Mexican and Central American antiquities, calendar systems, and history : twenty-four papers / by Eduard Seler [and others] ; translated from the German under the supervision of Charles P. Bowditch.

  • Seler, Eduard, 1849-1922.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Mexican and Central American antiquities, calendar systems, and history : twenty-four papers / by Eduard Seler [and others] ; translated from the German under the supervision of Charles P. Bowditch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    314/838 (page 234)
    An interesting passage in the Popol Vuh identifies the Kiches with the Toltecs, who are designated in the Popol Vuh as Yaqui,° and identifies Tohil, the god of the Kiche race, with Yolcuat-Quitzal- cuat—that is, Youalli ehecatl,* * * 6 Quetzalcoatl—the god of the Toltecs. While the three tribes of the Kiches had the same god, and the god of the Rabinals, though he was called differently, namely, Hun- toh, was also the same, the Cakchikels differed from the Kiches both in their language and in the name of the god, whom they had brought with them from Tollan. The Cakchikel god was called Zotziha Chimalcan. After the name of this god, both the China- mits, that is, the two royal families of the Cakchikels, were called Ah-po-zotzil and Ah-po-xa (hil).c We find the same name for this god once more in a second passage, and here, too, there is a more detailed statement concerning him. We read: “ There was a tribe who drew fire from fire sticks. The Cakchikel god is called Zotzi- laha Chamalcan and the bat (zotz) is his image.0 He was therefore the god who controlled fire and who was conceived of in the like- ness of a bat. I can not at present explain the name Chimalcan, or Chamalcan. Zotziha, or Zotzilaha, does not mean “ bat ”, but “ bat’s house ”. I think this should suggest a mountain cavern, the interior of the earth: therefore a god of caverns, of the dark realms of earth. This is confirmed by a passage immediately preceding the one just quoted, where the figure appearing before the tribes in the dress of a bat is styled “ this Xibalba ”. As a double name, Zotzi- laha Chimalman, is given to the deity, and as likewise two families correspond to this deity and are said to reproduce his name, we must certainly suppose that the god had a twofold form, and that in con- trast to the sinister form of the bat there was another, more pleas- ing one. In other passages of the Popol Vuh the name Zotziha, “bat’s house”, is given, not as that of a god, but as one of the regions which must be traversed on the way to the deepest depths of the interior of the earth, the kingdom of darkness and death. Piere dwells the Cama-Zotz, “ the death bat ”, the great beast who slays all who come in his way, and who also bit off the head of the hero Hunahpu when he descended to the lower world. Such images of death play a great part in the mythology of Mexican and Central American races. But, I repeat, they are always conceived of and usual!y drawn with their counter- part. a No doubt the Mexican Yaque, “ they go”, that is, “ the departing”, “ those who go away ”, a verbal form which is used with tolerable regularity in the texts in connection with death. 6 Literally, ‘‘night [and] wind”, a designation or epithet applied to the deity himself. But it is also especially given as the name of the god of the Nahuas, and represented in picture writing, it would seem, by the double image of the death god and the wind god leaning back to back. c Popol Vuh, pp. 246, 248. a Popol Vuh, p. 224. The passage is not correctly quoted by Brasseur de Bourbourg.