Maya

He had the undoubted merit of first drawing the attention of the learned world to the native transcripts of Maya records, the full value of which is only now being adequately recognised.

The nations of the Maya stock, who inhabit Yucatan, Guatemala, and the neighbouring region, were peculiarly favourably situated ; and they appear to have achieved the greatest progress among the communities of Central America.

Still more, the Mayas were a lettered people, who, like the Egyptians, recorded in elaborate sculptured hieroglyphics the formula?

The Mayas appear, soon after the Spanish Conquest, to have adopted the Eoman alphabet, and employed it in recording their own historical traditions and religious myths, as well as in rendering into such written characters some of the ancient national documents.

Brinton, a carefully edited and annotated translation of a native legal document or titulo, in which, soon after the Conquest, the heir of an ancient Maya family set forth the evidence of his claim to the inheritance.

Both were of the same Maya stock, in what is now the State of Guatemala.

Can language tell us of any such American affinities, or of traces of Old World congeners, in relation to either civilised Mayas and Peruvians, or to the forest and prairie races of the northern continent ?

Among those the Nahuatl or Aztec has been appealed to ; and the Mayas have been noted as a lettered people whose hieroglyphic records, and later transcripts of written documents, arenow the object of intelligent investigation both by European and American philologists.

The Maya language strikingly contrasts, in its soft, vocalic forms, with the languages of nations immediately to the north of its native area.

This is supposed to have been displaced by a Sumerian migration by which the Aymara domination was established in Peru, and the Maya element introduced into Yucatan.

The nations of the Maya stock appear to have made the greatest progress in civilisation of all the communities of Central America.

The civilisation of Mexico was but a borrowed reflex of that of Central America ; and its picture-writing is a very inferior imitation of the ideography of the Maya hieroglyphics.

But the achievements of the ancient Mayas, Peruvians, or Mound- Builders, are of very recent date, compared with the palaeolithic, or even the neolithic productions of Europe.

The Patagonian and the Fuegian rank alongside of the Bushman, the Andaman Islander, or the Australian, as among the lowest types of humanity ; while the Aztecs, Mayas, Quichuas, and Aymaras, attained to the highest scale which has been reached independently by any native American race.

von, 309 Lyell's, Sir Charles, Principles of Geology, quoted, 6, 145, 154 Lynx or wild cat, 177 Macaulay, Lord, 378 M'Dowell, Dr., 362 MacEnery, J., 147 Mackenzie, Major Colin, 83 Macrocephali, 363 Madoc, a Welsh prince, 38 Maeshowe, Orkney, 30, 42 Magnusen, Finn, 51 Malay race, 192 Malformation, artificial, 24 Mammoth, bones of, 88 ; carvings of, 213, 217 Mandans, 175 Mangue language, 28 Manhattans, 269 Manitoba, 184 Maps, earliest, 53 by Rafn, 62 of Vinland, 49 Marchand's voyage, 208 Markham, Mr., 391 Markland, 57, 59, 69 Martin, Hugh, 240 Martineau, Harriet, 352 Mascagni, 362, 385 Massat, cave of, 216 Massenat, M., 215 Mayas, 13, 25, 31, 387 Meigs, Dr.

The findings are in Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches, 11,500 Years Ago.

BY AUGUSTUS LE PLONGEON, Authorof "A Sketch of theAncient Inhabitants of Peru, and their Civilization ; "Vestiges of the Mayas ; " "Essay on Vestiges of Antiquity ; " "Essay on the Causes of Earthquakes ; " " Religion of Jesus compared with the Teachings of the Church ; " " The Monuments of Mayax and their Historical Teachings." NEW YORK :

PIERRE LORILLARD, THIS SMALL HISTORICAL STUDY OF THE SACRED MYSTERIES PRACTICED IN REMOTE AGES BY THE MAYAS AND QUICHES 3s IRespectfuIlB De&icateO, AS A FEEBLE TESTIMONIAL OF MY APPRECIATION OF HIS EFFORTS TO HELP IN REMOVING THE VEIL THAT HAS SO LONG HUNG OVER THE HISTORY, CUSTOMS AND CIVILIZATION OF THE ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF THIS WESTERN CONTINENT.

In this small book (which two of the most prominent firms in New York have positively refused to publish believing it to be a bad speculation), I present only such facts as can be proved by the works of well-known writers ancient and modern, and by the inscriptions carved on stone by the Maya learnedmen and historians.

118, 119 Maps of the Maya Empire, 120 Yaxche, sacred tree of the Mayas, 124 Plate VI., part II.

Thesewords arenot Sanscrit, but Maya.

I will try to trace their origin, step by step, to this continent which we inhabit, to America from where Maya colonists transported their ancient religious ritesand ceremonies, not only to the banks of the Nile, but to those of the Euphrates, and the shores of the Indian Ocean, not less than 11,500 years ago.

At theirhead was ahigh pontiff withthe title of Hob-mag, Venerable, or according to its meaning in the Maya language, Lab-mac, "the old man." At Babylon they were the ruling order, the advisers of the King.

Strange as it may appear, this language presents many affinities with the Maya, which is still the vernacular of the aborigines of Yucatan and other countries south of the Peninsula.

Butma is also the radical of Mayax; and likewise, in the Maya language, it means the country, the Earth.

The Mayas selected the

They are not only inscriptions in the Maya language, written in characters identical with, and having the same meaning and value as those carved on the temples of Egypt; but among them are symbols known to have belonged to the ancient sacred mysteries of the Egyptians, and to modern Free Masonry.

Mayas, it is difficult to surmise at present, all their books, exceptfour that still exist, having been destroyed by the monks who came with the Spanish adventurers, or soon after the conquest.

But they must have been similar to the rites of initiation practiced by the Quiches, a branch of the Maya nation, at Xibalba, a place in the heart of the mountains of Guatemala.

Why should the words with which the priest at the conclusionof the ceremoniesintheEleusinian mysteries, and the Brahmins at the end of their religious ceremonies, dismiss the assistants, be Maya instead of Greek or Sanscrit words ?

The name Quichua, of the general language of Peru, points directly to the Quiches as the branch of the Maya nation that carried civilization to that country.

He has been initiated into many of them, having had to submit to ordeals almost as severe as those of Xibalba from which no doubt they are derived, having been brought among them by Maya colonists and afterward Nahualt invaders.

Mylong researchesamong the ruins of the ancient temples and palaces of the Mayas, have been rewarded by learning at the fountain-head the esoteric meaning of some at least of the symbols, the interpretation of which has puzzled many a wise head the origin of the mystification and symbolism of the numbers 3, 5, and 7.

The study of the relics of ancient Maya civilization has made manifest to my mind the source of many of the primitive traditions of mankind, which have reached us through the sacred books of the Hindoos, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, and the Jews.

LA, in the Maya language, means "that which has existed forever.

The same emblem is familiar also to those who visit masonic lodges as one under which is figured the Great Architect of the Universe." If from those countries that we have been accustomed to consider as the " Old World," and guided by the three words of dismissal used by the Brahmins, and the officiating priests of Eleusis, at the closing of their religious ceremonies, words we have shown to belong to the Maya language, we carry our inquiries intothe "Lands of the West," there again we will find that the triangle was also symbolical among the Mayas and their neighbors.

Ma is also the radical of Ma-yax, the name of the Yucatecan peninsula, in ancient times, whose shape, no doubt, suggested that of the letter If, both to the Mayas and to the Egyptians.

theologians, who invoked the sun in their mysteries, according to Macrobius, as power of the world, light of the world, spirit of the world; that Plutarch gives as intelligence, matter, kosmos, beauty, order, the world; of these threehe says, " universal nature may be considered to be made up, and there is reason to conclude that the Egyptians were wont to liken this nature to what they called the most beautiful and perfect triangle." It will be noticed that the geometrical figure formed at the ends of each of these apartments, by the lines of the ceilings, sides, and floor, is a pentagon, symbol of the mystic number 5 whose name, penta, in Greek also conveys the idea of Universe; whilst Ho in Maya, meaning 5, is also the radical of Hool, the head, hence the Deity.

Only two edifices of different construction have been found among the ancient cities of the Mayas.

Is also the first letter of the Maya and Egyptian alphabets, corresponding to our Latin letter A, initial of Ah, maya masculine article, denoting strength, power Ah being likewise the first syllable of the word Ahau King.

nosticate if we shall ever obtain an insight into the secret teachings of the Mayas, even ifwe had access to their libraries; for it is to be presumed that they did not confide them to the papyrus of their books.

It gave its name to the whole empire of the Mayas, that comprised all the countries known to-day as Central America, from the isthmus of Darien on the south, to that of Tehuantepec on the north.

The fact is, that we meet with the name Maya in many countries of Asia, Africa, Europe, as well as of America, and always with the meaning of wisdom and power attached to it.

(Kneph, or be it Kaneh, seems a cognate of can-hel, a Maya word the meaning ofwhich is serpent (dragon) ; they say that this god threw from his mouth an egg in which was produced another god called Phtha, (Thah is another Maya word, it means the worker hence the Maker, the Creator); and Eusebius asserts, "That they represented Kneph, or the Efficient Cause, as aman of a blue color, with a girdle round his loins, a sceptre in his hand, a crown on Ms head, adorned with a plume of feathers; and that emblematically they figured him under the form of a serpent." Will any one with common sense pretend that these conceptions concerning the Creator, we find not only identical, but expressed in like manner and with the same symbols, by the philosophers of India, of Egypt, and of Mayax, are mere coincidences ?

This story of a brotherbeing slain attherequest of another brother, through jealousy, is also related in Valmiki's ancient Sanscrit poem, the "Ramayana." We are not informed by the author from where he obtained it; but the victim was called BALI, and MAYA is represented as being his enemy.

would seem to indicate that the relation ofthe fratricidewas brought to India bysome Maya traveler or missionary ; or maybe by the colonists from Mayax thatValmiki tells us took possession of and settled, invery remote ages, in the countries, at the south of the Indo-Chinese peninsula, knownto-dayasDe^kkan.

A terrible feud had originated between Bali and Maya on account of a womantheyboth coveted.

Maya challengedBali to mortal combat and allured him into an ambush.

It wasthelaw among the Mayas that the youngest of the brothersshouldmarrythe eldest of the sisters to insure the legitimate and divine descent of the royal family.

Prince Coh was a braveand successful warrior; at thehead ofhis followers, whom hehad often led to victory, he had conquered many nations and greatly added to the glory and extent of the Maya empire.

"The story of this family incident passing from mouth to mouth, fromgeneration togeneration, fromcountry to country, hasbecome disfigured probably by peoples that did not holdwoman in as high esteem, or did not honorher as much as the Mayas did.

A, contraction of Ah, is the Maya masculine article, the.

Ozil is a Maya verb that means to desire vehemently.

The word Isismsij simply be a dialectical mode of pronouncing the Maya word ioin (idzin) the younger sister.

The word Isismay simply be a dialectical mode of pronouncing the Maya word ioin (idzin) the younger sister.

89 Authors, who of course know nothing of the facts in the ancient history of Mayax, revealed to me by the sculptures and the mural paintings of the temples and palaces of the Mayas, and contained in the pages of the Troano MS., do not believe that Osiris and his sister Isis were deified personswho had lived on earth, but fabulous beings, whose history was founded on metaphysical speculations, and adapted to certain phenomena of nature.

But the primitive rulers of the Mayas, whose history is an exact counterpart of that of the children of Seb and Nut, were deified after their death and worshiped as gods of the elements.

Cain, by apocope, gives Cay, the Maya word for "fish." Set is a cognate word of the Maya Ze, to ill-treat with blows.

Set, afterbeingtreatedwith the same honor asthe other members of the family of Seb, came to be regarded as the Evil principle and was called Nubti, that is, according to the Maya language, the adversary, from nup adversary and ti for.

Aac, in Maya, is the name for the turtle, also an amphibious animal.

The Maya author represents the lost land by the figure of a black man with red lips, which would imply that it was mostly inhabited by a race of black men.

The Mayas like the Egyp-

This goddess calls to mind the goddess Moo of the Mayas, or Isis of the Egyptians.

The name Ganeshapol would be according to the Maya language, the head of Ganesha;pol, in Maya, being the head.

We have already said that Eusebius asserts that the Egyptians figured emblematically Kneph, the Creator, as a serpent; and that the Maya learned priests represented the engendered, the ancestor of all beings, in the sculptures, protected within the coils of the serpent.

Mayas, no doubt, were the unknown builders of that great city; since in the sculptures mentioned, we find, as in the tern-

In the ancient Maya and Egyptian alphabets the grecque is equivalent to our latin letter H.

All is the Maya masculine article, and it conveys to the mind the idea of might and power; this, taken in connection with the macaw's head, totem of Moo, the queen of Chichen, signifies the mighty, the powerful Moo.

It is the letter M, pronounced Ma, of the Maya and Egyptian ancient alphabets.

It is the radicalofMayax, name of the Maya empire.

It is the first letter of the ancient Maya and Egyptian alpha-

bets, and correspond to .our letter A, the initial of the Maya word Ahau, king.* This would indicate that the central figure was likewise symbolical of the king par excellence, ruler of the empire, whom the kneeling personages that surround it, are in the act of worshiping as shown, not only by their posture, but also by the sign ^, carved on the neck of the macaw-headed figures, the followers of the queen Moo (macaw), which again in Mayax as in Egypt is the symbol of offering, worship, and adoration.

Translating these symbols bymeans of the Maya language, we find that Can Coh was the name of the potentate; and that he was a member of the Can family, rulers of Mayax.

In Maya four is can; but can also means serpent, likewise power.

In order to comprehend the first, or esoteric, we must recall to mind that Eusebius says that the Eygptians represented emblematically Kneph the Creator, and the world also, under the figure of a serpent, which, Horapollo asserts, was of a blue color with yellow scales; but they fail to inform us as to what may have been their motives for thus symbolizing the First Cause; or fromwhom they had received this symbol, thatwas the same usedby the Mayas.

A woman ruleth them all." Her name in Chaldee is Thalath, in Greek Thalassa (the sea), that is in Maya Thallac (a thing without steadiness).

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES.

Theyare surrounded by green and blue, their name is Gucumatz." We have already said how the Maya sages have taken care to perpetuate their cosmogonical conceptions, by causing the narrative of the creation to be carved, in high relief, over the doorway of the east fagade of the palace at Chichen-Itza, and that these conceptions were identicalwith those of the Hindoos and the Egyptians.

In my work "The Monuments of Mayax," I have shown how the legends accompanying the images of several of the Egyptian deities, when interpreted by means of the Maya language, point directly to Mayax as the birthplace of the Egyptian civilization.

How the ancient Maya hieratic alphabet, discovered by me, is as near alike to the ancient hieratic alphabet of the Egyptians as two alphabets can possibly be, forcing upon us the conclusion that the Mayas and the Egyptians either learned the art of writing from the same masters, or that the Egyptians learned it from the Mayas.

There is every reason to believe that the cosmogonical conceptions, so widely spread, originated with the Mayas, and were communicated by them to all the other nations among which we find their name.

For this reason the Mayas named the sea Canah, the great, the powerful serpent: and in the Troano MS., the sea is always designated by a serpent's head.

This explains why the Quiches, the Mayas, the Egyptians, the Hindoos, represented the world, and, by extension, the maker of it, as a serpent.

Now it is a most remarkable fact, that these are the very symbols used by the Maya hierogrammatists and artists to figure their own motherland, the Maya empire.

XVII., Part II.), at other times as a serpent with part of the bodybent in the shape of the Yucatan peninsula,* and the artists who executed the * An interpretation of the Maya legend explanatory of the illustration may not be amiss, inasmuch as it shows that the serpeant was thesymbol of the country.

Since the Egyptians and the Mayas used identical signs as symbols of the country in which they lived, may it not be inferred that the same cause prompted their selection ?

If we look at a map of the Western continent, it will be easy to perceive that the contours of Central America that is the Maya empire of old figure a serpent with an inflated breast, in a position similar to that of the em-

115.), the head being the peninsula of Yucatan, anciently the seat of the government; and that the southern continent would he the dart of its tail, as pictured by the Maya artists.

Here again, is another origin of " Serpent Worship," in that of the kings of Mayax under the symbol of the " feathered serpent." One of the names for rattlesnake, in Maya, is Ahau-Can, the royal serpent.

From them we learn that the Mayas held certain trees sacred, Landa, Cogolludo, and other early writers tell us that, even as far down as the time of the Spanish conquest, the aborigines believed in the immortality of the soul,

The Maya empire was of old, according to the author of the Troano MS., figured as a tree, planted in the continent known to-day as South America, its principal branch being formed by the Yucatecaii peninsula.

Thus we find a natural explanation of the tradition current among the ancient nations, that the TREE par excellence, the tree of life, that is of civilization, of knowledge, was placed in the middle of the land, of the garden, of the primitive country (Mayax) of the race; the empire of the Mayas being placed

The deer head represents the Maya Empire.

the Kneph of the Eygptians, the Mehen of tiie Mayas.

No external vestiges of the symbol are to be found among the remains of the temples and palaces of the Mayas, such as those seen at Palenque and other places of Central America.

The ancient Maya astronomers had observed that at a certain period of the year, at the beginning of our month of May, that owes its name to the goddess MAYA, the good dame, mother of the gods, the "Southern CVoss," appears perfectly perpendicular above the line of the southern horizon.

Theyhave not reached yet any conclusion, although its name TAU says plainly, that it is nothing more or less than a representation of the " God of Rain" the " Southern Cross." Effectively tau is a Maya word composed of the three primitives ti, here, a for ha, water, and u month, which translated freely means " This is the monthfor water; " hence for the resurrection of nature for the new life to come.

This emblem was only a reminiscence of the yaxche, the sacred tree of the Mayas, under the roots of which, the natives assert, is always to be found a source of pure cold water.

The Mayas and other peoples of Central America, in the sculptures or paintings, always represented their sacred trees with two branches shooting horizontally from the top of the trunk, thus presenting the appearance of a cross or tau.

it mentioned anywhere that they originated either with the Eygptians, Chaldees, or Hindoos, and we have seen that their primitive traditions have been derived from the history of the early rulers of Mayax, is it not natural that we should look for the institution of the mysteries among the Mayas, since we find the same mysterious symbols, used by the initiates in all the other countries, carved on the walls of the temples of their gods, and the palaces of their kings ?

The emblem god of the mythology, placed in the hands of Vul the atmosphere in the Chaldean found also in those of the Hindoo gods, may likewise represent the three worlds or great regions that the Egyptian and Maya hierogrammatists designed by the character ^t^fH in the hieroglyph for the name of the "Lands of the West," which the latter also figured as the sacred tree with three branches,* a * The legend literally translated reads as follows: that is: PPeu, caban for cabahaan has struck again bat ax.

Of that fact **- a faint tradition, verymuch distorted, seems to have still existed among the aborigines of Central Amer- *Symbol of the three sons ofKingCan represented underthe emblem of the three deer heads Uluumil ceh, " the land of the deer," being one of the names of the country of the Mayas.

It is the number particularly set apart for the second of the three platforms that compose the base on which all the ancient temples and palaces of the Mayas are raised.

This number may have become sacred, in the mysteries, among the Mayas, in remembrance of the number of the children of king Can; for besides his three sons Cay, Aac, and Coh, he had, by his

Do we not see a simile of theAh Ac chapat or seven-headed serpent of the Mayas, totem of their seven primitive Rulers, that is of the seven members of king Can's family, in the seven-headed heavenly Serpent on which rests Vishnu, the Indian creator, that corresponds to the Egyptian KnepJi or the Mehen (Canhel) of theMayas; orinthesevenserpents that form thecrown of Siva; or again in the Seven-rayed god HeptaJctis, of which the emperor Julian was so reluctant to speak ?

It would seem that the duration of certain religious festivals was fixed to commemorate the existence onEarth of these seven primitive godsorrulers, the tradition of which we find in all countries where we meet with vestiges of the Mayas.

In these pages I have presented, without commentaries, a few of the facts that twelve years researches among the ruins of the antique temples and palaces of the Mayas, a knowledge of their language (still spoken by their descendants, and in some places, as in the vicinity of Peten, in all its pristine purity); the deciphering of certain mural inscriptions; the study of the sacred book of the Quiches, and the interpretation of passages in the Troano MS., have disclosed to me concerning the history, civilization, cosmogonical conceptions, religious tenets and practices of the ancient inhabitants of Yucatan.

of that civilization which seems to have been the fountain-head at which the philosophers of all nations, in the remotest antiquity, have come to acquire knowledge and drink inspiration from the learning and wisdom of the Maya sages.

Maya is one of the oldest forms of speech, coeval, if not anterior to Sanscrit.

Why then not found in Yucatan, in the midst of the ruins of the temples and colleges of the learned priesthood of Mayax, a school where students of American archaeologycan learnwith theirlanguage, what the Maya sages knew of man's origin, of his intellectual development, of the past of their people, of the coloniststhey sent to other parts of the world, where they carried the arts, sciences, and religion of the mother country and its civilization from which ourown is descended ?

Deluge, tradition of, common to all nations where the name Maya is found, 90.

Gods, twelve, of Egyptians, Greeks, Mayas, Japanese, Chinese, 96.

Lab-mac, title of high priest among the Mayas, 30.

Marriage, custom among the Mayas, 78.

Maya, name found in various countries, 71.

Maya empire figured as a serpent, 116.

origin of its worship according to the Maya priests, 109.

sacred, among the Mayas, 124.

its meaning among the Mayas, 61.

Yaxche,sacred treeamongthe Mayas, 124.

Adelung places the Mayas in Tabasc and Yucatan.

He says, that " perhaps the Mayas speech could be understood over the great Antilles." At the present day, Maya is the name of the inhabitants of Yucatan and other adjoining provinces.

If the Mayas are one of these sisters, they were placed in the most convenient situation for the passage of the Atlantic Ocean into the old hemisphere.

The only Atlantide that can be discovered as Ethnological, in Central America, is Maia; but that is very important in this research, as the Mayas form, at this day, a very large part of the population, both of the peninsula of Yucatan and the Islands of the Caribean Sea.

He introduced confession and interdicted human sacrifices." This is the kingdom of Mayas.

In that case, the kingdom of Mayas must have been a branch of the great Titan race, and one of the Atlantides.

All of his time came to Ireland for education." It would seem, from the map of Mayo, that the Mayas of Yucutan, in crossing into Ireland, must have settled in Mayo, and have given their own name to the land, for the county is full of the name of the God Baal, Balla, Ballyglass, Ballymote, and others.

Atlas, another son of Japetus, is found in the Aztlans, both of them astronomers, and Maia, the son or daughter of Atlas is found in the Mayas of Yucatan.

Inca, who, 271 ; known, 276 Indian tribes, 185 ; customs, 189 lo myth, 306 ; Isis, 308 lolaus, sou of Iphicles, 241 lonim Oceauides, 58 Iphicles Ophiuchus, 241 Iris at Styx, 56; daughter of Electra, 234; myth, 242 Irish Sculptures, 243 Iroquois tradition, 83 Isiris inventor three letters, 105 Isis, Queen of Manes, 290 Issa River, 257 Itan thursus Great Wolf, 268 Itonamish race, 265 Ixion myth, 285 Japanese navigation, 87 ; Creator, 86 Japetus Titan Giant, 48; Zapotecs, 122 Jason, scholar of Chiron, 199 Jebis Japanese Neptune, 85 Jemma Japanese God, 268 Jotues Wolves, 268 lotuuheim across the Sea, 95 ; Thor there, 171 Jouas and Jouans, 177 Juggernauth Narasingha, 71 Jupiter Olympius, 103 ; on Bull, 237 Karliki dwarfs, 98 Kamadewa Hindoo Cupid, 202 Kiwasa Indian Idol, 190 Kokuo Wolf, 269 Krishna Incarnation of Vishnu, 64; king of Swetaru dwipa, 67 Kurma Incarnation of Vishnu, 63 Lacksmi consort of Vishnu, 61 ; in Swetatn dwipa, 67 Lemures 290 ; Lemuria, 290 Lima described, 291 Loak, god of Chickasaws, 189; stem-father of the Cherekees, 270 Loki, father of Serpent Wolf and Hela, 96 Loki, Utgard, 171 Louque, first man of Caribs, 270 Lupacas Race, 265 ; Aymaras, 269 Lupercalia, 51 Lychie Fawns, 98 MacedoWolf, 266 Macedonians' banner, Wolf, 266 Mahabeli Monarch, 63 Maia, mother of Mercury, 103 Mainas Province, 257 Mana Wolf, 269 Managarm Wolf, 268 Manaos in Peru, 289 Manes of dead, 289 ; myth, 289 Mania myth, 290 Marcellus fragment, 33, 261 Mars demon, 266 Maurigasima, Pacific Ocean, 34 Mayas kingdom, 216 Mayo and its towns, 245 Medusa Gorgon, 49 ; myth, 150 Megara Eumenide, 52 Menalippa myth, 284 Menippa, 111 Mercury at Palace of Electra, 181 Mexico dragon, 139; arts, 144; religion 147 ; two, 149 Minerva Japanese, 142 Mincetius, 125 Minos myth, 281, 303 Minotaur myth, 305 Miuoutcher Monarch, 306 Mithra, 136 ; initiations, 138 Mobinish race, 265 Montezuma, 127 Monasteries Yucatan, 216 ; Peru, 283 Moral in Tahiti, 312 Mounds described, 161 Mummies in Peru, 289 Muspellheim, 86 Naiades myth, 198 Narasingha Incarnation of Vishnu, 63 ;

Mais Iç fait est là ; je dirai plus,il y est avec une telle clarté que le scalpel inventé par Bopp, pour décomposer ^'abord et puis pour rattacher les uns aux autres les nombreux idiomesde l'Europe et de l'Inde, est à peu (1) Je comprends sous le nom de çroupc mexico-guatëmalien, les principales langues parlées entre l'isthme de Tehuantepec et celui de Nicaragua, dont le NahuatI ou mexicain, le maya, le tzendal, le tzotzil, le quiche et ses dialectes, le mame et le pokomame sont les plus connus; j'entends surtout, par ce groupe, le mexicain, le quiche et le maya, en y comprenant l'ancienne langue des insulairesde Haïti, dont toutes les autres paraissent issues.

La connaissance du nahuatl ou mexicain, auquel je me suis livré avec plus d'ardeur quejamais depuis mon dernier voyagea Mexico, celle de la langue mayaque j'ai eu l'opportunité d'approfondir au Yucatan, non moins que la langue quichée, etses dialectes, ontsingulièrement contribuéàétendre le rayon de mes aptitudes.Ladécouvertede l'alphabet maya que j'ai publié en 1864, avec l'ouvrage de Lan-da (1), ainsi que les notions intéressantes relatives à la religion et au calendrier mayas, contenues dans ce livre, m'avaient déjà fait pressentir, dès cette époque, ce que les histoires américaines pouvaient nous apprendre, même sous le rapport de la géologie : c'est à peine sij'en avaisquelque idée confuse, en publiant le texte quiche avec la traduction du Fopol Kuh (2) ; mais l'examen de l'ouvrage de Landa, l'étude encore superficielle, il est vrai, dequelques documents égyptiens, fortifiée des notions sur le Livre des Morts ^ que m'avait fournies un égyptologue étranger de mes amis, m'ouvrirent les yeux petit à petit, non-seulement sur l'analogie qui existait entre les mythes des deux continents, mais encore sur le caractère essentiellement géographique et géologique de plusieurs de (1) Relation des choses de Yucatan, de Diego de Landa, texte espagnol et traduction française en regard, etc.

La découverte de l'ouvrage de Landa, les recherches auxquellesjeme livrai àproposdes signesdu calendrier etde l'alphabet mayas, l'examen des mythes géographiques, exposés dansHumboldt(l), de ceux auxquels font allusion les traditions, rapportées par le frèreRomain Pane et Pedro Martyr d'Anghiera, à propos des Antilles(2), tout cela finitpar modifiersensiblementmes premières impressions.

L'analyse de certains groupes, jointe à la description de quelques fêtes du calendrier maya que je croyais y voir, m'avait donné lieu de penser d'abord que ce manuscrit ne pouvait êtrequ'une sorted'almanachàl'usagedes propriétaires de biens ruraux.

(2) Les Mayas conservaient leurs livres, en les passant chaque année, après une suite de cérémonies religieuses, à une eau préparée avec de l'oxyde de cuivre et de l'acide acétique.

Mais dans ce document il se présentait fréquemment dans la même page, et je m'assurai promptement qu'il avait lamême signification, aussi bien dans les symboles mexicains et mayas que dans ceux de l'Egypte.

Ce qui ajouta à ma satisfaction à cet égard, ce fut le phonétisme du mot « cité, ville ou forteresse, > cah, en langue maya, identique avec kah ou Aïz^',égyptiensignifiant laterre, le lieu, la localité, etc.

3o — Je dirai plus tard quelle est la composition de ce mit qui n'est pas une racine; remarquez pour le moment que cah, en langue maya et quichée, signifie quatre et fait allusion aux quatre vents du monde, comme aux quatre quartiers de toute ville américaine, désignés par les quatre bras formant la croix dans le signe.

La lumière que ce travail répandit sur l'ensemble des données que je possédais déjà, me fit faire des découvertes philologiques surprenantes, surtout en cequi concerne les affinités de la languenahuatl avec celles du groupe quiché-maya.

— 54— nom d'Ogen, qui signifie précisément, en quiche, « le gémissement, l'entrée, l'embarquement, la domination, cachée, mystérieuse, etc., dem6me qu'en langue maya, ok-en signifie la cjambe descendue,» cette jambe étant, comme vous le verrez plus loin, le caractère hiéroglyphique d'Osiris, en Amérique, d'Osiris, entraîné dans le déluge d'Ogygès, dont le nom est, à son tour, en quiche, l'explication du même événement.

Ce foyer, cette association, cette cité, vous les découvrez dans le hiéroglyphe égyptien, mexicain ou maya, dont j'ai parlé dans ma première lettref^^\ ; on y trouve la désignation nette et absolue &j-2/ des quatre quartiers, dont se composait toutecité mexicaine, les quatre parties du monde, que désignaient lesquatrequartiersde la villedeCuzco,Tahuantinsuyu^ sousles Incas, lesquatregrandesrégions de la citéde Babylone, et le foyer, c'est-à-dire le temple ou le sanctuaire, figuré au centre.

Ce sont les phénomènes qui ont précédé le cataclysme ou qui se sont combinés avec ses phases diverses, qui en donnent la clefabsolue.Chacun de cesphénomènes est devenu un hiéroglyphe, chacune de ses phases un mythe, compris sous les signes de l'alphabet et du calendrier mayas, calendrier géologique, s'il en futjamais, et qui raconte,jusque dans sesmoindres détails, l'histoire de cette immense catastrophe d'où sortit la terre actuelle.

Ce signe, renversé, est identique avec leT gr^c et la croix ansée des Egyptiens^ , avec cette différence, que l'anse ou plutôt l'anneau qui la surmonte, signe du vase ou de la mer, dans laquelle leT s'est abîmé, est placé au-dessus, tandis que le hiéroglyphe maya s'y trouve renfermé.

La première image sous laquelle ellese présente dans les documents mexicains, d'après l'ordre des caractères mayas conservés par Landa, est celle d'un Croissant plusou moins régulier, dans laquellevous reconnaîtrez immédiatement le signe Manik, quatrième du calendrier que je vous indiquais tout à l'heure, et où les lignes, d'un côté, la tête de chat oude tigre, de l'autre,énoncent les symboles de l'eau et de la mer.

Dans la langue maya, lenom de la lune ou du mois, car c'esttoutun,commeenmexicain, est C/", prononcez ou.

De là la signification secondaire de soutenir, comme la base soutient la colonne, puis de bâtir, d'édifier, d'être le fondement, comme en langue maya.

Cette hampe, autre image du mâle joint à la femelle, le men dans le me, ainsi que la gerbe de maïs ou la canne, ah, brefet légèrement aspiré chez les Quiches, hal, chez les Mayas, acatl, chez les Mexicains, était en même temps le signe de l'existence, de l'être; et c'est encore aujourd'hui ce sens qu'il a dans un grand nombre de vocables, en ces différentes langues.

— 73 — mots quiche et maya, qui, dans le mêmequiche, signifient ensemble « s'élever en changeant, » c'est-à-dire croître {).

74 - la forme du mâle se retrouvant dans l'esquisse du caractère maya, renfermant au nord et au sud, dans son envergure, l'idée femelle par sa courbe et le retour de ses cornes vers le continent.

L'histoire sacrée, c'est-à-dire l'histoire des dieux, ou plutôt des volcans et du cataclysme, à la suite duquel ils furent déifié^, se retrouvait là tout entière, et aujourd'hui môme, après trois siècles d'abaissement et d'humiliations, les indigènes mexicainsou guatémaliens,mayas et péruviensmême, laissent aisément comprendre à l'observateurcombien ils sont restés attachésaux coutumes de leursancêtres.

Dans la langue maya, ^«/signifie remplir, combler, etan, comme en quiche, est le passé du verbe : mais si à tulon ajoute ha ou a, l'eau, nous avons Tulha ou Tula, rempli, submergé d'eau.

L'histoire de Tollan, ladoubleinterprétationqu'exigeconstamment la duplicité des documents mexicains, quiches, mayas, etc., se trouvent en entier expliquées dans ces quelques lignes.

En maya, om a le sens du bouillonnement, um, celui d'aller autour, ainsi que dans le quiche où il est le fondement de la préposition causative, r'um-al, per, propter, etc.

Hum, c'est le bruit, le fracas de la foudre; hom, c'est le tambour ou la trompette de bois ; en maya, c'estunverbe qui signifie bouleverser, renverser de fond en comble.

106 — cens le plus précieux, le maya nous présente d'abord l'arbre copOy sorte de grand peuplier qui servait à divers usages sacrés, dans les temples, du verbe primitif co/?, lier, courber, rouler; puis Aoo^, enfoncer, absorber, et kup, couper, trancher.

Enfin, dans Je quiche, on trouve cop^ signifiant le pendant d'oreille en métal, et le verbe brillercomme le feu ; cup, le noyau de tout fruit, le tronc, le fondement de la famille et de la race; puis, comme dans le maya, la signification de couper, de trancher, de défaire, de délier violemment, etc.

De là le sens profond deteo-calli, expression qui ne rend pas seulement l'idée de la maison de dieu, du temple, mais encore celle du volcan, teo-calli, chaleur de la voie de pierre : car le teo-calU c'était la pyramide, dont le nom suffisamment significatif en grec et en mexicain, indiquait que son objet était de commémorer le souvenir des antiques volcans américains; la pyramide, dont la forme conique, l'entrée mystérieuse et le feu qui s'allumait au sommet, rappelaient également l'idée mâle et femelle, symbolisée dans le signe Acatl, Dans la langue maya, le signe du calendrier correspondant à YAcatl mexicain, est Been^ dont le sens n'est pas moins significatif, le « chemin renfermé ou caché », par allusion à la marche occulte du feu dans le sein de la terre.

L'un et l'autre ont pour primitif /m etnon/wc ou luky et pour racine u, en nahuatl, la voie, la surface,dont je vous ai entretenu plus haut, u la lune en maya.

comme la gueule béante du déjà fendue de \wO/ volcan, prête à s'ouvrir pour part en part ^^-^ vomirlejet de feu, l'e^/mZ», ou paume enchantée des Mayas, le tihax, la lance ou le silex des Quiches, le tec-patl des Mexicains, premier symbole du verbe émané de la bouche de Phtha, selon la philosophie transcendentale des temps postérieurs.

Mais comme cette région descendue dans l'abîme était a^ès tout la maîtresse et la mère des hommes, et sans doute aussi d'une civilisation antérieure, il s'ensuitque ba emporte encore avec lui la signification d'ancêtre, d'aïeul et de père, en langue maya, dans le sens de senior et de dominus, de ce qu'il y a de plus respectable et de plus ancien.

De là, dans la même langue, le mot ba-al, l'embryon, le filsde la taupe, du feu caché, nom donné à l'explosion du volcan, au soleil, au € petit-fils des eaux», suivant le Véda: delà encore aujourd'hui l'application, en maya, de baaly dans lesensde noble, deseigneurial, etc.

Le corps de l'une etde l'autre vous en indique les cônes qui se soulèvent, les pattes, le souffle des gaz intérieurs : les signes inférieurs du premier, semblables à ceux que vous retrouvez dans Landa, sont à gauche Caban, dont le sens, en son entier, signifie descendu et peut s'appliquer ainsi au Croissant, descendu dansles flots ; c'est le douzième de ceux du calendrier maya.

Le hiéroglyphe suivant, placé au milieu , au-dessus de celui de l'eau qui se perce une issue, par son contournement , est Cavac, seizième des jours du mois maya.

Le mot rit^ identique, dans la langue quichée, avec la forme plus archaïque yit du mexicain et du maya, mais qu'on trouve simplifiée d'ordinaire dans it, exprime aussi bien que ret l'idée de rompre, de déchirer, de trancher, d'ouvrir avec violence, idée

J38 - qui se retrouve encore avec certaines nuances dans ratz, rax (rash), rex (resh), rix (rish) et riz,qui appartiennent à la même langue, et que le mexicain et le maya présentent également, abstraction faite du préfixe r.

/, dans le quiche et le maya, signifie d'ordinaire le petit-fils de la femme, c'est l'embryon, et dans la langue antique des insulaires de Haïti, c'était une particule indiquant Taction, la vie; ajoutez-y l'affixe r, et vous avez le principe mâle, ri (identique avec //, ///, en mexicain), celui qui se remue, qui s'agite, que vous retrouvez, selon Bunsen (1), dans Viri égyptien, faire, agir.

C'est là ce que paraît signifier le double sens de son nom où domine la syllabemu, la terre hu-mide, en quiche, identique avec mot, le limon primitif deSanchoniathon ; mo, idée femelle, en maya, excroissance, chose qui demeure au-dessus; wo, le sopilote, l'épervier, celui qui plane, semblable au vautour, représentant de laMut égyptienne.

Les premiers qu'on immolait étaient les étrangers, considérés comme les épaves et l'écume de la mer ; et c'est le nom que leur donne la langue maya.

C'est par suite de cette coutume de rechercher constamment leurs parallèles dans la nature, que le tecpail, le silex, symbole de la puissance volcanique, est si souvent représenté, dans les documents originaux, comme une simple boule partagée par la croix tremblée, dont je vous ai parlé plus haut (^ , le signe ezanab de la langue maya ; car cette boule, à son origine, c'est la calebasse encore fermée, mais déjà sillonnée par cette (1) Rig-Veda-Sanhild, vol.

Monsieur, vous avez tout celadans la paume enchantée, ce tecpatl, cette calebasse,l'écorceà la fois et le germe qu'elle renferme; déjà crevassée par le germe ; tecpatl, boulecoupée et boule coupante,vous la retrouverez d'une manière expressive dansle 20« signe de l'alphabet maya.

En effet, les premières divinités que l'on découvre, généralement, dans l'ensemble des documents mexicains, ce sont les quatre, toujours appelés les quatre grands dieux, les fils de Tonaca- Tecutli^ c'est-à-dire du principe de la chaleur, antérieurs à toute chose, et qui après le cataclysme sont personnifiés dans les quatre soutiens du ciel et de la terre, les quatre Bacab de la théogonie maya, les quatre Balam du Popol-Vuh, les quatre Cabires, de-venus les quatre Canopes en Egypte, les quatre que Sahagun signale sous les noms (ïOjcomoco, identique avec Citlallin-Jcuéy de Cipactonal, de Tlaltetecui et de Xochi'Cauaca.

L'enveloppe de la plupartde ces signes, la puissance qui retient ensemble les os de cette tête en dissolution, qui empêche la calebasse de serompre, c'est une fronde, dont la main tient les deux bouts fermés, Ze, en langue maya et en quiche, eZ, quand lafronde est ouverte et a lancé sa pierre ; c'est-à-dire quand le feu est sorti de la terre et que tout s'est détraqué.

— 270 — plus complète, soit dans le signe Manik où vous avez les deux cornes renfermant ces deux golfes, soit dans le signe *^ , caractère U, signe et nom de la luneen langue ^ maya et que le Codex de Dresde comme le Manuscrit Troano offrent également, souvent uni à la face d'Isis.

Remarquez, en effet, que si le nom de l'aînée, Tiacapan, signifie la « source de la richesse» et «l'affluence des marchandises», c'est desdeux premières syllabesde cenom, ti-a^ littéralement a payssur l'eau » , en langue maya, maisayant le sens d'un concours commercial, dans l'acception ordinaire, qu'est dérivé le mot tianquiz, le marché, la foire, en nahuatl, ou plus httéralement « le lieu où aboutissent, oùressortent les riches marchandises ».

— 306 — cule, la Cuha, celle eau sacrée, en langue maya, celle eau de la coupe; là seulemenl exisleT-^z/rtidu mont et le nombril de la terre.

TW, dans toutesces langues, signifie père et seigneur, d'abord : /a, ensuite, est une étendue surélevée, un tas, comme en français, c'est la terre, c'est une particuleoptative dans le maya, le quiche et leurs dérivés ou dialectes, et Dieu sait combien de fois les populations naufragées durent la répéter avant d'y arriver!

Macar^ dans l'ancien Quiche (1), est le monstre marin antique, le Cipactll des Mexicains, le premiëi; signe des îles apparaissant audessus des flots, représenté par un caïman formidable, appelé aussiYmox, en quiche, etYmixdans la langue maya, c'est-à-dire l'Œil des Volcans.

Ab^ c'est en quiche la respiration, l'eau courante, lehamac, l'année; au, en mexicain, entraîne un sens approximatifdans desmots composés, ^aest la demeure, la taupe, le père, l'ancêtre par excellence, en quiche et en maya, la bouchée, la bave, l'écume.

Be, c'est le pas, la marche, le chemin, en quiche et en maya; hue ou ve^ en mexicain, ce qui avance ou grandit.

Eb, en maya, est ce qui descend ; c'est en quiche unsignedu pluriel, et eu, signifiecequi est caché, tandis qu'en mexicain, c'est ce quimonte ou qui va s'enlever.

Ib, en quiche (en mexicain ihui)\ est cequi remue, ce sont les nerfs ; c'est le fœtus en maya.

Je prends, d'abord, al qui donne, en quiche et en maya, tout cequi a quelque poids; parexemple, l'en-fant déjàformé dans le ventre de sa mère ; de là, l'en-fant, en général, le petit de tous les animaux, des oiseaux, et une foule de substantifs et de verbes y ayant rapport, particulièrement avec le sensdu verbe latin alere, etc.

El est, en haïtien, le fils, la racine qui pousse; en quiche, ce qui sort en s'élevant; en maya, cequi s'élève en brûlant, comme la flamme ou comme

Ce qui manque aujourd'hui, pour que le monde savant puisse se convaincre entièrement que c'est en Amérique etnon dans l'Inde, qu'il faut chercher l'origine de la civilisation et des termes qui en sont la parole et l'écho, ce sont deux ou trois vocabulaires, l'un de la langue maya, auquelon joindrait ce qui reste de

De là, en maya, moth, se cacher, se tapir au fond de quelque chose, moth ou bien, pour expliquer l'w, mO'Ot ou mo-ut, boue sortant, ot ou ut étant la voie, intérieure, la forme, le moule ou l'instrument qui déchire pour ouvrir {ont en anglais).

VOuIum, où vous retrouvez l'wleuk quiche, le luum maya, la terre (u-lum, ou bien ii-luum, sa terre), le Kadmon, l'avide, l'engioutisseur frappant, coupant, brûlant, qatmun, suivant le quiche, sont les pères du genre humain ; car la vague, la mer personnifiée dans Kadmon, rompt, brise la terre primitive et devient ainsi le créateur de la nouvelle; c'est ce que disent exactement les noms correspondants du Popol-Vuh, « Olom, Qah-olom, l'engendreur et celui qui déchire Fengendreur.

UaLisha-mori a demême que ha-menou amen, en quiche et en maya, le sens de fondateur, de pilier, dé fondement de lamaisonou de l'eau, sens qui correspondent à l'idée phénicienne, en même temps qu'à Vamenti des Egyptiens.

Un autre nom qui n*est pas moins curieuxdans le môme sens, c'est celui de Belzébub, le dieu des mouches, selon sa traduction de riiëbreu, mais qui, dans le quiche signifie le t che-min sortant tortueux du volcan ou du tuyau, » et en maya, le « chemin sortant rapide des mamelons, » be-el-zeb-ub.

Sans vouloir établir, en ce moment, une comparaison complète entre les caractères phéniciens, hébreux ou égyptiens, et ceux du calendrier maya, conservé par Landa, j'ai raison toutefois de vous assurer que cette comparaison peut se faire aisément et que les caractères mayas donnent plus d'une fois l'explication des autres.

Les premiers sont les vingt signes des jours mayas ou mexicains: ils sont les symboles d'autant de phénomènes, identifiés d'abord avec les lieux où jls s'accomplirent, avec les montagnes, dont les arêtes se soulevèrent, semblables à des serpents, aux yeux des populations émerveillées, et dont chacune se personnifia ensuite avec chacun des vingt héros ou dieux que les traditions- mettent à la tète de la civilisation américaine.

C'est lui que vous retrouvez dans le second A de l'alphabet maya, assezmal reproduit par Landa f^^SPi > "^ais qui représenteune tête d'épervier, sym-W^ bole d'Horus ou de lavague, dont l'œil est précisément legrand volcan, environné des points qui indiquent les autres.

Le troisièmeA enfin, dans l'alphabet maya, est une sorte de botte, jambe ou patte, qui paraît identique avec le signe donné pour le mois Tititl, dans la planche hiéroglyphique, reproduite, ainsi que je vous l'ai dit plus haut, par M.

Dans l'alphabet maya il est exprimé par le signe /rrr» , qui vous présente la voie indiquée par deux vlSV lignes verticales et la trace du pied, symbole du feu montant d'en bas.

Le d n'existant pas dans la langue maya, le t outh^ qui le remplace, se trouve

H^ rendu par Ha-t-el, le ténébreux, l'invisible, le Hadès, est entièrement d'accord avec le caractère^de l'alphabet maya; ha, l'eau; et avec le quiche Art, signifiant à la fois l'eau et la demeure, la maison ; t'el exprime l'action de sortir et tel est l'épaule, les reins.

1^3^ V, dont l'alphabet fait vu ou'yrt/7î,lamer, est si/^ représenté par un crochet conforme au second u maya gv ; signifiant un crochet!,un collier,une attache < en langue quichée, d'oùlepronompossessif,mon { et son.

Remarquez d'ailleurs que vau, dans la même langue, et vah en maya ont également le sens d'accrocher, de clouer, d'attacher; vam, en outre, est « ma ou sa gloutonne, ma ou sagourmande, mon ou son araignée », c'est-àdirel'abîmedel'Océan,commeje l'ai expliqué ailleurs.

Cahir, est identique avec le quiche et le maya, comme vous l'avez vu plus haut.

A son tour, la lettre Z, rendue par Lilith, en phénicien, c'est-à-dire la nuit, ou bien « ce qui s'étend tout autour », a pour correspondant en quiche //, s'étendre doucement comme un liquide, d'où lila, arroser, en langue maya.

Le signe qui représente le caractèreN dans l'alphabet maya a d'ailleursun rapport frappant avec le caractère phénicien h, à l'extrémité inférieure duquel on distingue même un petit cône, souvenir peut-être de l'île dont le volcan avait donné lieu à tant de mythes.

384 — mot quiche et maya nab, premier, principal, chef, sacré, saint, oint, bon, doux, enchanteur, merveilleux, nab, ce qui est en avant, aigu, qui domine, qui se montre au-dessus, nib, ce qui est précieux, brillant, jaunecommede l'or, pointu, qui s'élève et qui s'accumule, etc., tous sens qui vont parfaitement ensemble et où vous retrouvez l'origine de plus d'un mot égyptien.

Toutes ces idées sont exprimées dans le maya, par le double pp ou le p explosif, re-

Au second rang viennent les caractères runiques, auxquels sont apparentés de fort près les caractères, dits cunéiformes, et dont les traces se retrouvent dans l'alphabet maya, plus complètement qu'on ne pourrait se l'imaginer, au premier abord.

» Qui ne reconnaîtrait là l'idée mexicainedel'œil humain, signifiantlecratère du volcan, figuré dans le signe Imix, l'œil du téton Qou de la mamelle de la langue maya, c'est-àdire l'ouverture du mamelon de la montagne?

Enfin , vous pouvez le voir et le décomposer dans tous les mots qui ont servi de glossaire au bronze et à l'airain, dails hrunia (borunia), pour Zor/crt, cuirasse , brunus (borunus), selon Ducange, brun, comme les hommes qui les premiers le travaillèrent; dans le TCupôiyo;, burrichus, le roux des Grecs, notre mot bourrique, brennen, brûler, en allemand, identique àupure?!, buiendu dialecte chol-maya; comme lebronnen flamand pour lasource,l'eau qui perce, qui fore, tous ayant, comme vous le voyez, un rapport direct avec le bor guiché et haïtien, avec l'île de Borriquen, Porto-Rico, d'où probablement s'éloignèrent les Boréens, au jour de la grande dispersion.

L'alphabet maya de Landa et le Manuscrit Troano.

Signes mayas identiques avec d'autres en Egj'pte.

L'image topographique du continent englouti se retrouve dans le signe maya, Manik, et dans la première lettre de l'alphabet maya.

Son identité avec le Men maya et le Men des Grecs.

Le Tecpatl mexicain, le Tihax quiche et l'Eznab maya.

Signes divers dans le calendrier maya qui y ont rapport.

Les vingt signes des jours mayas et mexi cains.

Ce qu'il est dan l'Alphabet et d'après l'étymologie mayas.

L'alphabet maya est le plus ancien.

I read Quatre Lettres sur le Mexique for the names, places, dates, and Maya pages a later writer can set beside other Atlantic books.

The Maya signs, as he reads them, are the oldest writing, and the parent sketches of the Egyptian, the runic, and the cuneiform.

The Maya sign is Manik, the fourth sign of Landa's calendar, and he also finds it in the first letter of Landa's alphabet (pp.

A note says the Maya preserved their books by passing them each year, after ceremonies, through a water prepared with copper oxide and acetic acid.

The best known are Nahuatl or Mexican, Maya, Tzendal, Tzotzil, Quiche and its dialects, Mame, and Pokomam.

By the group he means above all Mexican, Quiche, and Maya, including the old language of the islanders of Haiti, from which all the others seem to him to have issued.

He reads it in the texts in Nahuatl, Quiche, Cakchiquel, or Maya, in the Spanish manuscripts, and in the original paintings kept in the libraries and reproduced in Lord Kingsborough's collection.

Nahuatl, which he has studied with more ardor than ever since his last voyage to Mexico, Maya, which he had the chance to go into deeply in Yucatan, and Quiche and its dialects, extended his reach.

The discovery of the Maya alphabet, which he published in 1864 with Landa's book, and the notions in that book on Maya religion and the calendar, had already made him suspect, even then, what the American histories could teach, including in geology.

Landa, the calendar signs, the Maya alphabet, and the geographical myths in Humboldt, together with the traditions reported by Friar Ramón Pané and Peter Martyr of Anghiera about the Antilles, changed the first impressions.

The analysis of certain groups, and a few feasts of the Maya calendar which he thought he saw, first made him think it could only be a sort of almanac for the use of owners of rural property.

He found nearly the same sign in the proofs of the Troano, often on the same page, and he satisfied himself that it had the same meaning in the Mexican and Maya symbols as in those of Egypt.

The phonetics helped: "city, town, or fortress," cah in Maya, identical with Egyptian kah, meaning the earth, the place, the locality.

For the moment, cah in Maya and in Quiche means four, and alludes to the four winds of the world and to the four quarters of every American city, marked by the four arms that form the cross in the sign.

In Maya, ok-en means the leg descended, and that leg is the hieroglyphic character of Osiris in America, Osiris carried off in the deluge of Ogyges, whose name is in its turn, in Quiche, the explanation of the same event.

Brasseur finds that hearth, that association, that city, in the Egyptian, Mexican, or Maya hieroglyph of which he spoke in the first letter: the four quarters of every Mexican city, the four parts of the world, the four quarters of the city of Cuzco, Tahuantinsuyu, under the Incas, the four great regions of the city of Babylon, and the temple or sanctuary figured at the center.

Each phenomenon became a hieroglyph, each phase a myth, comprised under the signs of the Maya alphabet and calendar, a geological calendar if ever there was one, which tells, down to its least details, the history of the immense catastrophe from which the present earth came.

Reversed, the sign is identical with the Greek tau and the handled cross of the Egyptians, with this difference, that the handle, or rather the ring that surmounts it, the sign of the vase or of the sea in which the tau went down, is placed above, while in the Maya hieroglyph it is enclosed.

The first image under which the Atlantic region presents itself, in the order of the Maya characters preserved by Landa, is that of a crescent, more or less regular, in which you immediately recognize the sign Manik, fourth of the calendar, the lines on one side and the head of a cat or a tiger on the other stating the symbols of the water and the sea, with the sign of the locality, the hieroglyph of a country.

He then runs the etymologies of Metztli, its identity with Maya Men and with the Men of the Greeks, Men as the measure of time and of space, the Acatl of the Mexicans, the Ahau of the Quiches, and the Yoni-Lingam of the Hindus, and the Latin mensis, all of them, as he reads them, brought back to the topographic form of the swallowed land.

He says why Agni is compared to a bamboo, and he gives the variants of the Ahau, the Yoni-Lingam of the Maya.

The Mexican tecpatl, the Quiche tihax, and the Maya Edznab are the same sign.

Various signs in the Maya calendar relate to it, and he explains and etymologizes them.

The twenty signs of the Maya and Mexican days are the set he works through.

Aleph is identical with Adoni, according to Bunsen, and he says what it is in the alphabet and according to the Maya etymology.

In the second rank come the runic characters, to which the characters called cuneiform are closely related, and whose traces are found in the Maya alphabet more completely than one could imagine at first.

Brasseur recognizes the Mexican idea of the human eye meaning the crater of the volcano, figured in the sign Imix, the eye of the nipple, or of the breast, in the Maya language, that is the opening of the nipple of the mountain.

The section is the Maya writing as the oldest, the runic and the cuneiform as its sisters, Abaris, and the four great Antilles as four arrows.

He decomposes it in all the words that served as a glossary to bronze and to brass, in Ducange's brunus, brown like the men who first worked it, in the Greek word for the red-haired, in German brennen, to burn, identical with a word in the Chol Maya dialect, and in Flemish bronnen for the spring, the water that pierces, all of them in direct relation with the Quiche and Haitian bor and with the island of Boriquen, Porto Rico, from which the Boreans probably went away on the day of the great dispersion.

I read the Bancroft Library copy, University of California, in the Internet Archive scan of Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches, 11,500 Years Ago.

I will set his Maya and Quiche names, places, rites, and the Atlantic claim he actually makes beside the account he takes from Plato, the same narrative read on Timaeus and Critias.

Title: Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches, 11,500 Years Ago.

The title page lists earlier pieces, among them Vestiges of the Mayas and The Monuments of Mayax and their Historical Teachings.

What he claims: The sacred mysteries, and through them modern Free Masonry, began in Mayax, which he calls the primitive land, and were carried by Maya colonists to the Nile, the Euphrates, and the shores of the Indian Ocean not less than 11,500 years ago.

22 he says Maya colonists carried the rites to the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Indian Ocean not less than 11,500 years ago.

The Troano manuscript, which he calls a Maya book on geology, confirms it.

The name covered the Maya empire from the isthmus of Darien on the south to Tehuantepec on the north.

The Maya author of the Troano, he says, figures it with red lips, which would imply that black men mostly inhabited it, and would account for black populations on the western continent before the Spaniards (p.

He prints a Maya hieratic alphabet, which he says he discovered, in a column beside the Egyptian hieratic alphabet of Champollion le Jeune and Bunsen.

He says this small book gives only facts that can be proved by well-known writers and by inscriptions carved on stone by Maya learned men.

These words are not Sanscrit, but Maya.

He will trace the mysteries, and therefore Free Masonry, to America, from where Maya colonists carried the rites to the Nile, the Euphrates, and the shores of the Indian Ocean, not less than 11,500 years ago (p.

Their high pontiff's title was Hob-mag, Venerable, which in Maya he reads Lab-mac, "the old man." Their rites are unknown, but Chaldea and Egypt were twin sisters, offspring of the same parents (p.

Brahmins use words that are not Sanskrit, said to be Akkadian, the speech of the lower Euphrates, and that speech, he says, has many affinities with Maya, still the vernacular south of the peninsula.

The words con-x om pan-x mean nothing in Greek and are pure Maya, with the same meaning Captain Wilford gave Cansha Om Pansha (p.

Ma is also the radical of Mayax, and in Maya it means the country, the earth.

The Mayas chose the oblong square because it is the figure nearest the contours of the Yucatan peninsula (p.

The ornaments on the sanctuary walls are, for him, inscriptions in Maya, in characters identical with those on Egyptian temples and with the same value, mixed with symbols of the Egyptian mysteries and of modern Free Masonry.

What the Maya ceremonies were is hard to recover.

The rites must have resembled those of the Quiches, a branch of the Maya nation.

But they must have been similar to the rites of initiation practiced by the Quiches, a branch of the Maya nation, at Xibalba, a place in the heart of the mountains of Guatemala.

If someone says the mysteries were imported from Egypt, Chaldea, India, or Phoenicia into America, he asks when, and by whom, and why the words of dismissal at Eleusis and among the Brahmins are Maya rather than Greek or Sanskrit.

The name Quichua, the general language of Peru, points directly to the Quiches as the Maya branch that carried civilization there (p.

Le Plongeon derives them from Xibalba by way of Maya colonists and later Nahualt invaders.

His own work among the Maya ruins has given him the esoteric meaning of some symbols, and the origin of the mystification of the numbers 3, 5, and 7 (p.

La, in Maya, means "that which has existed forever.

Guided by the three Maya words of dismissal, he looks again at the Lands of the West.

The shape of the peninsula suggested the letter both to the Mayas and to the Egyptians.

Ho in Maya means 5 and is the radical of Hool, the head, hence the Deity.

Only two Maya buildings differ.

O is also the first letter of the Maya and Egyptian alphabets, corresponding to Latin A, initial of Ah, the masculine article, and of Ahau, king (pp.

It gave its name to the whole empire of the Mayas, that comprised all the countries known to-day as Central America, from the isthmus of Darien on the south, to that of Tehuantepec on the north.

The index enters these priests as "Menes, wise men of the Mayas."

The name Maya, he says, is met in Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, always with wisdom and power attached, and with vestiges of the language, customs, religion, and traditions of Mayax.

Kneph, or Kaneh, he takes as a cognate of can-hel, a Maya word for serpent or dragon.

Thah, he says, is Maya for the worker, hence the maker.

Maya is his enemy.

Le Plongeon says the recital matches the sculptures and paintings at Chichen-Itza and the second part of the Troano, so the story was carried to India by a Maya traveler or missionary, or by the colonists from Mayax who, Valmiki tells us, settled in very remote ages in the countries south of the Indo-Chinese peninsula, known today as the Dekkan (p.

A feud with Maya, over a woman, drew Bali into an ambush.

It was the law among the Mayas that the youngest of the brothers should marry the eldest of the sisters to insure the legitimate and divine descent of the royal family.

The story, passing from people who did not honor woman as the Mayas did, or written by a misanthropical bachelor, became the version accepted by the author of Genesis.

A, contraction of Ah, is the Maya masculine article.

Ozil is a Maya verb, to desire vehemently.

Isis may be a dialect pronunciation of the Maya ioin, or idzin, the younger sister.

The primitive rulers of the Mayas, whose history is an exact counterpart of the children of Seb and Nut, were deified and worshiped as gods of the elements.

Cain, by apocope, gives Cay, the Maya word for fish.

Set is a cognate of Maya Ze, to ill-treat with blows, a fit name for one who killed his brother with three spear thrusts and his sister by kicking her to death, as the Troano author shows Aac doing.

Set, honored with the rest of the family of Seb, became the evil principle, Nubti, which he reads from Maya nup, adversary, and ti, for.

The Maya author represents the lost land by the figure of a black man with red lips, which would imply that it was mostly inhabited by a race of black men.

The Mayas, like the Egyptians, represented the world as an old man.

Pol, in Maya, is the head, so Ganesha-pol would be the head of Ganesha.

Maya priests represented the ancestor of all beings protected within the coils of a serpent.

Mayas, no doubt, were the unknown builders, since the sculptures carry the totems of prince Coh, of his wife and sister Moo, and of their father king Can (pp.

The grecque, in the ancient Maya and Egyptian alphabets, equals Latin H.

Rays around the head are in groups of four, each ray ending in a circle with a dot, the sign often met on Maya monuments and particularly on the trunks of mastodon heads.

It is the first letter of the ancient Maya and Egyptian alphabets, our A, initial of Ahau, king.

Four, in Maya, is can, and can also means serpent and power.

A woman rules them all, Thalath in Chaldee, Thalassa in Greek, Thallac in Maya, a thing without steadiness.

In The Monuments of Mayax he has shown, he says, that legends of several Egyptian deities, read by means of Maya, point to Mayax as the birthplace of Egyptian civilization, and that his Maya hieratic alphabet is as near the Egyptian hieratic as two alphabets can be.

Either they learned writing from the same masters, or the Egyptians learned it from the Mayas.

He believes the cosmogony began with the Mayas (p.

For this reason the Mayas named the sea Canah, the great, the powerful serpent, and in the Troano the sea is always a serpent's head.

Quiches, Mayas, Egyptians, and Hindus represented the world, and by extension its maker, as a serpent.

A map of the western continent shows Central America, the old Maya empire, as a serpent with an inflated breast, in a position like the emblem of lower Egypt.

There is a map of the Maya empire at that page.

One name for rattlesnake in Maya is Ahau-Can, the royal serpent.

The Mayas held certain trees sacred.

The Maya empire was of old, according to the Troano author, figured as a tree planted in the continent known today as South America, its principal branch the Yucatan peninsula.

Maya writers sometimes figured the earth as an old woman, mam, the grandmother.

The deer head represents the Maya empire.

Ti-huang, king of the earth, is also Hoang-kiun, he who reigns in the middle of the earth, and Tse-yuen, the son principle, the engendered, the Brahma of the Hindus, the Kneph of the Egyptians, the Mehen of the Mayas (pp.

No external vestiges like those at Palenque are found on Maya temples and palaces.

The ancient Maya astronomers had observed that at the beginning of our month of May, which owes its name to the goddess Maya, the good dame, mother of the gods, the Southern Cross appears perfectly perpendicular above the southern horizon.

Tau is a Maya word of three primitives: ti, here; a for ha, water; and u, month.

Mayas and other peoples of Central America always drew their sacred trees with two branches shooting horizontally from the top of the trunk, so that the tree looks like a cross or a tau.

The same emblem in the hands of Vul, god of the atmosphere in Chaldean mythology, and in the hands of Hindu gods, may represent the three worlds or great regions which Egyptian and Maya hierogrammatists designed by the character in the hieroglyph for the Lands of the West, which the Mayas also figured as the sacred tree with three branches.

139 gives the symbol of the three sons as three deer heads, Uluumil ceh, "the land of the deer," one of the names of the country of the Mayas.

The Ah-ac-chapat, the seven-headed serpent, totem of the seven primitive rulers, has its simile in the seven-headed heavenly serpent on which Vishnu rests, corresponding to Egyptian Kneph or Maya Mehen, or Canhel; in the seven serpents that form the crown of Siva; and in the seven-rayed god of which Julian was reluctant to speak.

Maya, he says, is not a dead language.

Why not found, in Yucatan, in the ruins of the temples and colleges of the learned priesthood of Mayax, a school where students can learn, with the language, what the Maya sages knew of man's origin, of his intellectual development, of the past of their people, and of the colonists they sent out with the arts, sciences, and religion of the mother country, the civilization from which our own is descended (p.

Central American civilization, especially Maya, may be a native growth.

Maya cities in Yucatan and Guatemala, hieroglyphs, and a system of dates.

Akkad, an Agaw or Nile-region trace in Guarani and Omagua, a Sumerian wave that he reports as establishing Aymara rule in Peru and a Maya element in Yucatan, and a later Siamese link with Quichua and Aztec, are still, for him, materials, not a history (pp.

Maya writing is still unread, so a native growth and an Old World germ are both still open there.

He was the first to draw the learned world to the native transcripts of Maya records, and his place in American archaeology is somewhat like that of Boucher de Perthes in the palaeontology of Europe.

The Maya stock of Yucatan, Guatemala, and the neighboring region were peculiarly well placed, and they appear to have achieved the greatest progress there.

Tested by intervening centuries, the Maya monuments are not so venerable, but for America's chroniclings they are more prehistoric than the Assyrian mounds.

The Mayas were a lettered people.

Soon after the Spanish conquest the Mayas adopted the Roman alphabet, for their own traditions and myths and for some of the ancient national documents.

Brinton, a translation of a native legal document, or titulo, in which soon after the conquest the heir of an ancient Maya family set out his claim.

Both were Maya, in what is now Guatemala.

He asks whether it can tell of American affinities, for civilised Mayas and Peruvians or for the forest and prairie races of the north.

Among those, Nahuatl has been appealed to, and the Mayas have been noted as a lettered people whose hieroglyphs and later transcripts are now under investigation.

Maya contrasts, in its soft vocalic forms, with the languages immediately north of it.

This is supposed to have been displaced by a Sumerian migration by which Aymara domination was established in Peru and the Maya element introduced into Yucatan.

The Maya stock appear to have made the greatest progress of all the communities of Central America.

The civilization of Mexico was a borrowed reflex of Central America, and its picture-writing is a very inferior imitation of the Maya hieroglyphs.

At that epoch the kingdoms of Mexico, of the Mayas, of the Chibchas, and of Peru must already have existed.

At that ancient epoch the great kingdoms of Mexico, of the Mayas, of the Chibchas, of Peru, must already have existed.

Maia in the Mayas of Yucatan.

Adelung places the Mayas in Tabasco and Yucatan, and says perhaps the Maya speech could be understood over the great Antilles.

The Mayas were placed for the passage of the Atlantic into the old hemisphere (p.

The Mayas form a large part of the population of Yucatan and of the islands of the Caribbean.

The race was the same as the Zapotec race of Quiche and the Nahuas of Mexico, so the kingdom of the Mayas was a branch of the Titan race and one of the Atlantides (pp.

Maia is in the Mayas of Yucatan.

Maya, Egyptian, and old Peruvian customs are, for him, the surviving shape of that culture.

The old Maya district, about the Usumacinta and in Chiapas, was colonised about a century before the Christian era, and disaster overtook it some time in the sixth century.

The Maya, the Mexicans, and the Peruvians had no metal tools or weapons, and they were civilised in architecture and polity.

Spence's own limit is the same one he uses for the Maya: a Stone Age culture can be high.

The Maya, the Nahua, and the Incas were Neolithic, and he will not rank them below Egypt, Babylon, Greece, or Rome except in the matter of metal implements.

Among the Maya, Hunab Ku is a god behind the gods, the only Maya god who can boast of a beard, and a figure who may be identified with the moon, childbirth, and the healing art.

Maya chronology, the one generally accepted for Central America, is the clock he trusts.

The Quiche, a dialect of Maya, was turned into Spanish by Francisco Ximenes.

The ancestors of the Quiches and of the Maya came from Antilia.

The strange culture of the Maya gives him a picture of civilisation in ancient Antilia, the last sub-continental fragment.

The Maya of Guatemala and Chiapas journeyed south into the almost waterless peninsula of Yucatan and raised settlements again.

Nothing earlier has been found on Maya soil.

The Maya and the Mexicans also believed they were building on the back of a great sea-monster, a cayman or alligator, or, as the Book of the Kakchiquels has it, a whale with four feet, which occasionally writhed and cast them into the ocean.

The Aztec writing was entirely of that character, and Spence believes the Aztecs drew it from Maya sources.

The day-sign akbal means night, and also the beginning of the month, because the Maya month begins after midnight.

The inks of the Maya scribes were black and red.

Brinton says shells had a peculiar sacredness in Maya symbolism.

In Maya cosmology the earth was the turreted castle.

A plate from Brinton's Maya Hieroglyphics shows the heavenly shield, the sign for deluge, Ben-ik, the sign for the east, and humanity re-arising out of deluge.

A Maya stele is the result of countless ages.

The first was maya cimil, universal death.

The third was hun yecil, universal deluge, which a Maya-Spanish dictionary explains by a tradition that the water was so high that its surface was within the distance of one stalk of maguey from the sky.

Spence reads "the world" as the old world, the Antilia from which the Maya emigrated.

Tezcatlipoca, Hurakan in his Maya equivalent, has his sport and his amusement with the people, terrifying them as he pleased.

The Maya god of death, Ah-puch or Kun-hau, is associated with the east.

To the objection that the Maya had lost the art of seamanship, he answers that they were skilful sailors.

When Cortes invaded Central America from Mexico he found a regular maritime commerce from the Laguna del Terminos, and the Maya supplied charts of the coast.

Shells adorn practically every god of the Mexican pantheon and many Maya gods.

Many of these tribes, especially the Caribs, flattened the head, as the Maya of Guatemala, Chiapas, and Yucatan did, and they built large wooden houses.

Beuchat says the zemies, the gods of the Tainos of Cuba, strongly resemble the naguals, the spiritual beast-guardians of the Maya.

Like the Maya and the Mexicans, they embalmed the dead.

The Maya were direct immigrants from sunken Antilia into Guatemala and Chiapas, and they pushed past the Antilles, which had received only a measure of Antilian civilisation by commerce.

Carib and Maya resemble each other, and the divergences are what a prolonged isolation would produce.

Egyptian dynastic culture was no more wholly Atlantean than Maya culture.

Sir Kay is the British god Kai, who could walk under water with a torch in either hand, like the Maya god Itzamna.

The native custom in Mexico and among the Maya was fire or burial.

In the Popol Vuh the bodies of the first men were miraculously placed in a bundle called the majesty enveloped, in a region of Maya culture older than the Mexican proper.

Maya tombs of important persons have yielded large vessels resembling Egyptian canopic jars, with lids as the heads of the gods of the four points.

The Maya allotment is nearly identical and not the same: north white for the lungs, south yellow for the belly, east red for the larger intestines, and west black for the intestines.

Canopic jars, which went out of fashion in Egypt, continued among the Maya under the Bacabs, the gods of the four coloured points.

The intestines were not removed, as they were in Mexico and among the Maya.

Canopic jars appear in the border regions where Maya and Mexican cultures mingle, which he takes as a sign that the Maya, the older race, began the practice in America.

Le Plongeon's alphabetic key to the Maya hieroglyphs, compared with the Egyptian hieratic alphabet, is dated in the clipping to 1886.

The signs on Xochicalo are both Maya and Egyptian.

Le Plongeon's Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx is said to give four Maya accounts of the same cataclysm.

Xochicalo is the fifth, and in Le Plongeon's opinion the most important Maya record of the event behind the deluge in the sacred books of the Jews, the Christians, and the Mohammedans.

He ties the mummy-case to the coffin, and the trinity to stone tablets Le Plongeon and his wife unearthed among the Mayas and Quiches.

The first is the Maya account of the destruction of Atlantis, from Dr.

Brinton, of Philadelphia, contributed the notice of the Maya manuscripts which stands as the introduction.

The body of the paper is a discussion of the Maya count of time and then an explanation of the plates.

He prints two Maya years, 8452 BC and 4292 BC, a Troano count of 8,060 years, a Himalayan line of 11,446 years for the last island, and the Sais figure of 9,500 years before the priests.

Two sinkings, his Maya years.

Traditions of the Maya, survivors, speak of two cataclysms, one in 8452 BC and another in 4292 BC.

Raised America: Aztecs, Mayas, Incas, and redskins.

The Maya traditions, from peoples who survived, speak of two cataclysms.

This account of the Troano manuscript is corroborated by the Maya traditions, peoples who survived the event, which refer to two cataclysms, one of them in 8452 BC and the other in 4292 BC.

He then sets the Troano and the Maya traditions beside Egypt and Plato.

Survivors of the two cataclysms: part took refuge in the raised America and formed the Aztec, Maya, and Inca peoples, and redskins in general, still existing.

Maya tradition: 8452 BC and 4292 BC, with 4,160 years between (p.

Maya: the great mother and the great father.

He groups ancient Tibetans, Egyptians, and native Americans on multi-stage afterlife trials, and he says Maya and Egyptian kings, pharaohs, and heroes die and are reborn as stars.

The Maya, he says, have the great mother and the great father surviving and repopulating the world.

quotation, continuing onto file page 294, pairs Mayan Chacla with Hindu chakras, K'ultanlilni with kundalini, chilambalam with Tamil Chidambaram, Yok'hah with yoga, the goddess Maya, and a founder Votan or Wotan identical with a Teutonic god.

Dubay's own lines say Mayan and Indian chakra, kundalini, and yoga share sounds and meaning, and that Maya means illusion in both languages.

Maya: cycles of 2,760 years from 3373 B.C., three cycles to 11,653 B.C.

Aztec and Maya counts on the same page.

Diego de Landa, 1566: the Maya reckoned from about 3113 B.C., and 5,125 years of former cycles stood before that, so an origin in 8238 B.C.

Maya longest day 13 hours, shortest 11.

He notes a count by twenties, which he sets beside Maya counting, and he pairs the Basque game of jai alai with the Maya ball game pok-a-tok.

He also cites a Bushman memory of a vast island west of Africa, the Maya books including the Dresden Codex, the Popol Vuh, and the books of Chilam Balam.

Maya: cycles of 2,760 years.

Bishop Diego de Landa, writing in 1566, is the Maya count on the same page.

In Landa's time the Maya reckoned from a date Tomas puts at about 3113 B.C.

Tomas moves the origin of the early Maya to 8238 B.C., close, he says, to the Atlantean cataclysm.

The longest Maya day had 13 hours and the shortest 11.

He says those hours match the Maya hours, and that 12 hours 55 minutes is the longest day in the Sudan, not in Egypt.

The Surya Siddhanta gives him Maya, a ruler of Atala, who received astronomy from the sun.

Taylor Hansen, He Walked the Americas: a couple who crash in Yucatan and come on a hidden Maya city.

The people speak Maya and kill white men who enter.

He notes that the Maya are said to have had no wheel, and he gives the toys a carbon age of 1,200 to 2,000 years.

Egerton Sykes is cited for a Maya arrival that already had writing, mathematics, astronomy, architecture, medicine, and a calendar more accurate than Europe's until the eighteenth century.

The building faced due east and west and resembled the Temple of the Turtles at Uxmal, which at first suggested Maya builders.

The Maya and Aztec calendar, in which every day in a long cycle had its own name.

Diego de Landa, 1566, later used as a key to Maya writing after he had been blamed for burning books.

136 the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, New York, has a large Maya jar.

From Mexico the conquistadores brought a story that Maya priests, under torture, would not reveal fifty-two golden tablets on which the ancient history of the New World was written.

The Maya of Yucatan, he says, fell through wars and through colonial rule.