The Maya is happy-go-lucky, improvident, and usually lazy. He dearly loves a good time, a good story, and a good joke, especially if it is of the practical variety in which the other fellow is the butt. He is very fond of fiestas and dances.
The native dances are quite different from ours. The men and women sit close to the walls of the hut or inclosure, sometimes on chairs but more often on stools. On important occasions, the music is furnished by violins, guitars, and perhaps some wind-instruments. But always there is one musician with a long gourd containing stones, which is shaken in time to the music, producing a hollow chuck-a-chuck, chuck-a-chuck sound. Sometimes the only instrument is a flageolet. The music is always in a minor key and is without pause or period or end. A girl—any girl—gets up and proceeds to the center of the floor, where she shuffles about for perhaps a minute. Then from the other end of the room some man, who may be a stranger to the girl, comes forth and shuffles about in front of her. They do not touch each other. They gyrate rather slowly and move in circles, always facing each other. When either becomes weary, he or she retires and another takes up the dance. If the room is sufficiently large there may be as many as three couples dancing continuously in this manner. The dancers do not smile nor appear to be enjoying the occasion; yet they must derive pleasure from it, for throughout the country dances are held frequently.
Knowing the Mayas of to-day, and their customs, it is interesting to follow their history back to the earliest times of which there is authentic record, and from there, through legends and scraps of knowledge, into their most ancient past. For four centuries we may trace them backward through well-known history. For still another century the record is fairly clear. Back of that is only legend, with here and there some startling, incontrovertible fact to prove their antiquity. The flickering light of our knowledge becomes dimmer and dimmer. We know a date in their history about one hundred years before Christ, but on what preceded that no feeblest ray falls to enlighten our ignorance.
To one man, long since departed, we owe a great debt. But for him, our knowledge of the ancient Mayas would be almost nil, and it is only by a lucky chance that what he wrote was not lost to us. This man, Diego de Landa, was Bishop of Yucatan (1573-79), and he came to America on the heels of the Spanish conquerors. His manuscript,—almost our only guide to Maya antiquity and known as “Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan,”—lay hidden in Madrid for nearly three hundred years ere it was discovered and published.
To show how little the Mayas have changed in four centuries I am going to quote from Landa, using a very free translation but endeavoring to preserve his meaning. I hope the reader will bear in mind that the following is a description of the Mayas of the sixteenth century and is chiefly interesting when compared with the Mayas of to-day:
The Indians of Yucatan are well built, tall and robust. They are generally bow-legged, because mothers customarily carry infants astride their hips. It is considered a mark of beauty to be cross-eyed. The heads and foreheads are flat, having been bound in infancy. Their ears are pierced for ear-rings and are torn by the sacrifices. The men do not have beards and it is said the mothers burn their boys’ faces with hot cloths so that hair does not grow. Some do have beards, but these are very stiff, like the bristles of a pig. The men permit the hair of the head to grow long except on top, where they burn it off. Thus the hair of the crown is short, but the remainder is long and is braided and wound like a wreath around the head, leaving a small tail in the back as tassels or tufts.
Their dress is a strip of cloth about as wide as a hand and wound several times about the waist, with one end hanging in front and the other in the back. The women adorn these ends curiously with feathers. They wear large square blankets, which they fasten to their shoulders, and sandals of hemp or deerskin.
They bathe a great deal and do not try to hide their nudity from the women, except with their hands. The men use mirrors and the women do not. The expression for cuckoldom is that the wife has put the mirror in her husband’s hair above the occiput.
Their houses are roofed with straw or palm-leaves and the roof has a considerable slant. They put a wall lengthwise through the middle of the house and in it some doors. In the back half are the beds and the other section is whitewashed and is the reception room for guests. This room is like a porch, the whole front being open and without a door. The roof over this part of the house extends well down over the walls, to keep out sun and rain. The common people build the houses of the chiefs and house-breaking is considered a grave crime. Beds are made of small rods with a mat and cotton blankets on top. In summer the men especially sleep in the open room or porch, on mats.
All the people unite in cultivating the fields of the chief and supplying food to his household. In hunting, fishing, or bringing salt, a share is always given to the chief. If the chief dies he is succeeded by his eldest son, but his other descendants are respected and helped. The subordinate chiefs help in all things, according to their stations. The priests live from their offices and from the offerings given to them. The chiefs rule the town, settle disputes, and govern all affairs. The principal chiefs travel a great deal and take much company with them. They visit rich people, where they arrange the affairs of the villages, transacting their principal business at night.
The Indians tattoo their bodies, believing that they become more valiant thereby. The process is painful, as the designs are painted on the body and then pricked in with a small poniard. Because of the pain the tattooing is done only a little at a time, and also because the tattooed part becomes inflamed and matterated, causing sickness. Those who are not tattooed are ridiculed. The natives like to be flattered and they like to imitate the Castilian graces and customs and to eat and drink as we do. They are fond of sweet odors and employ bouquets of flowers and sweet-smelling herbs. They are accustomed to paint their faces and bodies red, which does not improve their appearance but which they consider beautifying.
They are very dissolute in getting drunk, from which follow many evils such as murder, arson, rape and incest.... They are fond of recreation, especially of dances and of plays containing many jokes and witticisms. They sometimes become servants for a time in a Spanish household just to absorb the conversation and customs and these are later artfully represented in native plays.
Their musical instruments are small kettle-drums played with the hand and another drum made of hollow wood, played with a wooden stick containing on the end a ball made of the milk of a certain tree [rubber]. They have long, slender trumpets fashioned from hollow sticks with gourds fastened at one end. Another instrument is made from a whole turtle-shell, which is played with the palm of the hand and emits a melancholy sound. They have whistles and flutes of reed or bones of the deer and from large snail-shells. These instruments are played for their war-dances. One of these dances is called co-lom-che, meaning reed. A large circle of men is formed. Two go into the center. One has a handful of darts and while dancing in an upright position he casts the darts with all his strength at the second dancer, who dances in a squatting position, from which he deftly catches each dart with a small stick. After the darts are all thrown, these two dancers return to their original places in the circle and two new dancers advance to the center and repeat the dart-throwing. There is another war-dance in which about eight hundred men take part. They carry flags and the tempo is slow. They dance the whole day without stopping and during the whole day not one man gets out of step. In no case do the men dance with the women.
There are many occupations but the people most incline toward trading, taking salt, clothing, and slaves to the lands of Ulna and Tabasco, where they exchange for cocoa and counters of stone which are their money. With these coins they buy slaves, or the chiefs wear them as jewels at feasts. They have other counters and jewelry made of certain shells. These are carried in purses made of network. In the markets are all manner of goods. They loan money without usury and pay their debts with good-will. Some Indians are potters and carpenters who are well paid for the idols of wood and clay which they make. There are surgeons—or, rather, wizards—who cure with herbs and incantations. Above all, there are laborers and those who plant and gather the corn and other produce which they store in granaries to be sold in season. They have no mules or oxen.
The Indians have the good custom of helping one another in all their work. In working the land they do nothing from the middle of January to April except gather manure and burn it. Then come the rains and they plant the fields, using a small pointed stick to poke holes into the ground in each of which they deposit five or six seeds which grow very rapidly in this rainy season. They also congregate in groups of about fifty for hunting or fishing.
When going on a visit, the Indian takes a present to his host and the host gives the guest a present of proportionate value. They are generous and hospitable. They give food and drink to all who come to their houses.
They take much pride in their lineage, especially if they are descendants of some ancient family of Mayapan and they boast of the distinguished men who have been of their family. The whole name of the father is always borne by his sons, but not by his daughters. But the children, both sons and daughters, are called by the compound names of father and mother, in which the name of the father is the given name and that of the mother the surname. Thus the son of Chel and Chan would be Na-Chan-Chel, which means son of Chel by his wife Chan. A stranger coming to a village, especially if he be poor, will be received in all kindness by any family of his name. Men and women of the same name do not marry, for this is considered very wrong.
CHAPTER II
THE CHURCH OF SAN ISIDRO AND ITS FRAGRANT LEGEND
“ONE particularly lovely Sunday morning, some time after taking up my abode at Chi-chen Itza,” says Don Eduardo, “I was awakened, as on other occasions, by the softly melodious chiming of the bells in my little church on the hill. As I lay in my hammock, idly listening to the pleasant sound, I could distinguish the different tones of the several bells and it was a pleasant thought to me to know that I had equipped the little church with bells having a superior quality of tone. The sound of them was indeed delightful because while church bells in Yucatan are as plentiful as millionaires in Pittsburgh, they are usually cracked and raucous.