The late Mr. James Fergusson in his work on "Serpent and Tree Worship," a work so full of erudition and interesting researches, whilst he conclusively shows that these worships were common to all civilized and half civilized nations of antiquity, fails to indicate the country where they originated. All authors who have written on the subject, admit that their origin is still an impenetrable mystery; although they agree that they are so intimately connected as to make it impossible not to believe it must have been the same.
The limited scope of this book does not allow me to give the matter all the space it deserves. I will therefore content myself, with bringing forth such facts as will conclusively show, at least to unprejudiced minds, that the serpent and tree worship indeed originated on this "Western continent," and from the same cause; "the love of the country," from the amor-patriæ, still so firmly rooted in the heart of the aborigines, that it is difficult to induce them to leave the spot where they are born, even to better their condition. Everywhere on the Eastern continents serpent worship is connected with mythological narratives, metaphysical speculations, or astronomical conceptions, far above the intellectual and scientific attainments of the mass of people among whom it prevailed.
These were mere fictions invented by the priests and learned men, to conceal either the real facts, or may be, their own ignorance of them. Still, anxious to maintain the preponderance and power that knowledge gave them over the multitudes, and having to satisfy their curiosity, they imagined such explanations as best suited the notions current in their times and the ideas of the people.
In early days the serpent, emblem of Kneph, the Creator, was the agathodæmon, the good genius. It is still so regarded by the Chinese, who consider it one of their most beautiful symbols. Later, when it became emblematical of Set or Typho, the slayer of Osiris, it was looked upon with horror, as the evil principle, the destroyer, the enemy of mankind. It has ever since continued to be so held by the Jews, the Christians, the Mahometans, in fact by all peoples whose religious tenets are founded on the Bible. If the tree and serpent were worshiped throughout the Eastern continents from the shores of the Atlantic ocean to those of the Pacific, from Scandinavia to Egypt and the Asiatic peninsulæ, their worship was not less spread amongst the nations that inhabited the "Lands of the West." We find vestiges of it everywhere on the Western continent; from the banks of Brush creek, in Adams county, in the State of Ohio, where still exists, on the crest of a mound, the effigy of a great serpent 700 feet long, entirely similar to that discovered by Mr. John S. Phené in Glen Feechan, Argyleshire, in Scotland, to the ancient city of Tiahuanuco, whose ruins are 13,500 feet above the level of the Pacific on the shores of lake Titicaca, near the frontier of Bolivia, on the high plateau of the Andes. There is yet to be seen a very remarkable doorway formed out of a single monolith 13 feet 5 inches long, 7 feet high above the ground, and 18 inches thick. This monolith has attracted the attention of d'Orbigny and the other travelers who, like myself, have been struck with astonishment by the beauty of the sculptures that adorn its south-eastern façade. Mayas, no doubt, were the unknown builders of that great city; since in the sculptures mentioned, we find, as in the temples of Japan, the totem of prince Coh, of his wife and sister Moo, and of their father king Can (serpent).
I will make here a short digression in order to describe these sculptures, that with the knowledge we possess to-day of the history of the founders of the principal ruined cities of Mayax, afford us another proof that the builders of that city of Tiahuanuco belonged to a then highly civilized nation, which sent colonists to the remotest parts of the earth, as the English do to-day, and to whose historical annals may be traced many of the primitive traditions of mankind. This city was already in ruins when Manco Capac laid the foundation of the Inca's empire, and had been constructed by giants before the sun shone in heaven, as the natives said to the Spaniards when questioned as to its antiquity.
We have seen that the members of the family of king Can, are still worshiped in the temples of Japan, as of old they were in those of Egypt; we now meet unimpeachable records of them, carved on very ancient monuments, on the shores of lake Titicaca, at the foot of the great glaciers of Sorata and Illimani, as we have found them in mythological lore of India and Greece. Will it be said that these are mere coincidences?
The front of this monolithic gate was once upon a time as highly polished as the material, trachite, will permit. The whole space above the doorway is divided into four bands about eight inches high. The lower band contains seventeen small heads, in low relief, adorned in a somewhat similar manner to that of the central figure. Seven of these, those directly under that figure wear, like it, a badge that seems to be a plume composed of three feathers. These small heads are separated by grecques having macaw's heads at their salient sides; these grecques are the symbol of power and strength. In the ancient Maya and Egyptian alphabets the grecque is equivalent to our latin letter H. Ah is the Maya masculine article, and it conveys to the mind the idea of might and power; this, taken in connection with the macaw's head, totem of Moo, the queen of Chichen, signifies the mighty, the powerful Moo.
The other bands are divided into squares of the same size, except in the center over the doorway, where there is a figure 32 by 21 inches.
Its head, the form of which is not only conventional, as its square eyes and mouth indicate, but likewise emblematical, consists of three superposed layers in the shape of escutcheons, the uppermost of which is sculptured so as to represent a human face. These three escutcheons as the three feathers of the plume that adorns it, the triple throne on which the figure seems to stand, the three dots on each cheek, the three oblong squares on the breast-plate, the three macaw's heads at the extremities of the triple sceptre it holds in its hands, are symbolical of the three great western regions that the Egyptians designated by the generic name of "Lands of the West" and represented by the character