Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

As in the case of the Zuñis and Tarahumari Indians of the present day, referred to by W J McGee, in his valuable and instructive article on “The beginning of Marriage” (the American Anthropologist, vol. IX, no. 11, p. 371), “certain ceremonials typifying the fecundity of the earth and of the leading people thereof” were performed by the ancient Mexicans. These public ceremonials had also been “apparently developed to the end that the tribes and peoples might be encouraged to increase and multiply and possess the fecund earth.” They took place at the period of the year when the heaven and earth were also supposed to unite, _i. e._, at the beginning of the rainy season. During this the ordinary out-door occupations of the agriculturist and hunter were forcibly interrupted and the regular and periodical transportations of produce and tribute to the capital became impossible, owing to torrential rain, swollen rivers and impassable roads. This period of enforced shelter and confinement indoors seems to have become the definite mating season of the aborigines. At the same time the union of the sexes had obviously assumed a sort of consecration since it was intimately associated with the cosmical, philosophical and religious ideas and coincided with what was regarded as the annual union of the elements or of the Above and Below, the heaven and earth.

At that period of its history, when the Aztec race was jointly governed by a priest, personifying the heaven and a priestess, “his wife and sister,” who personified the earth, some form of sacred marriage rite must have been annually performed. The consecrated character of their union must have naturally caused their offspring to be regarded as of a holy and almost divine origin. It is easy to realize, therefore, how, in ancient Mexico, the artificial idea of “superior birth” came into existence, how a family or caste of rulers gradually developed, the members of which were entitled “teotl”=divine, whilst the men were regarded as “the sons of Heaven” and the women “the daughters of Earth.” It is obvious from this that the periodical union of the sexes, accompanied as it was, by sacred dances and the distribution of sacred wine, must have gradually assumed a semi-religious character, whilst the ritual nuptials of the “divine” rulers, typifying, as it obviously did, the grand and impressive phenomenon of the rainy season, must have caused this marriage to assume the character of a hallowed rite and surrounded it with the most elevated and intense religious sentiments of which the native mind was capable.

After this recognition of the diverging influences which guided the development of primitive marriage institutions, we will return to the rain-priests or “octli-lords,” of whom it is repeatedly stated that there were four hundred, a number corresponding to an assignment of 100 or 5×20 to each of the four provinces or divisions of the commonwealth. Their emblem was the sacred vase or receptacle and in the “Lyfe of the Indians” this will be seen figured on their mantas and shields (no. 6_a_). A small gold plate, of the same shape, is represented as worn by these “lords,” attached to the nose (no. 6_b_); and, in the same MS., the symbolical ornament is also carried by the “sister of Tlaloc.” It was evidently worn, like similar ornaments in other countries, hanging from the septum of the nose, and seems to have indicated a consecration of the breath as the substance of life. As an inference, merely based on an insight gained into the native modes of thought, I suggest that the explanation for the adoption of this ornament may have been the religious idea that the breath of life, dividing itself as it issues through the nostrils and uniting when inhaled, appeared to the native thinkers as a marvellous illustration of unity and duality, both ideas having constantly been present in their minds.

Figure 32.

In the Vienna Codex there is a remarkable picture of the earth-vase resting on a slab with five divisions. A profusion of puffs or breaths of air or vapor issue from it and, branching off in two directions, form what is like the conventional tree of life, also met with in Maya bas-reliefs and documents. At the extremities of the branches which turn downwards, a serpent’s eye is visible and a forked-tongue issues above the middle (fig. 32, no. 1). The intention to express an exuberant vitality and growth issuing from the symbolical vase in the centre of the earth, seems obvious. This idea is still more clearly conveyed, however, in two symbolic pictures on pp. 21 and 29 of the Codex Borgia, which are reproduced as nos. 1 and 4 in fig. 1 of this publication. The first represents the vase overflowing with water and containing a flint-knife, the generator of the vital spark. The central group is surrounded by water and by sun-rays and obviously symbolizes the union of air, light and water, constituting the Above, with the flint the emblem of the earth-mother and of Tezcatlipoca, the lord of the Under-world. Fig. 1, no. 4, represents the vase overflowing with a liquid, which is designated as being the sacred octli or earth-wine by the presence of the rabbit, which expresses the sound of its name=tochtli. This rebus is surrounded by the nocturnal heaven strewn with stars and the reference to the union of rain or earth-wine with earth and darkness is evident. It has been generally assumed that these images of the vase, containing the rabbit or flint-knife, represented the moon. As the latter was intimately associated with the cult of night, of the earth-mother and ideas of growth, it is not impossible that by an extension of symbolism, this was the case, but only in the same way as the sun was the emblem of the cult of the Above. On the other hand the native drawings of the moon in Sahagun’s Academia MS. represent it as a crescent with a human profile on the inner side, and in a specimen preserved at the Trocadéro Museum, Paris, it is similarly carved in rock crystal.

Before proceeding to investigate the symbol further, I would point out the general resemblance of the vase, especially as a conventionalized serpent’s jaw, to the “horse-shoe” shape of the problematical stone “yokes” which have been so thoroughly studied by Dr. Hermann Strebel of Hamburg (Studien ueber Steinjoche aus Mexico and Mittel-Amerika. Internationales Archiv, bd. III, 1890). Mr. Francis Parry has advanced a view concerning the meaning of these curious “sacred stones.”(9) This is somewhat corroborated, as will be shown, by my recent studies, which seem to indicate pretty clearly that these symbolical objects pertained to the cult of the earth-mother. A fact of unquestionable importance, cited by Mr. Parry, is the certified existence and use, amongst southern Californian Indians of the present day, of a rudely worked stone of the same shape, in a native religious rite. The owner of one of these stones, Mr. Horatio Rust, a pioneer resident of Pasadena, southern California, exhibited it in the Anthropological Section of the World’s Columbian Exposition, at Chicago, 1893, and informed me how he had observed that, occasionally, a native assembly took place at a certain spot on a mountain side, during which invocations and offerings were made. He ascertained that the ceremony on one occasion was the equivalent of the puberty-dances of similar California tribes. Having visited and examined the spot after one of these celebrations, in which six young girls, decorated with garlands of flowers, were the chief participants, he found the “sacred stone,” concealed and surrounded by offerings of corn, meal and pieces of money. The version published by Mr. Parry is slightly different to this account, which was given me by Mr. Rust himself.

In order fully to appreciate the close analogy between the Californian ceremonial offering of maize and meal to the emblematic stone and the ancient Mexican ritual offerings of seeds to an idol, holding a bowl or vase, it is necessary to read the following data. At the same time I would like to mention here that amongst the Hupa Indians of California, who have been termed “the Romans of Northern California by reason of their valour and far reaching dominions,” we find that “flakes or knives of obsidian or jasper, sometimes measuring 15 inches or more in length, are employed for sacred purposes and are carried aloft in the hand in certain ceremonial dances, wrapped with skin or cloth. Such knives are esteemed so sacred that the Indians would on no account part with them, and Mr. Stephen Powers found that they could not be purchased at any price.”(10)

It is scarcely necessary to recall here that the flint-knife was a well-known ancient Mexican emblem, nor to point out the importance of the conclusion that two well-defined symbols which played an important rôle in the Mexican and Mayan cult of the Below and of the Earth-mother, are actually found in use amongst Californian Indians at the present day.

A whole flood of light is thrown upon native symbolism, however, by the information obtained from the Zuñi Indians by Mr. F. H. Cushing. The following passage, from their Creation myth, affords the most positive confirmation of the foregoing conclusion, that the bowl or vase was the native emblem of the earth-mother. The Zuñi speaker said: “Is not the bowl the emblem of the Earth, our Mother? For from her we draw both food and drink, just as the babe draws nourishment from the breast of its mother. And round, as is the rim of the bowl, so is the horizon....”(11) Interesting as this explanation of the native symbolism undoubtedly is, it becomes most important when its full significance is realized and we recognize that originally earthenware bowls themselves were looked upon as sacred emblems formed indeed out of the material of the earth itself. This fact places the invention and manufacture of earthen vessels in an entirely new light and enables us to conjecture and understand why, quite apart from their utility, so much care and decoration were lavished upon them and why, indeed, they were constantly buried with the dead. They obviously served as sacred emblems of the earth-mother, to whose care the dead body was confided, and originally the intention probably was to propitiate her by the beauty of the sacred vessels, which, to be symbolical of her bounty, necessarily contained food and drink.

Without pausing to discuss how easily this custom would have gradually given birth to the belief that the food and drink thus offered were intended for the use of the dead body itself, or its soul, I would point out that, in the absence of clay vessels, a stone, rough or worked, would have also served as an appropriate emblem of the earth-mother, being as it were, of her own substance. It is well known that in ancient Mexico this custom prevailed. There we also find that the bowl- or vase-shaped grave was employed, with a deeply religious and symbolical meaning. This is clearly revealed by a native drawing in the “Lyfe of the Indians,” representing a native burial. The deceased, represented by his skull only, has been placed in a deep hole, figured as a large inverted horse-shoe, painted brown and covered with small “horse-shoe” marks. The same religious symbolism which led to the adoption of a definite form of sepulchre, typifying the element earth, would evidently account for the adoption for burial purposes, of large clay vessels into which the remains of the dead were placed. In some localities these clay burial urns were, as we know, made large enough to contain the dead body itself. The difficulty of manufacturing these would naturally have led to the general adoption of cremation, simply as a means of reducing the remains so that they could repose in the sacred image of the earth. Cremation would, moreover, be a rite full of meaning since, to the native mind, earth was inseparable from its twin element fire, and both together constituted the “Below.”

It is significant to find, however, that the ashes of Montezuma’s predecessors had not been finally consigned to the earth. In strict accordance with their association with the Heaven and Above, their remains were never allowed to come in contact with the earth, but were usually preserved inside of a hollow wooden effigy of the deceased, which was dressed in his insignia and placed in a high tower, built for the express purpose. Cortés states that there were “forty very high towers” in the enclosure of the Great Temple of Mexico and that “all of these were sepulchres of the lords” (Historia de Nueva-España, ed. Lorenzana, pp. 105 and 106). Whilst it is evident that the remains of all lords and priests of heaven should thus be assigned a place of rest high above the earth, it is equally intelligible that the bodies of the lords and priests of the Below and all women should be consigned to the interior of the earth and by preference in caves. The Codex Féjérvary contains an interesting picture of the tied-up body of a woman, recognizable as such from the head-dress and her instrument of labor, the metlatl, on which the maize is ground. The mummy rests inside of a flat effigy of a serpent’s head, which seems to be carved in wood or stone and closely resembles fig. 31, no. 11. It is worth considering whether the carved stone-yokes may not have served in connection with the funeral rites of the consorts of rulers or high priestesses or priests of the Below.

If investigations of the vase or earth symbols are extended to countries lying south of Mexico, traces of the existence of an analogous cult are observable. There undoubtedly exists a striking resemblance between the form of the characteristic and peculiar stone “seats” which have been found in such numbers in Ecuador, to the vase, fig. 31, no. 3, for instance. The employment of these symbolical stones as a consecrated central altar or, possibly, as the throne of the living representative of the earth-mother, would have harmonized with the native ideas which have been traced on the preceding pages.

It was also extremely interesting to me to find the identical symbol in the Maya day-sign Caban, which has been identified by Dr. Schellhas and Geheimrath Förstemann as a symbol of the earth and is figured on p. 99 of Dr. Brinton’s Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics. In the sign Caban, the horse-shoe mark is accompanied by a series of dots which seem to indicate liquid trickling from the receptacle and permeating the soil, an idea which is strictly analogous to the much more elaborate Mexican images of the vase full of rain or “earth-wine,” fig. 1, nos. 1 and 4, which, in cursive form, was employed as the emblem of the pulque, or octli lords, the priests of the earth. It is strikingly significant to find that in the Maya Codices the drops issuing from the horse-shoe are sometimes figured as trickling into the mouths of “divinities” whose faces also exhibit images of the sacred vase, analogous to that of the Mexican “octli-lords.”

These Maya divinities have been designated by Dr. Schellhas as god L, whose face is painted black and under whose eye a vase is painted, a peculiarity termed by Maya authorities “an ornamented eye” and which may be seen in fig. 33, iv; (2) as god M, “a second black god,” whose eye is likewise enclosed in a vase and whose hieroglyph is a vase on a black ground; and (3) as god C, of whom I shall subsequently speak in detail. (See Brinton’s Primer, pp. 122 and 124.) In the case of god L, the two horse-shoe marks from which drops are falling into the mouth of the god, are surmounted by the glyph imix, to which I shall revert.

Figure 33.

The horse-shoe mark with drops likewise occurs in the design resembling the akbal glyph, which has been interpreted as connected with akab=night. It also occurs, in Maya Codices, on bands exhibiting cross-symbols, sometimes in an inverted position and hanging from above and sometimes standing on two of the three mounds which are a feature of these interesting glyphs. Postponing a detailed discussion of these, I will but emphasize here that, in the Maya Codices the vase, cursively drawn as a “horse-shoe” mark, is proved to be intimately connected with the ideas of liquid falling from above, and constituting the drink of divinities and symbols associated with the sacred vase, night and darkness, all attributes of the Below. We shall next demonstrate that it was alternately placed, on the Maya Caban glyph, with a curious sign consisting of a pea-shaped black dot, to which a curved and wavy line is attached. This is always figured as issuing from above the dot, then extending downwards and half around it and terminating in a descending, undulating line.

I submit the following to the consideration of Maya specialists: It seems to me that this sign presents an extremely realistic drawing of the seed of a monocotyledonous plant, such as the maize or Indian corn, in its first stage of germination, when the radicle, having issued from the apex, turns downwards in characteristic fashion and penetrates into the earth. Besides the realism of the native drawing there can be no doubt that the image of a sprouting maize-seed is the most expressive and appropriate accompaniment to the symbol of fertilizing rain, on an earth-symbol, and I am unable to understand how Drs. Cyrus Thomas, Seler, Schellhas and Brinton could have overlooked the realism in this image of a sprouting seed, and concluded that it was a portrayal of “fermented liquor trickling downward,” a “nose-ornament,” or a “twisted lock of hair,” “a cork-screw curl.” The latter interpretation was made by Dr. Schellhas because he found the sign in connection with female figures in the Codices, which undoubtedly is a fact of extreme interest, as it furnishes a valuable proof that the Mayas associated the earth with the female principle.

Dr. Schellhas, however, records his observation that the sign caban occurs as a symbol of fruit-bearing earth, in the Codex Troano, as it is figured with leaves of maize (p. 33) or with climbing plants issuing from it and winding themselves around a pole (p. 32). Geheimrath Förstemann connects the day-name caban with “cab” to which Perez, in his dictionary, attaches the meaning of “earth, world and soil” (Die Tages götter der Mayas. Globus, vol. LXXIII, no. 9) and adds that the hieroglyph decidedly designates the earth. At the same time he interprets what I regard as the maize-grain and its radicle, as possibly representing a bird in its flight upwards, and he merely describes the accompanying inverted horse-shoe with dots, without attaching any positive meaning to it. It must be added that Dr. Förstemann himself states that he is not satisfied with his own interpretation of these two symbols, the first of which, the seed and radicle, likewise occurs in the day-sign cib, to which I shall recur.

If any doubt remains as to the signification of the day-sign cab, I think it will be dispelled when it is shown that the name cab, or caban is obviously related to the adjective, adverb and preposition cabal or cablil, which signifies low, below, on the earth, in, beneath and under. The frequent association of the cab glyph with the image of a bee, as in the Codex Troano, is partially explained by the fact that the Maya word for honey is cab, for honey-bee is yikil-cab. It affords at all events, an instance, in Maya hieroglyphic writing, of a method of duplicating the sound of a word analogous to that which I detected in Mexican pictography, and named complementary signs in my communication on the subject, published as an appendix to my essay on Ancient Mexican Shields (Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, Leyden, 1892). On the other hand the day name and sign cib, on which the sprouting grain is also figured, seems to be related to the verb cibah=to will, to occur, to happen, to take place. The allusion contained in both glyphs is obviously the same and signifies, in the first place, the hidden process of germination which takes place under the surface of the soil, and is associated with the idea of the female principle in Nature.

The seed and radicle, horse-shoe and rain-drops, are also distinguishable on a vessel on page 35 of the Dresden Codex and on a small three-legged vase, which is figured by Doctor Brinton (Primer, 118) as the day sign ch’en. This vase is surmounted by two in-curving projections and offers a close analogy to a sacred vase with superstructure (fig. 33, II) from which projects a peculiar open and double receptacle, into which a priest is sowing small seeds. The interior of this bowl is represented as hollow, and containing what I shall show further on to be a native symbol for Earth: three little mounds. On another bowl, in front of this one, a bird is sitting and presumably hatching. In another portion of the same MS. a similar bowl is figured containing three seed fruits and capsules, resembling pomegranates or poppy-heads (fig. 33, III).

The tree next to which the first two symbolical bowls are placed deserves to be carefully studied, for the trunk is crowned by four stems bearing single leaves and is encircled by a serpent, _can_, the homonym for the numeral four=kan. A fringed mantle and a scroll hang from the coils of the serpent’s body, two footsteps are painted on the scroll and, pointing downwards, express “descent,” as do also the falling drops of liquid on the stems of the tree which grows from a peculiar glyph with subdivisions, which has points of resemblance with the glyph under the footless divinity (fig. 33, I). An obsidian mirror, with cross bars, is painted in front of the latter, which displays the same descending footsteps on its mantle. The head and eyes of a snail, the symbol of parturition, are above its face and a wreath of flowers crowns its head. Tedious as such a minute analysis may seem, it is nevertheless necessary, in order to gain a perception of the extent to which symbolism was practised in the picture writings found in the Maya MSS., accompanied by the cursive calculiform glyphs. It seems that, in no. II, we have a presentation of the Maya “tree of life,” and that scrolls, on which descending footsteps are depicted, are intended to convey the meaning that life is descending from Above into the egg and seeds by virtue or decree of the celestial power. It should be noted here that the phenomenon of a living bird issuing from the hard and inanimate egg-shell had made as deep an impression upon the ancient philosophers in Mexico as elsewhere, and that the power “to form the chicken in the shell” was deemed one of the most marvellous attributes of “the divine Moulder or Former,” as is further set forth in the “Lyfe of the Indians.”

The foregoing illustrations establish, at all events, that the Mayas, like the Mexicans, associated the sacred vase with seeds and germination. The vase, illustrated by Doctor Brinton, exhibits the seed and radicle; and this is also found on the symbol for earth, which, in the Cortesian Codex, is associated with the image of a serpent, possibly the equivalent of the Mexican Cihuacoatl, or female serpent.

If, after mustering this close array of analogies, we next examine the glyph cib, we find that it exhibits the seed and radicle in the centre of a square, three sides of which are decorated with what Doctor Brinton has termed the “pottery decoration(?).” This consists of short lines, such as are employed in Mexican pictography, in the well-known sign for tlalli, or land, which is usually surrounded on three sides by a fringe, presumably symbolizing plants and grass, a “fringe” of vegetation and verdure. In the glyph cib, already referred to, I am inclined to see but a cursive rendering of the same idea, with the seed and radicle in the centre and the fringed border barely indicated by a few short lines. The same border is found repeated on three sides of the head of a frequently recurring personage whom Doctor Schellhas designates as “God C, of the Ornamented face.” In his extremely valuable work, Die Göttergestalten der Mayahandschriften, this careful investigator records the various combinations in which this God C occurs in the Codices and impartially weighs the possibilities of its meaning. Geheimrath Förstemann has made the important observation that the figure of God C occurs in combination with the day-sign, chuen, of the Maya calendar, which coincides with the Mexican day-sign azomatli=monkey.

I am unable to agree with my venerable friend in identifying God C, with Polaris. As Doctor Schellhas rightly observes, the fact that God C is found in combination with the signs of all the four quarters disproves an identification with Polaris. What is more, God C is frequently represented as receiving in his mouth drops of liquid falling from a cursive vase placed above his head—a detail which clearly connects him with earth and the “earth-wine.” In the Mexican MSS. we find the monkey intimately connected with the octli or earth-wine gods as, for instance, in the “Lyfe of the Indians.” I therefore reserve a more detailed discussion of this subject for my notes on this MS. and return to the glyphs caban and kan or can.

Just as it has been shown that the first may signify cabal=the Below, so it is evident that the second is connected with the preposition and adverb canal, signifying “above, on top of, on high.” Dr. Brinton sees in the kan symbol a presentation of a polished stone, or shell pendant, or bead, and cites the Maya dictionary of Motul which gives kan as the name for “beads or stones which served the Indians as money and neck ornaments.” In connection with this important statement I revert to the carved shell-gorgets which have been found in the mounds and ancient graves in the Mississippi valley and exhibit Maya influence. The greater number of these exhibit a carved serpent (which in Maya is _kan_) in their centres and this fact affords a clue to the possible origin of the Maya name for a neck ornament given in the Motul dictionary. It is undeniable that all evidence unites in proving that the ancient peoples of the Mississippi valley were in traffic, if not more intimately connected, with a Maya-speaking people and came under the influence of the ideas and symbolism current in Yucatan.

Returning to the employment of the glyph kan in Maya Codices, for more reasons than I am able to enumerate here, I conclude it served as an indicative of the Above or Heaven. It is a curious fact that the Maya word for cord is kaan, whilst the name for sky is caan. I cannot but think, therefore, that a carved pendant with a serpent effigy=a kan, worn on a cord=kaan, must have been associated by the Mayas with the Heaven or sky=caan, and that this linguistic coincidence must have been a strong factor in the development of the symbolism attached to the glyph can or kan.

An interesting fact, which I shall demonstrate by a large series of illustration from native Codices in a chapter of my forthcoming work on the ancient Calendar System, will show that in their hieratic writings, the ancient Mexican scribes represented the nocturnal heaven or sky as a circle composed of a cord, to which stars were attached, whilst the centre of the circle exhibited one or four stars. In my opinion the origin and explanation of the association of the cord with stars are clearly traceable to the above mentioned fact that in the Maya tongue the word for cord, kaan, closely resembles the sound of the word caan=sky. The presence of the cord in the Mexican symbols is, therefore, another indication of their Maya origin. A proof that the Mayas also employed the cord as a symbol of the sky, or heaven, is furnished by the much-discussed lentil-shaped stone altar found at Copan, a small outline of which is represented in fig. 21, no. 1. In order fully to understand the meaning expressed by this stone, it is necessary to bear in mind how indissolubly the idea of something circular was associated by the Mayas and Mexicans with their conception of the vault of heaven resting on the horizon, and of the Above, consisting of the two fluid elements, air and water.

It is scarcely necessary to refer again here to more than one authority for the statement that the temples of the air (of the Above) were circular, and the reason given by the natives for this was that “just as the air circulates around the vault of the heaven, so its temple had to be of a round shape.”(12) As a contrast to this conception, the influence of which is also obvious in the form of the round temples and towers of the ruined cities of Central America, I would cite the allusions to the solid earth contained in the sacred books of the Mayas, the Popol Vuh, as being “the quadrated earth, four-cornered, four-sided, four-bordered.” These data establish the important fact, to which I shall recur, that the native philosophers associated the Above, composed of air and water, with the rounded, and the Below, composed of fire and water, with the angular form.

The Copan stone altar exhibits the circular form and is surrounded by a sculptured cord which conveys the sound of its name kaan or caan=heaven. On it a cup-shaped depression=ho-och, marks the sacred centre of the heaven, the counterpart to the terrestrial bowl whence all life-giving force proceeded. Two curved lines diverge from this and divide the vaulted circle into two parts. The curve in the lines may be interpreted as conveying motion or rotation whilst the division of the sky may have been intended to signify the eastern or male and the western or female portion of the heaven, the whole being an abstract image of central rulership and of a dual principle incorporating the four elements. It is obvious that the meaning intended to be conveyed might also include the duality of the Heaven or Above, composed of the union of the elements air and water. By painting the stone in two or four colors either of these meanings could have been expressed. In either case it will be recognized, however, that much as Dr. Ernest Hamy’s deductions concerning this altar have been criticised, the learned director of the Trocadéro Museum, Paris, was undoubtedly right in recognizing that the stone is a cosmical symbol, intended to convey the idea of a two-fold division and analogous to the Chinese tae-keih which it resembles, with the difference that the Copan sign is more complex exhibiting, as it does, a central bowl-shaped depression. A glimpse at the other symbols in fig. 21 will show that the identical idea is expressed in the Mexican signs exhibiting a central circle, usually accompanied by a four-fold division.

An analogous attempt to express the same native idea is recognizable in the peculiar mushroom-shaped stone figures, represented by a number of examples at the Central American exposition recently held at Guatemala,(13) and recently described by the distinguished geologist and ethnologist, Dr. Carl Sapper. The specimens had been collected in San Salvador and Guatemala and “resemble great stone mushrooms” inasmuch as each consists of three well-defined parts, a square pedestal from the midst of which rises an almost cylindrical “stem” supporting a large circular solid top, flat underneath and rounded above. The cylindrical support is carved in the rough semblance of a human form, which, in some instances, has rays issuing from its head.

An acquaintance with the fundamental ideas of native cosmogony enables us to recognize that the square stone base typifies the solid part of the universe, the Below, whilst the vaulted circle above typifies the heaven, the Above. The figure standing between both is evidently an image of a central lord and ruler, and the entire image is in accord with the native mode of thought as set forth in Mr. Frank H. Cushing’s report already cited and in the symbols which have been figured.

After reading Mr. Cushing’s account of the native American philosophy, preserved to the present day by the Zuñis, it is impossible not to realize how clearly the mushroom-images materialize the identical ideas which constitute, indeed, the keynote of native thought and can be traced in each centre of ancient American civilization. I am inclined to think that these stone images were, originally, painted with the colors assigned to the four quarters, which would render the symbolism more apparent. The existence of these images in a restricted area of territory, seems, moreover, to indicate that they had been invented there, possibly under the influence of a religious and political creed with particular reference to the union, in a single individual, of the power and attributes of the Above and Below—an idea which strongly contrasts with Mexico and Yucatan, where the idea of duality prevailed to such an extent that, by creating two distinct religions and governments, it ultimately led to the disintegration of the greatest of native empires and its fall, from which it was only rallying at the time of the Conquest. It is also possible that the Guatemala images are the expression of the reversion to a more ancient form of philosophy or government when it had been realized that dual government led to dissensions and disintegration. At all events the rude mushroom figures testify that the conception of a single celestial or terrestrial ruler of the Above and the Below filled the minds of their makers at a time, the exact date of which it would be of utmost importance to determine, if this were only possible. It is also interesting to note the curious analogy presented by these figures to the well-known statement by Confucius that, “the sage is united to Heaven and Earth so as to form a triad, consisting of Heaven, Earth and Man.”

The association of the round form and of the peak with the Above and of the square and bowl with the Below can be also detected in the form of native American architecture, as exemplified, for instance, by the contrasting shapes of two temples figured on page 75, of the Borgian Codex (fig. 34) which were obviously dedicated to the two prevailing cults. One of these is surmounted by a tau-shaped thatched roof with a flat top and turned-down ends. The dedication of this temple to Night or star-cult is conveyed in this case, by the sign for star on a black ground inserted in the roof.(14)

Figure 34.

Figure 35.

The opposite temple exhibits a roof which rests on a black architrave and offers a general resemblance to an inverted tau. It rises in a tapering form and ends in a cone-shaped ornament. The existence and significance of these two forms of temple-roofs might escape notice did the same not recur in two high caps or mitres figured in the Vienna Codex and obviously intended for the respective use of the Lords of the Above and of the Below at a religious ceremonial (fig. 35). The first of these ends in a high peak, the extremity of which is represented as capped with snow, in the same conventional manner employed in figuring snow-mountains. An extremely significant feature of this cap is its exhibition of a curved and rounded pattern only on its border. The second mitre ends in a horizontal line; it exhibits an angular pattern and two flaps hang down from it, which, as they naturally concealed the ears of the wearer, seem to have been symbolical of something hidden, and, perhaps, of silence and secrecy. A third mitre is figured on the same page, which seems to unite the characteristics of both forms and is surmounted by a young maize-shoot, proceeding from a vase.

Figure 36.

The association of the Above with a peak or point is further illustrated by a well-known peaked diadem always painted blue which was the symbol of the visible ruler (fig. 36, no. 5). A peak also occurs on military shields accompanied by four bars (fig. 36, no. 3) and presents an analogy to no. 4 from the “Lyfe of the Indians.” The latter is given as the symbol of a sacred festival which I have demonstrated in a previous publication to have coincided with the vernal equinox.(15) For further reasons which I shall present in my calendar monograph, I infer that we have in this drawing a most valuable image of the gnomon and dial employed by the Sun priests for the observation of the equinoxes and solstices. The human victim who was attached to the centre of the circular stone during the same festival is usually represented with the same cone or point and eight appendages on his head (fig. 36, no. 2). Owing to the circumstance that this peaked head-dress, or cone, was sometimes employed by the scribes for its phonetic value, as in fig. 36, no. 1, from the Codex Mendoza, in which instance it is figured on a mountain and is usually painted blue, we know positively that its name was Yope or Yopi—a valuable point since a temple and a sort of monastery in the courtyard of the Great Temple of Mexico were both named Yopico (Sahagun). At the same time it should be noted that the Maya name for “a mitre,” the symbol of a divine ruler, is Yop-at. In the Mexican ollin-signs a cone or ascending point is usually placed above and opposite to a symbol consisting of a ring or loop. These evidently signify the Above and Below, and in this connection it is worth noticing that archaeologists have long puzzled over the curious forms of the two kinds of prehistoric stone objects which have most frequently been found in the island of Porto Rico. The first of these consists of an elongated stone, the centre of which rises in the shape of a cone, whilst the ends are respectively carved in the rough semblance of a head and of feet. The second form, which has frequently been found in caves, consists of a large stone ring, and is popularly termed “a stone collar.” I am inclined to regard the latter as being analogous to the “stone yokes” of ancient Mexico and to infer that the aborigines of Porto Rico practised a form of the same cult. It should be borne in mind that the high conical stone, on which the human victims were sacrificed, was a salient feature in an ancient Mexican temple and that its form must have had some symbolical meaning. The foregoing data indicate that it probably was emblematic of the Above and Centre and was therefore regarded as the fitting place of sacrifice to the Sun and Heaven, whilst offerings to the Earth were most appropriately made in circular openings recalling the rim of the bowl and the round line of the horizon. It will be seen further on that the cone recurs in native architecture and that its use as a symbol, in the course of time, culminated in the pyramid.

Figure 37.

Let us return to it in its rudimentary stage, as a perpendicular line arising from a medium level, forming an inverted tau. The widespread employment amongst American peoples of the inverted and upright tau-shape as emblems of the Above and Below is abundantly proven and doubtlessly arose as naturally as “the Chinese characters Shang=Above, employed as a symbol for Heaven, and Lea=Below or Beneath, employed as a symbol for Earth. These are formed, in the one case, by placing a man (represented by a vertical line) above the medium level (represented by a horizontal line) and in the other below it” (Encyclopedia Britannica, art. China) fig. 37. Another equally graphic presentation of the analogous thought is furnished by the familiar Egyptian sign which exhibits a loop or something rounded and hollow above and a perpendicular line beneath the medium level. It is well known that the tau occurs in Scandinavia and is popularly named Thor’s hammer (fig. 38). Merely as a curious analogy I point out that in fig. 25, no. 2, from the Vienna Codex, we have an American instance of a tau-shaped object held in the hand in a ceremonial rite.

Figure 38.

The late and lamented Baron Gustav Nordenskjöld observed that the entrances to the ruined estufas of the ancient cliff-dwellers of Colorado were in the shape of an upright tau and it is well known that this is also the case amongst the Pueblo Indians of the present day. By means of a photograph taken by Dr. A. Warburg of Berlin, whilst witnessing the Humis-katshina dance of the Moqui Indians at Oraibi, in May, 1896, I am able to affirm that the native dancers wear masks and high head-ornaments, partly of wood, on which reversed and upright tau-symbols are painted, the first in a light and the second in a dark color. As the name of the ceremonial dance was explained to Dr. Warburg as signifying “helping the sprouting or growing maize,” and celebrated the advent of the rainy season, it is obvious that the two forms of tau which were displayed in alternate order on the heads of the dancers in the procession symbolized the juxtaposition of the Above and Below, of Heaven and Earth.

In the ruined temples of Central America, windows in the shape of upright and reversed taus also occur. The following series of architectural openings (fig. 39) are copied from Mr. Alfred P. Maudslay’s invaluable and splendid work, which has not, as yet, met with the recognition it so richly deserves.(16) They display besides the tau-shape (_g_ and _h_) other forms, the symbolism of which has been discussed. There are cross-shaped (_e_), square, round and oval windows (_d_, _j_, _b_ and _i_), the square obviously symbolical of the Earth and the round of the Heaven. Besides these there are openings in the form of a truncated cone (_a_ and _c_) and others ending in a narrow point (_k_). A striking form which recalls the Moorish arch and is shown in _f_, may, perhaps, be looked upon as an attempt to express the idea of a union of the Above and Below.

Figure 39.

In connection with these architectural features it is interesting to study their names in the native languages. The Nahuatl names for windows are singularly expressive of their uses: tlachialoyan=the watching place or look-out; puchquiauatl=the smoke opening; tlanexillotl=a word which literally means light and splendor, and to which the following words are related: tlanextia, verb=to shine, shed light and radiance; tlanextilla=something revealed, made manifest, found or discovered, newly invented or formed (brought to light); tlanexcayotiliztli=figure, signification or example; tlanexcayotilli=something figured or significative.

The meaning of the Maya name for window, ciznebna, is not clear, whilst that for door, chi, is the same as for mouth, opening or entrance. At the same time it is evident that, as in Mexico and elsewhere, the window openings in the Maya temples must have been associated with the idea of light, and the symbolical forms given to these besides their positions lead to the inference that they were actually regarded as mystic framed images, so to speak, of the supreme, invisible deity, through which, the light of day and the darkness of night alternately revealed themselves to those inside the sacred buildings. A careful study of the positions and orientations of these openings may yet prove that they also served for astronomical observation. The walls being usually pierced above reach, nothing but the sky could have been watched through them. But besides these, the interiors of Maya ruins contain interesting examples of mural openings and recesses which seem to have been carefully planned so that they should appear dark even in daytime and, in more than one case, these display the form of the upright tau, the symbol of darkness and the Below.(17)

Figure 40.

It does not seem to have been generally recognized that the alternate contraposition of upright and reversed taus produces the best known and most widely spread primitive border-design, usually known as the Greek fret (fig. 40, no. 6). A plain demonstration of this is, oddly enough, visible on the two side-projections of the Scandinavian brooch (fig. 13) all symbols on which, I venture to assert, would have been perfectly intelligible and full of meaning to an ancient Mexican. The evolution of the fret, on the American continent, can be studied on the beautiful wooden clubs from Brazil and British Guiana, figured in Dr. Hjalmar Stolpes’ valuable work already referred to. As striking instances his fig. 8, pl. 1, figs. 3_a_ and 3_c_, pl. XIII, and figs. 1_a_ and 1_b_, pl. V, should be examined. The latter instance is extremely instructive as it not only exhibits single taus of two forms, but the same in different positions, as well as two double-headed figures joined in one, which illustrate the native association already discussed, of duality and of the curved lines as the opposite of the rectangular and both respectively figuring the Above and Below.

It is impossible to study the decorations on these South American clubs without becoming convinced that their makers shared the same ideas as the ancient Mexicans. They offer, indeed, a whole set of variations on the native theme and idea of Heaven and Earth. Two instances (fig. 5_a_, pl. IX, and 6_a_, pl. XI) in which the union of two figures produces a third, or a single one produces two, elucidate the meaning sometimes expressed by the designs. In the round or spiral forms, which are most frequently accompanied by a zigzag border, I am inclined to see a presentation of air and water, corresponding to the Mexican symbols of the Above.

As lack of space forbids my making here a more extended comparison of the native symbols, I shall but point out how the tau, in juxtaposition and contraposition painted in two colors, produces fig. 40, no. 3. The picture from the Codex Mendoza of a native tlachtli, the form of which is represented by two taus in contraposition, is partly painted black. The same division of a single tau into two parts, colored differently, transforms no. 3 into no. 4 and shows that a single tau could have been employed cursively to symbolize union. 2 and 7 are but variants of 3 and 4. If, instead of angles, curved lines be given to the taus, the first half of fig. 5 is the result. When spaces between the incurving hooks and the border are filled out with color, the familiar design on the second half of 5 results. With exception of the latter, the South American clubs exhibit each of the above forms, as well as no. 8. It will be shown later that these also occur in ancient Peru.

The foregoing examples of the employment of taus in upright and reversed positions is, however, by no means exhaustive. Fig. 41 teaches that the familiar checker-board or tartan design, symbolically employed in ancient Mexico, was the simple result of taus in contraposition, the square spaces thus found being alternately filled with black and brown or gray. The symbolism of this design only becomes evident when all the combinations in which it occurs have been carefully studied. It is represented in the Codices in the doorways and arches of certain sacred edifices which are shown to be estufas or temaz-calli by further illustrations which I could not reproduce here, but which exhibit even the steam escaping from the building and other unmistakable features.

Figure 41.

Sahagun has recorded how these semi-sacred edifices were specially consecrated to the “Mother of the gods and of us all, whose curative and life-giving power was exerted in the temazcalli, also named xochicalli, the place where she sees secret things, rectifies what has been deranged in human bodies, fructifies young and tender things, ... and where she aids and cures....” It was customary for pregnant women to resort to these baths under the care of the medicine-woman who exhorted her patient on entering, with the words: “Enter into it, my daughter, enter into the bosom of our Mother whose name is Yoalticitl ... warm thyself in the bath, which is the house of flowers of our god ...” (Historia, book VI, chap. XXVII).

The Vienna Codex contains, besides pictures of temples (fig. 41, _a_ and _b_), two instances which elucidate the meaning of the design; _c_ of the same figure displays the conventional symbol for land, fringed on three sides. Enclosed in this and seen, in profile, is a stratum of checker-board design, above which is a sheet of water; d displays a conventionally drawn mountain, inside of which is the symbolical vase filled with the design. From this steam or smoke ascends through the soil of the mountain, and forces its way through the surface, above which we see two recurved puffs of smoke and a young blossoming maize shoot, conventionally drawn, such as may be seen worn by priestesses, as a symbolical head decoration, on page 11 of the Vienna Codex. The seated figure of a priest is represented as sheltering its growth with his outspread mantle. On his back he displays a symbol, composed of two rolls united by a crossband, which is met with in Maya and Mexican Codices. In the latter the four projecting ends are usually painted with the colors of the four quarters. As these are figured as united into a single sign, it seems evident that this symbolized a union of the four elements deemed necessary for the production of life by the ancient native philosophers.

The foregoing illustrations, to which more could be added, clearly establish that the checkered design was associated with the symbols of earth, heat and water. It obviously expressed the idea embodied in the Nahuatl word xotlac=the heated earth; literally, glowing embers, also budding and opening flowers. It was emblematic of the fall of the rain or earth-wine upon the heated soil. In the temazcalli the same life-producing union of the elements took place and aided human growth and health. It would seem as though the appellation xoch-i-calli, bestowed upon the sweat-house by the native medicine-woman, expressed the same train of thought. Moreover, it is noteworthy, that the sound of the first part of this name and of xo-tlac recurs in the Maya word for vase in general, ho-och. The checker-board design would naturally have been employed in connection with the festivals, associated with esoteric rites, which were held in celebration of the union of the Heaven and Earth at the commencement of the rainy season. It would, naturally, therefore, have been used as a decoration on the drinking vessels employed in the distribution of fermented drinks for vivifying and curative purposes. It is met with on Peruvian drinking bowls, as proven by several examples in the Royal Ethnographical Museum in Berlin, for instance.

It is curious to note as an interesting analogy that the same checkered design frequently adorns the ancient Egyptian drinking bowls represented in the hieroglyphic writings. I have also observed it in some ancient Greek drinking vessels, preserved at the Imperial Hermitage Museum at St. Petersburg, where it decorated the bowl itself or the garments of Bacchantes figured thereupon. It is also met with in ancient Peruvian textile fabrics, in black and white, as on one figure vase in the Berlin Museum, and, needless to remark, it is a Scotch clan tartan. Its adoption as the basis for chess-boards of ancient Egypt seems to indicate that there it also signified the Above and Below and that the game was thought of as an exemplification of the eternal contest between the powers of Heaven and Earth, light and darkness, etc. We look to specialists for information as to the origin, meaning and employment in Egypt and Greece of this primitive and almost universal design.

Figure 42.

In ancient Mexico and possibly Peru, it obviously pertained to a set of ideas which, in some communities, might easily have degenerated and led to the institution of rites and ideas such as were prevalent in the Maya colony which had established itself at the mouth of the Panuco river, on the coast of Mexico, north of Vera Cruz, and from which the Huaxtecans of the present day descend. It is interesting to note that the name of the capital founded by the colonists, who seem to have emigrated owing to well-founded religious persecution, was Tuch-pan, a word which signifies in the Maya tongue “the umbilicus,” qualified by pan, meaning “that which is above or excels,” etc., but which was expressed in Nahuatl picture-writings by a rabbit=tochtli and a banner=pantli.