The Mesoamerican connection: the Itza Maya and Chichen Itza

The Itza Maya are currently believed to have originated in the Lake Peten region of western Guatemala. They spoke a language in the Maya family that would not have been mutually intelligible to Mayas living in the northern Yucatan Peninsula 1500 years ago. The word Itza had two possible translations. It literally means “corn tamale” in the Itza language. However, ethnologists have proposed that it might have also been the combination of two words, Itz – ha, which means “magic water.”
The Itza Maya were probably associated with the cultural advances of early Maya civilization around “El Mirador.” When the region around El Mirador was virtually abandoned around 400 AD – probably due to an attack by enemies – the Itza dispersed. Some came to live among the peoples of the hot, humid Tabasco coastal plain. The immigrant Itza probably stimulated cultural advancement and adaptation of some Maya cultural traits.

For the next few centuries, the Itza remained at the edge of advanced Maya culture. Their architecture returned to simpler forms. However, when violent wars, combined with drought and famine, caused the powerful Maya city states to weaken, the Itzas moved northward and occupied part of the northern Yucatan peninsula. Their most important city was Chichen Itza, when means “mouth of the Itza well.” The northern Yucatan Peninsula had almost no surface streams, so possession of natural sink holes, called “cenotes” was mandatory for a city to thrive.

Virtually all of the major Maya cities collapsed between 750 AD and 900 AD. Chichen Itza then became one of the most powerful cities in Mesoamerica. It also seems to have had cultural ties with the Toltecs of central Mexico after 900 AD. Several buildings at Chichen Itza have almost identical decorative details to contemporary structures built at the Toltec capital of Tollan, 800 miles away. (See article on Toltecs.) Other buildings seem to be a blend of Classic Maya and Mexican Highlands architectural traditions. Some of the most famous architectural monuments in the Mesoamerica were constructed at Chichen Itza when it was at its population peak between 800 and 1000 AD. One of them, “the Observatory” is pictured above.

The political structure of the Itza cities, such as Chichen Itza, was somewhat different than the other cities in the Yucatan Peninsula. How different, is still a matter of debate among anthropologists. Like other Maya city states, the supreme king was called the Hene-Mako (Sun-Great.) However, there was a powerful council also ruling Chichen Itza, whose members were called the Hene-Ahau (Sun-Lord.) Some anthropologists have theorized that the Great Sun was an elected CEO, who ruled with the consent of the Sun Lords. Most Maya cities had hereditary kings.

Archaeologists have found substantial evidence that there was a rebellion by slaves and/or commoners in Chichen Itza around 990 AD. After this suspected rebellion, a residual population remained in the environs of the city, but no major construction occurred. Somewhere around 1200-1250 AD the city of Mayapan rose to power. The Itza people were driven out of the Yucatan Peninsula by the armies of Mayapan. Bands of Itza scattered in all directions, but some eventually concentrated in their former homeland. They built a new capital on an island in Lake Peten named Tayasol. Tayasol was the last independent Native American city to survive in the Western Hemisphere, It was not conquered by the Spanish until 1696.

Definite connections between the Itza Maya and North America

Itza Maya words in the languages spoken by the Creek Indians of the Southeast are the strongest evidences of a Mesoamerican presence in North America. Many Hitchiti words associated with architecture, politics, town planning and agriculture are pure Itza or Chontal Maya words – and have the same meaning in both languages.

The word Hitchiti, itself, is the way English settlers wrote down indigenous name of the main language they encountered when colonizing Georgia. The actual pronunciation would be identical if the Mayas said the word Itza-ti, which would mean Itza People in Hitchiti. The oldest radiocarbon dates for the Creek towns of Itchesee (Lamar Village at Ocmulgee National Monument) and Etalwa (Etowah Mounds National Landmark) are in the exact time period when the rebellion was occurring in Chichen Itza. Itchesee means “offspring or colony of Itza” in Hitchiti. The Muskogee speaking Creeks called the town Achesee, which means “offspring of corn.”

When Spanish Captain Juan Pardo was exploring the Carolinas and Georgia in the 1560s, his chronicler noted that traveling judges, named “heneha’s,” regularly heard court cases in towns outside the provincial capitals. They were described as members of the ruling aristocracy, who were related to the Great Sun – the king of the province. Heneha is obviously a contraction of “hene ahau” for Sun Lord. Today the Second Chief of the Muskogee Creek Nation in Oklahoma has the official title of Heneha.

Slaves taking refuge in North America would have been illiterate. Quite probably, they would have been descendants of more primitive, non-Maya peoples captured by slave raiders. Since the Maya elite ruled by appearing to have the powers and knowledge of gods, the more advanced technology and arts of the elite would have not been available to poor peasants living in the boonies. These peasants would have been very familiar with the skills necessary to weave cloth, grow crops and manual labor for building public works. However, much of what they observed in visits to the city centers would have seemed to be “magic.” Thus, to date, there is much evidence of Maya words, cloth weaving techniques and agricultural seeds traveling to North America, but no examples of Maya writing or “high art” have been discovered.

However, to the indigenous peoples of the Southeast, the Maya commoners’ skills at speaking strange words, weaving cloth and growing crops on a large scale would have seemed “magical.” It would have been very easy for commoners to place themselves in the position of being the leaders. The turbans that marked their low status in Maya society would have become the symbols of authority among a hybrid Muskogean-Maya population. Indeed, Hernando de Soto’s chroniclers remarked that while traveling through the Creek homelands of Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas in the early 1540s, the leaders all wore turbans!
 
Source: The Examiner [April 16, 2010]