Mesoamerican farmers still perform ancient rituals in sacred caves—portals to the "place of fright."
In a far different part of the Maya world Stephen Alvarez and I watched a ceremony with many elements strikingly similar to the one at Balankanche. On the ridge far above Lake Atitlán, the Maya celebrants changed into traditional dress—red shirts and white pants embroidered with bird patterns. Out of their packs they pulled three guitars, a violin with only three twine strings, a pair of maracas, a big skin-headed drum, and a tun, a drum made out of a split hollowed log. The musicians, including Juan himself, tuned up and began to play. In this ensemble, a careless ear might have heard a mariachi band enlivening some picnic in the woods, except that Allen Christenson informed us that most of the songs were hymns of supplication to someone named Francisco Sojuel.
"Who's he?" I whispered. "He's the principal culture hero of the region," Christenson whispered back. "He represents all the nuwals in the cave." "When did he live?"
Christenson smiled. "Francisco Sojuel lived either at the time of Creation, or at the time of the Spanish conquest, or at the end of the 19th century—or all of the above."
Earlier the ajq'ij had cleared a patch of ground, then covered it with pine needles to improvise an altar. Men cooked tortillas and an egg-and-tomato meal over a small fire. A jug of aguardiente was passed around. Each of us had to down a jigger of the stuff in one gulp. Then the ajq'ij censed each of us by waving a can full of smoking copal about our bodies.
Now the ajq'ij laid out the offerings to the ancestors on his makeshift altar. He placed a pile of slender white candles in the center, then surrounded them with corn kernels in a plastic bag, cigarettes and matches, and a paper plate laden with the food. At the corners of the altar he placed four full aguardiente bottles, with a beer bottle next to the right-hand liquor flask. I sneaked out my compass. To my astonishment, in this cloud-blinded hollow in the forest, the ajq'ij had somehow placed the bottles exactly at the points of the four cardinal directions, with the beer-and-liquor pairing to the east, the most sacred direction.
The lilting, ballad-like music went on and on. We were all offered food and entreated to down yet more aguardiente. The ajq'ij himself had drunk far more than anyone else. Now he placed half the candles upright, digging little holes in the earth to support them, the whole design making a dotted square divided into four quadrants. Among the candles he placed cigarettes, half also upright. Then he lit the upright candles and cigarettes. At one point a candle drooped toward an unlit cigarette. One of the other men started to right it, but Juan stopped him with an urgent gesture. As we watched, the candle dipped by itself and lit the cigarette. This, we learned later, was the best possible sign, indicating that the ancestors, who "eat light," were accepting the offering.
