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 (part 4 of 6)
Considering that no less an authority than St. Augustine has asserted “that which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and in fact was with the human race from the beginning,” it is permissible to ask whether the above scheme does not strikingly substantiate his dictum, afford a deep view under the surface of accumulated dogma and a perception of the mighty principle that has been at work from the beginning of all things and was understood by many at that time when “the people that sat in darkness saw great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light sprang up.”... “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ ” (Matthew IV, 16, 17). Adopting the cross as the emblem of his earthly mission he said: “If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me.” By the words: “I bear in my body the mark of the Lord Jesus,” St. Paul designates the recognized “mark” to have been the quadruplicate cross of the Saviour, who charged his apostles to preach, saying: “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” and promised them that “ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew XIX, 28). The mother of Zebedee’s children came unto him asking that her sons might sit “the one on thy right hand and the other on thy left, in thy kingdom” (Matthew XX, 20). Repeatedly, the Teacher, referring to children, said “of such is the kingdom of heaven,” or “Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” St. Paul and his followers were designated as “those that have turned the world upside down ... doing contrary to the decrees of Cæsar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus” (Acts XVII, 6 and 7).
It is well known that the early Christian church was persecuted because, from the first, it preached a total regeneration of human society and its reëstablishment of a basis of peace and good-will, social equality, absolute justice, mutual aid, respect and sympathy, unselfish, disinterested subservience of the individual to the interest of the community.
It was for the sublime principle of a religious democracy and the regeneration of human society that, in an age of tyranny, oppression and bloodshed, the early Christian martyrs laid down their lives. The foundations of religious orders were as many attempts to realize the Christian ideal, and to this day the Roman Catholic Church, whose clergy and religious orders unquestionably afford a splendid living example of devotion to a common cause, self-abnegation, obedience and humility, clings to the ideal of a state in which temporal power is wielded by a hierarchy raised to rulership from all ranks, merely by virtue of personal, moral and intellectual qualities. Throughout the Christian church the ideal of religious democracy prevails. Each day it is prayed for in the words “Thy kingdom come,” by those taught to look forward to the promise of the time when “former things are passed away and a holy Jerusalem shall descend out of heaven from God, lying four-square, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels and names written thereon which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel ... and the wall of the city had twelve foundations and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb,.... And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple in it ... but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it.... And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bore twelve manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month ...” (Revelation, chaps. XXI and XXII).
It appears significant, in the light of the present investigation, that the birth of Christianity, as well as the revival of pagan systems of philosophy, embodying principles for the organization of religious brotherhoods and ideal democracies, should coincide with the spread of the great tidings that a star had been seen by the Magi, or “wise men of the East, who came from the east to Jerusalem.” Occurring, as it did, after “the interregnum as regards pole-stars,” during which nomadic tribes and seafarers had vainly sought the fixed star which had guided their forefathers, the appearance of a brilliant pole-star must have seemed doubly significant and revived, among pagan philosophers, the ideal of an earthly kingdom ruled by Heaven. The advent, at this time, of the Messiah who, with his twelve disciples, announced that the kingdom of heaven was nigh and taught that God was to be worshipped in the Spirit only, must indeed have appeared particularly impressive and well-timed.
Faithfully clinging to the ideal of a regenerated religious democracy, the early Christian church maintained itself through centuries of persecution and is slowly advancing, amidst almost overwhelming and innumerable difficulties, towards its realization.
Returning to Mexico we find that its civilization at the time of the Conquest was precisely what might be expected if a small body of men of superior wisdom and experience, such as was possessed by a remnant of Græco-Egyptian philosophers, had embarked in ships manned by the descendants of Phœnician seafarers, and found refuge in the “land of the West,” amongst simple, docile people, existing in large numbers, who, treated “as little children and instructed with love and gentleness, willingly submitted themselves to the guidance of their teachers.” A single, short-lived generation of these would have amply sufficed for the establishment of the governmental system and calendar, the firm institution of a “celestial kingdom,” and the spread of knowledge of the technique of various arts and industries deemed most useful to the natives. On the other hand, the foreign element, whose aims were chiefly ideal, could have left little or no impression upon the evolution of the native race, its art and industry, which doubtlessly followed its original independent line of development.
It is remarkable how the echo of great events in Old World history seem to have reached the Western hemisphere. In the Old World the eleventh and twelfth centuries were marked by a revival of religious enthusiasm, by the Crusades, the persecution of infidels by the Christian world and by a general stirring amongst oriental people, the descendants of the ancient pole-star worshippers.
Historical records and traditions accord in stating that in about the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era, the civilizations of Mexico, Yucatan and Central America underwent a great period of warfare, pestilence and famine, leading to the disintegration of the great ancient centres, to numberless migrations, and to an assumption of dominion in Mexico by a fierce warrior-race who increased the number of human sacrifices. It seems significant that it is to this troublous period in the history of ancient America that the advent of the Incas in Peru is assigned by native tradition, which also records the existence of more ancient centres of civilization situated around the Titicaca lake. The foundation of the Inca empire is assigned to as late as about 1200 A.D. (see p. 148, note 1), and all who compare Plato’s scheme for the reëstablishment of the holy polity of the Magnetes, and the description of the Peruvian “Four in One” state, must admit that the latter constitutes the most perfect example known, of a community based on those numerical principles which were considered most perfect by Plato. At a first glance one might be tempted to conclude that the foreign civilizers of Peru, the Incas, were acquainted with Plato’s twelve-fold scheme and deliberately established or reëstablished a “divine polity” accordingly, naming it the “Four in One” and instituting the worship of a supreme divinity designated as “Earth, Air, Fire and Water in One,” in consonance with the cosmical theory said to have been first formulated by Empedocles about B.C. 444, and adopted by Plato. Reflection shows, however, that no such conclusion is justifiable until competent authorities have thoroughly investigated and satisfactorily established how far the ideas of Empedocles and Plato were original and how far they incorporated older philosophical ideas, such as were preserved by the Egyptian priesthood or had been disseminated by the Phœnicians.(158) Nevertheless it is an undeniable fact that the Inca colony constitutes a most valuable object-lesson of a “cosmical state” founded on precisely the numerical scheme and principles of organization advocated by Plato. Reflection shows, moreover, that such a polity could only have been established and maintained itself during centuries, in a land free from enemies and amongst docile people “apt for subjection.”
A significant result of a critical comparison of the celestial kingdoms of Peru and Mexico is the perception that, in the former, as in Egypt, a hereditary sovereignty was exercised by male and female sacerdotal rulers of a “divine line of descent.” On the other hand we find, in Mexico, a state of affairs in exact accordance with Montezuma’s account of the behavior of his predecessors towards the lord who had led them and presided over the foundation of the Mexican empire. During his absence they, his vassals, established democratical principles and when he returned, having intermarried with women of the country and founded new cities, they refused to recognize his authority and let him depart. From Montezuma himself we learn that, although they thus emancipated themselves from their former lord, they continued to regard themselves as dependent and owing allegiance to the mother-city whence they had come. Until the time of the Conquest, however, they were governed by rulers whom they elected, and who had risen in rank merely by virtue of their moral and intellectual distinction.
It is indeed deeply suggestive and impressive to realize that, in antiquity as in modern times, the American Continent seems to have been sought, as a place of refuge, by men whose ideals have been state institutions founded on democratic principles. The ancient polities of Mexico and Peru and, what is more, the archaic Pueblos of to-day, alike furnish examples of conditions, such as undoubtedly existed in Mediterranean countries in ancient times and inspired Greek statesmen and philosophers to plan ideal polities, and must have preceded the creation of the Jewish and early Christian spiritualized ideal of a New Jerusalem, pervaded throughout by the Divine Spirit. In conclusion, there are a few points which I recommend to the consideration of students. Different writers have, as Prescott summarizes, with certainty discerned in the highest American civilizations, a Semitic or an Egyptian or an Asiatic origin.
This remarkable combination of features, distinctively characteristic of the said civilizations, actually existed amongst the Phœnicians who, as Professor Sayce relates, were allied to the Semitic race, were affected by contact with their cousins the Arameans or Syrians, penetrated to the coast of India, derived their art from Babylonia, Egypt, and later from Assyria, and “knew how to combine together the elements it had received and to return them, modified and improved, to the countries from which they had been borrowed.” In the case of India and China it is an established and accepted truth that an active communication existed between these countries and Asia Minor, which was carried on by a race of seafarers and colonists. When it is realized that, through them, distant regions became known and accessible, and that at one time in the history of Greek philosophy, for instance, statesmen, philosophers and mathematicians alike rivalled each other in planning ideal states, based on the identical principle: the harmonizing of human life with Nature’s laws; it seems but rational to infer that, at different times, bands of enthusiasts, adopting one numerical scheme in preference to another, and led perhaps by its inventor or disciples, set out in search of distant countries where they could undisturbedly establish “celestial kingdoms” according to their ideal plan. To such an enterprise as this I venture to assign the establishment of the celestial kingdom of China, drawing attention to Biot’s statement, cited on p. 298, that year cycles (i. e. the sociological and chronological system since in use) were introduced there from India, after the Christian era. This being the case, contrary to the claims of a much greater antiquity by Chinese scholars, the present form of the “celestial kingdom” appears to date from the arrival in China, from Persia, of Semitic emigrants, during the first century of our era (see p. 303), and to have undergone a certain re-modelling in the first half of the sixth century, after the arrival of a band of Syrian Christians (p. 304).
Pointing out that these dates would make it appear as though the cyclical systems of India and Eastern Asia had been formulated under the direct or indirect influence of Greek philosophy, I observe that the date of their introduction and establishment assigns them to approximately the same period which produced the numerical scheme adopted by Constantine, Maya and Mexican calendrical and chronological scheme. At the period when Constantine established New Rome and instituted four divisions of the empire, each divided into thirteen yielding a total of fifty-two prefectures, there lived in Byzantium a philosopher and rhetorician (315-390 A.D.) whose name was Themistius and who filled the office of prefect of Constantinople. It is well known that the attempt thus to organize the empire proved fruitless and that the proclamation of Christianity as the religion of his empire by Theodosius I (379 A.D.) inaugurated a prolonged persecution of pagan religion and philosophy (see p. 530).
Is it inadmissible to consider at least the possibility that, disappointed and driven from their land, some of those who clung to the ancient ideal, and were acquainted with the perfected scheme of state organization instituted by Constantine during the lifetime of Themistius, carried it at a later period, to the “hidden land” of the West and established it there, where it was preserved intact until the time of the Spanish Conquest? Is it by accident only that one of the names of the capital of ancient Mexico, as preserved in the writings of Cortés and Bernal Diaz is Temistitan, literally “land of Temis,” the Nahuatl language not furnishing any meaning to the latter word? Can it be that, just as the word Teotl, resembling Theos, is found on Mexican soil, employed with the same meaning as in Greek, the name Temistitan means “the land of established law, order and justice” dedicated to the Greek Themis, just as New Rome was dedicated to Sofia=Wisdom? Or did some sort of connection exist between the name of the Mexican capital, the system on which it was established and the philosopher Themistius?
Is it by chance merely that the state calendar of Temistitan was based on 4×13=52 divisions, and that Themistius of Byzantium, a member of that school of philosophy which had evolved numberless plans and numerical schemes for ideal states, should have held one of the 4×13=52 prefectures during Constantine’s reign? In order to make the most rapid advance towards a solution of the great problem of the origin of American civilizations, I venture to suggest that Orientalists and Americanists should combine and freshly study it from opposite points of view. One side might be taken by those who incline to admit the possibility that a few Phœnician traders discovered the American continent in ancient times and that, subsequently, those to whom they imparted their discovery and their successors, the daring Greek navigators, conveyed thither, at intervals, bands of refugees or enthusiasts who braved danger and death, in the hope of reaching the blessed land where, free from persecution, they could found ideal democracies or divine polities.
Besides studying and adding to the numberless similarities which have been cited by so many different authorities and to which I have added a modest contribution, let them produce evidence showing the improbability that the identical forms of cult, religion, social organization, calendar cycles and numerical schemes should have been independently evolved two or more times by distinct races. On the other hand, let those who hold the view that American civilization was purely autochthonous, advance grounds for the supposition that it developed a school of philosophical speculation and that America produced its Empedocles and its Plato. Let them also formulate the psychical law which caused the American race to formulate the four elements, recognized as such by the philosophers of India and Greece, and not the five of Chinese philosophy; and to evolve numerical schemes applied to social organization, identical with those current in India, Western Asia and the Mediterranean countries, but different from that employed in China and Japan. It will also be incumbent upon them not only to disprove American traditions, which record the introduction of a higher civilization and plans of social organization by strangers, but also to demonstrate that, although in ancient times, Phœnician traders carried on an active traffic with Britain, daring the perils of the Bay of Biscay, they could not possibly have ventured across the southern Atlantic, even in the most favorable seasons. It has remained a source of sincere regret to me that circumstances prevented my attending the Orientalist Congress which met at Rome, in October, 1899, under the presidency of the illustrious Count Angelo de Gubernatis, to whom credit is due for having first suggested and planned that a section of the Congress should devote itself to the discussion of prehistoric contact or connection between the Old and New Worlds.
With an apology for my non-attendance and consequent failure to aid in organizing the section and carrying out a plan which met with my enthusiastic approval, I venture to submit the present investigation to the President and officers of the Orientalist Congress with the earnest hope that it may contain material and suggestions for fruitful discussions during the next Congress held, and that these may be carried on in a section devoted to the consideration of facts relating to prehistoric America and its relation to the Old World.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.
In the preceding pages the view is advanced that the ancient cross-symbol or swastika was first used by man, presumably in circumpolar regions, as a record of the opposite positions assumed, by circumpolar constellations, in performing their nocturnal and annual circuit around Polaris. Employed as a year sign in the first case, the cross or swastika later became the symbol of the Four Quarters, of quadruplicate division and of a stable central power whose rule extended in four directions and controlled the entire Heaven.
At some remote period of antiquity man developed the idea of social organization and, in India, ancient Egypt and Babylonia-Assyria, actual proofs exist that the earliest cities and states were divided into four quarters, a division involving the distribution of the population into four tribes under a central chief. Wherever this division was carried out, it represented an attempt to harmonize human society and the establishment of the ideal of a religious democracy, founded on principles of law, order, justice, peace and good will. The pyramid, a primitive form of which consisted of four stories, and cruciform sacred structures, may be regarded as monuments commemorating a cosmical and territorial organization into four parts. The more extended conception of seven directions in space, consisting of the Above and Below, or Heaven and Earth, the Four Quarters and the sacred Middle, the synopsis of all, was also evolved. In the confederations of India and Iran, and Arabia, in the seven-storied towers of Babylonia, and in the division of the Egyptians into seven classes, we find the earliest traces of a practical application of this numerical division.
The ancient historical records of Egypt and Greece reveal that, in the earliest polities, the population was divided into groups consisting of a fixed number of individuals, officially represented by chieftains, or officers of the state, and that, in consequence, a state formed a unit, constituted according to a mathematical scheme, which was also applied to the regulation of time. Each officer of the state held office for a fixed term, in a prescribed order of rotation. The year was divided into a fixed number of seasons, marked by the positions of a circumpolar constellation, and this therefore appeared to regulate not only the cycle of time but the governmental rotation of office and the entire activity of the community. Starting from a common basis of quadruplicate division in different countries, a great variety of constitutions of state was independently invented by statesmen and philosophers, who devised cycles produced by different combinations of numbers and signs, the object being to regulate time and communal life in imitation of the law, order and harmony existing in the motion of the stars and under the guidance of a supreme ruler, the earthly representative of Polaris.
The origin of these ideas and governmental scheme, in the Old World, is assigned by competent authorities to a northern race which had discovered the art of fire-making and evolved a religious cult and ritual suggested by it, in association with pole-star worship. Their civilization is supposed to have been developed by contact with a southern race, in Phrygia, and to have been carried at a remote period by their seafaring descendants to India, Asia Minor, Egypt and beyond the pillars of Hercules, to European countries, situated on the Atlantic.
The present investigation brings into prominence the fact that, just as the older Andean art closely resembles that of the early Mediterranean, an observation first made by Prof. F. W. Putnam,(159) so the fundamental principles, numerical scheme and plan of the state founded by the foreign Incas in Peru, resembled those formulated by Plato in his description of an ideal state.
It is a remarkable fact, on which the writer lays utmost stress, that, whereas there is a marked difference between the Chinese and the Mexican and Peruvian divisions of the elements and numerical cycles, the American systems exactly agree with those propounded by Greek philosophers and said to have reached them from more ancient centres of culture, presumably through the Phœnicians. On the other hand, there undoubtedly exist remarkable analogies between the Chinese and Hindu and Mexican sociological, chronological, cyclical systems, their principles being precisely the same. These close analogies as well as the marked divergences which have been noted can only be satisfactorily accounted for by the assumption that each of these countries derived their civilization from the same source. Over and over again different writers have pointed out undeniable analogies and resemblances between the highest forms of American civilization and that of China, India, Asia Minor, the Mediterranean and Western European countries. At the same time modern research has shown that the seafarers, whom we shall conveniently designate as the Phœnicians, acted as the intermediaries of ancient Old World civilization and formulated a culture which incorporated and formed a curious compound of elements drawn from different countries and people.
While investigation, moreover, reveals that the conquest of Phœnicia and intermittent periods of warfare and persecution directed against the religion and democratic principles of its people, must have furnished the most powerful incentive for them to extend their voyages of discovery and seek distant lands where colonies might be established. It is obvious that, if safe places of refuge were found, their existence would remain a secret and that, in course of time, a complete isolation of distant colonies would result.
Considering that it would be premature to formulate a final conclusion on a subject which demands so much more investigation, I merely observe here that, as far as I can see, the conditions which existed and survive amongst the aborigines of America would be fully accounted for by the assumption that they received certain elements of culture and civilization from Mediterranean seafarers who, at widely separated, critical periods of Old World history, may have transported refugees and would-be colonists or founders of ideal republics and “divine polities” to different parts of the hidden or divine land of “the West,” the existence of which was known by tradition to the Egyptian priesthood.
Under such circumstances it is apparent how the American Continent could have become an isolated area of preservation where archaic and primitive forms of civilization, religious cult, symbolism and industries, drawn at different epochs, from various, more or less important centres or from the outposts of Old World culture, would be handed down, transformed through the active and increasing influence of the native elements. The latter must always have been markedly predominant since it must be assumed, if at all, that the number of individuals who reached America, and the subsequent duration of their lives, must have been extremely limited. What is more, as Montezuma related that the colonists, from whom he descended, married native women, it is obvious that, from the outset, foreign and native influences were combined.
There was one main element, however, underlying both foreign and native civilizations, which formed the basis of both, united and made them as one, namely, the recognition of fixed immutable laws governing the universe, attained, by both races, by long-continued observation of Polaris and the “Northern” constellations.
To me the most precious result of the preceding investigation is the gradual recognition that the entire intellectual, moral and religious evolution of mankind has been the result of the fixed laws which govern the universe. From the time when our world began to revolve in space, at intervals, a luminous point of fixity in space has existed and an unknown force, irresistible as that which controls the magnetic needle and gyrostat,(160) appears to have raised the mind of man from ignorance and darkness and guided his footsteps towards a higher scale of existence and a more elevated conception of a supreme central power.
From this, amongst favored races, the higher conception of an invisible supreme deity seems to have been gradually developed by the human mind, as it rose in the scale of spiritual evolution. To many, the idea that it was the observation of the stars and the recognition of the fixity of Polaris which first led man to realize the existence of immutable laws, and of a supreme celestial power ruling the universe and to form the sacred sign of the cross, will appear as the fulfilment of the text in Genesis, which expressly mentions as the first, and therefore chief, purpose for which the lights in the firmament were created, that “they should be for signs and portents, for seasons, for days and years ... and for lights.”
When we realize that all revolving spheres in space, and the beings that may live upon them, have been, are, or shall be subject to the same conditions as govern our tiny world, forcing their intellectual evolution to proceed in parallel lines to ours, we are compelled to recognize the existence of One Great Plan, and to render reverent homage to the Master-Architect of the Universe.
APPENDIX I. COMPARATIVE TABLE OF SOME QUECHUA, NAHUATL AND MAYA WORDS
QUECHUA. NAHUATL. MAYA. hatun=great. huey=great. pax=name of pacha=time, pachtli=name of festival in name of annual annual harvest which prayers harvest festival. were offered to festival. obtain abundant harvest. yacu and atl=water. haa=water. unu=water. aak=moist. aakal=lagoon. yachhaa=canal, stream of water. pihi-huy=first pil-conetl=infant born. son. pilli=nobleman, or son. pilhua=he who has sons. pilli=the fingers. all=good. qualli=good. ycacha= mala-cachoa, frequentative. verb, to spin or ahua=to spin or twist or turn weave. something around ahua-ycacha=to continuously. spin malacatl=spindle. continuously. icpac=to be on ticpac=to lie the top of mouth upwards. something high. ticnu=the ticatla=midnight. zenith. cosca=things cozcatl=beads, that are alike, strung precious necklace. stones, metaphorically used to designate one’s children. maqui or maitl=hand. kab=hand. maki=hand. macpalli=palm of tankab=palm of makip-pampa=palm hand. pan=affix, hand. of hand. meaning upon, pampa=name for above. plain. humihua=small comitl=earthen cum=earthen vessel. vessel. vessel. hooch=vessel in general. hunu and huni=a hun=one. number, a hunkinchil=one. division of men, count=10×100,000. ten thousand (Markham). hunu=all. palla=woman of tlapalli-eztli=nobility noble birth. of blood or lineage (metaphor). pallca=the tlapalli=color or dye. pal, pa’al, fingers, or tlapaloloni=worthy of palal, branches of a being reverenced and palil=child, boy, tree saluted. servant. (Chinchaysuyo tlapaliui=able-bodied, dialect.) marriageable young man. atlapalli=wing of a bird, leaf of tree. cuitlapilli, atlapalli=metaphor signifying the people and servants of the state, literally the tail and wing of a bird.
It is quite obvious how this metaphor came to be employed. The words for tail and wing respectively terminate with pilli the word designating nobleman, the upper class, and palli, signifying the lower class, women, boys, servants. The head of the bird signified the chief and the two eyes and two halves of the beak conveyed the idea of duality, or two in one. There are indications that the right foot, with its four claws, symbolized the four chief rulers of the Above and the left foot the four rulers of the Below.
The control of the feet and entire body was, of course, assigned to the head. It is only when the full metaphorical significance of the eagle, as an emblem of the state, is understood, that the meaning of the eagle in the arms of Mexico and the native bird symbolism begin to become apparent. I have shown that in Peru and Yucatan the word for head was synonymous for chief. It remains to be ascertained how far the same symbolism prevailed throughout the American Continent and whether in other cases the words for bird, wings, tail and claws are homonymous or synonymous for the state and its divisions. Amongst the Zuñis the State and entire scheme of organization is associated with the imaginary form of a quadruped and in Mexico there are indications that at one time the human form was regarded as an emblem of the State and its subdivisions. This subject is referred to more fully in the text.
QUECHUA. NAHUATL. MAYA. Uira-cocha=name In the native of mythical harangues the personage and Supreme Being title of is referred to Creator. as being like an unfathomable abyss. ixachicatlan=abyss. ixachi=great, much. cochca=coch-allpa=fallow cochi=to sleep. cuchil=place or land, “tierra tlacochcalli= town. de descanso”: literally house of ah-cuch-cab=the literally, land rest, burial chief or ruler that is towers. of a town or resting. place. collana= excellent, principal, sovereign, first and best of each species. collanan ayllu=royal coyauac=something line, name used by the broad, like a Incas. coya=princess of spring of water or royal blood, virgin, a window(161) queen. hapichi=title, meaning tlapixqui=title of piz=measure, the collector of some priests, quantity. produce, he who collects literally, he who pizil=to or gathers in. gathers in the measure. harvest. Cf. pixquitl=harvest, etc. tiani=to sit down. tiacauan=brave men, tialtic= tiyana=seat of honor strong warriors. appurtenance, such as were employed as tiyacapan=first-born. right of mark of chieftainship. tiyacapanyotl=the possession. huahua-tiana=matrix. right of tiya-chicu=to be selling primogeniture and something in the public property. square. tiyachi=to offer tianquiztli=market, or place something in also place or the public square to be square where market sold or exchanged. was held. micuy=food. tiamiquiztli=act of buying or selling. tiamictli=merchandise.(162) in-ti or in-tin=the sun. tona-ti-uh=the sun, kin=the sun. literally, that which shines. mitimaes=name for ce-mitime=sons of one colonists. mother. tayta=father. tatli=father. mama=mother. ta-tzin=father, reverential huarmi=woman. form. nantli=mother. Mama-ciuaco=name of a nantzin=reverential form. female ruler of royal cihuatl=woman. mama=verb, blood, mother of Inca to rule. Rocca. uma=literally, the head, ome, literally two, title hool, ppool or title of priest. Ingua of head priest, for pul, head, or Inca=title of instance: ome acatl, ome chieftain, Peruvian ruler. tochtli. quaitl=head. beginning. in-quaitl=the head. qua=abbreviation for quaitl (see Sahagun, book IX, chap. XXIX, par. 6). Tonapa=name of culture tonal pouhque=diviner or hero who established soothsayer, from verb Inca civilization at tonalpoa=to divine by signs Tiahuanaco, erected or count festivals by large cross, etc., made ancient calendar (Molina his way to the ocean and dictionary). Cf. departed. tonal-mitl=ray of sun; literally, sun’s arrow, from tona-tiuh=sun. Cf. tona-catzon=the ancient men, or the ruins. ticsi=foundation. icxitl=foot. ticsik=founder. icxinecuiltic=a lame tecci-muyu-pacha=the person. Cf. name of Ursa entire world or Major. qua= tecciztle= universe. literally: “heads decorated with shell.”=disciples of Quetzalcoatl “who called themselves sons of the sun and toltecas.” Cf. Ticitl=medicine man or woman, astrologer or divines, who employed the pearl-oyster shell tici-caxitl, for divinatory purposes. yoal-ticitl=title of earth-mother, or ancestress of human race, whose symbol was a sea-snail=tecciztli. Pacha-Yachachic=title of pachoa=verb, to rule or am=spider. Supreme Being or Creator govern others. yacana=to aman=North. translated as guide others, to govern a ah-men=he who pacha=world, time. town, to lead the blind. builds. paccha=spider. paccamachtia=to teach ah-pakcah=he yachachic=the teacher cheerfully and with who founds a from yacha=to learn with patience. amanteca=skilled town and affix chi, means to artisans. peoples it. teach, like ru-rachi=to cause others to make something). Pachacamac=title of Creator. pa-chac-an or yaca-tecuhtli, title of the bacab=title of pa-cha-ca=title of god of the travellers or the rulers of officer of the Inca. merchants, literally the four ccapac=title of supreme meaning the lord who provinces or ruler; ccapac apu, male guides, governs or leads. quarters. ruler; ccapac The names of his five chac=title of ccoya=female ruler. brothers were four assistants Chiconquiauitl, Xomocuitl, of high priest. Nacxitl, Cochimetl, Yacapitzauac. The sister who completed the group of seven, was named Chalmeca-ciuatl (Sahagun, op. cit. Book I, chap. XIX). This god and his six brethren, to whom the merchants offered sacrifices when they had safely returned from their perilous and long expeditions, doubtlessly were Polaris and the Ursa Minor or Major.
APPENDIX II. A PRAYER-MEETING OF THE STAR-WORSHIPPERS
Sook-es-Shookh, on the river Euphrates, in the Mesopotamian villayet, though an interesting spot, is not an imposing or attractive place. Like most of the townlets in this part of Asia Minor, it is just a straggling, overgrown village, a few one-storied plastered houses, with flat roofs and narrow doorways, dotted here and there, a number of wattled and mud-daubed huts huddled irregularly about, a mesjid, of course, a khan or caravanserai, and one or two open spaces with the inevitable refuse and rubbish heaps, where a bazar or market is held on Fridays. It looks, however, picturesque and peaceful enough, as we ride into it, in the deepening twilight of a late September evening. The stars are beginning already to twinkle overhead, but there is still sufficient light left to note the strange, white-robed figures moving stealthily about in the semi-gloom down by the riverside. Clad in long snowy garments, reaching nearly to the ground, they pass to and fro near the edge of the water, some wading into mid-stream, while the sound of a strange salutation exchanged in a strange tongue, Sood Havilakh, strikes oddly upon the ear long accustomed to the ordinary salutation, Selam Alekum, of the Arab-speaking Moslemin. Paderha Sutekh, “their fathers were burned,” cries our Persian Charvadar and guide in disgust, as he catches a glimpse of the white-robed figures, thus delicately hinting that they are not followers of Islam; and a Jew from Hamadan who accompanies our party, on his way to the tomb of Ezekiel, deliberately spits upon the ground and exclaims, in pure Hebrew, Obde kokhabim umazaloth, “servants of the stars and planets.” And the Hebrew is not wrong. The forms gathering by the riverside in the twilight are those of “Star-worshippers,” the last remnants of the famous magi of ancient Chaldea, and their followers, the Babylonian adorers of the host of heaven. To the number of about four thousand in all, they still survive in their Mesopotamian native land, principally along the banks of the Euphrates river, where they form small village communities. They invariably keep their settlements somewhere near a stream, for their religious rites and ceremonies are preceded by frequent bathings and ablutions, and a rill of flowing water passing near or through their tabernacle or meeting-place is indispensable. Hence this edifice is always raised quite close to the river. They call themselves Mandaya, Mandaïtes, possessors of the “word,” the “living word,” keep strictly to their own customs and observances and language, and never intermarry with Moslems, who call them Sabba, Sabeans. Their dialect is a remnant of the later Babylonian, and resembles closely the idiom of the Palestinian Talmud, and their liturgy is a compound of fragments of the ancient Chaldean cosmogony with gnostic mysticism influenced by later superstitions. They are a quiet and inoffensive people noted, oddly enough, for the quality of their dairy produce in the villages, and for their skill as metal workers and goldsmiths in the towns where they reside. Their principal settlement is, or was, at Mardin, in the Bagdad district; but there has always been a small community of them at Sook-es-Shookh, on the banks of their favorite stream, the Euphrates.
It happens to be the festival of the Star-worshippers celebrated on the last day of the year and known as the Kanshio Zahlo, or day of renunciation. This is the eve of the new year, the great watch-night of the sect, when the annual prayer-meeting is held and a solemn sacrifice made to Avather Ramo, the Judge of the under world, and Ptahiel, his colleague; and the white-robed figures we observe down by the riverside are those of members of the sect making the needful preparations for the prayer-meeting and its attendant ceremonies. First, they have to erect their Mishkna, their tabernacle or outdoor temple; for the sect has, strange to say, no permanent house of worship or meeting-place, but raise one previous to their festival and only just in time for the celebration. And this is now what they are busy doing within a few yards of the water, as we ride into the place. The elders, in charge of a shkando, or deacon, who directs them, are gathering bundles of long reeds and wattles, which they weave quickly and deftly into a sort of basket work. An oblong space is marked out about sixteen feet long and twelve broad by stouter reeds, which are driven firmly into the ground close together, and then tied with strong cord. To these the squares of woven reeds and wattles are securely attached, forming the outer containing walls of the tabernacle. The side walls run from north to south, and are not more than seven feet high. Two windows, or rather openings for windows, are left east and west, and space for a door is made on the southern side, so that the priest when entering the edifice has the North Star, the great object of their adoration, immediately facing him. An altar of beaten earth is raised in the centre of the reed-encircled enclosure, and the interstices of the walls well daubed with clay and soft earth, which speedily hardens. On one side of the altar is placed a little furnace of dark earthenware, and on the other a little handmill, such as is generally used in the East for grinding meal, together with a small quantity of charcoal. Close to the southern wall, a circular basin is now excavated in the ground, about eight feet across, and from the river a short canal or channel is dug leading to it. Into this the water flows from the stream, and soon fills the little reservoir to the brim. Two tiny cabins or huts, made also of reeds and wickerwork, each just large enough to hold a single person, are then roughly put together, one by the side of the basin of water, the other at the further extremity of the southern wall, beyond the entrance. The second of these cabins or huts is sacred to the Ganzivro or high priest of the Star-worshippers, and no layman is ever allowed to even so much as touch the walls with his hands after it is built and placed in position. The doorway and window openings of the edifice are now hung with white curtains; and long before midnight, the hour at which the prayer meeting commences, the little Mishkna, or tabernacle open to the sky, is finished and ready for the solemnity.
Towards midnight the Star-worshippers, men and women, come slowly down to the Mishkna by the riverside. Each, as he or she arrives, enters the tiny wattled hut by the southern wall, disrobes and bathes in the little circular reservoir, the tarmido, or priest, standing by and pronouncing over each the formula, “Eshmo d’haï, Eshmo d’manda haï madhkar elakh” (“The name of the living one, the name of the living word, be remembered upon thee”). On emerging from the water, each one robes himself or herself in the rasta, that is, the ceremonial white garments peculiar to the Star-worshippers, consisting of a sadro, a long white shirt reaching to the ground; a nassifo, or stole, round the neck falling to the knees; a hiniamo, or girdle of woollen material; a gabooa, square head-piece reaching to the eyebrows; a shalooal, or white overmantle and a kanzolo, or turban, wound round the gabooa head-piece, of which one end is left hanging down over the shoulder. Peculiar sanctity attaches to the rasta, for the garments composing it are those in which every Star-worshipper is buried, and in which he believes he will appear for judgment before Avather in the nether world Materotho. Each one, as soon as he is thus attired, crosses to the open space in front of the door of the tabernacle, and seats himself upon the ground there, saluting those present with the customary Sood Havilakh, “Blessing be with thee,” and receiving in return the usual reply, Assootah d’haï havilakh, “Blessing of the living one be with thee.” The numbers increase as the hour of the ceremonial comes nearer, and by midnight there are some twenty rows of these white-robed figures, men and women, ranked in orderly array facing the Mishkna, and waiting in silent expectation the coming of the priests. A couple of tarmidos, lamp in hand, guard the entry to the tabernacle, and keep their eyes fixed upon the pointers of the Great Bear in the sky above. As soon as these attain the position indicating midnight, the priests give a signal by waving the lamps they hold, and in a few moments the clergy of the sect march down in procession. In front are four of the shkandos, young deacons, attired in the rasta, with the addition of a silk cap, or tagha, under the turban, to indicate their rank. Following these come four tarmidos, ordained priests who have undergone the baptism of the dead. Each wears a gold ring on the little finger of the right hand, and carries a tau-shaped cross of olive wood to show his standing. Behind the tarmidos comes the spiritual head of the sect, the Ganzivro, a priest elected by his colleagues, who has made complete renunciation of the world and is regarded as one dead and in the realms of the blessed. He is escorted by four other deacons. One holds aloft the large wooden tau-cross, known as derashvod zivo, that symbolizes his religious office; a second bears the sacred scriptures of the Star-worshippers, the Sidra Rabba, “the great Order,” two-thirds of which form the liturgy of the living and one-third the ritual of the dead. The third of the deacons carries two live pigeons in a cage, and the last a measure of barley and of sesame seeds. The procession marches through the ranks of the seated worshippers, who bend and kiss the garments of the Ganzivro as he passes near them. The tarmidos, guarding the entrance to the tabernacle, draw back the hanging over the doorway and the priests file in, the deacons and tarmidos to the right and left, leaving the Ganzivro standing alone in the centre, in front of the earthen altar facing the North Star, Polaris. The sacred book, Sidra Rabba, is laid upon the altar folded back where the liturgy of the living is divided from the ritual of the dead. The high priest takes one of the live pigeons handed to him by a shkando, extends his hand towards the Polar Star upon which he fixes his eyes, and lets the bird fly, calling aloud, Bshmo d’haï rabba mshabbah zivo kadmaya Elaha Edmen Nafshi Eprah, “In the name of the living one, blessed be the primitive light, the ancient light, the Divinity self-created.” The words, clearly enunciated within, are distinctly heard by the worshippers without, and with one accord the white-robed figures rise from their places and prostrate themselves upon the ground towards the North Star, on which they have silently been gazing.
Noiselessly the worshippers resume their seated position on the ground outside. Within the Mishkna, or tabernacle, the Ganzivro steps on one side, and his place is immediately taken by the senior priest, a tarmido, who opens the Sidra Rabba before him on the altar and begins to read the Shomhotto, “confession” of the sect, in a modulated chant, his voice rising and falling as he reads, and ever and anon terminating in a loud and swelling Mshobbo havi eshmakhyo Manda d’haï, “Blessed be thy name, O source of life,” which the congregants without take up and repeat with bowed heads, their hands covering their eyes. While the reading is in progress two other priests turn, and prepare the Peto elayat, or high mystery, as they term their Communion. One kindles a charcoal fire in the earthenware stove by the side of the altar, and the other grinds small some of the barley brought by the deacon. He then expresses some oil from the sesame seed, and, mixing the barley meal and oil, prepares a mass of dough which he kneads and separates into small cakes, the size of a two-shilling piece. These are quickly thrust into or on the oven and baked, the chanting of the liturgy of the Shomhotto still proceeding with its steady sing-song and response, Mshobbo havi eshmakhyo, from outside. The fourth of the tarmidos now takes the pigeon left in the cage from the shkando, or deacon, standing near him, and cuts its throat quickly with a very sharp knife, taking care that no blood is lost. The little cakes are then brought to him by his colleague, and, still holding the dying pigeon, he strains its neck over them in such a way that four drops fall on each one so as to form the sacred tau, or cross. Amid the continued reading of the liturgy, the cakes are carried round to the worshippers outside by the two principal priests who prepared them, who themselves pop them direct into the mouths of the members, with the words Rshimot bereshm d’haï, “Marked be thou with the mark of the living one.” The four deacons inside the Mishkna walk round to the rear of the altar and dig a little hole, in which the body of the dead pigeon is then buried. The chanting of the confession is now closed by the officiating tarmido, and the high priest, the Ganzivro, resuming his former place in front of the Sacred Book, begins the recitation of the Massakhto, or “renunciation” of the dead, ever directing his prayers towards the North Star, on which the gaze of the worshippers outside continues fixed throughout the whole of the ceremonial observances and prayers. This star is the Olma d’nhoora, literally “the world of light,” the primitive sun of the Star-worshippers theogony, the paradise of the elect, and the abode of the pious hereafter. For three hours the reading of the “renunciation ” by the high priest continues, interrupted only, ever and anon, by the Mshobbo havi eshmakhyo, “Blessed be thy name,” of the participants seated outside, until, towards dawn, a loud and ringing Ano asborlakh ano asborli ya Avather, “I mind me of thee, mind thou of me O Avather,” comes from the mouth of the priest, and signalizes the termination of the prayers.
Before the North Star fades in the pale ashen grey of approaching dawn, a sheep, penned over night near the river, is led into the tabernacle by one of the four shkandos for sacrifice to Avather and his companion deity, Ptahiel. It is a wether, for the Star-worshippers never kill ewes, or eat their flesh when killed. The animal is laid upon some reeds, its head west and its tail east, the Ganzivro behind it facing the Star. He first pours water over his hands, then over his feet, the water being brought to him by a deacon. One of the tarmidos takes up a position at his elbow and places his hand on the Ganzivro’s shoulder, saying, Ana shaddakh, “I bear witness.” The high priest bends towards the North Star, draws a sharp knife from his left side, and reciting the formula, “In the name of Alaha, Ptahiel created thee, Hibel Sivo permitted thee, and it is I who slay thee,” cuts the sheep’s throat from ear to ear, and allows the blood to escape on to the matted reeds upon which the animal is stretched out. The four deacons go outside, wash their hands and feet, then flay the sheep, and cut it into as many portions as there are communicants outside. The pieces are now distributed among the worshippers, the priests leave the tabernacle in the same order as they came, and with a parting benediction from the Ganzivro, Assootad d’haï havilakh, “The benison of the living one attend thee,” the prayer-meeting terminates, and the Star-worshippers quietly return to their homes before the crimson sun has time to peep above the horizon.(163)
APPENDIX III. COMPARATIVE LISTS OF WORDS
I.
OLD WORLD.
YAU or YU=the source or origin, the Chinese character for which figures a square or circle divided into four by crossed horizontal and perpendicular lines, the latter projecting above the square or circle.(164)
YAOU and YU=mythical emperors who instituted the celestial kingdom, see p. 298.
YAOU SING=“Revolving Star” in Ursa Major. China.
UI or HWEI=verb to turn around. Chinese.
YUL, YEUL, YEOL=wheel (Icelandic hjol, O. Swedish hiugl, Swedish hjul).
HVEL=disk, orb. Iceland.
WUOTAN=ODIN=supreme divinity. Scandinavia.
JOVLA=sacred hearth fire of Northern Finns, under guardianship of mother of family.
JOVIS=Roman supreme divinity, associated with wheel.
YAHWE=Hebrew name for God, translated as “heaven,” was pronounced Yahu. According to the Masoretes must be read Yeho (Yăhu). The early Gnostics wrote Iao, that is Yaho (Sayce). The four consonants yhvh, pronounced Yahveh, constituted the sacred Tetragrammaton, or four lettered name of the Most High.
Archbishop Tenison says (Idolat. p. 404): “This name was no mystery among the Greeks, as is evident from the mention of the god Ieuo in Sanchoniathon; Jaho in St. Hiersm, and the Sibylline Oracles; Jaoth or Jaho in Irenaeus; of the Hebrew God called Jaoia by the Gnostics; of Jaou in Clemens Alexandrinus, of Jao the first principle of the Gnostic Heaven in Epiphanius; the God of Moses in Diodorus Siculus; the god Bacchus in the oracle of Apollo Clarius; lastly, as was said, of the Samaritan Jabe, in Theodoret.”
YEUD EKHAD=name of supreme god of Phœnicians the Red people (Sayce).
NEW WORLD.
YOUALLI-EHECATL, literally, night or circling-air or wind=supreme god of the Chichimecs (see p. 33), a Mexican ruling tribe whose name signifies the red lineage or people.
YAHUAL-TECUHTLI or YOUAL-TECUHTLI=the Lord of the circle or of the Night, i. e. North-star god, supreme divinity. Mexico, see p. 279.
YALAHUA=Tzendal deity, p. 181.
YANAULUHA=Zuñi deity, p. 223.
{IO, IOVANA, IELLA, IOCAHUNA=names for god. {HUIOU=sun. {HUIOO or HUIHO=mountain. Haïti. {YOLI, YULI=verb, to live, resuscitate, vivify. {OLLIN=“motion.” Nahuatl. YAUALLI=to walk in a circle many times. Nahuatl. YOUALLI=night. Nahuatl. HUE=egg. Maya.
II.
OLD WORLD.
SHAME=heaven. Babylonian-Assyrian.
SAMA=heaven. Græco-Persian.
SAMA or SHAMA=north. Arabic (Al Kaukabal Shamaliyy=star of the North; Al Kulbal Shamaliyy=the northern axle or spindle).
AMAN=verb to sustain. Akkadian.
AMAXA=name for Ursa Major=a chariot. Greek.
SAMAS or SHAMASH=Babylonian-Assyrian god, “the universal judge,” whose image was wheel with four rays (see pp. 331 and 350), cf. Ramman.
BAAL-SHAMAYUN=supreme god. Phœnicia.
AMASIS=Egyptian god.
KAMOSH=god of Moabites, p. 350.
HAM or KHAM=name for northern Egypt.
AMANTINI=an Illyrian tribe. Greece.
BR-AHMA=supreme god. India (cf. Yama).(165)
BR-AHMANAS=priestly caste. India.
ARYAMAN=star-god associated with Mitra-Yaruna, Ursa Major and number seven. In Zendavesta is associated with Ashvino-ritual. India.
AMA or AME=heaven. Japan.
KAMI=deity, top, above.
O-KAMI=the honorable government.
YAMA=mountain. Japan.
YAMATO=main island of Japan.
AMA-NO-MA-HITOTSU=“Eye of Heaven,” name for Pole-star. Japan.
AME-NO-MI-NAKA-NUSHI-NO-KAMI=Deity-Master-of-the-August-Centre-of-Heaven, first Japanese “hidden” god.(166)
AME-NO-TOKO-TACHI-NO-KAMI=Deity-standing-eternally-in-heaven, hidden god; cf. Kuni-no-toko-tachi-no-kami=Deity-standing-eternally-on-earth. Japan.
AMEN-RA=hidden god. Egypt.
AHA-MENA or MENES=historical founder of kingdom=“the Constant One.” Egypt; cf. menu=monuments; smen=to establish. Egyptian.
MINYŒ, MINYANS or MINŒANS=race who traced descent from Minos=the measurer (Men=measurer); great agricultural and building race in India, Arabia and Egypt. Measured time by circumpolar constellations; became confederates of Sabæans; conquered Phrygia, built Mycenæ (Hewitt).
AMUN=national god of Ammonites. Amun means the builder or architect and is, like the name of Egyptian god, formed of amān, to sustain. He was the god of the meridian and of the central house-pole, sustaining roof who, in Egypt, became Amen-ra (Sayce and Gesenius, quoted by Hewitt, op. cit.). The supreme god of the Ammonites was Nāgash, the constellation of Ursa Major (Hewitt).
NEW WORLD.
AMAN or XAMAN (pron. Haman)=north. Maya, Yucatan.
AH-MEN=master builder, handicraftsman; cf. Menah or Menyah=artificer, artisan, builder, handicraftsman; cf. verb men=to build, found, establish, erect, also menta’al=to govern. Maya, p. 234.
AMAN-TECA=name used in ancient Mexico to designate master-handicraftsmen, synonym of Tolteca.
AMAUTAS=name given in Peru to the “wise men” who introduced civilization.
III.
OLD WORLD.
AN=heaven, god. Babylonian Assyrian (p. 331).
ANA=heaven. Sumerian, Akkadian,(167) cf. Akanna=Ursa Major, Akkadian, see p. 235.
AN and ANNU=names of celestial and terrestrial sacred central cities. Egypt, cf. an=pillar or that which turns around. According to Flinders Petrie, the an was an octagonal fluted column with a square tenon or top.
MANU=sacred mountain situated in N. W. Egypt.
KW-AN-IRAS=sacred central cosmical division situated under pole-star, around which the six kingdoms of Iran were situated. Persia.
CANAAN=holy land, whose capital was Jerusalem.
AN-SHAN=name of ancient Persian empire.
AN-SHAR=supreme god. Assyria, cf. Nannar, pp. 336 and 337.
AN-SAR=transcription of Osiris. Egypt, cf. Anubis also Anu and Anath, Janus and Jana.
Z-AN=old Doric form of Zeus, hence Janus.
SHANG=heaven, the Above. China.
KAN=mountain, also Yo. China.
ALKAID=star in Ursa Major, also used for moon; origin of Spanish title Alcalde.
ALKABIR=the Great. Early Arabic.
KA=surnamed the Great. Kushite father of life, the hidden god who guards and distributes, at the appointed seasons, the life-giving rains (Hewitt).(168)
KA=title of Egyptian king, usually rendered by “bull.”
KHAN=a prince. Tartary.
KHAKAN=an emperor or sovereign. Persia.
HAN=name for empire. Japan, cf. ken, imperial domain.
HANA=flower or blossom. Japanese, cf. ankh=flower, Egyptian and anthos=flower, Greek.
ANGLI or ANGRIWARII=widely diffused, great northern race, mentioned by Tacitus and Ptolemy.
NEW WORLD.
CA-AN=heaven. Maya, Yucatan, see pp. 278 and 288.
CANAL=Above. Maya, Yucatan.
CAN=title of culture-hero: KUKUL-CAN=the divine can, homonym of can=serpent. Maya, Yucatan.
ZIUVA-CAAN=Colony founded in Yucatan, by Holon-chan-te=Peuh.
ANAHUAC: name of Mexican empire, usually loosely translated as a=water, nahuac=by the water.
To this list should be added the following affixes or prefixes, denoting, in each case, “place, land or region of.”
Egyptian: ta, for instance meh-ta or mah-ta=north; amen-ta=hidden region, N. W.
Chinese: kwan=earth, land.
Persian: Kwan-iras or Hvan-iras=the name for Iran=“land of Iran”?
Japanese: han=empire, ken=domain.
Maya: tan, for instance Aman-tan or Xaman-tan=North.
Nahuatl: an, tlan or can, “land of, also mountain.”
Zuñi: wan=place of, for instance Halona-wan.
IV.
OLD WORLD.
AK=Middle. Egypt, p. 385.
AKANNA=literally “the Lord of Heaven,” title Ursa Major. Akkadian, p. 394.
N-AKKASCH=title of Polaris “the serpent.” Phœnicia (p. 325).
NAGASCH, NAHUSHA, or the Great Nag=the great invisible god, hidden in his ark of clouds, who reveals himself to men as the ruler of time and the orderer of the regular sequence of the phenomena of nature, and who churns, in the mortar of the heavens, the life-giving rains in which his divine spirit is infused.... (Hewitt).
NAGA, NAGUR=the rain snake, at whose summer festival called Akkhadi or Akhtuj, the Gonds worship the cart axle or akkha in a ceremony which is a reminiscence of the days when the axle was the upright revolving pole pressing out the heavenly rain. The Naga snake was the offspring of the house pole; the soul of life in the rain cloud; the heavenly snake, the great time-measurer and year god of the Hindus (Hewitt).
P-AKU=zenith. Akkadian, cf. Papakhu, central sacred cosmical chamber.
AKKAD=the North, name of country (B.C. 3800). Babylonia-Assyria, p. 347.
K-AKKABU=the star, Polaris. Babylonia-Assyria, p. 326.
AKRIS or AKROS=summit, point, supreme, most high; cf. ok=eye. Greek.
AKRIOS=god of summit, title of supreme god. Greece.
AKA-TOS, AKA=a ship. Greek.
ACHAIIS=the Achaian land.
ACHAIANS=in Homer, the name for Greeks generally.
AKRA=Hindu village dancing and marriage ground, where sacred tree is planted and sacrifices made to it in great Naga festival (Hewitt).
AKSA=name of mosque at Jerusalem.
AKSHAFARU=point, summit. Persian.
AKAL, AKARAN=god, eternal, timeless. Zoroastrian, name of god.
H-AK-HAMANISIJA=ancient royal title. Persia.
HAK=king or regent, royal title. Akkadian, Egyptian.
AKACA=Sanscrit name for fifth element æther: (Schroeder).
AGATHON=name given by Pythagoreans to all-embracing soul of the universe.
AK or AG=verb aj, to drive, urge, impel. Sanscrit.
AGNI=god of central fire. India.
AGASTYA=star father of Dravidians. India.
CHAKRA=wheel. Sanscrit.
CHAKRAYARTIN=title, supreme ruler. Sanscrit.
AKSHA=axis or axle. Sanscrit.
AKSHIVAN=“the driver of the axle,” supreme ruler. Sanscrit.
DAKSHA=the North people, also white, blessed, and the left. Sanscrit.
TAKKAS=one of the most powerful and wealthy tribes of the Punjab, whose progeners founded the great city of Taxila, the Hindu Takkasila or rock of the Takkas, taken by Alexander the Great. Their name Takkas or Takshas means “the makers or artificers,” which is connected with the Akkadian tuk=stone.... They call themselves the sons of the two Nagas or horned snake, Takht-nag and Basak-nag or “the sons of the race of artificers” ... as the sons of the all-mother Maga [the maker or kneader], they called themselves the sons of the mother-mountain.... (Hewitt).
AKHAL, AKHAL-ZIKH, AKHAL-KALAKI=names of towns. Asia Minor (O’Neil, p. 681).
ACASA or ACASE=axis or axle. Old Norse.
AKKA and UKKO=names given by Finns to mother-earth and father-heavens (O’Neil, p. 38).
NAKA=Middle. Japan (O’Neil, p. 536).(169)
HAK-KAKU=eight holy corners or points; also that which is revealed, disclosed, known, come to light. Japanese dictionary.
AKA=above, mountain, cf. SAKA=ascent. Japan.
AGATA=ancient name for domain or department (Chamberlain). Japan.
HAKKI=the eight diagrams, cf. Ya-he-koto-shiro-nu-shi-no-kami=Deity-eight-fold-thing-sign-master. Chamberlain op. cit. pp. 83 and 101.
WAKE, WAKI, WAKU=lord, title. Japan.
KAGU=Mount Kagu in Heaven. Japan.
HAKU=white, shining. Japan.
HOKU, NE-NO-HO, KITA, KITA-NO-HO=North. Japan. Cf. Khita=race mentioned in Egyptian and Biblical history, and Kitai=name for China.
HOKU-SEI, HOKU-SHIN, HOKKIYOKU, North Star. Japan.
NEW WORLD.
Nahuatl.
ACACHTO=the first, at first.
YAQUE=that which has a point; a point, by extension a nose.
YACANA=to govern a town or to guide.
YACA-TECUHTLI (literally, the governing or guiding lord)=title of Polaris, cf. Pacha-Yachachic=Peruvian Creator, p. 159.
TON-ACA-TECUHTLI=title of Creator.
MAL-ACATL=wheel, spindle, verb malacachoa, to walk around in a circle.
ACATL=cane, staff.
CE-ACATL, OME-ACATL=titles of deities meaning One Acatl, Two Acatl.
13 ACATL=inscription on Stone of Great Plan and on image of Divine Twain (see p. 261).
ACALLI=boat, from atl=water, calli=house.
Maya.
AKAB=night.
B-AK-CAB=in a circle, around, cf. hab=year.
BACAB=title of four “rulers of the year,” tetrarch.
AK-BAL=a vessel or pot.
C-ACAB=town, village.
B-AK-LIC=around in a circle, in the surroundings.
B-AK-TE=together.
B-AK-ACH=all, the whole.
B-AK=rock, fortification, enclosure, also bone, phallus, foundation, heron.
N-AK=throne, belly.
N-AK-LIC=at the root, on top of all.
L-AK-AN=standard, banner.
L-AK-IN=east.
K-AK=fire.
P-AC-AT=sight.
Z-AK=white cf. Iztac=white. Nahuatl.
V.
OLD WORLD.
MAD-HYIAS=Middle. Sanscrit.
MAGHAVAN=Vedic name of Indra.
MATH=the fire-drill, from math or manth=to twirl or churn. Sanscrit.(170)
MATHURA=name of central sacred locality. India (see Hewitt, p. 214).
MAGANA=Akkadian name for the Sinaitic Peninsula.
MAGHADAS=Finnic race ruling Northern India before the Kushites.
MERU=the Middle. Sanscrit, p. 317.
MAHTA or MEHTA=north. Egyptian, cf. mit=death.
MED-DOS, MEDOS or MESOS=Middle. Greek.
MED-IUS=Middle. Latin.
MED-ON=Middle. Old Irish, cf. Medi=Tullium, centre of state.
MID-JIS, Middle. Goth.
MIODHACH=a Central Power (Joyce). Celtic.
MITRA=the god said, in Rig-Veda, “to fix times of festivals.” Was associated with Varuna=night and rain god (Greek, Ouranos), with the constellation of Ursa Major and the number seven. The North was sacred to Mitra-Varuna who “maintain the invariable succession of the order of natural phenomena” (see Hewitt, pp. 144, 416 and 420).
MILKOM=god of Ammonites whose supreme god was Ursa Major.
MEDIA or MADGA=ancient kingdom whose inhabitants were allied to Persians and shook off yoke of Assyrian rule in 708 B.C.
MEDUM=site of most ancient pyramid known. Egypt.
MECCA=sacred capital. Arabia.
MY-CENAE=very ancient city in N. E. of Argolis, built upon craggy height, principal city of Greece and capital of kingdom in Agamemnon’s time.
METHONE=most ancient Greek colony on Thermaic gulf.
MI-YAU-KEN: “name under which the Pole-star is worshipped in Japan in the form of a Buddha with a wheel, the emblem of the revolving world, resting on his folded hands.”(171) cf. Chinese.
MUKDEN=capital of Manchuria, p. 288, cf. Mughs or Maghadas, Finnic race ruling Northern India before Kushites, and
MANJHUS=“royal land” set apart in Ooraon villages.
MIOKEN=name of town and mountain. Japan.
MIWA=sacred mountain shrine regarded with extraordinary reverence. Japan (Chamberlain).
MIAKO=ancient sacred capital of Japan, residence of
MIKO, or MIKADO=heavenly sovereign who, like the Chinese Wong or Wang=king, ruled the three powers, heaven, earth and man. The Chinese character, consisting of three horizontal lines crossed by a perpendicular line expresses also the Japanese Miko which includes males and females and is used combined with Naka=middle i. e., Middle sovereign (Chamberlain).
MIHE=threefold. Japanese.
MID-KENA=cosmical central power and mountain. Old Irish.
MID-GARD=cosmical centre. Scandinavia.
MIODH-CHUARTA (pron. micorta)=Meath, centre of Irish kingdom.
MERCIA=middle kingdom of Britain.
HAR-MOED=central mountain. Isaiah XIV.
MISHKNA=name of tabernacle of pole-star worshipping Mandaites (see Appendix II).
NEW WORLD.
MEXICO=name of capital and by extension of state.
MEK-TAN=Maya name for empire, literally: “land of Mek.”
MITNAL or METNAL=underworld. Maya.
MICTLAN=name of region surrounding pyramids of Teotihuacan.
MITLA=name of ruins in Oaxaca, Mexico.
MICTLAMPA=north. Nahuatl. cf. miquiztli=death.
MICTLAN-TECUHTLI=lord of the North, or underworld. Mexican pole-star god.
VI.
OLD WORLD.
I-KU or I KUU=the leader or prince, Polaris. Assyria.
DIL-GAN-I-KU=the messenger of light, Polaris. Akkadian.
KU=holy, divine (tul-ku, the holy altar). Akkadian.
KU=word of Finnic origin brought to India by Northern settlers—used by them to denote Father-god=Ukku. Uk=the great Ku=placer or begetter (Hewitt, p. 148).
KU-SHIKAS=ruling race of India, of Northern origin, known as Ashura-kushikas (Hewitt).
CHU=the brilliance or light, Egyptian.
CHU-ATEN=the central capital founded by Amenhotep.
AL-KUTB=the axle, Polaris. Arabia.
TUL-KU=the holy altar. Akkadian.
GU=the urn. Akkadian.
KUL-KUN=central cosmical mountain. China, cf. Sar-tuli-elli, king of the holy mound.
KURUMA=wheel, Japanese, also mawaru, from marawi=to turn, revolve.
NEW WORLD.
Maya.
KU=god.
KUKUL=holy, divine (p. 69).
KUKULCAN=name of culture-hero.
KU-LEL=noble.
KU-NA=temple.
KUKUM=feather.
KUL=chalice.
CHUT=bowl, cf. Nahuatl cumitl=bowl or jar.
CHU-MUC=that which is in the middle or centre.
CHU-MUCCIL=Middle, centre.
CHU-MUC-AKAB=midnight.
CHU-NIL=adj. the principal.
VII.
OLD WORLD.
CITRA=bright, shining. Sanscrit.
TARA=star. Sanscrit, cf. Ra=god. Egypt.
SITARA=star. Hindu.
TJARA=star. Old Norse, cf. tar=tree.
TARA=name of central city. Old Irish.
UTTARA=North. Sanscrit.
ISH-TAR=goddess, a hymn to whom, in Akkadian and Assyrian, begins thus: “Thou who as the axis of the heavens dawnest. In the dwellings of the earth her name revolves” (Prof. Sayce, quoted by O’Neil, p. 715).
Compare with Egyptian ra=god and note that the Sanscrit uttara could have been expressed in Egyptian hieratic script by the form of eye=uta and the sign for ra i. e. an eye within a circle (see p. 390 and fig. 62). Also compare the Sanscrit and Hindu citra and sitara with Egyptian seb-seta “the hidden star,” pictured by the turtle, sit or cit, etc. (see p. 398).
NEW WORLD.
CITLALLIN=star. Nahuatl.
IX-TOLOLOTLI=eye, employed in picture writing for star. Nahuatl, see in centre of Nahui-Ollin, fig. 2, Nos. 1 and 3.
IXUA=the birth of a plant, the germination of seed, cf. cihuatl=woman. Nahuatl.
IXTLI=the face. Nahuatl.
ICH=the eye. Maya.
IK=life, breath, air, wind cf. ecatl=breath, etc., Nahuatl, and ek=star. Maya.
KIKCOLOM=blood. Maya.
XICO=navel. Nahuatl.
VIII.
OLD WORLD.
TEH-TEH=designation of the first star of the Great Bear, given in star-list in Papyrus of Ani, and the same as Te-te, the Akkadian star-god of the two foundations (Hewitt, p. 267).
TET=highly abraded form of timmen=foundation.
TEM=foundation, Egyptian (O’Neil); foundation stone (Brown). Akkadian.
TET=eternity, symbolized by stone pillar. Egypt.
A-TEN=circle or disk. Egypt.
UA-TET=Egyptian name for emerald.
THEOS=Greek name for god i. e. Cosmos.
THEO=descriptive of running wheel, of anything circular which seems to run around into itself.
THEORS=sacred envoys, who came for sacred festivals to Olympia or Delphi from different points.
THEMIS=law, right, agreed upon by common consent or prescription. Greece.
THEMIS=personified law, order and justice, cf. Artemis, the goddess to whom the seven stars of the Great Bear were sacred (Hewitt).
TEMENOS=piece of land sacred to a god, sacred precincts, precincts of temple.
A-THENA=name of Grecian capital, state and goddess, signified “Seven.”
TENOS and TEOS=names of Greek states, p. 456.
DEOTHAN=village earth-god worshipped by Brahmin priests (Hewitt).
TEEN or TIEN=heaven, god, the character for god being an upright pole or support, a “ti.” Chinese, see p. 301, cf. Chinese character, tien, field, representing a square divided by cross lines into four parts.
NEW WORLD.
TEM, TETEM=stone altar, foundation. Maya. p. 229.
TETL=stone. Nahuatl.
TEO-CALLI=“house of god” = temple. Nahuatl.
TEOTL=name for god. Nahuatl.
TEOTIHUACAN=site of extensive ruins. Mexico.
TENOCH-TI-TLAN=name of capital of Mexico.
TEMISTITAN=another ancient name for Mexican capital.
IX.
OLD WORLD.
ASH=number six. Akkadian.
ASHURA=trading non-Aryan races, the Hittites, worshippers of six gods, six seasons, of Pleiades and of Ashura Mazda, the Zend god. Established system of grouping six provinces around central royal province where king resided.
ASHVINS=stars which drove round the pole the constellations of Ursa Major and Draco, another name for Ashura? Sons of horse (ashva), brought barley to India, drank mead (madhu); instituted the Ashva Mēdha, or horse-sacrifice of the Hindus, also used by North Germans Ugro-Finns, Scythians and Romans.
ASH, NAK-KASCH=Draco, Euphratean name for Polaris.
MASSEBA=stone pillar. Hebrew symbol, see p. 350.
ASHERAH=pole or tree, worshipped by Phœnicians and Hebrews equivalent of Indian rain-pole.
AL-FASS=axis, Arabian name for pole-star.
PHAR-ASH-AH, PARR-ASIS=Hebrew and Phœnician “guiding star,” Polaris.
ASSUR=kingdom and god of Assyria.
ASAR=transcription of Osiris. Egypt (O’Neil, p. 59).
ASIA=name given by Greeks to Asia.
ASKANIOS=ancient name of Phrygia.
ASTARTE=goddess of heaven, see p. 350.
ASS or ÆSIR=Scandinavian gods.
ASSGARD=central, divine dwelling. Scandinavia.
UM-ASHI=reed shoot that sprouted when the earth, young and like unto floating oil, drifted about medusa-like. Japan. (Records of Ancient Matters, section I.)
UMASHI-ASHI-KABI-HIKO-JI-NO-KAMI=“Pleasant-reed-shoot-elder-deity,” born from primæval reed-shoot.
ASHI-HARA-NO-NAKA-TSU-KUNI=Land in the Middle of the Reed plains, common periphrastic designation of Japan.
NEW WORLD.
AZTLAN=the original home of Aztec race, according to tradition.
AZTEC=name of dominant race. Mexico.
ASH-IWI=other name for Zuñi tribe (Cushing, see p. 203).
X.
OLD WORLD.
O, ON or NO=name of celestial and terrestrial capitals. Hebrew and Egyptian.
OLYMPOS=the breaker or organizer of time (Hewitt, p. 514).
KOLONH=a hill, mound, Greek; Lat. tumulus.
COLONOS=a demos of Attica lying on and around hill sacred to Poseidon.
COLONIA=a colony, the Lat. colonia.
KOLOSSOS=statue in general, i. e. column?
OM-EL-KORA=mother of cities. Arabian, see p. 323.
OMPHALE=in Greek mythology, the fire socket, wife of Herakles, the fire drill (Hewitt).
HO=designation for directions in space. China, see pp. 285-288.
HO=acme, taken to mean the best, highest, most showy part of anything. Japanese (Chamberlain).(172)
HO=the land’s acme, or a plain surrounded by mountains. Japan (Motowori).
HOM=date-palm-sacred tree. Babylonia-Assyria (Sir Geo. Birdwood).
NEW WORLD.
HO, or TI-HOO=ancient capital of Yucatan, see p. 277.
HOM=mound. Maya.
HOMTAMIL=belly, i. e. omphalos.