The sins of the fathers: Franciscan friars, parish priests, and the sexual conquest of the Yucatec Maya, 1545-1808

Ethnohistory

Volumn 54, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 69-127

  Chuchiak IV, John F ^a  

^a MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33847629639     PISSN: 00141801     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/00141801-2006-040     Document Type: Review

References (183)

1. "Petición en lengua maya de Clemente Ek y Francisco Ek su padre contra el cura beneficiado del pueblo de Hocaba, Cristóbal de Valencia por varias cosas indecentes" (6 July 1609), Archivo General de la Nacion (hereafter AGN), Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 472, expediente 5, fols. 1v-3r.
2. AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 472, expediente 5, fol. 2V.
3. "Testimonio y declaration de Clemente Ek en contra de su cura Cristóbal de Valencia" (6 July 1609), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 472, expediente 5, fol. 10r.
4. Ibid., fols. 10r-10v.
5. "Mandamiento de prisión contra Padre Cristóbal de Valencia hecha por su paternidad Fr. Fernando de Nava, comisario del Santo Oficio" (6 July 1609), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 472, expediente 5, fols. 4r-4v. As the commissary's reaction illustrates, the ecclesiastical authorities were especially adamant about rooting out "sodomy," the "nefarious act," or any type of homosexual relations between clergymen and parishioners. For a complete study of Christian intolerance of and historical views on homosexuality,
6. see David F. Greenberg and Marcia H. Bystryn, "Christian Intolerance of Homo-sexuality," American Journal of Sociology 88 (1982): 515-48. Also, for the case of colonial Latin America,
7. see Federico Garza Carvajal, "An Emasculation of the 'Perfect Sodomy' or Perceptions of Manliness in the Harbours of Andalucia and Colonial Mexico City, 1560-1699" (paper presented at the 1998 Latin American Studies Association Meeting, Chicago, 14-16 September 1998). For an earlier discussion of the connection between the Christian concept of "crimes against nature" and homosexual behavior,
8. see F. E. Frenkel, "Sex-Crime and Its Socio-historical Background," Journal of the History of Ideas 25.3 (1964): 333-52.
9. Especially damning evidence from several of Padre Valencia's younger male parish assistants (such as his sacristans and other acolytes) pointed to his abuse of small children. For several examples, see "Testimonio de Pablo Chan, indio vecino del pueblo de Hoctun, en contra de los abusos de Padre Cristóbal de Valencia" (July 1609), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 472, expediente 5, 5 fols. See also "Denuncia de Pedro Couoh de Sahcaba, sacristan del dicho pueblo, en contra de los abusos de Padre Cristóbal de Valencia" (July 1609), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 472, expediente 5, 6 fols.
10. For a few of the more than one hundred denunciations, see "Testimonio y declaratión de Juan May, vecino de Tixpehual, contra Padre Cristóbal de Valencia" (July 1609), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 472, expediente 5, fols. 11v-13r;
11. see also "Presentatión de capítules y cargas en contra del padre Cristóbal de Valencia hecha por los indios del pueblo de Hocaba" (August 1609), legajo 472, expediente 5, fols. 13v-17r; and "Petitión del cacique y oficiales del pueblo de Xocchel en contra de su cura Padre Cristóbal de Valencia" (July 1609), legajo 472, expediente 5, fols. 17r-32r.
12. According to canon law and tradition, parish priests who had concubines or engaged in illicit sex had to be warned three times by the local bishop before he could remove them from office. For specific examples of Spanish custom and law concerning the sexual immorality of clergymen, see the statutes of the Siete Partidas in The Medieval Church: The World of Clerics and Laymen, vol. 1 of Las Siete Partidas, trans. Samuel Parsons Scott, ed. Robert I. Burns, S.J. (Philadelphia, 2001), 100-103.
13. See also the decrees concerning sexual offenses, clerical celibacy, and misconduct in the Council of Trent's proceedings; Ignacio López de Ayala, El sacrosanto y ecuménico concilio de Trento (Mexico City, 1855). For the case of New Spain (Mexico),
14. see Mariano Galván Rivera, Concilio III provincial mexicano celebrado en México el año de 1585 (Mexico City, 1859). For specific Yucatec examples of these ecclesiastical regulations,
15. see "Sínodo diocesano celebrado por Su Señoría llustrísima el Dr. Juan Gómez de Parada" (1721), Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain (hereafter AGI), Audiencia de México, legajo 1030.
16. See also "Sinodo diocesano celebrado en el año de 1737 en el obispado de Yucatán" (1737), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3168. This laxity in dealing with the clergy's sexual offenses was not a New World phenomenon: even in Europe before the reforms of the Council of Trent, the church turned a blind eye to all but the most open and scandalous violations of the vows of celibacy. For the best and most complete study of the concepts of sex and sexuality and the dilemma between sexual practices and church doctrine,
17. see Asunción Lavrin, "Sexuality in Colonial Mexico: A Church Dilemma," in Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, ed. Asunción Lavrin (Lincoln, NE, 1989), 47-95- For a good description of the European reality,
18. see Merry E. Weisner-Hanks, Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice (London, 2000), 118-21. For other discussions of the historical trajectory of Christian intolerance and laxity,
19. see Christie Davies, "Sexual Taboos and Social Boundaries," American Journal of Sociology 87 (1981): 1031-63.
20. To date the most complete discussion of solicitation in the confessional is Stephen Haliczer, Sexuality in the Confessional: A Sacrament Profaned (New York, 1996).
21. See also Jorge René González M., "Clérigos solicitantes, perversos de la confesión," in De la santidad a la perversion, o de parqué no se cumplía la ley de Dios en la sociedad novohispana, ed. Sergio Ortega (Mexico City, 1986), 239-52. For a study of the types of punishments and censures given to solicitantes,
22. see Solange Alberro, "El discurso inquisitorial sobre los delitos de bigamia, poligamia y de solicitation," in Alberro et al., Seis ensayos sobre el discurso colonial relative a la comunidad doméstica: Matrimonio, familia y sexualidad a través de los cronistas del siglo XVI, el Nuevo Testamento y el Santo Oficio de la Inquisición (Mexico City, 1980), 215-26.
23. "Repuesta y confesión del padre Cristóbal de Valencia a las cargas hechas contra el por los Mayas del pueblo de Hocaba y su partido" (1 October 1609), AGN, Ramo de Inquisitión, legajo 472, expediente 5, fols. 117r-34r.
24. For an excellent analysis of Renaissance sex and sexuality, see Guido Ruggerio, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice (Oxford, 1985).
25. See also Ruggerio, Binding Passions: Tales of Magic, Marriage, and Power at the End of the Renaissance (Oxford, 1993).
26. As Weisner-Hanks posits in Christianity and Sexuality, the term sexuality itself is "a more problematic word, because no one in the centuries I am discussing used it" (3). She also notes aptly that the term sexuality did not enter the English language until 1800. In this article as well, I use the term sexuality as a construct to mean, as Weisner-Hanks describes it generally, "the possession or exercise of sexual functions, desires, etc." It is also interesting to note that the word or concept of sexual did not enter Spanish dictionaries until 1843;
27. see Diccionario de la lengua castellana por la Real Academia Espanola, 9th ed. (Madrid, 1843), 666. The earliest use of the term sexo appears in the 1739 version of the dictionary, but here it merely conveys the meaning of "male and female gender";
28. see Real Academia Española, Diccionario de la lengua castellana, en que se explica el verdadero sentido de las voces, su naturaleza y calidad, con las frases o modos de hablar, los proverbios o refranes, y otras cosas convenientes al uso de la lengua, vol. 6 (Madrid, 1739), 106. It was not until the 1984 Spanish dictionary that the term sexo became associated with the sexual organs and the study of human sexuality (sexologí a).
29. "There is always a licit sexual culture side by side with an illicit one liable to persecution and punishment, and in between the two a grey area, often a very large one, in which the two come together." Lawrence Stone, The Past and the Present Revisited (London, 1987), 350;
30. cited in Brett Kahr, "The History of Sexuality: From Ancient Polymorphous Perversity to Modern Genital Love," in Journal of Psychohistory 26 (1999): 764-78.
31. The documents in the inquisitorial record are invaluable, regardless of any possible bias or clerical lens through which testimony was collected. Things so private and concealed as sexual acts leave scant evidence in the historical record, and even less in the archaeological remains of ancient cultures. We know that most sexual relations considered "normal" took place behind closed doors, or in private places, with no witnesses other than the participants themselves, almost none of whom left any record of their encounters. Even modern science is incapable of revealing any real details of sexual practices and sexuality in the skeletal record of past societies. Similarly, most historical sources are also silent concerning sex. Most colonial documents in New Spain (even letters and diaries) contain no references to sex or sexuality. When sexual relations are hinted at in the documentary record, the documents were most often written by men. The testimony of young Maya women in these inquisitorial trials, for instance, is thus an incredibly valuable source that may give us some notion of colonial Maya women's experiences, attitudes, and understandings of sexual relations and sexuality.
32. For a more in-depth examination of the history of sexual misconduct in the confessional in colonial Yucatán, see John F. Chuchiak, "Secrets behind the Screen: Solicitantes in the Colonial Diocese of Yucatán, 1570-1785," in Religion in New Spain: Varieties of Colonial Religious Experience, ed. Susan Schroeder and Stafford Poole (Albuquerque, NM, forthcoming).
33. The modern word perversion describes those types of human behavior that established authorities consider to deviate from what is orthodox or normal. It was originally defined as a "deviation from the original meaning or doctrine," literally a "turning aside" from the norm. Thus sexual perversity would mean in the colonial context the deviation from the norms of sexual relations. The Spanish term penersidad, for instance, was glossed as meaning "a great evil or corruption of customs and manners, or of the proper conduct or quality." Someone who was perverso was believed to be "totally evil, defective in his actions, depraved in his customs and obligations to his proper state"; Diccionario de la lengua castellana (1739), vol. 5, 138.
34. See LeBaron, "Sexual Relations," 1.
35. See Pete Sigal, introduction to From Moon Goddesses to Virgins: The Colonization of Yucatecan Maya Sexual Desire (Austin, TX, 2000), xiii-xv.
36. See ibid., 8-10. Much has been written recently concerning sexuality and gender in the context of the archaeological record of Classic Maya society. Especially in surviving portrayals and iconography in several recently uncovered murals and other ceramic pottery, themes of Classic and pre-Classic Maya sexuality and sexual intercourse are prevalent.
37. According to Sigal, "There is no evidence that the Maya would have considered these sexual, and for yet others (e.g., ritualized intercourse between humans and gods), there is no place in modern Western discourse" (ibid., 10).
38. In many of the relaciones of Maya towns along the coasts, the respondents remarked that the Indian women went about bare breasted, while those of the interior described them as wearing a triangular garment (huipil) that covered their breasts. For a more detailed description and comparison, see Martín Sanchez, "Relación de Dzindzantun" (1581), in Mercedes De la Garza, Relaciones histórico-geograficas de Yucatán, 2 vols. (Mexico City, 1983): "Los nom-bres y mujeres se labraban por bien parecer, como las más veces andaban desnudos, y se embijaban cada día con tierra colorada" (1:413).
39. See "Relación de Tabi y Chunhuhub" (1581), in De la Garza, Relaciones histórico-geograficas de Yucatán. Here the encomendero wrote that "the Maya married when they were older and they did not have more than one wife... and they were enemies of the vices of the flesh which they took to be great sins... and they punished adulterers both male and female with the death penalty" (1:164).
40. Alonso Julian, "Relación de Tetzal y Textual" (1581), in De la Garza, Relaciones histórico-geograficas de Yucatán, 1:238.
41. Martin de Palomar, "Relación de Motul" (1579), in De la Garza, Relaciones histórico-geograficas de Yucatán, 1:270.
42. Juan Gutiérrez Picón, "Relación de Ekbalam" (1579), in De la Garza, Relaciones histórico-geograficas de Yucatán, 2:139.
43. See Palomar, "Relacion de Motul," 1:270.
44. "Relación de Muxuppipp" (1579), in De la Garza, Relaciones histórico-geograficas de Yucatán, 1:378-79.
45. See Matthew Restall and John F. Chuchiak, "The Friar and the Mayas: Fr. Diego de Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, " unpublished ms., 35.
46. Or see Fr. Diego de Landa, Yucatán before and after the Conquest, ed. and trans. William Gates (New York, 1978 [1566]), 52.
47. See ́aspar Antonio Xiu, "Relación de los costumbres de los indios" (20 March 1582), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 110.
48. López de Cogolludo echoes Caspar Antonio Xiu in his observations of Maya policing of sexuality: "They punish vices with rigor.... The man or woman who commits adultery received the death penalty by shooting them with arrows.... thus they abhorred this sin and they punished even noble and principal persons"; Fray Diego López de Cogolludo, Los tres siglos de la dominatión española en Yucatán, o Historia de esta provincia, 2 vols. (Graz, Austria, 1971), 1:331.
49. Landa, Yucatán before and after the Conquest, 54-55.
50. Ibid., 54.
51. Ibid., 54.
52. See "Petición de don Diego Montejo, hijo natural de Francisco de Montejo, a don Carlos de Arellano para poder casar con Ana de Campos, viuda mujer que fue de Julián Doncel," 22 November 1571, private collection, Mérida.
53. "Instrucciones y ordenanzas para Francisco de Montejo el mozo sobre la conquista de Yucatán, hecha por el Adelantado en el Ciudad Real de Chiapas" (1540), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 299.
54. "Testimonio de Juan Bote en la residencia del Adelantado de Yucatán" (1549), AGI, Justicia, legajo 300, 5 folios.
55. Chilam Balam of Chumayel. See Munro Edmonson, Heaven Born Merida and Its Destiny: The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel (Austin, TX, 1986).
56. See the large number of testimonies and declarations in the residencia trials of Francisco de Montejo in "Residencia de Francisco de Montejo, gobernador de Chiapas, Yucatán y Cozumel por el Licenciado Juan Rogel, oidor de la Audiencia de los Confines" (1546-47), AGI, Justicia, legajo 300, 789 folios;
57. see also "Residencia de los alcaldes mayors, regidores y escribanos de la villa de Valladolid de Yucatán, hecho por el Dr. Diego Quijada, gobernador de Yucatán" (1563), AGI, Justicia, legajo 244, 678 folios.
58. See various declarations of the conquistadors who participated in the logistics of conquest in Yucatán in "Pleito del Fiscal de su majestad contra Alonso López, Alcalde de Tabasco" (1541-45), AGI, Justicia, legajo 195.
59. Chilam Balam of Chumayel. See Edmonson, Heaven Born Merida and Its Destiny.
60. For more information concerning the roles of indigenous men and women in the conquest of Yucatán, see John F. Chuchiak, "Forgotten Allies: The Role of Native Mesoamerican Auxiliaries and Indios Conquistadores in the Conquest and Colonization of Yucatán, 1526-1697," in Indian Conquistadors: Native Militaries in the Conquest of Mesoamerica, ed. Michel Oudjik and Laura Matthew (Norman, OK, forthcoming).
61. There is evidence and testimony that Aguilar trafficked and sold or exchanged as prostitutes or concubines more than one hundred Indian women from several provinces to his fellow conquistadors of Yucatán. Alonso Lopez, a supporter of Aguilar and the Montejos, is also said to have sold or sent more than two hundred pretty young Indian women to Yucatán and Campeche for similar purposes. "Testimonio de Francisco de Cuesta sobre los abuses hechos por Alonso López y otros españoles contra las indias naborias" (1545), AGI, Justicia, legajo 195, 5 folios.
62. "Testimonio de Francisco de Cuesta sobre los abusos hechos por Alonso López y otros espanoles contra las indias naborías" (1542.), AGI, Justicia, legajo 195, 5 folios.
63. "Testimonio de Diego Martin sobre los abusos hechos por Alonso López" (1541), AGI, Justicia, legajo 195, 4 folios.
64. "Testimonio de Alonso de Elvira sobre los abusos hechos por Alonso López y su robo de algunos indias naborias que ténia" (1541), AGI, Justicia, legajo 195, 5 folios.
65. "Testimonio de Juan de Ayllón en el proceso del fiscal de Su Majestad en contra de Alonso López" (1541), AGI, Justicia, legajo 195, 7 folios.
66. See various documents in "Residencia de Francisco de Montejo, gobernador de Chiapas, Yucatán y Cozumel por el Licenciado Juan Rogel, oidor de la Audiencia de los Confines" (1546-47), AGI, Justicia, legajo 300, 789 folios.
67. For Maya testimony concerning female Maya slaves as young as twelve and fourteen years old who were handed over to the conquistador Gaspar Pacheco by the Maya of the town of Calkini, see Tsubasa Okoshi Harada, "Los Canules: Un Análysis etnohistórico del códice de Calkini," PhD diss., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1992, 82-83.
68. Large numbers of illegitimate children (hijos de la iglesia) appear in the baptismal parish and convent registries, indicating a larger number of Maya children born out of wedlock in the later sixteenth century. See Michel Antiochiw, "Los Registres de Bautizo de Yucatán: Los Libros de Bautizo de Ticul, 1594-1635" in Los Mayas de Ayer y Hoy, Memorias del Primer congreso Internacional de Cultura Maya, ed. Alfredo Barrera Rubio and Ruth Gubler (Mérida, Mexico, 2005), 848-61.
69. See Sergio Quezada, Pueblos y Caciques Yucatecos, 1550-1580 (Mexico City, 1991), 127-43.
70. See Diego Brizeño, "Relación de Tekal" (1579), in De la Garza, Relaciones Histórico-Geograficas de Yucatán, 1:440.
71. "Relación de Citilcum y Cabiche" (1579), in De la Garza, Relaciones Histórico-Geograficas de Yucatán, 1:181-83.
72. See Edmonson, Heaven Born Merida and Its Destiny, 109-10.
73. Ibid., 148.
74. Fray Diego López de Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatán, 3 vols. (Campeche, 1996 [1688]), 1:331.
75. See "Relación de Muxuppipp" (1581), in De la Garza, Relaciones Histórico-Geograficas de Yucatán, 1:377. Other Spaniards blamed the May a's consumption of the alcoholic beverage balché for their sexual excesses and incest. For instance, Diego de Contreras commented that "it was because of their drunkenness that they had carnal access with their sisters, their daughters, and other relatives, and in order to avoid this great sin [the friars] took from and prohibited this wine to them";
76. see "Relación de Nabalam, Tahcabo, Cozumel" (1579), in De la Garza Relaciones Histórico-Geograficas de Yucatán, 2:187.
77. See "Relación y forma que el Lic. don Diego Garcia de Palacio, oidor de la audiencia real de Guatemala, hizo para los que hubieren de visitar, contar, tasar y repartir en las provincias de este distrito" (1576), AGI, Audiencia de Guatemala, legajo 128. It is interesting to note that as late as 1813 parish priests in Yucatán continued to complain about incest and sexual encounters between relatives. See "Informe del cura de Yaxcaba sobre los indios de su beneficio" (1813), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3068. Bachiller Baeza complained that "once they are married it is indispensable to observe their domestic lives.... and the priest should oblige them to set up a house apart from their parents, in order to avoid so many abuses and sins that would occur between fathers-in-law and their daughters-in-law, and even between fathers and daughters."
78. The Crown and church early on excluded the Indians from the jurisdiction of the Holy Office of the Inquisition and placed them under the jurisdiction of the episcopal courts of the Provisorato de Indios. See Richard E. Greenleaf, "The Inquisition and the Indians of New Spain: A Study in Jurisdictional Confusion," Americas 22 (1965): 138-66. For a complete study of the Provisorato de Indios in the diocese of Yucatán,
79. see John F. Chuchiak, "The Indian Inquisition and the Extirpation of Idolatry: The Process of Punishment in the Provisorato de Indios of the Diocese or Yucatán, 1563-1821," PhD diss., Tulane University, 2000.
80. See "Avisos del muy ilustre y reverendísimo señor don Fray Francisco de Toral, obispo de Yucatán, para los padres curas y vicarios de este obispado" (n.d.), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 369, 12 fols.
81. "Las mujeres también son tan desvergonzadas y cada día se hacen mayores putas." "Relación de Dzonot" (1579), in De la Garza, Relaciones Histórico-Geograficas de Yucatán, 2:87.
82. "Las mujeres por el propio tenor son tan desvergonzadas, tanto que ellos propias se van en busca de los españoles, en sabiendo que en algún pueblo de indios los hay, especialmente las que han sido amigas de ellos." Juan Farfan el Viejo, "Relación de Kancopolche y Chochola" (1579), in De la Garza, Relaciones Histórico- Geograficas de Yucatán, 2:327.
83. "Instrucción que dio el juez provisor y vicario general de la provincia de Yucatán para los curas de almas y sus tenientes" (19 July 1765), Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de Yucatán, Mérida (hereafter AHAY), Asuntos terminados, 5 fols. Earlier episcopal synods also focused on specific clerical preoccupations with the Maya's fornication, bestiality, and other "crimes against nature," such as sodomy (pecado nefando). See the documents of the synod of 1722, especially "Formula del edicto de pecados públicos que todos los domingos primeros de Cuaresma se ha de publicar por los curas y vicarios de este obispado" (1722), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 1040, fols. 230r-32v.
84. See Matthew Restall, "The Runaway Slave and the Maya Postman: African-Maya Relations in Colonial Yucatán," (paper presented at the American Society for Ethnohistory conference, Portland, Oregon, November 1996).
85. See "Testimonio de Caspar Pacheco en el juicio de residencia del Adelantado Francisco de Montejo" (1549), AGI, Justicia, legajo 300, 5 folios.
86. "Proceso contra Pedro Na, indio, por cometer actos contra natura teniendo acceso carnal con una gallina" (1563), AGI, Justicia, legajo 248, 30 fols.
87. "Testimonio de Juan Camal en contra de Pedro Na en el proceso contra acceso carnal con una gallina" (12 January 1563), AGI, Justicia, legajo 148; see also "Testimonio de Francisca Tun en el proceso contra Pedro Na" (12 January 1563), AGI, Justicia, legajo 248, 2 fols.
88. "Declaración del fiscal Gabriel Hernández en contra de Pedro Na por el crimen contra natura y el pecado nefando con una gallina" (14 January 1563), AGI, Justicia, legajo 248, 2 fols.
89. "Testimonio de la ejecución de la sentencia en contra de Pedro Na por el crimen del acto nefando con una gallina" (3 February 1563), AGI, Justicia, legajo 248, 2 fols.
90. Fr. Bernardo de Lizana, Devocionario de Nuestra Señora de Izamal y conquista espiritual de Yucatán, ed. René Acuña (Mexico City, 1995 [1633]), 67.
91. Ibid., 68.
92. Lopez de Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatán, 1:93, gives the complete set of ordenanzas of Tomás Lopez Medel.
93. Ibid.
94. Ibid.
95. Landa, Yucatán before and after the Conquest, 46.
96. "Testimonio de Juan Hernández, vecino de Mérida en el proceso contra pecados nefandos" (15 January 1563), AGI, Justicia, legajo 248, 3 fols.
97. See "Parecer y testimonio del padre Fr. Juan de Benavides, guardian del convento de San Antonio de Ichbalche en las Montañas" (1 February 1615), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 138, 8 fols.
98. Louise M. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Tucson, AZ, 1989), 25.
99. Ibid., 152.
100. Ibid., 153.
101. See Sigal, Moon Goddesses to Virgins, 94-128.
102. See also Burkhart, Slippery Earth, 154.
103. For a complete discussion of the Maya priesthood and the colonial survival of traditional Maya religious practices, see John F. Chuchiak, "Pre-conquest Ah Kinob in a Colonial World: The Extirpation of Idolatry and the Survival of the Maya Priesthood in Colonial Yucatán, 1563-1697," in Maya Survivalism: Acta Mesoamericana, vol. 12, ed. Ueli Hostettler and Matthew Restall (Markt Schwaben, Germany, 2001), 135-60. For specific information on the ritual celibacy of the Maya priesthood,
104. see Sigal, Moon Goddesses to Virgins, 18-21.
105. See Lizana, Devocionario. The original sixteenth-century image of the Virgin of Izamal was a focus of Maya cult worship until it was destroyed by fire in 1829.
106. Chilam Balam of Chumayel. See Edmonson, Heaven Born Merida and Its Destiny.
107. The Chilam Balam of Tusik contains more than fifteen parables and examples concerning clerical conceptions of the sins of lust and fornication. The Chilam Balam of Ixil and of Chan Cah have similar Maya passages discussing, commenting, and warning about "the sins of the flesh." See Héctor M. Calderón, Manuscritos de Chilam Balam de Tekax y Nah (Mexico City, 1981);
108. and the Chilam Balam of Tusik (Mexico City, 1984).
109. See also Ralph L. Roys, "The Book of Chilam Balam of Ixil," Notes on Middle American Archaeology and Ethnology 3, no. 75 (1946): 90-103.
110. Catholic attempts to control and reshape Maya sexual practices have recently been discussed in Sigal, Moon Goddesses to Virgins (2000). Catholic confession manuals were useful tools to police the sexuality of Mesoamerica's indigenous people. In these manuals, the clergy attempted to "conquer," "reform," and reshape indigenous conceptions of sex, sexuality, eroticism, and acceptable moral behavior. Several recent studies have analyzed these confession manuals in order to understand more about both colonial Catholic and indigenous sexual practices and sexual morality. For a few examples,
111. see Luis Arias Gonzalez and Agustín Vivas Moreno, "Los manuales de confesión para indígenas del siglo XVI: Hacia un nuevo modelo de formación de la conciencia," Estudios de historia moderna 10-11 (1992-93): 245-59. These confession manuals, they argue, reveal much about the interaction of priests and indigenous peoples and the mind-sets of both groups. For another example of the use of confession and confession manuals to dominate and change indigenous conceptions of eroticism and sexuality,
112. see Sylvia Marcos, "Missionary Activity in Latin America: Confession Manuals and Indigenous Eroticism," in Religious Transformations and Socio-political Change: Eastern Europe and Latin America, ed. Luther Martin (New York, 1993), 237-53. Similarly, for the now classic study of the use of the sacrament of confession and as a form of domination and social control,
113. see Serge Gruzinski, "Individualization and Acculturation: Confession among the Nahuas of Mexico from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century," in Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, ed. Asunción Lavrin (Lincoln, NE, 1989), 96-117.
114. Gruzinski described the sacrament of Christian confession of sin as a form of ideological control and subjugation. A similar interpretation of the confessional as a tool of colonial domination is found in Jorge Klor de Alva, "Sin and Confession among the Colonial Nahuas: The Confessional as a Tool for Domination," in Memorial de la Reunion de Historiadores mexicanos y norteamericanos, Oaxaca, October 1985 (Mexico City, 1992), vol. 1, 91-101. Klor de Alva also portrays Christian confession as a means of social control. He was one of the first to suggest that questions posed in Nahuatl-language confessionals hold vital information about indigenous sexuality and worldviews.
115. The entire title of the Confesionario is illustrative of the early clergy's goals in controlling and dominating Yucatec Maya sexual practices: Confesionario breve, para confesar a los indios, ponense las preguntas ordinarias en la lengua y la de Castilla, según las culpas que acostumbran cometer y en que ordinariamente pecan y se les pregunta, private collection, Mérida, Yucatán.
116. These questions and others related to confessing sexual sins are found in ibid., 234V-35V.
117. For various colonial definitions of the word keban, see Calepino de Motul: Diccionario maya-español, vol. I (Mexico City: UNAM, 1995), 417-18.
118. See Burkhart, Slippery Earth, 23.
119. Calepino de Motul, 80.
120. Quoted from Sigal, Moon Goddesses to Virgins, 90. The same document and incident is also discussed in Matthew Restall, The Maya World: Yucatec Culture and Society, 1550-1850 (Stanford, CA, 1997), 144.
121. Restall also discusses this document in "He Wished It in Vain: Subordination and Resistance among Maya Women in Post-conquest Yucatán," Ethnohistory 42 (1995): 577-94. The original can be found in the Documentos de Tabi, held in Tulane University's Latin American Library.
122. Several instances of Maya women using the Spanish system to protect themselves from Maya noblemen and Spaniards are found in various documents submitted by the bishop of Yucatán against the sexual misconduct of parish priests and Franciscan friars. See especially "Informaciones del obispo de Yucatán contra los abuses de algunos frailes y clérigos del obispado" (1702), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 1035.
123. "Carta del Dr. don Gaspar Joseph Rodríguez Vizario, clérigo presbitero del obispado de Yucatán sobre los beneficios de la provincia y su mala conducta" (1700), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 312, 7 fols.
124. See Council of Trent, session 14, canon 2, cited in D. Ignacio López de Ayala, El Sacrosanto y Ecuménico Concilio de Trento Traducida al idioma Castellano, Libraría de Garnier Hermanos.
125. Mariano Galvan Rivera, Concilio III Provincial Mexicano celebrado en Mexico el año de 1585 (Mexico City, 1859).
126. Ibid., 139.
127. See "Avisos del muy ilustre y reverendísimo sen̈or don Fr. Francisco de Toral, primer obispo de Yucatán, Cozumel y Tabasco, del consejo de Su Majestad, para los padres curas y vicarios de este obispado y para los que en su ausencia quedan en las iglesias" (1563), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 369.
128. Galván Rivera, Concilio III provincial mexicano.
129. See "Instrucción que dio el juez provisor y vicario general para los curas de almas y sus tenientes" (1785), AHAY, Asuntos terminados, 5 fols.: "Item... Desde la septuagésima deberán concurrir todos juntos con el cura para despachar la feligresía en el cumplimiento del precepto anual orando así todos juntos por todo el partido para el desahogo de las conciencias de los feligreses, sin permitirse de ninguna manera que el Teniente que reside en el pueblo sea el que despache las confesiones de el por si solo, pues cuando por alguna causa no puedan concurrir todos el cura propio los deberá mudar enviando al uno, al otro pueblo y así con los demás en lo que se le encarga al citado cura la conciencia por ser la materia de tanta gravedad.... durante la semana saliese cada uno torna a su residencia esta misma concurrencia deberán tener el día de Corpus para la mayor solemnidad de tan venerable sacramento y el día del Patron la misma y no otro día de los que llaman de Provincia."
130. Haliczer's Sexuality in the Confessional remains one of the best treatments of the crime of solicitation.
131. Scott and Burns, Medieval Church, 102.
132. Ibid., 102.
133. For several of the more important edicts of the Holy Office in Mexico against the crime of solicitation, see "Edicto de fe de los Inquisidores de México contra el crimen de la solicitación" (30 April 1610), AGN, Edictos, legajo 1, fols. 2-3; "Edicto de fe de los Inquisidores de México contra los solicitantes" (13 May 1614), AGN, Edictos, legajo 3, fols. 45-46; "Edicto de fe de los Inquisidores de México contra los solicitantes" (13 May 1651), AGN, Indiferente General, 3 fols. For a study of these edicts and the crime of solicitation, see Jorge Reń Gonzalez Marmolejo, "El delito de solicitación en los edictos del tribunal del Santo Oficio, 1376-1819," in Solange Alberro et al., Sets ensayos sobre el discurso colonial relative a la comunidad doméstica: Matrimonio, familia y sexualidad a través de los cronistas del siglo XVI, el Nuevo Testamente y el Santo Oficio de la Inquisition (Mexico City, 1980), 169-111.
134. See the various decrees concerning the sacrament of penance and the modes and requirements for confessors and confessionals in D. Ignacio López de Ayala, El Sacrosanto y ecuménico Concilio de Trento traducida al idioma castellano (Mexico City, 1855).
135. Definition of solicitation in The Catholic Encyclopedia, (New York, 1911). However, the definition and scope of the crime of solicitation was often confused by the bishops and inquisitors who investigated these crimes. For several instances in which commissaries of the Inquisition and bishops inquired and sought information concerning the definition and methods to define the actual crime of solicitation, see "Carta de Fr. Diego de Landa, obispo de Yucatán, consultando sobre casos de solicitación y averiguando sobre su jurisdicción" (1578), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 90, expediente 8, 3 fols. See also "Carta con dudas del Maestro Alonso Martín Bermejo, comisario del Santo Oficio en Yucatán sobre confesores solicitantes" (1580), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 85, expediente 8, 2 fols.
136. In terms of the surviving documents concerning the crime of solicitation committed by Yucatec clergy, it appears that the term solicitacion was used most often to describe soliciting sex from a parishioner in the priest's private chamber or the sacristy. Many of the cases involved the solicitation of sex while confessing women and men in these places. See table 3 in the appendix for descriptions of specific cases under study. Many of the major cases against priests and friars who solicited sex in the confessional can be found in the following archives: AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajos 35, 69, 85, 90, 122, 123, 149, 281, 288, 295, 303, 337, 926, 935, 954, 988, 1046, 1250, 1284, 1369, 1373, 1380, 1468;
137. also many documents relating to solicitantes in Yucatán are found in AGI, Audiencia de México, legajos 1030-36, 3063, 3068; similar documents relating to Inquisition trials and proceedings are found in Archive Histórico Nacional, Madrid (hereafter AHN), Inquisición (1735); AHN, Competencias.
138. All parish priests and confessors needed an explicit license from their bishop in order to conduct and take confessions. In the diocese of Yucatán, a special license was required to confess both women and men. Each cleric or priest was examined and periodically inspected during pastoral visitations to ensure that he did not abuse the sacrament of penance and solicit sex in the confessional. During the pastoral visitations of the province, the Yucatec bishops issued a series of questions to the Maya town officials and principal residents of each town. The most important questions focused on the lifestyle and abuses of the clergy. The bishops wanted to know if "the Indians know of or have heard that the priests and their assistants have women or have engaged in illicit relations with them publicly or secretly." See "Interrogatorio por el cual deben ser examinados los sujetos mas dignos de cada pueblo sobre las conductas y operaciones de sus curas de alma," in "Visita pastoral al pueblo de Oxkutzcab" (1782), AHAY, Visitas pastorales, legajo 1, expediente 4, fols. 13r-15v. The answers to all thirty questions are then recorded. Most often the Maya hid the sexual crimes of their clergy, but in a few instances they revealed their priests' sexual indiscretions.
139. For other excellent studies that examine the relationship between indigenous people and their parish priests and the conflicts that arose between them, see William B. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (Stanford, CA, 1996).
140. See also Robert Haskett, "Not a Pastor, but a Wolf: Indigenous-Clergy Relations in Early Cuernavaca and Taxco," Americas 50 (1994): 193-336.
141. "Expediente de las quejas de los indios del pueblo de Becal contra su cura Br. Bernardo Echiverria" (1768), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3053, 63 fols.
142. Restall (Maya World, 161) was one of the first to note that this petition served as a form of revenge against what the Maya perceived as the hypercritically punitive reaction of Spanish priests to Maya sexual activity. Restall argues that the issue was control, for the "Maya view priests as outsiders without the authority or status to pass judgement and demand punishment over this aspect of Maya life." However, I believe that the Mayas at heart in this petition were not challenging the priests' authority but getting back at the entire, Spanish system of sexual morality that had attempted to "conquer" Maya sexuality and encompass it within the more restrictive sexual morality of Spanish Catholicism. Restall does note that the allegation of "public sexual behavior" was a potent weapon. Thus, Spanish Catholic fears of "public scandal" meant that these types of charges could lead to the removal of a priest. For more detailed discussions of the removal of priests for solicitation, see Gonzalez M., "Clérigos solicitantes."
143. The original document can be found in AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 1046. This fascinating Maya petition has been examined and analyzed previously by Restall (Maya World) and Sigal (Moon Goddesses to Virgins). Although exceptionally vivid in its detail and the quality of its sarcastic prose, this document is not unique. Other similar petitions also remain in the archives; see AGI, Escribanía de Camara, legajos 3136 (1630, 1660, 1667, 1670, and 1671), 317 (1660-79); and AGN, Ramo de Inquisición (1578-89), legajo 69, expediente 472.
144. Sigal, Moon Goddesses to Virgins, 65.
145. Restall (Maya World, 141-42) notes the Inquisition official's horror and his notations in reaction to the petition. The original is found in AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 1187, expediente. 2, fols. 59-61.
146. See AHAY, Visitas pastorales (1781), legajo 1.
147. See Sigal, Moon Goddesses to Virgins, 75-76. The original Maya petition is found in AGN, Ramo de Inquisicion (1589), legajo 69.
148. Andrés Mexía was partially exonerated when he proved to the Inquisitors that many of the Maya who declared against him were ones he had punished for idolatry and other "faltas de doctrina." Also, he stated that the Maya denounced him under the inducement and sinister plot of their local Spanish encomendero, whom Mexía had punished for his own sexual indiscretions with two local Maya women. Mexía declared in his own defense, "All that they said against me was done out of the sinister inducement of their Encomendero, who wishes me ill because I conducted a trial against him for living in concubinage in the said town with two married Indian women, and for this reason he has had animosity, and he has openly stated that he would do anything in his power to harm me." See response to charge no. 46 in "Respuestas del clérigo Andres Mexía contra los cargos que le hicieron los indios de su partido" (1578), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 69, expediente 5, fol. 191v.
149. "Respuestas del clérigo Andrés Mexía" (1578), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 69, expediente 5, fol. 192r.
150. Taken from Restall, Maya World, 164. The original Maya document can be found in the Inquisition trial against Andres Mexía. See AGN, Inquisición (1589), legajo 69, expediente 5.
151. See "Testimonio y declaratión de Maria Tun, india del pueblo de Peto, contra su cura Andrés Mexía" (1589), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 69, expediente 5, fols. 318r-19r; see also "Testimonio y declaratión de María Col, india del pueblo de Peto, contra su cura Andrés Mexía" (1589), legajo 69, expediente 5, fols. 319r-zor; and "Testimonio y declaratión de Mencia Pue, india del pueblo de Peto, contra su cura Andrés Mexía" (1589), legajo 69, expediente 5, fols. 320r-21r. Other testimonies and denunciations are found in the same volume, AGN, Inquisición (1578-89), legajo 69, expediente 5, fols. 168-78.
152. See "Petitión de Andrés Mexía beneficiado de Calamud y Peto en que se opone de enemistad contra los indios que le han informado contra el delito de solicitud y présenta recaudos como ya son amigos" (1589), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 69, expediente 5, fols. 273r-74v.
153. "Sentencia y votos hecho por los inquisidores de México contra el clérigo presbítero Andrés Mexía por el crimen de solicitatión a sus hijas de confesión" (13 July 1590), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 69, expediente 5, fol. 3151.
154. "Carta del provincial del orden de San Francisco, Fr. Alonso de Río Frío dando cuenta de unas peticiones de algunas indios en contra de Fr. Pedro de Vergara por el delito de solicitatión" (1599), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 249, expediente 1, 3 fols.
155. "Declaratión de Ana Kuk, en contra de Fr. Pedro Vergara por el crimen de solicitatión" (16 November 1598), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 249, expediente 1, fol. 12.
156. "Declaratión de Beatriz Dzib, en contra de Fr. Pedro Vergara por el crimen de solicitatión" (16 November 1598), AGN, Ramo de Inquisitión, legajo 249, expediente 1.
157. "Declaratión de Maria Cocom, en contra de Fr. Pedro Vergara por el crimen de solicitatión" (16 November 1598), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 249, expediente 1.
158. "Carta del provincial del orden de San Francisco en Yucatán sobre el caso de solicitatión en contra de Fr. Pedro de Vergara" (1598), AGN, Ramo de Inquisitión, legajo 249, expediente 1.
159. "Carta de Fr. Juan de Santa Maria, guardian del convento de Campeche en contra Fr. Pedro de Vergara y sus abusos de los indios" (14 March 1599), AGN, Ramo de Inquisitión, legajo 249, expediente 1.
160. "Carta de Fr. Alonso de Rio Frío contra Fr. Pedro de Vergara escrita a los Señores Inquisidores de México" (16 November 1599), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 249, expediente 1, fol. 26.
161. "Carta del visitador Fr. Miguel López acerca del caso de Fr. Pedro de Vergara con información sobre el odio que le tienen los indios que han declarado contra el en el caso de solicitatión" (20 October 1600), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 249, expediente 1.
162. "Carta de Fr. Miguel López" (20 October 1600), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 249, expediente 1. Interestingly, this is the last document in the Inquisition trial against him. There is no record of any punishment administered. No doubt the Inquisitors believed that the Mayas had testified falsely to remove their priest. Vergara would go on to serve in the Franciscan missions of the Sierra, where he appeared around 1603.
163. "Declaratión y testimonio hecho por Pablo Chan, indio natural del pueblo de Hoctun, en contra de su cura Cristóbal de Valencia" (July 1609), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 472, expediente 5, 4 fols.
164. "Conresión del clérigo Cristóoal de Valencia con sus respuestas a los cargos impuestos contra el por los indios de su partido" (1609), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 472, expediente 5, 14 fols.
165. "Carta del obispo de Yucatán sobre sus relaciones con el gobernador" (10 October 1606), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 369, 4 fols.
166. See "Proceso del Santo Oficio contra el Br. don Antonio Ramón de La Cueva, cura interino que fue del partido de Peto, por solicitante" (1730), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 1046, expediente 4, fols. 107-26.
167. "Carta del comisario del Santo Oficio, Br. Nicolas Leyton, con información sobre la solicitación ad turpia de unas indias en la confesión por Padre don Antonio Ramón de La Cueva, cura interino de Peto" (21 Marcn 1730), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 1046, expediente 4, fols. 108r-9r.
168. "Carta del comisario del Santo Oficio, Br. Nicolas Leyton, con información sobre otra delito de solicitación" (29 March 1730), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 1046, expediente 4, fols. 112r-13r.
169. "Petitión en lengua yucateca contra el cura don Antonio hecho por el Maestro de Capilla del pueblo de San Francisco de Uman" (1781), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3064, 10 fols.
170. "Petitión en lengua yucateca contra el cura don Luis Antonio de Echazarreta" (1781), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3064, 10 fols.
171. See various denunciations of Padre Echazarreta in AGI, Audiencia de México, vol. 3064 (1781).
172. "Declaratión y testimonio de Francisca Cauiche en contra el cura de Uman" (26 April 1781), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3064, 4 fols.
173. "Petitión y denuncia hecha por Félix Cocom, maestro de capilla del pueblo de Uman contra su cura por abuses que le había hecho" (1781), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3064, 4 fols.
174. "Declaratión de don Andrés Tinal, cacique del pueblo de Tahuman contra su cura" (1781), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3064, 4 fols.; see also "Carta y petición del cacique y oficiales indios del pueblo de Uman con unas quejas contra su cura" (1781), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3064, 6 fols.
175. "Petición en lengua yucateca contra el cura don Antonio hecho por el maestro de capilla del pueblo de San Francisco de Uman, Félix Cocom" (1781), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3064, 10 fols.
176. "Petición y denuncia hecha por Félix Cocom, maestro de capilla del pueblo de Uman contra su cura por abuses que le había hecho" (1781), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3064, 4 fols.
177. "Declaratión de don Ignacio Quintal, español, sobre los abusos del cura de Uman" (1781), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3064, 4 fols.
178. Both Francisca Cauiche and Manuela Pacheco, a Spanish woman, complained that their troubles with their husbands resulted from their having been raped by the priest. See "Carta y petición del cacique y oficiales indios del pueblo de Uman con unas quejas contra su cura" (1781), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3064, 6 fols.
179. See the official complaints of the cacique don Andrés Tinal and the other town officials of Uman: "Petición en lengua yucateca con traductión de las quejas del cacique y cabildo del pueblo de Uman contra los abusos de su cura interino" (1780), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3064, 4 fols. Specific instructions and official ecclesiastical quotas were set to regulate the clergy's use of Maya labor. A table of fees, called the arancel, existed to regulate these economic interchanges. For an example of these regulations and other laws prohibiting clerical exactions in the province of Yucatán, see "Arancel de to que cada indio debe contribuir para el sustento de su cura en el discurso del año" (1737), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 3168; see also "Arancel para los derechos que se deben llevar en este curato y vicaria de Campeche" (1763), AHAY, Asuntos terminados, legajo 1, expediante 14. For a detailed examination of the abuses and exploitation of the Maya by both legal and illegal means,
180. see John F. Chuchiak, "Ca numiae, lay u cal caxtlan patan lae: El tributo colonial y la nutrition de los Mayas, 1541-1812 - Un estudio sobre los efectos de la conquista y el colonialisme en los Mayas de Yucatán," in Iglesia y sociedad en América Latina colonial (Mexico City, 1995), 117-125.
181. It is interesting to note that a large number of priests and friars denounced for solicitation had previously punished their accusers for serious infractions of Catholic law such as witchcraft, idolatry, and public drunkenness. See Chuchiak, "Indian Inquisition," 512n119.
182. The complicity or many Maya parishioners in the sexual misconduct of the clergy is evident in transcripts of many Inquisition and episcopal court trials for sexual misconduct. For one example, see "Informatión del obispo de Yucatán sobre los excesos de religiosos saliéndose de noche vestidos de seglares y los escándalos públicos y concubinatos que tienen" (1703), AGI, Audiencia de México, legajo 1035, 42 fols.
183. Accusations of sexual abuse by the clergy continued long into the early national period. The section of the National Archives of Mexico containing material confiscated from the church archives (Bienes nacionales, Bienes nacionalizadas) shows that as late as the mid-nineteenth century parish priests were accused of abuse and sexual misconduct by the Maya.