The Annals of the Cakchiquels | Page 2

portion of the area of the
present State of Guatemala. Their territory is a table land about six
thousand feet above the sea, seamed with numerous deep ravines, and
supporting lofty mountains and active volcanoes. Though but fifteen
degrees from the equator, its elevation assures it a temperate climate,

while its soil is usually fertile and well watered.
They were one of a group of four closely related nations, adjacent in
territory and speaking dialects so nearly alike as to be mutually
intelligible. The remaining three were the Quiches, the Tzutuhils and
the Akahals, who dwelt respectively to the west, the south and the east
of the Cakchiquels.
These dialects are well marked members of the Maya linguistic stock,
and differ from that language, as it is spoken in its purity in Yucatan,
more in phonetic modifications than in grammatical structure or lexical
roots. Such, however, is the fixedness of this linguistic family in its
peculiarities, that a most competent student of the Cakchiquel has
named the period of two thousand years as the shortest required to
explain the difference between this tongue and the Maya.[10-1]
About the same length of time was that assigned since the arrival of
this nation in Guatemala, by the local historian, Francisco Antonio de
Fuentes y Guzman, who wrote in the seventeenth century, from an
examination of their most ancient traditions, written and verbal.[10-2]
Indeed, none of these affined tribes claimed to be autochthonous. All
pointed to some distant land as the home of their ancestors, and
religiously preserved the legends, more or less mythical, of their early
wanderings until they had reached their present seats. How strong the
mythical element in them is, becomes evident when we find in them the
story of the first four brothers as their four primitive rulers and leaders,
a myth which I have elsewhere shown prevailed extensively over the
American continent, and is distinctly traceable to the adoration of the
four cardinal points, and the winds from them.[10-3]
These four brothers were noble youths, born of one mother, who sallied
forth from Tulan, the golden city of the sun, and divided between them
all the land from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the confines of
Nicaragua, in other words, all the known world.[11-1]
The occurrence of the Aztec name of the City of Light, Tulan (properly,
Tonatlan), in these accounts, as they were rehearsed by the early
converted natives, naturally misled historians to adopt the notion that

these divine culture heroes were "Toltecs," and even in the modern
writings of the Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg), of M. Désiré Charnay,
and others, this unreal people continue to be set forth as the civilizers of
Central America.
No supposition could have less support. The whole alleged story of the
Toltecs is merely an euhemerized myth, and they are as pure creations
of the fancy as the giants and fairies of mediæval romance. They have
no business in the pages of sober history.
The same blending of their most ancient legends with those borrowed
from the Aztecs, recurs in the records of the pure Mayas of Yucatan. I
have shown this, and explained it at considerable length in the first
volume of this series, to which I will refer the reader who would
examine the question in detail.[11-2]
There is a slight admixture of Aztec words in Cakchiquel. The names
of one or two of their months, of certain objects of barter, and of a few
social institutions, are evidently loan-words from that tongue. There are
also some proper names, both personal and geographical, which are
clearly of Nahuatl derivation. But, putting all these together, they form
but a very small fraction of the language, not more than we can readily
understand they would necessarily have borrowed from a nation with
whom, as was the case with the Aztecs, they were in constant
commercial communication for centuries.[12-1] The Pipils, their
immediate neighbors to the South, cultivating the hot and fertile slope
which descends from the central plateau to the Pacific Ocean, were an
Aztec race of pure blood, speaking a dialect of Nahuatl, very little
different from that heard in the schools of classic Tezcuco.[12-2] But
the grammatical structure and stem-words of the Cakchiquel remained
absolutely uninfluenced by this association.
Later, when the Spanish occupation had brought with it thousands of
Nahuatl speaking followers, who supplied the interpreters for the
conquerers, Nahuatl names became much more abundant, and were
adopted by the natives in addressing the Spaniards. Thus the four
nations, whom I have mentioned as the original possessors of the land,
are, in the documents of the time, generally spoken of by such foreign

titles. The Cakchiquels were referred to as Tecpan Quauhtemallan, the
Quiches as Tecpan Utlatlan, the Tzutuhils as Tecpan Atitlan, and the
Akahals as Tecpan Tezolotlan. In these names,