Part 15 (1/2)

The probability seems to be that Kukulcan was an original Maya divinity, one of their hero-G.o.ds, 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 wors.h.i.+p of Kukulcan fell, to some extent, into disfavor. Of this we are informed by Landa, in an interesting pa.s.sage.

He tells us that many of the natives believed that Kukulcan, after his earthly labors, had ascended into Heaven and become one of their G.o.ds.

Previous to the destruction of Mayapan temples were built to him, and he was wors.h.i.+ped throughout the land, but after that event he was paid such honor only in the province of Mani (governed by the Xiu). Nevertheless, in grat.i.tude 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[1], with reference, I suppose, to the alleged founding of the cities of Mayapan and Chichen Itza by this hero-G.o.d. The five days and five sacred banners again bring to mind the close relation of this with the Quetzalcoatl symbolism.

[Footnote 1: ”Llamaban a esta fiesta _Chic Kaban_;” Landa, _Relacion_, p.

302. I take it this should read _Chiic u Kaba_ (_Chiic_; fundar o poblar alguna cosa, casa, pueblo, etc. _Diccionario de Motul_, MS.)]

As Itzamna 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 wors.h.i.+p of other G.o.ds 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.[1]

[Footnote 1: Nakuk Pech, _Concixta yetel mapa_, 1562. MS.; _El Libro de Chilan Balam de Mani_, 1595, MS. The former is a history of the Conquest written in Maya, by a native n.o.ble, who was an adult at the time that Merida was founded (1542).]

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.[1]

[Footnote 1: Juan de Villagutierre Sotomayor, _Historia de la Provincia de el Itza_, pa.s.sim (Madrid, 1701).]

The ground of all such prophecies was, I have no doubt, the expected return of the hero-G.o.ds, 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 p.r.o.nounce with reference to the future.

CHAPTER V.

THE QQUICHUA HERO-G.o.d VIRACOCHA.

VIRACOCHA AS THE FIRST CAUSE--HIS NAME, ILLA TICCI--QQUICHUA PRAYERS--OTHER NAMES AND t.i.tLES OF VIRACOCHA--HIS WORs.h.i.+P A TRUE MONOTHEISM--THE MYTH OF THE FOUR BROTHERS--MYTH OF THE TWIN BROTHERS.

VIRACOCHA AS TUNAPA, HE WHO PERFECTS--VARIOUS INCIDENTS IN HIS LIFE--RELATION TO MANCO CAPAC--HE DISAPPEARS IN THE WEST.

VIRACOCHA RISES FROM LAKE t.i.tICACA AND JOURNEYS TO THE WEST--DERIVATION OF HIS NAME--HE WAS REPRESENTED AS WHITE AND BEARDED--THE MYTH OF CON AND PACHACAMAC--CONTICE VIRACOCHA--PROPHECIES OF THE PERUVIAN SEERS--THE WHITE MEN CALLED VIRACOCHAS--SIMILARITIES TO AZTEC MYTHS.

The most majestic empire on this continent at the time of its discovery was that of the Incas. It extended along the Pacific, from the parallel of 2 north lat.i.tude to 20 south, and may be roughly said to have been 1500 miles in length, with an average width of 400 miles. The official and princ.i.p.al tongue was the Qquichua, the two other languages of importance being the Yunca, spoken by the coast tribes, and the Aymara, around Lake t.i.ticaca and south of it. The latter, in phonetics and in many root-words, betrays a relations.h.i.+p to the Qquichua, but a remote one.

The Qquichuas were a race of considerable cultivation. They had a developed metrical system, and were especially fond of the drama. Several specimens of their poetical and dramatic compositions have been preserved, and indicate a correct taste. Although they did not possess a method of writing, they had various mnemonic aids, by which they were enabled to recall their verses and their historical traditions.

In the mythology of the Qquichuas, and apparently also of the Aymaras, the leading figure is _Viracocha_. His august presence is in one cycle of legends that of Infinite Creator, the Primal Cause; in another he is the beneficent teacher and wise ruler; in other words, he too, like Quetzalcoatl and the others whom I have told about, is at one time G.o.d, at others the incarnation of G.o.d.

As the first cause and ground of all things, Viracocha's distinctive epithet was _Ticci_, the Cause, the Beginning, or _Illa ticci_, the Ancient Cause[1], the First Beginning, an endeavor in words to express the absolute priority of his essence and existence. He it was who had made and moulded the Sun and endowed it with a portion of his own divinity, to wit, the glory of its far-s.h.i.+ning rays; he had formed the Moon and given her light, and set her in the heavens to rule over the waters and the winds, over the queens of the earth and the parturition of women; and it was still he, the great Viracocha, who had created the beautiful Chasca, the Aurora, the Dawn, G.o.ddess of all unspotted maidens like herself, her who in turn decked the fields and woods with flowers, whose time was the gloaming and the twilight, whose messengers were the fleecy clouds which sail through the sky, and who, when she shakes her cl.u.s.tering hair, drops noiselessly pearls of dew on the green gra.s.s fields.[2]

[Footnote 1: ”_Ticci_, origen, principio, fundamento, cimiento, causa.

_Ylla_; todo lo que es antiguo.” Holguin, _Vocabulario de la Lengua Qquichua o del Inga_ (Ciudad de los Reyes, 1608). _Ticci_ is not to be confounded with _aticsi_, he conquers, from _atini_, I conquer, a term also occasionally applied to Viracocha.]

[Footnote 2: _Relacion Anonyma, de los Costumbres Antiguos de los Naturales del Piru_, p. 138. 1615. (Published, Madrid, 1879).]

Invisible and incorporeal himself, so, also, were his messengers (the light-rays), called _huaminca_, the faithful soldiers, and _hayhuaypanti_, the s.h.i.+ning ones, who conveyed his decrees to every part.[1] He himself was omnipresent, imparting motion and life, form and existence, to all that is. Therefore it was, says an old writer, with more than usual insight into man's moral nature, with more than usual charity for a persecuted race, that when these natives wors.h.i.+ped some swift river or pellucid spring, some mountain or grove, ”it was not that they believed that some particular divinity was there, or that it was a living thing, but because they believed that the great G.o.d, Illa Ticci, had created and placed it there and impressed upon it some mark of distinction, beyond other objects of its cla.s.s, that it might thus be designated as an appropriate spot whereat to wors.h.i.+p the maker of all things; and this is manifest from the prayers they uttered when engaged in adoration, because they are not addressed to that mountain, or river, or cave, but to the great Illa Ticci Viracocha, who, they believed, lived in the heavens, and yet was invisibly present in that sacred object.”[2]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 140.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 147.]