Departure from Uxmal. — Indian officials at Abalá. — Indian
Ceremonies. — Worship of demons. — Baptismal customs. — Laws
of the Emperor Charles V. for the government of the natives in
Yucatan. — Superstitions. — An Indian Well. — Halt at night. —
Merida. — Convent of the Conceptionistas. — Sisal. — The Basque
brig Aguinaga. — Departure for Cuba and Florida. — Tampa. —
Cedar Keys. — Buccaneers. — Shell Mounds. — Ancient Burial
Mounds. — Florida Indians.
At sunrise on the day of our departure from Uxmal, the Indians were
hurrying along the paths on their way to the corn fields, and the women
were engaged in carrying water from the wells. It was a busy scene of
life and movement.
We proceeded to Múna and then journeyed onwards to the village of Abalá
which we reached in the afternoon, having accomplished a distance of
eight leagues. We obtained shelter in a public building called the
cabildo, which was used as a travellers’ rest house, where everyone,
as in a Turkish or Syrian caravansary, selected whatever spot was
available or unoccupied. Anastasio deposited the luggage in a corner
and found a place where my hammock could be secured above the ground.
Upon examining my horse I found that it was quite unfit for work, and
therefore I went at once to the head man of the district, who was an
Indian holding the office of Judge, and was at the time sitting in the
Court-house. I asked him if he would give directions that I should be
supplied with another horse or mule to carry me to Merida. The Judge at
first made some objections and said that there were no horses, or that,
if there were any, they were in the fields and would have to be caught.
Finally, after a long discussion, the second or junior Judge, who
seemed inclined to help me, promised that a horse should be ready at
the cabildo on the following day as soon as the sun appeared. Trusting
in this arrangement, I discharged Anastasio and sent him back with the
old horse to Tzibalché.
In the morning the sun duly appeared but no horse came, and as
Anastasio had left at daybreak, I found myself unattended, and
surrounded by strange groups of Indians passing through Abalá. It
was fortunate that, in accordance with a local regulation, an Indian
alguazil was in charge of the cabildo, for this native official
immediately informed me that he would attend to my requirements. He
was useful in carrying out my wishes, and performed his duties with
care and zeal. After waiting for an hour to see if any horse arrived,
I went again to the Court-house but found that the Judges were not
sitting, and that they were away for the day upon other occupations. On
my return to my quarters it was evident that some event had occurred.
I was told that a band of muleteers on their way from the interior had
halted there, and intended to proceed to Merida later in the day, after
their mules had been given rest and food. These men were uncouth and
noisy, but I thought it would be wise to join them, if they made no
objection. It happened that they had with them a young horse that was
not laden. After overcoming some preliminary difficulties, an agreement
was made that I should hire the horse, but that he was not to carry
any weight except that of the rider; one of their mules was to convey
my luggage. As soon as all preparations were completed the leader of
the muleteers told me that they would be ready to proceed late in the
afternoon and that he would call for me at the cabildo. The men then
dispersed.
Having the greater part of the day at my disposal, I walked out beyond
the village for the purpose of being present at an Indian ceremony. It
was the commemoration of a death that had taken place in the previous
year. I was informed that in this part of Yucatan it was the custom
amongst the Indians to have three services or meetings of this nature.
The first took place a week after the death; the second after an
interval of a month, and the last on the anniversary. This was the
anniversary service and was considered the most important. Very few
of the religious ceremonies of the Indians have been permitted to be
maintained, for they were so singularly connected with their worship of
demons, that it was found necessary to abolish everything that recalled
their ancient superstitions. These memorial observances are, however,
to a modified extent yet performed.
Upon arriving at the hut I saw that it was crowded with Indians. I
was received in the usual manner with apparent inattention, and was
allowed to take my place with the others. I noticed that my friend
the junior Judge, who had promised to send me a horse, was one of the
mourners. As he made no remark and I had made other plans the subject
was not mentioned, and my attention was directed to what was going
on around me. The Indians were engaged in making melancholy sounds
of wailing. In the centre of the room was a table upon which was a
large plain wooden cross. Before the cross were placed offerings of
flowers, fruits and baked tortillas. I waited for some time to see what
ceremonies were going to take place, but nothing happened. The wailing
continued in a dreary and monotonous manner.
The scene reminded me in some respects of observances of a religious
character that I had previously witnessed when travelling amongst the
Cordilleras of Guatemala, and again at a village near Tzibalché, on
the road to Uxmal. When the Spanish priests settled in their various
parishes in these regions after the conquest, it was noticed by them
that the Indians appeared to have a peculiar dread of death. This dread
did not seem to be caused by any personal fear, but had its origin in
connection with their belief in demons. They believed that death was
an evil spirit that required to be propitiated, and whose influence
over the sick or dying person was malignant. Thus it was usual to make
offerings to this demon, who was supposed to be lying in wait somewhere
near the hut. They imagined that he might be contented with what was
given to him and not carry off his victim. When I was at Palenque,
I was told that in some of the remote parts of the province, this
ancient observance still existed and that the Indians placed offerings
of food outside the door of the hut in the hope that the demon would be
appeased, and pass by without stopping to enter within.[93] In Yucatan
a similar custom prevailed, but the method of propitiation was slightly
different. Various kinds of food and jars of liquid were hung upon the
walls or thatch outside the hut to gratify the demon and cause him to
accept the offerings instead of human life.
Amongst the ancient customs of the Indians none, however, are more
strange than those connected with an almost unintelligible form of
baptism. The Franciscan missionaries who endeavoured to convert the
Indians at the time of the conquest, observed with astonishment the
veneration of the natives for the Catholic rites of baptism and the
readiness of their converts to accept this part of their teaching.
In the course of their inquiries upon the subject they discovered
that a form of baptism already existed, and was considered to be one
of the most important and essential of their ceremonies.[94] Upon
an examination of the accounts of the manner in which the Indians
performed their customary rites, it does not appear that there was
much analogy with the ceremony that was insisted upon as a duty by the
friars, except that the Indian baptism was a religious act performed by
their priests, in which the children were touched with something that
had been dipped in water.
The Indians, although disinclined to adopt the new faith, showed
extraordinary ardour and devotion in this particular observance. It was
found that they would frequently bring their children to be baptised
again after they had already received baptism. Finally the conduct
of the Indians in this matter became so unsatisfactory that special
clauses upon the subject, were introduced into the laws established by
the order of the Emperor Charles V. for the government of the Indians
in Yucatan.
One of these clauses ran thus—
“Baptism is one of the sacraments which is not to be repeated, and
if this is done great offence is committed against the Holy Ghost
conferred upon us by baptism when it is repeated.
“Many of the natives of this province say that although already
baptised, they repeat baptism deceiving the ministers of the gospel,
and furthermore they say that they baptise others and consent that
others should do so. For which reason I order that henceforth no Indian
man or woman of this province who has once received legitimately holy
baptism shall return to be baptised or consent to others doing it, or
baptise on their own authority any other person.”
Since these orders were put in force many changes have taken place,
and the Indians have become, in a manner reconciled to the new order
of things. It is, however, stated that in remote parishes the priests
are still frequently deceived, and that children are sometimes brought
three or four times to be given baptism.
The circumstances under which the cross was placed upon the table
in the hut near Abalá were peculiar. It was clear that the cross
was looked upon as an idol, and that the offerings made to it were
propitiations. In Yucatan there were instances known of several of
the principal Indians keeping a cross in their house. This was not
necessarily a Latin cross, for it was sometimes formed into a shape
varying according to the imagination of the owners. The Indians are
rapidly becoming so neglected with regard to all religious education,
that it is not improbable that they will gradually return to many of
their idolatrous practices.
In the beginning of this century the Spanish authorities in Mexico
ordered an inquiry to be made regarding the condition of the Yucatan
Indians, and directions were given to ascertain whether they still
maintained any of the superstitious usages followed before the
conquest. There was a Report made by the curate of Yaxcabá which was
considered to be especially deserving of mention, because he had been
in charge of a large parish and had lived for many years among his
Indians, and was known to be well acquainted with their language and
habits. One of the superstitions that he reported is remarkable from
its having evident analogies with one of the methods adopted by the
medicine men in curing the sick amongst the Dakotas in North America.
It will be seen by his account of the custom of divining through the
medium of a crystal, that ignorant human nature in Yucatan, as in many
other parts of the world, seeks to learn the future by similar methods.
The curate, in his reply to one of the questions put to him, stated
as follows[95]:—“Amongst the common masses of the Indians there are
many superstitions. In the first fifteen years that I held this curacy
they told me much, but after making examples upon the delinquents by
punishing them with floggings and penances in accordance with superior
commands, it is now fully fifteen years that all is done in silence,
and it is only from time to time that there is any sign.
“The most frequent divination is by means of a piece of crystal which
they call _zaztun_. This is a clear and transparent stone, by which
they say that occult things are seen and the causes of sickness. What
I have been able to understand in this matter is that they have had
some one who, by a compact with the demon, has divined by the means
of the said _zaztun_: but the more ordinary way is that those that
use it are certain cheating impostors who by this means gain credit
amongst themselves and are consulted and are well treated so that they
have idle lives, and with their artifices and cunning make the simple
and ignorant believe that they have divined what they have secretly
managed. I will take this example which is frequent: they make the sick
man believe that by the means of the _zaztun_ they have known that
some malevolent person has bewitched him, and in order to discover the
wizard or evil doer it is necessary to watch three nights and make
preparation of ardent spirits or pitarilla, provisions and lighted
candles; during these three nights they enjoy themselves and eat and
drink till they are satisfied. When the others are not observing or
asleep they bury inside the house or near it a small figure of black
wax having a thorn run into the part corresponding to that where the
sick person feels the most pain. Finally when all are awake they
commence to make their operations with the _zaztun_ and go straight to
the spot where they buried the little figure, they take it out within
sight of everybody and make them believe that this was the witchcraft.
They then apply for the cure any herbs that they can find and if
sometimes by chance the sick person gets cured they gain much credit
amongst the ignorant.”
A most extraordinary account was given by the curate of Yaxcabá, of
a religious or superstitious ceremony which at a certain season of
the year was performed by the Indians of his parish in the beginning
of this century. They erected near the village a rudely constructed
table upon which was placed a turkey. When the ceremony commenced, the
Indian who acted as the priest poured into the beak of the turkey a
small quantity of pitarilla. He then killed the bird and gave it to
his assistants at the table, who carried it away to season it and
prepare it for being eaten. Large tortillas were also prepared and
when everything was ready the turkey and tortillas were placed upon
the table together with several jars of pitarilla. “Then,” stated the
cura, “the sacerdote commences to incense them with copal.”... “And
then taking some of the pitarilla upon a hissop he sprinkles it towards
the four winds invoking the four _Pahahtunes_ who are the gods and
custodians of the rains. Then approaching the table he raises on high
one of the jars, and offers it to the mouths of the surrounding people,
who are kneeling. The function concludes by all eating and drinking to
their satisfaction.”
Near a hamlet a few leagues from Uxmal, I observed a group of Indians
performing ceremonies similar to those described by the curate of
Yaxcabá, and I then formed the opinion that they were imitating what
they had seen in the Spanish churches. It may, however, be possible
that these native observances have some relation to practices that
may have been customary amongst the natives before the conquest. Near
Jacaltenango, amongst the hills of the Sierra Madre, ceremonies and
sacrifices were still, at certain periods of the year, performed by
the Mams; turkeys were killed, and special and peculiar rites were
customary. In Yucatan it was found necessary in the sixteenth century
to enforce regulations, preventing the caciques from convening meetings
of the natives which were held for the purpose of maintaining the
ancient worship of their gods. These meetings usually took place in
secret, and the services and superstitious propitiations were taught
or performed by men who were the descendants of the priests or caciques.
The tendency of the Indians to have religious rites performed in their
houses or in huts set apart for the purpose, and their custom of having
these ceremonies conducted by one or more men selected from among
themselves to act as priests, or “sacerdotes,” is noticeable throughout
Guatemala, Yucatan and Chiapas.
Before leaving Abalá I visited a large and deep cenote or well. It was
one of those natural caverns the Indians of Yucatan were accustomed to
use for their supply of water, and which presumably mark the sites of
the ancient centres of population. It was chiefly fed by the waters
penetrating through the surrounding calcareous limestone formation. As
it was late in the dry season of the year, the waters were low and the
natives were engaged in going up and down the steps cut into and around
the sides of the cavern. The work of filling their jars was laborious,
as the depth to which they had to descend was nearly one hundred feet.
After examining this natural well, I returned to the cabildo, where I
found that everything was ready and the muleteers were waiting for me.
We started without delay. At night we stopped at what appeared to be a
farmhouse. The muleteers unloaded the mules and found places to sleep
in an outer shed. I unrolled my hammock and secured it to the rafters
outside the dwelling of the young proprietress, and found protection
from the dew under the overhanging thatch. From this exposed position I
watched for several hours the clear star-light, regretting that this
was the last time that I should lead this free and wandering life; for
on the next day we were to be in Merida. At daybreak we continued our
journey and arrived in the capital of Yucatan shortly before noon and
halted in the market place.
My travelling companions then left me and I remained a solitary
stranger amongst a crowd of busy Indians. I was told that there was no
hotel, but that possibly I might get a room in an old disused convent
which was being altered for the purpose of receiving guests. I rode
up to the gate and there saw a Spaniard who informed me that he had
lately bought a portion of the ruins, and was re-arranging the interior
sufficiently to enable him to keep an inn. He had a room at my disposal
and assured me that he would be pleased if I would occupy it. This room
had been a nun’s cell, the door of which opened into the quadrangle.
I found that I was quartered within the Convent of the Conceptionistas,
which after the suppression of the monastic orders had been abandoned.
Thus, by a strange series of events, I had come from the ruined Indian
“nunnery” at Uxmal to the ruined Spanish nunnery at Merida. The cells
and the quadrangle of the Conceptionistas reminded me of the interior
of the “Casa de las Monjas.”
During my brief sojourn in Merida I was generally occupied during the
day in observing the habits of the Indians who came into the town from
the adjacent country. In the evenings, within the convent walls where,
for many years, the nuns had led their quiet and secluded lives, I
listened to the plans of my worthy and eager landlord for converting a
building, constructed for the purposes of solitude and prayer, into a
busy and prosperous inn. I frequently thought of the past of this land.
The monastic institutions of an unknown race of Indians had flourished
and had been destroyed, and were succeeded by the churches and convents
established by an enthusiastic race of devoted missionaries who came
across the Atlantic to spread their faith in the New World. Many
changes had happened, the old order of things had passed away. The
work of the Spanish priests for the education and conversion of the
Indians, maintained for centuries with such zeal and self-sacrifice,
was destined to become useless, and in their turn the monasteries of
the Spaniards are doomed to fall into the same condition of ruin as the
temples and religious structures of the Indians.
One evening the landlord (Miguel Yturran) told me that a brig had
arrived and was at anchor off the port of Sisal, and was going to sail
for Cuba on the afternoon of the next day. I accordingly arranged to
leave on the following morning. A good level road led to the northern
coast, the distance was about thirty-eight miles. We changed mules at a
village called Junucuma, and reached Sisal before nine in the morning.
We had left Merida at daybreak and travelled at an average speed
exceeding twelve miles an hour. In the offing we saw the brig with her
sails loosed, preparing for sea.
Upon getting on board I was told that she was the Aguinaga, belonging
to the port of San Sebastian. She was manned by a crew of Basques.
Shortly before weighing our anchor, I was leaning over the port side
of the vessel looking at the long, low, line of coast stretching
far away towards the east, when my attention was called to an
animated conversation that was taking place between the Basques and
a boat’s-crew of Indians who had come alongside, bringing provisions
and fruit. It was surprising to hear a conversation carried on between
men of races so absolutely distinct, and I asked the skipper, who was
standing near me, how this power of communicating ideas between his
crew and these Yucatan Indians had been established.
He said that he did not know, but as a matter of fact, his men,
speaking Basque, were able to make themselves understood by the Indians
living on these coasts, especially in the regions around Tabasco beyond
Carmen and the bay of Terminos.
In the afternoon we left Sisal and were employed in beating against a
fresh N.E. wind, usually standing in towards the coast during the day
and tacking out to sea at night. It was not until the sixth day that
we weathered the parallel of Cape Catoche, the extreme eastern point
of Yucatan, and it was with no slight satisfaction that, after having
been nine tedious days at sea, I heard that Cuba was in sight. The
confinement on board the brig had been extremely irksome, and had only
been made tolerable by the novelty of being thrown amongst a race of
men that I had never met before and whose language was unintelligible.
These Basques were excellent sailors, quick and handy at their work
aloft or on deck, and although incessantly employed, were willing and
obedient. My messmates in the cabin consisted of the skipper, the
boatswain and the mate, and a fellow passenger who had been for the
greater part of his life a Honduras pilot. There was also a second
class passenger who usually lived under the forecastle. This man was a
wanderer upon the earth; an exile from his own land who, in the course
of his travels, had seen much of men and manners. He told me that he
was a Frenchman and had been drawn for the conscription, but he managed
to evade his duty and had got away from France, consequently he was
not able to return to his home as he was liable to be punished. He had
managed to subsist by following various trades and he was about to try
his fortune in one of the islands.
Upon approaching Havannah we at last got a fair wind and were able
to find an obscure berth amongst the merchant shipping without
difficulty.[96] After leaving the brig and her Basque crew I proceeded
across the Gulf to Florida. Amongst the various places that I visited
was Tampa, situated at the head of a bay, near the spot where Hernando
de Soto landed in 1539 and began the conquest of that part of America.
About one hundred miles to the north of Tampa are numerous sand
islets. Upon one of these was situated the old settlement of Cedar
Keys. I was fortunate in meeting there a good seaman and enthusiastic
antiquary named Clarke, who had made his home at that place. He was
well acquainted with the various channels and bays of the coast, and
in consequence of the interest that he felt in all that related to
the customs of the Indian tribes, had gathered together a store of
information that was exceedingly curious. He had also made discoveries
respecting the haunts of the buccaneers, and knew of stories about
hidden treasure. Fragments of old vessels that were supposed to have
belonged to the pirates had been found, and clearings in the forest had
been noticed, where it is supposed they formed their camps when the
crews were landed. This part of the Florida coast with its tortuous
channels and land-locked bays is precisely the position that buccaneers
would have chosen for careening their vessels and for all purposes that
required concealment after their raids upon the Spaniards.
Upon one of the islands near the main-land there was an ancient kitchen
midden or shell mound of unusual size. We found that it extended along
the beach for eight hundred yards. It averaged eighty yards in width
and was forty feet high. It was composed principally of large oyster
shells, but there were also the shells of clam fish and numerous
smaller shells. The mound throughout its length presented on its face
a series of alternate layers of earth, about half-an-inch thick. The
thickness of these intervening deposits of shells was greater than at
Damariscotta in Maine, from which fact it may be inferred that the
tribes who came here were more numerous, or that they were capable
of extraordinary powers of consuming oysters. Upon cutting away
portions of the outer slope of the mound, we found many fish bones and
quantities of fragments of broken pottery.
Not far from the shell mound was an ancient Indian burial place.
Captain Clarke had made excavations into it, and amongst the
accumulation of bones he had found some flint arrow heads and a few
rude stone axes. I examined these and noticed that they were similar
to those that had been found in several of the burial mounds of the
Iroquois. As I wished to see this mound for the purpose of ascertaining
certain points respecting the methods of burial adopted by the Florida
Indians, Captain Clarke proposed that we should make an examination of
it.
The heap was irregular in shape and about four hundred yards in
circumference at the base. It consisted entirely of quantities of human
skulls and bones. We examined it sufficiently to enable certain facts
to be made clear. From the manner in which groups of skulls and thigh
bones were placed and separated, it was evident that the burials took
place at considerable intervals of time. This is in accordance with
what is known of the funeral customs of the Indians in Florida and the
southern parts of the Mississippi Valley at the time of the expedition
of De Soto.
It was then ascertained that in each of the villages there was a large
building in which were kept boxes containing human bones. Before the
bones were collected in this manner, the bodies had been placed in
the adjacent forest, exposed to the air but raised on a scaffolding
sufficiently high to prevent them from being disturbed by wild animals.
After a suitable time had elapsed the bones were separated and
cleaned, and were then deposited in the charnel-house, where religious
ceremonies were frequently performed. Upon certain occasions, when the
boxes were getting full, the bones were taken away and conveyed to the
tribal burial place.
Judging from the manner in which the bones were deposited in the mound,
it is probable that they were brought in their separate cases, and that
the contents of each case were carefully kept together and finally
thrown out in separate heaps. The occasions when the bones were brought
here, may have been those when the tribes made their migrations to
the seacoast. The methods of cleaning and removing the bones of the
Indians in Florida were similar to those of the Dakotas.
On the coast, a few miles north of Cedar Keys, there were other large
shell mounds, and in Tampa Bay I was shown the position of a long and
extensive range of similar heaps on its southern shores. It is evident
that before the sixteenth century there must have been a numerous
aboriginal race inhabiting these coasts. The scattered remnants of the
tribes that remained in Florida at the conclusion of the last Indian
war in this region, have been removed and placed upon lands beyond the
Mississippi.