Page:The Native Races of the Pacific States, volume 2.djvu/140



those relating to the mythical Aztec wanderings. The sum and substance of the Quiché and Toltec identity is the traditional statement that the former people entered Guatemala at an unknown period in the past, while the latter left Anáhuac in the eleventh century. That the Toltecs should have migrated en masse southward, taken possession of Guatemala, established a mighty empire, and yet have abandoned their language for dialects of the original Maya tongue is in the highest degree improbable. It is safer to suppose that the mass of the Quichés and other nations of Guatemala, Chiapas, and Honduras, were descended directly from the Maya builders of Palenque, and from contemporary peoples. Yet the differences between the Quiché-Cakchiquel structures, and the older architectural remains of the Maya empire indicate a new era of Maya culture, originated not unlikely by the introduction of foreign elements. Moreover, the apparent identity in name and teachings between the early civilizers of the Quiché tradition and the Nahua followers of Quetzalcoatl, together with reported resemblances between actual Quiché and Aztec institutions as observed by Europeans, indicate farther that the new element was engrafted on Maya civilization by contact with the Nahuas, a contact of which the presence of the exiled Toltec nobility may have been a prominent feature. After the overthrow of the original empire we may suppose the people to have been subdivided during the course of centuries by civil wars and sectarian struggles into petty states, the glory of their former greatness vanished and partially forgotten, the spirit of progress dormant, to be roused again by the presence of the Nahua chiefs. These gathered and infused new life into the scattered remnants; they introduced some new institutions, and thus aided the ancient people to rebuild their empire on the old foundations, retaining the dialects of the original language.

NICARAGUANS AND PIPILES.

In addition to the peoples thus far mentioned, there