Mayan Princess

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Sunday, March 22, 2009
Mayan Princess



Journal of a Mayan Princess
(a fantasy geneology story of the Mayan age when the Conquistadores Came to Mexico.

I sat on the leafy pallet running my fingers through the wet clay, dreaming of the day I could create a vessel so beautiful it would be accepted by the high priests at the temple to burn incense. As a small child I loved the feel of the cool wet clay and pressing it into the molds to make simple bowls and serving platters for our own family dinners. I painted simple images on them and presented them to be fired. I always felt so proud when my dishes were used to serve the family and especially when they were brought to serve the priest of other visitors that came to our home.

The making of vessels was expected as part of all young girls home making skills, but mine were especially admired. Perhaps it was vein of me to be so proud, but even as a small child I knew my pressed vessels and the designs I painted on them were special creations. I was barley old enough to reach the top of the largest vessels when I began to reach down to gather handsful of the slippery whitish, clay and roll it into long slender snakes. Protecting the ropes of clay with damp leaves I formed the bottom of my first coiled vessel, carefully winding the coil in tight spirals with no spaces in between. I guided the clay up layer by layer, each representing Mayan people throughout all generations of time. The coils shape and define the new pot, before my eyes. I wanted to make my very first coiled vessel perfect. I was disappointed when the shape was uneven and it did not match the image I had in my mind.

I continued to try, day after day attempting to match reality with my vision of perfection. Before I was a year older I presented my first perfectly shaped vessel to the fire god. It was perfectly shaped from any view. I had pressed each coil firmly in place with wet hands, smoothing on the inside and on the outside as I build up layer after layer. After it dried for a day in the sun,I scrapped the roughness from it with a stone knife and completed the perfection of its shape by rubbing and buffing every space on it, leaving no sign of the coils used to build it.

I watched the Quetzal bird, his red chest puffed out and yellow and greed back feathers hanging gracefully from his body. How I wished I could find a way to imitate the bright colors of nature even after the pot was baked hard. I painted the designs on my vessel using different thickness of slip to bring contrast and brightness to the color, and used lime pigment to create contrast and brightness. I knew it was up to the fire god to bless my paintings so there would not be strange variarions in the color, or worse yet, black smudges from the changes in heat and smoke.

I used the iron based slip, painting extra layers, and more layers in spots to add contrast and brightness. It would turn the brightest reds and yellows as it baked. I longed for a way to control the process, but I knew that in all the millennium that our people had coiled painted and backed these very vessels that had been nothing created to protect the integrity of the color. Sticks and branches piled above my precious offering were set ablaze and fuel was added to insure continuos hot fire.
I turned to watch my brother carving intricate and true to the traditions of the ceremonial masks. Each individual mask was unique, yet folowed the traditions of generations. He was asked by many to make the masks for their dances and celebrations.

“Do you believe the story of the Quetzal bird?” I asked idly just to start a conversation. Grandfather says before the Spaniards came, the birds had only yellow and green feathers.”

Grandfather lived long before the Quetzal bird turned red. He lived long before the Spaniards came to our land with their metal suits and swords.

“Have you ever seen a Spaniard?”

As children, we knew the dangers the Spaniards brought to our villeges. Whole families and villages had been killed by deadly diseases they brought. Others were killed by their swords in unexpected attacks that were not understood by our people.

When the first Spaniards came by sea through the foggy bay their ship appeared to have come from the sky. All Mayan people know the tradition of Quetzalcoatl, the white god, returning to our people. He would come from the sky. Those seeing his ship believed he was returning as promised and welcomed and worshiped him. We later learned his name was Captain Hernando Cortez and he was just a man, a very cruel and savage man, whose main interest was in the slaves and gold he could ship back to Spain. During one of the Spanish attacks against a village in 1524 a Spaniard struck down a Mayan warrior, Tecum Uman, defending his village. The Quetzal bird then flew down and laded on the Mayan Warrior as he flew away his chest feathers had turned to the color of blood.

Since then relics of Spanish soldiers were collected to ward off the ravages of the tools of war and disease. Many of the shields were colorfully painted. Colors not seen except in nature. I wondered how they could paint the metal with such colors. I traced th zig-zag pattern in the lightening symbol as Tx Chel, goddess of rain hurled a lightening bolt with such power through the rain.

“If we could find out where they get the colors or how they make them, I might be able to paint my pottery with the colors as bright as weavers use in weaving hulitas. We set out on a journey to discover the origin of the brightly colored paints used by the Spaniards. We were found and taken prisoners by Spanish Soldiers. I became the slave of Captain Cabesa de Vaca and bore three of his children. I learned the secrets of color and now I make beautiful pottery for our family.

The Captain returned to Spain or died at sea, but I have not seen him for many seasons. My children do not know him, only of him. I teach them the art of coiled pottery and carving masks, and we use the magic of color the Spaniards brought; the most beautiful in all the world. Besides my children and my freedom, Captain De Vaca brought me a kiln. My colors are no longer at the mercy of the gods of fire, but depend only on my talent for painting a story and selecting true colors and images to adorn the vessel.