The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations Part 13

Nezahualcoyotl, the lord of Tezcoco, is recorded as possessing the t.i.tle Ome Tochtli=2 Rabbit, and would obviously have presided over the calendar periods of that name. This inference is undoubtedly corroborated by Nunez de la Vega's following statement, quoted by Boturini:(44)

"Instead of the Mexican signs Acatl, Tecpatl, Calli and Tochtli, the Tzendals, inhabiting Chiapas, employed in their Calendar the names of four of their chieftains: Votan, Lambat, Been and Chinax.... They also figured a man named Coslahuntax, as seated in a chair...." Boturini remarks that this person should more correctly be named Imos or Max and was "the head of the 20 lords who were the symbols of the 20 days of the Calendar. Being the princ.i.p.al and initial sign, Coslahuntax represented in himself the period of thirteen days." As Dr. Brinton rightly notes(45) the name of the personage should be Oxlaghun tax, literally signifying "the thirteen divisions or parts."

We thus see that, whilst the names of the chiefs of the four quarters const.i.tuted the four major calendar-signs, one supreme lord embodied the attributes or "powers" of the 13 divisions of warriors and princ.i.p.al division. Thus the 13 divisions seem to have been regarded as 12 plus an all-embracing 1.

Nunez de la Vega continues: "In the representations of their calendar they painted seven black persons, corresponding to the seven days of their reckoning." Boturini adds: these seven black men were no other than the princ.i.p.al priest-rulers of this nation.... "They held in great veneration the 'lord of the black men,' who was ent.i.tled Yal-ahua." Boturini comments on this utterance and explains that the latter was no other than the high-priest.

I point out the evident ident.i.ty of Yal-ahua to the Mexican Yoal-tecuhtli=the lord of the Night, one of the t.i.tles given to Polaris and to his earthly representative, the high priest of the Earth and nocturnal cult. As already explained this personage bore in Mexico the female t.i.tle, Cihuacoatl=Woman-serpent; but we also find this name for the earth-mother alternating with Chicome-coatl=literally, seven serpents. In Beltran de la Rosa's "Arte Maya" we find the word "Ahaucchapat,"

translated as "Serpent with seven heads" and are thus led to infer that the Mexicans and Mayas had conceived the image of a "serpent with seven heads" as an allegory of the seven tribal divisions united in one body and bestowed this t.i.tle to the representative of the Earth-cult, the high priest of the Below. It follows that, just as the number 13 resolves itself into 12+1, so the mystic number 7 proves to have been considered as 6+1, precisely what might be expected as the natural sequence of the derivation of the number from a circ.u.mpolar constellation, consisting of seven stars, one of which was Polaris. Nunez de la Vega and Boturini's testimony teaches us that the Tzendals were organized into twenty divisions and that thirteen of these were embodied in one chief, while the seven others, a.s.sociated with black, were personified by the high priest.

The information that one individual was thus believed to unite in his person the attributes of several cla.s.ses and that the lords of the four quarters and each of the twenty divisions bore names which were also calendar-signs, gain in value when it is realized that, in the opinion of Drs. Sch.e.l.lhas and Brinton, the invention of the native Calendar system may probably be a.s.signed to the ancient inhabitants of Chiapas, where the Tzendals now dwell.(46) In treating of the ruins of Palenque situated in this region, I shall again refer to the Tzendals.

Meanwhile, let us examine the Cakchiquel tradition about Cuc.u.matz, the sorcerer chief of the Quiches, since it also treats of the 7-day period.

We are told that he "ascended to heaven for seven days and descended into the under world for seven days and then a.s.sumed, in rotation, four different animal forms during as many periods of seven days."

It is impossible not to recognize from this that, like the Zunis of to-day, the Quiches "symbolized the terrestrial sphere by referring to the four cardinal points, to the zenith and nadir, the individual himself making the seventh number," and that Cuc.u.matz, who was evidently the high priest and head of the seven tribes, a.s.sumed the totemistic attributes of each of these, in rotation, for periods of seven days each. In this case we have an interesting and suggestive variant of the scheme and it suggests the possibility that, possibly actuated by ambition, Cuc.u.matz had grasped and united in his person the prerogatives of the chiefs or heads of each tribe. On the other hand, it may be that it was the original custom for the high priest to be a sort of animated calendar sign in unison with the separate chiefs of each tribe, who represented, in rotation, the totemistic ancestors of their people.

Having shown how the lords of the Four Quarters were indissolubly linked to the four major calendar-signs which also symbolized the elements, let us examine the data establis.h.i.+ng that the capital of each of the four provinces was named a tecpan. From Duran I have already quoted that in the Mexican metropolis there were two tecpans or official houses in which the affairs of the government were attended to and councils held. It is significant that one of these was named "the tecpan of men" and the other "the tecpan of women." Whilst the metropolis, the seat of the dual government, thus had its two tecpans which were presided over by the two supreme rulers, we have learned from other sources of the four tecpans in Guatemala and that Texcoco, near the city of Mexico, was also termed a tecpan and that its ruler bore as a t.i.tle one of the four major calendar-signs. These facts explain his position and the reason why the "lord of Texcoco" was one of four lords who supported Montezuma when he met Cortes in full state. A careful investigation of the derivation and true significance of the word tecpan yields interesting results.

Cen-tecpan-tli means, a count of twenty persons; the verb tecpana signifies, "to establish something in concerted order; to establish order amongst people." The verb tecpancapoa means, to count something in regular order.

The Maya verb tepal=to govern or reign, or to be "one who mediates,"

appears to be allied to the above Nahuatl words and it is not unlikely that the employment of the flint-knife or tecpatl as an emblem of office had been suggested by the fact that its Nahuatl name resembles, in sound, the above words formed with tecpan, and also the Maya verb tepal. It thus const.i.tuted a bilingual rebus, expressing the sense=to govern, to rule, to regulate, etc., and, employed as the symbol of the North and Polaris, it conveyed the idea that the latter was not only the producer of life but the regulator of the Universe.

From the fact that a tecpan const.i.tuted a minor integral whole and comprised the rule over twenty cla.s.ses of people, we see that whilst the four provincial tecpans were in themselves miniature reproductions of the metropolis, they but filled the same position in relation to this as the four limbs to the body of a man or quadruped. A final proof of how completely this a.n.a.logy was recognized by the native rulers is furnished by the Maya t.i.tles which embody the word kab=arm and hand.

It has already been mentioned in the preceding pages that the rulers of the four quarters were ent.i.tled Ba-cab and that in the Dresden Codex an image of the four quarters was figured by four bones. The word for bone being bac and for arm being kab, it is obvious that the arm-bone or humerus would furnish a rebus, expressing the t.i.tle of the four Bacabs-a conclusion which throws light upon the signification of the cross-bones of native pictography and also of the incised and decorated human arm and leg bones which have been found in Mexico and Yucatan.

At the same time the word kab also recurs in the t.i.tle Ah-Cuch-Cab which signifies "the ruler or chief of a town or place," Cuchil being the name of the latter. Both of these words so closely resemble cuxabal and cuxtal, the word for "life," that it is not impossible that the native mind often a.s.sociated the town as a centre of life, and thought of their chief as one whose symbol was a "life-dispensing hand." In order to grasp the full significance of the symbol of the hand in Maya sculptured and written records it is necessary to bear these facts in mind.

In 1895 Mr. Teobert Maler unearthed in the centre of the public square at "El Seibal," Guatemala, a sculptured stela exhibiting the figures of a chieftain over whose head an open hand was carved. It is impossible not to interpret this as a mark that the chieftain had once been the ruler of a town and that this, in turn, was one of four minor capitals belonging to a central metropolis. A hand, enclosed in quadrangular lines and represented on the garment of a chieftain, was found by Dr. Le Plongeon at Uxmal, and I believe that this should be interpreted in the same manner.

In my essay on Ancient Mexican s.h.i.+elds (Internationales Archiv fur Ethnographie, band V, 1892) I reproduced two interesting instances of the employment, as the name-sign of a ruler in native pictography, of a hand on the palm of which an eye is depicted. The effigy of a hand, the sacred Kab-ul, which was kept in a place in Yucatan to which people from all quarters resorted regularly in great numbers, resolves itself into the symbol of an ancient capital to which great high-roads led from the cardinal points. But important as this capital may have been, its connection with the hand-symbol proves that it was originally one of four minor centres and formed but a part of a greater whole. It would correspond to the image, in one of the native Codices, of a subdivided circle with an arm and hand standing in its middle, and its Bacab would undoubtedly have carried a sceptre in the shape of an open hand, such as depicted in the Codices as a staff of office.

While we thus find the human figure distinctly a.s.sociated with the lords of the four quarters of the Above we find the four lords of the Below, ent.i.tled Chac, symbolized by the quadruped figure of the native jaguar=chacoh, a.s.sociated with the color red=chac and with rain, storms, thunder and lightning, all of which phenomena were, singly and collectively, termed Chac.

If ever there has been an instance where language or the resemblance in sound of certain words has caused certain symbols to amalgamate with a name or t.i.tle, it is surely this, and light is thereby thrown upon the development of symbolism and a.s.sociations of thought amongst primitive people.

The Chacs of Yucatan were identical with the Tlalocs, the octli or rain lords of Mexico, whose function, as votaries of earth-cult, was the regulation of agriculture, irrigation and the collection and distribution of all products of the soil. It is interesting to trace that, in other regions of Yucatan, presumably where no chacohs or jaguars existed, the minor rulers of provinces seem to have been termed ocelots=Balam, a t.i.tle found a.s.sociated with Maya rulers.h.i.+p.

With the foregoing data in mind it is easy to grasp the meaning of the talon of a beast of prey, employed as an emblem of rank or office in the native Codices or bas-reliefs and to perceive that this was the symbol of a Chac or Balam, one of the four lords of the earth or Below, just as the hand was that of the lords of the Above. The complete image of the dual State is thus shown to have consisted at one time of an ideal group consisting of a man with a beast of prey, a jaguar or ocelot. In Mexico we have the man-bird and the man-ocelot respectively representing the rulers of the two great divisions of the State.

At Chichen-Itza and elsewhere in Yucatan sculptured figures of ocelots supporting circular vessels have been found and there are interesting instances of the combination of the human figure with ocelot=Balam attributes. One monolithic figure, discovered at Chichen-Itza by Mr. A. P.

Maudslay, and belonging to the category of the rec.u.mbent statues bearing circular vase-like receptacles, already described, exhibits a human head and form, whilst the body is covered with a spotted skin. In the sculptured image of Mictlan-tecuhtli (fig. 19) a human head is accompanied by limbs of equal length-terminating in wild beasts' talons. The positions of the limbs are better understood when compared with the following ill.u.s.tration, to which I shall revert (fig. 51). Meanwhile, I shall merely remark that in both of these curious bas-reliefs we seem to have images of the quadruple terrestrial and celestial governments. Fig. 51, which is a corrected drawing of one of those contained in Leon y Gama's "Descripcion de las dos Piedras," furnishes an interesting example, in accord with the image of Mictlantecuhtli, of the employment of the group of five as a symbol of the centre and four quarters, and exhibits four limbs a.s.sociated with four heads (the quarters and their chiefs), while the hands hold two other heads, symbolical of the dual rulers of the State.

Two facts which throw an interesting light upon the growth of native symbolism are worth mentioning here. As a symbol on the head of Mictlan-tecuhtli, the lord of the North, two representations of a centipede are distinguishable. In Nahuatl the name of this is "centzonmaye," literally, four hundred hands. It can thus be seen that the idea of one body with a mult.i.tude of hands had occurred to the native philosophers as a suitable allegory for their conception of a central celestial and terrestrial rule which guided the activity of innumerable appointed hands and dispensed, through these, not only life and favors but also death or chastis.e.m.e.nt.

[Ill.u.s.tration.]

Figure 51.

Before proceeding farther we must consider tree-symbolism in ancient America. According to Molina the Inca Yupanqui (surnamed the left-handed) ordered the temple of Quisuar-cancha to be made: quisuar=a tree, the _Buddleia Incana_, cancha=place of. Salcamayhua (_op. cit._, p. 77), who attributes the building of this temple to Manco Capac, states that these two trees, which were in the temple, "typified his father and mother ...

and he ordered that they should be adorned with roots of gold and silver and with golden fruit. Hence they were called Ccurichachac Collquechachac Tampu Yracan, which means that the two trees typified his parents, that the Incas proceeded from them like fruit from the trees, and that the two trees were as the roots and stems of the Incas. All these things were executed to record their greatness." This pa.s.sage is of utmost value, for it conveys to us not only that the Incas kept a record of their male and female ancestry and respectively a.s.sociated the male and female elements with gold and silver, but also establishes the important point that the tree was employed as an emblem of the life and growth of a lineage or race.

This fact is particularly interesting if collated with the Mexican tree-symbols. In the Fejervary diagram (fig. 52), we find a different kind of tree and two totemic figures a.s.signed to each quarter, which indicates that the inhabitants of each of the four provinces were regarded as of a distinct race. The top of each tree spreads itself into two branches and, with one exception, each of these bears three blossoms or leaves denoting, it would seem, the division of a tribe into 23=6 parts.

[Ill.u.s.tration.]

Figure 52. Copy of p. 44, Fejervary Codex.

The majority of tree-symbols, however, exhibit a quadruplicate division as in fig. 53, nos. 1, 4 and 7. At the same time it is impossible not to recognize that each example renders in a graphic manner the organization of a tribe. In nos. 2 and 8, for instance, we find that each of the four branches was again subdivided, yielding eight subdivisions instead of four. In no. 3, we have quadruple branches, a pair of recurved spikes with buds and a central bud, the idea of duality repeating itself in the trunk of the tree, one-half of which above ground is white, whilst the other below ground is dark. The obvious allusion is to the Above and Below and this idea is further symbolized by the head of the coatl=serpent or twin.

In this figure there is a hint of the existence of an idea I have found expressed in other cases, namely, that a mystic line of demarcation existed at the base of a tree, which separated its upward from its downward growth. This was the seat of the life of the tree, which sent its trunk and crown heavenwards and its roots and rootlets earthwards. The fact that the juice of the agave or maguey was collected from the core of the plant seems to be at the bottom of its adoption as the sacred and ceremonial "drink of life," which was, subsequently, carefully prepared and fermented. The idea that a tree enclosed male and female elements seems to have been also a strong one and would, in course of time, doubtlessly have led to the conception of superhuman beings in human form, dwelling in trees. What is more, the adoption by each tribe of a particular sort of tree, a custom amply proven, would naturally lead to a species of tree-cult or veneration which, amongst the uninitiated, might lead to a form of wors.h.i.+p of the tree itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration.]

Figure 53.

The ceremonial presentation of single leaves of the same kinds as those represented on the trees, as in fig. 53, no. 6, proves that underlying these picture-writings there is far more meaning than has heretofore been suspected or recognized. It is not possible for me to present here all the material I have collected on this subject which will be set forth in a future monograph. I will, however, direct attention to the peculiar treatment in fig. 53, no. 1, of the tree trunk which is enlarged and forms a quadriform figure. In no. 4, the trunk enlarges to the shape of a head; in no. 2 the tree grows from a human head and two young shoots issue from each side of the trunk, seemingly indicating a fresh growth in tribal life. In no. 5, we have an example of a human figure lying at the base of a tree and a fifth leaf growing in the centre of the treetop. Directing attention to the evident care taken in representing an equal number of branches pointing upwards and downwards I would cite here an extremely interesting representation of a tree in the Borgian Codex. In this case the trunk issues from a conventionally drawn heart, figured in the centre of the symbol for sky or heaven. As the Nahuatl for heart is yul-lotl, from the verb yuli=to live, to resuscitate, the idea is distinctly conveyed that the tree was that of life=yuli and proceeded from the celestial centre of life, Polaris or the Heart of Heaven, a native t.i.tle for the Supreme Being.(47)

In the Telleriano-Remensis MS., a "tree of Paradise," so termed in the text, is figured, and there are, in other Codices, various examples of trees encircled with serpents, where it is obvious that this combination was made in order to express, phonetically, that a celestial tree was intended, the word kan=serpent, being made to express kaan=heaven. A celestial tree, situated at the pole and bearing in some cases seven and in others five blossoms, was frequently depicted and its symbolism is obvious. In my commentary on the Hispano-Mexican MS. "The Lyfe of the Indians," the "G.o.ds," "Five Flowers," and "Seven Flowers," will be treated in detail.

From Sahagun and Olmos we learn that the Mexicans employed the image of a tree, metaphorically, to signify a lord, governor, progenitor, first ancestor. Relations are designated as "issuing from one trunk." A branch is literally termed "the arm of the tree," kab-che. Two kinds of trees, the Puchutl and Aueuetl, signified, metaphorically, "a father, mother, lord, captain or governor who were, or are, like shade-giving, sheltering trees" (Olmos).

The above metaphors explain the frequent a.s.sociation of a head, the symbol of a chief or lord, with the tree symbols. It is noteworthy that in Nahuatl, the name for head=quaitl, is singularly like quauitl=tree, and also recalls the word for serpent=coatl, facts which may have somewhat guided the choice and a.s.sociation of these symbols. The native metaphors recorded by Olmos, moquauhtia=an honored person or lord who has va.s.sals or dependents, and atlapalli=literally, leaf=a person of the lower cla.s.s, a worker, initiate us still further into the meaning of the native symbolism and prove the antiquity of this, since the designation of a chief as a tree and a va.s.sal as a leaf was in current use. The presentation of the tree issuing from a heart=yul-lotl is moreover, in perfect keeping with native thought, since the chieftain or lord was ent.i.tled "the heart, or life of the town or population."

The meaning of the bird, which is represented as perched on each of the four trees in the Fejervary diagram, is likewise explained by the metaphors recorded by Olmos who states that, "a son or child or a much beloved lord or chieftain was compared to a beautiful and precious bird, such as the Quetzal, the Roseate Spoonbill, the Blue-bird, etc., etc."

Surmounting the tribal trees in the diagram, the birds therefore typify the lords of the four provinces and this is corroborated by the fact that each different bird is figured again in the corner-loops in combination with the symbols of the cardinal points. The a.s.sociation of the symbols for lord or chief=the head, and the precious bird with the tribal tree also explains the frequent representation, in the native Codices, of one or two serpents entwined around the tree, since the serpent was the symbol in Mexico of the dual rulers or high-priests of the Above and Below. There is ample proof, which shall be presented in full in my monograph on this subject, that the above metaphorical images were as intelligible to the Mayas and other tribes, as to the Mexicans themselves, for the identical metaphors and imagery were in widespread general use. The following data will corroborate this statement.

A Maya native drawing, copied by Cogolludo in 1640 from the MS. of the Chilan Balam or Sacred Book of Man, which relates the history of the Mayas, has been recently reproduced in Dr. Daniel G. Brinton's Primer of Maya Hieroglyphics, p. 47. It displays a rectangular stone slab like a table, on the centre of which rests a circular bowl, the symbol, as I have shown, of the earth and centre. Growing from this is a spreading tree.

It is a curious and undeniable fact that the Maya name for table is mayac, and that the dictionaries contain the words mayac-tun, stone-table, and mayac-che, wooden, literally, tree-table. Familiarity with the native modes of rebus-writing leads to the inference that this picture of a tree and table, expressing the sounds mayac-che, actually signified the tree of the Mayas and therefore figured in the book relating their history. Bishop Landa records that the Mayas believed in a beautiful celestial tree, resembling the ceiba and named yax-che, literally, green tree, under whose shade they would repose in after-life. Abbe Bra.s.seur de Bourbourg surmises that this tree was the same as the beautiful shade tree which grows in Yucatan and Mexico and is named, in the latter country, tonacaz-quahuital=tree of our subsistence, _i. e._, life.

A Maya name for the "tree of life," ua-hom-che, next claims our attention.(48) A valuable old ma.n.u.script dictionary of the Maya language, quoted by Dr. Brinton, records that the word uah means "a certain kind of life." The word _hom_ is an ancient term for an artificial elevation, mound or pyramid, hence _homul_, the pyramid on which a temple was built.

Combined with che, tree, the word seems to signify "the elevated or high tree of life," the idea of the celestial tree "on high," being possibly intended. In connection with this it is interesting to reexamine fig. 20, IV, which represents a flat pyramid from which grows a four-petalled flower on a stalk with two leaves, the symbolism of which is apparent.

I am inclined to connect another native name translated in the dictionaries by "cross"=zin-che with zihil=to be born, to commence, zihnal=original, primitive, and zian=origin, generation, ancestry, and to interpret it "the tree of ancestral or tribal life." On the other hand, there is the adjective zinil=mighty, great, and the meaning of zin-che may merely mean "the mighty tree." In treating of the "cross tablet" of Palenque in the following pages, reference will be made to Dr. Brinton's identification of the "cross" as a tree and tree symbolism referred to again. Although unable to produce here all the data I have collected on the subject, I think that the foregoing prove that the Peruvians, Mexicans and Mayas, employed the four-branched tree as an image of the organization and growth of their communal life, and utilized it in pictography as a means of recording changes of organization and statistics of increase or decrease of population. The Maya word for "one generation of men," uinay, literally meaning "one growth," seems to reveal that each generation was popularly thought of as one growth of leaves on the tree of state-a simile which is worthy of note.

One more point remains to be considered in reference to the organization of the population into four parts, each of which consisted of four minor parts and so on; namely, the employment of color as a means of differentiation.

In Peru each person wore on the head a twisted cord, of the color of its quarter, whilst the Inca alone wore these colors combined, in the band which encircled his brow, as a sign that, in his person he united the rulers.h.i.+p over the four provinces. Molina records the colors of these as red, yellow, white and black. In the t.i.tles of the Maya Bacabs, or lords of the provinces, as given by Landa, the words for yellow, red, white and black, are found to be incorporated and prove to be identical with the arrangement in Peru. In Mexico, on the other hand, we find red, yellow, green and blue as the colors of the Four Quarters, white and black being a.s.signed to the Above and Below. All colors combined are to be found united in symbols of the Centre and it is known that the use of centzon-tilmatli and quachtli=mantles of four hundred colors=multicolored were supplied as tributes to the capital, for the use of a privileged caste. A somewhat similar arrangement to the Mexican is that of the Zunis at the present time. According to Mr. Cus.h.i.+ng, they a.s.sign yellow, blue, red and white to the cardinal points, speckled and black to the Above=zenith and Below=nadir, and "all colours to the Middle or Centre."

In Peru, Mexico and Yucatan I have found scattered notices proving that individuals habitually painted their bodies with their respective colors.

The Mexican "lords of the night" smeared themselves with black. A pa.s.sage in Sahagun (book I, chap. V) speaks of the whitening of the "face, arms, hands and legs with 'ticatl' "=chalk, as though this were a habit of the "n.o.blewomen." In the Codices some women are, in fact, represented with white faces, whilst those of the majority are painted yellow and it is known that yellow ochre was employed in reality. I have, in preparation, a brief, ill.u.s.trated monograph showing the various modes of painting the face represented in the native pictorial records. In these, men painted red are of frequent occurrence, and it is known that the "red man" owed his appellation to the custom of using red pigment on his body.

Let us now briefly consider some of the results which inevitably followed the establishment of two diverging cults which were the outcome of the primitive recognition of duality and the artificial a.s.sociation of s.e.x with Heaven and Earth, Day and Night, etc. On pp. 60-62 I have cited evidence showing that at one time in the past history of the Aztecs, serious differences arose between the male and female rulers, and led to a separation of the tribe and the establishment of two distinct centres of government.

The native languages furnish strong indications that, in ordinary tribal life, the separation of the s.e.xes must have been generally enforced from remote antiquity and that male and female communities existed in various portions of the continent. It is well known that, to this day, the Nahuatl tongue spoken by the men is different from that spoken by the women, and that the same duality of language prevails among other American tribes.

When the male and female portions of the native states separated and founded separate capitals it is obvious that each would have still further cultivated a separate language and that the inst.i.tution of two distinct cults would have accentuated their differences and given a fresh impetus to their development. As will be shown, the Maya chronicles reveal that, in Yucatan, the nocturnal cult of the female principle degenerated into such abominations that the incensed population actually rose in revolt, murdered the high-priests and scattered their votaries.