III The American missionaries' efforts to Christianize the Lacandones have been under way for over a quarter of a century, and they began some time after the Catholics' failure. (At least, the Catholics failed with the Lacandones who are still Lacandones today. It is possible that they were responsible for the conversion and acculturation of the Jaguar People and the greater part of the Curassow People, who are now assimilated Mexican nationals.)
In the first stages of the attempted conversion, which began at Naha', it became apparent to the American missionaries that they were face to face with a profound religious dedication that dwarfed even their own most intense moments of religious devotion. The Lacandon man who continued his prayers for the fifth or sixth night without sleep, his face and clothes blackened with incense smoke and his eyes about to close, might interrupt his prayers to speak courteously with the well-dressed, well-fed missionary who peered into the smoke-filled god-house. This he would do because the gods demand courtesy of the "real person." But since he was registering nothing of the conversation, he would return to his prayers, and feed incense into the bowl, which was beginning to flicker ... This was no poor, bewildered, weak-willed savage, to be taken in by a little sweet talk, a glass of cold lemonade or Coca-Cola, and the magic of a transistor radio. Before the Christian conversion could progress, the ancient Olmec-Maya tradition had to be discredited, broken down, and gotten out of the way by any expedient method.
Some of the first strategies of the missionary who had felt himself "called" to be the savior of Naha' were rather infantile. Old Chan K'in still loves to recount with a chuckle how Felipe (Philip Baer), a missionary with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, told him that the power of Jesus Christ to make miracles is limitless. If one needs money, and prays for it with true faith, the next morning it will appear on the table.
Old Mateo, the most respected elder of Naha after Old Chan K'in, would add, when all the laughter had died down, "But do you remember that after we laughed in his face and asked him, 'Does Jesus Christ create things where there was nothing?' he told us that when he had been desperate and prayed for money, one of his companions must have overheard him and put the money there for him - but that it was the spirit of Jesus Christ that made his companion do it."
"That is true," Chan K'in answered. "But just think of it a little. If you need money, and your companion has it to give - say I have the money - why would you pray to the gods for it? Would you not just ask me for it? How else should people do?"
"That is true, yumeh,"* Mateo answered.
[ * Yumeh (literally, "my lord") is a term of respect used by one elder to another.]Old Chan K'in shook his head and added, "What kind of people are these who would tell us of the gods? Long ago Hachakyum and Akinchob [the god of maize] told our people how men should behave with their companions."
"But perhaps Jesus Christ has not yet told the foreigners?" Mateo asked wryly. "Perhaps that is why he needs to make miracles for them - because they do not yet know how to do things for themselves."
"True enough, yumeh!" Old Chan K'in answered. "But I don't think any god will do for a man what he knows how to do for himself, not even the god of the foreigners." He did not join Mateo in his laughter, and his eyes took on a faraway look, as though he were about to change from his role as friend and neighbor to that of the ethnic spirit of his people. "Remember the lord of the leaf-cutter ants," he said. Then he began reciting:
Long ago there was a man, an ancient Lacandon, who went to his milpa to find it stripped of corn, beans and squash. He saw the leaf-cutter ants carrying the last of the crops away, and he picked up corn husks - all that was left of his milpa - and began burning them, to kill the leaf-cutter ants. Then, what looked like a man but was really Yum Ali Say [the lord of the leaf-cutter ants] appeared before him and asked, "Why are you burning my children?"Old Chan K'in concluded: "No. The gods will not do for a man what he should do for himself. The gods do not like lazy people."The man answered, "Because they have ruined my milpa, and now I have nothing to eat. Look! There goes one carrying the last of my grains of corn! What shall I eat? Am I not worthy of respect?"
"You are worthy of respect," the lord of the leaf-cutter ants answered him. "Go away, and come back in three days."
When the man returned after three days, he found his milpa better than it had ever been, with much corn, beans, squash and chilis. He was very happy, for he and his family had much to eat.
But the next year, the man thought of all the work that was necessary to make his milpa. He made only a small one. Then, when it was nearly grown, he put corn, tortillas and corn broth right in the path of the leafcutter ants. When they picked up the food and carried it away, he began burning the ants, until Yum Ali Say appeared before him again, and the man told him, "Look! They are carrying away my food! What shall I eat? Am I not worthy of respect?"
"Yes, you are worthy of respect," the lesser god answered him. "Go away and come back in three days."
The man was happy, thinking that they would do all his work for him, and when he came back after three days, he found a big milpa with huge ears of corn. When he went to grab them, he discovered that they weren't ears of corn at all, but hornets' nests - all over, on each stalk of corn. Hwuum! The hornets swarmed out and stung him from head to foot. He had to run away, and then he was hungry, for he had no milpa and nothing to eat
.
Old Chan K'in's stories, which he had learned from his father, who had learned them from his father, in a tradition apparently three millennia old, are at the disposition of any Lacandon of Naha' in search of guidance, or of anyone else who comes to visit him. He is the classic authority, like that of a dictionary to be consulted. This is, indeed, the traditional La candon view of authority: Only the person with enough interest to come in search of counsel will make good use of it anyway.
The Lacandon culture at Naha' could be described as consisting of a flexible and unbreakable core, represented by the authority of its t'o'ohil, Old Chan K'in. The rest of the society is an aggregate of independent family units, each one drawn by some invisible force around the core, but all kept movable and separate by the principle of nonconfrontation. Any at tack on the Lacandon social organization meets with no tangible, visible resistance from the units of the aggregate, which simply slips blandly out of the way of the intrusive force; and even the core of the organization appears to bend easily whichever way and as far as it is pushed. But the moment the intrusive force is withdrawn, everything returns to its original place and position, leaving no sign of the intrusion.
In their first encounters with the Lacandones, the anthropologists and missionaries must have felt much like the skin diver who sees a school of fish moving or resting in the water before him, a closely integrated mass of life, apparently with some internal organization making the school function as a single organism. Swimming through it, however, he sees it open before him, the nearest fish keeping just out of his reach, and at no point does he find a tangible, central organization. Having passed completely through the school, and looking back from the other side, he sees it just as it was originally, and with no sign of his passing.
* In the late 1950's and early 1960's, Philip Baer, the missionary at Naha', discovered the differences in religious observance between the northern and southern Lacandones, and moved to Lacanja Chan Sayab. The southern Lacandones there had dropped their active religious practices since the death of their last priest and t'o'ohil, Ceron. (Their traditions by then had dwindled to a few nostalgic memories, legends and taboos on behavior.) Their whole Peninsular Maya way of life presupposed a central religious core like that of the northern Lacandones, to give meaning and purpose to their existence. They lacked it, and felt - without understanding their feeling - an undefined sense of loss before their un-Maya, meaningless existence. Their past was out of reach and their future was out of sight. Their present was a comfortless spiritual void.
Probably without fully realizing what he was doing, the missionary simply became a temporary substitute t'o'ohil.
Jose Pepe Chan Bol was the Lacandon who, according to the traditional order of succession at Lacanja, should have picked up, but for some reason didn't, the original functions of a Lacandon t'o'ohil. After a very short time he managed to take over the new, Occidental values and to function as preacher and "municipal president" for his community. The form of his function under the "new order" was traditionally Lacandon; only the content had changed.
The abstinences imposed by the new set of moral values were limited to abstention from tobacco and alcoholic beverages - rather simple and poor demands compared with those of their own Maya tradition. The Maya demands had included (though only for limited periods during ritual activity) sexual abstinence, limitations on diet (principally chili pepper), long pilgrimages, and the observance of the rituals indicated by k'inyah (divinations), which often implied many days of hard work and nights of sleepless vigil. Still, the new restrictions filled the intensely felt need of the southern Lacandones. It would seem that a set of strange, alien values was better than no values at all.
There is no totally impartial and trustworthy account of how the conversion at Lacanja occurred, but there is reason to believe that the southern Lacandones simply accepted all that the missionary suggested or asked of them in their already established practice of humoring tourists, anthropologists and other Occidental visitors in order to obtain the greatest number of gifts and trade goods from them. And because the southern Lacandones' isolation from the outside world had been broken only in the previous quarter century, they proved more vulnerable to the missionary's enticements.
In his attempt to Christianize the obdurate northern Lacandones of Naha', who had been exposed to foreign influences since before the turn of the century, Philip Baer first obtained Old Chan K'in's permission to build his house and live there as a member of the community. The permission was gladly given, on the assumption that he would continue to administer medicines and provide transportation facilities on the light planes of Alas de Socorro (Wings of Aid), the organization at the service of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, whenever a member of the community was ill. Once the bungalow, with its electric power plant and modern comforts (at the service of the missionary and his family - not the Lacandon community) was built atop the best ground on the hill overlooking Lake Naha', the missionary's attitude changed. He would ac cept nothing in the way of food or gifts from his Lacandon neighbors. Medicines and emergency transportation services were still available to any Naha’ Lacandon on request, but the traditional Lacandon values demand reciprocity for favors received. When a Lacandon asked for and received medicines for his sick child, his gifts were not accepted. He was asked only, "He' wah a no'ksik a wol ti' Hesuklisto?" ("Now will you lift up your spirit to Jesus Christ?")
The Lacandones are a proud and independent people, and they soon became aware that the "silver lining" of safety and benefit for a Lacandon man's family hid a dark cloud: automatic humiliation and a price tag on their souls.
There were no open complaints, no quarreling, no confrontations. Old Chan K'in suddenly began cutting and setting the posts for his new house across the lake, about a mile away. With very few exceptions, the others followed him. The Naha' Lacandon named Chan Bol was constantly quarreling with his neighbors and had only resentfully accepted Old Chan K'in's authority. He became a convert and abandoned the gods of his fathers. Jorge, who had been living at the periphery of the community, maintained his same location, but one of his sons, Enrique, also became a convert and the missionary's caretaker.
In 1970 the missionary brought Jose Pepe Chan Bol and his two wives from Lacanja to Naha' and indicated where Jose Pepe could make his milpa, take up permanent residence, and be actively present in each religious ceremony to carry on the fight against the dominion of the ancient Maya gods. This was simply too much for the northern Lacandones' traditionally peaceful evasion of conflict. Only the t'o'ohil had the authority to distribute land for cultivation or building sites. By this time they had learned that the problems arising from the failure of others to respect their rights would often be heard sympathetically by the governor of the state of Chiapas or by his duly appointed officials. A group departed for the state capitol at Tuxtla to protest. Their complaint against the missionary declared, "He may be t'o'ohil at Lacanja Chan Sayab, but at Naha' we have our own authority." Even before they could return with an answer, Jose Pepe was flown back to Lacanja.
* The proselytizing on the part of the southern Lacandon "evangelists," however, had by no means ceased. The exact details of their work at the Lake Mensabak community, some twenty miles north of Naha', are not known, but the results are painfully visible.
Mensabak is the name of the Lacandon rain god, the same Maya deity known as Chaac in Yucatan. His name derives from men (make) and sabak (soot; black powder), and could be translated as Powdermaker. (It is said that he makes a black powder of incense soot and smoke, and his assistants scatter it on the clouds, causing thunder, winds and the rain.) The lake named for Mensabak is the largest of three interconnected lakes, which also bear the names of Lacandon gods: Ts'ibatnah (Painter of Houses), the lord of the graphic arts; and Ah K'ak' (Fire Lord), the god of hunting, courage and formerly, it would appear, of war.
The northern Lacandon community inhabiting this region became known by the name of the largest of the three interconnected lakes, which is usually rendered, according to the Spanish alphabet and the traditional Mexican disregard for aboriginal names, Metzaboc.
In the early 1950's, the largest subgroup of northern Lacandones was that of Monte Libano (the Spanish name for Chun K'uche' - Cedar Grove - in the original Lacandon), some twelve miles to the south of Naha'. Its local t'o'ohil - who in turn looked for guidance to Old Chan K'in of Naha - was Jose Guero. Second in rank to Jose Guero was Pepe Castillo. (Both of these Lacandon elders had begun life with the name Chan K'in, but began using Spanish names out of respect for Chan K'in of Naha'), In the mid-1950's, the invasion of their lands by neighboring Tzeltal Indians and ladinos began. By the end of the decade, the invader's livestock (pigs, cattle, horses and mules) were intentionally driven into the Lacandones' milpas to make life unbearable for them. Then, in the early 1960's, the Lacandones of Monte Libano made a mass exodus to the Mensabak region.
Jose Guero - who now lives at Naha' and is the father of one of Old Chan K'in's three wives - had suffered progressive arthritis for years and had cultivated an equally progressive alcoholism, which provided him a few hours of occasional general anesthesia. His personal problems were viewed with sympathy and he was still consulted as t'o'ohil for advice and critical divination rites. But those who consulted him almost never found him sober enough to offer them more than a drink.
With the exodus to Mensabak and the establishment of new houses and new milpa sites, the Lacandones of Monte Libano bypassed Jose Guero's traditional authority and accepted Pepe Castillo as their t'o'ohil.
On their arrival at Mensabak, the band led by Pepe Castillo found a smaller, established community of northern Lacandones which had their own t'o'ohil, Celestin. To avoid confrontation, Celestin moved with his followers to the shores of Lake Mensabak, while the newcomers resettled on Lake Ts'ibatnah.
When the need arose for a literate young Lacandon to represent the group before the Mexican government as "municipal president," Pepe Castillo followed Old Chan K'in's example and "suggested" his firstborn son, another Chan K'in who had taken the Spanish name Joaquin Trujillo.
In Mensabak the newcomers from Monte Libano soon felt the presence nearby of the American missionary and his emissary Jose Pepe Chan Bol. The missionary extended them the same services he offered the Naha' group, and with the same condition: They must lift up their spirits to Jesus Christ.
The latest phase began when Pepe Castillo developed a painful ulcer. This correct and responsible elder had always been a heavy drinker, but he suddenly found that the effects of even light social drinking appeared to be some kind of divine punishment out of proportion to any sins he may have committed. Perhaps Jose Pepe's preaching against drinking and smoking was being confirmed. At the same time one of his son Joaquin's small children died of an intestinal infection, and Joaquin was heard to lament not having had the preferential medical treatment offered to converts and their families. For whatever reasons or combination of reasons the t'o'ohil Pepe Castillo and his son Joaquin suddenly proclaimed themselves "evangelistas."
Since the principal force of traditional Peninsula Maya social organization is the loyalty and respect for the t'o'ohil, Pepe Castillo's example paradoxically evoked the most compelling Maya tradition to demand abandoning Maya religion, thus causing a split in the community.
Pepe Castillo had never been anything like a match for Old Chan K'in in philosophical depth, but he surpassed him in artistic and aesthetic expression. His flute music, ceremonial drawings and incised designs on the ceremonial objects made those of Naha seem crude by comparison. His conversion to evangelical Christianity would have been one of the greatest losses to Maya tradition even had it not rent and disoriented the largest of the northern Lacandon communities, that of Lake Mensabak.
Even Celestin, the t'o'ohil of the smaller group on Lake Mensabak, was torn and tormented by indecision, and as he himself often tells, he eventually decided to abandon his gods and become a Christian. He loaded the most sacred of his ritual objects into his canoe and headed across the lake. What he might have felt as he left the symbols of his lifelong dedication to the religious duty that gave meaning to the only way of life he knew, this he does not tell. It would surely have touched emotions too deep for a Lacandon to express openly without risking loss of dignity. What he does convey is that on his return across the lake in his empty canoe, he suddenly felt a heavy, oppressive presence bearing down on him, like the foot of an angry god, preparing to press him and his canoe into the mud and slime of the lake bottom. A wave of fear engulfed him, and his ears hummed with a dull roar, like that of the Nah Ts'ulu', the supernatural jaguars who devour the worthless and outmoded beings still alive when the gods decree the end of a cycle of the earth's existence.
With all his diminishing strength, he frantically turned the canoe about, returned for his god-pots and accessories, and began his race with approaching oblivion. Somehow, reality held out for him until he returned them to their altar and lit offerings of incense. As he squatted on his haunches behind the row of flaming incense burners, chanting as the hach winik (true people) always have and always must, the fever subsided, the roaring of the Nah Ts'ulu' died out in his ears, and the impending oblivion withdrew. He finally pronounced his oath: "When the day comes, I will die, like everyone else. But until then, I will keep my gods, like a True Person."
Anyone who values the conservation of Lacandon religion and culture, not only for their sake but for our own as well, may find Celestin's story gratifying. The sad truth is, however, that most of the partisans decided the question of "traditionalist vs. evangelist" on far less philosophical grounds. While the confusion of values was such as to cast good men either way, about all that can be categorically stated is that the confirmed alcoholics remained traditionalist.
Once the traditional Lacandon religion had been broken down at Lake Mensabak, Pepe Castillo and his followers were easy prey for any new ideas, no matter how incongruous. It was at this point that a Yucatec speaking Seventh-Day Adventist arrived on the scene and converted the evangelist Mensabak Lacandones once again. The first of numerous restrictions was the declaration that approximately half of the Lacandones' traditional game and fish were unkosher, Liquor, beer, the ceremonial drink called balche or anything else alcoholic, together with tobacco in any form, were sinful. The polygamous households were broken up, A man could keep only his first wife. The others, though they may have been happily married and faithful to their husband for ten or twenty years, discovered that they had been living in sin; each was obliged to leave the husband and marry some bachelor.
If we have difficulty understanding how the Lacandones could permit and accept such restrictions on their lives, perhaps we tend to underestimate the characteristic Maya religious fervor, and the greater sacrifices they were prepared to make for the new religion after they had finally become convinced it was better than that of their fathers. The Olmec-Mayan-Lacandon ritual duties are hard and exacting, and their Occidental counterparts are bland and easy by comparison.
By no means does this imply that the typical Lacandon is conscious of the benefits and functional interrelationship of all the aspects of his traditional culture and religion. Quite the contrary. Like every other human being, he receives the entire package - an organic whole - as part of his cultural heritage. Tampering with cultural complexes is every bit as dangerous as tampering with the mechanism of genetic transmission in living organisms, and can result in equally grotesque, dysfunctional mutations.
Part IV
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