“Although virtually all of the ancient rites and beliefs are unknown to the modern Mayas, this one belief has persisted in an esoteric fashion. Many years ago I attended the funeral of a young Maya woman whose husband had been devoted to her. Her burial attire was of the richest the family could possibly afford, the huipile and pic wonderfully embroidered of xoc-bui-chui (embroidery of the counted threads). Her slippers of pink silk also were elaborately embroidered. Long slits had been cut in both pic and huipile where they would not be noticed, and the soles of the slippers each had three longitudinal slits cut in them. When I asked the old grandfather why this had been done, he professed ignorance and would only reply that it was the custom among his people. But when I told the old H’men of Ebtun what I had seen, and of my conviction regarding it, he admitted that I was right and that the ancient belief and custom have been handed down through the generations, although the subject is never discussed with the Catholic clergy.
“Always since that time and the finding of the jade in the great well I have thought of these lovely stones as ‘soul jewels,’ although, according to the Maya belief, their souls are departed.
“Unfortunately, some of the finds from the well were stolen. How many I do not know—not a great many, I think. But these things are priceless and it is cause for grief that even the least of them should fail to reach a safe place of exhibition. One of my natives abstracted some gold from the finds and had it melted up and made into a chain before we detected him. Later I found, also, that one of my straw bosses had been bribed by another archæologist to secrete and hand over for a price whatever of the finds he could. While I shall never know just what the sum of these losses was, it could not have been great, because no finds were brought up except in my presence, and every find that came under my eye was catalogued and accounted for.”
CHAPTER IX
TWO LEGENDS
ON one of Don Eduardo’s trips into the country of the Sublevados he chanced across an old Indian, the troubadour of his tribe. This man had a wonderful store of ancient traditions and legends and was an excellent spinner of tales. As nothing pleased him more than to sit by the hour and tell his stories to Don Eduardo—a most interested audience—they spent many pleasant days together. The following legend, especially, remains fresh in Don Eduardo’s memory and seems to me worthy of being recorded ere it dies for lack of appreciative ears.
IX-LOL-NICTE
My grandfather told me this, as his grandfather related it to him, and so on back through many grandfathers; and before that—who knows? There was in the north of this great land a city, and this city existed a thousand years before the coming of the white man. The dwellers in the land were called the children of Kukul Can. Afterward the Itzas, who were a mighty people, discovered this city and dwelt about the edge of its Sacred Well for many katuns.[6] But before the time of the Itzas, the first dwellers had come to this land in big canoes, from the land of the mountains of fire. They were led by a great and wise man who aided them to build the city. The name of this man is written in stone in the ruins of the city.
In the city was a high-born maiden, a princess named for a flower, for on the very night she was born, when the goddess Ixchel caressed her beautiful mother and placed in her loving arms a tiny girl child, the zac nicte tree growing on the terraced platform of the big house on the hill burst into bloom for the first time and the tiny princess was named for its flowers, Ix-Lol-Nicte—She the Flower of Sweet Perfume. Each year thereafter the zac nicte tree, the Mayflower tree of the Mayas, flourished and brought forth its fragrant snowy blossoms. Each year the princess grew in comeliness until she became the most graceful, lovely maid that eyes ever rested upon. Sixteen Mays had the zac nicte tree been crowned with blossoms and sixteen Mays had passed since the girl-child was born to the beautiful mother in the great house on the hill.
As the summer passed, the trunk and branches of the zac nicte turned to ashy gray, but its leaves remained green and its blossoms lingered in masses of white fragrance. So beautiful had the maid become that it seemed the greatest honor in all the land must be hers. She must become the bride of Noh-och Yum Chac, the Rain God, whose palace is at the bottom of the Sacred Well. Surely the god would be pleased with her, for never had he had a bride half so fair. The time was at hand for the wedding of the water-god and a mortal maid. The god, who controlled the vase of waters, the dew, and the rain, and at whose will the corn grew luxuriously or withered and died, must be mollified. Each year, if it became evident the Rain God was angry with his people, the most beautiful maiden in the land was chosen to be thrown into the well, to sink quickly to his watery home and become his favorite handmaiden and win his forgiveness for her people.
Ix-Lol-Nicte grew in loveliness, and yet no man had seen her, nor had she looked upon the face of any man, save only those of the trusted household retainers. The home of the princess, with its carved stone walls, thick and massive, loomed majestically above the palm-thatched homes of the common people. In the spacious garden was a riot of tropic flowers, exotic shrubs, and twisting vines, giving forth wave upon wave of sweet perfume. Among the trees of grateful shade was the yax-nic, whose bark is used to make the drink of the gods and whose clusters of lilac blooms formed a perfect background for the vivid flame of the copte tree.
Care-free, with no thought of the future to darken her innocent pleasures, the princess drifted happily about the garden, with only the companionship of the wild creatures that peopled the inclosure. And they sensed with unerring intuition the gentleness of her presence and bared not against her claw, fang, nor sting. In the sunny garden the little wild honey-bees, shining black like bits of jet, clung to her glossy tresses, loath to leave her fragrant presence. The big, lazy black-and-yellow butterflies lit fearlessly upon her shoulders, fanning her lovingly with their slowly opening and closing wings. The bec-etch-ok, the bird of a hundred songs, seemed to save for her his choicest selections as she wandered along the garden paths.
Her first knowledge of sadness came with the death of her pet fawn which had fed upon a poisonous vine that grew in the garden undetected by the servants and gardeners. All day she sat in the shade of a big sapote tree, thinking of her little dead pet. Suddenly she heard a sound in the forest depths beyond the garden and she looked up to see a youth chasing a wild fawn which bounded over the undergrowth and into the garden, coming close to her as though beseeching her protection, and she stood up and kept the youth from further pursuit. Not knowing her to be a princess, he was very angry with her for spoiling the chase and called down upon her the curses of Cacunam, god of the hunters.
But the princess was not at all alarmed, because, not knowing the ways of men, she did not realize that the wrath of a man is a very dreadful thing to a woman.
“Beautiful boy,” she said, “why do you chase the baby deer? Go find Ek Balam, the black jaguar, or Noh-och Ceh, the giant grandfather deer who lives in the deep forest! No brave man would hunt such a defenseless little creature as a fawn.”
The lad, who was of her own age, hung his head and was ashamed. Abashed by her imperious manner, he felt that one far superior addressed him, yet his pride was stung. Flinging back his head, he gazed at her with flashing eyes and said:
“I come of a line of great warriors and I will show you I can fight even the wild tzimin or the chacmool [tiger].” So saying, he rushed off through the forest and was gone.
A jungle pheasant gave its staccato whistle in the forest depths and all was still. For the first time in her life the princess felt loneliness creep over her, for she had not wished the youth to rush away.
“Thus do the gods of our people upset the plans of man,” said the story-teller, as he paused to roll and light a corn-husk cigarette. Looking up with a quizzical smile, he said, “Is it not so with the gods of the white people?” I assured him heartily and from personal experience that the plans of mice and men, white or otherwise, do have a peculiar faculty for going awry.