Editing Ixtab

{{Short description|Yucatec Maya goddess of suicide}}
{{Infobox deity
| type = Mayan
| image = file:Ixtab.jpg
| caption = Image from the [[Dresden Codex]] which may be a depiction of Ixtab.
}}

At the time of the [[Spanish conquest of Yucatán]] (1527–1546), '''Ix Tab''' or '''Ixtab''' ([iʃˈtaɓ]; "Rope Woman", "Hangwoman") was the indigenous [[Maya gods|Maya goddess]] of [[suicide by hanging]]. Playing the role of a [[psychopomp]], she would accompany such suicides to [[heaven]].

== Sources ==
The only description of the goddess occurs in the [[Relación de las cosas de Yucatán|''Relación'']] of the 16th-century Spanish inquisitor [[Diego de Landa]]:<ref>Tozzer 1941: 132, slightly adapted</ref>

{{quote|They said also and held it as absolutely certain that those who hanged themselves went to this heaven of theirs; and on this account, there were many persons who on slight occasions of sorrows, troubles or sickness, hanged themselves in order to escape these things and to go and rest in their heaven [''gloria''], where they said that the goddess of the gallows [''la diosa de la horca''], whom they called Ix Tab, would bring them.<ref>Landa: "los venía a llevar," Tozzer: "came to fetch them."</ref>}}

Beyond this description, there is only a very brief and somewhat obscure mention of Ix Tab in the Book of [[Chilam Balam]] of Tizimin and in the Pérez Codex, in a context of chaos, suffering, and hangings: "They suspended Ix Tab from their hands", or, alternatively, "Ix Tab suspended them from her hands".<ref>Reyes-Foster and Kangas 2016: 9</ref>

== Comparisons ==
''Ix Tab'' is the female form of ''ah tab'', "hangman".<ref>Ciudad Real 2001: 55</ref> The function of Ix Tab as a benevolent "hangwoman" could derive from a basic association with snares.<ref>cf. Reyes-Foster and Kangas 2016: 19-20</ref> Landa (Tozzer 1941: 155) mentions the hunting deity [''Ah''] ''Tabay'' ("Ensnarer" or "Deceiver"), possibly a patron of hunting with snares, including such that hoist the prey into the air. Animals hoisted by such snares are found depicted in the Dresden and Madrid codices, the Madrid codex (MC45c) personifying one of these traps by a male hunting deity. Ix Tab could be understood as a specialized, female form of such a deity, luring the human quarry into the hanging rope personified by her. Suicides freely putting their heads into this "snare" (prompted, perhaps, by a dream) could then be seen to consecrate themselves to her. On the other hand, the [[Xtabay]] of contemporary folklore is a seductive female demon "ensnaring" or "deceiving" her male human preys so as to madden and destroy them.<ref>Thompson 1970: 309</ref>

== Dresden Codex ==
The [[Dresden Codex]] picture (DC53b) of a dead woman with a rope around the neck, suspended from a celestial bar, is often, and without further proof, taken to represent Ix Tab. However, since the picture occurs in a section devoted to eclipses of sun and moon,<ref>Thompson 1972: 71-77</ref> it may rather have been used to symbolize a lunar eclipse and its dire consequences for women, who were intimately associated with the moon goddess.

== As possible fabrication ==
It has been claimed that the Pre-Spanish Maya did not have a suicide goddess, or a significant narrative of suicide by hanging.<ref>Reyes-Foster and Kangas 2016</ref> Originally, Ix Tab may only have been a hunting goddess (see above, [[Ixtab#Comparisons|Comparisons]]).<ref>Reyes-Foster and Kangas 2016: 19</ref> Today, the sensationalist idea of a "cult of Ix Tab" appears to be invoked by popular Yucatecan media to portray suicide as an indigenous problem, given that Yucatán has a suicide rate more than twice that of Mexico at large.<ref>Reyes-Foster and Kangas 2020: 5-6</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Death deity]]
* [[Fakelore]]
* [[Religious views on suicide]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
* Ciudad Real, Antonio de, ''Calepino maya de Motul''. Edited by René Acuña. Plaza y Valdés 2001.
* Reyes-Foster, Beatriz M., and Rachael Kangas, “Unraveling Ix Tab: Revisiting the “Suicide Goddess” in Maya Archaeology”. ''Ethnohistory'' 63-1 (2016):1-27. 
* J.E.S. Thompson, ''Maya History and Religion''. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1970.
* J.E.S. Thompson, ''A Commentary on the Dresden Codex''. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia 1972.
* [[Alfred M. Tozzer]], ''Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán. A Translation''. Peabody Museum, Cambridge MA 1941.

{{Maya}}

[[Category:Maya goddesses]]
[[Category:Hunting goddesses]]
[[Category:Maya mythology and religion]]
[[Category:Religion and suicide]]
[[Category:Suicide by hanging]]
[[Category:Death goddesses]]
[[Category:Psychopomps]]
[[Category:History of suicide]]