At _Chichen Itza_, the buildings are remarkable for the mass of carved
stone work with which they are decorated, outside and inside. Great horrid
masks, geometrical patterns, intertwined snakes, occur. At some corners of
buildings are curious hook-like projections, which some persons have
thought were meant to represent elephant trunks. Mr. Holmes describes
carefully carved pillars resting upon gigantic snake-head carvings. One
room in the “Temple of the Tigers” has the inside wall composed of blocks
of stone, each of which is sculptured. The carvings represent persons
richly dressed. When the building was first made, these figures were
brightly painted and traces of the colors still remain.
We can tell a good deal about the lives of the builders of these old
buildings from a study of the figures and carvings. These show their dress
and modes of worship. The ruins themselves show how they built. Figures on
tablets at Palenque show that they changed their head forms by bandaging
like some tribes of whom we know.
At Lorillard City, ruins explored by Mr. Charnay, are some curious
figures. Among them one represents a person kneeling, with his tongue out,
and a cord passed through a-hole in it. The old Mayas really used to
torture themselves this way to please their gods. They pierced their
tongues and passed a rough cord through the hole, and drew it back and
forward.
[Illustration.]