Ancient Maya 'Bul'
Prolog . . .
You drift slowly downward, swinging slightly, with your legs ready to keep you off of the sharp rock wall in front of you. 200 feet below runs the river’s torrent. You can hear its loud scream in the narrow gorge. 200 feet above, peering anxiously downward, with only their heads bobbing occasionally into visibility, are the rest of the archaeological team. Except Arturo, that is, who has already made the precarious descent and stands waiting to receive you just a few more feet below. Arturo is a good friend and colleague as well as the team’s climbing expert. You’re a distant 2nd best, and being younger and more athletic than any of the rest of the team, the task fell to you to accompany him in this preliminary survey. Normally things aren’t so dangerous on an archaeological survey, but this isn’t a normal site at all. The survey target? A hole in the cliff wall, a cave perhaps, an ancient Maya ceremonial retreat, its only entrance hanging dangerously between earth and sky, above a jungle stream just inside the Mexican border from Guatemala. Then again perhaps it may be just a shallow cavity that holds no archaeological promise. No way to tell really without actually setting foot in there. A few more feet down and Arturo reaches out to grab you and swing you to a solid foothold at the edge of the opening. A little more slack and you are free of the harness and ropes and safely inside. It’s a relief to be away from that cliff face and on sold ground rather than hanging from seemingly gossamer lines above almost certain death. It’s dark here and it takes a moment to adjust to the light. Neither you nor Arturo have had time to think about archeology in the struggle to get here but now the fun part begins. This is just the kind of place the Maya would have used as a pilgrimage, a sacred sanctuary, and Tikal is so close . . . so close, and Mirador too, and a thousand other Maya ruins, many unnamed and as yet unstudied, with even more still undiscovered under the jungle’s green canopy. You begin to explore the cavern carefully.
Your first task is to try to discover its extent. Piercing into the dark of its recess with your narrow headlamp beams you make out another entrance, narrower, darker, leading into a deeper chamber. You both head toward it but then Arturo stops, reaches out firmly, and grabs your shoulder to halt you.
"We should go no further," he says.
"But why!?" you counter.
Arturo beams his light on an intricate carving of a bird deity at the side of the deeper entrance. "That symbol, and a certain ‘feeling’, tells me that we should not go on. We should leave this place, tell the others that this place is ‘dry’, that we found no trace of human habitation, no beads, no pottery, no carvings, no bones . . . we should tell them that this is no cave, but a shallow hollow, without archaeological promise, and that we should never come back."
Sure that Arturo is playing the trickster you tag along, "Yes that Itzam-Ye serpent bird carving looks pretty mean! We’d better get outt’a here fast!"
You shine your light on Arturo’s face expecting to see a joking smile but you find only steel in his eyes.
You begin to worry. "So what! We’ve seen it before in the ruins. What are you saying Arturo? You’re talking like a lunatic" you argue.
"Look!," continues Arturo impatiently, "my grandmother and grandfather are day-keepers, diviners . . . they know about these kinds of things. They’ve warned me many times that when the Spanish conquistadors came, the demon being Saqi k’oxol -- White-Sparkstriker -- fled to the forest to preserve the past. It is he who inhabits the forest, caves, and dreams, and this is his place, and that is the warning sign placed here to signal that this is a cave of powerful sorcery and we are in very grave danger."
"Arturo, Arturo, you’re a scientist, not a mystic . . . Listen to what you are saying!" you counter in frustration and disbelief.
"I know it sounds crazy to you, I know you can’t understand . . . I’m not even sure I do. When my people complain that their fields have been raided by dwarves and you -- and I -- say it is only the creatures from the forest . . . Sometimes we are right, but only sometimes. Remember when a man from the village disappeared last year? You said he had run away from his family. My grandmother and grandfather said he had been spirited away at the river by the siren La Llorona. Were they really wrong? You explain everything through science and reasoning, and so do I, so do I . . . but in this place, our disbelief will not protect us my friend. Let us go . . . quickly!"
"Stay then, you say flatly, "when I get in there without any problems I’ll call to you. Then we can put away this nonsense and get down to some science." You shrug Arturo’s hand from your shoulder, pick up your pack and ready yourself to step through the deeper entrance, past the glyph inscribed on the cave wall.
"Wait, wait, my friend," Arturo pleads. He reaches into his shirt and pulls off the chain necklace hanging around his neck, and presses it firmly into your hand. "Here . . . take this then as a favor to me . . . as a protector."
There, in your hand, lies a necklace chain with two pendants – a small silver crucifix and an obsidian flake. Intricately carved into the face of the flake is the Mayan Jester God.
You look up to Arturo, a question in your eyes. Arturo answers it. "No, no, it’s not what your thinking, it’s not from our diggings . . . this diviner’s stone has been in our family for generations."
With that, you place the pendants around your neck and boldly step into the darkness to make your way deeper into the cavern. Stalactites hang from the ceiling and water drips in the darkness. This cave is too wet to have preserved much of ancient visitations -- too bad. "Perhaps," you think, "the outer chamber will hold something at least." The passageway narrows quickly, then you reach the end.
There, revealed in the light of your headlamp, a simple stone offerings bowl sits on the cave floor. In the bowl are 4 corn kernels and nothing more. You stoop to examine the bowl and its contents. The kernels are new and the bowl is too smooth and dry to have been in this cave for long. Surely, this cannot be an ancient offering. There must be another, easier entrance to this cave. Arturo will be greatly disappointed. You laugh a little, then turn back to begin your exit. "This would be a excellent time to play a little trick on Arturo," you think with a little meanness . . . but . . .
A bright light, the crack of thunder, the searing, burning sensation of lightning . . .
Then you regain awareness.
Standing over you, in Maya battle dress, is a hideous red-faced demon -- White-Sparkstriker. He laughs an evil laugh. "You can fight with the heart of a hungry jaguar and kill or be killed. Or you can give up, be taken captive, and have your heart torn out in the sacrifice. It matters little to me," he jeers.
"Fight or die nacom! Or perhaps," he continues in derision, "I should say ‘Fight and die!’"
With a final sneer the demon fades.
You find yourself lying on the battlefield. Trumpets blare, drums pound, and Mayan warriors struggle hand-to-hand, locked in mortal combat all around you. An obsidian tipped dart pierces the chest of the warrior next to you and he cries out in pain, blood spurting from an awful wound. An enemy warrior in front of you lunges toward you with a flint-tipped battle spear but is cut off by a comrade warrior’s shield as he springs to protect you. But now he is out-manned by two of the enemy and in dire trouble. A rage, an overwhelming madness, sweeps over you . . . and a forgetfulness. Peace is gone. There is only war in your heart now -- the heart of the hungry jaguar now beats within you. You are a Mayan warrior. You grasp the obsidian studded war-club at your side, grab a wooden shield with the other hand, jump to your feet, and wade into battle to your protector’s rescue . . .
Two days later the enemy city falls. The fighting had been intense and then desperate as the front was pushed from the outer city to the perimeter of the great plaza. But in the end, the enemy’s situation was hopeless. You and your warriors had stormed the great temple complex where the enemy ahau waited, surrounded by what remained of his fighting elite. Even now the enemy ahau and his family were being transported to your native city to be sacrificed at the great celebration of the hard-fought victory. You have been left at the conquered and occupied city as heir apparent to its throne, a vassal city king. There is much to do to prepare the captured city and there are many prisoners, and warriors, to be dealt with. Those prisoners of the lower class will be apportioned out as slaves to your brave soldiers. The others, those of noble birth, will be sacrificed. As ruling ahau, you command preparations be made.
"Prepare the prisoners for the sacrifice on the morrow. Let there be feasting and revelry!" you proclaim. Your priests and warrior princes turn to obey . . . but then a sudden pang at your chest . . . reaching to probe the pain, your hand closes about the crucifix.
And in that very instance, the memory of it all comes flooding back, as if a stepping from the darkness into the light. You remember who you really are and what has happened, and realize in an instance what must be done. Time must be bought, time to make a plan and carry it out. You pray the loyalty of your brave war captains will buy you that time.
"No wait! Hold that order!" you cry. "In the heat of the battle the ancestral gods appeared to me in a vision born of the blood offerings of the struggle. I have a new order to reveal and a new path -- the new true green path -- to show you. The sacrifice of our enemy will not be required . . . at least tomorrow. And I have a new game to show you from the gods, a game they call ‘football’ . . . "
In the cool of the evening, as you sit alone in the throne-room, the demon comes.
"What do you think you are doing, ahau" he asks.
You smile with steel in your flashing eyes. His visit was not unexpected.
"What must be done" you flatly reply.
"I will not allow you to continue!" warns the demon.
"As I see it, " you persist, "you only have two choices. Either safely return me to my own time, at the place and instance that you took me, or leave me now."
"How about I just kill you where you stand?" threatens the demon.
"If you could do that I believe you would have done so long before now. No, there are rules of engagement to this game, this sorcery of yours, aren’t there?"
The demon ignores the question.
"It would never have worked, ahau" he offers.
"Why not?" you reply. "Think of me as Hunac Ceel standing on the rim of the sacrificial cenote. I throw myself in, and not sinking, proclaim that I have conversed with the gods . . . and they tell me to do what must be done. Not so far fetched is it? Yes, it would have worked . . .You see, you picked the wrong person to bring through your doorway. I am a scientist and also a student of history. I know where to go and what to do and what will come and what may be. These people don’t even have the bow and arrow. I know how to get them that. The wheel will be next. I can show them how to smelt ore -- can the industrial revolution be far behind? I will spread my empire to the south as far as the Inca and perhaps even beyond, and to the north I will be waiting and ready for the Aztecs at Tenochtitlan, and for the Spanish too for that matter. I will abolish human sacrifice, foster peace, forge alliances, nurture learning and speed progress. Granted, change may be slow at first, but I am cunning, and patient. Yes, demon, I will change your world, and perhaps, in the end, even you will fade into never-being when I am done."
"If only I had seen the two pendants, "the demon complains, "they were hidden under your shirt . . . that wasn’t really fair ahau. The diviner’s stone protected the crucifix from my sorcery . . . it crossed the portal when it should not have and opened up a vision tunnel, a psychoduct, back to your own time when you touched it."
Then attempting a final hurt, he continues, "I’ll bet you were shocked and saddened at how savage you had become, ahau. You are not really that different from the cruel Maya now are you? There is only a thin veil, a thin red line, in you humans that prevents an avowed man of peace from turning to violence and savagery, and that veil is easily pierced and that line is easily crossed. Isn’t it now? Have I not shown you your weakness and depravity human?"
Now it’s your turn to ignore the question.
"In the Nubian desert," you counter, "an Egyptian soldier of thousands of years ago carved glyphs on one of the rock escarpments surrounding his encampment -- ancient graffiti if you will, the heartfelt words of a beleaguered soldier -- they read:
‘I am a man of the troops, who attacks the hero, but who loves life and hates death.’
I too attacked the hero these past few days, demon, but I too love life and hate death; I too love peace and hate war. Yes, I freely admit it. War and violence may be encoded in my veins, but I can choose to do otherwise -- and I do! There were men of peace even then, thousands of years ago, and there are men of peace here too, and I will search them out and find them. I will break the cycle of violence that delights you in its passing from one generation to the next."
Disgusted, and defeated, the demon turns to go, then turns back. "To tell you the truth," he says with a strange smile, "it was the football that I was really worried about . . ."
You start to laugh but in a sudden flash of light you are back in the cave. The offerings bowl still sits on the floor holding the 4 kernels. The cave is still dark and wet, and the thin beam of your headlamp is its only illumination. Wasting no time, you start back. In a few moments you can see Arturo’s light up ahead and the sunlight of the outer chamber, and soon you are standing beside him.
"What happened?!," he questions, "I saw a bright light, heard what sounded like thunder. I became very worried. But then I saw you coming back and . . . "
Taking the pendants from around your neck, you place them into Arturo’s hands saying, "Thank you my friend for these, I owe you a debt that can never be repaid."
Surprised and confused, he looks at you with questioning eyes and asks, "What are you taking about? What happened back there!?"
"I can’t talk about it," you reply, "but I -do- take you up on your proposal. There is no archaeological presence here . . . How did you say it? . . . I believe it was something like ‘no trace of human habitation, no beads, no pottery, no carvings, no bones’. This is no cave, but a shallow hollow. There is no archaeological promise here and I can tell you right now, I, for one, am certainly never coming back!"
"Agreed?" you ask.
"Agreed!," says Arturo with resolution in his voice. "You -are- going to tell me what happened though aren’t you?" he adds.
"Someday perhaps," you reply, but for right now, "let’s get outt’a here!" And they do.
Somewhere, hidden under the green canopy of the jungle and high above a jungle stream, elusive, and remote . . . there is a doorway, a portal into the past, that only one person has ever opened and lived . . .