when it was born and remained fixed [in the sky] like a mirror. Certainly it was not the same sun which we see, it is said in their old tales.
Immediately afterward Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz were turned to stone, together with the deified beings[309] the puma, the jaguar, the snake, the cantil, and the hobgoblin. Their arms became fastened to the trees when the sun, the moon, and the stars appeared. All alike, were changed into stone. Perhaps we should not be living today[310] because of the voracious animals, the puma, the jaguar, the snake, and the cantil, as well as the hobgoblin; perhaps our power would not exist if these first animals had not been turned into stone by the sun.
When the sun arose, the hearts of Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah, and Iqui-Balam were filled with joy. Great was their joy when it dawned. And there were not many men at that place; only a few were there on the mountain Hacavitz.[311] There dawn came to them, there they burned their incense and danced, turning their gaze toward the East, whence they had come. There were their mountains and their valleys, whence had come Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah, and Iqui-Balam, as they were called.
But it was here where they multiplied, on the mountain, and this was their town; here they were, too, when the sun, the moon, and the stars appeared, when it dawned and the face of the earth and the whole world was lighted. Here, too, began their song, which they call camucú;[312] they sang it, but only the pain in their hearts and their innermost selves they expressed in their song. "Oh pity us! In Tulán we were lost, we were separated, and there our older and younger brothers stayed. Ah, we have seen the sun! but where are they now, that it has dawned?" so said the priests and the sacrificers of the Yaqui.
Because, in truth, the so-called Tohil is the same god of the Yaqui, the one called Yolcuat-Quitzalcuat.[313]
"We became separated there in Tulán, in Zuyva, from there we went out together, and there our race was created when we came," they said to each other.
Then they remembered their older brothers and their younger brothers, the Yaqui, to whom dawn came there in the land which today is called Mexico. Part of the people remained there in the East, those called Tepeu Olimán, who stayed there, they say.
They felt much grief in their hearts, there in Hacavitz; and sad, too, were the people from Tamub and Ilocab, who were also there in the forest called Amac-Tan,[314] where dawn came to the priests and sacrificers of Tamub and to their god, who also was Tohil, because one and the same was the name of the god of the three branches of the Quiché people. And this is also the name of the god of the people of Rabinal, for there is little difference between that and the name of
[309] U cabauilal coh, balam, etc.
[310] Ma ta oh yacamarinac, "Perhaps we would not be standing." The transformation of the animals into stone, according to Chavero, is a symbol of the change of religion, their abandoning the old animal nature cult for the worship of the heavenly bodies.
[311] Mana e ta quiá vinac chi qui qoheic, xa e chutin ta x-e qohe chiri chuvi huyub Hacavitz. Ximénez gives a different interpretation to this sentence, as follows: "And the men were not large then, but they were small when they were on the hills of Hacavitz."
[312] "We see," or "our dove," mucuy in Maya.
[313] The great civilizer was worshiped as a divinity by the ancient Mexicans, who gave him different names. They called him Ehecatl, or God of the Wind; Yolcuat, or the Rattle Snake; Quetzalcoatl, or serpent covered with green feathers. The last meaning corresponds also to the Maya name Kukulcán, and to the Quiché, Gucumatz. Here the text shows that the Quiché also identified Quetzalcoatl with their own god Tohil. Both were actually rain gods.
[314] Pa quechelah Amac Dan ubi. This place was already named in Chapter 8 of Part III, as the residence of the tribe of Tamub.
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