lls the monoliths of Copan and
Quirigua.

59 We are told that the Cheles inhabited a province named Ah-bin-chel,
and that their capitals were Tikoh and Izamal (literally, Ah=they
who are of, kin=sun, chel=sort of bird and the ancient name of a
sacerdotal lineage in Yucatan). Thence the title Chelekat=holiness,
highness, grandeur, given to the head of this lineage (Brasseur de
Bourbourg). Ix-chel=the woman-bird, was the high-priestess or
medicine-woman and midwife. The Cheles, Tutul-xius and Cocomes were
the three most powerful tribes at the time of the Conquest. It is
noteworthy that they all had bird names and that the word chel, the
totemic bird of the Cheles, so closely resembles che=tree, that the
combination of a che or tree as a symbol of the tribe and the
chel-bird would have been suggested by the language.

60 According to Senor Garcia Cubas, "this peninsula of Yucatan must
have been united at one time, to the island of Cuba, the determining
cause of their separation being the impetuous current of the Gulf of
Mexico" (Atlas Metodico, Mexico, 1874, p. 32).

61 For a general account of the ruins of Copan and for a plan on which
the position of the different structures, stelae, altars and
prominent sculptures are given, I refer to the Memoirs of the
Peabody Museum vol. I, no. 1, containing a preliminary report, of
the Explorations by the Museum. Cambridge, 1896.

62 Historia de la Provincia de Yucathan, by Friar Diego Lopez
Cogolludo, Madrid, 1688.

63 It seems to me that this statement establishes once and for all the
order in which these sculptured glyphs are to be read. It is evident
that in fastening them to the walls the idea was that of building up
the calculiform record by placing the stones above each other, in
the same manner that a stone wall would be raised. Accordingly, the
earliest records would form the base and the last be at the top.

64 See Biologia Centrali Americana, pt. I, Copan "a" pl. 9. Casts of
this sculpture and of two others nearly identical, from Copan, are
in the Peabody Museum.

65 It is my intention to reproduce these plans of Copan and Quirigua
and of other ancient American capitals in the publication I have
undertaken to make in co-editorship with Mr. E. W. Dahlgren of
Stockholm,