Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. I.

by John L. Stephens

Of all this crowd the plaza was the grand point of concentration. Along the houses fronting it was a range of tables set out with looking-glasses in frames of red paper, rings and necklaces, cotton, and toys and trinkets for the Indians. On the opposite side of the street, along the square of the church, were rustic arbours, occupied by venders having similar commodities spread before them. The plaza was partitioned, and at regular intervals was a merchant, whose shop was a rude stick fixed upright in the ground, and having another crosswise at the top, covered with leaves and twigs, thus forming a sort of umbrella, to protect its sitting occupant from the sun. These were the merchants of dulces and other eatables. This part of the fair was constantly crowded, and perhaps nine tenths were Indians from the pueblos and haciendas around. Don Simon Peon told me that he had entered on his books a hundred and fifty criados, or servants, who had applied to him for money, and he did not know how many more were present.

It may be supposed that the church was not uninterested in this great gathering. In fact, it was the fête of Santiago, and among the Indians this fiesta was identified with the fair. The doors of the church were constantly open, the interior was thronged with Indians, and a crowd continually pressing to the altar. In the doorway was a large table covered with candles and small figures of arms and legs in wax, which the Indians purchased as they entered at a medio apiece, for offerings to the saint. Near the altar, on the left, sat an unshaved ministro, with a table before him, on which was a silver waiter, covered with medios, reales, and two shilling pieces, showing to the backward what others had done, and inviting them to do the same. The candles purchased at the door had been duly blessed, and as the Indians went up with them, a strapping negro, with linen particularly dirty, received and lighted them at one burning on the altar, whence with his black hands he passed them on to a rusty white assistant, who arranged them upon a table, and, even before the backs of the offerers were turned, puffed out the light, and took the candles to be smoothed over, and resold at the door for another medio each.

High above the heads of the crowd, catching the eye on first entering the church, was the figure of Santiago, or Saint James, on horseback, holy in the eyes of all who saw it, and famed for its power of working miracles, healing the sick, curing the fever and ague, insuring to prospective parents a boy or girl as desired, bringing back a lost cow or goat, healing a cut of the machete, or relieving from any other calamity incident to an Indian's lot. The fore feet of the horse were raised in the air, and the saint wore a black cocked hat, with a broad gold band, a short mantle of scarlet velvet, having a broad gold edging round the cape and skirts, green velvet trousers, with a wide gold stripe down the sides, and boots and spurs. All the time I stood there, and every time I went into the church, men, women, and children were pressing forward, struggling with each other to kiss the foot of the saint. The simple Indian, as the first act of devotion, led up his whole family to do this act of obeisance. The mother lifted her sucking child, and pressed its lips, warm from her breast, against the foot of the bedizened statue.

In the afternoon commenced the first bull-fight. The toreadores, or bull-fighters, all lived at the house opposite ours, and from it the procession started. It was headed by a wrinkled, squint-eyed, bandy-legged Indian, carrying under his arm the old Indian drum, and dancing grotesquely to his own music; then followed the band, and then the gallant picadores, a cut-throat looking set of scoundrels, who, imagining themselves the admiration, were the contempt of the crowd.

The Plaza de Toros was on one side of the square of the plaza, and, like that in the square of the church of San Cristoval, was constructed of poles and vines, upright, intwining and interlaced, tottering and yielding under pressure, and yet holding together firmly. In the centre was a pole, on the top of which flourished the Mexican eagle, with outspread wings, holding in his beak a scroll with the appropriate motto, "Viva la Republica de Yucatan," and strings extended like radii to different parts of the boxes, wrapped with cut and scolloped papers fluttering in the wind. On one side of the ring was a pole with a wooden beam, from which hung, by strings fastened to the crown of an old straw hat, two figures stuffed with straw, with grotesque masks and ludicrous dresses. One was very narrow in the shoulders and very broad below, and his trousers were buttoned behind.

The toros, fallen into disrepute in the capital, is still the favourite and national amusement in the pueblos. The animal tied to the post when we entered was from the hacienda of the senote, which was famed for the ferocity of its bulls. The picadores, too, were fiercer than those in the capital, and the contests were more sanguinary and fatal. Several times the bulls were struck down, and two, reeking with blood, were dragged off by the horns, dead; and this was in the presence of women, and greeted with their smiles and approbation: a disgusting and degrading spectacle, but as yet having too strong a hold upon popular feeling to be easily set aside. The entertainment was got up at the expense of the village, and all who could find a place had liberty to enter.

This over, there was an interval for business, and particularly for visiting the horse-market, or rather a particular section to which dealers sent their horses to be exhibited. I was more interested in this than any other branch of commerce carried on at the fair, as I wished to purchase horses for our journey. There were plenty of them, though, as in all other sections of the country, but few fine ones. Prices varied from ten dollars to two hundred, the value depending, not upon bone, blood, or muscle, but upon training and paces. The young hacienda horses, with nothing but the trot, or trotones, as they were called, were worth from ten dollars to twenty-five, but as they excelled in pace or easiness of movement their value increased. No one pretends to ride a trotting horse in Yucatan, for he who does labours under the imputation of not being able to purchase a pacer. The finest horses in the country in appearance are those imported; but the Yucatan horses, though small, are remarkably hardy, require no care, and endure an extraordinary degree of fatigue.

Night came on, and the plaza was alive with people and brilliant with lights. On one side, opposite the church, along the corridors of the houses and in front of them, were rows of tables, with cards and dice, which were very soon crowded with players, whites and Mestizoes; but the great scene of attraction was the gathering of Indians in the centre of the plaza. It was the hour of supper, and the small merchants had abundant custom for their eatables. Turkeys which had stood tied by one leg all day, inviting people to come and eat them, were now ready, of which for a medio two men had a liberal allowance; and I remarked, what I had heard of, but had not seen before, that grains of cacao circulated among the Indians as money. Every merchant or vender of eatables, the most of whom were women, had on the table a pile of these grains, which they were constantly counting and exchanging with the Indians. There is no copper money in Yucatan, nor any coin whatever under a medio, or six and a quarter cents, and this deficiency is supplied by these grains of cacao. The medio is divided into twenty parts, generally of five grains each, but the number is increased or decreased according to the quantity of the article in the market, and its real value. As the earnings of the Indians are small, and the articles they purchase are the mere necessaries of life, which are very cheap, these grains of cacao, or fractional parts of a medio, are the coin in most common use among them. The currency has always a real value, and is regulated by the quantity of cacao in the market, and the only inconvenience, economically speaking, that it has, is the loss of a certain public wealth by the destruction of the cacao, as in the case of bank notes. But these grains had an interest independent of all questions of political economy, for they indicate or illustrate a page in the history of this unknown and mysterious people. When the Spaniards first made their way into the interior of Yucatan, they found no circulating medium, either of gold, or silver, or any other species of metal, but only grains of cacao; and it seemed a strange circumstance, that while the manners and customs of the Indians have undergone an immense change, while their cities have been destroyed, their religion dishonoured, their princes swept away, and their whole government modified by foreign laws, no experiment has yet been made upon their currency.

In the midst of this strange scene, there was a stir at one end of the plaza, and an object presented itself that at once turned my thoughts and feelings homeward. It was a post-coach, from a Troy factory, exactly like those seen on every road in our country, but it had on the panel of the door "La Diligencia Campechana." It was one of the line of diligences between Campeachy and Merida, and just arrived from the former place. It came up on a run, drawn by wild, uncombed horses, not yet broken to the bit, and with their breasts galled and raw from the pressure of the collar. It had nine inside, and had an aspect so familiar that, as the door opened, I expected to see acquaintances get out; but all spoke a foreign tongue, and instead of being welcomed to supper or bed by an officious landlord and waiter, all inquired anxiously where they could get something to eat and a place to sleep in.

Leaving them to do as well as they could, we went to the baile or ball. In front of the quartel was a rustic arbour, enclosed by a temporary railing, with benches and chairs arranged around the sides, and the centre cleared for dancing. Until I saw them collected together, I did not suppose that so many white persons were present at the fair, and, like the men at the gambling-table, and the Indians in the plaza, these seemed to forget that there was any other party present than themselves. In this obliviousness I sympathized, and slipping into an easy arm-chair, from the time of my drag through the mud in the morning I had not so quiet and comfortable a moment, in which condition I remained until awakened by Don Simon.