MAAIE GROUP. - Mame proper (Mem, Zakloh-pakap), throughout south-western Guatemala ; lxil, Cotzal district, Guatemala ; Aguacateeas Xinca), throughout south-eastern Guatemala ; Alagietkic San Cristobal, Chiapas.

Yucatan is still almost entirely inhabited by the same Maya race that was found in possession of the land at the time of the discovery. About five-sixths of the population are of nearly on Maya stock and speech, the Spanish and mestizo elements being mostly confined to the large towns. The mestizos are said to be the handsomest on the continent, while the full-blood natives are perhaps the least characteristic of all the aboriginal populations. They have the coarse black and straight hair, the arched nose, and the reddish-brown complexion common to most of the primitive inhabitants of America. But they can be readily distinguished from all of them by their regular features, low cheek-bones, small mouth and ears, straight jaws, frank expression, and a certain air of refinement betraying descent from a highly cultured people. "It would lie difficult," says Charnay, "to find among the rural classes of Europe men of a better build, or with more intelligent and open countenances." Although generally peaceful, patient under oppression, and even somewhat indolent, their history since the conquest (1547) has not been wholly uneventful. After more than two centuries of passive resistance, there was a general revolt in 1761, brought about by the intolerable misrule of the Spanish administration. The declaration of independence (1821) was followed in 1824 by the union with the Mexican confederacy, which continued without interruption till 1840. In that year an independent republic was set up in Yucatan, which, however, was suppressed in 1843. Then came the general uprising of the natives in 1846, when Mexico was engaged in a disastrous war with the United States. To quell the revolt, the ruling classes were obliged to call in the aid of the Mexicans (1847-53), whereby the peninsula again lost its autonomy, and was divided (1861) into the two federal states of Yucatan and Campeche. But the rebellion was not entirely suppressed, and many of the natives, withdrawing eastwards to the coast-lands beyond the Sierra Alta, have hitherto defied all the efforts of the authorities to reduce them.

Bibliography. - D. L. Cogolludo, Historia de Yncathan, 11.1adrid, 1G88; Diego de Lands, Relation de las Gouts de Yucatan, ed. by Br. de Bourbourg, Paris, 1884 ; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. des Nations Civilisees du Mexique et de EAmerique Centrale, Paris, 1857-59, and Etudes sur le Systeme Graphique et is Langue dos Mayas, Paris, 180.70; Lord Kingsborough, Antiquities of Mexico, London, 1831-48 (vols. ii. and iii.); 11. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, New York, 1875, and Hist. of the Pacific States (vols. iv, and v.), San Francisco and London, 1882-87 ; J. L. Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, new edition, New York, 1853; E. G. Squier, Travels in Central America, New York, 1853, and Notes on Central America, New York, 1855; J. D. Baldwin, Ancient America, New York, 1872; Marquis de Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, London, 1885; Desire Charnay, The Ancient Cities of the hew World, London, 1887 ; F. A. Ober, Travels in Mexico (bk. i., Yucatan), Boston, 18S4 ; A. P. Mandslay, " Exploration, Re., of Copan," in Proc. Roo. Geogr. Soc., September, 1888; E. S. Holden, "Studies in Central-American Picture-Writing," in Animal Report of Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1879-80. (A. II. K.)