American Hero-Myths: A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent

To bring Kukulcan into closer relations with other American hero-gods we must turn to the locality where he was especially worshiped, to the traditions of the ancient and opulent city of Chichen Itza, whose ruins still rank among the most imposing on the peninsula. The fragments of its chronicles, as preserved to us in the Books of Chilan Balam and by Bishop Landa, tell us that its site was first settled by four bands who came from the four cardinal points and were ruled over by four brothers. These brothers chose no wives, but lived chastely and ruled righteously, until at a certain time one died or departed, and two began to act unjustly and were put to death. The one remaining was Kukulcan. He appeased the strife which his brothers' acts had aroused, directed the minds of the people to the arts of peace, and caused to be built various important structures. After he had completed his work in Chichen Itza, he founded and named the great city of Mayapan, destined to be the capital of the confederacy of the Mayas. In it was built a temple in his honor, and named for him, as there was one in Chichen Itza. These were unlike others in Yucatan, having circular walls and four doors, directed, presumably, toward the four cardinal points[34] (#x5_x_5_i59).

In gratifying confirmation of the legend, travelers do actually find in Mayapan and Chichen Itza, and nowhere else in Yucatan, the ruins of two circular temples with doors opening toward the cardinal points[35] (#x5_x_5_i60).

Under the beneficent rule of Kukulcan, the nation enjoyed its halcyon days of peace and prosperity. The harvests were abundant and the people turned cheerfully to their daily duties, to their families and their lords. They forgot the use of arms, even for the chase, and contented themselves with snares and traps.

At length the time drew near for Kukulcan to depart. He gathered the chiefs together and expounded to them his laws. From among them he chose as his successor a member of the ancient and wealthy family of the Cocoms. His arrangements completed, he is said, by some, to have journeyed westward, to Mexico, or to some other spot toward the sun-setting. But by the people at large he was confidently believed to have ascended into the heavens, and there, from his lofty house, he was supposed to watch over the interests of his faithful adherents.

Such was the tradition of their mythical hero told by the Itzas. No wonder that the early missionaries, many of whom, like Landa, had lived in Mexico and had become familiar with the story of Quetzalcoatl and his alleged departure toward the east, identified him with Kukulcan, and that, following the notion of this assumed identity, numerous later writers have framed theories to account for the civilization of ancient Yucatan through colonies of "Toltec" immigrants.

It can, indeed, be shown beyond doubt that there were various points of contact between the Aztec and Maya civilizations. The complex and artificial method of reckoning time was one of these; certain architectural devices were others; a small number of words, probably a hundred all told, have been borrowed by the one tongue from the other. Mexican merchants traded with Yucatan, and bands of Aztec warriors with their families, from Tabasco, dwelt in Mayapan by invitation of its rulers, and after its destruction, settled in the province of Canul, on the western coast, where they lived strictly separate from the Maya-speaking population at the time the Spaniards conquered the country.[36] (#x5_x_5_i61)

But all this is very far from showing that at any time a race speaking the Aztec tongue ruled the Peninsula. There are very strong grounds to deny this. The traditions which point to a migration from the west or southwest may well have referred to the depopulation of Palenque, a city which undoubtedly was a product of Maya architects. The language of Yucatan is too absolutely dissimilar from the Nahuatl for it ever to have been moulded by leaders of that race. The details of Maya civilization are markedly its own, and show an evolution peculiar to the people and their surroundings.

How far they borrowed from the fertile mythology of their Nahuatl visitors is not easily answered. That the circular temple in Mayapan, with four doors, specified by Landa as different from any other in Yucatan, was erected to Quetzalcoatl, by or because of the Aztec colony there, may plausibly be supposed when we recall how peculiarly this form was devoted to his worship. Again, one of the Maya chronicles–that translated by Pio Perez and published by Stephens in his Travels in Yucatan--opens with a distinct reference to Tula and Nonoal, names inseparable from the Quetzalcoatl myth. A statue of a sleeping god holding a vase was disinterred by Dr. Le Plongeon at Chichen Itza, and it is too entirely similar to others found at Tlaxcala and near the city of Mexico, for us to doubt but that they represented the same divinity, and that the god of rains, fertility and the harvests.[37] (#x5_x_5_i62)

The version of the tradition which made Kukulcan arrive from the West, and at his disappearance return to the West–a version quoted by Landa, and which evidently originally referred to the westward course of the sun, easily led to an identification of him with the Aztec Quetzalcoatl, by those acquainted with both myths.

The probability seems to be that Kukulcan was an original Maya divinity, one of their hero-gods, whose myth had in it so many similarities to that of Quetzalcoatl that the priests of the two nations came to regard the one as the same as the other. After the destruction of Mayapan, about the middle of the fifteenth century, when the Aztec mercenaries were banished to Canul, and the reigning family (the Xiu) who supported them became reduced in power, the worship of Kukulcan fell, to some extent, into disfavor. Of this we are informed by Landa, in an interesting passage.

He tells us that many of the natives believed that Kukulcan, after his earthly labors, had ascended into Heaven and become one of their gods. Previous to the destruction of Mayapan temples were built to him, and he was worshiped throughout the land, but after that event he was paid such honor only in the province of Mani (governed by the Xiu). Nevertheless, in gratitude for what all recognized they owed to him, the kings of the neighboring provinces sent yearly to Mani, on the occasion of his annual festival, which took place on the 16th of the month Xul (November 8th), either four or five magnificent feather banners. These were placed in his temple, with appropriate ceremonies, such as fasting, the burning of incense, dancing, and with simple offerings of food cooked without salt or pepper, and drink from beans and gourd seeds. This lasted five nights and five days; and, adds Bishop Landa, they said, and held it for certain, that on the last day of the festival Kukulcan himself descended from Heaven and personally received the sacrifices and offerings which were made in his honor. The celebration itself was called the Festival of the Founder[38] (#x5_x_5_i63), with reference, I suppose, to the alleged founding of the cities of Mayapan and Chichen Itza by this hero-god. The five days and five sacred banners again bring to mind the close relation of this with the Quetzalcoatl symbolism.

As Itzamná had disappeared without undergoing the pains of death, as Kukulcan had risen into the heavens and thence returned annually, though but for a moment, on the last day of the festival in his honor, so it was devoutly believed by the Mayas that the time would come when the worship of other gods should be done away with, and these mighty deities alone demand the adoration of their race. None of the American nations seems to have been more given than they to prognostics and prophecies, and of none other have we so large an amount of this kind of literature remaining. Some of it has been preserved by the Spanish missionaries, who used it with good effect for their own purposes of proselyting; but that it was not manufactured by them for this purpose, as some late writers have thought, is proved by the existence of copies of these prophecies, made by native writers themselves, at the time of the Conquest and at dates shortly subsequent.

These prophecies were as obscure and ambiguous as all successful prophets are accustomed to make their predictions; but the one point that is clear in them is, that they distinctly referred to the arrival of white and bearded strangers from the East, who should control the land and alter the prevailing religion.[39] (#x5_x_5_i64)

Even that portion of the Itzas who had separated from the rest of their nation at the time of the destruction of Mayapan (about 1440-50) and wandered off to the far south, to establish a powerful nation around Lake Peten, carried with them a forewarning that at the "eighth age" they should be subjected to a white race and have to embrace their religion; and, sure enough, when that time came, and not till then, that is, at the close of the seventeenth century of our reckoning, they were driven from their island homes by Governor Ursua, and their numerous temples, filled with idols, leveled to the soil.[40] (#x5_x_5_i65)

The ground of all such prophecies was, I have no doubt, the expected return of the hero-gods, whose myths I have been recording. Both of them represented in their original forms the light of day, which disappears at nightfall but returns at dawn with unfailing certainty. When the natural phenomenon had become lost in its personification, this expectation of a return remained and led the priests, who more than others retained the recollection of the ancient forms of the myth, to embrace this expectation in the prognostics which it was their custom and duty to pronounce with reference to the future.

[Footnote 1 (#x4_x_4_i147): Francisco de Montejo, who was the first to explore Yucatan (1528), has left strong testimony to the majesty of its cities and the agricultural industry of its inhabitants. He writes to the King, in the report of his expedition: "La tierra es muy poblada y de muy grandes ciudades y villas muy frescas. Todos los pueblos son una huerta de frutales." Carta á su Magestad, 13 Abril, 1529, in the Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos del Archivo de Indias, Tom. xiii.]

[Footnote 2 (#x4_x_4_i154): Cogolludo contradicts himself in describing these events; saying first that the greater band came from the West, but later in the same chapter corrects himself, and criticizes Father Lizana for having committed the same error. Cogolludo's authority was the original MSS. of Gaspar Antonio, an educated native, of royal lineage, who wrote in 1582. Historia de Yucatan, Lib. iv, caps, iii, iv. Lizana gives the names of these arrivals as Nohnial and Cenial. These words are badly mutilated. They should read noh emel (noh, great, emel, descent, arrival) and cec, emel (cec, small). Landa supports the position of Cogolludo. Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 28. It is he who speaks of the "doce caminos por el mar."]

[Footnote 3 (#x4_x_4_i157): The authorities on this phase of Itzamná's character are Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatan, Lib. iv, cap. iii; Landa, Cosas de Yucatan, pp. 285, 289, and Beltran de Santa Rosa Maria, Arte del Idioma Maya, p. 16. The latter has a particularly valuable extract from the now lost Maya Dictionary of F. Gabriel de San Buenaventura. "El primero que halló las letras de la lengua Maya é hizo el computo de los años, meses y edades, y lo enseño todo á los Indios de esta Provincia, fué un Indio llamado Kinchahau, y por otro nombre Tzamná. Noticia que debemos á dicho R.F. Gabriel, y trae en su Calepino, lit. K. verb. Kinchahau, fol. 390, vuelt."]

[Footnote 4 (#x4_x_4_i159): Crescencio Carrillo, Historia Antigua de Yucatan, p. 144, Mérida, 1881. Though obliged to differ on many points with this indefatigable archaeologist, I must not omit to state my appreciation and respect for his earnest interest in the language and antiquities of his country. I know of no other Yucatecan who has equal enthusiasm or so just an estimate of the antiquarian riches of his native land.]

[Footnote 5 (#x4_x_4_i160): Las Casas, Historia Apologetica de las Indias Occidentales, cap. cxxiii.]

[Footnote 6 (#x4_x_4_i161): John T. Short, The North Americans of Antiquity, p. 231.]

[Footnote 7 (#x4_x_4_i163): Fray Hieronimo Roman, De la Republica de las Indias Occidentales, Lib. ii, cap. xv; Diego de Landa, Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 288. Cogolludo also mentions Ix chel, Historia de Yucatan, Lib. iv, cap. vi. The word in Maya for rainbow is chel or cheel; ix is the feminine prefix, which also changes the noun from the inanimate to the animate sense.]

[Footnote 8 (#x4_x_4_i165): "Fabula, ridicula adspersam superstitione, habebant de iride. Ajebant illam esse Aramam feminam, solis conjugem, cujus officium sit terras a viro exustas imbrium beneficio recreare. Cum enim viderent arcum illum non nisi pluvio tempore in conspectu venire, et tunc arborum cacuminibus velut insidere, persuadebant sibi aquarum illum esse Praesidem, arboresque proceras omnes sua in tutela habere." Franc. Xav., Eder, Descriptio Provinciae Moxitarum in Regno Peruano p. 249 (Budae, 1791).]

[Footnote 9 (#x4_x_4_i166): E. Uricoechea, Gramatica de la Lengua Chibcha, Introd., p. xx. The similarity of these to the Biblical account is not to be attributed to borrowing from the latter, but simply that it, as they, are both the mythological expressions of the same natural phenomenon. In Norse mythology, Freya is the rainbow goddess. She wears the bow as a necklace or girdle. It was hammered out for her by four dwarfs, the four winds from the cardinal points, and Odin seeks to get it from her. Schwartz, Ursprung der Mythologie, S. 117.]

[Footnote 10 (#x4_x_4_i168): Eopuco I take to be from the verb puch or puk, to melt, to dissolve, to shell corn from the cob, to spoil; hence puk, spoiled, rotten, podrida, and possibly ppuch, to flog, to beat. The prefix ah, signifies one who practices or is skilled in the action which the verb denotes.]

[Footnote 11 (#x4_x_4_i168): The mother of the Bacabs is given in the myth as Chibilias (or Chibirias, but there is no r in the Maya alphabet). Cogolludo mentions a goddess Ix chebel yax, one of whose functions was to preside over drawing and painting. The name is from chebel, the brush used in these arts. But the connection is obscure.]

[Footnote 12 (#x4_x_4_i169): Landa, Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, pp. 156, 260.]

[Footnote 13 (#x4_x_4_i171): Landa, Relacion, pp. 208,-211, etc. Hobnil is the ordinary word for belly, stomach, from hobol, hollow. Figuratively, in these dialects it meant subsistence, life, as we use in both these senses the word "vitals." Among the Kiches of Guatemala, a tribe of Maya stock, we find, as terms applied to their highest divinity, u pam uleu, u pam cah, literally Belly of the Earth, Belly of the Sky, meaning that by which earth and sky exist. Popol Vuh, p. 332.]

[Footnote 14 (#x4_x_4_i172): Can, of which the "determinative" form is canil, may mean a serpent, or the yellow one, or the strong one, or he who gives gifts, or the converser.]

[Footnote 15 (#x4_x_4_i172): Kin, the day; ich, eye; ahau, lord.]

[Footnote 16 (#x4_x_4_i172): Yax, first; coc, which means literally deaf, and hence to listen attentively (whence the name Cocomes, for the ancient royal family of Chichen Itza, an appellation correctly translated "escuchadores") and ah-mut, master of the news, mut meaning news, good or bad.]

[Footnote 17 (#x4_x_4_i172): Uac, the months, is a rare and now obsolete form of the plural of u, month, "Uac, i.e. u, por meses y habla de tiempo pasado." Diccionario Maya-Español del Convento de Motul, MS. Metun (Landa, mitun) is from met, a wheel. The calendars, both in Yucatan and Mexico, were represented as a wheel.]

[Footnote 18 (#x4_x_4_i173): The Diccionario Maya del Convento de Motul, MS., the only dictionary in which I find the exact word, translates bacab by "representante, juglar, bufon." This is no doubt a late meaning taken from the scenic representations of the supposed doings of the gods in the ritual ceremonies. The proper form of the word is uacab or vacab, which the dictionary mentioned renders "cosa que esta en pié ó enhiesta delante de otra." The change from the initial v to b is quite common, as may be seen by comparing the two letters in Pio Perez's Diccionario de la Lengua Maya, e.g. balak, the revolution of a wheel, from ualak, to turn, to revolve.]

[Footnote 19 (#x4_x_4_i173): The entries in the Diccionario Maya-Español del Convento de Motul, MS., are as follows:–

"Chaac: gigante, hombre de grande estatura.

"Chaac: fué un hombre asi grande que enseño la agricultura, al cual tuvieron despues por Dios de los panes, del agua, de los truenos y relámpagos. Y asi se dice, hac chaac, el rayo: u lemba chaac el relámpago; u pec chaac, el trueno," etc.]

[Footnote 20 (#x4_x_4_i173): Relacion, etc., p. 255.]

[Footnote 21 (#x4_x_4_i174): The Maya word is uahomche, from uah, originally the tortilla or maize cake, now used for bread generally. It is also current in the sense of life ("la vida en cierta manera," Diccionario Maya Español del Convento de Motul, MS.). Che is the generic word for tree. I cannot find any particular tree called Homche. Hom was the name applied to a wind instrument, a sort of trumpet. In the Codex Troano, Plates xxv, xxvii, xxxiv, it is represented in use. The four Bacabs were probably imagined to blow the winds from the four corners of the earth through such instruments. A similar representation is given in the Codex Borgianus, Plate xiii, in Kingsborough. As the Chac was the god of bread, Dios de los panes, so the cross was the tree of bread.]

[Footnote 22 (#x4_x_4_i174): See the Myths of the New World, p. 95 (1st ed., New York, 1868). This explanation has since been adopted by Dr. Carl Schultz-Sellack, although he omits to state whence he derived it. His article is entitled Die Amerikanischen Götter der Vier Weltgegenden und ihre Tempel in Palenque in the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1879. Compare also Charles Rau, The Palenque Tablet, p. 44 (Washington, 1879).]

[Footnote 23 (#x4_x_4_i174): "Al pié de aquella misma torre estaba un cercado de piedra y cal, muy bien lucido y almenado, en medio del cual habia una cruz de cal tan alta como diez palmos, á la cual tenian y adoraban por dios de la lluvia, porque quando no llovia y habia falta de agua, iban á ella en procesion y muy devotos; ofrescianle codornices sacrificadas por aplacarle la ira y enojo con que ellos tenia ô mostraba tener, con la sangre de aquella simple avezica." Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Conquista de Mejico, p. 305 (Ed. Paris, 1852).]

[Footnote 24 (#x4_x_4_i175): The feasts of the Bacabs Acantun are described in Landa's work. The name he does not explain. I take it to be acaan, past participle of actal, to erect, and tun, stone. But it may have another meaning. The word acan meant wine, or rather, mead, the intoxicating hydromel the natives manufactured. The god of this drink also bore the name Acan ("ACAN; el Dios del vino que es Baco," Diccionario del Convento de Motul, MS.). It would be quite appropriate for the Bacabs to be gods of wine.]

[Footnote 25 (#x4_x_4_i175): Stephens, Travels in Yucatan, Vol. i, p. 434.]

[Footnote 26 (#x4_x_4_i177): Some have derived Itzamua from i, grandson by a son, used only by a female; zamal, morning, morrow, from zam, before, early, related to yam, first, whence also zamalzam, the dawn, the aurora; and ná, mother. Without the accent na, means house. Crescencio Carrillo prefers the derivation from itz, anything that trickles in drops, as gum from a tree, rain or dew from the sky, milk from teats, and semen ("leche de amor," Dicc. de Motul, MS.). He says: "Itzamna, esto es, rocio diario, ó sustancia cuotidiana del cielo, es el mismo nombre del fundador (de Itzamal)." Historia Antigua de Yucatan, p. 145. (Mérida, 1881.) This does not explain the last syllable, ná, which is always strongly accented. It is said that Itzamná spoke of himself only in the words Itz en caan, "I am that which trickles from the sky;" Itz en muyal, "I am that which trickles from the clouds." This plainly refers to his character as a rain god. Lizana, Historia de Yucatan, Lib. i, cap. 4. If a compound of itz, amal, ná, the name, could be translated, "the milk of the mother of the morning," or of the dawn, i. e., the dew; while i, zamal, ná would be "son of the mother of the morning."]

[Footnote 27 (#x4_x_4_i178): Cogolludo, who makes a distinction between Kinich-ahau and Itzamná (Hist. de Yucatan, Lib. iv, cap. viii), may be corrected by Landa and Buenaventura, whom I have already quoted.]

[Footnote 28 (#x4_x_4_i178): Kin, the sun, the day; ich, the face, but generally the eye or eyes; kak, fire; mo, the brilliant plumaged, sacred bird, the ara or guacamaya, the red macaw. This was adopted as the title of the ruler of Itzamal, as we learn from the Chronicle of Chichen Itza–"Ho ahau paxci u cah yahau ah Itzmal Kinich Kakmo"–"In the fifth Age the town (of Chichen Itza) was destroyed by King Kinich Kakmo, of Itzamal." El Libro de Chilan Balam de Chumayel, MS.]

[Footnote 29 (#x4_x_4_i178): Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatan, Lib. iv, cap. viii.]

[Footnote 30 (#x5_x_5_i0): Lizana says: "Se llama y nombra Kab-ul que quiere decir mano obradora," and all writers have followed him, although no such meaning can be made out of the name thus written. The proper word is kabil, which is defined in the Diccionario del Convento de Motul, MS., "el que tiene buena mano para sembrar, ó para poner colmenas, etc." Landa also gives this orthography, Relacion, p. 216.]

[Footnote 31 (#x5_x_5_i3): Las Casas, Historia Apologetica de las Indias Occidentales, cap. cxxii.]

[Footnote 32 (#x5_x_5_i4): Oviedo, Historia General de las Indias, Lib. xlii, cap. iii.]

[Footnote 33 (#x5_x_5_i6): Eligio Ancona, after giving the rendering, "serpiente adornada de plumas," adds, "ha sido repetido por tal número de etimologistas que tendremos necesidad de aceptarla, aunque nos parece un poco violento," Historia de Yucatan, Vol. i, p. 44. The Abbé Brasseur, in his Vocabulaire Maya, boldly states that kukul means "emplumado ó adornado con plumas." This rendering is absolutely without authority, either modern or ancient. The word for feathers in Maya is kukum; kul, in composition, means "very" or "much," as "kulvinic, muy hombre, hombre de respeto ó hecho," Diccionario de Motul, MS. Ku is god, divinity. For cansee chapter iv, §1. (#x5_x_5_i36)Can was and still is a common surname in Yucatan. (Berendt, Nombres Proprios en Lengua Maya, MS.)