234 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



An interesting jDassage in the Popol Vuh identifies the Kiches 

 with the Tohecs, who are designated in the Popol Vuh as Yaqui," and 

 identifies Tohil, the god of the Kiche race, with Yolcuat-Quitzal- 

 cuat — that is, Yoiialli ehecatl/' Quetzalcoatl — the god of the Toltecs. 

 While the three tribes of the Kiches had the same god, and the 

 god of the Rabinals, though he was called differently, namely, Hun- 

 toh, was also the same, the Cakchikels differed from the Kiches 

 both in their language and in the name of the god, whom they had 

 brought with them from Tollan. The Cakchikel god was called 

 Zotziha Chimalcan. After the name of this god, both the China- 

 mits, that is, the two royal families of the Cakchikels, were called 

 Ah-po-zotzil and Ah-poxa (hil).'' We find the same name for this 

 god once more in a second passage, and here, too, there is a more 

 detailed statement concerning him. We read : " There was a tribe 

 who drew fire from fire sticks. The Cakchikel god is called Zotzi- 

 laha Chamalcan and the bat (zotz) is his image.^' He was therefore 

 the god who controlled fire and who was conceived of in the like- 

 ness of a bat. I can not at present explain the name Chimalcan, 

 or Chamalcan. Zotziha, or Zotzilaha, does not mean " bat ", but 

 " bat's house ", I think this should suggest a mountain cavern, the 

 interior of the earth ; therefore a god of caverns, of the dark realms 

 of earth. This is confirmed by a passage immediately preceding the 

 one just quoted, where the figure appearing before the tribes in the 

 dress of a bat is styled " this Xibalba ". As a double name, Zotzi- 

 laha Chimalman, is given to the deity, and as likewise two families 

 correspond to this deity and are said to reproduce his name, we must 

 certainly suppose that the god had a twofold form, and that in con- 

 trast to the sinister form of the bat there was another, more pleas- 

 ing one. 



In other passages of the Popol Vuh the name Zotziha, "bat's house", 

 is given, not as that of a god, but as one of the regions which must be 

 traversed on the way to the deepest depths of the interior of the earth, 

 the kingdom of darkness and death. Here dwells the Cama-Zotz, 

 " the death bat ", the great beast who slays all who come in his way, 

 and who also bit off the head of the hero Hunahpu when he descended 

 to the lower world. Such images of death play a great part in the 

 mythology of Mexican and Central American races. But, I repeat, 

 they are always conceived of and usually drawn with their counter- 

 part, 



" No doubt the Mexican Yaque, " they go", that is. " the departing", " those who go 

 away ", a verbal form which is used with tolerable regularity in the texts in connection 

 with death. 



"Literally, "night [and] wind", a designation or epithet applied to the deity Iiimself. 

 But it is also especially given as the name of the god of the Nahuas, and represented in 

 picture writing, it v/ould seem, by the double image of the death god and the wind god 

 leaning back to bacl?. 



<• Popol Vuh, pp. 246, 248. 



" Popol Vuh, p. 224. The passage is not correctly quoted by Brasseur de Bourbourg. 



