North Kidneys.
West Lungs.
South Heart.
East Liver.
Middle Stomach.
Zenith ——
Nadir ——
Although it differs in detail, an analogous association of various parts
of the body with the directions in space and the twenty calendar-signs,
may be seen in a Mexican Codex. In this case, however, it is clear that
the origin of this assignment was the natural association between the
“complete finger-and-toe count=a complete man=20=with the 20 or complete
count of the day signs.” I have already produced evidences showing that
the human figure was employed in primitive times to represent “a complete
count, or 20 years.” When chieftains were elected for a term of twenty
years and their names were given to their period of office, the
full-length portrait of the chief was sculptured on a stela and he thus
represented, primarily, “a complete count,” an epoch (see p. 221).
Portraiture and accompanying inscriptions were obviously later
developments, but the primitive employment of the human form as a means of
expressing a fixed number, is one that claims consideration and will
undoubtedly lead to a wider comprehension of the significance of the human
form in aboriginal archaic sculpture. The curious conventionalized
representations of Mictlantecuhtli, in which the body and limbs almost
simulate a swastika, have already been discussed, as well as the inference
that they symbolized Polaris and the four positions of Ursa Major=the
Middle and Four Quarters.
The most striking confirmation of this inference is furnished by Mr.
Cushing’s account that the Zuñis associated the directions in space with
the imaginary form of a quadruped as follows: