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

by Hartley Burr Alexander

Tablet of the Cross, Palenque. The cross was encountered as an object of worship on the Island of Cozumel by the first-coming Spaniards. Cruciform figures of several types are of frequent occurrence as cosmic symbols in Mexican and Mayan art. With this plate and with Plate XX (A) should be compared Plates [VI] and [IX]. After drawing in Maudsley [c], Vol. IV.

PLATE XX (C).

Tablet of the Sun, Palenque. The two caryatid-like figures beneath the solar symbol doubtless represent the upbearers of the heavens (cf. Plate [IX], lower figure). After drawing in Maudsley [c], Vol. IV.

Among the deities mentioned by Landa are the Chacs, or "gods of abundance," whose feasts were held in the spring of the year in connexion with the four Bacab, or deities of the Quarters; and again in association with Itzamna at the great March festival designed to obtain water for the crops, when the hearts of every kind of wild animal and reptile were offered in sacrifice. The Chacs were evidently rain-gods, like the Mexican Tlaloque, with a ruler, Chac, corresponding to Tlaloc. The name was likewise applied to four old men annually chosen to assist the priests in the festivals, and from Landa's descriptions of the parts played by them it is clear that they represented the genii of the Quarters.

Other divinities who are named include Ekchuah (also mentioned by Cogolludo and Las Casas), to whom travellers prayed and burned copal: "At night, wherever they rested, they erected three small stones, depositing upon each of these some grains of their incense, while before them they placed three other flat stones on which they put more incense, entreating the god which they name Ekchuah that he would deign to bring them safely home." There were, again, medicine-gods, Cit-Bolon-Tum and Ahau-Chamahez, names which Brasseur de Bourbourg[85] interprets as meaning respectively "Boar-with-the-Nine-Tusks" and "Lord-of-the-Magic-Tooth." There were gods of the chase; gods of fisher folk; gods of maize, as Yum Kaax ("Lord of Harvests"), of cocoa; and no doubt of all other food plants. Of the annual feasts, the most significant appear to have been the New Year's consecration of the idols in the month Pop (July); the great medicine festival, with devotion to hunters' and fishermen's gods, in Zip (September); the festival of Kukulcan in Xul (October); the fabrication of new idols in Mol (December); the Ocna, or renovation of the temple in honour of the gods of the fields, in Yax (January); the interesting expiation for bloodshed—"for they regarded as abominable all shedding of blood apart from sacrifice"—in Zac (February); the rain-prayer to Itzamna and the Chacs, in March (mentioned above); and the Pax (May) festival in which the Nacon, or war-chief, was honoured, and at which the Holkan-Okot, or "Dance of the Warriors," was probably the notable feature. The war-god is represented in the codices with a black line upon his face, supposed to represent war-paint, and is often shown as presiding over the body of a sacrificial victim; while with him is associated not only the death-god, Ahpuch, but another grim deity, the "Black Captain," Ek Ahau.

Celestial divinities were probably numerous in the Maya pantheon, as was almost inevitable in view of the extraordinary development of astronomical observation. Xaman Ek was the North Star, while Venus was Noh Ek, the Great Star. The Sun, according to Lizana,[86] was worshipped at Izamal as Kinich-Kakmo, the "Fiery-Visaged Sun"; and the macaw was his symbol, for, they said, "the Sun descends at midday to consume the sacrifice as the macaw descends in plumage of many colours." In view of all the fire thus came at noon upon the altars, after which the priest prophesied what should come to pass, especially by way of pestilence, famine, and death. "The Yucatec have an excessive fear of death," says Landa, "as may be seen in all their rites with which they honour their gods, which have no other end than to obtain health and life and their daily bread"; and he continues with a description of the abode of blessed souls, a land of food, drink, and sweet savours, where "there is a tree which they call Yaxche, of an admirable freshness under the shady branches of which they will enjoy eternal pleasure.... The pains of a wicked-life consist in a descent to a place still lower which they call Mitnal, there to be tormented by demons and to suffer the tortures of hunger, cold, famine, and sorrow." The lord of this hell is Hanhau; and the future life, good or bad, is eternal, for the life of souls has no end. "They hold it as certain that the souls of those who hang themselves go to paradise, there to be received by Ixtab, goddess of the hanged"; and many ended their lives in this manner for but light reason such as a disappointment or an illness.

The image of Ixtab, with body limp and head in a loop, as if hanged, is one of those recognized in the codices; for in default of mythic tales, few of which are preserved concerning the Yucatec gods, these codex drawings and the monumental images furnish our main clues to the Maya pantheon. Following the suggestion of Schellhas,[87] it is customary to designate the codical deities (nameless, or uncertainly named) by letters. Thus, God A is represented with visible vertebrae and skull head, and is therefore identified as the death-god, named Hanhau in Landa's account, Ahpuch by Hernández, and Yum Cimil ("Lord of Death") by the Yucatec of today. Death is occasionally shown as an owl-headed deity, and is also associated with the moan-bird (a kind of screech-owl), with the god of war, and with a being that is dubiously identified as a divinity of frost and of sin. God B, whose image occurs most frequently of all in the codices, and who is represented with protruding teeth, a pendulous nose, and lolling tongue, is closely connected with the serpent and with symbols of the meteorological elements and of the cardinal points; and is regarded as representing Kukulcan. God C, the "god with the ornamented face," is a sky-deity, tentatively identified with the North Star, or perhaps with the constellation of the Little Bear. God D, the old divinity with the Roman nose and the toothless jaws, is regarded by Schellhas as a god of the moon or of the night, although in him other scholars see Itzamna, regarded as a sun-deity. God E is the maize-god, probably Yum Kaax, or "Lord of Harvests"; God F is the deity of war; and with him is sometimes associated God M, the "black god with the red lips," perhaps Ekchuah, the divinity of merchants and travellers, for war and commerce are connected in the New World as in the Old.

These seven deities are those of most frequent occurrence in the codices, though the full list, which surely gives a general picture of the Maya pantheon, includes also God G, the sun-god God H, the Chicchan-god (or serpent-deity); God I, a water-goddess; God K, the "god with the ornamented nose"; God L, the "old black god," perhaps related to M; God N, the "god of the end of the year"; God O, a goddess with the face of an old woman; and God P, a frog-god. Others are animal deities,—the dog, jaguar, vulture, tortoise, and, in differing shapes of representation, the panther, deer, peccary, bat, and many forms of birds and animals.

Not a few of these ancient deities hold among the Maya of today something of their ancient dignity: they are slightly degraded, not utterly overthrown by the intervention of Catholic Christianity. At least this is the picture given by Tozzer as result of his researches among the Yucatac villagers. According to them, he says,[88] there are seven heavens above the earth, each pierced by a hole at its center. A giant ceiba, growing in the exact center of the earth, rears its branches through the holes of the heavens until it reaches the seventh, where lives El Gran Dios of the Spaniards; and it is by means of this tree that the spirits of the dead ascend from heaven to heaven. Below this topmost Christianized heaven, dwell the spirits, under the rule of El Gran Dios, which are none other than the ancient Maya gods. In the sixth heaven are the bearded old men, the Nukuchyumchakob, or Yumchakob, white-haired and very fond of smoking, who are the lords of rain and the protectors of human beings—apparently the Chacs of the earlier chroniclers, though the description of them would seem to imply that Kukulcan is of their number; perhaps originally he was their lord; now they receive their orders from El Gran Dios.