Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-jwnkl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T20:15:53.708Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Juan de La Cruz, Venancio Puc, and the Speaking Cross

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Nelson A. Reed
Nelson A. Reed*
Affiliation:
Washington UniversitySt. Louis, Missouri
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Caste War of Yucatán, beginning in 1847, was the most successful revolt by a native people in the new world. The Maya almost drove the whites from the peninsula, and although they were in turn forced back into the uninhabited forest of eastern Yucatán, they defended themselves there for many years, maintaining a certain independence to this day. Their successful resistance was based on the refuge zone of dense forest, on the availability of weapons and munitions from adjoining British Honduras, on the appearance of a prophet who created a new religion and on the subsequent appearance of a leader who used that religion to form an independent society. New information has become available in recent years on this important nativistic movement; this article reviews the origins of the Cross, the nature of its prophet, Juan de la Cruz, and the achievements of his successor, Venancio Puc, without whom the new religion would not have survived.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , April 1997 , pp. 497 - 523
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Reed, Nelson A., The Caste War of Yucatan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964), pp. 135–136 Google Scholar.

2 Rojas, Alfonso Villa, The Maya of East Central Quintana Roo (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1945)Google Scholar; Dumond, Don E. “The Independant Maya of the Late Nineteenth Century: Chiefdoms and Power Politics,” in Anthropology and History in Yucatan, Jones, Grant D., ed. (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1977), pp. 103–138 Google Scholar.

3 Victoria Reifler Bricker, “The Caste War of Yucatan: The History of a Myth and the Myth of History,” in Jones, Anthropology and History in Yucatan, pp. 251–258.

4 Bricker, , The Indian Christ, The Indian King: The Historical Substrate of Maya Myth and Ritual (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981), p. 106 Google Scholar.

5 Charlotte Zimmerman, “The Cult of the Holy Cross: An Analysis of Cosmology and Catholicism in Quintana Roo,” in History of Religions 3:50 (1963), 50–71.

6 Paul Sullivan, personal communication.

7 Baqueiro, Serapio, Ensayo histórico sobre las revoluciones de Yucatán desde el año 1840 hasta 1864, Vol. 4 (Mérida: Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, 1990), p. 119 Google Scholar.

8 Baqueiro, , Ensayo histórico, p. 123 Google Scholar.

9 Baqueiro, , Ensayo histórico, p. 119 Google Scholar.

10 José María Barrera and Manuel Nah to comandante José María Torres de Chanchén, from Chan Santa Cruz, March 22, 1851, cited in Careaga Villasid, Lorena, “Mayas bravos y mayas pacíficos; reconfiguración de una cultura en el siglo XIX quintanarroense,” paper given at the III Congreso Internacional de Mayistas, Chetumal, Quintana Roo, July 1995, 21.

11 Bricker, , The Indian Christ, p. 107 Google Scholar.

12 José María Barrera and Manuel Nah to Atenancio Puc and Venancio Pec, San Cristobal, June 6, 1852, in Martín, Fidelio Quintal, ed.,. Correspondencia de la Guerra de Castas: Epistolario documental 1843–1866 (Mérida: Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, 1992), p. 115 Google Scholar.

13 El Fénix, (Campeche), July 25, 1851.

14 Bricker,, The Indian Christ, p. 107 Google Scholar.

15 Rojas, Villa, Maya of East Central Quintana Roo, p. 161 Google Scholar.

16 Bricker, , The Indian Christ, 106 Google Scholar.

17 Roys, Ralph L., The Political Geography of The Yucatecan Maya (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1957), pp. 133–134 Google Scholar.

18 Terry Rugeley, personal communication.

19 Pánfilo Novelo Martín, (great-grandson of Caste War leader, Bonifacio Novelo,) personal communication.

20 Bricker, , The Indian Christ, p. 188 Google Scholar.

21 Dumond, , cited in Bricker, , The Indian Christ, p. 107 Google Scholar.

22 Bevington, Gary, Maya for Travelers and Students (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1995), p. 56 Google Scholar.

23 Paul Sullivan, personal communication.

24 Rojas, Villa, Maya of East Central Quintana Roo, p. 161 Google Scholar.

25 Baqueiro, , Ensayo histórico, p. 123 Google Scholar.

26 May, Benito Aban, U Tzikbalil Yum Santísima Cruz Tun (Mérida: Secretaría de Educación Pública, Subsecretaría de Cultura, Dirección General de Culturas Populares, Unidad Regional Yucatán, 1982)Google Scholar, page 6 of unpaginated introduction.

27 Wilson, Richard, Maya Resurgence in Guatemala: Q’eqchi’ Experience (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), p. 68 Google Scholar.

28 Bums, Allen F., An Epoch of Miracles: Oral Literature of the Yucatec Maya (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1993), p. 248 Google Scholar.

29 Terán, Silvia and Rasmussen, Christian H., Relatos del Centro del Mundo, U Tsikbalo’obi Chuumuk Lu’um, Volume 1 (Mérida: Instituto de Cultura de Yucatán, 1992), pp. 100–102 Google Scholar.

30 Schele, Linda and Freidel, David, A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1990), p. 418 Google Scholar.

31 Baqueiro, , Ensayo histórico, p. 120 Google Scholar.

32 Stephens, John L., Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (New York: Dover Edition, 1963 Google Scholar, orig. 1843), Vol. 1, p. 227.

33 Tozzer, Alfred M., Landa’s Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archeology and Ethnology, Vol. XVIII (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1941), p. 143 Google Scholar. He also passes along a rumor which blends the past and present, writing, “The present Indians of Chan Santa Cruz are reported to have a large hollow figure which conceals a native priest during certain rites.”

34 Aguilar, Pedro Sánchez de, Informe contra idolorum cultores del obispado de Yucatán dirigido al Rey N. Señor en su Real Consejo de las Indias (circa 1613), 3rd ed. (Mérida: Imprenta Triay e Hijos, 1937), p. 138 Google Scholar.

35 Burns, , An Epoch of Miracles, p. 84 Google Scholar.

36 Sullivan, Paul, Unfinished Conversations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), pp. 219–220 Google Scholar, and personal communication.

37 Bricker, , The Indian Christ, p. 187 Google Scholar.

38 Bartolomé, Miguel and Alicia, Barabas call this a cedar; see La resistencia maya: Relaciones interétnicas en el oriente de la península de Yucatán (México: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1977), p. 29 Google Scholar, referring to the use of this wood in the fabrication of idols, but Fajardo, “Diario de Tomas Fajardo,” in El siglo XIX, October 19, 1852; and Cámara Zavala, “Las memorias de don Felipe de la Cámara Zavala,” reprinted in La semana ilustrada, año IV,, numero 191, Diario de Yúcatan, September 2, 1928 both say it was mahogany, and both were eye witnesses. The tree stood just to the north of the present stone chapel, the Chan Cuic, according to local tradition.

39 Bartolomé, and Barabas, , La resistencia maya, p. 29 Google Scholar; Rojas, Villa, Maya of East Central Quintana Roo, p. 161 Google Scholar; Bricker, , “The Caste War of Yucatan,” p. 252 Google Scholar; and Burns, , An Epoch of Miracles, p. 85 Google Scholar.

40 Venancio Puc used the lack of a rubric as an excuse for not recognizing the letter of English Superintendant Seymour when the latter wrote attempting to save prisoners at Bacalar. British Foreign Officer Records, 36/318, Venancio Puc to Seymour, April 1857.

41 El Fénix (Campeche), July 25, 1851.

42 Rojas, Villa, Maya of East Central Quintana Roo, p. 161 Google Scholar; Bricker, , “The Caste War of Yucatan,” p. 252 Google Scholar; Burns, , An Epoch of Miracles, p. 85 Google Scholar.

43 Wallace, Anthony F. C., “Revitalization Movements,” in American Anthropology, 58 (1956), 264–281 Google Scholar.

44 Baqueiro, , Ensayo histórico, pp. 120–122 Google Scholar.

45 Felipe de la Cámara Zavala, Diario de Yucatán (Mérida), September 16, 1928; and cited in Bricker, The Indian Christ, p. 108.

46 Thomas Fajardo, diary sent to Manuel Barbachano, printed in El siglo XIX (Mérida), October 19, 1852.

47 Bricker, , The Indian Christ, p. 197 Google Scholar.

48 Bricker, , The Indian Christ, p. 195 Google Scholar.

49 Bricker, , The Indian Christ, p. 203 Google Scholar.

50 Bonifacio Novelo to the “Hermosa y santísma Cruz y mi Señor Tres Personas” at the town of Balam Na, from Xcopoil, February 24, 1851, cited in Lorena Careaga Villasid, p. 22.

51 Reina, Leticia, Las rebeliones campesinas de México (1819–1906) (México: Siglo XXI Editores, 1980), pp. 402–404 Google Scholar.

52 Bricker, , The Indian Christ, p. 209 Google Scholar.

53 Bricker, , The Indian Christ, p. 211 Google Scholar.

54 Cámara Zavala, Diario de Yucatán (Mèrida), September 16, 1928.

55 Rojas, Villa, Maya of East Central Quintana Roo, p. 16 Google Scholar.

56 Cámara Zavala.

57 Baqueiro, , Ensayo histórico, pp. 209–210 Google Scholar.

58 José María Barrera to Atenancio Puc and Venancio Puc, San Cristobal, July 6, 1852 in Quintal Martín, pp. 115–116.

59 Baqueiro, Ensayo histórico, pp. 309–318; José María Rosado, Captivity Freedom (Belize), The Clarion June 25, 1931 (reprinted).

60 Rosado, , Captivity Freedom Google Scholar.

61 Rosado, , Captivity Freedom Google Scholar.

62 Rosado, , Captivity Freedom Google Scholar.

63 Rosado, , Captivity Freedom Google Scholar.

64 Rosado, , Captivity Freedom Google Scholar.

65 Bonfil, Antonio Higuera, ed., El General May, último Jefe de las Tribus Mayas (Chetumal: Gobierno del Estado de Quintana Roo, 1974)Google Scholar.

66 Bricker, , The Indian Christ, p. 194 Google Scholar.

67 Dionisio Zapata, Leandro Santos, and Gerardo de Castillo of Santa Cruz to Superintendent of Belize, Archives of Belize, January 1, 1864.

68 Burns, , An Epoch of Miracles, p. 83 Google Scholar.

69 Juan de la Cruz to General Paulino Martín, October 20, 1866, published in El Espírito Público, July 19, 1867, 4.

70 Dumond, Don E., “The Talking Crosses of Yucatan: A New Look at Their History,” Ethnohistory, 32:4 (1985), 291–308 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Juan de la Cruz to the People of Kantunil, published in La razón del pueblo (Mérida), no. 763, January 4, 1872.

72 Bartolomé, and Barabas, , La resistencia maya, p. 125 Google Scholar.

73 Testimony of Paulino Yama, quoted in Burns, An Epoch of Miracles, p. 85.

74 Sullivan, , Unfinished Conversations Google Scholar.

75 José Itzá Caan, personal communication.