Chapter II: Central America

Connection with Peru.--Nicaragua.--Ometepec.--Modern
Potters.--Guatemala.--Ancient Cities.--Who Built
Them.--Copan.--Quirigua.--Palenque.--Mitla.

Passing the Isthmus we reach the archaeological wonderland comprising Central America and Mexico. It is not improbable that there was an early connection between the ancient occupants of these regions and the South Americans. As they appear to us in their architectural remains, however, there is little beyond the grandeur common to their undertakings to suggest affinity. At the time of the Conquest the natives of the Isthmus had undoubtedly relations with Peru. It was there that Balboa and the more successful Pizarro first heard anything definite of that country. On Pizarro’s second attempt to reach the rumored land of gold, he met one of the Peruvian _balsas_ laden with textile fabrics, silver mirrors, vases, and general merchandise. It is curious to find Mr. Squier describing the same primitive craft in the Gulf of Guayaquil, more than three hundred and fifty years later. These rafts could hardly have been used for distant voyages, but were apparently the means of carrying on a coast trade between Peru and the north. The inhabitants of the Isthmus had a tolerably intimate acquaintance with Peru, and Balboa, according to Mr. Baldwin, gained clear information in regard to that country from natives who had evidently seen it. From this it may be inferred that the intercourse between the two peoples was sufficiently close to account for any similarity between the pottery belonging to Central America and that of Peru.

Passing northward through Costa Rica, where many specimens have been found, we reach Nicaragua. Dr. J. F. Bransford, U. S. N., exhumed from the graves on Ometepec Island, in Lake Nicaragua, a number of very interesting relics, which are now in the Smithsonian Institution. They are especially worthy of study as having been discovered in different deposits marked by successive layers of volcanic matter. One of the oldest (Fig. 394) was taken from a grave below the low-water level of the lake. Making due allowance for the fact that the lake lies in a region dotted in every direction with volcanoes, the grave and its contents must still possess a very respectable antiquity. Generally the old burying-grounds occupy elevated sites. The design resembles the double cross, and is graved in the paste. A similar style of decoration appears on another vase (Fig. 395) from the same district. The red clay is covered with a creamy enamel, overrun with incised lines. These are carried round the body in two bands of three lines each, and are otherwise disposed over the surface without any apparent method in the arrangement. The colors found upon many of the Peruvian vessels, red, creamy buff, and black, are seen upon the tripod (Fig. 396), also from Ometepec. Whatever may have been the purpose for which this vessel was employed, its use was not confined to Ometepec. At Gueguetenango, in Guatemala, Mr. Stephens found one of polished ware of the same general design. It was taken from a vault containing bones, under a religious--probably a sacrificial--pyramidal structure. The specimen from Ometepec was found in a grave.

The urns of the ancient Nicaraguans are generally of one shape (Fig. 397), and have been found containing both ashes and unburned bones. Terra-cotta vessels of all kinds, some of them painted, have been dug up both within and beyond the bounds of the cemeteries. They occasionally take the form of men (Fig. 398) and animals.

The present inhabitants are skilful potters. They follow methods of decorating practically identical with those of the Brazilians, and such as they have been acquainted with for at least three centuries. The wheel is unknown among them. Colors and a kind of glaze are both brought into requisition.

The old inhabitants of Guatemala have left clay idols and urns. One of the former, from Santa Cruz del Quiche, and here given in front and profile (Fig. 399), is hollow, very hard and smooth. It is said to be the image of Cabuahuil, one of the old deities of the country. From the same district come the terra-cotta heads (Fig. 400), one of which--that on the left--is hollow, and the other is solid. They are well polished and extremely hard.

Profile of Figure.

Fig. 399.--Terra-cotta Hollow Figure, from Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala.]

Resembling the burial urns of Ometepec is one taken from a mound at Gueguetenango (Fig. 401). The chief differences are the handle and a decoration in relief on the unpolished surface. It was accompanied by a vase or cup (Fig. 402) of polished ware tastefully decorated with bands and a graved design.

Over this entire region, extending from Nicaragua to Mexico, and only partially explored, there are evidences of successive changes having taken place between the Spanish conquest and a remote antiquity. As in Peru, dates are purely conjectural. Epochs are marked by broad divisions, such as make it clear that the changes which took place were deeply felt. History, properly so called, gives us but little aid. We are told of a time when the Chichimecs inhabited the country--a rude, ignorant people, classed as aboriginal. The name Chichimecs is applied to all savage tribes. They may have been either the original inhabitants of the country, or wanderers from the Peruvian centre of civilization, from which they had been separated so long that they had relapsed into barbarism, or detached portions of the original settlers who travelled from the north to the south. In any event, civilization came to Central America with the Colhuas, who introduced the arts and industries, and left the grandest monuments to be found in that strange land. Who were the Colhuas? and whence did they come? No positive answer can be returned to these questions, and that is selected which appears most reasonable, viz., that they came by sea from the northern parts of South America. Tradition points in this direction. After the Colhuas the Toltecs arrived, and reduced their predecessors to subjection at a suppositious epoch, B.C. 1000. For some reason or other, possibly on account of both internal disorganization and attack from without, the Toltec power is said to have decayed a few centuries before the Aztecs appear on the scene. Several hundred years later (1519) Cortez arrived, and the results marking Pizarro’s conquest of Peru followed in Mexico. That the Aztecs were a people of great intelligence cannot reasonably be doubted; that they equalled their Toltec or Colhuan predecessors may be questioned. All the evidence goes to show that they went upward from the South, where they had existed as a semi-civilized tribe, and that, on reaching the seat of the Toltecs, they subjugated them, and availed themselves, to the best of their ability, of all the knowledge and attainments with which conquest brought them in contact. The beginnings of Central American civilization are buried in an antiquity which even to the Aztecs was remote. To measure it, we must bear in mind that forests grow upon the ruins of cities which were as inaccessible to the Aztecs as they are to the modern explorer, and that the science and art of which they are the monuments must have required many centuries to develop.

We have already glanced at a few of the ancient settlements on the Pacific slope. The remains found among the ruins of Yucatan and the entire sweep of country between the Sierra Madre and the Gulf and Caribbean Sea were also taken from the tombs. They are usually of a red paste, and present an endless variety of form and, if those found together are contemporaneous, an equally wide range of taste. Of the leading cities it is necessary to mention only Quirigua, Copan, and Palenque. Of these the first named is considered the most ancient, and Palenque the most modern. Copan is situated in the western part of Honduras, and many urns of the prevailing red color have been taken from the recesses of its arched tombs. At Palenque and Mitla a silico-alkaline glaze covers some of the specimens of gray earthen-ware. The shapes include grotesque images of deities and priests, and rudely modelled snakes and other animals. Found at places far apart, and presenting widely varying characteristics, these potteries admit of no classification, either by date or character.

In Central Mexico bricks were used alternatively with stone for facing the gigantic pyramidal mounds which there abound. The Tlascalans, who aided Cortez in his war upon Montezuma, burned their bricks.

At Palenque, farther to the south, the ceramic remains are of a higher artistic order. At the risk of invading the domain of architecture, we may mention the stucco or plaster figures with which the buildings were embellished. In other places were statuettes, one of which is described as “made of baked clay, very hard, and the surface smooth, as if coated with enamel.” At Mitla we again meet with the phenomenon which we found so strange in Peru--the association of two entirely different orders of art, the most magnificent architecture and exquisite inlaid decoration with rude paintings of the figures of idols. The knowledge of coloring materials is nowhere better illustrated than in Yucatan, where red, yellow, blue, green, and brown appear in the wall-paintings. We find the pottery of Nicaragua compared with that of Mexico and Peru, but far more enthusiastic language was employed by the Spaniards in regard to what they saw. Cortez, in 1520, compared the pottery of Tlascala with the best of Spanish manufacture, and Herrera finds in Faenza ware the best parallel with that of Chulula.

Should farther explorations be made of the cities buried by the forests which have sprung up around the ruins we have indicated, a more connected history of the ceramics of the entire region may be written. At present one is liable to be lost in conjecture, and to launch into speculations such as that which very plausibly attributes to Central America a civilization the most ancient in the world.