The Mythology of All Races, Vol. 11: Latin-American

by Hartley Burr Alexander

All this is plain euhemerism, for Itzamna was a deity of rain and fertility; Yucatan, it is said, was without moisture when he came to it; he rose from the sea; and his temples and his tomb were by the seaside. His festival, according to Landa, fell in Mac (March), when he was worshipped in company with the gods of abundance. He caused the dead to rise and cured the sick; while in his honour a temple was built with four doors leading to the four extremities of the country, as far as Guatemala, Tabasco, and Chiapas, this shrine being called Kab-ul, or "the Potent Hand,"—a striking image of the sky-deity reaching down from heaven, of which there are analogues in Egypt and Peru. Both Landa and Lizana state that he was the son of Hunab-Ku ("the Holy One"), "the one living and true God, who, they said, is the greatest of the gods, and who cannot be figured or represented because he is incorporeal.... From him everything proceeds,... and he has a son whom they name Hun Ytzamna." All this indicates a deity of the descending rains and dews, son of Father Heaven, and, through his association with the East, giver of life, light, and knowledge. Students of the codices believe that he is represented by "God D"—the aged divinity with the Roman nose and toothless mouth, associated (as is Tlaloc) with the double-headed serpent, which is clearly a sky-symbol. Perhaps, as Seler suggests, he is the "Grandfather Above," the Lord of life, analogous to the Mexican Tonacatecutli.[82]

As has been indicated, the worship of Kukulcan,[83] to whom tradition ascribed the latest appearance of the three culture heroes, was especially associated with Chichen Itza and Mayapan, and perhaps with Nahua immigrations. His name, like that of the Quiché demiurge Gucumatz, means "Plumed Serpent" and is a precise equivalent of "Quetzalcoatl"—the first element referring directly to the long and iridescent plumes of the quetzal. The frequency of bird-serpent symbols in Maya art, regarded as emblematic of this deity, as well as images, both in the codices and on the monuments, of the long-nosed god himself, indicate a deep-seated and fervent worship, so that it may indeed be an open question as to whether Kukulcan is the pattern or the copy of Quetzalcoatl, with the probabilities favoring the Maya source. Certainly it is significant that, as Tozzer tells us, his name still survives among the Yucatec Maya, while to the Lacandones he is a many-headed snake which dwells with the great father, Nohochakyum: "this snake is killed and eaten only at the time of great national peril, as during an eclipse of the moon and especially that of the sun."

The importance of Kukulcan in the peninsula is indicated by Landa's description of his festival, which occurred on the sixteenth day of Xul (October 24). Upon Kukulcan's departure, says Landa (who clearly regarded the god as an historical personage), there were some Indians who believed that he had ascended into heaven, and regarding him as a god, they built temples in his honour. After the destruction of Mayapan, however, his feasts were kept only in the province of Mani, "but the other districts, turn by turn, in recognition of what was due to Kukulcan, presented each year at Mani sometimes four, sometimes five, magnificent feather banners with which they celebrated the fête." This festival was observed in the following manner: After fasts and abstinences, the lords and priests of Mani assembled before the multitude; and on the evening of the festal day, together with a great number of mummers, they issued from the palace of the prince, proceeding slowly to the temple of Kukulcan, which had been properly adorned. When they had reached it and had prayed, they erected their banners, setting forth their idols on a carpet of leafage; and having lighted a new fire, they burned incense in many places, making oblations of meat cooked without seasoning and of drink made from beans and the seeds of gourds. The lords and all who had observed the fast remained there five days and five nights, praying, burning copal, and performing sacred dances, during which period the mummers went from the house of one noble to that of another, performing their acts and receiving the gifts offered them. At the end of five days they carried their donations to the temple, where they shared all with the lords, the singers, the priests, and the dancers; and after this the banners and idols (doubtless household gods) were taken again to the palace of the prince, whence each returned to his own house. "They say and hold for certain that Kukulcan descended from the sky the last day of the feast and personally received the sacrifices, the penitences, and the offerings made in his honour."

III. YUCATEC DEITIES

For the names of the Maya gods we are mainly indebted to sparse notices in the works of Landa and Lizana, who, in obliterating native writings, destroyed far more than they preserved. Landa[84] gives a general picture of the aboriginal religion, indicating a ritual not less elaborate than the Mexican, though with far less human bloodshed. "They had," he says, "a great number of idols and of sumptuous temples. Besides the ordinary shrines, princes, priests, and chief men had oratories with household idols, where they made special prayers and offerings. They had as much devotion for Cozumel and the wells of the Chichen Itza as we for pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem; and they went to visit them and make offerings as we go to holy places.... They had such a number of idols that their gods did not suffice them; for there was not an animal nor a reptile of which they did not make images, and they formed them also in the likeness of their gods and goddesses. They had some idols of stone, but in small number, and others, of lesser size, of wood, though not so many as of earthenware. The idols in wood were esteemed to such a degree as to be counted for inheritances, and in them they had the greatest confidence. They were not at all ignorant that their idols were only the work of their own hands, dead things and without divinity, but they venerated them for the sake of what they represented and because of the rites with which they had consecrated them."

PLATE XX. (A).

Tablet of the Foliated Cross, Palenque. This cross, like that shown in Plate XX (B), rests upon a monstrous head, doubtless representing the Underworld, and is surmounted by the quetzal, the symbol of rain and vegetation. It is possible that the greater of the two human figures represents a deity, the lesser a priest, or that both are divinities as in the analogous figures of the codices (cf. Plate [IX], upper figure). After drawing in Maudsley [c], Vol. IV.

PLATE XX (B).