236 



DISCOVERY 



ripple wind makes on water," the ruffled feathers on 

 the serpentine stream. But in later times he came to 

 be regarded as the priest who conjured down the rain 

 by magic, and his possession of the calitac, or rain- 

 maker's wand, places his position in this respect beyond 

 all question. 



Sky Deities 



Coming to the third letter of our alphabet of gods, we 

 find God C simple of explanation. At first sight his 

 outward semblance may seem puzzling. His face is 

 framed hy the painted border seen on the xatnach, or 

 flat dish on which the Maya baked their tortillas or 

 maize pancakes. But xamach also means " north," 

 so that in this instance we have an example of that 



Fig. 2.— reproduction of part of a MAYA MS. 

 Above, Gods B and E are seen ; below, a variant of Goddess I. The lesser 

 figures in lines show the Maya hiero-^lyphic system of writing. 



rebus-writing on which the Maya hieroglyphical 

 system was undoubtedly based. There was, we know 

 from tradition, a god called Xamanek, who represented 

 the pole star, and that God C is identical with this 

 deity scarcely admits of any doubt. In the Codex 

 Cortesianus we see his head surrounded by a nimbus of 

 rays which can symbolise only stellar emanations, 

 and in the same manuscript we find him hanging from 

 the sky in the noose of a rope. Elsewhere he is accom - 

 panied by familiar planetary signs. 



In D we have a god of night and the moon. He 

 is represented as an aged man with toothless jaws, and 

 is indicated by the hieroglyph akhal, " night." His 

 head, in the reduced cursive writing of the te.xts, 

 stands for the sign of the moon, and this is frequently 

 accompanied by the snail, the emblem of birth, over 

 which function the moon had planetary jurisdiction. 



Among the Maya deities D is the only one who can 

 boast of a beard, a certain sign in the case of the 

 neighbouring Mexican pantheon that a god possesses 

 a planetary significance, and for this reason, no less 

 than because of his venerable appearance, I would 

 collate him with Tonaca tecutli, the Mexican creative 

 deity, father of the gods, the Saturn of their Olympus. 

 This figure was known to the Ma^'a of Guatemala as 

 Xpiyacoc, but can scarcely be collated with Hunab 

 Ku, " The Great Hand," the " god behind the gods," 

 invisible, impalpable, of whom we are assured that he 

 was represented in neither painting nor sculpture. 



In God E we have such a definite picture of a divinity 

 connected with the maize-plant that we have no diffi- 

 culty in identifying him as Ghanan, the traditional 

 Maya god of the maize, whose other name was Yum 

 Kaax, " Lord of the Harvest Fields." He bears the 

 maize-plant on his head, and this, becoming in course 

 of time the conventionalised form of an ear of maize 

 with leaves, composed his hierogl^-ph. His face- 

 paint, too, frequently bears the sj-mbol of fertility, 

 and the rain- vase is depicted as an ornament above 

 his ear. 



God F, in his insignia, is reminiscent of the Mexican 

 harvest-god Xipe, whose annual festival brought 

 forth such grisly horrors of human sacrifice. He has 

 the same distinguishing vertical face-mask, implying 

 " war," for plenteous harvests were only to be secured 

 by drenching the soil with the blood of many prisoners 

 taken in battle. He is, indeed, a war-god, and is 

 occasionally represented in full war-paint, with flint 

 knife and blazing torch, setting fire to tents or huts. 

 In some places he is pictured underneath a stone axe 

 in the shape of a hand, with thumb turned upwards, 

 which probably has an inauspicious significance. 



God G is not often represented in the manuscripts. 

 He appears to be a sun-god, and his hieroglyph, a 

 circle enclosing four teeth, is believed by some authori- 

 ties to symbolise the " biting " nature of tropical heat. 

 His own teeth are filed to a sharp point. His head- 

 dress recalls that of the priesthood of Yucatan, and 

 in some of his representations has a certain resemblance 

 to the Egyptian wig. There is, indeed, no question 

 that it is a wig. He frequently holds the flower 

 symbolic of a life rendered to him in sacrifice, and is 

 occasionally depicted standing amid tongues of solar 

 flame, a central eye blazing upon his forehead. That 

 he is Kinich Ahau, the sun-god, is scarcely open to 

 dispute. Another of his hieroglyphs consists of a 

 composite picture, including a solar disk, the sign been, 

 which means " straw- thatch," and the sign ik, which 

 in this connection is to be translated " fire which 

 strikes upon the roof, ' in allusion to the frequency 

 with which the thatched roofs of the Maya were 

 ignited by the fierce rays of the sun of Yucatan. 



