It is perhaps impossible in the present state of our knowledge to unravel the myths given above sufficiently to determine with accuracy the routes taken by the different tribes, but still the general trend of migrations may perhaps be gathered from them. The place-name Nonoual, which occurs both in the books of Chilan Balam and the annals of the Kakchiquel, is valuable as a fixed point, since it seems possible to determine the locality with reasonable certainty. The Kakchiquel obviously reached Nonoual from the west, and then retraced their steps before turning southward into Guatemala; thus they always regarded Nonoual as lying in the east. For the Tutul Xiu however it lay in the west, and this people had settled at Balcalar in southern Yucatan before they moved north to Chichen Itza. If we add to this the information found in the Kakchiquel annals that the inhabitants lived in boats, the conclusion seems inevitable that Nonoual lay somewhere on the coast between the lower reaches of the Papaloapan and of the Usumacinta. This agrees absolutely with the site of the region known to the Mexicans as Nonoualco, and the “sea” crossed by the Quiché and Kakchiquel before they arrived there may be one of the lagoons of the Papaloapan basin. The name of Tulan, the starting-point of the migrations, affords greater difficulties. Tulan is usually mentioned with the addition of the name Zuiva, and the Popol Vuh gives it a further title which means the “seven caverns,” and so brings it into direct relation with the Chicomoztoc at which the various Nahua tribes foregathered before they descended upon the Mexican valley (see p. 14). For the Kakchiquel, Tulan was also the starting-point, but Zuiva lay beyond Nonoual, and evidently not far from it; and this agrees with the Books of Chilan Balam, since in the latter Nonoual appears to be a district of the realm known as Tulan Zuiva. A further point in confirmation of this may perhaps be extracted from the fact that certain tribes called Tepeu Oliman (Popol Vuh), or Tapcu Oloman (Kakchiquel annals), are associated with this particular region, while the inhabitants of the latter were known to the Mexicans as Olmec. Tulan, the starting-point therefore, cannot be identified with the Zuiva, or Tulan Zuiva near Nonoual, nor indeed is there any need that such an identification should be made. The original Tulan, wherever it lay, was regarded evidently as the home of a large number of peoples, and there is a tendency, visible all over the world, for migrating tribes to name their subsequent settlements after their original or legendary birthplace. Perhaps the best example of this propensity is presented by the number of Hawaikis scattered over the Pacific, Hawaiki being the name of the original starting-point of Polynesian migrations. That this Tulan Zuiva near Nonoual was an important kingdom in the youth of the Quiché and Kakchiquel peoples is obvious; the Kakchiquel admit defeat at the hands of its inhabitants, and though it is not expressly so stated, the account of the Popol Vuh seems to indicate that the insignia of temporal power were obtained from the ruler of this district, a chief named Nacxit. The name Nacxit is interesting, since Tezozomoc states that it was an appellation of Quetzalcoatl, and we have already observed the importance which the Mexican immigrants attached to Toltec blood as giving the possessor the right to reign, Tulan being closely associated with this god. That there were more Tulans than one seems evident from the Kakchiquel statement that there were four, although the number quoted appears to have a certain ceremonial reference to the points of the compass. That the Quiché and Kakchiquel had come in contact with the later Nahua immigrants into the Mexican valley seems evident both from certain points of similarity in their migration legends, and also from the highly important fact that they used the bow, a weapon which was unknown to the Tutul Xiu until a later date. From these considerations, and also from the evidence afforded by the short list of kings which the legends of these tribes furnish, one feels inclined to regard the Tulan from which they started as the region ruled by the Toltec of the Mexican valley, and to conjecture that the Tulan Zuiva with which Nonoual was connected, was perhaps one of the now ruined sites in the Usumacinta basin. The association of the word Zuiva with the original Tulan in the Quiché account may be due to one of two causes. It may on the one hand be the result of confusion, or on the other it is possible that “Tulan” and “Zuiva” may be the same name but belong to different dialects. The question which Tulan gave the name to the other is more complex, and can only be decided after the date of these ruins has been discussed, but it may be mentioned that there is nothing inherently impossible in the suggestion that one of the Usumacinta sites may have been named Tulan, for we do not know the original names of any of them. The net result of a comparison of the migration legends which we possess is therefore as follows. The Quiché and Kakchiquel appear to have been closely connected throughout, and the Tutul Xiu show little trace of connection with either. The former two tribes seem to have been brought into contact with the later Nahua, while the Tutul Xiu were not, and the Tulan from which the Tutul Xiu migration started was not the Tulan which the Quiché and Kakchiquel regarded as their original home, though it is possible that the two were intimately connected. The first stage of Quiché and Kakchiquel migration seems to have been from west to east, through those districts which, from Tuxpan to Tabasco, were regarded as the daughter-states of the Mexican Tulan, and their route, or at any rate some portion of it, lay along the coast. After this they retraced their steps for a short distance, and then turned south and west into Guatemala, probably passing through south-western Vera Cruz, western Oaxaca, and Chiapas. Further consideration of this complicated question must be deferred until some account has been given of the religion, ethnography, and ruined sites of the Maya area.

CHAPTER IX—THE MAYA: RELIGION AND MYTH

As among the Mexicans, so too among the Maya, any attempt to reconstruct their civilization must start with a general survey of their religious beliefs. The task of dealing shortly and clearly with this subject is by no means easy; from the one point of view indeed it is simpler, since the amount of information at the disposal of students is relatively small; but on the other hand, as far as the builders of the ruins are concerned, we are dealing with a people who had had their day at the time of the conquest, and the meaning of the scenes sculptured on the monuments must be inferred from the religious practices of a people who, though no doubt ethnically and culturally their descendants, had been exposed to influences emanating from Mexico, and had declined in civilization. The different sources of information, moreover, must be kept distinctly apart; such authorities as Landa and Cogolludo deal only with the Maya of Yucatan as they found them; the native traditions called the “Books of Chilan Balam” give a few mythical details relating to one Yucatec tribe, and that not the earliest of the Maya immigrants; while other native chroniclers, the Popol Vuh and Annals of Xahila, relate to the Quiché and Kakchiquel respectively, also comparatively late immigrants, who had fallen under Mexican influence. The native codices give a large number of portraits of beings which, it is safe to conclude, were gods, and these, especially the manuscript known as Troano-Cortesianus, constitute a most important link between the early Maya sculptures and the accounts of the Yucatec by Landa and Cogolludo; but the identification of the different deities is to a large extent a conjectural matter, impossible of short treatment since it involves the production of much detailed evidence. The following account does not pretend to be more than the result of a careful consideration of most of the sources, and for the evidence itself the reader must be referred elsewhere. It cannot be denied that many of the conclusions here set forth are controversial, but it may be claimed that there do exist in all cases certain definite points of evidence in their favour. Mayan religion shows a close fundamental similarity to that of the Mexicans, so much so in fact that it is fair to argue from what we know of the latter to the former, always with proper precautions. Care is necessary, since the migration legends of the Quiché, Kakchiquel and books of Chilan Balam all mention Tulan as a resting-place or starting-point, and there is always the possibility that the myths contained in them may have been influenced by “Toltec” beliefs. I hope to show later, however, that the basis of the Toltec culture was in fact Mayan, and I therefore think it fair to claim that many, though certainly not all, of the similarities between the two religions are due to a common Mayan element. This is especially true of what we are able to conjecture concerning the beliefs of the builders of the ruins in Honduras, Guatemala and Chiapas.

As among the Mexicans, tribal gods, under whose leadership migrations took place, are found also among the Maya. In Yucatan we hear of a god Itzamna, supposed to have come from the east, whose attributes are much the same as those of Tonacatecutli. Connected with the sites of Chichen Itza and Mayapan was the god Kukulkan, of whose name “Quetzalcoatl” is a literal translation, and who was supposed to have come from the west. The god of the Quiché was Tohil, and he was in particular the deity of the Cavek tribe and a thunder-god, while the other principal divisions of the Quiché, the Nihaib and Ahau-Quiché, were under the leadership of Avilix and Hacavitz respectively. A fourth tribal division worshipped a god Nicatayah, but just as the ultimate prosperity of the Aztec raised their deity Uitzilopochtli to a predominating position in the pantheon, so the extinction of this Quiché division resulted in the extinction also of its god. Tohil is in one place definitely identified with Quetzalcoatl, under the name Yolcual Quetzalcuat (i.e. Yoalli Eecatl Quetzalcoatl). The god of the Rabinal was Huntoh, who is probably identical with Tohil. The god of the Kakchiquel was a divinity in bat-form, called Zotziha Chimalcan, and was a deity associated by the Quiché with the underworld, Xibalba. Gods especially associated with certain localities were, Kukulkan with Mayapan and, later, Mani, Ahchun Caan with Tihoo, Ahulneb with Cozumel, Kinich Ahau with Campeche, and Itzamatul (perhaps a form of Itzamna) with Itzamal. The Tzental of Chiapas and Tabasco venerated a culture-hero Votan. But in actual cult, at any rate as far as the Yucatec were concerned, the agricultural divinities were of primary importance. As in Mexico, the god of agriculture and rain was also the thunder-god; in Yucatan he was called Chac, and was assisted in the performance of his functions by a number of subsidiary Chac, just as Tlaloc by the Tlaloque. Another fertility-god was Ah Bolon Tzacab, who, in one creation myth, is represented as taking the seeds of all cultivated plants with him to the thirteenth heaven, a story which recalls the theft of maize by Tlaloc (p. 48). Other patrons of agriculture were the so-called Bacab, the four deities placed by the creator to support the heavens. Their names were Hobnil, Kanzicnal, Zaczini and Hozanek, and they are closely associated with the Chac, so closely in fact that I am inclined to think that they were actually four of the latter deities. Like the Mexican Tlaloc, the Chac were supposed to carry axes, the weapon of the thunder-god, and were closely associated with the snake which throughout America is the symbol of rain. They have been identified, I think beyond doubt, with the figure, called by Schellhas “God B,” of the manuscripts, a god who appears constantly on the monuments throughout the Maya region (Fig. [46, e]). Like Tlaloc he is shown with a long nose and tusks, the former of which on the buildings of Yucatan develops into a regular trunk. Seler identifies Ah Bolon Tzacab with the “God K” of Schellhas, a god with a foliated nose, who is closely associated with Chac, and appears nearly as often on the monuments (Fig. [46, b]). God K however bears a striking resemblance to the Zapotec funerary figures with their peculiar elongated mouth-masks, and also to the Mexican Eecatl, a form of Quetzalcoatl. I think therefore that he is more likely a god of wind, a deity who would necessarily be closely connected with the rain- and thunder-gods. But though he may be the Maya parallel of Quetzalcoatl in the form of Eecatl, I do not think that he is to be identified with Kukulkan. This statement may not seem to follow from what I have said before, but I hope to make it clear later. Among the Quiché we have Kanel (or Xkanel), Xcacau, and Xtoh as gods of fertility, and among the Kakchiquel, Kanel also. It is further to be noted that another name of Hobnil is Kanal Bacab. Hunting- and fishing-gods existed among the Yucatec, but nothing is known of them save their names; the hunting-deities were Akanum, Zuhuyzip, and Tabai, the fishing, Ahcitz, Ahkak Nexoi, Ahpua and Amalcum. As gods of the arts we have Itzamna, the supposed inventor of letters, Ixchebelyax, goddess of embroidery and painting, a Maya counterpart of Xochiquetzal, Ixazalvoh, goddess of weaving, Pizlimtec and Xochbitum, gods of singing (like Xochipilli and Macuilxochitl), and Htubhtum a god of gems. There appear to have been four war-deities, Hunpiktok, Ahchuykak, Citchac Coh, and Ahulneb, while the Tzental war-god was called Chinax. Hunpiktok, who had a temple at Itzamal, is identified with Tihax of the Quiché and Kakchiquel, the god of the stone knife, and both were probably sacrificial-deities also. One of these war-gods may be the God F of the manuscripts, who appears to bear a certain relation to the death-god and to sacrifice, and whose face-paint is not unlike that of the Aztec Xipe (Fig. [46, f]). Like the Mexicans the Maya possessed a god of travellers and traders, Ekchuah, who corresponds to the Mexican Yacatecutli, though he does not seem to have been honoured with so elaborate a cult. Gods of medicine (closely allied with magic) were Itzamna, Citbolontum, Ahau Chamahez and a sun-god, Kinich Ahau, husband of Ixazalvoh. Kukulkan, according to one account, was the god of fevers, and with these deities was associated Ixchel, the goddess of childbirth, wife of Itzamna, whose image was placed under the bed of prospective mothers in order to secure an easy delivery. There was also a goddess Zuhuykak, said to be a deified mortal, who was the special protectress of children. The Quiché venerated a number of disease-gods, connected with whom were the two deities Xpiyakok and Xmukane, counterparts of the Mexican Oxomoco and Cipactonal, who, like the latter, were supposed to have assisted in the creation and were regarded as the prototypes of all magicians.

Fig. 46.—Maya gods with their name-glyphs.

(Dresden MS.)

Fig. 47.—Maya gods with their name-glyphs.