The Spanish conquest of the Aztecs and Inca was swift, because they were centralized societies. The diseases, such as smallpox, the Spanish inadvertently brought surely made it possible, as they may have wiped out as much as 95 percent of the population, leaving a shambles of once-proud empires. But the Maya existed as several independent states, each of which had to be conquered separately, and the process took 170 years.
The last Maya holdout was the Itza, in the central lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula, not far from the former splendor of Tikal. They had moved there from the north, perhaps circa 1200 AD, and lived in swampy jungle that the Spaniards found inhospitable. They lacked precious metals like gold and silver, other than those imported for royal ornamentation, so the Spaniards’ greed for such things was not a motive. But as time passed the Spaniards did covet both the land and the potential slave labor there. Naturally they phrased their campaign as religious: to convert the heathen. The actual Yucatan campaign lasted about seventy years, with the Maya waging effective guerrilla warfare.
The setting is what is now northern Guatemala, by Lake Peten Itza. The time is 1697 AD.
Keeper gazed out across the water, where the Spanish fort was visible on the opposite shore. He was not a military man—far from it!—but this did not bode well. The Spanish were persistent and ruthless, and they were acting with sinister purpose. What did they have in mind?
“That is artillery,” Craft explained. “Metal tubes that hurl metal balls with great force.” He understood things that were made, including the devastating weapons of the invaders.
“But they are far across the lake,” Keeper protested.
“Such weapons can hurl their balls across the lake to strike our walls and buildings. They have also built ships, one of which is large and has a cannon. Our arrows and spears will not stop it. I fear we will not be able to repulse this attack, when it comes. And it will come soon.”
Keeper dreaded the news. “Is this then the end?”
“Hero fears it is. Every time K’atan 11 Ajaw comes, in our cyclical history, there are momentous consequences. We are in such a period now, and may be doomed.”
Keeper grimaced. “Hero’s our warrior. He surely has more practical reason for his concern.”
“Yes. Our city Noh Petén is on a fortified island on a lake in the jungle in a swamp that has resisted all prior Spanish attacks. But this time they are making a supreme effort, and have formidable equipment. Hero says our best course is to flee.”
Keeper glanced sidelong at his brother. “Is he speaking of our family, or of our culture?”
“Both. We shall have to act quickly when the time comes.”
“I hate the thought. What of my maize fields, my bean stakes, my squash terraces? Without careful irrigation they will not endure.”
Craft nodded with understanding. “Neither will your tame turkeys or little meat animals. But we can’t take them along. This is a crisis.”
Keeper knew it. His plants and creatures had fed the king and his staff for years, but they were not mobile. Would the Maize God ever forgive him?
Keeper turned to look across the city. They were standing on the upper deck of one of the twin ceremonial towers at the south side of the city, an excellent vantage. The towers were decorative rather than functional, providing the city an impressive outline from the lake. They had steep stone stairways that led to high temple doors that led nowhere. They were meant to be admired, rather than used. They certainly were impressive, standing some eight times the height of a man. All for show.
Except that in the event of attack from the lake, the towers and the wall between them would serve as a formidable defense. How could anyone approach, when lookouts stood on the towers and archers lined that wall? So there was a practical aspect to the decoration, as Craft had clarified for him in the past.
Actually, when it came to practical aspects, even the broad plaza of the central city had a special function. The seemingly level paved surfaces really were subtly graded to convey rainwater to the troughs that fed the city’s reservoirs. True, this was an island in the lake. But if it were under siege, fetching water from the lake could be dangerous. So the rain was automatically collected, and the reservoirs kept as full as feasible. Keeper, who was in charge of the plants and animals that sustained the city, truly appreciated that most valuable resource, water. There was a large population to feed, and those plants and animals were a vital supplement to the supplies that were constantly imported from the cultivated mainland.
The rest of the city was similarly impressive, with its even higher sacrificial pyramid, and broad central plaza, and spreading temple. There was the king’s palace, and the outlying residential buildings. And the terraced fields where there was room for them, mostly outside the walls. It had taken centuries for all the magnificent buildings to be built, but the result was grandeur and beauty. Raised causeways radiated from the plaza, connecting the rest of the island.
They made their way carefully down to the plaza, their spot reconnaissance done. Keeper had thought them safe from attack, but Craft’s words left him shaken. If the walls were not proof against the Spaniards, what real defense did they have? Only the strength of their archers against the guns of the Spaniards. Keeper hoped that would be enough.
Keeper’s wife Crenelle approached. She kissed him, then murmured, “Haven and I have special things to see to. Can you watch the children?”
He knew what she meant, and dreaded it. The women were preparing food and personal effects for emergency travel. “Already?”
“Haven says Harbinger says that the attack could come tomorrow. We must be ready to act without hesitation.”
Keeper nodded. “I’ll do it.”
“Rebel will help.” Crenelle departed.
Rebel was already helping. She had gathered the three children at Keeper’s home: Haven’s son Risk, twelve, Tuho’s daughter Tula, ten, and Keeper and Crenelle’s daughter Allele, nine. The boy was handsome, and the girls were on the verge of beautiful.
That was part of the problem. A noble who liked them young was casting a lecherous eye on both girls, and the family lacked the power to prevent him from acting. They would have left the town before, but the girls were being watched. They would be intercepted if they tried to leave the island. Yet that was not the worst.
Keeper was appalled by the prospect of having the barbarous Spaniards overrun the town. But he was also appalled by the threat to his daughter Allele. Yet maybe if the town was lost, they would be able to rescue the children. It was an ugly choice, but at least they might save something.
“Where’s Mother?” Risk asked alertly.
“Haven and Crenelle are preparing a surprise,” Rebel said a bit tightly. “Maybe for tomorrow. We have to stay out of their hair.”
“What’s going on?” Tula asked. She had always had an uncanny awareness of things.
Rebel glanced at Keeper, evidently trying to decide what to tell the children.
“The Spaniards are getting ready to attack,” Keeper said. “Maybe tomorrow. It may be bad.”
“But didn’t we stop them before?” Tula demanded.
“Why do they keep coming?” Allele asked in turn.
Keeper exchanged another glance with Rebel. They were not going to be able to keep it from the children much longer. It was better to prepare them. In easy stages, if possible. “It will be worse this time,” he said.
“Why?”
Rebel plunged in. She had always been militant, and had studied history. “Here is part of it. A hundred and seventy years ago the Spaniards first came to our land. They demanded that we swear loyalty to their king and give up our gods. We fought a battle and lost, but did not surrender, and finally drove them out.”
“Yes!” Risk agreed.
“But a few years later they returned with more power, and captured some of our cities. We rose up against them and drove them out again. But some Maya sided with the Spaniards, and a few years after that they took most of our lands.”
“Except for our land,” Risk said.
“Yes. About seventy years ago the Spaniards marched on Noh Petén, but we killed them. Two years later they tried again, and we killed them again. That kept them away for sixty years.”
“Yes!” This time the girls joined the boy in their appreciation.
Keeper winced. If only it were that simple.
Rebel continued grimly. “Two years ago a force of sixty Spanish soldiers and Maya allies attacked, but we beat them back. But that made them angry, and now they have come by the hundreds.”
“So that’s bad,” Risk said.
“Very bad,” Rebel agreed.
“They made a road through the jungle,” Keeper said. “They brought equipment. They even brought a big boat in pieces, and put it together on the lake. They have weapons we have never faced before. It will be very hard to beat them back this time.”
Now the children took it seriously. “Will we win again?” Risk asked.
Rebel shook her head. “No. Not unless they do something stupid.”
“There’s more,” Tula said, looking truly frightened.
“We don’t need to go into that,” Keeper said quickly.
“What about the Long Calendar?” Risk asked. “What does it say?”
“That records significant events,” Rebel said. “It doesn’t predict future outcomes.”
“Sometimes it does,” Tula said. “Like Baktun 13.”
“What is that?” Allele asked.
“That is too complicated to go into now,” Rebel said.
All three children rebelled. “No it isn’t,” Allele said. “I want to know.”
Well, it was a distraction when they needed it. Rebel gave them a simplified version. “The Long Calendar started many, many years ago, before the time of the Maya. It counts days, and it never repeats. Twenty days make a uinal, eighteen uinal make a tun, which is 360 days, and twenty tun make a katun, which is 7,200 days or about twenty years, and twenty katun make a baktun, which is 144,000 days or about 395 years. There are thirteen baktun in the Long Count. Baktun 12 started almost eighty years ago, and Baktun 13 will start 315 years from now. So it really isn’t relevant to the present crisis.”
“Don’t the Spaniards have a different calendar?” Risk asked.
“Yes. But that doesn’t relate well either.”
“When is now on theirs?”
Keeper stepped in. “1697.”
“Days?”
“Years.”
Risk shook his head, not making sense of it. The Spanish had weird gods and weird dates.
“It’s very bad,” Tula said.
“That’s why we oppose them,” Rebel said. “We don’t want to have to honor their mixed-up system.”
Allele wasn’t satisfied. “Our gods will help us. We can make a big sacrifice.”
“Yes, the way we do for every big occasion,” Risk agreed. “The bigger the sacrifice, the more the gods will help.”
“Not this time,” Keeper said. “This is beyond the gods.”
“How can you say that?” Risk demanded. “The gods can do anything.”
“We can’t afford the sacrifice,” Rebel said.
Tula screamed. Rebel quickly pulled her close, but the child was inconsolable.
Now Allele came alert. “She knows something! She always knows! What’s so horrible?”
There was no help for it. “The priests did a reading,” Keeper said heavily. “They concluded that there has to be an awful sacrifice to the Rain God.”
“The Rain God!” Risk said. “So he’ll make a storm and blow away or sink those boats!”
“But that’s good, isn’t it?” Allele asked.
“No,” Rebel said grimly, still hugging Tula.
“But if the boats sink, they can’t get here, can they?”
Tula screamed again.
Then Risk caught on. “Children! They sacrifice children to the Rain God!”
Allele paled. “And we’re children. Fair ones.”
“But not us,” Risk said. “There are other children.”
Keeper got out the rest of it. “A noble is interested in Tula and Allele. He. . . he asked to. . . to have both of you. We refused, of course.”
Allele was not too young to miss the import. “I think I know who. His last mistress is getting too old. Thirteen.”
“But that’s not the same as sacrifice,” Risk protested.
“When we told him no, he didn’t like it,” Keeper said. “Then the priest made his reading.”
“Retaliation!” Risk said.
“Yes. Maybe if we change our minds, the priest will do a different reading.”
“So it’s him—or death,” Allele said.
“Or escape,” Rebel said. “We are making ready. Don’t tell.”
“That’s what Haven and Crenelle are doing,” Risk said. “Packing supplies.”
“Without alerting the priests or nobles,” Keeper agreed. “Hero and Harbinger are getting the boats ready. We have a secret place to go to. We’ll leave tonight.”
Tula screamed again.
Suddenly armed men filled the chamber. “But you’ll do it without the children,” the captain said.
They were helpless. Any attempt to resist would only get them killed. The priests and nobles had anticipated their attempt to escape, and struck when they had confirmation.
They carried the screaming children out. Keeper and Rebel were left alone. There was no need to arrest them; they were going nowhere without the children.
“It’s my fault!” Keeper moaned. “I shouldn’t have spoken.”
“The children had to know,” Rebel said. “They were catching on anyway. We were both careless.”
She had spoken bravely enough, but now she dissolved into tears. Keeper tried to comfort his sister, but the horror was too big for comfort.
Yet how could they have allowed the girls to become the playthings of the corrupt noble?
At it turned out, the authorities were not so careless as to leave them long to their own treacherous devices. The warriors returned, and hauled the two of them roughly to a nether cell. There were the others, already rounded up: Hero, Craft, Haven, Crenelle, Harbinger, and Tuho. It was no glad encounter, and not just because it was crowded.
Next morning the news was that the Spaniards were assembling their boats, making obvious preparations for a massive attack. The warriors were at the ramparts, ready to repulse them. But Keeper knew it wouldn’t be enough. The main boat was a small ship, with metal armor; arrows and spears would bounce off. That was the lesser threat.
“The artillery,” Craft murmured. “That’s what will destroy us.”
“Surely a few hurled rocks won’t hurt us,” Keeper said. “Unless one happens to strike a person on the head.”
Craft didn’t answer. Keeper didn’t have time to debate the point; he had been elected by the family to make a plea to the king. Only the king could overrule the priestly edict. But how was he to approach the king, when the guards wouldn’t let any of them out of the crowded cell?
Then they were brought out, their hands bound behind them, and led to the temple. This was not promising.
But Keeper tried. “I must talk to the king,” he said. “It is my right.”
The guards consulted. They had been friends of the family, until this crisis, and surely did not approve of what was happening. But they would be sacrificed themselves if they did not obey orders. They sent one of their number to inquire.
King Canek was surely hard-pressed, but he granted Keeper a brief audience, because Keeper had done good work with animals and plants. Keeper was brought, bound, to see the king, who was garbed in his formal regalia for the sacrificial occasion. The king wore a large crown of pure gold, with a crest of gold, and his ears were covered with gold disks. The disks had hangings that shook and fell over his shoulders as he moved. On his arms were rings of pure gold. It was highly impressive, in part because Keeper knew that gold was exceedingly rare, and most of what existed in the city was what the king was wearing here. His tunic was pure white, copiously adorned with blue embroidery. He wore a broad black sash, signaling that he was also a priest of the Itza. His sandals were fashioned of blue thread with many gold jingles. It was his royal dress uniform, intended to be impressive, but Keeper couldn’t help it: he was impressed.
“What is your concern?” the king inquired, as if he didn’t know. There was that in his aspect that hinted he regretted the situation. Keeper had always gotten along well with him.
“My daughter, our children—the priests have taken them for the sacrifice,” Keeper said. “I come to plead for their lives. They are innocent, and we love them.”
The king gave him a serious look. “I understand. But we face incipient invasion, and our head priest knows best. I dare not overrule him, lest disaster befall us. I am sorry.”
And that was that. The king had spoken. Keeper bowed and retreated. There was nothing else he could do. Nothing else the king could do. They were caught in the crisis, complicated as it was by the web of deceit concerning the children.
The sacrifice ceremony proceeded all too swiftly. There was music, dancing, and the burning of pom incense that Keeper himself had made from the resin of the copal tree. It was time for the bloodletting.
The priests brought out the three children, who had of course been drugged; they walked without animation, possessing no free will. They were placed before the sacrificial altar and tied there, their chests bared. There was chanting, the official offering of this blood to the Rain God. Then the head priest brought out the wicked obsidian sacrificial knife.
The priest was going to cut out their living hearts. And the family had to watch.
Crenelle sank to the floor. She had fainted, unable to bear the thought of seeing her daughter so cruelly murdered.
The guards hauled her roughly back to her feet. She was required to watch. But that gave Keeper an idea. If they could somehow stall the process, maybe there would come a chance to break it up. Their feet were free; he could lurch into the priest, maybe causing the man to drop the knife. It wasn’t much of a hope, but any hope was better than none.
Suddenly there was a boom of thunder. The Rain God was answering, though there had been no sign of a storm before. The priest paused, perplexed. Any signal from the Rain God was important. What did this mean?
Something crashed into the wall of the building, smashing a hole in it.
They all looked, startled. The priest stood frozen, his blade uplifted. This was a remarkable response by the Rain God, considering that the offerings had not yet been made.
There was another boom, and another part of the wall was smashed open. This time part of the ceiling collapsed.
“The bombardment,” Craft murmured.
Craft had been correct in his prediction: these were not pebbles, but solid metal balls that blasted apart what they struck. It was a devastating barrage.
A third boom and crash. Now the roof of the temple was cracking, and stones were falling to the floor.
Even the priest realized that this was no ordinary thunderstorm. He lowered the blade, dismayed. This did not seem like an expression of godly favor.
“The Rain God is angry!” Keeper shouted, surprising himself. “He wanted to save these children for his own purposes. Now we face his wrath!”
Panic erupted. They thought the Rain God was hurling thunderbolts. The musicians scrambled to get out of the temple, and the guards were as eager to escape as they were. Only the king paused, demonstrating his courage. He walked to Keeper, put his hands on his shoulders, turned him about, and pressed something into one of his bound hands. Then he moved on outside.
Keeper felt the object. It was cold and hard, a small stone. No—it was an obsidian knife!
“Hero!” Keeper said, turning his back to his warrior brother.
Hero caught on immediately. He came close, turned his own back, and his hands took the knife. In a moment he cut Keeper’s bonds. Then Keeper took the knife and did the same for Hero.
Soon, as the bombardment continued, they were all free, including the three children. But the temple was collapsing around them.
“This way,” Craft said.
The women guided the children, who were dazed but not unconscious. They followed Craft out of the temple. No one paid attention, because the bombardment was destroying walls and buildings alike. They still thought it was the wrath of the god.
They made their way through the confusion to the three canoes Haven and Crenelle had stocked. The men paddled, while the women and children sat in the centers.
Now they saw that others had the same idea. Many boats were fleeing the island. The people knew that the end had come. The last independent kingdom of the Maya was doomed.
But at least the children were safe.
A number were war canoes, not fleeing but paddling out to encounter the enemy. Their archers were braced, ready to loose their arrows.
But as they drew out from the harbor, they saw the Spanish fleet looming, led by a monstrous wooden ship with a metal-armored deck well above the water line. Its rail bristled with Spanish soldiers.
As soon as the Spaniards spied the canoes, they leveled their guns. There was a new, closer booming, and smoke puffed out.
The men aboard the leading war canoe cried out. Several had been wounded, and the canoe had been holed and was sinking. Their arrows had had no apparent effect. The guns of the Spanish were too much.
“Get out of here!” Hero called from his canoe.
They paddled rapidly away from the Spanish fleet. These were not even war canoes, and would have no chance against the Spanish. Their hope was that they would pass unnoticed, and not attract any fire.
They were not that lucky. One war canoe veered to follow them. The Spaniards were accompanied by Maya allies who fought beside them. Hero cursed them for traitors, but that hardly abated the threat they represented.
Keeper paddled desperately, as did his brothers and Rebel, but they could not outrace the war canoe. Steadily it overhauled them. Then it paused, merely keeping the pace.
“Surrender!” the war canoe commander called. “Agree to serve the new masters, and you will be spared.”
“What of our women and girls?” Rebel called back.
“They are our property. They will be well treated if they behave.”
That meant if they submitted to multiple rapes without resistance or attempts to kill themselves. If they made themselves useful as continuing mistresses, regardless of their ages.
“You are Maya,” Keeper called. “How can you betray your own kind?”
“We are Christian Maya,” the commander replied. “We have seen the light. You, too, must convert and worship the one true god.”
Obviously that god did not object to the rape of children. “We can’t do that,” Keeper said.
“Then you die.” The war canoe resumed its approach. It bristled with warriors. Soon it would grapple their canoes, one by one, and dispatch the fugitives.
Hero stood carefully in his canoe, orienting his bow. Immediately the opposing warriors dropped their paddles and scrambled for their bows. Hero did not wait. He loosed one arrow. It sailed high and long, and came down right in the chest of the commander. There was a cry as he fell, transfixed, and the boat ceased its pursuit.
Only Hero could have done it from that range, from such a precarious stance. He had always been the best shot. This time that ability had saved them.
They came to the shore and scrambled out of their canoes. They ran into the forest, the women dragging the recovering children by their hands. In moments they were shielded by the trees. The Spanish would not be able to catch them. They were not yet safe, but they had a good chance.
Yet Keeper was grief stricken by the fate of their people. The world they had known had been destroyed.
It was a remarkable effort by the Spaniards. They built a road through the jungle so that their mule train could transport supplies, artillery, and even a small dismantled warship they reassembled on Lake Peten. On the morning of March 13, 1697, they attacked, with Maya allies, and were victorious. They immediately set to work destroying the idolatrous idols and, indeed, any remaining civilization of the “barbarians.” They burned the library of books containing what they called “lies of the devil.” It was to take centuries to fathom the lost Mayan written language. Who, then, were really the barbarians?
The remnants of the Itza Maya fled into the surrounding jungle. They never regained their former prominence, and only a few hundred survived to the twentieth century. Conditions generally have been hostile to the several Maya tribes, with partly covert attempts to eradicate them.
Noh Petén, or Tayasal, was erased, and the modern city of Flores built over its ruins. The stones of the temple were taken for a Christian church. Today it is difficult to find traces of the original town; indeed, there is some question whether that really was its location.
It was, indeed, the end of a great culture. True, we of the modern world don’t approve of human sacrifice. Yet we tolerate execution of those with whom we disagree, and make determined war on others whose religion differs from ours. Is this so much different?
The evidence suggests that the prior upheavals of the Maya were climatic in nature, with severe droughts stressing the population, bringing savage warfare. This time the worst enemy was probably disease, such as smallpox, decimating the population so that relatively small Spanish forces could overwhelm the natives, as mentioned in the forenote. Only the isolation of Noh Petén enabled it to survive as long as it did.
There were periodic rebellions by the Maya as time and oppression continued, but they remained a beaten people. Only relatively recently have the marvels of their calendar and cities been studied and appreciated. One can’t help wishing that at least one of their cities had survived independently to the present day.