESTONE

SCALE
|._L_l_———l
0 1 2 4 Ft .

()ld lcfllNQ lay ers pr0\ mg the visits of man to the water—cave at the ruins of O\k1nt0k
Yucatan (seven hundred and eighty—five paces west of the mound of kemtzil). Face of
Trench ], looking north, cut through the cave floor to apparent bed rot L (at fourteen feet
four inches), February 9, 189.").

[he (I am left by the first risiturs to the care are believed to be shown in Layers 6, :3, and 4.

The time when the )[llj/(le were building) the pres-mt ruins in eastern Ymatmt 1s behey ed to
be indicated by Layer 2.

[hr 1m mt! some the (Ibumlumucnt of the ruins near by and after tthpahz'sh conquwt ls prob-
ably shown by Layer 1 (with part of Layer 2).

A‘\I\[\I }’1\I\I\\ \\D sill-:Lls, with human refuse (by depth, first to bottom of fifth foot):
bird (several species), mouse, rabbit, bat, deer (two species), (x‘landin‘L cs lindratea Strep-
tostyla biconica, Bulimulus superastrus, Macroceramns concisus, Planorbis liebmanni,
Cyclotus dysoni, Chondropoma largillierti, Helecina fratrilis, l<ul<rurpe1yersum

(110% baton human Hjtt‘t’ (IllumIizcr2jbr down—faulting (by depth; from bottom of fifth to
bottom of seventh foot) : iguana, colubrine snake, tortoise, bird (several species), opossum.
mouse (t\\ o spu les). rabbit, weasel, deer (two species), Bulimulus superastrus (‘hondropoma
largillierti.

In undisturbed care earth (by depth '

, from bottom of seventh foot to rock bottom in four-
teenth foot) :

bird mouse, rabbit (on bottom), Bulimulus superastrus, Bulimulus (unde-
termined), Macroceramus coneisus, Cyclotus dysoni (on bottom)

made out. \othing was trusted to memory in the description
which followed. I studied the layers with the trowel, and while

THE FIRST IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 53

doing so dictated the details to Mr. Darlington, who held pencil
and note—book above.

Layer 1 \ 'as a surface film of black cave mould, from two to
five inches thick. In it I found a piece of fine polished pottery
with grooved decorations, the shell of Bulimulus superastrus, and
again another polished potsherd of very superior make. Some
coarse, heavy fragments lay near it, and about two inches above
the line of

Layer 2, a very distinct band of charcoal and ashes eight to
ten inches thick. In it I found large, smooth potsherds of thick,
heavy manufacture, with thin and finely polished red and brown
fragments, and coarse pieces deco 'ated with scratchings. Taken
out one by one with the trowel, these sherds (see Fig. 18) were
found distinctly bedded in the ash-bands. But in the area thus
examined with the trowel, three feet wide by fifteen feet long, we
found no sign of white man’s contact. A snail—shell (Glandina
cylindracea) and the bone of one animal, about the size of a deer,
cracked as if for marrow, were found with the sherds, but the
comparative absence of split bones in the layer was as noticeable
as was that of pieces of chipped flint, or implements of wood,
stone, or metal. The chief token that man had left was the token
of pottery, and that was very abundant.

Layer J (ten inches thick) was one of those partitions between
clearly—marked rubbish layers referred to in the introduction.
Unlike the artificially—formed aecretions of ashes and charcoal
(Layers 2 and 4) above and below it, it consisted of cave earth,
and if it had been produced and laid down by nature should have
represented a considerable interval of time between the comings
of the cave visitors. But from top to bottom it was discolored
with charcoal, and in it I found, besides bat bones and small pul-
verized bone fragments, three potsherds (two of which were red
and polished) half—way down in it, and at the bottom, and resting
on the hearth below (Layer 4), other fragments, one large and
thick, and very strong.

Judging by these facts and the disturbed appearance of the
whole mass, the probability was that the layer had not been laid in
its position by the earth-forming agencies of the cave, and did not
stand for a reckonable time interval, after all, but had been scraped,
swept, or spread in its place by the builders of some of the fires.

54 THE IIILL—UAVES or YUCATAN

Lag/er 4 (three to four inches thick), next below, demanded our
most careful attention. It was a distinct hearth-band of charcoal
and ashes, which, on paring away the bank, was seen to continue
all the way round the trench. At the outer end and inner side
of the trench it appeared to blend with the stratum above it
(Layer 3), and even run into the upper hearth (Layer 2, see Fig.
17). At other places, much more compact than the loose earth
above, it marked a sharp, clear line on the bank, while the clay
just under it, apparently hardened by the action of fire, bordered
it with a contrasting stripe of light red. As seen at once on com-
pleting the trench, this hearth was the chief point of interest in
the excavation. \Vhatevcr its antiquity, it represented the time
of man’ s first coming to the cave, for, save for the zonesofstained
earth described as Layers 5 and 6, there was no human layer
below it. “he and what the first comer was would depend on
its contents. As explained before, it \ 'as clearly separated from
the upper hearth (Layer 2), through which we had passed, by ten
inches of cave earth, and the question was one of discrimination
between the two layers. J udgcd by its contents, did Layer 4 refer
to an earlier stage of human (culture or a different race of cave
inhabitants from that denoted by Layer 2 '? \Ve had not worked
far before we found that this lower hearth, less clearly marked by
gray ash lines than Layer 2, seemed to taper out into an undis-
tinguishable film towards the outer end of the trench. )V e noticed
a very few fragments of bone in it. But as in the upper layer
(Layer 2), so in the lower (Layer 4), the striking fact, besides the
extreme rarity of larger animal remains, was the absence—no less
marked—0f all other traces of primitive life except pottery. The
arrow—head, the chipped blade, the hammer—stone, the polished
amulet, the bone needle, so characteristic of the 111idden-hcaps of
savage races in the north, were wanting.

After long inter ads of scratching with the trowel, which re—
vealed nothiug but charcoal and ashes, I found eleven fragments
of pottery, coarse and fine, red and black, polished and unpolished,
in Layer 4. Small as they were, their make was not inferior to
that of specimens from the upper hearth (Layer 2, see Fig. 18), and
there was no question that they were embedded between the lines
of charcoal and ashes, as nearly every specimen found was dug
out with my own hands after having cleared away with the trowel

 

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From the cave at Oxkintok. Pottery, etc, and bones, from the human refuse deposit on
the cave floor and the undisturbed earth below.

Specimens studied in comparing the upper and lower hearths, The ware of the latter,
though rare, generally equivalent to that of the former. Below are the remains of birds
and animals present in the cave before man came.

 

 

TH 1'} FIRST LVTPORTANT EVIDENCE 55
all superinclnnbent earth of Layer 3. Thus, an area twelve and
a half feet long and five feet wide, running along the outside of
the trench, vas examined, layer by layer, with the utmost care
possible, specimens being placed in labelled bags immediately 011
discovery, while the above descriptive notes were dictated by me
to Mr. Darlington as the work went on. Towards the outer end
of the trench the distinct bedding of the lower hearth (Layer 4)
grew faint as we advanced into the bank, and at a distance of
about three feet inward from the face of the trench it seemed to
disappear altogether. Resting immediately on Layer 4, if not
directly in it, I found a large potsherd of the unpolished red
type; also a polished black fragment, and then a polished black
piece directly in the bed of the hearth. At last I found the femur
of a mouse, a shell of Cyclotus dysoni, and the leg-bone of a
large fowl, split, as if for the marrow. But the absence of any
other such specimens left us to infer either that the fires had been
built by peoples who lived on grain and cereals, or that they were
made for some other purpose than cookery.

By this time radical differences between the two hearths should
have been disclosed had the lower fires (Layer 4) been made by a
people inferior in the scale of culture to the builders of the upper
hearth (Layer 2). But no such (litterenees appeared. The only.
culture test was pottery, and that was as well made below as
above. The fauna of the cave, most thickly represented in the
sixth and seventh foot of the trench, comprised a list of genera
and species, some of which, like the ‘abbit and mouse, might
have reachedback into Pleistocene time, but all of which prob-
ably still existed. The bones, thcrefore, could nowhere be held
to denote geological antiquity, and without such evidence there
was nothing in the band of separation between the hcarths (only
ten inches thick) or in the depth of the lower layer (only two feet
below the surface) to presuppose great age. The inference was
that the lower hearth—band (Layer 4) was the result of fires built
by the first wave of Maya immigration, and that the cave had
been visited by one race of people, and one only, in pre—Colnmbian
times.

Our study of the interval of earth, continuing downward to
the rock below, gave no 1“as011 to doubt this conclusion. After
the most minute examination of the bank we learned that zones

56 THE HILL—CAVES OF YUCATAN
of disturbance and discoloration (Layers 5 and 6) stained the
cave earth for four feet beneath the limit of Layer 4 (see Fig.
17), and that below this (Layers 7 and 8) a deposit of undisturbed
red earth, sprinkled with the bones of rabbits, mice, birds, and
bats, and limestone splinters, into which animals had burrowed,
extended without human trace to the rock.1

We subdivided the lower earth into layers for the purpose of
clearness, but, taken as a whole, the mass seemed to show no geo—
logical breaks. A deposit of limestone splinters and red clay,
about eleven feet thick, and underlying the human rubbish, had
formed on the cave floor. How it came there we failed to explain.
When examined it seemed too coarse to have filtered through the
roof, like some exquisitely fine clay, composed of disintegrated
shale, that fills one of the underground chambers at Port Kennedy.
Neither did it show the filmy bandings that indicate deposition
by water. However it reached its position, a good many lime-

 

 

1 Proceeding downward from Layer 4, we worked against the side of the
trench without advancing into it. The first thing we learned was that dis-
turbance and discoloration had penetrated the ground for four feet below the
lowest hearth examined. This zone of faint disturbance was unmarked by any
distinct ash-band. Its only characteristics were its artificially darkened color
and the small particles of charcoal that lay scattered through it. I subdivided
it into two layers (see Fig. 17).

Layer 5 (two feet thick), darkened cave earth, with particles of charcoal fre—
quent; and below the waved border-line marking its bottom,

Lag/er 6, two feet thick, lighter discolored cave earth, with particles of char-
coal rare. Just at the bottom of this latter layer I found the burrow of an
animal penetrating inward and upward into the bank, full of downslidden
charcoal and ashes. Immediately above the hole a considerable portion of the
bank showed disturbance, and the lower sides of; the burrow were covered with
a. light film of ashes about an eighth of an inch thick. The bottom of Layer 6
was marked by a faint belt, distinguishable by candle-light at a depth of
about six feet, that extended entirely around the trench. It marked the lower-
most line of disturbance from the hearths above.

Layer 7 (five feet to eight feet two inches in depth) consisted of a belt of
pure, dark-red cave earth, containing several small bones (unidentified) and a
few limestone splinters, but no trace of man. I could find no lines of stratifi-
cation in it, or indications of its deposition by water. At a depth of seven feet
nine inches, and near the middle of the trench, I found a small animal burrow,
running horizontally inward, full of charcoal and ashes.

Layer 8 (six inches, one foot three inches, and two feet three inches in
depth) was a belt of limestone splinters mixed with cave earth, resting upon
the rock floor. In it I found mice, rabbit, and bird bones, with a snail-shell
(Cyclotus dysoni), but no trace of man.

THE FIRST IMPOR'I‘ANT EVIDENCE 57

stone splinters had fallen from the roof betbre it began to form,
and the 'aye was open to rabbits, mice, and _birds when the ledge
at the bottom of our trench, fourteen feet below the present sur—
face, and sprinkled with their. bones, was bare floor. The remains
of still familiar smaller animals, dying in the earth as time went
on, seemed to have been s ‘attered through it by birds, insects, and
othe ' animals betbre the coming of man. But the process of soil
tbrniation once begun had continued uniiiterruptedly, and not
until it was almost finished had man disturbed the top of the
deposit with his fires in geologically recent times.

Our work in the ave, which had lasted seven days, was now
finished, and our thoughts wandered away from its inferences,
hardly r ‘alizing the results of what we had discovered. The

Fm. lfl.

 

Skylight in the water-cave at ()xkintok. The lulnana-trees are growing on a heap of
fallen limestone fragments, many of which have been hollowed for \\'atersdishes or nn )1"-
tars. or dressed square for wall buildingr by the makers of the neighboring ruins. No trace
of the tools used was discovered.

light was fading at the window, and the candles glowed brighter
in the gloom, as we gathered up our clay—smeared tools, and filled
the Indians’ baskets with specimen bags stutti-d with earth sam—
ples and grimed potsherds that few museums would care to ex—
hibit. Then, ascending into the fading day, we turned honieward
with light steps, while the wind came fresh out of the west, and
ruins, hills, and forest glowed in the prismatic hues of sunset.
5

f».

CHAPTER VI.
A FIRST GLANCE AT THE RUINS.

\VALKING to Opichen one night, we found the whole town in
a state of excitement at the occasion of a public ball. The crowd
thronged around a thatched shed fenced with wicker, from which
came the sound of music. Flickering torches lit rows of booths

,‘set along the road and under trees, at one of which an old

woman, cooking ove ' an open fire, sold us chocolate, stirring the
beverage in the usual way with a stick twirled between the hands
and sprinkling it with ciunnamon in the cups. For a while we
turned away from the dancers, and, entering a. hut near by, sat
down at a table to eat a kind of fine vermieelli, a soup of strange
flavor, and a dish of cold shreds of meat stewed out of all taste
in a watery sauce. These we seasoned with Chile (native pepper)
set about in little plates, varying our mouthfuls with tastes of
grassy salad. After our hospitable friends had filled our glasses
with lukewarm Montercy beer at half a dozen of the stalls, we
made attempts to return their kindness, but in vain. “A glass
with me, gentlemen,” was always accepted, but there was no use
trying to pay. A nod or wink to the salesman from some one in
the crowd had settled the matter. Bystanders till then unknown
compelled us to accept their hospitality. Cigars were continually
passed around, and twice the Indian blacksmith of the hacienda
begged us to choose from a box of expensive luxuries done up in
lead foil. That we had smoked enough was no answer to this
poor man, whose daily wages were seventy-five cents, and whom
we should never see again. We must fill our pockets.

The old oversee' at Calcehtok was master of the revels, and
led us to our seats under the shed to see the dance, which, in
spite of the gay music of fiddles and flageolets, vas solemn and
monotonous. I nstcad ofclaspin gs, kickings, voluptuous twirls, and
expressive looks, we saw dancers stiff as lay-figures, out of mutual
reach, and moving about the floor slowly in circles. Thei ‘ arms

58

A FIRST GLANCE AT THE RUINS 59

hung by their sides, and their faces had the look that the pho-
tographer recognizes when expressive features are foeussed by the
camera. In the toros and other dances the girls spoiled their
pretty looks by wearing men’s hats, yet we were expected to
admire them ‘ather than their poorer cousins and sisters who,
dressed in the beautiful costumes of every day, leaned over the
wattles from the outside.

FIG. 20.

 

Meztiza of Opichen.

Next morning at the bull-fight it was these charming figures
in blue and white that often diverted our attention from the
funny and harmless performance in the ring. Nearly twice as

60 THE HILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

numerous as the men, they crowded the whole circular balcony
set 011 poles and floored with leaves and twigs. No bulls were
killed, and no horses blindfolded or hurt in public. One after
another the animals were brought in to be teased by gayly—dressed
men on foot and horseback, and after a few charges, tumbles, leap-
ings of men over the walls, and curvetings of steeds, the gates
opened and cl tore trotted out, followed by the horsemen hurling
lassos. Then after we had photographed the ring, riders, and
bull, by particular request, our turn came, and we explained that
one of our objects was to take photographs of some of the pretty
girls in the village. Our friends smiled obligingly, and several
of them disappeared, to return presently with two dusky beauties
dressed in their best. It took us some time to find a neighboring
garden where the background seemed appropriate, then to choose
the proper shade, and, last, to get the focus. As the girls only
spoke Maya, means of communication by language were denied
us, and the many changes necessary had to be explained by
gesture. But there was no hurry in the process, which occupied
at least an hour, and resulted in two wretched negatives.

Busy with the excavation at Oxkintok, we had not taken time
to examine the neighboring ruins until the work was over. Mr.
Corwith, digging a few feet 011 the top of the high mound called
Xemtzil, besides finding the specimens of earthenware shown in
Fig. 21 ,1 laid bare foundations of walls and one of the level
areas of plaster which I afterwards learned capped the summits
of many of these structures, where the buildings, as Senor Maler,
of Ticul, informed me, often rose in three plaster-roofed tiers
against one side of the mound. These layers of plaster, 'serving
as the floors of terraces, are now exposed 011 the sides of the
mounds after the crumbling of the buildings. Xemtzil and
many other tumuli examined seemed to contain no chamber in
the interior of the stone pile which was their central structure,
but near Oxkutzcab we saw a heap of stones which had a vaulted

 

1 These fragments (see Fig. 21) seem generally to have formed parts of hu-
man figures made of a light-gray, unpolished, and imperfectly-baked ware, not
matched, with a few possible exceptions, by the harder painted or polished
sherds from the neighboring cavern. Later, however, we found pottery at the
ruins (5.6., in cisterns) that fairly showed its similarity with the ware from the
caves.

FIG. 21.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unpolisherl potsherds, cupsy and fragments of earthen statues, rough, imperfectly baked,
and light gray, found by Mr. Corwith, in digging on top of the mound known as Xemtzil,
close to remains of a platform of stucco, one to two feet below the surface. See foot-note to
page 60.

 

 

A FIRST GLANCE AT THE RUINS 61

room in the middle of and underneath it, and one of the stone
mounds, overgrown with brambles, near Xemtzil was honey-
combed with artificial passages. These formed the labyrinth
visited by Stephens, and called by the Indians “ Tzat un_ Tzat”
(Lost and Lost). As Stephens did not make a careful measure-
ment of the place, we spent some hours in examining it and
drawing the following plan. (Figs. 22 and 23.)

The construction of the passages, like that of all the rooms in
the temples where projecting tiers of stone meet each other from
the opposing walls, showed ignorance of the principle of the arch.
The faced stones in the passages were rudely chipped square, but

FIG. 22.

é—«STAIRCASE LEADING

TO UPPER

 

_ LOOPHOLEFOR
/ ADMITTING LIGHT

DOOR CHOKED

/ WITH RUBBISH

ENTRANCE
IN RUINS

SCALE K T \ b
0 5 10 Ft.

Tzat un Tzat (Lost and Lost). Plan of the lower story of the supposed labyrinth called
Tzat un Tzat, at the ruins of Oxkintok, Yucatan. The walls are built of roughly-squared
limestone blocks and mortar. The passages, six to seven feet high, are roofed by letting
three tiers of flat stones project towards each other from the opposing walls, and setting
capstones above them. Thus a rude effect of Vaultingr is produced. A staircase leads from
the innermost passage of the lower story to the upper story, directly above. The whole is
covered by a ruined artificial mound of stones. This is oblong in shape, three hundred and
sixty feet in circumference and thirty-one feet three inches high.

Plan drawn and measured February, 1895, with the assistance of a chart made by Felix
Martin Espinoza. The loop—holes are not all given. The thickness of some of the inner
walls may be inexact.

  

 

    

)
J.)

not dressed, and not laid up systematically, so as to bind the
joints, as masons say. When one stone rested over a joint below
it, it seemed to have come so by chance, and places could easily
be found where for two or three feet the crevices lay in line, one
above another. Inside the exposed wall of faced blocks there

62 THE HILL-(‘AVES OF YUCATAN

was a rubble of stones and white mortar that looked as if it had
been dumped in like concrete. The entrance, at the left corner
of the tumulus, seemed about on a level with the ground; and
about seven feet above it,,in the middle of the slope, opened a
door or window about two feet in diameter. The whole mound,
one hundred and twenty paces in circumference and thirty-one
feet three inches high; measured with the monocular level, was
covered with loose stones and overgrown with a repulsive tangle
of thorny bushes. On the top two or three larger trees shaded
the walls of a room whose ceiling of dressed blocks had fallen in.
As we entered and followed the passages, which grew narrower at
places and were sometimes half blocked by abutments at the
turnings, several bats flew by our faces, to return again and~ flit
along the vaults when the candles were lit. Here and there
gleams of light came through small loop—holes, about six inches in

  
 

   
  
 

STONE STAIRCASE DE ~a
so Nnmc il‘
To LOWER STORY ‘

E l
1 i i

+
LOOPHOLES

 

LOOPHOLES
FOR LIGHTING
10 X 9 INCHES

SIDE OF THE MOUND

0 5 10 15 20 25 Ft.

Tzat 1111 Tzat (Lost and Lost). Plan of the upper story of the supposed labyrinth called
Tzat 1111 Tzat, at the ruins of Oxkintok, Yucatan. This story lies directly above the lower,
under an oblong stone mound thirty—one feet three inches high. Drawn and measured
February, 189.3, with the assistance of a chart made by Felix Martin Espinoza.
diameter, connecting the galleries with each other or the outer air,
and several times we halted near them to wonder how obstructing
heaps of débris had found their way into well—preserved parts of
the passages. The mortar used between the faee~st0nes, contain-
ing small powdered fragments of limestone, was very white, and
crumbled 'ather easily under the point of a knife. As flat lime—
stone splinters had been pushed into it at the larger interstices,

A FIRST GLANCE AT THE RUINS 63

and as these pieces had evidently been chipped off the building—
stone in roughly squaring the blocks, it seemed probable that
much of the stone dressing had been done on the spot. There
were two stories, forming rectangular tiers of galleries, one above
another, about fifty—six feet long by twenty—six feet wide, in the
mound, and these, as shown in the drawing, were connected by a
staircase. A portion of the masonry rested on a bed of white,
decomposed limestone, known as succam, and where one of the
passages 'an directly through this the side wall had been omitted,
leaving the saceam exposed almost to the ceiling, save at one point,
where a narrow area of wall was built into the deposit from the
floor up. This, our Indians told us, was the door of a passage,
blocked up to prevent wandercrs becoming lost in unknown gal—
leries that led beyond it. To test the truth of the story, Mr. Cor-
with removed several of the stones, only to find the moon/m solid
behind them. \Vhat looked like a door was a sort of pier built in
a‘ weak part of the succam to keep the ceiling from falling down.

()ther mounds like Xemtzil confronted us with the same profile
of loose stones and b'amblcs, as we made our way through the
bushes. Again and again we paused before the vaults of stone
rooms, all of the same narrow shape, all dimly lit with loop-holes,
and all vaulted by the leaning in of their walls, None showed
signs of painting, but one revealed in the shadow of its ceiling,
exactly in the centre of the vault, a single stone, well carved in
flat relief, with the conventionalized outlines of a human figure.

Profitable months might have been spent in mound-digging at
Oxkintok, but our purpose left us little time to devote to ruins,
however interesting, and this hasty inspection brought our visit at
Calcehtok to an end.

 

Tzat un ’J‘zat.

CHAPTER VII.
craves THAT WERE DOUBTFUL.

THE next centre of investigation, Senor Escalante’s hacienda
of Yokat, twelve leagues down the range, offered us again all the
facilities we were leaving behind us, and, as if for our particular
benefit, a road leading to it ran along the whole hill range in the
direction of our work. There seemed no reason why this level
highway should have been washed bare of earth, and we hoped
that, except in, the case of a few traversing ledges, it would offer
the colon driver no chance to show us again what jolting means
in Yucatan. But luck was not with us. Save for a few reaches of
red earth, we found the road nearly as rough as any we had seen,
and, as the mules did not seem to, be any more capable of stum-
bling when running over the rocks than dogs, we bounced as we
had ‘arely bounced before. The heavy—tired wheels could not or
would not break, and there was no check to the dare—deviltry of
the driver. \Vhen not rolling cigarettes or making shrill chir-
rupings, he would stand up on the shafts like a Roman charioteer,
peep under the axles, or wind his whip around the yelping body
of a dog at full gallop. Crouched upon a mattress stuffed with
vegetable pollen, in the swinging car, twisting and untwisting
our cramped position, with legs “ asleep,” backs jarred, and sides
aching, we became ashamed of our own anxiety and resigned our—
selves to the worst, with a forced smile. Luckily the day was
cool and cloudy and the \ 'ay was full of interest.

Leaving ()pichen behind us, we kept Close to the long ridge
that led onward into the southern distance. Hardly a league was
passed without a sight of the crumbling sides of a mound or ruin.
()nee or twice rough roads turned off to cross the mountains, and
lanes led to haciendas, at whose corners stood sicbo—trees, some-
times shady, but often girdled and (lead, or cut down and rotting
on the ground. Once I saw a carved stone figure from the ruins

built into a fence. It was late in the afternoon when palm—trees
(34

owns THAT WERE DOUBTFUL 65

in the distance announced our approach to Muna, and passing first
the small wattle and clay huts of the Indians, thatched with palm,
we came to walls of plaster, decorated in the fashion with trowel
slits *aeh about three inches long‘ in the middle of' which was set
a small fragment of stone. Leaving these, the way led through
a large grassy common, bordered with colomiades and fronting
an open 1‘*aeh of country. There dogs lay asleep in the dust,
and donkeys browsed near an old church whose weather-stained
pinnacles rose dark against the western sky. Circling about the
green, we halted at the well, where spreading trees, growng on a
platfiirm of stone, shaded a large water—tank. Under the leaves

FIG. 2-3.

 

 

Maya girl.

a mule fastened to a squeaking turnstile lifted a string of buckets
on a wheel, and the water fell into the tank with a soothing sound.
\Ve climbed out of the mlan and sat upon the cool stones. All
the while groups of Village girls, carrying water-jars, came to the
place, each throwing a handful of maize into an earthen dish, the
mule—driver’s toll, exchanging a few words, and turning away.
They stepped gracefully, holding the water-jars under their arms,

66 THE HILL-(‘AVES or YUC‘ATAN

as they leaned to keep their balance, while their white robes fell in
graceful folds under their head—dresses of purple and dark blue.
The sun was setting when we left Muna, and night soon com—
pelled us to drive more slowly over the rocks, until at last a high
chimney, with lights, and the black outlines of a grove showed
the driver in the dark where to turn off the high—road and into
a lane. \Ve halted to open the wooden gate of a cattle-yard, and
then, picking our \ 'ay through the herd, drove over a stone pave-
ment and drew up on the level by a ve'anda lit with flickering
lanterns. This was Yokat. The choosing of rooms, the cooking
of supper, and the swinging of hammocks occupied our thoughts
after our baggage-carts came, but we caught glimpses of arches
and columns, long reaches of white wall unde ' a starry sky, and
the dimly-lit trunks of palm—trees, that seemed to transport the
scenery of the Arabian Nights into the wrong part of the world.
The morning showed green leaves, glowing with oranges, over
our windows, and we heard the singing of birds and the splash
of water. The fertile oasis was more beautiful than Caleehtok,
and we felt properly grateful to Senor Es -alante, our host, for
inviting us to halt there until our work was done.

As we had already ransacked the hills n |arly as fa ‘ as Muna,
Yokat offered 11s the next ehanee of verifvinw

C, if possible, the
significant results of Oxkintok. The caves reported one after
the other by Indians, and described by the kind engineer, Mr.
Gukey, were sometimes on the deelivities of small valleys and
oftener on the western hill-slopes. Then we reached them after

exhausting walks,

over the highest ridges, where our path was
often lost in the bushes. Again we saw skylit rooms, and clam—
bered with ropes into well—like chasms darkened with the shade
of leaves. We might stand on the edge of an abyss without
seeing it, and then what looked like a heavy clump of green bushes
was the top of a tree rooted far underground.

One hot morning our path, after léaving a bushy hill—top,
crossed a ledge of bare roek, where our Indians halted and asked
us to listen to a clicking sound underfoot, like the tapping of a
hydraulic ram. \Ve failed to understand their explanation of the
noise, but a few steps farther showed us that we had been crossing
the roof of Aetun Jih. The noise was'the echoed hammer-strokes
of gypsum diggers, and when we had entered the cave by an open—

(‘A V ES THAT \VBR E DOU BTFUL 67

ing, pillared with stalaetite, at. the side of a fallen area, several
half—naked Indians, wet with perspiration, came out of the inner
darkness to meet 11s. One of them held a pointed steel hammer
in his hand, with which, as he explained, he had been chipping
bits of the stalagmitic wall in the light of small, thin candles.
The chips, laboriously collected, were thrown into bags and used,
as I learned later, in the making of cement. It was interesting
to question the Indians and watch them at work, but outside of
this the place had little significance for 11s. “'0 were standing in
a broad, dry chamber, from which one of the side passages led
into a very low room lit by a skylight. Tracks of animals were
frequent. \Vhether from the action of fire or the percolation of
oxides, the roof of the cave was very black, and at one place
we found the fresh charcoal of a recent hearth. At another
point there was a heap of small bones, probably of bats. All
the passages were very dry, and the Indians, who had brought
their calabashes, told us there was no water in the cave. A
few potsherds lay scattered among the loose stones of the floor,
but, when we could find no stone dishes, no sign of an ancient
hearth, and no area on the loose earth adapted for excavation, we
gathered 11p our tools and started again into the forest.

At Chekt-a—leh (Sit—Down Cave), the next cavern visited, the
outlines of objects below ground were lost in the darkness, as we
stepped to the edge of a shady sink and looked down through
the trees. \Vhen we had found a convenient series of lodges
and elambered into the hole, the blackness turned into a gentle
light; the sky was still above us, but the wind had lulled, and
the underground grove gave no sound. \Ve heard the flutter of
bats’ wings under the fantastic roof, and in the darkness beyond
saw the outlines of 'aults leading away anywhere. Fancying
them the ends or openings of other eaves that we had seen, we
were half willing to believe the )Iaya story that connected the
galleries of Aetun Spukil with those of Loltun, at Tabi, and
Would make of the whole sierra one underground labyrinth. The
black floors were bedded with potsherds, and on one of the slopes
a loose wall had been built to prevent the downsliding of earth and
to form a level terrace. We looked in vain for water ; but as it
was not reasonable to suppose that the old inhabitants of Yucatan
had continually visited a waterless cave, and as several of the now

68 THE HILL-CAVES 0F YUCATAN

familiar stone troughs lay scattered about, we inferer that the
roof, now dry, had either dripped water in past time, under dif—
ferent natural conditions, or still continued to do so periodically
in the rainy season. One of the water-dishes was half filled with
earth; another was broken and had slid down the slope by the
terrace wall above mentioned. Near them lay two round, unpitted
hammer-stones and seve‘al large potsherds. On another ledge
rested another stone dish but slightly hollowed and showing signs
of rubbing in its cavity. It might have been either one of the
common water—vessels in process of manufacture, or an unfin-
ished metatc for grinding corn. We had seen another like it
in Oxkintok cave, and found stone pestles afterwards at Loltun.
A heap of very large fallen rocks covered the floor of ”the cave
to an unknown depth, and rose like a hill under the skylight.
Where a bed of cave earth rested in the hollow of one of them we
dug our first trench (nine feet nine inches long and three feet six
inches wide), which revealed the following layers (see Fig. 26) :

Fro. 26.

   
 
  
 
 
  
 
 

v (1 FOOT) RED MEALY CAVE EARTH
WITH PUTSHERDS
2.(| FT 4 IN. AT THICKEST) ASH

. -—'.-(7 FT. 5 IN AT THICKEST) LIMESTONE

\ ‘i/NFRAGMENTS MIXED WITH DISTURBED MASS
‘\ ';o*\\\ OF CHARCOAL ASHES AND POTTERV. BELOW
ARE SEEN FiSSURES IN THE ROCK FLOOR
DOWN WHICH CHARCOAL, ASHES AND
POTTERY HAD SLIPPED FROM ABOVE

/"’,/‘
FKSSURE DOWN WHICH
DEERIS OF HEARTH$

(LAYER 2) HAD FALLEN

Layers of ashes and refuse, proving the Visits of man to the cavern of Chektva-leh (Place
of Sitting, or Lightning), about three miles west of the Hacienda of Yokat, near Ticul,
Yucatan. Outer face of Trench 1 (nine feet nine inches long, three feet six inches wide,
three feet nine inches deep), cut through the cave floor to bed rock.

The traces left by the first visitors—ash-bands, originally deposited below Layer 2—cann0t
be studied here. Disturbed, when first made, by the unevenness 0f the original cave floor
and the loose rocks lying upon it, they have been further mixed and diseomposed by the
down-faulting of the later ash-beds of Layer 2 through the fissures seen below. Explored
February 15, 189:”).

Animal remains and shells found with the human refuse: birdy dog (first foot), horse (sec-
ond foot), (leer (two species), Orthalicus princeps.

Layer 1 (one foot) consisted of red mealy earth, containing
numerous potsherds. Some were decorated with scratches, some
painted in stripes, and some red and black pieces were highly
polished. Many crystals lay among the débris, and numerous

FIG. 27.

 

[lam entrant’s

['0 and on

('0 :I In? (a

 

 

 

 

From Actun Chckt-a-Ieh. Objects found on the surface, and specimens of earthen-
\\'2Lre,she11s,and bones, associated with the remains of the dog and horse discovered in
Trench 1.

 

CAVES THAT WERE DOUBTFUL 69

nutshells lay on and below the surface. In the first feet, while
excavating the trench, we had found the femur of a bird of
medium size and the upper jaw of a dog.

Layer 2 (one foot four inches at thickest) showed a belt of undis—
turbed ash-bands. In these we found bat bones, pieces of charcoal,
and frequent polished potshcrds, of fine make. There were small
fragments of larger bones, among them the first phalanx of a horse,
a part of the skull, metatarsal and frontal bones of a small deer,
the axis vertebra of a medium—sized deer, and the femur of a large
bird, all unearthed in the second foot while digging the trench, and
we discovered two hornstone chips, but no arrow—head or finished
blade. The ash-bed, much thicker in the middle than at the ends
of the pit, contained in its lower part several larger bones, among
them a fragment of the jaw of the dog above mentioned.

Layer J (one foot five inches at thickest) was a mass of lime—
stone fragments, mixed with charcoal, ashes, and pottery. Its
bottom rested, at a depth of three feet nine inches, on the solid
rock, but as two fissures opened through this into cavities below,
the whole lower part of the deposit had been disturbed. Masses of
charcoal, ashes, and potsherds, representing the first fires made at
the spot, had faulted downward through the crevices, and on this
account it was impossible to get at the true relation of any object
that rested in Layer 3 and below the undisturbed ash—bands of
Layer 2. The Indians worked slowly ; time was too precious to
spend in going over shovel and pickaxe lessons with them, and,
rather than tax their willing attention with what seemed as hard
a task as a problem in advanced arithmetic might to a child, we
let them ladle out the earth at arm’s length and pile up shovel-
blades with their hands. 0n the whole, the evidence of the cave
was disappointing. “'0 had worked upon a pile of downfallcn
rocks, without penetrating through them, and the bottom of the
deposit examined was disturbed. That man had frequently
visited the place was proved by the trench, which revealed in its
hearths an unusual number of animal bones and a grade of pot-
tery as high as or higher than any yet found. But the digging
was inconclusive. The dog-jaw, according to Professor Cope,
represented a domestic breed rather than the wild South Ameri-
can species, which did not range north of the Isthmus. The horse,
under the circumstances, must have been modern and Spanish.

CHAPTER VIII.
ARCHZEOLOGY IN YUCATAN.

No question in the New World has opened to the student of
the past such a mine of interest as the problem of the remains of
Mexico and Central America. Early in the century this subject
attracted such wide-spread attention in Europe that, inspired by
the discoveries of unprecedented ruins and strange manuscfipts,
the French, about 1830, formed the Société Américaine de France,
which yet devotes annual congresses to the discussion of' ancient
America.

A volume, thrilling as a romance, might contain nothing but
the story of pre—Columbian manuscripts lost and found, the
struggles of antiquarians against what has seemed a hostile fate,
and the wild tales of travellers. The chief means of investi—
gation were destroyed at the start, when anarraga, Bishop of
Mexico, and Landa, Bishop of Yucatan, to the despair of modern
students, made such bonfires of carvings, statues, paintings on wood,
and the priceless picture and hieroglyph writings on native paper
and deer-skin, that only about half a dozen fragments of the Yuca-
tan books have ever been found since. A few native chronicles that
the bishops had not burnt were discovered by Boturini, an Italian
priest, who for eight years, at the end of the last century, ran-
sacked Mexico to find them ; but, having incurred the displeasure
of the government, his collection was seized and he was sent to
Spain. A malignant destiny must have pursued him, if the story
is true that his ship \ 'as captured by an English cruiser, and a
small remnant of his treasures, still in his possession, taken from
him or lost.

\Vhat the sum of the injury to science was no one would ever
have known, had not Boturini left a list of the seized documents,
on the strength of which, Aubin, who was sent to Mexico in 1830
to save what he could find, believed that he had recovered most

of the collection. Some of the twice-rescued records were bought
70

ARCHJGOLOGY IN YUCATAN 71

by Humboldt while travelling through the country. Others
appeared between 1830 and 1848 among the nine sumptuous
volumes of Lord Kingsborough’s “Antiquities of Mexico,” who,
after spending thirty thousand pounds upon his publication, died
in a debtors’ prison. The famous Maya manuscript known as
the Codex Dresdensis, preserved between plates of glass at the
Royal Library at Dresden, was bought by Getz in Vienna in
1739. Another original Maya chronicle, the Codex Perczianus,
named after the word “ Perez” on its old wrapper, is in the Im—
perial Lib ‘ar_' at Paris. Another, the Codex Cortczianus, sup-
posed to have been brought to Spain by Cortez, was offered for
sale at a high price to the Imperial Library at Paris. Refused
there, it was purchased by the Spanish government, and is now in
Madrid, along with the Codex Troano, discovered in a Spanish
library, said to have been torn from it.

Bernardino de Sahagun, a Spanish Franciscan monk, conceived
the original idea of proptmnding questions to native lVIexicans
living in 1560, and having their recorded answers illustrated by
other Indians without collusion. After toiling for thirty years
at this work, his manuscript, the most remarkable European
chronicle that had ever been produced in New Spain, was con-
fiscated by the Franciscan order, and an edict from the Council
of the Indies was necessary to recover the precious pages. But
when the work had been sent to Madrid, the old man died before
its publication, and, as if to distress the reader even now, it was
lost for two hundred years. Found at last by thfioz in the ar—
chives of a convent at T olosa in Navarre, it was copied and used
by other writers, to come in duplicate into the possession of the
Medieean Library in Florence. Here few Americans who look
at the maps of the world made by Europeans before the discovery
of Columbus know of the existence of the remarkable volumes
in Spanish and Latin—letter Aztec, with pictures made from paint-
ings by native Mexicans in the sixteenth century.

Karl Scherzer stumbled by chance on the Popul Vuh, the
traditional book of the Quiche Guatemalan Indians, in the Uni—
versity Library at Guatemala, where it had lain forgotten after
Francisco Ximencz had found and translated it one hundred and
fifty years before. Dr. Berendt, while travelling in Yucatan,
found Chilam Balam books, or haltlhieroglyph and half—Spanish

72 THE HILL- JAVES OF YUCATAN

compilations of Maya Indians in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, now in the possession of Dr. Brinton, of Philadelphia ;
and Mrs. Zelia Nuttall in 1889 found a Mexican manuscript that
had lain unheard of till then in a Florentine library.

The explanations of students throw much light on the picture-
writings of the Mexican codiees, but no one has yet publicly ex-
plained how to read the hieroglyphs proper to the Yucatan books ;
so that when the Abbé Brasseur dc Bourbourg found the manu-
script of Bishop Landa’s “Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan,”
together with a key written by the author for deciphering the
Mayan hieroglyphies, the thrilling discovery promised results no
less important than those that followed the finding of the Rosetta
stone. But the key would not work, and the characters remain
nearly as mysterious as ever. It is possible that some other anti-
quary more explicit than Landa may have learned the symbols
from Maya priests while the latter yet knew them, but no student
since Brassenr has publicly pretended to find so precious a docu-
ment.

The rescuing of manuscripts and the deciphering of hiero-
glyphs are only some of the difficulties of the subject. Native
traditions have been interpreted in v2 rious ways, and, when at-
tempts have been made to trace all the peoples between the United
States and the Isthmus to a common source, theories have run wild.

\Ve hear of Toltees as the forerunners of the Mexicans, mi-
grating to the soutln 72m] and founding Yucatan ; of journeyings
of parent races from Florida, from the Mississippi Valley, from
the islands in the Gulf, from the Himalayas and the sunken
Atlantis, or from a place called Hue—Hue-Tlapalan that has been
asserted to be to the north, or to the south, or nowhere.

The ruins show differences as striking and similarities as
strange as the legends, till, appalled at the variations of fact and
theory, fable and history, the dismayed archaeologist turns away,
persuaded that the time has come for comparing what may be
learned from books with what may be dug from the ground. In
Europe the underlying facts of date, culture, and relation of
peoples have been proved by exea 'ation, and, if like results are
to be obtained in America, enough has been done and written to
convince us that no better field for shovel and piekaxe could be
chosen than Yucatan.

ARCHACOLOG Y IN YUC‘ATAN 73

The more we learn of the Maya Indians, who probably built
the ruined cities of the Peninsula, and who, still inhabiting the
region, were found there when Montejo conquered it for Spain in
the sixteenth century, the more inclined are we to place them at
the head of the list of tribes that inhabited the New World when
Columbus came. I f written language be a test of intelligence,
the Mayas were ahead not only of the Mexican people, but also of
the Peruvians. The latte ‘ are believed to have made no nearer
ad 'anee towards writing than the tying of tally- knots on strings ;
and the Mexicans, while they had invented paper, wrote down
their ideas, save in the rases of a few phonetic signs, as children
would, by means of pictures ; but the Mayas, like the Egyptians,
had proceeded beyond pictures to hieroglyphs, where symbols
more or less arbitrary stand for words or syllables, and the mind
prepares itself to invent an alphabet.

Fo‘ a time the highlands of Mexico and the Central American
rcgi<_>n were classed together, and it was not realized until the
middle of this century that the ruins in Yucatan, Chiapas, Hon-
duras, and Guatemala not only surpassed everything on the high
plateau, but all other structures of the kind in either continent.
The ancient walls of Peru were more massive, the earthworks
were more elaborate in the Ohio Valley, the mounds were higher
in Mexico ; but the painted stucco and carved symbolism that
covered the temples at Uxmal, Copan, l’alenque, and Chichcnitza
exceeded all comparison. \Valdeck in 183 and Stephens in
1841 astonished the learned world with accounts of these strange,
grotesque structures hidden in the poisonous thicket. The forest,
concealing them from casual eyes, added to their mystery, and
the mistaken story, corrected by Stephens, gained credence that
the Spaniards, finding them deserted in the sixteenth century,
could learn nothing of' them from contemporary Indians. The
whole country, from the Gulf to the high Cordilleras, is full of
them. Berendt’s map of Yu :atan is dotted thick with signs for
ruins. You can hardly drive five miles over the lastern roads
without seeing a crumbling mound of stones exposing the walls
of a vault. Charnay found the so—callcd Lorillard City in the
valley of the Rio Passion (in Chiapas) before 1885. Malcr, of
Ticul, makes frequent excursions into the wild thickets to find

new temples, palaces, and towers, and what the great reaches of
G

74 - 'l‘lll‘) IIIT‘L-(‘AVICS OI“ YUCATAN

unexplm'ed wilderness south of Lake, Chiehankanab have in store
for us no one yet knows. Revealing its wonders by degrees, the
ever—present forest, matted with dead leaves, always has ob-
structed and always will obstruct investigation in Yucatan. The
hot and thirsty t'aveller loses his way. The searcher becomes
eontilsed. The excavator knows not where to work. “hell he
does, digging is not easy in the stony soil.

Much might have been learned on the surface of cultivated
tracts had the heuequen fields of the North been less obseured by
stones and thorns, and the whole range of relies from washed—
down village-sites might have been gathered on the shores of
rivers had rivers existed. As it is, little is known of details,
while a few general facts strike everybody. ()ne of these—is the

Flu. 28.

 

Workshop of ancient dressers of b11i111ing»stone on the floor of the cave of Oxkintok.

enormous number of elabm‘ately dressed stones that scatter the
surface everywhere. The ve'andas and stain 'ays at Caleehtok
and Yokat, the pavements at ()piehen and Muna, and the colon-
nades at Ticul are built of square-dressed blocks, not made for
the purpose, but taken from the ruins. \Ve saw stone figures

A RCHZEOLOGY IN YUCATAN 75

built into Spanish walls at Tabi and U xmal and along the road-
side near San J osc, and “ elephant trunks,” pillars, crosses, friezes,
and borders of worked stone littered the ground near Uxmal,
Labna, and Oxkintok. How they were made is a mystery, and
no one has yet solved the problem which we encountered at the
cave of Oxkintok, and afterwards at Actun Lara, when we found
workshops where this carving had been done, but searched in vain
for hardened copper, flint adzes, round hammer—stones, or bruised
fragments of limestone. At Oxkintok the stone-pile under the
skylight was partly composed of broken water-dishes and square
bleeks of dressed stone, such as were used in facing the apart-
ments of the ruins, and the more we hunted about the spot the
more convinced were we that the secret of their manufacture, i11-
deed the secret of all the stone carving of the ruins in Yucatan,
vas somewhere within the cave. \Ve had found a stone-dresscr’s
workshop. Whoever had squared the blocks and cut the water-
dishes had known how to carve the elabO‘ate stone designs of
Uxmal and Labna. The tools used at the ruins must have been
identical in character with those used in the cave, and we had
found an opportunity of settling the question by discovering the
fragment of some kind of chisel, associated with chips, at the
spot. ‘Ve searched, however, in vain. To test Mr. J. D. Mc-
Guire’s proposition, that most of the stone carving in the Stone
Age was accomplished with hard, round hammer—stones, we looked
carefully for hammer-stones, but found no signs of one. If the
work had been done by random fragments of the parent rock,
cast aside when dulled or broken, then the rubbish—heap under
the skylight ought to have shown many such fragments, blunted
by pecking, but we could not discover one, and though the deep
peckings on the blocks indicated a pointed instrument, we saw no
trace of a fractured stone chisel. Our minute search, though it
produced no positive result, seemed almost conclusive against
anything so common or easily broken as hammer—stones, natural
fragments of rock, or flint chisels, and left us to speculate about
pointed tools of diorite, nephrite, or hardened metal, carefully
preserved by the workmen, and rarely broken or lost. Experi-
ments showed that when we cut through the outer crust of these
damp limestone blocks the inner portions worked easily with an
iron hammer, and, as the modern Indians at the haciendas use

76 THE lIILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

pointed iron hammers to carve the pillars of the colonnades, it is
possible that some tool as simple in form lies at the bottom of the
mystery.

Another striking fact in the archaeology of Yucatan is the
great preponderance of pottery over all other ancient utensils or
tools of human make, a superabundance of earthen-ware that has
already characterized museums and collections no less than it
has the results of our own work. But its true proportion to
the full range of ancient handiwork will not be known until
more digging is done. One reason why it is so common is
because much of it has been gathered in ancient cisterns, and
these are easy to find and excavate in Yucatan. Perfectly
round holes in the ground, often seen in the thicketsnear the
ruins, disclose circular, plastered walls, swelling, as you look
down, like an ink—bottle. Several feet of rubbish rest upon mor-
tared floors beneath, and in this debris many of the perfect vases
that adorn museums have been found.

Mr. Corwith discovered five cisterns near a mound at Rancho-
Chumul, three miles east of Tabi, and excavated and described one
as follows: The bottom diameter was about fifteen feet. Four
feet of rubbish lay on the floor, ten feet from the top of which
was the circular orifice down which he had descended by a rope.
In the middle of the débris a pit five feet long and three and a
half feet wide was dug down to the plastered bottom.

The first foot showed bones, identified by Professor Cope as
those of birds and rabbits, lying on the surface. The earth,
which was composed largely of decayed vegetable matter, con—
tained very few potsherds.

The secoml foot and the third foot showed very few bones and
potsherds in the black earth, while

The fourth foot was composed almost entirely of a mass of pot—
tery resting on the plastered level floor of the bottom.

Among the bones of the third and fourth foot were identified
those of man, together with the remains of a lizard, bird, frog,
and carnivore, representing creatures who had fallen into the death-
trap since its construction, and hence, together with the thickness
of the rubbish, offering a sort of rough estimate of the time
elapsed since the Maya epoch,—one foot of potsherds for the time
of the cistern’s use ; three feet of mould for the empty after—time.

FIG. 29.

 

./ . w
-,})/I (If ( («LY/Pr];
/1/r.~/ /f.'//;(’;z/‘ {II/(l I'li‘vr
-, 0"” flat}!

     

 

”1 0 f. (is/Pr” I'll/111145,]-
2’"! 3"” ,7m/ 9”} fan].

 

 

 

From an ancient ('istern at Chumul, one of five elose together and near several mounds,
two miles south of Tabi.

I’otsherds and bones (lug out of the rubbish layer resting,r four feet thiek on its plastered
bottom, and comprising,r one foot of vegetable mould, with bones of animals on top, repre-
senting time after abandonment of cistern. Three feet of potsherds and rubbish, with
human bones below, representing the time of use or the cistern and oeeupztney of the
surrounding ruins.

 

ARCHJfiOLOGY IN YUCATAN 77

The jars (see Fig. 29) showed various forms, and .many, almost
perfect, had been probably dropped by the old water— -arricrs in
the deep water and never recovered. \Ve failed to find, however,
any of the miniature vessels, said to have been used by children
as playthings, sometimes discovered at these places, where the
fietile remains are far more abundant than in graves.

Graves dot the forest near the mounds, but are hard to find,
since the rows of stones which once marked them have been scat-
tered, except in the wilder regions. Buried in them, at a depth
of about three feet, vases adorned with hicroglyphs are Often
found, which with the skeletons sometimes rest in rude stone
coffins, but oftener in the earth. The majority of the burials are
simple and primitive ; and Herr Maler, the archzeologist, of Tieul,
informed Inc that valuable funeral trinkets are rare. The general
facts here cited and published, with his kind permission, recall a
pleasant conversation with him one evening at Ticul. Time hur—
ried too fast to ask all the questions I wished to ask of a lover of
archaeology, who, coming to Mexico with Maximilian, had been
in the country for thirty years. Night took us away before I
had begun to hear, in brief outline, the story of his long experi-
ence with the questions that interested us, and glance at notes,
specimens, and photographs, illustrating journeys into the wilder-
ness, and the discovery of towers and temples that no white man
had seen before. He thought that the pot—making process of the
modern Indians would throw much light 011 the ancient manu-
facture, but had found no trace of the potter’ s wheel in the old
specimens, and believed that many of the vases had been made
by smearing clay over the constricted calabash, and then burning
out the rind. After I had examined several perfect specimens of
the broad-mouthed ancient water-vessel common to all Yucatan,
and very distinct from that now in use by the Indians, he showed
me a jadite tube, a small ball of polished stone, several discoidal
stones furrowcd 0n the surface and grooved on the periphery, a
number of polished celts of syenite, well sharpened, and some
earthen stamps with scroll designs, used, he thinks, for printing
colors on cloths. To account for the extreme rarity of arrow—
heads (only onc specimen of which he had in his collection),
he supposed that the old Mayas had lived mostly upon maize,
rarely killing game fer food, and having no domestic animals

78 THE HILL-CAVES ()F YUCATAN

except the dog, of which he thought several breeds had existed in
ancient Yucatan.

The two or three Yucatecan species of monkeys had often been
copied on pottery, and certain vases found in the débris of mound
chambers showed figures in'iitating tigers. Small human heads
of' earthenware or stone, broken from larger figures or vases, had
belonged to most collections that I had seen from the region, and
Herr Maler’s specimens had been found in all parts of the Pen-
insula. In their mocking, apelike smirks seemed to flash at times
an embodiment of Yucatan’s mystery. No opal or talisman of
sinister import could have worked upon the fancy more than the
features of one of these faces, small, finely worked, but diabolical.
It was the relic that I coveted most, and Herr Maler’s story
added to its interest when he told me that he had got it from an
Indian sorcerer at Bolanchen Ticul.

CHAPTER IX.
OVER HILL AND DALE.

THE gloomy chasm of Actun Xmak (Covered Cave) lay about
in the mid-sierra, four miles northwestward from the hacienda of
Yokat. \thre the way to it led into a secluckd valley a thicket
had overgrown the path, and the cave was so hard to find that

FIG. 30.

 

4ft.6in. Ion ft. wide I
mm g, ‘3 ’\‘

n.dee . Du loroc
/W////////Zm\

zone waterdlsh/ ,, ‘
and Lsherds, 4‘
f /

e
3in.long,
. Du- to rock

7
/W,// /

Actuu Xmak.

 

our Indians lost their way and ransacked the woods for it for
twenty minutes, signalling each other with loud birdlike cries.
The hole was full of trees, and these, treacherously concealing
the abyss with a pyramid of close leafage, caused the horrible
accident which darkens our memory of the place. Stepping cau-
tiously around the brink, we found a hole in the crust, and
through it, with the aid of a rope, reached the bottom of a shady
rotunda, two hundred and fifty feet in longest diameter. The
formidable fallen masses of porous limestone which composed its
irregular floor rose like a hill toward the centre. W'asps’ nests

hung from the ceiling and swallows dived in and out of the dark.
79

80 THE HILL—(“YES ()F YI'CATAN

In the red dust we saw the tracks of small animals, and near the
entrance to down-reaching galleries counted five circular struct-
ures of loose stones, built as slmoting—blinds by the Indians.
Though we failed again to discover falling drops and the dry
stalactites seemed to have stopped forming, even (hiring the rainy
season, the place showed the usual tokens of the ancient water-
hunter. Again under the sombre shelters we found the familiar
h *arth—sites, with pottery, and near them two stone water—dishes.
But though certain that the latter had been made upon the spot,
we ransacked the floor for the tools or chips of the stone—carvers,
in vain. Then, clue to one of the dishes, we dug our first trench,
four feet six inches long, three feet wide, one foot seven inches
deep at the outside, and one foot two inches deep at the, inside.
Its sides, sc ‘aped cl \an, revealed the following subdivisions:

Lug/er 1 (six inches) showed cave earth, with potsherds of the
usual surface g'ades, red, polished, or decorated with scratches.
Under it

Layer .3 (eight to thirteen inches) vas composed of a distinct
bed of ashes extending the full \length of the trench. It con-
tained the bones of several species of birds and two kinds of
deer, small and medium—sized, fragments of crystal, potsherds of
the usual type, and two coarse round hammers made of hard
limestone. The digging of the second foot brought us to
the bottom of the whole culture deposit, and we struck solid
rock at one foot seven inches at the outside, and one foot two
inches at the inside of the trench. There was a small hole in
this hard floor, and a portion of Layer 2, resting on the rock,
had slidden down into it. At another place a film of undis—
turbed yellow cave earth,

Layer 3 (two to three inches thick), full of crystals, lay be-
tween Layer 2 and the ledge beneath. Disappointed at the
shallow (lepth of the rubbish at this point, we hunted up another
earth-covered area on the rocks and started Trench 2, about ten
feet above the place last examined. \Ve had hardly begun to dig
when we were again brought to a halt by the solid ledge at a
depth of one foot. Most of the pottery was of the rougher types ;
one sherd was painted, and there were black and red polished
pieces and fragments decorated with incised lines. The red ware
ran from the top to the bottom. No ash—bands were revealed

OVER HILL AND DALE 81

on the side of the trench, and no reastmable subdivisions could be
made of the layer, which app \ared homogeneous throughout.

The results at both trenches had been the same. This cave,
like Actun Jeh, had shown us one culture layer, and one only.
Granted that the depths of the trenches, one and one and a half
feet, was too small to have allowed us to discriminate two epoch-
denoting layers at the spot, one above another, if two had ex-
isted,—still, had such been the *ase, we ought to have found a
mixture of objects resting on or near the ledge which would have
given a peculiar cha ‘acter to the lower part of the deposit at least,
for it did not seem possible that any earlieifin‘ diverse people
could have deposited their rubbish at these caves without in-
truding signs of it into the earth exposed by our digging. As
far as we had gone this 1‘ ‘asoning was satisfactory, but we had
not gone far enough. Here again, as at Actun Jeh and other
'aves, we were confronted with a serious doubt. We had been
working in hollows on the surface of a pile of enormous masses,
fallen down from the original ceiling, and it was certain that we
had not reached the bottom of the ave. \Vhat, then, did our
Work mean 1’ \Vere we wasting time scratching at shallow depths
on the surface of the stone—pile ‘? \Vere we unfairly shirking the
toilsome weeks required to blast down to the true bed-rock?
These questions remained for the present unanswered. \Ve pre—
ferred to leave their elucidation to subsequent work, resting content
with the probability that we had missed nothing after all under the
fallen crusts, for, as they had originally filled the present orifice
of the skylight, the -ave may have been inaccessible and must
have been pitch dark and unfit for the haltings of men before
they fell.

I had been accustomed to see members of our party climb
the trees at the skylights of previous caverns to cut down and
carry away for their animals the leafy twigs. Here the clashing
of flax-knives and the rustling of leaves overhead reminded me
from time to time of two young Indians who had followed us to
the cave, and were swaying the slender branches above us. They
had taken off their sandals, and were climbing like monkeys
from tree to tree, or stepping out upon the rock crust at the
brink of the hole. One of them had just done this, and, kneel-
ing to grasp a pile of cut boughs in his arms, was about to tie

82 THE HILL-(‘AVES OF YUUATAN

them with a rope ; his head was buried in the leaves, as swaying
the mass and straining to clutch its full circumference, the treach—
erous brink betrayed him. I heard a loud rattle of branches, and
looked up to see his figure shoot head foremost into the air. In
a second he lay motionless on the rocks, near my feet, and in
about ten minutes his heart had ceased beating. His companion
looked sadly on, but without expressing his feelings, and then
hastened away to the hacienda, while we lifted the body with our
rope and laid it on a ledge above. Some hours passed, and then
a band of friends came in various directions through the woods;
a few of them climbed down the cave, and one, approaching the
spot, carved a cross on the bark of the nearest tree and scattered
earth on the fatal stains. The sun was setting while othersmade
a litter of a blanket stretched between four boughs, and, placing
the body on it, turned homeward.

It had been our delight at Calcehtok, by way of evening refresh-
ment, to stand under a streaming spigot, but at Yokat we had the
pleasanter privilege, after our hot tramps, of plunging into water-
tanks large enough for swimming. After these baths, dressed in
the cool muslin sacks and canvas trousers of the natives, there
was a temptation to walk about the neighboring orange-groves
in bare feet, but the sharp stones soon taught 11s the use of the
sandals, strapped between the toes and over the instep, worn by
the Indians, and I provided myself with a pair for evening
strolls. At Yokat too we learned the full value of tobacco-juice
as an antidote for the most serious annoyance in Yucatan,—the
garapatas. Small as pin—points or large as fleas, these biting,
poisonous, flesh-burrowing pests set your blood on fire everywhere.
Feverish itching, as of the breaking out of a sudden rash, was
generally accounted for by the finding of a dozen of the small
kind crawling upon you before they had begun to bite or raise
lumps. By keeping in the middle of broad roads you might
avoid them, but there was no use trying to escape them on
narrow paths, where they fell upon the pedestrian from weeds
and bushes. \Vhen there was no path at all it was worse, and
there the Indians rolled up their loose white trousers to the
thighs, and on getting through scraped the insects off their bare
legs with grass. ()ur first efl'ort on reaching a cave was to find
a wisp of weeds and brush clear trousers and leggings; then,

oven HILL AND DALE 83

stripping to the skin, to kill every one of them by'a sponge
soaked in tobacco-juice and rubbed from head to feet.

There was little more to be learned from the eaves near Yokat.
()ne intensely hot room on the way to Actun Lara, entered by a
well three feet in diameter, had no name. The woods had been
cleared of above it, and the worn and broken stalactites seemed
to have ceased forming a long time ago. The down-sloping floor,
covered by a single mass of fallen rock, was everywhere unfit for
excavation. I could find neither signs of animals nor charcoal 0r
potsherds, and, after noticing a few wasps’ nests hanging near the
entrance, and filling a box with a specimen of a black deposit
protruding from a fissure about thirty feet down to the left, I
climbed out of the stifling hole with a breath of relief.

Actun Negro, entered the same day, February 17, 1895, by a
rope, through a skylight, showed traces of charcoal and ashes in
its rotunda, one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, but there was
no water to be found anywhere, and a forbidding pile of rocks
on the floor discouraged excavation, as before. From these loose
masses several trees, flourishing in the moisture, rose through the
skylight, hiding with their umbrella of polished leaves the gulf
into which a cow had fallen, leaving its bones to whiten on the
stones below.

FIG. 31.

    
 
 
 

act, a 7 ., ' \r
u i “a A. 3%:
”Mr/fl!” 42 i Mi fly "’I/ //’ t

g i
,/
7
l I,
and potsherds

, .' 4‘ “. 1‘ /
,j_ ; at: , , WW
‘ .' 'M/ 4/ , Scale I. _. 215 __510FL
[ll Limestone blocks showing marks;
/ \

,/ ll» ‘ l ’ 7/;// apcuttingtoolszchi sleFtb modem

Charcoal ashes.

     

Indians, probably In making
/ [metates and pesklES.
Actun Lara (Lara’s (fave).

Actun Lara (Lara’s Cave), a league and a half to the west-
ward of Yokat, balked us again with a heap of fallen rocks,
filling half the rotunda, so that ingress was easy over the large
sunken area and down their slope. Again there were thin

84 THE IIILL-(JAVES OF YUCATAX

cakes of hearth refuse on the ledges, again the familiar shooting-
blinds, and, as at Actun Jeh, the tool-marks of the gypsum-
chippers on the walls; but no water-dishes were found. We
would have soon left the place had not an unexpected sight upon
the floor thrilled us with the hope of a long—wished-fbr discovery.
Down in the twilight, close to the bottom of the rocky talus, lay
several pieces of worked stone, which on examination proved to
be not finished, but only partially dressed ; and when we noticed
what we had never noticed before, a heap of chips lying near
them, the solution of the problem of ancient stone dressing in
Yucatan seemed to have been thrust suddenly before us. We
began to look at the stones more carefully: some were blocked
out into long thin rectangles; some large masses were i‘udely
worked square, though none had the familiar shape of the
square blocks seen at Oxkintok and used as face stones in the
ruins, and, while the chips lying on the surface were weather-
stained, those just beneath them, in the loose heap, looked as
fresh as did the under side of the worked pieces, whose tops,
exposed to the air, were tinted bluish—green with lichen. The
tool—marks upon these showed long, deep incisions, as from the
point of a steel instrument, and when we found a heavy mass,
with the three rudely blocked—out legs, or points on its lower side,
of a mctatc (stone mortar still universally used in Yucatan for
grinding Indian corn), all the conditions of the site were ex—
plained. Just below the worked blocks a thin crust of charcoal,
ashes, and potsherds, containing the very long upper molar and
lower premolar of a horse, the end of a tibia of a deer, and the
head of a rib of a large mammal, could hardly have been referred
entirely to pre—Columbian times, but the dressed stones and the
chips, as one of our Indians told us, were the work of some ‘
modern Maya, who had come there to make metates with an iron
hammer in recent years. Once more baffled, we climbed up the
sides of the sink, turning to take a last look at the place, just as
two large white birds flew out of the cave into daylight.

C H Al) T E R X.
ITXMAL.

THESE daily walks, by hill-paths worn smooth by hoof and
sandal, by slopes fronting to the blue northwest, by high ledges
where the wind freshened, by tangled thickets and shallow val-
leys, opening upon the ayes, brought us to know Yucatan as

FIG. 82.

 

 

 

View from the Dwarf‘s House at L'xmal.

only a foot—traveller can. But our search for twenty—five miles

along the hills had not been conclusive. Time was short, and

work doubtful in character and amount lay ahead, so that mis-

givings beset us when, leaving the direct line of investigation, we
85

86 THE HILL-CAVES 0F YUCATAN

turned toward a malarial plateau behind the ridge to see Uxmal
and Kabah. Luckily the weather had turned cloudy, 'or the
collapse in store for 11s a week later might have overtaken us 011
the day when, with camera and note-book, we climbed the break—
neck steps of the Dwarf’ s House at 'Uxmal. I had not expected
to see ruins set high against the sky, like German robber castles,
but from the top of the Dwarf’ s staircase we looked out through
a broken window upon a region of conspicuous artificial hills.
Each was capped with crumbling walls that showed white against
the plainwhich, with itsblue bush, reached northward towards
a row of wooded domes, deeply tinted by the clouds. Windy
currents rushed over the high ground, as, stepping carefully
upon broken stones, we turned a dizzy corner and entéred a
vaulted room; but when we had clambered down again all was
lost in the thicket. If this was a city, where were the streets?
Where the squares, the dwellings, or their sites? A. mantle of
bushes hemmed us in, and dry leaves hid the ground. Here
and there previous explorers had burnt openings to clear the
View, but the growing thicket was undoing their work. One
by one the ruins rose suddenly before us out of the tangle as
we followed the winding paths. One windowed wall, called
the “House of Pigeons,” stood alone, like the front of an un-
finished palace. From the top of a mound, reached by a lad-
der, a structure corniced with stone figures of turtles rose upon
heaps of fallen masonry. \Vhere a high earthen platform looked
out toward the mountains, the “House of the Governor,” an
immense building with fantastic walls, enclosing rows of vaulted
chambers, shut off the sky. Strange masks with grotesque eyes
frowned from a maze of symbolic ornament in stone, or lay in
confusion underfoot, where whole sides of the wall had fallen
down. At another place, “ The Nunnery,” the surprise was
reserved till we had passed a narrow arch through a wall over—
grown with bushes. Then, as the outside of the structure had
seemed plain, the most remarkable monument in America broke
upon us unexpectedly. We stood in a large court— 'ard fronted
with fantastic forms in stone. Grinning jaws with sharp teeth,
carbuncle eyes, “elephants’ trunks,’ ’ grotesque noses, hideous cari-
catures of men and animals, and, above all, the twisted body of
the rattlesnake, with mask and diabolic head—dress, composed the

ITXMA L 87

features of an unknown allegory. The names given by modern
visitors to this and other buildings had an idle and meaning-
less sound, while thought forgot size and architectural effect.
The weird symbols prevailed over all criticism, and a slow fear
crept over the mind as of something malevolent, blending with
the bloody themes of the codices. It seemed to rise from the
perilous forest around us and haunt the air, reaching back into
our wanderings and tingeing the mysterious country with a color
as indescribable as the hues said to be seen in the eyes of serpents.
“"0 were in the New \Vorld. Our voices echoed in the nine-
teenth century, but potent nature in a strange garb etfaced all
token of the commonplace and confronted us with the fascination
that had turned the brains of students and betrayed with fancies
the path of the searcher.

Stephens had seen carved wooden lintels over some of the
door-ways, but, though we saw enough lintels of wood to enforce
his argument that the ruins were not very ancient, we found
none carved. These facts and further investigations are begin-
ning to set a emnpa'atively modern date to the coming of the
peoples who built these structures, though when we ask for
details there is no answer. The fever and the jungle jealously
contest each fact gleaned by explorers who dare to camp in the
forest at the risk of their lives. It is begging a great question, after
all, to learn that the Mayas had come to Yucatan after having
already developed their culture elsewhere. Pushed farther back
into the unknown, this problem at last merges with that greater
one, \Vhence came the American Indian ‘3

There was no hum of machinery and chatter of voices, no
barking of dogs and gobbling of splendid turkeys, as we reached
the hacienda of U xmal. Faces peeped at us through the doors of
thatched huts when we drove across a common toward the large
house, where no one was stirring, and where on an upper stone
veranda the wind whistled through the open doors. I heard a
squeaking noise, and looked from a flight of stone stairs around
the corner. A tree threw its shadow on a platform of masonry,
and there a mule, fastened to a revolving beam, plodded 011
to the switch—cuts of a barelegged Indian. From one of those
deep wells that had been blasted through many yards of rock a
stream of water fell through a stone spout into a trough. As

88 THE HILL-CAVES 01? YUCATAN

I looked I heard the noise of an opening gate behind me, and an
Indian girl, straight and graceful, stepped across the pavement in
bare feet. Her features seemed pale against the deep blue of her
scarf, as, passing me and rolling up her white sleeve, she set an
earthen vase 011 the stones, while I felt a. kind of pity for her as
the stream filled it and ran over. This water was the poison
that had three times dcpopulated the hacienda, that had destroyed
children and cattle. fl‘ravcllers had said there was fever in a
draught of it, and I wondered what the girl dared do with it. \Vas
she exempt from its curse? \Vas it hers by inheritance, to drink
as her ancestors had drunk, who thrived upon it when they built
the ruins ‘3 I listened awhile to her soft voice talking to the driver,
and looked, longing to speak, till at last, catching the jarcunder her
arm, she turned away. For a moment the impulse came to call
after her, hoping to see her stop, turn, and smile ; but I only stood
watching till the gleam of white garments and the fascinating
movements were lost behind a wall. Turning towards the stairs
then, I saw a small man in dark clothes waving his hat in the
friendliest manner on the veranda. He was the chief engineer,
and we were his guests. Supper would soon be ready. Our
mules would be *arcd for, and a room and hammocks pro—
vided at bedtime. Presently several assistants appeared, a table
was set, and one chilc—seasoned dish after another brought in.
Where the fine claret came from we were neve‘ able to learn, but,
fully enjoying it and our pleasant company, we talked till long
after candle—light, learning many things from men whose services
were everywhere in demand, and who, travelling continually from
one hacienda to another, knew the hill country well.

The whole region eastward of the mountains seemed higher
than that we had left at Yokat, but it was hotter, and the
underbrush was thicker, though the word jungle, in an Asiatic
sense, could not have beenlapplicd to the all—pervading thicket,
which, save for the absence of wet ground or signs of moisture,
did not look unlike an unusually tangled swamp in the United
States. Had the boughs been leafy, we would have walked in
a cool shadow, but palms and their shade were missing, and
few bushes had their foliage. “'0 saw no large succulent
stalks. There was no display of orchids, no miasmatic steam,
or loud hum of insects. Our heavy leather leggings, made to

UXMAL 89

protect us against snakes and poisonous reptiles, were soon cast
aside, as we followed Indians who went barelegged through the
thorns. \Ve heard no cries of animals. New and then the
iguana, a very large lizard, rattled through the leaves, but only
two snakes were seen up to February 20 anywhere, and mosqui-
toes were not an annoyance, except at Merida, though even there
they were less vicious than those at home.

As we jolted in volans tovards the small hacienda of Santa
Ana, the last of Senor Iscalante’s estates in our way, we had
mountains behind and before 11s, spurs comparable in shape to
the letter U, and, though Berendt’s map did not show the fact,
the ruins of Kabah seemed to lie over against a range of hills
and on the northwestern edge of the plateau. The cloudy days
were past and the mid—day heat was intense when we drew up
at a shadeless thatched cabin near a chapel, some empty water—
tanks, and a small overseer’s house of stucco. There, after the
hammocks were swung and the pipes lit, we spoke the thought
uppermost in our minds when we wondered whose hospitality
was to brush trouble from our path in the future, and what
lay beyond us in the feverish country.

Much to our surprise, a graceful dog, with smooth gray coat
and black spots, \ 'alked complacently into the room and lay down
on the floor. \Ve knew him at once as one of our old friends at
Yokat. He had caught sight of us in the streets of Ticul, and
followed us for better or worse. Flattered at the compliment, we
soon refreshed him, as we refreshed ourselves, with a bath of
insect—destroying tobacco—juice, and then fed him as he had prob-
ably never been fed betbrc. His name, l\Ionte, decided by vote,
was soon changed to Peck (“dog” in Maya); and finally, when
Mr. Darlington, with the consent of the engineer at Yokat,
brought him to the United States, to “ )Ialiese.”

Travellers tell of a breed of hairless dogs still existing in
Mexico, which early accounts describe as nearly exterminated by
the Spanish conquerors, who used them for food. We had seen
none of them, much less of a stranger species, sometimes supposed
to have been indigenous to ancient Yucatan, which, if we may
believe the carvings of dogs made by Spaniards in the sixteenth
century on Governor Montejo’s house in Merida, seem to have
had humps on their backs (see Fig. 33). Maliese’s blood was

7

90 THE HILL-owns OF YUCATAN

mixed, and its ingredients, if acclimated after several generations
in the term oalientc, were no doubt originally European. His
act had won our hearts, though there was nothing remarkable
about him. but his sagacity. In choosing us for his masters he

M WWW/m

 

Decorative carving made by Spaniards in the sixteenth century over the
gateway of )Iontejo’s house at Merida, sometimes supposed to represent an
ancient breed of Yucatecan dogs.

had wisely escaped from the hard canine life of Yucatan, where
ill—fed, ownerless dogs are present everywhere. Young Indian
children play with puppies, but no one else seems to train, fondle,
or feed a dog. On the verge of starvation, they swarm in kitch-
ens and dining-rooms, where cooks and servants strike them
unexpected blows when they are asleep.

CHAPTER XI.
KABAII, RANCIIO CHACK, AND TABI.

THERE were three things to be done at Santa Ana,—the first,
to explore the cenot: at Rancho Chaek ; the second, to see the
ruins of Kabah ; the third, to ‘ansack the woods for a workshop
where the carved stones of the ruins had been quarried and
dressed.

The first quest took us a two hours’ hot walk along a wood-
path, where in a wild place under the hills a sound of rustling
bushes dogging our footsteps apprised us of the dangerous near—
ness of a herd of peC‘aries. Some of the enthusiastic sports-
men of the party, who, prepared for a wildcat, had advanced
into the thicket with cocked revolvers, appeared disappointed as
we formed in file again and pushed on in silence towards an
opening in the woods, overgrown with long, dry grass, and
planted at intervals with small trees. Its barren silence sug—
gested one of those wastes named “ Indian fields” in the Penn—
sylvanian woods; but we searched it and another clearing which
followed it in vain for traces of ancient village life. Then,
hastening on, we reached two of the cabins of Rancho Chack,
and there, heading the party with a long stick to drive of dogs,
I passed close by the doors, where Indian children rolled on the
earth and white-robed women sat in hammocks, clean as if by a
miracle, in spite of the mangy dogs, chickens, and pigs that went
in and out.

The cave well was in a clearing several hundred yards away,
near a few palm-trees, and in plain sight, not one hundred
paces from the opening, stood an old stone mound, near the base
of which Mr. Corwith found one of the familiar water-dishes.
The entrance to the cavern was smaller than that of any we had
yet seen, and, by way of a novelty, blew out a gust of cold air,
like the blowing caves in Tennessee. The candles went out at

91

92 THE HILL-CAVES 0F YUCATAN

once, but fortunately we had brought a lantern, and, crawling in
with it and a coil of rope, I reached the ends of a rude ladder,
made of boughs, projecting from a perpendicular well-like hole
about three feet in diameter. The lantern, let down on the rope
by an Indian, showed the

rungs in good condition and FIG- 34-

a ledge below, and we de-
scended through the rushing
wind, until, reaching the rock,

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scent. In the flickering lan— ' ’ ,//T I ,

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the rocks were polished, as b°‘{“ds‘{"}th

if by the rubbing of clothes,
and the rungs of the ladder,
bound on with twigs, seemed -

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Actun Cllaek.

well worn. Eight ladders in all brought us to the bottom. Five
rungs on the first, eleven on the second, eleven 011 the third, eight
on the fourth, seven on the fifth, nineteen on the sixth, four on
the seventh, and twelve on the eighth, seventy—seven in all, made
a depth of about one hundred feet for the floor level, if we allow
a foot for a rung, and add one—third of the distance for ledges.
The narrow spiral hole, worn smooth by bodies, became warmer

as we descended, and where the passage turned ofl“ horizontally

 

 

  
  
     

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KABAII, RANCHO CHACK, AND TABI 93

the wind stopped. Winding outward, a well—worn gallery soon
grew intensely hot, and not without some danger of fainting we
followed it, often crouching and sometimes C‘awling, for about
nine hundred irregular paces. This brought us to a final de—
scent, where a still pool of clear, lukewarm water filled up the
entire tunnel and stopped us. The whole appearance of the
place showed that Indians had fo‘ a long time elambered into
it to get water, and still continued to do so. The path was
sooty and the roof blackened with smoke. Along the gallery
I found charred sticks, curled rolls of twigs, probably used for
ladder-making, and on the ledges constricted water-calabashes.
Near these I gathered several bundles of twigs tied together
with hemp strings, and used by the Indians for torches, and
here and there noticed fragments and rims of pots, which the
Indian guide said were modern. The ragged walls of the fis-
sure showed little evidence of water wear, and I heard no falling
drops and noticed no stalactites. The cave had a feW cham-
bers 0r enlargements of the passage about twenty—five feet in
diameter by fifteen in height, but would have been best described
as one winding narrow gallery from five to eight feet high.
Hard as it would have been to find originally in the forest, the
old Mayas who had built the mound near by must have known
and used it. Nevertheless, no important results could have fol-
lowed excavation in any part of the hot galleries. A few blows
of the pickaxe would have. barcd the solid rock, and piles of
earth along the ledges showed that such rubbish as there was
had been continually thrown about and scratched aside to deepen
the path.

If we had jumped into the pool with our clothes on, our thin
garments could not have been much more soaked than they were
when we reached the surface. The gust of rushing air felt like
an icy blast, and drove us away from the cave to sit down and
rest awhile in the sun. Then without waiting for the cool of
evening we turned homcward.

The stifling subterranean heat of Rancho Chack and the after-
noon walk were followed by a chill and an attack of weakness
that ought to have warned Mr. Darlington and myself against a
visit to Kabah two days later, but it (lid not, and after another
long tramp through the thicket we stumbled listlessly about

94 THE IIILL-CAYES OF YUCA'I‘AN

the ruins, too weak to carry out our proposed plan of searching
for a quarry of building—stone and missing a distant mound
with stuccoed figures and a solitary arch seen by Stephens.
A gain crumbling walls rose out of the bushes on mounds of loose
stones. Which of the light—gray structures, with their window-
less, vaulted chambers inside, were temples and which palaces
must be decided by excavation. As at Uxmal, so at Kabah,
there vas no use trying to get an idea of the original city, if it

FIG. 36.

 

Remains of a vaulted room in a mound at ()xkintok. Showing,r the method of vaulting
and wall construction in the ruins.

was a city. The stone pathways connecting the buildings, the
open squares, the cisterns, the remains of commoner dwellings,
if made of wattle, clay, and thatch, had been hidden by the
undergrowth. Only after climbing mounds could anything be
seen in a general way, and then the vestiges set upon tumuli
were indistinct in the distance and half hidden by trees. To see
them near at hand we squirmed through the dry thicket, which
seemed to grow denser, thornier, and more full of wood-lice, as

KABAH, RAXCHO ('IIACK, AND TABI 95

the grotesque door—ways glimmcred through the boughs. Again
we suddenly stood under low columns of outlandish shape or
corniees such as no modern architect has dreamed of. The more
we examined the walls the more we wondered not so much at
their antiquity as at the fact that they had not already crum—
bled to the ground. A facing of blocks, shaped like the letter
'V, pushed Iliosaic-fashion into a central pudding—like concrete
of stones and mortar (see Fig. 36), was a weak form of construc—
tion. Neither were the face—stones interlocked systematically,
so as to “bind the joints.” Everything was slipping out of
place. No wonder there were fresh cracks in the walls, that
whole facades had tumbled, and that oversecrs had spoken of
structures losing their identity in twenty years. As we ventured
under the shade of a door—way whose lintel looked ready to
tumble on our heads, the air seemed cold, but the heat of the
homeward walk was intolerable. A few places where leaves had
thrown shadows 011 the path were missing in the afternoon, and
from these, vandering cows, seen in the morning, had turned
away into the forest. Searching there in vain for shade, weate
our dinner in the sun. -

When dizzy and exhausted we r ‘ached home, the effects of the
imprudence were soon apparent, and a dull period of weakness,
chills, and headache paid the penalty of this mid—day walk.
Three days at Santa Ana in hammocks, a jolt in a volan to
Tabi, a midnight arrival among yelping dogs at the great sugar
hacienda, and another week of headachy rest in a large dark
room were for some time the only incidents worth mentioning
after our visit to Kabah.

Tabi had a great court—yard, where in the morning the hissing
of steam, the rattle of machinery, and the voices and noise of
men, mules, l'olans, dogs, and cattle wakcd 11s early. There was
a great colonnade, with an upper story and terraces, cattle-sheds,
palm—trees, a ruined church, a distillery, a ficnda, and a large,
new, American—made crushing—engine, all looking upon the court—
yard, with an Indian village beyond. Like all the other haci-
endas, the large buildings had few furnished rooms, and appeared
to be rarely visited by the family of Senor Duarte, though he
himself came once a week to superintend the work. As usual
the ceilings of the bare, lofty rooms showed close-set zupotc

96 THE IIILL-(‘AVES OF YUCATA‘N

beams, interarched with a concrete of stones and white mortar.
To make the floors, twigs had been laid across the beams, and
thereon mortar, in which several layers of stone splinters, keyed
side by side from 'after to rafter, had caked into a firm floor.
When the mass set the twigs were removed and the arched
underspaees plastered. Where the ceiling of a room was also
its roof, the concrete was trowellcd on without keying; hence
roofs were weaker than floors, and occasioned the well—known
objection in Yucatan to children playing on the house-tops.

At Tabi work stopped at the roll of a drum and a bugle—call.
Then scores of Indians from the cane-fields, stables, cattle-yard,
pumps, tanks, and engines crowded the overseer’s door for wages.
All night lights glowed from the engine, and the air w-asffull of
a savory smell of boiling sugar.

One evening the sound of an accordion brought us down—stairs
after supper, to find one of the lower rooms crowded with Indians.
\Ve had forgotten that it was Carni '21] time, and to our surprise
saw through the door the dancing figures of masked workmen
dressed in fantastic costumes. WVhile the crowd laughed at tricks
and jokes, or commented in low tones in the Maya language,
the pretty music, played in Spanish rhythm, set our heels tingling.
There were girls enough standing near, but, just as we had half
decided to waive ceremony and choose partners, the party broke
up, and we saw them cross the cattle-yard with torches and enter
the village, where the dance-tunes echoed merrily from house to
house. Then the cook of the hacienda brought out his guitar
and sang, and a negro danced till bedtime. By ten o’clock all
the lights in the lower rooms were out, except one at the end
of the colonnade, where drums, horns, and muskets hung on
the walls, and men kept watch all night», lying in hammocks or
stretched upon the bare stones, their heads resting on folded
arms. Some of their positions seemed most uncmntbrtable, but
none equalled that of our old waiter 0n the veranda, who, in spite
of guitars and talking, had gone to sleep early in the evening.
A narrow ledge of the wall overhanging the staircase was his
choice, and there, in sound oblivion, he lay on his back, left leg
on the wall—top, right foot on the steps, and head hanging over
the brink.

These moonlight nights were so cool that we went out after

Knmn, RANCHO enAeK, AND Tun 97

dark lnuflled in our striped blankets. \Vhen the girls had ceased
earrying water, loud, tremulous eries often filled the night, a-ir.
Onee, to learn their -anse, I had stepped stealthily to the well,
and there saw three very large toads, who were making all the
noise, as they hopped with many pauses down the steps of the
tank and came out upon the court-yard.

CHAPTER XII.
LOLTL'N, THE ROCK 0F FLOWERS.

LOLTITN (Rock of Flowers), with an ancient mound four
thousand three hundred and twenty-five paces to the west of it,
with Uxmal about seven leagues and Labna four leagues to the
north, with Teeax five leagues and Mani four leagues Vito the
east, and Mayapan not much farther to the northeast, could not
have escaped the attention of the builders of these cities. I11—
dians carrying dried cactus torches (see Fig. 35) and calabashes
'ame daily to the cave for \‘ater, and, steep and difficult as was
the entrance, this need must have compelled any incoming people
to visit its galleries. Many ofthe *aves previously examined, as
remarked before, would have been unfit for habitation in other
countries, but the awe-inspiring apartments of Loltun, smooth-
floored, well lit, and ever cool and dry, would probably have been
chosen as halting—places by primitive peoples anywhere. There
may have been several ways of ingress to the cavern, but if the
old Mayas got into it by its main entrance they must have used
a ladder, as their modern descendants do, for the rock-cut steps
miss reaching the bottom by a ledge at least fifteen feet high.
\Vhen after a long walk across the cane-fields and through the
woods we stepped into the yawning well, followed the rock-cut steps
and descended the ladder, the sight we saw did not overwhelm us
with its grandeur, but stole over us slowly. In a bluish light
a mass of leafage, roots, and slender stalks confronted us, where
the overhanging black arch made it seem as if we were looking
through a '\'ater—glass into the sea. Like the garden which
Aladdin saw after being sent down an enchanted stair *asc by a
magician, the scene might have vanished suddenly at some ill-
advised act, yet I saw no flowers or brilliant colors. Under the
arch a stalagniite, shaped like a. crouching cat, threw a deep
shadow, but no black abysses yawned behind the trees. The

98

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66

].00 THE HiLL-CM' as OF YUCATAN

cooler air stirred in briaths about us, touching the leaves as we
passed onward to turn into a dark passage to the right, and leave
the garden behind us. Then we went down a staircase by two
walls and into a sombre chamber, after following which for a
time a light broke beyond the gloom, and we stepped into an

Fm. 38.

 

(‘ayern of Loltun (Flower Rock). l'nderfirounll Vegetation in large chamber near the
entrance.

immense domed room, hung with stalaetites and lit by two
skylights. No thought of disappointment came with the first
glance. The familiar rook-pile lay far out of our way, and
there was plenty of soft earth, on whose lon r, smooth reaches
eaeh footstep trod upon ashes: or potsherds. The rock 'arvings
we had seen at Aetun (‘eh had reminded us of the work of North
American Indians, but those that marked the walls of the great
room at four places seemed rather symbols than pictures. At
seye‘al plaees masses: of stalagmite had been rudely ehiselled to
represent human shapes. There were circles and groups of rec-

LUL’I‘I'N. THE ROCK ()l’ I“I,(’)\\'I‘IRS 101

tangulai' nutlines, but we t‘eengnized nu hiet'uglyphs, and failed to
see the painted outlines and sitting lnnnan figure in eolm' notieed

liy {fillers}

 

(‘zn‘ei‘u nt‘ Lultun. Stune \\';tI('I‘-fli.\'l1e\ Iilzlt'cll to euteh the (ll‘lli ul‘ ~talaetites on the [hun-
of the great I'utumht. 5e1ie\‘wl In have. been inmle on the shut with mine turul< h)‘ aneient
Maya Indians. thuug'h they may have heen I‘H't‘lltl)‘ plaewl in their present tmsitinn.

Drops wt) falling water eoultl he plainly heard when we stopped
talking, and, though they hatl nut (-aused stalagntites at the spots

‘Senor )lzllt‘l‘lléulpI‘l‘VlHll‘l‘YtUltl1|]!H)ftll(:>i‘[lillf_fllqllfiglflli. l inexelhahly
I'm-gut tn look fut- it or vi\it the inner I'Hlllntltt \\'hieh enntainwl it. I liml huperl
tn he pet-mittetl tn uhtain (‘Ullll‘> (if this alul twu uthei' >peeimens Hf painted
eutlines now at the l’eahntly Museum at (‘amhi‘itlg‘e7 Massm-hu.~etts, hut
the permi~~inn was imule eunditiunal ()1) the eunwnt at Mr, 'l‘lmmpson, in
Yueatan, t’t'nni “hunt the euratei' ha< not yet ll(f:ll'(l. The lint eai‘ving
Seen h‘v u.~ (Fig. 40) Wit: en the main wall 01' the mum tn the lel't of the

102 '1‘111; 1111111-(xw1cs ()F YL'eA'rAN

where they fell, the openings of at least four of the thirteen water-
dishes lying near had been very much modified by the fia‘nfing
0f crusts.

Fur 4U.

 

(,‘aVern ol' Loltun. Native earring on the south wall of the great rotunda.

Of all the underground shelters yet seen in Yucatan this was
best fitted to answer the question of our search. The secret of

 

entrance7 and consisted of rectangular lines drawn across earteuelie-like

enclosures. Two other carvings of the same character (Figs. 41 and 43)
marked the sides of two large rocks projecting from the floor on the east

Lolxri'x. 'I‘un noeu or FLOWERS ,103

the ruins, the chronology of the hiayas, the clue to the paleo—
lithie savage, it. he existed, lay buried under our feet. How and

FIG. 41.

 

Cavern ot‘ Loltun. Native rock carving,r on mass of limestone projectingr from the floor in
the large rotunda.

when had man first come to Loitun '3 \Vhat changes had come
over him during the centuries that he knew and Visited the cave ‘3
Had religious ceremonies been perthrmed in the weird chambers ‘.’

<idc of the room. We noticed a fourth (Fig. 42) on the side of a rock-mass
haif-way up the slope towards the skylight. A fifth consisted of pittings
and figures on the right wall and at the entrance of a large down-bmnehi111.,r
1')21:<szig(:. A sixth was the staiagmite above referred to, rudely cut to suggest
a human face, and fronting; the entrance.

104 TH 1‘: HILL-CAVES 01> YITCATAN

Had the rocks seen the diabolie rites of Nagualisnl? Had men
ventured to live here day and night, burying their (1 ad, grinding

FIG. 42.

 

Cavern of Loltuu. Native carving on a large fallen mass oflimestone protruding,r from the
floor of the great rotunda below the skylight.

and cooking Indian eorn, and wandering with torches into the
unknown 2’

Beyond the grmt rotunda, three hundred and twenty feet in
longest and two hundred and ninety feet in Shortest diameter, we
reached the third Chamber, after a tieklish ehunber up a slope

LOLTL‘N, 'rnn RoeK 01v FLOW’ERS 105

filled with downfallen masses, and there, just under the skylight,
two rude seats, like a third seen in the former rotunda, had been
earved upon the top masses of the eentral roek—pile.

Another passage, we were told, led from this into a fourth sky—
lit chamber, but without following it we turned back and into a
high gallery that passed out of the great rotunda to the right of

Fm. 4f}.

 

lioltun, Native earringr on a mass of limestone protrudiner from the floor of the great
rotunda.

its entranee. By way of this the path, seattered with potsherds,
passed several pools ot‘drip—water, and soon led into an enormous
dark vault whose roof' eould not be seen in (candle—light, and
where the way was lost in a mass of immense bloeks that
eovered the floor. I attempted in 'ain to get around or over
them, and then retraeed my steps and tried to reaeh the end of
the room another way. lt‘ollowing the wall I found presently
that l was walking on a ledge that grew narrower and more
a

106 'ruu IIILL-(‘AYICS or YIT(‘.\T.\N

slippery as I ])l'00(‘(‘(l(‘(l, and when the floor of this began to slope
outward I stooped down and e‘awled. 3y that time the ledge
had turned into a smooth, stalag‘mitie erust, and had become
dangerously steep, while of the height of the eeiling above me
or the depth of the abyss below the dim eandle gave no idea.
I“ ‘aring‘ a fatal Slip 1 turned round and e ‘awled slowly towards
the entrance, d 'a\\'in;: a long br*ath of relief as I reached the
light.

Fm. 41.

.5

 

 

(‘avern ot' Loltun (Flower Rock) The Indians are sitting on the edge of 'l‘reneh 1. The
dark passage on the right leads to the entrance.

‘Ve had heard that. the floor had been seriously disturbed by
digging in behalf of the P ‘abody thseum at Cambridge, BIassa—
ehusetts, but were agreeably surprised to find that no harm
had resulted from the large, shallow treneh, sixty—six feet long,
eighteen and a half feet wide, and two feet deep, dug along the
southwest side of the rotunda. ‘Vhether its object had been
to study eulture—layers or to obtain Specimens, its Site seemed
less adapted for successful exeavation than the higher ground at

LOLTUN, Tun ROCK or FLOWERS 107

the north end. No disturbance was visible there, and we began
Trench 1, eleven feet long by six and a half feet wide, close
against some fallen masses of rock. _

\Vhat the shovel revealed on the surface of these *ave layers
had now lost its novelty. The interest lay below. On top we
found what we expected. The first sic inches of the first foot,
laying bare well-trodden cave earth, with charcoal and ashes,
showed not only signs of the Indian, but of the white man. A
bit of leather, a rusty brass—mounted draughtsman’s compass, a
dull—white chip of flint, lay with sticks of wood, charcoal, small
bones, and potsherds, massive or fine, polished or dull. Of these
some were yellow and well polished, some brown and decorated
with painted lines. In the second Sim inches of the first foot
the soil grew redder. There were bones of animals or birds,
and a worn flake and knife of flint. Pottery stood in the ratio
of about one hundred to one to all other objects.

The second foot opposed us with a thick bed of small rounded
stones, but the relics continued. \Vith the humerus of a rabbit
we found a large fragment of flint that looked as if it had been
polished and broken, several flint chips, 21 stemmed flint knife,
and the broken end of a blade. The range of objects of human
make had widened. Along with the everlasting potsherds we
found more flint than we had seen before, and afterwards in
some loose digging came upon two polished pestles and a round
ball of stone; but the question of when and how man first
entered the cave had little to do with well—shaped or unbroken
specimens.1

These, culled from the mass and set in museums, might well
have given a false impression; but the trenches, revealing the
true relation between rude fragments and perfect objects, told the
truth and nothing but the truth. A. chip, a potsherd, a cracked

1 After this trench had been examined, the Indians, out of work for the time,
were set to digging roughly into its north side, without reference to the sub-
divisions. In cutting out an area eight feet nine inches long by seven and a
half to nine and three—quarters feet wide, they found a great number of pot-
sherds, one of them brilliantly painted, a number of flint chips, several frag-
ments of flint knives, one leaf-shaped flint blade, a round ball probably made
of earthen-ware, the bone of a bear and other animal bones not identified, and
two pestle-shaped stones of very hard material, one of them pointed at one end
and weighing several pounds.

108 THE HILL-CAVES or YUCATAN

bone, might answer our question, so we took everything that
we found, even bags-full of the varying earth. The stones
stopped in the

Third foot, and the cave-earth grew softer and turned red.
There was the fibula of a bird and a piece of the antler of a deer
in the ashes, but potsherds were rarer. These, sometimes pol-
ished and prettily decorated, grew still scarcer and seemed to
stop in the ,. -

Fourth foot, and in the fifth foot when found seemed to have
fallen from above. In the red cave earth, which now seemed pure
and undisturbed, we found a part of the axis vertebra of a peceary,
but no trace of Inan. We had gotten below one culture-layer
at least. Was there another? we had reached the point where
we had left off at the other caves, and a keener interest seized us
as we prepared to dig a hole as deep at least as that at Oxkintok,
when the pickaxe clanged suddenly on solid rock. As shown in
the illustrations (see Figs. 45 and 46), we were on the bottom

FiG. 4-5.

LAYER I. (s-a INCHES) cue EARTH, RECENT DEBRIS
AND POTSHERDS

 
 
  
  
 
  

LAYER 3. (8 INCHES) DISTINCT BAND 0F ASHES, WITH POTSHERDS
‘ " LAYER 4. (1 FT, 10 IN. AT THICKEST) DISTURBED MASS OF RED
, EARTH, CHARCOAL,AND ASHES WJ'EH POTSHERDS

iCOLORED. N0 ASH BANDS. N0 TRACE OF MAN SAVE ON THE LEFT

SCALE

TIN-INCH 1, NORTH.

Old refuse layers, proving the visits of man to the Ca‘iern of Loltun (Flower Rock)y three
miles east of Tabi, Yucatan. Face of Trench 1 (eleven feet long, six and a half feet wide,
five feet four inches and four feet ten inches deep), looking north. The evidence is less
satisfactory than in Trench 2. The beds of ashes at the bottom of the deposit (Layer 4).
marking the time when man first entered the cave, have been disturbed and confused. No
finer subdivisions can be made out.

of an uneven ledge. Cleaning off the pure red earth from the
rock and paring down the north and west sides of the trench with
the trowel, we made the measured drawings here given (Fios. 45
and 46). There was nothing in the whole refuse bed so exposed,
with its surface film, its stone layer, ash-band, and disturbed red
earth, as described at length in the foot—note; nothing in the

LOLTUN, THE BOOK OF FLOWERS 109

clean earth next below, without human trace, and resting on the
solid floor, to surprise us.1 But the time had not come for con-

LAYER I. (a INCHES) SURFACE FILM,

,. . a CAVE EARTH, RECENT RUBBISH,

“9:“ 0' . POTSHERDS

'tawm J LAYER 2. (9 INCHES) SMALL ROUNDED
2 L34" ‘ n.1-

  
 
  
  
 
 
  
  
 
 

 

 

      

» LAVER 3. (3 FT. AND 4 FT. 4 IN.) DIsTURm
ED wuss 0F BROWN EARTH, CHARCOAL AND
ASHES, WITH LARGE BEDS 0F ASHES, POTS-
. HERBS COMMON TO EOTYOM. ANIMAL BUR-

. Rows HAD INCREASED THE DISTURBANCE

' AVER 4. (1 FOOT) BROWN CAVE EARTH WITH
MASSES OF LIMESTONE. NO ASH BANDS.
NO FOTSHERDS. UND|STURBED BY MAN. IT RESTEL‘

0N LEDGES 0F SOLID ROCK SCALE

0 I/2 1 2 Ft
TRENCH 1, wrs'r.

Old refuse layers, proving the visits of man to the Cavern of Loltun (Flower Rock), three
miles east of Tabi, Yucatan. Face of Trench 1, looking west. Layer 3 shows the time
when man first came to the cave. The ash-bands that originally subdivided it have been
disturbed and confused, probably by the makers of the fires themselves, and probably also
by burrowing animals.

Animal remains found with human refuse (from the surface to the bottom of Layer 3):
iguana, bird, rabbit, bear (depth undetermined), small deer, man.

clusions. The thing above all others to be certain of now was
the solidity of the bottom, and, fearing that our trench might

1 Having cleaned the north and west sides of the trench, the following
layers were exposed. (See Figs. 45 and 46.) We studied them by working hori-
zontally into them and picking out specimens from their matrices with the
trowel.

Layer 1 (eight to three inches), a thin film of charcoal and ashes, resting
on the surface, contained a potsherd decorated with incisions and several polished
red and polished brown pieces.

Layer 2 (one foot seven inches to nine inches) extended around the north
and west sides of the trench studied. It was a thick bed of small rounded frag-
ments of limestone, appearing later in the large trench (Trench 2), and whose
presence I failed to account for. On the whole, it did not seem improbable
that the old visitors to the cave had placed it there. I found in it, as usual,
coarse incised and smooth polished potsherds, and then a large cream-colored
fragment with painted wave-like decorations. But there were no distinct ash-
bands, though when I came to study it more extensively, following it around
the trench, I found to the left and in the middle of it hollows full of ashes
among the stones. It seemed as if the fire-builders of Layer 1 had scratched
holes to build hearths on the stony floor of Layer 2.

Layer 3 on the north (eight inches), a distinct band of ashes, containing all
the lighter varieties of potsherds, did not exist on the west face. There it had
been mixed and faulted with the disturbed mass below it, but on the north it
ran clearly across the exposure (see drawing, Fig. 45), and marked the site of

110 THE IIILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

have come down upon a shelf, and not a general rock-level, we
started Trench 2 in the middle of the open floor, where the
cave earth should have lain deep, if it were deep anywhere.
This trench (see Fig. 48), twenty-eight feet long and six feet
four inches wide, tapering to the bottom, brought- us to a crisis

a conspicuous hearth. In this mixture on the west face we found the tibia or
radius of a lizard.

Layer 3 on the west and Layer 4 on the north (1 foot ten inches on the north
and three feet and four feet four inches on the west) was a distorted mass of
brown earth, charcoal, and ashes, containing potsherds as usual from top to
bottom. It marked the lowest trace of human interference, and reached down
at deepest four feet four inches below the surface. Tracing carefully the bot-
tom line of the deposit on the west, I found a fine polished red potsherd, the
heavy rim of a pot, a polished black fragment, and a small flake knife finely
polished; also a yellow polished sherd with brown painted lines. All these
objects lay close to the bottom of the layer, at a depth of about four feet, but
their relative position had little significance. The whole layer had a disturbed,
irregular look, as if the fire-builders had dug holes and moved about their ashes
considerably after their deposition. Animal burrowing had probably added
much to the dislocation. There were so few animal remains found that it
seemed as if the age test of their bones would have to be given up, and the
inference was that the builders of the fires had cooked and eaten little if any
animal flesh upon the spot. we had now, save for a slight tinge of discol-
oration reaehing lower, passed the limit of human interference, and it remained
to investigate the single band of brown earth that intervened between us and
the rock floor. This was

Lag/er 5 on the north and Layer 4 on the west (ten inches to two feet three
inches on the north and one foot on the west), a mass of brown and buff-col-
ored cave earth, thickest against the right side of the north face and tapering
to nothing on the left against a sloping rock.

Bands of discoloration more or less blackened by charcoal, seven to ten inches
thick, tinted its upper portion on the north face.' Below these dark blotches
all trace of humanity disappeared. The rock platform underneath sounded
solid under the piekaxe, and discouraged all thought of farther progress with-
out gunpowder. Floor crusts of stalagmite, if formed in an open cave, have
had, in my experience, a smooth, polished surface ; where formed underground
I have. found their texture porous and of very uneven hardness. The ledge
under our feet had neither of these surfaces, but rather the rugged face of
original limestone. In sharp contrast to its texture was a hard, polished stalag-
mitic knob of the kind formed in the open air, which rose from the rock plat-
form against the middle of the west face of the trench, and proved the action
of ceiling drip before the mantle of earth had been deposited. On comparing
this knob with the surrounding rock-level, it was clear that the latter, if not
the floor of the cave, must have been the surface of a large mass fallen from
the roof, and not one of the stalagmitic envelopes, such as the Rev. Mr.
McEnery and Mr. Pengilly found in Kent’s Hole.

LOL'I‘UN, TH Ii R()(‘l{ ()1? FLOWERS 1711

in our investigation. Either we should find something new
there, or there was nothing new to find in eastern Yucatan. It
took the Indians about three, days to cl air it out and expose an
unbroken, solid ledge, at one end of which rose stalagmites, and
just over which a layer of clay had been deposited by water in
earlier geological times.1 \Ve had cut through the equivalent of
the human refuse layers in Trench 1 to find below them no trace
of earlier man. Again we had encountered but one bed of
human refuse; below it there was nothing human. It might
have. been very thrilling to contradict our previous evidence as
far as it had gone, but it was satisfactory to confirm it. For
some time past, in order to refer to some clear, far—reaching
fact that could be depended on, we had to appeal to our work
at ()xkintok. The other caves had left us in doubt. Now at
last the great question seemed settled, and we had a chain of
evidence without missing or broken links. If we went no farther
and (lid nothing else, we had not come to Yucatan in vain.

The remaining work in the excavation was one of detail.
\Vhen sc ‘aped clean the whole *astcrn face of the trench showed
six subdivisions. The upper three marked the zone affected by
man, while the lower three, after the most careful search, failed
to show any sign of humanity. To the latter we addressed our—
selves to make sure, in the first place, whether we had or had not
reached the bottom of the cave. The ledge on which we stood, at

1 Most of the bones from this trench were found -in its original excavation.

T/wfirst s£.c inches of t/zefirstfoof showed the upper canine tooth of a pee-
-ary and the lower part of the humerus of an opossum.

T/w second sit- inches of fltcfii'stfoot contained the jaw and humerus of an
01305311").

In the second .S‘i.” inches of the secomlfoot we found the bone of a medium-
sized deer, the end of the radius and tibia of a large rodent, and the end of the
radius of a carnivore.

T/tefirst sin: inches of the thirdfooi showed the eostal bone of a box—tortoise,
the metapodial bone of a medium -sized deer, and the pelvis of a peecary.

In theflrst 3123 inc/ms of thefom’t/Lfoot We found a large artificial disk, rudely
cut from the shell possibly of Busyeon.

A large proportion of the bones found were too fragmentary to be identified.
Many, bedded in the ash-bands, must have represented animals cooked and
-aten by cave visitors. None of the remains proved antiquity.

The peceary is still common in the region. Busyeon-sbells might have been
brought from the sea-coast, about fifty lniles away.

112 THE IIILL-CAVES OF YUC‘ATAN

a depth of five feet eight inches and seven feet one inch, ran the
whole length of the pit. Rising up from it at the west end, and
continuing eastward for eleven feet, was a mass of heavy tubercu-
lous stalagmite sloping suddenly downward to the smooth rock

FIG. 47.

 

Cavern of Loltun. Showing the old refuse layers exposed by our Trench 2 (Iookin;r north-
east), cut to rock bottom in the floor of the great rotunda.

at seven feet one inch below the surface. (See Fig. 48.) Thence
forward to the east end of the trench the rock, now free of stalag-
mites, rose gently to meet a round loose mass three feet in diam—
eter bedded in the cave earth. Notwithstanding two or three
narrow fissures which ran across it, the whole platform at the
bottom of the trench might have been said to be solid ; but solid
or not, there had been a time when it was bare floor, and this time
had lasted long enough to let falling drops build stalagmites upon
it before the earth layers had been deposited over its surface.
The first material to overspread it (see Fig. 48) was

Layer 6, a band of brown and yellow earth one foot nine
inches thick in the middle, nine inches thick at the east end, and

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114 THE HILL-(‘AVES OF YUcATAN

only one inch thick among the stalagmites at the west. At some
places it had caked into hard films, as if by the action of drip-
water, and once in the middle near the top, and for a distance of
about three feet, showed brown and yellow lines of stratification.
Its appearance indicated that water had laid it in place, a prob-
ability increased by the study of

Layer 5.—T his vas a waving stratified band of ash-colored
earth (see Fig. 48), from three to four inches thick, that extended
nearly the whole length of the exposure, (lying away at four and
a half feet from the east end. At the west end it kept its level
among the stalagmites. Stratified, pure, and of like quality
throughout, it seemed unreasonable to suppose that wind had
found enough dry dust in the damp chamber to do the.w_0rk, or
that a film of the sort should have fallen from the ceiling. At a
distance of ten feet from its west end a stalagmitie knob project—
ing through it showed that the layer had been deposited after the
knob had formed, for the latter showed the flinty texture and
smooth sides mentioned above that infer formation in the open
air. Had drip-water trickling through the earth formed the
stalagmitc underground, Layer 5 would not have rested clean and
pure against its sides, but must have showed a ragged edge,
caused by the uneven aking of the carbonates. It (lid not do
so, and the inference was that Layers (S and 5 had been deposited
by a natural agency, probably water, after the cave had begun to
form stalagmites.

Layer 4 was a band of light buff and brown cave ‘arth with-
out human sign, and nine inches thick at the ends.

The study of these facts, occupying a long time, had reason—
ably satisfied us that we had reached the limit of human inter-
ference in the eve. The lower three layers (6, 5, and 4) were
without t‘aee of man’s presence, and to suppose that any such
trace lay buried somewhere below us and under the rock—ledge
seemed highly improbable. Whether the ledge underfoot was a
large fallen mass or the true floor, vatcr had flooded it, water
deep enough to deposit the earth layers and destroy life in the
‘ave. Had so large a block fallen from the roof, moreover, the
probability was that its downfall preceded the downfall of the
surface masses that had once closed the skylight. Before it could
have reached its position in such case the cave, if it had any eu-

LOT/FUN, THE ROCK or FLOWERS 115

trance at all, must have been dark. We made no further effort to
prove that the floor was solid. Without being able to demonstrate
that it was, the main point involved seemed established. There
was no ground for supposing that there were lnunan remains any-
where in the cave older or deeper than those found. Many bare
places on the floor must have been bare long enough to have felt
the footsteps of the first comer, whoever he was, and somewhere or
other a mixing of old relics with new would have betrayed the
past presence of an earlier stage of culture, had it existed ; but
our trenches dug one after the other to the gunpowder limit, our
surface searchings in this as in all other caves had revealed the
same facts. Yucatan had seen the builders of the ruins, and
them only.

Having learned what we might of Layers 6, 5, and 4, where
lnunan tokens were wanting, we next turned to Layers 3, 2, and
1, next above, comprising the zone abundantly affected by man’ s
presence, and where other questions remained to be asked and
answered. One of these was the question of age. This zone of
human interference, here subdivided into Layers 1, 2, and 3,
included the only ancient culturelayer found in Loltnn. How
old was it ‘? Judged by the age test of animal bones scratched
out of its bedded rubbish, no great antiquity could be inferred
for its hearths. Again, the fire-builders appeared to have been
for the most part maize—eating vegetarians, and in Layer 3
seemed to have cooked and eaten the deer (humerus and several
f‘agmcnts), several lizards (Iguanidze, skull, humerus, pelvis,
metapodial bones, and several f 'agments of tibia), the rabbit, and
a carnivore (humerus). But these exceedingly rare bones of still
existing species failed to set the mark of geological remoteness
upon the deposit. If the fossils of an earlier time existed in
the cave, we did not find them in or below the hearths, where
their presence would have been of the highest significance, and
the results of our work at Loltun, when compared with those
accomplished elsewhere, impressed upon us an important fact,—
we had dug into no fossil bed anywhere.

Xot to speak of the monsters of Tertiary age whose remains,
strange to say, no explorer has yet professed to discover in a cave,
where were the skeletons of the sloths, the elephants, the horses,
the bears, that are known to have roamed both continents in

116 THE HILL-mvns OF YUCA'J‘AN

Pleistocene times? \Vith a clearness that could not be mistaken
the cavern at Port Kennedy, in Pennsylvania, had marked the
epoch of these creatures. The rock shelters of France are bedded
thick with remains of their contemporaries in Europe. Where
were their bones in the caves of Yucatan ‘3 Did the absence of
such fossils underground show that the now waterless region was
unfit for the existence of larger mammals in past time, or that
the cave entrances were inaccessible or closed to them when they
were there? Had they been present in the Peninsula, together
with carnivorous animals, the latter might have been expected to
have carried portions of their carcasses into subterranean shelters,
but with one possible exception we found no cave that in Europe
or the United States could have been called an animal den,~ The
traces of the rcpasts of carnivores were always slight and always
modern. Each of these considerations may help to explain the
absence at the spots studied of conspicuous deposits of bones,
transported by non-human agencies, but it should be borne in mind
in the examination of spacious caverns that the particular spot
haunted by animals need not coincide with that visited by men.

We saw many places in the caves where animal remains would
have been more likely to accumulate than at the level open points
chosen by us for digging. Then a 110\ r kind of excavation would
have been needed to disclose what lay underground in dark and
secluded corners, under the shelter of downfallen rocks, where
beasts of prey would have dragged their quarry, or in deep-
.buriedcavities at the lowest level, where freshets might have
deposited the bones in stratified layers, as at Port Kennedy.

A surprise was in store for 11s on our final examination of
Layer 3, when we found the metapodial bone of a man mixed
with the ashes and potsherds. The solitary bone separated from
its fellows, surrounded by signs of cookery, seemed to indicate
that the fire-builders had once at least feasted on human flesh. It
was difficult to reach any other conclusion. Putrefying corpses,
lying 011 the surface, would have tainted the air of the cave.
Human burial would have been objectionable so near the source
of water—supply, and as there was no sign of rodent gnawing on
the bone, and no reason to suppose that a carnivorous animal had
brought it to the middle of a hearth site, the inference was that
the hearth-builders had either roasted, cooked, and eaten human

LOLTUN, THE ROCK OF FLOWERS 117

flesh, or had inconsiderately destroyed with fire the corpse of a
fellow-man left by accident or design in the cave.

One important question remained, What were we to infer from
the subdivisions of the hearth rubbish? When closely examined
did the whole deposit show characters rude below and improved
above, marking the progress of a people who had remained a long
time in the region, developing by degrees from a lower to a higher
state of culture, or, finding no true difference as we examined
the deposit from bottom to top, were we to infer that the first
comers had arrived in Yucatan after developing their arts else-
where? To answer, if possible, these questions we began cutting
down, as at Oxkintok, a fresh section, two feet eight inches to
two feet wide, along the whole north side of the trench. Going
down layer by layer with the trowel, we cleared off each subdi-
vision and scraped clean its bottom before examining the one next
below. The top section,

Layer 1, little more than a film of ashes and charcoal, some-
times one inch thick, sometimes searcely Visible (see Fig. 48), was
first scraped away. At its east end, where the ashes were thickest,
I found no potsherds, but at other points pieces of polished red
and polished black ware and coarse brown, unpolished fragments.
We had picked up a draughtsman’ s compass on the neighboring
surface of Trench 1, and no doubt other objects denoting white
contact were to be found in the layer, though we failed to dis—
cover them in the area worked over. \Vhat we (lid find should
be taken to stand for the modern period in Yucatan, reaching
backward from the present, possibly as far as the time of Spanish
conquest.

Layer 9 (see Fig. 48) was a very remarkable deposit of small
loose stones about eleven inches thick, running from one end of
the trench to the other. The charcoal and ashes of the surface
layer had discolored it on top, filtering through the stones, and
at one place penetrating it almost to the bottom. There were
no stratified ash—bands in it, but fairly in the stones we found
polished brown and black sherds, coarse, incised pieces, and heavy
fragments with ponderous rims. As a large deep refuse layer lay
under it, the wonder was how it came there. It was hard to
imagine a flood washing down the stones so late in the 'ave’s
history, and, had this happened, a pure layer of ashes lying next

118 THE HILL-OAVES or YUCATAN

below should have been churned into the crevices of the layer,
which was not the tase. The stalaetites on the ceiling prevented
the supposition that the rounded fragments, aftei falling” incessantly
from the roof to1 a certain period, had suddenly stopped, and,
unless we inferred that the builders of the hearths below had
carried the stones where they were, and spread them out to conceal
the then-exposed hearths, their presence remained a mystery. At
either end of the trench we found a descending animal burrow,
down which stones had faulted into the deposit below, and this
brought us to

Layer 5’, one foot eleven inches to two feet ten inches thick,
and capped with a solid white bed of pure ashes.

\Ve soon found that Layer 3 had been much disturbed, and
notably by the burrowing of animals. \Vorking down into it by
degrees, and paying particular attention to the parts not faulted
by the burrows, we found a point near its west end where the
ash—bands ran uninterruptedly from bottom to top. This we
chose as the place best adapted for the study of the true charac—
ter of the whole layer, which was here two feet four inches thick.
The ash st1ipes could be counted one below the othe1 from the
top to the bottom, and we worked through these bands inch by
inch, to find that the potsherds, which were abundant and large in
the upper stripes, became very scarce and small in the lower ones.
With very great difficulty I found a minute black polished frag-
ment and three or four unpolished pieces at a distance of about
three inches above the bottom ; but in the bands below this, after
long and tedious search, I could find no pottery at all. The
search, repeated at other points along the face of the trench,
where belts of ash-bands, undisturbed by burrows, were exposed,
had the same results. A few small bone fragments lay beneath
the range of potsherds discovered, but that was all.l

 

1 It might be generally said as to the whole culture deposit comprised by
Layers 1, 2, and 8, that a large-rinnned, hard-baked grade of pottery charac—
terized the stone bed of Layer 2, and that the finest and best decorated ware
was found about the middle and top of Layer 3, while in Layer 1 the quality
seemed to have degenerated. We made no further attempt at subdivision.
Again we were struck by the rarity of arrow-heads, flint chips, animal bones,
and chipped knives. Pottery out of proportion to everything else and
far more abundant than in the caves of the United States was, as usual, the
chief culture test.

FIG. 40.

 

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FROM LoLTL’N.——Earthen-ware and other objects from the human refuse deposit on the
cave floor. Specimens studied in comparing the upper and lower portion of the depmit.
Earthen-ware becomes rare at the bottom, but is sometimes polished, and marks no earlier
stage of human development.

 

LOLTUN, THE Rock or FLOWERS 119

The bottom of' Layer 3 marked, as before mentioned, the
bottom line of human interference in the ‘ave earth. Taking
the whole culture—layer into mnsideration, its contents, on com-
parison with objects found at the ruins, indicated the handiwork
of one and the same people. Neither here no ' anywhere else had
we found tokens of' a tribe or race of cave—dwellers. As in other

Fm. 50.

 

 

(‘avern of Loltun (Flower Rock). Showing,r rays of afternoon sun entering the great
rotunda by its skylight, and the earth excavated at the site of our Trench 2.

cases, the fire—builde ‘ appeared to have been a Visitor. His visits
may have lengthened into longer haltings as time went on. He
may have waited 011 occasions for religitms purposes, or to cook
food, but his main object was to get water and go away. When
all was summed up, the study of the trench indicated once more
that the first comers to the cave were pioneer bands of Mayas.
Discovering the cave in their search for water, they had built
fires upon the floor. If as forerunners they were but scantily
supplied with pottery, it is easy to understand why the potsherds,
“are and absent in the lowest hearths, became abundant above.

120 THE HILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

When found, the make and texture of the lowest sherds equalled
that of the specimens higher up in the layer, and there was
nothing in the bones found or in the position or contents of any
of the hearths to suggest that the first visitors were a different
people from the builders of the ruins.

The results obtained at the two trenches were identical, but
there was still a third excavation to be considered. This was the
trench before mentioned previously dug along the whole southeast
wall of the rotunda, and exposing a belt of hearth rubbish for
its full length. We cleaned off its side with trowels and re-
excavated a small pit, five feet long and three feet three inches
wide, dug against its face for the probable purpose of ascertain-
ing the depth of the cave earth. This brought us to alevel rock
floor at a depth of seven feet eight inches, when again we saw
before us (as described in foot-note) 1 the full depth of the culture

 

1 This trench, as remarked before, sixty—six feet long, eighteen and a half feet
wide, and two feet deep, was dug, as I afterwards heard, by Mr. Thompson,
United States Consul at Merida, in behalf of the Peabody Museum at Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts. What the ‘purpose of its excavation was I have been
unable to learn. It did not, however, reach the inner wall of the cave.
Many of the objects obtained from it are now on exhibition in the museum,
but I have not been permitted to use d ‘awings of any of them. For twenty-
two feet we pared off the exposure carefully and studied it minutely, leaving
the identification of the animal remains to Professor Cope. (See Fig. 51.)
Below three feet six inches, at the deepest, there was no sign of humanity,
and the evidence of the other trenches was repeated as we worked slowly
through the red and brown cave earth that continued downward theneeforth
until rock was r *ached at seven feet eight inches. The whole deposit was
irregular and disturbed, and, while three feet six inches thick in the middle,
tapered to two feet six and one foot three inches at the east end. It seemed
likely from this thickness in the middle either that a hole two or three feet
deep and eleven feet ten inches long had been dug by the ancient cave
visitor towards the middle of the exposure, or else that a hollow of that size
previously existing had been filled in by the refuse of fires. The layer was
too much disturbed to permit a significant classification of the objects found
from their depths. There were several animal burrows, in which objects
had been conveyed above or below their original point of deposition. One
hole was open, but the others were full of dislocated debris, which was
theretbre ruled out of consideration. At one point on the left there had
been a considerable down—faulting of the whole mass, and for these reasons
the minute distinctions between the upper, middle, and lower zones of ash—
films made in the other trenches were not attempted here. But there was
nothing in the whole deposit to contradict the other evidence. The layer

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122 THE lIlLL-(‘AVES or YU(‘A'I‘A1\'

layer, and again examined carefully with the trowel the undis-
turbed cave earth that. extended from its lowest limit to the rock

represented one stage of culture and one only. The subdivisions, studied with
the trowel by scratching horizontally into the side of the exposure, were as
tollows (see Fig. 51):

Lay/(tr 1 (three to eight inches), a mouse-Colored film ot'surf'aee earth, thicker
towards the middle than at the east end, containingr nuts, bits of wood, lime—
stone residuum, and decomposed vegetable matter, with polished red, painted
brown and coarse, incised potsherds.

FIG. .32.

 

 

Cavern of Loltun. Exposure of old refuse layers on south face of trench (Trench 3') pre—
viously eut along the south wall of the great rotunda. The bank has been freshly scraped
with the trowel. The white bag marks, the bottom limit of human disturbance.

Log/er 2 (one to one and a halt' inches) x'as a band of clear white ashes
extending along the Whole deposit. It contained plenty of coarse, incised, and
red and brown polished sherds.

Lug/er .3 (one foot to one foot three inches), next below, was a bed of soft,
very black eare loam striped near the middle by thin ash—bands. I scratched
out of it with the trowel an animal bone, a tooth, and many potsherds. These
were unpolished and decorated with incised lines, polished black, polished red and
yellow. The black specimens held their polish best. The others seemed to

3

LOLTUN, THE ROCK or FLOWERS 123

below. One after another all the conditions of the other trenches
were repeated to our satisfaction.

 

have been dulled as if by the action of acids. At the west end of the exposure
the whole band had faulted down into the layer below.

Layer 4 (four inches to one foot) consisted of comparatively hard red and
brown cave earth. I scratched out of it the bones of a (leer, frog, tortoise, and
mouse, the claw of a bird, with the lower end of the tibia of a rodent, and the
lower jaw of a long-tailed but, a piece of chipped flint, and a small, broken
earthen vessel shaped like the bowl of a pipe. Potsherds were as plenty as
ever; the colors looked dull, but the red polish was distinguishable. Just
below this, but only for a horizontal distance of four feet ten inches, lay

Layer 5 (one and a half to two inches), an undisturbed ash—band, with pot-
sherds. Regarding it as a layer in itself, though it only extended-a short dis-
tance along the exposure, the objects found in it, the fragment of the shell of
a box-tortoise, a small tube of stone or earthen-ware, red polished and painted
shcrds, were separately labelled.

Layer 6' (nine to eleven inches thick) was a bed of charcoal, ashes, and lime-
stone splinters, much disturbed and without stratified bands waving downward
irregularly into the large hollow above mentioned in the middle of the ex-
posure. I dug out of it the upper premolar of a deer, a snail-shell, and the
bones of a small carnivore and lizard (Iguanidae), a small perforated object
resembling the stem of a pipe, and several fine and well-made potsherds, among
them a few positively polished. Like all the others they had a dull look, and
may have been corroded with wet ashes. We had now. reached the bottom
line of human disturbance and worked down into the pure red earth below
with the greatest care. Next came

Layer 7 (two feet ten inches thick in the middle), of red and yellow cave
earth. The light fell clear upon it. While going over it closely with the
trowel I failed to find any sign of human interference. On the east the layer
was decidedly red, but the red stripe tapered out towards the middle in a band
one foot thick. Across the bottom it turned yellowish-brown. Elsewhere it
was yellow. On the west and in the middle I found a hard, blackish streak,
which at first looked like a hearth, but the trowel point showed it to be a film
of stalagmitic crust. Seven animal burrows ran into Layer 7, one near the
middle, two inches in diameter, one to the west, two feet eight inches above its
bottom and three inches in diameter. The second was open, but the first was
full of black, dislocated cave earth. Four more in a close row and full of
black earth penetrated the face of the layer at the extreme east end of the
exposure, and another discolored it at the extreme west, on the upper corner.
We had learned much from these holes and were now prepared to make every
allowance for them. The tunnelling animal, Whatever it was, had accomplished
much to defeat the purpose of the cave explorer. Old galleries had been filled
up with the transported contents of new ones, and may have been reopened to
redistribute the mass that blocked them. Some holes seemed to have been
enlarged to serve as dumping-places, and when their roofs caved in disturbances
on a larger scale had been caused. The clean-cut holes were soon seen, but
these faulted areas were more deceptive. Only one test for the depth of an

194 THE HILL-CAVES or YUCATAN

a

At last we had evidence clear and full to verify the work done
at Oxkintok. What we now knew none of the other caves con-
tradicted, and there was little room left for doubt. A people
generally identical with the builders of the ruins had come to the
cave. Reaching the region in geologically modern times, and
always associated with still existing animals, they had not devel-
oped their culture there, but had brought it with them. No
human visitor had preceded them.

Our work at Loltun was over. As if at the end of a struggle
the cavern had yielded its evidence. \Vhen for the first time Our
anxious feelings turned away from toil, the thought of leaving
the place came with regret. For eight days the majestic gran—
deur of the room in which we stood had worked unconsciously
upon our minds. Now it held as hesitating a long time to take
a last look. The key to a great secret of Yucatan was there, and
we had found it. Elsewhere we had been mocked and baffled

object remained certain, and that was the clearly marked parallelism of the
ash-bands. Where this was unbroken we could get the true relation of Objects
from top to bottom. Below Layer 7 rested

Layer 8 (one and a half to three inches thick), running entirely across the
face of the small deeper trench, and suggesting the action of water. Black
on the west and brown and white on the east, it was harder than the surround-
ing earth, and seemed to have been soaked solid by stalagmitic drip. It
showed no human trace.

Layer .9 (one foot two to one foot four inches) was a bed of pure, dark—brown
earth, turning yellow at the west and showing two animal burrows, the lowest
only three inches above the rock floor and full of discolored soil. In the un-
disturbed layer I found several small incisor teeth of a rodent. Below Layer
9 and resting on the solid rock was

Lag/er 10 (one to two inches thick): a thin film of earth, light yellow and
hardened by stalagmitic drip on the west, red and soft in the middle, and soft,
red, and yellow on the east, rested on the solid ledge. Again we had reached
a platform of rock. Again we had failed to find the slightest trace of humanity
in the subdivisions of pure earth that lay below the now familiar culture-layer.
The small pit cleaned out by us to study these lower bands had tapered down
to one foot three inches square at bottom. The area of level rock exposed
underfoot was small, and, though there was nothing in the red earths resting
upon it, save the waving film of Layer 8, to prove positively the action of
water, the lower bands were generally identical in texture with those covering
the rock in the other trenches. All things considered, it seemed reasonable
to suppose that here, at a distance of about two hundred feet from the other
excavations, we had encountered the same underlying ledge which we had met
before. The results of examination at all three points were corroborative. A
small rodent must have been in the cave before the flooding of its floor.

l.()l.’l‘l'.\'. THE ROCK ()14‘ l4‘l.(’)\\'l‘)l\’h‘ 125

in the sulfier'anean twilight, but at Iioltun the forces that
wrought the eave and buried its evidenee had tr 9atetl us kindly.
The shapes of stone seemed to have turned into masks waning
gentle smiles. Birds flew around the dome, twittering a eon-
\'ersation long familiar to our *ars. ,l‘“ag"ant d‘aug‘hts of air
eame down the skylight. Never had the leaves moved with

Fm. 3:3.

 

Entranee to the ('avern of Loltun. ielieved to contain traees of the first men who ('ame
to northern Yueatan and of those who have sinee inhabited the Peninsula. The, ladder
made by modern Indians, who daily Visit the (are to get water, is formed of saplings cut
with steel hemp-knives, and tied together with twigs. The steps above are cut in the solid
roek. Roots of the alamo-tree are seen on the left.

rustlings so alluring. 3111; a well—remembere(l slanting ‘ay,
(-reeping high on the rock vall, announced evenilw, and hoping

(H
to reach home before dark we turned away for the last time.

/

CHAPTER XIII.
CAVES NEAR ()XKU'J‘ZCAB.

THERE was nothing more to keep us at Tabi and much to
hurry us away. Those of the party who had succumbed to the
sun at Kabah could not yet bear the mid-day heat. To escape it
our new plan had been to reach the underground shade about day-
break and leave it it at dusk, but we could not hope-t6 accom—
plish this always. The rainy season was coming on, and we
feared a break-down at any moment. If we were to get over the
ground ahead there was little time to lose.

One of the stones in a. gate—post at the hacienda had been taken
from the neighboring ruins at Labna. As it was covered with
heiroglyphs, Senor Duarte had kindly caused it to be removed
from the wall to be copied, and while Mr. Corwith was occupied
at the cisterns of Chumul near by (described in Chapter VIII.),
our last work at Tabi was to take an impression in wet manilla
paper of the stone. Then, warned by our experience at Kabah
and jealous of every moment, we decided to leave Labna unvisited.
The bags stuffed with earthen-ware from Loltun, and the broken
'ases from Chumul wrapped in sheets of tissue—paper, were hastily
packed in boxes bedded with newspapers and dry cane—leaves,
and when, as usual, everything was strapped, and piled into two
*arts and a colon, we said good—by to our kind host, Senor
Duarte, and turned eastward over one of the rockiest roads that
we had yet seen, to the small Village of Oxkutzcab.

It was twilight when we drew up at a lamp-lit fiend“. looking
out upon a common, where a large siebo—tree stood near some
ruined arches. A line of low buildings seemed to fade away into
the open fields, and we saw the shadow of a church in the dis—
tance. The place was deserted. We heard no splash of water,
and missed the accustomed groups of white figures with earthen
jars. The owner of the ticnda, to whom we handed our letter

of introduction from Sefior Duarte, came out upon the square and
1'26

(xxvlcs NM 1: oxu’r'rzmn 127

eonsulted a group of men in straw hats and sandals, but when
asked about lodgings for our party, they shook their 11 \ads. At
last one of them led 11s along a pavement lit 1); a hanging lan—
tern, stopping often to state, our needs to groups of townspeople,
but it was in vain. 'J‘urning haek then, we hunted on, to halt
at last hefor‘ a high, weatl1er-heaten door, where, after pounding
for some time, the owner, roused from his sleep, looked out of a
grated window, and, when the question was repeated, opened the
door. Entering, we made the most of his ofi'er of two small,

FIG. 54.

 

(mr quarters at kantzeah.

hare rooms, hot, full of dust, and opening on the street, and by
the time we had prevailed upon an old Woman and her daughter
next door to cook us supper the baggage—earts had eome in.
Then we threw the flax mattresses on the floor and tied the
hammoeks to the wooden wall—pegs with whieh every room in
Yueatan is provided.

A stony enelosure, shaded with palms and surrounded l)_,' a
loose val], ran liaekward from the house, wher: a pig, tied to
a tree, wallowed in the dust. An open stone ve'anda, overrun

128 THE HILL-(nwns or YUCA’I‘AN

with dogs and chickens, would do, as Robert Anderson explained,
for a dining-room; and Frank Hauser, who had learned how
to cook over the camp-fire on an earlier expedition in Virginia,
built, with the help of our Indian boy, Pastor Leal, a stone oven
of approved Kanawha pattern close to the rear wall of the house
and under the trees. There was a deep well conveniently near,
whose milky water, drawn up in a leather bucket, we took care
to boil before using. These were our quarters at Oxkutzcab,
close and uncomfortable as might be when compared with our
lodgings at the haciendas, but immeasurably preferable to a camp
in tents in the open forest.

The engineer at Yokat had described the neighboring region
as full of caves, and the accounts of our landlord and his‘friends
soon satisfied us that we had not gone wrong. Some-of the
underground galleries were close to the town, and Mani, with its
celebrated cave-well, was only two leagues away; but it took
many long and toilsome walks to show us that few were so wet
or dry, so large or light, as to warrant our waiting to explore
them. We knew too much, however, to be seriously disappointed.

An old chapel known as l’Ermita looked eastward from the
hill behind the Village. Near it, by the steep roadside, a small
rift entered a fissure known as ACTUN SITZ.1 Accompanied by
two citizens of Oxkutzeab and a band of boys, we clambered
down the hole on Sunday afternoon, March 10, 1895. The
entrance, fifteen feet long by six feet wide, opened into a large,
rock-floored chamber, from which a passage led steeply down-
ward. The deeper we went the hotter grew the air. Even the
natives yielded to an unaccustomed outburst of perspiration as we
slid over the steep rocks, stopping often and stooping to hold
the candles low and look at small hollows where charcoal and
potsherds had lodged; but the whole topography of the place
excluded the notion of primitive habitation, and seventy feet
brought us to a pool of lukewarm water, the only object of search
that it seemed would have induced a native people to enter the
dark, wet, hot cave. Indians doubtless still used the natural
well, as their ancestors must have done before them. Probably it

 

1 Site is the name of a plant with a white flower, as the Bishop of Yucatan
informed me, used by the Indians for perfuming a maize drink called Posole.

caves NEAR OXKUTZCAB 129

had been discovered and utilized as early as the drip-pools in
any of the caverns we had seen, but there was no proving the
fact. There was no part of the cave light enough or dry enough
to have encouraged the haltings of men who came to get water

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and went away, and, had we wanted to dig, there were no earth
floors. No less unavailable for our purpose was

ACTUN TZU—ZUI (Cave of Pigeons), found after a break-neck
elamber around the chapel of l’Ermita, and down a hill-side so
steep that the fissure entering its side had the familiar appearance
of the usual cave-entrances in other countries. The whole floor
was covered with masses of rock, and sloped downward into the
dark, where we heard the sound of dropping water, and saw
several of the well—known hunters’ blinds, built of loose stones.
In the crevices between the rocks, where dust had collected, I
saw fragments of pottery, and a broken stone water-dish lay in
the thicket, about two hundred feet outside the entrance, but
there was no level reach of earth floor that could have contained
culture-layers. No digging could have instructed us anywhere.
We crawled down into the lower part of the fissure, where an
inreaching passage seemed to have been choked by débris, and
then, failing to find any more water—dishes, left the cave.

130 THE HILL-CAVES on YU(‘.\TAN

To return to Oxkutzcab, we climbed down the hill-side without
trying to find the path, and, leaving the thicket, crossed a shaky
wall of loose stones, like a New England farm fence. Then
turning the wrong way across a patch of high grass and thorns,
we reached at last a stony lane, and followed it till the way grew
dark in the shadow of high trees. The air was full of the smell
of fragrant smoke as we approached the village. Many of the
palm-thatched cabins were dark, and we saw only the square black
door—hole, the outline of a hammock, and daylight- beyond. At
some, fires shone through open walls of wicker, and where one of
these lights gleamcd we saw for a moment a level of earth floor,
the black outline of a kettle, and a child’ s figure against the glow.
A solitary mule looked over one of the rude stone fences, and
we passed a group of women at a gate, talking in a low tone.
Now and then I heard the sound of whistlcd tunes, but there
was no singing, no echo of musical instruments. Supper—time
came quietly, without busy din or noise of voices among these
attractive people, who went to bed early and rose before the first
crack of dawn. Their time to make night merry came at bull-
fights, or when, in a manner strangely resembling the custom of
the wake in Ireland, they drowned grief at the death-vigils called
“ baloria.”

To get to ACTUN COYOK, on Monday, March 11, 1895, we
climbed the hill west of Oxkutzeab by mule—path, and, crossing
a burnt clearing about two miles from the town, reached a sunken
area, the fallen roof of a low cave, one hundred and five feet in
diameter. Across this broad and gentle incline the entrance, fifty—
eight feet wide and ten feet high, was easily seen at a distance.
No trees obstructed it. The gray limestone dazzled in the sun,
and heavy stalagmites rose against the shadow, like the white
columns of a temple. There was a reach of red earth in the
low chamber inside, and, though one of our Indians assured us
that the 0; ve was \ 'aterless, we saw seven stone dishes. Plenty
of potshcrds lay about the floor and rooted in it, and, filling a
small skylight with its trunk, an «Irma—tree grew through the
roof into the outer air. Behind it, and near some animal blinds,
a level passage led backward between stalagmitic columns. \Ve
cut two trenches in the earth floor, but ledges of rock soon stopped
as in both.

on Ms, 1\' m1: ()XK trrzcutn 131

Trench 1, running inward and begun at flirty—one feet inside
the areh (five feet wide and seventeen and a half feet long), showed
a disturbed mass of potsherds, stones, charcoal, and ashes resting
on the hard limestone. The deposit exposed was hardly more

Flo. .313.

 

Aetun 1'4 .yok ((‘oyok‘s Fave), three miles west of (lxkutzeah, Yueatan, Showingr ’l‘reneh
1, duer to roek bottom on the eave llool‘, and exposingr the refuse layer of Maya oeeupation.
A stone water-dish lies on the lloor to the left. An akumstree rooted in the eave earth in
the haekground has reaeherl the outer air by growingr through a small skylight in the roof.

than a film of rubbish three inehes, six inches, one foot, and one
foot seven inehes thiek at (litterent parts of the trench. \Vhere
it was deepest the rock floor under it was seamed by a narrowing
fissure about nine inehes wide, whieh we did not attempt to el *an
out. Just above the fissure lay pieees of human tihia, fibula,
ulna, elaviele, inetapodials, and vertebra, with two fragments of
femur, split as if for marrow, and nearer the surfaee, in the upper
six inches, a shell of Cyelotus dysoni.

Trench )3, seventeen feet to the left of Treneh 1, as you enter,
seven feet long and tour feet six inehes wide, revealed the same

132 THE HILL~CAVES OF YUCATAN

band of rubbish, and again brought us suddenly to the hard ring-
ing rock at one foot.1

The stalactites looked as though they had long ceased forming,
but to account for the water-dishes the cave must have dripped

FIG. 57.

LAYER 0F REFUSE

(1 FT. 1 FT. 7 m. 6 ”4.3
BROWN CAVE 5mm \_’
on AND MEALY WITH 6
LIMESTONE MAssEs '

   
  
 
 

AND POTSHERDS
NO ASH BANDS \ l

ON SURFACE NUTS, \ _, , ~ h,

ANIMAL DUNG, POTSHERDSN ‘* ‘j\‘%“‘l\ « x l .

goTsuchIswns MADE\ ‘ \\ \\ \\
U

H__—|._J—d.__l
0%1 2 3 -1 5Ft.

Old refuse layer, proving the visits of man to Actun Coyok (Coyok’s Cave), three miles
west of Oxkutzcab, Yucatan. Explored March, 189:3.

Face of Trench 1. A ledge of rock was reached at one foot, one foot seven inches, six
inches, three inches, and one foot. No subdivisions could be made out in the'deposit. No
intermingling of human relics near the bottom altered the appearance of the deposit from
that of the other caves examined, or suggested the presence of an earlier race. Human
bones found in lower six inches of first foot. Shell of Cyclotus dysoni (upper six inches of
first foot).

not many centuries ago. Dry as it now was, the burning of of
the woods above promised to make it dryer. Even without water
it was a delightful resting-place. The air blew cool from the

 

1 Trench I, first foot, first six inches, showed on the surface loose cave earth,
fragments of nuts and wood, and a helix-shell, with the dung of animals and
potsherds. These were black and red polished, ornamented with incisions,
coarse, with heavy rims, and white, with black-painted stripes. In the first
foot, second sin; inches, the brown cave earth was very dry and mealy, and made
a dust in digging. Continued effort with the piekaxe was needed to work out
fragments of limestone bedded in it. The potsherds continued. Large frag-
ments of rude, incised ware grew commoner. In this trench, as in most others,
save in the special examinations of layers at Oxkintok and Loltun and after-
wards at Sabaka, we did not save all the potsherds found, but, as a rule, about
two-thirds of them,——enough, it seemed, to give a fair idea of the relative pro-
portions of the varying wares.

Secondfoot,first six inches. The bare rock had closed around us, leaving
only a small pocket of rubbish to work in. After finding the human bones
above mentioned in this and in the six inches just above it, we followed it
downward, stopping at last when the crevice had narrowed to about nine inches
in width.

Trench 9 showed in the first foot a loose, brown cave earth, marked on the
surface with small animal tracks and strewn, as at Trench l, with bits of wood,
dung, little stones, and nutshells. Potsherds, polished and unpolished, were
not very plenty in the shallow deposit. We found an unpitted hammer-stone,
probably a hard limestone nodule, showing signs of use. No ash-bands were
observed.

CAVES NEAR OXKUTZCAB 133

inner shadow, and the profiles of the stalaetites were as beautiful
as ever. Small green stalks, marking the innermost growth
limit of transported seeds, caught the light- on the floor as they
bent their pale heads toward the day. Swallows flew among the

FIG. 58.

 

 

 

 

 

From Actun Coyok. I’otsherds and human bones, some of the latter cracked as if to get
the marrow, found scattered together in the ashes and charcoal of the cave hearth (in the
first foot of Trench 1), suggesting a cannibal feast at the spot.

Potsherds of types familiar at other caves, coarse, with scratched decorations, and dull
white, painted with dark stripes.
roots and vines that hung from the arch, and young banana—leaves
moved like fans in the gentle air. It was disappointing to miss
the clear evidence of stratified ash—bands in caves like these, but
they had their significance. Because no discrimination could be

made between any of the objects found, because everything was

134 THE HILL-CAVES 0F YUCATAN

mixed and disturbed in the thin films that lay upon the rock, it
could not be inferred that the whole range of ancient occupancy
was not there represented. The mixture would have shown signs
of a foreign leaven if the handiwork of an earlier and quite dif-
ferent people—a race of hunters, let us suppose—had been one
of its ingredients, but no such ingredient was anywhere found.
Potsherds were the exponents of the deposits from top to bottom.

Visits to four neighboring caves, Chanz Coyok (Little Coyok),
Panto/c Intul,C/1um Yah (Zapote T runk), and flfulco, showed us
small, gloomy hollows, less adapted to investigation than the
places we had just visited.1

 

1 ACTUN CHAXZ COYOK (Little Coyok’s Cave) was a shallow shelter, about
one hundred yards from Coyok, revealed by the falling in of a circular area of

FIG. 59.

 

Aetun Chanz Coyok, in the hills one and a half miles west of Oxkutzcab, Yucatan. Ideal
longitudinal section. Pottery rare. No stone water-dishes. Several hunters’ blinds. No
water. Bottom at one and a half feet. March, 1895. Scale one inch to twenty-five feet.

roof about one hundred feet in longest diameter. In this sunken amphitheatre,
overgrown with long grass, flourished several trees and tall bushes. The
so—called cave extended but a few feet beyond the overhang of the crust, and
was not high enough to let us stand upright under its ceiling. A water-
tank, nine feet three inches long, six feet wide outside, made of stone and
mortar, and plastered inside and out, rested on the floor. This, one of the
Indians said, had been recently built and used for storing water. As there was
no d1ip falling into it, and as it and the entire loof were d1v,we inferied that
the cave must still furnish a good i atei- supply 111 the rainy season. If this
change from a dry into a wet cave happened yearlyy at Chanz Coyok, the pres-
ence of old water-dishes in many of the dry caves was explained. Here, how-
ever, though a few pieces of pottery lay about the floor, there were no water-
dishes. Mr. Darlington dug a small trench and reached rock bottom at a depth
of one and a half feet. N o pottery was found below the depth of one foot, and

CAVES NEAR OXKUTZCAB 135

But the small, dark den called ACTU‘S TIPLAMAS (Cave of
Crickets) added not a little to the evidence. Following a wood-
path for half a mile from Mulco, and crossing a burnt field, we
reached a rift, entered by a gentle grade. Two stone water-dishes
lay near the roots of a large tree, close to the entrance. Beyond
these a nest of wasps, hanging under the arch, resented our
approach, and I. found it easier to elamber through a small side
fissure and into a chamber about one hundred feet long, fifty-
eight feet wide, and five to eight feet. high. The place had a
strong smell of decayng vegetation, and the Indians, who had
declared it to be a den of tigers, entered cautiously. Inside,
to the left, where a wide passage led down into the darkness,

 

the inference was that the cave had not been used as a source of water—supply
by the old inhabitants.

ACTUX PANTAK 1N'rUL.—Mr. Darlington and the Indians reached Actun
Pantak Intul on March 11, 189-5, after half an hour’s walk along the mule-road
from Actun Coyok. A path led down the side of a large skylight choked with
trees and fallen masses of rock, descending which they crawled through a small
round opening in the lower corner of the sink, not more than two feet in diam-
eter. Following this passage for fifteen feet, and reaching a perpendicular well
five or six feet in diameter, they elambered down the sides of the hole for about
twenty feet, with lighted candles, carefully stepping into natural crevices, until
an enlarged chamber at the bottom was reached. From this a low passage led
them to a second small chamber, and there, against the wall, they found a
seemingly artificial mound of stones and earth, about four feet in longest diam-
eter, two feet high, and two feet wide. As they suspected that the mass
marked the site of a grave, they dug through it, reaching solid rock under and
behind it, to find nothing save a few potsherds mixed with the earth. A few
other fragments of earthen-ware were picked up on the floor, but they found no
water. Below the first opening another fissure led down into a third chamber,
but all of the chambers were pitch—dark, and none high enough to stand in,
while some of the passages were so low as to make crawling on the stomach
often necessary. These facts and the hard rock generally exposed on the floors
unfitted the place for the investigation of layers.

ACTUN CHUM YAII (Zapote Trunk), reached by Mr. Darlington from Pantak
Intul, was, like the latter, entered through a sunken area, about two hundred
feet in diameter and from ten to fifteen feet deep. Passing into a large, well-
lit shelter, the party crawled through narrow galleries and clambered down
well-like desccnts, to enter a series of chambers, none high enough to stand in.
In some of the remotest rooms they found pottery, and in one case a stone
water—dish, in the darkness. The earth floors of some of these small compart-
ments, not over a foot thick, were proved upon excavation to contain pottery,
but, as the passages trenched were pitch-dark and scarcely five feet high, the
cave floors did not seem adapted for the existence of significant layers. Cold

136 THE HILL-(nuns OF YUCATAN

several boys who had followed 11s went ahead with candles,
shouting and throwing stones. In a few seconds one of them
returned, bringing some of the bones ofa deer, and repeating the
word fig/'68. \Vhile their noise continued we stood awhile look-
ing at the black vault, half expecting to see the malevolent gleam.
of approaching eyes. Then, as the walls and floor grew lighter
to our eyes, we looked about 11s.
water still dripped from many of the stalaetites, which were as white and spark-
ling as those in the interior of Actun Spukil.

ACTUN MULco.——Few more delightful resting-places in the forest could be
imagined than the cosey shelter of Aetun )Iulco, reached, after following a

FIG. 60. __‘ F

 

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Aetun Muleo.

mule-path, four miles from Oxkutzcab. Again we looked down a symmetrical
sink about fifteen feet deep, encircled with a projecting rock cornice. Alamo-
and 7'((7)l0)2—t1‘00$, lifting their leafage from the hole, kept out the sun, but let
in the air. “'hen I had swung down on a rope, clutching the stalk of a
pes/zoy-tree, I found the floor covered with red mealy earth. Close by the
walls, as I walked around, I counted no less than six of the familiar hunters‘
blinds, but no passages led into inner underground chambers. I saw neither
stalaetites nor sign of drip, and could discover no stone water-dish. A few
scattered potsherds upon the surface showed that the place might have been
occasionally visited by man, but the signs did not warrant exploration, or
promise an extended age-test for the early settlement of Yucatan.

(‘AYIGS NBA R ox KL'TZCA'B 137

A few potsherds lay underfoot, but the stalactitcs were dry, and
I saw no water. Most of the floor opposed our search with solid
ledges and h xaps of fallen stones, save where a small ‘arth.' area
at the left end seemed to war ‘ant digging, and there (seven feet out
from the inner wall) we cut our trench, nine and a half feet long,
five feet four inches wide at one end and tapering to three feet four
inches at the other. \Vorking through a deposit of alternate
bands of dark earth and stones mixed with potsherds of the usual
kinds and a few animal bones, we reached, at a depth of five feet
nine inches, a shelf of rock. This was crossed by a fissure one
foot wide, whose bottom we (lid not reach. Nothing was found
to surprise us in the exca 'ation of the trench. The pottery was
of the usual types. Some of the bones, like one of a medium-
sizcd (leer, at a depth of one foot, may have been the leavings of
feasts of the fire-builders. Others may have been carried in by
animals whose footprints marked the patches of soft earth. N one
of the tracks, however, seemed large enough to warrant the asser-
tion of the Indians that the cave was a tiger’s den.

The trench when cleared out revealed the following series of
subdivisions (see Fig. 6]).

Luge/"1 (one foot in the middle, and nine inches on the left)
showed no ash—bands. Though I found potsherds upon its
surface I found none bedded in it. It seemed full of the shells
of small snails and decomposed vegetable matter, and was
marked by no distinct line of a surface, character :apping its top.
It evidently represented a process of carth—formatitm in the cave
that was still going on, and, if I am not mistaken, indicated
about the period that had elapsed since the place was continually
visited by man.

Layer .2 (six inches on the right, ten inches in the middle) \ 'as
a belt of decomposed limestone splinters and black earth, in
which I found potshcrds, coarse and fine, polished and unpol-
ished, decorated with incisions and plain, and with them a large
split bone, part of the skeleton of the deer above referred to.

Layer .3 (one foot four inches in the middle, one foot six inches
on the left) was a bed of soft black -ave earth, without stones,
but striped by an ash—band along the middle for about two feet.
I picked out potsherds as usual with the trowel.

Lug/er 4 (one foot ten inches on the right, two feet six inches

10

138 T111 HILL- CAVL s OF YUCATAN

in the middle, and one foot on the left), resting 011 the rock, was
a mass of limestone fragments and black earth banded in the
middle, near the bottom, for about three feet of its length, with a
film of breccia not very hard, and about six inches thick. Im-

FIG. 61.

LAVER I

   
  
 
  
  
  

v HANDS OR POTSHERDS

. LAVER 2.(e,7 .9. to IN.)
BLACK EARTH, LIME-
STONE FRAGMENTS AND

: POTSHERDS

AVER 3.0 r1, 4. I FT. 6)

- , SOFT BLACK CAVE EARTH,
on: ASH cAND,
POTSHERDS, no STONES

2 4 Ft.

01d refuse layersy provingr the visits of ‘ man to Actun Tiplamas (Cave of Crickets), in the
hills four miles northwest of Oxkutzcab, Yucatan.

Face of Trench 1, looking northeast, cut through the cave floor to apparent rock bottom
in March, 189:”). Layer 1, of undisturbed cave earth with out relics, indicates the lapse of time
since man stopped visiting,r the tave. The subdivisions show disturbance. Human remains
continue to the bottom. The deposit is homogeneous from the bottom up. No mixture of
relics indicating the presence of diverse races is seen. Bone of large deer found in first
foot.

mediately 111 this crust, and at a depth of four feet eight inches,
I found two potsherds, one of them polished, and, though these
earthen—ware fragments were more numerous towards the top of
Layer 4, I found one, with bits of charcoal, resting on the rock
bottom, just under the breccia. The depth, however, I did not
take for proof that the piece had been dropped there when the
rock was bare, since, as the breccia seemed to have been faulted
immediately above it, it may have slipped down in later time.
Layer 4 had brought 11s to the rock, and night was upon us
by the time this evidence had been collected. We had learned
nothing new. In spite of the small differences noted between the
products of the subdivisions examined, they showed no important
'ariance of race or culture in the periods they reflected. Once
again it remained to be asked whether we had reached the true

(:xmas NEAR OXKI'TZCAB 139

bottom of the cave. T he fissure encountered seemed to indicate
that we had not, and this doubt might have damaged the evidence
had not the results of the trench been accounted for by so much
other testimony. Without the use of gunpowder there was no
proof of the existence of another human layer below the limit of
our excavation. The caves of Europe had often shown the layer of
Pleistocene man at less depths than this, and we left Tiplamas,
unwilling under the circumstances to incur the expense and diffi-
culty of further work.

Thus far the caves about Oxkutzcab had all had the same
character.

Now we were about to turn to one of the underground pools
which, from its position in the once populous plain and known
association with the history of the Mayas, seemed to promise
unusual results. At the time when the first Spanish conquerors
under Montejo had established themselves precariously at Mcrida,
and when the fate of the older people of Yucatan depended 011
whether the Maya tribes would combine forces or not, Mani was
the city where a band of native chiefs decided upon the selfish
alliance with the in v'adcrs which overthrew their country. When
after the conquest and after the e 'angelization of Yucatan certain
of the Indians were suspected of having relapsed into the ancient
faith, Mani was one of the places where Bishop Landa made
himself notorious by making bonfires of all the ancient manu—
scripts that he eould lay hands on.1

The old city, 110w a third-rate town, lies near the mountains
on the plain, but it is in the line of a journey from the east to
Uxmal and Labna, and must have been important from the
time of the earliest immigrant because of the abundant water
which incoming people would have found in its emote or sub-
terranean basin. This was another of the peculiar caverns, like
that at Rancho Chack, which must have been visited in early
times more than other caves because they yielded more water, and
the only question was whether its passages would prove light,

1 Five thousand idols, thirteen altar-stones, twenty-two smaller altar-stones,
twenty—seven MSS. on deer-skin, one hundred and ninety-seven MSS. of
various kinds, were destroyed by Landa, besides numerous similar objects
burned at Mani.—Cogolludo, vol. v. 1, Appcn. Book 4, page 479, Canipcchc,
1842.

140 THE HILL-(‘AYJCS ()F YUMTAN

dry, and broad enough to have permitted the accumulation of
culture-layers.

As the country ran level from Oxkntzcab to Mani, we hoped
for a smooth road, but the two leagues jolted over were nearly as
rough as the dry bed of a torrent. Strange to say, the colan
went slowly,—so slowly that the Indians sent ahead when sighted
kept their distance by quick walking. At last the rocky track
caught the shade of palm— and orange-trees, and passed thatched
huts and fences of loose stone. Then came some low whitewashed
walls and colonnades, and we crossed an open common to draw
up at a stone gate, where inside an enclosure of masonry a stair-
case went down under a dark arch. \Vomen bearing red water-
jars stopped to look at us as we climbed out of theeoltjn, and,
unpacking the camera, descended the staircase. About one hun-
dred steps brought us to a shallow pool of clear, still water, lit
from above through an opening artificially made or enlarged,
down which hung a leathern water-bucket. When we reached
the basin we stepped across the ledge, and then crawling through
a narrow hole entered a larger passage. This again narrowing
passed for two hundred feet underground and reached at last

FIG. 0'2.

    

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(‘aba Chen, at Mani.

another shallow pool under a small natural skylight. How far
another larger passage to the right of the staircase led under-
ground the Indians did not know, but, impressed with the thought
of the geological change which could have once permitted flowing
water to form a cave on the present gradeless level, we followed
the gallery for some distance, listening to the assertion of the
Indians that it was six leagues long, while we remembered the

owns NEAR oxx U’I‘ZCA B 141

Maya legend related by Stephens that connected Mani with e11-
chanted passages underground, where an old woman, mother of
a dvarf, sits by a stream selling y'ater in exchange for children
to be devoured by a serpent.

Right and left potsherds snapped under our feet on the ledges,
and in crevices between loose rocks stretches of black earth had
been worn smooth by bare feet, but neither at these spots nor
along the staircase, where the cleanings of years had been brushed
to the right and left behind solid balustrades, were the deposits
deep enough for study. Had there been a large, level—floored,
skylit room near the water, we should have been obliged to
remain at Mani for some days, but no such chance for ex 'avation
existed anywhere.

M ueh of the surface pottery must have been modern. Modern
villagers used the well daily, and many of the earthen fragments
showed the Oriental form of the latter-day vases. This consid-
eration made us realize that some of the pottery found by 11s on
the surface of other caves was no less modern.

I heard at Calcehtok that the Mayas who fled from the haci—
cndas in 1847 and in the earlier revolutions had often taken
refuge in the mountain caverns, though without this infbrmation
we might have been certain that men escaping to the forest would
have gone underground for water. We had seen Indians carry—
ing earthen vases, calabashes, and tin canisters in and out of
Loltun, and who shall say when their grandfathers stopped
bringing jars of the old shape to this and other eaves, or when
exactly the art of making the finer polished wares was forgotten 1’
To realize continually that the subterranean chambers had been
used to get vater and not as habitations explained why all
culture—telling traces were rare in them except earthen—ware, and
why we did not find in them a more conspicuous range of metal
objects marking the time of white contact. Pottery remained
the chief test, while what we saw indicated that the mountain
Indians went on using caves in the old way, making stone dishes
and pottery, as their fathers had done in the sixteenth, seventeenth,
and eighteenth centuries.

CHAPTER XIV.
ACTUN SKOKIKAN (THE CAVE OF SERPENTS).

THE hotter it grew the more uncomfortable seemed our small,
close rooms at Oxkutzcab, and we l‘iastened our long walks, look-
ing forward to the day of departure. Canvas beds stretched on
wooden racks of the Merida pattern were probably unknown in
the town, and, as the universal' hammock was not to our taste,
Mr. Corwith and I had preferred hemp mattresses ingeniously
contrived by Robert Anderson, and spread upon the floor, until
one night a large black scorpion, which I mistook for a mouse,
ran across the pavement near my bed. Escaping our blows, it
darted into a hole in the plaster, and when it appeared again
later, and again escaped, the whole wall was found to be full of
small burrows. For that night at least, sleeping on the floor
seemed anything but advisable, and we lost no time in stopping
up every den opening with tissue paper.

We rose at sunrise and started early into the woods, while each
evening one of the citizens, who had found us our Indian work-
men and took much interest in the daily expeditions, came to our
quarters, bringing strangers who knew of fresh caves. Then,
note—book in hand, we asked the usual questions : How far is it?
Must you descend with a rope"? Is the entrance large or small ‘?
Is it light or dark ‘2 Has it an earth floor? Does it contain
\ 'ater 1’ 1

1 ACTUN KOTMUSIOS (Kotmufios’ Cave).—0ne of these reported caves, seen
by Mr. Corwith and Robert Anderson on March 1], lay beyond the hill west
of Oxkutzcab, and was entered by a downfallen area about sixty feet in diam-
eter, with an easy descent. The shelter reached about sixty feet under the
crust, but digging was impossible on account of loose stones and bare ledges.
To the left, on entering, a low passage, four feet high by eight to ten feet
wide, continued inward for about one hundred feet. The floor of this dark
tunnel showed soft, lnealy, cave earth, in which five or six potsherds were
found by candle-light.

Near Kotmufios Mr. Corwith saw two other caves with sheltered rotundas

142

ACTL’N SKOKIKAN, THE (WAVE or snRPENTs H3

Sometimes we heard of tigers’ dens like T iplamas, but the
accounts of Actun Skokikan (Cave of Serpents) outdid our well-
remembered stories of snake dens in the Southern Alleghenies.
No one had dared to enter Skokikan for several years. Those
who had ventured to look down into the chasm described a dark
area swaying like the surface of a stirred pudding. This was a
mass of intertwined snakes. Others had heard rustling noises
but had seen nothing, and sometimes snakes had been lured into
the light by the beating of drums. Eye—witnesses described im—
mense folds of serpents large as tree-trunks moving in the shadow.
Leaving the snakes out of the question, the description of the
~ave as a narrow rift descending almost perpendicularly nearly one
hundred feet, without water, light, or earth floor, decided against
it as a place fit for explo 'ation. Nevertheless it was found well
worth examination when Mr. Corwith, accompanied by Frank
Hause ‘ and two Indians, visited it after a walk of two leagues in
the mid-day sun. They had crossed the mountain and walked for
several hours through the close thicket, when to their surprise
they -ame suddenly upon a group of ruins. A crumbling wall
was surrounded by an enclosure sixty to seventy feet square, at
one end of which stood an oblong mound, and this they entered
by a low door, to find a well-preserved stone chamber, about
twelve feet long by six feet wide, with an earth floor. The In—
dians, who had said nothing of the ruins before, :alled the mound
Skokikan, and at length led on to the cave of evil repute, not one
hundred feet away. There a rift about twelve feet long by eight
feet high opened almost vertically in the level rock, and they went
to the edge and listened, but heard nothing. Looking down,
they saw a passage descending at a steep angle and faintly lit by
the slanting sun’s rays. As no snakes were to be seen, they
entered and stepped 'autiously downward, halting often to shout

 

about forty feet in diameter, from which trees grew, and where entrance was
possible only by means of a rope or one of the long roots.

CAVE NEAR AC’IUN SKOKIKAN.——About one hundred yards from Actun
Skokikan Mr. Corwith found another cave, reached by cutting a path
through the bushes, The cool and beautiful shelter, about fifty feet broad and
seven feet high at the entrance, penetrated under the side of the sink for about
thirty feet. In it there were several stalaetites but no water. Trenches might
have been dug in the earth floor, upon which lay potshcrds and bones. Many
game blinds were noticed, and the Indians said that the place was a tiger's den.

]JA 1.1111111 HILL-cn'rzs 011‘ Yl'm'rAN

and throw stones, until the ~andles gave out, when the Indians
went into the woods to return with torches ot twigs. I11 the light
of these they noticed potsherds on the steep slope 21s they descended,
though 21 faint ray of sunlight followed them down the rift
for a hundred feet at least to its bottom, and there thev halted
before a small opening between white stalactites. As they were
about. to c ’21wl in, 21 strong, sickening smell, which Mr. Corwith
compared to that of decay ed liquids shaken suddenly in an open
bottle, caused them to stop, but when they had passed the open-
ing it ceased. They had reached then a chamber about thirtv
feet in diameter, a11d,1rossin<,1 it carefully, with torches held at
arms length, were nearly sickened by the smell again at the
mouth of a low (,121ller1 leading into a second chamber. ,,I30aving
it behind them, 21s they cl a11 led on they met it still again in a
c‘amped hole which blocked their way at the end of the last
room. If it was the smell of snakes the reptiles must have
lurked in l) '2111ehing fissures, but no sign of them was seen or
heard, and no poisonous swarm cut ott their retreat while their
torches waned in the threatening darkness.

Returning to the open air, they wondered again at the lonely
ruins. \Vhat did they mean? How and when had the name
Skokikan (Place of Serpents) been applied to the wild solitude?
\Vas it a modern name or 2111 old inheritance, indicating that the
spot had been inhabited by snakes from remote times? His
Reverence the Bishop of Yucatan suggested to 11s later that the
neighborhood had been advisedly chosen bV the builders of the
mound and enclosure, and ex avations in the ruins might have
continued the supposition. Snakes caught alive and Ddrugged
with tobacco are known to have been used in the ancient ceremo-
nies of Cuculcan, and the mysterious and horrible cave, if i11—
habited by serpents, would have served the priests well as a
bapturing place for the reptiles.

After suppe‘ at Oxkutzcab 011 March 13, and without any
notice of the coming event, we saw a total eclipse of the moon.
Shot- guns went off all over the town, fired as we learned by
Indians to dri1e may the terrifying shadow, and when the.
phenomenon ended the noise stopped.

As far as 1111 could learn 1‘111111 experience and he arsav e1ery
Indian in the mountain country had an old—fashioned, muzzle-

ACTI'N SKOKIKAN, THE CAVE OF SERPENTS 145

loading, siugle-harl‘elled shot-gun. 'l‘hese metamorphosed muskcts
accompanied nearly all our *ave expeditions, pointing threaten—
ingly into the. faces of the party from the guide’s shoulders, though
the Indians’ hope of a chance shot at some bird or animal seemed
to have been rarely realized. Beyond flocks of quail and the
singing birds which thl'onged the woods at some places, we saw
little game. A very few surface reservoirs of putrefving \ 'atcr
remained in the mountains at that time of year (March), and
those who had seen them noticed that they were often sprinkled
with feathers. ()11 these the larger and more timid animals, like
deer, must have depended. Birds and smaller quadrupeds could
have found their way into ‘avcs, or drunk by night at the water—
tanks of the haciendas.

Stephens saw the bed of a dry pool at Telchaquillo, near
Mayapan, and visited pools in the 'ainy season near Uxmal, at
lturbide, at Macoba below Tekax, at Beeanehen, and at the
raneho of Jalal. The latter, when cleaned out, revealed ancient
cisterns built, under the level of its bottom, and another with
similar cisterns near lturbide was paved. The old floorings of
these mud—holes show that two of them, at least, went dry in the
dry season, while the two pools at Chiehenitza are surrounded by
sheer preeipices of rock, and, when all is summed up, it is hard
to see how large or clumsy quadrupeds survived the dry season
in the northern peninsula before the coming of man. The caves
must have been less accessible in geologically ancient times, and
it need not be surprising if no large fossil deposits are ever found
in them. Many ponderous mammals might well have avoided
the vaterless country north of Lake Chichankanab, so that we
may look there in rain for the remains of the elephants, horses,
mastodons, and sloths that roamed the American continent in
Pleistocene times.

C H A 1’ T E R X V.
THE LAST TRENCII A’l‘ sA BAKA.

POPULOUs, rich, lively T ekax was a great contrast to Oxkutz-
cab. For the first time in the expedition, after leaving Mcrida,
we stopped at a hotel, where boiled meats and vegetables, highly
seasoned with chi/c, a fine kind of macaroni, and piquant soups
daily disproved the statements of certain fellow-passengers on
the steamer, who told 11s not to expect a good dinner after leaving
the ship. The cocoa of the country was good, and the sodden,
doughy tortillas only needed blistering on the even, when they
swelled up like Saratoga potatoes. Once more we enjoyed the
comfort of beds of stretched canvas, and it was even possible to
buy ice, after we had half tbrgotten the meaning of the luxury.

The streets leading to the large square grew lively in the late
afternoon, when ~arriages rolled over the rough stones, and
Meztizas with embroidered dresses and young men in starehed
shirts and E111'()1)§2111 clothes began to show themselves. Late ' a
band played on the square, or we heard the sound of elarioncts
at Meztiza balls in the suburbs. At these dances the dark, hand-
some girl seemed to have lost something of her charm. Starch
and frills had marred the grace of her every—day dress, while
her blue seart' laid aside rev ‘aled coarse black hair tied in a
very projecting knot behind the head ; and when, by the rules of
the (lance, she put on a man’s hat, she became worse than com-
monplace. As at Opiehen the dances at Tekax were solemn, in
spite of the lively music. Solitary figures of both sexes shuffled
quietly backward and fin'ward, with arms hanging by their sides,
while their faces were a stolid expression. \Vhat the rules were
I did not learn; but how the stranger, even granting him a
knowledge of the Maya language, could have amused himself
with the fair sex it was hard to see. Meanwhile the kind hos-
pitality of the men outshone all comparison. They explained
everything, conducted us everywhere, and, in spite of protest,

146

THE LAST TRENCH AT SABAKA 1.4.7

paid for all refreshment; nevertheless nothing was said of the
ladies. The handsome Meztizas remained sitting alone, speaking
to each other in subdued tones.

This outer coldness of demeanor between the sexes, noticeable
at a ball, seemed fashionable everywhere in Yucatan, where we
rarely observed the Maya Indian speaking to a woman 011 the
street, and more rarely still walking with one, and where, to the
surprise of the stranger, the fair Meztiza passes to and from the
well unnoticed and unnotieing.

Behind'Tekax the hills looked at last like mountains. The
‘ange had broken into spurs, enclosing small valleys, and it was
by the most picturesque path yet trodden that our way led to the
celebrated Cavern of Sabaka (Coal—black Water), two leagues west

       
   
 

 
    

   

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of the town. The forest had become more open. Here and
there larger trees had leaves, and we escaped the sun in patches
of shade where the underbrush was thin. Twice we lost the
path at false turns, until, coming out of the woods, we looked
down over a valley where the sunbeams gleamed on a field of
young sugar—(sane. The panorama was strangely beautiful. Early
in the morning the distant region looked green and cool. From
the playing of cloud—shadows we imagined high groves, and brooks
and pastures, where there were none, or plantations such as you
see over the Vega at Granada, though there was only one white
wall in sight. But the trickery of the forest was betrayed when
the downward path showed us the true thicket again, parched
and shadeless as ever. Following the edge of a cleared field, we

148 'ruic 1111;1-(‘1y1cs or 1' L'eA'rAN

turned towards a hill-side, there to find at last the (llama—trees
that. shaded the opening sink ot’ Sabaka.

The entrance was so gentle that we hardly realized that we
were crossing a sunken area sixty-two feet broad on a downtallen
root: The real cavern was unseen until we had passed for one

hundred and seventeen feet through two dry, eosey little rooms,

 

 

lit and warmed by holes in the ceiling. In these anteehambers
insects hummed, and footsteps on the dust proved the ingress of
straggling cows. The innermost arch was about sixty feet in
diameter, and there, where the roof was supported by a heavy
stalagmite, we looked down into a sombre chasm. Creeping
aret'ully to its edge, I followed an Indian whose head and shoul—
ders disappeared over the brink as he grasped the posts of :1 long
ladder of boughs. The descent by twenty—five rungs introduced
us to a well about sixty feet deep, and when we looked 11p from its
bottom we saw the sky above us through a round hole apparently

THE LAST TRENCH AT SABAKA 149

thirty feet in diameter, while below us the loose rocks sloped
down into a large, dim chamber. A festoon of stalactites hung
across the ceiling and caught the light, but beyond them and
above, our eyes, ungauged to the darkness, failed to measure the
size of the vault. There was no sound of birds or trees, but the
still air was cool as we entered, and, passing onward, lit our
candles to advance into a passage leading beyond. \Valking slowly
for two hundred feet, we reached a dimly—lit rotunda with a
rocky floor. Then came another p: ssage, one hundred feet long
at least, which suddenly grew very hot, and brought us at last to
pools of tepid water. Potsherds scattered the path in these dark
passages, but the outer chamber was best adapted for explo 'ation.

Returning to it, we found a reach of floor, at many places clean
and well scattered with fragments of earthen-ware, one hundred
and ninety-four feet long and eighty—four feet wide from wall to
wall. ()11 it we counted twelve stone water—dishes, some of which,
set level, still caught the echong drops, while a thirteenth, dug
out of a log, stood full of water close by. I could find no native
paintings or carvings upon the rocks, but, as at Oxkintok, the
inward slope at the entrance was protected by loose walls of
unmortared stone. T we of these ran across the grade like
terraces, as if to catch rocks that fell down the well, and to
prevent their down—rolling into the chamber, and close upon the
left wall, half—way in, a pile of loose stones, about twenty feet
in diameter, rested on the clean earth, against and around which,
as if to keep it in place, another rough wall had been constructed.
No doubt the \ ‘allcd stone-pile had been placed there purposely,
and the evidence indicated that at the time of ancient cave visi-
tation much of the floor had been deliberately kept clear of loose
stones. Here, again, entrance to the cave was impossible without
artificial help. The pre-Columbian Indian must have used, like
his modern successor, some sort of a ladder.

Our Work was nearly over, for we had now reached the end
of the region proposed originally for exploration.1 All the

1 ACTUN UUsH-HU (Cave of the Iguana), visited by Mr. Darlington on
March 15, 1895, lay about two and a half miles to the northwest of Sabaka,
and was one of the few caves seen with a horizontal entrance. The arch,
thirty-five feet long and fifteen feet high, penetrated the side of a small fallen
area, which was hardly to be distinguished from the surrounding surface. The

150 THE HILL-CAYES or YUCATAN

conditions were favorable at the spot, where the whole truth
awaited 11s, but the flavor of unknown possibility that had so
often lent excitement to our work had disappeared, and we
thought we were justified in guessing that no discovery would
be made to upset what had gone before. \Vhere the floor sloped
upward on the left side of the cave, and close to the wall, we
marked off our first trench, and after it was finished we dug three
others, to obtain corresponding results in them all. \Vhat we
saw added details to the general mass of evidence, but contradicted
nothing. Trenches 2, 3, and 41 were fairly included in the results
obtained at Trench 1, which summed up everythinU. This was
thirteen feet nine inches long and three feet six inches wide, and
brought us into a close-laid series of thin ash-bands, which ex—
tended downwz rd without interruption. As the Indians worked
on, the usual kinds of potsherds were thrown out, together with
the femur of an iguana and the hind canon-bone of a medium-
sized deer in the first six inches of the first foot, and the hypo-
plastral bone of a land-tortoise and the tibia and clavicle of a man
in the second six; inches of the first foot. We found a bone needle,
but no attempt was made to classify the layers till we reached a
hard-rock ledge at a depth of two feet three inches on the east
end of the trench. If all the earth had been scraped off the high
area on which we were working, a solid platform would have been
laid bare, extending along the cave-wall for nearly one hundred
feet, but we did not do this, and because we found no hollows
along the base of the walls to indicate that the platform was a

chamber, about sixty feet long by forty feet broad, was dry. One stone water-
dish and half of another lay, with a number of potsherds, upon the floor. The
patches of loose earth that covered the rocks underfoot seemed too small to
warrant excavation.

ACTUN PET COT (Cave of the Round Fence, probably a shooting-blind).—Mr.
Darlington7 visiting this cave on March 15, 189-5, found a small rotunda
twenty feet deep, and entered by means of hanging roots. There was no drip—
ping water, and no water-dishes or pottery were found upon the floor. Three
blinds for shooting animals may have suggested the name.

AC’I‘UN HA5 (Banana (lave) lay about two miles from Sabaka. To enter it,
Mr. Darlington climbed down twelve feet through a skylight twenty feet in
diameter. The cave when visited was dry, though one water-dish and numerous
potsherds were found on the floor. There were no large patches of earth
underfoot, and it seemed inadvisable to dig a trench in the loose stones.

‘ See foot-note to page 155.

THE LAST TRENeH AT SABAKA 151

loose mass underfoot, and because a solid ledge less masked with
earth presented a similar outline on the opposite side of the cave,
we were content with the probability that the rock reached in
Trench 1 w: s the true bottom. Candles were needed to make the
careful study of the exposed layers which followed. \Vhen the
north side of the trench was pared down, there seemed to be no
prominent mark of division anywhere. The whole exposure was
striped by horizontal films of charcoal and ashes, about an inch
thick, resting regularly, one above the other, from bottom to top,
like growth—rings in a tree. I counted thirty—seven of them, 1111-
disturbed, at the east end of the trench. If this were the whole
culture—layer of Yucatan, as we supposed, here was the oppor-
tunity to settle the question of its subdivisions, if it had any,
though again we had disposed of all notion of an earlier man, or a
I’alzeolithie visitor, antedating the Mayas by thousands of years.
These hearth-films evidently represented the rubbish heap of the
same people that we had encountered in the other caves, but the
deposit was so neatly arranged and so conveniently presented that,
if there were any signs of cultural development or race change in
it, we might expect to find them without much trouble.

An undisturbed ash-band marks a points in time. Nothing
can get below it which does not antedate it. Nothing lies above
it which has not come after it. Once again we wished to be sure
whether the people before us had developed their arts by slow
stages in Yucatan. Had they done so, then the character and
make of objects found in the ash—bands ought to have improved
from the bottom to the top. On the contrary, if no such devel-
opment had taken place, if the builders of the fires had come to
the region already advanced in the grade of human progress, then
the contents of the films ought to have remained identical, as we
dug down or up.

As there seemed to be no exposed line of subdivision among
them anywhere, we decided to work down through them by
cuttings four inches thick, made one by one, over an area two
feet wide, along the end of the trench.

T/iefirstfom' inc/(es, carefully examined with the trowel, showed
polished red and black potsherds, and coarse and fine unpolished
fragments. Towards the bottom a piece of polished ware had
been trimmed into the shape of a circle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

H‘— o._io‘_$fif) 1511(4 INCHES) POTSHERDS, POLISHED RED, POLISHED
’ Q . ‘ ' ’46:! BLACK, COARSE, UNPOLISHED
, a
Q 17k 0 0 - o -
\ c ‘ ‘ ' Q ’ Q 0 $ 1%RED POLISHED FRAGMENT ARTIFICIALLY ROUNDED
I A fa, _.
1 2/2“”; \W}: G 2ND. (4 INCHES) POTSHERDS POLISHED RED
-_ a ‘ D 'I a\ . . (9 O NUCLEUS or FLINT
% I A \ /,/ <1 0 o
i 0 ’ 7;; MM L‘UR /W§ / Q" CARD. (4 INCHES) N0 POTSHERDS FOUND IN sucma DFF

   

10 INCHES OF FACE. SOME OF THE ASH BANDS CAKED
HARD BY DRIP WATER

4TH. (4 INCHES) ANIMAL BURROWS TO THE RIGHT
CONTAINED POTSHERDS. N0 POTSHERDS FOUND IN
T HE UNDISTURBED BANDS

 

 

 

 

5TH. (4 INCHES) N0 POTSHERDS FOUND IN THE 10 INCHES
SLICED OFF WITH TRO WE

 

 

 

 

 

6TH. (4 INCHES) NO POTSHERDS FOUND IN THE 10 INCHES
SLICED OFF WITH TROWEL

 

 

 

Em
— 7TH. (3 INCHES) NO POTSHERDS FOUND IN THE IO-INCHES
SLICED OFF. WITH THE 'IZHOWEI.

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCALE

1 Ft.

W
o
X

 

Old refuse layers, proving the visits of man to the Cave of Sttbélkfl. (Coal- black Water), in the hills three miles nest of Tekax Yucatan.

Fi1st attempt to trace subdivisions' 111 the deposit at the spot. End face of Trench 1, looking east, reachimr rock bottom at two feet three inches and e\posin<r
thirty-seven very thin ash-bands, the lowest resting on the rock. Potsherds were numerous in the upper eight inches of the deposit, but below this none \\ ere
discovered in the thirteen inches of ash-bands worked down inch by inch and for ten inches horizontally inward with the trowel. Animal burrows had dis—
turbed the deposit at two points. Human hone found in the lower six inches of the first foot.

”mg

'99

ZQI

NVILVOIIK cIO SHAVOJI'IIH EIHCL

 

THE LAST TRENCH AT SABAKA 153

The secondfour inches had been disturbed by an animal burrow
covering an area nearly a foot square, and about half-way from
either end of the trench. It contained polished red and black
and fine thin potsherds, and a nucleus of chipped hornstone. In
the

Third four inches I could find no potsherds over the area
worked. Some of the ash-bands were eaked hard, showing that
*arbonated water had dripped at the spot during their formation.
In the

Fourth four inches most of the right end of the belt was inter—
rupted by burrows, and the potsherds therein found, together
with a small round ball of a hard white substance about half
an inch in diameter, did not belong to the depth exan’iined, nor
could I, in spite of the closest search, find a single potsherd or
other human relie in the

Fifi/I, sixth, and seventh four inches. The result. of this scrutiny
of eight to ten cubic feet of ash—bands, m‘efidly worked over
inch by inch with the trowel, showed the notable fact that the
potsherds and other human relics in the deposit were all on top
and in the upper eight inches ; in other words, that the lower
two—thirds of the refuse contained no human relics at all. Pottery
had grown rare in the lower layers at I .oltun, but there had been
no such proportion of empty ash—bands as this anywhere.

Surprised at the result, we determined to verity it by 2 second
trial on the following day, when, beginning at the east end of the
trench, we simplified our task by shovelling one foot off the top
of the deposit ove' an area four feet long and three feet wide.
This started as fresh on the lower fifteen inches of ash—bands,
which had thus far proved free from any human relics. It was
a long and tedious task to pare these down with the trowel. One-
fifth of their cubic contents, at least, had been disturbed by bur-
rowing animals, but when the holes were carefully cleaned out the
undisturbed belts of stripes rose plainly between the clearings, and
at last, in one of these original belts, in the fifth four inches, Mr.
Darlington showed me in place 2 small red potsherd of fine make,
at a depth of one foot seven inches below the original surface, and
nine and a half inches above the bottom. An hour’ s work found
no other piece, but finally revealed a cracked animal bone in the

fourth four inches, at a depth of one foot four inches, and then
11

154 THE HILL-(‘AVES or YUOATAN

an artificially chipped flint in the seventh four inches, at a depth
of two feet four inches and three inches above the bottom. As
we advanced into its eastward grade the deposit had grown
thicker, and the trench was now eighteen feet long and two feet

FIG. 66.

 
 

THE UPPER SECTION OF THE DEPOSIT 1 FOOT THICK
AND EXTENDING INWARDS 3 FEET WAS REMOVED AND
ELIMINATED FROM THE SEARCH

 
     
 
   
  
 

K, D ANIMAL BONE
7~FOOT 6 INCHES ABOVE BOTTOM

‘Q: ’ARTIEICIALLV CHIPF’ED FLINT
CLINCHES ABOVE BOTTOM

   

 

Old refuse layers, proving the visits of man to the Cave of Sabaka (Coal—black Water), in
the hills three miles west of Tekax, Yucatan.

Second attempt to trace subdivisions in the deposit, showing the extreme rarity ofhuman
relies in the lower series of ash—bands. End face of Trench 1, lookingr east, after a section
one foot thick (shown in Fig. 67) had been taken away. Rock bottom reached at two feet
three and two feet ten inches. The number of ash—bands had slightly increased. The upper
foot of the deposit was removed without examination, and a careful search made in the
remaining fifteen to twenty-two inches, advancing into the exposure three feet. In the un-
disturbed ash-bands, which were easy to discriminate from the animal burrows, only three
relics of human handiwork were found.

ten inches deep at the east end. But, bent on making sure of
this comparative absence of potsherds in the lower ash-bands, we
enlarged it still farther. Once again we removed the top foot
from another area four feet long, three feet eight inches broad,
and turning southward from the east end of the trench, like the
arm of the letter L. The most exhaustive examination, however,
of the block of ash-bands exposed failed to reveal a single human
relic.

This great relative thickness of the non-relic—bearing ash-
bands was the striking fact at Sabaka. Yet if the empty films
had indicated a period separated by an interval of time from the
coming of the makers of the upper hearth, there ought to have

THE LAST TRENCH A’l‘ SABAKA 155
been an intervening sheet of undisturbed cave earth or mould
dividing them from the relic—bearing zone above, but no such
line of demarcation existed. The bands lay one upon another,
without interval. The single potsherd and chip of flint found
near the bottom showed that the arts of pottery—iiiaking and
stone- chipping were known to the first fire—builders, while the
absence of all other accompanying traces of culture was no indi—
cation of the presence of an earlier or more primitive people.
Savage, hunting *aces, dwelling in shifting huts in the forest,
have been found to strew cave floors with a wide ‘angc of objects.
To them caverns may have been at times refuges and dwellings
‘ather than public wells, but no evidence in Sabaka or anywhere
else showed that these caves had ever been visited by such a people.
No great age could be inferred from the mere thickness of the
non-relic—bearing bands or the stalagmitic caking of a bottom
film in Trench 2 (described in the foot—note), for twenty bonfires
built in a year at the same spot would have produced a deposit
equally thick, and stalagmitic crusts form fast or slow, according
to local conditions, as is shown by Professor Adami, 0f Bayreuth,
in the American Abiuralist for December 1, 1894. All things
considered, the empty ash films of Trench 1 in Sabaka seemed
to have no more meaning than those found in Loltun, where they
had indicated, for the reasons given, the first incoming wave of
Maya immigration, and there was nothing in the more disturbed
and less significant deposits encountered at Trenches 2, 3, and 4,
described below,1 to contradict the inference that an unestablished

1 TRENCH 2 (seven feet six inches long and five feet wide), near the middle
of the cave floor (see Fig. 67), \‘as cut through a series of bands of cave earth
and rubbish, arranged in hearths, to a solid ledge at two feet six inches.

In the original excavation the second foot showed the bones of the mouse,
the ilium of a bird, the tibia, pelvis, and lower jaw of a pcccary, the calca-
neum of a rodent or carnivore, and a fragment of the femur of a man, which
latter, under the circumstances, once more seemed to refer to a feast upon
human flesh.

The t/zirdfoot showed the bones of the iguana and a bird, while the Indians
pulled out of the trench at undetermined depths the incisor of a gopher, the
fragment of the upper jaw of a man, and bones of the opossum, bird, deer, and
dog.

The left part of the east face was occupied by a rock one foot four inches
in diameter, and the central part disturbed by animal burrows. When the
eastern end was scraped clean, eight subdivisions were exposed.

156 ' THE HILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

agricultural people, knowing the potter’s art, but as yet unpro-
Vided with earthen-ware, entering the eaves, not to dwell in them,

 

Lag/67' 1 (one foot one inch), cave earth, with stones and potsherds of the
usual makes, together with the astragalus of a peccary.

FIG. 67.

 

 

 
  
  
 
  
   
 

:§0 LA/ER [(1 FT.1 IN)
CAVE EARTH AND STONES WIYH
POTSHERDS OF USUAL MAKES

LAYER 2. (1 INCH) THIN HEARTH BAND WITH
POTSHER es

LAYER 3 (7 INCHES) BLACK CAVE EARTH
WITH POTSHEHDS _~

 
     

I

I .1;\
DISTQRBANCE MADE 5/

BY CURROWING ANIMALS

AYER 7.(4 INCHES) BLACK CAVE EARTH
WITH POTSHERDS

 

LAYER 7312 INCHES) ASH BAND HARDENED BY STALAGMITIC
~ \ DRIP. N0 POTSHERDS FOUND

\ i\
\ . \; \\ _\
\ \ \ \
( SCALE
\ ._ J—T__‘—.———|
\ l4 1 2 Ft

 

Old refuse layers, proving the visits of man to the Cavern of Sabaka (Coal-black Water),
in the hills three miles west of Tekax, Yucatan. Explored March, 1895.

Face of TRENCH 2, lookingr east. Layer 8 is believed to indicate the time of the first
coming of man to the cave. The first comers are believed to have been pioneers unequipped
with pottery, who built the first fires (Layer 8) rather to light the cave than for cooking.
This would explain the absence of pottery in the ashes of Layer 8. The whole deposit
(Layers 1—8 inclusive) is otherwise of one character. No sign of earlier race or previous
stage of culture is seen.

Animal remains found with human refuse : Colubrine snake, bird, opossum, gopher, mouse,
dog, peeeary, man, the latter suggesting cannibalism.

Lag/6212 ' (one inch), a thin hearth band with potsherds.
Layer 3 (seven inches), black cave earth with potsherds.
La3/c7 4 (one and a half inches), ashes with potsherds.

Laye) 5 (two inches), cave earth with potsherds.

Layer 6 (three inches), ashes with potsherds.

Layer 7 (four inches), black cave earth with potsherds.

Layer 8 (two inches), a band of ashes hardened into stalagmitie crust. This
was difl‘ieult to cut away with the hammer. In it I could find no potsherds
for an area of about two square feet examined, so that here again the builders
of the first fires seemed to have been scantily provided with pottery.

TRENCH 3 (six feet nine inches long and three feet two to five inches wide),
close against the south wall of the cave (see Fig. 68), was dug through yellow

THE LAST TRENCH AT SABAKA 157

but to get water, would have built'their first fires to make a light
rather than to cook food. When we realize further that the fire

 

i (-ave earth and hearth rubbish, and reached the solid surface of a ledge at
one foot. A special examination of its exposed east side showed

FIG. 68.

    

LAYER 1. (l m. =i FOOT) on TOP ASH
DEPOSIT HARDENED av srALAommc onup TO
RIGHT REACHING DOWNWARD IN DISTURBE
MAss 0F CHARCOAL AND POTSHERDS.
IT REACHED ROCK BOTTOM AT T FOOT

    
 

% .'

LAYER 2. (7 m. ~ I Foo‘r)

\

LIGHT\YELLOW ROOF DEPOSIT

‘\\V\I\ITH‘WHITE cmps. N0 HUMAN
rnAcE

   
  
 
  

SCALE
0 x 1 2 Ft.
Old refuse layer, proving the visits of man to the Cave of Sabaka, in the hills three miles
west. of Tekax, Yucatan. Explored March, 189:”).
Face of TRENCH 3, looking east. The rock ledge is too narrow to have been often re-
sorted to by the cave visitor. The relic-bearing deposit 1s comparatively thin. A hole
seems to have been dug in the yellow cave earth by the fire-builders.

Layer 1 (one inch to one foot), a thin ash deposit (with potsherds of the usual
make, and a bone gorget with two perforations) hardened on the surface by
limestone drip but soft inside, sloping to rock bottom on the south in a gutter-
shaped cavity about one foot three inches wide ; and

Lag/er 2 (seven inches to one foot), a band of yellow roof deposit and white
splinters, without human trace, resting on the solid rock. But the ledge here
was too narrow to have been often chosen by the fire-builder. As might have
been expected, the deposit. was insignificant.

 

LAYER i.(9 INCHES) SOFT BLACK CAVE EARTH
WITH POTSHERDS

    
  

LAVER 2. (my, INCHES) ASHES WITH POTSHERDS

LAYER 3(1 FT. 11 m. 1 FT. 4 IN.) BLACK CAVE EARTH I \\
WITH STONES AND POTSHERDS. sTALAeMITic causr
To THE LEFY

SCALE
i—I_J—t_,_I_—l
0 ‘/2 1 2 Ft

Old refuse layers, proving the visits of man to the Cavern of Sabaka, in the hills three
miles west of Tekax, Yucatan. Explored March, 1895.

Face of TRENCH 4, looking east. The subdivisions of Trent-h 1 are lacking. The de—
posit shows but one clearly-marked ash—band. Potsherds rest on the bottom. The trench
represents the lowest and Ilampest part of the cave floor examined, where the deposit would
have been within reach of down-rolling stones and earth from higher levels in the cave.

Animal remains found with the human refuse : bird (first foot), man (first foot).

TRENCH 4 (six feet four inches long and three feet nine inches wide) was dugP
in the soft black cave earth, between the southern ledge examined by Trench

158 THE HILL-CAVEs OF YUCATAN

more easily keeps up a source of light than the waning torch,
and that the need of permanent light was greater, perhaps, at
Sabaka than at any other of the important caves, we probably
account for the absence of culture traces in any given ash layer,
and so for the peculiar thickness of the non-relie-bearing bands.
To examine again the objects unearthed in the cave was to be
struck by the significant presence of fragments of human femur

 

3 and a sloping bank of loose stones. (See Fig. 69.) The soft earth containing
the usual potsherds lay upon a crust of decomposed lin’iestone. Cutting this
away we came to solid rock in the middle, at a depth of one foot one inch.

When the east end of Trench 4, which caught the light from the entrance,
was pared down, it showed three subdivisions : _

Layer 1 (nine inches), cave earth with potsherds and a helix-shell:

Layer ,9 (one inch to one and a half inches), ashes with potsherds.

Lag/r31- 3 (one foot eleven to one foot four inches), black cave earth and
stones, with potshcrds. The rock bottom sloped downward on either end of
the exposure, suggesting the round end of a projecting mass. “We followed
the rubbish down these inclines to a depth of one foot four inches on the right,
and one foot eleven inches on the left. At the latter corners weak crusts of
stalaginite were encountered. The bones of a bird and the femur of a man
found in the first foot in the original digging of this trench must have belonged
either to Layer 1 or to Layer 2. The latter, as at Loltun, again suggested can—
nibalism.

Every available area on the cave floor had now been probed by our trenches,
which ran almost in a straight line north and south from wall to wall. This
trench had reached the lowest part of the floor deposit examined, but the place

FIG. 70.

"ll

(XFL.3ln.).

« , / Tre - / vs» ’ Ii.)-
/fl/ /V 77/// d“ ‘ // ’ 7
// m /

//.., l
10

J ,//////%/

    

Scale P

 

Actun Sabaka. Cross-section, showingr position of our trenches.

was wet and not adapted for fire-building. Down-rolling objects from higher
areas would have caught there, and the human rubbish could not have been
expected to be thick or undisturbed.

FIG. 71.

 

[flour [hum/1,,

:1 3/: I; [111$

I“ rang‘

 

‘ ask 5 filing

4 m «' féfuq‘ inc}?

”‘1

I
JI’ gin/’12”

tits/1'. [)1an

5’“ /2wr Jar/1635‘

7’ int/try
2‘7 have éo(foI/I , .

’ Za/Inrf {yr/oer“ z' ,5’2342 ’

 

 

 

From Sabaka. Pottery, etc., and bones from the human refuse deposit on the cave floor.
Specimens of pottery studied in comparing the top, middle, and bottom of the deposit. The
ware of the lower films, though very rare or absent (in lowest), marks no earlier stage of
human development.

The human bones, scattered with potsherds and other traces of cooking in three of the
trenches, at depths of one and two feet, again indicate cannibalism.

 

THE LAsT TRENCH A'r sABAKA 159

found in the original exea 'ation of Trenches 4 and 2 at depths
of one foot and two feet.

Dislocated from the skeletons, mixed with charcoal and ashes,
and associated with the remains of eaten animals and the t‘aees
of cookery, they gave us little reason to doubt their true meaning.
If the fire-l’milders had cremated their dying friends in the cave,
or if unburied or half-buried corpses abandoned by certain cave
visitors had been burned at the cooking-place by later comers,
for cleanliness sake, their position might have been accounted for.
But when the human bones found under the same suspicious
circumstances at Coyok (where one seemed split as if for marrow)
and at Loltun were considered, it was easier to infer that we
had discovered the remains of a cannibal feast, and that a people

. familiar with the terrible sacrifices illustrated in the codices
Troano and Cortesianus had sometimes cooked and eaten human
bodies at Sabaka.

This ended our search in the caves. Once more we had con-
firmed the results of previous work without making any startling
discovery. The thrill of a pursuit beset with alluring chances, the
enthusiasm that would press over the boundary of the unknown
to see Truth in a new and glittering dress, had forsaken us at
the gloomy cavern, and the clay-stained pottery and bones that
strewed the ground or filled the muslin bags at our feet seemed
at the moment a tame return for our labor. Nevertheless, there
was little reason to be disappointed in the evidence which here
furnished the last link in an important chain.

(I H A 1’ T E R X Y I.
A SUMMARY.

()UR work in Yucatan, with its hurry, risk, doubt, and chance,
was over. When we had risen at five, packed our apparatus on
the train, and found places in one of the familiar little cane—
seated 'ars, *are and responsibility took leave of us for a time.
In the twilight the early sun’s rays were brightening the, east, as
we rolled out of the dusty station, leaving carts, rolhn.s’,'and a
throng of Indians behind us, while the sight of the dim forest
through the open car windows recalled that evening when on the
way to Merida we had looked out for the first time over the
same wilderness. The intervening two months seemed a long
time ; nor was it iasy to realize that, after all, the area gone over
had not exceeded one hundred ‘miles in length by ten in breadth.
'JKventy-nine caves had been visited in sixty days, of which ten
had been excavated. Thirteen had had archa‘ologieal signifi-
cance. Six had yielded valuable and three decisive results.1

\Ve had seen but little of the ruins. \Ve had not- passed
southvard over the boundary—line into the great wilderness,
whence tables of lost cities reach the t‘aveller’s ear. Our con-
tinued study of an undergrouml layer of human refuse substan—
tially the same in all the caves, instructive as it vas, had taught
us but little of details. Evidently a wide range of tools and

1 Spukil, Sayab, Chambak, Jeh, ()xkintok, Chekt—a—leh, Xmak, small name-
less cave, Lara, Negro, {aneho Chak, Loltun, Sitz, Tzuzui, ()oyok, Chanz
Coyok, Pantak Intul, Chumya, Mulco, Tiplamas, Mani, Cush-hu, Petcot,
Has, Kobak7 Kot Mufios7 Skokikan, cave near Skokikan, and Sabaka, twenty-
nine in all. " l9'1r0” c158

Excavated Spukil, Sayal), Oxkintok, Chekt—a-leh, Xmak, ,Lara, Loltun
(‘oyol{, Tiplanias, and Sabaka, ten in all, which with three others not ex—
cavated, Chambak, {aneho Chak, and Skokikan, were of archaeological signifi—
cance.

0f the six very significant caves7 Sabaka7 ()xkintok, Coyok, Tiplamas, L01-
tun7 and (Iliekt-a-lch, three, Sabaka, ()xkintok, and Loltun, had yielded
decisive results.

160

A soMMARY 161

implements had not been left, lost, or broken in the subterranean
rooms. We (lid not find and did not expect to find that the
\\'at(.1r-produei11g underground chambers had been used as bury-
ing-places. Neither were they dwellings, but rather te111porzry
halting-spots, which but for the water—supply would probably
have shown fewer human traces than do the 121vcs of the United
States. Human bones scattered in the rubbish indicated that the
old inhabitants of \ neatan practised cannibalism. Beyond that,
the traces of pre-C1t1lumbian cookerv at the underground sites
referred to 2111 ancient axe visitor who \1 ‘1‘1the 2111 agriculturist
than a hunter, and who (unless the dog found at Sabaka be an
exception) possessed no domesti- animals.

\\ (1 had learned little of stone- chipping, and had found 111 the
scanty list of stone blades but one i111perfeet point that might
have served for 2111 arrow-head. The secret of stone-carving we
had failed to discover, and, though the whole mystery had seemed
within our grasp at ()xkintok, we had to rest content with
proving that the chiselling 11f the ruins could not have been done
with chips of the parent block or round hammer-stones. We had
found no copper or cold 1111 silver, 110 jade, no <11ums, no preserved
grains, no cloth, no apparatus for \1'2e1vi11111, and had discovered no
pipe, and learned nothing of pre-Columbian smoking or tobacco.

A close examination of the potsherds showed a ware mixed
with powdered limestone that reacted strongly nude 1 acid on the
fractures. A smooth rcd make, strong, well baked, and sym-
metrical, and whose dull polished surface resisted the action of
nitric acid, was abundant, while a very few fragments were deco—
rated with brightlv-eolored designs, though their polish after the
manner of a varnish yielded 11e11dilv to the ac id test. hlany,
though better baked than the ware of the Delaware Indians, were
coarse. A very common hard variety had been striped with brown
lines on a white or bluish ground. But there was nothing bril—
liant or striking about these fragments of dishes, cooking-pots,
or water-jars. Few were or11a111ented, and only two or three
highly so. None were marked or painted with hicroglyphs.
Nevertheless a 11rietv of tones, colors, and polish struck the eve
when manv she rds were laid side bv side and brushed. 1

1 Hoping that the p111eess ot the modem Indian miuht throw some liuht on
the make and uses of the spedmens d1s101e1ed, and tollowing the suggestion

162 THE HILL-CAVES or YUCATAN

But results more important than these had rewarded our close
examination of the position and contents of the human rubbish

of Sefior Maler, of Ticul, I spent a day at the suburbs of Merida in visiting a
Maya pottery. Senor Escalante had kindly sent a clerk as interpreter, and we
found the place after halting by mistake at another factory, where Mexican
Indians were at work in their own fashion upon clay imported from Mexico.

On one of the small clay-floored thatched huts a woman sat on a low stool
in the act of moulding a mass of light-brown clay placed between her bare
feet, and which rested directly on a wooden disk three and a half inches thick,
and four inches in diameter. Clasping the disk with her bare feet, the woman
caused it to revolve on a smooth board with her toes and instep, while the clay,
sticking fast to the top of the cylinder, turned with it and took regular shape
against her fingers thrust down into the soft i’nass. Without suspecting it at
the time, I was looking at a very primitive form of the potter’s wheelg-a device
not heretofore supposed to have been indigenous to ancient America. ‘

The Indian, whose wife did the invariable woman’s work of moulding, was
delighted to see us, and explained every step of the manufacture as here de-
scribed. I took off my coat, opened my note-book, and began at the beginning.

THE RAW MATERIAL.

This was a hard white clay, dug out of the ground at Izamal, the best mine,
where it contains very little iron; -at Yokat, not so good; at Maxkanu, at
Bekl, at Muna, and at other places along the mountains, and resembling the
saccmn similarly dug for use as mortar. It dissolved immediately in vater
into a fine white paste. The Indian said that it contained too much lime to
withstand glazing, for which purpose a dark imported clay mined at Orizaba
in Mexico was used. The latter I had seen in the hands of the Mexicali In-
dians at the other pottery.

PREPARATION OF THE RAWV MATERIAL FOR MANUFACTURE.

As the clay when transformed into paste by water was not stiti' enough for
work, an alloy had to be mixed with it. The alloy used by this Indian was of
two kinds: first, a fine white sand imported from Europe and rarely used by
him, and, second, a powder composed of ground limestone obtained at the stone
quarries near Yokat. Formerly this or similar stone had been pulverized by
the Indian potters in stone mortars with stone pestles, but the specimens caked
in lumps that I saw had been bought by the Indian when previously ground
by machinery. To mix the alloy with the clay the water was poured off the
vessel containing the white clay pulp ; when the powder was sprinkled on dry
and kneaded in with the hands until the composition was stifl‘ enough for
work. The proper proportion required judgment. Roughly speaking, the
mixture was about half clay and half alloy.

MANUFACT U RE.

To make one of the common water-cups, such as I bought, a round lump of
the mixture, somewhat larger than a double fist, called ltat in Maya, was stuck

it SUMMARY 163

heap evervwhere present in the eaves. Though this layer was
the only culture-layer our digging had fiurly proved at Oxkintok,

on top of the solid wooden evlinde‘ above mentioned7 'alled Kabul 1n Maya.
This curious eontrivanee, three and a half inches high and four mehes in (11am—
eter7 rested upon a hoard7 made smooth by soap, and placed as a work—table

 

The potter’s wheel in Yueatan. Maya woman making.r pottery at Merida. The partly-
formetl jar sticks to the top of the Isobel, \\'hieh is made to revolve with her bare feet.

ealled limiu7 on the floor. The female potter7 sitting on a very low stool, called
lama/1137 took a piece of soap, jobtm, and rubbed it on the middle part of the
board. Then placing the cylinder, with the (-lay hall pressed fast upon it,
upon the soaped and slippery spot, she seized the disk with her bare feet
and by their motions caused it to revolve. As it slowly turned7 carrying the

164 THE HILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

Loltun, and Sabaka, and though we had often failed to reach rock
bottom at other caverns, there was nowhere ground for supposing

clay with it, she gouged the clay ball in the middle into a hollow with both
hands, gradually throwing out the sides and making them stand up by pressure.
The effect was that of a potter’s wheel minus the regularity of outline given
by swiftncss of motion. In less than a minute the clay had taken the form
of a floweupot, and the woman proceeded to pare the rim even with a small
Wooden splint sharpened to a knife edge, called Clt(7]Ll/l(t-(3/I(§]l. I This flowe '-pot
shape had to rest in the shade for about half an hour and set. while others
were produced, at the end of which time it was ready for convexing or bulging
out at the middle, a result produced with a small convex section of the rind
of the calabash, called [10:3 in Maya, dipped in water contained in a dish called
lcbril/o. When pressed against the inner revolving sides of the cup, the-calabash
rounder transformed the flower-pot into the shape of an orange. ‘The rim was
now smoothed by pressure of a soaked piece of leather, called Irene], after which
the pot was set aside to dry in the shade. Then after several hours of rest, and
before it had become thoroughly dry, it was ready for

POLISHING.

For this purpose a white pebble, called y/ulur, which the Indian told me had
been gathered on the sea-beach near Uampeche, was rubbed hurriedly over the
outside of the whole pot, giving it a dull polish, very inferit’n‘ to that of the
polished sherds from the WIVES. Not until the use had become thoroughly
dry was it ready for

PAINTING.

The only paint used by this Indian was red, and of two kinds: first, an im-
ported powder bought by him at a hard\ 'al'e store in Merida, and, second, a less
brilliant native red paint clay, !alled Iran/ml), mined near Maxkanu, and prob-
ably solely used by Indian manufacturers in the Country, but never used pure
by this potter, who, considering it inferior to the imported powder, mixed it with
the latter brighter color. A quantity of this mixed paint was liquefied with
water in an earthen vessel (his paint-pot), and rubbed over the whole specimen
with a rag. If Mexi 'an clay from ()rizaba were used another operation was
possible, namely,

GLAZING.

The glaze. which had no name in the Maya language, called in'b‘panish
lifrn-ilillo, consisted of an imported powder bought at a store in )[erida and
mixed with water into a paste of the consistency of thin cream. A thoroughly
dry pot, having been heated about three hours in the furnace, was dipped in
the glaze, which was floated about over its entire surface. Then the pot
replaced in the hot oven remained there for three or four hours, until the
glaze was seen to melt, at which point the fire was dampened and the vessel

A SUMMARY 165

that deeper digging or blasting would have upset our inference.
An earlier people visiting Yucatan under its present topographi-

allowed to cool off in the x'aning heat for one (lay. The Indian informed
me that the imported glaze would not work with clay containing lime, and,
as all the native clays had this component, he said that all glazed pottery
in Yucatan was made of foreign clay, generally imported from Orizaba, in
Mexico. A point to be carefully considered in connection with the question
of ancient glazing.

ORDINARY BURNING.

The oven of this Indian was made of bricks and mortar, in the shape of a
beehive, about nine feet in diamete- and six feet high, plastered on the out-
side and decorated with trowel slits and inlaid bits of stone in the Maya fashion.
Inside, the 'ault was divided into tWo compartments of about equal size, the
lower for the fire, the upper for the oven. To support the floor of the upper
Compartment six arches made of loose unmortared bricks, set side to side, were
sprung across the inside of the structure. These arches left interstices about
two inches wide between each other, which were bridged with potsherds after
the whole series of spans had been stiffened by levelling in with brick. It was
through the interstices that the flame reached the pottery resting above, while a
small door closed with a loose tile, one loop-hole at the side, and a round opening
at the top permitted graduation of heat and inspection of the progress of baking.
The fire in the lower compartment was fed through a large door. Five to six
hours7 baking and a day’s cooling sufficed to finish the pots, which were then
ready for the market, and sold for ten cents each to Indians for use as water-
dishcs and drinking—cups of the porous kind, that kept the water cool through
condensation of moisture upon the outside.

More investigation will be needed to decide whether the disk, the most curi-
ous feature of the process, is indigenous to America. I have not learned
whether anything like it exists in Spain or among the Moors, where it should
survive if the Spaniards brought it to Yucatan. The Maya name for it, Imbal,
“ chezza (le [03 Olleuos,” though indicating native origin, does not occur in the
early dictionary of the Maya language published at the Monastery of Motul
in 1576, but appears first in the later one of the Convent of San Francisco at
Merida about 1690, for which reason Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, of the University
of Pennsylvania, is inclined to date the- word after the Spanish conquest. 011
the other hand, the Bishop of Yucatan, quoting the eonser 'atism of the
Indians, disputes the Spanish origin of the disk ; and it seems difficult to
suppose that the conquerors would have brought such a device with them
without a name of their own for it, or that in such case the Mayas, who have
called the soap jubon, would have dropped the Spanish word, whatever it was,
and substituted for it their own term [cu/ml.

To infer the ancient existence of such a slow-moving wheel from the shape
and texture of the potsherds found in the caves would be diflicult. Most of
the small sherds show nothing. In none are the curves geometrically correct,
though in many the fairly even thickness, the superior regularity of the rims.

166 THE IIILL-(‘AVES 0F YUCATAN

cal conditions must- needs have left their trace in the caves, and
because the undisturbed earth beneath the culture-layer discov-

and the parallelism of the surface se'atchings suggest clay-turning upon the
hand 'ath' than the hand turning upon motionless clay. (See Fig. 73.)
That certain points of this proeess, the stool, the calabash, smoother and
pebble, with their Maya names, might have been inheritances from the past
seems probable, but some of the f-atures are undoubtedly Spanish. The low
polish on certain of the potsherds found had a vitrified appearance. But the
assertion by the Indian potter that no native clay Would stand glazing shows
how eoi’npletely he had tbrgotten the ancient art of glazing, if it ever existed,

FIG. 73.

 

and? w 'r ‘

 

Rim of ancient water-jar (reverse) with markings suggestive of potter’s wheel. Chambak.
Found on the surface.

while his purchase of foreign colors and his use of but one coarse native red
hardly convey any suggestion of the means employed by the ancient potter to
paint vases as we had seen them painted at Spukil and Loltun. No less must
the oven itself fail to throw light on the past, for the brick arches are modern,
and the shape itself involves a construction that the ancient Mayas did not
appear to understand. Nevertheless we get suggestions of mines of clay situ—
ated in various parts of the Peninsula, of crushed limestone for alloy, of de-
posits of red paint dug from the earth, and of smooth pebbles searched for on
the sea-beach, investigation of which may throw further light upon one of the
greatest industries in ancient Yucatan.

A SUMMARY 167

ered always failed to show trace of any deeper, older, or more
primitive human visitor, the conclusion was that 110 such earlier
people had seen the region while its stony hills, its torrid plain,
and its damp eaves were as they now are.

The scant" animal remains have been kindly identified by Pro—
fessor Cope as follows :

LIST OF VERTEBRATA OBTAINED BY MR. H. C. MERCER IN THE CAVES OF YUCATAN.

BY E. 1). COPE.

In this list and the followingr list of mollusea the first number after the name of the cave marks the number of the trench in which the specimen was
found, the subsequent numbers, unless indicated as layers, the munber of the foot counting from the surface down. The letter A or B after the number
of a foot refers to the upper or lower six inches of the foot.

Not Associated with Man. In undisturbed
Cave Earth beneath Human Culture—Layer.

Oxkintok 1, 7 B .

Oxkintok 1, 7 l3 .

Oxkiutok 1, 6 A . . .

Ba I‘rae/I in.“
Frogs,2spee10s . . . . . .

Reptiles, 6‘ species.

0

Iguanidze, a species

Colubrine snake .

Cistudospeeies . . . . . . .

.Emys species

Aves, 9 species.
Meleagris.

Associated with Man.
In Human Culture-layer.

{ Loltun 3, Layer 4.
1 Chumul 2, 3, and 4.

{Chumul 2, 3, and 4.
‘ Loltun 1, Layer 3.
‘ Loltun 8, Layer 6.
Loltun ‘2, Layer 3.
f Sabaka 2, 3.
[ Sabaka 1, 1 A.
’ Loltun 3, Layer

cl

Loltun 2, 3 A.
' ‘ Loltun 3, Layer 4.

Sabaka 1, 1 B.

891

NViLVOflK JO SHAVOJYIIH EIHL

ZI

Oxkiutok 1, 6 B

Oxkintok 1, 7 B}
Oxkintok 1, 14

Oxkintok 1, G A . .

()xkintok 1, 7 B
Oinntok 1, Layer 4 1
Oxkintok 1, G A
Oxkintok 1, 6 B J
Oxkintok 1, M

- Six or eight other species of birds ........

\AImnnmliu, 16 species.

{Di(1(1p11_)s,1111(_:e,1
1 Dide1p11ys,s1112111,.1

Gemms species (50}11101).

{ Permnyscus,1arger, 1»
Perumyscus, 811121110131

()pOSSUlDS . . . .

( Chumul 2, l.
Chumul 2, 3, and 4.
Chekt-n-leh 1, 1.
Chekt-a-leh 1, 2
Oxkintnk 1, 5 A.
Oxkintnk 1, 5 B.

N Oxkintok 1, 4 B.

Oxkintok .1, 1.

Sub-aka 2, 3.
Szibuka 4, 1.
Subuka 2, 2.

 

Loltun 2, l B.
Subaka 2 (depth not determined).
Sabaka. 2 (depth not determined).
Oxkintok 1, 5 B.
Oxkintok 1, 5A
Oinntok 1, 2.
Oxkintok 1, 1.
Loltun 3, Layer 6.
Loltun 3, Layer 4.
\ Sabaka 2, 2.

{ Loltun 2, 1 A.

Loltun 1, 3 A ; Loltun 3, Layer 4.
Loltun 1, 3 B; Loltun 2, Layer 3.

KEIVKKIIS Y

691

Not Associated with Man. In undisturbed
Cave Earth beneath Human Culture-Layer.

Oxkintok 1, 7 B
Oxkintok 1, 11
Oxkintok 1, 6 B J
Oxkintok 1, 14

Oxkihtok 1, 6 A]

Oxkintok 1, 7 B1
Oxkintnk 1, (1 81

LIST OF VERTEB RATA.—Continued.

I Lopus, NO‘ 1’ 1 rabbits .
1 Lepus, N0. 2, J

(Janis familiaris (dog) . .

Ursus (bear)

- Putm-ius(woas<11).

_{ Chiroptora, spacing 1, 1 11-113

1 Chiroptom, G1(1ssop1111g11,1

Eiluus 011111111111: (horse) . ,

Dicotyles t11jassus (pocoary)

Asso’ciated with Man.
111 Human (‘ultnre—Layer.
Oxkintnk' 1, :3 B.
Oxkintok 1, ‘3 -A.
()xkintok 1, 2:
0xkintnk 1, 1.
L01tu11 1, 2 B.
Loltun 2, Laym- 3
(11111111111 2, 1.
{ Chokt 11-11111 1, 1.

«1

1 Sabaka 2 (depth undetermfilwd).
Lo1tu11 1 (dopth 1111110‘101‘111111011).

()x1<111t111<1,2.

[ 0\11int(1k 1,4 B.

Oxkintnkl, 1.

lLo1tul13, L110] 4.
18‘11y1111 1.1

,L Chekt 11-1011 1, 2.

- Law 1,].

8118‘ 11V 111) 1,1.

1 Loltun 2, 3 A.
Loltun 2,1 A.
Lo1tun 1,

I111r112, 1.

S11b11k11 2,11le or 1.
18‘11bak11 2,L11y01 2.
S11V11111,1.

0L1

KVLVDHL £10 SHAVOJI’HH 5111111

Oxkintok 1, 6 A . . . ....... Corvus (larger deer) ............

Oxkintok 1, 7 B

....... . . Coxssus smzlle-le- . , ' . _ _ _ . ' . . . .
Oxkintokl,6A ‘ ( 1 1C0 1)

Total number of species of vertebruta, 33.

Man ..................... l

Chekt-a-leh 1, 2.
Oxkintok 1, 3.
Spukil 1, 2.

Loltun 3, Layer 6.

Loltun 2, 3 A.
Loltun 2, 2 B.
Lara 1, 1.
Xmak 1, 1.
Tiplamas 1, 1.
Sabaka 1, 1 A.
Chekt-a-leh 1, 2.
Oinntok.
Loltun 1, 3 B.

Loltun 2, Layer 3,
Loltun 3, Layer 4.

Xmak 1, 1.
Sayab 1, 1.
Sayab 1, 3.
Chumul 1, l.

Loltun 2, Layer 3.

Snbakn 4, 1.
Sabaka 2, 2.
Sabaka 1, 1 B.
Coyok 1, 1 B.

KHVNNIIS V

ILI

172 THE HILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

As the table shows, a number of creatures had visited the caves
before man came. Birds, rabbits, iguanas, snakes, weasels, and
deer had found an early entrance into Oxkintok, and mice and
rabbits had crossed its floor before the process began which de-
posited fourtecn feet of cave-earth upon the bottOm rock. A
small rodent of undetermined family saw Loltun in the pre-Maya
times. But the recognized species had continued their appear-
ance in the human layer. Mice were common everywhere, Whether
as contributions to the cave—feast or not. The frog appeared only
> in Loltun. The peccary,‘ still frequent in the region, was eaten
at Loltun, Lara, Sabaka, and Sayab ; the bear at Loltun ; the deer
at Oinntok, Chekt—a-leh, Spukil, Loltun, Lara, Xmak, Sayab,
and Tiplamas. At Loltun and Sabaka turtles and lizards were
found edible; at Chekt—a—leh, Oxkintok, Sabaka, and Loltun,
birds. Bats were mixed with the rubbish at Oxkintok, Loltun,
and Sayab, and opossums at Sabaka and Loltun.

European horses must have been cooked and eaten in the
caves of Sayab, Lara, and Chekt—a-leh since the fifteenth century,
to account for the fragments of bone and teeth discovered there ;
for we find no reason for supposing that the people of Yucatan
knew the American fossil horse, or scattered its remains in late
portions of their culture-layers.1

Horses could have walked into Lara and Sayab, where their
teeth were found close to the surface. But in Chekt—a—leh the
animal, which, like his relative at the other caves, had been
cooked and eaten, must have been killed and brought in piece-
meal or pushed over the side of the sink. At the latter cave the
phalange, though found in the second foot, lay in a rubbish deposit
so disturbed by down—faulting through funnel—like rock-fissures be-
low that its original relation to the culture—layer was not certain.

The mollusca, kindly identified by Mr. Pilsbry, 0f the Acad—
emy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, were as follows:

 

1 The horse molars and bones found by Mr. Mercer might, so far as their
structural characters go, be referred to the qums occidentalis, Leidy, which
differs from the E. caballus in characters of the skull, while the molar teeth
are closely similar. E. occidenmlis is, however, found in association with a dif-
ferent fauna in the valley of Mexico and “Tester-n North America, and its
bones are always fossilized, which is not the case with the specimens found by
Mr. Mcrce1x—E. D. COPE.

SHELLS FROM YUGATAN CAVES.

Not ussoeiated with Man. In undis— In. 1,. A. PIlemY.
turbed Cave Earth beneath Human
Layer.

(llamlinu eylintlrncen, Phillips. .

.7, V . ' ' ,_ ) .
0xl<intnk 17 6 B Stuptnstfla lncenlm, 1 f1.

()xkintok 1, 6 A l, . . . . . . Bulimulus serpernstrus, Say
Oxkintok 1, S) A

Oxkintuk 1, 10 . . . . . . . Bulimulus (2t small muletermined speeies still living)‘ in Yucatan).

()xkintuk 1, 9A. . . . . . . lVIneroeermnus C(J]lC1.~'ll.~‘,1\IUl‘Ol(‘t. ,
()rtlullieus princeps, Bl‘otl.

Planorbis lielnnzlnni, Dkr.

Oxkintol<1,14 . , , . . , _ Cyelutus dysoni,l’t'r.

()xkintnli l, G A}

. Chondrn wmzt lurqillierti Pfr,
()xkintnk 1, 6 B} l . 7

Helieina fragilis, Morelet.

Fulgur perversum (Linne), var. cozlretzitum(Smrlx) , .

i ll 0xkintok 1, 4.

. 1' ()xkintok 1, 1.

Associated with Man.
In Human Layer.

()xkintok 1, 4.
Oxkintok 1, U A.
()xkintok 1, 4 B.
()xkintuk 1, 5 A.
()xkintok 1, 2.
Oxkintok 1, Layer 2.
Oxkintok 1, 2.

f Oxkintek 1, Layer 1.

ll Oxkintok 1, 4.

{ Oxkintok 1, 2.
Uhektva-leli 1, 1.

Suyab 1, 3.
l Sztyab 1, 1.

XXVI/[W118 V

l Oxkintok 1, 2.
Loltun 3, Layer 1.
Snyal) 1, 3.

Coyok 1, 1 A.

()xkintok 1, 1.

()xkintok 1, '2.

Oxkintok 1, 4.

Oxkintok 1, Layer 4.
[ Oxkintok 1, 4.

’ 1 Oxkintok 1. 2.

I Loltun 2, Layer 6.
l Oxkintok 1, 4.
Oxkintok 1, 3.

BLT

174 THE HILL-CAVES 01? YUCATAN

The majority of the shells were found in Oxkintok Cave
and in the layer of human rubbish. None were gathered in
the undisturbed cave earth below that did not also occur in
the disturbed zone of human interference above, except a small
Bulinmlus of undetermined species that still lives in Yucatan.
The Cyclotus dysoni, Pfr., found on the rock bottom of Oxkintok
at fourteen feet, was very common in the ash layers above, while,
on the other hand, some shells found in the culture-layer, like
the Ifelicina flay/i158, the Planorbis liebmcmni, the Orthalicus prin-
ceps, the Streptostylco bicom’ca, and the Glandz'na cylindracea, did
not occur below.

Some of the specimens may have been brought to the caves by
the fire-builders, to be boiled or roasted for food or catch raw;
while birds and animals may have helped the distribution of
many. Others again may have made their own way to the sites.
The marine Fulgm perversmn in Oxkintok at the third foot must
have been carried to the cave from the sea—coast sixty miles to
the westward.

Mr. Pilsbry writes me that .“ all of these species are now found
living in Yucatan, and all but one (represented by a living speci-
men, Strcptostyla bicom'ca, from Mexico) were collected in the
living state by the Expedition of the Academy of Natural Sciences
of Philadelphia of 1890—91. A report describing them will be
found in Proc. Acacl. ZVat. $05., Phila., 1891, pp. 310—334, with
map and plates XIV. and XV. In no case have I been able to
discover any differences between these cave specimens and the
recent shells. The variations are exactly what are found in the
living fauna.”_

Nevertheless, since he informs me that few important changes
have taken place in mollusca since the Pleistocene period, and
that, although certain species abundant then are nearly extinct or
greatly restricted in range now (like the now rare Helicina occulta,
once abundant in the Mississippi loess), no genera are extinct,
there is little of value left for 11s in the evidence of the shells.
Many out of a score of duplicates may have been ancient, many
modern. The rare signs and variations betokening Pleistocene
age that large lists of mollusca sometimes disclose were wanting
in our small series ; and the specimens gave no stamp of geologi—
cal age to the human refuse.

A summer 175

Nor yes there anything more definitely aneient about any of
the animal remains. Some seemed positively modern, and, though
many of the speeies may have existed in Pleistocene time, none
had died out entirely. \Vhere the eave—earth lay thiek we were
surprised, as we had often been in the United States, at th . ab-

sence of the sloths, elephants, bears, or horses of an older time.

Flo. T4.

 

('ayern o1" Loltnn. Indians workingr in Treneh 1 on the floor of the main rotunda.

\Vhy had their bones, so eonspieuous at Port Kennedy, escaped
us at Loltun and ()xkintok? If not in the human refuse, why
had we failed to find them in the undisturbed earth below '.’ Had
the fossil remains of an earlier epoeh washed out before the cave
earth began to aeeumulate, or had they never collected on the
eave floors? To explain their absenee, we might suppose that
the region had been unsuitably dry tbr the larger and elumsier
mammals, or that many of the eaves had been inaeeessible to
them, though the probability seemed that we had not dug at the
right spots to reach fossil deposits. But, explained or unex—
plained, the point of the l1011-21l)])(‘:ll‘illl(fc of extinct animals in

176 THE HILL'CAVES OF YUCA'I‘AN

the undisturbed cave earth had little bearing upon our result.
‘ It was their association with man, not their existence, that we
sought, and there was no evidence anywhere in our trenches that
man had ever killed, cooked, and eaten them.

The boundary—line that separates modern time from a last pre-
ceding epoch had not been passed, and the fossil proof of man’s
antiquitv, so e 1~v to find 111 Europe, was absent. \Vhatever we
were to learn by deep digging into the undisturbed portions of
the cave floors of Yutatan, the culture-layers were geologically
recent.

No evidence was found to set apart the cave midden heaps
as referring to a race or state of culture different from that repre-
sented bv the relics discovered at the ruins. Though there “as
a disagreement between the texture of the ware from the mound
of Xhemtzil and that from the eav c::, a fair similarity existed
between the latter and that found in the cistern of Chunlul.
Pottery was an important guide. To unearth so great a variety
of it everywhere, generally similar in make, texture, and polish
to the specimens (in eolleetionsfrom the ruins, and to find a carved
ape’s head at Spukil, wall—carvings at Cch and Loltun, and flint
knives and obsidian at the anions underground sites, reasonably
showed the ave visitor to have been identical with the Maya
Indian who had built Chiehenitza, Labna, and Uxmal. Further
argument that the latter must have visited the caves to get water
was hardly necessary. Under the circumstances it seemed impos—
sible to refer the subterranean refuse to any one else.

Without venturing to weigh probabilities as to how long it
would have taken a people reaching Yucatan in a rude state to
develop the art of pottery 011 the spot, suffice it to repeat that no
evidence of such development, whether of long or short duration,
appeared in our trenches. Pottery grew rarer or disappeared
altogether tm 'ards the bottom of the ash—films, yet there was no
marked sign of evolution in the ware. The first immigrant,
though coming lightly equipped with earthen vessels, must have
already possessed the secrets of the craft. We found no Palaeo-
lithic man, no Homo neanderthalcnsis, no Pithecanthropus erec-
tus, but a builder of cities, inferably the superior of most North
American tribes when he appeared upon the scene.

In a word, we had taken the non-existence of cave evidence

A SUMMARY 177
like that of Europe as evidence in itself, arguing the absence of
earlier man in the region from the absence of earlier culture-
layers in the ~aves, and had inferred that the results obtained in
the mountain caverns would apply to the whole northern Pen-
insula. That portion of the testimony was negative, and a single
discovery of an earlier culture-laye‘ at a cave unvisited by us
will upset our inference. Nevertheless, when all things were
considered we were satisfied. Everything indicated that we had
gone directly to the heart of the question, eliminating redundant
factors and noting facts where they were most significant ; and,
while experience with the country soon convinced 11s that primi-
tive immigrants must have visited the hill—caves for water, we.
realized that. surface pools liable to go dry in the dry season, like
the «grades at Zaecacal, Macoba, Bechanen, Uxmal, and Iturbide,
the larger ponds north of Valladolid, or the more conspicuous
open ccnofcs, like those at Chiehenitza, could not have supplied
the daily universal demand. If, moreover, from the first, drip-
ping caves had been sought for and prized, there was no reason
to suppose that the hill—caves had escaped the earliest attention
of the water-seekers, or that any ‘aves in the plain, as, for instance,
those at Mayapan, or Bolonchen Ticul, or Kewik, or Xul, or
Xcokh, described by Stephens, contained any conflicting or older
evidence. \Ve had done enough and seen enough to reasonably
establish our conclusions :

First. That no earlier inhabitant had preceded the builders of
the ruined cities in Yucatan.

Second. That the people rev ‘aled in the caves had reached the
country in geologically recent times.

Third. That these people, substantially the ancestors of the
present Maya Indians, had not developed their culture in Yuca-
tan, but had brought it with them from somewhere else.

There was little to tell of our last few (lays in the term cah'cntc.
The anxious care of a list of baggage, now swelled to about forty
sacks and boxes, followed us to Merida, where seve all packages of
tools and provisions had to be sold. After final purchases and
visits to friends, came the expedition above noted to the pottery,
a very interesting interview with the Bishop of Yucatan, and a
pleasant dinner with our kind friend and hospitable host, Senor

178 THE HILL-CAVES OF YUCATAN

Escalante. Then, hurried by news of an opportune steamer, we
were again on our way to the sea.

As we stood at last on the pier at Progreso, it was easy to read
in the faces of each member of the party that all had gone well,
that what had been hoped for had been accomplished. Each had
done his best, and all were going home together, with a regret-
able exception. We were to say good-by t0 Pastor Leal, our
Indian servant, who had come with us to the ship, bringing as a
parting present a young Oleander-tree in a wooden box. When
he went away the long familiar background of Yucatan seemed
to disappear with him, while mixed impressions of iron ships,
railway tracks, shouting boatmen, and bales marked with well—
known names took possession of our thoughts. ,1 :~

The English language rang eheerfullv in our ears as we
climbed down the gleasy iron bulwark of a steamer into a tossing
tug—boat, but all had become commonplace again, and nothing
remained to astonish us upon the voyage but the coming change
of climate. F or, as weeks had passed, it had been easy to forget
that a cold winter had raged at home. Nor, sailing the summer
sea in finest weather, did we realize the paradox, until the
sudden truth surprised us when we landed at New York in a
snow-squall.

INDEX.

Academy of Natural Sciences of Phil-
adelphia. 12, 47.

Accident at Actun Xmak, 81.

Actun, Maya etymology of, 22.

Adami, Professor, age of stalactitcs,
155.

Adelsbcrg Cave, 32.

Agave sisalensis, hencquen, 16.

Aguadus, surface pools of water, 42,
43; paved, 145; do not subtract
from archzeological importance of
caves, 176.

Akum-tree, 130, 131.

Alamo-trees and roots, 23, 25, 125, 136,
148.

Américaine, Société, of France, 70.

Ana, Santa, 91, 95.

Animal (lens, rarity of, 116.

Animal remains in Yucatan caves
identified, 168; number of species,
171; presence in caves accounted
for, 172; significance of, 175; no
inference of antiquity from, 175.

Ape, carving of, at Spukil, 31.

Apparatus for cave work, 46.

Archwological Association of the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania, 13.

Archaeology in Yucatan, 70.

Arrow-heads in refuse, 30; rarity of,
77, 118, 161.

Atlantis, 11, 72.

Aubin, 70.

Balls, dances, native, 58.

Balls of stone or pottery, 77, 107.

Balm-in, native wakes, 130.

Banana-trees in caves, 24, 46, 57, 133.

Bats, Cavern of, in Hungary, 32.

Bats, (/11.i7’0ptcra,47, 50, 52, 56, 69,
121, 123, 170,172

Beams of zapote wood in ceilings, 95.

Bear, Ursus, 170.

Bechanen, 43.

Bercndt, Dr. K. H., 43, 71, 73.

Bird, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 56, 57, 69, 76,
80, 107, 113, 121,123,155,156, 157,
158, 169,172; at Loltun, 111, 114.

Bishop of Yucatan, 18, 22, 38, 45,
128, 144, 165.

Blinds for shooting animals, 130, 136.

Blowing cave, 91.

 

Bones of animals in caves, 168, 171,
172, 175.

Bones, human, in Xambak Cave, 36;
split for marrow, 49.

Bottom rock in trenches, 51, 114, 124.

Boturini, 70.

Bourbourg, Brasseur de, 72.

Box, 164.

Brinton, Dr. Daniel G., 13, 18, 72,165.

Building-stones, ancient dressed, 57;
Workshop for making, 74.

Building wall, imperfect in ancient
Yucatan, 95; vaulting, 94.

Bzdimulus .s-uperastrus, 47, 48, 49, 52,
53, 173.

Burrows of animals in cave floors, 110,
118, 120, 123, 124, 155.

Cabachen Actun, at Maui, 140.

Calabash, 77, 98.

Calaveras skull, 11.

Calcehtok, 14, 28, 35, 37, 45.

Cam's fmniliaris, dog, 170.

Cannibalism, 116, 156, 159.

Caribs, 11.

Carnivore, 111, 115, 123.

Carvings, rock, in caves, 30, 33, 34,
100, 102, 103, 104, 105.

Cave exploration, chances of, 15.

Cave, Hartman‘s, in Pennsylvania,
1], 13.

Cave-in-Rock, Indiana, 13.

Cave, Lake’s, Kentucky, 13.

Cave, Lookout, in Tennessee, 13.

Cave-men of France ancestors of Es-
kimo, 11.

Cave, nameless, near Actun Lara, 83.

Cave, Nickajack, in Tennessee, 13, 21.

Cave, Port Kennedy, in Pennsyl-
vania, 11, 12, 13.

Cave, Thompson’s Shelter, West Vir-
ginia, 13.

z i s )‘ 2 1" . o' z 2
C tV( v1 1t(1, n clent, f YuCIt m,
identical With builder of ruined

cities, 175 ; not a cave-dweller, 155;
reached Yucatan in geologically
recent times, 177; culture of, not
developed in Yucatan ,but imported,
177.

Caves explored in Pennsylvania, Ten-
nessee, Virginia, 'West Virginia,

179

180

Illinois, and Kentucky, 11; 111
Yucatan, situation of, 14; Spukil,
22;.‘121v2111, 37; Chamhak, 35;
C011, 33; Oxkintok, 45; Chekt-
21- 1e11, 67 , Xmak, 79; Jeh or Jih,

81; nameless cave, 83; Lara, 83;
Neuro 83 ;Chak, 91; Loltun, 98;

Sitz, 128; Tzu- Zuil, 129; C(iyok,
130; Chanz Coyol\,134; Tiplamas,
35; Pantak lntul, 135; Chum Yah,
135; Muleo, 136: Cabachen, 140;
Skokikan, 142; Kotmufiox, 142;
cave near Skokikan, 143 ; Cush-Hu,
149; Pet Cot, 150; Has, 150; heat
of, 83, 93 ; blowing, 91,c11ar21cter of,
21; unexplored b) expedition, seen
by Stephens, 19; <‘11'iginal sources
of water-supp1_v,44, 176 ; visited by
modern Indians, 141; explored by
Corwith Expedition, names, num-
1101, and sin‘niflcance of, 160.

Ceh Aetun, 32,313, 34.

Ce ilingrs 111 modern Yucatan houses, 95.

Cenotcs described, 18.

Carr/m, larger deer, 171.

Chak Rancho Actun, 91.

Chanz Coyok Actun, 134.

Charcoal, 48, 49, 50,53, 54, 56, 69, 123.

Charnay, Désire, 73.

Chekt-a-leh Aetun, 67.

Chiehankanah Lake, 43, 74.

Chichenitza, 14, 43, 73.

Chilam B21121111 books, 71.

Chiropfm'a, bats, 170.

Chumul cisterns, 76, 126, 175.

Chum Yah Actun, 135.

C/Londropmna largilflcrfi, 47, 48, 52,
173.

Cisterns, ancient, excavated at Rancho
Cl1un1ul, 76.

Claussen, explorer of Brazilian eaves,

5)
'7).

Col/SSHN, smaller deer, 171.

Codex Cortesianus, 71; Codex Dres-
densis, 71; Codex Pcrezianus, 71;
Codex Troano, 71.

Compass, draughtman’s, found at L01-
tun, 107.

Conclusions from exploration of'caves,
177.

Copan, 73.

Cope, Professor Edward 1)., 13, 28,
47, 48, on, 76,120,167, 168; differ-
ence between modern and fossil
horse, 172.

Cortesianus, Codex, 71.

Corwith, John VVhite, 13, 16, 45, 60,
76, 126, 142, 143.

Costume of women, 17.

Co} ok Actun, 130,131.

Coyko Chanz Act1111,134.

 

INDEX

Culture, development of, no trace of
in cave refuse, 176; not indigenous
but imported by cave visitors, 177

Culture-layer single in Yucatan, sig-
nificance, 165.

Culture-layers in Yucatan, meaning
of, 9, 10, 11 ; Spukil, 29, 30; Sayah,
41 ; ()inntok, 52, 53; Chekt-a-leh,
68; Rancho-Chumul cisterns, 76;
Xmak Aetun, 80 ; Loltun, 108,
109, 115, 117, 121, 122, 123; view
of, at Loltun, 112; Coyok, 132;
Tiplamas, 137, 138; Sabaka, 152,
154, 155.

Cush-Hu Aetun, 149.

C'g/cloz‘us (lg/50225, 47, 51, 52,
132, 173, 174.

36,131,

Dancing, M21‘21 Spamsh 58, 96, 146.

Death of Indian at Actun Xmak, 81

Deer, (70717115 mass-m, 28,33, 34, 41,
48, 52, 68, 80, 108, 111, 113, 115,
121,123, 150, 155, 172.

Development of human culture. 110
proof of it in caves, "151, 176.

Dicey/[cs quussus, peceary, 156, 170.

DMelp/zys, opossum, 169.

Dog, Can/1's familiaris, 68, 69, 78,
155, 156, 170; hairless, 89; sculp-
tured on Montejo‘s house, 90; treat-
ment of, in Yucatan, 90.

Domestic animals, absence of, in
ancient Yucatan, 77.

Dresdensis, Codex. 71.

Dressed stones, ancient, 57, 74, 94.

Duarte, Senor Eulogio, 18, 95, 126.

Dwal'f’s House, Uxmal, 85.

Earlier race (pie-Maya) in Yucatan,
no trace of, 176.

Eva-shell 111 cave earth, 48.

Eniv/s, tur,t1e 1138.

E11015 Cave, 11.

E11t1ancse toeavse ,24," 212, 35,46, 67.
79, 83, 92, 98, 125,128,129,130,
136, 140,142,143,148,149,150.

Eq/ms ('(l’)f1[lll.§‘, horse, 170.

Ermita chapel at ()xkutzcab, 128.

Escalante, Senor Eusebio, 18, 20, 64,
152;, 89, 1112, 178.

Eskimo, descendant of French cave-
man, 11.

Espinoza, Sefior Felix Martin, 61, 62.

Evidence from caves partly negative,
176.

Flint (hornstone) knives, Loltun, 107,
110; Chambak, 36

Forest of Yucatan, 16, 18,22, 74, 146,
160; near Uxmal, 88; extent of,
160; false appearance of, 147.

INDEX

Fossil beds, none found, 115.
Fossil man, 51.

Frog, 76, 113, 121, 123, 168,172.
Fulg-urperversum, 47, 52, 173, 174.

Game in Yucatan, 145.

Gm‘apaz‘as, antidote, 82.

Geomys, gopher, 169. .

Glandinacylindracm, 47, 48, 52,53,
173, 174.

Gopher, Geomys, 155, 156, 169.

Giitz, 71.

Governor, house of, Uxmal, 86.

Governor of Yucatan, Don Carlos
Peon, 18.

Graves, ancient, 77.

Groves, underground, 22, 98, 100

Gukey, Mn, engineer at Yokat, 66.

Guns carried by Indians, 145.

Gypsum-diggers, 66, 84.

Haciendas, 18.

Hammer-stones, 28, 29, 68, 80.

Hartman’s Cave, Pennsylvania, 13.

Has Actun, 150.

Heat of caves, 93.

Heilprin, Professor Angelo, 13, 14,

Heleciom fragilis, 47, 52, 113, 173,
174.

Henequen, Agave sisalensis, 16.

Hieroglyphs, Maya, Landas’s key,
72, 73; on vases, 77.

Hill-caves, importance of, from sear—
city of water, 176.

Horse, Equus caballus, 12, 170, 172;
Sayab, 40; Lara, 40; Chekt—a-leh,
68, 69; fossil, 12; difference be-
tween modern and fossil remains,
1'72.

Hue—hue-Tlapalan, 72.

Human bones, 36, 76; at Loltun,
113; split as if for marrow at
Coyok, 131, 133; at Sabaka, 150,
156, 157, 158.

Human heads on pottery, 78.

Humboldt, 71.

Iguana, 48, 52, 89, 113, 121, 123, 150,
155, 168.

Indians, 65; girl at Uxmal, 88; mod-
ern, Visiting caves, 141; workmen
at caves, 37, 38, 46, 47, 69; accident
of Indian at Xmak, 81.

Inhabitants, ancient Maya, of Yuca-
tan, not preceded by earlier race,
177.

Isthmus, preglacial, in North Atlan-
tic 11.

Iturbide, 42, 145.

 

181

Jade, 11.

Jalal, 43.

Jars, water, 77.

Jeh,or Jih, Actun, 66, 81, 84.
Jose, San, 75.

Kabah,,89, 94.

1fabal,163, 165.

Kancab, 164.

Kanchc, 163.

Kent’s Hole, 11,110.

Kingsborough, Lord, 71.

Knife of flint, 107, 110; at Xambak
Cave, 36.

Koch, Albert, discovers mastodon, 11.

Kot Mufios Actun, 142.

Labelling, system of, for cave speci-
mens, 46, 168, 173.

Labna, 75, 98.

Ladders at cave entrances, 92, 98, 125,
149.

Landa, Diego de, Bishop, 70, 72;
destruction of antiquities by, 139.

Lara Actun, 75, 83.

Lartet and Christy, 11.

Lenape, Lenni, 11.

Lepus, rabbit, 170.

Library, Royal, Dresden, 71; Impe-
rial, Paris, 71 ; Medicean, Florence,
71 ; at University of Guatemala, 71.

Limia., 163.

Lintels, wooden, at Uxmal, 87.

Lizard, Iguanidw, 48, 49, 52, 76, 89,
113, 115, 121, 123, 150, 155, 168,
172.

Loltun, Rock of Flowers, 98, 107.

Lookout Cave, Tennessee, 13, 35.

Lorillard City, 73.

Lund, Dr. P.W., explorer of Brazilian
eaves, 13.

Macoba, 42, 43.

Mam-oceramus concisus, 47, 49, 52,
173.

Maize eaten by Mayas, 65, 77, 115.

Maler, Senor, 60, 73, 77, 78,101,162.

Mammoth Gave, 32.

Man, bones of, 36, 76, 113, 116, 131,
150,155,156,157,158,171.

Mani, 14, 98, 139; cave at, 140.

Marrow, bones split for, 49, 131, 133.

Mastodon, 12.

Maya Indians, 113, 139, 141; civili-
zation of, 73. .

Mayapan, 14, 43, 98.

McGuire, Mr. J. D., 75.

JVIeleugi-is, turkey, 168.

Merida, 17, 19.

dictate, 68; modern maker‘s work-
shop, 84.

182

.Meztizas, 59; dance, 59, 146.

Minas Geraes caves, in Brazil, 11, 13.

Mitchell, Dr. S. Weir, 13.

Mollusca from eaves, 47, 48, 173.
Shells.

Monkeys 111 pottery, 78

Mont(jo, F1ancisco (19., house in VIe-
lida, 17,73, 90,139.

Mosquitoes not troublesome, 89.

Mounds, structure of, 60.

Mouse, I’cromyscus, 47, 48, 49, 51,
52, 55, 56, 57, 121, 123, 156, 169,
172.

Mulco Actun, 136.

Muna, 65.

Munoz, 71.

See

Nagualism, 104.

Negro Actun, 83.
Nickajack Cave, 13,32
Noyaxche, 43.

Nunnery, Uxmal, 86.
Nuts, in cultu1e la\ er, 122.
Nuttall, chia, 72.

Obsidian, 30.
Opichcn, 32, 38, 39, 58.
Opossum, DideZp/zg/s, 48, 52, 111, 113,
155,156,169.
07 thafllicus Ini’flCGpS, 40,47, 68,173,
4.

17
Oxkintok, 25, 45, 46, 57, 75, ety-
mology,45.

Oxkutzcab, 60, 126; quarters at, 127.

Palaeolithic man absent in the caves,
176.

Palenquc, 33, 73.

Palm groves underground, 25.

Pantak Intul Actun, 135.

Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts, 101, 120.

Peecaries, herd of, 91.

Peccary, Dicotyles tajassus, 108, 111,
113,155, 156, 170, 172.

Pengelly, William, explorer of Kent’s
Hole, 11.

Peon, D011 Carlos, Governor of Yuca-
tan, 18.

Pepper, Dr. William, 13.

Perezianus, Codex, 71.

Peromyscus, mouse, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52,
55, 56, 57, 156, 169, 172.

Pes/zoy-tree, 136.

Pestles at Loltun, 107.

Petit Anse, sloth bones at, 11.

Pcto, 23, 43.

Petroglyphs, 33.

Pigeons, House of, Uxmal, 86.

Pilsbry, Henry A., 47, 48, 49, 173.

 

INDEX

Planzprbis liebmanni, 47, 52, 121, 173,

17 .

Pleistocene fauna, absent in caves,
116, 145, 175.

Ponds (aguaclas) 111 Yucatan, 43, 145;
pools of watel in Yucatan, 43’; un-
derground, 93, paved and with
cisterns, 145.

Popul Vuh, 71.

Port Kennedy Cave, 12, 13, 56.

Potsherds, 47, 48, 53, 54, 55,57,139,
76, 80, 105, 107, 108, 119, 122, 123,
128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 134, 135,
136, 161 ; general description of, 24 ;
with human bones, 133.

Poltter’s wheel in Yucatan, 77, 163,

66.

Pottery, superabundance of, 76, 107;
chief culture-test, 141; subdivision
of, at Loltun, 118; general simi-
larity of, from ruins and caves, 175;
rare in lower ash-films of culture-
layer, 118, 119, 155, 176; manufac-
ture of, by modern Maya Indians,
161; raw material, 462; manufac-
tu1e, 163, 164; polishing, painting,
and glazing, 164, burning, 165;
how far modern, inherited from an-
cient method of making, 166.

Progreso, 15.

Pursell, Mn, engineer at Calcehtok,
35.

Quiche Guatemalan Indians, 71.

’mbbit, Lepus, 47, 48, 51, 52, '55, 56,
57, 107, 113, 115, 170.

Ramon-tree, 136.

Reservoirs of water in ancient Yuca-
tan, 43.

Results of cave exploration summed
up, 17 7.

{evolutions in Yucatan,
driven to caves by, 141.
{ill 1n Yucatan, 43.

Rock ca1vings in caves, 30,33, 34,
100,102,103,104,105.

Rodent remains, 51, 111,113, 123,
124, 155.

Rotundas in caves, 105, 119.

Ruins, 60, 61, 62, 73, 86, 94; builders
of, identical with cave visitors, 176;
no earlier peoples preceded them,
177.

Indians

Sabaka Aetun, 146.

Saccam, 63.

S11hagun,Bernardino de, 71.
Sandals worn by Maya Indians, 38.
Santa Ana, 91, 95.

Sartenejas, water-pools, 42.

INDEX

Sayab Actun, 37, 38, 39, 41.

Schawill, 43.

Scherzer, Karl, 71.

Schmerling, Dr. 1’. 0., explorer of
Engis Cave, 17.

Serpents, Cave of, 142, 144.

Shells in Yucatan caves, 111 ; position
of, in refuse, 173, 174; Bulimulus
superastrus, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 173;
Bulimulus, undetermined, 173 ; Cy-
clotus dysonia, 47, 51, 52, 56, 131,
132, 174; Chondropoma largillicrti,
47, 48, 52, 173; Fulgur perversum,
47, 52, 173, 174; Glandina cylin-
dracea, 47,48, 52, 53, 173; Helecina
fragilis, 47, 52, 113, 173, 174; Ma-
croceramus concisus, 47, 49, 52,
173; Orthalieus prineeps, 40, 47, 68,
173, 174; l’lanorbis liebmanni, 47,
52, 173, 174; Streptostyla biconica,
47, 52, 173, 174; no inference of
antiquity from shells, 174.

Siebo-trees, 35, 64, 126.

Sitz Actun, etymology, 128, 129.

Skokikan Actun, Cave of Serpents,
142; cave near, 143.

Skylights in caves, 22, 46, 83, 105.

Sloth fossil, 11, 12.

Snail, 47, 48, 49, 50, 56, 123.

Snake, 49, 52; colubrine, 49, 156, 168.

Snakes in Yucatan, 89.

Société Américaine de France, 70.

Split bones, 49, 137.

Spukil Actun, 22, 23; entrance, 24,
25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 45.

Stalagmite, 27, 33; in Loltun, 106,
110; age of, 155.

Stephens, John L., 21, 23, 43, 61, 73,
94, 145.

Stone balls, 77.

Stone carving, secret of, 161.

Stone tube, 77.

Streams in Yucatan, 43; observed by
Stephens, 21.

Streptostyla biconica, 47, 52, 173, 174.

Summary of results of expedition,
160, 177.

Suschen, 43.

Tabi, 14, 95.

Tapir, Tapirus, fossil, 12.

Tekax, 43, 98; impressions of, 146.

Thompson, Mr., late United States
Consul at Merida, 101, 120.

Ticul, 14.

Tigers, upon earthenware, 78.

Tiplamas Actun, 135.

Toads, 97.

Tobacco juice to kill garapatas, 82.

Toltecs, 72.

 

183

Tortoise, Cistudo, 48, 52, 111, 121,
123, 150, 168.

. Troano, Codex, 71.

Turkey, .Meleagris, 168.
Turtles, 172.

Tzat un Tzat, 61.
Tzu-Zui Actun, 129.

Unguiculate mammal, 48.

U'rsus, bear, 170.

Uxmal, 14, 33,43, 73; description of,
85; hacienda of, 87 ; comparatively
modern, 87, 98.

Valladolid, 43.

Vaulting, method of, in Yucatan, 94,
95.

Vegetation, underground,
Loltun, 98, 100.

Vertebrata, found in caves of Yuca-
tan, 168; list of species, 168; pres-
ence of, in cave deposits accounted
for. 172; significance of, in refuse-
beds, 175; no inference from, of
geological antiquity, 175.

Volans, 35, 38, 64, 140.

22; at

VValdeck, F. de, 23, 73.

Walls in caves, 26.

“'ater dishes of stone, 25, 28, 30, 57,
68, 80, 91, 101, 129, 130, 149;
courses in Northern Yucatan, 43;
drawing at Muna, 65; jars, 47 ; jars
at Xambak, 37, 77; reservoirs in
old Yucatan, 43; tanks, modern,
82, 134.

Water, scarcity of, inYucatan, 42, 43,
44; significant in archzeology, 176;
effect of, upon fauna, 145; supply
of, for animals and birds, 145.

Weasel, Putorius, 48, 52, 170.

Women, 59, 146; costume of, 17.

Wooden lintels at Uxmal, 87.

Wyandotte Cave, 32.

Xambak Cave, 35.

Xemtzil,45, 46, 60; earthenware from,
175.

Ximenez, Francisco, 71.

Xmak Actun, 79.

Yokat, 64, 66, 82.

Yucatan, first impressions, 16.

Yucatecan people, first impressions
of, 16; cleanliness of, 16; present
condition of, 17.

Yulu, 164.

Zaccacal, 42.
Zapote, 95.
Zumarraga, Bishop, 70.

 

ERRATUM.

 

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