This would make the present the fourth age of the world (not the fifth, as the Nahuas believed); and this corresponds to the prophecies contained in the “Books of Chilan Balam,” which I have quoted in another work. The scene of the creation of man, the “terrestrial Paradise,” was known as hun anhil, and the name of the first man was Anum, both apparently from the verb anhel, to stand erect.
Many of the high calculations of the priests must have been for the purpose of discovering the length of the present epoch and how soon the world would end. They seem to have thought this would take place when all their various time-measures would merge together into a common unity, which each could divide without remainder.[[59]]
3. Cosmical Conceptions of the Mayas.
The cosmical conceptions of the ancient Mayas have not hitherto been understood; but by a study of existing documents I believe they can be correctly explained in outline.
Fig. 9.—The Universe. (From the Chilan Balam of Mani.)
One of these is the central design in the Chilan Balam, or Sacred Book, of Mani (Fig. [9]). It was copied by Father Cogolludo in 1640, and inserted in his History of Yucatan, with a totally false interpretation which the natives designedly gave him.
The lettering in the above figure is by the late Dr. C. H. Berendt, and was obtained by him from other books of Chilan Balam, and native sources. In Cogolludo’s work, this design is surrounded by thirteen heads which signify the thirteen ahau katuns, or greater cycles of years, as I have explained elsewhere.[[60]] The number thirteen in American mythology symbolizes the thirteen possible directions of space.[[61]] The border, therefore, expresses the totality of Space and Time; and the design itself symbolizes Life within Space and Time. This is shown as follows: At the bottom of the field lies a cubical block, which represents the earth, always conceived of this shape in Mayan mythology.[[62]] It bears, however, not the lettering, lum, the Earth, as we might expect, but, significantly, tem, the Altar. The Earth is the great altar of the Gods, and the offering upon it is Life.
Above the earth-cube, supported on four legs which rest upon the four quarters of the mundane plane, is the celestial vase, cum, which contains the heavenly waters, the rains and showers, on which depends the life of vegetation, and therefore that of the animal world as well. Above it hang the heavy rain clouds, muyal, ready to fill it; within it grows the yax che, the Tree of Life, spreading its branches far upward, on their extremities the flowers or fruit of life, the soul or immortal principle of man, called ol or yol.[[63]]
Turning now to the central design of what has been called the “Tableau of the Bacabs,” in the Codex Cortesianus, Fig. [10], we can readily see in the light of the above explanation that its lesson is the same. The design is surrounded by the signs of the twenty days, beyond which the field (not shown in this cut) is apportioned to the four cardinal points and the deities and time-cycles connected with them.