Part 8 (1/2)
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Figure 34.
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Figure 35.
The opposite temple exhibits a roof which rests on a black architrave and offers a general resemblance to an inverted tau. It rises in a tapering form and ends in a cone-shaped ornament. The existence and significance of these two forms of temple-roofs might escape notice did the same not recur in two high caps or mitres figured in the Vienna Codex and obviously intended for the respective use of the Lords of the Above and of the Below at a religious ceremonial (fig. 35). The first of these ends in a high peak, the extremity of which is represented as capped with snow, in the same conventional manner employed in figuring snow-mountains. An extremely significant feature of this cap is its exhibition of a curved and rounded pattern only on its border. The second mitre ends in a horizontal line; it exhibits an angular pattern and two flaps hang down from it, which, as they naturally concealed the ears of the wearer, seem to have been symbolical of something hidden, and, perhaps, of silence and secrecy. A third mitre is figured on the same page, which seems to unite the characteristics of both forms and is surmounted by a young maize-shoot, proceeding from a vase.
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Figure 36.
The a.s.sociation of the Above with a peak or point is further ill.u.s.trated by a well-known peaked diadem always painted blue which was the symbol of the visible ruler (fig. 36, no. 5). A peak also occurs on military s.h.i.+elds accompanied by four bars (fig. 36, no. 3) and presents an a.n.a.logy to no. 4 from the ”Lyfe of the Indians.” The latter is given as the symbol of a sacred festival which I have demonstrated in a previous publication to have coincided with the vernal equinox.(15) For further reasons which I shall present in my calendar monograph, I infer that we have in this drawing a most valuable image of the gnomon and dial employed by the Sun priests for the observation of the equinoxes and solstices. The human victim who was attached to the centre of the circular stone during the same festival is usually represented with the same cone or point and eight appendages on his head (fig. 36, no. 2). Owing to the circ.u.mstance that this peaked head-dress, or cone, was sometimes employed by the scribes for its phonetic value, as in fig. 36, no. 1, from the Codex Mendoza, in which instance it is figured on a mountain and is usually painted blue, we know positively that its name was Yope or Yopi-a valuable point since a temple and a sort of monastery in the courtyard of the Great Temple of Mexico were both named Yopico (Sahagun). At the same time it should be noted that the Maya name for ”a mitre,” the symbol of a divine ruler, is Yop-at. In the Mexican ollin-signs a cone or ascending point is usually placed above and opposite to a symbol consisting of a ring or loop. These evidently signify the Above and Below, and in this connection it is worth noticing that archaeologists have long puzzled over the curious forms of the two kinds of prehistoric stone objects which have most frequently been found in the island of Porto Rico. The first of these consists of an elongated stone, the centre of which rises in the shape of a cone, whilst the ends are respectively carved in the rough semblance of a head and of feet. The second form, which has frequently been found in caves, consists of a large stone ring, and is popularly termed ”a stone collar.” I am inclined to regard the latter as being a.n.a.logous to the ”stone yokes” of ancient Mexico and to infer that the aborigines of Porto Rico practised a form of the same cult. It should be borne in mind that the high conical stone, on which the human victims were sacrificed, was a salient feature in an ancient Mexican temple and that its form must have had some symbolical meaning. The foregoing data indicate that it probably was emblematic of the Above and Centre and was therefore regarded as the fitting place of sacrifice to the Sun and Heaven, whilst offerings to the Earth were most appropriately made in circular openings recalling the rim of the bowl and the round line of the horizon. It will be seen further on that the cone recurs in native architecture and that its use as a symbol, in the course of time, culminated in the pyramid.
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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 of the a.n.a.logous 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 a.n.a.logy 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.
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Figure 38.
The late and lamented Baron Gustav Nordenskjold 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-kats.h.i.+na 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 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.
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Figure 39.
In connection with these architectural features it is interesting to study their names in the native languages. The Nahuatl names for windows are singularly expressive of their uses: tlachialoyan=the watching place or look-out; puchquiauatl=the smoke opening; tlanexillotl=a word which literally means light and splendor, and to which the following words are related: tlanextia, verb=to s.h.i.+ne, shed light and radiance; tlanextilla=something revealed, made manifest, found or discovered, newly invented or formed (brought to light); tlanexcayotiliztli=figure, signification or example; tlanexcayotilli=something figured or significative.
The meaning of the Maya name for window, ciznebna, is not clear, whilst that for door, chi, is the same as for mouth, opening or entrance. At the same time it is evident that, as in Mexico and elsewhere, the window openings in the Maya temples must have been a.s.sociated with the idea of light, and the symbolical forms given to these besides their positions lead to the inference that they were actually regarded as mystic framed images, so to speak, of the supreme, invisible deity, through which, the light of day and the darkness of night alternately revealed themselves to those inside the sacred buildings. A careful study of the positions and orientations of these openings may yet prove that they also served for astronomical observation. The walls being usually pierced above reach, nothing but the sky could have been watched through them. But besides these, the interiors of Maya ruins contain interesting examples of mural openings and recesses which seem to have been carefully planned so that they should appear dark even in daytime and, in more than one case, these display the form of the upright tau, the symbol of darkness and the Below.(17)
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Figure 40.
It does not seem to have been generally recognized that the alternate contraposition of upright and reversed taus produces the best known and most widely spread primitive border-design, usually known as the Greek fret (fig. 40, no. 6). A plain demonstration of this is, oddly enough, visible on the two side-projections of the Scandinavian brooch (fig. 13) all symbols on which, I venture to a.s.sert, would have been perfectly intelligible and full of meaning to an ancient Mexican. The evolution of the fret, on the American continent, can be studied on the beautiful wooden clubs from Brazil and British Guiana, figured in Dr. Hjalmar Stolpes' valuable work already referred to. As striking instances his fig.
8, pl. 1, figs. 3_a_ and 3_c_, pl. XIII, and figs. 1_a_ and 1_b_, pl. V, should be examined. The latter instance is extremely instructive as it not only exhibits single taus of two forms, but the same in different positions, as well as two double-headed figures joined in one, which ill.u.s.trate the native a.s.sociation already discussed, of duality and of the curved lines as the opposite of the rectangular and both respectively figuring the Above and Below.
It is impossible to study the decorations on these South American clubs without becoming convinced that their makers shared the same ideas as the ancient Mexicans. They offer, indeed, a whole set of variations on the native theme and idea of Heaven and Earth. Two instances (fig. 5_a_, pl.