HEAVEN BORN MERIDA AND ITS DESTINY - Histomesoamericana

20
INTRODUCTION
There is a strong polarization by rank and favor in these texts. Insults
abound—since the text is Xiu, the Itza are often characterized as lying,
stupid, stuttering orphans and insane fly-by-night (two-day and three-day]
lords, drunken buzzards, monkeys and dogs, oversexed, lustful, and addicted
to sodomy. The Itza of course reciprocate in kind. When they are
really aroused, the Maya produce slang curses that sound almost like GI
Joe: "This asshole boils war!" Correspondingly, the language of deference
is considerably elaborated, and there are many standard honorifics: father,
older brother, honorable, remote or holy, heaven born, glorious (sun face),
great (seventh, ninth, thirteenth), or tremendous [chac).
Even more poetic effects are found occasionally, as in the anaphoric repetition
and climax of the following:
There appeared the moon;
The moon left.
It returned,
And the moon of the moon occurred, (lines 669-672)
There is sometimes a deft use of chiasmus:
Shaped by the juice of heaven:
By dew of heaven shaped, (lines 1703-1704)
Allegory is also to be found, as in the myth of the origin of the Xiu as a
consequence of Hummingbird's sipping the nectar of the flowers, alluded
to following line 3324.
Although the entire text of the Chumayel is poetic, it appears to be specifically
lyric in only a few passages: "The Song of the Itza" in chapter 42
and the elegant introit to "The Count of the Katuns" in chapter 17. Sections
of the myth "The Birth of the Uinal" in chapter 20 attain a similar
lyricism. At least the first two of these fully qualify as poems.
Drama. Drama is fundamental to our text. There is a great deal of preoccupation
with ritual throughout the work—with the Christian sacraments
(baptism, marriage, burial) and rites (absolution, benediction, kneeling,
repentance, mourning, sermons, prayer, praise, anointing with oil,
the sign of the cross) as well as Mayan ceremonials (of the uinal, the tzol
kin, the tun, the hah, the katun, the may, the baktun) and ceremonies
(sacrifice, divination, curing, examination, request, pacing and seating of
land, commemoration). It is curious that there is no specific reference to
the eucharist among the Christian rites or to confession, which is prominent
in both Catholic and Mayan religions. Perhaps the emphasis on the
rite of forgiveness is intended to refer to the latter.
The ceremonials of the Maya are largely tied to the cycles of the calendar.
The principal tzol kin ceremonies were those of the Burner [ah toe)
cycle of the quarter tzol kin. These were held on certain occurrences of
the days Chicchan, Oc, Men, and Ahau, and they survive as the tup' kak
'quenching fire' ceremonies described by Villa Rojas (1945: 79, 116). In
each quarter tzo7 kin there was a cycle of fire ceremonies; thus on 3 Chicchan
the Burner "took his fire," on 10 Chicchan he lit it, on 4 Chicchan
his fire "dawned," and on 11 Chicchan it was extinguished. The cycle was
then rep
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26, 28, 3;
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8 to 20 ra
Act 8. (