The name _Pahahtun_ is of difficult derivation, but it probably means “stone, or pillar, set up or erected,” and this tallies quite exactly with a long description of the ancient rites connected with the worship of these important divinities in the old times. There are some discrepancies in the colors assigned the different points of the compass, but this appears to have varied considerably among the Central American nations, though many of them united in having some such symbolism. A curious study of it has been made by the well-known archæologist, the Count de Charencey.[193] The invocation to these four points of the compass in its modern form was fortunately obtained and preserved in the original tongue by that indefatigable student, the late Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, while on a visit to the plantation of Xcanchakan, in the interior of Yucatan.[194] The translation of it runs as follows:— “At the rising of the Sun, Lord of the East, my word goes forth to the four corners of the heaven, to the four corners of the earth, in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. “When the clouds rise in the east, when he comes who sets in order the thirteen forms of the clouds, the yellow lord of the hurricane, the hope of the lords to come, he who rules the preparation of the divine liquor, he who loves the guardian spirits of the fields, then I pray to him for his precious favor; for I trust all in the hands of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.” Such is an example of the strange mixture of heathen and Christian superstition which has been the outcome of three centuries of so-called Christian instruction! There still continue to be relics of an ancient form of fire-worship which once prevailed commonly throughout the peninsula. The missionaries refer to it as “the festival of fire,”[195] but the exact rites performed were so carefully concealed that we have no description of them. That they are not yet out of date is apparent from a copy of a native calendar for 1841–2, obtained by Mr. Stephens when in Yucatan. In it the days are marked as lucky or unlucky, and against certain ones such entries are made as “now the burner lights his fire,” “the burner gives his fire scope,” “the burner takes his fire,” “the burner puts out his fire.” This burner, _ah toc_, is the modern representative of the ancient priest of the fire, and we find a few obscure references to an important rite, the _tupp kak_, extinction of the fire, which was kept up long after the conquest, and probably is still celebrated in the remoter villages. The sacred fire in ancient Maya land is said to have been guarded by chosen virgins, and it appears in some way to have been identified with the force which gives life to the animal and vegetable world.