ime_ of the Aztecs; and
_Colele_, probably _colotl_, the scorpion, or _tecolotl_, the owl,
which latter, under the name _tucur_, is also mentioned by Xahila.[42-1]

Father Coto refers to some of their deities of the woods and streams.
One of these, the Man of the Woods, is famous throughout Yucatan and
most of Central America. The Spaniards call him _Salonge_, the Mayas
_Che Vinic_, and the Cakchiquels _ru vinakil chee_; both these latter
meaning "the woods man." What gives this phantom especial interest in
this connection is, that Father Coto identifies the woodsman with the
_Zaki[c]oxol_, the white fire maker, encountered by the Cakchiquels in
Xahila's narrative (Sec. 21).[42-2] I have narrated the curious
folk-lore about the woodsman in another publication, and need not repeat
it here.[42-3] His second name, the White Fire Maker, perhaps refers to
the "light wood" or phosphorescence about damp and decaying trees.

To the water-sprites, the Undines of their native streams, they gave the
name _xulu_, water-flies, or _ru vinakil ya_, the water people.

As their household gods, they formed little idols of the ashes from the
funeral pyres of their great men, kneading them with clay. To these they
gave the name _vinak_, men or beings (Coto).

Representations of these divinities were carved in wood and stone, and
the words _chee abah_, "wood and stone," usually mean, when they appear
together in Xahila's narrative, "idols or images in wood and stone."

The Stone God, indeed, is a prominent figure in their mythology, as it
was in their daily life. This was the sacred _Chay Abah_, the Obsidian
Stone, which was the oracle of their nation, and which revealed the will
of the gods on all important civil and military questions. To this day,
their relatives, the Mayas of Yucatan, attach implicit faith to the
revelations of the _zaztun_, the divining stone kept by their sorcerers,
and if it decrees the death of any one, they will despatch him with
their machetes, without the slightest hesitation.[43-1] The belief was
cherished by the rulers and priests, as they alone possessed the power
to gaze on the polished surface of the sacred block of obsidian, and
read thereupon the invisible decrees of divinity. (See above, p. 25).

As the stone came from the earth, it was said to have been derived from
the under world, from _Xibalbay_, literally the unseen or invisible
place, the populous realm in Quiche myth, visited and conquered by t