Hunbatz Men is a Mayan elder of Itzá descent who lives in Merida, the largest city in the Yucatán. The Maya of the Yucatán live in quite different conditions from the traditional villages of Guatemala and are much more assimilated into the mainstream of Mexican society. One of the most important roles Men has played is in reopening the ancient ceremonial sites to the indigenous people. Up until the beginning of the 1990s, the Mexican government was very uneasy about ceremonies at sites like Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, and Palenque. Native ceremony was seen as a challenge to the government and to the rule of law. Where traditional forms of worship were allowed, it was strictly controlled and, at many ceremonial sites, it was totally prohibited. Men took the lead in bringing together elders and other interested participants to reactivate these centers.

Re-Establishing Traditions

The Mexican government resisted the ceremonies at first. Initially, some of the ceremonies were performed surrounded by armed troops. The ceremonialists bravely faced these obstacles to burn copal at the pyramids.

By the spring equinox of 1995, the tide was turning and hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the shadow of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacán near Mexico City. At the spring equinox in 1997, the Mayan elders were joined by a group of Tibetan lamas in holding a series of solar initiations to join together these two peoples and celebrate their strong histories of ceremony and struggle.

Little by little, the ancient sites have opened up. Today, the spring equinox is celebrated at Chichén Itzá with a major festival with large international sponsors and attracts many tens of thousands of people. Indigenous ceremonialists are at least tolerated at most of the sites, and a general level of awareness of Maya spirituality and its relationship to these great ceremonial sites has increased enormously.

Men still regularly takes groups of pilgrims on tours of the ancient Mayan sites to perform ceremonies, meditations, and healings. Many of the most important sites in the Yucatán and beyond have now been activated in this manner. He is the author of the book Secrets of Mayan Religion and Science, which details the importance of the actual sounds used in the Itzá Mayan language and the esoteric meanings behind them. Many of the words can be reversed to reveal related but different meanings. The Mayan language can be seen, Men claims, as a form of mantra, like the ancient Vedic languages of India.

The Itzá Count

Men has also worked on reconstructing the calendar traditions of the Itzá. The traditions of calendar keeping in the Yucatán didn't survive the European invasion, and Men had to reconstruct this lost knowledge from the fragments that are still known. This enterprise was only partially successful, and eventually, at a meeting of Mayan elders, Men agreed to adopt the traditional or Quiché count, effectively creating a unified count of the indigenous Maya.