Fe, ordered that the chiefs have heavy weights of stone attached to their feet, the better to dislocate their members. Time was allowed to elapse between the repeated drops, the further to enhance the pain of those suffering them, and in order to ordain them to “tell the truth for the love of God”. During this period of false release, the Miserere was to be sung by all those not undergoing the question. Should this method be seen to fail, the offending chief was to be first whipped, and then splashed on the face, body, and back with hot wax.
‘The women were given special dispensation by order of Friar de Landa, and only tortured by the garrotte, which involved being placed on a seat, and then having sharp cords, known as cordeles, two on each arm and two on each leg, tightened by means of a short lever. If either of these tortures failed, then the water torture was to be used, in which the victim was to be placed on a trestle, known as the escalera, or potro. Following this, a bostero, or iron prong, would be fitted inside the mouth, after which a strip of linen, known by the Spaniards as the toca, would be forced into the throat in order to guide the flow of water from the jarra. Depending on the number of quarts consumed, the body of the tortured person would distend, forcing the flesh against the seven garrottes with which they had been fastened. Few resisted this technique, and many “spontaneous recantations” were achieved.
‘During the course of the day, many people were brought to torture. Some repented. Many died. Many had their limbs torn from their muscle beds. One great chief, whose name I will not here recount as he is connected to me by family, and from whom I had received especial kindnesses as a child, was accused of conducting a human sacrifice. He had the garrotte placed around his head and tightened by seven turns, which cause his eyes to pop out of their sockets. After this he was allowed to live by order of Friar de Landa, as a warning to his people.
‘By late afternoon the square at Mani was thick with carrion and with clotted blood, despite the many sweepings and cleansings ordered by Friar de Landa. At this point the sun was briefly eaten, as in a chibil, or eclipse. Some of the unwilling spectators that Friar de Landa now ordered to enter the square whispered amongst themselves that the xulab ants had swarmed across the sky to protect the sun, ashamed that he should see such horrors occurring in his realm.
‘At this time, the moon, our grandmother, also appeared in the sky, which came as no surprise to those of us acquainted with the Tun-Uc, or moon calendar, as the moon always accompanies great disasters and violent deceit. The moon goddess Tlacolteotl had clearly heard that members of her own priesthood, the Nahau Pech, were being tortured, and she had arrived to oversee and monitor their deaths. This was as it should be, for the Nahau Pech knew, as did we all, that the unpredictable moon was considered by many of our people to be representative of the Spanish ascendancy, and of the final end of the old order. In this way the sun and the moon had always been in conflict one with the other, and now it was clear that the moon had finally won.
‘Darkness was in the ascendant.
‘We understood that there would be no further harmony between our Father the sun and Our Lady the moon until the Cycle of the Nine Hells had been completed.’
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‘When Friar de Landa felt that enough torturing had been done, and that he had sufficiently re-established the Church’s authority over its errant flock, he called me to him. He asked me if there were still men who could read the ancient scripts that he now held within his grasp. And that if there were such men, that I should immediately bring them to him.
‘I admit now that I feared for my own safety.
‘I turned towards the square and pointed to the dead men littered across its wastes. “All these could read the ancient scripts. And also the chief whose eyes you started out of his head with your garrotte. They are now dead, and he is blind. So the books are blind too. None are left to call them out.”
‘Friar de Landa stared at me for some little time. I felt then that he was delving into my soul like one Death and Seven Death, the Lords of Xibalba, in the Place of Fear – that his eyes were piercing through me to the five levels of creation that made me up.
‘This is when the terrible fear came upon me that our understanding of the five levels of creation would be lost forever were I, too, to be killed. Which Chilan would be left to teach our children the knowledge of the first level of stone and fire that makes up their bones, their heart, and their gall? Who could tell them of the second level of plants, flowers, and trees, that makes up their flesh? Of the third level of waters, lakes, and rivers that makes up their blood, their nerves, and the liquid essences of their body? Who could describe to them the fourth level of wind and animals that encompasses their breath and their vision? Who would be left to tell them of the fifth and final level that makes of them “earth fruits”? That makes of them human beings, similar in essence even to Friar de Landa?
‘“And you?” he said to me. “Can you read these books and write this script? I conjure you, upon your Christian oath, to speak truly.”
‘Then came upon me the spirit of the Lak’ech. The spirit of our Maya code of honour. The Halach Uinic had called upon me to mould myself, pari passu, with the Spanish. To defend our people from my place of concealment. To this end there was a saying amongst us: “I am another yourself.” Before this day, I had attempted to put this into practice. To understand Friar de Landa – to place myself in his shadow and understand his doings to the extent that I was able. The time for understanding had now passed.
‘“On my Christian oath, I cannot.”
‘“And the thirteenth crystal skull? The so-called ‘singing skull’? The skull that the most credulous amongst your people think activates the twelve skulls stolen from Nachi Cocom’s secret library? My soldiers and my friars have searched everywhere, and put many people to the question, and still they have not found even one of the thirteen. I know these skulls exist, for I have seen them. Who has them now?”
‘I pointed to the greatest of the dead chiefs. “He does. He was the guardian of the skulls.”
‘Friar de Landa smiled, and his smile was terrible. “Shall I put you to the question, too, Salvador, my son?” Here he used the name the Spaniards had given me. My so-called baptized name. The name by which I was known to all but the dead.
‘“I am your loyal servant, and a loyal servant of the Church. I will answer all of your questions, however they are posed to me.”
‘Now the friar laughed. How he laughed. He clapped his hands together and he danced a dance, his skirts swinging in the dust. He shouted to his soldiers, his voice like the song of the macaw. “Bring me their books. Bring me their idols. Bring me their altar stones.”
‘The Spanish soldiers drove our people who were their slaves before them, staggering under the weight of our patrimony. Now the sacred books that Nachi Cocom had shown to Friar de Landa were laid out like strips of maize across the square. As were the sacred objects. As were the sacred altar stones. Stakes and shafts of wood were piled across them, then brushwood was placed on top of these. Incense was interleaved inside the branches, and crosses made from withies were planted on the periphery of the pile. Soon, the skeleton of a great bonfire was revealed, twenty feet high, and one hundred feet around in its circumference, and designed in the form of a volcano.
‘Night was falling. I, Akbal Coatl, the “night serpent”, whom the Spaniards call Salvador Emmanuel, had never feared the night. Now I feared it.
‘Our people stood in lines around the unlit bonfire. Some vomited. Others took out knives and slit their own throats.
‘I stood next to my master, Friar de Landa. I raised my pen and wrote as he dictated. The friars had provided me with a lectern for my convenience. They also brought me water to drink, from the very same source they had used to fill the mouths of their victims. I brushed it away. My throat was parched. My eyes were streaming. I could scarcely see the vellum on which I wrote for tears.
‘A soldier brought the Friar a burning branch, swathed in cotton and liquor. The flames from the branch played over the Friar’s face.
‘I thought of our code, the Lak’ech. I thought of our saying, “I am another yourself.” I knew then that this friar was no part of me, or of anything that I represented or believed in. I was glad that the thirteenth crystal skull had been given into my possession. Glad that I knew the location of the greatest of our sacred books. For through
