Mystery of the Maya

I'm currently in the beautiful town of Antigua, the old colonial capital in the heart of Guatemala.  The town is surrounded by three massive volcanoes so, as you can see, the scenery is spectacular.  Also, because the town is in the heart of the Guatemalan highlands, the countryside is full of the original Mayan people who come into town to sell their embroidery.  While the men dress conventionally, the women still wear their traditional costumes, some of which are stunning.

In the last week or so I have travelled down the coast of Mexico, through Belize and into Guatemala, and in the course of that journey, I've taken in three different Mayan sites: Tulum, set against the backdrop of the Caribbean, and Coba and Tikal set deep within the jungle.

Mayan ruins are scattered throughout Mexico and Guatemala, yet the mystery of these people endures.  Each site represents a city-state and the size of these sites - Tulum for example is spread over a 100km radius - suggests a population for each state in the hundreds of thousands.  Yet around 900 AD the Mayan civilisation went into serious decline.  No one knows the exact reason.  Some have argued that the eruption of a massive volcano in central Guatemala around that time created a cloud that caused crop failure over successive harvests.  

Another theory has the Mayan decline more political than natural.  The Mayans had a highly hierarchical society, with the King at the top, followed by the nobles and priests, the artisans, and finally the peasants, responsible for food production, at the bottom.  The focus of the people was directed at the top.  It was the King and nobles who possessed the written language and astronomical knowledge that allowed crops to be planted on certain dates, and this was divined from the gods.  To ensure success, the gods had to be continually appeased with human sacrifice.  This led to an almost continuous state of warfare between the cities and the building of increasingly monumental pyramids where these sacrifices took place.  Yet once crop failure and continual war devalued sacred knowledge,  the Maya civilisation fell apart.  In this sense, the decline of the Maya follows the pattern of those other great monument makers - the Easter Islanders.  

Today of course, the ruins make a powerful statement on what has gone before.  While Tulum is rightfully the most famous: full of towering pyramids largely intact, the site of Coba was probably my favourite.  The ruins of Coba, spread over almost 70 kms of jungle, are connected by tracks through the bush, with the preferred way of taking it in, by push bike.  In the photo below, from the top of one pyramid you can just make out the tip of another, within the jungle. 

There is something wonderfully atmospheric about riding a bike through these mostly deserted tracks, watching butterflies dance in the mottled light, the wind rustling the rainforest canopy, with monkeys and birds screeching above, and wondering what life must have been like here all that time ago. 

 

The hierarchical structure of the old civilisation left the Maya prone to the Spanish conquistadors.  Once they had wiped out the nobles, the Spanish could quite easily slip into their place and enslave the peasants as indentured labour.  Today the indigenous people, as in the rest of Central and South America, remain on the lowest rung of society.  Indeed, more than most civilisations, one can generally determine social status by skin colour, with the European-looking settlers at the top, the mestizos (mixed blood) in the middle, and the small and dark Maya, at the base.

 

Still, the Mayan retain their belief systems.  Yesterday, I took a bike ride into the countryside and came across this shrine to Saint Simon.  This Saint (with the moustache, red tie and shawl!) represents a blend of Mayan and Catholic beliefs.  It was fascinating to watch the local people enter the shrine and light their candles - red for a love request, green for wealth, pink for health, and black to put a hex on their enemy, while the Shaman at the front of the Shrine (the guy in the red shirt: red being the sacred Mayan colour), shook the worshippers down with the branch of a tree, took a sip of corn liquor and sprayed this over them. 

The photo on the right shows plaques in the same shrine, giving thanks to Saint Simon for providing the various things prayed for and delivered - whether this be a marriage, a child or a car.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I'm heading for a famous Mayan market, Chichiaentengo, deeper into the Guatemalan countryside.  As they say in the movies, there be Indians in them thar hills.