[Aztlan] Chichen Cenote

[Anna Blume]

Dear Karen,

Do you take these colonial sources as transparent evidence of things that occured?

"In the colonial testimonies regarding idolatry, numerous Maya witnesses
stated that they had the custom of throwing children and adults of both
sexes into a cenote to deliver messages to the gods."


Though, I do believe the Maya sacrificed people, I base this upon the iconography of Ancient Maya images (Bonompak Murals, etc...) or upon archeological analysis.  Colonial accounts are far more problematic, and to my mind cannot be used as "evidence" of things that occured, they are rather evidence of states of mind in conflict with one another.  In the 16thC. it was customary to torture "witness" in inquisitional trails to extract from them responses convinient to the authorities.  This was done in 16th C. Mexico and Guatemala and regularly done in the Old World as well.  For a dicussion of these practices see:  Dennis Tedlock's essay "Torture in the Archives: Mayans Meet Europeans" American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 95, No. 1. (Mar., 1993), pp. 139-152; or Carlo Ginzberg "The Night Battles" JHU Press, 1983 in which 16th European peasants testify to the "fact" that witches fly through the night sky to promote good crops.  

Anna Blume