Exploring the Maya Underworld (2)

Creator Gods
Most scholars say that the Maya had 13 Creator Gods. These deities played a role in the Classic (200–1000 CE), Postclassic (1000–1539 CE) and Contact Period (1511–1697) of Maya religion. The names are mainly taken from the Books of Chilam Balam, Lacandon ethnography, the Madrid Codex, the work of Diego de Landa, and the Popol Vuh. Depending on the source, most names are either Yucatec or K’iche’. Thirteen was a number belonging to men; nine belonged to women. A few of the Creator Gods are listed here:-
• Alom: The god of the sky and wood, a creator deity.
• Bitol: A sky god. One of the creator and destroyer deities who participated in the last two attempts at creating humanity.
• Huracan: “One-Leg”, one of three lightning gods together called “Heart of the Sky” and acting as world creators. God of the weather, wind, storms, and fire who participated in all three attempts at creating humanity; from whom we get the word “hurricane”.
• Itzamnaaj (pic 1): The founder of maize and cacao, as well as writing, calendars, and medicine. Once mentioned as the father of the Bacabs.
NOTE to pic 1: Here he holds an incense burner that is ‘activated’, in an act of blessing mankind. The style of the incense burner is that of a Lacandon ‘God Pot’.

Pic 1: Supreme creator god Itamnaaj rules over the heavens where he lives - usually portrayed as a toothless but sprightly old man with large ‘god eyes’, hooked nose, elaborate headdress and distinguished bearing. Illustration by Steve Radzi

Gods of the Underworld
There are many supernatural beings concerned with death and the Maya Underworld. The death Gods spread deadly diseases, stench, and decay. The Maya death gods (Ah Pukuh, Ah Cimih, Ah Cizin, Hunhau, Kimi, or Yum Kimil) known by a variety of names, are two basic types of death gods who are respectively represented by the 16th-century Yucatec deities Hunhau and Uacmitun Ahau mentioned by Spanish Bishop Landa. Hunhau is the lord of the Underworld. Iconographically, Hunhau (Ah Pukuh) and Uacmitun Ahau correspond to the Gods A and A’ (“A prime”). In recent narratives, particularly in the oral tradition of the Lacandon people, there is only one death god (called “Kisin” in Lacandon), who acts as the antipode of the Upper God in the creation of the world and of the human body and soul. This death god inhabits an Underworld that is also the world of the dead. As a ruler over the world of the dead (Metnal or Xibalba), the principal death god corresponds to the Aztec deity Mictlāntēcutli.

Pic 3: Images of Maya God A (L) and Kisin (Centre and R); adapted from the Dresden Codex

• B’olon Yokte’ K’uh: God of Merchants, War, and the Underworld. Even though this god appears frequently in the codices and in Maya art, his name is still uncertain. He is often shown in scenes of the Maya Underworld, and he presided over the committee of gods that assembled when the cosmos was created. His jaguar and owl attributes point to sorcery, violence, and warfare. He is a wrinkled, aged god with a huge nose, large “god eyes”, a broad brimmed hat with black-tipped owl feathers on top (or the entire bird) and a fringed cape. He is often smoking a large cigar.
• Chac Bolay: Chac Bolay is associated with the sun’s passage through the Underworld and the Lord of Death, Ah Pukuh (Cizin). Chac Bolay or Chac Báalam is depicted with a jaguar head, protruding incisors, and a strand of braided hair. Its skin, dotted with spots like that of a jaguar, symbolizes the night and the celestial vault full of stars. He represents strength and power.
• Kisin (Cizin): Kisin is the name of the death god among the Lacandons as well as the early colonial Choles, kis being a root with meanings like “flatulence” and “stench.” Landa uses another name and calls the lord of the Underworld and “prince of the devils” Hunhau, a name that, recurring in early Yucatec dictionaries as Humhau and Cumhau, related to Ah Pukuh.

Pic 5: B’olon Yokte’ K’uh sits on a jaguar throne, smoking a cigar, with his owl-shaped hat

The Lords of Death
Xibalba is the underground court of the twelve Maya Lords of Death. Hun-Kame (One- Death) and Yukaub-Kame (Seven-Death) are the most powerful.
• Hun-Kame and Vucub-Kame: In the Popol Vuh, the Hero Twins descend to the “Place of Fright” (Xibalba) where a pair of Death Gods, Hun-Came (“One-Death”) and Vucub-Came (“Seven-Death”), rule over a series of disease-bringing deities. The twins defeat the Death Gods and put restrictions on their cult.
The remaining ten Lords of Death work in pairs and are demons responsible for different forms of human suffering, disease, and death:-
• Scab Stripper & Blood Gatherer sicken people’s blood.
• Demon of Pus & Demon of Jaundice cause people to swell up.
• Bone Scepter & Skull Scepter turn dead bodies into skeletons.
• Demon of Filth & Demon of Woe hide in the dirty corners of people’s homes and stab them to death.
• Wing & Packstrap cause people to die coughing up blood on the road.

Pic 7: An Underworld scene, by artist Luis Garay

The existence of a nine nights cycle in Mesoamerican calendrics was first discovered in 1904 by Eduard Seler. The Aztec names of the deities are known because their names are glossed in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Tudela. Seler argued that the 9 lords each corresponded to one of the nine levels of the Underworld and ruled the corresponding hour of the nighttime; this argument has not generally been accepted, since the evidence suggests that the lord of a given night ruled over that entire night. Zelia Nuttall argued that the Nine Lords of the Night represented the nine moons of the Lunar year. The cycle of the Nine Lords of the Night held special relation to the Mesoamerican ritual calendar of 260-days and nights which includes exactly 29 groups of 9 nights each, and also, approximately, 9 vague lunations of 29 days each.

Pic 9: A pair of glyphs signifying 9 Bak’tun, or about 3,600 years; from Palenque, Mexico. The character on the right is B’olon Yokte’ K’uh.