A striking verbal analogy supports this. In the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiches, the “feathered serpent,” Gukumatz, is positively said to be the bisexual principle of life represented by the male Xpiyacoc and the female Xmucane, ancestor and ancestress of all that is.[[83]] Here, x-mucane is most likely the Quiche feminine form of muc (ul) canan, which is a Tzental name for the planet Venus, as I have already mentioned.[[84]] My conclusion is, therefore, that the old woman so frequently associated with Cuculcan is the Evening Star, in her form as the Earth-Goddess. I shall recur to her on a later page.
I think all these representations of the bee should be interpreted as indicating the movements of Venus, and the mythical conceptions with which they were connected in the native mind.
Representation of Ghanan, God of Growth and Fertility.—Bishop Nuñez de la Vega tells us that in the calendar he discovered among the natives of his diocese, the fourth “sign” or day corresponded to the Mexican Centeotl, god of fertility and the maize harvests. This fourth day in the Tzental calendar bore the name Ghanan, and on turning to the Tzental Dictionary prepared by Father Lara, we find that ghan is the general term for the ear of maize; aghan, when the grains are still soft.
His representations in the Codices are moderately frequent and quite peculiar. They all present in a marked degree the flattening of the forehead and prolongation of the occiput upward which is so striking in many of the sculptures.
Fig. 23.—From the Head-dress of the God of Growth.
Dr. Schellhas, indeed (who catalogues him as “God E”), is so impressed by this that he argues that all such forms were imaginary, obtained by the artists through copying the conventional drawings of an ear of maize arranged as a head-dress. This, however, is going too far, as there is evidence, derived from ancient skulls, that certain classes of Maya priests used to have the head artificially flattened in this manner.[[85]] Perhaps they were those destined for the service of this or similar deities. The officiants on the Palenque “Tablet of the Cross,” presenting offerings to the “tree of life,” are both deformed in this manner.
The maize god is associated with symbols of food, of vegetable growth, and of prosperity. He carries a vase or is drawing forth the contents of one, Cod. Cort., p. 40; he is seen with the loom, Cod. Dres., p. 45, and he generally has about him the kan symbol, that of means and comfort.
Representations of the Serpent Goddess.—One of the most striking pictures in the Codices is the Serpent Goddess, whose familiar is the rattlesnake, which she wears as a head-dress or as a girdle. She is depicted as an old woman, her costume ample and often splendid, decorated with embroidery and bells, with necklace and ear-rings of jade.
In expression she is severe, her lips protrude in anger, and her hands and feet sometimes end in claws. The sinister cross-bones sometimes decorate her skirts. Her business is with water and the rains. She is pouring from a vase (Cod. Dres., pp. 43, 67, 74); or water is flowing from her armpits, hands, and mammæ; or she is ejecting it forcibly from her mouth (Cod. Tro., pp. 25, 27, 34*).