Part 13 (2/2)
The myth further relates that the Bacabs were sons of Ix-chel. She was the G.o.ddess of the Rainbow, which her name signifies. She was likewise believed to be the guardian of women in childbirth, and one of the patrons of the art of medicine. The early historians, Roman and Landa, also a.s.sociate her with Itzamna[1], thus verifying the legend recorded by Hernandez.
[Footnote 1: 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.]
That the Rainbow should be personified as wife of the Light-G.o.d and mother of the rain-G.o.ds, is an idea strictly in accordance with the course of mythological thought in the red race, and is founded on natural relations too evident to be misconstrued. The rainbow is never seen but during a shower, and while the sun is s.h.i.+ning; hence it is always a.s.sociated with these two meteorological phenomena.
I may quote in comparison the rainbow myth of the Moxos of South America.
They held it to be the wife of Arama, their G.o.d of light, and her duty was to pour the refres.h.i.+ng rains on the soil parched by the glaring eye of her mighty spouse. Hence they looked upon her as G.o.ddess of waters, of trees and plants, and of fertility in general.[1]
[Footnote 1: ”Fabula, ridicula adspersam superst.i.tione, habebant de iride.
Ajebant illam esse Aramam feminam, solis conjugem, cujus officium sit terras a viro exustas imbrium beneficio recreare. c.u.m enim viderent arc.u.m illum non nisi pluvio tempore in conspectu venire, et tunc arborum cac.u.minibus 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).]
Or we may take the Muyscas, a cultivated and interesting nation who dwelt on the lofty plateau where Bogota is situated. They wors.h.i.+ped the Rainbow under the name _Cuchaviva_ and personified it as a G.o.ddess, who took particular care of those sick with fevers and of women in childbirth. She was also closely a.s.sociated in their myth with their culture-hero Bochica, the story being that on one occasion, when an ill-natured divinity had inundated the plain of Bogota, Bochica appeared to the distressed inhabitants in company with Cuchaviva, and cleaving the mountains with a blow of his golden sceptre, opened a pa.s.sage for the waters into the valley below.[1]
[Footnote 1: 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 G.o.ddess. 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.]
As G.o.ddess of the fertilizing showers, of growth and life, it is easily seen how Ixchel came to be the deity both of women in childbirth and of the medical art, a Juno Sospita as well as a Juno Lucina.
The statement is also significant, that the Bacabs were supposed to be the victims of Ah-puchah, the Despoiler or Destroyer,[1] though the precise import of that character in the mythical drama is left uncertain.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Eopuco_ I take to be from the verb _puch_ or _puk_, to melt, to dissolve, to sh.e.l.l 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 2: 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 G.o.ddess _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.]
The supposed Holy Ghost, Echuac, properly Ah-Kiuic, Master of the Market, was the G.o.d of the merchants and the cacao plantations. He formed a triad with two other G.o.ds, Chac, one of the rain G.o.ds, and Hobnel, also a G.o.d of the food supply. To this triad travelers, on stopping for the night, set on end three stones and placed in front of them three flat stones, on which incense was burned. At their festival in the month _Muan_ precisely three cups of native wine (mead) were drained by each person present.[1]
[Footnote 1: Landa, _Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan_, pp. 156, 260.]
The description of some such rites as these is, no doubt, what led the worthy Hernandez to suppose that the Mayas had Trinitarian doctrines.
When they said that the G.o.d of the merchants and planters supplied the wants of men and furnished the world with desirable things, it was but a slightly figurative way of stating a simple truth.
The four Bacabs are called by Cogolludo ”the G.o.ds of the winds.” Each was identified with a particular color and a certain cardinal point. The first was that of the South. He was called Hobnil, the Belly; his color was yellow, which, as that of the ripe ears, was regarded as a favorable and promising hue; the augury of his year was propitious, and it was said of him, referring to some myth now lost, that he had never sinned as had his brothers. He answered to the day _Kan_. which was the first of the Maya week of thirteen days.[1] The remaining Bacabs were the Red, a.s.signed to the East, the White, to the North, and the Black, to the West, and the winds and rains from those directions were believed to be under the charge of these giant caryatides.
[Footnote 1: 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.]
Their close relation with Itzamna is evidenced, not only in the fragmentary myth preserved by Hernandez, but quite amply in the descriptions of the rites at the close of each year and in the various festivals during the year, as narrated by Bishop Landa. Thus at the termination of the year, along with the sacrifices to the Bacab of the year were others to Itzamna, either under his surname _Canil_, which has various meanings,[1] or as _Kinich-ahau_, Lord of the Eye of the Day,[2]
or _Yax-coc-ahmut_, the first to know and hear of events,[3] or finally as _Uac-metun-ahau_, Lord of the Wheel of the Months.[4]
[Footnote 1: _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 2: _Kin_, the day; _ich_, eye; _ahau_, lord.]
[Footnote 3: _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 4: _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-Espanol 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.]
The word _bacab_ means ”erected,” ”set up.”[1] It was applied to the Bacabs because they were imagined to be enormous giants, standing like pillars at the four corners of the earth, supporting the heavens. In this sense they were also called _chac_, the giants, as the rain senders. They were also the G.o.ds of fertility and abundance, who watered the crops, and on whose favor depended the return of the harvests. They presided over the streams and wells, and were the divinities whose might is manifested in the thunder and lightning, G.o.ds of the storms, as well as of the gentle showers.[2] The festival to these G.o.ds of the harvest was in the month _Mac_, which occurred in the early spring. In this ceremony, Itzamna was also wors.h.i.+ped as the leader of the Bacabs, and an important rite called ”the extinction of the fire” was performed. ”The object of these sacrifices and this festival,” writes Bishop Landa, ”was to secure an abundance of water for their crops.”[3]
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