" Francisco Lopez de Gomara, _Conquista de Mejico_,
p. 305 (Ed. Paris, 1852).]
Each of the four Bacabs was also called _Acantun_, which means "a stone
set up," such a stone being erected and painted of the color sacred to the
cardinal point that the Bacab represented[1]. Some of these stones are
still found among the ruins of Yucatecan cities, and are to this day
connected by the natives with reproductive signs[2]. It is probable,
however, that actual phallic worship was not customary in Yucatan. The
Bacabs and Itzamna were closely related to ideas of fertility and
reproduction, indeed, but it appears to have been especially as gods of
the rains, the harvests, and the food supply generally. The Spanish
writers were eager to discover all the depravity possible in the religion
of the natives, and they certainly would not have missed such an
opportunity for their tirades, had it existed. As it is, the references to
it are not many, and not clear.
[Footnote 1: The feasts of the Bacabs Acantun are described in Landa's
work. The name he does not explain. I take it to be _acaan_, past
participle of _actal_, to erect, and _tun_, stone. But it may have another
meaning. The word _acan_ meant wine, or rather, mead, the intoxicating
hydromel the natives manufactured. The god of this drink also bore the
name Acan ("ACAN; el Dios del vino que es Baco," _Diccionario del Convento
de Motul_, MS.
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