God B is represented with all the four cardinal points, a characteristic, which he shares only with god C, god K, and, in one instance, with god F (see Tro. 29*c); he appears as ruler of all the points of the compass; north, south, east and west as well as air, fire, water and earth are subject to him.
Opinions concerning the significance of this deity are much divided. It is most probable that he is Kukulcan, a figure occurring repeatedly in the mythology of the Central American peoples and whose name, like that of the kindred deity Quetzalcoatl among the Aztecs and Gucumatz among the Quiches, means the “feathered serpent”, “the bird serpent”. Kukulcan and Gucumatz are those figures of Central American mythology, to which belong the legends of the creation of the world and of mankind. Furthermore Kukulcan is considered as the founder of civilization, as the builder of cities, as hero-god, and appears in another conception as the rain-deity, and—since the serpent has a mythologic relation to water—as serpent deity. J. Walter Fewkes, who has made this god-figure of the Maya manuscripts the subject of a monograph (A Study of Certain Figures in a Maya Codex, in American Anthropologist, Vol. VII, No. 3, Washington, 1894), also inclines to the belief that B is the god Kukulcan, whom he conceives of as a serpent-and rain-deity. This view has been accepted by Förstemann (Die Tagegötter der Mayas, Globus, Vol. 73, No. 10) and also by Cyrus Thomas (Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices, Washington, 1888). The same opinion is held also by E. P. Dieseldorff, who, a resident of Guatemala, the region of the ancient Maya civilization, has instituted excavations which have been successful in furnishing most satisfactory material for these researches (see Dieseldorff: Kukulcan, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1895, p. 780). Others have considered god B as the first parent and lord of the heavens, Itzamná who has a mythologic importance analogous to that of Kukulcan. Itzamná is also held to be the god of creation and founder of civilization and accordingly seems to be not very remotely allied to the god Kukulcan. Others again, for example Brasseur de Bourbourg and Seler, have interpreted the figure of god B to represent the fourfold god of the cardinal points and rain-god Chac, a counterpart of the Aztec rain-god Tlaloc. The fact that this god-figure is so frequently connected with the serpent and the bird is strongly in favor of the correctness of the supposition, that we should see in god B a figure corresponding to the Kukulcan of tradition. Thus we see the god represented once with the body of a serpent and with a bird near by (Cort. 10b), while B’s hieroglyph appears both times in the text. God B is also pictured elsewhere repeatedly with a serpent body, thus for example on Dr. 35b, 36a. On pages 4-6 of the Codex Cortesianus he is pictured six times and each time in connection with a serpent.
The accounts we have received concerning the mythology of the Maya peoples are very meagre and owing to the uncertainty respecting the origin of the Maya manuscripts, it cannot even be determined which of these accounts are applicable to the Maya manuscripts, or, indeed, whether they are applicable at all. For it is by no means positively proved that these manuscripts did not originate in regions of Maya culture, regarding which we have received no accounts at all. As our present purpose is purely that of description and determination, it remains quite unimportant which of these recorded figures of gods shall be regarded as god B.
God B is nearly allied to, but in no wise identical with, the deity with the large ornamented nose, designated by K, who will be discussed farther on. God K is an independent deity designated by a special hieroglyph, but like C he stands in an unknown relation to God B (for details see K).
Finally it should be mentioned, that god B never appears with death symbols. He is clearly a deity of life and creation, in contrast to the powers of death and destruction.
His day seems to be Ik (aspiration, breath, life). (Compare Förstemann, Die Tagegötter der Mayas, Globus, Vol. 73, No. 10).
C. The God with the Ornamented Face.
This is one of the most remarkable and most difficult figures of the Maya manuscripts, and shows, at the same time, how imperfect must be the information we have received in regard to the Maya mythology, since from the frequency of his representations he is obviously one of the most important deities and yet can be identified with none of the representations of gods handed down to us. His hieroglyph is definitely determined ([Figs. 11, 12]). The circular design in front of the forehead of the hieroglyph head seems, as a variant from the Codex Tro. ([Fig. 12]) leads us to suppose, to denote the ideographic representation of pouring out or emptying a vessel, the contents of which flow into the mouth of the god. Another variant of this prefix occurs in Tro. 13*b; [Fig. 15], the symbol of the sacrificial knife, and instead of the prefix the numeral 13 occurs in one instance! (Tro. 12*c). The head alone, without any accessory symbol whatever, is also found a few times, not in the text, however, but only in the pictures, for example Cort. 10 (bottom) and Tro. 13* (bottom). This deity does not occur very often in the Dresden manuscript, the places where it is depicted are: Dr. 5a, 6c, 13b, 35a, 68a, and as a subordinate figure on 8c, 42a. His hieroglyph occurs alone a few times, as in Dr. 4; it is more frequent in the Madrid manuscript. It appears on pp. 15 to 18 of the Paris manuscript.