We explain everything you need to know about Itzamná, the Supreme Being in Mayan mythology. Learn about his most famous legends and myths in this culture.
Itzamná: The Supreme Being
Itzamná, (Maya: “House of the Iguana”) principal pre-Columbian Maya deity, ruler of the sky, day and night. He often appeared as four gods called Itzamnás, who covered the world. Like some of the other Mesoamerican deities, the Itzamnás were associated with the points of the compass and their colors: east, red; north, white; west, black; and south, yellow.
Who was Itzamná?
He was one of the most important deities in Mayan mythology. The ruler of the heavens and of day and night, he was often depicted in Mayan art as a pleasant old man with no teeth and a large nose. He was also identified as the son of the creator god Hunab Ku.
Itzamná (pronounced Eetz-am-NAH and sometimes spelled Itzam Na) is one of the most important figures in the Mayan pantheon of gods, the creator of the world and supreme father of the universe who ruled based on his esoteric knowledge rather than his strength.
Appearance
He appears to be elderly and male. His nose is large, and one description of it is “Roman.” There are also certain things that the ancient Maya used to draw as part of their representations of Itzamná. One is his headdress, which has a flower with an ak’bal symbol (ak’bal means darkness/night). Another thing they tended to show him wearing was a necklace made of shells.
Art featuring Itzamná shows him doing things such as creating the sky or being a ruler performing a ritual. It was also common for the ancient Maya to draw him sitting on a throne.
Function
Among other gods, rulers may have viewed Itzamná’s supernatural court as something to emulate as a form of “correct” behavior. If true, this includes the way they established their cities, as well as the way they acted themselves. (It seems that the lives of other gods were possibly emulated as well.)
Stele C at Quirigua seems to be an example of the belief that Itzamná helped create the present world. It appears that the stele says that Itzamná, whom the stele calls Lord of the Six Heavens, and three other gods placed three “throne stones” as a home in the sky.
Part of this stele also shows Ruler I of Quirigua in a ceremony, dressed as Itzamná. Dressing as gods as part of rituals was something the Maya did, and one of the gods they are known to have imitated in rituals was Itzamná. (There is a theory that rulers wore quetzal feathers as part of their headdresses to copy the Principal Deity of Birds, one of the aspects of Itzamná.)
The ancient Maya in the Postclassic period turned to him (among other gods) when it was predicted that the coming year would be an unlucky year, with disasters such as crop failures. They asked him to prevent the year from having disasters.
He was a god of scribes, and he himself was a scribe. He was also a god of knowledge. This god was also connected to some more specific mystical things. One of these was predicting the future. The other was the ability to see things that cannot normally be seen as a person. Interestingly, it seems that Itzamná also had a bad side. This negative part of him would destroy crops.
The power of Itzamná
He was a fantastic mythological being who embodied the opposites of our world (earth-sky, life-death, man-woman, light-darkness). According to Mayan mythology, Itzamná was part of the supreme power couple, husband of the oldest version of the goddess Ix Chel (Goddess O), and together they were the parents of all the other gods.
Meaning of the name
In the Mayan language, Itzamná means caiman, lizard, or big fish. The “Itz” part of his name means a number of things, including “dew” or “cloud material” in Quechua; “divination or witchcraft” in colonial Yucatecan; and “to predict or contemplate” in the Nahuatl version of the word. As a supreme being, he has several names, Kukulcan (underwater serpent or feathered serpent) or Itzam Cab Ain, the “Caiman of the Land of Itzam,” but archaeologists refer to him prosaically as God D.
Appearance of God D
Kukulcan is credited with inventing writing and science and bringing them to the Maya people. He is often portrayed as an elderly man, with the written form of his name including the Ahau for leadership along with his conventional glyph.
His name is sometimes preceded by the sign Akbal, a symbol of darkness and night that at least to some extent associates Kukulcan with the moon. He is considered a force with multiple aspects, combining the earth, the heavens, and the underworld. He is associated with birth and creation, and with corn.
In Yucatán, during the Postclassic period, Itzamná was also revered as the god of medicine. Diseases associated with Kukulcan included chills, asthma, and respiratory illnesses.
Representation of Itzamná
He was also linked to the Sacred Tree of the World (ceiba), which for the Maya united the sky, the earth, and Xibalba, the Maya underworld. God D is described in ancient texts and codices as a scribe (ah dzib) or educated person (idzat). He is the supreme god in the Mayan hierarchy of gods, and important representations of him appear in Copán (Altar D), Palenque (House E), and Piedras Negras (Stele 25).
Images of Itzamná
Drawings of this deity in sculptures, codices, and mural paintings illustrate him in various ways. He is often depicted as a very old man seated on a throne in front of other subsidiary deities such as God N or L. In his human form, he is portrayed as an old and wise priest with a hooked nose and large square eyes. He wears a tall cylindrical headdress with a beaded mirror, a hat that often resembles a flower with a long stream of water.
Kukulcan is also often depicted as a two-headed underwater serpent, a caiman, or a mixture of human and caiman characteristics. The reptile Itzamná, sometimes referred to by archaeologists as the Earth, Two-Headed, and/or Celestial Monster, is believed to represent what the Maya considered to be the reptilian structure of the universe. In drawings of Itzamná in the underworld, the God D takes the form of a skeletal representation of crocodiles.
The bird of the sky
One of Itzamná’s important manifestations is the Sky Bird, Itzam Yeh, a bird often depicted standing atop the World Tree. This bird is usually identified with Vucub Caquix, the mythical monster slain by the twin heroes Hunapuh and Xbalanque (A Hunter and a Jaguar Deer) in the stories found in the Popol Vuh.
The Sky Bird is more than just an associate of Kukulcan; he is his counterpart, both a separate entity who lives alongside Itzamná and sometimes the same being in transformed form.
