Campeche and the Rio Bec Route

Edzna - Five Story Building

The state of Campeche, south of Yucatan state, is the Mayan road less traveled. The stark limestone Yucatan Peninsula is gentler here, the hills of Campeche woolly green with elegant cows still wearing their horns, horses, green fields, crops, meadows, fragrances everywhere, even without blossoms. We first visited the Mayan city of Edzna.

With its lofty structures--the loftiest a five story pyramid on top of a man-made acropolis--Edzna is a showplace for visiting diplomats. We had arrived past three in the afternoon, the most pleasant hour. As usual, the placards at the entrance assured us that no, extraterrestrial creatures had not assisted the Mayans. Guatemalan refugees, paid through international funds since 1986, have cleared monumental plazas, (these Mayan cities were in constant

Stucco of Evening God, Edzna

touch and rivalry with the Guatemalan Mayans, hence the "Peten" style of architecture, and the employment of Guatemalans) which have such a massive ceremonial character that the dearth of information and decor is irrelevant. Edzna was the most important pre-Columnbian city in Western
Campeche, occupied from 600 BC till the 15th c. , its apogee 600-900 AD. It once covered 25 sq km.

Some stair stones are carved with glyphs or primitive drawings, but it is the presence of these tall acropolis', higher levels of higher buildings, that awe. How the Mayan laborers must have welcomed Christianity--the Mayans had no draft animals, only humans. The famous five story building is spellbinding. Then we had departed for the sea, the Gulf of Mexico and its sulfurous odors, mountains of salt and lagoons.

Pelicans of Champoton

Cabanas of Mirador Maya

We stayed the night in a cement hotel ("Pook Inn") at the western port of Champoton, where pelicans and egrets nested across on an island while we slept. In the morning we roamed to the port, to find the one cup of real coffee in town at the market and watch the pelicans wait politely for the fishermen to bring in their catch. We drove up and down the hills of Campeche, through the village of Silvituc, a kind of paradise where pigs and their young wandered, herds of goats led themselves around, roosters and dogs ran free, and people seemed deaf and mute to us. Xpuhil is the only place with any sort of, and all sorts of hotels. We passed on a de-vitalized and expensive eco village and a vast empty sad hotel with a desperately affectionate and beautiful little female dog. We found comfortable little wooden cabanas at the Mirador Maya, with its straw roofed restaurant against a rough limestone abutment. Though we were just by the highway, we were also on the verge

Stucco of Balamku, the king disgorged from monsters

of Biosphere Reserve and the stars were remarkably
vivid.

From Xpuhil we made our way through what is known as the Rio Bec region, in eastern Campeche. Our first stop was Balamku, Home of the Jaguar, inhabited 300 BC to 1500 AD, with its peak 300-600 AD. Ruins with Chene masks--the curly-nosed Chaac---scatter along the delicate forest of palms and palmettos and mangroves. At the end, through a Mayan arch, is the great find. Protected by a rebuilt wall of the pyramid is a 7 meter frieze in stucco, an artistic embodiment of Mayan belief. Monsters' heads alternate with fierce exultant jaguars at the sun's rise, and sun's set. From the heads of the monsters rise four grotesque amphibians who disgorge four handsome kings, seated cross-legged like Buddha, still slightly ruddy with paint. It is from the 6th c and the beauty of the stucco molding is remarkable.

Balamku's frieze refers both to dynasties and to and solar cycles. As the kings rise from the earth

Balamku: the Earth Monster

monster's maw, the Sun emerges from the Earth's mouth. The ruler's death is a sunset, a fall into the monster's mouth. The large masks and jaguars express the wealth of the earth, and the amphibians rule the transition between these two worlds.

We drove on to Chicanna, the elite ceremonial site of Becan, where palaces and towers of masks of Itzamna are guarded on the corners by the big nose gods--no longer referred to as Chaac here. Chicanna was the small elitist center of Becan, and had important commercial connections as far as Honduras. Ocupied 300 BC-1100 AD. The last palace is the great open fanged mouth of the monster (Chicanna means serpent's mouth) leading into the bowels of the building, celebrating Itzamna, principal god of the Maya pantheon, the Earth Monster. This is again the classic Mayan symbolism of nature's bounty and savagery, where the earth is a monster that

Chicana: Door is the mouth of the Serpent

disgorges good and evil, who fight it out for mastery, and the ruler appears from the jaws of the monster.

Another day I drove the long road to the International Biosphere of Calakmul, the first 50 km on highway, then 20 km thru the forest. There is a required stop where we visited the beautiful museum which reiterated the millions of years of history of the Yucatan peninsula, with Mayan stucco friezes that refer to entering the underworld, elegant pottery of vulture's heads and models of the famous stelae and paintings. The first Mayas settled in jungles like this, cultivated and gathered food, and saw the native animals as divine forces, with a magical-religious status. They felt bound strongly to nature, their constant companion.

Wild turkey of Calakmul

Calakmul has 94 species of mammals, 300 resident and migratory bird species, 20 species of amphibians , 73 species of reptiles, 18 species of fish and many invertebrates. There are stable populations of jaguar, puma, white-lipped peccary, Guatemalan black howler, ornate hawk-eagle, tapir and great curassow. 47 species of bats play a very important role. For example, the pygmy fruit-eating bat has a membrane on its nose which fascinated the ancient Mayas, who drew it on ceramics and bas-reliefs Calakmul formed partof a regional coalition with the Peten region, in constant conflict with Tikal.

Viewing another structure from a pyramid, Calakmul

Structure II viewed from Structure I

We proceeded another slow 30 km through forest to the sprawling archeological site. Wild turkeys wander, shimmering peacock hues, and fox-like creatures stroll nearby--some people saw apes. The delicate jungle of slippery light and palms and pale earth and enormous deciduous trees hid everything and made orientation difficult. So we followed arrows, blindly, past dark ponderous ruins with little distinction, to areas of unlovely acropoli, till we reached the man plazas, where the Pyramids were broad and high. At the top of Structure I we appreciated the immense height of these raised pyramids that rise above the forest. It is filled with stelae giving the lineages of kings and their dates of ascension. No other site is referred to so frequently by other Mayan cities (80 known times) throughout Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and Mexico, for this was a mighty center of Empire in direct conflict with the Tikal of Guatemala. To imagine the labor, the staggering sacrifice of the workers, to build these mountains of stone. Structure II is even higher, from which the vast jungle

spread below.

5th c official, Becan

Another day we visited the Mayan city of Becan, the capital of the Rio Bec, buried in its forest. Its massive ruins with Rio Bec decor had been occupied from 550 BC, its apogee 600-800 AD, and it was abandoned in 1200 AD. The buildings were crumbling but palacial, with labyrinths of rooms, often laid bare to the sky. A frieze from the 5th c was preserved behind glass, of a high official looking like a Mexican politican, but clear as a statue in a church. Above his head were stacked other monsters. An intruiguing pasageway, covered in its length by a Mayan arch, used to run 60 km through the city, with niches along it for offerings.

Xpuhil

Finally, at the site of Xpuhil, we entered the white way through the shimmering forest to some truly dispiriting ruins, dark and heavy--even the plaque called the site "a mere skeleton" of its original self. We rounded a sad structure to suddenly see Structure I with its 3 towers, crumbling but spectacular. We climbed little crooked stairways to look out from high doorways. Splendid feline masks in remnant form had faced these towers, high above our heads. As I sat alone near the edge of the woods a beautiful fox-like creature trotted along its shimmering leaves,

indifferent to our existence.

Xpuhil, Structure I: Feline monsters face the West

The Puuc Route of the Yucatan

Pyramid of the Dwarf, Uxmal

A region in the Yucatan of rare hills (Puuc in Mayan) has a network of beautiful classical Mayan cities. The Puuc Route once teemed with many thousands of inhabitants, mostly tillers of the land in a dense region, around 600-1000 AD. The Puuc Region had extensive trade networks in the Classical era, and exported salt, honey, cotton feathers and wax for scarce items like obsidian. It flourished thanks to the development of underground water cisterns to catch the rain, called chultunes, which could hold up to 35,000 liters of water each.

So we headed south from Merida over the riverless limestone peninsula, passing truckloads of doomed pigs. Hawks soared and a few vultures stood by the road, sometimes even at bus stops.

Serpents of the sky, hiboux of the night

Uxmal

The beautiful Uxmal, "thrice built" center of power had no crowds to distract from the pale, cleanly restored architecture gleaming like the snakeskin it is meant to represent. It once covered 12 square km, with 20,000 people, but now we see only the civic and religious center. It had been built, legend had it, by a dwarf who defeated the old ruler with magic, aided by his mother the witch. The pyramid of the dwarf stands in silent dignity over the elaborately decorated courtyards on its west, and the intertwined levels of buildings like man-made hills. Inside the courtyards are beautifully faced buildings, with a gentler narrative than Chichen Itza and much more beautiful: birds, two-headed serpents and the mosaic "jalousies," diamond patterns resembling serpent scales, large masks, many of Chaac the rain god. Inside, under the peaked Mayan vaults, is coolness, guano, iguanas and sometimes the sense of an intimate, dangerous presence. The "Birds' Courtyard" has clearly defined themes on each of its four sides, of serpents, hiboux for the day and the night, and of course Chaac. Another cluster is around the

The "Cemetery", Uxmal

Governor's palace on whose roof is a serpentine design made of Chaac masks. W e climbed the Great Temple Pyramid to the Temple of Macaw where we could the priest's head emerging from the mouth of the terrestrial monster on two undamaged corners, a common symbolism. A simple and dignified House of the Turtles (900-1000 AD) showed the esteem toward these important animals, part of the Aquatic Cult.

We found an unadvertised area called "The Cemetery", a latter day name, decorated with skulls, bones, eyeballs and other

macabre symbols. But no explanation for it was given.

Temple of the Masks, Kabah

The second power was Kabah (The Powerful Hand), occupied since 500 AD, but mainly built later. The temple of the masks (decorated with 300 Chaac masks) bears systematic decorative motifs. Snake elements, like rattles, compose the Chaac faces. You can climb it to find 1 1/2 magnificent nobles, larger than life, standing at the decorative roof level. Only the Northern, aristocratic site has begun to be excavated. Across the road of Kabah is its famous Arch,

which has slight remains of red handprints, and the beginning of a sacbe (earth road) to Uxmal.

Lords of Kabah

Not far off is the third great city of Sayil, the densest area in the Puuc where 10,000 once lived, as well as a suburb of 7,000, in 700-1000 AD. Its glorious palace looks almost Minoan, with a roseate, monumental surface decorated with columns and masks. The 90 rooms (and 8 chultunes) could have housed 350 inhabitants but its actual history is not well understood. Flocks of red swallows lived inside the palace, spread their rusty wings and zoomed around us. They slithered up trees, lizard-like, as we walked further on the raked red soil to see more fragmentary buildings--a mirador with semi-collapsed rooms and a ragged comb on top, a half buried temple with blackened doorways, one with glyphs--a mount of rubble

Palace of Sayil

surmounted by remnants of a classic Puuc temple.

For lunch we went to the little village of Santa Elena there are, unusually, a "Bed and Breakfast" and a "Flycatcher's Inn" among others. We ate at a comfortable restaurant Chaac Mol filled with round women and children, geese and roosters, the cook over an open air fire. The large menu included vegetarian, the women were infinitely sweet, and we chatted with a bright eyed couple from northern New Mexico. (They later told us that lunch led to La Turista---but that was one day when my stomach was fine.)

Xlapac

These archeological sites seem all to have live-in guardians who keep sweet dogs, and close down at 4:30, so we attempted only one more that day, Xclapac, free of charge. In the red woods of this land of rare fertile soil, under slender rustling trees of mangroves and mimosas, the afternoon's fierceness had abated. We had a pleasant stroll to see a palace in Puuc style, a classical austere style compared with the hectic Chaac masks of the Chene style. The Chaac masks survived through the eras, along with other motifs such as a zigzag named for the centipede, chimez. The other Americans pulled in as we were pulling out, as the guardian watched TV without moving, and we drove off through gentle forest preserves to reach the

highway.

The Arch of Labna

On another day, the Mayan city of Labna cast an immediate spell. A wind blew the heat along under the bluest sky and trees creaked and spoke while palm leaves beat out rhythms in their dry restlessness. The palace, in its chaotic condition, was still beautifully, stately Puuc. We crossed the old plaza, on a sacbe, to the mirador, high on a pile of stones, that once held ball players standing on its high comb. Labna's arch is famous, with its remnants of decor, as is the Temple of Columns.

Nearby are the caves of Loltun, caves that had been inhabited from 10,000 years ago through the 19th c. Bones of the Pleistocene era, of mammals that have been extinct 14,000 years, have been found there. Pottery remains date from 1000BC-1250 AD. At the entrance is an Olmec-style frieze (500 BC) of the god Shibalba, of the underworld. Our chatty guide worked hard for his only pay, our tip, almost like a clever street guy from the Bay Area, gordito with a wispy

Shibalba, 500 BC, Loltun

Traps of mastadons, Loltun

Genghis Khan beard. He told us his theory that the Olmecs were Mongolians. His version of the Mayan story is that his ancestors were peacefully meditating in their caves till the Olmec introduced human sacrifice to please a whole pantheon of gods. According to his world view. the Mayan long count has been a long history of autodestruction. Now the new era provides the return to the peaceful roots. Do the Mayan villagers believe that? I asked. They live in fear of the Catholic church, but they feel it. We felt disoriented by his narrative and the spell of the beautiful cool caverns whose rocks told geologic and human time stretching back so many thousands of years. This was the realm that opened to the underworld in an older religion of light and dark, the living and the dead. Cenotes (sinkholes) opened up to the sky, but without water. Mastadons and sabre toothed tigers used to be trapped in

Handprints almost 10,000 years old

them. The Mayans covered the holes and stampeded them across. But now they are idyllic, dripping with green and sunlight from above.

Rutos de los Conventos of the Yucatan

St. Anthony of Padua, Tekit

From Merida there is an excursion through some of the villages of today's Maya, with beautiful churches of yesterday's Spanish, called La Ruta de los Conventos. We joined the route at a simple, dusty village in the outskirts of Merida, Kanasin, with an endless traffic jam of bicycle rickshaws, a busy market and countless stray dogs, to reach Acanceh, the first stop. Named "the moan of the deer" in Mayan, for the sound the Spanish heard on their arrival, Acanceh is made imposing by the 17th c gold painted Franciscan church, looming over a dusty parking lot and market. The church inside retains little of its former glory, quite spare with the purple-vested priest sitting on the side hearing confession. In fact, my impression of Acanceh was of difficult lives, human and canine, in the eyes of the lame beggars who approached us, in the market, in the huge dusty parking lot, in the eyes of the local men lined up to monitor the "modern" banos.

Defaced stucco mask, Acanceh

Squirrel god frieze at Acanceh

On either side of the mighty cathedral were Mayan ruins. Ancient Acanceh had flourished 300-600 AD when it had 400 structures and covered 4 square kilometers. The nearby pyramid protected five defaced stucco masks, 600-800 AD. The medium of stucco was easier to work than limestone and such masks have a beautiful realism, heavy Mayan symbolism, but vulnerability to damage. These were already defaced by the time they were uncovered in the 20th c. A few hundred metres away another pyramid has rare frescoes of a monkey god, a rabbit god and a bat god. Below, crumbling stucco walls led to poverty-stricken homes, of cement or straw. The neighborhood dogs also sought their living, covered in dust and fleas.

The firecrackers at the head of the procession

The procession

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Beyond was Tecoh where the road was blocked for a procession. We found our way, nonetheless, into the village (and parked across from Internet/Facebook/Skype Tecoh) on a route through the merciful shade of private yards, filled with makeshift arrangements of plastic containers, whose homes were concrete boxes or corrugated tin or traditional grass shacks. The procession, carrying a statue of the Virgin, approached the huge cathedral sitting atop the foundation of a destroyed Mayan pyramid. First came the men with firecrackers, then the young clergy in maroon and white robes, swinging incense, then swarmed the families, women in their pretty huipil, generations clinging to each other. Finally rickshaws brought up the infirm and the 1%. Inside the packed Cathedral a lush tenor sang something close to a mariachi song, people lined up with flowers and sprigs of green, to feed the large doll which had been carried there. Families squirmed all around. We walked through the convent, or rather monastery, with its comfortable, clean luxury and incredibly well stocked liquor cabinet. The crowds dispersed under the relentless sun, along dusty calles lined with crumbling stucco bars and convenience stores. Under the wilting sun it took forever to exit the dense village.

Mayapan

The next stop on the route is the archeological site of Mayapan, the last great Mayan settlement (1250-1450), thought by some to have been built by the Toltec conqueror Kukulcan. It is a minature of Chichen Itza, as many of the late Mayan cities seemed to have a reduced scale. Beautifully articulated pyramids and an astronomical cylinder tower bear remnants of decor. There are a few remaining masks of the rain god Chaac, a beautiful blue floor painting of an aquatic scene, frescoes of decapitated warriors, remnants of color. There were once 4,000 buildings, the vast majority still unexcavated, and many cenotes. There is dispute--having survived the fall of Chichen Itza--was Mayapan the conqueror of that huge realm?

View from a pyramid at Mayapan

We stopped for lunch at an eco hotel Na'Lu'um, Mother Earth, most unexpected on the barren roads which led to villages where not even primitive hotels could be found. I had an exquisite fruit salad but Jacques was less happy with doughy empanadas, covered nonetheless with perfect tomato sauce.

Spanish colonial pulpit, Tekit

The village of Tekit, where we went another day, had a more comfortable feel, much of the cement painted at least on the facade, and small tokens of decor, but still even more grass huts in the yards. These sometimes housed livestock, but mostly were spare living spaces with hammocks hanging inside. Some had becomes kitchens, some had TVs in the concrete lined interior, the exterior made of sticks and straw. The interiors of these traditional dwelling places feel soothing. The monumental church was dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua.

Convent at Mama

In Mama, where there is the oldest convent, we walked in the grassy yard toward the old stone blocks of a cloister, where two small teenagers emerged looking guilty. In an adjoining yard where a handsome Mayan woman was flinging palmetto leaves by her grass hut of rooster cages, and horse with a graing face stood tied, there was an old crumbling stone dome, perhaps the bishop's old house. Carefully enclosed in lower stone walls was some kind of Mayan ruin. The heat was devastating but school kids wore uniforms and some sweaters. At length we were led by a young man's rickshaw taxi in Ticul to the restaurant Los Almendros, where we ate under a grass roof in a grassy lawn bya pool, with swings from the trees and suspicious dogs, the only customers for the twinkly-eyed, hairnet-wearing staff.

At Chumayel

We wound back hoping to find churches had opened. Chumayel was, famous for being where the Chilim Balam had been found. During the years of the Spanish conquest in Yucatan, a chilam or witch named Balam (Jaguar) prophesied the arrival of Christianity, the war and the final enslavement of the Mayas. With the passage of centuries, other Chilamob added myths, legends, cryptic poetry in the voices of gods, histories, lineages, divine deeds, peregrinations, real and magic battles, explanations of celestial phenomena, and laments over the cruelty experienced in those times so difficult, as well as spells and incantations. Small and simple, the church's retable was lovely in the dim light, where the black crucified Christ with his embroidered diaper was almost invisible behind glass. The old spirits of the church hovered around two Mayan ladies as we wandered to the bare, except for another bloody yet immaculately diapered crucifixion, stucco cloister.

From Chilim Balam

Mani

The impressive pink Mani convent where de Landa had burned 700 books was closed, but preparations were under way for a rodeo in the stifling heat. A slab of bark, with some stone architectural frgments had a quote from Chilim Balam: "Life is wilting and the heart of its flowers is dead. And those who put their cup down to the bottom, those who stretch it until it breaks, damage and suck the flowers of the others."

Cloister at Mama

The oldest village, Mama, was beautiful, with its original wood painted retable, several chapels, and quaint Spanish colonial pulpits. Kids followed us, giggling, into the church were swallows zoomed. Behind the church, we entered the old convent with its atrium of palm trees and cool separate rooms under log ceilings, where mothers and children met in the various rooms, discussing, singing, working. It was a beautiful haven for mothers in the evening hours, to gather and bring their children. All these Franciscan buildings had been built on Mayan ruins, with Mayan stone, by the hands of the Mayan slaves. And in Mama, the ornate dense swirling carvings on the portal had been rendered by Mayan stone masons. We drove home in the dark, the small roads more mysterious than ever.

Chichen Itza and Human Sacrifice

Pyramid of Kulkulcan

Of all the archeological sites of the Yucatan, only the ancient city of Chichen Itza--"Mouth of the Well" or "City of Water Witches"--is mobbed with tourists and souvenirs. Well restored and vast, it was a powerful city of the late Mayan era (11-13th c.) that blended Mexican cultures under the Toltec symbol of the feathered serpent, reaching a large Mayan trade network. The friezes carved into its monuments have clear, often brutal images of skeletons and jaguars and eagles feasting on human hearts, with a theme of human sacrifice. Rebuilt numerous times over the 1500 years of its existence, it displays a blend of Mayan Puuc and Chene styles with the powerful Toltec style.

Steps of the pyramid

Proud and fierce are the first impressions on entering the site (after running the gauntlet of tour guides, souvenir hawkers, multiple charges at the ticket counter, not to mention the heat of the day) where the first pyramid, the Kulkulcan Pyramid (named for the cult of Quetzacoatl, Kulkulcan in Yucatec) is 25 meters high and an architectural calendar, with 365 steps and levels corresponding to the Mayan calendar. On the days of the equinoxes, the steps cast a lengthening shadow that resembles the great serpent himself descending down the pyramid to earth.

Toltec style serpents above and jaguars below

Head of Kulkulcan

Chichen Itza was a place of pilgrimage (and human sacrifice) even when it was not a great power, and its main cenote, or sinkhole (7 fathoms deep), was a sacred place where countless bones, jewelry and other artifacts have been excavated. The US Consul to the Yucatan in 1900, Edward Thompson, bought the ruin of Chichen Itza for himself and shipped its countless precious artifacts off to the Peabody Museum at Harvard. During times of drought humans were thrown in for sacrifice. Another custom was to load the victim, often a child, with jewelry before tossing it in at dawn. If it was still alive by noon, it was made to prophesy.

Eagles feasting on human hearts

The northern Toltec-influenced end of Chichen Itza includes the Temple of the Jaguars and the Temple of Venus, named for the planet (a dreaded heavenly body), symbol of Kulkulcan. These bear symbols of eagles and jaguars feasting on human hearts. On the temple of a thousand pillars, high above, the face of the semi-mythological Kulkulcan (Quexacoatl) emerges from the mouth of the terrestrial monster. This motif is repeated throughout the Mayan world: the king emerges from multiple layers of existence, monsters, dragons, mythical amphibians and birds disgorge one another and, finally, disgorge the king.

Decapitation--snakes and flowers gush out with the blood

The most important ball court in the Mayan world is one of the ten at Chichen Itza. The ball game, which was older than Greek or Chinese games by many centuries, culminated in the beheading of the leader of the losing team, and probably the teammates as well. On the smudged walls of the ball court the theme is repeated over and over, the captain seated or kneeling while he's decapitated, his neck sprouting serpents, flowers and symbols of the fertility that comes from death. We eavesdropped on a Spanish tour guide, who insisted that it was the winning team who was sacrificed, but most sources hold that the losers were killed. Nearby is the Tzompantli, on which every stone is engraved with a skull, another Toltec innovation.

Tzompantli

The gentler, older sites were beautifully preserved--the so-called nunnery group of elaborately decorated upper stories and combs on the roofs, dense, swirling assemblies of the rain god Chaac's masks with the elements we've seen on clay totems, bird, monster man. The colorado, the red house, ornate and solitary. The many images of the rain god, Chaac, an architectural element of the Puuc.

Chene style building

It was dramatic and interesting, and yet Chichen Itza was a circus, with vendors claiming to be the real Mayans (one of the guidebooks warned us against them) lining the ancient sacbe roads with their wares, calling out Chica! Argentine? Spanish? At the end of the day they called out: Quasi gratuito! (Almost free!) The finish they polished into their wooden masks smelled of gasoline in the jungle.

Masks of curly-nosed Chaac, the rain god

What was it like to worship gods who hated, who demanded human sacrifice like wild beasts, jaguars and eagles with their taste for human hearts? We could hear guides explaining to their tourists that the Mayans were good, gentle people, it was the Toltecs who were bad. But we would hear many Yucatecans wrestle with the fact that human sacrifice had been Mayan from the beginning, and was still practiced at the time the Spanish arrived.

Puuc style - the Colorado

Though some of the placards at various sites state that until recently the Mayan were believed to be gentle and peaceful, it is hard to believe that since Friar Diego de Landa's book, written 1563-1572, details sacrificial practices which were going on at the time. They included dancing circles around victims and systematically lettting loose arrows into their hearts (some of these victims were offered by their own parents), digging out hearts (and afterwards often the priest would wrap himself in the flayed skin of the victim), and most often dragging prisoners, who had been duly sanctified and purified, to the site of the sacrifice and slowly killing them by piercing them with spears and arrows. Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974), the Guatemalan Nobel laureate, grew up near the Maya, wrote:

"The warriors were dancing, raining arrows on the prisoners, fully attired and tied to the trunks of trees.
Upon the arrival of the chief, a sacrificer, dressed in black, put in his hands a blue arrow.

The sun was piercing the city, drawing its arrows with the bow of the lake,

The birds were piercing the lake, loosening their arrows with the bow of the woods.

Chene style

The warriors were forgetting their victims, careful not to wound them to death, to prolong the celebration of their agony.

The chief tightened the bow and loosened the blue arrow on the youngest of the prisoners, to mock him, to adore him. Then the warriors rained arrows on him, from far, from near, dancing to the sound of their drums."