ding a head and a tecpatl, whilst four
lesser personages, each carrying a head, are figured as walking away in
four opposed directions. As, according to native symbolism, the head is
the symbol for chieftain this slab seems to commemorate the establishment
and at all events testifies to the existence in Guatemala of the scheme of
government now so familiar.

In their Annals, the Cakchiquels record, as I have already shown, that
they carried their tribute to "the enclosure of Tulan," a designation
which supports my inference, previously maintained, that Tulan was derived
from the Maya tulum,=a fortification, an enclosed place or that which is
entire, whole, etc., and applied always to the metropolis of a state.

An ancient Cakchiquel legend relates, moreover, that, according to the
"ancient men," there had been four Tulans: one in the east, one in the
north, one in the west and one "where the god dwells." This would
obviously have been situated towards the south in order to accord with the
general scheme. I cannot but think that this record testifies to the
existence of an extremely ancient state which starting from one metropolis
had gradually developed into four great Tullans, to one of which the four
tecpans of Guatemala pertained. The fact that the Spaniards found the four
nations living close together, with capitals or tecpans bearing Nahuatl
names and in constant warfare with each other, seems to indicate the
destruction of their own ancient metropolis or Tullan by their Mexican
conquerors and the consequent disintegration of their former
government.(40)

The Mendoza Codex teaches us that when the Mexicans conquered a land they
first burnt and utterly destroyed the teocallis situated in the heart of
its central capital. They razed this to the ground, and carried off to
their own metropolis the totemic images of the rulers of the tribe. The
barbarous institution of human sacrifice, which was only practised to a
great extent by the Mexicans when the necessity to obtain more plentiful
food supplies for their rapidly increasing population forced them to
become a nation of warriors and conquerors, seems indeed to have been
adopted as a fear-inspiring, symbolical rite commemorating the conquest
and destruction of an integral government.

The victim, usually a chieftain taken prisoner in warfare and clad with
his insignia and the raiment of his people, was stretched on the stone of
sacrifice and, figuratively speaking,