Identifier: ancientcitiesofn00char (find matches)
Title: The ancient cities of the New World : being travels and explorations in Mexico and Central America from 1857-1882
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Charnay, Désiré, 1828-1915
Subjects: Indians of Mexico Indians of Central America
Publisher: London : Chapman and Hall
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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to1560 A.D. ; but Is it possible to admit seriously the authorityof an account so obtained, extending over so many centuries ?At the time of its publication all the natives had preservedwas a dubious legend; and traditions fared hardly better withthe caciques and nobles fallen from their high estate, thanthey did with the common people, for the former were oftenreduced, says Cogolludo, to the extreme of poverty; and fortyyears after the Conquest (1582) the royal descendants ofTutulxiu, and the princely house of Mayapan, were obliged towork for their living like the humblest amongst their ancientsubjects.^ This picture, sad as it is, became even worse a few yearslater, when the conquerors had reduced the whole populationto a state of hard bondage. The only difference of anyimportance between the Perez manuscript and the narrativesof Clavigero, Veytia, and Ixtlilxochltl, is in the chronology,which is far too absurd for any serious consideration, for Cogolludo, tome I. lib. iv. cap. iii.
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IZAMAL EN ROUTE FOR ClIICHEN, 315 while the latter gives the seventh century as the date of thearrival of the Toltecs at Tula, and their subsequent migrationin Central America at the end of the eleventh and thebeginning of the twelfth century ; with the former they leaveTula in 144 a.d., and arrive in Yucatan in 217 a.d,, nearly fivehundred years before the generally accepted date of their arrivalat Tula. Moreover he calls Yucatan an island, although thenew-comers had penetrated the country through Tabasco andthe south without crossing the sea, clearly indicating that itwas a peninsula. The church of Izamal is very fine, but its chief attrac-tion in the eyes of the natives is a statue of the Virgin.Its story runs thus : A celebrated artist of Guatemala received an order fromthe towns of Izamal and Merida respectively, for twostatues of the Virgin ; in their transit, which took place in therainy season, neither the case containing the images, nor themen conveying them, got a drop of ra

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