1 Chuchiak Writing as Resistance 87

7/27/2019 1 Chuchiak Writing as Resistance 87

1/30

Ethnohistory : (Winter ) DOI /--Copyright by American Society or Ethnohistory

Writing as Resistance: Maya Graphic Pluralism

and Indigenous Elite Strategies or Survival in

Colonial Yucatan, 550750

John F Chuchiak V, Missouri State University

Abstract. This paper ofers a revisionist viewpoint on the nature o colonial Mayaliteracy, showing that the colonial Yucatec Maya elite utilized both the traditionalhieroglyphic script and the new alphabetic writing skills taught by the Franciscanriars By adapting and utilizing both styles o writing, the colonial Maya elite cre-ated a system o graphic pluralism that enabled the Maya nobility to better deendtheir elite interests in a manner consistent with both pre-Columbian and colonialorms o writing, address, religion, and government administration

n late ctober , a Maya prophet (chilan) named Chilan Couohpreached the supremacy o the traditional ways and prophesied a war oreligions around the Spanish settlement o Bacalar Educated and taughtthe alphabetic script by Franciscan riars in the western Yucatan, ChilanCouoh spurned the teachings o the riars and their alphabetic literacyas inerior to the old ways o writing in ancient characters With a largeollowing, the Maya prophet began to bring together numerous surviv-ing hand-painted Maya hieroglyphic codices, creating a library o ancientknowledge that he argued was superior to the scribbling o the Franciscansand the Spaniards

As armed resistance increased around the settlement o Bacalar, theSpaniards asked the provincial capital o Merida or aid in quelling the rebel-lion The Maya priest and his ollowers quickly became bold enough to raidChristian Maya settlements outside the walls o the Spanish villa o Bacalarn one instance, a large number o apostate Maya under the leadership o theirprophet captured the entire population o an encomienda town, reportedlytaking their captives into the jungles and sacricing them to their gods4

Although he spoke openly against the Spanish religion and writing,


2/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

ironically the Maya prophet wrote letters in Maya utilizing the alphabeticscript to call Maya chietains rom other regions to arms5 Finally, in lateMarch , the Spanish sent a military expedition into the region For

almost a year, the expeditions captain Juan Garn and his men scouredthe southeastern Yucatan peninsula, searching or the rebel leader6 Animportant discovery occurred in spring , when the Garn expeditioncame across a large temple containing a massive stone Maya idol and sev-eral hundred smaller ceramic idols Along with these idols, the Spaniardsuncovered a sizable library o Maya hieroglyphic books and codices writ-ten in their ancient characters7 They quickly smashed the idols and burntthe books in a massive bonre Three days later, a band o Spaniards underthe command o Lieutenant Juan az ound the Maya prophet who had

begun the rebellion Ater arresting Chilan Couoh, Garn pleaded withhim to repent and return to the Christian religion The Maya priest scofedat Garns pleas and maintained his stance on the superiority o the Mayascript and his own traditional religion Finally, Garn sent the Maya priestunder armed guard to the bishop Fr Francisco de Toral in Merida, hopingthat the bishop would make an example o him

The Maya prophet had begun a war o religions, but the most surpris-ing aspect o the afair was the evidence o the survival o the Maya hiero-glyphic script and the prophets concurrent usage o alphabetic literacy

The act that the prophet used both written scripts made it clear that theMaya elite as early as the late s had come to use both written traditionsAs the Spanish authorities and clergy uncovered other major instances oidolatry, they conrmed the continued existence and use o the traditionalMaya script throughout the rest o the colony An apparent system ographic pluralism existed among the Maya elite even several decades aterthe Spanish conquest Moreover, in the case o their old hieroglyphic script,the Maya elite and its traditional priesthood continued to use their ancientwriting as a means o resistance to both Catholicism and the Spanish colo-

nial system This paper will examine the nature o this example o colonialgraphic pluralism and the use o traditional Maya writing as resistance

Writing as Conversion: The Franciscan MissionariesRole in Establishing Colonial Maya Alphabetic Literacy

n , the Spaniards nally established their capital in Merida However,even beore that time, Franciscan riars had attempted to convert the nativesin the region around Campeche The rst riars, under the leadership o

Fray Jacobo de Testera, entered the Yucatan peninsula in ater the rstattempt at conquest had ailed However, the riars soon abandoned the


3/30

Writing as Resistance

Yucatan, returning in to ound the rst permanent Franciscan missionin Merida, under the leadership o Fray Luis de Villalpando Villalpandowas the rst riar to study the Maya language and to apply to it the Latin

system o grammar The Franciscan historian Bernardo de Lizana wrotethat Villalpando learned many o the terms o the language by memory,along with their meanings, looking or the means o conjugation o theirverbs, and the variety o their nouns and the Lord helped him so much sothat in a brie amount o time he reduced the language to a series o rulesand wrote an Arte o the language Villalpando requested the caciques(chies) to send their children there to Mrida, and there he would teachthem the Christian doctrine as well as teach them to read and write in Cas-tillian characters

ne o Villalpandos companions, Fray Juan de Herrera, began the rstschool or the sons o the ndian nobility in Merida Apparently, the Mayacaciques sent more than a thousand children to Merida during this periodAmong Herreras students were illustrious Maya such as the rst caciquewho converted to Christianity, iego Na iego learned Latin through theFranciscans schools and became a translator or the riars n the wordso another riar, this rst generation o Maya would become very goodscribes and choir masters and those Maya [who came to these schools]were later placed into the positions o caciques and governors and thus they

gained the lordship4Villalpando and Herrera adapted the Latin alphabet to the Maya lan-

guage so that the Maya could write their language using the Latin scriptNevertheless as another later linguist and Maya scholar, Fray iego deLanda, wrote, the early riars discovered that the Maya did not need someo the Latin letters and that special characters were needed

And it was ound out that they did not use six o our letters, whichare , F, G, Q, R, S But they are obliged to double others andto add others in order to understand the varied signicance o certainwords And considering that they had diferent characters or thesethings, there was no necessity o inventing new orms o letters, butrather to make use o the Latin letters, so that the use o them shouldbe common to all5

This common use o the Latin alphabet which Landa reerred to was areality by the middle o the s The initial school o Latin and Mayagrammar established by Herrera expanded quickly with the establishmento Franciscan missions in the outlying regions Each o the missions had a

school or the ndian nobility where the ndian children were taught how toread and write, as well as sing and pray6


4/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

The Franciscans succeeded impressively in instructing the Maya inLatin letter-based literacy Natives were writing Maya in Latin script asearly as ,7 and by land documents were being recorded in alpha-

betized Maya Knowledge o the Mayas phonetic pre-Hispanic script,which was limited to the Maya nobility, no doubt led to the easier adoptiono Latin syllables and letters, and the same noble Maya who knew howto read the glyphs became the rst Maya instructed in the Franciscansschools The Maya nobility thus continued to dominate literacy and Mayapolitics into the early colonial times The riars, at least at rst, believed thattheir new converts rapid adoption o alphabetic literacy would lead to thequick obsolescence o their pre-Hispanic glyphic script The reality, how-ever, was that the Maya continued to maintain graphic pluralism Evidence

rom their Latin-based literacy points to the preservation, propagation, andpluralistic use o both writing systems long into the colonial period and, insome regions, into the dawn o the nineteenth century

Writing as a Subversive Tradition: The Maya Nobilityand the Survival o the Traditional Hieroglyphic Script

According to the early chroniclers o Yucatan, during the pre-Hispanicperiod the Maya held their lords and priests in extreme respect because

they held the power o writing, while the majority o the people couldnot decipher their characters The rst noble Maya trained as scribes in theFranciscan schools perpetuated the pre-Hispanic nobilitys monopoly oneducation At the same time, during this early contact period, the Mayanobility openly showed the Spaniards and the clergy their hieroglyphiccodices Many o the Spaniards were amazed and curious about their hiero-glyphic script The encomenderos rom the city o Merida wrote in amaze-ment, They had letters with which they wrote and understood themselves,these were types o characters o which each one was made o parts and by

means o them they understood each other like we do with our own let-ters and these they did not teach to anyone but noble persons and all othe priests who were the principal people among them

The Maya openly revealed their codices to the rst Spaniards withoutevident ear Even Landa mentioned in his Relacin that earlier the Mayacacique on Juan Cocom had shown him a book which had belonged tohis grandather containing a history o his people Apparently, many othe Maya codices that the Spaniards had seen earlier contained historicalinormation According to Lizana, writing in , the only historical inor-

mation available on the pre-Hispanic origins o the Maya came rom sev-eral surviving Maya hieroglyphic codices The history and authors that we


5/30


can allege [concerning this topic] are several [books] o ancient characters,very poorly understood with many written glosses made by several ancientndians who were sons o the priests o their gods, and they were the only

ones who know how to read them and use them or divinationMore than a decade ater the Conquest, many Spaniards viewed

bark-paper hieroglyphic codices shown to them by the Maya nobility Theencomenderos rom the Valladolid region, or example, described severalcodices in , saying that they were made rom the bark o a certain treeon which they write and drew gures o their days and months with greatgures and images, and there they wrote them Unolded, these books werelonger than six brazas, some more and some less A ew clergyman andSpaniards even inquired as to the meaning o the codices and some riars

and priests studied the Maya script contained within their pages How-ever, examining these codices in detail, the Spanish clergy realized that theMaya priests mainly used their codices to perorm sacred ceremonies Thecodices were so important to the Maya priestly proession that Landa notedthat the priests were buried with their books o ancient characters whenthey died4

By the decade o the s, the Spanish clergy came to have a betterunderstanding o the hieroglyphic content o these books, and an impor-tant change occurred in Spanish perceptions o the Maya codices No longer

did they view the codices as harmless curiosities containing innocuoushistorical inormation nstead, the church authorities began to view thecodices as a subversive inuence on their Maya converts By the seventeenthcentury, the clergy began to describe Maya codices as books o the devilFor instance, in , Gregorio Snchez de Aguilar described three codicesconscated by his cousin, r Pedro Snchez de Aguilar, as three books otheir paganism and idolatry which were written on bark paper and on themwere gures o demons which these said ndians worshipped5 As Lizanawrote in , the clergy believed that the destruction o the codices would

cure and cauterize the pestilential cancer [o idolatry] that was eating awayat the Christianity that [the riars] had planted with such great efort6

By the end o the sixteenth century, the church ocused its eforts onthe total eradication o the Maya codices and glyphic literacy in generalin order to destroy the continued practice o idolatry The Catholic clergyuncovered increasing numbers o Maya nobles practicing ancient ritesand perpetuating the use o the old glyphic script Even more alarming,the clergy discovered that some nobles who had been trained in alphabeticwriting continued to utilize both the ancient glyphic orm o writing and

the new alphabetic script as a means o preserving traditional indigenousritual knowledge Fearing the continued existence o this type o graphic


6/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

pluralism, the clergy stopped training the sons o Maya nobility, preerringto educate the children o Maya commoners in alphabetic literacy becausethey assumed that the latter would not have previous knowledge o the

ancient script7This attempt to limit the Maya nobilitys domination over alphabetic

literacy served as only the rst attempt at limiting the power and prestige othe traditional Maya nobles A second step would ocus on the removal othe traditional elite rom their positions o political power as the leaderso their communities The Spanish reorganization o Maya town govern-ment would serve as a second attack against the power and privileges o theMaya nobles

Writing and Government: The ChangingNature o Colonial Government and theMaya Nobilities Attempts at Survival

When the Spanish conquerors initially encountered the Maya nobility, theyaccepted their hegemony, and at rst made them important componentso the colonial regime ater But, as early as , Spanish ocialsmoved to displace the traditional elite lineages uring the period rom to , the Spanish authorities had discovered that a large number

o the traditional Maya elite maintained an allegiance to their old religionand helped to perpetuate what the clergy viewed as idolatry among theircommoners Fearing their continued resistance, the Spanish authoritiesdecided to begin to remove the traditional elite rom their privileged politi-cal positions Although it took about ty years, the Spanish did succeedin displacing the traditional Maya ruling elite and creating the repblica deindios system o town governments

This reorganization o local indigenous government ofered ew oppor-tunities or the Maya nobility to maintain their dominance Although the

Spaniards replaced the regional rulers, or halach uinic, with the symbol othe Spanish provincial governor, at the local level things changed very littleat rst The Spaniards relied on the local caciques or rulers (batabob inMaya, batab, sing) or the collection o tribute and the administration ojustice at the local level However, by the later sixteenth century, the con-querors introduced the Spanish system o municipal government based onthe cabildo, or town council The traditional Maya caciques remained inpower initially, but several other village oces were introduced as olderMaya ocials were removed rom local government

The three main types o ocials introduced by this new repblicade indios system o town government were alcaldes, regidores, and, most


7/30


importantly or our study, escribanos (scribes) The alcaldes (mayors ormagistrates), regidores (aldermen), and another group o ocials, algua-ciles (constables), were elected each year These posts oalcalde, regidor,

and alguacilwere partially opened to commoners The positions o batab,maestro de escuela (school master), and escribano, however, were selectedexclusively rom the ndian nobility, at least at rst

Eventually, the position o batab became occupied by Maya who didnot necessarily belong to the Maya nobility Removed rom hereditary posi-tions o power, the traditional Maya elite had to develop new strategiesor survival in the rapidly changing colonial administration n many cases,they utilized their knowledge o writing to ensure their continued domi-nance For instance, a detailed study o a large number o Maya town o-

cials rom a selection o twenty-two Maya towns with a large corpus oextant documents reveals that in most cases, even when a towns batab wasnot selected rom the traditional elite, a towns escribano continued to beselected rom the Maya nobility throughout the colonial period

By royal decree in , this repblica system became the sole systemo indigenous government in Yucatan The highest legally recognized o-cial in the new towns was now called the gobernador, governor n theMaya concept o the evolving nature o colonial government, the post obatab and gobernador became conated Thus, at rst, the traditional local

Maya batabob came to occupy the new positions o gobernador Similarly,the pre-Hispanic Maya regional or provincial governments once controlledby the halach uinicob, the traditional Maya provincial rulers, quickly beganto disintegrate and eventually disappear n the mid-sixteenth century, thehalach uinicob usually concurrently held the new political oce o gober-nador as well as their previous positions as regional lords The oce olocal cacique remained hereditary, while that o legally recognized gober-nador was elective or appointive, and the oce holder thus was more mal-leable to Spanish demands Under increasing legal attacks, traditional Maya

caciques ound themselves removed rom access to the highest levels o o-cial government in these new town councils ue to their gradual loss o realpolitical power, the ruling Maya elite needed to nd some means to main-tain their traditional hegemony The new positions o scribe and maestrode escuela soon came to ofer the Maya nobility the continued means odominance by continuing their control over sacred knowledge and enablingthem to dominate multiple literacies in the evolving graphic pluralism o thecolonial Maya world


8/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

Writing as a Means o Survival: The Importanceo Writing and the Post o the Village Scribe inElite Attempts at Survival

Although many Maya may have learned to use Latin literacy earlier than, it was not until the later s, when the traditional elites power waschallenged by the Spanish system, that they began to produce documents inmass n , there was already a Maya scribe in the village o Yaxkukul,and he was a member o the traditional elite4 By , land documentswere being recorded and written in Maya, and the privileges, lineages, andgenealogies o the traditional elite were recorded in alphabetical script

At the same time, rom the s through the s, the regional halach

uinicob and other nobles ound their actual political inuence (the abilityto collect tribute, drat labor, and impose local leaders) slowly shrinkingaway ne example o this loss o privileges, and the creation o new non-noble ocials, occurred as early as in Tekanto, when the ruling elitelineage o the Poot was removed rom the holding o the town governor-ship5 Although the Poot amily continued to hold the hereditary positiono cacique, they had efectively lost their political power through the place-ment o nonelite Maya in the rotating position o town gobernador6 Simi-larly to the situation o the Poot clan in Tekanto, many o the traditional

Maya elite were removed rom holding political power by the end o thesixteenth century7 Having earlier gained Latin letterbased literacy, aterthe decade o the s these traditional nobles attempted to dominate theposition o village scribe, turning it into a hereditary oce, despite royalSpanish prohibitions against this practice

The signicance o the village scribes and their understanding o alpha-betic literacy made the position o scribe the second most powerul positionin Maya village government ater the gobernador The position o escri-bano, introduced by the Spaniards, had a pre-Hispanic equivalent in the

ah dzib n the books o Chilam Balam, he is called Ah zib Cah, TheTown Scribe Even into the colonial period, some scribes preerred touse the title oah tzib hun, or he who writes the document This was anappointed, not elected, position, and the scribes term in oce lasted or thelie o the appointee or until he decided to leave it or another oce

Scribes played a major position in local politics within the Maya localhierarchy However, in Spanish colonial administration, the scribe was thelowest ranking member o the cabildo, and his signature always appearedlast, at the end o the list o ocial signatures This diferent emphasis o

importance placed on the oce o scribe in the two systems reveals the cen-tral signicance o the ability to write and its connection to power in localcolonial Maya government


9/30


The dominance o the Maya nobility over the position o scribe wasmade perpetual because those Maya nobles who had learned to read andwrite were able to hand pick their own successors Although the Crown

had passed regulations against the perpetual occupation o the positiono scribe by one person or amily, by the later seventeenth century scribesappeared to have held the position or lie, or until one o their relativesor riends were able to take over the oce4 Thus, the Maya themselvesundertook the education o this select group o scribes and notaries, whomost oten were the only literate members o the village Larger towns (suchas Sotuta) had a greater number o scribes, but most smaller towns had onlyone4 n cases o multiple scribes, one o them served as senior scribe andthe others were apprentices or hired hands (muken kab)4

The connection between literacy, political power, and social prestigeis evident in the Maya concept o the apparent hierarchy o these ocesThe positions o scribe and maestro de escuela were the only two posts thatrequired literacy and they were also the only two ull-time posts awardeda salary rom community revenues4 Scribes also collected special eesrom the Maya who wished to draw up a will, send a letter, or authorizesome other type o document Thus, their incomes could be substantial anddepended on their scribal activities during any given period Regardless otheir actual earnings, it is evident that colonial Maya scribes exercised a

great deal o power through their knowledge o writing

Writing as Power: The Domination o the Traditional MayaNobility over the Post o Escribano and the IncreasingPrestige o Multiple Literacy among Colonial Maya Scribes

Pre-Hispanic Maya concepts linked the power over writing and the gods oknowledge to the nobility Nevertheless, colonial Spanish realities meantthat the civil and ecclesiastical authorities attempted to limit the power

o the traditional Maya elite This meant that Maya who were not mem-bers o the nobility came to control political power uring this periodo transition, the pre-Hispanic ruling amilies switched their attempts atkeeping local power rom maintaining the position o batab or gobernadorto consolidating their control over the position o town scribe t was thescribe who held the responsibility o certiying all ocial documents, trib-ute censuses, petitions, and other correspondence and account books nmany instances, the scribe became equal in importance with the batab,and in some instances, as we will see later, he was even more important

than the local gobernador Nevertheless, in the Spanish colonial adminis-tration, the scribe was the lowest ranking member o the cabildo, and his


10/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

signature always appeared last, at the end o the list o ocial signatures(table )

This diferent emphasis o importance placed on the oce o scribe inthe two systems reveals the central signicance o the ability to write and itsconnection to power in local colonial Maya government (g )

n Maya documents, the scribe and batab usually signed the documenttogether, either beore the other ocials o the cabildo (see g ) or in thecenter o the page, with the lesser ocials signatures of to the right- andlet-hand sides (see g )

Thus, it appears that the positions o scribe and batab were empha-sized as hierarchically more important by the Maya than the positions o

alcaldes and regidoresNevertheless, Spanish law required that the scribes signature should

Table . Spanish and Maya Views o the Prestige and Hierarchy o CabildoOfcials, 550750

Cabildo Hierarchy in Spanish Law Cabildo Hierarchy in Maya Practice

1. Gobernador 1. Gobernador and Escribano2. Alcaldes [2] 2. Alcaldes [2]3. Regidores [ or ] 3. Regidores [2 or ]. Alguaciles [ or ] . Alguaciles []. Escribano

Figure . Maya batab (Juan Can) and escribano (Agustin Xul) rom Tihotzucosign a petition together, separate rom the alcaldes and regidores. Source:Peticindel pueblo de Tihotzuco, 24 de Junio, 1669, Archivo General de Indias, Seville,Spain (hereater AGI), Escribania de Camara, 35B


11/30


be the last one on any ocial document This obvious slighting o Spanish

notarial law no doubt was undertaken in order to emphasize the prestigeand political power o the village scribe44

Similarly, it appears that the old pre-Hispanic ruling clans and amilieswere able to continue political dominance through their continued exer-cise o the position o village scribe, enabling them to continue their pre-Hispanic tradition o being the voice o the elite throughout the colo-nial period Throughout colonial Maya towns like Ebtun, where we havea long series o records, it appears that the governors and town scribesseem to have been restricted to a smaller number o lineages45 uring the

sixteenth to eighteenth centuries in Ebtun, or example, only seven lineagenames appear to have held the governorship46 Among those names were

Figure 2. Cristobal Cituk (scribe) signed rst along with the batab, Don ClementeKuyoc rom Chikindzonot. Source: Peticin del pueblo de Chikindzonot, 23 de

Junio, 1669, AGI, Escribania de Camara, 35B

Figure 3. The escribano (Felipe Tulul) and batab (Don Francisco Camal) romEkpedz signed together in the center o the page. Source: Peticin del pueblo deEkpedz, 20 de Mayo, 1669, AGI, Escribania de Camara, 35B


12/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

several early governors rom amilies whose patroynms belonged to the tra-ditional pre-Hispanic ruling elite like the Camal amily Perhaps it is not acoincidence that the town had a cacique when the Spaniards arrived who

was captain general o all this province and he was called Batab Camal47Nevertheless, these elite amilies apparently did not dominate the holdingo this political oce exclusively Several o the occupants o the position ogobernador appear to have been Maya commoners

More importantly or this study, only our amilies appear to havealmost exclusively controlled the important post o town scribe theseamilies, three, the Camal, Huchim, and zul amilies, representing thenative pre-Hispanic ruling elite, held the oce o scribe or the longestperiod o time nly three nonelite amilies (the Noh, Cen, and May ami-

lies) were able to occupy the position o town scribe in Ebtun, even brieyApparently, more than percent o the Maya who held the position oscribe in Ebtun belonged to amilies that represented the pre-Hispanicruling elite (g )

What is more interesting is that the title o on, a Spanish symbol onobility usually given to those who occupied the position o town governor,was given to only two out o the seventy-ve people the scribes labeled asal mehenob, or individuals who belonged to the traditional Maya noblelineages in Ebtun4 Apparently, the Spanish title o on was not given to

recognize Maya traditional nobility, and the Maya in their documents didnot always recognize those with the title on as nobles

Similarly, even in well-documented towns such as Tekanto, only asmall percentage o those labeled as Indios Hidalgos and given the Spanishtitle on are also reerred to in the documentation as belonging to the almehenob4 Across the twenty-two towns sampled, less than a third o theMaya recognized as elites by the Spanish colonial world were consideredtraditional nobles by the Maya themselves Apparently, the Spanish worldand the Maya world held two diferent and diametrically opposed opinions

as to who belonged to a truly noble classThis apparent rit in social prestige and noble status is evident in the

writings o the colonial escribanos, who almost always attributed to them-selves the title o al mehenob, and who percent o the time (rom thetwenty-two-village sample o documents) came rom the amilies with thetraditional patronyms o the preconquest rulers o their regions (g )

n contrast, only percent o traceable governors o the twenty-twotowns sampled are described as al mehenob or have traditional Maya patro-nyms o the ruling preconquest elite o their regions Apparently less than a

third o the governors sampled belonged to traditional noble amilies rom to , but percent o the scribes in the western part o the penin-


13/30


sula descended rom members o the traditional Maya elite, according totheir patronyms (table )

Even more importantly, the percentage o scribes rom the traditionalnobility (al mehenob) appears to be even higher in those towns that lay inthe eastern part o the Yucatan peninsula (average o percent), a regionless afected by direct Spanish control (table )

Moreover, it was the domination and control over the sacred knowl-edge o writing that quickly came to separate the true noblemen (ie, Mayavillage scribes who held close contacts to the traditional Maya elite andpriesthood) and the Maya town gobernadores, oten pawns or agents oSpanish colonialism, who came rom the commoner or macehualclass and

thereore were seen as usurpers o the mat What separated the true Mayanobility rom the new colonial usurpers apparently was the true nobilitys

Dzul*

39%

Huchim*

17%

Camal*

11%

May

17%

Cen

11%

Noh

5%

EliteMayaFamiliescontrolled 67% of

thescribalpositionsinEbtunfrom1600 1800to

Figure 4. Source: Ralph L. Roys, Titles o Ebtun, Carnegie Publication #505 (Wash-ington, DC, 939), 4749


14/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

ability to control and dominate multiple literacies5 Both the alphabeticscript and the traditional Maya glyphs became the sacred knowledge o thisapparent noble scribal class Moreover, almost inadvertently, many colonialscribes let behind linguistic evidence o their ability to manipulate the mul-tiple literacies o the colonial world

Writing as Resistance: Evidence or the Later Colonial

Coexistence o Hieroglyphic and Alphabetic MayaTexts in Resistance to Spanish Colonialism

A parallel examination o Spanish and Maya petitions reveals that theMaya, even as early as the sixteenth century, had developed a unique Mayaormulary that used some aspects o Spanish documentary style and or-mat, but nonetheless did not meet the requirements o Spanish law5 TheMaya did not disregard Spanish rules o document style and legal ormulasout o ignorance They instead adapted them to their own Maya rules o

style and ormal address, which, through diferent rom the Spanish or-mulary, added weight and validity to the document in the eyes o the local

Figure 5. Colonial Maya scribes who continued to come rom the traditional pre-Hispanic ruling elite amily patronyms, 570739

Mrida

Campeche

Valladolid

Map Key

= Maya Scribe

scribal documentation1579-1649

(7 out 9) = Number of Maya scribeswith traditional elitePatronym in documentary

record

MotulPech

1606-1669(8 out of 19)

Chel

PechConkal

1595-1639

TiziminHuchim

1611-1722(9 out of 12)

Dzonotake

Chancenote

Nabalam

Yobain

Sotuta

Cozumel

Peto

Mani

Maxcanu

CalkiniCanul

Canul

Xiu

Pot

Cocom

Chel Na

Tzeh/Pech

Cupul

Pat/Malah1579-1649

1599-1653

1607-1713

1603-1672

1611-1707

1595-1669 1610-1669

1623-1739

1598-1676

1589-1637(7 out of 8)

(17 out of 21)

(13 out of 15)

(8 out of 11)(11 out of 15)

(22 out of 27)

(16 out of 22)

(12 out of 16)

(11 out of 14)

(7 out of 9)

(7 out of 16)

= Dates of extant

= Maya elite Patronym


15/30


Maya Thus, in keeping with the Maya oral and written tradition o thepre-Hispanic period, the colonial Maya scribe conquered Spanish docu-ments, orcing them to t into their unique Maya cosmovision

Moreover, Maya titles, measurements, numerals, and their classierswere still used in many cases even though they had the option o using Span-ish equivalents Especially in the eastern Yucatan peninsula, the survivalo pre-Hispanic terminology and the use o Maya concepts and terms oralready established Spanish loan words is more prevalent An examination

o extant petitions rom throughout the peninsula illustrates that even aslate as the s to s, Maya scribal knowledge o Spanish orthogra-

Table 2. Percentage Distribution o Maya Noble Lineages Holding the Positiono Escribano in Western Yucatan Peninsula, 570750

WesternPeninsulaTown

Patronym oTraditionalPre-HispanicNobility

Last RecordedYear Traditional

NoblePatronym

Controlled theGovernorship

Years odentiable

ScribePositions

Representedin ocument

Corpus

Percent oTraditional

NoblePatronymHolding

Position asScribe

Calkini Canul ? 1919 9%Maxcanu Canul 10 19913 8%Conkal Pech 110 193139 %*Motul Pech 110 1019 2%*Yobain Chel 190 1919 3%Sotuta Cocom 110 11110 81%Mani Xiu 112 10113 3%Peto Pot 100 10312 %Average 68%

* = Relative shorter distance and proximity between these Maya towns and the Spanish capitalo Merida may have afected the ability o the traditional Maya elite to continue to dominatethe position o village scribe unopposed in these townsSource Collection o several hundred documents rom identied towns ound in AG Audien-cia de Mxico, Audiencia de Guatemala, Contaduria, Escribania de Camara, ndierente Gen-

eral, Justicia, and Patronato; Tulane LAL-Vice-Regal Ecclesiastical Mexican Collection Yuca-tan Collection; Archivo Histrico del Arzobispado de Yucatn, Merida, Mexico (hereaterAHAY) Asuntos Terminados, Concursos a Curatos, ecretos y rdenes, and Visitas Pasto-rales; Archivo General de la Nacin, Mexico City (hereater AGN) Bienes Nacionales, BienesNacionalizadas, Bienes de Comunidad, ndierente Virreinal, ndios, nquisicin, and Tierras;Archivo General del Estado de Yucatn, Merida, Mexico (hereater AGEY) Colonial, iez-mos, and Varios; Archivo Histrico Nacional, Madrid, Spain (hereater AHN) nquisicinand Visitas; Archivo General de Simancas (hereater AGS); Centro de Apoyo a la nvestigacinHistrica de Yucatn (hereater CAHY); Princeton University, Harvard University; BrighamYoung University; Michel Antiochiw Private Collection; and Chuchiak Private Collection


16/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

phy, Spanish language, and Spanish terminology was weak in the easternpart o the peninsula

Especially in terms o Spanish loan words, there is an evident rit inscribal knowledge o and amiliarity with Spanish language and termi-nology nly in the towns o the western peninsula, where successive con-tact with Spaniards and Spanish was constant since the s, did the Maya

correctly use Spanish orthography in their use o Spanish loan words nsimple Spanish words such as seor (sir, lord), a great diference is observedin the nature o scribal spellings and scribal knowledge o proper Spanishorthography and pronunciation (g )

n the east, until the eighteenth century and changing Bourbon regula-tions on residency patterns, even Maya village scribes had little knowledgeo proper Spanish orthography, grammar, or even terminologies As a gen-eral rule, the arther east rom Merida, the more garbled the Maya scribalunderstanding o Spanish orthography and the less requent the usage o

Spanish loan words

Table 3. Percentage Distribution o Maya Noble Lineages Holding the Positiono Escribano in Eastern Yucatan Peninsula, 570750

EasternPeninsulaTown

Patronym oTraditionalPre-HispanicNobility

Last RecordedYear Traditional

NoblePatronym

Controlled theGovernorship

Years odentiable

ScribePositions

Representedin ocument

Corpus

Percent oTraditional

NoblePatronymHolding

Position asScribe

Tizimin Huchim 180 111122 %zonotake Na 108 11019 3%Chancenote Tzeh 10 193139 81%Nabalam Cupul 100 1981 8%Cozumel Pat 10 18913 88%Average 81%

Source Collection o several hundred documents rom identied towns ound in AG Audi-encia de Mxico, Audiencia de Guatemala, Contaduria, Escribania de Camara, ndierenteGeneral, Justicia, and Patronato; Tulane LAL-Vice-Regal Ecclesiastical Mexican CollectionYucatan Collection; AHAY Asuntos Terminados, Concursos a Curatos, ecretos y rdenes,and Visitas Pastorales; AGN Bienes Nacionales, Bienes Nacionalizadas, Bienes de Comuni-dad, ndierente Virreinal, ndios, nquisicin, and Tierras; AGEY Colonial, iezmos, andVarios; AHN nquisicin and Visitas; AGS; CAHY; Princeton University; Harvard Univer-sity; Brigham Young University; Michel Antiochiw Private Collection; and Chuchiak Private

Collection


17/30


Continued Dual Literacies as Resistancein the Eastern Peninsula?

n the eastern part o the peninsula, the garbled Spanish loan words mayreveal that the Maya scribes there preserved an understanding o the pho-netic Maya script longer than the Maya scribes in the west Many o thecorruptions o Spanish loan words in the eastern peninsula reveal a sophis-

ticated understanding and type o regularization in the writing and use oneatly parsed syllables (table and g )

Figure . Eastern and western peninsula examples o the rendering o Spanishloan words by Maya scribes, 70. Sources: AGI, Escribana de Cmara,

3A:Peticin de Pedro Cantun del pueblo de Dzodzil, 1666, Cuentas del repar-timiento del gobernador del pueblo de Dzodzil, 1666, Peticin y relacin delpueblo de Humun con una lista de cera y paties pagados en el repartimiento,1666,Peticin y Relacin de los repartimientos de los ofciales de Sotuta, 1669,Peticin y cuentas de los repartimientos del pueblo de Tixcacal, 1669,Peticindel pueblo de Uaymax, 1669; AGI, Escribana de Cmara, 35B:Peticin de losindios del pueblo de Ichmul, 1669,Peticin de los indios del pueblo de Chikin-dzonot, 1669,Peticin de los indios del pueblo de Ekpez, 1669,Peticin de losindios del pueblo de Tixcacal, 1669,Peticin de los indios del pueblo de Sotuta,1669, Peticin de los indios del pueblo de Mopila, 1669, Certifcacin de donFrancisco Canul, batab del pueblo de Ekpez, 1669

Mrida

Campeche

Valladolid

Motul

Sotuta

Calkini

Uman

Maxcanu

Mopila

Dzodzil

Tixcacal

Ekpedz

Dzonotchel Ichmul

Uaymax

Map concept by Dr. John F. Chuchiak IV


18/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

As we have seen rom the argument above, the traditional Maya nobilityin the eastern peninsula maintained a stronger control over the positions ovillage scribe Moreover, as table and gure illustrate, traditional elite inthe east not only dominated alphabetic writing, but there also are clues thatthey may have preserved the hieroglyphic script longer than in the westernpeninsula, where the elite were under close watch

According to Victoria Bricker, other important internal linguisticevidence exists in the early colonial documents and manuscripts written

Table 4. Maya Scribal Syllabic/Phonetic Renderings o Spanish Loan Words andTheir Relationship with Possible Continued Knowledge o Hieroglyphic Script,0000

SpanishLoan Word

Western PeninsulaScribe

Eastern PeninsulaScribe

Example o MostCommon Phoneticrder o Maya GlyphBlocks (With FourPhonetic Syllables)

*

Inormacin*

*=The most common orm o Maya hieroglyphic inscription that was rendered into phoneticor syllabic glyphs was made up o our readily separable phonetic syllables These examplesshow how the most common Maya glyph block o our syllables could be divided and read

t is interesting to note that no matter how many true syllables a Spanish loan word had, theMaya o the eastern peninsula almost always attempted to break it down into our parsedsyllables so that it t into their understanding o a proper writing system For instance, theSpanish loan word in-or-ma-ci-on (ve syllables) was rendered in the Maya concept in clumsyour-separated-syllable corruptions The rst example ignores the extra c syllable and thesecond example lumps the ourth and th Spanish syllables together to make a neat our-syllable constructionSources AG, Escribana de Cmara, A Peticin de Pedro Cantun del pueblo de Dzodzil,1666, Cuentas del repartimiento del gobernador del pueblo de Dzodzil, 1666, Peticin y relacin delpueblo de Dzonotchel, 1666; AG, Escribana de Cmara, B Peticin de los indios del pueblode Ekpez, 1669, Certifcacin de don Francisco Canul, batab del pueblo de Ekpez, 1669, Peticindel pueblo de Uaymax, 1669, Peticion y certifcacin de los ofciales del pueblo de Maxcanu, 1669,

Peticin del pueblo de Calkini, 1669


19/30


in alphabetic script that reveals that Maya scribes maintained a vibrantknowledge o the ancient hieroglyphic script5 This linguistic evidence,pointed out earlier by Bricker in several early Maya Chilam Balam books,and the more syllabic corruptions o Spanish loan words evident in the largecorpus o documents rom the seventeenth century may point to the actthat eastern scribes continued to use and write with the Maya hieroglyphicscript (table )

Conclusion: The Continued Use o Hieroglyphics and theSpread o Alphabetic ScriptNoble Strategies or Survival

As many examples attest, the colonial Yucatec Maya nobility continued toconsult hieroglyphic codices in their ceremonies Similarly, as more codiceswere uncovered, the surviving Maya priesthood had to produce new onesto replace them dolatry trial evidence suggests that many Maya priestscontinued to make new idols and paint new codices throughout the colonial

period n their commissions and orders to the local ecclesiastical judges,the bishops o Yucatan and their assistants especially requested that the

Figure 7. Eastern and western peninsula examples o the rendering o Spanish loanwords by Maya scribes, 70. Sources: same as or table 4

Mrida

Campeche

Valladolid

Map concept by Dr. John F. Chuchiak IV

Maxcanu

Calkini

Mopila

Dzodzil

Ekpedz

Dzonotchel

Uaymax


20/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

judges seek out and destroy all books o their ancient characters boththe old ones and the ones that they still produce5

With increased pressure rom extirpators, and earing a loss o this

sacred knowledge, many colonial ah kins (traditional Maya priests) and theirassistants began to adopt Latin letterbased literacy They wrote Maya withLatin letters in order to preserve their legends, ritual ormularies, and otherreligious material54 Maya ritual knowledge rom the codices survived tosome extent by transorming into these books o Chilam Balam55 Addingnecessary allusions to Christianity and Christian concepts, these books inefect ooled the parish clergy and extirpators into believing that theycontained simple histories and other stories without religious signicanceThe Maya also prudently obscured much o the pagan content within these

colonial texts by using riddles and metaphorThe books o Chilam Balam, though heavily inuenced by European

concepts, still attest to the colonial use o the codices and the continuedknowledge o the glyphs56 The colonial ah kins and noble scribes apparentlymade the extant copies in the seventeenth century rom earlier versions thatwere later rewritten These books o Chilam Balam contain many allusionsto the continued existence o several codices that escaped the ecclesiasticalextirpators n the Book o Chilam Balam o Tizimin, the scribes reer to apagan ceremony that occurred in the Maya year that corresponded to ,

saying that it occurred according to what is in the arrangement o the writ-ing and glyphs57

However, as increased Spanish vigilance occurred in the westernYucatan, and many noble scribes and prominent Maya principales weredenounced or idolatry and possession o hieroglyphic texts, a continuedknowledge o the Maya glyphic script became dangerous (g ) More-over, as the gures show or the western portion o the peninsula, increasednumbers o traditional scribes rom towns where surviving glyphic codiceswere uncovered were removed and replaced by Maya commoners who only

understood the alphabetic scriptApparently those surviving Maya noble scribes decided to make the

switch to writing traditional Maya religious and ceremonial materials inalphabetic texts and manuscripts in order to better preserve them rom theprying eyes o the Catholic clergy, who kept a vigilant eye out or theirbooks o ancient characters By the second decade o the seventeenthcentury, traditional Maya nobles and scribes in the western peninsula hadgiven up on their continued use o these prohibited hieroglyphic texts inavor o recording the inormation once contained within them in manu-

scripts written with alphabetic texts (g )Although these alphabetic texts and ritual material remained equally

prohibited by the Catholic clergy, these types o manuscripts were easier


21/30


to hide and dissimulate into the routine paperwork o the village scribesand nobles From the decade o the s onward, ecclesiastical extirpatorsuncovered increasing numbers o these Maya alphabetical texts would beuncovered in the towns o the western peninsula (g )

As the gures show, a decreasing number o Maya codices were uncov-ered in the western hal o the Yucatan peninsula ater (table )

At the same time, evidence rom the scribal production o towns in

the eastern peninsula reveals a diferent picture Noble scribes in the eastcontinued to use the Maya hieroglyphic script and utilize it in conjunctionwith their rudimentary knowledge o Maya written in the alphabetic scriptApparently, however, the noble scribes o the east continued to preer theuse o the glyphic script and their traditional codices in their rituals andceremonies, since no real quantity o Maya ritual texts in alphabetic scriptwas ever conscated in the eastern peninsula until very late in the eighteenthcentury (table )

n the other hand, hieroglyphic texts continued to be conscated and

destroyed in the towns o the eastern peninsula throughout the late eigh-teenth century (g )

What the preliminary investigation o these sources reveals is the tan-

Figure . Conscations o Maya hieroglyphic codices and Maya ritual texts inalphabetic script, 5000

Mrida

Campeche

Valladolid

Cozumel

Motul

Map Key

= Hieroglyphic Maya Codex Confscated

= Alphabetic Maya Ritual Text Confscated

Telchac1561 1587

Conkal1583

1584

Champoton1579

Mani1563/1568/1572/1575/1585

Tixcacal

Bacalar Region1567-1570

(12 Codices)

(Multiple Codices)

Yobain

Peto

Calotmul

Calkini

Maxcanu1573

1574

1595

1589/1592

1585

1586

Tikuche

Tizimin

Dzonotake

Tixcancal

Nabalam

Xocen

Tahmuy

Tixmukul

Dzama

Ppole

Chancenote

Cehac

1589

15841597

15951583

1583

1589

1592/1599

1598

1584

1592/1597

1598

1592


22/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

Table 5. Geographical Distribution o Conscated Codices (50750)

YearsEastern

PeninsulaWestern

PeninsulaBacalarRegion

PetenRegion

10100 22 1 12 010010 2 21 2 01010 9 1 1 10Totals:

8 38 1 10Source Specic inormation on the conscation o Maya codices is ound in John F Chu-chiak V, The mages Speak The Survival and Production o Hieroglyphic Codices and TheirUse in Post-Conquest Maya Religion, , in Maya Religious Practices: Processes oChange and Adaption, Acta Mesoamericana, vol (Markt Schwaben, Germany, ),

Figure 9. Conscations o Maya hieroglyphic codices and Maya ritual texts inalphabetic script, 0050

MridaValladolid

Cozumel

Motul

Map Key

= Hieroglyphic Maya Codex Confscated

= Alphabetic Maya Ritual Text Confscated

1634Conkal1621

1608/1609

Champoton1609/1611

Mani1612

Cacalchen

Bacalar1619

Yobain

Peto

Calotmul

Calkini

Maxcanu1627

1635

1605

1615/1643

1632/1636

1606

Tikuche

Tizimin

Dzonotake

Tixcancal

Nabalam

Xocen

Tahmuy

Tixmukul

Dzama

Ppole

Chancenote

Cehac

1603

16081614

1603/1640

1607

1603

1607

1618

1607

1625

1607/1609

1607

1609

Uman

Timucuy

Pustunich1610

1621

1609

Baca1637

Oxkutzcab1611

Tekax

Sahcabchen

Hocaba

Yaxcaba

1606

1611/1643

Dzindzantun1603

1603/1606/1612

Ichmul

Tihotzuco

1602/1640

1610/1642

Tipu1618

1610

Campeche

1612


23/30


Table . Geographical Distribution o Conscated Maya Alphabetic Texts(50750)

YearsEastern

PeninsulaWestern

PeninsulaBacalarRegion

PetenRegion

10100 0 0 0 010010 0 8 0 01010 3 1 0 0Totals: 3 23 0 0

Source Specic inormation on the conscation o Maya codices is ound in Chuchiak, Themages Speak,

Figure 0. Evidence o continued graphic pluralism in both hieroglyphic andalphabetic scripts in the eastern Yucatan peninsula, 50750

MridaValladolid

Motul

Map Key

= Hieroglyphic Maya Codex Conscated

= Alphabetic Maya Ritual Text Conscated

1724Conkal1739

1661

Champoton1663

Mani1672

Cacalchen

Bacalar1680

Yobain

Peto

Calkini

Maxcanu1745

1749

1663

1656

1659

Tizimin

Dzonotake

NabalamPpole

Chancenote

1727

1717

1703

1665

1734

Uman1735

Oxkutzcab1664

Tekax

Sahcabchen

Yaxcaba

1715

1672

Dzindzantun1711

1732

Ichmul

Tihotzuco

1707

1679

1660

Campeche

1675

Hocaba

= Apparant linguistic divide in terms ofsurvival of Maya Hieroglyphic Script


24/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

talizing probability that Maya hieroglyphic script and the knowledge o theglyphs lasted much longer into the colonial world than previously believedEven probable evidence exists in the mundane record o scribal production

that many scribes, especially those living in the eastern portion o the Yuca-tan peninsula, continued to understand, write, and create written ritualtexts in Maya glyphs as a means o resistance to the exclusive nature oSpanish Catholicism and religious conversion

Through their manipulation o the continued existence o graphicpluralism and their domination o multiple literacies, the Maya elite o bothsides o the linguistic/cultural divide in the Yucatan peninsula used writing(both alphabetic and glyphic scripts) as a means o colonial resistance toSpanish rule Not only a means o resistance, as this paper has attempted

to show, this continued graphic pluralism also served the Maya nobility asa successul elite strategy o survival in the constantly changing colonialworld

Notes

A large number o Maya rebellions throughout the Yucatan peninsula weremotivated by religious reasons or had religious conict as one o their rootcauses For more instances o similar rebellions with religious roots, see John FChuchiak V, Cuius Regio Eius Religio Yucatec Maya Nativistic Movementsand the Religious Roots o Rebellion in Colonial Yucatn, , Ketzal-calli , no

Relacin breve de lo que Juan Garn hizo por mando de Don Luis de Cspedesde Oviedo, Gobernador y Capitn General por su Majestad en estas provincias deYucatn, en socorro de los vecinos de la provincia de Bacalar, 20 de Abril, 1569,Archivo General de ndias, Seville, Spain (hereater AG), Patronato, , Ramo, olios

bid, olio rv Carta del Cabildo de Bacalar, 4 de enero, 1569, AG, Patronato, , Ramo ,

olios

Apparently writing letters in Maya with alphabetic script by rebellious Mayawho wanted to eradicate the Spaniards was not atypical uring the Maya idolatry trials conducted by the Franciscan Provincial Fray iego deLanda, it appears to have been argued that the major idolaters and conspiratorscalled other Maya to their ceremonies using letters written by Maya scribes inthe alphabetic script See France V Scholes and Eleanor Adams, Don Diego Qui-

jada: Alcalde mayor de Yucatn, 15611565, vol (Mexico City, ), Fora urther discussion o Maya usage o alphabetic literacy in similar instances seeCaroline Cunill, La alabetizacin de los Mayas Yucatecos y sus consecuenciassociales, , Estudios de Cultura Maya ()

Relacin breve de lo que Juan Garn hizo

Testimonio de Juan Rodrguez, Alguacil Mayor, a la interrogatorio de la probanzadel Capitn Juan Garn, 6 de Abril, 1569, AG, Patronato, , Ramo , oliosvr


25/30


See Testimonio del conquistador Juan Daz a la interrogatorio de la probanza delCapitn Juan Garn, 6 de Abril, 1569, AG, Patronato, , Ramo , oliosrr

For a more in-depth look at the colonial survival o Maya hieroglyphic texts andtheir use in continued Maya ceremonies, see John F Chuchiak V, The magesSpeak The Survival and Production o Hieroglyphic Codices and Their Use inPost-Conquest Maya Religion, , in Maya Religious Practices: Pro-cesses o Change and Adaption, Acta Mesoamericana, vol (Markt Schwaben,Germany, ),

For urther inormation on the connection between the Maya glyphic scriptand the surviving Maya priesthood (ah kinob), see John F Chuchiak V, Pre-Conquest Ah Kinob in a Colonial World The Extirpation o dolatry and theSurvival o the Maya Priesthood in Colonial Yucatn, , in Maya Sur-vivalism, Acta Mesoamericana, vol , ed Ueli Hostettler and Matthew Restall(Markt Schwaben, Germany, ),

Fr Bernardo de Lizana, Historia de Yucatn: Devocionario de Ntra. Sra. de Iza-mal y conquista espiritual(Mexico City, ), Villalpando was the rst oneto write several books on the Maya language He produced texts that wouldbe used by later riars to teach their indigenous converts and themselves howto read and write Maya For more inormation on Franciscan works in Mayalinguistics, see Ralph L Roys, The Franciscan Contribution to Maya Linguis-tic Research in Yucatan, The Americas () , and Manuel Castroy Castro, Lenguas indgenas transmitidas por los Franciscanos del s XV,Archivo Ibero-Americano ()

Lizana, Historia de Yucatn,

Cunill, La alabetizacin de los Mayas Yucatecos, bid, ; also see iego Lpez de Cogolludo, Los tres siglos de la dominacinespaola en Yucatan, o historia de esta provincia, vol (Graz, Austria, ),

Landa well knew about these orthographic problems, or he perected Villal-pandos grammar and wrote sermons and other works in Maya See Alred MTozzer, trans, Landas relacin de las cosas de Yucatan, Papers o the PeabodyMuseum o American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, vol (Cambridge, MA, ), For inormation on other colonial Franciscanscontributions to Maya linguistics, see France V Scholes, Franciscan Mission-ary Scholars in Colonial Central America, The Americas () ,

and Francesc Ligorred, Literatura maya e los jeroglcos al alabeto latino,Boletn Americanista () For an excellent recent study o this early attempt at missionary education, see

Caroline Cunills excellent recent article La alabetizacin de los Mayas Yuca-tecos,

n , there was already a Mayan scribe in the village o Yaxkukul See SergioQuezada, Pueblos y Caciques Yucatecos, 15501580, (Mexico City, ),

See Ralph L Roys, The Indian Background o Colonial Yucatan (Washington,C, ), ; also see Ralph L Roys, Titles o Ebtun, Carnegie Publication# (Washington, C, ),

See Mercedes de la Garza Camino, Relacin de Mrida, in Relaciones hist-

rico geogrfcas de la gobernacin de Yucatn: Mrida, Valladolid y Tabasco, vol ,(Mexico City, ), The encomendero rom the town o Chunhuhub and


26/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

Tabi, Pero Garcia, added that the Maya had letters and that each letter was asyllable and they understood each other by using them (e la Garza Camino,Relacin de Chunhuhub y Tabi, Relaciones histrico geogrfcas, vol , )

Tozzer, Landas relacin, See Fr Bernardo de Lizana, Devocionario de Nuestra Seora de Izamal y conquista

espiritual de Yucatn, Facsmile Edicin de Ren Acua (Mexico City, []), Writing in , Lizana is most probably reerring to the codex con-scated in near the Campeche/Champoton region and then transcribedor annotated by several old Maya rom the region, most probably ah kins, orsons o ah kinob For more inormation, see John F Chuchiak V, The magesSpeak The Survival and Production o Hieroglyphic Codices and Their Use inPost-Conquest Maya Religion, , in Maya Religious Practices, vol ,

See Mercedes de la Garza Camino, Relacin de la Villa de Valladolid, in Rela-ciones histrico geogrfcas, vol , As or the actual makeup o the codices,the best study o the paper o which the codices are made was conducted bythe German scholar Rudol Schwede See Rudol Schwede, ber das Papier derMaya-Codices u. einiger altmexikanischer Bilderhandscriten (resden, )

Several riars and secular clergy in the diocese o Yucatan studied the Mayashieroglyphic script and their legends, myths, and religion Landa was one o therst riars to study the Maya script and culture by examining codices and inter-viewing surviving Maya nobles Another o the earliest, and a contemporary oLanda, was Fr Gaspar de Njera, one o the rst riars to examine and studythe codices in order to understand their ritual and historical content Later cameFr Alonso de Solana, who is also credited with having written several other

works on Maya culture and history, including Vocabulario muy copioso en lenguaEspaola e Maya de Yucatn []; Sermones de dominicas y santos en lenguaMaya [sixteenth-century manuscript, now missing]; Apuntaciones sobre las anti-

gedades Mayas o Yucatecas [sixteenth-century manuscript, now missing]; Estu-dios histricos sobre los Indios [sixteenth-century manuscript, now missing]; andApuntes de las santas escrituras [sixteenth-century manuscript, now missing]See Alred Tozzers discussion o his bibliography o works written in Alred MTozzer, A Maya Grammar, (New York, ), The secular clergymanr Pedro Snchez de Aguilar conscated several codices and would later writeabout their content in his own book, published in and entitled Inormecontra idolorum cultores uring the late seventeenth century several other

riars joined the renewed interest in studying Maya myth and religion throughcodices and interviews Most notably were Fr Bernardo de Lizana, Fr JosephMaria rtiz, Padre Joseph Conde, and Fr Andres de Avendao Avendao alsowrote several important manuscripts that are now lost, according to Roys, TheFranciscan Contribution, , including Diccionario botnico y mdico con-

orme a los usos y costumbres de los Indios de Yucatn; Diccionario de nombres depersonas, dolos, danzas y otras antigedades de los indios de Yucatn; and a workspecically on Maya prophecies, Explicacin de varios vaticinios de los antiguosindios de Yucatn

Tozzer, Landas relacin, Testimonio de Gregorio de Aguilar, presbtero en la inormacin presentado por el

Dr. Pedro Snchez de Aguilar, 6 de diciembre, 1608, AG, Audiencia de Mxico,, olios


27/30


See Lizana, Devocionario de Nuestra Seora de Izamal, The initial prohibitions against ordaining an indigenous clergy came with the

rst and second Provincial Mexican Councils See Francisco Antonio Loren-zana, Concilios Provinciales Primero y Segundo, celebrados en la muy noble y muyleal Ciudad de Mxico, presidiendo el Ilmo. Y rmo. Seor Fray Alonso de Montaren los aos de 1555 y 1565 (Mexico City, ) For a ull discussion o the issueo ordaining indigenous clergy, see Staford Poole, Church Law on the rdi-nation o ndians and Castas in New Spain, The Hispanic American HistoricalReview (November )

For more inormation on the role o the colonial Maya elite in the perpetua-tion and continued existence o Maya idolatry, see John F Chuchiak V, Lainquisicin ndiana y la extirpacin de idolatras El castigo y la reprensin enel Provisorato de ndios en Yucatn, , in Nuevas perspectivas sobre elcastigo de la heterodoxia indgena en la Nueva Espaa, siglos XVIXVIII, ed Anade Zaballa Beascoechea (Bilbao, Spain, ),

This replacement o the pre-Hispanic halach uinic with the king, the viceroy,and the provincial governor is evidenced in early colonial documents that callthe governor the halach uinic or ahau However, the local Maya halach uinicobcontinued to maintain their titles into the second hal o the sixteenth centuryFor example, see the case o on Francisco de Montejo Xiu, who in wasstill addressed as halach uinic o Mani See the Mani Land Treaty, YucatanCollection, Box , Folder , Latin American Library, Tulane University, Newrleans

For an excellent description o this transitionary period, see Quezada, Pueblos yCaciques,

Ordenanzas que el Doctor Palacio manda guardar entre los naturales de las provin-cias de Yucatan, , AG, ndierente General, , olio For an exampleo election records in Maya rom the year rom Tekanto, see Matthew BRestall, The World o the Cah Postconquest Yucatec Maya Society, Phdiss, University o Caliornia, , Appendix A, document #,

See Ordenanzas que el Doctor Palacio manda guardar, olio Garca Palaciosorders stated that cada ao eligen alcaldes, regidores, mayordomos, alguaciles los cules sean la mitad principales y la otra mitad macegualesAlso see Francisco de Solano y Prez Lila, Autoridades municipales indge-nas de Yucatn (), Revista de la Universidad de Yucatn , no ()

The corpus o Maya documents (petitions, certications, letters, electionrecords, wills and testaments, notarial records, and other documents in theYucatec Maya language) used or analysis in this paper consists o close toseven hundred documents that come rom the period rom twenty-two representative Maya towns that have a large enough extant collection odocuments and scattered cabildo records to reconstruct a airly accurate pic-ture o the nature o the colonial scribal oce and its relationship to the sur-viving traditional Maya elite and their continued colonial attempts to maintainmunicipal power and prestige The Maya towns under examination include anequal number o towns rom both the eastern and western Yucatan peninsula,which have a similar depth o surviving historical documentation These towns

include Calkini, Maxcanu, Mani, Sotuta, Tecal, Peto, Conkal, Motul, Mopila,Sinanche, and Yobain in the western peninsula and Tizimin, Nabalam, Chance-


28/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

note, zotzil, zonotchel, zonotake, Ekpedz, Uaymax, Tixcacal, chmul,and Cozumel in the eastern peninsula The documents themselves collected inthis database come rom a wide range o archival collections, both public andprivate, in Spain, Mexico, the United States, and other European repositoriesAG Audiencia de Mxico, Audiencia de Guatemala, Contadura, Escribanade Camara, ndierente General, Justicia, and Patronato; Archivo HistricoNacional, Madrid, Spain Competencias, nquisicin, and Visitas; ArchivoGeneral de la Nacin (hereater AGN), Mexico City Bienes Nacionales, BienesNacionalizadas, Bienes de Comunidad, Clero Regular y Secular, Corresponden-cia de Varias Autoridades, iezmos, ndios, nquisicin, ndierente Virreinal,Justicia Eclesistica, bispos y Arzobispos, Provisorato, Reales Cedulas, RealFisco de la nquisicin, Templos y Conventos, and Tierras; Archivo Histricodel Arzobispado de Yucatn, Merida, Mexico Asuntos Terminados, Concursosa Curatos, ecretos y rdenes, and Visitas Pastorales; Archivo General delEstado de Yucatn, Merida, Mexico Asuntos Eclesisticos, Colonial, iezmos,and Varios; AGS; CAHY; Princeton University, Harvard University; BrighamYoung University; Michel Antiochiw Private Collection; and Chuchiak PrivateCollection

Quezada, Pueblos y Caciques, Apparently, in , an unnamed Poot who was Nacom Poots nephew and

cousin o the cacique served as the last pre-Hispanic ruling elite to hold theposition o governor The rst holder o the position o gobernador in , JuanAke, may symbolize the rst unsuccessul attempt o Nacom Poot and his clanto ensure the continued dominance o their clan over the local village afairsAlthough Philip C Thompson states that Ake may have been a commoner,

this remains speculative due to a lack o inormation See Philip C Thompson,Tekanto: A Maya Town in Colonial Yucatn, Middle American Research nsti-tute, Publication (New rleans ),

n Tekanto rom this period onward, nonelite and nonnoble Maya commonerswith the patronyms Ake, Tun, and zib alternated in the position o gober-nador throughout the rest o the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries For moredetailed discussions o the development o this type o early dual government,see Thompson, Tekanto,

For the most recent study o the nature o the removal o the traditional Mayaelite rom their exercise o political power and their attempts to hold onto theirpolitical control during the last decade o the sixteenth century and the rst

decade o the seventeenth century, see Argelia Segovia Liga, Los indios delMariscal Revisin de un manuscrito yucateco del siglo XV, Thesis, Univer-sidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico,

Munro S Edmonson, Heaven Born Merida and Its Destiny: The Book o ChilamBalam o Chumayel(Austin, TX, ),

This term was oten used by Maya scribes See Peticin de Augustina Pox delpueblo de zan, de octubre , Documentos de Tabi (15691821), YucatnCollection, Latin American Library, Tulane University, vol , olio r n thisdocument, the scribe signed as Antonio Canpach, Ah zib Hun n anothercase in , the scribe o the village o Ekpez signed as Ah zib; see Peticinde los indios del pueblo de Ekpez, 1669, AG, Escribana de Cmara, B

The Crown attempted to correct abuses o perpetual occupation o the posi-tion o village scribe in a cedula issued rst in and then again in The


29/30


Crown saw that the perpetual occupation o the position o scribe would onlycause ocasion para que entre si tengan dierenia y pleitos daoso seria alos dichos indios haver entre ellos escrivanos propietarios See Antonio de LenPinelo, Recopilacin de Leyes de Indias, vol (Porra, Mexico, ), book ,title X, law , p

Philip C Thompson, Tekanto in the Eighteenth Century, Ph diss, TulaneUniversity, ,

See Restall, The World o the Cah, Nancy Farriss, Maya Society under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise o

Survival(Princeton, NJ, ), See Jos Joaqun Real az, Estudio diplomatico del documento indiano (Seville,

Spain, ), Roys, Titulos de Ebtun, bid bid, n bid, Apparently many o those who held the title o ndio Hidalgo were not even

racially Maya by the eighteenth century For a more detailed explanation, seeThompson, Tekanto, ,

This noble obsession with ensuring that their colonial leaders and governorsheld the cultural knowledge and ability to understand the hieroglyphs can beseen in several o the colonial books o Chilam Balam and in an enigmaticarcane metaphorical language known as Lenguaje de Zuyua, which was used toensure that candidates or the governorship held the proper cultural knowledgeThis metaphorical language and these Chilam Balam books were the product

o these noble-scribes who continued to attempt to preserve their cultural andpolitical hegemony throughout the later colonial period For a ascinating recentdiscussion and interpretation o this Lenguaje de Zuyua, see Segovia Liga, Losindios del Mariscal, especially ,

For a detailed discussion o the uniquely Maya nature o colonial petitions, seeJohn F Chuchiak V, U hahil ca than yalan juramentoil Maya Scribes, Colo-nial Literacy, and Maya Petitionary Forms in Colonial Yucatn, Human Mosaic ()

Bricker points out that traces o the logosyllabic principals o consonant inser-tion, vowel insertion, and consonant deletion appear in the aberrant spellingsand abbreviations o Maya words in the books o Chilam Balam o Chumayel

and Chan Kan These unusual spellings o words in colonial Maya manuscripts,she argues, are evidence o scribal syncretism, not o ignorance o alphabeticwriting conventions See Victoria R Bricker, The Last Gasp o Mayan Hiero-glyphic Writing in the Books o Chilam Balam o Chumayel and Chan Kom, inWord and Image in Maya Culture: Explorations in Language, Writing, and Respre-sentation, ed William Hanks and on S Rice (Salt Lake City, UT, ),

For inormation on the clergys ear and discovery o the continued productiono hieroglyphic codices during the colonial period, see the various Comisionesde la Ydolatria, AG, Audiencia de Mexico, , ; AG, ndierente Gen-eral,

Bricker, The Last Gasp o Maya Hieroglyphic Writing, Bricker believes

that the orthography and grammar o these colonial texts show that the colonialscribes kept the knowledge o the hieroglyphs alive long ater the Conquest


30/30

John F. Chuchiak IV

Similarly, several nquisition documents have reerences o the continued useo hieroglyphic books o ancient letters well into the seventeenth century SeeAGN, nquisicin, Tomo , Exp

For a recent description o this process, see Bruce Love, The Paris Codex: Hand-book or a Maya Priest(Austin, TX, ),

Recent scholarship has reexamined the books o Chilam Balam in comparisonto contemporary Spanish and European sources Modern scholars now nd thatmany o the passages o the Chilam Balam books were heavily inuenced byEuropean sources, especially in terms o astronomical and calendrical materialVictoria R Bricker and Helga-Maria Miram most recently examined severalpassages and images in the Chilam Balam books in terms o their European ori-gins They discovered that even certain images beore believed to be Maya werein act based on European designs See Helga-Maria Miram and Victoria RBricker, Relating Time to Space The Maya Calendar Compasses, in EighthPalenque Round Table, 1993, ed Martha J Macri and Jan McHargue (San Fran-cisco, ),

Munro S Edmonson, The Ancient Future o the Itza: The Book o Chilam Balamo Tizimin (Austin, TX, ),

1 Chuchiak Writing as Resistance 87

Documents

Transcript of 1 Chuchiak Writing as Resistance 87