HANAL PIXAN

"Food for the Souls"

The Maya are a very traditional people and have a very conservative spirit. They have held to many of the ancient traditions and wisdom of their forefathers in spite of the conquest by the Spanish. Today, even though the world around them has changed and become a mixture of cultures to some degree you can still experience aspects of the Maya Culture which produces some very colorful activities in which man is linked by ritual to the Gods of the Maya world.

The  'holiday of the dead' is one of those sacred ceremonies of the Maya community, that comes from the times of the ancients in which offerings are made to the dead. Offerings that range from flowers, foods and drinks are made available for the dead with the idea of creating a balance between the spirit world and the physical world we live in.

Currently, the liturgy to the dead involves a series of relationships between live and dead, based on ideas supported by the catholic faith. The banquet of the dead, or Hanal Pixán possesses many symbols in its austere beauty. Each family its own altar of three levels in a special place in the house. In the first level is clothes, on the second foods, flowers, fruits and toys (offerings for the souls of the children) and on the top level is a cross made from branches. To encourage souls who are single (the souls without relations), they hang cups with food and drinks on a tree at the entry or on the door of the house. They light the way with candles so that the flames guide the souls to the altar which is illuminated with colored candles and supported by beautiful hand painted candlesticks. If the altar contains a black candle, it is represents a widow. A white candle represents a virgin and a blue one an infant. Prayer and singing goes on into the wee hours of the morning, afternoon and in the evening. The air is saturated with Copal being the favorite. Then the amounts of smoke are increased inviting the gods and souls to partake of the offerings and join with the world of man. All of the foods are prepared specially days in advance in anticipation of this great event. The most delicious dishes are baked in Pibs (holes dug in the ground), where they bake slowly all day and night.

The Maya kitchen is of great variety and colorful. It is rich in spices and different chiles that are not hot to the taste, just spicy. The spices are ground carefully in molcajetes to obtain a paste which is the seasonings.

Some of the exquisite foods that are consumed in these sacred dates are made from a corn base, pork, deer or chicken. The mucbil chicken is a great tamale filled with tomato sauce, achiote, turkey or chicken and chaya (the spinach of the Maya world); the white filling is a sauce thickened to cook the meats, elaborated with pips, other seeds and chiles; and the cochinita pibil, is seasoned with achiote, spices and orange sours. The foods are accompanied of a delicate anise liquor called xtabentún and also candies and regional fruits, such as the coconut, the gourd, the yucca, the yam, the sapota, the mammee, all fresh or crystallized. The yellow flowers, are a universal offering that satiates the sight and the smell,  and magnifies the altar of the cosmos.

These offerings to the Gods and to the souls that have already moved on to a parallel life, reveal much about the Maya and their deep union with the land, the Gods and the magic of life.

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