Soul Chamber: Chapter Three

Chapter Three: Continued

Na Bolom

“The Spanish conquest marked the beginning of the end for Mesoamerican cultures. One who perpetuated this diabolical desecration was a Catholic missionary named Friar Diego de Landa. He arrived here in 1547 determined to convert Yucatan Mayans by destroying invaluable transcripts and inscribed records of their traditional beliefs and rituals. Landa boasted that he destroyed over 5,000 idols and 27 hieroglyphic parchments up until the time he was promoted bishop of the Yucatan region and continued the destruction of invaluable relics until his death,” Hornsby related.

Ironically, to defend himself against charges of despotic mismanagement by the Spanish Inquisition, and teach the Mayan language to priests, he commissioned a Mayan to write a phonetic alphabet that remains the only significant account of the early post-Conquest era of this region. The manuscript was discarded by the Catholic Church as nonsense and lay hidden until discovered in Madrid and published in 1864 as Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan (An Account of the Things of Yucatan).

Landa destroyed the very essence of what would have given us the key to unlock the Mayan Code. However, at the same time he left behind ninety-nine percent of what archeologist, anthropologist, paleontologists and astronomers have been left to draw information from about the Mayan activities, history, ceremonial festivals, social and communal functions, rituals, sacrifices, indigenous architecture, and most importantly the phonogram writings of the emblem glyphs on stone blocks, massive boulders and wall murals.

“The first English translation was titled, Yucatan Before and After the Conquest, which I hope you took time to read before coming here,” Hornsby said. There was a general acknowledgement around the table of nods. Hornsby, satisfied, continued in his brisk British accent.

“Evading the Spanish Conquest and religious zealots, a faction of Mayan fled into the unoccupied regions of the Yucatan jungle. Though their exact origins are not known some claim the Lacandones are most likely descendants of classical civilizations of Palenque, Yaxchilan and Bonampak which are not far from here or,” and Hornsby stressed this, “their ancestors came to the Chiapas region in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries fleeing Spanish colonial authority in the Yucatan. They dispersed into small clans to avoid detection and contact by maintaining themselves as the Hach Winik or in English translation, “true men” of La Selva Lacandona.” Hornsby paused for a moment to shift his train of thought.

“You will be respectful. Respectful means, for example, not indulging yourself in consumption of their alcoholic drink of balche, and if necessary, only at times for ritual participation if so invited by the village chief.”

There was a general moan of being deprived the enjoyment of the native alcoholic libation. Hornsby continued without acknowledging our displeasure.

“The Spanish knew that they were hiding here, but the hostile environment of the rainforest kept them from pursuing the Hach Winik. It wasn’t until earlier this century that the Hach Winik had any contact with the outside world. Christian influences were still held at bay in the 1940s. The Lacandones have continued to preserve their traditional beliefs, religious ceremonies and common language.

“Then the Mexican government opened up this area for land settlement, oil drilling and logging. There are no more than 500 living today; having suffered the unprecedented encroachment of modern industrialized colonization that started in the 1950s causing them to be forcefully relocated by the Mexican government.

“Still, the Lacandones remain virtually unpolluted by our occidental paradigm. This makes for the last opportunity to cultivate from their consciousness gleams of insight in how their ancestors interpreted reality and quite possibly clues to the whereabouts of an undiscovered temple ruin.”

True to form, Hornsby was incorporating his research approach with the Australian Aborigines to this project.

“The last vestiges of authentic indigenous life would be at my fingertips,” I thought.

“Our objective is to collect a comprehensive record of the Lacandones oral history. Our collection will be stored here in the Anahuac library for prosperity to complement the works of other scientists such as Jack Roberts, author of The Lords of Mesoamerica. As you are collecting this raw data, I will be deciphering the contents, to uncover any correlating evidence to the mysterious soul chamber, which is our ultimate objective on this expedition.”

Hornsby pointed out that as much as Sarina would love to take part in our project, she had more pressing duties in managing the cultural center. However, she would act as consultant to our interpretations and coordinate our guides assignments. Mr. Roberts, an equally close ally of the Lacandones was not available at this time since he was at the Archeological Museum in Mexico City, obligated with other duties. Hornsby said that it might be possible he would join us later.

“Jack has a tremendous insight to their way of life and can open up windows of perception that would take us years to achieve. And that is another matter I want to address: Linguistics.”
The last word was punctuated with deliberate pontification for its upmost importance. Hornsby was orchestrating an unmatched anthropological study. We were not looking for remnant artifacts buried beneath the jungle soil, but for Mayan relics buried in the psyche of the Lacandones.

“The men are always consulting their ancestors,” Hornsby said. “They are always talking in reference to the past, present and future. You must cut the wires of your Western thinking… to understand them.”

The mysterious woman I had seen leaving the church earlier that afternoon spoke up.
“What do you mean, ‘cut the wires’ Dr. Hornsby? Wouldn’t that make us all brain dead?”
Her comment was disarming. All of us were competitively intense about the undertaking, not unusual for university graduate students, so her off-handed witty comment caused the group to burst out in nervous laughter. Hornsby wasn’t amused.

“The construct of the Western language is one of cause and effect. Just as you expressed yourself, Dr. Cassarina Deakin, you used a noun as a subject to combine with a verb as a means to impose your will on a nominal object,” Hornsby explained.

He was right. People, animals and objects in our Western language are treated as grammatical objects and recipients of the actions of verbs chosen by the grammatical subjects.

“The Lacandones speak in terms to resonate their consciousness with objects of nature defined in metaphorical constructs. It is similar to an agglutinant language that reflects the visual and verbal communication of the phonogram language we find inscribed by ancient Maya emblem glyphs.”

“And so, Dr. Hornsby,” Cassarina said with a slight smirk on her face, “Western society acts in the same literate manner based on their perception of their reality, however erroneous it might be.”

“The Eurocentrics act accordingly, as the Lacandon act according to their spoken language or literacy,” I boldly interjected.

“Correct Mr. Cole. Can anyone give me an example?”
All of us shrugged.

“I’m not surprised. This is a valuable lesson that you can only come to appreciate after living with indigenous people,” Hornsby said with profundity.

“If… for example, you were to ask a woman how she is doing, and she replies her husband is working in the field… do you know what this would be interpreted to mean?”

There was an awkward moment because in a group of academic intellectuals, neither one ventures to give the answer, though full well knowing it, but rather refrains from saying anything as means of hierarchical dominance later. Hornsby had no patience for such nonsense.
“It means her life is good. And, if she would reply in her native tongue that he was not in the field working. . . . ”

“It would mean she is in dire straits,” Cassarina said, cutting off Hornsby.

“Quite, right, Ms Deakin,” Hornsby retorted, “though maybe not that extreme. To achieve an exact study of an ancient civilization, the exact understanding of the omnipotent mother-tongue is necessary first.”

“And that is the problem they are facing as most of them are no longer living in the fields of their ancestors,” Sarina said, standing up.

A tallish modest woman with shoulder length curly hair streaked with gray strands made for a solid pose in front of us. The years of battling with the Mexican government for Lacandon homeland protection from deforestation and frontier homesteading had taken its toll on her physical and emotional stamina. She looked bodily worn down, but there was a determined spark of perseverance in her eyes. She modestly moved toward the easel map. Hornsby graciously obliged her to continue. While waiting for Sarina, I glanced over at Ms Deakin, who seemed to display a marked enmity towards me.

I noticed hanging on the wall a 1900’s sepia print of Adela Breton, seated sidesaddle on a horse peering over Ms Deakin’s shoulder directly at me. Breton’s Mexican compensino attendant held the reins of the horse in one hand and his sombrero dutifully held in the other, stoically posing for the camera. Breton was a leather tough turn-of-the-century Englishwomen, who dressed in full Edwardian regalia despite the tropical heat, while painstaking painting exact recordings of the frescoes and sculptures of various Mayan ruins.

The Nunnery Annex at Chichen Itza

Breton’s prolific work of meticulously painted watercolors, initiated at the request of British archeologist Alfred P. Maudsley, documented invaluable emblematic glyph decoding evidence that has since deteriorated at the actual sites. Ms Breton broke out of her Victoria cocoon to travel to Mexico 13 times. I was beginning to wonder if Ms Deakin, a Brit herself, would be a match for Breton’s Edwardian stalwart expedition discipline.

Sarina explained that in 1971, the Mexican government started the Zona Lacandona, a consolidation of the remote Lacandon tribes to be moved into three principle resettlement camps. Pointing to the map she showed us the Lacandones territory known as the Lacanj Chansayab in the south and Naja and Metzabok in the north of the Lacandon Rainforest. There was another community being established by some northern Lacandones who have moved south, called, Bethel.

Both southern settlements are on the edge of the Monte Azules Biosphere Reserve located near the ruins of Bonampak, located here. The evangelists were finding it easier to pursue Lacandones with their revivalist’s adaptation to Christianity in this region.

Logging roads were opening up the way for easier access for outside influences that further encroached upon their natural habitat. The northern tribes eschewed Christianity and outside influences. There was a noticeable small migration south by some northern families, most likely because the Lacandones have special permission to hunt the abundant fauna in the reserve. The land was considered more fertile for growing maize.

More Lacandones were crossing over to the evangelist’s Christian-based religion as it is filling in a devastating spiritual void that came about from a yellow fever epidemic in the last century, wiping out the prominent spiritual elders and their influence to contain a cultural lineage. The yellow fever epidemic disrupted the passing on of the traditional rituals and religious ceremonies that was the lifeblood for their continued existence. But for the most part, Jesus Christ or Hesuklistos is considered a minor god, though the Lacandon hold Christ as a paramount god of importance for foreigners, who is the son of ‘kyantho the god of foreign people and objects.

“Metzabok is the smallest of the Lacandon villages lying at the foot of the Sierra Piedron to the northeast. It was located near Lago Metzabok that provides fish as a staple to their maize diet. This village is more remote and with less economic accessibility. The Lacanja Chansayab preserves much of the traditional Lacandon values by keeping the evangelists away,” Sarina said, informing us that we would find some families living further out in isolated pockets, still practicing the sustainable agricultural system of planting milpa fields amid the rainforest in slash-and-burn cultivation methods.

The most traditional of the three settlements is Naja that overlooks the Laguna Naja. This village lies near Monte Azules northeast of Monte Libano. Cultural life survives here, such as polygamy, the god-house or yatoch k'un where ceremonies of myths and rituals to supplicate the gods are conducted. This includes the offering of balche that is brewed from honey and the bark from the balche tree.

Sarina pointed out that some of us might meet the Lacandon chief t ‘o’ ohil, Chan K’in Viejo, who has been the primary sustainer of their traditional lifestyle for the past three generations. Chan K’in Viejo is highly regarded as the last surviving t ‘o’ ohil by the Naja. He was nearly a century old.

Hornsby interjected.

“There are still cultural and linguistic differences between the northern and southern tribes though their common language is Yucatec Maya believed to have been spoken primarily by the Chol, though this is a term used by the Spanish to mean one who speaks an unintelligible tongue. This might explain the differences between the north and south tribes. The Lacandon descendants could have migrated from the El Peten region a few hundred kilometers east of Chiapas in Guatemala. Those who migrated north came in contact with the Chol who were forced out of the Yucatan region during the Spanish Conquest, fleeing into the isolated jungle around the Rio Ucumacinta basin. Mr. Robert’s, who painstakingly authored, The Nican Tlaca of Mesoamerica, might disagree with me on this theory.”

“Nican Tlaca means, “We people here” in the Nahuatl language,” Sarina interjected.
She explained that the people here, in hopes of reclaiming their indigenous nation, Anahuac, the true Mesoamerican cultures, Olmec, Zapoteca, Toltec, Maya and Mexica that existed in Cemanahuac, called the Western hemisphere by the occidentals.

“Quite so,” Hornsby acknowledged. “Anahuac or Mesoamerica is the civilization of corn. In the Middle East, Sumeria was the civilization of wheat, and East Asia was the rice civilization.”
“Then, what we are looking for, Dr. Hornsby, is the archetypal code of these indigenous people,” I said.

“Could you define your concept of archetype for us, Mr. Cole,” Hornsby riposted.

“It is a resonant structure that is made tangible from a conscious interpretation of one’s symbolic reality,” I said.

“How bloody esoteric,” Cassarina said. “Archetype is an original mathematical formula. A prototype.”

“Esoteric? Perhaps, Ms Deakin. But what lies beneath our consciousness is the core of the Self that we cannot escape from. Mr. Cole is correct in his definition.” Hornsby acknowledged.
“But considering that the human genius of the Maya is radically different from our own, it would seem we are incapable of fully understanding it,” Cassarina countered in a hardened scientific voice.

“Radically different?” I protested.

“The common thread is the calendrical and numerical system found in distinctive emblem glyph forms from the central Mexican plateau, across the lowland Yucatan Mayas and the southern Maya highland tribes in Guatemala,” Hornsby said trying to quell our arguing.

“We are talking about a civilization that established an incredibly sophisticated system of knowledge in science and math and most importantly the collective destiny of man,” I retorted, glaring at Cassarina. “The differences in meaning are but the reflection of different perspectives, which do not alter or subdivide the phenomenon.”

“I commend both of you for your firmly grounded insistence for accuracy, but I don’t want you editorializing each other’s impressions without known scientific premise to prove your point.” Hornsby was noticeably anxious.

Sarina retreated back to her seat.

“Any conceivable knowledge that we attain comes from cumulative scientific observation,” Hornsby said.

“About this mythical place that represents our origin of consciousness, as you hypothesize, Dr. Hornsby,” interrupted a young man I would soon learn was Garthwaite Hawker, another member of our expedition.

Hawker was a graduate student representing the Corpus of Mesoamerican Hieroglyphic Writing project at Harvard University. The bearded and brownish bushy haired anthropologist scholar was well versed with the PreHispanic era of Mesoamerica.

“I am curious as to why you are ignoring the Olmec,” Hawker said leaning back in his chair rather pompously.

“All the remains of the ancient Mesoamerican civilizations, the Toltecs, Aztecs, Zapotecs, Otomi and Maya indicate that the Olmec culture was their point of origin. Consider the laying of foundations of La Venta on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the two oldest Mayan objects found in Veracruz with the inscribed dates corresponding to the Gregorian calendar of 31 B.C. Both of these inscriptions bear Classic Maya writing and both . . . are Olmec,” Hawker said with a haughty look on his face.

“It’s a question of the chicken and the egg, isn’t Dr. Hornsby?”

“It bears in mind, at least in my mind, my good Mr. Hawker,” Hornsby countered, “that we are in the heart of the “mother culture” the “land between the waters” or more specifically the Anahuac. So it is inevitable we’ll see the commingling of these plus many more cultures including the Toltecs. All we have are sculptured stone carvings embedded on stele, palaces and temples, a calendar system, astronomical observatories, and architectural achievements to guide us along. Maybe purposely left behind to remind us of this ‘esoteric’ knowledge that Ms Deakin so tactfully clarified earlier,” Hornsby said, holding his own ground.

Hawker’s question did raise the matter of why Hornsby chose the Lacandones, besides being isolated from Western civilization influences since the Spanish Conquest. Hornsby explained that we are seeing a living existence of PreHispanic Mesoamerica. I became more impressed with Hornsby’s breath of knowledge about this culture as he delved into further details.

“The origin of the name “Lacandon” is based upon the Maya plural form “ah akan-tun-obb.” The agentive ah means “the” or “they.” Akan means “standing” or “set up” and tun is translated as “precious stone.” Put this together and you have “they who set up precious stone” or allegorically translated, those who build temples. The Lacandon’s ancestors quite possibly were masons in the PreHispanic era. When the Spanish encountered these Yucatan Maya, they called them Acantunes or wild Indians and the jungle they lived in as El Acantunes. Over time Acantunes was misheard as El Lacantun and then distorted even more to Lacantones.”

Hornsby expertly peeled back the layers of the anthropological onion in regard to uncovering the reality of their ancestral link. Just as he had amassed oral histories from Aboriginal tribes about “dreamtime” he believed we would accomplish the same from the final living link to the ancient Yucatan Maya.

“It is my unwavering belief that we will discover that the Lacandon ancestor’s built a temple to show observance to the mystical phenomenon of the Soul Chamber in the PreClassic Period of Mayan culture.”

“Time in relation to reality is buried in the thoughts of humankind,” I added, “and psychological time is archetypical.”

“You are a bit of an archaic person, yourself,” Cassarina slung at me. “I suggest you stick with paranormal psychology.”

Garthwaite glanced at Cassarina, rolling his eyes in mordant agreement.

Copyright 2005