riculture. This term
Chichimecs appears to have been a generic appellation for all
uncivilized aborigines. Brasseur de Bourbourg says, "Under the generic
name Chichimecs, which has much embarrassed some writers, the Mexican
traditions include the whole aboriginal population of the New World, and
especially the people by whom it was first occupied at the beginning of
time."

Some of the traditions state that the Colhuas came from the east in
ships. Sahagun mentions that a tradition to this effect was current in
Yucatan. The precise value of these traditional reports is uncertain;
but, if accepted as vague historical recollections, they could be
explained by supposing the civilized people called Colhuas came from
South America through the Caribbean Sea, and landed in Yucatan and
Tabasco. They are uniformly described as the people who first
established civilization and built great cities. They taught the
Chichimecs to cook their food, cultivate the earth, and adopt the ways
of civilized life; and the Chichimecs civilized by their influence are
sometimes called Quinames.

The Colhuas are connected with vague references to a long and important
period in the history previous to the Toltec ages. They seem to have
been, in some respects, more advanced in civilization than the Toltecs.
What is said of events in their history relates chiefly to their great
city called Xibalba, the capital of an important kingdom to which this
name was given. The Toltecs, in alliance with the uncivilized Chichimecs
of the mountains, subjugated this city and kingdom, and thus brought to
a close the period which may be termed Colhuan. This kingdom appears to
have included Guatemala, Yucatan, Tabasco, Tehuantepec, Chiapa,
Honduras, and other districts in Central America; and it may have
included all Southern Mexico, for places north of the Tampico River are
mentioned as being within its limits when the Toltecs came into the
country. Some of the principal seats of the Colhuan civilization were in
the region now covered by the great forest. Some investigators have
sought to identify the city of Xibalba with the ruined city known to us
as Palenque. Brasseur de Bourbourg says: "Palenque appears to have been
the same city to which the books give the name of Xibalba;" but this is
nothing but conjecture. We may as reasonably suppose Copan, Quirigua, or
some other old ruin, to have been Xibalba.

Those who attempt to believe this old American civilization