Story Cycles in Chol (Mayan) Mythology: Contextualizing Classic Iconography
with Nicholas A. Hopkins, Ausencio Cruz Guzmán, Ashley Kistler, and Kayla Price

The Cast of Characters

’Ijk’al (or Xñek). The ’Ijk’al ’Black Man’ or Xñek ’Negro’ (from Spanish negro) is the most salient manifestation of the class of threatening human-like characters. He looks like a large black-skinned human, but displays non-human behavior and characteristics. He lives in the deep woods, and seeks to eat the people he encounters, although he rarely if ever succeeds, since he is not very smart and is easily fooled. He kidnaps human women and carries them off to the woods, where they proceed to give birth to children within a few hours. He has a characteristic whistle (like a mule driver’s whistle, wheet wheet wheet wheet whee-ew [falling]), and his footsteps have a characteristic sound (ch’oj, ch’oj, ch’oj…).

Ch’ix Wiñik. The "Spiny Man" is a large, human-like figure whose body is covered with thorns or spines that stand up when he is in the presence of humans. Like the Black Man, he lives in the deep woods, threatens to eat people, has limited powers of reason, and can easily be tricked. The Aulie and Aulie dictionary of Chol (1978:54) describes him as a "phantom, an evil spirit," and adds "It is said that he looks like an evil man with spines, but he is the creation of God. It is believed that at the end of the world he will eat all the bad people."

Salvaje. The "Savage" is another near-human character that resembles the Black Man and the Spiny Man. He also lives in the deep woods, eats people, and is readily foiled in his efforts. He is usually described as naked, and he may carry a large, crude club. There does not appear to be a Chol term for this creature other than the Spanish loanword salvaje.

Kichañob. "Our ’Uncles’ [Mother’s Brothers]" are more human than the preceding wild men, but they live in the deep woods, behave like savages, and are cannibals. The model for this class of demons is clearly the Lacandón Maya, and the same term is used by Chols and other Highland Chiapas Maya groups to denote the modern Lacandón.

Contrasting with the tales of encounters with frightening demons are the stories of encounters with Earth Owner, in his guises of Chajk, Lak Mam, and Don Juan, each of which is more human and earthly than the last. Chajk is the distant Lightning god, remote from direct interaction with people. Lak Mam and Don Juan are manifestations that appear locally and interact with humans (in association with rivers, in the case of Lak Mam, and caves, in the case of Don Juan).

Chajk. We have not collected Chol stories of any encounter of humans with Chajk as such. This manifestation of the Lightning god is distant and non-interactive, although he does respond to prayers made to Don Juan by bringing rain. Chajk seems equally distant from human interaction in a Tzeltal story of the formation of the Agua Azul River (Montejo Vázquez 1994). Note that Aulie and Aulie (1978:46) comment that Chajk is believed to defend communities from evil spirits. Karen Bassie’s 2002 field work probed Chol communities for information about Chajk (and junior Chajks), so more details may be forthcoming.

Lak Mam. ’Our Grandfather’ is a manifestation of Lightning that is the subject of a cycle of Chol folktales, the most common of which reports an encounter with Lak Mam by a pair of fishermen (Hopkins and Josserand 1980). A "water animal" has Lak Mam’s leg in its mouth, and he sends the fishermen to get his hat and shirt from his wife, a huge toad. Putting on his clothes, he then blasts the water animal with a bolt of lightning, freeing his leg and stunning hundreds of fish, which the fishermen take home as their reward. The morals expressed in these tales support obedience to supernatural authority, attention to performance of tasks, and the reciprocal relationship between humans and deities.

Don Juan. The manifestation of Lak Mam associated with caves is Don Juan, who takes human form and regularly interacts with people in folktales (Cruz, Josserand and Hopkins 1980). The typical Don Juan story has him befriend a human and give him gifts, with the condition he not reveal the source of the gifts, and use them only for his family’s welfare. The inevitable violations of these conditions (which require unacceptably antisocial behavior) lead to a withdrawal of Don Juan from contact, often closing his cave and moving himself to other locations. This is the cave god to whom offerings are made to procure good hunting and abundant crops, and we believe his cult has been translated to that of the Señor de Tila, a Black Christ also known as the Señor de Esquipulas, in the Chol pilgrimage center of Tila, Chiapas, where offerings are made for the same purposes (Josserand and Hopkins 1997).

There are other, less human, characters who populate Chol folktales. They may appear at first to be human-like, but they are not really human, and they have non-human powers. They are universally dangerous and/or meddlesome, and stories usually revolve around the means to escape from them.

Xwuluk ’Ok. This character, as his name implies, has his "Feet on Backwards." He lives in the deep woods, and is responsible for causing people to lose their way in the jungle, to become confused and unable to find a trail back to human settlements. In order to counter his effect, people should put their clothes on backwards. This character has been reported under a number of name variants; the Aulie and Aulie (1978:34) Chol dictionary lists him as bulu oc: "evil spirit. It is believed that he lives in the mountains. He causes people to lose themselves in the mountains. One may defend one’s self by putting one’s clothes on backwards. See ñec, ajal, ch’ix winic."

Sombrerón. ’Big Hat’ has the appearance of a very short man wearing a very large hat. His behavior is much like that of Xwuluk ’Ok, in that he causes people to become confused and get lost in the woods.

The Xibaj(ob), a set of supernaturals often called ’devil(s)’ or ’witch(es)’, appear to include some of the supernaturals that are depicted on Classic Period ceramics. The chief witch, Xibaj himself, is a bald human-like figure (also called Tzimajol, ’Gourd Head’, i.e., Skull); he commands a party of skeletons and personified animals, including talking owls and foxes. The story line most associated with this cast of characters is the Messenger tale, where witches visit the abandoned house in which two messengers have taken refuge for the night. Owls precede the caravan of witches, foxes follow and sniff out humans, the witches sit down to a meal of human corpse. The humans are discovered and invited to eat; they escape, and a chase ensues. The morals stressed in these stories are that you should carry out your responsibilities in a timely manner, you shouldn’t spend the night outside of human habitations, and you shouldn’t eat forbidden foods. If you do you will pay with your life and/or soul, giving back a body for the one you consumed.

The Transformers are a set of supernaturals that can take human shape in order to deceive humans, usually with the goal of eating them. They may be witches or jaguars that take the shape of human males or females. (Jaguars are often said to be manifestations of Xibaj or the Devil.) In the Jaguar-Man stories, the jaguar takes the form of a man he has eaten, and presents himself to the man’s wife and family. In the Comadre stories, the jaguar manifests as a woman, and accompanies women in their daily tasks of corn grinding (and snail collecting). In another set of stories, a Flesh Dropper or Skeleton has taken the guise of a man and lives as the father of a family of human children, who are told never to look in the kitchen at night. They spy and see him drop his flesh and meet with other skeletons, returning in the morning to put on his flesh again. He is dispatched by the children, who powder his abandoned flesh with salt and chile so that he cannot put it on.

Miscellaneous Themes. Several themes recur that are not related to demons, but which involve non-humans. One story which has been recorded in multiple versions is the tale of the Dog Informer, who tells his master of his wife’s infidelity; they conspire to catch the lover and punish the wife. The dog betrays the woman because she mistreats him; the lover is punished by having his penis cut off (as he urinates through the cracks of the house wall). The penis is fried up with copious salt and fed to the wife as kidneys; she becomes thirsty and drinks so much water that she bursts.

A prominent genre is the Race story, in which two inherently mis-matched competitors challenge each other to a race, and the apparently less endowed competitor wins by some form of deceit or virtue. Examples of this tale pit a Deer against a Turtle, a Deer against a Toad, etc. These tales may be of European origin (see Aesop’s fables), and it is normal for the animals in these tales to take Spanish titles, i.e., to be called "Mr. Deer" or "Uncle Toad." In one version of the race, the Turtle, a slower animal, wins by perseverance, as the overconfident Deer takes a nap along the trail. In another version, the Toads win over the faster Deer by deceit. The toads line up along the race course; each time the deer leaps forward, a toad leaps as well, but it is not the same toad, and they quickly outdistance the deer.

We have recorded one story about an encounter with the generalized dead rather than specific demons, The Girl with a Candle. This tale appears to be of European origin; a version of this story has been published by Díaz Vázquez (1998). A young girl looks out to see the Dead walking on Earth the night of All Saints’ Day, and she is given a candle to keep by an old (dead) woman. She later learns that she will be taken to join the Dead the next year if she cannot protect herself, which she does by holding a newborn baby, whose innocence protects her from Death.

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