longeon at Chichen Itza, and it is too entirely
similar to others found at Tlaxcala and near the city of Mexico, for us to
doubt but that they represented the same divinity, and that the god of
rains, fertility and the harvests.[1]

[Footnote 1: I refer to the statue which Dr. LePlongeon was pleased to
name "Chac Mool." See the _Estudio acerca de la Estatua llamada Chac-Mool
o rey tigre_, by Sr. Jesus Sanchez, in the _Anales del Museo Nacional de
Mexico_, Tom. i. p. 270. There was a divinity worshiped in Yucatan, called
Cum-ahau, lord of the vase, whom the _Diccionario de Motul_, MS. terms,
"Lucifer, principal de los demonios." The name is also given by Pio Perez
in his manuscript dictionary in my possession, but is omitted in the
printed copy. As Lucifer, the morning star, was identified with
Quetzalcoatl in Mexican mythology, and as the word _cum_, vase, Aztec
_comitl_, is the same in both tongues, there is good ground to suppose that
this lord of the vase, the "prince of devils," was the god of fertility,
common to both cults.]

The version of the tradition which made Kukulcan arrive from the West, and
at his disappearance return to the West--a version quoted by Landa, and
which evidently originally referred to the westward course of the sun,
easily led to an identification of him with the Aztec Quetzalcoatl, by
those acquainted with both myths.

The probability seems to be that Kukulcan was an original Maya divinity,
one of their hero-gods, whose myth had in it so many similarities to that
of Quetzalcoatl that the priests of the two nations came to regard the one
as the same as the other. After the destruction of Mayapan, about the
middle of the fifteenth century, when the Aztec mercenaries were banished
to Canul, and the reigning family (the Xiu) who supported them became
reduced in power, the worship of Kukulcan fell, to some extent, into
disfavor. Of this we are informed by Landa, in an interesting passage.

He tells us that many of the natives believed that Kukulcan, after his
earthly labors, had ascended into Heaven and become one of their gods.
Previous to the destruction of Mayapan temples were built to him, and he
was worshiped throughout the land, but after that event he was paid such
honor only in the province of Mani (governed by the Xiu). Nevertheless, in
gratitude for what all recognized they owed to him, the kings of the
neighboring provinces sent yearly to Mani, on the occasion of his annual
festiv