Votan brought with him, according to one statement, or, according to another, was followed from his native land by, certain attendants or subordinates, called in the myth tzequil, petticoated, from the long and flowing robes they wore.  These aided him in the work of civilization.  On four occasions he returned to his former home, dividing the country, when he was about to leave, into four districts, over which he placed these attendants.

When at last the time came for his final departure, he did not pass through the valley of death, as must all mortals, but he penetrated through a cave into the under-earth, and found his way to “the root of heaven.”  With this mysterious expression, the native myth closes its account of him.[1]

[Footnote 1:  The references to the Votan myth are Nunez de la Vega, Constituciones Diocesanas, Prologo (Romae, 1702); Boturini, Idea de una Nueva Historia de la America septentrional, pp. 114, et seq., who discusses the former; Dr. Paul Felix Cabrera, Teatro Critico Americano, translated, London, 1822; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. des Nations Civilisees de Mexique, vol. i, chap, ii, who gives some additional points from Ordonez; and H. de Charencey, Le Mythe de Votan; Etude sur les Origines Asiatiques de la Civilization Americaine. (Alencon, 1871).]

He was worshiped by the Tzendals as their principal deity and their beneficent patron.  But he had a rival in their religious observances, the feared Yalahau Lord of Blackness, or Lord of the Waters.  He was represented as a terrible warrior, cruel to the people, and one of the first of men.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Yalahau is referred to by Bishop Nunez de la Vega as venerated in Occhuc and other Tzendal towns of Chiapas.  He translates it “Senor de los Negros.”  The terminal ahau is pure Maya, meaning king, ruler, lord; Yal is also Maya, and means water.  The god of the waters, of darkness, night and blackness, is often one and the same in mythology, and probably had we the myth complete, he would prove to be Votan’s brother and antagonist.]

According to an unpublished work by Fuentes, Votan was one of four brothers, the common ancestors of the southwestern branches of the Maya family.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Quoted in Emeterio Pineda, Descripcion Geografica de Chiapas y Soconusco, p. 9 (Mexico, 1845).]

All these traits of this popular hero are too exactly similar to those of the other representatives of this myth, for them to leave any doubt as to what we are to make of Votan.  Like the rest of them, he and his long-robed attendants are personifications of the eastern light and its rays.  Though but uncritical epitomes of a fragmentary myth about him remain, they are enough to stamp it as that which meets us so constantly, no matter where we turn in the New World.[1]