. Discovery. Science. 236 DISCOVERY ripple wind makes on water," the ruffled feathers on the serpentine stream. But in later times he came to be regarded as the priest who conjured down the rain by magic, and his possession of the calitac, or rain- maker's wand, places his position in this respect beyond all question. Sky Deities Coming to the third letter of our alphabet of gods, we find God C simple of explanation. At first sight his outward semblance may seem puzzling. His face is framed hy the painted border seen on the xatnach, or flat dish on which the Maya baked their tortillas or
. Discovery. Science. 236 DISCOVERY ripple wind makes on water," the ruffled feathers on the serpentine stream. But in later times he came to be regarded as the priest who conjured down the rain by magic, and his possession of the calitac, or rain- maker's wand, places his position in this respect beyond all question. Sky Deities Coming to the third letter of our alphabet of gods, we find God C simple of explanation. At first sight his outward semblance may seem puzzling. His face is framed hy the painted border seen on the xatnach, or flat dish on which the Maya baked their tortillas or maize pancakes. But xamach also means " north," so that in this instance we have an example of that. Fig. 2.—reproduction of part of a MAYA MS. Above, Gods B and E are seen ; below, a variant of Goddess I. The lesser figures in lines show the Maya hiero-^lyphic system of writing. rebus-writing on which the Maya hieroglyphical system was undoubtedly based. There was, we know from tradition, a god called Xamanek, who represented the pole star, and that God C is identical with this deity scarcely admits of any doubt. In the Codex Cortesianus we see his head surrounded by a nimbus of rays which can symbolise only stellar emanations, and in the same manuscript we find him hanging from the sky in the noose of a rope. Elsewhere he is accom - panied by familiar planetary signs. In D we have a god of night and the moon. He is represented as an aged man with toothless jaws, and is indicated by the hieroglyph akhal, " ; His head, in the reduced cursive writing of the , stands for the sign of the moon, and this is frequently accompanied by the snail, the emblem of birth, over which function the moon had planetary jurisdiction. Among the Maya deities D is the only one who can boast of a beard, a certain sign in the case of the neighbouring Mexican pantheon that a god possesses a planetary significance, and for this reason, no less than because of his venera
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