Death and Life in a Mayan Town Part 2

LIFE
The stillness of mid-afternoon siesta settles over the town, but Adelina is still the only person at Casa Ramirez when Jill, the American woman, comes home. Adelina takes one look at her and says, “You’ve been doing those rituals again, haven’t you?”

Jill admits that this is true. There’s no point in denying it. A traditional Mayan altar is square and made of stone, sometimes bearing a bit of a whimsical resemblance to the National Forest Service barbecue pits so often seen in American campgrounds. You have to kneel in front of the altar and use wood or newspaper to get a fire lit so that you can make offerings of candles and copal. This, in and of itself, makes for a pretty smoky environment. But copal burns with a thick black smoke; the greater the offering, the more black smoke you get. Tourists who come to Momos for a few hours on market days to buy the famous Momostecan blankets are often shocked to see people walking around town with smoke-blackened faces. But any local person knows that this simply means they’ve been doing ritual.

Adelina goes about her business without comment. One standing rule among our eccentric multi-national family at Casa Ramirez is that one never argues about religion. Never. Not under any circumstances.

Since 12 Kan is both a high-numbered day and a day-sign associated with magic, it is not the sort of day upon which Jill would ordinarily make offerings. But today marks the initiation of Don Jorge into the very highest level of the Mayan priesthood. And since Jorge is a dear friend of Jill’s, she is lending him a little bit of extra energy.

Daykeepers (aj q’ijab) are initiated on 8 B’atz’ (Chuen). Ever since Barbara Tedlock published her landmark book, Time and the Highland Maya, back in 1982, a few adventurous foreigners have made their way into the mountains to visit Momos on 8 B’atz’. In the last few years, even more have begun to show up – ever since a respected community elder and Mayan priest began extending his invitation to serious seekers to join him in Momos for 8 B’atz’. He hopes that exposure to the authentic Mayan tradition will help them get beyond their passion for the plethora of self-styled 2012 gurus whose contact with the real Maya doesn’t extend much farther than tipping the bellboy or pinching the barmaid at their five-star resort in Cozumel.

But there are other initiation days as well. A Daykeeper or aj q’ij is the most fundamental practitioner of Mayan spirituality. Several levels above this is the institution of the chuchq’ajaw. Literally, this means “mother-father.” A chuchq’ajaw serves her or his community with the nurturing soul of a mother and the powerful authority of a father. These individuals are initiated on 8 Kej (Manik).

I am not sure how many levels of hierarchy there are in the Mayan priesthood; it seems to go on virtually forever. Priests who reach extremely high levels of initiation are regarded as magicians after a fashion because they have become masters of the powerful inner energy which is called qoyopa, the “lightning in the blood.” This energy is symbolized by the Feathered Serpent, and Kan is the day of the Feathered Serpent; hence individuals who reach such a level – like Don Jorge – are initiated on high-numbered Kan days.

Part of the initiation is, of course, secret, but there will be a nice rousing party afterwards, as usual. Jill is trying to get ready for the event by dressing in the traditional Momostecan women’s traje, a black-and-white skirt of the same pattern as the well-known blankets which draw shopping tourists to Momos on the market days, Wednesday and Sunday.

Adelina says, “Can’t you ever get it right? The way you tie it, you always end up looking pregnant.”

Adelina helps Jill get her traje right, and she walks down the street in the late afternoon until she has passed beyond the central part of the community and reaches the outskirts. The pavement vanishes. Momostenango now looks like a village rather than a town.

Don Jorge’s family compound is perched on top of a hill. In addition to three generations of family members, there are chickens and goats in abundance. By the time the general public has arrived, the priestly ceremonies are over. Don Jorge removes his robes; underneath, he wears the traditional white garments of Momostecan men, with the red sash.

The party begins in a sober fashion with the plaintive music of marimbas – what many townspeople call “real Mayan music.” The older couples dance around the main room of Don Jorge’s house in a dignified and stately fashion.

Jill is unhappy to see that Don Silvestro is present. He has a reputation for abusing the priesthood for his own purposes. He hunts down the very few Western women who come to Momostenango for more than just a few hours’ worth of blanket shopping on the market days. He informs them that his mystic Mayan vision has allowed him to see that they are afflicted with evil spirits. He promises to help them with a “traditional exorcism” ceremony. Of course, Silvestro’s version of an exorcism for Western women consists primarily of skirt lifting – hunting for evil spirits, no doubt. But since Momos is not a tourist destination, the few women travelers who visit the town on their own tend to be intrepid, canny, and fiercely independent. No one knows precisely how many times Silvestro has had his lights punched out by athletic American and Scandinavian blondes who easily tower over his slender five-foot frame. All anyone knows is that even the humiliation of walking around town with bandages on his nose will never stop Silvestro from hunting for the girl of his dreams. As unpalatable as his behavior may be, there is nothing to do but put up with him. Everyone’s family has been here for hundreds of years; it is terribly unlikely that anyone is going to go anywhere else. So there is no choice but to accept everyone, even if they’re a bit weird.

If Jill is displeased to see Don Silvestro, she is happy to see that Don Victorio and his wife Esperanza are present. Don Victorio is a jovial and jolly Mayan priest whose good humor enlivens every occasion. A great deal of his jollity is due to his extraordinary capacity to consume large quantities of alcohol. Now he is beginning to raise his glass and make toasts. Let’s toast Don Jorge. Let’s toast the priesthood. Let’s toast the whole town.

Now the party-goers are starting to get drunk. Traditionalists who dislike alcohol will take this as their cue to leave.

Young Rafael replaces the traditional marimba music with the pounding beat of Latin pop. Now it’s a real party. He even manages to sneak a dubbed-in Spanish version of “Oops, I Did It Again” into the tape player. He does this in hopes of impressing Catalina, whose musical laughter and soulful eyes have caused every young man in the town to fall madly, hopelessly in love with her. Catalina loves to dance, and Rafael is hoping she will favor the crowd with her “locally famous” Britney imitation, especially since she has a captive audience that is much too drunk to be critical.

But Catalina is busy. She is sitting in a corner with two of her girlfriends. They are all taking an English class together, and Catalina has at last succeeded in using her cell phone to record Jill reading passages from T. S. Eliot’s “Preludes” in her perfectly correct, well schooled English. The girls are listening intently.

Despite her predilection for cutting edge technology and outdated pop music, the much-loved Catalina is in fact a hard core traditionalist. The “catch” of the town will have to be “caught” on an Aq’ab’al (Akbal) day and wedded on a B’atz’ day. She has already begun the regimen of training which will lead to her initiation as a Daykeeper some four months hence, on the next recurrence of 8 B’atz’. This will be the first of several initiations leading her to the destiny that came to her in a dream – that of becoming a full-fledged Mayan priestess. It’s a great deal of work to keep up with her ritual training while at the same time taking an English class and one of those free classes in computer skills that they give down at the Civic Center. But she’s trying.

It is past midnight now, and Don Victorio’s unquenchable enthusiasm for toasting everything under the sun and moon has now led to him actually staggering around the room. He seems to have some notion of raising a toast to each and every one of the 260 nawales or spirits of the chol q’ij. Fortunately, he falls asleep in his chair before he is able to attempt it. Apparently the nawales are looking after his welfare.

But now Esperanza will have to figure out how to cart him down the hill to his home. Since she is only five feet tall, and her husband a man of admirable girth, this is problematical. Jill, who has enjoyed several copas de vino in her own right, offers to help out. Together, they are hauling him along the path that leads downhill. But Jill herself is the size of a Mayan woman rather than a typical American, so even the two of them together are having trouble carrying him.

Catalina shows up and offers to lend a hand. After all, she is a student of the Sacred Calendar, and Don Victorio is a respected priest – even if, at the present moment, an egregiously drunken one. But halfway down the hill, Esperanza slips on a rock in the darkness, and Don Victorio goes tumbling down the path, rolling and rolling. This awakens him to the point where he can actually sit up, only to find himself sliding downhill again, this time on his backside. He lands with a crash near the bottom of the hill. When the three women catch up to him, a bit of prodding and poking, followed by grunts from Don Victorio, convince them that he is unharmed, although clearly falling back asleep again.

Upon establishing that her husband is safe (if not sound), Dona Esperanza remarks cheerfully, “I guess that was the quickest way to get him down the hill.”

The three women shoulder the besotted priest once more and begin walking, slowly and with determination, the final quarter of a mile to Victorio’s home.

It is the gray time before dawn. The roosters are crowing madly and the dogs are beginning to bark. There is a haze hanging coolly over the valley. Soon, the sun will rise upon 13 Kame (Cimi). It has been doing so since the beginning of time. It will continue to do so long after the Great Cycle has come to its appointed end in 2012. It will continue to do so even after the present p’iktun comes to an end in 4772. Human life is short, but sacred time is forever.

As the three women finally unload their burden in Don Victorio’s parlor, his dogs jump up and down. They are happy to see him.