Ah Puch

The Yucatec god of death is known under several names, chiefly Ah Puch, Kisin ('the stinking one'), and Yum Cimil ('Lord of Death'), and rules Mitnal, the lowest and most dreadful stratum of the nine-layered underworld, described by Landa as a place of hunger, cold, weariness, and grief. He corresponds to God A of the codices, portrayed as a skeleton or a swollen, black-spotted corpse, girdled with death-eyes and bells, and associated with the owl, the dog, and the stench of decay. His name Kisin, from the Yucatec word for flatulence and stench, evokes the rot of the grave. In the codices he stalks the young maize god, and the manuscripts pair his malignant death-days against the life-giving days of the benevolent gods.

Domains

• death
• underworld
• disease

Powers

• rule over the dead in Mitnal

Epithets

• Yum Cimil — Lord of DeathJ. Eric S. Thompson, Maya History and Religion (1970) (secondary)
• Kisin — the flatulent / stinking oneMary Miller & Karl Taube, An Illustrated Dictionary (1993), pp. 61, 76 (secondary)

Sources

• The Yucatec death god, called Ah Puch, Kisin, or Yum Cimil, rules the underworld Mitnal and corresponds to codical God A, depicted as a skeletal or bloated corpse-figure hung with bells.: Landa, Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, trans. Tozzer (1941) (primary); Karl Taube, The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan (1992), pp. 11-17 (secondary)
• Landa names Mitnal as the lowest level of the underworld, a place of torment ruled by the demon Hunhau.: Landa, Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, trans. Tozzer (1941) (primary)