Some American Corn Gods 257 



The few who escaped by climbing to the tops of the trees be- 

 came monkeys, and their descendants are still with us. 



"After this the gods made another attempt. This time they 

 took grains of white and yellow maize ..." Only yellow 

 maize and white entered into their flesh. These were the sole 

 substance of the legs and arms of man. "Thus were fashioned 

 our first fathers. Men they were. They spoke and they rea- 

 soned. They saw and they understood. They moved and they 

 had feeling; men, perfect and fair, whose features were human 

 features." 



According to the Popol Vuh there were four of these maize 

 men. These four brothers appear again and again in various 

 guises through the whole body of Mayan and Aztec myth. 

 They are the Four Bacabs who guard the corners of the earth 

 and have charge of the four winds which blow on the corn- 

 fields. They preside over the various parts of the human body, 

 as the Egyptians believed the four sons of Horus did. They 

 represent the four elements of which all things are composed. 

 In a sense, they are the Four Evangelists, also. 



All Indian tribes have paid especial attention to the quater- 

 nity. When the Navajos perform their Mountain Chant the 

 dancers proceed from a central medicine lodge to the four 

 points of the compass where they scatter maize, water and 

 cornmeal. This part of the rite accomplished, the dancers re- 

 turn from the four points of the compass to the central lodge 

 where the ceremony is continued. 



Actually, the pattern of this dance reproduces the ancient 



Mayan day-sign, Lamat ^ which signified planting, and 



which was presided over by the Four Bacabs. The similarity 

 between this sign and the hill in which four grains of maize 

 are set to sprout has been pointed out in an earlier chapter. 

 But the sign has another and a far deeper significance than 

 that of a corn-hill. Most certainly this significance was not 

 lost upon those who devised it to express all that is meant by 

 the growth of a seed in the earth. To all races of men, living 



