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Chac-Mool
A representation of the Maya rain- and sky-god in a reclining position, while
holding a bowl over his navel, usually in the medium of sacred statuary. As visitors
ascend the grand staircase to the Temple of the Warriors, at Chichen Itza, in
Yucatan, they come face to face with the life-size statue of a chac-mool resting at
the top. Nearby, inside the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, they climb a rising
passageway that terminates at the center of the structure in a chamber containing
another life-size chac-mool, extraordinary for its blue eyes. This racial anomaly,
together with the bearded, Atlas-like figures carved in the walls of the shrine
just above, identify the chac-mool as an Atlantean concept—and a particularly
important one it is, too. The manner in which the chac-mool at the Pyramid of
the Feathered Serpent is holding a bowl over its stomach and its position at the
center of the building define an early mystery cult in Atlantis.
(See Navel of the World)Chalchiuhtlicue
The Aztec goddess who changed victims of the Great Flood into fish. The same
transformation appears in the deluge myths of the Babylonians and American
Lakota Sioux. Chalchiuhtlicue was honored during an annual ceremony in which
priests collected reeds, dried them out, then placed them inside her shrine. The
reeds symbolized wisdom, as writing utensils, but also “the Place of Reeds,” Aztlan,
her overseas’ homeland. Temple art represented Chalchiuhtlicue seated on a
throne, around which men and women were shown drowning in huge whirlpools.
Her name, “Our Lady of the Turquoise Skirt,” refers to the feminine Atlantis,
the “Daughter of Atlas,” in the midst of the sea. Chalchiuhtlicue’s myth is a self-
evident evocation of the natural catastrophe.
(See Aztlan, Sekhet-aaru)Chief Mountain
Located in northern Montana, Chief Mountain is especially revered by North
America’s Blackfoot tribes, who believe its summit alone stood above the waters
of the Great Flood, which rose to drown the rest of the world in the deeply
ancient past. Shamans ascend its slopes to annually commemorate the escape of a
single survivor, who later became the first ancestral chief of the Blackfoot, after
marrying a Star Maiden sent from the Great Spirit.
(See Nowah’wus)Chien-Mu
Described in the Chou-li, an ancient Chinese book of rites, as a place where
Earth and sky met at the cosmic axis. Here, time and space became irrelevant, the