Votan
Encyclopedia
Votan is a legend
ary or mythological
figure mentioned in early European accounts of the Maya civilization
.
. According to Francisco Javier Clavijero
:
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. Additional information can be found in a 1786 publication by Antonio del Río
that cites the same sources as Clavigero and speculates at length on Votan's identity and travels to the Old World.
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." 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.
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):
In Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique Centrale (1857), Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
claimed Votan was an ancient Phoenicia
n 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.
, founders of the Latter Day Saint movement
. Smith reported having a vision in 1823 that eventually led him to the 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
.
(1882) by Ignatius L. Donnelly, titled "The God Odin, Woden, or Wotan", repeats Clavigero's reference in the context of speculation about Atlantis
and (following Brasseur de Bourbourg) also suggests that Votan built Palenque. Donnelly quotes Clavigero as saying that Votan "conducted seven families from Valum-Votan to this continent, and assigned lands to them", and implies that "Valum-Votan" may have been a reference to Atlantis
. 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. Votan has also been cited in the literature of Neo-Nazism
and white supremacy
that associates him with Quetzalcoatl
and Kukulcan and asserts that he was a bearded, white European who came to Mexico in Pre-Columbian
times. These interpretations are also considered to be problematic by recent Mayanist scholarship.
spiritual leader José Argüelles
to identify Pacal the Great
as “Pacal Votan” and to identify himself as an incarnation 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.
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), and his name was one of twenty day names in the Tzeltal calendar. 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.
honored by members of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
(EZLN). "Guardian and heart of the people is Votan-Zapata who is also the guardian and heart of the word. He, the man, the star with the five points who represents humanity, he. Today that we have spoken and listened, he is happy, the heart of Votan-Zapata is happy."
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
ary or mythological
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
figure mentioned in early European accounts of the Maya civilization
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
.
Origins of the Votan story
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 ChiapasChiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
. According to Francisco Javier Clavijero
Francisco Javier Clavijero
Francisco Javier Clavijero Echegaray , was a Novohispano Jesuit teacher, scholar and historian...
:
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.
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
Usumacinta River
The Usumacinta River is a river in southeastern Mexico and northwestern Guatemala. It is formed by the junction of the Pasión River, which arises in the Sierra de Santa Cruz and the Salinas River, also known as the Chixoy, or the Negro, which descends from the Sierra Madre de Guatemala...
that eventually extended across Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
and Soconusco
Soconusco
Soconusco is a region of the Mexican state of Chiapas, located in the extreme south of the state and separated from Guatemala by the Suchiate River. It is a region of rich lowlands and foothills. The economic center is Tapachula. Soconusco consists of 16 municipalities.The name comes from the...
to the Pacific Coast. Additional information can be found in a 1786 publication by Antonio del Río
Antonio del Río
Antonio del Río was a captain who led the first excavation of the Mayan ruins of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico. The expedition was undertaken in 1787 for Charles III of Spain, following reports of the ruins from native inhabitants. It took the team two weeks to dig, and it then spent three weeks...
that cites the same sources as Clavigero and speculates at length on Votan's identity and travels to the Old World.
Associations with the Old World
At a time when the origins of Pre-ColumbianPre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
cultures were poorly understood, these clerics associated Votan with the Biblical stories of the Tower of Babel
Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel , according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar .According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where...
and Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
, speculating that he had come to Mexico from the Old World
Old World
The Old World consists of those parts of the world known to classical antiquity and the European Middle Ages. It is used in the context of, and contrast with, the "New 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
Palenque
Palenque was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century. The Palenque ruins date back to 100 BC to its fall around 800 AD...
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
Tzeltal people
The Tzeltal people are the largest indigenous group mostly located in the highlands or Los Altos region of the Mexican state of Chiapas. They are one of many Mayan ethnic groups and they speak a a language which belongs to the Tzeltalan subgroup of Mayan languages...
, who, according to Ordoñez, had built Palenque. Fantastic details described Votan's four trips back to the Middle East." 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.
Assertion of a relationship between Votan and Odin is found in the work of the distinguished geographer Alexander von Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm 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 JonesWilliam Jones (philologist)Sir William Jones was an English philologist and scholar of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages...
, 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.
In Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique Centrale (1857), Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
Abbé Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg was a noted French writer, ethnographer, historian and archaeologist...
claimed Votan was an ancient Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
n legislateur who had migrated from the Middle East to the Maya area, defeated a race called the Quiname, built the city of Palenque
Palenque
Palenque was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century. The Palenque ruins date back to 100 BC to its fall around 800 AD...
, and established an empire called Xibalba
Xibalba
Xibalba , roughly translated as "place of fear", is the name of the underworld in Maya mythology, ruled by the Maya death gods and their helpers. In 16th-century Verapaz, the entrance to Xibalba was traditionally held to be a cave in the vicinity of Cobán, Guatemala. According to some of the...
that was postulated by Brasseur de Bourbourg to have once covered all of Mexico and part of the United States. Subsequent Mayanist
Mayanist
A Mayanist is a scholar specialising in research and study of the Central American pre-Columbian Maya civilization. This discipline should not be confused with Mayanism, a collection of New Age beliefs about the ancient Maya....
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
Extensive analysis of the story of Votan appeared as commentary on the work of Antonio del Río by Paul Felix Cabrera in 1822. Critics of the LDS church have claimed that Cabrera's work had a strong influence on Joseph Smith, Jr. and Oliver CowderyOliver Cowdery
Oliver H. P. Cowdery was, with Joseph Smith, Jr., an important participant in the formative period of the Latter Day Saint movement between 1829 and 1836, becoming one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon's golden plates, one of the first Latter Day Saint apostles, and the Second Elder of...
, founders of the Latter Day Saint movement
Latter Day Saint movement
The Latter Day Saint movement is a group of independent churches tracing their origin to a Christian primitivist movement founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. in the late 1820s. Collectively, these churches have over 14 million members...
. Smith reported having a vision in 1823 that eventually led him to the discovery of golden plates
Golden Plates
According to Latter Day Saint belief, the golden plates are the source from which Joseph Smith, Jr. translated the Book of Mormon, a sacred text of the faith...
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
Origin of the Book of Mormon
There are several theories as to the actual origin of the Book of Mormon. Most adherents to the Latter Day Saint movement view the book as a work of inspired scripture...
.
Similarity to Wotan
The similarity between the names Votan and Wotan has also been the source of much confusion. Chapter IV of Atlantis: The Antediluvian WorldAtlantis: The Antediluvian World
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World is a book published during 1882 by Minnesota populist politician Ignatius L. Donnelly, who was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during 1831...
(1882) by Ignatius L. Donnelly, titled "The God Odin, Woden, or Wotan", repeats Clavigero's reference in the context of speculation about Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
and (following Brasseur de Bourbourg) also suggests that Votan built Palenque. Donnelly quotes Clavigero as saying that Votan "conducted seven families from Valum-Votan to this continent, and assigned lands to them", and implies that "Valum-Votan" may have been a reference to Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
. The story of Votan was further associated with the Atlantis legend by Lewis Spence
Lewis Spence
James Lewis Thomas Chalmbers Spence was a Scottish journalist, whose efforts as a compiler of Scottish folklore have proved more durable than his efforts as a poet and occult scholar....
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. Votan has also been cited in the literature of Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or some variant thereof.The term neo-Nazism can also refer to the ideology of these movements....
and white supremacy
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
that associates him with Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...
and Kukulcan and asserts that he was a bearded, white European who came to Mexico in Pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
times. These interpretations are also considered to be problematic by recent Mayanist scholarship.
Pacal Votan
Associations of Votan with Palenque have led New AgeNew Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
spiritual leader José Argüelles
Jose Arguelles
Joseph Anthony Arguelles , better known as José Argüelles, was a world-renowned author, artist, visionary and educator. He was the founder of Planet Art Network and the Foundation for the Law of Time. He held a Ph.D...
to identify Pacal the Great
Pacal the Great
K'inich Janaab' Pakal was ruler of the Maya polity of Palenque in the Late Classic period of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican chronology...
as “Pacal Votan” and to identify himself as an incarnation 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
Maya script
The Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs or Maya hieroglyphs, is the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered...
known for the site.
Culture hero?
Culture hero
A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group who changes the world through invention or discovery...
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), and his name was one of twenty day names in the Tzeltal calendar. 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.
Votan Zapata
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 ZapataEmiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata Salazar was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, which broke out in 1910, and which was initially directed against the president Porfirio Díaz. He formed and commanded an important revolutionary force, the Liberation Army of the South, during the Mexican Revolution...
honored by members of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Zapatista Army of National Liberation
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is a revolutionary leftist group based in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico....
(EZLN). "Guardian and heart of the people is Votan-Zapata who is also the guardian and heart of the word. He, the man, the star with the five points who represents humanity, he. Today that we have spoken and listened, he is happy, the heart of Votan-Zapata is happy."