Jimm Budd's World

     In the beginning...

         There are those who claim Palenque was, in the 7th century, the grandest city on earth. Towering above the Chiapas jungle, the oddly pagoda-like structure called The Palace looms over what is perhaps the most beautiful of the ancient Maya ceremonial centers. Nearby, beneath the neighboring Temple of the Inscriptions lie the bones of Pacal, greatest of the Palenque kings. The discovery in 1952 of his jade-covered skull in a massive stone sarcophagus confounded archaeologists. Until then it was believed that the Mayas, unlike the Egyptians, never used pyramids as tombs.

         The world has come to know more about Pacal, who really existed while Arthur remains at best a legend. Pacal is the celebrity who connects us with the Mexico of long ago. Elsewhere we have the ruins of regal capitals but we know nothing of who ruled them. We have stately statues and plaster mannequins but can only guess whether they were kings or queens.

         Where once it was believed the Mayas huddled in quarreling city-states, now it appears their dominions were more extensive. Palenque seems to have begun as an outpost of Tikal, the biggest of the Maya cities, which is in what is now Guatemala. Under Pacal and maybe his mother before him, Palenque became a rebel colony, a protégé realm briefly outshining its mentor. From what can be gleaned from the stelae – gravestone-like slabs not in cemeteries -- the gods foretold the glory of Pacal thousands of years before his birth.

         Pacal died at eighty.  It was during his long reign that most of the palaces and temples you can explore today at Palenque were built. After the demise of its greatest lord, Palenque went into decline and less than a century afterward, this Maya Camelot was one more Maya ghost town.Conventional wisdom holds that the first inhabitants of the Americas came from Asia possibly 40,000 years ago, crossing the frozen Bering Sea to reach Alaska during the Ice Age. Hunters and gatherers, they followed wild herds moving south, seeking warmth, if not the tropics. Now there is speculation that other migrants arrived from other climes as well. Another 20,000 years would pass before any of them began experimenting with farming. Corn, say the savants, first was cultivated around Tehuacan, a municipality that is famous now for its bottled water. Farming led to a more settled way of life and what we call civilization, although that did not happen overnight.

         It took a while. Then, suddenly, and for no apparent reason, the Olmecs 3,000 years ago almost overnight created what is regarded the mother of Mexican civilizations. Their centers went up along the Gulf Coast in the hot, humid country of what is now southern Veracruz. Gigantic stone heads, some 15 feet high and weighing more than 40 tons, are the hallmark of the Olmec culture. The rock from which they were carved had to be hauled great distances, a feat indicating some prehistoric dictator was giving orders of getting them obeyed.

         More remarkable still, these stone monoliths appear to represent Negroes. Because of the helmets they wear, football players come to mind. Admittedly, Negro is not considered a politically correct word at the moment, but here no other term will do. “African,” after all, might apply to a Libyan Arab or the descendent of Dutch immigrants in Capetown. These stone faces, with their broad, flat noses and thick lips, resemble, well, Negroes. Not only that. One archaeologist, Dr. Clyde Winters, argues that Olmec writing is similar enough to the Manding script in West Africa that he can translate it. Both, he points out, are hieroglyphs. Instead of an alphabet indicating how words are to be pronounced, hieroglyphs refer to concepts and ideas. Olmec tablets, reports Dr. Winters, declare Olmec leaders to be great men. They say little else. The translation hardly seems worth the effort.

         Carved Olmec reliefs, on the other hand, depict what appear to be large-nosed Semites and slant-eyed individuals who could be Japanese. The Bering Strait theory does not quite explain this heterogeneity. No one knows who the Olmecs were where they came from or even what they called themselves. They seem to have come from everywhere yet popped out of nowhere.

Maya Ceremonial Center - Edzna

         The Maya took over when the Olmecs departed. The Maya, happily, are less of a mystery, although not without enigmas of their own. However, at least they are still with us, many rural villagers living much as their ancestors did millenniums ago. Others work in Cancun hotels.

         The Maya are a people – if it does not sound too racist to say it – who share similar features, looking like the siblings or cousins of models for sculptors who sculpted centuries ago. They also share the same culture and speak a language that once must have been like one, but now is split into dialects similar to those spoken in the different regions of Italy, France or Spain. They played a ballgame akin to soccer, which they took quite seriously. Bas reliefs show players being decapitated, blood spurting from the neck to fertilize the earth. Some archaeologists say the victim captained the winning team; others insist he was a loser.

         The Maya golden age began about the time of Caesar Augustus, the birth of the Roman Empire and the Christian era. Archaeologists, usually secular souls, refer to this as the classic period, the Olmecs being pre-classic, middle pre-classic if you want to get into details. We also have early classic, late post-classic and so on, but there will be no quiz on this.

         The Maya forged out no Empire. They lived in city-states, and for the longest time were regarded as highly civilized star-gazing philosophers who developed a calendar more accurate than the one we use today, ruled by sages who discovered the concept of zero long before it was known in Europe. Considering how fiercely – and often successfully – the Maya defended themselves against the Spanish, it is remarkable that they so long were regarded as peace-loving.

         The temple paintings at Bonampak, not too far from Palenque, divulge how warlike they really were. These frescos, covering the interiors of three cramped chambers, depict preparations for battle and the victory celebration going on afterward while groveling, bleeding prisoners await their fate.

         Charlie Frey, an American who sat out World War II in a Chiapas village, first saw the paintings following his marriage. As a member of a Maya family, he learned about the secret paintings at Bonampak during sort of an initiation rite. After the war, perhaps hopeful that his alleged draft-dodging would be forgotten, Frey brought magazine photographers from the United States to see the secluded temples. During one of these expeditions, his canoe overturned and he drowned. Revenging Maya credit their gods for this.

         Much to the annoyance – some would say the shame – of Mexicans today, Americans were the first modern people to show much interest in Mexico’s pre-Hispanic past. Early in the 19^th Century, one John L. Stephens managed to get a diplomatic appointment that allowed him to traipse into the Maya regions of Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan. His accounts of those adventures are still in print. In the early 1900s a Charles Thompson carried out the first real explorations around Chichen Itza. At the time, nobody objected when we sent carvings to a museum at Harvard University. Now, not surprisingly, there are demands that these be returned.

         Another American, this one respectably on the faculty at the University of Texas, demonstrated that the Bonampak ghouls were not an aberration. Linda Schele led the way in deciphering Maya hieroglyphics, symbols that had challenged experts for decades. At first it appeared the carvings and stelae said little more than the Olmec writings did, that the ruler of the moment was a statesman of unparalleled brilliance. But Ms Schele found that usually was a bit more, indicating that the personage was a brawler who included gods among his ancestors and that they had led him to many victories.

Palenque

         At Palenque, Pacal may have been an exception in this respect. No battles are mentioned, although threats are hinted at. The stelae relate that his mother, perhaps a princess, arrived from Tikal in Guatemala about 610 A.D. By then Palenque had been inhabited for possibly a thousand years, but in Tikal terms it was remote, the western edge of the kingdom and the Gateway to Hell (because the sun sets in the west). It may have been a place of exile. The royal mother took over and ruled until her son reached puberty. Ceding the regency, she nonetheless hovered in the background, making certain her young monarch survived. From what can be gleaned from the stelae that Mom no doubt order carved, the gods foretold the glory of Pacal eons before his birth.

         Chan, son of Pacal, followed his father to the throne and ordered more structures built to proclaim his glory and, more important, his legitimacy. Hok succeeded Chan, glyphs on the stelae arguing that he, too, was the anointed of the gods. You gather there may have been some doubt and that trouble followed. No stelae have been found to tell the end of the tale. Defeats seldom are proclaimed. The inference is that there was a palace revolution followed by a civil war. Palenque ended up empty.

         The curious thing about all this is that Maya cities from Honduras and Guatemala into Yucatan all were abandoned at about the same time. No one can say why, although every archaeologist and tourist guide has a theory. This is one of the enigmas I mentioned. Perhaps it was war, revolution, an epidemic or draught. Any one might be a possibility, but why did it all happen at about the same time?

         Simple sagacity holds that the star-gazers knew when the seasons changed, when the rains would come and when corn should be planted. No doubt they learned much from the old Olmec calendar and then improved on it. They kept these secrets from the uninitiated, secrets being their source of power. Astrologers became priests, priests became kings. But if the rains never came? The rain god Chac was supreme among the ancient deities. Showers of blood might inspire him. Human sacrifices would have been called for. Yet if the sacrifices failed? Perhaps the rulers themselves would have been decapitated only to have their secrets dies with them.

         Whatever happened, the cities were abandoned, much as cities would be now if some catastrophe struck and only those who knew how to farm were able to eat. The classic age ended, but the Mayas lived on. New kingdoms were born and then died. Tulum, that Maya ruin visited so often by vacationers to the Mexican Caribbean, was still inhabited when the first Spanish Conquistadors arrived. And even now in hamlets sprinkled out along the Yucatan peninsula, villagers live in houses identical to those carved by the ancients, like those at Uxmal.

         The ruins still standing at archaeological sites throughout Mexico are the remains of shrines, palaces and, sometimes fortifications. Only monumental public buildings were made of stone. Pyramids, unlike those of Egypt which contained tombs, were built primarily as bases for temples. The most famous of these are the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacán, just north of Mexico City. Teotihuacán is the most visited archaeological site in Mexico.

Quetazcoatl

         Like the famous Maya centers, Teotihuacán is classic, dating back to the First Century AD, and maybe even a little before then. But no one knows who built the great city, and a great city it was, one of the ten largest in the world 1,500 years ago. The Teotihuacános may have started out at Cuicuilco, where a circular, pre-classic era pyramid dominates the oldest site in the Valley of Mexico. Cuicuilco is right in Mexico City, not far from the campus of the National University. Draught possibly spurred its people in their migration to Teotihuacán, but what did they call their new metropolis? What language did they speak? Who were their leaders? No one knows.

         Oddly, neighborhoods inhabited by foreigners from other regions have been identified. Teotihuacán might be compared to New York, with its Little Italy, German Yorkville, Chinatown and Spanish Harlem. Immigrants from Yucatan, Oaxaca and Veracruz lived in Teotihuacán but clung to their old ways, according to the ceramics and idols diggers have found. Found also have been the bones of sacrificial victims. But who ordered the executions? Missing are stelae engraved with hieroglyphics or statues of any kings. Teotihuacán extended its influence down into Central America and north nearly to Texas, but whether this involved empire building or was simply limited to trade continues to baffle the wise. Missing from Teotihuacán is any cult of personality.

         Other deities were worshipped, among them the sun god and the god of fire, but Quetzalcoatl seems to have been the patron of Teotihuacán. He may have belonged to the Olmecs a millennium before. Academics nearly come to blows discussing such details. If the Olmecs knew him, it was by a different name, and whether the snakes they carved bore feathers is difficult to determine now. Quetzalcoatl is credited with teaching humans how to use fire, plant corn, domesticate animals, even to play music. That leaves some to speculate that he may have been a visitor from another planet. After all, Olmec civilization developed almost overnight. A more prosaic explanation is that he came from across the Atlantic, for what was taught was limited. Although gold and silver was used to some extent by the time the Spaniards arrived, the country was really still in the Stone Age. There were no metal tools. The only wheels used were those on toys.

         Eventually, barbarians from the north swept down and destroyed Teotihuacán. That is one theory, anyway. There are indications the city was burned. Burned and destroyed, but its gods lived on.

         Among the barbarians from the north were the Toltecs, warriors who did more than destroy. They restored one great city at Cholula near what is now Puebla, and built another at Tula, where pillars carved to resemble warriors hold up a ceiling that no longer exists. Imaginative writers maintain these pillars resemble astronauts, and indeed they do.

         While the rulers of Teotihuacán gloried in anonymity, Toltec heroes made certain their splendors would be remembered. Hieroglyphs painted on barks and skins told of their epic tales, albeit none too clearly. From these parchments we learn of Mixcóatl, the Attila of the Western Hemisphere, who led his people to one triumph after another, halted only by Chimalma, a tigress who won the heart of Mixcóatl when she seized in mid-air the arrows he aimed at her. She consented to rule as his queen and she bore him a prince who became a priest and, like so many others, took the name of the god he served, Quetzalcoatl.

         This priest of Quetzalcoatl proved to be a prince of peace and, according to some texts, this led to his downfall. The more militaristic Toltecs strongly believed in war and human sacrifice, creating, among other things, sculptures of chacmool, a reclining god who held a bowl on his belly. Into the bowl were deposited human hearts. Prince Quetzalcoatl harangued against this, inspiring his enemies to plot his downfall, plying him with drink and leading him into temptations he could not resist.

         Once sober again, this humiliated Quetzalcoatl left in shame, making his way to the Gulf coast where, it is written, he fashioned from snakes a raft that carried him east into the land of the rising sun, promising some day to return. His followers and they were many, promised to await his return. The raft of snakes part may be attributed to poetic license, but hordes of Toltecs did move down the Gulf Coast into Yucatan, where, forgetting what they had been taught about peace, they reinvigorated the Maya, this time attempting to build up a true empire. Chichen Itza, one of the largest and most famous of the ancient Maya sites, is both classic Maya and of Toltec design. The Toltecs themselves were absorbed into the Maya culture. Quetzalcoatl became Kukulkan, for whom the main street in the Cancun hotel zone is named. In Chichen Itza, during the spring equinox, light and shadow make it appear that Quetzalcoatl ,the feathered snake, has crawled out of his temple and is slithering down El Castillo pyramid to fertilize the earth.

         All that carried little weight back in the Valley of Mexico where today Mexico City stands. Of far greater impact was the promise that Quetzalcoatl would return. The Aztecs believed it, and when Hernán Cortés and his Spaniards arrived off what is now Veracruz, the Aztecs were convinced that the prophecy had been fulfilled.

Aztec Eagle Knight

         This priest of Quetzalcoatl proved to be a prince of peace and, according to some texts, this led to his downfall. The more militaristic Toltecs strongly believed in war and human sacrifice, creating, among other things, sculptures of chacmool, a reclining god who held a bowl on his belly. Into the bowl were deposited human hearts. Prince Quetzalcoatl harangued against this, inspiring his enemies to plot his downfall, plying him with drink and leading him into temptations he could not resist.

         Once sober again, this humiliated Quetzalcoatl left in shame, making his way to the Gulf coast where, it is written, he fashioned from snakes a raft that carried him east into the land of the rising sun, promising some day to return. His followers and they were many, promised to await his return. The raft of snakes part may be attributed to poetic license, but hordes of Toltecs did move down the Gulf Coast into Yucatan, where, forgetting what they had been taught about peace, they reinvigorated the Maya, this time attempting to build up a true empire. Chichen Itza, one of the largest and most famous of the ancient Maya sites, is both classic Maya and of Toltec design. The Toltecs themselves were absorbed into the Maya culture. Quetzalcoatl became Kukulkan, for whom the main street in the Cancun hotel zone is named. In Chichen Itza, during the spring equinox, light and shadow make it appear that Quetzalcoatl ,the feathered snake, has crawled out of his temple and is slithering down El Castillo pyramid to fertilize the earth.

         All that carried little weight back in the Valley of Mexico where today Mexico City stands. Of far greater impact was the promise that Quetzalcoatl would return. The Aztecs believed it, and when Hernán Cortés and his Spaniards arrived off what is now Veracruz, the Aztecs were convinced that the prophecy had been fulfilled.

Skull at Great Temple Museum

         In 1325, we are told, the Aztecs founded what is now Mexico City on an island in a lake. They called their settlement Tenochitlan, and they called themselves Mexicas, or, as they pronounced it, Mesheekas. Home was up north in Aztlán, which is how they got the name Aztecs. Wanderers, they came in search of a promised land which, Huitzilopochtli told them, they would know when they came upon an eagle perched upon a cactus devouring a serpent. The image of that snake-eating bird is what you see today in the middle of the Mexican flag. Stan Delaplane, who wrote about travel for the San Francisco Chronicle, once remarked that such any place where eagles sat on cactus leaves gobbling vipers sounded more like hell than heaven, but Huitzilopochtli was the Aztec Moses. Like Moses, he led his people out of misery yet died before the trek ended.

         The Aztecs, like the others who hailed from the north, spoke Nahuatl, although whether one group could comprehend what members of another group were saying is doubtful. I have met Englishmen I could not understand. Yet when the Aztecs passed by Tula on their pilgrimage, they understood enough of its former greatness to declare themselves to be the heirs of the Toltecs. That gave them status, at least in their own eyes.

         By then, Toltec power in the heartland was negligible. The warriors had warred among themselves and split into communities that snarled at each other. The lake by which the Aztecs found their snake-eating serpent was surrounded by hostile principalities that the Aztecs first defended as mercenaries, then went on to conquer.

         The priests who followed Huitzilopochtli gradually convinced the faithful that this Moses was a god and that the Aztecs were a chosen people endowed with the responsibility of insuring that the sun would rise each morning. They came to believe that human blood nourished the sun. Aztec warriors early on willingly shed blood in battle to find their reward in heaven. Later rather than simply blood, Huitzilopochtli demanded human hearts. These captured prisoners could supply. To obtain prisoners as well as slaves and taxes, the Aztecs constantly extended their kingdom beyond their island and their lake. Other civilizations fell before their onslaught, among these the Toltonacs in northern Veracruz and the Mixtecs and Zapotecs in Oaxaca. In less than two centuries, the Aztecs ruled over a transcontinental empire that took in almost all of what is now the central heartland of modern Mexico.

         Tenochitlan prospered, an island city in a lake where canals took the place of streets. The Conquering Spaniards would compare it to Venice, and then destroy it. Aristocratic warriors elected their monarch, much, in some way as cardinals now select a pope. Class distinctions kept peasants in their place, although a brave young man skilled with arms could move ahead, as could a traveling merchant who was expected to serve as a spy. The Aztecs ruled the world they knew: they were feared but not loved. The government was militaristic and justifiably paranoid.

         Moctezuma II was especially jumpy. Ill omens had been reported to him and he had seen for himself a comet, always a harbinger of bad news. Then came reports of strange mountains floating in the Gulf of Mexico and curious creatures emerging from them. The year was 1519, a Year of the Rabbit to the Aztecs.      Quetzalcoatl had promised to return in a Year of the Rabbit. The Aztecs knew about the peace-loving Quetzalcoatl, but they largely ignored him. On the central pyramid on Tenochitlan, the Great Temple, stood shrines to the rain god Tlaloc and to the heart-eating sun god, Huitzilopochtli. Quetzalcoatl surely would be displeased.

         Moctezuma sent gifts to the Gulf Coast, asking that Quetzalcoatl go away. Quetzalcoatl, of course, was Hernán Cortés and, when his discovered Moctezuma had gold, Cortés wanted it. That is what he had come for. In grade school we learned -- I did, anyway -- how a scant 500 Spaniards conquered the greatest empire yet known in the Americas as men on horseback armed with guns and steel defeated superstitious infidels defending themselves with only stone hatchets and wooden shields.

         It was not quite as simple as all that. The Aztecs resisted for two years, battling thousands of warriors from the kingdoms they had conquered and who believed the Spaniards had come to liberate them. In the end, sickness, not arms, laid low the Aztecs. They were done in by smallpox and even measles, diseases unknown in America until then. At Tlatelolco in Mexico City a plaque marks the spot where the final battle was fought: “It was neither triumph nor defeat, but the painful birth of the Mexican people.”