Returning to the employment of the glyph kan in Maya Codices, for more reasons than I am able to enumerate here, I conclude it served as an indicative of the Above or Heaven. It is a curious fact that the Maya word for cord is kaan, whilst the name for sky is caan. I cannot but think, therefore, that a carved pendant with a serpent effigy=a kan, worn on a cord=kaan, must have been associated [pg 113] by the Mayas with the Heaven or sky=caan, and that this linguistic coincidence must have been a strong factor in the development of the symbolism attached to the glyph can or kan.
An interesting fact, which I shall demonstrate by a large series of illustration from native Codices in a chapter of my forthcoming work on the ancient Calendar System, will show that in their hieratic writings, the ancient Mexican scribes represented the nocturnal heaven or sky as a circle composed of a cord, to which stars were attached, whilst the centre of the circle exhibited one or four stars. In my opinion the origin and explanation of the association of the cord with stars are clearly traceable to the above mentioned fact that in the Maya tongue the word for cord, kaan, closely resembles the sound of the word caan=sky. The presence of the cord in the Mexican symbols is, therefore, another indication of their Maya origin. A proof that the Mayas also employed the cord as a symbol of the sky, or heaven, is furnished by the much-discussed lentil-shaped stone altar found at Copan, a small outline of which is represented in fig. [21], no. 1. In order fully to understand the meaning expressed by this stone, it is necessary to bear in mind how indissolubly the idea of something circular was associated by the Mayas and Mexicans with their conception of the vault of heaven resting on the horizon, and of the Above, consisting of the two fluid elements, air and water.
It is scarcely necessary to refer again here to more than one authority for the statement that the temples of the air (of the Above) were circular, and the reason given by the natives for this was that “just as the air circulates around the vault of the heaven, so its temple had to be of a round shape.”[12] As a contrast to this conception, the influence of which is also obvious in the form of the round temples and towers of the ruined cities of Central America, I would cite the allusions to the solid earth contained in the sacred books of the Mayas, the Popol Vuh, as being “the quadrated earth, four-cornered, four-sided, four-bordered.” These data establish the important fact, to which I shall recur, that the native philosophers associated the Above, composed of air and water, with the rounded, and the Below, composed of fire and water, with the angular form.
The Copan stone altar exhibits the circular form and is surrounded [pg 114] by a sculptured cord which conveys the sound of its name kaan or caan=heaven. On it a cup-shaped depression=ho-och, marks the sacred centre of the heaven, the counterpart to the terrestrial bowl whence all life-giving force proceeded. Two curved lines diverge from this and divide the vaulted circle into two parts. The curve in the lines may be interpreted as conveying motion or rotation whilst the division of the sky may have been intended to signify the eastern or male and the western or female portion of the heaven, the whole being an abstract image of central rulership and of a dual principle incorporating the four elements. It is obvious that the meaning intended to be conveyed might also include the duality of the Heaven or Above, composed of the union of the elements air and water. By painting the stone in two or four colors either of these meanings could have been expressed. In either case it will be recognized, however, that much as Dr. Ernest Hamy's deductions concerning this altar have been criticised, the learned director of the Trocadéro Museum, Paris, was undoubtedly right in recognizing that the stone is a cosmical symbol, intended to convey the idea of a two-fold division and analogous to the Chinese tae-keih which it resembles, with the difference that the Copan sign is more complex exhibiting, as it does, a central bowl-shaped depression. A glimpse at the other symbols in fig. [21] will show that the identical idea is expressed in the Mexican signs exhibiting a central circle, usually accompanied by a four-fold division.
An analogous attempt to express the same native idea is recognizable in the peculiar mushroom-shaped stone figures, represented by a number of examples at the Central American exposition recently held at Guatemala,[13] and recently described by the distinguished geologist and ethnologist, Dr. Carl Sapper. The specimens had been collected in San Salvador and Guatemala and “resemble great stone mushrooms” inasmuch as each consists of three well-defined parts, a square pedestal from the midst of which rises an almost cylindrical “stem” supporting a large circular solid top, flat underneath and rounded above. The cylindrical support is carved in the rough semblance of a human form, which, in some instances, has rays issuing from its head.
An acquaintance with the fundamental ideas of native cosmogony [pg 115] enables us to recognize that the square stone base typifies the solid part of the universe, the Below, whilst the vaulted circle above typifies the heaven, the Above. The figure standing between both is evidently an image of a central lord and ruler, and the entire image is in accord with the native mode of thought as set forth in Mr. Frank H. Cushing's report already cited and in the symbols which have been figured.
After reading Mr. Cushing's account of the native American philosophy, preserved to the present day by the Zuñis, it is impossible not to realize how clearly the mushroom-images materialize the identical ideas which constitute, indeed, the keynote of native thought and can be traced in each centre of ancient American civilization. I am inclined to think that these stone images were, originally, painted with the colors assigned to the four quarters, which would render the symbolism more apparent. The existence of these images in a restricted area of territory, seems, moreover, to indicate that they had been invented there, possibly under the influence of a religious and political creed with particular reference to the union, in a single individual, of the power and attributes of the Above and Below—an idea which strongly contrasts with Mexico and Yucatan, where the idea of duality prevailed to such an extent that, by creating two distinct religions and governments, it ultimately led to the disintegration of the greatest of native empires and its fall, from which it was only rallying at the time of the Conquest. It is also possible that the Guatemala images are the expression of the reversion to a more ancient form of philosophy or government when it had been realized that dual government led to dissensions and disintegration. At all events the rude mushroom figures testify that the conception of a single celestial or terrestrial ruler of the Above and the Below filled the minds of their makers at a time, the exact date of which it would be of utmost importance to determine, if this were only possible. It is also interesting to note the curious analogy presented by these figures to the well-known statement by Confucius that, “the sage is united to Heaven and Earth so as to form a triad, consisting of Heaven, Earth and Man.”
The association of the round form and of the peak with the Above and of the square and bowl with the Below can be also detected in the form of native American architecture, as exemplified, for instance, by the contrasting shapes of two temples figured on [pg 116] page 75, of the Borgian Codex (fig. [34]) which were obviously dedicated to the two prevailing cults. One of these is surmounted by a tau-shaped thatched roof with a flat top and turned-down ends. The dedication of this temple to Night or star-cult is conveyed in this case, by the sign for star on a black ground inserted in the roof.[14]
