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
It is well to bear in mind that the situations of Cuzco in Peru and Santa
Lucia in Guatemala are both adjacent to the Pacific coast with an
intervening distance of about 27-½ degrees of latitude. But 15 degrees,
however, lie between the northern boundary of modern Peru and the southern
boundary of Nicaragua where, as proven by Buschmann, innumerable names of
localities in the Nahuatl language testify to its ancient occupation by a
Nahuatl-speaking race.
It is noteworthy that this eminent philologist observed how the name
employed to designate the bamboo bed of the Cacique Agateite, in
Nicaragua, “barbacoa,” was the same as that of the wooden bed or litter
used by the Inca in Peru (_op. cit._ p. 756). Buschmann likewise
identified the word galpon=great hall or house. He also expressed the
opinion that “the Quechua word _pampa_ resembles the Mexican _amilpampa
ehecatl_=the south wind, but the Mexican is formed by the affixes pan and
pa and the Quechua substantive means an even, open plain. At the same time
this meaning and form could be derived from the Mexican affixes”
(Buschmann, Ueber Aztekische Ortsnamen III, 7, p. 627).
Following this precedent I have ventured to search for further
resemblances between Nahuatl and Quechua words, and one of the remarkable
results I obtained was the discovery that the well-known Quechua name for
colonists=Mitimaes, the meaning of which, in Quechua, is not forthcoming,
seems to be connected in sound and meaning with the Nahuatl Ce-mitime=sons
of one mother (Molina’s dictionary). It is superfluous to point out how
appropriate this designation would have been for the colonists who
invariably founded fresh centres of civilization on the plan of the
central metropolis. A brief comparative table, the result of an
investigation which lays no claim to be more than a rudimentary attempt,
is published as an appendix to this paper, with the hope that it may
stimulate philologists to supersede it by exhaustive studies of the
subject. A careful examination of the table tends to prove that certain
Nahuatl, Quechua and Maya words had a common origin and shows that a
closer connection existed between the Nahuatl and Quechua languages than
between Nahuatl and Maya or the Quechua and Maya.
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