From Mayan Folklore
[Editor’s Note: Mam is Mayan for Grandfather, an honorific title given to a category of gods, usually referencing four gods particularly known by that title, which can also be taken as a single god at times, as in this story. It is possible here that the “boy” sent to fetch the man was originally a dwarf, as that was historically a more common was of getting in touch with the gods.]
Once there was a man who never burnt copal or prayed to the Mam when he went out hunting. He was a bad shot, and many of the animals at which he shot ran off wounded. Mam was vexed about this, so he sent a boy to summon the man to his presence. The boy found the hunter in the forest and made him shut his eyes. When he opened them again, he found himself in the presence of the Mam. The Mam asked him why he wounded so many of his animals and did not burn copal or pray to him. The man said that he knew no better. As a punishment the Mam made the man live there with him and tend to the sick and wounded animals. Where the Mam lives in the middle of a mountain, there are a number of pens in which the wild animals are kept. There is one pen for the small deer, another for the large deer, and yet another for the peccary. In short there is a special pen for every kind of wild animals.
One day while the man was there, curing the sick animals, two other humans were brought up to Mam for not having burnt copal. The Mam kept them there in his house during the night. Early the next morning he took all three of them and showed them a hunter on earth who was offering copal to the Morning Star and the Mam. In this manner they learnt what they must do to get plenty of game. When they had learnt, the Mam sent the two back to the world, but first he asked them what game they wanted. Then the Mam sent the third man to the pens and told him to release two peccaries and three curassows. As soon as the two men got back to earth and opened their eyes, they saw the two peccaries and the three curassows, and shot them. The other man remained with the Mam, curing the sick and wounded animals.
The Mam taught him how to pray and burn copal. First, he must pray to the Morning Star as it comes up above the horizon; for the Morning Star, Xulab, is the owner of all the animals. Further, when the man goes to the forest, he must again pray and burn copal to the Mam; for the Mam look after all the animals for the Morning Star. The Mam taught the man how to work a milpa, for before this the man had not known how. The Mam also taught him how to pray and burn copal so that he might get a good crop. The man tired of living with the Mam, and wanted to go back to earth and his family. The Mam wanted him to stay, but the man was so anxious to go home that the Mam consented. However, before the man went, the Mam gave him the seed of all the plants he wanted to sow, beans, maize, cassava, and others. When the man got back to earth, he remembered all that the Mam had taught him, and consequently his milpa always yielded abundantly, Whenever he went out to shoot, he always got plenty of game as he knew exactly how to pray and burn copal.
Source:
Ethnology of the Mayas of Southern and Central British Honduras, J. Eric Thompson, 1930
Kotharian Lightning 