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348 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY NUMBER 23
gathered together. They used boiling water batz'i k'ak'al vo7 lakan noxtoke, 7isk'e—bbeik la ta
women
others. They boiled it another time. They j-mek 7un, laj ta k'ak'al vo7 7un, laj 7o sk oplal U
on the
j7ik'al 7une.
thre—w lots on them. [The Spooks] died from the
boiling water. That was the end of the Spooks.
I recall Manvel's wife telling her version of this tale to her European clothing. As such, they served the role of majordomos
young grandsons as they sat rapt in attention. She repeated it and foremen who most likely were entrusted with the task of
when her daughter-in-law appeared, exclaiming over and over inflicting physical punishment on their master's Indian serfs
how the women in the old days used to be bad, but braver and (Favre,1971:81-82). It is not farfetched to assume that the
stronger.
Spaniards increased their authority by spreading stories of the
Now that the Spook is a thoroughly familiar character, I shall Africans' former cannibalistic appetities. The Spook's cave-
try to present his pedigree.
dwelling habits may possibly be traced to a memory of African
First is the report of Bishop Nunez de la Vega:
slaves who escaped from the lowlands and sought temporary
refuge in the wildest mountain areas. This is supported by the
Spanish name for the Spook, "Negro Cimarron," "Black
Runaway Slave." So much for the Spook's mixed ancestry.
The cultural role of this boogeyman is described in convincing
detail by Sarah Blaffer, but I will restrict myself to her conclusions:
In many towns of this bishopric seven Blacks, corresponding to
the seven days of the week, are painted on the repertories or calendars
for making divinations and predictions . and he whom they name
Coxlahuntox (who is the devil, and according to the Indians has thirteen
dominions) is painted on a throne, and he has horns on his head like a
ram. The Indians are greatly afraid of Negroes because they preserve the
memory of one of their original forefathers having the color of Ethiopians],
who was a great warrior and extremely cruel according to a very
ancient historical notebook in our possession that is written in their
language. Those of Oxchuc and other towns of the lowlands hold in
deep veneration [a god] called Yalajau (which should be corrected to
Ical-Ajau) which means Chief Black or, Lord of the Blacks (Ordonez y
Aguiar, 1907:13).
A representation of this deity was carved on a beam of the
church in Oxchuc "in the form of a ferocious Negro, like a piece
of sculpture or a painted bust, with human limbs" (Payne,
1932:63). It was destroyed by Bishop Nunez de la Vega in 1687.
It is possible that Ical-Ajau is kin to Ek Chuah, the principal
god of Yucatec merchants, who was always portrayed in black
paint. This same god is also a warrior god. The intimate relation
between Aztec merchants and conquest, already illustrated in
the note of Tale 115, was probably not peculiar to the Aztecs.
Drawing upon a multitude of parallels in Mayan literature
from Yucatan and Guatemala, Sarah Blaffer concludes that the
Spook is the ancient bat demon associated with sexuality, blood,
sacrifice, and death (Blaffer, 1972:57-67). The name Zinacantan
means "bat net." The Zinacantecs "called themselves Zotcil
Vinic which is the same as saying batman. . . . Their ancestors
. . . discovered a stone bat and considered it God and
worshipped it" (Ximenes, 1929:360). Surely the Dominican friars
did not hesitate to call it the Devil!
In a sixteenth-century Tzotzil dicitionary compiled in Zinacantan,
"hicaV is given as "negro de guinea" (Diccionario en
lengua sotzil, n.d.:234). The Spook's negroid features may derive
from a memory of the African slaves. Although Negroes are no
longer native to the region, as lat as 1778 there were 723 living in
San Cristobal. They were treated more as confidants than as
slaves, for they were permitted to wear daggers and to dress in
Once the Spook prayed to Our Lord.
"Won't you give me permission. I want several of
your children," he told St. Lawrence.
"I won't ever give away my children. Why don't
you go talk to John, see if he'll give you his," said St.
Lawrence.
The Spook and the Saints
T68
In these tales about spooks from all over the Maya area, the spooks
and their victims share an equivalent anomalous status . . . ; furthermore,
in the Black-man tales, the treatment dealt to a spook or to the
spook's victims often reflects the offense committed. . More tentatively,
the nixtamal in these myths is a euphemism for menstrual
blood .... When [j7ik'al] seizes a woman at a task involved with
cooking corn, and then kills her with an overdose of sexuality, I suggest
that she is being punished for an underdose of care in her female
responsibilities In order to depict a woman careless of her
sexuality, Zinacantecos may choose the metaphor of a woman negligent
during the times she should be most careful—when she is cooking corn
and when she is in an ambiguous condition, as during menstruation
. . By his own example and by the retributions he enacts,
[j7ik'al] clarifies normative roles for men and women in Zinacantan
(Blaffer, 1972:120-121).
Several nights after helping me with the transcription of this
tale of the scalding of the Spook, Romin Teratol, who had in
recent days been assured by several people that he possessed the
qualities of a shaman, had the following dream:
A townsman had arrived on Romin's doorstep and asked him
to please come and cure his wife. Romin consented. According
to local custom, the shaman should bathe his patient and also the
patient's "substitute," a live hen, with warm "flower water"—
water in which sweet-smelling herbs have been brewed. But
instead, Romin poured boiling water over his patient, whereupon
she turned into a scalded hen right in front of Romin's
astounded stepmother and the rest of the patient's family. Immediately
they all accused him of being a witch. Since that time
Romin never has had the proper dreams which signal the
possession of shamanic power. See also T23, T71, T122, T145,
and their notes.
7A ti vo7ne yu7un la 7isk'opon 7a li kajvaltik 7a li
j7ik'ale.
Bweno, "Mi mu xavak'bon permiso ta jk'an
jay-vo7uk lach'amale," xut la li San-lorenso.
"Muk' bu chkak' jch'amal mi xak'ane, ba k'opono
kik 7a li Xune, 7aver mi xayak'be," xi la 7un, 7a li
San-lorenso 7une.