Category Archives: Maya civilization

1761: Jacinto Canek, Mayan revolutionary

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On this date in 1761, King Canek Chan Montezuma was torn apart in the main square of Merida.

This august regnal name was asserted by a shaman previously known as Jacinto Uc de los Santos (English Wikipedia entry | Spanish). “Canek” echoed the history of the Mayan Itza kings, but it was Jacinto in using it for a single month’s insurrection that fixed its immortality.

“Memory is not just a tool of the spirit for calling up the past. Rather it is a skill which allows us in a moment to see what is in its essence outside of time. Memory allows us to rise to a state, not available to the mind alone, where everything is present.”

Jacinto Canek’s life followed by just a few decades Spain’s final conquest of the last independent Mayan peoples, the Itza, in the 1690s, complete with the usual religious assimilation, political control, and enslavement.

Canek, a commoner (perhaps an orphan) with some education, mounted in November 1761 a surprise revolt at the village of Cisteil (or Quisteil). There he deposed the parish priest and preached from the Catholic pulpit in the Mayan tongue:

My beloved children, I know you yearn to throw off the heavy yoke you have labored under since the Spanish subjugation … Spanish rule [brings] nothing but suffering servility.

About this same time, a Spanish merchant on his routine business rolled into town, blithely unaware of the gathering rebellion. Canek found the interloper insolent, and had him killed.

Crowned the new Mayan king and asserting semi-divine powers, Canek rapidly gained the support of neighboring towns. Within a week, he fielded 1,500 Mayan soldiers to defend Cisteil against a Spanish force sent to suppress them. Hundreds died in a bitter hand-to-hand battle on November 26, 1761, and Cisteil burned … but the Spanish won, and Canek, following a short flight, was captured with his remaining followers.

The Spanish governor of Yucatan, Jose Crespo (Spanish link), ordered Canek to a tortuous execution: tortured, broken, burned, and his ashes scattered. Many of his other followers were also put to death in various ways around the same time.


Mural of Jacinto Canek’s torture by Fernando Castro Pacheco at the Palacio de Gobierno in Yucatan, Mexico. (cc) image from Yodigo.

The Spanish hadn’t heard the end of this.

In the next century, Canek’s name was on the lips of Mayan descendants and mixed-blood Mestizos when they revolted again in the long-running (1847-1901, or even later: Quintana Roo maintained itself semi-autonomous until the 1910s) Caste War against domination by the European-identifying peoples of what was now the independent state of Mexico.

For decades, large areas of the Mayan Yucatan remained deadly to enter for any white-skinned outsider.

Today, it’s safe to check out the monumental tribute to Jacinto Canek on the Merida boulevard that bears his name.

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738: Copan king 18-Rabbit (Uaxaclajuun Ub’aah K’awiil)

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Mayan history has thus far been difficult to examine due to a major communication gap. Much of the Western world’s understanding of its own history comes from the written word, such that the deciphering of ancient scripts is not only a linguistic triumph, but it also pushes aside centuries of debris to expose a new corner of human culture.

It is this evolving ability to crack codes from classic Mesoamerica that has yielded a close approximation of the true name of the man formerly known only as 18-Rabbit: Uaxaclajuun Ub’aah K’awiil.*

(Alternately, Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil. The name means “Eighteen Images of K’awiil”; K’awiil was a Mayan divinity.)


Image (c) Matt Stokes of guatemalaholla.blogspot.com and used with permission.

By any name, he was one of the greatest rulers of the Mayan Classical Era, reigning from the Rio Copan Valley in today’s Honduras, near the present border with Guatemala. His life is preserved in several sets of stelae on temples around Copan and describes a man intent on advancing the culture of Copan.

In the city itself, Uaxaclajuun Ub’aah K’awiil greatly contributed to the design of the Great Plaza, which housed one of the great ball courts in the region. More obviously, though, his reign was marked by a drastic sculptural shift away from the angular designs of the Early Classical period and straight into the more complete and rounded designs that persisted through the remainder of the Mayan era.

Reliefs from: the preceding 12th Ruler period (left); and, from 18 Rabbit’s period (right).

In spite of these major cultural moves, little about Uaxaclajuun Ub’aah K’awiil is known directly. However, for the 20th anniversary of his ascension to the throne — on March 27, 715 AD** — Temple 22 was dedicated to the ruler, with a rare inscription ascribed to the ruler himself etched thereon.

It would be another 23 years before Ruler 13 was, as his conquering neighbor put it, “axed”. In 738, the Quirigua region — now in southeastern Guatemala — was considered part of the Copan empire. The Quirigua are now mostly known only for the size of their sculptures, which eclipse others in the region. But in 738, the Quiriga were mostly known for their fearsome king, Kawak Sky, or K’ak’ Tiliw Chan Yopaat, occupied the city just 50 km away and executed (or sacrificed) its former ruler.

That move ended a span of Copan dominance in the area and briefly put the Quirigua on top. Strangely, Yopaat was not apparently responsible for overseeing a particularly fruitful Quiriga culture. Almost nothing was built in his honor until after Uaxaclajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s death, after which several monuments to Yopaat’s glory were erected. It has been suggested that Yopaat was a brother or cousin of Uaxaclajuun Ub’aah K’awiil, as Kawak Sky’s biography indicates that he both took the throne under Uaxaclajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s authority and executed his predecessor; this suggests that the move was not a full-on coup.

Regardless of their relationship, in the aftermath of the execution, Copan declined rapidly, presumably as their new Quirigua ruler exploited its labor and material resources to build up his own name. As one Copan scribe later lamented, “[There are] no altars, no pyramids, no places.” But the Copan would rise again: Ruler 15, or Smoke Shell, polished off the unfinished Temple 26 and built up its heiroglyphic staircase to highlight the dynastic history of Copan and its connection to its northerly neighbor, Teotihuacan. His son, Yax Pak Chan Yat, would be the last of the 16 rulers of Copan in the Yax K’uk’ Mo’ line.

* Because of his place in the dynastic sequence of Copan, Uaxaclajuun Ub’aah K’awiil is sometimes referred to simply as Ruler 13.

** Mayan dates are surprisingly easy to nail down once the system is understood. While Europeans moved from Roman to Julian to Gregorian calendars — with the Eastern Orthodox Church and several traditionally Orthodox nations hanging onto the Julian one into the 20th Century — the Mayans had a consistent system that advanced day-to-day and was tied to verifiable events. Hence the ability to date Dec 21, 2012 as the end of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, which began on Aug 11, 3114 BCE.

In a way, the MLC is the precursor to the astronomical system of Julian Dates (which are not the same as the Julian calendar).

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