Having the greater part of the day at my disposal, I walked out beyond the village for the purpose of being present at an Indian ceremony. It was the commemoration of a death that had taken place in the previous year. I was informed that in this part of Yucatan it was the custom amongst the Indians to have three services or meetings of this nature. The first took place a week after the death; the second after an interval of a month, and the last on the anniversary. This was the anniversary service and was considered the most important. Very few of the religious ceremonies of the Indians have been permitted to be maintained, for they were so singularly connected with their worship of demons, that it was found necessary to abolish everything that recalled their ancient superstitions. These memorial observances are, however, to a modified extent yet performed.
Upon arriving at the hut I saw that it was crowded with Indians. I was received in the usual manner with apparent inattention, and was allowed to take my place with the others. I noticed that my friend the junior Judge, who had promised to send me a horse, was one of the mourners. As he made no remark and I had made other plans the subject was not mentioned, and my attention was directed to what was going on around me. The Indians were engaged in making melancholy sounds of wailing. In the centre of the room was a table upon which was a large plain wooden cross. Before the cross were placed offerings of flowers, fruits and baked tortillas. I waited for some time to see what ceremonies were going to take place, but nothing happened. The wailing continued in a dreary and monotonous manner.
The scene reminded me in some respects of observances of a religious character that I had previously witnessed when travelling amongst the Cordilleras of Guatemala, and again at a village near Tzibalché, on the road to Uxmal. When the Spanish priests settled in their various parishes in these regions after the conquest, it was noticed by them that the Indians appeared to have a peculiar dread of death. This dread did not seem to be caused by any personal fear, but had its origin in connection with their belief in demons. They believed that death was an evil spirit that required to be propitiated, and whose influence over the sick or dying person was malignant. Thus it was usual to make offerings to this demon, who was supposed to be lying in wait somewhere near the hut. They imagined that he might be contented with what was given to him and not carry off his victim. When I was at Palenque, I was told that in some of the remote parts of the province, this ancient observance still existed and that the Indians placed offerings of food outside the door of the hut in the hope that the demon would be appeased, and pass by without stopping to enter within.[93] In Yucatan a similar custom prevailed, but the method of propitiation was slightly different. Various kinds of food and jars of liquid were hung upon the walls or thatch outside the hut to gratify the demon and cause him to accept the offerings instead of human life.
Amongst the ancient customs of the Indians none, however, are more strange than those connected with an almost unintelligible form of baptism. The Franciscan missionaries who endeavoured to convert the Indians at the time of the conquest, observed with astonishment the veneration of the natives for the Catholic rites of baptism and the readiness of their converts to accept this part of their teaching. In the course of their inquiries upon the subject they discovered that a form of baptism already existed, and was considered to be one of the most important and essential of their ceremonies.[94] Upon an examination of the accounts of the manner in which the Indians performed their customary rites, it does not appear that there was much analogy with the ceremony that was insisted upon as a duty by the friars, except that the Indian baptism was a religious act performed by their priests, in which the children were touched with something that had been dipped in water.
The Indians, although disinclined to adopt the new faith, showed extraordinary ardour and devotion in this particular observance. It was found that they would frequently bring their children to be baptised again after they had already received baptism. Finally the conduct of the Indians in this matter became so unsatisfactory that special clauses upon the subject, were introduced into the laws established by the order of the Emperor Charles V. for the government of the Indians in Yucatan.
One of these clauses ran thus—
“Baptism is one of the sacraments which is not to be repeated, and if this is done great offence is committed against the Holy Ghost conferred upon us by baptism when it is repeated.
“Many of the natives of this province say that although already baptised, they repeat baptism deceiving the ministers of the gospel, and furthermore they say that they baptise others and consent that others should do so. For which reason I order that henceforth no Indian man or woman of this province who has once received legitimately holy baptism shall return to be baptised or consent to others doing it, or baptise on their own authority any other person.”
Since these orders were put in force many changes have taken place, and the Indians have become, in a manner reconciled to the new order of things. It is, however, stated that in remote parishes the priests are still frequently deceived, and that children are sometimes brought three or four times to be given baptism.
The circumstances under which the cross was placed upon the table in the hut near Abalá were peculiar. It was clear that the cross was looked upon as an idol, and that the offerings made to it were propitiations. In Yucatan there were instances known of several of the principal Indians keeping a cross in their house. This was not necessarily a Latin cross, for it was sometimes formed into a shape varying according to the imagination of the owners. The Indians are rapidly becoming so neglected with regard to all religious education, that it is not improbable that they will gradually return to many of their idolatrous practices.