gear are quite uniform in type for the Plains and are on the whole after Spanish patterns. Even the use of the reata seems to be of SpanishAmerican origin. Riding itself was, of course, intrusive. Knowledge of how to care for horses would also come in from the Spanish. So we must surely have had a whole group of associated culture traits carried along with the horse.

Thus we have a fine example of diffusion, like the sun dance, men's societies, etc. Could we show that the diffusion of horse culture preceded the diffusion of these other traits, we should have a strong case for the horse as a modifier of culture. As we have seen, what little evidence there is points in the other direction. . . .

While the problem we have discussed is far too complex to permit a paper of this kind to be more than a suggestion of new lines of research, the following conclusions seem permissible: The horse reached most, if not all, of the typical Plains tribes from three hundred to two hundred years before they lost their cultural independence. In its diffusion over the area a large number of associated traits were carried along as a whole, or as a cultural complex. At least some of the tribes had developed dog traction to meet their nomadic wants before the horse came, and needed, therefore, but to substitute the horse for the dog in their own dog-culture complex and to take over the necessary parts of the Spanish horse-culture complex. Thus among the less sedentary tribes the whole basic structure of the later horse Indian culture was in existence when the horse came. We have found no reason to believe that the introduction of the horse did anything more than intensify and perhaps more completely diffuse the cultural whole previously formed. As such, however, it seems responsible for reversing cultural values in that the earlier dominant sedentary cultures of the Siouan and Caddoan tribes were predominated by the Shoshone and other formerly struggling nomads of their old frontier. As the leading horse carriers, the Shoshone played a large part in this development, but they lacked many of the strong cultural traits which the Crow, Teton, etc., received from the original Plains culture, in consequence of which they now fail to qualify as typical tribes. Finally, it appears probable that the accidental presence on the New Mexican frontier of a well-developed dog-traction culture was the chief determining factor in the direction of horse-culture diffusion though there were other ethnic factors as well as environmental conditions that could have contributed to the result.

26. ARCHITECTURE OF THE ANCIENT MAYA'

By W. H. HOLMES

The Maya Race. At the period of conquest the Maya tribes, occupying the peninsula of Yucatan and considerable portions of neighboring territory to the south and west, are said to have comprised in the neighborhood of 2,000,000 souls. Today they are distributed over nearly the same area, but are reduced in numbers, it is estimated, to less than 500,000, half at least of whom continue to speak the Maya tongue in its purity. At the north where there has been much infusion of Spanish blood the race has been largely modified and an interesting and very homogeneous half-blood people has sprung up; but in the interior many of the tribes are of nearly pure blood and retain a strong spirit of independence. It is said that some bands have never been fully conquered and they practically substantiate the claim by holding the temples of their fathers by force of arms, defying all comers, whether white or red. . . .

In the culture scale this people stood at the head of the American tribes. They were still, properly speaking, barbarians, but in several respects seemed to be on the very threshold of civilization. Their status may be compared to that of the Greeks and Egyptians immediately preceding the dawn of history, and we may assume that they were, as measured by Aryan rates of progress, perhaps not more than a few thousand years behind the foremost nations of the world in the great procession of races from savagery toward enlightenment. It is certain that they were already employing a rude system of historic records and were the only nation on the western continent that had made any considerable headway in the development of a phonetic system of writing. Their hieroglyphics occupy a place, not yet well defined, somewhere along the course of progress from pictograph to letter, and are consequently difficult of interpretation. There is no doubt, however, that an age of literature was actually though slowly dawning in America when the shock of conquest came.

Today the chief reminder of the great past of the Mayas is the crumbling remains of their architecture, but remarkable advance had been made in several other arts not embodied in such durable materials. They made paper of maguey, and their books, several of which have been preserved

1From pages 19-52 of W. H. Holmes, "Archaeological Studies among the Ancient Cities of Mexico," part I, Field [Columbian] Museum of Natu ral History, Anthropological Series, volume 1, number 1, 1895.

and are now in the libraries of Europe, show advanced skill in pictographic and glyphic writing, and a fertility of imagination hardly paralleled among the known primitive races of the world.

Monumental Remains. Maya architecture, with its associated sculpture and painting, constitutes the best remaining index of the achievements of the race. The 70,000 square miles of Maya territory are so dotted with the ruins of towns and cities that the traveler is seldom out of sight of some mound, pyramid, or other massive structure. The preservation of these remains is wonderful, considering the four hundred years of decay and destruction through which they have passed. There is hardly a modern village or town on the peninsula of Yucatan that is not built in some part of materials derived from the ancient structures. Yet the work of demolition still goes on, and presently, unless the Mexican government takes adequate measures to preserve them, the traces of a conquered race and its strange art will exist only in books. Nature has vied with man in the work of leveling the noble monuments with the ground. The luxuriant vegetation which envelops the ruins sends a multitude of strong roots deep into the masonry at every vulnerable point; growing rapidly, they act like wedges, separating masses and aiding gravitation and the elements in their never-ceasing efforts at destruction. . . .

Building Materials. The nature of the materials at the disposal of a people inclined to building exerts a profound influence upon the results achieved. Stone of somewhat decidedly favorable qualities would seem almost essential to greatness in the art of architecture. The Mayas were especially favored in this respect. The peninsula of Yucatan is composed of massive beds of limestone, homogeneous in texture and easily cut, even with primitive tools. Nature had not only supplied the stone, but it had in some measure prepared it for building. Although the land is approximately a plain, it is still in a small way broken up by low ridges and steps, and by sinkage into underground channels. The forests, growing densely everywhere, have broken up the surface beds, giving great quantities of loose stone immediately available to the builder and directing the way to the opening and working of quarries. The presence of unlimited supplies of limestone together with timber made the burning of lime an easy task and this product was extensively employed. The Yucatec stone mason had, therefore, every necessary building material at hand, although he still lacked, in a great measure, materials suited to the manufacture of quarrying and cutting tools. Cherty seams or masses of indurated limestone, occurring in many parts, served for the ruder tools, and picks and chisels of special hardness were probably brought in from a distance. Copper chisels are occasionally found as far east even as Cozumel, but if used at all in the dressing of stone they must have taken an unimportant place in the work on account of the rarity of the material. I had

no time to seek the quarries from which stone was obtained in Yucatan, but had the good fortune to come upon excellent examples in Oaxaca. Careful descriptions of these will be given in part II of this paper.

Mortar, made of lime and sand, and cement-like mixtures composed of mortar tempered with gravel, pounded stone, etc., were extensively used, and their durability is remarkable. Numerous floors and roofs are still preserved, and many fine examples of stucco modeling have withstood the destructive effects of the weather for four hundred years or more.

The builders made very considerable use of wood, which, considering the inferior grade of tools available, was cut, hewn and carved with much skill. Wood must have been extensively used in connection with the great stone buildings, as in doorways, in closing spaces between structures now disconnected and in various enclosures and barriers. There is no doubt that pliable vegetable growths, such as poles, bark, vines, twigs, etc., used in textile or semi-textile combinations, were very fully employed in ordinary domestic structures as well as in less pretentious buildings of other classes pretty much as they are today.

Transportation. The gathering of stones and the cutting out of masses from the living rock were followed by transportation, a most tedious and laborious task for a people without beasts of burden and probably without many of the effective transporting devices known to more advanced peoples. The work of carrying the earth, mortar and stones used in hearting the pyramid of the Castillo at Chichen or the triple-terraced pyramid of the Palace at Uxmal was of itself a great undertaking, but the transportation of the countless stones for the facing of both pyramid and superstructure and the lifting of the larger masses employed in columns, jambs, pillars and the like to heights reaching in cases nearly one hundred feet, required strong hearts and hands and a controlling power of exceptional vigor and permanence. The Yucatec Mayas did not, however, undertake to employ stones of enormous size, as did the ancient builders of Mexico and Peru. No block or mass observed was estimated to weigh more than six or eight tons.

...

Masonry, Stucco Work and Painting. The masonry comprises, in general, hearting and facing. The former consists of earth, mortar and stones variously combined and usually forming strong, well-compacted bodies. The latter consists of stone cut or uncut and laid up, with few exceptions, in excellent mortar. Where the stones were accurately cut, little mortar appears in the face of the wall, but it was freely used in the hearting, and when the facing stones were deep they were dressed somewhat smaller behind, and set back in the mortar as a tooth in its socket. In the facing of many walls, however, the stones were very shallow-often mere tile-like slabs-and had but slight hold upon the body of the hearting.

In those centers of building operations where the limestone was readily worked and of fine, even texture, the facing is well cut, and the wall surfaces are in general so even and true as to stand the test of the square and plumb line; but in localities where the stone is uneven in texture and quite hard, or in provincial sections where building was not carried to a high degree of perfection, the facing is rarely well dressed, save about the doorways, arches, corners and especially exposed parts. Rough surfaces were very generally evened up with plaster.

A remarkable feature of these structures is the great thickness of the walls, and especially the extraordinary massiveness of the masonry above the spring of the arches. This is clearly shown in several of the sections inserted in the following pages. Where, for example, the outer wall is three feet thick and the arch within is ten feet wide, the mass of masonry thickens upward from three feet at the base of the arch to eight feet at the ceiling level, and in an inner wall, widening both ways, to thirteen feet, so that two-thirds or more of the space included in the upper half of the structure is solid masonry. The roof is often very thick, thus greatly increasing the bulk, and it seems a marvel that collapse from mere weight has not been more frequent than seems to have been the case. To all this bulk were added, in many instances, massive false fronts or colossal roof-combs laden with ornament. So strongly knit is the masonry, however, that but for the decay of wooden lintels, most of the great façades now in ruins would have been very fully preserved. I have computed that a single-chamber structure, with walls of usual thickness and with average arch space and roof mass, would have two-thirds of its bulk solid masonry, which looks like a lavish waste of space, material and labor. If we take the measurements of the Governor's Palace at Uxmal, given by Bancroft, we find by a rough computation that the structure occupies some 325,000 cubic feet of space, upwards of 200,000 of which is solid masonry, while only about 110,000 feet is chamber space. If the sub-structure be taken into account, the mass of masonry is to the chamber space approximately as 40 to 1.

Notwithstanding the success of these Maya masons in erecting buildings capable of standing for hundreds of years, they were yet ignorant of some of the most essential principles of stone construction, and are thus to be regarded as hardly more than novices in the art. They made use of various minor expedients, as any clever nation of builders would, but depended largely on mortar and inertia to hold their buildings together. One of the most elemental essentials of good work is the systematic breaking of joints in laying one course of stones over another. This idea had hardly been grasped, as it not infrequently happens that a seam or succession of joints is connected almost directly from base to summit of a wall, and at corners, within and without, and about doorways the