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

Torn Away from Home

In the old days every Tz’onoj or Petitioning had its complemental ritual at the eve of the wedding in the church. It is called Esanik, "Taking Away". It is still done but even less than the Tz’onoj. It is the moment that the bride is officially separated from her family. She is dressed in her new clothes that her in-laws provided for her during the Tz’onoj. The girl is taken to house of the boy, where they duplicate the acts and prayers performed during the Tz’onoj, this time in the house of her new family. The ceremony is also called B’oqonik, a verb that is used for pulling a plant out off the ground, roots including. The girl is completely disjoined from her home and family. Interestingly, we encounter the same verb, b’oqonik, in the Xkik’ tale. It is employed when the maiden pulls the tassel from the corncob: ta xuk’am k’ut ri tzamiy/utzamiyal uwi jal xub’oq aqanoq, "then she grabbed the tassel/and she pulled out the tassel at the top of the cob" (Edmonson, 1971:lines 2535-6, my translation). With the tassel she manages to fill up the entire net. The scribes may have deliberately laid the symbolism in this passage. She was not accepted in the house of her mother in law, Xmukane, until she was completely uprooted from her past. Only when she comes home with the net of corn-cobs, is she allowed to enter her new home.

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