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Folding chairs for us to view the
show had been set up on the edge of the 300 foot long building that looked onto
the court far below and the other three buildings of the complex; gray forms in
the black outline of space.
A
loud-speaker blared dramatic music and the show began. True to others I’d seen,
colored lights lit up different parts of the buildings as the story of Uxmal was
told in high melodramatic style. It was popular to focus attention at the ruin
sites more on sacrifice and war than real information, both because it was more
dramatic, but also because, especially at Uxmal, so little was known about the
people who lived there and their unique history. The ruins themselves speak of
a culture that was highly religious and ritualistic, who lived according to the
ancient books of the Classic Maya, but beyond that, little is known. Instead of
listening to the made up stories of horrible sacrifice, I found myself remembering
the Mayan creation stories I’d found in the Popul Vuh and the Books of the Chilan
Balam. Here is an excerpt:
“In the beginning the two who came first
from the one made the gods of the four directions and joined the two of heaven,
and the six together created the seventh who is 'heart of heaven'. Thus co-creation
began and all else came forth from this co-operation. The word was spoken and
action arose. It was green. |
In the first stage the earth, plants
and animals were formed and multiplied. However the animals could not speak, but
could only squawk and run about madly, could not name the gods who created them,
could not honor and praise them, and so their flesh was brought low, they were
eaten, they were killed -- the animals on the face of the earth.
In the second stage The Makers experimented with the human work and built them
of earth and mud, but it did not look good to them; it kept separating and changing,
it could only mimic, it could not create. No words of praise came forth from their
distorted faces. The days of the gods were not kept by them. They were insufficient
and therefore were dismantled.
In the third stage the gods were
successful in fashioning a human who could sustain its form. They were carved
of wood and were led by the grandmother, the daykeeper, and by grandfather, the
master of coral seeds. These could multiply, but there was not enough in their
hearts, not enough in their minds, no memory of their mason and builder. They
went and walked wherever they wanted. They did not remember the 'Heart of Sky',
but only knew the grandmother, 'Heart of Lake'. Again a great destruction was
made; a dismantling of the creation.
This was when there was
only a trace of dawn on the face of the earth; there was no sun. To this time
and place there came the great warrior twins, the redeemers of mankind, Hanahpu
and Ixbalamka who would transform the creation from the third to the fourth stage.”
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The stories that describe stages
of creation were consistent with the philosophic understanding that life is dependent
on the creators and that the creators expect something in return. At the height
of the Mayan civilization a great deal of attention was given to the gods, and
Uxmal, like other sites, was where the people came for rituals to honor them.
Seated on my metal folding chair with others who had come from the far corners
of the world to see this magnificent site, I realized the honoring was still taking
place. Maybe it was not with the same understanding, but we did gaze in awe and
wonder all the same.
The next day a gentle rain had sweetly scented the
air. By the time I’d dressed and eaten, the clouds had passed leaving everything
wet and clean; the dust on the dirt paths that lead from one part of the ruins
to another settled.
The city of Uxmal, meaning the place of plentiful
harvests, was inhabited from 100–1000 AD and was rebuilt five times with a population
at its height of 20,000 people. The question of why build here in the first place
is still unanswered; there was no surface water so water had to be collected in
an elaborate system of cisterns and wells. Comprised
of seven separate groupings, the surviving buildings were located on a broad plateau
and ranged from one-half mile in length and 600 yards in width. As I’d seen at
the nearby sites of Sayil and Kabah, the architectural style was unique and distinguished
them from other areas of the Yucatan; long and low with exquisite proportions,
decorated with elaborate ornate carvings of Puuc the rain god and several other
deities. Here at Uxmal the separate groups of buildings were positioned in relationship
to one another in intricate geometric patterns. It was truly a marvel to see and
one wonders at how such a marvel was accomplished in a place where there are no
mines, no metal tools, no dray animals, and the wheel had not been discovered.
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wheel issue is another of the Mayan mysteries. For a people that charted the heavens
without the aid of modern instruments, that came up with the concept of zero and
were brilliant mathematicians, why did they have no concept of the wheel? As
I approached The Temple of the Magician whose top I had seen from my room, it
appeared forbidding with its 118 steps leading to two platforms. It was gargantuan
and would have certainly impressed any visitors at any time. Five superimposed
temples, each embedded in the other and added in a different periods, made up
the temple. At 114 feet, it was the second largest pyramid in the Yucatan.
Most Mesoamerican cultures played a form of the ballgame, and I was anxious
to see Uxmal’s ballcourt. 111 feet long and 32 feet wide, its sloped walls ran
the length forming a platform at the top for spectators. The equipment for the
ballgame varied through time and space but generally consisted of a rubber ball
and heavy padding for the players. Two teams of 2 or 3 players each competed to
pass the ball through a ring suspended high on one of the walls of the alleyway.
The players controlled the ball by hitting it with the upper arm and thigh; no
hands could be used
More ceremony than sport, the ballgame was another
of the Classic Maya’s symbolic aspects; the struggle between day and night, dark
and light, consciousness and the unconscious. A metaphor for the movements of
heavenly bodies, particularly the Sun, Moon, and Venus, the ball itself may have
been understood as the sun journeying in and out of the Underworld, seen as the
narrow alley of the ballcourt. The most well documented description of the importance
of the ballgame to the Maya was found in the Popul Vuh when the redeemer twins,
Hanahpu and Ixbalamka must play the game with the lords of the Underworld to bring
about the fourth stage.
“Again a time came, when there was not a trace
of dawn on the face of the earth; there was no sun. Before the birth of the redeemer
twins, Hanahpu and Ixbalamka, their father before them had attempted to bring
about the next stage of life on earth as required by the gods. He and his brother
failed in their attempt to wrest the light from the Xibalbans, the lords of the
underworld, and they were killed. The twins learned from their father’s failure,
for the young must learn from the mistakes of their parents, or there is no new
dawn. Take heed of this. The lords of Xibalba challenged Hanahpu and Ixbalamka
to a ballgame in the underworld, which is not something that can be refused.
Hanahpu
and Ixbalamka climbed down the craggy cliffs to the catapulting river below. The
lords of the underworld -- Tucur, the owl, and her family One death and Seven
death -- were on the other side waiting for them. After passing all of the tests
put to them, they were put to the ultimate test; the House of Death where they
would be sacrificed. Here the ballgame was played. Hanahpu lost his head, but
with the aid of the animals and all allies of the earth, the brothers did utterly
defeat the lords of Xibalba; because of superior knowledge they knew that death
was a stage whose next step was rebirth, so when Hanahpu died, he knew he’d be
reborn, and therefore was.
This feat was a miracle to the lords of Xibalba
who believed death was the final frontier, and that nothing came after it As the
lords of death they believed they had the final power, a fact they based their
lives and worship on. The lords were envious of this mastery and wished to participate
and gain its power. One Death bowed to them and said, "Please, sacrifice us, so
that we may know this great truth." Here they defeated them utterly, for when
their heads were cut off, they could not reassemble themselves. They had no belief
in transformation, and so were locked in the prison of their own minds; dead forever.
This done, the twins pronounced sentence on the rulers of this age and
said, "From now on, you will feed only on creatures of the meadow and clearings,
none of those born in the light, begotten in the light will be yours. Only the
worthless will yield themselves up before you. These will be the guilty, the violent,
the wretched, and the afflicted. You will never again make random general attacks
on the people.”
The game became the metaphor of life, death, and regeneration
and the resurrection of the twins’ father, the Maize God, from the court of death.
The principle ideas that form the foundation of Mayan thought were of stages,
of a continual round of cycles of time, of transformation, and of the correct
way to live in relation to the gods. All of these concepts can be seen in this
excerpt from my novel, “Time & Transformation,” which is a compilation of many
different stories told in surviving Mayan books and murals. |
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Mayan views of life were highly symbolic could some of our conclusions about them
be mistaken? For example, one of the ways that archaeologists have read the murals
of the ballgames is that the losers of the game would also lose their heads, or
their hearts. Since Mayans symbolized everything, could those images also be symbolic,
and no heads were actually lost, but instead their minds and hearts were given
to the winning team for some period of time, a sacrifice of energy and time not
of physical life? Just wondering.
Colette Obrien’s novel, “Time & Transformation,
a Novel of Mayan Mysticism” is available May 1st. For information visit: www.colettobrien.com
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