Page:The Native Races of the Pacific States, volume 2.djvu/137



Cocomes, Tutul Xius, Itzas, and Cheles, which seem to have been originally the designations of royal or priestly families, rather than tribal names proper of the peoples over whom they held sway. Each of these had their origin-traditions of immigrating tribes or teachers who came in the distant past to seek new homes, escape persecution, or introduce new religious ideas, in the fertile Maya plains. Some of these stranger apostles of new creeds are identified by authors with Toltec missionaries or exiles from Anáhuac. The evidence in favor of this identity in any particular case is of course unsatisfactory, but that it was well-founded in some cases is both probable,—commercial intercourse having undoubtedly made the two peoples mutually acquainted with each other,—and is supported by the presence of Nahua names of rulers and priests, and of Nahua elements in the Yucatec religion, the same remark applying to all Central America. The ancient history of Yucatan is an account of the struggles, alliances, and successive domination of the factions mentioned. To enumerate here, in outline even, these successive changes so vaguely and confusedly recorded would be useless, especially as their institutions, so far as can be known, were but slightly affected by political changes among people of the same blood, language, and religion.

The Cocomes were traditionally the original Maya rulers of the land, and the Tutul Xius first came into notice in the second century, the Itzas and Cheles appearing at a much later date. One of the most prosperous eras in the later history of the peninsula of Yucatan is represented to have followed the appearance of Cuculcan, a mysterious stranger corresponding closely in his teachings, as in the etymology of his name, with the Toltec Quetzalcoatl. He became the head of the Cocome dynasty at Mayapan, and ruled the country as did his successors after him in alliance with the Tutul Xius at Uxmal, the Itzas at Chichen Itza, and the Cheles at Izamal. But later the Cocomes