[1]
[Footnote 1: E. Uricoechea, _Gramatica de la Lengua Chibcha_, Introd., p.
xx. The similarity of these to the Biblical account is not to be
attributed to borrowing from the latter, but simply that it, as they, are
both the mythological expressions of the same natural phenomenon. In Norse
mythology, Freya is the rainbow goddess. She wears the bow as a necklace
or girdle. It was hammered out for her by four dwarfs, the four winds from
the cardinal points, and Odin seeks to get it from her. Schwartz,
_Ursprung der Mythologie_, S. 117.]
As goddess of the fertilizing showers, of growth and life, it is easily
seen how Ixchel came to be the deity both of women in childbirth and of
the medical art, a Juno Sospita as well as a Juno Lucina.
The statement is also significant, that the Bacabs were supposed to be the
victims of Ah-puchah, the Despoiler or Destroyer,[1] though the precise
import of that character in the mythical drama is left uncertain.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Eopuco_ I take to be from the verb _puch_ or _puk_, to melt,
to dissolve, to shell corn from the cob, to spoil; hence _puk_, spoiled,
rotten, _podrida_, and possibly _ppuch_, to flog, to beat. The prefix
_ah_, signifies one who practices or is skilled in the action which the
verb denotes.]
[Footnote 2: The mother of the Bacabs is given in the myth as _Chibilias_
(or _Chibirias_, but there is no _r_ in the Maya alphabet).
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