Chapter III: Preface (3)

If we start from the mouths of the Mississippi River and travel due south, across the Gulf of Mexico, at a distance of exactly four hundred and eighty miles, we come to the northern coast of the Yucatecan Peninsula. Its north-easternmost point, Cape Catoche, is one hundred and twenty miles from Cape San Antonio, the western end of the island of Cuba. Yucatan divides the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean Sea. It is comprised between the 17° 30' and 21° 50' of latitude north, and the 88° and 91° of longitude west from the Greenwich meridian. Its length is, therefore, 260 miles from north to south, and its breadth 180 miles from east to west. The whole country is a fossiliferous limestone formation, elevated a few feet only above the sea; its maximum height in the interior being about 70 feet. Although its rocky surface, bare for the most part, is, in places only, covered with a few inches of tillable loam, formed by the detritus of the stones and the decomposition of vegetable matter, its soil is of surprising fertility.

The whole country is now covered with well-nigh impenetrable forests. A bird's eye view of it from the top of one of the lofty pyramids, that seem like light-houses in the midst of that ocean of foliage, impresses the beholder with the idea that he is looking on an immense sea of verdure having for boundary the horizon, and whose billows come to die, with gentle murmur, at the foot of the monument on which he stands. Not a hill, not a hillock even, breaks the monotony of the landscape, which is only relieved by clusters of palm trees that loom here and there, as islets, above the dead green level.

Anciently, this country, now well nigh depopulated, was thickly peopled by a highly civilized nation, if we are to judge by the great number of large cities whose ruins exist scattered in the midst of the forests throughout the country, and by the stupendous edifices, once upon a time temples of the gods, or palaces of the kings and priests, whose walls are covered with inscriptions, bas-reliefs, and other interesting sculptures that equal in beauty of design and masterly execution those of Egypt and Babylon.

The author of the Troano MS.--a very ancient treatise on geology, one of the four known books which escaped destruction at the hands of Bishop Landa and other fanatical Catholic monks who accompanied the Spanish invaders, when, after a struggle of twenty years, they at last, in 1541, became masters of the country--tells us that anciently the peninsula was called MAYAX; that is, the primitive land, the _terra firma_. It gave its name to the whole empire of the Mayas, that comprised all the countries known to-day as Central America, from the isthmus of Darien on the south, to that of Tehuantepec on the north. The site of the government was at Uxmal; but the great emporium of their arts and sciences, the heart, consequently, of that marvellous civilization, was at Chichen-Itza; that became a vast metropolis. In its temples pilgrims from all parts came to worship, and even offer their own persons as a sacrifice to the Almighty, by throwing themselves into the sacred well from which the city took its name. There also came the wise men from afar, to consult the _H-Menes_, learned priests, whose college still exists. Among these foreigners, were bearded men whose features vividly recall those of the Assyrians of old, and the Afghans of to-day.

From Chichen this great civilization seems to have extended its influence to the remotest parts of the Earth, and to have exercised its controlling power among far distant and heterogeneous nations. The fact is, that we meet with the name Maya in many countries of Asia, Africa, Europe, as well as of America, and always with the meaning of wisdom and power attached to it. Wherever we find it, there also are found vestiges of the language, of the customs, of the religion, of the cosmogonical and historical traditions of the people of Mayax. Many of these traditions have been recorded in the sacred books of various nations and have come to be regarded as the primitive history of mankind. To quote a few instances. The creation of the world, according to their conceptions, is sculptured, and forms an interesting tableau over the door-way, on the east façade of the palace at Chichen-Itza.

It might serve as illustration for the relation of the creation, as we read of it at the beginning of the first chapter of the Manava Dharma Sastra, or ordinances of Menu; a book compiled, says the celebrated indianist, H. T. Colebrooke, about 1300 years before the Christian era, and from other and more ancient works of the Brahmins. Said relation completed, however, by the narrative of the myth according to the Egyptians as told by Eusebius in his work _Evangelical Preparations_.

Effectively, in the tableau we see represented a luminous egg, emitting rays, and floating in the midst of the waters where it had been deposited by the Supreme Intelligence. In that egg is seated the Creator, his body painted blue, his loins surrounded by a girdle; he holds a sceptre in his left hand; his head is adorned with a plume of feathers; he is surrounded by a serpent, symbol of the Universe.

Porphyrius, speaking of Jupiter, the Creator in the Orphic mysteries, says, "the philosophers, that is the initiated, represented him as a man, _seated_, alluding to his immutable essence; _the upper part of the body naked_, because it is in its upper portions (in the skies) that the Universe is seen most uncovered; _clothed from the waist below_ because the terrestrial things are those most hidden from view. _He holds a sceptre in his left hand_ because the heart is on that side, and the heart is the seat of understanding that regulates all the actions of man."

And again, "the Egyptians call Kneph the intelligence, or creative power." _Kneph_, or be it _Kaneh_, seems a cognate of _can-hel_, a Maya word the meaning of which is serpent (dragon); they say that this god threw from his mouth an egg in which was produced another god called _Phtha_, (_Thah_ is another Maya word, it means the worker--hence the Maker, the Creator); and Eusebius asserts, "That they represented Kneph, or the Efficient Cause, as a man of a blue color, with a girdle round his loins, a sceptre in his hand, a crown on his head, adorned with a plume of feathers; and that emblematically they figured him under the form of _a serpent_."

Will any one with common sense pretend that these conceptions concerning the Creator, we find not only identical, but expressed in like manner and with the same symbols, by the philosophers of India, of Egypt, and of Mayax, are mere coincidences? If they are not the result of hazard, they must have been conceived by the wise men of one of these countries, that, no doubt, in which the civilization was the oldest, and communicated to others; these, in turn, taught them to their neighbors, as we know the Egyptians did to the Greeks.

Again, we read in Genesis that at a very early period in man's history, a certain man murdered his brother through jealousy. The victim we are told was named ABEL, his murderer Cain.

No doubt the writer of the book simply repeated the story he had learned from the Egyptian priests, concerning the murder of Osiris (_in whose honor the mysteries were instituted_), by his brother _Set_, through jealousy; making such alterations in his narration as not to divulge the secrets he had sworn to keep.

If any of those initiated to the higher mysteries were still acquainted with the true history of the murder, they kept it a profound secret; and only gave of it such exoteric explanations as best suited their purpose. Very little can be learned from the ancient historians. Herodotus always excuses himself from speaking on the subject; although he asserts he is well acquainted with what pertained to the mysteries: and what we gather from the book of Plutarch, de _Iside et Osiride_, is a version invented to satisfy the initiates of the lower degrees. In it Osiris is represented as having become the culture hero of Egypt. After ascending the throne, having taught his subjects the arts of civilization, he undertook an expedition from Egypt, in order to visit and dispense the same benefits to the different countries of the world. He left his wife and sister Isis in charge of the affairs of the kingdom which she administered aided by the counsels of her friend and preceptor Thoth. Isis, being extremely vigilant, _Set_, her other brother, had no opportunity for making innovations in the government. Still he desired to sit on the throne. After the return of Osiris, he conspired against him and persuaded seventy-two other persons to join with him in the conspiracy, together with a certain queen of Ethiopia named _Aso_ who happened to be in Egypt at the time. He invited his unsuspecting brother to a banquet, and caused a beautiful chest to be brought into the banqueting-room. It was much admired by all. He then, as if in jest, offered to give it to the person it fitted best. All tried getting into it one after another, but it did not fit any as well as Osiris when he in turn laid himself down in it. Then Set, aided by the conspirators, closed the lid and fastened it on the outside with nails.

This story of a brother being slain at the request of another brother, through jealousy, is also related in Valmiki's ancient Sanscrit poem, the "Ramayana." We are not informed by the author from where he obtained it; but the victim was called BÂLI, and MAYA is represented as being his enemy. The recital of this event being identical with that archived in the sculptures and mural paintings still existing on the walls of certain edifices at Chichen-Itza, and with the account of it recorded in the second part of the Troano MS. would seem to indicate that the relation of the fratricide was brought to India by some Maya traveler or missionary; or maybe by the colonists from Mayax that Valmiki tells us took possession of and settled, in very remote ages, in the countries, at the south of the Indo-Chinese peninsula, known to-day as _Dekkan_. They, of course, brought to their new home with the language and customs, the civilization, traditions, and folk-lore from the mother country. Among these the tradition that, in very ancient times, the son of one of their primitive rulers murdered his brother through jealousy, in order to possess himself of his wife, with whom he had fallen in love, and of the reins of the government.

In the inflated style of the Hindoo poets Valmiki recounts the murder of Bâli. The story is as follows. There were two princes named Bâli and Sougriva, sons of a king of the Monkey nation. After the death of their father, Bâli the eldest was called to the throne, being elected sole monarch and supreme lord by the people. A terrible feud had originated between Bâli and Maya on account of a woman they both coveted. Maya challenged Bâli to mortal combat and allured him into an ambush. Bâli not returning after a time was believed to have succumbed, and his brother Sougriva ascended the throne. Bâli returned however, and finding his brother installed in his place accused him of treason in the council of the nobles and before the people. He charged him with causing the news of his death to be circulated in order to usurp the reins of the government. Then he banished him from court, sent him adrift without means, depriving him of his home, his wife and his social position.

Sougriva met Rama; besought his help to avenge his wrongs. Having received his promise to kill Bâli, strong in the protection of such an ally, he challenged his brother to mortal combat, although he knew that alone he was not a match for him. During the encounter that ensued, Rama who was present, seeing that Sougriva was being badly beaten, sent an arrow through the breast of Bâli and killed him. The last word of that prince to his slayer who was standing by him, were: "What glory dost thou expect to reap from the death thou hast given me whilst I was not even looking toward thee? Hidden thou hast wounded me in a cowardly manner while my attention was engrossed in that duel." _And so Bâli was treacherously slain._

We learn from the sculptures and mural paintings that adorn the walls of the palaces at Chichen-Itza and Uxmal that king _Can_ (Serpent) the founder, or maybe the restorer, of these ancient cities, had three sons whose names were _Cay_ (Fish), _Aac_ (Turtle), and _Coh_ (Leopard), and two daughters, _Moo_ (Macaw), and _Nicté_ (Flower).

It was the law among the Mayas that the youngest of the brothers should marry the eldest of the sisters to insure the legitimate and divine descent of the royal family. This same custom of princes of royal blood marrying their sisters existed among the Egyptians from the earliest days, and it became in after times general; such alliance being considered fortunate. It also prevailed with the Ethiopians, the Greeks, those of Mesopotamia in the time of the patriarchs, the Peruvians, and many other nations. Prince _Coh_ was a brave and successful warrior; at the head of his followers, whom he had often led to victory, he had conquered many nations and greatly added to the glory and extent of the Maya empire. Being the youngest of the brothers, he was the one who had to marry Moo, the eldest of the sisters. She, on her part, loved him dearly and was proud of his exploits. After the death of King Can, their father, the country was parcelled among his children. Moo became the queen of Chichen, and many of the lords swore allegiance to her. After her death she received the honors of apotheosis; became the goddess of fire, and was worshiped in a magnificent temple, built on the summit of a high and very extensive pyramid whose ruins are still to be seen in the city of Izamal.

_Aac_, the second son of king Can, was also in love with her. To his lot had fallen the ancient metropolis _Uxmal_, "the three times rebuilt." His headless and legless statue is still to be seen over the main entrance on the façade of the palace known as the "House of the Governor," at that place. The flayed bodies of his two brothers and his eldest sister are at his feet; their heads hang from the belt round his waist: and the ruins of his private residence, ornamented with turtles,--his totem--yet exist at the northwest corner of the second of the three terraces on which the palace is built. The law of the land and her own predilection for Coh were insurmountable barriers that prevented Aac from marrying Moo. He was not a warrior but a courtier. He spent his life in idleness amidst pleasures and frivolities. Still he was envious of the fame won by his younger brother; jealous of him because of the love of the people, and still more of that of his sister and wife. He allowed his evil passions to gain the mastery over his better feelings. He incited a conspiration against the friends of his childhood, with the object of killing his own brother, to obtain forcible possession of the sister he so much coveted, seize the reins of the government, and become the supreme lord of the whole empire.

In the carvings on the wooden lintels over the entrance of Coh's funereal chamber, in the paintings that adorn its walls, and in which that part of the life of the personages concerned in these events is portrayed, Aac is represented full of wrath, holding three spears in his hand, engaged in a terrible altercation with Coh. From the sculptures that adorned his mausoleum we learn that he was murdered treacherously by being stabbed with a spear three times in the back; and the author of the Troano MS. in giving an account of that murder and its consequences, has recorded this fact and illustrated it in the first section of plate xiv., in the second part of his work. [When I disinterred his statue, I found in an urn his heart, partially cremated, and the flint head of the spear with which he was slain.] In one of the tableaux of the mural paintings the body of Coh, surrounded by his wife, his sister _Nicté_, his children and his mother, is being prepared for cremation; the heart and other viscera having been extracted to be preserved in urns. A similar custom prevailed among the Egyptians of high rank whose bodies were embalmed according to the most expensive process. The internal parts of the body having been removed, were cleansed, embalmed in spices and various substances, then deposited in four vases that were placed in the tomb with the coffin.

At the death of Coh the whole country became involved in a civil war. The conspirators, partisans of Aac, striving to seize the reins of the government, the friends of Prince Coh fighting to avenge his death and in defense of their queen. The goddess of war favored at times one party, then the other. Aac, in order to obtain the preponderance, had recourse to diplomacy. He renewed his suit for the hand of his sister. He sent messengers to her, with a present of fruits, begging her to accept his love now that she was free. The scene is vividly pictured in the mural paintings.

Queen Moo is represented seated in her house situated in the middle of a garden. At her feet, but outside of the house to indicate that she does not accept it, is a basket full of oranges. Her extended left hand shows that she declines to listen to the messenger who stands before her in an entreating posture, and that she scorns the love of Aac who is seen on a lower plane, making an obeisance. Over his head is a serpent, typical of his name, _Can_, looking as lovingly as a serpent can be made to look, at a _Macaw_ perched on the top of a tree and above the figure of the queen whose totem it is. The tree is guarded by a monkey in a threatening attitude. This monkey here, as in Egypt the cynocephalus, is the emblem of the preceptor of _Moo_, symbol therefor of wisdom.

This tableau is most interesting and significant, since in it we have a natural explanation of the myth of the temptation of the woman by the serpent. Here we have the garden, the woman, the temptor, and the fruit. The story of this family incident passing from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation, from country to country, has become disfigured probably by peoples that did not hold woman in as high esteem, or did not honor her as much as the Mayas did. Perhaps, also, an old misanthropical bachelor, hater of the fair sex, wrote a distorted account of the tradition out of spite at having been jilted by his lady-love, and his version was accepted by the author of Genesis, if he himself did not make the alteration. The fact is that the author of the Troano MS.--(Plate xvii., part second) as the artist who painted the scene just described--asserts that she refused to listen to _Aac's_ entreaties, in consequence of which the civil war continued. At last _Moo_ and her followers succumbed. She fell into the hands of Aac who, after ill-treating her, put her to death together with _Cay_ the high pontiff, his elder brother, who had sided with the queen of Chichen, with right and justice. In token of his victory, _Aac_ caused his statue--the feet resting on the flayed bodies of his kin, their heads being suspended from his belt--to be placed over the main entrance of the royal palace at Uxmal, where, as I have said, its remains may be seen to-day.

I may add here in explanation of the tableau of the scene in the garden, that the present of a basket of oranges was the offer of marriage made by _Aac_ to _Moo_. It is usual with the aborigines of Yucatan, that yet retain many of the customs of their forefathers, when a young man wishes to propose marriage to a girl to send by a friend as a present, a fruit, or flower, or sweetmeat. The acceptance of the present is the sign that the proposal of the suitor is admitted, and from that moment they are betrothed; whilst the refusal of the present means that he is rejected. A similar custom exists in Japan. When a young lady expects a proposal of marriage a convenient flower-pot is placed in a handy position on the window-sill. The lover plants a flower in it. If next morning the flower is watered he can present himself to his lady-love knowing that he is welcome. If on the contrary, the flower has been uprooted and thrown on the side-walk, he well understands he is not wanted.

The family name of the kings of Mayax was _Can_ (serpent) as _Khan_ is still the title of the Kings of Tartary and Burmah, and of the governor of provinces in Persia, Afghanistan and other countries in Central Asia. _Can_ was therefore the family name of Aac. The meaning of the writer of Genesis when he says that the serpent spoke to the woman and seduced her with a fruit is now easily understood.

The account of the fratricide in Genesis, in the Ramayana, or in the papyri of Egypt, is nothing more or less, with a slight variance, than the story of the feuds of king Can's children. This story, treasured by the priests of Egypt and India, consigned in their sacred books and poems, has been handed down to us among the primitive traditions of mankind.

Nowhere, except in Mayax, do we find it as forming part of the history of the nation. Nowhere, except in Mayax, do we find the portraits of the actors in the tragedy. There, we not only see their portraits carved in bas-reliefs, on stone or wood, or their marble statues in the round, or represented in the mural paintings that adorn the walls of the funereal chamber built to the memory of the victim, but we discover the ornaments they wore, the weapons they used, nay, more, their mortal remains.

The following is the certificate of Charles O. Thompson, Principal and Professor of Chemistry at the Worcester Free Institute, who made the chemical analysis of part of the cremated remains found in the stone urn that was near the chest of the statue that occupied the centre of the mausoleum raised to the memory of the famous warrior Coh, twenty feet below the upper plane of the monument.

WORCESTER, Mass., Sept. 25, 1880.

"Stephen Salisbury, Jr., Esq., submits an unknown solid for qualitative
examination.

"Under microscope it presents a certain compactness and horny aspect
characteristic of animal matter which has been charred in a close vessel,
it loses 9 per cent. when dried at 100° and 9 per cent. more by
combustion. After calcination, a dross and residue remains which contains
3 per cent. fenic oxide, a little alumina and much silica. Warm water
exposed to action of residue shows traces of potash and soda.

"These results are consistent with the theory that the mass was once part
of a human body which has been burned with some fuel."

"CHARLES O. THOMPSON."

There is a fact certainly worthy of notice, and this is that the names of the personages mentioned in the various accounts of the fratricide are precisely identical, or are words having the same signification. May not that be regarded as unimpeachable proof that they all refer to the same event?

No one who has any knowledge of philology will ever deny that A-bel--A-bal--Bal-_i_--_Balam_ are identical words.

A, contraction of _Ah_, is the Maya masculine article, _the_. _Bal_ is the radical of Bal_am_. Balam is for the superstitious aborigines, even to-day, the _Yumil Kaax_--the "Lord of the fields" the "_Leopard_" which they also call _Coh_--the totem of the victim of Aac is the leopard--and it is so represented in the bas-reliefs and sculptures.

In Egypt, the spotted skin of the leopard, usually without the head, but sometimes with it, was always suspended near the images and statues of Osiris. The skin of a leopard was worn as a mantle over the ceremonial dress of his priests.

Besides, when represented as King of the Amenti--of the "West"--the symbol of Osiris was always a crouching leopard with an open eye over it.

We must not lose sight of the fact that the leopard's skin worn by Nimrod and Bacchus was a sacred appendage to the Mysteries. It was used in the Eleusinian as well as in the Egyptian mysteries instituted in honor of Osiris. It is mentioned in the earliest speculations by the Brahmins on the meaning of their sacrificial prayers the _Aytareya Brahmana_, and is used in the _agnishtoma_ the initiation rites of the _Soma_ mysteries. When the neophyte is to be born again he is covered with a "leopard skin," out of which he emerges as from his mother's womb. A leopard skin is worn by the African warriors, who are so fortunate as to possess one, as a charm to render them invulnerable to spears according to the French traveler Paul du Chaillu.

It would seem as if the manner in which _Coh_ met his death, by being stabbed with a spear, had been known to their ancestors, and that they imagined that wearing his totem would save them from being wounded with the same kind of weapon used in killing him. That the inhabitants of Africa had communications with those of the Western Continent there can be no doubt, since populations of black people existed on the isthmus of Panama and other localities at the time of the first arrival of the Spaniards; besides their pictures can be seen in the mural paintings at Chichen.

As to the name _Osir_, or be it _Ozil_, it would seem to be a nickname given to _Coh_ on account of the great love his sisters, and the people in general, professed for him. _Ozil_ is a Maya verb that means to desire vehemently. He, therefore, who was very much desired--dearly beloved.

_Osiris_ in Egypt, _Abel_ in Chaldea, _Bali_ in India, are myths. _Coh_, in Mayax, is a reality--a warrior whose mausoleum I have opened; whose weapons and jade ornaments are in my possession; whose heart I have found, and a piece of which was analyzed by Professor Thompson; whose statue, with his name inscribed on the tablets occupying the place of the ears, I have unearthed, and which is now in the National Museum in the City of Mexico, one of the most precious relics in that institution, having been robbed from me, by force of arms, by the Mexican authorities.

_Isis_ was the wife and sister of Osiris. The word _Isis_ may simply be a dialectical mode of pronouncing the Maya word _i[c]in_ (idzin) _the younger sister_. Her headgear, as a goddess, was a vulture. That bird was her totem and the peculiar type of maternity.

Isis was often called the great mother-goddess _Mau_; a word certainly as suggestive of the name _Moo_, sister and wife of Coh and queen of Chichen, as the _vulture_ is of the _Macaw_. It must not be forgotten that one of the titles of Isis was the _royal wife and sister_.

Authors, who of course know nothing of the facts in the ancient history of Mayax, revealed to me by the sculptures and the mural paintings of the temples and palaces of the Mayas, and contained in the pages of the Troano MS., do not believe that Osiris and his sister Isis were deified persons who had lived on earth, but fabulous beings, whose history was founded on metaphysical speculations, and adapted to certain phenomena of nature. But the primitive rulers of the Mayas, whose history is an exact counterpart of that of the children of _Seb_ and _Nut_, were deified after their death and worshiped as gods of the elements. My object is not here to enter into long explanations on these historical disclosures. I refer the reader who wishes to know more of the subject to my work, "The Monuments of Mayax and their Historical Teachings."

As to the names _Cain_, _Set_, _Sougriva_, _Aac_, they all convey the idea of something belonging to or having affinity with water.

_Cain_, by apocope, gives _Cay_, the Maya word for "fish."

_Set_ is a cognate word of the Maya _Ze_, to ill-treat with blows. Can a name be more appropriate to designate one who has killed his brother with three thrusts of his spear; and his sister by kicking her to death, as _Aac_ is represented doing by the author of the Troano MS.?

_Set_, after being treated with the same honor as the other members of the family of Seb, came to be regarded as the Evil principle and was called _Nubti_, that is, according to the Maya language, the _adversary_, from _nup_ adversary and _ti_ for. He also was the Sun God, the enemy of the serpent. Here again we have a most singular resemblance, to say the least. _Aac_, in the sculptures of Mayax, is always pictured surrounded by the sun as his protecting genius; while the serpent, emblem of the country, always shields _Coh_ and his sister-wife within its folds. The escutcheon of the city of Uxmal shows that the title of that metropolis was the "Land of the Sun." In the bas-reliefs of the queen's chamber at Chichen, the followers of _Aac_ are seen to render homage to the _Sun_; the friends of _Moo_ to the serpent. So in Mayax as in Egypt, the _Sun_ and the _Serpent_ were inimical. In Egypt this enmity was a myth; in Mayax a dire reality.

The hippopotamus and the crocodile were emblems of Set. Plutarch says "that at Hermopolis there was a statue of Set, which was a hippopotamus with a hawk upon its back fighting with a serpent." Both the hippopotamus and the crocodile are amphibious animals, having consequently much affinity with water.

Aac, in Maya, is the name for the turtle, also an amphibious animal.

The name Sougriva, of the brother of Bâli, is a word composed of three Maya primitives, _zuc_, _lib_, _ha_, _zuc_, quiet, tranquil; _lib_, to ascend, and _ha_, water--"He who tranquilly rises on the water" as the turtle does.

The universal deluge is another tradition of the early days that was credited by certain civilized nations of antiquity.

The Egyptian priests who, from times immemorial, had kept in the archives of the temples a faithful account of all events worthy of being remembered, derided the Greek philosophers when they spoke of the deluge of Deucalion and the destruction of the human race. Their answer was that as they had been preserved from it the inundation could not have been universal; they even added that the Hellenes were childish in attaching so much importance to that event, as there had been several other local catastrophes resembling it. They told Solon that the greatest cataclysm on record in their books was that during which Atlantis disappeared under the waves of the ocean, in one day and night, in consequence of violent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; that from that time all communications between their people and the inhabitants of the "Lands of the West" had become interrupted; the occurrence having taken place 9,000 years before his visit to Egypt.

An account of that fearful event was also preserved by the learned men of Mayax who give of it a description identical with that given by the Egyptians. Nearly all the nations living on the western continent have kept the tradition of it, but they do not pretend that all mankind was destroyed.

In Mayax the learned priests caused a relation of it to be carved in intaglio on the stone that forms the lintel over the interior doorway in the rooms on the south side of their college. The building is known to this day by the name of _Akab-[c]ib_, the dark, or terrible writing.

The author of the Troano MS., a work, I have already said, on geology, dedicates several pages at the beginning of the second part to the recital of that fearful cataclysm, and the phenomena which then took place. This leaves no longer room for doubting that a large continent existed in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, and which was destroyed within the memory of man; and that the narrative by Plato of the submersion of Atlantis is, in the main, correct. The Maya author represents the lost land by the figure of a black man with red lips, which would imply that it was mostly inhabited by a race of black men. In this case, the presence of black-skinned populations on the Western continent, anterior to the advent of the Spaniards, would be easily accounted for. The Mayas like the Egyptians, represented the world as an old man. Plutarch says they called East the face, North the right side, South the left side; this conception has reached our days, only we reckon the East as the right hand, West the left, North the face.

When the author of the Troano MS., speaks of the "Master of the land" par excellence, that is king Can deified, he pictures him sometimes with a human body, painted blue, and the head of a mastodon. On the façade of the building at Chichen Itza called by the natives _Kuna_, the house of God, to which Stephens, in his work on Yucatan, gives the name of _Iglesia_, is a tableau representing the worship of that great pachyderm, whose head, with its trunk, forms the principal ornament of the temples and palaces built by the members of king Can's family.

This tableau is composed of a face intended for that of the mastodon. Over the trunk and between the eyes formerly existed a human head, which has been destroyed by malignant hands. It wore a royal crown. This is still in place. On the front of it is a small portrait cut in the round of some very ancient personage. On each side of the head are square niches containing each two now headless statues, a male and a female; they are seated, not Indian fashion, squatting, but with the legs crossed and doubled under them, in a worshiping attitude. Each carries a symbol on their back; totem of the nation or tribe by which the mastodon was held sacred. Under these figures, are two triangles [Symbol: triangles pointing upwards] emblems of offerings and worship in Mayax as in Egypt. So also was the other symbol [Symbol: honeycomb] image of a honey-comb, an oblation most grateful to the gods, since with the bark of the Balche tree, honey formed the principal ingredient of _Balche_, that beverage so pleasing to their palate: the same that under the name of nectar, _Hebe_ served to the inhabitants of Olympus. It is the _Amrita_, still enjoyed, on the day of the full moon, by the gods, the manes and the saints, according to the Hindoos; although it was the cause of the war between the gods and the Titans, and is the origin of many sanguinary quarrels among the tribes of equatorial Africa even in our days.

These symbols leave no doubt as to the fact that the personages represented by the statues are in the act of worshiping the mastodon.

The corona of the upper cornice, that above the mastodon's head, is formed of a peculiar wavy adornment often met with in the ornamentation of the monuments erected by the Cans. Emblematic of the serpent, it is composed of two letters N juxtaposed, monogram of Can [Symbol: wavy lines]. The corona of the lower cornice is made of two characters [Symbol: spiral and steps] that read in Maya _Ah [c]am_, He of the throne--the monarch.

In Japan the seven members of the Can family, deified and figured by the same symbols as in Mayax, are worshiped to-day in the shrine of the palace at Tokio, dedicated to the goddess symbolized by a bird. This goddess calls to mind the goddess _Moo_ of the Mayas, or Isis of the Egyptians. In the upper part of the shrine, over and above all the other attendants who have wings and beaked noses, is seen an elephant couchant, the god of fire standing on his back. In the midst of the flames that surround him is the head of a bird. So in Chichen we see the followers of queen Moo, who, we are informed by the author of the Troano MS. became the goddess of fire, carrying her totem, a bird, in their head-gears.

The Japanese claim to be offspring of the gods, and produce two different genealogical tables in support of their assertion. These gods amounting to _seven_, are said to have reigned an almost incalculable number of years in the country; although they assert that these primitive gods were spiritual substances, incorporeal. They were succeeded by _five_ terrestrial spirits, or deified heroes, after whom appeared the Japanese themselves.

Here again we have a reminiscence, as it were, of the _twelve_ gods, that the Egyptians told Herodotus, had governed their country, an incalculable number of years, before the reign of Menes their first terrestrial king. These gods were converted by the Greeks into the _twelve_ deities, dwellers of the Olympus. The _twelve_ serpent heads, brought to light by me in December, 1883, from the center of the mausoleum of the high-pontiff Cay, at Chichen-Itza, are emblematic of the _twelve_ rulers, who had reigned in Mayax in times anterior to the great cataclysm when Atlantis was submerged; whose portraits, with the sign _cimi_, dead, adorn the east façade of the palace with the tableau of creation, showing that they existed in very early times. Of these rulers we again find a dim tradition in China in the _Tchi_, also called _che-cull-tse_--the _twelve_ children of the emperor of Heaven, _Tien-Hoang_, who had the _body of a serpent_. Each of these _Tchi_ are said to have lived eighteen thousand years, and to have reigned in times anterior to _Ti-hoang_, sovereign of the _country in the middle of the land_.

From this short digression let us return to the worship of the mastodon which we find very prevalent in India in that of the elephant _Ganesha_, the god of prudence, of wisdom, of letters, represented as a _red colored_ man with the head of an elephant. He is invoked by the Hindoos of all sects at the outset of any business. No one would dream of writing a letter or a book without previously saluting Ganesha. His image is seen at the crossing of the roads, oftentimes decorated with a garland of flowers, the offering of some pious devotee. Architects place it in the foundation of every edifice. It is sculptured or painted at the door of every house as a protection against evil; at one of the entrances of every Hindoo city, that is called _Ganesha-pol_, as well as in some conspicuous door of the palace. We have already seen that in the most ancient edifices of Mayax the mastodon's head with its trunk is the principal and most common ornament. Are these mere coincidences? The name _Ganesha-pol_ would be according to the Maya language, the _head of Ganesha_; _pol_, in Maya, being the head. If I wished to go further I might say that in _Ganesha_ we have a dialectical pronounciation of _Can-ex_, "the serpents." No deity in the Hindoo pantheon is so often addressed; and his titles are so numerous that like Osiris it might be named _Myrionymus_ "with ten thousand names."

So many are the legends accounting for the elephant head, it may be safely assumed that its origin is unknown. May not its worship have been introduced in India, with many other customs, that for instance of carrying the children astride on the hip; of printing an impression of the human hand, dipped in red liquid, on the walls of the temples and other sacred buildings by devotees etc.; by colonists from Mayax where these customs prevailed, and the worship of the mastodon was widely spread if not general? This surmise assumes the semblance of probability when we consider that the body of Ganesha is painted red, the color characteristic of the American race, and the symbol of nobility of race among the Egyptians.

The elephant was not among the animals worshiped by them. They do not seem to have been much acquainted with it. But the imprint of the red hand, so commonly seen on the walls of the temples of Mayax and India, has never been observed in the temples of Egypt; neither did the Egyptian women carry their children astride on their hip, as do still those of India and Yucatan, although many other customs were common to the people of these countries. It is probable that the colonists from the "Lands of the West" who settled in the valley of the Nile, replaced the worship of the mastodon, which did not exist in the country, by that of the bull, the largest and most useful of their domestic animals; and that this was the origin of their veneration for the bull Apis, as those who were initiated into the mysteries of Osiris well knew, being told that Apis ought to be regarded as a fair and beautiful image of their soul.

From the remotest antiquity the serpent was held by every people in the greatest veneration as the embodiment of divine wisdom. We have already said that Eusebius asserts that the Egyptians figured emblematically _Kneph_, the Creator, as a serpent; and that the Maya learned priests represented the engendered, the ancestor of all beings, in the sculptures, protected within the coils of the serpent. Mr. Stanyland Wake, in his book on the origin of the serpent worship writes: "the student of mythology knows that certain ideas were associated by the people of antiquity with the serpent, and that it was the favorite symbol of peculiar deities; but why that animal rather than any other was chosen for that purpose is yet uncertain."

The late Mr. James Fergusson in his work on "Serpent and Tree Worship," a work so full of erudition and interesting researches, whilst he conclusively shows that these worships were common to all civilized and half civilized nations of antiquity, fails to indicate the country where they originated. All authors who have written on the subject, admit that their origin is still an impenetrable mystery; although they agree that they are so intimately connected as to make it impossible not to believe it must have been the same.

The limited scope of this book does not allow me to give the matter all the space it deserves. I will therefore content myself, with bringing forth such facts as will conclusively show, at least to unprejudiced minds, that the serpent and tree worship indeed originated on this "Western continent," and from the same cause; "the love of the country," from the _amor-patriæ_, still so firmly rooted in the heart of the aborigines, that it is difficult to induce them to leave the spot where they are born, even to better their condition. Everywhere on the Eastern continents serpent worship is connected with mythological narratives, metaphysical speculations, or astronomical conceptions, far above the intellectual and scientific attainments of the mass of people among whom it prevailed.

These were mere fictions invented by the priests and learned men, to conceal either the real facts, or may be, their own ignorance of them. Still, anxious to maintain the preponderance and power that knowledge gave them over the multitudes, and having to satisfy their curiosity, they imagined such explanations as best suited the notions current in their times and the ideas of the people.

In early days the serpent, emblem of Kneph, the Creator, was the _agathodæmon_, the good genius. It is still so regarded by the Chinese, who consider it one of their most beautiful symbols. Later, when it became emblematical of _Set_ or Typho, the slayer of Osiris, it was looked upon with horror, as the evil principle, the destroyer, the enemy of mankind. It has ever since continued to be so held by the Jews, the Christians, the Mahometans, in fact by all peoples whose religious tenets are founded on the Bible. If the tree and serpent were worshiped throughout the Eastern continents from the shores of the Atlantic ocean to those of the Pacific, from Scandinavia to Egypt and the Asiatic peninsulæ, their worship was not less spread amongst the nations that inhabited the "Lands of the West." We find vestiges of it everywhere on the Western continent; from the banks of Brush creek, in Adams county, in the State of Ohio, where still exists, on the crest of a mound, the effigy of a great serpent 700 feet long, entirely similar to that discovered by Mr. John S. Phené in Glen Feechan, Argyleshire, in Scotland, to the ancient city of Tiahuanuco, whose ruins are 13,500 feet above the level of the Pacific on the shores of lake Titicaca, near the frontier of Bolivia, on the high plateau of the Andes. There is yet to be seen a very remarkable doorway formed out of a single monolith 13 feet 5 inches long, 7 feet high above the ground, and 18 inches thick. This monolith has attracted the attention of d'Orbigny and the other travelers who, like myself, have been struck with astonishment by the beauty of the sculptures that adorn its south-eastern façade. Mayas, no doubt, were the unknown builders of that great city; since in the sculptures mentioned, we find, as in the temples of Japan, the totem of prince _Coh_, of his wife and sister _Moo_, and of their father king CAN (serpent).

I will make here a short digression in order to describe these sculptures, that with the knowledge we possess to-day of the history of the founders of the principal ruined cities of Mayax, afford us another proof that the builders of that city of Tiahuanuco belonged to a then highly civilized nation, which sent colonists to the remotest parts of the earth, as the English do to-day, and to whose historical annals may be traced many of the primitive traditions of mankind. This city was already in ruins when Manco Capac laid the foundation of the Inca's empire, and had been constructed by _giants before the sun shone in heaven_, as the natives said to the Spaniards when questioned as to its antiquity.

We have seen that the members of the family of king _Can_, are still worshiped in the temples of Japan, as of old they were in those of Egypt; we now meet unimpeachable records of them, carved on very ancient monuments, on the shores of lake Titicaca, at the foot of the great glaciers of Sorata and Illimani, as we have found them in mythological lore of India and Greece. Will it be said that these are mere coincidences?

The front of this monolithic gate was once upon a time as highly polished as the material, trachite, will permit. The whole space above the doorway is divided into four bands about eight inches high. The lower band contains seventeen small heads, in low relief, adorned in a somewhat similar manner to that of the central figure. _Seven_ of these, those directly under that figure wear, like it, a badge that seems to be a plume composed of _three_ feathers. These small heads are separated by _grecques_ having macaw's heads at their salient sides; these _grecques_ are the symbol of power and strength. In the ancient Maya and Egyptian alphabets the _grecque_ is equivalent to our latin letter H. _Ah_ is the Maya masculine article, and it conveys to the mind the idea of might and power; this, taken in connection with the _macaw's_ head, totem of Moo, the queen of Chichen, signifies the mighty, the powerful Moo.

The other bands are divided into squares of the same size, except in the center over the doorway, where there is a figure 32 by 21 inches.

Its head, the form of which is not only conventional, as its square eyes and mouth indicate, but likewise emblematical, consists of _three_ superposed layers in the shape of escutcheons, the uppermost of which is sculptured so as to represent a human face. These _three_ escutcheons as the _three_ feathers of the plume that adorns it, the _triple_ throne on which the figure seems to stand, the _three_ dots on each cheek, the _three_ oblong squares on the breast-plate, the _three_ macaw's heads at the extremities of the _triple_ sceptre it holds in its hands, are symbolical of the _three_ great western regions that the Egyptians designated by the generic name of "_Lands of the West_" and represented by the character [Symbol: three-pointed crown] which is an image of the crown worn by some of the high chiefs in Mayax. That the central figure was meant to represent these countries, the sign [Symbol: long hollow rectangle], that stands in lieu of the mouth, indicates. It is the letter _M_, pronounced _Ma_, of the Maya and Egyptian ancient alphabets. It is the radical of _Mayax_, name of the Maya empire. But _Ma_ in Egypt as in Mayax, is a word that signifies land, country, and by extension universe; and in Mayax as in Egypt [Symbol: long hollow rectangle] is one of the signs for land.

The head is surrounded by rays divided into groups of four; four on the top, four on each side, and four on the under part. Each ray is terminated by a circle with a dot in the center [Symbol: circle with a dot in the middle], a sign very often met with on the monuments of Mayax; particularly on the trunk of the mastodon's heads. It is the first letter of the ancient Maya and Egyptian alphabets, and correspond to our letter A, the initial of the Maya word _Ahau_, king.

This would indicate that the central figure was likewise symbolical of the king _par excellence_, ruler of the empire, whom the kneeling personages that surround it, are in the act of worshiping as shown, not only by their posture, but also by the sign [Symbol: hanging fronds], carved on the neck of the macaw-headed figures, the followers of the queen _Moo_ (macaw), which again in Mayax as in Egypt is the symbol of offering, worship, and adoration. The name of this great king we read in the four heads of leopards, terminating the rays at the upper angles, and those in the middle on each side of the escutcheon, and in the four rays of each group. Translating these symbols by means of the Maya language, we find that _Can Coh_ was the name of the potentate; and that he was a member of the _Can_ family, rulers of Mayax. This fact is indicated by the serpent heads at the lower angles of the escutcheon, those at the extremities of the breast-plate, the four oblong squares carved on the ribbons that support it, and the number of rays forming each group round the head.

In Maya _four_ is _can_; but can also means _serpent_, likewise power. Number _four_ according to Pythagoras, was particularly connected with Mercury, the _Thoth_ of the Egyptians, as the deity who imparted intellectual gifts to man. The _Tetraktus_ or number four represented the mystic name of the Creative Power; and in later times it meant _intellect_, _wisdom_, _all that is active_. Pythagoras asks: "How do you count?" Mercury: "one, two, three, four." Pythagoras: "Do you not see that what are four to you are ten and our oath? those (1, 2, 3, 4,) added together, forming ten, and four containing every number within it." The four leopard heads are his totem, _Kancoh, Coh_ being leopard. Further on, I will refer more in detail to these personages, and to the rôle they have played in the civilization of the world, having been, and being still, worshiped in many countries under different names. The peculiar shape of the sceptre held in the left hand of the figure, the upper part of which is bifurcated, each end terminating with the head of a _macaw_, totem of the queen _Moo_ of Chichen-Itza, sister and wife of _Coh_, and its undulations, like those of a serpent in motion, seem intended as an emblem of the three great regions that composed the empire that is likewise portrayed in the three rows of kneeling winged personages. The upper portion of said sceptre is symbolical of the Western continent, divided into two great parts united by the Isthmus of Panama. The lower was meant to represent that extensive island that sunk beneath the waves of the Atlantic ocean, about 11,500 years ago.