SACRIFICE AT THE MAIZE TREE

Rab’inal Achi in its historical and symbolic context

Ruud van AkkerenCenter for Non-Western Studies (CNWS), University of Leiden, Nonnensteeg 1–3, P.O. Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden,The Netherlands

Abstract

In pre-Columbian times the famous dance drama, known as theRab’inal Achi,but whose indigenous name isXajoj Tun, ended ina human sacrifice. A comparative study of the native documents shows that the victim, an important prisoner of war, died by beingshot with arrows. Thetun dance was part of a larger festival, which served propagandistic aims. The ritual of the arrow sacrificehighlighted crucial political moments, for example, when new lords were installed, titles were handed out, or glorious battles thatled to the power and hegemony of one or more ruling lineages were commemorated. In the case of theRab’inal Achi, it is theheroic past of the Toj lineage, rulers in Late Postclassic Rab’inal, that proves to be the main subject. Interestingly, when focusingon the language used to describe the arrow sacrifice, we see that the victim, who was tied to a scaffold, a stake, or a column, wasconsidered game, and the archers as hunters. The stake had a symbolic meaning, as well. It represented a tree of life, a tree wehave come to know as the World Tree growing in the center of the earth and holding up the sky. In theRab’inal Achi, that tree, theplace where the Warrior of K’iche’ is shot, is named the Maize Tree, the same fictitious tree that is depicted on the Tablet of theFoliated Cross of Palenque.

ix b’a ri kot you Eaglesix b’a ri b’alam you Jaguarskixpeta b’a la comechib’ana b’a r[i] ichak do your workchib’ana b’a ri ipatan perform your dutychib’ana b’a la r[i] iwe’ exercise your teethri iwixkaq your claws1

(Breton 1994:Lines 2584–2590)2

Thus ends the famous K’iche’ dance dramaRab’inal Achi(Bre-ton 1994). The Warrior of K’iche’ is ready to be sacrificed andutters his last words to his executioners, the elite military knight-hood of Eagles and Jaguars. The few scholars who have studiedtheRab’inal Achihave always wondered how the Warrior of K’iche’came to his end. Was his heart cut out? Was he beheaded? Or didhe die in some other way? René Acuña (1975:102, 140) suggestedhe died in a sort of gladiator combat, akin to the Aztectlauaua-naliztli of the festival of Xipe Totec, where a prisoner of war, tied

by one leg to a stone and holding fake weapons, had to fight offtwo well-armed soldiers. At present, since the dance is still per-formed, the Warrior of K’iche’ bows his head at the end, while theother actors touch his neck with their axes (Figure 1). Carroll Mace(1981:97–101) has his doubts about the beheading and wonderedif we will ever know how the Warrior of K’iche’, i.e., K’iche’ Achi,was executed.

The answer to this question, however, lies in the final lines omit-ted from the quote above, the last words of the Warrior of K’iche’:

ma k’u qatz jumer wachil it is not necessary that you cover mekiniwismarisaj with arrows right away

rumal xax in oyew wi because I truly am a fierce onechi nupetik chi nujuyub’al I have come from my mountainschi nutaq’ajal my valleyskeje kaj may the skyulew chik’oji’ iwuk’ the world be with youix kot you, Eaglesix b’alam you, Jaguars(Breton 1994:Lines2591–2598)

The fact is that the verbk-in-iw-ism-ar-i-sa-j, which literallymeans “you cause my hair—or feather—growing,” was never prop-erly understood by former translators with the exception of Breton(1994:Note 230) who suggested that the verb alludes to the Aztecconcept of dead warriors becoming hummingbirds. That is a validview, one that coincides with the reconstruction presented in thisarticle. The verbkiniwismarisajevokes the image of a sacrificialvictim being pierced with arrows and taking on the appearance ofa bird. The prisoner of war in theRab’inal Achidied in an arrowsacrifice.

1 All translations from K’iche’ and Kaqchikel texts in this article aremine; the authors mentioned refer to the place where the quotes can befound.

2 The numbers refer to lines, all taken from Alain Breton (1994), whichis based on thePérez Manuscript. ThePérez Manuscript(1991) is a note-book that is currently used when rehearsing theRab’inal Achi, named afterManuel Pérez who made his copy in 1913. The actual owner is don JoséLeón Coloch Garniga, director of the dance. I am very much indebted toAlain Breton. He unraveled the handwritten notebook into parallel verseswith the patience of a medieval scribe. The translation is accompanied byan impressive list of entries in colonial sources. He very generously let meuse all this before its publication.

Ancient Mesoamerica, 10 (1999), 281–295Copyright © 1999 Cambridge University Press. Printed in the U.S.A.

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ARROW SACRIFICE AND POLITICAL PROMOTION

The indigenous name of theRab’inal Achi is Xajoj Tun, usuallytranslated as “Dance of the Drum,” thetunbeing the split woodendrum that the Yucatec callt’unkul and the Aztec callteponaztli(Figure 2) The existence oftun dances was documented through-out Colonial history. Catholic priests who knew the dances wereonce stages for human sacrifices tried to ban them. Thanks to theirzeal, we have accounts like the following report:

que en la lengua queché llamanteleche’; y en esta lengua so-tohil de este pueblo, se llamalotz tun: era muy justa cosa seprohibiese y quitase: por cuanto todo él era representación deun indio que, habido en guerra, sacrificaban y ofrecían los an-tiguos al demonio, como lo manifiestan y dicen el mismo indio,atado a un bramadero, y los que lo embisten para le quitar lavida, en cuatro figuras, que dicen eran sus nahuales: un tigre,un león, un águila, y otro animal, de que no se acuerda; y lasdemás ceremonias y alaridos del dicho baile, movidos de unsón horrísono y triste, que hacen unas trompetas largas y retor-cidas, a manera de sacabuches, que causa temor el oirlas.Además, que tiene este declarante experiencia de que las vecesque le ha visto bailar en otros pueblos, así como se tocan lastrompetas, se alborota todo el pueblo, sin faltar hasta las cria-turas, viniendo con mucha agonía y priesa a hallarse presentes,lo que no hacen en otros bailes de tum que suelen acostumbrar[Archivo General Nación de México (AGNM), Inquisición 1624,vol. 303, exp. 54, fols. 357–363; emphasis added].

Chinchilla Aguilar (1963:14–15) discovered this excerpt, whichwas written from the hand of a priest living in the village of SanAntonio Suchitepequez in the year 1624. I checked the originaltext and found that Chinchilla Aguilar had mistakenly readloj tumwhere the priest spellslotz tun. The description relates that thevictim was tied to a “bramadero,” a post to which animals weretied to be tamed or killed. Several warriors, including an eagle anda jaguar, surrounded him. In theRab’inal Achiwe encounter sim-ilar information. The Warrior of K’iche’ tells his captor how heentered Rab’inal territory and saw the Eagles and Jaguars perform-ing a ritual:

chiri xinta wi there I heardkatajin ukoq lotzotun the sound of the Blood-Drawing Split-

Drumlotzoq’ojom the Blood-Drawing Drumkumal la kab’lajuj uq’anal kot played by the twelve illustrious Eaglesb’alam and Jaguarstatze nim kalanan kaj how the sky was trembling

thunderouslykalanan ulew how the world trembling wildlykimayij kechajajik they made an awesome soundkimayij kewajajik they made an incredible noisela kab’lajuj uq’anal kot the twelve illustrious Eaglesuq’anal b’alam illustrious Jaguarskuk’ achij mun with the male slavesixoq mun and female slaves(Breton 1994:Lines 429–441)

Figure 1. Last scene of Rab’inal Achi. Warrior of K’iche’ kneels while others lay their axes in his neck. Photo by Ruud van Akkeren.

282 Akkeren

Here thelotz tun is mentioned as well; other Colonial reportsspeak oflox tun, los tun, or ox tun (Acuña 1975:155). The verblotzij means “to draw blood,” “to pierce,” but also “to bleed one-self.” The scene witnessed by the Warrior of K’iche’ alludes toanother performance of the arrow sacrifice.

True, both quotes do not reveal much about the type of sacrificethat was performed. The Dominican friar Francisco Ximénez livedfor some 10 years in the village of San Pablo Rab’inal in the be-ginning of the eighteenth century. In his extensive work on theIndians of Chiapas and Guatemala, he described a dance dramacalledK’iche’ Winaq, “Man of K’iche’.” Some scholars believe itto be nothing but another title for theRab’inal Achi (see PadialGuerchoux and Vázquez-Bigi 1991). I think that the plot, as de-scribed by Ximénez, differs too much for it to be the same dramaas theRab’inal Achi. It is possible, though, that Ximénez saw anearlier copy of theRab’inal Achibecause he mentions having heardof the existence of “papeles antiguos” in Rab’inal (Ximénez1977:81). Be it as it may, finishing his description of theK’iche’Winaq, he stated: “Y juntándose los señores se formó un baile paracelebrar la presa de aquel brujo y transformándose en águilas, le-ones y tigres, bailaban todos arañando al pobre indio. . .” (Ximénez1977:85). It was not an opening of the chest, not a decapitation,but a dance around the victim, while wounding him with some-thing sharp.

There is one distinct description of an arrow sacrifice from theGuatemalan highlands. The document, theAnales de los Kaqchike-lesorMemorial de Sololá, was written by members of the KaqchikelXajil lineage and begins with the deeds of their heroic ancestor

Q’aq’awits and his warriors. At one point, they confront a power-ful lord, named Tolk’om, who, proverbially, makes mountains trem-ble. They capture him, calling him theirteleche’, kana, that is,“prisoner of war” and “captive.” They plan to sacrifice him:

ok xtiker k’a rukamisaxik ri tolk’om then they started the killing of Bloodxwikitaj na xok na rukawuj after being adorned they put on his

garmentsk’a ta k’a ok xrip ruq’a chuwach che’lama

and then they stretched out his armsonto the scaffold

xk’aq wi where he was shot [with arrows]ok xtiker k’a xajoj ruma ronojelajlabal

then the dancing began by all of thewarriors

xawi tolk’om rub’i b’ix xkixaj and the song they danced, was alsocalled Blood

ok xtiker k’a ruk’aqik then they started their shooting(Mengin 1952:Folio 15r)

Lama che’has been translated as “elder,” because we find itglossed like that, but I think it likely that it is the word for “scaf-fold,” from the verb stemlam meaning “hold without letting go,”and che’, “wood” (Coto 1983 [1656]). This is more than rea-sonable because the text states he is spread-eagled on the wood-work—the verbrip is also used for Christ being crucified. Thescene resembles various Central Mexican images of the arrow sac-rifice where we find the victim spread out on a frame (Figure 3).Again, we witness a combination of dancing and shooting. Theverbk’aqoj or k’aqij—both are used—generally means “to throwsomething,” but is mostly used to mean the shooting of arrows(Ximénez 1985:137).K’aqol is “archer.” The verb is related to

Figure 2. Scene from Rab’inal Achi. Notice the split drum or tun on the left. Photo by Ruud van Akkeren.

Sacrifice at the maize tree 283

hunting with a bow. It is matched by the verbkanoj, “to hunt.”K’aqol andkanonelboth mean “hunter,” and the game which ishunted iskana. Tolk’om is calledkana; it means he was consid-ered game. What we see is that the act of war and the capture ofprisoners were associated with the hunting of animals. In theRab’inal Achi, the Warrior of K’iche’ is also addressed as “game,”which in K’iche’ meanskanab’.

On what occasion was the arrow sacrifice performed? To beable to answer this question we have to dig a little into K’iche’history. Somewhere in the mid-fifteenth century, the young K’iche’ruler K’iq’ab’ waged a devastating war upon Q’oja, a prosperouscity located near modern Quetzaltenango (Carmack 1981). His firstmotive was the revenge for the death of his father Q’uq’kumatz-K’otuja who had been killed by the lord of Q’oja some years earlier,but in the campaign against rich Q’oja, K’iq’ab conquered a wholeseries of other towns. Thirteen lords and their vassals were broughtto Q’umarkaj to be enslaved or put to death. The crusade was com-memorated with lavish ceremonies and stunning dances. In the midstof all festivities, K’iq’ab’ was awarded the royal nose plug.

First, we will look at thePopol Wuj. This document does notmention any festivities. Explaining the reason why would lead usbeyond this article, but it has to do with the fact that the authors ofthat document were not on the side of K’iq’ab’s lineage (Akkeren2000). Still, he was a major hero so they could not possibly leavehim out:

juch’ob’ there were one lineagekach’ob’ ta chik or two lineagesmawi kuk’am upatan chirech that had not brought their tribute to

him yetronojel xqaj utinamit each of their towns were destroyedxuk’am upatan chuwach K’iq’ab’ they brought their tribute before

K’iq’ab’Kawisimaj Kawisinajxeok chi munil3 they became slavesxelotzik they were bledxek’aqik chi che’ they were shot at the stake

ma jab’i kiq’ij there was no future for themma jab’i kalaxik xuxik there was no offspring to begetxa ch’a mixk’oje paxib’al tinamit arrows cleaved the townjuzu chijixitajik uchi ulew at a stroke the surface of the earth was

torn apartkeje ri chi qosin kakulaja chupaxijab’aj

much as the lightning hits to split thestone

chixib’inik in their fearlib’aj chi chelaj amaq’ chuwachk’olche

the lineages immediately prostratedbefore the tree of the center

retal tinamit symbol of the townrumal wakamik jun juyub’ ab’aj today a mountain of stones(Durr 1987:422–423; Edmonson 1971:7863–7884)

Note how the verbslotzij andk’aqij are used.In contrast to thePopol Wuj, the Título de Totonicapánin-

dulged on the festivities following the victory of K’iq’ab’. Its au-thor, Diego Reynoso, was a great-grandson of K’iq’ab’ and hadgood reasons to praise his ancestor’s deeds (Akkeren 2000). Thefestival is callednima pokob’, the “great shield dance.”Pokob’ isa small round shield that was used in dances and, apparently, byextension used in the sense of “dance,” as well (Coto 1983[1656]:401). Although I earlier wrote there was only one explicit descrip-tion of an arrow sacrifice in the documents of the highlands,thenima pokob’contains a complete account which has never beenidentified as such. The quote is somewhat extended but revealing.

keje k’ut ub’anik nima pokob’ and then the great Shield Dance wasperformed

upokob’ tojil Tojil’s Shield Danceta xb’an choloj tz’ikin k’ij when the month Tz’ikin was countedxul oxlajuj chi wuq amaq’ waralpa k’iche’

the 13 Seven-Tribes arrived here inK’iche’

(Carmack and Mondloch 1983: Folio 27r)

They then sum up all the lineages which attested the celebrations,they covered virtually every highland town, including the enemies(Carmack and Mondloch 1983:Folio 27r–v).

ri k’ut e kiwach wuq amaq’ xeullotzowoq

then the representatives of the Seven-Tribes arrived to bleed

xeul k’aqowoq arrived to shootxul kiquwuj tz’uum they came to put on the skinschoman tz’uum the precious skinskitz’umal oxlajuj rajawal amaq’ the skins of the all the lords of the

tribesri xekamisan k’otuja who killed K’otujaxawi oxlajuj4 chi nimaq ajawab’xequnik

all the great lords put them on as well

ta xb’an pochoj when they had done the cuttingxb’an sutinem they danced in a circlexb’in ronojel kab’awil they went around like all the godsxekexajeik kumal ajawab’ they were impersonated by the lordsjun k’u ajpo k’ajol xnabeyajik and one son of the Keeper of the Mat

came forwardek’o uk’a[b] tojil to hand over Tojil’s sacrificial kniferonojel xitam it had precious green stonespwakim and silverwork all overwachibal jumaj there were god-impersonators every-

wherekojbal jumaj there were masks everywheresutum pa mam lamaxin there was the encircling of Grandfather

Tlamatzin

tzimayat there was the bundling of arrowstzatz chi ch’abi q’aq’ numerous were the shooting starsq’aq’tijax the fireballskaqulja uk’ux kaj the lightning of the heart of heaven

3 Edmonson hasxeok chinamit, but the original text hasxeok chi munil(Estrada Monroy 1973:Folio 52v).

4 Oxlajuj literally means “thirteen,” but its metaphorical meaning is“complete” or “all.”

Figure 3. Arrow sacrifice, archers dance around the scaffold. Drawing byRuud van Akkeren (after Kirchhoff et al. 1989:folio 28r).

284 Akkeren

kaj e kamajetaq when they had danced to the fourdirections

xpok’obaxic he [Tlamatzin] was being strippedupok’oba pwak’ the stripping of his silverqoqol of all of the precious stonesxtekok and gemsq’uq’ of all of the greenraxon ronojel and blue feathersjanic xch’ab’ij when he was firmly tied they shot their

arrowsxchikacholo uk’ulun and having fainted the representative

of allk’u kiwach konojel ajawab5 the lords bowed his head(Carmack and Mondloch 1983:Folios 27r–v, 28r)

This is the longest quote we have on pre-Colonial sacrificialdances of the highland Maya of Guatemala, beside that of theRab’inal Achi, but it also is one of the most difficult passages totranslate, especially because the author of theTítulo de Totoni-capánis not consistent in his use of the Parra characters.6 None-theless, there are allusions to three types of human sacrifice in thequotation: the flaying of a victim, the performers are said to dancein skins of prisoners of war; heart sacrifice, the sacrificial knife,the “hand of Tojil” is mentioned; arrow sacrifice, to which most ofthe lines are dedicated (Carmack 1981:271). The passage featuressimilarities with two Aztec festivals. The first one is Tlacaxipeu-aliztli, which is celebrated in honor of the god Xipe Totec.7 The

dancing with the human skins recalls reports from theFlorentineCodex: “Thereupon came forth, arrived, were ranged in order allthe impersonators, the proxies of all the gods. . .they went inorder. . . And when they had come to arrive down below, on theground, on the earth, they encircled the round stone of gladiatorialsacrifice. . .” (Anderson and Dibble 1981:51).

The second festival is that of Quecholli, the one dedicated toMixcoatl. Elsewhere I have demonstrated that the K’iche’ werestrongly influenced by Pipil culture from the Pacific coast, andthat some of its ruling lineages actually came from there (Akkeren2000). Their main god, Tojil, displays elements of the Mexicangod of the hunt, Mixcoatl. Another name for the latter is Tlama-tzincatl, whose impersonator was sacrificed in the festival ofQuecholli (Anderson and Dibble 1981:137–139). It appears he isalso mentioned in our quote as the victim who was being shot.Quecholli was held in honor of the god of the hunt, Mixcoatl, and,indeed, it included a big hunt in which all Aztec rulers partici-pated. But before the hunt, every warrior took on the task of mak-ing arrows and spears for the coming season. They were bundledand laid down at the foot of the pyramid of Huitzilopochtli (An-derson and Dibble 1981:134–135). This custom was also part ofK’iq’ab’s celebration; the arrows received names like “shootingstars” and “fireballs.”

But there is more to the festivities than just the celebration of avictory. We are told that K’iq’ab’ was not officially inauguratedyet. I suggest that thenima pokob’festival was part of his instal-lation as the new ruler. According to traditions that go far backinto the Classic Maya era, the ruler had to prove his worth in bat-tle and capture a lord or some other high official before being giventhe scepter of power. Many stelae depict the new ruler standingupon his royal captive or holding his victim by the scalp (Fig-ure 4). TheTítulo de Totonicapánnot only relates that the wars ofK’iq’ab’ took place two years after the death of K’otuja, his pre-decessor, but we are specifically told that after the arrow sacrifice,K’iq’ab’ and his lieutenants were awarded the nose plug and otherparaphernalia of rulership:

5 I believe Carmack and Mondloch (1983) misunderstood these lastlines. They thought they already formed part of the next paragraph. Notonly the text itself but even the manuscript make it clear it still is part ofthe ritual.

6 In the sixteenth century, the friar Francisco de la Parra invented a fewcharacters in order to write some of the velar and uvular phonemes of thehighland languages (Coto 1983[1656]:xxiv).

7 The worship of Xipe Totec and the act of flaying were an importantPipil cult; various life-size or near life-size ceramic effigy statues of Xipewere found in Pipil sites like Chalchuapa, Lake Güija, and Cihuatan (Fowler1989:234–236).

Figure 4. Lord standing on a prisoner of war. Stela from Jimbal, Peten. Photo by Ruud van Akkeren.

Sacrifice at the maize tree 285

wae k’ut waral xwor wi and here then we tell how they werepierced

k’iq’ab’ K’iq’abkawisimaj K’awisimajtecum Tecumtepepul Tepepule k’iq’ab’il winaq that is, K’iq’ab’s menajpop the Keeper of the Matkajib’ muj pauwi jun k’alib’al he has a throne with four canopiesk’o uraxon ajsub’aq he has a blue-feathered bonefluteajpo k’amja the Vice Keeper of the Mat8

oxib’ muj pauwi he has three canopiesnima rajop achij the Senior Warrior of the Keeper of

the Matkab’ muj pauwi has two canopiesch’uti rajop achij the Junior Warrior of the Keeper of

the Matjun muj pauwi has one canopyxchap pa xikaja they accept [their functions] in the

House of Eagles9

xare i k’u ajawab’ ri k’o muj pakiwi only the lords who have canopiesxeworik they piercedxek’aqik they shot arrowschi tatil q’anab’aj painted with yellow powderlotz kik’ kaqche they had the blood-drawing red stickje kej makutas the deer-tail bracelettzikil kot the eagle clawtzikil b’alam the jaguar pawt’ot matakus the snail-shell braceletchiom the parrot feathersaztapulul the heron feathersqoqol the precious stonesxtekok the gemschikwal the jewelsutzapil tzam the nose plugschikech ajpop of the Keeper of the Matajpo k’amja and Vice Keeper of the Matri xek’aqik who shot arrowsxeworik and piercedwaral pa k’iche’ here in K’iche’chi q’umarkaj tlecpan k’iche’ at Q’umarkaj capital of the K’iche’(Carmack and Mondloch 1983:Folio 28r)

The inserting of the nose jewel is a pan-Mesoamerican prac-tice. One noteworthy nose-plugging event was made famous bythe authors of the Mixtec codices as they depicted the life of thehero Jaguar-Claw, better known as 8-Deer. After the conquest of acity on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, 8-Deer was granted the royalnose plug. The codex shows him looking up while a second per-son sticking a thorn through his nostrils (Codex Zouche-Nuttall1987:52, 54).10

Villela and Koontz (1993) have identified a nose-piercing cer-emony on the panels of the North Temple in the Great Ballcourt of

Chich’en Itza (see Freidel et al. 1993:Figure 8:32, three figures inthe center of the top panel, north wall). They point out that theceremony is part of a program that comprises an “accession tooffice” (Villela and Koontz 1993:3). In addition, they make theconnection between these panels and the murals of the Upper Tem-ple of the Jaguar where the founding wars of Chich’en Itza aredisplayed. The accession program is comparable to K’iq’ab’s taleof conquest and installation.

This formula of founding wars, coronation, and nose piercingwas not restricted to the Postclassic. The newly enhanced photosof the frescos of Bonampak have brought unknown details to thelight. The south wall of Room 2 features a battle led by Bonam-pak’s last historically known ruler, Chaan Muan. On the north wall,his victorious homecoming is depicted, where he, just like K’iq’ab’650 years later, is displaying his prisoners. Mary Ellen Miller (1986)has justly remarked on the stylistic beauty of the scene composedpyramidally like a Da Vinci painting and culminating in the en-counter of Chaan Muan and a high nobleman whose name andtitle are unreadable and who is stretching out his hand. The hand issuspended above a captive in agony, but we never knew what thehand was doing there. Now we do: the nobleman holds a beadbetween his thumb and finger (Miller et al. 1995:51–52). I believeit is the regal nose plug; Chaan Muan has earned himself the titleof lord of Bonampak.11

Apparently the glorious founding war of the K’iche’ was theone led and won by their hero K’iq’ab’. It became the birthplaceof legends and dance dramas. Ximénez (1977:84), writing aboutthe life of K’iq’ab’, commemorated: “Por los tiempos de aquesterey. . .fue aquel caso tan memorable para los indios quichés, quehasta el día de hoy celebran en sus bailes, que no bailan otro en susfiestas sino es este que llaman del quichevinac. . .”

The dance of theK’iche’ Winaqwas to the K’iche’ people whatthe Rab’inal Achiprobably was to the nation of Rab’inal. It wasthe epic account of their coming of age, their decisive wars, andtheir rise to dominion. Though the ritual sacrifice of prisoners ofwar and the complementary nose piercing were associated withthe elevation to power, the right to sacrifice captives in a ritualdance was granted by certain centers of power, cities which car-ried the epithet Tullan. Only the lords of these cities were entitledto award royal insignia, among which we find the arrow sacrifice.In the quote on K’iq’ab’s nose piercing, we may read that the rightto perform a sacrificial dance and the nose piercing came from“the east,” just as the titles of rulers and their attributes came fromthat sacred direction.

According to many documents the aspirant lords of the high-lands went to the east at one point in their history to receive thesymbols of lordship from the hands of a powerful lord called Nacxit.His name is derived from the Nahuanahui ixitl, or “fourfeet,” whichrepresents the Feathered Serpent in his aspect as protector of thelong distance merchants (van Zantwijk 1977:124). Most highland

8 I do not follow Edmonson (1971:8442) nor Tedlock (1996:345) orCarmack (1981:171) in their translations of Ajpop K’amja, respectively“Lord Stephouse” and “Keeper of the Reception House Mat.”K’am[a] jais a common expression in K’iche’ meaning “almost, very close,” thussignifying, in my opinion, that the title is some sort of Vice-Ajpop, not alineage that provided the next Ajpop, but rather a secondary ruler, much asa viceroy who could never replace the king either.

9 See Carmack and Mondloch (1983:Note 312).10 Tozzer noted a difference between the Maya nose plug and the Toltec

nose bead in Chich’en Itza. The first one is a long jewel that is worn throughthe septum of the nose. The second is a jade bead with a “part cut away sothat it might be inserted into an incision in the side of the nose or possiblyin the cheek.” The last ones are found in the northern cenote (Tozzer1930:158–159) The nose plug worn by 8 Deer is completely different andseems like a triangular piece on top of the nose (Codex Zouche-Nuttall1987:52, 54).

11 The glyphs that come with the frescoes presumably reveal that thewar and the ensuing festivities were in honor of the official proclamationof the new heir, the infant who appears in the Rooms 1 and 3. Others dis-pute this idea merely for iconographic reasons: why would they put theprincipal character of the narrative story in some dark corner of thepaintings? Mary Ellen Miller was charmed by the idea when I told her myinterpretation of the jewel between the man’s fingers. She said the bead isnot like the jade-colored ones the women in Room 3 wear in their nose,but amber-colored (personal communication). Diego de Landa informedus that “the Maya pierced the septum of the nose and inserted ‘amber’stones,” calledmaator matun(in Villela and Koontz 1993:4)

286 Akkeren

scholars have argued that this city in the east, often called Tullan,is in fact Chich’en Itza. That is possible. According to an accountfrom theMemorial de Sololá(Mengin 1952), however, it seemsthey did not go that far. Mentioned toponyms are all in the Vera-paz area12:

ree chik’a ch’akab’ juyu e xel chi wi so here are some of the places theyleft to

saqi teuj White Coldsaqi kwa White Springnik’aj sub’inal the center of Subinalnik’aj ch[w]a kachil the center of Ch[w]a Kachiltz’ul ajauj xb’akaj the Tz’ul lord of the Xb’akajnik’aj nim xo[l] the center of Nim Xo[l]nik’aj moinal the center of Moinalnik’aj karchaj the center of Karchajxeik’o k’a pe rukin walil k’ajol and then they went to meet the sons

of Waliltz’unun k’ajol the sons of Tz’ununxeel chik rukin mewak nacxit they went to Mewak Nacxitkitzij chi nima ajauj he truly was a great lordha ki k’o rikan ri kechapb’ex ajawa and it were their lineage elders who

were becoming lordsajpop ajpop k’amajay Keeper of the Mat and Vice Keeper

of the Matha rokesam ri orb’al tzam they received the nose plugri tikiyo rub’i the Divine Art was its nameha k’a ti sinpuwal taxuch as well as Twenty Flowerkitzij loq chike k’is ik’owinak peronojel ajlab’al

he truly valued them all of the warriors

chiri cheucheex konojel ruma ajaujnacxit

there all of them were told by lordNacxit

xa tijotob’a kan ree wapal ab’aj lift the stone linteltok chuwi wochoch place it on top of my housetinya k’a chiwichin ree wajawarem and I will give you my lordshiptikiyo sinpuwal taxuch the Divine Art, the Twenty Flowerxax mani wi k’a xch’ija ab’aj chike but not until they were able to lift the

stonexawi k’a xeiicheex chik they were toldk’ate k’a xejotob’aan kan ri wapalab’aj

and so they lifted the stone lintel

kere k’a xk’is ruya wi pe that way Nacxit ended up givingrajawarem wach nacxit ri’ the symbols of his lordshipxepoo chi k’a chiri and then they cheered(Mengin 1952:Folio 13r)

It seems as if the Xajil—authors of this text—had to do someconstruction work before they obtained the nose plug from Nacxit,though something more esoteric may have been meant here. It is

likely that this Nacxit is a Nahua—or Pipil-speaking lord; Mewaksounds like a corruption of Huemac, and the nose plug has Nahuanames such astikiyo from ticiyotl, or “medicina, arte medicinal,arte adivinatorio, parto,” andsinpuwal taxuchfrom cempoalxo-chitl, the name of a common flower (Caryophyllus mexicanus) usedin ceremonies (Siméon 1996:81, 547).Cempoalxochitlliterallymeans “Twenty Flower,” which evokes the idea of completion:the completion of a cycle of twenty and a calendrical completion,since Xochitl is the twentieth day name in the Mexican calendar.

The precise location of Nacxit’s residence remains an object oflater study. There were probably more historical Nacxits, but thisone seems to have lived in Verapaz. It is interesting to see that inthe course of history, the K’iche’ apparently became powerfulenough for their capital, Q’umarkaj, to hand out royal titles andperform the nose perforation. The festival of K’iq’ab’ and his noseperforation was explicitly said to have happenedwaral pa k’iche’chi qumarkaj tlecpan k’iche’, or “here in K’iche’, in Q’umarkajthe K’iche’ capital.” Q’umarkaj had raised to the status of Tullan,and the rulers were authorized to celebrate the Great Shield Dance.This was not yet the case in Chi Ismachi, the K’iche’ capital priorto Q’umarkaj:

majajioq kanab’ there were not yet captivesteleche’ prisoners of warmajab’ioq uchuch tz’ikin there was not yet the mother of birdsxko kaqix the red feathered macawmajajab’ioq nima k’atoj there were not yet the sacrificesmajajab’ioq pokob’ chanal there was not yet the Shield Dancexa k’a uch’utinal only a small one(Carmack and Mondloch 1983:Folio 23r)

In this quote the termnima pokob’is replaced bypokob’ cha-nal. Chanal is a name for “dance” (Ximénez 1985:180). I haverecorded modern prayers in Rab’inal where dancers are referred toase ajxajoj, e ajkikotem, e ajtun, e ajchanal, or “they are dancers,they are celebrators, they aretundancers, they arechanaldancers.”

If we go back to the sacrifice of Tolk’om in theMemorial deSololá(Mengin 1952), described above, we notice once again thatthe dance accompanies an inaugurational event. Before the actualarrow sacrifice takes place, the story is interrupted by a passageon the handing out of lordly titles:

kere k’a xkib’iij wae and thus they spoke:at qachaq oh you, our younger brothersjun nab’eyal one will be the seniorjun k’a ch’ipilal chiqichin and one will be the junior among usxtiqetaj q’ij saq chi popol vach we will measure the light and bright-

ness before the communityoj oxlahuj chi ajlab’al we are the thirteen warriorsxtiqaya amuj we will give you your canopyaqalib’al your throneatem your benchach’akat your seatawajawarem your lordshipje re kay chi al sotz’il it will belong to the two sons (of a

woman) of the so-called Sotz’iltukuche’ keuch’eex and Tukuche’xkatka chi kikojol ajpo sotz’il you will descend among the Keeper of

the Mat of the Sotz’ilajpo xajil ki xuch’eex and the Keeper of the Mat of the Xajil

as they are calledxa chiri tab’an wi at naek juwi chiajlab’al

there only you will act as the head ofthe warriors13

(Mengin 1952:Folio 15r)

12 I will not go into the details. Here it suffices to summarize that SaqiTeuj-Saqi Kwa-Subinal are all on the Chixoy river near the site of PuebloViejo Chixoy; Chakachil, is Ch[w]a Kachil, the mountaintop on the north-ern side of the valley of Salamá; Nim Xo[l]-Moinal-Karchaj is the Cobanarea. The next are Walil and Tz’unum; one of these two towns must havebeen the city where Q’aq’awits and his men met Nacxit. In the lines im-mediately following our quote we are told that Q’aq’awits attacks a towncalled Raxch’ich, which is on the confluence of the Salamá and Chixoyrivers, and another, named Nimpoqom, which is in the valley of Rab’inal.The itinerary, at least, demarcates the area of where to locate Nacxit’s city:Verapaz! (Akkeren 2000). I thought I was the first one to suggest that thePlace in the East was closer to the highlands than was thought until now.RenéAcuña (1991:xxiii–xxv), however, proposed a somewhat similar theoryin “Arte Breve y Vocabularios de la Lengua Po3om,” and postulated thatNacxit was most probably a Pipil lord residing in Acasaguastlan. He basedhis hypothesis on the same passage of theMemorial de SololaI just quoted.I cannot agree, however, with his choice for Acasaguastlan. I have checkedthe archaeological reports by Smith and Kidder (1943) on that site, and itdid not seem a place worthy of anima ajaujlike Nacxit; it had no ballcourtand no decent temple pyramid. A possible nominee is the Epiclassic site ofLos Encuentros on the confluence of the Chixoy and Salamá rivers (Ichonand Hatch 1982) 13 Bear in mind that the text is written by members of the Xajil lineage.

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The cut in the story line is so abrupt it led Recinos (1980:Note116) to remark that the passage appears to be a later addition. Ibelieve he is right because in the early days of Tolk’om’s death,the future rulers of Iximche’, Sotz’il and Xajil, did not carry thetitles Ajpo Sotz’il and Ajpo Xajil. Yet precisely because it is a laterintrusion, it is a particularly strong affirmation of the idea that thearrow sacrifice and bestowal of titles and tokens are two linkedactivities.

We complete this section with two short quotes that again re-veal the close affiliation between coming of power and the per-forming of the arrow sacrifice:

k’ani k’a xtiker q’aq’al and then began the glorytepewal the hegemonyxb’an lotzoj the bleedingk’aqoj the shooting was donekuma ajawa by the lords(Recinos 1984:146)

k’a chiri k’a xb’an wi lotzoj there the bleedingk’aqoj the shooting was doneruma juntoj by Juntojwuqubatz Wuqubatzxeq’aq’ar they became gloriousxetepewar chiri chiawar ch’a they became powerful there at Chi-

awar, they say(Recinos 1984:160)

Now it is time to return to theRab’inal Achi. First of all wehave to realize an important difference between the accounts ofthe sacrificial dances we have gathered so far and theRab’inalAchi. The excerpts from the various documents describe the arrowsacrifice and not much more. From the contextual information, Iwas able to distill the occasions and objectives of such dances.Compared to theRab’inal Achi, however, these accounts beginwhere our drama ends, with the arrow shooting. In other words,the text of theRab’inal Achimust embody the circumstances andmotives that I have detected for thetundance and formulated above,that is, the crucial political moments, like the inauguration of anew lord, the celebration of a victorious military campaign, or thecommemoration of founding wars, that led to the power and he-gemony of a particular lineage.

Are these elements discernible in theRab’inal Achi? The dancehas three main characters. The lord of Rab’inal, variously calledJob Toj or Ojob’ Toj, is one main character; he is from the Tojlineage that ruled Rab’inal before the arrival of the Spaniards. Thesecond main character is Ojob’ Toj’s captain, who is called War-rior of Rab’inal; he captures the invading Kaweq K’iche’ warrior,called Warrior of K’iche’ who is the third main character. It hasbeen suggested that the Warrior of Rab’inal is the son of Ojob’Toj, and his possible successor (Breton 1994:52). It would fit theimage: the Warrior of Rab’inal goes into war to show he will be aworthy lord, and he comes back with a captain from the most pow-erful ruling lineage of his time, the Kaweq from Q’umarkaj. Thereis no indication at all, however, that the Warrior of Rab’inal willsucceed Ojob’ Toj. To the contrary, he is clearly treated by his lordas inferior. Besides, his title is Q’alel, a high office, but only thethird rank in Q’umarkaj, below Ajpop and Ajpop K’amja. Thesetitles belonged to lineages structured in a closed system: a Q’alelnever became an Ajpop (Carmack 1981:168–171). The Warrior ofRab’inal may have been a Toj, but not from the sublineage thatbred lords.

The Rab’inal Achi is not about succession: it commemoratespolitical events. It recalls the coming of power, the first sacrificialdance, the founding wars, and the more recent battles that led upto the heroic conquest and domination of the valley of Rab’inal bythe Toj lineage. TheRab’inal Achi is Toj propaganda. It proudlystates that Ojob’ Toj is the ruler of various peoples, including thepeople of Tzamaneb’, the place where the Toj experienced theirfirst sunrise, orsaqirib’al, a metaphor for the coming of power(Breton 1994:Lines50–52; Recinos 1980:68). It tells how the Tojhad their first sacrificial dance in Xol Chaqaj, which is the Joyabajarea, the region they dominated in the Early Postclassic (Akkeren2000). It mentions the continuous conflicts with the original pop-ulation of the Rab’inal area, the Poqom, till the latter were finallybeaten, and it relates the various fruitless intrusions of the K’iche’from Q’umarkaj into the valley of Rab’inal. It is sometimes diffi-cult to tell if the excerpts are historically true, but then, propa-ganda rarely is.

The Toj lineage is an old noble class of priests, which, sincetime immemorial, was in charge of the cult of their lineage god,Tojil. Some of their relatives integrated the ruling Kaweq lineagecluster of Q’umarkaj, as Tojil’s priests, others conquered Baja Ve-rapaz and built their town in Kaqyuq, a hill just north of the mod-ern town of Rab’inal (Akkeren 2000). They kept their glorious pastalive in a sacrificial dance which we have come to know as theRab’inal Achi. Just as K’iq’ab’ scheduled his victorious militarycampaign and the commemoration of the coming of power of hislineage during the time of a Tojil festival, so did the Toj, and theystill do. In Colonial times, Tojil was replaced by the patron saint ofRab’inal, San Pablo, or Saint Paul, but he is still recognizable asTojil.

The name Toj is one of the twenty day names of the sacred cal-endar. Its Mexican equivalent is the day called Atl, which literallymeans “water,” but essentially refers to “precious water” or “blood”(Seler 1963 TI:90–97). When the K’iche’ ancestors in thePopolWuj asked their god Tojil what he wanted in return for the gift offire, he answered: blood. Toj is considered a day of recompense,of paying the god of the Earth what you still owe him, with offer-ings and, in former times, with human blood (Tedlock 1992:115).If you take a good look at the statue of San Pablo, you will see thathis cloak is covered with Mexican Atl signs (Figures 5 and 6). SanPablo is Tojil.

TheRab’inal Achiis only performed during the festival of SanPablo whose main day, ornima q’ij, falls on January 25, but thefestivities start five days earlier. The dance is performed severaltimes during this period, but the first time always falls on January20. This day is dedicated to Saint Sebastian. He is an importantsaint in Rab’inal as one of the fourbarrios was named after him.Saint Sebastian received his holy status after being martyred byarrows. Thus, we have a dance drama that in its pre-Columbiandays ended in an arrow sacrifice, which is first performed in frontof a statue of a saint that is stripped of its clothes like a captive andpierced with arrows (Figures 7 and 8).

ARROW SACRIFICE IN YUCATAN

The arrow sacrifice was also known to the Maya of the YucatanPeninsula. Bishop Diego de Landa wrote:

Y llegado el día juntábanse en el patio del templo y si había (elesclavo) de ser sacrificado a saetazos, desnudábanle en cuerosy untábanle el cuerpo de azul (poniéndole) una coroza en la

288 Akkeren

cabeza, y después de echado el demonio, hacía la gente unsolemne baile con él, todos con flechas y arcos alrededor delpalo, y bailando subíanle en él y atábanle siempre bailando ymirándole todos. Subía el sucio del sacerdote vestido y con unaflecha le hería en la parte verenda, fuese mujer u hombre, ysacaba sangre y bajábase y untaba con ella los rostros del de-monio, y haciendo cierta señal a los bailadores, ellos, comobailando, pasaban de prisa y por orden le comenzaban a flecharel corazón el cual tenía señalado con una señal blanca; y de estamanera poníanle al punto los hechos como un erizo de flechas[Landa 1985:90].

This passage comes very close to the scene we found in thehighland documents; a victim, dressed as a god, danced with his ex-ecutioners; the captive is then tied to a stake and wounded by a priestin his genitals. What is new is that he was painted in blue except forthe area around his heart which was colored white and served as thetarget. Once he was tied to the stake (palo), the warriors encircledthe target while dancing fast and shooting him in the run.

There is a rare exemplar left to us of the ritual reported by Landa(1985). Around 1942, the texts of 15 Maya songs were discoveredin the city of Mérida. They are known as theSongs of Dzitbalché,after the village from where they originated. They were copiedfrom an earlier eighteenth century original (Barrera Vásquez1965:13–14). Two of the songs depict the arrow sacrifice; theypossibly go back as far as the fifteenth century (Edmonson1982:173). There are two translations, one in Spanish by BarreraVásquez (1965), which follows the order of songs as given in themanuscript, the other in English by Edmonson (1982), who claimedthe sequence of the songs are mixed up in the manuscript. He re-grouped them “in order to juxtapose those with a similar structureand content” (Edmonson 1982:173). By doing so, however, Ed-monson seems to neglect the title page with “X-KOLOM-CHE”written in upper-case letters. Since this seems to be the introduc-tion of the manuscript, as Barrera Vásquez (1965) asserted, onemight wonder if all songs were once part of the same festivalxko-lomche. Landa knew a dance calledcolomche:

Tienen especialmente dos bailes muy de hombre y de ver. Eluno es un juego de cañas, y así le llaman ellos colomché, que loquiere decir. Para jugarlo se junta una gran rueda de bailadorescon su música que les hace són, y por su compás salen dos de larueda: el uno con un manojo de bohordos y baila enhiesto conellos; el otro baila en cuclillas, ambos con compás de la rueda,y el de los bohordos, con toda su fuerza, los tiro al otro, el cual,con gran destreza, con un palo pequeño arrebátalos. Acabadode tirar vuelven con su compás a la rueda y salen otros a hacerlo mismo [Landa 1985:77].

It appears that Landa’s (1985) informants changed the charac-ter of the dance thus turning it into a type of sport. That is whyLanda believed that the name of the dance derives from the wordcol, “arrebatar” or “defender.” Barrera Vásquez (1965:27) sug-gested it comes fromk’ol, “desollar o lastimar o herir liviana-mente,” and as such referred to the arrow sacrifice portrayed intwo of the songs. Edmonson (1982:201–202) translatedxko-lomcheas “small and clefted stick” and took this to be a kenningfor “arrow.”

We will confine ourselves to the two poems describing the ar-row sacrifice (Barrera Vásquez 1965:Songs 1 and 13; Edmonson1982:Songs xv and xvi). The first poem,x kolom che, begins withthe warriors who step out to the middle of the plaza where we findthe victim. Incidentally, the dancers are identified by their shieldsand not their bows,ppizan chimalil, “shield bearers,” evoking thepokob’ chanal:

t u chumuc c kiuic in the center of our plazay am un ppel xiib there is a mankaxan t u chum ocom tied to the bottom of a column,tuniich a stonecici bonan beautifully paintedy etel x ciihchpam h ch’oo with lovely indigo,tz’annen yaab lol balche and a scattering of manybalche

flowersu bocinte bay tan t u kab that should thus perfume his handstut y oc as well as his feettut uinclil xan as well as his body too(Edmonson 1982:203–204)

The stake, a stone column, is calledchum ocom tunich. Therest of the song addresses the poor man and how he should not beafraid since he is going to see the face of the Father.

Figure 5. San Pablo. Notice the atl signs on his cloak. Photo by Ruud vanAkkeren.

Sacrifice at the maize tree 289

The second poemx okoot kay h ppum t huul, “the dance andsong of the archer who shoots,” addresses the warriors who, thistime, are calledx pacum che, “little scouts of the trees.” It empha-sizes the hunting symbolism of the sacrifice, recalling how inK’iche’ the word “captive” also means “game.” Instructions aregiven on the preparation of the bow and arrow and special atten-tion is given to the feathers at the end of the arrow. They aredrenched incaatzim, sap of a plant with medicinal powers (Ba-rrera Vásquez 1965:78). Here are the feathers from the beginningof our article, where piercing a body full of arrows was comparedto the body growing feathers. Next, the archers are told to oil ev-ery part of their body with the “fat of a buck.” Then the dancebegins:

tz’aa ox ppel make three timesalca zuut a running turntut beforepach and behindpeil ocom tum that footed stonebonan that is paintedlail tuux kaxan there where is tiedleil xibil that manpal the youthh zac the purezuhuy uinic and virgin man

Notice that here the column is referred to asocom tum. At the sec-ond round, they are to take their bow and aim at the victim’s chest:

ma kabeilt it is not necessarya tz’iic t u lacal a muuk to use all your strengthtiyal a huul so that your arrowlomtc i will be jabbedti olal right to the heartma u kilic do not wound himt u tamil u bakel to the depths of his fleshu tial ca paatac u muk yaatic so his strength may sufferhuhum ppiitil little by little(Edmonson 1982:206)

It is significant that we find this horrid romanticism on the partof the victim in theRab’inal Achi too. The more pain one couldendure as a prisoner, the more one had proven his manhood. TheWarrior of K’iche’ says in the end “it is not necessary to cover mewith arrows right away/because I am a fearsome warrior/I havecome from my country” (see above). The last line is to glorify hishomeland. Similar behavior was expected from the gladiator inthe Tlacaxipeualiztli festival of the Aztecs: “But when one madean effort. . .he went speaking like a man, he went exerting him-self, he went strong of heart, he went shouting. He did not go down-cast; he did not go spiritless; he went extolling, he went exaltinghis city” (Anderson and Dibble 1981:48).

The archers have to shoot without stopping dancing to provetheir skill. They run in circles around the victim and launch theirarrows at him. The last lines of the song tell us that the ritual takesplace at sunrise.

Figure 6. Rab’inal Achi performed before the altars of San Pablo and his “brother” San Pedro on January 25. Photo by Ruud vanAkkeren.

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Having examined the text of the arrow sacrifice, the questionremains—may we compare thexkolomchewith the festival ofpokob’ chanal? First of all, I believe Edmonson (1982) made aserious mistake by regrouping theSongs of Dzitbalché. They arenot just a collection of arbitrary songs and dances; they form acomposition. Together they encompass a major nocturnal festival,xkolomche, ending at sunrise with an arrow sacrifice. It seems ratherevident, from references in the other songs, that the festival wasmeant to celebrate the end of a calendrical cycle (Edmonson 1982).Thepokob’ chanalwas held in the month Tz’ikin Q’ij, which ac-cording to Carmack fell in November, and was the equivalent ofthe MexicanQuechollifestival for Mixcoatl.

As for theRab’inal Achi, there are indications in the text that itwas performed at the end of a calendrical cycle of 13 years. TheK’iche’ New Year fell somewhere in the middle of February(Akkeren 2000). As discussed, today theRab’inal Achi is part ofthe festival of San Pablo, celebrated at the end of January. It ispossible that the holy day of Saint Paul was chosen because ac-cording to the Toj it was the main Catholic feast closest to theirpre-Columbian New Year Festival. Moreover, it fell a few daysafter the feast of Saint Sebastian, which must have evoked remi-niscences of the dance of the arrow sacrifice. The Dominicans musthave been satisfied with the choice because Saint Paul was a keyfigure in their evangelization efforts, and Rab’inal was the firstsettlement of Las Casas’ Verapaz project—pacification through theword of god instead of weapons.

Thus just like theRab’inal Achi, the Xkolomche seems to havebeen linked with a calendrical cycle. What we are missing in theYucatec version, though, are the accounts on founding wars. In

this respect, it is wise to be careful to say something definitiveabout the affiliation between thepokob’ chanaland thexkolomche.

THE MAIZE TREE AS THE TREE OF SACRIFICE

We have only been paying scant attention to the role of the stakein the arrow sacrifice. These days theRab’inal Achi is still per-formed, but we do not see the Warrior of K’iche’ tied to a tree orstake to be shot with arrows. It would be surprising to find such anending after centuries of censorship. The Maya of Rab’inal havelost that part of the tradition and enact, as mentioned, the execu-tion of the Warrior of K’iche’ by laying their axes in his neck.Still, the information is not entirely lost; it lives on in the text it-self (Breton 1994). To wit, in the last monologue of the drama, theWarrior of K’iche’ says:

we qatz waral in kamel if it is true that I will die herein sachel that I will perishwaral chuxmut kaj here in the center of the skychuxmut ulew in the center of the worldare k’u xchinwachilib’ej la kuk then I will resemble this squirrella tz’ikin this birdla xkam chuq’ab’ che’ who died on the branch of a treechuxum che’ on the shoot of a treechirech utzukuxik la recha’ in search of its foodla uk’uxun its nourishmentwaral chuxmut kaj here in the center of the skychuxmut ulew in the center of the worldix b’a ri kot then, you Eaglesix b’a ri b’alam then, you Jaguars(Breton 1994:Lines 2572–2585)

Figure 7. First performance of Rab’inal Achi on January 20 before the altar of San Sebastián. His statue is in the center of the picture.The hilltop in the back is Kaqyuq, with the Postclassic ruins. Photo by Ruud van Akkeren.

Sacrifice at the maize tree 291

We know the remainder of this grave farewell from the firstlines of this essay. Thus, the Warrior of K’iche’ compares himselfto birds and squirrels looking for food in a tree. The words evokea scene in which he is standing tied to a tree and looking up at theanimals that live on its branches.

The Königlichen Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin possessesa few ceramic flutes from a cave named Sabalam near Coban. Ed-uard Seler who commented on the pieces and attributed them tothe Postclassic period. One of them is particularly interesting tous. It is hard to make out everything on the accompanyingphoto so I shall give Seler’s (1960:3:Tafel V, abb. 1) descriptionof it:

. . .the first piece. . .shows a figure dressed in amaxtlatland ahipcloth, who has big, round earplugs and wears a string withcylindrical stone beats around his neck, and who is adorned withlong, wing-like feathers coming from the side of his head. Thefigure is portrayed in a dancing position before a type of tree,of which the branches are depicted with young corncobs, stillin their leafs. And above the head of the figure a corncob sticksout high as well. On the right and left side one finds animals(squirrel and bird) nibbling from the corncobs. And one finds

animals as well, sitting on their hindlegs, at the feet of the mainfigure [translation by the author].14

The piece seems like a snapshot of the last scene of a pre-Hispanic performance of theRab’inal Achi. A dancing person, al-most nude, standing in front of a fictitious but very popular treeamong the Maya, a Maize Tree, with squirrels and birds on itsbranches feeding on the corn. Bear in mind that the scene is foundon a musical instrument used with dances. The ceramic flute comesfrom a place near Coban, which is Alta Verapaz. Surely, Rab’inalis Baja Verapaz; both areas still share a long history. I will notdiscuss the ethnohistory of the region here, but one should knowthat Q’eqchi-speaking lineages of Coban were the original inhab-itants of Rab’inal and actually gave their name to the valley. Else-where, I have shown that the characters and themes of theRab’inalAchihave many counterparts in modern myths of the Alta Verapazarea (Akkeren 2000).

The most famous example of the Maize Tree is the so-calledFoliated Cross in Palenque. The Kaqchikel named their capital af-ter it, Iximche’. The tree and the word,iximche’, also show up intheRab’inal Achi(Breton 1994:Line 1096). Its appearance has beenused to date the text, because we know the Kaqchikel founded theircity somewhere in the second half of the fifteenth century. But Ihave demonstrated that theiximche’mentioned in theRab’inal Achi(Breton 1994:Line 1096) is not a toponym; it is the tree that risesup from the center of the world to hold up the heaven, the WorldTree (Akkeren 2000).

Indeed, the last words of theWarrior of K’iche’ tell us that the treehe mentions is standingchuxmut kaj, chuxmut ulew, literally “in thenavel of the sky, in the navel of the world.” If one reads theRab’inalAchione will encounter these words so often that one is likely to givethem little attention.They appear to be one of those courteous phrasescommonly used in Maya language. If we examine the places wherethey occur, however, we’ll find that over half of them refer to the lo-cation where theWarrior of K’iche’ is going to die. It is the same placewhere the stone pillar of Dzitbalche stands:tu chumuc c kivic, or “inthe center of our plaza.”

There is more proof that the World Tree is actually mentionedin theRab’inal Achi. In one passage, the Warrior of Rab’inal looksfrom a hilltop to the fortress of his lord:

xa k’u xere mi xintzaq uloq nutzu’bal and from here I cast a looknumuqubal a gazechuwach kaj to the skychuwach ulew to the worldxa nim raqanibal sutz’ and enormous was the Sustainer of

Cloudsmayul chik the Sustainer of Mistjikjotinaq chi kanoq towering up therechuwach unimal tz’aq before the great townunimal k’oxtun the great fortress(Breton 1994:Lines 910–918)

14 “. . .das erste Stück. . .zeigt eine mit maxtlatl und Hüfttuch be-kleidete Figur, die grosse runde Ohrpflöcke und an einer Schnur um denHals eine zylindrische Steinperle trägt und mit grossen, flügelartigen Fer-derschmucken, die zu den Seiten des Kopfes herausragen, geschmückt ist.Die Figur ist in Tanzstellung dargestellt vor einer Art Baum, dessen Zweigevon jungen, noch in der Scheide befindlichen Maiskolben gebildet sind.Und auch über dem Kopfe der Figur ragt ein solcher Maiskolben hoch indie Höhe. Auf der rechten aund auf der linken Seite sieht man Thierfig-uren (Eichhörnchen und Vogel) an den Maiskolben knabbern. Und Thier-figuren sieht man, Männchen machend, auch zu den Füssen der Hauptfigur”(Seler 1960 T III:616).

Figure 8. Close-up of San Sebastián martyred by arrows. Photo by Ruudvan Akkeren.

292 Akkeren

The phraseraqanib’al sutz’, mayulhas always been translatedas “clouds creeping up a hill” (Breton 1994:Lines 914–915). It isderived, however, fromraqanand the-b’al suffix, which is in thiscase a locational suffix, “place where. . . .” In K’iche’ or Kaqchikel,raqanmeans “his leg”;raqan jayis the “leg of a house,” that is, apillar which supports the roof. A modern Kaqchikel dictionary hasajraqen as the indigenous word forencargado, a Spanish wordwith a meaning closer to the act of carrying something (Munson1991). Theencargado, often used as a synonym forprincipal, is aperson who holds a high position in the village, who carries outthe task of a village authority.15 Raqanib’al sutz mayulis the placewhere the clouds and mist are held. In addition, the verbjikjotstems from a noun which means “árbol alto” (Ximénez 1985:273).The tree is standing in the center of the world of the Rab’inal peo-ple: Kaqyuq, because that is the fortress meant here. The afore-mentionediximche’ is pictured on the same spot, before the greatfortress. It is in Kaqyuq, not surprisingly referred to aschuxmutkaj, chuxmut ulew, that the Warrior of K’iche’ will meet his end(Breton 1994:Lines 328–331).

I have recorded many prayers in Rab’inal, including the onesthat are part of the ritual blessing of the dance, recited on the var-ious mountain shrines mentioned in theRab’inal Achi (Akkeren2000). The phraseraqanib’al sutz’, mayulis still much in use, of-ten replaced by the phrasechuxmut kaj, chuxmut ulew. For exam-ple, in the blessing prayer, the souls of the dead are invited to cometo the altar with offerings, which is considered at that moment thecenter on the universe:

kulsiqono b’a alaq ri’ chupamraqanib’al sutz’

come and savor in the sustainer ofclouds

mayul and mist

and

kulsiqono k’u ri qanima come our souls and savorwaral chuxmut kaj here at the center of the skywaral chuxmut ulew here at the center of the world(Akkeren 2000)

The pole in the arrow sacrifice described in theSongs of Dzit-balchéwas a supporting column of stone as well, calledokom tum.The word is derived fromokom, “columna de madera; pilar o posteu horcón de madera sobre que fundan las casas pajizas” andokomtun, “columna, pilar o poste alto de piedra” (Barrera Vásquez1991:599).

Let us return to the last monologue. The Warrior of K’iche’ iden-tifies himself with a bird being shot from the tree of life, or WorldTree. He actually alludes to a famous story from thePopol Wuj,the one about the bragging bird Wuqub’ Kaqix who perches everyday in a nance tree searching for food. The hero twins Junajpu andXbalanke shoot the bird from the tree. Though the twins used darts,I take the act to be an allegory of the arrow sacrifice. In an earlierquote about thepokob’ chanalin Chi Ismachi we already cameacross a clue:

majajioq kanab’ there were not yet captivesteleche’ prisoners of warmajab’ioq uchuch tz’ikin there was not yet the mother of birdsxko kaqix the red feathered macaw16

majajab’ioq nima k’atoj there were not yet the sacrificesmajajab’ioq pokob’ chanal there was not yet the Shield Dancexa k’a uch’utinal only a small one(Carmack and Mondloch 1983:Folio 23r)

Here, apparently, the victim of thepokob’ chanal, or the arrowsacrifice, is connected with or is simply called “Mother of Birds”and “Red Feathered Macaw.” There are various illustrations ofJunajpu pointing his blowgun at a bird perched on the top of atree. The panel of the North Temple of the Ballcourt at Chich’enItza, which we discussed, shows a blowgunning figure just belowthe action of the nose piercing (Freidel et al. 1993:Figure 8:32).Another famous example is the Classic Blowgunner Pot (Freidelet al. 1993:Figure 2:7). In this last instance, Junajpu is called JunAjaw, his Classic name. The tree on the pot is not aceiba, as hasbeen postulated by others (Freidel et al. 1993:417). The fruit oftheceibais neither globular nor randomly sprouting from the tree’slarger limbs, and its leaves are palmately shaped. Instead, this treeis a gourd tree, atzimaj che’. The phrase recalls the arrow sacri-fice. In the killing of Tolk’om from theMemorial de Sololá(Men-gin 1952:Folio 15r) the victim is first shot withtzimaj che’, probablya longer type of arrow.Tzimaj—variously spelledsimaj—means“pointed stick” in K’iche’ (Ximénez 1985:646), and “arrow” inQ’eqchi (Haeserijn 1979:343). The scorpion on the pot, at the baseof the gourd tree, is a close homonym:sinaj. The same goes forClassic Cholantzima, “gourd,” andsina, “scorpion” (Kaufman andNorman 1984). Thus, the bird in the gourd tree is likely to repre-sent a victim ready to be perforated with arrows. It clarifies onceagain why the Warrior of K’iche’ compares himself with a birdand puts his sacrifice in terms of “feathergrowing.”

Now that we have elaborated upon the symbolism of the WorldTree, it is worthwhile to come back to the K’iche’ word for “pris-oner of war,” i.e.,kanab’, teleche’. Both words are applied to theWarrior of K’iche’. Kanab’, “game,” stresses the hunting charac-ter of war. At the moment the Warrior of K’iche’ is tied to thestake, he is like a bird or a squirrel ready to be shot.Teleche’needsfurther explanation. It is composed of two words,telej, “to carrysomething on one’s shoulder,” andche’, “tree” or just “wood.” Thefirst thought that comes to mind is some sort of yoke resting onthe shoulder of the prisoner. But none of the dictionaries refers tosuch an instrument, and the yoke of an animal is called differently(Coto 1983[1656]:362).

Perhaps, then, the proper translation should be “he who carriesthe tree on his shoulder.” There is textual and iconographic sup-port for such an idea. In that case Sipakna from thePopol Wuj, sonof the aforementioned Wuqub’ Kaqix seems to be the archetypalprisoner of war. In the story, Sipakna offers to help the Four-

15 It is too tempting in this matter not to briefly mention the creatorgod of the K’iche’ Juraqan which literally means “One Leg,” “One Length,”or “One Pillar.” In my opinion he personifies the World Tree. He is thesustainer of the “sky earth,” the nourisher of humankind. His other nameis Uk’ux Kaj, Uk’ux Ulew, “Heart of the Sky, Heart of the World,” and heis associated with the colors green and blue, the colors of the center. HisAztec counterpart is Tezcatlipoca who is always portrayed as having onefoot.

16 The blowgunning of birds is not only present in the scene of Wu-qub’ Kaqix but also in the one with Kab’raqan, his son. Kab’raqan is notexactly killed with darts but by eating a bird shot by Junajpu and Xb’alanke.The bird gets a special treatment:jun k’ut tz’ikin xkiqul sajkab’ chirij, “andone bird they covered all over with plaster” (Edmonson 1971:1599). In theGuatemalan highlands they whitewashed their prisoners. In theRab’inalAchi the paint is calledsajkab’, “white earth,” which in fact is the Yucatecword for “lime,” a loan-word. The K’iche’ word for “lime” ischum. Saj-kab’ is one of the weapons Rab’inal Achi uses to threaten the Warrior ofK’iche’. Thus the letting of Kab’raqan to eat the plastered bird is a meta-phor for sentencing him to death.

Sacrifice at the maize tree 293

hundred Sons when they fail to lift an enormous tree that will serveas one of the main poles of their house. We may interpret the tree,calledche’ raqan, as the World Tree, and the house as the “sky-earth” or “universe” in K’iche’.17 Sipakna seeing it says:chiteleb’a,ixchintelej, “put it on my shoulder, I will carry it” (Edmonson1971:1179–1180). Frightened by his ability to lift the tree withoutmuch effort, the Fourhundred Sons plan to kill him. They haveSipakna dig a hole for their tree, in order to cast the pole down ontop him. This does not quite work out in the story; the Fourhun-dred Sons are killed by the prudent creature instead. Later, how-ever, Sipakna is slain by the hero twins and buried in a cave. Thatthe Fourhundred Sons do not succeed in their plans does not mat-ter here. Sipakna is meant to be a captive holding up the WorldTree, ateleche’. Schele and Freidel (1990:91) have shown how onClassic Maya stelae the lord often portrays himself as the WorldTree. In Postclassic times this was no different. When, for exam-ple, the Kaqchikel wanted to praise theirprincipalesthey said:

at ajaw you lordat nute you are our motherat nutata you are our fatherkere at inub’ you are like the ceibakaqjay like the temple pyramidpa qawi over our headsk’o paran chaxe there is shelter at your rootskere at qaparab’al you are our protectionat qamujib’al you are our shadow(Coto 1983[1656]:385)

Equally as often one finds on the stele a miserable looking crea-ture that serves as the pedestal for the lord (Figure 4). If the lord isthe World Tree, the captive is the one who carries him upon hisshoulder, theteleche’.On other monuments, the captive is de-picted with his hand on his own shoulder. It has been explained asa gesture of submission, but it might very well be the iconographicindication of theteleche’(Schele and Miller 1986).

DISCUSSION

TheRab’inal Achiis a tun dance. I began this article with the no-tion that in pre-Columbian times the ritual killing at the end of thisdrama took place in a danced arrow sacrifice. Consulting addi-tional indigenous texts, we found othertun dances featured simi-lar sacrifices. They were part of a larger festival callednima pokob’or pokob’ chanal, or Shield Dance. These festivals celebrated theinvestment of a new ruler or commemorated the founding wars ofa specific lineage and its rise to power. The dances reenacted theheroic feats and ended with the execution of a prisoner of war tiedto a stake or scaffold. We then shifted our attention to the scaffoldor stake. It appeared it was visualized as standing in the center ofthe Maya universe, meant to symbolize the World Tree. A fancifulimage of that tree is the Maize Tree, well known from the templeof the Foliated Cross in Palenque. In theRab’inal Achi, the cap-tive pictures himself at the foot of this Maize Tree seconds beforehis execution. He compares himself to a bird being blowgunnedfrom the branches. In this sense he resembles the Wuqub’ Kaqixcharacter of thePopol Wuj. Scholars have pointed at the eschato-logical character of this creature: his death sets a new era in mo-tion. (Freidel et al. 1993). Future research should concentrate onthe eschatological role of the victim: in what respect is his deathand blood indispensable for the accession of a new king or a newruling lineage?

RESUMEN

El famoso drama, conocido comoRab’inal Achi, cuyo nombre indígena esXajoj Tun, terminaba en tiempos precolombinos con un sacrificio humano.Un estudio comparativo de los documentos nativos muestra que la víc-tima, un prisionero de guerra, se moría por flechas. El baile detun formabaparte de un festival más amplio con motivos de propaganda. El sacrificioritual acentuaba momentos políticos importantes como la inauguración deun nuevo señor, el nombramiento de altos oficios o la conmemoración debatallas decisivas para la promoción al poder de un linaje. En el caso delRab’inal Achi es el pasado heroico del linaje de los Toj, reinadores de

Rab’inal en los tiempos postclásicos tardios, lo que es el sujeto del baile.Fijándonos en el lenguaje usado para la descripción del flechamiento nosda cuenta que la víctima, atada a un marco de madera, a un bramadero o auna columna, era considerada como presa, y los arqueros como cazadores.El bramadero mismo también tenía una significación simbólica. Represen-taba el árbol de la vida, que conocemos como el Árbol del Mundo, y quese levanta desde el centro de la tierra y apoya el cielo y las nubes. Al pare-cer, ese árbol se llama Árbol de Maíz en elRab’inal Achi, igual a la ima-gen famoso grabado en el Tablero de la Cruz Foliada de Palenque.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am very grateful to Alain Breton who let me use his translation of theRab’inal Achibefore it was published. The article was greatly improvedby the long discussions we had in Rab’inal or on our way to the capital,Guatemala City. I also thank Don José León Coloch, present director of

the Rab’inal Achi. He is a man with great knowledge of his culture, whotaught—and still teaches—me the details of the K’iche’ language andshowed me around in the cosmovisional landscape of Rab’inal.

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