Page:A Glimpse at Guatemala.pdf/388

252 Polochic to make enquiries for the ruins of Chacujál, pointing out to him the localities in which the ruins were most likely to be found. On his return he told me that he could hear nothing whatever of any place named Chacujál, but that there was a ruin known as Pueblo Viejo on the Rio Tinaja, on the south side of the Polochic a few miles from Panzos. This situation answers so exactly to the requirements of the description given by Cortés that there can be little doubt that we had found the ruins of the town called by him Chacujál. In 1884 I was able to make a hurried visit to the ruins myself, and found a number of foundations surmounted by low wails somewhat similar to those in the neighbourhood of Rabinal already described in Chapter XII., but I could find no trace of sculptured stones or inscriptions. As the whole site was covered with a dense jungle it was not possible to make any plan of the ruins during the few hours at my disposal; however, I saw quite enough to convince me that, although the plan of the town had been carefully laid out, the buildings were of no great importance and in no way comparable to those at Copan or Palenque. Yet this is the town which Cortés compares to Culúa in Mexico, and deems to be of greater importance than any town he had seen since leaving Acalá, a statement which goes far to confirm the views which have been expressed in this chapter with regard to Tayasal, and to prove that Cortés and his followers had met with none of the great centres of Maya art during their wonderful march.

I was not successful in connecting these ruins on the Rio Tinaja with the name of Chacujál, until one of my canoemen whom I was questioning on the subject, after repeating the name several times exclaimed "Chaki-jal! that is what the Indians of these parts call the ripe corn" (chaki=dry, jal=maize), and the origin of the name was at once evident.

I began this chapter with the intention of summing up in a few paragraphs the conclusions I had myself come to, but although the paragraphs have grown into pages I find that no definite statements have been made.

How can we assert that the Maya hieroglyphics were originated and developed within the Maya area until the ruins on the Rio Panuco, and at Teotihuacan, have been thoroughly excavated and explored, and up to the present they have only been scratched at? Did the development of Nahua culture affect that of the Mayas, and is that the reason why the art at Chichén has an indefinable Nahua flavour? We shall not know this for certain until the ruins in Tabasco, Campeche, and Peten have been thoroughly explored, and we can trace the connecting links. Amongst the many other puzzles, how are we to account for those curious mural paintings recently found by Dr. Gann in British Honduras, on the eastern limit of the Maya area, paintings essentially Nahua in style yet accompanied by a legend in