Vestiges of the Mayas / or, Facts Tending to Prove That Communications and Intimate Relations Must Have Existed, in Very Remote Times, Between the Inhabitants of Mayab and Those of Asia and Africa

by Augustus Le Plongeon

Some Maya tribes, after a time, probably left their home at the South of Hindostan and emigrated to Afghanistan, where their descendants still live and have villages on the North banks of the river Kabul. They left behind old traditions, that they may have considered as mere fantasies of their poets, and other customs of their forefathers. Yet we know so little about the ancient Afghans, or the Maya tribes living among them, that it is impossible at present to say how much, if any, they have preserved of the traditions of their race. All we know for a certainty is that many of the names of their villages and tribes are pure American-Maya words: that their types are very similar to the features of the bearded men carved on the pillars of the castle, and on the walls of other edifices at Chichen-Itza: while their warlike habits recall those of the Mayas, who fought so bravely and tenaciously the Spanish invaders.

Some of the Maya tribes, traveling towards the west and northwest, reached probably the shores of Ethiopia; while others, entering the Persian Gulf, landed near the embouchure of the Euphrates, and founded their primitive capital at a short distance from it. They called it Hur (Hula) city of guests just arrived—and according to Berosus gave themselves the name of Khaldi; probably because they intrenched their city: Kal meaning intrenchment in the American-Maya language. We have seen that the names of all the principal deities of the primitive Chaldeans had a natural etymology in that tongue. Such strange coincidences cannot be said to be altogether accidental. Particularly when we consider that their learned men were designated as Magi, (Mayas) and their Chief Rab-Mag, meaning, in Maya, the old man; and were great architects, mathematicians and astronomers. As again we know of them but imperfectly, we cannot tell what traditions they had preserved of the birthplace of their forefathers. But by the inscriptions on the tablets or bricks, found at Mugheir and Warka, we know for a certainty that, in the archaic writings, they formed their characters of straight lines of uniform thickness; and inclosed their sentences in squares or parallelograms, as did the founders of the ruined cities of Yucatan. And from the signet cylinder of King Urukh, that their mode of dressing was identical with that of many personages represented in the mural paintings at Chichen-Itza.

We have traced the Mayas again on the shores of Asia Minor, where the Carians at last established themselves, after having spread terror among the populations bordering on the Mediterranean. Their origin is unknown: but their customs were so similar to those of the inhabitants of Yucatan at the time even of the Spanish conquest—and their names Car, Carib or Carians, so extensively spread over the western continent, that we might well surmise, that, navigators as they were, they came from those parts of the world; particularly when we are told by the Greek poets and historians, that the goddess Maia was the daughter of Atlantis. We have seen that the names of the khati, those of their cities, that of Tyre, and finally that of Egypt, have their etymology in the Maya.

Considering the numerous coincidences already pointed out, and many more I could bring forth, between the attainments and customs of the Mayas and the Egyptians; in view also of the fact that the priests and learned men of Egypt constantly pointed toward the West as the birthplace of their ancestors, it would seem as if a colony, starting from Mayab, had emigrated Eastward, and settled on the banks of the Nile; just as the Chinese to-day, quitting their native land and traveling toward the rising sun, establish themselves in America.

In Egypt again, as in Hindostan, we find the history of the children of Can, preserved among the secret traditions treasured up by the priests in the dark recesses of their temples: the same story, even with all its details. It is Typho who kills his brother Osiris, the husband of their sister Isis. Some of the names only have been changed when the members of the royal family of Can, the founder of the cities of Mayab, reaching apotheosis, were presented to the people as gods, to be worshiped.

That the story of Isis and Osiris is a mythical account of Chaacmol and Moó, from all the circumstances connected with it, according to the relations of the priests of Egypt that tally so closely with what we learn in Chichen-Itza from the bas-reliefs, it seems impossible to doubt.

Effectively, Osiris and Isis are considered as king and queen of the Amenti—the region of the West—the mansion of the dead, of the ancestors. Whatever may be the etymology of the name of Osiris, it is a fact, that in the sculptures he is often represented with a spotted skin suspended near him, and Diodorus Siculus says: “That the skin is usually represented without the head; but some instances where this is introduced show it to be the leopard’s or panther’s.” Again, the name of Osiris as king of the West, of the Amenti, is always written, in hieroglyphic characters, representing a crouching leopard with an eye above it. It is also well known that the priests of Osiris wore a leopard skin as their ceremonial dress.

Now, Chaacmol reigned with his sister Moó, at Chichen-Itza, in Mayab, in the land of the West for Egypt. The name Chaacmol means, in Maya, a Spotted tiger, a leopard; and he is represented as such in all his totems in the sculptures on the monuments; his shield being made of the skin of leopard, as seen in the mural paintings.

Osiris, in Egypt, is a myth. Chaacmol, in Mayab, a reality. A warrior whose mausoleum I have opened; whose weapons and ornaments of jade are in Mrs. Le Plongeon’s possession; whose heart I have found, and sent a piece of it to be analysed by professor Thompson of Worcester, Mass.; whose effigy, with his name inscribed on the tablets occupying the place of the ears, forms now one of the most precious relics in the National Museum of Mexico.

Isis was the wife and sister of Osiris. As to the etymology of her name the Maya affords it in Iɔin—the younger sister. As Queen of the Amenti, of the West, she also is represented in hieroglyphs by the same characters as her husband—a leopard, with an eye above, and the sign of the feminine gender an oval or egg. But as a goddess she is always portrayed with wings; the vulture being dedicated to her; and, as it were, her totem.