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Rh legends, almost certainly due to the same causes, and the Toltec influence is found in the frescoes at Mitla, which resemble those at Santa Rita, though, be it noted, they are by no means necessarily contemporary with the buildings on which they occur. Thus the Maya culture completed its circle, a branch passing, as I have indicated, from Guatemala to the Mexican valley, and then through Vera Cruz and Tabasco to Yucatan, where it came into contact with a more legitimate offshoot of the early Maya stock. In the west the wave of Toltec influence appears to have reached as far south as Santa Lucia Cozumalhuapa, and the presence of tlaxtli-courts in the Chacula and Alta Vera Paz regions are probably to be attributed to the same agency; for it will be remembered that a body of Toltec, after the fall of their city, are reported to have migrated to Soconusco (p. 11).

The position of the Huaxtec now arises. In them we have a Maya-speaking people, practising certain definitely Maya customs such as tooth- filing and -inlay, and inhumation as opposed to cremation, yet apparently without a script. As far as their art is concerned, the sculptures of the Panuco valley bear a closer