Teoxi, Mayan Prince: I. the End of Tikal

By Antonio Grimaldi

Teoxi, now an old man--the fourth son of Uaxactun. the last absolute monarch of Tikal--sits on the banks of lake Peten-Itza and recalls the story of his life. Wishing to preserve a record of the events that led to the destruction of his homeland, his still-sharp eyes sweep the distant shore as he tries to put his memories in order.

Born of an elderly father, Teoxi was looked after by priests, shielded from government matters, and--unlike his three older brothers--taught to be an intellectual rather than a warrior. But, because the future had unexpected events in store for him, his intellectual upbringing turned out to be of more use to him than his lack of military training.

In his early manhood, an unforeseen event not only transfixed the nation but also steadily and permanently lured Teoxi away from his young life of amusements and intellectual pursuits, thrusting him headlong into a national crisis whose solution was crucial to the very survival of his country. After mere months into this growing turmoil, Teoxis father realized that young Teoxi was the most qualified among his brothers to someday assume the Mayan throne.

Now, Teoxi had to weave his way carefully through the squalid and dangerous world of the empires leadership, struggle wearily yet confidently through entanglements of intrigue and treachery, move delicately between ancient myths and recent science, attempt to protect his family and country against internal and external threats, prepare for war with the powerful Aztecs, confront overwhelming and destructive acts of nature, and accept the undeniable fact that this young man of too few years had truly entered a living hell. To make matters worse, during his first timid steps from the solitude of the palace to a world of intrigue and danger, he fell at first sight for a girl below his class, and then moved inexorably toward a forbidden relationship that would preclude his ascension to the throne.

This is the story of the young man Teoxi, committing the breadth of his will and fortitude to the needs of his people and, throughout it all, maintaining hope that his first love would someday share his days and nights. This is also the story of the old man Teoxi, sitting on the shores of the Peten-Itza seeing the things we cannot see and recounting for those in the world today, the world he knew so well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781449023447

Antonio Grimaldi

Dr. Antonio Grimaldi holds a doctorate degree and 2 post-doctoral specializations from the State University of Naples, Italy. For eight years, Dr. Grimaldi resided in Latin America where he served for four years as Professor of Economics at the National University of Panama. Residing in the United States since 1978, he served with several universities and taught undergraduate and graduate courses in management and economics. Dr. Grimaldi has published numerous articles and research papers in academic journals and conference proceedings. Professor Grimaldi speaks five languages. Dr. Grimaldi’s last three books have been The End of Tikal, Montezuma’s Rage, and Drops of Wisdom of the series Teoxi, Mayan Prince. www.teoxi-mayanprince.com.

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Index

Preface

Chapter 1

Teoxi, Mayan Prince

Chapter 2

The Seven Temples

Chapter 3

Crimes or Mysteries?

Chapter 4

The Slavery Trail

Chapter 5

Uaxactun, Son of the Sun

Chapter 6

A Border City

Chapter 7

Mayan Justice

Chapter 8

Combination of Tragedy and Comedy

Chapter 9

Not Everything Was Clear

Chapter 10

An Unforgettable Hunt

Chapter 11

Out of Control

Chapter 12

The Twilight of a Demigod

Chapter 13

Love and Idleness

Chapter 14

Northwestward

Chapter 15

The Most Beautiful Country in the World

Chapter 16

The Enemy Is At The Gate

Chapter 17

Preparations For War

Chapter 18

Death to the Aztec!

Chapter 19

Thoughts of Love and Glory

Chapter 20

The ‘Great Triumph’

Chapter 21

The ‘Guardian’ of the Empire

Chapter 22

The Monster of the Marsh

Chapter 23

Atitlan, Lake of Love

Chapter 24

From the Tragic to the Funny Side of a Confession

Chapter 25

For Ambition and Love

Chapter 26

A Hell of a Night

Chapter 27

The Deer and the Jaguar

Chapter 28

Dreaming of Real Freedom

Chapter 29

Serving the Empire

Chapter 30

At the Entrance of Hell

Chapter 31

Twists of Fate

Chapter 32

Master of Plots

Chapter 33

Between Dream and Reality

Charter 34

The End of Tikal

Chapter 35

But Life Goes On…

Epilogue

A Few More Haphazard Thoughts…

Preface

By writing this novel, I am expressing my gratitude to some of my Central American ex-students who agreed to share the history of their people with me, telling me stories that had been handed down orally from one generation to another. By sharing this history, these students revealed the innermost secrets about their origins and traditions. A small part of this heritage, plus ideas of my own that seemed appropriate for a novel, are reported and developed in this book.

If I had meant to write a treatise on the culture of Central America Indians, I wouldn’t have known how to assemble the huge number of stories and traditions available—sometimes fragmentary and uncertain—or which goals to pursue in describing them. I’d have risked transcribing a disordered list of statements whose authenticity would have been hard to prove because they’re based on oral tradition.

Nevertheless, I can’t accept defining them as mere legends. On the contrary, I believe they are real facts which have endured the lapse of time and survived in oral tradition despite the destructive events which overran these people.

Such was the conclusion I came to when a student of mine once told me the story of a Mayan chief who had supposedly fought against the Aztec who were storming his village. His telling was plain and calm. I was deeply impressed by the vicissitudes of that legendary chief who had so many times escaped being caught, imprisoned and sacrificed. He killed many Aztec—drawing them into several ambushes and saving many of his companions from a horrible death. I could define this chief as the first ‘guerrillero’ of a remote past, veiled by the fog of many centuries.

The narration of my ex-student seemed strange to me. Rather than a description, it sounded like the rote repetition of an incredible story. Because I wanted to check whether my intuition was correct, a few months later I invited the student to repeat the account which had charmed me so much. As I expected, the story was repeated much like the previous time; the words and their order were almost the same as before. That student was undoubtedly translating into Spanish the chronicle he’d learned in his own language.

That tale was as fascinating to me as it must have been to his people. In fact, even after many centuries, that hero is still alive in the memory of the few that still hold and hand down the secret of his exploits. As times goes by, without written documents, past history tends to vanish and die out but the ‘stories’ remain, occupying the innermost part of human nature.

Likewise, myths and beliefs—though strange and incomprehensible—if rationally interpreted when revealed to certain anthropology experts, raise a question: Why are there still so many believers and followers?

Are they all the product of limited intelligence or of excessive fantasy prevailing over reason? Are basic human rights—like those to life and freedom—perceived less strongly in some peoples and more in others? What has caused certain cultures to survive for centuries despite the deprivation of freedom, despite an unjust and cruel political system, and absent any possibility of rebellion?

The Maya that survived the destruction of Tikal, which, according to the most recent research, happened about five centuries before the Spanish conquest, are still very proud of their traditions. In spite of the high number of ‘foreigners’ that settled in their lands, they have preserved their customs—including their language—for centuries, in spite of numerous cultural or governmental attempts to eradicate them. One of my ex-students told me that the fire-dance, as described in this novel (except for the human sacrifices), has continued without change for at least two hundred years.

We should ask ourselves, Why should such a dance be identical to one practiced by the dancers’ ancestors one thousand years ago in the large square in the center of Tikal? There must be something that persuades them of the rightfulness of their actions. Is it a secret hope for a better future that will either reward them for what they’ve suffered or benefit their descendants, or is it the deep held feeling that these traditions are ‘eternal’ or ‘sacred.’

Certainly, if we had the holy books of the Maya, we could know the details of their old religion’s rules. However, the Spaniards burned everything to ash—’myths’ and ‘legends’ are always refuted by the critical and sceptical observer—and attempted to ‘convert’ the Maya. Though some converted, many surviving Maya rejected the alien element and remained true to their faith. Even the fire-dance survived, although it was viewed as ‘sacred,’ only by those truly interested in the origins of their people.

A more thorough study of Mayan traditions reveals deep ‘forces’ and ‘values’ which have ensured the continuity of these traditions. In a condition of intellectual and social ‘isolation,’ the repressive forces of the conquerors have strengthened and perpetuated many traditions—secretly preserved and handed down within the same group—so that ‘foreigners’ could only see exterior ‘auras’ and ‘colors’ in them.

In some cases, over the latest decades, the media and (primarily) tourism have undermined the cultural isolation of indigenous groups. On all continents, these groups have discovered a way of earning money from the rich visitors. Apart from selling them hand-crafted products as they have always done, they have played the role of actors, and, thanks to folklore, continued to preserve their traditions and exhibit their past.

The ingenuous tourist becomes part of a ‘historical reenactment’—attending dance shows that include loud drumming beats and merry youngsters jumping around, twisting their legs, spinning and somersaulting, and dancing like graceful girls. Applause will naturally follow! Then, the naive tourist will be invited to buy something produced locally (or, produced who knows where and most likely made in a ‘western’ fashion).

Even the most prestigious magazines take such ‘tourist bait,’ although neither the magazines nor the authors can trace the origins of such folklore. The very authors of these articles are treated like all tourists: Why should there be any difference? Relevant progress has been made in breaking the boundaries of isolation, and such neat dichotomy has been contested. Still, the locals haven’t been persuaded to describe their origins and beliefs, or tell their stories which even they sometimes find strange and unexplainable.

Probably in the future, some of their descendants will be more respectful and feel urged to collect whatever remains in the memory of their group. They will in doing so recompose the mosaic of their past, which is absent from traditional history.

Today we can only analyze what has come to us in stories:

•   all rituals in honor of the Gods,

•   the exaltation of physical strength, as a victory of man over nature,

•   the ceremonies to obtain a quick recovery from a disease, or other sorts of favors, and

•   weddings and funerals and the way they are celebrated excluding people from outside the group.

These ‘truths’ are very different from ‘tourist tailored’ folklore and may sometimes turn very dramatic, possibly shocking or scaring the unwary guest.

My research in economics allowed me to examine and understand Pre-Colombian cultures more deeply than a typical tourist, and encouraged me to study their origins as deeply as I could to find some possible explanations to their mysteries. The result was always the same. The answers I received were so vague and absurd that instead of offering plausible solutions, they raised new and frightening questions.

Influenced as I was by academic pragmatism, I wrote a few articles on the more ‘tourist-like’ phenomena—cultural expressions that even a superficial eye could see as false. I knew that broad historical depictions of Mayan life would be filled with many ‘gaps’ since I could not prove the reasons for many behaviors whose origins are indeed obscure.

A novel makes it possible to avoid scientific rigor. A fantasy story offers a useful ‘connective tissue’ for weaving together charming traditional beliefs, expressions of popular culture, and deeply held spiritual traditions, in a manner respectful to the scions of the past from which they are derived

It is not my intention in this book to reach conclusions that are impossible to verify, although other studies—possibly providing more accurate answers to many worrying questions—may be inspired by these ideas. Tikal’s area is still covered with tropical forest and only a small part of what once was a huge city has come to light. Every stone discovered is an archaeological surprise and a new intellectual curio.

We should expect that when Tikal is entirely freed from vegetation that weighs upon it, it will become one of the largest archaeological parks on the planet. There are various possible reasons for its decadence and its end. Certainly the description of the last hours of Tikal, offered in this novel, is not the most likely version of facts. An epidemic, an uprising, or the military conquest by other peoples, appears to be more logical.

We must remember that what today seems ‘obvious’ and ‘logical,’ is not necessarily the truth of one thousand or more years ago. We have to investigate—among many other things—the costumes and secret beliefs of pre-Colombian peoples in order to clarify so many aspects of that past. And, in doing so, we hopefully will find an answer to what seems incredible or absurd but has probably happened—as the stones testify and as popular beliefs and culture unwaveringly mirror the past.

Still today, the Mayan descendants talk about Chilam Balam. It is hard to say who he was. We know for sure that his prophecies were written and known by priests—both Maya and Aztec— and that he influenced, like no one else, the world of pre-Colombian America.

Prophecies have a special charm in popular cultures and the world’s history is full of prophets, especially prophets of woe. Such abundance typically causes their predictions to be ignored, as were:

•   Cassandra, who foresaw Troy’s destruction,

•   Merlin, who foretold the liberation—by a peasant-woman—of France, and

•   Chilam Balam, who predicted the Spanish conquest.

Chilam Balsam’s wasn’t just a prophecy of the end of ‘his’ world. It wouldn’t be so relevant to foresee disasters in a land threatened with volcanoes, subject to earthquakes, and tormented every year by tropical storms and extremely cruel internal struggles. In such a scenario, his prophecies wouldn’t surprise anyone.

We remain perplexed however when we hear the few parts of his writing that have been orally handed down throughout the centuries. I would like to recall them here as the protagonist of this novel refers to them in his monologues:

•   Bearded men will come from the East. It is hard to think that a charlatan could make such a statement. All groups native to America are almost beardless! Certainly, the aspect of the Spaniards, especially of missionaries, must have frightened the indigenous people who first saw them!

•   Why should he have thought that they would come from the East if in his world there was nothing to the East apart from the sea? A fake prophet would have probably predicted an invasion from the North where various peoples lived and were constantly at war, or maybe from the South where many nomadic groups occupied the forests (and, due to their ‘weird’ way of living, frightened the ‘civilized’ Maya).

Some say that when the emperor Montezuma and his counsellors came to know that large ships were approaching their coasts, they identified the leader of the ‘foreigners’ as the mythic long-feathered snake-god and prepared to receive him as such. Undoubtedly, even if this was their first thought, they could not keep it for long as Montezuma’s officers, after offering Cortez rich gifts, realized that the new guests had come from the sea, and not from the sky. While Cortez had a hard time reaching Tenochtitlan from the coast, the Aztecan leaders had a few weeks to understand that Cortez was not the mythic feather-clad snake-god. In fact, some priests wanted to get rid of the Spaniards well before they reached the capital. The Aztec were primitive, but not stupid!

•   Most unhappy will be the day they will be welcomed! What a terrible mistake did Montezuma II—the Aztecan emperor—make! Although he knew this prophecy, he wanted to challenge it. The Aztecan emperor had a zoo, and many say that he loved studying the behavior of animals, so he must be curious by nature. When Cortez and the other Spaniards arrived, he felt the desire to know those strange beings from the East. Suddenly the Aztecan emperor was no longer the untouchable living god—the Son of the Sun God—but was a man like all others, a man who gave hospitality to that guest so different from him. Different not only in beard, face, and height, but also in his armour, ostrich-feathered helmet, voice, and weapons! Yes, the weapons! These made Cortez a very rare and interesting being to meet and study. And he, Montezuma, was too powerful to be afraid of anyone! Maybe later on, the Aztecan emperor would sacrifice Cortez to the gods. A true novelty, indeed.

•   Such a stupid choice will destroy us. Montezuma’s decision to give hospitality to Cortez was a fatal mistake. The Spanish commander realized that his weapons would prove useless against hundreds of thousands of Indians. Therefore, implementing a decision that would change history, Cortez arrested the incautious emperor right in his palace.

•   For our mistakes, ridicule and shame will be poured on us forever! Montezuma had two hundred wives and concubines, and numberless children. It was an enormous family and all its members were ‘well placed’ in the administrative and religious offices of the Aztecan empire. They probably didn’t see the ‘divine’ side of their relative so evidently. The most cultured of them knew the details of the famous prophecy and understood the tragic mistakes committed. The emperor was found dead. Many of Montezuma’s mistakes didn’t reach the ears of his vassals and province governors very quickly, so they weren’t able to intervene appropriately. The high priests hurried to appoint his successor. Maybe that was the last act of a political conspiracy aimed at covering the shame they had all been involved in.

•   Who will ever be able to conquer Tenochtitlan!

•   Who will prevail over our Tlatoani, the emperor!

All this was taught to children and repeated by warriors before battles. By so doing, they wanted to challenge the prophecy. The Maya shared the same view. Tikal was considered the center of the world—the house of Gods, and in particular, the Sun’s Son. It was impossible to think it might be destroyed by another people.

Chilam Balam must have ‘seen’ what he predicted, as the facts actually occurred during various centuries, and he could have by no means identified the people that would welcome the Spaniards.

The Maya of today prefer not to say anything about the reasons for the Spanish conquest of their lands although all know it was due to the mistake of an Aztecan emperor. They feel equally guilty because they were not united. If the Spaniards ever had to face the great empire of Tikal, vanished five centuries before, they would have dealt with a class of intellectuals more mature than a capricious sovereign. Shame, though, is still rooted in their culture, exactly as the great prophet foresaw many centuries ago. The final part of the terrible prediction of the people that would conquer his world, thus, finally came true.

Let’s also remember Chilam Balam’s last prophecy, which is still alive in the memory of the Maya and nurtures their hope:

In 2012 the end will come for us and our invaders. A ‘cycle of years’ in the Mayan calendar is formed by fifty-two solar years. It may therefore be deduced that, after ten cycles from the arrival of the Europeans in 1492, an extraordinary event will occur. So, according to the Mayan prophet, In 2012 the end will come. In 2012 there will be an alignment of planets.

How could a man who lived so many centuries ago have predicted such a phenomenon and chosen this very year for the ‘end’? Thus, in a short time, a ‘final’ event should occur, as foreseen by the famous prophet. Many have thought of the end of the world. Others of a cataclysm, or something that will destroy the ‘world’ as he, Chilam Balam, knew it. Maybe he meant the slaughter of the people that today live in the lands which once belonged to the Maya.

If such an ‘end’ ever comes, as it often says in great prophecies, it will be an absolute novelty. A surprise, due to the interpretation of a primitive man, charmed and confused by sudden visions of the modern world, and therefore unable to define the event with the same clarity of the first part of the prophecy.

I thought I’d write a simple novel, like the culture that inspired it. Simple, because by reflecting the human nature, it may urge any reader to find something to search for and cling to. In fact, beyond all race, traditions and religion differences, men are substantially all the same in their sensitivity and aspirations.

I’ve tried to limit the scenes of violence, essential components of the primitive world from which we all descend, because the brutality would surely shock some readers. I’ve also tried to reduce as much as possible, the number of Mayan and Aztecan expressions, most of which are unusual and very hard to pronounce. In addition, I’ve opted in many cases to use today’s place names, such as Tikal which is Mutul in the Mayan language and Palenke which is Lukamba. Likewise, for many modern references such as time and distances, I have chosen phrasing with the full intent of making the reading more fluent.

October 2006            Antonio Grimaldi

P.S. Special thanks to Dr. Jack Dittrich and Mr. Richard James Zucaro for the suggestions to improve this first part of the novel. And last, my very special thanks and deepest gratitude to Mr. Richard Warner, who took the rough English translation of a book written in Italian and handed back a smoothly-flowing story that glowed anew.

Chapter 1

Teoxi, Mayan Prince

I am Teoxihualpan, son of Uaxactun—the last absolute monarch of Tikal and the Highest Priest of the Sun God. I am sitting on the shores of Lake Peten-Itzà, absorbed in the remembrance of my past life.

Very often at sunset, when the Sun God wounds the green waters of this lake with his arrows and reflects them on this poor hut, an overwhelming force drags me to this place. Here, away from my daily business, the memories of the past work their way into my mind tormenting my existence.

I long so much to lay a tombstone on my life and spend my last days surrounded only by the love of my family, the only wealth I still have. But I can’t. I’ve known the splendour and happiness of a fortunate origin, later destroyed by the will of the Sun God who denied me and my family his infinite benevolence. The conclusions I then reached, never leave me in peace.

This is the story of my love, a forbidden love. I was rejected by all that surrounded me, hindered by my family and by the law of which the priests who interpreted the Gods’ will were the faithful guardians, and battered by a series of incredible events that shattered my life as well as the existence of my nation. The story of my love cannot be understood if I don’t recall these events.

I am the only survivor who knows well how that distant story ended; how my love accompanied the last sparks of those vicissitudes and finally softened the infinite tragedy of my life.

The cursed stone had weighed upon our lives and compelled us to erase all of our desires; gradually and imperceptibly subduing our reason and gaining possession of all that we had. Nevertheless, our obeisance to that stone was considered the highest expression of that very reason.

How cruel was our destiny!

Now, the light of the Almighty seems to kiss my cheeks—easing my pain and inviting me to leave my name and memories to eternity. My hands are shaking. A terrible confusion oppresses my mind. I don’t know where to start.

Some priests said the Sun God had forsaken us, allowing the jade mines to run dry. But can a God ever be so cruel as to abandon its people in a time of destruction just because they couldn’t satisfy his inextinguishable hunger for the green stone? Maybe we weren’t faithful to him, or maybe we committed some other fault.

That’s what my father and his priests thought when, at the end of every cycle of years, the Children of the Sun did not return. Then, celebrations were made, propitiatory chants were raised to the sky and lives were sacrificed. It was assumed the interpretations were wrong and we didnt’t realized the true meaning of the Gods’ messages. The rites had to be repeated at the end of every rain season, and thus, every year, the best of our youth was immolated to the Gods. In the beginning everyone was happy, both the victims and those who lived to do the God’s favor. For those who died, there would be a special place in the world of the Sun God, while the entire nation would receive enormous benefits from divine benevolence.

As the years went by, a sense of despondence and disappointment pervaded the entire population and the long history of happiness was replaced by a general disdain of sacrifices. By then, the Children of the Sun God no longer visited us and we believed the God had left us to fend for ourselves. Only the priests and their close followers still thought everything would return as it had once been.

According to what was written on the stones, sacrifices had to be imposed. The victims didn’t know anything about their sad destiny until the very moment of their immolation. They surrendered, as if drugged, to a system that didn’t allow any way out. No one was able to understand or react. Those that were spared by the priests felt relieved and everyone chanted in honor of the Sun God—God of Light and Intelligence, and of the Jaguar God—God of Night and Calamities.

It was an orgiastic ending into which everyone was dragged, yelling and calling for the spirits to hear them and intercede with the Gods. The solemn prayers were emphasized and accompanied by the horrible reed sounds in an endless litany of sorrow and death. At last, an exhausted people accepted the reality of sacrifice and longed only for its ending, after which the multitudes could rest.

I remember those dramatic moments very well. My father was the main officiant of the rites. He was tall, handsome and strong, clad with jaguar skin and a diadem of quetzal feathers. He was, to the people, another Son of the Sun, an ‘untouchable’ to adore and revere. A God made man!

The chief sorcerer accompanied and sometimes replaced him in the celebration of the rite. At the acme of the immolation to the Gods, my father landed a sharp blow to the chosen victim, opened her chest and tore away the still pulsing heart and raised it to the sky—a gracious offering to the Sun God.

Blood sprays covered him. The priests interpreted the future through the remains of the body. Everything had been so perfect—now the Gods would certainly listen to us! Even the relatives of the victims looked happy and satisfied. And, while that orgy wore long into tiredness, thousands collapsed, exhausted, as the hope for the Children of the Sun to return grew strong in our imagination.

We lived suspended in such discontinuity of hope, sorrow, and disappointment. The pages of our history were carefully guarded in the great Temple of Inscriptions. They narrated incredible facts, all confirmed by a tradition handed down from father to son, which reminded us that we would never be forsaken by the Gods.

And then there were the pyramids. Built by our ancestors with so much pain and immense faith, they told us about the glory for which we had been destined. Losing that faith would be tantamount to trampling their memories and our inheritance. Yes, those pyramids were our pride and our misery. They were the inextricable root of our existence that we could not hide. Those monuments exalted us as they condemned us to the most infamous destiny, suspended between a life of backbreaking work, uncertain hope and infinite sorrow.

At the top of the pyramids, there is a nameless building, undecipherable and enigmatic despite its simplicity. Those that will someday free Tikal from the forest that oppresses it, will think of a small temple consecrated to a God. Instead, it was the storeroom where the fruits of our sacrifices were amassed. I can still see my father in there, solemnly ascending the pyramid, clad in feathers and gold, followed by the senior priests and the warriors carrying baskets full of jade. The damn stone that the Sun God had asked us for!

But near the end of our time, we couldn’t find as much jade as we did in past centuries. The chronicles that both I and the other priests’ children studied, said that, within ten years, we would completely fill both rooms, each located atop the two pyramids situated in the central square of Tikal, our capital, glory of the Gods and pride of the Mayan civilization.

Yet, during the first twenty years of my life, we weren’t able to fill the two rooms. The priests foretold that, when we reached that goal, the Sun God would be finally be satisfied and send his children to collect the gifts.

For such reason, we started working harder. Workmen became slaves and sacrifices occurred more frequently. Enthusiasm for serving the Gods began to vanish; it turned into disappointment and in some cases led to acts of rebellion. The end of Tikal, my beloved homeland, was approaching!

And now that it’s all over, I can only cry.

For one thousand years we built temples and pyramids—consecrated to the Gods so that none of them might think we had forgotten. Priests were put in charge of each of these new complexes. By doing so, we hoped that all Gods would be benevolent towards us.

We were enormously helped by our way of living. Our entire existence was based on an excellent distribution of tasks. Our growing specialization increased our production so that we lacked nothing that we needed for our lives. Every inhabitant was assigned to a specific job according to his or her skills. Those working in the mines on the mountains extracted the jade and minerals that the Sun God requested. Our fields produced abundant crops while fishing was good both in the lake and in the sea. Many activities were directed by the temples but there were people—like artisans and merchants—who carried out their own business as well.

We didn’t have ‘official’ enemies so the youth were trained in the use of weapons primarily for hunting. Our potential threats—the Aztec and the Inca—were too far from us to represent an impending danger. We knew about the existence of other peoples as merchants reported it when they reached our eastern coast by sea to exchange their products.

The Sun’s Children had prepared us to face any external menace and taught us many secrets of the art of war and weapons manufacturing. In case of conflict, we would have defeated the possible invaders thanks not to our numerical preponderance but to our organization and the knowledge of military techniques.

Then there was the great secret of the dam! Gift of the Sun God, and our extreme resource.

We never made big wars, although all young people were capable of going into battle and, in case it had been necessary, would have offered their lives to defend their homeland. Tikal’s permanent army was a great military division whose function was that of keeping order inside the empire and insuring that the will of the Sun God was respected. In case of an aggression, only surprise could be our weak point.

The Sun’s Children had then invited us to be circumspect. Our lookouts were distributed over a wide area in all directions from Tikal. There were couriers sent out to various parts of the empire, even to small villages, ready to report on any possible attempt of rebellion or external danger.

My father was commander of Tikal’s military division as well as the head of the empire’s administration. Below him, there were the priests—all members of the high class. They were a cultured and clever caste, committed to transcribing the history of our people and dedicated to directing all productive activities. They studied astronomy in Palenke’s observatory. Among them were physicians, engineers, architects and teachers. The Gods inspired them. They were the best part of our nation, the point of reference of our past and future, the pride of our people and the justification of a social order that, despite all the sacrifices it imposed upon the population, ensured a reasonable welfare to everybody and indisputable protection from the Gods.

For more than a thousand years, Tikal was the center of the world. (Two more peoples, one to the North—the Aztec, and the other to the South—the Inca, competed with us in proclaiming ourselves, glory of the Sun God in man.) Tikal was beautiful. Situated in a large fertile valley and surrounded by mountains and lush forests, its red and white buildings interrupted the homogeneous green of the landscape and stood out as a model not only of magnificence and splendor but also of order and obedience. The Sun’s Children told us that our empire was the most splendid of the three, and this is carved in the stones.

Pride made us forget about our tiredness. And, the certainty of our conquests erased all doubts regarding the efficiency of our system. The joy of our successes washed away the sacrifice that had been made to obtain them. Submission and resignation naturally followed.

Some, on the contrary, left our empire and many of them took refuge on the great peninsula of Yucatan. We called it so, because it was a ‘land rich of deer and turkeys.’ Here, in order to obtain the Sun God’s benevolence, they built similar pyramids. They ended up creating a political system that was akin to ours.

Moreover, they were dominated by the great people of the North. The Aztecan emperor, who was envious of the Mayan empire and its magnificence, did his best to prevent other Mayan cities from joining Tikal, forcing on them instead a condition of half-independence. As a result, outside our empire, threats of uncertainty and death existed continuously between the insidious forested territories and the cruel external enemies.

Our system gave a sense of stability and an illusion of happiness but wasn’t an immutable guarantee of safety and survival. Unstoppable erosion was threatening its stability from the inside and no one realized that the increasing disorder could so threaten the existence of such a great empire—an empire whose population no longer feared the Gods.

When Tikal’s fall was complete, the Sun God spared me so that I could become the chronicler of His intelligence and greatness.

Moreover, my writing would be a reminder of how men’s zealotry and wickedness can lead people to self-destruction, especially when they are poorly led and choose to oppress the innocent. Such noble intention gives me the strength that I need to continue collecting, compressing and drying the vegetable fibers that will become the pages of this chronicle. Thus, the story of my love, as well as the glory and memory of my homeland, won’t be lost forever.

Chapter 2

The Seven Temples

The gods of evil and perversion dance around us, They try, during our existence, to harm us—sometimes whimsically by striking us with their arrows and sometimes hurtfully by turning us against each other, mocking us, and even punishing the entire city with terrible calamities.

The history of the extraordinary events that my people experienced is written in the great Temple of Inscriptions. In the future, when our descendants want to know the one thousand years’ long history of Tikal, they will find those events described in the stones, and they will discover how much damage the evil spirits caused us. But, the end of that story will be known only through my memories.

My people, in honor of the evil spirits and in order to earn their benevolence, built seven temples overlooking Tikal’s large center square. About fifty temple priests administered the sacred rites and studied our calamities, considering the best possible way to calm the spirits and reduce the effects of their harmful influences. Because evil spirits so frequently attacked us, the temple priests became an essential part of our lives, acknowledging our profound belief that only through the priests’ intercession could we, the poor victims, be saved.

Over many years, the temple priests grew more and more powerful and autonomous, finally separating themselves from the Sun God’s priests and forming an independent group possessing its own privileges and extraordinary powers. Following this fracture—which was the result of the high priests’ negligence and weakness—the two factions fought each other for centuries. In the end, the Highest Priest was no longer able to govern or prevent abuses by the temple priests. In general, activities by the temple priests were so elusive and insidious that we could rarely prove their guilt.

On a few occasions, under unique circumstances, it was possible to discover who among the temple priests was responsible for a crime. In those cases, the blame was ascribed to the Spirit of Rivalry but elicited no condemnation because, since the involved priest was said to have acted under the influence of that Spirit, he could not be considered fully aware of his deeds.

Whenever a widespread calamity struck, the priests of the Seven Temples said the Sun God had been defeated and the entire city had been punished for offending the evil spirits. But, just as often, for similar calamities, those same priests were blamed for Tikal’s misfortunes, being accused of beseeching the spirits to inflict on Tikal those sorrowful events.

Increasingly, people blamed the priests for being unable to protect the city from the rage of the evil spirits. In such times, the Sun God’s priests quietly turned people against the priests of the Seven Temples and, rarely but certainly, when the crime was serious and the evidence couldn’t be rebutted, the guilty persons were sacrificed to the same spirit they had falsely accused, even while declaring themselves faithful to it. Great confusion beset Tikal, and those who distorted the facts, or plucked them from the wind, prevented everyone from understanding them.

During the last century of Tikal’s history, we were torn by small but frequent conflicts promoted by one or another group of priests. Particularly over the last decades, since the time the Sun’s children stopped visiting us, Tikal’s life was filled with dissatisfaction and small interior clashes which sometimes were repressed by my father.

In truth, the sense of respect for the Gods had diminished and we clearly felt that the people no longer accepted the religious and political tradition in a passive way. Then, because of multiple natural disasters, the priests of the Seven Temples were charged with directing and controlling agriculture as well as with identifying the best possible way to obtain the evil spirits’ protection against natural calamities.

In fact, while the Sun God blesses the fields during the daytime, at night the evil spirits might destroy the harvest. As a consequence, the priests of the Seven Temples had developed a whole series of rites and activities to honor the Great Jaguar God—the God of the Night—the only one able to prevail over the evil spirits. Thus, they thought they could protect agriculture from nightly natural calamities and, particularly, from insects which could destroy entire harvests. Such calamities were always attributed to the evil spirits.

The priests had experiment centers where they studied the fields’ life, checked and directed the agricultural production, constructed great storerooms and supervised the distribution of maize, our primary food. Apart from this, they maintained and operated the dam that ensured adequate water supplies for the people and for agricultural activities during the dry season. All this was directed by the priests of the Seven Temples.

Many centuries ago, agriculture was poor and insufficient for Tikal’s inhabitants. When drought came, many died for the lack of water and food. A terrible pain caught us in the belly and the Spirit of Cruelty rejoiced in seeing us die. All—both young and old—were his prey.

The Sun’s Children taught us how to construct the dam which allowed us to increase production and work two harvests during the dry season. Tikal became wealthy and the population grew a hundred times over. We had maize to sell to the three nearby cities who, later on, joined us and formed the great Mayan empire. And of these three cities—my brothers became their chiefs.

As the population grew, the entire valley from the eastern coast to the foot of the western mountains was cleared of forest. Workers created an irrigation system that ran the length of the valley. From that time on, we never experienced drought.

There’s another valley which splits the mountains toward the west and finally opens into the great valley of Tikal. In that valley, a small permanent lake already existed. During the dry season that was the only water reserve we had. Several centuries ago, a small dam made of stones increased the capacity of that lake. As our need for water grew, a huge dam was built at the eastern edge of this valley so that, as the water level increased, the permanent lake became part of the dam’s basin.

This great dam was created with huge stone blocks all along its base and sides while the rest was completed with trees. Through a system of four openings situated at different heights, the water supply and the control of the water level in the artificial lake became possible.

The whole system had been so designed for two purposes:

The first three openings were at a height that ensured a constant water supply to the valley and city during the dry season. This was the first purpose of the dam.

In case of abundant rains, the fourth opening would be unlocked, avoiding useless water storage and preventing the water basin from growing to a twenty times bigger lake. However, such a huge water mass was Tikal’s last resource in case of an enemy invasion. This was the second purpose of the dam.

During the one thousand years of Tikal’s history, we never were at war with either the Aztec or the Incas although the Sun’s Children had warned us to respect their enormous power and remain alert to the possibility of invasion. If these people had known the extent of our wealth, we most certainly would have been conquered and enslaved. Merchants who traded along the eastern coast had confirmed that a powerful emperor—another Son of the Sun as well as son of the volcano’s fire—governed the Aztecan people whose empire was five times as big as ours.

It was for defending ourselves from such a great empire that we’d built the dam so large. There was a secret mechanism—known only to the priests of the Seven Temples and the senior priests—that, once activated, broke the dam’s side-frames collapsing the dam and flooding the valley with so much water it would drown the invaders. That’s why Tikal had no huge permanent army.

Tikal was defended only by a modest army that manned a lookout system with permanent stations along the boundaries of the empire. If an approaching enemy army threatened Tikal, the entire population would immediately follow defined escape paths into the western mountains leaving Tikal empty. The priests of the Seven Temples, who directed the dam’s upkeep, would converge on the dam’s special places and activate its secret mechanism. Within ten hours of the invaders’ arrival, Tikal would become their mortal trap.

Such a system though, had a flaw—if the invasion occurred at the end of a long dry season, when more than half the water had been used for the fields’ irrigation, it would have been necessary to resist the invasion for a few months, after which, as the rain season arrived and progressed, the invaders would have met the same destiny.

Certainly, Tikal’s damage would have been significant but at least we would have saved our lives and political existence. Only the central buildings, those made of stone, would receive no damage.

The priests of the Seven Temples, not the central government, were responsible for the dam’s correct functioning and they reported continuously to my father on its maintenance. At the end of the dry season, when the second harvest had been made and only the natural lake in the middle of the valley remained, the priests went there with the workmen to check and strengthen the structures. Because of the dam’s importance, such operation was performed punctually and with much accuracy. The priests wanted the dam to work perfectly and