Herbert Spinden
How Holon Chan Became The True Man of His People
A youth of seventeen sat on the summit of the loftiest pyramid in the city, and gazed moodily out over the surrounding temples and palaces, and the thatched huts of the more lowly folk beyond, to the grasslands, which swept as far as the eye could reach in every direction.
He was naked save only for a sash-like cotton breechclout, so arranged that one end fell between his legs in front, the other in the same position behind, the ends being elaborately broidered with green feathers. A pendant of beautifully carved jade hung about his neck. Ear-plugs of the same material and sandals of deer hide with feather tassels completed his costume. In height he was under five feet and a half, slender, supple, small as to hands and feet, and a pleasing, warm golden brown in color. His eyes were black and narrow and in their placement somewhat slanting. His nose was aquiline and long, and merged into his flattened forehead in one straight line. During his babyhood his head had been bound between two boards to secure this very effect, an effect of beauty and distinction among his people. His hair was black, glossy and long. It was braided and then wrapped around his head except for a small queue which hung behind.
The time was the month of August 531 A. D.; the place, Tikal, the greatest metropolis of the Old Maya Empire; and the youth himself, no less a person than the ruler-to-be of the splendid city stretching at his feet, as well as of many smaller dependencies beyond the waste of grassy savannas which bounded his vision.
His discontent was of long standing and arose from a condition which he could not alter. His father, Ahmeket Chan, the preceding “True Man” of Tikal, had died two years before, leaving this boy, Holon Chan, as his sole surviving child and heir. The government of the state during the period of his minority had been carried on under the regency of his paternal uncle, Ahcuitok Chan, High Priest of Itzamna, aided by the powerful priesthood of this god, head of the Maya Pantheon; but now the people were clamoring for the investiture of Holon Chan in the supreme office, so that certain of the highest ceremonies, which only the True Man might perform, could be celebrated once again, and indeed Ahcuitok Chan was only awaiting the conclusion of the current five-year period to invest his nephew as True Man of Tikal. Itzamna, Lord of Heaven, had indicated through the mouthpiece of his priests that this event should be solemnized on the closing day of this period, and preparations for it had now been going forward for some time.
Now the boy had little heart for his coming dignity. His had always been a roving nature; he was a child of the open air, a lover of the forest fastnesses and solitudes, better suited to the humble lot of wood gatherer or corn planter than to that of ruler of a people.
The great discoveries of the preceding century, of large and wonderfully fertile lands far to the north of his own domains, had fired his imagination, and he burned to lead his people to this new land of promise, where the gods were said always to smile, and the cornfields to yield bountifully. Nor had these hopes always been without foundation. Once he had an older brother, named Chac Chan, who was to have succeeded their father as True Man, but while on a communal deer hunt, this brother had been bitten by a poisonous serpent, the deadly wolpuch, from whose bitter sting none ever recovered, and had died, leaving Holon Chan next in line of succession. And now the time was come when the exacting demands of his position, the elaborate ritual, which would fill his every hour, and the cares of the council chamber, would deprive him of every vestige of personal liberty.