THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK NINE: BOOK of the JAGUAR PRIEST

CHAPTER FORTY ONE

The number of Oficiales was thirteen: one each from the six largest villages in the Guardia of Santa Cruz, six from the capital (including both Moises Lum and Pedro Yoac) and, presiding over all, there was the empty mat for the Jefe who had not yet returned. Even unto the moment when Yoac began his long-awaited plea to summon Chankik, Colonel Lum held out hope that Silvestro Kaak would appear at the door to the hut in which the meeting was taken place. The mat set out for him remained empty... howsoever Pedro glanced longingly at it... the Oficiales squatted on their heels and Juan Kui, seeing no place to hang a hammock, dragged a wooden ammunition box inside and sat on that (disturbing, especially, the jefes of the villages no less than a zopilote in its tree disrupts by its presence, alone, a funeral).

Pedro Yoac was no master of oratory. He merely repeated bluntly what all of them, even Lum and Kui, knew to be truth. Not since the days of the Caste War had the rain been so late. The nameless days were near, days on which it was customary no work be done... for such endeavors would be cursed and futile. Traditional ceremonies had not succeeded, and Miguel Chankik had declared his willingness to serve. His method would be appropriate to the day and to the circumstances... and it was by no means certain he would ask for blood. But, in the absence of the Tatoob, it was the duty of these Oficiales to decide.

Moises Lum replied then that, although it was true the rains had been late, there were other measures that could be taken without calling Chankik and acceding to his certain demand for blood. There were legal issues... could the Oficiales sanction that which each knew the brujo must ask for without permission of their jefe? Finally, it was recalled that Miguel Chankik had consorted with the Mexicans, that he had advised General Ignacio Bravo himself. Was such a figure to be trusted on the authority of the Oficiales? Might not this be another dzulob plot?

The expressions of the rest were brief and were, without exception, sympathetic to Pedro Yoac. "It may be an evil thing that we do," the jefe of Nohpop conceded. "And certainly Chankik has consorted with Mexicans, a fault which few of us... least of the Halach Uinic... have escaped. When life itself is threatened, such questions become irrelevant. During the war, many things we did now seem detestable, but we survived and we prevailed. The Mexicans are gone, but in the hour of our victory came plague and, now, this new threat. Juan de la Cruz tests us. Chicle is our wealth, but corn our life! Were we forced to buy wheat or rice, we would be no better off than had we lost the war. We would be defeated. Summon the wizard!"

A Teniente, Adam Chol, responded directly to Colonel Lum. Though not yet twenty years of age, this Teniente had gained a reputation as the bad hand of Pedro Yoac, as Pedro had been that of the Tatoob.

"Everything my Colonel says is truth," and there could be no argument as to which of the Colonels he meant. "Now," the Teniente said, "we are told that we must not invite this curandero, for his association with the Mexicans. Is that the sum of our objection? Well if it is," said Chol, "is there one man among us who has not conspired with Bravo, or whom is not the son and tribesman of a collaborator?"

A guilty cloud hung over the Oficiales, a gloom so thick that even Kui, who truly had had no part in those dealings in the monte, could not speak up.

"Who are we to judge Chankik? Our sins are the instruments of our survival. If it is a blessed extinction that we desire, let us declare so, otherwise we do what we have to do. The Halach Uinic will understand... in this respect he is no better than we."

These last words broke the silence of the jefes and their grunts and mutterings intensified until Pedro Yoac asked "Is it decided?"

"There is one who has not spoken," said Moises Lum. "Hear him, before you commit yourself to abominations."

"My eyes see the schoolmaster, as well as yours," Yoac replied, "and, although he has no authority among us, my ears are open as should be those of all of us. Let him say what he will... but then let us settle this matter. Time grows short."

Juan Kui nodded. "I agree that this decision should not be prolonged. Let me, however, say something that may sound fantastic to you, even more so than the claim that the witch doctor whom you speak of can cause rain to fall by dancing and waving a rattle or... as in the old days... that form of murder which caused Juan de la Cruz to send the Mexicans to have dominion over our sinful natures for twenty katunes. Like morality, science rejects the blood sacrifice. It holds the frame by which Miguel Chankik constructs the skies and names their aspect false... utterly, wholly false."

"What then, Profesor," Yoac asked humbly, "is the truth?"

"There are no layers of the sky," the teacher declared, "no Chacs, no heavens." The jefes looked away at this, fearing a retribution for Kui's blasphemy, but he would not be stilled by man nor God. "There is only space, the boundless void that contains suns and planets, Gloria... whose nature we cannot discern, and whose existence is proven only by a mathematical perfection of the cosmos... and earth... a ball, a little ball, like those of ground corn from which tortillas are formed. About this ball, this earth, loom influences, some of which are wet, others dry."

"What is the nature of these influences?" asked the jefe of Central, a man whose father had had much traffic with Mexicans in the time of the Jackal and whose nature, consequently, was perhaps of a more challenging aspect than those of the other jefes, principally those from Santa Cruz... timid men who followed Silvestro unquestioningly and now, in his absence, the peremptory Colonel Yoac.

"The winds, of course," replied Juan Kui, as if speaking to children who had forgotten this fundamental principle of Maya science, "winds that blow dry or, in the summer months, wet.

"And who is it determining when the dry gives way to the rainy wind," asked the persistent jefe.

"This determination comes from Gloria..." said Kui, for he had become a scientific Socialist, who could not bring himself to name either the Christian or Catolico gods... "taking into account magnetism and gravity, that which makes the coconut fall on the heads of the unwary man, and the condensation of waters." His contempt for these Oficiales was expanding "No man causes these, but there are men who measure and predict the weather."

"Who are these men?" the jefe asked.

"They are Cientificos," Kui responded and a silence fell across the hut. Pedro Yoac turned his face and spat.

"He meant scholars, ingenarios," Lum began, but the apology was scorned.

"Long have the dzulob coveted our land," Yoac said, "and, now that we control the extraction and sale of chicle, they envy our wealth. But we are strong, their soldiers are no match for ours, so they send spies.

"The Chacs understand," Adam Chol chimed in. "Perhaps it is their way of warning us... this drought... to beware of Mexican treachery."

"My nephew was a strong, healthy boy," said the jefe of Nohpop. "This man came to our village and put his hand on the hut of a family who died in the plague year, and said 'this will be the school'. And a man came down from Cozumel, a Mexican... although knowing the language of the mazehualob... and he was the teacher. Now there is a growth above my nephew's eye and he claims he cannot see... he walks into the trees and cannot read the books this teacher gives him, so the teacher beats him and informs my brother that his son is lazy. Now I think that it is education that is causing his disease. And if it can cause blindness, it can cause drought. We have to stand against the Cientificos as one... the way we did when Santa Cruz del Bravo was first occupied by the dzulob."

"Destroy the schools!" exhorted Adam Chol.

"A moment," asked Pedro Yoac, as the Oficiales had risen to their feet. "We have not concluded our business. Is it our will that the rainmaker Chankik be summoned?"

The reply was immediate. The protests of Moises Lum were drowned out, and it was if he was a ghost speaking to those who could not hear and so ignored him. Juan Kui slumped on his box, putting his hand over his face. The Oficiales burst through the door and out to the crowd that awaited their verdict.

"Let's burn the school, first!" Chol urged them, picking up a torch. All Santa Cruz came running to see what the matter was. Torches appeared... quickly, it seemed to Moises Lum, too quickly... and fire was passed one to another.

"The Mexicans are right... Juan Kui said, raising his head. "Ignorant, superstitious savages... they deserve it all. The war, the plague, drought... everything. How is it," he asked Moises Lum, "that as soon as they have gotten what they fought for yet know nothing by it."

"They are not utterly without knowledge," said the Colonel, pointing outside. "They know words, if not meaning..."

"That is worse than if they knew no words at all."

RETURN to HOMEPAGE – “THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ”

RETURN to GENERISIS HOMEPAGE