[Aztlan] God L's tobacco: God L IS tobacco.

[John B Carlson]

10 November 2009

Hi Karen... and the other Listeros who have been following this  
thread about the Maya God L.

Yesterday, I read the couple of dozen posts that followed yours and  
am just finding some time to reply. Much of this relates to work that  
I have done over the last couple of decades with a comprehensive  
project on "Maya Flasks and Miniature Vessels" that has revealed a  
great deal about the nature of God L as well as a "reading" of at  
least one of his names. In the last few years I have reported on this  
at several meetings beginning in 2003 including the AAA (twice), the  
DC-Pre-Columbian Society, the Library of Congress, and some of the  
results and many of the general conclusions are now in print. Good  
summaries of what I have discovered were provided in the 2007  
publication of the of the Jay I. Kislak Collection Catalog by the  
Library of Congress. Now, I know I can't add any attachments to this  
posting. The Catalog itself is only available in hardcover from the  
Library of Congress for $50 I think. However, the Kislak Foundation  
has made the whole thing openly available on their web site in the  
form of 12 PDFs. Karen, I think you know about this because you also  
have an entry in this catalog (with Marc Zender), namely on the  
Tortuguero Box, which is now in the Kislak Collection at the LC where  
it will be conserved and preserved. For anyone interested, go to:

http://www.kislakfoundation.org/publications_loc.html

and download the PDFs. The references to my hypothesis about the  
identity of God L and the reading of his name as "K'uhul May" --  
depending on which Maya language and orthography one uses -- are  
found in   Catalog_02.pdf   under catalog entries # 16, 17, 18, 19 &  
118.  (Karen, your entry on the Tortuguero Box is # 21... for the  
other Listeros who will certainly be interested.) I am convinced that  
God L is the primary god of "medicine" -- among his many roles -- and  
specifically is the personification of Tobacco in all of its forms.   
I believe I have proven this... based on different lines of evidence  
including ethnohistorical and ethnographic sources. (I also worked  
with Bob Laughlin directly on this and have used several of his  
Tzotzil stories in my arguments.) I "believe" that God L is alive and  
well today and living in Chiapas (among other places) as one learns  
from the study of the ethnographic data. God L is the personification  
of Tobacco, in all of its forms, in the same sense that the Maize  
God  (God E) is the personification of Corn. Interestingly, there are  
important connections between the two of them and with God L as well.  
We should talk more about all of this...

Back in July of 2007, I posted a long reply to something that Justin  
Kerr had submitted related to possible tobacco enemas. Because others  
probably don't know of this post, I will just reprint it below yours.

I wanted to make two comments on the birds that accompany God L and  
appear in his headdress or hat. First, there are clearly more than  
one species of bird that are his companions. If one looks at all of  
the examples, this is clear. Secondly, some or even most of them are  
"Supernatural" birds in the sense that they have iconographic  
diagnostics that indicate that they are composite creatures. Some  
clearly have serpent or saurian characteristics... e.g., there aren't  
many avian species that have serpent fangs. This is actually a large  
and fun topic and there is much more to learn. I worked on the birds  
that accompany merchants and bearers in general across Mesoamerica  
some years ago -- such birds are the companions, perhaps "ways" and  
"nahuals", of all merchants I think -- and gave a presentation on it  
at the Philadelphia Maya Weekend in April 1997. It was called "To God  
L and Back: Elite “International” Warrior Merchants of Epiclassic  
Mesoamerica." So, "the bird is the word"...  sorry about that,  
Marshall McLuhan...

I hope all of this adds to the research and discussion. I only wish  
my book and electronic database were in print rather than finished  
but "in preparation."

OK... I will attach that 2007 post below yours and sign off for the day.

Best to all,

John Carlson



On Nov 8, 2009, at 12:07 PM, Karen Bassie wrote:

> 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.
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**********************************************************

	From: 	  Tlaloc at umd.edu
	Subject: 	[Aztlan] Tobacco in Enema? & "Maya Flasks and Miniature  
Vessels"
	Date: 	July 8, 2007 10:41:20 PM EDT
	To: 	  mayavase at verizon.net, aztlan at lists.famsi.org

7/7/07

Hello AZTLAN Listeros,

I just had the time to go over a couple of recent threads including  
the discussions of possible Maya use of tobacco for the "Maya Enema  
Ritual" as it has been called. I believe Justin Kerr posed the first  
question on 11 June related to an image on one of three "Maya Flasks"  
from the Jay I. Kislak Collection that are shown in his photograph  
(Kerr 6271). Because these topics have been part of my work for some  
years now -- (I have been working with the Jay I. Kislak Collection  
of "Maya Flasks and Miniature Vessels" since 1990) --  I thought I  
would make a quick report of some results in advance of the several  
forthcoming publications and a book (with the study and a searchable  
catalog/database) that have resulted from my comprehensive  
investigations of "Maya Flasks and Miniature Vessels." This project,  
begun in the mid-1980s, was "finished" in 2006 -- you all know what  
that means... such researches are never finished -- but it is now in  
the process of being published.

In regard to the questions raised in Justin's post and those that  
followed, here is my brief text entry draft for this flask (see Kerr  
6271: right)

http://research.famsi.org/portfolio_thumbs.php? 
_allSearch=6271&x=32&y=11&date_added=

in the forthcoming Kislak Collection catalog:

"Right: This remarkable flask takes the form of a miniature Maya  
enema vessel with the appliquéed figure of the bearded "Old Enema  
Man" stretched out around the belly of the pot. He is self- 
administering his enema with a bulb-style clyster. Based on several  
other flasks of similar design - including true effigies in that the  
miniature pot is personified by the Old Man - coupled with the fact  
that tobacco-based enema practices are well documented in the  
Americas, John Carlson has argued that flasks such as this one  
contained specific may tobacco enema preparations, and that indeed,  
the "Maya Enema Ritual," as it has been called, was fundamentally a  
tobacco-based practice, probably for ritual entheogenic as well as  
medicinal purposes. Native tobacco itself is a powerful hallucinogen  
when taken in strong doses. Based on ethnographic evidence, other  
substances which may have included peyote, toad venom, Psilocibe  
mushrooms, and morning glory seed extract were added to what were  
probably alcoholic brews such as balché. The effects would have been  
rapid and highly inebriating."
[FOOTNOTE here: I have used the expression "Old Enema Man" for  
convenience because I'm not convinced that such representations are  
always the Old God N. But, in many cases, he would seem to be a  
version of God N.]
[NOTE: I prefer Gordon Wasson's term "entheogen" -- creating god  
within -- over hallucinogen or psychedelic in certain cases. Tobacco  
and most of these substances were experienced as powerful personified  
supernaturals in Native American cultures.]

When I first saw this flask seventeen years ago, I hypothesized that,  
whatever was contained in that flask -- which was modeled on the much  
larger "Maya enema vessel" -- was used in the liquid preparations for  
those practices. The Kislak collection contains close to 200 flasks  
and miniature vessels and, so far, my overall study is based on the  
examination of between 500 to 600 examples total. These include  
several more "enema flasks" in other collections with explicit  
representations of the "process," including a depiction of a  
previously unknown type of "Maya tripod enema pan" to catch the...  
well, you can guess. But it wasn't until about six years ago that I  
realized that tobacco was ONE important ingredient that was kept in  
such containers. Furthermore, the subject that originally got me  
involved with all of this in the first place (in the mid-1970s -- it  
was an astronomical question) was a quest for the nature and identity  
of the old Maya God L. The identification of God L -- including the  
"reading" of one of his names -- has been one of the results of the  
present project. I talked about this first publicly at the University  
of Miami Lowe Art Museum in February 2003 with slides, and later  
around six times at places such as the Washington, DC, Pre-Columbian  
Society, and the AAA annual meeting in Washington, DC, in December  
2005. However, unless you saw one of these talks with the arguments  
and proof of the reading -- or talked to someone who had been there  
--  you wouldn't know because the full discussion has not yet  
appeared in detail in print. A preprint of the decipherment and  
reading of God L's name should be out later this summer on a web  
site, and I will post the URL on AZTLAN when it is ready.

This web site will also eventually include book chapter summaries  
with the essential results of my "Maya Flasks and Miniature Vessels"  
Project, including:

* The history of the study of Maya Flasks and Miniature Vessels.

* (I) A comprehensive Primary Bibliography of sources (such as for  
where all known images and mentions of flasks and miniature vessels  
have been published), and
  (II) a Secondary Bibliography of sources related to my research,  
including:
(a) the chemical analyses of the contents,
(b) the related ethnobotanical sources,
(c) the ethnographic sources on contemporary native tobacco and other  
entheogens and the many uses of "may" preparations,
(d) Tobacco use and tobacco shamanism in several other cultural  
contexts in the Americas,
(e) proposed decipherments of some of  the Maya texts,
(f) Maya ethnomedicine, past and present, including practices of  
midwifery and "shamanism," as related to the Flasks,
(g) Examples of uses of bottles in various other cultures,  
particularly including Chinese snuff bottles,
(h) the relevant Mesoamerican religious traditions,
(i) discussions of Maya and other Mesoamerican funerary and mortuary  
practices as related to Flasks.

* The Primary Morphological Classification of "Maya Flasks and  
Miniature Vessels" that I created and refined over the years. This is  
as "complete" as I can make it, is ready to be presented and is  
already functioning on a searchable electronic database.

* A classification of all of the different types of Maya glyphic  
texts that appear on the flasks as well as the glyphs that appear in  
these texts. This classification is ready for presentation for other  
scholars to use, and is already functioning on the electronic database.

* Decipherments and "readings" of some of the texts on Flasks. I have  
been partially successful, and I think these texts reveal a great  
deal. In fact, I have found examples of rhyming couplets that relate  
to the contents, as part of dedicatory expressions.

* A three-level "Flask Iconographic Theme Index" classification to  
explore all of the many types of visual scenes (often elaborate) that  
appear on Flasks. The images often correlate with the Class of the  
Flask. (For example, ball game scenes and paraphernalia are heavily  
represented on Flasks. It is likely that their contents were used  
extensively by ballplayers. Can you picture them chewing tobacco?)

* The basic chemical analyses of the contents of close to 50 flasks  
is "complete," and the information is recorded in the database. A  
chapter in the study presents and interprets the results of these  
analyses and suggests further research. Follow-up analyses with more  
sensitivity and focus are planned.

* Maya gourd flasks for "may" preparations are still in use today and  
I have assembled an extensive amount of data and photographs, much of  
it unpublished, from several sources. Several different species of  
gourd are used. Ceramic flasks have also been employed quite recently  
in the highlands of Chiapas and may still be in use. [As an aside,  
one style of enema clyster was also fashioned from a gourd. The other  
was almost certainly animal skin (or bladder) and a bone.]

* The evidence for the use of hallucinogens and entheogens in "may"  
preparations is discussed in some detail including the specific  
connections with the "Maya Enema Ritual" practices.

*******************************************************************

***>  For completeness, I have included a quick Project summary below:

The Jay I. Kislak Collection, now at the U.S. Library of Congress,  
includes one of the world's largest, most complete and balanced  
collections of ancient Maya ceramic bottles and miniature vessels,  
often imaginatively called "poison bottles" or "pilgrim's flasks" in  
the literature. They have been known for more than a century from  
rare archaeological discoveries and museum collections, but their  
contents and purposes had remained elusive having never previously  
been studied as a group until John Carlson's comprehensive  
multidisciplinary "Maya Flasks and Miniature Vessels" research  
project. This work was funded in part by the Jay I. Kislak Foundation  
beginning in the early 1990s, culminating in a 2005-06 "Kislak  
Fellowship in American Studies" at the John W. Kluge Center of the  
Library of Congress. As a result of this research, based on glyphic,  
iconographic, and contents analyses, it was demonstrated that the  
majority of flasks were most likely created primarily as "medicine  
bottles," many being "tobacco flasks," specifically to hold  
preparations of powdered native tobacco mixed with alkaline lime and  
other ingredients called "May" or "Moy" in various Maya languages.  
May was and still is used for its medicinal, intoxicating and magical- 
protective properties. It may have been "snuffed," but today, (a) it  
is taken orally between cheek and gum for dental and health problems,  
but mostly for ritual "intoxication" (often taken with much alcohol);  
(b) as a poultice for skin ailments, insect bites, and ritual uses;  
(c) in liquid form for internal complaints including parasites and  
gastro-intestinal ailments; (d) for birthing and midwifery practices;  
and (e) scattered "on the road" for supernatural protection for  
merchants and travellers. Several secondary uses of flasks are also  
now established including as pigment containers. It has also become  
clear that such flasks were often placed within burials of  
individuals, usually one per individual, and that red pigments such  
as cinnabar vermilion and red iron oxide-based ochres such as  
specular hematite were placed in and on the outsides as a vital part  
of the mortuary and interment processes. In essence, Maya flasks  
represent the oldest known tobacco snuff bottle tradition in the world.

One of the special results of the project was the decipherment and  
"reading" of one of the names of the Old Maya God L as May and  
probably Ch'ul May: "Holy Tobacco," or "Holy Medicine," based on the  
epigraphy. He is essentially the "First Shaman" or "First Priest,"  
the primary Maya God of Medicine and Curing. The Old Goddess "O",  
Chac Chel, patroness of midwives and healers, is his female  
counterpart and together they form a version of the old "Primal  
Ancestral Pair," essentially the Xpiyacoc and Xmucane of the Quiché  
Maya Popol Vuh legend or Oxomoco and Cipactonal of the Highland  
Mexican tradition. God L is the very personification of Tobacco  
itself in all of its forms in the same sense that the Maya Maize God  
E is the personification of Corn. An Old God of the Maya Underworld,  
Patron God of Merchants, Messengers, and Ambassadors, and of the  
planet Venus, he is closely related to the traditional "Elder  
Brother" figure known as Bankilal among the Tzotzil Maya who is often  
seen facing his younger brother, God K, who is related to the smoking  
lightning axe of the Maya Storm God complex. God L also has prominent  
Jaguar and Armadillo aspects - these are probably among his ways or  
co-essences -  and his Armadillo carapace cape and wide brimmed hat  
may be closely related to his elite merchant/ambassador's raincoat  
and gear. (Note: Justin and Barbara Kerr recently published a  
convincing argument that the Armadillo is indeed the "way" of God L.  
I agree, but would suggest that he had other "ways" including a  
Jaguar "way" or aspect.) Old God L is also the senior cosmogonic god,  
at least by the Late Classic Period, who presides over gathering of  
supernaturals for the almost endless cyclical renewals or re- 
creations of the Maya cosmos in the great 13 Baktun cycle, the cycle  
that will complete and continue on, once again, around December 21st,  
2012 C.E.

As a result of this research, I believe I now have some understanding  
of the nature of the relationships between the various personae of  
the Maya God L (and related entities, including, e.g., other "black  
gods" and personages) as this supernatural complex has developed and  
evolved over the millennia in resonance with other Mesoamerican  
traditions of the use and veneration of tobacco by their "priests,"  
"shamans," and healers.

Once again, this post is in response to the several recent threads of  
discussion and I am simply making some comments on the scope of my  
research and a few of the results. Obviously, you would be wise to be  
skeptical about some of the interpretations until you had the chance  
to review the data and proofs and form your own conclusions. You  
never know... I might be "out of my gourd." But seriously, much of  
the detail, in summary form, will be available this year in outline  
and preprint before final publication.

Sincerely,

John

--


John B. Carlson, Ph.D., Director
The Center for Archaeoastronomy
P. O. Box "X"
College Park, MD  20741-3022  USA
(301) 864-6637  office
http://www.archaeoastronomy.net
<Tlaloc at umd.edu>
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