Book: Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts
P >>
Paul Schellhas >> Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 18013-h.htm or 18013-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/0/1/18013/18013-h/18013-h.htm)
or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/0/1/18013/18013-h.zip)
Transcriber's Note:
A number of typographical errors have been maintained in
this version of this book. A complete list is found at
the end of the text.
Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology,
Harvard University
Vol. IV.--No. 1
REPRESENTATION OF DEITIES OF THE MAYA MANUSCRIPTS
by
DR. PAUL SCHELLHAS
Second Edition, Revised
With 1 Plate of Figures and 65 Text Illustrations
Translated by Miss Selma Wesselhoeft and Miss A. M. Parker
Translation revised by the Author
Cambridge, Mass.
Published by the Museum
December, 1904.
NOTE.
In order to make more widely known and more easily accessible to American
students the results of important researches on the Maya hieroglyphs,
printed in the German language, the Peabody Museum Committee on Central
American Research proposes to publish translations of certain papers
which are not too lengthy or too extensively illustrated. The present
paper by one of the most distinguished scholars in this field is the
first of the series.
F. W. PUTNAM.
Harvard University
September, 1904.
PREFACE.
Since the first edition of this pamphlet appeared in the year 1897,
investigation in this department of science has made such marked
progress, notwithstanding the slight amount of material, that a revision
has now become desirable. It can be readily understood, that a new
science, an investigation on virgin soil, such as the Maya study is,
makes more rapid progress and develops more quickly than one pertaining
to some old, much explored territory.
In addition to numerous separate treatises, special mention should be
made of Ernst Foerstemann's commentaries on the three Maya manuscripts
(Kommentar zur Mayahandschrift der Koeniglichen oeffentlichen Bibliothek zu
Dresden, Dresden 1901, Kommentar zur Madrider Mayahandschrift, Danzig
1902, and Kommentar zur Pariser Mayahandschrift, Danzig 1903) which
constitute a summary of the entire results of investigation in this field
up to the present time.
The proposal made in the first edition of this pamphlet, that the Maya
deities be designated by letters of the alphabet, has been very generally
adopted by Americanists, especially by those in the United States of
America. This circumstance, in particular, has seemed to make it
desirable to prepare for publication a new edition, improved to accord
with the present state of the science.
Warmest thanks are above all due to Mr. Bowditch, of Boston, who in the
most disinterested manner, for the good of science, has made possible the
publication of this new edition.
January, 1904. P. SCHELLHAS.
THE MATERIAL OF THE MANUSCRIPTS.
The three manuscripts which we possess of the ancient Maya peoples of
Central America, the Dresden (Dr.), the Madrid (Tro.-Cort.) and the Paris
(Per.) manuscripts, all contain a series of pictorial representations of
human figures, which, beyond question, should be regarded as figures of
gods. Together with these are a number of animal figures, some with human
bodies, dress and armor, which likewise have a mythologic significance.
The contents of the three manuscripts, which undoubtedly pertain to the
calendar system and to the computation of time in their relation to the
Maya pantheon and to certain religious and domestic functions, admit of
the conclusion, that these figures of gods embody the essential part of
the religious conceptions of the Maya peoples in a tolerably complete
form. For here we have the entire ritual year, the whole chronology with
its mythological relations and all accessories. In addition to this,
essentially the same figures recur in all three manuscripts. Their number
is not especially large. There are about fifteen figures of gods in human
form and about half as many in animal form. At first we were inclined to
believe that further researches would considerably increase the number of
deities, but this assumption was incorrect. After years of study of the
subject and repeated examination of the results of research, it may be
regarded as positively proved, that the number of deities represented in
the Maya manuscripts does not exceed substantially the limits mentioned
above. The principal deities are determined beyond question.
The way in which this was accomplished is strikingly simple. It amounts
essentially to that which in ordinary life we call "memory of persons" and
follows almost naturally from a careful study of the manuscripts. For, by
frequently looking attentively at the representations, one learns by
degrees to recognize promptly similar and familiar figures of gods, by
the characteristic impression they make as a whole, or by certain details,
even when the pictures are partly obliterated or exhibit variations, and
the same is true of the accompanying hieroglyphs. A purely inductive,
natural science-method has thus been followed, and hence this pamphlet is
devoted simply to descriptions and to the amassing of material. These
figures have been taken separately out of the manuscripts alone,
identified and described with the studious avoidance of all unreliable,
misleading accounts and of all presumptive analogies with supposedly
allied mythologies.
Whatever cannot be derived from the manuscripts themselves has been wholly
ignored. Hypotheses and deductions have been avoided as far as possible.
Only where the interpretation, or the resemblance and the relations to
kindred mythologic domains were obvious, and where the accounts agreed
beyond question, has notice been taken of the fact so that the imposed
limitations of this work should not result in one-sidedness.
Since, for the most part, the accounts of Spanish authors regarding the
mythology of the Mayas correspond only slightly or not at all with these
figures of gods, and all other conjectures respecting their significance
are very dubious, the alphabetic designation of the deities, which was
tentatively introduced in the first edition of this work, has been
preserved. This designation has proved to be practical. For the plate at
the end of this pamphlet, examples as characteristic as possible of the
individual figures of gods have been selected from the manuscripts.
It is a well known fact that we possess no definite knowledge either of
the time of the composition or of the local origin of the Maya
manuscripts. The objection might, therefore, be raised that it is a
hazardous proceeding to treat the material derived from these three
manuscripts in common, as if it were homogeneous. But these researches
themselves have proved beyond a doubt, that the mythologic import of the
manuscripts belongs to one and the same sphere of thought. Essentially
the same deities and the same mythologic ideas are, without question, to
be found in all the manuscripts.
The material of the inscriptions has been set entirely at one side,
because the style of representation contained in them, both of the
mythologic forms and of the hieroglyphs, renders comparison exceedingly
difficult. In this field especial credit is due to Foerstemann and Seler,
for the work they have done in furtherance of interpretation, and mention
should not be omitted of the generosity with which the well known
promoter of Americanist investigations, the Duke of Loubat, has presented
to the Berlin Museum of Ethnology costly originals of reliefs and
inscriptions for direct study. The representations on the reliefs from
the Maya region, it is true, give evidence of dealing with kindred
mythologic conceptions. Figures and hieroglyphs of gods, made familiar by
the manuscripts, can also be found here and there. But on the whole so
little appears in support of instituting a comparison with the
manuscripts, that it seems expedient to leave the inscriptions for
independent and special study.
I. REPRESENTATIONS OF GODS.
A. The Death-God.
[Illustration: Figs. 1-6]
God A is represented as a figure with an exposed, bony spine, truncated
nose and grinning teeth.[10-1] It is plainly to be seen that the head of
this god represents a skull and that the spine is that of a skeleton. The
pictures of the death-god are so characteristic in the Maya manuscripts
that the deity is always easily recognized. He is almost always
distinguished by the skeleton face and the bony spine. Several times in
the Dresden manuscript the death-god is pictured with large black spots
on his body and in Dr. 19b a woman with closed eyes, whose body also
displays the black spots, is sitting opposite the god. While the Aztecs
had a male and a female death-deity, in the Maya manuscripts we find the
death-deity only once represented as feminine, namely on p. 9c of the
Dresden manuscript. Moreover the Dresden manuscript contains several
different types of the death-god, having invariably the fleshless skull
and (with the exception of Dr. 9c) the visible vertebrae of the spine.
Several times (Dr. 12b and 13b) he is represented apparently with
distended abdomen. A distinguishing article of his costume is the stiff
feather collar, which is worn only by this god, his companion, the
war-god F, and by his animal symbol, the owl, which will both be
discussed farther on. His head ornament varies in the Dresden Codex; in
the first portion of the manuscript, relating in part to pregnancy and
child-birth (see the pictures of women on p. 16, et seq.), he wears on
his head several times a figure occurring very frequently just in this
part of the Dresden Codex and apparently representing a snail (compare
Dr. 12b and 13b), which among the Aztecs is likewise a symbol of
parturition. In view of these variations in the pictures of the Dresden
Codex, it is very striking that in the Codex Tro.-Cortesianus, there is
only one invariable type of the death-god.
[10-1] See Plate for representations of the gods, A-P
A distinguishing ornament of the death-god consists of globular bells or
rattles, which he wears on his hands and feet, on his collar and as a
head ornament. As can be distinctly seen in Dr. 11a, they are fastened
with bands wound around the forearm and around the leg; in Dr. 15c these
bells are black.
Among the symbols of the death-god a cross of two bones should be
mentioned, which is also found in the Mexican manuscripts. This cross of
bones seems to occur once among the written characters as a hieroglyph
and then in combination with a number: Tro. 10.* The figure [Death-god
symbol] is also a frequent symbol of the death-god. Its significance is
still uncertain, but it also occurs among the hieroglyphs as a death-sign
and as a sign for the day Cimi (death).
The hieroglyphs of the death-god have been positively determined (see
Figs. 1 to 4). Figs. 1 and 2 are the forms of the Dresden manuscript and
Figs. 3 and 4 are those of the Madrid manuscript. God A is almost always
distinguished by two hieroglyphs, namely Figs. 1 and 2 or 3 and 4.
Moreover the hieroglyphs are always the same, have scarcely any variants.
Even in Dr. 9c, where the deity is represented as feminine, there are no
variations which might denote the change of sex. The hieroglyphs consist
chiefly of the head of a corpse with closed eyes, and of a skull. The
design in front of the skull in Figs. 2 and 4 and under it in Fig. 3 is a
sacrificial knife of flint, which was used in slaying the sacrifices, and
is also frequently pictured in the Aztec manuscripts. The dots under Fig.
1 are probably intended to represent blood.
The death-god is represented with extraordinary frequency in all the Maya
manuscripts. Not only does the figure of the god itself occur, but his
attributes are found in many places where his picture is missing. Death
evidently had an important significance in the mythologic conceptions of
the Mayas. It is connected with sacrifice, especially with human
sacrifices performed in connection with the captive enemy. Just as we find
a personification of death in the manuscripts of the Mayas, we also find
it in the picture-writings of the ancient Mexicans, often surprisingly
like the pictures of the Maya codices. The Aztec death-god and his myth
are known through the accounts of Spanish writers; regarding the death-god
of the Mayas we have less accurate information. Some mention occurs in
Landa's Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan, Sec. XXIII, but unfortunately
nothing is said of the manner of representing the death-god. He seems to
be related to the Aztec Mictlantecutli, of whom Sahagun, Appendix to Book
III, "De los que iban al infierno y de sus obsequias," treats as the god
of the dead and of the underworld, Mictlan. When the representations of
the latter, for example in the Codex Borgia, and in the Codex Vaticanus
No. 3773, are compared with those of the Maya manuscripts, there can be
hardly a doubt of the correspondence of the two god figures. In the Codex
Borgia, p. 37, he is represented once with the same characteristic head
ornament, which the death-god usually wears in the Maya manuscripts, and
in the Codex Fejervary, p. 8, the death-god wears a kind of breeches on
which cross-bones are depicted, exactly as in Dr. 9 (bottom).
Bishop Landa informs us that the Mayas "had great and immoderate dread of
death." This explains the frequency of the representations of the
death-god, from whom, as Landa states, "all evil and especially death"
emanated. Among the Aztecs we find a male and a female death-deity,
Mictlantecutli and Mictlancihuatl. They were the rulers of the realm of
the dead, Mictlan, which, according to the Aztec conception, lay in the
north; hence the death-god was at the same time the god of the north.
It agrees with the calendric and astronomic character of the Maya deities
in the manuscripts, that a number of the figures of the gods are used in
connection with specified cardinal points. Since, according to the Aztec
conception, the death-god was the god of the north, we might expect that
in the Maya manuscripts also, the death-god would be always considered
as the deity of the north. Nevertheless this happens only _once_, namely
in the picture at the end of Codex Cort., pp. 41 and 42. Elsewhere, on
the other hand, this god is connected with other cardinal points, thus
Dr. 14a with the west or east (the hieroglyph is illegible, but it can
be only west or east), and in Dr. 27c with the west. It is interesting
to note that once, however, in a series of cardinal points, the
hieroglyph of the death-god connected with the numeral 10 stands just in
the place of the sign of the north; this is on Tro. 24* (bottom).
In regard to the name of the death-god in the Maya language, Landa tells
us that the wicked after death were banished to an underworld, the name
of which was "Mitnal", a word which is defined as "Hell" in the Maya
lexicon of Pio Perez and which has a striking resemblance to Mictlan, the
Aztec name for the lower regions. The death-god Hunhau reigned in this
underworld. According to other accounts (Hernandez), however, the
death-god is called Ahpuch. These names can in no wise serve as aids to
the explanation of the hieroglyphs of the death-god, since they have no
etymologic connection with death or the heads of corpses and skulls,
which form the main parts of the hieroglyph. Furthermore, the hieroglyphs
of the gods certainly have a purely ideographic significance as already
mentioned above, so that any relation between the names of the deities
and their hieroglyphs cannot exist from the very nature of the case.
The day of the death-god is the day Cimi, death. The day-sign Cimi
corresponds almost perfectly with the heads of corpses contained in the
hieroglyphs of the death-god.
A hieroglyphic sign, which relates to death and the death-deity and
occurs very frequently, is the sign Fig. 5, which is probably to be
regarded as the ideogram of the owl. It represents the head of an owl,
while the figure in front of it signifies the owl's ear and the one
below, its teeth, as distinguishing marks of a bird of prey furnished
with ears and a powerful beak. The head of the owl appears on a human
body several times in the Dresden manuscript as a substitute for the
death-deity, thus Dr. 18c, 19c, 20a and 20c and in other places, and
the hieroglyphic group (Fig. 5) is almost a regular attendant hieroglyph
of the death-god.
A series of other figures of the Maya mythology is connected with the
death-god. This is evident from the fact that his hieroglyphs or his
symbols occur with certain other figures, which are thus brought into
connection with death and the death-deity.
These figures are as follows:
1. His companion, god F, the god of war, of human sacrifice and of
violent death in battle, apparently a counterpart of the Aztec Xipe, who
will be discussed farther on.
2. The moan bird. See beyond under Mythological Animals, No. 1.
3. The dog. See the same, No. 3.
4. A human figure, possibly representing the priest of the death-god (see
Dr. 28, centre, Dr. 5b and 9a). The last figure is a little doubtful.
It is blindfolded and thus recalls the Aztec deity of frost and sin,
Itztlacoliuhqui. A similar form with eyes bound occurs only once again in
the Maya manuscripts, namely Dr. 50 (centre). That this figure is related
to the death-god is proved by the fact that on Dr. 9a it wears the
Cimi-sign on the middle piece of the chain around its neck. Furthermore
it should be emphasized that the Aztec sin-god, Itztlacoliuhqui, likewise
appears with symbols of death.
5. An isolated figure, Dr. 50a (the sitting figure at the right). This
wears the skull as head ornament, which is represented in exactly the
same way as in the Aztec manuscripts (see Fig. 6).
6. Another isolated figure is twice represented combined with the
death-god in Dr. 22c. This picture is so effaced that it is impossible
to tell what it means. The hieroglyph represents a variant of the
death's-head, Cimi. It seems to signify an ape, which also in the
pictures of the Mexican codices was sometimes used in relation to the
death-god.
The symbols of the death-god are also found with the figure without a
head on Dr. 2 (45)a, clearly the picture of a beheaded prisoner. Death
symbols occur, too, with the curious picture of a hanged woman on Dr.
53b, a picture which is interesting from the fact that it recalls
vividly a communication of Bishop Landa. Landa tells us, the Mayas
believed that whoever hanged himself did not go to the underworld, but to
"paradise," and as a result of this belief, suicide by hanging was very
common and was chosen on the slightest pretext. Such suicides were
received in paradise by the goddess of the hanged, Ixtab. Ix is the
feminine prefix; tab, taab, tabil mean, according to Perez' Lexicon of
the Maya Language, "cuerda destinada para algun uso exclusivo". The name
of this strange goddess is, therefore, the "Goddess of the Halter" or, as
Landa says, "The Goddess of the Gallows". Now compare Dr. 53. On the
upper half of the page is the death-god represented with hand raised
threateningly, on the lower half is seen the form of a woman suspended by
a rope placed around her neck. The closed eye, the open mouth and the
convulsively outspread fingers, show that she is dead, in fact,
strangled. It is, in all probability, the goddess of the gallows and
halter, Ixtab, the patroness of the hanged, who is pictured here in
company with the death-god; or else it is a victim of this goddess, and
page 53 of the manuscript very probably refers, therefore (even though
the two halves do not belong directly together), to the mythologic
conceptions of death and the lower regions to which Landa alludes.
7. Lastly the owl is to be mentioned as belonging to the death-god,
which, strange to say, is represented nowhere in the pictures
realistically and so that it can be recognized, although other mythologic
animals, as the dog or the moan bird, occur plainly as animals in the
pictures. On the other hand, the owl's head appears on a human body in
the Dresden manuscript as a substitute for the death-deity itself, for
example on Dr. 18c, 19c, 20a and 20c and elsewhere, and forms a
regular attendant hieroglyph of the death-god in the group of three signs
already mentioned (Fig. 5).
Among the antiquities from the Maya region of Central America, there are
many objects and representations, which have reference to the cultus of
the death-god, and show resemblances to the pictures of the manuscripts.
The death-god also plays a role, even today, in the popular superstitions
of the natives of Yucatan, as a kind of spectre that prowls around the
houses of the sick. His name is Yum Cimil, the lord of death.
B. The God With the Large Nose and Lolling Tongue.
[Illustration: Figs. 7-10]
The deity, represented most frequently in all the manuscripts, is a
figure with a long, proboscis-like, pendent nose and a tongue (or teeth,
fangs) hanging out in front and at the sides of the mouth, also with a
characteristic head ornament resembling a knotted bow and with a peculiar
rim to the eye. Fig. 7 is the hieroglyph of this deity. In Codex
Tro.-Cortesianus it usually has the form of Fig. 8.
God B is evidently one of the most important of the Maya pantheon. He
must be a universal deity, to whom the most varied elements, natural
phenomena and activities are subject. He is represented with different
attributes and symbols of power, with torches in his hands as symbols of
fire, sitting in the water and on the water, standing in the rain, riding
in a canoe, enthroned on the clouds of heaven and on the cross-shaped
tree of the four points of the compass, which, on account of its likeness
to the Christian emblem, has many times been the subject of fantastic
hypotheses. We see the god again on the Cab-sign, the symbol of the
earth, with weapons, axe and spears, in his hands, planting kernels of
maize, on a journey (Dr. 65b) staff in hand and a bundle on his back,
and fettered (Dr. 37a) with arms bound behind his back. His entire myth
seems to be recorded in the manuscripts. The great abundance of symbolism
renders difficult the characterization of the deity, and it is well-nigh
impossible to discover that a single mythologic idea underlies the whole.
God B is quite often connected with the serpent, without exhibiting
affinity with the Chicchan-god H (see p. 28). In Dr. 33b, 34b and 35b,
the serpent is in the act of devouring him, or he is rising up out of the
serpent's jaws, as is plainly indicated also by the hieroglyphs, for they
contain the group given in Fig. 10, which is composed of the rattle of
the rattlesnake and the opened hand as a symbol of seizing and
absorption. God B himself is pictured with the body of a serpent in Dr.
35b and 36a (compare No. 2 of the Mythological Animals). He likewise
occurs sitting on the serpent and in Dr. 66a he is twice (1st and 3d
figures) pictured with a snake in his hand.
God B sits on the moan head in Dr. 38c, on a head with the Cauac-sign in
Dr. 39c, 66c, and on the dog in Dr. 29a. All these pictures are meant
to typify his abode in the air, above rain, storm and death-bringing
clouds, from which the lightning falls. The object with the cross-bones
of the death-god, on which he sits in Dr. 66c, can perhaps be explained
in the same manner. As the fish belongs to god B in a symbolic sense, so
the god is represented fishing in Dr. 44 (1). His face with the large
nose and the tongue (or fangs) hanging out on the side in Dr. 44 (1)a
(1st figure) is supposed to be a mask which the priest, representing the
god, assumes during the religious ceremony.
Furthermore the following four well-known symbols of sacrificial gifts
appear in connection with god B in the Dresden manuscript; a sprouting
kernel of maize (or, according to Foerstemann, parts of a mammal, game), a
fish, a lizard and a vulture's head, as symbols of the four elements.
They seem to occur, however, in relation also to other deities and
evidently are general symbols of sacrificial gifts. Thus they occur on
the two companion initial pages of the Codex Tro.-Cortesianus, on which
the hieroglyphs of gods C and K are repeated in rows (Tro. 36-Cort. 22.
Compare Foerstemann, Kommentar zur Madrider Handschrift, pp. 102, 103).
God B is also connected with the four colors--yellow, red, white and
black--which, according to the conception of the Mayas, correspond to the
cardinal points (yellow, air; red, fire; white, water; black, earth) and
the god himself is occasionally represented with a black body, for
example on Dr. 29c, 31c and 69. This is expressed in the hieroglyphs by
the sign, Fig. 9, which signifies black and is one of the four signs of
the symbolic colors for the cardinal points.
God B is represented with all the _four cardinal points_, a
characteristic, which he shares only with god C, god K, and, in one
instance, with god F (see Tro. 29*c); he appears as ruler of all the
points of the compass; north, south, east and west as well as air, fire,
water and earth are subject to him.