Cricket, baseball, marbles, kites, and spinning tops have been introduced among the Indians of British Honduras, and all have their devotees.
Religion
The Indians, who are extremely superstitious, believe that the air is full of pishan, or souls of the dead. They imagine that these souls are at liberty at all times to return to earth, and that at certain seasons they are compelled to do so. They are regarded as being capable of enjoying the spirit, though not the substance, of food or drink provided for them. Some of these pishan the Indians believe to be friendly and some inimical to mortals. They believe also in spirits, usually mischievous or harmful, known as xtabai, who often take the form of beautiful women, though they have never been human. The natives will whisper a message into the ear of a corpse with the certainty of having it conveyed to a friend or relative in the next world. They firmly believe that the clay images of the gods upon incense burners, at one time found in considerable numbers in forests which had been uncut since the days of their ancestors, live, walk about, and dance at certain seasons. Another belief held by the Indians is that the images of Christian saints are endowed at times with life and perform acts desired by their devotees. A celebrated wooden image, supposed to represent San Bernardo, was credited with considerable powers in this respect, and when an Indian wanted rain for his milpa, the return of an errant wife, or any similar blessing, he would come and pray to the image to obtain it for him. On one occasion an Indian came asking the saint to aid him in the recovery of pigs which he had lost, and on returning to his village found that the pigs had arrived home before him. Next day he returned with the intention of making an offering to the saint, and incidentally to the owner of the house where the image was kept. He found the poor Santo with torn clothes and many burs sticking all over him. On inquiring how this happened he was informed that the saint had been out in the bush hunting for pigs, a quest which had given him a great deal of trouble before he could find and drive them home, and that when he got back he was tired out, his clothes torn by thorns, and covered with burs—an explanation with which the Indian was perfectly satisfied.
The men are very unwilling to dig either in ancient mounds or ruins, as they are afraid of being haunted by the pishan of those whose remains they may disturb; and nothing will induce them to go into caves or burial chambers in mounds. Many curious superstitions hang about the ruins found throughout the country. I was assured by an Indian at Benque Viejo that he had gone on one occasion to the ruins situated near the village, and seeing a pigeon seated on a tree, raised his gun to shoot it; before he could do so, however, the pigeon turned into a cock, and this almost immediately into an eagle, which flew at him, driving him away. There is another superstition about these ruins to the effect that when the first settlers came to Benque Viejo they wished to build the village near the ruins, where the land is very good for growing corn, but were repeatedly driven off by a little old man with a long gray beard. At last, giving up the idea, they contented themselves with the present site for the village.
For many years, between the expulsion of the Yucatecans from Bacalar by the Indians and the conquest of the latter by the Mexican troops, some 12 years ago, no Catholic priests were permitted to visit the Santa Cruz country. The Indians, however, appointed priests from among themselves, who carried out, so far as can be ascertained from those of their number who left the territory and settled in British Honduras, a sort of travesty of the rites of the Roman Catholic Church freely interspersed with many of those of their ancient religion, which had survived. The headquarters of this religious cult was the capital, where it centered around what was known as the "Santa Cruz," a plain wooden cross, 2 to 3 feet high, which had probably been removed from some church after the expulsion of the Spaniards. This cross was supposed to be gifted with the power of speech (a belief arising no doubt from the exercise of ventriloquial powers by one of the priests), and acted as a sort of oracle, to whom all matters of importance—civil, military, and religious—were submitted for decision. It need hardly be said that the cross never failed to return an answer to all these questions, in entire conformity with the wishes of the chief.[2]
The Indians here under consideration occupy an intermediate position between the civilized Maya of northern Yucatan, who have lost nearly all tradition and traces of their former civilization, and the Lacandones of the Usumasintla Valley, who have probably changed but little in their customs and religious observances since the conquest. Nominally they are Christians, but the longer one lives among them, and the better one gets to know them, the more he realizes that their Christianity is to a great extent merely a thin veneer, and that fundamentally their religious conceptions and even their ritual and ceremonies are survivals—degenerate, much changed, and with most of their significance lost—but still survivals of those of their ancestors of pre-Columbian days. To Christianity, not as a separate religion, but as a graft on that which they already practiced, they seem to have taken kindly from the first; and at the present day, as will be seen, the sun god, the rain god, St. Laurence, and Santa Clara may all be invoked in the same prayer, while the Cross is substituted in most of the ceremonies for the images of the old gods, though many of the latter are called on by name. The four principal religious ceremonies of the Indians are, as might be supposed, closely associated with agriculture, especially with the corn crop. The first of these ceremonies takes place at the cutting of the bush in which the corn plantation is to be made, the second at the planting of the corn, the third during its ripening, and the fourth at harvest time. Of these the third, known as the Cha chac, which takes place during the ripening of the corn, and whose object is to secure sufficient rain for that purpose, is by far the most important, and it alone will be described, as it embraces the offerings and ritual of all the other ceremonies.
Fig. 11.—Chichanha Indian priest in front of altar at Cha chac ceremony.