Chapter VIII: Front Matter (8)

The Mendoza Codex teaches us that when the Mexicans conquered a land they first burnt and utterly destroyed the teocallis situated in the heart of its central capital. They razed this to the ground, and carried off to their own metropolis the totemic images of the rulers of the tribe. The barbarous institution of human sacrifice, which was only practised to a great extent by the Mexicans when the necessity to obtain more plentiful food supplies for their rapidly increasing population forced them to become a nation of warriors and conquerors, seems indeed to have been adopted as a fear-inspiring, symbolical rite commemorating the conquest and destruction of an integral government.

The victim, usually a chieftain taken prisoner in warfare and clad with his insignia and the raiment of his people, was stretched on the stone of sacrifice and, figuratively speaking, represented his country and its four quarters. The tearing out of his heart by the high-priest, armed with the tecpatl, the emblem of supreme authority, signified the destruction of the independent life of his tribe as much as did the burning of the teocalli, and of its capital. It would seem as though the horrible custom of annually sacrificing one or more representatives of each conquered tribe, had been adopted as a means of upholding the assumed authority, inspiring awe and terror and impressing the realization of conquest and utter subjection. It is known that sometimes a member of a conquered tribe voluntarily offered himself as a victim in order to release his people from their obligation, and thus earned for himself immortality.

An insight into the native association of ideas is afforded by Sahagun’s note that the lord or chieftain was “the heart of his Pueblo,” which means town as well as population. The death of the sacrificed chief, therefore, actually conveyed the idea of the destruction of the tribal government to his vanquished subjects. It remains to be seen whether the subsequent partition of portions of his dead body amongst the priesthood and their ritual cannibalism did not signify the absorption of the conquered population into the communal life of their victors. The preservation of the victim’s skull on the Tzompantli, as a register of the conquest of a chieftain, would also be the logical outcome of the native line of thought and symbolism.

At the risk of making a somewhat lengthy digression I will again refer here to a point I have already touched upon, namely, the Mexican employment of the human figure as an allegorical image of their Empire or State, the idea being that the four limbs represented its four governmental and territorial divisions and that these were governed by the head=the lord of the Above or heaven, and the heart=the lord of the Below or earth. A careful study of the native Codices has shown me that such was the native allegory which indeed can be further traced. The territory of a state reproduced the organization of the human body with its four limbs, each of these terminating in minor groups of five.

According to the same set of ideas the cursive image of a state could be conveyed by a main group of five dots, situated in the centre of four minor similar groups. Cross-lines expressing the partition into four quarters would complete such a graphic and cursive presentation of the scheme and not only signify its territorial but also its governmental features. It is noteworthy that, in Nahuatl as in the Quechua, the title for minor chief is homonymous with the word for fingers.

The Nahuatl pilli is a title for a chieftain or lord and also signifies child and fingers or toes. A finger is ma-pilli, the prefix ma, from maitl=hand, designating the fingers as the children of the hand. The thumb is qualified by the prefix uei=great.

Having gained a recognition of the above facts it is not difficult to understand the meaning of certain sceptres in the form of an open hand which occur as symbols of authority borne by chieftains in the native Codices.(41) I know of one important instance, indeed, where an arm with an open hand is represented as standing upright in the centre of a circle divided into sections and zones (similar to fig. 28, nos. 1, 3, 5, and 6).

The above mentioned examples, which I shall illustrate later, have led me to infer that whilst the arm symbolized one of the four divisions of the State, the hand symbolized its capital, the thumb its central ruler and the fingers his four officers or pilli, the rulers of the four quarters of the minor seat of government. In another publication I shall produce illustrations showing that the foot was also employed as an emblem of rule and that Mexico, Yucatan and Central America furnish us with actual proofs that the hands and the feet respectively symbolized the upper and lower divisions of the State.

It is thus curious to compare the name for thumb=uei-ma-pilli and the name Uei-mac (literally, great hand) which Sahagun gives as that of the “temporal” coadjutor of the Mexican culture-hero Quetzalcoatl, as well as the term, our toe=totecxopilli with the well-known title Totec=our chief or lord. In Yucatan the word for hand=kab is, as I shall demonstrate further on, actually incorporated in the title of the lords of the four quarters=Bakab. I am almost inclined to find a trace of a similar association in the Quechua word for fingers=pallca and the title palla bestowed upon noble women.

I have already mentioned in the preceding pages that the natural basis of the all-pervading native numerical division into 4×5=20 was the finger and toe count. The following table exhibits the general custom to designate 20 as one man or one count.(42)

Word for Man. Word for 20. Nahuatl. tlacatl. cem-poualli=one count. Quiché } and } uinay=one man. uinay= " " Cakchiquel } Tzendal. hun-uinic=one man. hun-uinic= " " Maya. uinic. hun-kal= " "

In the latter case the affix kal seems to be derived from the same source as the verb kal=to close up or fasten something, and to signify something complete or finished. At the same time the Maya uinal is the Maya name for the twenty calendar-signs, and the same association is demonstrated as existing in Mexico by the well-known picture in the Vatican Codex I (p. 75), which represents a man surrounded by the twenty Mexican calendar-signs.

As I shall treat of the same subject more fully in another publication, I shall but briefly touch upon the intimate connection there existed between these calendar-signs and the twenty classes into which the population was strictly divided. It is known that an individual received the name of the day on which he was born and it is possible to prove that this determined his position in the commonwealth, his class and his future occupation. Each child was formally registered by the priestly statisticians at birth, and at about the age of six, when his name was sometimes changed, he entered one of the two educational establishments where he was brought up by the State, under the absolute control of the priesthood and rulers. It can be gleaned that one of the chief cares of the latter was to maintain the same average number of individuals in the distinct classes, to which the various forms of labor were allotted and who became in time identified with these. In order to keep the machinery of state in perfect adjustment, individuals had sometimes to be transferred from the class into which they were born, to another. In some cases this seems to have been arbitrarily ordered by the authorities, but the latter appear to have guided themselves by the position of the parents and to have established the custom that an individual might alternatively be transferred into the paternal or maternal class, but not into any other. As each class was, moreover, divided into an upper and lower one, it was possible for each person to elevate himself from the lower to the higher by individual merit or to incur abasement, for unworthy conduct, and being, as we have already seen, “reduced to the official rank of women.”

The direct outcome of such a form of organization was stringent laws governing marriage, it being expedient that certain classes only should intermarry, not only to avoid complications but also to ensure a certain degree of coöperation conducive to the prosperity of the State. In the tribal laws still existing amongst the native tribes of North America, I see the logical survivals of an ancient scheme of organization.

After gaining the above recognition of some of the actual duties of the priest-rulers of ancient Mexico, it is possible to understand the meaning of the native sentence, noted by Sahagun, that the native games of patolli and tlachtli constituted a practice in “the art of government.” From this it is clear that the former, played by two individuals with dice and markers upon a mat in the shape of a cross, and symbolical of the Four Quarters, was originally invented by the priest-rulers for an eminently practical purpose. The mat being an image of the quadruple state and its subdivisions, it was possible to make it serve as a register-board exhibiting the distribution of the population, the number of individuals in each class and its death and birth rates. We are informed that when parents, according to the inflexible law, carried their newborn child to the priest, he consulted his books full of day-signs and foretold what its future was to be.

A proof that it was the positions of the stars which determined the season and furnished the means of fixing a date, is furnished by the fact that the stars were also “consulted” and believed to exert an influence upon the destiny of the child.

The implicit faith in the predictions of the priests and in the absolute influence of the position of the heavenly bodies and the date of its birth upon the individual indicates that the parents were kept in ignorance as to the workings of the machinery of state and that the priesthood were reverenced for their power of prophecy. The belief that they could personally exercise a favorable influence over the destiny of the child seems also to have been encouraged in the parents, since an offering of gifts at the period of registration was customary. After the Conquest, when the native government had been completely broken up, and the enforced registration of birth and the prediction of the priest had utterly lost their original significance, native parents still consulted the surviving members of the priest-rulers; and these ancient statisticians, in order to gain a livelihood, continued to consult their books and uttered predictions as of yore, although their power to control their fulfilment had vanished forever. Ancient Mexico thus furnishes us with an interesting and instructive explanation of the origin of divinatory practices, prognostication at birth, etc. It shows us that, under the ancient form of established government, the sign of the date of a child’s birth actually did control his future destiny, while it was unquestionably in the power of the priesthood, not only to predict his future, but also to exert a favorable or unfavorable influence upon it.

The above facts help us to understand the origin not only of divination, propitiation and the belief in the influence of day-signs, but also of the native games which became popular after the Conquest, when their original use and meaning had become obsolete.

Deferring further discussion of this interesting matter I will but draw attention to Mr. Stewart Culin’s important study of “American Indian Games,”(43) which clearly establishes their “interrelation” and at the same time proves that they were based, as first distinctly insisted upon by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, on the central idea and that of the four quarters of the world. Mr. Culin has gone so far as to fix the place of origin of the “platter or dice class of games which he has found recorded as existing among some 61 American tribes, in the arid region of the southwestern United States and Northern or Central Mexico,” and to conceive that “in ancient Mexico we find traces of its highest development.”

I place the utmost value upon Mr. Culin’s painstaking and conscientious researches and regard them as strongly corroborating my views exposed in the preceding pages. His identification of the pictured diagram in the Féjérvary Codex, as the counting circuit of the Four Quarters, with a presiding god in the middle, as in Zuñi, does credit to his perspicacity. I agree with him in considering that this chart could have been employed after the Conquest for a game or for divination, but trust that, upon perusal of this paper, he will admit that primarily the Féjérvary diagram expressed the native scheme of government and the calendar, which was no other than a means of ruling the classes by binding each of these to a special day and totemic sign. Each of the twenty classes or clans had its day, known by a particular sign which was also its totemic mark. As the day-signs recurred periodically, the chief or head of each clan became its living representative, assumed a totemistic costume and became the “living image of the ancestral teotl,” or god of his people, of whose activity he rendered account to the central government. It is significant that the common native title for lords or chieftains was “tlatoque,” literally, “the speakers,” and that they were closely designated as the spokesmen of his people, who habitually kept silence in his presence.

The fact that the names and signs of the days are identical with the totemic tribal distinctions imposed for governmental reasons, is one which I shall proceed to demonstrate more fully. Meanwhile attention is now drawn to the chapter on the 7-day period in Dr. Daniel G. Brinton’s “Native Calendar of Central America and Mexico,” in which he surmises that the tribal divisions of the Cakchiquels “were drawn from the numbers of the Calendar.”

According to the native records the institution of the Calendar was simultaneous with that of tribal organization and a minute study of both features reveals that it could not have been otherwise.

From the dawn of their history the Cakchiquels, as I have already shown, were divided into thirteen divisions of warriors (Khob, constituting the upper class) and seven tribes (Amag, constituting the lower class). A totem and a day being assigned to each division and tribe, they were, once and for all time, placed in a definite position towards each other and towards the state, and the order in which their chieftains were to sit in general council, and to assume or perform certain duties, was thus instituted. The 20-day period thus constituted a “complete count” and synopsis of the “thirteen divisions of warriors and seven tribes,” but it also fulfilled other not less important purposes.

The day-signs were so ordered that the first, eleventh and sixteenth were major signs employed to designate the years, and identified with the four quarters, elements and their respective colors. The 20-day period, consisting as it also did of 4 major signs and of 4×4=16 minor signs, was as closely linked to the idea of the Four Quarters as it was to the Above and Below, represented by the 13+7 division. It is therefore evident that a simultaneous reckoning of periods consisting of 5, 7, 13, and 20 days was ingeniously combined. I shall show in my special treatise how “the lords of the Night” employed in their astronomical calendar, 9-night and 9-moon periods for purposes of their own and how these also served to carry out certain ideas of organization, controlling persons. Although it embodied the results of long-standing primitive astronomical observation and accorded with the seasons and movements of the celestial bodies, the native Calendar was primarily a governmental institution, designed to control the actions of human beings and bring their communal life in accord with the periodical movements of the heavenly bodies.

In my Note on the Ancient Mexican Calendar System, communicated to the International Congress of Americanists at Stockholm, in 1894, I stated certain historical and astronomical facts which showed that the New Cycle, which began in 1507 with the year Acatl, had commenced on March 14th three days after the vernal equinox and that this delay had obviously been intentional, in order to wait for the new moon, which fell on March 13th at 11.40 A. M., and the planet Venus, “which was possibly visible both as morning and evening star between March 14th and 18th.” The above facts, which have remained unchallenged since their publication, afford an insight into the astronomical attainments of the sun-priests and moon and star-priests and show an evident desire to begin a new era at a favorable time, when there was a conjunction of the heavenly bodies. Thus the terms of office of the lords of the Above and Below were entered upon and the machinery of state set into motion, in unison with striking celestial phenomena. It is impossible not to realize how great must be the antiquity of a system which, evolving from the rudimentary, ceremonial division of a tribe into seven parts, as a consequence of its primitive observation of the Septentriones, developed into a great and complex government dominated and pervaded by the abstract conceptions of the seven-fold divisions of the Above, Below, Middle and Four Quarters.

Deferring further comment I will proceed to demonstrate the practical value, for governmental purposes, of the classification of a community into twenty divisions with as many representative heads, their localizations at given points of the compass, and association with a calendar-sign and day, and will only refer to what I have already published in my Note on the Calendar, namely, how, by means of the combination of 13 numerals with the 20 signs, a unit of 260 days was obtained, and how each sign was combined but once with the same number, and a perfect system of rotation of periods, regulating office, labor, etc., was instituted. It is not possible for me to enlarge here upon the features and merits of the system which I do not hesitate to term one of the most admirable and perfect achievements of the human intellect. My present purpose is to lay stress upon the fact that, in Mexico, the major calendar-signs were borne as titles by the rulers of the four quarters who presided in rotation over a year—the name of this and of their title being always in correspondence.

Nezahualcoyotl, the lord of Tezcoco, is recorded as possessing the title Ome Tochtli=2 Rabbit, and would obviously have presided over the calendar periods of that name. This inference is undoubtedly corroborated by Nuñez de la Vega’s following statement, quoted by Boturini:(44)

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

We thus see that, whilst the names of the chiefs of the four quarters constituted the four major calendar-signs, one supreme lord embodied the attributes or “powers” of the 13 divisions of warriors and principal division. Thus the 13 divisions seem to have been regarded as 12 plus an all-embracing 1.

Nuñez de la Vega continues: “In the representations of their calendar they painted seven black persons, corresponding to the seven days of their reckoning.” Boturini adds: these seven black men were no other than the principal priest-rulers of this nation.... “They held in great veneration the ‘lord of the black men,’ who was entitled Yal-ahua.” Boturini comments on this utterance and explains that the latter was no other than the high-priest.

I point out the evident identity of Yal-ahua to the Mexican Yoal-tecuhtli=the lord of the Night, one of the titles given to Polaris and to his earthly representative, the high priest of the Earth and nocturnal cult. As already explained this personage bore in Mexico the female title, Cihuacoatl=Woman-serpent; but we also find this name for the earth-mother alternating with Chicome-coatl=literally, seven serpents. In Beltran de la Rosa’s “Arte Maya” we find the word “Ahaucchapat,” translated as “Serpent with seven heads” and are thus led to infer that the Mexicans and Mayas had conceived the image of a “serpent with seven heads” as an allegory of the seven tribal divisions united in one body and bestowed this title to the representative of the Earth-cult, the high priest of the Below. It follows that, just as the number 13 resolves itself into 12+1, so the mystic number 7 proves to have been considered as 6+1, precisely what might be expected as the natural sequence of the derivation of the number from a circumpolar constellation, consisting of seven stars, one of which was Polaris. Nuñez de la Vega and Boturini’s testimony teaches us that the Tzendals were organized into twenty divisions and that thirteen of these were embodied in one chief, while the seven others, associated with black, were personified by the high priest. The information that one individual was thus believed to unite in his person the attributes of several classes and that the lords of the four quarters and each of the twenty divisions bore names which were also calendar-signs, gain in value when it is realized that, in the opinion of Drs. Schellhas and Brinton, the invention of the native Calendar system may probably be assigned to the ancient inhabitants of Chiapas, where the Tzendals now dwell.(46) In treating of the ruins of Palenque situated in this region, I shall again refer to the Tzendals.

Meanwhile, let us examine the Cakchiquel tradition about Cucumatz, the sorcerer chief of the Quichés, since it also treats of the 7-day period. We are told that he “ascended to heaven for seven days and descended into the under world for seven days and then assumed, in rotation, four different animal forms during as many periods of seven days.”

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

Having shown how the lords of the Four Quarters were indissolubly linked to the four major calendar-signs which also symbolized the elements, let us examine the data establishing that the capital of each of the four provinces was named a tecpan. From Duran I have already quoted that in the Mexican metropolis there were two tecpans or official houses in which the affairs of the government were attended to and councils held. It is significant that one of these was named “the tecpan of men” and the other “the tecpan of women.” Whilst the metropolis, the seat of the dual government, thus had its two tecpans which were presided over by the two supreme rulers, we have learned from other sources of the four tecpans in Guatemala and that Texcoco, near the city of Mexico, was also termed a tecpan and that its ruler bore as a title one of the four major calendar-signs. These facts explain his position and the reason why the “lord of Texcoco” was one of four lords who supported Montezuma when he met Cortés in full state. A careful investigation of the derivation and true significance of the word tecpan yields interesting results. Cen-tecpan-tli means, a count of twenty persons; the verb tecpana signifies, “to establish something in concerted order; to establish order amongst people.” The verb tecpancapoa means, to count something in regular order.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At Chichen-Itza and elsewhere in Yucatan sculptured figures of ocelots supporting circular vessels have been found and there are interesting instances of the combination of the human figure with ocelot=Balam attributes. One monolithic figure, discovered at Chichen-Itza by Mr. A. P. Maudslay, and belonging to the category of the recumbent statues bearing circular vase-like receptacles, already described, exhibits a human head and form, whilst the body is covered with a spotted skin. In the sculptured image of Mictlan-tecuhtli (fig. 19) a human head is accompanied by limbs of equal length-terminating in wild beasts’ talons. The positions of the limbs are better understood when compared with the following illustration, to which I shall revert (fig. 51). Meanwhile, I shall merely remark that in both of these curious bas-reliefs we seem to have images of the quadruple terrestrial and celestial governments. Fig. 51, which is a corrected drawing of one of those contained in Leon y Gama’s “Descripcion de las dos Piedras,” furnishes an interesting example, in accord with the image of Mictlantecuhtli, of the employment of the group of five as a symbol of the centre and four quarters, and exhibits four limbs associated with four heads (the quarters and their chiefs), while the hands hold two other heads, symbolical of the dual rulers of the State.

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

Figure 51.

Before proceeding farther we must consider tree-symbolism in ancient America. According to Molina the Inca Yupanqui (surnamed the left-handed) ordered the temple of Quisuar-cancha to be made: quisuar=a tree, the _Buddleia Incana_, cancha=place of. Salcamayhua (_op. cit._, p. 77), who attributes the building of this temple to Manco Capac, states that these two trees, which were in the temple, “typified his father and mother ... and he ordered that they should be adorned with roots of gold and silver and with golden fruit. Hence they were called Ccurichachac Collquechachac Tampu Yracan, which means that the two trees typified his parents, that the Incas proceeded from them like fruit from the trees, and that the two trees were as the roots and stems of the Incas. All these things were executed to record their greatness.” This passage is of utmost value, for it conveys to us not only that the Incas kept a record of their male and female ancestry and respectively associated the male and female elements with gold and silver, but also establishes the important point that the tree was employed as an emblem of the life and growth of a lineage or race.

This fact is particularly interesting if collated with the Mexican tree-symbols. In the Féjérvary diagram (fig. 52), we find a different kind of tree and two totemic figures assigned to each quarter, which indicates that the inhabitants of each of the four provinces were regarded as of a distinct race. The top of each tree spreads itself into two branches and, with one exception, each of these bears three blossoms or leaves denoting, it would seem, the division of a tribe into 2×3=6 parts.

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

The majority of tree-symbols, however, exhibit a quadruplicate division as in fig. 53, nos. 1, 4 and 7. At the same time it is impossible not to recognize that each example renders in a graphic manner the organization of a tribe. In nos. 2 and 8, for instance, we find that each of the four branches was again subdivided, yielding eight subdivisions instead of four. In no. 3, we have quadruple branches, a pair of recurved spikes with buds and a central bud, the idea of duality repeating itself in the trunk of the tree, one-half of which above ground is white, whilst the other below ground is dark. The obvious allusion is to the Above and Below and this idea is further symbolized by the head of the coatl=serpent or twin. In this figure there is a hint of the existence of an idea I have found expressed in other cases, namely, that a mystic line of demarcation existed at the base of a tree, which separated its upward from its downward growth. This was the seat of the life of the tree, which sent its trunk and crown heavenwards and its roots and rootlets earthwards. The fact that the juice of the agave or maguey was collected from the core of the plant seems to be at the bottom of its adoption as the sacred and ceremonial “drink of life,” which was, subsequently, carefully prepared and fermented. The idea that a tree enclosed male and female elements seems to have been also a strong one and would, in course of time, doubtlessly have led to the conception of superhuman beings in human form, dwelling in trees. What is more, the adoption by each tribe of a particular sort of tree, a custom amply proven, would naturally lead to a species of tree-cult or veneration which, amongst the uninitiated, might lead to a form of worship of the tree itself.

Figure 53.

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

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

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

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

The meaning of the bird, which is represented as perched on each of the four trees in the Féjérvary diagram, is likewise explained by the metaphors recorded by Olmos who states that, “a son or child or a much beloved lord or chieftain was compared to a beautiful and precious bird, such as the Quetzal, the Roseate Spoonbill, the Blue-bird, etc., etc.” Surmounting the tribal trees in the diagram, the birds therefore typify the lords of the four provinces and this is corroborated by the fact that each different bird is figured again in the corner-loops in combination with the symbols of the cardinal points. The association of the symbols for lord or chief=the head, and the precious bird with the tribal tree also explains the frequent representation, in the native Codices, of one or two serpents entwined around the tree, since the serpent was the symbol in Mexico of the dual rulers or high-priests of the Above and Below. There is ample proof, which shall be presented in full in my monograph on this subject, that the above metaphorical images were as intelligible to the Mayas and other tribes, as to the Mexicans themselves, for the identical metaphors and imagery were in widespread general use. The following data will corroborate this statement.

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

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

A Maya name for the “tree of life,” ua-hom-ché, next claims our attention.(48) A valuable old manuscript dictionary of the Maya language, quoted by Dr. Brinton, records that the word uah means “a certain kind of life.” The word _hom_ is an ancient term for an artificial elevation, mound or pyramid, hence _homul_, the pyramid on which a temple was built. Combined with ché, tree, the word seems to signify “the elevated or high tree of life,” the idea of the celestial tree “on high,” being possibly intended. In connection with this it is interesting to reëxamine fig. 20, IV, which represents a flat pyramid from which grows a four-petalled flower on a stalk with two leaves, the symbolism of which is apparent.

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

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

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

In Peru, Mexico and Yucatan I have found scattered notices proving that individuals habitually painted their bodies with their respective colors. The Mexican “lords of the night” smeared themselves with black. A passage in Sahagun (book I, chap. V) speaks of the whitening of the “face, arms, hands and legs with ‘tiçatl’ ”=chalk, as though this were a habit of the “noblewomen.” In the Codices some women are, in fact, represented with white faces, whilst those of the majority are painted yellow and it is known that yellow ochre was employed in reality. I have, in preparation, a brief, illustrated monograph showing the various modes of painting the face represented in the native pictorial records. In these, men painted red are of frequent occurrence, and it is known that the “red man” owed his appellation to the custom of using red pigment on his body.

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

The native languages furnish strong indications that, in ordinary tribal life, the separation of the sexes must have been generally enforced from remote antiquity and that male and female communities existed in various portions of the continent. It is well known that, to this day, the Nahuatl tongue spoken by the men is different from that spoken by the women, and that the same duality of language prevails among other American tribes. When the male and female portions of the native states separated and founded separate capitals it is obvious that each would have still further cultivated a separate language and that the institution of two distinct cults would have accentuated their differences and given a fresh impetus to their development. As will be shown, the Maya chronicles reveal that, in Yucatan, the nocturnal cult of the female principle degenerated into such abominations that the incensed population actually rose in revolt, murdered the high-priests and scattered their votaries.

It was obviously owing to a recognition of the degradation attendant upon the abuse of intoxicating drinks, which had played such a rôle in the cult of the earth-mother, that such stern laws were enforced in Mexico, at the time of the Conquest, restricting and regulating the use of pulque. This was distributed by the priests at certain festivals only. These and other rigid measures evidently dictated by a spirit of reform, as well as the close union of both cults, seem to have efficiently maintained a certain equilibrium. At the same time two different moral standards were thus inevitably evolved by the votaries of both cults and naturally profoundly affected the position of woman. The dangers and evils attendant upon the earth-cult became irretrievably associated with the female sex and the votaries of Heaven naturally came to regard woman as a source of temptation and degradation. In ancient Mexico and Peru the celibacy of the sun-priests and of a certain number of noblewomen, “the Virgins of the Sun,” was enforced; thus, whilst the position of woman was being lowered in one caste by an artificial set of ideas, it was raised in the other by an equally fictitious association with the Above, which led, however, to her real elevation of mind and character and finally enforced a recognition of her individuality. The consecration of her person, which caused her to assume a position commanding universal homage, relieved her from heavy labor but caused her to be guarded and protected. She was thus condemned to a still greater seclusion, the primary object of which was to remove her from possible contact with members of the lower earthly caste. For, whilst ceremonial usage even required that the male members of the upper caste should associate in certain symbolical rites with the chief women of the lower order, it was a crime and a desecration for a man of the latter caste to approach a woman of the nobility. These could only marry in their own caste or remain celibate and were kept aloof from all debasing influences, inside of protecting walls.

Reflection shows that such conditions would inevitably lead to the formation of a nobility whose ideal was celibacy and whose “Virgins of the Sun,” by virtue of their consecration, ranked highest amongst the women of the “celestial caste.” Those who married did so in their own caste, led a life of seclusion and always maintained a position of superiority over all women of the “earthly caste.” The latter, on the other hand, had the prerogative of being the representatives of their caste, since the cult of the earth-mother necessitated a female representative, high-priestesses and also female chiefs in their own rights. We know that, in ancient Mexico, an independent gynocracy had been founded at one time. From certain native manuscripts and monuments we have positive evidence that a number of independent female chieftains ruled over minor communities and represented them officially, their rank and insignia being equal to that of the chiefs of male communities. At the same time, from the standpoint of the “upper caste,” the position and moral code of these “votaries of the earth,” were always viewed as inferior.

Another factor also exerted a marked and growing influence upon the relative positions of the two classes of women. The enforced seclusion of the noblewomen rendering out-door occupations or work impossible, it became necessary to relegate such to members of the lower caste who gradually constituted a class of domestic slaves, dedicated to the service of the nobility. In ancient Mexico, as a punishment for various crimes, such as murder, theft, etc., an individual, even of the upper class, was reduced to slavery as a punishment for his crime. The ranks of slaves were also recruited from prisoners of war. On the other hand, the laws regulating slavery were just and mild, the children of slaves were born free and various modes of regaining freedom were afforded to those held in bondage as an expiation for crime. The introduction of slaves necessitating, as it did, their classification with the lower class, now associated servitude with the female division of the community, and the idea arose that women and the lower class existed for the benefit of the male element of the state and a favored minority of consecrated women.

If slavery and bondage came to be regarded on the one hand as a just punishment for crime, the idea of liberty shone as an incentive to good conduct. An eloquent proof of the high estimate in which personal freedom was regarded by the ancient Mexicans, is furnished by the Nahuatl word, recorded by Olmos, for “free man”=xoxouhqui-yollotl, literally, “fresh or green heart.” This expression is of particular interest because it explains a strange mortuary custom which consisted in placing a piece of jade, chal-chihuitl, or precious green stone, in the mouth of a noble person, after death, saying that it was “his heart.” In the case of the lower class a stone of little value, named texaxoctli, was employed. In ancient Mexico, therefore, the presence of jade or any green stone, in a grave, proved that the body was that of a free member of the upper caste. It is evident that the employment of this significant emblem was suggested by the Nahuatl word for “freeman,” and constituted a sort of rebus expressing this title or rank.