Part 14 (2/2)
[Footnote 1: Las Casas, _Historia Apologetica de las Indias Occidentales_, cap. cxxii.]
In the ma.n.u.script of Hernandez, which Las Casas had before him when he was writing his _Apologetical History_, the names of all the twenty were given; but unfortunately for antiquarian research, the good bishop excuses himself from quoting them, on account of their barbarous appearance. I have little doubt, however, that had he done so, we should find them to be the names of the twenty days of the native calendar month. These are the visitors who come, one every morning, with flowing robes, full beard and hair, and bring with them our good or bad luck--whatever the day brings forth. Hernandez made the same mistake as did Father Francisco de Bobadilla, when he inquired of the Nicaraguans the names of their G.o.ds, and they gave him those of the twenty days of the month.[1] Each day was, indeed, personified by these nations, and supposed to be at once a deity and a date, favorable or unfavorable to fis.h.i.+ng or hunting, planting or fighting, as the case might be.
[Footnote 1: Oviedo, _Historia General de las Indias_, Lib. xlii, cap.
iii.]
Kukulcan seems, therefore, to have stood in the same relation in Yucatan to the other divinities of the days as did Votan in Chiapa and Quetzalcoatl Ce Acatl in Cholula.
His name has usually been supposed to be a compound, meaning ”a serpent adorned with feathers,” but there are no words in the Maya language to justify such a rendering. There is some variation in its orthography, and its original p.r.o.nunciation may possibly be lost; but if we adopt as correct the spelling which I have given above, of which, however, I have some doubts, then it means, ”The G.o.d of the Mighty Speech.”[1]
[Footnote 1: Eligio Ancona, after giving the rendering, ”serpiente adornada de plumas,” adds, ”ha sido repetido por tal numero de etimologistas que tendremos necesidad de aceptarla, aunque nos parece un poco violento,” _Historia de Yucatan_, Vol. i, p. 44. The Abbe Bra.s.seur, in his _Vocabulaire Maya_, boldly states that _kukul_ means ”emplumado o adornado con plumas.” This rendering is absolutely without authority, either modern or ancient. The word for feathers in Maya is _kuk.u.m_; _kul_, in composition, means ”very” or ”much,” as ”_kulvinic_, muy hombre, hombre de respeto o hecho,” _Diccionario de Motul_, MS. _Ku_ is G.o.d, divinity.
For _can_ see chapter iv, --1. _Can_ was and still is a common surname in Yucatan. (Berendt, _Nombres Proprios en Lengua Maya_, MS.)
I should prefer to spell the name _Kukulkan_, and have it refer to the first day of the Maya week, _Kan_.]
The reference probably was to the fame of this divinity as an oracle, as connected with the calendar. But it is true that the name could with equal correctness be translated ”The G.o.d, the Mighty Serpent,” for can is a h.o.m.onym with these and other meanings, and we are without positive proof which was intended.
To bring Kukulcan into closer relations with other American hero-G.o.ds we must turn to the locality where he was especially wors.h.i.+ped, 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[1].
[Footnote 1: _El Libro de Chilan Balam de Chumayel_, MS.; Landa, _Relacion_, pp. 34-38. and 299; Herrera, _Historia de las Indias_, Dec.
iv, Lib. x, cap ii.]
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[1].
[Footnote 1: Stephens, _Incidents of Travel in Yucatan_, Vol. ii, p. 298.]
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 a.s.sumed ident.i.ty, 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.[1]
[Footnote 1: _El Libro de Chilan Balam de Chumayel_, MS.; Landa, _Relacion_, p. 54.]
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 wors.h.i.+p. 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d of rains, fertility and the harvests.[1]
[Footnote 1: I refer to the statue which Dr. LePlongeon was pleased to name ”Chac Mool.” See the _Estudio acerca de la Estatua llamada Chac-Mool o rey tigre_, by Sr. Jesus Sanchez, in the _a.n.a.les del Museo Nacional de Mexico_, Tom. i. p. 270. There was a divinity wors.h.i.+ped in Yucatan, called c.u.m-ahau, lord of the vase, whom the _Diccionario de Motul_, MS. terms, ”Lucifer, princ.i.p.al de los demonios.” The name is also given by Pio Perez in his ma.n.u.script dictionary in my possession, but is omitted in the printed copy. As Lucifer, the morning star, was identified with Quetzalcoatl in Mexican mythology, and as the word _c.u.m_, vase, Aztec _comitl_, is the same in both tongues, there is good ground to suppose that this lord of the vase, the ”prince of devils,” was the G.o.d of fertility, common to both cults.]
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.
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