Discarded Pages: Araceli Cab Cumí, Maya Poet and Politician

2: The Poetry of Place and Community

CHAPTER TWO The Poetry of Place and Community Maxcanú, Body and Soul of the Province —Araceli Cab Cumí, July 999  Honoring the Home Place In the opening poem to this chapter Araceli exalts her home, street, and barrio then circles outward to include the countryside around Maxcanú in her homage to her birth land. Araceli writes identifying herself as a Maya woman firmly rooted within her home community of Maxcanú. Maxcanú is largely a Maya town with a population of about fifteen thousand . To visitors it appears less populated and more rural than it actually is because Maxcanú, like many towns in Yucatán, is quite spread out and well forested. Located on the southernmost borders of the old henequen zone, the town’s economy is still primarily agricultural.2 Recently, however, an assembly plant (maquiladora) opened and now employs several hundred people from the area. Maxcanú is also the county seat and an important median point on the main road between Mérida and Campeche, the capital city of Campeche, the state to the southeast of Yucatán state. I once asked Araceli how Maxcanú got its name. She recounted a story drawn from the distant past that has two different versions. Each, however, ends with the naming of Maxcanú. As Araceli tells the story: InMaxcanútherewasacenote(awater-filledsinkholecommoninYucatán, 63 chapter two 64 this one reputedly located under the main plaza of the town). One day a princess , daughter of the local chieftain, sat peacefully at the cenote watching four blue snails walk near the edge. Her boyfriend, however, who wasn’t so refined, came by and killed them. To this the young woman shouted, “max kan ul!” meaning in Yucatec Maya, “you killed four snails!” In the second version the princess was sleeping by the cenote that she so loved. She placed her favorite jade bracelet with its stones shaped as four moons on a rock while she slept. Her boyfriend then came along and placed his bag on her bracelet, breaking the four jade moons. She then exclaimed “max kan u!”—“You broke four moons!” Both versions of the story, however, conclude with the same ending. The princess’sfatherdoesnotwishthecoupletomarrybecausetheboyfriendisofa lesser social class. Nonetheless the princess and her boyfriend run off together to marry. But because their love is forbidden, they are not allowed to marry. The princess’s father pursues them and kills them with a sacrificial stone knife. Butbeforehekillsthemtheprincessasksthattheplacebythecenotebenamed “Maxcanú” in honor of their love. Thus the town got its name, honoring a forbidden love between a refined princess and a rather clumsy commoner.3 In keeping with the theme of honoring her birthplace, Araceli wrote the following two poems dedicated to her hometown of Maxcanú: Song to My Town I reflect without end . . . such colors That embellish step by step your pathways To breathe the scent of your many flowers. To see the birds, . . . to hear trills in your beautiful branches. As the background of your grand painting The low hills with their distinct green Carpet with magic, with smooth fineness Your history made in legends, fame and song. Your low hills whose blurred images Stand up on the blue horizon And whose jewels, merge into sentiments To praise you, Maxcanú! June 24, 978, St. John’s Day original page on page 88 The Poetry of Place and Community 65 In this poem Araceli reveres the beauty of the natural world in which Maxcanú lies. As many visitors to Yucatán note, the intensely blue skies of the peninsula, its dramatic cloud formations, and starkly white, low stone walls accented with bright flowers do make a memorable setting. So too, since much of the Yucatecan countryside is thickly vegetated, the songbirds of Araceli’s poem flourish. But Araceli refers to the unique setting of Maxcanú in her line, “The low hills with their distinct green.” The Yucatecan peninsula is a flat plain—the view unimpeded from horizon to horizon. Yet bordering Maxcanú are the Pu’uc hills, the only rise in the plain for hundreds of miles. Located at the foot of the Pu’uc, the physical setting of Maxcanú is thus dramatic and distinct from other towns in Yucatán. Although the Pu’uc hills are only a few hundred feet high, their contrast with the surrounding level countryside defines their presence as the most notable feature of the natural world of Maxcanú. As no...