THE QUICHÉS AND CACHIQUELS. (BY A. P. M.)
[Illustration: ON THE STEPS OF THE CABILDO, ATITLAN.]
It will be as well now to give a slight sketch of the history of
the Indians whose country we were passing through. At the time of
Alvarado's entry into Guatemala in February 1524, the tableland round
about the modern towns of Santa Cruz del Quiché and Quezaltenango was
occupied by the Quiché Indians, who had their capital at Utatlan, close
to Santa Cruz. The Cachiquels held the land to the east of the Quichés,
and their capital, Patinamit or Iximché, stood near the modern town of
Tecpan Guatemala, and is called by Alvarado the "City of Guatemala."
The Tzutuhils, a less powerful tribe, appear to have held the land
on the east and south shores of the lake of Atitlan, and probably
had their headquarters on the site of the present Indian village of
Atitlan. All three tribes spoke languages of (what is now known as) the
Maya-Quiché stock, a family of languages which extends over the whole
peninsula of Yucatan, through the greater part of Guatemala, and parts
of Tabasco and Chiapas. The confederation of these three tribes or
nations--Quichés, Cachiquels, and Tzutuhils--is sometimes spoken of as
the Quiché-Cachiquel Empire; but whether it was ever a united empire,
as we understand the term, is somewhat doubtful, while it is quite
certain that at the time of the Spanish invasion all three tribes were
at enmity with one another.
It is sometimes assumed that these people had attained a high degree of
civilization, and were especially advanced in the art of building; but
this assumption I believe to be mainly due to the grossly exaggerated
descriptions of their towns given by the early Spanish historians, and
unfortunately there are no other written records to which we can refer
on these points.
Of the three aboriginal MSS. still extant, not one (so far as I know)
has been attributed to the Quichés or Cachiquels, and no carved
inscriptions have been found amongst the ruins of their towns; but a
few glyphs painted on pottery which is ascribed to them would lead
one to suppose that they made use of the Maya script. Of late years
two documents have been discovered which have gained for these people
some literary reputation--the 'Popul-Vuh,' or sacred book of the
Quichés, and the 'Chronicles' of the Cachiquels: the fact that they are
written in Roman characters shows that the transcription at least is
of recent date; but whilst they are of undoubted interest with regard
to mythology and traditional history, they afford no guide to the then
prevailing state of civilization.
After making due allowance for the inaccuracies of the available
descriptions, it may undoubtedly be conceded that at the time of
the Spanish conquest the Quichés and Cachiquels lived in organized
communities and that they were fairly proficient in the arts, without
attempting to exalt their culture to the same level with that of the
builders of Palenque or Copan, or the great towns in Yucatan. For
their history since the Spanish invasion we must turn to the earliest
accounts of them left to us by their conquerors.
Alvarado left Mexico in December 1523, with an army of 120 horsemen,
and 40 led horses, 300 infantry, of whom 130 were crossbowmen and
arquebusiers, four pieces of artillery, and some thousands of picked
Indian warriors. He passed over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and marched
on through the province of Soconusco, fighting a battle near Tonalá,
and on the 11th April he addressed a despatch from Utatlan to his great
Captain Hernando Cortés, who was then in Mexico, as follows:--
"Señor, from Soconusco I wrote to your Highness all that had happened
to me as far as that place, and said something of what I looked to
find ahead of me. And after I had sent my messengers to this country
to inform the people that I was coming to conquer and pacify certain
provinces which were unwilling to place themselves under the dominion
of his Majesty, I begged help and assistance from them as vassals (for
as such they had offered themselves to your Highness begging favour
and aid for their country) and said that if they gave their assistance
in the way they ought to do as good and loyal vassals of his Majesty,
they should be well treated by me and the Spaniards in my company; and
if not, I would make war on them as against traitors rebelling and
fighting against the dominion of our Lord the Emperor, and as such they
would be treated, and in addition to this, that we would make slaves of
all taken alive in the war. And having done all this and despatched the
messengers, who were men of their own people, I reviewed all my people,
both foot and horse, and the next day, on the morning of Saturday, I
set out in search of their land, and after marching for three days
through uninhabited forest, we pitched our camp, and the scouts whom
I had sent out captured three spies from a town in this land named
Zapotitlán. I asked them what they came for, and they told me that they
were collecting honey, but it was notorious that they were spies...."
[Illustration: THE PLAZA, ATITLAN.]
[Illustration: MAP OF UTATLAN. Ancient Capital of THE QUICHÉS.]
Alvarado had so far been marching through the tropical forest on the
Pacific slope; now that he wished to turn inland and reach the plateau
he found the path barred by a great host of Indians. A battle was
fought at Zapotitlán, and the victorious Spaniards rested for two days
in that town. Then Alvarado led his army up the Cuesta de Santa Maria
to the high land, and at the top of the pass, near the town of Xelahú
or Quezaltenango, another great battle was fought with the Quiché
warriors. Again the Indians were defeated, and Alvarado entered the
deserted town. In a short time his army was again on the march, and for
a third and last time the despairing Indians offered battle; but, as
usual, the Spaniards carried all before them, and the carnage amongst
the Indians is described as fearful. The victorious army continued its
march towards Utatlan, the capital of the Quichés; but Alvarado shall
tell the tale in his own words:--
"And when the chiefs of this town found that their people were defeated
they took counsel with all the land and called many other provinces
to them and gave tribute to their enemies and induced them to join
them, so that all might come together and kill us. And they agreed to
send and tell us that they had wished to be friends, and that again
they gave obedience to our Lord the Emperor, so that I should enter
the city of Utatlan, where they afterwards brought me, thinking that I
would camp there, and that when thus encamped, they would set fire to
the town in the night and burn us all in it, without the possibility
of resistance. And in truth their evil plan would have come to pass
but that God our Lord did not see good that these infidels should be
victorious over us, for this city is very strong, and there are only
two ways of entering it, one over thirty steep stone steps, and
the other by a causeway made by hand, some part of which was already
cut away, so that that night they might finish cutting it, and no horse
could then have escaped into the country. As the city is very closely
built and the streets very narrow we could not have escaped suffocation
or falling down headlong in fleeing from the fire. And as we rode up,
and I could see how large the fort was, and that within it one could
not avail oneself of the horsemen because the streets were so narrow
and walled in, I determined at once to clear out of it on to the plain,
although the chiefs of the town asked me not to do so, and invited me
to seat myself and eat before I departed, so as to gain time to carry
out their plans. But I knew the danger in which we were, and sent some
men ahead of me to take possession of the causeway and bridge, so that
I could get out on to the plain, and the causeway was already in such a
condition that one could hardly get over it on horseback, and outside
the city were many warriors, and as they saw me pass out on to the
plain, they retreated somewhat, so that I did not receive much harm
from them. Then I concealed my real intentions so that I might capture
the chiefs who were taking to flight, and by the cunning with which I
approached them, and through the present which I gave them the better
to carry out my plan, I took them captive and held them prisoners in my
camp. But, nevertheless, their people did not cease fighting against
me in the neighbourhood and killed and wounded many Indians who had
gone out to cut grass. And one Spaniard who was cutting grass a gunshot
from the camp was slain by a stone rolled down the hill. This land is
very full of gulleys, there are gulleys two hundred fathoms in depth,
and on account of them one cannot carry on war and punish these people
as they deserve. And seeing that by fire and sword I might bring these
people to the service of his Majesty, I determined to burn the chiefs,
and they themselves said at the time that they wished to be burnt,
as appears in their confessions (where they say that they were those
who had declared and made the war against me and wished to burn me in
the city; and it was with this intention that they brought me to the
city, and that they had ordered their vassals not to come and give
obedience to our Lord the Emperor, nor help us nor do anything else
that was right). And as I knew them to have such a bad disposition
towards the service of his Majesty, and to insure the good and peace
of this land, I burnt them and sent to burn the town and to destroy
it, for it is a very strong and dangerous place, that more resembles
a robbers' stronghold than a city. And to enable me to hunt out these
people I sent to the city of Guatemala, which is ten leagues distant
from this place, and ordered them on the part of his Majesty to send
me some warriors (and this I did so that I could find out what their
disposition was, as well as to strike terror into the land), and they
were well disposed towards me and agreed to do so, and sent me four
thousand men, and with these men and those that were already with me, I
made an expedition and overran the whole of the country. And seeing the
damages which they had suffered they sent me messengers to tell me that
now they wished to be good, and that if they had erred it had been at
the order of their chiefs, and that whilst their chiefs had been living
they dared not do otherwise, but as now their chiefs were dead they
prayed me to pardon them, and I spared their lives, and ordered them
to return to their houses and live as they had done formerly; and this
they did, and at the present time I have them in the same condition as
they were formerly, but at the service of his Majesty. And for greater
security I chose out two sons of the chiefs, whom I placed in their
fathers' position, and I believe that they will carry out faithfully
all that tends to the service of his Majesty and the good of his lands.
And as far as touches the war I have nothing more at present to relate,
but that all the prisoners of war were branded and made slaves, of whom
I gave his Majesty's fifth part to the treasurer Baltasar de Mendoza,
which he sold by public auction, so that the payment to his Majesty
should be secure.
"I would wish your Excellency to know that the country is healthy and
the climate temperate, that there are many strong towns, and that this
city is well built and wonderfully strong, and has much cornland and
many people subject to it, the which, with all the subject towns and
neighbourhoods, I have placed under the yoke and in the service of the
royal crown of his Majesty.
"In this country there is a mountain range of alum, another of
copperas, and another of sulphur, the best which I have yet seen, and
with a piece of it which they brought me without refining or any such
process, I made half an arroba of very good gun-powder; but as I wish
to send off Argueta without delay, I do not send to your Excellency 50
charges of it, but whenever there should be a messenger there will be
time for it. On Monday, April 11th, I started for Guatemala, where I
mean to halt for a short time, because the town which is situated on
the water called Atitlan is at war with me, and has killed four of my
messengers, and I think with the aid of our Lord soon to subdue it to
the service of his Majesty."
Alvarado then marched to Iximché, or Guatemala, as he calls it, and was
received in a most friendly manner by the Cachiquels: "we could not
have been better treated in our fathers' houses," he writes to Cortés.
After a few days' rest he joined his hosts in an expedition against the
Tzutuhils; but he shall continue to tell the story in his own words:--
"I left this town (Iximché) to go against them with seventy horsemen
and a hundred and fifty foot, in company with the chieftains and people
of this land, and we marched so far that we arrived in the enemy's
land on the same day. And no one came out to receive me in peace or
otherwise, and when I was aware of this I started with thirty horsemen
along the edge of the lagoon, and when we came to an inhabited rock,
which stood out in the water, we saw a company of men very near us, and
I attacked them with the horsemen that were with me, and as we followed
in pursuit they got on to a narrow causeway which led to the rock where
we could not follow on horseback, so I and my companions dismounted,
and almost carried along with the Indians we reached the rock along
with them on foot, so that they had no time to break down the bridges,
for had they done so we could not have reached them.
"In the meantime many of my men, who had been marching behind me, came
up to us, and we gained possession of the rock, which was thickly
inhabited, but all the people threw themselves into the water to swim
to another island. And many of them escaped, because my allies, who
were bringing three hundred canoes across the lake, did not arrive
soon enough. And that afternoon I left the rock with all my men and we
camped in a maize field, where we passed the night.
"And the next day we commended ourselves to God, and set out for the
town on ahead of us, which was very strong on account of the many rocks
and Palisades about it, and we found it deserted; and as they had lost
the fortress which they had in the lake they did not dare to face us on
land, although a few of them waited for us at the end of the town, but
owing to the roughness of the ground, which I have already mentioned,
no more people were killed. And then we encamped about midday, and
commenced to overrun the country, and we captured some of the native
Indians, and I sent off three of them as messengers to their chiefs,
advising them that they should come and render obedience to his Majesty
and submit themselves to the Imperial crown, and to me in his Majesty's
name, or otherwise I should still carry on the war, and follow them and
seek them in the mountains. These chiefs replied to me that hitherto
their land had never been broken into nor entered by force of arms, and
that since I had forced an entrance they would be glad to serve his
Majesty in any way I might direct them, and soon afterwards they came
to place themselves at my orders."
Alvarado had now subdued two of the strong tribes of the country, and
was in alliance with the third, so was free to continue his march;
and after a most arduous journey and frequent collisions with other
and less important Indian tribes he succeeded in reaching Cuzcatlán,
a town in what is now the Republic of Salvador. By the month of July
he was back again in Iximché, and the ceremony which then took place
of founding there the city of Santiago and the subsequent changes of
locality which the city underwent have been described in an earlier
chapter.
Interesting as Alvarado's letters are in showing us his method of
procedure in dealing with the Indians and the nature of the resistance
he met with, they give us very little information about the natives
themselves, the way in which they lived, or the culture to which they
had attained. For these particulars it has been usual to rely upon
later writings, and especially on the 'History of Guatemala,' written
between 1808 and 1818 by Domingo Juarros, who, in his turn, relies for
much of his information on the 'Recordacion Florida,' a manuscript
account of the kingdom of Guatemala written, in 1690, by Francisco
Antonio Fuentes y Guzman, and still preserved in the city of Guatemala.
The following description of Utatlan is taken from Baily's translation
of Juarros:--
"The history of this place is singular, as it was once the large and
opulent city of Utatlan, the court of the native kings of Quiché, and
indubitably the most sumptuous that was discovered by the Spaniards
in this country. That indefatigable writer Francisco de Fuentes,
the historian, who went to Quiché for the purpose of collecting
information, partly from the antiquities of the place, and partly from
manuscripts, has given a tolerably good description of this capital.
It stood nearly in the situation that Santa Cruz now occupies, and
it is presumable that the latter was one of its suburbs; it was
surrounded by a deep ravine that formed a natural fosse, leaving
only two very narrow roads as entrances to the city, both of which
were so well defended by the castle of _Resguardo_, as to render it
impregnable. The centre of the city was occupied by the royal palace,
which was surrounded by the houses of the nobility; the extremities
were inhabited by the plebeians. The streets were very narrow, but the
place was so populous as to enable the king to draw from it alone no
less than 72,000 combatants, to oppose the progress of the Spaniards.
It contained many very sumptuous edifices, the most superb of them
was a seminary, where between 5000 and 6000 children were educated;
they were all maintained and provided for at the charge of the royal
treasury; their instruction was superintended by 70 masters and
professors. The castle of the Atalaya was a remarkable structure, which
being raised four stories high, was capable of furnishing quarters
for a very strong garrison. The castle of Resguardo was not inferior
to the other; it extended 188 paces in front, 230 in depth, and was
5 stories high. The grand alcazar, or palace of the kings of Quiché,
surpassed every other edifice, and, in the opinion of Torquemada, it
could compete in opulence with that of Moctesuma in Mexico, or that of
the Incas in Cuzco. The front of this building extended from east to
west 376 geometrical paces, and in depth 728; it was constructed of
hewn stone of different colours; its form was elegant, and altogether
most magnificent: there were 6 principal divisions, the first
contained lodgings for a numerous troop of lancers, archers, and other
well-disciplined troops, constituting the royal body-guard; the second
was destined to the accommodation of the princes and relations of the
king, who dwelt in it and were served with regal splendour, as long as
they remained unmarried; the third was appropriated to the use of the
king, and contained distinct suites of apartments, for the mornings,
evenings, and nights. In one of the saloons stood the throne, under
four canopies of plumage, the ascent to it was by several steps; in
this part of the palace were, the treasury, the tribunals of the
judges, the armory, the gardens, aviaries, and menageries, with all
the requisite offices appending to each department. The 4th and 5th
divisions were occupied by the queens and royal concubines; they were
necessarily of great extent, from the immense number of apartments
requisite for the accommodation of so many females, who were all
maintained in a style of sumptuous magnificence; gardens for their
recreation, baths, and proper places for breeding geese, that were
kept for the sole purpose of furnishing feathers, with which hangings,
coverings, and other similar ornamental articles, were made. Contiguous
to this division was the sixth and last; this was the residence of the
king's daughters and other females of the blood royal, where they were
educated, and attended in a manner suitable to their rank. The nation
of the Quichés, or Tultecas, extended its empire over the greatest
portion of the present kingdom of Guatemala; and, on the authority of
the manuscripts mentioned above (which were composed by some of the
Caciques, who first acquired the art of writing), it is related that
from Tanuh, who commanded them, and conducted them from the old to the
new continent, down to Tecum Umam, who reigned at the period when the
Spaniards arrived, there was a line of 20 monarchs."
To show how far these statements can be relied on, it will now be worth
while to pass in review the remains of Utatlan as it can be seen at
the present day. I visited both Utatlan and Iximché in January 1887,
and made surveys of the sites. Utatlan lies about two miles to the
W.S.W. of the modern town of Santa Cruz del Quiché. On the left of the
track from the town, just before reaching the great barranca, there
is a natural mound, the sides of which have been terraced, and on the
top is a more or less level space measuring 200 by 150 feet. Within
this space are several mounds surrounding a level plaza. A reference
to the plan will show that two of the mounds are nearly square at the
base, and these probably supported small "cués" or temples; the other
two mounds are longer, and may have supported long houses. If these
houses were built of stone with stone roofs they probably contained
two parallel corridors or rooms not more than 9 feet wide and 200 feet
long, divided off by transverse partitions into smaller chambers. If
the lower part only were built of stone and the upper part of the walls
and the roof were of wood and thatch, then the breadth of the houses
may have been 20 to 25 feet, as no longitudinal partition-wall would
have been needed. At the present time no traces of house or temple
walls are to be seen, and the stone facings have even been stripped off
the foundation mounds, for the whole group of ruined buildings has long
been treated as a quarry by the people of Santa Cruz. There can be no
doubt that this group of mounds represents the guard-house or Castle
of Resguardo; but it is quite clear from the plan that the buildings
were of the same nature as those found throughout the country, and they
stand grouped together in the usual manner. The position they occupy is
a naturally strong one, and would offer great facilities for defence,
but there is nothing especially characteristic of a fortress about the
buildings themselves.
After leaving this hill a walk of about two hundred yards brings one
to the edge of the barranca and to the narrow natural causeway by
which alone the city or stronghold of Utatlan could be approached. On
crossing this narrow bridge one finds oneself on a fairly level space
of ground about eighteen acres in extent, with almost precipitous
sides, over which one can look down to the bottom of the barranca four
hundred feet below.
[Illustration]
Nearly the whole area affords some trace of ruined buildings, but
almost all the stonework has been stripped from the foundations,
and the buildings which stood on them have altogether disappeared.
Stephens, who visited the ruins in 1840, gives the following account
of the principal temple:--"The most important part remaining of these
ruins is that which appears in the engraving, and which is called 'El
Sacrificatorio,' or the place of sacrifice. It is a quadrangular stone
structure, sixty-six feet on each side at the base, and rising in a
pyramidal form to a height, in its present condition, of thirty-three
feet. On three sides there is a range of steps in the middle, each step
seventeen inches high, and but eight inches on the upper surface, which
makes the range so steep that in descending some caution is necessary.
At the corners are four buttresses of cut stone, diminishing in size
from the line of the square, and apparently intended to support the
structure. On the side facing the west there are no steps, but the
surface is smooth and covered with stucco, grey from long exposure.
By breaking a little at the corners, we saw that there were different
layers of stucco, doubtless put on at different times, and all had been
ornamented with painted figures. In one place we made out the body of a
leopard, well drawn and coloured.
"The top of the Sacrificatorio is broken and ruined, but there is
no doubt that it once supported an altar.... It was barely large
enough for the altar and officiating priests and the Idol to whom the
sacrifice was offered."
I have reproduced Catherwood's sketch and plan which accompanies this
description; the scale given on the plan does not agree with the
description, and unfortunately I did not take any detailed measurements
of the mound in its present ruined condition; but in any case it is
clear that the building was a small one. The sides of the long mounds,
which are just indicated in my plan, are perpendicular, and these
foundations may have supported stone-roofed buildings, in which case
we know that the chambers could not have been more than nine feet
wide, and even on the larger mounds there would not have been room for
more than two of such chambers side by side. The small fragment of a
stone-vaulted roof in the remains of a half-buried chamber shows that
the Quichés understood the art of building stone roofs. But, to judge
from Alvarado's statement that it was the intention of the Indians to
set fire to the town and burn or smother him and his followers, there
can be little doubt that some of the houses must have been built of
inflammable material, probably of wood and thatch. But amongst these
small and distinct foundation mounds where is the Palace to be found?
The absurdity of Fuentes's oft-copied description at once becomes
evident. According to the measurements he gives, the Palace alone would
occupy nearly three times the whole space available for building, and
with the seminary, the gardens, and the aquatic fowl must be relegated
to a dreamland suffused with the afterglow of Oriental splendour from
which the Spanish chronicler was so ready to seek inspiration.
It is hardly worth while to compare the account of Iximché given by
Fuentes and Juarros with the facts revealed by an examination of the
ruins; it would be to a great extent a repetition of what has already
been said with regard to Utatlan. The sites were similar; both were
peninsulas almost surrounded by deep barrancas, and approachable only
by a single neck of land, and each was guarded on the outer edge of the
barranca by a girdle of "atalayas" or watch-towers, which were most
probably small truncated pyramids supporting a cue or shrine which
served for the religious use of the outlying population.
All the tribes or nations whom the Spaniards encountered in the
subjugation of Guatemala and its neighbourhood appear to have had as
their headquarters such strongholds as Utatlan and Iximché, or towns
built on rocky islands in the lakes. Such was the stronghold in the
lake of the Lacandones and the island town of Puchutla, described in
the pages of Remesal, which was conquered in the year 1559. Such, too,
was the island of Tayasal in the Lake of Peten, the headquarters of
the Itzas, captured in 1697, of which some account will be given in a
later chapter; and with these may be classed the ruins on the hill-top
at Uspantan and the curious groups of temples and houses which crown
the ridges of the hills round the valley of Rabinal. None of them
appear to have possessed walls and bastions such as we are accustomed
to associate with fortresses; but all were placed in naturally strong
positions, and were easily defensible, and their existence tends to
the conclusion that the condition of society was one of continual
intertribal warfare.
None of the sites of these strongholds have yielded any examples of the
carved hieroglyphic inscriptions, highly ornamented stone buildings, or
elaborately-sculptured monolithic monuments which are to be found at
Copan, Quirigua, or Palenque; and it cannot be too strongly insisted on
that between the civilization revealed to us by those great ruins and
the culture of the Indian tribes conquered by the Spaniards there is a
great gap which at present we have no means of bridging.