No wonder that the early missionaries, many of whom, like Landa, had lived in Mexico and had become familiar with the story of Quetzalcoatl and his alleged departure toward the east, identified him with Kukulcan, and that, following the notion of this assumed identity, numerous later writers have framed theories to account for the civilization of ancient Yucatan through colonies of "Toltec" immigrants.
It can, indeed, be shown beyond doubt that there were various points of contact between the Aztec and Maya civilizations.

The complex and artificial method of reckoning time was one of these; certain architectural devices were others; a small number of words, probably a hundred all told, have been borrowed by the one tongue from the other.
Mexican merchants traded with Yucatan, and bands of Aztec warriors with their families, from Tabasco, dwelt in Mayapan by invitation of its rulers, and after its destruction, settled in the province of Canul, on the western coast, where they lived strictly separate from the Maya-speaking population at the time the Spaniards conquered the country.[1] [Footnote 1: _El Libro de Chilan Balam de Chumayel_, MS.; Landa, _Relacion_, p.

54.] But all this is very far from showing that at any time a race speaking the Aztec tongue ruled the Peninsula.

There are very strong grounds to deny this.

The traditions which point to a migration from the west or southwest may well have referred to the depopulation of Palenque, a city which undoubtedly was a product of Maya architects.