Jaguar at the Portal
Page 22
And, no, there isn't any evidence to suggest that the Olmecs traveled north to hang out with the Native Americans in what is now Ohio and West Virginia. However, Adena moundbuilders were roughly contemporaneous with the Olmecs, so it's possible that a very adventurous Olmec might have made the journey north from Mexico in order to be involved in the construction of one of the Adena mounds. Once again, I'm playing very fast and loose with history here. But around the time Aztecs ruled over Central America, maize (corn) made the same journey to transform the lifestyle of people in eastern North America. And archaeologists have found art buried in Adena mounds that suggests people of that time had beliefs revolving around the transformation of humans into birds, wolves, bears, and deer.
Moving on to more modern flights of fancy, Ixchel (or more commonly Itzel) is a common girl's name in Mexico today. On the other hand, I'm playing fast and loose with history once again by supposing that Ixchel was Tezcatlipoca's sister god since the jaguar goddess was worshiped by the Mayans rather than the Aztecs. However, if you accept that an Olmec jaguar god might have given rise to the Aztec Tezcatlipoca, it's not that much of a stretch to think that Ixchel may have been around during Olmec times as well.
As for cenotes, these sinkholes are very real and are a tourist attraction in modern-day Mexico. The Yucatan peninsula overlays a tremendous cave system, with the result that most streams quickly sink down into the ground to join seawater-filled cavities tapping into the nearby ocean. When cave roofs collapsed and created holes between the earthen world above and the watery world below, these cenotes gave native people access to fresh rainwater, which just happens to float atop the salty liquid further beneath their feet. No wonder cenotes were sacred to native people, with Mayans believing that the holes were doorways to the underworld. As Ixchel read in her guidebook, sacrificial pottery, animals, and even humans were tossed into the watery depths as offerings, and skeletons have been found at the bottom of many cenotes in the Yucatan.
I hope my mixing and matching of pre-Columbian history and mythology has intrigued you rather than annoyed you. Thanks for bearing with me as I combined Olmec, Adena, Aztec, and Mayan cultures into one.