The name Nim-ak is elsewhere given Zaki-nim-ak. The former means “Great Hog,” the latter “White, Great Hog.” Brasseur translates ak as wild boar (sanglier), but it is the common name for the native hog, without distinction of sex. In a later passage,[[132]] we are informed that it was the name of an old man with white hair, and that Zaki-nima-tzyiz was the name of an old woman, his wife, all bent and doubled up with age, but both beings of marvelous magic power. Thus we find here an almost unique example of the deification of the hog; for once, this useful animal, generally despised in mythology and anathematized in religion, is given the highest pedestal in the Pantheon.
Perhaps we should understand these and nearly all similar brute gods to be relics of a primitive form of totemic worship, such as was found in vigor among some of the northern tribes. Various other indications of this can be discovered among the branches of the Maya family. The Cakchiquels were called “the people of the bat” (zoq’), that animal being their national sign or token, and also the symbol of their god.[[133]] The tucur owl, chan or cumatz serpent, balam tiger, and geh deer, are other animals whose names are applied to prominent families or tribes in these nearly related myths.
The priests and rulers also assumed frequently the names of animals, and some pretended to be able to transform themselves into them at will. Thus it is said of Gucumatz Cotuha, fifth king of the Quiches, that he transformed himself into an eagle, into a tiger, into a serpent, and into coagulated blood.[[134]] In their dances and other sacred ceremonies they used hideous masks, carved, painted and ornamented to represent the heads of eagles, tigers, etc. These were called coh, as cohbal ruvi cot, the mask of an eagle; cohbal ruvi balam, the mask of a tiger, etc. In Maya the same word is found, koh, and in the Codex Troano, one of few original Maya manuscripts we have left, these masks are easily distinguished on the heads of many of the persons represented. Recent observers tell us that in the more remote parishes in Central America these brute-faced masks are still worn by the Indians who dance in accompanying the processions of the Church![[135]] Even yet, every new-born child among the Quiches is solemnly named after some beast by the native “medicine man” before he is baptized by the padre.[[136]]
This brings me to a name which has very curious meanings, to wit, Tepeu. It is the ordinary word in these dialects for lord, ruler, chief or king. Its form in Cakchiquel is Tepex, in Maya Tepal, and it is probably from the adjective root tep, filled up, supplied in abundance, satisfied. In Quiche and Cakchiquel it is used synonymously with galel or gagal and ahau, as a translation of Señor or Cacique. But it has another definite meaning, and that is, the disease syphilis; and what is not less curious, this meaning extends also in a measure to gagal and ahau.
This extraordinary collocation of ideas did not escape the notice of Ximenez, and he undertakes to explain it by suggestion that as syphilis arises from cohabitation with many different women, and this is a privilege only of the great and powerful, so the name came to be applied to the chiefs and nobles, and to their god.[[137]]
Of course, syphilis has no such origin; but if the Indians thought it had, and considered it a proof of extraordinary genetic power, it would be a plausible supposition that they applied this term to their divinity as being the type of the fecundating principle. But the original sense of the adjective tep does not seem to bear this out, and it would rather appear that the employment of the word as the name of the disease was a later and secondary sense. Such is the opinion of Father Coto, who says that the term was applied jestingly to those suffering from syphilitic sores, because, like a chieftain or a noble, they did no work, but had to sit still with their hands in their laps, as it were, waiting to get well.[[138]]
The same strange connection occurs in other American mythologies. Thus in the Aztec tongue nanahuatl means a person suffering from syphilis; it is also, in a myth preserved by Sahagun, the name of the Sun-God, and it is related of him that as a sacrifice, before becoming the sun, he threw into the sacrificial flames, not precious gifts, as the custom was, but the scabs from his sores.[[139]] So also Caracaracol, a prominent figure in Haytian mythology, is represented as suffering from sores or buboes.
The name Gucumatz is correctly stated by Ximenez to be capable of two derivations. The first takes it from gugum, a feather; tin gugumah, I embroider or cover with feathers. The second derivation is from gug, feather, and cumatz, the generic name for serpent. The first of these is that which the writer of the Popol Vuh preferred, as appears from his expression; “They are folded in the feathers (gug), the green ones; therefore their name is Gugumatz; very wise indeed are they” (p. 6). The brilliant plumage of the tropical birds was constantly used by these tribes as an ornament for their clothing and their idols, and the possession of many of these exquisite feathers was a matter of pride.
The names u Qux cho, Qux palo, mean “the Heart of the Lake, the Heart of the Sea.” To them may be added u Qux cah, “the Heart of the Sky,” and u Qux uleu, “the Heart of the Earth,” found elsewhere in the Popol Vuh, and applied to divinity. The literal sense of the word heart was, however, not that which was intended; in those dialects this word had a much richer metaphorical meaning than in our tongue; in them it stood for all the psychical powers, the memory, will and reasoning faculties, the life, the spirit, the soul.[[140]]
It would be more correct, therefore, to render these names the “spirit” or “soul” of the lake, etc., than the “heart.” They represent broadly the doctrine of “animism” as held by these people, and generally by man in his early stages of religious development. They indicate also a dimly understood sense of the unity of spirit or energy in the different manifestations of organic and inorganic existence.