HOW THE CASTE WAR OF YUCATÁN GAINED MOMENTUM FROM A SPEAKING CROSS IN THE JUNGLE

Caste War mural by Marcélo Jiminez

CASTE WAR

PART 2

The Caste War of Yucatán began in 1847 and dragged on for decades. Tired from years of struggle, the Maya regained confidence from an unlikely source: a talking cross found deep in the jungle near a cenote. Revolutionary Jose Maria Barrera, driven from his Yucatán pueblo, led his band of people to an uninhabited forest and to a small cenote called Lom Ha (Cleft Spring). It was there he discovered a cross that was carved into a tree. The cross bore a resemblance to the Maya tree of life, la Ceiba, and a new religion formed around it, the cult of the speaking cross. 

JOSE MARIA BARRERA

Barrera said the cross transmitted a message which was later given as a sermon by Juan de la Cruz (of the Cross), a man trained to lead religious services in absence of a Maya holy man. Barrera also used a ventriloquist, Manuel Nahuat, as the mouthpiece of the cross, and through this directed the Maya in their war effort, urging them to take up arms against the Mexican government, assuring the people of the cross they would attain victory. All withstanding, the talking cross served as a symbol of hope for the Maya.

Painting by Marcélo Jiminez from Caste War Museum

CRUZOB MAYA

From this speaking cross a community evolved—Chan Santa Cruz (Little Holy Cross)—and its inhabitants came to be called Cruzob, or followers of the cross. By chance, the cross bore three elements sacred to the Maya: the Ceiba tree, the cenote, and a cave. The cross was found growing on the roots of a Ceiba tree that sprung from a cave near a cenote. As explained by Nicoletta Maestra, the most sacred tree for ancient Maya is la Ceiba. According to their mythology, it is the symbol of the universe. Its roots are said to reach down into the underworld, the trunk represents the middle world where humans live, and its branches arch into the sky symbolizing the upper world and the thirteen levels of the Maya heavens. The Maya viewed caves as the entrance to the underworld and the domain of the rain gods. 

Reproduction of the World Tree in Madrid Codex, Museo de Madrid (photo Simon Burchell)

TALKING CROSS

It wasn’t a far stretch for the Maya to believe the cross spoke to them. In the ancient Maya text, Chilam Balam, priests were said to have heard voices from the gods. So even this aspect of mysticism fell into acceptable practice for the Maya. To the Chan Santa Cruz, the voice of God came from that cross in that tree. It told the war chiefs that the battle should continue and the people should be patient in their fight.

Chan Santa Cruz rebels (photo Ambergriscaye.com)

To the Cruzob, even though the cross was inspired by a shamanic ventriloquist, the man speaking to them through the cross was God’s chattel, a mouthpiece of the gods. The Cruzobs believed this tree and this cross were connected underground, one hundred kilometers from Lom Ha cenote to Xocen—the center of the world—where the first speaking cross came from. As more and more people heard about the cross, a new religion was born.

Four crosses are said to exist at counter points—tips of the cross—marking the boundaries of the Cruzob Maya. The religion is still practiced and ceremonies performed in these four sacred shrine villages: Tixcacal Guardia, Chancah Veracruz, Chumpon and Tulum, whose geographic positions roughly describe the territory of the Cruzob Maya. In 1935, the Chan Santa Cruz from these last holdout villages signed a treaty of sorts which allowed the rest of Mexico to rule them. The jungle-wise Maya had kept the Mexican government at bay for nearly one hundred years.

COUNTER POINT IN TULUM

I visited the church of the speaking cross in Tulum years ago. Hiding in plain sight and sitting very near el Centro, it was a humble white-washed structure surrounded by trees. A narrow path with overgrown shrubs on either side disguised the entrance that led up to it. Before entering the churchyard, I passed through an enclosed area where a custodial guard sat. He gave a nod and I continued on towards the church. A posted sign instructed that shoes and hats were forbidden, as were photos.

Inside votive candles were lit and the musky scent of copal wafted through the darkened church. The interior was a large open room with seating. Straight ahead, three crosses covered in small white huipil-like veiis sat on an otherwise barren altar. The room held little else except for a Maya woman kneeling on a blanket in a rear corner. Eventually I stepped back outside into blinding Yucatán sunshine. 

Huipil covered crosses (photo by Marina Hayman)

ORIGINAL CROSS

Of the four crosses held at the counter points, one is said to be the original. Tixcacal Guardia village elders fiercely guard what they swear is the original speaking cross and let no outsiders near it. It's kept in a city within a city, much like the Vatican, according to blogger Logan Hawkes, safely hidden away from all save the Cruzob spiritual leaders—a head shaman and a circle of elders. For generations, Maya have flocked to these outposts to worship a wooden cross that became a dynamic part of their history during the Caste War of Yucatán. In Tixcacal Guardia, the church which houses the cross is open to the public on feast days only, but even then it's said the artifact is not on display. It's located on an altar covered with veils in a blocked-off section called La Gloria. No one is allowed to enter the inner sanctum and the cross is guarded day and night by Maya from the region.

Image by Sac-be.com

FELIPE CARRILLO PUERTO

Even though Chan Santa Cruz, the rebels' capital city, now Felipe Carrillo Puerto in southern Quintana Roo, is not one of the counter points of the cross bearers, it was the main stronghold of the Cruzob Maya rebels during the war. To this day a rotating team of followers keep one week vigils at a local chapel where a flower-adorned shrine is set up in honor of the cross. Tihosuco, an hour to the northwest, is home to the Caste War Museum.

Caste War Museum in Tihosuco

With history this unique, it's not hard to realize that the newly founded Riviera Maya is but a shell for a more mysterious land of an ancient, respected people who have had an ongoing conversation with the gods and the universe for more than a millennium.

For more information on the Maya and my writing, check www.jeaninekitchel.com. Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, is available on Amazon as are books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown. For you Mayaphiles, my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is also on Amazon.

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THE MAYA STRUGGLE THAT LASTED GENERATIONS—THE CASTE WAR OF YUCATÁN

      

Original mural depicting Caste War from Belize.com at Corozal Board Building

                                               

Living in the land of the Maya one takes for granted the solemn undercurrent of a revered, majestic culture that built pyramids, developed the concept of zero, and for centuries, quietly held their ground against the Spanish when their Aztec cousins had succumbed to The Conquest in a heartbeat.

While sunbathing on endless white sand beaches, snorkeling off the Great Meso-America Reef or simply kicking back to enjoy Mexico’s gracious hospitality, it’s easy to forget to whom one owes allegiance in Quintana Roo. But just beneath the surface of a postcard perfect existence lies a Yucatán tale that isn’t much talked about but has set the tone for the past century: the Caste War of Yucatán.

When cultures collide, history requires a winner and a loser. But in Quintana Roo after the Caste War, which began in 1847 and ended first in 1901 and again in 1935 with a half-hearted truce, it’s difficult to determine who won the battle and which side lost the war.

UNSAFE PASSAGE

From 1847 until the 1930s, the Caste War made it impossible for a light-skinned person to walk into the eastern Yucatán or the territory of Quintana Roo and come out alive. This was a place where only indigenous Maya could safely roam. Anyone with light skin was killed on sight. What caused the fierceness of this Maya uprising that lasted nearly a century?

No single element alone instigated the rebellion, but as in most revolutions, a long dominated underclass was finally pushed to its limits by an overbearing ruling class that had performed intolerable deeds. Indentured servitude, land grabbing, and restrictive water rights were but a few issues that pushed the Maya into full-fledged revolt against their Yucatan overlords.

MEXICAN WAR AND THE MAYA

Mural of Caste War in Municipal Building in Valladolid

The history of the Caste War, not unlike Mexico’s dramatic history, is complicated. Mexico’s successful break with Spain led to changes in the Yucatán government, including arming the Maya to help fight the Mexican war against the US in Texas. Maya numbers were needed to assure victory. Armed with rifles and machetes, this tactic backfired in Valladolid, considered the most elitist and race conscious city in the Yucatán.

After a decade of skirmishes, in 1847, when the newly armed Maya heard one of their leaders had been put to death by firing squad, a long simmering rebellion broke out into full-fledged battle. The Maya rose up and marched on Valladolid, hacking 85 to death by machete, burning, raping, and pillaging along the way.

VALLADOLID MASSACRE

Merida braced itself, sure to be the next staging ground for what was fast becoming a race war. In retaliation for the Valladolid massacre, Yucatecans descended on the ranch of a Maya leader and raped a 12-year old indigenous girl. With this affront, eight Maya tribes joined forces and drove the entire white population of Yucatán to Merida, burning houses and pillaging as they went. So fierce was the slaughter that anyone who was not of Maya descent prepared to evacuate Merida and the peninsula by boat.

But just as the Maya tribes approached Merida, sure of victory, fate intervened when great clouds of winged ants appeared in the sky. With this first sign of rain coming, the Maya knew it was time to begin planting. They laid down their machetes against the pleadings of their chiefs and headed home to their milpas (cornfields). It was time to plant corn—a thing as simple and ancient as that.

YUCATECANS STAGE COMEBACK

In 1848 the Yucatecans staged a comback, killed Maya leaders, and reunified. But as the Maya harvested corn planted in hidden fields, they kept fighting, relying on guerrilla tactics to preserve the only life they knew.

Throughout it all, the Maya were pushed to the eastern and southern regions of the Yucatán Peninsula and Quintana Roo, as far south as Bacalar. Mexico slowly gained control over the Yucatán, but rebel Maya held firmly onto QRoo, using Chan Santa Cruz (Felipe Carrillo Puerto) as their base.

Tired from years of struggle, the Maya regained confidence from an unlikely source: a talking cross found deep in the jungle near a cenote.

CHURCH OF THE SPEAKING CROSS

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Caste War of Yucatán—The Church of the Speaking Cross and the Chan Santa Cruz Maya, in my next post, January 8. To learn more on the subject, The Caste War of Yucatán by Nelson Reed, one of my reference materials, is an excellent read.

Painting by Mario Jiminez

Nelson Reed's The Caste War of Yucatán

For more information on my writing, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, is available on Amazon as are books one and two of my Wheels Up cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, also on Amazon. For you Mayaphiles, my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar is also on Amazon–-Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy. 

Subscribe above to keep up to date with future blogs on Mexico and the Maya and the Yucatán.

A MEXICO ADVENTURE TALE: THE LOST WORLD OF QUINTANA ROO

 

Today’s Cancun radiates luxury, flash, and all things civilized. When I first traveled there in the 1980s, though it wasn’t the sophisticated resort city it is today, it was no backwater. It had a Club Med, a spiffy hotel zone, and in 1989 played host to the Miss Universe pageant. At the time, Cancun, in the state of Quintana Roo, was not well known, but its clear turquoise waters and white sand beaches served as an enticing backdrop to a world-wide audience. Cancun was ready for its close-up.

Back then, you could venture a mere five miles north or south and find yourself traipsing through tangled jungles or walking alone on desolate beaches. Though I considered myself a seasoned Mexico traveler I’d never ventured to the Yucatán Peninsula, and my introduction to its eastern shores came unexpectedly. I found an out-of-print book, The Lost World of Quintana Roo, in a vintage book shop in Moss Landing, California.

Along with a compelling cover, the dust flap intrigued me. “This is the true story of a remarkable adventure. Michel Peissel, a young Frenchman with an international background, was stranded on the coast of Quintana Roo in eastern Yucatán, abandoned by boatmen he had engaged to take him southward.” 

I was hooked.

Peissel's tale was a tall adventure indeed. Sixty years ago he walked the land, and considered Quintana Roo to be "the most savage and wild coast on the American continent."

It was a mere territory, with no laws, no government, no roads— accessible only by sea or on foot.

In 1958 this was how Peissel, then just 21-years old, discovered it. Through a strange set of circum-stances, Peissel’s fate led him on a solo walk through thick mangroves and dense jungles from the northern tip of Quintana Roo to Belize.

MEXICO SABBATICAL

On graduating from Harvard in 1958, Peissel planned a six-month sabbatical in Mexico before entering grad school for a business career. After meeting a well-traveled German writer in Mexico City, he became fascinated with a little known territory on the Yucatán Peninsula, Quintana Roo. Peissel first headed to Merida, then Progreso, where he chartered a boat to Cozumel. From there he planned to sail down the Quintana Roo coast. After arriving in Cozumel he hired two young Maya boys with an 11-foot vessel, bamboo mast and rag sail, to take him to the QRoo mainland.

After a harrowing eight-hour crossing, they arrived at Puha, a coco plantation or cocal, on the mainland. At that time the coast was entirely uninhabited except for Puha, Puerto Morelos, and Tankah. Exhausted, Peissel fell asleep and missed the second half of the journey on the Maya sailboat, which left him with a fateful decision—how to get to Chetumal in a land with no roads and virtually no people. After being abandoned, his only hope to exit the jungle was to travel on foot from cocal to cocal, relying on the assistance of the Maya who lived there for food, water, and direction.

LONG JOURNEY

Wearing only sandals as his boots left with the boat, he began his two hundred mile journey through dense jungle and mangrove swamps. He was chased by chiclero bandits (chickle cutters for gum trees) and encountered Chan Santa Cruz Indians, who until then killed any light-skinned person on sight as the Caste War of Yucatán had ended just twenty years earlier. He partook in religious ceremonies with indigenous Maya and stumbled onto unknown pyramid sites. Peissel became the first person known to walk the coast of Quintana Roo, arriving in Belize forty days later.

RETURN TRIP

It would be three years before Peissel made a return trip and in that time he found many things had changed along the QRoo coast. In 1974 Quintana Roo became a state of Mexico and shortly thereafter the Mexico Tourist Council devised a project for a planned resort community which is now present day Cancun.

Years later Peissel again returned to Quintana Roo. He paddled and sailed his way down the coast on a Maya seagoing dugout canoe. After his early adventure to Quintana Roo, he abandoned his plans to become a banker and went on to write fifteen books and produce twenty documentary films. Because of his journey to Quintana Roo, journeying to other outback destinations like Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan would become his life’s passion. Peissel died in Paris October 7, 2011. At 74, his was an adventurous life well lived.

On a personal note, I was contacted by the author after I wrote a review of the 1963 Lost World publication in 2000 for the Miami Herald. The review reached Peissel in Paris; he located me through email and thanked me for it. He mentioned the book was out of print and if f I knew of a publisher who might want to re-publish, to let him know. I had few publishing contacts, but I was excited to have been contacted by Peissel. I later heard from his brother Bernard who explained he'd read the review and forwarded it to Michel. We remained in contact and it was Bernard who informed me of Michel's passing.  

                                        

But my six degrees of separation with Michel did not stop with the review. I traveled to Paris and one of my stops was Shakespeare & Company. Owning a bookstore in Mexico as an expat drew me to this famous Parisian landmark. By chance I met the owner, George Whitman. Though an ocean apart, we were kindred spirits—expats with bookstores on foreign soil. When I told him about Alma Libre Libros, he asked what part of Mexico it was in.

I said Quintana Roo. And then the conversation got real interesting. "Quintana Roo? Quintana Roo! I walked Quintana Roo when I was young."

"You've been there?"

"Oh yes, in the thirties I traveled through Mexico. My visa ran out and I helped build a bridge between Chetumal and Belize to get my papers in order." 

"Have you read The Lost World of Quintana Roo?" I asked. "By Michel Peissel?" 

"Michel, of course. He'd come into the bookshop when he wa a student at the Sorbonne. We often talked about my travels in Quintana Roo."

So Peissel had piggy-backed onto Whitman's true life adventure. Whitman was his game changer as Peissel was mine. I'd come full circle, from finding an out-of-print book in California that became the heart of my Mexico desire, inspiring me to travel south and settle as an expat in Mexico. To top that off, I accidentally met Whitman in Paris, who connected the dots with Peissel. Aaah, life can be sweet.

Though the book is out of print, it's possible to find copies through various sellers. It's a compelling tale. Climb aboard and be ready for a fascinating armchair adventure. 

For more information on my writing, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. My first book, a travel memoir, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, is available on Amazon as are books one and two of my cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, also on Amazon.

Subscribe above to keep up to date with future blogs on Mexico and the Maya and the Yucatán and various other topics. Share with a friend!

 Vintage photographs are taken from The Lost World of Quintana Roo.

MAYA 19th CENTURY SCHOLARS TRIED TO LINK BEGINNING OF CIVILIZATION TO YUCATÁN MAYA

 

A fabricated myth about a Maya princess named Queen Moo and her warrior king brother, Prince ChacMool, seduced two prominent Maya scholars, August LePlongeon and wife Alice Dixon, into promoting an unfounded theory that civilization began in the New World with the Maya.

LePlongeon and Dixon were viewed as the Maya world's 'new age' scholars because of this far-fetched belief, and the theory branded LePlongeon as an eccentric crackpot, earning him the disdain of those in his field.

A DREAM OF MAYA

The belief that the Maya held the key to civilization fueled their desire to explore the Yucatán's ancient pyramid sites in the late 1800s. Larry Desmond and Phyllis Messenger's book, A Dream of Maya, gives deep insight into LePlongeon and Dixon's lives, explaining their controversial views and documenting their hard-nosed earnestness and early pioneering excavations—from digging up ruins, to drawing architectural floor plans, to tracing murals, along with their detailed photographic records. They were also early-on students of a photographic technique that used glass and plate negatives.

As Desmond explains, if history had been kinder to the LePlongeons, it would have depicted an extraordinary couple whose lifelong work had not been fairly appraised. Their explorations occurred during a time of historic uprising, the Caste War of Yucatán. They were there at its height.

OFF TO PERU

LePlongeon, a Frenchman, left France after a distinguished university education to study earthquakes in Peru and to explore the country's archeological sites. This launched him into a lifelong study of scrutinizing ancient ruins and looking for clues about their builders. In Peru he began to form his ideas on the origin of the world's civilizations.

While there he heard about the California gold rush and jumped a ship to partake in that historic event, spending several years in gold rush country where he speculated on land and came away with thirty thousand in profits, enough to fund his South American travels.

During his stay in California he apprenticed under a physician for three years and received a certificate as a doctor's tutor. But before heading back to South America, he sailed to Europe where he stumbled onto a new photographic technique using paper instead of metal. He urged the inventor to teach him the process which would serve him well while uncovering Yucatecan ruins, enabling him to document his discoveries. His photos of sites Uxmal and Chichen Itza remain some of the best ever taken as they show the ruins as they stood for eons, long before archeologists re-discovered them. Sadly many of LePlongeon's negatives and photos have been lost. 

ENTER ALICE AND THE YUCATÁN

LePlongeon met Alice Dixon while in Europe. They were married and for their honeymoon, set sail for Cuba, then onto Progreso, Mexico. They landed in 1873.

A bout with yellow fever for Alice dampened their arrival but LePlongeon nursed her back to health. During her recuperation the two began to study Yucatecan Maya and became acquainted with local scholars. They believed communicating with the 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 Yucatán.

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 took photos, cleared the land to better see the site, and were determined to return again later.

CHICHEN ITZA AND CHACMOOL

The number one item on LePlongeon's bucket list was Chichen Itza. He'd heard from a local that a sacred book or codex (hieroglyphic text) was buried there, in a building with many chambers, called Akab Dziba. Destiny called and LePlongeon believed he could further his theory of Maya world supremacism if he could locate the text.

At the time, however, all areas surrounding Chichen Itza, including the nearby pueblo Piste, were overrun with invading Chan Santa Cruz Indians who were doing battle in the Caste War of Yucatán. War or no war, LePlongeon was determined to test his theory, asking local authorities to post soldiers around the site while they searched for the text.

On locating the Akab Dziba, LePlongeon noticed the presence of glyphs on a lintel which he believed would further his theory. He took 500 stereoscopic photos including close-ups which showed hieroglyphic details. In their early excavation of the site, he and Alice also traced a number of murals and made molds in bas relief.

QUEEN MOO AND PRINCE CHACMOOL

They fixated on the Upper Temple of the Jaguars, near the ball court. The year was 1875. The workers discovered a large slab with carved figures holding outstretched arms. LePlongeon called it Atlantis. Murals on walls in the Upper Temple 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 the jaguar in Mayan. This flimsy attempt at a scholarly decision became the basis for his Maya myth and led to much of the derision that plagued his career.

After studying the mural for weeks, he determined Queen Moo of Chichen Itza had been forced to flee to Egypt bringing with her all the philosophies of the Maya, thereby cementing his idea that Egyptian civilization was founded by Maya.

So much for far-out theories. But LePlongeon was soon to discover "through stones that spoke to him," a small mound, and under it, through what he determined was spiritual guidance, the famous statue ChacMool, five feet long weighing hundreds of pounds. A replica, on display at the Anthropology Museum of Merida, 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 mistranslation by one of his missives to a benefactor. The LePlongeons' struggled to bring the statue to the States to display in Philadelphia at the America Centennial Exposition, but the Mexico president denied their request.

"SURROUNDED BY ENEMIES"

In the meantime, they sent other Maya artifacts to the US to display at centennial ceremonies, but the objects arrived too late. Also, photos that LePlongeon 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 meager was their situation.

"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 finding the incredible artifact but in delivering it to the pueblo Piste; they picked up and went on to other ruins—Mayapan, and also to sites in Honduras.

Their travels would continue for nearly twenty more years, and they would write prolifically about the Maya, both fact and fiction. Alice became well known for a series of articles written for the New York Times and other publications that romanticized the Maya world. They both lectured non-stop in Europe and the US, promoting the Yucatán pyramids and the Maya.

Augustus LePlongeon died December 1908 in Brooklyn at 82. Alice died two years later in 1910 leaving the balance of their findings with a friend, Gladys Blackwell, who was instructed to distribute their materials to "someone who would listen."

When reviewing the troubles, excursions, and the rebuffs this couple experienced, all to try to illuminate information on an ancient civilization, it boggles the mind. They were robbed of their efforts and disparaged because Augustus LePlongeon's vision was to try and discover through linguistics, field study, and comparative religions, the Maya way. Surrounded by enemies indeed.

For more information on my writing, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. My first book, a travel memoir titled Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya is available on Amazon, as is Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, which is a journalistic overview of the 2012 calendar phenomenon. Books two and three of my Wheels Up cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival and Tulum Takedown are also available on Amazon. Subscribe above to keep up to date with further blogs on Mexico and the Maya and the Yucatán.

Vintage photographs come from Larry Desmond in A Dream of Maya.

THE MAGIC OF YUCATÁN'S MARKETPLACE AND CUISINE

 

If you've traveled to Mexico, you know Mexican food has more flare than just a bite at Taco Bell or a mere plate of enchiladas, rice, and beans. On Mexico's dueling coasts, one is bombarded with a potpourri of seafood, from shrimp and lobster to delectable fresh fish—bonito, dorado, albacore—the likes you've never tasted elsewhere. And in the country's vast interior, every city and pueblo boasts their own local ingredients, depending on what is grown or hunted nearby, using unique herbs, spicy peppers, and recipes from centuries back. Mexican food, especially in Mexico, is a wondrous jolt to the senses.

MAYA AND THE YUCATÁN

Nowhere is the food of Mexico more unique than on the Yucatán Peninsula where the Maya culture reigns. Though inland and other coastal areas employ the triumvirate of corn (maize), beans, and squash, paying homage to Aztec culture, these are also basic foods on the Peninsula. Because the Yucatán was a land apart for centuries, a near sovereign nation, even after the Spanish invasion until the 1700s it carried on in the Maya tradition, employing its own unique set of condiments, plants and vegetables given the region's bountiful resources. Vanilla, cacao, salt, achiote, allspice, a plethora of unique fruits, and as everywhere else in Mexico, chiles, brought in through trade with the Antilles.

Geography played a part in the exclusion of Yucatecan food from foods elsewhere in the country. At one time considered an island, and finally known to be a peninsula, it remained distanced from mainland Mexico by rugged terrain and vast jungles. So thick were they that when Spanish conquistadores led by Cortes went searching for a supposed city of gold (near Mexico's southern border) they rode within one hundred kilometers of the pyramid site Palenque, having no clue they had passed near the outskirts of one of the Maya's greatest ceremonial centers. 

YUCATECAN FOOD—A WORLD APART

Because of its solitaire status, Yucatecan food is not considered to be Mexican food, and Yucatecans will proudly tell you so. As the 19th century progressed, it became easier for wealthy Peninsula locals to travel to Cuba or even Europe rather than to mainland Mexico, so limited was the transportation in between. With newly acquired status as the world's main supplier of henequen, the material used for the popular Panama hat, Merida's fortunes grew, ushering in a new privileged class. The city had a European vibe rather than Mexican. With a trans-Atlantic port at Progreso, twenty miles from Merida, goods were carried  to and from the European continent, and the population grew accustomed to not only European fashions but new flavors and spices, amplifying the evolution of Yucatecan cooking.

THE MARKETPLACE

Inventive cooking techniques fall on the broad shoulders of a proud and inventive people who defined a different type of cooking from that of their inland neighbors: the Maya, who have inhabited the Peninsula for millennia. In the past forty years, famous chefs have visited the region to learn more about the distinctive fare developed by them.  In Mexico and the Yucatán, the beginning of every meal begins with a trip to the local market or mercado—be it the tiniest of pueblos or a thriving city like Merida, capitol of Yucatán. The bustling, thriving Merida mercado covers 156,000 square feet and boasts over two thousand vendors, serving one hundred thousand customers daily. 

The original market consisted of vendors selling on the steps of government buildings in the main zocalo in the 1700s. Eventually it moved to its present location in 1949, and was named after Mayor Lucas de Galvez. Everything from fruits, nuts, meats, fish, vegetables, pots and pans, utensils and knives, hammocks, clothing, poultry, pets, machinery and more is sold, beginning daily at 5 a.m.

 

YUCATECAN STAPLES

The basis for Yucatecan cooking consists of four staples: Recados, the curries of Mexico—exotic blends of spices made into paste or powder and used to flavor savory dishes; beans in some shape or form; salsas to add a piquant jolt to the food, and pork lard, which is flavorful, their form of an oil, and not as toxic as one might think.

In cooking, the Maya often smoke foods, either as a preservative or flavoring, in chiles, meat and fish. Underground "ovens" are used, or p'bil, where the meat is covered in banana leaves, dropped into a pit and cooked for hours on end. Barbacoas are used, a rack above a fire, for roasting, and of course steaming in pots or directly placed in hot ashes is also common.

FAVORITE DISHES

Some of my favorite Yucatecan dishes are cochinita pibil—pork marinated with achiote and wrapped in banana leaves, then put into a pit for hours (known also as pulled pork); salbutes—hand-sized tortillas with shredded turkey and cabbage, pickled onion on top, and avocado slice; grilled chicken marinated in achiote and sour oranges; and one I long to taste—Pavo and relleno negro—wild turkey stuffed with chopped sausage, chicken livers and a hardboiled egg in a black relleno sauce. That is yet to come.

According to food maven Martha Stewart, Yucatecan food may be the world's first fusion cuisine. Makes me hungry just thinking about it!

For more information on my writing, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. My first book, a travel memoir titled Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya is available on Amazon, as is Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, which is a journalistic overview of the 2012 calendar phenomenon. Books two and three of my Wheels Up cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival and Tulum Takedown are also available on Amazon. Subscribe above to keep up to date with further blogs on Mexico and the Maya and the Yucatán.