Here is Part 3 of a fantastic 5-part series by our contributing writer Michal Pawlus, describing in more detail the concession to conquer the Maya Yucatan. You can find the full series linked below.
Interrogation of Faith
Antonio de Ciudad Real wrote in 1588 that when reaching Yucatan they asked the local ruler what the name of this place was, but he did not understand what the Spanish were saying, so he answered uic athan in his language, which meant what do you speak, we do not understand you. So the Spaniards considered this place to be called the Yucatan.
This name is a symbol of a new chapter in the history of this region and the emergence of a new identity on the peninsula. The beginning of the period of political and religious struggle on the peninsula and the feeling of its separateness from Mexico and attempts to create one’s own state. An example would be the seasonal state of the Republic of Yucatan.
This series of articles will focus on the “last days of the Mayans” during the Spanish conquest of the Yucatan, and their effects.
Concession to Conquer the Yucatan is a Pentalogy that has the following five parts:
1. Concession to Conquer the Yucatan: Incomprehensible Language
2. Concession to Conquer the Yucatan: People called Yucatecos
3. Concession to Conquer the Yucatan: Interrogation of Faith (We are here)
4. Concession to Conquer the Yucatan: Standard of the Maya people
5. Concession to Conquer the Yucatan: Green Jaguar
Investigation against the Inquisition
Diego de Landa Franciscan was Prior of Merida and Second Bishop of Yucatan. He was born on November 12, 1524, in the city of Alcarria, Spain.
At the age of 16, he became a monk, and in 1549 he went to New Spain to spread the Catholic faith in the newly discovered lands.
For the rest of his life, Landa converted the Tunya people in the Yucatan, and it was there in the sixteenth century that there were religious and philosophical tensions with his participation.
He was a supporter of the unconditional Christianization of the Maya in Yucatan, which was reflected in the increasing number of drastic methods that were taken against Mayans suspected of idolatry.
In 1562, Landa was the initiator of the events known as auto-da-fé, which in Portuguese means an act of faith. It was a ritual of public penance performed for convicted heretics and apostates. The reason for his actions, as he himself justified it, was to find evidence that the Maya, even those who were previously considered converts, were indulging in idolatrous practices and human sacrifice (children). The actions they took were as follows. In the city of Maní in Yucatan, he burned a large number of Mayan books, smashed their altars and their idol statues. Some accounts give the number of 5,000 different idols, 13 great stones for altars, and 27 scrolls with Mayan signs and hieroglyphs.
Diego de Landa in his work Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán wrote:
We found a large number of books, and since everything in them was superstition and forgery, we burned them, which caused them (the Mayans) great suffering and filled them with great sorrow.
As a consequence of his actions, there were conflicts in the Yucatan between the Native Land and the settlers over the legality and equity of his actions, which began to destabilize the provinces.
In 1562, Francisco de Toral became the first Bishop of Yucatan.
Toral was born in 1502, knew the Nahuatl and Popoloca languages, and prepared a dictionary and grammar of the latter. He also charged Bernardino de Sahagún with the creation of the Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España. In the sixties of the sixteenth century, this was Landa’s main adversary.
Toral’s strategy was to focus on the lawfulness of the brethren’s procedures.
Inadequate documentation, excessive penalties imposed, injuries and deaths suffered during interrogations. Landa, on the other hand, tried to draw attention to the seriousness of the Native Americans’ crimes and the clear duty of the bishop to explain them.
Toral entrusted missions to two brothers Brusselas and de la Puebla, who were previously responsible for terrorizing the Hocaba-Homun province.
They were to accept formal written submissions from the natives they had previously questioned.
The statements were to be voluntary, they could not torture them. This was the main difference between Toral and Landa, who believed that psychological superiority and authority were enough to find out the truth. The brothers’ report was based on fifteen statements in which the natives admitted that about thirty-five children had died in the past ten years. Vivid images of the victims emerged from the testimonies. There was nothing in the statements about the burning of crosses or the crucifixion of the victim, but there were descriptions of the drastic methods that had taken place three years earlier, in which the heart of two children was cut out, a little girl tied to a stake and beaten in the chest with a barbed club until she died. Two sacrifices were made at the Sacred Cenote in Chichen Itza. Subsequent reports for which Magan was responsible described the natives mainly as idolaters, which he identified with the ineffective teaching of the Landa monks.
The method of the monks to convert the natives was not the conversion of an individual, but a collective process in which whole communities, by being baptized, practiced Catholic rituals and traditions.
But there were few Catholic settlers. And in the countryside, the natives who lived amongst each other quickly began to forget about the new religion.
The response of the Landa monks to the return to idolatry was to commit crimes in the name of the Christian faith, these crimes later becoming more expressive than the crimes of the Maya. Most of the settlers did not witness human sacrifice, and idolatry did not play a primary role for them, as it did for religion.
The Encomenderos wanted the peaceful and prosperous workforce that Landa locked up in prisons. Landa, who had previously defeated the Encomendero Hernandez, now faced many influential and important settlers who supported Toral.
The Franciscan Fray Lorenzo de Bienvenida, the Order’s General Commissioner, supported Toral and condemned the actions of the monks in the Yucatan. Toral began handing down his final verdicts on the Native Americans still held in custody. He imposed a slight penance on the indigenous chiefs for their professed idolatry and sent them back to their villages.
Toral had most of the assets to bring down Landa.
The Others Council, which administered the colonies in the new world, was interested in the Länder case, and Toral took advantage of it. After the obvious allegations of torture and disruption of life in the colonies, he raised questions and presumptions about the character of Landa. Why was he in conflict with all authorities, religious and secular? Did he make his present-day fame by craftsmanship by manipulating the brethren of the Order and driving out of the provinces those old and learned men who might oppose him? Had he recruited ignorant young people into the Order, and had these ignorant young people then been given extensive power over both Spaniards?
Nine leading influential settlers supported the questions Toral posed about Landa.
Landa continued to fight. Unable to win in Yucatan, he decided to fight in Spain, which was to be more favorable to him than the ‘ungrateful colony’
The Yucatan – the land from which colonization was delayed, the land where great riches did not exist for the conquistadors – became a training ground for the fight for one of the most valuable treasures, souls. Divisions and conflicts in the province kept accumulating. Bishop Toral was welcomed in 1562 by natives and settlers as the deliverer of the province against the tyranny of Landa in 1566
The bishop was accused of abuse of power, lack of separation of spiritual and secular authority, financing of the church, and supremacy over the natives.
They started to make mistakes about their predecessor, or he could not cope with the new role. While in Spain, Landa agitated the Franciscans against Toral. Toral felt the effects of this agitation in 1564 when there were no monks in the Yucatan, and Christianization was not going well.
Toral asked the Crown and the Franciscans for help and to send more monks to the peninsula. The Franciscans flatly refused because Landa showed the Franciscans one of the Toral letters condemning the Yucatan monks.
Toral resigned as Bishop in 1566 but still continued to deal with the events of 1562 and matters relating to monks and Landa in the Yucatan until the end of his life.
The Christianization vacuum that intensified after Toral’s resignation became a second chance for Landa, who had the support of the Franciscans in Spain. They wrote a letter to the king to return Landa to his former position because of the need to renew the evangelistic missions in the Yucatan.
This request was granted, and in 1573 Landa and his friars returned as the second bishop of Yucatan.
But this time, Landa did not have as much power as before.
Years of conflict prepared the Yucatan people for the rule of Landa, who were instructed to abide by a 1557 ordinance that prohibited the imprisonment, flogging, or mockery of the natives by clerics.
In 1570, when the Holy Office of the Inquisition was established in India, the Native Americans were specifically excluded from its jurisdiction because many of them were not well instructed in the faith. Landa still wanted to put pressure on secular authorities, but this time the governor of Yucatan Governor Velázquez de Gijón turned out to be a strong opponent for the Franciscan. When the Governor felt intimidated by Lande who sent his man to the Governor, threatening him with ex-communication, he would imprison the envoy.
Landa did not regain such wide autonomy and failed to reestablish abuses that had occurred before 1562. Landa died in 1579 at the age of fifty-four.
Faith Jurisdiction
One of the factors of the chaos in the Yucatan Peninsula was the inaccurate definition of the Jurisdiction of secular and ecclesiastical institutions. This was due to the fact that the Crown did not want all or most of the power in the new colony to be in the hands of one man who would be out of control, due to the great distance from Spain and the large area of the colony.
But the unspecified jurisdiction led to conflicts, fighting for ‘territory’ between officials and clergy, and above all, fighting for the Native Americans as a thing, which destabilized the provinces and could result in rebels.
The settlers and Franciscans of the Yucatan could see their actions as an opportunity to create a new world in their own image and their own imaginations.
The natives, on the other hand, were at the center of these conflicts.
Due to the lack of administrative consistency, each interest group wanted to do as much as possible to the Maya for themselves. The monks wanted fanatical neophytes whom they defended against encomenderos as long as they did what they were told to do. The settlers wanted the Native workforce and peace in the province, and the ancient Mayan priestly caste and native believers performed rituals. Therefore, crimes were the driving force of the Yucatan, which was driven by the frustration and helplessness of each side that was counting on the immediate results of its desires.
Landa could expect to get patience, humanitarianism (no sacrifice and no idolatry), instinctively following the Christian teachings which for him were the natural law of the world. But the desire to unite the natives, and to be their governor who will freely use his power and authority. It has led to conflicts of values.
Landa who actively acted as the “prophet” and “savior” of the “new world”, seeing or learning about the crimes that the Maya were supposed to commit during their rituals, began to apply destructive policies in their missionary activities.
He became a leader who terrified others.
His diplomatic skills helped him overcome legal complications and the perception of his ministry. Thanks to that, despite the crimes he initiated. His work Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, which describes the culture and beliefs of the Maya. His many years of career in the Yucatan Peninsula mean that he can be perceived as a determined and adamant reformer in the Catholic sense.
The oral bishop who was ordained Bishop on May 24, 1562, had a mission to introduce the natives to the path of the new faith.
His missionary service and good initial reception by the locals was not a decisive victory for him in the circumstances of conflicts, and groups of interests with a different point of view of reality. But his journey into the new world, his efforts to explore and describe the Mayan culture, as commissioned by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún to create the General History of New Spain, made the Bishop also a reformer of the new world, less destructive in action than Landa, but less cunning than him.
The confession of God’s servants
Francisco Chuc of Sabcaba, August 1562:
On 11 August, Francisco Chuc, ab-kin, priest as they called [him] … native of the said village of Sahcaba ,. . . having been [ah- kin] in the village of Sahcaba as ab-kin he had been present at some sacrifices made to the idols in the said village, and especially he remembered being at a sacrifice and ceremony they had made three years before through some cuentas [beads] one Baltasar Cocom had given to the witness so that through them they would remember to make reverence to the idols. They made a sacrifice of some birds and a pig and other animals and this witness was present at it.
And perhaps three months later four idols were brought in from the forest, which mixed with honey and water and they offered the wine to the idols, carried into the church, and they also took in wine from Castille mixed with honey and water and they offered wine to the idols, and after having offered the wine and prayed to the idols they capped the village wells in reverence and worship for the idols in the manner of fasting so that the idols could provide them with water for the milpas.
And that then a few days after they had made that sacrifice this witness and Gaspar Xeque and Baltasar Cocom and Juan Coyi, principales, and Juan Yah, all natives of the village gathered together to make another sacrifice in the said church and they killed a pig [peccary?] and took a small cross that was on the altar and with six … little sticks from which they made barbecues they burned the said sticks and the cross that was on the altar before the idols they had put in the church. .. and they quenched the burning in the belly of the pig that had been crucified there, and with the blood of the said pig they put out the said fire of the said cross and sticks. And this witness was he who put the cross and sticks in the belly of the pig to quench them with the blood, which he did twice.
And later they made another sacrifice in the church in which they killed a dog and they offered the idols the heart of the dog, and those who were there roasted the said dog and ate it. And they drank [beverage unspecified] there at the sacrifice.
And after these sacrifices this witness met together with the rest of the lords and the said chiefs and being together in the house of Baltasar Cocom [a chief] they discussed and agreed together to send two lords called Francisco Xeque and Andres Uc with two lengths of thick beads to purchase children for sacrifice.
And so the said lords went to the villages of Quicucche and Pustunish, and in these two villages they bought two little boys who were just beginning to walk, whom they bought from Juan Puc, lord and a powerful person in the village of Pustunich, for one length of beads, and the other they bought in Quicucche from Diego Chan, a rich Indian of the said village. And the said lords Caught them to the said village of Sahcaba and this witness knows ss and the sticks that were from the said two lords how they had been bought from the said Juan Puc and Diego Chan and that they were children of slave women having brought the said children to the said village of Sahcaba about ten days after they arrived in the village this witness met with Baltasar Cocom, chief, and Diego Xibe, principal, now dead, and Francisco Pot, now dead, and Francisco Be, and so being together in the house of the said Baltasar Cocom, they all went from there to an ancient site a league from the village called Tabi, and they took the two boys they were holding for the said sacrifice.
And when they arrived they placed the idols in a ring with the two boys in front of them and they threw them [the two boys] down on to the ground and as they were lying there Diego Xibe came with a stone knife and opened the boys on the left side and took out their hearts and gave them to this witness and this witness received them as ab-kin and priest. And after he took them he raised them on high and speaking with the devil [demonio] said to him, ‘All powerful God, this sacrifice we make to you so that you would provide us with [those things] we have need of.’ And then he smeared the snouts of the idols with the blood, and having finished making this sacrifice they took the blood they had from the two boys and the bodies and the heart [sic] and threw them all into a cenote and returned to their houses in the said village. And they left the idols there.
And that when this witness was going to these sacrifices he had there four idols of his own, which he had brought out for the sacrifice of the boys. And that this sacrifice was made at the time of the hurricane a year ago because it seemed to them that their gods were angry and so they would be appeased and there would not be deaths. He was asked if he knew if they should have made or were accustomed to make sacrifices of men or women or children or other infants in other villages or parts of these provinces and that he state in what parts and what the names were of those present at such sacrifices, he said he did not know.
Source: Scholes and Adams, Don Diego Quijada,
One Confession from Kanchunup
Pedro Huhul of Kanchunup was the first Native American to testify that he had seen a crucifixion.
Pedro Huhul, 17 August:
On 17 day of the month of August [1562] Pedro Huhul, principal of the village of Kanchunup. Pedro Huhul said … that two years ago more or less this witness had been at a sacrifice made to the idols in the place of Tepopox, in which were killed three boys who were called Ah Kuxeb and Holi Chunlin [sic] and Ah May.
And that those present at the sacrifice were this witness and Juan Ix, governor of province now prisoners in Merida … [here follow nine names] and Francisco Canche, schoolmaster and Juan Can, schoolmaster and wo ab-kines of the village who hanged themselves and those who cut open the said boys were Pedro May, deceased and Francisco Tuz, and Pablo Ppiste.
And they took the hearts and offered them to the demons. And the boys [had been] bought from the Cupules and those named had given the beads and cuzcas to buy them, and the deceased ab-kines went to buy them. And that at the time of the hurricane, about a year ago more or less, they told this witness that hey had made a sacrifice of two boys in Tecon. And this witness was not there, after he had gone to the milpa the natives of the village had told him, and that they had been thrown into the cenote in Tecon.
And they told this witness that the boys were called Ah Chan and Ah Pol, and they told him they had been bought in Tahdziu, and he did not know from whom they had been bought. And about three or four months after this sacrifice, more or less, another sacrifice to the idols was made in the cemetery of the church in front of the big cross which was there. They had their idols around it. And in the said sacrifice they killed and crucified two boys who were called Ah Chable and Ah Xol.
The one called Ah Chable they crucified and they nailed him to a great cross made for the purpose, and [that] they put him on the cross alive and nailed his hands with two nails and tied his feet … rope. And [that] those who nailed and crucified the said boy were the ah-kines who are now dead, which was done with the consent of all those who were there. And after [he was] crucified they raised the cross on high and the said boy was crying out, and so they held it on high, and then they lowered it, [and] so put on the cross they took out his heart. And in the same way they killed the other boy who was there … and [that] the ah-kines gave a sermon telling them that it was good and what they must do, and that through adoring those gods they would be saved, and that they should not believe what the friars were saying to them.
After the deaths they threw the bodies of the boys into the cenote at Tecon, and those who went to throw them in were the deceased ab-kines. And at this sacrifice the same people were in attendance as were at the first sacrifice… together with this witness… [and] the masters of the school [and] the governor Juan Is… and they threw the cross on which they crucified the boy [sic] with him, as he had been crucified, into the said cenote with some big stones tied to it so that it should go to the bottom, and this the ab-kines who had thrown the said boys into the said cenote told them. And he did not know of other sacrifices in which any little children had been killed.
And about a month ago … another sacrifice was made at the foot of a cross outside the village in which dogs and other animals were killed according to the old custom, and they ate their flesh and drank beverages they brought for it. And in this sacrifice they burnt a cross and quenched it in the blood of the animals that had been killed there, which was done by the deceased ab-kines(…)
Source: Scholes and Adams, Don Diego Quijada,
Two Confessions from Sotuta Village
These two confessions, dated 19 August, from two men from Sotuta village, the schoolmaster and constable Francisco Canche and the schoolboy Antonio Pech, were the last taken in the Sotuta inquiry.
They revealed that the practice of crucifixion had been initiated five years before by Juan Nachi Cocom. (Four other witnesses from Sotuta questioned on 11 August had admitted to knowledge of or participation in human sacrifices, but had made no mention of crucifixions.)
Antonio Pech, 19 August:
In the village of Sotuta… on the nineteenth day of August, 1562… Antonio Pech, schoolboy at this said village of Sotuta… said that five years ago more or less he had seen a sacrifice to the idols and demons in the village church in which they killed two little girls.
And this witness saw it because on the night the sacrifice was made this witness with the rest of the boys from the school were going to the church to say matins and they found in the said church making the sacrifice… Juan Cocom, governor that was of this village of Sotuta and Lorenzo Cocom, also governor, now both dead, and Diego Pech, father of this witness and principal of the village and… [here follow fourteen names, including the ab-kines Luis Ku and Francisco Uicab]…
And he saw how the said girls were tied to two crosses. And the aforesaid told them to be quiet and that they should say nothing so that the friars should not know anything, and therefore through fear this witness and the rest of his companions had remained silent about what they had seen. And [the girls] being placed on the cross, the ab-kines and the deceased ones [Juan and Lorenzo Cocom] said, “Let these girls die crucified as did Jesus Christ, he who they say was our Lord, but we do not know if this is so.”
And afterwards in saying this, they lowered them from the cross, unbound them, cut them open and took out the hearts and the ah-kines offered them to the demons as anciently they were accustomed to do.
And that the ah-kin was Francisco Uicab, he who is alive at present. And that afterwards they took the girls to throw them into a cenote called Suitunchen, and that Juan Cime and Francisco Uicab took them…
And that about a month after this sacrifice this witness going on another night to say matins found the same people. Two girls who they told him were called Ix Chan and Ix Homa. And they crucified them on the same crosses as the first ones because they had kept them for the purpose, and they took the hearts and offered them to the demons the said [sic] Francisco Uicab.
And afterwards they went to throw the bodies in the said cenote. And Juan Cime cut them open and took out the hearts. And they said there that all must be silent and say nothing, Lorenzo Cocom and the rest of the principales and ab-kines who were there making them fearful.
And four years ago more or less this witness saw how they made another sacrifice outside the village at the foot of a cross at which they killed sacrificing to the idols and they killed in this sacrifice two more girls who were called Ix Ixil and Ix Uicab, and the same people were present who had been at the first sacrifice, and they crucified them like the first ones and the same ab-kines who are now living… Francesco Uicab and Juan Cime put them on the crosses. And this Juan Cime who is alive at present held the office of cutting open the girls in all the sacrifices.
And later they left off making these sacrifices and forgot them for more than three years because the Padre Monterroso came to this province to teach them the doctrine, and that after the padre left, which was about a year ago… they went back to making sacrifices and to continue the deaths.
And this witness knows that about four months ago a sacrifice was made outside the village on the road to Mani, by order of Lorenzo Cocom, chief, in which they killed two girls and tied them to two crosses like the first. Francisco Cauich, ah-kin, offered the hearts of the two girls. And Juan Cime cut the said girls open… and they carried the bodies to the said cenote at Suitunchen. And they told them to say nothing, not even to their wives and children, because… all would die if it should be known by the Spaniards and the fathers…
And the companions of this witness who went to say matins were the master of this witness called Francisco Canche and Martin Tut and Juan Canul and Francisco Cachum, who is the friend of this witness, because they learnt to read together.
On this said day of nineteenth August in the said year 1562 Melchor [sic] Canche of the school of this village of Sotuta and constable of the said village less this witness went to the church the rest of the boys from the school, and entering the church he saw how the chiefs and principales of the said village were sacrificing to the idols they had there and were going to kill two girls to offer their hearts to the idols. And this witness saw how they made the said sacrifice and killed the said girls and crucified them and tied them to two crosses they had… and he saw that those who put the said girls on the cross were Lorenzo Cocom, chief and governor who hanged himself, and Juan Cime, and putting them on the cross those who tied them said, “See here the figure of Jesus Christ”, and thus they put the name on them. And he saw how saying this they untied the two girls and lowered them, and when they were down Juan Cime and Luis Ku cut open the girls kines, which ah-kines offered the hearts to the idols. And they told them to be quiet and to say nothing, speaking to the people who were there, so that the Spaniards should not know of it, because if they knew all would die.
And… Lorenzo Cocom and the ab-kines and principales threatened this witness and the rest of his companions And those who were present at the said sacrifice were Juan Cocom, governor of the village, and Lorenzo Cocom, both now dead, and [here follow fifteen names], and all were known to this witness because he talked with them and saw them at the said sacrifice.
And… said that about five years ago more or… one night to say matins with… and took the hearts and gave them to the ab- after making the said sacrifice and the deaths of the two girls the bodies were thrown into a cenote called Tilcibichen because they told the witness they had thrown them there, which was told him by Martin Ba and Francisco Uicab, ab-kines who were those who carried the bodies.
And the crosses remained there in the house of Lorenzo Cocom for other sacrifices.
And further to this sacrifice the witness saw another sacrifice being made in the church and it seems to this witness it was about five months after the first, and he saw how in it they killed two boys and offered their hearts to the demons and idols that were there, and they did not put them on the cross. And the same people were present there as he had declared, and that Lorenzo Cocom, now dead, and Juan Cime cut open these two boys. And then they took the bodies to throw them in the same cenote, and that the ah-kines were Francisco Uicab and Luis Ku, who are alive now. These offered the hearts to the idols, anointing their snouts with witness saw them make no more until a year ago at the time of the hurricane the same people made a sacrifice inside the house of nolood. And that afterwards they forgot the said sacrifice and this Lorenzo Cocom, and that Juan Cocom was not present because he ras already dead.
And he saw how they sacrificed two boys and tied them on two crosses and that those who tied them were Lorenzo Cocom and Juan Cime who were saying that such boys were sons of god, and that saying this they cut them open and to cut them they lowered them from the cross, and the said Lorenzo Cocom and open Juan Cime took out the hearts, and the said Lorenzo Cocom offered the hearts to the idols. And this Lorenzo Cocom was an ah-kin, and they threw the bodies of these boys into the cenote where they had first thrown the others.
And that after this sacrifice about six or seven months ago this witness saw another sacrifice made to the idols in the church in which they killed two little girls. And all were present at the said sacrifice who had been present at the first except the said Juan Cocom who was already dead, and they put these girls on the crosses they had for it. And that then the said Lorenzo Cocom and Juan Cime cut them open and they took out the hearts and gave them to Francisco Uicab and Lorenzo Cocom, ah-kines and that then they threw the bodies in the cenote where the first ones [were].
And always the ab-kines and principales and the said Lorenzo Cocom were urging those who were there to stay silent, and that they should say nothing and be silent, and therefore through fear no one had dared to say anything because he was a great lord and principal governor and they held [sic] him very much.
And that after this sacrifice three or four months this witness saw how they made another sacrifice to the idols and demons inside the church of the said village in which they killed dogs and deer and animals and ate them and drank in the manner of the old days, in which sacrifices… Lorenzo Cocom and the rest of the ab-kines and principales warned them all to be silent and that they should say nothing so that the friars should not know, because all would be killed and they would seem to them new things and therefore all said they would keep silent. And the boys of the school and the masters who were there were Francisco Canul, master, and Pedro Can, schoolmasters [sic], and Francisco Cocom of the school and Lorenzo Cocom(…)
Source: Scholes and Adams, Don Diego Quijada.
Announcements
This is the end of Part Three in the Concession to Conquer the Yucatan series.
Thank you for reading this article. I encourage you to comment and share your own thoughts on the issues raised in this article below in the comments. Below is a preview of the next article in this series, Standard of the Maya people:
The Conquest and Christianization resulted in the disappearance and destruction of the Mayan and entire Mesoamerican codes and artifacts, which are now in demand and sought after. The Mayan legacy was not the first and only victim of this Christianization. Previously, many pagan cultures of Europe were treated similarly and they lost a large part of their knowledge of their pre-Christian history, but still today, messages and memories of Slavic, Celtic and Scandinavian cultures have survived…
Best regards for all readers,
Michał
If you have specific questions on this topic, you are also welcome to email me.
Full Concession to Conquer the Yucatan Series:
Part 1: Incomprehensible Language
Part 2: People called Yucatecos
Part 3: Interrogation of Faith
Part 4: Standard of the Maya people
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