to have been much acquainted with it. But the imprint of the red hand, so
commonly seen on the walls of the temples of Mayax and India, has never
been observed in the temples of Egypt; neither did the Egyptian women carry
their children astride on their hip, as do still those of India and
Yucatan, although many other customs were common to the people of these
countries. It is probable that the colonists from the "Lands of the West"
who settled in the valley of the Nile, replaced the worship of the
mastodon, which did not exist in the country, by that of the bull, the
largest and most useful of their domestic animals; and that this was the
origin of their veneration for the bull Apis, as those who were initiated
into the mysteries of Osiris well knew, being told that Apis ought to be
regarded as a fair and beautiful image of their soul.
From the remotest antiquity the serpent was held by every people in the
greatest veneration as the embodiment of divine wisdom. We have already
said that Eusebius asserts that the Egyptians figured emblematically
_Kneph_, the Creator, as a serpent; and that the Maya learned priests
represented the engendered, the ancestor of all beings, in the sculptures,
protected within the coils of the serpent. Mr. Stanyland Wake, in his book
on the origin of the serpent worship writes: "the student of mythology
knows that certain ideas were associated by the people of antiquity with
the serpent, and that it was the favorite symbol of peculiar deities; but
why that animal rather than any other was chosen for that purpose is yet
uncertain."
The late Mr. James Fergusson in his work on "Serpent and Tree Worship," a
work so full of erudition and interesting researches, whilst he
conclusively shows that these worships were common to all civilized and
half civilized nations of antiquity, fails to indicate the country where
they originated. All authors who have written on the subject, admit that
their origin is still an impenetrable mystery; although they agree that
they are so intimately connected as to make it impossible not to believe it
must have been the same.
The limited scope of this book does not allow me to give the matter all the
space it deserves. I will therefore content myself, with bringing forth
such facts as will conclusively show, at least to unprejudiced minds, that
the serpent and tree worship indeed originated on this "Western continent,"
and from the same cause; "the love of the country," from the _amor-patriæ_,
still so firmly rooted in the heart of the aborigines, that it is difficult
to induce them to leave the spot where they are born, even to better their
condition. Everywhere on the Eastern continents serpent worship is
connected with mythological narratives, metaphysical speculations, or
astronomical conceptions, far above the intellectual and scientific
attainments of the mass of people among whom it prevailed.
These were mere fictions invented by the priests and learned men, to
conceal either the real facts, or may be, their own ignorance of them.
Still, anxious to maintain the preponderance and power that knowledge gave
them over the multitudes, and having to satisfy their curiosity, they
imagined such explanations as best suited the notions current in their
times and the ideas of the people.
In early days the serpent, emblem of Kneph, the Creator, was the
_agathodæmon_, the good genius. It is still so regarded by the Chinese, who
consider it one of their most beautiful symbols. Later, when it became
emblematical of _Set_ or Typho, the slayer of Osiris, it was looked upon
with horror, as the evil principle, the destroyer, the enemy of mankind. It
has ever since continued to be so held by the Jews, the Christians, the
Mahometans, in fact by all peoples whose religious tenets are founded on
the Bible. If the tree and serpent were worshiped throughout the Eastern
continents from the shores of the Atlantic ocean to those of the Pacific,
from Scandinavia to Egypt and the Asiatic peninsulæ, their worship was not
less spread amongst the nations that inhabited the "Lands of the West." We
find vestiges of it everywhere on the Western continent; from the banks of
Brush creek, in Adams county, in the State of Ohio, where still exists, on
the crest of a mound, the effigy of a great serpent 700 feet long, entirely
similar to that discovered by Mr. John S. Phené in Glen Feechan,
Argyleshire, in Scotland, to the ancient city of Tiahuanuco, whose ruins
are 13,500 feet above the level of the Pacific on the shores of lake
Titicaca, near the frontier of Bolivia, on the high plateau of the Andes.
There is yet to be seen a very remarkable doorway formed out of a single
monolith 13 feet 5 inches long, 7 feet high above the ground, and 18 inches
thick. This monolith has attracted the attention of d'Orbigny and the other
travelers who, like myself, have been struck with astonishment by the
beauty of the sculptures that adorn its south-eastern façade. Mayas, no
doubt, were the unknown builders of that great city; since in the
sculptures mentioned, we find, as in the temples of Japan, the totem of
prince _Coh_, of his wife and sister _Moo_, and of their father king CAN
(serpent).
I will make here a short digression in order to describe these sculptures,
that with the knowledge we possess to-day of the history of the founders of
the principal ruined cities of Mayax, afford us another proof that the
builders of that city of Tiahuanuco belonged to a then highly civilized
nation, which sent colonists to the remotest parts of the earth, as the
English do to-day, and to whose historical annals may be traced many of the
primitive traditions of mankind. This city was already in ruins when Manco
Capac laid the foundation of the Inca's empire, and had been constructed by
_giants before the sun shone in heaven_, as the natives said to the
Spaniards when questioned as to its antiquity.
We have seen that the members of the family of king _Can_, are still
worshiped in the temples of Japan, as of old they were in those of Egypt;
we now meet unimpeachable records of them, carved on very ancient
monuments, on the shores of lake Titicaca, at the foot of the great
glaciers of Sorata and Illimani, as we have found them in mythological lore
of India and Greece. Will it be said that these are mere coincidences?
[Illustration]
The front of this monolithic gate was once upon a time as highly polished
as the material, trachite, will permit. The whole space above the doorway
is divided into four bands about eight inches high. The lower band contains
seventeen small heads, in low relief, adorned in a somewhat similar manner
to that of the central figure. _Seven_ of these, those directly under that
figure wear, like it, a badge that seems to be a plume composed of _three_
feathers. These small heads are separated by _grecques_ having macaw's
heads at their salient sides; these _grecques_ are the symbol of power and
strength. In the ancient Maya and Egyptian alphabets the _grecque_ is
equivalent to our latin letter H. _Ah_ is the Maya masculine article, and
it conveys to the mind the idea of might and power; this, taken in
connection with the _macaw's_ head, totem of Moo, the queen of Chichen,
signifies the mighty, the powerful Moo.
The other bands are divided into squares of the same size, except in the
center over the doorway, where there is a figure 32 by 21 inches.
Its head, the form of which is not only conventional, as its square eyes
and mouth indicate, but likewise emblematical, consists of _three_
superposed layers in the shape of escutcheons, the uppermost of which is
sculptured so as to represent a human face. These _three_ escutcheons as
the _three_ feathers of the plume that adorns it, the _triple_ throne on
which the figure seems to stand, the _three_ dots on each cheek, the
_three_ oblong squares on the breast-plate, the _three_ macaw's heads at
the extremities of the _triple_ sceptre it holds in its hands, are
symbolical of the _three_ great western regions that the Egyptians
designated by the generic name of "_Lands of the West_" and represented by
the character [Symbol: three-pointed crown] which is an image of the crown
worn by some of the high chiefs in Mayax. That the central figure was meant
to represent these countries, the sign [Symbol: long hollow rectangle],
that stands in lieu of the mouth, indicates. It is the letter _M_,
pronounced _Ma_, of the Maya and Egyptian ancient alphabets. It is the
radical of _Mayax_, name of the Maya empire. But _Ma_ in Egypt as in Mayax,
is a word that signifies land, country, and by extension universe; and in
Mayax as in Egypt [Symbol: long hollow rectangle] is one of the signs for
land.
[Illustration]
The head is surrounded by rays divided into groups of four; four on the
top, four on each side, and four on the under part. Each ray is terminated
by a circle with a dot in the center [Symbol: circle with a dot in the
middle], a sign very often met with on the monuments of Mayax; particularly
on the trunk of the mastodon's heads. It is the first letter of the ancient
Maya and Egyptian alphabets, and correspond to our letter A, the initial of
the Maya word _Ahau_, king.
[Illustration]
This would indicate that the central figure was likewise symbolical of the
king _par excellence_, ruler of the empire, whom the kneeling personages
that surround it, are in the act of worshiping as shown, not only by their
posture, but also by the sign [Symbol: hanging fronds], carved on the neck
of the macaw-headed figures, the followers of the queen _Moo_ (macaw),
which again in Mayax as in Egypt is the symbol of offering, worship, and
adoration. The name of this great king we read in the four heads of
leopards, terminating the rays at the upper angles, and those in the middle
on each side of the escutcheon, and in the four rays of each group.
Translating these symbols by means of the Maya language, we find that _Can
Coh_ was the name of the potentate; and that he was a member of the _Can_
family, rulers of Mayax. This fact is indicated by the serpent heads at the
lower angles of the escutcheon, those at the extremities of the
breast-plate, the four oblong squares carved on the ribbons that support
it, and the number of rays forming each group round the head.
In Maya _four_ is _can_; but can also means _serpent_, likewise power.
Number _four_ according to Pythagoras, was particularly connected with
Mercury, the _Thoth_ of the Egyptians, as the deity who imparted
intellectual gifts to man. The _Tetraktus_ or number four represented the
mystic name of the Creative Power; and in later times it meant _intellect_,
_wisdom_, _all that is active_. Pythagoras asks: "How do you count?"
Mercury: "one, two, three, four." Pythagoras: "Do you not see that what are
four to you are ten and our oath? those (1, 2, 3, 4,) added together,
forming ten, and four containing every number within it." The four leopard
heads are his totem, _Kancoh, Coh_ being leopard. Further on, I will refer
more in detail to these personages, and to the rôle they have played in the
civilization of the world, having been, and being still, worshiped in many
countries under different names. The peculiar shape of the sceptre held in
the left hand of the figure, the upper part of which is bifurcated, each
end terminating with the head of a _macaw_, totem of the queen _Moo_ of
Chichen-Itza, sister and wife of _Coh_, and its undulations, like those of
a serpent in motion, seem intended as an emblem of the three great regions
that composed the empire that is likewise portrayed in the three rows of
kneeling winged personages. The upper portion of said sceptre is symbolical
of the Western continent, divided into two great parts united by the
Isthmus of Panama. The lower was meant to represent that extensive island
that sunk beneath the waves of the Atlantic ocean, about 11,500 years ago.
The sceptre held in the right hand of the central figure being whole, would
show that the entire country was governed by a potentate to whom the rulers
of the seventeen nations, into which the empire was divided, paid homage
and acknowledged as their suzerain. These seventeen divisions of the empire
are indicated by the seventeen small heads sculptured on the lower band,
and the seventeen signs of land that adorned the arms, the breastplate, and
the ribbon from which it is suspended.
Of the small kneeling winged figures, those of the middle row are portrayed
with the heads of macaws to signify that they are the particular adherents
of queen Moo, that here, as in Mayax, carry her totem as a badge or sign of
recognition; whilst the others have human heads, but wear on their crowns
her totem, in token that they recognize her as their _suzerain_. All these
figures are ornamented with _twelve_ serpents, arranged in groups of
_three_, whilst the sash they carry across their body from the shoulder to
the waist on the opposite side, terminates in a peculiar knot adorned with
the four circles, that we have said stood for the word _Ahau_, that is
king, indicating that their lord paramount is a member of the _Can_
(serpent) dynasty. The whole tableau recalls vividly, that presented by the
kneeling beaked nosed personages in attendance at the shrine of the bird
deity at Kioto.
Mr. Angrand, the well known French archæologist, finds, and with reason, a
coincidence between these sculptures and those of Central America, having a
corresponding symbolical significance. In them he sees the proof of the
identity of origin, of the intimate relationship of the builders of
Tiahuanuco and those of Palenque, Ocosingo, and Xochicalco. He might have
added, and be nearer to the truth, those of the cities of Mayax, that were
founded many centuries before those mentioned by him.
In Mayax, it is where, indeed, the image of the serpent, as a symbol, is
most commonly met with. We see it on almost every edifice in every city. It
is one of the favorite ornaments, especially at Chichen-Itza, of which
place it seems to have been the particular protecting genius. There it is
found everywhere. It guards the entrance of all public edifices. It is at
the foot of their grand stairways, as if defending the ascent. The columns
that support their porticos are representations of it. Its head forms the
base, its body the shaft. The nobles and other personages of high rank wore
adornments made in the shape of serpents. Chichen may indeed be called the
"_City of Serpents_" par excellence. If we, therefore, wish to know the
true meaning of the serpent as a symbol, if we desire to inquire as to the
motives that led to its worship, it is necessary to question the learned
priests of that city; to consult the books in which the philosophers of
Mayax have consigned their knowledge and their esoteric doctrines.
The origin of the "Serpent Worship" they tell us, can be traced to two
apparently distinct causes. One, the esoteric, taught only to a few select
of those initiated in the greater mysteries, is the homage to be tributed
by the creature to the Creator. The other, the exoteric, inculcated on the
uninitiated, was the love of the country, and the respect due by the
subjects to their rulers, living images and vicars of the Deity on earth.
In order to comprehend the first, or esoteric, we must recall to mind that
Eusebius says that the Egyptians represented emblematically _Kneph_ the
Creator, and the world also, under the figure of a serpent, which,
Horapollo asserts, was of a blue color with yellow scales; but they fail to
inform us as to what may have been their motives for thus symbolizing the
First Cause; or from whom they had received this symbol, that was the same
used by the Mayas. A clue to this mystery can no doubt be found in the
cosmogonical notions prevalent among the ancient civilized nations; for,
strange to say, they seem to have been alike with all. We read in the
_Manava-dharma-sastra_ that the visible universe in the beginning was
nothing but darkness. Then the great, self-existing Power dispelled that
darkness, and appeared in all His splendor. He first produced the waters;
and on them moved _Narayana_ the divine spirit.
Berosus, recounting the ancient legend of the creation according to the
Chaldeans, says: "In the beginning all was darkness and water; and therein
were generated monstrous animals and strange and peculiar forms.... A woman
ruleth them all." Her name in Chaldee is _Thalath_, in Greek _Thalassa_
(the sea), that is in Maya _Thallac_ (a thing without steadiness).
Genesis recounts that: "In the beginning the Earth was without form and
void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God
moved upon the face of the water. And God said, Let there be light and
there was light."
In _Primander_, that modern critics consider the most ancient and authentic
of the first philosophical books of Egypt, attributed to Hermes
Trismegistus, in the dialogue between _Thoth_ and Primander, the Supreme
Intelligence, we read these words of _Thoth_. "I had then before my eyes a
most prodigious spectacle. All things had resolved themselves into light. A
marvellous, pleasing and seducing sight it was to contemplate. It filled me
with delight. After a while a horrid shadow, which ended in oblique folds,
and assumed a humid nature, agitated itself with terrific noise. From it
escaped smoke with uproar, and a voice was heard above the din. It seemed
as the voice of the light; and the verb came forth from that voice of
light; that verb was carried upon the humid principle. Out of it came forth
the fire pure and light, and rising, it was lost in the air that,
spirit-like, occupies the intermediate space between the water and the
fire. The earth and the water were so mixed that the surface of the Earth
covered by the water appeared nowhere."
And in what are termed the modern Hermetic books, the origin of things is
thus explained: "The principle of all things existing is God, and the
intellect, and nature, and matter, and energy, and fate, and _conclusion_,
and _renovation_. For there were boundless darkness in the abyss, and
water, and a subtile spirit, intellectual in power, existing in chaos. But
the holy light broke forth, and the elements were produced from among the
sand of a watery essence."
In the _Popol-Vuh_, the sacred book of the Quiches, we read: "This is the
recital of how everything was without life, calm and silent, all was
motionless and quiet; void was the immensity of the heavens; the face of
the Earth did not manifest itself yet; only the tranquil sea was, and the
space of the heavens. All was immobility and silence in the darkness, in
the night; only the Creator, the Maker, the Dominator, the Serpent covered
with feathers, they who engender, they who create, were on the waters as an
ever increasing light. They are surrounded by green and blue, their name is
Gucumatz."
We have already said how the Maya sages have taken care to perpetuate their
cosmogonical conceptions, by causing the narrative of the creation to be
carved, in high relief, over the doorway of the east façade of the palace
at Chichen-Itza, and that these conceptions were identical with those of
the Hindoos and the Egyptians. It cannot be argued that this identity of
ideas about the origin of things, arrived at by the wise men of India,
Egypt, and Mayax, and expressed in as nearly the same words as the genius
of the vernacular of these various countries admits, is purely accidental;
or, that they have arrived separately at the same conclusions on the
subject, without communicating one with the other. The notion and its
explanation must have originated with one, and been taught to the others
just as our modern scientific discoveries, or religious beliefs, are
carried from country to country, even the most remote, and made known to
their inhabitants. What should we think of the man who would pretend that
the railway, electric telegraph, and many other of the latest inventions,
instead of having originated in one particular country, nay, more, in the
brain of a particular man, have sprung simultaneously among all the various
nations which make use of them? Would not that man be regarded as a born
idiot or a fit subject for a lunatic asylum? We can easily understand how
these cosmogonical notions have passed from the Egyptians to the Chaldees
or to the Hindoos or _vice versa_; but who brought them to the "Lands of
the West" and when? Who can say they did not arise among the inhabitants of
the "Western continent;" and were not conveyed by them to the other
nations?
In my work "The Monuments of Mayax," I have shown how the legends
accompanying the images of several of the Egyptian deities, when
interpreted by means of the Maya language, point directly to Mayax as the
birthplace of the Egyptian civilization. How the ancient Maya hieratic
alphabet, discovered by me, is as near alike to the ancient hieratic
alphabet of the Egyptians as two alphabets can possibly be, forcing upon us
the conclusion that the Mayas and the Egyptians either learned the art of
writing from the same masters, or that the Egyptians learned it from the
Mayas. There is every reason to believe that the cosmogonical conceptions,
so widely spread, originated with the Mayas, and were communicated by them
to all the other nations among which we find their name.
An analysis of the tableau of creation, carved on the façade of the palace
at Chichen-Itza, cannot fail, therefore, to prove interesting. In it we
shall find a proof of the scientific attainments of its designers; and also
the reason why the serpent came to be worshiped all over the Earth.
The philosophers of Mayax must have known that the waters cover the
greatest part of the globe (about three fifths); and that water being a
combination of gases (oxygen and hydrogen), the most subtile of fluids,
must have been the first form of matter produced. This is why on each side
and on the top of the tableau they placed the symbol of water [Symbol:
three wavy lines]; taking care to leave without it, at the upper part, a
portion equal to two-fifths of its length. In the midst of the waters they
represented the figure of an egg, that is a germ. Why an egg and not any
other seed? Is it because their study of physiology had made them
acquainted with the fact, that no being exists on Earth, but that is born
from an egg? They represented the egg emitting rays. The rays of the light
into which says Thoth, all things resolved themselves; that, says the
Quiche, author of the Popol-Vuh, appeared on the water as an increasing
brightness that bathed the Creator, the _feathered serpent_, the _Kneph_,
as the Egyptians would name it, in green and azure. It is well to notice
that the symbols of water terminate with the head of serpents; because they
compared the waves of the ocean to the undulations of the serpent's body
while in motion.
[Illustration]
For this reason the Mayas named the sea _Canah_, the great, the powerful
serpent: and in the Troano MS., the sea is always designated by a serpent's
head. This explains why the Quiches, the Mayas, the Egyptians, the Hindoos,
represented the world, and, by extension, the maker of it, as a serpent.
Thus it is that they placed a serpent within the egg, behind the creator to
indicate that this symbol is the totem of the ancestor of all beings. And
here we have one of the origins of the serpent worship: that is, the
adoration of the Creator.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.] [Illustration: FIG. 2.]
In Egypt the goddess _Uati_, the genius of the lower country, is at times
represented as a serpent with inflated breast, the body standing erect over
a basket or sieve, the lower part resting against a figure resembling our
numeral 8. At times again, as a winged serpent, with inflated breast,
wearing on its head a cap or crown of peculiar shape, that it is said to be
the crown of lower Egypt. Why the Egyptians selected such symbols to
represent the lower country, we are not informed; and it is doubtful if the
learned Egyptologists could explain the motive.
Now it is a most remarkable fact, that these are the very symbols used by
the Maya hierogrammatists and artists to figure their own motherland, the
Maya empire.
[Illustration]