The supplied sources (Thompson as cited in the encyclopedia summary) do not provide a cosmogonic or narrative origin story for Acat. Instead, Acat is attested in lexical and functional terms: as a named divine specialist tied to the material implements and workspace of tattooing. J. Eric S. Thompson's discussion—reported in the encyclopedia entry—focuses on etymology and functional association rather than a mythic birth or narrative account.
No iconographic or physical description of Acat is attested in the cited sources (Thompson as reported in the encyclopedia summary; Wikipedia). The available references do not supply specific visual attributes, anthropomorphic form, or emblem for Acat.
According to the cited sources, Acat is said to bless the ink, needles, and work spaces used in tattooing and to steady the hands of the artists for better results (Thompson as reported in the encyclopedia summary/Wikipedia). The cultural context recorded in the sources holds that tattoos depicting gods could imbue a person with some of that god's power; within that framework Acat is functionally connected to enabling tattoos to have their intended ritual efficacy through care of implements and technique.
Ah Muzen Cab
Ah Muzen Cab is a Yucatán Maya divine figure associated with bees and honey, attested in summary sources as protector of Melipona bees and as a participant in Chilam Balam creation and ritual chapters. He is also linked in secondary accounts to the upside-down 'Descending' or 'Diving God' image found in Maya iconography at sites such as Tulum.
Akna
Akna is a female figure named in modern secondary sources as associated with childbirth and motherhood. The provided materials conflate brief mentions linking the name to both Maya and Inuit maternal goddesses; primary Maya iconographic or epigraphic evidence for a distinct Maya Akna is not supplied in the sources.
Alux (aluxoʼob)
The alux (plural aluxoʼob or aluxob) is a small, place-bound sprite or spirit in Maya tradition of the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize, and Guatemala, conceived as knee-high, miniature, traditionally dressed Maya-like beings created by ancient gods and normally unseen but able to assume physical form to communicate or frighten humans.
Anteater (tradition)
In the provided sources, 'Anteater' refers to the real-world mammals of the suborder Vermilingua and to modern cultural/technical items named after that animal (games, software, student media). There is no documentation in these materials of an anteater as a supernatural entity within a traditional cosmology.
Awilix
Awilix is a principal deity of the Postclassic Kʼicheʼ Maya centered at Qʼumarkaj, serving as a lunar and night-associated patron of the Nijaʼibʼ lineage. The deity is linked with the moon, night, the Underworld, sickness and death, and is a patron of the Mesoamerican ballgame; sources record both feminine and possibly masculine identifications.
Bacab
In Yucatec Maya tradition the Bacab are a fourfold office of aged interior-earth deities who stand at the four cardinal points as holders of the world, associated with subterranean waters, thunder, rain, calendrical Year Bearer days, divination, and curing rituals.
Balam
Balam is a name that appears in modern secondary demonological compilations and in English-language reference listings as a demon-name; the supplied sources do not provide primary traditional descriptions, rites, or a sustained cosmology for a demon called Balam. The same lexical form (B'alam/Bahlam) is also a Maya-language word meaning 'jaguar' and occurs widely in Maya personal and place names, a distinct and unrelated usage.
Camazotz
Camazotz is a bat-associated spirit in Late Post‑Classic Kʼicheʼ Maya narrative (notably the Popol Vuh) and a recurring bat motif in Classic Maya iconography. In the Popol Vuh Camazotz appears as bat-like beings serving the lords of Xibalba who attack the Hero Twins; Classic imagery links leaf‑nosed bats to night, death, disease, and nahual (way‑spirit) functions.
Chaac
Chaac is the Maya god of rain, thunder, and lightning, a central agricultural deity who produces storms by striking clouds with a lightning axe. He appears as both a singular figure and as multiple directional Chaacs, is associated with subterranean waters (cenotes and caves), and is the focus of communal rain-request rituals and specialist rainmaker practices.
Chahk (Chac) — Classic Maya palace deity/manifestation
A Classic Maya divine figure depicted in late 8th-century palace art and associated with elite ritual contexts. In the provided sources the figure appears as a small, held effigy described as “a god of royalty,” notable for a serpent leg, grotesque head, and a smoking torch on its brow; textual references on the panel refer to an undefined ritual completed in 795.
Chaneque
Chaneques are small, place-bound sprite-like beings in Mexican and wider Mesoamerican folklore, described as owners or inhabitants of particular dangerous places and as guardians of nature and households. Traditions portray them ambivalently: they may protect harvests and homes when propitiated, yet can mislead travelers, displace souls, cause illness, or physically harass people in some accounts.
Chin
Chin is a named male numinous figure attested in colonial-era Spanish descriptions of certain Maya groups (notably Verapaz and reports from the Itzá) as having demonstrated sexual intercourse with other male deities and humans; his actions are cited etiologically in those sources as a precedent for regulated same-sex practices in some Maya communities. The surviving extracts do not present Chin with a full cult biography, ritual prescriptions, or iconographic identification in primary indigenous texts.
Community Record
- [1]Acat (deity) — Wikipedia. Wikipedia contributors, 'Acat (deity),' Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.wiki
- [2]Acat (deity) — Wikipedia (alternate). Wikipedia contributors, 'Acat (deity),' Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.wiki
- [3]ACAT - the Maya God of Body Art (Godchecker summary). Godchecker entry 'ACAT - the Maya God of Body Art'.other
