old by the Itzas. No wonder
that the early missionaries, many of whom, like Landa, had lived in Mexico
and had become familiar with the story of Quetzalcoatl and his alleged
departure toward the east, identified him with Kukulcan, and that,
following the notion of this assumed identity, numerous later writers have
framed theories to account for the civilization of ancient Yucatan through
colonies of "Toltec" immigrants.

It can, indeed, be shown beyond doubt that there were various points of
contact between the Aztec and Maya civilizations. The complex and
artificial method of reckoning time was one of these; certain
architectural devices were others; a small number of words, probably a
hundred all told, have been borrowed by the one tongue from the other.
Mexican merchants traded with Yucatan, and bands of Aztec warriors with
their families, from Tabasco, dwelt in Mayapan by invitation of its
rulers, and after its destruction, settled in the province of Canul, on
the western coast, where they lived strictly separate from the
Maya-speaking population at the time the Spaniards conquered the
country.[1]

[Footnote 1: _El Libro de Chilan Balam de Chumayel_, MS.; Landa,
_Relacion_, p. 54.]

But all this is very far from showing that at any time a race speaking the
Aztec tongue ruled the Peninsula. There are very strong grounds to deny
this. The traditions which point to a migration from the west or southwest
may well have referred to the depopulation of Palenque, a city which
undoubtedly was a product of Maya architects. The language of Yucatan is
too absolutely dissimilar from the Nahuatl for it ever to have been
moulded by leaders of that race. The details of Maya civilization are
markedly its own, and show an evolution peculiar to the people and their
surroundings.

How far they borrowed from the fertile mythology of their Nahuatl visitors
is not easily answered. That the circular temple in Mayapan, with four
doors, specified by Landa as different from any other in Yucatan, was
erected to Quetzalcoatl, by or because of the Aztec colony there, may
plausibly be supposed when we recall how peculiarly this form was devoted
to his worship. Again, one of the Maya chronicles--that translated by Pio
Perez and published by Stephens in his _Travels in Yucatan_--opens with a
distinct reference to Tula and Nonoal, names inseparable from the
Quetzalcoatl myth. A statue of a sleeping god holding a vase was
disinterred by Dr. Le P