Now the Halach Uinic was speaking out in Spanish, and not in Maya. This was a good thing. You had tried to understand Maya when Tepeu had demonstrated it for you, but you had failed entirely. Not a single word had made itself clear to your understanding. You looked back over your shoulder and you saw the woman with the damaged face translating for the two other gringos, and this was good also, because the gringos, too, needed to understand what it was the Halach Uinic was offering them. They needed to be free, as you were, to either agree to, or to refuse, the Halach Uinic’s offer. This much was plain to you.
Next, the Halach Uinic was holding up your book. He began to tell the story of your family’s guardianship of the book over many generations. He told how one of his priests, who had been trained to read the language of the ancient Maya, had read the book, and that it contained a story that everyone needed to hear. But that the priest could only recount this story with your permission. For the book was yours, he said, not theirs. You had been chosen to guard it, and not a Maya. Just as the gods had chosen a gringo to discover the thirteenth crystal skull.
These choices made by the gods constituted a message, the Halach Uinic continued – a message with two tongues to it. The first tongue told that the Maya were in no way special. They had not been selected over others. They took no precedence in any hierarchy. They were not ‘chosen people’. Like a priest, their function was simply to be the mouthpiece for whatever the gods, and through them, the one god, Hunab Ku, had to tell the world.
The second tongue referred to the end of what the Halach Uinic called the ‘Long Count’, which he described as the end of the last great 52-year cycle of the serpent wisdom – the final ‘sheaf of years’. This, he said, was the only time when the first day of the 365-year calendar and the first day of the 260-year calendar intersected during the 52 years of the Calendar Round. It marked the end of the Fifth Great Cycle. The end of the Fifth Sun.
Your head was beginning to spin at this stage. Why was the Halach Uinic concentrating on these things? What did they mean?
Next he told how the beginning of the first of the Five Great Cycles had begun with the birth of Venus, on 4 Ahua 8 Cumku. At this point he turned towards the gringos and explained that in their calendar – which he called the Gregorian – Venus’s birth date fell on 11 August 3114 BC. The Fifth Great Cycle was due to end on 21 December 2012, not with the death of Venus, but with the possible destruction of the earth. This was not the first time the earth had faced such a crisis, he added. For during the preceding 5126-year period, the world had been created five times, and had been destroyed on four separate occasions.
The Halach Uinic now told a story to further illustrate his meaning – just as the priest at your church in Coscohuatepec did when he spoke of the parables of Jesus Christ. The story went as follows:
When the Halach Uinic was still a young man and unsure of his destiny, he had travelled to Palenque to sit at the feet of the great Lacandon shaman and elder, the t’o’ohil Chan K’in. At this time Chan K’in was already more than a hundred years old, and he had seen many things. The Halach Uinic had spoken to Chan K’in of the coming of the Great Change – of his fears, and of his lack of understanding about the event.
At first, Chan K’in, chewing on a large cigar as was his habit, had replied only in the negative. ‘The land is weary and must be destroyed before Hachakyum, the Creator, can revitalize it. The quetzal bird no longer flies. Men cut down the forests and no longer respect nature. The god Mensabak no longer speaks to me.’
The Halach Uinic, being only a young man at the time, had refused to accept this negativity as Chan K’in’s last word, and he had pressed the old one for further details.
After some hesitation, Chan K’in had gone on to tell the Halach Uinic that if this coming event were approached in the right way – through the ritual of atonement, perhaps – the Great Change might not be as bad as he had at first made out, but might instead give birth to a new Great Cycle of Time. If it was approached in the wrong way, however – through anger and greed – this would foretell the world’s final destruction. Such an event would affect all people throughout the world, and not just the Maya. This fact, Chan K’in had said, must be taken into account.
The Halach Uinic now drew himself up and addressed the assembly in a louder voice than normal. ‘It is for this reason that I intend to step down from my position as both Halach Uinic and Ah Kin Mai to make way for someone better qualified to pass on the word of Hunab Ku. A non-Maya, perhaps. Someone more competent to speak beyond our borders. This is my decision.’
77
There was a hiss from the crowd, as of a vast expulsion of breath.
The Halach Uinic turned his back on his people and made as if he would hide himself amongst the other priests. But the priests pushed forward and gathered themselves around him. No word was said, but the Halach Uinic was left with no option but to return to his place at the head of the assembly. He lowered his head and nodded, as if a burden had been placed on his shoulders, and a tumpline attached to his forehead with which to carry it.
Without pausing for thought, you chose this exact moment to walk to the very forefront of the pyramid. You stood beside the Halach Uinic and you looked out over the crowd.
These Maya were not your people, but you felt a kinship with them. Guarding their book had given you this feeling. As if the book, which you were unable to read, nevertheless held within it the distilled spirit of the people you saw below you.
‘The Halach Uinic says that this book is mine. And that I may do with it as I please. That it is worth great sums of money to the gringos in the north, and that I will be a rich man when I sell it. I understand why he is doing this – why he is offering me this choice. But what the Halach Uinic says about the ownership of the book is not true. This book is not mine to give. For it is already yours.’ You drew yourself up, scared in case you had angered the priests. Scared that you had pushed yourself forward without merit.
The Halach Uinic opened one hand to you in a sign of encouragement. Then he moved the hand out in an arc to encompass the people below him.
You nodded. The Halach Uinic’s intentions were clear. He wished you to address his people.
‘Now I, too, must tell you a story.’ Your ears were hurting with the tension of your position. You had never in your life spoken to so many people at one time. In fact you had never spoken to more than a gathering of four. ‘Many, many years ago, one of your people was escaping from bad happenings here. What happenings, I do not know.’ You hesitated, unsure how to continue.
The Halach Uinic stepped forward to help you. ‘It was during the time of the Caste War between the Maya and the Yucatecos. This war occurred between 1847 and 1901. The Chilan protecting this book was the ak k’u hun – the “guardian of the sacred books”. He was caught up in the uprising at Valladolid, followed by the great revolt of the Maya people in the spring of 1848 and its aftermath. He writes all this on the back leaf of the book. Here. You can see.’