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"They (the Itzà) have and had the habit to throw in this well live victims as sacrifice to the gods, during drought periods, and believed that they did not die, even if they were not able to see them anymore!".
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About the sacrificial use of this Cenote in Chichèn Itzà writes also ,in 1562, mayor of Madrid during a visit in Yucatan, Diego Sarmiento de Figueroa :
"Sirs and major dignitaries of the region where used to, after sixty days of fasting and abstinence, go at the Cenote and , during sunrise, to throw indian women belonging to each one of the dignitaries.
They should have asked the gods for a favourable year for their master.
Women were thrown in untied and they fell with all their weight in the water causing a loud noise.
Later in the morning, those that where still alive screamed from the bottom and a rope was lowered to pick them up.
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When they reappeared, more dead than alive, fires were made around them and incense was burn.
When they came to consciousness they said that there were (underwater) a lot of people of their village and that they had been very well welcomed.
When they tried to rise their heads to look at them, they received strokes on the head, and when they tried to look underwater they believed to see an abyss and , they , the hinabitants of the abyss, answered to their questions about the favourable or adverse year...."
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In 1904 Edward Thompson , a professor from Harvard, bought for 75 US $ all the farm that contained Chichèn Itzà and , after a dredging of the Cenote, he recovered a lot of artifacts , gold objects , precious stones etc. as well as more than forty human scheletons mostly belonging to children between 18 months to 11 years old.
Hundreds of objects, including gold and jade masks , idols etc. have been later recovered by an expetition led by National Geographic Society.
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The ruins of the House of Vapor in the upper right corner of the picture.
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Copyright 1999 Luca Ridarelli
email : luca@ridarelli.net