Cleansing Rites of Curanderismo: Limpias Espirituales of Ancient Mesoamerican Shamans - Erika Buenaflor M.A. J.D. 2018

Pre- and Postcontact Texts: Sources Used and Why
The Intersection of Experience and Research

This chapter examines the precontact and sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century postcontact sources that I have relied on to examine the limpia rites of the Mexica and Yucatec Maya. I first discuss the precontact codices, including a brief description of what codices are; the texts’ names, age, and provenance; and their limitations as sources on limpia ceremonies. Thereafter I explore the postcontact sources that I have relied on. Most of these were written by Spanish missionaries, as well as a few mestizos and some indigenous peoples, each having their own distinct biases and agendas. The biases in each have made it necessary to compare various sources. They nonetheless contain a wealth of information concerning limpia rites. For the sake of accessibility, I have drawn mainly from secondary sources to examine precontact Mesoamerican codices.

PRECONTACT CODICES

Fewer than twenty precontact codices, from various regions of Mesoamerica, are still extant. They include three classes of books: Mixtec histories, Maya religious books, and highland religious books.¹ The codices of Mesoamerica are typically folded in accordion fashion, with both obverse and reverse sides containing pictures. They were often made of long strips of leather, cotton cloth, or bark paper and were occasionally protected by wooden covers. Codices, sometimes referred to as auguries or almanacs, were used to foretell the likelihood of an event; to determine how to influence its outcome with ceremonial rites; to anticipate the beginning or transition of a season for scheduling ceremonies and activities, such as harvesting; and much more. Divination work for the Mexica and Yucatec Maya was not simply about prophesying. The diviners were also shaman statisticians, who spotted recurring patterns and used ceremonial offerings and rites to continue a trend or change it.

It is only fairly recently that these codices have been deciphered. The last four decades have witnessed an explosion in the scholarship of epigraphy and iconography, but there is still much to be done. While scholars have been able to work out much of the calendrical order and to recognize some of the deities, creatures, and objects depicted, the contexts in which they have been portrayed are still not fully understood.

The content of these codices is more difficult to decipher. They often deal with divinatory or shamanic practices, providing private, less accessible information.² Only a select few were taught how to read and practice the divinatory rites contained in these codices. This has made their decipherment more challenging, although not impossible.

The most important corpus of precontact imagery related to the ancient Maya is contained in a group of three Yucatecan Postclassic codices: the Dresden, Paris, and Madrid codices. A fourth text, the recently reported Yucatecan Postclassic codex, the Grolier, is ten pages of a once larger screen-fold and is primarily concerned with deities and calendrics pertaining to Venus.³ I have principally drawn from the Madrid and Dresden codices because there has been substantially more work done in deciphering and interpreting these two books as they may relate to limpia rites.

The Dresden Codex provides the clearest and most precise information regarding the attributes and names of the Maya deities.⁴ During the bombing of Dresden during World War II, the codex suffered extensive water damage. Fortunately, Ernst Förstemann had issued photographic reproductions of the codex in 1880 and 1892, and most scholars largely rely on these.

Compared to the Dresden, the quality of execution of the Madrid Codex is generally poor. This is not simply a matter of crude craftsmanship; in addition, frequent scribal errors can be detected.⁵ Anthony Aveni posits that the Madrid almanac postdates the Dresden almanac by 131 years, and that the subtle differences in the iconography and intervallic structure of the Madrid example represent intentional changes made to provide a better fit with later astronomical and meteorological events.⁶

Codices focused on various activities that had ceremonial dimensions, such as drilling fire, harvesting corn, anointing, and weaving. According to the traditional interpretation, each of the almanac’s frames were associated with the series of dates in the 260-day tzolk’in calendar that could be used for determining an appropriate day for the activity represented in the almanac. For example, the following tzolk’in days—4 ahau, 4 eb, 4 kan, 4 cib, and 4 lamat—were considered good for anointing objects, temples, and shamans with blue paint.⁷ Blue, as depicted in the Madrid Codex, appears to be related to rainfall and abundance and was used to bless and anoint various objects.⁸

The deciphering of these codices reveals that they were also likely used to schedule activities or rituals in relation to the 365-day ha’b calendar, providing, for example, prognostications for the corn crop for the year in question.⁹ Many of the activities that the codices depict can be linked to particular months in the 365-day ha’b calendar. The codices were then likely consulted to schedule a ceremonial rite per both the ha’b calendar and the 260-day tzolk’in calendar, predict a likely outcome, and suggest how to change or continue the outcome.

Six codices and two additional fragments constitute another set of precontact manuscripts, known as the Borgia group.^*11 The Borgia group is one of the most important precontact screen-fold books concerned with the religion and rituals of the Aztec empire. It was likely written by the confederacies of Eastern Nahuas also known as the Tolteca-Chichimeca, who dominated the Tlaxcala-Puebla region.¹⁰ Because of the more extensive work done on research and interpretation of the Borgia group, I was able to utilize both primary and secondary sources concerning these texts to understand their view of limpia rites.

The Borgia group depicts ritual calendars, religious content, and ritual information.¹¹ Like the Maya codices, the Borgia group employs both the 260-day tonalpohualli calendar and the 365-day xiuhpohualli calendar.¹² The first eight pages of the Codex Borgia enumerate the 260 days of the tonalpohualli together with images that seem to carry information about the qualities of these days. The next five pages depict twenty deities, which carry information about the supernatural qualities of each of the twenty days. We know Borgia tables were consulted regarding the timing of feasts and the planning of rituals dedicated to the gods who presided over the movable tonalpohualli feast days. The Codex Borgia features numerous divisions of the tonalpohualli calendar applied to prophecies for births, marriages, deaths, and feasts.¹³ Recent studies suggest that pages in the Codex Borgia may also concern the timing of 365-day annual rituals, implying that certain almanacs in central Mexican screen-folds could have functioned as real-time calendrical instruments. Scholars note various references to the 365-day xiuhpohualli calendar in the Codex Borgia.¹⁴

Another codex, known as Codex Borbonico or Borbonicus, because it is located in the Bourbon Palace in Paris, today the National Assembly of France, is the largest (approximately 39 by 39.5 centimeters) of the known codices concerning the 260-day tonalpohualli rites. It was produced by the Mexica at the time of the conquest. Because of its date and detail, the Borbonico is recognized as one of the most important sources for the study of the beliefs and rituals of the ancient Mexica.¹⁵ The Borbonico is completely accessible online, but the context and meaning of its frames are still being interpreted and deciphered, particularly concerning information that may inform us about limpia rites.

POSTCONTACT ETHNOHISTORICAL RECORDS

In addition to writing calendrical augury-type codices, we know that the city-states of the Mesoamerican plateau maintained records that were specific to their own polities and traditions. These books were known as amoxtli.¹⁶ Each royal family had a designated individual within the lineage who not only inherited the texts but was responsible for preserving them, keeping them current, and making certain that they passed to the proper heir.¹⁷

Sadly, the Spanish conquest of the Mesoamerican peoples resulted in a systematic eradication of thousands of their books, along with countless other abuses and injustices. The ostensible conversion of these peoples to Christianity became the legal and moral justification, or excuse, for Spanish imperialism.¹⁸ The missionaries who came to convert these peoples saw their books as a threat to their own mission, so they engaged in massive and methodical book burnings. We nonetheless have a substantial number of postcontact records and books that are incredibly informative about the daily life, polities, and religious practices of these peoples.

A few missionaries, who were greatly influenced by Renaissance humanism, helped to preserve this past and its memory. Those priests included Andrés de Olmos, Friar Bernardino de Sahagún, Fray Juan de Torquemada, Friar Alonso de Molina, Diego Durán, Gerónimo de Mendiata, and their disciples, including the famous group of mestizo and indigenous students of the Colegio Imperial de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco (the Imperial College of the Holy Cross of Tlatelolco). Friar Diego de Landa, also influenced by Renaissance humanism, wrote his Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (Account of the matters of the Yucatán), documenting some of the Yucatec Maya history, polities, religion and traditions. The Spanish friars that produced these works had their own distinct agendas and attitudes, which included eliminating what they viewed as idolatry and other practices that impeded their proselytization and culturalization efforts; improving their own linguistic skills to be able to communicate with the indigenous peoples; and drafting ecclesiastical treatises in native languages for the Mass, the confessional, and the catechism.¹⁹

A handful of indigenous and mestizo historians and poets, including Alvarado Tezozomoc, Juan Bautista Pomar, Juan de Tovar, Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl, Chimalpahin, and Muñoz Camargo, also attempted to preserve elements of the amoxtli tradition postcontact.²⁰ They did what they could to ensure that future generations would have a record of their illustrious past. Tezozomoc, for example, was a dynastic noble and was concerned with Mexica history. His book contains a mixture of migration, genealogy, and altepetl (city-state) history and chronicles the history of the Mexica from the first to the last ruler. Tezozomoc’s contemporary Chimalpahin wrote about the society and politics of Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, and Texcoco and documents the precontact rulers of these city-states. Ixtlilxóchitl wrote about the history of many of the indigenous peoples of the Aztec empire and also documented some of the precontact medicine songs. Tovar’s Tovar Codex, also known as the Ramírez Codex, contains detailed information about the rites and ceremonies of the Mexica. The codex is illustrated with fifty-one full-page paintings in watercolor, which are highly reminiscent of precontact pictographic manuscripts.

Thanks to the work of Franciscan monks Andrés de Olmos and Bernardino de Sahagún, we have many of the discourses of Mexica sages and old men. The monks spent decades gathering these didactic or exhortative speeches, which aimed at instilling basic moral principles in the minds of children, young people, and adults. These speeches were gathered from the lips of elderly survivors who had memorized and recited them before the conquest.²¹

Bernardino de Sahagún was also responsible for compiling and transcribing the General History of the Things of New Spain or the Florentine Codex, which comprises 2,400 pages organized into twelve books and approximately 2,500 illustrations drawn by native artists using both native and European techniques. The Florentine Codex documents the culture, religious cosmology, ritual practices, society, economics, and history of principally the Mexica, as well as relaying an account of the conquest of Mexico.²² Sahagún came to the Americas, or “New Spain,” in 1529. In 1536, he helped establish the first European school of higher education in the Americas, the Colegio Imperial de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco. The school served to evangelize its indigenous students, trained and recruited them into the Catholic clergy, and was a center for the study of native languages, particularly Nahuatl.²³

In 1558, Sahagún was commissioned to write in Nahuatl about topics that would be useful to the church’s evangelization efforts. Thereafter he conducted research for about twenty-five years and spent approximately fifteen years editing, translating, and copying.²⁴ He wrote the Florentine Codex to enable missionaries to learn about indigenous beliefs and worldviews, so they could become more effective in their evangelization. The manuscript became part of the collection of the Laurentian Library, a library in Florence, Italy, after its creation in the late sixteenth century. Scholars only became aware of its existence after the bibliographer Angelo Maria Bandini published a description of it in Latin in 1793.²⁵

The works of Dominican monk Diego Durán are also extensive and insightful in documenting Mexica culture and limpia rites. He produced three works: Book of the Gods and Rites, a remarkably detailed description of the life of the Mexica civilization; The Ancient Calendar, one of the main guides to the intricate Mesoamerican system of counting time; and The History of the Indies of New Spain, which traces the Mexica from their beginnings to their conquest.²⁶ These sixteenth-century books were the result of diligent and arduous consultation with reliable sources, which included written materials and conversations with living informants. Durán was meticulous in validating his information, and on occasion would travel many miles to ascertain a single fact. The written documents he relied on included the codices, some of which he was trusted to look at in secret.²⁷ His informants encompassed hundreds of native informants, as well as Fray Francisco de Aguilar, who had been a soldier under Cortès.²⁸

Like Sahagún, Durán became aware of the continuation of Mesoamerican religious practices, belief systems, and ceremonial rites. The ongoing observance of Mesoamerican religious practices frequently included alleged indigenous converts to the Christian faith. Often these practices, he thought, masqueraded as being Christian, but in reality were continuing indigenous traditions in many respects. Consequently, he felt it imperative to understand these ancient beliefs so that the missionaries could successfully convert these peoples.²⁹

Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, by Franciscan monk Friar Diego de Landa, was pivotal for understanding Yucatec Maya polities, religious beliefs, and practices, as well as the ha’b ceremonial rites. De Landa wrote this work when he was on trial for atrocities he committed in the Yucatán. It is questionable whether he would have written the book at all had he not been put on trial. This work was likely a way to defend his barbaric tactics and provide evidence for his more humane methods of evangelization—facilitating the understanding of the Maya to help ensure their conversion. This work has been critical in understanding ancient Maya culture and has greatly contributed to the recent explosion in the decipherment of Maya epigraphy and iconography.

The principal informants for this book were Gaspar Antonio Chi and Nachi Cocom. Gaspar Antonio Chi was a Maya noble of Mani and worked primarily as a translator between the Spanish and Maya. Nachi Cocom was the last ruler of the Cocom lineage, and he showed de Landa some of the sacred Maya writings. De Landa later found out that Nachi, along with many others, was still practicing the ancient religious ways after he had been baptized. As a result Nachi was executed.³⁰

A decade before de Landa’s arrival in the Yucatán in 1549, Spanish bishops had met in Mexico and ordered, among other things, that whipping and flogging should not be used to enforce obedience to the church or in matters of faith.³¹ De Landa, however, declared himself “apostolic judge” under the papal bulls of 1535. He proceeded, without process or previous information or any other steps, to imprison all indigenous people he believed were still practicing their ancient ways, and he used torture to get information and set examples.³² Because of ongoing reports of de Landa’s heinous actions, he was sent to Spain for trial in 1562, and remained there until 1573. He wrote his book in 1566. He defended his countless atrocities against the indigenous peoples of the Yucatán by contending that the Spaniards, being so few in number, could not have reduced so populous a country without the threat of terrible punishments.³³

I also draw from the Ritual of the Bacabs an eighteenth-century Yucatec Maya manuscript on curanderismo curing rites and incantations.^*12 The text reflects ancient Maya beliefs along with Christian interpolations, evidencing an ongoing line of recitation going back to colonial days. A few curanderas/os that I worked with incorporated medicine songs from the Ritual of the Bacabs and taught me to do the same.

Finally, I refer to the sixteenth-century K’iché’ Popol Vuh and a Chorti legend poem. The sixteenth-century Yucatec Maya were no doubt unique and different from the K’iché’ and Chorti. There were, however, some common threads concerning tools used to conduct limpias. I use these other sources only where I have a comparative Yucatec Maya source, mainly de Landa’s ethnographic work. I place this ethnographic data in dialogue with other sources on the Maya, so they may amend, deepen, and possibly correct our understanding of Yucatec Maya limpia practices.

The Popol Vuh is a Santa Cruz K’iché’ bible written in the sixteenth century using Latin script. It is apparent that this book is based on various sources, including codices, as well as traditional oral recitations. It is largely an ontological work composed of myths, legends, history and ethics. The Chorti poem is less well known, but it adds to the richness and understanding of sweeping, renewal, and limpias.