Before abandoning the subject of native symbolism and star-emblems I should like to present, as a curiosity, with an appeal to specialists to enlighten me as to the astronomical knowledge of the Eskimos, an Eskimo drawing from Professor Wilson's instructive and useful monograph. It is said to represent a “flock of birds,” but so closely resembles Cassiopeia and Polaris that I am tempted to view it as an indication that the Eskimos may also have associated the idea of a celestial bird, or birds, wheeling around a central point, with the constellation and the pole-star (fig. [23]). Having once ventured so far afield, I cannot refrain from presenting here an interesting set of aboriginal star-symbols, reproduced from Professor Wilson's comprehensive work (fig. [24]), each composed of a cross combined, with a single exception, with a circle. I draw attention to the striking resemblance of some of these signs to those painted on the finely decorated pottery found on the hacienda of Don José Luna, in Nicaragua, and described by J. F. Brandsford, M.D. (Archaeological Researches in Nicaragua, Smithsonian Inst., 1881, p. 30, B), and suggest that, in [pg 052] both localities, the symbol may be a rudimentary swastika, and represent Polaris and circumpolar rotation.
Plate III. 1. Shell gorget, Missouri. 2, 5-14. Pottery vessels, Arkansas. 3, 4, 15-17, 19-28. Pottery vessels, Missouri. 18. Pottery vessel, Kentucky. 6. National Museum. 3, 16, 17, 21, 24, 25. St. Louis Academy. All others Peabody Museum. Willoughby, “Pottery from the Mississippi Valley.” Journal of American Folk-lore, January-March, 1897.
In conclusion I refer the reader to Mr. C. C. Willoughby's valuable and most interesting “Analysis of the decorations upon pottery from the Mississippi Valley” (Journal Amer. Folk-lore, vol. x, 1897), in which he figures the remarkable specimens preserved in the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, the designs on which, as he states, “are mostly of symbolic origin and have been in use among various tribes within the historic period from the Great Lakes to Mexico.” With the kind permission of the editor of the Journal, I reproduce some of Mr. Willoughby's illustrations on Plate [iii].
Figure 24. Crosses And Circles Representing Star Symbols, Arizona.
Returning to consider the probable result of the gradual diffusion of star-cult owing to natural causes and of the consequent divergence from the idea of the Centre, which had so deeply influenced the minds of primitive men during many centuries, with earnest, and extended astronomical observation, keeping pace with the development of the idea of the Above and Below, it is obvious that the utmost attention would be next given to the conspicuous star groups and planets which are visible at certain times and then seem to have departed or descended into the under world. Any one who has read the interesting communications by Herr Richard Andree (Globus. bd. lxiv, nr. 22), On the relation of the Pleiades to the beginning of the year amongst primitive people, followed by a note by Herr Karl von den Steinen on the same subject, will realize that widely-separated tribes of men, by dint of simple observation, knew the exact length of the periodical appearance and disappearance of this star group and regulated their year accordingly. Herr Andree cites, for instance, that “in the Society islands, the year was divided into two portions, the first of which was named Matari-i-inia=the Pleiades above. It began and lasted [pg 053] during the time when these constellations were visible close to the horizon after sunset. The second period, named Matarii-i-raro=the Pleiades below, began and lasted for the time during which the star-group was invisible after sunset” (W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. ii, p. 419, London 1829). That the ancient Mexicans had likewise observed the Pleiades and been deeply impressed by them is proven by the well-known fact that the ceremony of the kindling of the sacred fire, which betokened the commencement of a new cycle, was performed “when the Pleiades attained the zenith at midnight precisely.” In my complete monograph in the ancient Mexican calendar-system it will be my endeavor to present all the data I have collected concerning the degree of elementary astronomical knowledge attained by the native astronomers. I shall, therefore, content myself with pointing out here that besides the foregoing testimony about the Pleiades, the native name for which was the miec=the many, or the tianquiztli=the marketplace, there are records proving that the cult of the planet Venus was a firmly established feature of the native religion at the time of the Conquest. Sahagun records that the Nahuatl names for this planet were citlalpul or hueycitlallin both signifying “the great star.” “In the great temple of Mexico an edifice named ilhuicatitlan [literally, the land of the sky] consisted of a great, high column, on which the morning star was painted.... Captives were sacrificed in front of this column annually, at the period when the star re-appeared” (op. cit. appendix to book ii).
With regard to the connection of the Pleiades with the beginning of the Mexican cycle, it is interesting to note Herr Andree's statements that the most intimate connection of the star-group with the thoughts of primitive people, would naturally take place in such localities where its periodical movements coincided with the changes of season, wind and weather which affected agriculture. A survey of the data presented by Herr Andree shows that the cult of the Pleiades attained its greatest development amongst tribes inhabiting a southerly latitude. It was in South America, indeed, that the Peruvians, alongside of their highly developed sun-cult, rendered homage and offered sacrifices to the Pleiades. In Mexico, the cult of the Pleiades appears as intimately associated with that of the sun and to have assumed importance only in historical and comparatively recent times, probably when the periodicity of the sun's movements had been taught or recognized and the [pg 054] sign ollin, which is an exact presentation of the annual course of the sun, had been invented and adopted as a symbol. I have already pointed out that this sign occurs on the calendar-stone, for instance, which has a human face in its centre, bearing two numerals on the forehead and obviously symbolizing the union of two in one. In other instances the centre displays the eye, or star symbol and conveys the suggestion that the “four movements” of the circumpolar constellations were thereby symbolized. It may be that, in ancient Mexico, the two symbols, respectively referring to the movements of the sun and of the circumpolar star-groups, were emblematic of the two different cults or religions which existed alongside of each other. The first, the cult of the Above, of the Blue Sky, was directed towards the sun and the planets and stars intimately associated with sunrise and sunset, amongst them the Pleiades. The cult of the Below, of the Nocturnal Heaven, was directed towards the moon, Polaris and the circumpolar constellations—also to the stars and planets during the period of their disappearance and possibly in the same way to the enigmatical “Black Sun,” figured in the B. N. MS. which may have been the sun during its nightly stay in the House of the Underworld, whose door was in the west. In order to obtain an idea of the immense proportions ultimately assumed by these two diverging cults and the enormous influence they exerted upon the entire native civilization, it will be necessary to examine the form of the social organization in Montezuma's time.