THE MAYAN NAVIGATORS

Visualize Belize and the Mexican Caribbean of 600 years ago; instead of yachts and cruise ships, there are cargo docks and trading canoes. The canoes are laden with merchandise bound for Central America and rowed by oarsmen bronzed by the sun. Returning crafts are filled with copper hatchets, obsidian knives, ornamental jade, feathered capes, mortars, pestles, bags of salt and bolts of a cotton cloth called manta. Wharves and warehouses have taken the place of shops and hotels. Cancun is an ancient seaport, abuzz with activity and the business of shipping.

Text by Juan José Morales / Illustrations by Carlos Porras and Roberto Franco

The Maya used the Caribbean as a highway to connect one end of the empire with the other. Way stations along the eastern seaboards of Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula catered almost exclusively to wealthy merchants.

    The first contact between Europeans and these seagoing traders was recorded by Christopher Columbus on his fourth voyage to the Americas. It was 1502 and Columbus was reconnoitering the Gulf of Honduras when he spied, "…a canoe as long as a galleon." The vessel was approximately two and half meters wide and fitted with a cabin at midship. It was piled high with merchandise and had over 40 passengers, among them the pilot and his rowers, the merchant, his family and servants.

    Encounters of this nature would take place many times before Spain brought the Maya to their knees, and trade essentially ceased. Thereafter business was conducted by the Spanish. The trading network of the Indians was referred to in reports, occasionally, but otherwise ignored.

NOW AND THEN

Thanks to advances in both archaeology and science, new information about the Maya ‘merchant marine’ is now available. Research has focused on the Mexican Caribbean and investigators even went so far as to sail the routes themselves in vessels that were faithful replicas of those used by the Maya.

    The Maya began trading in the Pre-Classic period, about 300 BC, and continued to do so with increasing enthusiasm throughout the Classic period (A.D. 250-900). Trade intensified even in the Post-Classic period, when the culture was in decline, and only stopped completely when the Maya themselves ceased to exist as a political entity.

    The Maya traded both luxury items and objects designed for everyday use: feathers, gold, jade, amber and quartz; honey, animal pelts, manta, vegetable dyes, copal incense, herbal medicines, dried chile peppers and household ceramics. They even transported such heavy commodities as mortars, pestles and bags of salt. As legal tender, they used cacao, jade and feathers sprinkled with gold dust.

    Merchants belonged to a highly organized caste that had both power and influence. As individuals, they commanded respect and they always traveled with carriers and/or slaves. In the codices, they are pictured with fans, a symbol of their class and occasionally with ceremonial staffs. They had their own god and protector, Ek Chuah, to whom they paid daily homage.

    The principal trade route ran from the state of Campeche, Mexico to Honduras; specifically, from the Gulf of Mexico port of Xicalango on the shores of the Terminos Lagoon, to Nito at the mouth of the Rio Dulce near present-day Livingston, Guatemala, to Naco on the Rio Ulua (Honduras).

    Nito handled goods to and from the Maya highlands via Lake Izabal and the Rio Motagua; connections to such distant sites as Panama and South America (Inca) were made at Naco. Way stations gave merchants a chance to rest, repair their vessels and do some en route trading.

    The Maya also worked the rivers of their homeland. They would sail through the estuary at Bakhalal (today’s Bacalar in southern Quintana Roo) to the Hondo River on the border between Mexico and Belize. The Rio Hondo originates in the Peten where it is called the Rio Azul (Blue River). The Spanish also found evidence of riverine traffic in Tabasco and Campeche, specifically in the delta of the Grijalva-Usumacinta river systems.

NAVIGATION

The Maya were thoroughly familiar with the wind and sea currents of the Caribbean. When heading for Central America, for example, they hugged the coast slipping into currents running south. Staying close to shore also meant they could avoid the reefs and its breakers. On the return trip they traveled way off shore, looking for what would later be called the Gulf Stream, one of the fastest currents on the planet.

    The Maya were clever enough to avoid the open ocean when they could. It was always safer to sprint from bay to protected bay, and the coast was full of them. Voyages made by researchers showed that all things being equal, the Maya probably sailed from Xicalango on the Gulf, to the Yalahau lagoon on the tip the Yucatan Peninsula in a single day. From there, they went on to ancient Ecab, the place historian Bernal Díaz del Castillo called "Great Cairo" —though why, is anybody’s guess for Ecab was a modest settlement even then. Next stop would have been the bay of El Meco, just north of Cancun on the mainland. From El Meco, they would have crossed over to Isla Mujeres and possibly the end of their journey. If their itinerary took them further south, they would have crossed back to the mainland and the shelter of the Nichupte Lagoon, then down the coast keeping inside the reef and close to shore.

    The Maya sailed only by day, and took every precaution to safeguard cargo and crew; nevertheless, travel by water was dangerous. Throughout the summer and early winter the region is subject to hurricanes and tropical storms, and from December to January to nortes, a kind of winter storm caused by cold fronts moving into the area from the north with winds of up to 80 kilometers per hour.

CODES AND SIGNALS

The Maya navigated without the benefit of landmarks or other geographic points of reference. The coast was singularly flat and unremarkable, so to compensate, the Indians developed signaling systems and lighthouses.

    The signaling systems used by the Maya ran from bonfires on the beach to permanent structures or lighthouses. Conquistador Juan de Grijalva wrote, "…we saw many clouds of smoke, one after another, laid out like signals, then further on we came to a town…" Bishop Diego de Landa, writing just after the conquest in his Relation of the Things of Yucatan (1566) says, "…the Indians put signals in the trees to point out the way for boats sailing between Tabasco and Yucatán."

    The Warrior’s Temple at Chichen Itza has a mural showing feather banners being used to mark routes, and Grijalva says he saw indians running along the coast waving flags.

    Archaeologists were initially baffled by the existence of structures in isolated coastal areas, but we now know that these outposts served as beacons for boats at sea. The lagoons and estuaries of the coastal wetlands, their sandbars, islets and convoluted channels also needed markers, and research shows they had them.

    We know the Maya had maps because Hernán Cortés got a hold of one—and reported it—when he was passing through Acalan, Tabasco. On it, the route from Xicalango to Naco was clearly marked, as were all the towns, villages, cities, ports of call, way stations and even religious sanctuaries along the way.

    Stops were spaced no further than a day’s rowing apart, and most of them were abandoned by the middle of the 16th century (at the conclusion of the conquest) and never resurrected. Others have been born again as tourist destinations. Yesterday’s Xaman-Ha is today’s Playa del Carmen; ancient Pole is the amusement park Xcaret; and Zama is the village and archeological site of Tulum.

    The inlets of Xel-Ha served landlocked Coba as its window on the sea, and Cozumel worked overtime as both trading post and religious retreat for the goddess Ixchel.

    Many of today’s isolated beaches were ancient ports-of-call. Cargo was loaded and unloaded at sites such as Xcalacoco, Paamul and Tankah because of their easy, reef-free access. In addition, the region’s many small, rocky coves could be used as safe harbors in a pinch; Chakalal and Yalku (near Akumal) come to mind.

    The Maya no longer sail the coast of Mexico and Central America; their canoes have disappeared, replaced by cruise ships and jet skis. However, the remains of their way stations and diverse navigational markers remain, testimony to the one-time commercial might and seagoing knowledge of the ancients.