Caribbean (8 page)

From that simple start with the reading of the Cobá stelae, which she accomplished with ease, he taught her the intricate systems which his son, her father, would have to master were he to take charge of the temple’s calculations, but which the young man had proved too limited intellectually to learn. Gradually Ix Zubin began to perform her father’s calculations, and in a surprisingly short time she was working in astronomy, then in the calculations for Venus, and finally in formulae for predicting eclipses. “There are very few parts of our priestly art,” her grandfather said, “more useful to us and more awesome to the people, including our rulers, than our ability to warn: ‘Next month the sun will disappear, and unless you help us build that new room in the temple, the sun will not reappear and we shall all die.’ The threat is useful, because when the sun actually disappears as we predicted, they listen, even the rulers. And the house is completed.”

For fifteen years, 1474 through the first months of 1489, Ix Zubin remained in the shadows, performing the sacred calculations required
by her father in the conduct of his duties, and his reports became so treasured because of their accuracy that he became renowned on the island, one who had to be listened to. They were a family tandem—the High Priest performing before the crowds, and his sharp little daughter working her magical numbers in the shadows. The pair filled an honored role in Cozumel, and when she married a young priest in the temple, she helped prepare him for the day when he would take over the role of High Priest.

In those early years when Ix Zubin first became aware that great changes threatened to engulf and modify the Maya empire, she was—though completely unknown—one of the most effective astronomers in the far-flung realm and much superior to any then working in Europe or Asia, for her subtle knowledge of the passage of the earth through its seasons and the movement of the stars through their heavens was unsurpassed, while her mastery of numbers and the calculation of time were equaled in no other part of the world.

Those were years of contentment. Often she thought that her father, her husband and she were the happiest trio in Cozumel, and when her son Bolón was born life seemed complete. Later, when her father died and her husband inherited the outward trappings of High Priest, she continued to provide that office with its astronomical calculations. But she also strove to perfect her knowledge, grasping secretly for the crumbs of other experiments being conducted in other parts of the Maya lands, but the time came when both she and her husband realized that she ought to be passing along to their son the lore she had accumulated, and from this impulse, more scientific than motherly, she began to instruct Bolón in her mysteries.

He had been fourteen at the time, and she quickly saw that he had none of the insights she had had at five, for even then she had been a genius, one of those miracle children born attuned to the universe and its arcane movements, and that kind of knowledge no mother could automatically impart to her son; such geniuses arrive in the world at broken intervals and their coming is inexplicable. But if she could not bestow on Bolón her veiled power, she could teach him to be a solid mathematician and to use the tables her predecessors had compiled over thirty centuries, and this she did.

As the boy learned the manipulative secrets of the priesthood, his father became satisfied that his son had the qualifications to follow him as High Priest of the Cozumel temple, and he began to instruct him in the practical aspects of that role: “Your mother has taught
you to read the principles on which our temple rests. It’s ancient, powerful, and worthy of the respect the women pilgrims give it. But to protect it you must be attentive to every shift in power among those who rule, for we exist at their pleasure? And for the first time the boy heard the two powerful names which summarized so much of Maya history—Palenque and Chichén Itzá.

“Very long ago, in a place I’ve never seen, Palenque, far to the west,” and he pointed vaguely to where the sun sank, “the learned priests and powerful rulers uncovered the secrets which made it the most glorious city of our people. Much, much later, enemy aliens from valleys far to the west
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invaded our peaceful lands and thrust upon us a cruel new religion, which they established at Chichén Itzá and later at great Mayapán.”

Here Ix Zubin interrupted her husband in order to make a most disturbing observation: “It was not until those horrible strangers came with their bloodthirsty gods that our people began human sacrifices. The rain god Chac Mool is insatiable. He demands sacrifices of many slaves, and what is worse, he must have our young too. In the old days our benevolent Maya gods helped us to tend the fields, and give birth to strong sons, and maintain a quiet home. We never sacrificed any human being to a stone statue …”

“Zubin! No!” her husband cried in terror. “Never speak against the sacrifices. I’ve warned you a hundred times.” Then, turning to his son, he added: “Forget that your mother said that. If the priests who conduct the sacrifices heard you …” He paused ominously. “Cleanse your mind and keep it clean, or you won’t live to be a priest.”

But when Ix Zubin was alone with her son she whispered: “My grandfather, wisest of them all and the only one on this island who personally had been to Palenque, told me quite forcefully: ‘Before the intruders came, there was no sacrifice of our best young people. Without such bloody help the sun returned each morning and started its northward journey at the appointed time each year. But new rulers bring new rules, and those who are sensible obey them.’ ”

It was here that Bolón betrayed the fact that he might not prove a fervent follower of the adopted religion from the west based at Chichén Itzá, for he asked: “Was our temple here before the new religion arrived?” and his mother said: “Yes,” and that was all that passed between them on the subject, but she remembered well the day on
which she had asked her grandfather that same question and had received the same one-word answer: “Yes.”

In the two months following the death of his father, the High Priest, Bolón, then sixteen, and Ix Zubin faced a series of difficult problems, for it became evident that the rulers of Cozumel, having received no orders from Mayapán about the Temple of Fertility, were determined to shut it down, but were prevented from doing so immediately by the continued influx of women from the mainland coming to seek assurance from the gods that they would become pregnant. Deciding to wait until steps could be taken to halt this flow, they turned their attention to a great ritual ceremony which was being planned to terminate worship at the temple.

The affair was to have a dual purpose: a dismissal of the old gods of the ancient Maya and a showy confirmation of the new gods of the newer religion. To accomplish this most effectively, the civil authorities decreed that an offering be made to Chac Mool, the powerful rain god, whose benevolence assured proper amounts during the growing season. When Ix Zubin heard of this decision, she was sickened, for there was no god in the pantheon that she detested more than Chac Mool. With ample reason she felt that his savage rites debased the fine temple whose high quality had been protected and enhanced by the men of her family.

Chac Mool, in both appearance and function, was one of the ugliest gods which the conquering strangers from the west had imposed upon the Maya, a deity from strange lands demanding strange sacrifices. He appeared in hundreds of massive stone statues throughout Maya lands, a fierce warrior shown lying flat on his back, his chest propped up by his elbows, his knees flexed, his feet resting firmly on the ground. This unnatural posture meant that his cramped stomach area provided a broad flat space into which was carved a big saucer held in place by the idol’s two stone hands. Obviously, the waiting receptacle was intended to be filled by donations from women who came to seek help from the gods, and on festive days it overflowed with flowers and bits of jade and even pieces of gold, a form of worship to which Ix Zubin did not object.

But the civil authorities, not the priests, ordained that on certain great days, Chac Mool, this brutal figure lying uncomfortably on his back, must receive rather more important gifts than bits of jade.
When this edict was made known, male slaves on Cozumel and all young men of the island grew apprehensive, for they knew that what the empty saucer resting on the god’s belly wanted now was a human heart, ripped out of a living body, and that nothing else would satisfy.

When Ix Zubin heard news of the impending festival of rain, she quietly took her son to the temple, being careful not to step in any areas forbidden to women, and led him to the statue. “Look!” she whispered. “Have you ever seen a more terrifying face?” With her customary insight she had identified the real horror of Chac Mool, for in an already awkward position his stone head was turned ninety degrees to the left, so that his warrior face, topped by a big stone helmet covering his hair and with protuberances jutting out from his ears, glared malevolently, the corners of the mouth drawn into a ferocious grimace at whoever might be approaching.

It was a brutal, deformed depiction of the human body, but she had to admit that it was powerful: the figure of a vindictive god demanding his sacrifices, and wherever he appeared throughout the land he was instantly recognizable, for his curious posture was invariable, except that occasionally his ugly stone face was turned to the right rather than to the left. Chac Mool was a god calculated to produce terror in the heart of any beholder, and that had been the purpose of those who had inflicted him on the people.

“He’s waiting for a human heart,” Ix Zubin whispered. “That was never intended in this temple. He’s an impostor.”

“When did he arrive?”

“In my grandfather’s day. They placed two Chac Mools on the island, but not in our temple, and sacrifices became quite common, slaves usually but our own sons when required, and Grandfather spoke out against the practice.”

“What happened?” Bolón asked, staring at Chac Mool.

“Something Grandfather never anticipated. When an unseasonal drought came, they decided that an additional Chac Mool must be installed in our temple, and over my grandfather’s objections this beastly thing was hauled in here and placed as you see it,” and now she, too, stared at the implacable stone visage. “And on the day it was finally set in place, more than fifty men edging that huge rock into position, the other priests suddenly grabbed Grandfather, dragged him to that stone altar over there, bent him backward across it, and with a sharp obsidian dagger, slashed open his chest like this.” With a trembling forefinger she indicated the passage of a knife across her
son’s belly, then added in a voice choking with remembered grief: “The priest holding the knife dropped it, reached his hand into the opened gash, fumbled for the still-beating heart, ripped it from Grandfather’s body, and threw it in there.”

Pointing to the stone saucer held by the statue, ugly in every perspective, she shuddered and led her son from the temple, with Chac Mool’s evil gaze following them as they left.

Ix Zubin spent the month prior to the impending sacrifice adding two pages to the papyrus record of Cozumel, and in them she summarized the achievements of her renowned grandfather and the lesser accomplishments of his son. With Bolón watching and confirming the accuracy of her symbols, she added the specific dates during which each had exercised power, and when she had finished, mother and son looked at the scrolls with pride. “There the record will be,” she said. “Your forebears were men to be remembered.” Then she pressed her son’s hand: “And so shall you be. To guide us through the stormy days ahead.”

She had barely made this prediction when the clouds began to gather, for three burly messengers from the island leaders came to confiscate the scrolls: “These are to be kept by those in charge,” and for the first time in centuries the scrolls left the confines of the temple. As the messengers disappeared she called after them: “Why?” and one called back: “They believe all that your grandfather did was wrong. That’s why they want to close down what they call ‘his temple.’ ”

Stunned by this desecration of the sacred scrolls, Ix Zubin wandered for two days about her lovely island, nodding to the pregnant women climbing out of the canoes after their long journeys. Then from a hilltop she studied the endless sea as it came to the eastern shore, but always she came back to that handsome assembly of nine buildings at the shrine, with their white-pebbled walkways, tall trees and flowered nooks. They formed a noble scene, one to gladden the heart, and she was not prepared to surrender it to mean men who lacked vision or appreciation. Her mind was made up.

Returning to her quarters at the rear of the main temple, she told her son: “We must leave at once and make our plea in person at Mayapán,” and Bolón had been so startled by recent developments on the island and so aware of their significance that he did not have to ask
his mother why. But he was not prepared for what she said next: “We shall set forth on a mission of extreme importance—to you … to me … to Cozumel. If you are to save our temple and serve in it, you must understand the glory of our accomplishment. You must see what we were and what we might become again.” And a new sense of gravity was introduced into their pilgrimage.

But now Ix Zubin was confronted by an almost insurmountable problem, for according to Maya custom it would be unthinkable for a lone woman accompanied only by a sixteen-year-old to make a journey of any distance, and to make one of protest to the faltering power of Mayapán would be preposterous. It was obligatory that she find some man older than herself to serve as head of her expedition; she might be the most capable woman in all of Yucatán, but tradition insisted that for her to make such a journey, she must have a man to lead her.

She spent the next two days discussing the situation with Bolón, reviewing and discarding candidates: “Too frightened. If a fox jumped, he’d cry for help.” “Too stupid. I’d never be able to explain.” “Too indebted to the rulers, whoever they might be at any time.” Irritated by her inability to visualize a trustworthy man, she fell silent. Just then, as they sat quietly under a tree near the temple, she saw, picking his way among the flowers, the answer to her needs: her aged uncle Ah Nic (Ah indicating
male
)—a minor priest at the Cozumel temple who had few interests in life save for his love of flowers and his tender concern for orphaned children. A man who minced when he walked and smiled when things went poorly, he was easily dismissed by better men but tolerated by them for his gentleness. Ah Nic’s going would occasion no comment, so as he moved toward her she called “Uncle! Please, I need your help,” and when she outlined her plan to approach the authorities at Mayapán, he said quietly: “If you are willing to waste your time going to that powerless place, I will accompany you. But first I think we should show your son a real monument—Chichén Itzá.”