A youth of seventeen sat on the summit of the loftiest pyramid in the city, and gazed moodily out over the surrounding temples and palaces, and the thatched huts of the more lowly folk beyond, to the grasslands, which swept as far as the eye could reach in every direction. He was naked save only for a sash-like cotton breechclout, so arranged that one end fell between his legs in front, the other in the same position behind, the ends being elaborately broidered with green feathers. A pendant of beautifully carved jade hung about his neck. Ear-plugs of the same material and sandals of deer hide with feather tassels completed his costume. In height he was under five feet and a half, slender, supple, small as to hands and feet, and a pleasing, warm golden brown in color. His eyes were black and narrow and in their placement somewhat slanting. His nose was aquiline and long, and merged into his flattened forehead in one straight line. During his babyhood his head had been bound between two boards to secure this very effect, an effect of beauty and distinction among his people. His hair was black, glossy and long. It was braided and then wrapped around his head except for a small queue which hung behind.
The time was the month of August 531 A. D.; the place, Tikal, the greatest metropolis of the Old Maya Empire; and the youth himself, no less a person than the ruler-to-be of the splendid city stretching at his feet, as well as of many smaller dependencies beyond the waste of grassy savannas which bounded his vision.
His discontent was of long standing and arose from a condition which he could not alter. His father, Ahmeket Chan, the preceding “True Man” of Tikal, had died two years before, leaving this boy, Holon Chan, as his sole surviving child and heir. The government of the state during the period of his minority had been carried on under the regency of his paternal uncle, Ahcuitok Chan, High Priest of Itzamna, aided by the powerful priesthood of this god, head of the Maya Pantheon; but now the people were clamoring for the252 investiture of Holon Chan in the supreme office, so that certain of the highest ceremonies, which only the True Man might perform, could be celebrated once again, and indeed Ahcuitok Chan was only awaiting the conclusion of the current five-year period to invest his nephew as True Man of Tikal. Itzamna, Lord of Heaven, had indicated through the mouthpiece of his priests that this event should be solemnized on the closing day of this period, and preparations for it had now been going forward for some time.
Now the boy had little heart for his coming dignity. His had always been a roving nature; he was a child of the open air, a lover of the forest fastnesses and solitudes, better suited to the humble lot of wood gatherer or corn planter than to that of ruler of a people.
The great discoveries of the preceding century, of large and wonderfully fertile lands far to the north of his own domains, had fired his imagination, and he burned to lead his people to this new land of promise, where the gods were said always to smile, and the cornfields to yield bountifully. Nor had these hopes always been without foundation. Once he had an older brother, named Chac Chan, who was to have succeeded their father as True Man, but while on a communal deer hunt, this brother had been bitten by a poisonous serpent, the deadly wolpuch, from whose bitter sting none ever recovered, and had died, leaving Holon Chan next in line of succession. And now the time was come when the exacting demands of his position, the elaborate ritual, which would fill his every hour, and the cares of the council chamber, would deprive him of every vestige of personal liberty.
The Maya people at this time, in Maya reckoning the close of Katin 18, were at once at the zenith of their power, and at the threshold of their decline. For generations now, the heavily forested lands which originally had surrounded their cities, towns and villages, had been gradually transformed under their primitive methods of cultivation into grassy savannas. This method of cultivation consisted in felling patches of the forests at the end of the rainy season in January or February, in burning the dried trees and bushes at the end of the dry season in March or April, and in planting after the first rains in May. The following year a new patch of forest was sought and the process repeated, nor was the first patch planted again for several years until a new growth of bush had come253 up, since experience showed that the use of the same cornfield two successive years would yield only a half crop the second year. This method of cultivation however, had two serious defects: not only was the greater part of the land thus always held idle, but also there eventually came a time when woody growth no longer came back to replace the original forests. Instead only perennial grasses would grow, and gradually the whole countryside was transformed into savannas. These savannas the Maya could not cultivate since they had no means of turning the sod, and they were thus obliged to go ever farther and farther from their homes in order to find suitable land for planting their corn. But the limit to which even this expedient was practicable had been reached at last. The cornfields now lay two, and even three days’ journey from the cities, and people were beginning to lose faith in deities who permitted living conditions to remain so intolerable, and who either could not, or would not make possible the cultivation of the savannas.
Holon Chan was not the only one whose eyes turned ever more anxiously toward the north, to Yucatan, where life was said to be so easy, and Yum Kax, Lord of the Harvests, always so propitious; and many a humble corn planter had stolen away with his family through the great northern forests to this new land, in spite of the stringent laws against such a procedure. Both priesthood and nobility were strongly opposed to this disintegrating movement, and oracle as well as law was being invoked to prevent the abandonment of the country. But, despite threats of divine wrath and the swifter punishment of men, for the death penalty had been exacted more than once for this very offense, a steady stream of people was pouring out of the Old Empire region, northward into Yucatan; it was whispered for example, that the priests of Itzamna at the Holy City of Palenque could scarcely muster enough temple servants to till the fields of the god himself. This news could not be repeated openly, but more and more people were coming to believe that the old land was accursed and that the only salvation of their race lay in a general exodus to the north. Indeed every one saw that if some way was not speedily found to cultivate the grasslands, the people would be starved into moving elsewhere.
Meanwhile the priests were holding forth every inducement for greater piety and religious zeal. It was said that the people were 254 lax in their offerings, and the gods were offended. The sacrifices must be redoubled. And latterly, with the approaching accession of Holon Chan as True Man, the auguries and oracles had foretold that this event would usher in a new era of abundance and prosperity, the like of which had never been before. The boy, the priests widely circulated, was born on a lucky day, of which Yum Kax, Lord of the Harvests, was the patron, and the death of his older brother, far from being a calamity, had been a direct intervention of the gods in order that the chosen of Yum Kax should sit in the council chamber and rule over them. Thus was the Lord of the Harvests to be appeased, and thus would prosperity return once more to the people. High hopes therefore were entertained for his rule, and while in other happier days, Holon Chan might possibly have been permitted to renounce in favor of his uncle, the times were too troublous, and the future too uncertain thus deliberately to offend the Harvest God.
Of all these things the boy had been thinking as he sat on the temple summit, watching the shadows lengthen over the glistening white walls of the city. Finally with a sigh he jumped to his feet. The sun was setting behind the distant savannas, a great, glowing, red disk, as Holon Chan turned to enter the sanctuary of Itzamna to sacrifice to the god. A single aged white-robed priest squatted in the outer corridor guarding the sanctuary, but since the boy always had the right of entry because of his rank, the old man scarcely looked up from his meditations as Holon Chan drew aside the elaborately embroidered cotton curtain and passed within.
The sanctuary was dark save only for such fitful light as came from a brazier of burning incense and two small windows not more than eight inches square, one at either end of the long narrow room. As the curtain fell behind him, the boy stooped to a shallow platter by the door, selected from it a small, round ball of incense, the gum of the copal tree, painted a brilliant peacock blue for ceremonial use, and advanced to the brazier. In the half light, a wooden image some eight feet high could be distinguished standing on a stone platform against the back wall. It was in the form of an old man, with prominent Roman nose, toothless lower jaw, and piercing green eyes, made of two discs of highly polished jade which caught and shot back the flickering light. The head was surmounted by an elaborate 255 headdress carved in the likeness of the Plumed Serpent, and the whole figure was brilliantly painted in red, blue, yellow, green, white and black. A necklace, breast-pendant, ear-plugs, anklets and wristlets of heavy, rich jade completed the costume of the image. Holon Chan placed his offerings on the brazier and prostrated himself before the image. However disinclined he might be to follow the path Itzamna had chosen for him by removing his older brother from the line of succession, it never entered the boy’s head to evade the responsibility thus thrust upon him. He came of an old and distinguished family which had ruled the state of Tikal for more than four centuries. From that distant ancestor of his, who had first led the people to their present home, down to his father, all had been brave men used to facing crises and shouldering responsibility, and this latest son of the Chan race had no other thought than to do likewise in the present emergency. And so he prayed long and earnestly for wisdom to meet the many problems of the future, and above all for some means of alleviating the terrible agricultural problems which were threatening the very existence of his people.
The prayer over, Holon Chan left the sanctuary and, nodding to its aged guardian in the outer corridor, he prepared to descend the pyramid. The swift twilight of the tropics had already dissolved into night. Above, the stars blazed forth in the cloudless sky; below, the darkness was picked out here and there with little glowing points of red, the cooking fires of his people, who were busily preparing for the great ceremony of his investiture, now but three days distant.
Carefully picking his way down the steep stairway, Holon Chan crossed the broad, paved plaza at its base, and ascending a low terrace, entered a long building of cut stone, which had been the home of his family for generations. It was a single story in height, more than two hundred feet long and three ranges of rooms in depth. These all had the typical Maya arched ceiling, were narrow and long, and lighted only by the exterior doorways and small, square windows about six feet above the floor. The largest room in the palace, a chamber sixty feet long, ten feet wide, and eighteen feet high, was entered directly through the central doorway. At one end was a raised stone platform with a wooden seat. This was without a back and the arms were carved to represent jaguar heads. Above256 there was a canopy of green featherwork. This was the council chamber of the state.
Through this chamber Holon Chan passed to the living quarters at the rear, and, clapping his hands, he summoned a slave to serve the evening meal to him as he sat cross-legged on the floor. Presently the slave returned bearing dishes of tortillas and black beans, a bush fowl, and a bowl containing an aromatic drink made of cacao. Holon Chan inquired for his uncle, and he was told that he was at the monastery of Itzamna. After eating, and rinsing out his mouth with water, a not-to-be-forgotten custom of gentlefolk, Holon Chan withdrew to his own room, and lying down on a bench covered with soft skins soon fell asleep.
Early the following morning, Holon Chan arose, and after a bath in a wooden tub, hollowed from a mahogany log, he dressed, but partook of no food, since custom decreed that he must fast throughout the period of his investiture. Thus he waited for his uncle to fetch him to the assembled priesthood of Itzamna. This first day of the induction ceremonies was to be given over exclusively to mental tests, quizzings by his uncle and the other priests of Itzamna, in the monastery of the god just behind his temple. It was proper for Holon Chan to appear before the priests without any emblem of rank, and presently when his uncle came to lead him thither, he was dressed as any other boy of his age, a simple breechclout encircling his loins, and leather sandals on his feet.
Of the many subjects Holon Chan was questioned about during that long day, we may only touch upon a few. First his uncle asked him to recite the complete ritual of the New Year’s feast, one of the most important ceremonies of the Maya year. Other old wiseheads questioned him as to the stars, when would the next eclipses of the sun and moon take place, when would Venus next appear as evening star? Clean sheets of fiber paper were set before him, pigments and brushes were brought in, and he was told to write the current date, giving the phases of the moon therefor, and the presiding deity. All these tests he went through creditably, and the old men nodded approval. Next a fowl was brought and the boy was told to kill it and read the omens from its entrails. Again he acquitted himself with credit, and the old priests were satisfied with his knowledge of this important part of the Maya ritual.
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In conclusion his uncle again took the lead, and put searching questions to him as to the condition of the people—how many heads of families were there in the tribe, and how many man-loads of corn were required to support the average family for a year? With which cities he should strive to ally himself, and which to avoid? How migration to Yucatan could best be discouraged? When the boy replied it could neither be discouraged nor prevented unless the Harvest Lord permitted corn to be grown on the savannas, a few of the older men shook their heads, but the great majority of the priests signified their approval of this sage answer. After these tests he was led from the monastery back to the palace, and later his uncle informed him that the priests had adjudged him to be worthy and well qualified to be made the True Man of the state.
The second day was even more strenuous than the first. The day was devoted to numerous rites of purification, in which by sweatings and blood-lettings he was supposed to be purged of all sin and wickedness, and thus fitted for the high office he was about to assume.
Following this the priests led him to the Temple of Purification. Here, in an inner chamber, he removed his clothes and crawled, naked, into a low stone closet. A bowl of water stood at the back of this low cell, and presently the priests passed in through the small doorway five or six large, rounded, heated stones wrapped in leaves. The doorway was now closed by a slab of stone, and Holon Chan dropped these heated bowlders, one at a time, into the bowl of water. Each succeeding bowlder raised the t............