Bacab

Bacab (Mayan pronunciation: [ɓaˈkaɓ]) is the generic Yucatec Maya name for the four prehispanic aged deities of the interior of the earth and its water deposits. The Bacabs have more recent counterparts in the lecherous, drunken old thunder deities of the Gulf Coast regions. Among the Classic Maya, Bakab was an important quadripartite deity associated with urban architecture.

The Bacabs are also referred to as Pauahtuns.

The Bacabs "were four brothers whom God placed, when he created the world, at the four points of it, holding up the sky so that it should not fall. [...] They escaped when the world was destroyed by the deluge." Their names were Hobnil, Cantzicnal, Saccimi, and Hosanek.

According to Francisco Hernández (quoted by Las Casas and Diego López de Cogolludo), the Bacabs were the sons of the creator god, Itzamna, and of the goddess Ixchebelyax; he had once been humbled, killed, and revived.

The Bacabs played an important role in the cosmological upheaval associated with Katun 11 Ahau, when Oxlahuntiku 'Thirteen-god' was humbled by Bolontiku 'Nine-god'. According to the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, "then the sky would fall, it would fall down, it would fall down upon the earth, when the four gods, the four Bacabs, were set up, who brought about the destruction of the world."

The veneration of the Bacabs was closely connected to that of the so-called Year Bearers and their prognostics. Each Bacab ruled one of the directions and the associated Year Bearer day (one of four New Year days), as follows:

The Bacabs were invoked in connection with rain and agriculture, since they were intimately associated with the four Chaacs, or rain deities, and the Pauahtuns, or wind deities, all located in the four directions. The Maya of Chan Kom referred to the four skybearers as the four Chacs (Redfield and Villa Rojas).

Since they were Year Bearer patrons, and also because of their meteorological qualities, the Bacabs were important in divination ceremonies; they were approached with questions about crops, weather, or the health of bees (Landa).

In addition, the "Four Gods, Four Bacabs" were often invoked in curing rituals that had the four-cornered world and its beaches for a theatre (which is the basic reason why the most important early-colonial collection of Yucatec curing texts, the Ritual of the Bacabs, has been named after them).

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