crucified them, and placed braziers beneath their feet. Then they lit the braziers and forced the townspeople to watch the scene. Those they did not burn, they hanged.
‘Later, the Spaniards moved against the Yobain, in the town of Chels. In this town they took all the leading men and placed them in the stocks, and beat them. Then they placed the men, still in the stocks, inside a house, which they then burned down. This was a different system to that which they had used in Cupul.
‘Next, they moved the women and children out of the village. Feeling that they had not sufficiently made their point to the outlying villages, the Captain of the Spaniards then took the women and ordered them strung up to the branches of a great tree, with their children hanging beneath them like fruit. This, I believe, was done to undermine Maya belief in the Great World Tree, which to us supports all life. This particular Maya tree, we were to observe, supported only death.
‘In the next town, Verey, and feeling that some of the women were too beautiful and that they might therefore inflame the soldiers to unholy acts, the Captain of the Spaniards ordered that their breasts be cut off, and that they should then be hung in full view of the whole village to prove to our people that the Spaniards were indifferent to our women. These women, too, died.
‘The Friar and his retinue, of which I formed a part, arrived in these towns two to three days after the soldiers had passed. The people, fearing reprisals, had not dared to cut down the bodies, which stank and putrefied in the midsummer heat. The Friar, wishing to be seen to act in a kindly fashion after the outrages of the soldiers, allowed the townspeople to cut down the victims of his purge – their bodies, however, could not be buried, but must be burnt, and, like Nachi Cocom’s, be scattered over the fields. This the Friar ordered.
‘Next, our retinue moved to the provinces of Cochuah and Chetumal. Here our people, hearing of what the Spanish had done to their brothers and sisters, rose up against them. But without proper weapons, fighting dogs, and horses, they were powerless. Those who were captured had their noses, and their hands, and their arms, and their legs, and in the case of the women, their breasts, and in the case of the men, their genitals, carved off. Then all were taken, alive or dead, to the cenote from out of which the people drew their water, and, with gourds tied to their feet or what remained of their trunks, they were thrown into the deep waters. Children who could not walk as fast as their mothers were speared. This we heard from the survivors, of whom there were few, as most had been taken into the Spaniards’ service as slaves.
‘The Friar declared himself outraged at what had occurred. He conducted formal ceremonies over the dead, and blessed the survivors. I joined in with these ceremonies, and made much of the wisdom of the Friar’s doings, as my duty was to remain always at his side and to represent our people – for such was the quality of the oath that I had undertaken before the assembled Chilans. An oath that forced me into seeming what I was not. An oath which forced me into observing and annotating the horrors which I saw perpetrated against those of the same blood as myself – those who worshipped the same gods – those who stemmed from the very same clay.
‘This I tell you, in advance, so that you may better understand why I am desecrating the last of our holy books with my writing. For now I am going to recount what happened today, at Mani, under the Friar’s direct supervision, and which makes all that we had previously seen appear as the dalliance of un-parented children.’
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Sabir was focusing all of his attention on Lamia’s translation of the Chilan’s words. At one point he reached forward and took her hand in his, either to offer or to receive comfort, he was not entirely sure. She allowed her hand to rest in his for a moment, and then she withdrew it, as if she were unable to countenance such a two-way split in her concentration.
Calque stood beside them, his head turned away, to all intents and purposes as if he were refusing to listen to de Landa’s story. But Sabir knew him well enough by now. He could tell by the way Calque stood – by the stiffness in his back and by the sideways tilt of his head – that he was concentrating on every word that Lamia was translating for him.
The Chilan paused in his reading. He was dripping with sweat. His voice was growing increasingly hoarse. His hands shook where they held the book, and he seemed unable to meet anyone’s eyes. It was as if the horror of what he was reading formed a direct part of his own experience, and was not merely a story, written by another, which he was recounting to a partially illiterate audience.
Acan’s mother, Ixtab, hurried to his side. She unpinned her rebozo and mopped the Chilan’s brow and face. He nodded to her in grateful acknowledgment, but he was unable to summon up a smile. The Halach Uinic stood off to one side, his face in his hands. There was neither a mutter nor a murmur from the vast audience below them.
The Chilan gave a profound sigh, and addressed himself once again to the book in front of him.
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‘The Auto da Fe began today, the twelfth day of July 1562, in the early morning. What occurred was a fulfilment of the first part of the prophecy of the Cycle of the Nine Hells, the first 52-year cycle of which began with the arrival of the Franciscans in the Yucatan in 1544 under Luis de Villalpando, and the final cycle of which will be due to end in the year 2012, marking 9 by 52 years, being 468 in total, between the start of the cycle and its eventual end.
‘At the break of dawn, Friar de Landa ordered the great square at Mani to be cleared of people. Then he ordered his prisoners, the so-called indios rebeldes, to be brought in from their place of incarceration, where they had been constrained to fast for eight hours, as a legally imposed prelude to their torture. Amongst these prisoners were all the remaining great nobles and their families – the Pat, the Xiu, the Canuls, the Chikin-Chels, the Cocoms, the Cupuls, the Hocaba-Humuns, the Cochua, and many others. Their names had been given in by their children, whom the Franciscans had seized from their families, indoctrinated, and forced to submit to the Christian catechism. Thus it was that the children unwittingly became the executioners of their own parents.
‘I, Akbal Coatl, the “night serpent”, whom the Spaniards call Salvador Emmanuel, had not been privy to the kidnap of these people, and thus I was horrified to see that many of the remaining members of my family were amongst their number. At first I was minded to join them. To throw myself into their midst and die with my people. But the man I knew to be the Halach Uinic – the High Priest and leader of all the Maya, whose identity we had kept secret even from the friars – made a sign to me that I should not reveal myself to the Spaniards by word or by gesture. He also made the sign of the written scroll to me, indicating that what I saw must be written down. I believe now that he had been told, or had seen prophesied, what was about to occur.
‘Bowing to my fate, I forced myself to attend to Friar de Landa’s demands on me, which included the formal noting of the names and descriptions of all the people present, their place in our hierarchy, and the crimes, mainly of idolatry, that were to be laid at their feet.
‘Then the questioning began. First, Friar de Landa made it clear to those who admitted to their crimes and repented of their sins that even they would not escape punishment. Instead, they would be forced to stand in full public view, with an idol held in one hand and a candle in the other, and with ropes strung about their necks. In addition, they were to wear the high, cone-shaped hat of shame, known as the coroza, and the penitential robes, known as the sambenito, undergo a full mass and a sermon, have their heads shaved, and then suffer whipping, with a prescribed number of strokes, to be conducted in the public stocks.
‘Despite these warnings, many amongst the number of those present chose this course of action, having heard stories of – or perhaps merely suspecting – what lay in store for those of an unrepentant, or even entirely innocent, demeanour.
‘The penitential were then led away to suffer their punishment. The remainder were formed into lines.
‘Now the torture and mutilation of our people began in earnest. The first chiefs were brought forward and fastened to the hoist, which the Spanish know as the garrucha. This caused them to have their arms pulled back behind them and then to be lifted into the air and dropped, repeatedly, all the while submitting to questions from the friars. When the questioning did not bear fruit, Friar de Landa, claiming to act under the aegis of the Consulta da
