was discovered in these parts about two years ago, which in the beginning was called Cozumel,[1] and has since been named Yucatan,[2] without its being the one or the other. This your Royal Highnesses will be able to perceive from our narration because, until now the accounts, which have been made to Your Majesties concerning this country, both of its customs and wealth, as well as concerning the manner of its discovery, and other things which have been stated about it, are not and could not have been exact, for, as will appear from this account which we send to Your Highnesses, up till now no one has known them.
We will deal with it here from the beginning of its
- ↑ Cozumel, also sometimes called Acuzamil (Ah-Cuzamil meaning the "Swallows"), was discovered by Juan de Grijalba on the feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross, and hence named by him Santa Cruz. He took possession in the name of the Spanish sovereigns, and of Diego Velasquez, under whose commission the expedition had sailed. There was a stone building on the island, having a square tower with a door in each of its four sides. Inside this there were idols, palm branches, and bones, which they said were those of a great chief (Oviedo, lib. xvii., cap ix.). The tower was surmounted by a smaller square turret which was reached by an outside staircase. Grijalba hoisted the Spanish flag on this turret, and named the place San Juan de Puerta Latina. The Chaplain Fray Juan Diaz said mass. Cristobal de Olid, who was sent by Velasquez in search of Grijalba's expedition, about whose safety fears were felt, also landed at Cozumel, and took formal possession, thinking that he was its discoverer (Orozco y Berra, tom. iv., cap. i.). The inhabitants seemed poor, and what gold they produced was mostly an alloy with copper, of little value, which the Indians called guanin, and prized highly (Las Casas, lib. 7, cap. lxvii.).
Cozumel was a place of pilgrimage, and in one of the great temples there stood a hollow statue called Teel-Cuzam (the Swallows' Feet), made of terra-cotta, in which a priest placed himself to give oracular answers to the pilgrims (Cogolludo, Hist. de Yucatan, lib. iv., cap. vii.).
- ↑ Yucatan, "The land of wounds and calamities," as Bernal Diaz called it. This coast was first sighted by Columbus, but he did not land. In 1511, a boat-load of men from the wreck of Valdivia's caravel
answered that they all hoped to go there, he replied that then he would rather not. So he was burned, but not converted. The Indian name Cuba has persisted and survived all others. (Oviedo, Hist. Gen., lib. xxvii., cap. iii.; Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, lib. iii., cap. xxi.-xxv.)
