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
thorough study of the gold plaque, I merely note here that it exhibits
curious analogies not only to Maya but also to Mexican symbolism.
Another instance of the same kind is furnished by a possibly modern but
curious small silver pendant of unquestionably native workmanship. It is
preserved at the Ethnographical Museum at Vienna and is figured in the
Report of the International Congress of Americanists which was held at
Berlin in 1888 (pl. 1, fig. 4, p. 96). Reputed to be from Cuzco, it
represents a figure of the sun surrounded by eight straight and
intermediate undulating rays. Two serpents are figured beneath the sun;
their bodies extend across the pendant and their heads with open jaws
almost meet in the centre. A figure, wearing a peculiar head-dress, is
kneeling in worship beneath the symbols, which undoubtedly recall the
Mexican mode of representing two serpents meeting, as on the Calendar
Stone of Mexico, for instance.
As I am tracing analogies at present, I should like to ask the reader to
compare the symbols figured and designated by Salcamayhua as that of the
earth (see his fig. _c_, pl. LXVI) with the sacred vase from the Maya MS.
(his fig. II, pl. LIX) and the form of the Peruvian symbol for the sea
(his fig. _e_, pl. LXVI) with the peculiar Mexican shell ornament (fig. 1,
no. 10). Insufficient though the above analogies may seem in themselves,
they are valuable in conjunction with the other data presented and
strengthen the conclusion that the same symbolism prevailed in Peru as in
Central America, Yucatan and Mexico.
Let us now rapidly journey northwards from Peru to these countries and
briefly record the traces of the existence of the same ideas and
quadruplicate form of government which we may encounter en route. In the
elevated plains of Bogota we find positive proof that the Muyscas held the
same ideas as their southern and northern neighbors. Their culture hero,
Bochica or Ida-can-zas, was the personification of the Above and of its
symbol, the Sun, whilst his wife was Chia, a name suspiciously like
Quilla, the Quechua for moon. He was high-priest and ruler but counselled
the Muyscas to elect one of themselves, a chief named Hunc-Ahua, to be
their Za-que or civil ruler. Ida-can-zas instituted the Calendar and
taught the Muyscas to appoint four chiefs of tribes whose names or titles
are recorded as Gameza, Busbanca, Pesca and Toca. The institution of a
dual government is indicated by the record that the high-priest dwelt at
the sacred town Aura-ca and the Za-que at Tunja.
It is extremely curious to notice that Ida-can-zas, in Bogota, did
precisely what Cortés found it expedient to do after the Conquest of
Mexico. The latter assumed the supreme rulership over the nobility, became
the “lord of Heaven” and instituted a native chieftain, bearing a female
title, as his coadjutor, the lord of the earth, and the ruler of the
people of the lower class.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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