Page:The Annals of the Cakchiquels.djvu/45

Rh While the nobles were distinguished by titles such as these, the mass of the people were divided into well defined classes or castes. The warriors were called ah-labal, from labal, war; and they were distinguished from the general male population, who were known as achi, men, viri. These were independent freemen, engaged in peaceful avocations, but, of course, ready to take up arms on occasion. They were broadly distinguished from the tributaries, called ah-patan; the latter word meaning tax or tribute; and still more sharply from the slaves, known as vinakitz, "mean men," or by the still more significant word mun, hungry (Guzman, Compendio). The less cultivated tribes speaking other tongues, adjoining the Cakchiquels, were promiscuously stigmatized with the name chicop, brutes or beasts.

A well developed system of tribute seems to have prevailed, and it is often referred to by Xahila. The articles delivered to the collectors were gold, silver, plain and worked, feathers, cacao, engraved stones, and what appear as singular, garlands (ꜭubul) and songs, painted apparently on skins or paper.

The deities worshiped by these nations, the meaning and origin of their titles, and the myths connected with them, have been the subject of an examination by me in an earlier work. Here, therefore, it will be needless to repeat what I have there said, further than to add a few remarks explanatory of the Cakchiquel religion in particular.

According to the Popol Vuh, "the chief god of the