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 Phœnicia 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 Phœnicians, 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). 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.