Читать книгу The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations - Zelia Nuttall - Страница 12

Figure 46.

The illustration, reproduced here (fig. 46), exhibits an extremely ingenious mode of irrigation which divided the country surrounding the town into nine zones of land lying between currents of water. These are cut through by an exit canal which, at the same time, presumably supplied a direct water-way for traffic to and from the town. The association of the spiral form with irrigation would not, perhaps, seem as important and significant did we not know that the ancient Peruvians, as proven by Wiener, habitually laid out the irrigation canals in their maize-fields so as to form regular designs, some of which resembled those illustrated on fig. 40, nos. 2, 4, 6, 7, which have been shown to signify the union of the Above and Below, or Heaven and Earth. In the Peruvian irrigation canals the water supplied the light lines and the earth the dark, and when the small canals were full and were observed in certain lights, they must have resembled light blue or white patterns running through the dark earth. That their inventors and makers actually associated them with profound meaning and laid them from superstitious as well as practical motives is obvious; for, in Peru, as in Mexico, we find the periodical union of the Heaven and Earth, of rain and earth celebrated with ceremonial drinking of chicha, specially brewed for this period which seems to have been the regularly appointed time for juvenile match-making, by order of the Inca.

“When the Inca gave women as wives they were received because it was the command of the Inca … because of this it was considered that she was taken until death and she was received on this understanding and never deserted” (Molina). “When the Inca Rocca married his sister, six thousand people were married on the next day” (Montesinos). In the festival called Ccapac Raymi, maidens who had attained womanhood offered bowls of [pg 147] fermented chicha to the youths who had just been admitted to the ranks of the warriors.

“During this festival the Priests of the Sun and of the Creator brought a quantity of fuel, tied together in handfuls, and dressed as a man and a woman … they were offered to the Creator, the Sun and the Inca and were burnt in their clothes together with a sheep” (Molina).

Towards the end of the same month (November), feasts were celebrated for the flocks of the huacas, that they might multiply; for which sacrifices were made throughout the kingdom. Ultimately “public solemn sacrifices were made to the Creator, the Sun, the Thunder and the Moon for all nations, that they might prosper and multiply” (Molina). A few weeks later, an exemption from ceremonial bondage, for three months, commenced. Throughout January, February and March no religious festival took place at Cuzco—the farmers attended to their land and the people were left at liberty to pursue their various avocations uninterruptedly (Molina ed. Hakluyt, pp. 51 and 52). I have already shown that the same exemption from ceremonial bondage during ninety to one hundred days of the year was customary in Mexico; and, in my note on the Ancient Mexican Calendar System, communicated to the Congress of Americanists at Stockholm in 1894 (p. 16), I explained the reasons which had led me to infer that “the religious festivals were concentrated in the ritual years of 260 days,” which indeed forms a unit, consisting of a complete set of combinations of the numbers 13 and 20.

In Dr. Franz Boas' admirable monograph on the Social Organization and secret societies of the Kwakiutl Indians (Washington, 1897, p. 418), it is shown that at the present day the clan system is only in force during one division of the year. “At the beginning of the winter ceremonial the social system is completely changed. The period when the class system is in force is called bā-xus. The period of the winter ceremonial is designated as ‘the secrets,’ ‘making the heart good,’ also ‘brought down from Above.’ The Indians express this alternating of seasons by saying that in summer the bā-xus is on top, the secrets below, and vice versa in winter. During this time the place of the clans is taken by a number of secret societies: the spirits who had appeared to mythical ancestors give new names to the men to whom they appear, but these names are only in use during the time when [pg 148] the spirits dwell amongst the Indians, i.e., in the winter.” Therefore from the moment when the spirits are supposed to be present, all the summer names are dropped and the members of the nobility take their winter names. The winter ceremonial societies are arranged in two principal groups; these are subdivided into 2×10=20 groups according to age and sex.

Dr. Boas distinguishes “three classes of tribal names and of clan names, viz., such as are collective forms of the names of the ancestors, names taken from the region inhabited by the tribe or clan and names of honour. … Each clan derives its origin from a mythical ancestor … the present system of tribes and clans is of recent growth … their numbers have undergone considerable changes in historical times.” A careful study of the material presented by Dr. Boas shows, however, that the ground-plans of the entire social fabric reared by the Kwakiutl Indians closely resembles that on which the stately Maya, Mexican and Peruvian civilizations were reared.

Returning to Peru, it is particularly noteworthy that the above mentioned solemn sacrifices to the Creator, the Sun and Thunder, and Moon and Earth, held in November, were thus offered to them jointly in one consecrated place, whereas, at other seasons, the cult was performed separately and on different days, before the emblems of the Above and Below.

Notwithstanding the moderation and tolerance which seem to have been characteristic of the Inca government, and the apparent equality and accord of the two cults, the heads of which were the Inca and Coya, we find evidences of discord in the historical records. The Inca empire had scarcely been established for more than a few centuries23 when we discern signs of a serious rebellion under the leadership of the Chuchi-capac, the chief of the Southern province or Colla-suyu, pertaining to the Below. From the taunts he uttered in the presence of the Inca on a festive occasion and which have been recorded verbally by Salcamayhua, it is clear that the chief of the Collas asserted that he (and the people of his province) actually practised sun-cult although “his throne was of [pg 149] silver;” that is to say, notwithstanding the fact that moon-cult pertained to the quarter to which he was assigned, namely, to the Below. He justifies his departure from moon-cult by taunting the Inca that he, in turn, did not adhere strictly to sun-cult but worshipped the impersonal Creator. This struggle between the ancient native sun-cult and star-cult and this religious dissension, the reason for which is apparent, initiated the long period of internal strife and warfare which ultimately made the Spanish Conquest such an easy matter.

During the course of these wars the Peruvian Inca, on one occasion, avenged himself for a supposed insult by having drums made of the skins of some of the enemies' messengers and by sending back others of these “dressed as women,” that is to say degraded from their positions as warriors or noblemen to the ranks of the commoners. A similar degradation, inflicted upon the Tlatelolcan rebels by the Mexicans has already been mentioned and can only be fully understood when the class-system is recognized.

From this and analogous instances it is evident that, admirable as the scheme of government seems to have been as a means of laying the foundations of civilization, and of teaching primitive people agriculture, stability, law and order, yet the very features which rendered it so efficient at first became, eventually, the cause of its gradual disintegration, as soon as a certain degree of culture prosperity was attained by the community. One mode of avoiding the evils of over-population and of ridding the capital of its restless, and enterprising or troublesome members, was the system of Mitimaes or colonists. This merits particular attention, because it formed an integral part of the marvellous and widespread scheme of organization we have been studying, and therefore helps to an understanding of the customary means by which civilization was spread in past ages throughout the American continent.

As the population of Cuzco increased and greater food supplies were found necessary, the Incas extended their dominions by a series of conquests. “As soon as they had made themselves lords of a province they left Mitimaes or settlers there, who caused the natives to live in communities” and established a small centre of local government on the pattern of Cuzco. Mitimaes or colonists were also sent, from different provinces, to live on the frontiers, bordering on hostile countries, so as to aid in defending them against the enemies. The establishment of colonies in distant districts [pg 150] was therefore a tried and familiar custom of those who possessed the wonderful governmental plan we have been studying.

I have shown that the greater the prosperity of a civilized community organized on this plan, the more imperative the necessity of founding new colonies would sometimes become. The urgent need of greater food supplies would lead to the sending out of expeditions for the purpose of surveying the surrounding country and ascertaining the quality of its produce. In his MS. Noticia, Padre Oliva speaks of an exploring party which was sent out by the ancestor of the Incas with the injunction to return in a year. After a few years had passed and none of the party returned, a second expedition was sent out in search of the first and this led to the final establishment of the Inca dominion in a promising region. Sahagun recounts how a Maya colony was established at Panuco; Montezuma himself related to Cortés that he and his lineage were descendants of colonists from distant parts; traditions of culture-heroes who established civilization amongst them abound amongst Central American tribes; finally, Peru is shown to have been civilized by rulers who carried out, systematically, a ready-made plan in a comparatively short time. Whence did all these culture-heroes emanate, carrying the identical method and system into widely separated districts and establishing centres of civilization in the richest and most fertile parts of the American Continent?

Documentary evidence certainly justifies the inference that the civilization of Peru itself was due to just such a deliberately executed plan of colonization, which gradually extended southwards and ultimately took root and flourished in the most favorably situated locality.

Leonce Angrand, who cites Acosta, Montesinos, Garcia, Boturini, Valera, Garcilaso de la Vega, Gomara, Balboa, Paz Soldan, d'Orbigny, Zarate, Cieza de Leon, Torquemada, Herrera, Velasco, Rivero and Tschudi, Gibbon, Stevenson, Castelnau, Desjardins, Villavicencio, Roman and others, unites their testimony in the following sentence: “It is therefore solely towards the North, in the elevated mountainous region, that researches should be directed [in order to ascertain the origin of the Peruvian civilization]. As soon as this is done innumerable proofs appear of the residence, in extremely ancient times, of people who can scarcely belong to other races than those who founded Cuzco and Tiahuanaco. It is therefore, from the North that these hardy pioneers of humanity [pg 151] came, from distant civilizations, and it is certainly by going northwards that one must look for traces of one or the other current of civilization. The inexhaustible force of expansion of the Inca Empire extended to the North as well as in other directions.”

Angrand also mentions a line “of prehistoric ruins which extend northwards from Peru and display the essentially characteristic outlines of the Mexican Teocallis or temples.”24

Garcilaso de la Vega, citing Padre Blas Valera, goes so far as to state that the race, which introduced human sacrifices and ritualistic cannibalism into Peru, “had come from the region of Mexico, peopled the regions of Panama and the Isthmus of Darien and all those great mountains which extend between Peru and the new kingdom of Granada” (the present Nicaragua).25

According to Padre Anello Oliva, whose manuscript notes on Peru are preserved in the British Museum Library, the immediate ancestors of the Incas were colonists who came from unknown parts either by land or by sea, and settled at Caracas (Atlantic coast), whence they gradually spread southwards. As his authority for this statement, he cites original manuscripts which had been placed in his hands by a Spanish missionary of high standing. Among these was a relation by a Quipucamayoc or “accountant by means of quippus,” named Catari, who had been a chronicler of the Incas. His forefathers had occupied the same post and had handed down the above record as having been related to them by their predecessors.

This account does not disagree with that of Salcamayhua who states that “all the nations of the empire had come from beyond Potosi, in four or five armies, arrayed for war and settled in the districts as they advanced.”

Whatever opinions may be held of the relative reliability of the Spanish chroniclers one thing is certain: that not one ventures the statement that the Inca civilization was gradually evolved by the native race of Peru and that all agree in assigning its introduction to an alien race of rulers who came from the North, and gradually united the scattered indigenous tribes together under a central government. Americanists will doubtless agree with me in stating that, until the past history, antiquities and languages of all tribes inhabiting South and Central America have been exhaustively [pg 152] studied, no absolutely satisfactory conclusion can be formed as to when and how civilization was carried to Peru.

On the other hand, even in the present preliminary stage of investigation, there are certain undeniable facts which, if brought to notice at this early date, may prove of inestimable value in directing future research. One of these facts will doubtless appear to many as strange and inexplicable but as noteworthy as it appears to me.

In Cristoval de Molina's account of the fables and rites of the Incas26 already cited, a fable is related concerning the Inca Yupanqui, the Conqueror, who extended the domain of the Peruvian empire and instituted the worship of a creator who, unlike the sun, could rest and light up the world from one spot.

“They say that, before he succeeded [to rulership], he went one day to visit his father Uiracocha Inca, who was at Sacsahuana, five leagues from Cuzco. As he came up to a fountain called Susur-puquio, he saw a piece of crystal fall into it, within which he beheld the figure of an Indian in the following shape:

“Out of the back of his head there issued three very brilliant rays like those of the Sun. Serpents were twined around his arms, and on his head there was the llautu or royal fringe worn across the forehead of the Inca. His ears were bored and he wore the same earpieces as the Inca, besides being dressed like him. The head of a lion came out from between his legs and on his shoulders was another lion whose legs appeared to join over the shoulders of the man. A sort of serpent also twined over the shoulders.

“On seeing this figure the Inca Yupanqui fled, but the figure of the apparition called him by his name from within the fountain saying, ‘Come hither, my son, and fear not, for I am the Sun, thy father. Thou shalt conquer many nations: therefore be careful to pay great reverence to me and remember me in thy sacrifices.’ The apparition then vanished, while the piece of crystal remained. The Inca took care of it and they say that he afterwards saw everything he wanted in it. As soon as he was Lord he ordered a statue of the Sun to be made as nearly as possible resembling the figure he had seen in the crystal. He gave orders to the heads of the provinces in all the lands he had conquered, that they should make grand temples, richly endowed, and he commanded [pg 153] all his subjects to adore and reverence the new Deity, as they had heretofore worshipped the Creator. … It is related that all his conquests were made in the name of the Sun, his Father, and of the Creator. This Inca also commanded all the nations they conquered to hold their huacas in great veneration. …”

It is a startling but undeniable fact that one of the beautiful bas-reliefs found at Santa Lucia Cozumalhuapa near the western coast of Guatemala, about 1,200 miles to the north of the latitude of Cuzco, answers in a most striking manner to the description given of Inca Yupanqui's vision.27

Amongst the thirteen sculptured slabs discovered at Santa Lucia, there are six entire slabs and the fragment of another which are of almost uniform size and may be ranked among the finest examples of aboriginal art which have as yet been found on the American Continent. They represent seven different renderings of the same theme. On each slab an individual wearing elaborate insignia is represented as standing with one arm raised and his head thrown back in the act of gazing upwards towards a celestial figure which seems to be descending towards him. The arms and heads of these nobly conceived figures are visible, but in each case the faces seem to issue from a highly ornate symbol, which is different in each one, just as the insignia of each individual also varies in detail. At the same time it is obvious that the seven slabs commemorate as it were an identical circumstance—the apparition of the same divinity to seven different individuals, six of which are represented with the sign of speech coming forth from their mouths in precisely the same manner. The general resemblance, notwithstanding the distinct individuality of each bas-relief, suggests that they commemorate the visions seen under [pg 154] similar circumstances by seven distinct personages of the same rank and position. Involuntarily one thinks of the period of enforced fast and vigil which marks the attainment of manhood and is still obligatory amongst North American tribes, amongst whom it only ends when they have entered into communion with their totemic ancestor. I am inclined to view these commemorative tablets as commemorating an analogous rite and perpetuating the visions of successive members of one ruling family, or clan. The divinity, invariably associated with serpent symbols, seems to be Quetzalcoatl, the divine twin or serpent, exhibiting in some cases the emblem of the Sun, but evidently revealing itself to each personage under a slightly different form.

Figure 47.

The accompanying drawing (fig. 47) of one of the Santa Lucia bas-reliefs, reproduced from Dr. Habel's work, will suffice to establish its resemblance to Padre Oliva's description of the apparition seen by the youthful Inca Yupanqui. After a careful comparison of the text to the sculptured bas-relief, it must be admitted that a more graphic and impressive illustration of the episode can scarcely be imagined. Its lower portion displays a youthful figure, looking upwards and exhibiting a necklace, the circular ear-pieces and royal fringe or llautu of the Incas. From his shoulders hangs the skin of a puma or lion with its head downwards. Molina relates that lion-skins with the heads were specially prepared for the ceremonial when youths were admitted into the ranks of knighthood, the last rite of which was the piercing of their ears and the enlargement of the orifice made.28

[pg 155]

The youth wears a singular head-dress, or diadem, consisting of what appears to be an eye with conventionally drawn upper lid, surmounted by three pointed rays, behind which some long wavy feathers are visible.29

The celestial apparition to which the youthful figure is looking up, likewise exhibits the same necklace, pieces, and royal fringe of the Incas. Indistinctly though some of the details are given, it seems as though intertwined serpents encircled its head and possibly its neck. The head of the vision is surmounted by an enlarged rendering of the conventionally drawn eyelid and three pointed rays which form the diadem of the youthful knight. The face of the vision occupies, however, the place of the eye on the diadem. In this connection it is interesting to note that in the Nahuatl language, which, as (op. et loc. cit.) proven by Buschmann, was spoken in Guatemala where the bas-relief was found, the word ixtli designates face, whilst ixtololotli signifies eye. Situated between the right elbow of the celestial figure and the diadem of the youth, there is a diminutive reproduction of the eye, eyelid and three rays, with the addition that what appear like two (or three?) drops of water or two eyes descend from it towards a square symbol which resembles the Mexican sign for tlalli=earth, whilst the eye symbol is closely analogous to a well-known Mexican sign which has been interpreted as a star, and has, but not as yet satisfactorily, been identified with the planet Venus. Without pausing to study this sign as it appears in ancient Mexico I point out that the position and mode of representation of the upper figure in the bas-relief sufficiently show that it is an image of a celestial being or vision in the act of receiving the supplication of a youth who is wearing divine insignia. There being a possibility that some of these accessories may be somewhat indistinct in the original bas-relief now preserved at the Royal Ethnographical Museum at Berlin, I do not venture to draw special attention to the possibility of further points of resemblance between the Peruvian tradition and this Guatemalan sculpture.

[pg 156]

At the same time I shall not omit allusion to the wavy figure winding upwards from the waist of the supplicant, which recurs in four out of the seven slabs. It may yet prove to answer to the description of “a sort of serpent,” which is recorded as twining over the shoulders of the vision who was “dressed like the Inca.” The lion's head which appears in the drawing to cover the left hand of the supplicant and the fact that his left foot only, in some cases, wears a sandal, are important and interesting features to which I shall revert further on.

Without attempting to offer any explanation of the truly remarkable fact that a bas-relief exhumed in Guatemala should so strikingly agree with a description preserved in a Peruvian tradition, I shall merely point out a second similar though much less remarkable case of agreement.

Padre Oliva records two instances in which a “royal eagle” figures in connection with members of the Inca dynasty. One of these relates to the ancestors of Manco Capac, the reputed founder of Cuzco. His great-grandmother, being abandoned by her husband, attempted to sacrifice her young son to Pachacamac. A royal eagle descended, carried him away in his talons and set him down in an island off the Pacific coast, named Guayan, “because it was covered with willows.” Oliva explains this tradition as a fanciful way of recording the fact that the youth's life was probably endangered, and that he had fled and taken refuge on an island. At the age of twenty-one he made his way back to the continent on a raft, but was seized by hostile people. His life was, however, saved by the daughter of a chieftain who returned with him to the island. Her name is given as Ciguar, a word strangely like the Nahuatl Cihuatl=woman. She bore him a son who was named Atau (cf. Ahau and Ahua=Maya and Mexican words for lord or chief), who was, in time, the father of Manco Capac, the reputed founder of civilization in Peru. When the latter was a child “an eagle approached him and never left him.” In view of these traditions it is interesting to note that, on two of the Santa Lucia bas-reliefs figured by Habel and reproduced by Mr. Hermann Strebel in pl. ii, fig. 13, of his extremely useful and comprehensive monograph on the bas-reliefs of Santa Lucia, an eagle is represented in connection with a figure wearing divine insignia.

On one of the seven analogous slabs representing a personage [pg 157] addressing a supplication to a celestial apparition, a large eagle or vulture is actually sculptured behind the supplicant, being, as it were, his individual totem (Strebel, Pl. ii, fig. 5).

A drawing of a part of another slab (Strebel, Pl. ii, fig. 13) displays an eagle or vulture holding in his beak the body of a bearded personage who wears a neck ornament and circular ear pieces, and from whose head two serpents hang. This last detail associates him with the celestial figure which usually displays knotted serpents on or above its head, suggesting its connection with Quetzalcoatl, the divine title of the Supreme Being and also of the supreme rulers of the Mexicans. It is curious to find in Peru a tradition recording that, when “the Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui undertook the conquest of the Antisuyus with 100,000 men, their Huaca sent forth fire and stopped the passage with a fierce serpent which destroyed many people. The Inca raised his eyes to heaven and prayed for help with great sorrow, and a furious eagle descended, and seizing the head of the serpent raised it on high, and then hurled it to the ground. In memory of this miracle the Inca ordered a snake to be carved in stone on the wall of a terrace in this province, which was called Aucapirca.” When divested of all fanciful details, the foregoing Peruvian traditions seem to show that the eagle was the totem of one or more of the Incas and that the serpent was the totem of a tribe which was conquered by the Incas. It is likewise recorded by Padre Oliva that the Inca named Mayta Capac Amaru ordered his shield to be painted with weapons and a serpent=Amaru, “because he had killed one in the Andes and therefore took it for his surname.”

It is impossible for any Mexicanist to read the foregoing texts without recalling that, in the City of Mexico, there is an unexplained bas-relief which was put up by the Spaniards after the Conquest but evidently figures a native tradition. It represents an eagle bearing in his talons a personage, wearing a diadem, beneath whom is a group of native weapons.30 The arms of Mexico representing an eagle holding a serpent in its talons and resting on a cactus, is too well known to require comment and recalls the Peruvian tradition of the eagle of the Incas conquering the serpent-totem of a hostile people.

Striking as these undeniable resemblances undoubtedly are, they [pg 158] would not, by themselves, justify the immediate conclusion that an actual direct connection existed between the Peruvian traditions and the Guatemalan and Mexican bas-reliefs which almost seem to illustrate the same or analogous incidents. At the same time they prove that, besides their scheme of government, the Incas had certain myths or traditions in common with the civilized tribes inhabiting Central America.

It is well to bear in mind that the situations of Cuzco in Peru and Santa Lucia in Guatemala are both adjacent to the Pacific coast with an intervening distance of about 27-½ degrees of latitude. But 15 degrees, however, lie between the northern boundary of modern Peru and the southern boundary of Nicaragua where, as proven by Buschmann, innumerable names of localities in the Nahuatl language testify to its ancient occupation by a Nahuatl-speaking race.

It is noteworthy that this eminent philologist observed how the name employed to designate the bamboo bed of the Cacique Agateite, in Nicaragua, “barbacoa,” was the same as that of the wooden bed or litter used by the Inca in Peru (op. cit. p. 756). Buschmann likewise identified the word galpon=great hall or house. He also expressed the opinion that “the Quechua word pampa resembles the Mexican amilpampa ehecatl=the south wind, but the Mexican is formed by the affixes pan and pa and the Quechua substantive means an even, open plain. At the same time this meaning and form could be derived from the Mexican affixes” (Buschmann, Ueber Aztekische Ortsnamen iii, 7, p. 627).

Following this precedent I have ventured to search for further resemblances between Nahuatl and Quechua words, and one of the remarkable results I obtained was the discovery that the well-known Quechua name for colonists=Mitimaes, the meaning of which, in Quechua, is not forthcoming, seems to be connected in sound and meaning with the Nahuatl Ce-mitime=sons of one mother (Molina's dictionary). It is superfluous to point out how appropriate this designation would have been for the colonists who invariably founded fresh centres of civilization on the plan of the central metropolis. A brief comparative table, the result of an investigation which lays no claim to be more than a rudimentary attempt, is published as an appendix to this paper, with the hope that it may stimulate philologists to supersede it by exhaustive studies of the subject. A careful examination of the table tends [pg 159] to prove that certain Nahuatl, Quechua and Maya words had a common origin and shows that a closer connection existed between the Nahuatl and Quechua languages than between Nahuatl and Maya or the Quechua and Maya.

I shall have occasion to refer to several of the words I have tabulated. At present I would draw attention to an analogy which bears directly on the subject of this paper and is of utmost interest and importance. If carefully studied it will be seen that the title “Pacha Yachachic,” applied in Peru to the Creator, proves to be allied in sound and meaning to the Mexican title Yaca-tecuhtli, “the lord who guides or governs.” According to Sahagun, this was “the god of the traders or traveller-merchants.” He had five divine brothers and one sister, each of which was separately worshipped by some travellers, whilst others, on their safe return from distant and dangerous expeditions, offered sacrifices to the whole group collectively. I leave it to each reader to make his own inference as to whether this celestial “traveller's guide” with his six brethren can have been other than Polaris and Ursa Minor. The difference in the magnitudes of this constellation would naturally give rise to the idea of a group composed of individuals of different ages and sizes; the “little sister” probably being the smaller of the four intermediate stars of the constellation and suggesting tales of adventures relating to the mythical sister of six brothers.

It is superfluous to emphasize how natural it would have been to offer a thanksgiving to the “traveller's star” on returning from a distant voyage, but I will point out that for coast navigation between Guatemala and Nicaragua and Peru, the adoption of Polaris as a guide was and is a matter of course. It is well to bear in mind that we are dealing here with navigation north and south, along a sheltered coast, for a distance not exceeding that of the coast-line between Gibraltar and Hamburg. An instructive example of primitive navigation, under analogous circumstances, has been communicated to me, from personal observation, by Commander Barber of the United States Navy.

Native traders, who navigate north and south in small crafts along the coast between Ceylon and Karashee, still use, at the present day, an extremely primitive method of estimating latitude, which is entirely based upon observations of the pole-star. Their contrivance consists of a piece of wood four inches square, through [pg 160] which a hole is bored and a piece of cord, with knots at intervals, is passed. The square is held at arm's length and the end of the cord is held to the point of the navigator's nose in a horizontal line, the height being so adjusted that the pole-star is observed in contact with the upper edge of the piece of wood. There are as many knots in the cords as there are ports habitually visited, and according to the length of the cord required for the observation of Polaris in the said position, the mariner knows to which port he is opposite.

According to Sir Clements B. Markham,31 the original inhabitants of the Peruvian coast fished in boats made of inflated sealskins. It is well known that the coast-tribes of Mexico and Central America employed boats of various kinds and some of great size. The Mexican tradition relates that the culture hero Quetzalcoatl departed in a craft he had constructed and which is designated as a coatlapechtli=coa=coatl=serpent or twin, tlapechtli=raft. It is open to conjecture whether this construction, “in which he sat himself as in a boat,” may be regarded as a sort of double or twin raft, or a boat made of serpent or seal (?) skin. In order to form any opinion, the name for seal in the Nahuatl and other languages spoken by the coast tribes should first be ascertained and compared with the native names for serpent.

The Maya colonists who founded the colony on the Mexican coast, and are known as the Huaxtecans, are described as having transported themselves thither by boats from Yucatan. In the native Codices and in the sculptured bas-relief at Chichen-Itza, there are, moreover, illustrations of navigation by boats. As dependent upon Polaris as their East Indian colleagues of to-day, it is but natural that the ancient Mexican traders by land or sea expressed their gratitude by offerings to Polaris and Ursa Minor.

Let us now return to Peru and examine whether there is any proof that the “Teacher or Guide of the World,” the Supreme Being of the Incas, was identical with the “Lord who guides” revered by the Mexican navigators.

I have already demonstrated that in ancient America the native scheme of religion and government was but the natural outcome of certain ideas suggested by the observation of Polaris and the circumpolar constellations. I have likewise quoted the remarkable qualification of a supreme divinity made by Inca Yupanqui, who [pg 161] raised a temple in Cuzco to the Creator who, superior to the sun, could rest and light the world from one spot. It is an extremely important and significant fact that the principal doorway of this temple opened to the north,32 and that the “true Creator” is alluded to as an invisible power, the knowledge of which was transmitted by the Incas from father to son. Thus Salcamayhua records that on one occasion the young Inca Ccapac Yupanqui exclaimed “I now feel that there is another Creator of all things [than that worshipped in the Andes], as my father Mayta Ccapas Inca has indeed told me.”33 Considering that in the latitude of Cuzco, situated as it is 14° below the equator, Polaris is invisible, the conditions thus recorded as existing in Peru are exactly those which might be expected to exist if a religion founded on pole-star worship had been carried southward to a region in which the star itself was invisible. The orientation of the temple would designate the north as the sacred region and the star-god would become an invisible power whose very existence would have become traditional and necessarily be accepted on faith by native-born Peruvians and converted sun- and moon-worshippers.

It is a remarkable fact that a descendant of the Incas has furnished us with actual proof that the Supreme Creator revered at Cuzco was not only associated with a star, but also with the figure of a cross, each branch of which terminated in a star. We are indebted to the native chronicler Salcamayhua for some extremely curious drawings, which are reproduced here from his account of the Antiquities of Peru.34 In treating of the primitive astronomy in America in my special paper on the native calendar, I shall refer to these in greater detail. For my present purpose it suffices to designate the following figures.

Salcamayhua records that the founder of the Peruvian Empire, Manco Capac, ordered the smiths to make a flat plate of fine gold, of oval shape, which was set up as an image of the Creator (op. cit. p. 76). The Inca Mayta Ccapac, “who despised all created things, including the sun and moon,” and “ordered his people to pay no honour to them,” caused the plate to be renewed which his “great grandfather had put up, fixing it afresh in the place where [pg 162] it had been before. He rebuilt the ‘house of gold’ and they say that he caused things to be placed round the plate, which I have shown, that it may be seen what these heathens thought.” The central figure on this plate consists of the oval image of the Creator, fig. 48, c. Close to its right are images designated by the text as representing the sun and morning star. To the left are the moon and the evening star. Above the oval and touching it, is a group of five stars forming a cross, with one star in the centre. Below it is a cross figure formed by lines uniting four stars. In this case, instead of being in the middle, the fifth star is attached to the lower edge of the oval, which is designated as “the image of Uiracocha Pacha-Yachachic, the teacher of the World.” Outside of the plate is what appears to be an attempt to explain more clearly the relative positions of the group of five stars to the oval plate (fig. 48, a). It represents the oval and one star in the centre of a cross formed by four stars. The question naturally suggests itself whether the group of five stars forming a cross may not represent the Southern Cross, popularly called the pole-star of the south and which consists of four principal stars, one of which is of the first and two of the second magnitude. This possibility opens out a new field of inquiry, and calls for the statement of the following facts, which I quote from Amedée Guillemin's Handbook of Popular Astronomy, edited by J. Norman Lockyer and revised by Richard A. Proctor.35