Issue 9: Burning History & the Ashing of Science

People scrambled about the streets of Maní as a pyre was prepped in the main
square of the Yucatec town. Codices filled with astronomy, history, math, and religion
were piled up among the sculptural “works of the devil.” A lucky discovery
by the Spanish…if they had not found the cave, maybe the books wouldn’t have
burned. Smoke filled the air on July 12, 1562 as Spanish friar Diego de Landa burned
the beliefs of the Maya of Maní, thus ending the final kingdom of the Tutul-Xiu.
Diego de Landa (1524-1579) arrived in Yucatán,
Mexico in 1549. In Izamal, a previously important
religious center prior to the Spanish arrival,
a Catholic church was built on top of the old
temples to deracinate Maya idolatry. Those who
refused to renounce their ancient beliefs and
embrace Catholicism faced Inquisition trials and
many were killed. The inquisition of Maní lasted
three months with over 4,000 natives tortured
during conversion trials.
INQUISITION: BURNT BOOKS & PRESERVED POTS | 7
accordion books (or codices). Many pots–including
plates, bowls, jars, cups, and more ceramics
of that style–were painted in hieroglyphic texts,
which archaeologists continue to collect and
study today. The Maya wrote on everything. Since
pots were not assumed to be in direct competition
with the Holy Bible, they managed to avoid destruction
better than other hieroglyphic artifacts.
De Landa’s writings have assisted in piecing back
“Hallámosles gran número de libros de estas sus letras, y
porque no tenían cosa en que no hubiese superstición y falsedades
del demonio, se los quemamos todos, lo cual sintieron a
maravilla y les dio mucha pena.” - Diego de Landa
eRelación de las Cosas de Yucatán (117-8)
Diego de Landa’s inflexible and raucous conduct
earned him a trip back to Spain in 1563 after being
condemned by the Council of the Indies. By
1566, he completed his book Relación de las Cosas
de Yucatán (Relation on the incidents of Yucatan)
to explain his inquisition actions in trial.
On pages 117 and 118, Diego de Landa states:
“We found many books with these letters [hieroglyphs],
and because they contained nothing
that was free from superstition and the devil’s
trickery, we burnt them, which the Indians greatly
lamented.” In 1573, de Landa returned to Yucatan
as bishop cleared of all accusations.
Over 5,000 idols and at least 27 hieroglyphic texts,
assumed to be full of witchcraft and evil knowledge
against the Catholic church, ashed away into
the earth. Luckily, the Spanish destroyed almost
exclusively statues, figurines, and the bark-paper
together burnt history, albeit from a biased perspective.
He wrote of the calendars, economy,
politics, religion, and social organization. He took
special interest in the similarity of the cross-shape
in Christianity and the Maya world tree, as well as
other similarities between the two religious systems.
Yuri Knorozov, Russian scholar, deciphered
the glyphs de Landa had written from the 1600s
(an attempt to match Spanish sounds with Mayan
glyphs) in 1952. De Landa had believed each
glyph was a single letter like the Latin alphabet;
Knorozov figured out they were syllables.
Even with advances in hieroglyphic studies from
architecture, sculptures, and painted pots: to this
day, the Mayan code remains incomplete with
undecipherable pieces. The Spanish Inquisition
of the Americas is an example of the catastrophic
reality of history told by the victor. u
Origins Scientific Research Society