The Stone Woman

I ran along the narrow path to the Temple of the Jaguar, occasionally darting or leaping to avoid a rock or trailing vine that might trip me. My parents and brothers were somewhere behind me, leading the men from our farm, who carried frames on their backs to transport the maize and other produce that we brought to the priests, both for their support and for the feasting in the coming days. My father and older brothers were armed to protect against bandits in the forest, as were most of the men. My mother held my youngest brother’s hand to keep him out of trouble. I ran ahead as I was small and quiet. I could spot bandits, scramble up the nearest tree before they saw me, and alert the men by calling in a voice like one of the brightly-colored birds of the forest. At least that was what my father and I had agreed; we had never yet encountered any bandits on the short trek between our farm and the temple plaza at Lam'an'ain. No one would want to risk being caught so close to the temples. Most captured thieves might be enslaved, but if the gods were angry, they might require additional sacrifices.

And the gods had been angry lately. To the southwest, the great ancient city Yax Mutal was in its death throes. Its suburbs were not far behind. Decades of warfare with other powerful cities had driven almost all of the people into the city proper, with the farms outside greatly overworked to feed all those who had crowded into the narrow streets radiating haphazardly from the temple plaza, where thatched huts were built between and even above the older stone houses for lack of space. When the rains didn’t come for several years, people went hungry. When it finally did rain, the dry ground turned to mud and washed away, poisoning the water as it went. The new king was trying to raise the city again, not having much success. I knew only that this was many days’ journey away, but I heard my parents talking of it and worrying whether the troubles might reach us in the future and how we should guard against it.

Things were somewhat better at our farm to the east of Lam’an’ain. As long as the Crocodile River flowed, we had irrigation for our fields. The river broadened to a lagoon just there and so we grew maize, beans, melons, peppers, tomatoes, and gourds, along with smaller gardens of vanilla and cacao pods for our own table, for the priests, and for the noble houses. We penned areas of the forest to enclose deer and turkeys so that we could hunt for meat. We raised and hunted more than we needed so we could take much of our produce to market, where we traded it for copper and pottery, some of which we also sold in other markets farther away. We grew cotton that the women of the farm spun and wove into cloth, dyed bright colors with the juices of various plants. This we also traded, mostly to the cities nearer to the salty ocean where larger canoes than I had ever seen would bring goods up and down the coast and, so some said, to islands so far away that they could not be seen even when standing at the farthest point on the land. My two oldest brothers were setting themselves up so they could join these traders to distant ports. After we returned from the temple, they would travel to the coast to find land where they could build houses and a warehouse and secure the use of one of these canoes made from the trunk of an entire large tree.

Someday, when I grew tall like my mother, I wanted to go to the far away markets, to see the salty ocean and great canoes for myself, maybe even journey to islands where there lived strange people whose words and customs I did not know. Of course women did not often do these things, we married and raised children and made the cloth that all the people wore and worked in the fields or set snares in the forest, but I was the only girl among four boys so I wanted to do all that they might do. After all, my father was the head man of the farm, one of his brothers was a priest at the Temple of the Jaguar, the other was the royal heir and their father was cousin to the king. Should not a daughter of this lineage do things other women might not? I had only seven tuns, the year of the Long Count, so the day when I would take a husband and bear his children seemed impossibly far off. Surely, as my brothers were learning the trade routes, they might take me with them!

I let my mind wander to these things but was brought up short by a great bustle ahead as a pair of scarlet macaws took flight. They were so noisy that I knew they must have eggs in the nest and were trying to distract a predator, but the jaguar I spotted a moment later was more interested in a juvenile musk hog that would make a much more filling meal. Suddenly the rest of the little pig’s herd came running by and the big cat slunk back behind a stand of trees. While a jaguar could kill a pig instantly, it was not worth risking the sharp tusks of the rest of the animals. As she reappeared on the other side, she noticed me. Shouting to scare her, I jumped for a low-hanging branch and pulled myself up into a tree on the opposite side of the path, until I reached a higher branch that could support my weight but not the jaguar’s. She did not come for me however, merely stood at the side of the path, watching me with her eyes like fine citrines for what seemed like hours but must have been only a few seconds. Finally, she licked her paw and then melted back into the forest to search for easier game.

Just then, my father and my eldest brother rounded the turn in the path. “Ho, Izel!” called my brother, K'awiil. “You have been blessed by Chak Chel on our way to her temple. This will be a lucky day for you!” A chill went up my back. I hoped he wouldn’t mention this blessing to our uncle. While a blessing from the Jaguar Goddess herself could certainly be beneficial – she might grant my wish to travel with the traders or give me many strong sons like my brothers when I married – if the priests determined that Chak Chel had marked me as her own, I might find myself on the alter, tasked with carrying prayers for good crops and success in trading and battle to the Otherworld. But as an only daughter, I would be needed to continue the cloth-making business when my mother grew old, and I would rather spend the rest of my life only spinning and weaving from dawn until dusk than to have my heart cut out atop the temple in front of all of our gathered people.

I looked away from him sharply and noticed fallen red and blue feathers on the ground from the macaws’ hasty takeoff. I picked them up and tied them into my hair, hoping the bright colors would make everyone forget my encounter with the jaguar. At worst, I hoped that they couldn’t sacrifice me if they didn’t know which god favored me most. We walked the rest of the way to the temple together as I held my father’s hand. When we arrived, we found my uncle, Ich'aak, preparing for the ritual. “Today I am Waxaklahun Ubah Kan,” he said, indicating his feathered robe and jade mask carved with the face of a serpent. “May I add one of your feathers to my regalia, Izel?” I pulled the longest and brightest red tail feather from my hair and handed it to him shyly. He tied it to his own hair as he explained that he would give the blessing to open the harvest festival as the serpent god but would return later as the yajaw kʼahk to light the fire for the burnt offerings. As a member of a noble family he would not actually conduct the sacrifices; that would be done by lower-ranked priests called ah nakom. “We only have three today, former ministers from Ixlu who were captured fleeing the province. They had angered the gods in their own city, and so must be given to the Otherworld to keep balance. We have prospered recently, so only need to remind the gods that we are faithful to them.”

I must have been very tense, for at this I relaxed so much that it was obvious to him.

“You did not think, Izel, that you would be required to give yourself to the gods?” He knelt and took my hand.

I thought for a moment and shook my head. “I don’t think so. But I don’t know the way of the gods. And Chak Chel…”

Ich’aak looked up at my father, who sighed. “She was running ahead on the forest path as she always does. When K'awiil and I caught up with her, she was in a tree, staring at a jaguar that stared back at her just as directly.”

“Aah!” Ich’aak laughed. “No, if Chak Chel sees fit to bless you and leave you walking in this world, that means you will live for a very long time. This is my prophecy! You see, I am studying divination, so that I can attain the next rank of the priesthood, a Chilam Balam – a prophet of the jaguar. My son Kan Balam will follow me in this. He is my acolyte now, but he is talented and will rise swiftly in the priesthood.” He looked me in the eye then and added, “I think you are old enough now to know. Your father and I have arranged that you will marry Kan Balam when you become a woman, so you will be favored as the wife of a senior priest.”

“But… I barely know Kan Balam. He has twelve tuns – he does not even look at me.”

My father knelt beside Ich’aak and took my other hand. “After this festival, your uncle and cousin will travel to Chaa Creek for another ritual and meeting with some priests there. You and I and K’awiil are to travel with them. You will get to know Kan Balam better on this trip, although it will still be a few more years before you come to live with their family, and even more years before you join him as wife.”

And so it was done, that we spent three days at the harvest festival at Lam'an'ain before setting out for Chaa Creek. I was excused from having to attend the sacrifices, and instead played a ball game with some of the other children closer to my age. Since the game had much less grave consequences than the version sometimes played by men at religious festivals, there was no scorekeeping and players changed teams as they liked, so when it was over no one really knew who had won. We all rejoined our families for the feasting, and then invented new games while the adults talked long into the night about news brought by traders, plans for the cooler rainy season, new products to trade. Most of the older children tried to stay up late, listening to their parents, but the younger children all fell asleep in groups of twos and threes scattered around the campfires to ward off mosquitos and woke at dawn, when the adults were somehow already awake and preparing breakfast. The older children slept latest of all, except for Kan Balam, who helped uncle Ich’aak prepare for the morning blessing each day.

The morning after the festival ended, my mother and my other brothers departed for home with most of the men of the farm. Four of the men traveled with us to carry our supplies and keep us safe: enough to provide a secure escort, but not enough to look like a war party, especially with me in our midst. I stood looking at the stone faces of Chak Chel on her temple while the men prepared their packs and fetched the younger sons of the First Ah Nakom, who were to take us part of the way in a canoe. Had the jaguar goddess truly blessed me a few days ago? I still had the macaw feathers as proof that the encounter had happened. I retied them in my hair and waited for the boys to come ready the canoe, watching Kan Balam from the side of my eyes. Of course I had known who he was for as long as I could remember, as we visited the temple regularly, but now I saw him differently. He was handsome despite, or maybe because of, his downturned mouth. He was not severe but very serious, so much that he looked like an entirely different person when he smiled. His hair was black and shiny as obsidian, not deep brown like mine, and his eyes soft like a deer’s. I thought I might not mind being his wife if he would treat me kindly but could think of nothing to say that would make me interesting to him. I did not even know if he had been told of our fathers’ plans, and so I resolved to say nothing of it until someone else brought it up. When I climbed into the canoe I went directly to the front, so that I could be the first to see everything that we approached on the river and so that I would not be tempted to look at Kan Balam.

We traveled far up the Crocodile River, as close to its source as we could until it grew too shallow for the canoe. The reptilians that gave the river its name was fewer in number the farther we went, and we camped for the night before the ah nakom’s sons returned to the temple and the rest of us kept going on foot further the southwest. We had caught fish along the way and smoked them over a low fire, wrapped in leaves, so that the meat fell off the bones when we opened them. Being able to travel on the river part of the way had saved us two days’ walking, my father told me. We still had three more days before we reached the temple at Chaa Creek given our pace. I did not run ahead on the path in the unfamiliar area as I did not know the way nor the unfamiliar people and animals that we might meet. In fact, my legs soon grew tired trying to keep up with the men, so they would take turns letting me ride on their shoulders so I would not slow them down. We had dried meat and fruits to eat as we went along, but at night we built a fire and I helped to make a stew with leftover smoked fish, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and dried maize. I fell asleep between two pack frames so the firelight would not keep me awake and slept soundly until dawn sent fingers of sun between the trees. There was still a little of the stew left, to which we added more water and dried maize to make a thick porridge for breakfast. I scrubbed the bowls with clean sand and repacked them while the men put out the fire and put away the cooking stones and the poles from which the waterskin hung. As we got closer to the Chaa Creek temple, we also were moving toward the lawless area of Yax Mutal. While it was still many days’ journey beyond our destination, we did not want to give too many strangers an idea of the size and direction of our party, just in case.

The second day of walking, I found more feathers scattered beside the path. These were blue and green, and I added them to the red in my hair. Once again, I offered the longest feather to Ich’aak, and he smiled and tied it in his hair as well. I walked with him and Kan Balam most of the morning, entertained by my uncle’s stories of the gods and the legendary Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who played the ball game with the lords of the underworld. Although I had heard the stories before, it never failed to make me laugh when he told how Hunahpu had to wear a squash as his head until they could get his real head back from the Lords, who were using it as a ball. “But,” said Kan Balam, “Hunahpu only lived because he had a goddess for his mother. His father and uncle stayed dead because they were only mortal, and so we who are entirely mortal must be more careful in how we deal with the underworld.”

Ich’aak replied, “That is true, my son. We who are not descended from the gods have only one way to become immortal: by committing great deeds so that we are never forgotten. Our bodies will die, but our names and deeds can live forever.” At this, he bent down to me and added, “Of course, there is another way – to be blessed by the jaguar!” Then he swung me up onto his own shoulders and carried me until he grew tired and by then I was ready to walk on my own again for a while.

The next day, we reached Chaa Creek by midday. My uncle and cousin went to meet with the local priests amid much back-slapping and laughter, while my father and brother directed the other men in setting up our campsite. We were just below the temple and beside the ballcourt, a place of honor for us as semi-noble visitors. Watching some of the local boys playing ball, I tried to picture them having squashes instead of heads like Hunahpu, but then I also had to imagine that they were throwing around a head instead of the firm rubber ball and found this latter idea much less humorous. Maybe Kan Balam’s seriousness was starting to rub off on me already. I shook my head and went for a walk around the temple plaza. A girl around my own age saw me alone and came over to introduce herself as Yolotli. She said she hadn’t seen me here before, and I explained that I was visiting with some of my family, as my uncle was here to take part in the opening ceremony of their festival to honor a new local king. “I saw the one with feathers in his hair like yours, is that him? Do you keep tame birds at your temple?”

I explained that the red ones were a gift from Chak Chel, as I had decided they must be, but the others I had simply found in the forest. “I gave him the longest ones to get him to tell me the story of Hunahpu and Xbalanque again. It’s my favorite.”

Yolotli laughed. “See the tallest boy playing ball over there? That’s my brother Aapo. Sometimes I think he really does have a squash for a head!” She rolled her eyes as just then he ran right past the ball and tripped over another boy’s feet. I pointed out my brother and father, proud of them as the leaders of the men with them. “And who is the boy with your uncle?”

“Oh, that’s my cousin, Kan Balam. He is to be my husband one day, but not until I am at least as old as he is now, maybe older.”

She cocked her head and seemed to consider this. “He looks like he never laughs, though. I think I would want to marry your uncle instead if I were you. He smiles, and those bright feathers in his hair make him look too young to have a son of Kan Balam’s age.”

“Well, it is decided already, and I don’t mind. He does laugh sometimes, but he is learning to be a priest after Ich’aak, and he is very concerned with pleasing the gods so that Lam'an'ain will not fall like Yax Mutal. My family has an important farm and K’awiil will be a prosperous trader, so we can continue to support the Temple of the Jaguar there. And anyway, Ich’aak has at least thirty-five tuns – he will be ancient by the time I am ready to marry!” We laughed and went to join a group of the younger boys playing ball on the opposite side of the court from Aapo and his friends.

As the day drew to evening, a great fire was lit atop the temple to call all the people together for the ceremony. There was to be only one sacrifice: the new king’s accession had been several days before at another temple a day’s journey to the west, the same day that we had left Lam’an’ain, and a man had shouted loudly that the new king was not the true heir of the old one. Of course, he had to be questioned about what he meant by that before he could be brought to his death, so he had been held under close watch until the next ceremony for the king to meet the other citizens of his polities. The rebel would then be dispatched to the Otherworld so he could inform the gods that investigations had been made and the king was the true heir after all and not a changeling. No one was really sure why anyone had thought otherwise; the king did indeed look exactly like his father had at that age, said those who were old enough to remember.

“But of course, there will always be those who are unhappy, no matter what happens,” Ich’aak said later that night as we left the feasting. My father and brother nodded, and Kan Balam asked whether the gods would not have stopped the accession ceremony if the new king had not been the proper heir. Ich’aak replied, “We cannot always be sure what the gods will do. They may allow it just to see whether men have the stomach to pursue justice. That is why, even at my age, I continue to train so that I can learn how to interpret signs. If the king truly did not have the right to rule, it would be up to the priests to determine that and discover who should rule in his place. Fortunately in our region, unless Hapikern takes a younger wife and she gives birth to a son, my brother Tecumbalam will be our next king, and I have known him my whole life!” he laughed. It was well known that Hapikern had had three wives and only daughters from each of them. As Hapikern’s cousin and heir, Tecumbalam had married Hapikern’s oldest daughter, Colel, so that Hapikern’s grandson would still inherit the throne and continue his royal line.

Then Ich’aak grew more serious. “I know you all want to go home, but we must make a short further journey tomorrow, to the temple where this king first sat his throne. It is believed that the man who was sacrificed tonight spoke for others and the king needs to know if those people are still against him. They will not talk to their own priests out of fear, but we are strangers so if we appear as traders seeking news, we may learn something. The priests here will give us additional food and trade goods for our trouble.”

The men were silent for a moment, and then my father sighed. “I do not like to trap a man only for his thoughts, but I understand. So close to Yax Mutal, we cannot allow their chaos to continue spreading. Lam’an’ain is not so far away that it might not reach us eventually. It is better to ensure peace here than to fight for it later.”

The next morning, Ich’aak gave me back the two feathers he had worn in his hair. He did not want to attract too much attention if he was not to be recognized as a priest, even as one from far away. I, as a half-grown girl, had no such issues – if people remembered a pretty child wearing colorful feathers, better that than to remember the men with her asking questions.

K’awiil and the two farmers in our party stowed the trade goods in their pack frames – this would be good education for him, too, if he wanted to be a trader. He put a necklace of tiny shell beads from his pack over my head, and he and Kan Balam held my hands as we walked behind my father and uncle. We chatted happily and I learned a great deal about my cousin, and my brother as well, for he was so much older than me that we barely saw each other except at mealtimes. Kan Balam was very interested in my encounter with the jaguar in the forest and the gift of macaw feathers that I had received from the goddess. “My name means Serpent-Jaguar, so that I can be both wise and strong. I will serve at the Temple of the Jaguar, and you have been blessed by the jaguar goddess Chak Chel. I believe she was letting you know that you were chosen for me by the gods as well as by our fathers.”

I thought about it for a moment. It did make sense when he said it like that. “Of course it will not happen for many years, so that I will have time to understand Chak Chel’s blessing.”

“Do you know, our fathers must make a pretense of being traders to find out whether there is truly a conspiracy against the king of this city, but there is no reason why I must pretend to be anything other than an acolyte. Granted, it’s easier to be accepted if one is from a priestly family, but it is possible for a trader’s son if one has talent and some kind of connection. I think we should try to examine this temple closely, since we may never travel this far again.”

“If you like.” I was still nervous about whether the strange priests in this place might have another interpretation of my blessed status but I hoped we would not have to share any more than that Kan Balam was an acolyte at the Temple of the Jaguar in Lam’an’ain and that I was his intended bride when we were older.

“In fact,” he said slowly, “I will make you a promise. If you can call down the birds again, I will return to this temple after I have learned to carve in stone, to tell your story. You will be remembered forever here.”

Call down the birds? I didn’t know what he meant. Chak Chel had caused the macaws to take flight when I met her so that they dropped a few feathers in the haste and chaos of escaping the big cat, I considered those her gift to me. Then I found a few more in the forest, but I hadn’t felt myself drawing them to me – if anything, they fled before I approached. I had no acolyte’s training, no idea how to do this, but if he wanted me to, I would try. I saw K’awiil look at me from the side of his eyes but could not tell what he was thinking.

When we reached the temple plaza, the older men and K’awiil went to look for someone who could tell them where to set up a trading stall. Kan Balam and I climbed the steps of the main temple. He ascended the tall risers easily, but it was more difficult for me, and I was out of breath when we reached the top. I bent over with my hands on my knees until I felt able to walk again. I could see out over the trees – I felt like I must be able to see all the way to Lam’an’ain and even to our farm beyond the Crocodile River, but surely that was impossible.

Kan Balam looked at me expectantly. Was I to try calling the birds already? “Look within yourself,” he said. “Chak Chel will show you how.”

I felt like I was being tested. I closed my eyes and began softly humming. I wasn’t really sure if this was right, but I didn’t know what else to do. I turned around, facing the stone wall of the temple pyramid. I no longer felt the eyes of the people on me; it was just the stones and me trying to reach out without words or gestures. I turned around to face the plaza again, throwing my arms in the air as I did so. I heard a bird call and opened my eyes to see a pair of the red and blue macaws darting from the forest on one side of the plaza to the other.

Beside me, Kan Balam’s eyes grew wide, then relaxed into a smile. He took my hand, and we made our way slowly back down the stairs. When we reached the bottom, I took one of the long tail feathers from my hair and tied it into his. Years would pass before I was carved in stone, but now he would be marked as well.