Reports on the Maya Indians of Yucatan

DRESS

The ordinary costume of the men consists of a shirt of white cotton like ours, worn outside the white drawers of the same material, which are wide and reach to the calf of the leg; a belt, white or in colors, is worn around the waist under the shirt; a kerchief; a straw hat, and sandals consisting of only soles which are adjusted to the foot by cords of agave fiber, complete his costume. While at work in the field they take all their clothes off and wear only a loin-cloth, which they call huit, consisting of a piece of cotton cloth fastened around the hips, the points passing between the thighs to be fastened to the belt below the navel. From this belt hangs the sheathed machete on the left side.

When they go out, the Indian women wear on their heads either a piece of cotton cloth of about half a yard in width by two and a half yards in length, the ends of which hang down the back, or else they tie a red kerchief around the head, a very bright red being their favorite color. A hipil of cotton is fashioned like a wide sacque-coat, with an opening in the center to put the head through, fitting around the neck, having openings on the two sides for the arms. This hipil reaches to about the calf of the leg, falling on a skirt or petticoat, also of white cotton, three or four fingers longer. It is fastened around the waist under the hipil, which falls loosely over it. The hem of both the skirt and the hipil are very often roughly embroidered in blue or red thread. For traveling they wear sandals like the men.

LANGUAGE

The Indians of Yucatan speak the Maya language, though somewhat adulterated through contact with Spanish. Several Spanish expressions have gradually crept into their idiom, especially in cities and principal towns where the Indians are in almost constant intercourse with whites and mestizos. Many among them can speak Spanish perfectly well, but as a rule they avoid it, and will answer in Maya to those who speak Spanish to them.

STATURE, PHYSIOGNOMY, COLOR

Generally speaking, the Indians of Yucatan are of about the same stature as all intertropical races, of a round face, straight black hair, rather coarse, not very pronounced eyebrows, very little beard or none at all, a low narrow forehead, black and expressive eyes, a somewhat flat nose, small but outstanding ears, protruding cheekbones, a regular mouth with thin lips and beautiful teeth, a stout neck, broad chest and shoulders, arms, thighs, and limbs of robust and muscular build. Their hands and feet are small, and the toes of their feet stand closer together than the heels. They have no hair on their bodies except on the head. Their color is a copper-brown, darkened through constant exposure to the sun, especially as they go about almost totally naked. The color of the women is therefore much lighter, and this is also the case with such men as have been reared from childhood in homes of the white people. Among the women there are some very pretty ones, slender in form, with an airy but graceful carriage, and a very sweet voice; but the hard work to which they are subjected from early childhood causes them to lose their beauty at an early age. There are also some truly fine types among the men.

SAVAGE TRIBES

Of real savage tribes there are none in Yucatan. After the greater part of the peninsula, cities as well as villages, had been reconquered from the possession of the Indians who had taken them during their insurrection in 1847, which was general, the most tenacious and unruly ones among them settled in the eastern part of the peninsula, where they have built several towns, the principal one being Chan-Santacruz. From these fastnessess they frequently sally forth to attack and even to raze our absolutely defenseless villages. These attacks cause frightful suffering not only to members of other tribes and races, without regard to sex or age, but they are at times even greater among those of their own race, who at one time or another have either absolutely refused to join their ranks, or, after following their lead for some time, have deserted, and returned to live in peace among the white people.

Another and by far the most numerous band of those rebellious Indians went to settle in the south of the peninsula, and by virtue of the treaty they celebrated with General Vega have given up all hostilities, although they remain in complete independence of national as well as of state authorities, and in peaceful business intercourse with this city (Mérida), and also with Campeche and other points in close proximity to their abodes. Colonel Juan Sanchez Navarro drew a map, which he presented, together with his report, before the government of Yucatan on April 12 of the present year, on which map he gives an approximate idea of the localities on the peninsula still occupied by rebellious Indians who maintain a hostile attitude and those who have agreed to peaceful intercourse. The first mentioned he calls the eastern group, and the last named the southern one.

Santiago Mendez.

Mérida, October 24th, 1861.

Note by Antonio García y Cubas

After having written about several groups of aborigines who inhabit the central part of the republic, I wish to extend these notes with the aid of documents in my possession to the Indians of Tabasco and Chiapas.

The customs, habits, and inclinations of all those Indians in general do not, with any certainty, evoke any hope for the improvement of their race and their subsequent utility and usefulness to the nation. The task I have set for myself is a very delicate one, and there may exist a great many people who will attribute to lack of patriotism the frank statement of many defects in our population; but I observe that our nation is not moving toward its aggrandizement with the alacrity and speed which the progressives among the authorities wish to see. Therefore I consider it necessary to study and point out the defects. I do not wish it to appear as if the conceptions expressed in these lines were imputations of my own imagination, and I wish to state, therefore, that whatever is said in this report is extracted from official documents in my possession.

The aborigines living in the towns and villages of the district of Jalpa, and the same may be said of the rest of the Indians of Tabasco, despite their docility, prefer the wild, uncivilized life of the mountains to the advantages of communal life, if by so doing they are able to evade all public responsibilities and duties. They come together only for their religious festivities, and on all such occasions they are given to drunkenness and gluttony to such a degree that they contract very serious diseases which in a great many cases hasten their demise. With very few exceptions they live in complete vagrancy, and they propagate without respecting any degree of blood relationship. They insist on curing their diseases with all sorts of roots and plants, which, however, mostly impair their health, causing great mortality, especially among children. This may be regarded as the principal cause why very few among their number reach the age of fifty years.

The aborigines who inhabit the borders to the river Usumacinta and its tributaries are for the greater part natives of Yucatan, and are like all the rest of their kind, very fond of drinking. The Indians of Tenosique, about forty years ago, were known as very honest and trustworthy, but their intercourse with the rebels and emigrants from Yucatan have demoralized them to a great extent.

These and other defects, with but a few honorable exceptions, are revealed in the documents treating of the Indians of the district of Comitan, state of Chiapas, which, however, I am not going to enumerate, so as to avoid repetitions, and by so doing make this article altogether too long.

All the above mentioned shows the decadence and general degeneration of the aborigines, as compared with the very scant elements of vitality and vigor that might help in the movement toward progress in our republic. The same customs, the same reserve and diffidence which characterized the Indian of colonial days is manifestly still his today under the so-called protective laws of the republic, which barely give him the title of citizen. Yet, as I have stated before, I do not belong to those who despair of his ultimate civilization, and I believe that the most efficacious means of effecting this is by crossing his breed or race by way of colonization, introducing other nations and elements to come in contact with him.

That this efficacious means of stopping the infinite defects which retard, if they do not hinder, the natural progress of our nation, has not been attained, to my idea, lies in the fact that so far no protective laws have existed which, founded on prevision, afford guaranties and procure work for colonists. There are no laws that fix the boundaries of the immense stretches of waste-land within our country, nor a careful study of climate, geology, and production. There is not, to my knowledge, any report establishing the best methods of making all our territory productive either through sales or the renting of all lands that cannot be tilled by their original owners. Our own elements, as we have tried to demonstrate in this article, are either heterogeneous or too scarce and insufficient to accomplish the task of carrying the nation onward on the road of aggrandizement. Hence it is, according to my idea, colonization, and colonization alone, that may serve as the final remedy for our national ills.

If we had today laws such as I have had reference to, we would at this very moment see European colonists arrive continually, attracted by hopes of a splendid future which our fertile soil and our salubrious climate offer to the industrious and enterprising man. Our population would increase daily at the same pace with the United States of Brazil and Buenos Aires, where European immigration forms an element of prosperity.

It remains for our government to fix in the most decisive way the answer to this question in the interest of the future of our country.

Antonio García y Cubas.

Mexico, May 1st, 1870.

NOTES ON THE SUPERSTITIONSOF THE INDIANSOF YUCATAN

Informe contra Idolorvm Cvltoresdel Obíspado de Yvcatan.Madrid, 1639By Pedro Sanchez de Aguilar

The abuses and superstitions in which those Indians of Yucatan believe and the abuses which they cherish are mostly inherited from their forebears, and are as numerous as they are varied in kind. I am including in this report all I was able to investigate, so that they may enable the curates to disapprove them publicly, and in their sermons to reprimand the Indians on account of them.

They believe in dreams which they try to interpret to suit the occasion.

On hearing the cawing (or cackle) of a bird they call kipxosi, they interpret it to mean poor success to whatever enterprise they are engaged in at the time. They consider it as a bad omen or foreboding, as the Spaniards do with the female fox or the cuckoo.

If, while the Indian is traveling, he stumbles over a big stone among a pile which had been dug up to build or level a road, he venerates it by placing on the top of it a little twig, brushing his knees with another one in order not to get tired. This is a tradition of his forefathers.

If he happens to be traveling near sunset, and he fears that he will arrive late or even at night at the village he is bound for, he will drive a stone into the first tree he finds, believing that this will retard the setting of the sun. Another superstition to the same effect is the pulling out of some of his eyelashes and blowing them toward the sun. These are superstitions that came down to him by tradition from his forebears.

During lunar eclipses they still believe in the tradition of their forefathers to make their dogs howl or cry by pinching them either in the body or ears, or else they will beat on boards, benches, and doors. They say that the moon is dying, or that it is being bitten by a certain kind of ant which they call xubab. Once, while at the village of Yalcobá, I heard great noises during an eclipse of the moon which occurred that night, and in my sermon the next day I tried to make them understand the cause of the eclipse in their own language, according to the interpretation from the Philosopher: "The lunar eclipse is the interposing of the earth between the sun and the moon with the sun on top and the moon in the shadow." With an orange to represent the sphere of Sacrobosco, and two lit candles on either side, I explained to them plainly and at sight what an eclipse really was. They seemed astonished, and quite happy and smiling, cured of their ignorance and that of their forefathers. I gave orders to their chieftain (caçique) that he should punish in the future all those who made a noise on such occasions.

They also call certain old Indian shamans when a woman is in labor, and, with words of their former idolatry, he will enchant her and hear her confession. They do the same with some other patients. I could not find out all about this, for which I am very sorry.

There are some Indian medicine-men who, with similar enchantment, are supposed to cure the bites or stings of snakes, especially of the rattlesnakes, of which there are a great many here. The victims of such bites are sometimes delirious, and often the flesh around the wound will decay until they die. The remedy the wizards give them, according to what I heard, is to make them eat human excrement or drink the juice of lemons, or else they will take a domestic fowl and place its beak on the wound, and have it suck in this way the poison of the snakebite. The hen or chicken will of course die, and they immediately replace it by another live one, and repeat that until all the poison is absorbed.

When they build new houses, which occurs every ten or twelve years, they will not inhabit nor even enter them unless the old wizard has been brought even from a distance of one, two, or three leagues to bless it or consecrate it with his stupid enchantment. This, however, I have only heard, and I am now sorry never to have recorded it personally.

They are fortune-tellers, and they perform this feat with a heap of grained corn, counting always two and two grains, and if it comes out in even numbers, the fortune-teller will continue counting one, two, or three times over until it comes out uneven, bearing all the while in mind the main facts or reason for which he had been called on to tell the fortune, vera gratia. Once a girl ran away from home, and her mother, like any true Indian woman would have done in a similar case, immediately called one of those fortune-tellers, who drew lots on all the different roads until the fortune told of or pointed to a certain road the girl had taken and where she would be found. They sent out to look for her and found her in the village to which that road led. I punished that wizard, who was a native of a village at one league from Valladolid, and while I examined him with patience and slowly, I found that all the words he used in that so-called fortune-telling, while he counted the grains of corn, were no more than "Odd or even, odd or even" (huylan nones, caylan pares). He could not even tell me whether those words were meant as an invocation to Satan. In fact, he seemed not to know what they meant, for this particular wizard was a very great simpleton, almost imbecile.

In this city of Mérida it is publicly known that there exist several Indian sorceresses (witches), who by using certain words can open a rosebud before it is time for its opening, which is given to the one they wish to attract to their lascivious desire. They let him smell of it, or they place it under his pillow; but should the person who gives it to him smell its perfume, she is said invariably to lose her mind for a long while, calling to the one she expected to inhale it, and in whose name the rose was opened by the witch – a worthy matter which serves as medicine as well as punishment, especially if it hits the double mark. It has also been assured that the Indian women of this city are wont to throw a certain enchantment into the chocolate which is ready for their husbands to drink, and by it they become bewildered. This I only heard however, and I could not vouchsafe its truth.

I will also note here what I saw as a child, and that is that they used to drown in a hole young puppies of a breed of dogs they raise as pets as well as for food. These are a kind of dogs, with but little or no hair at all, which they call tzomes.14 It is an old Jewish dogma of cosher. See the Apostle, ut abstineant se a suffocatis, etc. – that they abstain from the food of animals dying by smothering or any kind of natural death.

OF THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFSOF THE INDIANS OFYUCATAN IN 1545

Report of Francisco Hernandez

When our people discovered the kingdom of Yucatan they found crosses there, and one cross in particular which was made of stone and mortar, of a height of ten palms, and was erected in the center of a court or enclosure, very prominent and fair, and crowned with battlements; it stands alongside of a sumptuous temple and is very much frequented by a great number of people. This is on the island of Cozumel, which lies near the mainland of Yucatan. It is said that this cross was really adored as the God of Water or Rain; as often as there was a drought they went to sacrifice quail before it, as will be told later. When asked whence or through whom they had first heard of that sign, they replied that a very handsome man had once passed through their country and that he left it with them, that they might always remember him by it. Others, it is said, answered that it was because a man more resplendent than the sun had died on that cross. This is referred to by Peter Martyr in chapter I of his Fourth Decade.

I shall refer to another tale or report which is very unusual and new regarding the Indies, and which until now has not been found in any other part of them. As this kingdom, on account of its close proximity to it, comes within the jurisdiction of my bishopric of Chiapa, on one of my visits I disembarked and remained at a very healthy port. I met there a clergyman, good, so it seemed, of mature age and honest, and [one] who knew the language of the natives from having lived there several years. As it was necessary for me to return to my episcopal residence, I nominated him as my vicar, and ordered and entreated him to travel inland and visit the Indians there and preach to them in a certain way in which I instructed him. After a certain number of months (I even believe it was one year), he wrote to me that on his trip he had met a principal lord or chief, and that on inquiring of him concerning his faith and the ancient belief all over his realm, he answered him that they knew and believed in God who was in heaven; that that God was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. That the Father is called by them Içona,15 and that he had created man and all things. The Son's name was Bacab,16 who was born from a maiden who had ever remained a virgin, whose name was Chibirias,17 and who is in heaven with God. The Holy Ghost they called Echuac.18 They say that Içona means the great Father. Bacab, who is the son, they say killed Eopuco,19 and flagellated him, crowning him with a crown of thorns, and placed him with arms extended on a pole, not meaning that he should be nailed to it, but tied (and in order to show him how, the chief extended his own arms), where he finally died. He was dead for three days, but on the third day he returned to life and went up to heaven, and he is there with his Father. After this immediately came Echuac, which is the Holy Ghost, and he filled the earth with all it needs. When asked what Bacab or Bacabab meant, he said it meant the son of the great Father, and that Echuac meant merchant. And very good merchandise did the Holy Ghost bring to this earth, for he filled men with all their faculties, and divine and abundant graces. Chibirias means mother of the Son of the great Father. He added, furthermore, that at a certain time all men would have to die, but he did not seem to know anything of the resurrection of the flesh. When asked how they came to know all these things, the chief replied that the lords taught their sons, and in this manner it descended from one age to another. They also assert that in olden times, long ago, there came to the land twenty men (he gave the names of fifteen of them), but because they were very poorly written, and furthermore as they do not have great importance for this report, I do not copy them. Of the five others the vicar says he could not obtain their names. The principal one was called Cocolcan,20 and they called this one the God of all kinds of fevers. Two of the others are the Gods of fish, still another two the Gods of farms and homesteads [landed properties], still another was the God of Lightning, etc. They all wore long gowns or mantles, and sandals for their feet. They had long beards, and wore nothing to cover their heads. These men ordained that the people should go to confession and should fast, and some people fasted on Fridays because on that day Bacab had died. The name of this day (Friday) is Himis,21 and they honor it in their devotion on account of the death of Bacab. The chiefs (caçiques) know all the particulars of those things, but the common people believe only in the three persons, Içona and Bacab and Echuac, and in Chibirias, the mother of Bacab, and also [in] the mother of Chibirias called Hischen,22 whom we consider to have been Saint Ann. All this above stated is from information I have received in a letter from that reverend father whose name is Francisco Hernandez, and I still have his letter among my papers. He also stated that he took the said chief to a Franciscan friar who lived near there, and that the caçique repeated all he said before the friar, and they remained both greatly surprised at it. If all those things just stated are true, it would seem that that part of the land had been (long ago) informed about our Holy Faith, for in no other part of the Indies have we ever found such news. It is true that in Brazil, which belongs to the Portuguese, it was stated that traces of the wanderings of Saint Thomas the Apostle had been discovered, but such news could not very well fly over through the air, and furthermore it is quite certain that the country and kingdom of Yucatan give us more special and singular cases to ponder over, and of far greater antiquity, if we think of the great, exquisite, and admirable way the most ancient buildings are constructed, also of a certain lettering in queer characters which are not found anywhere else. Finally these are the secrets which only God knows.

GLOSSARY

Alux, h'lox, or more fully h'loxkatob. According to Brinton the meaning is "the strong clay images." He writes in his paper, The Folk-lore of Yucatan, that "the derivation of this word is from kat, which, in the Diccionario Maya-Español del Convento de Motul (MS. of about 1580), is defined as 'la tierra y barro de las olleras,' but which Perez in his modern Maya dictionary translates 'ollas ó figuras de barro'; ob is the plural termination; lox is strong, or the strength of anything; h' or ah, as it is often written, is the rough breathing which in Maya indicates the masculine gender."

Atole. Nahuan atolli, or atlaolli. Corn-meal gruel.

Balám. Tiger or mountain-lion. The word was applied also to a class of priests and to kings as a title of distinction.

Balché. A fermented liquor made from wild honey and the bark of a tree.

Buhul, buuhul. A section of a stick of wood split lengthwise in the middle.

Bulihuah. Tortillas made of corn-meal and beans. From bul or buul, beans; uah, tortilla.

Caçique. Antillean word meaning a lord or chief.

Camote. Nahuan camotl, a kind of sweet-potato.

Canlahuntaz. Large loaves of native bread. From canlahun, fourteen; taz, tiers, or layers.