The Franciscan goal of eradicating idolatry using harsh methods caused widespread unrest in the province leading to several rebellions. The zealousness of the Franciscan missionaries however laid the foundation for the Indians to continue the practice of their ancient religion. For another seventeen years, the Franciscans continued their extralegal inquisition without consulting secular authorities. More than 4,500 natives endured weeks of torture meted out by the Spanish clerics. Two villagers reported finding bones and skulls in a cave near Mani prompting church officials to launch a brutal inquisition. That trust however ruptured in the summer of 1562. Initially, the natives and the Franciscans preachers established an uneasy peace as evidenced by the Indians showing the Franciscans their sacred codices. Ĭhac’s uncontested rule over the Indians ended abruptly in 1545 when the first Spanish missionaries set foot on the Yucatan peninsula. Historians believe the ceremonies and rituals performed at cenotes were primarily for the purpose of petitioning for rain. The Maya believed that their sacrificial victims, who were thrown in the cenotes, would interact with the Chac deities beneath the surface of the water. The most sacred of the cenotes was located at Chichen Itza. The Yucatec natives viewed cenotes as “gifts from the gods” and began to hold religious ceremonies at the cenotes, especially at those located at Tabi, Tibolón, Sotuta, Kanchunnup and Yaxcabá. Thompson asserts the Indians believed these lesser Chacs resided in caves and cenotes found throughout the Yucatán and were the most accessible of the Chacs. Lesser Chacs such as Ah Ch’alelem Caan Chac or “He with the Jar Sky-chac” were responsible for replenishing the water in the cenotes. The four main Chacs resided at the “foot of the sky” and were responsible for rain, thunder, and lightning. Thompson notes how Chac was not single deity but a group of deities that served a variety of functions related to rain and the natural phenomena associated with it. In his analysis of the Dresden Codex, one of the four Mayan codices that survives today, historian Paul Schellhas noted that Chac was invoked 141 times, more than the mentions of all the other Mayan deities combined. With rain and water playing such a crucial role for the survival of the Indians, Chac figured prominently in the daily lives of the peasants working the fields. Cenotes are large sinkholes that provide easy access to an immense network of underground pools of fresh water throughout the Yucatán region. In times of drought, all the men of a village would gather to perform the ch’achac ceremony in the hope that the rains would return to water their crops and replenish the cenotes. The survival of a village wholly depended on the successful harvest of their crops and the timely arrival of rain. In Pre-Columbian times, Indian farmers had no livestock with which to supplement their diets. The Yucatan peninsula is a vast limestone shelf devoid of readily accessible sources of fresh water such as rivers and streams. The region’s unique geography played a key role in shaping the special relationship between the Indians and Chac. The ceremony pays homage to Chac, the ancient deity responsible for rain and the most prayed to pagan entity on the Yucatán. “When the ceremony ended, we heard the deep rumble of thunder.” ĭespite repeated attempts by Spanish colonial authorities to eradicate the ancient gods of the Yucatán, the ch’achac or “summoning the Chacs” ceremony is an ancient religious tradition that the modern residents of the Yucatán peninsula continue to practice today. ĭavid Freidel, an archeologist who then worked for Southern Methodist University and a participant in the ceremony, recalled what occurred next. For three days, the shaman burned incense and made offerings of honey wine, meat, and cornbread before falling into a trance for ten hours. Under the guidance of a local shaman, the residents built an altar of gourds, saplings, and corn to summon the ancient Mayan god of rain and thunder, Chac. Unwilling to leave the third crop’s success to mere chance, the inhabitants resorted to an ancient custom that their ancestors had used for more than one thousand years. Due to a drought, two of that year’s crop plantings had failed and a third crop failure would spell disaster for the villagers. In the summer of 1989, the residents of a Yucatán village near the ancient ruins of Yaxuná were in great distress.
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