[Aztlan] God L's tobacco

[Karen Bassie]

Bob Laughlin, Nick Hopkins and I are currently writing a book on the 
Ch'ol Maya of Chiapas that includes a section on both ancient and 
contemporary Maya gods. In particular, we are focusing on aspects of God 
L that are parallel to the contemporary mountain gods. God L has been 
characterized as the god of merchants. God L has also been characterized 
as a god of tobacco because he is frequently seen smoking a cigar. While 
tobacco was extensively used by the Maya for a variety of purposes, we 
wonder if God L's cigar smoking did not also have a practical purpose 
related to long distance travel through remote areas. One of the 
challenges of long distance travel is finding fire and shelter at the 
end of the day. It is very time and energy consuming to drill a fire 
after a long day of travel even if you are carrying fire drilling tools 
with you. And carrying fire over a long distance is hard. It would be 
very easy for a traveling party to have at least one member smoking a 
cigar and then use that cigar to light the evening fire. Furthermore, 
another problem for travelers at night is mosquitoes. In Stephen's 
description of his night at the base of Don Juan on his way to Palenque, 
he stated that the mosquitoes were so bad he finally waded into the San 
Leandro River to escape them. The Lacandon go to sleep at night with a 
lit cigar underneath their hammocks to ward off the mosquitoes and 
periodically give it a puff to keep it going until morning. And of 
course, the hero twins were given a cigar to smoke during their night in 
the House of Darkness.