Long ago in a little Calpulli just east of Tenochtitlan, there grew an increasing distress. The people in this Calpulli were reckless and irresponsible; they constantly wasted all of the earth's goodness and continued searching further and further into the jungle to quench their need for more. The gods gave these people many warning until finally one god in particular could take it no more. The god of the morning star spoke up at long last.
He gave the people drought and famine first, but the people were foolish and only searched even deeper into the jungle. This angered Quetzalcoatl, the god of the morning star, and caused him to bring plague upon these people. They finally seemed to get the message. The god of the morning star was pleased, but gods were well known for holding grudges. The drought and famine stayed.
The Calpulli elders made the people of the Calpulli purify their lives to restore nutrients to the earth for ten years. Nothing changed about the drought and famine. For ten years, there was a constant lull of hunger and thirst.
On the third month of the tenth year, the elders regathered. Something had to be done, and purifying the Calpulli was no longer helping. They spent days arguing and discussing ideas on how to help their dilemma. It seemed the wisest of men in all the Calpulli would never agree on a way to solve such a pressing problem, and food supply was running lower and lower each day. At long last, they came to the decision that everyone agreed on. When the elders finally came out of the meeting house, they didn't just have an idea. They had an elaborate plan on how everything was to be decided and run. Everything had a precise, systematic order, and it was a perfect plan. No other could top what had been decided in those four and a half days.
......They would give Quetzalcoatl a wife.
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The elders decided they should give the god of the morning star a wife. They realized, of course, that this would be an intensely delicate procedure. Choosing the wrong woman was absolutely unacceptable. This was going to be a very tedious process, but if they were careful then things could play very well in their favor. This plan was a necessity.
The elders decided to only call upon young women that were of pure blood. Girls with good family history would be the only ones that would be adequate for this job. The reason is that it is thought that pure blood families were thought to have been direct descendants of the gods. Anything less would never be enough to please a god, especially the god of the morning star. He was the creator of books and calendars. He brought the precious maize. He even had a wondrous birth, being born of the virgin goddess Coatlicue. This god could only have the most worthy of women as his wife. The elders set out to provide such a woman.
The selected females were sent for to attend a meeting that would be held on the night of the next full moon as to grant good luck.
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The Calpulli was alive with chatter of the elders’ plan. No one knew what it was, but there were suspicions that it would involve one of the people of the village.
No one was quite sure of how they felt about this…
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“Father! Father!” Maya yelped with joy as she lept into her father’s arms. He father embraced her lovingly. Oh, how he had missed his daughter while he had been visiting neighboring Calpullis! She was his inspiration and his purpose. Without her, his life would be incomplete.
“What was it like, Poppie?” She begged for the knowledge that would quench her curiosity. “What did the other Calpullis have to teach you? What were the people like?!”
Her father, the chief of her Calpulli, let a huge smile curl across his face. He kissed her forehead and began to tell his daughter tales of his travels and how cold some of the Calpullis were.
“Can you believe that one of our neighbor Calpullis puncture their skin with needles as a medicinary practice?! Yes! They say it cures aching joints and muscles! If I were a braver man then I might have tried it!”
Maya giggled happily at her father’s fear. It seemed so odd to her that such a strong and wise man as her father was should be afraid of anything at all. It frightened her for a moment. She was tiny and frail, and if her father had fears then maybe she should be a little more cautious…
“So what of my Calpulli, dear Maya?” her father asked, causing Maya to push her thoughts aways with a huge smile, and a long tale of the elders and all of the rumors of the Calpulli took its place. After she had finished with her story, she could tell that her father was every bit as intrigued as she was.
Her father grinned and whispered, “I’ll find out what’s going on and tell you. If I can’t do that, then what is my powerful position good for anyway?!” he laughed merrily.
Maya’s smile turned serious in an instant when she remembered an urgent message she was told to deliver to her father.
“Larn said he would be joining us for dinner because he had some things he wanted to discuss with you about the betrothal.”
“Oh…” her father’s disposition changed. “Well, of course. I figured he’d be coming around more often as the day approaches closer.”
Maya gulped loudly, and her big brown eyes darted nervously, scanning the features of her father’s face. She had never told her father that this marriage worried her or that she thought Larn wasn’t a very good person. Larn’s father was her father’s best friend. How could she say things like that? It might hurt her father. She held her tongue. It was only right for a woman to do in times like this.
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The chief was very curious about the plan that the elders had conjured up. He had been nervous about allowing them to scheme in the first place, but it seemed to be his last hope. For you see, the elders very often solved problems in a sort of controversial way, and the chief did not need any controversy at the moment.
The only reason he had allowed the elders to get together on this issue was because of his sweet Maya. She was all he had now. His wife had died during the plague, and the chief could take no more loss in his life. He realized that she was becoming a woman more and more each day, but she was so frail and weak that he knew something must be done lest she die during childbirth in the future.
The chief was deep in thought when he heard a knock at his door. He went to it and let the person in. It was one of the elders…
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Maya ripped vigorously at the bark of the fig tree. She needed the precious material to make paper for her father, but she had to go very deep in the jungle to retrieve the bark. Many men of her Calpulli were very closed-minded. They thought it might be a sign of evil if a woman could make a paper from the sacred fig tree, but her father saw it as a gift from Quetzalcoatl. The great god had given very few people the gift for paper art in the past fifteen to twenty years, so there must be something important about Maya in order for her to be blessed with the gift. That’s what her father said anyway.
This was the hardest part of the process. Her fingers very often suffered greatly from it, and her palms were sometimes rendered raw. Just because she was given a gift didn’t mean that it was any easier than any other job.
Sometimes Larn started at her battered hands judgingly at a dinner party. His eyes were cold and hard, burning holes into her already sore fingertips. Sometimes she could almost hear his thoughts, “witch!” His heart was brittle and angry and harbored no love Sharee. He only longed for the power which came with her marriage hand.
When she finally had enough bark, she piled it all in her basket and placed the lid on top of it. She picked it up under her right arm, balanced it gently against her frail hip, and walked back to her Calpulli.
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“So what exactly are you saying?” the chief stumbled over his words, trying to grasp a concept that made him sick to his stomach.
“Your daughter is eligible for our tests, great tlatoani.” The elder said, his chest swelling with pride to relay such honorable news.” This is truly a wonderful opportunity for your daughter. She has a chance to be written in history as though a goddess. She has the chance to return to her ancestors’ natural state!”
The chief felt sicker and sicker by the moment. Of course this was an honor, but a life without his beautiful Maya?! What a truly horrible concept! He didn’t know what do think. “Don’t let it go to your head, sir. There’s no guarantee your daughter will even pass the tests in the first place.” The elder said smugly. “She is simply eligible.”
Her father’s disposition lightened greatly. “I see.” He said with a smile.
Maya entered the house, looking puzzled at the elder sitting opposite the table from her father. The elder shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I think that would be my cue to leave,” he mumbled under his breath, and he pulled himself from his seat and left.
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The chief could see the confusion unfurl across her brow as he explained the entire story to her. No matter how he explained it, her eyes filled with more and more fear, and it was killing him on the inside. He wanted to take it all back, but what could he do? Put his calpulli at risk for ten more years of drought and famine? No. It was highly unlikely that she would even be the one chosen anyway. They would both be strong and deal with the test examinations. It was only right.
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Dinner with Larn that night was awkward to say the least. Maya and her father had both agreed to keep the examinations a secret from Larn, so once his business was attended there wasn't much else to say.
"So great sir, what of your expeditions?" Larn asked in a politely uninterested tone.
"They provided great scientific advancements to our local literature," her father vaguely replied.
Maya sat straight up with her hands rested on her lap, smiling gently. She hope her cheery disposition would lighten the mood. She was failing miserably.
Larn obviously felt the awkwardness. He found a reason to leave earlier than had been planned.
So just like always, she stepped outside with him to receive a more personal goodbye. Usually he would barely look at her, roughly kiss her forehead, and walk away quickly… but this time something was different…
This time she looked down at her feet. This time her dominant personality didn’t find its annoying way of shining through. This time he looked at her, and he saw everything that he thought a woman should be…submissive and subordinate…and when she finally looked at him, she was silent, and the moon glistened in her big brown eyes. He then realized what a beautiful prize he was receiving along with the powerful position of chief and marrying into a tlatoani family. No sooner than he realized this, an evil, lustful greed grew within his soul.
“Maya…” he whispered with milky cruel eyes as his hand slid down her back, and she shuddered with a transparently fearful propensity. This excited him even more and brought him to rest his hand just below her buttox. Her eyes aghastedly scanned the rough characteristics of his face as she gasped from shock. He grinned with cruel tendency and caressed her neck haphazardly. He kissed her cheek briskly, then whispered in her ear, “I’ll be back for you…”
At that, Maya broke free from his ill-suited embrace and stared coldly at him. “You are a cruel man,” she whispered in a repulsed tone, “and though I will not disgrace my father, I will never give my heart to you, and until the very day we are wed, I will pray to the gods that they spare me from such unbefitting fate!”
Larn felt a rush in his gut. He loved a challenge, and getting her to admit her place seemed like it might be more fun than he had thought. An evil sneer unfurled across his face as he whispered, “I’m sorry you feel that way, my princess, because I’m in this for the long-haul…” And he left as Maya watched in disgust.
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Later that evening, the chief found his daughter in the room pressing paper. For a while, he watcher her from the doorway without her knowledge. Her glossy black hair shimmered againster her back in the evening sun. She pressed the bark firmly with the hard wooden block over and over until she finally finished a perfect slip of one of the most cherished materials in the land. She wouldn't move on to the next piece until the other was perfect in every way. He chuckled lightly as she struggled anxiously with the hard bark, and she spun around in surprise. She then laughed at herself for having been startled by her father.
"You're doing a great job," he said impressed with all that he saw. "Don't let me interrupt you."
She smiled, "Oh no, father. You are no interruption. Do come in. Sit." She was so courteous. She was a good girl, and her father was so proud of all that she had become. But suddenly, her smile turned to a worried stare, and her father grew concerned.
"What is it, Maya?" he asked in a sincere and honest tone.
Her big brown eyes glistened with golden apprehension in the evening sunlight as she picked through all of her thoughts. Larn was not a good man. Not in the least. He had never even looked at her before afternoon dinner, and when he finally did, it was in the most impure way possible. It had made her feel more like an oject than a human being, let alone even a woman! She did not want to marry this man. She was slowly growing a passionate hate for him, but what could she do? He was her father's choice, and how could she disrespect her father like that? No. She wasn't some rebellious mutineer. She could never do that to her father.
"Nothing, father." she chimed as her smile returned to her face.
Once again, she decided not to say a word.
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