Chapter X: Old World (5)

In Grote’s history we learn that after the establishment of the
first Athenian democracy by Kleisthenes and the victory they gained
over the Bœotians and Chalkidians, the Athenians _planted a body of
four thousand_ of their citizens as kleruchs (lot-holders) or
settlers upon the lands of the wealthy conquered Chalkidians. This
is a system which we shall find hereafter extensively followed out
by the Athenians in the days of their power; partly with a view of
providing for their poorer citizens, partly to serve as garrison
among a population either hostile or of doubtful fidelity. These
Attic kleruchs did not lose their birthright as Athenian citizens:
they were not colonists in the Grecian sense and they are known by a
totally different name—but they corresponded very nearly to the
colonies formally planted out on the conquered lands by Rome. The
increase of the poorer population was always more or less painfully
felt in every Grecian city ... the numerous kleruchies sent out by
Athens, of which this to Eubœa was the first, arose in a great
measure out of the multiplication of the poorer population, which
her extended power was employed in providing for ... (_op. cit._
vol. 4, p. 171). The number “four thousand” specially designated is
of particular interest because the letter of the Greek alphabet
expressing it was the delta, in the form of a triangle or pyramid,
which also signified “the fourth” or “a quarter.” The ideas
suggested by these facts are: that the foundation of such a colony
would have been commemorated by the building of a pyramid by the
conquered race, the division of labor amongst them preparing the way
for the institution of a social organization on the familiar plan
(_cf._ p. 273). It is only when we reflect what an admirable means
of establishing communal life and activity the mere act of building
under direction and guidance must have been, that we appreciate the
fine wisdom of the ancient kings, civilizers and culture-heroes, who
were, first of all, master builders, architects and masons and who
began the work of rearing an empire by directing the erection of a
monument which, by its form, expressed the all-pervading plan of
organization.

141 “Taylor says that the reason Plato adopted this division is because
the number 12, the image of all-perfect progression, is the product
of 3 by 4, both of which numbers, according to the Pythagoreans, are
images of perfection. On the other hand, Ast conceives that Plato
had in mind the division of the country in twelve parts found in
Egypt and elsewhere, and which seems, as may be inferred from other
portions of his work, to have been connected with the division of
the year into twelve months, each under the superintendence of one
of the twelve greater gods.” To this note I add the remark that, in
B. VI, C. 8, Plato distinctly refers to the twelve tribes as “the
thrice four tribes, recommending that they should appoint thrice
four interpreters,” one for each tribe. It should also be recalled
that Cecrops is said to have employed the division into twelve and
is supposed to have brought it from Egypt. In the present summary
the employment of the same division in other countries can be
verified.

It may be of interest to note here that, like the Egyptians, the
Greeks divided their month into 3 decades. The year consequently
contained 3×12=36 decades+5 days.

142 Considering that the employment of silver or gold currency among the
nations of antiquity has been regarded, by some, as a proof of
advanced culture, it is interesting to learn, from the following
passage, that, as a result of experience and with wisdom and
foresight, Plato recommended the adoption of different forms of
currency in each different state, in order to avert the dangers
resulting from the accumulation of riches. “A law ... that no
private person be permitted to possess any gold or silver; but that
there be a coin for the sake of daily exchange, which it is almost
necessary for handicrafts to change and for all who have need of
such things to pay the wages due to hired persons, be they slaves or
domestic servants. On which account we say that _they must possess
coin which is of value to themselves, but of no worth amongst the
rest of mankind_.” It is curious to note how closely the employment
of the cocoa bean, in ancient Mexico and of wampum in North America,
as the staple currency, fulfilled the purpose recognized as
desirable, by Plato.

143 At the last moment I learn that fragments of Ægean pottery lately
found at Abydos in tombs of the Egyptian kings of the first dynasty,
by Prof. Flinders Petrie are considered to prove that, “Grecian
merchants sailed the seas in 4500 B.C., ... a conclusion further
borne-out by the pictures of vessels with 60 oarsmen, vessels quite
large enough for crossing the Mediterranean, which have been seen on
prehistoric memorials of the oldest inhabitants of Egypt”
(Rawnsley). In this connection it is interesting to learn, from
Professor Sayce, that the Phœnician galley was the model of the
Greek one, that it was at Carthage that a ship, with more than three
banks of oars, was first built, and that its pilots steered by the
pole star, not, like the Greeks, by the Great Bear (Ancient Empires
of the East, p. 205).

144 An interesting interpretation of this somewhat obscure sentence is
obtained by collating it with the conception of “the revolving eye
of the Norse world mill-stone which was directly above Oergelmer and
through which the waters flowed to and fro from the great fountain
of the Universe mountains” (p. 472). The analogy is strengthened by
the fact that the mountainous region in which Kyrênê was situated
has always been noted for its fertility, the water, from the
mountains enclosing its plains, settling in pools and lakes,
affording a constant supply, during the summer months, to the Arabs
who frequent it. The feature of Kyrênê, most renowned in antiquity,
was its inexhaustible Fountain of Apollo, and travellers describe
how, to this day, the Bedouin Arabs flock to it when their supply of
water and herbage fails in the interior. Grote states that the same
circumstance must have operated in ancient times to hold the nomadic
Libyans in a sort of dependence upon Kyrênê (Grote, _op. cit._ vol.
IV, p. 37).

The realization that an inexhaustible fountain of water meant life
to primitive nomadic people, enables us to understand the expression
“fountain of life” and the constant associations of the sacred
central mountain with pools of water and streams flowing in four
directions. It is remarkable and highly suggestive how closely the
following topographical details, given by Grote, of the original
seat of the Macedonians (which were in the regions east of the chain
of Skardus, north of the chain which connects Olympus with Pindus
and which forms the northwestern boundary of Thessaly), coincide
with the conception of Mt. Meru, for instance.

“Reckoning the basin of Thessaly as a fourth, here are four distinct
inclosed plains on the east side of this long range of Skardus and
Pindus,—each generally bounded by mountains which rise precipitously
to an alpine height, and each leaving only one cleft for drainage by
a single river,—the Axius, the Erigōn, the Haliakmōn and the Peneius
respectively. All four plains ... are of distinguished fertility
...” (Grote, _op. cit._ vol. IV, p. 10). The close vicinity of
Olympus, the Grecian “divine mountain,” is particularly suggestive,
inasmuch as it proves to be geographically associated with four
remarkable plains and rivers.

145 “This metaphorical name (the Krittakas) was derived from the
vocabulary of the Northern races, who had learned in Asia Minor and
the neighborhood of the Caspian Sea to spin thread and weave cloth
from the flax of Asia Minor, and the hemp of the shores of the
Caspian Sea, and who had taken their knowledge with them when
emigrating to the villages of the Neolithic life in Europe and to
the Kushite Empire in India, where they divided the people into
guilds or trade unions, founded on community of function, and
discovered how to use cotton thread for weaving. The reverence of
the Ashura Kushika for the Pleiades, whose mother star is Amba, also
proves them to be connected with the southwestern Semites, the
Himydritic Arabs of Southern Arabia, the land of Sheba, meaning
_seven_, meaning the seven stars of the constellation of the Great
Bear, called by the Arabs Al-suha, who first worshipped the Pleiades
with its 6 stars, the sacred number of the Ashura, as their mother
constellation, under the name of Tur-ayya, or children of the
father-pole (tur, of the Turanian race) ...” (Hewitt).

146 Various writers have observed and pointed out the close resemblance
in form and decoration, between the terra-cotta whorls found, in
profusion, in Mexico and those of Troy.

147 There is, however, a wide difference between Hewitt’s views and mine
concerning the stars associated with the year wheel and the origin
and meaning of the primitive cross-symbols and swastika, although at
times they partially agree. As Hewitt gives several totally distinct
and different explanations of the origin and significance of crosses
and swastikas, it is difficult to understand clearly his standpoint.
On p. 9, vol. II, he makes an interesting differentiation between a
diagonal or transverse and upright cross, respectively designating
them as rain-cross and fire-cross, and states that their
superposition forms the eight-rayed star, the Akkadian and early
Indian sign of Anu=god. On p. 145, vol. II he names the transverse
cross a sun-cross and says it describes the track of the sun across
the heavens, on solstitial days and distinctly describes the
swastika in the centre of the triangle on the Hindu altar, as “a
symbolic picture of the sun rising at midsummer in the N. E. and
setting in the N. W., and at the winter solstice rising in the S. E.
and setting in the S. W.” On the other hand Hewitt associates the
right-angled cross with the fire-god and the pole-star (p. 191, vol.
II), and the five-rayed star of Horus as the rain or meridian pole,
or mountain standing in the midst of the four stars marking the four
quarters of the heavens (p. 9, vol. II and p. 17, vol. I). I
recommend a careful re-perusal of all of Hewitt’s interpretations of
cross-symbols and swastika and a close comparison of these with my
views, as set forth in the beginning of the present publication, to
Mr. Stansbury Hagar who, somewhat hastily, upon hearing my brief
communication to Section H of the A. A. A. S. in New York, June
1900, stated (in the October number of the Folklore Journal) that my
view concerning the origin of the swastika was the same as that
suggested by Hewitt.

148 Referring the reader to pp. 186-192 for details concerning native
tree worship, I shall but add that to this day, among certain North
American tribes, the planting of the sacred tribal pole in the
hallowed earth socket is accompanied by curious ritualistic marriage
rites, and the ceremonial kindling of the sacred fire of the fire
drill. For the association of four Mexican tribes with four tribal
trees and totemic birds, see fig. 53, and note that the central
figure, enclosed in a square, is represented as though four streams
of blood, flowing from the four angles, converged in his person,
constituting him the “Four in One.”

149 The only mention of a movable axle or hub that I know of in Mexican
chronicles is the cylinder of wood, described on p. 24 as being
shaped like a mortar. The only native illustration I have met which
suggests the native employment of some kind of revolving press or
axle is the curious and clumsy apparatus figured on pp. 11 and 12 of
the Selden MS. preserved at the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and
reproduced by Kingsborough. An examination of this strange
mechanical contrivance apparently associated with a monkey=ozomatli,
and the sacrifice of two prisoners, will be found as interesting as
it is puzzling.

150 In a paper read to the Section of Anthropology of the New York
meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
Mr. Stansbury Hagar communicated the interesting results of his
study of the Salcamayhua tablet which has been alluded to on p. 162
of the present publication. With his kind authorization I take
pleasure in citing here his interpretation of the name of the
Peruvian Creator, an abbreviation of which is inscribed on the plate
or tablet. It will be found to accord with that given by Sir
Clements B. Markham (History of Peru, p. 20), but to be more
explicit. According to his view the name should be analyzed as
follows: illa=light, lightning=fire; ticci=foundation, brick=earth;
uayra _i. e._ huaii=air, wind; cocha=lake=water.

“Illa ticci uayra cocha would thus mean: the universal spirit
defined by naming what seemed to a people unacquainted with
scientific chemistry to be the four ultimate elements.”

Referring to the cognate Aymara language, Mr. Hagar interprets the
name pachaya chachic as “source, lit. male ancestor, grandfather of
all things,” and states that the opening inscription on the tablet
should therefore read: “Spirit of Fire, Earth, Air and Water, source
of all things” ... that is to say “image of the source whence heaven
and earth have emanated.” Mr. Hagar states that this source seems to
be appropriately figured by the oval form which he interprets as an
egg (see fig. 28, _c_). On the other hand I point out that the flat
plate of fine gold, which was set up by the Inca Manco Capac between
images of the sun and moon, is figured as circular in shape (fig.
28, _b_).

I draw attention to Mr. Stansbury Hagar’s interesting and suggestive
paper on “The Celestial Bear,” which appeared in vol. XIII, no.
XLIX, of the Journal of American Folk-lore, in July, 1900. In this
he relates the legend connected with Ursa Major by the Micmac
Indians, that “this group of stars served to mark the divisions of
the night and the seasons for the Micmacs.” A point of particular
interest in connection with the Micmac legend is the fact, so
clearly distinguishable, that the story was suggested to the minds
of the Indians by the different positions assumed by the
constellation in its annual circuit around Polaris.

“The Micmacs say,.... In all things as it was and is in the sky, so
it is on earth.... In midspring the bear does actually seem to be
climbing down out of her [celestial] den [_corona borealis_], which
appears higher up to the northern horizon. In midsummer ... the bear
runs along the northern horizon.... Soon after the bear assumes an
erect position she topples over on her back [is slain] in the
autumn. In midwinter she lies dead on her back, ... but the den
[_corona borealis_] has re-appeared, with the bear of the new year
lying therein, invisible. But this does not end the story of the
bear, ... through the winter her skeleton lies upon its back in the
sky, but her life spirit has entered another bear who also lies upon
her back in the den, invisible and sleeping the winter sleep. When
the spring comes around again, this bear will again issue forth from
the den to be again pursued by the hunters, to be again slain, but
again to send into the den her life-spirit, to issue forth yet again
when the sun once more awakens the sleeping earth. And so the drama
keeps on eternally.” Reasoning by induction, I am strongly tempted
to assign the origin of the Egyptian myth of Osiris and of the
“child in its cradle,” to the same source of inspiration—possibly
also other myths of antiquity, such as the twelve labors of Hercules
(held by O’Neil to be a pole-star god) may be assigned to the same
source. At all events, the Micmac example is extremely instructive
and suggestive.

The following extracts from Mr. Hagar’s paper establish that Ursa
Major was known as the Bear to several North American tribes, and
generally served to mark time and seasons. “In a Blackfoot myth we
read: The seven Persons slowly swung around and pointed downward. It
was the middle of the night,” showing that they too marked the time
at night by the position of these stars. So the Zuñis tell, when
winter comes, how the bear, lying, sleeps, no longer guarding the
West land from the cold of the Ice gods, etc., a story which
demonstrates that in Zuñi mythology there was a marked association
between the terrestrial bear [the “great white bear of the seven
stars,” Cushing] and the seasons.

The Ojibways mention the constellation in connection with the four
quarters in heaven, showing that they, at some time, were accustomed
to mark their seasons not only by the position of the stars of the
Bear, but also by the rising and setting of various fixed stars.

In conclusion I would state that Miss Alice Fletcher has informed me
that, among the Omaha Indians, time is measured by Ursa Major, and
that the pole-star is named the “Star which never travels.”

151 “The amulet is of finely wrought silver, with magic inscription, the
seven-branched candlestick of Jerusalem and the usual Christian
monogram. The inscription is in Greek, mixed with barbarous and
unintelligible forms. It contains however express allusions to
Christianity and states that whoever wore it would be sure to please
gods and men.” It is well known that Constantine had on the reverse
of his coin the inscription Sol Invictus and on the obverse the
monogram of Christ. “This has been interpreted as a proof that the
sun was his own guardian deity,” but I venture to explain the
adoption of the sun as analogous to the ancient Egyptian mode of
designating the sovereign as the son of the sun, the sacred
representation of Heaven. Dean Stanley (Eastern Church, p. 193)
refers to Constantine’s “mode of harmonizing the discordant
religions of the empire under one institution and retention of the
old Pagan name of Dies Solis or Sunday, for the weekly Christian
festival,” which was recommended by Constantine to his subjects,
Pagan and Christian alike, as “the venerable day of the Sun.”

152 “No country in the world can compare with India for the exposition
of the pyramidal cross.... The body of the great temple of Bindh
madhu (formerly the boast of the ancient city of Benares ...
demolished in the seventeenth century) was constructed in the figure
of a colossal cross, with a lofty dome at the centre, above which
rose a massive structure of a pyramidal form. At the four
extremities of the cross there were four other pyramids.... A
similar building existed at Mhuttra.... By pyramidal towers placed
crosswise the Hindoo also displayed the all-pervading sign of the
cross. At the famous temple of Chillambrum, on the Coromandel coast,
there were _seven_ lofty walls, one within the other, round a
central quadrangle, and as many pyramidal gateways in the midst of
each side which forms the limbs of a vast cross” (Faber, quoted by
Donelly in Atlantis, p. 335).

153 “The Tur-vasu, or people whose creating god (vasu) was the pole
(tur), when united with the traders of the south, became the
mercantile mariners of the Indian Ocean, who had imposed their rule
and traditions both on the lands of Northern India and on those of
the twin rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris.... From India, the only
land on the Indian Ocean where they could build sea-going ships,
they extended their trade, forms of government and national myths,
first to the Euphratean kingdoms and afterwards to Egypt and Syria,
where they were known to the Greeks as the Phœnicians” (p. 356).

“These people had seven parent stars whose names are preserved.
Professor Sayce has identified the first of these, Sugi, with ‘the
star of the Wain’ and states that it means the
‘creating-spirit-reed’ or the northern khu=bird, the ‘reed of the
bird, the mother of life.’ Sugi is therefore an additional name for
the Bear to that of Bel, distributor of waters.... In both names the
metaphor is the same, for it is from the reeds at the source of the
rivers, their point of distribution, that the rivers are born....
Both names denoted the star that led the year and it was the Great
Bear, as Sugi, that led the earliest year, opening with the week of
creation” ... (p. 357). ... “The sons of the Tur or pole were the
Indian Tur-vashu, the Zend Turanians, the mariners of Asia Minor
called by the Egyptians Tour-sha (Maspero), the sea traders of the
Mediterranean called the Tur-sene of Lydia, the Tur-sena or
Tyrrhenians of Lemnos and Etruria, who spoke a language closely
allied to that of the Akkadians. That their god was worshiped in
Cyprus and Asia Minor is proved by the _terra-cotta whorl_ found in
one of the settlements on the site of Troy, dedicated in Cypriote
characters to Patori-Turi, the father Tur, who gave his name to the
Phrygian city of Turiaion. The great antiquity of the settlement is
proved by the fact that though some bronze knives and instruments
were found in it, by far the greater number of implements were of
stone and the pottery, though similar to that of Mycenæ, is of a
more archaic type” (Schuchhardt’s Schliemann’s Excavations, App. I,
331-332 and 334).

“They were also the first spinners, weavers, makers of pottery and
built canoes and worked in mines.... They grew wheat, barley, peas,
flax and fruit trees.... These men covered the whole of Europe and
Southern Asia ... and the Indian Dekhan with cromlechs and stone
circles, which were certainly in some cases roofed over, dolmens,
meaning stone tables, shrines, altars, tumuli and memorial stones or
pillars and all of these, whether found in Western Europe or
Southern Asia, are completely identical in character. These people
had, in their migrations, established an active and widespread
foreign trade...” (p. 178).

“These maritime Tursena were intermingled with the matriarchal
Amazonian tribes who preceded them, and who seemed to have founded
the ancient ports of Asia Minor and Palestine, especially the Ionian
cities of Smyrna and Ephesus and that of _Askelon_. It was in the
land of Phrygia, the mountain countries of the Caucasus range and
the snowy heights whence the Euphrates rose, that the earliest
shepherds met the matriarchal races, the immigrants from the
southeast, the Hindu village communities, who are called by the
Greeks Amazons, and are described as the earliest ruling races of
Asia Minor and Greece (p. 175).”

“... The Great Naga is the Akkadian god Ner-gal, and the Phœnician
god Sarrahu, or the Great Sar. His name among the Shuites, or the
worshippers of Susi-nag on the west of the Euphrates, is Emu, a name
which is letter for letter the same as that of the national god of
the Ammonites, Amun” (Sayce: Hibbert Lectures, 1887, III, p. 196,
note 1. “Amun means the builder, or architect, and is, like that of
the Egyptian god, formed of aman, to sustain” (Gesenius, Thesaurus,
p. 115). “He was the god of the house pole, who became in Egyptian
Thebes, Amen-Ra, the hidden, and it was the people who made the
house-pole the symbol of their ancestors, ... who brought to Egypt
as well as to Assyria and India, the custom of having cities for the
dead apart from those for the living.... It was from the rains of
the summer-solstice ... generated from the Naga snake that the
Phœnician sons of Kush were born, whose kings, like those of Egypt,
wore the Uræus snake as a sign of royal authority. Their original
settlement, according to a tradition recorded by Theophrastus, was
at _Tulos_ or Turos, in the Persian Gulf, the modern Bahrein. This
was the holy island of Diloun, called Dilmun by the Akkadians.... It
was the settlement of Hindu navigators in the holy island of Dilmun
in the Persian gulf, and at Eridu, which first brought them in
contact with the Arabian star-gazers and merchants, and it was the
union, in the ancient city of Ur, of these races with the Hebrew
tribe of Gad (who built, not only the cities of Bashan, but also
those of Assyria and were the great builders of the ancient world),
which first formed the Semite race. It was the meridian pole, the
heavenly, revolving pole, the Tur of the Akkadians, which the
Dravidian traders of India brought with them to Eridu” (p. 292). “It
was these Tursena who, by developing the ancient organization of the
village and province in India, divided all the countries they
occupied into confederacies of cities, such as we find among the
Euphratean nations, the Egyptians, Canaanites and the people of Asia
Minor, Greece and Italy. It was they who were the fathers of Greek
and Latin civilization.” (p. 296). “It was these people who brought
from India their village institutions, their holy groves and
seasonal dances.... Among them the Finnic mining races descended....
It was in Phrygia that they were mixed with the Daktuloi, or race of
handicraftsmen and artificers, the sons of Dak, the showing or
teaching god, the god Daksha, the father of the Kush race.... They
were the carpenters and builders of the Stone age.”

Prof. Sayce’s “Ancient Empires of the East” furnishes further
interesting details concerning the Phœnicians. According to this
eminent authority, at an early date, in order to relieve the
pressure of population, they sent out organized colonies to the
recently discovered lands of the West. Accordingly commercial marts
were established at Thera and Melos,.... Colonies were established
at Attica, on the coast of Africa, in Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica,
and beyond the columns of Herakles, in Gadeira. The three cities of
Rhodes were planned by Phœnician architects.... The Assyrian
character of early Greek art is due to its Phœnician inspiration....
It was about “B.C. 600 that these people penetrated to the northwest
coast of India and probably to the island of Britain as well....
They were the intermediaries of ancient civilization ... and the
chief elements of Greek art and civilization came from Assyria
through the hands of Phœnicians.... Phœnician art was essentially
catholic ... it assimilated the art of Babylonia, Egypt and Assyria
superadding something of its own.... Their chief deity was Yeud or
Ekhad=the Only One ... they worshipped the Kabeiri ... originally
seven stars ... who were the makers of the world, the founders of
civilization, the inventors of ships.... The cities of Phœnicia were
the first trading communities the world has seen.... Their colonies
were originally mere marts and their voyages of discovery were taken
in the interests of trade. The tin of Britain, the silver of Spain,
the birds of the Canaries, the frankincense of Arabia, the pearls
and ivory of India, all flowed into their harbours.... Many of their
colonies were wholly independent, and governed by their own kings
and benefiting Phœnicia only in the way of trade.... In Phœnicia ...
the king seems to have been but the first among a body of ruling ...
princes and ... chiefs. In time the monarchy disappeared altogether,
its place being supplied by suffetes or ‘judges,’ whose term of
office lasted sometimes for a year, sometimes for more, sometimes
even for life.... At Carthage there were two suffetes, who were
merely presidents of the senate of thirty ... whose power was
subsequently checked by a board of one hundred and four.... By
providing that no member of the board should hold office for two
years running, Hannibal changed the government into a democracy.”

154 Evolution and Ethics. Appleton ed. New York, 1896, p. 104.

155 “Death no Bane,” translation by Robert Black, M. A., Sampson Low,
Marston & Co., London, 1889, p. 121, note.

156 Merely as affording a glimpse of the troublous period during which
Plotinus lived, I recall the fact that Caracalla, visiting Egypt,
caused a large number of young men to be massacred at Alexandria
(A.D. 211). Between A.D. 248 and 268, Alexandria was the seat of
civil war for twelve years, and through war, famine and pestilence,
in a few years, about half of the population, not only of
Alexandria, but of Rome, perished. A general persecution of
Christians was also carried on at this period, and in A.D. 268
Zenobia invaded Egypt.

157 To those of my fellow-workers who have made a special study of the
most ancient forms of cursive and ikonomatic writings of the Old
World, I should like to submit some facts concerning the ancient
Mexican method, which may carry a fresh suggestion and be an aid to
future research.

When the first Spanish missionaries who reached Mexico found
themselves confronted by the barrier of language and wished to teach
the native converts the Lord’s Prayer in Latin, they adopted the
method of picture writing employed by the aborigines. By painting a
banner=pantli, a stone=tetl, a cactus=nochtli and another
stone=tetl, they conveyed the words Pa-te-noch-te, which,
approximately, represented paternoster. The consequence was that the
Indians were able to memorize prayers in a language unknown to them,
by referring to pictures of objects and naming these in their own
tongue. A number of curious documents exist, which exhibit a great
difference and variety in execution and are more or less cursive,
according to the artistic sense and ability of the missionary or
converted Indian who drew them. The fact that Spaniards, possessing
our mode of writing, should have found picture-writing the most
effective means of teaching primitive people speaking an alien
tongue has always appeared to me as most instructive and suggestive.

As the natives suggested this method to their instructors, it is
obvious that it was their habitual mode of memorizing a foreign
language. The possibility that words recorded in native pictography
may belong to an alien tongue, opens out a new field for future
research. A curious result is obtained when Tenoch-Titlan, one of
the ancient names of the capital of Mexico is studied from this
point of view. In the well-known rebus now employed as the arms of
Mexico, the syllables Te and Noch only are actually expressed in
picture-writing by the stone=tetl, from which a cactus=nochtli is
growing. This group is, however, surmounted by an eagle holding a
serpent in its talons and the meaning of this animal group appears
symbolical merely. It may be a curious coincidence that the eagle
holding a serpent in its talons was employed by Mediterranean people
as an emblem of victory and occurs on ancient Greek coins with this
significance, and that the recorded name, Tenochtitlan or “the land
of Tenoch,” curiously resembles Tenos, the name of a Greek
heptarchy, founded by seven tribes just as the adjacent town of
Chalco, in Mexico, resembles Chalcis, the town in Eubœa, where
Aristoteles died.

On p. 418 and in my discussion of Egyptian hieratic script, I have
pointed out that some signs employed express the sounds of words in
another tongue, that the syllables am and an, for instance, seem
indissolubly and universally linked to pole-star worship and
symbolism. It does not seem unreasonable to endeavor to explain this
by imagining that individuals, wishing, in each case, to teach the
word _Sama_=the revolving heaven _i. e._ the North, to people
speaking different languages, should make a picture of a tree or
boat named am in one tongue, and in another country, draw a spider,
named am, by its inhabitants. In the first country the tree, or
boat, and in the second, the spider, would, in time, become the
symbols of the north, and though different, signify the same thing.
In time, each sign might be employed to express the syllable am in
general and in this way isolated systems of ikonomatic writing would
evolve and, in course of time, native artists would more or less
skilfully produce conventionalized and distinctly characteristic
forms and methods.

At the same time the colonizing race might be employing and
perfecting a totally different form of cursive writing for their own
purposes of registration, etc. For instance: in Athens, where Euclid
held an archonship in 403 B.C. and, during centuries, Pythagorean
philosophers identified “earth with a cube, fire with a pyramid, air
with an octahedron, water with an icosahedron, and _the Sphere of
the Universe_ with a dodecahedron,” and also taught that a point
corresponds with the monad, both being indivisible; a line with the
duad, etc., it is obvious that points, lines and geometrical figures
must have been employed for the cursive registration of ideas. In a
state, firmly established on fixed principles of numbers, the
cursive registration of its subdivisions, by means of numbers only,
was rendered possible and in such a community the necessity for
cursive writing would be limited and perhaps be confined to the
registration and identification of individuals, the reports of
quantities of produce, etc.

The facts that the letters of the Greek alphabet possess fixed
numerical values, and that the initial letters only of their tribal
names were inscribed on the shields of Lacedæmonian, Sicyonian and
Messenian warriors, for instance, appear to indicate that, at one
time, each Greek tribal division possessed its cursive mark, a
letter, which may have indicated, at the same time, a numerical
division of the confederacy. To understand such cursive records it
is evident that a knowledge of the numerical basis of the state
would be indispensable and imperative and that this would be
confined to the rulers only. My opinion that the Maya calculiform
hieroglyphs constitute cursive notation relating entirely to the
calendrical and governmental cyclical system and absolutely
unintelligible without a knowledge of this, has already been
partially referred to on pp. 242 and 244. From Mexican manuscripts,
where individuals, by means of a number and a calendar sign, are
linked to a division of the state, I hope yet to be able to clearly
demonstrate the practical harmonious working of a machinery of
state, established on a perfected numerical scheme, the cursive
notation of which was extremely simple.

Meanwhile I offer the foregoing remarks as suggestions for future
research and as an expression of my opinion that people, using
geometrical and numerical cursive methods of notation in their own
country, may have systematically employed the pictographic method in
teaching their language to strangers and in establishing their
civilization in foreign lands.

158 It is particularly interesting to learn from Professor Sayce (_op.
cit._ p. 188), not only that Phœnician culture had been introduced
among the rude tribes of Israel, but that the temple of Jerusalem
was built by Phœnician artists after the model of a Phœnician one,
the main features of which were the two columns or cones at the
entrance and the brazen sea or basin, which rested on _twelve_
bulls, this number agreeing with the number of Israelitic tribes and
with tribal or caste divisions in other ancient centres of
civilization. It is thus certainly suggestive to find the number
twelve associated with the Phœnicians, to whom the spread of
civilization in the Old World is attributed and whose predecessors,
at the period of Babylonian culture, were, according to Professor
Sayce, “solitary traders, who trafficked in slaves, in purple-fish
... and whose voyages were intermittent and private.”

... “Diodorus Siculus assigns to the Carthaginians the knowledge of
an island in the ocean, the secret of which they reserved for
themselves as a refuge to which they could withdraw should fate ever
compel them to desert their African home. It is far from improbable
that we may identify this obscure island with one of the Azores,
which lies 800 miles from the coast of Portugal. Neither Greek nor
Roman writers make any reference to them, but the discovery of
numerous Carthaginian coins at Carvo, the northwesterly island of
the group, leaves little room to doubt that they were visited by
Punic voyagers.”—Sir Daniel Wilson. The lost Atlantis and other
ethnographic studies. New York, 1892.

159 Address of the retiring President of the A. A. A. S., Columbus
meeting, 1899. Proceedings of the A. A. A. S., vol. XLVIII, to which
the reader is referred for valuable data.

160 “Professor Perry, F. R. S., in his admirable monograph on Spinning
Tops, (Romance of Science: Spinning Tops, by Professor John Perry,
M. E., D.Sc., F. R. S., 1890, pp. 107-110, 12-13, cited by O’Neil,
_op. cit._, p. 540.) shows how a spinning gyrostat whose spinning
axis is compelled by the experimenter into a horizontal plane is
then constrained by the earth’s motion alone to direct its spinning
axis due north and south and so to indicate mathematically the lie
of the true meridian of its spot. If the spinning gyrostat be next
shut off from all other motion except a vertical one in the plane of
this meridian, its spinning axis will point its north end up to, and
continue to point truly up to, the celestial pole.” Then, adds
Professor Perry, in terms strangely suitable to my purposes: “It is
with a curious mixture of feelings that one first recognizes the
fact that all rotating bodies, fly-wheels of steam-engines and the
like, are always tending to turn themselves towards the Polestar;
gently and vainly tugging at their foundations, all the time they
are in motion, to get round towards the object of their adoration.”

161 The Incas claimed to have descended from three windows. See Rites
and Laws of the Incas, p. 77.

162 It is noteworthy that the Zuñi name for village in general is
ti´-na-kwin-ne. Tina=many sitting around and kwin-ne=place of.

163 The accuracy and value of the above article are vouched for, in an
interesting way by the Rev. Samuel M. Zwemer, F. R. G. S. (a
missionary who spent ten years in Arabia), who refers to it as
follows, and quotes it in his recent publication: “Arabia, the
cradle of Islam. New York, 1900,” p. 289. “An anonymous article in
the London Standard, Oct. 19, 1894, entitled, ‘A prayer-meeting of
the Star-worshippers,’ curiously gave me the key to open the lock of
their silence. Whoever wrote it must have been perfectly acquainted
with their religious ceremonies, for when I translated it to a
company of Sabeans at Amara, they were dumfounded. Knowing that I
knew _something_, made it easy for them to tell me more.”

164 I point out the remarkable fact that the Chinese name for jade=yu,
is homonymous with the word for source or origin, hence, perhaps,
its sacredness and employment as a secret symbol of the hidden
source of all things. See p. 277 for Chinese choice of symbols
influenced by sound of name.

165 The Hindu Yama and Yami were twin brother and sister, and have been
respectively identified by Prof. Max Müller as night and day. Yama,
the inseparable duality, is entitled law and justice, etc. and was
represented with four arms, riding a buffalo, with a crown on his
head, accompanied by “two four-eyed watch dogs, which are probably
the eight or twice-four regions of the compass”... (Chambers’
Encyclopædia). Of the originally cosmical character of Yama there
can be no doubt. It is curious to find, at the epic and Puranic
period, the account of “Yama” marrying the thirteen daughters of
Daksha (north-people, white), becoming the regent of the south and
residing in Yamapura, a town in the lower regions; details which
appear to indicate the actual establishment of a kingdom on the
familiar plan by an earthly representative of the cosmical deity.

166 This was the first god of the divine triad of whom it is recorded
that “they hid their persons;” see Translation of the Ko-ji-ki or
Records of Ancient Matters, Basil Hall Chamberlain, vol. X,
supplement, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Sections I
and II from which this and the following names of gods are taken.

167 The Akkadian Sumerian Cosmos is thus described: “Above the earth
extended the sky, ana, spangled with its fixed stars (mul) revolving
around the mountain of the east (Kharsak Kurra) the column which
joins the heaven and the earth and serves as an axis to the
celestial vault. The culminating point in the heaven, the zenith
(Paku), was not this axis or pole; on the contrary, it was situated
immediately above the country of Akkadia [Kalama] which was regarded
as the centre of the inhabited lands, while the mountain which acted
as a pivot to the starry heavens was to the northeast of this
country. Beyond the mountain, also to the northeast, extended the
land of Aralli, which was very rich in gold and was inhabited by the
gods and blessed spirits” (Lenormant, quoted by Warren _op. cit._ p.
166).

168 This is the Ka of Egyptian theology ... he is the Sek-Nag, the god
of the Rāj, or royal race of Gonds, born (ja) of Rā, that is, the
sons of Ra-Hu, the begetting (Hu) creating fire-god (Ra). His
festival is held every seven years and is attended only by males who
are bound to secrecy as to its rites.... This god, the great Nag, is
the soul of life in the rain cloud, the heavenly snake ... the other
being the Ahi or Echis, the snake of earth. “To the present day the
Jains, who are the great trading race of India, call themselves
Ka-ya=the sons of Ka. This name they must have brought with them to
the holy island (Dilmun), from thence it must have travelled to
Egypt with the race who established the Kushite rule there”
(Hewitt).

169 The titles “Middle king,” “Great Middle princess,” are cited by
Chamberlain, _op. cit._ pp. 265 and 267.

170 Madhu=the inspiring intoxicating honey mead used in the sacred
ritual, substituted by a Northern people for the barley liquor
offered in the manthin or creating, churning cup. The names given to
the drinkers of madhu=“madhuya,” madhu-pā and Madhvi; also
madhu-varna, the men of Madhu’s caste, are curiously homonymous with
the word for Middle Madhyias and appear to designate them as the
“Middle caste,” naturally associated with the North.

171 Quoted by O’Neil from Satow and Hawes’ Hdbk. of Japan, 2nd ed. p.
39.

It is interesting to compare the following Japanese words with
Miyauken:

MIYO=wonderful, admirable, secret, mysterious, holy.

MIYA=Shinto temple where the kami are worshipped. Japan.

MIYUKI=travelling, going, only applied to circuit of provinces
performed by Mikado.

KEN=imperial domain, or that territory which is under the direct
government of the Mikado, _cf._ Chinese k’an=land.

172 Transactions of Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. X, p. 245, note 2.