42 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 64 



The Indians here under consideration occupy an intermediate 

 position between the civiHzed Maya of northern Yucatan, who 

 have lost nearly all tradition and traces of their former civilization, 

 and the Lacandones of the Usumasintla Valley, who have probably 

 changed but little in their customs and religious observances since 

 the conquest. Nominally they are Christians, but the longer one 

 lives among them, and the better one gets .to know them, the more 

 he realizes that their Christianity is to a great extent merely a thin 

 veneer, and that fundamentally their religious conceptions and even 

 their ritual and ceremonies are survivals — degenerate, much changed, 

 and with most of their significance lost — but still survivals of those 

 of their ancestors of pre-Columbian days. To Christianity, not as 

 a separate religion, but as a graft on that which they already prac- 

 ticed, they seem to have taken kindly from the first; and at the 

 present day, as will be seen, the sun god, the rain god, St. Laurence, 

 and Santa Clara may all be invoked in the same prayer, while the 

 Cross is substituted in most of the ceremonies for the images of the 

 old gods, though many of the latter are called on by name. The 

 four principal religious ceremonies of the Indians are, as might be 

 supposed, closely associated with agriculture, especially with the 

 corn crop. The first of these ceremonies takes place at the cutting 

 of the bush in which the corn plantation is to be made, the second 

 at the planting of the corn, the third during its ripening, and the 

 fourth at harvest time. Of these the third, known as the Clia chac, 

 which takes place during the ripening of the corn, and whose object 

 is to secure sufficient rain for that purpose, is by far the most impor- 

 tant, and it alone will be described, as it embraces the offerings and 

 ritual of all the other ceremonies. 



The day previous to the ceremony the men of the family prepared 

 the pih, an oblong hole in the ground, in which the various corn 

 offerings were to be baked, while during the night the women were 

 busy grinding corn to make masa (a thick paste of ground maize) 

 and pumpkin seeds to make siJcil. Very early in the morning of 

 the day of the ceremony the priest with his assistant arrived at the 

 house of the giver. This priest called himself men, but was called 

 by the owner a chac, while the Chichanha priest called himself an 

 ah Tcin. The Indians chose a site in the midst of a grove of 

 large trees. After clearing away the undergrowth they swept clean 

 a circular space about 25 feet in diameter. In this they proceeded 



similar maimer; then another body of soldiers closed the rear; the Ens;lishmen were not allowed to follow. 

 The procession halted under a clump of trees about 150 yards off. And soon the butchery commenced; 

 shrieks were heard, but in 10 minutes all was over. 



"The Santa Cruz was mixed up with some Catholic rites, but retains the leading characteristics of the 

 god who was best propitiated by placing bleeding human hearts within his lips." 



In 1863 the IcaichS were beaten by the Santa Cruz, and, says the chronicler: "The account of the 

 slaughter and human sacrifice made on that occasion is appalling." 



