seler] 



THE MAYA BAT GOD 



237 



is the maize god. He corresponds to the west. The one on the 

 hist page is the death god, who corresponds to the south. 



Among the figures on the first page at the right of tlie chief deity, 

 in some degree expressive of the fatal qualities of the latter, and 

 corresponding to the east, is the bat god beside the sun god. I repro- 

 duce the pictures of the god in a to c, figure 49, where c is taken from 

 the encyclopedic representation in the Borgian codex, page 60, while a 

 and h belong to separate series which have been copied out of it. The 

 fact that we are dealing with the bat god is here expressed by the wing 

 membrane stretched between the legs and arms, the claws on the 

 extremities, the sharp teeth, and particularly by the membranous 

 nose leaf, which only in a is converted into a stone knife. The dark 

 painting of the wing membrane and the death's-head upon it in a 

 (instead of the crossbones of the Dieseldorff picture) especially 

 remind us of the picture on the Dieseldorfl vase. We are reminded 

 of the functions of Cama-zotz, the death bat, by the head which the 



KTS^ 



Fig. 50. Maya hieroglyphs of the bat god. 



beast has torn off and holds in his hand in a and 6, while in c the 

 beast devours the torn-out heart and the blood. It is worth noticing 

 that in a and <■ the bat is drawn with the round cap and feather 

 headdress of the wind god, while in 5, in addition to the torn-off 

 head, he grasps and stands upon a fire snake. 



I now turn to the documents of the Maya races. The Mayas, in the 

 strict sense, the inhabitants of Yucatan, designated one of their 18 

 uinals, that is, periods of 20 days, by the name of the bat-zotz (or zoo, 

 according to Yucatec transcription). From the Relaciones of Bishop 

 Landa and the Dresden manuscript I reproduce in Z>, figure 50, the 

 picture of the bat as the designation of this period of time, which fell 

 in the latter half of our September. That this designation was also 

 known to the other Maya ti-ibes we learn from the date (c, figure 50), 

 compounded of the date of a day (8 Ahau) and a uinal date (the 8th 

 of Zotz), which I copy from one of the Copan stela* as given in 

 Maudslay's great woi'k." In the same Avay the uinal Zotz is given, 

 beyond a doubt, on the altar slabs of Palenque; for instance, on the 



" Biologia CentraU-Americana. Archasology. 



