The day previous to the ceremony the men of the family prepared the pib, an oblong hole in the ground, in which the various corn offerings were to be baked, while during the night the women were busy grinding corn to make masa (a thick paste of ground maize) and pumpkin seeds to make sikil. Very early in the morning of the day of the ceremony the priest with his assistant arrived at the house of the giver. This priest called himself men, but was called by the owner a chac, while the Chichanha priest called himself an ah kin. The Indians chose a site in the midst of a grove of large trees. After clearing away the undergrowth they swept clean a circular space about 25 feet in diameter. In this they proceeded to erect two rude huts, one 12 feet the other 6 feet square; both were thatched with huano leaf, and the floor of the smaller hut was covered with wild plantain leaves. In the center of the larger hut was erected a rough altar 6 by 4 feet and 4 feet 6 inches high, built of sticks bound together with bejuco (fig. [11]). The central part of this altar was covered by an arch of "jabin" branches with the leaves still attached. About a dozen small calabashes in their ring supports (Maya chuyub) were placed on the altar, and three more were hung to a string passing from the side of the shed to a post a few yards away. The masa prepared the previous night was then brought out in four large calabashes, two of these being placed under the altar and two on top of it; a large calabash of sikil and one of water were also placed on the altar and a jar of balchè (a drink made of fermented honey in which is soaked the bark of a tree) beneath it.
Fig. 12.—Priest tracing cross on cake and filling it in with sikil.
Beneath the suspended calabashes was placed a small table containing piles of tortillas and calabashes of masa and water. In carrying out this ceremony it is essential that everything used in it be perfectly fresh and new; the leaves, sticks, bejuco, and jabin must be freshly cut, and the masa, sikil, balchè, and even the calabashes must be freshly made. The masa was taken from the large to the small shed, where the priest and several male members of the family sat around it. After flattening out a small ball of the masa the priest placed it on a square of plantain leaves and poured over it a little sikil (a thin paste made of ground pumpkin seed and water). Then the next man flattened out a piece of masa, which he placed over the sikil, and the process was continued until a cake was formed containing 5 to 13 alternating layers of masa and sikil. On top of each cake, as it was completed, the priest traced with his forefinger a cross surrounded with holes; these were first partly filled with balchè, which was allowed to soak into the cake, after which they were filled completely with sikil, whereupon the whole cake was carefully tied up in plantain leaf, with an outer covering of palm leaf (fig. [12]). These cakes are known as tutiua; their number is generally gauged by the number of participants in the ceremony. When sikil is not available, a paste of ground black beans is used; in this case the cakes are known as buliua (Maya bul, "bean"; ua, "bread"). The priest next made a deep depression in a ball of masa about the size of a tennis ball, which he filled with sikil, covering it with the masa, so as to leave a ball of masa with a core of sikil.
Fig. 13.—Sacrificing a turkey at the Cha chac ceremony.