Hach-mac, "the true, the very man," of the high priest in Mayax, that we see over the bust of High Pontiff, prince Cay Canchi, son of King Can at Uxmal, recalls that of the chief of the Magi at Babylon.
These were the awful ordeals that the candidates for initiation into the sacred mysteries had to pass through in Xibalba. Do they not seem an exact counterpart of what happened, in a milder form at the initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries? and also the greater mysteries of Egypt, from which these were copied? Does not the recital of what the candidates to the mysteries in Xibalba were required to know, before being admitted, in order to distinguish the wooden statue pointed out to them as the King from the veiled Brothers; to avoid seating themselves on a burning hot stone seat; to keep lighted the torch and cigar and prevent them from being consumed; to produce the flowers asked from them while isolated from the world in a guarded chamber; to defend themselves from the attacks of dexterous spearmen; to protect themselves against the intense cold of the "Ice house;" to remain unhurt amidst wild tigers; or unscorched in the middle of a burning furnace; recall to mind the wonderful similar feats said to be performed by the Mahatmas, the Brothers in India, and of several of the passages of the book of Daniel, who had been initiated to the mysteries of the Chaldeans or Magi which, according to Eubulus were divided into three classes or genera, the highest being the most learned?
Will it be said that the mysteries were imported from Egypt or Chaldea or India, or Phœnicia to America? Then I will ask when? By whom? What facts can be adduced to sustain such assertion? Why should the words with which the priest at the conclusion of the ceremonies in the Eleusinian mysteries, and the Brahmins at the end of their religious ceremonies, dismiss the assistants, be Maya instead of Greek or Sanscrit words? Is it not probable that the dismissal continued to be uttered in the language of those who first instituted and taught the ceremonies and rites of the mysteries to the others? That sacred mysteries have existed in America from times immemorial, there can be no doubt. Even setting aside the proofs of their existence, that we gather from the monuments of Uxmal, and the description of the trials of initiation related in the sacred book of the Quiches, we find vestiges of them in various other countries of the Western Continent.
Garcilasso de la Vega informs us that in Peru, it was illicit for any one not belonging to the nobility to acquire learning. There again, as in Egypt, in Chaldea, Etruria, India, Mayax, science was the privilege of the priests and kings. The sacerdotal class held the pre-eminence. Sacerdotal orders were conferred only upon young men who had given proofs of sufficiency for such important office; and before they could be received into the Society of the Amautas or wise men, which was considered a great honor, they had to submit to very severe ordeals. The rites and ceremonies of initiation were imported in Peru by the ancestors of Manco Capac, the founder of the Inca dynasty, who were colonists from Central America, as we learn from an unpublished MS., written by a Jesuit father, Rev. Anello Oliva, at the beginning of the year 1631, in Lima; and now in the library of the British Museum in London. The name Quichua, of the general language of Peru, points directly to the Quiches as the branch of the Maya nation that carried civilization to that country.
If from South America we go to New Mexico, there we find the Zuñis, and other Pueblo Indians. Having preserved their independence by shaking off at an early period the yoke of the Spaniards, they have been little influenced, if at all, by the civilization of the Europeans, and live to-day as their ancestors did many centuries back; preserving with great care, not only the purity of their language, which they teach their children to speak correctly, but their customs, traditions, and ancient religious rites and observances.
Mr. Frank Cushing, who was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution, at Washington, to make a study of their customs and manners, has been adopted by the tribe, and has now become one of their most influential chiefs. Among the many interesting things discovered by him, not the least is the existence of twelve sacred orders, with their priests, their initiations, their sacred rites, as carefully guarded as the secrets of the ancient sacred mysteries to which they bear great resemblance. He has been initiated into many of them, having had to submit to ordeals almost as severe as those of Xibalba from which no doubt they are derived, having been brought among them by Maya colonists and afterward Nahualt invaders. The Nahualts invaded and for a long time held sway over Mexico and some of the northern portions of Central America. The aborigines of those countries at last expelled them from their territories, when they scattered in all directions, about the beginning of the Christian era. Some reached as far north as the gulf of California and Arizona. The Yaqui Indians, neighbors of the Mayos, and who inhabit the countries watered by the rivers Yaqui and Mayo in Sonora, are descendants of a Nahualt tribe, from which in all probability, the adjoining nations, the inhabitants of the seven cities of Cibola, the Zuñis among them, learned many of their religious practices; and the institution of the twelve sacred orders, that recall the twelve priests who presided at the initiation into the sacred mysteries at Xibalba.
Seeking for the origin of the institution of the sacred mysteries, of which Masonry seems to be the great-grandchild, following their vestiges from country to country, we have been brought over the vast expanse of the blue sea, to this western continent, to these mysterious "Lands of the West" where the souls of all good men, the Egyptians believed, dwelt among the blessed. It is, therefore, in that country, where Osiris was said to reign supreme, that we may expect to find the true signification of the symbols held sacred by the initiates in all countries, in all times, and which have reached us, through the long vista of ages, still surrounded by the veil, well-nigh impenetrable, of mystery woven round them by their inventors. My long researches among the ruins of the ancient temples and palaces of the Mayas, have been rewarded by learning at the fountain-head the esoteric meaning of some at least of the symbols, the interpretation of which has puzzled many a wise head—the origin of the mystification and symbolism of the numbers 3, 5, and 7.
Whoever has read history knows that in all nations, civilized as well as uncivilized, from the remotest antiquity, the priests have claimed learning as the privilege of their caste, bestowed upon them by special favor of the Ruling Spirit of the universe. For this reason they have zealously kept from the gaze of other men their intellectual treasures, and surrounded them with the veil of mystery. They have carefully hid all their discoveries, scientific or artistic, under the cover of symbols, reserving their esoteric or secret meaning for the initiated; giving to the people only such exoteric or public explanation of them as best suited their purpose. They put into practice the principle, that "It was necessary to keep the discoveries of the philosophers in the works of art or nature from those unworthy of knowing them," enunciated by the erudite and celebrated English monk Roger Bacon, one of the most learned men of his time, who was confined during many years in a prison cell by his ignorant brethren on account of his great erudition. This same principle is yet closely adhered to by the Brahmins, the Buddhist priests of Thibet, the Adepts of India, and I might add the Jesuits among the Christians, although they are very inferior in knowledge to the others; the secrecy they have observed for centuries, and do still observe, being their best guarantee of power and honor.