CHAPTER IX

THE CITY OF THE DAWN

Diego Velasquez, Governor of Cuba, needed slaves to work the mines of that island. He commissioned Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba to go and get them from the islands called the Guanajos (now the Bay Islands of Honduras), which had been discovered by Columbus on his fourth and last voyage in 1502. (Roatan, the home of Captain Gough, is one of these islands.)

Hernandez de Cordoba sailed from Santiago de Cuba on February 8, 1517. The Spanish historian, Gomara, tells how he reached not his destination but

“a country hitherto unknown and unseen by our people, where he found salt-pits, at a point which he named _Las Mugeres_ (Women), because he there discovered stone towers and chapels, covered with wood and straw, in which were arranged in order several idols resembling women. The Spaniards were astonished, for the first time to see strong edifices, which had not as yet been discovered, and also to perceive that the inhabitants were so richly and tastefully clothed. They wore shirts and cloaks of white and colored cotton, their head dress consisted of feathers, their ears were enriched with ear-drops and jewels of gold and silver. The women had their faces and breasts concealed. Hernandez did not stop there, but ... a little further on they (the Spaniards) found other men, of whom they inquired the name of the large town close by. They answered, ‘Tectatan, Tectatan,’ which means ‘I do not understand’; from this the Spaniards thought that this was the name of the town, and, corrupting the word have ever since called it ‘Yucatan.’”

Not the town only, whose identity has long been lost, but that whole land has ever since been called Yucatan. And, it is worth remembering that for some time after Cordoba’s cruise the Spaniards thought of Yucatan as an island, around which they hoped to find a passage to the rich Indies they were always seeking.

Lust for gold was the motive which led to all the Spanish discoveries. The dissemination of Christianity was always a later and secondary interest.

The earrings and other trinkets which Cordoba saw encouraged the avaricious hopes of the Spaniards. A year later Juan de Grijalva sailed his four ships from Cuba to Cozumel Island, off the east coast of Yucatan. How the imagination strains to conjure up a picture of these first meetings between the mechanical, warlike civilization of Europe and the religious and artistic culture of ancient America!

To modern eyes such vessels as Grijalva had would seem absurdly high for their length and dangerously clumsy. No wonder the current which races northward between Cozumel and the mainland hampered navigation in such unwieldy craft!

Grijalva managed at last to reach the south end of the island, where he anchored. Landing, he fell on his knees and thanked God for giving this island to Spain. He then performed the usual solemn annexation ceremonies, while the Indians looked on in amazement. Not realizing that he was being robbed of his homeland the Indian _Cacique_ presented Grijalva with a jar of honey. The natives crowded around the Europeans, respectfully touching their bright weapons, and marveling at their thick beards.

The Spaniards were afraid to eat the food which the Indians gave them, whereupon the generous natives produced cotton shirts and jewels. Cotton, one of the New World’s most valuable gifts to the Old, was apparently unappreciated at first. And had the Europeans realized that these jewels had been brought in Maya trading canoes from richer lands to the south and north they might have left this country in peace a few years longer. As it was they blustered along the coast, “impressed,” as Prescott says, “with the evidences of a higher civilization, especially in the architecture,” and yet arrogantly breaking the native idols or pitching them into the sea until the whole country rose against the intruders. As American Indians went, the Mayas seem to have been a rather peaceful people. But no nation with any self-respect would long tolerate this sort of bullying.

It was largely because Europe had gone ahead of America in mechanics that the Spaniards were able to win the bloody struggle which followed. Scientists believe that the Mayas had scarcely any metal tools. They had no beasts of burden, and the limestone blocks of “the very large houses, well built of stone and plaster,” which the sailing master of Grijalva reported, had been cut with stone tools and put in place by man-power alone. It was because this power was almost unlimited and directed by intelligent rulers under a sort of feudal system that the Mayas had been able to build the great white cities which astounded the Spaniards.

But the Indians had nothing so deadly in battle as the guns of the Europeans. The bullets from these pierced the tortoise-shell shields of the natives, while the flint-headed arrows and spears of the Indians were turned by the steel mail of the Castillians.

Victory breeds in the victor contempt for the vanquished. Years passed after the first conquest before Europeans began to realize that the already crumbling civilization which had been given its death blow by the soldiers of Spain had possessed certain cultural achievements which put the savants of Europe to the blush, such as the intricate and accurate calendar which the Maya priests had made by long vigils in which the naked eye had no mechanical aids.

Before the Conquest had been begun, however, on May 7, 1518, to be exact, the four ships of Juan de Grijalva sailed to the mainland opposite Cozumel Island and turned southward exploring the coast. Juan Diaz, their sailing master, described their passing

“three large towns separated from each other by about 2 miles. There were many houses of stone, very tall towers, and buildings covered with straw.... We followed the shore day and night, and the next day towards sunset we perceived a city or town so large, that Seville would not have seemed more considerable nor better; one saw there a very large tower; on the shore was a great throng of Indians, who bore two standards which they raised and lowered to signal us to approach them; the commander did not wish it. The same day we came to a beach near which was the highest tower we had seen and one discerned a very considerable town; the country was watered by many rivers; we discovered a bay so large that a fleet might enter. It was lined with wooden buildings set up by fishermen.”

The day the Spaniards reached this bay was May 13, which happened to be Ascension Day that year. So the bay was named Ascension Bay. The Spaniards were mistaken about the “many rivers.” They may have sent a small boat far enough in to see the stream leading to Muyil, but that is the only river we have seen along this coast. No doubt many of the salt lagoons and sluggish backwaters of bays were mistaken by the discoverers for rivers.

Modern archæologists are inclined to agree that the city compared to Seville was probably what is now the conspicuous group of ruins called Tulum (or Tuloom or Tuluum, according to various archæologists. The second spelling most accurately indicates the pronunciation to an American, but I have accepted the first, for reasons which I need not go into here). What of the “three large towns separated from each other by about 2 miles”? Were any of them Xkaret, Paalmul, Chakalal or Acomal, where Indians report to us ruins still standing which have not been visited by archæologists?

There must be something left of these “large towns” we told each other, as our schooner retraced the course of Grijalva’s caravels and approached Tulum from the south.

I was in the hold reading John Lloyd Stephens’ account of the _Castillo_ at Tulum:

“It rises on the brink of a high, broken, precipitous cliff, commanding a magnificent ocean view, and a picturesque line of coast, being itself visible from a great distance at sea.”

“Come up,” called Griscom, “we can see Tulum.”

We were only an hour and a half out of Boca de Paila, and I hardly believed him. Much as I have read about the conspicuous location of these ruins I did not realize how the square high center of the _Castillo_, that “very large tower” of Juan Diaz, stands out as a mark to distant ships. We must have been ten or twelve miles from it at this time, but could see it plainly with the naked eye.

The gentle north wind which brought a bright day and high visibility also produced a calm sea under the cliff which made landing easy for us. Morley and Lothrop told us that we should have to jump overboard a few feet from shore and be “spewed up to the beach by the sea,” as was their experience. But this day was made to order. Our two boats were able to land on a thin strip of white beach just south of the _Castillo_. From here a steep gulley ran to the top of the forty-foot limestone cliff, which in many other places is impossible to climb.

Most of the eastern coast of Yucatan is a low, monotonous sandy shelf covered with scrub palms. Tulum is placed on the highest piece of land between Cape Catoche and Chetumal Bay. For location few cities, ancient or modern, can surpass it. The name means “Fortress.” The ancient name Zama means “City of the Dawn.” Both appellations are fitting, although perhaps the present one is the best. This old Maya metropolis does not face the dawn, but turns her back on the east. The builders deliberately chose to face away from the finest ocean view on the whole coast. It was probably for purposes of defense that they made the back of the two wings and the central tower of the _Castillo_ of solid masonry and placed all their doors on the other side facing an extensive ceremonial plaza crowded with buildings of religious purpose. For the same reason they built a wall fifteen to twenty feet high and almost as thick about the three sides of the city not protected by the jagged and pitted limestone cliff.

[Illustration: The chief temple of Tulum turns its back on the finest view on the whole coast of Yucatan to face a ceremonial plaza]

In the archives of Spanish history no one has found any account of the subjugation of Tulum, although the conquest swept down this whole coast. After the account of Diaz the world heard nothing of “the City of the Dawn” until 1840 when one Juan Pio Perez mentioned it as having been seen by a traveler named Galvez. The place was first given something like the reputation it deserves by the writings of Stephens and the drawings of his companion Catherwood, made in 1842. Then the Indian wars of 1848-50 plunged Tulum back into its former isolation. In 1895 the Allison V. Armour Expedition was prevented from landing by fear of the hostile Indians but the yacht of that party approached close enough for Mr. W. H. Holmes to make two excellent sketches. Danger from the same source obliged Messrs. Howe and Parmelee to leave after a two-day visit in 1911. Morley and Nusbaum made a daring visit in a tiny dory in 1913 and after being “spewed onto the beach” in the usual manner spent a few hours in a vain search for fragments of a stela found by Stephens and buried in the sand by Howe and Parmelee for safekeeping. In 1916 Morley and Gann managed to find some of these fragments and re-buried them. In 1918 Morley, Gann and John Held, Jr., recovered these pieces of stone and found some additional pieces of the original stela.

If these stones could speak what a story could they tell! Indeed, a very readable romance might be woven about their history since Stephens found them, the bare bones of which I have given above. The date on this stela is unquestionably an early one and the reading of it has been the subject of a very pretty archæological controversy. Stephens lived before any of the glyphs had been deciphered. Howe read the date on the front of the stone as corresponding to 304 A.D. of the Christian count. Gann and Morley read this date as 305 A.D., but they decided it referred to some event previous to the erection of the monument. They were influenced to this decision, explains Gann, by the fact that “we know from a number of historical sources that Tuluum and Chichen Itza were not founded till towards the end of the sixth century of our era by Maya from Bacalal (Bacalar), led by their Priest-Chief Itzamna.” The contemporaneous date of the stela Gann and Morley place at 699 A.D.

Lothrop, who studied Tulum for the Carnegie Institution and who is now attached to the Museum of the American Indian in New York, thinks that Morley and Gann are wrong, both in their reading of the date and in their interpretation of Maya history. He says,

“The most probable date ... is 442 A.D. (Professor H. M. Tozzer and Dr. H. J. Spinden agree with the writer on this point). This is given additional weight because it so closely accords with the traditional date of the colonization of the east coast as recorded in the books of Chilam Balam.”

The Books of Chilam Balam are records dating from after the Spanish Conquest written by natives in the Maya tongue but in Spanish characters.

This archæological debate is especially interesting because it concerns the age of Tulum. I must say that Lothrop’s argument--which I have barely sketched--seems convincing to me and that Gann seems to display unwarranted assurance when he says he “knows” that Tulum was not founded until “towards the end of the sixth century.” _Quien sabe?_

Sickness and rum have decimated the Indians who repelled previous expeditions to the Seville of the Caribbean. Yet the last survivors of the tribe which may virtually disappear within a few decades still watch the secret shrines of their forefathers, and still worship there. On entering the _Castillo_ we found the ashes of recently burned copal (gum incense). And we had hardly made this discovery when we saw an Indian running down a path toward us. He was a wizened little fellow, and there was a sort of unearthly obscenity in the grin with which he eyed us. Indeed he might have been a messenger of one of the lesser demons of the old religion. He said little, and that we could not understand, but it was obvious that he was watching to see that we committed no acts of vandalism.

A few minutes later appeared two more Indians, a dirty young man and a dried up ancient with a flowered blouse such as an American woman might wear, and a great gold earring in his left ear. We saw similar decorations in the ears of the priests at Santa Cruz de Bravo. The old man was “General” Paulino Kamaal, chief of the Tulum Indians, a branch of the people governed by General May. The youth was his son, the heir apparent to the Tulum throne. They lived in thatched huts some distance from the ruins.

They invited themselves to lunch with us on the schooner. When we boarded the ship there was a dramatic meeting between this old rogue, Kamaal, and Juan Vega. For a few minutes the air was thick with Maya ejaculations. At length Kamaal and Vega accepted our rum and cigarets and Vega explained the meaning of the pow-wow. It seems that thirty-five years ago a boat containing Vega, his father, and several other Mexicans reached Tulum from Cozumel. It was attacked by the Indians, who killed everyone in the boat but Vega, then a small boy. He was adopted as I have already related. But what interested us and Vega is that he recognized Kamaal as a member of the party which had killed his father. The old Tulum chief admitted his part in the massacre without the slightest embarrassment, indeed with obvious pride. His manner was of one who might be saying, “Yes, I remember how I walloped you at tennis thirty-five years ago.”

[Illustration: The ear-ringed chief of the Tulum Indians, “General” Paulino Caamal. His son (at left) coveted Whiting’s spectacles]

McClurg does not seem to appreciate the importance of cultivating the good-will of these local _jefes_, rascals and cut-throats as many of them doubtless are. His frank disgust each time we bring a tatterdemalion “General” aboard is amusing to watch. I was afraid there might be trouble when he ignored the dirty hand which old Kamaal insisted on offering him, but the tactful Gough pushed a plate of beans into the old Indian’s paw and a delicate situation was averted.

Kamaal’s eyes glow like old embers. When he had finished his meal he thanked us briefly, but warmly. Then he rattled off a string of gutturals with a mischievous side glance at Vega.

“What did he say?” I asked that genial fellow.

“He says that thirty or even fifteen years ago you could not have landed here. You would have been surrounded by his people, all strong young warriors. He says those good days have gone, but he is glad to meet you, even under these conditions.”

I started one of the Johnsons and took ashore the “heir apparent” and his father, looking like an old woman with his flowered shirt, his great earring, and his wide straw hat pulled down to his shrewd, vital eyes. Before they took the trail north toward the ruins of Tancah they asked in the sign language for more cigarets. I gave them the only package in my pocket, and a small bottle of Woolworth perfume. This last gift delighted the old man. He directed his son to empty at my feet a cloth sling containing about a dozen oranges.

Someone aboard the schooner had told this potentate that we should be returning to Tulum in about ten days. As we parted he mustered his only Spanish, or the only Spanish he had uttered to us:

“_Diez dias--con licor._”

By the way he rubbed his stomach I took this to be the expression of a gentle command that we should return in ten days, with plenty of rum.

Tulum has perhaps more wall paintings than any Maya city known. After lunch Spinden was copying some of these in the Temple of the Frescoes and I was admiring the outline of that small but lovely building when two young Mexicans approached. One was José Sauri, Agent of the Department of Anthropology of the Mexican Ministry of Public Education. By order of the Government he had come here from Cozumel to meet us, and to see that we committed no injury upon the ruins.

Sauri asked us to take him and his father’s sloop back to Cozumel. So now we are towing the sloop, steered by an old sailor friend of Sauri’s who does not seem to mind the gaseous fumes which pour upon his grizzled head from the _Albert’s_ twin exhausts. And Sauri sits in our midst with our other two “deck passengers,” Juan Vega and his silent, moustached retainer.

This has been a day to remember. Tulum is one of the wonders of the world. It has not quite the varied splendor, the architectural richness of Uxmal and Chichen Itza, the two best known ruined cities in Yucatan. But frowning from its desolate and formidable cliff it leaves an impression of stern majesty which those riper centers of the Maya Renaissance could never have produced, even in their prime. No Maya building has ever moved me so much as that little Temple of the Frescoes, with the four columns of its main entrance and the flaring concave sides of its second story--those leaping lines of a Peking roof. Spinden laughs at me and says it is something of a hodge-podge. He is right. But although it suggests Greek architecture below and Chinese above it remains for me a piece of sheer beauty in white stone.

With night has come a stiff east wind. I am wearing flannel under a waterproof shirt. But Vega, beside me, seems comfortable in his thin pyjamas. He is an interesting character, a mixture of business man, mountebank, diplomat and seer. He is telling me about the social usages and customs among the people he rules, trying to get my opinion of them without giving me his. He is especially concerned with marital infidelity and divorce, but for the life of me I cannot learn his own convictions on these subjects. Which is partly due to my ignorance of Spanish. Yet I can sense that he is constantly retreating behind jokes and light persiflage, watching me like a hawk all the while.

Gough is keeping a sharp lookout for one of the lighthouses on Cozumel. Whiting comes forward and remarks to me that when he was aloft just before dark he found Spinden’s lizard on the port main shroud, close to the cross trees.

“I’d have shot it, but I was afraid of cutting the shroud.”

Vega suggests putting a man on watch at the foot of the shroud to catch the creature if it comes down.

McClurg comes forward and says that at last he has discovered the schooner’s compass. It is hidden away in the engine room, and apparently is never consulted by the skipper of this good mud boat.

[Illustration: Tulum’s Temple of the Frescoes contains some of the finest paintings in the whole Maya area]

That worthy now sights the light of San Miguel, chief port of Cozumel, a town of some 1500 people, and our destination tonight.

Although we are under the lee of the island the wind is rising, and the boat is rocking heavily. Spinden seeks his cot in the hold with a groan. The cold has already driven everyone else below but Vega, the Captain, the helmsman and me.

Now several lights are visible at each side of the high lamp which warns mariners of the proximity of San Miguel.

For the ninth or tenth time Vega remarks:

“Among my people we punish infidelity by beating the woman on the neck and the man on the buttocks. Do you approve of that?”

For the ninth or tenth time I reply laboriously that the distinction indicates an interesting sense of chivalry but that both punishments seem commendable to an Anglo-Saxon sociologist. Why not try them in New York?

“Ah, but your men don’t have to have a woman to cook for them. You can get a divorce and eat in a restaurant. You are lucky.”

The _Albert_ slides between the dim white shapes of chicle schooners. Someone on the largest throws a beam on us from an electric flashlight. Now, for a little while we shall be in comparative civilization. Tomorrow we can send off radios. And perhaps we can buy phonograph needles, which we forgot to get in Belize.

[Illustration]