Mayan Mystique I

Mayan Mystique I      
        
     Ro says, “This museum has an impressive Pre-Columbian exhibit upstairs. There doesn’t appear to be much of a crowd. Let’s go enjoy a private showing of the Mesoamerican rooms. The primitivism of the Mayan sculpture will provide a good contrast to our museum experience.”             
     We enter the dimly lit room where horned beasts made of clay greet us. Faces of Mayan people gaze from a lost world. She tells me, “Look at that Sun God figure. No look closer. Gaze into his eyes. You need to squat for a better balance. We wouldn’t want you falling into it and getting sued for damages.” The statuary gazes through the millennia.        
     She says, “This place must have been abandoned for ages. Look in the corner by the stelae. That web is just gathering dust.”          
     “Those eight-legged Clytemnestras don’t need revenge as an excuse to become widows.”        
     “My heroine is Lysistrata who without even brandishing a letter opener led the women to revolt with cold beds to bring their men to sheathe their swords.”  
     A more human terracotta figurine gazes from seven hundred A.D. with a visage that could represent laughter or a warrior’s face. Rowena says, “Spooky, isn’t he? His expression could be the amused look of a young despot who smiles while committing massacres as though he were attending a Sunday cricket game.”             
     I say, “His eyes are closed as though there is something he’d rather not see. I’d like to believe he is the Mayan equivalent of the laughing Buddha.”          
     She replies, “From Veracruz to China is a long way. But it is a lovely thought that his grin is that of enlightenment as opposed to gloating over a war victory. His necklace with the blue beads indicates he may have been royalty.”             
     I say, “Maybe the emperor valued him as a holy man and hence bestowed the gift upon him. He may have been considered a wise man who the king consulted in matters of state and spirituality. Perhaps his detachment from the worldly life gave          
him objectivity the leader valued.”             
     “Maybe he was a beggar though the king offered him a place in the court. The emperor sought his advice on what woman to marry and how to pray. But the laughing man refrained from giving guidance in war strategies because of his pacifism.”             
     I reply to her, “Perhaps the reason the king had this likeness of his laughing advisor made was as artistic propaganda that if a beggar can laugh at the world what happier median than to grow your own food and partake of tomatoes fresh from the vine? A king’s life is fraught with worry.”