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, identified
the Chichen-Itza statue, for reasons not fully explained, as a portrait of
Chac-Mool, or Lord Tiger, and relates that it was found at a depth of
eight metres, not far from the base of the Great Pyramid Temple. A statue
of a standing tiger, with a human head and a shallow depression in its
back, was also found near the same spot. I have seen other sculptured
figures of human beings holding a vase, as at the hacienda near
Xochicalco, Mexico, and of tigers, with circular depressions on their
backs, and hope to be able to reproduce their photographs on another
occasion.
The most elaborately sculptured recumbent statue is undoubtedly that which
was found in or near the city of Mexico (pl. IV, fig. 3). The under
surface of its base (pl. IV, fig. 5) is entirely covered with zigzag water
lines and representations of roots of plants, figured as in the Codices;
shells, one kind of which is the well-known symbol of parturition, and
frogs which are intimately associated with water symbolism. On the hair of
the statue a flower-like ornament is carved (pl. IV, fig. 4) in connection
with which it should be noted that the Nahuatl for flower is xochitl,
pronounced hoochitl, resembling the Maya hooch=vase. The small groups of
five dots forming a border around the circular vessel are noteworthy, as
they are likewise sculptured on the calendar-stone. The characteristic
scrolls about the eyes of the figure show that it personates tlaloc, or
earth-wine. The fertility of the earth, caused by rain, is symbolized by
the wreath of ears of corn and reeds (Nahuatl, _tollin_) which is
sculptured around the base of this, one of the most remarkable of ancient
American monuments.
Señor Sanchez cites Torquemada (Monarquia Indiana, vol. II, p. 52) as the
only authority who mentions a recumbent image or idol and relates that,
“in the city of Tula, there was preserved in the great temple, an image of
Quetzalcoatl ... he was figured as lying down, as though going to
sleep.... Out of reverence the image was covered with mantles or
cloths.... They said that when sterile women made offerings or sacrifices
to the god Quetzalcoatl, he immediately caused them to become
pregnant....” He was the god of the Winds which he sent to sweep or clear
the way for the tlaloques=“the earth-wine” gods.
Señor Sanchez also quotes Gama, who, basing himself upon Torquemada’s
authority, maintains that Tezcatzon-catl, the principal rain or octli-god,
was figured as lying in an intoxicated condition, holding a vase of pulque
in his hands. To the above data I add the description by Bernal Diaz, of a
“figure in sculpture” he saw on the summit of the great temple of Mexico:
“It was half man and half lizard (lagarto), was encrusted with precious
stones and one-half of it was covered with cloths. They said that half of
it was full of all the kinds of seeds that were produced in the entire
land, and told [me] that it was the god of sown land, of seeds and fruits.
I do not remember his name....” (Historia Verdadera, p. 71). It may be as
well to note, that the Nahuatl names for lizard, cuetz-palin and topitzin,
approximately convey the sound of the first syllables of the name of the
culture-hero Quetzalcoatl, and of the title “topiltzin” bestowed upon him.
It must, of course, remain a matter of conjecture whether the lizard was
possibly employed in the above case as a pictograph, to express the sound
of its name. One thing seems certain, that the Tula image of Quetzalcoatl,
to which divinity barren women directed their invocations, and the statue
described by Bernal Diaz as that “of the god of seeds, fruits and
cultivated land,” were undoubtedly analogous to the sculptured recumbent
figure found in Mexico, and exhibiting the symbols of Tlaloc, or
earth-wine, of maize, and of parturition. Bernal Diaz further relates that
the said image was kept on the uppermost terrace of the Great Temple, in
one of five “concavities surrounded by barbacans or low walls the
wood-work of which was very richly carved” (_op. et loc. cit._).
The inference to be drawn from the foregoing data is that the Mexicans and
the Mayas habitually kept, on the summit of their principal temple, in
their centres of government, a statue holding a circular vessel and
figuratively representing the “navel or centre of the land.” The group of
ideas already traced in the Maya ho=capital, hom=pyramid, ho-och=vessel,
o-och=maintenance, ho=5, thus proves to be completely carried out, for, on
this consecrated spot, which emblematized the source whence all life
proceeded, sacred emblematic rites were performed, the purpose of which
was to typify the union, in the centre, of the four elements requisite for
the productiveness of the earth.
[Illustration.]
Figure 30.
The ground plan of the Caracol or Round Temple of Chichen-Itza, which was
built, according to tradition, by the high priest Quetzalcoatl, carries
out the idea of the middle and of the four quarters in so obvious a manner
that it may safely be assumed that it represented the supposed centre of a
dominion (fig. 30). Referring the reader to the interesting description of
this remarkable edifice in Mr. William Holmes’ valuable work already
cited, I note that round temples, dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, are recorded
to have also existed in Mexico. It seems probable that, at certain
festivals, the living representatives of the Above and Below performed
certain sacred rites on the summit of one of these circular edifices. It
is obvious that such rites could only have been fitly performed by the
coöperation of both twin rulers or Quequetzalcoas, each of whom
personified two elements. The appropriate season for such rites would be
that when the necessity of insuring a successful harvest would seem most
urgent. It is a recorded fact that the most solemn festivals of the year
were held between the vernal equinox, on which date the ritual year began,
and the fall of the first rain which usually occurs about the middle of
May. It is extremely significant that at this precise period the festival
toxcatl took place (_cf._ Maya thoaxol or thoxol=distribution, giving each
one a little, and o-och=food or maintenance) during which Tezcatlipoca and
Huitzilopochtli were jointly honored. During this festival the “sacred
dough,” named tzoalli, was a prominent feature of the ritual and it was
undoubtedly associated with the idea of the life-giving union of the four
elements, the Above and Below, or the male and female principles.
It can, moreover, be directly connected with the recumbent statues
representing the centre; for, whilst Bernal Diaz recorded that the statue
on the summit of the Great Temple held a collection of all the seeds of
the land, Cortés, in his descriptive letter, gives us an important detail
which evidently applied to the identical statue. He relates that “the
bodies of the idols are made of a dough consisting of all the kinds of
seeds and vegetables that these people ate. These are ground, mixed with
each other and then moistened with the blood of the hearts of human
victims ...” (_op. cit._ p. 105). Sahagun relates that an image of the
earth goddess, under the title of Seven-serpents or twins, was made of
this sacred dough and that offerings of all kinds of maize, beans, etc.,
were made before it “because she is the author and giver of all these
things which sustain the life of the people” (book II, 4). It is well
known that the dough images were broken into small pieces and these were
distributed to the priests and people, who partook of the substance after
having prepared themselves by fasting, for the sacred rite. I draw
attention to the fact that the above sacred substance is but the natural
outcome of the primitive notion already mentioned, which led the hunters
to spill blood upon the earth, to obtain its increased fruitfulness. An
insight having been thus obtained of the origin of blood sacrifices in
ancient America, it is possible to understand the meaning of certain
representations showing the performance of ritual blood-offerings.
On the well-known bas-relief preserved in the National Museum of Mexico,
and illustrated in the Anales (vol. I, p. 63), the two historical rulers
of ancient Mexico, who figure as Quequetzalcoas, or divine twins, in
exactly the same costume, are sculptured with blood flowing from their
shins and in the act of piercing their ears with a sharp bone instrument.
Two streams of blood descend from these and meet before falling into the
open jaws figured beneath an altar, on which two conventionalized flowers
appear. The two rows of teeth=tlantli, convey the sound of the affix
tlan=land of, or tlalli=earth. But the most remarkable and striking
instance of the group of ideas we have been studying is found on p. 62 of
the Borgian Codex. On a background formed by a pool of water, there is a
group which represents the “earth-mother” lying on a band of lizard-skin,
with two maize plants issuing from her body and growing into a large
two-branched tree, in the centre of which is a flint-knife or tecpatl. A
bird stands on its summit and its branches terminate in maize plants. Its
growth is being furthered by the two streams of blood which proceed from
two human figures, standing at each side of the tree. One is painted black
and evidently represents the Lord of the Below; the other is painted
blue-green and represents the Lord of the Above. The blood-sacrifice they
are jointly offering is that mentioned in the “Lyfe of the Indians,” as
performed in order to obtain generation. Unquestionably this symbolical
group would have been equally intelligible to Mayas or Mexicans, since the
ideas it expressed were held in common by both people.
Before proceeding further it is necessary to state that after the native
philosophers had, for an indefinite period of time, been satisfied with
the artificial division of all things into four quarters, corresponding to
the cardinal points and elements, the idea of the Above and Below
gradually grew in importance, whilst prolonged thought and observation
disclosed that the above classification demanded revision. On carefully
investigating the attributes of the principal ancient Mexican deities or
personifications of the elements we see that the native thinkers had found
themselves obliged to make a distinction between the different forms of
each element, having realized, for instance, that water not only fell to
earth from the heaven, but also issued from the depths of the earth in the
form of springs or fountains, and formed rivers and lakes. The final
conclusions they reached in this instance are best explained by the fact
that the name of the god Tlaloc means earth-wine or rain only, and that
his sister “Chalchiuhtlycue” appears as the personification of wells,
springs, rivers and lakes. It is evident that the classification of the
ocean or sea must have given rise to much serious thought. We know how the
problem was solved by the fact that the Nahuatl name for the ocean is
“ilhuica-atl”=heaven-water. Accordingly, the rain and the ocean pertained
to the heaven, the Above and male principle, whilst the wells, springs,
rivers, etc., belonged to the earth, the Below, the female principle.
As in this case, so it was with the other elements, each of which was
finally personified by a male deity and his female counterpart, which, in
some cases, tended to represent its distinctive and beneficent properties.
As these deities are separately treated in my commentary of the “Lyfe of
the Indians” and lack of space forbids my discussing them here, I shall
but mention that the ultimate native systematization of the elements, each
of which was thought of as an attribute only of supreme and central
divinity, corresponds exactly to that held by the Zuñis of to-day and set
forth in the following account given by Mr. Frank H. Cushing and quoted in
Dr. Brinton’s “Native Calendar of Central America and Mexico” (p. 8). In
quoting it I draw special attention to the numerical divisions given, as
this is absolutely essential for the understanding of the statements I
shall make, further on, concerning the origin of the native
Calendar-systems.
[Illustration.]
Figure 31.
“In the ceremonies of the Zuñis the complete terrestrial sphere is
symbolized by pointing or blowing the smoke to the four cardinal points,
to the zenith and nadir, the individual himself making the seventh number.
When the celestial is also symbolized, only the six directions are added
to this seven, because the individual remains the same, so that the number
typifying the universe, terrestrial and celestial, becomes 13. When, on
the other hand, in their ceremonies, the rite requires the officiant to
typify the supra- and intra-terrestrial spheres, that is, the upper and
lower worlds [the Above and the Below], the same number 13 results, as it
is held that in each the sun stands for the individual, being in turn the
day sun and night sun, the light and dark sun, but ever the same and
therefore counts but once.”
After having gained this knowledge of native speculative philosophy, let
us penetrate still further into their modes of thinking by studying, first
of all, a series of symbols of the earth-mother taken from one of the most
valuable of Mexican MSS., the Vienna Codex (fig. 31). In these the idea of
the vase, bowl or receptacle and of the serpent predominates. It is
instructive of native thought to find the vase represented as containing a
child (no. 1), an agave plant (no. 7), a fire, denoting warmth (no. 3), a
flower (no. 12), and a bunch of hair, the numerical symbol for
multiplicity=the number 400 (no. 5). In no. 2, the hollow between two
recurved peaks conveys the idea of a central vase; a band with eyes rests
upon the peaks and denotes the heaven. No. 4 shows a double vase, enclosed
in a similar representation of the nocturnal heaven—the idea to be
conveyed being evidently that of a receptacle hidden in darkness. No. 9
displays an open jaw, two claws, a human heart and a stream of blood
issuing from it. Nos. 10 and 11 present different shapes of the serpent’s
jaw, the symbol of the earth.
The double-headed serpent forming a vase containing a flower (no. 12) is
particularly interesting because the flower=xoch-itl in Nahuatl, seems to
suggest an intentional likeness to the Maya word for “vase, vessel or cup
in general,” ho-och (Arte de la lengua Maya, Fray Pedro Beltran de Santa
Rosa, ed. Espinosa, Mérida, 1859) as well as hoch or o-och=“food and
maintenance.” The symbolical vase-like opening in the core of the agave
plant, (no. 8) is such as is made to this day, in order to collect the
juice, which, when fermented, constitutes the sacred wine of the ancient
Mexicans, octli, now better known as pulque.(8) As will be shown the
Mexicans considered this as “the drink of life.” Its use was rigidly
regulated and supervised by the “octli-lords” or “rain-priests” who
distributed it at certain dances, in order to induce a state of mild
intoxication amongst the participants.
As in the case of the Zuñis and Tarahumari Indians of the present day,
referred to by W J McGee, in his valuable and instructive article on “The
beginning of Marriage” (the American Anthropologist, vol. IX, no. 11, p.
371), “certain ceremonials typifying the fecundity of the earth and of the
leading people thereof” were performed by the ancient Mexicans. These
public ceremonials had also been “apparently developed to the end that the
tribes and peoples might be encouraged to increase and multiply and
possess the fecund earth.” They took place at the period of the year when
the heaven and earth were also supposed to unite, _i. e._, at the
beginning of the rainy season. During this the ordinary out-door
occupations of the agriculturist and hunter were forcibly interrupted and
the regular and periodical transportations of produce and tribute to the
capital became impossible, owing to torrential rain, swollen rivers and
impassable roads. This period of enforced shelter and confinement indoors
seems to have become the definite mating season of the aborigines. At the
same time the union of the sexes had obviously assumed a sort of
consecration since it was intimately associated with the cosmical,
philosophical and religious ideas and coincided with what was regarded as
the annual union of the elements or of the Above and Below, the heaven and
earth.
At that period of its history, when the Aztec race was jointly governed by
a priest, personifying the heaven and a priestess, “his wife and sister,”
who personified the earth, some form of sacred marriage rite must have
been annually performed. The consecrated character of their union must
have naturally caused their offspring to be regarded as of a holy and
almost divine origin. It is easy to realize, therefore, how, in ancient
Mexico, the artificial idea of “superior birth” came into existence, how a
family or caste of rulers gradually developed, the members of which were
entitled “teotl”=divine, whilst the men were regarded as “the sons of
Heaven” and the women “the daughters of Earth.” It is obvious from this
that the periodical union of the sexes, accompanied as it was, by sacred
dances and the distribution of sacred wine, must have gradually assumed a
semi-religious character, whilst the ritual nuptials of the “divine”
rulers, typifying, as it obviously did, the grand and impressive
phenomenon of the rainy season, must have caused this marriage to assume
the character of a hallowed rite and surrounded it with the most elevated
and intense religious sentiments of which the native mind was capable.
After this recognition of the diverging influences which guided the
development of primitive marriage institutions, we will return to the
rain-priests or “octli-lords,” of whom it is repeatedly stated that there
were four hundred, a number corresponding to an assignment of 100 or 5×20
to each of the four provinces or divisions of the commonwealth. Their
emblem was the sacred vase or receptacle and in the “Lyfe of the Indians”
this will be seen figured on their mantas and shields (no. 6_a_). A small
gold plate, of the same shape, is represented as worn by these “lords,”
attached to the nose (no. 6_b_); and, in the same MS., the symbolical
ornament is also carried by the “sister of Tlaloc.” It was evidently worn,
like similar ornaments in other countries, hanging from the septum of the
nose, and seems to have indicated a consecration of the breath as the
substance of life. As an inference, merely based on an insight gained into
the native modes of thought, I suggest that the explanation for the
adoption of this ornament may have been the religious idea that the breath
of life, dividing itself as it issues through the nostrils and uniting
when inhaled, appeared to the native thinkers as a marvellous illustration
of unity and duality, both ideas having constantly been present in their
minds.
[Illustration.]
Figure 32.
In the Vienna Codex there is a remarkable picture of the earth-vase
resting on a slab with five divisions. A profusion of puffs or breaths of
air or vapor issue from it and, branching off in two directions, form what
is like the conventional tree of life, also met with in Maya bas-reliefs
and documents. At the extremities of the branches which turn downwards, a
serpent’s eye is visible and a forked-tongue issues above the middle (fig.
32, no. 1). The intention to express an exuberant vitality and growth
issuing from the symbolical vase in the centre of the earth, seems
obvious. This idea is still more clearly conveyed, however, in two
symbolic pictures on pp. 21 and 29 of the Codex Borgia, which are
reproduced as nos. 1 and 4 in fig. 1 of this publication. The first
represents the vase overflowing with water and containing a flint-knife,
the generator of the vital spark. The central group is surrounded by water
and by sun-rays and obviously symbolizes the union of air, light and
water, constituting the Above, with the flint the emblem of the
earth-mother and of Tezcatlipoca, the lord of the Under-world. Fig. 1, no.
4, represents the vase overflowing with a liquid, which is designated as
being the sacred octli or earth-wine by the presence of the rabbit, which
expresses the sound of its name=tochtli. This rebus is surrounded by the
nocturnal heaven strewn with stars and the reference to the union of rain
or earth-wine with earth and darkness is evident. It has been generally
assumed that these images of the vase, containing the rabbit or
flint-knife, represented the moon. As the latter was intimately associated
with the cult of night, of the earth-mother and ideas of growth, it is not
impossible that by an extension of symbolism, this was the case, but only
in the same way as the sun was the emblem of the cult of the Above. On the
other hand the native drawings of the moon in Sahagun’s Academia MS.
represent it as a crescent with a human profile on the inner side, and in
a specimen preserved at the Trocadéro Museum, Paris, it is similarly
carved in rock crystal.
Before proceeding to investigate the symbol further, I would point out the
general resemblance of the vase, especially as a conventionalized
serpent’s jaw, to the “horse-shoe” shape of the problematical stone
“yokes” which have been so thoroughly studied by Dr. Hermann Strebel of
Hamburg (Studien ueber Steinjoche aus Mexico and Mittel-Amerika.
Internationales Archiv, bd. III, 1890). Mr. Francis Parry has advanced a
view concerning the meaning of these curious “sacred stones.”(9) This is
somewhat corroborated, as will be shown, by my recent studies, which seem
to indicate pretty clearly that these symbolical objects pertained to the
cult of the earth-mother. A fact of unquestionable importance, cited by
Mr. Parry, is the certified existence and use, amongst southern
Californian Indians of the present day, of a rudely worked stone of the
same shape, in a native religious rite. The owner of one of these stones,
Mr. Horatio Rust, a pioneer resident of Pasadena, southern California,
exhibited it in the Anthropological Section of the World’s Columbian
Exposition, at Chicago, 1893, and informed me how he had observed that,
occasionally, a native assembly took place at a certain spot on a mountain
side, during which invocations and offerings were made. He ascertained
that the ceremony on one occasion was the equivalent of the puberty-dances
of similar California tribes. Having visited and examined the spot after
one of these celebrations, in which six young girls, decorated with
garlands of flowers, were the chief participants, he found the “sacred
stone,” concealed and surrounded by offerings of corn, meal and pieces of
money. The version published by Mr. Parry is slightly different to this
account, which was given me by Mr. Rust himself.
In order fully to appreciate the close analogy between the Californian
ceremonial offering of maize and meal to the emblematic stone and the
ancient Mexican ritual offerings of seeds to an idol, holding a bowl or
vase, it is necessary to read the following data. At the same time I would
like to mention here that amongst the Hupa Indians of California, who have
been termed “the Romans of Northern California by reason of their valour
and far reaching dominions,” we find that “flakes or knives of obsidian or
jasper, sometimes measuring 15 inches or more in length, are employed for
sacred purposes and are carried aloft in the hand in certain ceremonial
dances, wrapped with skin or cloth. Such knives are esteemed so sacred
that the Indians would on no account part with them, and Mr. Stephen
Powers found that they could not be purchased at any price.”(10)
It is scarcely necessary to recall here that the flint-knife was a
well-known ancient Mexican emblem, nor to point out the importance of the
conclusion that two well-defined symbols which played an important rôle in
the Mexican and Mayan cult of the Below and of the Earth-mother, are
actually found in use amongst Californian Indians at the present day.
A whole flood of light is thrown upon native symbolism, however, by the
information obtained from the Zuñi Indians by Mr. F. H. Cushing. The
following passage, from their Creation myth, affords the most positive
confirmation of the foregoing conclusion, that the bowl or vase was the
native emblem of the earth-mother. The Zuñi speaker said: “Is not the bowl
the emblem of the Earth, our Mother? For from her we draw both food and
drink, just as the babe draws nourishment from the breast of its mother.
And round, as is the rim of the bowl, so is the horizon....”(11)
Interesting as this explanation of the native symbolism undoubtedly is, it
becomes most important when its full significance is realized and we
recognize that originally earthenware bowls themselves were looked upon as
sacred emblems formed indeed out of the material of the earth itself. This
fact places the invention and manufacture of earthen vessels in an
entirely new light and enables us to conjecture and understand why, quite
apart from their utility, so much care and decoration were lavished upon
them and why, indeed, they were constantly buried with the dead. They
obviously served as sacred emblems of the earth-mother, to whose care the
dead body was confided, and originally the intention probably was to
propitiate her by the beauty of the sacred vessels, which, to be
symbolical of her bounty, necessarily contained food and drink.
Without pausing to discuss how easily this custom would have gradually
given birth to the belief that the food and drink thus offered were
intended for the use of the dead body itself, or its soul, I would point
out that, in the absence of clay vessels, a stone, rough or worked, would
have also served as an appropriate emblem of the earth-mother, being as it
were, of her own substance. It is well known that in ancient Mexico this
custom prevailed. There we also find that the bowl- or vase-shaped grave
was employed, with a deeply religious and symbolical meaning. This is
clearly revealed by a native drawing in the “Lyfe of the Indians,”
representing a native burial. The deceased, represented by his skull only,
has been placed in a deep hole, figured as a large inverted horse-shoe,
painted brown and covered with small “horse-shoe” marks. The same
religious symbolism which led to the adoption of a definite form of
sepulchre, typifying the element earth, would evidently account for the
adoption for burial purposes, of large clay vessels into which the remains
of the dead were placed. In some localities these clay burial urns were,
as we know, made large enough to contain the dead body itself. The
difficulty of manufacturing these would naturally have led to the general
adoption of cremation, simply as a means of reducing the remains so that
they could repose in the sacred image of the earth. Cremation would,
moreover, be a rite full of meaning since, to the native mind, earth was
inseparable from its twin element fire, and both together constituted the
“Below.”
It is significant to find, however, that the ashes of Montezuma’s
predecessors had not been finally consigned to the earth. In strict
accordance with their association with the Heaven and Above, their remains
were never allowed to come in contact with the earth, but were usually
preserved inside of a hollow wooden effigy of the deceased, which was
dressed in his insignia and placed in a high tower, built for the express
purpose. Cortés states that there were “forty very high towers” in the
enclosure of the Great Temple of Mexico and that “all of these were
sepulchres of the lords” (Historia de Nueva-España, ed. Lorenzana, pp. 105
and 106). Whilst it is evident that the remains of all lords and priests
of heaven should thus be assigned a place of rest high above the earth, it
is equally intelligible that the bodies of the lords and priests of the
Below and all women should be consigned to the interior of the earth and
by preference in caves. The Codex Féjérvary contains an interesting
picture of the tied-up body of a woman, recognizable as such from the
head-dress and her instrument of labor, the metlatl, on which the maize is
ground. The mummy rests inside of a flat effigy of a serpent’s head, which
seems to be carved in wood or stone and closely resembles fig. 31, no. 11.
It is worth considering whether the carved stone-yokes may not have served
in connection with the funeral rites of the consorts of rulers or high
priestesses or priests of the Below.
If investigations of the vase or earth symbols are extended to countries
lying south of Mexico, traces of the existence of an analogous cult are
observable. There undoubtedly exists a striking resemblance between the
form of the characteristic and peculiar stone “seats” which have been
found in such numbers in Ecuador, to the vase, fig. 31, no. 3, for
instance. The employment of these symbolical stones as a consecrated
central altar or, possibly, as the throne of the living representative of
the earth-mother, would have harmonized with the native ideas which have
been traced on the preceding pages.
It was also extremely interesting to me to find the identical symbol in
the Maya day-sign Caban, which has been identified by Dr. Schellhas and
Geheimrath Förstemann as a symbol of the earth and is figured on p. 99 of
Dr. Brinton’s Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics. In the sign Caban, the
horse-shoe mark is accompanied by a series of dots which seem to indicate
liquid trickling from the receptacle and permeating the soil, an idea
which is strictly analogous to the much more elaborate Mexican images of
the vase full of rain or “earth-wine,” fig. 1, nos. 1 and 4, which, in
cursive form, was employed as the emblem of the pulque, or octli lords,
the priests of the earth. It is strikingly significant to find that in the
Maya Codices the drops issuing from the horse-shoe are sometimes figured
as trickling into the mouths of “divinities” whose faces also exhibit
images of the sacred vase, analogous to that of the Mexican “octli-lords.”
These Maya divinities have been designated by Dr. Schellhas as god L,
whose face is painted black and under whose eye a vase is painted, a
peculiarity termed by Maya authorities “an ornamented eye” and which may
be seen in fig. 33, iv; (2) as god M, “a second black god,” whose eye is
likewise enclosed in a vase and whose hieroglyph is a vase on a black
ground; and (3) as god C, of whom I shall subsequently speak in detail.
(See Brinton’s Primer, pp. 122 and 124.) In the case of god L, the two
horse-shoe marks from which drops are falling into the mouth of the god,
are surmounted by the glyph imix, to which I shall revert.
[Illustration.]
Figure 33.
The horse-shoe mark with drops likewise occurs in the design resembling
the akbal glyph, which has been interpreted as connected with akab=night.
It also occurs, in Maya Codices, on bands exhibiting cross-symbols,
sometimes in an inverted position and hanging from above and sometimes
standing on two of the three mounds which are a feature of these
interesting glyphs. Postponing a detailed discussion of these, I will but
emphasize here that, in the Maya Codices the vase, cursively drawn as a
“horse-shoe” mark, is proved to be intimately connected with the ideas of
liquid falling from above, and constituting the drink of divinities and
symbols associated with the sacred vase, night and darkness, all
attributes of the Below. We shall next demonstrate that it was alternately
placed, on the Maya Caban glyph, with a curious sign consisting of a
pea-shaped black dot, to which a curved and wavy line is attached. This is
always figured as issuing from above the dot, then extending downwards and
half around it and terminating in a descending, undulating line.
I submit the following to the consideration of Maya specialists: It seems
to me that this sign presents an extremely realistic drawing of the seed
of a monocotyledonous plant, such as the maize or Indian corn, in its
first stage of germination, when the radicle, having issued from the apex,
turns downwards in characteristic fashion and penetrates into the earth.
Besides the realism of the native drawing there can be no doubt that the
image of a sprouting maize-seed is the most expressive and appropriate
accompaniment to the symbol of fertilizing rain, on an earth-symbol, and I
am unable to understand how Drs. Cyrus Thomas, Seler, Schellhas and
Brinton could have overlooked the realism in this image of a sprouting
seed, and concluded that it was a portrayal of “fermented liquor trickling
downward,” a “nose-ornament,” or a “twisted lock of hair,” “a cork-screw
curl.” The latter interpretation was made by Dr. Schellhas because he
found the sign in connection with female figures in the Codices, which
undoubtedly is a fact of extreme interest, as it furnishes a valuable
proof that the Mayas associated the earth with the female principle.
Dr. Schellhas, however, records his observation that the sign caban occurs
as a symbol of fruit-bearing earth, in the Codex Troano, as it is figured
with leaves of maize (p. 33) or with climbing plants issuing from it and
winding themselves around a pole (p. 32). Geheimrath Förstemann connects
the day-name caban with “cab” to which Perez, in his dictionary, attaches
the meaning of “earth, world and soil” (Die Tages götter der Mayas.
Globus, vol. LXXIII, no. 9) and adds that the hieroglyph decidedly
designates the earth. At the same time he interprets what I regard as the
maize-grain and its radicle, as possibly representing a bird in its flight
upwards, and he merely describes the accompanying inverted horse-shoe with
dots, without attaching any positive meaning to it. It must be added that
Dr. Förstemann himself states that he is not satisfied with his own
interpretation of these two symbols, the first of which, the seed and
radicle, likewise occurs in the day-sign cib, to which I shall recur.
If any doubt remains as to the signification of the day-sign cab, I think
it will be dispelled when it is shown that the name cab, or caban is
obviously related to the adjective, adverb and preposition cabal or
cablil, which signifies low, below, on the earth, in, beneath and under.
The frequent association of the cab glyph with the image of a bee, as in
the Codex Troano, is partially explained by the fact that the Maya word
for honey is cab, for honey-bee is yikil-cab. It affords at all events, an
instance, in Maya hieroglyphic writing, of a method of duplicating the
sound of a word analogous to that which I detected in Mexican pictography,
and named complementary signs in my communication on the subject,
published as an appendix to my essay on Ancient Mexican Shields
(Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, Leyden, 1892). On the other hand
the day name and sign cib, on which the sprouting grain is also figured,
seems to be related to the verb cibah=to will, to occur, to happen, to
take place. The allusion contained in both glyphs is obviously the same
and signifies, in the first place, the hidden process of germination which
takes place under the surface of the soil, and is associated with the idea
of the female principle in Nature.
The seed and radicle, horse-shoe and rain-drops, are also distinguishable
on a vessel on page 35 of the Dresden Codex and on a small three-legged
vase, which is figured by Doctor Brinton (Primer, 118) as the day sign
ch’en. This vase is surmounted by two in-curving projections and offers a
close analogy to a sacred vase with superstructure (fig. 33, II) from
which projects a peculiar open and double receptacle, into which a priest
is sowing small seeds. The interior of this bowl is represented as hollow,
and containing what I shall show further on to be a native symbol for
Earth: three little mounds. On another bowl, in front of this one, a bird
is sitting and presumably hatching. In another portion of the same MS. a
similar bowl is figured containing three seed fruits and capsules,
resembling pomegranates or poppy-heads (fig. 33, III).
The tree next to which the first two symbolical bowls are placed deserves
to be carefully studied, for the trunk is crowned by four stems bearing
single leaves and is encircled by a serpent, _can_, the homonym for the
numeral four=kan. A fringed mantle and a scroll hang from the coils of the
serpent’s body, two footsteps are painted on the scroll and, pointing
downwards, express “descent,” as do also the falling drops of liquid on
the stems of the tree which grows from a peculiar glyph with subdivisions,
which has points of resemblance with the glyph under the footless divinity
(fig. 33, I). An obsidian mirror, with cross bars, is painted in front of
the latter, which displays the same descending footsteps on its mantle.
The head and eyes of a snail, the symbol of parturition, are above its
face and a wreath of flowers crowns its head. Tedious as such a minute
analysis may seem, it is nevertheless necessary, in order to gain a
perception of the extent to which symbolism was practised in the picture
writings found in the Maya MSS., accompanied by the cursive calculiform
glyphs. It seems that, in no. II, we have a presentation of the Maya “tree
of life,” and that scrolls, on which descending footsteps are depicted,
are intended to convey the meaning that life is descending from Above into
the egg and seeds by virtue or decree of the celestial power. It should be
noted here that the phenomenon of a living bird issuing from the hard and
inanimate egg-shell had made as deep an impression upon the ancient
philosophers in Mexico as elsewhere, and that the power “to form the
chicken in the shell” was deemed one of the most marvellous attributes of
“the divine Moulder or Former,” as is further set forth in the “Lyfe of
the Indians.”
The foregoing illustrations establish, at all events, that the Mayas, like
the Mexicans, associated the sacred vase with seeds and germination. The
vase, illustrated by Doctor Brinton, exhibits the seed and radicle; and
this is also found on the symbol for earth, which, in the Cortesian Codex,
is associated with the image of a serpent, possibly the equivalent of the
Mexican Cihuacoatl, or female serpent.
If, after mustering this close array of analogies, we next examine the
glyph cib, we find that it exhibits the seed and radicle in the centre of
a square, three sides of which are decorated with what Doctor Brinton has
termed the “pottery decoration(?).” This consists of short lines, such as
are employed in Mexican pictography, in the well-known sign for tlalli, or
land, which is usually surrounded on three sides by a fringe, presumably
symbolizing plants and grass, a “fringe” of vegetation and verdure. In the
glyph cib, already referred to, I am inclined to see but a cursive
rendering of the same idea, with the seed and radicle in the centre and
the fringed border barely indicated by a few short lines. The same border
is found repeated on three sides of the head of a frequently recurring
personage whom Doctor Schellhas designates as “God C, of the Ornamented
face.” In his extremely valuable work, Die Göttergestalten der
Mayahandschriften, this careful investigator records the various
combinations in which this God C occurs in the Codices and impartially
weighs the possibilities of its meaning. Geheimrath Förstemann has made
the important observation that the figure of God C occurs in combination
with the day-sign, chuen, of the Maya calendar, which coincides with the
Mexican day-sign azomatli=monkey.
I am unable to agree with my venerable friend in identifying God C, with
Polaris. As Doctor Schellhas rightly observes, the fact that God C is
found in combination with the signs of all the four quarters disproves an
identification with Polaris. What is more, God C is frequently represented
as receiving in his mouth drops of liquid falling from a cursive vase
placed above his head—a detail which clearly connects him with earth and
the “earth-wine.” In the Mexican MSS. we find the monkey intimately
connected with the octli or earth-wine gods as, for instance, in the “Lyfe
of the Indians.” I therefore reserve a more detailed discussion of this
subject for my notes on this MS. and return to the glyphs caban and kan or
can.
Just as it has been shown that the first may signify cabal=the Below, so
it is evident that the second is connected with the preposition and adverb
canal, signifying “above, on top of, on high.” Dr. Brinton sees in the kan
symbol a presentation of a polished stone, or shell pendant, or bead, and
cites the Maya dictionary of Motul which gives kan as the name for “beads
or stones which served the Indians as money and neck ornaments.” In
connection with this important statement I revert to the carved
shell-gorgets which have been found in the mounds and ancient graves in
the Mississippi valley and exhibit Maya influence. The greater number of
these exhibit a carved serpent (which in Maya is _kan_) in their centres
and this fact affords a clue to the possible origin of the Maya name for a
neck ornament given in the Motul dictionary. It is undeniable that all
evidence unites in proving that the ancient peoples of the Mississippi
valley were in traffic, if not more intimately connected, with a
Maya-speaking people and came under the influence of the ideas and
symbolism current in Yucatan.
Returning to the employment of the glyph kan in Maya Codices, for more
reasons than I am able to enumerate here, I conclude it served as an
indicative of the Above or Heaven. It is a curious fact that the Maya word
for cord is kaan, whilst the name for sky is caan. I cannot but think,
therefore, that a carved pendant with a serpent effigy=a kan, worn on a
cord=kaan, must have been associated by the Mayas with the Heaven or
sky=caan, and that this linguistic coincidence must have been a strong
factor in the development of the symbolism attached to the glyph can or
kan.
An interesting fact, which I shall demonstrate by a large series of
illustration from native Codices in a chapter of my forthcoming work on
the ancient Calendar System, will show that in their hieratic writings,
the ancient Mexican scribes represented the nocturnal heaven or sky as a
circle composed of a cord, to which stars were attached, whilst the centre
of the circle exhibited one or four stars. In my opinion the origin and
explanation of the association of the cord with stars are clearly
traceable to the above mentioned fact that in the Maya tongue the word for
cord, kaan, closely resembles the sound of the word caan=sky. The presence
of the cord in the Mexican symbols is, therefore, another indication of
their Maya origin. A proof that the Mayas also employed the cord as a
symbol of the sky, or heaven, is furnished by the much-discussed
lentil-shaped stone altar found at Copan, a small outline of which is
represented in fig. 21, no. 1. In order fully to understand the meaning
expressed by this stone, it is necessary to bear in mind how indissolubly
the idea of something circular was associated by the Mayas and Mexicans
with their conception of the vault of heaven resting on the horizon, and
of the Above, consisting of the two fluid elements, air and water.
It is scarcely necessary to refer again here to more than one authority
for the statement that the temples of the air (of the Above) were
circular, and the reason given by the natives for this was that “just as
the air circulates around the vault of the heaven, so its temple had to be
of a round shape.”(12) As a contrast to this conception, the influence of
which is also obvious in the form of the round temples and towers of the
ruined cities of Central America, I would cite the allusions to the solid
earth contained in the sacred books of the Mayas, the Popol Vuh, as being
“the quadrated earth, four-cornered, four-sided, four-bordered.” These
data establish the important fact, to which I shall recur, that the native
philosophers associated the Above, composed of air and water, with the
rounded, and the Below, composed of fire and water, with the angular form.