TRAGIC ROMANCE OF THE YUCATÁN—FELIPE CARRILLO PUERTO AND ALMA REED

 

Two names forever linked to the Yucatán are Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Yucatan’s progressive governor, and San Francisco journalist Alma Reed. Their love affair fueled pages in newspapers on both sides of the border but the unlikely outcome of this very public romance enlisted all the elements of Greek tragedy.

Reed, born in San Francisco, became one of the city’s first women reporters.  An advocate for the poor, she assisted a Mexican family in commuting their 17-years old son’s death sentence in 1921. The story was picked up by the Mexican press. Due to heightened publicity, Mexico President Alvero Obregon invited Reed to visit his country.

ENTER EDWARD THOMPSON

As a stringer correspondent for The New York Times, Reed was sent to meet Edward Thompson, lead archeologist excavating Chichen Itza.  During the visit, Reed met Felipe Carrillo Puerto, governor of the State of Yucatan.

Carrillo had commissioned a road from Merida to Chichen Itza, opening the budding archeological site to tourists and scientists.  To commemorate the event, he organized a welcome ceremony inviting North American journalists and archeologists.

UXMAL AND CARRILLO

At the ruins, Reed interviewed Thompson who’d traveled to Yucatán specifically to excavate Chichen Itza. Thompson took a liking to Reed and recklessly divulged he had dredged Chichen Itza’s sacred cenote and had taken gold and jewelry from the sacrificial victims. Astonished by the enormity of his admission, like the true-born paparrizis she was, Reed asked Thompson to sign a confession. He did.

Felipe Carrillo Puerto in Yucatán

After Chichen Itza, the entourage left for Uxmal. During this leg of the journey Reed and Carrillo got acquainted. Reed was fascinated with the charismatic Carrillo who had been called both a Bolshevik and a Marxist for his sweeping reforms.

In Reed’s interview, Carrillo explained Yucatan had been inhabited by a handful of powerful families dating to Merida’s founding in1542. These wealthy landowners were basically slave masters and notorious for their cruel treatment of the Maya. 

REVOLUTIONARY IN THE MAKING

 In 1910 Carrillo had fought alongside Emiliano Zapata in Central Mexico. From their association he took Zapata’s battle cry, Tierra y Liberdad for his own. Back in Yucatan, Carrillo claimed part Maya, part Creole heritage and began his reforms by setting up feminist leagues that legalized birth control and the first family planning clinics in the western hemisphere. As governor he seized uncultivated land from powerful hacendados and distributed it to the Maya, stating it was their birthright. He built schools. He reformed the prison system.

It was no small wonder Reed named him the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico. As a liberal she agreed with his reforms; on a personal note, she was smitten. But as a divorceé and Catholic she tried to ignore feelings she was developing for the married father of four. She left for the U.S., vowing never to return, hoping to severe ties in what was becoming amor calido (romance of the steam).

The New York Times had other plans however, and sent her back to Mexico to cover the archeology scandal that erupted due to Edward Thompson pillaging the Chichen Itza cenote. Reed had a job to do.

On her second round in Mexico, neither Reed nor Carrillo could ignore their feelings. In the ultimate taboo, Carrillo divorced his wife to become engaged to Reed. He even had a romantic song composed for her, La Peregrina (The Pilgrim).

The two idealists prepared for their wedding that would take place in San Francisco.  Reed hastened back to the City to make arrangements before her permanent move to Mexico.

SEND LAWYERS, GUNS AND MONEY

Shortly after Reed’s departure, however, another revolution seemed imminent. Fighting had broken out in the Yucatan. Henequen planters and hacendados wanted to overthrow Carrillo. President Obregon’s right hand man, de la Huerta, was opposing him and because Carrillo backed Obregon, he was also at risk. Carrillo was forced to find guns to fight both the planters and de la Huerta’s forces. To make matters worse, he now had a $250,000 reward on his head.

To secure guns and ammo, Carrillo went by night to the Progreso coast with three brothers and six friends as guards.  Just as they waded out to the launch they would sail to New Orleans where they’d acquire firearms, a Navy captain signaled to soldiers lying in wait on shore.  The soldiers rowed out and captured Carrillo who told his small group not to fight, but to go peacefully.

 De la Huerta’s forces took them back to Merida, jailed them for the night and planned an arraignment in the morning.  Carrillo refused to make a plea. He was, after all, governor of the Yucatan, and refused to recognize a kangaroo court.  He was condemned on January 3, 1924, and taken to Merida Cemetery where he, his brothers and friends were lined up against the wall to await the firing squad.  The first round of volleys was sent over their heads; the soldiers didn’t want to kill them, so fiercely local were the Yucatecans to Carrillo.

The commander ordered those soldiers to be shot, and over the dead bodies of the first soldiers, Carrillo, his brothers and friends were executed as they stood with their backs against the cemetery wall.

A MARTYR'S DEATH

 In San Francisco, Reed had been alerted that trouble was at hand. She heard the news shortly after Carrillo had died a martyr’s death, at 49.

Grave Carrillo Puerto. Photo Barbra Bishop

She returned to Merida to see the spot where Carrillo fell.  She stayed but briefly, and on arriving back to New York, was sent on assignment to Carthage to explore ancient ruins.  She would never re-marry. Her reporting life took her back to Mexico where she helped establish the artist José Clemente Orozco.

One of Reed’s fears was that Obregon had a hand in Carrillo’s death.  He had, after all, assassinated Emiliano Zapata after luring him to a truce with Pancho Villa. Reed thought Carrillo’s radicalism may have aroused opposition from the Mexican president, but she could never prove it.

The pueblo Chan Santa Cruz, south of Tulum, changed its name to honor the governor, and now is known as Felipe Carrillo Puerto.  Alma Reed died undergoing surgery in Mexico City, November, 1966. She was 77.  

Statue at Assassination Site of Felipe Carrillo Puerto. Photo Barbra Bishop

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

IF PLANNING A MEXICO MOVE—FIRST FIND YOUR SPOT

Have you ever traveled somewhere and had the feeling it was your spot? That’s what happened when I first visited the Mexican Caribbean. I went to Isla Mujeres, an island off the coast of Cancun, with my husband and quickly fell head over heels for Mexico. It didn’t take long to realize that somehow we had to move there.

Finding your spot takes equal parts luck and perseverance. For me they both played out. Finding Isla was the lucky part. When we got home, we planned our next trip, not to Isla, but to a handful of places on the adjacent Yucatan Peninsula. This is where the perseverance came in. For three years we explored the Yucatan—any time we could get away from work for several days—looking for the perfect spot we would eventually call home. If you’re looking to make the move, I urge you to ‘kick the tires’ before taking a ride.

With a vast and diversified landscape, Mexico’s beauty shines through—from rugged mountains and breathtaking beaches to colonial cities and outback pueblos. Bountiful choices. Because Mexico is such a vast country, for some it will be a tough choice. We’d narrowed ours to the Yucatan Peninsula which made things easier. But believe me, we diligently travelled from Merida in the north to Chetumal at the Belize border. 

Baja Peninsula

Once there, make friends with your hotel clerk or AirBnB host, talk to waiters and cab drivers, chat up the locals. Do your detective work. Ask questions about everything from climate and rainfall to grocery stores, rentals, neighborhoods and medical services. Don’t be shy. The remarkable thing about Mexico is how friendly and helpful people are. And if you’re on a social media platform, ask if anyone lives in your intended destination and see if they’ll meet for coffee and conversation once you’re there.

Above all, embrace serendipity. You know—chance. That’s how we stumbled onto Puerto Morelos. We’d traveled by bus to the Tulum pyramids and after staying the night at a nearby hotel, the next day we were told to walk to the Coba road where we could catch a bus heading north. Our destination was Isla Holbox. While waiting for the bus (after an hour’s wait we began to doubt its existence) it started to rain. We stood underneath a Ceiba, the Maya tree of life, shivering and disgruntled. 

Tulum Pyramids. Photo Paul Zappella

Just before chagrin set in, a yellow two-door Honda careened around a curve and squealed to a stop in front of us. The passenger, a woman named Karla, rolled down her window as the driver leaned over and asked if we’d like a ride to the pyramids.  We hopped into the back seat, adjusted our duffel bags, and settled in for an enjoyable hour listening to Alejandro, the driver, recount stories about living in Mexico and the beach house he was building in Puerto Morelos. That piece of information struck a chord, and before we’d reached the crossroads at the Coba junction, he’d invited us to stay at his house if our travels ever brought us back to Cancun. Puerto Morelos is 25 miles south. A date with destiny had been set, but that is a story for another post. Spoiler alert—It was thrilling!

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

 

THE DECLINE OF MEXICO'S MENNONITES: FROM AG POWERHOUSE TO CARTEL COURIER AND FOREST PILLAGER

 

Mennonites in Campeche at Harvest (Photo Reuters)

In Cancun we'd often see Mennonites in straw cowboy hats hawking cheese wheels at downtown stoplights. Smack dab in the middle of a thorough-fare, young men in Bib overalls would stand fearlessly on the center line, waving their products as cars zoomed by on both sides. We later learned the Men-nonites had a long history with Mexico and the Yucatán stretching back to the early 20th century.

The Mennonites trace their roots to a group of Christian radicals who emerged during the Reformation in 16th century Germany. They opposed both Roman Catholic doctrine and mainstream Protestant religions and maintain a pacifist lifestyle. They emigrated to North America to preserve their faith.

In the 1920s a group of 6,000 moved to Chihuahua in northern Mexico and established themselves as important crop producers. In the 1980s a few thousand moved to Campeche on the edge of the Maya Forest which is second in size only to the Amazon. According to Global Forest Watch, a non-profit that monitors deforestation, the Maya Forest is shrinking annually by an area the size of Dallas. In Campeche, the Mennonites bought and leased tracts of jungle land for farming, some from local Maya. 

Burning Fields in Campeche

In 1992 Mexico legislation made it easier to develop, rent or sell previously protected forest, increasing deforestation and the number of farms in the state. When Mexico opened up the use of genetically modified soy in the 2000s, Mennonites in Campeche embraced the crop and the use of Round Up, a glysophate weedkiller, designed to work alongside GMO crops, according to Edward Ellis, a researcher at Universidad Veracruzana.

Higher yields meant more income to support large families. For the Mennonites, a family of ten children is not uncommon. They typically live simple lives supported by the land and choose to go without modern-day amenities such as electricity or motor vehicles, as dictated by their faith. But their farm work has evolved to use harvesters, chainsaws, tractors. While most Mennonite communities remain in Chihuahua, now another 15,000 Mennonites also live in Campeche.

Mennonite Girls in Cleared Field (Photo Reuters)

Presently the tide has turned on deforestation in Mexico and both ecologists and the government that once welcomed the Mennonites' agricultural prowess believe the rapid razing of the jungle by these new ranches is creating an environmental disaster. The Maya Forest is one of the biggest carbon sinks on the planet and the habitat of endangered jaguars, plus 100 species of mammals to which the jungle is home.

A 2017 study published by Universidad Veracruzana showed that properties cleared by Mennonites had rates four times higher for deforestation than other properties. Under international pressure to follow a greener agenda, the Mexican government has persuaded some Mennonite communities to sign an agreement to stop deforesting the land. But not all communities have signed such an agreement.  

In speaking to Reuters, a Mennonite school teacher in a pueblo on the edge of the forest stated that the agreement has not impacted the way they farm. The Mennonites have signed on an attorney who states they believe they are being targeted by the government due to their pacifist beliefs while other land destroyers are not bothered.

Between 2001 and 2018, in the three states that comprise forest growth in Mexico, 15,000 square kilometers of tree cover was razed, roughly the size of the country Belize. With changing weather patterns and less rain, harvests are smaller in general for all concerned, both Mennonites and the indigenous Maya.

The Campeche Secretary of Environment, Sandra Loffan, clocked in stating the Mennonites did not always have the correct paperwork to convert forest land to farm land. An agreement was signed last year, 2022, to create a permanent group between the government and Mennonite communities to deal with land ownership and rights, and disagreements that arise including those from locals stating the Mennonites are abusing logging rights.  

Typical Mennonite Buggy

But this is only one of the Mennonites' problems in Mexico. Ten years ago connections between the community and Mexican cartels were exposed when a mule pipeline from Chihuahua to Alberta, Canada, was discovered. In this unlikely alliance, the pacifist Mennonites were growing tons of marijuana for the cartels and shipping it north, smuggling it in gas tanks, inside farm equipment and cheese wheels. For background, in an old ABC interview, Michael LeFay, Immigration and Customs Director in El Paso, stated a Mennonite network emerged long ago. What began with marijuana expanded into cocaine smuggling. When customs officials at the U.S. border looked into a car and saw Mennonites, he explained, officials waved them through. Mennonites were a common sight at the border and frequent travelers from Mexico to Canada because many Canadians from Manitoba and Ontario have Mennonite family members in Mexico. 

Mennonite Man with Cheese Wheel

Though the Drug Enforcement Agency's (DEA) issued a statement decades ago that only a few members of the Mennonite community had links to violent cartels, facts proved them wrong. In the 1990s not all Mennonite families owned land; they fell on hard times. At the same time the tenets of their faith drew questions from a younger generation raised in Mexico where there was no legal age restriction to buy alcohol or cigarettes. Vices began to creep in. It wasn't uncommon, an ABC newscaster reported, to see young Mennonite teens drinking Corona and smoking cigarettes after a Sunday church service once their parents left the church parking lot.

Reports started to trickle in: a Mennonite man was accused of smuggling 16 kilos of coke across the U.S.-Canadian border in 2012. Jacob Dyck faced charges of conspiracy to import $2 million of cocaine and possession for purpose of trafficking.

Then along came the Canadian TV drama Pure, earning a place in Canadian pop culture about Mennonites connected to the cartels. But DEA agents were still trying to get their heads around it, tsk-tsking the outrageous idea that Mennonites had a corrupt streak. DEA Agent Jim Schrant was quoted as saying a "large scale marijuana and cocaine distribution group run by Mennonites with cartel connections seemed bonkers." 

Though Schrant was aware that a huge drug distribution group was operating in Mexico and shipping large quantities into the U.S. he believed it was being run by individuals only. Then along came the story of Grassy Lake, Alberta, a rural town of 649 souls where 80 percent of residents were Mennonites. In time the DEA got wise and outed the town as the distribution hub for an international weed and coke smuggling operation linked to the Juarez Cartel.

31-Hour Drive from Mexico to Canada

A widely publicized case against Abraham Friesen-Rempel, 2014, had the DEA intercepting 32,500 phone calls believed to be linked to Juarez Cartel drug activity. Although Friesen-Rempel played only a minor role as driver, he'd delivered 1575 pounds of pot for the cartels. Convicted of smuggling drugs, he received a 15-month federal sentence. And so on, and so forth.

It's believed that the cartels lean on the Mennonites because they share a common bond of anti-government sentiment. Staunchly private, the Mennonites shun government interaction and their fierce sense of privacy aligns them with the philosophy of the cartels. Also, for decades they never got a second look at the border. The perfect cover for illicit border crossings. 

So now, though the drug implications are tamped way down, the government is extremely dissatisfied with the deforestation done by their farming tech-niques. Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez is pressuring them to shift to more sustainable practices. The government plans to phase out glysophate by 2024 which would lower harvest yields and their incomes.

"That's a consequence all farmers, Mennonites and locals, might have to pay to save the environment," said Campeche's Secretary of Environment Sandra Laffon.

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

EXPLORER AND PHOTOGRAPHER ALICE DIXON ADDS THE MYSTIC INTO MAYA EXPLORATIONS

Alice Dixon LePlongeon

At 22 years old, Alice Dixon met Augustus Le Plongeon, a world explorer of antiquities, in London, in 1871. Le Plongeon, 26 years her senior, traveled to Europe after successful journeys to South America and California. His extensive explorations in Peru and Chile led him to London to study Mexican and Maya artifacts and manuscripts at the British Museum where they met. 

Considered an amateur archeologist, Dixon, a second generation photog- rapher, photographed ruins at Chichen Itza and Uxmal alongside her husband.

Alice Dixon's father, Henry, was a copper-plate printer who became a successful photographer and was recognized for his development of panchromatic photographic for his photos of London architecture. Alice learned the principles of photography from her father and worked as his assistant in his studio.

SPIRITUAL INFLUENCES

Another family member with a strong influence on Alice was her uncle, Dr. Jacob Dixon, who practiced spiritualism. Alice became involved in that movement at a young age, participating in seances at her uncle's home.

As for Le Plongeon, in Peru he studied earthquakes and explored the country's archeological sites, including Tinhuanaco which he photographed while trying to assimilate clues as to who the builders of that empire might have been. In combination with his own Peruvian explorations, he'd read the works of John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, explorers of the Yucatan in the 1840s, and came to believe that civilization had early origins in the New World and he began to form philosophies on the world's great civilizations.

A few years into his South American sojourn, Le Plongeon heard of the California gold rush and jumped a ship to partake in that historic event, spending several years in gold country where he speculated on land and became a surveyor. There he managed to earn thirty thousand dollars in profits, enough to fund his trip to Europe as well as future South American travels. 

In Europe he stumbled onto a new photographic technique that used paper instead of metal and urged the inventor to teach him the process. This would serve him well when uncovering Yucatecan ruins, enabling he and Dixon to document their discoveries. Their photos of Uxmal and Chichen Itza remain some of the best ever taken as they show the pyramid sites as they stood for eons, long before archeologists re-discovered them.

HONEYMOON IN MEXICO

Soon after meeting, Alice and Le Plongeon were married. For their honey-moon they set sail for Cuba then onto Mexico, where they planned to explore ancient pyramid sites. They landed in Progreso, Yucatan, in 1873. 

A bout with yellow fever for Alice dampened their arrival but Le Plongeon nursed her back to health. During her recuperation the two studied Yucatecan Maya and became acquainted with local scholars. They believed communicating with present day Maya was an important step to interpreting the past. Alice remained a champion of the Maya her entire life, and wrote about them long after she left the Yucatan.

Alice in Palace of the Governors, Uxmal

Their first visit to see pyramids was at Uxmal, forty miles south of Merida. They were awed by the size of the site and camped in the Governor's Palace, sleeping on hammocks. They both took photos, cleared the land to better see the site and were determined to return again later.

Camping at Uxmal

CHICHEN ITZA

The number one item on the Le Plongeons' bucket list was Chichen Itza. He'd heard from a local that a sacred codex was buried there in a building with many chambers and he believed he could further his eccentric theory of Maya world supremacism if he could locate the text. Their timing overlapped the Caste War of Yucatan, and Piste, the pueblo nearby, was overrun with Chan Santa Cruz Indians. Le Plongeon, determined to search for the desired text, asked local authorities to post soldiers at the site as security.

He located the building, could not locate the text, but the building's lintel contained numerous glyphs which he believed could further his theory. He took 500 stereoscopic photos of the hieroglyphs, and he and Alice traced a number of murals and made molds of them in bas relief.

QUEEN MOO AND PRINCE CHACMOOL

They fixated on the Upper Temple of the Jaguars near the ball court. It was 1875. Workers discovered a large slab with carved figures holding outstretched arms. Le Plongeon called it Atlantis. Murals on the walls depicted village life, war scenes and rulers in court. The explorer concluded this was a generation of Maya rulers whose totem was an eagle or macaw. He declared it a symbol of a Maya princess who he christened Queen Moo (Maya for macaw). Her brother he named Prince ChacMool, powerful warrior, a reference to jaguar in Mayan. This flimsy attempt at a scholarly decision became the basis for his Maya myth as the center of world civilization and placed him squarely at odds with fellow archeologists of the time. His Maya "myth" led to much derision and plagued him his entire career.

The fabricated myth about a Maya princess and her warrior king brother who had been forced to flee Egypt, bringing their philosophies of the Maya with them, seduced the two at-one-time prominent Maya notables. They were viewed as the Maya world's "new age" scholars due to this far-fetched belief and the theory branded Le Plongeon as an eccentric crackpot, earning him disdain from those in his field. 

Excavation of ChacMool at Chichen Itza

Yet in spite of his oddball theories, Le Plongeon discovered the famous statue, ChacMool, five feet long weighing hundreds of pounds, which is virtually synonymous with Chichen Itza and the ancient Maya. Originally spelled Chaacmool, Maya for powerful warrior, the word was misspelled as ChacMool through a mis-translation by one of his missives to a benefactor. The ChacMool statue was lauded by the American Geographical Society as a great archeological find. The Le Plongeons struggled to bring the statue to the U.S. to display in Philadelphia at the America Centennial Exhibition but the president of Mexico denied their request. 

In the meantime, they sent other Maya artifacts to the U.S. to display at centennial ceremonies but the objects arrived too late. And in another spate of bad luck, the photos Le Plongeon had labored over were stolen by another archeologist who claimed them for his own. Soon even their main benefactor would give up on their excursions. At times they found it difficult to find money to eat, so dire was their situation. 

"SURROUNDED BY ENEMIES"

"Surrounded by enemies, Remington always at hand, death lurking in every direction," Alice wrote in a letter to a friend in 1877, describing their predicament. The Mexico government had refused to pay them for the extensive work they'd completed in not only raising the incredible ChacMool artifact but in delivering it to the pueblo Piste. With this final blow, they picked up and moved on to other ruins—Mayapan and sites in Honduras.

Their travels continued and in 1884 the Le Plongeons left Mexico and settled in New York. There Alice focused on her writing, both fact and fiction. She became well known for a series of articles written for the New York Times and other publications in which she romanticized the Maya world. Her best known work was Queen Moo's Talisman. Both she and her husband lectured non-stop in Europe and the U.S. promoting the Yucatan pyramids and the Maya. 

Queen Moo's Talisman

In A Dream of Maya, by Larry Desmond and Phyllis Messenger, Desmond explains if history had been kinder to the Le Plongeons, it would have depicted an extraordinary couple whose lifelong work had not been fairly appraised. The book gives deep insight into their lives and their controversial views and document their hard-nosed earnestness and early pioneering excavations—from digging up pyramid sites to drawing architectural floor plans and tracing murals to keeping detailed photographic records.

A Dream of Maya by Desmond and Messenger 

Their extensive explorations were done under the duress of the Caste War, yet they persisted and came away with great discoveries. 

Augustus Le Plongeon died in New York in 1908. Alice died in New York in 1910.

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

TO BE IT YOU NEED TO SEE IT: WHAT IF INDIANA JONES HAD BEEN A WOMAN?

Merle Greene Robertson, Archeologist, Artist, Scholar

I've written about Maya women warriors and queens, women archeologists, anthropologists, epigraphers, authors and artists, all who've inspired the masses. After reading a Washington Post Op-Ed (A Woman to Reboot Indiana Jones? Yes, Please) by bio-archeologist Brenna Hassett when the latest Indiana Jones film starring Hollywood's favorite archeologist came out, she reminded us that overall, the study of archeology is dominated by men. 

Says Hassett, "This is what generations of girls—me included—saw when we saw archeology, and that's a problem. Because to be it, you need to see it."

So let's address women trailblazers in archeology who've carved a place for themselves and those who came after—the likes of Merle Greene Robertson and Linda Schele for starters. In her study of the Maya, Robertson lived as many adventures as the more famous Dr. Jones, traipsing through Central American jungles, crossing rivers, evading looters, working hours on end creating a multitude of life-size art rubbings in dam, cramped spaces. 

Linda Schele was a major scholar, author and trail blazer in the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic writing and the study of ancient American civilization. Her death at age 55 in 1998 was a terrible loss to archeology and the study of the ancient Maya.

I'll begin with a previous 2022 post on Robertson, a larger than life presence in the world of Maya archeology and culture. Next will be Linda Schele and I'll then continue with women outliers in the global field of archeology and anthropology, several of whom I've already written about.

MERLE GREENE ROBERTSON

Merle Greene Robertson was an archeologist, artist, scholar and Maya explorer, but these are mere labels. Her entrance into the study, portrayal and exploration of the Maya culture was a catalyst for introducing the ancient Maya to the modern world through art, photography and exploration of numerous Maya sites. After I read Never in Fear, her autobiography, I realized she well could have been the glue that stuck it all together, the Gertrude Stein of the Maya world. Along with fellow scholars, she shaped an understanding of the ancient Maya civilization. She galvanized others, as an organizer, planner, dynamo and she knew everyone in the field from Eric S. Thompson and Alberto Ruz to Michael Coe, George Stuart and those who came after.

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN YUCATÁN

Her enthusiasm and limitless energy in regard to Maya culture made her a fulcrum at the very moment the Maya re-emerged on the world stage after an unduly long absence. The first European and American explorers who stumbled onto these pyramid sites in the 1840s were floored by what they saw. A blockbuster bestseller in 1846, Incidents of Travel in Yucatán, written by John Lloyd Stephens with drawings by Frederick Catherwood, ushered the reader into Maya sites at Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and Copan for starters. The book literally blew the collective mind of the world. No one had a clue that intricate stepped pyramids lay hidden, covered by centuries of vines and forest, deep in Mexican and Central American jungles. The archeology world lay in the mid-east and far east. Before the release of Stephens' and Catherwood's book, the word "bestseller" had not yet been coined. 

Frederick Catherwood Maya Drawing

The world clambered for more knowledge of this mysterious civilization, hidden in southern rainforests of North America. Stephens' concise writing along with Catherwood's magnificent drawings assisted in shaping the identity of one of the world's great civilizations—the Maya. Previously unknown, the Maya had joined an iconic club alongside other great civilizations: Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and China.

ROBERTSON AND HER WORK 

Robertson is nearly indefinable, so interwoven was the role she played with her Maya work over the past fifty years—from assisting in breaking the Maya hieroglyphic code, to co-founding the Palenque Roundtable talks, including trekking to and exploring scores of pyramid sites in Mexico and Central America. Not to mention the body of work she left behind after reviving an ancient archeological rubbing technique using Japanese ink on rice paper.

She created beautiful reproductions of countless stela, columns, tombs, sarcophagus lids, often produced in unfavorable circumstances after trekking through rugged terrain and dense forests crawling with snakes and buzzing with bothersome mosquitoes. Occasionally she and her crew had close calls with grave robbers. A life of leisure was never to be hers— she wouldn't have wanted it. Not unlike Frederick Catherwood's drawings, Robertson's sublime rubbings brought the Maya to the world visually.

ANCIENT TECHNIQUE

Finished Rubbing, Stela 16, Dos Pilas

Merle Greene Robertson was a legend in the world of Meso-American studies and Maya epigraphy. With over five thousand rubbings to her name, thanks to a generous heart, many landed in museums and universities throughout the world. She not only explored these faraway Maya sites but shared her knowledge with others. Often her expeditions included lucky students who accompanied her in what would no doubt become the experience of a lifetime.

NEVER IN FEAR 

With a career that spanned close to sixty years, it's impossible in a single post to condense all that Robertson accomplished. Turning page after page in her autobiography, Never in Fear, it seemed she lived her life in warp-speed.

Do we shape our lives, or are our lives shaped by our experiences and those we meet along the way? After reading Robertson's autobiography, apparently her future unfolded while growing up in the rural West where she developed an interest in Native American culture.

EARLY BEGINNINGS

Born in Montana, she lived on land flanked by the Rocky Mountains. Her interest in Native American culture was ignited when her father took her to visit Blackfoot Indian chiefs. She was also influenced by nearby Montana neighbor Charles M. Russell, one of the greatest western artists of all time, who encouraged her interest in art and drawing. Meeting Blackfoot Indians and watching Russell paint may have shaped her future at an early age. 

She attended university in California and graduated with a degree in art. Later she attended the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where she studied watercolors, oils, photography, and mural painting for three summers before earning her MFA from University of Guanajuato.

Afterwards she went to Tikal, Guatemala, to work on a University of Pennsylvania project where she made architectural drawings of the Central Acropolis. This was her entry into recording monuments by means of rubbings. The technique is an ancient one, the earliest taken from Buddhist texts on wooden blocks in 8th century Japan, or from rubbings practiced in 2nd century China. Robertson brought it to an art form. Her perfection of the technique showed how rubbings could be a means of documentation of Maya relief sculpture.

SUMMER EXCURSIONS TO MAYA COUNTRY

Central Acropolis, Tikal (Afar)

Robertson's working life was as a teacher at Robert Louis Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, California, where she met her second husband, Lawrence "Bob" Robertson. In the summer of 1960 they began taking students to Guatemala and Mexico for summer vacation. The main purpose of the trips was to record in photos and rubbings the magnificent monuments on which the ancient Maya carved. Even as early as the 1960s, the looting of Maya sites was common and Robertson's desire was to record as much of the Maya civilization as possible before it was hacked to pieces or sold off to private collectors.

PALENQUE AND PAKAL'S TOMB

Though Tikal, her first jungle excursion, stole her heart, once in Mexico, Palenque replaced Tikal as her number one site. Her documentation of the site was revolutionary. She started with the Temple of the Inscriptions. In order to photograph it before beginning her rubbing, giant scaffolding was constructed for her to stand on. Nothing she did was easy. Her rubbing of Pakal's sarcophagus lid, Palenque's greatest ruler, took super-human tenacity.             

She wrote, "The first thing I started on was the sarcophagus lid, down in the crypt of the Temple of the Inscriptions. A rubbing had never been done before. I worked locked in with only a lantern to see by. It was quite a trick getting myself on top of the lid. It took seven sheets of rice paper (1 x 2 meters). Also, I had to use oil paint instead of sumi ink; there could be no way to work on so much space and keep an inked area from running into the sheet of paper next to it. After two weeks working on the sarcophagus, doing several parts of it over time, I felt that Pakal was not only my friend but a long lost relative."

After the lid, she worked on the side. "Standing in water on the floor of the tomb, trying to do the rubbings and not getting the paper wet was no small feat, especially since the space between the walls of the crypt and the sarcophagus was barely wide enough for me to stand. All of the rubbing equipment had to be kept on top of the sarcophagus, making it difficult to reach when standing on the floor.

"Inch by inch, as different features of the ancestors of Pakal emerged, it was as though I was speaking with these dead kings—I now knew them. Being alone in the tomb was like being in their world long ago."

THE SCULPTURE OF PALENQUE

The results of her Palenque work was documented in a series titled The Sculpture of Palenque. She searched out pigment sources in that region to duplicate the colors used by Palenque artists centuries ago. Her impressive collection of rubbings represents a major archive of Maya monuments throughout the Maya world and has been a major resource for scholars studying the culture. 

Temple of the Sun Reconstruction Painting

At Palenque, she met Moises Morales, head guide and major domo of the site. Her friendship with Moises and his family would be a staple in her and Bob's lives for decades. At first he rented them a room and in the 70s built a house next to his in the La Cañada compound.

Merle and Bob worked together on the Maya projects—she as artist and he as jack of all trades, performing behind the scene duties that greased the wheels. Their presence in Palenque became an interest to traveling scholars and and their house, Na Chan-Bahlum, became a meeting place for every archeologist working in Chiapas, the Yucatán Peninsula, and Belize—their door was always open. Palenque is where Linda Schele and Merle met and became fast friends.

MAYA ROUNDTABLE IN PALENQUE

 In 1973, things were beginning to gel in the Maya world. Through conversations initially with Linda Schele and other Mayanists, an idea emerged— why not have a gathering of like minds? They put together a list and sent out feelers for a get-together. Soon afterwards, Merle heard from famed archeologist Michael Coe. He suggested December would be a good time. The idea ignited and the first Maya conference took place in 1973. Through discussions, lectures, late nights and visits to the pyramid structures footsteps away, the group was at the beginnings of breaking the Maya hieroglyphic code and figuring out who the ancient Maya were. The conference became known as Primera Mesa Redonda de Palenque.

Topic talks ranged from art, history, chronology, iconography, early explorers, inscriptions, sacrifice, trade and the surrounding area. Word got out and everyone came: guides, archeologists, scholars, artists, students. Fourteen universities from the US, Mexico, and Canada came and everyone was asked to have a paper ready to give as a lecture on the art, architecture, or iconography of Palenque. The second year, 1974, the governor of Chiapas opened the ceremonies in Palenque's Municipal Auditorium, it had grown that much. The first had convened in Merle and Bob's house in Palenque.

BREAKTHROUGH AT FIRST CONFERENCE

That first year's highlight was the discovery of the names of Palenque's rulers by Floyd Lounsbury, Linda Schele and Peter Mathews. The second year's highlight along with the governor presiding was the attendance of archeologist Dr. Alberto Lhuillier Ruz, famous for his discovery of the Tomb of the Temple of the Inscriptions where Pakal's sarcophagus was buried. Eventually, through the melding of minds, the Maya hieroglyphic code was broken, the turning point being that first Roundtable in 1973. 

Bob and Merle lived in Palenque and helped host Mesas Redondas until Bob's death in May, 1981. Merle went on to do many more Maya rubbings in the Yucatán, specifically at Chichen Itza, where at Hacienda Chichen, Robertson was given her own suite which became headquarters for her crew. After the Chichen Itza project, Merle traveled the world, visiting other archeologists, artists, and friends while painting and walking ancient ruins everywhere on the planet. 

Stela 1, Ixkun, the Peten, Guatemala

MAYA SITES VISITED

During her time studying and recording the Maya, Robertson visited and worked at Tikal, Sayaxche, Dos Pilas, Aguateca, Itsimte, Naranjo, Tamarindito, Ixkun, Ixtutz, El Peten, Seibal, Yaxchilan, Lubaantun, El Baul, Bilboa, Jimbal, Uaxactun, Lamanai, Caracol, El Palmar, Calakmul, Copan, Palenque, and Chichen Itza. She could definitely compete with Dr. Jones. And to my women readers, I'd say she'd come out on top.

Merle Greene Robertson died at her home in San Francisco in 2011. She was 97 years old.

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

MARRIED TO THE MOB—A MEXICANA NARCA FALLS HEAD OVER HEELS FOR HER BODYGUARD

In Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, Layla Navarro falls for her bodyguard, Carlos. This excerpt, a back story on how their relationship unfolded, was not included in Book 1 in the trilogy.

LAYLA AND CARLOS (Mexico City)

Layla often wondered how she'd gotten herself into the crazy relationship with Carlos, her bodyguard. For someone who was supposed to be smart—she was the accountant for the Culiacan Cartel for godsake—she often found herself consumed with emotion because of her feelings for a handsome, overbearing hulk of a man.

On their last business trip to Mexico City, known as CDMX to locals, they almost came to blows. Problems were happening more frequently, not unlike small temblors foreshadowing a substantial seismic shift, the cosmic wake-up call.

They decided to leave Carlos' Escalade at their hotel parking garage and take a taxi over to see Don Ernesto at the Marquis Reforma, a fashionable Art Deco property on Paseo de la Reforma. Ernesto was the Culiacan Cartel's main man for distribution for Mexico City's cocaine and delivery systems, and Layla was in high anxiety mode as she mentally prepared to cram all his expertise into her head at their upcoming meeting.

That night, Carlos had started out all right, no big problems, or no bigger than usual. But when communications with Don Erneseto got down to a higher level of disclosure, the capo gave Carlos a nod and he slunk away but not before giving Laya one of his poisonous "get ready" looks.

He excused himself to the don before exiting the suite. To Layla he said, "I'll be in the downstairs bar. Should I call you?"

She told him to ring up to the room in an hour, which he did. She noticed his voice had a slight slur, not common, but since he didn't need to drive—they'd be taking a taxi—she thought nothing of it. 

"I'll meet you by the elevators in five," she said. She gave Don Ernesto a quick goodbye kiss on both cheeks, then a handshake and finally her requisite, "Ciao." 

She knew things had gone south the instant the elevator doors opened. She could spot trouble and there it stood in the form of her bodyguard. He gave her a hard stare, barely motioned his head in a non-assuming way and moved towards the exit at a slow jog. From that moment she was practically running to keep up with him. Chinga! He was her bodyguard, that were in Mexico City, not some rural pueblo, and he was running away from her. How absurd! 

As they tore out of the hotel's go-round doors onto the lavish drive-up entrance where the bellmen stood, a valet called out, "Taxi, señorita?" 

"No gracias!"

She quickened her pace to keep up. He was way ahead of her and moving fast. For a man his size, he could move.

"Carlos!" she yelled. He didn't turn around. Louder now, "Carlos!"

Then he did a quick twist and yelled back at her as he crossed the street, "Leave me alone. You're nuts! You're the one who's screwed up, not me."

She felt like she'd been hit in the gut with a baseball bat. Passing from the opposite direction was a well-dressed man, mid-thirties, who'd seen Carlos at a near run and Layla, striving to catch up. By this time they were sprinting. The passerby obviously sensed her anguish and called out in passing, "Don't believe him. He's the crazy one, not you."

At that moment she wanted to throw her arms around this total stranger and thank him because she wondered what mistakes she'd made, how much she herself was to blame for their explosive relationship. Somehow Carlos always managed to make her feel like crap no matter what. 

He was pulling ahead. She was losing him now. Damn the heels. He'd crossed yet another block and she was farther behind. She couldn't be alone on these streets; it was Mexico City for God's sake.

"Carlos!" This time she yelled it loud and long. To hell with anyone who might see her running after some man on the street like a common trollop. "Please stop!" 

At that he turned, gauged her distance, took off his coat and tucked it under his arm but moving all the while. He seemed surprised she wasn't farther behind. With that look she knew she had him. She ran with abandon as fast as she could and soon caught up. She was no lightweight but she couldn't be alone in a CDMX hotel room in her line of work. It was unacceptable. Of course she could handle a gun but that wasn't the point. Hijole! What the hell were they paying him for anyway? El Patrón insisted she have protection.

When she caught up with him he was breathing heavily. "Why did you chase me? Chinga!" 

"You will not leave me alone here!" she shouted, surprised by her own show of force. "Do I need to remind you? You're on the payroll." 

In retrospect she realized she should have taken Patrón up on his offer to reassign Carlos a few years back. Her uncle had a knack for reading people and no doubt sensed trouble. That suggestion was his way of letting them both off the hook. Otherwise, Carlos would surely have been expendable. You didn't quit the cartel. The cartel quit you. 

Hijole! Why hadn't she listened to Patrón? Oh, now it seemed totally clear: what she should have done. But back then, they were still too good together, at least in the bedroom. There was the sex, so much sex. The on-going sex, the break-up sex, the make-up sex. And yes, also the fighting and a whole lot of it. Drama and tears, walk-outs and disasters. Hurling names at each other like javelins. No brutality, just two screeching cats, fighting it out. 

Too late now, and this charade had gone on too long. What was it with the men in her life? Were they all pendejos? Did she pick these guys or did they pick her? Even Reynoldo, her brother, God rest his miserable soul. He'd also treated her like dirt. And how long ago was that? She'd been a teenager and he was dissing her back then. She needed one of those internet courses that taught self esteem. You could learn that, right? Or was she stuck in this loop forever, a mere doorstop, even though she commanded all negotiations in Mexico on cocaine and marijuana for the cartel? What the hell was going on? 

Maybe it was time to see Our Lady of Guadalupe at the Basilica of the Virgin. Do penance to Mexico's patron saint, and a woman at that. So maybe she was actually a goddess? Forget about the Virgin Mary. Sure Mexicans pretended they believed all that Catholic stuff. She'd even been forced to go to church herself when her father put her in parochial school before he died. 

Mexico's twisted alternate history ran through her mind. The conquistadors ravaged the land and converted the sinners, or so they thought. What was really happening centuries ago and to this very day was the sly coverup each and every Mexican knew so well. The Virgin Mary wore blue; their sacred and beloved Guadalupe wore blue. Yes, there was a close resemblance, but the dual icons were worlds apart in significance. Go into a church in any Mexican pueblo and who did you see about the altar? Our Lady of Guadalupe, not Mary, Mother of God. And Feast of Guadalupe, December 12th, was more revered that Christmas. 

Mexicans converted the various saints to align with their gods. Catholic holy days coincided with their sacred days. The missionaries were never the wiser. Not unlike the cartels, they were all about volume; they wanted to boast to the European powers how many natives now worshipped their savior. As part and parcel of the Catholic Church, they cared only about numbers. 

It was a thinly veiled conspiracy. The Mexican, Aztecs, the Nahuatl, the Maya, they all pretended they'd been saved by the blood of the Lord. But they had merely converted Christianity into their form of paganism. In Oaxaca, Chiapas, the mountains of Michoacán, where the indigenous people were strongest, that's where shaman still ruled the villages and the ancient calendar, Aztec or Maya, governed lives. Not the book of the Lord. The calendar was the way. And the local shaman, who at times would pose as a priest, served as every pueblo's mayor and major domo. He settled disputes, gave readings, sanctioned marriages, named children from their calendar make-up not unlike astrology, divined dreams, cured illnesses and helped choose life paths for his flock.

Lost in thought, she stared at Carlos, her hotheaded bodyguard and lover, still huffing from their Olympic style run. For some reason she flashed on shaman Don Cuauhtemoc's reading from so long ago: "The woman is coming." God, she hoped it actually meant something.

If you enjoyed this missing excerpt from Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, order a copy from Amazon. Also on Amazon, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Find book two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Tulum Takedown, on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.