CHAPTER IV.
THE HERO-GODS OF THE MAYAS.
CIVILIZATION OF THE MAYAS--WHENCE IT ORIGINATED--DUPLICATE TRADITIONS.
Sec.1._The Culture Hero Itzamna._ ITZAMNA AS RULER, PRIEST AND TEACHER--AS CHIEF GOD AND CREATOR OF THE WORLD--LAS CASAS' SUPPOSED CHRIST MYTH--THE FOUR BACABS--ITZAMNA AS LORD OF THE WINDS AND RAINS--THE SYMBOL OF THE CROSS--AS LORD OF THE LIGHT AND DAY--DERIVATION OF HIS VARIOUS NAMES.
Sec.2._The Culture Hero Kukulcan_.
KUKULCAN AS CONNECTED WITH THE CALENDAR--MEANING OF THE NAME--THE MYTH OF THE FOUR BROTHERS--KUKULCAN'S HAPPY RULE AND MIRACULOUS DISAPPEARANCE--RELATION TO QUETZALCOATL--AZTEC AND MAYA MYTHOLOGY--KUKULCAN A MAYA DIVINITY--THE EXPECTED RETURN OF THE HERO-GODS--THE MAYA PROPHECIES--THEIR EXPLANATION.
The high-water mark of ancient American civilization was touched by the Mayas, the race who inhabited the peninsula of Yucatan and vicinity.

Its members extended to the Pacific coast and included the tribes of Vera Paz, Guatemala, and parts of Chiapas and Honduras, and had an outlying branch in the hot lowlands watered by the River Panuco, north of Vera Cruz.

In all, it has been estimated that they numbered at the time of the Conquest perhaps two million souls.

To them are due the vast structures of Copan, Palenque and Uxmal, and they alone possessed a mode of writing which rested distinctly on a phonetic basis.
The zenith of their prosperity had, however, been passed a century before the Spanish conquerors invaded their soil.

A large part of the peninsula of Yucatan had been for generations ruled in peace by a confederation of several tribes, whose capital city was Mayapan, ten leagues south of where Merida now stands, and whose ruins still cover many hundred acres of the plain.