In Salana, wisdom flourished as mothers entrusted infants to the mystical Santa Chich. Villagers traded in lowland forests, facing three man-eating giants along the route. An old man from Santiago outwitted the giants using cunning and a stick, thwarting their brujeria tricks and killing them. Though imprisoned by Zicnic, the mountain’s owner, the old man escaped using his own mystical powers, returning safely to his village.
Source
Ethnology of the Mayas of
Southern and Central British Honduras
by John Eric Thompson
Field Museum of Natural History
Anthropological Series, Pub.274, Vol.17.2
Chicago, 1930
► Themes of the story
Trickster: The old man uses his wit and cunning to outsmart the giants.
Cunning and Deception: The narrative centers on the use of cleverness to overcome adversaries.
Conflict with Authority: The old man challenges and escapes from Zicnic, the authoritative figure who imprisons him.
► From the same Region or People
Around Salana the people used to be very wise, as when they were five days old their mothers used to take them to the side of a mountain and leave them there some time to be suckled by the Santa Chich (the wife of Mam). The people used to go down from the mountains into the forests of the lowlands to trade goods, but there were three giants, who lived on the road, and used to levy tribute and kill the people, and eat them by the riverside.
An old man from the village, which is called Santiago, went that way. On the way he killed a vulture. When he got to where the giants lived, they stopped him and demanded food.
► Continue reading…
“I have no tortillas,” he told them, “but here is meat,” giving them the vulture which he had already cooked. Now these giants had their own star, and they could only do brujeria when it came above the horizon. Later the star appeared, and they asked the old man if he could do any brujeria. The old man said no, whereupon the giants told him that if he could not do as they did he would be killed. The first giant then went behind a hill and jumped over it. In the air he turned into a stone, but just before he reached the ground the old man hit him with a stick he carried, and the stone turned back into a giant again. The second giant also threw himself over the hill, turning into a jaguar, but again the old man nullified the trick by hitting him with his stick. The same happened with the third giant, who turned himself into a goat-like monster.
“You are no good,” cried the old man. “You cannot do brujeria,” and he killed them. When Zicnic, the owner of the mountain where the giants had lived, heard about this, he sent a messenger to have the old man imprisoned. They put him in a big cement house, and were going to kill him at midnight, but the old man with his brujeria escaped and went back to his village.
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