Note 995 — Chapter III

On the character of the Tecpan (council house, or official house) of the Mexicans, which the early writers translate “palace,” with its sense of magnificence, see Bandelier (Peabody Mus. Repts. ii. 406, 671, etc.), with his references. Morgan holds that Stephens is largely responsible for the prevalence of erroneous notions regarding the Mayas, by reason of using the words “palaces” and “great cities” for defining what were really the pueblos of these southern Indians. Bancroft (ii. 84), referring to the ruins, says: They have “the highest value as confirming the truth of the reports made by Spanish writers, very many, or perhaps most, of whose statements respecting the wonderful phenomena of the New World, without this incontrovertible material proof, would find few believers among the skeptical students of the present day.” Bancroft had little prescience respecting what the communal theorists were going to say of these ruins.