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Published: April 1st 2005
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Went to see Maximon today. Actually, I've encountered him at least once before, near San Cristobal, Mexico. Turns out, the Maya of the village of Santiago de Atitlan, who worship Maximon (or San Simon, when giving lip service to the Catholic church), came to the area from Mexico. They are, however, not to be confused with the Maya in Santa Clara, on the other side of the lake, where we are staying, who speak a completely different language and came to the area at a different time. Nor are either to be confused with the Maya of San Marcos or San Pedro, each speaking their own language and with their own historical traditions as well. How on earth people living just kilometers from one another have maintained completely seperate languages through the years I don't know. Presumably has something to do with the fact that their were no roads into these towns until very recently (in fact, Santa Clara still isn't connected to the outside world by road).
Anyways, since the time of the conquest they have used spanish as a common tongue in order to communicate with eachother. Before that I don't know what they did. Presumably just didn't leave
their village. Or maybe they have all come here since the conquest, displaced from more accessible and easily planted and harvested lands.
In order to find Maximon, you must ask a local child. The guide books can't tell you where he is, because every year he moves to a new person's house. This is apparently a great honour, getting to house a deity (or his physical representation). Respected village elders compete for this honour by doing good deeds, or possibly by outright buying the rights. From what I saw, it may also be very profitable: people leave food, cigarettes, booze, and cash as offerings for Maximon, and gringos pay for the privilege of being in his presence, and there was no indication of how all these offerings were being disposed of after Maximon was through with them.
At any rate, from the moment you get off the boat in Santiago, and wherever you go in the town, little boys are constantly accosting you and offering to bring you to Maximon. Until, of course, you decide that you have seen everything else in town and why not go check out the god. Then there is not a tyke in sight.
After wandering aimlessly for a while trying to make eye contact with kids on the street, we just stopped someone and asked them. And it turns out you don't have to pay a local child to show you the way, you can just ask for directions. Ten minutes down the street, we had arrived at the green house that was, for this year at least, the temple of Maximon. It stood out from the other houses only in that it had boughs of fir hanging over the door, and of course the sound of rather emphatic praying coming from within.
Hearing the praying, I felt that perhaps it would be rude to stomp in and interrupt, so I sat down on the curb by the door and waited for the man doing the praying (it actually sounded more like arguing) to finish. After a few minutes sitting around, while the man showed no sign of slowing down let alone stopping, a head stuck out the door and gestured for us to come in (at the same time conveying that a 2 Quetzal entrance fee was required). Thus we were summoned before Maximon.
The large front room was completely given over to the shrine. A few feet in the door stood Maximon, a very serious looking dude about three or four feet tall, carved out of wood and apparently wearing some kind of hat and a beard, a (real) cigar sticking out of his mouth, and clothed in what looked like about a hundred brightly coloured ribbons of silk, or else fairly tacky ties. The whole effect was kind of like Captain Haddock as rendered in sculpture by Aztecs, wearing a Mumu.
But the fellow kneeling in front of him struck me as even odder. He was rocking back and forth, reciting in a clear loud voice some kind of tale. I couldn't understand what he was saying, of course, although there was certainly the odd word of Spanish flung in there for good measure. But whatever he was talking about, it didn't really sound like prayer. For all the world, it sounded to me like he was reciting the last year of his life. Not in any narratively interesting way, mind you, but like a shopping list. "And then, on November 15th, once again I woke up at 8:30 am, made myself some rice and beans, walked up the side of the volcano.... And then, on November 16th, my wife and I went down to the dock to catch a boat to Panajachel... And then..." You get the idea.
There were half a dozen other people in the room, silently contemplating his holiness, completely disinterested, it seemed, in whatever the supplicant was saying. Offerings littered the floor around Maximon, in the form of cigarettes, bottles of coke, bottles of booze, plates of food. Furthermore, pinned to a few Maximon's many ribbons were banknotes. At the sides of the room were more traditional representations of other Saints of the Catholic pantheon, here but clearly secondary to the big man. Looking up, the roof was festooned with thousands of plastic cutout streamers hanging down in rows about a foot from the ceiling. Interspersed with the streamers were ovular brown blobs looking like some kind of gourd. Vanessa, on closer inspection, identified these as deli meats. How the deli meats fit into the equation, I have no idea.
We stayed in the presence for about fifteen minutes. I watched the attendant who had taken our two Quetzals, and who was probably the 30ish son of the man who had won the honour of housing Maximon this year, slowly falling asleep in his chair at the back of the room. Taking our leave, we backed out the door. Walking away, we could hear the praying chant continue. "And then, on January 12th, I departed from tradition and had a chicken sandwich for lunch. I remember particularly because the avocado was a little overripe, ..."
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