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Stela 6 - The Lost World:
Jaguar or Elephant Seal

Izapa is small archaeological Maya site outside of the puebla called Tapachula, about 80 km from the Guatemala border. In 1976, A. V. Norman from the Brigham University of Utah, produced a complete photographic survey of this site. His photos are compiled in a set of books called: Izapa Sculpture: Album, and Izapa Sculpture: Text. The information that I have gleaned from the texts about these monuments was accurate for their era. However, new information has become available and from it came new definitions. On this Web site, three of these monuments have been defined in Hands at Izapa and Izapa Stela 2. These definitions that I have set out have a different perspective than those accepted.

This perspective is based on visual symbols found in Mixtec, Aztec and Maya glyph texts. It also combines the two other elements normally used in scholarship, that of the written word found in the myths of Meso-America, and the actual flora and fauna (plants and animals) found in the area.

Stela 6, that of the Obese Jaguar is the subject of this page. Although Maya glyphs were well known in 1972, it was still an "young" discipline. The Jaguar of the Underworld was one of the most important figures in Maya iconography. A. V. Norman decided it was an obese composite zoological deity impersonator which controlled a human figure in a U symbol (a boat?) above its open mouth.

The rest of the description read as follows: pitted cape around the neck; rain cloud scrolls behind cape. A small fish fin is attached to the upper scroll. rain bands fall from lower one; there is a blind mask at tail. This animal has typical nostril and upper lip like left-hand sky serpent. Since the jaguar is the symbol of night sun and obesity is birth concept, the proposed identification of animal was that of an obese jaguar,

The photograph of the monument shows a very distinctive puffy or fatty area around the long nose. This fatty tissue around a long proboscis (nose)

is actually that of the male elephant seal. Of all the seals in the Oceans, the elephant seal is almost unique. It roams the Pacific from Tierra del Fuego of South America to Baja California, Mexico where it breeds among its harem of females.

The photographs alone identify this particular stela.

The pitted cape mentioned the author is clearly shown in a front view of the seal. Hands and Feet are just part of the Maya design elements that tell us that these sea mammals came to shore during great storms (indicated by the storm scrolls and fish on its back). There is NO connection to a jaguar element at all. The sounds of the elephants seals are similar to the barking of dogs. It is for this reason that they were, at times, called "dogs of the sea."

The monuments of Izapa are lost to us. Monuments in situ become more weathered and worn every year. What was clear when Mr. Norman photographed them is no longer visible. One does not know if this site has important artifacts, or whether the location was just a stopping off place for merchants who were going south.

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Matthew Sterling 1943, b. 65, pl. 50B, Stone Monuments of South Mexico, Bulletin 138; Susanne Miles, 1965, 251,
Sculpture of Guatemala, Chiagpas Highlands and Pacific Slopes and Associated Hieroglyphic Handbook Middle-American Indians , Vol. 2, pp. 237-275.

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