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 title 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-god 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 shore," 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.
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