Writing as Resistance: Maya Graphic Pluralism and Indigenous Elite Strategies for Survival in Colonial Yucatan, 15501750

John F. Chuchiak IV, Missouri State University

Abstract. This paper offers a revisionist viewpoint on the nature of colonial Maya literacy, showing that the colonial Yucatec Maya elite utilized both the traditional hieroglyphic script and the new alphabetic writing skills taught by the Franciscan friars. By adapting and utilizing both styles of writing, the colonial Maya elite created a system of graphic pluralism that enabled the Maya nobility to better defend their elite interests in a manner consistent with both pre-Columbian and colonial forms of writing, address, religion, and government administration.

In late October 1567, a Maya prophet (chilan) named Chilan Couoh preached the supremacy of the traditional ways and prophesied a war of religions around the Spanish settlement of Bacalar.1 Educated and taught the alphabetic script by Franciscan friars in the western Yucatan, Chilan Couoh spurned the teachings of the friars and their alphabetic literacy as inferior to the old ways of writing in ancient characters.2 With a large following, the Maya prophet began to bring together numerous surviving hand-painted Maya hieroglyphic codices, creating a library of ancient knowledge that he argued was superior to the scribbling of the Franciscans and the Spaniards.3 As armed resistance increased around the settlement of Bacalar, the Spaniards asked the provincial capital of Merida for aid in quelling the rebellion. The Maya priest and his followers quickly became bold enough to raid Christian Maya settlements outside the walls of the Spanish villa of Bacalar. In one instance, a large number of apostate Maya under the leadership of their prophet captured the entire population of an encomienda town, reportedly taking their captives into the jungles and sacrificing them to their gods.4 Although he spoke openly against the Spanish religion and writing,
Ethnohistory 57:1 (Winter 2010) DOI 10.1215/00141801-2009-055 Copyright 2010 by American Society for Ethnohistory

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ironically the Maya prophet wrote letters in Maya utilizing the alphabetic script to call Maya chieftains from other regions to arms.5 Finally, in late March 1568, the Spanish sent a military expedition into the region. For almost a year, the expeditions captain Juan Garn and his men scoured the southeastern Yucatan peninsula, searching for the rebel leader.6 An important discovery occurred in spring 1569, when the Garn expedition came across a large temple containing a massive stone Maya idol and several hundred smaller ceramic idols. Along with these idols, the Spaniards uncovered a sizable library of Maya hieroglyphic books and codices written in their ancient characters.7 They quickly smashed the idols and burnt the books in a massive bonfire. Three days later, a band of Spaniards under the command of Lieutenant Juan Daz found the Maya prophet who had begun the rebellion.8 After arresting Chilan Couoh, Garn pleaded with him to repent and return to the Christian religion. The Maya priest scoffed at Garns pleas and maintained his stance on the superiority of the Maya script and his own traditional religion. Finally, Garn sent the Maya priest under armed guard to the bishop Fr. Francisco de Toral in Merida, hoping that the bishop would make an example of him. The Maya prophet had begun a war of religions, but the most surprising aspect of the affair was the evidence of the survival of the Maya hieroglyphic script and the prophets concurrent usage of alphabetic literacy. The fact that the prophet used both written scripts made it clear that the Maya elite as early as the late 1560s had come to use both written traditions. As the Spanish authorities and clergy uncovered other major instances of idolatry, they confirmed the continued existence and use of the traditional Maya script throughout the rest of the colony.9 An apparent system of graphic pluralism existed among the Maya elite even several decades after the Spanish conquest. Moreover, in the case of their old hieroglyphic script, the Maya elite and its traditional priesthood continued to use their ancient writing as a means of resistance to both Catholicism and the Spanish colonial system.10 This paper will examine the nature of this example of colonial graphic pluralism and the use of traditional Maya writing as resistance. Writing as Conversion: The Franciscan Missionaries Role in Establishing Colonial Maya Alphabetic Literacy In 1542, the Spaniards finally established their capital in Merida. However, even before that time, Franciscan friars had attempted to convert the natives in the region around Campeche. The first friars, under the leadership of Fray Jacobo de Testera, entered the Yucatan peninsula in 1535 after the first attempt at conquest had failed. However, the friars soon abandoned the

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Yucatan, returning in 1547 to found the first permanent Franciscan mission in Merida, under the leadership of Fray Luis de Villalpando. Villalpando was the first friar to study the Maya language and to apply to it the Latin system of grammar. The Franciscan historian Bernardo de Lizana wrote that Villalpando learned many of the terms of the language by memory, along with their meanings, looking for the means of conjugation of their verbs, and the variety of their nouns and the Lord helped him so much so that in a brief amount of time he reduced the language to a series of rules and wrote an Arte of the language.11 Villalpando requested the caciques (chiefs) to send their children there to Mrida, and there he would teach them the Christian doctrine as well as teach them to read and write in Castillian characters.12 One of Villalpandos companions, Fray Juan de Herrera, began the first school for the sons of the Indian nobility in Merida. Apparently, the Maya caciques sent more than a thousand children to Merida during this period.13 Among Herreras students were illustrious Maya such as the first cacique who converted to Christianity, Diego Na. Diego learned Latin through the Franciscans schools and became a translator for the friars. In the words of another friar, this first generation of Maya would become very good scribes and choir masters . . . and those Maya [who came to these schools] were later placed into the positions of caciques and governors and thus they gained the lordship.14 Villalpando and Herrera adapted the Latin alphabet to the Maya language so that the Maya could write their language using the Latin script. Nevertheless as another later linguist and Maya scholar, Fray Diego de Landa, wrote, the early friars discovered that the Maya did not need some of the Latin letters and that special characters were needed: And it was found out that they did not use six of our letters, which are: D, F, G, Q, R, S. . . . But they are obliged to double others and to add others in order to understand the varied significance of certain words. . . . And considering that they had different characters for these things, there was no necessity of inventing new forms of letters, but rather to make use of the Latin letters, so that the use of them should be common to all.15 This common use of the Latin alphabet which Landa referred to was a reality by the middle of the 1550s. The initial school of Latin and Maya grammar established by Herrera expanded quickly with the establishment of Franciscan missions in the outlying regions. Each of the missions had a school for the Indian nobility where the Indian children were taught how to read and write, as well as sing and pray.16

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The Franciscans succeeded impressively in instructing the Maya in Latin letter-based literacy. Natives were writing Maya in Latin script as early as 1552,17 and by 1557 land documents were being recorded in alphabetized Maya.18 Knowledge of the Mayas phonetic pre-Hispanic script, which was limited to the Maya nobility, no doubt led to the easier adoption of Latin syllables and letters, and the same noble Maya who knew how to read the glyphs became the first Maya instructed in the Franciscans schools. The Maya nobility thus continued to dominate literacy and Maya politics into the early colonial times. The friars, at least at first, believed that their new converts rapid adoption of alphabetic literacy would lead to the quick obsolescence of their pre-Hispanic glyphic script. The reality, however, was that the Maya continued to maintain graphic pluralism. Evidence from their Latin-based literacy points to the preservation, propagation, and pluralistic use of both writing systems long into the colonial period and, in some regions, into the dawn of the nineteenth century. Writing as a Subversive Tradition: The Maya Nobility and the Survival of the Traditional Hieroglyphic Script According to the early chroniclers of Yucatan, during the pre-Hispanic period the Maya held their lords and priests in extreme respect because they held the power of writing, while the majority of the people could not decipher their characters. The first noble Maya trained as scribes in the Franciscan schools perpetuated the pre-Hispanic nobilitys monopoly on education. At the same time, during this early contact period, the Maya nobility openly showed the Spaniards and the clergy their hieroglyphic codices. Many of the Spaniards were amazed and curious about their hieroglyphic script. The encomenderos from the city of Merida wrote in amazement, They had letters with which they wrote and understood themselves, these were types of characters of which each one was made of parts and by means of them they understood each other like we do with our own letters . . . and these they did not teach to anyone but noble persons and all of the priests who were the principal people among them.19 The Maya openly revealed their codices to the first Spaniards without evident fear. Even Landa mentioned in his Relacin that earlier the Maya cacique Don Juan Cocom had shown him a book which had belonged to his grandfather containing a history of his people.20 Apparently, many of the Maya codices that the Spaniards had seen earlier contained historical information. According to Lizana, writing in 1633, the only historical information available on the pre-Hispanic origins of the Maya came from several surviving Maya hieroglyphic codices: The history and authors that we

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can allege [concerning this topic] are several [books] of ancient characters, very poorly understood with many written glosses made by several ancient Indians who were sons of the priests of their gods, and they were the only ones who know how to read them and use them for divination.21 More than a decade after the Conquest, many Spaniards viewed bark-paper hieroglyphic codices shown to them by the Maya nobility. The encomenderos from the Valladolid region, for example, described several codices in 1579, saying that they were made from the bark of a certain tree on which they write and drew figures of their days and months with great figures and images, and there they wrote them. Unfolded, these books were longer than six brazas, some more and some less.22 A few clergyman and Spaniards even inquired as to the meaning of the codices and some friars and priests studied the Maya script contained within their pages.23 However, examining these codices in detail, the Spanish clergy realized that the Maya priests mainly used their codices to perform sacred ceremonies. The codices were so important to the Maya priestly profession that Landa noted that the priests were buried with their books of ancient characters when they died.24 By the decade of the 1560s, the Spanish clergy came to have a better understanding of the hieroglyphic content of these books, and an important change occurred in Spanish perceptions of the Maya codices. No longer did they view the codices as harmless curiosities containing innocuous historical information. Instead, the church authorities began to view the codices as a subversive influence on their Maya converts. By the seventeenth century, the clergy began to describe Maya codices as books of the devil. For instance, in 1608, Gregorio Snchez de Aguilar described three codices confiscated by his cousin, Dr. Pedro Snchez de Aguilar, as three books of their paganism and idolatry which were written on bark paper and on them were figures of demons which these said Indians worshipped.25 As Lizana wrote in 1633, the clergy believed that the destruction of the codices would cure and cauterize the pestilential cancer [of idolatry] that was eating away at the Christianity that [the friars] had planted with such great effort.26 By the end of the sixteenth century, the church focused its efforts on the total eradication of the Maya codices and glyphic literacy in general in order to destroy the continued practice of idolatry. The Catholic clergy uncovered increasing numbers of Maya nobles practicing ancient rites and perpetuating the use of the old glyphic script. Even more alarming, the clergy discovered that some nobles who had been trained in alphabetic writing continued to utilize both the ancient glyphic form of writing and the new alphabetic script as a means of preserving traditional indigenous ritual knowledge. Fearing the continued existence of this type of graphic

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pluralism, the clergy stopped training the sons of Maya nobility, preferring to educate the children of Maya commoners in alphabetic literacy because they assumed that the latter would not have previous knowledge of the ancient script.27 This attempt to limit the Maya nobilitys domination over alphabetic literacy served as only the first attempt at limiting the power and prestige of the traditional Maya nobles. A second step would focus on the removal of the traditional elite from their positions of political power as the leaders of their communities. The Spanish reorganization of Maya town government would serve as a second attack against the power and privileges of the Maya nobles. Writing and Government: The Changing Nature of Colonial Government and the Maya Nobilities Attempts at Survival When the Spanish conquerors initially encountered the Maya nobility, they accepted their hegemony, and at first made them important components of the colonial regime after 1542. But, as early as 1552, Spanish officials moved to displace the traditional elite lineages. During the period from 1560 to 1590, the Spanish authorities had discovered that a large number of the traditional Maya elite maintained an allegiance to their old religion and helped to perpetuate what the clergy viewed as idolatry among their commoners.28 Fearing their continued resistance, the Spanish authorities decided to begin to remove the traditional elite from their privileged political positions. Although it took about fifty years, the Spanish did succeed in displacing the traditional Maya ruling elite and creating the repblica de indios system of town governments. This reorganization of local indigenous government offered few opportunities for the Maya nobility to maintain their dominance. Although the Spaniards replaced the regional rulers, or halach uinic, with the symbol of the Spanish provincial governor, at the local level things changed very little at first.29 The Spaniards relied on the local caciques or rulers (batabob in Maya, batab, sing.) for the collection of tribute and the administration of justice at the local level. However, by the later sixteenth century, the conquerors introduced the Spanish system of municipal government based on the cabildo, or town council. The traditional Maya caciques remained in power initially, but several other village offices were introduced as older Maya officials were removed from local government.30 The three main types of officials introduced by this new repblica de indios system of town government were alcaldes, regidores, and, most

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importantly for our study, escribanos (scribes). The alcaldes (mayors or magistrates), regidores (aldermen), and another group of officials, alguaciles (constables), were elected each year.31 These posts of alcalde, regidor, and alguacil were partially opened to commoners. The positions of batab, maestro de escuela (school master), and escribano, however, were selected exclusively from the Indian nobility, at least at first.32 Eventually, the position of batab became occupied by Maya who did not necessarily belong to the Maya nobility. Removed from hereditary positions of power, the traditional Maya elite had to develop new strategies for survival in the rapidly changing colonial administration. In many cases, they utilized their knowledge of writing to ensure their continued dominance. For instance, a detailed study of a large number of Maya town officials from a selection of twenty-two Maya towns with a large corpus of extant documents reveals that in most cases, even when a towns batab was not selected from the traditional elite, a towns escribano continued to be selected from the Maya nobility throughout the colonial period.33 By royal decree in 1584, this repblica system became the sole system of indigenous government in Yucatan. The highest legally recognized official in the new towns was now called the gobernador, governor. In the Maya concept of the evolving nature of colonial government, the post of batab and gobernador became conflated. Thus, at first, the traditional local Maya batabob came to occupy the new positions of gobernador. Similarly, the pre-Hispanic Maya regional or provincial governments once controlled by the halach uinicob, the traditional Maya provincial rulers, quickly began to disintegrate and eventually disappear. In the mid-sixteenth century, the halach uinicob usually concurrently held the new political office of gobernador as well as their previous positions as regional lords. The office of local cacique remained hereditary, while that of legally recognized gobernador was elective or appointive, and the office holder thus was more malleable to Spanish demands. Under increasing legal attacks, traditional Maya caciques found themselves removed from access to the highest levels of official government in these new town councils. Due to their gradual loss of real political power, the ruling Maya elite needed to find some means to maintain their traditional hegemony. The new positions of scribe and maestro de escuela soon came to offer the Maya nobility the continued means of dominance by continuing their control over sacred knowledge and enabling them to dominate multiple literacies in the evolving graphic pluralism of the colonial Maya world.

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Writing as a Means of Survival: The Importance of Writing and the Post of the Village Scribe in Elite Attempts at Survival Although many Maya may have learned to use Latin literacy earlier than 1550, it was not until the later 1550s, when the traditional elites power was challenged by the Spanish system, that they began to produce documents in mass. In 1552, there was already a Maya scribe in the village of Yaxkukul, and he was a member of the traditional elite.34 By 1557, land documents were being recorded and written in Maya, and the privileges, lineages, and genealogies of the traditional elite were recorded in alphabetical script. At the same time, from the 1550s through the 1560s, the regional halach uinicob and other nobles found their actual political influence (the ability to collect tribute, draft labor, and impose local leaders) slowly shrinking away. One example of this loss of privileges, and the creation of new nonnoble officials, occurred as early as 1565 in Tekanto, when the ruling elite lineage of the Poot was removed from the holding of the town governorship.35 Although the Poot family continued to hold the hereditary position of cacique, they had effectively lost their political power through the placement of nonelite Maya in the rotating position of town gobernador.36 Similarly to the situation of the Poot clan in Tekanto, many of the traditional Maya elite were removed from holding political power by the end of the sixteenth century.37 Having earlier gained Latin letterbased literacy, after the decade of the 1590s these traditional nobles attempted to dominate the position of village scribe, turning it into a hereditary office, despite royal Spanish prohibitions against this practice. The significance of the village scribes and their understanding of alphabetic literacy made the position of scribe the second most powerful position in Maya village government after the gobernador. The position of escribano, introduced by the Spaniards, had a pre-Hispanic equivalent in the ah dzib. In the books of Chilam Balam, he is called Ah Dzib Cah, The Town Scribe.38 Even into the colonial period, some scribes preferred to use the title of ah tzib hun, or he who writes the document.39 This was an appointed, not elected, position, and the scribes term in office lasted for the life of the appointee or until he decided to leave it for another office. Scribes played a major position in local politics within the Maya local hierarchy. However, in Spanish colonial administration, the scribe was the lowest ranking member of the cabildo, and his signature always appeared last, at the end of the list of official signatures. This different emphasis of importance placed on the office of scribe in the two systems reveals the central significance of the ability to write and its connection to power in local colonial Maya government.

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The dominance of the Maya nobility over the position of scribe was made perpetual because those Maya nobles who had learned to read and write were able to hand pick their own successors. Although the Crown had passed regulations against the perpetual occupation of the position of scribe by one person or family, by the later seventeenth century scribes appeared to have held the position for life, or until one of their relatives or friends were able to take over the office.40 Thus, the Maya themselves undertook the education of this select group of scribes and notaries, who most often were the only literate members of the village. Larger towns (such as Sotuta) had a greater number of scribes, but most smaller towns had only one.41 In cases of multiple scribes, one of them served as senior scribe and the others were apprentices or hired hands (muken kab).42 The connection between literacy, political power, and social prestige is evident in the Maya concept of the apparent hierarchy of these offices. The positions of scribe and maestro de escuela were the only two posts that required literacy and they were also the only two full-time posts awarded a salary from community revenues.43 Scribes also collected special fees from the Maya who wished to draw up a will, send a letter, or authorize some other type of document. Thus, their incomes could be substantial and depended on their scribal activities during any given period. Regardless of their actual earnings, it is evident that colonial Maya scribes exercised a great deal of power through their knowledge of writing. Writing as Power: The Domination of the Traditional Maya Nobility over the Post of Escribano and the Increasing Prestige of Multiple Literacy among Colonial Maya Scribes Pre-Hispanic Maya concepts linked the power over writing and the gods of knowledge to the nobility. Nevertheless, colonial Spanish realities meant that the civil and ecclesiastical authorities attempted to limit the power of the traditional Maya elite. This meant that Maya who were not members of the nobility came to control political power. During this period of transition, the pre-Hispanic ruling families switched their attempts at keeping local power from maintaining the position of batab or gobernador to consolidating their control over the position of town scribe. It was the scribe who held the responsibility of certifying all official documents, tribute censuses, petitions, and other correspondence and account books. In many instances, the scribe became equal in importance with the batab, and in some instances, as we will see later, he was even more important than the local gobernador. Nevertheless, in the Spanish colonial administration, the scribe was the lowest ranking member of the cabildo, and his

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Table 1. Spanish and Maya Views of the Prestige and Hierarchy of Cabildo Officials, 15501750 Cabildo Hierarchy in Spanish Law 1. Gobernador 2. Alcaldes [2] 3. Regidores [4 or 6] 4. Alguaciles [4 or 6] 5. Escribano Cabildo Hierarchy in Maya Practice 1. Gobernador and Escribano 2. Alcaldes [2] 3. Regidores [2 or 4] 4. Alguaciles [4]

Figure 1. Maya batab (Juan Can) and escribano (Agustin Xul) from Tihotzuco sign a petition together, separate from the alcaldes and regidores. Source: Peticin del pueblo de Tihotzuco, 24 de Junio, 1669, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain (hereafter AGI), Escribania de Camara, 315B

signature always appeared last, at the end of the list of official signatures (table 1). This different emphasis of importance placed on the office of scribe in the two systems reveals the central significance of the ability to write and its connection to power in local colonial Maya government (fig. 1). In Maya documents, the scribe and batab usually signed the document together, either before the other officials of the cabildo (see fig. 2) or in the center of the page, with the lesser officials signatures off to the right- and left-hand sides (see fig. 3). Thus, it appears that the positions of scribe and batab were emphasized as hierarchically more important by the Maya than the positions of alcaldes and regidores. Nevertheless, Spanish law required that the scribes signature should

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Figure 2. Cristobal Cituk (scribe) signed first along with the batab, Don Clemente Kuyoc from Chikindzonot. Source: Peticin del pueblo de Chikindzonot, 23 de Junio, 1669, AGI, Escribania de Camara, 315B

Figure 3. The escribano (Felipe Tulul) and batab (Don Francisco Camal) from Ekpedz signed together in the center of the page. Source: Peticin del pueblo de Ekpedz, 20 de Mayo, 1669, AGI, Escribania de Camara, 315B

be the last one on any official document. This obvious slighting of Spanish notarial law no doubt was undertaken in order to emphasize the prestige and political power of the village scribe.44 Similarly, it appears that the old pre-Hispanic ruling clans and families were able to continue political dominance through their continued exercise of the position of village scribe, enabling them to continue their preHispanic tradition of being the voice of the elite throughout the colonial period. Throughout colonial Maya towns like Ebtun, where we have a long series of records, it appears that the governors and town scribes seem to have been restricted to a smaller number of lineages.45 During the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries in Ebtun, for example, only seven lineage names appear to have held the governorship.46 Among those names were

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several early governors from families whose patroynms belonged to the traditional pre-Hispanic ruling elite like the Camal family. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the town had a cacique when the Spaniards arrived who was captain general of all this province and he was called Batab Camal.47 Nevertheless, these elite families apparently did not dominate the holding of this political office exclusively. Several of the occupants of the position of gobernador appear to have been Maya commoners. More importantly for this study, only four families appear to have almost exclusively controlled the important post of town scribe. Of these families, three, the Camal, Huchim, and Dzul families, representing the native pre-Hispanic ruling elite, held the office of scribe for the longest period of time. Only three nonelite families (the Noh, Cen, and May families) were able to occupy the position of town scribe in Ebtun, even briefly. Apparently, more than 67 percent of the Maya who held the position of scribe in Ebtun belonged to families that represented the pre-Hispanic ruling elite (fig. 4). What is more interesting is that the title of Don, a Spanish symbol of nobility usually given to those who occupied the position of town governor, was given to only two out of the seventy-five people the scribes labeled as al mehenob, or individuals who belonged to the traditional Maya noble lineages in Ebtun.48 Apparently, the Spanish title of Don was not given to recognize Maya traditional nobility, and the Maya in their documents did not always recognize those with the title Don as nobles. Similarly, even in well-documented towns such as Tekanto, only a small percentage of those labeled as Indios Hidalgos and given the Spanish title Don are also referred to in the documentation as belonging to the al mehenob.49 Across the twenty-two towns sampled, less than a third of the Maya recognized as elites by the Spanish colonial world were considered traditional nobles by the Maya themselves. Apparently, the Spanish world and the Maya world held two different and diametrically opposed opinions as to who belonged to a truly noble class. This apparent rift in social prestige and noble status is evident in the writings of the colonial escribanos, who almost always attributed to themselves the title of al mehenob, and who 78 percent of the time (from the twenty-two-village sample of documents) came from the families with the traditional patronyms of the preconquest rulers of their regions (fig. 5). In contrast, only 29 percent of traceable governors of the twenty-two towns sampled are described as al mehenob or have traditional Maya patronyms of the ruling preconquest elite of their regions. Apparently less than a third of the governors sampled belonged to traditional noble families from 1600 to 1780, but 68 percent of the scribes in the western part of the penin-

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Noh Cen 11% Dzul* May 17% 39% 5%

Camal* 11%

Huchim* 17%

EliteMayaFamilies controlled 67% of thescribalpositions inEbtunfrom 1600 to 1800

Figure 4. Source: Ralph L. Roys, Titles of Ebtun, Carnegie Publication #505 (Wash ington, DC, 1939), 4749

sula descended from members of the traditional Maya elite, according to their patronyms (table 2). Even more importantly, the percentage of scribes from the traditional nobility (al mehenob) appears to be even higher in those towns that lay in the eastern part of the Yucatan peninsula (average of 81 percent), a region less affected by direct Spanish control (table 3). Moreover, it was the domination and control over the sacred knowledge of writing that quickly came to separate the true noblemen (i.e., Maya village scribes who held close contacts to the traditional Maya elite and priesthood) and the Maya town gobernadores, often pawns or agents of Spanish colonialism, who came from the commoner or macehual class and therefore were seen as usurpers of the mat. What separated the true Maya nobility from the new colonial usurpers apparently was the true nobilitys

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Map Key
= Maya Scribe Chel = Maya elite Patronym

1579-1649 = Dates of extant scribal documentation (7 out 9) = Number of Maya scribes with traditional elite Patronym in documentary record Chel 1595-1669 (11 out of 15)

Yobain

Dzonotake
Huchim 1611-1722 (9 out of 12)

Pech 1595-1639 (7 out of 16)

Conkal

Pech 1606-1669 (8 out of 19)

Motul

Tizimin

Na 1610-1669 (8 out of 11)

Chancenote
Tzeh/Pech 1623-1739 (17 out of 21)

Mrida
Canul 1599-1653 (7 out of 9)

Valladolid
Sotuta

Cupul 1598-1676 (13 out of 15)

Nabalam

Maxcanu

Cocom 1611-1707 (22 out of 27)

Canul 1579-1649 (11 out of 14)

Calkini

Cozumel
Xiu 1607-1713 (16 out of 22) Pot 1603-1672 (12 out of 16)

Mani

Pat/Malah 1589-1637 (7 out of 8)

Campeche

Peto

Figure 5. Colonial Maya scribes who continued to come from the traditional preHispanic ruling elite family patronyms, 15701739

ability to control and dominate multiple literacies.50 Both the alphabetic script and the traditional Maya glyphs became the sacred knowledge of this apparent noble scribal class. Moreover, almost inadvertently, many colonial scribes left behind linguistic evidence of their ability to manipulate the multiple literacies of the colonial world. Writing as Resistance: Evidence for the Later Colonial Coexistence of Hieroglyphic and Alphabetic Maya Texts in Resistance to Spanish Colonialism A parallel examination of Spanish and Maya petitions reveals that the Maya, even as early as the sixteenth century, had developed a unique Maya formulary that used some aspects of Spanish documentary style and format, but nonetheless did not meet the requirements of Spanish law.51 The Maya did not disregard Spanish rules of document style and legal formulas out of ignorance. They instead adapted them to their own Maya rules of style and formal address, which, through different from the Spanish formulary, added weight and validity to the document in the eyes of the local

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Table 2. Percentage Distribution of Maya Noble Lineages Holding the Position of Escribano in Western Yucatan Peninsula, 15701750 Last Recorded Year Traditional Noble Patronym Controlled the Governorship ? 1570 1610 1610 1590 1610 1612 1600 Years of Identifiable Scribe Positions Represented in Document Corpus 15791649 15991653 15931639 16061669 15951669 16111707 16071713 16031672 Percent of Traditional Noble Patronym Holding Position as Scribe 79% 78% 44%* 42%* 73% 81% 73% 75% 68%

Western Peninsula Town Calkini Maxcanu Conkal Motul Yobain Sotuta Mani Peto Average

Patronym of Traditional Pre-Hispanic Nobility Canul Canul Pech Pech Chel Cocom Xiu Pot

* = Relative shorter distance and proximity between these Maya towns and the Spanish capital of Merida may have affected the ability of the traditional Maya elite to continue to dominate the position of village scribe unopposed in these towns. Source: Collection of several hundred documents from identified towns found in AGI: Audiencia de Mxico, Audiencia de Guatemala, Contaduria, Escribania de Camara, Indiferente General, Justicia, and Patronato; Tulane LAL-Vice-Regal Ecclesiastical Mexican Collection: Yucatan Collection; Archivo Histrico del Arzobispado de Yucatn, Merida, Mexico (hereafter AHAY): Asuntos Terminados, Concursos a Curatos, Decretos y Ordenes, and Visitas Pastorales; Archivo General de la Nacin, Mexico City (hereafter AGN): Bienes Nacionales, Bienes Nacionalizadas, Bienes de Comunidad, Indiferente Virreinal, Indios, Inquisicin, and Tierras; Archivo General del Estado de Yucatn, Merida, Mexico (hereafter AGEY): Colonial, Diezmos, and Varios; Archivo Histrico Nacional, Madrid, Spain (hereafter AHN): Inquisicin and Visitas; Archivo General de Simancas (hereafter AGS); Centro de Apoyo a la Investigacin Histrica de Yucatn (hereafter CAIHY); Princeton University, Harvard University; Brigham Young University; Michel Antiochiw Private Collection; and Chuchiak Private Collection.

Maya. Thus, in keeping with the Maya oral and written tradition of the pre-Hispanic period, the colonial Maya scribe conquered Spanish documents, forcing them to fit into their unique Maya cosmovision. Moreover, Maya titles, measurements, numerals, and their classifiers were still used in many cases even though they had the option of using Spanish equivalents. Especially in the eastern Yucatan peninsula, the survival of pre-Hispanic terminology and the use of Maya concepts and terms for already established Spanish loan words is more prevalent. An examination of extant petitions from throughout the peninsula illustrates that even as late as the 1660s to 1670s, Maya scribal knowledge of Spanish orthogra-

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Table 3. Percentage Distribution of Maya Noble Lineages Holding the Position of Escribano in Eastern Yucatan Peninsula, 15701750 Last Recorded Year Traditional Noble Patronym Controlled the Governorship 1580 1608 1570 1600 1570 Years of Identifiable Scribe Positions Represented in Document Corpus 16111722 16101669 15931739 15981676 15891637 Percent of Traditional Noble Patronym Holding Position as Scribe 75% 73% 81% 87% 88% 81%

Eastern Peninsula Town Tizimin Dzonotake Chancenote Nabalam Cozumel Average

Patronym of Traditional Pre-Hispanic Nobility Huchim Na Tzeh Cupul Pat

Source: Collection of several hundred documents from identified towns found in AGI: Audiencia de Mxico, Audiencia de Guatemala, Contaduria, Escribania de Camara, Indiferente General, Justicia, and Patronato; Tulane LAL-Vice-Regal Ecclesiastical Mexican Collection: Yucatan Collection; AHAY: Asuntos Terminados, Concursos a Curatos, Decretos y Ordenes, and Visitas Pastorales; AGN: Bienes Nacionales, Bienes Nacionalizadas, Bienes de Comunidad, Indiferente Virreinal, Indios, Inquisicin, and Tierras; AGEY: Colonial, Diezmos, and Varios; AHN: Inquisicin and Visitas; AGS; CAIHY; Princeton University; Harvard University; Brigham Young University; Michel Antiochiw Private Collection; and Chuchiak Private Collection.

phy, Spanish language, and Spanish terminology was weak in the eastern part of the peninsula. Especially in terms of Spanish loan words, there is an evident rift in scribal knowledge of and familiarity with Spanish language and terminology. Only in the towns of the western peninsula, where successive contact with Spaniards and Spanish was constant since the 1530s, did the Maya correctly use Spanish orthography in their use of Spanish loan words. In simple Spanish words such as seor (sir, lord), a great difference is observed in the nature of scribal spellings and scribal knowledge of proper Spanish orthography and pronunciation (fig. 6). In the east, until the eighteenth century and changing Bourbon regulations on residency patterns, even Maya village scribes had little knowledge of proper Spanish orthography, grammar, or even terminologies. As a general rule, the farther east from Merida, the more garbled the Maya scribal understanding of Spanish orthography and the less frequent the usage of Spanish loan words.

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Motul

Dzodzil

Mrida
Uman Maxcanu Sotuta Mopila

Valladolid
Tixcacal Ekpedz

Calkini

Dzonotchel Ichmul

Campeche

Uaymax

Map concept by Dr. John F. Chuchiak IV

Figure 6. Eastern and western peninsula examples of the rendering of Spanish loan words by Maya scribes, 166670. Sources: AGI, Escribana de Cmara, 318A: Peticin de Pedro Cantun del pueblo de Dzodzil, 1666, Cuentas del repartimiento del gobernador del pueblo de Dzodzil, 1666, Peticin y relacin del pueblo de Humun con una lista de cera y paties pagados en el repartimiento, 1666, Peticin y Relacin de los repartimientos de los oficiales de Sotuta, 1669, Peticin y cuentas de los repartimientos del pueblo de Tixcacal, 1669, Peticin del pueblo de Uaymax, 1669; AGI, Escribana de Cmara, 315B: Peticin de los indios del pueblo de Ichmul, 1669, Peticin de los indios del pueblo de Chikindzonot, 1669, Peticin de los indios del pueblo de Ekpez, 1669, Peticin de los indios del pueblo de Tixcacal, 1669, Peticin de los indios del pueblo de Sotuta, 1669, Peticin de los indios del pueblo de Mopila, 1669, Certificacin de don Francisco Canul, batab del pueblo de Ekpez, 1669

Continued Dual Literacies as Resistance in the Eastern Peninsula? In the eastern part of the peninsula, the garbled Spanish loan words may reveal that the Maya scribes there preserved an understanding of the phonetic Maya script longer than the Maya scribes in the west. Many of the corruptions of Spanish loan words in the eastern peninsula reveal a sophisticated understanding and type of regularization in the writing and use of neatly parsed syllables (table 4 and fig. 7).

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Table 4. Maya Scribal Syllabic/Phonetic Renderings of Spanish Loan Words and Their Relationship with Possible Continued Knowledge of Hieroglyphic Script, 16001800 Example of Most Common Phonetic Order of Maya Glyph Blocks (With Four Phonetic Syllables) *

Spanish Loan Word

Western Peninsula Scribe

Eastern Peninsula Scribe

Informacin *

*=The most common form of Maya hieroglyphic inscription that was rendered into phonetic or syllabic glyphs was made up of four readily separable phonetic syllables. These examples show how the most common Maya glyph block of four syllables could be divided and read. It is interesting to note that no matter how many true syllables a Spanish loan word had, the Maya of the eastern peninsula almost always attempted to break it down into four parsed syllables so that it fit into their understanding of a proper writing system. For instance, the Spanish loan word in-for-ma-ci-on (five syllables) was rendered in the Maya concept in clumsy four-separated-syllable corruptions. The first example ignores the extra c syllable and the second example lumps the fourth and fifth Spanish syllables together to make a neat foursyllable construction. Sources: AGI, Escribana de Cmara, 318A: Peticin de Pedro Cantun del pueblo de Dzodzil, 1666, Cuentas del repartimiento del gobernador del pueblo de Dzodzil, 1666, Peticin y relacin del pueblo de Dzonotchel, 1666; AGI, Escribana de Cmara, 315B: Peticin de los indios del pueblo de Ekpez, 1669, Certificacin de don Francisco Canul, batab del pueblo de Ekpez, 1669, Peticin del pueblo de Uaymax, 1669, Peticion y certificacin de los oficiales del pueblo de Maxcanu, 1669, Peticin del pueblo de Calkini, 1669.

As we have seen from the argument above, the traditional Maya nobility in the eastern peninsula maintained a stronger control over the positions of village scribe. Moreover, as table 4 and figure 7 illustrate, traditional elite in the east not only dominated alphabetic writing, but there also are clues that they may have preserved the hieroglyphic script longer than in the western peninsula, where the elite were under close watch. According to Victoria Bricker, other important internal linguistic evidence exists in the early colonial documents and manuscripts written

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Dzodzil

Mrida
Maxcanu Mopila Calkini

Valladolid

Ekpedz

Dzonotchel

Campeche

Uaymax

Map concept by Dr. John F. Chuchiak IV

Figure 7. Eastern and western peninsula examples of the rendering of Spanish loan words by Maya scribes, 16661670. Sources: same as for table 4

in alphabetic script that reveals that Maya scribes maintained a vibrant knowledge of the ancient hieroglyphic script.52 This linguistic evidence, pointed out earlier by Bricker in several early Maya Chilam Balam books, and the more syllabic corruptions of Spanish loan words evident in the large corpus of documents from the seventeenth century may point to the fact that eastern scribes continued to use and write with the Maya hieroglyphic script (table 4). Conclusion: The Continued Use of Hieroglyphics and the Spread of Alphabetic ScriptNoble Strategies for Survival As many examples attest, the colonial Yucatec Maya nobility continued to consult hieroglyphic codices in their ceremonies. Similarly, as more codices were uncovered, the surviving Maya priesthood had to produce new ones to replace them. Idolatry trial evidence suggests that many Maya priests continued to make new idols and paint new codices throughout the colonial period. In their commissions and orders to the local ecclesiastical judges, the bishops of Yucatan and their assistants especially requested that the

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judges seek out and destroy all books of their ancient characters . . . both the old ones and the ones that they still produce.53 With increased pressure from extirpators, and fearing a loss of this sacred knowledge, many colonial ah kins (traditional Maya priests) and their assistants began to adopt Latin letterbased literacy. They wrote Maya with Latin letters in order to preserve their legends, ritual formularies, and other religious material.54 Maya ritual knowledge from the codices survived to some extent by transforming into these books of Chilam Balam.55 Adding necessary allusions to Christianity and Christian concepts, these books in effect fooled the parish clergy and extirpators into believing that they contained simple histories and other stories without religious significance. The Maya also prudently obscured much of the pagan content within these colonial texts by using riddles and metaphor. The books of Chilam Balam, though heavily influenced by European concepts, still attest to the colonial use of the codices and the continued knowledge of the glyphs.56 The colonial ah kins and noble scribes apparently made the extant copies in the seventeenth century from earlier versions that were later rewritten. These books of Chilam Balam contain many allusions to the continued existence of several codices that escaped the ecclesiastical extirpators. In the Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin, the scribes refer to a pagan ceremony that occurred in the Maya year that corresponded to 1607, saying that it occurred according to what is in the arrangement of the writing and glyphs.57 However, as increased Spanish vigilance occurred in the western Yucatan, and many noble scribes and prominent Maya principales were denounced for idolatry and possession of hieroglyphic texts, a continued knowledge of the Maya glyphic script became dangerous (fig. 8). Moreover, as the figures show for the western portion of the peninsula, increased numbers of traditional scribes from towns where surviving glyphic codices were uncovered were removed and replaced by Maya commoners who only understood the alphabetic script. Apparently those surviving Maya noble scribes decided to make the switch to writing traditional Maya religious and ceremonial materials in alphabetic texts and manuscripts in order to better preserve them from the prying eyes of the Catholic clergy, who kept a vigilant eye out for their books of ancient characters. By the second decade of the seventeenth century, traditional Maya nobles and scribes in the western peninsula had given up on their continued use of these prohibited hieroglyphic texts in favor of recording the information once contained within them in manuscripts written with alphabetic texts (fig. 9). Although these alphabetic texts and ritual material remained equally prohibited by the Catholic clergy, these types of manuscripts were easier

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Map Key
= Hieroglyphic Maya Codex Confiscated = Alphabetic Maya Ritual Text Confiscated

Dzonotake 1589 Telchac 1561 Conkal 1583 Yobain 1586 Motul 1587 Tizimin 1584 Tikuche 1592 Tixcacal 1585 Tixcancal 1597 Cehac 1598 Chancenote 1592/1597

Mrida

Valladolid

Nabalam 1595 Tixmukul 1583 Xocen 1583

Ppole 1598

Maxcanu 1573

Tahmuy 1589 Dzama 1592/1599 Cozumel 1584

Calkini 1574

Mani 1563/1568/1572/1575/1585 (Multiple Codices) Peto 1595 Calotmul 1589/1592

Campeche
1584 Champoton 1579

Bacalar Region 1567-1570 (12 Codices)

Figure 8. Confiscations of Maya hieroglyphic codices and Maya ritual texts in alphabetic script, 15601600

to hide and dissimulate into the routine paperwork of the village scribes and nobles. From the decade of the 1620s onward, ecclesiastical extirpators uncovered increasing numbers of these Maya alphabetical texts would be uncovered in the towns of the western peninsula (fig. 9). As the figures show, a decreasing number of Maya codices were uncovered in the western half of the Yucatan peninsula after 1650 (table 5). At the same time, evidence from the scribal production of towns in the eastern peninsula reveals a different picture. Noble scribes in the east continued to use the Maya hieroglyphic script and utilize it in conjunction with their rudimentary knowledge of Maya written in the alphabetic script. Apparently, however, the noble scribes of the east continued to prefer the use of the glyphic script and their traditional codices in their rituals and ceremonies, since no real quantity of Maya ritual texts in alphabetic script was ever confiscated in the eastern peninsula until very late in the eighteenth century (table 6). On the other hand, hieroglyphic texts continued to be confiscated and destroyed in the towns of the eastern peninsula throughout the late eighteenth century (fig. 10). What the preliminary investigation of these sources reveals is the tan-

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Map Key
= Hieroglyphic Maya Codex Confiscated = Alphabetic Maya Ritual Text Confiscated

Dzindzantun 1603 Yobain 1606

Dzonotake 1603 Tixcancal 1614 Cehac 1607/1609 Chancenote 1603/1606/1612

Baca 1637 Motul 1634 Conkal 1621

Tizimin 1608 Tikuche 1607

Mrida
1609 Uman 1621 Maxcanu 1627 Timucuy 1609

Cacalchen 1632/1636

Valladolid

Nabalam 1603/1640 Tixmukul 1607 Xocen 1603

Ppole 1607

Hocaba 1606 Pustunich 1610 Yaxcaba 1611/1643

Tahmuy 1607 Dzama 1618 Cozumel 1625

Calkini 1635 Oxkutzcab 1611

Mani 1612 Peto 1605 Tekax 1610 Calotmul 1615/1643 Ichmul 1602/1640

Tihotzuco 1610/1642

Campeche
1608/1609 Champoton 1609/1611

Sahcabchen 1612 Tipu 1618

Bacalar 1619

Figure 9. Confiscations of Maya hieroglyphic codices and Maya ritual texts in alphabetic script, 16001650 Table 5. Geographical Distribution of Confiscated Codices (15601750) Years 15601600 16001650 16501750 Totals: Eastern Peninsula 22 27 9 58 Western Peninsula 16 21 1 38 Bacalar Region 12 2 1 15 Peten Region 0 0 10 10

Source: Specific information on the confiscation of Maya codices is found in John F. Chuchiak IV, The Images Speak: The Survival and Production of Hieroglyphic Codices and Their Use in Post-Conquest Maya Religion, 15801720, in Maya Religious Practices: Processes of Change and Adaption, Acta Mesoamericana, vol. 14 (Markt Schwaben, Germany, 2004), 71103.

Writing as Resistance Table 6. Geographical Distribution of Confiscated Maya Alphabetic Texts (15601750) Years 15601600 16001650 16501750 Totals: Eastern Peninsula 0 0 3 3 Western Peninsula 0 8 15 23 Bacalar Region 0 0 0 0

109

Peten Region 0 0 0 0

Source: Specific information on the confiscation of Maya codices is found in Chuchiak, The Images Speak, 71103.

Map Key
= Hieroglyphic Maya Codex Confiscated = Alphabetic Maya Ritual Text Confiscated = Apparant linguistic divide in terms of survival of Maya Hieroglyphic Script

Dzindzantun 1711 Yobain 1659 Conkal 1739 Motul 1724

Dzonotake 1727

Tizimin 1717

Chancenote 1732

Mrida
1734 Uman 1735 Maxcanu 1745

Cacalchen 1656

Valladolid

Nabalam 1703

Ppole 1665

Hocaba 1715 Yaxcaba 1672 Mani 1672 Oxkutzcab 1664 Peto 1663 Tekax 1660 Ichmul 1707

Calkini 1749

Tihotzuco 1679

Campeche
1661 Champoton 1663

Sahcabchen 1675

Bacalar 1680

Figure 10. Evidence of continued graphic pluralism in both hieroglyphic and alphabetic scripts in the eastern Yucatan peninsula, 16501750

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talizing probability that Maya hieroglyphic script and the knowledge of the glyphs lasted much longer into the colonial world than previously believed. Even probable evidence exists in the mundane record of scribal production that many scribes, especially those living in the eastern portion of the Yucatan peninsula, continued to understand, write, and create written ritual texts in Maya glyphs as a means of resistance to the exclusive nature of Spanish Catholicism and religious conversion. Through their manipulation of the continued existence of graphic pluralism and their domination of multiple literacies, the Maya elite of both sides of the linguistic/cultural divide in the Yucatan peninsula used writing (both alphabetic and glyphic scripts) as a means of colonial resistance to Spanish rule. Not only a means of resistance, as this paper has attempted to show, this continued graphic pluralism also served the Maya nobility as a successful elite strategy of survival in the constantly changing colonial world. Notes
1 A large number of Maya rebellions throughout the Yucatan peninsula were motivated by religious reasons or had religious conflict as one of their root causes. For more instances of similar rebellions with religious roots, see John F. Chuchiak IV, Cuius Regio Eius Religio: Yucatec Maya Nativistic Movements and the Religious Roots of Rebellion in Colonial Yucatn, 15471697, Ketzalcalli 2004, no. 1: 4459. 2 Relacin breve de lo que Juan Garn hizo por mando de Don Luis de Cspedes de Oviedo, Gobernador y Capitn General por su Majestad en estas provincias de Yucatn, en socorro de los vecinos de la provincia de Bacalar, 20 de Abril, 1569, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain (hereafter AGI), Patronato, 69, Ramo 10, 6 folios. 3 Ibid., folio 3rv. 4 Carta del Cabildo de Bacalar, 4 de enero, 1569, AGI, Patronato, 69, Ramo 10, 3 folios. 5 Apparently writing letters in Maya with alphabetic script by rebellious Maya who wanted to eradicate the Spaniards was not atypical. During the 156062 Maya idolatry trials conducted by the Franciscan Provincial Fray Diego de Landa, it appears to have been argued that the major idolaters and conspirators called other Maya to their ceremonies using letters written by Maya scribes in the alphabetic script. See France V. Scholes and Eleanor Adams, Don Diego Quijada: Alcalde mayor de Yucatn, 15611565, vol. 1 (Mexico City, 1938), 109. For a further discussion of Maya usage of alphabetic literacy in similar instances see Caroline Cunill, La alfabetizacin de los Mayas Yucatecos y sus consecuencias sociales, 15451580, Estudios de Cultura Maya 31 (2008): 16392. 6 Relacin breve de lo que Juan Garn hizo. 7 Testimonio de Juan Rodrguez, Alguacil Mayor, a la interrogatorio de la probanza del Capitn Juan Garn, 6 de Abril, 1569, AGI, Patronato, 69, Ramo 10, folios 17v20r.

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8 See Testimonio del conquistador Juan Daz a la interrogatorio de la probanza del Capitn Juan Garn, 6 de Abril, 1569, AGI, Patronato, 69, Ramo 10, folios 15r17r. 9 For a more in-depth look at the colonial survival of Maya hieroglyphic texts and their use in continued Maya ceremonies, see John F. Chuchiak IV, The Images Speak: The Survival and Production of Hieroglyphic Codices and Their Use in Post-Conquest Maya Religion, 15801720, in Maya Religious Practices: Processes of Change and Adaption, Acta Mesoamericana, vol. 14 (Markt Schwaben, Germany, 2004), 71103. 10 For further information on the connection between the Maya glyphic script and the surviving Maya priesthood (ah kinob), see John F. Chuchiak IV, PreConquest Ah Kinob in a Colonial World: The Extirpation of Idolatry and the Survival of the Maya Priesthood in Colonial Yucatn, 15631697, in Maya Survivalism, Acta Mesoamericana, vol. 12, ed. Ueli Hostettler and Matthew Restall (Markt Schwaben, Germany, 2001), 13560. 11 Fr. Bernardo de Lizana, Historia de Yucatn: Devocionario de Ntra. Sra. de Izamal y conquista espiritual (Mexico City, 1893), 46. Villalpando was the first one to write several books on the Maya language. He produced texts that would be used by later friars to teach their indigenous converts and themselves how to read and write Maya. For more information on Franciscan works in Maya linguistics, see Ralph L. Roys, The Franciscan Contribution to Maya Linguistic Research in Yucatan, The Americas 8 (1952): 41729, and Manuel Castro y Castro, Lenguas indgenas transmitidas por los Franciscanos del s. XVII, Archivo Ibero-Americano 48 (1988): 485527. 12 Lizana, Historia de Yucatn, 50. 13 Cunill, La alfabetizacin de los Mayas Yucatecos, 17071. 14 Ibid., 50; also see Diego Lpez de Cogolludo, Los tres siglos de la dominacin espaola en Yucatan, o historia de esta provincia, vol. 1 (Graz, Austria, 1971), 350. 15 Landa well knew about these orthographic problems, for he perfected Villalpandos grammar and wrote sermons and other works in Maya. See Alfred M. Tozzer, trans., Landas relacin de las cosas de Yucatan, Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, vol. 18 (Cambridge, MA, 1941), 7475. For information on other colonial Franciscans contributions to Maya linguistics, see France V. Scholes, Franciscan Missionary Scholars in Colonial Central America, The Americas 8 (1952): 391416, and Francesc Ligorred, Literatura maya: De los jeroglficos al alfabeto latino, Boletn Americanista 38 (1988): 189207. 16 For an excellent recent study of this early attempt at missionary education, see Caroline Cunills excellent recent article La alfabetizacin de los Mayas Yucatecos, 16974. 17 In 1552, there was already a Mayan scribe in the village of Yaxkukul. See Sergio Quezada, Pueblos y Caciques Yucatecos, 15501580, (Mexico City, 1993), 117. 18 See Ralph L. Roys, The Indian Background of Colonial Yucatan (Washington, DC, 1943), 400; also see Ralph L. Roys, Titles of Ebtun, Carnegie Publication #505 (Washington, DC, 1939), 821. 19 See Mercedes de la Garza Camino, Relacin de Mrida, in Relaciones histrico geogrficas de la gobernacin de Yucatn: Mrida, Valladolid y Tabasco, vol. 1, (Mexico City, 1983), 73. The encomendero from the town of Chunhuhub and

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Tabi, Pero Garcia, added that the Maya had letters and that each letter was a syllable and they understood each other by using them (De la Garza Camino, Relacin de Chunhuhub y Tabi, Relaciones histrico geogrficas, vol. 1, 164). 20 Tozzer, Landas relacin, 4546. 21 See Fr. Bernardo de Lizana, Devocionario de Nuestra Seora de Izamal y conquista espiritual de Yucatn, Facsmile Edicin de Ren Acua (Mexico City, [1633] 1995), 60. Writing in 1633, Lizana is most probably referring to the codex confiscated in 1610 near the Campeche/Champoton region and then transcribed or annotated by several old Maya from the region, most probably ah kins, or sons of ah kinob. For more information, see John F. Chuchiak IV, The Images Speak: The Survival and Production of Hieroglyphic Codices and Their Use in Post-Conquest Maya Religion, 15801720, in Maya Religious Practices, vol. 14, 71103. 22 See Mercedes de la Garza Camino, Relacin de la Villa de Valladolid, in Relaciones histrico geogrficas, vol. 2, 38. As for the actual makeup of the codices, the best study of the paper of which the codices are made was conducted by the German scholar Rudolf Schwede. See Rudolf Schwede, ber das Papier der Maya-Codices u. einiger altmexikanischer Bilderhandscriften (Dresden, 1912). 23 Several friars and secular clergy in the diocese of Yucatan studied the Mayas hieroglyphic script and their legends, myths, and religion. Landa was one of the first friars to study the Maya script and culture by examining codices and interviewing surviving Maya nobles. Another of the earliest, and a contemporary of Landa, was Fr. Gaspar de Njera, one of the first friars to examine and study the codices in order to understand their ritual and historical content. Later came Fr. Alonso de Solana, who is also credited with having written several other works on Maya culture and history, including Vocabulario muy copioso en lengua Espaola e Maya de Yucatn [1580]; Sermones de dominicas y santos en lengua Maya [sixteenth-century manuscript, now missing]; Apuntaciones sobre las antigedades Mayas o Yucatecas [sixteenth-century manuscript, now missing]; Estudios histricos sobre los Indios [sixteenth-century manuscript, now missing]; and Apuntes de las santas escrituras [sixteenth-century manuscript, now missing]. See Alfred Tozzers discussion of his bibliography of works written in Alfred M. Tozzer, A Maya Grammar, (New York, 1977), 26768. The secular clergyman Dr. Pedro Snchez de Aguilar confiscated several codices and would later write about their content in his own book, published in 1618 and entitled Informe contra idolorum cultores. During the late seventeenth century several other friars joined the renewed interest in studying Maya myth and religion through codices and interviews. Most notably were Fr. Bernardo de Lizana, Fr. Joseph Maria Ortiz, Padre Joseph Conde, and Fr. Andres de Avendao. Avendao also wrote several important manuscripts that are now lost, according to Roys, The Franciscan Contribution, 42526, including Diccionario botnico y mdico conforme a los usos y costumbres de los Indios de Yucatn; Diccionario de nombres de personas, dolos, danzas y otras antigedades de los indios de Yucatn; and a work specifically on Maya prophecies, Explicacin de varios vaticinios de los antiguos indios de Yucatn. 24 Tozzer, Landas relacin, 130. 25 Testimonio de Gregorio de Aguilar, presbtero en la informacin presentado por el Dr. Pedro Snchez de Aguilar, 6 de diciembre, 1608, AGI, Audiencia de Mxico, 299, 8 folios.

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26 See Lizana, Devocionario de Nuestra Seora de Izamal, 182. 27 The initial prohibitions against ordaining an indigenous clergy came with the first and second Provincial Mexican Councils. See Francisco Antonio Lorenzana, Concilios Provinciales Primero y Segundo, celebrados en la muy noble y muy leal Ciudad de Mxico, presidiendo el Ilmo. Y rmo. Seor Fray Alonso de Montfar en los aos de 1555 y 1565 (Mexico City, 1769). For a full discussion of the issue of ordaining indigenous clergy, see Stafford Poole, Church Law on the Ordination of Indians and Castas in New Spain, The Hispanic American Historical Review 61 (November 1981): 63750. 28 For more information on the role of the colonial Maya elite in the perpetuation and continued existence of Maya idolatry, see John F. Chuchiak IV, La inquisicin Indiana y la extirpacin de idolatras: El castigo y la reprensin en el Provisorato de Indios en Yucatn, 15701690, in Nuevas perspectivas sobre el castigo de la heterodoxia indgena en la Nueva Espaa, siglos XVIXVIII, ed. Ana de Zaballa Beascoechea (Bilbao, Spain, 2005), 7994. 29 This replacement of the pre-Hispanic halach uinic with the king, the viceroy, and the provincial governor is evidenced in early colonial documents that call the governor the halach uinic or ahau. However, the local Maya halach uinicob continued to maintain their titles into the second half of the sixteenth century. For example, see the case of Don Francisco de Montejo Xiu, who in 1557 was still addressed as halach uinic of Mani. See the 1557 Mani Land Treaty, Yucatan Collection, Box 1, Folder 1, Latin American Library, Tulane University, New Orleans. 30 For an excellent description of this transitionary period, see Quezada, Pueblos y Caciques, 12756. 31 Ordenanzas que el Doctor Palacio manda guardar entre los naturales de las provincias de Yucatan, 1584, AGI, Indiferente General, 2987, folio 2. For an example of election records in Maya from the year 1690 from Tekanto, see Matthew B. Restall, The World of the Cah: Postconquest Yucatec Maya Society, PhD diss., University of California, 1992, Appendix A, document #4, 455. 32 See Ordenanzas que el Doctor Palacio manda guardar, folio 5. Garca Palacios orders stated that cada ao eligen 2 alcaldes, 4 regidores, 4 mayordomos, 4 alguaciles . . . los cules sean la mitad principales y la otra mitad maceguales. Also see Francisco de Solano y Prez Lila, Autoridades municipales indgenas de Yucatn (16571677), Revista de la Universidad de Yucatn 17, no. 102 (1975): 75. 33 The corpus of Maya documents (petitions, certifications, letters, election records, wills and testaments, notarial records, and other documents in the Yucatec Maya language) used for analysis in this paper consists of close to seven hundred documents that come from the period 15651821 from twentytwo representative Maya towns that have a large enough extant collection of documents and scattered cabildo records to reconstruct a fairly accurate picture of the nature of the colonial scribal office and its relationship to the surviving traditional Maya elite and their continued colonial attempts to maintain municipal power and prestige. The Maya towns under examination include an equal number of towns from both the eastern and western Yucatan peninsula, which have a similar depth of surviving historical documentation. These towns include Calkini, Maxcanu, Mani, Sotuta, Tecal, Peto, Conkal, Motul, Mopila, Sinanche, and Yobain in the western peninsula and Tizimin, Nabalam, Chance-

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note, Dzotzil, Dzonotchel, Dzonotake, Ekpedz, Uaymax, Tixcacal, Ichmul, and Cozumel in the eastern peninsula. The documents themselves collected in this database come from a wide range of archival collections, both public and private, in Spain, Mexico, the United States, and other European repositories: AGI: Audiencia de Mxico, Audiencia de Guatemala, Contadura, Escribana de Camara, Indiferente General, Justicia, and Patronato; Archivo Histrico Nacional, Madrid, Spain: Competencias, Inquisicin, and Visitas; Archivo General de la Nacin (hereafter AGN), Mexico City: Bienes Nacionales, Bienes Nacionalizadas, Bienes de Comunidad, Clero Regular y Secular, Correspondencia de Varias Autoridades, Diezmos, Indios, Inquisicin, Indiferente Virreinal, Justicia Eclesistica, Obispos y Arzobispos, Provisorato, Reales Cedulas, Real Fisco de la Inquisicin, Templos y Conventos, and Tierras; Archivo Histrico del Arzobispado de Yucatn, Merida, Mexico: Asuntos Terminados, Concursos a Curatos, Decretos y Ordenes, and Visitas Pastorales; Archivo General del Estado de Yucatn, Merida, Mexico: Asuntos Eclesisticos, Colonial, Diezmos, and Varios; AGS; CAIHY; Princeton University, Harvard University; Brigham Young University; Michel Antiochiw Private Collection; and Chuchiak Private Collection. 34 Quezada, Pueblos y Caciques, 117. 35 Apparently, in 1581, an unnamed Poot who was Nacom Poots nephew and cousin of the cacique served as the last pre-Hispanic ruling elite to hold the position of governor. The first holder of the position of gobernador in 1565, Juan Ake, may symbolize the first unsuccessful attempt of Nacom Poot and his clan to ensure the continued dominance of their clan over the local village affairs. Although Philip C. Thompson states that Ake may have been a commoner, this remains speculative due to a lack of information. See Philip C. Thompson, Tekanto: A Maya Town in Colonial Yucatn, Middle American Research Institute, Publication 67 (New Orleans: 1999), 40. 36 In Tekanto from this period onward, nonelite and nonnoble Maya commoners with the patronyms Ake, Tun, and Dzib alternated in the position of gobernador throughout the rest of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For more detailed discussions of the development of this type of early dual government, see Thompson, Tekanto, 4043. 37 For the most recent study of the nature of the removal of the traditional Maya elite from their exercise of political power and their attempts to hold onto their political control during the last decade of the sixteenth century and the first decade of the seventeenth century, see Argelia Segovia Liga, Los indios del Mariscal: Revisin de un manuscrito yucateco del siglo XVII, Thesis, Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico, 2008. 38 Munro S. Edmonson, Heaven Born Merida and Its Destiny: The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel (Austin, TX, 1986), 134. 39 This term was often used by Maya scribes. See Peticin de Augustina Pox del pueblo de Dzan, 2 de octubre 1700, Documentos de Tabi (15691821), Yucatn Collection, Latin American Library, Tulane University, vol. 1, folio 2r. In this document, the scribe signed as Antonio Canpach, Ah Dzib Hun. In another case in 1669, the scribe of the village of Ekpez signed as Ah Dzib; see Peticin de los indios del pueblo de Ekpez, 1669, AGI, Escribana de Cmara, 315B. 40 The Crown attempted to correct abuses of perpetual occupation of the position of village scribe in a cedula issued first in 1592 and then again in 1634. The

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Crown saw that the perpetual occupation of the position of scribe would only cause ocasion para que entre si tengan diferenia y pleitos . . . daoso seria a los dichos indios haver entre ellos escrivanos propietarios. See Antonio de Len Pinelo, Recopilacin de Leyes de Indias, vol. 2 (Porra, Mexico, 1992), book 7, title X, law 25, p. 1833. 41 Philip C. Thompson, Tekanto in the Eighteenth Century, PhD diss., Tulane University, 1978, 36366. 42 See Restall, The World of the Cah, 3738. 43 Nancy Farriss, Maya Society under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival (Princeton, NJ, 1984), 184. 44 See Jos Joaqun Real Daz, Estudio diplomatico del documento indiano (Seville, Spain, 1970), 14052. 45 Roys, Titulos de Ebtun, 47. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., 47n63. 48 Ibid., 4849. 49 Apparently many of those who held the title of Indio Hidalgo were not even racially Maya by the eighteenth century. For a more detailed explanation, see Thompson, Tekanto, 4446, 15571. 50 This noble obsession with ensuring that their colonial leaders and governors held the cultural knowledge and ability to understand the hieroglyphs can be seen in several of the colonial books of Chilam Balam and in an enigmatic arcane metaphorical language known as Lenguaje de Zuyua, which was used to ensure that candidates for the governorship held the proper cultural knowledge. This metaphorical language and these Chilam Balam books were the product of these noble-scribes who continued to attempt to preserve their cultural and political hegemony throughout the later colonial period. For a fascinating recent discussion and interpretation of this Lenguaje de Zuyua, see Segovia Liga, Los indios del Mariscal, especially 1928, 93169. 51 For a detailed discussion of the uniquely Maya nature of colonial petitions, see John F. Chuchiak IV, U hahil ca than yalan juramentoil: Maya Scribes, Colonial Literacy, and Maya Petitionary Forms in Colonial Yucatn, Human Mosaic 36 (2006): 7791. 52 Bricker points out that traces of the logosyllabic principals of consonant insertion, vowel insertion, and consonant deletion appear in the aberrant spellings and abbreviations of Maya words in the books of Chilam Balam of Chumayel and Chan Kan. These unusual spellings of words in colonial Maya manuscripts, she argues, are evidence of scribal syncretism, not of ignorance of alphabetic writing conventions. See Victoria R. Bricker, The Last Gasp of Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing in the Books of Chilam Balam of Chumayel and Chan Kom, in Word and Image in Maya Culture: Explorations in Language, Writing, and Respresentation, ed. William Hanks and Don S. Rice (Salt Lake City, UT, 1989), 48. 53 For information on the clergys fear and discovery of the continued production of hieroglyphic codices during the colonial period, see the various Comisiones de la Ydolatria, AGI, Audiencia de Mexico, 282305, 311; AGI, Indiferente General, 190223. 54 Bricker, The Last Gasp of Maya Hieroglyphic Writing, 4849. Bricker believes that the orthography and grammar of these colonial texts show that the colonial scribes kept the knowledge of the hieroglyphs alive long after the Conquest.

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Similarly, several Inquisition documents have references of the continued use of hieroglyphic books of ancient letters well into the seventeenth century. See AGN, Inquisicin, Tomo 290, Exp 2. 55 For a recent description of this process, see Bruce Love, The Paris Codex: Handbook for a Maya Priest (Austin, TX, 1994), 37. 56 Recent scholarship has reexamined the books of Chilam Balam in comparison to contemporary Spanish and European sources. Modern scholars now find that many of the passages of the Chilam Balam books were heavily influenced by European sources, especially in terms of astronomical and calendrical material. Victoria R. Bricker and Helga-Maria Miram most recently examined several passages and images in the Chilam Balam books in terms of their European origins. They discovered that even certain images before believed to be Maya were in fact based on European designs. See Helga-Maria Miram and Victoria R. Bricker, Relating Time to Space: The Maya Calendar Compasses, in Eighth Palenque Round Table, 1993, ed. Martha J. Macri and Jan McHargue (San Francisco, 1996), 393402. 57 Munro S. Edmonson, The Ancient Future of the Itza: The Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin (Austin, TX, 1982), 97.