Fig. 1233.—Crosses. Maya.
Bandelier (a) thinks that the crosses which were frequently used before the conquest by the aborigines of Mexico and Central America were merely ornaments and were not objects of worship, while the so-called crucifixes, like that on the “Palenque tablet,” were only the symbol of the “new fire” or close of a period of fifty-two years. He believes them to be merely representations of “fire-drills,” more or less ornamented.
Mr. W. H. Holmes (e) shows by a series representing steps in the simplification of animal characters that in Chiriqui a symmetrical cross was developed from the design of an alligator.
Fig. 1234.—Crosses. Nicaragua.
Carl Bovallius (a) gives an illustration, copied here as Fig. 1234, of pictographs in the island of Ceiba, Nicaragua.
Zamacois (a) says that “the cross figured in the religion of various tribes of the peninsula of Yucatan and that it represented the god of rain.”
