Votan
Votan[pronunciation?] is a legendary or mythological figure mentioned in early European accounts of the Maya civilization.
Origins of the Votan story
[edit]The story of Votan in Mexico dates back to at least the late 17th century. It was first published in Constituciones diocesanas del obispado de Chiappa (1702) by Francisco Núñez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas. According to Francisco Javier Clavijero:
F. Núñez de la Vega, bishop of Chiapa, says, in the preface to his Synodal Constitutions, that in the visit which he made to his diocese towards the end of the last century [i.e. the late 1600s], he found many ancient calendars of the Chiapanese, and an old manuscript in the language of that country, made by the Indians themselves, in which it was said, according to their ancient tradition, that a certain person named Votan was present at that great building, which was made by order of his uncle, in order to mount up to heaven; that then every people was given its language, and that Votan himself was charged by God to make the division of the lands of Anahuac. The prelate adds afterwards, that there was in his time in Teopixca a great settlement of that diocese, a family of the surname of Votan, who were the reputed descendants of that ancient populator. We are not here endeavoring to give the antiquity to the populator of America on the faith of the Chiapanese, but merely to shew that the Americans conceived themselves the descendants of Noah.[1]
In his account, Bishop Núñez de Vega also states that Votan belonged to the royal lineage of "Cham" (probably "chan" or snake) and that he established a kingdom called "Na Chan" (Snake House) on the Usumacinta River that eventually extended across Chiapas and Soconusco to the Pacific Coast.[2] Additional information can be found in a 1786 publication by Antonio del Río[3] that cites the same sources as Clavijero and speculates at length on Votan's identity and travels to the Old World.
At a time when the origins of pre-Columbian cultures were poorly understood, these clerics associated Votan with the Biblical stories of the Tower of Babel and Noah, speculating that he had come to Mexico from the Old World. This tradition has been perpetuated by additional fantastic speculations that have been sharply critiqued by subsequent scholarship. This includes the association of Votan with Palenque by Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguilar, a priest who had lived near the site and wrote one of the earliest descriptions of the ruins in 1773. Ordoñez apparently incorporated some of the information that had been collected earlier by Bishop Núñez de la Vega into a document called the Probanza de Votan. "This strange work contained some fragments from Ximénez and a confused account of Votan, culture hero of the Tzeltal people, who, according to Ordoñez, had built Palenque. Fantastic details described Votan's four trips back to the Middle East."[4] The Tzeltal are an ethnic group that occupies the region that includes Teopisca, Chiapas, about 113 km southeast of Palenque. In the late 17th century, two hundred Tzeltal families "of Votan's ancestry" are said to have been living in Comitlan.[2]
Assertion of a relationship between Votan and Odin is found in the work of the distinguished geographer Alexander von Humboldt, who wrote in Vues des Cordillères (1810):
We have fixed the special attention of our readers upon this Votan, or Wodan, an American who appears in the same family with the Wods or Odins of the Goths and of the people of Celtic origins. Since, according to the learned researches of Sir William Jones, Odin and Buddha are probably the same person, it is curious to see the names of Bondvar, Wodansdag, and Votan designating in India, Scandinavia, and in Mexico the day of a brief period.[5]
In Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique Centrale (1857), Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg claimed Votan was an ancient Phoenician legislateur who had migrated from the Middle East to the Maya area, defeated a race called the Quiname, built the city of Palenque, and established an empire called Xibalba that was postulated by Brasseur de Bourbourg to have once covered all of Mexico and part of the United States. Subsequent Mayanist scholarship has found little support for Phoenician contact with ancient Mesoamerica, and identifies Xibalba as a mythical place rather than a political entity.
Influence on Mormonism
[edit]Extensive analysis of the story of Votan appeared as commentary on the work of Antonio del Río by Paul Felix Cabrera in 1822.[6] Critics of the LDS church[who?] have claimed that Cabrera's work had a strong influence on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, founders of the Latter Day Saint movement.[citation needed] Smith reported having a vision in 1823 that eventually led him to the claimed discovery of golden plates that documented a group of ancient Israelites journey to the Americas, 960 years of their descendants history and their dealings with the god of the Israelites. These plates are the origin of the Book of Mormon.
Similarity to Wotan
[edit]The similarity between the names Votan and Wotan has also been the source of much confusion. Chapter IV of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882) by Ignatius L. Donnelly, titled "The God Odin, Woden, or Wotan", repeats Clavijero's reference in the context of speculation about Atlantis and (following Brasseur de Bourbourg) also suggests that Votan built Palenque. Donnelly quotes Clavijero as saying that Votan "conducted seven families from Valum-Votan to this continent, and assigned lands to them",[7] and implies that "Valum-Votan" may have been a reference to Atlantis.[8] The story of Votan was further associated with the Atlantis legend by Lewis Spence in Atlantis in America (1925), who identifies Votan as "a local name for Quetzalcoatl" and provides a synopsis of the account by Núñez de la Vega.[9]
Pacal Votan
[edit]Associations of Votan with Palenque have led New Age spiritual leader José Argüelles to identify Pacal the Great as "Pacal Votan" and to identify himself as an emanation of "Valum Votan". However, no mention of Votan has been found in the inscriptions of Palenque despite considerable progress in the decipherment of the extensive Maya inscriptions known for the site.[10]
Culture hero?
[edit]![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/MAYA-g-log-cal-D03-Akbal.png/150px-MAYA-g-log-cal-D03-Akbal.png)
A more critical evaluation suggests that Votan was a culture hero of the Tzeltal whose story may be based on that of a ruler who lived in the vicinity of Teopisca, Chiapas during the Postclassic period. He was referred to as "Lord of the Horizontal Wooden Drum" and "jaguar god of darkness" (ak'bal),[11] and his name was one of twenty day names in the Tzeltal calendar.[1] Ritual objects associated with Votan were removed from a sanctuary and burned in the main square of Huehuetlán by Bishop Núñez de la Vega in 1691.[12][13]
Votan Zapata
[edit]Votan is often described as the "heart" of indigenous people in Chiapas. The qualities of both culture hero and deep sentiment are expressed in the persona of Votan Zapata, a legendary manifestation of the spirit of Emiliano Zapata honored by members of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).[citation needed]
Notes
[edit]- ^ a b Clavigero 1787, p. 204
- ^ a b Megged 1996, p. 26
- ^ Rio [1786] (1822)
- ^ Mace 1973, p. 300
- ^ Humboldt 1810, p. 148
- ^ Río [1786] (1822).
- ^ Donnelly 1882, p. 314
- ^ Donnelly 1882, p. 316
- ^ Spence 1925, pp. 55-56
- ^ For example, in a comprehensive compilation of the epigraphic knowledge concerning Palenque's inscriptions, A Concordance to the Inscriptions of Palenque (Ringle and Smith-Stark 1996), there is no mention or index entry for votan.
- ^ Thompson 1970, p. 326
- ^ Spence 1925, p. 55
- ^ Megged 1996, p. 28
References
[edit]- Brinton, Daniel G. (1882). American Hero-Myths: A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent (Project Gutenberg EBook online reproduction). Philadelphia: H.C. Watts and Co. OCLC 2461981. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
- Brinton, Daniel G. (1883). Aboriginal American Authors and Their Productions; Especially Those in the Native Languages. A Chapter in the History of Literature (Project Gutenberg EBook online reproduction). Philadelphia: D.G. Brinton. OCLC 2987103.
- Clavigero, Francesco Saverio (1787). The history of Mexico. Collected from Spanish and Mexican historians, from manuscripts, and ancient paintings of the Indians. Illustrated by charts, and other copper plates. To which are added, critical dissertations on the land, the animals, and inhabitants of Mexico. By Abbé D. Francesco Saverio Clavigero., 2 vols. Translated by Charles Cullen. London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson. OCLC 2671015.
- Donnelly, Ignatius (1882). Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (Reproduced online, by the Internet Sacred Texts Archive [2003], redacted and with introduction by J.B. Hare). New York: Harper & Brothers. OCLC 37995012. Retrieved 2008-02-01.
- Humboldt, Alexander von (1810a). Vues des Cordillères, et monumens des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique (in French). Paris: F. Schoell. OCLC 15335414.
- Humboldt, Alexander von (1810b). Pittoreske Ansichten der Cordilleren und Monumente americanischer Völker (online reproduction, by Kurt Stüber [2002]) (in German). Tübingen, Germany: J. G. Cotta'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. OCLC 4504586.
- Humboldt, Alexander von (1816). Vues des Cordillères, et monumens des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique; 2 vols (in French) (abridged from the folio ed.). Paris: Librairie grecque-latine-allemande. OCLC 15082601.
- Humboldt, Alexander von (1852). Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 4. Translated by E. C. Otté; B. H. Paul. London: Henry G. Bohn. OCLC 8353480.
- Laughlin, Robert M. (2003). Beware the Great Horned Serpent!: Chiapas Under the Threat of Napoleon. IMS Studies on Culture and Society, vol. 8. Albany, NY: Institute of Mesoamerican Studies, University at Albany, SUNY; distributed by University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-942041-19-4. OCLC 52341702.
- León Cázares, Marìa del Carmen (1993). "La presencia del demonio en las Constituciones Diocesanas de fray Francisco Núñez de la Vega" (PDF, online facsimile at e-journal, UNAM). Estudios de historia novohispana. 13. México, D.F.: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México: 41–71. ISSN 0425-3574. OCLC 1771954. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-07-16.
- Mace, Carroll Edward (1973). "Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, 1814-1874". In Howard F. Cline (ed.). Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 13: Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources, part II. Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 298–325. ISBN 0-292-70153-5. OCLC 163392725.
- Megged, Amos (1996). Exporting the Catholic Reformation: Local Religion in Early-Colonial Mexico. Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions: Medieval and Early Modern Peoples, vol. 2. Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill. ISBN 90-04-10400-3. ISSN 1382-5364. OCLC 34355106.
- Miles, S. W. (1971a). "Sculpture of the Guatemala-Chiapas Highlands and Pacific Slopes, and Associated Hieroglyphs". In Gordon R. Willey (ed.). Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 2: Archaeology of Southern Mesoamerica, Part I. Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 237–275. ISBN 0-292-73260-0. OCLC 277126.
- Miles, S. W. (1971b). "Summary of Preconquest Ethnology of the Guatemala-Chiapas Highlands and Pacific Slopes". In Gordon R. Willey (ed.). Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 2: Archaeology of Southern Mesoamerica, Part I. Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 275–287. ISBN 0-292-73260-0. OCLC 277126.
- Nuñez de la Vega, Francisco (1702). Constituciones diocesanas del obispado de Chiappa. Rome: Caetano Zenobi. OCLC 79261929.
- Ringle, William M.; Thomas C. Smith-Stark (1996). A Concordance to the Inscriptions of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico. MARI Publications, no. 62. New Orleans, LA: Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University. ISBN 0-939238-93-4. OCLC 25630088.
- Rio, Antonio del (1822) [1786]. Paul Felix Cabrera (ed.). Description of the Ruins of an Ancient City, discovered near Palenque, in the Kingdom of Guatemala, in Spanish America: Translated from the original manuscript report of captain Don Antonio del Río: Followed by Teatro Crítico Americano; or, A critical investigation and research into The History of the Americans (Online reproduction at OliverCowdery.com). London: Henry Berthoud, and Suttaby, Evance and Fox. OCLC 55254809.
- Spence, Lewis (1925). Atlantis in America. London: Ernest Benn. OCLC 1712943.
- Subcomandante Marcos (2002). Juana Ponce de León (ed.). Our Word Is Our Weapon: Selected Writings. New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 1-58322-036-4. OCLC 43953940.
- Thompson, J. E. S. (1970). Maya History and Religion. Civilization of the American Indian Series, No. 99. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-0884-3. OCLC 177832.