Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Stone and Zender on the Serpent among the Maya

 

The serpent was identified with various sky-dwelling creatures, such as the Ch’orti’ celestial rain beast chijchan “deer-serpent,” an anomalous creature echoed in depictions of serpents with antlers from the Classic period. While the Maya had an indigenous version of the celestial feathered serpent . . . one type, with roots in a war complex, was borrowed with Teotihuacan. Surging into prominence during the Terminal Classic period, the feathered serpent is a hallmark of the Mesoamerican Postclassic. Massive examples form columns and balustrades at Chichen Itza . . . The serpent’s body was a conduit permitting supernaturals to pass from divine to moral worlds and emerge through the gullet. Works of art portray the culmination of this journey, usually triggered by a burnt offering . . . As an open-ended path, the serpent is often two-headed . . . seen, for instance, in the ceremonial bar, proof of the king’s ability to manifest for instance, in the ceremonial bar, proof of the king’s ability to manifest spirits. Spiritual stuff was also channelled through a twisted snake-like rope seen weaving through the heavens. Luke the sky and ecliptic serpents, the snake-rope gave tangible form to the heavens’ structural integrity.

 

On the darker side, serpents sometimes merged with the centipede, evoked the Underworld. The zoomorphic analog of a cave was a serpent . . .A hissing fer de lance wrapped around the neck of a wahy magnified its frightening demeanor . . . In this potent, ominous aspect, serpents were also associated with women. The archetypal domestically skilled woman wore an emblematic cloth head ti which, for the old creator goddess, Chak Chel, was transfigured into a serpent, its body knotted like pliable cloth . . . The Medusa-like headdress linked elderly women with elemental forces of nature and the earth’s generative powers via the serpent. (Andrea Stone and Marc Zender, Reading Maya Art: A Hieroglyphic Guide to Ancient Maya Painting and Sculpture [London: Thames and Hudson, 2011], 201)