Writing violence in Seventeenth-Century Yucatan: Fray Bernardo de Lizana's Devocionario de nuestra Señora de Izamal y Conquista espiritual de Yucatán (1633)

Abstract

Although long considered a minor work, Franciscan friar Bernardo de Lizana's Devocionario de nuestra Señora de Izamal y Conquista espiritual de Yucatán (1633) is key for understanding what the author himself termed the ‘spiritual conquest’ of colonial Yucatan. Deploying José Rabasa's concept of ‘writing violence,’ this essay shows how this text works to promote a culture of forceful spiritual conquest, reminiscent of the culture of spiritual conquest of the primitive Yucatecan church (1545–1562), in order to complete the conquest of the last independent Maya on the peninsula.

Keywords:

• colonial Yucatan
• Franciscans
• Fray Bernardo de Lizana
• missionary discourse
• writing violence

Notes on Contributor

Alejandro Enríquez is Assistant Professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Illinois State University. His teaching and research interests include colonial literature and culture, and postcolonial discourse and theory, with a special interest in colonial Yucatan. He has published articles and book reviews in scholarly journals such as Chasqui, Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, Colonial Latin American Review, and The Americas. Presently he is working on a book titled ‘Friar-Conquistadors: Franciscan Discourses of Spiritual Conquest in Colonial Yucatán.’

Notes

1. Robert Ricard is the scholar likely responsible for giving the term spiritual conquest its contemporary currency with his now classic Conquête spirituelle du Mexique (published in 1933; English trans., The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico, 1966). For Ricard, the term refers exclusively to ‘the methods of the three primitive Orders [Franciscans, Dominicans, and the Augustinians] in the conversion of the natives and the foundation of the Mexican Church’ (5). Some of Ricard's readers suggest—explicitly and implicitly—that he coined the phrase, but it was widely used in the colonial period, as the title of Lizana's book makes clear. Lizana's Devocionario, moreover, is full of militaristic metaphors. For more on Franciscan writings and activities in New Spain see Phelan 1970, Baudot 1990, and Gracia García 1990, among others.

2. In the case of scholarship on missionary writings and activities in New Spain, the ‘primitive phase’ of the Mexican Church is from 1523–1524 (the arrival, at the bequest of Hernán Cortés, of the original Twelve Franciscans to begin evangelization) to 1572 (arrival of the first Jesuits). For the purposes of this essay, the primitive phase of the Church in Yucatan begins in 1545, with the arrival of the first permanent group of Franciscans, and ends in 1562 with friar Diego de Landa's inquisitorial activities in and around Maní.

3. The biographical information that follows is based primarily on Cogolludo (1688, Book X, Chapter XX), his first biographer, a few autobiographical comments Lizana makes in the Devocionario and a short biographical note in Acuña's ‘Introducción.’

4. See Acuña's 1995 introduction to his edition of the Devocionario for a detailed discussion of these problems. There are four editions, three of which erroneously added the phrase Historia de Yucatan to the title. These editions are: Historia de Yucatán. Devocionario de Nvestra Señora de Yzmal, y Conquista Espiritual (Valladolid: Gerónimo Morillo, 1633); Historia de Yucatán. Devocionario de Ntra. Sra. de Yzmal y Conquista Espiritual (Mexico City: Imprenta del Museo Nacional, 1893); Historia de Yucatán, ed. Félix Jiménez Villalba (Madrid: Historia 16, 1988); and Devocionario de nuestra Señora de Izamal y conquista espiritual de Yucatán, ed. René Acuña (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1995). It is not until Acuña's edition that the author's original title is restored. Acuña reports that a friar by the name of Pedro Enríquez ‘superimposed’ the ‘false’ title when he negotiated the tome's publication in Spain.

5. Del Paso y Troncoso, for example, considers certain pious aspects of the work and Lizana's tendency to digress to be a distraction. He writes: ‘Urgía salvar del olvido lo que no quedaba de una obra rarísima, que a vuelta de muchas digresiones y noticias del genero piadoso, embebe algunas interesantes y curiosas de las antiguallas de los yucatecos y de los religiosos que predicaron en aquella tierra’ (‘Advertencia del editor,’ n.p.). Jiménez Villalba compares Lizana's work with that of Landa and finds it lacking, stating that upon such comparisons, ‘nos daremos cuenta de sus muchas deficiencias, pero si nos detenemos a pensar que la obra de Landa es única en su género y que los escritos sobre los mayas son muy escasos, la Historia de Yucatán [sic] adquirirá su verdadera dimensión’ (1988, 27). William Hanks compares fray Diego López de Cogulludo's 1688 Historia de Yucatán to Lizana's Devocionario, casting the former as ‘recognizable to modern eyes as a work of history’ and the latter as ‘an ecstatic devotional text’ (2010, 71). Whereas Hanks dubs Cogolludo ‘one of the most distinguished historians of Yucatán’ (71), the Handbook of Middle American Indians considers Lizana ‘a minor chronicler of Yucatan’ (Cline 1973, 149). In its bio-bibliographical entry for Lizana, moreover, the Handbook also compares Landa, Lizana and Cogolludo: ‘Besides Landa, or even the lesser Cogolludo, Bernardo de Lizana is indeed a relatively minor chronicler of Yucatan’ (149). Jones, finally, considers Lizana's style to be ‘garbled’ (1989, 133). Lizana's Devocionario, however, is nothing like Landa's famous Relación de las cosas de Yucatán nor does it aim to be. Less than a ‘relatively minor chronicler of Yucatan,’ Lizana is more like an effective eulogizer of the image of the Virgin of Izamal and the Franciscan mission in Yucatan. His work has all the elements of fiction and creative writing associated with literature: reported dialogue, plot, exposition, foreshadowing, rising action, climax, resolution, conflict, symbolism, and figurative language. This is in addition to the numerous supernatural occurrences represented throughout the work, such as miracles, portents, omens, and prophecies that would prompt some to characterize it as fictional, however historically grounded.

6. Steadfast Maya resistance to the imposition of Spanish rule is well documented. See for example Jones 1989 and León, Ruz and García 1992. Other scholars have either questioned the notion of a complete conquest or advanced the idea of a negotiated pact between Maya and Spaniard: see Clendinnen 1987; Bracamonte Sosa and Solís Robleda 1996. For Hispano-centric versions of a triumphant conquest of Yucatan, see Chamberlain 1966 or Molina Solís 1896. For recent and exciting book-length scholarship that privileges Maya language documentation, see Restall 1997 and 1998, Reifler Bricker 1981, Hanks 2010, Solari 2013, and others.

7. The ruins of some of these temples remain today. Izamal is a small city located about 40 miles east of Mérida. The majestic Franciscan convent and impressive Maya archeological sites, and the fact that all buildings in the (colonial) city center are painted in the same yellow color, have made Izamal a relatively important tourist attraction.

8. San Antonio de Padua continues to be the largest and most important religious center of Maya converts to Catholicism in the Yucatan to this day. During the 1993 visit of Pope John Paul II, a mass for the indigenous peoples of Mexico and the Americas was held in the esplanade accommodating the 6,000 indigenous in attendance (Diario de Yucatán, ‘Solemne y colorida reunión’). During the event, the Pope gave a pearl rosary to the Image of Our Lady of Izamal and crowned her queen and matron of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. (This image of Our Lady of Izamal is not the one Landa brought from Guatemala, which was destroyed in a fire in 1829.)

9. It is important to insist, here, that this process of religious syncretism—i.e. the combination of indigenous and Catholic elements to produce something new—is hardly evidence of Maya resistance to evangelization, at least as presented in the Devocionario. Seen through the lens of syncretism, the imposition of one religion over another is rarely a complete process; residual traces of the rejected religion remain and may or may not be evidence of deliberate efforts at resistance, and surely the Maya were and are also agents in the production and perpetuation of cultural and religious practices. The point here is that Lizana's text offers evidence that the Franciscans were well aware of the need to align Catholic symbols with recognizable concepts of the Maya belief system and that they did so quite effectively, Lizana's text showing how this was achieved in Izamal. In Mexico, the most visible symbol of religious syncretism is the Virgin of Guadalupe, an image whose indigenous and Catholic references were cultivated by the Franciscans during the colonial period.

10. Page references are to René Acuña's 1995 facsimile edition and transcription of the Devocionario.

11. For more on Lizana's allusions and references, see Acuña's comments and annotations in his edition of the Devocionario.

12. In Part II, the Conquista espiritual section, Lizana does name several Indians. They are all male Maya lords who were the first to be baptized at the beginning of the spiritual conquest. Toward the end of the Conquista espiritual, Lizana also names Fernando Pacab, a Maya captain and governor of Oxcutzcab, who led a punitive expedition against the Itzá. He names him, but only because he was a good (Maya) conquistador: ‘Envió se a un Capitán Indio con muchos flecheros a castigar a los delincuentes, y lo hizo tan bien, que merece que aquí quede su nombre, llamase Don Fernando Papab’ (f. 122v; emphasis added).

13. In Part II, Lizana accepts one Maya eyewitness of one miracle, but only because the levitating Orbita was already regarded as leading a saintly life by Spaniards. An unnamed Indian boy who served Friar Juan de Orbita during his visitations from town to town once caught him levitating in a religious trance: ‘le vido de rodillas, las manos puestas, y los ojos en el Cielo, levantando del suelo a su parecer una vara, y que le dio tal miedo, que se volvió a su lugar corriendo’ (f. 117v). A few lines later, Lizana states that the boy's eyewitness account can be accepted despite the fact he is Maya, because other people (i.e. Spaniards) already regard Orbita a saint: ‘y aunque este testigo es indio se puede admitir, no por ser solo y tener esta opinión el santo entre todas las gentes más fidedignas' (f. 117v).

14. Undermining the sincerity of the conversion of subjects outside the hegemonic hierarchy is, of course, not unique to the Spanish colonial world, as the treatment (both real and discursive) of conversos in the metropolis makes abundantly clear.

15. Regardless of Lizana's assertions, when it came to Indian parishes such as Izamal's, the giving of alms was anything but voluntary. The Franciscans, as much as the encomenderos, extracted tribute from the Indians, but did not call it so. As Nancy Farris writes: ‘the clergy extracted their own form of tribute, which the Franciscans missionaries tactfully called limosnas (alms) in keeping with the order's rule that its members should be supported solely by voluntary contributions from the faithful. Unlike civil tribute, limosnas remained for long a matter of negotiation between local Indian officials and individual friars and secular priests who served the Indian parishes’ (40). Along with the dispensation to live only by voluntary contributions, the Franciscans in Yucatan also got an exemption that allowed them to ride horses when going from town to town. The image of the Franciscan missionary walking barefoot all over the peninsula to preach the gospel is largely a convenient fiction. Like the military conquistadors that preceded them, these spiritual conquistadors utilized weapons of war, including the horse.

16. Fray Luis de Villalpando, a former professor of theology at the University of Salamanca, and a distinguished linguist, organized the first permanent mission in the Yucatán peninsula. He is credited with having authored a Spanish-Maya dictionary and grammar and many sermons, and with having translated a Christian doctrine into Maya. These texts do not exist today, but it has been argued that all subsequent grammars and dictionaries in Maya composed during the colonial period are based on his original linguistic work.

17. For contemporary historiography on Landa's tenure and legacy in colonial Yucatán, see Clendinnen 1987, for example. For a collection of indispensable primary resources that deal with Landa, see Scholes and Adams 1938.

18. The story of the manuscript we now call the Relación de las cosas de Yucatán is a complicated one, just as its purported author. For a discussion of the problems with Landa's text, see Restall and Chuchiak 2002.

19. The division of the conquest of Yucatán into three campaigns (1527–1529, 1530–1535, and 1540–1547) and the suggestion that the conquest of Yucatán ends with the suppression of the Great Maya Revolt in 1547 is used by many historians, but it is also being questioned and challenged. For example, Restall (1997, 3–4) contends, correctly in my view, that the third and last campaign of conquest should extend all the way to 1562, when Landa carried out his auto-da-fé in Maní, which effectively succeeded in terrorizing the Maya into passive resistance for many years.

20. It is worth noting that while the indigenous throughout the New World were codified into paternalistic colonial law as ‘minors’ (‘menores de edad’), Lizana consistently distinguishes between Maya children, whom he considered innocent and open to Christ, and Maya adults, who were not to be trusted even if they converted to Christianity.

21. From Lizana's account it is not clear if the slaves held by the Maní nobility pre-dated the conquest. It is interesting, however, that during the suppression of the Great Maya Revolt of 1546–1547, the adelantado Francisco de Montejo sanctioned the enslaving of rebels by the caciques of Campeche and Champotón, in return for their military service putting down the rebellion. The New Laws of 1542 contained a solemn prohibition of the enslavement of Indians, but Montejo, conveniently, acted under the authority of his capitulaciones, the royal patent that sanctioned the conquest of Yucatan and that pre-dated the New Laws and enslaved some 2,000 enemy Indians (see Chamberlain 1966, 250). It is therefore likely that the friars were dispossessing the Xiu of slaves obtained during the conquest and not before, adding to a sense of the arbitrariness of colonialist power that makes any rational resistance more difficult.

22. In the 1633, 1893, 1988 editions, the text reads ‘Perú,’ but it is an erratum; it should read ‘Peto.’ Chamberlain correctly names the town in his The Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan (316).

23. The mock execution ceremony of 1547 is also reported in Fray Diego López de Cogolludo's Historia de Yucatán (1688). Much of Cogolludo's language matches or echoes that of Lizana, even embellishes it at points, suggesting that the representation of a violent event as benevolent is a recurring rhetorical strategy in Franciscan discourse on the Yucatan.

24. In The Great Festivals of Colonial Mexico City (2004), Linda Curcio-Nagy argues that festivals ‘were crucial media for modeling, presenting, teaching, and acting out political and social concepts. These festivals were designed as tools of cultural hegemony in that Spanish officials sought to utilize festivals and their message as a means of social control.’ The festivals Curcio-Nagy analyzes, however, are official, ostentatious, luxurious affairs in colonial Mexico City, unlike the impromptu, simple mock execution ceremony in the remote outpost of Merida.

25. After the suppression of the so-called Great Maya Revolt of 1546–1547, Montejo tried the lords and priests allegedly responsible and executed or burned five or six, including the famous Chilam Anbal who purportedly prophesized the arrival of the new religion (Chamberlain 1966, 249). Although he does not place the execution ceremony in Merida, Chamberlain records the attempt on the friars’ house in Oxcutzcab on the night of 27–28 September 1548 (316).

26. In his transcription, Acuña writes [a]pr[e]mi[a]se while the facsimile clearly says oprimiese. (His edition includes both the facsimile and his transcription, in which he highlights any changes he made in the footnotes.) While I understand why he made the change (apremiase corresponds with the apremio a few lines down and makes sense with the ‘no los maltratasse’), I am not sold on this transcription. Perhaps Lizana meant and wrote oprimiese, but in order to give himself plausible deniability, he left the whole thing ambiguous.