It is scarcely necessary to recall here that the flint-knife was a well-known ancient Mexican emblem, nor to point out the importance of the conclusion that two well-defined symbols which played an important rôle in the Mexican and Mayan cult of the Below and of the Earth-mother, are actually found in use amongst Californian Indians at the present day.
A whole flood of light is thrown upon native symbolism, however, by the information obtained from the Zuñi Indians by Mr. F. H. Cushing. The following passage, from their Creation myth, affords the most positive confirmation of the foregoing conclusion, that the bowl or vase was the native emblem of the earth-mother. The Zuñi speaker said: “Is not the bowl the emblem of the Earth, our Mother? For from her we draw both food and drink, just as the babe draws nourishment from the breast of its mother. And round, as is the rim of the bowl, so is the horizon....”[11] Interesting as this explanation of the native symbolism undoubtedly is, it becomes most important when its full significance is realized and we recognize that originally earthenware bowls themselves were looked upon as sacred emblems formed indeed out of the material of the earth itself. This fact places the invention [pg 106] and manufacture of earthen vessels in an entirely new light and enables us to conjecture and understand why, quite apart from their utility, so much care and decoration were lavished upon them and why, indeed, they were constantly buried with the dead. They obviously served as sacred emblems of the earth-mother, to whose care the dead body was confided, and originally the intention probably was to propitiate her by the beauty of the sacred vessels, which, to be symbolical of her bounty, necessarily contained food and drink.
Without pausing to discuss how easily this custom would have gradually given birth to the belief that the food and drink thus offered were intended for the use of the dead body itself, or its soul, I would point out that, in the absence of clay vessels, a stone, rough or worked, would have also served as an appropriate emblem of the earth-mother, being as it were, of her own substance. It is well known that in ancient Mexico this custom prevailed. There we also find that the bowl- or vase-shaped grave was employed, with a deeply religious and symbolical meaning. This is clearly revealed by a native drawing in the “Lyfe of the Indians,” representing a native burial. The deceased, represented by his skull only, has been placed in a deep hole, figured as a large inverted horse-shoe, painted brown and covered with small “horse-shoe” marks. The same religious symbolism which led to the adoption of a definite form of sepulchre, typifying the element earth, would evidently account for the adoption for burial purposes, of large clay vessels into which the remains of the dead were placed. In some localities these clay burial urns were, as we know, made large enough to contain the dead body itself. The difficulty of manufacturing these would naturally have led to the general adoption of cremation, simply as a means of reducing the remains so that they could repose in the sacred image of the earth. Cremation would, moreover, be a rite full of meaning since, to the native mind, earth was inseparable from its twin element fire, and both together constituted the “Below.”
It is significant to find, however, that the ashes of Montezuma's predecessors had not been finally consigned to the earth. In strict accordance with their association with the Heaven and Above, their remains were never allowed to come in contact with the earth, but were usually preserved inside of a hollow wooden effigy of the deceased, which was dressed in his insignia and placed in a high [pg 107] tower, built for the express purpose. Cortés states that there were “forty very high towers” in the enclosure of the Great Temple of Mexico and that “all of these were sepulchres of the lords” (Historia de Nueva-España, ed. Lorenzana, pp. 105 and 106). Whilst it is evident that the remains of all lords and priests of heaven should thus be assigned a place of rest high above the earth, it is equally intelligible that the bodies of the lords and priests of the Below and all women should be consigned to the interior of the earth and by preference in caves. The Codex Féjérvary contains an interesting picture of the tied-up body of a woman, recognizable as such from the head-dress and her instrument of labor, the metlatl, on which the maize is ground. The mummy rests inside of a flat effigy of a serpent's head, which seems to be carved in wood or stone and closely resembles fig. [31], no. 11. It is worth considering whether the carved stone-yokes may not have served in connection with the funeral rites of the consorts of rulers or high priestesses or priests of the Below.
If investigations of the vase or earth symbols are extended to countries lying south of Mexico, traces of the existence of an analogous cult are observable. There undoubtedly exists a striking resemblance between the form of the characteristic and peculiar stone “seats” which have been found in such numbers in Ecuador, to the vase, fig. [31], no. 3, for instance. The employment of these symbolical stones as a consecrated central altar or, possibly, as the throne of the living representative of the earth-mother, would have harmonized with the native ideas which have been traced on the preceding pages.
It was also extremely interesting to me to find the identical symbol in the Maya day-sign Caban, which has been identified by Dr. Schellhas and Geheimrath Förstemann as a symbol of the earth and is figured on p. 99 of Dr. Brinton's Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics. In the sign Caban, the horse-shoe mark is accompanied by a series of dots which seem to indicate liquid trickling from the receptacle and permeating the soil, an idea which is strictly analogous to the much more elaborate Mexican images of the vase full of rain or “earth-wine,” fig. [1], nos. 1 and 4, which, in cursive form, was employed as the emblem of the pulque, or octli lords, the priests of the earth. It is strikingly significant to find that in the Maya Codices the drops issuing from the horse-shoe are sometimes figured as trickling into the mouths of “divinities” whose [pg 108] faces also exhibit images of the sacred vase, analogous to that of the Mexican “octli-lords.”
These Maya divinities have been designated by Dr. Schellhas as god L, whose face is painted black and under whose eye a vase is painted, a peculiarity termed by Maya authorities “an ornamented eye” and which may be seen in fig. [33], iv; (2) as god M, “a second black god,” whose eye is likewise enclosed in a vase and whose hieroglyph is a vase on a black ground; and (3) as god C, of whom I shall subsequently speak in detail. (See Brinton's Primer, pp. 122 and 124.) In the case of god L, the two horse-shoe marks from which drops are falling into the mouth of the god, are surmounted by the glyph imix, to which I shall revert.
Figure 33.