tzamna were closely related to ideas of fertility and
reproduction, indeed, but it appears to have been especially as gods of
the rains, the harvests, and the food supply generally. The Spanish
writers were eager to discover all the depravity possible in the religion
of the natives, and they certainly would not have missed such an
opportunity for their tirades, had it existed. As it is, the references to
it are not many, and not clear.

[Footnote 1: The feasts of the Bacabs Acantun are described in Landa's
work. The name he does not explain. I take it to be _acaan_, past
participle of _actal_, to erect, and _tun_, stone. But it may have another
meaning. The word _acan_ meant wine, or rather, mead, the intoxicating
hydromel the natives manufactured. The god of this drink also bore the
name Acan ("ACAN; el Dios del vino que es Baco," _Diccionario del Convento
de Motul_, MS.). It would be quite appropriate for the Bacabs to be gods
of wine.]

[Footnote 2: Stephens, _Travels in Yucatan_, Vol. i, p. 434.]

From what I have now presented we see that Itzamna came from the distant
east, beyond the ocean marge; that he was the teacher of arts and
agriculture; that he, moreover, as a divinity, ruled the winds and rains,
and sent at his will harvests and prosperity. Can we identify him further
with that personification of Light which, as we have already seen, was the
dominant figure in other American mythologies?

This seems indicated by his names and titles. They were many, some of
which I have already analyzed. That by which he was best known was
_Itzamna_, a word of contested meaning but which contains the same
radicals as the words for the morning and the dawn[1], and points to his
identification with the grand central fact at the basis of all these
mythologies, the welcome advent of the light in the eastern horizon after
the gloom of the night.

[Footnote 1: Some have derived Itzamua from _i_, grandson by a son, used
only by a female; _zamal_, morning, morrow, from _zam_, before, early,
related to _yam_, first, whence also _zamalzam_, the dawn, the aurora; and
_na_, mother. Without the accent _na_, means house. Crescencio Carrillo
prefers the derivation from _itz_, anything that trickles in drops, as gum
from a tree, rain or dew from the sky, milk from teats, and semen ("leche
de amor," _Dicc. de Motul_, MS.). He says: "_Itzamna_, esto es, rocio
diario, o sustancia cuotidiana del cielo, es el mismo nombre del fundador
(d