Chapter II: Part 2

I will complete the list of these remarkable coincidences with a few others regarding customs exactly similar in both countries. One of these consists in carrying children astride on the hip in Yucatan as in India. In Yucatan this custom is accompanied by a very interesting ceremony called _hetzmec_. It is as follows: When a child reaches the age of four months an invitation is sent to the friends and members of the family of the parents to assemble at their house. Then in presence of all assembled the legs of the child are opened, and he is placed astride the hip of the _nailah_ or _hetzmec_ godmother; she in turn encircling the little one with her arm, supports him in that position whilst she walks five times round the house. During the time she is occupied in that walk five eggs are placed in hot ashes, so that they may burst and the five senses of the child be opened. By the manner in which they burst and the time they require for bursting, they pretend to know if he will be intelligent or not. During the ceremony they place in his tiny hands the implement pertaining to the industry he is expected to practice. The _nailah_ is henceforth considered as a second mother to the child; who, when able to understand, is made to respect her: and she is expected, in case of the mother's death, to adopt and take care of the child as if he were her own.

Now, I will call your attention to another strange and most remarkable custom that was common to the inhabitants of _Mayab_, some tribes of the aborigines of North America, and several of those that dwell in Hindostan, and practice it even to-day. I refer to the printing of the human hand, dipped in a red colored liquid, on the walls of certain sacred edifices. Could not this custom, existing amongst nations so far apart, unknown to each other, and for apparently the same purposes, be considered as a link in the chain of evidence tending to prove that very intimate relations and communications have existed anciently between their ancestors? Might it not help the ethnologists to follow the migrations of the human race from this western continent to the eastern and southern shores of Asia, across the wastes of the Pacific Ocean? I am told by unimpeachable witnesses that they have seen the red or bloody hand in more than one of the temples of the South Sea islanders; and his Excellency Fred. P. Barlee, Esq., the actual governor of British Honduras, has assured me that he has examined this seemingly indelible imprint of the red hand on some rocks in caves in Australia. There is scarcely a monument in Yucatan that does not preserve the imprint of the open upraised hand, dipped in red paint of some sort, perfectly visible on its walls. I lately took tracings of two of these imprints that exist in the back saloon of the main hall, in the governor's house at Uxmal, in order to calculate the height of the personage who thus attested to those of his race, as I learned from one of my Indian friends, who passes for a wizard, that the building was _in naá_, my house. I may well say that the archway of the palace of the priests, toward the court, was nearly covered with them. Yet I am not aware that such symbol was ever used by the inhabitants of the countries bordering on the shores of the Mediterranean or by the Assyrians, or that it ever was discovered among the ruined temples or palaces of Egypt.

The meaning of the red hand used by the aborigines of some parts of America has been, it is well known, a subject of discussion for learned men and scientific societies. Its uses as a symbol remained for a long time a matter of conjecture. It seems that Mr. Schoolcraft had truly arrived at the knowledge of its veritable meaning. Effectively, in the 2d column of the 5th page of the _New York Herald_ for April 12, 1879, in the account of the visit paid by Gen. Grant to Ram Singh, Maharajah of Jeypoor, we read the description of an excursion to the town of Amber. Speaking of the journey to the _home of an Indian king_, among other things the writer says:--"We passed small temples, some of them ruined, some others with offerings of grains, or fruits, or flowers, some with priests and people at worship. On the walls of some of the temples we saw the marks of the human hand as though it had been steeped in blood and pressed against the white wall. We were told that it was the custom, when seeking from the gods some benison to note the vow by putting the hand into a liquid and printing it on the wall. This was to remind the gods of the vow and prayer. And if it came to pass in the shape of rain, or food, or health, or children, the joyous devotee returned to the temple and made other offerings." In Yucatan it seems to have had the same meaning. That is to say: that the owners of the house if private, or the priests, in the temples and public buildings, called upon the edifices at the time of taking possession and using them for the first time, the blessing of the Deity; and placed the hand's imprints on the walls to recall the vows and prayer: and also, as the interpretation communicated to me by the Indians seems to suggest, as a signet or mark of property--_in naá_, my house.

I need not speak of the similarity of many religious rites and beliefs existing in Hindostan and among the inhabitants of _Mayab_. The worship of the fire, of the phallus, of Deity under the symbol of the mastodon's head, recalling that of Ganeza, the god with an elephant's head, hence that of the elephant in Siam, Birmah[TN-13] and other places of the Asiatic peninsula even in our day; and various other coincidences so numerous and remarkable that many would not regard them as simple coincidences. What to think, effectively, of the types of the personages whose portraits are carved on the obelisks of Copan? Were they in Siam instead of Honduras, who would doubt but they are Siameeses.[TN-14] What to say of the figures of men and women sculptured on the walls of the stupendous temples hewn, from the live rock, at Elephanta, so American is their appearance and features? Who would not take them to be pure aborigines if they were seen in Yucatan instead of Madras, Elephanta and other places of India.

If now we abandon that country and, crossing the Himalaya's range enter Afghanistan, there again we find ourselves in a country inhabited by Maya tribes; whose names, as those of many of their cities, are of pure American-Maya origin. In the fourth column of the sixth page of the London _Times_, weekly edition, of March 4, 1879, we read: "4,000 or 5,000 assembled on the opposite bank of the river _Kabul_, and it appears that in that day or evening they attacked the Maya villages situated on the north side of the river."

He, the correspondent of the _Times_, tells us that Maya tribes form still part of the population of Afghanistan. He also tells us that _Kabul_ is the name of the river, on the banks of which their villages are situated. But _Kabul_ is the name of an antique shrine in the city of Izamal. Cogolludo, in the lib. IV., cap. VIII. of his History of Yucatan, says: "They had another temple on another mound, on the west side of the square, also dedicated to the same idol. They had there the symbol of a hand, as souvenir. To that temple they carried their dead and the sick. They called it _Kabul_, the working hand, and made there great offerings." Father Lizana says the same: so we have two witnesses to the fact. _Kab_, in Maya means hand; and _Bul_ is to play at hazard.

Many of the names of places and towns of Afghanistan have not only a meaning in the American-Maya language, but are actually the same as those of places and villages in Yucatan to-day, for example:

The Valley of _Chenar_ would be the valley of the _well of the woman's children_--_chen_, well, and _al_, the woman's children. The fertile valley of _Kunar_ would be the valley of the _god of the ears of corn_; or, more probably, the _nest of the ears of corn_: as KÚ, pronounced short, means _God_, and _Kuu_, pronounced long, is nest. NAL, is the _ears of corn_.

The correspondent of the London _Times_, in his letters, mentions the names of some of the principal tribes, such as the _Kuki-Khel_, the _Akakhel_, the _Khambhur Khel_, etc. The suffix Khel simply signifies tribe, or clan. So similar to the Maya vocable _Kaan_, a tie, a rope; hence a clan: a number of people held together by the tie of parentage. Now, Kuki would be Kukil, or Kukum maya[TN-15] for feather, hence the KUKI-KHEL would be the tribe of the feather.

AKA-KHEL in the same manner would be the tribe of the reservoir, or pond. AKAL is the Maya name for the artificial reservoirs, or ponds in which the ancient inhabitants of Mayab collected rain water for the time of drought.

Similarly the KHAMBHUR KHEL is the tribe of the _pleasant_: _Kambul_ in Maya. It is the name of several villages of Yucatan, as you may satisfy yourself by examining the map.

We have also the ZAKA-KHEL, the tribe of the locust, ZAK. It is useless to quote more for the present: enough to say that if you read the names of the cities, valleys[TN-16] clans, roads even of Afghanistan to any of the aborigines of Yucatan, they will immediately give you their meaning in their own language. Before leaving the country of the Afghans, by the KHIBER Pass--that is to say, the _road of the hawk_; HI, _hawk_, and BEL, road--allow me to inform you that in examining their types, as published in the London illustrated papers, and in _Harper's Weekly_, I easily recognized the same cast of features as those of the bearded men, whose portraits we discovered in the bas-reliefs which adorn the antæ and pillars of the castle, and queen's box in the Tennis Court at Chichen-Itza.

On our way to the coast of Asia Minor, and hence to Egypt, we may, in following the Mayas' footsteps, notice that a tribe of them, the learned MAGI, with their Rabmag at their head, established themselves in Babylon, where they became, indeed, a powerful and influential body. Their chief they called _Rab-mag_--or LAB-MAC--the old person--LAB, _old_--MAC, person; and their name Magi, meant learned men, magicians, as that of Maya in India. I will directly speak more at length of vestiges of the Mayas in Babylon, when explaining by means of the _American Maya_, the meaning and probable etymology of the names of the Chaldaic divinities. At present I am trying to follow the footprints of the Mayas.

On the coast of Asia Minor we find a people of a roving and piratical disposition, whose name was, from the remotest antiquity and for many centuries, the terror of the populations dwelling on the shores of the Mediterranean; whose origin was, and is yet unknown; who must have spoken Maya, or some Maya dialect, since we find words of that language, and with the same meaning inserted in that of the Greeks, who, Herodotus tells us, used to laugh at the manner the _Carians_, or _Caras_, or _Caribs_, spoke their tongue; whose women wore a white linen dress that required no fastening, just as the Indian and Mestiza women of Yucatan even to-day[TN-17]

To tell you that the name of the CARAS is found over a vast extension of country in America, would be to repeat what the late and lamented Brasseur de Bourbourg has shown in his most learned introduction to the work of Landa, "Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan;" but this I may say, that the description of the customs and mode of life of the people of Yucatan, even at the time of the conquest, as written by Landa, seems to be a mere verbatim plagiarism of the description of the customs and mode of life of the Carians of Asia Minor by Herodotus.

If identical customs and manners, and the worship of the same divinities under the same name, besides the traditions of a people pointing towards a certain point of the globe as being the birth-place of their ancestors, prove anything, then I must say that in Egypt also we meet with the tracks of the Mayas, of whose name we again have a reminiscence in that of the goddess Maia, the daughter of Atlantis, worshiped in Greece. Here, at this end of the voyage, we seem to find an intimation as to the place where the Mayas originated. We are told that Maya is born from Atlantis; in other words, that the Mayas came from beyond the Atlantic waters. Here, also, we find that Maia is called the mother of the gods _Kubeles_. _Kú_, Maya _God_, _Bel_ the road, the way. Ku-bel, the road, the origin of the gods as among the Hindostanees. These, we have seen in the Rig Veda, called Mâyâ, the feminine energy--the productive virtue of Brahma.

I do not pretend to present here anything but facts, resulting from my study of the ancient monuments of Yucatan, and a comparative study of the Maya language, in which the ancient inscriptions, I have been able to decipher, are written. Let us see if those _facts_ are sustained by others of a different character.

I will make a brief parallel between the architectural monuments of the primitive Chaldeans, their mode of writing, their burial places, and give you the etymology of the names of their divinities in the American Maya language.

The origin of the primitive Chaldees is yet an unsettled matter among learned men. Some professing one opinion, others another. All agree, however, that they were strangers to the lower Mesopotamian valleys, where they settled in very remote ages, their capital being, in the time of Abraham, as we learn from Scriptures, _Ur_ or _Hur_. So named either because its inhabitants were worshipers of the moon, or from the moon itself--U in the Maya language--or perhaps also because the founders being strangers and guests, as it were, in the country, it was called the city of guests, HULA (Maya), _guest just arrived_.

Recent researches in the plains of lower Mesopotamia have revealed to us their mode of building their sacred edifices, which is precisely identical to that of the Mayas.

It consisted of mounds composed of superposed platforms, either square or oblong, forming cones or pyramids, their angles at times, their faces at others, facing exactly the cardinal points.

Their manner of construction was also the same, with the exception of the materials employed--each people using those most at hand in their respective countries--clay and bricks in Chaldea, stones in Yucatan. The filling in of the buildings being of inferior materials, crude or sun-dried bricks at Warka and Mugheir; of unhewn stones of all shapes and sizes, in Uxmal and Chichen, faced with walls of hewn stones, many feet in thickness throughout. Grand exterior staircases lead to the summit, where was the shrine of the god, and temple.

In Yucatan these mounds are generally composed of seven superposed platforms, the one above being smaller than that immediately below; the temple or sanctuary containing invariably two chambers, the inner one, the Sanctum Sanctorum, being the smallest.

In Babylon, the supposed tower of Babel--the _Birs-i-nimrud_--the temple of the seven lights, was made of seven stages or platforms.

The roofs of these buildings in both countries were flat; the walls of vast thickness; the chambers long and narrow, with outer doors opening into them directly; the rooms ordinarily let into one another: squared recesses were common in the rooms. Mr. Loftus is of opinion that the chambers of the Chaldean buildings were usually arched with bricks, in which opinion Mr. Taylor concurs. We know that the ceilings of the chambers in all the monuments of Yucatan, without exception, form triangular arches. To describe their construction I will quote from the description by Herodotus, of some ceilings in Egyptian buildings and Scythian tombs, that resemble that of the brick vaults found at Mugheir. "The side walls slope outward as they ascend, the arch is formed by each successive layer of brick from the point where the arch begins, a little overlapping the last, till the two sides of the roof are brought so near together, that the aperture may be closed by a single brick."

Some of the sepulchers found in Yucatan are very similar to the jar tombs common at Mugheir. These consist of two large open-mouthed jars, united with bitumen after the body has been deposited in them, with the usual accompaniments of dishes, vases and ornaments, having an air hole bored at one extremity. Those found at Progreso were stone urns about three feet square, cemented in pairs, mouth to mouth, and having also an air hole bored in the bottom. Extensive mounds, made artificially of a vast number of coffins, arranged side by side, divided by thin walls of masonry crossing each other at right angles, to separate the coffins, have been found in the lower plains of Chaldea--such as exist along the coast of Peru, and in Yucatan. At Izamal many human remains, contained in urns, have been found in the mounds.

"The ordinary dress of the common people among the Chaldeans," says Canon Rawlison, in his work, the Five Great Monarchies, "seems to have consisted of a single garment, a short tunic tied round the waist, and reaching thence to the knees. To this may sometimes have been added an _abba_, or cloak, thrown over the shoulders; the material of the former we may perhaps presume to have been linen." The mural paintings at Chichen show that the Mayas sometimes used the same costume; and that dress is used to-day by the aborigines of Yucatan, and the inhabitants of the _Tierra de Guerra_. They were also bare-footed, and wore on the head a band of cloth, highly ornamented with mother-of-pearl instead of camel's hair, as the Chaldee. This band is to be seen in bas-relief at Chichen-Itza, inthe[TN-18] mural paintings, and on the head of the statue of Chaacmol. The higher classes wore a long robe extending from the neck to the feet, sometimes adorned with a fringe; it appears not to have been fastened to the waist, but kept in place by passing over one shoulder, a slit or hole being made for the arm on one side of the dress only. In some cases the upper part of the dress seems to have been detached from the lower, and to form a sort of jacket which reached about to the hips. We again see this identical dress portrayed in the mural paintings. The same description of ornaments were affected by the Chaldees and the Mayas--bracelets, earrings, armlets, anklets, made of the materials they could procure.

The Mayas at times, as can be seen from the slab discovered by Bresseur[TN-19] in Mayapan (an exact fac-simile of which cast, from a mould made by myself, is now in the rooms of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Mass.), as the primitive Chaldee, in their writings, made use of characters composed of straight lines only, inclosed in square or oblong figures; as we see from the inscriptions in what has been called hieratic form of writing found at Warka and Mugheir and the slab from Mayapan and others.

The Chaldees are said to have made use of three kinds of characters that Canon Rawlinson calls _letters proper_, _monograms_ and _determinative_. The Maya also, as we see from the monumental inscriptions, employed three kinds of characters--_letters proper_, _monograms_ and _pictorial_.

It may be said of the religion of the Mayas, as I have had occasion to remark, what the learned author of the Five Great Monarchies says of that of the primitive Chaldees: "The religion of the Chaldeans, from the very earliest times to which the monuments carry us back, was, in its outward aspect, a polytheism of a very elaborate character. It is quite possible that there may have been esoteric explanations, known to the priests and the more learned; which, resolving the personages of the Pantheon into the powers of nature, reconcile the apparent multiplicity of Gods with monotheism." I will now consider the names of the Chaldean deities in their turn of rotation as given us by the author above mentioned, and show you that the language of the American Mayas gives us an etymology of the whole of them, quite in accordance with their particular attributes.

RA.

The learned author places '_Ra_' at the head of the Pantheon, stating that the meaning of the word is simply _God_, or the God emphatically. We know that _Ra_ was the Sun among the Egyptians, and that the hieroglyph, a circle, representation of that God was the same in Babylon as in Egypt. It formed an element in the native name of Babylon. Which was _ka-ra_.

Now the Mayas called LA, that which has existed for ever, the truth _par excellence_. As to the native name of Babylon it would simply be the _city of the infinite truth_--_cah_, city; LA, eternal truth.

ANA OR DIS.

Ana, like Ra, is thought to have signified _God_ in the highest sense. Its etymology seems to be problematic. His epithets mark priority and antiquity; _the original chief_, the _father of the gods_, the _lord of darkness or death_. The Maya gives us A, _thy_; NA, _mother_. At times he was called DIS, and was the patron god of _Erech_, the great city of the dead, the necropolis of Lower Babylonia. TIX, Maya is a cavity formed in the earth. It seems to have given its name to the city of _Niffer_, called _Calneh_ in the translation of the Septuagint, from _kal-ana_, which is translated the "fort of Ana;" or according to the Maya, the _prison of Ana_, KAL being prison, or the prison of thy mother.

ANATA

the supposed wife of Ana, has no peculiar characteristics. Her name is only, says our author, the feminine form of the masculine, Ana. But the Maya designates her as the companion of Ana; TA, with; _Anata_ with _Ana_.

BIL OR ENU

seems to mean merely Lord. It is usually followed by a qualificative adjunct, possessing great interest, NIPRU. To that name, which recalls that of NEBROTH or _Nimrod_, the author gives a Syriac etymology; napar (make to flee). His epithets are the _supreme_, _the father of the gods_, the _procreator_.

The Maya gives us BIL, or _Bel_; the way, the road; hence the _origin_, the father, the procreator. Also ENA, who is before; again the father, the procreator.

As to the qualificative adjunct _nipru_. It would seem to be the Maya _niblu_; _nib_, to thank; LU, the _Bagre_, a _silurus fish_. _Niblu_ would then be the _thanksgiving fish_. Strange to say, the high priest at Uxmal and Chichen, elder brother of Chaacmol, first son of _Can_, the founder of those cities, is CAY, the fish, whose effigy is my last discovery in June, among the ruins of Uxmal. The bust is contained within the jaws of a serpent, _Can_, and over it, is a beautiful mastodon head, with the trunk inscribed with Egyptian characters, which read TZAA, that which is necessary.

BELTIS

is the wife of _Bel-nipru_. But she is more than his mere female power. She is a separate and important deity. Her common title is the _Great Goddess_. In Chaldea her name was _Mulita_ or _Enuta_, both words signifying the lady. Her favorite title was the _mother of the gods_, the origin of the gods.

In Maya BEL is the road, the way; and TE means _here_. BELTÉ or BELTIS would be I am the way, the origin.

_Mulita_ would correspond to MUL-TE, many here, _many in me_. I am the mother of many. Her other name _Enuta_ seems to be (Maya) _Ena-te_, signifies ENA, the first, before anybody, and TE here. ENATÉ, _I am here before anybody_, I am the mother of the Gods.

HEA OR HOA.

The God Fish, the mystic animal, half man, half fish, which came up from the Persian gulf to teach astronomy and letters to the first settlers on the Euphrates and Tigris.

According to Berosus the civilization was brought to Mesopotamia by _Oannes_ and six other beings, who, like himself, were half man, half fish, and that they came from the Indian Ocean. We have already seen that the Mayas of India were not only architects, but also astronomers; and the symbolic figure of a being half man and half fish seems to clearly indicate that those who brought civilization to the shores of the Euphrates and Tigris came in boats.

Hoa-Ana, or Oannes, according to the Maya would mean, he who has his residence or house on the water. HA, being water; _a_, thy; _ná_, house; literally, _water thy house_. Canon Rawlison remarks in that connection: "There are very strong grounds for connecting HEA or Hoa, with the serpent of the Scripture, and the paradisaical traditions of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life." As the title of the god of knowledge and science, _Oannes_, is the lord of the abyss, or of the great deep, the intelligent fish, one of his emblems being the serpent, CAN, which occupies so conspicuous a place among the symbols of the gods on the black stones recording benefactions.

DAV-KINA

Is the wife of _Hoa_, and her name is thought to signify the chief lady. But the Maya again gives us another meaning that seems to me more appropriate. TAB-KIN would be the _rays of the sun_: the rays of the light brought with civilization by her husband to benighted inhabitants of Mesopotamia.

SIN OR HURKI

is the name of the moon deity; the etymology of it is quite uncertain. Its titles, as Rawlison remarks, are somewhat vague. Yet it is particularly designated as "_the bright_, _the shining_" the lord of the month.

Zin in Maya has also many significations. Zin is to stretch, to extend. _Zinil_ is the extension of the whole of the universe. _Hurki_ would be the Maya HULKIN--sun-stroked; he who receives directly the rays of the sun. Hurki is also the god presiding over buildings and architecture; in this connection he is called _Bel-Zuna_. The _lord of building_, the _supporting architect_, the _strengthener of fortifications_. _Bel-Zuna_ would also signify the lord of the strong house. _Zuú_, Maya, close, thick. _Na_, house: and the city where he had his great temple was _Ur_; named after him. _U_, in Maya, signifies moon.

SAN OR SANSI,

the Sun God, the _lord of fire_, the _ruler of the day_. He _who illumines the expanse of heaven and earth_.

_Zamal_ (Maya) is the morning, the dawn of the day, and his symbols are the same on the temples of Yucatan as on those of Chaldea, India and Egypt.

VUL OR IVA,

the prince of the powers of the air, the lord of the whirlwind and the tempest, the wielder of the thunderbolt, the lord of the air, he who makes the tempest to rage. Hiba in Maya is to rub, to scour, to chafe as does the tempest. As VUL he is represented with a flaming sword in his hand. _Hul_ (Maya) an arrow. He is then the god of the atmosphere, who gives rain.

ISHTAR OR NANA,

the Chaldean Venus, of the etymology of whose name no satisfactory account can be given, says the learned author, whose list I am following and description quoting.

The Maya language, however, affords a very natural etymology. Her name seems composed of _ix_, the feminine article, _she_; and of _tac_, or _tal_, a verb that signifies to have a desire to satisfy a corporal want or inclination. IXTAL would, therefore, be she who desires to satisfy a corporal inclination. As to her other name, _Nana_, it simply means the great mother, the very mother. If from the names of god and goddesses, we pass to that of places, we will find that the Maya language also furnishes a perfect etymology for them.

In the account of the creation of the world, according to the Chaldeans, we find that a woman whose name in Chaldee is _Thalatth_, was said to have ruled over the monstrous animals of strange forms, that were generated and existed in darkness and water. The Greek called her _Thalassa_ (the sea). But the Maya vocable _Thallac_, signifies a thing without steadiness, like the sea.

URUKH.

The first king of the Chaldees was a great architect. To him are ascribed the most archaic monuments of the plains of Lower Mesopotamia. He is said to have conceived the plans of the Babylonian Temple. He constructed his edifices of mud and bricks, with rectangular bases, their angles fronting the cardinal points; receding stages, exterior staircases, with shrines crowning the whole structure. In this description of the primitive constructions of the Chaldeans, no one can fail to recognize the Maya mode of building, and we see them not only in Yucatan, but throughout Central America, Peru, even Hindoostan. The very name _Urkuh_ seems composed of two Maya words HUK, to make everything, and LUK, mud; he who makes everything of mud; so significative of his building propensities and of the materials used by him.

ASSYRIA.

The etymology of the name of that country, as well as that of Asshur, the supreme god of the Assyrians, who never pronounced his name without adding "Asshur is my lord," is still an undecided matter amongst the learned philologists of our days. Some contend that the country was named after the god Asshur; others that the god Asshur received his name from the place where he was worshiped. None agree, however, as to the significative meaning of the name Asshur. In Assyrian and Hebrew languages the name of the country and people is derived from that of the god. That Asshur was the name of the deity, and that the country was named after it, I have no doubt, since I find its etymology, so much sought for by philologists, in the American Maya language. Effectively the word _asshur_, sometimes written _ashur_, would be AXUL in Maya.

_A_, in that language, placed before a noun, is the possessive pronoun, as the second person, thy or thine, and _xul_, means end, termination. It is also the name of the sixth month of the Maya calendar. _Axul_ would therefore be _thy end_. Among all the nations which have recognized the existence of a SUPREME BEING, Deity has been considered as the beginning and end of all things, to which all aspire to be united.

A strange coincidence that may be without significance, but is not out of place to mention here, is the fact that the early kings of Chaldea are represented on the monuments as sovereigns over the _Kiprat-arbat_, or FOUR RACES. While tradition tells us that the great lord of the universe, king of the giants, whose capital was _Tiahuanaco_, the magnificent ruins of which are still to be seen on the shores of the lake of Titicaca, reigned over _Ttahuatyn-suyu_, the FOUR PROVINCES. In the _Chou-King_ we read that in very remote times _China_ was called by its inhabitants _Sse-yo_, THE FOUR PARTS OF THE EMPIRE. The _Manava-Dharma-Sastra_, the _Ramayana_, and other sacred books of Hindostan also inform us that the ancient Hindoos designated their country as the FOUR MOUNTAINS, and from some of the monumental inscriptions at Uxmal it would seem that, among other names, that place was called the land of the _canchi_, or FOUR MOUTHS, that recalls vividly the name of Chaldea _Arba-Lisun_, the FOUR TONGUES.

That the language of the Mayas was known in Chaldea in remote ages, but became lost in the course of time, is evident from the Book of Daniel. It seems that some of the learned men of Judea understood it still at the beginning of the Christian era, as many to-day understand Greek, Latin, Sanscrit, &c.; since, we are informed by the writers of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, that the last words of Jesus of Nazareth expiring on the cross were uttered in it.

In the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel, we read that the fingers of the hand of a man were seen writing on the wall of the hall, where King Belshazzar was banqueting, the words "Mene, mene, Tekel, upharsin," which could not be read by any of the wise men summoned by order of the king. Daniel, however, being brought in, is said to have given as their interpretation: _Numbered_, _numbered_, _weighed_, _dividing_, perhaps with the help of the angel Gabriel, who is said by learned rabbins to be the only individual of the angelic hosts who can speak Chaldean and Syriac, and had once before assisted him in interpreting the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar. Perhaps also, having been taught the learning of the Chaldeans, he had studied the ancient Chaldee language, and was thus enabled to read the fatidical words, which have the very same meaning in the Maya language as he gave them. Effectively, _mene_ or _mane_, _numbered_, would seem to correspond to the Maya verbs, MAN, to buy, to purchase, hence to number, things being sold by the quantity--or MANEL, to pass, to exceed. _Tekel_, weighed, would correspond to TEC, light. To-day it is used in the sense of lightness in motion, brevity, nimbleness: and _Upharsin_, dividing, seem allied to the words PPA, to divide two things united; or _uppah_, to break, making a sharp sound; or _paah_, to break edifices; or, again, PAALTAL, to break, to scatter the inhabitants of a place.

As to the last words of Jesus of Nazareth, when expiring on the cross, as reported by the Evangelists, _Eli, Eli_, according to St. Matthew, and _Eloi, Eloi_, according to St. Mark, _lama sabachthani_, they are pure Maya vocables; but have a very different meaning to that attributed to them, and more in accordance with His character. By placing in the mouth of the dying martyr these words: _My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?_ they have done him an injustice, presenting him in his last moments despairing and cowardly, traits so foreign to his life, to his teachings, to the resignation shown by him during his trial, and to the fortitude displayed by him in his last journey to Calvary; more than all, so unbecoming, not to say absurd, being in glaring contradiction to his role as God. If God himself, why complain that God has forsaken him? He evidently did not speak Hebrew in dying, since his two mentioned biographers inform us that the people around him did not understand what he said, and supposed he was calling Elias to help him: _This man calleth for Elias._

His bosom friend, who never abandoned him--who stood to the last at the foot of the cross, with his mother and other friends and relatives, do not report such unbefitting words as having been uttered by Jesus. He simply says, that after recommending his mother to his care, he complained of being thirsty, and that, as the sponge saturated with vinegar was applied to his mouth, he merely said: IT IS FINISHED! and _he bowed his head and gave up the ghost_. (St. John, chap. xix., v. 30.)

Well, this is exactly the meaning of the Maya words, HELO, HELO, LAMAH ZABAC TA NI, literally: HELO, HELO, now, now; LAMAH, sinking; ZABAC, black ink; TA, over; NI, nose; in our language: _Now, now I am sinking; darkness covers my face!_ No weakness, no despair--He merely tells his friends all is over. _It is finished!_ and expires.

Before leaving Asia Minor, in order to seek in Egypt the vestiges of the Mayas, I will mention the fact that the names of some of the natives who inhabited of old that part of the Asiatic continent, and many of those of places and cities seem to be of American Maya origin. The Promised Land, for example--that part of the coast of Phoenicia so famous for the fertility of its soil, where the Hebrews, after journeying during forty years in the desert, arrived at last, tired and exhausted from so many hard-fought battles--was known as _Canaan_. This is a Maya word that means to be tired, to be fatigued; and, if it is spelled _Kanaan_, it then signifies abundance; both significations applying well to the country.

TYRE, the great emporium of the Phoenicians, called _Tzur_, probably on account of being built on a rock, may also derive its name from the Maya TZUC, a promontory, or a number of villages, _Tzucub_ being a province.

Again, we have the people called _Khati_ by the Egyptians. They formed a great nation that inhabited the _Cæle-Syria_ and the valley of the Orontes, where they have left very interesting proofs of their passage on earth, in large and populous cities whose ruins have been lately discovered. Their origin is unknown, and is yet a problem to be solved. They are celebrated on account of their wars against the Assyrians and Egyptians, who call them the plague of Khati. Their name is frequently mentioned in the Scriptures as Hittites. Placed on the road, between the Assyrians and the Egyptians, by whom they were at last vanquished, they placed well nigh insuperable _obstacles in the way_ of the conquests of these two powerful nations, which found in them tenacious and fearful adversaries. The Khati had not only made considerable improvements in all military arts, but were also great and famed merchants; their emporium _Carchemish_ had no less importance than Tyre or Carthage. There, met merchants from all parts of the world; who brought thither the products and manufactures of their respective countries, and were wont to worship at the Sacred City, _Katish_ of the Khati. The etymology of their name is also unknown. Some historians having pretended that they were a Scythian tribe, derived it from Scythia; but I think that we may find it very natural, as that of their principal cities, in the Maya language.

All admit that the Khati, until the time when they were vanquished by Rameses the Great, as recorded on the walls of his palace at Thebes, the _Memnonium_, always placed obstacles on the way of the Egyptians and opposed them. According to the Maya, their name is significative of these facts, since KAT or KATAH is a verb that means to place impediments on the road, to come forth and obstruct the passage.

_Carchemish_ was their great emporium, where merchants from afar congregated; it was consequently a city of merchants. CAH means a city, and _Chemul_ is navigator. _Carchemish_ would then be _cah-chemul_, the city of navigators, of merchants.

KATISH, their sacred city, would be the city where sacrifices are offered. CAH, city, and TICH, a ceremony practiced by the ancient Mayas, and still performed by their descendants all through Central America. This sacrifice or ceremony consists in presenting to BALAM, the _Yumil-Kaax_, the "Lord of the fields," the _primitiæ_ of all their fruits before beginning the harvest. Katish, or _cah-tich_ would then be the city of the sacrifices--the holy city.

EGYPT is the country that in historical times has called, more than any other, the attention of the students, of all nations and in all ages, on account of the grandeur and beauty of its monuments; the peculiarity of its inhabitants; their advanced civilization, their great attainments in all branches of human knowledge and industry; and its important position at the head of all other nations of antiquity. Egypt has been said to be the source from which human knowledge began to flow over the old world: yet no one knows for a certainty whence came the people that laid the first foundations of that interesting nation. That they were not autochthones is certain. Their learned priests pointed towards the regions of the West as the birth-place of their ancestors, and designated the country in which they lived, the East, as the _pure land_, the _land of the sun_, of _light_, in contradistinction of the country of the dead, of darkness--the Amenti, the West--where Osiris sat as King, reigning judge, over the souls.

If in Hindostan, Afghanistan, Chaldea, Asia Minor, we have met with vestiges of the Mayas, in Egypt we will find their traces everywhere. Whatever may have been the name given to the valley watered by the Nile by its primitive inhabitants, no one at present knows. The invaders that came from the West called it CHEM: not on account of the black color of the soil, as Plutarch pretends in his work, "_De Iside et Osiride_," but more likely because either they came to it in boats; or, quite probably, because when they arrived the country was inundated, and the inhabitants communicated by means of boats, causing the new comers to call it the country of boats--CHEM (maya).[TN-20] The hieroglyph representing the name of Egypt is composed of the character used for land, a cross circumscribed by a circle, and of another, read K, which represent a sieve, it is said, but that may likewise be the picture of a small boat. The Assyrians designated Egypt under the names of MISIR or MISUR, probably because the country is generally destitute of trees. These are uprooted during the inundations, and then carried by the currents all over the country; so that the farmers, in order to be able to plow the soil, are obliged to clear it first from the dead trees. Now we have the Maya verb MIZ--to _clean_, to _remove rubbish formed by the body of dead trees_; whilst the verb MUSUR means to _cut the trees by the roots_. It would seem that the name _Mizraim_ given to Egypt in the Scriptures also might come from these words.

When the Western invaders reached the country it was probably covered by the waters of the river, to which, we are told, they gave the name of _Hapimú_. Its etymology seems to be yet undecided by the Egyptologists, who agree, however, that its meaning is the _abyss of water_. The Maya tells us that this name is composed of two words--HÁ, water, and PIMIL, the thickness of flat things. _Hapimu_, or HAPIMIL, would then be the thickness, the _abyss of water_.

We find that the prophets _Jeremiah_ (xlvi., 25,) and _Nahum_ (iii., 8, 10,) call THEBES, the capital of upper Egypt during the XVIII. dynasty: NÓ or NÁ-AMUN, the mansion of Amun. _Ná_ signifies in Maya, house, mansion, residence. But _Thebes_ is written in Egyptian hieroglyphs AP, or APÉ, the meaning of which is the head, the capital; with the feminine article T, that is always used as its prefix in hieroglyphic writings, it becomes TAPÉ; which, according to Sir Gardner Wilkinson ("Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," _tom._ III., page 210, N. Y. Edition, 1878), was pronounced by the Egyptians _Taba_; and in the Menphitic dialect Thaba, that the Greeks converted into Thebai, whence Thebes. The Maya verb _Teppal_, signifies to reign, to govern, to order. On each side of the mastodons' heads, which form so prominent a feature in the ornaments of the oldest edifices at Uxmal, Chichen-Itza and other parts, the word _Dapas_; hence TABAS is written in ancient Egyptian characters, and read, I presume, in old Maya, _head_. To-day the word is pronounced THAB, and means _baldness_.

The identity of the names of deities worshiped by individuals, of their religious rites and belief; that of the names of the places which they inhabit; the similarity of their customs, of their dresses and manners; the sameness of their scientific attainments and of the characters used by them in expressing their language in writing, lead us naturally to infer that they have had a common origin, or, at least, that their forefathers were intimately connected. If we may apply this inference to nations likewise, regardless of the distance that to-day separates the countries where they live, I can then affirm that the Mayas and the Egyptians are either of a common descent, or that very intimate communication must have existed in remote ages between their ancestors.

Without entering here into a full detail of the customs and manners of these people, I will make a rapid comparison between their religious belief, their customs, manners, scientific attainments, and the characters used by them in writing etc., sufficient to satisfy any reasonable body that the strange coincidences that follow, cannot be altogether accidental.

The SUN, RA, was the supreme god worshiped throughout the land of Egypt; and its emblem was a disk or circle, at times surmounted by the serpent Uræus. Egypt was frequently called the Land of the Sun. RA or LA signifies in Maya that which exists, emphatically that which is--the truth.

The sun was worshiped by the ancient Mayas; and the Indians to-day preserve the dance used by their forefathers among the rites of the adoration of that luminary, and perform it yet in certain epoch[TN-21] of the year. The coat-of-arms of the city of Uxmal, sculptured on the west façade of the sanctuary, attached to the masonic temple in that city, teaches us that the place was called U LUUMIL KIN, _the land of the sun_. This name forming the center of the escutcheon, is written with a cross, circumscribed by a circle, that among the Egyptians is the sign for land, region, surrounded by the rays of the sun.

Colors in Egypt, as in Mayab, seem to have had the same symbolical meaning. The figure of _Amun_ was that of a man whose body was light blue, like the Indian god Wishnu,[TN-22] and that of the god Nilus; as if to indicate their peculiar exalted and heavenly nature; this color being that of the pure, bright skies above. The blue color had exactly the same significance in Mayab, according to Landa and Cogolludo, who tell us that, even at the time of the Spanish conquest, the bodies of those who were to be sacrificed to the gods were painted blue. The mural paintings in the funeral chamber of Chaacmol, at Chichen, confirm this assertion. There we see figures of men and women painted blue, some marching to the sacrifice with their hands tied behind their backs. After being thus painted they were venerated by the people, who regarded them as sanctified. Blue in Egypt was always the color used at the funerals.

The Egyptians believed in the immortality of the soul; and that rewards and punishments were adjudged by Osiris, the king of the Amenti, to the souls according to their deeds during their mundane life. That the souls after a period of three thousand years were to return to earth and inhabit again their former earthly tenements. This was the reason why they took so much pains to embalm the body.

The Mayas also believed in the immortality of the soul, as I have already said. Their belief was that after the spirit had suffered during a time proportioned to their misdeeds whilst on earth, and after having enjoyed an amount of bliss corresponding to their good actions, they were to return to earth and live again a material life. Accordingly, as the body was corruptible, they made statues of stones, terra-cotta, or wood, in the semblance of the deceased, whose ashes they deposited in a hollow made for that purpose in the back of the head. Sometimes also in stone urns, as in the case of Chaacmol. The spirits, on their return to earth, were to find these statues, impart life to them, and use them as body during their new existence.

I am not certain but that, as the Egyptians also, they were believers in transmigration; and that this belief exists yet among the aborigines. I have noticed that my Indians were unwilling to kill any animal whatever, even the most noxious and dangerous, that inhabits the ruined monuments. I have often told them to kill some venomous insect or serpent that may have happened to be in our way. They invariably refused to do so, but softly and carefully caused them to go. And when asked why they did not kill them, declined to answer except by a knowing and mysterious smile, as if afraid to let a stranger into their intimate beliefs inherited from their ancestors: remembering, perhaps, the fearful treatment inflicted by fanatical friars on their fathers to oblige them to forego what they called the superstitions of their race--the idolatrous creed of their forefathers.

I have had opportunity to discover that their faith in reincarnation, as many other time-honored credences, still exists among them, unshaken, notwithstanding the persecutions and tortures suffered by them at the hands of ignorant and barbaric _Christians_ (?)

I will give two instances when that belief in reincarnation was plainly manifested.

The day that, after surmounting many difficulties, when my ropes and cables, made of withes and the bark of the _habin_ tree, were finished and adjusted to the capstan manufactured of hollow stones and trunks of trees; and I had placed the ponderous statue of Chaacmol on rollers, already in position to drag it up the inclined plane made from the surface of the ground to a few feet above the bottom of the excavation; my men, actuated by their superstitious fears on the one hand, and their profound reverence for the memory of their ancestors on the other, unwilling to see the effigy of one of the great men removed from where their ancestors had placed it in ages gone by resolved to bury it, by letting loose the hill of dry stones that formed the body of the mausoleum, and were kept from falling in the hole by a framework of thin trunks of trees tied with withes, and in order that it should not be injured, to capsize it, placing the face downward. They had already overturned it, when I interfered in time to prevent more mischief, and even save some of them from certain death; since by cutting loose the withes that keep the framework together, the sides of the excavation were bound to fall in, and crush those at the bottom. I honestly think, knowing their superstitious feelings and propensities, that they had made up their mind to sacrifice their lives, in order to avoid what they considered a desecration of the future tenement that the great warrior and king was yet to inhabit, when time had arrived. In order to overcome their scruples, and also to prove if my suspicions were correct, that, as their forefathers and the Egyptians of old, they still believed in reincarnation, I caused them to accompany me to the summit of the great pyramid. There is a monument, that served as a castle when the city of the holy men, the Itzaes, was at the height of its splendor. Every anta, every pillar and column of this edifice is sculptured with portraits of warriors and noblemen. Among these many with long beards, whose types recall vividly to the mind the features of the Afghans.

On one of the antæ, at the entrance on the north side, is the portrait of a warrior wearing a long, straight, pointed beard. The face, like that of all the personages represented in the bas-reliefs, is in profile. I placed my head against the stone so as to present the same position of my face as that of UXAN, and called the attention of my Indians to the similarity of his and my own features. They followed every lineament of the faces with their fingers to the very point of the beard, and soon uttered an exclamation of astonishment: "_Thou!_ _here!_" and slowly scanned again the features sculptured on the stone and my own.

"_So, so,_" they said, "_thou too art one of our great men, who has been disenchanted. Thou, too, wert a companion of the great Lord Chaacmol. That is why thou didst know where he was hidden; and thou hast come to disenchant him also. His time to live again on earth has then arrived._"

From that moment every word of mine was implicitly obeyed. They returned to the excavation, and worked with such a good will, that they soon brought up the ponderous statue to the surface.

A few days later some strange people made their appearance suddenly and noiselessly in our midst. They emerged from the thicket one by one. Colonel _Don_ Felipe Diaz, then commander of the troops covering the eastern frontier, had sent me, a couple of days previous, a written notice, that I still preserve in my power, that tracks of hostile Indians had been discovered by his scouts, advising me to keep a sharp look out, lest they should surprise us. Now, to be on the look out in the midst of a thick, well-nigh impenetrable forest, is a rather difficult thing to do, particularly with only a few men, and where there is no road; yet all being a road for the enemy. Warning my men that danger was near, and to keep their loaded rifles at hand, we continued our work as usual, leaving the rest to destiny.