Photo: Joel Skidmore

Chichen Itza archaeologist Peter Schmidt described one of the reliefs in the exhibition catalog of which he was the co-editor (Schmidt et al. 1998: 532, fig. 67). According to Schmidt, the figure is a dancer who holds "what seems to be a two-sectioned hand drum like that of Nabalam." He wears a cord belt and pendants similar to those of the supernatural beings called Pawahtuns who were believed to uphold the four corners of the universe. Schmidt describes the object in the figure's right hand: The scepter represents an ideal transition between serpent scepters and those of the foot of the god Bolon Dzacab of the Classic Maya, and the fan with the serpent foot carried by the ancestral lineage of the Xiu in one of the first colonial documents in Yucatán. Schmidt identifies cacao fruits among what appear to be grains, fruit, jewels and feathers surrounding the figure. He notes that cacao also appears together with the mythological birds, ninety-six in number, that adorn the upper levels of the Osario. Their faces are those of God K, the serpent-footed deity.