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Reading the Inquisitorial Record in Yucatán: Fact or Fantasy?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Inga Clendinnen
Inga Clendinnen*
Affiliation:
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
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Extract

Richard Greenleaf, in urging ethnohistorians of Indian response to Spanish Catholic culture to be attentive to the inquisitorial record, pointed especially to two unusually rich bodies of documentation, one generated by the Oaxacan enquiry of the 1540's and 1550's; the other by the “idolatry trials” of Yucatán in 1562. Most of the material relating to the Yucatecan episode has long been easily accessible to scholars through France Scholes' and Eleanor Adams' magnificent publication of 1938. Scholes, in his introduction to that work, and then in an article he wrote in conjunction with the great ethnographer of the Maya, Ralph Roys, judged the Indian confessions elicited in the course of the inquisition to be largely based on fact, and therefore concluded that the Maya Indians of Yucatán, after their apparent conversion, had not only continued to worship their old idols, but had returned to an intensified practice of human sacrifice in which some victims had been subjected to preliminary crucifixion.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , January 1982 , pp. 327 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1982 

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References

1 Greenleaf, Richard E., “The Mexican Inquisition and the Indians: Sources for the Ethnohistorian,” The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History, vol. 34 (1978), 317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Scholes, France V. and Adams, Eleanor B., Don Diego Quijada Alcalde Mayor de Yucatán 1561–1565, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1938).Google Scholar Associated material on the trials and the missionary enterprise in general is to be found in Tozzer, Alfred M., Landa’s Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán (Cambridge, Mass., 1941)Google Scholar; Rubio Mañé, J. Ignacio (ed.), Archivo de la Historia de Yucatán, Campeche y Tabasco, 3 vols. (Mexico, 1943)Google Scholar; and Scholes, France V., Menéndez, C.R., Mañé, J.I. Rubio and Adams, Eleanor (eds), Documentos para la Historia de Yucatán, 3 vols. (Mexico, 1936–38).Google Scholar

3 Scholes, France V. and Roys, Ralph L., “Fray Diego de Landa and the Problem of Idolatry in Yucantán,” Co-operation in Research (Washington, D.C., 1938), pp. 586–620.Google Scholar

4 Tozzer, , Landa’s Relación, p. 81, n. 344.Google Scholar

3 Madsen, William, “Religious Syncretism,” Handbook of Middle American Indians (Austin, 1976), vol. 6, pp. 369–391.Google Scholar Another ambiguity in Tozzer’s presentation led Madsen to state that Bishop Toral had reported that lords and caciques had engaged in human sacrifices after baptism. The words are in fact Landa's. Madsen, ibid., p. 386. In another piece which appears on the reading list of all students of religious change, Donald Thompson, while acknowledging that the Indians had repudiated their testimonies as inventions, and allowing that this may have been “partly true,” presents condensed accounts (from the documents themselves) as matters of fact. Thompson, D.E., “Maya Paganism and Christianity: a history of the fusion of two religions,” in Edmonson, Munro S. (ed.), Nativism and Syncretism (Tulane, 1960).Google Scholar

6 The best single account of the conquest and early years of colonization remains Chamberlain’s, Robert S. The Conquest and Colonization of Yucatán, 1517–1550 (Washington, D.C., 1948).Google Scholar For the missionary programme, see Scholes’ introduction to Don Diego Quijada, and Tozzer’s Landa’s Relación.

7 Landa, , Landa’s Relación, pp. 72, 74.Google Scholar

8 Even more brutal forms of torture were applied, especially in Hocaba-Homun. For an account of them, see the report of 1S6S, Scholes and Adams, Don Diego Quijada II, Doc. LXI. Scholes points out that while torture was an acknowledged legal instrument throughout sixteenth-century Europe, in inquisitorial matters its application was controlled, and appropriate only towards the end of an enquiry, after a grave presumption of guilt had been established. He notes that the friars' use of torture was unrestrained, and was applied in the preliminary phase of the investigations. Ibid., I, Intro. LXVI1. Lea reminds us that the careful formalities hedging the infliction of torture on those accused before the Spanish Holy Office arose from the recognition that torture “was too serious to be left to the arbitrary temper of a baffled or angry inquisitor... It was the last resort when the results of a trial left doubts to be satisfied.” Lea, H.C., A History of the Inquisition of Spain (New York, 1966) 3, p. 4.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., I, Doc. XI, p. 69.

10 Ibid., I. Doc. XXVIII, pp. 222–223; II, Doc. LXXXI, p. 403.

11 Ibid., 1. Doc. XII esp. pp. 71–73.

12 E.g. Ibid., I. Doc. XII, pp. 78–80, 94, 114–118, 124–126.

13 Ibid., I, Doc. X, esp, pp. 25, 38,43-44,48. When Landa rebuffed an intercessionary delegation from the cabildo of Mèrida, two leading citizens were delegated to take ship to Mexico, to seek intervention from the Viceroy and the Audiencia. The bishop's fortuitous arrival rendered that desperate action unnecessary. Ibid., pp. 48-49. The official enquiry of 1565 established that thirteen Indians were known to have committed suicide to escape the torture, and eighteen others, who had disappeared, were presumed to have done so. Ibid., II, Doc. LXI, p. 214.

14 Ibid., I, Doc. XXVIII, pp. 203–214.

15 Ibid., I, Doc. XIV, pp. 135–162.

16 Scholes, and Roys, , “Fray Diego de Landa and the Problem of Idolatry in Yucatán,” 599.Google Scholar See also Scholes, , Don Diego Quijada, 1, Intro. LXVII.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., I, Doc. XXXI, p. 254.

18 Ibid., II, Docs. LXXXIV, LXXXV.

19 Scholes, and Roys, , “Fray Diego de Landa and the Problem of Idolatry in Yucatán,” p. 600.Google Scholar

20 Bienvenida had been in Guatemala for the period of the trials. On his return to Mènda in November of 1562, he denounced his brothers for “so much cruelty against a people so new to the Faith.” Scholes and Adams, Don Diego Quijada II, Doc. XXXIV, p. 8.

21 Scholes, and Roys, , “Fray Diego de Landa and the Problem of Idolatry in Yucatán,” p. 598.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., pp. 599–600.

23 Tozzer, Alfred M., “Chichén Itzá and its Cenote of Sacrifice,” Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology vols. 11 and XII (Cambridge, Mass., 1957).Google Scholar One must infer, from the following analysis, that Tozzer counted each reference to a sacrifice as relating to a discrete event. In his discussion of the sacrifices at the Sacred Cenote at Chichén Itzá, he identifies six sacrifices as taking place at that site, nine men being cast alive into the cenote, and five others after their hearts had been excised. Ibid., p. 199. The relevant testimonies state: from Sotuta village three witnesses report that three months before three boys had been cast into the cenote. Two of the three witnesses said the victims were cast in alive, while one claimed one was already dead when thrown into the water. From Tibolon, two witnesses declared two boys had been killed two years before, and their bodies cast into the cenote. From Hocaba-Homun, the cacique Tzab of Sanahcat testified that five years before a boy had been killed and his body flung into the cenote, and another witness spoke of a boy thrown living into the cenote, “to consult the oracle.” From this, Tozzer counts six sacrificial events, and fourteen victims. From the same material I arrive at or count four events, one a triple sacrifice, one a double, and two involving single victims.

24 For a discussion of my criteria, and a systematic tabulation of the data, see Inga Clendinnen, “Fray Diego de Landa and the Problem of Human Sacrifice in Yucatán,” unpublished Master's thesis. University of Melbourne, 1972.

25 The Sotuta province testimonies we have were taken from Indians from seven villages over a six day period. Indians from another village, Tixcacal, had their confessions recorded during the enquiry, but they have been lost. Scholes, and Adams, , Don Diego Quijada, 1, Doc. XXVIII, p. 199.Google Scholar It is clear that Landa selected only some confessions to be recorded, as there is no record of confessions from some Indians known to have made elaborate verbal statements, e.g., from the village of Usil alone, Magaña makes clear that Melchor Yam, Juan Cauich and Francisco Chuc made verbal confessions. Scholes, and Adams, , Don Diego Quijada 1, Doc. XVIII, pp. 209–210.Google Scholar

26 We recollect that the cave at Mani was discovered by two Indian boys who (apparently unhesitatingly) reported their find to the friars, and so triggered the whole enquiry. Other Indians assisted the friars during the investigation, but it is impossible to know how willingly.

27 Ibid., I, Doc. XII, pp. 98–99.

28 Ibid. I, Doc. XXXI, pp. 247–248; Intro. LXV.

29 E.g. Ibid., I, Doc. XII, pp. 78,119,123–124. The offering of dead bodies to the Sacred Cenote at Chichén Itzá was, as has been indicated, an innovation.

30 Scholes, and Roys, , “Fray Diego de Landa and the Problem of Idolatry in Yucatán,” pp. 615–617.Google Scholar For a more extended treatment of the so-called Cenote Cult, see Tozzer, Alfred M., “Chichén Itzá and its Cenote of Sacrifice,” Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology vols 11 and XII (Cambridge, Mass., 1957).Google Scholar

31 Scholes, and Adams, , Don Diego Quijada 1, Doc. XII, pp. 114–118; 121, 126–128.Google Scholar

32 All the confessions were dated, and although the notary grouped them according to their village of origin, it seems he preserved the order in which the testimonies were taken each day. Francisco Carnal of Tibolon, whose confession was taken on 17 August, identifies the preceding witness as Francisco Tuz, whose confession precedes Camal’s in the testimonies as we have them. Ibid., pp. 122–125.

33 Which is of course not to deny that there were traditional rituals associated with cenotes and wells, e.g. Ibid., p. 100. In 1978 archaeological investigation in the Caves Branch area of Central Belize indicated ritual activity deep within the caves. Skeletons, most of children about five years of age, were found along with ritual objects. Tentative dating is for the late Pre-classic to Post-classic. McLeod, Barbara and Puleston, Dennis E., “Pathways into Darkness: The Search for the Road to Xibalba,” in Robertson, Merle Greene and Jeffers, Donnan Call (eds.) Tercera Mesa Redonda de Palenque Vol. 4, (Monterey Calif., 1978), 72.Google Scholar

34 Scholes Intro. LXVII; Scholes, and Roys, , “Fray Diego de Landa and the Problem of Idolatry in Yucatán,” p. 600.Google Scholar

35 On the common jail, see Scholes and Adams, Don Diego Quijada I, Doc. XII, p. 28. For the anguish of Francisco Chuc, who claimed he falsely “confessed” having been “hoisted” five times, and when he thought his tormentors would not rest until his hands were severed from his wrists, see Ibid., p. 210.

36 Ibid., pp. 112–113.

37 Ibid., pp. 72–77.

38 Ibid, pp. 114–119.

39 Ibid., pp. 125–127.

40 Ibid., pp. 78–82. Francisco Canche’s name is given as Melchor Canche in the notary’s preamble, p. 80.

41 Ibid., pp. 103–108.

42 The three months’ inquisition at Maní, despite the brutality of the tortures inflicted, produced no admissions to human sacrifices. Only later did witnesses from Sotuta province implicate Mani chiefs in human sacrifice.

43 The plight and the responses of the schoolmasters require a paper to themselves. Anne Collins suggests that it was only in 1S62 that the Maya were brought to full recognition that the friars would tolerate no religious practices save their own. Collins, Anne C., “The Maestros Cantores in Yucatán,” Anthropology and History in Yucatán ed. Jones, Grant D. (Austin, 1977).Google Scholar

44 Landa, , Landa’s Relación pp. 75–76.Google Scholar In another passage he refers to the offering of “lives of neighbours and brothers,” but here he is lamenting general pagan servitude to the Devil. Ibid, p. 185.

45 Scholes, and Adams, , Don Diego Quijada 2, Doc. LXXXII. The Memorial is undated.Google Scholar

46 Ibid, I, Doc. XII, p. 101.

47 Ibid, II, Doc. XXXVIII.

48 Ibid, I, Doc. XXXII, p. 294.

49 The testimonies make clear that chiefs readily utilized the reading and writing skills of the schoolmasters. For the schoolmasters' role in transcribing traditional knowledge into European script, see Vásquez, Alfredo Barrera and Rendón, Silvia, El libro de los libros de Chilam Balam (Mexico, D.F., 1948), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar