Maya Gods and Monsters

by Carol Karasik

  “Uh, right, s-s-sir. It must be something choice then.”

  “I am the lord of merchants and a goodwill ambassador, happy to fulfill the desires of gods and kings. Of course, there’s always a price for my favors. But you know, even Death can be kind and friendly. Why, I once brought the Aztec emperor a bundle full of feathers. To rulers of the most powerful Maya cities, I gave my generous support. By way of thanks, the king of Palenque, K’an Bahlam, honored me with a handsome, full-length portrait. Very clever of him, Rabbit. If I hadn’t liked that king, I would have done what spies and merchants often do—call in the enemy hordes! Yes, war is just an everyday part of my business. Do you remember those terrible battles with the king of Calakmul?”

  Old Jaguar Foot knew the story so well he could tell it in his sleep. By then it was spring and Rabbit made off with the hat.

  Back and forth goes the hat, like the changes in the seasons. Back and forth goes the year, from light to darkness. It’s an endless game that Rabbit plays in honor of summer and winter.

  PAWAHTUN

  There’s another old man, Old Man Mountain. He lived inside a mountain, which is how he got his name, and when he finally crept outside toward the tail end of creation, no one took much notice. There were people living on the surface of the earth, demons lurking in the Underworld, and the sun, moon, and stars circling the sky. The Creators breathed a sigh of relief and held a large celebration. All the gods were fairly content with how things turned out and were happily congratulating one another, all except Chak, the rain god, who put a damper on the banquet.

  “The sky,” he roared. “It’s always moving whenever I walk about.”

  “Perhaps you’ve had too much honey wine,” said Itzamna. “The sky is perfectly still. It’s everything inside it—clouds, birds, stars—that are moving.”

  “Now that I think of it, I’ve noticed a slight swing to the west,” said the Sun.

  “Hah! That’s me whipping my tail,” said Grandmother Moon.

  “You won’t be laughing when the sky falls,” spluttered Chak. “You’ll be dangling in an immense nothingness. We have to put a stop to this irritating quiver.”

  The Creators wrinkled their weighty brows and gazed upon the strange dip in the heavens.

  “The stars of heaven sting,” moaned a distant voice. “Rain ruins my eyes when my belly rolls too low.” It was the deep, mournful drone of the long-suffering Earth Monster.

  “Would another mountain help?” suggested Thunderbolt. “Or giant stones?”

  “Can’t hold up the sky with fountains. Can’t hold up the sky with groans,” the Paddler Gods chimed in.

  They had already eaten all the turkeys on the table and were about to paddle off when Old Jaguar Foot said, “I’ll contribute a million chocolate trees to support the state of the world.”

  “A delicious digression,” said Itzamna, stifling a yawn. The yawn became a bubble, the bubble turned into a fish, and the fish spawned a practical idea. “How about one of us?” he said, pointing to a quiet little god sitting alone in the corner.

  You’d think the Lords of Creation would have picked a young man for the job, someone buff who looked like he’d been lifting weights. Instead, they chose an old decrepit god who was practically immobile.

  “He may be a little unsteady on his feet, and he’s already bent over. But compared to the rest of us, that old fellow has plenty of time on his hands. All he has to do is stand in one spot and keep the days and nights in order.”

  And so the gods placed the vast heavens upon Pawahtun’s frail shoulders. “The sky might shudder from time to time, but it will never fall,” they said. “The old man is a little mad, but he’s as dependable as a boulder.”

  They didn’t seem too concerned about Pawahtun’s curious habits. He likes to whistle through his two good teeth and is always on the verge of laughing himself silly. Then he climbs out of the turtle shell on his back, which he beats like a drum when he’s dancing. The shell is always handy when his mood turns black and he needs a place to hide.

  Now either he’s unusually tiny or the turtle shell on his back is gigantic. It’s hard to believe the Creators chose a creature no bigger than a thumb to support the world forever. Maybe that’s the joke that sends Pawahtun into uncontrollable fits of laughter. He may be even smaller than a thumb, because he stuffs a lot of other things inside his shell, like leaves and seeds and young shoots of corn. Pawahtun has another curious habit: he weaves a spiderweb around himself and sometimes lives inside it. He’s probably not a man at all.

  Whatever he is, he’s stronger than a boar’s horn, stronger than the seven snakes that weave the rainbow. Either that, or the sky is as light as a feather.

  “And speaking of the sky,” said Chak. “It needs some rearranging.”

  The gods pondered the matter. Like every skywatcher, they each had a different opinion, which changed from moment to moment depending on the weather.

  “The sky should have nine levels,” said the Stingray Paddler. “And each level should weigh as much as a stack of warm tortillas.”

  “Nine black swarms? That’s ridiculous,” said the Jaguar Paddler. “Everyone knows our sky has thirteen layers, and these layers resemble the folds in a giant tamale.”

  “What do they know?” said Pawahtun. “The sky is a bluebird and a crow. The sky is a starry cage and a basket of clouds.”

  Pawahtun has the soul of a poet, and while he was lost in thought, the gods picked up their chisels and created a sky that looked like a large stone throne weighing fifty tons.

  “Help!” said Pawahtun. “Don’t you know the sky is a blue water lily floating on the surface of the Underworld sea?”

  The most divine artists disagreed. They painted the sky as a sublime blue wave rippling through the air, the palest moonlit shadow no heavier than a thought.

  “Delete that,” said Pawahtun. “The sky is a clam, a silver squid, a baby lizard sleeping in my turban.”

  Gods with wilder imaginations made a sky that looked like a mean crocodilian sort of snake with long claws and deer’s ears and a hunched back big enough to carry the sun, moon, stars, and planets on its immense body. Sad to say, this Sky Serpent, this Cosmic Dragon, this Starry Deer Alligator had no tail. Instead, the monster had two heads, one in front and one in back. Rain poured down from its double jaws, bringing double floods or double blessings.

  “Have it your way,” Pawahtun shrugged. “Tortillas, corn cakes, blue waves, deer snakes: these strange pictures of the sky are no big problem for a clever little fellow like me.”

  If the sky should form an enormous square, Pawahtun just splits himself in four, and each one holds up a corner.

  “Good to see you again,” he says to himself. “And you and you and you.”

  But if the sky turns into a ball, the four Pawahtuns get into serious trouble, bumping and rolling all around heaven.

  “Ooof, that was my elbow, you bumbler!”

  “Kindly remove your bony finger from my eye.”

  “Please take your toe out of my ear, you insufferable, lopsided cloud chaser.”

  “Hmm, I must write down that insult and save it for a special occasion,” Pawahtun mutters after he pulls himself together. “There’s a certain perverse poetry in that line. But those artists, why don’t they make up their minds? Those spiral designs make me dizzy!”

  When the Sky Serpent wiggles, it throws Pawahtun off balance. Streaking comets cause a stabbing pain in his right knee. In the rainy season, the sky feels like a gigantic bag of water. In the dry season, the sky twitches like a field of hungry grasshoppers. The stars don’t seem to weigh any more than the light of a thousand candles, but the sun burns his shoulders, the moon stirs his memories, the clouds twist his thoughts. “What are the stars made of and what does it mean?” he wonders.

  “And the immense spaces in between the stars? Is my eyesight getting weaker or is the night sky a huge black mirror?” So many questions, so few answers. “I’m not a physi
cist,” he cries and crawls into his shell.

  “No room to think. No room to count. No room to write my couplets. Impossible to make any sense when I’m just me, myself, and I.”

  That’s when the sky trembles and the world begins to sob.

  “If only the sky were a beautiful woman who would keep me warm on winter nights.”

  When he moves his hand to wipe away the tears he feels the planets start to slip into the sea. “Oops! Don’t let go of the serpent throne ball,” he sighs. “Hold on, old man, hold on.”

  He’s always on the verge of laughing himself silly. Then he climbs out of the turtle shell on his back, which he beats like a drum when he’s dancing.

  TEZCATLIPOCA

  LORD of

  the SMOKING MIRROR

  The noiselessness is sudden, a heavy door closing on the storm. Few who enter that silent land return. There is no trace of human life in the valleys or on the barren hills. There is no draft, no murmur, no sound of footsteps, no chink of stone, no breath.

  This stillness is the birthplace of fanged toads, feathered serpents, lizards with flowering tongues. They survive as naguales, animal spirits, of the gods of rain and night.

  A pool the size of the moon is said to form in the sand at the time of the full moon, and from its depths rises a plume of smoke dim as obsidian. The smoke, people say, is the essence of Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the Smoking Mirror, god of magic and invisibility.

  In the plume of smoke, wanderers see their souls in the shapes of birds, red ants, or dogs. Immediately they take flight or crawl beneath the ocotillo cactuses. Some turn into needles waiting for water. Others turn into lightning stones or jagged flints. Others change into black shadows, unable to escape, unable to will themselves awake, locked like their god on the dark side of the mirror. This is the land of loss where everything takes its bleakest form, forged in smoke, hammered in silence.

  There was a time when Tezcatlipoca created fire. There was a time when he defeated the Earth Monster that haunted the bottom of the sea. But after he lost his foot, the crippled hero grew despondent, and he remained bitter and brokenhearted long after his foot turned into a smoking mirror. For centuries he brooded over his right foot. For centuries he stared into the smoking mirror, and little by little, he discovered that the mirror gave him the power to see the future. At last he saw his fate. Tezcatlipoca became the black night wind. No one could hear or see him.

  Tezcatlipoca flew to the east and wrestled with his brother, Ehecatl, the god of benevolent winds. So deep were their differences, so violent their quarrels, that four times they tore the world apart and four times they put it back together—so thick was their bond as brothers, so loyal to the everlasting earth and its good and evil souls.

  Tezcatlipoca traveled south, and when he reached the land of the Maya he saw a miniature version of himself on the opposite side of an obsidian mirror. Here was a god of wind, lightning, and fire who wore a smoking mirror on his forehead and whose right leg turned into a snake. This precious one, Kawil, ruled the divine spark within the blood. He, too, was mysterious, silent, and invisible as he brought forth abundant crops and fruits and guided the fortunes of kings. “Why would I harm my shadow?” Tezcatlipoca thought.

  When Tezcatlipoca reached the Pacific Ocean, he met another god of wind named Ik. Though he lived by the sea, his power was surprisingly gentle. All this happened so long ago that Ik hadn’t thought of causing a stir or raising a storm or hurting a pebble. He moved about like a spirit, breathing the breath of life into all the earth’s creatures. Tezcatlipoca, the night wind, was completely disarmed.

  Tezcatlipoca traveled south, and when he reached the land of the Maya he saw a miniature version of himself on the opposite side of an obsidian mirror.

  No one hears the sound of Tezcatlipoca’s sunken step. But listen. At night you may hear the moonlight land on a leaf or a shadow brush an owl’s wing. If you hear the deepening tone of a bow drawn slowly across the bass string of a cello, it is the low vibration of the planets crossing heaven. That weary moan is Our Mother Earth turning in her sleep. That distant drumbeat is the god fanning the winds of war.

  Tezcatlipoca draws the night to him like a magnet. At dawn he is the blue hummingbird stirring up chaos. The delicate note you hear is the sound of his silver flute setting the blinding sun on his path.

  Tezcatlipoca is everywhere. He is the wind that keeps the world spinning between daylight and darkness.

  4

  SUPERNATURAL

  SERPENTS

  Back in the time of shadows when the earth was a nervous monster—rumbling and lumbering and shaking mountains and all the creatures that crawled or swam—serpents ruled the world. Yes, their dreadful fangs could bite, cause sickness and even death. But snakes possessed one awesome feature. They were able to shed their skins, and this gave them magical powers of transformation.

  Hanging in the trees, they became the living jeweled branches. Rocks were black stone serpents that had fallen into deep and wondrous sleep. The hills were restless green serpents rolling toward the plains. Springs bursting forth from the earth were blue snakes that appeared in the form of water. Rivers rippled with their undulating motion. When the rains came, people would never think of saying, “It’s raining cats and dogs.” They’d say it was pouring crystal snakes the size of teardrops.

  Oh, it makes you shiver, but not as much as lightning streaking across the sky in the shape of a silver serpent whose crackling tail could split the heavens. On clear nights, people looked up and saw an immense serpent made of stars. On clear days they gazed at pale serpents curling in the clouds, or gray snakes rising from the smoke of cooking fires.

  In the Age of Serpents, snakes filled the thoughts and dreams of people whose minds possessed a reptilian sliver, which sometimes made them behave like snakes. The slow, mellifluous voice of the talking serpent echoed in every song and story. Short or long, diamond-backed or striped, serpents were the rainbow and the fire.

  SAVED

  from the

  HORNED SERPENT

  There was a rock with horns. The rock moved and the rock spoke. “My name is Xul Vo’ Ton,” said the rock. “There is a Horned Serpent living underneath me. It comes out on Wednesdays and Thursdays. He plows up the earth with his horns.”

  It was true. Every Wednesday and Thursday a beautiful spring flowed from the rock.

  The spring was the path of the snake.

  Perhaps it was their singing, perhaps it was their laughter, but when people came to live beside the spring, the earth trembled. The sky trembled. The Horned Serpent wrapped himself around the clouds and brought terrible storms and floods.

  When he shook his horns and tunneled deep inside the earth, the rivers sank and the streams refused to bubble. The cornfields became dry canyons. The people wrung their hands.

  And so they prayed to the rock. “The land is quaking. The rivers are sinking. We’re dying of thirst.”

  “Thank you for praying to me,” said the rock. “I will hide the Horned Serpent. He won’t be shaking the earth anymore.”

  Then Thunderbolt hurled his lightning. He knocked the horns off the rock.

  The people have plenty of water now. Every May they clean the spring and hold a celebration. If no one leaves food for the Horned Serpent, he will cause earthquakes, famine, and floods.

  The

  SERPENT

  of FIRE

  Once there was a proud king who was making the rounds of his vast kingdom. Disguised as a poor peasant, he traveled from village to village, visiting his people to learn their innermost thoughts.

  One evening he came to the door of an old widow. “Come in, come in,” she said. “I have no food, I have no drink. I have nothing to offer but the comfort of my fire.”

  The fire was dancing cheerfully, and the king was happy to rest by the old woman’s hearth. After a while he noticed that the old crone never added wood to the fire and yet it continued to burn.

  “The smoke
carries my prayers to heaven,” the old woman said.

  “Despite the selfishness of our king, I have all I need.”

  Bathed in the warm glow of the fire, the king simmered down and soon dropped off to sleep. When he awoke the next morning, the fire was blazing under the woman’s tortilla griddle. It smoldered under her bean pot all day and flared up again at night.

  “Your fire changes by itself, old woman. How do you do it?” asked the king.

  The Fire Serpent

  bared its red fangs and

  became the Serpent of War.

  The king fought with flaming arrows,

  obsidian knives, and lightning bolts.

  His enemies were helpless.

  “My fire is a living thing,” she said, “as old as time and the sun. It’s magic. And the magic is for me alone.”

  The king couldn’t help himself. He wanted to own the fire and began plotting to take it away.

  “I know who you are and I know what you are thinking. If you steal this fire, your kingdom will perish and you will lose everything,” the old woman croaked. “Krrik, krrik!” And with that, she turned into a toucan and flew to the rafters of her thatched hut.

  The angry king picked up the woman’s ladle and swatted the rebellious bird. It fell down dead. Immediately he pulled off the bird’s yellow bill, scooped up the fire, and fled into the night. When he reached his palace, the fire was humming and hissing inside the toucan’s orange beak.

  Once it came into his possession, the fire became fierce and wild. The king placed the fire on the tip of his royal scepter, but his turquoise scepter turned into a torch and then a serpent with flaming scales.

  Soon the serpent escaped and began eating everything in its path—wood, grass, cornfields, and forests. Fire split the stones of the palace and turned the king’s jade jewels to ash. Neither the blue lakes nor wide rivers could quench the fire’s fury. The kingdom was white with cinders, and the seething Fire Serpent could not be tamed.