The Man Who Offended the Aluxes
Overwhelmed by a series of strange happenings in his household, a workmate turned for answers to an expert in paranormal phenomena suspected of being brought about by aluxes: myself, that is.
“How can I tell if there’s an alux in my house?” he asked me out of nowhere as I approached his work station one afternoon.
The question surprised me, and I laughed, as did the others nearby. The fact is, an alux is not an evil being. It may be a mischievous one, but no more than that, and it wants no more than what we want for ourselves: respect for its person (if we can call it that) and respect for its property.
As far as I know, they don’t go into people’s homes unless people unwittingly bring them inside, for these little beings “are alive by night and petrified by day,” as was explained to me by Doña Marta Cetina of Peto, whose husband had his fingers tugged by one of these little spirits one night while he was trying to sleep way out in the forest.
Indeed, the elders, well versed in these truths, call the alux by their full name: alux k’at, they say, in reference to their being made of clay.
The untouched woods are the sacred homes of these little beings, and this is why, when a man goes to clear a plot to plant a milpa, he makes sure to thank the spirits that dwell in these places, making them the necessary offerings.
These things took place a few miles from Peto, not far from Santa Rosa, Libre Unión, and Catmis, where Doña Marta’s husband lived through an episode that made him believe in the existence of the aluxes.
Working for a construction company, four men taking materials out to a ranch in the lower forest had to stop and sleep along the way when one of their tipper trucks broke down. Not long before, resting on a sort of makeshift altar by the side of the road, they had seen a little clay doll, so unusual, “so lovely” that one of them came up and touched it and, with a little curiosity and plenty of malice, gave it a few slaps on the back of the head.
The travelers could not sleep that night because, as soon as they laid down, someone started tugging on their fingers. They all climbed into the cabins of their trucks, but the pesky visitors kept on bothering the intruders.
For the man who had offended the little doll it went worst of all, for, as soon as the sun set, he was struck by a fever so high that he halucinated, seeing scenes that he described to the horror of the rest, since “they were things no one should see,” as Marta tells it.
An old man who was passing by asked what was going on and, once they told him, he told them off for trying to sleep in a place “with owners,” and he ordered the feverish man, if he did not want to die of overheating, that he had better go back to where he found the clay doll and, to show his remorse, ask it for forgiveness, giving it a fond stroke on the head and a kiss.
And so the man who had offended the alux was cured, and his companions came to believe in the diminuitive owners of the woods, which in the Mayab are tantamount to little spirits.
A Beautiful Snake-Woman
The Xtáabay exists. She is a beautiful woman who turns into a snake. My mother saw her sitting on a rock wall one evening at sunset. My grandfather on my father’s side beat her away one night when he was coming back from the milpa.
Twilight is the witching hour of the Xtáabay, the pu’ujuy bird and the lightning bugs (xkóokay). That’s the time when souls set off for home, the moment of reflection, the moment when nobody would want to walk down a path almost eaten up by the xteses and the chi’ichi’bej.
Pity the little boy who walks alone at sunset, when the crickets start singing out loud, for the Xtáabay will follow him unseen through undergrowth and along rock walls, hidden by the thickening night. She will call out to him again and again to draw him towards her and then take him away to her dwelling.
But little boys, warned by their grandparents, don’t let themselves be tempted; they pick up their pace and cross themselves, whispering the names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
“My God, of course she exists. I’ve seen her,” my mother Donata declared gravely one evening when we were asking her about the existence of this magical woman. “When I was a little girl, five or six years old, my parents sent me to the store to buy gas. That was back when parents used to give orders and you obeyed right away. It was getting dark and I was scared. There was nobody around, just a very lovely woman who was elegantly combing her hair, sitting on the rock wall. She smiled as she looked at me. ‘Come here,’ she gestured to me, and I was already walking towards her, thinking nothing of it, when I noticed that instead of two human feet she had two chicken feet.”
“I screamed out loud and took off running back towards the house, and your grandfather came out to meet me. They pulled me inside fast, and my papa, looking at my mama, said to her, quiet but loud enough for me to hear, ‘She’s seen the Xtáabay.’”
“It wasn’t my imagination. On that road, the elders said, others had seen her combing her hair, because she always kept her long hair looking lovely, and people less lucky than me have been taken captive by her and pulled into the woods, where they are left to their fate among the thorns.”
If you, by a stroke of bad luck, suddenly find yourself led along by a beautiful woman down a path you never chose to walk, is there any way to escape her?
My grandfather, Don Carmen, was able to free himself one night. A gruff man of strong words, with something of Emiliano Zapata about him, Don Carmen was practical and drastic.
A woman with long hair addressed him as he returned from the milpa, and they got to talking along the way. She asked if he would do her the favor of escorting her to her house, since time had gotten away from her and night had fallen as she was running an errand. My grandfather noticed something strange about this woman as they walked along, and it seemed to him that where they were headed there was nothing but henequen fields, outside town as you make your way into the woods.
The woman was wearing a huipil and had her hair down, which is not so common among Maya women. Suddenly, she began to comb her hair, and he realized she was the Xtáabay because she is always combing her hair and constantly switching out her comb, made of the husk of the fruit of a tree whose name I don’t recall, but if you showed it to me I would recognize it at once.
Right then and there, Don Carmen bent down and took off his sandal, and with it he struck the woman over and over until she unbelievably shrank down into a green snake (juntúul ya’ax kaan) and slithered off quickly among the rocks and weeds. That’s how you fight off the Xtáabay. That’s her weakness: hitting her with a xanab k ́éewel (a sandal with a leather sole and henequen-thread strap that wraps around the foot and ankle).
Many others have seen the Xtáabay and would attest to it. Many, with a few drinks in them, have been taken away and abandoned in the marl mines, others lost in the woods only to return many days later, often with their clothes torn to shreds after stumbling hypnotized through rows of henequen.
Nonetheless, many too have seen this strange being walking on moonlit nights and passing them by, almost brushing against them but paying them no heed, for they did not mean to address her and had no bad intentions.
Many would attest that the Xtáabay exists and is a beautiful woman, but they would rather keep quiet out of caution, or because they can’t bring themselves to tell the tale.
Translated by Arthur Malcolm Dixon
Originally published in La mujer sin cabeza y otras historias mayas
Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 2012
