The Copan stone altar exhibits the circular form and is surrounded by a

sculptured cord which conveys the sound of its name kaan or caan=heaven.

On it a cup-shaped depression=ho-och, marks the sacred centre of the

heaven, the counterpart to the terrestrial bowl whence all life-giving

force proceeded. Two curved lines diverge from this and divide the vaulted

circle into two parts. The curve in the lines may be interpreted as

conveying motion or rotation whilst the division of the sky may have been

intended to signify the eastern or male and the western or female portion

of the heaven, the whole being an abstract image of central rulership and

of a dual principle incorporating the four elements. It is obvious that

the meaning intended to be conveyed might also include the duality of the

Heaven or Above, composed of the union of the elements air and water. By

painting the stone in two or four colors either of these meanings could

have been expressed. In either case it will be recognized, however, that

much as Dr. Ernest Hamy’s deductions concerning this altar have been

criticised, the learned director of the Trocadéro Museum, Paris, was

undoubtedly right in recognizing that the stone is a cosmical symbol,

intended to convey the idea of a two-fold division and analogous to the

Chinese tae-keih which it resembles, with the difference that the Copan

sign is more complex exhibiting, as it does, a central bowl-shaped

depression. A glimpse at the other symbols in fig. 21 will show that the

identical idea is expressed in the Mexican signs exhibiting a central

circle, usually accompanied by a four-fold division.

An analogous attempt to express the same native idea is recognizable in

the peculiar mushroom-shaped stone figures, represented by a number of

examples at the Central American exposition recently held at

Guatemala,(13) and recently described by the distinguished geologist and

ethnologist, Dr. Carl Sapper. The specimens had been collected in San

Salvador and Guatemala and “resemble great stone mushrooms” inasmuch as

each consists of three well-defined parts, a square pedestal from the

midst of which rises an almost cylindrical “stem” supporting a large

circular solid top, flat underneath and rounded above. The cylindrical

support is carved in the rough semblance of a human form, which, in some

instances, has rays issuing from its head.

An acquaintance with the fundamental ideas of native cosmogony enables us

to recognize that the square stone base typifies the solid part of the

universe, the Below, whilst the vaulted circle above typifies the heaven,

the Above. The figure standing between both is evidently an image of a

central lord and ruler, and the entire image is in accord with the native

mode of thought as set forth in Mr. Frank H. Cushing’s report already

cited and in the symbols which have been figured.

After reading Mr. Cushing’s account of the native American philosophy,

preserved to the present day by the Zuñis, it is impossible not to realize

how clearly the mushroom-images materialize the identical ideas which

constitute, indeed, the keynote of native thought and can be traced in

each centre of ancient American civilization. I am inclined to think that

these stone images were, originally, painted with the colors assigned to

the four quarters, which would render the symbolism more apparent. The

existence of these images in a restricted area of territory, seems,

moreover, to indicate that they had been invented there, possibly under

the influence of a religious and political creed with particular reference

to the union, in a single individual, of the power and attributes of the

Above and Below—an idea which strongly contrasts with Mexico and Yucatan,

where the idea of duality prevailed to such an extent that, by creating

two distinct religions and governments, it ultimately led to the

disintegration of the greatest of native empires and its fall, from which

it was only rallying at the time of the Conquest. It is also possible that

the Guatemala images are the expression of the reversion to a more ancient

form of philosophy or government when it had been realized that dual

government led to dissensions and disintegration. At all events the rude

mushroom figures testify that the conception of a single celestial or

terrestrial ruler of the Above and the Below filled the minds of their

makers at a time, the exact date of which it would be of utmost importance

to determine, if this were only possible. It is also interesting to note

the curious analogy presented by these figures to the well-known statement

by Confucius that, “the sage is united to Heaven and Earth so as to form a

triad, consisting of Heaven, Earth and Man.”

The association of the round form and of the peak with the Above and of

the square and bowl with the Below can be also detected in the form of

native American architecture, as exemplified, for instance, by the

contrasting shapes of two temples figured on page 75, of the Borgian Codex

(fig. 34) which were obviously dedicated to the two prevailing cults. One

of these is surmounted by a tau-shaped thatched roof with a flat top and

turned-down ends. The dedication of this temple to Night or star-cult is

conveyed in this case, by the sign for star on a black ground inserted in

the roof.(14)

[Illustration.]

Figure 34.

[Illustration.]

Figure 35.

The opposite temple exhibits a roof which rests on a black architrave and

offers a general resemblance to an inverted tau. It rises in a tapering

form and ends in a cone-shaped ornament. The existence and significance of

these two forms of temple-roofs might escape notice did the same not recur

in two high caps or mitres figured in the Vienna Codex and obviously

intended for the respective use of the Lords of the Above and of the Below

at a religious ceremonial (fig. 35). The first of these ends in a high

peak, the extremity of which is represented as capped with snow, in the

same conventional manner employed in figuring snow-mountains. An extremely

significant feature of this cap is its exhibition of a curved and rounded

pattern only on its border. The second mitre ends in a horizontal line; it

exhibits an angular pattern and two flaps hang down from it, which, as

they naturally concealed the ears of the wearer, seem to have been

symbolical of something hidden, and, perhaps, of silence and secrecy. A

third mitre is figured on the same page, which seems to unite the

characteristics of both forms and is surmounted by a young maize-shoot,

proceeding from a vase.

[Illustration.]

Figure 36.

The association of the Above with a peak or point is further illustrated

by a well-known peaked diadem always painted blue which was the symbol of

the visible ruler (fig. 36, no. 5). A peak also occurs on military shields

accompanied by four bars (fig. 36, no. 3) and presents an analogy to no. 4

from the “Lyfe of the Indians.” The latter is given as the symbol of a

sacred festival which I have demonstrated in a previous publication to

have coincided with the vernal equinox.(15) For further reasons which I

shall present in my calendar monograph, I infer that we have in this

drawing a most valuable image of the gnomon and dial employed by the Sun

priests for the observation of the equinoxes and solstices. The human

victim who was attached to the centre of the circular stone during the

same festival is usually represented with the same cone or point and eight

appendages on his head (fig. 36, no. 2). Owing to the circumstance that

this peaked head-dress, or cone, was sometimes employed by the scribes for

its phonetic value, as in fig. 36, no. 1, from the Codex Mendoza, in which

instance it is figured on a mountain and is usually painted blue, we know

positively that its name was Yope or Yopi—a valuable point since a temple

and a sort of monastery in the courtyard of the Great Temple of Mexico

were both named Yopico (Sahagun). At the same time it should be noted that

the Maya name for “a mitre,” the symbol of a divine ruler, is Yop-at. In

the Mexican ollin-signs a cone or ascending point is usually placed above

and opposite to a symbol consisting of a ring or loop. These evidently

signify the Above and Below, and in this connection it is worth noticing

that archaeologists have long puzzled over the curious forms of the two

kinds of prehistoric stone objects which have most frequently been found

in the island of Porto Rico. The first of these consists of an elongated

stone, the centre of which rises in the shape of a cone, whilst the ends

are respectively carved in the rough semblance of a head and of feet. The

second form, which has frequently been found in caves, consists of a large

stone ring, and is popularly termed “a stone collar.” I am inclined to

regard the latter as being analogous to the “stone yokes” of ancient

Mexico and to infer that the aborigines of Porto Rico practised a form of

the same cult. It should be borne in mind that the high conical stone, on

which the human victims were sacrificed, was a salient feature in an

ancient Mexican temple and that its form must have had some symbolical

meaning. The foregoing data indicate that it probably was emblematic of

the Above and Centre and was therefore regarded as the fitting place of

sacrifice to the Sun and Heaven, whilst offerings to the Earth were most

appropriately made in circular openings recalling the rim of the bowl and

the round line of the horizon. It will be seen further on that the cone

recurs in native architecture and that its use as a symbol, in the course

of time, culminated in the pyramid.

[Illustration.]

Figure 37.

Let us return to it in its rudimentary stage, as a perpendicular line

arising from a medium level, forming an inverted tau. The widespread

employment amongst American peoples of the inverted and upright tau-shape

as emblems of the Above and Below is abundantly proven and doubtlessly

arose as naturally as “the Chinese characters Shang=Above, employed as a

symbol for Heaven, and Lea=Below or Beneath, employed as a symbol for

Earth. These are formed, in the one case, by placing a man (represented by

a vertical line) above the medium level (represented by a horizontal line)

and in the other below it” (Encyclopedia Britannica, art. China) fig. 37.

Another equally graphic presentation of the analogous thought is furnished

by the familiar Egyptian sign which exhibits a loop or something rounded

and hollow above and a perpendicular line beneath the medium level. It is

well known that the tau occurs in Scandinavia and is popularly named

Thor’s hammer (fig. 38). Merely as a curious analogy I point out that in

fig. 25, no. 2, from the Vienna Codex, we have an American instance of a

tau-shaped object held in the hand in a ceremonial rite.

[Illustration.]

Figure 38.

The late and lamented Baron Gustav Nordenskjöld observed that the

entrances to the ruined estufas of the ancient cliff-dwellers of Colorado

were in the shape of an upright tau and it is well known that this is also

the case amongst the Pueblo Indians of the present day. By means of a

photograph taken by Dr. A. Warburg of Berlin, whilst witnessing the

Humis-katshina dance of the Moqui Indians at Oraibi, in May, 1896, I am

able to affirm that the native dancers wear masks and high head-ornaments,

partly of wood, on which reversed and upright tau-symbols are painted, the

first in a light and the second in a dark color. As the name of the

ceremonial dance was explained to Dr. Warburg as signifying “helping the

sprouting or growing maize,” and celebrated the advent of the rainy

season, it is obvious that the two forms of tau which were displayed in

alternate order on the heads of the dancers in the procession symbolized

the juxtaposition of the Above and Below, of Heaven and Earth.

In the ruined temples of Central America, windows in the shape of upright

and reversed taus also occur. The following series of architectural

openings (fig. 39) are copied from Mr. Alfred P. Maudslay’s invaluable and

splendid work, which has not, as yet, met with the recognition it so

richly deserves.(16) They display besides the tau-shape (_g_ and _h_)

other forms, the symbolism of which has been discussed. There are

cross-shaped (_e_), square, round and oval windows (_d_, _j_, _b_ and

_i_), the square obviously symbolical of the Earth and the round of the

Heaven. Besides these there are openings in the form of a truncated cone

(_a_ and _c_) and others ending in a narrow point (_k_). A striking form

which recalls the Moorish arch and is shown in _f_, may, perhaps, be

looked upon as an attempt to express the idea of a union of the Above and

Below.

[Illustration.]

Figure 39.

In connection with these architectural features it is interesting to study

their names in the native languages. The Nahuatl names for windows are

singularly expressive of their uses: tlachialoyan=the watching place or

look-out; puchquiauatl=the smoke opening; tlanexillotl=a word which

literally means light and splendor, and to which the following words are

related: tlanextia, verb=to shine, shed light and radiance;

tlanextilla=something revealed, made manifest, found or discovered, newly

invented or formed (brought to light); tlanexcayotiliztli=figure,

signification or example; tlanexcayotilli=something figured or

significative.

The meaning of the Maya name for window, ciznebna, is not clear, whilst

that for door, chi, is the same as for mouth, opening or entrance. At the

same time it is evident that, as in Mexico and elsewhere, the window

openings in the Maya temples must have been associated with the idea of

light, and the symbolical forms given to these besides their positions

lead to the inference that they were actually regarded as mystic framed

images, so to speak, of the supreme, invisible deity, through which, the

light of day and the darkness of night alternately revealed themselves to

those inside the sacred buildings. A careful study of the positions and

orientations of these openings may yet prove that they also served for

astronomical observation. The walls being usually pierced above reach,

nothing but the sky could have been watched through them. But besides

these, the interiors of Maya ruins contain interesting examples of mural

openings and recesses which seem to have been carefully planned so that

they should appear dark even in daytime and, in more than one case, these

display the form of the upright tau, the symbol of darkness and the

Below.(17)

[Illustration.]

Figure 40.

It does not seem to have been generally recognized that the alternate

contraposition of upright and reversed taus produces the best known and

most widely spread primitive border-design, usually known as the Greek

fret (fig. 40, no. 6). A plain demonstration of this is, oddly enough,

visible on the two side-projections of the Scandinavian brooch (fig. 13)

all symbols on which, I venture to assert, would have been perfectly

intelligible and full of meaning to an ancient Mexican. The evolution of

the fret, on the American continent, can be studied on the beautiful

wooden clubs from Brazil and British Guiana, figured in Dr. Hjalmar

Stolpes’ valuable work already referred to. As striking instances his fig.

8, pl. 1, figs. 3_a_ and 3_c_, pl. XIII, and figs. 1_a_ and 1_b_, pl. V,

should be examined. The latter instance is extremely instructive as it not

only exhibits single taus of two forms, but the same in different

positions, as well as two double-headed figures joined in one, which

illustrate the native association already discussed, of duality and of the

curved lines as the opposite of the rectangular and both respectively

figuring the Above and Below.

It is impossible to study the decorations on these South American clubs

without becoming convinced that their makers shared the same ideas as the

ancient Mexicans. They offer, indeed, a whole set of variations on the

native theme and idea of Heaven and Earth. Two instances (fig. 5_a_, pl.

IX, and 6_a_, pl. XI) in which the union of two figures produces a third,

or a single one produces two, elucidate the meaning sometimes expressed by

the designs. In the round or spiral forms, which are most frequently

accompanied by a zigzag border, I am inclined to see a presentation of air

and water, corresponding to the Mexican symbols of the Above.

As lack of space forbids my making here a more extended comparison of the

native symbols, I shall but point out how the tau, in juxtaposition and

contraposition painted in two colors, produces fig. 40, no. 3. The picture

from the Codex Mendoza of a native tlachtli, the form of which is

represented by two taus in contraposition, is partly painted black. The

same division of a single tau into two parts, colored differently,

transforms no. 3 into no. 4 and shows that a single tau could have been

employed cursively to symbolize union. 2 and 7 are but variants of 3 and

4. If, instead of angles, curved lines be given to the taus, the first

half of fig. 5 is the result. When spaces between the incurving hooks and

the border are filled out with color, the familiar design on the second

half of 5 results. With exception of the latter, the South American clubs

exhibit each of the above forms, as well as no. 8. It will be shown later

that these also occur in ancient Peru.

The foregoing examples of the employment of taus in upright and reversed

positions is, however, by no means exhaustive. Fig. 41 teaches that the

familiar checker-board or tartan design, symbolically employed in ancient

Mexico, was the simple result of taus in contraposition, the square spaces

thus found being alternately filled with black and brown or gray. The

symbolism of this design only becomes evident when all the combinations in

which it occurs have been carefully studied. It is represented in the

Codices in the doorways and arches of certain sacred edifices which are

shown to be estufas or temaz-calli by further illustrations which I could

not reproduce here, but which exhibit even the steam escaping from the

building and other unmistakable features.

[Illustration.]

Figure 41.

Sahagun has recorded how these semi-sacred edifices were specially

consecrated to the “Mother of the gods and of us all, whose curative and

life-giving power was exerted in the temazcalli, also named xochicalli,

the place where she sees secret things, rectifies what has been deranged

in human bodies, fructifies young and tender things, ... and where she

aids and cures....” It was customary for pregnant women to resort to these

baths under the care of the medicine-woman who exhorted her patient on

entering, with the words: “Enter into it, my daughter, enter into the

bosom of our Mother whose name is Yoalticitl ... warm thyself in the bath,

which is the house of flowers of our god ...” (Historia, book VI, chap.

XXVII).

The Vienna Codex contains, besides pictures of temples (fig. 41, _a_ and

_b_), two instances which elucidate the meaning of the design; _c_ of the

same figure displays the conventional symbol for land, fringed on three

sides. Enclosed in this and seen, in profile, is a stratum of

checker-board design, above which is a sheet of water; d displays a

conventionally drawn mountain, inside of which is the symbolical vase

filled with the design. From this steam or smoke ascends through the soil

of the mountain, and forces its way through the surface, above which we

see two recurved puffs of smoke and a young blossoming maize shoot,

conventionally drawn, such as may be seen worn by priestesses, as a

symbolical head decoration, on page 11 of the Vienna Codex. The seated

figure of a priest is represented as sheltering its growth with his

outspread mantle. On his back he displays a symbol, composed of two rolls

united by a crossband, which is met with in Maya and Mexican Codices. In

the latter the four projecting ends are usually painted with the colors of

the four quarters. As these are figured as united into a single sign, it

seems evident that this symbolized a union of the four elements deemed

necessary for the production of life by the ancient native philosophers.

The foregoing illustrations, to which more could be added, clearly

establish that the checkered design was associated with the symbols of

earth, heat and water. It obviously expressed the idea embodied in the

Nahuatl word xotlac=the heated earth; literally, glowing embers, also

budding and opening flowers. It was emblematic of the fall of the rain or

earth-wine upon the heated soil. In the temazcalli the same life-producing

union of the elements took place and aided human growth and health. It

would seem as though the appellation xoch-i-calli, bestowed upon the

sweat-house by the native medicine-woman, expressed the same train of

thought. Moreover, it is noteworthy, that the sound of the first part of

this name and of xo-tlac recurs in the Maya word for vase in general,

ho-och. The checker-board design would naturally have been employed in

connection with the festivals, associated with esoteric rites, which were

held in celebration of the union of the Heaven and Earth at the

commencement of the rainy season. It would, naturally, therefore, have

been used as a decoration on the drinking vessels employed in the

distribution of fermented drinks for vivifying and curative purposes. It

is met with on Peruvian drinking bowls, as proven by several examples in

the Royal Ethnographical Museum in Berlin, for instance.

It is curious to note as an interesting analogy that the same checkered

design frequently adorns the ancient Egyptian drinking bowls represented

in the hieroglyphic writings. I have also observed it in some ancient

Greek drinking vessels, preserved at the Imperial Hermitage Museum at St.

Petersburg, where it decorated the bowl itself or the garments of

Bacchantes figured thereupon. It is also met with in ancient Peruvian

textile fabrics, in black and white, as on one figure vase in the Berlin

Museum, and, needless to remark, it is a Scotch clan tartan. Its adoption

as the basis for chess-boards of ancient Egypt seems to indicate that

there it also signified the Above and Below and that the game was thought

of as an exemplification of the eternal contest between the powers of

Heaven and Earth, light and darkness, etc. We look to specialists for

information as to the origin, meaning and employment in Egypt and Greece

of this primitive and almost universal design.

[Illustration.]

Figure 42.

In ancient Mexico and possibly Peru, it obviously pertained to a set of

ideas which, in some communities, might easily have degenerated and led to

the institution of rites and ideas such as were prevalent in the Maya

colony which had established itself at the mouth of the Panuco river, on

the coast of Mexico, north of Vera Cruz, and from which the Huaxtecans of

the present day descend. It is interesting to note that the name of the

capital founded by the colonists, who seem to have emigrated owing to

well-founded religious persecution, was Tuch-pan, a word which signifies

in the Maya tongue “the umbilicus,” qualified by pan, meaning “that which

is above or excels,” etc., but which was expressed in Nahuatl

picture-writings by a rabbit=tochtli and a banner=pantli.

The opposite of the checkered or xotlac design, was the native water and

air pattern which has been pointed out as encircling the mitre of the Lord

of the Above or Heaven. It likewise figures in native pictures on the

mantles of some of Montezuma’s predecessors. The history of its origin and

development is best learned from the following native illustrations. Fig.

42, nos. 1 and 2, represents sea-waves, the Maya name for which, by the

way, is kukul-yaam, which admits of the interpretation “divine-water” or,

if we connect kukul with the Mexican coliuhqui, “twisted or bent water.” A

representation of water, as figured on a mantle in the “Lyfe of the

Indians,” conveys the idea of water moved by the action of the wind, the

blank curve reminding one also of the curves so often associated by native

artists with serpents’ heads, and with the wind and rain-gods. The

well-known symbol of the air-god is accompanied, as already shown (fig.

26), by an ornament which forms a solid frame for a hollow curve

constituting an air-image. In the following image an analogous ear

ornament is figured and it is surrounded by puffs of air or wind,

conventionally drawn (fig. 43).

[Illustration.]

Figure 43.

Whilst the foregoing illustrations amply prove that the natives associated

the curved and rounded form with water as moved by air, it must be noticed

that in Mexico and Yucatan, as well as in Brazil and Guiana, plain water

was figured by a series of parallel zigzag or undulated lines. For these

reasons I infer that the symbolical design, representing actual waves,

always expressed the union of air and water, and was therefore emblematic

of the cult of the upper elements, or the Above. It is unfortunate that,

in Mexico, no vestiges remain of the circular temples which were

particularly dedicated to Quetzalcoatl=the divine twin or lord of the twin

upper elements=air and water. Doubtlessly they were appropriately

decorated with horizontal bands exhibiting the sacred design. The ruined

condition of Central American round temples scarcely justifies the hope

that such a verification can be made. At the same time the round temple on

a square base, with its peculiar ground plan, was, of itself, an image of

the Above and of central rule extending to the four quarters (fig. 30, p.

97). That the air and water design was actually employed in America as a

frieze on sacred edifices is proven, however, by more than one

illustration in the Vienna Codex and other native MSS. (fig. 35, _c_). We

also see the design decorating the painted drinking bowls named xicalli

which were employed in the distribution of the sacred pulque or octli at

certain religious festivals. As the Mexican name given to the design

itself is xical-coliuhqui, it seems as though it was most popularly known

as the “twisted or winding pattern” of the sacred drinking vessels.

Having originated, as I have shown, from the simplest observation of the

action of air upon a surface of water, it is but natural that the same

design should have independently originated in several localities. It is,

nevertheless, worth mentioning here that the dome of one of the most

beautiful of ancient Greek remains, the choragic monument of Lysicrates,

or lantern of Demosthenes at Athens, is surrounded by a band or fascia,

cut into the water design. It is evident that, seen against the sky, this

graphically represented the curling waves of water “on summer seas,” and

this was evidently the most primitive method of employing this form of

symbolical decoration which is more familiar when executed in solid

masonry stucco, as a frieze.

The identical process of development may be observed in Mexican

architecture. In the Vienna and other native Codices, countless temples

are depicted as surmounted with fasciæ cut into rectangular designs in

such a manner that the blank space left between each solid projection

figures its inverted image in the air (fig. 35, _a_-_d_). In these open

fasciæ an intention to symbolize the solid or Earth, and the fluid or

Heaven, is discernible, whilst the step-like projections seem to express

or convey the idea of ascent and descent, perhaps the ascent of human

supplication and the descent of the much-prayed-for rain. From the other

examples of temple decorations (fig. 35, _f_ and _h_) it is evident that,

in solid friezes, a light and a dark color were employed in the same

designs, to convey the same idea.

Evidence proving that the emblems on the roofs of the temples were replete

with meaning is furnished by several representations of roofs, on which

rows of upstretched hands or of human hearts are depicted. My horror at

these seemingly ghastly emblems vanished as soon as I ascertained their

actual meaning from a passage in Sahagun’s Historia. Describing a certain

sacred dance he records that “on the white garments of the girls who took

part in it, hands and hearts were painted, signifying that they lifted

their hearts and hands to heaven, praying for rain.” Not only does this

explain the symbolism of the hands on the temples but also the native

custom observed, by modern pilgrims in Mexico and Yucatan, of painting

uplifted hands on the outer walls of sanctuaries as an act of piety and

devotion.

[Illustration.]

Figure 44.

The hideous necklaces of alternate hands and hearts which encircle the

neck of a great monolithic idol in the city of Mexico and of an image in

the “Lyfe of the Indians” are thus also proven to be the touching though

uncouth and child-like expression of a devout prayer. Having gained this

insight into the deep significance of native emblems it is interesting to

study the peculiar breast-ornament which is the emblem of Xiuhtecuhtli,

literally “the azure lord,” or the lord of the year or of fire and of the

Cihuacoatl or woman-serpent. It consists of an oblong plaque, the narrow

ends of which are cut out so as to simulate two air pyramids with steps.

The name of this symbolical ornament is recorded by Sahagun as

xiuh-tetelli, literally the turquoise or grass-green pyramid. It is

invariably painted blue and displays a round plate of burnished gold in

its centre. For more reasons than I can pause to relate here, it can be

shown that the plaque probably symbolized the Above, the blue sky, water

and air, whilst the gold plate was an image of the central divinity. The

sides of the square stool on which the god is seated are also cut out so

as to convey the idea that he is resting above terraced air-pyramids (fig.

44). His shield is surrounded by a cord and contains a cross-symbol with

lines conveying the idea of rotation and four circles. The banner above

the shield named pantli conveys the sound of the word pan=above, whilst

his conical ear-ornament symbolizes the Centre and Above. These details

are noteworthy because I am about to point out the striking analogy

between a Zuñi idol or fetish and the ancient Mexican pictures of the lord

of fire and the lord of the north or the underworld=Tezcatlipoca.

This Zuñi idol was sent to the Royal Ethnographical Museum at Berlin as

part of a representative collection by Mr. Frank H. Cushing and has been

figured and described in the publications of the Museum, with notes by Dr.

E. Seler.(18) It represents the Zuñi god Ätchialätopa whose attributes are

stone knives, who is the patron of the secret society, “Small fire” and

who is identified with a great star. His fetish represents him as standing

on the centre of a cross, formed of four beams placed vertically and

perforated with step-like perforations. The ends are cut out like those of

Xiuhtecuhtli’s blue emblem. Two parallel bars, the upper one of which is

painted blue, the color of heaven, and the lower painted green, the color

of the earth, convey the ever-present native idea of the Above and Below.

The arms of the cross are painted red with yellow ends which, according to

Mr. Cushing, represent the light emanating, in four directions, from the

star. The arms are distinctly associated with the cardinal points and each

supports the effigies of a mountain lion and a bird—typifying, evidently,

as in Mexico, the Above and Below. This cross, with the figure standing on

its centre, is suspended from above and, during a certain ceremony, it is

set into rapid gyratory motion, from left to right by the officiating high

priest.

It is impossible not to see, in this fetish, a swastika in substantial

form and in actual rotation; whilst the figure of the god, decorated with

stone knives, moves as on a pivot in the centre, presenting exactly the

same idea as in the Mexican image of the god held in the centre of a

cross-symbol by the jaws of a tecpatl or flint knife. It is unnecessary to

mention again here that the only star in the heaven, which could possibly

have been regarded as a centre of rotation, is Polaris; but I should like

to draw attention to the fact that bunches of feathers are attached to the

extremities of the cross-beams and to the summit of the terraced

head-dress of the fetish and recall the circumstance that, amongst the

Mexicans and Mayas, the names for feather were almost identical with those

for heaven or something celestial and divine.

As the Zuñi god is said to be standing on his red star (an mo-yätchun

thlana) and figures as a centre of rotation, I look upon this fetish as

affording most striking confirmation of my conclusions concerning the

origin of the swastika and cross symbols. If it is certain that, at the

present day, the Zuñis associate this star-god with Sirius and their cross

symbol with the morning star, then it is quite obvious that they have lost

the original meaning of the rotating-star fetish, which could never have

been suggested by either of these or, indeed, by any other heavenly body

but Polaris. I regret that space does not permit me to consider here, more

fully, other close analogies between ancient Mexican and modern Zuñi

religious ceremonies, etc., besides those which have been so well

described by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes.

I cannot omit to note here for further reference that the national war

gods of the Zuñis are the twin-brothers Ahaiiuta, the elder, whose altars

were situated _to the right_ or south and west of Zuñi, and Matsailéma,

the younger, whose altars stood _to the left_ or north and east of the

village. The secret society of the warriors and priests of the bow

dedicated their cult to these brothers, whose counterparts we have already

studied in Mexico and Yucatan.

Returning to the primitive designs which expressed the union of the Above

and Below, I point out an interesting example from the “Lyfe of the

Indians,” which likewise symbolizes the four quarters, and their

subdivision and their relation to the whole (fig. 32, no. 3). A somewhat

analogous design, from Peru, presents an outline resembling a swastika

(fig. 40, no. 9) which, when filled in with alternate colors, yields fig.

40, no. 1, in which the idea of the Above and Below preponderates. Another

example of an analogous employment of a light and dark color is furnished

by a shield in the Codex Mendoza, shown in fig. 1, no. 1, alongside of an

interesting image which gives us an insight into the depths of meaning

contained in the dualistic native designs. It consists of a disk, one-half

of which represents the starry heaven and the other the sun, resting on a

parti-colored support (no. 8). It is evident that day and night are thus

symbolized, and it is reasonable to infer that in some centres of thought

especially the ideas of light and darkness should have become associated

with the two different forms of cult the followers of which would be

respectively designated as the children of light and the children of

darkness. By means of a light and a dark color numberless variations of

the one theme were indeed obtained. In the native Codices, in textile

fabrics and on pottery, there are also numerous examples of an extremely

simple design consisting of a single zigzag line running between two

parallel lines and dividing the intervening space into two fields, the

lower of which is filled out with black and the other with some light

color. The dark upright and light inverted peaks were evidently employed

as familiar and favorite emblems of earth and heaven.

[Illustration.]

Figure 45.

I am inclined to see in the serrated summit of the remarkable edifice,

known as the House of Doves at Uxmal, a rendering of the same symbolism on

a gigantic scale (fig. 45). It cannot but be recognized, moreover, that a

high edifice presenting a regular series of cones, and extending from east

to west, would have afforded an excellent means of registering the varying

positions of heavenly bodies. To observers looking towards it from the

north or south, at judiciously chosen distances, the entire span of the

sky would have seemed divided into eight equal parts, seen as inverted air

pyramids between nine sections which rise in steps and terminate in

points, each gable being perforated with thirty window-like openings,

arranged in seven horizontal rows. The purpose of these gable-like piles

has been a riddle to the archaeologists, who have visited Uxmal. Dr. Wm.

H. Holmes, from whose valuable works I cite the above descriptions,

expresses his wonder at “the great building, bearing upon its roof a

colossal masonry comb, built at an enormous expenditure of time and labor

... which seemed to have been built exclusively for the purpose of

embellishing the building and holding aloft its sculptured ornaments”

(Ancient cities of Mexico, pl. I, p. 95).

I venture to maintain that this remarkable edifice not only afforded

facilities for astronomical observation but constituted in itself a great

prayer for rain wrought in stone and addressed to the Lord of Heaven by a

devout people. In corroboration of this inference, besides the foregoing

data, I point out that to this day the Pueblo Indians associate the step

pyramid form with beneficent rain and even give this shape to the edges of

the sacred bowls which are carried in the ceremonial dances by the

“rain-makers.” According to Mr. Cushing the Zuñis compare the rim of such

bowls to the line of the “horizon, terraced with mountains, whence rise

the clouds.” He was likewise informed that the terrace form represents

“the ancient sacred place of the spaces,” an expression which, though

somewhat vague, seems to corroborate my view of the Uxmal building. The

Zuñi statement that the terrace form figured mountains leads to the

subject of so-called “mountain worship.” In ancient Mexico, at the

approach of the rainy season, religious ceremonies are performed in honor

of the mountains which were looked upon as active agents in the production

of rain, because they attracted and gathered the clouds around their

summits. The tops of mountains were thus regarded as the sacred place

where the sky and heaven met and produced the showers which vivified the

earth. Pilgrimages and offerings to mountain summits formed a part of the

duties of the Mexican priesthood, but in the cities the pyramid temple

served as a convenient substitute for the mountain.

The close association of the terrace form with rain and water symbolism is

certainly exemplified in the Mexican design on a temple roof (fig. 35,

_e_). The most remarkable application of the dualistic designs is,

however, met with in Peru where, according to Wiener, the irrigation

canals which carried water to the maize fields were laid out so as to form

pattern bands like fig. 40, nos. 4 and 7, for instance. It is evident that

this system of irrigation must have been an extremely effective and

practical one, but that it had been probably adopted from superstitious

motives as an illustration of the vivifying union of the celestial shower

with the seed-laden soil. The assumption that the ancient Peruvians shared

the same ideas as the Mexicans and Mayas will be found justified by the

following data.

It is now my intention to give a brief and bare outline sketch of the

Peruvian civilization, by means of a series of quotations from the best

authorities.(19) Incomplete though this must necessarily be, it will,

nevertheless, establish, beyond a doubt, that the founders of the great

Inca empire were under the dominion of the same set of ideas which I have

been tracing throughout the American continent. The lucid records of the

Peruvian chronicles and the purity with which the system had been

maintained by the Incas, enable us to recognize and appreciate its

manifold perfections as a mode of primitive government.

The best authorities agree that the inhabitants of the country, now known

as Peru, lived in barbarism until civilization was introduced amongst them

by the Incas. One tradition designates an island in the Titicaca lake,

another Tiahuanaco, as the place where, “after the deluge,” a man or deity

appeared, divided the land into four parts and distributed these to four

brothers, amongst whom was Manco Capac, to whom was assigned the province

to the north. Each brother had a sister who was also his wife. Manco Capac

and his sister and wife Mama-Ocllo or, according to other authorities, the

third Inca Lloque Yupanqui and his consort, founded Cuzco, also given as

Kosko or Kuska, a name which, according to Garcilaso de la Vega signifies

“navel of the earth” and was bestowed “because the newly-founded capital

was to be the centre and point of all.” The city was divided into two

parts: Hanan Cuzco=the Above, which was ruled over by the Inca, and Hurin

Cuzco=the Below, which was governed by his wife and sister, who bore the

honorific title of Coya=queen and Mamanchic=our mother. The inhabitants

consequently became separated into two categories: the upper lineage and

the lower lineage, Hanan-ayllu and Hurin-ayllo. At the same time this

division was not made so “that those of one-half should have an advantage

over the other ... the command was that only one difference and

acknowledgment of superiority was to be conceded to the inhabitants of the

upper town. They were to be respected and looked upon as the first born

and elder brothers, whilst the dwellers in the lower town were to be

regarded as younger or second brothers. They were to rank as the right arm

and the left arm in all offices or places where precedence was necessary.

The same division was subsequently carried out in all the towns, great or

small, throughout the country, their inhabitants being constantly classed

into upper and lower lineages or classes.” The empire itself was named

Tauantin-suyu, signifying the four in one, or the empire, which was

divided into four provinces: Anti-suyu=East; Cunti-suyu=West, on the road

to which were two famous brooks of water named the silver serpents,

Collquemachachuay; Chincha-suyu=North; Colla-suyu=South. It is recorded

that the Coya or queen went to the Colla-suyu or South and taught the

women the art of weaving, of planting maize and of preparing it for food.

In connection with the name of female rule=Coya, and the South=Colla-suyu

it is interesting to note that the name for granary was Coll-cana. Padre

Arriaga (quoted by Rivero and Tschudi, p. 163) describes a remarkable

monument which shows that the West was also associated with the female

ruler. “The monolithic statue [magnificently sculptured and placed on a

sepulchral eminence near Hilavi] represented two monstrous figures

standing back to back. One, representing a man, faced to the East; the

other, with a woman’s face, looked towards the West.(20) Serpents were

represented as crawling up the figures and these stood on other reptiles

resembling frogs. In front of each of these idols there was a square slab

of stone which seemed to have served as an altar.”

With the dual division of the population the seeds of dissension were sown

in Peru as elsewhere. At a certain festival the youths of the upper

lineage encountered those of the lower lineage in trials of strength and

prowess, which sometimes resulted in violence. A certain feeling of

rivalry and opposition must have been thus fostered. Two forms of cult

prevailed: the Inca lords and warriors were associated with the cult of

the Above of which the emblems were golden images of the Creator and of

the Sun, “the lord of day,” to whose power rain and thunder were

attributed. The silver huaca or image of the moon, called Quilla in

Quechua and Pacsa in the Colla dialect, was in the figure of a woman and

was kept under the charge of women, the reason for this being “that the

moon was a woman.” During the festival Situa, one day was dedicated to the

Creator, the Sun and Thunder and another to “the Moon and Earth, when the

accustomed sacrifices and prayers were offered up.” We thus clearly

distinguish a cult of the Heaven and Day presided over by the Inca and a

cult of Earth and Night, whose high priestess was the Coya. She, moreover,

had charge of the embalmed bodies of her predecessors, which were regarded

as sacred and were solemnly carried forth in certain festivals, whilst the

bodies of the defunct Incas were guarded by their successor. The emblems

of both cults were, however, preserved in a single Great Temple, whose

principal doorway looked to the north, a fact of special importance in

connection with what follows.

All authorities, indeed, designate the north as the quarter whence the

foreign culture-heroes came to Peru. “The Incas had a knowledge of the

Creator from the first,” but it was not until the time of the Inca

Yupanqui that the ignorant sun-worship of the primitive inhabitants of the

country was superseded by a firmly established new and superior religion.

“Inca Yupanqui appears to have been the first to order and settle

ceremonies and religions. He it was who established the twelve months of

the year, giving a name to each and ordaining the ceremonies that were to

be observed in each. For although his ancestors used months and years

counted by the quippus, yet they were never previously regulated until the

time of this Lord. He was of such clear understanding that he reflected

upon the respect and reverence shown by his ancestors to the Sun who

worshipped it as a God. He observed that it never had any rest and that it

daily journeyed round the earth; and he said to those of his council that

_it was not possible that the Sun could be the God who created all things,

for if he was he would not permit a small cloud to obscure his splendour;

and that if he was creator of all things he would sometimes rest and light

up the whole world from one spot. Thus it cannot be otherwise but that

there is someone who directs him and this is the Pacha-Yachachi, the

Creator_, literally, the Teacher of the World.” His predecessors had

ordered an oval plate of fine gold which was to serve as an image of the

Creator of heaven and earth, and, in order to convey this meaning it was

placed between images of the sun and moon; a proof that the latter were

employed as symbols of heaven and earth.

Inca Yupanqui, however, also caused a statue of the Creator to be made of

fine gold and of the size of a boy of ten years of age in order to convey

the idea of his eternal youth. “It was in the shape of a man standing up,

the right arm raised and the hand almost closed, the fingers and thumb

raised as one who was giving an order.” The second gold statue he had

made, a personification of the sun “which was dressed like the Inca and

wore all his insignia,” shows he claimed to be and constituted himself as

the visible representative and Lord of the Above. The silver female statue

of the Moon doubtlessly exhibited, in the same manner, the insignia of the

Coya. Inca Yupanqui also ordered the houses and temple of Quisuar-cancha

to be built and, at this spot, Sir Clements Markham observed an ancient

wall, with serpents carved upon it. The name signifies, literally, “the

place of the Quisuar tree,” and will be again referred to further on.

Without pausing to discuss the subject at length let us examine further

the scheme of government, etc., introduced by the Incas, the most striking

feature of which was the systematical classification of the people, their

assignment to specified dwelling places and the distribution of labor

according to prescription.

The key to the entire gigantic system was the conception of a central

immutable supreme power which directed all visible and invisible

manifestations and which sent forth and re-absorbed all energy. In Cuzco

and in the Inca Empire we have a minutely described instance of the

application, to terrestrial government, of the laws of fixed order,

harmony, periodicity and rotation learned by earnest and patient observers

of the northern heaven, during countless centuries of time. The centre of

Cuzco consisted of a great square whence four roads radiated to the

cardinal points. In the centre of this stood a gold vase from which a

fountain flowed. The Spaniards also found in Cuzco a large,

beautifully-polished stone-cross which evidently symbolized, as in Mexico,

the four quarters and must have been appropriately placed in the square.

Garcilaso de la Vega states that the capital formed an actual image of the

whole empire, “for it was divided into four quarters and an extremely

ancient law rendered it obligatory that representatives of each province

and of each class of population should reside there in homes, the location

of which precisely corresponded to the geographical position of their

respective provinces. Each lineage was thus represented and occupied

separate dwellings, assigned to them by the governors of the quarters. All

persons were obliged to adhere to the customs of their forefathers and

also wear the costumes of their ayllus or tribes (Cieza de Leon, Cronica

chap. XCIII). For the Incas had decreed that the dresses worn by the

members of each tribe should be different, so that the people might be

distinguished from each other as, down to that time, there had been no

means of knowing to what locality or tribe an Indian belonged.”... In

order to avoid confusion the modes of wearing the hair were rigidly

prescribed and the bands worn on the head by the vassals had to be black

or of a single color only. The higher in rank a person was the more his

costume resembled that of the Inca, without, however, approaching it in

length and richness. “Thus, even in an assemblage of 100,000 persons it

was easy to recognize individuals of each tribe and of each rank by the

signs they wore on their heads.”...

“It was obligatory that each should permanently live in the province he

belonged to. Each province, each tribe and, in many parts each village,

had its own language which was different from that of its neighbors. Those

who understood each other by speaking the same language considered

themselves as related to each other and were friends and confederates....

The Incas employed a private language of their own which none but members

of the royal lineage presumed or dared to learn.” Garcilaso de la Vega,

who claimed royal descent, stated that unfortunately no records remained

to enable one to form an idea of what the Inca language was like.

The autocratic, though peaceable way in which the novel scheme of

government was imposed upon the inhabitants of Peru by the foreign

chieftains is best proven by the following passages from the Rites and

Laws of the Incas (p. 77) and Garcilaso de la Vega (pp. 9 and 10). “With a

view that each tribe should be clearly distinguishable and after assigning

a different costume to each they were ordered to choose their respective

pacariscas, a word meaning, literally, their birth and origin. They were

told to choose for themselves whence they were descended and whence they

came, and as the Indians were generally very dull and stupid, some chose

to assign their origin to a lake, others to a spring, others a rock,

others a hill or ravine. But every lineage chose some object for its

pacarisca. Some tribes [subsequently] adored eagles because they boasted

to have descended from them ... others adored fountains, rivers, the

earth, which they call Mother, or air, fire, ... snow-mountains, maize,

the sea, named mother-sea.”

According to Garcilaso de la Vega “the Peruvian tribes subsequently

invented an infinity of fables concerning the origin of their different

ancestors.... An Indian does not consider himself honorable unless he can

trace his descent from a river, fountain, lake or the sea, or from some

wild beast like the bear, puma, ocelot, eagle, etc.” An example of a

certain amount of vain-glory was indeed set by the diplomatic Inca himself

who claimed, for himself and lineage, descent from the Sun and reserved

burnished gold ornaments for his particular use. His successors

subsequently built a temple of the Sun at Cuzco and set up its image made

of gold and precious stones. Around this, the royal “pacarisca,” they

placed the mummies of all the dead Incas. In another room there was an

image of “the moon, with a woman’s face,” and about it were the mummies of

the royal women. From this we learn that the latter assigned their origin

to the moon and that it was their pacarisca or huaca. As an illustration

of the way in which creation-myths are sometimes evolved from actual

occurrences, it is interesting to study another account of the mode in

which tribal regulations were introduced into Peru. Owing, most probably,

to the fact that one of the titles given to the Creator was “the Teacher,”

we find Molina attributing to the Creator himself the establishment of the

tribal system and the assignment of totems and different costumes to each

group or family. If we read his account and, with Garcilaso de la Vega and

others, attribute to the Incas the introduction of civilization into Peru,

we recognize the practical good sense with which they accomplished the

rather difficult task of obliging each tribe to wear a different costume.

“In Tiahuanaco ... he made one of each nation of clay and painted [these]

with the dresses that each one was to wear. Those who were to wear their

hair, with hair; and those who were to be shorn, with hair cut ... when he

had finished making the nations and painting the said figures of clay, he

gave life and soul to each one, as well man as woman ... each nation then

went to the place to which he ordered it to go.”

I confess that, until I studied the above record in full, I had very vague

ideas about the huacas or “idols” of the Peruvians. But when I found it

stated, further on, that “each tribe wore the dress with which their huaca

is invested,” I began to realize what huacas might originally have been.

It would seem that on assigning a different costume and distinctive name

to each tribe, the founder of the new colony gave each chief as a model, a

different clay doll, painted with the distinctive marks he and his people

were to adopt. This figure would naturally have been kept for reference

and treated as something sacred. On certain official occasions it would be

produced as a means of identification or proof that the prescribed

costumes had been strictly adhered to. To this practical and sensible plan

the origin of the so-called tribal and household idols of the Peruvians

and of the Mexicans can doubtlessly be assigned. Invented as an aid in the

establishment of tribal-names and dress-regulations and intimately

connected with the entire system of government, these huacas gradually

became the representative of the ancestor of the clan, its “canting” arms

and its sacred palladium. We are told that after the tribes had chosen

their various ancestors or origins, such as caves, hills, fountains, etc.,

they settled in the land and multiplied. Then, on account of having

“issued or descended from stated localities, the people made huacas and

places of worship of these, in memory of the origin of their lineage....

The huacas they use are in different shapes.... Some say the first of

their lineages were turned into falcons, condors and other animals or

birds” (Molina ed. Hakluyt, p. 5). A certain form of ancestor-cult was

thus evolved in a natural manner. “Idolatrous rites increased and people

devoted themselves to the worship of huacas ... each village had its

huaca. The cult assumed such proportions under Ccapac Yupanqui that he

exclaimed: ‘How many false gods are there in the land, to my sorrow and

the misfortune of my vassals! When shall we see these evils remedied?’ ”

At the same time we find that clay or wooden figures continued to be

employed evidently as a method of keeping an accurate register of the

population. In the capital, one building held duplicates of all the huacas

throughout the land. When a new province was conquered the Inca carried

its principal huaca to Cuzco. One or more living representatives of the

conquered tribe, wearing its characteristic dress, were obliged to reside

in the capital. In ancient Mexico these “living images of the gods” are

one of the most striking features of the native civilization and have been

persistently misunderstood, especially by modern authorities. As these

“living gods” are specially treated in the “Lyfe of the Indians,” I shall

merely point out here that small clay portraits or effigies of persons

were made in Mexico at certain stages of an individual’s life and also

after his death. These seem to have been employed for statistical

purposes.

In Mexico and Peru large numbers of small images were preserved in each

household and were under the charge of its chief or “older brother,” who

was obliged to guard and render account of them. Of course the Spanish

conquerors took it for granted that all of these were idols and, in their

ignorance, destroyed them unmercifully. Once the native system of tribal

organization is understood, it becomes evident that an accurate register

of all members of a tribe was of utmost importance. By means of a group of

more or less skillfully-modelled figures or heads the size of a family

could be ascertained at a glance by the government recorder. In the light

of this recognition it seems more than probable that the immense numbers

of small clay heads of various kinds, found in the “street of the dead” at

the base of the great pyramids of Teotihuacan, and elsewhere, indicate

that, in these localities, a periodical and official registration of

deaths was carefully carried on. This assumption is fully corroborated by

the conclusions I reached, in 1886, after making a minute study of a large

number of terra-cotta heads(21) and ascertaining that numbers of them were

portraits of dead persons. The above inference is, moreover, confirmed by

the name of Teotihuacan, which means, literally, “the place of the lords

or masters of the teotle.” The term teotl was given to the head of a

tribe, who constituted the living image of the tribal ancestor. When he

died he himself became one of the tribal ancestors and all dead lords were

termed teotle.

The foregoing data enlighten us as to the practical value of a sternly

enforced system of division and differentiation for the control of the

population, and of clay images of persons for statistical purposes. We

have seen that, during many centuries, the energy of the rulers was

directed towards making groups of people as distinct and different from

each other as possible. They were rigidly kept apart and, in all

assemblages, they occupied separate positions, in a fixed order of

relation to each other. “All the people of Cuzco came out according to

their tribes and lineages ... and assembling in the great square ... sat

down on their benches, each man according to the rank he held, the

Hanan-Cuzco on one side and the Hurin-Cuzco on the other” (Molina ed.

Hakluyt, p. 26). Beside this dual division of the entire population, under

the separate rulerships of the Inca and Coya, who were linked together,

however, in a sacred and indissoluble union and respectively represented

Heaven and Earth, let us study the executive administration of the

religious and civil governments.

Two sets, each consisting of four rulers, next in rank to the Inca and

Coya, are described: Each quarter or Suyu was ruled over by a “viceroy,”

or “Inca governor,” entitled tucuyricoc=“he who sees all,” or Capac. In

the days of the Inca Huayna Capac the names of the four “viceroys” are

recorded as having been Capac=Achachic, Capac=Larico, Capac=Yochi,

Capac=Hualcaya. These were obviously members of the Inca family and next

in rank to the Inca, who presided as supreme pontiff over the religious

government. The civil and tribal administration was executed by four

Curacas, each of which had charge of 10,000 persons belonging to the

ayllus=tribes or lineages. The titles of these four Curacas are recorded

as: Hunu-Camayu or Camayoc, Huaronca-Camayu or Camayoc, Pachaca-Camayu or

Camayoc, Chunca-Camayu or Camayoc. As their titles show, they were the

chief accountants or recorders of statistics, which were recorded by means

of the quippus. Under them, in regular order there were officers, who

respectively had charge of 500, 100, 50 or 10 individuals. In the latter

instance it is expressly stated that it was always one man out of the ten

who governed and rendered account of the remaining nine. The four chief

recorders dwelt in Cuzco but “left it every year and returned in February

to make their report ... bringing with them the tribute of the whole

empire. They also reported upon the administration every year recording

the births and deaths that had occurred among men and flocks, the yield of

crops and all other details, with great minuteness” (Polo de Ondegardo).

From the recorded details of organization we learn that the governmental

scheme introduced by the Incas was based on the assumption that the

standard population of the empire should number 40,000 individuals under

the civil rulership of 4 recorders, 40 first-grade officers, 400

second-grade officers, 4,000 third-grade officers—each of the last being

responsible for nine individuals besides himself. It is noteworthy that

the three grades of officers correspond to the threefold division of the

entire produce of the land, between the Inca, the Huaca and the Ayllu,

equivalent to the religious government, the civil government and the

people—to the Above, Below and Middle. The minimal division of people into

groups of ten of which one was the governmental representative

corresponds, moreover, to the classification into the following ten

categories, according to their ages:

1. Mosoc-aparic: baby, “newly begun,” “just born.”

2. Saya-huarma: child, “standing boy,” age 2-6.

3 Macta-puric: “child that can walk,” age 6-8.

4. Itanta-requisic: “bread-receiver,” boy about 8.

5. Pucllac-huarma: “playing boy,” age 8-16.

6. Cuca-pallac: “Coca pickers,” age 16-20.

7. Yma-huayna: “as a youth,” light service, age 20-25.

8. Puric: “able-bodied,” tribute and service, age 25-50.

9. Chaupi-rucca: elderly, light service, age 50-60.

10. Puñuc-rucca: dotage, no work, 60 upwards.(22)

Although for statistical purposes, exact registers of each of these groups

were annually made by the recorders, it is evident that the purics or

“able-bodied” men constituted the most important portion of the

population. They naturally fell into two groups consisting of the nobility

and commoners, but scattered evidence amply provides that they were

strictly classified according to the special service or tribute they

rendered to the government. The best produce of each province was brought

to Cuzco.

The inhabitants of each region were specially trained to render certain

services or to excel in particular industries—by this means each tribe

gradually became identified with its special industry or aptitude. The

necessity that the supply of their produce should be constant and regular,

must have necessitated the permanent maintenance of a fixed number of

workers at each branch of industry, a fact which would give rise to rigid

laws controlling the liberty of the individual, forcing children to adopt

their parents’ avocations and forbidding intermarriages between persons of

different provinces. As scattered mention is made of the following general

classification of the male population, I venture to note them as follows,

provisionally:

Nobility: Commoners.

1. lords: shepherds (of lamas),

2. priests: hunters,

3. warriors: farmers,

4. civil governors: artificers.

The female population was doubtlessly subdivided in an analogous manner,

for it is expressly recorded that all marriageable girls were kept in four

different houses. Those of the first class, qualified as “the white

virgins,” were dedicated to the service of the Creator, the Sun and the

Inca; the second were given in marriage to the nobility; the third class

married the Curacas or civil governors, and the last were qualified as

“black,” and pertained to the lower classes.

Caste division was never lost sight of—indeed one Inca went so far as to

order that all the people of the Below “should flatten the heads of their

children, so that they should be long and sloping from the front.” Thus

they should ever be distinguishable from the nobility and “yield them

obedience.” Although it is not expressly stated, it may be inferred from

actual specimens of skulls which have been found that, in some localities,

in order to differentiate the two classes still more, members of the

nobility strove to mould the heads of their children in a high peak, so

that they too should perpetually bear the mark of their rank. Whether such

a procedure would exert a correspondingly elevating or abasing influence

upon the intellectual development of the two classes is a problem for

anthropologists.

A very simple explanation of the reason why artificial deformation of the

skull was ever adopted, is obtainable when the all-powerful dominion of a

certain set of ideas is recognized. Many other customs, still in practice

amongst American tribes, are likewise explained by the arbitrary division

of population into classes and categories. The Peruvian custom of

bestowing one name upon a child when it was one year old and another when

it attained maturity is the direct outcome of the classification of

individuals by age. The ceremonial observances which accompanied the

bestowal of these names were accompanied by a change of costume which

constituted the official enrolment or advancement into another class. The

existence of further systematic class-distinctions is proven by the

description of the picturesque ceremony performed in the month of August

at Cuzco and called “the driving out of sickness.” In the centre of the

great square around the urn of gold which typified the “central fountain”

(precisely the idea expressed by the name of Mexico), four hundred

warriors assembled. One hundred, representing one of the four ayllus,

faced towards each cardinal point and subsequently ran at full speed in

its direction, crying “Go forth all evils!”

We have now traced the idea of the Above and Below, Centre and Four

Quarters in Ancient Peru. It remains to be noted that the capital itself,

which was to be the image of the whole empire, was primarily divided into

two halves and four quarters, and subdivided into 4×3=12 wards the names

of which doubtlessly corresponded with that of their inhabitants. When the

sacred centre of the capital is added to these it is clear that the City

of Cuzco was subdivided into as many parts as there were directions in

space, _i. e._ 13. It exemplified, therefore, an association of 2×10=20

categories of people classified according to ages, with thirteen

directions in space, and a general subdivision of all classes into four

parts. The Inca with the four Capacs and the Coya with the four Camayocs

formed two groups of five each, which could well have been represented by

a large central figure surrounded by four smaller ones of equal size. By

coloring these with red, yellow, black and white, their assignment to the

cardinal point could have been expressed. The central figure could be

painted in four colors, for only the Inca and his lineage could wear

many-colored garments, these being indicative that they represented the

centre or union of the four quarters.

Two important features of the system remain to be discussed: We have

studied the minute and methodical classification of the entire population

into distinct groups without touching upon the practical reasons why this

was done. We have analyzed the great machinery of the Inca dominion as it

lies broken and motionless. But endow the giant wheel with motion,

introduce systematical rotation into its every part, regulate the

occupations of the people by a fixed series of work-days and holidays.

Send them forth to their work and collect the products of their labor at

set intervals, _institute a calendar_, and you will have set the machinery

of state in motion and realized how the classification of individuals

according to rank, ages, and occupations was absolutely necessary in order

to obtain a successful and harmonious result. It has already been shown

that the institution of the calendar and establishment of twelve festival

periods of thirty days each, in a year, succeeded the division of the

people into groups and their assignment to fixed places of abode.

“They commenced to count the year in the middle of May, a few days more or

less, on the first day of the Moon ... in this month they held the

festivals of the Sun” (Molina ed. Hakluyt, p. 16). I direct particular

attention to the fact that it was the new May moon which controlled the

beginning of the religious calendar, although the Incas observed the

equinoxes and solstices and the cult of the Sun was under their special

care. The twelve divisions of the year accord with the twelve wards of

Cuzco surrounding the central enclosure which was always the place where

the festivals were held and the people congregated.

I have as yet found no account of the lesser divisions of time in Peru,

but note that the period of thirty days consisted of six periods of five

days each, a subdivision which would obviously accord with native habits

of thought if associated with the six terrestrial directions in space and

if a reunion of people and collection of produce from four quarters took

place on every fifth day in the capital. In my special work on the

Calendar systems of ancient America I shall be able to discuss more fully

their intimate indissoluble relation to the regulation of labor and

control of the food supply absolutely requisite for the great capital.

The idea of rotation was carried out in a ceremony described by Molina.

When the December moon was full, after having ploughed their fields during

twelve days, “all persons returned to Cuzco ... the people went to a house

called moro-uco, near the houses of the Sun and took out a very long cable

which was kept there, woven in four colors, black, white, red and yellow,

at the end of which was a stout ball of red wool. Everyone took hold of

it, the men on one side, the women on the other, performing the sacred

dance called yaquayra. When they came to the square ... they went round

and round until they were in the shape of a spiral shell. Then they

dropped the cable on the ground and left it coiled up like a snake. The

people returned to their places and those who had charge of the cable took

it back to its house.” An extremely important instance of the application

of the spiral is preserved in an illustration in the Account of the

Antiquities of Peru by the native chronicler Salcamayhua (ed. Hakluyt, p.

109). He relates that the Inca Huayna-Capac, when he reached the town of

Tumipampa, “ordered water to be brought from a river by boring through a

mountain, and making the channel enter the city by curves in this way:”

[Illustration.]

Figure 46.

The illustration, reproduced here (fig. 46), exhibits an extremely

ingenious mode of irrigation which divided the country surrounding the

town into nine zones of land lying between currents of water. These are

cut through by an exit canal which, at the same time, presumably supplied

a direct water-way for traffic to and from the town. The association of

the spiral form with irrigation would not, perhaps, seem as important and

significant did we not know that the ancient Peruvians, as proven by

Wiener, habitually laid out the irrigation canals in their maize-fields so

as to form regular designs, some of which resembled those illustrated on

fig. 40, nos. 2, 4, 6, 7, which have been shown to signify the union of

the Above and Below, or Heaven and Earth. In the Peruvian irrigation

canals the water supplied the light lines and the earth the dark, and when

the small canals were full and were observed in certain lights, they must

have resembled light blue or white patterns running through the dark

earth. That their inventors and makers actually associated them with

profound meaning and laid them from superstitious as well as practical

motives is obvious; for, in Peru, as in Mexico, we find the periodical

union of the Heaven and Earth, of rain and earth celebrated with

ceremonial drinking of chicha, specially brewed for this period which

seems to have been the regularly appointed time for juvenile match-making,

by order of the Inca.

“When the Inca gave women as wives they were received because it was the

command of the Inca ... because of this it was considered that she was

taken until death and she was received on this understanding and never

deserted” (Molina). “When the Inca Rocca married his sister, six thousand

people were married on the next day” (Montesinos). In the festival called

Ccapac Raymi, maidens who had attained womanhood offered bowls of

fermented chicha to the youths who had just been admitted to the ranks of

the warriors.

“During this festival the Priests of the Sun and of the Creator brought a

quantity of fuel, tied together in handfuls, and dressed as a man and a

woman ... they were offered to the Creator, the Sun and the Inca and were

burnt in their clothes together with a sheep” (Molina).

Towards the end of the same month (November), feasts were celebrated for

the flocks of the huacas, that they might multiply; for which sacrifices

were made throughout the kingdom. Ultimately “public solemn sacrifices

were made to the Creator, the Sun, the Thunder and the Moon for all

nations, that they might prosper and multiply” (Molina). A few weeks

later, an exemption from ceremonial bondage, for three months, commenced.

Throughout January, February and March no religious festival took place at

Cuzco—the farmers attended to their land and the people were left at

liberty to pursue their various avocations uninterruptedly (Molina ed.

Hakluyt, pp. 51 and 52). I have already shown that the same exemption from

ceremonial bondage during ninety to one hundred days of the year was

customary in Mexico; and, in my note on the Ancient Mexican Calendar

System, communicated to the Congress of Americanists at Stockholm in 1894

(p. 16), I explained the reasons which had led me to infer that “the

religious festivals were concentrated in the ritual years of 260 days,”

which indeed forms a unit, consisting of a complete set of combinations of

the numbers 13 and 20.

In Dr. Franz Boas’ admirable monograph on the Social Organization and

secret societies of the Kwakiutl Indians (Washington, 1897, p. 418), it is

shown that at the present day the clan system is only in force during one

division of the year. “At the beginning of the winter ceremonial the

social system is completely changed. The period when the class system is

in force is called bā-xus. The period of the winter ceremonial is

designated as ‘the secrets,’ ‘making the heart good,’ also ‘brought down

from Above.’ The Indians express this alternating of seasons by saying

that in summer the bā-xus is on top, the secrets below, and _vice versa_

in winter. During this time the place of the clans is taken by a number of

secret societies: the spirits who had appeared to mythical ancestors give

new names to the men to whom they appear, but these names are only in use

during the time when the spirits dwell amongst the Indians, _i. e._, in

the winter.” Therefore from the moment when the spirits are supposed to be

present, all the summer names are dropped and the members of the nobility

take their winter names. The winter ceremonial societies are arranged in

two principal groups; these are subdivided into 2×10=20 groups according

to age and sex.

Dr. Boas distinguishes “three classes of tribal names and of clan names,

viz., such as are collective forms of the names of the ancestors, names

taken from the region inhabited by the tribe or clan and names of

honour.... Each clan derives its origin from a mythical ancestor ... the

present system of tribes and clans is of recent growth ... their numbers

have undergone considerable changes in historical times.” A careful study

of the material presented by Dr. Boas shows, however, that the

ground-plans of the entire social fabric reared by the Kwakiutl Indians

closely resembles that on which the stately Maya, Mexican and Peruvian

civilizations were reared.

Returning to Peru, it is particularly noteworthy that the above mentioned

solemn sacrifices to the Creator, the Sun and Thunder, and Moon and Earth,

held in November, were thus offered to them jointly in one consecrated

place, whereas, at other seasons, the cult was performed separately and on

different days, before the emblems of the Above and Below.

Notwithstanding the moderation and tolerance which seem to have been

characteristic of the Inca government, and the apparent equality and

accord of the two cults, the heads of which were the Inca and Coya, we

find evidences of discord in the historical records. The Inca empire had

scarcely been established for more than a few centuries(23) when we

discern signs of a serious rebellion under the leadership of the

Chuchi-capac, the chief of the Southern province or Colla-suyu, pertaining

to the Below. From the taunts he uttered in the presence of the Inca on a

festive occasion and which have been recorded verbally by Salcamayhua, it

is clear that the chief of the Collas asserted that he (and the people of

his province) actually practised sun-cult although “his throne was of

silver;” that is to say, notwithstanding the fact that moon-cult pertained

to the quarter to which he was assigned, namely, to the Below. He

justifies his departure from moon-cult by taunting the Inca that he, in

turn, did not adhere strictly to sun-cult but worshipped the impersonal

Creator. This struggle between the ancient native sun-cult and star-cult

and this religious dissension, the reason for which is apparent, initiated

the long period of internal strife and warfare which ultimately made the

Spanish Conquest such an easy matter.

During the course of these wars the Peruvian Inca, on one occasion,

avenged himself for a supposed insult by having drums made of the skins of

some of the enemies’ messengers and by sending back others of these

“dressed as women,” that is to say degraded from their positions as

warriors or noblemen to the ranks of the commoners. A similar degradation,

inflicted upon the Tlatelolcan rebels by the Mexicans has already been

mentioned and can only be fully understood when the class-system is

recognized.

From this and analogous instances it is evident that, admirable as the

scheme of government seems to have been as a means of laying the

foundations of civilization, and of teaching primitive people agriculture,

stability, law and order, yet the very features which rendered it so

efficient at first became, eventually, the cause of its gradual

disintegration, as soon as a certain degree of culture prosperity was

attained by the community. One mode of avoiding the evils of

over-population and of ridding the capital of its restless, and

enterprising or troublesome members, was the system of Mitimaes or

colonists. This merits particular attention, because it formed an integral

part of the marvellous and widespread scheme of organization we have been

studying, and therefore helps to an understanding of the customary means

by which civilization was spread in past ages throughout the American

continent.

As the population of Cuzco increased and greater food supplies were found

necessary, the Incas extended their dominions by a series of conquests.

“As soon as they had made themselves lords of a province they left

Mitimaes or settlers there, who caused the natives to live in communities”

and established a small centre of local government on the pattern of

Cuzco. Mitimaes or colonists were also sent, from different provinces, to

live on the frontiers, bordering on hostile countries, so as to aid in

defending them against the enemies. The establishment of colonies in

distant districts was therefore a tried and familiar custom of those who

possessed the wonderful governmental plan we have been studying.

I have shown that the greater the prosperity of a civilized community

organized on this plan, the more imperative the necessity of founding new

colonies would sometimes become. The urgent need of greater food supplies

would lead to the sending out of expeditions for the purpose of surveying

the surrounding country and ascertaining the quality of its produce. In

his MS. Noticia, Padre Oliva speaks of an exploring party which was sent

out by the ancestor of the Incas with the injunction to return in a year.

After a few years had passed and none of the party returned, a second

expedition was sent out in search of the first and this led to the final

establishment of the Inca dominion in a promising region. Sahagun recounts

how a Maya colony was established at Panuco; Montezuma himself related to

Cortés that he and his lineage were descendants of colonists from distant

parts; traditions of culture-heroes who established civilization amongst

them abound amongst Central American tribes; finally, Peru is shown to

have been civilized by rulers who carried out, systematically, a

ready-made plan in a comparatively short time. Whence did all these

culture-heroes emanate, carrying the identical method and system into

widely separated districts and establishing centres of civilization in the

richest and most fertile parts of the American Continent?

Documentary evidence certainly justifies the inference that the

civilization of Peru itself was due to just such a deliberately executed

plan of colonization, which gradually extended southwards and ultimately

took root and flourished in the most favorably situated locality.

Leonce Angrand, who cites Acosta, Montesinos, Garcia, Boturini, Valera,

Garcilaso de la Vega, Gomara, Balboa, Paz Soldan, d’Orbigny, Zarate, Cieza

de Leon, Torquemada, Herrera, Velasco, Rivero and Tschudi, Gibbon,

Stevenson, Castelnau, Desjardins, Villavicencio, Roman and others, unites

their testimony in the following sentence: “It is therefore solely towards

the North, in the elevated mountainous region, that researches should be

directed [in order to ascertain the origin of the Peruvian civilization].

As soon as this is done innumerable proofs appear of the residence, in

extremely ancient times, of people who can scarcely belong to other races

than those who founded Cuzco and Tiahuanaco. It is therefore, from the

North that these hardy pioneers of humanity came, from distant

civilizations, and it is certainly by going northwards that one must look

for traces of one or the other current of civilization. The inexhaustible

force of expansion of the Inca Empire extended to the North as well as in

other directions.”

Angrand also mentions a line “of prehistoric ruins which extend northwards

from Peru and display the essentially characteristic outlines of the

Mexican Teocallis or temples.”(24)

Garcilaso de la Vega, citing Padre Blas Valera, goes so far as to state

that the race, which introduced human sacrifices and ritualistic

cannibalism into Peru, “had come from the region of Mexico, peopled the

regions of Panama and the Isthmus of Darien and all those great mountains

which extend between Peru and the new kingdom of Granada” (the present

Nicaragua).(25)

According to Padre Anello Oliva, whose manuscript notes on Peru are

preserved in the British Museum Library, the immediate ancestors of the

Incas were colonists who came from unknown parts either by land or by sea,

and settled at Caracas (Atlantic coast), whence they gradually spread

southwards. As his authority for this statement, he cites original

manuscripts which had been placed in his hands by a Spanish missionary of

high standing. Among these was a relation by a Quipucamayoc or “accountant

by means of quippus,” named Catari, who had been a chronicler of the

Incas. His forefathers had occupied the same post and had handed down the

above record as having been related to them by their predecessors.

This account does not disagree with that of Salcamayhua who states that

“all the nations of the empire had come from beyond Potosi, in four or

five armies, arrayed for war and settled in the districts as they

advanced.”

Whatever opinions may be held of the relative reliability of the Spanish

chroniclers one thing is certain: that not one ventures the statement that

the Inca civilization was gradually evolved by the native race of Peru and

that all agree in assigning its introduction to an alien race of rulers

who came from the North, and gradually united the scattered indigenous

tribes together under a central government. Americanists will doubtless

agree with me in stating that, until the past history, antiquities and

languages of all tribes inhabiting South and Central America have been

exhaustively studied, no absolutely satisfactory conclusion can be formed

as to when and how civilization was carried to Peru.

On the other hand, even in the present preliminary stage of investigation,

there are certain undeniable facts which, if brought to notice at this

early date, may prove of inestimable value in directing future research.

One of these facts will doubtless appear to many as strange and

inexplicable but as noteworthy as it appears to me.

In Cristoval de Molina’s account of the fables and rites of the Incas(26)

already cited, a fable is related concerning the Inca Yupanqui, the

Conqueror, who extended the domain of the Peruvian empire and instituted

the worship of a creator who, unlike the sun, could rest and light up the

world from one spot.

“They say that, before he succeeded [to rulership], he went one day to

visit his father Uiracocha Inca, who was at Sacsahuana, five leagues from

Cuzco. As he came up to a fountain called Susur-puquio, he saw a piece of

crystal fall into it, within which he beheld the figure of an Indian in

the following shape:

“Out of the back of his head there issued three very brilliant rays like

those of the Sun. Serpents were twined around his arms, and on his head

there was the llautu or royal fringe worn across the forehead of the Inca.

His ears were bored and he wore the same earpieces as the Inca, besides

being dressed like him. The head of a lion came out from between his legs

and on his shoulders was another lion whose legs appeared to join over the

shoulders of the man. A sort of serpent also twined over the shoulders.

“On seeing this figure the Inca Yupanqui fled, but the figure of the

apparition called him by his name from within the fountain saying, ‘Come

hither, my son, and fear not, for I am the Sun, thy father. Thou shalt

conquer many nations: therefore be careful to pay great reverence to me

and remember me in thy sacrifices.’ The apparition then vanished, while

the piece of crystal remained. The Inca took care of it and they say that

he afterwards saw everything he wanted in it. As soon as he was Lord he

ordered a statue of the Sun to be made as nearly as possible resembling

the figure he had seen in the crystal. He gave orders to the heads of the

provinces in all the lands he had conquered, that they should make grand

temples, richly endowed, and he commanded all his subjects to adore and

reverence the new Deity, as they had heretofore worshipped the Creator....

It is related that all his conquests were made in the name of the Sun, his

Father, and of the Creator. This Inca also commanded all the nations they

conquered to hold their huacas in great veneration....”

It is a startling but undeniable fact that one of the beautiful

bas-reliefs found at Santa Lucia Cozumalhuapa near the western coast of

Guatemala, about 1,200 miles to the north of the latitude of Cuzco,

answers in a most striking manner to the description given of Inca

Yupanqui’s vision.(27)

Amongst the thirteen sculptured slabs discovered at Santa Lucia, there are

six entire slabs and the fragment of another which are of almost uniform

size and may be ranked among the finest examples of aboriginal art which

have as yet been found on the American Continent. They represent seven

different renderings of the same theme. On each slab an individual wearing

elaborate insignia is represented as standing with one arm raised and his

head thrown back in the act of gazing upwards towards a celestial figure

which seems to be descending towards him. The arms and heads of these

nobly conceived figures are visible, but in each case the faces seem to

issue from a highly ornate symbol, which is different in each one, just as

the insignia of each individual also varies in detail. At the same time it

is obvious that the seven slabs commemorate as it were an identical

circumstance,—the apparition of the same divinity to seven different

individuals, six of which are represented with the sign of speech coming

forth from their mouths in precisely the same manner. The general

resemblance, notwithstanding the distinct individuality of each

bas-relief, suggests that they commemorate the visions seen under similar

circumstances by seven distinct personages of the same rank and position.

Involuntarily one thinks of the period of enforced fast and vigil which

marks the attainment of manhood and is still obligatory amongst North

American tribes, amongst whom it only ends when they have entered into

communion with their totemic ancestor. I am inclined to view these

commemorative tablets as commemorating an analogous rite and perpetuating

the visions of successive members of one ruling family, or clan. The

divinity, invariably associated with serpent symbols, seems to be

Quetzalcoatl, the divine twin or serpent, exhibiting in some cases the

emblem of the Sun, but evidently revealing itself to each personage under

a slightly different form.

[Illustration.]

Figure 47.

The accompanying drawing (fig. 47) of one of the Santa Lucia bas-reliefs,

reproduced from Dr. Habel’s work, will suffice to establish its

resemblance to Padre Oliva’s description of the apparition seen by the

youthful Inca Yupanqui. After a careful comparison of the text to the

sculptured bas-relief, it must be admitted that a more graphic and

impressive illustration of the episode can scarcely be imagined. Its lower

portion displays a youthful figure, looking upwards and exhibiting a

necklace, the circular ear-pieces and royal fringe or llautu of the Incas.

From his shoulders hangs the skin of a puma or lion with its head

downwards. Molina relates that lion-skins with the heads were specially

prepared for the ceremonial when youths were admitted into the ranks of

knighthood, the last rite of which was the piercing of their ears and the

enlargement of the orifice made.(28)

The youth wears a singular head-dress, or diadem, consisting of what

appears to be an eye with conventionally drawn upper lid, surmounted by

three pointed rays, behind which some long wavy feathers are visible.(29)

The celestial apparition to which the youthful figure is looking up,

likewise exhibits the same necklace, pieces, and royal fringe of the

Incas. Indistinctly though some of the details are given, it seems as

though intertwined serpents encircled its head and possibly its neck. The

head of the vision is surmounted by an enlarged rendering of the

conventionally drawn eyelid and three pointed rays which form the diadem

of the youthful knight. The face of the vision occupies, however, the

place of the eye on the diadem. In this connection it is interesting to

note that in the Nahuatl language, which, as (_op. et loc. cit._) proven

by Buschmann, was spoken in Guatemala where the bas-relief was found, the

word ixtli designates face, whilst ixtololotli signifies eye. Situated

between the right elbow of the celestial figure and the diadem of the

youth, there is a diminutive reproduction of the eye, eyelid and three

rays, with the addition that what appear like two (or three?) drops of

water or two eyes descend from it towards a square symbol which resembles

the Mexican sign for tlalli=earth, whilst the eye symbol is closely

analogous to a well-known Mexican sign which has been interpreted as a

star, and has, but not as yet satisfactorily, been identified with the

planet Venus. Without pausing to study this sign as it appears in ancient

Mexico I point out that the position and mode of representation of the

upper figure in the bas-relief sufficiently show that it is an image of a

celestial being or vision in the act of receiving the supplication of a

youth who is wearing divine insignia. There being a possibility that some

of these accessories may be somewhat indistinct in the original bas-relief

now preserved at the Royal Ethnographical Museum at Berlin, I do not

venture to draw special attention to the possibility of further points of

resemblance between the Peruvian tradition and this Guatemalan sculpture.

At the same time I shall not omit allusion to the wavy figure winding

upwards from the waist of the supplicant, which recurs in four out of the

seven slabs. It may yet prove to answer to the description of “a sort of

serpent,” which is recorded as twining over the shoulders of the vision

who was “dressed like the Inca.” The lion’s head which appears in the

drawing to cover the left hand of the supplicant and the fact that his

left foot only, in some cases, wears a sandal, are important and

interesting features to which I shall revert further on.

Without attempting to offer any explanation of the truly remarkable fact

that a bas-relief exhumed in Guatemala should so strikingly agree with a

description preserved in a Peruvian tradition, I shall merely point out a

second similar though much less remarkable case of agreement.

Padre Oliva records two instances in which a “royal eagle” figures in

connection with members of the Inca dynasty. One of these relates to the

ancestors of Manco Capac, the reputed founder of Cuzco. His

great-grandmother, being abandoned by her husband, attempted to sacrifice

her young son to Pachacamac. A royal eagle descended, carried him away in

his talons and set him down in an island off the Pacific coast, named

Guayan, “because it was covered with willows.” Oliva explains this

tradition as a fanciful way of recording the fact that the youth’s life

was probably endangered, and that he had fled and taken refuge on an

island. At the age of twenty-one he made his way back to the continent on

a raft, but was seized by hostile people. His life was, however, saved by

the daughter of a chieftain who returned with him to the island. Her name

is given as Ciguar, a word strangely like the Nahuatl Cihuatl=woman. She

bore him a son who was named Atau (_cf._ Ahau and Ahua=Maya and Mexican

words for lord or chief), who was, in time, the father of Manco Capac, the

reputed founder of civilization in Peru. When the latter was a child “an

eagle approached him and never left him.” In view of these traditions it

is interesting to note that, on two of the Santa Lucia bas-reliefs figured

by Habel and reproduced by Mr. Hermann Strebel in pl. II, fig. 13, of his

extremely useful and comprehensive monograph on the bas-reliefs of Santa

Lucia, an eagle is represented in connection with a figure wearing divine

insignia.

On one of the seven analogous slabs representing a personage addressing a

supplication to a celestial apparition, a large eagle or vulture is

actually sculptured behind the supplicant, being, as it were, his

individual totem (Strebel, Pl. II, fig. 5).

A drawing of a part of another slab (Strebel, Pl. II, fig. 13) displays an

eagle or vulture holding in his beak the body of a bearded personage who

wears a neck ornament and circular ear pieces, and from whose head two

serpents hang. This last detail associates him with the celestial figure

which usually displays knotted serpents on or above its head, suggesting

its connection with Quetzalcoatl, the divine title of the Supreme Being

and also of the supreme rulers of the Mexicans. It is curious to find in

Peru a tradition recording that, when “the Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui

undertook the conquest of the Antisuyus with 100,000 men, their Huaca sent

forth fire and stopped the passage with a fierce serpent which destroyed

many people. The Inca raised his eyes to heaven and prayed for help with

great sorrow, and a furious eagle descended, and seizing the head of the

serpent raised it on high, and then hurled it to the ground. In memory of

this miracle the Inca ordered a snake to be carved in stone on the wall of

a terrace in this province, which was called Aucapirca.” When divested of

all fanciful details, the foregoing Peruvian traditions seem to show that

the eagle was the totem of one or more of the Incas and that the serpent

was the totem of a tribe which was conquered by the Incas. It is likewise

recorded by Padre Oliva that the Inca named Mayta Capac Amaru ordered his

shield to be painted with weapons and a serpent=Amaru, “because he had

killed one in the Andes and therefore took it for his surname.”

It is impossible for any Mexicanist to read the foregoing texts without

recalling that, in the City of Mexico, there is an unexplained bas-relief

which was put up by the Spaniards after the Conquest but evidently figures

a native tradition. It represents an eagle bearing in his talons a

personage, wearing a diadem, beneath whom is a group of native

weapons.(30) The arms of Mexico representing an eagle holding a serpent in

its talons and resting on a cactus, is too well known to require comment

and recalls the Peruvian tradition of the eagle of the Incas conquering

the serpent-totem of a hostile people.

Striking as these undeniable resemblances undoubtedly are, they would not,

by themselves, justify the immediate conclusion that an actual direct

connection existed between the Peruvian traditions and the Guatemalan and

Mexican bas-reliefs which almost seem to illustrate the same or analogous

incidents. At the same time they prove that, besides their scheme of

government, the Incas had certain myths or traditions in common with the

civilized tribes inhabiting Central America.

It is well to bear in mind that the situations of Cuzco in Peru and Santa

Lucia in Guatemala are both adjacent to the Pacific coast with an

intervening distance of about 27-½ degrees of latitude. But 15 degrees,

however, lie between the northern boundary of modern Peru and the southern

boundary of Nicaragua where, as proven by Buschmann, innumerable names of

localities in the Nahuatl language testify to its ancient occupation by a

Nahuatl-speaking race.

It is noteworthy that this eminent philologist observed how the name

employed to designate the bamboo bed of the Cacique Agateite, in

Nicaragua, “barbacoa,” was the same as that of the wooden bed or litter

used by the Inca in Peru (_op. cit._ p. 756). Buschmann likewise

identified the word galpon=great hall or house. He also expressed the

opinion that “the Quechua word _pampa_ resembles the Mexican _amilpampa

ehecatl_=the south wind, but the Mexican is formed by the affixes pan and

pa and the Quechua substantive means an even, open plain. At the same time

this meaning and form could be derived from the Mexican affixes”

(Buschmann, Ueber Aztekische Ortsnamen III, 7, p. 627).

Following this precedent I have ventured to search for further

resemblances between Nahuatl and Quechua words, and one of the remarkable

results I obtained was the discovery that the well-known Quechua name for

colonists=Mitimaes, the meaning of which, in Quechua, is not forthcoming,

seems to be connected in sound and meaning with the Nahuatl Ce-mitime=sons

of one mother (Molina’s dictionary). It is superfluous to point out how

appropriate this designation would have been for the colonists who

invariably founded fresh centres of civilization on the plan of the

central metropolis. A brief comparative table, the result of an

investigation which lays no claim to be more than a rudimentary attempt,

is published as an appendix to this paper, with the hope that it may

stimulate philologists to supersede it by exhaustive studies of the

subject. A careful examination of the table tends to prove that certain

Nahuatl, Quechua and Maya words had a common origin and shows that a

closer connection existed between the Nahuatl and Quechua languages than

between Nahuatl and Maya or the Quechua and Maya.

I shall have occasion to refer to several of the words I have tabulated.

At present I would draw attention to an analogy which bears directly on

the subject of this paper and is of utmost interest and importance. If

carefully studied it will be seen that the title “Pacha Yachachic,”

applied in Peru to the Creator, proves to be allied in sound and meaning

to the Mexican title Yaca-tecuhtli, “the lord who guides or governs.”

According to Sahagun, this was “the god of the traders or

traveller-merchants.” He had five divine brothers and one sister, each of

which was separately worshipped by some travellers, whilst others, on

their safe return from distant and dangerous expeditions, offered

sacrifices to the whole group collectively. I leave it to each reader to

make his own inference as to whether this celestial “traveller’s guide”

with his six brethren can have been other than Polaris and Ursa Minor. The

difference in the magnitudes of this constellation would naturally give

rise to the idea of a group composed of individuals of different ages and

sizes; the “little sister” probably being the smaller of the four

intermediate stars of the constellation and suggesting tales of adventures

relating to the mythical sister of six brothers.

It is superfluous to emphasize how natural it would have been to offer a

thanksgiving to the “traveller’s star” on returning from a distant voyage,

but I will point out that for coast navigation between Guatemala and

Nicaragua and Peru, the adoption of Polaris as a guide was and is a matter

of course. It is well to bear in mind that we are dealing here with

navigation north and south, along a sheltered coast, for a distance not

exceeding that of the coast-line between Gibraltar and Hamburg. An

instructive example of primitive navigation, under analogous

circumstances, has been communicated to me, from personal observation, by

Commander Barber of the United States Navy.

Native traders, who navigate north and south in small crafts along the

coast between Ceylon and Karashee, still use, at the present day, an

extremely primitive method of estimating latitude, which is entirely based

upon observations of the pole-star. Their contrivance consists of a piece

of wood four inches square, through which a hole is bored and a piece of

cord, with knots at intervals, is passed. The square is held at arm’s

length and the end of the cord is held to the point of the navigator’s

nose in a horizontal line, the height being so adjusted that the pole-star

is observed in contact with the upper edge of the piece of wood. There are

as many knots in the cords as there are ports habitually visited, and

according to the length of the cord required for the observation of

Polaris in the said position, the mariner knows to which port he is

opposite.

According to Sir Clements B. Markham,(31) the original inhabitants of the

Peruvian coast fished in boats made of inflated sealskins. It is well

known that the coast-tribes of Mexico and Central America employed boats

of various kinds and some of great size. The Mexican tradition relates

that the culture hero Quetzalcoatl departed in a craft he had constructed

and which is designated as a coatlapechtli=coa=coatl=serpent or twin,

tlapechtli=raft. It is open to conjecture whether this construction, “in

which he sat himself as in a boat,” may be regarded as a sort of double or

twin raft, or a boat made of serpent or seal (?) skin. In order to form

any opinion, the name for seal in the Nahuatl and other languages spoken

by the coast tribes should first be ascertained and compared with the

native names for serpent.

The Maya colonists who founded the colony on the Mexican coast, and are

known as the Huaxtecans, are described as having transported themselves

thither by boats from Yucatan. In the native Codices and in the sculptured

bas-relief at Chichen-Itza, there are, moreover, illustrations of

navigation by boats. As dependent upon Polaris as their East Indian

colleagues of to-day, it is but natural that the ancient Mexican traders

by land or sea expressed their gratitude by offerings to Polaris and Ursa

Minor.