For this account we are indebted to the celebrated Las Casas, the “Apostle of the Indians.”  In 1545 he sent a certain priest, Francisco Hernandez by name, into the peninsula as a missionary.  Hernandez had already traversed it as chaplain to Montejo’s expedition, in 1528, and was to some degree familiar with the Maya tongue.  After nearly a year spent among the natives he forwarded a report to Las Casas, in which, among other matters, he noted a resemblance which seemed to exist between the myths recounted by the Maya priests and the Christian dogmas.  They told him that the highest deity they worshiped was Izona, who had made men and all things.  To him was born a son, named Bacab or Bacabab, by a virgin, Chibilias, whose mother was Ixchel.  Bacab was slain by a certain Eopuco, on the day called hemix, but after three days rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.  The Holy Ghost was represented by Echuac, who furnished the world with all things necessary to man’s life and comfort.  Asked what Bacab meant, they replied, “the Son of the Great Father,” and Echuac they translated by “the merchant."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Las Casas, Historia Apologetica de las Indias Occidentales, cap. cxxiii.]

This is the story that a modern writer says, “ought to be repudiated without question."[1] But I think not.  It is not difficult to restore these names to their correct forms, and then the fancied resemblance to Christian theology disappears, while the character of the original myth becomes apparent.

[Footnote 1:  John T. Short, The North Americans of Antiquity, p. 231.]

Cogolludo long since justly construed Izona as a misreading for Izamna. Bacabab is the plural form of Bacab, and shows that the sons were several.  We are well acquainted with the Bacabab.  Bishop Landa tells us all about them.  They were four in number, four gigantic brothers, who supported the four corners of the heavens, who blew the four winds from the four cardinal points, and who presided over the four Dominical signs of the Calendar.  As each year in the Calendar was supposed to be under the influence of one or the other of these brothers, one Bacab was said to die at the close of the year; and after the “nameless” or intercalary days had passed the next Bacab would live; and as each computation of the year began on the day Imix, which was the third before the close of the Maya week, this was said figuratively to be the day of death of the Bacab of that year.  And whereas three (or four) days later a new year began, with another Bacab, the one was said to have died and risen again.

The myth further relates that the Bacabs were sons of Ix-chel.  She was the Goddess of the Rainbow, which her name signifies.  She was likewise believed to be the guardian of women in childbirth, and one of the patrons of the art of medicine.  The early historians, Roman and Landa, also associate her with Itzamna[1], thus verifying the legend recorded by Hernandez.