The Classic Maya Maize God: A Reappraisal

KARL TAUBE YALE UNIVERISTY

Introduction

Academic interest in the Classic Maya maize god has irrigation canals, and raised fields. Instead of being incor- undergone three general phases of growth and decay. porated into the new data concerned with intensive agicul- The most vigorous period of research occurred during ture, the maize god seems to have died with the supposed the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Due to preeminence of swidden fanning. Beginning with the contributions by Seler (1902- 1923, 1963, 1976), Schell- epigraphic work of Berlin (1958), Proskouriakoff (1960, has (1897, 1904b), Spinden (1913), and others (e.g., 196 1b), and Kelley (1962), it has become increasingly Dieseldorff 1922; Goodman 1897), Classic and Postclas- apparent that such historic details as dynastic descent, sic forms of the maize god were delineated and analyzed. accession to office, and intersite marriage and warfare Hieroglyphs pertainingto maize and the agriculturalcycle formed the central subject of Classic Maya inscriptions. were also identified, commonly with the use of early It has been found that the principal figures carved upon post-Conquest colonial sources. Frequent and often fruit- monuments are neither gods nor temple priests but rulers ful comparisons were made with agricultural deities and in positions of personal aggrandizement. In consequence, rituals of Central Mexico. This was clearly the time in most recent iconographic work has been far more con- which most of the iconographic data concerned with cerned with political sanctification than with agricultural maize was discovered and described. fertility and the seasonal cycle. The recognition of wide- During the following period of study, extending from spread warfare and sacrifice has set a far more violent the early 1920's to the mid-1960's, there was compara- tone for the Classic Maya, one in which the refined and tively little concern with semantic particulars. Identifica- even somewhat effeminate maize god seems to no longer tions of the deity seem often to have been based less on belong. In the following study it will be argued that the symbolic features than on general good looks. The Classic Classic maize god is not an outmoded concept. The deity was used as a subjective means of supporting the deity's present unimportance is due to a lack of sub- then current assumptions concerning Classic Maya soci- sequent study, not becuase he has nothing more to reveal. ety and culture. His presence suggested the importance of slash-and-burn maize agriculture. The god's refined The Tonsured Maize God: features and graceful bearing evoked the Apollonian qual- In his description of the codical God E, Schellhas ities for which the Maya were so admired. Passivity, (1897, 1904b:24-25) was the first to isolate the attributes generosity, and self-sacrifice were traits which could be and nominal glyph of the Postclassic maize god. Schell- seen both for the maize god and the supposedly peaceful has correctly identified the god as male, although his Classic Maya. His continual death and rebirth reinforced fine features first caused Forstemann (1906:60) to con- the famed Maya concept of cyclical time, which was sider him female. The Postclassic deity is usually por- devoid of personal interests or linear historical develop- trayed with maize foliation emerging from the top of his ment. In short, until recently the maize god has served head; Schellhas noted that this foliation converts the as a convenient symbol for perceiving the classic Maya. youthful head into a maize cob. The Kan glyph, previ- In the third and present period of study, the maize god ously identified by Thomas (1882:80) as a maize grain, has been virtually ignored. There is now something essen- is frequently infixed into the foliated head. Seler (1902- tially dated about the entity, as if he embodies the previ- 1923, 111593) first noted that the nominal glyph of God ous assumptions discarded over the last several decades. E is markedly