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
Referring once more to the ancient map of Yucatan and to the peculiarity
that the head of the figurative bird, the capital, Ho, is supposed to
occupy the centre of the state, I point out nos. 1 and 5 (fig. 28) from
the Bodleian and Selden MSS. as somewhat analogous representations of a
central capital or chief, and nos. 3 and 6 as possibly being images of a
territorial subdivision of the state, resembling a spider’s web. In an
unpublished Mexican MS., which has been recently brought to light, the
middle of the concentric circles is painted blue and suggests the idea of
a system of distribution or irrigation, proceeding from a central supply
of water and radiating in all directions. An accentuation of centrality is
brought into relief in fig. 28, no. 6, where the spider’s web is placed in
the middle, between the two peaks of a mountain. In no. 2 a small
quadruple sign, which frequently occurs in the Vienna Codex, always
painted in the colors of the four quarters and united by a cross-band
across the centre (no. 4). also figures between two peaks, above two feet,
the significance of which I do not venture to determine. A remarkable
circular disc resembling the Maya map, and also divided into four parts by
cross lines, but exhibiting footsteps denoting rotation, is represented in
the entrance of a temple, in the Vienna Codex (fig. 28, no. 7). These
figures will be referred to again further on.
Let us now bestow attention upon the names of the Mexican capital and
first note that the edifice of the Great Temple, in which the Cihuacoatl
performed an annual ceremony already mentioned, was called tlal-xic-co,
literally “in the navel of the earth or land” (from tlalli=earth, land or
country, xictli=navel and co=in) (Sahagun, book II, appendix). Besides
this edifice there was, in the middle of the lagoon of Chalco, an island,
which, to this day, bears the name of Xico=in the navel or centre. This
indicates the curious circumstance that the edifice and island had
apparently been regarded as forming “ideal centres,” and shows that the
name of Mexico itself may have been associated with the same conception
being, as it was, the central seat of government. Gomara states that “the
city was divided into two halves or parts, one named Tlal-telolco=small
island (literally, ‘in the earth-mound’) and the other named Mexico, which
means ‘something which flows,’ ” (Histoire Généralle des Indes, Paris,
1634, chap. 38). The Nahuatl word alluded to can be no other than the verb
memeya which, according to Molina, signifies “water, or something liquid
which issues or flows in many directions.” I have already pointed out that
the Maya words to express water which rises and overflows, high tide and,
by extension, abundance and plenty, are tul, tulnah and, finally, tulaan,
past participle of tul. If the particle “me” conveyed the above idea, its
combination with xico would cause the name Mexico to be replete with
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