Pep’Em Ha was separated from the balche drinkers. She was wearing, as was everyone except Arthur and Hamish, the white cotton KulWinik tunic that covered her from her neck, to below her elbows and down to below her knees. Her feet were bare. Her straight, black hair had been plaited into a single ponytail that fell to her lower back. She rested on her knees near a line of old and well used, ceramic god-pots. Each one had distinctive markings, many were the shape of a squashed face. She chanted and performed ritualized movements. She offered food and sprinkled balche from the bowl she kept by her side. She placed hard, copal resin into each pot. The smell was intense when it’s smoke drifted across the temple hut. Hamish was unnerved as he remembered parts of his dream. He remembered floating. He remembered the smell of that same incense. He remembered the action of placing the incense in the god-pot. Her chanting was vaguely familiar as well.
Pep’Em Ha’s tone, chant and movements changed when she moved to kneel before another pot, as if each pot had its own personality and different conversational requirements.
Arthur noticed Hamish watching Pep’Em Ha.
‘She does it well, don’t you think?’ Arthur said.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Hamish said. ‘I was thinking of the consequences if anything happened between Jim and her. She’s very attractive, isn’t she?’
‘A lot has changed in the ten years since Michelle and I were here. And Pep’Em Ha figures in that change. She does these rituals beautifully. Yax K’in’s older sons had no interest and it showed. They wanted to drink the balche instead and not worry about ritual, or drink something much stronger and not here in the temple hut. The tradition is to pass from father to oldest son. That’s how Yax K’in got to be t’o’ohil. But, it doesn’t have to be.’
Arthur inclined his head to Michelle, in Pep’Em Ha’s direction. Michelle nodded.
Arthur said to Hamish, ‘I think she does it better than Yax K’in.’
A voice called loudly to interrupt the private, English language conversation.
Hamish surreptitiously watched his grandson as the drinking continued and was glad that each time Jim stood, he rose evenly and steadily and walked confidently. However, Pep’Em Ha’s brother did not have Jim’s control and had been relieved of his balche dispensing duties when he could not remain steady on his feet. The session was ended when one of the KulWinik women stood outside the temple hut and announced that lunch was ready.
The men left unhurriedly. Arthur, Hamish and Michelle were waiting outside when Yax K’in and Jim came out last, leaving Pep’Em Ha alone, still performing rituals.
Yax K’in stopped near his son, lying prone on the grass. ‘My son has much to learn about drinking balche,’ he said to Arthur. ‘There is more to be drunk this afternoon although he has had his full days share already.’
Yax K’in said to Hamish, as Arthur translated, ‘Your grandson already knows more about drinking balche than my own son.’
Jim stood away from the group of adults as he watched Pep’Em Ha chant and pray. She placed a last piece of resin in one of the god-pots and then fell silent. She glanced at Jim out of the corner of her eye. He smiled at her. Yax K’in watched Jim watching Pep’Em Ha.
In a fluid movement, Pep’Em Ha uncoiled from resting on her knees to standing. She failed to completely suppress a smile. She lowered her head a little but then, as if realizing it was silly to be embarrassed, she stared back at the group of adults and Jim.
Jim had never seen a woman so skilled and so confident yet who was so young. He wanted to be her friend for life.
Yax K’in nodded and made a soft grunting sound of approval.
‘Come,’ Yax K’in said to Jim, in Maya. ‘We will have lunch. Pep’Em Ha will join us when she is ready.’
Jim left with Yax K’in. Hamish watched his grandson with the old KulWinik leader and felt a pang of jealousy and regret as if he should have been the one to take charge.
Chapter 14
The conch shell, not blown by Pep’Em Ha’s brother, who was not seen again that day, summoned the participants in the balche session to the temple hut after lunch. Yax K’in signaled Hamish to sit near him and Michelle. Arthur sat at the centre of a raucous group while Jim remained with a more subdued gathering of elders and younger men.
‘It is said that Hachakyum originally made us in his image,’ Yax K’in said to Hamish as Michelle translated.
‘We use to look like you.’ Yax K’in pointed at Hamish and then at Jim. They had the same dark, red tinged hair, olive skin and roman nose. ‘But we were changed to this.’ He pinched his thumb and forefinger together with a lock of his long jet-black hair in between. He lifted his hair and presented it to Hamish. ‘It is a great improvement. See!’ He re-presented his lock of jet black hair. ‘When Hachakyum makes mistakes he will correct them. He will not give up on us.’
Hamish asked, through Michelle, if Hachakyum had power over everything, including the Western world. Yax K’in was silent for such a long time that Hamish thought he had been forgotten.
Yax K’in’s answer was not to the question Hamish had asked.
‘Our gods do not have unlimited power,’ Yax K’in said. ‘They are only gods after all.’ He smiled, not in humor, but to emphasize the truth. ‘Even Hachakyum, who has power to create and destroy, does not have unlimited power. There are many gods and they have their own rules of behavior. Those rules are beyond what I could hope to know. Or want to know. Their conduct is beyond what I need to live my life. What I do know is that the gods must live with each other and with the lesser creatures, including us KulWinik, including the Westerners. The ways of the gods must be like ours, in many ways, I believe. Their actions tell. Their inaction tells us more. We do not destroy the forest that nourishes us. The gods do the same. I want that to be true. I hope they will not destroy us.’
Yax K’in smoked his cigar and waited for Michelle to translate.
‘Of course, if our behavior is incorrect, if we have no respect. Or if we are lazy. The gods will not help those that expect to be helped. That I do know. My father told me that. He was twenty times the man I am. That was many years before the first Westerners came among us.’
Yax K’in called to Arthur. ‘You remember my father? Yes? He was a great man. Twenty times the man I am.’
Arthur called back. ‘Yes, he was a great man, Yax K’in. But was only one times the man you are.’
Yax K’in grunted at the compliment.
‘The world is not consistent,’ Yax K’in continued to Hamish, via Michelle’s translation. ‘It changes. It is always changing. This is obvious. The old ways must be continued, they have remained with us for so long for a good reason, they work. But we must work with what we have, with how we are constrained by the new world we inhabit. It has always been the same, since the time of our beginning, since Hachakyum lived among us. There is hard work required to know and to understand what is new. We need to understand what has changed and what will change.’
Arthur listened to Yax K’in from where he sat with the other group. He and Michelle exchanged glances. Yax K’in had confirmed their suspicions.
Yax K’in was impatient at the delay as Michelle translated for Hamish. He began talking before she had finished.
Michelle interrupted him. She asked him to stop, she could not keep up. Yax K’in frowned, then his face broke into a smile.
‘Arthur understands all this. I know he does. Do you Michelle? You are here at the time that your help is required. I am glad. I have an authority but I will need your help.’ Yax K’in took Michelle’s hand in his. He lifted it and gently held her by the end of her fingers. He examined her hand and then squeezed it before he let her go.
Michelle was amazed and deeply affected. She wondered where the sudden affection had come from.
Hamish asked another question. Michelle helped him frame the words in a staccato Maya, ‘Did Hachakyum make the Westerners as well as the KulWinik?’
Yax K’in waved his hand holding
his cigar, as if to ward off an errant insect. The cigar smoke hurried from side to side as it kept up with its source. Yax K’in was annoyed, as if Hamish had asked the wrong question. He answered what should have been asked.
‘No. No,’ Yax K’in said, with irritation. ‘Our languages are different and that is why the Westerners do not understand,’ he said as if Hamish was not one of those Westerners. ‘We see the world and find our place in it while they see themselves and fit the world around them. It is very different. It is the difference between everything. It is the prime importance, nothing else matters.’
Yax K’in waited while Michelle translated.
‘The cycle of counting started not only with our physical creation but with our beginning. Hachakyum began our culture, our way of living, our intelligence, our understanding. He re-made us with those new faculties. He re-made us in the image of a woman who can not be equalled. Her perfection was beyond what was possible, even for Hachakyum,’ Yax K’in said. ‘That was a great misfortune. It is unfortunate that his mistake has become my responsibility.’
Yax K’in watched Michelle as she translated, as if he was trying to look through her. He drew a breath through his cigar and exhaled the smoke to join the cloud in the temple hut. He turned his head away and nodded, as if he was having his own, silent conversation.
Yax K’in leant back and his eyes lost focus.
‘I will say no more on that subject,’ he said.
Yax K’in opened his eyes fully, his eyes dark as if in anger. ‘What I will say to you, Arthur, is that this will not do. I wish for the little grandfather to talk with us and for him to understand what we say. He must stop reading his books. I will see him everyday, if I must. I will teach him our language like I taught Pep’Em Ha when she was a baby.’
Yax K’in had spoken solemnly, but the elders in the hut laughed uproariously.
Chapter 15
Hamish was reasonably drunk by evening. He could stand but not without a wobble. However, Arthur had drunk without restraint. He stumbled out of the hut often, to urinate, and each time he returned he sat heavily and mumbled the same formula, ‘Still yellow. That’s good. Brown’s bad, Hamish.’
Hamish was angry. After Arthur’s reassurances that the drinking would be moderate, he was intoxicated. However, Jim had managed all on his own, although he spoke a bit louder and was quicker to laugh.
Pep’Em Ha did not return until the last rays of the sun angled across the village. She resumed her rituals. Jim’s eyes lit up and Hamish noticed Pep’Em Ha smile at his grandson.
In the evening gloom kerosene lamps added a distinctive light and smell to the participants already overpowered sensations. In the flickering yellowed light Yax K’in analyzed dreams. It was a usual, late part of the ceremonies.
The elders narrated their dreams and then nodded sagely when Yax K’in proclaimed ‘you will eat meat tomorrow’, or ‘you will see a stranger’.
Arthur and Michelle shared their dreams and there was loud amusement when Yax K’in told them they would both be successful in hunting.
Hamish declined the request to share his dreams. It was not appropriate, he thought, for his grandson to hear his dreams. Arthur moved and sat next to him. He badgered Hamish until he relented and recounted his dream from the previous night. His memory was inexact and the sequence of events was disordered. Arthur translated, in a slurred voice, after each of Hamish’s jumbled sentences.
The KulWinik laughed often and Hamish laughed as well although he would have been mortified if he was not a little drunk. After he had reached the end of his narration, he added details he had forgotten.
Yax K’in’s eyes were stark and unblinking as he stared at Hamish.
Hamish clarified one small point and all the drunkenness disappeared from Arthur’s face, which became sheet white as blood drained from it. Hamish, in a reflex motion, backed away, thinking Arthur was about to throw up but he was sober and agitated. Arthur asked Hamish, clearly and succinctly, to repeat the detail about the handled incense burner. Arthur was silent for a moment before he spoke to the group in Maya.
All sound in the hut ceased. Faces became set and serious. Pep’Em Ha stopped chanting and placed her hand over her mouth as if she had said that dangerous thing. Jim whispered to the man sitting next to him but was ignored. Yax K’in smoked his cigar and stared at Hamish, as if he and Jim’s grandfather were the only ones in the temple hut. All eyes turned to Yax K’in.
‘It is nothing,’ Yax K’in dismissed the suspense. ‘It is a dream from a man who has suffered. It is a pity he has only one wife. He needs another wife.’ Yax K’in smiled and addressed the group. ‘Who is willing to offer one of their wives to help this sorry old man?’
Voices were raised in laughter and the merits of wives were discussed. Each man boasted on the most troublesome aspects of their spouses, as if suggesting the woman that would cause Hamish the most problems would overcome his sorrow.
Yax K’in stood. The voices quietened as the leader took his leave. It was unusual for the t’o’ohil to be the first to leave the balche sessions but he signaled that the drinking could continue without him. He smiled in a forced way, trying to not let his panic show. Pep’Em Ha had not resumed her rituals after Hamish’s confession. She waited for direction from her father. He waved his hand to indicate she should also leave.
There was no need for further balche sessions, it was no longer necessary, although Yax K’in had planned for the sessions to continue for many days. He placed his hand on Arthur’s shoulder and said, ‘Tomorrow you must take the little grandfather and Jim to Yaxchilan. There is one further thing I must know.’
Yax K’in walked slowly towards his hut, Pep’Em Ha by his side. She was desperate to ask her father about Hamish’s dream but waited. She glanced back towards the temple hut and saw Jim standing outside, watching her and her father as if he was about to join them. She waved her hand indicating he should stay with the others.
Yax K’in’s father had told him the stories of Hachakyum, before he had been chosen as the next t’o’ohil. Before he had heard the voices. Before he had been chosen by Hachakyum. He had not believed them literally. Who would? However, the birth of Pep’Em Ha, his youngest daughter, had confirmed them. And now? He sighed. He could not ignore Hamish’s dream. A dream of a handled incense burner meant the end of everything. He had hoped the plans the gods had made for the world could be ignored. No longer. His father, and the long line of t’o’ohil’s going all the way back to the last man to speak with Hachakyum, had been proved right.
Yax K’in scanned the night sky. The Milky Way spread above his head as it plunged like a dagger to the earth. He knew the night sky replayed the creation stories of the Maya although he had had to be told the details by Michelle. She had re-discovered them. That knowledge had been almost lost. He wondered why some stories faded but others had a stronger will to live. He needed Arthur and Michelle. He needed their help. He took his daughter’s hand and held it tightly. She was shocked at his ostentatious show of affection, it was unlike him. All KulWinik knew the meaning of Hamish’s dream but she had believed her father’s dismissal. When she saw his face and his sad affection for her, she was afraid the end of the world would occur immediately.
‘Is it true?’ she asked softly of her father.
He patted her hand, as if that would comfort all fears.
‘Yes.’
Pep’Em Ha knew what the rest of the world was like, she knew what Western science had discovered and she did not believe the literal truth of the ancient stories of the gods. She had thought her father was of the same mind, although being born in an older time he held the traditions closer. She loved the stories, she loved telling them, she loved being taught them by her father, she loved them for their construction and for their perfect cadences, for their excitement and how she could resurrect the memory of ancient lives. She loved their simplicity, for all the deaths, the harshness, savagery and loss, there seemed to be less choice
in ancient times.
However, she did not love the ancient stories of the gods for their truth.
She felt the weight of her KulWinik ancestors, the meaning of their lives and beliefs were dependent on her, the last and only person able to carry on the traditions. Being t’o’ohil would be a difficult task, she knew. But she had thought the task of spiritual leadership as one of maintenance, not one of decision, nor preemptive action.
She looked up at the night sky as her father had done, hoping that would clear her mind of panic. It did. She did not believe the world would end because of a prophecy from an ancient story. That was inconceivable. She saw the age in her father’s face and she did not believe that his life was unending. It was impossible in the modern age. She would help him understand.
‘Is there hope?’ she asked.
‘Of course. There is always hope.’
The prophecy of a dream could be avoided if measures were taken to prevent it, after all, that was the reason for dream analysis.
At the End of the World Page 6