A supercilious American looks at Mayan Mexico
Norman is to be commended for his adventurousness in journeying to territory far off the beaten path, but his narrative of the trip is nothing to rave about. Rather than displaying the rugged adaptability of an explorer, Norman takes a very condescending attitude towards his Mexican hosts and constantly complains about the squalid accommodations he is forced to endure. He demonstrates very little respect for the present-day Indigenous Mexicans, repeatedly portraying them as lazy, stupid, or shifty. In the cities of Mérida, Valladolid, and Campeche, he mostly stays with Mexicans of Spanish descent, whom he doesn’t always depict in a flattering light either. One humorous episode finds Norman lodging in a monastery, where one of the monks offers him a whip, which he declines. The monks then blow out all the candles and flog themselves for 15 minutes while Norman can only sit there in the dark and listen.
Despite looking down on 19th-century Mexicans, Norman expresses much admiration for their ancestors, the ancient Maya. He recounts his visits to the ruins of Chichén Itzá, Kabah, and Uxmal. These sites were largely unexcavated at the time and covered with much vegetation, but apparently still quite impressive to behold. Norman makes himself out to be the first White man to visit Chichén Itzá, but his description of the archaeological sites he visited are rather rudimentary, mostly consisting of measurements of the buildings and brief descriptions of their sculptural elements. The book does, however, include a few helpful illustrations. Norman speculates on the uses of the buildings, and at one point describes as a “temple” what we clearly know today to be a ball court. The book ends with a series of appendices that summarize the knowledge of the region that was available at the time, compiled from the writings of others. The best of it is taken from Alexander von Humboldt; the worst of it is pure fiction. Norman repeatedly proposes that Indigenous Americans are the descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel, or immigrants from Egypt or China. He just can’t bring himself to give a bunch of Indians credit for creating their own advanced civilization.
One word that Norman frequently uses that may confuse the reader is “sonato” or “sonata” (His spelling is inconsistent). What he’s really talking about are cenotes, the sinkholes frequently found in the limestone bedrock of the Yucatan. Filled with clear water, these cenotes are not only geological curiosities but also often popular swimming holes for locals and tourists alike.
I made my own rambles in the Yucatan decades ago, and I enjoyed reading Norman’s descriptions of what sites I visited were like in an earlier era. Personally, it’s hard for me not to enjoy a travel book about Mexico. Norman, however, was really just a dilettante in the areas of Mexican history and archaeology. Even in his day, there were better books on the subject, including Stephens’s Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatán (1843), and Frederick Catherwood’s Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (1844).
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