probably colotl, the scorpion, or tecolotl, the owl, which latter, under the name tucur, is also mentioned by Xahila.[1]
Father Coto refers to some of their deities of the woods and streams. One of these, the Man of the Woods, is famous throughout Yucatan and most of Central America. The Spaniards call him Salonge, the Mayas Che Vinic, and the Cakchiquels ru vinakil chee; both these latter meaning "the woods man." What gives this phantom especial interest in this connection is, that Father Coto identifies the woodsman with the ZakiꜬoxol, the white fire maker, encountered by the Cakchiquels in Xahila's narrative (Sec. 21).[2] I have narrated the curious folk-lore about the woodsman in another publication, and need not repeat it here.[3] His second name, the White Fire Maker, perhaps refers to the "light wood" or phosphorescence about damp and decaying trees.
To the water-sprites, the Undines of their native streams, they gave the name xulu, water-flies, or rue vinakil ya, the water people.
As their household gods, they formed little idols of the ashes from the funeral pyres of their great men, kneading them with clay. To these they gave the name vinak, men or beings (Coto).
- ↑ Pantaleon de Guzman, Compendio de Nombres en Lengua Cakchiquei, MS. On the rôle of the Tzitzimime in Aztec mythology see my American Hero-Myths, p. 78.
- ↑ "Al duende que anda en los montes Maman ru vinakil chee vel çakiꜬoxol." — Coto, Vocabulario, MS.,s. v. Monte. Zak, white; Ꜭox, to make fire. Brasseur's translation, "Leblanc abime de feu," is indefensible.
- ↑ See a paper entitled "The Folk Lore of Yucatan," contributed by me to the Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. I, 1883.
