or teeth,
fangs) hanging out in front and at the sides of the mouth, also with a
characteristic head ornament resembling a knotted bow and with a peculiar
rim to the eye. Fig. 7 is the hieroglyph of this deity. In Codex
Tro.-Cortesianus it usually has the form of Fig. 8.
God B is evidently one of the most important of the Maya pantheon. He
must be a universal deity, to whom the most varied elements, natural
phenomena and activities are subject. He is represented with different
attributes and symbols of power, with torches in his hands as symbols of
fire, sitting in the water and on the water, standing in the rain, riding
in a canoe, enthroned on the clouds of heaven and on the cross-shaped
tree of the four points of the compass, which, on account of its likeness
to the Christian emblem, has many times been the subject of fantastic
hypotheses. We see the god again on the Cab-sign, the symbol of the
earth, with weapons, axe and spears, in his hands, planting kernels of
maize, on a journey (Dr. 65b) staff in hand and a bundle on his back,
and fettered (Dr. 37a) with arms bound behind his back. His entire myth
seems to be recorded in the manuscripts. The great abundance of symbolism
renders difficult the characterization of the deity, and it is well-nigh
impossible to discover that a single mythologic idea underlies the whole.
God B is quite often connected with the serpent, without exhibiting
affinity with the Chicchan-god H (see p. 28). In Dr. 33b, 34b and 35b,
the serpent is in the act of devouring him, or he is rising up out of the
serpent's jaws, as is plainly indicated also by the hieroglyphs, for they
contain the group given in Fig. 10, which is composed of the rattle of
the rattlesnake and the opened hand as a symbol of seizing and
absorption. God B himself is pictured with the body of a serpent in Dr.
35b and 36a (compare No. 2 of the Mythological Animals). He likewise
occurs sitting on the serpent and in Dr. 66a he is twice (1st and 3d
figures) pictured with a snake in his hand.
God B sits on the moan head in Dr. 38c, on a head with the Cauac-sign in
Dr. 39c, 66c, and on the dog in Dr. 29a. All these pictures are meant
to typify his abode in the air, above rain, storm and death-bringing
clouds, from which the lightning falls. The object with the cross-bones
of the death-god, on which he sits in Dr. 66c, can perhaps be explained
in the same manner. As the fish belongs to god B in a symbolic sense, so
the god is
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