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Now their hands were cut off. It was other soldiers
who captured them.
The [prisoners] came to the cemetery from wherever
they had started out. They asked a favor to
write it down, to write down how they had died.
With just five bullets a hundred men died at the
cemetery. They didn't have one left. They were
carried [and tossed into] one grave. All of them went
into one grave. It was very long ago. Ooh, who
knows if it was, if it was fifty years ago, the war long
ago.
Xun begins his account of the Mexican Revolution with the
victory of General Pineda over the Obregonists "in the month of
September." This battle, fought at the Ventana at the edge of
Zinacantan Center on 19 September 1920, raged for nine hours.
But the defeated revolutionaries were followers of President
Carranza not of President Obregon as Xun recalled. Chamulan
narratives describe the Carranza soldiers as thieves and rapists,
extravagantly equipped with death-dealing penises, who waylaid
the Chamulan women whenever they went to San Cristobal to
market and violated them before the eyes of their husbands. The
women banded together for protection, but this was of little aid
(Gossen, T9, T164). According to historical sources, when the
Carrancistas fled the Ventana they left behind many sheep and
Indian style hats that they had stolen from the local populace.
No sooner was the battle over than Ladinos from San Cristobal,
loyal to Pineda, streamed out to the Ventana to pick up whatever
they could find. Among the booty scattered in the bushes
were found the musical instruments of the Carranza band that
had been playing lively tunes to hearten the revolutionaries
before their hasty departure from the field of battle. Hostilities
ended after this conflict (Moscoso Pastrana, 1960:311-322).
Continuing his account, Xun relates that the government
soldiers returned in April. This was so, but it was after an
absence of four years. The battle of Ixtapa pitted the Pinedists
against 3000 government troops, including infantry, cavalry,
four cannons and the first airplane ever to be seen in Chiapas.
The number of Pinedist troops in combat varies from 200 to 400
depending upon whom you choose to believe—the conservative
San Cristobal historian Moscoso Pastrana or Bravo Izquierdo,
general of Obregon's army. The battle began early in the
morning of 24 April and lasted for thirteen hours.
General Bravo Izquierdo presents a vivid account of his
stunning sucess, which he felt went off exactly as planned. The
strategy was to dispatch 200 infantry to San Gabriel, the cavalry
and two cannons each to San Nicolas and Burrero. They were
all to arrive at six a.m. to surround the town just as the airplane
dropped its bomb on Ixtapa. (Originally there had been two
planes, but it seems that some ignorant Indian, serving as watchman,
had flipped his cigarette butt too near the gas tank of one of
the government planes.)
[In] the fight, The Bird went with prayers. With
prayers the [false] priest [went].
A group of Chamulans gathered.
Then, after the prayers, then the killing began.
XUN VASKIS
War, War, War
T154
113
7Ora, tuch'bat ti sk'obe. Yan xa 7o soltaro stzakoj.
Bweno, 7ital ta pantyon 7un, ti butikuk likem tale,
7itz'ibaj 7isk'an pavor, 7itz'ibaj k'u x7elan 7ichame
vo7ob no 7ox bala jun syen 7ombre 7icham te ta
pantyon, mu xa junuk yu7unuk, kuchbil chbat ta jun
ch'en, ch7och ta jun ch'en skotol, vo7ne ta j-mek, 7ii,
jna7tik mi 7oy ta mi 7oy ta sinkwenta jabil ti pletu
vo7ne 7une.
Despite their varying speed of locomotion, infantry, cavalry,
and airforce reached their positions sharply at 6:00. The airplane
carrying Colonel Pedro Moctezuma dropped the first bomb ever
to fall on the state of Chiapas. It was a dud. But undaunted by
this mishap, Colonel Moctezuma returned at 11 a.m. Flying low
over Ixtapa, he strafed the troops with machine gun fire but, to
General Bravo Izquierdo's dismay, soon exhausted all his munitions.
It seems too that the pilot, unable to distinguish the
enemy's position from that of the government troops, had
misdirected his fire. Fortunately there were no losses.
Later in the day Colonel Moctezuma was to carry out the
most extraordinary feat of the whole campaign. He flew over
San Cristobal with orders to bomb the enemy barracks, whose
location had been discovered by intelligence. The target was
missed, but, as if it had been a "smart bomb," the trajectory
landed squarely in General Alberto Pineda's patio, where it
decapitated his finest rooster (Bravo Izquierdo, 1948:119-121).
Meanwhile, back in Ixtapa, after a fierce resistance, the brave
soldiers of General Pineda, seeing themselves thoroughly outnumbered,
attacked from all sides and, sustaining many losses,
capitulated. Many officers, including a general, were among the
captives. According to Moscoso Pastrana the prisoners had been
promised their lives if they surrendered, but no sooner had they
laid down their arms than the officers were led off to the
cemetery and promptly shot. A special favor was granted to the
second in command, who was permitted to scribble a farewell
letter to his mother. A tombstone served as his desk top
(Moscoso Pastrana, 1960:281).
General Bravo Izquierdo reports that 300 Pinedist soldiers
were routed that same day and pursued up the mountain trail to
Zinacantan Center. There is no mention in the historical sources
of prisoners having their hands cut off. It seems from Xun's
account that the prisoners were executed in the cemetery in
Zinacantan rather than in Ixtapa, but this may be my misinterpretation.
It is also difficult to believe that the Pinedists, who
represented the conservative clerical interest, intended to burn
the church in Ixtapa, for it was the armies of the revolutionary
government that achieved notoriety as "saint burners."
Xun's estimate that the war was "fifty years ago" placed it ten
years too early. See also T14, T148, T152, T154, and their notes.
7A li pletue, 7a li Pajaroe ta resal 7ibat ta resal
jtottik palee.
Bweno, li jchamu7e stzob sba jun krupo.
Bweno pwes day, laj i resale ja7 7o 7och mil-bail.