[Aztlan] Water over the Earth

[E.P. Grondine]

Buenos Noches - 

I want to thank Elaine Schele for pointing out Erik Valazquez Garcia's "The Maya Flood Myth and the Decapitation of the Cosmic Caiman" at the Mesoweb website:

http://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/701/flood_e.pdf

I sure do wish that paper was available in 2001 when I was working my way through the books of the Chilam Balamob. 

I read the accounts Erik collected of floods of both water and fire coming from the celestial caiman. If the Caiman (Ahiin) is the Milky Way (following Schele et al.), then perhaps comet and asteroid impact processes may explain both floods, as impactors can cause mega-tsunamis if the impactor hits water, and massive fires if they hit land.

In the two illustrations Chac Chel has a serpent headress - perhaps an allusion to a celestial serpent. In the Madrid Codex, page 32 (Garcia's figure 10) the serpent appears to have taken a bite out of a celestial sky band, perhaps an allusion to the hole ("Way") in the celestial caiman in Stewart's readings. 

The reading of "Itzam" as "bird" clears some things up. While "Itzam Ye" is usually translated as "seven macaw", if this bird was a quetzal, then the plumage of its tail as it drops from trees has been compared to a comet's train.  

At that time (2001), I could not understand at all the role of the priests of "Muzen Cab" (Ajmuken Kab') in all of this. Perhaps the person with the spears shown in the two illustrations is related to him. 

The Bacab (B'aah Kaab) still appear to be holders of the heavens, those who keep the heavens separated from the Earth.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas