Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts

Part 1

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

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.

Part 2

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.

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