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
6. The human lords of the four regions who respectively governed the four
divisions of the population, who were classified as the Fire, Air, Water
and Earth people, the identical classification being applied in turn to
each class and so on _ad infinitum_.
7. Rotation or a movement encircling the four quarters imagined as
“quadruple motion.” This was not confined to the Septentriones, for the
ancient Mexican astronomers had recognized what they termed the “four
movements of the Sun”—namely, its apparent rising in the east and progress
to the north; and setting in the west and progress to the south. According
to Leon y Gama, the first to describe the stone in 1832, the central
“nahui ollin” portrayed the “four movements of the sun” and recorded the
solstices and equinoxes. His opinion has since been shared by other
writers, amongst whom I cite Señor Troncoso. According to Sir Norman
Lockyer, moreover, the symbol does correctly and appropriately figure the
annual course of the sun. It must be admitted that the invention of a
figurative symbol which not only records the annual rotation of the
circumpolar star-groups but also the annual apparent course of the sun is
an achievement which has never been surpassed in primitive astronomy and
merits admiration and recognition. The record of the periodical movements
of the heavenly bodies, constitutes, at the same time naturally a register
of the four seasons.
8. Simultaneously with the division of the year into four equal parts, the
ollin (and pyramid) typified the division of the 20-day period into four
quarters as well as the four 13 year periods which constituted the epoch
of fifty-two years. As the Calendar periods will be discussed in my
monograph on the subject, I shall only mention here a fact showing how
completely the quadruplicate idea had influenced native speculation. The
Mexicans believed that four great eras had passed since the creation of
the world and designated these as the earth, air, fire and water eras.
They believed that, although humanity had always escaped utter
annihilation, the world had been almost completely destroyed by three of
the elements in succession at the end of three of these eras. At the time
of the Conquest, the Mexicans supposed themselves to be living in a fourth
age which was doomed to perish by fire.
9. According to the distinguished Mexican scholar Señor Alfredo Chavero,
the symbols in the nahui-ollin commemorated the four epochs of the world’s
history and I readily accept this as one of the many significations of the
quadruplicate figure.
Leaving the nahui-ollin for the present, let us next consider the band,
with compartments, which encloses it and exhibits the twenty symbols
hitherto only known as calendaric signs,—four of which were year- as well
as day-signs, whilst sixteen were day-signs only. Their relative positions
show that they were intended to be read from right to left.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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