y of the
Spaniards, surer and more fatal than the sword, to subvert all the
institutions of the natives, and to break up and utterly destroy all
the rites, customs, and associations that might keep alive the memory
of their fathers and their ancient condition. One sad instance shows
the effects of this policy. Before the destruction of Mayapan, the
capital of the kingdom of Maya, all the nobles of the country had
houses in that city, and were exempted from tribute; according to the
account from which Cogolludo derives his authority, in the year 1582,
forty years after the conquest, all who held themselves for lords and
nobles still claimed their solares (sites for mansions) as tokens of
their rank; but now, he says, "from the change of government and the
little estimation in which they are held, it does not appear that they
care to preserve nobility for their posterity, for at this day the
descendants of Tutul Xiu, who was the king and natural lord by right of
the land of Maya, if they do not work with their own hands in manual
offices, have nothing to eat." And if at that early date nobles no
longer cared for their titles, and the descendants of the royal house
had nothing to eat but what they earned with their own hands, it is not
strange that the present inhabitants, nine generations removed, without
any written language, borne down by three centuries of servitude, and
toiling daily for a scanty subsistence, are alike ignorant and
indifferent concerning the history of their ancestors, and the great
cities lying in ruins under their eyes. And strange or not, no argument
can be drawn from it, for this ignorance is not confined to ruined
cities or to events before the conquest. It is my belief, that among
the whole mass of what are called Christianized Indians, there is not
at this day one solitary tradition which can shed a ray of light upon
any event in their history that occurred one hundred and fifty years
from the present time; in fact, I believe it would be almost impossible
to procure any information of any kind whatever beyond the memory of
the oldest living Indian.

Besides, the want of traditionary knowledge is not peculiar to these
American ruins. Two thousand years ago the Pyramids towered on the
borders of the African Desert without any certain tradition of the time
when they were founded; and so long back as the first century of the
Christian era, Pliny cites various older authors who disagreed
concerning