Chapter IV: Preface (4)

The sceptre held in the right hand of the central figure being whole, would show that the entire country was governed by a potentate to whom the rulers of the seventeen nations, into which the empire was divided, paid homage and acknowledged as their suzerain. These seventeen divisions of the empire are indicated by the seventeen small heads sculptured on the lower band, and the seventeen signs of land that adorned the arms, the breastplate, and the ribbon from which it is suspended.

Of the small kneeling winged figures, those of the middle row are portrayed with the heads of macaws to signify that they are the particular adherents of queen Moo, that here, as in Mayax, carry her totem as a badge or sign of recognition; whilst the others have human heads, but wear on their crowns her totem, in token that they recognize her as their _suzerain_. All these figures are ornamented with _twelve_ serpents, arranged in groups of _three_, whilst the sash they carry across their body from the shoulder to the waist on the opposite side, terminates in a peculiar knot adorned with the four circles, that we have said stood for the word _Ahau_, that is king, indicating that their lord paramount is a member of the _Can_ (serpent) dynasty. The whole tableau recalls vividly, that presented by the kneeling beaked nosed personages in attendance at the shrine of the bird deity at Kioto.

Mr. Angrand, the well known French archæologist, finds, and with reason, a coincidence between these sculptures and those of Central America, having a corresponding symbolical significance. In them he sees the proof of the identity of origin, of the intimate relationship of the builders of Tiahuanuco and those of Palenque, Ocosingo, and Xochicalco. He might have added, and be nearer to the truth, those of the cities of Mayax, that were founded many centuries before those mentioned by him.

In Mayax, it is where, indeed, the image of the serpent, as a symbol, is most commonly met with. We see it on almost every edifice in every city. It is one of the favorite ornaments, especially at Chichen-Itza, of which place it seems to have been the particular protecting genius. There it is found everywhere. It guards the entrance of all public edifices. It is at the foot of their grand stairways, as if defending the ascent. The columns that support their porticos are representations of it. Its head forms the base, its body the shaft. The nobles and other personages of high rank wore adornments made in the shape of serpents. Chichen may indeed be called the "_City of Serpents_" par excellence. If we, therefore, wish to know the true meaning of the serpent as a symbol, if we desire to inquire as to the motives that led to its worship, it is necessary to question the learned priests of that city; to consult the books in which the philosophers of Mayax have consigned their knowledge and their esoteric doctrines.

The origin of the "Serpent Worship" they tell us, can be traced to two apparently distinct causes. One, the esoteric, taught only to a few select of those initiated in the greater mysteries, is the homage to be tributed by the creature to the Creator. The other, the exoteric, inculcated on the uninitiated, was the love of the country, and the respect due by the subjects to their rulers, living images and vicars of the Deity on earth.

In order to comprehend the first, or esoteric, we must recall to mind that Eusebius says that the Egyptians represented emblematically _Kneph_ the Creator, and the world also, under the figure of a serpent, which, Horapollo asserts, was of a blue color with yellow scales; but they fail to inform us as to what may have been their motives for thus symbolizing the First Cause; or from whom they had received this symbol, that was the same used by the Mayas. A clue to this mystery can no doubt be found in the cosmogonical notions prevalent among the ancient civilized nations; for, strange to say, they seem to have been alike with all. We read in the _Manava-dharma-sastra_ that the visible universe in the beginning was nothing but darkness. Then the great, self-existing Power dispelled that darkness, and appeared in all His splendor. He first produced the waters; and on them moved _Narayana_ the divine spirit.

Berosus, recounting the ancient legend of the creation according to the Chaldeans, says: "In the beginning all was darkness and water; and therein were generated monstrous animals and strange and peculiar forms.... A woman ruleth them all." Her name in Chaldee is _Thalath_, in Greek _Thalassa_ (the sea), that is in Maya _Thallac_ (a thing without steadiness).

Genesis recounts that: "In the beginning the Earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the water. And God said, Let there be light and there was light."

In _Primander_, that modern critics consider the most ancient and authentic of the first philosophical books of Egypt, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, in the dialogue between _Thoth_ and Primander, the Supreme Intelligence, we read these words of _Thoth_. "I had then before my eyes a most prodigious spectacle. All things had resolved themselves into light. A marvellous, pleasing and seducing sight it was to contemplate. It filled me with delight. After a while a horrid shadow, which ended in oblique folds, and assumed a humid nature, agitated itself with terrific noise. From it escaped smoke with uproar, and a voice was heard above the din. It seemed as the voice of the light; and the verb came forth from that voice of light; that verb was carried upon the humid principle. Out of it came forth the fire pure and light, and rising, it was lost in the air that, spirit-like, occupies the intermediate space between the water and the fire. The earth and the water were so mixed that the surface of the Earth covered by the water appeared nowhere."

And in what are termed the modern Hermetic books, the origin of things is thus explained: "The principle of all things existing is God, and the intellect, and nature, and matter, and energy, and fate, and _conclusion_, and _renovation_. For there were boundless darkness in the abyss, and water, and a subtile spirit, intellectual in power, existing in chaos. But the holy light broke forth, and the elements were produced from among the sand of a watery essence."

In the _Popol-Vuh_, the sacred book of the Quiches, we read: "This is the recital of how everything was without life, calm and silent, all was motionless and quiet; void was the immensity of the heavens; the face of the Earth did not manifest itself yet; only the tranquil sea was, and the space of the heavens. All was immobility and silence in the darkness, in the night; only the Creator, the Maker, the Dominator, the Serpent covered with feathers, they who engender, they who create, were on the waters as an ever increasing light. They are surrounded by green and blue, their name is Gucumatz."

We have already said how the Maya sages have taken care to perpetuate their cosmogonical conceptions, by causing the narrative of the creation to be carved, in high relief, over the doorway of the east façade of the palace at Chichen-Itza, and that these conceptions were identical with those of the Hindoos and the Egyptians. It cannot be argued that this identity of ideas about the origin of things, arrived at by the wise men of India, Egypt, and Mayax, and expressed in as nearly the same words as the genius of the vernacular of these various countries admits, is purely accidental; or, that they have arrived separately at the same conclusions on the subject, without communicating one with the other. The notion and its explanation must have originated with one, and been taught to the others just as our modern scientific discoveries, or religious beliefs, are carried from country to country, even the most remote, and made known to their inhabitants. What should we think of the man who would pretend that the railway, electric telegraph, and many other of the latest inventions, instead of having originated in one particular country, nay, more, in the brain of a particular man, have sprung simultaneously among all the various nations which make use of them? Would not that man be regarded as a born idiot or a fit subject for a lunatic asylum? We can easily understand how these cosmogonical notions have passed from the Egyptians to the Chaldees or to the Hindoos or _vice versa_; but who brought them to the "Lands of the West" and when? Who can say they did not arise among the inhabitants of the "Western continent;" and were not conveyed by them to the other nations?

In my work "The Monuments of Mayax," I have shown how the legends accompanying the images of several of the Egyptian deities, when interpreted by means of the Maya language, point directly to Mayax as the birthplace of the Egyptian civilization. How the ancient Maya hieratic alphabet, discovered by me, is as near alike to the ancient hieratic alphabet of the Egyptians as two alphabets can possibly be, forcing upon us the conclusion that the Mayas and the Egyptians either learned the art of writing from the same masters, or that the Egyptians learned it from the Mayas. There is every reason to believe that the cosmogonical conceptions, so widely spread, originated with the Mayas, and were communicated by them to all the other nations among which we find their name.

An analysis of the tableau of creation, carved on the façade of the palace at Chichen-Itza, cannot fail, therefore, to prove interesting. In it we shall find a proof of the scientific attainments of its designers; and also the reason why the serpent came to be worshiped all over the Earth.

The philosophers of Mayax must have known that the waters cover the greatest part of the globe (about three fifths); and that water being a combination of gases (oxygen and hydrogen), the most subtile of fluids, must have been the first form of matter produced. This is why on each side and on the top of the tableau they placed the symbol of water [Symbol: three wavy lines]; taking care to leave without it, at the upper part, a portion equal to two-fifths of its length. In the midst of the waters they represented the figure of an egg, that is a germ. Why an egg and not any other seed? Is it because their study of physiology had made them acquainted with the fact, that no being exists on Earth, but that is born from an egg? They represented the egg emitting rays. The rays of the light into which says Thoth, all things resolved themselves; that, says the Quiche, author of the Popol-Vuh, appeared on the water as an increasing brightness that bathed the Creator, the _feathered serpent_, the _Kneph_, as the Egyptians would name it, in green and azure. It is well to notice that the symbols of water terminate with the head of serpents; because they compared the waves of the ocean to the undulations of the serpent's body while in motion.

For this reason the Mayas named the sea _Canah_, the great, the powerful serpent: and in the Troano MS., the sea is always designated by a serpent's head. This explains why the Quiches, the Mayas, the Egyptians, the Hindoos, represented the world, and, by extension, the maker of it, as a serpent. Thus it is that they placed a serpent within the egg, behind the creator to indicate that this symbol is the totem of the ancestor of all beings. And here we have one of the origins of the serpent worship: that is, the adoration of the Creator.

In Egypt the goddess _Uati_, the genius of the lower country, is at times represented as a serpent with inflated breast, the body standing erect over a basket or sieve, the lower part resting against a figure resembling our numeral 8. At times again, as a winged serpent, with inflated breast, wearing on its head a cap or crown of peculiar shape, that it is said to be the crown of lower Egypt. Why the Egyptians selected such symbols to represent the lower country, we are not informed; and it is doubtful if the learned Egyptologists could explain the motive.

Now it is a most remarkable fact, that these are the very symbols used by the Maya hierogrammatists and artists to figure their own motherland, the Maya empire.

The author of the Troano MS., sometimes pictures Mayax as a serpent with an inflated breast (Plate. XVII., Part II.), at other times as a serpent with part of the body bent in the shape of the Yucatan peninsula,[2] and the artists who executed the paintings in the funereal chamber of Prince _Coh_, typified the country as a winged serpent, with the back painted green, the belly yellow, wearing a blue crown on the head, its tail ending with a peculiar dart resembling in general contour the southern continent of America.

This is not the place to give minute explanations of these symbols which I have considered in another work, I simply wish to consign here such facts as cannot be attributed altogether to hazard. So the peculiar twist against which rests the body of the serpent, emblem of the lower country, is exactly the same that forms the symbol [Symbol: glyph] used in the Troano MS., to represent the gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean sea, whose waters bathe the peninsula of Yucatan, that seems as if standing erect between them as the serpent in the Egyptian sign.

As to the sieve, it is called, by the natives of that country, MAYAB. Mayab was, in past ages, one of the names of the peninsula. The crown of Lower Egypt [Symbol: Egyption crown], is precisely that worn by certain chieftains, whose portraits we see in the bas-reliefs at Chichen-Itza. There the peak was worn in front; in Egypt at the back: may be as a mark of respect on the part of the Egyptians toward their mother country, to signify that as the child, Egypt must stand behind its parent, as it is customary for children to do among the aborigines of Yucatan.

Since the Egyptians and the Mayas used identical signs as symbols of the country in which they lived, may it not be inferred that the same cause prompted their selection? We must not lose sight of the fact that the winged serpents introduced into the paintings of Egypt, are merely emblematic representations connected with the mysterious rites of the dead, and the mode of being in Amenti; that is, in the "Lands of the West" where the souls of the departed were supposed to return and exist, after being liberated from their mortal body.

In early days _Uati_ or _Mati_, the country of Mayax, was one of the divinities, worshiped by the settlers on the banks of the Nile; and the asp, not any other snake, played a conspicuous part in the religious mysteries, and was universally honored.

Here, again, we may ask why? What possible relation can exist between the asp and the country; between the asp and the office of king or the attributes of Deity? Still it was the badge of royalty, worn as an ornament on the head-dress of kings and gods. Is the selection of the asp as a mark of distinction to be ascribed to a mere whim? May not that predilection be assigned to the fact that, when angry, it dilates its breast; and when in that condition it recalled to the minds of the colonists, the geographical contours of the land of their forefathers in the West, and the way it was represented in the books, from which they had studied in their childhood? If we look at a map of the Western continent, it will be easy to perceive that the contours of Central America--that is the Maya empire of old--figure a serpent with an inflated breast, in a position similar to that of the emblem of lower Egypt (Figs. 1 and 2, p. 115.), the head being the peninsula of Yucatan, anciently the seat of the government; and that the southern continent would be the dart of its tail, as pictured by the Maya artists. The green color of its back, the verdant, tropical forests that cover the land; the yellow belly, the internal volcanic fires, that cause the surface to wriggle like a serpent; the blue crown on its head, the blue canopy of heaven above; the wings, the smoke of the volcanoes; the fins, the high peaks of the chain of mountains that traverses the country from north to south, part of the Cordilleras, that are as the backbone of the continent.

The intense love of their country is one of the most striking characteristics of the aborigines to the present day. That love may be said to amount to fanaticism. In it we find another origin of the serpent worship, emblem of the motherland.

In the Serpent mantra, in the _Aytareya Brahmana_, a passage speaks of the Earth as the _Sarpa Rajni_, the queen of the serpents, and the mother of all that moves, still worshiped by the Nayas, dwellers in the valley of Cashmere.

In Mayax the primitive rulers derived their title CAN (serpent) from the shape of the contours of their empire, as the priests of the sun received theirs from the name _Kin_ of that luminary. Their emblem however, was not a winged serpent, with a dart at the end of the tail, but a rattlesnake covered with feathers; image of the feathered mantle used by the king, the high-pontiff, and other high dignitaries, as ceremonial dress. This feathered rattlesnake adorns the walls of the royal mansions. It is seen at Uxmal, on the east façade of the west wing of king _Can's_ palace and at other places. After their death these rulers, images of Deity on earth, received the honors of apotheosis. They became gods and goddesses and were worshiped as such. In Assyria the symbol of the winged serpent was replaced by that of the winged circle, emblem of Asshur, the supreme deity of the Assyrians; and this symbol is seldom found in the sculptures except in immediate connection with the monarch. It seems to be also closely related with the sacred or symbolical tree.

Here again, is another origin of "Serpent Worship," in that of the kings of Mayax under the symbol of the "feathered serpent." One of the names for rattlesnake, in Maya, is _Ahau-Can_, the royal serpent. In the sculptures the king is often represented by this emblem with _seven_ rattles at the end of the tail; seven having been the number of the members of king _Can's_ family. In Egypt the kings and queens were honored as gods after their death. In Greece and other countries, the heroes were deified and worshiped as divinities.

From all antiquity and by all nations, the tree and serpent worship have been so closely identified, as to guarantee the inference that their origin is the same, although it seems difficult to comprehend what possible analogy may exist between them, without a knowledge of the place where they originated, of the people that first instituted it, of their traditions and peculiar notions. Many learned students have published the results of their researches on the subject. None, however, has yet assigned a birthplace to the tree or serpent worship.

The late Mr. James Fergusson tells us that he is inclined to believe that it was in "the mud of the lower Euphrates, among a people of Turanian origin, and spread thence to every country of the old world." This is truly indefinite. Then comes the query: what about the tree and serpent worship among the inhabitants of the Western continent? For they also had their sacred trees; and with them as with the natives of the Eastern world, the tree was symbolical of eternal life.

The oak tree was dedicated to _Baal_, the chief god of the Phoenicians and other eastern nations. Under it the Druids performed their most sacred rites in honor of _Oeseus_, the Supreme Being. The ash was venerated by the Scandinavians. The inhabitants of the island of Delos believe the gigantic palm tree to be the favorite production of Latona. The people of Samos, Athens, Dodona, Arcadia, worshiped in sacred groves, as those of Canaan. In India the worship of the tree is of very ancient date, as in the island of Ceylon: in the courtyard of every monastery a bo-tree (ficus Indicus) is planted. Nowhere, however, do we find the origin of that worship mentioned.

Mr. Fergusson advises us to look to the Egyptians, these being the most ancient civilized people, for an explanation of it, averring that it undoubtedly prevailed among them before the multifarious Theban pantheon was elaborated. In Egypt the tamarisk was the holy tree chosen to overshadow the supposed sepulchre of Osiris, the king of Amenti. The _persea_ was sacred to Athor, the regent of the West, often identified with Isis. The sycamore was consecrated to Nut, mother of Isis and Osiris, frequently represented in the paintings of the tombs, standing in its branches, pouring from a vase, a liquid which the soul of the departed, under the form of a bird with a human head, catches in his hands. It is the water of eternal life. So the trees were particularly sacred to the deities connected with Amenti, that is, to the deified kings and queens from the "Lands of the West."

We are told that the sacred tree was an emblem found in frequent association with the "winged circle" in Assyria. As this symbol is always met with in immediate connection with the monarchs, it would seem that the worship of the tree bears a close relation to, if it is not typical of, that of the deified heroes and kings.

To understand the relationship between the tree, the winged serpent or "circle" and the "monarchs" it is again necessary to consult the annals left carved in stone or written in their books by the wise men of Mayax. From them we learn that the Mayas held certain trees sacred, Landa, Cogolludo, and other early writers tell us that, even as far down as the time of the Spanish conquest, the aborigines believed in the immortality of the soul, that would be rewarded or punished in the life beyond the grave, for its deeds whilst in the body.

Their reward was to consist in dwelling in a delectable place, where pain was unknown, where there would be an abundance of delicious food, which they would enjoy, with eternal repose, in the cool shade beneath the evergreen and spreading branches of the _yaxché_ (ceiba tree), which is found planted, even to-day, in front of the main entrance of the churches, throughout Yucatan and Central America. Sometimes the churches are built in the midst of groves of ceiba trees, that in some localities are replaced by the gigantic palm tree (_Palma real_).

The Maya empire was of old, according to the author of the Troano MS., figured as a tree, planted in the continent known to-day as South America, its principal branch being formed by the Yucatecan peninsula. (See map, page 120.) Here we have the key to the origin of the tree worship, and its intimate relation to the winged serpent and the king. It is again the worship of the country symbolized by a tree, as it also was by a serpent, or by the Ruler. Thus we find a natural explanation of the tradition current among the ancient nations, that the TREE _par excellence_, the tree of life, that is of civilization, of knowledge, was placed in the middle of the land, of the garden, of the primitive country (_Mayax_) of the race; the empire of the Mayas being placed between the two great continents, North and South America, forming the "Lands of the West."[3]

This relation of the tree, the serpent and the country in the middle of the World, is confirmed by the Chinese writers, commentators on the _Chou-king_, one of the most ancient literary monuments of China. Speaking of the Tien-Hoang or kings of heaven, Yong-chi says: _Tien-hoang had the body of a serpent. He was the origin of letters._ _He gave names to the ten_ KAN, _and to the twelve Tchi, in order to determine the place of the year_; and _Yuen-leao-fan_, another writer, says that KAN _means the trunk of a tree, and that_ TCHI _are the branches, reason why they are called_ CHE-CULL-TSE, _the twelve children_. It is well to remark here that the children of king _Can_ were called CAN-CHI, which is still a family name among the aborigines.

TI-HUANG, king of the Earth, is also called _Hoang-kiun_, that is, he who reigns sovereignly in the middle of the earth, and also TSE-YUEN, or the son principle, the engendered, the _Brahma_ of the Hindoos, the _Kneph_ of the Egyptians, the _Mehen_ of the Mayas.

The cross is another sacred symbol much reverenced by all nations, civilized and semi-civilized, ages before the establishment of Christianity: and although we find representations of it in almost every part of the world, from its mere delineation scratched on the rock, to the stately temples and admirably hewn caves of Elephanta in India, still nowhere do we learn of its origin. There are several varieties of crosses, but all may be traced back to the primitive form which resembles the Latin cross.

Among the earliest type known on the Eastern continents is the "Cruz Ansata," called the "Key of the Nile." It was the "symbol of symbols" among the Egyptians, the Phoenicians and the Chaldees, being the emblem of the _life to come_. It was placed on the breast of the deceased, sometimes as a simple [Symbol: T cross] on the fulcrum _of a cone_; sometimes represented as supported on a heart. It is also seen adorning the breasts of statues and statuettes in Palenque, Copan, and other ancient cities of Guatemala, Nicaragua, and various localities of Central America. Everywhere it was associated with _water_. In Babylon it was the emblem of _water deities_. In Egypt, Assyria, and Britain, it was emblematical of _creative power and eternity_. In India, China, and Scandinavia of _heaven and immortality_. In Mayax of _rejuvenescence and freedom from physical suffering_. The cross, as a symbol, was placed on the breast of the initiate after his new birth was accomplished in the Bacchic and Eleusinian mysteries.

Remesal and Torquemada assert, in their respective works, that when in 1519, the Spaniards, under Hernan Cortez, landed at the island of Cozumel, they found crosses which the natives worshiped as gods in their temples. After them many writers, on their authority, have affirmed the same thing. This, however, seems to have been a mistake. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who accompanied Cortez, does not mention the existence of such symbols in Cozumel, but emphatically says that Cortez, having ordered the destruction of the idols that were in the sanctuaries, caused an image of the Virgin Mary to be placed in their stead, and near it a wooden cross, made by two of his carpenters, to be erected, recommending the natives to take great care of them when he left. Dr. Pedro Sanchez de Aguilar, another of the early writers, maintains that the stone crosses found afterward in the island were made in imitation of that of Cortez; and Bishop Landa, although a most zealous missionary, intent on converting the aborigines to the Catholic faith, does not mention the existence of crosses in Cozumel before the advent of the Spaniards; a fact he would certainly have taken advantage of in his predication of the gospel, and would not have failed to mention in his work, had he been satisfied that the symbol really existed.

There can be no doubt that in Mayax, in very remote ages, the cross was an emblem pertaining to the sacred mysteries. No external vestiges of the symbol are to be found among the remains of the temples and palaces of the Mayas, such as those seen at Palenque and other places of Central America. Only one image of a perfect cross have I ever met with in the ancient edifices of Yucatan besides the ground plan of the sanctuary at Uxmal. (See page 35.) It forms part of the inscription carved on the lintel of the doorway of the east façade of the palace at Chichen. Still tradition tells us that the cross was symbolical of the "_God of Rain_." If so, they made no image of it, nor did they celebrate any festival in honor of it at the time of the conquest, but held it simply as a notion of their forefathers.

The ancient Maya astronomers had observed that at a certain period of the year, at the beginning of our month of May, that owes its name to the goddess MAYA, _the good dame, mother of the gods_, the "_Southern Cross_," appears perfectly perpendicular above the line of the southern horizon. This is why the Catholic church celebrates the feast of the _exaltation of the holy cross_ on the third day of that month, which it has consecrated particularly to the _Mother of God_, the _Good Lady_, the virgin _Ma-R-ia_, or the goddess Isis anthropomorphised by Bishop Cyril of Alexandria.

In all localities situated within the 12th and 23d degree of latitude north, about the beginning of January, the dry season sets in and no more rain falls during several months. In May and April in the countries like Yucatan, where there is no water on the surface of the ground, all things become parched; the trees and shrubs lose their leaves, nature looks desolate, all living beings thirst for a drop of moisture, the birds and other wild creatures, mad with thirst, lose their characteristic shyness and venture near the haunts of man, imperiling their lives in search of water; death, for want of it, seems to threaten all creation.

But four bright stars appear in the south. A shining cross stands erect above the southern horizon. It is the heavenly messenger that brings good tidings to all, for it announces that the flood-gates of heaven soon shall be open; that the so longed for rain will shortly descend from on high, and with it joy and happiness, new life to all creatures. Man hails with thankful heart, welcomes with songs of gladness, this brilliant harbinger of the _life to come_, for indeed it is a god for him, the GOD OF RAIN that _rejuvenates nature, frees man and all other creatures from physical sufferings, brings felicity to them--heaven therefore_--and, with renewed life, _immortality_. Is it not the creative power that is eternally renovating and revivifying all things on the surface of the earth? Is it then strange that all nations, in every age, should have worshiped the cross as symbol of the _life to come_ and _immortality_, and held it in so great veneration? It must be remembered that all the civilized nations in the "Lands of the West" and in the "Eastern Continent," dwelt in latitudes where the constellation known as "the Southern Cross" is visible during the month of May, and that the first showers soon follow its apparition above the horizon. From these of course it was transmitted to the others further north, that accepted the symbol, without understanding its meaning, and in aftertimes many speculations have been indulged in concerning its origin: but the unsophisticated natives, in the midst of their forests to-day, rejoice at the sight of the "Southern Cross" and prepare to sow their fields.

The origin and meaning of the mystical [Symbol: T cross], that symbol of "hidden wisdom" as it has been denominated by scholars of our days, found on all Egyptian monuments, in the temples, in the hands of the gods, in the tombs on the breast of the mummies, also met with in the ancient edifices of Mayax, and on the statues and altars in the temples at Palenque, has given rise to many speculations on the part of modern savants. They have not reached yet any conclusion, although its name TAU says plainly, that it is nothing more or less than a representation of the "_God of Rain_" the "Southern Cross." Effectively _tau_ is a Maya word composed of the three primitives _ti_, here, _a_ for _ha_, water, and _u_ month, which translated freely means "_This is the month for water_;" hence for the resurrection of nature--for the new life to come.

The complex form of the mystical [Symbol: T cross] which is formed of a cone with two arms extending, one each side, and an oval placed immediately above them, has been denominated by the Egyptologists _cruz-ansata_. It is not of Egyptian origin. It has its prototype in the conoidal pillar, surmounted by a sphere, used by the Babylonians as symbol of life and death; death being but the beginning or nursery of life. This emblem was only a reminiscence of the _yaxche_, the sacred tree of the Mayas, under the roots of which, the natives assert, is always to be found a source of pure cold water. The trunk of the yaxche, from the foot to the top, forms a perfect cone from which the main branches shoot in an horizontal direction. Its leafy top, seen from a distance, presents the appearance of a half sphere of verdure. The _cone_, the _tau_ and the _cruz-ansata_ were for those initiated to the mysteries the same symbol, emblematical of Deity, of the life to come, of the dual powers, of fertility. The Mayas and other peoples of Central America, in the sculptures or paintings, always represented their sacred trees with two branches shooting horizontally from the top of the trunk, thus presenting the appearance of a cross or tau.

In straying apparently so far from the main object of these pages, and tracing to their true origin the primitive traditions of mankind and many of the religious symbols common to all the civilized nations of antiquity, by dispelling the mists that have accumulated around them in the long vista of ages, my aim has been to show that they all emanated from one and the same source, and that this source was the country of Mayax, in the "Lands of the West." Ancient sacred mysteries, have been celebrated in the temples of Egypt, Chaldea, and India, from ages so remote that it is no longer known by whom or where they were first instituted. Herodotus tells us that the daughters of Danaus instituted the Thesmophoria in honor of the goddess Ceres, in imitation of the mysteries celebrated in Egypt in honor of Isis, and taught them to the Pelasgic women. That Eumolpus, king of Eleusis, instituted in his own country the Eleusinian mysteries on his return from Egypt, where he had been initiated by the priests as Orpheus who founded in Thracia those that bear his name; but who taught the rites of initiation, the use of the symbols and their meaning, to the Hierophants of Egypt, to the magi of Chaldea, to the Gymnosophists of India?

The mode of initiation, the use of the same symbols, with an identical signification ascribed to them, by peoples living so far apart whose customs and manners were so unlike, whose religion, so far at least as external practices were concerned, differed so widely, show that these mysteries originated with one people, and were carried to and promulgated among the others. As we do not find it mentioned anywhere that they originated either with the Egyptians, Chaldees, or Hindoos, and we have seen that their primitive traditions have been derived from the history of the early rulers of Mayax, is it not natural that we should look for the institution of the mysteries among the Mayas, since we find the same mysterious symbols, used by the initiates in all the other countries, carved on the walls of the temples of their gods, and the palaces of their kings? Their history may afford the clue to the original meaning of said symbols, as their language has given us the true signification of the words used by the celebrating priest to dismiss the initiates in the Eleusinian mysteries, or by the Brahmins at the end of their religious ceremonies, and as it has revealed the so long hidden mystery of the mystical TAU.

That sacred mysteries were celebrated from times immemorial in the temples of Mayax, Xibalba, Nachan (Palenque of to-day), Copan and other places of Central America there can be no doubt, since besides the symbols sculptured on the walls of the temples and palaces, in two distinct instances, we see the rites and the trials of initiation described in the Popol-Vuh; and as these rites and trials were identical with those to which the applicants to initiation in the mysteries of Egypt, Greece, Chaldea and India were subjected, we are justified in seeking in Mayax for the causes that may have induced the founders of the sacred mysteries to select the odd numbers 3, 5, and 7, instead of the even 2, 4, and 6 for mystic numbers.

The symbolization of number 3 may possibly be accounted for in two different ways. One is suggested by the sceptre of Poseidon, that Plato says was the first king of Atlantis, and is represented by the Greek mythologists as being a son of Kronos; his three-pronged trident being an allusion to the _three_ great islands that formed his kingdom, North and South America and Atlan, that now lies buried under the waves of the Atlantic ocean. The emblem [Symbol: trident with wiggly prongs] placed in the hands of _Vul_ the god of the atmosphere in the Chaldean mythology, found also in those of the Hindoo gods, may likewise represent the three worlds or great regions that the Egyptian and Maya hierogrammatists designed by the character [Symbol: three-pointed crown] in the hieroglyph for the name of the "Lands of the West," which the latter also figured as the sacred tree with three branches,[4] a simile of which we find in Scandinavia, in the _three roots_ of the sacred ash Yggdrasil, mystic-world tree, and the _three_ heavens, and the three worlds whose destruction, by water, was prophesied by Vishnu.

The deification of the "World" composed of three parts forming a great whole, may have been the origin of the Trimourti, or Triune god, so prevalent among the ancient nations of antiquity, and probably led to the mystification of number 3. We find it symbolized all over the earth, in every nation. We see it in Mayax in the three platforms on which are raised the most ancient edifices; in the three rooms that formed the temple where the mysteries were performed; in the three steps that led to the first or lower platform in all sacred edifices; in the 21 metres (3 × 7) of all the principal pyramids in Yucatan; in the three concentric circles of the Zodiac. We meet with it constantly in India, in the _vyahritis_ or three sacred words; the three ornaments or _saranas_; the three principal classes; the three ways of salvation; the three fetters of the soul or _gunas_; the three eyes in Siva's forehead; the three strands of the sacred cord worn by the initiates of the three principal classes; the three letters of the sacred word A.u.m. In Egypt the three thonged flagelum of Osiris; the triple phallus carried in procession at the festival of the Paamylia in honor of the birth of Osiris, and also the triads, as likewise in Chaldea.

Another way of accounting for the mystification of number 3, is by taking heed of the indications of Orpheus, Plato, Proclus, and the other Greek philosophers who had been admitted to the participation of the secrets communicated in the mysteries to those worthy of being entrusted with them. They tell us that the _three_ intellects of the Demiurgos, of the triple deity, were "_three kings_."

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The author of the Troano MS., relates at some length the history of the three sons of king _Can_; and of the troubles that arose among them when, after the death of their father, the reins of the government fell into their hands. Of that fact a faint tradition, very much distorted, seems to have still existed among the aborigines of Central America at the time of the Spanish conquest; for Bishop Landa states: "That it was said that once upon a time three lords, brothers, governed the country together." Those three brothers, sons of king _Can_, are realities, personages who have certainly lived a mundane existence, since we not only have their portraits, their weapons, and their ornaments, but also their mortal remains. They recall vividly the three sons of Adam, the three sons of Seb, and the three sons of Kronos. The author of the Troano MS., informs us that the members of the family of king _Can_ were deified after their death, and worshiped in temples, the ruins of which still exist buried in the depths of the forests of Yucatan under a shroud of verdure. It is not at all improbable that _Cay_, the elder brother and high-pontiff having instituted with his father the sacred mysteries, took as symbol of the various degrees into which they divided them, the number of the members of their family, in order to perpetuate their name and history through the coming ages. This explanation seems the more plausible, if we remember that Eusebius tells us that the Egyptians represented the supreme Deity under the shape of a serpent (Canhel) that was as superior to the triads, as the father is to his children in whom he rejoices. "_Numero Deus impare gaudet_." In this connection the _three Hoang-ti_, of Chinese mythological times, might also be mentioned. They too had the shape of serpents.

Among the ancient civilized nations of the eastern continents number 5 was also considered mystic. Frequent mention is made of it in their sacred books. In China it occupies a conspicuous place among the celestial or perfect numbers, as 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, are called in the _y-king_, or Canonical book of Changes; a very ancient work, so highly esteemed by the wise philosopher Confucius (Kong-fou-tse) that he was seldom seen without it. There we read of the five elements, water, fire, wood, metal, and earth; of the five kinds of grain; of the five colors, black, red, green or blue, yellow and white; of the five tastes, salt, bitter, sour, acid, and sweet; of the five tones in music; of the five relations of life between men; those between a king and its ministers, a father and his children, a husband and his wife, elder and younger brothers, and between friends; of the five virtues, philanthropy, uprightness, decorum, prudence, fidelity; of the five organs of the body, kidneys, heart, liver, lungs, and spleen; of the five Chang-ti, or elementary generations; of the five parts that form the heavens; of the five seasons of the year; of the five genii that govern the five elements; of the five principal mountains of the empire; of the five tutelary mountains.

In India number 5 is also very prevalent in things pertaining particularly to psychological conceptions or religious observances; so they speak of the five organs of intelligence, by means of which the external objects are perceived; of the five organs of action; the five elements, the five great oblations; of the five great sacrifices; the five great fires, etc. In Mayax it was likewise a mystic number, since we find this simbol [Symbol: five dots] carved at each end of the southern apartment in the edifice consecrated to the celebration of the sacred mysteries. It appears in the number of steps leading from the courtyards or terraces to the principal apartments in the "House of the Governor," "the palace of king _Can_" and other edifices at Uxmal, and in other buildings. It is the number particularly set apart for the second of the three platforms that compose the base on which all the ancient temples and palaces of the Mayas are raised. In the rites of modern Freemasonry, it is still the sacred number related to the second degree. In the Troano MS., the legends of all the compartments into which the work is divided, as in chapters, are composed of five characters, to indicate that said legends are the headings, that is _ho-ol_, the beginning, the head.

This number may have become sacred, in the mysteries, among the Mayas, in remembrance of the number of the children of king _Can_; for besides his three sons _Cay_, _Aac_, and _Coh_, he had, by his wife _Zoo_, two daughters, _Moo_ and _Nicte_, whose names bear a striking resemblance to _T-Mau_, one of the names of Isis and _Nike_ her sister. So king _Can_ by his wife _Zo[c]_, had five children, just as _Seb_ had by his wife _Nut_ in Egypt; these being _Aroeris_, _Set_, _Osiris_, _Isis_, and _Nike_. Strange coincidence, that may, however, give us a knowledge of the origin of the mystification of number five.

SEVEN seems to have been the sacred number _par excellence_ among all civilized nations of antiquity. Why? This query has never been satisfactorily answered. Each separate people has given a different explanation, according to the peculiar tenets of their religion. That it was the number of numbers for those initiated to the sacred mysteries there can be no doubt. Pythagoras, who had borrowed his ideas on numbers from the Egyptians, calls it the "Vehicle of life," containing body and soul, since it is formed of a quartenary, that is: _Wisdom and Intellect_; and a _trinity_ or _action_ and _matter_. Emperor Julian, in _Matrem_ and in _Oratio_, expresses himself thus: "Were I to touch upon the initiation into our secret mysteries, which the Chaldees bacchised, respecting the _seven-rayed_ god, lighting up the soul through him, I should say things unknown to the rabble, very unknown, but well known to the blessed Theurgists."

Whatever that knowledge may have been, and their esoteric explanation of the cause of the mystification of number seven, can only be surmised to-day; but it is not improbable that it was to be found in some event in the early history of the race whose traditions we find scattered broadcast over the Earth. We have seen that the family of king _Can_ was composed of _seven members_, who became rulers of the _seven_ cities that bear their names, the ruins of which still exist in the forests of Yucatan, and by the beauty and richness of the ornamentation, the massiveness and finish of the walls of their temples and palaces, excite the admiration of the beholder. These personages, deified after their death, have been worshiped in various countries, and are yet in some, under different names. May not the remembrance of the existence of these _seven_ ancient rulers of Mayax, have been the origin of the tradition of the _seven_ divine rulers of Egypt; of the _seven Manous_ that according to the Brahmins, governed the world in the night of times; of the _seven Richis_ or holy personages who assisted them; of the _seven princes_ of the Persian court; and the _seven councillors_ of the king; of the _seven Ameshaspants_ or first angels; of the _seven great gods_ of the Assyrians; or the _seven primitive gods_ regarded by the Japanese as their ancestors and said by them to have governed the world during an incalculable number of years; of the _seven Cabiri_, worshiped by the Pelasgians at Lemnos and Samothracia; the _seven_ great gods in theogony of the Nahuatls? Do we not see a simile of the _Ah Ac chapat_ or _seven-headed_ serpent of the Mayas, totem of their _seven primitive Rulers_, that is of the _seven members_ of king _Can's_ family, in the _seven-headed heavenly Serpent_ on which rests Vishnu, the Indian creator, that corresponds to the Egyptian _Kneph_ or the _Mehen_ (_Canhel_) of the Mayas; or in the _seven_ serpents that form the crown of _Siva_; or again in the _Seven-rayed god Heptaktis_, of which the emperor Julian was so reluctant to speak?

It would seem that the duration of certain religious festivals was fixed to commemorate the existence on Earth of these _seven_ primitive gods or rulers, the tradition of which we find in all countries where we meet with vestiges of the Mayas. So we see the _seven days_ of the festival of the Eleusinian mysteries; the _seven days_ of the festival in honor of the bull Apis, a symbol of Osiris; the _seven days_ of the feast of the tabernacles. The septenary system was also adopted for the same purpose no doubt, in Mayax, since we find the _seven_ cities dedicated to each of the members of king Can's family; the _seven_ pyramids that adorned the city of Uxmal; the _seven_ turrets that ornamented the south façade of the north wing of king Can's palace at Uxmal, each turret inscribed with the name of one of the members of his family; those dedicated to the females being on the east end of the wing. The _seven gradients_ into which is divided the third or uppermost of the three platforms that serve as a substructure to the temples and palaces; the _seven superposed gradients_, forming all the pyramids calling to mind the _seven terraces_ of the temple of the _seven_ lights at Borsippa, the most perfect form of Chaldee "temple tower," and the "pyramid degrees" at Sakkara, although in this Egyptian pyramid the gradients are more numerous. The _seven rooms_ built on the west side of the conical mound that supports the temple in which the mysteries were performed at Uxmal: each room again being dedicated to one of the members of king Can's family; the bust of the person to whom it was consecrated being affixed over the doorway. The _seven courses_ of the stones used in the construction of the walls and of the triangular arches that form the ceilings of the rooms. The same system prevails in the arrangement of the grand gallery in the centre of the great pyramid at Ghizzeh in Egypt. In that monument as in all the antique edifices of Mayax, the proportional scale followed by the architects in the drawing of their plans is in accordance with the numbers 3, 5, 7, and their multiples.

The predilection of the nations of antiquity in which the sacred mysteries were celebrated, for number _seven_ appears in many ways. The _seven days_ that the rainfall that produced the deluge lasted, according to the Chaldeans, is reproduced in the _seven days_ of the prophesy of the deluge by Vishnu to Satyravata, as we read of it in the _Bhagavata purana_; and the _seven days_ of the prophesy of the same event, made by the Lord to Noah, according to Genesis; on account of the _seven days_ of rainfall the Babylonian priests used _seven vases_ in the sacrifices; and in the hierarchy of Mazdeism, the _seven Marouts_ or genii of the winds; the _seven rounds_ of the ladder in the cave of Mithra. The Aryans had the _seven horses_ that drew the chariot of the sun; the _seven Apris_ or shapes of the flame; the _seven rays of Agni_; the _seven steps_ of Buddha at his birth. The Egyptians had divided their nation into _seven classes_; the week into _seven days_: according to them the creation was completed in _seven days_. Among the Hebrews, we find the _seven lamps_ of the ark, and of Zacharias vision; the _seven branches_ of the golden candlestick; the _seven days_ of the feast of the dedication of the temple; the _seven years of plenty; and 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 heads_ of the beast that rose from the sea; the _seven seals_ of the book; the _seven trumpets_ of the angels; the _seven vials_ full of the wrath of God; the _seven last plagues_ of Apocalypse. In Greek mythology, the _seven heads_ of the hydra killed by Hercules, the _seven islands_ sacred to Proserpine mentioned by Proclus.

The prevalence of _seven_ as a mystic number among the inhabitants of the "Western Continent" is not less remarkable. It frequently occurs in the _Popol-Vuh_. We find it besides in the _seven families_ said by Sahagun and Clavigero to have accompanied the mystical personage named _Votan_, the reputed founder of the great city of Nachan, identified by some with Palenque. In the _seven caves_ from which the ancestors of the Nahualts are reported to have emerged. In the _seven cities_ of Cibola, described by Coronado and Niza, the site of which has been accurately fixed by Mr. Frank Cushing in the immediate neighborhood of the village of Zuñi. In the _seven Antilles_; in the _Seven heroes_ who, we are told, escaped the deluge.