Chin

Colonial-era Spanish observers (notably Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas as summarized in later accounts) record Chin among a group of named male divine persons whose sexual intercourse with other male deities and humans was said to establish or justify particular social practices. One quoted colonial summary states: "From that time on some fathers gave their sons a little boy to be used as a woman; and if someone else took the boy, they demanded pay as is done when someone violates another's wife," attributing the precedent for regulated same-sex relationships to the actions of Chin and other named figures. The supplied materials do not include an indigenous-language origin myth text or a direct indigenous account of Chin; the narrative is mediated through Spanish ethnographic reports.

No primary description or iconographic identification of Chin is provided in the supplied sources. The extracts explicitly note a lack of physical description for Chin. Archaeological imagery from the Classic Period—such as a Naj Tunich cave scene showing a naked, sexually excited male embracing a nude Maya nobleman—is thematically related to same-sex erotic representation in ritual contexts, but the sources do not identify that or other images as depictions of Chin.

The available sources attribute only one specific behavior to Chin: he is reported to have engaged in sexual intercourse with other male deities and humans. This action is presented etiologically—used by colonial observers to explain institutionalized same-sex practices among certain Maya groups. The extracts do not ascribe other powers, functions (e.g., fertility, weather, warfare), or explicit magical capacities to Chin, nor do they describe him as a possessing or harmful spirit in the provided materials.