cripts the subject of a monograph (A Study of Certain Figures in a
Maya Codex, in American Anthropologist, Vol. VII, No. 3, Washington,
1894), also inclines to the belief that B is the god Kukulcan, whom he
conceives of as a serpent-and rain-deity. This view has been accepted by
Foerstemann (Die Tagegoetter der Mayas, Globus, Vol. 73, No. 10) and also
by Cyrus Thomas (Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices, Washington,
1888). The same opinion is held also by E. P. Dieseldorff, who, a
resident of Guatemala, the region of the ancient Maya civilization, has
instituted excavations which have been successful in furnishing most
satisfactory material for these researches (see Dieseldorff: Kukulcan,
Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie, 1895, p. 780). Others have considered god B
as the first parent and lord of the heavens, Itzamna who has a mythologic
importance analogous to that of Kukulcan. Itzamna is also held to be the
god of creation and founder of civilization and accordingly seems to be
not very remotely allied to the god Kukulcan. Others again, for example
Brasseur de Bourbourg and Seler, have interpreted the figure of god B to
represent the fourfold god of the cardinal points and rain-god Chac, a
counterpart of the Aztec rain-god Tlaloc. The fact that this god-figure
is so frequently connected with the serpent and the bird is strongly in
favor of the correctness of the supposition, that we should see in god B
a figure corresponding to the Kukulcan of tradition. Thus we see the god
represented once with the body of a serpent and with a bird near by
(Cort. 10b), while B's hieroglyph appears both times in the text. God B
is also pictured elsewhere repeatedly with a serpent body, thus for
example on Dr. 35b, 36a. On pages 4-6 of the Codex Cortesianus he is
pictured six times and each time in connection with a serpent.

The accounts we have received concerning the mythology of the Maya
peoples are very meagre and owing to the uncertainty respecting the
origin of the Maya manuscripts, it cannot even be determined which of
these accounts are applicable to the Maya manuscripts, or, indeed,
whether they are applicable at all. For it is by no means positively
proved that these manuscripts did not originate in regions of Maya
culture, regarding which we have received no accounts at all. As our
present purpose is purely that of description and determination, it
remains quite unimportant which of these recorded figures of gods shall
be regar