Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/260

204 into any direct connection with the ruined sites of the early and architecturally more advanced Maya culture, but all of them agree in fixing Tulan as the starting-point of their respective migrations. Again the Books of Chilan Balam are the only traditions which are accompanied throughout by definite dates, according to a system which is explained later, and these dates can be correlated with our own time owing to the fact that each version fixes with great precision the death of a certain Ahpula, which occurred in 1536. Unfortunately the different versions do not agree as to the earlier dates, and in some cases extended time-periods appear to have been interpolated. I think however by careful comparison it is possible to reduce the discrepancies to a minimum, and I have therefore drawn up a scheme of chronology, based in the main on the version current at Mani, for which some degree of accuracy may, I think, be claimed. I do not pretend that these dates are more than tentative, but they will at least serve as a frame-work into which the main facts of Maya history may be fitted (Appendix III). The tradition current in Yucatan at the time of Landa was that the country had been peopled by two sets of immigrants, one from the east under a god or high-priest Itzamna, the other from the west under Kukulkan (the Maya equivalent of Quetzalcoatl), who later departed westward in the direction of Mexico. The first immigrants are said to have built Chichen Itza, and Kukulkan is related to have ruled there for a time, though afterwards his votaries built the city of Mayapan, where he reigned as a sort of overlord of the Yucatec. According to this author the Tutul-Xiu entered Yucatan from the south, and joined the Mayapan confederacy. To judge from their own legend the Tutul-Xiu left their original abode, Nonoual in Tulan Zuiva, about the year 41 8 (though it is possible that this event may have occurred earlier, viz. in 161, but I think the evidence is in favour of the later dating).