Datasets:
Tasks:
Text Generation
Sub-tasks:
language-modeling
Languages:
English
Size:
10K<n<100K
ArXiv:
License:
Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed | |
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was | |
produced from images generously made available by The | |
Internet Archive/American Libraries.) | |
Transcriber's Note | |
A number of typographical errors have been maintained in this version | |
of this book. They have been marked with a [TN-#], which refers to a | |
description in the complete list found at the end of the text. | |
Inconsistent spelling, hyphenation, and capitalization have been | |
maintained. A list of inconsistently spelled, hyphenated, and | |
capitalized words is found in a list at the end of the text. | |
Oe ligatures have been expanded. The following codes are used for | |
characters that are not available in the character set used for this | |
book: | |
[sun] Sun symbol | |
[=a] a with macron | |
[c] open o | |
[C] open O | |
VESTIGES OF THE MAYAS, | |
OR, | |
_Facts tending to prove that Communications and Intimate Relations | |
must have existed, in very remote times, between the inhabitants of_ | |
MAYAB | |
AND THOSE OF | |
ASIA AND AFRICA. | |
BY | |
AUGUSTUS LE PLONGEON, M. D., | |
Member of the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Mass., of the | |
California Academy of Sciences, and several other Scientific Societies. | |
Author of various Essays and Scientific Works. | |
NEW YORK: | |
JOHN POLHEMUS, PRINTER AND STATIONER, | |
102 NASSAU STREET. | |
1881. | |
To | |
_MR. PIERRE LORILLARD._ | |
Who deserves the thanks of the students of American Archaeology more than | |
you, for the interest manifested in the explorations of the ruined | |
monuments of Central America, handiwork of the races that inhabited this | |
continent in remote ages, and the material help given by you to Foreign | |
and American explorers in that field of investigations? | |
Accept, then, my personal thanks, with the dedication of this small | |
Essay. It forms part of the result of many years' study and hardships | |
among the ruined cities of the Incas, in Peru, and of the Mayas in | |
Yucatan. | |
Yours very respectfully, | |
AUGUSTUS LE PLONGEON, M. D. | |
NEW YORK, _December 15, 1881_. | |
Entered according to an Act of Congress, in December, 1881, | |
BY AUGUSTUS LE PLONGEON, | |
In the Office of the LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS in Washington, D.C. | |
VESTIGES OF THE MAYAS. | |
Yucatan is the peninsula which divides the Gulf of Mexico from the | |
Caribbean Sea. It is comprised between the 17 deg. 30' and 21 deg. 50', | |
of latitude north, and the 88 deg. and 91 deg. of longitude west from | |
the Greenwich meridian. | |
The whole peninsula is of fossiferous limestone formation. Elevated a | |
few feet only above the sea, on the coasts, it gradually raises toward | |
the interior, to a maximum height of above 70 feet. A bird's-eye view, | |
from a lofty building, impresses the beholder with the idea that he is | |
looking on an immense sea of verdure, having the horizon for boundary; | |
without a hill, not even a hillock, to break the monotony of the | |
landscape. Here and there clusters of palm trees, or artificial mounds, | |
covered with shrubs, loom above the green dead-level as islets, over | |
that expanse of green foliage, affording a momentary relief to the eyes | |
growing tired of so much sameness. | |
About fifty miles from the northwestern coast begins a low, narrow range | |
of hills, whose highest point is not much above 500 feet. It traverses | |
the peninsula in a direction a little south from east, commencing a few | |
miles north from the ruined city of Uxmal, and terminating some distance | |
from the eastern coast, opposite to the magnificent bay of Ascension. | |
Lately I have noticed that some veins of red oxide of iron exist among | |
these hills--quarries of marble must also be found there; since the | |
sculptured ornaments that adorn the facade of all the monuments at Uxmal | |
are of that stone. To-day the inhabitants of Yucatan are even ignorant | |
of the existence of these minerals in their country, and ocher to paint, | |
and marble slabs to floor their houses, are imported from abroad. I | |
have also discovered veins of good lithographic stones that could be | |
worked at comparatively little expense. | |
The surface of the country is undulating; its stony waves recall | |
forcibly to the mind the heavy swell of mid-ocean. It seems as if, in | |
times long gone by, the soil was upheaved, _en masse_, from the bottom | |
of the sea, by volcanic forces. This upheaval must have taken place many | |
centuries ago, since isolated columns of _Katuns_ 1m. 50c. square, | |
erected at least 6,000 years ago, stand yet in the same perpendicular | |
position, as at the time when another stone was added to those already | |
piled up, to indicate a lapse of twenty years in the life of the nation. | |
It is, indeed, a remarkable fact, that whilst the surrounding | |
countries--Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba and the other West India Islands--are | |
frequently convulsed by earthquakes, the peninsula of Yucatan is | |
entirely free from these awe-inspiring convulsions of mother earth. This | |
immunity may be attributed, in my opinion, to the innumerable and | |
extensive caves with which the whole country is entirely honeycombed; | |
and the large number of immense natural wells, called Senotes, that are | |
to be found everywhere. These caves and senotes afford an outlet for the | |
escape of the gases generated in the superficial strata of the earth. | |
These, finding no resistance to their passage, follow, harmlessly, these | |
vents without producing on the surface any of those terrible commotions | |
that fill the heart of man and beast alike with fright and dismay. | |
Some of those caves are said to be very extensive--None, however, has | |
been thoroughly explored. I have visited a few, certainly extremely | |
beautiful, adorned as they are with brilliant stalactites depending from | |
their roofs, that seem as if supported by the stalagmites that must have | |
required ages to be formed gradually from the floor into the massive | |
columns, as we see them to-day. | |
In all the caves are to be found either inexhaustible springs of clear, | |
pure, cold water, or streams inhabited by shrimps and fishes. No one can | |
tell whence they come or where they go. All currents of water are | |
subterraneous. Not a river is to be found on the surface; not even the | |
smallest of streamlets, where the birds of the air, or the wild beasts | |
of the forests, can allay their thirst during the dry season. The | |
plants, if there are no chinks or crevices in the stony soil through | |
which their roots can penetrate and seek the life-sustaining fluid | |
below, wither and die. It is a curious sight that presented by the roots | |
of the trees, growing on the precipituous[TN-1] brinks of the _senotes_, | |
in their search for water. They go down and down, even a hundred feet, | |
until they reach the liquid surface, from where they suck up the fluid | |
to aliment the body of the tree. They seem like many cables and ropes | |
stretched all round the sides of the well; and, in fact, serves as such | |
to some of the most daring of the natives, to ascend or descend to enjoy | |
a refreshing bath. | |
These _senotes_ are immense circular holes, the diameter of which varies | |
from 50 to 500 feet, with perpendicular walls from 50 to 150 feet deep. | |
These holes might be supposed to have served as ducts for the | |
subterranean gases at the time of the upheaval of the country. Now they | |
generally contain water. In some, the current is easily noticeable; many | |
are completely dry; whilst others contain thermal mineral water, | |
emitting at times strong sulphurous odor and vapor. | |
Many strange stories are told by the aborigines concerning the | |
properties possessed by the water in certain senotes, and the strange | |
phenomena that takes place in others. In one, for example, you are | |
warned to approach the water walking backward, and to breathe very | |
softly, otherwise it becomes turbid and unfit for drinking until it has | |
settled and become clear again. In another you are told not to speak | |
above a whisper, for if any one raises the voice the tranquil surface of | |
the water immediately becomes agitated, and soon assumes the appearance | |
of boiling; even its level raises. These and many other things are told | |
in connection with the caves and senotes; and we find them mentioned in | |
the writings of the chroniclers and historians from the time of the | |
Spanish conquest. | |
No lakes exist on the surface, at least within the territories occupied | |
by the white men. Some small sheets of water, called aguadas, may be | |
found here and there, and are fed by the underground current; but they | |
are very rare. There are three or four near the ruins of the ancient | |
city of Mayapan: probably its inhabitants found in them an abundant | |
supply of water. Following all the same direction, they are, as some | |
suppose, no doubt with reason, the outbreaks of a subterranean stream | |
that comes also to the surface in the senote of _Mucuyche_. A mile or so | |
from Uxmal is another aguada; but judging from the great number of | |
artificial reservoirs, built on the terraces and in the courts of all | |
the monuments, it would seem as if the people there depended more on the | |
clouds for their provision of water than on the wells and senotes. Yet I | |
feel confident that one of these must exist under the building known as | |
the Governor's house; having discovered in its immediate vicinity the | |
entrance--now closed--of a cave from which a cool current of air is | |
continually issuing; at times with great force. | |
I have been assured by Indians from the village of Chemax, who pretend | |
to know that part of the country well, that, at a distance of about | |
fifty miles from the city of Valladolid, the actual largest settlement | |
on the eastern frontier, in the territories occupied by the SANTA CRUZ | |
Indians, there exists, near the ruins of _Kaba_, two extensive sheets of | |
water, from where, in years gone by, the inhabitants of Valladolid | |
procured abundant supply of excellent fishes. These ruins of Kaba, said | |
to be very interesting, have never been visited by any foreigner; nor | |
are they likely to be for many years to come, on account of the imminent | |
danger of falling into the hands of those of Santa Cruz--that, since | |
1847, wage war to the knife against the Yucatecans. | |
On the coast, the sea penetrating in the lowlands have formed sloughs | |
and lakes, on the shores of which thickets of mangroves grow, with | |
tropical luxuriancy. Intermingling their crooked roots, they form such a | |
barrier as to make landing well nigh impossible. These small lakes, | |
subject to the ebb and flow of the tides, are the resort of innumerable | |
sea birds and water fowls of all sizes and descriptions; from the snipe | |
to the crane, and brightly flamingos, from the screeching sea | |
gulls to the serious looking pelican. They are attracted to these lakes | |
by the solitude of the forests of mangroves that afford them excellent | |
shelter, where to build their nests, and find protection from the storms | |
that, at certain season of the year, sweep with untold violence along | |
the coast: and because with ease they can procure an abundant supply of | |
food, these waters being inhabited by myriads of fishes, as they come to | |
bask on the surface which is seldom ruffled even when the tempest rages | |
outside. | |
Notwithstanding the want of superficial water, the air is always charged | |
with moisture; the consequence being a most equable temperature all the | |
year round, and an extreme luxuriance of all vegetation. The climate is | |
mild and comparatively healthy for a country situated within the | |
tropics, and bathed by the waters of the Mexican Gulf. This mildness and | |
healthiness may be attributed to the sea breezes that constantly pass | |
over the peninsula, carrying the malaria and noxious gases that have not | |
been absorbed by the forests, which cover the main portion of the land; | |
and to the great abundance of oxygen exuded by the plants in return. | |
This excessive moisture and the decomposition of dead vegetable matter | |
is the cause of the intermittent fevers that prevail in all parts of the | |
peninsula, where the yellow fever, under a mild form generally, is also | |
endemic. When it appears, as this year, in an epidemic form, the natives | |
themselves enjoy no immunity from its ravages, and fall victims to it as | |
well as unacclimated foreigners. | |
These epidemics, those of smallpox and other diseases that at times make | |
their appearance in Yucatan, generally present themselves after the | |
rainy season, particularly if the rains have been excessive. The country | |
being extremely flat, the drainage is necessarily very bad: and in | |
places like Merida, for example, where a crowding of population exists, | |
and the cleanliness of the streets is utterly disregarded by the proper | |
authorities, the decomposition of vegetable and animal matter is very | |
large; and the miasmas generated, being carried with the vapors arising | |
from the constant evaporation of stagnant waters, are the origin of | |
those scourges that decimate the inhabitants. Yucatan, isolated as it | |
is, its small territory nearly surrounded by water, ought to be, if the | |
laws of health were properly enforced, one of the most healthy countries | |
on the earth; where, as in the Island of Cozumel, people should only die | |
of old age or accident. The thermometer varies but little, averaging | |
about 80 deg. _Far_. True, it rises in the months of July and August as | |
high as 96 deg. in the shade, but it seldom falls below 65 deg. in the | |
month of December. In the dry season, from January to June, the trees | |
become divested of their leaves, that fall more particularly in March | |
and April. Then the sun, returning from the south on its way to the | |
north, passes over the land and darts its scorching perpendicular rays | |
on it, causing every living creature to thirst for a drop of cool water; | |
the heat being increased by the burning of those parts of the forests | |
that have been cut down to prepare fields for cultivation. | |
In the portion of the peninsula, about one-third of it, that still | |
remains in possession of the white, the Santa Cruz Indians holding, | |
since 1847, the richest and most fertile, two-thirds, the soil is | |
entirely stony. The arable loam, a few inches in thickness, is the | |
result of the detriti of the stones, mixed with the remainder of the | |
decomposition of vegetable matter. In certain districts, towards the | |
eastern and southern parts of the State, patches of red clay form | |
excellent ground for the cultivation of the sugar cane and Yuca root. | |
From this an excellent starch is obtained in large quantities. Withal, | |
the soil is of astonishing fertility, and trees, even, are met with of | |
large size, whose roots run on the surface of the bare stone, | |
penetrating the chinks and crevices only in search of moisture. Often | |
times I have seen them growing from the center of slabs, the seed having | |
fallen in a hole that happened to be bored in them. In the month of May | |
the whole country seems parched and dry. Not a leaf, not a bud. The | |
branches and boughs are naked, and covered with a thick coating of gray | |
dust. Nothing to intercept the sight in the thicket but the bare trunks | |
and branches, with the withes entwining them. With the first days of | |
June come the first refreshing showers. As if a magic wand had been | |
waved over the land, the view changes--life springs everywhere. In the | |
short space of a few days the forests have resumed their holiday attire; | |
buds appear and the leaves shoot; the flowers bloom sending forth their | |
fragrance, that wafted by the breeze perfume the air far and near. The | |
birds sing their best songs of joy; the insects chirp their shrillest | |
notes; butterflies of gorgeous colors flutter in clouds in every | |
direction in search of the nectar contained in the cups of the | |
newly-opened blossom, and dispute it with the brilliant humming-birds. | |
All creation rejoices because a few tears of mother Nature have brought | |
joy and happiness to all living beings, from the smallest blade of grass | |
to the majestic palm; from the creeping worm to man, who proudly titles | |
himself the lord of creation. | |
Yucatan has no rich metallic mines, but its wealth of vegetable | |
productions is immense. Large forests of mahogany, cedar, zapotillo | |
trees cover vast extents of land in the eastern and southern portions of | |
the peninsula; whilst patches of logwood and mora, many miles in length, | |
grow near the coast. The wood is to-day cut down and exported by the | |
Indians of Santa Cruz through their agents at Belize. Coffee, vanilla, | |
tobacco, india-rubber, rosins of various kinds, copal in particular, | |
all of good quality, abound in the country, but are not cultivated on | |
account of its unsettled state; the Indians retaining possession of the | |
most fertile territories where these rich products are found. | |
The whites have been reduced to the culture of the Hennequen plant | |
(agave sisalensis) in order to subsist. It is the only article of | |
commerce that grows well on the stony soil to which they are now | |
confined. The filament obtained from the plant, and the objects | |
manufactured from it constitute the principal article of export; in fact | |
the only source of wealth of the Yucatecans. As the filament is now much | |
in demand for the fabrication of cordage in the United States and | |
Europe, many of the landowners have ceased to plant maize, although the | |
staple article of food in all classes, to convert their land into | |
hennequen fields. The plant thrives well on stony soil, requires no | |
water and but little care. The natural consequence of planting the whole | |
country with hennequen has been so great a deficiency in the maize crop, | |
that this year not enough was grown for the consumption, and people in | |
the northeastern district were beginning to suffer from the want of it, | |
when some merchants of Merida imported large quantities from New York. | |
They, of course, sold it at advanced prices, much to the detriment of | |
the poorer classes. Some sugar is also cultivated in the southern and | |
eastern districts, but not in sufficient quantities even for the | |
consumption; and not a little is imported from Habana. | |
The population of the country, about 250,000 souls all told, are mostly | |
Indians and mixed blood. In fact, very few families can be found of pure | |
Caucasian race. Notwithstanding the great admixture of different races, | |
a careful observer can readily distinguish yet four prominent ones, very | |
noticeable by their features, their stature, the conformation of their | |
body. The dwarfish race is certainly easily distinguishable from the | |
descendants of the giants that tradition says once upon a time existed | |
in the country, whose bones are yet found, and whose portraits are | |
painted on the walls of Chaacmol's funeral chamber at Chichen-Itza. The | |
almond-eyed, flat-nosed Siamese race of Copan is not to be mistaken for | |
the long, big-nosed, flat-headed remnant of the Nahualt from Palenque, | |
who are said to have invaded the country some time at the beginning of | |
the Christian era; and whose advent among the Mayas, whose civilization | |
they appear to have destroyed, has been commemorated by calling the | |
_west_, the region whence they came, according to Landa, Cogolludo and | |
other historians, NOHNIAL, a word which means literally _big noses for | |
our daughters_; whilst the coming of the bearded men from the _east_, | |
better looking than those of the west, if we are to give credit to the | |
bas-relief where their portraits are to be seen, was called | |
CENIAL--_ornaments for our daughters_. | |
If we are to judge by the great number of ruined cities scattered | |
everywhere through the forests of the peninsula; by the architectural | |
beauty of the monuments still extant, the specimens of their artistic | |
attainments in drawing and sculpture which have reached us in the | |
bas-reliefs, statues and mural paintings of Uxmal and Chichen-Itza; by | |
their knowledge in mathematical and astronomical sciences, as manifested | |
in the construction of the gnomon found by me in the ruins of Mayapan; | |
by the complexity of the grammatical form and syntaxis of their | |
language, still spoken to-day by the majority of the inhabitants of | |
Yucatan; by their mode of expressing their thoughts on paper, made from | |
the bark of certain trees, with alphabetical and phonetical characters, | |
we must of necessity believe that, at some time or other, the country | |
was not only densely populated, but that the inhabitants had reached a | |
high degree of civilization. To-day we can conceive of very few of their | |
attainments by the scanty remains of their handiwork, as they have come | |
to us injured by the hand of time, and, more so yet, by that of man, | |
during the wars, the invasions, the social and religious convulsions | |
which have taken place among these people, as among all other nations. | |
Only the opening of the buildings which contain the libraries of their | |
learned men, and the reading of their works, could solve the mystery, | |
and cause us to know how much they had advanced in the discovery and | |
explanation of Nature's arcana; how much they knew of mankind's past | |
history, and of the nations with which they held intercourse. Let us | |
hope that the day may yet come when the Mexican government will grant to | |
me the requisite permission, in order that I may bring forth, from the | |
edifices where they are hidden, the precious volumes, without opposition | |
from the owners of the property where the monuments exist. Until then we | |
must content ourselves with the study of the inscriptions carved on the | |
walls, and becoming acquainted with the history of their builders, and | |
continue to conjecture what knowledge they possessed in order to be able | |
to rear such enduring structures, besides the art of designing the plans | |
and ornaments, and the manner of carving them on stone. | |
Let us place ourselves in the position of the archaeologists of thousands | |
of years to come, examining the ruins of our great cities, finding still | |
on foot some of the stronger built palaces and public buildings, with | |
some rare specimens of the arts, sciences, industry of our days, the | |
minor edifices having disappeared, gnawed by the steely tooth of time, | |
together with the many products of our industry, the machines of all | |
kinds, creation of man's ingenuity, and his powerful helpmates. What | |
would they know of the attainments and the progress in mechanics of our | |
days? Would they be able to form a complete idea of our civilization, | |
and of the knowledge of our scientific men, without the help of the | |
volumes contained in our public libraries, and maybe of some one able to | |
interpret them? Well, it seems to me that we stand in exactly the same | |
position concerning the civilization of those who have preceded us five | |
or ten thousand years ago on this continent, as these future | |
archaeologists may stand regarding our civilization five or ten thousand | |
years hence. | |
It is a fact, recorded by all historians of the Conquest, that when for | |
the first time in 1517 the Spaniards came in sight of the lands called | |
by them Yucatan, they were surprised to see on the coast many monuments | |
well built of stone; and to find the country strewn with large cities | |
and beautiful monuments that recalled to their memory the best of Spain. | |
They were no less astonished to meet in the inhabitants, not naked | |
savages, but a civilized people, possessed of polite and pleasant | |
manners, dressed in white cotton habiliments, navigating large boats | |
propelled by sails, traveling on well constructed roads and causeways | |
that, in point of beauty and solidity, could compare advantageously with | |
similar Roman structures in Spain, Italy, England or France. | |
I will not describe here the majestic monuments raised by the Mayas. | |
Mrs. Le Plongeon, in her letters to the _New York World_, has given of | |
those of UXMAL, AKE and MAYAPAN, the only correct description ever | |
published. My object at present is to relate some of the curious facts | |
revealed to us by their weather-beaten and crumbling walls, and show how | |
erroneous is the opinion of some European scientists, who think it not | |
worth while to give a moment of their precious time to the study of | |
American archaeology, because say they: _No relations have ever been | |
found to have existed between the monuments and civilizations of the | |
inhabitants of this continent and those of the old world_. On what | |
ground they hazard such an opinion it is difficult to surmise, since to | |
my knowledge the ancient ruined cities of Yucatan, until lately, have | |
never been thoroughly, much less scientifically, explored. The same is | |
true of the other monumental ruins of the whole of Central America. | |
When Mrs. Le Plongeon and myself landed at Progresso, in 1873, we | |
thought that because we had read the works of Stephens, Waldeck, | |
Norman, Fredeichstal; carefully examined the few photographic views made | |
by Mr. Charnay of some of the monuments, we knew all about them. Alas! | |
vain presumption! When in presence of the antique shrines and palaces of | |
the Mayas, we soon saw how mistaken we had been; how little those | |
writers had seen of the monuments they had pretended to describe: that | |
the work of studying them systematically was not even begun; and that | |
many years of close observation and patient labor would be necessary in | |
order to dispel the mysteries which hang over them, and to discover the | |
hidden meaning of their ornaments and inscriptions. To this difficult | |
task we resolved to dedicate our time, and to concentrate our efforts to | |
find a solution, if possible, to the enigma. | |
We began our work by taking photographs of all the monuments in their | |
_tout ensemble_, and in all their details, as much as practicable. Next, | |
we surveyed them carefully; made accurate plans of them in order to be | |
able to comprehend by the disposition of their different parts, for what | |
possible use they were erected; taking, as a starting point, that the | |
human mind and human inclinations and wants are the same in all times, | |
in all countries, in all races when civilized and cultured. We next | |
carefully examined what connection the ornaments bore to each other, and | |
tried to understand the meaning of the designs. At first the maze of | |
these designs seemed a very difficult riddle to solve. Yet, we believed | |
that if a human intelligence had devised it, another human intelligence | |
would certainly be able to unravel it. It was not, however, until we had | |
nearly completed the tracing and study of the mural paintings, still | |
extant in the funeral chamber of Chaacmol, or room built on the top of | |
the eastern wall of the gymnasium at Chichen-Itza, at its southern end, | |
that Stephens mistook for a shrine dedicated to the god of the players | |
at ball, that a glimmer of light began to dawn upon us. In tracing the | |
figure of Chaacmol in battle, I remarked that the shield worn by him | |
had painted on it round green spots, and was exactly like the ornaments | |
placed between tiger and tiger on the entablature of the same monument. | |
I naturally concluded that the monument had been raised to the memory of | |
the warrior bearing the shield; that the tigers represented his totem, | |
and that _Chaacmol_ or _Balam_ maya[TN-2] words for spotted tiger or | |
leopard, was his name. I then remembered that at about one hundred yards | |
in the thicket from the edifice, in an easterly direction, a few days | |
before, I had noticed the ruins of a remarkable mound of rather small | |
dimensions. It was ornamented with slabs engraved with the images of | |
spotted tigers, eating human hearts, forming magnificent bas-reliefs, | |
conserving yet traces of the colors in which it was formerly painted. I | |
repaired to the place. Doubts were no longer possible. The same round | |
dots, forming the spots of their skins, were present here as on the | |
shield of the warrior in battle, and that on the entablature of the | |
building. On examining carefully the ground around the mound, I soon | |
stumbled upon what seemed to be a half buried statue. On clearing the | |
_debris_ we found a statue in the round, representing a wounded tiger | |
reclining on his right side. Three holes in the back indicated the | |
places where he received his wounds. It was headless. A few feet | |
further, I found a human head with the eyes half closed, as those of a | |
dying person. When placed on the neck of the tiger it fitted exactly. I | |
propped it with sticks to keep it in place. So arranged, it recalled | |
vividly the Chaldean and Egyptian deities having heads of human beings | |
and bodies of animals. The next object that called my attention was | |
another slab on which was represented in bas-relief a dying warrior, | |
reclining on his back, the head was thrown entirely backwards. His left | |
arm was placed across his chest, the left hand resting on the right | |
shoulder, exactly in the same position which the Egyptians were wont, at | |
times, to give to the mummies of some of their eminent men. From his | |
mouth was seen escaping two thin, narrow flames--the spirit of the | |
dying man abandoning the body with the last warm breath. | |
These and many other sculptures caused me to suspect that this monument | |
had been the mausoleum raised to the memory of the warrior with the | |
shield covered with the round dots. Next to the slabs engraved with the | |
image of tigers was another, representing an _ara militaris_ (a bird of | |
the parrot specie, very large and of brilliant plumage of various | |
colors). I took it for the totem of his wife, MOO, _macaw_; and so it | |
proved to be when later I was able to interpret their ideographic | |
writings. _Kinich-Kakmo_ after her death obtained the honors of the | |
apotheosis; had temples raised to her memory, and was worshipped at | |
Izamal up to the time of the Spanish conquest, according to Landa, | |
Cogolludo and Lizana. | |
Satisfied that I had found the tomb of a great warrior among the Mayas, | |
I resolved to make an excavation, notwithstanding I had no tools or | |
implements proper for such work. After two months of hard toil, after | |
penetrating through three level floors painted with yellow ochre, at | |
last a large stone urn came in sight. It was opened in presence of | |
Colonel D. Daniel Traconis. It contained a small heap of grayish dust | |
over which lay the cover of a terra cotta pot, also painted yellow; a | |
few small ornaments of macre that crumbled to dust on being touched, and | |
a large ball of jade, with a hole pierced in the middle. This ball had | |
at one time been highly polished, but for some cause or other the polish | |
had disappeared from one side. Near, and lower than the urn, was | |
discovered the head of the colossal statue, to-day the best, or one of | |
the best pieces, in the National Museum of Mexico, having been carried | |
thither on board of the gunboat _Libertad_, without my consent, and | |
without any renumeration having even been offered by the Mexican | |
government for my labor, my time and the money spent in the discovery. | |
Close to the chest of the statue was another stone urn much larger than | |
the first. On being uncovered it was found to contain a large quantity | |
of reddish substance and some jade ornaments. On closely examining this | |
substance I pronounced it organic matter that had been subjected to a | |
very great heat in an open vessel. (A chemical analysis of some of it by | |
Professor Thompson, of Worcester, Mass., at the request of Mr. Stephen | |
Salisbury, Jr., confirmed my opinion). From the position of the urn I | |
made up my mind that its contents were the heart and viscera of the | |
personage represented by the statue; while the dust found in the first | |
urn must have been the residue of his brains. | |
Landa tells us that it was the custom, even at the time of the Spanish | |
conquest, when a person of eminence died to make images of stone, or | |
terra cotta or wood in the semblance of the deceased, whose ashes were | |
placed in a hollow made on the back of the head for the purpose. Feeling | |
sorry for having thus disturbed the remains of _Chaacmol_, so carefully | |
concealed by his friends and relatives many centuries ago; in order to | |
save them from further desecration, I burned the greater part reserving | |
only a small quantity for future analysis. This finding of the heart and | |
brains of that chieftain, afforded an explanation, if any was needed, of | |
one of the scenes more artistically portrayed in the mural paintings of | |
his funeral chamber. In this scene which is painted immediately over the | |
entrance of the chamber, where is also a life-size representation of his | |
corpse prepared for cremation, the dead warrior is pictured stretched on | |
the ground, his back resting on a large stone placed for the purpose of | |
raising the body and keeping open the cut made across it, under the | |
ribs, for the extraction of the heart and other parts it was customary | |
to preserve. These are seen in the hands of his children. At the feet of | |
the statue were found a number of beautiful arrowheads of flint and | |
chalcedony; also beads that formed part of his necklace. These, to-day | |
petrified, seemed to have been originally of bone or ivory. They were | |
wrought to figure shells of periwinkles. Surrounding the slab on which | |
the figure rests was a large quantity of dried blood. This fact might | |
lead us to suppose that slaves were sacrificed at his funeral, as | |
Herodotus tells us it was customary with the Scythians, and we know it | |
was with the Romans and other nations of the old world, and the Incas in | |
Peru. Yet not a bone or any other human remains were found in the | |
mausoleum. | |
The statue forms a single piece with the slab on which it reclines, as | |
if about to rise on his elbows, the legs being drawn up so that the feet | |
rest flat on the slab. I consider this attitude given to the statues of | |
dead personages that I have discovered in Chichen, where they are still, | |
to be symbolical of their belief in reincarnation. They, in common with | |
the Egyptians, the Hindoos, and other nations of antiquity, held that | |
the spirit of man after being made to suffer for its shortcomings during | |
its mundane life, would enjoy happiness for a time proportionate to its | |
good deeds, then return to earth, animate the body and live again a | |
material existence. The Mayas, however, destroying the body by fire, | |
made statues in the semblance of the deceased, so that, being | |
indestructible the spirit might find and animate them on its return to | |
earth. The present aborigines have the same belief. Even to-day, they | |
never fail to prepare the _hanal pixan_, the food for the spirits, which | |
they place in secluded spots in the forests or fields, every year, in | |
the month of November. These statues also hold an urn between their | |
hands. This fact again recalls to the mind the Egpptian[TN-3] custom of | |
placing an urn in the coffins with the mummies, to indicate that the | |
spirit of the deceased had been judged and found righteous. | |
The ornament hanging on the breast of Chaacmol's effigy, from a ribbon | |
tied with a peculiar knot behind his neck, is simply a badge of his | |
rank; the same is seen on the breast of many other personages in the | |
bas-reliefs and mural paintings. A similar mark of authority is yet in | |
usage in Burmah. | |
I have tarried so long on the description of my first important | |
discovery because I desired to explain the method followed by me in the | |
investigation of these monuments, to show that the result of our labors | |
are by no means the work of imagination--as some have been so kind a | |
_short_ time ago as to intimate--but of careful and patient analysis and | |
comparison; also, in order, from the start, to call your attention to | |
the similarity of certain customs in the funeral rites that the Mayas | |
seem to have possessed in common with other nations of the old world: | |
and lastly, because my friend, Dr. Jesus Sanchez, Professor of | |
Archaeology in the National Museum of Mexico, ignoring altogether the | |
circumstances accompanying the discovery of the statue, has published in | |
the _Anales del Museo Nacional_, a long dissertation--full of erudition, | |
certainly--to prove that the statue discovered by me at Chichen-Itza, | |
was a representation of the _God of the natural production of the | |
earth_, and that the name given by me was altogether arbitrary; and, | |
also, because an article has appeared in the _North American Review_ for | |
October, 1880, signed by Mr. Charnay, in which the author, after | |
re-producing Mr. Sanchez's writing, pronounces _ex cathedra_ and _de | |
perse_, but without assigning any reason for his opinion, that the | |
statue is the effigy of the _god of wine_--the Mexican Bacchus--without | |
telling us which of them, for there were two. | |
Having been obliged to abandon the statue in the forests--well wrapped | |
in oilcloth, and sheltered under a hut of palm leaves, constructed by | |
Mrs. Le Plongeon and myself--my men having been disarmed by order of | |
General Palomino, then commander-in-chief of the federal forces in | |
Yucatan, in consequence of a revolutionary movement against Dr. | |
Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada and in favor of General Diaz--I went to Uxmal | |
to continue my researches among its ruined temples and palaces. There I | |
took many photographs, surveyed the monuments, and, for the first time, | |
found the remnants of the phallic worship of the Nahualts. Its symbols | |
are not to be seen in Chichen--the city of the holy and learned men, | |
Itzaes--but are frequently met with in the northern parts of the | |
peninsula, and all the regions where the Nahualt influence predominated. | |
There can be no doubt that in very ancient times the same customs and | |
religious worship existed in Uxmal and Chichen, since these two cities | |
were founded by the same family, that of CAN (serpent), whose name is | |
written on all the monuments in both places. CAN and the members of his | |
family worshipped Deity under the symbol of the mastodon's head. At | |
Chichen a tableau of said worship forms the ornament of the building, | |
designated in the work of Stephens, "Travels in Yucatan," as IGLESIA; | |
being, in fact, the north wing of the palace and museum. This is the | |
reason why the mastodon's head forms so prominent a feature in all the | |
ornaments of the edifices built by them. They also worshipped the sun | |
and fire, which they represented by the same hieroglyph used by the | |
Egyptians for the sun [sun]. In this worship of the fire they resembled | |
the Chaldeans and Hindoos, but differed from the Egyptians, who had no | |
veneration for this element. They regarded it merely as an animal that | |
devoured all things within its reach, and died with all it had | |
swallowed, when replete and satisfied. | |
From certain inscriptions and pictures--in which the _Cans_ are | |
represented crawling on all fours like dogs--sculptured on the facade of | |
their house of worship, it would appear that their religion of the | |
mastodon was replaced by that of the reciprocal forces of nature, | |
imported in the country by the big-nosed invaders, the Nahualts coming | |
from the west. These destroyed Chichen, and established their capital at | |
_Uxmal_. There they erected in all the courts of the palaces, and on the | |
platforms of the temples the symbols of their religion, taking care, | |
however, not to interfere with the worship of the sun and fire, that | |
seems to have been the most popular. | |
Bancroft in his work, "_The Native Races of the Pacific States_," Vol. | |
IV., page 277, remarks: "That the scarcity of idols among the Maya | |
antiquities must be regarded as extraordinary. That the people of | |
Yucatan were idolators there is no possible doubt, and in connection | |
with the magnificent shrines and temples erected by them, and rivalling | |
or excelling the grand obelisks of Copan, might naturally be sought for, | |
but in view of the facts it must be concluded that the Maya idols were | |
very small, and that such as escaped the fatal iconoclasms of the | |
Spanish ecclesiastics were buried by the natives as the only means of | |
preventing their desecration." | |
That the people who inhabited the country at the time of the Spanish | |
conquest had a multiplicity of gods there can be no doubt. The primitive | |
form of worship, with time and by the effect of invasions from outside, | |
had disappeared, and been replaced by that of their great men and women, | |
who were deified and had temples raised to their memory, as we see, for | |
example, in the case of _Moo_,[TN-4] wife and sister of Chaacmol, whose | |
shrine was built on the high mound on the north side of the large square | |
in the city of Izamal. There pilgrims flocked from all parts of the | |
country to listen to the oracles delivered by the mouth of her priests; | |
and see the goddess come down from the clouds every day, at mid-day, | |
under the form of a resplendent macaw, and light the fire that was to | |
consume the offerings deposited on her altar; even at the time of the | |
conquest, according to the chroniclers, Chaacmol himself seems to have | |
become the god of war, that always appeared in the midst of the battle, | |
fighting on the side of his followers, surrounded with flames. Kukulcan, | |
"the culture" hero of the Mayas, the winged serpent, worshipped by the | |
Mexicans as the god Guetzalcoalt,[TN-5] and by the Quiches as Cucumatz, | |
if not the father himself of Chaacmol, CAN, at least one of his | |
ancestors. | |
The friends and followers of that prince may have worshipped him after | |
his death, and the following generations, seeing the representation of | |
his totems (serpent) covered with feathers, on the walls of his palaces, | |
and of the sanctuaries built by him to the deity, called him Kukulcan, | |
the winged serpent: when, in fact, the artists who carved his emblems on | |
the walls covered them with the cloaks he and all the men in authority | |
and the high priests wore on ceremonial occasions--feathered | |
vestments--as we learned from the study of mural paintings. | |
In the temples and palaces of the ancient Mayas I have never seen | |
anything that I could in truth take for idols. I have seen many symbols, | |
such as double-headed tigers, corresponding to the double-headed lions | |
of the Egyptians, emblems of the sun. I have seen the representation of | |
people kneeling in a peculiar manner, with their right hand resting on | |
the left shoulder--sign of respect among the Mayas as among the | |
inhabitants of Egypt--in the act of worshiping the mastodon head; but I | |
doubt if this can be said to be idol worship. _Can_ and his family were | |
probably monotheists. The masses of the people, however, may have placed | |
the different natural phenomena under the direct supervision of special | |
imaginary beings, prescribing to them the same duties that among the | |
Catholics are prescribed, or rather attributed, to some of the saints; | |
and may have tributed to them the sort of worship of _dulia_, tributed | |
to the saints--even made images that they imagined to represent such or | |
such deity, as they do to-day; but I have never found any. They | |
worshiped the divine essence, and called it KU. | |
In course of time this worship may have been replaced by idolatrous | |
rites, introduced by the barbarous or half civilized tribes which | |
invaded the country, and implanted among the inhabitants their religious | |
belief, their idolatrous superstitions and form of worship with their | |
symbols. The monuments of Uxmal afford ample evidence of that fact. | |
My studies, however, have nothing to do with the history of the country | |
posterior to the invasion of the Nahualts. These people appear to have | |
destroyed the high form of civilization existing at the time of their | |
advent; and tampered with the ornaments of the buildings in order to | |
introduce the symbols of the reciprocal forces of nature. | |
The language of the ancient Mayas, strange as it may appear, has | |
survived all the vicissitudes of time, wars, and political and religious | |
convulsions. It has, of course, somewhat degenerated by the mingling of | |
so many races in such a limited space as the peninsula of Yucatan is; | |
but it is yet the vernacular of the people. The Spaniards themselves, | |
who strived so hard to wipe out all vestiges of the ancient customs of | |
the aborigines, were unable to destroy it; nay, they were obliged to | |
learn it; and now many of their descendants have forgotten the mother | |
tongue of their sires, and speak Maya only. | |
In some localities in Central America it is still spoken in its pristine | |
purity, as, for example, by the _Chaacmules_, a tribe of bearded men, it | |
is said, who live in the vicinity of the unexplored ruins of the ancient | |
city of _Tekal_. It is a well-known fact that many tribes, as that of | |
the Itzaes, retreating before the Nahualt invaders, after the surrender | |
and destruction of their cities, sought refuge in the islands of the | |
lake _Peten_ of to-day, and called it _Petenitza_, the _islands of the | |
Itzaes_; or in the well nigh inaccessible valleys, defended by ranges of | |
towering mountains. There they live to-day, preserving the customs, | |
manners, language of their forefathers unaltered, in the tract of land | |
known to us as _Tierra de Guerra_. No white man has ever penetrated | |
their zealously guarded stronghold that lays between Guatemala, Tabasco, | |
Chiapas and Yucatan, the river _Uzumasinta_ watering part of their | |
territory. | |
The Maya language seems to be one of the oldest tongues spoken by man, | |
since it contains words and expressions of all, or nearly all, the known | |
polished languages on earth. The name _Maya_, with the same | |
signification everywhere it is met, is to be found scattered over the | |
different countries of what we term the Old World, as in Central | |
America. | |
I beg to call your attention to the following facts. They may have no | |
significance. They may be mere coincidences, the strange freaks of | |
hazard, of no possible value in the opinion of some among the learned | |
men of our days. Just as the finding of English words and English | |
customs, as now exist among the most remote nations and heterogeneous | |
people and tribes of all races and colors, who do not even suspect the | |
existence of one another, may be regarded by the learned philologists | |
and ethonologists[TN-6] of two or three thousand years hence. These | |
will, perhaps, also pretend that _these coincidences_ are simply the | |
curious workings of the human mind--the efforts of men endeavoring to | |
express their thoughts in language, that being reduced to a certain | |
number of sounds, must, of necessity produce, if not the same, at least | |
very similar words to express the same idea--and that this similarity | |
does not prove that those who invented them had, at any time, | |
communication, unless, maybe, at the time of the building of the | |
hypothetical Tower of Babel. Then all the inhabitants of earth are said | |
to have bid each other a friendly good night, a certain evening, in a | |
universal tongue, to find next morning that everybody had gone stark mad | |
during the night: since each one, on meeting sixty-nine of his friends, | |
was greeted by every one in a different and unknown manner, according to | |
learned rabbins; and that he could no more understand what they said, | |
than they what he said[TN-7] | |
It is very difficult without the help of the books of the learned | |
priests of _Mayab_ to know positively why they gave that name to the | |
country known to-day as Yucatan. I can only surmise that they so called | |
it from the great absorbant[TN-8] quality of its stony soil, which, in | |
an incredibly short time, absorbs the water at the surface. This | |
percolating through the pores of the stone is afterward found filtered | |
clear and cool in the senotes and caves. _Mayab_, in the Maya language, | |
means a tammy, a sieve. From the name of the country, no doubt, the | |
Mayas took their name, as natural; and that name is found, as that of | |
the English to-day, all over the ancient civilized world. | |
When, on January 28, 1873, I had the honor of reading a paper before the | |
New York American Geographical Society--on the coincidences that exist | |
between the monuments, customs, religious rites, etc. of the prehistoric | |
inhabitants of America and those of Asia and Egypt--I pointed to the | |
fact that sun circles, dolmen and tumuli, similar to the megalithic | |
monuments of America, had been found to exist scattered through the | |
islands of the Pacific to Hindostan; over the plains of the peninsulas | |
at the south of Asia, through the deserts of Arabia, to the northern | |
parts of Africa; and that not only these rough monuments of a primitive | |
age, but those of a far more advanced civilization were also to be seen | |
in these same countries. Allow me to repeat now what I then said | |
regarding these strange facts: If we start from the American continent | |
and travel towards the setting sun we may be able to trace the route | |
followed by the mound builders to the plains of Asia and the valley of | |
the Nile. The mounds scattered through the valley of the Mississippi | |
seem to be the rude specimens of that kind of architecture. Then come | |
the more highly finished teocalis of Yucatan and Mexico and Peru; the | |
pyramidal mounds of _Maui_, one of the Sandwich Islands; those existing | |
in the Fejee and other islands of the Pacific; which, in China, we find | |
converted into the high, porcelain, gradated towers; and these again | |
converted into the more imposing temples of Cochin-China, Hindostan, | |
Ceylon--so grand, so stupendous in their wealth of ornamentation that | |
those of Chichen-Itza Uxmal, Palenque, admirable as they are, well nigh | |
dwindle into insignificance, as far as labor and imagination are | |
concerned, when compared with them. That they present the same | |
fundamental conception in their architecture is evident--a platform | |
rising over another platform, the one above being of lesser size than | |
the one below; the American monuments serving, as it were, as models for | |
the more elaborate and perfect, showing the advance of art and | |
knowledge. | |
The name Maya seems to have existed from the remotest times in the | |
meridional parts of Hindostan. Valmiki, in his epic poem, the Ramayana, | |
said to be written 1500 before the Christian era, in which he recounts | |
the wars and prowesses of RAMA in the recovery of his lost wife, the | |
beautiful SITA, speaking of the country inhabited by the Mayas, | |
describes it as abounding in mines of silver and gold, with precious | |
stones and lapiz lazuri:[TN-9] and bounded by the _Vindhya_ mountains on | |
one side, the _Prastravana_ range on the other and the sea on the third. | |
The emissaries of RAMA having entered by mistake within the Mayas | |
territories, learned that all foreigners were forbidden to penetrate | |
into them; and that those who were so imprudent as to violate this | |
prohibition, even through ignorance, seldom escaped being put to death. | |
(Strange[TN-10] to say, the same thing happens to-day to those who try | |
to penetrate into the territories of the _Santa Cruz_ Indians, or in the | |
valleys occupied by the _Lacandones_, _Itzaes_ and other tribes that | |
inhabit _La Tierra de Guerra_. The Yucatecans themselves do not like | |
foreigners to go, and less to settle, in their country--are consequently | |
opposed to immigration. | |
The emissaries of Rama, says the poet, met in the forest a woman who | |
told them: That in very remote ages a prince of the Davanas, a learned | |
magician, possessed of great power, whose name was _Maya_, established | |
himself in the country, and that he was the architect of the principal | |
of the Davanas: but having fallen in love with the nymph _Hema_, married | |
her; whereby he roused the jealousy of the god _Pourandura_, who | |
attacked and killed him with a thunderbolt. Now, it is worthy of notice, | |
that the word _Hem_ signifies in the Maya language to _cross with | |
ropes_; or according to Brasseur, _hidden mysteries_. | |
By a most rare coincidence we have the same identical story recorded in | |
the mural paintings of Chaacmol's funeral chamber, and in the sculptures | |
of Chichsen[TN-11] and Uxmal. There we find that Chaacmol, the husband | |
of Moo[TN-12] is killed by his brother Aac, who stabbed him three times | |
in the back with his spear for jealousy. Aac was in love with his sister | |
Moo, but she married his brother Chaacmol from choice, and because the | |
law of the country prescribed that the younger brother should marry his | |
sister, making it a crime for the older brothers to marry her. | |
In another part of the _Ramayana_, MAYA is described as a powerful | |
_Asoura_, always thirsting for battles and full of arrogance and | |
pride--an enemy to B[=a]li, chief of one of the monkey tribes, by whom | |
he was finally vanquished. The celebrated Indianist, Mr. H. T. | |
Colebrooke, in a memoir on the sacred books of the Hindoos, published in | |
Vol. VIII of the "Asiatic Researches," says: "The _Souryasiddkantu_ (the | |
most ancient Indian treatise on astronomy), is not considered as written | |
by MAYA; but this personage is represented as receiving his science from | |
a partial incarnation of the sun." | |
MAYA is also, according to the Rig-Veda, the goddess, by whom all things | |
are created by her union with Brahma. She is the cosmic egg, the golden | |
uterus, the _Hiramyagarbha_. We see an image of it, represented floating | |
amidst the water, in the sculptures that adorn the panel over the door | |
of the east facade of the monument, called by me palace and museum at | |
Chichen-Itza. Emile Burnouf, in his Sanscrit Dictionary, at the word | |
Maya, says: Maya, an architect of the _Datyas_; Maya (_mas._), magician, | |
prestidigitator; (_fem._) illusion, prestige; Maya, the magic virtue of | |
the gods, their power for producing all things; also the feminine or | |
producing energy of Brahma. | |
I will complete the list of these remarkable coincidences with a few | |
others regarding customs exactly similar in both countries. One of these | |
consists in carrying children astride on the hip in Yucatan as in India. | |
In Yucatan this custom is accompanied by a very interesting ceremony | |
called _hetzmec_. It is as follows: When a child reaches the age of four | |
months an invitation is sent to the friends and members of the family of | |
the parents to assemble at their house. Then in presence of all | |
assembled the legs of the child are opened, and he is placed astride | |
the hip of the _nailah_ or _hetzmec_ godmother; she in turn encircling | |
the little one with her arm, supports him in that position whilst she | |
walks five times round the house. During the time she is occupied in | |
that walk five eggs are placed in hot ashes, so that they may burst and | |
the five senses of the child be opened. By the manner in which they | |
burst and the time they require for bursting, they pretend to know if he | |
will be intelligent or not. During the ceremony they place in his tiny | |
hands the implement pertaining to the industry he is expected to | |
practice. The _nailah_ is henceforth considered as a second mother to | |
the child; who, when able to understand, is made to respect her: and she | |
is expected, in case of the mother's death, to adopt and take care of | |
the child as if he were her own. | |
Now, I will call your attention to another strange and most remarkable | |
custom that was common to the inhabitants of _Mayab_, some tribes of the | |
aborigines of North America, and several of those that dwell in | |
Hindostan, and practice it even to-day. I refer to the printing of the | |
human hand, dipped in a red liquid, on the walls of certain | |
sacred edifices. Could not this custom, existing amongst nations so far | |
apart, unknown to each other, and for apparently the same purposes, be | |
considered as a link in the chain of evidence tending to prove that very | |
intimate relations and communications have existed anciently between | |
their ancestors? Might it not help the ethnologists to follow the | |
migrations of the human race from this western continent to the eastern | |
and southern shores of Asia, across the wastes of the Pacific Ocean? I | |
am told by unimpeachable witnesses that they have seen the red or bloody | |
hand in more than one of the temples of the South Sea islanders; and his | |
Excellency Fred. P. Barlee, Esq., the actual governor of British | |
Honduras, has assured me that he has examined this seemingly indelible | |
imprint of the red hand on some rocks in caves in Australia. There is | |
scarcely a monument in Yucatan that does not preserve the imprint of | |
the open upraised hand, dipped in red paint of some sort, perfectly | |
visible on its walls. I lately took tracings of two of these imprints | |
that exist in the back saloon of the main hall, in the governor's house | |
at Uxmal, in order to calculate the height of the personage who thus | |
attested to those of his race, as I learned from one of my Indian | |
friends, who passes for a wizard, that the building was _in naa_, my | |
house. I may well say that the archway of the palace of the priests, | |
toward the court, was nearly covered with them. Yet I am not aware that | |
such symbol was ever used by the inhabitants of the countries bordering | |
on the shores of the Mediterranean or by the Assyrians, or that it ever | |
was discovered among the ruined temples or palaces of Egypt. | |
The meaning of the red hand used by the aborigines of some parts of | |
America has been, it is well known, a subject of discussion for learned | |
men and scientific societies. Its uses as a symbol remained for a long | |
time a matter of conjecture. It seems that Mr. Schoolcraft had truly | |
arrived at the knowledge of its veritable meaning. Effectively, in the | |
2d column of the 5th page of the _New York Herald_ for April 12, 1879, | |
in the account of the visit paid by Gen. Grant to Ram Singh, Maharajah | |
of Jeypoor, we read the description of an excursion to the town of | |
Amber. Speaking of the journey to the _home of an Indian king_, among | |
other things the writer says:--"We passed small temples, some of them | |
ruined, some others with offerings of grains, or fruits, or flowers, | |
some with priests and people at worship. On the walls of some of the | |
temples we saw the marks of the human hand as though it had been steeped | |
in blood and pressed against the white wall. We were told that it was | |
the custom, when seeking from the gods some benison to note the vow by | |
putting the hand into a liquid and printing it on the wall. This was to | |
remind the gods of the vow and prayer. And if it came to pass in the | |
shape of rain, or food, or health, or children, the joyous devotee | |
returned to the temple and made other offerings." In Yucatan it seems to | |
have had the same meaning. That is to say: that the owners of the house | |
if private, or the priests, in the temples and public buildings, called | |
upon the edifices at the time of taking possession and using them for | |
the first time, the blessing of the Deity; and placed the hand's | |
imprints on the walls to recall the vows and prayer: and also, as the | |
interpretation communicated to me by the Indians seems to suggest, as a | |
signet or mark of property--_in naa_, my house. | |
I need not speak of the similarity of many religious rites and beliefs | |
existing in Hindostan and among the inhabitants of _Mayab_. The worship | |
of the fire, of the phallus, of Deity under the symbol of the mastodon's | |
head, recalling that of Ganeza, the god with an elephant's head, hence | |
that of the elephant in Siam, Birmah[TN-13] and other places of the | |
Asiatic peninsula even in our day; and various other coincidences so | |
numerous and remarkable that many would not regard them as simple | |
coincidences. What to think, effectively, of the types of the personages | |
whose portraits are carved on the obelisks of Copan? Were they in Siam | |
instead of Honduras, who would doubt but they are Siameeses.[TN-14] What | |
to say of the figures of men and women sculptured on the walls of the | |
stupendous temples hewn, from the live rock, at Elephanta, so American | |
is their appearance and features? Who would not take them to be pure | |
aborigines if they were seen in Yucatan instead of Madras, Elephanta and | |
other places of India. | |
If now we abandon that country and, crossing the Himalaya's range enter | |
Afghanistan, there again we find ourselves in a country inhabited by | |
Maya tribes; whose names, as those of many of their cities, are of pure | |
American-Maya origin. In the fourth column of the sixth page of the | |
London _Times_, weekly edition, of March 4, 1879, we read: "4,000 or | |
5,000 assembled on the opposite bank of the river _Kabul_, and it | |
appears that in that day or evening they attacked the Maya villages | |
situated on the north side of the river." | |
He, the correspondent of the _Times_, tells us that Maya tribes form | |
still part of the population of Afghanistan. He also tells us that | |
_Kabul_ is the name of the river, on the banks of which their villages | |
are situated. But _Kabul_ is the name of an antique shrine in the city | |
of Izamal. Cogolludo, in the lib. IV., cap. VIII. of his History of | |
Yucatan, says: "They had another temple on another mound, on the west | |
side of the square, also dedicated to the same idol. They had there the | |
symbol of a hand, as souvenir. To that temple they carried their dead | |
and the sick. They called it _Kabul_, the working hand, and made there | |
great offerings." Father Lizana says the same: so we have two witnesses | |
to the fact. _Kab_, in Maya means hand; and _Bul_ is to play at hazard. | |
Many of the names of places and towns of Afghanistan have not only a | |
meaning in the American-Maya language, but are actually the same as | |
those of places and villages in Yucatan to-day, for example: | |
The Valley of _Chenar_ would be the valley of the _well of the woman's | |
children_--_chen_, well, and _al_, the woman's children. The fertile | |
valley of _Kunar_ would be the valley of the _god of the ears of corn_; | |
or, more probably, the _nest of the ears of corn_: as KU, pronounced | |
short, means _God_, and _Kuu_, pronounced long, is nest. NAL, is the | |
_ears of corn_. | |
The correspondent of the London _Times_, in his letters, mentions the | |
names of some of the principal tribes, such as the _Kuki-Khel_, the | |
_Akakhel_, the _Khambhur Khel_, etc. The suffix Khel simply signifies | |
tribe, or clan. So similar to the Maya vocable _Kaan_, a tie, a rope; | |
hence a clan: a number of people held together by the tie of parentage. | |
Now, Kuki would be Kukil, or Kukum maya[TN-15] for feather, hence the | |
KUKI-KHEL would be the tribe of the feather. | |
AKA-KHEL in the same manner would be the tribe of the reservoir, or | |
pond. AKAL is the Maya name for the artificial reservoirs, or ponds in | |
which the ancient inhabitants of Mayab collected rain water for the time | |
of drought. | |
Similarly the KHAMBHUR KHEL is the tribe of the _pleasant_: _Kambul_ in | |
Maya. It is the name of several villages of Yucatan, as you may satisfy | |
yourself by examining the map. | |
We have also the ZAKA-KHEL, the tribe of the locust, ZAK. It is useless | |
to quote more for the present: enough to say that if you read the names | |
of the cities, valleys[TN-16] clans, roads even of Afghanistan to any of | |
the aborigines of Yucatan, they will immediately give you their meaning | |
in their own language. Before leaving the country of the Afghans, by the | |
KHIBER Pass--that is to say, the _road of the hawk_; HI, _hawk_, and | |
BEL, road--allow me to inform you that in examining their types, as | |
published in the London illustrated papers, and in _Harper's Weekly_, I | |
easily recognized the same cast of features as those of the bearded men, | |
whose portraits we discovered in the bas-reliefs which adorn the antae | |
and pillars of the castle, and queen's box in the Tennis Court at | |
Chichen-Itza. | |
On our way to the coast of Asia Minor, and hence to Egypt, we may, in | |
following the Mayas' footsteps, notice that a tribe of them, the learned | |
MAGI, with their Rabmag at their head, established themselves in | |
Babylon, where they became, indeed, a powerful and influential body. | |
Their chief they called _Rab-mag_--or LAB-MAC--the old person--LAB, | |
_old_--MAC, person; and their name Magi, meant learned men, magicians, | |
as that of Maya in India. I will directly speak more at length of | |
vestiges of the Mayas in Babylon, when explaining by means of the | |
_American Maya_, the meaning and probable etymology of the names of the | |
Chaldaic divinities. At present I am trying to follow the footprints of | |
the Mayas. | |
On the coast of Asia Minor we find a people of a roving and piratical | |
disposition, whose name was, from the remotest antiquity and for many | |
centuries, the terror of the populations dwelling on the shores of the | |
Mediterranean; whose origin was, and is yet unknown; who must have | |
spoken Maya, or some Maya dialect, since we find words of that | |
language, and with the same meaning inserted in that of the Greeks, who, | |
Herodotus tells us, used to laugh at the manner the _Carians_, or | |
_Caras_, or _Caribs_, spoke their tongue; whose women wore a white linen | |
dress that required no fastening, just as the Indian and Mestiza women | |
of Yucatan even to-day[TN-17] | |
To tell you that the name of the CARAS is found over a vast extension of | |
country in America, would be to repeat what the late and lamented | |
Brasseur de Bourbourg has shown in his most learned introduction to the | |
work of Landa, "Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan;" but this I may say, | |
that the description of the customs and mode of life of the people of | |
Yucatan, even at the time of the conquest, as written by Landa, seems to | |
be a mere verbatim plagiarism of the description of the customs and mode | |
of life of the Carians of Asia Minor by Herodotus. | |
If identical customs and manners, and the worship of the same divinities | |
under the same name, besides the traditions of a people pointing towards | |
a certain point of the globe as being the birth-place of their | |
ancestors, prove anything, then I must say that in Egypt also we meet | |
with the tracks of the Mayas, of whose name we again have a reminiscence | |
in that of the goddess Maia, the daughter of Atlantis, worshiped in | |
Greece. Here, at this end of the voyage, we seem to find an intimation | |
as to the place where the Mayas originated. We are told that Maya is | |
born from Atlantis; in other words, that the Mayas came from beyond the | |
Atlantic waters. Here, also, we find that Maia is called the mother of | |
the gods _Kubeles_. _Ku_, Maya _God_, _Bel_ the road, the way. Ku-bel, | |
the road, the origin of the gods as among the Hindostanees. These, we | |
have seen in the Rig Veda, called Maya, the feminine energy--the | |
productive virtue of Brahma. | |
I do not pretend to present here anything but facts, resulting from my | |
study of the ancient monuments of Yucatan, and a comparative study of | |
the Maya language, in which the ancient inscriptions, I have been able | |
to decipher, are written. Let us see if those _facts_ are sustained by | |
others of a different character. | |
I will make a brief parallel between the architectural monuments of the | |
primitive Chaldeans, their mode of writing, their burial places, and | |
give you the etymology of the names of their divinities in the American | |
Maya language. | |
The origin of the primitive Chaldees is yet an unsettled matter among | |
learned men. Some professing one opinion, others another. All agree, | |
however, that they were strangers to the lower Mesopotamian valleys, | |
where they settled in very remote ages, their capital being, in the time | |
of Abraham, as we learn from Scriptures, _Ur_ or _Hur_. So named either | |
because its inhabitants were worshipers of the moon, or from the moon | |
itself--U in the Maya language--or perhaps also because the founders | |
being strangers and guests, as it were, in the country, it was called | |
the city of guests, HULA (Maya), _guest just arrived_. | |
Recent researches in the plains of lower Mesopotamia have revealed to us | |
their mode of building their sacred edifices, which is precisely | |
identical to that of the Mayas. | |
It consisted of mounds composed of superposed platforms, either square | |
or oblong, forming cones or pyramids, their angles at times, their faces | |
at others, facing exactly the cardinal points. | |
Their manner of construction was also the same, with the exception of | |
the materials employed--each people using those most at hand in their | |
respective countries--clay and bricks in Chaldea, stones in Yucatan. The | |
filling in of the buildings being of inferior materials, crude or | |
sun-dried bricks at Warka and Mugheir; of unhewn stones of all shapes | |
and sizes, in Uxmal and Chichen, faced with walls of hewn stones, many | |
feet in thickness throughout. Grand exterior staircases lead to the | |
summit, where was the shrine of the god, and temple. | |
In Yucatan these mounds are generally composed of seven superposed | |
platforms, the one above being smaller than that immediately below; the | |
temple or sanctuary containing invariably two chambers, the inner one, | |
the Sanctum Sanctorum, being the smallest. | |
In Babylon, the supposed tower of Babel--the _Birs-i-nimrud_--the temple | |
of the seven lights, was made of seven stages or platforms. | |
The roofs of these buildings in both countries were flat; the walls of | |
vast thickness; the chambers long and narrow, with outer doors opening | |
into them directly; the rooms ordinarily let into one another: squared | |
recesses were common in the rooms. Mr. Loftus is of opinion that the | |
chambers of the Chaldean buildings were usually arched with bricks, in | |
which opinion Mr. Taylor concurs. We know that the ceilings of the | |
chambers in all the monuments of Yucatan, without exception, form | |
triangular arches. To describe their construction I will quote from the | |
description by Herodotus, of some ceilings in Egyptian buildings and | |
Scythian tombs, that resemble that of the brick vaults found at Mugheir. | |
"The side walls <DW72> outward as they ascend, the arch is formed by each | |
successive layer of brick from the point where the arch begins, a little | |
overlapping the last, till the two sides of the roof are brought so near | |
together, that the aperture may be closed by a single brick." | |
Some of the sepulchers found in Yucatan are very similar to the jar | |
tombs common at Mugheir. These consist of two large open-mouthed jars, | |
united with bitumen after the body has been deposited in them, with the | |
usual accompaniments of dishes, vases and ornaments, having an air hole | |
bored at one extremity. Those found at Progreso were stone urns about | |
three feet square, cemented in pairs, mouth to mouth, and having also an | |
air hole bored in the bottom. Extensive mounds, made artificially of a | |
vast number of coffins, arranged side by side, divided by thin walls of | |
masonry crossing each other at right angles, to separate the coffins, | |
have been found in the lower plains of Chaldea--such as exist along the | |
coast of Peru, and in Yucatan. At Izamal many human remains, contained | |
in urns, have been found in the mounds. | |
"The ordinary dress of the common people among the Chaldeans," says | |
Canon Rawlison, in his work, the Five Great Monarchies, "seems to have | |
consisted of a single garment, a short tunic tied round the waist, and | |
reaching thence to the knees. To this may sometimes have been added an | |
_abba_, or cloak, thrown over the shoulders; the material of the former | |
we may perhaps presume to have been linen." The mural paintings at | |
Chichen show that the Mayas sometimes used the same costume; and that | |
dress is used to-day by the aborigines of Yucatan, and the inhabitants | |
of the _Tierra de Guerra_. They were also bare-footed, and wore on the | |
head a band of cloth, highly ornamented with mother-of-pearl instead of | |
camel's hair, as the Chaldee. This band is to be seen in bas-relief at | |
Chichen-Itza, inthe[TN-18] mural paintings, and on the head of the statue | |
of Chaacmol. The higher classes wore a long robe extending from the neck | |
to the feet, sometimes adorned with a fringe; it appears not to have | |
been fastened to the waist, but kept in place by passing over one | |
shoulder, a slit or hole being made for the arm on one side of the dress | |
only. In some cases the upper part of the dress seems to have been | |
detached from the lower, and to form a sort of jacket which reached | |
about to the hips. We again see this identical dress portrayed in the | |
mural paintings. The same description of ornaments were affected by the | |
Chaldees and the Mayas--bracelets, earrings, armlets, anklets, made of | |
the materials they could procure. | |
The Mayas at times, as can be seen from the slab discovered by | |
Bresseur[TN-19] in Mayapan (an exact fac-simile of which cast, from a | |
mould made by myself, is now in the rooms of the American Antiquarian | |
Society at Worcester, Mass.), as the primitive Chaldee, in their | |
writings, made use of characters composed of straight lines only, | |
inclosed in square or oblong figures; as we see from the inscriptions in | |
what has been called hieratic form of writing found at Warka and | |
Mugheir and the slab from Mayapan and others. | |
The Chaldees are said to have made use of three kinds of characters that | |
Canon Rawlinson calls _letters proper_, _monograms_ and _determinative_. | |
The Maya also, as we see from the monumental inscriptions, employed | |
three kinds of characters--_letters proper_, _monograms_ and | |
_pictorial_. | |
It may be said of the religion of the Mayas, as I have had occasion to | |
remark, what the learned author of the Five Great Monarchies says of | |
that of the primitive Chaldees: "The religion of the Chaldeans, from the | |
very earliest times to which the monuments carry us back, was, in its | |
outward aspect, a polytheism of a very elaborate character. It is quite | |
possible that there may have been esoteric explanations, known to the | |
priests and the more learned; which, resolving the personages of the | |
Pantheon into the powers of nature, reconcile the apparent multiplicity | |
of Gods with monotheism." I will now consider the names of the Chaldean | |
deities in their turn of rotation as given us by the author above | |
mentioned, and show you that the language of the American Mayas gives us | |
an etymology of the whole of them, quite in accordance with their | |
particular attributes. | |
RA. | |
The learned author places '_Ra_' at the head of the Pantheon, stating | |
that the meaning of the word is simply _God_, or the God emphatically. | |
We know that _Ra_ was the Sun among the Egyptians, and that the | |
hieroglyph, a circle, representation of that God was the same in Babylon | |
as in Egypt. It formed an element in the native name of Babylon. Which | |
was _ka-ra_. | |
Now the Mayas called LA, that which has existed for ever, the truth _par | |
excellence_. As to the native name of Babylon it would simply be the | |
_city of the infinite truth_--_cah_, city; LA, eternal truth. | |
ANA OR DIS. | |
Ana, like Ra, is thought to have signified _God_ in the highest sense. | |
Its etymology seems to be problematic. His epithets mark priority and | |
antiquity; _the original chief_, the _father of the gods_, the _lord of | |
darkness or death_. The Maya gives us A, _thy_; NA, _mother_. At times | |
he was called DIS, and was the patron god of _Erech_, the great city of | |
the dead, the necropolis of Lower Babylonia. TIX, Maya is a cavity | |
formed in the earth. It seems to have given its name to the city of | |
_Niffer_, called _Calneh_ in the translation of the Septuagint, from | |
_kal-ana_, which is translated the "fort of Ana;" or according to the | |
Maya, the _prison of Ana_, KAL being prison, or the prison of thy | |
mother. | |
ANATA | |
the supposed wife of Ana, has no peculiar characteristics. Her name is | |
only, says our author, the feminine form of the masculine, Ana. But the | |
Maya designates her as the companion of Ana; TA, with; _Anata_ with | |
_Ana_. | |
BIL OR ENU | |
seems to mean merely Lord. It is usually followed by a qualificative | |
adjunct, possessing great interest, NIPRU. To that name, which recalls | |
that of NEBROTH or _Nimrod_, the author gives a Syriac etymology; napar | |
(make to flee). His epithets are the _supreme_, _the father of the | |
gods_, the _procreator_. | |
The Maya gives us BIL, or _Bel_; the way, the road; hence the _origin_, | |
the father, the procreator. Also ENA, who is before; again the father, | |
the procreator. | |
As to the qualificative adjunct _nipru_. It would seem to be the Maya | |
_niblu_; _nib_, to thank; LU, the _Bagre_, a _silurus fish_. _Niblu_ | |
would then be the _thanksgiving fish_. Strange to say, the high priest | |
at Uxmal and Chichen, elder brother of Chaacmol, first son of _Can_, the | |
founder of those cities, is CAY, the fish, whose effigy is my last | |
discovery in June, among the ruins of Uxmal. The bust is contained | |
within the jaws of a serpent, _Can_, and over it, is a beautiful | |
mastodon head, with the trunk inscribed with Egyptian characters, which | |
read TZAA, that which is necessary. | |
BELTIS | |
is the wife of _Bel-nipru_. But she is more than his mere female power. | |
She is a separate and important deity. Her common title is the _Great | |
Goddess_. In Chaldea her name was _Mulita_ or _Enuta_, both words | |
signifying the lady. Her favorite title was the _mother of the gods_, | |
the origin of the gods. | |
In Maya BEL is the road, the way; and TE means _here_. BELTE or BELTIS | |
would be I am the way, the origin. | |
_Mulita_ would correspond to MUL-TE, many here, _many in me_. I am the | |
mother of many. Her other name _Enuta_ seems to be (Maya) _Ena-te_, | |
signifies ENA, the first, before anybody, and TE here. ENATE, _I am here | |
before anybody_, I am the mother of the Gods. | |
HEA OR HOA. | |
The God Fish, the mystic animal, half man, half fish, which came up from | |
the Persian gulf to teach astronomy and letters to the first settlers on | |
the Euphrates and Tigris. | |
According to Berosus the civilization was brought to Mesopotamia by | |
_Oannes_ and six other beings, who, like himself, were half man, half | |
fish, and that they came from the Indian Ocean. We have already seen | |
that the Mayas of India were not only architects, but also astronomers; | |
and the symbolic figure of a being half man and half fish seems to | |
clearly indicate that those who brought civilization to the shores of | |
the Euphrates and Tigris came in boats. | |
Hoa-Ana, or Oannes, according to the Maya would mean, he who has his | |
residence or house on the water. HA, being water; _a_, thy; _na_, house; | |
literally, _water thy house_. Canon Rawlison remarks in that | |
connection: "There are very strong grounds for connecting HEA or Hoa, | |
with the serpent of the Scripture, and the paradisaical traditions of | |
the tree of knowledge and the tree of life." As the title of the god of | |
knowledge and science, _Oannes_, is the lord of the abyss, or of the | |
great deep, the intelligent fish, one of his emblems being the serpent, | |
CAN, which occupies so conspicuous a place among the symbols of the gods | |
on the black stones recording benefactions. | |
DAV-KINA | |
Is the wife of _Hoa_, and her name is thought to signify the chief lady. | |
But the Maya again gives us another meaning that seems to me more | |
appropriate. TAB-KIN would be the _rays of the sun_: the rays of the | |
light brought with civilization by her husband to benighted inhabitants | |
of Mesopotamia. | |
SIN OR HURKI | |
is the name of the moon deity; the etymology of it is quite uncertain. | |
Its titles, as Rawlison remarks, are somewhat vague. Yet it is | |
particularly designated as "_the bright_, _the shining_" the lord of the | |
month. | |
Zin in Maya has also many significations. Zin is to stretch, to extend. | |
_Zinil_ is the extension of the whole of the universe. _Hurki_ would be | |
the Maya HULKIN--sun-stroked; he who receives directly the rays of the | |
sun. Hurki is also the god presiding over buildings and architecture; in | |
this connection he is called _Bel-Zuna_. The _lord of building_, the | |
_supporting architect_, the _strengthener of fortifications_. _Bel-Zuna_ | |
would also signify the lord of the strong house. _Zuu_, Maya, close, | |
thick. _Na_, house: and the city where he had his great temple was _Ur_; | |
named after him. _U_, in Maya, signifies moon. | |
SAN OR SANSI, | |
the Sun God, the _lord of fire_, the _ruler of the day_. He _who | |
illumines the expanse of heaven and earth_. | |
_Zamal_ (Maya) is the morning, the dawn of the day, and his symbols are | |
the same on the temples of Yucatan as on those of Chaldea, India and | |
Egypt. | |
VUL OR IVA, | |
the prince of the powers of the air, the lord of the whirlwind and the | |
tempest, the wielder of the thunderbolt, the lord of the air, he who | |
makes the tempest to rage. Hiba in Maya is to rub, to scour, to chafe as | |
does the tempest. As VUL he is represented with a flaming sword in his | |
hand. _Hul_ (Maya) an arrow. He is then the god of the atmosphere, who | |
gives rain. | |
ISHTAR OR NANA, | |
the Chaldean Venus, of the etymology of whose name no satisfactory | |
account can be given, says the learned author, whose list I am following | |
and description quoting. | |
The Maya language, however, affords a very natural etymology. Her name | |
seems composed of _ix_, the feminine article, _she_; and of _tac_, or | |
_tal_, a verb that signifies to have a desire to satisfy a corporal want | |
or inclination. IXTAL would, therefore, be she who desires to satisfy a | |
corporal inclination. As to her other name, _Nana_, it simply means the | |
great mother, the very mother. If from the names of god and goddesses, | |
we pass to that of places, we will find that the Maya language also | |
furnishes a perfect etymology for them. | |
In the account of the creation of the world, according to the Chaldeans, | |
we find that a woman whose name in Chaldee is _Thalatth_, was said to | |
have ruled over the monstrous animals of strange forms, that were | |
generated and existed in darkness and water. The Greek called her | |
_Thalassa_ (the sea). But the Maya vocable _Thallac_, signifies a thing | |
without steadiness, like the sea. | |
URUKH. | |
The first king of the Chaldees was a great architect. To him are | |
ascribed the most archaic monuments of the plains of Lower Mesopotamia. | |
He is said to have conceived the plans of the Babylonian Temple. He | |
constructed his edifices of mud and bricks, with rectangular bases, | |
their angles fronting the cardinal points; receding stages, exterior | |
staircases, with shrines crowning the whole structure. In this | |
description of the primitive constructions of the Chaldeans, no one can | |
fail to recognize the Maya mode of building, and we see them not only in | |
Yucatan, but throughout Central America, Peru, even Hindoostan. The very | |
name _Urkuh_ seems composed of two Maya words HUK, to make everything, | |
and LUK, mud; he who makes everything of mud; so significative of his | |
building propensities and of the materials used by him. | |
ASSYRIA. | |
The etymology of the name of that country, as well as that of Asshur, | |
the supreme god of the Assyrians, who never pronounced his name without | |
adding "Asshur is my lord," is still an undecided matter amongst the | |
learned philologists of our days. Some contend that the country was | |
named after the god Asshur; others that the god Asshur received his name | |
from the place where he was worshiped. None agree, however, as to the | |
significative meaning of the name Asshur. In Assyrian and Hebrew | |
languages the name of the country and people is derived from that of the | |
god. That Asshur was the name of the deity, and that the country was | |
named after it, I have no doubt, since I find its etymology, so much | |
sought for by philologists, in the American Maya language. Effectively | |
the word _asshur_, sometimes written _ashur_, would be AXUL in Maya. | |
_A_, in that language, placed before a noun, is the possessive pronoun, | |
as the second person, thy or thine, and _xul_, means end, termination. | |
It is also the name of the sixth month of the Maya calendar. _Axul_ | |
would therefore be _thy end_. Among all the nations which have | |
recognized the existence of a SUPREME BEING, Deity has been considered | |
as the beginning and end of all things, to which all aspire to be | |
united. | |
A strange coincidence that may be without significance, but is not out | |
of place to mention here, is the fact that the early kings of Chaldea | |
are represented on the monuments as sovereigns over the _Kiprat-arbat_, | |
or FOUR RACES. While tradition tells us that the great lord of the | |
universe, king of the giants, whose capital was _Tiahuanaco_, the | |
magnificent ruins of which are still to be seen on the shores of the | |
lake of Titicaca, reigned over _Ttahuatyn-suyu_, the FOUR PROVINCES. In | |
the _Chou-King_ we read that in very remote times _China_ was called by | |
its inhabitants _Sse-yo_, THE FOUR PARTS OF THE EMPIRE. The | |
_Manava-Dharma-Sastra_, the _Ramayana_, and other sacred books of | |
Hindostan also inform us that the ancient Hindoos designated their | |
country as the FOUR MOUNTAINS, and from some of the monumental | |
inscriptions at Uxmal it would seem that, among other names, that place | |
was called the land of the _canchi_, or FOUR MOUTHS, that recalls | |
vividly the name of Chaldea _Arba-Lisun_, the FOUR TONGUES. | |
That the language of the Mayas was known in Chaldea in remote ages, but | |
became lost in the course of time, is evident from the Book of Daniel. | |
It seems that some of the learned men of Judea understood it still at | |
the beginning of the Christian era, as many to-day understand Greek, | |
Latin, Sanscrit, &c.; since, we are informed by the writers of the | |
Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, that the last words of Jesus of | |
Nazareth expiring on the cross were uttered in it. | |
In the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel, we read that the fingers of | |
the hand of a man were seen writing on the wall of the hall, where King | |
Belshazzar was banqueting, the words "Mene, mene, Tekel, upharsin," | |
which could not be read by any of the wise men summoned by order of the | |
king. Daniel, however, being brought in, is said to have given as their | |
interpretation: _Numbered_, _numbered_, _weighed_, _dividing_, perhaps | |
with the help of the angel Gabriel, who is said by learned rabbins to be | |
the only individual of the angelic hosts who can speak Chaldean and | |
Syriac, and had once before assisted him in interpreting the dream of | |
King Nebuchadnezzar. Perhaps also, having been taught the learning of | |
the Chaldeans, he had studied the ancient Chaldee language, and was thus | |
enabled to read the fatidical words, which have the very same meaning in | |
the Maya language as he gave them. Effectively, _mene_ or _mane_, | |
_numbered_, would seem to correspond to the Maya verbs, MAN, to buy, to | |
purchase, hence to number, things being sold by the quantity--or MANEL, | |
to pass, to exceed. _Tekel_, weighed, would correspond to TEC, light. | |
To-day it is used in the sense of lightness in motion, brevity, | |
nimbleness: and _Upharsin_, dividing, seem allied to the words PPA, to | |
divide two things united; or _uppah_, to break, making a sharp sound; or | |
_paah_, to break edifices; or, again, PAALTAL, to break, to scatter the | |
inhabitants of a place. | |
As to the last words of Jesus of Nazareth, when expiring on the cross, | |
as reported by the Evangelists, _Eli, Eli_, according to St. Matthew, | |
and _Eloi, Eloi_, according to St. Mark, _lama sabachthani_, they are | |
pure Maya vocables; but have a very different meaning to that attributed | |
to them, and more in accordance with His character. By placing in the | |
mouth of the dying martyr these words: _My God, my God, why hast thou | |
forsaken me?_ they have done him an injustice, presenting him in his | |
last moments despairing and cowardly, traits so foreign to his life, to | |
his teachings, to the resignation shown by him during his trial, and to | |
the fortitude displayed by him in his last journey to Calvary; more than | |
all, so unbecoming, not to say absurd, being in glaring contradiction to | |
his role as God. If God himself, why complain that God has forsaken him? | |
He evidently did not speak Hebrew in dying, since his two mentioned | |
biographers inform us that the people around him did not understand what | |
he said, and supposed he was calling Elias to help him: _This man | |
calleth for Elias._ | |
His bosom friend, who never abandoned him--who stood to the last at the | |
foot of the cross, with his mother and other friends and relatives, do | |
not report such unbefitting words as having been uttered by Jesus. He | |
simply says, that after recommending his mother to his care, he | |
complained of being thirsty, and that, as the sponge saturated with | |
vinegar was applied to his mouth, he merely said: IT IS FINISHED! and | |
_he bowed his head and gave up the ghost_. (St. John, chap. xix., v. | |
30.) | |
Well, this is exactly the meaning of the Maya words, HELO, HELO, LAMAH | |
ZABAC TA NI, literally: HELO, HELO, now, now; LAMAH, sinking; ZABAC, | |
black ink; TA, over; NI, nose; in our language: _Now, now I am sinking; | |
darkness covers my face!_ No weakness, no despair--He merely tells his | |
friends all is over. _It is finished!_ and expires. | |
Before leaving Asia Minor, in order to seek in Egypt the vestiges of the | |
Mayas, I will mention the fact that the names of some of the natives who | |
inhabited of old that part of the Asiatic continent, and many of those | |
of places and cities seem to be of American Maya origin. The Promised | |
Land, for example--that part of the coast of Phoenicia so famous for | |
the fertility of its soil, where the Hebrews, after journeying during | |
forty years in the desert, arrived at last, tired and exhausted from so | |
many hard-fought battles--was known as _Canaan_. This is a Maya word | |
that means to be tired, to be fatigued; and, if it is spelled _Kanaan_, | |
it then signifies abundance; both significations applying well to the | |
country. | |
TYRE, the great emporium of the Phoenicians, called _Tzur_, probably | |
on account of being built on a rock, may also derive its name from the | |
Maya TZUC, a promontory, or a number of villages, _Tzucub_ being a | |
province. | |
Again, we have the people called _Khati_ by the Egyptians. They formed a | |
great nation that inhabited the _Caele-Syria_ and the valley of the | |
Orontes, where they have left very interesting proofs of their passage | |
on earth, in large and populous cities whose ruins have been lately | |
discovered. Their origin is unknown, and is yet a problem to be solved. | |
They are celebrated on account of their wars against the Assyrians and | |
Egyptians, who call them the plague of Khati. Their name is frequently | |
mentioned in the Scriptures as Hittites. Placed on the road, between the | |
Assyrians and the Egyptians, by whom they were at last vanquished, they | |
placed well nigh insuperable _obstacles in the way_ of the conquests of | |
these two powerful nations, which found in them tenacious and fearful | |
adversaries. The Khati had not only made considerable improvements in | |
all military arts, but were also great and famed merchants; their | |
emporium _Carchemish_ had no less importance than Tyre or Carthage. | |
There, met merchants from all parts of the world; who brought thither | |
the products and manufactures of their respective countries, and were | |
wont to worship at the Sacred City, _Katish_ of the Khati. The etymology | |
of their name is also unknown. Some historians having pretended that | |
they were a Scythian tribe, derived it from Scythia; but I think that we | |
may find it very natural, as that of their principal cities, in the Maya | |
language. | |
All admit that the Khati, until the time when they were vanquished by | |
Rameses the Great, as recorded on the walls of his palace at Thebes, the | |
_Memnonium_, always placed obstacles on the way of the Egyptians and | |
opposed them. According to the Maya, their name is significative of | |
these facts, since KAT or KATAH is a verb that means to place | |
impediments on the road, to come forth and obstruct the passage. | |
_Carchemish_ was their great emporium, where merchants from afar | |
congregated; it was consequently a city of merchants. CAH means a city, | |
and _Chemul_ is navigator. _Carchemish_ would then be _cah-chemul_, the | |
city of navigators, of merchants. | |
KATISH, their sacred city, would be the city where sacrifices are | |
offered. CAH, city, and TICH, a ceremony practiced by the ancient Mayas, | |
and still performed by their descendants all through Central America. | |
This sacrifice or ceremony consists in presenting to BALAM, the | |
_Yumil-Kaax_, the "Lord of the fields," the _primitiae_ of all their | |
fruits before beginning the harvest. Katish, or _cah-tich_ would then be | |
the city of the sacrifices--the holy city. | |
EGYPT is the country that in historical times has called, more than any | |
other, the attention of the students, of all nations and in all ages, on | |
account of the grandeur and beauty of its monuments; the peculiarity of | |
its inhabitants; their advanced civilization, their great attainments in | |
all branches of human knowledge and industry; and its important position | |
at the head of all other nations of antiquity. Egypt has been said to be | |
the source from which human knowledge began to flow over the old world: | |
yet no one knows for a certainty whence came the people that laid the | |
first foundations of that interesting nation. That they were not | |
autochthones is certain. Their learned priests pointed towards the | |
regions of the West as the birth-place of their ancestors, and | |
designated the country in which they lived, the East, as the _pure | |
land_, the _land of the sun_, of _light_, in contradistinction of the | |
country of the dead, of darkness--the Amenti, the West--where Osiris sat | |
as King, reigning judge, over the souls. | |
If in Hindostan, Afghanistan, Chaldea, Asia Minor, we have met with | |
vestiges of the Mayas, in Egypt we will find their traces everywhere. | |
Whatever may have been the name given to the valley watered by the Nile | |
by its primitive inhabitants, no one at present knows. The invaders that | |
came from the West called it CHEM: not on account of the black color of | |
the soil, as Plutarch pretends in his work, "_De Iside et Osiride_," but | |
more likely because either they came to it in boats; or, quite probably, | |
because when they arrived the country was inundated, and the inhabitants | |
communicated by means of boats, causing the new comers to call it the | |
country of boats--CHEM (maya).[TN-20] The hieroglyph representing the | |
name of Egypt is composed of the character used for land, a cross | |
circumscribed by a circle, and of another, read K, which represent a | |
sieve, it is said, but that may likewise be the picture of a small boat. | |
The Assyrians designated Egypt under the names of MISIR or MISUR, | |
probably because the country is generally destitute of trees. These are | |
uprooted during the inundations, and then carried by the currents all | |
over the country; so that the farmers, in order to be able to plow the | |
soil, are obliged to clear it first from the dead trees. Now we have the | |
Maya verb MIZ--to _clean_, to _remove rubbish formed by the body of dead | |
trees_; whilst the verb MUSUR means to _cut the trees by the roots_. It | |
would seem that the name _Mizraim_ given to Egypt in the Scriptures also | |
might come from these words. | |
When the Western invaders reached the country it was probably covered by | |
the waters of the river, to which, we are told, they gave the name of | |
_Hapimu_. Its etymology seems to be yet undecided by the Egyptologists, | |
who agree, however, that its meaning is the _abyss of water_. The Maya | |
tells us that this name is composed of two words--HA, water, and PIMIL, | |
the thickness of flat things. _Hapimu_, or HAPIMIL, would then be the | |
thickness, the _abyss of water_. | |
We find that the prophets _Jeremiah_ (xlvi., 25,) and _Nahum_ (iii., 8, | |
10,) call THEBES, the capital of upper Egypt during the XVIII. dynasty: | |
NO or NA-AMUN, the mansion of Amun. _Na_ signifies in Maya, house, | |
mansion, residence. But _Thebes_ is written in Egyptian hieroglyphs AP, | |
or APE, the meaning of which is the head, the capital; with the feminine | |
article T, that is always used as its prefix in hieroglyphic writings, | |
it becomes TAPE; which, according to Sir Gardner Wilkinson ("Manners and | |
Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," _tom._ III., page 210, N. Y. Edition, | |
1878), was pronounced by the Egyptians _Taba_; and in the Menphitic | |
dialect Thaba, that the Greeks converted into Thebai, whence Thebes. The | |
Maya verb _Teppal_, signifies to reign, to govern, to order. On each | |
side of the mastodons' heads, which form so prominent a feature in the | |
ornaments of the oldest edifices at Uxmal, Chichen-Itza and other parts, | |
the word _Dapas_; hence TABAS is written in ancient Egyptian characters, | |
and read, I presume, in old Maya, _head_. To-day the word is pronounced | |
THAB, and means _baldness_. | |
The identity of the names of deities worshiped by individuals, of their | |
religious rites and belief; that of the names of the places which they | |
inhabit; the similarity of their customs, of their dresses and manners; | |
the sameness of their scientific attainments and of the characters used | |
by them in expressing their language in writing, lead us naturally to | |
infer that they have had a common origin, or, at least, that their | |
forefathers were intimately connected. If we may apply this inference to | |
nations likewise, regardless of the distance that to-day separates the | |
countries where they live, I can then affirm that the Mayas and the | |
Egyptians are either of a common descent, or that very intimate | |
communication must have existed in remote ages between their ancestors. | |
Without entering here into a full detail of the customs and manners of | |
these people, I will make a rapid comparison between their religious | |
belief, their customs, manners, scientific attainments, and the | |
characters used by them in writing etc., sufficient to satisfy any | |
reasonable body that the strange coincidences that follow, cannot be | |
altogether accidental. | |
The SUN, RA, was the supreme god worshiped throughout the land of Egypt; | |
and its emblem was a disk or circle, at times surmounted by the serpent | |
Uraeus. Egypt was frequently called the Land of the Sun. RA or LA | |
signifies in Maya that which exists, emphatically that which is--the | |
truth. | |
The sun was worshiped by the ancient Mayas; and the Indians to-day | |
preserve the dance used by their forefathers among the rites of the | |
adoration of that luminary, and perform it yet in certain epoch[TN-21] | |
of the year. The coat-of-arms of the city of Uxmal, sculptured on the | |
west facade of the sanctuary, attached to the masonic temple in that | |
city, teaches us that the place was called U LUUMIL KIN, _the land of | |
the sun_. This name forming the center of the escutcheon, is written | |
with a cross, circumscribed by a circle, that among the Egyptians is | |
the sign for land, region, surrounded by the rays of the sun. | |
Colors in Egypt, as in Mayab, seem to have had the same symbolical | |
meaning. The figure of _Amun_ was that of a man whose body was light | |
blue, like the Indian god Wishnu,[TN-22] and that of the god Nilus; as if | |
to indicate their peculiar exalted and heavenly nature; this color being | |
that of the pure, bright skies above. The blue color had exactly the | |
same significance in Mayab, according to Landa and Cogolludo, who tell | |
us that, even at the time of the Spanish conquest, the bodies of those | |
who were to be sacrificed to the gods were painted blue. The mural | |
paintings in the funeral chamber of Chaacmol, at Chichen, confirm this | |
assertion. There we see figures of men and women painted blue, some | |
marching to the sacrifice with their hands tied behind their backs. | |
After being thus painted they were venerated by the people, who regarded | |
them as sanctified. Blue in Egypt was always the color used at the | |
funerals. | |
The Egyptians believed in the immortality of the soul; and that rewards | |
and punishments were adjudged by Osiris, the king of the Amenti, to the | |
souls according to their deeds during their mundane life. That the souls | |
after a period of three thousand years were to return to earth and | |
inhabit again their former earthly tenements. This was the reason why | |
they took so much pains to embalm the body. | |
The Mayas also believed in the immortality of the soul, as I have | |
already said. Their belief was that after the spirit had suffered during | |
a time proportioned to their misdeeds whilst on earth, and after having | |
enjoyed an amount of bliss corresponding to their good actions, they | |
were to return to earth and live again a material life. Accordingly, as | |
the body was corruptible, they made statues of stones, terra-cotta, or | |
wood, in the semblance of the deceased, whose ashes they deposited in a | |
hollow made for that purpose in the back of the head. Sometimes also in | |
stone urns, as in the case of Chaacmol. The spirits, on their return to | |
earth, were to find these statues, impart life to them, and use them as | |
body during their new existence. | |
I am not certain but that, as the Egyptians also, they were believers in | |
transmigration; and that this belief exists yet among the aborigines. I | |
have noticed that my Indians were unwilling to kill any animal whatever, | |
even the most noxious and dangerous, that inhabits the ruined monuments. | |
I have often told them to kill some venomous insect or serpent that may | |
have happened to be in our way. They invariably refused to do so, but | |
softly and carefully caused them to go. And when asked why they did not | |
kill them, declined to answer except by a knowing and mysterious smile, | |
as if afraid to let a stranger into their intimate beliefs inherited | |
from their ancestors: remembering, perhaps, the fearful treatment | |
inflicted by fanatical friars on their fathers to oblige them to forego | |
what they called the superstitions of their race--the idolatrous creed | |
of their forefathers. | |
I have had opportunity to discover that their faith in reincarnation, as | |
many other time-honored credences, still exists among them, unshaken, | |
notwithstanding the persecutions and tortures suffered by them at the | |
hands of ignorant and barbaric _Christians_ (?) | |
I will give two instances when that belief in reincarnation was plainly | |
manifested. | |
The day that, after surmounting many difficulties, when my ropes and | |
cables, made of withes and the bark of the _habin_ tree, were finished | |
and adjusted to the capstan manufactured of hollow stones and trunks of | |
trees; and I had placed the ponderous statue of Chaacmol on rollers, | |
already in position to drag it up the inclined plane made from the | |
surface of the ground to a few feet above the bottom of the excavation; | |
my men, actuated by their superstitious fears on the one hand, and | |
their profound reverence for the memory of their ancestors on the other, | |
unwilling to see the effigy of one of the great men removed from where | |
their ancestors had placed it in ages gone by resolved to bury it, by | |
letting loose the hill of dry stones that formed the body of the | |
mausoleum, and were kept from falling in the hole by a framework of thin | |
trunks of trees tied with withes, and in order that it should not be | |
injured, to capsize it, placing the face downward. They had already | |
overturned it, when I interfered in time to prevent more mischief, and | |
even save some of them from certain death; since by cutting loose the | |
withes that keep the framework together, the sides of the excavation | |
were bound to fall in, and crush those at the bottom. I honestly think, | |
knowing their superstitious feelings and propensities, that they had | |
made up their mind to sacrifice their lives, in order to avoid what they | |
considered a desecration of the future tenement that the great warrior | |
and king was yet to inhabit, when time had arrived. In order to overcome | |
their scruples, and also to prove if my suspicions were correct, that, | |
as their forefathers and the Egyptians of old, they still believed in | |
reincarnation, I caused them to accompany me to the summit of the great | |
pyramid. There is a monument, that served as a castle when the city of | |
the holy men, the Itzaes, was at the height of its splendor. Every anta, | |
every pillar and column of this edifice is sculptured with portraits of | |
warriors and noblemen. Among these many with long beards, whose types | |
recall vividly to the mind the features of the Afghans. | |
On one of the antae, at the entrance on the north side, is the portrait | |
of a warrior wearing a long, straight, pointed beard. The face, like | |
that of all the personages represented in the bas-reliefs, is in | |
profile. I placed my head against the stone so as to present the same | |
position of my face as that of UXAN, and called the attention of my | |
Indians to the similarity of his and my own features. They followed | |
every lineament of the faces with their fingers to the very point of the | |
beard, and soon uttered an exclamation of astonishment: "_Thou!_ | |
_here!_" and slowly scanned again the features sculptured on the stone | |
and my own. | |
"_So, so,_" they said, "_thou too art one of our great men, who has been | |
disenchanted. Thou, too, wert a companion of the great Lord Chaacmol. | |
That is why thou didst know where he was hidden; and thou hast come to | |
disenchant him also. His time to live again on earth has then arrived._" | |
From that moment every word of mine was implicitly obeyed. They returned | |
to the excavation, and worked with such a good will, that they soon | |
brought up the ponderous statue to the surface. | |
A few days later some strange people made their appearance suddenly and | |
noiselessly in our midst. They emerged from the thicket one by one. | |
Colonel _Don_ Felipe Diaz, then commander of the troops covering the | |
eastern frontier, had sent me, a couple of days previous, a written | |
notice, that I still preserve in my power, that tracks of hostile | |
Indians had been discovered by his scouts, advising me to keep a sharp | |
look out, lest they should surprise us. Now, to be on the look out in | |
the midst of a thick, well-nigh impenetrable forest, is a rather | |
difficult thing to do, particularly with only a few men, and where there | |
is no road; yet all being a road for the enemy. Warning my men that | |
danger was near, and to keep their loaded rifles at hand, we continued | |
our work as usual, leaving the rest to destiny. | |
On seeing the strangers, my men rushed on their weapons, but noticing | |
that the visitors had no guns, but only their _machetes_, I gave orders | |
not to hurt them. At their head was a very old man: his hair was gray, | |
his eyes blue with age. He would not come near the statue, but stood at | |
a distance as if awe-struck, hat in hand, looking at it. After a long | |
time he broke out, speaking to his own people: "This, boys, is one of | |
the great men we speak to you about." Then the young men came forward, | |
with great respect kneeled at the feet of the statue, and pressed their | |
lips against them. | |
Putting aside my own weapons, being consequently unarmed, I went to the | |
old man, and asked him to accompany me up to the castle, offering my arm | |
to ascend the 100 steep and crumbling stairs. I again placed my face | |
near that of my stone _Sosis_, and again the same scene was enacted as | |
with my own men, with this difference, that the strangers fell on their | |
knees before me, and, in turn, kissed my hand. The old man after a | |
while, eyeing me respectfully, but steadily, asked me: "Rememberest thou | |
what happened to thee whilst thou wert enchanted?" It was quite a | |
difficult question to answer, and yet retain my superior position, for I | |
did not know how many people might be hidden in the thicket. "Well, | |
father," I asked him, "dreamest thou sometimes?" He nodded his head in | |
an affirmative manner. "And when thou awakest, dost thou remember | |
distinctly thy dreams?" "_Ma_," no! was the answer. "Well, father," I | |
continued, "so it happened with me. I do not remember what took place | |
during the time I was enchanted." This answer seemed to satisfy him. I | |
again gave him my hand to help him down the precipitous stairs, at the | |
foot of which we separated, wishing them God-speed, and warning them not | |
to go too near the villages on their way back to their homes, as people | |
were aware of their presence in the country. Whence they came, I ignore; | |
where they went, I don't know. | |
Circumcision was a rite in usage among the Egyptians since very remote | |
times. The Mayas also practiced it, if we are to credit Fray Luis de | |
Urreta; yet Cogolludo affirms that in his days the Indians denied | |
observing such custom. The outward sign of utmost reverence seems to | |
have been identical amongst both the Mayas and the Egyptians. It | |
consisted in throwing the left arm across the chest, resting the left | |
hand on the right shoulder; or the right arm across the chest, the | |
right hand resting on the left shoulder. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, in his | |
work above quoted, reproduces various figures in that attitude; and Mr. | |
Champollion Figeac, in his book on Egypt, tells us that in some cases | |
even the mummies of certain eminent men were placed in their coffins | |
with the arms in that position. That this same mark of respect was in | |
use amongst the Mayas there can be no possible doubt. We see it in the | |
figures represented in the act of worshiping the mastodon's head, on the | |
west facade of the monument that forms the north wing of the palace and | |
museum at Chichen-Itza. We see it repeatedly in the mural paintings in | |
Chaacmol's funeral chamber; on the slabs sculptured with the | |
representation of a dying warrior, that adorned the mausoleum of that | |
chieftain. Cogolludo mentions it in his history of Yucatan, as being | |
common among the aborigines: and my own men have used it to show their | |
utmost respect to persons or objects they consider worthy of their | |
veneration. Among my collection of photographs are several plates in | |
which some of the men have assumed that position of the arms | |
spontaneously. | |
_The sistrum_ was an instrument used by Egyptians and Mayas alike during | |
the performance of their religious rites and acts of worship. I have | |
seen it used lately by natives in Yucatan in the dance forming part of | |
the worship of the sun. The Egyptians enclosed the brains, entrails and | |
viscera of the deceased in funeral vases, called _canopas_, that were | |
placed in the tombs with the coffin. When I opened Chaacmol's mausoleum | |
I found, as I have already said, two stone urns, the one near the head | |
containing the remains of brains, that near the chest those of the heart | |
and other viscera. This fact would tend to show again a similar custom | |
among the Mayas and Egyptians, who, besides, placed with the body an | |
empty vase--symbol that the deceased had been judged and found | |
righteous. This vase, held between the hands of the statue of Chaacmol, | |
is also found held in the same manner by many other statues of | |
different individuals. It was customary with the Egyptians to deposit in | |
the tombs the implements of the trade or profession of the deceased. So | |
also with the Mayas--if a priest, they placed books; if a warrior, his | |
weapons; if a mechanic, the tools of his art,[TN-23] | |
The Egyptians adorned the tombs of the rich--which generally consisted | |
of one or two chambers--with sculptures and paintings reciting the names | |
and the history of the life of the personage to whom the tomb belonged. | |
The mausoleum of Chaacmol, interiorly, was composed of three different | |
superposed apartments, with their floors of concrete well leveled, | |
polished and painted with yellow ochre; and exteriorly was adorned with | |
magnificent bas-reliefs, representing his totem and that of his | |
wife--dying warriors--the whole being surrounded by the image of a | |
feathered serpent--_Can_, his family name, whilst the walls of the two | |
apartments, or funeral chambers, in the monument raised to his memory, | |
were decorated with fresco paintings, representing not only Chaacmol's | |
own life, but the manners, customs, mode of dressing of his | |
contemporaries; as those of the different nations with which they were | |
in communication: distinctly recognizable by their type, stature and | |
other peculiarities. The portraits of the great and eminent men of his | |
time are sculptured on the jambs and lintels of the doors, represented | |
life-size. | |
In Egypt it was customary to paint the sculptures, either on stone or | |
wood, with bright colors--yellow, blue, red, green predominating. In | |
Mayab the same custom prevailed, and traces of these colors are still | |
easily discernible on the sculptures; whilst they are still very | |
brilliant on the beautiful and highly polished stucco of the walls in | |
the rooms of certain monuments at Chichen-Itza. The Maya artists seem to | |
have used mostly vegetable colors; yet they also employed ochres as | |
pigments, and cinnabar--we having found such metallic colors in | |
Chaacmol's mausoleum. Mrs. Le Plongeon still preserves some in her | |
possession. From where they procured it is more than we can tell at | |
present. | |
The wives and daughters of the Egyptian kings and noblemen considered it | |
an honor to assist in the temples and religious ceremonies: one of their | |
principal duties being to play the sistrum. | |
We find that in Yucatan, _Nicte_ (flower) the sister of _Chaacmol_, | |
assisted her elder brother, _Cay_, the pontiff, in the sanctuary, her | |
name being always associated with his in the inscriptions which adorn | |
the western facade of that edifice at Uxmal, as that of her sister, | |
_Mo_,[TN-24] is with Chaacmol's in some of the monuments at Chichen. | |
Cogolludo, when speaking of the priestesses, _virgins of the sun_, | |
mentions a tradition that seems to refer to _Nicte_, stating that the | |
daughter of a king, who remained during all her life in the temple, | |
obtained after her death the honor of apotheosis, and was worshiped | |
under the name of _Zuhuy-Kak_ (the fire-virgin), and became the goddess | |
of the maidens, who were recommended to her care. | |
As in Egypt, the kings and heroes were worshiped in Mayab after their | |
death; temples and pyramids being raised to their memory. Cogolludo | |
pretends that the lower classes adored fishes, snakes, tigers and other | |
abject animals, "even the devil himself, which appeared to them in | |
horrible forms" ("Historia de Yucatan," book IV., chap. vii.) | |
Judging from the sculptures and mural paintings, the higher classes in | |
_Mayab_ wore, in very remote ages, dresses of quite an elaborate | |
character. Their under garment consisted of short trowsers, reaching the | |
middle of the thighs. At times these trowsers were highly ornamented | |
with embroideries and fringes, as they formed their only article of | |
clothing when at home; over these they wore a kind of kilt, very similar | |
to that used by the inhabitants of the Highlands in Scotland. It was | |
fastened to the waist with wide ribbons, tied behind in a knot forming a | |
large bow, the ends of which reached to the ankles. Their shoulders | |
were covered with a tippet falling to the elbows, and fastened on the | |
chest by means of a brooch. Their feet were protected by sandals, kept | |
in place by ropes or ribbons, passing between the big toe and the next, | |
and between the third and fourth, then brought up so as to encircle the | |
ankles. They were tied in front, forming a bow on the instep. Some wore | |
leggings, others garters and anklets made of feathers, generally yellow; | |
sometimes, however, they may have been of gold. Their head gears were of | |
different kinds, according to their rank and dignity. Warriors seem to | |
have used wide bands, tied behind the head with two knots, as we see in | |
the statue of Chaacmol, and in the bas-reliefs that adorn the queen's | |
chamber at Chichen. The king's coiffure was a peaked cap, that seems to | |
have served as model for the _pschent_, that symbol of domination over | |
the lower Egypt; with this difference, however, that in Mayab the point | |
formed the front, and in Egypt the back. | |
The common people in Mayab, as in Egypt, were indeed little troubled by | |
their garments. These consisted merely of a simple girdle tied round the | |
loins, the ends falling before and behind to the middle of the thighs. | |
Sometimes they also used the short trowsers; and, when at work, wrapped | |
a piece of cloth round their loins, long enough to cover their legs to | |
the knees. This costume was completed by wearing a square cloth, tied on | |
one of the shoulders by two of its corners. It served as cloak. To-day | |
the natives of Yucatan wear the same dress, with but slight | |
modifications. While the aborigines of the _Tierra de Guerra_, who still | |
preserve the customs of their forefathers, untainted by foreign | |
admixture, use the same garments, of their own manufacture, that we see | |
represented in the bas-reliefs of Chichen and Uxmal, and in the mural | |
paintings of _Mayab_ and Egypt. | |
Divination by the inspection of the entrails of victims, and the study | |
of omens were considered by the Egyptians as important branches of | |
learning. The soothsayers formed a respected order of the priesthood. | |
From the mural paintings at Chichen, and from the works of the | |
chroniclers, we learn that the Mayas also had several manners of | |
consulting fate. One of the modes was by the inspection of the entrails | |
of victims; another by the manner of the cracking of the shell of a | |
turtle or armadillo by the action of fire, as among the Chinese. (In the | |
_Hong-fan_ or "the great and sublime doctrine," one of the books of the | |
_Chou-king_, the ceremonies of _Pou_ and _Chi_ are described at length). | |
The Mayas had also their astrologers and prophets. Several prophecies, | |
purporting to have been made by their priests, concerning the preaching | |
of the Gospel among the people of Mayab, have reached us, preserved in | |
the works of Landa, Lizana, and Cogolludo. There we also read that, even | |
at the time of the Spanish conquest, they came from all parts of the | |
country, and congregated at the shrine of _Kinich-kakmo_, the deified | |
daughter of CAN, to listen to the oracles delivered by her through the | |
mouths of her priests and consult her on future events. By the | |
examination of the mural paintings, we know that _animal magnetism_ was | |
understood and practiced by the priests, who, themselves, seem to have | |
consulted clairvoyants. | |
The learned priests of Egypt are said to have made considerable progress | |
in astronomical sciences. | |
The _gnomon_, discovered by me in December, last year, in the ruined | |
city of Mayapan, would tend to prove that the learned men of Mayab were | |
not only close observers of the march of the celestial bodies and good | |
mathematicians; but that their attainments in astronomy were not | |
inferior to those of their brethren of Chaldea. Effectively the | |
construction of the gnomon shows that they had found the means of | |
calculating the latitude of places, that they knew the distance of the | |
solsticeal points from the equator; they had found that the greatest | |
angle of declination of the sun, 23 deg. 27', occurred when that | |
luminary reached the tropics where, during nearly three days, said angle | |
of declination does not vary, for which reason they said that the _sun_ | |
had arrived at his resting place. | |
The Egyptians, it is said, in very remote ages, divided the year by | |
lunations, as the Mayas, who divided their civil year into eighteen | |
months, of twenty days, that they called U--moon--to which they added | |
five supplementary days, that they considered unlucky. From an epoch so | |
ancient that it is referred to the fabulous time of their history, the | |
Egyptians adopted the solar year, dividing it into twelve months, of | |
thirty days, to which they added, at the end of the last month, called | |
_Mesore_, five days, named _Epact_. | |
By a most remarkable coincidence, the Egyptians, as the Mayas, | |
considered these additive five days _unlucky_. | |
Besides this solar year they had a sideral or sothic year, composed of | |
365 days and 6 hours, which corresponds exactly to the Mayas[TN-25] | |
sacred year, that Landa tells us was also composed of 365 days and 6 | |
hours; which they represented in the gnomon of Mayapan by the line that | |
joins the centers of the stela that forms it. | |
The Egyptians, in their computations, calculated by a system of _fives_ | |
and _tens_; the Mayas by a system of _fives_ and _twenties_, to four | |
hundred. Their sacred number appears to have been 13 from the remotest | |
antiquity, but SEVEN seems to have been a _mystic number_ among them as | |
among the Hindoos, Aryans, Chaldeans, Egyptians, and other nations. | |
The Egyptians made use of a septenary system in the arrangement of the | |
grand gallery in the center of the great pyramid. Each side of the wall | |
is made of seven courses of finely polished stones, the one above | |
overlapping that below, thus forming the triangular ceiling common to | |
all the edifices in Yucatan. This gallery is said to be seven times the | |
height of the other passages, and, as all the rooms in Uxmal, Chichen | |
and other places in Mayab, it is seven-sided. Some authors pretend to | |
assume that this well marked septenary system has reference to the | |
_Pleiades_ or _Seven stars_. _Alcyone_, the central star of the group, | |
being, it is said, on the same meridian as the pyramid, when it was | |
constructed, and _Alpha_ of Draconis, the then pole star, at its lower | |
culmination. | |
But if, as the Rev. Joseph A. Seiss and others pretend, the scientific | |
attainments required for the construction of such enduring monument | |
surpassed those of the learned men of Egypt, we must, of necessity, | |
believe that the architect who conceived the plan and carried out its | |
designs must have acquired his knowledge from an older people, | |
possessing greater learning than the priests of Memphis; unless we try | |
to persuade ourselves, as the reverend gentleman wishes us to, that the | |
great pyramid was built under the direct inspiration of the Almighty. | |
Nearly all the monuments of Yucatan bear evidence that the Mayas had a | |
predilection for number SEVEN. Since we find that their artificial | |
mounds were composed of seven superposed platforms; that the city of | |
Uxmal contained seven of these mounds; that the north side of the palace | |
of King CAN was adorned with seven turrets; that the entwined serpents, | |
his totem, which adorn the east facade of the west wing of this | |
building, have seven rattles; that the head-dress of kings and queens | |
were adorned with seven blue feathers; in a word, that the number SEVEN | |
prevails in all places and in everything where Maya influence has | |
predominated. | |
It is a FACT, and one that may not be altogether devoid of significance, | |
that this number SEVEN seems to have been the mystic number of many of | |
the nations of antiquity. It has even reached our times as such, being | |
used as symbol[TN-26] by several of the secret societies existing among | |
us. | |
If we look back through the vista of ages to the dawn of civilized life | |
in the countries known as the _old world_, we find this number SEVEN | |
among the Asiatic nations as well as in Egypt and Mayab. Effectively, in | |
Babylon, the celebrated temple of _the seven lights_ was made of _seven_ | |
stages or platforms. In the hierarchy of Mazdeism, the _seven marouts_, | |
or genii of the winds, the _seven amschaspands_; then among the Aryans | |
and their descendants, the _seven horses_ that drew the chariot of the | |
sun, the _seven apris_ or shape of the flame, the _seven rays_ of Agni, | |
the _seven manons_ or criators of the Vedas; among the Hebrews, the | |
_seven days_ of the creation, the _seven lamps_ of the ark and of | |
Zacharias's vision, the _seven branches_ of the golden candlestick, the | |
_seven days_ of the feast of the dedication of the temple of Solomon, | |
the _seven years_ of plenty, the _seven years_ of famine; in the | |
Christian dispensation, the _seven_ churches with the _seven_ angels at | |
their head, the _seven_ golden candlesticks, the _seven seals_ of the | |
book, the _seven_ trumpets of the angels, the _seven heads_ of the beast | |
that rose from the sea, the _seven vials_ full of the wrath of God, the | |
_seven_ last plagues of the Apocalypse; in the Greek mythology, the | |
_seven_ heads of the hydra, killed by Hercules, etc. | |
The origin of the prevalence of that number SEVEN amongst all the | |
nations of earth, even the most remote from each other, has never been | |
satisfactorily explained, each separate people giving it a different | |
interpretation, according to their belief and to the tenets of their | |
religious creeds. As far as the Mayas are concerned, I think to have | |
found that it originated with the _seven_ members of CAN'S family, who | |
were the founders of the principal cities of _Mayab_, and to each of | |
whom was dedicated a mound in Uxmal and a turret in their palace. Their | |
names, according to the inscriptions carved on the monuments raised by | |
them at Uxmal and Chichen, were--CAN (serpent) and [C]OZ (bat), his | |
wife, from whom were born CAY (fish), the pontiff; AAK (turtle), who | |
became the governor of Uxmal; CHAACMOL (leopard), the warrior, who | |
became the husband of his sister MOO (macaw), the Queen of _Chichen_, | |
worshiped after her death at Izamal; and NICTE (flower), the priestess | |
who, under the name of _Zuhuy-Kuk_, became the goddess of the maidens. | |
The Egyptians, in expressing their ideas in writing, used three | |
different kinds of characters--phonetic, ideographic and | |
symbolic--placed either in vertical columns or in horizontal lines, to | |
be read from right to left, from left to right, as indicated by the | |
position of the figures of men or animals. So, also, the Mayas in their | |
writings employed phonetic, symbolic and ideographic signs, combining | |
these often, forming monograms as we do to-day, placing them in such a | |
manner as best suited the arrangement of the ornamentation of the facade | |
of the edifices. At present we can only speak with certainty of the | |
monumental inscriptions, the books that fell in the hands of the | |
ecclesiastics at the time of the conquest having been destroyed. No | |
truly genuine written monuments of the Mayas are known to exist, except | |
those inclosed within the sealed apartments, where the priests and | |
learned men of MAYAB hid them from the _Nahualt_ or _Toltec_ invaders. | |
As the Egyptians, they wrote in vertical columns and horizontal lines, | |
to be read generally from right to left. The space of this small essay | |
does not allow me to enter in more details; they belong naturally to a | |
work of different nature. Let it therefore suffice, for the present | |
purpose, to state that the comparative study of the language of the | |
Mayas led us to suspect that, as it contains words belonging to nearly | |
all the known languages of antiquity, and with exactly the same meaning, | |
in their mode of writing might be found letters or characters or signs | |
used in those tongues. Studying with attention the photographs made by | |
us of the inscriptions of Uxmal and Chichen, we were not long in | |
discovering that our surmises were indeed correct. The inscriptions, | |
written in squares or parallelograms, that might well have served as | |
models for the ancient hieratic Chaldeans, of the time of King Uruck, | |
seem to contain ancient Chaldee, Egyptian and Etruscan characters, | |
together with others that seem to be purely Mayab. | |
Applying these known characters to the decipherment of the inscriptions, | |
giving them their accepted value, we soon found that the language in | |
which they are written is, in the main, the vernacular of the aborigines | |
of Yucatan and other parts of Central America to-day. Of course, the | |
original mother tongue having suffered some alterations, in consequence | |
of changes in customs induced by time, invasions, intercourse with other | |
nations, and the many other natural causes that are known to affect | |
man's speech. | |
The Mayas and the Egyptians had many signs and characters identical; | |
possessing the same alphabetical and symbolical value in both nations. | |
Among the symbolical, I may cite a few: _water_, _country or region_, | |
_king_, _Lord_, _offerings_, _splendor_, the _various emblems of the | |
sun_ and many others. Among the alphabetical, a very large number of the | |
so-called Demotic, by Egyptologists, are found even in the inscription | |
of the _Akab[c]ib_ at Chichen; and not a few of the most ancient | |
Egyptian hieroglyphs in the mural inscriptions at Uxmal. In these I have | |
been able to discover the Egyptian characters corresponding to our own. | |
A a, B, C, CH or K, D, T, I, L, M, N, H, P, TZ, PP, U, OO, X, having the | |
same sound and value as in the Spanish language, with the exception of | |
the K, TZ, PP and X, which are pronounced in a way peculiar to the | |
Mayas. The inscriptions also contain these letters, A, I, X and PP | |
identical to the corresponding in the Etruscan alphabet. The finding of | |
the value of these characters has enabled me to decipher, among other | |
things, the names of the founders of the city of UXMAL; as that of the | |
city itself. This is written apparently in two different ways: whilst, | |
in fact, the sculptors have simply made use of two homophone signs, | |
notwithstanding dissimilar, of the letter M. As to the name of the | |
founders, not only are they written in alphabetical characters, but also | |
in ideographic, since they are accompanied in many instances by the | |
totems of the personages: e. g[TN-27] for AAK, which means turtle, is the | |
image of a turtle; for CAY (fish), the image of a fish; for Chaacmol | |
(leopard) the image of a leopard; and so on, precluding the possibility | |
of misinterpretation. | |
Having found that the language of the inscriptions was Maya, of course | |
I had no difficulty in giving to each letter its proper phonetic value, | |
since, as I have already said, Maya is still the vernacular of the | |
people. | |
I consider that the few facts brought together will suffice at present | |
to show, if nothing else, a strange similarity in the workings of the | |
mind in these two nations. But if these remarkable coincidences are not | |
merely freaks of hazard, we will be compelled to admit that one people | |
must have learned it from the other. Then will naturally arise the | |
questions, Which the teacher? Which the pupil? The answer will not only | |
solve an ethnological problem, but decide the question of priority. | |
I will now briefly refer to the myth of Osiris, the son of _Seb and | |
Nut_, the brother of _Aroeris_, the elder _Horus_, of _Typho_, of | |
_Isis_, and of _Nephthis_, named also NIKE. The authors have given | |
numerous explanations, result of fancy; of the mythological history of | |
that god, famous throughout Egypt. They made him a personification of | |
the inundations of the NILE; ISIS, his wife and sister, that of the | |
irrigated portion of the land of Egypt; their sister, _Nephthis_, that | |
of the barren edge of the desert occasionally fertilized by the waters | |
of the Nile; his brother and murderer _Tipho_, that of the sea which | |
swallows up the _Nile_. | |
Leaving aside the mythical lores, with which the priests of all times | |
and all countries cajole the credulity of ignorant and superstitious | |
people, we find that among the traditions of the past, treasured in the | |
mysterious recesses of the temples, is a history of the life of Osiris | |
on Earth. Many wise men of our days have looked upon it as fabulous. I | |
am not ready to say whether it is or it is not; but this I can assert, | |
that, in many parts, it tallies marvelously with that of the culture | |
hero of the Mayas. | |
It will be said, no doubt, that this remarkable similarity is a mere | |
coincidence. But how are we to dispose of so many coincidences? What | |
conclusion, if any, are we to draw from this concourse of so many | |
strange similes? | |
In this case, I cannot do better than to quote, verbatim, from Sir | |
Gardner Wilkinson's work, chap. xiii: | |
"_Osiris_, having become King of Egypt, applied himself towards | |
civilizing his countrymen, by turning them from their former | |
barbarous course of life, teaching them, moreover, to cultivate and | |
improve the fruits of the earth. * * * * * With the same good | |
disposition, he afterwards traveled over the rest of the world, | |
inducing the people everywhere to submit to his discipline, by the | |
mildest persuasion." | |
The rest of the story relates to the manner of his killing by his | |
brother Typho, the disposal of his remains, the search instituted by his | |
wife to recover the body, how it was stolen again from her by _Typho_, | |
who cut him to pieces, scattering them over the earth, of the final | |
defeat of Typho by Osiris's son, Horus. | |
Reading the description, above quoted, of the endeavors of Osiris to | |
civilize the world, who would not imagine to be perusing the traditions | |
of the deeds of the culture heroes _Kukulean_[TN-28] and Quetzalcoatl of | |
the Mayas and of the Aztecs? Osiris was particularly worshiped at Philo, | |
where the history of his life is curiously illustrated in the sculptures | |
of a small retired chamber, lying nearly over the western adytum of the | |
temple, just as that of Chaacmol in the mural paintings of his funeral | |
chamber, the bas-reliefs of what once was his mausoleum, in those of the | |
queen's chamber and of her box in the tennis court at Chichen. | |
"The mysteries of Osiris were divided into the greater and less | |
mysteries. Before admission into the former, it was necessary that | |
the initiated should have passed through all the gradations of the | |
latter. But to merit this great honor, much was expected of the | |
candidate, and many even of the priesthood were unable to obtain | |
it. Besides the proofs of a virtuous life, other recommendations | |
were required, and to be admitted to all the grades of the higher | |
mysteries was the greatest honor to which any one could aspire. It | |
was from these that the mysteries of Eleusis were borrowed." | |
Wilkinson, chap. xiii. | |
In Mayab there also existed mysteries, as proved by symbols discovered | |
in the month of June last by myself in the monument generally called the | |
_Dwarf's House_, at Uxmal. It seemed that the initiated had to pass | |
through different gradations to reach the highest or third; if we are to | |
judge by the number of rooms dedicated to their performance, and the | |
disposition of said rooms. The strangest part, perhaps, of this | |
discovery is the information it gives us that certain signs and symbols | |
were used by the affiliated, that are perfectly identical to those used | |
among the masons in their symbolical lodges. I have lately published in | |
_Harper's Weekly_, a full description of the building, with plans of the | |
same, and drawings of the signs and symbols existing in it. These secret | |
societies exist still among the _Zunis_ and other Pueblo Indians of New | |
Mexico, according to the relations of Mr. Frank H. Cushing, a gentleman | |
sent by the Smithsonian Institution to investigate their customs and | |
history. In order to comply with the mission intrusted to him, Mr. | |
Cushing has caused his adoption in the tribe of the Zunis, whose | |
language he has learned, whose habits he has adopted. Among the other | |
remarkable things he has discovered is "the existence of twelve sacred | |
orders, with their priests and their secret rites as carefully guarded | |
as the secrets of freemasonry, an institution to which these orders have | |
a strange resemblance." (From the New York _Times_.) | |
If from Egypt we pass to Nubia, we find that the peculiar battle ax of | |
the Mayas was also used by the warriors of that country; whilst many of | |
the customs of the inhabitants of equatorial Africa, as described by Mr. | |
DuChaillu[TN-29] in the relation of his voyage to the "Land of Ashango," | |
so closely resemble those of the aborigines of Yucatan as to suggest | |
that intimate relations must have existed, in very remote ages, between | |
their ancestors; if the admixture of African blood, clearly discernible | |
still, among the natives of certain districts of the peninsula, did not | |
place that _fact_ without the peradventure of a doubt. We also see | |
figures in the mural paintings, at Chichen, with strongly marked African | |
features. | |
We learned by the discovery of the statue of Chaacmol, and that of the | |
priestess found by me at the foot of the altar in front of the shrine | |
of _Ix-cuina_, the Maya Venus, situated at the south end of _Isla | |
Mugeres_, it was customary with persons of high rank to file their teeth | |
in sharp points like a saw. We read in the chronicles that this fashion | |
still prevailed after the Spanish conquest; and then by little and | |
little fell into disuse. Travelers tells us that it is yet in vogue | |
among many of the tribes in the interior of South America; particularly | |
those whose names seem to connect with the ancient Caribs or Carians. | |
Du Chaillu asserts that the Ashangos, those of Otamo, the Apossos, the | |
Fans, and many other tribes of equatorial Africa, consider it a mark of | |
beauty to file their front teeth in a sharp point. He presents the Fans | |
as confirmed cannibals. We are told, and the bas-reliefs on Chaacmol's | |
mausoleum prove it, that the Mayas devoured the hearts of their fallen | |
enemies. It is said that, on certain grand occasions, after offering the | |
hearts of their victims to the idols, they abandoned the bodies to the | |
people, who feasted upon them. But it must be noticed that these | |
last-mentioned customs seemed to have been introduced in the country by | |
the Nahualts and Aztecs; since, as yet, we have found nothing in the | |
mural paintings to cause us to believe that the Mayas indulged in such | |
barbaric repasts, beyond the eating of their enemies' hearts. | |
The Mayas were, and their descendants are still, confirmed believers in | |
witchcraft. In December, last year, being at the hacienda of | |
X-Kanchacan, where are situated the ruins of the ancient city of | |
Mayapan, a sick man was brought to me. He came most reluctantly, stating | |
that he knew what was the matter with him: that he was doomed to die | |
unless the spell was removed. He was emaciated, seemed to suffer from | |
malarial fever, then prevalent in the place, and from the presence of | |
tapeworm. I told him I could restore him to health if he would heed my | |
advice. The fellow stared at me for some time, trying to find out, | |
probably, if I was a stronger wizard than the _H-Men_ who had bewitched | |
him. He must have failed to discover on my face the proverbial | |
distinctive marks great sorcerers are said to possess; for, with an | |
incredulous grin, stretching his thin lips tighter over his teeth, he | |
simply replied: "No use--I am bewitched--there is no remedy for me." | |
Mr. Du Chaillu, speaking of the superstitions of the inhabitants of | |
Equatorial Africa, says: "The greatest curse of the whole country is the | |
belief in sorcery or witchcraft. If the African is once possessed with | |
the belief that he is bewitched his whole nature seems to change. He | |
becomes suspicious of his dearest friends. He fancies himself sick, and | |
really often becomes sick through his fears. At least seventy-five per | |
cent of the deaths in all the tribes are murders for supposed sorcery." | |
In that they differ from the natives of Yucatan, who respect wizards | |
because of their supposed supernatural powers. | |
From the most remote antiquity, as we learn from the writings of the | |
chroniclers, in all sacred ceremonies the Mayas used to make copious | |
libations with _Balche_. To-day the aborigines still use it in the | |
celebrations of their ancient rites. _Balche_ is a liquor made from the | |
bark of a tree called Balche, soaked in water, mixed with honey and left | |
to ferment. It is their beverage _par excellence_. The nectar drank by | |
the God of Greek Mythology. | |
Du Chaillu, speaking of the recovery to health of the King of _Mayo_lo, | |
a city in which he resided for some time, says: "Next day he was so much | |
elated with the improvement in his health that he got tipsy on a | |
fermented beverage which he had prepared two days before he had fallen | |
ill, and which he made by _mixing honey and water, and adding to it | |
pieces of bark of a certain tree_." (Journey to Ashango Land, page 183.) | |
I will remark here that, by a strange _coincidence_, we not only find | |
that the inhabitants of Equatorial Africa have customs identical with | |
the MAYAS, but that the name of one of their cities MAYO_lo_, seems to | |
be a corruption of MAYAB. | |
The Africans make offerings upon the graves of their departed friends, | |
where they deposit furniture, dress and food--and sometimes slay slaves, | |
men and women, over the graves of kings and chieftains, with the belief | |
that their spirits join that of him in whose honor they have been | |
sacrificed. | |
I have already said that it was customary with the Mayas to place in the | |
tombs part of the riches of the deceased and the implements of his trade | |
or profession; and that the great quantity of blood found scattered | |
round the slab on which the statue of Chaacmol is reclining would tend | |
to suggest that slaves were sacrificed at his funeral. | |
The Mayas of old were wont to abandon the house where a person had died. | |
Many still observe that same custom when they can afford to do so; for | |
they believe that the spirit of the departed hovers round it. | |
The Africans also abandon their houses, remove even the site of their | |
villages when death frequently occur;[TN-30] for, say they, the place is | |
no longer good; and they fear the spirits of those recently deceased. | |
Among the musical instruments used by the Mayas there were two kinds of | |
drums--the _Tunkul_ and the _Zacatan_. They are still used by the | |
aborigines in their religious festivals and dances. | |
The _Tunkul_ is a cylinder hollowed from the trunk of a tree, so as to | |
leave it about one inch in thickness all round. It is generally about | |
four feet in length. On one side two slits are cut, so as to leave | |
between them a strip of about four inches in width, to within six inches | |
from the ends; this strip is divided in the middle, across, so as to | |
form, as it were, tongues. It is by striking on those tongues with two | |
balls of india-rubber, attached to the end of sticks, that the | |
instrument is played. The volume of sound produced is so great that it | |
can be heard, is[TN-31] is said, at a distance of six miles in calm | |
weather. The _Zacatan_ is another sort of drum, also hollowed from the | |
trunk of a tree. This is opened at both ends. On one end a piece of | |
skin is tightly stretched. It is by beating on the skin with the hand, | |
the instrument being supported between the legs of the drummer, in a | |
slanting position, that it is played. | |
Du Chaillu, Stanley and other travelers in Africa tell us that, in case | |
of danger and to call the clans together, the big war drum is beaten, | |
and is heard many miles around. Du Chaillu asserts having seen one of | |
these _Ngoma_, formed of a hollow log, nine feet long, at Apono; and | |
describes a _Fan_ drum which corresponds to the _Zacatan_ of the Mayas | |
as follows: "The cylinder was about four feet long and ten inches in | |
diameter at one end, but only seven at the other. The wood was hollowed | |
out quite thin, and the skin stretched over tightly. To beat it the | |
drummer held it slantingly between his legs, and with two sticks | |
beats[TN-32] furiously upon the upper, which was the larger end of the | |
cylinder." | |
We have the counterpart of the fetish houses, containing the skulls of | |
the ancestors and some idol or other, seen by Du Chaillu, in African | |
towns, in the small huts constructed at the entrance of all the villages | |
in Yucatan. These huts or shrines contain invariably a crucifix; at | |
times the image of some saint, often a skull. The last probably to cause | |
the wayfarer to remember he has to die; and that, as he cannot carry | |
with him his worldly treasures on the other side of the grave, he had | |
better deposit some in the alms box firmly fastened at the foot of the | |
cross. Cogolludo informs us these little shrines were anciently | |
dedicated to the god of lovers, of histrions, of dancers, and an | |
infinity of small idols that were placed at the entrance of the | |
villages, roads and staircases of the temples and other parts. | |
Even the breed of African dogs seems to be the same as that of the | |
native dogs of Yucatan. Were I to describe these I could not make use of | |
more appropriate words than the following of Du Chaillu: "The pure bred | |
native dog is small, has long straight ears, long muzzle and long curly | |
tail; the hair is short and the color yellowish; the pure breed being | |
known by the clearness of his color. They are always lean, and are kept | |
very short of food by their owners. * * * Although they have quick ears; | |
I don't think highly of their scent. They are good watch dogs." | |
I could continue this list of similes, but methinks those already | |
mentioned as sufficient for the present purpose. I will therefore close | |
it by mentioning this strange belief that Du Chaillu asserts exists | |
among the African warriors: "_The charmed leopard's skin worn about the | |
warrior's middle is supposed to render that worthy spear-proof._" | |
Let us now take a brief retrospective glance at the FACTS mentioned in | |
the foregoing pages. They seem to teach us that, in ages so remote as to | |
be well nigh lost in the abyss of the past, the _Mayas_ were a great and | |
powerful nation, whose people had reached a high degree of civilization. | |
That it is impossible for us to form a correct idea of their | |
attainments, since only the most enduring monuments, built by them, have | |
reached us, resisting the disintegrating action of time and atmosphere. | |
That, as the English of to-day, they had colonies all over the earth; | |
for we find their name, their traditions, their customs and their | |
language scattered in many distant countries, among whose inhabitants | |
they apparently exercised considerable civilizing influence, since they | |
gave names to their gods, to their tribes, to their cities. | |
We cannot doubt that the colonists carried with them the old traditions | |
of the mother country, and the history of the founders of their | |
nationality; since we find them in the countries where they seem to have | |
established large settlements soon after leaving the land of their | |
birth. In course of time these traditions have become disfigured, | |
wrapped, as it were, in myths, creations of fanciful and untutored | |
imaginations, as in Hindostan: or devises of crafty priests, striving to | |
hide the truth from the ignorant mass of the people, fostering their | |
superstitions, in order to preserve unbounded and undisputed sway over | |
them, as in Egypt. | |
In Hindostan, for example, we find the Maya custom of carrying the | |
children astride on the hips of the nurses. That of recording the vow of | |
the devotees, or of imploring the blessings of deity by the imprint of | |
the hand, dipped in red liquid, stamped on the walls of the shrines and | |
palaces. The worship of the mastodon, still extant in India, Siam, | |
Burmah, as in the worship of _Ganeza_, the god of knowledge, with an | |
elephant head, degenerated in that of the elephant itself. | |
Still extant we find likewise the innate propensity of the Mayas to | |
exclude all foreigners from their country; even to put to death those | |
who enter their territories (as do, even to-day, those of Santa Cruz and | |
the inhabitants of the Tierra de Guerra) as the emissaries of Rama were | |
informed by the friend of the owner of the country, the widow of the | |
_great architect_, MAYA, whose name HEMA means in the Maya language "she | |
who places ropes across the roads to impede the passage." Even the | |
history of the death of her husband MAYA, killed with a thunderbolt, by | |
the god _Pourandara_, whose jealousy was aroused by his love for her and | |
their marriage, recalls that of _Chaacmol_, the husband of _Moo_, killed | |
by their brother Aac, by being stabbed by him three times in the back | |
with a spear, through jealousy--for he also loved _Moo_. | |
Some Maya tribes, after a time, probably left their home at the South of | |
Hindostan and emigrated to Afghanistan, where their descendants still | |
live and have villages on the North banks of the river _Kabul_. They | |
left behind old traditions, that they may have considered as mere | |
fantasies of their poets, and other customs of their forefathers. Yet we | |
know so little about the ancient Afghans, or the Maya tribes living | |
among them, that it is impossible at present to say how much, if any, | |
they have preserved of the traditions of their race. All we know for a | |
certainty is that many of the names of their villages and tribes are | |
pure American-Maya words: that their types are very similar to the | |
features of the bearded men carved on the pillars of the castle, and on | |
the walls of other edifices at Chichen-Itza: while their warlike habits | |
recall those of the Mayas, who fought so bravely and tenaciously the | |
Spanish invaders. | |
Some of the Maya tribes, traveling towards the west and northwest, | |
reached probably the shores of Ethiopia; while others, entering the | |
Persian Gulf, landed near the embouchure of the Euphrates, and founded | |
their primitive capital at a short distance from it. They called it _Hur | |
(Hula) city of guests just arrived_--and according to Berosus gave | |
themselves the name of _Khaldi_; probably because they intrenched their | |
city: _Kal_ meaning intrenchment in the American-Maya language. We have | |
seen that the names of all the principal deities of the primitive | |
Chaldeans had a natural etymology in that tongue. Such strange | |
coincidences cannot be said to be altogether accidental. Particularly | |
when we consider that their learned men were designated as MAGI, (Mayas) | |
and their Chief _Rab-Mag_, meaning, in Maya, the _old man_; and were | |
great architects, mathematicians and astronomers. As again we know of | |
them but imperfectly, we cannot tell what traditions they had preserved | |
of the birthplace of their forefathers. But by the inscriptions on the | |
tablets or bricks, found at Mugheir and Warka, we know for a certainty | |
that, in the archaic writings, they formed their characters of straight | |
lines of uniform thickness; and inclosed their sentences in squares or | |
parallelograms, as did the founders of the ruined cities of Yucatan. And | |
from the signet cylinder of King Urukh, that their mode of dressing was | |
identical with that of many personages represented in the mural | |
paintings at Chichen-Itza. | |
We have traced the MAYAS again on the shores of Asia Minor, where the | |
CARIANS at last established themselves, after having spread terror among | |
the populations bordering on the Mediterranean. Their origin is unknown: | |
but their customs were so similar to those of the inhabitants of Yucatan | |
at the time even of the Spanish conquest--and their names CAR, _Carib_ | |
or _Carians_, so extensively spread over the western continent, that we | |
might well surmise, that, navigators as they were, they came from those | |
parts of the world; particularly when we are told by the Greek poets and | |
historians, that the goddess MAIA was the daughter of _Atlantis_. We | |
have seen that the names of the khati, those of their cities, that of | |
Tyre, and finally that of Egypt, have their etymology in the Maya. | |
Considering the numerous coincidences already pointed out, and many more | |
I could bring forth, between the attainments and customs of the Mayas | |
and the Egyptians; in view also of the fact that the priests and learned | |
men of Egypt constantly pointed toward the WEST as the birthplace of | |
their ancestors, it would seem as if a colony, starting from Mayab, had | |
emigrated Eastward, and settled on the banks of the Nile; just as the | |
Chinese to-day, quitting their native land and traveling toward the | |
rising sun, establish themselves in America. | |
In Egypt again, as in Hindostan, we find the history of the children of | |
CAN, preserved among the secret traditions treasured up by the priests | |
in the dark recesses of their temples: the same story, even with all its | |
details. It is TYPHO who kills his brother OSIRIS, the husband of their | |
sister ISIS. Some of the names only have been changed when the members | |
of the royal family of CAN, the founder of the cities of Mayab, reaching | |
apotheosis, were presented to the people as gods, to be worshiped. | |
That the story of _Isis_ and _Osiris_ is a mythical account of CHAACMOL | |
and MOO, from all the circumstances connected with it, according to the | |
relations of the priests of Egypt that tally so closely with what we | |
learn in Chichen-Itza from the bas-reliefs, it seems impossible to | |
doubt. | |
Effectively, _Osiris_ and _Isis_ are considered as king and queen of the | |
Amenti--the region of the West--the mansion of the dead, of the | |
ancestors. Whatever may be the etymology of the name of Osiris, it is a | |
_fact_, that in the sculptures he is often represented with a spotted | |
skin suspended near him, and Diodorus Siculus says: "That the skin is | |
usually represented without the head; but some instances where this is | |
introduced show it to be the _leopard's_ or _panther's_." Again, the | |
name of Osiris as king of the West, of the Amenti, is always written, in | |
hieroglyphic characters, representing a crouching _leopard_ with an eye | |
above it. It is also well known that the priests of Osiris wore a | |
_leopard_ skin as their ceremonial dress. | |
Now, Chaacmol reigned with his sister Moo, at Chichen-Itza, in Mayab, in | |
the land of the West for Egypt. The name _Chaacmol_ means, in Maya, a | |
_Spotted_ tiger, a _leopard_; and he is represented as such in all his | |
totems in the sculptures on the monuments; his shield being made of the | |
skin of leopard, as seen in the mural paintings. | |
Osiris, in Egypt, is a myth. Chaacmol, in Mayab, a reality. A warrior | |
whose mausoleum I have opened; whose weapons and ornaments of jade are | |
in Mrs. Le Plongeon's possession; whose heart I have found, and sent a | |
piece of it to be analysed by professor Thompson of Worcester, Mass.; | |
whose effigy, with his name inscribed on the tablets occupying the place | |
of the ears, forms now one of the most precious relics in the National | |
Museum of Mexico. | |
ISIS was the wife and sister of Osiris. As to the etymology of her name | |
the Maya affords it in I[C]IN--_the younger sister_. As Queen of the | |
Amenti, of the West, she also is represented in hieroglyphs by the same | |
characters as her husband--a _leopard, with an eye above_, and the sign | |
of the feminine gender an oval or egg. But as a goddess she is always | |
portrayed with wings; the vulture being dedicated to her; and, as it | |
were, her totem. | |
MOO the wife and sister of _Chaacmol_ was the Queen of Chichen. She is | |
represented on the Mausoleum of Chaacmol as a _Macaw_ (Moo in the Maya | |
language); also on the monuments at Uxmal: and the chroniclers tell us | |
that she was worshiped in Izamal under the name of _Kinich-Kakmo_; | |
reading from right to left the _fiery macaw with eyes like the sun_. | |
Their protecting spirit is a _Serpent_, the totem of their father CAN. | |
Another Egyptian divinity, _Apap_ or _Apop_, is represented under the | |
form of a gigantic serpent covered with wounds. Plutarch in his | |
treatise, _De Iside et Osiride_, tells us that he was enemy to the sun. | |
TYPHO was the brother of Osiris and Isis; for jealousy, and to usurp the | |
throne, he formed a conspiration and killed his brother. He is said to | |
represent in the Egyptian mythology, the sea, by some; by others, _the | |
sun_. | |
AAK (turtle) was also the brother of Chaacmol and _Moo_. For jealousy, | |
and to usurp the throne, he killed his brother at treason with three | |
thrusts of his _spear_ in the back. Around the belt of his statue at | |
Uxmal used to be seen hanging the heads of his brothers CAY and | |
CHAACMOL, together with that of MOO; whilst his feet rested on their | |
flayed bodies. In the sculpture he is pictured surrounded by the _Sun_ | |
as his protecting spirit. The escutcheon of Uxmal shows that he called | |
the place he governed the land of the Sun. In the bas-reliefs of the | |
Queen's chamber at Chichen his followers are seen to render homage to | |
the _Sun_; others, the friends of MOO, to the _Serpent_. So, in Mayab as | |
in Egypt, the _Sun_ and _Serpent_ were inimical. In Egypt again this | |
enmity was a myth, in Mayab a reality. | |
AROERIS was the brother of Osiris, Isis and Typho. His business seems to | |
have been that of a peace-maker. | |
CAY was also the brother of _Chaacmol_, _Moo_ and _Aac_. He was the high | |
pontiff, and sided with Chaacmol and Moo in their troubles, as we learn | |
from the mural paintings, from his head and flayed body serving as | |
trophy to Aac as I have just said. | |
In June last, among the ruins of _Uxmal_, I discovered a magnificent | |
bust of this personage; and I believe I know the place where his remains | |
are concealed. | |
NEPHTHIS was the sister of Isis, Osiris, Typho, and Aroeris, and the | |
wife of Typho; but being in love with Osiris she managed to be taken to | |
his embraces, and she became pregnant. That intrigue having been | |
discovered by Isis, she adopted the child that Nephthis, fearing the | |
anger of her husband, had hidden, brought him up as her own under the | |
name of Anubis. Nephthis was also called NIKE by some. | |
NIC or NICTE was the sister of _Chaacmol_, _Moo_, _Aac_, and _Cay_, with | |
whose name I find always her name associated in the sculptures on the | |
monuments. Here the analogy between these personages would seem to | |
differ, still further study of the inscriptions may yet prove the | |
Egyptian version to contain some truth. _Nic_ or _Nicte_[TN-33] means | |
flower; a cast of her face, with a flower sculptured on one cheek, | |
exists among my collections. | |
We are told that three children were born to Isis and Osiris: Horus, | |
Macedo, and Harpocrates. Well, in the scene painted on the walls of | |
Chaacmol's funeral chamber, in which the body of this warrior is | |
represented stretched on the ground, cut open under the ribs for the | |
extraction of the heart and visceras, he is seen surrounded by his wife, | |
his sister NIC, his mother _Zo[c]_, and four children. | |
I will close these similes by mentioning that _Thoth_ was reputed the | |
preceptor of Isis; and said to be the inventor of letters, of the art of | |
reckoning, geometry, astronomy, and is represented in the hieroglyphs | |
under the form of a baboon (cynocephalus). He is one of the most ancient | |
divinities among the Egyptians. He had also the office of scribe in the | |
lower regions, where he was engaged in noting down the actions of the | |
dead, and presenting or reading them to Osiris. One of the modes of | |
writing his name in hieroglyphs, transcribed in our common letters, | |
reads _Nukta_; a word most appropriate and suggestive of his attributes, | |
since, according to the Maya language, it would signify to understand, | |
to perceive, _Nuctah_: while his name Thoth, maya[TN-34] _thot_ means to | |
scatter flowers; hence knowledge. In the temple of death at Uxmal, at | |
the foot of the grand staircase that led to the sanctuary, at the top of | |
which I found a sacrificial altar, there were six cynocephali in a | |
sitting posture, as Thoth is represented by the Egyptians. They were | |
placed three in a row each side of the stairs. Between them was a | |
platform where a skeleton, in a kneeling posture, used to be. To-day the | |
cynocephali have been removed. They are in one of the yard[TN-35] of the | |
principal house at the Hacienda of Uxmal. The statue representing the | |
kneeling skeleton lays, much defaced, where it stood when that ancient | |
city was in its glory. | |
In the mural paintings at Chichen-Itza, we again find the baboon | |
(Cynocephalus) warning Moo of impending danger. She is pictured in her | |
home, which is situated in the midst of a garden, and over which is seen | |
the royal insignia. A basket, painted blue, full of bright oranges, is | |
symbolical of her domestic happiness. She is sitting at the door. Before | |
her is an individual pictured physically deformed, to show the ugliness | |
of his character and by the flatness of his skull, want of moral | |
qualities, (the[TN-36] proving that the learned men of Mayab understood | |
phrenology). He is in an persuasive attitude; for he has come to try to | |
seduce her in the name of another. She rejects his offer: and, with her | |
extended hand, protects the armadillo, on whose shell the high priest | |
read her destiny when yet a child. In a tree, just above the head of the | |
man, is an ape. His hand is open and outstretched, both in a warning and | |
threatening position. A serpent (_can_), her protecting spirit, is seen | |
at a short distance coiled, ready to spring in her defense. Near by is | |
another serpent, entwined round the trunk of a tree. He has wounded | |
about the head another animal, that, with its mouth open, its tongue | |
protruding, looks at its enemy over its shoulder. Blood is seen oozing | |
from its tongue and face. This picture forcibly recalls to the mind the | |
myth of the garden of Eden. For here we have the garden, the fruit, the | |
woman, the tempter. | |
As to the charmed _leopard_ skin worn by the African warriors to render | |
them invulnerable to spears, it would seem as if the manner in which | |
Chaacmol met his death, by being stabbed with a spear, had been known | |
to their ancestors; and that they, in their superstitious fancies, had | |
imagined that by wearing his totem, it would save them from being | |
wounded with the same kind of weapon used in killing him. Let us not | |
laugh at such a singular conceit among uncivilized tribes, for it still | |
prevails in Europe. On many of the French and German soldiers, killed | |
during the last German war, were found talismans composed of strips of | |
paper, parchment or cloth, on which were written supposed cabalistic | |
words or the name of some saint, that the wearer firmly believed to be | |
possessed of the power of making him invulnerable. | |
I am acquainted with many people--and not ignorant--who believe that by | |
wearing on their persons rosaries, made in Jerusalem and blessed by the | |
Pope, they enjoy immunity from thunderbolts, plagues, epidemics and | |
other misfortunes to which human flesh is heir. | |
That the Mayas were a race autochthon on this western continent and did | |
not receive their civilization from Asia or Africa, seems a rational | |
conclusion, to be deduced from the foregoing FACTS. If we had nothing | |
but their _name_ to prove it, it should be sufficient, since its | |
etymology is only to be found in the American Maya language. | |
They cannot be said to have been natives of Hindostan; since we are told | |
that, in very remote ages, _Maya_, a prince of the Davanas, established | |
himself there. We do not find the etymology of his name in any book | |
where mention is made of it. We are merely told that he was a wise | |
magician, a great architect, a learned astronomer, a powerful Asoura | |
(demon), thirsting for battles and bloodshed: or, according to the | |
Sanscrit, a Goddess, the mother of all beings that exist--gods and men. | |
Very little is known of the Mayas of Afghanistan, except that they call | |
themselves _Mayas_, and that the names of their tribes and cities are | |
words belonging to the American Maya language. | |
Who can give the etymology of the name _Magi_, the learned men amongst | |
the Chaldees. We only know that its meaning is the same as _Maya_ in | |
Hindostan: magician, astronomer, learned man. If we come to Greece, | |
where we find again the name _Maia_, it is mentioned as that of a | |
goddess, as in Hindostan, the mother of the gods: only we are told that | |
she was the daughter of Atlantis--born of Atlantis. But if we come to | |
the lands beyond the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, then we find a | |
country called MAYAB, on account of the porosity of its soil; that, as a | |
sieve (_Mayab_), absorbs the water in an incredibly short time. Its | |
inhabitants took its name from that of the country, and called | |
themselves _Mayas_. It is a fact worthy of notice, that in their | |
hieroglyphic writings the sign employed by the Egyptians to signify a | |
_Lord_, a _Master_, was the image of a sieve. Would not this seem to | |
indicate that the western invaders who subdued the primitive inhabitants | |
of the valley of the Nile, and became the lords and masters of the land, | |
were people from MAYAB; particularly if we consider that the usual | |
character used to write the name of Egypt was the sieve, together with | |
the sign of land? | |
We know that the _Mayas_ deified and paid divine honors to their eminent | |
men and women after their death. This worship of their heroes they | |
undoubtedly carried, with other customs, to the countries where they | |
emigrated; and, in due course of time, established it among their | |
inhabitants, who came to forget that MAYAB was a locality, converted it | |
in to a personalty: and as some of their gods came from it, Maya was | |
considered as the _Mother of the Gods_, as we see in Hindostan and | |
Greece. | |
It would seem probable that the Mayas did not receive their civilization | |
from the inhabitants of the Asiatic peninsulas, for the religious lores | |
and customs they have in common are too few to justify this assertion. | |
They would simply tend to prove that relations had existed between them | |
at some epoch or other; and had interchanged some of their habits and | |
beliefs as it happens, between the civilized nations of our days. This | |
appears to be the true side of the question; for in the figures | |
sculptured on the obelisks of Copan the Asiatic type is plainly | |
discernible; whilst the features of the statues that adorn the | |
celebrated temples of Hindostan are, beyond all doubts, American. | |
The FACTS gathered from the monuments do not sustain the theory advanced | |
by many, that the inhabitants of tropical America received their | |
civilization from Egypt and Asia Minor. On the contrary. It is true that | |
I have shown that many of the customs and attainments of the Egyptians | |
were identical to those of the Mayas; but these had many religious rites | |
and habits unknown to the Egyptians; who, as we know, always pointed | |
towards the West as the birthplaces of their ancestors, and worshiped as | |
gods and goddesses personages who had lived, and whose remains are still | |
in MAYAB. Besides, the monuments themselves prove the respective | |
antiquity of the two nations. | |
According to the best authorities the most ancient monuments raised by | |
the Egyptians do not date further back than about 2,500 years B. C. | |
Well, in Ake, a city about twenty-five miles from Merida, there exists | |
still a monument sustaining thirty-six columns of _katuns_. Each of | |
these columns indicate a lapse of one hundred and sixty years in the | |
life of the nation. They then would show that 5,760 years has intervened | |
between the time when the first stone was placed on the east corner of | |
the uppermost of the three immense superposed platforms that compose the | |
structure, and the placing of the last capping stone on the top of the | |
thirty-sixth column. How long did that event occur before the Spanish | |
conquest it is impossible to surmise. Supposing, however, it did take | |
place at that time; this would give us a lapse of at least 6,100 years | |
since, among the rejoicings of the people this sacred monument being | |
finished, the first stone that was to serve as record of the age of the | |
nation, was laid by the high priest, where we see it to-day. I will | |
remark that the name AKE is one of the Egyptians' divinities, the third | |
person of the triad of Esneh; always represented as a child, holding his | |
finger to his mouth. AKE also means a _reed_. To-day the meaning of the | |
word is lost in Yucatan. | |
Cogolludo, in his history of Yucatan, speaking of the manner in which | |
they computed time, says: | |
"They counted their ages and eras, which they inscribed in their books | |
every twenty years, in lustrums of four years. * * * When five of these | |
lustrums were completed, they called the lapse of twenty years _katun_, | |
which means to place a stone down upon another. * * * In certain sacred | |
buildings and in the houses of the priests every twenty years they place | |
a hewn stone upon those already there. When seven of these stones have | |
thus been piled one over the other began the _Ahau katun_. Then after | |
the first lustrum of four years they placed a small stone on the top of | |
the big one, commencing at the east corner; then after four years more | |
they placed another small stone on the west corner; then the next at the | |
north; and the fourth at the south. At the end of the twenty years they | |
put a big stone on the top of the small ones: and the column, thus | |
finished, indicated a lapse of one hundred and sixty years." | |
There are other methods for determining the approximate age of the | |
monuments of Mayab: | |
1st. By means of their actual orientation; starting from the _fact_ that | |
their builders always placed either the faces or angles of the edifices | |
fronting the cardinal points. | |
2d. By determining the epoch when the mastodon became extinct. For, | |
since _Can_ or his ancestors adopted the head of that animal as symbol | |
of deity, it is evident they must have known it; hence, must have been | |
contemporary with it. | |
3d. By determining when, through some great cataclysm, the lands became | |
separated, and all communications between the inhabitants of _Mayab_ and | |
their colonies were consequently interrupted. If we are to credit what | |
Psenophis and Sonchis, priests of Heliopolis and Sais, said to Solon | |
"that nine thousand years before, the visit to them of the Athenian | |
legislator, in consequence of great earthquakes and inundations, the | |
lands of the West disappeared in one day and a fatal night," then we may | |
be able to form an idea of the antiquity of the ruined cities of America | |
and their builders. | |
Reader, I have brought before you, without comments, some of the FACTS, | |
that after ten years of research, the paintings on the walls of | |
_Chaacmol's_ funeral chamber, the sculptured inscriptions carved on the | |
stones of the crumbling monuments of Yucatan, and a comparative study of | |
the vernacular of the aborigines of that country, have revealed to us. I | |
have no theory to offer. Many years of further patient investigations, | |
the full interpretation of the monumental inscriptions, and, above all, | |
the possession of the libraries of the learned men of _Mayab_, are the | |
_sine qua non_ to form an uncontrovertible one, free from the | |
speculations which invalidate all books published on the subject | |
heretofore. | |
If by reading these pages you have learned something new, your time has | |
not been lost; nor mine in writing them. | |
Transcriber's Note | |
The following typographical errors have been maintained: | |
Page Error | |
TN-1 7 precipituous should read precipitous | |
TN-2 17 maya should read Maya | |
TN-3 20 Egpptian should read Egyptian | |
TN-4 23 _Moo_ should read _Moo_ | |
TN-5 23 Guetzalcoalt should read Quetzalcoatl | |
TN-6 26 ethonologists should read ethnologists | |
TN-7 26 what he said should read what he said. | |
TN-8 26 absorbant should read absorbent | |
TN-9 28 lazuri: should read lazuli: | |
TN-10 28 (Strange should read Strange | |
TN-11 28 Chichsen should read Chichen | |
TN-12 28 Moo should read Moo, | |
TN-13 32 Birmah should read Burmah | |
TN-14 32 Siameeses. should read Siameses. | |
TN-15 33 maya should read Maya | |
TN-16 34 valleys should read valleys, | |
TN-17 35 even to-day should read even to-day. | |
TN-18 38 inthe should read in the | |
TN-19 38 Bresseur should read Brasseur | |
TN-20 49 (maya) should read (Maya) | |
TN-21 51 epoch should read epochs | |
TN-22 52 Wishnu, should read Vishnu, | |
TN-23 58 his art, should read his art. | |
TN-24 59 _Mo_, should read _Moo_, | |
TN-25 62 Mayas should read Mayas' | |
TN-26 63 as symbol should read as a symbol | |
TN-27 66 e. g should read e. g. | |
TN-28 68 _Kukulean_ should read _Kukulcan_ | |
TN-29 69 DuChaillu should read Du Chaillu | |
TN-30 72 death frequently occur; should read death frequently occurs; | |
or deaths frequently occur; | |
TN-31 72 is is should read it is | |
TN-32 73 beats should read beat | |
TN-33 80 _Nicte_ should read _Nicte_ | |
TN-34 80 maya should read Maya | |
TN-35 81 yard should read yards | |
TN-36 81 qualities, (the should read qualities (thus | |
The following words are inconsistently spelled and hyphenated: | |
Aac / Aak | |
Ake / Ake | |
birth-place / birthplace | |
facade / facade | |
Ha / Ha | |
Hapimu / Hapimu | |
Hema / Hema | |
Kinich-Kakmo / Kinich-kakmo | |
Na / Na | |
Rab-mag / Rabmag | |
_senotes_ / senotes | |
Tipho / Typho | |
End of Project Gutenberg's Vestiges of the Mayas, by Augustus Le Plongeon | |
*** |