The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations: A Comparative Research Based on a Study of the Ancient Mexican Religious, Sociological, and Calendrical SystemsNuttall, Zelia
Religion
The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations: A Comparative Research Based on a Study of the Ancient Mexican Religious, Sociological, and Calendrical Systems
The celestial apparition to which the youthful figure is looking up,
likewise exhibits the same necklace, pieces, and royal fringe of the
Incas. Indistinctly though some of the details are given, it seems as
though intertwined serpents encircled its head and possibly its neck. The
head of the vision is surmounted by an enlarged rendering of the
conventionally drawn eyelid and three pointed rays which form the diadem
of the youthful knight. The face of the vision occupies, however, the
place of the eye on the diadem. In this connection it is interesting to
note that in the Nahuatl language, which, as (_op. et loc. cit._) proven
by Buschmann, was spoken in Guatemala where the bas-relief was found, the
word ixtli designates face, whilst ixtololotli signifies eye. Situated
between the right elbow of the celestial figure and the diadem of the
youth, there is a diminutive reproduction of the eye, eyelid and three
rays, with the addition that what appear like two (or three?) drops of
water or two eyes descend from it towards a square symbol which resembles
the Mexican sign for tlalli=earth, whilst the eye symbol is closely
analogous to a well-known Mexican sign which has been interpreted as a
star, and has, but not as yet satisfactorily, been identified with the
planet Venus. Without pausing to study this sign as it appears in ancient
Mexico I point out that the position and mode of representation of the
upper figure in the bas-relief sufficiently show that it is an image of a
celestial being or vision in the act of receiving the supplication of a
youth who is wearing divine insignia. There being a possibility that some
of these accessories may be somewhat indistinct in the original bas-relief
now preserved at the Royal Ethnographical Museum at Berlin, I do not
venture to draw special attention to the possibility of further points of
resemblance between the Peruvian tradition and this Guatemalan sculpture.
At the same time I shall not omit allusion to the wavy figure winding
upwards from the waist of the supplicant, which recurs in four out of the
seven slabs. It may yet prove to answer to the description of “a sort of
serpent,” which is recorded as twining over the shoulders of the vision
who was “dressed like the Inca.” The lion’s head which appears in the
drawing to cover the left hand of the supplicant and the fact that his
left foot only, in some cases, wears a sandal, are important and
interesting features to which I shall revert further on.
Without attempting to offer any explanation of the truly remarkable fact
that a bas-relief exhumed in Guatemala should so strikingly agree with a
description preserved in a Peruvian tradition, I shall merely point out a
second similar though much less remarkable case of agreement.
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