The meaning of the bird, which is represented as perched on each of the four trees in the Féjérvary diagram, is likewise explained by the metaphors recorded by Olmos who states that, “a son or child or a much beloved lord or chieftain was compared to a beautiful and precious bird, such as the Quetzal, the Roseate Spoonbill, the Blue-bird, etc., etc.” Surmounting the tribal trees in the diagram, the birds therefore typify the lords of the four provinces and this is corroborated by the fact that each different bird is figured again in the corner-loops in combination with the symbols of the cardinal points. The association of the symbols for lord or chief=the head, and the precious bird with the tribal tree also explains the frequent representation, in the native Codices, of one or two serpents entwined around the tree, since the serpent was the symbol in Mexico of the dual rulers or high-priests of the Above and Below. There is ample proof, which shall be presented in full in my monograph on this subject, that the above metaphorical images were as intelligible to the Mayas and other tribes, as to the Mexicans themselves, for the identical metaphors and imagery were in widespread general use. The following data will corroborate this statement.
A Maya native drawing, copied by Cogolludo in 1640 from the MS. of the Chilan Balam or Sacred Book of Man, which relates the [pg 191] history of the Mayas, has been recently reproduced in Dr. Daniel G. Brinton's Primer of Maya Hieroglyphics, p. 47. It displays a rectangular stone slab like a table, on the centre of which rests a circular bowl, the symbol, as I have shown, of the earth and centre. Growing from this is a spreading tree.
It is a curious and undeniable fact that the Maya name for table is mayac, and that the dictionaries contain the words mayac-tun, stone-table, and mayac-ché, wooden, literally, tree-table. Familiarity with the native modes of rebus-writing leads to the inference that this picture of a tree and table, expressing the sounds mayac-ché, actually signified the tree of the Mayas and therefore figured in the book relating their history. Bishop Landa records that the Mayas believed in a beautiful celestial tree, resembling the ceiba and named yax-ché, literally, green tree, under whose shade they would repose in after-life. Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg surmises that this tree was the same as the beautiful shade tree which grows in Yucatan and Mexico and is named, in the latter country, tonacaz-quahuital=tree of our subsistence, i. e., life.
A Maya name for the “tree of life,” ua-hom-ché, next claims our attention.[48] A valuable old manuscript dictionary of the Maya language, quoted by Dr. Brinton, records that the word uah means “a certain kind of life.” The word hom is an ancient term for an artificial elevation, mound or pyramid, hence homul, the pyramid on which a temple was built. Combined with ché, tree, the word seems to signify “the elevated or high tree of life,” the idea of the celestial tree “on high,” being possibly intended. In connection with this it is interesting to reëxamine fig. [20], IV, which represents a flat pyramid from which grows a four-petalled flower on a stalk with two leaves, the symbolism of which is apparent.
I am inclined to connect another native name translated in the dictionaries by “cross”=zin-ché with zihil=to be born, to commence, zihnal=original, primitive, and zian=origin, generation, ancestry, and to interpret it “the tree of ancestral or tribal life.” On the other hand, there is the adjective zinil=mighty, great, and the meaning of zin-ché may merely mean “the mighty tree.” In treating of the “cross tablet” of Palenque in the following [pg 192] pages, reference will be made to Dr. Brinton's identification of the “cross” as a tree and tree symbolism referred to again. Although unable to produce here all the data I have collected on the subject, I think that the foregoing prove that the Peruvians, Mexicans and Mayas, employed the four-branched tree as an image of the organization and growth of their communal life, and utilized it in pictography as a means of recording changes of organization and statistics of increase or decrease of population. The Maya word for “one generation of men,” uinay, literally meaning “one growth,” seems to reveal that each generation was popularly thought of as one growth of leaves on the tree of state—a simile which is worthy of note.
One more point remains to be considered in reference to the organization of the population into four parts, each of which consisted of four minor parts and so on; namely, the employment of color as a means of differentiation.
In Peru each person wore on the head a twisted cord, of the color of its quarter, whilst the Inca alone wore these colors combined, in the band which encircled his brow, as a sign that, in his person he united the rulership over the four provinces. Molina records the colors of these as red, yellow, white and black. In the titles of the Maya Bacabs, or lords of the provinces, as given by Landa, the words for yellow, red, white and black, are found to be incorporated and prove to be identical with the arrangement in Peru. In Mexico, on the other hand, we find red, yellow, green and blue as the colors of the Four Quarters, white and black being assigned to the Above and Below. All colors combined are to be found united in symbols of the Centre and it is known that the use of centzon-tilmatli and quachtli=mantles of four hundred colors=multicolored were supplied as tributes to the capital, for the use of a privileged caste. A somewhat similar arrangement to the Mexican is that of the Zuñis at the present time. According to Mr. Cushing, they assign yellow, blue, red and white to the cardinal points, speckled and black to the Above=zenith and Below=nadir, and “all colours to the Middle or Centre.”
In Peru, Mexico and Yucatan I have found scattered notices proving that individuals habitually painted their bodies with their respective colors. The Mexican “lords of the night” smeared themselves with black. A passage in Sahagun (book i, chap. v) speaks of the whitening of the “face, arms, hands and legs with [pg 193] ‘tiçatl’ ”=chalk, as though this were a habit of the “noblewomen.” In the Codices some women are, in fact, represented with white faces, whilst those of the majority are painted yellow and it is known that yellow ochre was employed in reality. I have, in preparation, a brief, illustrated monograph showing the various modes of painting the face represented in the native pictorial records. In these, men painted red are of frequent occurrence, and it is known that the “red man” owed his appellation to the custom of using red pigment on his body.
Let us now briefly consider some of the results which inevitably followed the establishment of two diverging cults which were the outcome of the primitive recognition of duality and the artificial association of sex with Heaven and Earth, Day and Night, etc. On pp. [60-62] I have cited evidence showing that at one time in the past history of the Aztecs, serious differences arose between the male and female rulers, and led to a separation of the tribe and the establishment of two distinct centres of government.
The native languages furnish strong indications that, in ordinary tribal life, the separation of the sexes must have been generally enforced from remote antiquity and that male and female communities existed in various portions of the continent. It is well known that, to this day, the Nahuatl tongue spoken by the men is different from that spoken by the women, and that the same duality of language prevails among other American tribes. When the male and female portions of the native states separated and founded separate capitals it is obvious that each would have still further cultivated a separate language and that the institution of two distinct cults would have accentuated their differences and given a fresh impetus to their development. As will be shown, the Maya chronicles reveal that, in Yucatan, the nocturnal cult of the female principle degenerated into such abominations that the incensed population actually rose in revolt, murdered the high-priests and scattered their votaries.