1441 – 1500
The fall of Mayapan
In 1441, the year the chronicles give, Ah Xiu Xupan of the Xiu lineage leads a revolt against the Cocom rulers of Mayapan, helped by mercenaries from elsewhere in Mexico. The rebels kill every Cocom in the city. One member of the family, away trading in Honduras, survives. Mayapan is sacked and burned. Excavators have found burnt roof beams in the ceremonial centre and a mass grave in the main plaza. No altars or burial cists are built after about 1461.
A page of the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, a Yucatec Maya chronicle in Latin letters, Princeton University LibraryWikimedia Commons, Unknown author, Public domain (Chilam Balam of Chumayel via Princeton p50.jpg)
The great families leave to set up their own seats. The Xiu rule from Maní, the surviving Cocom from Tibolon in the province of Sotuta, and the Chel from Tecoh. Yucatán breaks into independent provinces, each called a kuchkabal in Yucatec Maya. Estimates of their number range from sixteen to twenty-four. Some have a single ruler, others are loose leagues of towns, and their borders shift with alliances and wars.
A map of the province of Maní drawn in 1557, with its towns set in a circle, in a copy by Frederick Catherwood, 1842Wikimedia Commons, Frederick Catherwood, Public domain (1557 Map Yucatan Mani.jpg)
Maní and Sotuta remain enemies. Cupul, with its capital at Saci, and Chikinchel fight for the salt beds of the north coast. Ecab holds the northeast, Cochuah the interior around Tihosuco, and Uaymil and Chetumal the Caribbean coast in the southeast. Ah Canul, Campeche and Champotón lie along the Gulf coast. The wars between the provinces last until shortly before 1511, yet the first Spanish explorers still find wealthy coastal towns and busy markets.
Sources
- Carlos Peraza Lope, Marilyn A. Masson, Timothy S. Hare and Pedro Candelario Delgado Kú, The chronology of Mayapán: new radiocarbon evidence, Ancient Mesoamerica 17 (2006), pp. 153 to 175.
- Anthony P. Andrews, The Political Geography of the Sixteenth Century Yucatan Maya: Comments and Revisions, Journal of Anthropological Research 40 (1984), pp. 589 to 596.
- Ralph L. Roys, The Political Geography of the Yucatan Maya (1957).
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