The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations
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Title: The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations
Author: Zelia Nuttall
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF OLD AND NEW WORLD CIVILIZATIONS ***
The Fundamental Principles
Of
Old and New World Civilizations
A Comparative Research Based on a Study of the Ancient Mexican Religious,
Sociological, and Calendrical Systems.
By
Zelia Nuttall
Honorary Special Assistant of the Peabody Museum; Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science; Member of the Philosophical
Society, Philadelphia; Honorary Member of the Archaeological Association,
Univ. of Pennsylvania; Corresponding Member of the Antiquarian and
Numismatic Society of Philadelphia; of the Anthropological Society of
Washington; of the Societá Italiana d’Antropologia; of the Société de
Géographie de Genève; of the Sociedad Cientifico “Antonio Alzate,” Mexico;
and of the Société des Américanistes de Paris.
Archaeological and Ethnological Papers
Of The
Peabody Museum
Harvard University
Vol. II.
Cambridge, Mass.
Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology.
March, 1901.
CONTENTS
Editorial Note.
Author’s Preface.
The Fundamental Principles Of Old And New World Civilizations.
Appendix I. Comparative Table of some Quechua, Nahuatl and Maya Words.
Appendix II. A Prayer-meeting of the Star-worshippers.
Appendix III. Comparative Lists of Words.
Index.
Note.
Footnotes
EDITORIAL NOTE.
The author of this volume explains in her preface how she came to be led
beyond her special field of research into a comparative study of the early
civilizations of the Old World; and how she traced the origin of the
swastika, in Mexico, to an astronomical source and, in all countries
alike, found its use as a sacred symbol accompanied by evidences of a
certain phase of culture based on pole-star worship, and the recognition
of the fixed laws of nature, which found expression in the ideal of
celestial kingdoms or states organized on a set numerical plan and
regulated by the apparent revolutions of circumpolar constellations.
The results of the author’s researches seem to justify her summary of
conclusions; but she distinctly states that she does not wish to propound
any theory. She invites further study and discussion by Orientalists and
Americanists before drawing final conclusions from the facts she has
gathered. The publication of this paper will open anew the consideration
of pre-Columbian visits to the New World, shown, as many have believed, by
identities too many and too close to be considered as mere resemblances or
as the natural results of independent intellectual development.
The illustrations are nearly all from drawings by the author. The
analytical Index has been prepared by Miss Mead. It will be seen, by the
numbering at the bottom of each page, that it was at first intended to
include this paper in Volume I of the Archaeological and Ethnological
Papers of the Museum; but the addition of the text relating to the Old
World made too bulky a volume, and it is therefore issued as Volume II of
the series.
To Mrs. Nuttall for the gift of her work, the results of years of
research, and to the several generous friends who have provided the means
for publishing this volume, the editor expresses his gratitude in behalf
of the Museum.
F. W. PUTNAM,
Curator of the Peabody Museum.
Harvard University,
March 1, 1901.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
In February, 1898, while engaged upon the translation and commentary of
the anonymous Hispano Mexican MS. of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
Library, of Florence, my interest was suddenly and unexpectedly diverted
from my self-imposed task by the circumstances described in the opening
pages of the present publication.
Laying my work aside, as I then supposed, for a few days only, I seized
the new thread of investigation with a keen and enthusiastic interest,
little knowing that it, in turn, was not only to hold me fast for nearly
three years, but was to lead me out of my original field of research, into
distant, and to me, hitherto untrodden realms, in close pursuit of facts
relating to the oldest forms of religion, social organization, and
symbolism.
The first portion of the present publication was planned as a short
monograph of forty-one pages, treating of the origin of the native
swastika or cross symbols, and was written in July, 1898, its outcome
being the unforeseen conclusion that the cosmical conceptions of the
ancient Mexicans were identical with those of the Zuñis. I next traced the
same fundamental set of ideas in Yucatan, Central America and Peru and
formed the wish to add this investigation to the preceding. The result has
been the portion of the work extending from page 41, paragraph 2, to page
284, which was printed in 1899.
Having once launched into a course of comparative research, the deep
interest I have always taken in the question of Asiatic contact led me to
carry my investigation of the same subject into China. It then seemed
impossible not to extend researches from Eastern to Western Asia, and from
Asia Minor to Egypt, Greece, Rome and Western Europe. It is in this
unpremeditated way that the scope of the present investigation enlarged
itself of its own accord, for the simple reason that the most interesting
and precious facts fell into my way as I advanced and all I had to do was
to pick them up and add them to my collection of evidence.
One serious disadvantage, arising from the circumstance that the present
investigation has been in press for nearly three years, is my inability to
make any alteration, amendment, or addition, in the earlier portions,
which stand as written at different times. It is a matter of regret to me
that I was not acquainted with O’Neil’s “Night of the Gods” and Hewitt’s
“Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times,” at an earlier stage of my
investigation, as through them my publication would have been enriched by
many valuable additions which I could have incorporated in the body of my
work without unduly sacrificing its unity of form.
In the line of Maya investigation notable advances have been made since I
wrote (on page 221), about the “septenary set of signs” described by Mr.
A. P. Maudslay in 1886, and about the inscription on the tablet of the
Temple of the Cross at Palenque (pp. 237-39). Since that time an important
publication on the Tablet of the Cross, to which I should have liked to
refer, has been issued by the much esteemed Nestor of Maya investigations,
Herr Geheimrath Dr. Förstemann. My attention has also been drawn by the
best versed of American students of the Maya Codices, Mr. Charles P.
Bowditch, to the fact that Mr. Maudslay now recognizes the general
recurrence of an eighth sign in combination with the septenary group,
causing this to consist of an initial glyph, followed by seven instead of
six signs. Referring the reader to pp. 221 and 222, I point out that the
employment of an initial glyph, representing the synopsis of a whole,
followed by seven signs, appears even more strongly to corroborate my view
that the inhabitants of Copan were acquainted with the septenary, cosmical
division I have traced.
My fellow archaeologists will understand the disadvantage of issuing an
investigation partly written a few years previously, and will realize
that, had I, at the outset, been in possession of all the facts I have
since learned, the present work would have been very differently planned
and executed. On the other hand, as it partakes somewhat of the nature of
a log-book, the reader is able to follow closely my blundering course, and
will recognize and appreciate some of its perils and difficulties. It
being, unfortunately, impossible to re-write the book. I shall have to be
resigned to incur some criticism and blame for omissions, which could have
been averted. I shall, however, be content if my prolonged study of
ancient Mexican archaeology and the present research open out new lines of
investigation, and conclusively prove that primitive cross-symbols and the
swastika are universally accompanied by vestiges of a certain set of
cosmical conceptions and schemes of organization, which can be traced back
to an original pole-star worship. I can but think that the material I have
collected will also lead to a recognition that the rôle of the Phœnicians,
as intermediaries of ancient civilization, was greater than has been
supposed, and that it is imperative that future research be devoted to a
fresh study and examination of those indications which appear to show that
America must have been intermittently colonized by the intermediation of
Mediterranean seafarers.
To me the most interesting result of the present investigation is the fact
that, having once started on an unpremeditated course of study, I found an
unsuspected wealth of material and finally attained one main, totally
undreamed-of conclusion, concerning the law governing the evolution of
religion and civilization. This leads me to think that, as I groped in
darkness, searching for light, I unwittingly struck the true key-note of
that great universal theme which humanity, with a growing perception of
existing, universal harmony, has ever been striving to seize and
incorporate into their lives. The fact that many of the transcriptions of
the original harmony have been and are discordant, and that they
temporarily obscure, instead of rendering, its sublime grandeur, unity and
noble simplicity, appears as the inevitable result of the mental activity,
ingenuity and creative imagination to which mankind also owes its
intellectual and spiritual progress.
In conclusion I regret my inability to express adequately my grateful
appreciation of the unfailing loyalty of those true friends, in particular
Prof. F. W. Putnam, who, trusting in the earnestness of my purpose and
endeavor, have constantly encouraged and cheered me as they patiently
awaited the long-delayed completion of my work.
Z. N.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.,
DECEMBER 31, 1900.
THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF OLD AND NEW WORLD CIVILIZATIONS.
One evening, in February, 1898, I left my desk and, stepping to the
window, looked out at Polaris and the circumpolar region of the sky, with
a newly awakened and eager interest.
For thirteen years I had been studying and collecting material with the
hope of obtaining some understanding of the calendar, religion and
cosmogony of the ancient Mexicans, but had hitherto purposely refrained
from formulating or expressing any conclusions on the latter subjects
having felt unable to extract a clear and satisfactory understanding of
the native beliefs from the chaotic mass of accumulated data under which
they lay like the ruin of an ancient temple. Though frequently
discouraged, I had, however, never ceased to pursue my research and to
note carefully the slightest indication or suggestion which might prove of
ultimate value. Becoming utterly absorbed in the collection of such notes,
I found no time to publish anything during the past four years, though
realizing, with regret, that those interested in my work might be
disappointed at my delay in issuing the papers announced, in 1894, as
speedily forthcoming. Slowly but steadily, however, I was gaining ground.
Various excursions along new lines of research increased my experience
and, in crossing and re-crossing the field of ancient Mexico, I frequently
had occasion to observe certain familiar landmarks, from a new point of
view, and illuminated by rays of fresh light proceeding from recently
acquired sources. It was remarkable how often facts, which had seemed so
hopelessly complicated, finally appeared to be quite simple and
comprehensible. This was noticeably the case with the Aztec deities which,
for years, had seemed to me as numberless. After closely studying their
respective symbols, attributes and names, during several consecutive
months, and subjecting them to a final minute analysis, I found that their
number dwindled in a remarkable way and also verified the truth of the
statement made by the anonymous author of the Biblioteca Nazionale
manuscript which I was editing, that the Mexicans painted one and the same
god under a different aspect “with different colours,” according to the
various names they gave him in each instance.
It was particularly interesting to find that, in assuming that certain
names designated different native deities, the early Spanish writers had
committed a mistake as great as though someone, reading the litany of the
Virgin in a Catholic prayer-book, for the first time, inferred that it was
a series of invocations addressed to distinct divinities, amongst whom
figured the “morning star,” a “mirror of justice,” and a “mystical rose,”
etc. An examination of the texts of several native prayers preserved,
established that the Mexicans addressed their prayers to a supreme Creator
and ruler, whom they termed “invisible, incomprehensible and impalpable,”
and revered as “the father and mother of all.” Some of their so-called
idols were, after all, either attempts to represent in objective form, the
attributes of the divine power, the forces of nature, the elements, etc.,
or rebus figures. As these “gods” or “idols” are enumerated farther on and
are exhaustively treated in my commentary of the Biblioteca Nazionale
manuscript, now in press, it suffices for my present purpose merely to
mention here that the most mysterious figure of Mexican cosmogony,
Tezcatlipoca, whose symbolical name literally means “shining mirror,”
proved to be identical with Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the underworld,
whose title may also be interpreted as “the ruler or regent of the North,”
since Mictlampa is the name of this cardinal point.
The Codex Fuenleal (Anales del Museo Nacional, Mexico, tomo II, p. 88)
preserves an important myth relating how Tezcatlipoca, after having been
the sun, was cast down from this supreme position by Huitzilopochtli,
“descended to the water,” but had arisen again in the shape of an ocelot,
and transformed himself into the constellation of Ursa Major.
According to Sahagun the native name of this star-group was Citlal-Colotl
or “star scorpion.” Reference to Nahuatl dictionaries revealed that this
insect had doubtlessly been named colotl on account of its habit of
recurving its tail when enraged.
The Nahuatl verb coloa means, to bend over or twist something, the
adjective coltic is applied to something bent over or recurved. The noun
colotli, which is almost identical with colotl, means “the cross-beams,
the mounting, branch or handle of a cross” (“armadura de manga de cruz.”
See Molina’s dictionary).
The above facts show that the idea underlying the name for Ursa Major is
primarily that of “something bent over or recurved.” It is obvious that
the form of the constellation answers to this description. It is,
moreover, extremely significant to find, in the Maya language also, a
certain resemblance between the words for scorpion and for a cross. This,
in Maya, is zin-che and that for a scorpion is zin-au. The above data
justify the induction that the native conception of a cross was connected
with the idea of its arms being bent over or recurved, as in the Mexican
calendar-swastika.
It is important to find the scorpion figured as one of several symbols of
Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the North, in his sculptured effigy preserved
at the National Museum of Mexico (fig. 19).
It is more significant that the verb coloa, besides meaning “to bend over
or twist something,” also expressed the action “of describing or
performing a circle by walking around something.” Now this is precisely
what Tezcatlipoca (the Ursa Major) is represented as doing on page 77 of
the B.N. manuscript, since he figures there, surrounded by a circle of
footsteps. I could but note that this fact showed that the name of Colotl,
applied to the constellation, was not incompatible with its identification
with Tezcatlipoca. Once my attention had been drawn to the action of
walking, performed by this god, I naturally considered, with fresh
interest, the peculiar fact that he is usually represented with one foot
only. The circumstances under which he had been deprived of this member
are set forth in several of the Codices wherein we see that, after he
“descended to the water,” he had an encounter with an alligator, who had
viciously bitten off his foot and carried it away. (See Féjérvary Codex,
pp. 3 and 74. Vatican, II, p. 74.) Pictures representing Tezcatlipoca,
after this event, display the broken end of the tibia exposed and the
transverse section of the bone forming a ring, usually painted either
white or red. Special pains seem to have been taken to accentuate the
hollowness of the bone ring, since its centre is usually painted blue, the
symbolical color of air, and conventionalized puffs of breath or air are
shown as issuing from it (fig. 1). In some cases, as on the sculptured
monolith called “the Stone of Tizoc,” these symbols of breath, issuing
from the broken tibia, are figured in such a way that modern writers,
ignoring what they were meant to represent, were led to identify them as
some animal’s tail attached to the foot of the deity. The hollow circle
and puffs of air, constantly associated with the god, frequently figure as
his ear ornament when his broken tibia is concealed (fig. 2, no. 3).
Besides certain fanciful interpretations which have been given to this
symbol, it has been explained as being a hieroglyph conveying the name
Tezcatlipoca, and consisting of an obsidian mirror=tezcatl, and
smoke=poctli. A possible objection to this assertion might be that in
Mexican pictography, the mirror is invariably represented as jet-black, in
a white or red frame. In the Codex Telleriano Remensis, a combination of
symbols (of water, fire and a serpent) are figured as issuing from the
base of the bone (fig. 1, nos. 5, 6). Having taken particular pains to
collect all representations of the footless god, I was specially
interested in one (Féjérvary, p. 1) in which he is figured as standing on
the cross-shaped symbol ollin, the accepted meaning of which is Four
Movements. The most remarkable and puzzling picture I found, however, is
that (fig. 1, no. 2) in which the jaws of a tecpatl, the symbol of the
North, are represented as holding one of Tezcatlipoca’s ankles in a tight
grip and practically fastening him thus to the centre of a diagonal cross.
In this and other pictures (Codex Féjérvary, 41, 43 and 96) it is obvious
that the artists had endeavored to convey the idea of a person permanently
attached to one spot by one foot. The only form of locomotion possible to
him would be to describe a circle by hobbling on one foot around the
other, which would serve as an axis or pivot. The association of this
peculiarity with the symbols of the North impressed me deeply and
involuntarily caused me to think of a title bestowed in the Codex Fuenleal
upon the supreme divinity, namely, “The Wheel of the Winds;” as well as of
an expression employed by Tezozomoc (Cronica, p. 574). Referring to the
constellations revered by the natives, he mentions “the North and its
wheel.”
[Illustration.]
Figure 1
Realizing that some definite and important meaning must underlie the
remarkable representations of Tezcatlipoca, I resorted to all possible
means to gain an understanding of them. Referring to Nahuatl dictionaries,
I found a variety of synonymous names for a person who limped or was lame
or maimed. Amongst them was Popoztequi from poztequi, the verb, “to break
a leg.” Other names were xopuztequi, xotemol and Icxipuztequi
(icxitl=foot). The latter name happened to be familiar to me, for the
commentator of the Vatican Codex, Padre Rios, gives it as the name of a
god and translates it as “the lame devil.” He records it immediately after
Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the North, and designates it as the name of
one of the four principal and primitive gods of the Mexicans.
The commentator of the Telleriano-Remensis Codex, moreover, records that
these four gods were “said to have been stars and had fallen from the
heavens. At the present time there are stars in the firmament named after
them” (Kingsborough, vol. v, pp. 132 and 162).
Other synonymous terms for lame persons were icxinecuiltic and
xonecuiltic. Tzimpuztequi, on the other hand, besides meaning lame, also
signified something crooked, bent or incurvated. The second name furnished
me with an important clue, for Sahagun distinctly records that the native
name for the constellation Ursa Minor was Xonecuilli and that it was
figured as an S (Historia, 1. VII, cap. 3). Besides, the Academia MS. of
his monumental work contains the native drawing of this star-group
reproduced as fig. 16, no. 1. He also states that S-shaped loaves of bread
named xonecuilli were made at a certain festival in honor of this
constellation, while the B.N. MS. records that a peculiar recurved weapon,
figured in the hands of deities, was named xonequitl (fig. 16, nos. 2 and
3).
The above data furnished me with indisputable evidence of the existence,
in ancient Mexico, of a species of star cult connected with the
circumpolar constellations and with Tezcatlipoca, the lord of the North,
the central figure of the native cosmogony. It was puzzling to find this
god connected not only with the Ursa Major but also with Ursa Minor, but
an indication suggesting a possible explanation or reconciliation of these
apparent inconsistencies is furnished by the descriptions of the strange
ritual performance, which was annually repeated at the festival
Tlacaxipehualiztli and was evidently the dramatization of a sacred myth.
As an illustration and a description of this rite are contained in the
B.N. MS. and the subject is fully treated in my commentary, I shall but
allude here to its salient features. It represented a mortal combat
between a prisoner, attached by a short piece of cord to the centre of a
large circular stone, and five warriors, who fought him singly. The fifth,
who was masked as an ocelot and always obtained victory in the unequal
contest, fought with his left hand, being “left-handed,” a peculiarity
ascribed to Huitzilopochtli. It was he who subsequently wore the skin of
the flayed victim, an action which obviously symbolized a metamorphosis.
One point is obvious: this drama exhibits the victor as a warrior who was
able to circumscribe the stone freely and was masked as an
ocelot—Tezcatlipoca—the Ursa Major, but was endowed, at the same time,
with the left-handedness identified with Huitzilopochtli. This mythical
personage vanquishes and actually wears the skin of the man attached to
the stone; becomes his embodiment, in point of fact, and obtains the
supremacy for which he had fought so desperately. In the light shed by the
Codex Fuenleal, before cited, it was easy to see that the entire
performance dramatized the mythical combat between Tezcatlipoca and
Huitzilopochtli for the position of the ruling power, in the heavens—the
sun. At the same time it was decidedly puzzling to find celestial
supremacy personified by a man, firmly fastened to one spot, the centre of
a stone circle. It was impossible not to perceive the identity of thought
underlying the representation of this prisoner and the pictures of
Tezcatlipoca, the one-footed or lame god—Xonecuilli the Ursa Minor. It was
moreover of extreme interest to note the existence of traditional records,
preserved in the native myths, of changes in the relative positions of
celestial bodies and of the Ursa Major in particular.
Whilst dwelling upon the striking analogy existing between the
representations of Tezcatlipoca held fast by the symbol of the North and
the prisoner attached to what is described either as “a temalacatl, stone
whorl” or “an image of the sun,” my gaze fell on a small model of the
calendar-stone of Mexico, hanging above my desk, and rested on the symbol
Ollin in its centre. The learned director of the National Museum of
Mexico, Señor Troncoso (Anales del Museo Nacional, vol. II), had expressed
his view that this symbol was an actual figurative representation of the
annual apparent movements of the sun, and recorded its positions at the
solstitial and equinoctial periods. I had, moreover, submitted a drawing
of this same figure to the eminent English astronomer, Prof. Norman
Lockyer, and he had corroborated this view and established its
correctness. On the other hand, I had long noted that the _Ollin_ was
usually figured with an eye, the symbol for star, in its centre (fig. 2,
nos. 1, 3), and had also paid particular attention to the fact that the
Mexicans had conceived the ideas of two suns, a young day sun and an
ancient night or black sun. In the B. N. MS., on the mantas worn at their
respective festivals, the day sun is depicted in a somewhat fanciful
manner, in blue and red on a white field. The black sun is, however,
represented in classical style, so to speak, as on the sculptured
calendar-stone, with four larger and four smaller V-shaped rays issuing
from it. In this connection it is well to recall here that the Mexicans
had no specific name for the sun, beyond _Tonatiuh_, which merely means
“that which sheds light” and could equally apply to the stars. In the
picture-writings the image of the sun was employed to convey the word
_Teotl_. But we find that this word, assumed to be equivalent to their
“Dios” by the Spaniards, was also a reverential title bestowed upon
chieftains and superiors and was constantly employed in the composition of
words to signify something divine, supremely beautiful, etc. Whilst I was
pondering on the possibility that the symbol _Ollin_ might have
represented the movements of the luminaries of night as well as the orb of
day, my attention became fixed upon the four numerals in each of the ends
of the symbol and I was struck by a certain resemblance between their
positions and those of the four stars which form the body of the bear in
the constellation of Ursa Major. It was then that it occurred to me, as
mentioned in the opening sentence of this introduction, to look at the
familiar constellations, with a view to verifying the resemblance noted
above. As my gaze sought “the pointers” in Ursa Major, and then
mechanically turned to Polaris, I thought of some passages I had recently
re-read, in Professor Lockyer’s Dawn of Astronomy, realizing that his
observations, dealing with the latitude 26° (taking Thebes as representing
Egypt), could equally apply to Mexico as this country stretches from
latitude 15° to 31°.
[Illustration.]
Figure 2
“The moment primitive man began to observe anything, he must have taken
note of the stars, and as soon as he began to talk about them he must have
started by defining, in some way or other, the particular star he
meant.... Observers would first consider the brightest stars and separate
them from the dimmer ones; they would then discuss the stars which never
set (the circumpolar constellations) and separate them from those which
did rise and set. Then they would naturally, in a northern clime, choose
out the constellation of the Great Bear or Orion, and for small groups,
the Pleiades (_op. cit._ p. 132).... A few years’ observation would have
appeared to demonstrate the absolute changelessness of the places of the
rising and setting of the same stars. It is true that this result would
have been found to be erroneous when a long period of time had elapsed and
when observation became more accurate, but for hundreds of years the stars
would certainly appear to represent fixity, while the movements of the
sun, moon and planets would seem to be bound by no law ... would appear
erratic, so long as the order of their movements was not known.”
The reflection that Ursa Major was probably the first constellation which
made any deep impression upon the mind of prehistoric man in America, as
elsewhere, lent an additional interest to the star-group, as I
concentrated my mind upon its form and endeavored to imagine it in four
equidistant positions, corresponding to the numerals in the symbol _Ollin_
of the calendar-stone of Mexico (fig. 2, no. 2).
I succeeded in obtaining, in succession, mental images of the
constellation in four opposite positions. This effort led to an unforeseen
result which surprised me. In a flash of mental vision I perceived a
quadrupled image of the entire constellation, standing out in
scintillating brilliancy from the intense darkness of the wintry sky (fig.
3, no. 3). At the same moment I saw that it bore the semblance of a
symmetrical swastika of giant proportions. This fact, so unexpectedly
realized, gave rise to such an absorbing train of new ideas and
interpretations of the data I had accumulated, that I left my window, on
that memorable night, with a growing perception of the deep and powerful
influence the prolonged observation of Polaris and the circumpolar
constellations would naturally have exerted upon the mind of primitive
man. Deeply impressed with the striking resemblance between the composite
image of Polaris, Ursa Major, and certain forms of the swastika, I started
on a fresh line of investigation, and devoted myself to the study of
primitive astronomy and its influence upon the intellectual development of
mankind in general and the American races in particular. After having
worked, during thirteen years, without any preconceived ideas about the
ancient Mexican civilization and without formulating any general
conclusion concerning it, I saw all the knowledge I had slowly acquired
fall into rank and file and organize itself into a simple and harmonious
whole.
[Illustration.]
Figure 3
Realizing this I perceived how, with the origin of the swastika, I had
found the origin of the set of primeval ideas which had governed the human
race from its infancy and which, in Mexican and Central American
civilizations, ultimately developed into their ingenious system of
government and social organization.
[Illustration.]
Plate I. Chart of the Polar Constellations. I: Just After Sunset. II:
Midnight. III: Just Before Sunrise.
[Illustration.]
Plate II. Various Forms of the Swastika.
[Illustration.]
Figure 4
The sequel to the above episode was that, with the aid of my movable
star-chart, I made the following notes of the apparent positions of the
circumpolar constellations at the times of sunrise, midnight and sunset,
choosing the periods of the solstices and equinoxes in order to obtain an
exact division of the year (pl. I). Whilst studying these I realized that
the midnight position was the only stable one, since the actual visibility
of the constellations before dawn and after dusk would be subject to
considerable variation, according to seasons, latitudes and atmospherical
conditions. Having noted these positions, I next combined them separately,
obtaining the remarkable results given in fig. 4. The combined midnight
positions of the Ursa Major or Minor, at the four divisions of the year,
yielded symmetrical swastikas, the forms of which were identical with the
different types of swastika or cross-symbols (the normal, ogee and volute,
etc.), which have come down to us from remote antiquity and are reproduced
here for comparison (pl. II, _a-f_). Reflection showed me that such
composite pictures of the Ursa constellations constituted an exact record
of their annual rotation, and afforded a perfect sign for the period of a
year. I moreover perceived how the association of rotatory motion with the
advance of time, and its division into fixed periods or cycles, would be
the natural outcome of the recognition of the annual rotation of the
star-groups.
The Calendar-Swastika, or cross of ancient Mexico (pl. II, _g_)
constitutes an absolute proof of the native association of the
cross-symbol with the ideas of rotatory motion and the progress of time,
and furnishes an indication that, in an analogous manner, the swastika may
have been primarily and generally employed by primitive races, as a sign
for a year or cycle. A close scrutiny of the respective forms of the
crosses yielded by Ursæ Major and Minor shows that the normal swastika and
suavastika may be explained as the separate representations of the two
constellations—the angular break in the outline of Ursa Major suggesting
the direction of the bend to the right of the arms of the normal swastika,
whilst the form of Ursa Minor obviously suggests the bend to the left
which is characteristic of the suavastika.
[Illustration.]
Figure 5
My growing conviction that the Bear constellations had furnished the
archetype of the different forms of swastika and cross-symbols, found
subsequent support when I referred to the map showing the geographical
distribution of the ancient symbol published by Prof. Thomas Wilson in his
valuable and comprehensive monograph on the subject,(1) to which I am
indebted for much information and several illustrations (pl. II, _a-f_,
etc.). The map, reproduced here (fig. 5), proves that, with two
exceptions, which can be attributed to a migration southward, the
employment of the swastika has been confined to the northern hemisphere,
_i. e._, precisely to that portion of our globe from which the circumpolar
constellations are visible.
[Illustration.]
Figure 6. Star-Map, Representing The Precessional Movement Of The
Celestial Pole From The Year 4000 B.C. To The Year 2000 A.D. (_From Piazzi
Smyth_.)
The interesting possibility of being able to determine, approximately, the
date in the world’s history when the swastika began to be employed as a
symbol, next occurred to me. Piazzi Smyth’s star-map, discussed and
reproduced in Professor Lockyer’s work already cited (fig. 6), illustrates
the changes of direction of the earth’s axis in space, which gives rise to
what is called the precession of the equinoxes and has a cycle of
something like 25,000 or 26,000 years. Reference to this star-map (fig. 6)
proved that the observations, leading to the adoption of the swastika as a
symbol, could not possibly have been made until after Ursa Major had
become circumpolar, about 4,000 B.C. At that period, when Draconis was the
pole-star, the circle described about it by Ursa Major was considerably
closer than it is at present. The accompanying illustrations (fig. 7),
subject to correction, demonstrate the relative distance of the
constellation about 2,770 B.C., 1,800 B.C., and 2,000 A.D., and show how
much more strikingly impressive the polar region of the heavens was in
remote antiquity.
[Illustration.]
Figure 7.
Let us now briefly review some of the ideas which would naturally suggest
themselves to the mind of the primitive observer, after he had recognized
the apparent immovability of the polar-star, concentrated his attention
upon this feature, and contrasted it with the varying motions of all other
celestial bodies in general and with the rotation of the circumpolar
star-groups in particular.
This recognition would lead to his gradually learning to utilize Polaris
as a means of ascertaining direction. His appreciation of valuable
guidance rendered in perilous wanderings would develop feelings of trust,
dependence and gratitude towards the one changeless star which permanently
rendered valuable services and under whose guidance difficult and
essential nocturnal expeditions could be safely undertaken. Superiority
and, eventually, extensive supernatural power would more and more be
attributed to it, as knowledge was gained of the laws of motion from which
it alone seemed to be exempt. This exemption would cause it to be viewed
as superior to all other heavenly bodies and even to the sun, and it is
easy to see how this idea, becoming predominant, might cause the cult of
the pole-star to disestablish an organized sun-cult amongst some tribes.
Historical evidence, to which I shall revert more fully proves, indeed,
that a native American ruler and reformer actually employed the following
reasoning in order to convert his council and people from the worship of
the sun to that of a superior divinity which could have been no other but
Polaris: “It is not possible that the sun should be the God who created
all things, for if so he would sometimes rest and light up the whole world
from one spot. Thus it cannot be otherwise but that there is someone who
directs him and this truly is the true Creator.”
These words shed a whole flood of light upon primitive religious ideas at
an early stage of development. They prove that the association of repose
and immovability with the supreme power signified a radical change of
thought, based upon prolonged astronomical observation, and indicated
intellectual advancement. Attempts to render the new idea objective, to
express it and impress it upon the multitude, would naturally end in the
production of images of the supernatural power, representing or typifying
immovability, changelessness, strength combined with absolute repose.
It is thus rendered evident what a deep significance may be embodied in
the rudest images of supernatural beings in attitudes of repose, since a
prolonged course of astronomical observation and reasoning may have
preceded their production.
Simultaneously with the recognition of Polaris as an immutable centre of
axial energy, the rotatory movement of Ursa Major must have excited
interest and observation. It was inevitable that star-gazers should
gradually recognize a constant agreement between certain positions of Ursa
Major and Cassiopeia after dusk for instance, and the annual recurrence of
rain, verdure and bountiful food-supplies.
The members of a tribe who, more observant than others, had learned to
associate certain positions of these constellations with the seasons and,
as a consequence, were able to decide when expeditions to distant
localities, in quest of game or fruit, might be successfully undertaken,
would naturally assume leadership and command obedience and respect.
The sense of responsibility, superiority and, possibly, rivalry would act
upon such individuals as a powerful incentive to further observation and
thought and it is evident that, as their mental faculties expanded and one
generation transmitted its store of accumulated knowledge to the next, a
regular caste of astronomer-leaders would develop, with a tendency to
conceal the secrets of their power from the ignorant majority. A broken
line, carved on a rock by one of these primitive observers, would have
constituted a valuable secret note of the position of Ursa Major on a
memorable occasion and would be looked upon as a mystic or magical sign by
the uninitiated. A series of such inscriptions might represent the store
of astronomical knowledge accumulated by several generations of observers,
and it is interesting to recognize that such astronomical records as these
were probably the first which men were impelled to perpetuate in a lasting
form; since it was absolutely necessary that they should be permanently
available for reference at prolonged intervals of time. What is more, the
mere fact of being obliged to refer to these inscriptions would cause the
astronomers to reside permanently in one locality. The habit of consulting
the prophet or oracle before undertaking important steps, involving the
welfare of the tribe, would gradually cause the rocks or cavern in which
he resided to be invested with a certain sacredness.
It is thus evident that the first men, who rudely scratched the outline of
Ursa Major or Minor on a rock, took what was probably one of the most
momentous steps in the history of the human race, and it is easy to see
how a variety of combinations of circumstances would have led many men, in
widely-separated localities and at different periods of the world’s
history, to perform precisely the same action. In some cases, under
favorable surroundings, the rudimentary attempt would mark the starting
point for a long line of patient observation and study, which would
inevitably lead to the creation of centres of intellectual growth, to the
association of the different positions of the constellation with the
seasons and culminate in the habitual employment of a swastika as the sign
for a year, or cycle of time.(2)
The idea of rotation, associated with calendar signs and periods, finds
its most striking and convincing exemplification in the following
description of the ancient Mexican game “of those who fly,” translated
from Clavigero (op. et ed. cit. p. 236). This performance, which furnished
a diversion to the Spaniards after the Conquest, had evidently been,
originally, connected with religious ideas. “The Indians selected a tall,
stout and straight tree, and, lopping off its branches, planted it firmly
in the centre of the great square” (which was always situated in the
centre of the city and had four roads leading to it from the four
quarters). “On the summit they placed a large cylinder of wood, the shape
of which was compared by the Spaniards to that of a mortar. Four strong
ropes hung from this and supported a square frame composed of four wooden
beams. Four other ropes were fastened by one end to the pole itself and
wound around it thirteen times. Their loose ends were passed through holes
in the middle of each beam and hung from these. Four Indians, masked as
eagles or other birds, ascended the pole singly, by means of certain loops
of cord, and mounting on the cylinder they performed in this perilous
position a few dance-like movements. Each man then attached himself to the
loose end of one of the hanging ropes, and then, with a violent jerk and
at the same moment, the four men cast themselves into space from their
positions on the beams. This simultaneous movement caused the frame and
cylinder to revolve and uncoil the ropes to which the men were fastened
and these descended to the ground after performing a series of widening
circles in the air. Meanwhile a fifth individual, who had mounted the
wooden cylinder after the others, stood on this as it revolved, beating a
small drum with one hand, whilst he held a banner aloft with the other.”
Whilst it is obvious that this peculiar and dangerous performance clearly
symbolized axial rotation, typified by the revolving pivot and the four
men in aërial motion, its full meaning and intention are only made clear
by the following explanation recorded by Clavigero. “The essential point
in this game was to calculate so exactly the height of the pole and the
length of the ropes, that the men should describe precisely thirteen
circles each before reaching the ground, so as to represent the cycle (of
4×13=)52 years.”
This passage constitutes absolute proof that the Mexican Calendar system
was intimately associated with axial rotation and ideas such as could only
have been derived from observation of Polaris and of the circumpolar
constellations. The game itself was a beautiful and well-conceived
illustration of the flight of time, typified by the aërial circles
performed by the men masked as birds, and of its methodical division into
fixed periods.
Leaving the subject of the calendar for the present we must revert to my
tables recording the apparent annual and nocturnal axial rotation of the
circumpolar constellations.
Whilst studying these the reflection naturally arose, that the people who
observed Ursa Major must have paid equal attention to Cassiopeia and
noticed that these constellations ever occupied opposite positions to each
other as they circled around the pole. Dwelling on the fact that in
ancient Mexico Ursa Major was associated with an ocelot, I remembered the
many representations in which an ocelot is represented as confronting an
eagle, usually in mortal combat. Mexican war-chiefs were classed into two
equally honorable grades, designated as the “ocelots and the quauhtlis,
_i. e._, eagles.” The constellation of Cassiopeia presents to me, a marked
resemblance to the image of a bird with outspread wings, whose head is
turned toward Polaris. The fact that when this star-group seems to be
above, Ursa Major seems to be below, and _vice versa_, would obviously
suggest the idea of an eternal combat between two adversaries who
alternately succumbed and resuscitated. It was interesting on reasoning
further, to note that once the above idea had taken root it must have been
impossible not to associate in course of time, the quadruped and the bird
with the elements to which they seemed to pertain, and gradually to
conceive the idea of an everlasting antagonism between the powers of the
sky and of the earth, or light and darkness, and other opposites which
suggested themselves naturally, or were artificially created, by the
fertile mind of man. In this connection it should be observed that the
mythical adversary of Tezcatlipoca, the ocelot, designated as Ursa Major,
is Huitzilopochtli, whose idol, in the Great Temple of Mexico, represented
him masked as a hummingbird (see Atlas Duran). The special reason why this
bird became associated with the god is explained by the following passage
in Gomara (Histoire générale des Indes. Paris, 1584, chap. 96, p. 190):
“This bird died, or rather fell asleep in the month of October and
remained attached by its feet to a twig. It awakened again in April when
the flowers blossomed. For this reason, in the language of the country it
is named Huitzitzilin, the resuscitated.” We therefore see that whilst it
is stated in the myth that the ocelot arose again after having been cast
down from the sky by Huitzilopochtli, the very name of the latter
betokened that the bird-god had also only just “resuscitated” from a
presumably similar defeat.
[Illustration.]
Figure 8.
As one and the same object may suggest several resemblances at the same
time or consecutively, and thus give rise to a group of associations
around a single figure, I venture to point out that the zigzag form of
Cassiopeia may well have been compared to forked lightning and caused the
idea of lightning and thunder to become indissolubly connected with the
conception of a great celestial bird. Again there is the possibility that
the same star-group may have more strikingly suggested, to other people,
the idea of the winding body of a serpent describing a perpetual circle
around a central star. In Mexico, as elsewhere, we find the serpent
closely associated with the idea of time. It is represented as encircling
the calendar wheel published by Clavigero (fig. 8). Four loops, formed of
its body, mark the four divisions of the year. Twin serpents, whose heads
and tails almost meet, are sculptured around the famous calendar-stone of
Mexico. Four serpents whose bent bodies form a large swastika and whose
heads are directed towards a central figure, are represented in the Codex
Borgia in association with calendar-signs (fig. 9, _cf._ Féjérvary, p.
24). I shall have occasion to refer in detail to Mexican serpent-symbolism
further on.
Meanwhile I would submit the interesting results obtained on combining the
positions apparently assumed by the circumpolar constellations during a
single night. The tables exhibit four composite groups representing the
positions at the solstitial and equinoctial periods (fig. 10).
[Illustration.]
Figure 9.
[Illustration.]
Figure 10.
The night of the winter solstice, the longest of the year, yielded alone a
symmetrical figure. It resembled the well-known triskelion, the
companion-symbol of the swastika (figs. 10 and 11). Just as this had
proved to be the most natural of year symbols, so the triskelion revealed
itself as a natural sign of the winter solstice, the period recognized and
celebrated by most inhabitants of the northern hemisphere as the
turning-point of the year. In a climate like that of Mexico and Central
America, however, where the year divided itself naturally into a dry and a
rainy season, it is evident that the winter solstice would be less
observed and that the ardently-desired recurrence of the rainy season,
after a long and trying period of drought, should be regarded as the
annual event of utmost importance. Indeed, if carefully looked into, the
entire religious cult of these people seems to express but one great
struggling cry to the God of Nature for life-giving rain, and a hymn of
thanksgiving for the annual, precious, but uncertain gift of water.
[Illustration.]
Figure 11.
To these supplicants the winter solstice betokened little or nothing and
it is not surprising to find no proofs of the employment of the triskelion
as a sacred symbol in ancient Mexico. On the other hand, it has been
traced by Mr. Willoughby on pottery from Arkansas, and in Scandinavia,
where the circumpolar constellations have doubtlessly been observed from
remote times, and the winter solstice has ever been hailed as the herald
of coming spring, the triskelion is often found associated with the
swastika.
[Illustration.]
Figure 12.
I am indebted to Prof. Thomas Wilson’s work already cited for the two
following illustrations of objects exhibiting this association. The first
is a spearhead found in Brandenburg, Germany (fig. 12). The second is a
bronze brooch from Scandinavia, to which I shall presently revert (fig.
13). It exhibits, besides the triskelion, swastika and circle, the
S-shaped figure which was, as I shall show further on, the sign actually
employed by the ancient Mexicans and Mayas as the image of the
constellation Ursa Minor, whose outline it indeed effectually reproduces.
Before referring to the Mexican and Maya representations of the
star-group, I would next demonstrate that the sacred numbers of Mexico,
and of other countries situated in the northern hemisphere, coincide
exactly with the number of stars in the circumpolar constellations
themselves and in simple combinations of the same.
Ursa Major and Ursa Minor each contains seven stars, and the number seven
is the most widely-spread sacred number. Ancient traditions record that
the race inhabiting Mexico consisted of seven tribes who traced their
separate origins to seven caves, situated in the north. In memory of
these, at the time of the Conquest, there were seven places of sacrifice
in the city of Mexico. I shall recur to the number seven further on, in
discussing the native social organization, and now direct attention to the
five stars of Cassiopeia and to the fact that the combination of the stars
in this constellation with Polaris and Ursa Major yields the number
thirteen. This result is specially interesting since the entire
Calendar-system of Mexico and Yucatan is based on the combination of the
numerals 13+7=20, the latter again being 4×5.
[Illustration.]
Figure 13.
On the other hand the same number, 13, is also obtained by the combination
of the Ursæ star-groups with Polaris. The number 5 is constantly yielded
by Cassiopeia and the four-fold repetitions of the groups supply the
suggestion of the number 4. The combination of Ursa Minor and Cassiopeia
yields 12. The accompanying figure exhibits swastikas composed of Ursa
Minor accompanied by Ursa Major and Cassiopeia separated and combined
(fig. 14). I next direct attention to the peculiar difference in the
numerical values of the Ursæ swastikas.
In the first, the central star, surrounded by four repetitions of the
seven-star constellation, yielded a total of twenty-nine stars—4x5+9.
Further combinations will be seen by a glance at the Ursa Major swastika
(fig. 4). The analysis of the Ursa Minor swastika is not so simple and
occasions a certain perplexity.
When I had first combined the four positions of this constellation, I had,
naturally, and without further thought, figured Polaris but once, as the
fixed centre, whereas I had repeated the other stars of the compact group
four times. It was not until I began to count the stars in the swastika
that I realized how I had, unconsciously, made one central star stand for
four, and thus deprived the composite group of the numerical value of
three stars. On the other hand, if I repeated the entire constellation
four times, I obtained a swastika with four repetitions of Polaris in the
middle. In this way, however, Polaris became displaced, and the idea of a
fixed centre was entirely lost. A third possible method of composing the
swastika was to allow one central star for each cross-arm. But this gave
two central stars, each of which would represent two stars. Unless
enclosed in a circle and considered as a central group by themselves, the
four and the two repetitions of Polaris could not convey the idea of a
pivot or fixed centre. The three respective numerical values obtained from
these experimental combinations were 4×6+1=25, 4×7=28, and finally 2×13 or
4×6+2=26. In each swastika the central star forcibly stood for and
represented two or four (fig. 15).
[Illustration.]
Figure 14.
In the triskelions the same perplexity arose: if Polaris was repeated, the
idea of a fixed centre was lost (fig. 15); if figured singly, it
nevertheless necessarily and inevitably stood as an embodiment of three
stars. Reasoning from my own experience, I could but perceive, in the
foregoing facts, a fruitful and constant source of mental suggestions, the
natural outcome of which would be the association of the central star with
an enhanced numerical value, and a familiarity with the idea of one star
being an embodiment of two, three or four.
[Illustration.]
Figure 15.
As the evolution of religious thought and symbolism progressed, this idea
would obviously lead to the conception of a single being uniting several
natures in his person. In this connection it is certainly extremely
interesting to find the serpent associated with the Calendar in Mexico and
Yucatan, its Nahuatl name being homonymous for twin, _i. e._ two, and the
Maya for serpent, _can_ or _cam_, being homonymous for the number four.
The serpent was, therefore, in both countries the most suggestive and
appropriate symbol which could possibly have been employed in pictography,
to convey the idea of dual or quadruple natures embodied in a single
figure.(3) Added to this the circumstance that, to the native mind, the
serpent, upon merely shedding its skin, lived again, we can understand why
the ancient Mexicans not only employed it as a symbol of an eternal
renewal or continuation of time and of life, but also combined it with the
idea of fecundity and reproductiveness. In Yucatan where the Maya for
serpent, _can_, is almost homonymous with _caan_=sky or heaven and the
adjective _caanlil_=celestial, divine, the idea of a divine or celestial
serpent would naturally suggest itself. It is therefore not surprising to
find, in both countries, the name of _serpent_ bestowed as a title upon a
supreme, celestial embodiment of the forces of nature and its image
employed to express this association in objective form. In Yucatan one of
the surnames of Itzamná, the supreme divinity, was Canil, a name clearly
related to _caanlil_=divine and _can_=serpent.
In Mexico the duality and generative force implied by the word “coatl” are
clearly recognizable in the native invocations addressed to “Our lord
Quetzalcoatl the Creator and Maker or Former, who dwells in heaven and is
the lord of the earth [Tlaltecuhtli]; who is our celestial father and
mother, great lord and great lady, whose title is Ome-Tecuhtli [literally,
two-lord=twin lord] and Ome-Cihuatl [literally, two-lady=twin lady”]
(Sahagun, book VI, chaps. 25, 32 and 34).
The following data will suffice to render it quite clear that the Mexicans
and Mayas employed the serpent as an expressive symbol merely, signifying
the generative force of the Creator to whom alone they rendered homage. It
is no less an authority than Friar Bartholomew de las Casas who maintained
that “in many parts of the [American] Continent, the natives had a
particular knowledge of the true God; they believed that He created the
Universe and was its Lord and governed it. And it was to Him they
addressed their sacrifices, their cult and homage, in their
necessities...” (Historia Apologetica, chap. 121).
Friar Bartholomew specially adds that this was the case in Mexico
according to the authority of Spanish missionaries and no one can doubt
that this was the case when they read that in the native invocations,
preserved by Sahagun, the supreme divinity is described as “invisible and
intangible, like the air, like the darkness of night,” or as the “lord who
is always present in all places, who is [as impenetrable as] an abyss, who
is named the wind [air or breath] and the night.” “All things obey him,
the order of the universe depends upon his will—he is the creator,
sustainer, the omnipotent and omniscient.” He is termed “the father and
mother of all,” “the great god and the great goddess,” “our lord and
protector who is most powerful and most humane,”—“our lord in whose power
it is to bestow all contentment, sweetness, happiness, wealth and
prosperity, because thou alone art the lord of all things.” One prayer
concludes thus: “Live and reign forever in all peace and repose thou who
art our lord, our shelter, our comfort, who art most kind, most bountiful,
invisible and impalpable!” (Sahagun, book VI, on the rhetoric, moral
philosophy and theology of the Mexicans, chaps. 1-40). It is related that,
in gratitude for the birth of a son, the ruler of Texcoco, Nezahual-coyotl
erected a temple to the Unknown God.... It consisted of nine stories, to
symbolize the nine heavens. The exterior of the tenth, which formed the
top of the nine other stories, was painted black with stars. Its interior
was encrusted with gold, precious stones and feathers and held “the said
god, who was unknown, unseen, shapeless and formless” (Ixtlilxochitl,
Historia Chichimeca ed. Chavero, p. 227; see also p. 244). A passage in
Sahagun (book VI, chap. VII) states that “the invisible and imageless god
of the Chichimecs was named Yoalli-ehecatl [literally, night-air or wind],
which means the invisible and impalpable god ... by whose virtue all live,
who directs by merely exerting his wisdom and will.” In the Codex Fuenleal
(chap. 1) the remarkable title of “wheel of the winds=Yahualliehecatl,” is
recorded as “another name for Quetzalcoatl.” This undeniably proves that
the Mexicans not only figured the Deity by the image of a serpent but also
thought of him as a wheel which obviously symbolized centrical force,
rotation, lordship over the four quarters, _i. e._, universal rulership.
[Illustration.]
Figure 16.
Returning from these ideas of later development to the primitive source of
their suggestion, let us now examine the native picture of Xonecuilli,
Ursa Minor, preserved in the unpublished Academia MS. of Sahagun’s
Historia, in Madrid (fig. 16, no. 1). It is an exact representation of the
star-group. The fact that the seven stars are figured of the same size in
accurate relation to each other, either proves that the eyesight of the
native astronomers was extremely keen and their atmosphere remarkably
clear, or that possibly, the minor stars of the group were more brilliant
in ancient times, than they are now. Astronomers tell us, for instance,
that as late as the seventeenth century the star in the body of Ursa Major
nearest to the tail, was as bright as the others, while it is now of the
fourth magnitude only.
It must be admitted that the shape of the constellation resembles an S. An
SS sign is mentioned by Sahagun (Historia, book VIII, chap. 8) as
occurring frequently, as a symbolical design on native textile fabrics. It
figures as such, in the black garments of the female consort of
Mictlantecuhtli in the Vienna Codex, pp. 23 and 33. He denounces it as
suspect and hints that it was intimately connected with the ancient
religion.
S-shaped sacred cakes, called Xonecuilli, were made during the feast of
Macuilxochitl=five flowers, and are figured (fig. 16, no. 2) in the B. N.
MS. (p. 69) with a four-cornered cross-shaped cake of a peculiar form
(fig. 20, III), which is found associated with five dots or circles in the
Codices and also with the Tecpatl-symbol of the North (fig. 20, I and II).
A recurved staff, which is held in the hand of a deity in the B. N. MS. is
designated in the text as a _xonoquitl_ (fig. 16, no. 3). Amongst the
insignia of the “gods,” sent as presents by Montezuma to Cortés upon his
landing at Vera Cruz, were three such recurved “sceptres,” the
descriptions of which I have collated and translated in my paper on the
Atlatl or Spear-thrower of the Ancient Mexicans (Peabody Museum Papers,
vol. 1, no. 3, Cambridge, 1891, p. 22). In this work I presented my
reasons for concluding that these recurved sceptres were ceremonial forms
of the atlatl. I now perceive that they were endowed with deeper
significance and meaning. The Nahuatl text of Sahagun’s Laurentian MS. of
the Historia de la Conquista (lib. XII, chap. IV) records the name of one
of these staffs as “hecaxonecuilli,” literally “the curved or bent over,
air or wind,” and describes it as made of “bent or curved wood, inlaid
with stars formed of white jade=chalchihuite.” This passage authorizes the
conclusion that four representations in the B. N. MS. of black recurved
sceptres, exhibiting a series of white dots, are also heca-xonoquitl,
inlaid with stars, and that all of these are none other but conventional
representations of the constellation Xonecuilli, the Ursa Minor. In each
case the deity, carrying the star-image, also displays the ecacozcatl the
“jewel of the wind,” the well-known symbol of the wind-god. In one of
these pictures (p. 50) he not only bears in his hand the star-image, but
also exhibits a star-group on his head-dress, consisting of a
central-star, on a dark ground, surrounded by a blue ring. Attached to
this against a dark ground, six other stars are depicted, making seven in
all. In connection with this star-group it is interesting to note that the
hieroglyph, designated by Fra Diego de Landa as “the character with which
the Mayas began their count of days or calendar and named Hun-Imix,”
furnishes a case of an identical though inverted group (Relacion de las
Cosas de Yucatan, ed. B. de Bourbourg, p. 237). Enclosed in a black ring,
the glyph displays, above, a large black dot with six smaller ones grouped
in a semicircle about it, and below, four perpendicular bars.
Subject to correction, I am inclined to interpret this glyph as a hieratic
sign for the constellation Ursa Minor and its four movements, and to
consider it as furnishing a valuable proof of the origin of the Maya
Calendar.
The seemingly inappropriate procedure of figuring shining stars by black
dots actually furnishes the strongest proof that a star group is thus
represented; for, in the Maya language, “ek” is a homonym for star and
black, and a black spot was, in consequence, the most expressive sign for
a star. This fact affords a valuable explanation of the reason why the
ocelot, whose skin is spotted with black, was employed as the figure of
the nocturnal sky, and clearly proves that the Mexicans adopted this
symbol and its meaning from the Mayas.
[Illustration.]
Figure 17.
We will now revert to the S-shaped sign. Its association with images of
star is further exemplified in Mexican Codices. It occurs on the wall of a
temple, in combination with symbols for stars and the North-Mictlan, which
consist in this case, of skulls and cross-bones (fig. 17, II).
In the Dresden Codex, of Maya origin, there is an extremely important page
on which the S-sign occurs in connection with twin deities, besides rain
and cross symbols (fig. 17, I). A careful examination of the group shows
that one of the seated figures is accompanied by a downpour of water
(painted blue in the original), besides the S-symbol which is also
repeated above the head of his companion. Higher up, on the same page, the
S occurs again in a group of glyphs alongside of twin-seated figures.
These, as well as the single-seated form beneath them, have an eye or a
large black spot surmounted by dots instead of a head (Vocabulaire de
l’écriture hiératique de Yucatan, p. 38). Monsieur Léon de Rosny has
identified this figure, which also occurs in the Codex Troano, as the
image of the supreme divinity of the Mayas, of whom more anon, one of
whose titles was Kin-ich-ahau, literally Sun-eye lord.
A similar sign consisting of the lower half of a human body seated, with a
large eye on its knees is repeated several times in the Borgian Codex.
This form is also figured as seated in a temple, without the eye-star, but
three stars are on the roof and the S-sign is on the lower wall of the
building (Borgian Codex, p. 16).
The above facts demonstrate that, in both MSS. derived from different
sources, the same association of ideas is expressed.(4) The S sign appears
in connection with twin- or single-seated forms, surmounted by a symbol
for star. It is unnecessary for me to lay further stress upon the obvious
facts: that the only celestial body which could possibly have been
associated with a seated form, suggesting repose, was Polaris. It is,
moreover, only by assuming that the sign of the seated star represents the
stationary pole-star that its combination in the Codices with the
S-sign—Xonecuilli—Ursa Minor, can be understood. I likewise draw attention
to the possibility that the S, or single representation of the
constellation, may well have been employed as a sign for the summer
solstice, since, in some localities, during the shortest night of the
year, Ursa Minor may have been visible in one position only. Assuming that
the triskelion was the sign for the winter solstice we should thus have
natural signs for the two nights marking the turning-points of light and
darkness in the year.
Reverting to fig. 17, I, from the Codex Dresdenis, I draw attention that
it furnishes definite proof that the Mayas associated the idea of the
immovable seated star with twin deities and that they connected the
S-symbol with cross and rain symbols. A striking combination of the latter
symbols is represented under the principal seated figures. It consists of
a diagonal cross traversed perpendicularly by a band of blue water.
[Illustration.]
Figure 18.
Further Maya cross-symbols should be cursorily examined here, viz: fig.
18, I, II, III, VI, VII and VIII. They will be found to consist of
variations of two fundamental types, often figured alongside of each other
and enclosed in a square, or circle. One type consists of two diagonally
crossed bars, plain or representing cross bones (I). A rectilinear cross
with interlaced circle (II) is also found. The other type exhibits a small
cross, square, circle or dot in the centre of the square with a circle in
each corner. In some cases these are united by a series of dots to the
central circle and thus form a diagonal cross (VI and VIII) which is
sometimes figured as contained in a flower with four petals, such as is
also found in Mexican symbolism. The diagonal, dotted cross is frequently
combined with four pairs of black bars, placed in the middle of each side
of the square, pointing towards the centre. Similar pairs of black bars
are figured in the B. N. MS. (p. 3) on the manta of Mictlantecuhtli, with
stars, around one of his symbols, a spider. They likewise recur on two of
several sacrificial papers on p. 69, amongst which one exhibits a diagonal
cross, another the S-sign, while others display realistic drawings of
stars with six or eight points.
The pairs of bars figure in the hieroglyph designated by Maya scholars as
the sign for _Kin_, the sun, which may be seen in the centre of large
diagonal cross-symbols in fig. 18, VII, VIII, from the Dresden Codex: The
cross, of fig. 18, VII, is composed of two bones and two arrowpoints, a
particularly interesting combination considering that in the Maya a bone
is _bak_, an arrow is _kab-cheil_ and the name given to the gods of the
four quarters “the sustainers of the world,” is _Bakab_. It cannot be
denied that the phonetic elements of this name occur in the words for
bones and arrows which form the cross, symbolic of the four quarters. In
fig. 18, VIII, the cross may be composed of four bones, but of this I am
not certain. In both cases, however, the crosses rest on a curious double
and parti-colored symbol and are associated with serpent signs, in which
the open jaws and teeth are prominent features. It is noteworthy that
while “can” or “cam” is the Maya for serpent, the word “camach” means jaw.
The figure consisting of the upper jaw only of a serpent, in the left hand
corner of the band above, fig. 18, VIII, proves, therefore, to be a
cursive phonetic sign for serpent.
The parti-colored symbol combined with the cross obviously signifies a
duality, such as light and darkness, the Above and the Below and a series
of dualities—possibly the two divisions of the year, the dry and rainy
seasons. In Mexico we are authorized by documentary evidence, to give a
wider and deeper interpretation to the symbol of duality, for it can be
absolutely proven that the Mexican philosophers divided the heavens into
two imaginary portions, and respectively identified these with the male
and female principles.
In Nahuatl the West was designated as Cihuatlampa, “the place or part of
the women.” The souls of the women who had earned immortality were
supposed to dwell there, whilst the souls of the men resided in the East.
In the appendix to book III of Sahagun’s Historia, it is described how,
according to the native belief, the souls of the male warriors hailed the
daily appearance of the sun above the eastern horizon, and escorted it to
Nepantla, the zenith. Here the souls of the women awaited it and assumed
the duty of escorting the sun to the western horizon, the symbol for which
was calli=the house. The above passage indicates that the native
philosophers imagined across the middle of the sky a line of demarcation,
separating the portions of the heaven respectively allotted to the male
and female souls. For four years after death these souls retained their
human form, and then, after passing through nine successive heavens,
entered into the celestial paradise where they assumed the forms of
different kinds of butterflies and humming-birds. The names of these are
enumerated in the Nahuatl text of Sahagun’s Laurentian MS. (book III).(5)
The symbolism of the humming-bird has already been explained by a passage
cited from Gomara’s Historia. In this connection it is extremely
interesting to find the humming-bird represented in the B. N. MS., as
sucking honey from a flower, which is attached by a cord, covered with
bird’s down, to a bone, the symbol of death.
This peculiar but expressive group of symbols figures only on the
head-dresses of deities wearing certain other symbols, amongst which we
find the Eca-cozcatl and Eca-xonequilli the image of Ursa Minor, already
described.
The merest indication of the association of a circumpolar constellation
with the idea of death (disappearance) and resurrection (re-appearance) is
of special interest, since the ancient Mexicans located the Underworld,
the “place of the dead,” in the North. Reflection showed, however, that
such an association could only have suggested itself to the minds of
star-observers living in southern latitudes, approximate to the equator,
or in localities where the northern horizon was more or less shut off from
view by intervening mountains. In such places Polaris would appear
comparatively close to the boundary-line of the northern sky so that the
Ursa constellations and Cassiopeia would be invisible to the local
astronomers at midnight during that period of the year when one or the
other of the star-groups seemingly stretched between Polaris and the
northern horizon. A glance at plate I shows that, at the present time, it
is about the period of the autumnal equinox that Ursa Minor would be
invisible at midnight, in such localities, while Ursa Major would
gradually disappear from view towards midnight, during a certain number of
nights, according to latitude and locality, between the autumnal equinox
and the winter solstice whilst Cassiopeia would seem to hover above the
horizon. The total or partial alternate periodical disappearance of the
two most familiar star-groups in the extreme North and their re-appearance
after sometimes regular intervals of time could but have made a profound
impression upon primitive astronomers and thinkers. Whilst the mere
periodical reversal of the positions of Cassiopeia and Ursa Major
suggested alternate victory and defeat, the actual though brief and
partial disappearance of either star-group must have appeared to be a
descent into an under-ground space, associated with darkness and death,
followed by a resurrection. In his Cronica, Tezozomoc records, besides
Mictlan (the land of the dead), another name for the underworld,
Opochcal-ocan, literally, the place of the house to the left. This
appellation can only be understood when it is realized that, in a
sufficiently southern latitude, an observer, watching the setting of a
circumpolar constellation below the horizon, would always see it disappear
to his left and subsequently rise to his right. It is evident that in time
this fact would give rise to the association of the left with the
underworld, the lower region, and the right with the region above. The
native idea of a dwelling in the underworld is further demonstrated by the
bestowal of the symbol _calli_=house, upon the western horizon below which
all heavenly bodies were seen to disappear. A definite connection between
the West and one half of the North being thus established, it would
naturally result that a corresponding union of the South and East would be
thought of in time, and that these quarters would become associated with
the rising of celestial bodies, _i. e._, with light, the Above, while the
opposite quarters became identified with their setting, _i. e._, with
darkness, the Below.
Pausing to review the foregoing conclusions, which I have shown to be the
natural and inevitable result of simple but prolonged astronomical
studies, observation and plain reasoning, we see that they led to a
conception of the Cosmos as divided into seven parts, _i. e._, the fixed
Centre, the pivot, primarily suggested by Polaris who was regarded as the
creative, generative and ruling power of the universe; the Four Quarters,
seemingly ruled by the central force and associated with the elements; the
Above and the Below, suggested by the rising and setting of celestial
bodies and associated with light and darkness, sky and earth, etc., etc.
Many of my readers will doubtless recognize at once that the above
organization of the Cosmos into the Centre or Middle, the Above and the
Below, and the Four Quarters, is precisely that which the Zuñi priests
taught Mr. Frank Cushing, when they initiated him into their secret
beliefs. Other explorers have recorded the same conception amongst
different native American tribes and with these proofs that this set of
ideas is still held on our Continent at the present time, I point out the
fact that the Maya figures (fig. 18, VII and VIII, from the Dresden Codex)
become perfectly intelligible only when interpreted as representing the
Centre, the Four Quarters, the Above and the Below, the latter figured by
the dark and light halves of the dual sign. Furthermore, I can demonstrate
that this fundamental set of elementary, abstract ideas, furnishing the
first principles of organization, is plainly visible under the surface of
the ancient Mexican civilization and can be traced not only in Yucatan and
Central America, but also in Peru. In these countries, as I shall show, it
assumed an absolute dominion over the minds of the native sages, directly
suggesting the forms of government and social organization existing at the
time of the Conquest and faintly surviving to the present day. It entirely
controlled the development of aboriginal religious cult and philosophical
speculations and pervaded not only the native architecture and decorative
art, but also all superstitious rites and ceremonies, and entered into the
very games and pastimes of the people.
The following table presents the bare outline of the scheme of
organization exposed in the preceding text. In making it I have, after due
consideration, definitely adopted the assignment of the Mexican symbols
and colors to the cardinal points given by Friar Duran in the
Calendar-swastika contained in his atlas and reproduced (pl. II, _g_).
Each of these is North; West; South; then East.
Symbols: Tecpatl, Flint; Calli, House; Acatl, Cane; Tochtli,
Rabbit.
Colors: Red; Yellow; Blue; Green.
Elements: Fire; Earth; Air; Water.
Warmth; Darkness; Breath; Rain.
Together, North and West are The Below, the “female” region.
TEZCATLIPOCA=MICTLANTECUHTLI.
South and East are The Above, the “male” region, HUITZILOPOCHTLI.
Combined, they are The Centre.
The dual, generative, ruling and directive Force.
QUETZALCOATL.
The Divine Twin.
Before proceeding to examine more closely the great edifice of human
thought which was reared, in the course of centuries, on the ground plan
designated above, we must retrace our steps and consider what a deep
impression the gradual realization of the changes in the relative
positions of Polaris and certain familiar star-groups must have produced
upon those who were the first to realize them. Transporting ourselves back
to the gray dawn of civilization, let us endeavor to understand the
position of the native priest astronomers who, having received and
transmitted a set of religious and cosmical ideas, based on the assumption
of the absolute and eternal immutability of the centre of the heaven,
Polaris, gradually became aware that it also was subject to change,
evidently obeyed an unseen higher power and that the ancient order of
things, recorded by their predecessors, had actually passed away.
It is obvious that, in all centres of astronomical observation and
intellectual culture, a complete revolution of fundamental doctrine or
thought must have taken place. A period of painful misgivings and doubt
must have been passed through, during which an earnest and anxious
observation of all celestial bodies must have seemed imperative and
obligatory. Under such circumstances astronomy must have made great
strides and astronomical observation become the foremost and highest duty
of the intellectual leaders of the native races. Pyramids and temples
would be built for the purpose of verifying and recording the positions of
sun, moon, planets and stars, and the orientation of these buildings would
be carefully planned accordingly. Before obtaining glimpses of the great
evolution of religious thought which progressed on our Continent in olden
times, it is well to realize, by means of Piazzi Smyth’s map (fig. 6) that
the world ceased to possess a brilliantly conspicuous, absolutely
immovable pole-star for a prolonged period of time, stretching somewhere
between 500 B.C. and 1200 A.D.
The ancient native chronicles record that under “divine” leadership great
migrations of tribes took place within this period, the purpose of which
was to find a locality which fulfilled certain ardently-desired conditions
connected with religious cult.
From various centres of civilization in Mexico and Central America we also
hear different accounts of how, at different times, small bands of earnest
men, under a leader of superior intelligence, bent on a peaceable but
unexplained errand, arrived from distant regions and departed for an
unknown goal, after delaying just long enough to teach social organization
and impart a higher civilization to the tribes encountered on their
passage.
These preserved the memory of the _title_ of the leader, in their
different languages and he became the culture-hero of their tribe. The
fact that, in each case, these sages taught the ignorant tribes the
division of time and instituted the calendar, proves that they were
skilled in astronomy.
From a sentence uttered by Montezuma to the native astronomers whom he
termed “the Sons of the Night,” we learn that it was their custom “to
climb mountains” so as “to study the stars.” When one considers the full
import of the problems which had to be faced by these ancient sages, who
earnestly endeavored to account for the great changes which had taken
place in the heavens, within the memory of man, it seems natural to
suppose that many an expedition was undertaken for the purpose of
acquiring further astronomical knowledge, of finding, perhaps, the
immovable star which had been revered in past ages by the ancestors of the
native race.
The cult of Polaris may well have made such expeditions assume the aspect
of an imperative religious duty and sacred pilgrimage. As all expeditions
across Mexico and Central America would necessarily be limited by the
oceans and be fruitless as far as Polaris was concerned, it is obvious
that the line of exploration which would be ultimately adopted, would run
from south to north and _vice versa_. A small band of enthusiasts, setting
forth under the leadership of some of the most advanced thinkers of the
time, would undoubtedly have been prepared to devote their entire lives to
the object in view. As long as a single member of such an expedition
existed, he would be a powerful and active agent in spreading the
fundamental set of ideas derived from the observation of Polaris. In lapse
of time, by transmission, its influence might travel to a region too
remote perhaps for direct contact to have taken place.
If I have indulged in the foregoing line of conjecture and surmise, it is
because it is my purpose also to demonstrate, by absolute proof, that the
dominion of the above set of ideas extended over Yucatan, Honduras,
Guatemala and even reached Peru, where its influence is distinctly
visible.
It also extended far to the north in prehistoric times, for certain carved
shell-gorgets which have been found in prehistoric graves in Illinois,
Missouri and Tennessee exhibit emblems which have definite meanings in the
Maya language, spoken in Yucatan.
In order to maintain this assertion I must make a slight digression from
the main subject and revert to the myth already cited, recording the
casting down from heaven of Tezcatlipoca who arose and ascended again in
the form of an ocelot. There are interesting native pictures of this
combat and the fall of the ocelot in the Vatican Codex II, p. 34, the
Féjérvary Codex, p. 56, and others equally important, representing the
fall or descent of an eagle from the sky, to which I shall revert.
It is moreover recorded by Mendieta (p. 82) that Tezcatlipoca likewise
descended or let himself down from the sky by a spider’s thread, and in
the Bodleian MS. (p. 12) there are two curious pictures one of an ocelot
and a cobweb, the other of an ocelot, descending head foremost from stars.
The same incident is also pictured in the Vienna Codex (p. 9) where the
ocelot, attached by the tail, is connected by a cord with star-emblems.
There are two facts of special interest in regard to the above descent of
Tezcatlipoca by a spider’s thread. The first is that the title
Tzontemoc=“he who descends head foremost” is recorded in the Codex
Fuenleal immediately after the name Mictlantecuhtli. The second is that
the spider is figured on the manta of Mictlantecuhtli in the B. N. MS. and
is sculptured in the centre, above his forehead, in his sculptured image,
identified as such by Señor Sanchez (Anales del Museo Nacional III, p.
299) and reproduced here (fig. 19). It represents “the lord of the North
or Underworld” descending, head foremost, with a tecpatl or flint knife
issuing from his mouth and with outspread limbs, the outlines of which are
almost lost under the multitude of symbols which are grouped around him.
These symbols are carefully analyzed in my commentary on the B. N. MS. in
which I also describe other known carved representations of the same
conception and point out analogous pictures in the Maya Codices. The
position of the limbs of the descending figure is best understood by a
glance at fig. 20, II, from the Dresden Codex. It represents a bar with
cross symbols from which a human body is descending. The feet rest on dual
symbols, about which more could be written than the scope of the present
paper allows. A tecpatl or flint knife, attached to the body by a double
bow with ends, may be seen between the dual symbols, and its presence is
of utmost importance since it proves that the Mayas also associated the
flint with the same figure. Instead of a head the body exhibits a sort of
equidistant cross with four circles. Strange to say, the only analogous
cross-figures I have been able to find in all the Codices are those
reproduced in fig. 20, I, III, and IV. The latter exhibits a curious,
conventionalized flower growing on the top of a pyramid. Its stem and
leaves are painted brown and are spotted, resembling the skin of an
ocelot. As there is a Mexican flower, the Tigridia, of which the native
name was ocelo-xochitl, it may be that it is this which is thus
represented. Fig. 20, III, from the B. N. MS., figures as a sacred cake,
alongside of the S-shaped xonecuilli breads which were made in honor of
Ursa Minor at a certain feast. Finally, fig. 20, I, represents a certain
kind of ceremonial staff which is inserted between the two peaks of a
mountain—a favorite method employed by the native scribes, to convey the
idea that the object figured was in the exact centre. This kind of staff
occurs frequently in certain Codices, sometimes being carried by a high
priest. It invariably exhibits a flower-like figure with five circles and
is surmounted by a tecpatl or flint knife. Without pausing to discuss the
subject fully I merely point out here that, collectively, these symbols
explain each other and convey the idea of the Centre and the Four Quarters
evidently associated with the tecpatl, the symbol of the north, and the
ocelot and xonecuilli=Ursa Minor. It is particularly interesting to note
that the outspread human body is made to serve as a sort of cross-symbol.
A careful study of the conventional representation of the face of “the
lord of the North,” in fig. 19, gives the impression that it was also used
to convey the idea of duality, or the union of two in one. The upper half
of the face exhibits a numeral on either cheek under the eyes, seeming to
convey the idea of dualities. The two circular ear ornaments, united by a
band above the head, and the two nostrils united in one nose, seem to
convey the idea of the union of the dualities, whilst the lower half of
the face, which is rendered strikingly different to the upper, by being in
higher relief and marked with perpendicular lines, exhibits a mouth from
which a flint knife, with symbolical eye and fangs carved on it, is
hanging like a tongue. I have already shown that the flint knife was
regarded as the sacred producer of the “vital spark.” I may add here that
I have also found, in the Codices, tecpatl-symbols on which the curved
symbol of air or breath was figured. To my idea the sculptured face is
meant to symbolize the dual creator, the dispenser of the spark and breath
of life, whilst the human skull on his back betokens that he is also the
giver of death. Though unable to enter fully into the subject here, I
would nevertheless state that I can produce further data to prove that the
human face was frequently employed for a symbolical purpose by the native
American races who were evidently entirely under the dominion of the idea
of duality, of the Above and Below and the life-producing union of both.
[Illustration.]
Figure 19.
[Illustration.]
Figure 20.
The question why the spider, named “tocatl” in Nahuatl, should have been
adopted as the chief symbol of Mictlantecuhtli, occupied me much until I
found the clue to its significance in the Maya language. In this the word
for North is _Aman_ and the name for “the spider whose bite is mortal,” is
_Am_. This striking fact may be interpreted as a positive proof that the
spider-symbol, employed by the Mexicans, must have originated in Yucatan,
from the mere homonymy of two Maya words.
On the other hand shell-gorgets exhibiting the effigy of a spider, and
obviously intended to be worn with its head turned downwards, have not
only been found in Illinois but also in Tennessee and Missouri. On the
gorgets from the latter States a cross is carved on the body of the spider
(fig. 22, _a_). As certain spiders exhibit cross-markings, it is, of
course, possible that it was chosen as a cross-symbol for this reason
only, in some localities, just as the butterfly was evidently adopted in
Mexico, as an apt image of the Centre and the Four Quarters on account of
its shape and its possession of four wings. The conventionalized figure of
a butterfly, with a star on its body and four balls, painted with the
colors of the quarters, was a sacred symbol which is minutely described by
Sahagun and is figured on a manta in the B. N. MS. A glance at its
reproduction (fig. 21, no. 13) shows how the form of the insect has been
conventionalized so as to resemble the ollin (no. 12) and other Mexican
cross-symbols (nos. 2, 4, 11, 14 etc.). The eye or star in its centre,
like that in the ollin, and circle (no. 4), signify Polaris; the
conventionalized head and antennæ are obviously made to convey the idea of
“two in one,” of the Above and Below united in the Centre.
[Illustration.]
Figure 21.
I venture to suggest that the dragon-fly was employed as a cross-symbol in
an analogous manner, on the Algonquin garment preserved at the Riksmuseum,
Stockholm, and described by Dr. Hjalmar Stolpe in his admirable study on
American art (Amerikansk Ornamentik, Stockholm, 1896, p. 30). As I shall
revert to it later on, I now draw special attention to the circumstance
that instead of the cross, on a spider-gorget from Tennessee, there is a
round hole which, when the shell-disc is held aloft, lets a ray of light
shine through and furnishes an apt presentation of a star. This and the
cross furnish analogies to the Mexican and Maya symbols of Polaris which
are too obvious to need to be emphasized. Nor do these gorgets alone
furnish an undeniable indication that an identical symbolism extended from
Yucatan to Illinois. Other gorgets, also figured in Mr. Wm. H. Holmes’
monograph “Art in Shell,” several of which are in the Peabody Museum, from
the stone graves in Tennessee, exhibit variously carved representations of
a serpent. In all specimens the identical idea is carried out: the eye of
the serpent forms the centre of the design on the disc and four circles on
the body of the reptile, or four solid bars, interrupting a hollow line
encircling the central motif, emphasized a division of the disc into four
equal parts. The idea of the Serpent in repose, the Centre and the Four
Quarters is thoroughly carried out and the true meaning of the design is
only appreciated by the light of the Maya and Mexican symbolism which has
already been so fully discussed.
[Illustration.]
Figure 22.
The third Tennessee gorget reproduced here (fig. 22, _c_), from Mr.
Holmes’ work, exhibits a combination of numerals which is particularly
interesting if confronted with the sacred numbers of the Mexicans and
Mayas. From a central circle three curved lines issue in a fashion
resembling those on fig. 21, no. 2, but the fact that the circular band
exhibits seven double circles and the outer edge is divided into thirteen
parts, is of special moment. Still another design, on a shell-gorget from
Tennessee, not only exhibits the peculiarity, pointed out by Mr. Holmes,
of a square with loops, resembling certain figures in Mexican Codices, but
also other significant details which I shall point out (fig. 22, _b_). The
cross in the centre occupies the centre of a star with eight rays and the
four birds’ heads at the sides of the square illustrate rotation from
right to left. I am inclined to view in this gorget an emblem of Polaris
with Cassiopeia in rotation around it, figured as a bird, but whether this
is the case or not it must be conceded that it is indeed remarkable to
find a set of symbols, consisting of the spider, the cross, the serpent
and the bird, carved on prehistoric gorgets found in the United States
whilst the deep meaning of these identical symbols is furnished by Maya
and Mexican records. I venture to remark here that no more expressive and
appropriate ornament than these shell-gorgets could have been designed, or
worn by the ancient Maya or Mexican priests, prophets and leaders who, in
a remote past, had guided themselves by the light of Polaris and
instituted its cult as the basis of their native religion.
On realizing the above-mentioned identity of symbolism, it is impossible
not to conclude that the prehistoric race which inhabited certain parts of
the United States was under the dominion of the same ideas as were the
Mexicans and Mayas. The indications point, in fact, to the probability
that the origin of the employment of the spider-symbol originated in
Yucatan, and if this be admitted then there is no reason to deny the
possibility that the serpent-symbol came from there also, since the Maya
language suggests an affinity between the serpent, _can_, and the
sky=_caan_, and the numeral 4=_can_. I refrain, for the present, from
expressing any final conclusion on this subject, which will doubtless
afford ample food for reflection and argument to all interested in the
important problem as to where the cradle of ancient American civilization
was situated. But these symbolic gorgets go far towards substantiating
Professor Putnam’s oft-expressed conclusions that the ancient peoples of
the central and southern portions of the United States were, to a certain
extent, offshoots of the ancient Mexicans.
[Illustration.]
Figure 23.
Before abandoning the subject of native symbolism and star-emblems I
should like to present, as a curiosity, with an appeal to specialists to
enlighten me as to the astronomical knowledge of the Eskimos, an Eskimo
drawing from Professor Wilson’s instructive and useful monograph. It is
said to represent a “flock of birds,” but so closely resembles Cassiopeia
and Polaris that I am tempted to view it as an indication that the Eskimos
may also have associated the idea of a celestial bird, or birds, wheeling
around a central point, with the constellation and the pole-star (fig.
23). Having once ventured so far afield, I cannot refrain from presenting
here an interesting set of aboriginal star-symbols, reproduced from
Professor Wilson’s comprehensive work (fig. 24), each composed of a cross
combined, with a single exception, with a circle. I draw attention to the
striking resemblance of some of these signs to those painted on the finely
decorated pottery found on the hacienda of Don José Luna, in Nicaragua,
and described by J. F. Brandsford, M.D. (Archaeological Researches in
Nicaragua, Smithsonian Inst., 1881, p. 30, B), and suggest that, in both
localities, the symbol may be a rudimentary swastika, and represent
Polaris and circumpolar rotation.
[Illustration.]
Plate III. 1. Shell gorget, Missouri. 2, 5-14. Pottery vessels, Arkansas.
3, 4, 15-17, 19-28. Pottery vessels, Missouri. 18. Pottery vessel,
Kentucky. 6. National Museum. 3, 16, 17, 21, 24, 25. St. Louis Academy.
All others Peabody Museum. Willoughby, “Pottery from the Mississippi
Valley.” Journal of American Folk-lore, January-March, 1897.
In conclusion I refer the reader to Mr. C. C. Willoughby’s valuable and
most interesting “Analysis of the decorations upon pottery from the
Mississippi Valley” (Journal Amer. Folk-lore, vol. X, 1897), in which he
figures the remarkable specimens preserved in the Peabody Museum,
Cambridge, the designs on which, as he states, “are mostly of symbolic
origin and have been in use among various tribes within the historic
period from the Great Lakes to Mexico.” With the kind permission of the
editor of the Journal, I reproduce some of Mr. Willoughby’s illustrations
on Plate III.
[Illustration.]
Figure 24. Crosses And Circles Representing Star Symbols, Arizona.
Returning to consider the probable result of the gradual diffusion of
star-cult owing to natural causes and of the consequent divergence from
the idea of the Centre, which had so deeply influenced the minds of
primitive men during many centuries, with earnest, and extended
astronomical observation, keeping pace with the development of the idea of
the Above and Below, it is obvious that the utmost attention would be next
given to the conspicuous star groups and planets which are visible at
certain times and then seem to have departed or descended into the under
world. Any one who has read the interesting communications by Herr Richard
Andree (Globus. bd. LXIV, nr. 22), On the relation of the Pleiades to the
beginning of the year amongst primitive people, followed by a note by Herr
Karl von den Steinen on the same subject, will realize that
widely-separated tribes of men, by dint of simple observation, knew the
exact length of the periodical appearance and disappearance of this star
group and regulated their year accordingly. Herr Andree cites, for
instance, that “in the Society islands, the year was divided into two
portions, the first of which was named Matari-i-inia=the Pleiades above.
It began and lasted during the time when these constellations were visible
close to the horizon after sunset. The second period, named
Matarii-i-raro=the Pleiades below, began and lasted for the time during
which the star-group was invisible after sunset” (W. Ellis, Polynesian
Researches, vol. II, p. 419, London 1829). That the ancient Mexicans had
likewise observed the Pleiades and been deeply impressed by them is proven
by the well-known fact that the ceremony of the kindling of the sacred
fire, which betokened the commencement of a new cycle, was performed “when
the Pleiades attained the zenith at midnight precisely.” In my complete
monograph in the ancient Mexican calendar-system it will be my endeavor to
present all the data I have collected concerning the degree of elementary
astronomical knowledge attained by the native astronomers. I shall,
therefore, content myself with pointing out here that besides the
foregoing testimony about the Pleiades, the native name for which was the
miec=the many, or the tianquiztli=the marketplace, there are records
proving that the cult of the planet Venus was a firmly established feature
of the native religion at the time of the Conquest. Sahagun records that
the Nahuatl names for this planet were citlalpul or hueycitlallin both
signifying “the great star.” “In the great temple of Mexico an edifice
named ilhuicatitlan [literally, the land of the sky] consisted of a great,
high column, on which the morning star was painted.... Captives were
sacrificed in front of this column annually, at the period when the star
re-appeared” (_op. cit._ appendix to book II).
With regard to the connection of the Pleiades with the beginning of the
Mexican cycle, it is interesting to note Herr Andree’s statements that the
most intimate connection of the star-group with the thoughts of primitive
people, would naturally take place in such localities where its periodical
movements coincided with the changes of season, wind and weather which
affected agriculture. A survey of the data presented by Herr Andree shows
that the cult of the Pleiades attained its greatest development amongst
tribes inhabiting a southerly latitude. It was in South America, indeed,
that the Peruvians, alongside of their highly developed sun-cult, rendered
homage and offered sacrifices to the Pleiades. In Mexico, the cult of the
Pleiades appears as intimately associated with that of the sun and to have
assumed importance only in historical and comparatively recent times,
probably when the periodicity of the sun’s movements had been taught or
recognized and the sign _ollin_, which is an exact presentation of the
annual course of the sun, had been invented and adopted as a symbol. I
have already pointed out that this sign occurs on the calendar-stone, for
instance, which has a human face in its centre, bearing two numerals on
the forehead and obviously symbolizing the union of two in one. In other
instances the centre displays the eye, or star symbol and conveys the
suggestion that the “four movements” of the circumpolar constellations
were thereby symbolized. It may be that, in ancient Mexico, the two
symbols, respectively referring to the movements of the sun and of the
circumpolar star-groups, were emblematic of the two different cults or
religions which existed alongside of each other. The first, the cult of
the Above, of the Blue Sky, was directed towards the sun and the planets
and stars intimately associated with sunrise and sunset, amongst them the
Pleiades. The cult of the Below, of the Nocturnal Heaven, was directed
towards the moon, Polaris and the circumpolar constellations—also to the
stars and planets during the period of their disappearance and possibly in
the same way to the enigmatical “Black Sun,” figured in the B. N. MS.
which may have been the sun during its nightly stay in the House of the
Underworld, whose door was in the west. In order to obtain an idea of the
immense proportions ultimately assumed by these two diverging cults and
the enormous influence they exerted upon the entire native civilization,
it will be necessary to examine the form of the social organization in
Montezuma’s time.
In order to comprehend this, however, it is first necessary to study
carefully the myths relating to its origin. Torquemada (lib. VI, chap. 41)
cites the authority of Friar Andreas de Olmos for the following native
account of the creation of man, which was differently recounted to him in
each province. He states that the majority of the natives, however, agreed
that “there was in heaven a god named ‘Shining Star’ (Citlal-Tonac) and a
goddess named ‘She of the starry skirt’ (Citlal-Cue), who gave birth to a
flint knife (Tecpatl). Their other children, startled at this, cast the
flint down from the sky. It fell to earth at the place named ‘Seven caves’
and ‘produced 1,600 gods and goddesses,’ ” a figure of speech which
evidently expressed the idea that, in coming in forcible contact with the
soil the flint gave forth sparks innumerable which conveyed vitality to
numberless beings. It is evidently the same idea of “life sparks” being
called into existence by the union of heaven and earth which underlies the
Texcocan version of the creation of man recorded as follows by Torquemada
(_op. et loc. cit._). “The sun ... shot an arrow towards the land of
Acolma near the boundary of Texcoco. This made a hole in the ground whence
issued the first man....”
[Illustration.]
Figure 25.
The illustrated version of the above myths, given in the Vatican Codex I,
designates the celestial progenitor of human life as Quetzalcoatl, also
named Tonaca-Tecuhtli=the lord of our subsistence, Chicome-xochitl=“Seven
roses or flowers” and Citlalla-Tonalla=“The Milky Way,” literally, The
shining stars. The dual divinity is figured (fig. 25, no. 4) as two
persons with the shaft of an arrow over each of their heads and with the
symbol Tecpatl=flint, between them as the issue of their union. In the
Borgian Codex (fig. 25, no. 1), a barbed arrowpoint, instead of the
Tecpatl, figures between the celestial parents. Their union is symbolized
by a covering, the shape of which, in further representations (fig. 25,
nos. 3 and 5) in the same MS., offers resemblance to the tau-shaped
windows which are such a common feature in Maya and also in Pueblo
architecture (fig. 25, no. 2_b_). The preceding data, which could be
amplified, seem to show that the natives associated the tau-shape not
merely with the idea of the Male and Female principles, but also with the
Above and the Below, or Heaven (air and water) and Earth (earth and fire).
I shall have occasion, further on, to refer again to the symbolism of the
native tau.
The above illustrations, however, definitely prove that the flint knife
and the arrow (with a flint point, presumably), were indiscriminately
designated as the medium by means of which the spark of life was created
and imparted to earth-born beings.
It will be proved further that, at the period of the Conquest, the arrow
was revered as an image of life-producing force in Yucatan and Mexico. The
flint knife cased in wrappings was called “the son” of Cihuacoatl, the
earth-mother, and was regarded as her special symbol. It is significant,
therefore, to find that it was the emblem of office of one of the two high
priests, who alone employed it, as a sacrificial knife, in performing his
awful duty of immolating human victims.
The fact that the cane-shaft of an arrow figures above the head of the
celestial couple in the Vatican Codex is particularly interesting because
the name Ome-Acatl=Two-Cane, is given as the name of a divinity by Sahagun
(book I, chap. 15) and that the ceremony of kindling the New Fire, at the
commencement of a cycle of years was also associated with the calendar
sign Ome-Acatl (Sahagun, book VII, chap. 10).
At a certain festival images of Omacatl were manufactured and carried by
the devout to their houses in order to receive from them “blessings and
multiplication of possessions” (Sahagun, book II, chap. 19).
I draw attention to the fact that life is supposed to have proceeded from
the union of stellar divinities, that the Tecpatl and flint are the
well-known symbols for the North and Fire and that the Vatican commentator
identifies the celestial parent as “Seven-Flowers.” What is more, Duran
(vol. I, pp. 8 and 9) relates that the native race was organized into
seven separate tribes and that these “claimed to have come out of ‘seven
caves’ (Chicom-oztoc) which were situated in Teo-Culhuacan or Aztlan ‘a
land of which all men know that it is in the North.’ ” Now Teo-Culhuacan
is composed of the word Teotl, which designated the stars, the sun, the
gods and, by extension, something divine or celestial. Culhua (_cf._
Coloa) means something bent over or recurved, or the action of describing
a circle by moving around something, and _can_ means “the place of” in
Nahuatl. This locality is represented in the picture-writings by a strange
and impossible mountain with a recurved summit (fig. 26, no. 1). Aztlan
literally means “the land of whiteness, brightness, light.” In Duran’s
Atlas the seven caves are represented as containing men and women—the
progenitors of the seven tribes. The order in which these are described,
in the Mexican myth, as having issued from the caves, is instructive and
sheds light upon the provenance and purpose of the tradition. It
represents the Mexicans as the superior predestined race who remained in
their cave the “longest, by divine command,” their “god having promised
them this land.” The tradition relates that six tribes reached and settled
down in the central plateau of Mexico, 302 years before the Aztecs
arrived, under the leadership of Huitzilopochtli an oracular divinity,
whose commandments were transmitted to the people by four priests (Duran,
chap. II).
In my opinion it is impossible to study the above and supplementary data
without realizing that the native race assigned its origin to a dual
star-divinity, associated with the Tecpatl, the symbol for the North and
for Fire. The peculiarity that the divinity is designated as
Seven-flowers, and that there were seven tribes, indicates that the native
idea was that each tribe came from one of the seven stars in Ursa Major or
Minor. The Aztecs seem to have claimed for themselves the descent from the
superior star, the central one, and to have thus justified or supported
their ultimate establishment of a central government which ruled over the
other six tribes.
[Illustration.]
Figure 26.
The assumption that the native race claimed descent from the Ursa Major or
Minor constellation is further supported by the fact that the shape of the
mythical recurved mountain and the name Aztlan=land of light or brightness
are simultaneously explained, as well as the number of caves and tribes.
It does not seem to be a mere coincidence that in two totally different
Codices (the Selden MS. p. 7, Kingsborough, vol. 1, and the B. N. MS., p.
70) a sacred dance is represented as executed by seven individuals who
move around a central seated personage. In the latter MS. the seated
figure wears a head-dress surmounted by flint knives and his face is
painted _red_ the color assigned to the North. Moreover the dance is
taking place before an image of Mictlan-Tecuhtli, the lord of the North,
whose raiment is strewn with cross-symbols. Referring to other native
dances we find that the most sacred of all dances was performed at the
festival of the god of fire by priests only, who, smeared with black paint
to typify darkness and night, carried two torches in each hand and first
sat, then slowly moved, in a circle, around the “divine brazier,” and
finally cast their torches into it (Duran II, p. 174). This, probably the
most ancient of sacred dances, must have been extremely impressive and
significative to those who witnessed it, at night-time, from the base of
the pyramid and heard the distant solemn chant of the dancers. To watchers
from afar, the fire and the lighted torches revolving around must have
seemed like a great central star with other stars wheeling about it.
Further on, it will be shown that the earliest form under which the Deity
was revered was that of fire and the foregoing description fully explains
why it was first chosen as the most fitting image of the central immovable
star. It has already been shown that, in the popular game of “the flyers,”
a high pole surmounted by one man served as the pivot for the
circumvolation of the four performers, who “acted” the “flight of time.”
The idea of an extended rule, proceeding from a central dual force, was,
however, carried out on a grand scale in the most solemn of all public
dances named the Mitotiliztli. Duran (II, p. 85) states that as many as
“8,600 persons danced in a wheel in the courtyard of the Great Temple,
which had four doorways, facing the cardinal points and opening out on to
the four principal high roads leading to the capital. The doorways were
respectively named after the four principal gods and were spoken of as
‘the doorway of such and such a god.’ ”
Clavigero, to whose work (Historia, ed. Mora, Mexico, 1844, p. 234) I
refer the reader for further details, describes the dances at the time of
the Conquest as having been most beautiful, and relates that the natives
were exercised in these, from their childhood, by the priests. This
authority also relates that the Mitotiliztli was performed by hundreds of
dancers at certain solemn festivals, in the great central square of the
city or in the courtyard of the temple, and gives the following
description:
The centre of the space was occupied by two individuals (designated
elsewhere as high priests) who beat measure on sacred drums of two kinds.
One, the large huehuetl, emitted an extremely loud, deep tone, which could
be heard for miles and was usually employed in the temples as a means of
summoning to worship, etc. The second, the teponaztle, was a small
portable wooden drum which was usually worn suspended from the neck by the
leader in warfare and emitted the shrill piercing note he employed as a
signal. The chieftains (each of which personified a god) surrounded the
two musicians, forming several concentric circles, close to each other. At
a certain distance from the outer one of these, the persons of an inferior
class were placed in circles and these were separated by another interval
of space, from the outermost circles, composed of young men and boys. The
illustration given by Clavigero records the order and disposition of this
sacred dance, which represented a kind of wheel, the centre of which was
occupied by the instruments and their players. The spokes of the wheel
were as many as there were chieftains in the innermost circle. All moved
in a circle while dancing and strictly adhered to their respective
positions. Those who were nearest the centre, the chieftains and elders,
moved slowly, with gravity, having a smaller circle to perform. The
dancers forming the outer circles were, however, forced to move with
extreme rapidity, so as to preserve the straight line radiating from the
centre and headed by the chieftains. The measure of the dance and of the
chorus chanted by the participants was beaten by the drums and the
musicians asserted their absolute control of the great moving wheel of
human beings, by alternately quickening or slackening the measure. The
perfect harmony of the dance, which successive sets of dancers kept going
for eight or more hours, was only disturbed occasionally by certain
individuals who pushed their way through the lines of dancers and amused
these by indulging in all sorts of buffoonery. No one, on reading the
above description of the most ancient and sacred of native dances can fail
to recognize that it was an actual representation of axial rotation and
that no more effective method of rendering the apparent differences in the
degrees of velocity in the movements of the circumpolar and equatorial
stars, could possibly have been devised. The fact that this dance was a
most solemn and sacred rite, whose performance was obligatory to the
entire population, indicates that it constituted an act of general
obedience and homage and a public acknowledgment of the absolute dominion
of a central dual, ruling power.
It is particularly interesting that, in this dance, the latter is
represented by two individuals who respectively employ the sacred drum of
the priesthood, and that used by war chieftains only (the one instrument
emitting a low and the other a high tone); for the culture hero of the
Tzendals, Votan, who, with the aid of his followers, taught this tribe the
civil laws of government and the religious ceremonials, was entitled “the
Master of the sacred Drum.” (See Brinton, American Hero-Myths, p. 214.)
Reverting to the organization of the native race into seven tribes and the
wandering of the seventh and principal division, under the leadership of
Huitzilopochtli: according to Tezozomoc (Cronica, p. 23), Huitzilopochtli
was accompanied by “a woman who was called his sister and was carried by
four men. She was a powerful sorceress, possessed the power of assuming
the shape of an eagle, had made herself greatly feared and caused herself
to be adored as a goddess.” Indignant at her arrogance the priests
counselled a course which was adopted by the Mexicans. The woman and her
family were left behind at Malinalco where they settled and populated a
town, whilst the other portion of the tribe, under strictly masculine
rule, advanced towards Tula where they established themselves. “This was
the second division which had taken place, amongst the Mexicans or Aztecs
... and when they reached Tula they found their number greatly
diminished.” This same incident is related with greater detail by
Torquemada (vol. I, chap. II) from which we learn what a great animosity
was felt against the woman. On one occasion, which I shall not pause to
describe, two war chiefs menaced her. The “talk” she gave them in return
is so remarkable that it deserves to be quoted in full; for it affords a
deep insight into the native mode of expression, teaches us the titles of
the woman and shows that her position was undoubtedly one of powerful
authority.
“I am Quilaztli, your sister and of your tribe ... you know this and yet
you think that the dispute or difference you have with me is like an
ordinary one, such as you might wage with any ordinary base woman, who
possessed little spirit or courage. If you indulge in this thought you are
deceiving yourselves, for I am valiant and manly and my titles will oblige
you to acknowledge this. For besides the ordinary name of Quilaztli, by
which you know me, I also possess four titles, by which I know myself: the
first of these is Cihuacoatl=the Woman-serpent (or twin); the second is
Quauh-Cihuatl=the Eagle-woman; the third is Yao-Cihuatl=the Woman-warrior
and the fourth is Tzitzimi-Cihuatl, the Woman of the Underworld. From the
properties or qualities conveyed by these titles you can appreciate who I
am; what power I yield and what harm I can do you and if you want to test
the truth of this, here is my challenge!”
“The two brave captains, undaunted by the arrogant words by which she
attempted to terrify them, responded: ’If you are as valiant as you
describe yourself to be, we are not less so; but you are a woman and it is
not meet that it should be said of us that we took up arms against women;’
and without speaking further they left her, much affronted that a woman
should challenge and defy them. And they kept silence about this
occurrence so that their people should not know of it.” Señor Alfredo
Chavero (appendix, p. 125, to Duran’s Historia, Mexico, 1880), commenting
upon this passage, says: “It is impossible to doubt that this tradition
refers to an important event in the history of the Aztec tribe.... I think
it contains the record of a religious struggle.”
The full significance of the narrative will become clear, I think, when
the following points are dwelt upon. One thing is certain: here is a
historical personage, a woman, who was termed _the sister_ of
Huitzilopochtli, who evidently exerted a high authority and whose titles
were actually the names of the highest female divinity. Sahagun (book VI,
chap. 37) states that Quilaztli, a goddess, the same as Cihuacoatl, was
the mother of all and was also named Tonant-zin=“our mother.” What is more
significant still is that, in all historical records antedating the
Conquest, a man bearing the feminine title of Cihuacoatl=serpent woman, is
distinctly and repeatedly mentioned as the coadjutor of the Mexican ruler.
Mr. Ad. Bandelier, in his careful study “On the social organization and
mode of government of the Ancient Mexicans” (Twelfth Annual Report of the
Peabody Museum of Am. Arch, and Ethn., Cambridge, 1879) to which I refer
the reader, discusses the relative positions of Montezuma and the
Cihuacoatl and states: “there is no doubt about their _equality_ of rank
though their duties were somewhat different” (p. 665). This equality is
illustrated by the records that both rulers shared the same privileges
regarding dress. Thus they alone wore sandals and the Cihuacoatl is termed
“the second or double of the king, his coadjutor” (Duran, chap. XXXII, p.
255 and Tezozomoc, chap. XL, p. 66). The latter author, however, gives the
full “sacred title” as Tlil-Potonqui Cihuacoatl, literally, “the
black-powdered woman-serpent” and we thus learn that, whilst Montezuma’s
garments were habitually blue like Huitzilopochtli, his coadjutor, like
Tezcatlipoca, was associated with black. It is well known that some of the
Mexican priests always smeared their bodies with black, which was
therefore their special mark.
To my idea the foregoing data, with circumstantial evidence too diffuse to
be conveniently produced, clearly indicate that at one time, in the early
history of the Aztec race, it had been governed jointly by a male and a
female ruler on a footing of perfect equality, the one being the living
representative of the Above or masculine elements and the other
personifying the Below or feminine elements. The fact that Cihuacoatl is
named “the sister” of Huitzilopochtli shows that the female ruler was not
necessarily his wife, although she was his coadjutor in her own right.
Both rulers were respectively served by four persons presumably of their
respective sex. Besides these Duran (chap. 3) records that “there were
also other seven teotls=lords, who were much reverenced on account of the
seven caves out of which the seven tribes had come.”
We thus perceive that at one time the chief authority was vested in a man
and a woman, his sister, who enjoyed a perfect equality. Four persons
administered the government of each ruler and each of the seven tribes had
“its honoured representative.” For how long this organization had existed
it is impossible to tell. Dissension arose and division supervened, but to
the time of the Conquest the identical form of government was in force
with the remarkable difference that the title and office of the
Cihuacoatl, originally held by a woman, were held by a man, whom I do not
hesitate to identify as one of the two “supreme pontiffs,” whose emblem of
office was the flint knife, the offspring of Cihuacoatl, the earth-mother.
Historical evidence shows that this alteration had not been made without
bloodshed and renewed difficulties. Thus it is related that, long after
the Mexicans had separated from the sister of Huitzilopochtli and her
adherents, they were induced to “ask the daughter of the ruler of
Culhuacan to become the Queen of the Mexicans and mother of their god. She
conformed with their request but was subsequently killed by her subjects,
who flayed her body and dressed a youth in her skin [a figure of native
speech which symbolized his assumption of her office]. Under this form she
was revered as a goddess, was named our grandmother and ‘the mother of the
god,’ etc.” These and the following details, taken from well-known
authentic native sources, are attractively rendered in the “Newe Welt und
Amerikanische Historien” (Johann Ludwig Gottfriedt. Frankfurt-a.-M., 1613,
pp. 54 and 55).
Again, after the Mexicans had been settled at Tenochtitlan for some time,
they desired to make an alliance with the King of Culhuacan and therefore
“chose to nominate, as their ruler, Acamapichtli, who was the son of a
Mexican chieftain by a daughter of the Culhuacan ruler” and evidently
lived with the latter. For it is related that, on giving his consent, the
king of Culhuacan stated that if only a _woman_ (of his family) had been
nominated he would have refused (to trust her to the Mexicans). The
farewell words he addressed to Acamapichtli are worthy of quotation: “Go
my son, serve thy god, be his representative. Rule the creatures of the
god by whom we live; the god of day, of the night and of the winds. Go and
be the lord of the water and land owned by the Mexicans.”
As it is subsequently stated that Acamapichtli _and his queen_ were
received at Tenochtitlan with great honors, it would seem as though the
Mexicans who, from some deeply-rooted religious idea, considered it
essential to have a female ruler of the line of the king of Culhuacan,
obtained their desire only by accepting a male member of her family as a
protection and safeguard for her sacred person. It may be that for the
reasons of safety and preservation the female ruler, who was the living
representative of the Cihuacoatl, gradually retired into absolute
seclusion whilst a man of her kin assumed, in public, her title and
prerogatives.
Unless it is assumed that this was the case, it seems impossible to
explain why Acamapichtli is designated in the Codex Mendoza (Kingsborough,
vol. I, pl. II) as having begun to rule in the year I Tecpatl or flint
(approximately corresponding to A.D. 1364) with the title of
“Woman-serpent”=Cihuacoatl. From this date the title seems always to have
been borne by a man. When human sacrifices had become a prominent feature
of the native cult and it became a duty of the Cihuacoatl to perform the
bloody rite, it is obvious that it became impossible for a woman to fill
the position.
We obtain, however, glimpses of the shadowy form of an invisible and
venerable female ruler who is at the head of the “House of Women,” watches
over the welfare of the women of the tribe and officiates as a priestess,
with her assistants, at births, baptisms and marriages. In order to
account for the obscurity which surrounds her, it should be noticed that
the mere fact that the ideas of darkness and seclusion became indelibly
associated with the female sex, would naturally and inevitably cause women
to be housed up, veiled and condemned to comparative inaction and
immobility. A primitive stage in the growth of the above idea is shown in
the case of the Huaxtecas, the women of which tribe wore abundant covering
whilst the men, on religious principle, wore none. A careful study of the
conditions surrounding the Cihuacoatl or high priest shows that he also
conformed to the exigencies of his position when he acted as the
representative of the hidden forces of Nature, of the female principle. He
and the entire priesthood smeared their bodies with black, cultivated long
hair, and wore, during the performance of certain religious ceremonies, a
wide and long garment reaching to the ground. It is noticeable that the
designs on the garments of the priests, in the B. N. MS., are invariably
executed in red and yellow, the symbolical colors of the north and west,
combined with black the symbol of the union of both, the Below. In this
connection it is noteworthy that in Mexican pictography the faces of women
are usually painted yellow—the color of the West=the female region. The
association of darkness, concealment and secrecy, with the female
principle, is exemplified by the fact that a building in the enclosure of
the Great Temple of Mexico, named the “house of darkness,” was dedicated
to the earth-mother=Cihuacoatl (Sahagun, appendix to book II). Other
temples of hers are described as being cave-like, underground, dark, with
a single low entrance, the door of which was sometimes sculptured in the
form of the great open jaws of a serpent. Only priests were allowed to
penetrate into these mysterious chambers where sacred and secret rites
were performed and a sacred fire was also kept burning in an adjoining
chamber. Evidence, which I shall produce further on, establishes that the
high-priest Cihuacoatl dwelt, at times, in a house named “place of
darkness” and annually sacrificed a human victim in honor of the lord of
the underworld, in an edifice called “the navel of the earth.”
The religious cult of one-half of the Mexican hierarchy was distinctly
nocturnal. The chief duties of certain priests were astronomical
observation and the supervision of the sacred fire, which was kept
perpetually burning on the summit of each temple-crowned pyramid, in what
was termed “the sacred or divine brazier” of sculptured stone. Two priests
jointly watched by night and day and received and transmitted to the
flames the incense offerings of the devout. The temple fires were
extinguished only at the expiration of a cycle of fifty-two years and were
then rekindled by the high priest at midnight precisely, with impressive
solemnity.
In ancient Mexico, it should however be observed, although the logical
association of women with the hidden forces of nature, the underworld and
the Below, had exerted a certain influence over her practical existence,
it had not yet given rise to the idea of her inferiority as compared to
man, the associate of the Heaven, the Above, the visible and active forces
of nature. The native sages did not identify her so intimately with the
earth as to deny her the possession of a soul—the celestial spark. On the
other hand it is curious to note that the Nahuatl word for wife is
Cihua-tlan-tli and for husband is Te-o-quichtli. Is it possible that the
particle _tlan_ in the first and _Teo_ in the second may have contributed
to strengthen the association of the woman with earth=tlalli (tlan=land
of) and the man with Teotl, the sun, something divine and celestial? In
course of time it doubtlessly would have transpired, in Mexico as
elsewhere, that the set of primitive ideas which, during untold centuries,
imposed upon women seclusion, obscurity and inactivity and thus hindered
her development of strength of body and mind, would have directly induced
an inferiority. This has been subsequently proclaimed, as we know, in many
countries, as a direct proof of her lower nature and of her affinity with
the element earth. The assumed and actual inferiority of woman may
therefore be regarded as the logical, inevitable but artificial result of
primordial classification and association. Suggested by the same natural
phenomena which were visible to all inhabitants of the same latitudes,
these ideas occurred to all people at a certain stage of their development
and exerted a dominating influence over the subsequent growth of their
intelligence. It is but now, that, unconsciously, mankind is beginning to
emerge from the leading strings of its infancy, which became an iron
bondage to its prolonged childhood. In Mexico, at the period of the
Conquest, the absolute equality of the male and female principles was
theoretically maintained. At the same time it is possible to discern
certain agencies at work which were tending to connect the Below, the
female principle, with harm and evil. From time immemorial it had been the
custom of the Chichimecs, who, according to Sahagun (book XII, chap. 12,
par. 5), inhabited an extremely poor and barren region of Mexico, to
sacrifice the first animal killed in a hunting expedition and to offer it
to “the Sun whom they called father and to the earth their mother.” They
severed its head and raised this as though offering it to the sun. They
_then tilled the earth where the blood had been spilt_ and left the animal
which had been sacrificed, on the spot (Ixtlilxochitl, Historia Chichimeca
chap. VI and Relaciones p. 335). This passage, establishing the
cultivation of the soil where the blood had been spilt, sheds a flood of
light on the origin of the offerings of human blood and the sacrifices of
human life, which were such a prominent and hideous feature of the Aztec
religion.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, instead of the blood being
spilt directly upon the earth, to insure and increase the fruitfulness of
the soil, a human being was stretched across a conical stone which became
thus the image of the earth-mother, his heart was extracted and offered to
the sun, the Above, and his blood was then smeared on the mouth of certain
idols representing the Below. In the B. N. MS. an interesting illustration
and account are given of an idol of the earth-mother who is figured as
standing on a pedestal adorned with skulls and cross-bones with
outstretched tongue which signified, “that she always had great thirst for
human blood” and “never refused sacrifices offered to her.”
Two priests are likewise pictured in the act of offering bowls containing
human blood to the idol and a third, mounted on a ladder, is pouring the
contents of another bowl over its head. It is obvious how the constant
associations of the earth-mother with sanguinary sacrifices and
bloodthirstiness would, in time, give rise to the idea of a hostile,
maleficent power, linked with darkness and devouring fire, who, under the
aspect of the serpent-woman, waged an eternal warfare on the human race
and clamored for victims and bloody sacrifices. The natural sequence to
the above associations is that in ancient Mexico the powers exerting fatal
influence upon the human race are all represented as female, viz.: the
Cihuacoatl or woman-serpent, the Ciuapipiltin and the Tzit-zime, etc.
These and various other personifications of the female principle are
described in detail in my notes and commentary to the B. N. MS.
After considering the foregoing data it seems impossible not to conclude
that it must have taken centuries of time for the idea of duality, or of
the Above and Below to have taken such a deep hold upon the native mind
and to have produced such a growth of symbolism and association in so many
ramifications of thought. Let us endeavor to obtain a further insight into
the native mode of thought by carefully studying some significant details
concerning the social organization of the Mexicans from the time of
Acamapichtli to that of Montezuma and the influences it had been subjected
to gradually. This, the first ruler, unquestionably ruled as the
Cihuacoatl, a name which means either Woman-serpent or Female-twin. This
fact in itself testifies to an epoch-making change in the organization of
the Mexican government, in the making of which a concession was made to a
previously existing order of things, by the retention of the female title
by a male ruler.
Having carefully studied the question for many years, I have long
considered it proven that when the Mexicans settled in the valley of
Mexico they came under a series of influences emanating from an ancient
and highly cultured centre of civilization situated in the south, which
had followed, during untold centuries, the same lines of primitive thought
which have been stated. This question of contact and influence from an
older civilization is so important and the material I have collected on
the subject is so extensive and complex, that it cannot be adequately
treated here. Further on I shall discuss at length certain historical data
throwing light on ancient contact and influences. Meanwhile I may as well
state here that, having carefully weighed all testimony, I accept as amply
proven and well supported, the testimony of Las Casas, Torquemada,
Mendieta and others, who record that the Mexican culture-hero Quetzalcoatl
was an actual person who had come to Mexico from Yucatan twice and had
finally returned thither, leaving a small colony of his vassals behind him
whose influence upon the religious and social organization and symbolism
of the tribes, inhabiting the central plateau, can be plainly discerned.
Montezuma himself, in his famous speech to Cortés, which the latter
carefully reported to the Emperor Charles V, states that: “we [the Mexican
rulers] were brought here by a lord, whose vassals all of our predecessors
were, and who returned from here to his native land. He afterwards came
here again, after a long time, during which many of his followers who had
remained, had married native women of this land, raised large families and
founded towns in which they dwelt. He wished to take them away from here
with him, but they did not want to go, nor would they receive or adopt him
as their ruler, and so he departed. Hut we have always thought that his
descendants would surely come to subjugate this country and claim us as
their vassals....” (Historia de Nueva España. Hernan Cortés, ed.
Lorenzana, p. 81; see also p. 96). I do not see how it is possible to
construe such plain, unadorned statements of simple, common-place facts
into the assumption that Montezuma was recounting a mythical account of
the disappearance of the Light-god from the sky, as upheld by some modern
writers, who interpret the whole episode as a sun-myth or legend.
I have already shown that the meaning of the ocelot-skin and the spider,
employed as symbols by the Mexicans, is apparent only when studied by
means of the Maya language of Yucatan, the land whence the culture-hero is
said to have come by the foregoing authorities. I will add here that in
the Maya chronicles, it is stated that the culture-hero had ruled in
Chichen-Itza, the first part of which name, _Chichen_, means _red_. In
Mexican records it is described that he departed by water from the Mexican
coast and travelled directly east, bound for Tlapallan—a name which means
_red_-land. I draw attention to the fact that any one sailing from the
mouth of the Panuco river, for instance, in a straight line towards the
east, would inevitably land on the coast of Yucatan, not far from the
modern Merida and the ancient ruins of Chichen-Itza.
I shall also produce evidence, further on, to show that the meaning of the
much-discussed name of the culture-hero’s home, Tullan, is also furnished
by the Maya language. From more than one source, we learn, moreover, that
there were several Tullans on the American continent. The conception of
_Twin-brothers_ as the personification of the Above and Below had been
adopted in Yucatan and it is to the influence emanating from that source
that I attribute the movement made in Mexico, to substitute male
twin-rulers in the place of the man and woman, who had previously and
jointly ruled the ancient Mexicans.
Let us now analyze the Maya title Kukulcan, of which Quetzalcoatl is the
Mexican equivalent. As already stated, the word _can_ means serpent and
the numeral 4 and is almost homonymous with the word for sky or
heaven=_caan_. The image of a serpent, therefore, directly suggested and
expressed the idea of something quadruple incorporated in one celestial
being and appropriately symbolized the divine ruler of the four quarters.
In the word Kukulcan the noun _can_ is qualified by the prefix _kukul_. In
the compiled Maya dictionary published by Brasseur de Bourbourg (appendix
to de Landa’s Relacion) the adjective _ku_ or _kul_ is given as “divine or
holy.” Kukulcan may therefore be analyzed as “the divine serpent” or the
“Divine Four.” When Maya sculptors or scribes began to represent this
symbol of the divinity they must have searched for some object, easy to
depict, the sound of whose name resembled that of ku or kul. The Maya
adjective “feathered” being _kukum_, the artists evidently devised the
plan of representing, as an effigy of the divinity, a serpent decorated
with feathers and to this simple attempt at representing the “divine
serpent” in sculpture or pictography is due, in my opinion, the origin of
the “feathered serpent” effigies found in Yucatan and Mexico, which have
so puzzled archaeologists.
Of Kukulcan, the culture-hero of the Mayas, it is recounted that he had
been one of four brothers who originally ruled at Chichen-Itza, over four
tribes. “These brothers chose no wives but lived chastely and ruled
righteously, until, at a certain time, one died or departed and two began
to act unjustly and were put to death. The one remaining was Kukulcan. He
appeased the strife which his brothers’ acts had aroused, directed the
minds of the people to the arts of peace and caused to be built various
edifices. After he had completed his work at Chichen-Itza he founded the
great city of Mayapan, destined to be the capital of the confederacy of
the Mayas.” (See Brinton, Hero-myths, p. 162.) Friar Diego de Landa
relates that the current opinion amongst the Indians of Yucatan was that
this ruler had gone to Mexico where, after his return (departure?) he was
named Cezalcouatl and revered as one of their gods (Relacion, ed. Brasseur
de Bourbourg, p. 36). Before analyzing the Nahuatl rendering of Kukulcan’s
name I would point out the noteworthy coincidence that, during his reign
at Chichen-Itza and Mayapan, he practically united in his person and
assumed the offices formerly fulfilled by four rulers, of which he had
been only one.
I would, moreover, draw attention to the remarkable, sculptured columns
which support the main portal of the main pyramid-temple called El
Castillo at Chichen-Itza. These represent gigantic feathered serpents and
are figured on pl. XIV of Mr. Wm. Holmes’ most instructive and useful
“Archaeological Studies,” Part I, “Monuments of Yucatan.” The feathers
carved on the massive columns are evidently the precious tail feathers of
the quetzal, which have the peculiarity of exhibiting, according to the
way the light falls upon them, blue, red, yellow and green
colors—precisely those assigned to the four quarters by the Mexicans and
for all we know to the contrary, by the Mayas. Whether this feather was
chosen for this peculiarity or for its beauty only, as that with which to
deck the effigy of the divinity, can, of course, only be conjectured. In
Mexico numberless effigies of feathered serpents exist. The resemblance of
the sound of the Nahuatl words: feather=ihuitl, and heaven or
sky=ilhui-çatl, should be recorded here as a possible reason for the
association of feathers with the serpent and as a means of conveying the
idea of its divinity. It should also be noted that quetzal, the name of
the most precious feathers the natives possessed, resembles in sound, the
second part of the Nahuatl words for flame=tle-cueçal-lotl, or for “tongue
of fire”=tle-cueçal-nenepilli. That the feathered serpent was an image of
the divinity is finally proven, I think, by the following passage from
Sahagun which establishes that the earliest form, under which the divinity
was revered by the Mexicans, was that of fire: “Of all the gods the [most]
ancient one is the God of Fire, who dwells in the midst of flowers, in an
abode surrounded by four walls and _is covered with shining feathers like
wings_” (_op. cit._ book VI, chap. IV). It is thus shown that whilst the
word ihuitl=feather suggested something divine, the word quetzal, besides
being the name of a particular kind of feather, conveyed the idea of
something resplendent or shining [like fire]. The name for serpent, coatl,
signified twin; thus there is a profound analogy between the Maya and
Mexican symbol, pointing, however, to the Yucatan form as the most
ancient.
Let us see how the name Quetzal-coatl occurs in Mexico. It is given as the
name of the “supreme god whose substance was as invisible and intangible
as air,” but who was also revered as the god of fire. The constant
reference to air in connection with the supreme divinity caused him to be
also adored as the god of air and of the four winds. On the other hand,
the divine title of Quetzal-coatl was carried by the culture-hero whose
personality has been discussed and who was a Yucatec ruler and high
priest. Sahagun (_op. cit._ book III, chap. IX) informs us that
“Quequet-zalcoa,” the plural form of the word Quetzalcoatl, was employed
to designate “_the high priests_ (elsewhere designated as the ‘supreme
pontiffs’) _who were the successors of Quetzalcoatl_.” He also states that
“the high priest of the temple was [the representative of] the god
Quetzalcoatl” (book I, chap. 5). “The priest who was most perfect in his
conduct and in wisdom was elected to be high priest and assumed the name
of Quetzalcoatl.... There were two such high priests equal in rank and
honours.... One of these, the Quetzalcoatl Totec Tlamacazqui, was in the
service of Huitzilopochtli.” Without pausing here to analyze this title
since it will be discussed in detail in another publication I will only
repeat that, after years of careful research, I have obtained the
certainty that the foregoing title and office were those held by Montezuma
at the time of the Conquest. What is more, I can produce ample evidence to
prove that he was the living personification of Huitzilopochtli one of the
“divine twins” and of the Above. He was not the first Mexican ruler who
had filled this exalted rôle, for it is recorded that Axayacatl, one of
Acamapichtli’s successors, had represented, in life, “our god
Huitzilopochtli.” After his death his effigy “was first covered with a
fine robe representing Huitzilopochtli; over this was hung the dress of
Tlaloc ... the next garment was that of Youalahua [=the lord of the wheel]
and the fourth was that of Quetzalcoatl” (Duran, vol. I, chap. 39, pp. 304
and 306).
Let us now see how Montezuma’s personification of Huitzilopochtli was
carried out by his life and his surroundings. According to Bernal Diaz, an
eye-witness, when the great Montezuma came forth in state to meet Cortés,
he was conveyed on a sumptuous litter, being thus raised above the
earth.(6) When he descended from this and walked, the golden soles of his
sandals prevented his feet from coming into direct contact with the
ground; he was supported, _i. e._ partially held up, by his four principal
lords, and a baldachin adorned with light greenish-blue feathers, gold,
pearls and jade representing the xoxouhqui-ilhuicatl=“the verdant or blue
sky” (which was, by the way, a title of Huitzilopochtli), was carried over
his head. Other lords preceded him, “sweeping the ground and spreading
blankets upon it so that he should not tread upon the earth. All of these
lords did not dare to think of raising their eyes to look at his face—only
the four lords, his cousins, who supported him, possessed this privilege”
(Bernal Diaz, Historia Verdadera de la Conquista. Madrid, 1632, p. 65). A
feature, the origin of which can be directly traced back to the
association of the star-god, Polaris, with repose and immovability, was
that Montezuma, like his predecessors, was the only person privileged to
sit on state occasions, on a throne or raised seat with a high back and
rest whilst all other individuals stood or moved about him.
From several sources we know that Montezuma habitually wore blue or white
attire, which sometimes was of open network. He employed gold, precious
blue and green feathers, turquoise, pearls and emeralds for his personal
ornaments. His diadem with a high point in front, was incrusted with
turquoise or was made of burnished gold. He sometimes wore a crown made of
featherwork, with a bird’s head of gold above his forehead. His emblem was
the sun, the orb of day, and he presided over its cult which had developed
itself simultaneously with the cult of the Above, a feature of which was
the offering of “birds, butterflies and flowers.” Sometimes he wore,
“attached to his sandals, small wings, named tzi-coyolli, resembling the
wing of a bird. These produced a sound like that of tiny gold bells when
he walked” (Tezozomoc, Cronica, p. 594).
It must be admitted, on reading the foregoing descriptions gleaned from
Sahagun’s Historia, that it would be impossible to carry out, more
perfectly and completely, the idea that Montezuma was the earthly
representative of the Upper regions, the blue heaven. By pushing symbolism
so far that he actually wore wings on his feet and avoided contact with
the ground, it is not surprising that Montezuma’s adversaries, amongst
neighboring tribes, should accuse him of exacting divine honors for his
own person. At the same time there is no doubt that his own subjects
revered him merely as a temporary representative and mouth-piece of the
impersonal dual divinity. This idea is clearly conveyed by some native
harangues, to which I refer the reader, and from which I extract the
following passages:
After his election, the ruler is solemnly addressed by one of the chief
lords who says to him: “Oh! our humane, pious and beloved lord, who
deserves to be more highly esteemed than all precious stones and feathers,
you are here present because our sovereign god has placed thee [above us]
as our lord.... You possess the seat and throne which was given [to your
predecessors] by our lord god” ... “you are the image of our lord god and
represent his person. He reposes in you and he employs you like a flute
through which he speaks and he hears with your ears.... Oh, lord king! God
sees what the persons do who rule over his domains and when they err in
their office he laughs at them, but in silence, for he is god, and is
omnipotent and can mock at whom he will. For he holds all of us in the
palm of his hand and rocks us about, and we are like balls or round globes
in his hands and we go rolling from one side to the other and make him
laugh, and he serves himself of us as we go moving about on the palm of
his hand!”
“Although thou art our neighbour and friend and son and brother, we are no
more thy equals, nor do we consider you as a man, for now you have the
person, the image, the conversation and the communion of our lord god. He
speaks inside of you and instructs you and lets himself be heard through
your mouth—his tongue is your tongue, and your face is his face ... he has
adorned you with his authority and has given you fangs and claws so that
you should be feared and reverenced ...” (Sahagun, book VI, chap. 10).
The foregoing figure of speech in which fangs and claws are alluded to as
symbols of fear-inspiring power affords as valuable an insight into the
native modes of thought and expression as do the similes employed in the
following address to the newly-elected ruler by the spokesman of his
vassals.
“Oh lord! may you live many years to fill your office prosperously; submit
your shoulders to the very heavy and troublesome load; extend your wings
and breast as a shelter to your subjects whom you have to carry as a load.
Oh, lord! let your town and vassals enter under your shadow, for you are
[unto them] like the tree named puchotl or aueuetl, which casts a great
circle or wheel of shade, under which many are gathered in shelter” (_op.
cit._ book VI, chap. II).
The admonition also addressed to the ruler, “Never to laugh and joke again
as he had done previously to his election, and to assume the heart of an
old, grave and severe man,” explains the true significance of the name of
Montezuma or Mo-tecuh-zoma; which was an honorific title literally
meaning, “our angry or wrathy [looking] lord.”
Whilst the above data establish beyond a doubt that the Mexican
Quetzalcoatl was regarded as the visible representative of the celestial
ruler of the universe and that divine honors were voluntarily accorded to
him, it is interesting to read Montezuma’s explanation to Cortés
concerning this question. The latter writes: “seated on a raised seat
Montezuma discoursed as follows: ... ‘I know that you have been told by my
enemies that I am, or have made myself a god.’... Raising his robes he
showed me his body saying: ‘Here you see that I am made of flesh and bone,
like yourself or like any one, and that I am mortal and tangible.’
Grasping his arms and his body with his hands he continued: ‘see how they
have like to you.’ ”... (Historia, Hernan Cortés, ed. Lorenzana, p. 82).
Better than all dissertations, the above words convey an idea of the naïf
simplicity of the man who uttered them.
Referring the reader to Mr. Ad. Bandelier’s study, “On the social
organization and mode of government of the ancient Mexicans,” for further
details concerning the duties respectively filled by Montezuma and his
coadjutor, I shall only explain here the conclusion I have reached that
the former was the high priest of the cult of the sun and heaven, the
visible ruler, the war lord, and the administrator of justice. As stated
in a native harangue: “the supreme lord is like unto the heart of the
population ... he is aided by two senators in all concerning the
administration of the government: one of these was a ‘pilli’ and was named
tlaca-tecuhtli; the other was a warrior and was entitled tlacoch-tecuhtli.
Two other chieftains aided the supreme lord in the militia: one, entitled
tlaca-teccatl, was a ‘pilli’ and warrior; the other, named
tlacoch-calcatl, was not a ‘pilli.’ Such is the government or
administration of the republic ... and these four officers did not occupy
these positions by inheritance but by election” (Sahagun, book VI, chap.
20).
The following account of the republic of Tlaxcalla throws further light
upon the form of government which prevailed throughout Mexico and Central
America at the period of the Conquest. “The Captains of Tlaxcalla, each of
whom had his just portion or number of soldiers ... divided their soldiers
into four Battails, the one to Tepeticpac, another to Oco-telulco, the
third to Tizatlan and the fourth to Quiahuiztlan, that is to say, the men
of the Mountains, the men of the Limepits, the men of the Pinetrees, and
the Watermen; all these four sorts of men did make the body of the
Commonwealth of Tlaxcallan, and commanded both in Peace and War ... The
General of all the whole army was called Xico-tencatl, who was of the
Limepits ... the Lieutenant General was Maxix-catzin....” (A new survey of
the West-Indies ... Thomas Gage, London, 1655, p. 31). In Mexico we find
that the four executive officers were the chiefs or representatives of the
four quarters of the City of Mexico. In each of these quarters there was a
place where periodical offerings were made in reverence of one of the
signs: acatl, tecpatl, callii and tochtli, which were the symbols of the
cardinal-points, the elements, and served as day and year signs in the
calendar (Sahagun, book II, chap. 26).
An interesting indication that the entire dominion of Mexico was also
divided into four equal quarters, the rule administration of which was
attended to by four lords, inhabiting towns situated within a
comparatively short distance from the capital, is furnished by Bernal Diaz
(_op. cit._ p. 65). He relates that the four lords who supported Montezuma
when he walked in state to meet Cortés were the lords of Texcoco,
Iztapalapa, Tacuba and Coyoacan. These towns, which were minor centres of
government, were respectively situated at unequal distances to the
northeast, southeast, northwest and southwest of the capital.
These facts and the knowledge that “all lords, in life, represented a god”
justify the inference that, just as Montezuma represented the central
power of the Above or Heaven, the four lords who accompanied him were the
personified rulers of the four quarters, associated with the elements. In
ancient Mexico and Maya records the gods of the four quarters, also named
“the four principal and most ancient Gods” are designated as “the
sustainers of the Heaven” and it cannot be denied that, on the solemn
occasion described, the four lords actually fulfilled the symbolical
office of supporting Montezuma, the personification of the Heaven. This
striking illustration is but one of a number I could cite in proof of the
deeply ingrained mental habit of the native sages to introduce, into every
detail of their life, the symbolism of the Centre, the Above and Below and
the Four Quarters. I shall but mention here that it can be proven how, in
their respective cities the lords of the cardinal points were central
rulers who, in turn, directed the administration of the government by
means of four dignitaries. Each of these was also the embodiment of a
divine attribute or principle, “All noblemen did represent idols and
carried the name of one” (Acosta, Naturall and Morall Historie, lib. 5, p.
349).
Each wore a special kind of symbolical costume and was the ruler or
“advocate,” as he is termed, of a distinct class of people. “For to each
kind or class of persons they gave a Teotl [=God or Lord] as an advocate.
When a person died and was about to be buried, they clothed him with the
diverse Insignia of the god to whom he belonged” (Mendieta lib. II, chap.
40). It being established that each of the four year-symbols, acatl,
tecpatl, calli and tochtli, ruled four minor symbols, it seems evident
that, just as the four lords of the cardinal-points would correspond to
the above symbols, each of the minor lords and the category of people they
represented would also be associated with the minor symbols. The obvious
result of this classification would be the division of the entire
population of the commonwealth into 4×5=20 categories of people, grouped
under twenty local and four central governments, whose representatives in
turn were under the rule of the supreme central dual powers. Having thus
sketched, in a brief and preliminary way, the expansion of the idea of
dividing all things into four parts, the bud of which was the swastika,
let us examine the Mexican application of the idea of duality, pausing
first to review the data relating to the Cihuacoatl, the personification
of the Earth, the Below and the coadjutor of Montezuma.
Nothing has been definitely recorded about his personality, for he seems
to have lived in absolute seclusion during the first occupation of Mexico
by the Spaniards. He is frequently alluded to, however, and Cortés,
Herrera, Torquemada and others, inform us that he had acted as Montezuma’s
substitute and led the native troops against the Spaniards. It is
interesting to find that after the Conquest Cortés appointed him as
governor of the City of Mexico. “I gave him the charge of re-peopling the
capital and in order to invest him with greater authority, I reinstated
him in the same position, that of Cihuacoatl, which he had held in the
time of Montezuma” (Carta Cuarta, Veytia I, p. 110).
Quite indirectly, it is possible to learn what sort of military equipment
had been adopted by the Cihuacoatl when he acted as war-chief. Amongst
certain presents, which were sent by Cortés to Charles V and are minutely
described in vol. XII of the “Documentas ineditas del Archivio de Indias,”
p. 347, there are several suits of armor, which could only have been
appropriately worn by the “woman serpent.” One suit consisted of a
“corselet with plates of gold and with woman’s breasts” and a skirt with
blue bands. Another suit, instead of the breasts, exhibited a great wound
in the chest, like that of a person who had been sacrificed. In another
list (by Diego de Soto, p. 349) a shield is described “which displayed a
sacrificed man, in gold, with a gaping wound in his breast, from which
blood was streaming....” It is obvious that the first of these suits of
armor conveyed figuratively the name and the second the office of the
Cihuacoatl of whom Duran speaks as follows:
“He whose office it was to perform the rite of killing [the victim] was
revered as the supreme pontiff and his name or title and pontifical robes
varied according to the different periods [of the year] and the ceremonies
which he had to perform. On the present occasion his title was Topiltzin,
one of the names of the great lord ... (Quetzalcoatl) and he appeared
carrying a large flint knife in his hand ...” (_op. cit._, chap. LXXXI).
The following passage shows definitely that Montezuma’s coadjutor, his
Quetzalcoatl or divine twin, had an equal share of divine honors accorded
to him. “The head priest of the temple, named Quetzalcoatl, never came out
of the temple or entered into any house whatever, because he was very
venerable and very grave and was esteemed as a god. He only went into the
royal palace” (Sahagun, book VI, chap. 39). The same authority designates
the second “divine twin” as the Tlalocan-tlamacazqui or,
Tlalocan-tlenamacac and states that he served the Tlalocan-tecuhtli.
Before proceeding further, let us pause and inquire into the reason why
the name Tlaloc, which is formed of tlalli=earth and is defined by Duran,
for instance, as meaning “an underground passage or a great cave” (_op.
cit._, chap. 84), should be the well-known title of the “god of rain.” The
explanation is to be found in the text of the Vatican Codex, A.
Kingsborough, V, p. 190. This teaches us that the last syllable of the
name Tlaloc does not represent oc=inside of, but stands for octli, the
name of the native wine now known as pulque, which is obtained from the
agave plant. Tlaloc thus meant “earth-wine” and “by this metaphor they
wanted to express that just as the fumes of wine make mankind gay and
happy, so the earth when saturated with water, is gay and fresh and
produces its fruits and cereals.” By the light of this explanation we see
that the titles conferred upon Montezuma’s coadjutor were literally “the
priest or lord, or dealer-of-fire in the place of the earth-wine.” “The
clouds, rain, thunder and lightning were attributed to the lord Tlaloc who
had many tlalocs and priests under him, who cultivated all foods necessary
for the body, such as maize, beans, etc., and sent the rains so that the
earth should give birth to all of its products. During their festival in
springtime the priests went through the streets dancing and singing and
carrying a shoot of green maize in one hand and a pot with a handle in the
other. In this way they went asking for the [ceremonial] boiled maize and
all fanners gave them some” ... (Sahagun, book VI, chap. 5).
The above and many scattered allusions throw light upon the group of ideas
associated with the Cihuacoatl and clearly indicate what were his duties.
To him devolved the care of the earth and his one thought was to secure
abundance of rain and of crops. In order to ensure the proper cultivation
of the ground, he had, under him, innumerable agents, who strictly
superintended the cultivation of all food-plants, the irrigation of barren
lauds, etc. These agents, who also resorted to ceremonial usages in order
to bring rain or avert hail-storms and other disasters, were collectively
named “the 400 pulque or octli-gods”—an appellation which developed into
tochtli-gods, when the rabbit (=tochtli) had become the pictograph
habitually employed to convey the sound of the word octli, and had been
adopted as the symbol of the earth and of prolific reproduction in
connection with this. The latter idea is born out of the female title,
that of the earth-mother, who “always brought forth twins.” The Cihuacoatl
thus stands out as the representative of the bountiful mother-earth and as
the lord of agriculture, one of whose duties was the careful collection,
storage and distribution of all food products. He presided over the cult
of the fertility of the earth, of the nocturnal heaven, of the stars and
moon, which were associated with the female principle and with growth in
general. The following record proves that amongst his other duties he
offered sacrifices to the invisible hidden powers of darkness and earth.
“During the night, in the feast Tititl, the high priest named Tlillan
tlenamacac [=the dealer with fire in the land of darkness=tlilli=black,
evidently a title analogous to that of Tlill-potonqui-cihuacoatl, given by
Tezozomoc, in Cronica, chap. 33], sacrificed a victim in honour of the god
of the Underworld” (Sahagun, book II, appendix). In this, as on similar
occasions, he was assisted by four priests who succeeded him in rank.
Mr. Bandelier has already recognized that judicial sentences were
ultimately referred to the “woman-serpent,” who pronounced the “final
sentence, which admitted of no appeal.” There are more reasons than can
conveniently be presented here, proving that in Mexico, as in Guatemala,
the priest of the Below, the personification of Tezcatli-poca=Shining
Mirror, employed an actual mirror made of polished obsidian, as an aid in
pronouncing final judgment on criminals.
The Cakchiquel procedure is described by Fuentes of Guzman, who is quoted
by Dr. Otto Stoll in his most instructive and valuable work on the
Ethnology of the Indian Tribes of Guatemala (Internationales Archiv für
Ethnographie, band I, supplement I, 1888): “A road leads [from the ancient
city of Guatemala] to a hill [figured with a large tree growing from it];
on its top there is a flat circular cement floor, enclosed by a low wall.
In the centre is a pedestal, polished and shining like glass. No one knows
of what substance it is made. This was the tribunal or court of the
Cakchiquel Indians, where public trials were held and where the sentences
were executed. The judges sat in a circle on the low wall. After the
sentence had been pronounced, it had to be confirmed or vetoed by another
authority. Three messengers, acting as deputies of the council, went to a
deep ravine situated to the north of the palace, where, in a sort of
hermitage or prayer-house, there was the oracle of the devil, which was a
black, transparent stone, like glass, but more costly than [ordinary]
obsidian. In this stone the devil revealed to the messengers, the sentence
to be executed. If it agreed with the judgment pronounced, this was
immediately executed upon the central pedestal [of the hill of justice] on
which the criminal was also tortured, at times.” If nothing was seen in
the mirror, and it gave no sign, the prisoner was pronounced free.
This oracle was also consulted before wars were undertaken ... “During the
first years of the Spanish occupation, when the bishop Marroquin heard
about this stone, he had it cut out and consecrated it as an altar, which
is still in use in the convent of San Francisco in the capital. It is a
precious stone of great beauty and is half a vara long.”
A picture in the Vatican Codex B (p. 48) represents a temple, on the
summit of which a large obsidian mirror is standing on its edge. Inside
the doorway there are many small black spots, which obviously represent
small mirrors and convey the idea that the interior walls were incrusted
with such. These illustrations would prove that sacred edifices were
associated with obsidian mirrors even if Sahagun did not mention, as he
does (book II, appendix), no less than three sacred edifices in the great
temple of Mexico, which were associated with obsidian mirrors. It is,
moreover, stated by Duran that “in Mexico the image of the god
Tezcatlipoca was a stone, which was very shining and black, like jet. It
was of the same stone of which the natives make razors and knives,” _i.
e._, obsidian (Duran II, p. 98).
What is more, Bernal Diaz relates that the image of Tezcatlipoca, which he
saw beside the idol of Huitzilopochtli in the hall of the great temple of
Mexico, had shining eyes which were made of the native mirrors=tezcatl.
“In connection with the shining eyes” of the god it is interesting to note
that when, as Duran states, he was represented under another form, his
idol “carried in its hand a sort of fan made of precious feathers. These
surmounted a circular gold disc which was very brilliant and polished like
a mirror. This meant that, in this mirror, he saw all that went on in the
world. In the native language they named it ‘itlachiayan,’ which means,
that in which he looks or sees” (Duran, _op. cit._, vol. II, p. 99).
Sahagun mentions an analogous sceptre which consisted of “a gold disc
pierced in the centre, and surmounted by two balls, the upper and smaller
of which supported a pointed object. This sceptre was called tlachieloni,
which means ‘that through which one looks or observes;’ because with it
one covered or hid one’s face and looked through the hole in the middle of
the gold plate.” This kind of sceptre is not exclusively associated with
Tezcatlipoca in the native picture writings, for it figures in the hand of
Chalchiuhtlycue “the sister” of Tlaloc and of Omacatl whose attributes,
the reeds and chalchiuite or jade beads, prove him to be also associated
with the water. On the other hand the same sceptre is also assigned by
Sahagun to the god of fire.
A clue to the truth and significance of this emblematic sceptre is
furnished by the fact that, in order to express the divine title
Tlachiuale, meaning “the Maker or Lord of all creatures or of young life,”
the native scribes were naturally obliged to employ the verb tlachia=to
look or see, in order to convey its sound. It is obvious that they
cleverly agreed to express this verb by picturing some object which could
be or was looked through. They therefore adopted a sceptre with a hollow
disc, as an emblem, which was carried by the living representative of
certain divinities, whose entire costume was in reality a sort of rebus,
and in the case of Tlaloc, the lord of earthwine and fertility and the
Tlachiuale or “Creator of young life,” par excellence, they once and for
all designated his title by surrounding his eyes with two blue rings,
accentuating thereby the action of seeing or looking. But this probably
conveyed even more than the above title, for there is a Nahuatl noun
tlachiuhtli, which means, “something made or formed or engendered,” or
“earth which is ploughed and sown.” Then there is the verb tlachipaua
which means, “the smile of dawn, the break of day, the clearing up of the
weather,” also the purification and cleansing, all of which were supposed
to be under the dominion of the rain-god and of his living representatives
on earth, the rain-priests. The seemingly conflicting fact that the
tlachieloni sceptre was also assigned to the god of fire is explained by
the existence of the verb tiachinoa=to burn up the fields or forests, and
of the noun tlachi-noliztli=the act of burning up or scorching the fields
or forests, and finally, metaphorically, tlachinoli-teuotl=war or
battle=destruction. It is only when we thus realize all the natives could
express by the image of an eye, looking through a circle, that we begin to
grasp its full meaning when employed as a symbol in their picture
writings.
As to the obsidian mirror, which undoubtedly was the symbol of
Tezcatlipoca and, consequently, must have pertained to his representative,
the priest of the Night, we find that it played a most prominent rôle in
the cult he presided over. In the first case it appears as though it was
resorted to in Mexico as in the conquered province of Guatemala, as the
oracle which rendered final judgment. A series of illustrations, etc., to
be published in my final work on the Calendar System, will prove
satisfactorily that the Mexican astronomers extensively employed black
obsidian mirrors as an aid to astronomical observations, by means of
reflection. Besides mirrors on the summits of temples and mountains,
certain square columns, placed on an elevation and faced with a broad band
of polished obsidian, are pictured in some Codices. It is obvious that the
latter in particular, if carefully oriented, would have served as an
admirable means of registering the periodical return of planets, stars or
constellations to certain positions; they would then be reflected on the
polished surface, as in a frame. In certain Codices the double, tau-shaped
courtyard or enclosure surrounded by a high wall with battlements, which
was employed in the daytime for the national game of ball, figures in
combination with obsidian mirrors. I draw attention to the fact that the
name of these courtyards was tlach-tli, which literally means the looking
place=the observatory and that, amongst the edifices of the great temple,
a tezca-tlachtli=obsidian-mirror-observatory, is described. I shall
demonstrate more fully, on another occasion, that the chief purpose of
these enclosures was to serve as astronomical observatories. Dr. Brinton,
Señor Troncoso and other authorities have already observed that the game
of ball itself was intended to represent the idea of the perpetual motion
of the heavenly bodies. (See American Hero-myths, p. 119.)
Returning to reëxamine the divine title Tezcatlipoca we see that, when
interpreted as “the lord of the shining obsidian mirror,” it was the most
appropriate title of the lord of the Nocturnal Heaven, which myriads of
mirrors reflected each night, throughout the land. It is easy to see how
the habit of referring to the Temple Minor, in order to ascertain the
positions of the stars, would naturally lead to its being consulted more
extensively as an oracle later on. We thus clearly perceive how the lord
of the Night, whose priests called themselves “the sons of the Night,”
became intimately associated with divination and how the idea of a
definite connection between the movements of the stars or human destinies
would, in the lapse of centuries, make a deep and indelible impression
upon the minds of men.
If the obsidian mirror was the symbol, par excellence, of Mexican star
cult, there are evidences that the small mirror of polished pyrites was
that of the sun-cult. The latter seems to have been employed, in some way
or other, for the concentration of the rays of the sun required for the
lighting of the sacred fire, at noon, on the days of the vernal equinox
and summer solstice. As in Peru, this duty devolved upon the high priest
of the Above or the Son of the Sun, a title which undoubtedly pertained
also to the Mexican ruler, though not employed so ostentatiously as in
Peru. A keen emulation, which may almost be termed an intense rivalry,
seems to have existed between the two cults, which Sahagun even goes so
far as to designate as two religions. From a chapter of his Historia we
even learn that the entire population of Mexico was divided into two
halves who respectively belonged to one or the other religion, a fact
which naturally affected the position of the two classes of people and had
created the native ideas, of an upper and a lower class or caste which
will be further discussed.
Sahagun’s informants explained to him that, when a child was born, its
parents, according to their class, registered it at one of the two
educational establishments for the young and took vows to have it educated
there as soon as it attained a suitable age. The lower class took their
offspring to the Telpuchcalli, where they were dedicated to the service of
the community and to warfare, _i. e._, the ruling class. “The ‘Lords,
chieftains or elders,’ offered their sons to the Calmecac to be educated
for the priesthood.”
It being impossible to present here in full the data showing how certain
primitive conceptions had developed further and how some human occupations
had become associated with the Above and others with the Below, I will but
point out the important fact that the city of Mexico, divided into four
quarters, each of which had five subdivisions (calpullis), actually
consisted of two distinct parts. One of these was Mexico proper, where the
Great Temple stood and where Montezuma and the lords resided; the other
was Tlatelolco, where the lower classes dwelt and the merchant class
prevailed. After a certain revolt the inhabitants of this portion of the
city were, we are told, “degraded to the rank of women” (see Bandelier,
_op. et loc. cit._). From this it would seem evident that their affairs or
lawsuits were settled in the official house named the Cihua-tecpaneca,
whilst the affairs of the nobility, residing in Mexico proper, were
disposed of in the Tlaca-tecpaneca (see Duran, chap. 3). Knowledge of the
prevalence of the division of the population into two parts is gained
through a passage of Ixtl-ilxo-chitl’s Historia (chap. XXXV, p. 241): “To
Quetzalmemalitzin was given the lordship of Teotihuacan ... with the title
of Captain-general of the dominion of the noblemen. All affairs or
lawsuits of the lords and the nobility belonging to the towns of the
provinces situated in the plain, were to be attended to and settled in his
town. The same title was bestowed upon Quechaltecpantzin of Otompan, with
the difference that he was the captain-general of the commoners and
attended to the affairs and claims of the commoners and populace of the
provinces in the plains.”
A further detail concerning the position of the ancient capital of Mexico
should not be omitted, for it is described as follows by the English friar
Thomas Gage, who visited it in 1625: “The situation of this city is much
like that of Venice, but only differs in this, that Venice is built upon
the sea-water, and Mexico upon a lake, which seeming one is indeed two;
one part whereof is standing water, the other ebbeth and floweth according
to the wind that bloweth. That part which standeth is wholesome, good and
sweet, and yieldeth store of small fish. That part which ebbeth and
floweth is a saltish bitter and pestiferous water, yielding no kind of
fish, small or great” (p. 43). Added to other data, this detail seems to
indicate that the geographical position of the capital had been chosen
with utmost care and profound thought, so that, built on a dual island on
a dual lake, it should be in itself an image or illustration of the ideas
of organization which I have shown to have dominated the entire native
civilization. If it be admitted, as I think is evident, that the site of
the capital was chosen and mapped out in accordance with these ideas, then
we undoubtedly have, in ancient Mexico, not only one of the most
remarkable “Holy Cities” ever built by mankind, but also the most
convincing proof of the great antiquity and high development of the
civilization under whose influence one of the greatest capitals of ancient
America was founded.
It is impossible to read the following descriptions without recognizing
that the identical fundamental ideas had undoubtedly determined the native
topography of capitals situated in other parts of the continent. Beginning
with Guatemala, which formed a part of ancient Mexico, I refer to the plan
of the ancient capital and its description by Fuentes of Guzman, published
by Dr. Otto Stoll in his work already cited: “A deep ditch, running from
north to south, divided the town into two portions. One of these, situated
to the east, was inhabited by the nobility; whilst the commoners
(Macehuales) lived in the western division.” I pause here to call
attention to the intentional coincidence that the association of the east
with the Above, and the west with the Below, is exemplified here,
topographically. The plan shows that the eastern half contained, in its
centre, a great, oblong enclosure, surrounded by a high wall. A wall,
running from east to west, divided this enclosure into two distinct
courtyards with wide separate entrances from the west. The northern
courtyard, designated as the “Place of the Palace,” contains several
buildings. The southern one, named the “Place of the Temple,” contains an
edifice on a terraced mound and several others. It is noticeable that, in
the exact middle of the central wall, there is a seemingly double,
unfortunately indistinguishable object, or building, which marks the exact
middle of the entire dual enclosure. It is particularly interesting that
the East City is divided into two portions by a wall running from the
southeast angle of the wall of the Temple courtyard to the outer wall of
the city. The southern half, in which the “Tribunal or hill of justice is
to be seen, is designated as containing the houses of the Ahauas or heads
of the Calpuls.” The northern half, containing many houses, lacks
designation. The West city is likewise divided into two distinct portions
by a broad street, enclosed by a hill wall and conducting from the western
and only entrance to the city directly to the Place of the Temple. A deep
trench or ditch encloses the entire city, whilst nine watch-towers, on
small hills, are placed at equal distances around it.
If this precious document clearly reveals the ground plan on which the
native capitals were built, in accordance with the dominant idea, the
following native map shows that the ancient dominion of Yucatan, for
instance, was figured as an integral whole with form of a flat disc
divided into four quarters, Ho, the modern Merida, in its centre. This
map, copied from the native Codex Chumazel, has been published by Señor
Crescencio Carillo of Ancona in the Anales del Museo Nacional de Mexico,
vol. II, p. 43, as showing the territorial division of Yucatan before the
Conquest (fig. 27). According to Herrera and Diego de Landa, the unity of
the dominion was destroyed about two centuries before the Conquest by the
destruction of the capital, Mayapan. The land then remained divided
amongst many independent chiefs or Bacabs. Señor Carillo renders the Maya
descriptive text written under the map, as follows: “Here is Mani. The
beginning of the land, or its entrance, is Campeche. The extremity of the
wing of the land is Calkini; the (chun) place where the wing grows or
begins, is Izamal. The half of the wing is Zaci; the tip of the wing is
Cumkal. The head of the land is the city, the capital Ho.”
[Illustration.]
Figure 27.
The foregoing text shows that, notwithstanding the circular shape in which
it is figured, the dominion was evidently thought of as in the form of a
bird, the head of which was the capital.
[Illustration.]
Figure 28.
This figure of speech seems to have been prevalent in Mexico also and to
be conveyed by the representation, in the Vienna Codex, of a double
tau-shape to which the head, wings and claw, and tail of a quetzal are
attached (fig. 28, no. 8). As I shall have occasion to demonstrate further
on, the double tau signifies the Above and the Below and their union
forming an integral whole. The following Nahuatl terms explain by
themselves the symbolism of the bird-figure: cuitlapilli=the tail of an
animal or bird, atlapalli=the wings of a bird, or the leaves of a tree,
cuitlapalli atlapalli=vassals, the populace or lower classes, the
laborers.
These words furnish irrefutable evidence that the lower class was
familiarly known in Mexico as “the wings and the tail” of the commonwealth
or state, or the leaves “on the trees” of the tribe. Sahagun states, on
the other hand, that the Mexicans employed the metaphor of “a bird with
wings and a tail” to designate a lord, governor or ruler. He also records
that the terms hair, nails, a thorn, a spine, beard and eyelashes, were
used to signify “someone who was noble, generous or of the lineage of the
lords.” Such metaphors as these may well cause us to despair at arriving
at a complete understanding of the native imagery and symbolism. The
symbolism of the bird’s claw yet remains to be looked into. The Nahuatl
for the same is xo-maxaltic, xo-tzayanqui or cho-cholli.
In one of the ancient Mexican harangues, previously quoted, it is said of
the supreme ruler that he had been given “fangs and nails” in order to
inspire fear and reverence. Scattered evidence and the fact that in the
Codex Mendoza the decorated claws of an eagle, for instance, appear as a
military device on the shields of certain war chiefs, seem to indicate
that the warriors were spoken of, metaphorically, as “the claws or nails”
of the state. The following passage finally proves that the tlachtli or
courtyard the shape of which was a double tau, as in fig. 28, no. 8, was
regarded by the Mexicans as an image of the state itself. In another
native harangue it was said of the newly-elected ruler: “He is now placed
or put into the Tlachtli, he has been invested with the leathern gloves,
so that he can govern and throw back the ball to the one who throws it to
him in the game. For the business of governing very much resembles this
game and the game of dice” (Sahagun, book VI, chap. xiii). The latter game
alluded to, the patolli, was played on a mat in the shape of a cross,
marked off with divisions, with stone markers, the moves of which were
decided by the numbers obtained on casting the dice, which consisted of
beans with marks on them. It is interesting to find that the word pat-olli
seems to be connected with the verb pat-cayotia=to be substituted in the
place of another, or to succeed another in office or dignity. The above
comparison of the game to the business of governing indicates that a
feature of the government was a methodical succession or rotation in
office or dignity, a point to which I draw special attention, as I shall
refer to it later.
The evidence that the Mexicans regarded the form of the courtyard, named
tlachtli, as that of the state itself is noteworthy. On the other hand,
the native map contained in the Codex Mendoza, p. 1, shows us that they
figured their territory as a square, surrounded by water and divided into
four equal parts by diagonal cross-streams or canals. As in the Maya map
the centre of this is occupied by the well-known hieroglyph or rebus of
Te-noch-ti-tlan, the ancient capital, which consisted of Mexico and
Tlatelolco. In three of the four triangular divisions, two chieftains are
figured, whilst in one there are four, the complete number of chieftains
thus being ten. The incontrovertible evidence that the dominion of the
Mexicans, as well as that of the Mayas, was figured and regarded as an
integral whole has seemed to me to be of extreme importance, because it
points to a fresh interpretation of the much-discussed meaning of the name
Tullan, “the glorious centre of culture where the high priest
Quetzalcoatl, had dwelt and whence he had been driven by the wiles of his
enemies. It is a place that we hear of in the oldest myths and legends of
many and different races. Not only the Aztecs, but the Mayas of Yucatan
and the Kiches and Cakchiquels of Guatemala, bewailed in woful songs, the
loss of that beautiful land and counted its destruction as the common
starting-point in their annals.... According to the ancient Cakchiquel
legends, however, ... ‘there were four Tullans, as the ancient men have
told us.’ The most venerable traditions of the Maya race claimed for them
a migration from Tullan in Zuyva.”... “When it happened to me,” says Friar
Duran, “to ask a [Mexican] Indian who cut this pass through the mountains
or who opened that spring of water or who built that old ruin? the answer
was: The Tultecs, the disciples of Papa,” _i. e._, Quetzalcoatl. (See
Brinton, American Hero-Myths, p. 88.) Considering that the identity of
Tullan has not yet been satisfactorily established, that several Tullans
are said to have existed and that a small town, about a dozen leagues to
the northeast of Mexico, is named Tullan-tzinco=little Tullan, I should
like to direct the attention of Americanists to the following Maya words:
Tul-um=fortification, edifice, wall and enclosure. Tula-cal, Tuliz,
adjectives=whole, entire, undivided, integral. Tul-ul, adjective=general,
universal. Tul-tic, verb=to belong, to correspond to something. Tul=all
around or full. Tul=in composition, to have abundance. Tulnah=to be too
full, to overflow, to proceed, to issue, abound, high-tide. Tulaan=past
participle of tul.
I am of opinion that, after carefully examining the foregoing words and
their meanings, we must admit that an intelligible and satisfactory
derivation and signification of the much-discussed Tula of the Mexicans,
which has been vainly sought in the Nahuatl language, are obtained if we
connect it with the Maya words for fortress, or stronghold, an enclosed
place, an integral whole, an overflowing source of abundance and plenty.
If we do this, then the problematic term Tolteca, given by Mexicans to the
superior people from whom they had derived their culture and knowledge,
means nothing more than such persons who had belonged (Maya verb tultic)
or were members of a highly cultured commonwealth or ancient centre of
civilization, such as had flourished during countless centuries, in
Yucatan and the present Chiapas, Honduras and Guatemala.
Reserving this subject for future, more detailed, discussion, I point out
that the name Ho, given to the capital, which is designated in the map as
the “head of the land,” is obviously derived from the Maya hol, hool, or
hoot, which means not only head but also chieftain. The circumstance that
a single word, Ho, conveyed the triple meaning of a capital, a chieftain
and a head, is particularly noteworthy, as it affords not only important
clues to native symbolism, which I shall trace later on, but also shows
that the presence of the syllable Ho or O, in certain native names of
localities, may possibly indicate that it was a capital, the residence of
a chieftain. Further light is shed upon the following native association
of ideas when the following words are studied. The ancient Maya name for a
pyramid or artificial mound was ho-m and the pyramidal elevations on which
temples or palaces were built were designated as ho-mul or o-mul (see
Vocabulary, Brasseur de Bourbourg). The title Holpop was moreover that of
the “chieftain of the mat,” whose prerogative it was to sit on a mat and
to beat the sacred drum during the public dances or ritual performances
(Cogolludo). The ancient word for vase, vessel or cup in general was
ho-och, whilst o-och meant food or maintenance (Arte de la lengua Maya,
Fray Beltram de Santa Rosa, ed. Espinosa, Merida, 1859). If the foregoing
data be summarized we find that the word ho, the ancient name of the head
of the land, which is figured in its centre, is not only homonymous with
capital and chieftain, but also with pyramid, vase or receptacle and
maintenance, and finally with the numeral 5, also “ho.” We shall see that
the identical ideas were similarly associated in ancient Mexico.
Referring once more to the ancient map of Yucatan and to the peculiarity
that the head of the figurative bird, the capital, Ho, is supposed to
occupy the centre of the state, I point out nos. 1 and 5 (fig. 28) from
the Bodleian and Selden MSS. as somewhat analogous representations of a
central capital or chief, and nos. 3 and 6 as possibly being images of a
territorial subdivision of the state, resembling a spider’s web. In an
unpublished Mexican MS., which has been recently brought to light, the
middle of the concentric circles is painted blue and suggests the idea of
a system of distribution or irrigation, proceeding from a central supply
of water and radiating in all directions. An accentuation of centrality is
brought into relief in fig. 28, no. 6, where the spider’s web is placed in
the middle, between the two peaks of a mountain. In no. 2 a small
quadruple sign, which frequently occurs in the Vienna Codex, always
painted in the colors of the four quarters and united by a cross-band
across the centre (no. 4). also figures between two peaks, above two feet,
the significance of which I do not venture to determine. A remarkable
circular disc resembling the Maya map, and also divided into four parts by
cross lines, but exhibiting footsteps denoting rotation, is represented in
the entrance of a temple, in the Vienna Codex (fig. 28, no. 7). These
figures will be referred to again further on.
Let us now bestow attention upon the names of the Mexican capital and
first note that the edifice of the Great Temple, in which the Cihuacoatl
performed an annual ceremony already mentioned, was called tlal-xic-co,
literally “in the navel of the earth or land” (from tlalli=earth, land or
country, xictli=navel and co=in) (Sahagun, book II, appendix). Besides
this edifice there was, in the middle of the lagoon of Chalco, an island,
which, to this day, bears the name of Xico=in the navel or centre. This
indicates the curious circumstance that the edifice and island had
apparently been regarded as forming “ideal centres,” and shows that the
name of Mexico itself may have been associated with the same conception
being, as it was, the central seat of government. Gomara states that “the
city was divided into two halves or parts, one named Tlal-telolco=small
island (literally, ‘in the earth-mound’) and the other named Mexico, which
means ‘something which flows,’ ” (Histoire Généralle des Indes, Paris,
1634, chap. 38). The Nahuatl word alluded to can be no other than the verb
memeya which, according to Molina, signifies “water, or something liquid
which issues or flows in many directions.” I have already pointed out that
the Maya words to express water which rises and overflows, high tide and,
by extension, abundance and plenty, are tul, tulnah and, finally, tulaan,
past participle of tul. If the particle “me” conveyed the above idea, its
combination with xico would cause the name Mexico to be replete with
significance and to mean “the figurative centre whence all maintenance
proceeded and flowed in all directions, throughout the land.”
The Borgian Codex furnishes representations of identical meaning. On page
4 a human body, the centre of which forms a large red disc, is stretched
across the double tau-shaped tlachtli which obviously represents the four
quarters, being painted with their four symbolic colors. It is
particularly noteworthy that the limbs of the central figure are
represented as wearing the green skin of a lizard, while its face is
enclosed in the open jaws of the reptile. It should also be noted here
that whilst the Nahuatl names are cuetz-palin and topitzin, the Maya term
for lizard is mech or ix-mech. On the same page a similar, but smaller,
figure is depicted on a background representing the nocturnal heaven. On
the following page the figure of a dead woman is stretched on a red disc
whilst a priest is drilling the fire-stick into a circular symbol, with
four balls, which is the well-known symbol for chalchiuitl=jade. As the
name of the female water goddess is Chalchiutlycue, this detail is
significant and will be referred to later on. It is noteworthy that on
both pages 5 and 6 the performance of the above rite is accompanied by the
image of the goddess of the earth and underworld, represented with a
death’s head, and with her hair strewn with stars. Her body is that of a
green lizard, and she carries ears and blossoms of maize and holds a blue
garment on which the chalchihuitl symbol figures.
In connection with representatives of the human form outstretched in
sacrifice, on whose body the rite of kindling the sacred fire or of
extracting the heart is being performed, it seems evident that, under the
dominion of the fundamental ideas I have been discussing, the native sages
regarded and utilized the human form as an image of the Middle and Four
Quarters. It is well known that the number 20 was termed “one count” and
connected with the number of fingers and toes, distributed equally on his
four extremities. The human victim thus formed a living swastika or cross
and became not only the consecrated image of the supreme, creative,
central divinity who controlled the Four Quarters, but also an image of
the central government with its supreme ruler; whilst the four chiefs of
the Quarters were symbolized by the four limbs. Each of these terminated
in a symbolized group consisting of a hand, maitl, with a thumb (=touey
mapilli or vei mapilli, literally, the great finger, or our great finger)
and four fingers (mapilli); or of a great toe, touei xopil or topec-xopil
(literally, our great toe, or our lord toe) and of four toes=xopilli.
[Illustration.]
Figure 29.
The above association of ideas was doubtlessly accentuated by the fact
that the word pilli means a nobleman, a chieftain; thence he terms
pilconetl=the son of a nobleman and pilhua=he who has sons (pil in this
case meaning son and hua=possessor of). This latter fact could have been
very aptly conveyed in the picture-writings by employing fingers to
express the sound “pilli.” The number of sons a chieftain had could thus
be easily expressed by his exhibiting a corresponding number of fingers. I
shall revert to this possibility presently, and now referring to fig. 29,
no. 2, direct attention to the obvious intention to express the idea that
the fire produced was distributed to the four quarters by means of the
figures, painted in symbolical colors, three of which are visible. Another
picture in the same Codex represents four similar figures springing
towards the cardinal points from a source or fountain of water, whilst a
priest above a triangular cloak(7) holds a pair of weapons (?) in his
hands (fig. 29, no. 1). If carefully studied, these groups seem to
corroborate the derivation of the name Mexico, given above. What is more,
the first group affords an explanation of the meaning and purpose of three
strange recumbent stone figures bearing circular vessels, which have been
respectively found in Mexico, Tlaxcala and Chichen-Itza and are now
preserved at the National Museum in Mexico. They furnish the most
convincing proof that an identical cult and symbolism had existed in these
widely-separated localities. The conclusion I have previously expressed,
that an actual connection had been established between Chichen-Itza and
Mexico by the Maya high priest Kukulcan, or Quetzalcoatl, is thus
corroborated by undeniable evidence, which will be supplemented later on.
The three monoliths have been described and illustrated in the Anales del
Museo Nacional, Mexico, vol. 1, p. 270, by the late Señor Jesus Sanchez,
and are here reproduced. The statue exhumed at Chichen-Itza by Dr. Le
Plongeon (pl. IV, fig. 1) closely resembles that found at Tlaxcalla in
Mexico (pl. III, fig. 2). Dr. Brinton, who erroneously describes the
Chichen-Itza statue as representing “a sleeping god,” points out the
extremely important fact that there was a divinity worshipped in Yucatan
called Cum-ahau, “the lord of the vase,” who is designated in a MS.
dictionary as “Lucifer (the lord of the underworld) the principal native
divinity.” He adds there is good ground to suppose that this lord of the
vase ... was the god of fertility common to the Maya and Mexican cult
(Hero-Myths, p. 165). Considering that the great market-place in the
capital was actually the centre to which the entire product of the land
was periodically carried from its remotest confines, was there classified,
exchanged or distributed far and wide, the comparison to a central flowing
source of maintenance was most appropriate.
That some particular spot in or near the city should have gradually
assumed importance and sanctity as marking the exact centre of the
metropolis, _i. e._, of the integral whole of the Mexican “empire” is but
natural and it is not surprising to find that solemn rites were performed
on this spot. In one of the chronicles to which I shall revert, it is
stated that the New Fire was at times kindled on the prostrate body of a
slave, and this curious statement is corroborated by a picture in the
Borgian Codex, showing a priest producing fire from a circular vessel
placed on the body of a victim beneath whom a face enclosed in the open
jaws of a reptile, is visible (fig. 29).
[Illustration.]
Plate IV.
Dr. Le Plongeon, to whom much credit is due for its discovery, i
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