Seibal 13
The Serpent That Is Not a Serpent
But Like a Serpent

In his book, Maya: The Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization Charles Gallenkamp stated that Seibal, together with such places as Uxmal, Labná, Sayil, and Cobá suddenly became small ceremonial centers about the year 850 and died out in less than 100 years. During this short period, there were foreign buildings, monuments and pottery created. Apparently this location was meant to be a large site. The foreigners were known as the Putun lords. They were thought to be from Tula or Tollán. Just as in the Bodley and Nuttall Codices, the lords of Seibal and the other small cities went to Tollán to receive the insignia of royalty. What purpose could these Maya cities have had to those in Tula?

At Seibal, Stela 13 has an imposing design. Serpent forms are on the apron, front and back and as a belt

³ Seibal Stela 13

The fangs of this snake-like figure are too long and too curved for a normal serpent mouth configuration. It has always been believed that it was just over-stated tooth forms since the jaws of any serpent actually unhinge to accommodate any overly large victim and the fangs do indeed curve backwards to prevent the escape of an active fighting dinner. Could this be the Hapay Can, "sucking snake" of the Maya pantheon mentioned by J. Eric Thompson. (p. 137)

However, in the Nuttall Codex, in one particular panel, there is a feather mantle (earth cover) with a dog, blood pouring out of his midsection who is leaning backwards. Under this black and white dog is a knotted eyeless open-mouthed (red mouth/white teeth area) entity. It appears to be a rope with a frayed end. In other frames of the Codex, The same image appears to be only a twisted strands of grass for the sacrifice. But the red/white area at the end does not have the same appearance as the ragged rope. The knotted straw has several roots visible at the tail end. The twisted grass knot which does not have the red and white band at the end, may be a later symbolic representation of the marshland hag fish not present after the marshes dried up in certain areas or in the dry highlands.

It was not until last year when I went to Delaware to visit my sister, I came across a picture of a fish that I could identify with the above forms. The picture had a clear drawing of the curved teeth, blind eyes and the knotted body which the fish uses to push itself into the interior cavity of the victim it is in the process of devouring. The name of this creature was "hag fish."

The hag fish itself is a slimy eel-like creature of marshlands. It has long fanged teeth that surround a circular jawless mouth opening. When it attaches itself to its victim with these fangs, it immediately knots its body and uses that knot to push itself into the host as it devours the innards. I had nothing to confirm this conclusion until the Delaware visit confirmed that symbolism.

After I had researched the hag fish, I reasoned that if the riflemen of Bloody Mary, the English Queen, were called "hagmen", it had to be because the crude balls shot from these early muskets bored holes into their targets. The concept of boring a hole could also be true in the Nuttall. There Xolotl, with his foot in the maw of the earth, dies but no knife is visible.

The concept of a drilling/devouring raptor, agrees with this version of Xolotl, the gutted dog on the feather plain. He did not "enter" the underworld as a being, he died to enter that world. For this reason, he was identified with a "name" glyph of a bleeding Eagle Head. (p. 17) The image of a bleeding (decapitated) eagle head appears to be equated with the comet flying overhead that lost its flaming head as several meteorites. Xolotl himself was the twin of Quetzalcoatl, a sun serpent of the sky. Around the world, this fallen element of a meteorite has been identified as the bleeding genitals of Kronos; Zeus's lightning, or Thor's hammer. There are also several "gods" who fell from the sky; such as Hephaestus, who became lame from the fall or Osiris, who was cut up and thrown into the Nile River. These fallen pieces of the meteorite are perfect examples of hag fish. As they fell earthwards, they bored into the innards of the mountains, the lakes, and the marshes.

Without the visible parts that dug deep into the earth, Maya/Aztec lore created other symbols to explain this "god" event: the jewel eyed bird head can be identified with the feathered (fire) ball of the Huitzilopochtli birth story. At this point, Xolotl as the twin of the Sun God, changed his avatar image and became Huitzilopochtli, who impregnated Coatlicue his mother. But in order to reach the maw of the earth he had to pass through the water of the lake which was a reflector of the Moon. Coatlicue, as the earth Goddess then is a part of the serpent mountain from which Huitzilopochtli emerged. Yet the rest of his story claims that Huitzilopochtli actually was born of his "mother" the Moon Goddess.

Since Huitzilopochtli's sole purpose was to protect the Moon it can be proposed that the Moon Goddess and Coatlicue are two elements of the same area: one is the maw of the earth (probably the drain at Pantitlán) and the other, Lake Texcoco lying on top of this earth form. It is in this manner thst Mother Moon can be the orb in the heavens reflected on earth through the means of Lake Texcoco. The Nuttall Codex indicates that the Maw was located at the site of Xlatelolco (the Heart of the Rat [Bone]) (or Tlatelolco, [the same city with different first letter.)

{Noriega, La Despedida, p. 8)

There the government usurped this power center and eventually built its own temple to Huitzilopochtli in Tenochititlán ..

The belt found on Stela 13 used the mouth of the hag fish. The head was attached to the body of a normal serpent. It made no sense whatsoever until the creation story was explained during the seminar by Linda Schele and her co-lecturer Matthew Looper at the Twentieth Maya Hieroglyphic Forum held in 1996 at the University of Texas at Austin. During the lectures, it was declared that the stairs at Copan had both Maya and Teotihuacán glyphs side by side. The presence of Teotihuacán architecture in the same area was acknowledged.

I remembered the long-fanged serpent from my glyph lessons with Linda and in the Quiriguá/Copan glyphs one such glyph is one of those used for the second of the three stones of creation. This group also contained the glyph for the North Star and bundled earth (as folded lengths of cloth) together with sacred (sparkling ?) water. In this small segment of Maya writing, a northern origin of the long-fanged serpent is confirmed.

Then what could the reason be for a hag-fish symbolism being used for a ruler monument. Research into the Aztec/Mixtec government procedures indicate that one method the Northern tribes took over neighboring areas, was through bribery and/or infiltration of the area. There is no dating of this procedure except on Seibal Stela 13, and the main evidence is the written record of Hernan de Cortés. Those sent by the Central Plateau (Tula or Tollán) infiltrated the areas to be conquered. What better symbol to illustrate the destruction of a struggling government than the image of a hag fish.

But in the creation glyphs there were three forms. One that of a serpent; the second, that of the hag fish; and third, that of a fanged head with catfish barbels. The serpent as a war image is correct: a serpent usually gives a warning, then strikes quickly. The hag fish implies espionage; while the catfish with fang and barbel is an image which infers a government which cleans up the refuse (of war).

When the northern spy/traitor attached himself to a prospective locale, he immediately began to push himself into public offices as if to aid the people as he deliberately undermined the government. When all was ready, it would have been a simple matter of assuming the role of chieftain and using the hag fish as a symbol of how he obtained his position. If he was part of the Tula/Tollán CIA of the north, Stela 13 portrays this last aspect perfectly.