No definite account of the Mexican conception of the universe has come down to us, but we are probably founding correctly if we accept the Maya belief as closely approximating to that in general currency in Mexico. An examination of the central design in the Maya Book of Chilan Balam of Mani, given in Cogolludo’s History of Yucatan (1640), shows the earth as a cubical block, by which term it is practically described in the Popol Vuh (“the quadrated castle, four-pointed, four-sided, four-bordered”). This the Maya described as tem (“the altar”), that is, the altar of the gods, the offering upon which was life. Above this cube on four legs is the celestial vase (cum) containing the heavenly waters, rains, and showers, upon which all life depends. Above it hang the rain-clouds which fill it and from it springs the vax che, or Tree of Life, with outspread branches.
A similar illustration from the Codex Cortesiano,[29] a Maya MS. which has been described as the “Tableau of the Bacabs” or heavenly supporters, shows the Tree of Life, the Celestial Vase, and the cloud masses. Beneath the tree are seen the two creative deities, and the whole design is surrounded by the twenty day-signs.
THE FIVE REGIONS OF THE WORLD
The Mexicans divided the universe into five regions. The locus classicus for the representatives of the gods who preside over these regions is the first sheet of the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer. The Fire-god occupies the centre of the picture, for just as fire occupies a space in the middle of the primitive hut, so does Xiuhtecutli maintain the central position in the universal disposition of things. From him four streams [[58]]of sacrificial blood radiate in the direction of the four cardinal points, east, north, west, south,[30] which are situated at each corner of the picture, for he rules over all as well as over the centre, which is known as Tlalxicco. These bands of blood end in the four day-signs—acatl, tecpatl, calli, and tochtli, from which alone the years of the “calendar” or tonalamatl could be named, and which respectively agree with the cardinal points noted above. The four sides of the square are also associated with the four quarters of the universe. Thus the top square in the picture represents Tlapcopa, Region of the Dawn (the East), the right-hand side Uitznauac, Place of Thorns (the South), the bottom Ciutlampa, Region of Women (the West), and the left-hand side Mictlampa, Place of the Dead (the North). Within these squares are seen four species of trees, belonging to the four points of the compass. They resemble the trees seen in sheet 49 of Codex Borgia and sheet 17 of Codex Vaticanus B, from the first of which codices they can be more clearly described.
North.
South.
THE TREES OF THE WORLD-QUARTERS.