GUATIMALA.*

[A Federal Republic, extending from about long 81° 45′ W. to 95° W., and from lat 8° to 17° N.; bounded, on the N. W. by Mexico; on the N. and E. by the Atlantic; on the S. E. by Colombia; and on the S. and S. W. by the Pacific Ocean.]

THE kingdom of Guatimala "received its name from the word Quauhtemali, which, in the Mexican language, means a decayed log of wood, because the Mexican Indians who accompanied Alvarado, found, near the palace of the kings of Kachiquel, an old worm-eaten tree, and gave this name to the capital." Such is the statement adopted by Don Domingo Juarros, in his History of the Kingdom of Guatimala, as the true origin of the name. Some writers, however, he tells us, have derived it from Uhatezmalha, which signifies, in the Tzendale dialect, a mountain that throws out water, "alluding, doubtless, to the mountain on the skirts of which the city of Guatimala was built." With due submission to the historian, we incline to the latter etymology; first, because it appears extremely unlikely that the name of the kingdom should not be more ancient than the Spanish conquest; and secondly, because Alvarado would not have left it to Mexican Indians to name the city. The Aztec word Quauhtli signifies eagle, in which sense it occurs in composition in the words Quauhtinchan, house of the eagle, (a Mexican city,) and Quauhtemotzin, the name of the last sultan of Tenochtitlan. We cannot affirm that Quauhtemali may not signify a log of wood, but, if it be really

* More properly GUATEMALA; but we have adhered to the usual orthography.

derived from an Aztec word, we should deem an etymology referring to the eagle far more plausible. The mountain affords, in all probability, the true derivation. Another etymology, however, is given by one historian, Francisco de Fuentes y Gusman, who derives the name from Coctecmalan, signifying “milkwood," a peculiar tree found only in the neighbourhood of the supposed site of the original capital, where now stands the village of Tzacualpa. Lastly, Juarros suggests, that the word may possibly be merely a corruption of the name of Juitemal, the first king of Guatimala, as Quiché was named from Nimaquiche, and Nicaragua from the cacique of the same name. It is not quite clear, however, that the name of the territory has not, in some of these instances, led to the invention of a name for its sovereign; and the existence of King Juitemal is not sufficiently established to afford a solid basis for this ingenious conjecture.

At the time of the conquest (A.D. 1524) this region is stated to have been well peopled by more than thirty distinct tribes, each governed by it own chief, and having its peculiar dialect. These tribes were continually at war with each other, and the ancient distinctions are still perpetuated in the variety of languages and dissimilar customs which are found in the different provinces. The Mexican or Aztec language is spoken by the Pipil Indians, who are settled along the coasts of the Pacific, and by some other tribes; besides this, no fewer than twenty-four dialects, peculiar to Guatimala, are still said to be spoken, the name of which are, the Quiché, the Kachiquel, the Zutugil, the Mam, the Pocomam, the Pupuluca, the Sinca, the Chorti, the Alaguilac, the Caichi, the Pochonchi, the Ixil, the Zotzil, the Txendal, the Chapaneca, the Zoque, the Coxoh, the Chañabal, the Chol, the Uzpanteca, the Lenca, the Aguacateca, the Quecchi, and the Nahuate or Pipil.

The Maya language is also spoken in Chiapa. "It is true," says Don Domingo Juarros, "there is a strong resemblance between some of the idioms; and the Indians of one tribe can understand those of another from analogy: these instances, however, are not very frequent, nor can the intercourse be maintained with sufficient clearness and precision to enable them to traffic with each other readily and satisfactorily." The learned Don labours with patriotic solicitude to shew, that his country was never subject to the Mexican sovereigns. The proofs he adduces are, first, that the Mexicans always compelled the inhabitants of the countries they conquered to adopt their language, but the Aztec is not the prevailing language in Guatimala; secondly, that at the time of the conquest, the Spaniards found no open road from Mexico to Chiapa, but only narrow paths, in many places overgrown by vegetation. The latter is a very weak and insufficient argument. That there was an intercourse between the two countries is indubitable, and there must therefore have been what the natives would call a road. According to the tradition recited by the learned Historian himself, the Tulteca or Toltec Indians, the most powerful and civilised of all the nations of Guatimala, came originally from the neighbourhood of Tula, in the kingdom of Mexico. This emigration took place by direction of an oracle, in consequence of the great increase of the population, in the reign of Nimaquiché, the fifth king of the Tultecas. "In performing this journey, they expended many years, suffered extraordinary hardships, and wandered over an immense tract of country, until they discovered a large lake (the lake of Atitan), and resolved to fix their habitations in a convenient place at a short distance from it, which they called Quiché, in commemoration of their king Nimaquiché (Quiché the Great), who died

during their peregrination." The time of this emigration, it is, of course, impossible to ascertain with precision. Nimaquiché was succeeded by his son Acxopil, from whom Kicab Tanub, the contemporary of Montezuma II., was the fourteenth in succession who reigned in Utatlan, the capital of Quiché. Allowing twenty years to a reign, this would carry back the foundation of the Toltec empire of Quiché to nearly the middle of the thirteenth century, about thirty or forty years after the arrival of the Aztecs in the valley of Mexico.* So far the accounts would seem to agree. Autzol, or Ahuitzotl, the eighth sultan of Tenochtitlan, is stated to have sent a special embassy to the kings of Quiché, Kachiquel, and Zutugil, with the professed object of establishing an alliance between the two kingdoms; but those chiefs, suspecting the sincerity of his proposals, dismissed the Aztec ambassadors, whom they regarded as no better than spies, with evasive answers and less than usual courtesy. The King of Quiché alleged that he could not understand their language: if so, two hundred and fifty years must have produced a great change either in the dialect of Tenochtitlan or in that of Utatlan, as they must originally have been the same. The kings of both countries were of the same race. "It appears, too," says Juarros, "that these princes acknowledged the relationship, and maintained a communication with each other; for it is related in a manuscript of sixteen quarto pages, which is preserved by the Indians of the village of St Andres Xecul, that when Montezuma II. was made prisoner (by Cortes), he sent a private ambassador to Kicab Tanub, King of Quiché, to inform him that some white men had arrived in his states, and made war upon him with such impetuosity, that the whole strength of his people was unable to resist

* See vol. i. p. 37.