Third. It tends to confirm the belief that the bird figures were used to denote the winds. This fact also enables us to give a signification to the birds’ heads on the engraved shells found in the mounds of the United States, a full and interesting account of which is given by Mr. Holmes in a paper published in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology.[50] Take for example the three shells figured on Plate LIX—reproduced in our [Fig. 10]—Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Here is in each case the four-looped circle corresponding with the four loops of the Cortesian and Fejervary plates, also with the looped serpent of the Mexican calendar stone, and the four serpents of Plate 43 of the Borgian Codex. The four bird heads on each shell are pointed toward the left, just as on Plate 44 of the Fejervary Codex, and Plates 65 and 66 of the Vatican Codex B, and doubtless have the same signification in the former as in the latter—the four winds, or winds of the four cardinal points. If this supposition be correct, of which there is scarcely room for a doubt, it not only confirms Mr. Holmes’s suggestions, but also indicates that the mound builders followed the same custom in this respect as the Nahua nations, and renders it quite probable that there was more or less intercourse between the two peoples, which will enable us to account for the presence in the mounds of certain articles, which otherwise appear as anomalies.
Fourth. Another and more important result is the proof it furnishes of an intimate relation of the Maya with the Nahua nations. That all the Central American nations had calendars substantially the same in principle as the Mexican, is well known. This of itself would indicate a common origin not so very remote; but when we see two contiguous or neighboring peoples making use of the same conventional signs of a complicated nature, down even to the most minute details, and those of a character not comprehensible by the commonalty, we have proof at least of a very intimate relation. I cannot attempt in this place to discuss the question of the identity or non-identity of the Maya, Toltec and Aztec nations, nor the relations of one to the other, but follow the usual method, and speak of the three as distinct.
If Leon y Gama is correct in is statement,[51] “No todos comenzaban á contar el circlo por un mismo año; los Toltecos lo empezaban desde Tecpatl; los de Teotihuacan desde Calli; los Mexicanos desde Tochtli; y los Tezcocanos desde Acatl,” and the years began with Cipactli, we are probably justified in concluding that the Fejervary Codex is a Tezcucan manuscript.
Be this as it may, we have in these two plates the evidence of an intimate relation between the Maya and Nahua nations, as that of the Cortesian Codex certainly appertains to the former and the Fejervary as certainly to the latter.
Which was the original and which the copy is a question of still greater importance, as its proper determination may have the effect to overturn certain opinions which have been long entertained and generally conceded as correct. If an examination should prove that the Mayas have borrowed from the Nahuas it would result in proving the calendar and sculptures of the former to be much more recent than has been generally supposed.
It must be admitted that the Mexican or Nahua manuscripts have little or nothing in them that could have been borrowed from the Maya manuscripts or inscriptions; hence, if we find in the latter anything belonging to or found in the former it will indicate that they are borrowed and that the Mexican are the older.
In addition to the close resemblance of these two plates, the following facts bearing upon this question are worthy of notice. In the lower part of Plate 52 of the Dresden Codex we see precisely the same figure as that used by the Mexicans as the symbol of Cipactli.