Figure 37.
Let us return to it in its rudimentary stage, as a perpendicular line arising from a medium level, forming an inverted tau. The widespread employment amongst American peoples of the inverted and upright tau-shape as emblems of the Above and Below is abundantly proven and doubtlessly arose as naturally as “the Chinese characters Shang=Above, employed as a symbol for Heaven, and Lea=Below or Beneath, employed as a symbol for Earth. These are formed, in the one case, by placing a man (represented by a vertical line) above the medium level (represented by a horizontal line) and in the other below it” (Encyclopedia Britannica, art. China) fig. [37]. Another equally graphic presentation [pg 119] of the analogous thought is furnished by the familiar Egyptian sign which exhibits a loop or something rounded and hollow above and a perpendicular line beneath the medium level. It is well known that the tau occurs in Scandinavia and is popularly named Thor's hammer (fig. [38]). Merely as a curious analogy I point out that in fig. [25], no. 2, from the Vienna Codex, we have an American instance of a tau-shaped object held in the hand in a ceremonial rite.
Figure 38.
The late and lamented Baron Gustav Nordenskjöld observed that the entrances to the ruined estufas of the ancient cliff-dwellers of Colorado were in the shape of an upright tau and it is well known that this is also the case amongst the Pueblo Indians of the present day. By means of a photograph taken by Dr. A. Warburg of Berlin, whilst witnessing the Humis-katshina dance of the Moqui Indians at Oraibi, in May, 1896, I am able to affirm that the native dancers wear masks and high head-ornaments, partly of wood, on which reversed and upright tau-symbols are painted, the first in a light and the second in a dark color. As the name of the ceremonial dance was explained to Dr. Warburg as signifying “helping the sprouting or growing maize,” and celebrated the advent of the rainy season, it is obvious that the two forms of tau which were displayed in alternate order on the heads of the dancers in the procession symbolized the juxtaposition of the Above and Below, of Heaven and Earth.
In the ruined temples of Central America, windows in the shape of upright and reversed taus also occur. The following series of [pg 120] architectural openings (fig. [39]) are copied from Mr. Alfred P. Maudslay's invaluable and splendid work, which has not, as yet, met with the recognition it so richly deserves.[16] They display besides the tau-shape (g and h) other forms, the symbolism of which has been discussed. There are cross-shaped (e), square, round and oval windows (d, j, b and i), the square obviously symbolical of the Earth and the round of the Heaven. Besides these there are openings in the form of a truncated cone (a and c) and others ending in a narrow point (k). A striking form which recalls the Moorish arch and is shown in f, may, perhaps, be looked upon as an attempt to express the idea of a union of the Above and Below.
