Survey of Talking Cross Shrines in Yucatán and Quintana Roo

Huipiles, Sudarios, and Maize

Key symbols, concealed by clothing, on the staffs of some of the crosses are "ixi’im," maize, stalks which combined with the green color of the cross creates a symbolic link with agriculture. One of the better known, still practiced, traditional rituals which exhibits ancient ideology is the agricultural related petition/thanksgiving for rain called the Ch’a Chaak. Having been discussed at length elsewhere (Love 1989; Redfield and Villa Rojas 1934:138-143; Sosa 1989:140), I will only comment on what has been omitted--the symbolic meaning and function of the communicating cross in the ritual.

The cross is conspicuously placed in the recessed center of the "mesa," table top altar, which is said to represent the earthly plane. The cross, being towards the middle, is therefore at the center point of the mini-cosmos created by the "h-men", shaman-priest, and the four legs of the table along with the arched branches create the four cardinal/directional sides (Figure 17). During the ritual the cross becomes a functional axis mundi, which the h-men activates, in order to receive the divine forces that enter through the circular portal in the vault. According to some of my shaman consultants the cross is a "secretary", a conduit, for the transmission of petitions to the chaak’oob, rain deities, which are said to be "grasped" and brought "diving" down through the aperture of the vault. Perhaps relevant to what my shaman consultants describe, the postclassic/contact period Dresden Codex has a depiction of a diving chaak figure holding a ceramic vessel from which emerges a cross-like foliated Axis Mundi (Figure 18).

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Another key symbol linking Maya crosses to agricultural regeneration is the clothing with which the object is usually adorned. The clothing has usually been claimed to be a huipil, the "traditional" Maya womans dress, and therefore the "sex" of the cross has usually been deemed to be female (Bricker 1981:108; Dumond 1985:295; Reed 1964:138; Sullivan 1989:23). However, utilizing what Victor Turner (1969:6-11) and Eva Hunt (1977) termed the "inside view" approach, that is, closely following native exegesis in interpreting their own symbols leads me to a strikingly different conclusion. While the Spanish words for "the cross" have the female marker of "la cruz", the Maya apparently do not literally adhere to Spanish linguistic "gender" markers for objects such as the cross.

My consultants refer to the crosses with Catholic male angels and saints names; such as Bernardino, Pedro, and Pablo, and in fact state that crosses are strictly male. Importantly, not one of my consultants has stated that crosses are female and have been appalled at such a suggestion or question on my part; however, it is my assessment that clothed Maya crosses simultaneously are a symbollic embodiment of both male and female attributes. The clothing of the cross is not a "huipil" but a special cloth (Konrad 1991:131) called a "sudario," a death shroud--these are two distinct but somewhat similar looking items of clothing (Nancy Forand, personal communication, 1997). ³ 

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In the Yucatán peninsula all "huipil’oob," huipiles, have a straight U-shaped collar (Figure 19 -- woman) while the sudario-shrouds have a cleft V-shaped collar (Figure 19 -- crosses). None of the clothed crosses I have seen in the Yucatán has worn a huipil. Every single one of them wore a sudario (sometimes in layers of three); however, there are exceptions--clothed crosses in museum displays (Figure 20)--evidently dressed in a huipiles because the relevant literature claims that this is the garment worn by such crosses. Interestingly, my consultants state that for them to dress a cross in a huipil would risk great retribution due to the offensive nature of such an action. Seemingly contradictory the sudario symbolizes these "crosses" as simultaneously dead and living entities. My consultants exegesis links these crosses to the agricultural cycle and other natural ecological processes which are in a constant mode of life and death through organic regeneration as plants emerge through clefts in the earth. Indeed, some of my consultants have stated, "le kruzo ku nojoch ta te tu sudario yetel te luma," -- "the cross grows from the sudario and the earth;" and as noted previously, all sudarios are marked by having a cleft like aperture from which the cross emerges, and the crosses are often regarded as living beings and as plant-like.

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At this point it should be noted that clefts, which abound in connoting the female sex of the earth, are symbolic of rebirth and renewal in pre-Columbian imagery. I therefore suggest that there is a similar symbolic function of the V-shaped cleft from which Macehual crosses, which as stated are often conceptualized as trees and maize stalks, protrude and the use of the earth plane cleft in pre-Columbian maize cosmological symbolism. Karl Taube (1985, 1993) has identified Maize God imagery in various pre-Columbian rebirth contexts and has alluded that the imagery is a personification of maize as the world tree (Figure 21). I therefore argue that my data indicates that there is a multi-dimensional symbolic nexus between the maize plant [the cross] and the world tree within rebirth and renewal imagery and ritual. Non-too coincidentally, rebirth and renewal is a core pre-Columbian belief that can be traced through ancient Maya art.

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For example, a ceramic vessel depicts what is interpreted as the Maize God dressed in a Nine Knot Death Shroud. He is depicted as a skeleton which regenerates into, not one, but three maize plants/axis mundis (Figure 22) (Schele and Mathews 1998:122). Due to the triad pattern found in much of pre-Columbian art, I therefore suggest that contemporary triad groupings of crosses (Figure 23) in the Maya area are subject to debate as to whether this is a totally Christian concept. I suggest that triadic groupings of crosses also represent a fusion with pre-Columbian ideology. This is highly significant since my consultants neither identify triadic cross groupings with Calvary, nor any Maya cross, other then crucifixes, with Jesus Christ. ⁴ 

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Endnotes

3. Appreciation is given to Nancy Forand who unselfishly gave her assistance while I conducted preliminary interviews and patiently translated my probing personal questions, regarding cross associated beliefs, which I posed to her consultants as I was beginning to learn the Maya language.

4. Calvary is the Jerusalem hilltop where Jesus Christ, along with two thieves, was crucified (Matthew 27:33; Mark 15:22; John 19:17; Luke 23:33).

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