grandmother of the sun, grandmother of dawn, as you will be called by our works and our creatures.
"Cast the lot with your grains of corn and tzité.[33] Do it thus[34] and we shall know if we are to make, or carve his mouth and eyes out of wood." Thus the diviners were told.
They went down at once to make their divination, and cast their lots with the corn and the tzité. "Fate! Creature!"[35] said an old woman and an old man. And this old man was the one who cast the lots with Tzité, the one called Xpiyacoc.[36] And the old woman was the diviner, the maker, called Chiracán Xmucané.[37]
Beginning the divination, they said: "Get together, grasp each other! Speak, that we may hear." They said, "Say if it is well that the wood be got together and that it be carved by the Creator and the Maker, and if this [man of wood] is he who must nourish and sustain us when there is light when it is day!
"Thou, corn; thou, tzité; thou, fate; thou, creature; get together, take each other," they said to the corn, to the tzité, to fate, to the creature. "Come to sacrifice here, Heart of Heaven; do not punish Tepeu and Gucumatz!"[38]
Then they talked and spoke the truth: "Your figures of wood shall come out well; they shall speak and talk on earth."
"So may it be," they answered when they spoke.
And instantly the figures were made of wood. They looked like men, talked like men, and populated the surface of the earth.
They existed and multiplied; they had daughters, they had sons, these wooden figures; but they did not have souls, nor minds, they did not remember their Creator, their Maker; they walked on all fours, aimlessly.
They no longer remembered the Heart of Heaven and therefore they fell out of favor. It was merely a trial, an attempt at man. At first they spoke, but their face was without expression; their
silversmith; ahchut, engraver or sculptor; ahtzalam, carver or cabinetmaker; ahraxalac, he who fashions green or beautiful plates; ahraxazel, he who makes the beautiful green vases or gourds (called Xicalli in Náhuatl)—the word raxá has both meanings; ahgol, he who makes the resin or copal; and, finally, ahtoltecat, he who, without doubt, was the silversmith. The Tolteca were, in fact, skilled silversmiths who, according to the legend, were taught the art by Quetzalcoatl himself.
[33] Erythrina corallodendron. Tzité, arbol de pito in Guatemala; Tzompanquahuitl in the Mexican language. It is used in both countries to make fences. Its fruit is a pod which contains red grains resembling a bean which the Indians used, as they still do, together with grains of corn, in their fortune telling and witchcraft. In his Informe contra Idolorum Cultores, Sánchez de Aguilar says that the Maya Indians "cast lots with a large handful of corn." As is seen, the practice which is still observed by the Maya-Quiché is of respectable antiquity.
[34] Chi banatahic xa pu ch'el apon-oc, literally: "Do it so and it will be done."
[35] Quih!, Bit! The first word is "sun," and Brasseur de Bourbourg translates it as such, but it also means "fate," and this is evidently its meaning in this invocation.
[36] Ah tzité, he who tells the fortune by the grains of tzité; Basseta interprets the word as "sorcerer," who in this case, is Xpiyacoc.
[37] Are curi atit ahquih, ahbit, Chiracán Xmucané u bi. The ahquih was the priest and sorcerer, and these very respected officers are still so called in Quiché. Ahbit is the creator and maker. Chiracán Xmucané is the same as the Great Xmucané.
[38] C'at quix la uloc, at u Qux cah, m'a cahizah u chi, u vach Tepeu, Gucumatz. Here other translators have rendered the verb quix as "to shame." Brasseur de Bourbourg observes that it may also signify "to sting" or "take out blood" with a thorn. This was a common form of sacrifice among the Indians, and seems to indicate the real meaning of the sentence as used by the author. Qahizan vach is "to punish," according to the Vocabulario de los Padres Franciscanos. The entire passage is an invitation to the Heart of Heaven to come and take part in casting lots and not let the diviners fail.
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