Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/265

Rh human sacrifice, practised secretly, began to make its appearance, and strife with the other tribes arose. The operations of the hostile tribes seem to have been directed chiefly towards the capture of the Quiché gods, and after the failure of various stratagems, a direct attack was made upon the Quiché, now living in a palisaded settlement in the mountains, but was repulsed with great slaughter. The death of the original leaders next follows in the legend; they summon the people, sing the song with which they greeted the sun on its first rising and then disappear, leaving behind a bundle afterwards known as "veiled majesty." The song opens, "The king of the deer is ready; his sign appears in the sky," and the words suggest the stellar god of the Mexican hunting-tribes, Mixcoatl, with his two-headed deer, while the "medicine-bundle" is not unknown to Mexican mythology (see pp. 33 and 55).

The greater portion of the account given at present must of course be regarded as belonging to the region of myth, but at this point the narrative becomes more "historical" in nature. The Popol Vuh naturally exalts the Quiché at the expense of the other tribes, but it appears from other sources that they did actually exercise a certain, though variable, supremacy over their neighbours. Hitherto they had obviously been under a priestly domination, and the leaders of the migration wielded an authority arising from their association with the gods which they received at Tulan. But their sons had no such right to command, and so set out on a pilgrimage to the related tribes in the east, i.e. those who had taken a more easterly route, to obtain the insignia of temporal rule. On their return the Quiché began to expand, stone-built cities were constructed to be the centres of ceremonial and political life of the three tribal divisions, the government was organized, and though the Ilocab revolted against the growing Quiché power, they were subdued and the attempt only had the