Where are all the Maya gone?

Balam Na

Aren't the ancient Maya ruins awesome? The pyramids of Tikal rising higher than the tallest trees of the jungle, the underground corridors of Palenque leading to royal tombs, the millennia-old paintings in the temples of Bonampak hidden deep in the rain forest. Tourists with cameras dangling on their bellies walk among those ruins, now and again they look into their little books they hold in their hands or stop and listen to the flow of words of a guide talking about the aMayzing ancient Maya. But you won't find any Maya people among those ruins. Where are they all gone? Have they died out?

Felipe Carillo Puerto, a small town in the middle of Mexican state of Quintana Roo, is not awesome. It appears to be sleepy and provincial. A church of very thick stone walls stands next to the central square. The inhabitants of the town are small, have darkish skin and talk in some incomprehensible language. They do speak Spanish to a visitor, though.

“What is the language you speak?” I ask a driver at a minibus stand.

“It's Maya” he answers. “”Everybody speaks it here.”

The Maya didn't die out like some other Indian tribes. Their sustenance was not game found in the forests but maize which they cultivated since times immemorial. Cultivated several varieties in four colours: yellow, red, black and white. Maize was and still is a sacred plant for them, a gift of gods, itself a god. Maize gives life, thanks to it the Maya survived. The conquistadores conquered the country but they had no intention of killing all the inhabitants. They wanted to be lords and one needs peasants to be a lord. Maya could be perfect peasants. The old intellectual elite died out, at least all those who knew the ancient script and could read the ancient books. The pagan books were burned anyway, but the Maya peasant survived. They were there and worked the land.

The Maya ladies

Then independence came. For the Maya it meant nothing, independence was declared by the descendants of Spaniards. After several generations in America the descendants did not identify themselves with Spain any more. Yucatan was not Mexico either. The Spanish speaking inhabitants of the peninsula declared independence as the Republic of Yucatan. When Mexico (also only recently independent) did not accept this decision and sent an army to pacify the rebels – the government of Yucatan decided to fight. The Mexican army was much bigger, therefore the Yucatan government decided to enlist their peasants. The Indian peasants were trained and sent to the front, the Mexican army was defeated and then the Indians were sent home. The white inhabitants of Yucatan probably thought that everything was going to be as before.

The Indians hoped something might actually change. Before was serfdom and the Indians did not like that too much. Manuel Antonio Ay, a Maya leader, stated the concerns of the Indians and as a result was executed on the market square in Valladolid. The execution took place on 26 Jul 1847. Other Maya leaders – the most prominent of whom were Cecilio Chi and Jacinto Pat – weren't going to wait for the execution. The Indians were freshly trained in the modern ways of warfare, quickly organised themselves into an army and were seizing towns of Yucatan one after another. The Maya wanted to get rid of the white invaders. The did not need peasants, they weren't taking prisoners, all whites who didn't manage to escape were executed. The whites panicked. There was even a plan to evacuate the peninsula altogether, but in the end the Mexican army was called for help and the Maya were pushed back more or less to the present border of Quintana Roo. Beyond that line the Maya had an independent state that existed until the early 20^th century. The British in Belize were neutral and traded with anybody who held power north of the Rio Hondo border. The capital of the Maya state was a town named Chan Santa Cruz, today called Felipe Carillo Puerto. This is where the Speaking Cross was kept. In 1850 an Indian named Juan de la Cruz had a vision – he heard a cross talking to him, passing the message from God: the Indians were not to give up for God was going to help them. Nobody else heard this voice but it didn't matter, a church was build to house the cross and to make sure everybody knew this was a sanctuary of the Speaking Cross – a special room was added behind the altar for someone who could play the voice of the cross. The Indians had as much reverence for the Speaking Cross as for any miracle-performing figure. They dressed it in embroidered shirts and looked after it in every possible way. Of course the ceremonies were very much like those of the ancient Maya religion. The church of the Speaking Cross was called Balam Na - this is the thick-walled church in Carillo Puerto. Erected around 1850, it is the last great temple built by the Maya.

The Maya storyteller

The gunpowder bought in Belize was of course crucial for the defence of Chan Santa Cruz, but there was another factor – the swampy forests that surrounded the town. Every few years an army was sent from Merida to sort out these “savages”, after the march through the jungle that lasted some weeks the army would reach Chan Santa Cruz, find the town deserted and enter claiming victory – only to discover that the Indians were in the forest and the army was besieged in a town in which there was no food. Some time later starving remnants would return ho me. Only in 1901, when the Mexican army built a railway through the jungle and used machine guns – was the resistance of the Maya broken. Mexico finally took control of this part of the country. The Maya, however, have not disappeared. They are there and cultivate maize as they had always done. The cult of the Speaking Cross has not disappeared either, its sanctuary still stands in Felipe Carillo Puerto. I have been there.

Felipe Carillo Puerto gives an impression of a sleepy provincial town but this is Chan Santa Cruz – the capital of the last independent Maya state. The temple of Balam Na has been taken over by the Catholic Church but the temple of the Speaking Cross stands only four streets away. There is a notice by the door informing that entry in a hat or in shoes is forbidden. The interior looks very much like a church, a presbytery is behind a low wall in the middle of which there is a passage for priests. There is an arch above the alter made with the same stone as the Balam Na church. The altar is full of figures of perfectly Catholic saints. I was shown all this by Jorge, a young Indian active in Xiaat community.

Sanctuary of the Speaking Cross

There are no famous tourist attractions in Carillo Puerto. There are hardly any tourists there, I guess only those who are interested in the living Indian culture. The Xiaat community exists especially for this purpose – to facilitate a meeting with the living culture. It is not a rich organisation, it doesn't even have any office in the town, one contact them in the internet cafe called Balam Na computation. It really is just a few young men from a nearby Maya village. In that village, called Senor, everybody speaks Maya and some people don't even know Spanish. Women wear traditional huipils – white brightly embroidered shifts. Most of the houses in the village is in the traditional Maya style, with thatched roof and the interior undivided into rooms.

The coordinator of Xiaat is Marcus. I talk to him over the phone from Balam Na Computation and visit him in Senor the next day. He shows me around the village. We meet an old man who talks about the war with Mexico. He is very very old but still not old enough to remember the war, he tells us what his father told him. He can't speak Spanish, Marcus has to translate the story. The story is very different from the one I read before coming there, which was based on written Spanish sources. The story of the old Indian is full of miracles where God fights on the side of the Maya. I ask Marcus later if they have recorded this story as the man is very very old, he says they haven't. He leads me later to a lady who knows all the medicinal plants in the forest. One of these plants is really interesting, it heals you if a snake bites your shadow. There are snakes in these parts that bite you shadow and then you fall ill. The don't bite your body, just a shadow when you walk by moonlight is enough. But don't worry, you have to visit the wise woman who knows all herbs in the forest and she will find you a cure. The lady does not speak Spanish either and Marcus has to translate. All that knowledge will be of little use for me, the herbs of the jungle don't grow in England We don't have those shadow-biting snakes either. Till later Marcus sends Jorge with me to the Sanctuary of the Speaking Cross in Carillo Puerto. I am told there are ceremonies there every morning, at 4:00 AM. I ask if I could be present at a ceremony.

“I don't think there should be a problem,” says Jorge, “but I think you should rather go to the sanctuary of Tixcacal Guardia. It is only 5 km from Senor.

Sanctuary w X-Cacal Guardia

Considering that I am staying in senor – it makes sense. I go to Tixcacal Guardia with Marcus the next day. The temple is much simpler than the Cruz Parlante in Carillo Puerto. It actually looks like an ordinary Maya house with thatched roof, only the walls are more solid and whitewashed. It is closed, they open it only for the ceremonies at 4:00 am. The priests live in the next house, also thatched. They nap in their hammocks. They are ordinary peasants who come to serve in the temple for a week at a time. One of them we met earlier in the village, normally he rides a rickshaw. The priests have no objections – I can come tomorrow morning.

We arrive the next morning. The chief priests and some other men sit in front of the temple, now open. They bring out more chairs for us, we chat. I mean Marcus talks to them in Maya as they hardly speak any Spanish. We can hear some chants inside the temple. Marcus says they are in some ancient Maya dialect and he doesn't understand everything. At one point they usher us in. One of the priests brings a steaming basket from the presbytery – it is freshly boiled corn on the cob. Another brings a container with steaming soup. Everybody gets a bowl of that soup and one corn on a cob. The grins of the maize are as white as snow.

You will find this story, and many others, in my book "ASK A GLOBETROTTER".