The meaning of the red hand used by the aborigines of some parts of America has been, it is well known, a subject of discussion for learned men and scientific societies. Its uses as a symbol remained for a long time a matter of conjecture. It seems that Mr. Schoolcraft had truly arrived at the knowledge of its veritable meaning. Effectively, in the 2d column of the 5th page of the New York Herald for April 12, 1879, in the account of the visit paid by Gen. Grant to Ram Singh, Maharajah of Jeypoor, we read the description of an excursion to the town of Amber. Speaking of the journey to the home of an Indian king, among other things the writer says:—“We passed small temples, some of them ruined, some others with offerings of grains, or fruits, or flowers, some with priests and people at worship. On the walls of some of the temples we saw the marks of the human hand as though it had been steeped in blood and pressed against the white wall. We were told that it was the custom, when seeking from the gods some benison to note the vow by putting the hand into a liquid and printing it on the wall. This was to remind the gods of the vow and prayer. And if it came to pass in the shape of rain, or food, or health, or children, the joyous devotee returned to the temple and made other offerings.” In Yucatan it seems to have had the same meaning. That is to say: that the owners of the house if private, or the priests, in the temples and public buildings, called upon the edifices at the time of taking possession and using them for the first time, the blessing of the Deity; and placed the hand’s imprints on the walls to recall the vows and prayer: and also, as the interpretation communicated to me by the Indians seems to suggest, as a signet or mark of property—in naá, my house.
I need not speak of the similarity of many religious rites and beliefs existing in Hindostan and among the inhabitants of Mayab. The worship of the fire, of the phallus, of Deity under the symbol of the mastodon’s head, recalling that of Ganeza, the god with an elephant’s head, hence that of the elephant in Siam, Birmah and other places of the Asiatic peninsula even in our day; and various other coincidences so numerous and remarkable that many would not regard them as simple coincidences. What to think, effectively, of the types of the personages whose portraits are carved on the obelisks of Copan? Were they in Siam instead of Honduras, who would doubt but they are Siameeses. What to say of the figures of men and women sculptured on the walls of the stupendous temples hewn, from the live rock, at Elephanta, so American is their appearance and features? Who would not take them to be pure aborigines if they were seen in Yucatan instead of Madras, Elephanta and other places of India.
If now we abandon that country and, crossing the Himalaya’s range enter Afghanistan, there again we find ourselves in a country inhabited by Maya tribes; whose names, as those of many of their cities, are of pure American-Maya origin. In the fourth column of the sixth page of the London Times, weekly edition, of March 4, 1879, we read: “4,000 or 5,000 assembled on the opposite bank of the river Kabul, and it appears that in that day or evening they attacked the Maya villages situated on the north side of the river.”
He, the correspondent of the Times, tells us that Maya tribes form still part of the population of Afghanistan. He also tells us that Kabul is the name of the river, on the banks of which their villages are situated. But Kabul is the name of an antique shrine in the city of Izamal. Cogolludo, in the lib. IV., cap. VIII. of his History of Yucatan, says: “They had another temple on another mound, on the west side of the square, also dedicated to the same idol. They had there the symbol of a hand, as souvenir. To that temple they carried their dead and the sick. They called it Kabul, the working hand, and made there great offerings.” Father Lizana says the same: so we have two witnesses to the fact. Kab, in Maya means hand; and Bul is to play at hazard.
Many of the names of places and towns of Afghanistan have not only a meaning in the American-Maya language, but are actually the same as those of places and villages in Yucatan to-day, for example:
The Valley of Chenar would be the valley of the well of the woman’s children—chen, well, and al, the woman’s children. The fertile valley of Kunar would be the valley of the god of the ears of corn; or, more probably, the nest of the ears of corn: as Kú, pronounced short, means God, and Kuu, pronounced long, is nest. Nal, is the ears of corn.
The correspondent of the London Times, in his letters, mentions the names of some of the principal tribes, such as the Kuki-Khel, the Akakhel, the Khambhur Khel, etc. The suffix Khel simply signifies tribe, or clan. So similar to the Maya vocable Kaan, a tie, a rope; hence a clan: a number of people held together by the tie of parentage. Now, Kuki would be Kukil, or Kukum maya for feather, hence the Kuki-Khel would be the tribe of the feather.
Aka-Khel in the same manner would be the tribe of the reservoir, or pond. Akal is the Maya name for the artificial reservoirs, or ponds in which the ancient inhabitants of Mayab collected rain water for the time of drought.
Similarly the Khambhur Khel is the tribe of the pleasant: Kambul in Maya. It is the name of several villages of Yucatan, as you may satisfy yourself by examining the map.
We have also the Zaka-Khel, the tribe of the locust, ZAK. It is useless to quote more for the present: enough to say that if you read the names of the cities, valleys clans, roads even of Afghanistan to any of the aborigines of Yucatan, they will immediately give you their meaning in their own language. Before leaving the country of the Afghans, by the Khiber Pass—that is to say, the road of the hawk; Hi, hawk, and BEL, road—allow me to inform you that in examining their types, as published in the London illustrated papers, and in Harper’s Weekly, I easily recognized the same cast of features as those of the bearded men, whose portraits we discovered in the bas-reliefs which adorn the antæ and pillars of the castle, and queen’s box in the Tennis Court at Chichen-Itza.