All those who lived in Mayan land have heard the sweet name of the beautiful princess. Everyone knew that Sak-Nikte in the Mayan language is the White Flower.
She was like a high moon, pacified in calm nights. And she was graceful, like a forest dove, with sweet singing, and pure and fresh, like a drop of dew. She was beautiful, like a flower, full of the aromas of a joyful field, enchanting, like a ray of the sun, containing all the insights, and gentle, like a breeze that carries all songs in its arms.
Such was the princess Sak-Nikte, who was born in the proud city of Mayapan, when the world united, like sisters, the three great cities of the Mayab land, when in the mighty, courageous Mayapan, and in the magnificent Uxmal, and in Chichen Itza, the altar of wisdom, there was troops, for their rulers agreed to live as brothers.
All those who lived on the Mayab land also heard the name of Prince Kanek, which means Black Snake in Mayan language. Everyone knew his courage and steadfast heart. When he was three times seven years old, he was named the ruler of the city of Chichen Itza. And on the same day, the ruler Kanek saw the princess Sak-Nikte, and on the same night the brave and stern ruler did not fall asleep, and from that time he was saddened - and for a long time.
Princess Sak-Nikta turned three times five years old when she saw Kanek, who ascended the throne of Itza, and her heart fluttered with joy at the sight of him, and at night she slept with a bright smile on her lips. And when she woke up, Sak-Nikte knew that her life and the life of Kanek would flow like two rivers that merged together to come into contact with the sea.
… On the day when Prince Kanek became the ruler of the Itzim, he entered the holy temple of the city of Itzmal in order to appear before his god. His legs, the legs of the hunter, trembled as he counted the twenty-six steps of the temple, and his arms, the arms of a warrior, drooped powerlessly: Prince Kanek saw the Princess White Flower.
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The large square in front of the temple was filled with people who came from all over the Mayab to see the prince. And everyone who stood nearby saw what happened. We saw the smile of the princess, and then the prince, closing his eyes and squeezing his chest with cold hands.
And there were rulers and princes from other cities. Everyone looked, but did not understand that from that moment on, the life of the new king and the life of the princess would flow like two rivers together to fulfill the will of the higher gods.
And they did not understand this. Because they knew that the princess Sak-Nikte was intended by her father, the powerful ruler of Mayapan, the youth Ulil, the crown prince of the Uxmal kingdom. But then Princess White Flower chose the life of Prince Black Snake …
The day passed when Prince Kanek became king of Chichen Itza, and the thirty-seven days that remained before the wedding of Prince Ulil and Princess Sak-Nikte began to decline. The Mayapan ambassadors arrived at the young ruler of Chichen Itza and told him: "Our sovereign invites his friend and ally to the wedding of his daughter." And the ruler Kanek answered, blushing: "Tell your master that I will."
… When the king of Chichen Itza was left alone, looking at the stars in the water to ask their advice, another ambassador appeared at midnight. A gloomy dwarf came and whispered in his ear:
- White Flower awaits you among the green thickets. Can you let another rip it off?
… In magnificent Uxmal, the wedding of Princess White Flower and Prince Ulil was being prepared. A bride came from Mayapan with her father and a retinue of eminent dignitaries, who accompanied their path with songs.
Far outside the city, far from the gates of Uxmal, Prince Ulil went out with his nobility and soldiers to meet the princess - and met her crying.
… At the wedding of Sak-Nikte with Prince Ulil, the king from Chichen was expected for three days, but he did not come. But King Kanek appeared at the very hour when he was supposed to appear. He suddenly burst into the center of Uxmal with seventy of his best warriors and went up to the altar, where incense was smoked and the priests sang. Intruded as a warrior with the Itz crest on his chest.
- Son of Itsev! - the cry of the crowd rolled, as in a military camp. Nobody stood up against them. Everything happened instantly: King Kanek flew in like a burning whirlwind and kidnapped the princess in full view …
Thus ended the wedding celebrations; and after that the pipes from the shells began to hum, the cymbals rang, the angry cry of Prince Ulil swept through the streets, summoning the soldiers.
…ABOUT! Revenge is ready to fall on the city of Chichen Itza, which is exhausted and tired of sweet dreams and unbridled games … What will become of you, the city of Chichen, weak and dormant in the happiness of its king?
So the inhabitants of Chichen Itza left their houses and temples, and left this beautiful city, bowed over blue water. All left crying, at night, with the birth of stars. Everyone left in a line to save the statues of the gods and the life of the princess and the king, the light and glory of the Mayab.
Kanek walked ahead of the Itz children, leading them along the paths open to him among the mountains. He was wrapped in a white cloak, but the feathered helmet was not on his head. Princess Sak-Nikte walked hand in hand with him. She pointed out the way with an inviting gesture, and everyone followed them.
Once they stopped in a calm and green area, next to a motionless lake, far from all cities. And they founded a new kingdom there, and built their peaceful and simple houses. This is how the children of Chichen Itza were saved by the love of Princess Sak-Nikte, who entered the heart of the last prince of Chichen in order to protect him from the punishment of his neighbors and make his life pure and right.
The city of Chichen Itza remained deserted and quiet among forests without birds, because they all flew away after Princess Sak-Nikte.
Numerous fierce troops of Uxmal and Mayapan entered the city, but they did not hear a single voice in the palaces and empty temples. Rage and revenge then put the fire of a fire on the beautiful city, and since that time immemorial Chichen Itza remained lonely and dead, abandoned, next to the blue water of the sacred well of death. What remains is a lonely and dead city, exuding a subtle scent of ruins that resemble a smile or the pale light of the moon. In spring, a white flower blooms in Mayab, and decorates the trees, and fills the air with fragrant sighs. And the son of the land Maya waits and greets him with tenderness in his heart, awakening at the sight of him the name of the princess Sak-Nikte.
Antonio Medisboglio
Translated from Spanish by Valentina Elizarova
Maya three hundred years before Columbus
The last page has been turned over, the last phrase has been read. And you are still held captive for a long time by the charm of the wonderful legend about the Mayan princess Sak-Nikta and her contemporaries. What a silly and whole character! What a hurricane of high feelings and passions! Indeed, the protagonists of this Mayan legend are in no way inferior to the ancient heroes from the immortal poems of Homer, well known to us from childhood. What is this legend? What soil was she born on? Who created? When? Does it correspond to real events from the history of the Maya? To begin with, the legend of Princess Sak-Nikta is not at all a legend in its traditional sense. This is an excerpt taken from the book "Land of the Pheasant and the Deer" by the famous Mexican writer, historian and ethnographer Antonio Medis Bollo. The story of the love of the White Flower and the Black Snake is a work of art,it is based on poetically revised documents, legends and chronicles of the pre-Columbian era. It should be noted here, apparently, that this book by A. Medis Boglio is a rather original phenomenon in modern Latin American literature. “I wanted,” he emphasized, “to convey in words the very soul of the Maya, to present those ideas that have been preserved by the Indians since time immemorial - about their origin and past greatness, about life, gods, nature, war and love. And I wanted to tell all this as close as possible to the peculiarities of their language and philosophy, I conceived and carried this book in my head in the Maya language, but wrote it in Spanish …- he emphasized, - to convey in words the very soul of the Maya, to express those ideas that have been preserved by the Indians since time immemorial - about their origin and past greatness, about life, gods, nature, war and love. And I wanted to tell all this as close as possible to the peculiarities of their language and philosophy, I conceived and carried this book in my head in the Maya language, but wrote it in Spanish …- he emphasized, - to convey in words the very soul of the Maya, to present those ideas that have been preserved by the Indians since time immemorial - about their origin and past greatness, about life, gods, nature, war and love. And I wanted to tell all this as close as possible to the peculiarities of their language and philosophy, I conceived and carried this book in my head in the Maya language, but wrote it in Spanish …
My themes are extracted from the surviving ancient books, legends, from the very soul of the Indians, from their dances, beliefs and more than from anywhere else - from what I myself saw, heard and felt in my childhood spent among people and among these problems."
Let me remind you that we are talking here about the traditions and beliefs of the Yucatan Indians - one of the largest modern Mayan ethnic groups living on the Yucatan Peninsula in the southeast of Mexico; and Antonio Medis Boglio himself is an excellent connoisseur of the Mayan language and half Maya by blood, his book "The Land of the Pheasant and the Deer" (as the Maya called their country in ancient times) can be called "poeticized history." This peculiar genre of literature has always enjoyed wide popularity in Latin America. Confirmation of this - "Legends of Guatemala", a work belonging to the pen of the world famous writer Miguel Angel Asturias.
What is the connection of the events described in the story of the princess Sak-Nikta with the actual history of the ancient Maya?
First of all, it must be emphasized that almost all the protagonists from the story of Antonio Medis Bollo are real historical characters who were repeatedly mentioned in the chronicles and chronicles of the Yucatan Maya several centuries before the Spanish invasion.
Hunak Keel really was the ruler of Mayapan in the late 12th - early 13th centuries. Ulil, whose bride was stolen, stood at the head of the city of Itzmal (Isamal), and not Uxmal, as the story says. Finally, Kanek is also a historical person, but rulers with such a name never existed in Chichen Itza: the generic name or title "Kanek" - "Black Snake" was a mandatory accessory of representatives of the royal dynasty in the city of Taiyasal, in the north of Guatemala, in the XVI-XVII centuries. Princess Sak-Nikte is a fictional character, although one of the Mayan chronicles mentions princess Ish Tsivnen, the bride of the ruler of Itzmal - Ulil, who was kidnapped during a wedding feast by the warriors of Chichen Itza.
To recreate the historical background on which all the described events took place, one should refer to the preserved documents and sources. So, the scene is the Yucatan Peninsula. Time of action - three hundred years before the voyage of Columbus.
End of the XII century. A very tense political situation has developed on the Yucatan Peninsula. The rulers of Chichen Itza, the most powerful city in the area, collected more and more tribute from their neighbors. Dozens of people were required for the regular performance of the bloody rite of human sacrifice in the "Sacred Well" of Chichen Itza. “They had a custom before and more recently,” wrote the Spanish priest Diego de Landa in the 16th century, “to throw living people into this well as a sacrifice to the gods during a drought … They also threw many other things from expensive stones and objects that they considered valuable … And if gold got into this country, most of it should have been received by this well because of the reverence that the Indians have for it …"
Drought in these places is a frequent occurrence. On the Yucatan Peninsula, a flat, sun-scorched limestone plain, there are no rivers, streams or lakes. Only rare natural wells (these are deep karst sinkholes) permanently store precious life-giving moisture here. The Maya call these wells cenotes. Where there were cenotes, important centers of the Mayan civilization arose and developed in ancient times. The place where the city of Chichen Itza arose in the 6th century AD is especially favorable in this respect. Here, the yellow plain is interrupted by two huge natural wells at once, 800 meters apart. The very name "Chichen Itza" forever perpetuated this phenomenon of nature: "Chi" in the Mayan language means "mouth", "chen" - "well", and "itza" is the name of the Mayan tribe, which, according to legend, first appeared here …“The mouth of the Itsev wells” is the translation of the city's name.
One of these wells was the main source of drinking water. Another is the famous "Well of Victims". It has survived almost unchanged to this day. I happened to be there recently. Any five minutes walk from the main pyramid of the city "El Castillo" - and you are there. Even now, eight centuries after the events described, you experience an involuntary thrill, standing on the edge of a giant pool with its yellowish-white sheer walls covered with green creepers. The eye of a round funnel with a diameter of over 60 meters fascinates, attracts to itself. Rugged layers of limestone plunge steeply down to the deep green water, which hides in its depths the secrets of the past centuries. From the edge of the well to the surface of the water, over twenty meters. And its depth, as I was told, is more than half of that.
Is it any wonder that the gloomy beauty of the cenote and its relative inaccessibility (high, almost sheer walls) caused an almost superstitious horror among the ancient Mayans, and, apparently, that is why they have long chosen this place for sacrifices in honor of their gods.
But this gloomy ceremony was a very convenient way to settle personal scores with rivals. This is exactly what the Mayapan ruler Ah Mesh Kuk did when he sent his commander Hunak Keel to Chichen Itza as a messenger to the gods who, according to legend, lived in the depths of the “Sacred Well”. The ruler knew well that these "messengers" never return back. And on a stone platform at the edge of the "Well of Victims", a dramatic scene was played out.
One by one, the people being thrown down disappeared into the green abyss of the devil's pool. Hunak Keel's turn was approaching. And in this tense moment, he makes a decision. Jumping forward, the brave man ran up to the platform of the temple and, in front of the amazed crowd, rushed himself down from a twenty-meter height. A few moments later, the green water of the well churned and Hunak Keel appeared on the surface. He shouted loudly that he personally spoke with the gods and by the will of the gods he - Hunak Keel - should become the ruler of Mayapan. The courage of the young commander won over the crowd. A rope was thrown from above and pulled out of the well. Ah Mesh Kuk is forced to submit to the impostor and surrender the royal throne: they had to reckon with the unshakable religious canons, and with the decisive mood of the people in favor of the "chosen one of the gods."
Having become the full owner of the Mayapan, Hunak Keel decided to pay in full with the arrogant rulers of Chichen Itza. The reason for the war did not have to wait long. In Chichen Itza at that time was the king ("khalach vinik" - in the Mayan language) Chak Shib Chak. His younger brother Hun Yuan Chak, the ruler of the small town of Ulmil, kidnapped the bride from the ruler of Itzmal - Ulil during the wedding feast. The bride's name is Ish Tsivnen. This incident served as a signal for a war of the alliance of three cities - Itzmal, Mayapan and Uxmal - against the powerful Chichen Itza. The combined forces, after a series of successful battles, captured Chichen Itza and subjected it to terrible devastation. The remnants of the Mayaans, led by the ruler Chak Shib Chak, fled south into the impenetrable forests in the area of Lake Peten Itza, where they created a new state that existed until the end of the 16th century. It was his rulers who bore the generic name "Kanek" - "Black Snake".
Since then, the palm in the incessant rivalry for supremacy over the Yucatan for more than two centuries has passed to the Mayapan rulers. And Chichen Itza was never reborn. True, the pilgrimage of Maya believers to the shrines of the abandoned city and especially to the "Well of Sacrifices" continued until the arrival of the Spanish conquerors in the 16th century.
“Remained alone and dead, a city exuding a delicate scent of ruins. Human speech does not sound here. And only from time to time a mysterious voice broadcasts, which no one hears. But one day you will hear him!"
With these words from the book of Antonio Medis Bolio, I want to finish the story about the beautiful princess Sak-Nikta.
Valery Gulyaev, Doctor of Historical Sciences