Researches in the Central Portion of the Usumatsintla Valley/Xupá
IV.
XUPÁ.
Xupá (šupá) = Brook of the Ants. In Yucatan the army ants are called xulab (šulab).
We left Reforma on the 4th of February, 1898, crossing the Chacamax in a cayuco and loading our animals on the left bank. We took the road to Palenque, and the first settlement we reached was the monteria, La Nueva Esperanza, which had been recently established close to the left bank of the Chacamax. The proprietor, Don Luis Gónzali of Comalcalco, received us very kindly.
Sr. Gónzali was formerly in the employ of the firm of Romano, and directed the building of the road from La Reforma to Tzendales, which established the communication between two widely separated settlements. In this vast stretch of wilderness the workmen did not once encounter a ruined city; however, about eight leagues from Tzendales, at a point which the men called Champa de San Pedro (not far from the San Pedro River), during an excursion into the forest to the left of the road, Sr. Gónzali, accompanied hy Rafael Naranjo, came upon a temple which crowned a small cerro (presumably a pyramidal substructure). As it was already late in the evening and these gentlemen and their mozos were obliged to hasten back, they made only a hurried inspection of the edifice. They remembered, however, that its ground plan showed a rectangular passage. ⎾⏋ They also saw earthen vessels in the interior, but they did not attempt a further exploration of the ruined city, which is doubtless in the vicinity. I temporarily gave the name Naranjo-Gónzali to these ruins, which I hope may some day be explored. Furthermore, in connection with a land-survey which certain engineers made on the Lacanhá River (which runs parallel, so to speak, with the Usumatsintla, but in the opposite direction, flowing into the Lacantun), ruins were found to which I gave the name Ruinas de Lacanhá, though as yet I have been unable to undertake an expedition to them for lack of more definite information. Later on Sr. D. José Némecke — an experienced man in the lumber-business — told me that the edifice discovered by Gónzali forms part of the ruined city near the river Lacanhá, and that no other ruins exist in that region. I am inclined to agree with this opinion of Sr. Némecke.
On the following day we went to the rancho Sulusúm, belonging to Mr. German Koller, whom I fortunately met on the road and having interchanged greetings with him, I communicated to him my intention of visiting the ruins of Xupá from his rancho. We had formerly been acquainted, having met in 1877, when I visited the ruins of Palenque; Mr. Koller, therefore, consented most courteously to my plan, and promised to accompany me in person, as soon as he should return from a short trip which he was obliged to make at that moment.
About one and one-half leagues from Palenque, we turned aside to the left of the road and passing over the remains of a very ancient city, we soon came to the rancho picturesquely situated on the left bank of the Chacamax, where we were very kindly received by Mr. Koller's wife.
We remained here two days awaiting Mr. Keller's return, and employed the time in exploring the ruins in the neighborhood, which was the easier inasmuch as large milperias had been established here in recent years and the ruins therefore lay exposed in the abandoned stubble-fields. We did not succeed, however, in discovering a single sculptured stone; not even in the vicinity of what was once the principal temple, and which is now reduced to a moderately large heap of ruins. But in one place we found large gutter-tiles of baked clay deep in the ground. Meanwhile Mr. Koller had returned, and on the 8th of February we left the rancho in his company, crossing the Chacamax at a little distance from the huts. Our path now led through the mountain spurs of this region, until, after travelling about two and one-half leagues, we reached the brook of Xupá. Here we found a small palmleaf hut, or champa, where my men unloaded the pack animals and put the camp in order, while I myself with Mr. Koller crossed the stream in search of the principal edifice of the ruined city, as Mr. Koller wished to return to his rancho on the same day. We succeeded in reaching this edifice, blazing the direction thither by cutting off branches, so that on the next day the thorough exploration might be carried on without interruption.
Our camp by that bubbling brook was very comfortable, but about midnight the piercing scream of a panther awoke us from our light slumbers. This animal is not directly dangerous to man, but its repeated shrill cry somewhat disconcerted my men, who were not exactly heroes. It seemed to have the same effect upon a troop of howling monkeys. They had enlivened the stillness of the night with their loud howling, but at the first cry of the panther they were struck dumb, and from this I inferred that the Stentor niger and the Felis concolor are not on good terms.
The ruins are situated on the right bank of the Xupá and are of considerable extent. Nearly all the buildings appear to have had great substructures built of good hewn stone. The superstructures are almost without exception in ruins, but in all directions there are massive substructures many of which are of considerable size. I have explored very nearly all the buildings and the ground in front of them for sculptured stones, but in vain. The principal temple, once a noble edifice crowning a large pyramidal substructure, alone still exhibits parts of rooms and remains of walls.
I therefore directed my attention chiefly to the examination of this building. The temple with its façade faces the east. On this side were the flights of stairs, the terraces forming broad steps, and apartments, now in ruins, adjoining the temple at its base, which were reached from the place in front of the temple. On the west side, on the other hand, the steps of the pyramid formed an ascent to a plateau (west terrace), and from this additional steps rose to the platform.
As the façade of the temple proper, the right wing, and the middle part are almost entirely in ruins, I had great difficulty in understanding the ground plan of the temple, but I finally discovered that it was similar to that of the three well-known temples of Palenque, — the Temple of the Trophy and the first and second Temples of the Cross, — which proves beyond all doubt that Xupá was very intimately connected with Palenque. Accordingly the temple consisted of a finely vaulted vestibule with four pillars (strips of walls) in front, whose corresponding three entrances were spanned by wooden beams, upon which rested the frieze ornamented with figures in stucco. A middle room and two small side rooms corresponded to the vestibule, and into the middle room the sanctuary proper was built, the longitudinal wall of which was adorned with very interesting groups of figures. In three points, however, the temple of Xupá differs from its Palenque model:
First, The vaulted ceilings of the side chambers at the rear do not run parallel with that of the vestibule, but at right angles to it.
Secondly, The sanctuary is more massive (thick-walled) in its construction.
Thirdly, The figures on the longitudinal wall of the sanctuary are not in bas-relief, but incised.
In consequence of the fall of the façade as well as of the vaulted ceiling of the middle room, the entrance to the sanctuary was entirely blocked and the sanctuary itself was buried beneath the ruins. Being thus hidden from sight, it might have been preserved to posterity, if a few years ago inquisitive treasure-seekers from the village of Palenque and the monterías on the Cháncala, suspecting a hollow space within this heap of stones, had not made an opening from above, or directly through the vaulted ceiling. These people had not sense enough to surmise that an entrance should be made from in front! When these vandals — using the opening they had made — had descended into the inner chamber, which was painted fiery red, they found that its longitudinal wall was faced with seven narrow stone slabs, on the smooth surfaces of which an extremely interesting group of figures had been incised in outlines drawn with masterly skill. The fact that the thin slabs, which were only forty to forty-five centimetres wide, did not appear to be too heavy for transportation, excited the avarice of these men. Accordingly they decided to pry them off and to sell them secretly. They went to work in a most brutal fashion to execute this decision. It may be assumed that the centre of the mural picture represented an altar (or possibly a cross), which occupied the three middle stones, while at the right and left stood male and female figures, perhaps four in all. As the central portion was incomprehensible to these rogues, it appeared to them of but little value, and they broke the slabs in pieces! I found their fragments scattered about on top of the debris, but I found it impossible to make anything out of them. The slabs with figures seeming to be the most valuable, they dragged them out, but not possessing the proper means of transportation to carry them home, they hid part of them on the slope of the pyramid and others farther off in the forest, who knows where? Only a single slab did these vandals leave on the wall, because, in trying to pry it off with their crowbars, they had knocked off the entire face of the personage represented on it. This figure represents a man of rank, wearing a high helmet with a feather ornament, a necklace, a breastplate of scales, etc. As the face has been entirely destroyed, this figure is worthless and I have made no drawing of it. I searched the terraces of the pyramid very thoroughly for the missing stones, and was fortunate enough to find one of them. This slab was ornamented with the outlines of a lovely female form, having a high and graceful head-dress, a pure Maya profile, a collar of net-work with an edge of beads, and a disk on the middle of the breast. Under her right arm she holds a small animal (bird?) prepared for a sacrificial gift. She wears the girdle with a mask in front and a St. Andrew's cross at the side, a skirt of net-work with bead fringe, etc. I have made a tracing of this single acquisition of my explorations (Fig. 4).
Fig. 4. - Xupá: Incised Carving upon Stone Slab, Inner Chamber of Temple. ⅑.
My annoyance at the ruthless destruction of the decorations of the sanctuary of the temple at Xupá will probably be shared by all Americanists. This crime was probably perpetrated somewhere about the year 1890, notwithstanding the local authorities of Palenque, or rather of El Salto de Agua, had repeated and strict injunctions from the central government to protect the ancient monuments.
It is probable that the temple was once crowned by an airy roof-comb of twofold character, erected on the roofs of the vaulted chambers, which was similar to that of the temples of Palenque. The entire structure viewed from the eastern environs must have been most imposing.
On the temple site itself I could discover no sacrificial altars or stelæ with figures of gods; I found only the remains of numerous smaller structures.
Before starting on the return journey from these ruins I made an excursion to the montería established on the Mistolhá by an American, McQueen. My object was in part to inquire of his men whether in their wanderings in this wilderness they had seen ruins, and in part to gratify my desire to photograph the magnificent waterfall formed by the river.
Mr. McQueen received me kindly and gave me a guide to the waterfall. As there had been heavy rains during the preceding days, we had difficulty in crossing the Mistolhá, in order to reach the waterfall from the right bank. The waterfall is about two leagues below the montería and is indeed a splendid sight. The boiling mass of water rushes down a wall of rock one hundred feet in height, piling up such vast masses of spray that it was well-nigh impossible to take a photograph. I finally succeeded, however, with great difficulty in taking one.
According to a statement of the men, "the petrifaction of a large antediluvian animal" is visible on a boulder when the water is low in the basin at the foot of the falls. An American told me, however, that this petrifaction was only about thirty centimetres long, and was a very distinct and pretty representation of a fish. While I was encamped near the waterfall all these rocks were under the water, and therefore I could not inspect the fossil.
The Mistolhá flows into the Baxcan, which in its turn is a tributary of the Rio de San Pedro Savana.
Having retraced our steps to the monteria of Mr. McQueen, we rested there for a day, enjoying the agreeable society of that gentleman, and then we turned towards Sulusúm and Palenque.