CHAPTER XIII
STORY-TELLERS OF YUCATAN
IN wet weather the archæologist may take either a well-earned rest or he may busy himself with cataloguing and packing the trophies of his trusty pick and shovel.
“One day when the rain and the Evil Wind conspired to keep us indoors,” says Don Eduardo, “I found it much more interesting to listen to the yarns of the Indians than to work at routine tasks. All I can say in self-defense is that in Yucatan the subtle contagion of ‘mañana’ does get into one’s blood.
“My Indians are all very superstitious. They believe whole-heartedly in witches and elves, and if one digs deep enough he finds a good deal of veneration for several deities not mentioned in the Bible. One of these is Balam, the jaguar, known in ancient times as the lord and protector of the fields.
“These simple folk believe in ghosts which walk amid the ruins of the Sacred City, and they believe in all manner of fortune-telling and divination. They are particularly partial to crystal-gazing, using a crystal called zaz-tun.
“Among my Indians was Bat Buul, a little old fellow with twinkling eyes black as the seeds of the jabin fruit, and ears that actually wagged when he became excited in telling a story. His big thick-lipped, sensual mouth was ever ready to laugh heartily at a joke, even though the joke chanced to be on Bat Buul himself. Old as he was, he had still the supple quickness of a boy.
“Bat Buul, whose name means ‘bean ax,’ was a native of the neighboring village of Pisté and he was famous as a raconteur in a land where good tellers of stories are highly esteemed. More often than not he was the hero of the stories he told, and as he warmed up to the telling, he would become tremendously excited and his black eyes would snap and burn with the intensity of his narration.
“One of his best stories, that of the xtabay or forest lorelei, has the sweet flavor of those wonderful old Greek myths of nymphs and satyrs and of gods come down from Mount Olympus for a holiday.
“Often one sees glimmering gossamer flecks twisting, twirling as they scurry onward, aimlessly borne by a vagrant breeze. They look like a flock of diaphanous butterflies, but in reality they are the flying seeds of a climbing vine. The vine bears a slender, delicate, snowy flower and the seed-case is an olive-green oval pod filled with thousands of seeds. The seed mass is bisected within the pod by a light, silky membrane. As the ripening progresses the pod becomes chestnut in color and at last bursts open. The membrane with the seeds clinging to it falls out, but is brought up short in its descent by a thin filament that remains attached to the lower end of the pod. The fall detaches the seeds from the membrane, or they are soon blown clear, to be carried at the will of the wind. Each of the tiny seeds has a transparent wing or tissue.