The household gods were termed chahalha, 'guardian of the house,' and to them incense was burned and sacrifice made during the erection of a building; when finished, a corner in the interior was consecrated to their use. They seem to have been identified with the spirit of departed friends, for occasionally a corpse was buried beneath the house to insure their presence.[XI-55]
Among the more superstitious highlanders, the ancient worship has retained its hold upon the population to a great extent, in spite of the efforts of the padres. Scherzer tells us that the people of Istlavacan reverenced gods of reason, health, sowing, and others, under the names of Noj, Ajmak, Kanil, and Ik, who were generally embodied in natural features, as mountains, or big trees. They recognized an Ormuzd and an Ahriman in Kij, the god of light and good principle, opposed by Juiup, the god of earth and evil principle, who was represented by a rock, three feet high and one foot thick, supposed to be a distorted human face. The native priests generally took the horoscope, and appointed a nagual, or guardian spirit for their children, before the padres were allowed to baptize them. They are said to have sacrificed infants, scattering their heart's blood upon a stone before the idol, and burying the body in the woods to avoid detection.[XI-56]
The Choles and Manches of Vera Paz, impressed with the wild features of their country, venerated the mountains, and on one called Escurruchan, which stood at the junction of several branches of their principal river, they kept up a perpetual fire to which passers-by added fuel, and at which sacrifices were offered. At another place the padres found a rough altar of stone and clay surrounded by a fence, where they burned torches of black wax and resinous wood, and offered fowls, and blood from their bodies, to mountains, cross-roads and pools in the river, whence came all means of existence and all increase.[XI-57]
WORSHIP OF A HORSE.
The chief idol of the Itzas was Hubo, who was represented by a hollow metal figure with an opening between the shoulders, through which human beings were passed, charged to implore the favors of the gods. A fire was then lighted beneath the figure, and while the victims were roasting alive, their friends joined in a dance around it, drowning the cries of the victims with shouts and rattling of drums. No women were allowed to join in the temple ceremonies. On the chief island in the lake of Peten, the conquerors found twenty-one stone temples with stone roofs, the chief of which formed a kind of pyramid of nine steps. In this was found a large chalchiuite, representing one of their two battle-gods, Pakoc and Hunchunchan, who gave oracles and were supposed to join the people in their dances. This familiarity evidently bred contempt, however, for it is related that when a prediction of the oracle was not fulfilled, the priest without hesitation castigated the idol. In the same temple stood a gypsum image in the form of the sun, adorned with rays, inlaid with nacar, and having a gaping mouth set with human teeth. The bones of a horse, which hung from the rafters, were adored as sacred relics. These were the remains of a wounded horse left by Cortés among the natives when on his way to Honduras. Having seen the Spaniards fire from its back, they believed that the animal produced the flash and report, and hence adored it as Tziminchac, god of thunder, and brought it flowers, flesh, and incense; but such offerings did not sustain life, and it was not long before the bones of the apotheosized charger were all that remained to his worshipers. In another place was a stone and lime imitation of this horse, seated on the floor on its haunches, which the natives adored in the same manner. This animal-worship was the more readily admitted, since their gods was supposed to assume such forms.[XI-58]
Their idols were so numerous, say the conquerors, that it took over a hundred men a whole day to destroy those existing on the chief island alone; Cogolludo affirms that the priests had charge of all the idols.[XI-59] The chief god of the Cakchiquels, Chamalcan, or Chimalacan,[XI-60] had many of the attributes of Tohil, but took the form of a bat, the symbol of the royal house of Zotzil. Every seventh and thirteenth day of the month the priests placed before him blood-stained thorns, fresh white resin, bark and branches of pine, and a cat, the emblem of night, which were burned in his honor.[XI-61]
The purest form of sun-worship appears among the Lacandones, who adored the luminary without the intervention of an image, and sacrificed before it in the Mexican fashion. They had temples, however, the walls of which were decorated with hieroglyphs of the sun and moon, and with a figure in the act of praying to the sun.[XI-62] The Nahua tribe of the Pipiles also worshiped the sun, before which they prostrated themselves while offering incense and muttering invocations. Quetzalcoatl and the goddess Itzqueye were honored in the sacrifice,[XI-63] which generally consisted of a deer. The relative importance of Quetzalcoatl and Itzqueye, may be seen from the statement that the festival held in honor of the former on certain occasions lasted fifteen days, while that in honor of the latter was but of five days duration. The chief centre of worship was at Mictlan, near Huixa Lake, where now is the village of Santa Maria Mita, founded, according to tradition, by an old man, who in company with an exceedingly beautiful girl issued from the lake, both dressed in long blue robes, the man also wearing a mitre. He seated himself upon a stone on the hill, while the girl pursued her way and disappeared, and here, by his order, was built the temple of Mictlan, round which stately palaces afterwards arose; he also organized the government of the place.[XI-64]
TRADITION OF COMIZAHUAL.
Among the vestiges of older worship we find the natives of Cerquin in Honduras,[XI-65] venerating and praying for health to two idols, called respectively Great Father and Great Mother, which probably refer to the Grandfather and Grandmother of the Quichés. A faint idea of a Supreme Being, says Torquemada, was mixed up with the worship of the sun and stars, to which sacrifices were made. Their culture-tradition speaks of a beautiful white woman, called Comizahual, or 'flying tigress,' a reputed sorceress, as the introducer of civilization in Cerquin. She is said to have descended from heaven and to have been transported by an invisible hand to the city of Cealcoquin, where she built a palace adorned with monstrous figures of men and animals, and placed in the chief temple a stone having on each of its three sides three faces of strange and hideous aspect; by aid of this stone she conquered her enemies. She remained a virgin, yet three sons were born to her,[XI-66] among whom she divided the kingdom when she grew old. After arranging her affairs, she commanded her attendants to carry her on her bed to the highest part of the palace, whence she suddenly disappeared amid thunder and lightning, doubtless to resume her place among the gods; directly afterwards a beautiful bird was seen to fly upwards and disappear. The people erected a temple in her honor, where the priest delivered her oracles, and celebrated every year the anniversary of her disappearance with great feasts. Palacio refers to a stone, like the one with three faces, named Icelaca, in Cezori, which disclosed things past, present, and future, and before which the people sacrificed fowls, rabbits and various kinds of food, and smeared the face with blood drawn from the generative organs.[XI-67]