Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/663

* INDIANS. 579 INDIANS. of Tabasco and Chiapas and most of Guatemala, and had an outlying colony in the Huastec of Vera Cruz. Their principal nations, besides the Maya proper in Vucatan, were the Quiche and Cakchiqutl of Guatemala. There is evidence that the ancient builders of Palenque and Copan, al- ready in ruins at the time of the conquest, were of the same stock. The ilaya proper had at one time formed a powerful confederacy, which, how- ever, had broken up into a number of independent States before the arrival of the Spaniards, by whom they were conquered in detail, the last free remnant being driven from their citadel of Chan Santa Cruz by Jlexican troops only as late as 1900, after a stubbornly contested war of sev- eral years. When first known, the great cities Mayapan, U.xmal, and Chichen-itza, now in ruins, were flourishing centres of dense populations, which had attained the highest point of native American civilization. In government they re- tained a modified clan system, with an hereditary chief ruler, assisted by a council from his own clan. They were preeminent in architecture, building palaces, pyramids, and cities of cut and polished limestone, set in mortar and covered with figures and hieroglyphic inscriptions. Strange as it must seem, all this was done with- out metal tools, gold and copper being used only for ornamental purposes. Agriculture was the principal industry, the common lands being por- tioned out by the village chiefs. Honey and wa. were obtained from domesticated bees, and an active commerce was carried on by sea along the southern Gulf coast as far as the island of Cuba, copper disks and cacao-beans being used as currency. Their intricate calendar, with its cycles of 20, 52, and 2G0 years, has been the sub- ject of much scholarly interest, as also their remarkable hieroglyphic records, written upon parchment or maguey paper, or can-ed or painted upon the walls of their ruined cities, and for which as }'et there is no interpreter. The cog- nate Cakchiquel and Quiche were similar to the Maya in culture, differing only in dialect and extent of territory and influence. The great Popol Vuh. a native compendium of the ancient mythology and history of the Quiche, translated by Brasseur de Bourbourg. has been characterized as "one of the most valuable monuments of an- cient American literature." Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, and Upper Costa* Rica were occupied by tribes of difTerent stocks, some of them of considerable advance- ment, others, particularly along the east coast, mere savages. The Xinca. on the Guatemala-Sal- Tador frontier, are believed to have been a rem- nant of the pre-Mayan tribes. The Carib. on the Honiluras coast, were e.xiles from the Antilles. The Mosquito, I'lva. and Rama, farther south along or near the coast, were all wild tribes of different degrees of savagery. The f'lva also have the custom of head-flattening. The Gua- tuso of northern Costa Rica were an agricultural but brave and savage people, now near exter- mination, owing to the cruelties of the rubber- gatherers. South of their territory were found triWs of higher culture grade, the northern out- posts of the civilized Chihchan tribes of Colombia. The whole of the West Indies, with the excep- tion of two or three sporadic settlements from Florida in the Bahamas, was held by tribes of the two great South .American storks. Arawakan and Cariban. the former being indigenous, while the latter were recent invaders, who, at the time of the discovery, had as yet colonized only the southern islands. The Arawakan tribes were peaceful and agricultural, skillful weavers, wood- carvers, and stone-polishers, but unable to with- stand the inroads of the more savage Carib. Below is given a list, from north to south, of the linguistic stocks of ilexico. Central America, and the islands, so far as present limited study enables us to classify them, the Mexican portion being according to the latest researches of Dr. Nicolas Leon. The first five are extensions from the United States; the Cariban, Chibchan, and Arawakan are mainly in South America: Yuman (Lower California, etc.). Piman. Athapascan (Chihuahua, etc.). Tafioan (Chihuahua). Coahuiltecan (TamauJipas, etc.). Maratinian (Tamaulipas). Serian (SonoraJ. (Jhichimecan. Otomian. Matlaltzincan (Mexico and Michoacan). Nahuatlan. Tarascan (Michoacan). Totonacan ( Vera Cruz). Zapoteoan (Guerrero. Oaxaca). Chinantecan ( Oaxaca). Huavean (Oaxaca). Zoquean (Oaxaca. Chiapas). Chiapanecan (Chiapas, Nicaragua, CoBt& Rica). Mayan. Xincan (Guatemala). Cariban (Honduras and islands). Lencan J .icaquan r (Honduras). Payan ) INDIANS OF SOUTH AMEBICA. Our acquaintance with the ethnology of South .'Vmeriea is still very imperfect, for the reason that vast areas are yet unexplored, while in some regions brought under Spanish or Portuguese do- minion so much confusion has been wrought by the mi,<Tration. disintegration, or complete exter- mination of tribes that the writings of early mis- sionaries or travelers help little to clear up the . difficulties. Here, as wherever else the imcivil- ized man confronts the European, we find the same steady march toward extinction, brought about originally by wholesale massacres and cruelties at the hands of the white conqueror, and later by the new diseases which followed in his wake. As in North America, we find also on the southern continent the phenomenon of vast areas occupied by tril)es of some half-dozen linguistic stocks, differing little in habit and all vipon near- ly the same culture plane, with other areas of mountainous or otherwise difficult coimtrv held by a multitude of sni,all stocks with habits al- most as widely variant as their languages. In general we may grovip the tribes by three great regions, viz. the. dean. the Amazonian, and the Pampean. the first being the mountainous terri- tory extending along the Pacific coast from the isthmus to about .3.5° south, in Central Chile; the second, the whole interior stretching east- ward from the summit of the Cordillera to the Atlantic, with the exception of the Chaco: and the third, comprising the Chaco forest and the grassy plains of the Pampas, between the .Andes and the Parana River, together with Southern Chile, and stretching southward to Cape Horn. In the .Andean region we find the highest cul- ture, represented by the Chibcha. Yimca. Ayxnara, and above all the Quichua. whose empire ex- tended nearly two thousand miles along the