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238 the ceremonial nature of the implement, the substitution in later times (for Palenque is perhaps the latest of the important sites) for the unornamental stone of a tuft of gorgeous plumage 1s easily understood and has many parallels in the history of ceremonial weapons. Now the haft is carved in the likeness of the rain-god, the snake is the emblem of rain, and the axe is par excellence the weapon of the rain-deity, emblematical of thunder (see p. 221). Thus again we arrive at the possibility that the bearer may be one of the Bacabs, who seem to be identical with the Chac, or rain-gods of Yucatan. Still, the identification of the main figures with the gods Who support the sky is net-one-on which I would insist at present. The personages who bear the emblems of the sky and rain may be merely the priests of the all-important deities of fertility, or chieftains who are thus endowed with the symbols of divine power. I have given perhaps disproportionate space to the discussion of these three symbols, the earth-monster, the sky-snake and the ceremonial axe, because I wish to emphasize two points; firstly that the accounts of the historical Yucatec do undoubtedly throw some light upon the monumental remains of earlier date; and secondly that the root-ideas of Mexican and Mayan religion are closely akin and cannot with profit be studied separately. It is the full recognition of these two axioms, combined of course with his own remarkable intellectual gifts, which gives the investigations of Seler so signal and permanent a value.

Of other mythological animals, mention may be made of the moan-bird, a bird of the falcon variety, associated with the sky and clouds, and possessing rather sinister characteristics (Fig. 46, a). "Also of the lightning animal, sometimes pictured as a dog, sometimes as a hoofed creature with a snout resembling a pig's, and usually shown descending from the sky. When the horse first made its appearance among the Maya it was