113. Coatlan, to-nan, from coatl, serpent; tlan, among; to-nan, our mother. She was the goddess of flowers, and the florists paid her especial devotion (Sahagun, Historia, Lib. ii, cap. 22). A precinct of the city of Mexico was named after her, and also one of the edifices in the great temple of the city. Here captives were sacrificed to her and to the Huitznahua. (Ibid., Lib. ii. Appendix. See also Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, Lib. x. cap. 12.)
114. Centzon Huitznahua, “the Four Hundred Diviners with Thorns.” Four hundred, however, in Nahuatl means any indeterminate large number, and hence is properly translated myriad, legion. Nahuatl means wise, skillful, a diviner, but is also the proper name of the Nahuatl-speaking tribes; and as the Nahuas derived their word for south from huitzli, a thorn, the Huitznahua may mean “the southern Nahuas.” Sahagun had this in his mind when he said the Huitznahua were goddesses who dwelt in the south (Historia de Nueva España, Lib. vii, cap. 5). The word is taken by Father Duran as the proper name of an individual, as we shall see in a later note.
115. Huitzilopochtli, from huitzilin, humming-bird, opochtli, the left side or hand. This is the usual derivation; but I am quite sure that it is an error arising from the ikonomatic representation of the name. The name of his brother, Huitznahua, indicates strongly that the prefix of both names is identical. This, I doubt not, is from huitz-tlan, the south; ilo, is from iloa, to turn; this gives us the meaning “the left hand turned toward the south.” Orozco y Berra has pointed out that the Mexica regarded left-handed warriors as the more formidable (Historia Antigua de Mexico, Tom. i, p. 125). Along with this let it be remembered that the legend states that Huitzilopochtli was born in Tula, and insisted on leading the Mexica toward the south, the opposition to which by his brother led to the massacre and to the destruction of the town.
116. This myth is recorded by Sahagun, Historia de Nueva España, Lib. iii, cap. 1, “On the Origin of the Gods.” It is preserved with some curious variations in the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas, cap. 11. When the gods created the sun they also formed four hundred men and five women for him to eat. At the death of the women their robes were preserved, and when the people carried these to the Coatepec, the five women came again into being. One of these was Coatlicue, an untouched virgin, who after four years of fasting placed a bunch of white feathers in her bosom, and forthwith became pregnant. She brought forth Huitzilopochtli completely armed, who at once destroyed the Huitznahua. Father Duran translates all of this into plain history. His account is that when the Aztecs had occupied Tollan for some time, and had fortified the hill and cultivated the plain, a dissension arose. One party, followers of Huitzilopochtli, desired to move on; the other, headed by a chieftain, Huitznahua, insisted on remaining. The former attacked the latter at night, massacred them, destroyed the water-dams and buildings, and marched away (Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, Tom. i, pp. 25, 26). According to several accounts, Huitznahua was the brother of Huitzilopochtli. See my American Hero Myths, p. 81.
117. I have discussed both these accounts in my American Hero Myths, chap. iii., and need not repeat the authorities here.
118. The most highly-colored descriptions of the mythical Tula are to be found in the third and tenth book of Sahagun’s Historia de Nueva España, in the Anales de Cuauhtitlan, and in the various writings of Ixtlilxochitl. Later authors, such as Veitia, Torquemada, etc., have copied from these. Ixtlilxochitl speaks of the “legions of fables” about Tulan and Quetzalcoatl which even in his day were still current (“otras trescientas fabulas que aun todavia corren.” Relaciones Historicas, in Kingsborough, Mexico, Vol. ix, p. 332).
119. In the collection of Ancient Nahuatl Poems, which forms the seventh volume of my Library of Aboriginal American Literature, p. 104, I have printed the original text of one of the old songs recalling the glories of Tula, with its “house of beams,” huapalcalli, and its “house of plumed serpents,” coatlaquetzalli, attributed to Quetzalcoatl.
120. Les Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde, p. 84 (Paris, 1885).
121. Historia de Nueva España, Lib. viii, cap. 5.
122. Father Duran relates, “Even to this day, when I ask the Indians, ‘Who created this pass in the mountains? Who opened this spring? Who discovered this cave? or, Who built this edifice?’ they reply, ‘The Toltecs, the disciples of Papa.’” Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, cap. 79. Papa, from papachtic, the bushy-haired was one of the names of Quetzalcoatl. But the earlier missionary, Father Motilinia, distinctly states that the Mexica invented their own arts, and owed nothing to any imaginary teachers, Toltecs or others. “Hay entre todos los Indios muchos oficios, y de todos dicen que fueron inventores los Mexicanos.” Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, Tratado iii, cap. viii.
123. Quetzalcoatl announced that his return should take place 5012 years after his final departure, as is mentioned by Ixtlilxochitl (in Kingsborough, Mexico, Vol. ix, p. 332). This number has probably some mystic relation to the calendar.
124. American Hero Myths, p. 35. The only writer on ancient American history before me who has wholly rejected the Toltecs is, I believe, Albert Gallatin. In his able and critical study of the origin of American civilization (Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, Vol. i, p. 203) he dismissed them entirely from historical consideration with the words: “The tradition respecting the Toltecs ascends to so remote a date, and is so obscure and intermixed with mythological fables, that it is impossible to designate either the locality of their primitive abodes, the time when they first appeared in the vicinity of the Valley of Mexico, or whether they were preceded by nations speaking the same or different languages.” Had this well-grounded skepticism gained the ears of writers since 1845, when it was published, we should have been saved a vast amount of rubbish which has been heaped up under the name of history.
Dr. Otto Stoll (Guatemala; Reisen und Schilderungen, ss, 408, 409, Leipzig, 1886) has joined in rejecting the ethnic existence of the Toltecs. As in later Nahuatl the word toltecatl meant not only “resident of Tollan,” but also “artificer” and “trader,” Dr. Stoll thinks that the Central American legends which speak of “Toltecs” should be interpreted merely as referring to foreign mechanics or pedlers, and not to any particular nationality. I quite agree with this view.
125. Andrew Lang, Custom and Myth, p. 28.
126. Revised extracts from an article read before the American Philosophical Society in 1881.
127. Las Historias del Origen de los Indios de esta Provincia de Guatemala. Por el R. P. F. Francisco Ximenez.
128. See Dr. Otto Stoll, Ethnographie der Republik Guatemala, p. 118. I regret to differ from this able writer, whose studies of the Quiche und Cakchiquel are the most thorough yet made, and from whose version the above translation of the opening lines of the Popol Vuh is taken.
129. In his MS. Dictionary is the following entry:
“Poder: vtziniçabal, vel vtzintaçibal; deste nombre usa la Cartilla en el Credo para decir por obra vel poder del Spirito Santo. Al poder que tienen los Sacerdotes de perdonar pecados y dar sacramentos, se llaman, o an llamado, puz, naual. Asi el Ph. Varea en su Diccionario y el Sancto Vico en la Theologia Indorum usa en muchas partes destos vocablos en este sentido. Ya no estan tan en uso, pues entienden por el nombre poder y vtzintaçibal; y son vocablos que antiguamente aplicaban a sus idolos, y oy se procura que vayan olbidando todo aquello con que se les puede hacer memoria dellos.”
130. Coto says, “Vugh; nota que esta mesmo nombre tiene un genero de baile en que con los pies dan bueltas a un palo; tambien signfica el temblor de cuerpo que da con la terciana, o la misma cission; significa asi mesmo quando quiere ya amanescer aquel ponerse escuro el cielo; tambien quando suele estar el agua del rio o laguna, por antiparastassis, caliente, al tal calorsillo llaman Vugh.”
131. I have traced the growth of this myth in detail in The Myths of the New World, a Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America, chap. vi, (New York, 1876.) Dr. Otto Stoll in his most recent discussion of the myth of Hunahpu does not urge the meaning “opossum hunter,” and remarks that in the Pokonchi dialect henahpo means “moon-man,” and “month,” referring therefore to a night-god. Ethnologie der Indianer Stämme von Guatemala, p. 32, (Leyden, 1889.)
132. Popol Vuh, p. 40.
133. Ibid. pp. 225, 249.
134. Ibid. p. 314.
135. Die Indianer von Santa Catalina Istlavacan; ein Beitrag zur Culturgeschichte der Urbewohner Central Amerikas. Von Dr. Karl Scherzer, p. 9 (Wien, 1856).
136. Ibid., p. 11.
137. Escolios à las Historias del Origen de los Indios, p. 157.
138. To quote his words:
“Bubas: galel vel tepex. * * Quando an pasado dicen xin colah ahauarem, id est, ya an dejado su señoria, porque el que las tiene se esta sentado, sin hacer cosa, como si fuese señor ó señora.
“Señora: xogohau; Señoria, xogohauarem. * * Deste nombre xogohau vsan metaphoricamente para decir que una muger moza tiene bubas; porque se esta sin hacer cosa, mano sobre mano, * * y quando a anado de la enfermedad, dicen, si es varón: xucolah rahauarem achi rumal tepex. Tepex es la enfermedad de bubas.”
139. Sahagun, Historia de Nueva España, Lib. vii, cap. 2. He translates Nanahuatzih, “el buboso,” Comp. Boturini, Idea de una Nueua Historia de la America, pp. 37, 38.
140. The MS. Dictionary of Coto says, s. v. Corazon: “Attribuenle todos los affectos de las potencias, memoria y entendimiento y voluntad, * * unde ahgux, el cuidadoso, entendido, memorioso * *; toman este nombre gux por el alma de la persona, y por el spirito vital de todo viviente, v. g. xel ru gux Pedro, murió Pedro, vel, salio el alma de Pedro, * * deste nombre gux se forma el verbo tin gux lah, por pensar, cuidar, imaginar.”
141. “De adonde,” remarks Granados y Galvez, “viene que mis Otomites, de una misma manera llaman à la alma que al corazon, aplicandoles à entrambos la voz muy.” Tardes Americanas, Tarde iv, p. 101. (Mexico, 1778.)
142. Ximenez, Gramatica de la Lengua Quiche, p. 17.
143. Popol Vuh, pp. 18, 20, 23, 69, etc.
144. “Cosa que esta encubierta ó enterrada.” The Diccionario de Motul is the most complete dictionary of the Maya ever made. It dates from about 1590 and has its name from the town of Motul, Yucatan, where it was written. The author is unknown. Only two copies of it are in existence, one, very carefully made, with numerous notes, by Dr. Berendt, is in my possession. It is a thick 4to of 1500 pages.
145. Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, § XXXIII.
146. “R’atit zih, r’atit zak,” Popol Vuh, pp. 18, 20.
147. Especially the membrum virile, Pio Perez, Diccionario de la Lengua Maya, s. v.
148. “Entrar, juntarse el macho con la hembra.” Brasseur, Vocabulaire Maya vancais, s. v.
149. Popol Vuh, pp. 8, 14.
150. I take the following entries from Coto’s MSS.:
“Larga Cosa: Lo ordinario es poner rakan para significar la largura de palo, cordel, etc.
“Gigante: hu rapah rakan chi vinak, hu chogah rakan chi vanak; este nombre se usa de todo animal que en su specie es mas alto que los otros. Meo. Pe Saz, serm. de circumsciss, dice del Gigante Golias: tugotic rogoric rakan chiachi Gigante Golias.”
Ignorant, apparently, of this meaning, Dr. Stoll continues in his latest work to interpret Hurakan “with one foot.” Die Ethnologie der Indianer Stämme von Guatemala, p. 31, (Leiden, 1889.) The chapter on mythology is the least satisfactory in this important work.
151. De la Borde, Relation de l’origine, etc., des Caraibes, p. 7. (Paris, 1674.)
152. Las Casas, Historia Apologetica de las Indias Occidentales, cap. cxxiv (Madrid edition): P. F. Alonzo Fernandez, Historia Ecclesiastica de Nuestros Tiempos, p. 137 (Toledo, 1611).
153. Dissertation sur les Mythes de l’Antiquité Americane, § 8 (Paris, 1861); see also his note to the Popol Vuh, p. 70.
154. Ch’u qux uleu, “in its heart the earth.” (Coto, Dicc. s. v.)
Coto adds that the ancient meaning of the word was a ghost or vision of a departed spirit—“antiguamente este nombre Xibalbay significaba el demonio, vel los diffuntos ô visiones que se les aperescian, y asi decian, y aun algunos ay que lo dicen oy xuqutzii xibalbay ri cetzam chi nu vach, se me apereció el diffunto.”
155. “El Demonio se llamaba Xibilha, que quiere decir el que se desparece ó desbanece.” Historia de Yucatan, Lib. iv, cap. vii. Cogolludo had lived in Yucatan twenty-one years when he was making the final revision of his History, and was moderately well acquainted with the Maya tongue.
156. The Diccionario de Motul, MS., gives:
“Xibil, xibi, xibic: cundir como gota de aceita; esparcirse la comida en la digestion, y deshacerse la sal, nieve ô yelo, humo ô niebla. Item: desparecerse una vision ô fantasma. Item: temblar de miedo y espantarse.”
157. De Legibus, Lib. ii, cap. 2.
158. “Les petits Tigres,” Mythes de l’Antiquité Americane, § viii, Popol Vuh, p. 34, note.
159. Compendio de Nombres en Lengua Cakchiquel, MS.
160. Las Historias del Origen de los Indios, p. 16.
161. Father Varea, in his Calepino de la Lengua Cakchiquel. MS., gives the following entries:
“Balam: el tigre, zakbalam, tigre pequeño de su naturelezo; gana balam, el grande, tainbein siga un signo de los Indios. Maceval gih Po balam, ô Maria xbalam. Balam se llama el echizero.”
“Queh: el venado. Siga un cierto dia; otras veces dos dias; otras veces es signo de trece, otras veces cinco ó seis dias á la quenta de los Indios: xa hun queh vœ gih, ô, cay queh, voo queh, vahaki, ó, oxlahuh queh.”
162. Published in the American Antiquarian, for May, 1885.
163. The Algonquin Legends of New England, (Boston, 1884.)
164. The Micmac word kĕlooskăbāwe, means “he is a cheat,” probably one who cheats by lying. See Rand, Micmac Dictionary, s. v. A cheat.
165. Dictionnaire de la Langue des Cris, sub. voce Wisakketjâk. “Homme fabuleux des différentes tribus du Nord, auquel elles attribuent une puissance surnaturelle, avec un grand nombre de ruses, de tours, et de folies. Il est regardé comme le principal génie et le fondateur de ces nations. Chez les Sauteux on l’appelle Nenaboj, chez les Pieds-Noirs, Nâpiw. Wisakkeljakow, C’est un fourbe, un trompeur.”
166. Baraga, Otchipwe Dictionary.
167. Key into the language of America, p. 24.
168. Lexique de la Langue Algonquine, p. 443. (Montreal, 1886.)
169. See his article in The American Review, for 1848, entitled “Manabozho and the Great Serpent, an Algonquin legend.”
170. Algic Researches, Vol. 1, p. 134.
171. An address delivered at the annual meeting of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, and published in its Proceedings for 1883.
172. This paper was read before the American Philosophical Society in December, 1888, and was printed in its Proceedings.
173. Dr. E. T. Hamy, An Interpretation of one of the Copan Monuments, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, February 1887; also, Revue d’ Ethnographie, 1886, p. 233; same author, Le Svastika et la Roue Solaire en Amérique, Revue d’ Ethnographie, 1885, p. 22. E. Beauvois, in Annales de Philosophie Chretienne, 1877, and in various later publications. Ferraz de Macedo, Essai Critique sur les Ages Prehistorique de Bresil, Lisbon, 1887, etc.
174. See his article, “Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans,” Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 270.
175. See his article in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1886, p. 223.
176. Von Luchan, in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1886, p. 301.
177. See Dumoutier, Le Svastika et la Roue Solaire en Chine, in Revue d’ Ethnologie, 1885, pp. 333, sq.
178. I am indebted for some of these explanations to Mr. K. Sungimoto, an intelligent Japanese gentleman, well acquainted with Chinese, late resident in Philadelphia.
179. George Copway, Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation, p. 134. It will be noted that in the sign for sunrise the straight line meets the curve at its left extremity, and for sunset at its right. This results from the superstitious preference of facing the south rather than the north.
180. The triplicate constitution of things is a prominent feature of the ancient Mexican philosophy, especially that of Tezcuco. The visible world was divided into three parts, the earth below, the heavens above, and man’s abode between them. The whole was represented by a circle divided into three parts, the upper part painted blue, the lower brown, the centre white (See Duran, Historia, Lam. 15a, for an example). Each of these three parts was subdivided into three parts, so that when the Tezcucan king built a tower as a symbol of the universe, he called it “The Tower of Nine Stories” (see my Ancient Nahuatl Poetry, Introduction, p. 36).
181. Mallery, Pictography of the North American Indians, in Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 239.
182. Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, pp. 359, 360.
183. Dr. Ferraz de Macedo, Essai Critique sur les Ages Prehistorique de Bresil, p. 38 (Lisbonne, 1887).
184. Op. cit., p. 38.
185. See Worsaae, Danish Arts, and Virchow, in various numbers of the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie. The ring-cross is a common figure in American symbolism and decorative art. It frequently occurs on the shields depicted in the Bologna Codex, and the two codices of the Vatican (Kingsborough’s Antiquities of Mexico, Vols. ii. and iii). Dr. Ferraz de Macedo says that the most common decorative design on both ancient and modern native Brazilian pottery is the ring-cross in the form of a double spiral, as in Fig. 19 (Essai Critique sur les Ages Prehistorique de Bresil, p. 40). A very similar form will be found in the Bologna Codex, pl. xviii, in Kingsborough’s Mexico, Vol. ii.
186. See Mallery, Pictography of the North American Indians, pp. 88, 89, 128, etc.
187. This name is given in Landa, Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 313.
188. Historia de la Nueva España, Trat. III, cap. i.
189. Printed originally in The Folk-Lore Journal, London, 1883.
190. Informe del Señor Cura de Yaxcabà, Don Bartolomé del Granado Baeza, in the Registro Yucateco, tomo i, pp. 165 et seq.
The Rev. Estanislao Carrillo was cura of Ticul, where he died in 1846. He was a zealous archæologist, and is frequently mentioned by Mr. Stephens in his travels in Yucatan. He is deservedly included in the Manual de Biografia Yucateca of Don Francisco de P. Sosa (Merida, 1866). His article on the subject of the text appeared in the Registro Yucateco, tomo iv. p. 103.
191. “De idolatras paganos que eran, solo se ha conseguido que se conviertan en idolatras cristianos.”—Apolinar Garcia y Garcia, Historia de la Guerra de Castas en Yucatan, Prologo, p. xxiv (Merida, 1865).
192. Landa, Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, pp. 208 et seq. The work of Landa was first printed at Paris in 1864.
193. Charencey, Des Couleurs considérées comme Symboles des Points de l’Horizon chez les Peuples du Nouveau-Monde, in the Actes de la Sociétè Philologique, tome vi (Octobre 1876).
194. Chrestomathie de Litérature Maya, p. 101, in the second volume of the Etudes sur le Système Graphique et la Langue des Mayas (Paris, 1870).
195. “La fiesta de fuego, que hasta ahora en esta provincia se hacia.”—Fr. Diego Lopez Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatan, tomo i, p. 483 (3d ed. Merida, 1867).
196. Thomas Gage, A New Survey of the West Indiès, pp. 377 et seq. (London, 1699). The Abbé Brasseur is willing to consider these tales fictitious, “supposé qu’ils n’eussent eu, en realité, aucune communication avec les puissances du monde invisible,” about which, however, he is evidently not altogether sure.—Voyage sur l’Isthme de Tehuantepec, p. 175 (Paris, 1862).
197. Popol Vuh, le Livre Sacré des Quiches, p. 315 (Paris, 1864).
198. The derivation of this word is from kat, which in the Diçcionario Maya-Español del Convento de Motul, MS. of about 1580, is defined as “la tierra y barro de las olleras,” but which Perez in his modern Maya dictionary translates “ollas ô figuras de barro”; ob, is the plural termination; lox, is strong, or the strength of anything; h’ or ah, as it is often written, is the rough breathing which in Maya indicates the masculine gender.
199. From the Journal of American Folk-lore, 1888.
200. The form from which he derives it is lenni-peu.
201. Read before the Anthropological Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at Buffalo, August, 1886, and published in the American Antiquarian in November of the same year.
202. Study or the MS. Troano, p. 141.
203. Erläuterungen der Maya Hand-schrift, etc., p. 2. (Dresden, 1886.)
204. Die Maya Hand-schrift der König. Bib. zu Dresden, p. 77; (Berlin, 1886.)
205. Die Maya Hand-schrift, etc., p. 47.
206. American Antiquarian, March, 1886.
207. The first of M. Aubin’s Memoirs appeared in 1849, and was the result of studies begun in 1830. A new and enlarged edition has lately been edited by Dr. Hamy: Mémoires sur la Peinture Didactique et l’Ecriture Figurative des Anciens Mexicains. Par. J. M. A. Aubin (Paris 1885.) But Dr. Hamy has traveled very far beyond the limits of a sober appreciation of M. Aubin’s results when he writes: “Les recherches de M. Aubin ont réussi à resoudre presque toutes les difficultés que presentait la lecture des hieroglyphes nahuas.” (Introduction, p. viii.) He is also in error in supposing (in a note to same page) that Aubin’s theory is not well-known to Americanists. Brasseur popularized it in his introductions to his Histoire du Mexique. Aubin, in fact, guided by the Spanish writers of the 16th century and the annotators of the Codices, first clearly expressed the general principles of the phonetic picture writing; but his rules and identifications are entirely inadequate to its complete or even partial interpretation.
208. Orozco y Berra, Historia Antigua de Mexico, (Mexico, 1880). The Atlas to this work contains a large number of proposed identifications of hieroglyphics. See also by the same writer, Ensayo de Descifracion Geroglifica in the Anales del Museo Nacional, tom. II. Much of this is founded on Ramirez’s studies, who, however, by his own admission, knew little or nothing of the Nahuatl language (as he states in his introduction to the Codex Chimalpopoca or Anales de Quauhtitlan). Dr. Peñafiel’s praiseworthy collection is entitled Catalogo Alfabetico de los nombres de Lugares pertenecientes al Idioma Nahuatl, Estudio Jeroglifico. (Mexico, 1885.)
209. This paper was originally read before the American Philosophical Society in October, 1886, and was published in their Proceedings.
210. The following elements occur in the old Egyptian writing:
211. See M. A. Lower, Curiosities of Heraldry, Chap. vi (London, 1845). An appropriate motto of one of these bearings was: “Non verbis sed rebus loquimur.”
212. Tam, near; uch, scorpion. Diccionario Huasteca-Español, MS., in my possession. This and most of the other instances quoted are to be found in Lord Kingsborough’s great work on Mexico, and also in Dr. Peñafiel’s Catàlogo Alfabetico de los Nombres de Lugares pertenecientes al Idioma Nahuatl (Mexico, 1885).