Ek Chuaj, the name means the Black One, is the Maya god known to scholars as God M in the codices, the patron of merchants and of the cacao that was both a prized trade good and, in the form of cacao beans, a currency across Mesoamerica. He is painted black, has a distinctive drooping lower lip and a long, downturned nose, and carries a bundle of goods slung on a tumpline, the carrying-strap passed across the forehead, which identifies him unmistakably as a long-distance trader, for it was on the backs of human porters that the goods of the Maya world moved along the trade routes. He is sometimes shown with a spear, and as a traveller he was the deity to whom merchants on the road prayed for safety and for profit, setting up offerings and burning incense at the ends of the day's journey. His connection with cacao, grown in particular regions and traded widely, and central to both economy and ritual, ties him to one of the most valued commodities of Mesoamerica.
Ek Chuaj is a good example of the way the Maya, like other Mesoamerican peoples, had gods for the practical domains of life, including commerce and the dangerous, essential work of the travelling trader. Known chiefly from the surviving codices and from the colonial-period accounts, he embodies the merchant's world, the road, the pack, the cacao, and the hope of a safe return with a profit.