Chichén Iztá, "Tzicha," and the Smoking World

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz

As I'm getting my draft of the Smoking World back from my readers and have begun to dig into the next phase of edits, I'm also revisiting my photos of the places that inspired the landscapes of the novel. First among these locations is the Late–Postclassic Maya city of Chichén Iztá, on which my not-so-subtly-named city of Tzicha (pronounced chee-cha) is based. 

Panorama by Joshua Albers

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz

Aztec death whistles

Image of cremated whistle by Jorge Cervantes Martínez, lecturer-researcher at INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia), published on mexicolore.co.uk. 

If you would like more information on the Aztec "death whistle" but don't want to wade through a lot of terrible YouTube videos, check out the 2015 article by Roberto Velázquez Cabrera on Mexicolore and this 2008 article from the LA Times. Scroll to the bottom of the Mexicolore page to listen to a two second clip of one of the sounds these whistles were capable of making.