How Our Mother Beloved Maiden was Saved from an Untimely Death:  A christianized version of the Xkik’ tale of the Popol Wuj

Flower Staffs

An interesting detail in the Beloved Maiden text, which is not directly visible in the Popol Wuj, are the flower staffs that the suitors of Our Mother Beloved Maiden bring to the church. The owner of the staff that blossoms, will receive the maiden’s hand. The object seems, first of all, an almost inevitable phallic symbol. However, flower staffs appear to have been a piece of equipment used in wedding ceremonies. Among the K’iche’ Maya, the family of the man brings wands wound with flowers to offer to the woman’s family (Barbara Tedlock, 1996:117). The custom dates back to pre-Columbian times, as we can make out from the Título de Totonicapán. When K’iche’ lord K’otuja proposes to a Tz’utujil princess from the Pacific coast he offers her father many different gifts including retal nusij, "my flower symbols" (Carmack & Mondloch, 1983:24r). The historical wedding probably took place in the XIV^th. Interestingly, a Cotzumalhuapa stela (Bilbao monument 18) from the same coastal region displays the offering of flower staffs, which must have happened some four centuries earlier (Hatch, 1989:177-8). The corresponding date seems 9 B’atz’ or 9 Ozomatli (we do not know what language was spoken in Cotzumalhuapa), and today B’atz’ days are still the best days for wedding proposals (B. Tedlock, 1996:117).

As far as I know flower staffs are not part of the wedding gifts in Rab’inal. However, when I heard the text for the first time it immediately reminded me of the staffs which heads of cofradías carry. They are wooden staffs with a silver medallion of the saint on top, sitting in a flowery branch of bright colored silver-foiled flowers. Mayordomos bring out their staffs at important calendrical moments including the day they change cargo, which may be conceived as the beginning of a new epoch. In a sense mayordomos fit the description of the wealthy and important suitors in the Beloved Maiden text, though usually they are old, and married a long time ago.

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