The Mayan princess 1

The Mayan princess


Why did you smash that pot, you worked all day, making coils and forming them. I thought we could go fish when you were finished.”

“I know, but it wasn’t perfect. I have to make a perfect pot to give to the god of nature. The fire ceremony will be tomorrow and I have to have a perfect pot, painted perfectly to present there. And even then, I won’t be sure it is perfect until after the fire ceremony; I wish I could present more than one at a time so I would know at least one would be acceptable after the firing.”

What do you want? Your pots are very beautiful and your paintings are perfect, the colors are from every source we can find.

“I want the colors to be perfect like nature is perfect. When I finish a pot I don’t have the same colors I started with, some of the pot are blackened by the fire, some colors change to the color of mud. I want to make a perfect pot to present to the god of nature the way he has made colors.

Leave it and come with me to the village. I want to show you something.

I don’t like to go into the village now that the Spaniards have taken over. They have changed everything. I want things to stay the same.

Well you don’t have that choice now, the Spaniards took over the Aztec and Mayan cities before you were born and now they are here and we have to live with the changing world, that’s what my parents have told me.

OK, I need a break anyway, and on the way back I want to try that new spot for clay slip, perhaps if I can get the right type to make my pots, the colors will come out more true.

The two Mayan youngsters walked through the jungle paths toward the Mayan village, now changed by through the years of their life to be more Spanish than Mayan, but the children were taught well by their mothers the histories of their people and the stories of the various gods representing nature.

I want to see the pottery they put in to that building at the edge of the market a few days ago. Remember they said this was the day they would be cool enough to remove and sell.


In the village the young people went through the market place, buying food for their lunch. Most of the merchants were closing down for the afternoon siesta. The sun was hot on the path and their sandaled feet had toughened from walking. A crowd was forming at the edge of the market and they migrated towards it out of curiosity. There were murmured acknowledgments of delighted surprise as the doors of a small building were opened. From it, after many days, were drawn on wooden paddles, the most beautiful painted pots that either had ever seen. The colors were true to nature, and from one pot to the other were matched by color. The pots themselves were perfectly straight as they were when they were put in. She gasped as she drew close to the shelves of pottery displayed for all to see for the first time. That was the pottery she had dreamed of many times in her sleep and had made so many efforts to duplicate. The building had been called a kiln and the Spaniards had built it with bricks they had fired in a different village and brought here for the purpose of providing a kiln. This was the first time any of them had seen the results.

You know I would be a princess and you a prince in our tribe if the Aztec king had not given away his empire and ours to the Spanish Conquistadores” ______-stated sourly as she scooped up the clay mud from the river bank, more determined than ever to get those perfect colors.
Yes, Of course I know, but I think it is more fun being free to play in the river and make our own pottery with the clay slip than to have to prepare to be chief of our tribe.

Aren’t you afraid that you will be taken away by the Spaniards? Some of the chief’s sons from tribes around ......... have been taken. I don’t think they are used as slaves, but they say they are being taught to be more like Catholics.

Yes, and many of the young girls we used to do ceremonial dancing with have also been taken. They say they are to marry Spanish Soldiers and raise their children as Spanish Catholics, what ever that meant.