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
These facts and the knowledge that “all lords, in life, represented a god”
justify the inference that, just as Montezuma represented the central
power of the Above or Heaven, the four lords who accompanied him were the
personified rulers of the four quarters, associated with the elements. In
ancient Mexico and Maya records the gods of the four quarters, also named
“the four principal and most ancient Gods” are designated as “the
sustainers of the Heaven” and it cannot be denied that, on the solemn
occasion described, the four lords actually fulfilled the symbolical
office of supporting Montezuma, the personification of the Heaven. This
striking illustration is but one of a number I could cite in proof of the
deeply ingrained mental habit of the native sages to introduce, into every
detail of their life, the symbolism of the Centre, the Above and Below and
the Four Quarters. I shall but mention here that it can be proven how, in
their respective cities the lords of the cardinal points were central
rulers who, in turn, directed the administration of the government by
means of four dignitaries. Each of these was also the embodiment of a
divine attribute or principle, “All noblemen did represent idols and
carried the name of one” (Acosta, Naturall and Morall Historie, lib. 5, p.
349).
Each wore a special kind of symbolical costume and was the ruler or
“advocate,” as he is termed, of a distinct class of people. “For to each
kind or class of persons they gave a Teotl [=God or Lord] as an advocate.
When a person died and was about to be buried, they clothed him with the
diverse Insignia of the god to whom he belonged” (Mendieta lib. II, chap.
40). It being established that each of the four year-symbols, acatl,
tecpatl, calli and tochtli, ruled four minor symbols, it seems evident
that, just as the four lords of the cardinal-points would correspond to
the above symbols, each of the minor lords and the category of people they
represented would also be associated with the minor symbols. The obvious
result of this classification would be the division of the entire
population of the commonwealth into 4×5=20 categories of people, grouped
under twenty local and four central governments, whose representatives in
turn were under the rule of the supreme central dual powers. Having thus
sketched, in a brief and preliminary way, the expansion of the idea of
dividing all things into four parts, the bud of which was the swastika,
let us examine the Mexican application of the idea of duality, pausing
first to review the data relating to the Cihuacoatl, the personification
of the Earth, the Below and the coadjutor of Montezuma.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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