carved at each end of the southern apartment in the edifice consecrated to the celebration of the sacred mysteries. It appears in the number of steps leading from the courtyards or terraces to the principal apartments in the "House of the Governor," "the palace of king Can" and other edifices at Uxmal, and in other buildings. It is the number particularly set apart for the second of the three platforms that compose the base on which all the ancient temples and palaces of the Mayas are raised. In the rites of modern Freemasonry, it is still the sacred number related to the second degree. In the Troano MS., the legends of all the compartments into which the work is divided, as in chapters, are composed of five characters, to indicate that said legends are the headings, that is ho-ol, the beginning, the head.
This number may have become sacred, in the mysteries, among the Mayas, in remembrance of the number of the children of king Can; for besides his three sons Cay, Aac, and Coh, he had, by his wife Zoo, two daughters, Moo and Nicte, whose names bear a striking resemblance to T-Mau, one of the names of Isis and Nike her sister. So king Can by his wife Zoↄ, had five children, just as Seb had by his wife Nut in Egypt; these being Aroeris, Set, Osiris, Isis, and Nike. Strange coincidence, that may, however, give us a knowledge of the origin of the mystification of number five.
Seven seems to have been the sacred number par excellence among all civilized nations of antiquity. Why? This query has never been satisfactorily answered. Each separate people has given a different explanation, according to the peculiar tenets of their religion. That it was the number of numbers for those initiated to the sacred mysteries there can be no doubt. Pythagoras, who had borrowed his ideas on numbers from the Egyptians, calls it the "Vehicle of life," containing body and soul, since it is formed of a quartenary, that is: Wisdom and Intellect; and a trinity or action and matter. Emperor Julian, in Matrem and in Oratio, expresses himself thus: "Were I to touch upon the initiation into our secret mysteries, which the Chaldees bacchised, respecting the seven-rayed god, lighting up the soul through him, I should say things unknown to the rabble, very unknown, but well known to the blessed Theurgists."
Whatever that knowledge may have been, and their esoteric explanation of the cause of the mystification of number seven, can only be surmised to-day; but it is not improbable that it was to be found in some event in the early history of the race whose traditions we find scattered broadcast over the Earth. We have seen that the family of king Can was composed of seven members, who became rulers of the seven cities that bear their names, the ruins of which still exist in the forests of Yucatan, and by the beauty and richness of the ornamentation, the massiveness and finish of the walls of their temples and palaces, excite the admiration of the beholder. These personages, deified after their death, have been worshiped in various countries, and are yet in some, under different names. May not the remembrance of the existence of these seven ancient rulers of Mayax, have been the origin of the tradition of the seven divine rulers of Egypt; of the seven Manous that according to the Brahmins, governed the world in the night of times; of the seven Richis or holy personages who assisted them; of the seven princes of the Persian court; and the seven councillors of the king; of the seven Ameshaspants or first angels; of the seven great gods of the Assyrians; or the seven primitive gods regarded by the Japanese as their ancestors and said by them to have governed the world during an incalculable number of years; of the seven Cabiri, worshiped by the Pelasgians at Lemnos and Samothracia; the seven great gods in theogony of the Nahuatls? Do we not see a simile of the Ah Ac chapat or seven-headed serpent of the Mayas, totem of their seven primitive Rulers, that is of the seven members of king Can's family, in the seven-headed heavenly Serpent on which rests Vishnu, the Indian creator, that corresponds to the Egyptian Kneph or the Mehen (Canhel) of the Mayas; or in the seven serpents that form the crown of Siva; or again in the Seven-rayed god Heptaktis, of which the emperor Julian was so reluctant to speak?
It would seem that the duration of certain religious festivals was fixed to commemorate the existence on Earth of these seven primitive gods or rulers, the tradition of which we find in all countries where we meet with vestiges of the Mayas. So we see the seven days of the festival of the Eleusinian mysteries; the seven days of the festival in honor of the bull Apis, a symbol of Osiris; the seven days of the feast of the tabernacles. The septenary system was also adopted for the same purpose no doubt, in Mayax, since we find the seven cities dedicated to each of the members of king Can's family; the seven pyramids that adorned the city of Uxmal; the seven turrets that ornamented the south façade of the north wing of king Can's palace at Uxmal, each turret inscribed with the name of one of the members of his family; those dedicated to the females being on the east end of the wing. The seven gradients into which is divided the third or uppermost of the three platforms that serve as a substructure to the temples and palaces; the seven superposed gradients, forming all the pyramids calling to mind the seven terraces of the temple of the seven lights at Borsippa, the most perfect form of Chaldee "temple tower," and the "pyramid degrees" at Sakkara, although in this Egyptian pyramid the gradients are more numerous. The seven rooms built on the west side of the conical mound that supports the temple in which the mysteries were performed at Uxmal: each room again being dedicated to one of the members of king Can's family; the bust of the person to whom it was consecrated being affixed over the doorway. The seven courses of the stones used in the construction of the walls and of the triangular arches that form the ceilings of the rooms. The same system prevails in the arrangement of the grand gallery in the centre of the great pyramid at Ghizzeh in Egypt. In that monument as in all the antique edifices of Mayax, the proportional scale followed by the architects in the drawing of their plans is in accordance with the numbers 3, 5, 7, and their multiples.
The predilection of the nations of antiquity in which the sacred mysteries were celebrated, for number seven appears in many ways. The seven days that the rainfall that produced the deluge lasted, according to the Chaldeans, is reproduced in the seven days of the prophesy of the deluge by Vishnu to Satyravata, as we read of it in the Bhagavata purana; and the seven days of the prophesy of the same event, made by the Lord to Noah, according to Genesis; on account of the seven days of rainfall the Babylonian priests used seven vases in the sacrifices; and in the hierarchy of Mazdeism, the seven Marouts or genii of the winds; the seven rounds of the ladder in the cave of Mithra. The Aryans had the seven horses that drew the chariot of the sun; the seven Apris or shapes of the flame; the seven rays of Agni; the seven steps of Buddha at his birth. The Egyptians had divided their nation into seven classes; the week into seven days: according to them the creation was completed in seven days. Among the Hebrews, we find the seven lamps of the ark, and of Zacharias vision; the seven branches of the golden candlestick; the seven days of the feast of the dedication of the temple; the seven years of plenty; and the seven years of famine. In the Christian dispensation, the seven churches with the seven angels at their head; the seven golden candlesticks; the seven heads of the beast that rose from the sea; the seven seals of the book; the seven trumpets of the angels; the seven vials full of the wrath of God; the seven last plagues of Apocalypse. In Greek mythology, the seven heads of the hydra killed by Hercules, the seven islands sacred to Proserpine mentioned by Proclus.
The prevalence of seven as a mystic number among the inhabitants of the "Western Continent" is not less remarkable. It frequently occurs in the Popol-Vuh. We find it besides in the seven families said by Sahagun and Clavigero to have accompanied the mystical personage named Votan, the reputed founder of the great city of Nachan, identified by some with Palenque. In the seven caves from which the ancestors of the Nahualts are reported to have emerged. In the seven cities of Cibola, described by Coronado and Niza, the site of which has been accurately fixed by Mr. Frank Cushing in the immediate neighborhood of the village of Zuñi. In the seven Antilles; in the Seven heroes who, we are told, escaped the deluge.
Can it be maintained that this acceptation of seven as a mystic number by nations so heterogeneous and living so far apart, and from the remotest ages, is purely accidental? The origin of its mystification has never been explained. It has been transmitted to us by our predecessors, who themselves had accepted it from theirs, without knowing why it was made the sacred number of the third degree in the rites of initiation into Freemasonry. True, in receiving the degree the initiated are told the esoteric meaning attached to it in modern times; but this meaning does not give the origin of its mystification. In fact, it is an invention of our days.
That it was the sacred number of the highest degree of the sacred mysteries in Mayax is evident. We have seen that 3 was the number of the male children of king Can; 5 that of his sons and daughters; 7 was consequently that of the members of the whole family. It is not therefore improbable that to commemorate that fact, 7 was made the sacred number of the third degree of their sacred mysteries, and that this was the origin of its mystification.