View from Upper Level to Terraces Below
When the diplomat and travel writer John Lloyd Stephens visited the ruins in 1841, he was interested in learning about the beliefs that the local Maya held regarding the ruins. He reports:
They knew nothing of the origins of the ruined buildings; these were standing when they were born; had existed in the time of their fathers; and the old men said that they had fallen much within their own memory.
In one point, however, they differed from the Indians of Uxmal and Zayi. They had no superstitious feelings with regard to the ruins, were not afraid to go to them at night, or to sleep in them; and when we told them of the music that was heard sounding among the old buildings of Zayi, they said that if it were heard among these, they would all go and dance to it."
John Lloyd Stevens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan: New Edition by Karl Ackerman with Historical and Modern Photographs, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London, p. 163