Chapter IV: Part 4

In the mural paintings at Chichen-Itza, we again find the baboon (Cynocephalus) warning Moó of impending danger. She is pictured in her home, which is situated in the midst of a garden, and over which is seen the royal insignia. A basket, painted blue, full of bright oranges, is symbolical of her domestic happiness. She is sitting at the door. Before her is an individual pictured physically deformed, to show the ugliness of his character and by the flatness of his skull, want of moral qualities, (the[TN-36] proving that the learned men of Mayab understood phrenology). He is in an persuasive attitude; for he has come to try to seduce her in the name of another. She rejects his offer: and, with her extended hand, protects the armadillo, on whose shell the high priest read her destiny when yet a child. In a tree, just above the head of the man, is an ape. His hand is open and outstretched, both in a warning and threatening position. A serpent (_can_), her protecting spirit, is seen at a short distance coiled, ready to spring in her defense. Near by is another serpent, entwined round the trunk of a tree. He has wounded about the head another animal, that, with its mouth open, its tongue protruding, looks at its enemy over its shoulder. Blood is seen oozing from its tongue and face. This picture forcibly recalls to the mind the myth of the garden of Eden. For here we have the garden, the fruit, the woman, the tempter.

As to the charmed _leopard_ skin worn by the African warriors to render them invulnerable to spears, it would seem as if the manner in which Chaacmol met his death, by being stabbed with a spear, had been known to their ancestors; and that they, in their superstitious fancies, had imagined that by wearing his totem, it would save them from being wounded with the same kind of weapon used in killing him. Let us not laugh at such a singular conceit among uncivilized tribes, for it still prevails in Europe. On many of the French and German soldiers, killed during the last German war, were found talismans composed of strips of paper, parchment or cloth, on which were written supposed cabalistic words or the name of some saint, that the wearer firmly believed to be possessed of the power of making him invulnerable.

I am acquainted with many people--and not ignorant--who believe that by wearing on their persons rosaries, made in Jerusalem and blessed by the Pope, they enjoy immunity from thunderbolts, plagues, epidemics and other misfortunes to which human flesh is heir.

That the Mayas were a race autochthon on this western continent and did not receive their civilization from Asia or Africa, seems a rational conclusion, to be deduced from the foregoing FACTS. If we had nothing but their _name_ to prove it, it should be sufficient, since its etymology is only to be found in the American Maya language.

They cannot be said to have been natives of Hindostan; since we are told that, in very remote ages, _Maya_, a prince of the Davanas, established himself there. We do not find the etymology of his name in any book where mention is made of it. We are merely told that he was a wise magician, a great architect, a learned astronomer, a powerful Asoura (demon), thirsting for battles and bloodshed: or, according to the Sanscrit, a Goddess, the mother of all beings that exist--gods and men.

Very little is known of the Mayas of Afghanistan, except that they call themselves _Mayas_, and that the names of their tribes and cities are words belonging to the American Maya language.

Who can give the etymology of the name _Magi_, the learned men amongst the Chaldees. We only know that its meaning is the same as _Maya_ in Hindostan: magician, astronomer, learned man. If we come to Greece, where we find again the name _Maia_, it is mentioned as that of a goddess, as in Hindostan, the mother of the gods: only we are told that she was the daughter of Atlantis--born of Atlantis. But if we come to the lands beyond the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, then we find a country called MAYAB, on account of the porosity of its soil; that, as a sieve (_Mayab_), absorbs the water in an incredibly short time. Its inhabitants took its name from that of the country, and called themselves _Mayas_. It is a fact worthy of notice, that in their hieroglyphic writings the sign employed by the Egyptians to signify a _Lord_, a _Master_, was the image of a sieve. Would not this seem to indicate that the western invaders who subdued the primitive inhabitants of the valley of the Nile, and became the lords and masters of the land, were people from MAYAB; particularly if we consider that the usual character used to write the name of Egypt was the sieve, together with the sign of land?

We know that the _Mayas_ deified and paid divine honors to their eminent men and women after their death. This worship of their heroes they undoubtedly carried, with other customs, to the countries where they emigrated; and, in due course of time, established it among their inhabitants, who came to forget that MAYAB was a locality, converted it in to a personalty: and as some of their gods came from it, Maya was considered as the _Mother of the Gods_, as we see in Hindostan and Greece.

It would seem probable that the Mayas did not receive their civilization from the inhabitants of the Asiatic peninsulas, for the religious lores and customs they have in common are too few to justify this assertion. They would simply tend to prove that relations had existed between them at some epoch or other; and had interchanged some of their habits and beliefs as it happens, between the civilized nations of our days. This appears to be the true side of the question; for in the figures sculptured on the obelisks of Copan the Asiatic type is plainly discernible; whilst the features of the statues that adorn the celebrated temples of Hindostan are, beyond all doubts, American.

The FACTS gathered from the monuments do not sustain the theory advanced by many, that the inhabitants of tropical America received their civilization from Egypt and Asia Minor. On the contrary. It is true that I have shown that many of the customs and attainments of the Egyptians were identical to those of the Mayas; but these had many religious rites and habits unknown to the Egyptians; who, as we know, always pointed towards the West as the birthplaces of their ancestors, and worshiped as gods and goddesses personages who had lived, and whose remains are still in MAYAB. Besides, the monuments themselves prove the respective antiquity of the two nations.

According to the best authorities the most ancient monuments raised by the Egyptians do not date further back than about 2,500 years B. C. Well, in Aké, a city about twenty-five miles from Merida, there exists still a monument sustaining thirty-six columns of _katuns_. Each of these columns indicate a lapse of one hundred and sixty years in the life of the nation. They then would show that 5,760 years has intervened between the time when the first stone was placed on the east corner of the uppermost of the three immense superposed platforms that compose the structure, and the placing of the last capping stone on the top of the thirty-sixth column. How long did that event occur before the Spanish conquest it is impossible to surmise. Supposing, however, it did take place at that time; this would give us a lapse of at least 6,100 years since, among the rejoicings of the people this sacred monument being finished, the first stone that was to serve as record of the age of the nation, was laid by the high priest, where we see it to-day. I will remark that the name AKÉ is one of the Egyptians' divinities, the third person of the triad of Esneh; always represented as a child, holding his finger to his mouth. AKÉ also means a _reed_. To-day the meaning of the word is lost in Yucatan.

Cogolludo, in his history of Yucatan, speaking of the manner in which they computed time, says:

"They counted their ages and eras, which they inscribed in their books every twenty years, in lustrums of four years. * * * When five of these lustrums were completed, they called the lapse of twenty years _katun_, which means to place a stone down upon another. * * * In certain sacred buildings and in the houses of the priests every twenty years they place a hewn stone upon those already there. When seven of these stones have thus been piled one over the other began the _Ahau katun_. Then after the first lustrum of four years they placed a small stone on the top of the big one, commencing at the east corner; then after four years more they placed another small stone on the west corner; then the next at the north; and the fourth at the south. At the end of the twenty years they put a big stone on the top of the small ones: and the column, thus finished, indicated a lapse of one hundred and sixty years."

There are other methods for determining the approximate age of the monuments of Mayab:

1st. By means of their actual orientation; starting from the _fact_ that their builders always placed either the faces or angles of the edifices fronting the cardinal points.

2d. By determining the epoch when the mastodon became extinct. For, since _Can_ or his ancestors adopted the head of that animal as symbol of deity, it is evident they must have known it; hence, must have been contemporary with it.

3d. By determining when, through some great cataclysm, the lands became separated, and all communications between the inhabitants of _Mayab_ and their colonies were consequently interrupted. If we are to credit what Psenophis and Sonchis, priests of Heliopolis and Saïs, said to Solon "that nine thousand years before, the visit to them of the Athenian legislator, in consequence of great earthquakes and inundations, the lands of the West disappeared in one day and a fatal night," then we may be able to form an idea of the antiquity of the ruined cities of America and their builders.

Reader, I have brought before you, without comments, some of the FACTS, that after ten years of research, the paintings on the walls of _Chaacmol's_ funeral chamber, the sculptured inscriptions carved on the stones of the crumbling monuments of Yucatan, and a comparative study of the vernacular of the aborigines of that country, have revealed to us. I have no theory to offer. Many years of further patient investigations, the full interpretation of the monumental inscriptions, and, above all, the possession of the libraries of the learned men of _Mayab_, are the _sine qua non_ to form an uncontrovertible one, free from the speculations which invalidate all books published on the subject heretofore.

If by reading these pages you have learned something new, your time has not been lost; nor mine in writing them.

Transcriber's Note

The following typographical errors have been maintained:

Page Error
TN-1 7 precipituous should read precipitous
TN-2 17 maya should read Maya
TN-3 20 Egpptian should read Egyptian
TN-4 23 _Moo_ should read _Moó_
TN-5 23 Guetzalcoalt should read Quetzalcoatl
TN-6 26 ethonologists should read ethnologists
TN-7 26 what he said should read what he said.
TN-8 26 absorbant should read absorbent
TN-9 28 lazuri: should read lazuli:
TN-10 28 (Strange should read Strange
TN-11 28 Chichsen should read Chichen
TN-12 28 Moó should read Moó,
TN-13 32 Birmah should read Burmah
TN-14 32 Siameeses. should read Siameses.
TN-15 33 maya should read Maya
TN-16 34 valleys should read valleys,
TN-17 35 even to-day should read even to-day.
TN-18 38 inthe should read in the
TN-19 38 Bresseur should read Brasseur
TN-20 49 (maya) should read (Maya)
TN-21 51 epoch should read epochs
TN-22 52 Wishnu, should read Vishnu,
TN-23 58 his art, should read his art.
TN-24 59 _Mó_, should read _Moó_,
TN-25 62 Mayas should read Mayas'
TN-26 63 as symbol should read as a symbol
TN-27 66 e. g should read e. g.
TN-28 68 _Kukulean_ should read _Kukulcan_
TN-29 69 DuChaillu should read Du Chaillu
TN-30 72 death frequently occur; should read death frequently occurs;
or deaths frequently occur;
TN-31 72 is is should read it is
TN-32 73 beats should read beat
TN-33 80 _Nicte_ should read _Nicté_
TN-34 80 maya should read Maya
TN-35 81 yard should read yards
TN-36 81 qualities, (the should read qualities (thus

The following words are inconsistently spelled and hyphenated:

Aac / Aak
Aké / Ake
birth-place / birthplace
façade / facade
Há / Ha
Hapimú / Hapimu
Hemâ / Hema
Kinich-Kakmó / Kinich-kakmo
Ná / Na
Rab-mag / Rabmag
_senotes_ / senotes
Tipho / Typho

End of Project Gutenberg's Vestiges of the Mayas, by Augustus Le Plongeon