Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/367

Rh sentence upon the defeated Xibalbans in the words "Your ball shall not roll again in the ball-game." Now Xibalba is evidently regarded as an underworld, but the author of the Popol Vuh goes out of his way to explain that the inhabitants are not gods. That being so, one's thoughts are immediately directed to the Mixtec or Zapotec country as the site of Xibalba, since in this region alone certain localities were definitely pointed out as the openings of the underworld. On the whole I think the evidence suggests that the game found its way into the Maya region after the abandonment of the earlier Maya cities, and as a result of the migrations which the fall of Tulan set on foot. Further, that it-reached the Maya by two channels (and perhaps at different times), i.e. Yucatan via Vera Cruz and Tabasco, and north-west Guatemala by way of Oaxaca. The presence of ruins strongly resembling tlaxtli-courts in the Huaxtec territory is, I believe, due to later influence emanating from the Mexican valley. Besides the presence of the court at Chichen Itza, further evidence of the presence of the game in the east is found in the Kakchiquel legends, where a related people living far to the east, and almost certainly to be identified with the Olmec, are called the "Ball-play and fish people."

As regards habitations, no doubt the early inhabitants of the Maya country lived, for the most part, in huts constructed of perishable materials, and reserved the more permanent buildings for the service of the gods and the use of the tribal chiefs. So close a similarity does the present-day native house of Yucatan bear to the typical form of Maya room as exemplified in the ruins, that it seems probable that the early habitations did not differ essentially from those of later times. The Yucatec house is a rectangular structure of wood and leaves, with a gabled roof supported by a ridge-pole; it is usually constructed on a raised