PLATE XXI.
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 thisstatue 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 toSol 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 birdswere 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."
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 theTonalamatlof 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 asXiuhmolpilli, 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, oruinal(probably related touinic, "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 theTonalamatl(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 theTonalamatl; and is so continued, repeatingindefinitely. 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, orhaab, of the Maya, again like the Mexican, consisted of eighteenuinals—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 theuinaldays 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 theuinaldays, 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 positionin theTonalamatl, determined by day-sign and day-number (1 ... 13), and its position in thehaab, determined by "month"-sign (uinalor 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 73Tonalamatlsand to 52haabs. 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:
Kin1 dayUinal20 daysTun (18 Uinals)360 daysKatun (20 Tuns)7,200 daysCycle (20 Katuns)144,000 daysGreat Cycle, either 13 Cycles1,872,000 daysor 20 Cycles2,880,000 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 18uinalsof the natural year in order to bring thetuninto some kind of conformity with thehaab. Beyond thekatun, thenative 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 thekatunwas the historical unit of prime significance, for both Landa and Cogolludo note the fact that at the end of everykatuna 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 primarilykatuns(of 7200 days), but halves and quarters of thekatun. Morley,[93]to whom belongs credit of the demonstration of the system, gives to these lesser periods the nameshotun("fivetuns," or 1800 days) andlahuntun("tentuns," 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 twentykatuns, just as thekatunis twentytuns. 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,tunsin the third position upward, and so on. Thetun(= 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 millenniumb. c., assuming that the monuments belong to the first thousand yearsof 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. ThePopul Vuhshows 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. Inthese 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."
PLATE XXII.
PLATE XXII.
Final page from theCodex Dresdensisshowing "Serpent Numbers" and typifying the cataclysms destroying the world. See pages151-2for description, and compare PlatesXII,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.
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 cosmogonicalconceptions 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 naturalraison d'êtreto 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 11ahau, Ahmucen-cab come [came] to coverthe 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 histizne[black paint or soot]; and they took fresh shoots ofyaxumand 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 whiteymix, 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."
By some accident of history the most significant literary records of the Mayan peoples—and, in their way, of any American stock—are not preserved to us from the builders of the monumental cities, the Maya themselves, but from two closely related tribes belonging to the southernmost group of the Mayan race. The Quiché (frequently, Kiché) and the Cakchiquel (or Kakchiquel) dwelt in the mountains of Guatemala overlooking the Pacific, where, except for the Nahuatlan Pipil, to the east of them, their neighbours were other Mayan tribes—the Tzental, the Mame, and their kindred to the west; the Pokonchi, the Kekchi, and others to the north; and the Chorti to the east. It is in the lands of these groups, mountain valleys draining toward the Gulf and the Caribbean, that the ruins of the monumental cities chiefly lie. At the time of the Conquest their sites had long been abandoned, though it must not be supposed that the tribes occupying the land were savage. On the contrary, they lived in well-built, fortified towns, with fine residences for the chiefs and pyramid temples for the service of the gods; but the remains of the cities of the Conquest era have yielded no such wealth of art as has been revealed by the exploration of the homes of the ancestral Maya, nor do the traditions of the tribes who inhabited the region at the coming of the Spaniards throw any light upon the builders of the ancient cities which, indeed, they seem scarcely to have known. Rather, when the Quiché and their kindred entered the land, it appearsto have been long deserted: "Only rabbits and birds were here, they say, when they took possession of the hills and the plains, they, our fathers and ancestors from Tulan, O my children,"—so runs the beginning of the CakchiquelAnnals.[98]TheseAnnals, like thePopul Vuh, or "Sacred Book," of the kindred Quiché, profess to give a migration-legend of the ancestors of the tribe and an account of the historic chiefs, but neither the one record nor the other runs to a remote period; both point to a comparatively recent entrance into an abandoned country, the date of which Brinton would set at less than two centuries anterior to the Conquest; nor is there any certain clue which would associate the Quiché-Cakchiquel histories with those of the contemporary Maya.
The relationship of the two centres of Mayan culture, Yucatec and Guatemalan, is, however, more than merely linguistic and racial. When the Maya of the later days of the Old Empire were pushing northward into the peninsula, exploring and establishing cities, others of their kindred were penetrating the mountains to the south, and the last town of the south to rise and fall (as shown by its dated monuments) was at Quen Santo in the Guatemalan province of Huehuetenango. Whether or not something of the old culture was transmitted through these groups or their descendants, whom, indeed, the Quiché and Cakchiquel may have been, identities of mythic reference make it certain that all Maya groups had some primitive community of experience. Moreover, the southern tribes clearly shared with the northern their literary and artistic bent. The story of the defeat of the Quiché, in the CakchiquelAnnals,[99]tells how the latter slew "the son of the chief jeweller, the treasurer, the secretary, and the chief engraver" of the Quiché monarch—officers whose very character gives the picture of an accomplished society; and it may well be assumed that the literary taste and historic feeling manifest in theAnnalsand thePopul Vuhare but evidences, literary rather than graphic in character, of the genius which marks the whole Mayan race. Brasseurde Bourbourg says[100]of thePopul Vuhthat "it is composed in a Quiché of great elegance, and its author must have been one of the princes of the royal family," while of theAnnals(which he namesMémorial de Tecpan-Atitlan, and which was indeed, in greater part written by a noble, Don Francisco Ernandez Arana Xahila) he declares that "the style is varied and picturesque and frequently contains passages of high animation." The translations of both documents quite sustain these opinions of their literary excellence.
Las Casas, who was as familiar as any man with the general character of native American culture, and especially with that of Guatemala of which he was bishop, gives a general characterization of native learning in his chapter (Apologética História, ccxxxv) on "the books and religious traditions of Guatemala." In the kingdoms and republics of New Spain, he says, "among other offices and officials, were those who acted as chroniclers and historians. They possessed knowledge of the origin of all things relative to religion and to the gods and their cult, as well as of the founders of their cities, of the beginnings of their kings and lords and seignories, of the manner of their election and succession, of how many and what lords and princes had passed away, of their works and actions and memorable deeds, good and bad, and of whatever they had governed well or ill; also, of their great men and good, and of strong and valorous captains, of the wars that they had made, and of how they had distinguished themselves. Moreover, of the first customs and the first comers, of how they had since changed for good or ill, and of all that pertains to history, in order that they might have understanding and remembrance of past events." Furthermore, he adds, these chroniclers kept count of the days, months, and years, and "although they had no writing similar to ours, nevertheless they had figures and characters representing all that they needed to designate, and, by means of these, great books of such clever and ingenious art that we may say that our letters were of no great advantage tothem." The office of chronicler, it is added, was hereditary, or belonged to certain families.
After the Conquest many of the natives who had acquired the alphabet adapted it to their own tongue and recorded their histories in the new characters. Numbers of such books were known to the Spanish writers of the sixteenth century, and it is from these that thePopul Vuhand the CakchiquelAnnalshave survived.
ThePopul Vuhis the most striking and instructive of the myth-records of primitive America. Other legends are as comprehensive in scope, as varied in material, and as dramatic in form; but no other, in anything like the measure of this document, combines with these qualities the element of critical consciousness, giving the flavour of philosophic reflection which lifts the narrative from the level of mere tale-telling into that of literature. Something of this character is clearly due to the fact that it was written down after the introduction of Christianity by an author, or authors, professing the new faith; yet it is equally clear to a reader of our day that this is not the whole cause, that there is in the aboriginal material itself such an element of deliberate reflection as appears in the Aztec rituals recorded by Sahagun and in some of the Incaic fragments, though scarcely to be found elsewhere in the New World, at least in the myths as they have been preserved to us.
The work is divided into four parts, consciously literary in arrangement. The first recounts the creation of the earth and of the First Peoples, together with the conflicts of the Hero Brothers with Titan-like Earth-giants. The second part depicts the duel of the upper-world heroes with the nether-world demonic powers: an elder pair of Hero Brothers are defeated, later to be avenged by the younger Hero Brothers—the slayers of the Earth-giants—who overcome Death in his own lair and by his own wile. This incident of "the harrowing ofHell" belongs in mythic chronology to a cycle of events earlier in part than the gigantomachy, and it is obviously for dramatic reasons that the longest book of thePopul Vuhis devoted to it. With the third part the original narrative is resumed, narrating the creation of the ancestors of the present race of men and the rise of the Sun which now rules the world; while the fourth and last part continues the tale, giving myths of cult origins, tribal wars, and finally records of historic rulers, thus satisfying the feeling for consecutiveness and completeness.
PLATE XXIII.
PLATE XXIII.
Ceremonial precinct or plaza, Quirigua. An altar and three stelae of the Old Empire Maya type are shown. Other monuments are stillin situon this site, among them the "Quirigua Dragon," PlateI(frontispiece). After photograph by Cornell, Lincoln.
"Admirable is the account"—so the narrative opens—"admirable is the account of the time in which it came to pass that all was formed in heaven and upon earth, the quartering of their signs, their measure and alignment, and the establishment of parallels to the skies and upon the earth to the four quarters, thereof, as was spoken by the Creator and Maker, the Mother, the Father of life and of all existence, that one by whom all move and breathe, father and sustainer of the peace of peoples, by whose wisdom was premeditated the excellence of all that doth exist in the heavens, upon the earth, in lake and sea.
"Lo, all was in suspense, all was calm and silent; all was motionless, all was quiet, and wide was the immensity of the skies.
"Lo, the first word and the first discourse. There was not yet a man, not an animal; there were no birds nor fish nor crayfish; there was no wood, no stone, no bog, no ravine, neither vegetation nor marsh; only the sky existed.
"The face of the earth was not yet to be seen; only the peaceful sea and the expanse of the heavens.
"Nothing was yet formed into a body; nothing was joined to another thing; naught held itself poised; there was not a rustle not a sound beneath the sky. There was naught that stood upright; there were only the quiet waters of the sea, solitary within its bounds; for as yet naught existed.
"There were only immobility and silence in the darkness and in the night. Alone was the Creator, the Maker, Tepeu, theLord, and Gucumatz, the Plumed Serpent, those who engender, those who give being, alone upon the waters like a growing light.
"They are enveloped in green and azure, whence is the name Gucumatz, and their being is great wisdom. Lo, how the sky existeth, how the Heart of the Sky existeth—for such is the name of God, as He doth name Himself!
"It is then that the word came to Tepeu and to Gucumatz, in the shadows and in the night, and spake with Tepeu and with Gucumatz. And they spake and consulted and meditated, and they joined their words and their counsels.
"Then light came while they consulted together; and at the moment of dawn man appeared while they planned concerning the production and increase of the groves and of the climbing vines, there in the shade and in the night, through that one who is the Heart of the Sky, whose name is Hurakan.
"The Lightning is the first sign of Hurakan; the second is the Streak of Lightning; the third is the Thunderbolt which striketh; and these three are the Heart of the Sky.
"Then they came to Tepeu, to Gucumatz, and held counsel touching civilized life: how seed should be formed, how light should be produced, how the sustainer and nourisher of all.
"'Let it be thus done. Let the waters retire and cease to obstruct, to the end that earth exist here, that it harden itself and show its surface, to the end that it be sown, and that the light of day shine in the heavens and upon the earth; for we shall receive neither glory nor honour from all that we have created and formed until human beings exist, endowed with sentience.' Thus they spake while the earth was formed by them. It is thus, veritably, that creation took place, and the earth existed. 'Earth,' they said, and immediately it was formed.
"Like a fog or a cloud was its formation into the material state, when, like great lobsters, the mountains appeared upon the waters, and in an instant there were great mountains. Onlyby marvellous power could have been achieved this their resolution when the mountains and the valleys instantly appeared with groves of cypress and pine upon them.
"Then was Gucumatz filled with joy. 'Thou art welcome, O Heart of the Sky, O Hurakan, O Streak of Lightning, O Thunderbolt!'
"'This that we have created and shaped will have its end,' they replied.
"And thus first were formed the earth, the mountains, and the plains; and the course of the waters was divided, the rivulets running serpentine among the mountains; it is thus that the waters existed when the great mountains were unveiled.
"Thus was accomplished the creation of the earth when it was formed by those who are the Heart of the Sky and the Heart of the Earth; for so those are called who first made fruitful the heaven and the earth while yet they were suspended in the midst of the waters. Such was its fecundation when they fecundated it while its fulfilment and its composition were meditated by them."
So runs the first chapter of the Quiché Genesis, displaying at the outset an odd intermingling, which characterizes the whole work, of the raw actuality of primitive imagination with the dramatic reflection of the mind of the sage.
The second act of the drama is the creation of denizens, or rather histrions, for the stage that is set; and the Quiché narrator, with remarkable ease, casts them in puppet mould, a background of grandiosity serving still further to belittle the dolls which are the Creator's experiments. First, the animals are formed and assigned their dwellings and their habits: "Thou, Deer, shalt sleep on the borders of brooks and in the ravines; there shalt thou rest in the brushwood, amid forage; and there multiply; thou shalt go upon four feet, and upon four feet shalt thou live." This is the style in which the creatures of land and air and water are severally addressed. Nevertheless—and here is the philosophic touch—the animals could notspeak, as man does; they had no language; they could only chatter and cluck and croak, each according to its kind. This is very far from the most primitive stratum of thought, where all animals are gifted with language.
"When the Creator and the Maker understood that they could not speak, they said one to another: 'They are unable to utter our name, although we are their makers and formers. This is not well.' And they spake to the animals: 'Our glory is not perfect in that ye do not invoke us; but there shall yet be those who can salute us and who will be capable of obedience. As for you, your flesh shall be broken under the tooth.'"
Seed-time was approaching, and dawn; and the divine beings said, "Let us make those who shall be our supporters and nourishers." Then they formed men out of moist earth, but these proved to be without cohesion or consistence or power of movement; they could not turn their heads; their sight was veiled; although they had speech, they had no intelligence; the waters destroyed them helplessly; and their makers saw that their handiwork was a failure. Now they consulted with Xpiyacoc and Xmucané (Mayan equivalents of Cipactonal and Oxomoco, like whom they were addressed as "Twice Grandmother," "Twice Grandsire"); while Hurakan of the Winds and He of the Sun were also called into the council. There they divined with kernels of maize and with red berries of thetzité; and when noon came they said: "O Maize, O Tzité, O Sun, O Creature, unite and join one another! And thou, O Heart of the Sky, redden that the countenance of Tepeu, of Gucumatz, be not made to lower!" Then they carved manikins of wood and caused them to live and to multiply and to engender sons and daughters who were also manikins, carved and wooden. But these had neither heart nor intelligence nor memory of their creators; they led a useless and animal existence; they were only experimental men; they had no blood, no substance, no flesh; and their faces and their limbs were dry and desiccated.They thought not of their Makers, nor did they lift their heads to them.
The gods, again disappointed, resolved upon the destruction of the manikin race and caused a heavy, resinous rain to descend day and night, darkening the face of the earth. Moreover, four great birds were sent to assail these creatures of wood: Xecotcovach snatched their eyes from their orbits; Camalotz attacked their heads, and Cotzbalam their flesh, while Tecumbalam broke their bones, and animals great and small turned against them. "Ye have done ill to us," cried their dogs and their fowls; "now we shall bite you; in your turn ye shall be tormented." Even the pots and cooking utensils arose in rebellion. The metates said: "We were tortured by you; daily, daily, night and day, always it washoli, holi, huqui, huqui,grinding our surfaces because of you. This we have suffered from you; now that ye have ceased to be men, ye shall feel our power; we shall grind you and reduce your flesh to powder;" and the bowls and pots followed with similar threats and imprecations. The victims ran everywhere in desperate efforts to escape: they ascended to the roofs of their houses, but the houses collapsed; they wished to climb the trees, but the trees drew away from them; they sought to enter the caverns, but these closed against them. All were destroyed, and there remained of their descendants only the little monkeys that live in the trees, which is token that "of wood alone their flesh was formed by the Creator and Maker."
After the destruction of the manikins is narrated, thePopul Vuhdigresses to recount the deeds of the Hero Brothers, Hunahpu and Xbalanqué; and it is only in the third part of the work that the tale of creation is resumed, the beginnings of the present "Sun" of the world being its theme.
Once more the demiurgic gods meditated the creation of man, and once more they gathered for counsel in the cosmic dusk, for though the dawn was near, the world was not yet illuminated. It was then that they heard of the white and the yellow maizein the Place of the Division of the Waters; and it was decided that from these should be made the blood and the flesh of man. "Then they began to grind the white maize and the yellow, while Xumucané concocted nine broths; and this nourishment entering in, generated strength and power, giving flesh and muscles to man.... Only yellow maize and white entered into their flesh, and these were the sole substance of the legs and arms of man; thus were formed our first fathers, the four brothers, who were formed of it," whose names were Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah, and Iqi-Balam. "Men they were; they spake and they reasoned; they saw and they understood; they moved and they had feeling; men perfect and fair, whose features were human features."
These beings, however, were too highly endowed; they lifted up their eyes, and their gaze embraced all; they knew all things; nothing in heaven or earth was concealed from them. The Maker asked: "Is not your being good? Do ye not see? Do ye not understand? Your speech and your movement, are they not admirable? Look up, are there not mountains and plains under the sky?" Then the created ones rendered thanks to their Creator, saying: "Truly, thou gavest us every motion and accomplishment! We have received existence, we have received a mouth, a face; we speak, we understand, we think, we walk; we perceive and we know equally well what is far and what is near; we see all things, great and small, in heaven and upon the earth. Thanks be to you who have created us, O Maker, O Former!" But the Makers were not pleased to hear this. "This is not well! Their nature will not be that of simple creatures; they will be as gods.... Would they perchance rival us who have made them, whose wisdom extendeth far and knoweth all things?" Thus spoke Hurakan, and Tepeu, and Gucumatz, and the divine pair Xpiyacoc and Xmucané. Then the Heart of the Sky breathed a cloud upon the eyes of the four men, veiling itself so that it appeared like a mirror covered with vapour; and their vision was obscured, so thatthey could clearly see only what was near them. Thus their knowledge and their wisdom were reduced to mortal proportions; and being caused to slumber, during their sleep four beautiful women were brought to be their wives, so that when they awoke, they were filled with joy of their espousals.
The generations of humanity increased, men living together in joy and peace. They had but a single language and they prayed neither to wood nor to stone, but only to the Maker and Former, Heart of the Sky and Heart of the Earth, their prayer being for children and for light, for the sun had not yet risen. As time passed and no sun appeared, men became disquieted, so that the four brothers set forth for Tulan-Zuiva, the Place of Seven Caves and Seven Ravines, where they received their gods, a deity for each clan, Tohil being the divinity of Balam-Quitzé, Avilix of Balam-Agab, Hacavitz of Mahucutah, and Nicahtagah of Iqi-Balam. Tohil's first gift was fire, and when rains extinguished the first flame, he kindled it anew by striking upon his foot-gear, whereupon men of other tribes, their teeth chattering with cold, came to the brothers praying for a little of their fire. "They were not well received, and their hearts were filled with sadness," is the rather brutal comment; but the motive turns out to be yet more brutal, for as a price of fire Tohil demanded that these strangers "embrace me, Tohil, under the armpit and under the girdle," a euphemism which can refer only to the customary form of human sacrifice.
Even yet the sun had not appeared, and the race of man was saddened by the delay. They fasted and performed expiations, keeping continual watch for the Morning Star, which should herald the first sunrise. Finally in despair they resumed their migration: "Alas!" they said, "here we shall never behold the dawn at the moment when the sun is born to lighten the face of the earth!" The journey led through many lands until finally they came to the mountain of Hacavitz, where the brothers burned incense which they had brought from "theplace of sunrise" and where they watched the Morning Star ascend with waxing splendour on the dawn of the rising sun. As the orb appeared, the animals, great and small, were filled with joy, while all the nations prostrated themselves in adoration. The new sun did not burn with the heat of the sun of today, but was like a pale reflection of ours; nevertheless it dried the dank earth and made it habitable. Moreover, the great beast-gods of the first days—lion, tiger, and noxious viper—together with the gods Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz, were changed into stone as the sun appeared—"their arms cramped like the branches of trees ... and in all parts they became stone. Perhaps we should not be in life at this moment because of the voracity of the lions, the tigers, the vipers, theqantis, and the White Fire-Maker of the Night; perchance our glory would not now exist had not the first animals been petrified by the sun."
Nevertheless sorrow mingled with joy, for though the ancestors of the Quiché had found their mountain home, illumined by the sun, the moon, and the stars, they remembered their kindred left behind; and even when they sang the songKa-mucu("We behold"), the anguish in their hearts came also to expression. "Alas! we were ruined in Tollan; we were parted from our brethren, who still remain behind! True, indeed, we have beheld the Sun, but they, where now are they, when at last the day hath come?" Years afterward, when the Quiché had become great under the leadership of the four heroes, the brothers foresaw the day of their death drawing near; and again, with dolour of soul, they sang the songKa-mucu, bidding farewell to their wives and their sons, and saying: "We return to our people; even now the King of the Deer riseth into the sky. Lo, we make our return; our task is performed; our days are complete." Thereupon they disappeared, vanishing without trace, excepting that in their place was left a sacred bundle which was never to be opened and which was called "Majesty Enveloped."
The deeds of the Hero Brothers in thePopul Vuhtake place in an epoch of the world previous to the rise of the present Sun. Apparently they fall in an Age of Giants just succeeding the destruction of the manikins, for the narrative proceeds from the tale of the annihilation of these beings to the overthrow, by the twins Hunahpu and Xbalanqué, of the Earth Titans, stating that the events occurred in the days of the inundation. Vukub-Cakix was the first of the Giants, and his sin was the sin ofhubris, for he boasted: "I shall be yet again above all created beings; I am their sun, I am their dawn, I am their moon. Great is my splendour; I am he by whom men move. Of silver are the balls of my eyes, gleaming like precious stones; and the whiteness of my teeth is like the face of the sky. My nostrils shine afar like the moon; of silver is my throne, and the earth liveth when I step forth from it. I am the sun, I am the moon, the bringer of felicity. So be it, for my gaze reacheth afar!" This is obviously a hymn to the sun; and it is possible that it refers to a mythic "Sun of Giants," although the narrator clearly takes it in another sense: "In reality his sight ended where it fell, and his gaze did not embrace the entire world." It was, in fact, because of his riches (metals and precious stones) that Vukub-Cakix thought to emulate the sun and the moon.