THE TWO

A VISION OF THE DUAL DEITY

THE NINE

A VISION REPRESENTING THE NINE GODS OF THE UNDERWORLD

The dream then went into a people dream and I was working for a man who sold toys and games to people. This was my first day on the job and I didn't know where any of his stock as located in the storeroom. I had no previous training to do this. The first 5 people came in and I waited on them all at the same time. I had had management experience so I was prepared with 5 clipboards with the sales paperwork on them and was able to write up the orders efficiently.

However, then I had to start hunting for the games and didn't know where they were. The choice game was numbered D17. The others all had numbers from 227 or 427 or so. They were not kept together. Finally, exasperated, after the customers even tried to find the D17 game, I saw a woman friend sitting at a long table playing with the game. It was a plastic hamster and a toy man who was barely taller than the hamster.

I asked the woman where she had found the game and she said they were kept in a special cabinet in the corner. I looked where she pointed and the cabinet was the same color as the letter K was earlier - golden/tan and was 5 sided. It had a wooden door on the front.

I saw where she meant, but there were so many people in the place by now, I didn't know where the customer was that wanted it. I looked into the storeroom and saw that there was a bakery shop attached to this store and that it was now 10 p.m. and found out that the bakery workers had been producing loaves of bread since 5 a.m. without a break. There were hundred of loaves of fresh bread available because sales on Sunday of fresh bread was always the treat of the week when people went home from church.

I was in the house working with some information and study of some Mayan stones. One was like a large stele and was number 42. Another stone seemed to be part of a stele and was number 7. There were many other small stones and they were littered all over the yard especially up the hill behind the house and garage.

On paper, I drew the stele #42 and some how it multiplied itself either 4 times or 7 times. I knew there should be only one, the multiples shouldn't be there so I discarded them again.

I went out into the yard and went up the hill and sat in the rock garden I had made between the garage and the house.

Hanging from one of the black walnut trees were numerous Winnie the Pooh character toys hanging on strings.

My grandfather drove up the hill on a big tractor with a scoop on the front to push the littered Mayan stones out of the way so that children could come and play there.

As I was sitting in the garden, I didn't know which way to go because my grandfather was pushing all the Mayan stones in my direction.

I had a 3-prong pitchfork in my hand, which I used to poke into the ground like a walking-stick and help me to stand up and get out of his way quickly.

As soon as the grass was cleared, kid started coming in droves, each one bringing a Winnie the Pooh character with them, some as large as themselves, to play with the toys hanging from the trees.

I went back into the house to discuss this with my husband and some other people, one of whom was a young black woman.

I questioned the logistics of having all these kids in the yard and how much time it would take to supervise them and the possibility that one might fall and hurt themselves and might need first-aid and I don't get paid for my time.

The black woman said, "I can see you don't know what you are doing, I'm going to go hire someone who does." She ran for the phone and I stopped her. I said, "You can check into this if you want to, but DON'T hire someone."

I then went back to looking at my Mayan stele #42 and got distracted and woke up.

NOTE:

Due to the wide range of environments, the Mayan Lowlands contain many different animals and plants. Cactus, yucca, and agave are plentiful in the northern area. In the southern area, tierra caliente is thickly grown with a large variety of plants in the tropical rainforest area. The trees in these areas include hardwoods, coconut palms, gum trees, almond, fig, and olive trees.

Wolves and coyotes are also found within the northern areas. The forest areas are also inhabited by ocelots, jaguars, peccaries, bears, and pumas. Along the coast of the Lowlands, a population of fur-seals resides. The area provides a habitat for many reptiles such as turtles, iguanas, rattlesnakes, and lizards. There are many birds found in the Lowlands as well.

The Maya had no centralised political leadership. They developed a common culture by absorbing and developing elements borrowed from their neighbours. The long count calendar, writing with glyphs and the basic tenets of their religion can be traced directly to the Olmecs through Izapa.

The Maya were also influenced by Teotihuacan that controlled the Mexican highlands from the first to the seventh centuries. The Mayan golden age lasted five centuries from 300 to 800 AD. Then, they stopped building temples, declined and became fragmented in competing states that were easy prey for invading forces from the north such as the Toltec which had been expelled from Tula around the end of the 10th century. The Toltecs became the ruling elite of the Maya in the post classic period. Toltec gods were added to the Maya pantheon but the Toltecs were absorbed as they leaned to speak Yucatec Maya.

The Maya did not regard life or death in the same way as we do today - the fact that they had a Suicide Goddess makes that clear. She is Ixtab, and is depicted with a rope around her neck. Since the Mayans believed that "heaven" lay beyond a suicide, it is believed that this practice may have been quite common. Death was closely intertwined with life, for they believed one was first dead, before one was born, i.e. had life. Death was a doorway to Life, and Life was a doorway to Death, thus death and death rituals were quite important in this society.

There is an Underworld, a Middleworld (where we reside) and an Upperworld. The World Tree (Tzuk te') is at the center of The World, and grows through the 9 Underworld levels, this Middle Level and the 13 Upperworld regions. Each level or subregion had its own ruler, with the lowest level (Mitnal) being ruled by the Death God, Yum Cimil (aka Ah Puch, the god of the Underworld). He is shown as a skeletal frame or in various stages of decomposition.

There are two Lords of Death, One Death and Seven Death, and under them, the Lords of Xibalba (place of fear, underworld). The realm of Xibalba, the Kiche Shades. The word Xibalba means "to fear," which comes from the name for ghost or phantom and therefore it was a place of ghosts. It is a place of the dead, rather than a hell-like place for the punishment of wrong doing. The ghostly inhabitants were more like tricksters than evil spirits.

The names of these lords was: House Corner and Blood Gatherer, who draw blood from people; Pus Master and Jaundice Master, who cause people to swell, make pus come out of their legs, make their faces yellow (jaundice); Bone Scepter and Skull Scepter, who emaciate people or waste them away; Trash Master and Stab Master, who catch people who have trash on their door and puncture them until they die; Wing 4 and Packstrap, who cause sudden death on the road; and Bloody Teeth and Bloody Claws.

I n one intricate Mayan story, two brothers, One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu are playing ball, and annoy Death with their noisiness. The Lords of Death challenge them to a game, but first they must pass the six tests of Xibalba - passing through the 6 Houses: Dark House, Razor House, Rattling House, Jaguar House, Fire House, and Bat House (glyphs to the left). Failing any of the tests results in death. They do fail and are sacrificed in the morning - at "The Place of the Ball Game Sacrifice." One Hunahpu's head is placed on a tree, which later tree bears fruit, but Xibalbans forbid anyone to eat that fruit. Blood Gatherer, though, does and is banished. Later she has twins - the children of One Hunahpu, named Hunahpu and Xbalenque 6, who later become the Sun and Moon.

Were Environmental Factors Responsible For The Mayan Collapse? Here are two possible examples suggested on the internet. I would take these with tongue in cheek:

1. Stingless Maya honey bees experienced a decline due to the increase of honey bears in the area, thus resulting in a decline of honey, an  essential resource needed for Maya elite in their chocolate ceremonies, thus leading to a crisis in confidence in the managerial elite and administrative disarray, hence, the cultural collapse .

2 A research rationale Example: Evidence of an increase in honey bear population coinciding with the Maya Late Classic period would suggest the trigger for honey bee decline. Physical remains of increased numbers of honey bears should be present in midden deposits dated to the period just prior to the Classic Collapse.

3. This] civilization abruptly collapsed around A.D 900. One widely accepted explanation for the demise of the Mayan civilization is that the population grew too big for the surrounding lands to support. Recent studies confirm massive deforestation and soil erosion just before the city's collapse. Although Maya-speaking people continued to live in the Valle de Copán and still do so today, the city was abandoned entirely.

The offering and drinking of balché is a prerequisite for virtually any communal Lacandon ritual. Balché is brewed from honey or sugar and bark from the balché tree in the balché chem, a dugout canoe reserved for the purpose. The Lacandones believe that balché has a purifying effect and can help cure sickness. In general, drunkenness is not considered proper behavior, but because the gods enjoy getting drunk on balché, men are also free to indulge themselves during religious rites.

Edible offerings are also shared with the gods. Baskets of nahwah, meat filled tortillas are arranged in front of the god pots with small bits placed in the mouths of the figures adorning them. Sak'ha, a gruel of sweetened corn and honey is fed to the god pots and then consumed by the men present at the ceremony. A final offering is Kakaoh, a frothy chocolate liquid made from cocoa beans.

The manifestations of God Seven -- Itzamna Kauil, Tzacol, Bitol, Tepeu, Gucumatz, Alom, and Caholom -- each had dominion over and were identified with a cosmic dimension, and later with a cardinal direction and color. The seven had the innate compulsion to create, so they took counsel and unanimously decided to say the word that would create the new dimension of breadth. Manifesting through the Heart of Heaven, breadth extended infinitely through the four quarters. Itzamna Kauil, Tepeu, and Gucumatz marked the cosmic center with three green stones. Tzacol sat on a black stone in the west quarter, Bitol on a red stone in the east. Alom sat on a white stone in the north, and Caholom sat on a yellow stone in the south. Each tried in vain to create progeny to help organize and administer his dominion. But not even the three in the center, acting together, could create, and after many independent attempts the seven still remained alone, floating like sparks of darkness in the homogenous chaos of the Heart of Heaven.

Taking counsel at the center, God Seven marveled that each had independently attempted to take the same course of action and failed. They agreed that creating progeny to populate their dominions was the right thing to do. Together they said the word once again: the blue-green light of differentiation filled the chaos and their progeny -- the seeds of heaven, matter (earth), and the waters of the underworld -- became manifest. All things were confounded within the two-dimensional universe, the Cha-Chan (low-down heavens), where generation after generation of denizens, the seeds of worlds-to-be, lived and had their being.

At that moment of creation, God Seven knew that any act of creation could be realized only if the seven were together with absolute concordance of all parts. This creative act of God Seven started cosmic evolution: the ethereal differentiated into substances, each attracted to and attracting its opposite, merging into each other and modifying its own essence into a duality that completely transformed its forces into something new which balanced its own innate characteristic. Each was akin to its own substance, the spiritual never changing its divinity, the ethereal becoming ether, the material becoming matter. The Cha-Chan was then a two-dimensional ethereal world. Generation after generation of denizens populated the intermingled two worlds whose opened portals linked them in a harmonious duality: at one end the spiritual world of the creators, and at the other the dark waters of Xibalba, the Underworld.

See: The Mayan Creation Story

THE MAYAN GODS

The ancient Maya proved themselves no exception to this human need to give shape to the universe.

Everything we know about the ancient Maya comes from their as yet indecipherable four Codices, their cryptic architectural inscriptions, the tainted practices of their modern descendants, and the writings of culturally prejudiced Spanish colonists. Our picture of their world view is incomplete and open to interpretation. Most scholars agree that the Maya philosophy answered most of the fundamental questions of the universe by integrating their arithmetic, their astronomical measurements, their view of time as essentially cyclical, and their pantheon of gods. The Maya used science to validate their faith. The Maya saw science, especially astronomy, as an instruments for unearthing spiritual truth and reading the divine prophecies written in the night sky.

This harmony between science and religion is evident in the duties and functions of the ancient Mayan priests, the Ah Kinob. Astronomy and mathematics at the heart of Mayan philosophy were "priestly" inventions, and theologists of the Maya civilization also served as its scribes, mathematicians, astronomers, and intellectuals.

The Nine Mayan Gods (Bolontiku) are the principle deities having dominion over the area of Central America from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the Isthmus of Panama. To the indigenous people of the Mayan area, the Bolontiku have historically fulfilled a cultural role with their power, wisdom, sanction and protection were invoked for all earthly and spiritual transactions – for healing, divination, success in agriculture, trade, politics and war; for help in personal matters such as love, childbearing, grief; for carrying (telepathic) messages over distance; and so on.

Sophisticated mathematics allowed the Ah Kinob to conceive of a universe regular in its rhythms. In its simplicity, the Mayan number system employed only three characters - a dot symbolizing unity, a bar representing the number five, and an eye-shaped glyph representing zero. Mayan numbers were written vertically and divided into tiers, with the characters in each tier of the column having a value twenty times that of the characters in the tier directly beneath them. Summing the values of the tiers yielded the number represented in the glyph. Dispensing entirely with fractions, the Maya expressed all non-integer quantities in terms of ratios or equivalencies.

Two exceptional features of the Mayan mathematics - the use of zero and the assignment of value by position - made this system the most advanced of its time. The Hindus, once thought to be the original discoverers of zero and the position convention, developed them a thousand years after the Maya. This allowed the Mayans to reconcile their various calendrical systems and compile lists of multiples for use in reckoning the periods of astronomical events, as well as keep accurate records of governmental and commercial transactions.

Mayan religion pervaded all aspects of daily life. The rituals the priests prescribed, the holidays the Maya celebrated, the idols they venerated, even their dietary habits - in short, the pulse of Mayan life-were all religious in origin. Every material object in the Maya world, as well as every moment in time, had divine worth and godly significance. Additionally, the interplay between rival gods and between the gods and humankind supposedly manifests itself in daily occurrences.

The Maya conceived of the world as flat and four cornered, with the directions of the four corners lying approximately in between the cardinal directions . Each corner had a characteristic color; the north's color was white; the south's, yellow; the east's, red; and the west's, black.

Bacab(plural Bacabs) of the Four Directions:

Mulac: North,

Cauac: South,

Kan: East,

Bacab West

Green was the characteristic color of the earth's center. According to the Mayan model, the earth spins around a central axis consisting of a huge ceiba tree called the Wakah-Chan, or "World-Tree", whose trunk extends into the heavens toward the North Star and whose roots delve deep below the plane of the earth. The heavens themselves rotate around this axis as a giant celestial sphere, making the Mayan model of the Earth highly reminiscent of a spinning gyroscope.

The Mayan model holds that Earth is but one of three coexisting universes: the Upperworld, the Underworld, or Xibalba, and the human or concrete world . Unifying these three planes, the World Tree serves as a portal between the human world and the other two worlds through which gods pass freely. Four Bacabs, or Atlases, support the plane of the Earth from below; in turn, four giant ceiba trees located at each corner of the world hold aloft the Upperworld, which hovers over the plane of the earth during the daytime. Most of the benevolent gods in the Maya pantheon, called oxlahuntiku, inhabit the Upperworld, which the lofty branches of the World Tree divide into thirteen levels. The Underworld, situated below the plane of the earth, is a grim place of darkness and decay very similar to the Mesopotamian land of the dead. Evil gods known collectively as the Lords of Death or bolontiku, the bearers of drought, hurricanes and war, dwell in the nine levels of the Underworld.

The Maya believed that at night these celestial planes rotate around the earth's axis, giving human observers a view of the Underworld and temporarily concealing the Upperworld. Some scholars submit the more popular opinion that the celestial sphere is fixed in place, and that the sun travels through the subterranean Underworld at night to reemerge from the earth at dawn. In this view, each day is a cycle of destruction and rebirth, as the Maya believed that the world could be symbolized by a giant reptile that devours and regurgitates the sun at sunset and sunrise, respectively. Kinh, the sun god, emerges from the maw of the earth in the morning, ascends through the thirteen levels of heaven, arriving at the uppermost level at noon, and descends once more through the Upperworld to reenter the Underworld at dusk. Thus, kinh unites the three worlds of the Maya faith.

Aside from the giant Earth Monster, the Maya texts also present the human plane as the back of a giant turtle, or a crocodile resting in a pool of lilies. These creatures hold symbolic importance to the Maya, and appear frequently in their zodiac and in their manuscripts. The "Earth-Monster's" counterpart in the Upperworld is a long serpentine creature, the "Cosmic Monster," who sheds his blood in the form of rain to replenish the parched earth. No animalistic representative of Xibalba, the Underworld, was found in the literature.

A multitude of deities governed the Maya universe. In addition to patron gods of cities and kingdoms, the Maya revered gods for every profession from beekeeping to hunting; gods for days, months, years, and epochs; gods for emotions; gods for objects animate and inanimate; and gods of noble families. So many gods existed for seasons of the year, days of the week, and other calendrical events that the Maya faith has been called a "solar and temporal cult". Many of the more widely worshipped deities had four constituent gods representing each corner of the world; some even had Underworld counterparts and female partners, in keeping with the dualistic theme of the Maya faith. At least one hundred and sixty six major gods received homage from the Maya priests and figure prominently in texts such as the Codices and the Popol Vuh; it is likely the Maya worshipped a plethora of other gods on an informal basis.

More Mayan Cosmology

References and the Positive Gods

THE GODS OF THE UNDERWORLD

Each of the Nine Gods of the underworld has his or her own specialty (there are four female deities and five males). The Bolontiku communicate with their votaries through what we would call channeling and prophetic dreams, which to the Maya were as much a part of everyday life as the telephone and television are to us. A dream prompted by the Bolontiku can be distinguished from a normal dream by the invariable presence of one personage who says nothing but who stands in the background of whatever scene is unfolding. Upon awakening the dreamer realizes that this mute personage was actually inducing and directing the entire experience, and is in fact one of the Nine revealing a message of importance. Non-Mayans do not necessarily see the Bolontiku as Mayans: to my benefactor they appear (in dreams) as long-haired hippies; and when they have appeared to me they come in three-piece suits.

The city of Tikal, located in the remote jungle of northern Guatemala, was (and is) the sacred home city of the Bolontiku. Abandoned mysteriously a thousand years ago, the jungle swallowed it up until its excavation by the University of Pennsylvania fifty years ago (see National Geographic magazine December 1975 issue). These archeological ruins are now part of a national park-cum-nature preserve administered by the Guatemalan government.

The Bolontiku themselves are delighted to see their sacred city restored to at least part of its former grandeur. There is the spectacle of immense pyramids and plazas set in the midst of impenetrable jungle teaming with exotic birds, howler monkey and jaguars. Moreover, the Nine promise to give a valuable lesson to any visitor to Tikal who wishes to invoke them/

The cult of the Nine Mayan gods has fallen into general neglect among the Maya. At the same time, the fragile ecosystem of the Mayan area has been and is being threatened by the destruction of massive tracts of tropical rainforest. As a result, the Bolontiku have been calling foreigners in to revive their cult, to publicize their ecological concerns, and to buy up and preserve as much virgin rainforest as possible.

In front of this pyramid there is a row of eight steles, with a ninth stele in front of the row of eight. Before each stele is a squat, cylindrical altar

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Ah Puch - God of death and ruler of Mitnal, the lowest and most terrible of the nine hells. Portrayed as a man with an owl's head or as a skeleton or bloated corpse. Also known as 'God A'.  Ah Puch survives in modern Mayan belief as Yum Cimil (Lord of Death).

In Mesoamerican myth, Au Puch, also known as Yum Cimil and Cum Hau, is the Mayan Lord of the dead. His realm is Hunhau, which literally means "spoil." It is a bitter land of the dead where punishments are inflicted on evil doers. Au Puch presides over the ninth and worst layer of Hunhau. He is usually depicted as a skeleton (skull head, bare ribs and spiny projections from the vertebrae) or with bloated flesh marked by dark rings of decomposition and a menacing grin. In his hair are bell like jewelry and he takes great pleasure in causing eternal torture and torment to the damned. According to some legends, he is said to occasionally roam the earth looking for evil people, causing war, sickness, and death. Once someone is condemned to Hunhau, they can never leave. Sacrificial victims were offered to Au Puch in the cenote or sacred pool.

Ahau-Kin -  Called the 'lord of the sun face'. The god of the sun, he possessed two forms - one for the day and one at night. During the day he was a man with some jaguar features, but between sunset and sunrise he became the Jaguar God, a lord of the underworld who travelled from west to east through the lower regions.

Ah Uuc Ticab - Deity of the underworld

Bolon Ti Ku - Underworld Deity

Chamer - Mayan god of death in eastern Guatemala. His consort is Xtabai

Cizin -  God of death. He burns the dead in the Mayan underworld. Cizin is the Mayan god of death. His name literally means "stench." He is described as having a fleshless nose and lower jaw. Sometimes his entire head may be depicted as just a skull. He wears a "collar with death eyes between the lines of hair, and a long bone hangs from one earlobe." (Jordan, 57) Cizin's body may be shown as a spine and ribs or it can be painted with black and yellow spots, which are the Mayan color of death. He resides in Tnal, the Yucatec place of death. His primary job is to burn the souls of the dead. The soul of the deceased is first burned on the mouth and anus by Cizin. When the soul complains, Cizin will douse it with water until the soul complains again. The soul is then burned until there is nothing left. The next stop is to the god, Sucunyum, who spits on it's hands and cleanses it, after which the soul is free to go where it chooses.

Cum Hau - Mayan god of death.

Hanhau - Underworld Deity, Mitnal

Hun Came - Quiche Maya co-ruler of Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. In the Popol Vuh creation myth he murdered Hun-Hunapu and Vukub-Hunapu. Subsequently he and his co-regent Vukubcame were destroyed by Hunapu and Xbalanque.

Hun-Hunapu - In the Quiche Maya Popol Vuh creation myth, Hun-Hunapu was the divine twin of Vukub-Hunapu. They were the sons of Xpiyacoc and Xmucane. The two were murdered in a ball game by the two rulers of Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. They were avenged by Hun-Hunapu's children Hunapu and Xbalanque.

Other Mayan Gods

North American Gods

FROM:  THE FILM CHAC: THE RAIN GOD  

or pdf

MAYAN CONCEPT OF CREATION: At the beginning, there was nothing. Then came the creator, Tepeu and Gucumatz, one but at the same time, two. They are surrounded by clarity,which represents the Holy Spirit, therefore, the Trinity. In scientific terms these three forces could be called positive, negative, and neutral. In other words: Ying, Yang, and Tao. Every culture, at a certain stage of development, seems to describe the creation of the universe in similar terminology.There seems to be a basic truth, a unified principle, which somehow evolved in more than one culture around the world.

There  are nine Bolontiku or nine Lords of the Underworld. In the Dark Ages of the mayan Empire these nine gods ruled over all, each one for a day and rotating their power in succession in the same way the planets succeed each other in our week of seven days.

THE DWARF: There exists the belief that witches have instruments of evil called Ikal that come out at night to harm people, in some cases even causing death. The Ikal is sometimes depicted as a hunchbacked dwarf dressed as a priest. Presumably this symbolizes the fear of the white man who conquered the Mayans five hundred years ago.

THE FROGS: According to Mayan mythology, when a frog croaks it is calling for rain. Thus, four frogs are used in the ancient rain ceremony each one summoning the god, Chac from a different direction of the sky.

THE TURTLE: In Mayan mythology, it is said that if a turtle appears in your path during a drought it is a sign of impending rain because the turtle is also seeking water. It is also believed that the shell of the turtle is a map of the universe.

The Indians with the long hair and the white flowing robes seen in the jungle are the Lacadons, the last remnants of the ancient Mayan Empire who fled to the jungle when the Spanish conquerors arrived. They have yet to be assimilated into modern society.

THE DIALECTS: The Lacadones  speak a dialect called Carebbean, which is similar to the Mayan tongue spoken by the Diviner. The men and women wearing black mantas speak Tzeltal. All three dialects have their roots in the ancient Mayan language.

NUMBERS: Cabalistic numbers become the moving force of the events:

CYCLE OF 13 DAYS

In spite of the fact that their mathematical system was vigesimal, the Maya counted the days also by fives, thirteens and twenties. They gave numbers from 1 up to 13 to series of 20 day names in a continuous cycle. These thirteens are so important, that we have to devote a special chapter to them. In the manuscripts we can find cycles which are multiples of 13, for example, 26, 52, 65, 78, 91, 156, 182, 208, 234, 260 etc.

At each moment, the resulting force of all these magic numbers interacting

First there was nothing. The expanse of the sky was empty. All motionless silence in the darkness, in the night. Only the creator Tepeu, Gucumatz, the Progenitors were there in the water surrounded with clarity.

Then there was the word. Tepeu and Gucumatz came together in the darkness, in the night, and talked to one another. It became clear, as they meditated, that when the dawn came man should  appear. Thus it was disposed among the shadows and in the night by the Heart of Heaven who is called Huracan.

The first account of the Popul Vuh Synopsis An isolated village in the highlands of Mexico is suffering a severe drought. The local Shaman, consults his oracle, drinks the villagers' posh and predicts rain. He proceeds to pass out drunk.The villagers plant their crops, but the rain does not come. A comet traverses the sky and the villagers fear it to be a bad omen. That night the Cacique (village chief) meets with the village council. They all agree that their Shaman has lost his powers and has forgotten how to talk to the Gods. Some mention another man who could help them, a solitary Diviner who lives in the mountains and still knows the ways of the Ancients. The Cacique believes he's a witch and won't allow a witch roaming his village while he's in charge. He boasts of his contact with the white man, an engineer he once met. He insists that the old ways no longer work, that they should consult the white man's methods instead. He produces a flashlight from under his chamarra and shines his flashlight in the group's face, as if to prove his point; then he leaves. The next day a startled Cacique is awakened by the blare of a horn, signaling a summons to a meeting with the village elders. He dresses in a rush, as his two wives and an old woman watch him with vacuous eyes. As he leaves he see the comet again traversing the morning sky. At the reunion with the grandfathers, again he is told of the Diviner. The elders believe that only the diviner can summon Chac, the Rain God. They instruct him to round up his twelve captains and go find the wise man. This time the Cacique does not argue. He leads his group of captains up a steep mountain, while a mute boy, the son of one of the captains, spies their departure from behind a wall.After an arduous climb they reach the Diviner's dwelling. The Diviner seems to be waiting for them and invites them in. He then surprises everyone by asking the mute boy, who had been following all along, to emerge from behind the bushes. He instructs the boy to go prepare pozale, the local meal. From a large gourd the mute boy distributes pozale among the men under the watchful eye of the Diviner. When it is his turn, the Cacique greedily gulps down three large servings, while the Diviner studies him intently. The Diviner knows that the Cacique is skeptical,yet he agrees to help them.They set out on a strange journey, which takes them far away from their own land into the deep jungle. There the Diviner recruits the help of some very strange men (the Lacandons) who carry the group in canoes across a lake. At every turn the Chief and two of his captains grow more suspicious, fearful and rebellious. At night, around the fire, the Diviner tells a haunting story, the myth of the Twins, the Lords of Light who, through the use of magic and deception, destroy forever the Lords of Darkness. By the end of the long, hypnotic tale, only the mute boy remains awake. As the Diviner meditates his spirit enters a hawk that transports him through the night to ancient temples. There he connects with the knowledge of his ancestors.The next day they come to a rushing torrent. Without hesitation the Diviner walks into the water and proceeds to cross over the top of a treacherous waterfall. To everyone's amazement he does not sink, nor is he swept away. Immediately the mute boy follows. Most of the men fearfully go along too. But the Cacique and his two loyal captains, who have no faith in the Diviner, have had enough and refuse to cross the water. Instead they turn back and run away. The remaining men

Follow the Diviner into a deep cave where they find "the Mother of Waters", the original Spring,whose water they will use to invoke the Chac in their ceremony.They return to the village without the Cacique and begin elaborate preparations for the ceremony.The Diviner assigns tasks. He asks an old woman to make sacred mead, a young one to gather the choicest ears of corn, another to collect the purest honey and the mute boy to care for the ceremonial fire. Men make masks, cut wood and build four high platforms, one for each corner of the sky, where four dancers will enact the four Chacs. The Cacique returns and spies the proceedings from a hilltop above the village. He then slips to his hut, grabs his rifle and runs to the shaman to ask for help. The Shaman says that he's come too late, that there is nothing he can do.That night in the wild the Cacique encounters his Ikalin the form of a midget priest who apparently terrifies him to death. At night in the village all are gathered around a giant bonfire. The Diviner commences a chant of invocation to summon the Gods of Rain. Soon the whole village is chanting in unison. All night long the power of their voices flows like a river over hilltops and through valleys. At dawn, clouds move towards the village and fog envelops the crowd. The villagers believe that the rain has finally arrived. They jump up, embrace one another and cheer. But a gust of wind whistles through and skies clear again. An exhausted Diviner announces to the stunned crowd that Chac will not come until three days have passed. Then he departs in the direction of the mountains. The mute boy tries to follow him, but the Cacique reappears and bars his way with his rifle.The following day, while working the cornfield, the mute boy passes out and becomes ill. The shaman examines him and announces that the boy has been possessed by the Diviner's witchcraft. The boy's mother talks to those comforting her about how a Shaman once said her son was born mute so he would keep God's secrets. The boy utters "the fire" before he dies. The village council hastily meets. The Cacique rants that the Diviner has tricked them, that he has only brought evil to the village, but no rain. The boy's father demands vengeance. Another member fears that more evil will come to them if they harm the Diviner. But the Cacique explains that their Shaman said to drop the Diviner's body down a deep well to drown his evil spirit. An older captain reminds everyone that the Diviner said that rain was to come in three days and only two days had passed. The cacique allows one more day for the rain to come. After that, they will go kill him.Next morning, the rain still has not arrived. As the group departs towards the mountain the three older captains again try to dissuade the others from committing murder. But the Cacique and the rest of the men ignore their pleas. Meanwhile, on top of the mountain, the Diviner, while cleansing his body inside a sweat lodge, has a vision. When the villagers arrive at the Diviner's dwelling the cacique silently sneaks in with his rifle. He spots a hammock with someone in it and shoots. The rest of the men rush in to see. Blood drips onto the Cacique's feet. He opens the hammock and they are shocked to see that the Diviner has cut out his own heart as a sacrifice. They bundle up his body in a hurry and throw it off a deep cliff into the well. The body hits the water and a moment later drops of rain begin to fall, lightly at first, then torrential. The men scatter away while the cacique remains alone by the edge of the well screaming madly in the pouring rain.