THE Huay Chivo
Legend has it that the “Huay Chivo” is a magician in the shape of a large black goat, whose eyes light up red. Chicken is eaten and the people who have faced it succumbed to high fever and illness.
A practitioner of black magic, he likes to do his evil deeds in lonely and dark places.
It is believed that he is half human, half goat. It has the head of a goat and a human body but can assume other forms, like a dog (Huay Perro).
So, walker, beware of walking after midnight where the Huay chivo roams this evil being who hates light and loves darkness, he can grant you all his evil.
Cenotes
There are many legends about the cenotes. Here are some of them:
A childless couple found a girl named Nicte-Ha (Water Flower) in a cenote. The girl grew in beauty and age and that is why a Mayan warrior desired her. One day he ran after her to catch her and she fell into a cenote and the water claimed what was hers. His body later appeared, floating in the cenote. White flowers appeared in the girl’s mouth and two white doves were scattering the flowers all over the ceonte. When the moon is full, Nicte-ha sings in the cenote as her cursed stalker wanders through the forest.
The great priest of Chichén Itzá, Ah Kinxoc, had a beautiful daughter named Oyamal. Two prince brothers, Ac and Cay, fell in love with her. Cay was the chosen one, but in his anger, Ac locked Oyamal in the cloister of Chichén Itzá and Cay in the waters of Kauá. Cay went through the underground labyrinth until he reached the cloister, but Ac surprised the couple, who managed to hide in the grotto where they still remain and on Xac nights (January), a voice is heard saying Yacumá! (I love you).
A Mayan priest committed the sacrilege of falling in love with a princess and both hid in the caves of Xtacumbil-Xunan. But the enraged spirits transformed the princess into a stone statue (some cave figures) and the priest into one of the seven cave lakes called Putsu. When the human voice is heard there, this lake recedes and returns when all is silence. Water is the banshee of a priest who is frightened and escapes when he hears voices.
Many fantastic beings, such as the aluxes, live or are related to the cenotes. Landa (Spanish priest) supposed that the cenotes were formed when lightning struck the surface. The Mayans had similar beliefs, as it follows the creation of the cenote Xlacah de Dzibilchaltun. A tired old man came to his son’s house to ask for a piece of bread. The ungrateful son, despite enjoying many comforts, denied his father food. God took the appearance of the old man and went to ask his son for help, who again refused. Then, God, to punish the ungrateful, made a ray of light fall on his house. Sinking into the ground, the cenote Xlacah was formed.
The name of Yucatan
The name of the peninsula was given during the Spanish conquest. Although there are several statements that agree that this origin would have been given by a verbal misunderstanding (between) the Mayans and the conquerors, they are all quite uncertain.
One of them says that a Spaniard approached a Mayan and asked him for the name of the land, to which the Mayan replied: Yuk ak katan (I don’t understand your language). In another, the answer was Yucatán (I’m not from here). Others say that the Mayans responded uh yu uthaan (listen to how they speak) and the Spanish listened to Yucatán. In another answer, they said Ci u that (I don’t understand).
Probably the first narrator of the story of “I don’t understand it” was Toribio de Benavente, Motolinia, who writes at the end of chapter 8 of “Treatise III”: “Because speaking with those Indians of that coast, what did the Spanish ask the Indians : “Tectetano, Tectetano”, which means: “I don’t understand you, I don’t understand you”: the Christians corrupted the word, and not understanding what the Indians were saying, they said: “This land is called Yucatan”; and the same I was in a Cabo, which was also called Cabo Cotoch, and Cotoch in that language means house. “
