It is obvious from this that, to a Zuñi, the State and its subdivisions appear under the allegorical form of a quadruped and I have traced the identical mode of thought in Mexico and Central [pg 296] America[84] where, owing to linguistic associations, an ocelot is in some instances employed as a symbol for a State whilst in others the form of an eagle was adopted for the same purpose (see Appendix [I]).
To sum up: in ancient America the human form was employed to represent quadripartite division and the complete finger-and-toe count=20, and as such became emblematic of the quadriform plan of universal application. Owing to a variety of circumstances and suggestions arising from language, the figure of a quadruped=ocelot was adopted as a symbol of the State by some tribes and the form of an eagle by others, the inference being that the ocelot was identified with the cult of the earth and night and the eagle with the cult of heaven and day. While the ocelot and eagle occur in the codices as representative of two distinct classes or divisions of the State, there are some interesting and suggestive representations, to which I shall revert, of figures combining the form and claws of an ocelot with the wings and head of a bird, evidently symbolical of a union of the Above and Below, or Heaven and Earth.
Having furnished the explanation that ancient America affords of the origin of the primitive employment of the human body, the quadruped and bird in allegory and the assignment of their various parts to points in space, it is to Chinese scholars that I appeal for enlightenment as to the origin and development of the same idea in China. To me one point of difference between the Chinese and American list is very striking. In America although the navel was also regarded as a symbol, the heart, associated with the Middle, had obviously been recognized as the centre or seat of life, and the tearing out of the heart had become the salient feature in human sacrifices. In China the stomach is assigned to the Middle, and death by disembowelling was customary.
An analysis of the Chinese and Mexican numerical systems likewise proves that their ultimate development was strikingly [pg 297] different, although it is easy to recognize how both might have arisen from the same source. Thus whilst the Mexican and Central American calendar (and social organization) is based on the combination of 20 characters with 13 numerals, the Chinese “took two sets of 12 and 10 characters respectively and combined them.” The outcome of the combination of 20 with 13 affords a marked contrast to that of 12 with 10. In the Mexican calendar, as I have shown, there were fixed periods of 5 days (associated with the Middle and Four Quarters) and of 20 days, the latter being “one complete count” of days, based on the primitive finger-and-toe count. In the Mexican social organization there were 4 principal and 16 minor clans of people, known by 20 signs. Each of these in turn was subdivided into 13 categories associated with the directions in space. By mentioning a sign and a numeral, up to 13, the exact subdivision of a clan was clearly designated while the direction of its residence, as regards the capital, was likewise conveyed. A day was associated with each of these 20 clans and their respective 13 subdivisions, and the unit of time produced by the combination of the 20 day-signs and 13 numerals was the period of 260 days, which held 4×65 days and was approximately equivalent to nine lunations and to the period of human gestation. The 260-day period, as will be more clearly shown in my monograph on the Mexican Calendar System, constituted the religious year of the “Sons or Lords of Night” in their cult of the Moon, the Nocturnal Heaven, Earth and the Female principle.
Simultaneously with this lunar calendar, in which each moon had a different name, a civil or solar calendar was employed consisting of 365 days, divided into 17 periods of 20 and 1 period of 25 days. These years bore the names of four different signs in rotation combined with 13 numerals.[85] The cycles, thus produced, consisted of 4×13=52 years, 20, or a “complete count” of which, produced the great cycle of 1040 years.
Totally different from this numerical system is that of the Chinese, who “divided the year into 12 months of 29 and 30 days each and [pg 298] as these periods represent with sufficient exactness the lunar month, it follows that the new moon falls on the 1st of every month and that on the 15th the moon is at its full. The month is thus associated with the moon and is called by the same name and written with the same hieroglyphic.... The Chinese also divide the year by seasons and recognize 8 main divisions and 16 subsidiary ones, which correspond to the days on which the sun enters the 1st and 15th degrees of a zodiacal sign ...” (Douglas, China, p. 269). Whilst it is customary in China for years to be designated at times by the Neen-haou or title of an emperor and an event to be alluded to as having occurred in such or such a year of a certain ruler's reign, the mode of computing years is by reckoning by sexagenary cycles. According to native historians this system was introduced by the emperor Hwang-te in the year 2637 B.C. which was the first year of the first cycle, and it has continued in use until the present day. In this system a group of ten characters, termed the “celestial stems” and associated with the male principle, is combined with a group of twelve characters, named the “terrestrial branches” and associated with the female principle. An unbroken series of sixty-year cycles have thus been formed, in the seventy-sixth of which the Chinese are now living. According to Biot, the calendar instituted by Hwang-te was a day-count only, and year-cycles were not in use until after the Christian era, having been introduced from India.
There are indications which will be more fully discussed further on, showing that the primitive day-count consisted of the seven-day period, each day being consecrated to one of the seven bright stars of Ursa Major, called the “Seven Regulators.”
It is well known that Taouism was founded by Laou-tsze, who was a contemporary of Confucius and thus “lived in the sixth century before Christ, a hundred years later than Buddha and a hundred years earlier than Socrates. A mystery hangs over Laou-tsze's history ... and there is the possibility that he was a foreigner, or perhaps a member of an aboriginal frontier tribe” (Legge).
The Shoo-king, the national book of history edited by Confucius, enables us to follow the development of the state religion and government, the basis of which was Heaven and its imperial ruler, the pole-star. The almost mythical emperor Yaou, whose reign began in B.C. 2357, “imitated Heaven, harmonized the various states of [pg 299] the empire and divided it into four quarters.” His successor, Shun, extended its organization, but it was Yü, the third ruler, in the thirteenth year of his reign (B.C. 1121), who, acknowledging his ignorance of them “went to inquire of Kê-tsze” about “the great plan of the 9 classifications and the arrangement of the invariable principles.” It is also stated in the Shoo-King, that it was “Heaven [who] gave to Yü the great plan and the 9 classifications, so that the invariable principles were arranged, consisting of the 5 elements, the 8 regulations, and the 5 arrangers.”
In China the day is divided into periods equivalent to 120 minutes=2 hours. “In speaking of these periods, however, the practice which was originally introduced into China by the Mongols, of substituting for the twelve stems, the names of the twelve animals which are supposed to be symbolical of them, is commonly adopted. Thus the 1st period, that between 11 p. m. and 1 a. m., is known as the Rat, period 2 as the Ox, 3 Tiger, 4 Hare, 5 Dragon, 6 Serpent, 7 Horse, 8 Sheep, 9 Monkey, 10 Cock, 11 Dog, 12 Boar. The night is divided into five watches, each of two hours duration....” (Douglas, China, p. 296).