Teotihuacan Traders in Tikal's Royal Dynasty

Home , God L, Itza people, La Amelia, La Sufricaya, Pyramid of the Sun, Spearthrower Owl

Teotihuacan Traders in Tikal’s Royal Dynasty A proposal for the origin of Tikal’s Emblem Glyph Ruud van Akkeren

In this paper I will propose a historical origin for the Emblem Glyph of Tikal, the bended knot of hair. It is based on ideas that emerged while writing my latest book Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol – una visión posclásica del colapso maya1. Some ideas were included as suggestions in the last chapter but my main point, the Tzonmolco thesis, was left out. Here is the place to elaborate it. The hypothesis will link Tikal even firmer to Teotihuacan.

Tatiana Proskouriakoff was the first one to notice the foreign influences in the Maya Lowlands, in her book Maya History, edited posthumously, she called this chapter “The Arrival of Strangers”2. It was a title which David Stuart paper later borrowed for his inno- vative article on the identity of Teotihuacan presence in Tikal. Clemency Coggins suggested, based on her analysis of Teotihuacan iconography in Tikal, that there was a change of power. She introduced the term New Order, a Central-Mexican power – Teo- tihuacan – entering Tikal, and the intruders brought with them new calendrical rites3. Simon Martin kept using this notion of the New Order while elaborating on the Teotihua- can influences in his later Tikal work4.

Stuart started out his article, organizing the different views on the Teotihuacan’s influ- ence on Tikal. He distinguished grosso modo two approaches, divided between what he called the internalist and externalist view. The internalists are sceptical about any invasion or other type of take-over of Tikal by foreign power. They rather prefer to interpret the Teotihuacan iconography and personel presence, as the ruling Tikal dynasty simply emulating the discourse and iconography of power, of this western metropolis.

In contrast, the externalists believe there was efectively some sort of a military incur- sion and political domination of Teotihuacan in Tikal. Martin is among them: “While the precise nature of Teotihuacan’s intervention in the Maya Lowlands will continue to be debated, recent epigraphic discoveries broadly support long-held ideas for a physical intrusion, even a political takeover in 378”5. Stuart himself puts himself among the externalists. To him the personages mentioned in the various texts in and outside of Tikal were historical people from Teotihuacan and came to dominate the region6.

More scholars joined the discussion. To mention a few, Erik Boot took an intermediate position, claiming that Siyah K’ak’ may be a Teotihuacan ambassador but all the others mentioned in the game were local nobles who received from Siyah K’ak’ the Teotihua- can paraphernalia of power. He compared the Tikal case with other historical examples

1 Akkeren 2012. 2 Proskouriakoff 1993. 3 Coggins 1990: 96; 2002: 48, note 41; Fash & Fash 2002: 437-438. 4 Martin 2003. 5 Martin 2003: 17 6 Stuart 2002: 506.

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of local lords being invested by a minister of the Feathered Serpent cult, as in later times happened in Chich’en Itza and Cholula7.

Nielsen used the information on the New Fire ceremony in the Mixtec and Zapotec area, marshalled by Michel Oudijk and by Maarten Jansen & Gabina Jiménez, to introduce a new term: Coming of the Torch8. To him, what happened in Tikal was a take-over by Teotihuacan, that is, an interference in the continuity of the old dynasty, which was subsequently legitimized by a New Fire ceremony. Tikal’s iconography shows that Yax Nuun Ayin is bringing in the torch. It makes Nielsen an externalist

Bill and Barbara Fash and Alexandre Tokovinine have a somewhat similar view. Accord- ing to these scholars, the founder of the dynasty of Copan experienced a first invest- ment as a legitimate lord in the city of Teotihuacan, and later had another accession moment in Copan itself, in a building marked by New Fire iconography, called the Wi Te Naah, interpreted by by Stuart as a Foundation House. This practise is very similar to what we learn from indigenous documents of Guatemala or the aforementioned Mixtec codices in which aspirant lords travel to a place called Tullan to receive the legitimate paraphernalia of lordship9.

All these explanations, each in its own way, are describing an historical picture. Yet, they fail to explain why and how people and their ideology would move from Central- Mexico to the Maya area and back. William Ringle, Tomás Gallareta and George Bey have tried to fill this gap with their article “The return of Quetzalcoatl”, in which they paint a Mesoamerican network of shrines connected to each other by the cult of Quet- zalcoatl. This cult went hand in hand with a military ideology. Of course, this was during the Epiclassic, but the subtitle of their essay “Evidence of a Second Spread of a World Religion during the Epiclassic Period” implies there existed an earlier network, created by Teotihuacan where the Quetzalcoatl cult blossomed for the first time10.

Clemency Coggins embraced the idea about the spread of the Feathered Serpent cult, while building her theory on Mesoamerican’s ideology which se called ‘Toltec’. To her the ideology was born in the first Tullan, Teotihuacan, from which the Toltec ideology spread through Mesoamerica:

“All evidence suggests the Teotihuacanos who traveled abroad were lone warriors and mer chants who married foreign women [..]. Thier heraldry, regalia, and symbolism combined the ancestral Tlaloc religion, which became a lineage cult in Maya territory”11

This thesis of the spread of the Quetzalcoatl cult sounds like a joint effort of religious proselitism and military conquest. But why would a power like Teotihuacan put vast amounts of manpower, money and time in an endeavor that was bound to fail. It would

7 Boot 2004: chapter 3. 8 Jansen & Gabina as well as Oudijk show that the founding of a new dynasty or town included the drilling of New Fire. Oudijk had called that the complex of the Toma de Posesión, Seizing of Power (Janssen & Pérez Jiménez 2000; Oudijk 2002; Nielsen 2006). I myself have written frecuently on this phenomenon after discovering that the Rabinal Achi was created to mark the beginning of a new Calendar Round (Akkeren 2000, 2002, 2006b, 2011; 2012, in press). 9 Fash et al. 2009: 212-216; Akkeren 2000, in press. 10 Ringle et al. 1998. 11 Coggins 2002:54.

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be alltogether too difficult for a Central-Mexican polity to keep the distant conquered territory at bay, as many scholars have rightfully explained. There must have been other interests at stake, in such a way that the contact would be attractive for the in- coming as well as the recieving party. History in other parts of the world has proven that cults and ideology move along a very basic infrastructure: trade-routes12. That is what we are witnessing in Tikal, as I will show. I believe that first of all there is the ex- change of goods along a network of interdependent merchant calpultin13, with military convoys to protect the long-distance caravans.

In this sense, I agree with Susan Kepecs who writes in a reaction on the article of Ringle et al.:

These authors marshal an impressive corpus of data on the iconography of Quetzalcoatl, drawing parallels between devotées of the plumed serpent and medieval Christians and suggesting that military motifs shared by Tula and Chichén were emblems of religious crusades. I suspect they are right, but only partially so; I disagree with their conclusion that an overarching religious system subsumed economic relations ...14.

Kepecs advocates the world-system approach, adopted for pre-industrial Mesomerica. She explains how the trade-network functions:

The regular transfer of surplus among polities creates systemic interdependence between them [...]. Participating units share not only labor but also structures of accumulation as communica- tions and transportation networks. The state cult of Quetzalcoatl is a case in point. Public build- ings a both Chichén and Tula were emblazoned with symbols promoting warfare, and military motifs are present at virtually all of the Epi/EPC cores15.

This would not only account for the ex- change of prestigious goods but for every kind of commodity – her article in Twin Tollans is about the full scale production of salt on the northern coast of Yucatan.

When talking about actors, Kepecs still thinks in terms of polities, like Chich’en Itza or Tula, but I would rather lower to the lineage- or calpulli level. Trade was in the hands of lineages-clusters or calpultin which spread all over Mesoamerica. To give an example from my book, in the same field of salt-production, the Kanek’ were the owners of the salt-springs of

12 Pohl 1999; Kepecs 2007. 13 Calpultin, plural of calpulli. 14 Kepecs 2007: 129-130 15 Kepecs 2007: 131-132

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Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, the historical Xib’alb’a. From this area they expanded their commerce to the coast of Yucatan, the main salt-producing area of Mesoamerica. That is how Kanek’ got involved in Ek’ B’alam and were co-founders of the city of Chich’en Itza. Later we find the same Kanek’ in Epiclassic Ucanal, sending out colonists to Ceibal to take control of the Pasion corridor16.

I have suggested that the Kanek’ are the forefathers of the Kaweq, the authors of the Popol Wuj and thus of the Xib’alb’a myth, perhaps Mesoamerica’s most vivid expression of the merchant ideology. In an article that awaits its publication, I show that other Mesoamerican calpultin express similar conduits, like the Toj-Atonal, the chinamit17 or calpulli which introduced the Tojil cult into the Guatemalan Highlands, and which appear as lords, priests and traders along the Pacific trade-routes from El Salvador all the way to Central-Mexico18. In this article I will propose that the founders of Tikal are affines of the merchant calpulli Tzonmolco of Teotihuacan.

That is about the actors. Polities along the network shared the ‘structures of accumulation’, as Kepecs remarks, meaning the infrastructure like routes, stops and tamemes or porters, but also the ideology. That is the complementary topic of this article. I will propose various new ideas about the merchant ideology, in which Quetzalcoatl is only one part of the story, perhaps the more visible one because of its connection with military pomp. The other, complementary deity ‘at home’ – that is, in Teotihuacan – is Xiu- hteuctli, in charge of the New Fire ritual. As for the infrastructure, the route they walked was conceived off as a serpent, which they traveled from the center to the outpost, two opposite poles presided by Xiuhteuctli on the one hand and Quetzalcoatl on the other, an emblem that adorns the famous Temple of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan. The men on the ground were merchant calpultin organized in guilds, with their shrines scat- tered along the serpent road, the so-called Wi Te Naah, the Temple of Xiuhteuctli.

In his article ‘The Coming of Strangers’ Stuart reiterates his identification of the logogram PU as the Classic Maya name for Tullan. He further elaborates on the fact that in Mesomerica the image of Tullan represents a place of origin, a city blessed with a high degree of civilization, where many aspirant lords would recur to, to be invested, a complex he calls the ‘Tullan paradigm’19. There have been more cities in Mesoamerica with this title, but his final conclusion is: “Many ‘Tulas’ are known from later Mesoamerica, but my own Maya perspective leads me to agree that Teotihuacan was held as the first ideal city, the primordial Tollan20”.

Since I specialized in the indigenous documents of Guatemala, I have written frequently on the theme of Tullan21, as I also do in my latest book. I argue in Xib’alb’a y el

16 Akkeren 2012: 104-113; 139-143. 17 In Highland Maya documents one often finds the term chinamit, ‘castellenizado’ as chinamital, or otherwise translated as parcialidad (Akkeren, 2000, 2002b, 2006a, in press). 18 Akkeren in press. 19 I have compared the legitimizing role of Tullan with that of the Vatican which in Europe represented the religious doctrine sanctifying terrestrial rulers. 20 Stuart 2002: 506; Boone 2002. 21 Akkeren 2000: 61-63; 2002b, 2006a, 2012; in press.

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nacimiento del nuevo sol that at the end of the Classic, a new mercantile elite arose on the Gulf Coast of Mexico – the modern states of Veracruz, Tabasco and Campeche. Its members were a mix of Maya, Olmec-Xicalanca and Nonoalca lineages, and descendents of Teotihuacan. This elite established a mercantile ideology which synthesized two mythological corpuses, each with its accompanying ritual expression. They may be summarized in the terms Tullan, a Teotihuacan heritage, and Tzuywa, a referrence to Xicalanco on the Gulf Coast, which mythology might date back to ancient Olmec times. The protagonist of the Tullan complex was the Sun Hero whose decisive rite was the New Fire. The protagonist of the Tzuywa complex was the Maize Hero and its ritual expression is the Ballgame22.

Carriers of this new ideology – aptly called Tullan-Tzuywa in the Popol Wuj – changed the traditional trade routes and founded new centers, which caused – a hundred years later – the end of Classic Maya culture. The foremost city of that ideology was Chich’en Itza. Among its founders was the Kanek’ lineage, salt-traders and owners of Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, a city which belonged to the area of the historical Xib’alb’a. As said, I propose in my book that Ka- nek’ were the ancestors of the Kaweq lineage, authors of the Popol Wuj and the Xib’alb’a myth, which is perhaps the most idiosyncratic expression we have of this new mercantile ideology.

So far a brief summary of the book. A second remark is about my interpretation of the Classic Maya pantheon. The reader will notice that I am mixing up deities that scholars have labeled different gods. I have been living and working with Maya people for some twenty years now. I have recorded a great number of prayers and myths in various Maya languages. The single most important deity to ancient and modern Maya is what they call Lord Mountain-Valley, Dios Mundo or Rajawal Juyub’al Taq’ajal in K’iche’, Qawa Tzuul Taq’a in Q’eqchi’, or Tiuxhil Witz, Tiuxhil Tchaq’aala, Tiuxhil Xolwitz23 in Ixil, to name some examples. He is further known as Mam or Grandfather. He is the guardian of the mountain and has his residency inside of it. Every hill or mountain has his own custodian, so there are many Lords Mountain-Valley. Lord Mountain-Valley is the all-embracing divinity, and he has countless aspects, which have led Mayanists – myself included - to think they are different gods24. They are not.

22 I found that one can reduce both mythological corpuses to only two complementary Maya glyphs: k’in, ‘sun’, which is white and masculine, and k’an, 'yellow', the color of the corn, which is feminine (Akkeren 2012). 23 God Mountain-God Plain-God Valley (Akkeren 2005b). 24 Scholars may come up with technical terms like theosynthesis or theopolymorphosis for this ‘cluttering’ of deities (Grofe 2009: 6). But the point is that they are not different deities; they are different aspects of the same deity, much as no

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As a god living inside the mountain, he is a god of caves, and inside the caves he has his storage rooms of corn and any other crop you may think of25. As such he emulates God N whose conch shell represents a cave. He is the owner of the animals roaming its surface, and he has special caves for all the creatures people use to hunt, thus when you want to go on a hunt you ask Lord Mountain-Valley his permission, a deity which has been called the hunting god Sip26. Every Lord Mountain-Valley assembles clouds around its top, to make it rain; he further has his own weapon, the thunderbolt, which makes him also a version of God C. True, there are some mountains whose guardians are more famous for their deadly thunderbolt, but they are not a different deity27.

There is also a hierarchy in the mountains and the highest mountain of them all usually is the supreme Lord Mountain-Valley, which scholars have called God D. As inhabitants of caves they are the lords of the underworld or Xib’alb’a as well, the ones mentioned in the Popol Wuj, and the supreme Lord Mountain-Valley is God L. Lord Mountain-Valley has many nawales as well, one of them being the Ajaw Chan, the snake we see on many classic scenes. Then there is his personification as a tree crowning the top of a mountain, in K’iche’ called Kutam or Trunk, which scholars have called the Pax God. One could continue mentioning aspects of Lord Mountain-Valley, and some others appear in Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol.

His Central-Mexican counterpart is Tlaloc, hence there a many Tlalo- que. In listing the characteristics of Tlaloc, Alfredo López-Austin comes to a similar com- plexity for this all-embracing Mesoamerican deity28. The Tlaloque are the residents of Tlalocan, which in Central-Mexican and Gulf Coast mythology is the equivalent of the Maya underworld or Xib’alb’a29. We just may recall the Tlalocan mural from Tepantitla surrounded by a series of Tlaloque. In the Codex Borbonicus he is the only god out of 36 deities depicted sitting on a mountain, revealing his nature. That is in the trecena starting with 1 Quiahuitl. In front of him we find another Tlaloc wielding an undulating serpent which represents his thunderbolt. We will see that the supreme Tlaloc of the

Catholic would call the Child in the Manger, the Sacred Heart, the Crucified Jezus, the Resurrected Christ, the Mes- siah, the Lamb of God, or Corpus Christi different deities. 25 López-Austin 1994: 184-186. 26 Confer the dance-drama texts in Xajooj Keej. Baile del Venado de Rabinal, (Janssens & Van Akkeren, 2003). 27 When in the Q’eqchi’ myth The Hills and the Corn the Lords Mountain-Valley rejoiced the fact that the corn is re- stored to its original place inside the store rooms of Xucaneb – the highest mountain in Alta Verapaz - they put on a lightening show with their thunderbolts (Burkitt 1920). When in La historia de Sol y Luna, B’alam Q’e y Qana Po, the main Lord Mountain-Valley has his daughter kidnapped by B’alam Q’e, he sent his brother after them, called Qawa Kaaq or Señor del Rayo, the Classic Chaak (H.Q. Dieseldorff 1966). 28 Tamoanchan y Tlalocan (López-Austin 1994: 175-181). 29 López-Austin 1994: 181. Braakhuis 2009; Chinchilla 2011.

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center is Xiuhteuctli, and indeed the wielding Tlaloc has aspects of this god, as well as other elements in this image do30. In the trecena 1 Quiahuitl of the Codex Aubin, the same Tlaloc is marked by the denomination 3 Dog, which is the calendrical name of Xiuhteuctli.

Spearthrower Owl Back to the intrusion of Teotihuacan in Tikal. The facts are more or less known. On January 16th 378 a high official named Siyah K’ak’, Born in Fire, arrived in Tikal, probably in the company of a Teotihuacan lord dubbed Spearthrower Owl. Less than a year later a son of Spearthrower Owl, called Yax Nuun Ayin took the throne to become Ti- kal’s 15th lord31. Still, it appears that Siyah K’ak’ remained a liege of the man who was quite young at the time of his accession, that is, a 1 k’atun lord. Siyah K’ak’ remained in the area for at least another 22 years acting as a dominant sovereign directing various other local Maya lords32.

Most of our information comes from two monuments, stele 31 of Tikal and a ballcourt marker excavated at Group 6C-XVI of Tikal33. From texts on both monuments we learn that Spearthrower Owl reigned in Teotihuacan for over six decades (374–439). As said, to Stuart and Martin, he was a historical figure. Nielsen & Helmke proposed that Spearthrower Owl was the name of a deity, and that the similar called Teotihuacan lord mentioned in Tikal, named himself after this god. They compare him to Huitzilopochtli. I have taken a similar approach in Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol, but to me Spearthrower Owl is the title of the Central- Mexican god Xiuhteuctli, Lord of Fire, and supreme lord among the Tlaloque. In addition, he is the Guardian of the Hearth in the center; and, most importantly, patron of the merchant guilds.

High Priest of Xiuhteuctli In Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol, I identify Spearthrower Owl as the supreme priest of the Cen- tral-Mexican deity Xiuhteuctli, Lord of Fire. The argument requires some explanation. It starts with the Classic Maya God L, head of the underworld. God

30 Codex Borbonicus folio 7; Seler 1963 TII: 189-191. The lightening-wielding Tlaloc has similar aspects as the Xiu- hteuctli priest on folio 30 of the same codex (López-Austin 1994: 182, 189). 31 Martin 2003: 39. 32 Martin 2003: 12-13. Recently, a new reference to Siyah K’ak’ came to surface in the city of La Sufricaya (Estrada Belli et al. 2009). 33 Laporte 2003; Stuart 2002.

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L is an old god, often painted black, wearing a jaguar skin as a cloak. But not just of some ordinary jaguar, but of the Waterlily Jaguar, closely related to the Jaguar God of the Underworld. In other instances, he himself features jaguar ears, claws and paws. As a deity of the underworld, God L has a subterranean residence - a luxury palace – where he is pictured on a throne, covered with a skin of the same Waterlily Jaguar. An- other notable attribute is the wide-brimmed hat of owl feathers, often adorned with the head of a bird whose accompanying hieroglyphic references reads as kuy or kuh, ‘owl’. One particular text narrates his hat with the owl is the ‘partner’ of the god L, much as the owls (tukur) in the Xib’alb’a myth are the allies of the Lords of Xib’alb’a34. A final characteristic attribute of God L to be mentioned is his staff, which was a symbol of the long-distance merchants. It is a feature of God L which cannot be stressed enough: his role as the patron ‘saint’ of commerce.

One of the Classic names of God L turned out to be B’olon Okte’ K’u. Scholars used to re- phrase the title to B’olon Yokte’ K’u but in Classic texts his name seems to read as B’olon Okte’ K’u35. The logogram OK refers to a ‘dog’, whose equivalent in higland Maya languages would be tz’i. That is how I came to contemplate the idea that okte’ was a cognate of tz’ite’ (Eritrina corallodendron) – the coral tree or palo de pito – a famous and significant tree whose red bean-seeds today are still used by Maya priests in their divinations36. This appeared to be very fruitful and matched various interesting clues about the tz’ite’ tree in the Popol Wuj. The grandfather of the ancestral couple Xmukane and Xpiya- kok, is said to be an ajtz’ite’ which can be translated as him being a diviner, as well as him being made of the wood of the coral tree. The male members of the Wooden People in the Popol Wuj, the race previous to the Corn People, are also made of the tz’ite, explaining why God L or B’olon Okte’ K’u is called Mam, Grandfather, or, in Nahuatl, Huehueteotl, Old Deity: he is a denizen from an earlier era! He is further present in the tale of Xib’alb’a, as the first couple of the un-

34 Grube y Schele, 1994: 12; Grofe, 2009: 1-3. 35 He is called B’olon Yokte’ in a colonial text, Chilam Balam de Chumayel (Roys, 1967: 133). 36 I am not familiar with an historical analysis of the logogram OK, and its posible fonetic determinants. Otherwise, it is worth investigating if the proper Classic name of God L was not B’olon or Bahlun Okte’ K’u but rather B’olon Tz’ite K’u, since in neighboring highland languages tz’i is the common lexeme for ‘dog’. The word ok appears to be a loanword from Mixe (Boot 2009: 140).

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derworld lords, who turned out to be just wooden effigies, as One and Seven Junajpu failed to notice. According to the text they are descendents of the same Wooden Peo- ple. Finally, tz’ite’ is the wood of which Maximon is made, according to various scholars a modern version of God L.

From the Codex Dresden – folios 49 and 60 – we may deduce that B'olon Okte K’u was the equivalent of the Central-Mexican god Xiuhteuctli, as scholars have showed. That is very helpful in defining the nature of God L or B’olon Okte K’u. In Central-Mexican cosmovision Xiuhteuctli, Lord of Fire, is the creative principle. He was the oldest god in the pantheon, known as Huehueteotl. He was considered the ‘father of the gods’ (Teteo Inta), as such coupled with the Moon Goddess, Tlazolteotl called ‘mother of the gods’ (Teteo Innan). His place was the center of the earth (tlalxicco) where one pictured the terrestrial Hearth, the center of fire (tlexicco).

The term xiuhteuctli is derived from xiuh and teuctli, ‘lord’. Xiuh – root of the term xihuitl – does not mean ‘fire’, as expected, but rather ‘year’ or ‘turquoise’. However, Xiuhteuctli was known as the Lord of Fire or by his other name, Ixcozauhqui, Yellow Face, referring to the color of fire37. Still, because of its relationship with the color turquoise, another characteristic of the God of Fire was the xiuhtototl or bluebird in his headdress (Cotinga amabilis). Xiuhteuctli was a Tlaloc, as explained, the Central-Mexican term for Lord Mountain-Valley, but among them, the supreme Tlaloc, guardian of the teotexcalli or Divine Hearth. As such, he also presided the New Fire ceremony and the highpriest of Xiuhteuctli was in charge of drilling New Fire at the end of the Calendar Round of 52 years. Finally, Xiuhteuctli had various aspects in common with Mictlan- teuctli, the Lord of Mictlan, the Nahuatl term for Xib’alb’a 38.

There is a striking image of him as the Tlaloc of the terrestial Hearth on the famous Calpulalpan bowl, where he is depicted covered in flames, occupying the very center of this ceramic piece: tlalxicco and tlexicco. On another vessel (K4503), which is almost a copy of the scene on the bowl, we see four sacrificers, two on each side, walking towards a central hearth portrayed with the same head of Tlaloc and flames surrounding him.

37 The title Yellow Face coincides nicely with him being made of the tz’ite’ tree. In an interview with Vicente Asig, Q’eqchi’ Maya of Cahabón, I learned that they used to paint the walls of their school yellow with the bark of the tz’ite’. They would strip the stem of its bark and the inside gives off a yellow color. 38 Limón Olvera, 2001: 88, 95-96, 105.

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Xiuhteuctli was legendary for his weapon, known as the Xiuhcoatl or Fire Serpent. It often had the form of an undulating snake. However, from his appearance in the Codex Dresden we understand that this thunderbolt could be replaced by the spearthrower. This helps to clarify the title of Spearthrower Owl. In Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol, I suggest that stela 4 of Ucanal sports another example of a Spearthrower ancestor, conveniently portrayed with a torch in his headdress. It appears that on the vase mentioned above the makers also might have wanted to represent this Fire Serpent: there is a thunderbolt larger than the other flames, which crosses behind the Tlaloc head.

As a final aspect, Xiuhteuctli was considered to be the supreme patron of the merchants. In Aztec society there were two complementary merchant guilds: Pochteca and Ozto- meca. The Pochteca merchants were back home in charge of the internal domain, like religious activities in the main temple in Tenochtitlan. The Oztomeca were in charge of the external domain; they were, besides merchants, also military forces and spies, and protected the long-distance caravans of the merchants on their trips into new areas. Pochteca is derived from pochotl meaning “ceiba” which is the tree of the east. The seat of this guild in the Aztec capital was called Pochtlan, whose titular merchant deity was Yacateuctli. The term oztomeca means “those of the large cave”, which is associated with the west. Its tree is the pine tree or acxoyatl and its seat was called Acxotlan, whose titular merchant deity was Nacxitl . However, the all-embracing merchant god of both, the Pochteca and Ozto- meca-Acxoteca, was Xiuhteuctli whose temple-pyramid in Tenochtitlan stood in the northwestern quarter of the city. The calpulli in charge of this sanctuary was Tzon- molco39.

39 Zantwijk 1977: 119-128.

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Going back to Spearthrower Owl, he is mentioned in the text of the famous ballcourt

marker excavated at Group 6C-XVI of Tikal. His nominal phrase consists of three pictographic elements: the stylized mouth of Tlaloc, symbolizing a cave, with three hearthstones above it; a hand holding an atlatl or spearthrower, and an owl. I argue in Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol that those are Central-Mexican elements of the god Xiuhteuctli, as proves the image of the Tree of Tlalocan in Tepantitla40. There has been quite some discussion about this over- whelming image of a bust sitting on top of a cave stored with seeds and other goodies. However, about one thing scholars have agreed: the dia- mond-shaped eyes are those of Xiu- hteuctli, similar to the ones found on many sculptures featuring the old de- ity41. The glyph for the cave is the same as the one on the Marcador, and it also has the hearthstones on top of it. In addition, the rich headdress has the head of an owl, just like God L. I point out that in the Xib’alb’a myth the owl allies of the lords carry the highest military title, rajpop achij. It may allude

40 Akkeren 012: 196-198. 41 López-Austin 1994: 228.

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to the famous Teotihuacan military order of Owl warriors, who probably just like the Oz- tomecan warriors, protected the merchants on their marches42. Above the headdress towers an enormous tree of which we come to speak when discussing the title Ka- lomte’’. The tree is an image of the center of the universe, as Alfredo Lopez Austin has shown43. The same elements of Spearthrower Owl’s nominal phrase are present in the center medallion of the Marcador. On the front part we see the spearthrower and the owl, and on the back the stylized cave with the three hearthstones. It should further be mentioned that the flowery marcador sits on top of a ball featuring in its center two faces of a Teotihuacan lord with below them a Mexican Year-sign which alludes to the xihuitl reading. All together they offer strong evidence that Spearthrower Owl was indeed the high priest of the Xiuhteuctli cult in Teotihuacan, and hence, the head of the merchants guilds.

Spearthrower Owl is the father of Yax Nuun Ayin. On stela 31 Yax Nuun Ayin is portrayed as a Teotihuacan military, however not as an Owl- but as a Jaguar- warrior as we will come to see. In his headdress appear the torches that are used by the Xiu- hteuctli priest to light the divine oven. On stela 4 he carries the torch in his left hand44. His office seems confirmed by the title he receives on the so-called Hombre de Tikal: Tajal Chaak, which Martin & Grube translate as Torch of Chaak. If we take Chaak to be the equivalent of the Central- Mexican Tlaloc, this title may actually refer to him as the Tlaloc of the Center, Xiuhteuctli. In Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol I have shown that another epithet for Xiuhteuctli was Ocoteuctli or Lord of the Ocote, the pine timbers with which they lightened the oven and which in Classic ch’ol reads as taj45.

42 Stuart 2000: 484-486. 43 López-Austin 1994: 223-229. 44 Nielsen 2006: 24. 45 Martin & Grube 2000: 32-33. It appears there are more referrences to his profession as fire priest on the Hombre de Tikal: the collocations D2-C4 feature the handglyph of taking a torch, followed by the readings CHAN-na and K’IN- ni, and his name Yax Nuun Ayin. The Tajal Chaak may recall the name of another Classic Maya lord, Taj Chan Ahk, whom I have identified as a fire- priest as well (Akkeren 2012: 197-198).

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Lord of Fire and Sun God As various scholars have suggested, B’olon Okte’ K’u is a god of calendrical transi- tions46. He is the deity that presided the Baktun change, in 3114 BC as well as in 2012 AD. At a lower level, B’olon Okte’ K’u is present during the first k’atun (11 Ajaw) of the k’atun-cycle of 256 years, as we may read in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel47. At a still lower level, he is the god in charge of the five closing days of the year, the Wayeb’ – he is also God N. It corresponds with his Central-Mexican counterpart, Xiuhteuctli, who is patron of the last trecena, the last month Izcalli, and the close of the Calendar Round. There is a reason why Xiuhteuctli or B’olon Okte’ K’u are present at the end of the calendrical cycles, as I demonstrate in Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol48.

As said, the high priest of Xiuhteuctli was in charge of the drilling of New Fire at the end of the 52-year period. These moments were conceived as the beginning of a new era, generating myths like those of the birth of the sun49. As is well-known, the Central- Mexican myth of the origin of the sun, related in the Leyenda de los Soles or the Flor- entine Codex, situates his birth in the divine oven (teotexcalli) of Teotihuacan. It narrates the story of the Sun Hero, Nanahuatzin, who throws himself into the blistering flames to transform into the sun of the new era. The story tells that, to prepare himself for the sacrifice, the gods built a hill with a temple on top, the place we now know as the Pyramid of the Sun. It is the Lord of Fire, Xiuhteuctli, who arranges the oven for the heroic deed of Nanahuatzin.

But there is more, Xiuhteuctli is not just the Lord of Fire, he is fire50. In his body of flames – the terrestrial fire – the new, celestial fire is born, which is the sun, and sun is time. Indeed, Mayan languages don’t have a term for ‘time’; they use a variation of the word for ‘sun’. Thus, with the birth of the sun, new time and calendrical cycles are created. That’s why B’olon Okte’ K’u or Xiuhteuctli presence was indispensable at the beginning of new cycles. He supplied the medium for the sun and time to be born51. We then understand that, unlike in Christian religion, the underworld or Xib’alb’a plays a crucial role in the creation of the new era, the era of sun and corn. Without terrestrial

46 Eberl, Markus & Christian Prager 2005; Grofe 2009. 47 It is in this source that the god is called B’olon Yokte’, a name which subsequently was embraced by Maya scholars (Roys 1967). 48 Akkeren 2012: 163-167. 49 Just like Sahagún or Motolinía claim and many modern scholars, as we will learn later (Limón Olvera, 2001: 161- 163; 167). 50 As shows the image of this deity on folio 46 of the Codex Borgia. 51 Akkeren 2012: 166-167.

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fire, no celestial fire! In the Xib’alb’a myth, this mutual dependency is cast in the person of Xkik’, daughter of Kuchuma Kik’, Lord of Xib’alb’a. She presents the Xib’alb’a’s con- tribution to the new era. She becomes the mother of the Hero Twins who later be- queath sun and corn to mankind. In the Popol Wuj version they skip a generation, but very often, as in Q’eqchi’ mythology, the relation between the Lord of Fire or Lord Mountain-Valley and the Sun Hero is that between father-in-law and son-in-law, whereas his daughter is the intermediate. In this concept, the sun-eras are reduced to genera- tions. Indeed, many Maya creation myths are situated at the micro-level of the family, as we may read in the Popol Wuj or in La historia de Sol y Luna, Balam Q’e y Qana Po52. Thus for these various reasons, both, Lord of Fire or Lord Mountain-Valley and the Sun God, are often portrayed together in Mesoamerican imagery and architecture.

.A striking rendering of the couple we find in the great ballcourt complex of Chich’en Itza, the city which is the apogee of the new merchant ideology that shall eclipse the Classic. In the central scene of the bas-relieves of the Lower Temple of the Jaguars they are the two personages in front of the high priest of the Feathered Serpent: the first one is a version of Jun Ajpu with his blowgun53 followed by the aged Xiuhteuctli with his Fire Serpent – they appear in the North Temple again as a couple54. There are other examples from Aztec culture, like the Calendar Stone where both adorn the outer rim of the monument, each coming out of their respective Fire Serpent. There is the Templo Mayor which harbored two temples, one for Lord Mountain-Valley (Tlaloc) and one for the Sun God (Huitzilopochtli). It was from the temple of the latter that the New Fire was reparted among the other cities of the Triple Anahuac55.

. In a sense there is a similar juxtaposition in the complex of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan. Fash, Tokovinine and Fash (2009) have revived an idea of one of the

52 Akkeren 2012 Apéndice. 53 It shows that the blowgun and Fire Serpent are conceptually the same weapon, as we may learn from Q’eqchi’ mythology. 54 Schele & Mathews 1998: 221-222; Akkeren 2012: 199-202. 55 Similar cases can be made for the twin-temple complexes in Highland Guatemala, like the one in Kaqjyub’, Rabinal. Fash, Fash and Tokovinine recognized the couple in the iconography of Temple 16 in Copan: “iconic repre- sentations of both the Sun God and the Storm God, in a sense presaging the later Posclassic Twin Temples of Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc” (Fash et al. 2009: 211).

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first archaeologists who excavated in this city, Leopoldo Batres. Based on the iconography he found on the pieces of rubble of the Adosada temple at the foot of the pyramid, Batres suggested that this must have been the place where the New Fire was drilled. Indeed, he discovered xiuhmolpilli or year-bundles in stone, there were columns depict- ing a temple with emerging flames and stylized crossed bundles, and in its center the image of a cruller as a ‘name-tag’56. Taube has argued that the cruller, mostly known for adorning the face of the Jaguar God of the Underworld, evokes the cord which served for drilling fire57.

To the Maya the Jaguar God of the Underworld was the god in charge of making fire. We will deal with the Jaguar God of the Underworld later and demonstrate that in Teotihuacan a similar creature was involved in fire-making rituals. The nine jaguars that archaeologists have located among the debris of the temple, are hence further proof that it was indeed the temple of Xiuhteuctli58. Thus in the hearth at the bottom, the sun was born, whose temple must have crowned the top, according to the Florentine Codex. Still as it appears, Xiuhteuctli also had its place in that sanctuary, as of writing these lines, news broke that Mexican archaeologists excavating the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, uncovered a 58 cm tall sculpture of the Lord of Fire59. Thus, the Pyramid of the Sun was the place where time and sun was born. As said in the first paragraph, the mercantile ideology was a mix of two bodies of mythology: Tullan and Tzuywa. The con- tribution of the ‘Tullan paradigm’, in Stuart’s words, is the concept of the New Fire. Tullan was called Pu in Maya. I explain in Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol that Jun Ajpu foremost means First of Tullan, a name that likely was forged in the mercantile ideology. I found that the Xib’alb’a myth of the Popol Wuj was born in the southern Peten and northern Alta Verapaz, and that the historical oven of Xib’alb’a seems to have been situated in Machaquila. Machaquila formed part of the network of the new mercantile elite, either coming from Chich’en Itza or directly from the Gulf Coast. It is called Pu on stela 8 of Ceibal, and its most prominent feature is a cuadripartite plaza which, according to archaeologist Alfonso Lacadena, proves to have been the scenery of an inmense fire. I argue that the peculiar shape of the plaza is intentional60.

Junajpu61 is the last day-sign in the row of twenty. Its Central-Mexican equivalent is Xochitl, Flower, the shape of the plaza. Eric Thompson was perhaps the first one to note that the Maya glyph K’IN, ‘sun’, represented a flower.

56 Fash et al. 2009: 207-209 57 Taube 2002: 292. 58 Fash et al. 2009: 209-210 59 February 12th, 2013 60 Akkeren 2002: 34; 2012: 122-125; 192-196. 61 When referring to the 20th day, I use the spelling Junajpu, when referring to the Sun Hero, Jun Ajpu.

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If the cuadripartite plaza was the sacred oven of Xib’alb’a, it means that this was place where Jun Ajpu launched himself with his brother into the fire to transform into the sun of the new era. Hence, I believe that the Postclassic term Jun Ajpu, replacing Late Classic Jun Ajaw, emerged in Machaquila. In addition, it is my point that the cuadripartite plaza of Machaquila wants to emulate the primordial flower-shaped cave which sits in the inner center of the Pyramid of the Sun, the place where according to Central-Mexican myth the sun rose up from the divine hearth or teotexcalli. One of the names of Teotihuacan, found on a bone from Tikal, is spelled Nikte’ Wits, Flower Mountain, which verly likely refers to the complex of the Pyramid of the Sun62.

Returning to our personage of Spearthrower Owl, who has been identified as Xiuhteuctli, one may speculate that the name or title of his ambassador in the Central Petén, Siyah K’ak’ or Born from Fire63, was not accidental. It seems to allude to the Sun God, being born from the divine hearth in Teotihuacan. Perhaps the year 378 marked the end of a 52-year period, in which ceremony Siyah K’ak’ was ‘born’ and installed as the new sun-captain. Teotihuacan may have taken this calendrical moment as propitious to introduce new blood in the dynasty of Tikal. Later, we will hear more about the political use of the New Fire ceremony in Mesoamerica.

Tikal Emblem Glyph and Tzonmolco The Emblem Glyph of Tikal represents a bound knot of hair, listed as T569 by Thompson. Clemency Coggins has put forward the idea that the glyph resembled a ritual bundle used at k’atun and baktun endings64. Linda Schele has come up with a reading which

62 Fash et al. 2009: 219. 63 Martin & Grube 2000: 29. 64 Coggins 1990: 96; 2002: 48, note 41.

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implied the jaguar suggesting that the animal was a patron god of Tikal65. This was before a fonetic reading of T569 surfaced, simultaneously discovered by Christian Prager and David Stuart, in 1992, leading to a reading of mut66. According to a Yucatec dictionary mut pol “rodete hacer la mujer de sus cabellos”, which seems the image the glyph is conveying67. Ever since, the classic city of Tikal has been known as Mutul or Mutal.

Writing about the meaning of Tikal’s Emblem Glyph, Simon Martin pondered:

While the root term mut refers to the tied knot of hair depicted in the famous “bundle” hiero- glyph T596, its deeper meaning as a place-name is currently lost to us68.

Nontheless, I will offer a reading for this ‘deeper meaning’. I propose in this article that Tikal’s Emblem Glyph expresses a pictographic reading of a Central-Mexican calpulli named Tzonmolco: from tzontli, hair, molli, derived from the verb “to stir, turn, fold, bend”, and co, being a locative, resulting in the reading Place of the Bended Hair69. True, it is not a seamless reading of Tikal’s Emblem Glyph, but the the idea did not originate with the name, rather with the iconography, and subsequent circumstancial evidence, as we will see. Regardless, it implies that the calpulli Tzonmolco is somehow connected to the origin of Tikal.

Our knowledge about the calpulli Tzonmolco almost only comes from Aztec sources. It was a calpulli with ancient roots. It did not belong to the original seven calpultin of the Aztecs, but dated back to Toltec origins, and perhaps even to the time of Teotihua- can70. This corresponds with the antiquity of their titular god, Xiuhteuctli, called Father of the Gods and Old God or Huehueteotl. Sculptures of this deity are already found in the pre-Teotihuacan culture of Cuicuilco71.

Tzonmolco’s temple, dedicated to the god Xiuhteuctli, stood in the barrio of Copolco, in the northwestern part of Tenochtitlan. From its members the calpulli recruited the high priest in charge of the drilling of the New Fire72. The precinct of Xiuhteuctli in Tenochtit- lan was very prestigious: Tzonmolco harbored one of the seven Calmecac or elite schools, and in the barrio of Copolco they used to bury the ashes of the Aztec lords, huey tlatoani. In Book 1 of the Florentine Codex we may read that Motecuhzoma danced each four years as an impersonator of Xiuhteuctli at the temple of Tzonmolco73.

Tzonmolco is called a calpulli, certainly alluding to a double descent kinship group, but it included also non-consanguinal affiliates that became ‘family’ because of similar inter-

65 Schele 1985: 64.

66 The fonetic reading of mut is based on the appearance of T596 complemented with the syllables mu on A9, Panel 2 of La Amelia y tu on Lintel 17 of Yaxchilan (Martin 2003: 38). 67 Barrera-Vásquez 1991: 542. 68 Martin 2003: 4. 69 According to the Calepino of Sahagún - his notes to the Florentine Codex - tzonmolco is translated as “en el cabello mul- lido”, which should be “loosened hair”. 70 Zantwijk 1977:108; Zantwijk, personal communication, november 2012. 71 Coggins 2002: 54. 72 Zantwijk 1977: 199. 73 XX wrs Limón Olvera, 2001: 88, 95-96, 105.

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ests. As Rudolf van Zantwijk has put forward, Tzonmolco was probably an interethnic calpulli that included the members of the six other merchant calpultin each with their own patron god, and temple-pyramids, divided over the four barrios of Tenochtitlan. The two most important ones are the above-mentioned Pochteca and Oztomeca with their respective patrons Yacateuctli and Nacxitl, apart from four lesser ones. These six calpultin were are all socially and ceremonially related to Tzonmolco74. Additionally, Tzonmolco had, among other calpultin, a special function in the worship of the Sun God Huitzilopochtli, something to be expected from the twin model – Lord of Fire and Sun God – we presented above75.

Interestingly, to Tzonmolco also belonged the prestigious feather-craftsmen, the amanteca whose roots also seem to go back to ancient times. Sahagún writes that in his time people considered the amanteca to be among the first people inhabiting the valley of Mexico 76. The Franciscan chronicler also describes how Pochteca and Amanteca, both wealthy corporate groups, lived and celebrated together77:

El barrio de los amantecas y el barrio de los pochtecas estaban juntos, y también los dioses de los amantecas y de los pochtecas estaban pareados, el uno se llamaba Yiacatecutli [sic] que es el dios de los mercaderes, y el otro se llamaba Coyotlináual, que es el dios de los amantecas, por esta causa los mercaderes y los oficiales de la pluma se honraban los unos a otros.

Y cuando se sentaban en los convites de una parte se sentaban los mercaderes y de la otra parte los oficiales de pluma. Era casi iguales en las haciendas, y en el hacer de las fiestas, o banquetes: porque los mercaderes traían de lejas tierras las plumas ricas; y los amantecas las labraban y componían, y hacían las armas y divisas y rodelas de ellas, de que usaban los señores y principales ... 78. Summarizing, Tzonmolco was a respected calpulli which included wealthy members of the Pochteca, Oztomeca and Amanteca guilds, and which had deep roots in Central- Mexican society seemingly going back to Teotihuacan times79.

God L and the Knot of Bended Hair Thus, I suggest that the Emblem Glyph of Tikal is a pictographic reading of the term tzonmolco, ‘Place of the Bended Hair’. The idea emerged when writing Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol. Analyzing the imagery of God L, I ran into an iconographic element which seemed particular for this god: a bended and bound knot of hair popping up from under his headdress or simply crowning his head. We are all familiar with the historical information Mesoamerican artists used to put in their images, especially in the

74 According to Van Zantwijk, the six calpultin were divided in two cosmovisionally related groups headed by the Pochteca and Oztomeca (1977: 123-125). 75 Zantwijk 1977: 123. 76 Zantwijk 1977:123+ Davies 1977: 177. 77 Sahagún 1982: 517- 519. 78 Sahagún 1982: 519. 79 Angulo, 1998.

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headdress.

A number of these illustrations are unmistakably linked to the new international mercantile order following the decline of Teotihuacan. A fine example comes from Epiclassic Cacaxtla; in the Red Temple we have God L in his role as the patron of commerce, an old deity dressed in his familiar jaguar outfit. In his right hand he holds a bar with the head of a dog on top. Schol- ars have pointed out that the wooden bar plus the four dots may read as ‘nine’, followed by the dog offers a rebus spelling of B’olon Okte’; and indeed he is a fine copy of this deity80. Behind him is a large cacaxtli typically of long- distance merchants. It is packed with merchandize and on top is the common owl headdress of God L. Underneath the feet of the merchant deity, runs a serpent covered in blue feathers: that is how long-distance merchants thought of the route they walked. It is a continuous road including hills and water. We will come to that in a later paragraph. Our interest here goes to the bended knot of hair popping from underneath the jaguar head: it seems an appropriate copy of the Tikal Emblem Glyph.

During the Epiclassic Cacaxtla, just like its close neighbor Cholula, was an Olmeca- Xicalanca site. The Olmeca-Xicalanca, also called historical Olmecs, came from the Gulf Coast . The ethnic term Xicalanca is derived from the famous port of trade Xicalanco, which lay in the Usumacinta delta, although we know that in Aztec times, the Gulf Coast from Coatzalcoalcos to Campeche was referred to as Anahuac Xicalanco, Xicalanco Coast. In an earlier writing I have identified Xicalanco as the Tzuywa of the Maya sources81. The Cacaxtla of the Olmeca-Xicalanca formed part of the international trade network that grew in the aftermath of Teotihuacan’s decline. Many scholars have pointed out at the Mayan style of its murals. Olmeca-Xicalanca are hard to distinguish from another ethnic group, Nonoalca, which I mention hear because we will come back to the Nonoalca82.

A second example of God L and the knot of bended hair, is found on the bas-relieves of the Lower Temple of the Jaguar, as part of the Great Ballcourt complex of Chich’en Itza. Chich’en Itza and its ballcourt complex is key in the new mercantile ideology of the Epiclassic, and I have interpreted its iconography lengthily in Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol. The inner temple is covered with processions of warriors. Although the wall is divided in several registers, one on top of each other, it is clear from the position of the people that they are all watching the central scene. There we have the high priest of the

80 Grofe, 2009:10. 81 Akkeren 2006b. 82 Davies 1977; Kirchhoff et al 1989; Foncerrada 1993; Ringle et al. 1998; Pohl 1999; McCafferty 2002.

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Feathered Serpent, and in front of him two personages who are the other principal characters, we discussed them briefly when mentioning the cosmovisional relation between the Sun God and Xiuhteuctli. Indeed, the first one can be identified as the young Sun Hero, for his blowgun, comparable to Jun Ajpu or Jun Ajaw. I have suggested that the speech scroll coming from his mouth, covered with calabash flowers, is an example of the famous Language of Tzuywa83. As said, Tzuywa is the equivalent of Xicalanco, and according to the Chilam Balam of Chumayel, Itza and their founder father came from the Gulf Coast. The person behind him I have identified as Xiuhteuctli: an old man with the Fire Serpent in his hand84.

Interesting are the name glyphs that hover above their heads. They belong to the Olmeca-Xicalanca writing system, as has been pointed out, and which was also in use in Cacaxtla85. However, some glyphs, like the one above Xiuhteuctli, go back to Teotihuacan, as Caso and Taube have shown. On a stela from Veracruz we find an appealing rendering of the Lord of Fire in a syncretized Teotihuacan-Gulf Coast style. His outfit is the Fire Serpent with the familiar pointed tail. He holds two torches in both hands; another two are worked into his headdress, together with the glyph we see above Xiuhteuctli in Chich’en Itza. I have suggested that the name glyph above Xiuhteuctli in Chich’en Itza reads Chicome Coatl or Seven Serpent, the calendar name of the Maize God, portrayed on the other side of the temple, on the ballcourt benches86.

83 Roys Chumayel; Coggins 200:48. 84 When I showed this image to Rudolf van Zantwijk, he identified the so-called ‘sloppy shields’ both heroes carry in their other hands, as xiquipiles, bags that served merchants for packing cacao. It was further used as a pictograph for the number 8000. It seems a proper suggestion for personages representing a mercantile ideology (personal communication, november 2012). 85 Schele & Mathews 1998: 222. 86 Indeed, in my book I suggest that it reads Seven Serpent, or Chicome Coatl, the Nahuatl name for the Maize God. The name also appears on the bench walls of the ballcourt, as the beheaded person. Six snakes plus the Tzuywa vine squirting forth from his neck, which counts for the seventh snake – as we know from other images. It is a pictographic reading of the name Chicome Coatl. In Central Mexican cosmology Chicome Coatl is the Maize Goddess, although there have been discussions about her gender (Seler 1963 TI: 119; Zantwijk 1977: 139). Still, Chicome Coatl is the mother of Cinteotl, the young Maize God. I show that in the Maya area Seven Serpent appears to be the name for the young Maize God, as shows, for example, stela 13 of Ceibal, a contemporary monument of the ballcourt of Chich’en Itza (Akkeren 2012). It is interesting, that the Xiuhteuctli character carry this name. From Gulfcoast my-

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Nevertheless, we are interested in the impressive knot of bound hair on top of his headdress, which must have a semantic significance. As I argue, we witness in this central scene the mercantile elite responsible for the Classic Maya collapse. An international elite, formed at the end of the Classic on the Gulf Coast , which included lineages from Teotihuacan, Olmeca-Xicalanca, Nonoalca and Maya. The first warrior behind Xiuhteuctli, is standing in a canoe which identifies him as a Acallan warrior, a province on the same Gulf Coast . Thus, I postulate that the bound knot of hair on Xiuhteuctli’s head refers to the social group to which the old man pertained, the calpulli Tzon- molco.

Xiuhteuctli is also present on the outer columns of the same temple. Here he blends in with God N; still, he is acting like the Lord of Fire, as I put forward in my book. Similarly as in the central scene of the inner sanctum, he is wearing two sacrificial knives, hanging from his carapace. When I composed the book I did not yet realized the meaning of the knives, although, as it seemed, I had already written extensively about it, but in another context. The sacrificial knife is a permanent item of the Lord of Fire.

I have shown that the most important deity of the postclassic Guatemala Highland, Tojil, is also a Fire God. When, as narrated in the Popol Wuj, the K’iche’ and their allies are grouped together in the mountains, dying of cold, with every fire extinguished, it is Tojil who drills new fire. In an article that awaits its publication, I make an effort to trace back the origin of Tojil, a cult introduced by the Toj lineage. I show that the Toj – the ruling lineage in Rabinal and authors of the Rabinal Achi - was originally a Mexican lineage, which at the end of the Classic migrated from the Pacific Coast into the Highlands, get- ting ‘mayanized’ in the process and changing their Mexican name into a Maya one. The original name of the Toj was Atonal. Toj is the equivalent of the day-name Atl, and atonal is a contraction of atl-tonalli, Atl-Day. The patron ‘saint’ of the day Atl is, again, Xiuhteuctli, who in Central-Mexican pictorials is commonly portrayed together with Ix- tapal Totec, the personified Flint Knife. I quote quite a few references from indigenous documents which prove that Tojil was also conceived off as a sacrificial knife87. thology we know that it was the Maize God who bestowed the Fire Serpent thunderbolt to the lords of Tlalocan, Lords Mountain-Valley (Braakhuis 2009: 14; Akkeren 2012: 132, 203).

87 Akkeren 2000, 2012, in press.

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The migration of Mexican peoples to the Pacific Coast – including Nonoalca – is the outcome of similar contemporary movements along the international trade network as we encounter in Chich’en. I was able to trace the Atonal family all the way back to Tula and Cuauhtitlan. However, we lack the sources to determine if they were originally from Teotihuacan. Atonal are mentioned in various indigenous sources, and the places where they appear – as lords, priests or scribes - together form a string of cities that finely shaped the trade-route from Central-Mexico to the Pacific Coast. I further show that the other titulary gods mentioned in the Popol Wuj – Q’aq’awits and Awilix – are but idiosyncratic versions of the same Lord of Fire. Thus, the presence of Xiuhteuctli in Chich’en Itza, is part of a larger domain, which, indeed, is our mercantile ideology of the Late Classic.

The sacrificial knife being part of Xiuhteuctli’s instruments, may prompt new investigation of familiar imagery. I have called attention to the famous central tree of the panel of the Temple of the Cross in Palenque. Taube already pointed out the three hearthstones at the end of each branch. To me the snake in its branches is the Fire Serpent, and its base is the place where the sun, k’in, is born, suggesting a tree of the central hearth (tlexicco). At the same base we find the sacrificial knife. It should also be remembered that the Temple of the Cross features the famous panel of B’olon Okte’88.

Returning to God N as the Lord of Fire, on the outer columns of the Lower Temple of the Jaguar. A carapace can be part of the outfit of God L as well: it appears on the backrack of this deity in Cacaxtla. Fairly recently, a large Aztec sculpture of Xiuhteuctli wearing a carapace was unearthed in the historical center of Mexico City89. I propose in my book that the carapace or conch shell of God N, is the Maya equivalent of the Central-Mexican pictograph of the cave, that is, Tlaloc’s mouth, the one we found in

88 Akkeren 2012: 177. 89 Hernández Pons 1996.

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Spearthrower Owl’s nominal phrase with the three hearthstones on top. I identify the four creatures around the old god on the outer columns of the Lower Temple of the Jaguar, which has been called Mars Beasts by scholars, rather as four Fire Serpents, the same ones that adorn the shield of the high priest of the Feathered Serpent, of which several copies have been found. However, that the old god is in fact the Lord of Fire, is best seen from the object he is carrying in his hand which, I claim, is not a rattle, but a a torch of flames. Notably, the flames are depicted in the Central-Mexican way, not being the lustrious flares and flames Maya would paint90.We are witnessing here a New Fire ceremony, something that Coggins already suggested91

Other examples of God L and the knot of bended hair are from a cilindrical column of Santa Rosa Xtampak, a site on the border of the Puuc and Chenes area92. The city is Late Classic and Epiclassic, as most of the recorded dates are from the 10th Baktun, thus, contemporary of Chich’en Itza93. Here the knot of hair pops from underneath his traditional owl-headdress. Interesting is also that God L holds the typical merchant staff, otlatl, which, according to Sahagún, merchants used to bind together at the place where they stayed the night. The K’iche’ capital’s nahuatl name, Utatlan, Place of the Staff, took its title from it, apropriate for a capital ruled by a lineage of traders, Kaweq, that produced the outstanding expression of the new mercantile ideology, the myth of Xib’alb’a. Finally, it should be mentioned that this God L from Xtampak seems to wear the same long necklace of beads as does his counterpart in the Lower Temple of the Jaguar. It shares this object also with God L from the Temple of the Cross in Palen- que.

One of the few examples in Classic Maya iconography where God L ostentates a torch, is painted on a Chama vase (K702). The reason for this late appearance, as I explain in my book, is that the Central-Mexican mythological corpus – which I have dubbed Tullan – including imagery and personages, only make its entrance in the Maya area at the end of Classic94. Chama is in the heartland of the Xib’alb’a area95. Chama is also close to Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, an important trade-center for its salt, ruled by the Ka- nek’ family, as we explained. The Kanek’ were co-founders of Chich’en Itza and tutors

90 Taube 2000; Nielsen 200: 22-23. 91 Coggins 2002: 74. 92 Taube 1992: 84. 93 Grube 2003. 94 Taube, for example, argues that Xiuhteuctli enters the Maya area at the end of the Classic (1992) 95 The geographical information about the location of Xib’alb’a was always present in the text of the Popol Wuj, but never recognized by its translators. According to the document, the entrance to the underworld was in Nim Xol – Karchaj. Santo Tomas Nim Xol turns out to be a barrio from Coban and Karchaj refers to San Pedro Carcha. A historical analysis of the peoples reduced by the dominicans in the colonial towns of Coban and Carcha, shows that many of them came from what we now call the Franja Transversal del Norte. It is in the piedmont of northern Alta Verapaz, a place where caves abound, among them the second largest cavernal system of the Maya world, La Cande- laria. Its inhabitants were predominantly Ch’ol-speaking Maya.

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of the dynasty of Ek’ Balam. I have traced the origin of the Postclassic Kaweq lineage back to the Salinas area, and show that they are descendents of the Classic Kanek’. Chama proves to have quite some Yucatecan influences, not in the least its name, which is derived from the Ch’ol or Yucatec term ch’amak, ‘fox’, a military order which according to Chama iconography was one of the ruling lineages96. Thus, it does not seem to be a coincidence to find one of the few images of God L with a torch in the area where the Kaweq originated97.

On this vase God L is painted black and dressed the common way, with a large bended knot of hair appearing from underneath his owl- headdress, much like the Xtampak image. In his hand he holds a torch, the handle of which is similar to the one of the outer column of the Lower Temple of the Jaguar. In front of him, there is a dynamic image of God K holding and featuring similar torches98.

There is main role for B’olon Okte’ K’u on the famous Rabbit Vase (K1358) which tells a by now lost story including a rabbit trickster99. Standing nakedly in front of the rabbit, B’olon Okte’ K’u features an unusual lock of hair, arranged in a spiral; an even better visual image of hair being ‘stirred’, tzonmolli. On vase K4598 we see God L, with his jaguar ear, paws and claws. He is taken prisoner by several young men and put on a throne of stone with his arms tied behind is back. Two of them are approaching him with burning torches, seemingly in the act of putting him on fire. God L, as a counterpart of Xiuhteuctli, is of course also fire himself. The darker strokes aroung his head perhaps want to allude to him being yet ardently hot. This God L also features a prominent knot of bended hair.

All these examples of God L, some of them closely related to a Central-Mexican origin, have the knot of bended hair as a major attribute. Again, it is located in a position – head or headdress – which is usually reserved by Mayan painters for historical informa-

96 In this context it is worth mentioning that the term Ch’amak is actually used in the Marcador text of Tikal, as if referring to a Teotihuacan origin (Boot 2004: 229-230). 97 Although, scholars have dated Chama pottery to the VIIIth century, new investigations and archeaological findings show we are rather looking to a later date for its production. 98 I suggest in Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol, that it is worth investigating if God K was the original Lord of Fire in the Classic Maya area. He is known for its torch, and he is the deity of the center, par excellence, tlexicco and tlalxicco, much like Xiuhteuctli in Central Mexico (Akkeren 2012). 99 One may recall how the rabbit in the ballcourt of Xib’alb’a plays a trick on the Lords of Xib’alb’a by bouncing away as a ball.

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tion. It is my proposal that it is a reference to the historical calpulli Tzonmolco, whose members occupied a powerful position in Mesoamerica. They comprised the heads of rich merchant families and priests of Xiuhteuctli. If correct the Tzonmolco calpulli goes back to the times of Teotihuacan. Even more, if the Emblem Glyph of Tikal is in fact a version of this same knot of bended hair, Tzonmolco must have been instrumental in the founding of the Tikal dynasty.

To close this paragraph, there is a large fragment of a tripod in the museum at the site which might represent an example of the knot of bended hair in Teotihuacan style. The fragment displays five personages, three on the lower part and two on top. The bottom three all sport a type of hair with a bound knot on the front, the same place where God L used to have his bended knot of hair. The middle of the three appears to be the principal character since he has the speech scroll coming out of his mouth. Just like in later Aztec codices – the cover page of the Mendoza, for example – the one with the speech scroll is the one who rules (tlatoani). One may make a point that in his headdress are the usual two sticks with which the New Fire is drilled, characteristic of Central-Mexican images of Xiuhteuctli. Their are further two goggles with the squinted eyes on the same headdress, also tipically of Tlaloc-Xiuhteuctli. Although Taube claims he is pointing his finger like a ruler, this seems to be incorrect if we count the number of fingers100. To me, his right hand holds a sacrificial knife, another symbol of Xiuhteuctli as we saw. Thus, perhaps we are looking at a few members of the Tzonmolco calpulli on this tripod.

Jaguar God of the Underworld If Tikal’s dynasty was indeed founded by members of the Tzonmolco calpulli, one would expect to find the Lord of Fire as their titulary god. Much as this is true, it is a little more complicated. We do not see direct images of B’olon Okte’ K’u. Still, we may recall that one of the more prominent features of God L was him wearing a jaguar skin, of the Waterlily Jaguar to more precise, a deity which merge easily in the iconography with the Jaguar God of the Underworld. It appears that this creature was the patron god of Tikal.

Now, various scholars have claimed that the Jaguar God of the Underworld was the Classic Maya Lord of Fire. In an early stage, Taube already noticed the relation between the Jaguar God of the Underworld and fire101. This

100 Taube 2003: 283-284. 101 Taube 1992: 54.

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particular jaguar was characterized, among other elements, by a cord which ran be- neath his eyes, then forming a scruller above his nose. According to Taube the cord was used as an instrument for drilling fire with a stick102. Stuart elaborates further on the role of Jaguar God of the Underworld in fire rituals: the deity seems to appear often on incense burners103. The Jaguar God of the Underworld was the patron of the day akb’al, meaning ‘darkness’ and ‘night’ – appropriate for someone roaming the underworld – and the personified number seven. As said, he is hard to distinguish from the Waterlily Jaguar, marked by a waterlily plant on his head, defining him, again, as a creature of the underworld.

This feline deity seems to be the titulary god of Tikal. On stela 31 Siyah Chan K’awil is holding Tikal’s austere patron deity in his arm. It has the cruller over his nose and eyes. There are flames rising from his jaguar ear, and on top of his head, that is, on the scalp itself, sits the Tikal Emblem Glyph, the knot of bended hair, joining the dynasty with the Jaguar God of the Underworld. On stela 4 Yax Nuun Ayin holds in one hand a torch as we already mentioned and in the other the head of the same Jaguar God of the Underworld. We will soon talk about his

headdress, because that also seems to represent a jaguar .

Stela 31 was ritually ‘put to rest’ in the funerary chamber of Siyah Chan K’awil, the creator of the monument, and a new huge pyramid was raised on top of it. This happened during the reign of Jasaw Chan K’awil who defeated Calakmul in 695 and built Temple 1 to conmemorate this victory.

102 Taube 2000: 292 103 Stuart 1998: 403-409.

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The temple features two gorgeously carved lintels. On Lintel 2 we find Jasaw Chan K’awil portrayed, sitting on a throne and dwarfed by a huge version of the Tikal patron deity, rendered as the Waterlily Jaguar – reason why they baptized pyramid 1 as Gran Jaguar. The accompanying text relates that the creature in question was called Nuun B’alam Chaaknal104.

Lintel 3 depicts the same ruler on a throne, this time dominated by a huge serpent in the well-know mosaic style of Teotihuacan. Jasaw Chan K’awil sports a shield, arrows and a spearthrower. Stuart has called the ophidian the Fire Serpent, weapon of Xiuhteuctli which as we have found, could be replaced by the spearthrower. The throne is standing on a pair of steps with toponymic features, among them one identified by the same Stuart as the cattail glyph PU for Tullan105. I would draw the attention to the cuadripartite flower, which seemed to have been related, as we saw, with the place of the divine hearth, the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan. They are all elements which would link Jasaw Chan K’awil with Spearthrower Owl, which appears to be intentional: the inauguration

104 Lintel 2 - D2 (Martin & Grube 2000: 45) 105 Stuart 2002: 490, 502.

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date of lintel 2, featuring the enormous Jaguar patron god, fell on a day that was exactly one cycle of 13 k’atuns after the Spearthrower Owl’s death, and there were more dates aligned with the life of this Teotihuacan ruler106.

On Lintel 2 of Temple IV , built by Jasaw Chan K’awil’s son and sucessor Yik’in Chan K’awil (Ruler B), we anew encounter the giant titular god, this time in his traditional outfit of the Jaguar God of the Underworld107. We have Yik’in Chan K’awil sitting on his throne with the colossal feline overlooking the Tikal lord. The deity wears his common scruller and, in addition, sports the number seven written on his cheek, and the headband with the three Jester Gods, representing the three hearth-stones.

The last carving commented is Lintel 2 of Temple 3, also the last great building erected in Tikal. The stela and altar at is base conmemorated the k’atun change of 810. The principal dignitary on this lintel probably is a lord dubbed Dark Sun. Like his forefathers, he worshipped the Jaguar God of the Underworld. He is dressed in the skin of an enormous big-bellied jaguar, while holding a stick commonly used for fire-drilling and a so- called nuckle- duster 108. Dark Sun’s companions hold the same sticks and sacrificial knife. They have incredible hairdo’s of bound and put- up hair and interesting pectorals. One wonders if the pectoral which looks like a whirl of hair was another portrayal of the Tzonmolco name-glyph. They are identical to the pectorals worn by the persons displayed on K4598 which are, as we have seen, without doubt fire- priests.

Other examples of Tikal’s titulary god are found on the Buenavista Vase, excavated in Buenavista del Cayo, Belize (K4464). It features the Maize God carrying a exuberant plumed backrack, serving as a portable niche for the image

106 Martin&Grube 2000: 45. Martin 2003: 33-34. 107 Taube 1998: 450, 465. 108 Martin & Grube 2000: 52-53.

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of the Waterlily Jaguar sitting on top of the Tikal Emblem Glyph. Vessel K2696 displays a Tikal lord sitting on his throne while a lesser noble hands him the skin of a jaguar. In- teresting is the type of scepter the lord is holding in his hand.

A jaguar as the personification of the Lord of Fire is an image not only restricted to the Maya. The Central Mexican equivalent of the day akb’al - as we saw, a day ruled by the Jaguar God of the Underworld – is calli which had Tepeyollotl as its patron. Tepeyollotl, literally, Heart of the mountain, is of course an apt name for Lord Mountain-Valley who resides in a cave inside the mountain. As show various Mexican codices, Tepeyollotl had the appearance of a jaguar. In his commentaries on the Codex Borgia, Seler explains that the jaguar is the animal of the earth and the darkness and thus a proper in- carnation of Jaguar God of the Underworld109. Interesting is also the link of Tepeyollotl with the teccistli or conch shell, which in Teotihuacan as well as Maya was the symbol of the cave, and recalls the Maya God N110.

We mentioned that God L had all kinds of jaguar aspects, wearing ears, paws and claws of that animal, or he simply wore the entire skin. And if he did not carry the skin his throne was covered with its hide, including head and paws. Now, it seems he had this in common with Xiuhteuctli, as we may read with Sahagún. When commenting the an- nual Xiuhteuctli festival in the last ‘month’ of the Aztec calendar, Izcalli, he writes:

Estaba sentado [sic] esta estatua en un trono de un cuero de tigre que tenía pies y manos y ca- beza natural, aunque estaba seco, esta estatua así adornada no lexos de un hogar que estaba delante della. Y a media noche sacaban fuego nuevo, para que ardiese en aquel hogar, y sacá- banlo con unos palos, uno puesto abaxo, y sobre él barrenaban con otro palo, como torciéndole entre las manos con gran priesa, y con aquel movimiento y calor se encendía el fuego. Y allá lo tomaban con yesca y encendíanlo en el hogar.111

I want to make the point that the rela- relation of X- iuhteuctli with the jaguar is older, and goes back to Teotihuacan. I propose that Yax Nuun Ayin on stela 31 is dressed as a jaguar in charge of fire- making. We are talking about the left side of stela 31 where Yax Nuun Ayin displays the

109 Tepeyollotl appears in the sections dedicated to the 20 daynames, as the patron of the day Calli and to the 20 trecenas, the latter as patron of the trecena 1 Deer. 110 Seler 1963 TI: 73-75. 111 Sahagún, 2000: 261.

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torches in his headdress. Scholars usually say he wears the headdress of the Fire Ser- pent but I think this to be incorrect. The key piece for comparison is a fragment of a mural of Techinantitla, a fire-hurling jaguar112.

The similarities are astonishing. Both images have the same headdress, with the feathers attached in a way that they fall backwards like a cascade of hair. The front part of the headdress on stela 31 represents the head of a jaguar, with a large round eye and squarish ears, and a blunt snout with fangs which resembles in every detail the jaguar head in the Techinantitla mural. The necklace of beads and shells is exactly the same, with the spondyles shells, as is the tail arrangement and round knot. They both sport the loincloth and similar knee adornments. The sandals of Yax Nuun Ayin have been eroded but we can still see the square upperpart, just like the ones worn by the Techinantitla Jaguar. But perhaps the most important element of our argument here is the fact that the Techinantitla jaguar is hurling fire with his claws whereas Yax Nuun Ayin features the fire torches in his headdress. There can be little doubt that they both impersonate fire-making priests, dressed as a jaguar113.

With this new insight it is convenient to reassess Yax Nuun Ayin’s headdress on Stela 4, which has also been called a Fire Serpent. We established already that he carries the head of the Jaguar God of the Underworld in one hand – probably the same regal article that Siyah Chan K’awil bears on stela 31 – and a torch in the other. I claim that his headdress on stela 4 is the one of the fire-hurling Jaguar, that it is, in fact, a frontal version of his headdres of stela 31. To prove so, we have to shift our attention to the complex of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan.

Recall how the Fashes and Tokovinine have argued that the temple on the Adosada at the foot of the Pyramid of the Sun, was the Early Classic sanctuary where the New Fire was drilled. The iconography of its columns revealed a temple with a cruller in the middle, a tipical item of the Jaguar God of the Underworld. To these scholars, it served as a name tag, identifying the temple as the New Fire shrine. It turns out that the platform of the Adosada was also decorated with jaguars. According to Batres they were painted with black spots. Fash, Tokovinine and Fash already suggest that the feline is a Teoti-

112 Drawing by Saburo Sugiyama (Paulinyi 2009: 187-8) 113 In the discourse of the Techinantitla jaguar appears the Teotihuacan year-sign, thus perhaps the act refers to a period-ending ritual.

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huacan’s version of the Jaguar God of the Underworld. It is perhaps not a coincidence that until now they have only identified nine copies.

Fash, Tokovinine and Fash compare this jaguar to a more pristine version they unearthed in the Xalla complex, which features the animal with the extended claws much like the one on the Techinantitla mural114. The same way Tepeyollotl is depicted in the Codex Borgia. The extended claws perhaps defines the jaguar as a fire-maker, which brings us back to Lintel 2 of Temple 1 of Tikal where we have the giant jaguar in a similar position. He is the Waterlily Jaguar acting as the Lord of Fire. His name is Nuun B’alam Chaaknal115.

The complex of the Pyramid of the Sun harbored more jaguars. A mural from the ruins of the Conjunto del Sol (pórtico 13, mural 2) displays a gorgeous version of the netted jaguar sporting a headdress that is identical to Yax Nuun Ayin’s on stela 4116. Curiously, just like the Xalla jaguar it has a bifurcated tongue. There are other examples, like the one on a Fine Orange vessel in the museum in situ next to the Pyramid of the Sun. Again, we have Yax Nuun Ayin’s headdress. This jaguar may as well have stood at the base of the well-known mythological beast: the jaguar- serpent-bird creature, first described by George Kubler117.

Returning to our argument, if the Tikal dynasty had its origin in a calpulli of fire- making priests, Tzonmolco, its titular god, the Jaguar God of the Underworld, seems to fit the hypothesis. Additionally, this mythological animal is already present as a fire-maker in Teotihuacan.

Nonoalca Our knowledge about the origin of the Tzonmolco calpulli is not very ample. We already explained that it did not belong to the original seven Aztec founding calpultin, and that it at least seemed to go back to Toltec times. As for Teotihuacan, we lack the sources to establish that, but if our hypothesis is correct, they were among the highest nobility in that city. Still, there are some indications which, put together, prove to be fruitful.

We should start out with a suggestion that Coggins makes about the name of Yax Nuun Ayin. She remarks that the part nuun is perhaps alluding to his ‘foreignness’, him being

114 Fash et al. 2009: 207-210. 115 In contrast, Jasaw Chan K’awil seems to interpret the role of the Sun God, as we may guess from his headdress. This way we have the Lord of Fire and the Sun God together, alluding to a new birth, a theme which reflects very convenient Tikal’s revival after the defeat of its archenemy. 116 Now that we have a better understanding of the significance of this jaguar, we may venture a meaning for the tree that he carries in his paws. The three flowers seem to express the three hearth-stones. It may be compared to the central tree on the Tablet of the Cross, Palenque, with the three hearth-stones, as flowers, at the end of each branch. Many new ideas emerged while writing this article. One wonders if the ‘net-element’ on the famous netted jaguar, are just stylized version of the Ollin symbol, since the sun of the new era was born on 4 Ollin. 117 Cited in Fash et al. 2009: 209-210.

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a Nonoalca or Nunualca118. This connection of the identity mark nuun with the Nonoalca is older, and was already suggested by Thompson and picked up by Davies in his book on the Toltecs. Thompson, in his essay on the Putun, suggests that the Itza, carrying the nickname Ah Nun or “stammerers and stutterers”, alludes to the Nonoalca119. Da- vies, discussing the origin of the Nonoalca, notices that K’ak’upakal’s characterization as u nun is “an apparent corruption of Nonoalca”, thus like Thompson suggesting he might be of Nonoalca origin120. Schele, Grube & Boot observe about this title of K’ak’upakal: “This ‘broken speech’ title appears in K’ak’upakal’s name [...] in order to mark his foreigness as one who could not speak Yucatec well121. In Yucatec nun means “bozal, que no sabe hablar la lengua de la tierra”122.

There has been quite some discussion on the etymology of the term nonoalca. Davies brings up the suggestion of earlier authors to derive it from nontli, “dumb” or “poor- speaking”, but gives other suggestions as well123. However, I have argued that the Memorial de Sololá seems to offer the solution. In this kaqchikel document nonoalca appears with its poetic complement xulpiti. Xulpiti is derived from the Nahuatl xolopitli, “stupid, idiot, mad”124. Ever since, I have come upon other references to groups of Nonoalca, most of all on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala, of which some call themselves in Spanish ‘Ideotas’ – corruption of Idiotas – which confirms the argument125. Nonoalca did not speak Nahuatl, and to a Nahuatl ear they sounded garbled and dumb, much as the term barbaros onomatopoetically evokes the image of babbling, that is, a person speaking a non-Greek language. Thus Nonoalca seemed to be what one calls an ex- onym, an ethnonym created by outsiders.

If nuun is a Nahuatl loanword into Classic Ch’ol it implies that the term already existed in the IVth century, that people from Teotihuacan spoke Nahuatl, and that the lineage or calpulli of Yax Nuun Ayin, Tzonmolco, was originally neither Nahuatl nor Maya-speaking, and probably Nonoalca. In this context, it is worth recalling the name of the giant jaguar on Lintel 2 (Temple 1), Nuun B’alam Chaaknal, perhaps another indication of the Nonoalca origin of the calpulli of Tikal’s fire priests and rulers. The title Nuun was subsequently used by various other lords of the Tikal dynasty126.

In his book Toltecs, Davies scrutinized the colonial Mexican documents on the Nonoalca, and they all coincide in that they came from the Gulf Coast, the legendary Tlillan Tlapallan, Land of the Black and Red, that is, the area of modern state Tabasco and its inmediate neighbors. To name a few of the sources, Torquemada writes: “the Lands of Onohualco, which are situated by the sea, and are this which today we call Yucatán, Tabasco and Campeche; the natives in pre-Christian times called them Onohualco”. Ixtlilxóchitl notes that the Gulf Coast was inhabited by coatzaqualcas,

118 Coggins 2002: 71-72. 119 Thompson 1990: 16. 120 Davies 1977: 164. 121 Schele, Grube & Boot 1998: 404. 122 Barrera Vásquez 1991: 588. 123 Davies 1977: 164-165. 124 Van Akkeren 2000: 223, 2006. 125 Akkeren 2008. 126 Nuun Ujol Chaan, Yax Nuun Ayin II, Nuun Ujol K’inich (Martin & Grube 2000).

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nonoalcas, xicalancas 127. Sahagún talking about the same coast says: “Pero los que están hacia el nacimiento del Sol se nombran olmecas, huixtoti, nonohualca, y no se dicen chichimecas”128 In the famous Nahuatl poem, The Flight of Quetzalcoatl, that is, to the Land of the Red, Tlapallan, Nonoalco, the land of the Nonoalca, is cites in connection with other well-known toponyms from the area, like Xicalanco, Zacuanco (Teo- zancuanco) and Acallan129.

We know that in Tula there were two ethnic groups constituing the confederation of Tullan-Xicocotitlan: Tolteca-Chichimeca and Nonoalca130. Reconstructing the origin of the Toltec confederation, Davies describes the migration of the Nonoalca started in the IXth century from the Gulf Coast, which brings them to Tullantzingo – control of the Pachuca obsidian – and a little later to Tula, Hidalgo. This way the Nonoalca became one of the two moieties of Tullan Xicocotitlan, the Tolteca-Chichimeca being the other.

As for the ethnicity of the Nonoalca and the language they spoke, scholars have come up with a mix of Mazateca, Popoluca and, later of course, Nahuatl131. Davies further states, it is hard to distinguish the Nonoalca from another ethnic group active at the time: the Olmeca-Xicalanca. The latter derive part of their name from the town of Xi- calanco, evidently Nonoalca area. Olmeca-Xicalanca conquered the Cholula area, including Cacaxtla, at the time of the Nonoalca migration to Tula. The Maya inspired murals of Cacaxtla are contributed to them. Davies does not want to go so far as to postulate Olmeca-Xicalanca and Nonoalca to be one and the same, yet it is still quite difficult to point out their differences132. One may contemplate the idea that the ethnonym Ol- meca-Xicalanca existed as an endonym, that is, was the ethnonym defined by the ethnic group itself, whereas the same group was called Nonoalca by outsiders.

There is little doubt about the degree of civilization of the Nonoalca. In the words of Davies, in Tula they were the ‘brain’ where the Tolteca-Chicimica were the ‘brawn’. He called them the Kulturvolk, a german term referring to ‘bearers of civilization’. Interestingly, Davies adds to this:

...they were to constitute the intellectual elite: they arrived from an area to which the tlamatinime, or wise men, are reported to have dispersed after the dissolution of Teotihuacán, bearing off with them the written codices and the ancient lore. Possibly to be included among the Nonoalcas of Tollan was a band of Amantecas, the traditional feather worker... 133

127 Davies 1977: 166-168. 128 Sahagún 2000: 979. 129 Garibay 1964 TIII: 1. 130 Davies 1977: 141. 131 Davies himself also suggests that Chontal may be an option, since this was the language spoken in Xicalanco at the end of the classic. 132 Davies 1977: 166. 133 Davies 1977: 164.

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We have seen that the Amantecas were close allies of the Pochtecas and that both had their representatives in the calpulli Tzonmolco134. According to Sahagún they were among the oldest people of the Valley of Mexico. Knowing that Olmeca-Xicalanca were active at the end of the Classic in Cacaxtla and Cholula, connecting this way the Gulf Coast with Central Mexico, it is not too daring to suggest the Nonoalca were already present in Teotihuacan, and that they have always been active in trade between the Gulf Coast peoples and Central Mexico. This leads us to propose that Tzonmolco was a Nonoalca calpulli. There is modest evidence for that in the Codex Borgia where we find the temple of Tzonmolco associated with Olman135. Olman is the name for the Olmec heartland, seemingly linking it with Gulf Coast peoples. But there is more proof.

After the fall of Tula, around 1150 DC, the Nonoalca left the area and settled in the Teohuacan valley, under the command of two leaders, Xelhuan and Huehuetzin. They founded places like Teotitlan and Cozcatlan136. The story is told and painted in the His- toria Tolteca-Chichimeca. Now, on folio 3r of the His- toria Tolteca-Chichimeca there is an image of Xelhuan on top of the mountain Quetzaltepec. The text relates that he has just arrived in the area and is fasting there. In the image two place-name glyphs mentioned in the text are painted pictographically on either side of him. Intriguingly, Xelhuan has another name-glyph sitting on his forehead, which must express a nominal phrase, as is the custom in this manuscript. It looks like a bound knot of hair, not bended like we used to know but it may be a colonial version of the Tzonmolco name-glyph.

As said, Xelhuan is the head of the Nonoalca, but he is also related to the Olmeca- Xicalanca. In fact, he is considered to be a mythical ancestor of the area. Torquemada narrates a legend in which Xelhuan survived the deluge by hiding out in the cave of the mountain Tlaloc. To show his gratitude to the gods he built an inmense pyramid in Cho- lula, that almost reached the clouds and sky, such that it provoked the anger of Tonacateuctli who threw an enormous toad from the heavens to block any further contruction. This is a proper image of the pyramid depicted in the Historia Tolteca- Chichimeca. We know that its first three Classic phases of construction show influences both from Teotihuacan and the Gulf Coast, and that in the Late Classic (700-900), according to the ethnohistorical sources, the site was taken over by Olmeca-Xicalanca137.

134 On the days 1 Tochtli, 1 Rabbit, and 1 Itzcuintli, 1 Dog there were special feasts in honor of Xiuhteuctli. Both merchants and Amanteca came to the temple of Tzonmolco to offer goods, throwing copal and paper covered with pieces of jade and feathers into the fire. The ceremony was called Nextlahualli, meaning Payment. I have suggested that Tojil, another Lord of Fire, in fact took his name from this ceremony, because it also means Payment (Zantwijk 1977: 137-139, Akkeren in press). 135 Seler 1963 TI: 60 y TII: 177. 136 In Teotitlan converged two main Mesoamerican trade-routes, one coming from Tochtepec and the Mixtequilla region, Anahuac Xicalanco, and another coming from the Pacific coast of Anahuac Soconusco and beyond. 137 McCafferty 1996; 2002.

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Thus, Xelhuan may have been a representative of the calpulli Tzonmolco. In this context it is interesting to note that west of Teotitlan, one of Nonoalca towns founded by him, there was a place called Tzonmolco138. In the Relaciones Geográficas of Teotitlan we may read that one of their principal gods was Iztapal Totec, the personification of the sacrificial knife that accompanies Xiuhteuctli in the codices139. Finally, a last suggestion. From the nominal phrase Yax Nuun Ayin we know that the semantic value of NUUN may be provided by a glyph representing a knot. A similar knot is of course adorning the Tikal Emblem Glyph. Is it possible that there is reference to Nuun in the Emblem Glyph as well?

Serpent Road In the introduction we mentioned the fact that the polities participating in the Meso- american network of trade, shared the structures of accumulation of wealth, including the infrastructure and its ideology. Although, in this context I would prefer to descend from the level of 'polities’to that of the mixed consanguinal-corporate groups - calpultin or chinamital - of which Mesoamerican societies were made up consanguinal- corporate groups like calpultin, but still they partook in these elements. In these last paragraphs I want to draw attention to various aspects of the mercantile infrastructure and its symbols, since they entered Tikal’s cosmovision with the entrance of Siyah K’ak’ and Spearthrower Owl.

I have proposed in Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol that the long-distance merchants who marched to all corners of Mesoamerica, considered their road to be a serpent: they called it Ce Coatl Otlimelaoac – One Serpent Marching Road140. A proper image of that route – as I already hinted at earlier – is found on the murals of Cacaxtla. We see God L, the patron of merchants standing on a serpent-route covered in blue feathers. It is a continuous road that includes hills and water. I have further suggested that the constructors of the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan had a similar concept in mind for its façade, the famous undulating serpent with the two tenoned masks. Like the mural in Cacaxtla it has the watery symbols underneath the undulating ophidian body. The first mask is the head of the Feathered

138 Davies 1977: 438. 139 Acuña 1984: 198. 140 Zantwijk 1977: 133.

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Serpent, the other, according to Taube, was a headdress representing the War Ser- pent141

I differed with his interpretation and rather identified the other as the deity Xiuhteuctli, Lord of Fire. Indeed, the masks includes the Central-Mexican year sign, the trapeze and ray motif, xihuitl, cast in a familiar Teotihuacan mosaic style of turquoise, again xihuitl, evoking the part xiuh of his name142. Taube had already identified the instrument on top of the year sign as a torch, to which I agree with him. The mask is sitting on the tail-end of the ophidian body, which is quite significant143.

To me, the image as a whole wants to display a cosmogram of Teotihuacan merchant ideology, an Early Classic version of the similarly organized Aztec complementary guilds that we mentioned above. The Pochteca were in charge of the internal domain, like religious activities in the main temple in Tenochtitlan. The Oztomeca presided over the external domain; they were, besides merchants, also military forces and spies, and protected the long-distance caravans of merchants on their trips into new and familiar areas. The titulary god of the Pochteca was Yacateuctli, and the patron of the Oztomeca, was Nacxitl which in many indigenous documents features as another name of the Feathered Serpent. However, the all-embracing patron deity of the merchants was Xiu- hteuctli. On the Temple of Quetzalcoatl we have Xiuhteuctli, god of the central hearth, tlexicco, representing the center, tlalxicco, as the start of the merchant route, the ophydian body as the trade-route itself, and the Feathered Serpent as the endstation, reigned by Nacxitl-Quetzalcoatl. It should not go unnoticed that the Ciudadela was opposite from what probably was Mesoamerican’s largest marketplace144.

In this article I want to add two more suggestions for the identification of the mosaic mask as a Xiuhteuctli. It appears that the year sign is cast in the form of a

141 Taube 2002: 271-275. 142 Unlike Taube who identify the mask as a headdress of ‘cut shell platelets’ (2002: 271). 143 One wonders if the rattle at the end had a similar reading as the logogram used in the och k’ak’ phrase. 144 It is further interesting that the Ciudadela has two great palace-complexes.

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spearthrower. When analyzing the image from the side, you see the handle being folded, then there is the body of the cage and the two holes to position the fingers into. That will finally explain the goggle eyes which never were its real eyes but which caused the image for a long time being identified as Tlaloc. It coincides with our findings about the identity of Spearthrower Owl as the title of the high priest of Xiuhteuctli. The trapeze and ray motif still evokes the Fire Serpent as a weapon, since it is an intrinsical part of its tail which, just like here in Teotihuacan use to sit on the tail-end of the snake. It should be recalled that the spearthrower could replace the undulating Fire Serpent.

Recently Nielsen & Helmke identified on a mural of Atetelco a reference to a place they baptized Spearthrower Owl Hill, in which the head of the owl is actually a spearthrower and his eyes are the two finger-holes. For the analysis they assembled a number of Teotihuacan style spearthrowers; various images feature a cage with a tapering end, much as the one shown on the Xiuhteuctli mask145. They muse in their essay about the name Spearthrower Owl, suggesting that it must have been an “important being or mythological person”146. In- deed, that was my conclusion as well in Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol: it is the title of the high priest of Xiuhteuctli. In an intent to situate this toponym, Spearthrower Hill Owl, they suggest it might be the Pyramid of the Moon, but I would rather opt for the Pyramid of the Sun, where the New Fire was drilled by the priest of Xiuhteuctli. The Temple of Quetzalcoatl is another option, although there he has to share the ‘hill’ or pyramid with the Feathered Serpent.

As for the image of the animal below the spearthrower, it has always been interpreted – including by myself – as a snake, hence its cualification as a War Serpent. But now that we have found the image of the fire-hurling jaguar, one begins to waver. The beast could as well be a copy of the creature that sits in the headdress of Yax Nuun Ayin, which we have identified as a jaguar. The eyes and the spiraled eyebrows seem snake- like, but the snout definitely differs with that of the ophidian next to him, and is called ‘muzzlelike’ by Taube147. To me it looks more like the blunt snout of a jaguar, similar to the jaguars that once adorned the Temple of New Fire, on the Adosada. Moreover, if we compare Yax Nuun Ayin’s on stela 31 with the Xiuhteuctli mask, there is also a similar-

145 The mural is from Portico 1 on patio 3 of Atetelco (Nielsen & Helmke 2008: 465). 146 Nielsen & Helmke 2008: 476. 147 Taube makes a similar comparison of the Xiuhteuctli mask with Yax Nuun Ayin’s headdress but comes to a different conclusion; to him they are both examples of the Teotihuacan War Serpent helmet (2002: 272).

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ity in the place of the torch in the headdress. Indeed, we have identified the fire-hurling jaguar as one of the incarnations of Xiuhteuctli.

There is additional proof for the ophidian being a route, the road merchants walked, and which Aztec had deified as Ce Coatl Otlime- laoac. It was celebrated on the day One Ser- pent, the day that initiated the ninth tre- cena148. It was Seler who discovered the cor- relation between day-signs and trecenas in the Codex Borgia 149. They are ruled by the same deity. Thus, the god presiding day number nine, atl, being Xiuhteuctli, is also found among both deities presiding the ninth trecena Ce Coatl, together with Tlahuizcal- panteuctli, the Feathered Serpent as the Morning Star. In the Codex Telleriano- Remensis he is simply called Ce Acatl, the calendar name of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl150. Thus in the calendrical codices we see a similar juxtaposition of both gods guarding the merchant road as on the façade of the Temple of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan. It does not seem a coincidence that route and patron god are related to the number nine, as we will see in the next paragraph.

The ideogram fits seamless in Mesoamerican’s cosmovision, of the two poles: the concept of the center, the fireplace in a house, and of the outer wilderness. The first one is ruled by the father, the head of the household, still it is the female domain, because it is the place where food is made, and the father is the provider of brides151. The wilderness is the territory of the young hunter and warrior, the male domain. The central mountain and its terrestrial fire, is the place of origin, as well of the celestial fire, because the sun is born in its hearth. But once born, the sun begins to roam around the center, in the periphery. In many contemporary Maya myth this hunter of the wilderness is called K’iche’ Winaq, Man of the Wilderness, and it is no coincidence that the K’iche’ Maya used this concept as the name for their confederation: they became the sun of the new era – after the Classic. In the ideogram on the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, Xiuhteuctli symbolizes the center, the divine hearth, and Nacxitl-Quetzalcoatl, the warrior. Indeed, there are versions of the myth of the birth of the sun in Teotihuacan, in which Nanahuatzin is called another Quetzalcoatl152.

148 Zantwijk 1977:136. 149 Seler TII: 174-175. 150 Seler TII: 193-196. 151 Like Xkik’ in the myth of Xib’alb’a or the daughter of Lord Mountain-Valley, Qana Po, Señora Luna, in La historia de Sol y Luna, Balam Q’e y Qana Po. 152 Talking about the new sun Nahui Ollin born in the divine oven of Teotihuacan, the Leyenda de los Soles writes: “Éste fue también el sol de Topiltzin de Tollan, de Quetzalcóhuatl. Éste, cuando no era sol, se llamaba Nanáhuatl, y su morada estaba en Tamoanchan” (Tena 2002: 181).

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To close this paragraph, if the image on the Temple of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan symbolizes a merchant route, with Xiuhteuctli as the center and the Feathered Serpent as the outer corner, I think we may postulate that Chich’en Itza is such an endstation. Here the titulary god of the Oztomecan guild, or its Teotihuacan’s equivalent, ruled as proves the ubiquitous imagery of the Feathered Serpent. It was also expressed on the bas-relieves of the Lower Temple of the Jaguar which we already commented. The central figure was the high priest of the Feathered Serpent, Nacxitl-Quetzalcoatl, and before him, stood the young Sun God holding his blowgun and Xiuhteuctli carrying the Fire Serpent, both representing home.

Wi Te’ Naah As is well known, time and space was highly entwined in Mesoamerica. In Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol I revived an idea that I already published some years ago, about the merchants and their special calendar. They divided the year in nine times 40 days – plus the Wayeb – which they subsequently projected on the road they walked. This idiosyncratic calendar resulted in a route divided in stops that were called Nine Place or Forty Place153.

This mercantile calendar of nine times forty days may have elicited a title like B’olon Okte’ K’u. One of the more outstanding images of this deity can be found in the Tem- ple of the Cross, in Palenque, which features the god and his merchant path, including nine footsteps, probably referring to these nine stops. His Central-Mexican name was probably Chicnauhyoteuctli, Lord of Nine Times, another nickname for Xiuhteuctli154.

The mercantile calendar may further have supplied one of the names of the Fire Serpent, Waxaklahun Ub’ah Chan, Eig- theen are the Images of the Serpent. Scholars have related this title to the nine serpent-heads on each of the balustrades of the staircase of the Quetzalcoatl temple.155 The serpents closest to the balustrades do not have a head; the serpent body finishes of at the end of the tablero while the head sits on top of the balustrade. With a route of nine stops, this title may refer to a trip back and forth.

In these particular places the merchants had a sanctuary for their gods. Book 9 of the Florentine Codex is the volume that deals with the merchants. At one point it describes what merchants were used to do coming back from Anahuac156:

153 On the route of the Valley of Guatemala to the Valley of Mexico, through the Usumacinta corridor I have located sofar: Chinautla = Kaminal Juyu (9) – Kawinal (40) – Beleju (9) – Kawinik (40) - Salinas de los Nueve Cerros (9) – Chiconautlan Tulapan (9) – Chiconautla in Teotihuacan (9) (Akkeren 2003b, 2012) 154 Limón Olvera 2001: 104. 155 Freidel et al., 1993; Boot, 2004: 118, 245-246. 156 Anahuac may either be the coast of Xicalanco or Soconusco, although in this text it rather refers to the latter.

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And how they returned from Anauac, how they followed the roads, how they came back, we have already told. Not purposelessly did they come. Wherever there was a pyramid place, there they went to pay their debt, to perform penances, at places where debts were paid, until they reached Itziocan [modern Izucar] where they stopped. They there sought a favorable day sign; [perhaps still ten or still twenty days they awaited the good day sign]. And when it was a good day sign, at once they quickly traveled...157

Returning to Tikal, with the arrival of Siyah K’ak’, ambassador of the Teotihuacan’s high priest of Xiuhteuctli, and of his son Yax Nuun Ayin, we witness the introduction of two new elements belonging to the mercantile ideology: the Wi Te’ Naah temple and the Kalomte’ title.

In Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol I suggest that the temple-pyramids on the trade-route are the so-called Wi Te Naah. Epigraphers have interpreted the glyph for this building, T600, as a Foundation House, for it appears that rituals in the Wi Te’ Naah often involved the founding or re-establishing of a dynasty.158 However, the one does not exclude the other. The ritual of the New Fire at the end of a Calendar Round, was often used for political reasons, as shown many Central-Mexican documents159. I have been confirming similar practices in the indigenous documents of Guatemala, ever since I published Place of the Lord’s Daughter – Rabinal, its History, its Dance-Drama in which I show that the Rabinal Achi was created to mark the transition of the Calendar Round, probably the one starting in 1478160. The same transition date was used by the Kaqchikel to inaugurate their new capital Iximche’.

157 Dibble & Anderson 1959: 30-31. 158 Stuart, 2002: 492-493; Fash y Tokovinine, 2009: 212. 159 Janssen & Pérez Jiménez 2000; Boone 2002; Oudijk 2002, Nielsen 2006; Fash et al. 2009: 213. 160 Highland Maya employed a different cycle as did Central Mexico where the Calendar Round ended in 1455 or 1507 (Akkeren 2000, 2007, in press). In Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol I dedicate a paragraph to New Fire ceremony as a political instrument (Akkeren 2012: 190-192).

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Thus I proposed that the every Wi Te’ Naah was part of a chain of temples adminis- trated by the merchant guilds, where they worshipped their deities and practised the cosmovision of the New Fire. Coggins already likened the crossed bundles of the T600 glyph to the Central Mexican images of the New Fire ceremony161. To me T600 is, es- sentially, a simplified image of the AJAW glyph (T542a-b) lying on top of two crossed bundled torches representing a pyre, in other words, alluding to the (re-) birth in the teotexcalli of Jun Ajaw or Jun Ajpu as the Sun God. In his analysis of the Wi Te’ Naah glyph, Stuart has shown that the Wi Te’ Naah is a place of fire rituals, firmly associated with Teotihuacan162.

Apart from Tikal, they are mentioned in other Maya cities. An exhaustive analysis falls beyond the scope of this article, we will only offer some examples. In Copan there are quite some references to the Wi Te Naah. Fash, Tokovinine and Fash put forward the idea that Temple 16 where the founder of the dynasty, Yax K’uk’ Mo’ and his wife lie buried, is a Wi Te Naah. Altar Q, at the foot of this pyramid, relates the accession of Yax K’uk’ Mo’ which included rituals in the Wi Te Naah. The accompanying iconography features the founder with a torch in his hand. Fash, Tokovinine and Fash state that Yax K’uk’ Mo’ was invested as a lord in Teotihuacan, in the primordial Wi Te’ Naah at the foot of the Pyramid of the Sun. To them Temple 16 of Copan is an imitation of the Pyramid of the Sun163.

Temple 23 appears to be a proper candidate for the Wi Te’ Naah of Yaxchilan, given the particular iconography of its lintels, 25-24-26. In chronological order, we first have lintel 25 in the central doorway where the T600 Wi Te’ Naah glyph is mentioned. Here we see Lady K’ab’al Xook in the presence of a huge ‘mayanized’ Fire Serpent. From its jaws emerge an ancestor, wearing a jaguar headdress with the Mexican year sign, xihuitl164. The ancestor is called Ajk’ak’ O’ Chaak. Ajk’ak’ defines him as a fire priest; interestingly the vocal O’ is an owl feather, which

161 Coggins 2002: 62. 162 He identified the och k’ak’ or ‘fire entering’ phrase (Stuart 1998: 385-389; 2002:491-494). 163 Fash et al. 2009: 213-214. 164 Martin & Grube 2000: 125; Stuart 2002: 493.

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technically could make him a Owl Chaak or Tlaloc, in other words a Xiuhteuctli priest. Secondly, comes lintel 24, displaying the queen in the act of self-infliction, while her husband Itzamnaaj B’alam II, carries an enormous torch as a fire priest. One wonders if the owl feathers of his headdress are a referrence to him being a Owl Chaak now. Lady K’ab’al Xook wears a headdress of Tlaloc with a year sign, perhaps evoking Xiuhteuctli. On the third, lintel 26, Lady K’abal Xook hands him a helmet or headdress of the Jaguar God of the Underworld. He wears the same owl feathers, this time girdled by the Jester God, an image of the hearth stone, and is holding a sacrificial knife in his hande, reas- suring he is, in fact, a fire priest.

That Lady K’abal Xook’s headdress indeed evokes the Xiuhteuctli fire priest, shows the text of Copan’s Temple 26 on top of the Hieroglyphic Stairway165. The inscriptions represent a rare combination of Maya glyphs and Teotihuacan writing in alternating col- umns166. Thus we have on the one side Maya phrases paired with Teotihuacan writing on the other. In the central frieze of the temple there is full figure glyph of the Mayan och k’ak’ or fire-entering glyph. It is paired with a Tlaloc, identical to the one in Lady K’ab’al Xook’s headdress; before him is a xiuhmolpilli bundle of sticks with emerging flames, defining him as the Tlaloc of the center, Xiuhteuctli.

165 Structure 10L-26. 166 Stuart 2002.

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The Wi Te’ Naah is again mentioned in Machaquila. As clarified earlier, in Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol I put forward the arguments that this city harbored the historical hearth described in the Xib’alb’a myth of the Popol Wuj, that is, the place where Jun Ajpu and Xb’alam Q’e transformed into the Sun and Full Moon of the new era. Machaquila is on stela 8 of Ceibal defined as a Tullan or Pu. The Wi Te’ Naah appears on stela 3 in a fascinating nominal phrase of the portrayed ruler: Siyah K’in Chaahk - Wi Te’ Naah Pitzil, that is, Sun- Born Chaak – Wi Te’ Naah Ballplayer167.

In this article the theme of the Ballgame is hardly covered but it is as much a part of the mercantile ideology as is the New Fire. The concepts behind the ballgame, originally from the Gulf Coast, form the essence of the complementary mythological corpus of Tzuywa, and its protagonist is the Maize God – in my book I have summarized both bodies of mythology in the words fuego y juego168. It should be recalled, for example, that the bas- relieves of the Lower Temple of the Jaguar are part of a ballcourt complex. Similarly, most of the information on Spearthrower Owl comes from a ballcourt marker, located in a residencial group featuring various murals with ballcourt scenes169. In Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol I point out that it is very likely that the cuadripartite plaza of Machaquila was used as a ballcourt as well as a divine oven – the place is lacking a conventional ballcourt. On stela 3 Siyah K’in Chaahk wears a headband with the three Jester Gods, the deified, hearth stones. The stela is contemporaneous to Chich’en Itza. Thus, it appears that this Machaquila’s lord is very much a product of its time, of the new mercantile ideology.

Lastly, we should mention Ceibal. Although no referrence to a Wi Te’ Naah was found, its famous radial temple is a proper candidate. The radial temple was built to conmemorate the beginning of the 10th B’aktun in 830. It also initiated the arrival of a group of merchant-colonists under the command of a lord called Wat’ul, a fine example of mixing calendrics with politics. Wat’ul was sent to Ceibal by his liege of Ucanal, a Ka-

167 Estela 3: C1a-C1b y F5a-F5b (Lacadena, 2006: 111). Here again, we have the combination of the young Sun God and old Fire God 168 An equally catchy summary would be the classic Maya terms Pu and Tzu/Su. It should be noticed that apart from being a PU, the main sign of Machaquila’s Emblem Glyph reads as SU. 169 Laporte 2003: 210-113.

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nek’ lord. This lord is probably depicted on stela 4 of Ucanal which features the same date as those of the steles around the four stairways of the radial temple in Ceibal. I have called attention to stela 4 because of the deceased ancestor depicted on the upperpart, as usual floating above the lord in question. I have suggested he represents a Xiuhteuctli fire priest sporting the spearthrower in his hands and the torch in his head- dress170.

In Ceibal Wat’ul is directing a fire ceremony, in the presence of royal guests from the four di- rections of the Maya area. On the stela 11 which covers the east, Wat’ul carries a blowgun, defining him as a version of Jun Ajpu, just like the

contemporaneous image in the Lower Temple of the Jaguar. On the steles 10 and 9, Wat’ul sports the nominal phrase Jun Ajk’in followed by the glyph that is a common part of the och k’ak’ or fire- entering statements. Here it appears to be included in his nominal phrase171. In colonial Yucatan Ajk’in was the title of the principal priest in charge of litting a huge bonfire, a scene well described by Landa, as I show in Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol172 Jun Ajk’in evokes the character of Jun Ajaw or Jun Ajpu who launches himselve into the fire to become the sun of the new era. This way, we again witness in this title the close relation between the old fire priest and the young sun.

On stela 8 Wat’ul is dressed up as the jaguar God of the Underworld. It is fascinating to note that he wears some sort of Xiuhteuctli headband, with a stylized diving bluebird or xiuhtototl. The central monument, stela 21, again depicts Wat’ul as the Jaguar God of the Underworld. One

170 Akkeren 2012: 205. 171 Akkeren 2012: 205. 172 Akkeren 2012: 182-183.

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may compare the bird in his headdress to the Xiuhteuctli warrior of folio 49 of the Dresden Codex, which looks similar. Underneath stela 21 a cache was uncovered of three unworked jade stones with burning signs, representing the three hearthstones or tenamastes. Ceibal on the Pasión river was a merchant place, and the three hearth stones, represented the central hearth, tlexicco, the residence of Xiuhteuctli173.

As for the reading of Wi Te Naah, Stuart translated it as Tree-Root House and, by extension, as Origin or Foundation House174. There are two different spell- ings of Wi Te Naah: wi/WI’-TE’-NAAH and T600-TE’-NAAH. Fash, Tokovinine and Fash have shown that the latter, featuring the T600 logogram of the crossed bundles, is Late Classic and was used in the times that Teotihuacan’s power had expired. They doubt the reading Tree-Root House, and suggest that the compound may be an underspelling. They further add: “Given that we are dealing with a potentially non-Maya concept, the underspelled word could be foreign”175. One wonders if this inderspelled term is xiuhteuctli, which in Codex Dresden (folio 49) was spelled as xi-u-TE’-i or xi-wi-TE’-i, in which case the compound should simply be red as Temple of Xiuhteuctli176.

Kalomte’ The other institution introduced in Tikal together with the Wi Te’ Naah is the Kalomte’ title. According to the narrative of stela 31 and the Marcador, it was employed by Spearthrower Owl as well as Siyah K’ak’. From that time on, the Kalomte’ title was used by an exclusive number of Maya lords: scholars think it was the highest grade a mon-

173 A short note. Many other scholars have commented on the foreign influences in Ceibal, including ceramics and iconography from the Gulf Coast, from all the way up to El Tajín. Foreign influences are even present in the texts. Perhaps it also left its traces in the original name of Ceibal, hidden in its Emblem Glyph. T174 seems to be made of a configuration of three hearthstones with the logogram for ‘stone’ in the middle. Epigraphers have found that T174 starts with the phonetic complement tu. According to a colonial Huastec dictionary the word for tenamaste was tut (Lacadena, 2005: 257; Tapia Zentena, 1767: folio 77). This corresponds with ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources: in colonial times the Itza of this area were called the Ajtut. In modern days the last name Tut is still common in the area, all the way to Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, where the same Emblem Glyph has been found on its monuments. 174 Stuart 2002. 175 Fash et al. 2009: 212. 176 Taube 1992; Boot 2004: 235.

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arch could acquire. It was a title related to Teotihuacan, especially when it was pre- ceded by the cualification ochk’in or west, as in Kalomte’ of the West177.

To epigraphers the meaning of the title is still uncertain. The TE’ logogram reads as ‘tree’, not unusual in Maya social hierar- chies where there are other titles ending in ‘tree’, like B’ate’ or Yajawte’. A head- variant of the Kalomte’ title sports the head of the god Chaak wielding an axe, as the main sign, hence its reading as Chaakte’178. Chaak was the Maya version of Tlaloc and we know that the Tlaloc of the center was Xiuhteuctli. As may be recalled, one of the most prominent images of Xiuhteuctli in Teotihuacan was the Tree of Tlalo- can. Accordingly, I have suggested that this may be the original Kalomte’179.

Now that we know that the tree may be a personification of Xiuhteuctli, we may venture the idea that the Kalomte’ titles with additions like Ochk’in or Xaman Kalomte’, Kalomte’ of the West or North, refer to directional trees. In mind comes the initial page of the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, displaying a young Xiuhteuctli brandishing his spearthrower, and around him, the four cardinal trees. He himself must be the tree of the center, the tree which led us to identify his name, the Tree of Tlalocan, whereas the other trees may be related to the four fire priests that are present in the New Fire ritual, as in the Codex Borbonicus180.

This proposal still needs additional research. Why did Teotihuacan lords often carried the title Ochk’in Kalomte’, Kalomte’ of the West in Maya text? Was it simply because it lay to west of the Maya area as has been suggested, or are there also cosmovisional reasons at stake. I show in Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol that to northern Yu- catan, and probably also to Chich’en Itza, the area of the Pasión river, Salinas de los Nueve Cerros and the Candelaria Caves was considered the west, where they located the underworld of Xib’alb’a, and the sacred hearth where the sun was born. Maybe Teo-

177 Stuart 2002: 486-487; Martin & Grube 2000: 17; Tokovinine 2010: 20. 178 Although Erik Boot suggest that the root for the expression may be kal- “to open”; kalomte’, as an agentive, may thus mean “opener of trees” (Boot 2005: 275-276 Note 19). 179 Akkeren 2012: 218. 180 They were also present as the four Fire Serpents on the outer columns of the Lower Temple of Jaguar.

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tihuacan was the place of the Kalomte’ of the West because it was the place of the divine oven.

What was the role of the priests of the four cardinal Kalomte’s? Did they also have a function in the mercantile network? Surely, one of the two guilds was called after a prominent tree, the pochotl or ceiba, from which the Pochteca took their name. The other guild, the Oztomeca, also had their sacred tree, the acxoyatl or pine tree. In Tenochtitlan the head of the Oztomeca was called Acxotecatl, their seat was called Acxotlan, and they were also known as the Acxoteca181.

It is even possible that the merchants, as I have suggested, apart from the serpent road, conceived their route as a trip along the axis mundi or tree of the center. The famous four cardinal akante’ with their footsteps may be an expression of that concept. They are an intrinsical part of the New Year pages of the Codex Dresden. Xiuhteuctli, of course, is also the deity of time and the year. There is linguistic support for that in highland Maya languages. In the Rabinal Achi the term for the axis mundi is raqanib’al sutz raqanib’al mayul, ‘column of clouds, column of mist’. It certainly stands for the tree of the center, in modern Achi cosmovision, it is tree where the souls of the dead ancestors dwell. When Maya priest are celebrating a ceremony in honor of them they are asked to come down from the raqanib’al sutz mayul. Yet, the term raqanibal – derived from aqan, cognate of akan – is also used in expressions of travels where it refers to a ‘round trip’, very appropriate to a merchant. It further has a temporal aspect, as in the kaqchikel expression xuk’ul raqanib’al juna, ‘one year has passed’. It al befits the mercantile ideology.

If, like the term Wi Te Naah, Kalomte’ has a Nahuatl origin, it may account for the variation in cognates in different Maya languages. Given its origin and its calendrical context there is good reason to believe that the term is related to the Yucatecan festival called X Kolom Ché, a bundle of songs and dance-dramas, published under the title Cantares de Dzitbalche. The event describes a period-ending festival which includes a song for the God of Fire and an arrow-sacrifice of a victim tied a the column, placed in the center of the town182. Barrera Vásquez’ transcribed the title as xk’olomche’, deriving it from the yucatec stem k’ol – “lastimar, golpear, herir, desollar”, suggesting a translation as “tree of wounding”183.

181 Zantwijk 1977: 119-128; Dykerhoff 2002/2003: 182. 182 Arrow-sacrifice was already practiced in Teotihuacan. Fash and López Lujan uncovered a victim with arrows on his body in the Xalla complex. 183 Barrera Vásquez 1965: 26-7; XX; 411; Akkeren 1999, 2000: 344.

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In the Popol Wuj, there is a similar tree, called colche in the original manuscript, which served as the post where arrow-sacrifices took place, as a penalty for towns that failed to pay tribute. The text says that the transgressors humbled themselves before the colche, also called retal tinamit, ‘mark of the city’; the flying arrows are compared to thunderbolts with an earth-splitting power184. In the Popol Wuj this is only a short fragment but the Título de Totonicapan dedicate three pages to the event, which I have identified as a festival marking the beginning of a new Calendar Round. As explained, according to Central-Mexican codices the last trecena of a tonalpoalli – and thus of a Calendar Round – was presided by Xiuhteuctli, in the company of Iztapal Totec or Xipe Totec, the personified Sacrificial Knife and the God of Flaying. These are the ingredients mentioned in the Título de Totonicapan: the festival is celebrated in honor of the Lord of Fire, Tojil, the sacrificial knife is called uq’ab’ tojil or ‘hand of Tojil’, we have a flaying of victims and an arrow-sacrifice in which the arrows are compared to thunderbolts, shoot- ing stars and fiery flying knifes185. It also includes the bundling of arrows, probably a version of the bundling of year sticks and it all takes place in the month in which the Actec used to celebrated their New Fire ceremony186.

Following Barrera Vásquez, I have transcribed colche as k’olche’ and translated it as a ‘tree of sacrifice’, likening it to the Classic Pax tree187. As known, the head of the patron god of the month Pax, with his lower jaw missing, vomiting blood and a jaguar claw above his ear, was used in Classic Maya iconography as the trunk of a tree, that way qualifying it as a ‘tree of sacrifice’188. In modern Maya Deer Dance texts, it represents the place the deer is caught and is called kutam, trunk; it is also the name of one of the characters in the dance, one of the many aspects of Lord Mountain-Valley 189. I think that the Classic image is a pretty close version of Kik’ Re’ – Kik’ Rixk’aq, Bloody its Teeth, Bloody its Claw, one of the names of the Lords of Xib’alb’a. Interestingly, epigraphic analysis of the term Kalomte’ shows that the logogram KAL is associated with a crianiomorphic version of the head of the Pax God190.

In Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol I prove that this Pax Tree is actually the equivalent of the Okte, the tree of which B’olon Okte K’u is made, the afore-mentioned tz’ite or palo de pito. It is the same wood of which the supreme gods of Xib’alb’a are shaped. Recall that when the Hero Twins enter the court of Xib’alb’a, the first pair of lords sitting on a throne, is not One and Seven Death, but two wooden effigies. They

184 The original document has colche, but that is a transcription of Ximénez (folio 52v). Some translators think it is k’iche’ and transcribe it as q’olche’, ‘gum or resin tree’ (Edmonson, Tedlock, Christenson). 185 Akkeren 2000: 325-335. 186 Much like the Jaguar Warrior of Cacaxtla is showing. 187 Akkeren 2000: 326. 188 Taube 1988: 335-7. In Postclassic versions the Pax trunk could be replaced by a tun sign. 189 Janssens & Van Akkeren 2003: 86-89; Akkeren 2012: 149-150. 190 Boot 2006:8.

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are made of the tz’ite wood. This pair of wooden effigies is very common in Classic Maya iconography – especially in the Codex Style vases – and one of the two has the head of the Pax God. In this line of reasoning it follows that the Pax God, which is the Kalomte’, is actually another personification of B’olon Okte K’u or Xiuhteuctli. This way we come back at our first suggestion that Xiuhteuctli was the Tree of Tlalocan191.

As a final remark, the tree of sacrifice in the Rabinal Achi stands chuxmut kaj, chuxmut ulew, ‘in the center of the sky, in the center of the earth’. The modern town of Momostenango is surrounded by altars linked to day-numbers, the altar of the center, the Six Place, is a hearth, and is called Pa Klom which seems a corruption of Pa Kolom192. They all coincide in referring to a post or tree of the center, likely similar to the Classic Kalomte’.

Dynamics of Emblem Glyphs In this article I have proposed a historical origin for the Emblem Glyph of Tikal. I have proposed that the bended knot of hair is not only a rebus-reading of the Maya toponym Mutal, but also of the Central-Mexican calpulli Tzonmolco. In that sense, the Emblem Glyph of Tikal seems to refer to a patronym, the name of a noble dynasty with ramifica- tions throughout Mesoamerica.

There has been quite some words devoted to the significance of Emblem Glyphs, ever since their identification by Heinrich Berlin: “whether Emblem Glyphs represent the name of the city itself, or of the patron deity or ruling dynasty of the city”193. Stuart and Houston were the first to show that Emblem Glyphs were not the only toponymic references in Classic texts. Others could exist, even within a polity already defined by an Emblem Glyph. They were recognized for a certain ‘place name formula’194.

Maya are not the only people in the world who employed onomastics, a field which includes studies like toponymy and anthroponomy, thus it is appropriate to consult these areas when discussing Emblem Glyphs. Toponomists can explain that toponyms are derived from landscape features, settlements and its function – like farm, market, fort,

191 Akkeren 2012: 150. 192 Tedlock 1992: 71. 193 Mathews 1991 cited in Helmke 2011: 3. 194 The formula was composed of the intransitive verb uhti/uhtiiy, ‘it happened’, followed by the toponym and often finished with the expression chan o kab’ - ch’e’n, ‘sky or earth - cave’, a Classic difrasismo, defining it as a toponymic expression (Stuart & Houston 1994).

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bridge – tribal or personal names, that is, ethnohyms and patronyms, or, what I would call, cosmovisional expressions. And indeed, epigraphers have found Emblem Glyphs referring to geographical phenomena most of all rivers or lakes, leading to a main sign involving the logogram HA’, ‘water’. There are references to settlemens, like towns, temples or pyramids, as in the use of the logogram WITZ, ‘mountain’, a term which everywhere in Mesoamerica has served as indication for ‘town’. But Emblem Glyphs may also arise from cosmovisional concepts like B’aakel-Matawil for Palenque or Pa’chan for Yaxchilan195.

Nonetheless, once established, these Emblem Glyphs may begin to define a dynasty, that is, becoming a patronym – a common process in the field of anthroponomy. Simon Martin tentatively concluded that “in essence, these emblem names seem to label royal houses whose connections to specific territories are less intrinsic than habit- ual”196. Peter Bíró took a similar stand in his recent article197:

I present a hypothesis about emblem glyph main signs where I argue that they are places of origin for all titled individuals who claimed descent from a given family and they reflect real or fictive blood connections. Their reference to territory was not that important and they were shifting on the political land-scape with the migrations of the families who used them198.

Thus Emblem Glyphs got attached as titles to persons who took them to other places, as shows the Emblem Glyph of Tikal used in the Dos Pilas area or the Baak’el Emblem Glyph of Palenque also used in Tortuguero and at the end of the Classic, in Comal- calco199.

In our case the Emblem Glyph alluding to Mutal/Tzonmolco seemed to have started as a personal name, a patronym referring to a calpulli. Again, these are not unusual dynamics in the field of toponomy. There are many other toponyms that developed from patronyms. It would be helpfull if epigraphers extended their view beyond the Classic Maya. In the Postclassic, Maya’s kept founding towns and naming them, and we have a score of indigenous manuscripts documenting these historical dynamics. To name a few examples, we mentioned in this article Kanek’ Wits as another name for Salinas de los Nueve Cerros; Chama originally derived from Ch’amak, Fox, probably the name of a warrior caste turned patronym; Cotzumalguapa, known in Kaqchikel as Saqbinya, both referring to the patronym Saqb’in, Weasel; Kooja, a Mam patronym and the name of a rich Mam town in the Quetzaltenango area of which I have suggested that they were originally from Takalik Ab’aj and which provided the brides for the supreme K’iche’ lord (ajpop); or, for that matter, Tenochtitlan, founded by Aztec ancestor Tenoch.

195 Bíró 2011: 58-59; Helmke 2011. 196 Simon Martin 2005: 12. 197 Peter Bíró: 2011: 33. 198 Peter Bíró 2011: 33. 199 Helmke 2011: 4.

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Conclusion

Thus the bended knot of hair, the Tikal Emblem Glyph, seems a rebus spelling of the Mesoamerican calpulli Mutal-Tzonmolco. It must have had its origin in a custom practised by high priests of Xiuhteuctli or B’olon Okte’ K’u, to bind their hair into a knot on their forehead. This routine subsequently lent its name to a calpulli of the highest nobility that would find itself dispersed over Mesoamerica, due to its involvement in trade and the trade-network.

Our hypothesis is sustained by the identification of Spearthrower Owl as the high priest of the Xiuhteuctli cult in charge of the New Fire ceremony and likely also as the Teoti- huacan minister in charge of investing aspirant lords. These services may have taken place in the compound of the Pyramid of the Sun. He further was the head of the supreme sanctuary of the merchant guilds, perhaps the building we have come to know as the Temple of Quetzalcoatl in the Ciudadela. The identification of Spearthrower Owl is further supported by the introduction of two other institutions in Tikal, the Wi Te’ Naah temple and the Kalomte’ title, which both seemed to have been part of the merchant doctrine.

It might come as a revelation to some, but as said, other studies show that there was surprisingly more interculturality in prehispanic Mesoamerica than until now has been recognized. I have been investigating Mesoamerica’s history at the lineage level, or better, from the point of view of that typically Mesoamerican mixed corporate and kinship group, the calpulli. As remarked, another study is about to see the light, in which I show that the Highland Maya lineage of the Toj, who introduced the Tojil cult into the Highlands, is originally a Central-Mexican calpulli called Atonal in Nahuatl. I have been able to trace the calpulli Atonal all the way back to Tula and Cuauhtitlan. They appear in Mesoamerica in places which when lined together neatly form the trade-route from Central-Mexico to Soconusco and beyond. Hence, it is fascinating to realize that Tojil, being a Fire God, is but another exponent of the mercantile ideology 200.

Accordingly, the calpulli Mutal-Tzonmolco seems, just like the Toj-Atonal, an illustration of the dynamics of interculturality during the Classic and Postclassic: merchant families driven by trade and spreading along the trade network of Mesoamerica, while marrying into local social networks. Future research should concentrate more on these mecha- nisms and its actors, because they seemed to have shaped a considerate part of Meso- american culture

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This is not yet the final version of the article. There are various people I would like to thank for their help and the use of the images. However the final acknowledgements will have to wait.

200 As explained, Xiuhteuctli is the patron of the day Atl, its Highland version is Toj. I have shown that the modern image of San Pablo, patron saint of Rabinal, has his cloak covered with Mexican Atl signs (Akkeren 2000: 174-184). In this study I mention other calpultin and lineages which follow a similar process (Akkeren in press).

51 Ruud van Akkeren

For those who are interested in obtaining a copy of

Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol Una visión posclásica del colapso maya published by Editorial Piedra Santa – Guatemala (2012) There is an e-book version of the book which you can order at:

Todoebook http://www.todoebook.com/XIB-ALB-A-Y-EL-NACIMIENTO-DEL-NUEVO-SOL-RUUD-VAN-AKKEREN- EDITORIAL-PIEDRA-SANTA-LibroEbook-es-9789929583320.html

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