[Aztlan] K3638

[Justin Kerr]

Dear Friends,

The Blom plate as everyone knows has been published a few times. It appears
as the back cover of the dust jacket on Hellmuth's "Men and Monsters" as
well as in Mexicon and the Maya Vase Book, Vol.1.

But there are also many other versions of this scene that range from the
Early to Late Classic that appear on three dimensional ceramics as well as
codex style vessels. Each artist that addressed this incident from what we
now call the "Popol Vuh", created his or her own version of this mythical
story. To try and read these versions literally (for example) "Blowguns,
aimed at the upper head over the rainbow-tailed bird; Not Vucub Caquix.
Why?" is rather off the mark. In one version (K1226) the pellet has just
left the blowgun and in another (K4546) the blowgun is shown split. The
Early Classic three dimensional versions show only the blowngun. What is
interesting about the Blom version is that both blowgunners are marked as
Hun Ajaw, but their headdress are somewhat different and they sit on
different pedestals whereas in the other scenes, the blowgunner is
squatting. 

The point I am trying to make is that one should not base an interpretation
on one object alone (if there is more than one to study), but one needs to
study the entire available corpus and then realize that what we see is
probably a minute fraction of the material that once existed. 

Justin Kerr