Mexico's Maya

by Marlene Nadle

In San Cristobal de las Casas in the off season, travelers will have the savings and the culture to themselves. From September to June, with the exception of December and Easter week, the hoards of European backpackers will not be there to distract. It will be easier to slip into the timeless world of Mexico's Maya.

All it takes is a stroll down one of the empty cobblestone streets.]  On a high curb a Chamula women sits to hike the blue blanket holding her baby higher on her back. The three women with her wait as patiently as her shadow, each similarly dressed in a long skirt of black wool with fine red stripes, a headdress of the same material folded square on her black hair.

This mountain town, still so Mayan in spirit, is not a world of individualism but of the tribe, the community, the strong sense of belonging that the alienated might envy.

For the Indian descendents living in the southern state of Chiapas, the questions of identity are not answered with hours of solitary angst. They are settled with a quick glance at the clothing that is different for each of the region's three main tribes, Chamulas, Huistechos, Zinacantechos, and at the small detail of ribbon or sleeve that marks a person's particular village on the surrounding slopes.

Most of the people are no less firmly placed in the rich Mayan culture that connects their world view and values to the great ancient civilization that stretched from Honduras to Chiapas.

The Maya were at their height in 250-900 AD. They practiced a sophisticated astronomy and mathematics that used the symbol before Europe did, created a written language and literature, and erected cities and temples in the jungle lowlands near San Cristobal.

Yet it is the living culture that fascinates. The strong Mayan aesthetic sense survives in this Spanish colonial city that has become a center for Indian crafts. Even the Roman Catholic convent on Av. 20th de Noviembre has yielded space for an Indian cooperative store, San Jolobil, which sells the highest quality textiles made on back-strap looms like those used for the past 2,000 years.  In the pastel stucco shops along Calle Real de Guadalupe, the heavy wooden doors are hung with thick wool ponchos, huipile blouses embroidered with tiny animals, and the leather goods typical of the region. Besides the wrought iron benches in the main plaza, women weave bracelets and belts from the fine threads attached to their skirt fronts like multicolored umbilical cords.

In the tranquility of the former colonial capital, the clicking sound of the ancient Tzotzil language is heard everywhere. The language, like so much of the culture, has lasted because of the isolation created by 8,000-foot mountains and by roads that remained unpaved until the 1950s. Before then, only determined travelers riding on mules came to San Cristobal. One of them was the writer Graham Greene, who made the area around San Cristobal the setting for his novel The Power and the Glory. 

Trade plays an important part in the life of the Chiapas highlands, as it did a thousand years go. An outdoor market takes place at the end of Av. Gen. Utrilla every day except Sunday. It is one of the best places to glimpse the lives displayed along with the wares: many-colored corn, bags of rice, piles of cinnamon bark and dried flowers, rock-hard sugar encased in wicker, big loaves of chocolate, packets of herbal cures.

Subtle but serious courting sometimes takes place along with the sales. Mayan women may choose to remain single if they have a little property or crafts to sell. The men must marry if they hope to hold religious or political office in their villages. Yet their wooing  is a culture away from the stereotype of the Latin lover. They consider romantic love foolish, and sexual conquest dishonorable. Once wed the men are free to show affection to their wives even in as public a place as the market.

The children running everywhere among the family groups and stalls make play their main job until they are about seven. Only then does the world intrude. One girl of about 10 sitting among the straw baskets, the gaze of her black eyes very direct asks a tourist, "Are you rich?" Then she bluntly announces, "We are poor." It is less a complaint then a statement of fact.

One way for those who don't speak Tzotzil to enter their self-contained universe is to visit Casa Na-Balom at 33 Vincente Guerrero. It is a combination, museum, library, guest house, restaurant, and former private home of the late Gertrude Blom who saved the nearby Lacandon Indians from extinction. The anthropologists and activists who fill the place are usually generous with their knowledge.

It is possible to follow the Maya back to their villages: by van from the marketplace, by hiking, by horseback riding through the magnificent scenery or with a guide from Casa Na-Balom .For the amateur anthropologist, the best trips are to less-visited places like Tenejapa, San Andres Larrainzar, or the potterymaking village of Amatenango, which is halfway to Lagunas Montebello, 60 primeval lakes in hues of violet to aqua for fishing and swimming. The easiest trip is to the villages of San Juan Chamula and Zinacantan, only six miles from San Cristobal.

All the journeys go past stately pine forests, cornfields with stalks wrapped in squash vines, groups of girls spinning wool and watching sheep, a world little changed since the days before the Spanish Conquest. It is not the Christian cross that is seen so frequently on the thatched roofs of the adobe houses, at the foot of mountains, and besides the entrances to caves. It is the Mayan cross, a stylized symbol of the sacred ceiba tree that spans the underworld, the world of the living, and the heavens. Branches of pine are sometimes still tied to the cross, remnants of a recent ceremonial offering of black chickens, incense, and candles. The gods must be propitiated in the threatened Mayan universe where the world is destroyed and recreated in endless cycles.

At San Juan Chamula it is obvious the church is really a temple, the white stucco facade is painted with the red, yellow, and turquoise designs of old. The building is filled with chants and healing rites on Sunday market day. It will be the center of activity during the many religious festivals that, like the gods, are given Christian names but are celebrations in accord with the Mayan calender and customs.

Visitors may attend the festivals assured a young Chamula women with a soft, impassive face. A tentative smile broke through as, with a minimum of Spanish and much body language, she indicated that her husband was one of the dancers. Then she turned to watch the official with the red tassled hat and wooden staff holding court in front of the municipal building, settling disputes and enforcing the values of the tight-knit community gossiping around him.

Zinacantan, by contrast is nearly deserted  except for the short, sturdy man filled with self-importance who has taken on the prestigious religious and financial duties for the year. Some of the  other men have to be away working in the city or on the coffee plantations because not all have enough land to sustain a family anymore. But there are no women  either.    

The official's explanation  is a vague gesture towards the enclosing mountains. It is a reminder of how old the living pattern is of a central religious site and scattered hamlets. The continuing way of life is a direct link of the imagination to the ancient temples at Palenque, Bonampek, and Yaxchilan.                        

That imagining can become the incentive to actually visit the temples, to take the Ocosingo Road that runs from the highland chill, past the waterfalls at Agua Azul, to the tropical world of toucans and howler monkeys at Palanque. The hauntingly beautiful temples are just outside of town in the emerald and olive of the rain forest. St among the foothills of the Sierra Madre, the small buildings with their sloping mansard roofs are almost Oriental in their delicacy. The carvings on their walls are the serene, realistic human figures of Mayan art. Whether representing kings or gods, they seem to rule destiny with aristocratic grace. 

Much farther into the jungle are Bonampak and Yaxchilan. They can be reached by small charter plane from San Christobal. For the intrepid, Bonampak, with its famous murals, can reached by van in a five hour overland trip from San Cristobal or a three hour trip from Palanque. From Bonampak travelers continue another couple of hours, mainly by boat, to Yaxchilan. They need to scramble up a steep bank  to reach the 40 temples perched high above the Usumacinta River. Some of  the buildings are overgrown with wild begonias making their own poignant comment on the notion of empire.    

At Yaxchilan, the continuity of culture can be seen. In one of the 8th century carvings the queen wears the same brocade and has the same proud bearing as the women from Tenejapa who, in their red finery, their breath steaming in the grey-blue light, walk the still mountain trails through low-hanging clouds.        

Leaving this world of temples and villages is not easy without a fundamental change of perspectives. Back in San Cristobal, the 16th century Spanish governor's palace with its intricate wood carvings seems alien instead of beautiful. Amid the baroque extravagance of the cathedral, the life-size statue of Jesus fallen to his knees is viewed through Indian eyes as the sun god humbled.  

Humbled, but not defeated . Mayan culture has kept an abiding hold on this colonial city set high on a platform in the Sierra Madres de Chiapas.      

If  You Go:

Transportation: The closest commercial airport is Tuxla Guitierrez. Mexicana Airlines(1-800-531-7921) has daily flights from Mexico City to Tuxla at $131 economy class based on 13 pesos to the dollar. By rented car, bus, or cab from Tuxtla its 5,000 miles up and two hours on the Pan American Highway to San Cristobal. A tourist agency in San Cristobal that can arrange trips to surrounding villages and temples is Anfittriones Turistico, Calle 5 de Febrero 1-A (967-678-2550)  A charter flight from San Cristobal to the temples is $300 per person. A tourist agency in Palanque ,which is closer to the temples, is Viajes Na Chan Kan corner of Ave. Hidalgo and Jimenez. (916-345-2154)

Festivals: Jan 20-22, Carnival and Holy Week, June 22-25, July 24-25, Aug 9-10.                    

Hotels: Among those that are small, charming, colonial-style, and in the center of the town are:

Posada Diego de Marzariegos, Calle 5 de Febrero  No , (967-678-0833, www.diegodemazariegos.com) Has restaurant with good regional food. Double room $58.50(at 13 pesos to the dollar)     

Hotel Ciudad  Real , Plaza 31 de Marzo No10 (967-678-4400, www.ciudadreal.com.mx.) Restaurant is a favorite gathering spot.

Double room $71.50.

Hotel Santa Clara, Ave. Insurgentes No. 1(967-678-1140, www.travelbymexico.com)

Double room $71.50

Prices go up during festival time and the high season which includes December, Easter week, July and August. Reservations are essential. To inquire by mail follow the street address with: San Cristobal de las Casa, Chiapas Mexico 29200

Clothes: Warm clothes are needed for San Cristobal because the mountain air can get very chilly.  Summer clothes are needed for the tropical lowlands where the temples are located.