And the people multiplied on this Mount Hacavitz, and here they built their city. It is here also that they began to sing that song called Kamucu, 'we see.' They sang it, though it made their hearts ache, for this is what they said in singing: Alas! We ruined ourselves in Tulan, there lost we many of our kith and kin, they still remain there, left behind! We indeed have seen the sun, but they—now that his golden light begins to appear, where are they?
And they worshiped the gods that had become stone, Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz; and they offered them the blood of beasts, and of birds, and pierced their own ears and shoulders in honor of these gods, and collected the blood with a sponge, and pressed it out into a cup before them.
Toward the end of their long and eventful life Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah, and Iqi-Balam were impelled, apparently by a supernatural vision, to lay before their gods a more awful offering than the life of senseless beasts. They began to wet their altars with the heart's blood of human victims. From their mountain hold they watched for lonely travelers belonging to the surrounding tribes, seized, overpowered, and slew them for a sacrifice. Man after man was missing in the neighboring villages; and the people said: Lo! the tigers have carried them away—for wherever the blood was of a man slain, were always found the tracks of many tigers. Now this was the craft of the priests, and at last the tribes began to suspect the thing and to follow the tracks of the tigers. But the trails had been made purposely intricate, by steps returning on themselves and by the obliteration of steps; and the mountain region where the altars were was already covered with a thick fog and a small rain, and its paths flowed with mud.
The hearts of the villagers were thus fatigued within them, pursuing unknown enemies. At last, however, it became plain that the gods Tohil, Avilix and Hacavitz, and their worship, were in some way or other the cause of this bereavement: so the people of the villages conspired against them. Many attacks, both openly and by ruses, did they make on the gods, and on the four men, and on the children and people connected with them; but not once did they succeed, so great was the wisdom, and power, and courage of the four men and of their deities. And these three gods petrified, as we have told, could nevertheless resume a movable shape when they pleased; which indeed they often did, as will be seen hereafter.
At last the war was finished. By the miraculous aid of a horde of wasps and hornets, the Quichés utterly defeated and put to the rout in a general battle all their enemies. And the tribes humiliated themselves before the face of Balam-Quitzé, of Balam-Agab, and of Mahucutah: Unfortunates that we are, they said, spare to us at least our lives. Let it be so, it was answered, although you be worthy of death; you shall, however, be our tributaries and serve us, as long as the sun endure, as long as the light shall follow his course. This was the reply of our fathers and mothers, upon Mount Hacavitz; and thereafter they lived in great honor and peace, and their souls had rest, and all the tribes served them there.
THE END OF THE QUICHÉ CREATION.
Now it came to pass that the time of the death of Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah, and Iqi-Balam drew near. No bodily sickness nor suffering came upon them; but they were forewarned that their death and their end was at hand. Then they called their sons and their descendants round them to receive their last counsels.
And the heart of the old men was rent within them. In the anguish of their heart they sang the Kamucu, the old sad song that they had sung when the sun first rose, when the sun rose and they thought of the friends they had left in Tulan, whose face they should see no more forever. Then they took leave of their wives, one by one; and of their sons, one by one; of each in particular they took leave; and they said: We return to our people; already the King of the Stags is ready, he stretches himself through the heaven. Lo, we are about to return; our work is done; the days of our life are complete. Remember us well; let us never pass from your memory. You will see still our houses and our mountains; multiply in them, and then go on upon your way and see again the places whence we are come.
So the old men took leave of their sons and of their wives; and Balam-Quitzé spake again: Behold! he said, I leave you what shall keep me in remembrance. I have taken leave of you—and am filled with sadness, he added. Then instantly the four old men were not; but in their place was a great bundle; and it was never unfolded, neither could any man find seam therein on rolling it over and over. So it was called the Majesty Enveloped; and it became a memorial of these fathers, and was held very dear and precious in the sight of the Quichés; and they burned incense before it.[II-9]
Thus died and disappeared on Mount Hacavitz Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah, and Iqi-Balam, these first men who came from the east, from the other side of the sea. Long time had they been here when they died; and they were very old, and surnamed the Venerated and the Sacrificers.