The Fundamental Principles Of Old And New World Civilizations (part 2)

A very simple explanation of the reason why artificial deformation of the skull was ever adopted, is obtainable when the all-powerful dominion of a certain set of ideas is recognized. Many other customs, still in practice amongst American tribes, are likewise explained by the arbitrary division of population into classes and categories. The Peruvian custom of bestowing one name upon a child when it was one year old and another when it attained maturity is the direct outcome of the classification of individuals by age. The ceremonial observances which accompanied the bestowal of these names were accompanied by a change of costume which constituted the official enrolment or advancement into another class. The existence of further systematic class-distinctions [pg 144] is proven by the description of the picturesque ceremony performed in the month of August at Cuzco and called “the driving out of sickness.” In the centre of the great square around the urn of gold which typified the “central fountain” (precisely the idea expressed by the name of Mexico), four hundred warriors assembled. One hundred, representing one of the four ayllus, faced towards each cardinal point and subsequently ran at full speed in its direction, crying “Go forth all evils!”

We have now traced the idea of the Above and Below, Centre and Four Quarters in Ancient Peru. It remains to be noted that the capital itself, which was to be the image of the whole empire, was primarily divided into two halves and four quarters, and subdivided into 4×3=12 wards the names of which doubtlessly corresponded with that of their inhabitants. When the sacred centre of the capital is added to these it is clear that the City of Cuzco was subdivided into as many parts as there were directions in space, i. e. 13. It exemplified, therefore, an association of 2×10=20 categories of people classified according to ages, with thirteen directions in space, and a general subdivision of all classes into four parts. The Inca with the four Capacs and the Coya with the four Camayocs formed two groups of five each, which could well have been represented by a large central figure surrounded by four smaller ones of equal size. By coloring these with red, yellow, black and white, their assignment to the cardinal point could have been expressed. The central figure could be painted in four colors, for only the Inca and his lineage could wear many-colored garments, these being indicative that they represented the centre or union of the four quarters.

Two important features of the system remain to be discussed: We have studied the minute and methodical classification of the entire population into distinct groups without touching upon the practical reasons why this was done. We have analyzed the great machinery of the Inca dominion as it lies broken and motionless. But endow the giant wheel with motion, introduce systematical rotation into its every part, regulate the occupations of the people by a fixed series of work-days and holidays. Send them forth to their work and collect the products of their labor at set intervals, institute a calendar, and you will have set the machinery of state in motion and realized how the classification of individuals according to rank, ages, and occupations was absolutely necessary in order to [pg 145] obtain a successful and harmonious result. It has already been shown that the institution of the calendar and establishment of twelve festival periods of thirty days each, in a year, succeeded the division of the people into groups and their assignment to fixed places of abode.

“They commenced to count the year in the middle of May, a few days more or less, on the first day of the Moon ... in this month they held the festivals of the Sun” (Molina ed. Hakluyt, p. 16). I direct particular attention to the fact that it was the new May moon which controlled the beginning of the religious calendar, although the Incas observed the equinoxes and solstices and the cult of the Sun was under their special care. The twelve divisions of the year accord with the twelve wards of Cuzco surrounding the central enclosure which was always the place where the festivals were held and the people congregated.

I have as yet found no account of the lesser divisions of time in Peru, but note that the period of thirty days consisted of six periods of five days each, a subdivision which would obviously accord with native habits of thought if associated with the six terrestrial directions in space and if a reunion of people and collection of produce from four quarters took place on every fifth day in the capital. In my special work on the Calendar systems of ancient America I shall be able to discuss more fully their intimate indissoluble relation to the regulation of labor and control of the food supply absolutely requisite for the great capital.

The idea of rotation was carried out in a ceremony described by Molina. When the December moon was full, after having ploughed their fields during twelve days, “all persons returned to Cuzco ... the people went to a house called moro-uco, near the houses of the Sun and took out a very long cable which was kept there, woven in four colors, black, white, red and yellow, at the end of which was a stout ball of red wool. Everyone took hold of it, the men on one side, the women on the other, performing the sacred dance called yaquayra. When they came to the square ... they went round and round until they were in the shape of a spiral shell. Then they dropped the cable on the ground and left it coiled up like a snake. The people returned to their places and those who had charge of the cable took it back to its house.” An extremely important instance of the application of the spiral is preserved in an illustration in the Account of the Antiquities of [pg 146] Peru by the native chronicler Salcamayhua (ed. Hakluyt, p. 109). He relates that the Inca Huayna-Capac, when he reached the town of Tumipampa, “ordered water to be brought from a river by boring through a mountain, and making the channel enter the city by curves in this way:”

Figure 46.

The illustration, reproduced here (fig. ), exhibits an extremely ingenious mode of irrigation which divided the country surrounding the town into nine zones of land lying between currents of water. These are cut through by an exit canal which, at the same time, presumably supplied a direct water-way for traffic to and from the town. The association of the spiral form with irrigation would not, perhaps, seem as important and significant did we not know that the ancient Peruvians, as proven by Wiener, habitually laid out the irrigation canals in their maize-fields so as to form regular designs, some of which resembled those illustrated on fig. , nos. 2, 4, 6, 7, which have been shown to signify the union of the Above and Below, or Heaven and Earth. In the Peruvian irrigation canals the water supplied the light lines and the earth the dark, and when the small canals were full and were observed in certain lights, they must have resembled light blue or white patterns running through the dark earth. That their inventors and makers actually associated them with profound meaning and laid them from superstitious as well as practical motives is obvious; for, in Peru, as in Mexico, we find the periodical union of the Heaven and Earth, of rain and earth celebrated with ceremonial drinking of chicha, specially brewed for this period which seems to have been the regularly appointed time for juvenile match-making, by order of the Inca.

“When the Inca gave women as wives they were received because it was the command of the Inca ... because of this it was considered that she was taken until death and she was received on this understanding and never deserted” (Molina). “When the Inca Rocca married his sister, six thousand people were married on the next day” (Montesinos). In the festival called Ccapac Raymi, maidens who had attained womanhood offered bowls of [pg 147] fermented chicha to the youths who had just been admitted to the ranks of the warriors.

“During this festival the Priests of the Sun and of the Creator brought a quantity of fuel, tied together in handfuls, and dressed as a man and a woman ... they were offered to the Creator, the Sun and the Inca and were burnt in their clothes together with a sheep” (Molina).

Towards the end of the same month (November), feasts were celebrated for the flocks of the huacas, that they might multiply; for which sacrifices were made throughout the kingdom. Ultimately “public solemn sacrifices were made to the Creator, the Sun, the Thunder and the Moon for all nations, that they might prosper and multiply” (Molina). A few weeks later, an exemption from ceremonial bondage, for three months, commenced. Throughout January, February and March no religious festival took place at Cuzco—the farmers attended to their land and the people were left at liberty to pursue their various avocations uninterruptedly (Molina ed. Hakluyt, pp. 51 and 52). I have already shown that the same exemption from ceremonial bondage during ninety to one hundred days of the year was customary in Mexico; and, in my note on the Ancient Mexican Calendar System, communicated to the Congress of Americanists at Stockholm in 1894 (p. 16), I explained the reasons which had led me to infer that “the religious festivals were concentrated in the ritual years of 260 days,” which indeed forms a unit, consisting of a complete set of combinations of the numbers 13 and 20.

In Dr. Franz Boas' admirable monograph on the Social Organization and secret societies of the Kwakiutl Indians (Washington, 1897, p. 418), it is shown that at the present day the clan system is only in force during one division of the year. “At the beginning of the winter ceremonial the social system is completely changed. The period when the class system is in force is called bā-xus. The period of the winter ceremonial is designated as ‘the secrets,’ ‘making the heart good,’ also ‘brought down from Above.’ The Indians express this alternating of seasons by saying that in summer the bā-xus is on top, the secrets below, and vice versa in winter. During this time the place of the clans is taken by a number of secret societies: the spirits who had appeared to mythical ancestors give new names to the men to whom they appear, but these names are only in use during the time when [pg 148] the spirits dwell amongst the Indians, i. e., in the winter.” Therefore from the moment when the spirits are supposed to be present, all the summer names are dropped and the members of the nobility take their winter names. The winter ceremonial societies are arranged in two principal groups; these are subdivided into 2×10=20 groups according to age and sex.

Dr. Boas distinguishes “three classes of tribal names and of clan names, viz., such as are collective forms of the names of the ancestors, names taken from the region inhabited by the tribe or clan and names of honour.... Each clan derives its origin from a mythical ancestor ... the present system of tribes and clans is of recent growth ... their numbers have undergone considerable changes in historical times.” A careful study of the material presented by Dr. Boas shows, however, that the ground-plans of the entire social fabric reared by the Kwakiutl Indians closely resembles that on which the stately Maya, Mexican and Peruvian civilizations were reared.

Returning to Peru, it is particularly noteworthy that the above mentioned solemn sacrifices to the Creator, the Sun and Thunder, and Moon and Earth, held in November, were thus offered to them jointly in one consecrated place, whereas, at other seasons, the cult was performed separately and on different days, before the emblems of the Above and Below.

Notwithstanding the moderation and tolerance which seem to have been characteristic of the Inca government, and the apparent equality and accord of the two cults, the heads of which were the Inca and Coya, we find evidences of discord in the historical records. The Inca empire had scarcely been established for more than a few centuries when we discern signs of a serious rebellion under the leadership of the Chuchi-capac, the chief of the Southern province or Colla-suyu, pertaining to the Below. From the taunts he uttered in the presence of the Inca on a festive occasion and which have been recorded verbally by Salcamayhua, it is clear that the chief of the Collas asserted that he (and the people of his province) actually practised sun-cult although “his throne was of [pg 149] silver;” that is to say, notwithstanding the fact that moon-cult pertained to the quarter to which he was assigned, namely, to the Below. He justifies his departure from moon-cult by taunting the Inca that he, in turn, did not adhere strictly to sun-cult but worshipped the impersonal Creator. This struggle between the ancient native sun-cult and star-cult and this religious dissension, the reason for which is apparent, initiated the long period of internal strife and warfare which ultimately made the Spanish Conquest such an easy matter.

During the course of these wars the Peruvian Inca, on one occasion, avenged himself for a supposed insult by having drums made of the skins of some of the enemies' messengers and by sending back others of these “dressed as women,” that is to say degraded from their positions as warriors or noblemen to the ranks of the commoners. A similar degradation, inflicted upon the Tlatelolcan rebels by the Mexicans has already been mentioned and can only be fully understood when the class-system is recognized.

From this and analogous instances it is evident that, admirable as the scheme of government seems to have been as a means of laying the foundations of civilization, and of teaching primitive people agriculture, stability, law and order, yet the very features which rendered it so efficient at first became, eventually, the cause of its gradual disintegration, as soon as a certain degree of culture prosperity was attained by the community. One mode of avoiding the evils of over-population and of ridding the capital of its restless, and enterprising or troublesome members, was the system of Mitimaes or colonists. This merits particular attention, because it formed an integral part of the marvellous and widespread scheme of organization we have been studying, and therefore helps to an understanding of the customary means by which civilization was spread in past ages throughout the American continent.

As the population of Cuzco increased and greater food supplies were found necessary, the Incas extended their dominions by a series of conquests. “As soon as they had made themselves lords of a province they left Mitimaes or settlers there, who caused the natives to live in communities” and established a small centre of local government on the pattern of Cuzco. Mitimaes or colonists were also sent, from different provinces, to live on the frontiers, bordering on hostile countries, so as to aid in defending them against the enemies. The establishment of colonies in distant districts [pg 150] was therefore a tried and familiar custom of those who possessed the wonderful governmental plan we have been studying.

I have shown that the greater the prosperity of a civilized community organized on this plan, the more imperative the necessity of founding new colonies would sometimes become. The urgent need of greater food supplies would lead to the sending out of expeditions for the purpose of surveying the surrounding country and ascertaining the quality of its produce. In his MS. Noticia, Padre Oliva speaks of an exploring party which was sent out by the ancestor of the Incas with the injunction to return in a year. After a few years had passed and none of the party returned, a second expedition was sent out in search of the first and this led to the final establishment of the Inca dominion in a promising region. Sahagun recounts how a Maya colony was established at Panuco; Montezuma himself related to Cortés that he and his lineage were descendants of colonists from distant parts; traditions of culture-heroes who established civilization amongst them abound amongst Central American tribes; finally, Peru is shown to have been civilized by rulers who carried out, systematically, a ready-made plan in a comparatively short time. Whence did all these culture-heroes emanate, carrying the identical method and system into widely separated districts and establishing centres of civilization in the richest and most fertile parts of the American Continent?

Documentary evidence certainly justifies the inference that the civilization of Peru itself was due to just such a deliberately executed plan of colonization, which gradually extended southwards and ultimately took root and flourished in the most favorably situated locality.

Leonce Angrand, who cites Acosta, Montesinos, Garcia, Boturini, Valera, Garcilaso de la Vega, Gomara, Balboa, Paz Soldan, d'Orbigny, Zarate, Cieza de Leon, Torquemada, Herrera, Velasco, Rivero and Tschudi, Gibbon, Stevenson, Castelnau, Desjardins, Villavicencio, Roman and others, unites their testimony in the following sentence: “It is therefore solely towards the North, in the elevated mountainous region, that researches should be directed [in order to ascertain the origin of the Peruvian civilization]. As soon as this is done innumerable proofs appear of the residence, in extremely ancient times, of people who can scarcely belong to other races than those who founded Cuzco and Tiahuanaco. It is therefore, from the North that these hardy pioneers of humanity [pg 151] came, from distant civilizations, and it is certainly by going northwards that one must look for traces of one or the other current of civilization. The inexhaustible force of expansion of the Inca Empire extended to the North as well as in other directions.”

Angrand also mentions a line “of prehistoric ruins which extend northwards from Peru and display the essentially characteristic outlines of the Mexican Teocallis or temples.”

Garcilaso de la Vega, citing Padre Blas Valera, goes so far as to state that the race, which introduced human sacrifices and ritualistic cannibalism into Peru, “had come from the region of Mexico, peopled the regions of Panama and the Isthmus of Darien and all those great mountains which extend between Peru and the new kingdom of Granada” (the present Nicaragua).

According to Padre Anello Oliva, whose manuscript notes on Peru are preserved in the British Museum Library, the immediate ancestors of the Incas were colonists who came from unknown parts either by land or by sea, and settled at Caracas (Atlantic coast), whence they gradually spread southwards. As his authority for this statement, he cites original manuscripts which had been placed in his hands by a Spanish missionary of high standing. Among these was a relation by a Quipucamayoc or “accountant by means of quippus,” named Catari, who had been a chronicler of the Incas. His forefathers had occupied the same post and had handed down the above record as having been related to them by their predecessors.

This account does not disagree with that of Salcamayhua who states that “all the nations of the empire had come from beyond Potosi, in four or five armies, arrayed for war and settled in the districts as they advanced.”

Whatever opinions may be held of the relative reliability of the Spanish chroniclers one thing is certain: that not one ventures the statement that the Inca civilization was gradually evolved by the native race of Peru and that all agree in assigning its introduction to an alien race of rulers who came from the North, and gradually united the scattered indigenous tribes together under a central government. Americanists will doubtless agree with me in stating that, until the past history, antiquities and languages of all tribes inhabiting South and Central America have been exhaustively [pg 152] studied, no absolutely satisfactory conclusion can be formed as to when and how civilization was carried to Peru.

On the other hand, even in the present preliminary stage of investigation, there are certain undeniable facts which, if brought to notice at this early date, may prove of inestimable value in directing future research. One of these facts will doubtless appear to many as strange and inexplicable but as noteworthy as it appears to me.

In Cristoval de Molina's account of the fables and rites of the Incas already cited, a fable is related concerning the Inca Yupanqui, the Conqueror, who extended the domain of the Peruvian empire and instituted the worship of a creator who, unlike the sun, could rest and light up the world from one spot.

“They say that, before he succeeded [to rulership], he went one day to visit his father Uiracocha Inca, who was at Sacsahuana, five leagues from Cuzco. As he came up to a fountain called Susur-puquio, he saw a piece of crystal fall into it, within which he beheld the figure of an Indian in the following shape:

“Out of the back of his head there issued three very brilliant rays like those of the Sun. Serpents were twined around his arms, and on his head there was the llautu or royal fringe worn across the forehead of the Inca. His ears were bored and he wore the same earpieces as the Inca, besides being dressed like him. The head of a lion came out from between his legs and on his shoulders was another lion whose legs appeared to join over the shoulders of the man. A sort of serpent also twined over the shoulders.

“On seeing this figure the Inca Yupanqui fled, but the figure of the apparition called him by his name from within the fountain saying, ‘Come hither, my son, and fear not, for I am the Sun, thy father. Thou shalt conquer many nations: therefore be careful to pay great reverence to me and remember me in thy sacrifices.’ The apparition then vanished, while the piece of crystal remained. The Inca took care of it and they say that he afterwards saw everything he wanted in it. As soon as he was Lord he ordered a statue of the Sun to be made as nearly as possible resembling the figure he had seen in the crystal. He gave orders to the heads of the provinces in all the lands he had conquered, that they should make grand temples, richly endowed, and he commanded [pg 153] all his subjects to adore and reverence the new Deity, as they had heretofore worshipped the Creator.... It is related that all his conquests were made in the name of the Sun, his Father, and of the Creator. This Inca also commanded all the nations they conquered to hold their huacas in great veneration....”

It is a startling but undeniable fact that one of the beautiful bas-reliefs found at Santa Lucia Cozumalhuapa near the western coast of Guatemala, about 1,200 miles to the north of the latitude of Cuzco, answers in a most striking manner to the description given of Inca Yupanqui's vision.

Amongst the thirteen sculptured slabs discovered at Santa Lucia, there are six entire slabs and the fragment of another which are of almost uniform size and may be ranked among the finest examples of aboriginal art which have as yet been found on the American Continent. They represent seven different renderings of the same theme. On each slab an individual wearing elaborate insignia is represented as standing with one arm raised and his head thrown back in the act of gazing upwards towards a celestial figure which seems to be descending towards him. The arms and heads of these nobly conceived figures are visible, but in each case the faces seem to issue from a highly ornate symbol, which is different in each one, just as the insignia of each individual also varies in detail. At the same time it is obvious that the seven slabs commemorate as it were an identical circumstance,—the apparition of the same divinity to seven different individuals, six of which are represented with the sign of speech coming forth from their mouths in precisely the same manner. The general resemblance, notwithstanding the distinct individuality of each bas-relief, suggests that they commemorate the visions seen under [pg 154] similar circumstances by seven distinct personages of the same rank and position. Involuntarily one thinks of the period of enforced fast and vigil which marks the attainment of manhood and is still obligatory amongst North American tribes, amongst whom it only ends when they have entered into communion with their totemic ancestor. I am inclined to view these commemorative tablets as commemorating an analogous rite and perpetuating the visions of successive members of one ruling family, or clan. The divinity, invariably associated with serpent symbols, seems to be Quetzalcoatl, the divine twin or serpent, exhibiting in some cases the emblem of the Sun, but evidently revealing itself to each personage under a slightly different form.

Figure 47.

The accompanying drawing (fig. ) of one of the Santa Lucia bas-reliefs, reproduced from Dr. Habel's work, will suffice to establish its resemblance to Padre Oliva's description of the apparition seen by the youthful Inca Yupanqui. After a careful comparison of the text to the sculptured bas-relief, it must be admitted that a more graphic and impressive illustration of the episode can scarcely be imagined. Its lower portion displays a youthful figure, looking upwards and exhibiting a necklace, the circular ear-pieces and royal fringe or llautu of the Incas. From his shoulders hangs the skin of a puma or lion with its head downwards. Molina relates that lion-skins with the heads were specially prepared for the ceremonial when youths were admitted into the ranks of knighthood, the last rite of which was the piercing of their ears and the enlargement of the orifice made.

[pg 155]

The youth wears a singular head-dress, or diadem, consisting of what appears to be an eye with conventionally drawn upper lid, surmounted by three pointed rays, behind which some long wavy feathers are visible.

The celestial apparition to which the youthful figure is looking up, likewise exhibits the same necklace, pieces, and royal fringe of the Incas. Indistinctly though some of the details are given, it seems as though intertwined serpents encircled its head and possibly its neck. The head of the vision is surmounted by an enlarged rendering of the conventionally drawn eyelid and three pointed rays which form the diadem of the youthful knight. The face of the vision occupies, however, the place of the eye on the diadem. In this connection it is interesting to note that in the Nahuatl language, which, as (op. et loc. cit.) proven by Buschmann, was spoken in Guatemala where the bas-relief was found, the word ixtli designates face, whilst ixtololotli signifies eye. Situated between the right elbow of the celestial figure and the diadem of the youth, there is a diminutive reproduction of the eye, eyelid and three rays, with the addition that what appear like two (or three?) drops of water or two eyes descend from it towards a square symbol which resembles the Mexican sign for tlalli=earth, whilst the eye symbol is closely analogous to a well-known Mexican sign which has been interpreted as a star, and has, but not as yet satisfactorily, been identified with the planet Venus. Without pausing to study this sign as it appears in ancient Mexico I point out that the position and mode of representation of the upper figure in the bas-relief sufficiently show that it is an image of a celestial being or vision in the act of receiving the supplication of a youth who is wearing divine insignia. There being a possibility that some of these accessories may be somewhat indistinct in the original bas-relief now preserved at the Royal Ethnographical Museum at Berlin, I do not venture to draw special attention to the possibility of further points of resemblance between the Peruvian tradition and this Guatemalan sculpture.

[pg 156]

At the same time I shall not omit allusion to the wavy figure winding upwards from the waist of the supplicant, which recurs in four out of the seven slabs. It may yet prove to answer to the description of “a sort of serpent,” which is recorded as twining over the shoulders of the vision who was “dressed like the Inca.” The lion's head which appears in the drawing to cover the left hand of the supplicant and the fact that his left foot only, in some cases, wears a sandal, are important and interesting features to which I shall revert further on.

Without attempting to offer any explanation of the truly remarkable fact that a bas-relief exhumed in Guatemala should so strikingly agree with a description preserved in a Peruvian tradition, I shall merely point out a second similar though much less remarkable case of agreement.

Padre Oliva records two instances in which a “royal eagle” figures in connection with members of the Inca dynasty. One of these relates to the ancestors of Manco Capac, the reputed founder of Cuzco. His great-grandmother, being abandoned by her husband, attempted to sacrifice her young son to Pachacamac. A royal eagle descended, carried him away in his talons and set him down in an island off the Pacific coast, named Guayan, “because it was covered with willows.” Oliva explains this tradition as a fanciful way of recording the fact that the youth's life was probably endangered, and that he had fled and taken refuge on an island. At the age of twenty-one he made his way back to the continent on a raft, but was seized by hostile people. His life was, however, saved by the daughter of a chieftain who returned with him to the island. Her name is given as Ciguar, a word strangely like the Nahuatl Cihuatl=woman. She bore him a son who was named Atau (cf. Ahau and Ahua=Maya and Mexican words for lord or chief), who was, in time, the father of Manco Capac, the reputed founder of civilization in Peru. When the latter was a child “an eagle approached him and never left him.” In view of these traditions it is interesting to note that, on two of the Santa Lucia bas-reliefs figured by Habel and reproduced by Mr. Hermann Strebel in pl. ii, fig. 13, of his extremely useful and comprehensive monograph on the bas-reliefs of Santa Lucia, an eagle is represented in connection with a figure wearing divine insignia.

On one of the seven analogous slabs representing a personage [pg 157] addressing a supplication to a celestial apparition, a large eagle or vulture is actually sculptured behind the supplicant, being, as it were, his individual totem (Strebel, Pl. ii, fig. 5).

A drawing of a part of another slab (Strebel, Pl. ii, fig. 13) displays an eagle or vulture holding in his beak the body of a bearded personage who wears a neck ornament and circular ear pieces, and from whose head two serpents hang. This last detail associates him with the celestial figure which usually displays knotted serpents on or above its head, suggesting its connection with Quetzalcoatl, the divine title of the Supreme Being and also of the supreme rulers of the Mexicans. It is curious to find in Peru a tradition recording that, when “the Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui undertook the conquest of the Antisuyus with 100,000 men, their Huaca sent forth fire and stopped the passage with a fierce serpent which destroyed many people. The Inca raised his eyes to heaven and prayed for help with great sorrow, and a furious eagle descended, and seizing the head of the serpent raised it on high, and then hurled it to the ground. In memory of this miracle the Inca ordered a snake to be carved in stone on the wall of a terrace in this province, which was called Aucapirca.” When divested of all fanciful details, the foregoing Peruvian traditions seem to show that the eagle was the totem of one or more of the Incas and that the serpent was the totem of a tribe which was conquered by the Incas. It is likewise recorded by Padre Oliva that the Inca named Mayta Capac Amaru ordered his shield to be painted with weapons and a serpent=Amaru, “because he had killed one in the Andes and therefore took it for his surname.”

It is impossible for any Mexicanist to read the foregoing texts without recalling that, in the City of Mexico, there is an unexplained bas-relief which was put up by the Spaniards after the Conquest but evidently figures a native tradition. It represents an eagle bearing in his talons a personage, wearing a diadem, beneath whom is a group of native weapons. The arms of Mexico representing an eagle holding a serpent in its talons and resting on a cactus, is too well known to require comment and recalls the Peruvian tradition of the eagle of the Incas conquering the serpent-totem of a hostile people.

Striking as these undeniable resemblances undoubtedly are, they [pg 158] would not, by themselves, justify the immediate conclusion that an actual direct connection existed between the Peruvian traditions and the Guatemalan and Mexican bas-reliefs which almost seem to illustrate the same or analogous incidents. At the same time they prove that, besides their scheme of government, the Incas had certain myths or traditions in common with the civilized tribes inhabiting Central America.

It is well to bear in mind that the situations of Cuzco in Peru and Santa Lucia in Guatemala are both adjacent to the Pacific coast with an intervening distance of about 27-½ degrees of latitude. But 15 degrees, however, lie between the northern boundary of modern Peru and the southern boundary of Nicaragua where, as proven by Buschmann, innumerable names of localities in the Nahuatl language testify to its ancient occupation by a Nahuatl-speaking race.

It is noteworthy that this eminent philologist observed how the name employed to designate the bamboo bed of the Cacique Agateite, in Nicaragua, “barbacoa,” was the same as that of the wooden bed or litter used by the Inca in Peru (op. cit. p. 756). Buschmann likewise identified the word galpon=great hall or house. He also expressed the opinion that “the Quechua word pampa resembles the Mexican amilpampa ehecatl=the south wind, but the Mexican is formed by the affixes pan and pa and the Quechua substantive means an even, open plain. At the same time this meaning and form could be derived from the Mexican affixes” (Buschmann, Ueber Aztekische Ortsnamen iii, 7, p. 627).

Following this precedent I have ventured to search for further resemblances between Nahuatl and Quechua words, and one of the remarkable results I obtained was the discovery that the well-known Quechua name for colonists=Mitimaes, the meaning of which, in Quechua, is not forthcoming, seems to be connected in sound and meaning with the Nahuatl Ce-mitime=sons of one mother (Molina's dictionary). It is superfluous to point out how appropriate this designation would have been for the colonists who invariably founded fresh centres of civilization on the plan of the central metropolis. A brief comparative table, the result of an investigation which lays no claim to be more than a rudimentary attempt, is published as an appendix to this paper, with the hope that it may stimulate philologists to supersede it by exhaustive studies of the subject. A careful examination of the table tends [pg 159] to prove that certain Nahuatl, Quechua and Maya words had a common origin and shows that a closer connection existed between the Nahuatl and Quechua languages than between Nahuatl and Maya or the Quechua and Maya.

I shall have occasion to refer to several of the words I have tabulated. At present I would draw attention to an analogy which bears directly on the subject of this paper and is of utmost interest and importance. If carefully studied it will be seen that the title “Pacha Yachachic,” applied in Peru to the Creator, proves to be allied in sound and meaning to the Mexican title Yaca-tecuhtli, “the lord who guides or governs.” According to Sahagun, this was “the god of the traders or traveller-merchants.” He had five divine brothers and one sister, each of which was separately worshipped by some travellers, whilst others, on their safe return from distant and dangerous expeditions, offered sacrifices to the whole group collectively. I leave it to each reader to make his own inference as to whether this celestial “traveller's guide” with his six brethren can have been other than Polaris and Ursa Minor. The difference in the magnitudes of this constellation would naturally give rise to the idea of a group composed of individuals of different ages and sizes; the “little sister” probably being the smaller of the four intermediate stars of the constellation and suggesting tales of adventures relating to the mythical sister of six brothers.

It is superfluous to emphasize how natural it would have been to offer a thanksgiving to the “traveller's star” on returning from a distant voyage, but I will point out that for coast navigation between Guatemala and Nicaragua and Peru, the adoption of Polaris as a guide was and is a matter of course. It is well to bear in mind that we are dealing here with navigation north and south, along a sheltered coast, for a distance not exceeding that of the coast-line between Gibraltar and Hamburg. An instructive example of primitive navigation, under analogous circumstances, has been communicated to me, from personal observation, by Commander Barber of the United States Navy.

Native traders, who navigate north and south in small crafts along the coast between Ceylon and Karashee, still use, at the present day, an extremely primitive method of estimating latitude, which is entirely based upon observations of the pole-star. Their contrivance consists of a piece of wood four inches square, through [pg 160] which a hole is bored and a piece of cord, with knots at intervals, is passed. The square is held at arm's length and the end of the cord is held to the point of the navigator's nose in a horizontal line, the height being so adjusted that the pole-star is observed in contact with the upper edge of the piece of wood. There are as many knots in the cords as there are ports habitually visited, and according to the length of the cord required for the observation of Polaris in the said position, the mariner knows to which port he is opposite.

According to Sir Clements B. Markham, the original inhabitants of the Peruvian coast fished in boats made of inflated sealskins. It is well known that the coast-tribes of Mexico and Central America employed boats of various kinds and some of great size. The Mexican tradition relates that the culture hero Quetzalcoatl departed in a craft he had constructed and which is designated as a coatlapechtli=coa=coatl=serpent or twin, tlapechtli=raft. It is open to conjecture whether this construction, “in which he sat himself as in a boat,” may be regarded as a sort of double or twin raft, or a boat made of serpent or seal (?) skin. In order to form any opinion, the name for seal in the Nahuatl and other languages spoken by the coast tribes should first be ascertained and compared with the native names for serpent.

The Maya colonists who founded the colony on the Mexican coast, and are known as the Huaxtecans, are described as having transported themselves thither by boats from Yucatan. In the native Codices and in the sculptured bas-relief at Chichen-Itza, there are, moreover, illustrations of navigation by boats. As dependent upon Polaris as their East Indian colleagues of to-day, it is but natural that the ancient Mexican traders by land or sea expressed their gratitude by offerings to Polaris and Ursa Minor.

Let us now return to Peru and examine whether there is any proof that the “Teacher or Guide of the World,” the Supreme Being of the Incas, was identical with the “Lord who guides” revered by the Mexican navigators.

I have already demonstrated that in ancient America the native scheme of religion and government was but the natural outcome of certain ideas suggested by the observation of Polaris and the circumpolar constellations. I have likewise quoted the remarkable qualification of a supreme divinity made by Inca Yupanqui, who [pg 161] raised a temple in Cuzco to the Creator who, superior to the sun, could rest and light the world from one spot. It is an extremely important and significant fact that the principal doorway of this temple opened to the north, and that the “true Creator” is alluded to as an invisible power, the knowledge of which was transmitted by the Incas from father to son. Thus Salcamayhua records that on one occasion the young Inca Ccapac Yupanqui exclaimed “I now feel that there is another Creator of all things [than that worshipped in the Andes], as my father Mayta Ccapas Inca has indeed told me.” Considering that in the latitude of Cuzco, situated as it is 14° below the equator, Polaris is invisible, the conditions thus recorded as existing in Peru are exactly those which might be expected to exist if a religion founded on pole-star worship had been carried southward to a region in which the star itself was invisible. The orientation of the temple would designate the north as the sacred region and the star-god would become an invisible power whose very existence would have become traditional and necessarily be accepted on faith by native-born Peruvians and converted sun- and moon-worshippers.

It is a remarkable fact that a descendant of the Incas has furnished us with actual proof that the Supreme Creator revered at Cuzco was not only associated with a star, but also with the figure of a cross, each branch of which terminated in a star. We are indebted to the native chronicler Salcamayhua for some extremely curious drawings, which are reproduced here from his account of the Antiquities of Peru. In treating of the primitive astronomy in America in my special paper on the native calendar, I shall refer to these in greater detail. For my present purpose it suffices to designate the following figures.

Salcamayhua records that the founder of the Peruvian Empire, Manco Capac, ordered the smiths to make a flat plate of fine gold, of oval shape, which was set up as an image of the Creator (op. cit. p. 76). The Inca Mayta Ccapac, “who despised all created things, including the sun and moon,” and “ordered his people to pay no honour to them,” caused the plate to be renewed which his “great grandfather had put up, fixing it afresh in the place where [pg 162] it had been before. He rebuilt the ‘house of gold’ and they say that he caused things to be placed round the plate, which I have shown, that it may be seen what these heathens thought.” The central figure on this plate consists of the oval image of the Creator, fig. , c. Close to its right are images designated by the text as representing the sun and morning star. To the left are the moon and the evening star. Above the oval and touching it, is a group of five stars forming a cross, with one star in the centre. Below it is a cross figure formed by lines uniting four stars. In this case, instead of being in the middle, the fifth star is attached to the lower edge of the oval, which is designated as “the image of Uiracocha Pacha-Yachachic, the teacher of the World.” Outside of the plate is what appears to be an attempt to explain more clearly the relative positions of the group of five stars to the oval plate (fig. , a). It represents the oval and one star in the centre of a cross formed by four stars. The question naturally suggests itself whether the group of five stars forming a cross may not represent the Southern Cross, popularly called the pole-star of the south and which consists of four principal stars, one of which is of the first and two of the second magnitude. This possibility opens out a new field of inquiry, and calls for the statement of the following facts, which I quote from Amedée Guillemin's Handbook of Popular Astronomy, edited by J. Norman Lockyer and revised by Richard A. Proctor.

Figure 48.

“In [our] enumeration of the circumpolar constellations of the South, we have said nothing of the stars situated at the Pole itself. The reason is simple; there are none deserving mention, and with the exception of one star in Hydræ, none approach the third magnitude. [pg 163] There is not then, in the southern sky, any star analogous to Polaris in the northern heavens.” M. Guillemin proceeds to explain, however, that this poverty of the polar regions is singularly compensated for by the stars of the equatorial zone. It seems more than probable that primitive astronomers or their descendants, who had been reared in a knowledge of the northern Polaris and of the periodical motion of the circumpolar constellations, should continue their observations in whatever latitude they found themselves. It seems possible that they may have observed the Southern Cross and recognized its closeness to the pivot or centre of rotation; but from personal experience and observation I can vouch for the fact that this constellation could never have produced upon primitive man the powerful impression caused by Ursa Major and Cassiopeia revolving around Polaris. It is, of course, impossible to conclude to what extent the ancient Peruvians revered the Southern Cross. It suffices for the present to establish the incontrovertible facts that the image of the motionless Creator, set up by the Incas, was associated with stars and with the cross and that the door of the Cuzco Temple, where this image was kept, faced the north, the direction whence, according to native traditions, the culture-heroes had come to Peru.

The following data furnish further important proof that certain peculiar ideas, symbols and metaphors were held in common by the civilizations of Peru, Central America and Mexico. Returning to the bas-relief (fig. ), I recur to an interesting feature, which I have already pointed out, namely, that the left arm of the personage terminates in a tiger's or puma's head. In connection with this peculiarity it is interesting to note that the native historian Ixtlilxochitl cites his illustrious ancestor and namesake, the Ome Tochtli Ixtlilxochitl of Texcoco, as addressing his young son Nezalhualcoyotl as “my dearly beloved son, tiger's arm.” As the young prince is referred to in the same chapter as “the boy Acolmiztli [=tiger's arm] Nezalhualcoyotl,” it is obvious that the metaphor constituted a title preceding the actual name. It was Nezalhual-coyotl who instituted the worship of Tloquenahuaque, the true Creator, and discountenanced human sacrifices.

If the other analogous Santa Lucia slabs be also examined it will be seen that although the positions of the bodies and arms vary, and the form of the head is different in each instance, it is [pg 164] invariably the left arm that terminates in the individual emblem. This sort of consecration of the left hand seems particularly significant for the following reason: Padre Anello Oliva records that the Inca Yupanqui, the founder of Cuzco and the same whose vision agrees so strangely with the bas-relief, was surnamed Lloque=the left-handed, and was noted for having visited the whole empire three times. His reign was long and prosperous, and he left a record as a conqueror and builder. He likewise sent his son Mayta-Capac to visit the whole empire, accompanied by sages and councillors. I recall here it was Yupanqui who proclaimed to the sun-worshippers of Peru, the existence and superiority of an immutable Creator.

I have already shown how, in Peru, it was a dictum that the upper division of the empire was to bear the same ideal relation to the lower as that of an elder brother to a younger or a right hand to the left. It is, therefore, possible to infer that, on ceremonial occasions when it is recorded that the Hanan Cuzco and Hurin Cuzco people were stationed at either side of the Inca, the Hanan or chieftains constituting the nobility were to his right and the Hurin people or lower class, to his left.

It is truly remarkable that it is a passage in the Annals of the Cakchiquels, the people now inhabiting the region of Guatemala where the Santa Lucia bas-reliefs were found, that contains the clearest statement regarding the division of a tribe into two classes and the relative positions assigned to each of these, according to ceremonial usage. The passage relates: “We, the 13 divisions of warriors, and the seven tribes ... we came to the enclosure of Tulan, and coming, gave our tribute. The seven tribes were drawn up in order on the left of Tulan. On the right hand, were arranged the warriors. Firstly, the tribute was taken from the seven tribes, next from the warriors.”

[pg 165]

Buschmann has recorded the interesting fact that, in Nahuatl, the right hand is designated as “the good, clever or wise”=yec-maitl or mayectli, also ma-imatca or ma-nematca (from yectli=good and imati=to be clever or wise). Molina's dictionary furnishes us with the following Nahuatl names for the left hand, etc.

Opoch maitl, Opuch maitl, Opuch maye: left hand.
Opochiuia=v. to do something with the left hand.
Topuchcopa, the left, at the left hand, or side.

In Mexico the totemic lord of the chase was named Opochtli. The much-discussed name Huitzil-opochtli is considered by some to signify “the left-handed humming-bird.”

The foregoing proves that in Peru, Guatemala and Mexico a caste-division was associated with left-handedness and that the expression “left-handed” was employed as an honorific or distinctive title. It is obvious that before reaching the point when the left hand would be invested by a distinctive mark, as in the Santa Lucia bas-reliefs, the above ideas must have been prevalent for a very long time.

I have already pointed out that a striking similarity of ideas survives amongst the Zuñi Indians of to-day.

As to the native tiger's head (puma or ocelot?) we find that it is the chief symbol of the central human figure on the great monolithic doorway of Tiahuanaco, Peru, a fact which testifies to a further community of thought.

[pg 166]

This central figure exhibits two tigers' heads on each shoulder and six around its head, disposed as rays and interspersed with what resemble drops of water. The transverse ornament carved on the breast exhibits four divisions, each of which terminates with a tiger's head. Four similar heads, looking upwards, are on the central decoration beneath the figure and the broad band at the base terminates in two large tigers' heads. What is more, on the fragment of a finely carved hollow stone object, which is preserved at the British Museum and was found at Tiahuanaco by Mr. Richard Inwards, there are the finest representations of the swastika which have as yet been found on the American Continent, and each of its branches terminates in a tiger's head, resembling those sculptured on the monolithic doorway. The fragment consists of the half of what seems to me to have been the top or handle of a staff or sceptre. I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. C. H. Read of the British Museum, for a rubbing of the carved fragment and for the permission to reproduce it here (fig. 49). The central swastika is angular and its form recalls that of the Mexican Calendar swastika (fig. ). At each side of it are portions of what originally were two rounded swastikas, which also terminate in tigers' heads. These and the size of the fragment seem to justify the inference that another square swastika was originally sculptured on the opposite side, making two rounded and two square swastikas in all.

Figure 49.

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this fragment, for it proves to us that in Tiahuanaco, the swastika was a sacred symbol. Its association with the puma or ocelot, links it to the central figure on the monolithic doorway and, possibly, connects this with the Mexican identification of the ocelot with the Ursa Major, with “the lord who walks around,” or the lord of the underworld, Tezcatlipoca. The two forms of swastika seem to testify that, in Tiahuanaco also, the idea of the Above and Below prevailed and that the angular form symbolized the subdivision of the earth and the rounded one that of the heavens. The rows of personages sculptured on the doorway at each side [pg 167] of and facing the central figure seem to indicate that this commemorates an establishment of tribal organization.

The distribution of the sculptured figures is as follows:

8 figures=2×4 } Central { 8 figures

8 figures=2×4 } 6×4 { 8 figures

8 figures=2×4 } figure. { 8 figures.

The figures on the upper row to the right and left, making sixteen in all, are all alike—so are the sixteen figures on the second and the sixteen on the third rows.

Without attempting to describe all the insignia which characterize the figures on each of the three rows, I refer the reader to the magnificent plates contained in Drs. Stübel and Uhle's monumental work on the Ruins of Tiahuanaco, and merely note that each figure in the uppermost row exhibits a bird's head in front of its head-dress. All figures in the second row are completely masked as condors. In the third row a tiger's head decorates each head-dress. It is curious to find that whilst the birds' and tigers' heads designate their wearers as heads or chieftains, these emblems strikingly coincide with the classification of the highest Mexican warriors into two divisions, known as “the ocelots and the eagles.” If attention is bestowed upon the number of emblems or figures and their distribution it will be seen, in the first case, that the central figure exhibits on his person twelve tigers' heads in all, i. e., six on his head, two on each arm and two on his breast-plate. Sixteen chieftains exhibit the same emblem and the carved fragment with the swastika appears to have originally exhibited sixteen tigers' heads, distributed into homogeneous groups of four.

It cannot be denied that the forty-eight figures on the doorway are first divided into two groups of twenty-four by being placed to the right and left of the central figure. Each division of twenty-four is grouped as 3×8, which is also 6×4, and yielding a total of 12×4 or 4×12 figures.

Curiously enough the number 12 coincides not only with the number of heads exhibited by the central figure, but the entire bas-relief offers a certain agreement with the numerical divisions of Cuzco which I have summarized as having been divided into two halves and four quarters and subdivided into 12 wards, the names of which doubtlessly corresponded with those of their inhabitants. Personally I am inclined to consider that the purpose of the Tiahuanaco [pg 168] bas-relief was to establish a certain tribal organization and impose certain distinctive insignia upon each tribe. The inference that each sculptured figure was differentiated from the other by being painted in various colors is justified by Molina's account, already cited, that “in Tiahuanaco the ‘Creator’ had his chief abode, hence the superb edifices in that place, on which edifices were painted many dresses of Indians ... thus each nation uses the dress with which they invest their huaca and they say that the first that was born [in Tiahuanaco] was there turned into stones, others say that the first of their lineages were turned into falcons, condors and other animals and birds.”

It is with deference, however, that I submit my conclusion and refer the question to the supreme authority of Drs. Stübel and Uhle and Mr. Bandelier, whose attainments and exhaustive researches in the region of Tiahuanaco qualify them to utter a final judgment upon this interesting subject. According to Dr. Max Uhle the civilization established at Tiahuanaco antedates that of the Incas. It may yet be proven that whilst Tiahuanaco was settled in remote times by colonists from the North, the Inca civilization was due to a later migration. It certainly appears that, in Tiahuanaco and Cuzco, the identical fundamental scheme of government and organization prevailed.

I shall yet have occasion to point out that in Mexico and Yucatan and Central America there are also monuments exhibiting multiples of 12 and 4 and also 16 chieftains. Meanwhile it is worth while to note here briefly, some analogies to Mexican and Maya antiquities found in Peru.

I am much indebted to Sir Clements D. Markham, the President of the Royal Geographical Society, for the kind permission to reproduce here a hasty drawing he made, in 1853, of a gold plaque (size 5-8/10 inches) found in Cuzco (fig. ). It was then in Lima, being the property of the President of Peru, General Echerrique. This curious relic exhibits the image of a monstrous face surrounded by a band with subdivisions containing various signs. The plaque was looked upon by its owner as a Calendar, but Sir Clements Markham, after studying its subdivisions with a view of ascertaining their agreement with the twelve divisions of the Peruvian year, preferred to let his notes on the subject remain unpublished, not having come to a satisfactory conclusion on the subject. I am permitted, however, to state that Sir Clements Markham specially [pg 169] noted the resemblance of a sign, which is represented on the cheeks of the central figure and recurs four times on the encircling band, to the well-known Maya glyph ahau=chief, lord.

Figure 50.

It is, indeed, a cursive representation of a human head and moreover resembles those figured on the garment of a gigantic red sandstone statue found at Ak-Kapana and figured in Stübel and Uhle's Tiahuanaco. On this garment the heads alternate with squares and form a close design. This resemblance between the conventional faces on this archaic statue and those on the gold plaque has made me attach more importance to the latter and at all events regard it as preserving ancient native symbolism. In connection with these I wish to point out that the plaque itself offers a certain resemblance to well-known Mexican calendars, the centre of which usually exhibits a face which is surrounded by a band with day or month signs. It is remarkable that above each eye there are four dots, especially as the Quechua word for eye=naui is homonymous with the Nahuatl numeral four=nahui, and this is so constantly associated with an eye in the Mexican sign [pg 170] Nahui ollin=four movements (cf. fig. ). As strange a coincidence as this is furnished by the mark on the forehead of the image, not because the latter resembles the sect mark of the Vishnu worshippers, but because it offers a marked analogy to the Mexican Acatl sign which is frequently carved or painted as a cane standing in a square receptacle with recurved ends. I am strongly tempted to interpret this symbol according to the native mode of thought, as signifying the centre, the union of the Above and Below and to regard the upper part of the face itself as a representation of the Above, the heaven, with its two eyes (the Moon and Sun), whilst the lower part and teeth, as in Mexico, signified the Below, the earth and underworld. By means of the head on each cheek and the number four over each eye, the dual and quadruple rulerships of the empire could well have been expressed. Postponing a more thorough study of the gold plaque, I merely note here that it exhibits curious analogies not only to Maya but also to Mexican symbolism.

Another instance of the same kind is furnished by a possibly modern but curious small silver pendant of unquestionably native workmanship. It is preserved at the Ethnographical Museum at Vienna and is figured in the Report of the International Congress of Americanists which was held at Berlin in 1888 (pl. 1, fig. 4, p. 96). Reputed to be from Cuzco, it represents a figure of the sun surrounded by eight straight and intermediate undulating rays. Two serpents are figured beneath the sun; their bodies extend across the pendant and their heads with open jaws almost meet in the centre. A figure, wearing a peculiar head-dress, is kneeling in worship beneath the symbols, which undoubtedly recall the Mexican mode of representing two serpents meeting, as on the Calendar Stone of Mexico, for instance.

As I am tracing analogies at present, I should like to ask the reader to compare the symbols figured and designated by Salcamayhua as that of the earth (see his fig. c, pl. lxvi) with the sacred vase from the Maya MS. (his fig. ii, pl. lix) and the form of the Peruvian symbol for the sea (his fig. e, pl. lxvi) with the peculiar Mexican shell ornament (fig. 1, no. 10). Insufficient though the above analogies may seem in themselves, they are valuable in conjunction with the other data presented and strengthen the conclusion that the same symbolism prevailed in Peru as in Central America, Yucatan and Mexico.

[pg 171]

Let us now rapidly journey northwards from Peru to these countries and briefly record the traces of the existence of the same ideas and quadruplicate form of government which we may encounter en route. In the elevated plains of Bogota we find positive proof that the Muyscas held the same ideas as their southern and northern neighbors. Their culture hero, Bochica or Ida-can-zas, was the personification of the Above and of its symbol, the Sun, whilst his wife was Chia, a name suspiciously like Quilla, the Quechua for moon. He was high-priest and ruler but counselled the Muyscas to elect one of themselves, a chief named Hunc-Ahua, to be their Za-que or civil ruler. Ida-can-zas instituted the Calendar and taught the Muyscas to appoint four chiefs of tribes whose names or titles are recorded as Gameza, Busbanca, Pesca and Toca. The institution of a dual government is indicated by the record that the high-priest dwelt at the sacred town Aura-ca and the Za-que at Tunja.

It is extremely curious to notice that Ida-can-zas, in Bogota, did precisely what Cortés found it expedient to do after the Conquest of Mexico. The latter assumed the supreme rulership over the nobility, became the “lord of Heaven” and instituted a native chieftain, bearing a female title, as his coadjutor, the lord of the earth, and the ruler of the people of the lower class.

It may be worth making the passing remark that the title of the Muysca culture-hero contains the word “can” and thus recalls the Maya Kukulcan and that the title Za-que offers a certain resemblance to the Maya title Chac, whilst the name Hunc-ahua seems strangely similar to Hun-ahau which in Maya would signify “one lord.” It is for Muysca scholars to enlighten us as to the derivation and meaning of the above titles and name.

Regretting the lack of time and documents which have prevented me from obtaining further data I now return to Guatemala and the vicinity of the Santa Lucia bas-reliefs. Referring to the introduction to their Annals we learn that the Cakchiquel tribe was but one of four allied nations, each of which had its capital, named Tecpan, as follows:

Nations: Capitals.
Cakchiquel: Tecpan Quauhtemallan,
Quiche: Utatlan,
Tzutuhil: Atitlan,
Akahal: Tezolotlan.

[pg 172]

According to Mr. A. P. Maudslay's authoritative statement, these nations were engaged in warfare against each other at the time of the Conquest. Tezolotlan was termed the “tierra de guerra” the land of war, and the precise locality of its tecpan or former capital has not been traced, although it seems to have been close to Rabinal or in the valley of that name.

It is well known that, under the rulership of Tizoc, the Mexicans extended their conquests into Guatemala. Buschmann has, moreover, proven that the foregoing names of the capitals, of what were at one time four provinces, are pure Nahuatl, which fact establishes the existence of Nahua supremacy in these regions.

It is curious to find that one of the Santa Lucia slabs seems to commemorate the existence of a central rulership and that of the four quarters. It is reproduced in Mr. Strebel's publication already cited and represents a central personage holding a head and a tecpatl, whilst four lesser personages, each carrying a head, are figured as walking away in four opposed directions. As, according to native symbolism, the head is the symbol for chieftain this slab seems to commemorate the establishment and at all events testifies to the existence in Guatemala of the scheme of government now so familiar.

In their Annals, the Cakchiquels record, as I have already shown, that they carried their tribute to “the enclosure of Tulan,” a designation which supports my inference, previously maintained, that Tulan was derived from the Maya tulum,=a fortification, an enclosed place or that which is entire, whole, etc., and applied always to the metropolis of a state.

An ancient Cakchiquel legend relates, moreover, that, according to the “ancient men,” there had been four Tulans: one in the east, one in the north, one in the west and one “where the god dwells.” This would obviously have been situated towards the south in order to accord with the general scheme. I cannot but think that this record testifies to the existence of an extremely ancient state which starting from one metropolis had gradually developed into four great Tullans, to one of which the four tecpans of Guatemala pertained. The fact that the Spaniards found the four nations living close together, with capitals or tecpans bearing Nahuatl names and in constant warfare with each other, seems to indicate the destruction of their own ancient metropolis or Tullan by their Mexican [pg 173] conquerors and the consequent disintegration of their former government.

The Mendoza Codex teaches us that when the Mexicans conquered a land they first burnt and utterly destroyed the teocallis situated in the heart of its central capital. They razed this to the ground, and carried off to their own metropolis the totemic images of the rulers of the tribe. The barbarous institution of human sacrifice, which was only practised to a great extent by the Mexicans when the necessity to obtain more plentiful food supplies for their rapidly increasing population forced them to become a nation of warriors and conquerors, seems indeed to have been adopted as a fear-inspiring, symbolical rite commemorating the conquest and destruction of an integral government.

The victim, usually a chieftain taken prisoner in warfare and clad with his insignia and the raiment of his people, was stretched on the stone of sacrifice and, figuratively speaking, represented his country and its four quarters. The tearing out of his heart by the high-priest, armed with the tecpatl, the emblem of supreme authority, signified the destruction of the independent life of his tribe as much as did the burning of the teocalli, and of its capital. It would seem as though the horrible custom of annually sacrificing one or more representatives of each conquered tribe, had been adopted as a means of upholding the assumed authority, inspiring awe and terror and impressing the realization of conquest and utter subjection. It is known that sometimes a member of a conquered tribe voluntarily offered himself as a victim in order to release his people from their obligation, and thus earned for himself immortality.

An insight into the native association of ideas is afforded by Sahagun's note that the lord or chieftain was “the heart of his Pueblo,” which means town as well as population. The death of the sacrificed chief, therefore, actually conveyed the idea of the destruction of the tribal government to his vanquished subjects. It remains to be seen whether the subsequent partition of portions [pg 174] of his dead body amongst the priesthood and their ritual cannibalism did not signify the absorption of the conquered population into the communal life of their victors. The preservation of the victim's skull on the Tzompantli, as a register of the conquest of a chieftain, would also be the logical outcome of the native line of thought and symbolism.

At the risk of making a somewhat lengthy digression I will again refer here to a point I have already touched upon, namely, the Mexican employment of the human figure as an allegorical image of their Empire or State, the idea being that the four limbs represented its four governmental and territorial divisions and that these were governed by the head=the lord of the Above or heaven, and the heart=the lord of the Below or earth. A careful study of the native Codices has shown me that such was the native allegory which indeed can be further traced. The territory of a state reproduced the organization of the human body with its four limbs, each of these terminating in minor groups of five.

According to the same set of ideas the cursive image of a state could be conveyed by a main group of five dots, situated in the centre of four minor similar groups. Cross-lines expressing the partition into four quarters would complete such a graphic and cursive presentation of the scheme and not only signify its territorial but also its governmental features. It is noteworthy that, in Nahuatl as in the Quechua, the title for minor chief is homonymous with the word for fingers.

The Nahuatl pilli is a title for a chieftain or lord and also signifies child and fingers or toes. A finger is ma-pilli, the prefix ma, from maitl=hand, designating the fingers as the children of the hand. The thumb is qualified by the prefix uei=great.

Having gained a recognition of the above facts it is not difficult to understand the meaning of certain sceptres in the form of an open hand which occur as symbols of authority borne by chieftains in the native Codices. I know of one important instance, indeed, where an arm with an open hand is represented as standing upright in the centre of a circle divided into sections and zones (similar to fig. , nos. 1, 3, 5, and 6).

The above mentioned examples, which I shall illustrate later, [pg 175] have led me to infer that whilst the arm symbolized one of the four divisions of the State, the hand symbolized its capital, the thumb its central ruler and the fingers his four officers or pilli, the rulers of the four quarters of the minor seat of government. In another publication I shall produce illustrations showing that the foot was also employed as an emblem of rule and that Mexico, Yucatan and Central America furnish us with actual proofs that the hands and the feet respectively symbolized the upper and lower divisions of the State.

It is thus curious to compare the name for thumb=uei-ma-pilli and the name Uei-mac (literally, great hand) which Sahagun gives as that of the “temporal” coadjutor of the Mexican culture-hero Quetzalcoatl, as well as the term, our toe=totecxopilli with the well-known title Totec=our chief or lord. In Yucatan the word for hand=kab is, as I shall demonstrate further on, actually incorporated in the title of the lords of the four quarters=Bakab. I am almost inclined to find a trace of a similar association in the Quechua word for fingers=pallca and the title palla bestowed upon noble women.

I have already mentioned in the preceding pages that the natural basis of the all-pervading native numerical division into 4×5=20 was the finger and toe count. The following table exhibits the general custom to designate 20 as one man or one count.

Word for Man. Word for 20.

Nahuatl. tlacatl. cem-poualli=one count.

Quiché }

and } uinay=one man. uinay= " "

Cakchiquel }

Tzendal. hun-uinic=one man. hun-uinic= " "

Maya. uinic. hun-kal= " "

In the latter case the affix kal seems to be derived from the same source as the verb kal=to close up or fasten something, and to signify something complete or finished. At the same time the Maya uinal is the Maya name for the twenty calendar-signs, and the same association is demonstrated as existing in Mexico by the well-known picture in the Vatican Codex i (p. 75), which represents a man surrounded by the twenty Mexican calendar-signs.

As I shall treat of the same subject more fully in another publication, [pg 176] I shall but briefly touch upon the intimate connection there existed between these calendar-signs and the twenty classes into which the population was strictly divided. It is known that an individual received the name of the day on which he was born and it is possible to prove that this determined his position in the commonwealth, his class and his future occupation. Each child was formally registered by the priestly statisticians at birth, and at about the age of six, when his name was sometimes changed, he entered one of the two educational establishments where he was brought up by the State, under the absolute control of the priesthood and rulers. It can be gleaned that one of the chief cares of the latter was to maintain the same average number of individuals in the distinct classes, to which the various forms of labor were allotted and who became in time identified with these. In order to keep the machinery of state in perfect adjustment, individuals had sometimes to be transferred from the class into which they were born, to another. In some cases this seems to have been arbitrarily ordered by the authorities, but the latter appear to have guided themselves by the position of the parents and to have established the custom that an individual might alternatively be transferred into the paternal or maternal class, but not into any other. As each class was, moreover, divided into an upper and lower one, it was possible for each person to elevate himself from the lower to the higher by individual merit or to incur abasement, for unworthy conduct, and being, as we have already seen, “reduced to the official rank of women.”

The direct outcome of such a form of organization was stringent laws governing marriage, it being expedient that certain classes only should intermarry, not only to avoid complications but also to ensure a certain degree of coöperation conducive to the prosperity of the State. In the tribal laws still existing amongst the native tribes of North America, I see the logical survivals of an ancient scheme of organization.

After gaining the above recognition of some of the actual duties of the priest-rulers of ancient Mexico, it is possible to understand the meaning of the native sentence, noted by Sahagun, that the native games of patolli and tlachtli constituted a practice in “the art of government.” From this it is clear that the former, played by two individuals with dice and markers upon a mat in the shape of a cross, and symbolical of the Four Quarters, was originally [pg 177] invented by the priest-rulers for an eminently practical purpose. The mat being an image of the quadruple state and its subdivisions, it was possible to make it serve as a register-board exhibiting the distribution of the population, the number of individuals in each class and its death and birth rates. We are informed that when parents, according to the inflexible law, carried their newborn child to the priest, he consulted his books full of day-signs and foretold what its future was to be.

A proof that it was the positions of the stars which determined the season and furnished the means of fixing a date, is furnished by the fact that the stars were also “consulted” and believed to exert an influence upon the destiny of the child.

The implicit faith in the predictions of the priests and in the absolute influence of the position of the heavenly bodies and the date of its birth upon the individual indicates that the parents were kept in ignorance as to the workings of the machinery of state and that the priesthood were reverenced for their power of prophecy. The belief that they could personally exercise a favorable influence over the destiny of the child seems also to have been encouraged in the parents, since an offering of gifts at the period of registration was customary. After the Conquest, when the native government had been completely broken up, and the enforced registration of birth and the prediction of the priest had utterly lost their original significance, native parents still consulted the surviving members of the priest-rulers; and these ancient statisticians, in order to gain a livelihood, continued to consult their books and uttered predictions as of yore, although their power to control their fulfilment had vanished forever. Ancient Mexico thus furnishes us with an interesting and instructive explanation of the origin of divinatory practices, prognostication at birth, etc. It shows us that, under the ancient form of established government, the sign of the date of a child's birth actually did control his future destiny, while it was unquestionably in the power of the priesthood, not only to predict his future, but also to exert a favorable or unfavorable influence upon it.

The above facts help us to understand the origin not only of divination, propitiation and the belief in the influence of day-signs, but also of the native games which became popular after the Conquest, when their original use and meaning had become obsolete.

Deferring further discussion of this interesting matter I will but [pg 178] draw attention to Mr. Stewart Culin's important study of “American Indian Games,” which clearly establishes their “interrelation” and at the same time proves that they were based, as first distinctly insisted upon by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, on the central idea and that of the four quarters of the world. Mr. Culin has gone so far as to fix the place of origin of the “platter or dice class of games which he has found recorded as existing among some 61 American tribes, in the arid region of the southwestern United States and Northern or Central Mexico,” and to conceive that “in ancient Mexico we find traces of its highest development.”

I place the utmost value upon Mr. Culin's painstaking and conscientious researches and regard them as strongly corroborating my views exposed in the preceding pages. His identification of the pictured diagram in the Féjérvary Codex, as the counting circuit of the Four Quarters, with a presiding god in the middle, as in Zuñi, does credit to his perspicacity. I agree with him in considering that this chart could have been employed after the Conquest for a game or for divination, but trust that, upon perusal of this paper, he will admit that primarily the Féjérvary diagram expressed the native scheme of government and the calendar, which was no other than a means of ruling the classes by binding each of these to a special day and totemic sign. Each of the twenty classes or clans had its day, known by a particular sign which was also its totemic mark. As the day-signs recurred periodically, the chief or head of each clan became its living representative, assumed a totemistic costume and became the “living image of the ancestral teotl,” or god of his people, of whose activity he rendered account to the central government. It is significant that the common native title for lords or chieftains was “tlatoque,” literally, “the speakers,” and that they were closely designated as the spokesmen of his people, who habitually kept silence in his presence.

The fact that the names and signs of the days are identical with the totemic tribal distinctions imposed for governmental reasons, is one which I shall proceed to demonstrate more fully. Meanwhile attention is now drawn to the chapter on the 7-day period in Dr. Daniel G. Brinton's “Native Calendar of Central America and Mexico,” in which he surmises that the tribal divisions of the Cakchiquels “were drawn from the numbers of the Calendar.”

[pg 179]

According to the native records the institution of the Calendar was simultaneous with that of tribal organization and a minute study of both features reveals that it could not have been otherwise.

From the dawn of their history the Cakchiquels, as I have already shown, were divided into thirteen divisions of warriors (Khob, constituting the upper class) and seven tribes (Amag, constituting the lower class). A totem and a day being assigned to each division and tribe, they were, once and for all time, placed in a definite position towards each other and towards the state, and the order in which their chieftains were to sit in general council, and to assume or perform certain duties, was thus instituted. The 20-day period thus constituted a “complete count” and synopsis of the “thirteen divisions of warriors and seven tribes,” but it also fulfilled other not less important purposes.

The day-signs were so ordered that the first, eleventh and sixteenth were major signs employed to designate the years, and identified with the four quarters, elements and their respective colors. The 20-day period, consisting as it also did of 4 major signs and of 4×4=16 minor signs, was as closely linked to the idea of the Four Quarters as it was to the Above and Below, represented by the 13+7 division. It is therefore evident that a simultaneous reckoning of periods consisting of 5, 7, 13, and 20 days was ingeniously combined. I shall show in my special treatise how “the lords of the Night” employed in their astronomical calendar, 9-night and 9-moon periods for purposes of their own and how these also served to carry out certain ideas of organization, controlling persons. Although it embodied the results of long-standing primitive astronomical observation and accorded with the seasons and movements of the celestial bodies, the native Calendar was primarily a governmental institution, designed to control the actions of human beings and bring their communal life in accord with the periodical movements of the heavenly bodies.

In my Note on the Ancient Mexican Calendar System, communicated to the International Congress of Americanists at Stockholm, in 1894, I stated certain historical and astronomical facts which showed that the New Cycle, which began in 1507 with the year Acatl, had commenced on March 14th three days after the vernal equinox and that this delay had obviously been intentional, in order to wait for the new moon, which fell on March 13th at 11.40 a. m., and the planet Venus, “which was possibly visible both [pg 180] as morning and evening star between March 14th and 18th.” The above facts, which have remained unchallenged since their publication, afford an insight into the astronomical attainments of the sun-priests and moon and star-priests and show an evident desire to begin a new era at a favorable time, when there was a conjunction of the heavenly bodies. Thus the terms of office of the lords of the Above and Below were entered upon and the machinery of state set into motion, in unison with striking celestial phenomena. It is impossible not to realize how great must be the antiquity of a system which, evolving from the rudimentary, ceremonial division of a tribe into seven parts, as a consequence of its primitive observation of the Septentriones, developed into a great and complex government dominated and pervaded by the abstract conceptions of the seven-fold divisions of the Above, Below, Middle and Four Quarters.

Deferring further comment I will proceed to demonstrate the practical value, for governmental purposes, of the classification of a community into twenty divisions with as many representative heads, their localizations at given points of the compass, and association with a calendar-sign and day, and will only refer to what I have already published in my Note on the Calendar, namely, how, by means of the combination of 13 numerals with the 20 signs, a unit of 260 days was obtained, and how each sign was combined but once with the same number, and a perfect system of rotation of periods, regulating office, labor, etc., was instituted. It is not possible for me to enlarge here upon the features and merits of the system which I do not hesitate to term one of the most admirable and perfect achievements of the human intellect. My present purpose is to lay stress upon the fact that, in Mexico, the major calendar-signs were borne as titles by the rulers of the four quarters who presided in rotation over a year—the name of this and of their title being always in correspondence.

Nezahualcoyotl, the lord of Tezcoco, is recorded as possessing the title Ome Tochtli=2 Rabbit, and would obviously have presided over the calendar periods of that name. This inference is undoubtedly corroborated by Nuñez de la Vega's following statement, quoted by Boturini:

“Instead of the Mexican signs Acatl, Tecpatl, Calli and Tochtli, the Tzendals, inhabiting Chiapas, employed in their Calendar [pg 181] the names of four of their chieftains: Votan, Lambat, Been and Chinax.... They also figured a man named Coslahuntax, as seated in a chair....” Boturini remarks that this person should more correctly be named Imos or Max and was “the head of the 20 lords who were the symbols of the 20 days of the Calendar. Being the principal and initial sign, Coslahuntax represented in himself the period of thirteen days.” As Dr. Brinton rightly notes the name of the personage should be Oxlaghun tax, literally signifying “the thirteen divisions or parts.”

We thus see that, whilst the names of the chiefs of the four quarters constituted the four major calendar-signs, one supreme lord embodied the attributes or “powers” of the 13 divisions of warriors and principal division. Thus the 13 divisions seem to have been regarded as 12 plus an all-embracing 1.

Nuñez de la Vega continues: “In the representations of their calendar they painted seven black persons, corresponding to the seven days of their reckoning.” Boturini adds: these seven black men were no other than the principal priest-rulers of this nation.... “They held in great veneration the ‘lord of the black men,’ who was entitled Yal-ahua.” Boturini comments on this utterance and explains that the latter was no other than the high-priest.

I point out the evident identity of Yal-ahua to the Mexican Yoal-tecuhtli=the lord of the Night, one of the titles given to Polaris and to his earthly representative, the high priest of the Earth and nocturnal cult. As already explained this personage bore in Mexico the female title, Cihuacoatl=Woman-serpent; but we also find this name for the earth-mother alternating with Chicome-coatl=literally, seven serpents. In Beltran de la Rosa's “Arte Maya” we find the word “Ahaucchapat,” translated as “Serpent with seven heads” and are thus led to infer that the Mexicans and Mayas had conceived the image of a “serpent with seven heads” as an allegory of the seven tribal divisions united in one body and bestowed this title to the representative of the Earth-cult, the high priest of the Below. It follows that, just as the number 13 resolves itself into 12+1, so the mystic number 7 proves to have been considered as 6+1, precisely what might be expected as the natural sequence of the derivation of the number from a circumpolar constellation, consisting of seven stars, [pg 182] one of which was Polaris. Nuñez de la Vega and Boturini's testimony teaches us that the Tzendals were organized into twenty divisions and that thirteen of these were embodied in one chief, while the seven others, associated with black, were personified by the high priest. The information that one individual was thus believed to unite in his person the attributes of several classes and that the lords of the four quarters and each of the twenty divisions bore names which were also calendar-signs, gain in value when it is realized that, in the opinion of Drs. Schellhas and Brinton, the invention of the native Calendar system may probably be assigned to the ancient inhabitants of Chiapas, where the Tzendals now dwell. In treating of the ruins of Palenque situated in this region, I shall again refer to the Tzendals.

Meanwhile, let us examine the Cakchiquel tradition about Cucumatz, the sorcerer chief of the Quichés, since it also treats of the 7-day period. We are told that he “ascended to heaven for seven days and descended into the under world for seven days and then assumed, in rotation, four different animal forms during as many periods of seven days.”

It is impossible not to recognize from this that, like the Zuñis of to-day, the Quichés “symbolized the terrestrial sphere by referring to the four cardinal points, to the zenith and nadir, the individual himself making the seventh number,” and that Cucumatz, who was evidently the high priest and head of the seven tribes, assumed the totemistic attributes of each of these, in rotation, for periods of seven days each. In this case we have an interesting and suggestive variant of the scheme and it suggests the possibility that, possibly actuated by ambition, Cucumatz had grasped and united in his person the prerogatives of the chiefs or heads of each tribe. On the other hand, it may be that it was the original custom for the high priest to be a sort of animated calendar sign in unison with the separate chiefs of each tribe, who represented, in rotation, the totemistic ancestors of their people.

Having shown how the lords of the Four Quarters were indissolubly linked to the four major calendar-signs which also symbolized the elements, let us examine the data establishing that the capital of each of the four provinces was named a tecpan. From Duran I have already quoted that in the Mexican metropolis there [pg 183] were two tecpans or official houses in which the affairs of the government were attended to and councils held. It is significant that one of these was named “the tecpan of men” and the other “the tecpan of women.” Whilst the metropolis, the seat of the dual government, thus had its two tecpans which were presided over by the two supreme rulers, we have learned from other sources of the four tecpans in Guatemala and that Texcoco, near the city of Mexico, was also termed a tecpan and that its ruler bore as a title one of the four major calendar-signs. These facts explain his position and the reason why the “lord of Texcoco” was one of four lords who supported Montezuma when he met Cortés in full state. A careful investigation of the derivation and true significance of the word tecpan yields interesting results. Cen-tecpan-tli means, a count of twenty persons; the verb tecpana signifies, “to establish something in concerted order; to establish order amongst people.” The verb tecpancapoa means, to count something in regular order.

The Maya verb tepal=to govern or reign, or to be “one who mediates,” appears to be allied to the above Nahuatl words and it is not unlikely that the employment of the flint-knife or tecpatl as an emblem of office had been suggested by the fact that its Nahuatl name resembles, in sound, the above words formed with tecpan, and also the Maya verb tepal. It thus constituted a bilingual rebus, expressing the sense=to govern, to rule, to regulate, etc., and, employed as the symbol of the North and Polaris, it conveyed the idea that the latter was not only the producer of life but the regulator of the Universe.

From the fact that a tecpan constituted a minor integral whole and comprised the rule over twenty classes of people, we see that whilst the four provincial tecpans were in themselves miniature reproductions of the metropolis, they but filled the same position in relation to this as the four limbs to the body of a man or quadruped. A final proof of how completely this analogy was recognized by the native rulers is furnished by the Maya titles which embody the word kab=arm and hand.

It has already been mentioned in the preceding pages that the rulers of the four quarters were entitled Ba-cab and that in the Dresden Codex an image of the four quarters was figured by four bones. The word for bone being bac and for arm being kab, it is obvious that the arm-bone or humerus would furnish a rebus, expressing [pg 184] the title of the four Bacabs—a conclusion which throws light upon the signification of the cross-bones of native pictography and also of the incised and decorated human arm and leg bones which have been found in Mexico and Yucatan.

At the same time the word kab also recurs in the title Ah-Cuch-Cab which signifies “the ruler or chief of a town or place,” Cuchil being the name of the latter. Both of these words so closely resemble cuxabal and cuxtal, the word for “life,” that it is not impossible that the native mind often associated the town as a centre of life, and thought of their chief as one whose symbol was a “life-dispensing hand.” In order to grasp the full significance of the symbol of the hand in Maya sculptured and written records it is necessary to bear these facts in mind.

In 1895 Mr. Teobert Maler unearthed in the centre of the public square at “El Seibal,” Guatemala, a sculptured stela exhibiting the figures of a chieftain over whose head an open hand was carved. It is impossible not to interpret this as a mark that the chieftain had once been the ruler of a town and that this, in turn, was one of four minor capitals belonging to a central metropolis. A hand, enclosed in quadrangular lines and represented on the garment of a chieftain, was found by Dr. Le Plongeon at Uxmal, and I believe that this should be interpreted in the same manner.

In my essay on Ancient Mexican Shields (Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, band v, 1892) I reproduced two interesting instances of the employment, as the name-sign of a ruler in native pictography, of a hand on the palm of which an eye is depicted. The effigy of a hand, the sacred Kab-ul, which was kept in a place in Yucatan to which people from all quarters resorted regularly in great numbers, resolves itself into the symbol of an ancient capital to which great high-roads led from the cardinal points. But important as this capital may have been, its connection with the hand-symbol proves that it was originally one of four minor centres and formed but a part of a greater whole. It would correspond to the image, in one of the native Codices, of a subdivided circle with an arm and hand standing in its middle, and its Bacab would undoubtedly have carried a sceptre in the shape of an open hand, such as depicted in the Codices as a staff of office.

While we thus find the human figure distinctly associated with the lords of the four quarters of the Above we find the four lords of the Below, entitled Chac, symbolized by the quadruped figure [pg 185] of the native jaguar=chacoh, associated with the color red=chac and with rain, storms, thunder and lightning, all of which phenomena were, singly and collectively, termed Chác.

If ever there has been an instance where language or the resemblance in sound of certain words has caused certain symbols to amalgamate with a name or title, it is surely this, and light is thereby thrown upon the development of symbolism and associations of thought amongst primitive people.

The Chacs of Yucatan were identical with the Tlalocs, the octli or rain lords of Mexico, whose function, as votaries of earth-cult, was the regulation of agriculture, irrigation and the collection and distribution of all products of the soil. It is interesting to trace that, in other regions of Yucatan, presumably where no chacohs or jaguars existed, the minor rulers of provinces seem to have been termed ocelots=Balam, a title found associated with Maya rulership.

With the foregoing data in mind it is easy to grasp the meaning of the talon of a beast of prey, employed as an emblem of rank or office in the native Codices or bas-reliefs and to perceive that this was the symbol of a Chac or Balam, one of the four lords of the earth or Below, just as the hand was that of the lords of the Above. The complete image of the dual State is thus shown to have consisted at one time of an ideal group consisting of a man with a beast of prey, a jaguar or ocelot. In Mexico we have the man-bird and the man-ocelot respectively representing the rulers of the two great divisions of the State.

At Chichen-Itza and elsewhere in Yucatan sculptured figures of ocelots supporting circular vessels have been found and there are interesting instances of the combination of the human figure with ocelot=Balam attributes. One monolithic figure, discovered at Chichen-Itza by Mr. A. P. Maudslay, and belonging to the category of the recumbent statues bearing circular vase-like receptacles, already described, exhibits a human head and form, whilst the body is covered with a spotted skin. In the sculptured image of Mictlan-tecuhtli (fig. ) a human head is accompanied by limbs of equal length-terminating in wild beasts' talons. The positions of the limbs are better understood when compared with the following illustration, to which I shall revert (fig. ). Meanwhile, I shall merely remark that in both of these curious bas-reliefs we seem to have images of the quadruple terrestrial and celestial [pg 186] governments. Fig. , which is a corrected drawing of one of those contained in Leon y Gama's “Descripcion de las dos Piedras,” furnishes an interesting example, in accord with the image of Mictlantecuhtli, of the employment of the group of five as a symbol of the centre and four quarters, and exhibits four limbs associated with four heads (the quarters and their chiefs), while the hands hold two other heads, symbolical of the dual rulers of the State.

Two facts which throw an interesting light upon the growth of native symbolism are worth mentioning here. As a symbol on the head of Mictlan-tecuhtli, the lord of the North, two representations of a centipede are distinguishable. In Nahuatl the name of this is “centzonmaye,” literally, four hundred hands. It can thus be seen that the idea of one body with a multitude of hands had occurred to the native philosophers as a suitable allegory for their conception of a central celestial and terrestrial rule which guided the activity of innumerable appointed hands and dispensed, through these, not only life and favors but also death or chastisement.

Figure 51.

Before proceeding farther we must consider tree-symbolism in ancient America. According to Molina the Inca Yupanqui (surnamed the left-handed) ordered the temple of Quisuar-cancha to be made: quisuar=a tree, the Buddleia Incana, cancha=place of. Salcamayhua (op. cit., p. 77), who attributes the building of this temple to Manco Capac, states that these two trees, which were in the temple, “typified his father and mother ... and he ordered that they should be adorned with roots of gold and silver and with golden fruit. Hence they were called Ccurichachac Collquechachac Tampu Yracan, which means that the two trees typified his parents, that the Incas proceeded from them like fruit from the trees, and that the two trees were as the roots and stems of the Incas. All these things were executed to record their greatness.” This passage is of utmost value, for it conveys to us not only that the Incas kept a record of their male and female ancestry and respectively associated the male [pg 187] and female elements with gold and silver, but also establishes the important point that the tree was employed as an emblem of the life and growth of a lineage or race.

This fact is particularly interesting if collated with the Mexican tree-symbols. In the Féjérvary diagram (fig. ), we find a different kind of tree and two totemic figures assigned to each quarter, which indicates that the inhabitants of each of the four provinces were regarded as of a distinct race. The top of each tree spreads itself into two branches and, with one exception, each of these bears three blossoms or leaves denoting, it would seem, the division of a tribe into 2×3=6 parts.

Figure 52. Copy of p. 44, Féjérvary Codex.

The majority of tree-symbols, however, exhibit a quadruplicate division as in fig. , nos. 1, 4 and 7. At the same time it is impossible not to recognize that each example renders in a graphic manner the organization of a tribe. In nos. 2 and 8, for instance, we find that each of the four branches was again subdivided, yielding eight subdivisions instead of four. In no. 3, we have quadruple branches, a pair of recurved spikes with buds and a [pg 188] central bud, the idea of duality repeating itself in the trunk of the tree, one-half of which above ground is white, whilst the other below ground is dark. The obvious allusion is to the Above and Below and this idea is further symbolized by the head of the coatl=serpent or twin. In this figure there is a hint of the existence of an idea I have found expressed in other cases, namely, that a mystic line of demarcation existed at the base of a tree, which separated its upward from its downward growth. This was the seat of the life of the tree, which sent its trunk and crown heavenwards and its roots and rootlets earthwards. The fact that the juice of the agave or maguey was collected from the core of the plant seems to be at the bottom of its adoption as the sacred and ceremonial “drink of life,” which was, subsequently, carefully prepared and fermented. The idea that a tree enclosed male and female elements seems to have been also a strong one and would, in course of time, doubtlessly have led to the conception of superhuman beings in human form, dwelling in trees. What is more, the adoption by each tribe of a particular sort of tree, a custom amply proven, would naturally lead to a species of tree-cult or veneration which, amongst the uninitiated, might lead to a form of worship of the tree itself.

Figure 53.

[pg 189]

The ceremonial presentation of single leaves of the same kinds as those represented on the trees, as in fig. , no. 6, proves that underlying these picture-writings there is far more meaning than has heretofore been suspected or recognized. It is not possible for me to present here all the material I have collected on this subject which will be set forth in a future monograph. I will, however, direct attention to the peculiar treatment in fig. , no. 1, of the tree trunk which is enlarged and forms a quadriform figure. In no. 4, the trunk enlarges to the shape of a head; in no. 2 the tree grows from a human head and two young shoots issue from each side of the trunk, seemingly indicating a fresh growth in tribal life. In no. 5, we have an example of a human figure lying at the base of a tree and a fifth leaf growing in the centre of the treetop. Directing attention to the evident care taken in representing an equal number of branches pointing upwards and downwards I would cite here an extremely interesting representation of a tree in the Borgian Codex. In this case the trunk issues from a conventionally drawn heart, figured in the centre of the symbol for sky or heaven. As the Nahuatl for heart is yul-lotl, from the verb yuli=to live, to resuscitate, the idea is distinctly conveyed that the tree was that of life=yuli and proceeded from the celestial centre of life, Polaris or the Heart of Heaven, a native title for the Supreme Being.

In the Telleriano-Remensis MS., a “tree of Paradise,” so termed in the text, is figured, and there are, in other Codices, various examples of trees encircled with serpents, where it is obvious that this combination was made in order to express, phonetically, that a celestial tree was intended, the word kan=serpent, being made to express kaan=heaven. A celestial tree, situated at the pole and bearing in some cases seven and in others five blossoms, was frequently depicted and its symbolism is obvious. In my commentary on the Hispano-Mexican MS. “The Lyfe of the Indians,” the “Gods,” “Five Flowers,” and “Seven Flowers,” will be treated in detail.

From Sahagun and Olmos we learn that the Mexicans employed the image of a tree, metaphorically, to signify a lord, governor, progenitor, first ancestor. Relations are designated as “issuing from one trunk.” A branch is literally termed “the arm of the [pg 190] tree,” kab-ché. Two kinds of trees, the Puchutl and Aueuetl, signified, metaphorically, “a father, mother, lord, captain or governor who were, or are, like shade-giving, sheltering trees” (Olmos).

The above metaphors explain the frequent association of a head, the symbol of a chief or lord, with the tree symbols. It is noteworthy that in Nahuatl, the name for head=quaitl, is singularly like quauitl=tree, and also recalls the word for serpent=coatl, facts which may have somewhat guided the choice and association of these symbols. The native metaphors recorded by Olmos, moquauhtia=an honored person or lord who has vassals or dependents, and atlapalli=literally, leaf=a person of the lower class, a worker, initiate us still further into the meaning of the native symbolism and prove the antiquity of this, since the designation of a chief as a tree and a vassal as a leaf was in current use. The presentation of the tree issuing from a heart=yul-lotl is moreover, in perfect keeping with native thought, since the chieftain or lord was entitled “the heart, or life of the town or population.”

The meaning of the bird, which is represented as perched on each of the four trees in the Féjérvary diagram, is likewise explained by the metaphors recorded by Olmos who states that, “a son or child or a much beloved lord or chieftain was compared to a beautiful and precious bird, such as the Quetzal, the Roseate Spoonbill, the Blue-bird, etc., etc.” Surmounting the tribal trees in the diagram, the birds therefore typify the lords of the four provinces and this is corroborated by the fact that each different bird is figured again in the corner-loops in combination with the symbols of the cardinal points. The association of the symbols for lord or chief=the head, and the precious bird with the tribal tree also explains the frequent representation, in the native Codices, of one or two serpents entwined around the tree, since the serpent was the symbol in Mexico of the dual rulers or high-priests of the Above and Below. There is ample proof, which shall be presented in full in my monograph on this subject, that the above metaphorical images were as intelligible to the Mayas and other tribes, as to the Mexicans themselves, for the identical metaphors and imagery were in widespread general use. The following data will corroborate this statement.

A Maya native drawing, copied by Cogolludo in 1640 from the MS. of the Chilan Balam or Sacred Book of Man, which relates the [pg 191] history of the Mayas, has been recently reproduced in Dr. Daniel G. Brinton's Primer of Maya Hieroglyphics, p. 47. It displays a rectangular stone slab like a table, on the centre of which rests a circular bowl, the symbol, as I have shown, of the earth and centre. Growing from this is a spreading tree.

It is a curious and undeniable fact that the Maya name for table is mayac, and that the dictionaries contain the words mayac-tun, stone-table, and mayac-ché, wooden, literally, tree-table. Familiarity with the native modes of rebus-writing leads to the inference that this picture of a tree and table, expressing the sounds mayac-ché, actually signified the tree of the Mayas and therefore figured in the book relating their history. Bishop Landa records that the Mayas believed in a beautiful celestial tree, resembling the ceiba and named yax-ché, literally, green tree, under whose shade they would repose in after-life. Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg surmises that this tree was the same as the beautiful shade tree which grows in Yucatan and Mexico and is named, in the latter country, tonacaz-quahuital=tree of our subsistence, i. e., life.

A Maya name for the “tree of life,” ua-hom-ché, next claims our attention. A valuable old manuscript dictionary of the Maya language, quoted by Dr. Brinton, records that the word uah means “a certain kind of life.” The word hom is an ancient term for an artificial elevation, mound or pyramid, hence homul, the pyramid on which a temple was built. Combined with ché, tree, the word seems to signify “the elevated or high tree of life,” the idea of the celestial tree “on high,” being possibly intended. In connection with this it is interesting to reëxamine fig. , IV, which represents a flat pyramid from which grows a four-petalled flower on a stalk with two leaves, the symbolism of which is apparent.

I am inclined to connect another native name translated in the dictionaries by “cross”=zin-ché with zihil=to be born, to commence, zihnal=original, primitive, and zian=origin, generation, ancestry, and to interpret it “the tree of ancestral or tribal life.” On the other hand, there is the adjective zinil=mighty, great, and the meaning of zin-ché may merely mean “the mighty tree.” In treating of the “cross tablet” of Palenque in the following [pg 192] pages, reference will be made to Dr. Brinton's identification of the “cross” as a tree and tree symbolism referred to again. Although unable to produce here all the data I have collected on the subject, I think that the foregoing prove that the Peruvians, Mexicans and Mayas, employed the four-branched tree as an image of the organization and growth of their communal life, and utilized it in pictography as a means of recording changes of organization and statistics of increase or decrease of population. The Maya word for “one generation of men,” uinay, literally meaning “one growth,” seems to reveal that each generation was popularly thought of as one growth of leaves on the tree of state—a simile which is worthy of note.

One more point remains to be considered in reference to the organization of the population into four parts, each of which consisted of four minor parts and so on; namely, the employment of color as a means of differentiation.

In Peru each person wore on the head a twisted cord, of the color of its quarter, whilst the Inca alone wore these colors combined, in the band which encircled his brow, as a sign that, in his person he united the rulership over the four provinces. Molina records the colors of these as red, yellow, white and black. In the titles of the Maya Bacabs, or lords of the provinces, as given by Landa, the words for yellow, red, white and black, are found to be incorporated and prove to be identical with the arrangement in Peru. In Mexico, on the other hand, we find red, yellow, green and blue as the colors of the Four Quarters, white and black being assigned to the Above and Below. All colors combined are to be found united in symbols of the Centre and it is known that the use of centzon-tilmatli and quachtli=mantles of four hundred colors=multicolored were supplied as tributes to the capital, for the use of a privileged caste. A somewhat similar arrangement to the Mexican is that of the Zuñis at the present time. According to Mr. Cushing, they assign yellow, blue, red and white to the cardinal points, speckled and black to the Above=zenith and Below=nadir, and “all colours to the Middle or Centre.”

In Peru, Mexico and Yucatan I have found scattered notices proving that individuals habitually painted their bodies with their respective colors. The Mexican “lords of the night” smeared themselves with black. A passage in Sahagun (book i, chap. v) speaks of the whitening of the “face, arms, hands and legs with [pg 193] ‘tiçatl’ ”=chalk, as though this were a habit of the “noblewomen.” In the Codices some women are, in fact, represented with white faces, whilst those of the majority are painted yellow and it is known that yellow ochre was employed in reality. I have, in preparation, a brief, illustrated monograph showing the various modes of painting the face represented in the native pictorial records. In these, men painted red are of frequent occurrence, and it is known that the “red man” owed his appellation to the custom of using red pigment on his body.

Let us now briefly consider some of the results which inevitably followed the establishment of two diverging cults which were the outcome of the primitive recognition of duality and the artificial association of sex with Heaven and Earth, Day and Night, etc. On pp. 60-62 I have cited evidence showing that at one time in the past history of the Aztecs, serious differences arose between the male and female rulers, and led to a separation of the tribe and the establishment of two distinct centres of government.

The native languages furnish strong indications that, in ordinary tribal life, the separation of the sexes must have been generally enforced from remote antiquity and that male and female communities existed in various portions of the continent. It is well known that, to this day, the Nahuatl tongue spoken by the men is different from that spoken by the women, and that the same duality of language prevails among other American tribes. When the male and female portions of the native states separated and founded separate capitals it is obvious that each would have still further cultivated a separate language and that the institution of two distinct cults would have accentuated their differences and given a fresh impetus to their development. As will be shown, the Maya chronicles reveal that, in Yucatan, the nocturnal cult of the female principle degenerated into such abominations that the incensed population actually rose in revolt, murdered the high-priests and scattered their votaries.

It was obviously owing to a recognition of the degradation attendant upon the abuse of intoxicating drinks, which had played such a rôle in the cult of the earth-mother, that such stern laws were enforced in Mexico, at the time of the Conquest, restricting and regulating the use of pulque. This was distributed by the priests at certain festivals only. These and other rigid measures [pg 194] evidently dictated by a spirit of reform, as well as the close union of both cults, seem to have efficiently maintained a certain equilibrium. At the same time two different moral standards were thus inevitably evolved by the votaries of both cults and naturally profoundly affected the position of woman. The dangers and evils attendant upon the earth-cult became irretrievably associated with the female sex and the votaries of Heaven naturally came to regard woman as a source of temptation and degradation. In ancient Mexico and Peru the celibacy of the sun-priests and of a certain number of noblewomen, “the Virgins of the Sun,” was enforced; thus, whilst the position of woman was being lowered in one caste by an artificial set of ideas, it was raised in the other by an equally fictitious association with the Above, which led, however, to her real elevation of mind and character and finally enforced a recognition of her individuality. The consecration of her person, which caused her to assume a position commanding universal homage, relieved her from heavy labor but caused her to be guarded and protected. She was thus condemned to a still greater seclusion, the primary object of which was to remove her from possible contact with members of the lower earthly caste. For, whilst ceremonial usage even required that the male members of the upper caste should associate in certain symbolical rites with the chief women of the lower order, it was a crime and a desecration for a man of the latter caste to approach a woman of the nobility. These could only marry in their own caste or remain celibate and were kept aloof from all debasing influences, inside of protecting walls.

Reflection shows that such conditions would inevitably lead to the formation of a nobility whose ideal was celibacy and whose “Virgins of the Sun,” by virtue of their consecration, ranked highest amongst the women of the “celestial caste.” Those who married did so in their own caste, led a life of seclusion and always maintained a position of superiority over all women of the “earthly caste.” The latter, on the other hand, had the prerogative of being the representatives of their caste, since the cult of the earth-mother necessitated a female representative, high-priestesses and also female chiefs in their own rights. We know that, in ancient Mexico, an independent gynocracy had been founded at one time. From certain native manuscripts and monuments we have positive evidence that a number of independent female chieftains ruled over minor communities and represented them officially, [pg 195] their rank and insignia being equal to that of the chiefs of male communities. At the same time, from the standpoint of the “upper caste,” the position and moral code of these “votaries of the earth,” were always viewed as inferior.

Another factor also exerted a marked and growing influence upon the relative positions of the two classes of women. The enforced seclusion of the noblewomen rendering out-door occupations or work impossible, it became necessary to relegate such to members of the lower caste who gradually constituted a class of domestic slaves, dedicated to the service of the nobility. In ancient Mexico, as a punishment for various crimes, such as murder, theft, etc., an individual, even of the upper class, was reduced to slavery as a punishment for his crime. The ranks of slaves were also recruited from prisoners of war. On the other hand, the laws regulating slavery were just and mild, the children of slaves were born free and various modes of regaining freedom were afforded to those held in bondage as an expiation for crime. The introduction of slaves necessitating, as it did, their classification with the lower class, now associated servitude with the female division of the community, and the idea arose that women and the lower class existed for the benefit of the male element of the state and a favored minority of consecrated women.

If slavery and bondage came to be regarded on the one hand as a just punishment for crime, the idea of liberty shone as an incentive to good conduct. An eloquent proof of the high estimate in which personal freedom was regarded by the ancient Mexicans, is furnished by the Nahuatl word, recorded by Olmos, for “free man”=xoxouhqui-yollotl, literally, “fresh or green heart.” This expression is of particular interest because it explains a strange mortuary custom which consisted in placing a piece of jade, chal-chihuitl, or precious green stone, in the mouth of a noble person, after death, saying that it was “his heart.” In the case of the lower class a stone of little value, named texaxoctli, was employed. In ancient Mexico, therefore, the presence of jade or any green stone, in a grave, proved that the body was that of a free member of the upper caste. It is evident that the employment of this significant emblem was suggested by the Nahuatl word for “freeman,” and constituted a sort of rebus expressing this title or rank.

In the Peabody Museum there are several specimens of jade celts, collected by Dr. Earl Flint in Nicaragua, which had been cut into two [pg 196] or more pieces. Professor Putnam had the satisfaction of discovering that these pieces from different graves fitted together. His inference that the stone must have been rare and highly prized, probably from some motive connected with native ritual, is fully supported by the explanation afforded by the existence of the Nahuatl word. It is evident that, in order to provide a dead kinsman with the mark of his rank, a living chief would gladly have divided his own celt of jade, if, for some reason or other, no other green stone was forthcoming at the time of burial.

Let us now rapidly enumerate a few facts which prove that not only burial customs but also social organization and numerical divisions were carried northward from the southern cradle of ancient American civilization. I shall make two statements only, hoping that competent authorities on North American tribal organization, and amongst them, my esteemed friend and colleague, Miss Alice C. Fletcher, will supply a number of authoritative reports on these matters.

Referring to the writings of Horatio Hale, whose comparatively recent loss will long be deeply felt by all students of aboriginal history and languages, I quote the following sentences from his interesting pamphlet on “Four Huron Wampum records,” published, with notes and addenda by Prof. E. B. Tylor of Oxford, in 1897.

“The surviving members of the Huron nation, even in its present broken, dispersed and half extinct condition, still retain the memory of their ancient claim to the headship of all the aboriginal tribes of America north of Mexico.... The Hurons or Wendat, as they should be properly styled, belonged to the important group or linguistic stock, commonly known, from its principal branch, as the Iroquoian family and which includes, besides the Huron and Iroquois nations, the Attiwendaronks, the Eries, Andastes, Tuscaroras and Cherokees, all once independent and powerful nations.” (I draw attention to the detail that these nations were seven in number.) Gallatin, in his “Synopsis of the Indian tribes,” notices the remarkable fact that while the “Five Nations” or Iroquois proper were found by Champlain, on his arrival in Canada, to be engaged in deadly warfare with all the Algonquian tribes within their reach, the Hurons, another Iroquoian nation, were the head and principal support of the Algonquian confederacy. In the “Fall of Hochelaga,” Horatio Hale sets forth [pg 197] the reasons which led to the division of the Hurons and Iroquois, who had formerly dwelt together in friendly unison. The latter, retreating to the south and augmented by other refugees, became the “Five Confederate Nations.”

The “kingdom of Hochelaga,” as Cartier styles it, comprised, besides the fortified city of that name, the important town of Stadaconé (commonly known to its people as Canada or “the town”) and eight or nine other towns along the great river. According to their tradition the name of their leader, Sut-staw-ra-tse, had been kept up by descent for seven or eight hundred years.

“Towards the conclusion of a long and deadly warfare between the Iroquois confederates and Canada as well as the Hurons a remarkable change had taken place in their character; a change which recalls that which is believed to have been developed in the character of the Spartans under the institutions of Lycurgus, and the similar change which is known to have appeared in the character of the Arabians under the influence of Mohammedan precepts. A great reformer had arisen in the person of the Onondaga chief, Hiawatha, who, imbued with an overmastering idea, had inspired his people with a spirit of self-sacrifice, which stopped at no obstacle in the determination of carrying into effect their teacher's sublime purpose. This purpose was the establishment of universal peace.... The Tionontaté or Tobacco Nation seem to have made an alliance with the Huron nation....

“Eight clans or gentes composed the Huron people and were found in different proportions in all the tribes. These clans, called by the Algonquians ‘totems,’ all bore the names of certain animals, with which the Indians held themselves to be mythologically connected—the bear, wolf, deer, porcupine, snake, hawk, large tortoise and small tortoise. Each clan was more numerous in some towns than in others, as it was natural that near kindreds should cluster together.

“The five Iroquois nations also had eight clans.... The Iroquois league is spoken of in their Book of Rites as kanasta-tsi-koma, ‘the great framework’ and the large, bent frame-poles of their council-house, the exact original shape of which is not known, were named kan-asta.”

An examination of the signs woven in the famous wampum belts of the Hurons and Iroquois reveals some curious facts.

[pg 198]

One of these treaty belts, described by Horatio Hale, commemorates an alliance formed between four nations. It exhibits four squares (fig. , a) “which indicate, in the Indian hieroglyphic system, either towns or tribes with their territory.” This mode of representing a nation is of utmost interest, not only because it coincides with the Maya conception of “the quadrated” earth but because it also reveals that, in North America, the Indians associated a tribal organization with a quadriform. What is more, an older belt, which is unfortunately incomplete, exhibits a central oval (fig. , b) between a bird and a quadruped and three crosses with a circle uniting their branches. The cross and circle, being a native symbol for “an integral state,” as definitely proven by the Maya map, justifies the suggestion that this symbol on the wampum belt may have had the significance of “nation” and central government. It is remarkable that the Iroquois central capital, Ho-che-laga, can be analyzed in the Maya tongue, as meaning five=ho, tree=ché or hoch=vase (symbol of centre) whilst the terminal laga might possibly be a form of lacan=banner, an object so frequently associated with names of towns in Mexico, where it yields the sound pan and means on or above something.

Figure 54.

It will be interesting and important to learn what “Hochelaga” means in the Iroquois language. The resemblance between the Maya and Iroquois symbols for nation and tribal territory and of the names for capital might even be overlooked and treated as a coincidence merely, if the Iroquois name for the confederacy, kan-asta-tsik-o-ma did not also begin with the word kan, the Maya for four and for serpent. The same particle recurs in the Iroquois name for the town=can-ada, a word which, in Maya, would describe a metropolis divided into four quarters.

The question naturally suggests itself whether the affix can, frequently met with in Mexico combined with names of localities, was not of Maya origin and expressed also a centre of quadruple [pg 199] government. It occurs in the Nahuatl name for metropolis to-tec-ua can and in Teoti-hua can, for instance. The Nahuatl scholars have rendered its meaning as “place of.”

Mr. Hale tells us that, amongst the “Five Nations,” the tradition exists that the confederacy was originally divided into “seven tribes,” each of which was composed of 2×4=8 gentes or clans. Another wampum belt he figures exhibits a heart between 2×2=4 squares, a symbol which would be interpreted by a Mexican or Maya as well as by a Huron or Iroquois, as meaning “four nations, one heart,” the latter being as common a symbol for union of rule or government or for chieftain, as a “head.”

Combined with other testimony it seems impossible to evade the question whether in remote times the Iroquois and Hurons had not shared in some way or other the civilization of the Mayas. If so the ancient earthwork-builders of the Ohio valley, who are authoritatively regarded as of southern origin by Professor Putnam, and whose art exhibits a strong resemblance to that of the Mayas, seem to constitute the missing link between the northeastern and the southeastern tribes. It is curious to find that the terminal ché, which occurs in the name Quiché and which signifies in Maya, tree, and, by extension, tribe, is preserved in the names of the Nat-ché-z tribe still inhabiting the Mississippi valley. It is also present in Coman-ché, Apa-che, etc.

It is to be hoped that, before long, authorities who have made special studies of the above tribes will make searching comparisons of their languages, social organization and symbolism with that of the Mayas, in particular, it seeming evident that the coast communication along the gulf of Mexico, from Yucatan to the mouth of the Mississippi river, was not only easy but was favored by sea-currents.

It is interesting to note that if we now proceed to the southwest of the United States and study the Pueblo people, we seem to find not only more distinctly marked affinities between their customs, etc., and those of the Mexicans, but also traces of similarity with certain Maya symbols.

In several important publications Dr. J. Walter Fewkes has made the valuable observation that there are marked “resemblances between a ceremony practised [at the time of the Conquest] in the heart of Mexico and one still kept up in Arizona,” and [pg 200] states that these “lead one to look for likenesses in symbolism, especially that pertaining to the mythological Snake among the two peoples.” He continues as follows: “From the speculative side it seems probable that there is an intimate resemblance between some of the ceremonials, the symbolism and mythological systems of the Indians of Tusayan and those of the more cultured stocks of Central America.... The facts here recorded look as if the Hopi practise a ceremonial form of worship with strong affinities to the Nahuatl and Maya.... I have not yet seen enough evidence to convince me that the Hopi derived their cult and ceremonials from the Zuñians or from any other single people. It is probably composite. I am not sure that portions of it were not brought up from the far south, perhaps from the Salado and Gila by the Bat-kin-ya-mûh=‘Water people,’ whose legendary history is quite strong that they came from the south.”

Dr. Fewkes frankly states that he “knows next to nothing of the symbolic characters of the Mexican deities ...” and quotes Mr. Bandelier's opinion that “there are traces or tracks of the same mythological system and symbolism amongst the Indians of the southwestern United States and the aborigines of Central America.”

Under the leadership of Mr. Frank H. Cushing let us now enter into the life and thoughts of the modern Zuñis. After having traced certain ideas in Mexico and Peru, it is possible to recognize them again when we find them in Mr. Cushing's valuable work, from which I shall quote somewhat at length, referring the reader, however, to the original, for a fuller realization of existing resemblances.

The Zuñi creation-myth relates how the light of the Sun-father and a foam-cap on the sea, caused the Earth-mother to give birth to twin-brothers, Uanam Achi Piah-koa, “the Beloved Twain who descended.” The first was Uanam Ehkona=the beloved Preceder, the second Uanam Yaluna, the beloved Follower; they were twin-brothers of light, yet elder and younger, the right and left, like to question and answer in deciding and doing.... The [pg 201] Sun-father gave them the thunderbolts of the four quarters, two apiece.... On their cloud-shield, even as a spider in her web descendeth, they descended into the underworld ... (p. 381).

Pausing here for a moment, we note the curious fact that in the Zuñi name for the twins we find koa, resembling the Nahuatl coatl=twin or serpent; that the name of one brother Ehk-ona recalls the Mexican ec-atl=air, wind or breath, and the Maya ik=air, wind, breath, courage, spirit. The allotment of two quarters to each and the image of a spider employed to express their descent from heaven have counterparts in Nahuatl lore.

The “Twain” ... guided men upwards to become the fathers of six kinds of men (yellow or tawny, grey, red, white, mingled and black).... The nation divided itself into the winter or Macaw and the summer or Raven people.... “The Twain beloved gathered in council for the naming and selection of man groups and creature kinds, spaces and things. They determined that the creatures and things of summer and the southern space pertained to the southern people or children of the producing Earth-mother; and those of the winter and northern space to the winter people or children of the Forcing or Quickening Sky-father.”

It is impossible to do more than refer the reader to Mr. Cushing's account of the origin of totem clans and creature-kinds which bears such an affinity to the Peruvian, and obviously arose for the same practical reason, to serve as distinction marks for identification and classification. “At first ... there were four bands of priest-keepers of the mysteries: the Shiwana-kwe=priesthood of the priest-people; Sa'niah'-ya-kwe=priesthood of the Hunt; Ach-iahya-kwe=great Knife people; Newe-kwe=keepers of the magic medicines.” Out of these four divisions “all societies were formed, both that of the Middle and the twain for each of all six regions, constituting the tabooed and sacred 13.” In another passage account is given of the marriage of a brother and sister, which produced twelve children, the first of which, Hlamon, was man and woman combined—the 12 thus constituting in reality 13.

One of the most interesting portions of the Zuñi narrative is one which elucidates the motive which led to the migration of peoples in ancient America. We are told how generations of the forefathers of the Zuñis wandered about in search of the stable middle [pg 202] of the earth, on which they wished to found their sacred city. The tribe divided; the winter-clan journeyed to the northeast and the summer-clan to the southwest, a reunion of the people took place, and a council was held for the determination of the true Middle.... According to a myth the Sun-father requested the water-skate to determine the Middle. This mythical monster lifted himself up, stretched out and then settled downward, calling out: “Where my heart and navel rest beneath them mark ye the spot and then build ye a town of the midmost, for there shall be the midmost of the Earth-mother, even the navel.... And when he descended squatting, his belly rested over the plain and valley of Zuñi and when he drew in his finger-legs, lo! there were the trail roads leading out and in like the stays of a spider's net, into and forth from the place he had covered.”

Pausing to point out that fig. , reproduced from Mexican Codices, shows curious topographical drawings resembling a spider's net, I will not recount the many disappointments of the wanderers, who were evidently driven away from several places of settlement by earthquakes, but will refer to the Zuñi custom of “annually testing the stability of the Middle in middle time ... when the sun reached the middle between winter and summer ... a shell was laid by the sacred fire of the north.... When during solemn chanting no trembling of the earth ensued, the priests cast new fire and ... dwelt happily feeling sure that their sacred things were resting in the stable middle of the world.”

At the beginning of this paper I referred to the powerful hold that the realization of the fixity of the pole star would naturally have exerted upon the mind of primitive man, and I can produce no more striking illustration of this and of my view that the idea of central government and organization had been suggested by Polaris, than this account of the earnest and prolonged search of these ancient people for the stable centre of the earth, on which to found a permanent centre of terrestrial rule or the plan of the celestial government. At the same time it seems to me that the longing for a stable and fixed residence would naturally have been most intense amongst people who had experienced terrible earthquakes and been driven out of their original abodes by their repeated destruction. It is unnecessary to mention the well-known fact that whilst earthquakes prevail throughout North and Central America, the most impressive trace of catastrophes of the kind [pg 203] are connected with the gigantic volcanoes of Central Mexico and Guatemala.

With a sympathetic insight into the disasters which seem to have driven the wandering tribes from one region to another and filled them with a passionate yearning for a centre of rest, let us now learn from Mr. Cushing how they planned their metropolis and organized themselves, when they had found the long-looked-for goal, in the Zuñi valley and “settling there, built seven great cities therein.

“All their subtribes and lesser tribes were distinctively related to and ruled from a central tribe and town through priest chiefs representatives of each of these, sitting under supreme council or septuarchy of the ‘Master priests of the house’ in the central town itself, much as were the divisions and cities of the great Inca dominion in South America represented at and ruled from Cuzco, the central city and power of them all.

“Zuñi is divided, not always clearly to the eye, but very clearly in the estimation of the people themselves, into seven parts, corresponding not perhaps in arrangement topographically, but in scheme to their subdivisions of the worlds or world-quarters of this world. Thus one division of the town is supposed to be related to the north and to be centred in its kiva or estufa which may or may not be at its centre; another division represents the west, another the south, another the east; yet another the upper world and another the lower world; while a final division represents the middle or mother and synthetic combination of the all in the world.

“By reference to the early Spanish history of the pueblos, it may be seen that when discovered the Ashiwis or Zuñis were living in seven quite widely separated towns the celebrated seven cities of Cibola and that this theoretic subdivision of the only one of these towns now remaining is in some manner a survival of the original subdivision of the tribes into seven into as many towns. It is evident that in both cases, however, the arrangement was and is, if we may call it such, a mythic organization; hence my use of the term of mytho-sociologic organization of the tribe. At all events this is the key to their sociology as well as to their mythic conception of space and universe.

“... There were nineteen clans, grouped in threes, to correspond to the mythic subdivision. Three to north, west, south, [pg 204] east, Upper, Lower. The single clan of Macaw is midmost or of middle and also as the all containing and mother clan of the entire tribe, for in it is ‘the seed of the priesthood of houses’ supposed to be preserved.

“Finally, as produced from all the clans and as representative alike of all the clans and through a tribal septuarchy of all the regions and divisions of the midmost and, finally, as representative of all the cult societies above mentioned, is the Kaka or A'kâkâ-kwe or Mythic Dance drama people or organization.

“It may be seen of these mytho-sociologic organizations that they are a system within a system and that it contains systems within systems all founded on the classification according to the six-fold division of things and in turn the six-fold division of each of these divisions of things ... The tribal division made up of the clans of the north take precedence ceremonially, occupying the position of elder brother or the oldest ancestor. The west is the younger brother to this and the south of the west, the east of south, etc.... while the middle is supposed to be a representative being, the heart and name of all of the brothers of the regions, the first and last, as well as elder and younger.

“To such an extent indeed, is this tendency to classify according to the number of the six regions with its seventh synthesis of them all (the latter sometimes apparent, sometimes non-appearing) that not only are the subdivisions of the societies also again subdivided according to this arrangement, but each clan is subdivided, both according to the six-fold arrangement and according to the subsidiary relations of the six parts of its totem....

“In each clan is to be found a set of names, called the names of childhood. These names are more of titles than of cognomens. They are determined upon by sociological divinistic modes and are bestowed in childhood as the ‘verity names’ or titles of the children to whom given. But the body of names relating to any one totem, for instance, to one of the beast totems, will not be the name of the totem-beast itself but will be the names of both of the totems and its various conditions and of the various parts of the totem or of its functions, or of its attributes, actual or mythical.

[pg 205]

“Now these parts or functions, or attributes of the parts or functions, are subdivided also in a six-fold manner, so that the name relating to one member of the totem, for example, like the right leg or arm of the animal thereof, would correspond to the north and would be the first in honor in a clan (not itself of the northern group); then the name relating to another member, say the left leg and its powers, etc., would pertain to the west and would be second in honor, ... the right foot, pertaining to the south, would be third in honor, ... the tail to the lower regions and be sixth in honor; while the heart and navel and centre of the being would be first as well as last in honor.... In addressing each other the word symbol for elder or younger is always used.

“With such a system of arrangement as all this maybe seen to be, with such a facile device for symbolizing the arrangement (not only according to the number of regions, and their subdivisions in their relative succession and the succession of their elements and seasons, but also in the colors attributed to them) and, finally, with such an arrangement of names, correspondingly classified and of terms of relation significant of rank rather than of consanguineal connection, mistake in the order of a ceremonial, a procession or a council is simply impossible and the people employing these devices may be said to have written and to be writing their statutes and laws in all their daily relationship and utterances.”

If this precious exposition of the Zuñi social organization teaches us more about native method and system than all of the writings of the Spanish chroniclers put together, there is one important point which, strangely enough, is not touched upon, namely, the regulation of time. All information concerning native astronomy, and the subdivision of the years, the festival periods and the names of days, seems to have been withheld from Mr. Cushing by the Zuñi priesthood, if we are to assume that they possess a calendar.

In Mexico, as I have already set forth, the calendar system is bound up in the scheme of social organization and it is impossible to separate them. I cannot but think that it must be the same with the Zuñis but that, as in ancient Mexico, only the priesthood were acquainted with the existence of a systematic calendar, and kept it a profound secret from the multitude, although the entire communal life and activities of the people were guided accordingly [pg 206] by their rulers, who had arranged a suitable time for all things, at proper seasons.

Having obtained through Mr. Cushing invaluable material for the making of a composite image of the ancient American civilization let us now proceed to Yucatan, bearing in mind the native mode of thought and master-passion for systematization.

A careful perusal of Cogolludo and Landa's work affords such interesting glimpses into the past history of the inhabitants of the Yucatan peninsula, that they merit presentation in a separate publication. Suffice it for the present to refer more fully to a few leading facts which will be found to illustrate the development of the ancient civilization in the preceding pages.

The native opinion already cited was that a great chief or lord, named Kukulcan, reigned at Chichen-Itza, Yucatan, whilst this was occupied by the Itza tribe, which was driven from it in about 270 A.D. by the Tutul-xius who were entitled “holy men.” Their name justifies Brasseur de Bourbourg's inference that the conquerors may have been a Nahuatl tribe whose name was that of the much-prized blue-bird, Xiuh-tototl.

At the same time the fact that the Maya word for supreme lord and Master (also applied to the divinity) is Ciu-mil seems to indicate that there may be a deeper origin and that the Xiuh-tototl may have only been a rebus employed by the Mexicans to convey the sound of a Maya title, possibly “Kukul-Ciu,” if the above title “holy men” is to be regarded as a translation of Tutul-xiu.

“Kukulcan had no wife or children and was venerated in Yucatan as a god because he was a great republican, as was shown by the order he instituted in Yucatan after the death of the native rulers. He went to Mexico whence he returned. He was there named Quetzalcoatl and was venerated by the Mexicans as one of their gods.” When he had entered into treaty with the native chiefs inhabiting the country, they agreed to join him in founding and peopling a city which was named Mayapan, but was also known by the natives as Ichpa, meaning “inside of the circles.” “They proceeded, indeed, to build a circular walled enclosure with two entrances [pg 207] only. In its centre, the principal temple was erected and it was circular, with four doors opening to the cardinal points, like one which had been built by Kukulcan at Chichen-Itza. The walled circle also contained other sacred edifices and houses intended to be inhabited by the lords only, who divided up the entire land amongst themselves. Towns were assigned to each according to the antiquity of his lineage and personal distinction. Kukulcan lived in this town for some years with these lords and leaving them in amity and peace returned to Mexico by the same way as on his visit, lingering on the way in order to build a quadriform temple on an island off the coast.”

I know of no more instructive account of aboriginal history than this simple native record preserved by Landa, which so clearly reveals amongst other details that the Mexican culture-hero was an actual personage, a Maya high-priest who had been a ruler at Chichen-Itza. In this connection it is interesting to collate another chapter of Landa's work in which he reports what the oldest Indians narrated to him about Chichen-Itza, of which I give the following somewhat abbreviated translation: Three brothers came there in olden times from the west and having assembled together a large number of people, ruled them for some years with much justice and peace. They paid great honor to their god and built many beautiful edifices.... They lived without wives in purity and virtue and as long as they did this they were esteemed and obeyed by all. In course of time one of them possibly died, but is said by the Indians to have gone out of the country. Whatever may have been the cause of his absence the remaining rulers immediately began to show partiality and to institute such licentious and abominable customs that they were finally execrated by the people who rebelled and killed them, and then disbanded and abandoned the capital, “although this was most beautiful and was surrounded by fertile provinces.”

The principal edifice at Chichen-Itza was a pyramid temple which [pg 208] had four stairways facing the cardinal points. It contained a circular temple which was named after the builder Kukulcan and had four doorways opening to the four quarters of heaven.

If I have dwelt again upon Kukulcan=Quetzalcoatl, it is because, between the writers who interpret the records concerning him as a sun or star-myth and those who identify him as the abstract deity whose name he bore as a title only, or as St. Thomas or a mythical Norseman, ancient America is being deprived of its most remarkable historical personage.

Collated with the Maya traditional records, the Mexican accounts agree and supply missing evidence. Whilst the Mayas state that their ruler and legislator went to Mexico and even record his Mexican name, Montezuma informs Cortés that “his ancestors had been conducted to Mexico by a ruler, Quetzalcoatl, whose vassals they were and who having established them in a colony returned to his native land. Later on he returned and wished them to leave with him but they chose to remain, having married women of the country, raised families and built towns. Nor would they institute him again as their lord, so he went away again toward the east, whence he had come.” It seems nearly proven that Kukulcan was one of the three rulers who came to Yucatan from the east. The Mexican tradition that he was driven into exile by his enemies, the followers of Tezcatlipoca, the lord of the Below, appears to be corroborated by the Maya record that, after his restraining presence had been removed, they committed such excesses that the indignant population arose and murdered their two rulers at Chichen-Itza. Quetzalcoatl's continued efforts to assemble scattered tribes, to organize them peacefully under central governments, to found capitals and erect in the centre of these quadriform pyramids and circular temples, prove how completely he was possessed by the idea of spreading the well-known scheme of civilization. His very name in Maya signified “the divine Four” and this more profound signification was hidden under the image of the “feathered serpent” employed as a rebus to express the title of the supreme Being and the high-priest, his earthly representative.

[pg 209]

The Mexican records state that the culture-hero's white robes were covered with red crosses, and that he set up cross-emblems. Evidence showing how completely this builder and founder of cities carried out the idea of the Four Quarters, in the temples he erected in Mexico, is preserved by the record that for prayer, penitence and fasting, he prepared four rooms which he occupied in rotation. These were respectively decorated in blue, green, red and yellow, by means of precious stones, feather-work and gold. As these were the colors assigned to the Four Quarters their symbolism and meaning are obvious, and it may be inferred that the same method of decorating the sides of buildings or doorways, with these four colors, may have been carried out in square sacred edifices oriented to the cardinal points.

It is curious to detect the quadruplicate idea in the title Holcan given to certain war-chiefs. This name signifies, literally, “the head of four,” but could be expressed by the rebus of a “serpent's head,” which would obviously have been employed in pictography to express the title and rank. The existence of the title “Four-head,” or “the head of four,” obviously relates to the rulership of the Four Quarters, united in one person; and in this connection the Tiahuanaco swastika (fig. ), terminating in four pumas' heads, seems to gain in significance as the expressive symbol of a central ruler. The recorded custom to cover the body of the Mexican ruler with the raiment of the “four principal gods,” proves the prevalence of analogous symbolism.

From the following data we gain an interesting view of the events which transpired in former times in the Yucatan peninsula. Resuming Landa's account we see that, after Kuculcan had departed for Mexico, the lords of Mayapan decided to confer supreme rulership upon the Cocomes, this being the most ancient and the wealthiest lineage and its chief being distinguished for bravery. They then decided that the inner circle should hold only the temples and houses for the lords and high-priest. In connection with this it is well to insert here how Landa states, in another passage, that there were “twelve priests or lords at Mayapan,” which with the high-priest constituted the sacred 13. “Outside the wall they built houses where each lord kept some servitors and where his people or vassals could resort when they came on business to the town. Each of these houses had its steward, entitled Caluac, who bore a staff of office and he kept an account with the towns and with [pg 210] their local rulers. The Caluac always went to his lord's house, saw what he required and obtained from the vassals all he needed in the way of provisions, clothing, etc.” (op. cit., pp. 34-44).

The chronicle goes on to relate how the lords of the inner circle devoted their time to the affairs of government, the regulation of the calendar and the study of writing, medicine, and the sciences.

It seems significant that, throughout Central America, two ruined cities of about equal size are usually found in comparatively close proximity to each other, and seemingly pertaining to the same culture. Thus we have Quirigua, in the valley of the Motagua river, and Copan its sister-city, situated at a distance of about twenty-five miles, but nearly 1,800 feet above it, in the wooded hills. Between Palenque and Menché (Lorillard City) there are about fifty miles, whilst Tikal and Ixkun are forty miles apart. In Yucatan, as we have learned from Bishop Landa's “Relacion,” there were Mayapan and Zilan, and as the latter name also signified “embroidery” it looks as though it had been a noted centre of female industry.

Then, after a lapse of years, “a large number of tribes, with their lords, came to Yucatan from the south.” Bishop Landa conjectures that, although his informants did not know this for certain, “these tribes must have come from Chiapas, many words and the conjugation of some verbs being the same in Yucatan as in Chiapas where there existed great signs showing that ancient capitals had been devastated and abandoned,” possibly by earthquakes, famine, disease or warfare. It has been surmised that the venerable Bishop alluded, in this sentence, to the ruins of Palenque in Chiapas.

Although not mentioned by Cogolludo or Lizana it is accepted that the new-comers were the Tutul-xius. According to an ancient Maya chronicle, “at a date corresponding to 401 A.D., the four Tutul-xius had fled from the house of Nonoual, to the west of Zuiva and came from the land of Tulapan. Four eras passed before they reached the peninsula of Yucatan named Chac-noui-tan under their chieftain, Holon-Chan-Tepeuh,” a name which is equally intelligible in Maya, Tzendal and Nahuatl and means Head-Serpent [pg 211] and “lord of the mountain,” according to Brasseur de Bourbourg, who states that the latter was a sovereign title amongst the Quichés.

Landa relates that, after wandering about Yucatan for forty years (possibly in search of the stable centre) these tribes settled near Mayapan, subjected themselves to its laws and lived in peaceful friendship with the Cocomes. The new-comers brought with them the atlatl or spear-thrower which is minutely described but is evidently regarded as a weapon of the chase. The chronicle goes on to narrate that the Cocom governor, having become ambitious for riches, entered into a treaty with Mexican warriors who were garrisoned at Tabasco and Xicalango by the Mexican ruler and induced them to come to Mayapan and to aid him in oppressing the native lords. The latter and the Tutul-xius rebelled against this action and, having observed the Mexicans and become experts in the art of using their bow and arrow, lance, hatchet, shield and other defensive armor, they “ceased to admire and fear the Mexicans and began to make little of them, and in this condition they remained for some years.”

A lapse of years passed and another Cocom chief formed a fresh league with the Tabasco people. More Mexican warriors came to Mayapan and supported him in tyrannizing and making slaves of the lower class. Then the Tutulxiu lords assembled and decided to murder the Cocom ruler. Having done so they also killed all his sons with the exception of one who was absent; burnt their houses and seized their plantations of cocoa and other fruits, saying that these compensated for what had been stolen from them. The differences which subsequently arose between the Cocome and the Xius people resulted in the final destruction and abandonment of Mayapan after an occupation of more than five hundred years, both tribes returning to their countries.

“The lords who destroyed Mayapan (about 120 years before the Conquest) carried away with them their books of science.... The son of the Cocom lord, who being absent had escaped death, returned and gathered his relations and vassals together and founded a capital.... Many towns were built by them in the hills and many families descended from these Cocomes. These lords of Mayapan did not revenge themselves upon the Mexican warriors [pg 212] but generously exonerated them from blame because they were strangers and had been persuaded to come into the land by its former ruler. They allowed them to remain unmolested in the country and to found a city on condition that they kept to themselves and married in their own tribe only. These Mexicans decided to settle in Yucatan and peopled the province of Can-ul which was assigned to them and they continued to live there until the second invasion of the Spaniards.”

At Chichen-Itza, situated at about twenty-three leagues from the ancient site of Mayapan, there exists substantial evidence of the existence of these Aztec warriors, with indications that they pertained to the Mexican warrior-caste of the ocelots or tigers. It is a recognized fact that the remarkable bas-reliefs, which still cover the walls of the “temple of the tigers” at Chichen-Itza, are strikingly Aztec in every detail. The exact counterparts of the Atlatls, they hold, are visible on the so-called “Stone of Tizoc” in the city of Mexico. Sculptured on the wall opposite the entrance of the temple there are about thirty-six war-chiefs grouped in three parallel rows of twelve each, the majority of whom are apparently rendering some form of homage to a seated personage surrounded by rays, while others are having an encounter with a monstrous serpent. On the side walls and slanting roofs more warriors are figured, many accompanied by a rebus or hieroglyph which evidently records, in Mexican style, individual names. The total number of sculptured warriors seems to have been about one hundred. If each of these represented, as may be supposed, a “count of men,” it is evident that a large force of Aztec soldiers must have lived in Yucatan at one time.

Other interesting monuments at Chichen-Itza deserve a passing mention. Mr. Teobert Maler (Yukatekische Forschungen, Globus, 1895, p. 284) relates that there are two pyramid-temples in the terraces of which the remains of great stone tables have been found. He states that one of these tables was originally supported by two rows of seven sculptured caryatids and by a central row of plain columns with flat, square tops. Traces of paint showed that the figures had been painted, that a yellow-brown color had predominated, but that all ornaments or accessories were either blue or green. The caryatids exhibited a variety of costume and of size and each showed a marked individuality. The second table standing in a larger temple, was originally painted red and supported [pg 213] by twenty-four caryatid figures which resemble each other closely, show no individuality and which seem to have been disposed in two rows of twelve each. Mr. Maler infers from this that, being more highly conventionalized, they were of a later date than the previous examples. If it were not for the circumstance that both tables had the same number of supports their numeral 24 might pass unobserved. As it is, I shall recur to it on mentioning other monuments with figures yielding the same number and disposed, in one case, as 6×4. In connection with these stone tables I recall the fact that, in the Maya language, they were called Mayac-tun.

Mr. W. H. Holmes (op. cit., p. 134) tells us that in one case the continuous table had been formed by a series of limestone tablets averaging three feet square and five or six inches thick, each slab having been supported by two of the dwarfish figures which stand with both hands aloft, giving a broad surface of support. He ascertained that “these slabs were wonderfully resonant and when struck lightly with a hammer or stone, give out tones closely resembling those of a deeply resonant bell, and the echoes awakened in the silent forest are exceedingly impressive.” Mr. Holmes' account of these resonant stone tables is of particular value to me because it throws an interesting light upon the following Maya words: I have already stated that the native name for table is Mayac, and that a stone table is Mayac-tun. The word tun, however, not only signifies stone, but also sound and noise. From this it would seem that stone tables such as Mr. Holmes describes were made expressly for the purpose of emitting sound and employed like the huehuetl or wooden drums of the ancient Mexicans to summon the people to the temple and to guide the sacred dances.

The existence of the word tun-kul, which is either “stone-bowl” or “sound-bowl,” seems likewise to indicate that hollow stone vessels were used at one time as gongs. At the present day the Mayas name the small wooden drum of the Mexicans a “tunkul,” whereas its Nahuatl name is “te-ponaxtli,” the prefix of which, curiously enough, seems also to be connected with tetl=stone. A curious light is shed upon the possible use of some of the many stone vessels found in Mexico and Yucatan by the above linguistic evidence.

In conclusion I quote Mr. Maler's authority for two points concerning [pg 214] Chichen-Itza which are not generally known. First, that its name should be pronounced “Tsitsen-itsa,” and, second, that he saw there no less than five recumbent statues, holding circular vessels. Each of these figures exhibits the same form of breast-plate as the Le Plongeon example now at the National Museum of Mexico (pl. iv, fig. 1). Mr. Maler states that it seems to have been the tribal mark of the Cocomes, the whilom rulers at Chichen-Itza; but it is interesting to note the general resemblance of this ornament to the blue plaque worn by the Mexican “Blue Lord,” the Lord of the Year and of Fire, “Xiuhtecuhtli,” who is also usually represented with a Xiuh-tototl or “blue-bird” on the front of his head-dress.

These facts seem to indicate that the characteristic breast-plate, instead of being a mark of the Cocomes, may have been that of the Tutul-Xius, and that this title has some connection with that of Xiuh-tecuhtli, the Mexican “Lord of Fire.” It has been already set forth in the preceding pages that the sacred fire was kindled in the stone vase held by the recumbent figures, a fact indicating that the identical form of cult was practised in Mexico and at Chichen-Itza. This identity is satisfactorily accounted for and explained if we accept the simple native records of the invitation extended to Mexican warriors by a Maya chieftain and their subsequent permanent residence in Yucatan.

The limitations of my subject do not allow me to do more than mention two other important ruined cities of Yucatan, Izamal and Uxmal. I will however note that, judging from the illustrations I have seen, Uxmal seems to be the “Serpent-city” of America, par excellence, its buildings exhibiting the most elaborate and profuse employment of the serpent for symbolical decoration. One inference from this might be that the serpent was the totemic animal of the ancient builders of this city. The foregoing rapid review of the native chronicles of Yucatan shows that even the foundation of Mayapan was comparatively recent; that the peninsula had, in turn, harbored powerful tribes who had drifted thence from the southwest and Mexican warriors whose aid had been sought by consecutive rulers of Chichen-Itza. We see that Yucatan was the meeting ground for Maya- and Nahuatl-speaking people and that the tendency was to leave the peninsula in search of a more favorable soil and climate as soon as opportunity was afforded.

Since the cradle of the Maya civilization is evidently not to be [pg 215] looked for in Yucatan, let us follow the clue afforded by the native traditions, transport ourselves to some of the most important ruined cities of Central America and endeavor to wrest from their monuments some knowledge of the social organization of their ancient inhabitants. In order to institute this search under the most favorable circumstances, I ventured to apply for guidance to Mr. A. P. Maudslay who has made a more thorough, prolonged and extensive study and exploration of these ruined cities than any other person. Upon my request to formulate his opinion as to the respective antiquity and chief characteristics of the most noted sites, this distinguished explorer has most kindly authorized me to publish the following note.

“But for a brief note in Nature (28th April, 1892), I have never classified the ruins or attempted to give proofs of differences in age of the monuments, but roughly you may safely class them as follows: I am inclined to look on the Motagua river group as the oldest. The Yucatan group is certainly the youngest. Of course there are many other smaller differences between the groups and much overlapping. Whichever group may be the oldest the art is there already advanced and the decoration has taken forms which must have occupied many kinds of workers to conventionalize from natural objects.”

1. On Motagua River, Quirigua, Copan. Large monolithic stelæ and altars with figures and inscriptions carved on all four sides in rather high relief, some groups pictographic. No weapons of war portrayed in the sculpture.

2. On Usumacinto River, Menché, Tinamit, Palenque, Ixkun. Stelæ are usually flat slabs carved with figures and inscriptions in low relief on one side only. External ornament of the buildings usually moulded in stucco. War-like weapons but very scarce.

3. Tikal. Intermediate between Nos. 2 and 4, but somewhat different and distinct from either.

[pg 216]

4. Yucatan. Chichen-Itza, Uxmal, etc. Stelæ very few in number and poorly carved. Inscriptions carved in stone are very scarce. Inscriptions were probably painted on the walls of the temples. External ornament of buildings formed by a mosaic of cut stones somewhat resembling Zapotec or Aztec style. Every man portrayed as a warrior [on the bas-reliefs].

By means of the magnificent set of casts which Mr. A. P. Maudslay has generously presented to the South Kensington Museum, London, and with the aid of his monumental and splendidly illustrated work on the Archaeology of Central America, which has been appearing as a part of the Biologia Centrali-Americana, edited by Messrs. Godman and Salvin, I have been able to verify the following facts which will be found to throw light on the purpose and meaning of some of the ancient monuments.

Before examining the great, elaborately carved stelæ which are characteristic of Quirigua and Copan, let us search the native chronicles for some clue explanatory of the purpose for which they were erected.

Bishop Landa has transmitted to us some details about the destroyed metropolis of Mayapan given to him by Yucatec informants who stated that “in the central square of that city there still were 7 or 8 stones, about ten feet high, rounded on one side and well sculptured, which exhibit several rows of the native characters, but were so worn that they had become illegible. It is supposed, however, that they are the record of the foundation and destruction of that capital. Similar, but higher monuments, are at Zilan, a town on the coast. Interrogated as to the meaning of these monoliths the natives answered: It had been or was customary to erect similar stones at intervals of 20 years which was the number by which they counted their eras.” Bishop Landa subsequently remarks that “this statement is not consistent,” for, according to this “there should be many more such stones in existence, and none exist in any other pueblo but Mayapan and Zilan.”

[pg 217]

Disagreeing with the venerable Bishop, I find in the above statements the most valuable indications of the former existence of two centres of culture in Yucatan. There is a curious affinity between the name Zilan (pronounced Dzilan) and Chilan given as “the title of a priestly office which consisted of a juridistic astrology and divination,” by Landa. There may even be a connection between zilan and zian=origin, commencement; zihnal=original and primitive, which may be worthy of consideration in association with the well-known statement, quoted by Dr. Brinton, that “the most venerable traditions of the Maya race claimed for them a migration from Tollan in Zu-iva—thence we all came forth together, there was the common parent of our race; thence came we from amongst the Yagui men, whose god is Yolcuatl Quetzalcoatl.” Dr. Brinton adds that “this Tollan is certainly none other than the abode of Quetzalcoatl named in an Aztec manuscript as ‘Zivena Uitzcatl.’ ” Vague as any conjecture must necessarily be, I cannot but deem it of utmost importance that systematic excavations be made, some day, at Zilan, for the purpose of bringing to light the stelæ referred to by the native informants of Bishop Landa.

According to Brasseur de Bourbourg “Zilan, situated at about 20-½ leagues from Merida belonged to the Cheles people. It is the seaport of Izamal and contains the ruins of one of the greatest pyramids or artificial mounds (omul) in Yucatan,” a fact which corroborates the view that it was an ancient important capital. The northern coast of Yucatan is extremely remarkable for it is divided from the Gulf of Mexico by a continuous strip of land between which and the mainland there is a narrow channel of water. There are two openings only in this zone of land which afford a passage into the navigable channel. One of these openings is situated almost opposite to Zilan and is known as the Boca de Zilan. At a short distance to the east there is a second such “boca” opposite to the mouth of the Rio Lagartos, which is a [pg 218] large estuary and the only river on the northern coast of Yucatan.

Let us now transport ourselves, mentally, south of the peninsula to Honduras and, leaving the coast, ascend the Motagua valley to the ruins of Quirigua and Copan, which have impressed Mr. Maudslay as being of great antiquity. Before examining such of these monuments as seem to yield the testimony we are seeking, let us again recall Landa's record that the Mayas erected stelæ as memorials of each 20-year period. To this statement should be added, at full length, Cogolludo's record that “the Mayas employed eras of 20 years and lesser periods of 4 years. The first of these four years was assigned to the east and was named Cuch-haab; the second, Hiix, to the west; the third, Cavac, to the south and the fourth Muluc, to the north, and this served as a ‘Dominical letter.’ When five of these four-year periods had passed, which form twenty years, they called it a Katun and placed one sculptured stone over another sculptured stone and fixed them with lime and sand [mortar] to the walls of their temples and houses of the priests.”

The term katun is closely linked to the said employment of memorial stones, for tun is the Maya for stone and ka seems to stand for kal or kaal=20. The word hun-kaal=20, means literally, “one complete count,” or “a count which is closed,” since the verb kaal means to close, shut, or fasten something. According to the above a katun literally means “the 20 (year) stone;” but we know that, by extension, it designated the era itself as well as war and battle. Thus we find the verb katun-tal=to fight.

Cogolludo continues: “In a town named Tixuala-tun, which signifies ‘the place where they place one stone above another,’ [pg 219] they say that they kept their archive, containing records of all events.... In current speech katun signified era and when a person wished to say he was sixty years of age, he used the expression to have three eras of years or three stones. For seventy they said three and a half stones or four less one-half stone. From this it may be seen that they were not too barbarous, for it is said that [by this system] they were able to keep such exact records that they not only certified an event but also the month and day on which it took place.”

By referring to Maya and Spanish dictionaries we gain supplementary valuable information about native memorial stones. We find the name amaytun given as that of “a square stone on which the ancient Indians used to carve the 20 years of the period ahau-katun, because the four remaining years which completed the epoch, were placed underneath, so as to form a sort of pedestal which was called, for this reason, lath oc katun or chek oc katun. By extension, painted representations [of the epoch] were also named amaytun.” The dictionary further informs us that amayté was the name for the first twenty years of the ahau katun, which were carved on the square stone and we see that amayté also means “something square or with corners” and is formed of amay=corner.

Equipped with the foregoing knowledge of the sort of memorial it was customary for the Mayas to erect, let us now see whether the ruins of Copan furnish any monuments which would answer to the description and purpose of “amay-tés” and “ka-tuns.” Referring the reader to parts i-iii of Mr. A. P. Maudslay's work already cited, I draw special attention to the following stelæ and altars which are so admirably figured therein.

Stela F, which stands at the east side of the Great Plaza at Copan and faces west, is in a particularly bad state of preservation. It exhibits a standing figure on one side whose head is surmounted by an indescribable combination of a mask, a seated figure and much elaborate feather-work. A noteworthy feature, which recurs on other stelæ in Copan and Quirigua, is an appendage which appears like an artificial beard attached to the chin of the personage. At the sides of the stela serpents' heads alternate with diminutive grotesque figures. On the back, or east side of the stela, two cords are represented which appear to have been brought over from the front and which are tied together so as to form five open loops, [pg 220] in each of which, as in a frame, there is a group consisting of four calculiform glyphs. The cord, which is knotted together at the base of the stela, appears to pass around it. It is impossible not to recognize that this representation of twenty glyphs, as divided into five groups of four, exactly agrees with Cogolludo's records that the Mayas employed 20-year and 4-year eras and that when five of the 4-year periods had passed they called it a ka-tun, and made a carved memorial of it. As Landa tells us that they erected stelæ to commemorate the 20-year period, the inference to which the Copan Stela F leads us is that it is a katun and that the twenty glyphs carved on it are year-signs. Examination, however, shows that, whereas the Maya Calendar had but four year-signs which would naturally be bound to repeat themselves in each group of four years, no two glyphs on the Stela F are alike. It is obvious, therefore, that the glyphs are not the four calendar year-signs and reflection shows, indeed, that it would have been quite superfluous to carve these repeatedly on a stela. As each year-sign was identified with a cardinal point and an element and was permanently associated with a particular color, the mere employment of the latter would suffice to convey this association of ideas. What is more, the relative positions of the four glyphs composing each group would also indicate the four year-signs and thus the sculptor of the stela would have been at liberty to record by the shape of his glyphs any fact he chose to connect with each year of the era. A curious linguistic fact must also be taken into consideration: The Maya name for the four year-signs was Ah-cuch-haab and the title for a chief or ruler of a town was Ah-cuch-cab. The mere presence on the stela, of the figure of the ruler, would suffice to convey the certainty that the count of the four year-signs was understood to be present. On Stelæ F and M, each of which displays twenty glyphs and one sculptured personage, the latter is particularly characterized by being associated with head-dresses and emblems consisting of elaborate conventionalized plumed serpents' heads. The inference naturally is that the serpent symbolism, which recurs in some form or other on every stela effigy, expresses or conveys that the rank and title of the personage were that of a Kukul-can, the high-priest ruler who impersonated the “Divine Four,” or of some lord=Ahau, who was also “ruler of the four regions.”

It must be recognized that a stone stela, on which is sculptured [pg 221] the image of a lord and a count of 20, answers exactly to the memorial stone named Ahau-ka-tun, literally, lord, 20 stone, and it is easy to see how the period or era of twenty-four years should come to be called by the name of the stone which commemorated it, and each era to be differentiated by being designated by the personal name of the ruler who held office during its course. The result would be practically the same as the allusion to a particular reign in a nation's history, with the seeming difference that all ancient American rulers and their subordinates held fixed terms of office, coinciding with the various periods of the calendar.

The inscriptions on the foregoing stelæ are made of glyphs of a uniform character. Other stelæ at Copan display the interesting set of 6+1=7 signs which recur on so many Central American monuments and strikingly coincide in number with the all-pervading division into six parts plus the middle and synopsis of all. Of this “septenary set of signs,” six are uniform in size and character whilst the first is more elaborate and important in every respect and, as I shall set forth by a series of illustrations in another publication, actually does symbolize the union of the Above and Below. It is to Mr. Maudslay that we owe the recognition of the existence of this septenary set of glyphs, which he announced as follows to the Royal Geographical Society in 1886:

“A number of Central American inscriptions are headed by what I shall call an initial scroll (the style of which is permanent throughout many variations) and begin with the same formula, usually extending through six squares of hieroglyphic writing, the sixth square, or sometimes the latter half of the sixth square, being a human face, usually in profile, enclosed in a frame or cartouche” (Proceedings, p. 583).

The septenary group occurs on Stelæ A, B, C, E, I, P. It is curious to find that the initial sign is sometimes, as on two sides of Stela P, followed not by 6 glyphs only, but by 4×6=24 glyphs. On the east side of Stela P, it is succeeded by 22 glyphs and a carved design which seems to indicate the beginning or end of the count. On Stela I the initial is also followed by 4×6=24 glyphs, and on Stela A by 12 double (=24) glyphs on side 1, whilst side 2 displays 13 and side 3, 2×13=26. On Stela B two sides exhibit 13 glyphs each and the back 2+ the initial. On two sides of Stela C the initial is followed by 2×7=14 glyphs. It cannot be denied that the foregoing stelæ collectively yield counts [pg 222] of 4×5, 7, 13, 20 and 24, which undoubtedly coincide with the well-known numerical organization and prove that this dominated the people who erected them.

The certainty that the ancient inhabitants of Copan associated the idea of a central ruler with quadruple power is afforded by a remarkable bas-relief which Mr. Maudslay has kindly allowed me to reproduce here (fig. ), from a drawing made by Miss Annie Hunter.

This carved slab, the size of which is 5' by 4' 6", was found in four pieces in the western court of the main structure of Copan and according to Mr. Maudslay's opinion, “formed part of the exterior ornament of temple 11 or the slope on which it stood.” It undoubtedly claims a minute examination, as it strikingly illustrates how the native ideas, I have been setting forth in the preceding pages, were originally suggested by the observation of Polaris. Seated cross-legged, and resting on the centre of the foliated swastika, is the figure of a personage whose titles are clearly discernible.

Figure 55.

He is designated as a ruler, not only by his attitude of repose, but by the fact that he wears a breast ornament in the form of a face or head (of the sun) and holds in his hand (i. e. governs) a vase or bowl (see p. 72). Those show him to be the chief or head of all and the Cum-ahau, or lord of the sacred vase or bowl (see p. 93). As the latter contains what appears to be a variant of the glyph ik and the word ik signifies breath, air and wind, by extension life, we realize that he is designated as the lord of breath and life. The glyph which covers his face bears a native cross-symbol and this, as well as the cruciform figure, the centre of [pg 223] which he occupies, conveys the idea of quadruplicate power. The double and bent arms of the cross-symbol strikingly resemble the conventionalized puffs of breath or air which are so frequently depicted in Mexican Codices, as issuing from the mouths of speakers. Almost identical representations of curved puffs are figured as issuing from open serpents' jaws in a bas-relief at Palenque, of which more anon.

Mr. Maudslay has pointed out that on stelæ from Copan and Quirigua a profusion of analogous curved signs occurs also in connection with serpents' heads. A special feature of the curved puffs of breath on the Copan “swastika,” as it has been named, are small seed-like balls which are distributed in detached groups of threes along their inner and outer edges, and are usually accompanied by what resembles the small calyx of a flower, making four small objects in all. These balls, which also recur in the Palenque symbol, forcibly recall a passage of the Zuñi creation myth recounted by Mr. Cushing.

It relates that, at a certain stage of the creation, “the most perfect of all priests and fathers named Yanáuluha ... brought up from the underworld, the water of the inner ocean and the seeds of life production” ... Subsequently, on a feathered staff he carried, “appeared 4 round things, seeds of moving beings, mere eggs they were; two blue like the sky and two red like the flesh of the earth-mother.”...

I cannot but think that these words from a purely native source explain the Copan sculpture more correctly than any inference that could be made, and authorize the explanation that the central figure represents the “four times lord,” or “lord of the four winds,” titles which were applied in Mexico to Quetzalcoatl and Xiuhtecuhtli. At the same time the bas-relief teaches us that “the four winds” had a deeper meaning than has been realized, for it represents life-giving breath carrying with it the seeds of the four vital elements, emanating from the central lord of life, spreading to the four quarters and dividing itself so as to disseminate vitality throughout the universe. The title Kukulcan=the Divine Four, also serpent, proves to be even more expressive of this conception of a central divinity than the Mexican Divine Twin, or serpent. I am therefore inclined to consider that it originated with a Maya-speaking people, to whom, more graphically than to any one else, this bas-relief would have served, as a [pg 224] joint image of the star-god, the heart of heaven, named Hura-kan; of the terrestrial lord Ah-cuch-cab, the heart or life of the State; of the State, with its hun-kaal or one count of twenty subdivisions of people and its quadruple head and body and, finally, of the native cosmology.

The Copan swastika enables us to come to another interesting conclusion. It is a refined representation of the set of thoughts suggested by Polaris, the idea of a stable centre being graphically rendered. Movement in four directions is also symbolized. As, in the latitude of Copan, Ursa Minor is the only circumpolar constellation which could have been observed in four opposite positions, it is obvious that Ursa Minor with Polaris must have constituted the Maya Celestial Heart or Life=cuxabal. The following points remain to be discussed in connection with the Copan swastika.

1. To be complete and in keeping with native modes of representation it must have originally been painted with the symbolical colors of the Four Quarters.

2. It is on a wooden club from Brazil or Guiana that, strange to say, I find a cross symbol with bifurcated branches, which most closely resembles the Copan type. Directing the readers to the illustration of this club as fig. 8, pl. xv, in Dr. Stolpe's work already cited, I would ask them to examine also his fig. 7, with a design expressing dual and quadruple divisions; fig. 9b, with circles containing cross lines; 9a, with what resembles somewhat a Maltese cross but also conveys duality; fig. 11b with a cross in a scalloped circle and a curious disc between four signs, with a band of alternate black and white squares and its reverse 11a, with triangles, to which I shall revert; and figs. 10c and d, each with a mound from which a tree is growing. Though tempted to refer to many other symbols I shall limit myself to pointing out that his fig. 1, pl. xiv, exhibits a group of five circles in a circle which strikingly recall the Mexican examples and the Maya ho=5. As each of the foregoing symbols is intelligible and belongs to a group of ideas which I have shown to have been general throughout America, but to have necessarily originated in the northern hemisphere, it seems pretty clear that they must have gradually found their way to Brazil and Guiana from the north by means of coast navigation and traffic.

3. Concerning the bowl in the hand of the figure occupying the [pg 225] middle of the swastika a few remarks should be added to those already given on pp. and .

Formed of clay the bowl was an expressive symbol of the earth. Placed in elevated positions on the terraces of the temples, and filled by the first annual showers which fell upon the parched earth, the bowl of celestial water naturally became invested with peculiar sanctity, and was gradually regarded as containing particular life-giving qualities. One use to which bowls full of water were put, in ancient Mexico, seems to explain further the ideas associated with them. It is well known that bowls of water were used at night for divination purposes, just as were black obsidian mirrors. This seems to prove that the latter were a subsequent invention which was adopted because it permanently afforded a surface for purposes of reflection.

In the native Maya chronicles the reflection of a star upon the trembling and moving surface of the water, is given as the image of the Creator and Former, the Heart of Heaven, and it was believed that the divine essence of life was thus conveyed to earth by light shining on and into the waters. It is well known that it was customary for the priests of the Great Temple of Mexico to bathe at midnight after fasting, in a sacred pool so deep that the water appeared to be black. This artificially-produced peculiarity would have rendered its surface particularly useful for the observation and registration of the movements of stars by their reflections.

Thomas Gage quaintly tells us, moreover, that at the consecration of a certain idol “made of all kinds of seeds that grow in the country ... a certain vessell of water was blessed with many words and ceremonies, and that water was preserved very religiously at the foot of the Altar for to consecrate the King when he was crowned and also to blesse any Captain Generall, when he should be elected for the Warres, with only giving him a draught of that water” (op. cit., p. 53). It is well known that infants also underwent a form of baptism.

The preceding and other evidence, which is scarcely required, enables us to realize the full significance which the symbol of a bowl surmounted by the glyph ik=life, breath, soul, was intended to express and convey.

The collection of rain-water in vessels, exposed so as to receive the reflection of the one immovable star-god, was doubtlessly employed as a test of the stability of the Middle of the Earth by [pg 226] many generations of priest-astronomers. The sanctity attached to this water, as having absorbed the divine essence of light and the attribution of life-giving properties to it, was but the natural sequence of such star-observation. As the title “the lord of the vase or bowl”=Cum-ahau, indicates, the supreme priest of Heaven alone seems to have attended to all rites concerning the sacred bowl and the distribution of its celestial life-giving contents. The symbolical decoration of many native bowls will be found to corroborate this view of their employment and of the virtue attributed to their contents.

By this time I trust that my readers will realize with me that, at Copan, the native set of ideas had long taken deep root and flourished. We have seen that the identical numerical divisions of time and tribes and the same symbolism prevailed as have been traced in Peru, Guatemala, Mexico, Yucatan, Zuñi, etc. The following monuments will still further establish this kinship of thought. Copan contains two stone slabs which answer to the description of an amay-tun, inasmuch as they are square and appear to be memorial stones. Let us see whether some clue to their purpose can be obtained from the carvings upon them.

On each of the four sides of altar K four personages are carved, all seeming to be of equal rank. Of these 4×4=16 chieftains, eight wear a breast ornament in the form of a double serpent, whilst the remaining eight wear a somewhat plainer kind. On the west side the two central figures face each other and two diminutive glyphs are carved in the space between them. The most striking feature about the representation of these personages is, that each of them is seated, cross-legged, on a different composite glyph; some of these exhibit animal forms. This is a fact of utmost importance, for it definitely connects distinct personalities, obviously chieftains with composite glyphs, some composite parts of which are obviously totemic. On the upper surface of this monolith there are 6×6=36 single glyphs, which yield 9 groups of 4. If these 9×4 be added to the 4×4 glyphs on which the chieftains are respectively seated, we obtain 13 groups of 4, equivalent to 52. It is superfluous to repeat that there are fifty-two years in the Mexican cycle and that just as this square altar has 16 figures carved around it, the great monolithic Stone of Tizoc in the City of Mexico has 16 groups. In the latter case each group is accompanied by the name of a tribe and its capital. [pg 227] It looks very much as though the glyphs on which the chieftains on Altar K are seated also express tribal names.

A careful study of the other square monolith at Copan, known as the Alligator altar, will enable us to form a better estimate of the probable meaning of glyphs, employed as seats by chieftains. The Alligator altar takes its name from the sculptured animal which is stretched over its upper surface. Human figures are represented as connected with the different parts of the animal's body, in a way which forcibly recalls Mr. Cushing's explanation of how the various members of a tribe were associated with a part only of their totemic animal and bore the name of this part as their title of honor, according to a strict order of precedence.

According to Mr. Maudslay's description: “Upon the upper surface of the monument are two apparently human figures seated upon the arms of the alligator. Both figures are much weather worn; each has what appears to be a glyph in its hand, which is outstretched toward the alligator's head. Between the alligator's arms and legs four human figures are seated in similar positions, two on each side of the body. These figures have large mask head-dresses and carry offerings in their hands. There are two figures on the north side of the monument, one on either side of the tail of the alligator; each is seated on a glyph. The figures are human, but in place of a human head each figure is surmounted by a glyph. Each figure holds a glyph with the numeral ten attached to it in its outstretched hand.”

Since the above partial description of the altar was written, Mr. Maudslay has found that one of the above glyphs is “Mol” and the other “Zip,” and has identified the glyph used as a head for each figure as the day-sign Cabal. This fact is of particular interest as the meaning of this sign seems to be connected with Caban=the Below, and the two figures with Cabal heads are sculptured at each side of the alligator's tail which is the part of least honor, not only according to Zuñi etiquette, but also according to Mexican ideas, the word for tail being employed, metaphorically, for vassals.

To this description I would add that a careful study of the cast of this monument in the South Kensington Museum, and of the illustrations in Mr. Maudslay's work reveals that, of the four figures on the west side, one only has a human head, whilst two have human bodies with animal heads and one a semi-human face and [pg 228] the body of a bird. Of the four figures on the east side, the first represents a man seated on a glyph, the second a human body with an animal head and the third and fourth semi-animal, bird and human figures. Amongst the recognizable animal forms represented, we distinguish an ocelot, an unmistakable alligator's head and the head of a monster with huge jaw and serrated teeth which strongly resembles the Mexican sign Cipactli, a nondescript “marine monster.” One detail is worthy of special notice: the left hand of one of the figures on the east side terminates in a serpent's head, in a fashion recalling that of the Santa Lucia bas-reliefs.

The following résumé will make the distribution of the figures and glyphs on the altar quite clear. Top: outstretched alligator body, whose legs and claws are sculptured over the corners of the altar. On each shoulder 1 figure with glyph=2. On each knee 2 figures=4, making a total of 6 figures on the top. On east and west sides respectively, 4 figures; on north side 2 figures, on the south side 4 figures on composite glyphs=14. The total number of figures on top and sides is 20, each of which is intimately associated with a glyph. Under the snout of the alligator, on the south side, there are 2×4=8 glyphs.

When carefully analyzed we ultimately find that the surface of the altar exhibits in the first case two chieftains of equal rank, but respectively seated on the right and left forelegs of the tribal totem. To my idea this demonstrates that the dual rulership, such as existed elsewhere, prevailed at Copan, and that two lords of the alligator tribe were entitled the right and left forelegs or “arms” of the animal totem. It should be noted here that the Maya name for alligator is chiuan or ain. The dictionaries contain also the following names for the same or allied species: Sea-lizard, alligator (?), ixbaan; lizard in general=ix-mech, or mech, ix-be-bech, ixzeluoh and ix-tulub. Obviously occupying positions of less honor there are 2×2=4 chiefs of equal rank but seated, respectively, on the right and left hind legs of the totem. These again are evidently equivalent to the four sub-rulers of Mexico and Yucatan, the Maya Bacabs or Chacs.

Lastly, the twenty different figures, connected with particular glyphs, are equivalent to the division of the tribe into as many portions, minus the head. The eight glyphs associated with this added to the twelve glyph-figures, complete the numeric organization [pg 229] into twenty. From this monument, the sides of which were probably painted, originally, in four colors, it would seem that the alligator clan, ruled by two chiefs and four lesser rulers, was organized into twelve divisions of people and eight classes of another kind. A circular tablet at Quirigua, which I shall describe further on, exhibits a subdivision into 2×6=12+5+3=20.

It is not necessary to emphasize how remarkably the Copan altar conforms to the Zuñi method of clan-organization. It suffices for my present purpose merely to establish the community of thought which existed throughout, but which found its highest artistic expression and development in Central America.

There are several other smaller carved monoliths, one of which usually lies in front of a stela. For this reason they have been popularly named “altars,” just as the stelæ have been called “idols.” The majority of these “altars” contradict this appellation by their utterly unsuitable shapes and profuse carvings on their upper, often irregular, rounded surfaces. Some of these monoliths consist of a monstrous head, the shape of which is almost lost under an indescribable mass of ornamentation. In some cases, however, they recall the semblance of the large glyphs on which chieftains are represented as seated on the carved sides of the square monoliths just described. So strongly do some of these resemble certain forms, that I venture to express my belief that, on ceremonial occasions, these carved heads may have served as the seats or stools of honor for chieftains of the rank of those portrayed on the bas-reliefs. The Maya word tem, the plural form for which is tetem, seems to be applicable to such totemistic carved stones. It is translated as stone altar, seat or bench (cf. Nahuatl word te-tl=stone). Other minor monoliths are carved with glyphs. “Altar G,” illustrated in Mr. Maudslay's work, exhibits four glyphs only—an interesting number, replete with significance to the native mind.

The number 24 occurs on Altar R on which the glyphs are disposed as 2×4=8+2×8=24. The number 24 recurs on the top of Altar U, where the glyphs are disposed in 3 rows of 8 each. At the same time the back of this altar exhibits 5×10=50 and its sides 2×2=4 glyphs, which may possibly constitute separate records. In the majority of foregoing cases the glyphs are single and comparatively simple. On Altar S, however, we have double and quadruple glyphs, the latter obviously being a highly developed cursive method of recording facts, rendered possible by the minute [pg 230] classification of all things in the State into definite divisions with fixed relationships to each other.

Having lingered so long in Copan we can but glance at Quirigua and note its most remarkable features. This ruined city lies on Motagua river, 1,800 feet below and at about a distance of twenty-five to thirty miles from Copan. It is now subjected to almost annual inundations from the river and its situation in marshy surroundings renders it extremely unhealthy. It may have been partly on this account that the neighboring capital of Copan was founded in an elevated and salubrious position.

An interesting fact has been pointed out to me by Mr. Maudslay, namely, that the ground plan of both groups of ruins is almost exactly the same, Copan being only somewhat the larger of the two. This identity proves that the same distinct scheme of orientation was carried out in both places and that importance was undoubtedly attached to the relative positions of the pyramid-temples, courts and buildings. A proof that two distinct castes of rulers existed and were respectively associated with the northern and southern regions of the capital is furnished by a circumstance communicated to me by Mr. Maudslay. In Copan, as well as at Quirigua, some of the individuals sculptured on the stelæ are beardless, whilst others have beards which seem to be sometimes [pg 231] artificial. These stelæ usually stood at the sides of the great courts, and at the bases of the pyramid-temples. Mr. Maudslay has observed that in both places, all of the bearded effigies are situated to the north of the beardless ones. The first, for instance, occupy the northern and the second the southern side of a court; their respective positions being clearly intentional since it recurs in both cases. This circumstance furnishes additional proof that, in these capitals as elsewhere, the same great primary division into the Above and Below prevailed and shows that the representative rulers of these two castes respectively wore beards or none.

The beard, as an insignia of rank, occurs in several Mexican MSS. and careful observation shows that it is most frequently represented as worn by a high-priest, usually painted black and sometimes wearing the skin of an ocelot. It is found associated with advanced age and with red, the color of the north, a fact which coincides with the position assigned to bearded effigies at Copan and Quirigua. In Mexican Codices the culture hero, Quetzalcoatl, is figured with a beard, and tradition records that this was his distinctive feature. Images of Quetzalcoatl=the air-god, represent him with a beard, and the calendar-sign Ehecatl=wind, is composed of an elongated mouth and chin to which a beard is attached.

Several of the monuments at Quirigua are the largest of the kind which have been found on the American continent. Stelæ E and F are twenty-two and twenty-five feet high respectively, and both exhibit two human effigies standing back to back. In [pg 232] point of fact, with a few exceptions, amongst which are female effigies, the majority of stelæ at Quirigua are double, namely, A, C, D, E, F, K, in Mr. Maudslay's work, part xi. I cannot but regard this as a proof that in a peaceful, flourishing and long-established state, the dual form of government maintained itself successfully for an extended period of time. On Stela E is one of the most remarkable ancient American portrait-statues that has yet been discovered. It portrays a man with noble and strongly marked features, an aquiline nose and a narrow chin beard, like a goatee.

The Maya dictionaries supply us with the clue to the meaning attached to the beard in pictorial art. The word for beard is meex and for “bearded man,” ah-meex, or ah-meexnal, if the beard was long. On the other hand, ah-mek-tancal is the Maya name for “governor and ruler of people or of a town,” and ah-mektanpixan means high priest. The first two syllables of these titles, being identical with the word for a “bearded man,” seem to explain the reason for the association of rank with a beard, and vice versa. Added to preceding data it aids in forming the conclusion that the bearded personages on the stelæ were “high-priests or rulers of people and of towns,” that the beard or goatee was the mark of supreme rank and that artificial ones were sometimes worn.

The beardless effigies, on the other hand, obviously represent individuals belonging to a different caste; and the fact that stelæ exist at Copan and Quirigua on which two figures are carved, back to back, proves that the assignment of the effigies of the two types to separate sides of the courts was preceded by a time when a closer unity prevailed between the dual rulers. The existence of stelæ with female figures proves that here, as well as in Mexico and Peru, there had been a period when “the Below and the cult of the Earth-mother were presided over by a woman.”

On each side of the great Stela F is carved the initial followed by 6×6=36 glyphs, which fact seems to indicate that six glyphs pertained to each of the six regions and recorded facts relating thereunto. On the sides of Stela F, each initial is followed by 34 glyphs only, the count being shorter than that of Stela E by 2×2=4. One side of Stela C exhibits the initial followed by 2×13 glyphs grouped in parallel lines, then a horizontal band with 4 glyphs; the other side the initial followed by 4×6=24 and a group of 4 glyphs. Stela D is particularly remarkable on account of the six squares of pictorial glyphs which follow the [pg 233] “Initial” which, in this case, exhibits the head and body of a jaguar in its centre. I refer to Mr. Maudslay's interesting conclusion that these pictorial glyphs preceded, in date, the more cursive method of representing the initial series. In consequence of this jaguar initial, Stela A becomes particularly noticeable, because one of the personages upon it has a beard, whilst the other is masked as an ocelot or jaguar.

A vivid sense of the actuality of the bond that existed between the ancient dwellers at Copan and Quirigua, their totemic animals and symbolic coloring, is obtained on reading Mr. Maudslay's following description of the excavation of mound 4 at Copan (Report Proceedings Geographical Society, 1886, p. 578).... “The excavation was then continued ... when more traces of [human] bones were found mixed with red powder and sand.... Continuing the excavation ... a skeleton of a jaguar was found lying under a layer of charcoal ... the teeth and part of the skeleton had been painted red. At about 100 yards to the south of this mound I shortly afterwards opened another ... mound ... and found a few small fragments of human bones, two small stone axes and portions of another jaguar's skeleton and some dog's teeth, showing that the interment of animals was not a matter of chance.”

If we add this to the accumulation of evidence I have presented, showing that in Mexico and Yucatan the ocelot was associated with the north, the color red, the underworld, the nocturnal cult and with bearded priests, we must admit that there is hope that, some day, we may be as familiar with the life and customs of the ancient Americans as we are now with those of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

Strange animal effigies in stone have been found at Quirigua: one (B) somewhat resembles a dragon and exhibits complex glyphs; another (G) has been named an armadillo and has 2×8=16 glyphs carved on its lower and 2×20=40 on its upper sides.

A circular slab deserves special mention: in its centre is a seated figure. Forming a band around the edge, to the right of the figure are 6 glyphs and 6 others are to his left=12 in all. Above him to his left are 5 and to his left are 3 glyphs. This peculiar distribution of 20 glyphs is of peculiar interest.

The crowning glory of Quirigua, however, is the gigantic block of stone, completely covered with intricate carvings and glyphs, [pg 234] which is known as the “Great Turtle,” and of which splendid casts, made from Mr. Maudslay's moulds, are now exhibited in the South Kensington Museum, London, and in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. Of the many features of this remarkable monument, which can be studied in Mr. Maudslay's forthcoming part xi of the Biologia Centrali-Americana, the seated figure, occupying a prominent place and obviously representing the central ruler, deserves special mention. In his right hand he holds a peculiar sceptre similar to that held by the personage on Stela E. His left hand is concealed under a carved face, a detail which recalls the Santa Lucia bas-reliefs.

Palenque and its group of sister cities now claim our notice. Of the latter Men-ché particularly arrests our attention on account of its name, the second part of which means tree and by extension, tribe. The word men is of particular interest, for it is not only the name of a dog in the Maya Calendar but signifies precisely the same as the Mexican word toltecatl, namely, master-builder, artificer or artisan, an adept in manufacture. The habitual form of employing the word would be ah-men, meaning he who is a master builder, etc.; while men-ah or men-yah signifies work or production of manual labor. The first part of the Nahuatl word aman-teca, signifying artisan, artificer, seems to be a corrupt rendering of the Maya ah-men. That Men-ché, which is also known as Lorillard City, was a centre of the highest development of native-sculpture and art seems proven by the truly admirable and exquisitely fine workmanship of the bas-reliefs obtained there by Mr. Maudslay, and now exhibited at the British Museum. In execution and finish they undoubtedly surpass any specimens of ancient American art I have ever seen.

A search for the possible derivation of the word men leads to mehen, the name for “sons or nephews in the male line,” mehen-ob, the descendants, mehen-tzilaan=genealogy and parentage (a word which sheds some light on the meaning of the ancient capital Tzilan in Yucatan). Mehen is also employed as meaning something little, small or minute.

From the above data it may be inferred that Men-ché may have originally signified “the tree or tribe of the sons or nephews in the male line,” and that these people may have so identified themselves with the arts of building and working in precious metals and stone, etc., that their title was used as a designation for these industries. [pg 235] It is certainly remarkable that, situated at an easy distance on the same river Usumacinto, there is the great ruined city of Palenque (pronounced by the natives Pa-lem-ke) which seems also to have originally terminated in ché=tree or tribe and to be derived from palil, pal or palal=vassal, servant, subject, also small child. Let us see how far the monuments of Palenque justify and support this translation of its name.

Referring the reader to Mr. Maudslay's Biologia, and to Mr. Holmes' Archæological Studies, Pt. ii, and other well-known works on the ruins of Palenque, I shall confine myself to a cursory examination of the four principal isolated pyramid-temples, known, respectively, as the temples of the Inscriptions, of the Sun, of the Cross and of the Cross No. 2. Although the orientation of these edifices is not accurate they may be roughly said to face the cardinal points as follows:—

The temple “of the Inscriptions” faces the north, that “of the Sun” the east, whilst the temple “of the Cross” faces the south and that “of Cross 2,” the west. Dr. Brinton has already shown that the well-known symbol on the famous “Tablet of the Cross” is not a cross, but the conventional symbol for “tree” of the type I have illustrated in the preceding fig. . As Cross No. 2 unquestionably belongs to the same category, it results that these two temples would be more correctly designated as “of the Tree” and that they furnish us with an interesting parallel of the Peruvian quisuar can-cha, or “place of the tree,” where the Inca erected two trees which typified his father and mother and were “as the root and stems of the Incas.” The Palenque “trees,” moreover, closely resemble those on the Mexican Féjérvary chart (fig. ) inasmuch as, in each case, the tree is surmounted by a bird and is flanked by two human figures.

It has already been shown in the preceding pages that in ancient America the tree was generally employed as a symbol for tribe and that the Maya word for tree=ché occurs as an affix signifying tribe or people not only in Qui-ché, Man-ché (the latter a tribe inhabiting the region of Menché and Palenque) etc., but also in the names of tribes inhabiting the southern regions of North America.

[pg 236]

Assuming, therefore, upon convincing and substantial evidence which will be further corroborated, that the “Tablet of the Cross” represents a tree, the symbol of tribal life, the next step is to interpret the bird perched upon it and generally acknowledged to be a quetzal (pronounced kay-tzal) as the totem of the tribe, which also probably expresses its name. The tree is represented as associated with serpent symbolism and as growing from a vase=ho-och placed on a monstrous head=ho-ol, the idea conveyed being that it flourished in the centre or middle, while the head signifies, as has been shown, the capital and also the chief. On the vase is carved a symbol to which I draw special attention, as it recurs on the right hand end of the carved band below the tree, is met with in Maya calculiform glyphs and is also frequently employed in ancient Mexico. It represents the corolla of a four-petalled flower which obviously symbolized the Four-in-One, which permeated the native civilizations.

The word for “flower” being nic in Maya and xochitl (pronounced hoochitl) in Nahuatl, it must be admitted that the symbol of a vase with a flower seems to afford an instance of a bilingual rebus, as the Maya hooch is identical in sound to the Nahuatl xoch-itl. Even without this, however, the meaning of the tree and serpent, the bird, the vase, the quadripartite flower, and the head, would have been generally and equally intelligible to native tribes, being familiar symbols constantly employed in metaphorical speech.

Mr. Maudslay has pointed out and illustrated in his work (Biologia, pl. 92, pt. x) that the side branches of the “cross” simulate bearded serpents' heads, whilst their recurved upper jaws are covered with what resemble buds of flowers, seeds or beads. The Palenque “cross” is indeed characterized by being profusely decorated with “bead or seed-like ornaments and appendages” some of which resemble beads or seeds, figured in some instances, like those on the Copan swastika, the meaning of which seems supplied by the previously cited Zuñi text. It does not appear to be a mere matter of chance that the following Maya words, culled from the dictionaries, are so closely connected: yax-ché=a sort of ceiba tree, the emblem of celestial life of the Mayas; yax-chumil and yax-pa-ibe=adjectives primitive, original; adverb firstly, at the beginning; yaxil, verb=to make something new, to commence, begin; yaxil-tun=bead or pearl; yax-mehen-tzil=eldest son.

[pg 237]

According to this incontrovertible evidence we find that the sacred tree of life of the Mayas was designated by the word yax, signifying first, original, new, etc.; that the same root enters into the composition of the word for eldest son and finally for “bead.” The latter curious agreement is accentuated by the well-known fact that the Mexicans employed in metaphorical speech the word cuzcatl=bead made of some precious stone, to designate “father, mother, lord, captain, governor; those who are like a sheltering tree to the people” (Olmos, cap. viii). A term of particular endearment for a son was “gold-bead” (teocuitla-cuzcatl). Olmos moreover records no less than eight metaphorical designations for a “Tree, or first father, origin of generation, lord or governor,” and appellations for twenty-nine “Relatives who issue from one stem or trunk.”

Collectively, the evidence set forth in the preceding pages identifies the image on the famous “Tablet of the Cross,” as a symbolical representation of the “Tree of Life of the Eldest Sons,” chiefs or nobility of a tribe, whose totemic bird was the quetzal. Before completing the description of this tablet, the analogous representation of a tree on the “Temple of the Cross 2” should be examined. This is generally known as the foliated Cross and like its counterpart it issues from a vase with a quadriform emblem, and a monstrous head. Its branches are composed of conventionalized maize plants on which human heads and faces occupy the places of the corn-cobs whilst their hanging hair simulates the tassels of the ripe corn. The maize-leaves are decorated with groups of seed-like beads amongst which distinct representations of maize seeds are discernible. These form, indeed, the leading motif of the seed decorations and indicate that the “appendages” to the groups of seed-like beads on the Copan swastika were but conventionalized maize-seeds. The branches of the maize-tree are surmounted by a conventionally ornamented head from which hangs a necklace of beads with a medallion consisting of a face surrounded by a beaded frame. Above the head the totemic quetzal bird is repeated under almost precisely the same form but in a [pg 238] reversed position. It is interesting to note that the Maya name for maize is ixim, which added to the ché=tree, yields ixim-ché, a word which actually occurs as the local name of the ancient capital of Guatemala, named “Iximché-tecpan.” To this curious fact should be also added that “ix” is the prefix employed to designate the feminine gender and that Ix-chel is “the name of the Maya goddess of medicine and of child-birth.”

An extremely interesting composite symbol is carved under the feet of the personage standing next to the “maize-tree,” to the right of the spectator. It consists of the realistically carved large convolute sea-shell such as constituted the Mexican symbol of parturition. An almost grotesque human figure is represented as issuing from it and holding in its hand a maize plant which bends upwards and curves over the shell. Its leaves are drawn with maize-seeds on and amongst them, in the same conventional way that has been noticed on the central tree, and human heads again simulate the corn-cob. An acquaintance with Mexican and Zuñi symbolism enables us to grasp the significance of this composite symbol which figuratively expresses the common birth and growth of the substance of plant and human life. The personage who stands over this symbol, facing the tree and the tail of the bird which surmounts it, holds a curiously decorated emblem in his hand, of which more anon. A small twig bearing three terminal leaves issues from his head. Behind him are 4 perpendicular columns with 17 glyphs in each; whilst a detached series, consisting of 13 smaller glyphs, is carved in front and above him.

At the opposite side of the tree, facing the almost unrecognizable head of the bird, a personage stands on an elaborately carved monstrous head, covered with a maize-plant. He is wearing a necklace and medallion like that on the tree itself. His head is surmounted by a high cap bearing a conventionalized flower-bud. A belt in the form of a serpent with open jaws, encircles his waist and he is holding aloft in his hands, a miniature, human, seated figure with folded arms, a bead necklace and an indescribable head-dress and masked face. His attitude indicates that, by offering this figure, he is performing some rite. On the other hand, a conventionalized sign for water seems to be issuing from the bird's head and descending upon the figure whilst puffs of breath and seeds issuing from its beak seem to be directed towards the tiny effigy of a human being.

[pg 239]

Reverting now to the “Tablet of the Cross I,” we find precisely analogous figures at its sides, only in reversed positions. To the right of the spectator stands the priest with a tall hat surmounted by the flower-bud, somewhat resembling a fleur-de-lis. The small human figure he is offering is recumbent and is being held out so as to come in contact with the pendant issuing from the bird's head.

The figure on the opposite side, with the head-dress and twig with three leaves, is facing the central tree and holding a staff which, in this case although combined with other emblems, clearly appears to represent a young maize plant, with its roots below, and growing shoot with leaves above. As on the other tablets there are columns of glyphs behind each figure, whilst the personage holding the maize-plant is associated with a detached group, in two portions, consisting of 10+4 glyphs, and is standing on a large glyph associated with a numeral.

Having thus cursorily brought out some special points observable on both “Cross Tablets,” let us now glance at the tablet in the “Temple of the Sun.” On this we again find columns of glyphs and a personage at each side of a central figure. The same peculiarities and differences of costume are observable here as on the preceding tablets; but each personage holds a small, grotesque human figure with a long nose, and each stands on the back of a human being, that to the left of the spectator especially appearing to be a conquered enemy.

Two over-burdened-looking seated figures, one of which is clothed in a spotted ocelot's skin, occupy the centre and support, on their bowed shoulders, a curious emblem terminating in open serpents' jaws. The large head (of a jaguar?) is in the centre and above this issue two puffs of breath with seeds, forming a double recurved figure so identical in shape and detail to a single branch of the Copan swastika that one might imagine it was carved by the same hand. On this tablet, instead of a tree, the centre is occupied by a shield, exhibiting a face and having tufts of feathers at its four rounded [pg 240] corners. This rests on two crossed lances with decorated handles surmounted by large points.

In this connection it is interesting and important to note that, in ancient Mexico, lands conquered and acquired in warfare were termed “mil chimalli,” literally, “field of the shield,” a metaphor which was also probably known to the Mayas.

Glancing next at the “Temple of Inscriptions,” the fourth of the large detached temples of Palenque, we find that its interior is characterized by the most extensive mural inscriptions found in America, consisting entirely of hieroglyphics. Four exterior free pillars, however, “contain on their outer faces, modelled in bold relief, life-sized figures of women holding children in their arms” (Holmes).

Having brought out the particular point that, in each of the four temples described, adults are represented in the act of carrying or offering children or diminutive and strangely grotesque conventionalized effigies of human beings, I would note that the only analogous grotesque figures with long noses, I know of, are those on the sceptres held in the hand by the seated personage on the “Great Turtle” and by the individual carved on Stela E at Quirigua. It is noteworthy that the left hand of the latter personage holds a shield displaying a face and recalling that carved on the tablet of the Palenque “Temple of the Sun.” Analogous grotesque figures also surround the personage carved on Stela F at Copan. These facts indicate that the Quirigua “Great Turtle,” the stelæ at Quirigua and Copan and the Palenque tablets, were erected by people sharing the same cult and ritual observance, one feature of which was the carrying of diminutive human effigies, with exaggerated and almost grotesque noses.

A clue to the significance of this rite is supplied by the text of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis (Kingsborough, vol. v, p. 134) relating to the Mexican 20-day period Iz-calli, the last of the year. “It was the feast of Fire, because at this season the trees became warmed and began to bud. In it was celebrated the festival Pil-quixtia, meaning ‘human life or nature which had always escaped destruction although the world itself had been destroyed several times.’ ”

“Izcalli signifies as much as liveliness, and in this 20-day period all mothers lifted their children by their heads and holding them [pg 241] aloft called out, Izcalli, Izcalli, as though they said 'aviva'=live, live.... This was the period of production ... thanks were rendered to the nature which is the cause of the production.... Every four years they feasted for 8 days in memory of the three times that the world was destroyed. They name this ‘four times Lord,’ because this escaped destruction, although all was destroyed. They designated the festival as that of ‘renovation’ and said that when it and the fast came to an end the bodies of men became like those of children. Therefore, in order to figure [or symbolize] this festival, adults led certain children by the hand, in the sacred dance.”

Slightly incoherent though this text may be, it furnishes a most valuable supplement to the descriptions of the same festival by other authorities. As this is exhaustively treated in my forthcoming text to the “Life of the Indians ” in which all available authorities are quoted and collated, I shall confine myself here to some facts which bear a special relation to the subject of this paper. In Mexico another name for the festival period Izcalli, was Xilomaniztli=the birth or sprouting of the young maize. According to Duran, izcalli signified “the creating or bringing up” and in order to make the growth of children coincide with that of the young maize, parents, during this period, stretched the limbs and every part of the bodies of all infants of tender age.

Another observance which was held at this time was in anticipation of the New Year and consisted in the raising and planting of high poles or wands with branches, in the courtyards of the temples and in the streets. These typified the new life; “the budding and rejoicing of the trees.” Another New Year custom was that of carrying budding branches or young shoots of maize in the hand, on a particular day named Xiuh-Tzitzquilo, literally, “the taking of the year in one's hands.” The explanation of this metaphor is given by Duran who states that “the natives consider that the year, with its months and days, is like a branch with its twigs and leaves.”

A passing mention must be moreover made of the two movable festivals celebrated by the Mexicans, in which they scattered broken egg-shells on the roads and streets as a rite of thanksgiving for “the life bestowed upon the chicken in the shell” by the divine power. In the image of this festival contained in the “Life of the Indians,” the egg-shells are represented at the foot of a [pg 242] tree bearing seven blossoms; the seated divinity in front of this wears a bird-mask and carries a staff with a heart in his hand. These festivals were named respectively, seven flowers and one flower.

Briefly summarizing the foregoing data, we find it proven that, deeply impressed with the wonderful renewal of life in nature, the ancient Mexicans rendered periodical thanksgiving for this in its various forms. The budding tree, the young shoots of the maize, all seedlings, the broken egg-shells from which the young chickens had emerged, were adopted as emblems of the renewal of life. The child was likewise looked upon as the renewal of the human race and every four years a thanksgiving festival “of renovation” was solemnized in which children took a special part. In my work on the Calendar system I shall show how far this festival “of new birth” coincided with astronomical phenomena. From Landa we learn that in the Maya months “Chen or Yax,” on a day designated by the priest, a festival was celebrated named Ocna: “the renovation of the temple in honour of the Chacs, the gods of the maize-fields.” This was held each year ... all idols and incense-burners were renewed and if necessary the building was rebuilt or renovated and, “in commemoration of this, an inscription in the native characters was fixed to the walls.”

Referring to other chapters of Landa's work we find that, as in Mexico, the Yucatec children received a “child's name” at birth which was changed when, having accomplished the third year, they were “reborn” and received a new name, i. e. the combined name of their father and mother. On attaining puberty they obtained an individual name which they preserved during life-time. A knowledge of the social organization of these people enables one to grasp the full importance and significance of these changes of name, which were accompanied by ritual observances and betokened the enrolment of the children into their respective classes and sub-classes and a consequent reorganization of certain departments of the State. It appears that in ancient times the ceremonial of the “new birth,” or re-naming of the children, took place every four years, simultaneously with the thanksgiving feast for the “continuation of the human race.”

A careful analysis of native words and metaphors tends to show, moreover, that the children born within each four-year-period were collectively regarded as “a fresh growth upon the tribal tree.” In [pg 243] Mexico the word for leaf=atlapalli, was employed as a metaphor for the lower class, whilst in Peru the male and female descendants of the Incas were represented by gold and silver fruits upon the trees of their male and female ancestry. The collection of such scattered scraps of testimony enables us to reconstruct the drift of native thought and realize that the registration of individuals was associated with the conception of a tribal tree bearing four branches and covered with blossoms, fruits and leaves which faded and fell but were replaced by fresh growths.

We learn from Duran that so careful a record was kept of the population, by the Mexican priesthood, “that not even a newborn babe could escape detection.” The reason for this strict vigilance is clear, for the welfare of the community and the harmonious working of the complex machinery of state depended upon the constant renewal of vacancies caused by deaths in each department of industry and government.

After this excursion into the realm of native thought let us now return to the Palenque tablets, placed in detached temples which approximately face the four cardinal points. On the tablet of the “Temple of the Cross” we have a tribal tree with symbols of the Middle and of the Four Quarters and of duality. A priest with a flower on his head presents a diminutive human figure to the totemic bird perched on the tree. Another, with a leafy branch on his head-dress, holds a conventional sceptre simulating a young growing shoot of maize. Behind each figure are rows of glyphs and in the upper corner to the left of the spectator is the septenary series headed by the initial-sign.

In the “Temple of Cross II” we have a variant of the identical representation in which the maize plant and the sea shell are prominent. If I may hazard a suggestion of the meaning of these two tablets, I should say that they appear to be tribal registers most probably relating to the increase and decrease of the male and female population in all divisions and classes, during a fixed period of time. Both seem to commemorate the “renovation” or “new growth” of the tribal tree in a mode which would have been as intelligible to a Mexican, for instance, as to a Maya. The fact that the “Temple of the Sun” and that of the “Inscriptions” obviously held analogous registers, points to the alternative possibilities (1) that each temple was destined to preserve [pg 244] the register of the population and social organization, etc., of one of the four quarters of the capital and state, according to years; (2) that the trees in the “Cross temples” figured the male and female lineages of the ruling caste, whilst the tablet in the “Temple of the Sun” recorded the numbers of conquered people reduced to slavery and the “Temple of Inscriptions” preserved the register of female children or of vassals; (3) that each of the four temples preserved a complete register of the entire state and had been erected consecutively at the conclusion or beginning of eras, the difference observable in the central motif conveying the salient feature or event marking each special epoch and recording, according to years, the organization of the state during its course.

In the face of this possibility as well as the probability that each glyph was painted and implied a year, it is interesting to note that, including the initial glyph, the “Tablet of the Cross” exhibits 108 glyphs on the side to the left and 124 on the side to the right of the spectator=a total of 232; the “Tablet of the Cross II” exhibits 76 to the left and 83 to the right=159; and that in the “Temple of the Sun,” 70 to the left, 159 to the right and 12 in the middle=241. The “Temple of Inscriptions” exhibits the initial series (see Maudslay, Biologia, pt. x, pl. 82) and entire walls covered with glyphs, some of which, as on the tablets enumerated above, are accompanied by numerals whilst others are not.

In a future publication I shall submit illustrations of these monuments with the ripened results of my investigations concerning them. For my present purpose it suffices to have produced substantial proofs that the ancient dwellers in Palenque employed the same metaphors, the same cursive method of registration and held the same fundamental principles of organization that have been shown to underlie the civilizations of Peru, Guatemala, Yucatan, and Mexico and still survive amongst the Zuñis and more northern tribes. It is obvious that, at Palenque and the neighboring Menché and Ixkun, an integral civilization, based on these principles, had existed for an incalculable length of time. Strangely enough it seems to form so close a link between Maya and Mexican culture that it almost seems justifiable to surmise that both Maya and Nahuatl languages were spoken in these ancient ruined cities.

Proceeding mentally northwards we will not linger at the ruins of Mitla, the name of which seems to indicate that it had lain to [pg 245] the north of a great ancient centre of government, since Mictlan in Nahuatl and Mitnal in Maya both designate the region of the underworld and the north.

Reaching the ultimate stage of our mental exploration of the American Continent we now transport ourselves to the Valley of Mexico and, on the site of the ancient capital of Montezuma and his coadjutor, face the three great monolithic monuments which are popularly known as the Calendar Stone, the Stone of Tizoc and Huitzilopochtli. In 1886, at the Buffalo Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, I presented a “Preliminary Note of an Analysis of the Mexican Codices and Graven Inscriptions,” in which the opinion was advanced that the “Calendar Stone” was identical with the “circular elaborately carved tablets which, according to Padre Duran, were erected in each market-place in ancient Mexico, and were held in great veneration. They were frequently consulted and by them the market-days were regulated.”

“All writers concur in stating that the market was held on each fifth day, when all adults were obliged by law to resort to the appointed market-place. The entire produce and manufacture of the state were brought there, even from great distances, severe penalties being incurred by those who bartered the products of agriculture or manual labor on the highway or elsewhere. On the broad, straight, cemented roads which led from the four quarters to the heart of the capital, ‘resting places’ for the wayfarers and carriers were provided at fixed intervals. The enormous concourse of people, the variety of produce exhibited in the market-places of Montezuma's capital filled the conquerors with wonder and admiration. From Cortés, Bernal Diaz, Sahagun and others we learn that the market was a special charge of the supreme chief of Mexico; that appointed officers presided in state over it whilst others moved among the throng superintending the traffic. Standard measures were kept and rigorous punishment awaited those who sold by false measure or bartered stolen property.”

After making the preceding statements I advanced the opinion “that the periodical market-day was the most important regulator of the Mexican social organization and that the monolith generally known as the Calendar-stone was the Market-stone of the City of Mexico. It bears the record of fixed market days; and I venture to suggest that from these the formation of the Mexican Calendar system originated. The stone shows the existence of communal [pg 246] property and of an equal division of general contributions into certain portions....”

I concluded the above communication with the statement: “Before publishing my final results I shall submit them to a searching and prolonged investigation. An examination of the originals of many of the Codices reproduced in Lord Kingsborough's ‘Mexican Antiquities’ will be necessary to determine important points and during the forthcoming year my line of researches will be in this direction.” In my youthful enthusiasm and inexperience I little foresaw, when I wrote the above sentences, that I should spend thirteen years in diligent research before I felt ready to express my ripened conclusions concerning the Calendar-stone. Although the results I am about to submit are final they are necessarily incomplete, their full presentation with adequate illustrations being included in my forthcoming special work on the Social and Calendaric system of ancient America. For the present I have limited myself to the reproduction of the outline drawing of the monolith made by the late Dionysio Abadiano of Mexico and published in his somewhat fanciful work on this subject. No one, however, had studied the Calendar-stone more carefully than he; and, besides being extremely accurate in outline, his drawing has the merit of including the eight deep circular holes which were drilled at regular intervals outside of the worked border of the stone as well as the groups of smaller circular and shallow depressions which Señor Abadiano discovered on the outer unworked portion of the monolithic block. Without discussing here the question whether the eight drill holes were intended to support a species of gnomon, as Leon y Gama first maintained, or merely served for the guidance of those who carved this marvel of accurate workmanship and symmetrical design, I shall merely point out that, although the group of circular depressions in the block, in the lower corner to the left of the spectator, offers a certain resemblance to the form of the constellation of Ursa Major, this may be merely the result of chance.

Facing the problem of the meaning and purpose of the “Calendar-stone,” after thirteen years of assiduous study, I find that the interpretation I suggested in 1886, is substantially strengthened and corroborated by freshly accumulated evidence. The difference is that I now lay less stress upon the phonetic elements and [pg 247] values of the symbols, although, as I shall set forth in the special publication alluded to, no study of the monument can be considered complete unless these be carefully analyzed and understood. The one great stride in advance that I think I have made is the recognition that the monolith is an image of the Great Plan or Scheme of Organization which has been expounded in the preceding pages and which permeated every branch of native thought.

The monument represents the high-water mark reached in the evolution of a set of ideas, which were suggested to primitive man by long-continued observation of the phenomena of Nature and by the momentous recognition of the

“northern star,

Of whose true-fixed, and resting quality,

There is no fellow in the firmament.

The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks,

They are all fire, and every one doth shine;

But there's but one in all doth hold his place.”

This inscribed tablet, which constitutes one of the most important documents in the history of the human race, is as clearly an image of the nocturnal heaven as it is of a vast terrestrial state which once existed in the valley of Mexico, and had been established as a reproduction upon earth of the harmonious order and fixed laws which apparently governed the heavens.

The monument exposes these laws, the dominion of which probably extended throughout the American Continent, and still faintly survive in some existing aboriginal communities. It not only sets forth the organization of state government and the subdivision of the people into classes bearing a fixed relation to each other, but also serves as a chart of the territory of the State, its capital and its four provinces, and minor topographical divisions. Finally, it reveals that the progress of time, the succession of days, years and epochs, i. e. the Calendar, was conceived as a reproduction of the wheel of sinistral revolution described by the circumpolar constellations around Polaris. The Septentriones served as an indicator, composed of stars, the motive power of which emanated from the central luminary. This marked not only the march of time each night, but also the progress of the season by the four contrapositions apparent in the course of a year, if observed at a fixed hour of the night.

[pg 248]

The twenty familiar day and year signs of the native calendar are carved on a band which encircles the central figure on the stone. I am now in a position to prove satisfactorily that these signs were not merely calendaric and that they equally designated four principal and 4×4=16 minor groups of stars; four chiefs and 4×4=16 minor tribal groups or divisions of men.

Figure 56.

Merely a few indications will suffice to prove how completely and unmistakably the symmetrical design on the monolith (fig. ) expounds the great plan which had impressed itself so deeply and indelibly upon the minds of the native philosophers and influenced all their thoughts and speculations.

The head and face in the middle of the monument conveys the [pg 249] idea of duality, being masked, i. e. doubled-faced and bearing the number 2 carved on its forehead. It conveyed the conception of a divine power who ruled heaven and earth from a changeless and fixed centre in the heaven; expressed the dual government of the earth by twin-rulers who dwelt in a central capital. It typified light and the heaven itself with its two eyes; the sun and moon and darkness and the earth by the mouth; whilst the symbols for breath issuing from both nostrils and the tongue protruding from the mouth denoted the power of speech, which was so indissolubly connected with the idea of chieftainship by the Mexicans that a title for the chief was “the Speaker.” The central head likewise denoted a “complete count”=one man, and was expressive of a great era of time, embodying twenty epochs.

As a synopsis of the whole, the following titles recorded in the chronicles would be applicable to the central ruler, celestial or terrestrial: the two lord, the divine twin; the two-lord and two lady; the quadruple lord, “He who looks in four directions;” the lord of the thirteen powers; the one lord, i. e. embodying a complete count=20; the lord of five (i. e. of the Middle and Four Quarters); of seven, i. e. of the Middle, Above, Below, and Four Quarters; of thirteen, i. e. of the duplication or male and female or celestial and terrestrial divisions of the Above, Below and Four Quarters plus the Middle.

Surrounding the central head are four square divisions arranged in two separate parts, each of which includes what appears to be in one case the right, and in the other the left, conventionalized claw (forepaw?) of an animal armed with hooked nails, such as Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the North, is represented with.

The square compartments contain symbols of the four elements so disposed that air and water are appropriately associated with the hand to the right (=male region) and fire and earth with the hand to the left side (=the female region) of the central head. But this is not all, for another carefully devised relation between the elements likewise appears upon careful examination. In the middle, carved above the central face and between the symbols for air and fire, is the conventionalized “ray of the Sun,” or pyramid which typifies “that which ascends or is above” the upper elements and the Above. As its opposite we find below, situated between the symbols of earth and water, a ring with a concentric circle representing the drop of water=“that which [pg 250] descends.” As the Moon was inseparably associated with water and the Below, it is doubtlessly included in the symbolism.

One more point which will receive due attention in my monograph remains to be briefly noticed. As the symbol for air=east is situated to the right of the symbol for north, and the earth=west is to its left, it is clear that the central face is conceived as looking down from above upon the spectator. It is only when the stone is considered as placed face downward that the symbols assume their proper positions as regards the cardinal points. This reversal, which is the natural result of the association of the east and south with the right hand of the middle personage, suggests that the monolith may have been originally designed to be let into the flat or slanting ceiling of a building. As a parallel instance I will state that, some years ago, Señor Troncoso pointed out to me a fact he had noticed, namely, that the relative positions of the cardinal points on the Féjérvary chart were reversed and that it must have been intended to be looked at from underneath.

Each of the element symbols is accompanied by four numerals placed in the angles of the squares, with one exception, where one numeral was obviously dislodged from its proper position by an encroaching emblematic ornament. The positions of these numerals and of their square enclosures are what recalled to my mind the opposite positions assumed by Ursa Major in its annual rotation around the axis of the heaven. Just as the central face primarily represented Polaris, so these squares figured the four contrapositions of the great constellation. The peculiar, almost cross-shaped figure resulting from the union and association of the symbols of the Centre, and of the Above, Below, Right, Left=Four Quarters, is a well-known conventional sign, generally known as a “nahui-ollin.” The accepted translation of this name is “four movements,” from olinia, verb=to move, and no name could be more appropriate for a symbol which, to my idea, like the swastika, actually represents the movement of the most conspicuous of septentrional constellations to four opposite places.

At the same time, as the nahui-ollin on the stone encloses symbols of the four elements, the union of which was believed by the native philosophers to be essential for the production and maintenance of life, I was led to observe also the fact that the words for life and heart, and the verbs to be alive, to live, to resuscitate, etc., are all derivatives from the root yuli, or yoli, which [pg 251] undoubtedly has a common origin with the verb olinia=to move. It therefore not only appears that, to the native mind, motion and life were indissolubly linked together, but that the name nahui-ollin must have signified four-fold life as well as movement. It likewise typified the four sides of the great pyramid which formed the nucleus of the capital and was crowned by two temples, respectively occupied by symbolical images of the “Divine Twins.” It is impossible not to realize that, in ancient Mexico, the pyramid constituted an image of the entire system.

Each of its sides obviously pertained to one of the four regions and was probably painted with its symbolical color. It seems safe to assume that the pyramid was originally erected by the coöperation of people from the four quarters of the capital and state and was possibly added to at fixed intervals so that it represented not only the constitution of the commonwealth, but testified to its age and growth. The widely-prevalent primitive custom that each individual should add one or more stones to a heap of stones, as an individual contribution, may have been carried out in the building of pyramids, the origin of which will be discussed further on.

Although it is almost superfluous to do so, as by this time the set of associated ideas must be familiar to the reader, I shall briefly summarize some of the chief four-fold division or organization of which the nahui-ollin was the graphic symbol. It represented:

1. The four elements or substances and kinds of life.

2. The four regions of the heaven, each composed, in turn, of four sub-regions.

3. The four provinces of the state, each containing four districts.

4. The four quarters of the capital, each of which had four wards.

[pg 252]

Like the nahui-ollin the pyramid was an image or embodiment of the fundamental all-pervading principle. Both therefore equally expressed further meanings which I shall proceed to enumerate.

5. Four stars and also four star-groups or planets which seem to have been associated with the cardinal points and are indicated by four discs exhibiting two concentric circles and four glyphs placed around them. Although at a disadvantage, not being able to substantiate my statement here, I shall mention that, amongst the above, the Pleiades and the planets Venus and Jupiter doubtlessly figure, the latter as two evening and two morning stars.

6. The human lords of the four regions who respectively governed the four divisions of the population, who were classified as the Fire, Air, Water and Earth people, the identical classification being applied in turn to each class and so on ad infinitum.

7. Rotation or a movement encircling the four quarters imagined as “quadruple motion.” This was not confined to the Septentriones, for the ancient Mexican astronomers had recognized what they termed the “four movements of the Sun”—namely, its apparent rising in the east and progress to the north; and setting in the west and progress to the south. According to Leon y Gama, the first to describe the stone in 1832, the central “nahui ollin” portrayed the “four movements of the sun” and recorded the solstices and equinoxes. His opinion has since been shared by other writers, amongst whom I cite Señor Troncoso. According to Sir Norman Lockyer, moreover, the symbol does correctly and appropriately figure the annual course of the sun. It must be admitted that the invention of a figurative symbol which not only records the annual rotation of the circumpolar star-groups but also the annual apparent course of the sun is an achievement which has never been surpassed in primitive astronomy and merits admiration and recognition. The record of the periodical movements of the heavenly bodies, constitutes, at the same time naturally a register of the four seasons.

8. Simultaneously with the division of the year into four equal parts, the ollin (and pyramid) typified the division of the 20-day period into four quarters as well as the four 13 year periods which constituted the epoch of fifty-two years. As the Calendar periods will be discussed in my monograph on the subject, I shall only mention here a fact showing how completely the quadruplicate idea had influenced native speculation. The Mexicans believed that [pg 253] four great eras had passed since the creation of the world and designated these as the earth, air, fire and water eras. They believed that, although humanity had always escaped utter annihilation, the world had been almost completely destroyed by three of the elements in succession at the end of three of these eras. At the time of the Conquest, the Mexicans supposed themselves to be living in a fourth age which was doomed to perish by fire.

9. According to the distinguished Mexican scholar Señor Alfredo Chavero, the symbols in the nahui-ollin commemorated the four epochs of the world's history and I readily accept this as one of the many significations of the quadruplicate figure.

Leaving the nahui-ollin for the present, let us next consider the band, with compartments, which encloses it and exhibits the twenty symbols hitherto only known as calendaric signs,—four of which were year- as well as day-signs, whilst sixteen were day-signs only. Their relative positions show that they were intended to be read from right to left.

A profusion of evidence, however, exists showing that individuals bore the day-names as personal appellations, not only in Mexico but also in Central America. Amongst the Quichés for instance, members of the “Royal house of Cavek” are designated in the Popol Vuh, as three deer, nine dog, etc.

It thus follows that the twenty signs were not merely names of years and days, but also designated the tribes and clans. The element-symbols which marked every fifth day and the years and constitute the major signs, likewise were the names of the four great divisions of the people, and of their respective chieftains. On the other hand the 4×4=16 minor signs, applied not only to days but to the 4×4=16 clans. At the same time the element names conveyed in a general way the occupation of each of the four divisions of people as well as their places of abode in reference to the capital. Accordingly, the earth people would specially attend to agriculture, mining, the manufacture of pottery, etc.; water people to irrigation, the furnishing of drinks, fishing, etc.; the fire people to all occupations which had to do with fire: the procuring of combustibles for fire and lighting, cooking, the working in metals, etc.

As on the stone, the sign calli=house is in juxtaposition to the symbol for air, it may be inferred that the air people were the builders, the masons, the artificers, the Nahuatl name for which [pg 254] was “toltecatl.” As the air symbol occupies the place of highest honor in reference to the central face, namely, above the right hand, it is evident that the builders, or “toltecas,” were the caste which enjoyed the highest consideration. Their totem was the bird, the inhabitant of the air. The second rank in honor was held by the fire people placed to the left, above. Their totem was the ocelot.

Without going further into details for the present, I merely point out that the identical division of the members of each community and association with the elements, etc., was carried out throughout the state. This method clearly established the relation and also determined the geographical position of each class of people in reference to the whole.

The carved band on the Calendar-stone, with its twenty signs, determined once and for all time the exact position to be taken up in all public assemblages, in councils, sacred dances, and likewise controlled the exposition of the products of the land in the great market-place. What is more: each division of the people, by reason of its indissoluble union to one element and one region, also had its own season during which it led in ceremonial observances. So skilfully was the lunar ceremonial or religious year devised that each sign, without any distinction, ruled a period of thirteen days. At the same time the period fell into four divisions headed by the four principal or element signs.

In the solar or civil year, each sign had its day, but as the computation of years passed by, each sign in due rotation ruled during one year. It was only when each sign had had an equal rule that the cycle completed itself, and, in turn, became a part of a greater cycle of time. To realize the marvellous ingenuity with which the rotation of days and consequently the working of the entire machinery of state was carried on, it is necessary to have before one's eyes, a series of reconstructive tables, such as I have prepared for my paper on the subject. For the present, however, I trust that some idea of the harmonious organization of the state may have been conveyed to the reader.

One important feature remains for consideration. As already mentioned, one of the four annual midnight positions of the Bear star-groups, and presumably a “royal star,” pertained to each cardinal-point and consequently to each of the four divisions of people. To this statement, which can be supported by substantial evidence, I must add that each of the sixteen minor signs likewise [pg 255] designated constellations, of which there were thus four in each region of the heaven. The twenty familiar day-signs thus actually constituted also the native zodiac. As the region to which each constellation pertains is clearly designated by the cardinal-point signs, their identification is merely a matter of time. Since ten of the signs represent animals, and these were the clan totems, it is easy to realize how animal forms, composed of stars, came to be traced in the heavens.

Deferring further discussion of the native zodiac I will but point out what an intimate relation was thus established and maintained between star-groups and human beings; and how the periodical rotation and stations of the celestial bodies actually guided or, at all events, coincided with the periods of human activity in various branches.

I am not, as yet, prepared to formulate a final opinion on the meaning of the narrow band that surrounds the zodiacal belt, which is at the same time the list of years and days and of tribes and clans, but shall merely note that it exhibits four large and four lesser rays which designate the quarters and half-quarters of the whole. A few words concerning the symbolism of these rays should find place here. In Nahuatl the ray was named “tona-mitl,” literally “the shining arrow,” “shaft of light.” Ixtlilxochitl tells us that it was an ancient custom of his people on taking possession of new territory “to shoot with utmost force four arrows, in the directions of the four regions of the world.” This interesting passage shows us that the rays, i. e. arrows of light, carved on the stone, conveyed the idea of possession of the four regions and four sub-regions by the central power.

Returning to an examination of the concentric band to which the rays are attached: It exhibits also 4×10 groups of five dots, two of which groups are almost concealed by star-symbols on the recurved open jaws of the serpents' heads which meet at the bottom of the stone. Above this band and placed exactly between the larger and lesser rays are single compartments with five-dot groups. It has been interesting to detect the reason why two five-dot groups were carved, as I have already pointed out, immediately under the central head. They evidently supply the missing groups whose places are filled up by the recurved upper jaws of the serpents, [pg 256] heads at the bottom of the monolith. From the care taken to preserve a visible record of these two groups, it is obvious that a special importance was attached to the recording of eight five-dot groups besides the forty in the band, making a total of 4×12=48 groups, or 10+2=12 to each quarter.

As the Mexican name for market was macuil-tianquiztli, literally the “Five (day) market” and the Maya word for capital was homonymous with five=ho, it is evident that these five dot groups would have conveyed the idea of “market,” market-day and possibly market-town, to a Mexican. To a Maya-speaking people they would have appeared to express practically the same thought, since all capitals, large or small, were market-places and absorbed and redistributed the product of quadruple provinces within the radius of its jurisdiction. The inference that the five-dot groups may have served as a topographical register of the larger and minor capitals existing in each quarter of the state, is substantiated by more evidence than can be produced here. I have moreover found indications that this belt may have served as a sort of moon-calendar which was also an attempt at an adjustment of lunar to solar periods. Before, however, an estimate can be made [pg 257] of the full meaning of this belt formed by the two great serpents which encircle the entire monument, more time and labor will have to be expended.

One point about the twin serpents is clear; they are represented as springing from a square enclosing the symbol Acatl accompanied by 13 which has been generally interpreted as a calendar date. It seems to me to be more deeply significant than a mere date, especially as it appears to designate the point of departure for the progressive movement of the two serpents whose open jaws enclose human heads in profile which together form one face. The upper jaws end in two recurved appendages, each exhibiting seven star symbols. As these obviously typify night or darkness and the open jaws seem to threaten to absorb or engulf the ray of the sun pointing downwards, it appears as though these typified a disappearance of light into the underworld of darkness and destruction.

The symbolical surroundings of the downward ray are in striking contrast to its opposite, the upward ray, which reaches to the 13 Acatl sign and points to what appears to be the place of origin or birth of the twin serpents. It certainly seems that this all-embracing and enfolding twin pair are designed to typify the dual forces of nature under a form which would also express quadruplication. By what must be termed a stroke of genius the designer of the monolith chose to represent the forms of two serpents, relying upon the fact that Nahuatl-speaking people would see in each serpent (=coatl) a twin (=coatl). Did he not also realize that to a Maya each serpent (=can) would mean 4 (=can) and that the pair would appear to embody or express the numerals 4 and also 8?

It is noteworthy that each serpent is represented with one claw and that these two added to those contained in the central nahui-ollin complete the four-limbed figure which was essentially the image of a complete count=the state, the nation, the era, etc. In this monument, as elsewhere, it is possible to follow the development of the symbolism expressed by two heads which form but one, [pg 258] twin-bodies which mean four and of four limbs which represent the digital count=20.

Under different aspects the same theme repeats itself again and again upon the stone, which proves that the master minds who planned and wrought it destined it to be the image of a plan based on the idea of a central and yet all-embracing, dual, yet quadruple force or power.

The preceding rapid sketch I have given of the wide-reaching significance of this remarkable monument will, I hope, be found to amply support and corroborate the view I advanced in 1886, when I pointed out that the “Calendar-stone” answered to the description given by Duran, of the “circular elaborately carved tablets which were kept in each market-place and were held in great veneration.” I trust that it is now clear why it should have been frequently consulted and why the market-days were regulated according to the carved indications upon the surface. Engraved upon it were the Great Plan and its laws of organization and rotation. It clearly determined, once and for all, the sequence of the days; the relation of all classes of the population to each other and to the whole, and set forth not only the place each group should occupy in the market-place, but also the product or industry with which it was associated and the periods when its contributions to the commonwealth should be forthcoming in regular rotation. The stone was therefore not only the tablet but the wheel of the law of the State and it can be conjectured that its full interpretation was more or less beyond the capacity of all but an initiated minority, consisting of the elders, chiefs and priests.

Postponing for the present further discussion of this, the most precious and remarkable monument which has ever been unearthed on the American Continent, let us briefly bestow attention upon the two other monoliths which may be said to be its companions and obviously belong to the same period and civilization. In 1886, in the preliminary note cited above, I advanced the view that the first of these, generally known as the “Sacrificial stone,” was a “law-stone of a similar nature [to the Calendar-stone] which recorded, however, the periodical collection of certain tributes paid by subjugated tribes and others whose obligation it was to contribute to the commonwealth of Mexico.” I pointed out that the “frieze around the stone consists of groups, placed at intervals, of the flint-knives (tecpatl) with conventionally carved teeth (tlantli) [pg 259] giving in combination the word ‘tecpatlantli.’ This occurs in Sahagun's Historia, as the name given to the ‘lands of the tecpan or palace,’ and in one of the native works I find designated the four channels into which the produce of these lands was diverted.” I likewise noted that “the periods indicated on it differ from those on the Calendar-stone,” which might more appropriately be designated as the ancient Mexican wheel of the law or of the Great Universal Plan.

Thirteen years of painstaking research have only served to strengthen me in my interpretation of the “Sacrificial-stone.” The frieze around it exhibits sixteen groups, each consisting of the repeated representation of a warrior characterized by having one foot only. In each case he is figured as seizing by the hair a different individual, who bows his head and offers the weapon he holds in his right hand to his victor. Amongst the sixteen subjugated personages are two women and above each are hieroglyphs expressing the names of well-known localities, some of which are mentioned in native chronicles as having been conquered in historical times by Mexican rulers.

In my account of the Plan of the Ancient City of Mexico, I shall illustrate these hieroglyphs, locate the places to which they refer and further discuss this monument. Meanwhile I shall but state that it undoubtedly belongs to the same category of monuments as the tablets in the “Temple of the Sun” at Palenque; the bas-relief at Ixkun and that in the house of the “Tennis-court” at Chichen-Itza where warriors in a procession render homage to a seated personage, by presenting their spear-throwers to him in precisely the same manner as shown on the Mexican Tribute-Stone.

The upper surface of this exhibits the same division into eight parts, marked by four large and four smaller rays, pointing to the quarters and half-quarters. Observation shows that of the sixteen localities four were assigned to each quarter and it is evident that the monument determined the time and the order in which the tribute for each was paid and collected at the capital. The one-footed man again graphically symbolizes axial rotation and conveys the idea of a central ruler who in turn seizes and exerts control upon 4×4 tribal chiefs. The monument establishes, moreover, the interesting fact that amongst the subjugated communities were two gynocracies, represented by women who, instead of spear-throwers, present their weaving shuttle to the victor.

[pg 260]

We shall next consider a monument whose uncouth and ugly form embodies a deep and nobly planned conception of the “divine twin,” or “divine Four,” that so completely dominated the minds of the native philosophers.

Let us now carefully examine the monolith now preserved in the National Museum of Mexico (fig. ). Leon y Gama, having observed that what appeared to be the foundation of the statue was carved and that massive projections existed under its so-called arms, logically concluded that the original design had been to support the figure from the sides, so that its base was lifted from the ground and the figure upon it exposed to view from underneath. His inference is borne out by the carving on the base which belongs to the same category as the image of Mictlan-tecuhtli, and represents a semi-human body, of quadriform shape soaring downward.

Figure 57.

The centre (fig. ) exhibits on a square the five-dot figure, and the square, in turn, is enclosed in a circle; the whole symbolism relating to the now well-worn theme of the centre and four quarters and the union of the earth=the square and the heaven=the circle. It clearly exhibits a skull attached to each limb, typifying the four quarters or the clans and their chiefs, whilst the hands hold the larger heads, emblematic of supreme dual rulership. It is interesting to [pg 261] find that the above carving, under the feet of the sculptured figure, embodies the entire meaning of the statue, which is but a variation of the native philosophical theme of “Divine Twain” or Quetzalcoatl. Two serpents' heads surmount a semi-human body and meeting form the semblance of two single faces turned to the front and back of the statue. By this ingenious device the unity, yet duality of the divine twin is graphically rendered and one-half of each countenance is represented as belonging to each serpent. These are thus shown to be indissolubly linked together, yet distinct. Their single, yet dual head has four eyes, eight fangs and two forked tongues. The figure and skirt composed of intertwined rattlesnakes, constitute feminine attributes given to the symbolical figure of the “twin-lord and twin-lady,” the “father and mother of all.” Instead of hands the arms terminate in serpents' heads and the huge feet in great claws.

Between these, in the front and at the back, a rattlesnake's body and head appear. The belt consists of a large snake whose head and tail hang down in front, as the ends of a bow. A skull is attached to the front and another to the back of the belt. In the latter case it surmounts a fan-shaped, curiously plaited ornamental appendage partly decorated with feathers. Forming a sort of necklace in front are four hands, i. e. 4×5=20 and two conventionalized hearts. At the back there are two hands and two hearts and an intricate knot which fastens the necklace, the real meaning of which is far from what it may appear to be. It probably signified the same as the painted hearts and hands on ceremonial garments of which Sahagun tells us that “they meant that the people who wore them lifted their hearts and hands to the Creator to implore for rain and food.” At the same time, the arrangement in front clearly reveals the sculptor's allusion to the head, two hearts, four hands and twenty fingers, which symbolize these familiar numerical divisions. An indication that this symbolical statue was probably designed and executed by the same master who made the circular stone of the Great Plan, is furnished by the calendar sign 13 Acatl, which is carved under the skull at the back of the figure.

Deferring an investigation of the significance of this date, I shall now draw attention to what is to me the most interesting and important feature of the whole image. The view of the top of the two heads, as may be seen by the accompanying reproduction [pg 262] from a photograph (fig. ) exhibits, at their line of union, a small square with diagonal cross-lines. The position of this symbol which resembles the top view of a pyramid and forms, as it were, the apex of the statue, every detail of which is deeply symbolical, clearly reveals the sanctity and importance attached to this graphic image of the Centre, the union of four in one or vice versa, the theme on which the native mind played numberless and endless variations.

A reflection, again forced upon one in studying the monumental composite image of the dual and quadruple forces of nature, is that it must have been as intelligible to a Maya as to a Mexican, and conveyed the conception of Kukulcan to the one and Quetzalcoatl to the other. Several facts point, however, to the greater probability that the original conception of the monument must have arisen amongst Maya-speaking people.

Figure 58.

The divided square, simulating a pyramid and so obviously a symbol of four=can, carved on the head of a serpent=can, throws an interesting light upon the probable derivation of the affix=can, which occurs in certain names of localities in Mexico, and in some cases distinctly stands for “mountain.” It is a fact which has already been cited in Señor Antonio Penafiel's useful work on the Geographical names of Mexico that, in the pictographic hieroglyphs of localities the affix can signifies a town, being synonymous with the tepec, i. e. tepetl, the Nahuatl name for mountain or town. One of many similar instances, which could be produced, is illustrated in his fig. xxiii, 1, where can obviously stands for the mountain which is represented as twisted or bent [pg 263] over (colhua), in the hieroglyph for Colhuacan. The hieroglyphs for the towns Acayocan and Tenayocan, furnish a similar employment of the mountain to express the sound can. The sense of the affix can, meaning a town, only becomes clear when we interpret it as the name of the artificial mountain with four sides, the pyramid, which was the symbol of four=the Maya can, and was the emblem of a central capital. This is convincingly proven by the Codex Mendoza for instance, in which it is shown that the Mexican mode of recording the conquest of a tribe was to paint their hieroglyphic name and a picture of the destruction of the pyramid temple which had stood in the centre of their capital. In other words, the conquered town ceased to be a centre of rule—its captive chieftain was taken to the capital, where the horrible rite of sacrifice performed upon him and the tearing out of his heart likewise symbolized the destruction of the independent life of the tribe or integral whole he represented in his person. It was thus brought home to the conquered people that they had ceased to exist as an independent body, and the distribution of the chieftain's flesh to the ritualistic cannibals graphically symbolized its absorption into the great central state. It is necessary to emphasize here that these horrible rites were of comparatively recent origin and had been invented by the Mexicans for the purpose of intimidating their vassals, after a prolonged period of wars and bloodshed, which menaced the very existence of the integral state. The presence in Mexico of numerous names of towns, ending in can, seems to indicate the influence, in ancient times, of the Maya-speaking civilization to which the origin of the pyramid must be assigned. The association of the latter with the word can is strikingly illustrated in the name of Teotihua-Can, where stand the ruins of two of the largest and most imposing pyramids of ancient America. The base of the larger of the two has been estimated at about 700 feet square, it being impossible to take an exact measurement owing to the mass of accumulated débris which covers the lower part of the structure.

The base of the second pyramid measures about 475 feet square. The sides of both pyramids rose at an angle of about 45 degrees and were in each case interrupted by four terraces. This double application of a quadruple division merits special attention, as it produced besides the four great 4×4 lesser sections, the sacred centre of the terraces, which crowned each structure. Historical [pg 264] tradition relates that the larger pyramid, known as the “Enclosure of the Sun (=Tonatiuh-I-Tzacual),” originally bore on its summit a colossal image of the sun, covered with plates of gold, whilst the other, the “Enclosure of the Moon” exhibited a similar image, covered with silver. The distinguished and reliable historian Orozco y Berra quotes this tradition adding that the soldiers of Cortés despoiled the images of their precious metals and that the Bishop Zumarraga ordered a further destruction of all monuments at Teotihuacan.

The tradition which records the existence of a silver and of a gold image, cannot be dismissed as unfounded, because it meets with a certain amount of corroboration by other data. In the first case the so-called “battered goddess,” a mutilated stone image, which was found in the courtyard at the base of the “Pyramid of the Moon,” looks as though it may have been the very monument which was once plated with silver. Traces of concentric bands of ornamentation seem to indicate that its round face had originally occupied the centre of a sculptured disc, in which case this must have had a diameter of about twelve feet. In Peru, as already stated, a silver image of the moon, associated with the female sovereign, was the complement to the golden effigy of the sun, associated with the Inca.

Even if data had not already been produced which establishes the existence of two religious cults in ancient Mexico, the respective symbols of which were the sun and the moon, the presence of two pyramids at Teotihuacan would suggest the existence of a division of some sort. The origin of these great and imposing structures is shrouded in mystery, but it is generally conceded that they must have been built long before the comparatively modern inhabitants of the valley of Mexico, the wandering Aztecs, had taken up their abode in the midst of the salt lagoons. The erection of two pyramids, however, proves that their builders had already practised the cult of the middle of heaven and earth, or Above and Below, and of the Four Quarters for so long a time, that there had been a separation of religions and government into two almost independent parts, each complete in itself. In the light of the testimony produced it is safe to infer that for an indefinite time the rival cults developed side by side until dissension and consequent disintegration followed. The Mexican state was the outcome of a later effort to reorganize and rebuild an integral whole [pg 265] on the ancient plan, the knowledge of which had been preserved and handed down. As time went on it was inevitable that the same causes which had caused the more ancient and greater state to crumble away, should be actively at work on the second.

It has already been shown that two religions existed in Montezuma's time the respective embodiments of which were Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca. It is an interesting fact, related by Bernal Diaz, that the idols of both stood together in one tower at the summit of the great temple and were alike, “because they were brothers.” At the same time whilst Tezcatlipoca's image was decorated with obsidian (=tezcatl) Huitzilopochtli's was encrusted with turquoises. It is curious to note how closely the old soldier's description of these idols answers to that of the great dualistic statue which has been discussed in the preceding pages. His account contains the following details: “In this hall were what resembled two altars with very richly [ornamented or carved] platforms on the top of the roof or ceiling. On each altar was a statue, as of a giant, very tall in body and very stout. The first, which represented Huitzilopochtli, had a very wide, deformed or monstrous face and forehead, and terrifying eyes ... around his neck were faces of Indians and what were hearts. These were of gold whilst the former were of silver inlaid with blue mosaic-work. The entire body was covered with mosaic-work, gold and beads and misshapen pearls, all fastened to it with a kind of cement or glue. Encircling the body were what were like huge serpents made of gold and mosaic.... The idol was of Tezcatlipoca, and its eyes were made of shining black stone [obsidian] called Tezcat. The statues were alike because they were said to be brothers. Tezcatlipoca was the lord of the Underworld ... and around his body were figures like small devils with tails like serpents.” But for the fact that Bernal Diaz mentions a plurality of faces in Huitzilopochtli's necklace, whereas our monument exhibits but one skull, in front, his description strikingly coincides with the monolith now existing. Considering that thirty years had elapsed before he wrote this description allowance must be made for this and other slight [pg 266] lapses. On the other hand, dual statues, exactly alike, but with differently colored ornamentation, are precisely what we should expect to find on the summit of the great pyramid-temple of Mexico. With our present knowledge and comprehension of native symbolism, moreover, we see that two statues, each of which figured twin-serpents, would best express the native idea of the dual and quadruple principles and elements. What is more, two dual statues, each surmounted by a square, diagonally crossed, like a pyramid, would correspond, in symbolism, to the two great pyramids of Teotihuacan and carry out, on a small scale, the idea of a dual government.

Valuable and reliable evidence, showing to what an extent the Mexicans regarded their government as dual and quadruple, can be gleaned from the records of the presents sent by Montezuma to Cortés, under the impression that the bearded Spaniards were the descendants of the ancient founders of their civilization. The native ruler sent the complete ceremonial dress of the four lords of the four regions denoting by that act of homage that he acknowledged Cortés as his equal, i. e. the supreme central lord who united the four-fold power in his person. “He likewise sent him a large wheel of pure gold, covered with designs and with the image of a monster in its centre.” Its weight was estimated at 3,800 “pesas” and it was considered “the finest and best of all the presents.” It was accompanied by “a large wheel of silver,” weighing forty-eight marcos. By the light of our present knowledge it may be that both “wheels” were images of the Great Plan and that whilst the gold one set forth the constitution and organization of the Upper division of the State and possibly conveyed the statistics of its members, the silver wheel was a record of the Lower division. The gift of these tablets must have been intended as an act of subservience and an acknowledgment of Cortés as the lord of the Above and Below, as well as of the Four Quarters. The utter lack of understanding for the symbolism of these gifts on the part of the recipient, can scarcely have escaped the notice of Montezuma's messengers and must have sorely puzzled their unfortunate master.

The existence in Mexico at the time of the Conquest, of a dual state, suggests the possibility that, in some way, the pyramids of Teotihuacan continued to be connected with the opposite and rival cults of the Sun and the Nocturnal Heaven, although their origin was shrouded in the past. It is known that their site was venerated: [pg 267] besides, the name Teotihuacan, which Orozco y Berra translated as “the place of the masters as keepers of the gods” or “the place where the gods were adored,” most probably really meant “the divine four-sided mountains or pyramids” or, possibly, “the sacred pyramids of the lords.”

Until an extensive, carefully-planned and systematical exploration has been carried out at Teotihuacan, it is impossible to form any definite conclusions concerning its past history. Cherishing the hope that such an exploration may yet be made during my lifetime, I shall merely make a few remarks concerning the ruins, which I visited many years ago. Approaching them from the south one enters a broad straight road, several miles in length and about 250 feet wide, which is bordered at each side by a series of irregular mounds, probably covering ruined structures. This imposing road leads directly into the vast courtyard which stretches across the base of the great pyramid of the Moon. As the City of Mexico lies to the south of Teotihuacan it is significant to find that this road leads from that direction to a vast pyramid situated at the north, which was, according to the ancient Mexicans, the region of the Underworld, darkness and death. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the ancient native name which still clings to the roadway is “the path of the dead.” The presence, moreover, of innumerable small clay heads which are, undoubtedly, portraits or effigies of persons represented as dead, points to the alternative that Teotihuacan may have been the necropolis of an ancient civilization or that it was, even at the time of the Conquest, the place where a register of deaths was kept by the priest-rulers, by means of small clay effigies.

Considering the native idea, it seems more than probable that all matters pertaining to the dead should be relegated to the northern region and the fact that the road from the south leads to a pyramid which tradition associates with the moon, the symbol of the nocturnal cult of the “Below,” lends color to these views.

There is a temptation to imagine that possibly after the adoption of two distinct cults of which the second pyramid seems to furnish incontrovertible proof, a further divergence ensued resulting in the ultimate abandonment of the capital by the votaries of the Sun, the male principle and the Above. As the native civilizations were based on such a plan that dissension and disorganization inevitably led to utter downfall and ruin, it is easy to see [pg 268] that a gynocracy and the cult of the earth and underworld should gradually become extinct. At the zenith of its power, however, it may safely be inferred, that Teotihuacan was a great centre where astronomical observation and agriculture flourished, these being the natural outcome of the cult of mother-earth and the nocturnal heaven. Whilst all conjecture must necessarily be hypothetical, it is a comfort to reflect that, locked in the ruins themselves, lies guarded the past history of Teotihuacan, which was shrouded in a mist of uncertainty even at the time of the Conquest.

The pyramids themselves, however, openly reveal the fact, that their builders possessed a knowledge of the great plan, and that, at some time, a single central pyramid not being sufficient, two, of unequal sizes, arose to bear lasting testimony not only of past greatness, but of long-forgotten rivalry and dissension. Finally, there is one thing certain, namely, that the building of the pyramids at Teotihuacan must have been preceded by an extremely long period during which the native ideas, of which they were the expression and image, had developed and taken definite shape. If Teotihuacan yields evidence of an advanced stage in the history of the intellectual development of the native race, it also marks the beginning of the disintegration of the state of which it was the central capital. On the other hand, at Cholula, also situated in the high plateau of Mexico, to the east of its present capital stands, in ruined solitary grandeur, the largest pyramid on the American continent, whose base is twice as large as that of the pyramid of Cheops in Egypt.

The name of the ancient capital of which it formed the nucleus was Tullan Cholollan Tlachiuhaltepec. Boturini (op. cit. p. 113) [pg 269] cites an old native manuscript on which a picture of the pyramid of Cholula was painted with the note that, in ancient times, it was named Tultecatl Chalchihuatl On Azia Ecatepec, which he translates as “the monument or precious jade stone of the Toltecs, which rears itself in the region of the air.” As eca-tepec literally means air-mountain, Boturini's translation may seem somewhat exaggerated; on the other hand, the Spaniards, who knew the Nahuatl language best, repeatedly state that its words were so replete with significance that it would sometimes require several Spanish sentences to set forth the meaning of a single native word. Boturini, who had exceptional opportunities for obtaining information, adds to the above the following translation of a Nahuatl inscription which had been written by the native scribe below the drawing which unfortunately is now lost. “Nobles and Lords: Here you have your documents, the mirror of your past, the history of your ancestors who, out of fear for a deluge, constructed this place of refuge or asylum for the possibility of the recurrence of such a calamity.”

After citing the opinions of various authors concerning the origin of the pyramid, Orozco y Berra concludes that “there is no certainty about its age, but instinctively it is supposed to be extremely ancient and to pertain to pre-historic times. According to my judgment the people who constructed it belonged to the same civilization as the builders of Teotihuacan and possibly were their contemporaries. Cholollan was also a venerated sanctuary, in which the religious idea predominated” (op. cit. p. 363). “At the time of the Conquest a temple stood on the summit of the [pg 270] pyramid and contained an image of Quetzalcoatl (the Divine Twain, the Creator, the Father and Mother of all) as well as an aerolite, shaped like a frog which had fallen from heaven, wrapped in a ball of flame.” In the Vatican MS. of Padre Rios there is another version of the tradition that the pyramid had been erected by giants after a deluge, which had destroyed everything, ... and that before it was finished, fire fell upon it causing the death of its builders and the abandonment of the work.

Allusion has already been made, in the preceding pages, to the native traditions according to which, “there had been three memorable epochs in the history of mankind, which lasted for centuries and were abruptly terminated, each time by a mighty convulsion of nature. The majority of human beings perished in each of these, but a remnant survived and thus the race was preserved.”

The periodical festival of thanksgiving, which was still observed at the time of the Conquest by the native races, abundantly testifies to the reality of their belief in these great catastrophes and the preservation of their ancestors from utter extermination. It was doubtless in order to make their past history conform with the quadruple organization of all epochs of their native Calendar that the native sages assigned their successive destructions to the separate agencies of fire, water and air, in the form of violent tempests and cyclones. From descriptions contained in the Mexican Codex Chimalpopoca and in the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Quichés, it will be seen that the phenomena described are such as would naturally accompany a volcanic outbreak on a great scale. Considering that, in Mexico alone, there are no less than nine monster volcanoes, of which two are not yet extinct, and that in Guatemala, in historical times, whole cities have been destroyed by earthquakes and volcanic action, it is not at all astonishing to find traditions of great catastrophes amongst the inhabitants of these regions.

No one can look upon the grand snow-clad peaks of the great volcanoes, which surround the high central plateau of Mexico, without realizing that mighty upheavals and disturbances, such as the world has seldom seen, must have attended the formation of the huge craters next to which Vesuvius seems but a hillock. A volcanic outbreak amongst these elevated peaks, which range from 15,000 to 19,000 feet above the sea-level, would obviously be accompanied [pg 271] by great inundations caused by the melting of the masses of snow which crown their heights. The valley of Mexico in which the large lagoons lie, as in a basin without an outlet, and the plains which surround Cholula and stretch to the base of the volcanoes must repeatedly have been the scene of ruin and desolation, lasting for many centuries. As the Abbé Bourbourg justly remarks: “The majority of the edifices in the City of Mexico are built of volcanic tufa, said to have been formed by the small volcanoes which lie at the southeast of the valley of Mexico. At various periods of antiquity great masses of lava have descended into this valley, in which one extensive ancient lava-field is now known as the ‘Pedregal de San Augustin.’ ” Another great flow of lava has actually been traced from its apparent source, the now extinct volcano of Ajusco, at the south of the valley of Mexico, to Acapulco, on the Pacific coast.

The Mexican chronicles describe as follows the destruction of the earth by fire: “... there came a rain of fire: all that existed was burnt and a rain composed of sand-stone fell. It is said that whilst the sand-stone we now see was being formed the tet-zontli [i. e. volcanic tufa], boiled with great noise. Then the red mountains also lifted themselves up ... the sun consumed itself [was darkened], all houses were destroyed and all the lords or chiefs perished....”

The same author relates how, after the repeated destruction by water, obscurity reigned for twenty-five years. This cataclysm is also described in the sacred book of the Quichés as follows: “Then ... the waters became swollen by the mere will of the Heart of Heaven and there came a great inundation from above and descended upon the people ... they were deluged and then a thick resinous substance fell from the sky. The face of the earth was obscured and a dark rain commenced and fell during the day and during the night ... there was great sound of fire overhead. Then the people ran pushing each other and filled with despair: they endeavoured to mount upon the houses and these, falling in, threw them again to earth. They wished to climb the trees, but these swayed and cast the people from them; they tried to enter caves, but these shut themselves before them....” It was after this universal ruin and destruction that, according to native tradition, the pyramid of Cholula was erected, as a place of refuge for the remnant of the native race which had escaped destruction [pg 272] and returned to the scene of desolation, lured by the richness of the fertile soil, just as the Italian peasants return to their vineyards on Vesuvius after each eruption. All things considered there seems to be no ground for rejecting the native tradition which affirms that the great pyramid of Cholula was erected as a place of refuge from inundations, especially as no more plausible explanation of the origin of the pyramid can be imagined. Any primitive people, inhabiting fertile plains which abounded in game and fish, and food-plants, but were exposed to frequent inundations, could not fail to recognize the advantages of an elevated piece of ground as a place of safety. It is easy to imagine the intermediate stages in the transition from this simple recognition to the final determination to build a compact, high and spacious elevation, within the reach of all inhabitants of a settlement, on which these could not only find refuge from the dangers of floods and volcanic disturbances, but also store their harvest, and possibly some form of raft or boat which they might employ as a last means of escape.

Irrefutable proof that the maize had been cultivated from remote antiquity in this region, and had even become identified with it, is furnished by the fact that the name of the small republic of Tlaxcalla, which lies in the neighboring foot-hills, signifies bread, and that its hieroglyphic sign consists of two hands holding a tortilla, or maize-cake.

It is well known that botanists have not yet succeeded in identifying, amongst the native grasses of America, the ancestor of the cultivated maize-plant. They assert, however, that the development of what is now the world's largest cereal, from a wild native species, must have required incalculable time.

It must be admitted that no factor could possibly have more speedily impressed upon primitive men the benefits of concerted action and of organization and communal life than the occasional recurrence of a great and imminent peril which was shared by all alike, and for which there was but one visible means of escape. It is equally clear that, once a concerted and united undertaking had been determined upon, some sort of plan and organization must have naturally evolved itself. The mere building of such a gigantic structure as the pyramid of Cholula, which may well have absorbed the energies of several generations of men, or, at all events that of innumerable workmen, could well have been an [pg 273] abiding and most powerful factor in establishing their social organization. Its erection must indeed have marked an epoch in the lives of the inhabitants of this region, because, during many years it created a bond of common interest which, of itself, might well have laid the foundation of a permanent communal life, in which responsibility and labor were equally distributed. The mere necessity to expend an equal amount of material and labor upon the building of each side of the pyramid, would naturally lead to the formation of pathways traced by the feet of the carriers of earth and stone from different directions, and ultimately to a division of the workers into four bands, each associated with a different cardinal point. Practice would demand that each band should be under leadership, and be divided into those who collected and carried material, and those who placed it in position, at each side of the pyramid. The necessity for general supervision and directorship, extending over the four bands of workers alike, would, of itself, create central rulership upon which would devolve the duty of enforcing an equal division of labor, which would create, in turn, some form of systematic routine and rotation. It can thus be understood how, by slow degrees, each side of the pyramid would become permanently identified with a cardinal point; and associated with a division of workmen under its leader and a fixed period of time. It may likewise be seen how a separate caste would slowly develop itself, consisting of the trained architects and builders, the descendants of the first organizers of human labor, and systematical rulers of men.

It may thus be seen how the realization of frequent danger, the necessity to provide an escape and insure the safety of the race, aided by experience, might lead to the conception of a vast pyramid, the mere building of which would create and establish the fundamental principles of organization and government.