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
In my opinion it is impossible to study the above and supplementary data
without realizing that the native race assigned its origin to a dual
star-divinity, associated with the Tecpatl, the symbol for the North and
for Fire. The peculiarity that the divinity is designated as
Seven-flowers, and that there were seven tribes, indicates that the native
idea was that each tribe came from one of the seven stars in Ursa Major or
Minor. The Aztecs seem to have claimed for themselves the descent from the
superior star, the central one, and to have thus justified or supported
their ultimate establishment of a central government which ruled over the
other six tribes.
[Illustration.]
Figure 26.
The assumption that the native race claimed descent from the Ursa Major or
Minor constellation is further supported by the fact that the shape of the
mythical recurved mountain and the name Aztlan=land of light or brightness
are simultaneously explained, as well as the number of caves and tribes.
It does not seem to be a mere coincidence that in two totally different
Codices (the Selden MS. p. 7, Kingsborough, vol. 1, and the B. N. MS., p.
70) a sacred dance is represented as executed by seven individuals who
move around a central seated personage. In the latter MS. the seated
figure wears a head-dress surmounted by flint knives and his face is
painted _red_ the color assigned to the North. Moreover the dance is
taking place before an image of Mictlan-Tecuhtli, the lord of the North,
whose raiment is strewn with cross-symbols. Referring to other native
dances we find that the most sacred of all dances was performed at the
festival of the god of fire by priests only, who, smeared with black paint
to typify darkness and night, carried two torches in each hand and first
sat, then slowly moved, in a circle, around the “divine brazier,” and
finally cast their torches into it (Duran II, p. 174). This, probably the
most ancient of sacred dances, must have been extremely impressive and
significative to those who witnessed it, at night-time, from the base of
the pyramid and heard the distant solemn chant of the dancers. To watchers
from afar, the fire and the lighted torches revolving around must have
seemed like a great central star with other stars wheeling about it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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