THE STORY BEHIND MAYA

THE STORY BEHIND MAYA

The word Chocolate has an Aztec derivation, and indeed when Emperor Montezuma wanted the sixteenth century equivalent of a slush ice he sent runners to the volcanic mountain-top of Popacatapetl, near the Aztec capital city Tenochtitlan, to collect snow. This was sprinkled liberally with cocoa and vanilla to create a cooling tasty treat fit for a King. ‘Xocolatl’ - a bitter frothy drink made with chocolate, was also beloved by the Aztec ruler. Most of the world’s cocoa, from which chocolate is derived, is grown in a narrow belt 10 degrees either side of the Equator, and includes now, as well as South America,West Africa Malaysia and Indonesia.

The Mayas too revered chocolate aroma, and chocolate’s Latin name “Theobroma”, means “God food.” Vanilla is a well-loved aroma the world over, and one of the theories for its ready appreciation by all is that it has a smell reminiscent of mother’s breast milk. The main plant species harvested for vanillin is Vanilla planifolia. Although it was originally only native to Mexico, it is now widely grown throughout the tropics, with the world’s largest producer being the island of Madagascar

Thus Maya is a fitting tribute to both the deities and the wearer. If you’re seeking a mate, wearing Maya will find plenty of men willing to sacrifice themselves on your altar of love. But if you’re simply wanting to make a statement, then Maya puts the ancient Gods firmly on your side.

THE NAME OF THE FRAGRANCE

Maya takes its name from the central and North American peoples who inhabited present day Mexico and Guatemala. So far our search for aromas lost in time has centered on the ancient world around the Mediterranean. Here we offer a New World scent. December 21, 2012 is a date of special significance to the Maya, who were obsessed with time. It is the time of winter solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is furthest from the sun. But it is also a time, which happens only every few thousand years. And the last time it occurred civilization was in its infancy. It is at midnight on that date when the solar system will eclipse the view of the centre of our galaxy the Milky Way- from Earth. To the Maya time will either end or begin on that pivotal date. And thus we offer the fragrance of the Maya in sacrifice, such that it will not be the end of days for humankind. Let its fragrance, rising to the heavens, please all our Gods.

COLOUR

Green denotes the verdant Mayan jungles of the Mexico and Guatemala after rainfall.

THE BOTTLE DESIGN

Is a typical Mayan fresco picture from Northern and Central America.

MAYA’S TALE

Dark were the days of the Maya's conquest before the armed might of Spain in the sixteenth century. And a greater dark fell on their memory, as books and sacred texts were burned by the Church, that pagan practice be erased from the earth. But some texts remain in hidden places, and can again be brought to the light of day, such as this nobleman's letter to the Spanish court describing an ancient practice:

“The lords and principal personages of the land had the custom, after sixty days of abstinence and fasting, of arriving at daybreak at the mouth of the Cenote, and throwing into it Indian women belonging to each of these lords and personages, at the same time telling these women to ask for their masters a year favorable to their particular needs or desires.

The women, being thrown in unbound, fell into the water with great force and noise. At high noon those that could cry out loudly and rope were let down to them. After the women came up, half dead, fires were built around them and copal incense was burned before them.

When they recovered their senses, they said that below there were many people of their nation, men and women, and that they received them. When their heads were inclined downwards beneath the water they seemed to see many deeps and hollows, and they, the people, responded to their queries concerning the good or the bad year that was in store for their masters”. Don Diego Sarmiento de Figuero - Letter to King Charles V of Spain: 1579

And this epistle from a churchman to his masters in Europe: “From the court in front of these theatres runs a wide and handsome roadway as far off as the Well, which is about two stone throws off. Into this well the Mayas were and still are accustomed to throw men alive as a sacrifice to the gods in times of drought; they held that they did not die, even though they were not seen again. They also threw in many other offerings of precious stones and things they valued greatly; so if there were gold in this country, this well would have received most of it, so devout were the Indians in this.

This well is seven long fathoms deep to the surface of the water, more than a hundred feet wide, round, of natural rock marvelously smooth down to the water... At the top near the mouth, is a small building where I found idols made in honor of all the principal buildings in the land, like the Pantheon in Rome... I found sculptured lions, vases and other things so that I do not understand how anyone can say that these people had no tools”. Writings of Bishop Diego de Landa from “Chichén-Itzá: The City of the Wise Men of the Water by Roman Chan”

Back in the late nineteenth century when the American Edward Thompson read these accounts, he wondered if there was any truth to the stories, and set out to prove their veracity or otherwise. Journeying on horseback he was guided to the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. This flowery account of his visits is by his friend, T.E Willard, detailed in a turn of twentieth century book, “The City of the Sacred Well” about the city of the Itzas, where the sacred cenote is situated.

“For days I had been travelling, first by train, then by volan- that satanic contrivance which leaves one bruised from head to foot- and finally in the saddle, dozing over the head of a somnolent horse.

Even the witchery of the moonlight could not long hold alert my fatigued body and mind. On and on we plodded, hour after hour. Midnight passed and how many hours I do not know, when I heard an exclamation in the vernacular from my guide. Startled out of my half- conscious dream, I became erect in the saddle.

My Indian was earnestly pointing up ahead. I raised my eyes and became electrically, tinglingly awake. There, high up, wraith- like in the waning moonlight, loomed what seemed to be a Grecian temple of colossal proportions atop a steep hill. So massive did it seem in the half-light of the approaching morning that I could think of it only as some impregnable fortress high above the sea, on some rock, wave- dashed promontory. As this mass took clearer shape before me and with each succeeding hoof- beat of my weary steed, it grew more and more huge. I felt an actual physical pain, as if my heart had slipped a few beats and then raced to make up the loss....” From an initial foray in the City overgrown with foliage, Thompson homed in on the well of sacrifice.

... “And then my eyes were caught and held by a broad raised roadway leading straight away from the temple towards a vast black pool overgrown with trees. Breathless, frozen to the spot, I could only look and look, for in a blinding flash I realized that I was gazing at the Sacred Way, and at the end the Sacred Well in whose murky depths even then might lie the pitiful bones of many once lovely maidens sacrificed to appease a grim god. What untold treasures this grisly well might hide! What tragedies had been enacted at its brink!

I descended and as I walked along the Sacred Way I thought of the thousands, millions of times perhaps, of times this worn thoroughfare had been trodden in bygone ages where all was now desolate. Here was I, a grain of dust moving where kings and nobles of countless centuries before had trod and where, for all I know, kings and nobles may again tread long years after I am still a grain of dust but moveless.

At the brink of the well I peered into the blackness and continued to gaze into its depths, picturing in my mind's eye the awesome ceremonies it had witnessed. The chant of death begins, swelling softly over the slow pulsing of the drums. The solemn procession leaves the holy temple of Kukul Can and the funeral cortege advances along the broad raised avenue of the Sacred Way, towards the Sacred Well, the dwelling place of Noh och Yum Chac, the terrible rain god who must be placated by human sacrifice. The corn in the fields is withering- crying for rain. If the anger of Yum Chac be not appeased, famine will follow and the dread Lord of Death, Ah Puch he of the grinning sightless skull, will walk abroad in the land. Slowly, slowly the cortege draws near.

At its head is the high priest, clad in ceremonial vestments and elaborate feathered headdress as befits the pontiff of the feathered serpent. And what is this embroidered bower borne so reverently by sturdy, sun -browned lesser priests? Is it a bier, a stately catafalque? Is the pitiful victim already dead? Ah, no! she moves… beautiful, flawless- the most lovely maiden to be found in the land. Through every city and village and the country side, for weeks and weeks, a thousand priests have sought her, the fairest flower of Maya maidenhead, Her face is pale. She knows the supreme honor that is hers, she who is to become so soon the bride of the Rain God.

But there is a terror in those lovely eyes, a benumbing, cold fear of the Unknown. And behind them filling the whole of the Sacred Way, come the king, the nobles, the great warriors, and many priests. Already on the far side of the sacred Well is gathered a silent, grave faced multitude, the whole populace of the city and pilgrims from afar.

The high priest enters the little temple at the brink of the well. The dirge ceases, the drums are stilled. He performs his devotions to the Rain God. He lights the sacred incense burners and the fragrant blue vapor floats, curling upwards. Again the slowly chanted dirge starts, to the muted beating of the drums. He lights a basket of sweet-smelling copal incense, holds it aloft, and casts it into the well.

The chant grows louder, the drums beat faster. It is believed that the young maidens were drugged at a well-side temple by concoctions using the narcotic effect of tropical flowers and sensual perfumes, of which both vanilla and chocolate formed a part, as well as the smoking incense of burning copal resin, sacred Mayan “Pom”. This aroma was their first sense of eternity and led them more willingly to sacrifice.

Two powerful nacons, or lesser priests, lift the maiden from her couch, their muscular brown arms forming a sling in which she lies as lightly as a leaf on the bosom of a stream. They advance with her to the edge of the well. The pitiless sun glares down on her upturned, fear stricken eyes and she throws one slender arm over her face.

Her gauzy garments reveal the tender flesh and adolescent contours of a girl in her early teens. Slowly the nacons swing the feather-like body backward and forward in an ever-wider sweep, while the drums and chant swell to a roar. At a sign from the priest the drums are suddenly stilled: the chant ends in a high-pitched wail. A last forward swing and the bride of Yum Chac hurtles far out over the well. Turning slowly in the air, the lithesome body falls faster and faster till it strikes the dark water seventy feet below. An echoing splash and all is still. Only the widening ripples are left. The child bride has found favor in the eyes of her Lord, the great God Noh-och Yum Chac.”

“Let Chac Xib Chac, the Red Man of the East be satisfied with our courageous warrior.

Let Sax Xib Chac, White Man of the North, be pleased with our maidens. Let Ex Xib Chac, Black Man of the West, be happy with our gold.

Let Kan Xib Chac, Yellow Man of the South, be content with our songs and prayer.

Let the four gods in one smell our copal offerings and in return give bountiful rain for our harvest and replenishment of our cenotes.

We give life to receive life. We offer bounty to receive bounty. But we are mere mortals, and our gifts are returned by the Gods magnified.

Let Ik, god of clouds, bear Chac's gift of water to our city. So mote it be.”

In more measured tones Thompson relates from his own book, “People of the Serpent” (Puttnam 1933) as follows:

“For days and weeks after I purchased the plantation, I was a frequent worshipper at the little shrine on the brink of the Sacred Well. I pondered, mused and calculated. I made measurements and numberless soundings, until, not satisfied but patiently expectant, I put my notebook aside and awaited the accepted time. It came when I was called to a scientific conference. After the session was over, at an informal gathering, I told of the tradition concerning the Sacred Well of Chichen Itza, of my belief in its authenticity, and the methods by which I proposed to prove it.

My statements brought forth a storm of protests from my friends. “No person,” they said “ can go down into the unknown depths of that great water pit and expect to come out alive. If you want to commit suicide, why not seek a less shocking way of doing it?”

But I had weighed up my chances and made up my mind.” Returning to Boston, Thompson ordered dredging equipment and in his enthusiasm took diving lessons for a couple of months from Captain Ephriam Nickerson, an old salt from Long Wharf.

Continuing with extracts from his book:

“Under this expert and patient teaching I became a fairly good diver, but by no means a perfect one, as I was to learn some time later. My next move was to adapt to my purpose an orange peel bucket dredge with a winch, tackles and ropes of a stiff -legged derrick and a thirty- foot swinging boom...”

Thompson had also been introduced to a Greek diver, Nicolas, from the Bahamas. He enlisted the man's talents, along with another Greek helper, and two weeks later they had rigged up outfits of waterproof canvas with 30-pound copper helmets and plate glass goggles and air valves.

The Greeks were invited to join Thompson back in the Yucatan in two month's time. His next move, having brought the heavy equipment through jungle, was to locate the spot at which the chosen ones were thrown, if Don Diego's letter was true. For this was no water hole in the wishing well sense of the word, but a vast hole some one hundred and sixty feet in diameter. He worked at the junction of the cenote with the paved causeway from the temple, assuming a procession would form part of the sacrifice. There was also a small platform near the presumed ruins of the cleansing and intoxication building.

“I established what I called the “fertile “ zone by throwing in wooden logs shaped like human beings and having the weight of the average native. By measuring the rope after these manikins were hauled ashore. I learned the extreme distance to which sacrificial victims could have been thrown. In this way I fixed the spot where the human remains would probably be found”.

...“Several times we brought up the skeletons of deer or of wild dogs, and once the tangled skeletons of a jaguar and a cow, mute evidence of a long-past forest tragedy…Then, for along while finds even as interesting as these ceased. Absolutely nothing was brought up but mud and leaves, with an occasional stone. My high hopes dwindled and became less than nothing, The work was interminable, nauseating…”

“…The bucket slowly emerged from the heaving water that boiled around it, and, as I looked listlessly down into it, I saw two yellow-white globular masses lying on the surface of the chocolate-colored muck that filled the basin. As the mass swung over the brink and up the platform, I took from it two objects and closely examined them. They were hard, formed evidently by human hands from some substance unknown to me. They resembled somewhat the balls of “bog butter” from the lacustrine deposits of Switzerland and Austria.

There, ancient dwellings were built on piles in the midst of the lake to protect them against raiding parties. The crocks of butter were suspended by cords let down between the piles and immersed in ice-cold water for preservation. Despite all their precaution, raids did occur and the dwellings were destroyed by casual fires as well as by raids: so the crocks of butter fell unobserved from the charred piles down through the icy waters to rest unheeded in the increasing deposit until ages of time changed them into the almost fossilized material known to archaeologists as ”bog butter.”

Month after month the dredge brought up hundreds of copal balls. Whilst it had a tendency to drop half its load back into the cenote, a veritable treasure was brought to the surface. Axe heads, vases, incense burners, chisels, copper discs, rubber snakes and golden bells figured among the finds.

But these two nodules could not be bog butter, for unless the known data are strangely wrong, the ancient Mayas kept no domestic animals of any kind, much less cows or goats. They seemed to be made of some resinous substance. I tasted one. It was resin. I put a piece into a mass of lighted embers and immediately a wonderful fragrance permeated the atmosphere. Like a ray of bright sunlight breaking through a dense fog came to me the words of the old H'men, the wise men of Ebtun:

“In ancient times our fathers burned the sacred resin- pom- and by the fragrant smoke their prayers were wafted to their God whose home was in the Sun.”

Thompson also went down the narrow shaft created by the dredge, some seventy feet to the rock bottom of the cenote. Feeling around in the dark he brought back by the basket more ghastly souvenirs.

The skeletal remains of young men and women. The Spanish legend was indeed true! At the end of his book, some three years before he died, Thompson wrote.

“In place of the rough bridle-paths by which I first travelled to ruined groups such as Chichen with horse and pack mule, there now run modern highways with speeding motor cars. The specialist backed by unlimited resources has stepped in to complete the work in which I was one of the pioneers. The task of reconstructing the story of the marvelous lost civilization of the Mayas is proceeding towards its accomplishment the faster because of these things and in that fact I find a mighty satisfaction. I am proud to hope that the labors of my lifetime may have contributed something to this end.”