by Mildred Boyd

      When, in 1946, the Lacandon guide, Jose Pepe Chao Bor, led a young American photographer to a group of ruins deep in the jungles of Chiapas, he not only added immeasurably to our knowledge of the ancient Maya and their art but inadvertently set off a storm of controversy that raged for years. Neither One was exactly what Giles Healy had had in mind. Commissioned by the United Fruit Company to film a documentary on the Lacandon Indians, it was in search of his elusive subjects that he penetrated the unexplored area. He had already discovered a number of ruins, mostly of minor importance, before his new friend led him to a hitherto unknown site that had flourished as a Mayan ceremonial center during the Late Classic (600-800 A.D.) and was still held sacred by their remote descendants 1,100 years later.
      The dominant feature was a pyramid surrounted by a temple with three doorways each leading to a corbel vaulted room with every surface covered with the magnificent murals that have given the site its name. Bonampak is a Maya word meaning "Painted Walls." The artistic excellence of those murals would have been enough to cause a furor, but it was their content which set off the real uproar. Those painted walls, faded and damaged as they were, told a clear story and it was not a story that classical Maya scholars wanted to hear.
      Scenes, often complete with hieroglyphic texts, capture the important moments of a Maya ritual. These vivid glimpses of battle and human sacrifice revealed the ancient Maya and their gods to be as bloodthirsty as any of their northern neighbors. The concept of a gentle, peace-loving people worshipping benevolent deities and preoccupied with calendrical calculations was forever shattered.

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