W: Wai-ta-hanui to Wotan 293
Wo t a n
His name derived from the German wut, “to rage,” which defined his iden-
tification with the dynamic forces of creation and destruction over which he had
almost complete control. Also known as Odin,Wodan,Vodan, and Votan to the
Germanic peoples of Northern Europe since deeply prehistoric times, he was
chief deity of Asgaard, the abode of the gods in the Norse pantheon. He was also
the great culture-creator and culture-bearer, who invented the civilizing gifts of
poetry, literacy, wisdom, the arts, law, and medicine and brought them to mankind.
Sometimes he appeared among mortals dressed in the great cloak and broad-
brimmed hat of a traveler, his spear made to resemble a walking stick. At such
times, he was the Wanderer, who roamed the world. He was known as the most
potent sorcerer. Secret magic enabled his godhood and brought supernatural
power to anyone with whom he shared some of his runic mysteries. In the cyclical
myth of Ragnarok, the “Breaking of the Gods,” Wotan perishes or disappears in a
worldwide conflagration extinguished by a universal flood. Eventually, the cycle
begins all over again.
The West Africans of Dahomey still worship Vodun, a powerful sorcerer who
brought their ancestors great wealth and wisdom from over the waves, but soon
after returned to his palace at the bottom of the sea. Before he departed, he
confided his wisdom to a secret spiritual society of select initiates. In his honor,
they named the cult vodu, which signifies various deities called upon in their ecstatic
rituals. The Gold Coast was the main source for black slavery, so when the enslaved
cultists arrived in the New World, their vodu beliefs went with them, and thrive
today in the “voodoo” magic of the Caribbean.
Directly across the Atlantic from West Africa, the Quiche Mayas of Mexico’s
Lowland Yucatan region venerated the memory of Votan, a tall, bearded, fair-
skinned, light-haired man-god. He landed at Laguna de Terminos with his family
and followers from the East in a great ship, then built the first stone cities in
Yucatan, taught written language to the Mayas’ ancestors, and instituted the sciences
of astronomy, medicine, and government.
Nunez de la Vega, the Bishop of colonial Yucatan in 1691, made a deep study of
the Quiche Mayas’ religion, all the better to convert them to Christianity. He learned
more about the mythic Votan than any Spaniard before or since, and was so impressed
with the legend’s historical credibility, he concluded the ancient culture-bearer had
been a son of Noah! When his native informants recounted that Votan knew of “a
great wall that reached to the sky,” de la Vega assumed it must have been the
Tower of Babel. But he realized that a biblical interpretation of the foreign hero
did not entirely mesh with the Indians’ story.
Among Votan’s titles was, according to the Bishop, “El Corazon de los Pueblos,”
meaning “the Heart of the Cities.” After the Deluge and his subsequent arrival
on the shores of Yucatan, he was said to have recorded details of the catastrophe,
his survival, and prophesies for the Fifth Age following the Flood on a deer hide
hidden in a sacred cave. Later, he went to the city of Palenque, where he tran-
scribed this information onto golden sheets, which were dispatched to the great