Part 19 (1/2)
Few of our hero-myths have given occasion for wilder speculation than that of Votan. He was the culture hero of the Tzendals, a branch of the Maya race, whose home was in Chiapas and Tabasco. Even the usually cautious Humboldt suggested that his name might be a form of Odin or Buddha! As for more imaginative writers, they have made not the least difficulty in discovering that it is identical with the Odon of the Tarascos, the Oton of the Othomis, the Poudan of the East Indian Tamuls, the Vaudoux of the Louisiana negroes, etc. All this has been done without any attempt having been made to ascertain the precise meaning and derivation of the name Votan. Superficial phonetic similarities have been the only guide.
We are not well acquainted with the Votan myth. It appears to have been written down some time in the seventeenth century, by a Christianized native. His ma.n.u.script of five or six folios, in the Tzendal tongue, came into the possession of Nunez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas, about 1690, and later into the hands of Don Ramon Ondonez y Aguiar, where it was seen by Dr. Paul Felix Cabrera, about 1790. What has become of it is not known.
No complete translation of it was made; and the extracts or abstracts given by the authors just named are most unsatisfactory, and disfigured by ignorance and prejudice. None of them, probably, was familiar with the Tzendal tongue, especially in its ancient form. What they tell us runs as follows:--
At some indefinitely remote epoch, Votan came from the far East. He was sent by G.o.d to divide out and a.s.sign to the different races of men the earth on which they dwell, and to give to each its own language. The land whence he came was vaguely called _ualum uotan_, the land of Votan.
His message was especially to the Tzendals. Previous to his arrival they were ignorant, barbarous, and without fixed habitations. He collected them into villages, taught them how to cultivate the maize and cotton, and invented the hieroglyphic signs, which they learned to carve on the walls of their temples. It is even said that he wrote his own history in them.
He inst.i.tuted civil laws for their government, and imparted to them the proper ceremonials of religious wors.h.i.+p. For this reason he was also called ”Master of the Sacred Drum,” the instrument with which they summoned the votaries to the ritual dances.
They especially remembered him as the inventor of their calendar. His name stood third in the week of twenty days, and was the first Dominical sign, according to which they counted their year, corresponding to the _Kan_ of the Mayas.
As a city-builder, he was spoken of as the founder of Palenque, Nachan, Huehuetlan--in fact, of any ancient place the origin of which had been forgotten. Near the last mentioned locality, Huehuetlan in Soconusco, he was reported to have constructed an underground temple by merely blowing with his breath. In this gloomy mansion he deposited his treasures, and appointed a priestess to guard it, for whose a.s.sistance he created the tapirs.
Votan brought with him, according to one statement, or, according to another, was followed from his native land by, certain attendants or subordinates, called in the myth _tzequil_, petticoated, from the long and flowing robes they wore. These aided him in the work of civilization. On four occasions he returned to his former home, dividing the country, when he was about to leave, into four districts, over which he placed these attendants.
When at last the time came for his final departure, he did not pa.s.s through the valley of death, as must all mortals, but he penetrated through a cave into the under-earth, and found his way to ”the root of heaven.” With this mysterious expression, the native myth closes its account of him.[1]
[Footnote 1: The references to the Votan myth are Nunez de la Vega, _Const.i.tuciones Diocesanas, Prologo_ (Romae, 1702); Boturini, _Idea de una Nueva Historia de la America septentrional_, pp. 114, et seq., who discusses the former; Dr. Paul Felix Cabrera, _Teatro Critico Americano_, translated, London, 1822; Bra.s.seur de Bourbourg, _Hist. des Nations Civilisees de Mexique_, vol. i, chap, ii, who gives some additional points from Ordonez; and H. de Charencey, _Le Mythe de Votan; Etude sur les Origines Asiatiques de la Civilization Americaine_. (Alencon, 1871).]
He was wors.h.i.+ped by the Tzendals as their princ.i.p.al deity and their beneficent patron. But he had a rival in their religious observances, the feared _Yalahau_ Lord of Blackness, or Lord of the Waters. He was represented as a terrible warrior, cruel to the people, and one of the first of men.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Yalahau_ is referred to by Bishop Nunez de la Vega as venerated in Occhuc and other Tzendal towns of Chiapas. He translates it ”Senor de los Negros.” The terminal _ahau_ is pure Maya, meaning king, ruler, lord; _Yal_ is also Maya, and means water. The G.o.d of the waters, of darkness, night and blackness, is often one and the same in mythology, and probably had we the myth complete, he would prove to be Votan's brother and antagonist.]
According to an unpublished work by Fuentes, Votan was one of four brothers, the common ancestors of the southwestern branches of the Maya family.[1]
[Footnote 1: Quoted in Emeterio Pineda, _Descripcion Geografica de Chiapas y Soconusco_, p. 9 (Mexico, 1845).]
All these traits of this popular hero are too exactly similar to those of the other representatives of this myth, for them to leave any doubt as to what we are to make of Votan. Like the rest of them, he and his long-robed attendants are personifications of the eastern light and its rays. Though but uncritical epitomes of a fragmentary myth about him remain, they are enough to stamp it as that which meets us so constantly, no matter where we turn in the New World.[1]
[Footnote 1: The t.i.tle of the Tzendal MSS., is said by Cabrera to be ”Proof that I am a Chan.” The author writes in the person of Votan himself, and proves his claim that he is a Chan, ”because he is a Chivim.”
Chan has been translated _serpent_; on _chivim_ the commentators have almost given up. Supposing that the serpent was a totem of one of the Tzendal clans, then the effort would be to show that their hero-G.o.d was of that totem; but how this is shown by his being proved a _chivim_ is not obvious. The term _ualum chivim_, the land of the _chivim_. appears to be that applied, in the MS., to the country of the Tzendals, or a part of it.
The words _chi uinic_ would mean, ”men of the sh.o.r.e,” and might be a local name applied to a clan on the coast. But in default of the original text we can but surmise as to the precise meaning of the writer.]
It scarcely seems necessary for me to point out that his name Votan is in no way akin to Othomi or Tarasco roots, still less to the Norse Wodan or the Indian Buddha, but is derived from a radical in pure Maya. Yet I will do so, in order, if possible, to put a stop to such visionary etymologies.
As we are informed by Bishop Nunez de la Vega, _uotan_ in Tzendal means _heart_. Votan was spoken of as ”the heart or soul of his people.” This derivation has been questioned, because the word for the heart in the other Maya dialects is different, and it has been suggested that this was but an example of ”otosis,” where a foreign proper name was turned into a familiar common noun. But these objections do not hold good.
In regard to derivation, _uotan_ is from the pure Maya root-word _tan_, which means primarily ”the breast,” or that which is in front or in the middle of the body; with the possessive prefix it becomes _utan_. In Tzendal this word means both _breast_ and _heart_. This is well ill.u.s.trated by an ancient ma.n.u.script, dating from 1707, in my possession.
It is a guide to priests for administering the sacraments in Spanish and Tzendal. I quote the pa.s.sage in point[1]:--
[Footnote 1: _Modo de Administrar los Sacramentos en Castellano y Tzendal_, 1707. 4to MS., p. 13.]
”Con todo tu corazon, hiriendote en los pechos, di, conmigo.”
_Ta zpizil auotan, xatigh zny auotan, zghoyoc, alagh ghoyoc_.--
Here, _a_ is the possessive of the second person, and _uotan_ is used both for heart and breast. Thus the derivation of the word from the Maya radical is clear.
The figure of speech by which the chief divinity is called ”the heart of the earth,” ”the heart of the sky,” is common in these dialects, and occurs repeatedly in the _Popol Vuh_, the sacred legend of the Kiches of Guatemala.[2]