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144 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY NUMBER 23
Lawrence in Zinacantan Center is the large cross on which
Christ is hung every Good Friday. This cross apparently never
talked like the Gospel Cross that also appeared in Paste7 and
was brought to the church only to be "killed" with boiling water
by the priest, as Xun describes in Tale 33. This detail, combined
with that of the saint sleeping in a hollow tree, calls to mind
Friar Francisco Ximenez's account of the hermit of Zinacantan:
In the year 1708, when the Most Illustrious Bishop of Guatemala and
Chiapa, Friar Juan Bautista Alvarez de Toledo, was inspecting the town
of San Juan Chamula there arrived one day around two in the afternoon
the natives of the town of Santo Domingo Sinacantlan which is about
half a league from Chamula. Frightened and in great confusion they
reported to me that on a trail of said town there was a man inside a tree
who was calling for penitence and repentance before an image of Our
Lady, the Virgin, which was inside the same tree, and which gave off
shafts of light. [He claimed] that She had come down from the Heavens,
explaining to the natives that She had come from there to offer them
favors and assistance. And when said man was talking with them he told
them to advise the Church. They gave me the news in great confusion,
and although I wished to postpone going to see the case until I had
reported it to His Eminence who was resting, when I saw the reaction in
the town of Chamula to the news being spread by those of Sinacantan,
right away I set out without further delay. And arriving at said hamlet I
found a large number of Indian men and women from both towns. I
asked them where the subject was. To which they answered that said
man had already left the tree, moving to another hamlet near said tree. I
continued on and not far ahead next to an oak I discovered a man. His
face was covered, and he was wrapped in a cloth. I asked him to tell me
who he was. He did not answer until the third time when with emotion
he turned, made obeisance to me and told me, 'I am a poor sinner whom
they do not allow to worship God.' This sounded strange to me so I told
him that that was no way to worship God nor to serve him, that it was
only a device to agitate the town and to set a bad example for the Indians
whose nation is so quick to accept idolatry. To which he replied that he
was not the guilty one, that it was they who followed him and [he gave]
other frivolous excuses of no consequence. I went to examine the tree. It
was a hollow oak that he had gotten into. The opening was covered with
a board. The board had a peep hole through which the Indians fed him.
The oak had a hole above said board, through which could be seen a
small canvas portrait of St. Joseph. Inside the tree I found a notebook
with some verses that it seems he had written addressed to penitence and
to the love of God. Near said oak he had set up a cross with other verses
on a piece of paper addressed to the same subject. It was a large
company of Indian men and women who idolized him and offered him
certain things to eat, and carried censers with copal. And although said
man was not inside the tree, nevertheless they worshipped said tree and
offered it incense. For this reason I immediately had said tree cut down
and chopped into pieces. Right away I set out for Chamula, escorting
said man with a great company of Indians who appeared all along the
way, kneeling in front of him. They even came to me to ask if they
should ring the church bells on entering Chamula. After we arrived in
There was a man who ate cherries.
The cherry tree spoke. The cherry tree itself
talked. It spoke. "Why are you eating me?" it asked.
"I'm too sour," it said. "If you want we'll go
[together]," said the cherry tree.
"I don't want to," said the man.
"How come you don't want to? You just ate me,"
said the cherry tree. It spoke. "All right, then, if you
Why Its Cherries are Sour
T36
Chamula His Excellence began to examine him. And soon after [the
hermit] stated he would only reply to His Excellence beneath the sign of
the cross. For this reason His Lordship went inside. And when His
Lordship came out he asked me what opinion I had of that man, to
which I replied that from what I had observed and witnessed he was
deluded and lacking in judgment. He was in Chamula three days during
which time I observed that he was scarcely contrite about eating no end
of morsels. At this time I was able to prevent the Indians from seeing
him. On the pretext that he was a God they tried to see him and worship
him so that I was even forced to correct it from the pulpit, trying to
prevent the damage that could follow. Then on orders of His Eminence
he went to the monastery of San Fransisco in San Cristobal where he
remained and (as I learned) gave very little evidence of virtue, as they
said he lacked the fundamental qualities of subjection and humility
.... In the month of May, 1710 we knew that the hermit mentioned
above was in said town [of Zinacantan] to which we were called,
and having accused him of not attending Mass, and of setting a bad
example for the Indians, and that it was not the proper way to serve
God, nor the sure path to his salvation he replied that we could not
judge his inner thoughts nor his methods and [he presented] other
proposals born more out of pride than virtue. At this [discussion] there
was a multitude of Indians of the town giving greater acclaim to the
hermit than to the reproaches we were offering said man. And having
known that he had built a hermitage in the woods we went and found it
about a block and a half from the trail and hamlet where he had it the
first time. The said hermitage was about eight yards long, divided into a
dormitory and an oratory with an altar that had a small image of the
Virgin with candles, cocoa beans, eggs, tortillas and such other things as
the Indians offered in proper style. The hermitage was highly adorned
and carpeted very neatly with straw mats. The woods where the
hermitage was situated had been cleared, fenced, and planted with corn.
The trail to it, though it had been made only three or four days before
was so well frequented that it seemed it dated from long ago, and many
Indians went to visit [the hermitage] with their candles and copal.
Having inspected the hermitage, we tried to set fire to it. And with that
in mind Fray Jorge began to reproach them for the errors and folly of
their beliefs and idolatry, and then I understood that the Indians who
followed us were saying in their language that we were going to burn
the house of God and they started thinking of rebelling. For this reason I
secretly told said Padre not to tell them anything because from what I
understood of what they were saying in their language they were
planning to rebel against us. We calmed them down and then I set fire to
the hermitage and the Indians went into the flames to remove the mats
and other furnishings that were inside. We sent the hermit back to His
Eminence in San Cristobal who held him prisoner. And because we put
an end to this hermit who was the source of the other false miracles, this
hermit was sent by His Lordship to the College of the Company of Jesus
whose monks agreed that he was a deluded man and even somewhat
devil-ridden. For this reason they sent him to New Spain where quite
naturally he never arrived since he died in the town of Ocozacautla
(Ximenez, 1931, 3:262-264).
7Oy te jun vinik, 7islo7 chix-te7e.
Bweno, 7iyal li chix-te7e, 7ik'opoj li chix-te7
stuke, 7iyal. "K'u yu7un chalo7on?" xi. "7A li
vo7one toj pojon," xi. "Mi xak'an chibattik," xi li
chix-te7e.
"Mu jk'an," xi li vinike.
"K'u cha7al mu xak'an, laj 7alo7on," xi li
chix-te7e. 7Iyal, "Mo7oj che7e, mi mu xak'an 7une,"