Feb 24, 1519: Idols Smashed to Pieces

Cozumel, or Kúutzmil in the local Maya language, was home to the Red Goddess of childbirth, Ix Chel. Her temple was the place of pilgrimage from the mainland Yucatan. A priestess spoke to the pilgrims from inside a large, hollow statue of Ix Chel that stood in the main shrine.

This goddess was popular with young women who wanted their marriages to be fruitful. There was, in fact, a smaller pilgrimage site just north of Cozumel – an island now called “Isla Mujeres” where the Spaniards found abundant images of Ix Chel, as well as many female travellers.

Cortés put an end to that ancient worship.

It’s possible that on Cozumel, for the first time in his life, Cortés witnessed human sacrifice, or at least saw the evidence of it inside one of the island’s temples.

Incensed at what he saw as Devil meddling in the affairs of men, Cortés gathered the intimidated locals—at the very least, the village leaders—to deliver a sermon, in a move that would become so characteristic of his activity in New Spain. Just how effective that sermon was, with the inadequate translation by the Maya fisherman Old Melchor captured earlier, is anybody’s guess.

So intimidated the villagers were, in fact, that they offered no resistance when the Spaniards rolled most of the statues of their gods down the steps of their temples.

They still did nothing when Cortés ordered the insides of their temples white-washed, a wooden cross erected on top of Ix Chel’s pyramid, and images of Virgin Mary placed in many shrines.

That day may be considered the birth of the Mexican syncretism. The statuettes of the Virgins were dressed in local clothes, and the Spaniards left the large hollow statue of Ix Chil intact—for a while, at least.

The cross may have simplified such merge of faiths, for it was meaningful to both sides: the Mayas used it a one of the symbols of the rain god, although their cross was covered in chalk.

Here’s a somewhat romanticised painting of the Conquistadors pulling down a native idol during the siege of Tenochtitlan two years later:

Feb 24, 1519: Idols Smashed to Pieces is a post from: Aztec Books