ung der Mythologie_, S. 117.]

As goddess of the fertilizing showers, of growth and life, it is easily
seen how Ixchel came to be the deity both of women in childbirth and of
the medical art, a Juno Sospita as well as a Juno Lucina.

The statement is also significant, that the Bacabs were supposed to be the
victims of Ah-puchah, the Despoiler or Destroyer,[1] though the precise
import of that character in the mythical drama is left uncertain.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Eopuco_ I take to be from the verb _puch_ or _puk_, to melt,
to dissolve, to shell corn from the cob, to spoil; hence _puk_, spoiled,
rotten, _podrida_, and possibly _ppuch_, to flog, to beat. The prefix
_ah_, signifies one who practices or is skilled in the action which the
verb denotes.]

[Footnote 2: The mother of the Bacabs is given in the myth as _Chibilias_
(or _Chibirias_, but there is no _r_ in the Maya alphabet). Cogolludo
mentions a goddess _Ix chebel yax_, one of whose functions was to preside
over drawing and painting. The name is from _chebel_, the brush used in
these arts. But the connection is obscure.]

The supposed Holy Ghost, Echuac, properly Ah-Kiuic, Master of the Market,
was the god of the merchants and the cacao plantations. He formed a triad
with two other gods, Chac, one of the rain gods, and Hobnel, also a god of
the food supply. To this triad travelers, on stopping for the night, set
on end three stones and placed in front of them three flat stones, on
which incense was burned. At their festival in the month _Muan_ precisely
three cups of native wine (mead) were drained by each person present.[1]

[Footnote 1: Landa, _Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan_, pp. 156, 260.]

The description of some such rites as these is, no doubt, what led the
worthy Hernandez to suppose that the Mayas had Trinitarian doctrines.
When they said that the god of the merchants and planters supplied the
wants of men and furnished the world with desirable things, it was but a
slightly figurative way of stating a simple truth.

The four Bacabs are called by Cogolludo "the gods of the winds." Each was
identified with a particular color and a certain cardinal point. The first
was that of the South. He was called Hobnil, the Belly; his color was
yellow, which, as that of the ripe ears, was regarded as a favorable and
promising hue; the augury of his year was propitious, and it was said of
him, referring to some myth now lost, that he had never sinned as had his
br