The Royal Funeral
Marjorie Johnson

Budding archaeologist Chanlajun Pex dropped her new silver turtle pendant beneath her T-shirt so it wouldn’t bounce and transformed herself into Maya princess Yaxuun B’alam. She ran, carrying her new clothes in a shopping bag with Plaza Las Américas written in red letters, hurrying to get home before the sun disappeared into darkness in the west.
In front of her grandmother’s house, one of only three left in her village, red bougainvillea grew as tall as the roof. The door stood open against the woven bamboo and thatch wall. She rushed up the steps to tell Chiich about shopping and riding a moving staircase and her university scholarship, but the small house was empty.
In the dry cornfield, she saw the wheelbarrow and Chiich behind it. She ran nearer and yelled, “Kaxtik! Found you,” but Chiich didn’t move.
“Chiich, wake up.” Pex knelt, put her ear against her grandmother’s chest. No heartbeat.
“Kimen. Dead,” Pex screamed in agony. She rocked back and forth, holding Chiich’s body. Blinded by tears, she heard a frightful wailing—the sounds came from her mouth. She gasped for breath, her pain too great to swallow.
After her tears slowed, Pex found a rug, wrapped her grandmother in it, and dragged the bundle to the small house. She moved Chiich up one step at a time, pulling and pushing the rolled rug. The dead body, smaller than hers, felt heavy, so heavy that Pex began to sweat. On the floor of the house, she undressed Chiich, wrapped her in linen, and put a precious bead into her mouth. Then she loaded clothing and books and cooking utensils into the wheelbarrow.
Holding the tortilla griddle brought new tears. Chiich was old, but Pex had thought she would always be there. They had lived alone, Chiich afraid all of her life that Spaniards would return to kill Maya royalty, to kill her. Their neighbors on either side had died, leaving empty houses with decayed thatch roofs. In earlier times, the entire village would share the loss, but, with no living relatives, she had no one to invite. A Maya priest must perform the sacred ritual for the dead; she had watched Chiich conduct the ceremony twice, for their neighbors. Now the funeral was Pex’s responsibility.
Pex carried in last year’s dried cornstalks, fashioned a bed, and poured all the cooking oil onto it. She moved Chiich to the top of the pile. Outside, she lit cornstalk bundles one by one in the cooking fire, three torches pitched onto each roof. When the dry thatch blazed up, she ran into the house with a firebrand and ignited the royal funeral pyre. She stood there until flames caught the linens and smoke burned her throat.
Outside, Pex smeared her cheeks with ashes, drew the Maya cross on her forehead, and dropped copal incense onto the flames. The obsidian bloodletting knife that had been in her family for five hundred years reflected the flickering firelight. She pulled it across the pad of her thumb and cut herself, the blade so sharp she didn’t feel the wound until she squeezed it to sprinkle drops of royal blood over the fire. She swayed from side to side and hummed the funeral dirge, “H-m-m-m-m-m . . . o-o-o-o-o . . . h-m-m-m-m-m,” the exact words forgotten over the centuries, prayers to the gods of the underworld to aid Chiich in her descent into Xibalba.
Pex, her face painted gray with ashes and her long black hair in disarray, smelled the stink of burning flesh, the odor partially masked by the heavy sweet fragrance of copal. She watched flames lick the night sky, the rabbit in the moon her only company, the bougainvillea a naked skeleton like her life without Chiich.
At morning light, Pex stood outside her burned out home. She swatted mosquitoes buzzing her face and walked to the cenote. She drank, filled the bucket, and used soap plant to bathe. She skimmed moisture off her body with her hands, admiring her woman’s body, the turtle talisman between her rosebud breasts. She washed her clothing, laid her new lace panties over a warm rock, and carried the bucket back to the shell of the house.
Naked, she made herself some maize gruel, all she would eat this day of mourning. She would sweep the remains of everything she loved into the burial pit. Only Chiich could travel to Xibalba, the world of spirits.
Pex pondered her situation. She could go to Madre Magdalena and become a nun, but she was a Maya priestess. She must leave this place.
She took one sip of Chiich’s ceremonial balche, a strong alcoholic drink distilled from honey and tree bark. She coughed and choked, and her eyes watered. Only a small amount remained; she downed it quickly, chased by two sips of water. Centering her mind on Chiich, Pex saw her face and heard her say, “You will find a lost book of the ancient writing. You will marry a Maya prince. You will be a powerful xmenoob after me.”
As Chiich faded, Pex called out, “Don’t go,” and strained to hear the final words, “You must walk down your own sacbé path.”
A yellow-brown leaf, carried by a slight breeze, swirled into Pex’s lap. She picked it up by its long stem, held it against the light, and admired the veins of its intricate structure. While she marveled at its beauty, it fractured into crumbs. The bits of leaf floated to the ground along a beam of sunlight, as if her childhood disintegrated before her eyes.
Pex easily pictured herself reading a Maya book. She saw a Maya prince, but his face was hidden in shadow. However, Pex as shaman Xmenoob had no image at all. She wanted to study at the university. Perhaps she could fool the gods by never spending