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Rh sought, while the difficulties afforded by environment and climate place serious obstacles in the way of systematic excavation. Further, the art itself affords many indications that it is based upon wood-carving, and the conditions are not favourable to the survival of any remains save those constructed in stone.

The position which must be assigned to the Zapotec raises a question of considerable interest. Their indebtedness to Maya culture is obvious from the consideration of a large proportion of their architectural remains and their art, but certain peculiar features make their appearance. In the first place, no migration legends are recorded, while the fact that certain localities were held to be the entrance to the underworld rather emphasizes the "indigenous" nature of the population. Again, though cremation makes its appearance among the later Maya, the Zapotec, for religious reasons, held out against it, practising, in the main, secondary burial. Finally, certain forms of ornament \ applied to architecture (as at Mitla) and to pottery (as at Cuicatlan) are unique in this part of America. Of interest is the fact that the geometric ornament at Mitla finds an exact parallel in the stucco decoration of some of the early ruins of the Peruvian coast, while the designs of | the Cuicatlan pottery reproduce with equal exactness a favourite textile ornament belonging to the same region. Certain of the Peruvian coast-dwellers preserved traditions of immigration by sea, and these combined facts might be taken as a vague indication of early coasting voyages down the west coast of America. It would be rash to put this forward as a definite theory, but at any rate further investigations in this direction might prove of great interest. The Zapotec at one period seem to have extended considerably further north than in later times, and to have been driven south by the Mixtec who at least contained an immigrant element. The peculiar slab discovered at Placeres del Oro seems to