‘All this I know and can transmit to you because I am Friar de Landa’s private secretary, charged with translation, notation, and documentation of the rights of the Church – in this capacity I work alongside the Friar’s official notary, Francisco de Orozco, as his trusted lieutenant. Why then, you ask, am I bearing witness to de Landa’s perfidy by writing in the last of the Maya holy books when, to all intents and purposes, I am an integral part of his retinue, an honorary member of the Franciscan order, and de Landa’s personal representative amongst the Maya? This I will now explain to you.
‘When I was a young child it was decided that, as second son of the noble household of the Ah Maxam, I should be trained in the duties of royal scribe, so that I could arrange royal ceremonies, oversee royal marriages, keep the genealogical lists, and record any tributes and offerings paid by client states. As ah ts’ib – “he of the writing” – I was an honoured and valued member of the royal household.
‘When the Franciscans came and took over our city, my father and the few remaining of our priests decided that I must become as one with the Spaniards – take on their customs, learn their language, study Latin, acknowledge their ascendancy – so that one at least amongst us could understand the full implications of the horror that was clearly about to fall upon our people. This I agreed to do.
‘To that end I studied hard, making myself useful to the friars in any and all capacities, until I attained a position as high as it was possible for one of Maya ancestry to go. Thanks to this I was able also, and via subterfuge, to warn my people of impending problems, destroy offending documentation, and influence Friar de Landa, to the extent that I was able, in the hope that, as one interested in our culture and history, he would ride upon the backs of our people without the use of his spurs.
‘This situation continued until three months ago. Some years before this time, thinking that Friar de Landa was a more tolerant man than he was, Nachi Cocom, last great ruler of the Cocom lineage, and imagining himself to be Friar de Landa’s friend, had shown the Friar the secret library of Maya writings, which included 2673 books and codices, 5000 sacred images and idols – including those to Kan u Uayeyub and Bolon Dzacab used during the Year-Bearing Ceremonies – and 13 large altar stones we know as kanal acantum. These, together with 22 smaller stones, and 127 vases and funerary urns containing the bones of priests, noblemen, and kings, made up the complete historical record of our people from the beginnings of the first Great World Age.
‘Cocom showed Friar de Landa these things on the understanding that they were no longer used, but merely kept as part of Maya historical record, and that he trusted that he could rely on Friar de Landa, as his friend and as a man of God, to honour the trust he was putting in him. Friar de Landa at first appeared to accede to this stipulation, leading Nachi Cocom to tell Friar de Landa about our belief in Los Aluxes. This belief states that a certain number of enlightened beings have been left behind by the gods to guard the magnetic spiritual places and objects of the earth, and that it is only via the intercession of these spiritual guardians that the destiny of the world may be secured. Cocom foolishly believed that Friar de Landa, with all his stated interest in Maya culture, was one such person.
‘When Nachi Cocom died, Friar de Landa repaid Cocom’s trust by seizing the library and all its contents, and by posthumously accusing the Chief of idolatry, digging up his body from its grave, burning its remains, and scattering his ashes across the fields. You must know that for a Maya king and spiritual leader, the manner of his death and burial is of the utmost importance. To die well is considered a blessing amongst our people. Maize would have been placed in Cocom’s mouth, and jade and stone beads would have been added as currency to pay for his spirit’s journey through the underworld. His corpse would have been wrapped in cotton, and both his body and his grave would have been covered in cinnabar, as red is considered by us to be both the colour of death and of rebirth.
‘By digging up Nachi Cocom’s body, Friar de Landa thought to deprive Cocom’s soul of eternal rest, and by seizing the library he thought to manifest his and his Church’s dominance over our traditional spiritual leaders.
‘Then, more recently, Friar de Landa received further information from the traitor Antonio Gaspar Xiu [the former Chi Xiu], descendant of Tutul Xiu, great chief of the Xiu clan, traditional enemies of the Cocoms, about the continuing power of the Maya religion. Thanks to this information, and to the privileged knowledge he had of our holy books, Friar de Landa convinced himself that those who had allowed themselves to be baptized by the Franciscan order were secretly continuing in the faith of their forefathers. I attempted to explain to him that what was in fact occurring was a natural thing – an inevitable misunderstanding occasioned by Friar de Landa’s transformation of the great Maya pyramid at Izamál into the Catholic Church of San Antonio. I told him that my people were bewildered by the mass of contradictory messages they were receiving.
‘“Then we must un-confuse them,” said the Friar.’
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‘So Friar Diego de Landa, scourge and nemesis of the Maya, was born. But the Friar was careful not to take on too much responsibility for the outrages he was about to perpetrate, as he did not wish to alienate his masters in Rome. Instead he sent the army on ahead of him. Then he followed along, some days behind, to sweep up the army’s leavings. He took me along as aide, secretary, and translator, so I am able to bear witness to what happened next.
‘In the town of Cupul, the army decided to burn the headman and his advisors alive. To achieve this, they crucified them, and placed braziers beneath their feet. Then they lit the braziers and forced the townspeople to watch the scene. Those they did not burn, they hanged.
‘Later, the Spaniards moved against the Yobain, in the town of Chels. In this town they took all the leading men and placed them in the stocks, and beat them. Then they placed the men, still in the stocks, inside a house, which they then burned down. This was a different system to that which they had used in Cupul.
‘Next, they moved the women and children out of the village. Feeling that they had not sufficiently made their point to the outlying villages, the Captain of the Spaniards then took the women and ordered them strung up to the branches of a great tree, with their children hanging beneath them like fruit. This, I believe, was done to undermine Maya belief in the Great World Tree, which to us supports all life. This particular Maya tree, we were to observe, supported only death.
‘In the next town, Verey, and feeling that some of the women were too beautiful and that they might therefore inflame the soldiers to unholy acts, the Captain of the Spaniards ordered that their breasts be cut off, and that they should then be hung in full view of the whole village to prove to our people that the Spaniards were indifferent to our women. These women, too, died.
‘The Friar and his retinue, of which I formed a part, arrived in these towns two to three days after the soldiers had passed. The people, fearing reprisals, had not dared to cut down the bodies, which stank and putrefied in the midsummer heat. The Friar, wishing to be seen to act in a kindly fashion after the outrages of the soldiers, allowed the townspeople to cut down the victims of his purge – their bodies, however, could not be buried, but must be burnt, and, like Nachi Cocom’s, be scattered over the fields. This the Friar ordered.
‘Next, our retinue moved to the provinces of Cochuah and Chetumal. Here our people, hearing of what the Spanish had done to their brothers and sisters, rose up against them. But without proper weapons, fighting dogs, and horses, they were powerless. Those who were captured had their noses, and their hands, and their arms, and their legs, and in the case of the women, their breasts, and in the case of the men, their genitals, carved off. Then all were taken, alive or dead, to the cenote from out of which the people drew their water, and, with gourds tied to their feet or what remained of their trunks, they were thrown into the deep waters. Children who could not walk as fast as their mothers were speared. This we heard from the
survivors, of whom there were few, as most had been taken into the Spaniards’ service as slaves.
‘The Friar declared himself outraged at what had occurred. He conducted formal ceremonies over the dead, and blessed the survivors. I joined in with these ceremonies, and made much of the wisdom of the Friar’s doings, as my duty was to remain always at his side and to represent our people – for such was the quality of the oath that I had undertaken before the assembled Chilans. An oath that forced me into seeming what I was not. An oath which forced me into observing and annotating the horrors which I saw perpetrated against those of the same blood as myself – those who worshipped the same gods – those who stemmed from the very same clay.
‘This I tell you, in advance, so that you may better understand why I am desecrating the last of our holy books with my writing. For now I am going to recount what happened today, at Maní, under the Friar’s direct supervision, and which makes all that we had previously seen appear as the dalliance of un-parented children.’
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Sabir was focusing all of his attention on Lamia’s translation of the Chilan’s words. At one point he reached forward and took her hand in his, either to offer or to receive comfort, he was not entirely sure. She allowed her hand to rest in his for a moment, and then she withdrew it, as if she were unable to countenance such a two-way split in her concentration.
Calque stood beside them, his head turned away, to all intents and purposes as if he were refusing to listen to de Landa’s story. But Sabir knew him well enough by now. He could tell by the way Calque stood – by the stiffness in his back and by the sideways tilt of his head – that he was concentrating on every word that Lamia was translating for him.
The Chilan paused in his reading. He was dripping with sweat. His voice was growing increasingly hoarse. His hands shook where they held the book, and he seemed unable to meet anyone’s eyes. It was as if the horror of what he was reading formed a direct part of his own experience, and was not merely a story, written by another, which he was recounting to a partially illiterate audience.
Acan’s mother, Ixtab, hurried to his side. She unpinned her rebozo and mopped the Chilan’s brow and face. He nodded to her in grateful acknowledgment, but he was unable to summon up a smile. The Halach Uinic stood off to one side, his face in his hands. There was neither a mutter nor a murmur from the vast audience below them.
The Chilan gave a profound sigh, and addressed himself once again to the book in front of him.
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‘The Auto da Fé began today, the twelfth day of July 1562, in the early morning. What occurred was a fulfilment of the first part of the prophecy of the Cycle of the Nine Hells, the first 52-year cycle of which began with the arrival of the Franciscans in the Yucatan in 1544 under Luis de Villalpando, and the final cycle of which will be due to end in the year 2012, marking 9 by 52 years, being 468 in total, between the start of the cycle and its eventual end.
‘At the break of dawn, Friar de Landa ordered the great square at Maní to be cleared of people. Then he ordered his prisoners, the so-called indios rebeldes, to be brought in from their place of incarceration, where they had been constrained to fast for eight hours, as a legally imposed prelude to their torture. Amongst these prisoners were all the remaining great nobles and their families – the Pat, the Xiu, the Canuls, the Chikin-Chels, the Cocoms, the Cupuls, the Hocaba-Humúns, the Cochua, and many others. Their names had been given in by their children, whom the Franciscans had seized from their families, indoctrinated, and forced to submit to the Christian catechism. Thus it was that the children unwittingly became the executioners of their own parents.
‘I, Akbal Coatl, the “night serpent”, whom the Spaniards call Salvador Emmanuel, had not been privy to the kidnap of these people, and thus I was horrified to see that many of the remaining members of my family were amongst their number. At first I was minded to join them. To throw myself into their midst and die with my people. But the man I knew to be the Halach Uinic – the High Priest and leader of all the Maya, whose identity we had kept secret even from the friars – made a sign to me that I should not reveal myself to the Spaniards by word or by gesture. He also made the sign of the written scroll to me, indicating that what I saw must be written down. I believe now that he had been told, or had seen prophesied, what was about to occur.
‘Bowing to my fate, I forced myself to attend to Friar de Landa’s demands on me, which included the formal noting of the names and descriptions of all the people present, their place in our hierarchy, and the crimes, mainly of idolatry, that were to be laid at their feet.
‘Then the questioning began. First, Friar de Landa made it clear to those who admitted to their crimes and repented of their sins that even they would not escape punishment. Instead, they would be forced to stand in full public view, with an idol held in one hand and a candle in the other, and with ropes strung about their necks. In addition, they were to wear the high, cone-shaped hat of shame, known as the coroza, and the penitential robes, known as the sambenito, undergo a full mass and a sermon, have their heads shaved, and then suffer whipping, with a prescribed number of strokes, to be conducted in the public stocks.
‘Despite these warnings, many amongst the number of those present chose this course of action, having heard stories of – or perhaps merely suspecting – what lay in store for those of an unrepentant, or even entirely innocent, demeanour.
‘The penitential were then led away to suffer their punishment. The remainder were formed into lines.
‘Now the torture and mutilation of our people began in earnest. The first chiefs were brought forward and fastened to the hoist, which the Spanish know as the garrucha. This caused them to have their arms pulled back behind them and then to be lifted into the air and dropped, repeatedly, all the while submitting to questions from the friars. When the questioning did not bear fruit, Friar de Landa, claiming to act under the aegis of the Consulta da Fé, ordered that the chiefs have heavy weights of stone attached to their feet, the better to dislocate their members. Time was allowed to elapse between the repeated drops, the further to enhance the pain of those suffering them, and in order to ordain them to “tell the truth for the love of God”. During this period of false release, the Miserere was to be sung by all those not undergoing the question. Should this method be seen to fail, the offending chief was to be first whipped, and then splashed on the face, body, and back with hot wax.
‘The women were given special dispensation by order of Friar de Landa, and only tortured by the garrotte, which involved being placed on a seat, and then having sharp cords, known as cordeles, two on each arm and two on each leg, tightened by means of a short lever. If either of these tortures failed, then the water torture was to be used, in which the victim was to be placed on a trestle, known as the escalera, or potro. Following this, a bostero, or iron prong, would be fitted inside the mouth, after which a strip of linen, known by the Spaniards as the toca, would be forced into the throat in order to guide the flow of water from the jarra. Depending on the number of quarts consumed, the body of the tortured person would distend, forcing the flesh against the seven garrottes with which they had been fastened. Few resisted this technique, and many “spontaneous recantations” were achieved.
‘During the course of the day, many people were brought to torture. Some repented. Many died. Many had their limbs torn from their muscle beds. One great chief, whose name I will not here recount as he is connected to me by family, and from whom I had received especial kindnesses as a child, was accused of conducting a human sacrifice. He had the garrotte placed around his head and tightened by seven turns, which cause his eyes to pop out of their sockets. After this he was allowed to live by order of Friar de Landa, as a warning to his people.
‘By late afternoon the square at Maní was thick with carrion and with clotted blood, despite the many sweepings and cleansings ordered by Friar de Landa. At this point the sun was briefly eaten, as in a chibil, or eclipse. Some of the unwillin
g spectators that Friar de Landa now ordered to enter the square whispered amongst themselves that the xulab ants had swarmed across the sky to protect the sun, ashamed that he should see such horrors occurring in his realm.
‘At this time, the moon, our grandmother, also appeared in the sky, which came as no surprise to those of us acquainted with the Tun-Uc, or moon calendar, as the moon always accompanies great disasters and violent deceit. The moon goddess Tlacolteotl had clearly heard that members of her own priesthood, the Nahau Pech, were being tortured, and she had arrived to oversee and monitor their deaths. This was as it should be, for the Nahau Pech knew, as did we all, that the unpredictable moon was considered by many of our people to be representative of the Spanish ascendancy, and of the final end of the old order. In this way the sun and the moon had always been in conflict one with the other, and now it was clear that the moon had finally won.
‘Darkness was in the ascendant.
‘We understood that there would be no further harmony between our Father the sun and Our Lady the moon until the Cycle of the Nine Hells had been completed.’
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‘When Friar de Landa felt that enough torturing had been done, and that he had sufficiently re-established the Church’s authority over its errant flock, he called me to him. He asked me if there were still men who could read the ancient scripts that he now held within his grasp. And that if there were such men, that I should immediately bring them to him.
‘I admit now that I feared for my own safety.
‘I turned towards the square and pointed to the dead men littered across its wastes. “All these could read the ancient scripts. And also the chief whose eyes you started out of his head with your garrotte. They are now dead, and he is blind. So the books are blind too. None are left to call them out.”
The Mayan Codex Page 34
