YUCATAN
I. THE MAYA
Native American civilization attained its apogee among the Maya.
This is not true in a political sense, for, though at the time of
the Conquest the Maya remembered a past political greatness, there
is no reason to believe that it had ever been, either in power or in
organization, a rival of such states as the Aztec and Inca. The Mayan
cities had been confederate in their unions rather than national,
aristocratic in their governments rather than monarchic; and in their
greatest unity the power of their strongest rulers, the lords of
Mayapan, appears to have been that of feudal suzerains, or at best
of insecure tyrants. Politically the Mayan cities present somewhat
the aspect of the loose-leaguing Hellenic states, and it is not
without probability that in each case the looseness of the political
organization was directly conducive to the intense civic pride which
undoubtedly in each case fostered an extraordinary development of the
arts. For in all the more intellectual tokens of culture--in art,
in mathematics, in writing, and in historical records--the Mayan
peoples surpassed all other native Americans, leaving in the ruins
of their cities and in the profusion of their sculptured monuments
such evidences of genius as only the most famous centres of Old-World
antiquity can rival.
The territories of the Mayan stock are singularly compact.[71] They
occupied--and their descendants now occupy--the Peninsula of Yucatan,
the valley of the Usumacinta, and the cordillera rising westerly and
sinking to the Pacific. The Rio Motagua, emptying into the Gulf of
Honduras, and the Rio Grijalva, debouching into the Bay of Campeche,
form respectively their south-eastern and western borders excepting
for the fact that on the eastern coasts of Mexico, facing the Gulf of
Campeche, the Huastec (and perhaps their Totonac neighbours) represent
a Mayan kindred. Between this western branch and the great Mayan centre
of Yucatan the coast was occupied by intrusive Nahuatlan tribes,
landward from whom lay the territories of the Zoquean and Zapotecan
stocks, the western neighbours of the Mayan peoples.
The culture of the Maya is distinctly related, either as parent or as
branch, to the civilizations of Mexico.[72] Affinities of Haustec and
Maya works of art indicate that the ancestors of the two branches were
not separated previous to a considerable progress in civilization;
while, in a broader way, the cultures of the Nahuatlan, Zapotecan, and
Mayan peoples have common elements of art, ritual, myth, and, above
all, of mathematical and calendric systems which mark them as sprung
from a common source. The Zapotec, situated between the Nahuatlan and
Mayan centres, show an intermediate art and science, whose elements
clearly unite the two extremes; while the appearance of place-names,
such as Nonoual and Tulan, or Tollan, in both Maya and Nahua tradition
imply at least a remote geographical community. The Nahuatlan tribes,
if we may believe their own account, were comparatively recent comers
into the realm of a civilization long anteceding them, and one
which they, as barbarians, adopted; the Maya (at least, mythically)
remembered the day of their coming into Yucatan. On the basis of these
two facts and the undoubted community of culture of the two races, it
has been not implausibly reasoned that the Toltec of Nahua tradition
were in fact the ancestors of the Maya, who, abandoning their original
home in Mexico, made their way to the peninsula, there to perfect their
civilization; and the common association of Quetzalcoatl ("Kukulcan"
in Maya) with the migration-legends adds strength to this theory.
Nevertheless, tradition points to the high antiquity of the southern
rather than of the Mexican centres of civilization; and as the facts
seem to be well explained by the assumption of a northern extension
of Mayan culture in the Toltec or pre-Toltec age, followed by its
recession in the period of its decline in the south, this may be taken
as the more acceptable theory in the light of present knowledge.
According to this view, the Nahua should be regarded as the late
inheritors of an older civilization which they had gradually pushed
back upon its place of origin and which, indeed, they were threatening
still further at the time of the Conquest, for even then Nahuatlan
tribes had forced themselves among and beyond the declining Maya.
When the Spaniards reached Yucatan, its civilization was already
decadent. The greater cities had been abandoned and were falling
into decay, while the country was anarchical with local enmities.
The past greatness of Mayapan and Chichen Itza was remembered; but
rather, as Bishop Landa's account shows,[73] for the intensification
of the jealousies of those who boasted great descent than as models
for emulation. Three brothers from the east--so runs the Bishop's
narrative--had founded Chichen Itza, living honourably until one of
them died, when dissensions arose, and the two surviving brothers were
assassinated. Either before this event, or immediately afterward, there
arrived from the west a great prince named Cuculcan who, "after his
departure, was regarded in Mexico as a god and was called Cezalcouati;
and he was venerated as a divinity in Yucatan also because of his
zeal for the public good." He quieted the dissensions of the people
and founded the city of Mayapan, where he built a round temple, with
four entrances opening to the four quarters, "entirely different from
all those that are in Yucatan"; and after ruling in Mayapan for seven
years he returned to Mexico, leaving peace and amity behind him. The
family of the Cocomes succeeded to the rule, and shortly afterward
came Tutul-Xiu and his followers, who had been wandering in the
interior for forty years. These formed an alliance with Mayapan;
but eventually the Cocomes, by introducing Mexican mercenaries (who
brought the bow, previously unknown there) were able to tyrannize over
the people. Under the leadership of the Xius, rising in revolt, the
Cocomes were overthrown, only one son out of the royal house escaping;
and Mayapan, after five centuries of power, was abandoned. The single
Cocom who escaped gathered his followers and founded Tibulon calling
his province Zututa, while the Mexican mercenaries settled at Canul.
Achchel, a noble who had married the daughter of the Ahkin-Mai, chief
priest of Mayapan and keeper of the mysteries, founded the kingdom of
the Cheles on the coast; and the Xius held the inlands. "Between these
three great princely houses of the Cocomes, Xivis, and Cheles there
were constant struggles and cruel hatreds, and these endure even now
that they have become Christians. The Cocomes say to the Xivis that
they assassinated their sovereign and stole his domains; the Xivis
reply that they are neither less noble nor less ancient and royal than
the others, and that far from being traitors, they were the liberators
of the country in slaying a tyrant. The Cheles, in turn, claim to be as
noble as any, since they are descended from the most venerated priest
of Mayapan. On another side, they mutually reviled each other in the
matter of food, since the Cheles, dwelling on the coast, would not give
fish or salt to the Cocomes, obliging them to send far for these, while
the Cocomes would not permit the Cheles the game and fruits of their
territory."
[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.]
Temple 3, ruins of Tikal. After _Memoirs of the Peabody Museum_, Vol.
V, Plate II.
Such is the picture which Bishop Landa gives of the conditions in the
north of the peninsula at the time of the Conquest, about a century
after the fall of Mayapan; and native records and archaeology alike
sustain its general truth.[74] At Chichen Itza the so-called Ball
Court is regarded as Mexican in inspiration, while in the same city
exist the ruins of a round temple similar to those which tradition
ascribes to Kukulcan, different in character from the normal Mayan
types. Reliefs representing warriors in Mexican garb also point to
Nahuatlan incursions, which may in fact have been the occasion for the
dissolution of the Mayan league of the cities of the north--Chichen
Itza, Uxmal, and Mayapan--in the _Books of Chilam Balam_ represented as
powerful in the day of the great among the Maya of Yucatan.
These "Books" are historical chronicles written after the Conquest
by members of native families--chiefly the Tutul-Xiu--and from
them, as key events of Yucatec history, a few events stand forth so
conspicuously that possible dates can be assigned to them. "This is
the arrangement of the _katuns_ [periods of 7200 days] since the
departure was made from the land, from the house of Nonoual, where
were the four Tutul-Xiu, from Zuiva in the west; they came from the
land of Tulapan, having formed a league."[75] So begins one of the
chronicles, indicating a remote migration of the Xiu family from the
west--an event which Spinden and Joyce place near 160 A. D.[76] The
next event recorded is a stay, eighty years later, at Chacnouiton (or
Chacnabiton), where a sojourn of ninety-nine years is recorded; and
thence the migration was renewed, Bakhalal, near the Gulf of Honduras,
being occupied for some sixty years. Here it was that the wanderers
"learned of," or discovered, Chichen Itza, and hither the people
removed about the middle of the fifth century, only to abandon it
after a century or more in order to occupy Chacanputun, on the Bay of
Campeche. Two hundred and sixty years later this seat was lost, and
the Itza returned, about the year 970 A. D., to Chichen Itza, while a
member of the Tutul-Xiu founded Uxmal, these two cities joining with
Mayapan to form the triple league which, for more than two centuries,
was to bring peace and prosperity and the climax of its civilization
to northern Yucatan. This happy condition was ended by "the treachery
of Hunac Ceel," who introduced foreign warriors (Mexicans, as their
names indicate) into Chichen Itza, overthrew its ruler, Chac Xib Chac,
and caused a state of anarchy. For a brief period power centred in
Mayapan, which ruled with something like order, until "by the revolt
of the Itza" it also lost its position and was finally depopulated in
1442, this disaster being closely followed by plagues, wars, and a
terrific storm, accompanied by inundation, all of which carried the
destruction forward.
This reconstruction of northern Yucatec history, however, gives no clue
to the origin or life of the cities of the south--Palenque, Piedras
Negras, and Yaxchilan in the lower central valley of the Usumacintla;
Seibal on its upper reaches, not far from Lake Peten, near which are
the ruins of Tikal and Naranjo; while, south-east of these, Copan,
on the river of the same name, and Quirigua mark the boundaries of
Mayan power toward Central America. These cities had been long in
ruins at the time of the Conquest; their builders were forgotten, and
their sites were hardly known; nor do the sparse traditions which
have survived in the south--the Cakchiquel _Annals_ and the _Popul
Vuh_--throw light upon them. Were it not for the ingenuity of scholars,
who have deciphered the numeral and dating system of their many
monuments, their period would have remained but vague surmise; nor
would this have sufficed without the aid of the Tutul-Xiu chronicles
to bring the readings within the range of our own chronological
system. The problem is by no means a simple one, even when the dates
on the monuments have been read; for the southern centres employed
a system--the "long count," as it is called--of which only a single
monumental specimen, a lintel at Chichen Itza, has been discovered in
the north. Nevertheless, with the aid of this inscription, and with
the probable identification of its date in the light of the _Books of
Chilam Balam_, scholars have arrived at something like consensus as to
the period of the southern floruit of Mayan culture. This falls within
the ninth Maya cycle (160 A. D. to 554 A. D., on Spinden's reckoning),
for it is a remarkable fact that practically all the monuments of the
south are of this cycle; and as the archaeological evidence indicates
an occupancy of nearly two centuries for several of the cities, it
is clear that the southern civilization, like the northern of a later
day, was marked by the contemporaneous rise of several great centres.
Morley[77] suggests that the south may even have been held by a
league of three cities, as was later the case in the north, Palenque
dominating the west, Tikal the centre and north, and Copan the south
and east. Two archaic inscriptions--on the Tuxtla Statuette and the
Leiden Plate, as the relics are called--bear dates of the eighth cycle,
the earlier falling a century or more before the beginning of our era;
and these, no doubt, imply a nascent civilization which was to reach
the height of its power in the fifth century, when the cities of the
south produced those masterpieces of sculpture which mark the climax of
an American aboriginal art, which was to disappear, a century later,
leaving scarcely a memory in the land of its origin.
As restored by Morley,[78] the history of Mayan civilization falls
into two periods of imperial development, each subdivided into several
epochs. The older, or parent empire is that of the south; the later,
formed by colonization begun while the old civilization was still
flourishing, is that of the peninsula. Morley's scheme is as follows:
OLD EMPIRE
I. Archaic Period Earliest times ... c. 360 A. D.
II. Middle Period c. 360 A. D. ... c. 460 A. D.
III. Great Period c. 460 A. D. ... c. 600 A. D.
NEW EMPIRE
IV. Colonization Period c. 420 A. D. ... c. 620 A. D.
V. Transitional Period c. 620 A. D. ... c. 980 A. D.
VI. Renaissance Period c. 980 A. D. ... c. 1190 A. D.
VII. Toltec Period c. 1190 A. D. ... c. 1450 A. D.
VIII. Final Period c. 1450 A. D. ... c. 1537 A. D.
[Illustration: PLATE XIX.]
Map of Yucatan, showing sites of ancient cities. After Morley, _BBE
57_, Plate I.
Each of the earlier periods is marked by the appearance of new sites
and the foundation of new cities as well as by advance in the
arts; and as a whole the Old Empire is marked by the high development
of its sculpture and the use of the more complete mode of reckoning,
while in the cities of the New Empire architecture attains to its
highest development.
Such are the more plausible theories of Mayan culture history, although
there are others (those of Brasseur de Bourbourg, for example) which
would place the age of Mayan greatness earlier by many centuries.
II. VOTAN, ZAMNA, AND KUKULCAN
From their remote beginnings, as with other peoples whose traditions
lead back to an age of migrations, the Mayan tribes remembered culture
heroes, tutors in the arts as well as founders of empire, priests as
well as kings, who may have been historic,[79] but who in origin were
probably gods rather than men--gods whom time had confused with the
persons of their priestly or royal worshippers, and in whose deeds
cosmic and historic events were distortedly intermingled. Tales of
three such heroes hold a central place in Mayan mythology: Votan, the
hero of Tzental legend, whose name is associated with Palenque and the
tradition of a great "Votanic Empire" of times long past; Zamna, or
Itzamna, a Yucatec hero; and Kukulcan, known to the Quiché as Gucumatz,
who is the Mayan equivalent of Quetzalcoatl. All three of these
hero-deities are reputed to have come from afar--strange in costume and
in custom,--to have been the inventors or teachers of writing, and to
have founded new cults.
The Tzental legend of Votan,[80] describing him as having appeared
from across the sea, declares that when he reached Laguna de Términos
he named the country "the Land of Birds and Game" because of the
abundant life of the region; and thence the Votanides ascended the
Usumacinta valley, ultimately founding their capital at Palenque, whose
older and perhaps original name was Nachan, or "House of Snakes."
Shortly afterward, no less astonishing to the Votanides than had been
their own apparition to the rude aboriginal, came other boatloads of
long-robed strangers, the first Nahuatlans; but these were peaceably
amalgamated into the new empire. Votan ruled many years, and, among
other works, composed a narrative of the origin of the Indian nations,
of which Ordoñez y Aguiar gives a summary. The chief argument of the
work, he says, aims to show that Votan was descended from Imos (one
of the genii, or guardians, of the days), that he was of the race of
Chan, the Serpent, and that he took his origin from Chivim. Being the
first man whom God had sent to this region, which we call America,
to people and divide the lands, he made known the route which he
had followed, and after he had established his seat, he made divers
journeys to Valum-Chivim. These were four in number: in the first he
related that having departed from Valum-Votan, he set out toward the
House of Thirteen Serpents and then went to Valum-Chivim, whence he
passed by the city where he beheld the House of God being built. He
next visited the ruins of the ancient edifice which men had erected at
the command of their common ancestor in order to climb to the sky; and
he declared that those with whom he there conversed assured him that
that was the place where God had given to each tribe its own particular
tongue. He affirmed that on his return from the House of God he went
forth a second time to examine all the subterranean regions which he
had passed, and the signs to be found there, adding that he was made
to traverse a subterranean road which, leading beneath the Earth and
terminating at the roots of the Sky, was none other than the hole of a
snake; and this he entered because he was "the Son of the Serpent."
Ordoñez would like to see in this legend (which he has obviously
accommodated to his desire) a record of historical wanderings in and
from Old World lands and out of Biblical times. Yet the narrative,
even in its garbled form, is clearly a cosmologic myth--at the least a
tale of the sun's journey, and probably this tale set in the general
context of Ages of the World (the four journeys of Votan?) analogous
to those of Nahuatlan myth and of the _Popul Vuh_. When it is added
that Votan was known by the epithet "Heart of the People," that his
successor was called Canam-Lum ("Serpent of the Earth"), and that
both of these were venerated as gods at the time of the Conquest,
no word need be added to emphasize the naturalistic character of
the myth; although there may be truth in a legend of Votanides, or
Votan-worshippers, as founders of Palenque and possibly as institutors
of Mayan civilization.
Zamna (Itzamna, Yzamna, "House of the Dews," or "Lap of the Dews")[81]
was the reputed bringer of civilization into the peninsula and the
traditional founder of Mayapan, which he was said to have made a
centre of feudal rule. Like Votan he was supposed to have been the
first to name the localities of the land, to have invented writing,
and to have instructed the barbarous aborigines in the arts. "With the
populations which came from the East," Cogolludo writes, "was a man,
called Zamna, who was as their priest, and who, they say, was the one
who gave the names by which they now distinguish, in their language,
all the seaports, hills, estuaries, coasts, mountains, and other parts
of the country, which assuredly is an admirable thing if he thus made a
division of every part of the land, of which scarcely an inch has not
its proper appellation in their tongue." After having lived to a great
age, Zamna is said to have been buried at Izamal, where his tomb-temple
became a centre for pilgrimage. In fact, Izamal is but a modification
of a name of Itzamna, since its older form is Itzmatul, which means,
says the Abbé Brasseur, "He who asks or obtains the dew or the frost."
The ancients of Izamal, Lizana declares, possessed a renowned idol,
Ytzmatul, which "had no other name ... although it was said that he was
a powerful king in this region, to whom obedience was given as to the
son of the gods. When he was asked how he was named and how he should
be addressed, he answered only, _Ytzen caan, ytzen muyal,_ 'I am the
dew, the substance, of the sky and clouds.'"
All this is plain euhemerism, for Itzamna was a deity of rain and
fertility; Yucatan, it is said, was without moisture when he came to
it; he rose from the sea; and his temples and his tomb were by the
seaside. His festival, according to Landa, fell in Mac (March), when
he was worshipped in company with the gods of abundance. He caused the
dead to rise and cured the sick; while in his honour a temple was built
with four doors leading to the four extremities of the country, as far
as Guatemala, Tabasco, and Chiapas, this shrine being called Kab-ul,
or "the Potent Hand,"--a striking image of the sky-deity reaching down
from heaven, of which there are analogues in Egypt and Peru. Both Landa
and Lizana state that he was the son of Hunab-Ku ("the Holy One"), "the
one living and true God, who, they said, is the greatest of the gods,
and who cannot be figured or represented because he is incorporeal....
From him everything proceeds,... and he has a son whom they name Hun
Ytzamna." All this indicates a deity of the descending rains and dews,
son of Father Heaven, and, through his association with the East, giver
of life, light, and knowledge. Students of the codices believe that
he is represented by "God D"--the aged divinity with the Roman nose
and toothless mouth, associated (as is Tlaloc) with the double-headed
serpent, which is clearly a sky-symbol. Perhaps, as Seler suggests, he
is the "Grandfather Above," the Lord of life, analogous to the Mexican
Tonacatecutli.[82]
As has been indicated, the worship of Kukulcan,[83] to whom tradition
ascribed the latest appearance of the three culture heroes, was
especially associated with Chichen Itza and Mayapan, and perhaps
with Nahua immigrations. His name, like that of the Quiché demiurge
Gucumatz, means "Plumed Serpent" and is a precise equivalent of
"Quetzalcoatl"--the first element referring directly to the long
and iridescent plumes of the quetzal. The frequency of bird-serpent
symbols in Maya art, regarded as emblematic of this deity, as well as
images, both in the codices and on the monuments, of the long-nosed
god himself, indicate a deep-seated and fervent worship, so that it
may indeed be an open question as to whether Kukulcan is the pattern
or the copy of Quetzalcoatl, with the probabilities favoring the Maya
source. Certainly it is significant that, as Tozzer tells us, his name
still survives among the Yucatec Maya, while to the Lacandones he is
a many-headed snake which dwells with the great father, Nohochakyum:
"this snake is killed and eaten only at the time of great national
peril, as during an eclipse of the moon and especially that of the sun."
The importance of Kukulcan in the peninsula is indicated by Landa's
description of his festival, which occurred on the sixteenth day of
Xul (October 24). Upon Kukulcan's departure, says Landa (who clearly
regarded the god as an historical personage), there were some Indians
who believed that he had ascended into heaven, and regarding him as
a god, they built temples in his honour. After the destruction of
Mayapan, however, his feasts were kept only in the province of Mani,
"but the other districts, turn by turn, in recognition of what was due
to Kukulcan, presented each year at Mani sometimes four, sometimes
five, magnificent feather banners with which they celebrated the
_fête_." This festival was observed in the following manner: After
fasts and abstinences, the lords and priests of Mani assembled before
the multitude; and on the evening of the festal day, together with a
great number of mummers, they issued from the palace of the prince,
proceeding slowly to the temple of Kukulcan, which had been properly
adorned. When they had reached it and had prayed, they erected their
banners, setting forth their idols on a carpet of leafage; and having
lighted a new fire, they burned incense in many places, making
oblations of meat cooked without seasoning and of drink made from beans
and the seeds of gourds. The lords and all who had observed the fast
remained there five days and five nights, praying, burning copal, and
performing sacred dances, during which period the mummers went from
the house of one noble to that of another, performing their acts and
receiving the gifts offered them. At the end of five days they carried
their donations to the temple, where they shared all with the lords,
the singers, the priests, and the dancers; and after this the banners
and idols (doubtless household gods) were taken again to the palace of
the prince, whence each returned to his own house. "They say and hold
for certain that Kukulcan descended from the sky the last day of the
feast and personally received the sacrifices, the penitences, and the
offerings made in his honour."
III. YUCATEC DEITIES
For the names of the Maya gods we are mainly indebted to sparse
notices in the works of Landa and Lizana, who, in obliterating native
writings, destroyed far more than they preserved. Landa[84] gives a
general picture of the aboriginal religion, indicating a ritual not
less elaborate than the Mexican, though with far less human bloodshed.
"They had," he says, "a great number of idols and of sumptuous temples.
Besides the ordinary shrines, princes, priests, and chief men had
oratories with household idols, where they made special prayers and
offerings. They had as much devotion for Cozumel and the wells of the
Chichen Itza as we for pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem; and they went
to visit them and make offerings as we go to holy places.... They had
such a number of idols that their gods did not suffice them; for there
was not an animal nor a reptile of which they did not make images, and
they formed them also in the likeness of their gods and goddesses. They
had some idols of stone, but in small number, and others, of lesser
size, of wood, though not so many as of earthenware. The idols in wood
were esteemed to such a degree as to be counted for inheritances, and
in them they had the greatest confidence. They were not at all ignorant
that their idols were only the work of their own hands, dead
things and without divinity, but they venerated them for the sake of
what they represented and because of the rites with which they had
consecrated them."
[Illustration: PLATE XX. (_A_).]
Tablet of the Foliated Cross, Palenque. This cross, like that shown in
Plate XX (_B_), rests upon a monstrous head, doubtless representing
the Underworld, and is surmounted by the quetzal, the symbol of rain
and vegetation. It is possible that the greater of the two human
figures represents a deity, the lesser a priest, or that both are
divinities as in the analogous figures of the codices (cf. Plate IX,
upper figure). After drawing in Maudsley [c], Vol. IV.
[Illustration: PLATE XX (_B_).]
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.
[Illustration: 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_.
In the fifth heaven above dwell the protecting spirits of the fields
and the forests; in the fourth the protectors of animals; in the third
the spirits ill-disposed toward men; in the second the lords of the
four winds; while in the first above the earth reside the Yumbalamob,
for the special protection of Christians. These latter are invisible
during the day, but at night they sit beside the crosses reared at
the entrances of the pueblos, one for each of the cardinal points,
protecting the villagers from the dangers of the forest. With obsidian
knives they cut through the wind, and make sounds by which they signal
to their comrades stationed at other entrances to the town. Truly, this
description answers astonishingly to the Aztec lord of the crossroads,
Tezcatlipoca.
Below the earth is Kisin, the earthquake, the evil one, who resents the
chill rains sent down by the Yumchakob, and raises a wind to clear the
sky. The spirits of suicides dwell here also, and all souls excepting
those of war-slain men and women dead of child-birth (which go directly
to heaven) are doomed for a time to this underworld realm.
Other diminished deities are Ahkinshok, the owner of the days; the
guardians of the bees; the spirit of new fire; Ahkushtal, of birth;
Ahmakiq, who locks up the crop-destroying winds; patrons of medicine;
and a crowd of workers of ill to men, among them the Shtabai,
serpentiform demons who issue from their cavernous abodes and in female
form snare men to ruin. Paqok, on the other hand, wanders abroad at
night and attacks women. The Yoyolche are also night-walkers; their
step is half a league, and they shake the house as they pass.
Tozzer makes the interesting observation that in many cases, where
among the Maya is found a class of spirits, the purely heathen
Lacandones recognize a single god. Thus, to the Nukuchyumchakob of the
Maya corresponds the Lacandone Nohochakyum, who is the Great Father
and chief god of their religion, having as his servants the spirits
of the east, the constellations, and the thunder. At the end of the
world he will wear around his body the serpent Hapikern, who will draw
people to him by his breath and slay them. Nohochakyum is one of four
brothers, apparently lords of the four quarters. As is usual in such
groups, he of the east is pre-eminent. Usukun, one of the brothers, is
a cave-dweller, having the earthquake for his servant; he is regarded
with dread, and his image is set apart from the other gods. There
are a number of other gods and goddesses of the Lacandones, several
of which are clearly identifiable as the same as the Maya deities
described by Landa and other early writers. As a whole, the pantheon
is a humane one; it lacks that quality of terror which makes hideous
the congregation of the Aztec deities. Most of the gods, Maya and
Lacandone, are kindly-disposed toward men, and doubtless it was this
kindliness reflected back which kept the Maya altars relatively free of
human blood.
IV. RITES AND SYMBOLS
No region in America appears to have furnished so many or such striking
analogies to Christian ritual and symbolism as did the Mayan. It
was here, on the island of Cozumel, that the cross was an object of
veneration even at the first coming of the Spaniard; and when the
rites of the natives were studied by the missionaries, they were
found to include many that seemed to be Christian in inspiration.
Bishop Landa[89] describes at length the Yucatec baptism, which was
designated by a name equivalent, he says, to _renascor_--"for in the
Yucatec tongue _zihil_ means to be reborn"--and which was celebrated
in a complex festival, godfather and all. The name of the rite was
Em-Ku, or "Descent of God"; and, he adds, "They believe that they
receive therefrom a disposition inclined to good conduct and that it
guarantees them from all temptations of the devil with respect to
temporal things, while by means of this rite and a good life they hope
to secure salvation." Sacraments of various sorts, confession of sins,
penitence, penance, and pilgrimages to holy shrines were other ritual
similarities with Catholic Christianity which could not fail to be
impressive and which actually furthered the change of religion with a
minimum of friction.
Along with these analogies of ritual there were likenesses of belief:
traditions of a deluge, a confusion of tongues, and a dispersion of
peoples, as well as reminiscences of legendary teachers of the arts of
life and of the truths of religion in which it was not difficult for
the eye of faith to discern the missionary labours of Saint Thomas. Las
Casas,[90] quoting a certain cleric, Padre Francisco Hernández, tells
of a Yucatec trinity: one of their old men, when asked as to their
ancient religion, said that "they recognized and believed in God who
dwells in heaven, and that this God was Father and Son and Holy Spirit,
and that the Father was called Içona, who had created men and all
things, that the Son was named Bacab, and that he was born of a virgin
called Chibirias, who is in heaven with God; the Holy Spirit they
termed Echuac." The son, Bacab, it is added, being scourged and crowned
with thorns by one Eopuco, was tied upon a cross with extended arms,
where he died; but after three days he arose and ascended into heaven
to be with his father. The name Echuac signifies "merchant"; "and good
merchandise the Holy Spirit bore to this world, for He filled the earth
with gifts and graces so divine and so abundant."
The honesty of this account is no less evident than its distortion,
which may have been due as much to the confused reminiscences of the
old Indian as to the imaginative expectancy of the Spanish recorder.
Bacab and Ekchuah are mentioned by Landa and others, and Las Casas also
states that the mother of Chibirias was named Hischen (_que nosotros
decimos haber sido Sant' Ana_), who must surely be the goddess Ixchel,
goddess of fecundity, invoked at child-birth. The association of the
Bacabs (for there are four of them) with the cross and with heaven is
also intelligible, since the Bacabs are genii of the Quarters, where
they upheld the skies and guarded the waters, which were symbolized in
rites by water-jars with animal or human heads. They are, no doubt,
in the Maya region as in Mexico, represented by caryatid and cruciform
figures, of which, we may suppose, the celebrated Tablet of the Cross
and Tablet of the Foliate Cross at Palenque are examples.
[Illustration: PLATE XXI.]
Stone Lintel from Menché, Chiapas, representing a Maya priest
asperging a penitent who is drawing a barbed cord through his tongue.
After photograph in the Peabody Museum.
The character of the Bacab is best indicated by Landa's[91] description
of the New Year festival celebrated for them; and he calls them "four
brothers whom God, when creating the world, had placed at its four
corners in order to uphold the heaven ... though some say that these
Bacabs were among those who were saved when the earth was destroyed
in the Deluge." In all the Yucatec cities there were, Landa states,
four entrances toward the four points, each marked by two huge stones
opposite one another; and each of the four successive years designated
by a different New Year's sign was introduced by rites performed at
the stones marking the entrance appropriate to the year. Thus Kan
years were devoted to the south. The omen of this year was called
Hobnil, and the festival began with the fabrication of a statue of
Kan-u-Uayeyab which was placed with the stones of the south, while a
second idol, called Bolon-Zacab, was erected at the principal entrance
of the chief's house. When the populace had assembled they proceeded,
along a path well-swept and adorned with greenery, to the gate of the
south, where priests and nobles, burning incense mingled with maize,
sacrificed a fowl. This done, they placed the statue upon a litter
of yellow wood, "and upon its shoulders an angel--horribly fashioned
and painted--as a sign of an abundance of water and of a good year to
come." Dancing, they conveyed the litter to the presence of the statue
of Bolon-Zacab at the chief's house, where further offerings were made
and a banquet was shared by such strangers as might be within the
gates. "Others drawing blood and scarifying their ears, anointed a
stone which was there, an idol named Kanal-Acantun; and they moulded
also a heart of bread-dough and another of gourd-seeds which they
presented to the idol Kan-u-Uayeyab. Thus they guarded this statue
and the other during the unlucky days, smoking them with incense and
with incense mingled with ground maize for they believed that if they
neglected these rites, they would be subject to the ills pertaining to
this year. When the unlucky days were past, they carried the image of
Bolon-Zacab to the temple, and the idol of the other to the eastern
gate of the town, that there they might begin the New Year; and
leaving it in this place, they returned home, each occupying himself
with the duties of the New Year." This was regarded as a year of good
augury; and similar rites were performed in connexion with each of the
other year-signs. Under Muluc the omen was called Canzienal and was
also regarded as good. It was the year of the east, and the gate was
marked by an idol named Chac-u-Uayeyab, while the deity presiding at
the chief's house was termed Kinich-Ahau, the meaning of which must
be "Lord of the Solar Eye" if Brasseur's interpretation be correct.
War-dances were a feature of the celebration, doubtless to _Sol
Invictus_; and offerings made in the form of yolks of eggs further
suggest solar symbolism; while it was believed that eye-disease or
injury would be the lot of anyone who neglected the rites. Ix years
were devoted to the north, with an omen called Zac-Ciui and regarded
as evil. The god of the quarter was named Zac-u-Uayeyab, and he of
the centre Yzamna, to whom were offered turkeys' heads, quails'
feet, etc. Cotton was the sole crop in which abundance was to be
expected, while ills of all sorts threatened. Darker still were the
prognostics of Hozanek, the omen of Cauac years, sacred to the west.
An image of Ek-u-Mayeyab was carried to the portals of the west, while
Uac-Mitun-Ahau presided in the central place; and on a green and black
litter the god of the gate was carried to the centre, having on his
shoulders a calabash and a dead man, with an ash-coloured bird of prey
above. "This they conveyed in a manner showing devotion mingled with
distress, performing dances which they called Xibalba-Okot, which
signifies 'dance of the demon.'" Pests of ants and devouring birds
were among the plagues expected; and among the rites by which they
sought to exorcise these evils was a night of bonfires, through the hot
coals of which they raced with bare feet, hoping thus to expiate the
threatened ills, all ending in an intoxication "demanded both by custom
and by the heat of the fire."
V. THE MAYA CYCLES[92]
It is probable that the Mexican calendar is remotely of Mayan origin,
especially as the fundamental features of the calendric system are
the same in the two regions; viz., first, the combination of the
_Tonalamatl_ of two hundred and sixty days with the year of three
hundred and sixty-five days in a "round" or "bundle," of fifty-two such
years; and second, the co-ordination of cyclic returns of calendric
symbols with the synodic periods of the planets, serving, along with
purely numerical counts, to distinguish and characterize the major
cycles. It is in this second feature that the Maya calendar is vastly
superior to the Mexican; forming, indeed, by far the most impressive
achievement of aboriginal America in the way of scientific conception.
The Mayan name for the period known to the Aztec as _Xiuhmolpilli_,
or "Bundle of the Years," is unknown; it is customarily designated
as the Calendar Round. In construction it is essentially the same as
the Mexican: the day, _kin_ (literally, "sun"), is combined in the
twenty-day period, or _uinal_ (probably related to _uinic_, "man,"
referring to the foundation of the vigesimal system in the full count
of fingers and toes); and thirteen of these periods are united in the
_Tonalamatl_ (the Maya name is unknown), which Goodman designates the
"Burner Period," believing it to be ceremonially related to incense
burning. As the combination of thirteen numerals with the twenty
day-signs causes the completion of their possible combinations in this
period, the series, as with the Mexicans, begins anew at the end of the
_Tonalamatl_; and is so continued, repeating indefinitely. The names
of the Maya days, corresponding to the twenty signs, are: Imix, Ik,
Akbal, Kan, Chicchan, Cimi, Manik, Lamat, Muluc, Oc, Chuen, Eb, Ben,
Ix, Men, Cib, Caban, Eznab, Cauac, and Ahau. Each of these day-signs
(and probably each of the thirteen numbers accompanying them) had
its divinatory significance; and it is quite certain, from Landa's
references alone, that divination formed a prominent use of calendric
codices.
The year, or _haab_, of the Maya, again like the Mexican, consisted of
eighteen _uinals_--Pop, Uo, Zip, Zotz, Tzec, Xul, Yaxkin, Mol, Chen,
Yax, Zac, Ceh, Mac, Kankin, Muan, Pax, Kayab, and Cumhu,--plus five
"nameless days," or Uayeb. This year of three hundred and sixty-five
days is, of course, a quarter of a day less than the true year, and
such astronomers as the Maya must have been could not have failed to
discover this fact. Bishop Landa states explicitly that they were
quite aware of it; but they did not, in all probability, resort to
any intercalation to correct the defect, for the whole genius of the
Mayan calendar consists in their unswerving maintenance of the count
of days. On the other hand, it is probable that the priests who made
the solar observations adjusted the seasonal feasts to the changing
dates as in the precisely similar custom of ancient Egypt, where each
ascending Pharaoh swore to preserve the civil year of three hundred and
sixty-five days without intercalation: the immense power and prestige
given to the priesthood by this custom is a sufficient reason for its
perpetuity. The fact that 20 (_uinal_) and 365 (_haab_) factor with 5
gives, again, the division of the _uinal_ days into groups of five,
each headed by one of the four--Ik, Manik, Eb, and Caban--which alone
could be New Year's days.
The names of the "month," or divisions of the year, like the names of
the _uinal_ days, were symbolized by hieroglyphs, and the days of the
month were numbered 0 to 19, since in their reckoning of time the Maya
always counted that which had elapsed. Thus every day had a double
designation: its position in the _Tonalamatl_, determined by day-sign
and day-number (1 ... 13), and its position in the _haab_, determined
by "month"-sign (_uinal_ or Uayeb) and day-number (0 ... 19), as, for
example, the date-name of the Maya Era, "4 Ahau 8 Cumhu." The possible
combinations of these elements is exhausted only in a cycle of 18,980
days, equal to 73 _Tonalamatls_ and to 52 _haabs_. This is the Calendar
Round, or cycle of date-names, which, like the other elements in the
Maya calendar, is endlessly repeated. It is probable that the Aztec had
no such precision in their dating system even within the Year-Bundle,
evidence for the employment of month-signs in computation of the
day-series being uncertain.
In yet another important respect the Maya were far in advance of the
Mexicans, for the latter had no adequate means of distinguishing dates
of the same name belonging to separate Year-Bundles, in consequence
of which their historic records are full of confusion; whereas the
Maya developed an elaborate method--still, curiously enough, a
day-count--parallel with the Calendar Round series, by which they were
able to record historic dates for immense periods. The system was
essentially mathematical and was based on their vigesimal notation, its
elements being as follows:
Kin 1 day
Uinal 20 days
Tun (18 Uinals) 360 days
Katun (20 Tuns) 7,200 days
Cycle (20 Katuns) 144,000 days
Great Cycle, either 13 Cycles 1,872,000 days
or 20 Cycles 2,880,000 days
In this series, it will be observed, the third day-group does not rise
from the second by vigesimal multiplication; and it is assumed that
it has been, as it were, psychologically deflected from the regular
ascending series by the attraction of the 18 _uinals_ of the natural
year in order to bring the _tun_ into some kind of conformity with
the _haab_. Beyond the _katun_, the native names for the cycles are
unknown, though their symbols have been determined.
The series of units of time thus composed is that employed by the
Maya of Yucatan, as recovered from the early Spanish records and the
codices. In this region the _katun_ was the historical unit of prime
significance, for both Landa and Cogolludo note the fact that at the
end of every _katun_ a graven stone was erected or laid in the walls
of an edifice to record the event. Study of the sculptured stelae of
the capitals and cities of the Old Empire of the south has convinced
archaeologists that these stelae are similarly, in great part,
monuments erected not primarily to honor men or commemorate events
but to mark the passage of time. The units, however, as recorded from
readings of the dates, are not primarily _katuns_ (of 7200 days), but
halves and quarters of the _katun_. Morley,[93] to whom belongs credit
of the demonstration of the system, gives to these lesser periods
the names _hotun_ ("five _tuns_," or 1800 days) and _lahuntun_ ("ten
_tuns_," or 3600 days). The amazing monumental wealth, therefore, of
the old Maya cities turns out to be chiefly due to the importance
which the Maya peoples attached to the idea of time itself and to the
recording of its passage.
Such an idea could only have reference to religious or
mythico-religious beliefs, of the nature of which something is to be
inferred from the monumental and codical indications of the cycles and
the Great Cycle which entered into Maya computations. The cycle is
clearly a conception induced by the necessities of vigesimal notation,
with, no doubt, mythic associations suggested by its pictographic
notation; it is a period of twenty _katuns_, just as the _katun_
is twenty _tuns_. But the duration of the Great Cycle is matter of
dispute. Bowditch and Goodman, basing their judgment on the fact
that the cycles in the inscriptions are numbered 1 ... 13, and again
upon the fact that the two known starting-points, or eras, of Maya
monumental chronology are just thirteen cycles apart, regard the Great
Cycle as composed of thirteen cycles; Morley, chiefly from evidence
in the codices, believes that it was composed of twenty cycles. It is
possible, of course, that the conception of the Great Cycle changed
from the time of the Old Empire to that of the New, perhaps influenced
by the change in the period of erecting monumental records; but in any
case the immense numbers of days embraced in the Maya reckonings excite
our wonder. Such calculations could have been made possible only by
the use of a highly developed arithmetical system, and this the Maya
possessed; for they had developed a positional notation, employing a
sign for zero, a system of dots and bars for the integers 1 ... 19,
while the conception of positive and negative was achieved through the
use of these elements recorded vertically--units above zero, twenties
above the units, _tuns_ in the third position upward, and so on. The
_tun_ (= 360) is an obvious calendric number, and this makes clear that
the Maya certainly developed the higher possibilities of their mode of
computation in connexion with the needs of their reckoning of time. The
perfection of their achievement is indicated by the fact that through
its use they were enabled to distinguish any date within the range of a
Great Cycle from any other, thus creating a numbered time-scheme which
in our own system would be measured by millenia.
To complete its historical value only one element need be added, the
selection of an era from which to reckon dates. Two such eras are
known, one bearing the name 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, and the other (found in
only two inscriptions) that of 4 Ahau 8 Zotz, this falling thirteen
cycles earlier than the other. The former, from which nearly all the
monumental inscriptions are reckoned, is some three thousand years
anterior to the period of the inscriptions themselves and probably,
therefore, refers to an event in the third millennium B. C., assuming
that the monuments belong to the first thousand years of our era. It
is altogether unlikely that a date so remote can represent any but a
mythical event, such, we may suppose, as the end of a preceding "Sun,"
or Age of the World, and the beginning of that in which we live; for
the Maya, like the Nahua, possessed the myth of ages of this type.
Cogolludo mentions two of these ages as terminated by annihilation
of the human race through epidemic, and a third as ended by storm
and flood; while Landa's account of the calamities following the
destruction of Mayapan seems clearly to be intermingled with a myth of
world catastrophes. The _Popul Vuh_ shows that the character of the
Quiché legend was not essentially unlike that of the Aztec, who may,
indeed, have received from the Maya their cosmogony along with their
calendric system, of which it is doubtless in some degree a product.
Astronomical data must have entered into the calculation of these great
epochs. Förstemann and other students have discovered in the codices,
particularly in the Dresden Codex, evidences of the reckoning of the
period not only of Venus (five hundred and eighty-four days), but
also of lunar revolutions, of the period of Mars (seven hundred and
eighty days), and possibly of the cycles Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury
as well. Such periods, for astrological and divinatory purposes,
were recorded in the books of the priests; and, as elsewhere in the
world, the synodic revolutions of the planets, and the recurrences of
their stations with respect to the day-signs, gave the material for
the formation of huge cycles of time which their mathematical system
enabled them to compute. Thus it is that Förstemann finds near the
end of the Dresden Codex vast numbers--designated as "Serpent Numbers"
because of the occurrence of the serpent-symbol in connexion with
them--which correspond to such cyclic recombinations of signs and
events.
"In the so-called 'serpent numbers,'" writes Morley,[94] "a grand total
of nearly twelve and a half million days (about thirty-four thousand
years) is recorded again and again. In these well-nigh inconceivable
periods all the smaller units may be regarded as coming at last to a
more or less exact close. What matter a few score years one way or
the other in this virtual eternity? Finally, on the last page of the
manuscript, is depicted the Destruction of the World, for which the
highest numbers have paved the way. Here we see the rain serpent,
stretching across the sky, belching forth torrents of water. Great
streams of water gush from the sun and moon. The old goddess, she of
the tiger claws and forbidding aspect, the malevolent patroness of
floods and cloudbursts, overturns the bowl of the heavenly waters. The
crossbones, dread emblem of death, decorate her skirt, and a writhing
snake crowns her head. Below with downward-pointed spears, symbolic of
the universal destruction, the black god stalks abroad, a screeching
owl raging on his fearsome head. Here, indeed, is portrayed with
graphic touch the final all-engulfing cataclysm."
[Illustration: PLATE XXII.]
Final page from the _Codex Dresdensis_ showing "Serpent Numbers" and
typifying the cataclysms destroying the world. See pages 151-2 for
description, and compare Plates XII, XIII, XIV.
In their sculpture the Maya far surpassed the artistic expression
of all other Americans, attaining not only decorative power, but
such idealization of the human countenance as is possible only among
people whose aesthetic sensibilities have an intellectual background
and guidance. No more convincing evidence of this mental power could
be forthcoming than is shown in their mathematical and astronomical
learning, at once a testimony to the antiquity of their culture and to
the force of their native genius.
VI. THE CREATION
Just as the notion of great astronomical cycles shadowed forth
eschatological cataclysms, so it reverted to cyclic aeons of the past
in which the world came to its present form. There is no such wealth
of creation myth preserved from the ancient Maya as from the Nahua,
but enough is recorded to make it clear that the ideas of the two
peoples were essentially one: indeed, they clearly belong to a group
of cosmogonical conceptions extending as far to the north as
the Pueblos of the United States, and not without influence beyond,
into the prairie country. Possibly the whole complex conception had
its first telling with the Maya; it is with them, at least, that the
numerical and calendric ideas with which it is logically associated
received the greatest development and give the most natural _raison
d'être_ to the mythic lore.
Something of the nature of the Maya conception is intimated by
Cogolludo and Landa, as noted in a preceding paragraph. More is given
in Tozzer's account of Maya religion as it is today.[95] According
to information obtained from Mayas of Valladolid, the world is now
in the fourth period of its existence. In the first, there lived the
Saiyamkoob, "the Adjusters," the primitive race of Yucatan, who were
dwarfs and built the cities now in ruins. Their work was done in
darkness, when as yet there was no sun. When the sun appeared they were
turned into stone, and their images are to be found today in the ruins.
In this period there was a living rope extending from earth to sky, by
which food was brought down to the builders. Blood was in this rope;
but the rope was cut, the blood flowed out, and earth and sky were
parted. Water-over-the-earth ended this period. It was followed by the
age of the Tsolob, "the Offenders"; and these, too, were destroyed by
a flood. The third age was that in which the Maya reigned, but their
day likewise passed amid waters of destruction, to give place to the
present age peopled by a mixture of all the races that have previously
dwelt in Yucatan.
It is easy to align these notions with what we know of Mexican myth,
though it is evident that history rather than genesis is its present
significance. But purely cosmogonic is the fragment from the Book of
Chilam Balam of Chumayel published by Martínez Hernández[96] with its
suggestion of the Thirteen Lords of the Day captured by the Nine of the
Night as the first great act:
"During the 11 _ahau_, Ahmucen-cab come [came] to cover the faces of
Oxlahun-ti-ku (thirteen gods); his names were unknown except those of
his sister and of his children: and they said that the faces also were
equally not visible; then, when the world was made, they knew not that
they would be entirely cast away; and Oxlahun-ti-ku was captured by
Bolon-ti-ku (nine gods); then he brought down fire; then he brought
down salt; then he brought down the stones and trees and came to play
with the stones and trees; and Oxlahun-ti-ku was caught and they
broke his head and buffeted him, and also carried him on their backs;
and they despoiled him of his dragon and his _tizne_ [black paint or
soot]; and they took fresh shoots of _yaxum_ and white beans, tuberous
roots cut up small, and the heart of small calabash seeds and of large
calabash seeds cut up small, and of black beans cut up small. This
first Bolon-tsac-cab (nine orders of the world) made a thick covering
of seeds and went away to the thirteenth heaven, and the surface of the
earth remained formed, and the peaks of the rocks of the world.
"And the heart of Oxlahun-ti-ku went away, the hearts of the tuberous
roots refusing to go. And there came women without-fathers, with those
who have hard work, the without-husbands, who, although living have no
heart; and wrapped in dog's grass, they were buried in the sea.
"All at once came the water after the dragon was carried away. The
heaven was broken up; it fell upon the earth; and they say that
Cantul-ti-ku (four gods), the four Bacab, were those who destroyed
it. Then, when the universal destruction was past, they placed as
dweller Kan-xib-yúi, to order it anew. And the tree, the white _ymix_,
was placed standing in the north; and he placed the supporting poles
of the heaven; and it was said that this tree was the symbol of
the universal destruction." Four other trees, each of a different
colour, each symbol of a destruction of the world, were planted at
the remaining quarters and the centre; and the form of the world was
then complete. "'The whole world,' said Ah-uuc-chek-nale (he who
seven times makes fruitful), 'proceeded from the seven bosoms of the
earth.' And he descended to make fruitful Itzam-kab-ain (the female
whale with alligator feet), when he came down from the central angle
of the heavenly region. The four lights, the four regions of the
stars, revolved. As yet there was no light; absolutely there was no
sun; absolutely there was no night; absolutely there was no moon. They
awoke; and from then began the world. At that instant the world began.
Thirteen numeral orders, with seven, is the period since the beginning
of the world."