In conclusion, we think it is fair to speculate that Chau Hiix was one of the Maya communities that “had no permanent Spanish residents” but was “a major attraction for native refugees fleeing the north” (Jones 1998: 40). We base this interpretation on the abundance of Postclassic evidence from the site, including the production of locally familiar stone tools, the reconstruction of new houses and addition of new elements of ceremonial structures, and the continued association of ceremonial ceramics with the Classic-period ceremonial arehitecture. This is not to suggest, however, that cultural discontinuities do not exist across the Classic-Postclassic divide and that local differences do not distinguish Chau Hiix from other Postclassic centers. Postclassic practices at Chau Hiix are, for example, set apart from those at neighboring Lamanai by the destruction of some earlier architecture and the increased use of palaces for burial of elite dead. A possible explanation is that, though many of the original residents remained at Chau Hiix, new people with slightly different customs and perhaps disproportionately higher status Joined the community, because it was often the elites who were most threatened by the Spanish or were better able to flee them. This may aceount for the overcrowding of the elite burial area in Structure 2.
Jones (1998: 40) also notes that “[t]he townspeople engaged in a lively underground trade in eacao, forest products, metal tools, and cotton cloth that bypassed Spanish controls but required contact with the Itzas and other regional groups.” Chau Hiix is actually situated on a trade route between Lamanai and Tipu, and Tipu was itself on the route that led to the Itza capital of Tayasal. The fact that both Lamanai and Tipu reverted to certain aboriginal practices after flirtations with conversion to Christianity (Graham 1991: 330-331; Jones 1998; Pendergast 1986b: 1, 5) presents the possibility that residents of Chau Hiix were equally unreceptive to Spanish economic and religious practices. Furthermore, the fact that Chau Hiix was remote yet connected to other Postclassic centers via Classic-period trade routes would have placed Chau Hiix in an excellent position to engage in illicit trade. As suggested by the site’s probable nonlocal Postclassic ceremonial ceramics, connections clearly existed with settlements such as Lamanai during the Postclassic. Differences in burial patterns in Structure 2 suggest Chau Hiix may even have been a destination for residents of Lamanai or other towns who fled to more remote communities to avoid the demands of Spanish encomienda.
Returning to the logistical difficulties mentioned at the beginning of this paper, we suspect that the extensive system of canals and dams surrounding Chau Hiix was no longer in use during the Postclassic. Without maintenance of these features, access to the site would have been difficult, as it is today. The site is not easily accessible to strangers during high water, because the entrance from Spanish Creek is through one canal that could easily be concealed with a small amount of displaced vegetation. In the dry season, when it is possible to walk the one-kilometer distance from the permanent watercourse of Spanish Creek and across the base of the dry lagoon directly to the site, visitors would have to pass across a large area of open ground, where they could be easily spotted and routed or picked off by archers (D. Rice 1988; 243). (Small quantities of projectile points have been recovered from superficial deposits at Chau Hiix.) In sum, Chau Hiix’s favorable combination of lagoon resources, access to trade routes, and easy concealment and defensibility are factors that probably contributed to the site’s residential and ceremonial significance between the years of the “collapse” and the arrival of Europeans in Belize. It seems likely that the residents of Chau Hiix had exactly as much contact with the Spanish as they wished and no more, due to the community’s ancient and strategic location.
World History
