Chan Santa Cruz


Chan Santa Cruz was the name of a shrine in Mexico of the Maya Cruzob religious movement. It was also the name of the town that developed around it and, less formally, the late 19th-century indigenous Maya state, in what is now the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, of which it was the main center. This area was the center of the Caste War of Yucatán beginning in 1847, by which the Maya established some autonomous areas on the east side of the Yucatán Peninsula. The main conflict ended in 1915, when they agreed to recognize the Mexican government, but the last time that Mexican troops took action against a Maya village in this area was in 1933.

History

Pre-Columbian period

The people of the former Chan Santa Cruz state are predominantly indigenous descendants of the Maya. The northern portion of the mapped area was probably included within the state of Coba during the Classic Period. One of two successors to the defunct League of Mayapan, this state consisted of the eastern half of the Yucatán Peninsula during the decades preceding the Spanish invasion.
Early post-invasion influences include Arawak and Carib refugees from the islands, shipwrecked Spaniards and escaped African slaves.

Contact period

After the Spanish had begun to occupy areas near here, the Xiu Maya state of the western half of the peninsula, tired of fighting both the Itza' and the Spanish, allied with the Spanish Empire. This alliance subsequently inflicted massive property and population losses upon the Itza' Maya state. The Itza' state continued to train and educate indigenous Maya leaders in the sanctuaries of the southern province, Peten Itza', 'Lake of the Adepts', through the invasion and sack of the island capital Nojpetén by general Martín de Ursúa on March 13, 1697. Scholars suggest that a Maya hieroglyphic manuscript, now held in Madrid, Spain, was created at Nojpetén some years after the invasion of Yucatán. This evidence includes pages from a Spanish book which were reused as writing paper for several pages of the manuscript. This provenance is not universally accepted.

Uaan

The province of Uaan, remained unknown to the Spanish. But, the provincial capital, Chable, is mentioned several times in the books of Chilam Balam as a cycle seat. Upon the fall of Peten Iz'a, only the Iz'a province of Uaan maintained an independent existence, and this only through strict secrecy.

Pacification

The Spanish were thoroughly occupied in 'pacifying' the Maya of the western half of the Iz'a state through the 18th century. The most famous of these campaigns was against the indigenous Kanek and his followers. This campaign finally ended with the death of the Kanek and his closest followers on December 14, 1761.

Uprising

When the Spanish Creoles declared Yucatecan independence in the mid-19th century and began fighting over control of the resources of their infant slave state, the Maya leadership saw their best chance to gain independence. They had been planning this action for some time, as revealed by letters discovered in the 21st century. They were written in the wake of the death of the Batab of Chichimilla, Antonio Manuel Ay, on August 26, 1847, in a sanctuary plaza at Saki', the sacred 'White' city of the north near present-day Vallodolid. Exactly three days after Ay's death, the eastern Maya, now identified as Uiz'oob, rose in a general uprising which nearly drove the Yucatecos entirely from Chan Santa Cruz. This uprising, reaching its high tide in 1848, called La Guerra de las Castas Caste War of Yucatan by the Spanish, resulted in the independence of the old Iz'a Maya state. The former Xiu Maya state remained in the hands of the Yucateco Creoles. The descendants of this short-lived Maya free state and those who live like them are commonly known as Cruzoob.

The independent Maya state

The State of The Cross was proclaimed on 1849, in Xocén, a south-eastern satellite of modern Valladolid where the Proclamation of Juan de la Cruz was first read to the people. The capital, Noh Kah Balam Nah Chan Santa Cruz, was founded in about 1850 near a sacred cenote, a natural well providing a year-round source of holy water. The talking cross continues to speak at this shrine.
The city was laid out in the pre-Columbian Maya manner, surrounding a square with the Balam Nah, the 'Patron Saint's House', and the school at the east, the Pontiff's house at the west, the General's houses at the north, and the storehouses and market to the south.
The regional capitals in Bak Halal, Chun Pom, and Tulum, were probably laid out on the same plan as the capital.
At its greatest extent, from the 1860s through the 1890s, the Chan Santa Cruz state encompassed all of the southern and central parts of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. With associated, buffer and splinter groups, this state was the core of a broader indigenist independence movement that controlled virtually all of the old Iz'a territories. These territories include the eastern, central and southern portions of the Yucatán peninsula, extending from Cape Catoche south to include what is now northwestern Belize and northeastern Guatemala.

The fall of the Maya free state

From the late 1850s through 1893, the United Kingdom recognized the Maya free state as a de facto independent nation, even sponsoring treaty negotiations between the Spanish Yucateco state and the Maya Crusoob state. These negotiations resulted in a signed international treaty, which was never ratified by either party. The Maya state had extensive trade relations with the British colony of British Honduras, and its military was substantially larger than the garrison and militia in the British colony. In contrast to the Yucatecans and the Mexicans, the British found it both practical and profitable to maintain good relations with the Maya free state for some years.
All this changed after the Maya laid siege to and conquered Bacalar, originally the Mayan holy city of Bak Halal. They summarily killed British citizens, along with the entire Yucatec 'Creoles' garrison.
It is unclear why the commanding general ordered a wholesale slaughter of the garrison. Possibly he was tired of retaking the city from the more aggressive Yucateco state. Regardless, this action frightened the tiny British colonial establishment in neighboring British Honduras.
The British Government assigned Sir Spenser St. John to disentangle Her Majesty's Government from indigenous free states and the Maya free state in particular. In 1893, the British Government signed the Spenser Mariscal Treaty, which ceded all of the Maya free state's lands to Mexico. Meanwhile, the Creoles on the west side of the Yucatán peninsula had come to realize that their minority-ruled mini-state could not outlast its indigenous neighbor. After the Creoles offered their country to anyone who might consider the defense of their lives and property worth the effort, Mexico finally accepted. With both legal pretext and a convenient staging area in the western side of the Yucatán peninsula, Chan Santa Cruz was occupied by the Mexican army in the early years of the 20th century.
Mexican occupation did not end resistance by the indigenous Maya, who continued to conduct guerrilla attacks against the Mexicans under the leadership of General Francisco May. In 1935, May signed a formal peace treaty with the government of Mexico.
Various treaties with Mexico were signed by the leaders of the indigenous state through the late 1930s and 1940s. These treaties, "Letters of General May", make very interesting reading today. Following General May's death, the remaining Maya officials initiated contacts with Washington, DC through the archaeologist and American spy,, Sylvanus Morley,.

Religion

One of the notable aspects of the Maya free state was the reappearance of Maya religion in an indigenous form, sometimes called "The Cult of The Talking Cross". This was most probably a continuation of native beliefs, reemerging when the Spanish colonists' civil war released the Maya from the repressions of Yucatán's Hispanic population. The indigenous priests had maintained their ancient religious texts and their spiritual knowledge, as they continue to do today.

Maya sacred books

When Friar Jacobo de Testera arrived, leading the first of the Franciscan Missions to the Maya in the second half of the 16th century, he began a Maya encyclopedia project. He intended to collect the prayers, orations, commentaries, and descriptions of native life as aids to the Spanish overthrow of Maya culture in general and the Maya religion, specifically. Diego de Landa's famous Relación de las cosas de Yucatán contains much of the Spanish explanatory text of this encyclopedia without quoting any of the indigenous texts.
The Maya elders who participated in this project, including Juan Na Chi Kokom, former leader of the Itza' state in eastern Yucatan, were most likely willing volunteers who thought the project was a way to preserve Maya culture and religion. After the project was anathematized by the Roman Church, the former Maya collaborators collected and reconstructed as much as they could. They assembled the materials into a loose collection of texts, which is now known as the Books of Chilam Balam.
The Books of Chilam Balam,. Existing copies of these books from Calkiní, Chan Kan, Chumayel, Ixil, Kaua, Maní, Tixkakal and Tizimín, present evidence for distinct Xiu and Itza' recensions.. Usually translated as a collection of historical and mythological texts, this book contains a great deal of information specifically pertaining to the ancient Maya Calendar and the priests who maintained it.
Contents of the Books of Chilam Balam include daily reminders for diviners; natal charts for each day; rituals associated with each day; direction for the selection, training and initiation of Maya calendar priests; a Maya rosary prayer, a divination prayer, sacrifices at the sacred well of Chich'en Itza', auto sacrifice, pilgrimage places, the Maya years and cycles, advice to a woman seven months pregnant, and Maya family life.
The Songs of Dzitbalche, is a collection of songs, prayers and ritual speeches. This collection includes traditional girls' songs, prayers for seating images, and others.
The Ritual of the Bakabs, is usually translated as a collection of medical texts. The first half of this book is comparable to the books of Chilam Balam of Chumayel and Tizimin and contains Maya songs, advice, prayers and ritual speeches. These texts include one on the Maya Pontiff, one on the Chiuoh lineage, one on seers, several for novice diviners, a midwife's prayer and a renewal prayer for the divining seeds. The second half of this book is comparable to the second half of the Chilam Balam of Kauá and Maya herbals; it also contains mostly herbal, medical remedies for a wide variety of ailments. Maya Herbals,.

The Maya Church

Shortly after Yucatan was declared an independent state, the Yucatán Peninsula was divided into two independent warring states: a Hispanic state in the west that kept the Maya in a slave status, and a Maya free state in the east. For the first time in centuries, the Maya were in charge of a state that supported their indigenous faith. Previously, the village lay assistants, maestros cantores, who were sons of Maya priests, often acted as members of their fathers' profession as well,.
The Maya church in every Crusero village and town, houses the Holy Cross in her sanctuary. Maya churches are easily distinguished from Roman churches by the presence of a walled inner sanctum, the gloria, inside the Maya church.

God and his angels

There are two great annual festivals, both descended from the two great annual festivals of the pre-Columbian Maya. U K'in Crus is the ancient Maya New Year Festival and U K'in Kolel, is the ancient Maya New 'Year' Festival.
The Crusoob also celebrate a Mass and Novenas, which always include offerings of corn tortillas and typically tamales, meat, fruit, atole, pepper, chocolate, a dessert and an alcoholic beverage,.

The Holy Cross

The Holy Cross must be guarded and fed several times a day. Every householder has a small domestic cross clothed in a diminutive huipil and with a mirror hung around its neck. This little female cross was known in Pre-Columbian times as Ix Cel. In addition to the village patron cross and the household crosses, there are special Lineage Crosses for important lines, four Guardian Crosses at the entrances to town, and others that guard sinkholes and wells,. The religion of the people in the 21st century is quite mixed, with some devoted exclusively to the indigenous church and its ritual calendar. Others are exclusively or partially Roman Catholic, Protestant or Evangelical.
The shrines of the "Talking crosses" remain a vital part of the local culture into the 21st century. As recently as 2002, the Mexican Government finally lifted the stigma of witchcraft, to which indigenous priests had been subject under Mexican Civil and Roman Church law. They recognized the Church of the Talking Cross as a legitimate religion,.

National records

The 'Proclamation of Juan de la Cruz', El Proclamo in Spanish, is the Maya free state's formal declaration of independence. Appended to the Proclamation are the state's constitution and by-laws. In addition to responsibilities for military service and support for the indigenous church, the Maya people who consented to the sovereignty of the new state were guaranteed equal and fair treatment,.

Official correspondence and international treaties of the Maya state

Most Maya religious offices are unpaid or are paid by donations from wealthy and/or devout members of the community. These officials are typically among the oldest and most impoverished of the people, having distributed most of their personal property to finance the associated community festivals,.

Religious officials