Balamkú, poemario de Xanath Caraza

Balamkú

Elizabeth Coonrod Martínez

DePaul University

Iguanas of Mayan stone

come alive with the sun.

Rhythms of water and of jungle,

roar of Chaac in the belly,

pleasure paralyzes.

Rhythms of water and of jungle

Xánath Caraza

There are a thousand registered ancient Maya city sites just in the Mexican state of Campeche (west side of the Yucatán peninsula), including the dozen visited by poet Xánath Caraza, where she composed the poems in this text.

Balamkú is one of those sites, and most moving to view and experience. It is small for a Maya site, and yet still covers 62 acres, with structures in two sections: one of which has three plazas, the other four, and a large ballcourt. Its architectural style is in the Petén tradition. Only re-discovered and opened in 1990, the site’s highlight is an elaborate and extraordinary plaster fresco or frieze, protected through the centuries due to being enclosed in the interior of a building. The huge display is of three side-by-side sets of complex images and designs, 50 feet wide and some 10 feet high, with one side somewhat reduced/destroyed. The images communicate musical instruments and a jaguar god (hence the name balamkú). When we visited, only two could enter at a time: upon encountering the frieze my friend and I were stunned, she with tears in her eyes, needing a moment to commune with the spirits. Xánath’s words on this site brought back chills as I read it:

I intone the sacred word,

the first since ancient

time, resonant memories.

Flower and song I offer,

the nacre smoke of copal

coils its aroma in my voice.

We visited Balamkú almost by chance. In the city of Campeche (on the Gulf coast) for a conference in 2017, I traveled with a small group to tour Calakmul, a 5-hour drive from the city. On the way I asked the tour guide about Balamkú, which I had heard was nearby. He was excited I knew of it, and asked the other members of our group if they were willing to stop there, as it would cut short some of our time at Calakmul. They agreed, and we had our moving encounter.

We did not walk the Balamkú site, as Xánath did, due to time constraints for our day trip. But we left inspired. Only 30 miles away, after passing wild turkeys near the road, we arrived to Calakmul, excited to climb the twin tallest temples in the main section of the compound. “Calakmul” is not the original name of the extensive polity that ruled for hundreds of years, it is the 20^th century term used in regional Maya, meaning the place where two temples are adjacent. From the top our view was expansive: thick forests and the tops of other structures near and far. Howler monkeys swung from trees nearby, and iguanas peeked out from crevices.

Once we descended, the tour guide wanted to talk up what he thought tourists wanted to hear, sacrifice, laying his body across a flat rock to demonstrate. We instead sought out the writing still partially visible on stelaes. It has been documented that Calakmul, when first viewed by an outside person in 1930, had 117 stelaes with historic inscriptions—more than any city in the region! By now at least half have been defaced with stolen/removed portions. There were elaborate murals found here which revealed people consuming atole, tamales and tabaco, as well as items being sold, including textiles and needles, and ceramic remains found here were from distant origins. Xánath’s words evoke its extraordinary qualities.

Calakmul, you carry

history in stone.

You impose greatness.

Honor vibrates in

the concave atmosphere.

Dense wisdom

encases the body.

The foliage of

the ceiba tree saturate

ancestral roofs.

Tunnels of shadow

are wounded by

occasional beams of sunshine.

Infinite carpet

of moss receives

the steps.

Your acropolises of

ancestral stone

take my breath away.

I adore you, ancient land,

imposing Calakmul.

Your never-ending jungle

absorbs me.

I am nothing before you!

Small altars

marked with the flower

fill with blood.

It flows from the stone

until penetrating the earth.

Jaguar observes me,

I feel his breath.

At twenty miles before the modern Guatemala border, this amazing treasure of an ancient city is little recognized by international tourists who visit Cancun and only make a side trip to Chichén Itzá. Other tourists might see Tikal in Guatemala and Palenque in Mexico. What is fascinating is to track and understand the interlinking and histories of the extensive interior sites. Calakmul has origins—with several others in the Petén region—from 200BCE; it began thriving in the Late preclassic era (before 400CE), same as Tikal, with which it shares a big difference: Tikal became influenced, or in part conquered, by the Teotihuacán political system in central Mexico, while Calakmul created its own power base.

By the mid-6^th century it had defeated cities far and wide, including Caracol, Naranjo (a vassal of Tikal), Yaxchilán near the important Usumacinta River, and Tikal shortly afterward (Tikal would not become independent again for 130 years). Archaeologists have documented at least 20 secondary centers (large cities) connected by a causeway, or extensive road system in all directions, thus aiding travel for resources, politics or battle. The metropolis was surrounded by canals and 13 reservoirs. In addition to centralized plazas and clusters of tall structures, archaeologists have mapped 6,250 smaller structures. Notably, Calakmul and its allies also featured female rulers, or male and female together, unlike Tikal.

After two massive campaigns to defeat Palenque in 611 (to achieve control of important trade routes), Calakmul remained the most powerful city-state in the central Maya lowlands to as late as 686. Half a century later, it appears Calakmul assisted Quiriguá (on the Atlantic coast) in capturing and defeating Copán (Honduras), a former ally of Tikal.

This polity’s emblem glyph—the snake (Kaan) head, (a powerful metaphor representing all three levels of the universe)—has been found in examples of writing at more ancient sites in the Maya lowlands than any other emblem. In 849, although no longer the supreme power in the Petén, the Snake dynasty is mentioned on a stelae in Seibal. The Yucatec speakers encountered by Spanish explorers in northern Petén, the Kejache, were likely descendants of the Kaan presence.

          Native civilization has long been ignored and denigrated by our educational system, due to the colonizing message, and an attitude passed from generation to generation in our societies. During my own grade school in Mexico City it was common for our textbooks to state that in the peninsulas of Yucatán and Baja (not yet declared states) there were cannibals and headhunters. While perplexing, it reinforced ongoing colonial racism.

The ancient cities of our hemisphere, Calakmul, Balamkú, others under the “Maya” umbrella term, and many in central Mexico, are important to view and study. Xánath Caraza’s verses will provide a spiritual roadmap.

Suggested readings:

Carrasco, Ramón, María Cordero. “Chik Naab: La pintura mural de Calakmul.” Arqueología Mexicana XXII

(128, July-Aug). México: Editorial Raíces, 2014; 46-51.

Braswell, Jeffrey E., etal. “Defining the The Terminal Classic at Calakmul, Campeche.” The Terminal Classic in

the Maya lowlands: Collapse, Transition and Transformation. UP of Colorado, 2005; 162-194.

Folan, William J., etal. “Calakmul: New Data from an Ancient Mayan Capitol in Campeche.” Latin American

Antiquity 6.4; 310-334 (JSTOR)

Martin, Simon and Nikolai Grube. Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens: Deciphering the Dynasties of the

Ancient Maya. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000

Rice, Prudence, Don S. Rice. “Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Maya Political Geography.” The Postclassic

to Spanish-Era Transition in Mesoamerica: Archaeological Perspectives. U of New Mexico P, 2005

Rodríguez Campero, Omar. “Características de la composición urbana de los centros de Calakmul, Balamkú y

Nadzcáan.” Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2007. Guatemala: Museo Nacional

de Arqueología y Etnología XXI; 427-457.

Salvador Rodríguez, Eduardo. “La ciudad de Calakmul.” Arqueología Mexicana XXII (128, July-Aug). México:

Editorial Raíces, 2014; 28-35.

Sharer, Robert J. and Loa P. Traxler. The Ancient Maya (6^th revised ed.). Stanford UP, 2006.

Zimmerman, Mario. “Los nuevos hallazgos en la estructura III.” Arqueología Mexicana XXII (128, July-Aug).

México: Editorial Raíces, 2014; 52-57.