I
The picture of life in the Old Maya Empire of Central America during
the sixth century after Christ is reconstructed almost entirely from
the archæological evidence. Unlike many of the indigenous cultures of
our own country which have survived with all their wealth of legend,
myth, rite and ceremonial, down to the present day, the Old Maya Empire
had vanished centuries before the Discovery of America. The episode in
the life of a boy who might have lived in those colorful times must
necessarily be based upon what we may glean from the monuments, temples
and palaces of the period, helped out here and there by some few
ethnological facts about the New Maya Empire gathered a millenium later.
The term “True Man,” _halach vinic_, was that given by the Maya only to
their highest chiefs, their hereditary rulers, who would seem to have
lived in a state not unlike feudalism, even discounting the indubitable
feudalistic bias with which all the early Spanish chroniclers wrote.
The rulers together with the priesthood would appear to have been
nearly, if not quite absolute; succession to the supreme office passed
by hereditary descent, though probably individual unfitness therefor
could and did modify the operation of strict primogeniture; finally a
system of vassalage, of lesser chieftains dependent upon an overlord,
certainly obtained. Indeed, such are the extent and magnificence of
the architectural and monumental remains of the Maya civilization that
in order to have achieved them, it is necessary to postulate a highly
centralized form of government, administered by a small, powerful caste.