and which Cicero records in the phrase dissolutio naturæ, in the sense of death.^[157]

The natural terror and fright with which death and ghosts are everywhere regarded, and especially, as Landa remarks, by this people, explain how this secondary meaning became predominant in the word. The termination ba means in the Guatemalan dialects, where, whence, whither, bey, a path or road; Xibilbay thus signifies, in the locative sense, “the place where they (i. e. the dead) disappear,” the Hades, the Invisible Realm, which was supposed to be under the ground.

It was a common belief among many tribes in America, that their earliest ancestors emerged from a world which underlies this one on which we live, and in ancient Cakchiquel legend, the same or a similar notion seems to have prevailed.

The name of the hero-god Xbalanque is explained by the Abbé Brasseur as a compound of the diminutive prefix x, balam, a tiger, and the plural termination que.^[158] Like so many of his derivations, this is quite incorrect. There is no plural termination que, either in the Quiche or in any related dialect; and the signification “tiger” (jaguar, Felix unca Lin. in Mexican ocelotl), which he assigns to the word balam, is only one of several which belong to it.

The name is compounded of the prefix, either feminine or diminutive, x; balam, or, as given by Guzman, balan;^[159] and queh, deer. This is the composition given by Ximenez, who translates it literally as “a diminutive form of tiger and deer.”^[160]

The name balam, was also that of a class of warriors: of a congregation of priests or diviners; and of one of the inferior orders of deities. In composition it was applied to a spotted butterfly, as it is in our tongue to the “tiger-lily;” to the king-bee; to certain rapacious birds of prey, etc.

None of the significations concerns us here; but we do see our way when we learn that both balam and queh are names of days in the Quiche-Cakchiquel calendar. The former stood for the twelfth, the latter for the seventh in their week of twenty days.^[161] Each of the days was sacred to a particular divinity, but owing to the inadequate material preserved for the study of the ancient calendars of Guatemala, we are much in the dark as to the relationship of these divinities.

Suffice it to say that the hero-god whose name is thus compounded of two signs in the calendar, who is born of a virgin, who performs many surprising feats of prowess on the earth, who descends into the world of darkness and sets free the sun, moon and stars to perform their daily and nightly journeys through the heavens, presents in these and other traits such numerous resemblances to the Divinity of Light, reappearing in so many American myths, the Day-maker of the northern hunting tribes, that I do not hesitate to identify the narrative of Xbalanque and his deeds as one of the presentations of this widespread, this well-nigh universal myth—guarding my words by the distinct statement, however, that the identity may be solely a psychological, not a historical one.

In the pleasant volume which Mr. Charles G. Leland has written on the surviving aboriginal folk-lore of New England,^[163] the chief divinity of the Micmacs and Penobscots appears under what seems at first the outrageously incongruous name of Gluskap, the Liar! This is the translation of the name as given by the Rev. S. T. Rand, late missionary among the Micmacs, and the best authority on that language. From a comparison of the radicals of the name in related dialects of the Algonkin stock, I should say that a more strictly literal rendering would be “word-breaker,” or “deceiver with words.” In the Penobscot dialect the word is divided thus,—Glus-Gahbé, where the component parts are more distinctly visible.^[164]

The explanation of this epithet, as quoted from native sources by Mr. Leland, is that he was called the liar because “when he left earth, like King Arthur, for fairy land, he promised to return, and has never done so.”

It is true that the Algonkian Hero-God, like all the American culture-heroes, Ioskeha, Quetzalcoatl, Zamna, Bochica, Viracocha, and the rest, disappeared in some mysterious way, promising again to visit his people, and has long delayed his coming. But it was not for that reason that he was called the “deceiver in words.” Had Mr. Leland made himself acquainted with Algonkin mythology in general, he would have found that this is but one of several, to our thinking, opprobrious names they applied to their highest divinity, their national hero, and the reputed saviour and benefactor of their race.

The Crees, living northwest of the Micmacs, call this divine personage, whom, as Father Lacombe tells us, they regard as “The principal deity and the founder of these nations,” by the name Wisakketjâk, which means “the trickster,” “the deceiver.”^[165] The Chipeways apply to him a similar term, Nenaboj, or as it is usually written, Nanabojoo, and Nanaboshoo, “the Cheat,” perhaps allied to Nanabanisi, he is cheated.^[166]

This is the same deity that reappears under the names Manabozho, Michabo, and Messou, among the Chipeway tribes; as Napiw among the Blackfeet; and as Wetucks among the New England Indians where he is mentioned by Roger Williams as “A man that wrought great miracles among them, with some kind of broken resemblance to the Sonne of God.”^[167]

These appellations have various significations. The last mentioned is apparently from ock or ogh, father, with the prefix wit, which conveys the sense “in common” or “general.” Hence it would be “the common father.”

Michabo, constantly translated by writers “the Great Hare,” as if derived from michi, great, and wabos, hare, is really a verbal form from michi and wabi, white, and should be translated, “the Great White One.” The reference is to the white light of the dawn, he, like most of the other American hero-gods, being an impersonation of the light.

The name Wisakketjâk, though entirely Algonkin in aspect, offers serious etymological difficulties, so unmanageable indeed that one of the best authorities, M. Cuoq, abandons the attempt.^[168] Its most apparent root is wisak, which conveys the sense of annoyance, hurt or bitterness, and the name would thus seem to be applied to one who causes these disagreeable sensations.

In all the pure and ancient Algonkin cosmogonical legends, this divinity creates the world by his magic powers, peoples it with game and animals, places man upon it, teaches his favorite people the arts of the chase, and gives them the corn and beans. His work is disturbed by enemies of various kinds, sometimes his own brothers, sometimes by a formidable serpent and his minions.

These myths, when analyzed through the proper names they contain, and compared with those of the better known mythologies of the old world, show plainly that their original purport was to recount, under metaphorical language, on the one hand the unceasing struggle of day with night, light with darkness, and on the other, that no less important conflict which is ever waging between the storm and sunshine, the winter and summer, the rain and the clear sky.

Writers whose knowledge of religions was confined to that of the Semitic race, as represented in our Bible, have maintained that the story of Michabo’s battles with the serpent, who is certainly represented as a master of magic and subtlety, and hence dangerous to the human race, must have come from contact with the missionaries. A careful study of the myth will dispel all doubts on this point. Years ago, Mr. E. G. Squier showed that this legend was unquestionably of aboriginal source; but he failed to perceive its significance.^[169] The serpent, typical of the sinuous lightning, symbolizes the storm, the rains and the water.

But to return to the class of names with which we began. The struggles of Michabo with these various powerful enemies I have just named, constitute the principal theme of the countless tales which are told of him by the native story-tellers, only a small part of which, and those much disfigured, came under the notice of Mr. Leland, among the long civilized eastern tribes. Mr. Schoolcraft frequently refers to these “innumerable tales of personal achievement, sagacity, endurance, miracle and trick which place him in almost every scene of deep interest which can be imagined.”^[170] These words express the spirit of the greater number of these legends. Michabo does not conquer his enemies by brute force, nor by superior strength, but by craft and ruses, by transforming himself into unsuspected shapes, by cunning and strategy. He thus comes to be represented as the arch-deceiver; but in a good sense, as his enemies on whom he practices these wiles are also those of the human race, and he exercises his powers with a benevolent intention.

Thus it comes to pass that this highest divinity of these nations, their chief god and culture-hero, bears in familiar narrative the surprising titles, “the liar,” “the cheat,” and “the deceiver.”

It would be an interesting literary and psychological study to compare this form of the Michabo myth with some in the old world, which closely resemble it in what artists call motive. I would name particularly the story of the “wily Ulysses” of the Greeks, the “transformations of Ebu Seid of Serug” and the like in Arabic, and the famous tale of Reynard the Fox in medieval literature. The same spirit breathes in all of them; all minister to the delight with which the mind contemplates mere physical strength beaten in the struggle with intelligence. They are all peans sung for the victory of mind over matter. In none of them is there much nicety about the means used to accomplish the ends. Deceit by word and action is the general resource of the heroes. They all act on the Italian maxim:

I am about to invite your attention to one of the many curious results of comparative mythology. This science, which is still in its infancy, may be regarded by some of you, as it is by the world at large, as one of little practical importance, and quite remote from the interests of daily life and thought. But some of the results it attains are so startling, and throw such a singular light on various familiar customs and popular beliefs, that the time is not far off when it will be recognized as one of the most potent solvents in the crucible of intelligence.

The point to which I shall address myself to-night is the opinion entertained by three ancient nations, very wide apart in space, time and blood, concerning the journey of the soul when it leaves the body.

These nations are the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Aryans, and the Aztecs or Nahua of Central Mexico.

All these people believed, with equal faith, in the existence of a soul or spirit in man, and in its continuing life after the death of the body. How they came by this belief does not concern my present thesis; that they held it in unquestioning faith none can deny who has studied even superficially their surviving monuments. They supposed this assumed after-life was continued under varying conditions in some other locality than this present world, and that it required a journey of some length for the disembodied spirit to reach its destined abode. It is the events which were supposed to take place on this journey, and the goals to which it led, that I am about to narrate. It will be seen that there are several curious similarities in the opinions of these widely diverse peoples, which can only be explained by the supposition that they based their theories of the soul’s journey and goal on some analogy familiar to them all.

I begin with the Egyptian theory. It appears in its most complete form in the sepulchral records of the New Kingdom, after the long period of anarchy of the Shepherd Kings had passed, and when under the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties, Egypt may be said to have risen to the very pinnacle of her greatness.

The collection of the sacred funerary texts into the famous ritual known as “The Book of the Dead,” dates from this time. Many of its chapters are, indeed, very much older; but Egyptian religion, which was not stationary, but constantly progressive toward higher intellectual forms and purer ethical standards, can best be judged as it was in this period, that of the Theban dynasties of the New Kingdom. To assign a date, we may say in round numbers, two thousand years before the Christian era.

From that invaluable document, therefore, the “Book of the Dead,” we learn what this ancient people expected to happen to the soul when it left the body. Of the millions of mummies which were zealously prepared in those ages, none was complete unless it had folded with it one or a number of chapters of this holy book, the formulas in which were safeguards and passwords to the spirit on its perilous journey.

The general statement is that the soul on leaving the corpse passes toward the West, where it descends into the divine inferior region called Amenti, over which presides Osiris, “chief of chiefs divine,” who represents the Sun-god in his absence, in other words the sun at night, the sun which has sunk in the west and stays somewhere all night.

In this place of darkness the soul undergoes its various tests. The deeds done in the flesh, the words spoken in life, the thoughts of the heart, are brought up against it by different accusers, who appear in the form of monsters of the deep. As the sun has to combat the darkness of the night and to overcome it before it can again rise, so the soul has to combat the record of its sins, and conquer the frightful images which represent them. This was to be done in the Egyptian, as in almost all religions, by the power of magic formulas, in other words by prayers, and the invocation of holy names.

Having succeeded, the soul saw the nightly constellations and the heavenly stars, and reached the great celestial river, whose name was Nun. This was the self-created, primordial element. From its green depths all created things, even the gods themselves, took their origin. It is called in the texts, “father of all gods.” From it rose Ra, the Sun-god, in his brightness. In its dark depths lies bound in chains of iron the serpent Refref, the symbol of evil, otherwise called Apap. But, though bound, this monster endeavors to seize each soul that crosses the river. The fortunate soul repels the serpent by blows and incantations which destroy its power, but the unfortunate one is swallowed up and annihilated.

This danger passed, the soul reaches the farther strand, and rises from the waters, as Horus, who represents the sun at dawn, rises from the eastern waves. This is the purpose of all the rites and prayers—to have the soul, as the expression is, “rise at day” or “rise in the daytime.” In other words, to rise as the sun and with the sun, or, to use again the constant formula of the “Book of the Dead,” to “enter the boat of the Sun;” for the Sun was supposed to sail through celestial and translucent waters on its grand journey from horizon to zenith and zenith to horizon. Starting at dawn as the child Horus, son of the slain and lost Osiris, the orb of light became at midday the mighty Ra, and as evening approached, was transformed into Khep-Ra or Harmachis, again to become Osiris when it had sunk beneath the western verge.

So strict and absolute was the analogy supposed by the Egyptians to exist between the course of the sun and the destiny of the soul, that every soul was said to become Osiris at the moment of death, and in the copies of the “Book of the Dead,” enclosed in a mummy, the proper name of the defunct is always preceded by the name “Osiris,” as we might say “Osiris Rameses” or “Osiris Sesostris.”

To illustrate further what I have said, I will translate a few passages from the most recent and correct version of the “Book of the Dead,” that published at Paris a few months ago, and made by Prof. Paul Pierret, of the Egyptian Museum of the Louvre.

The following is an extract from the first chapter of this Ritual:

“O ye who open the roads! O ye who make smooth the paths to the souls in the abode of Osiris! Make smooth the paths, open the roads to Osiris Such-a-one that he may enter, by the aid of this chapter, into the abode of Osiris; that he may enter with zeal and emerge with joy; that this Osiris Such-a-one be not repulsed, nor miss his way, that he may enter as he wishes and leave when he wills. Let his words be made true and his orders executed in the abode of Osiris.

“This Osiris Such-a-one is journeying toward the west with good fortune. When weighed in the balance he is found to be without sin; of numerous mouths, none has condemned him; his soul stands erect before Osiris; out of his mouth when on earth no impurity proceeded.”

(Here the soul speaks:)

“I place myself before the master of the gods; I reach the divine abode; I raise myself as a living god; I shine among the gods of heaven; I am become as one of you, O ye gods. I witness the progress of the holy stars. I cross the river Nun. I am not far removed from the fellowship of the gods. I eat of the food of the gods. I sit among them. I am invoked as a divine being; I hear the prayers offered to me; I enter the boat of the sun; my soul is not far from its lord. Hail to thee, Osiris! Grant that I sail joyously to the west, that I be received by the lords of the west; that they say to me, ‘Adoration, adoration and peace be thine;’ and that they prepare a place for me near to the chief of chiefs divine.”

Through the rhetoric of this mystic rhapsody we see that the soul goes to the abode of Osiris, is judged and tested as to its merits, and if approved crosses in safety the river Nun and becomes as one of the gods themselves; a companion of Osiris and Ra.

Such, in broad outline, was the orthodox Egyptian doctrine. There was a vast amount of accessory matter and mysticism added to this simple statement, but the foundation is always the same.

To one or two points I will call attention for later reference in this paper.

In the 13th Chapter of the “Book of the Dead,” the defunct is supposed to repeat the following formula:

“I arrive as a hawk, I depart as a phenix. I am the God of the morning. I have finished the journey and worshipped the sun in the lower world. Heavily braided is the hair of Osiris. I am one of the dogs of Horus. I have finished the journey and worshipped Osiris.”

The reference to the hair of Osiris and the transformation of the soul into a dog, are incidents to which I shall refer in another connection.

Another interesting fact is the frequent recurrence of the numbers four and eight in the Egyptian theories of the spiritual world. In the 16th Chapter of the “Book of the Dead,” it is prescribed that four pictures as set forth should be painted on the sarcophagus, in order that the soul may pass through the four apertures of the sky. The chapter identifies these with the cardinal points from which blow the four winds. In chapter 17, which is one of the oldest texts in the book, reference is made to the eight gods of Hermapolis; elsewhere the number is mentioned. This illustrates the easy transfer of the plan of terrestrial geography to that of the spiritual world.

Passing now to the mythology of the Aryan nations, we find that the three great cycles of its poetry, the Indian, the Greek, and the Norse, agree closely in their opinions of the destination of the soul.

After death, according to their belief, the soul descended into a world below the surface of the earth. The Greeks called it the realm of Hades, from the name of its ruler, otherwise known as Pluto. The latter name signifies the wealthy, because sooner or later all the children of men and all their possessions come under his power. The meaning of Hades is unknown, as its derivation from æidos, unseen, is now generally doubted by the best Greek scholars.

The entrance to this realm was supposed to be guarded by two dogs, the more famous of which, Cerberus in Greek, is in the Vedas spoken of by the same name, Carvara. The soul must pacify these dogs and pass them without injury if it would enjoy the delights that lay beyond. Within the gates stretched a broad desert through which flowed the river Acheron, which in later myths came to have various branches, the Styx, Lethe, Polyphegmon, etc. This was to be crossed in the boat of Charon, the silent ferryman, who spake no word but exacted of each ghost a toll.

The dark river crossed, the spirit appeared before the judges, and by them its future fate was decided. An adverse decision condemned it to wander lonely in the darkness, but a favorable verdict authorized its entrance into the happy fields of Elysium. This joyous abode was in the far west, in that land beyond the shining waters and the purple sunset sea, where the orb of light goes to rest himself at night. Its light is eternal, its joys perennial, its happiness perfect.

With little difference, this faith was shared by ancient Indians and ancient Norsemen. The latter often buried with the dead a canoe or boat, destined to convey the soul across the waves to the happy land beyond.

Even the ancient Kelt of Cornwall or Brittany had this same myth of the Islands of the Blessed, lying somewhere far out in the Western Sea. What to the Greek was the Garden of the Hesperides with its fruit of golden quinces, was to the Kelt the Isle of Avalon, with its orchards of apples.

Thither was conveyed the noble Arthur when slain on the field of Lyoness. He was borne away in a royal boat by the fairy women of the strand. There Ogier the Dane, worn by the wars of a hundred years, was carried by his divine godmother to be restored to youth and strength, and to return again to wield his battle-axe under the Oriflamme of France.

Wherever we turn, whether in the most ancient chants of the Vedas, in the graceful forms of the Greek religious fancy, in the gaunt and weird imaginings of the Norse poets, or in the complex but brilliant pictures of mediæval romance, we find the same distinct plan of this journey of the soul.

I pass now to the New World, almost to the antipodes of India, and take up the doctrines of the Aztecs. We have sufficiently ample accounts of their notions, preserved by various early writers, especially by Father Sahagun, who took down the words of the priests in their own tongue, and at a date when their knowledge was not dimmed or distorted by Christian teaching. Something may also be learned from Tezozomoc, a native chronicler, and others.

From these it appear that the Aztecs held that after death the souls of all people pass downward into the under-world, to the place called Mictlan. This is translated by the missionaries as “hell” or “inferno,” but by derivation it means simply “the place of the slain,” from an active verb meaning “to kill.”

To explain this further, I add that in all primitive American tribes, there is no notion of natural death. No man “dies,” he is always “killed.” Death as a necessary incident in the course of nature is entirely unknown to them. When a person dies by disease, they suppose he has been killed by some sorcery, or some unknown venomous creature.

The journey to Mictlan was long and perilous. The soul first passed through a narrow defile between two mountains which touched each other, where it was liable to be crushed; it then reached a path by which lay in wait a serpent; next was a spot where a huge green lizard whose name was “The Flower of Heat,” was concealed. After this, eight deserts stretched their wild wastes, and beyond these, eight steep hills reared their toilsome sides into the region of snow. Over their summits blew a wind so keen that it was called “The Wind of Knives.” Much did the poor soul suffer, exposed to this bitter cold, unless many coats of cotton and other clothing were burnt upon his tomb for use at this lofty pass.

These hills descended, the shivering ghost reached the river called “By the Nine Waters.” It was broad, and deep, and swift. Little chance had the soul of crossing its dark current, was the aid for this purpose forgotten during life, or by the mourners. This aid was a dog, of the species trained by the Aztecs and held in high esteem by them.

But the dog must be of a particular color; white would not answer, else he would say, when brought to the brink, “As for me, I am already washed.” Black would fail as much, for the animal would say, “I am too black myself to help another wash.” The only color was red, and for this reason great numbers of reddish curs were fostered by the Aztecs, and one was sacrificed at each funeral. Clinging to it, the soul crossed the river and reached the further brink in safety, being purged and cleansed in the transit of all that would make it unfit for the worlds beyond.

These worlds were threefold. One was called “The nine Abodes of the Dead,” where the ordinary mass of mankind were said to go and forever abide. The second was paradise, Tlalocan, the dwelling-place of the Tlalocs, the gods of fertility and rain. It was full of roses and fruits. No pain was there, and no sorrow. Scorching heat and cold were alike unknown. Green fields, rippling brooks, balmy airs and perpetual joy, filled the immortal days of the happy souls in Tlalocan. Those who were destined for its Elysian years were divinely designated by the diseases or accidents of which they died. These were of singular variety. All struck by lightning or wounded, the leprous, the gouty, the dropsical, and what at first sight seems curious, all those who died of the forms of venereal diseases, were believed to pass directly to this Paradise.

The third and highest reward was reserved for the brave who died upon the field of battle, or, as captives, perished by the malice of public enemies, and for women who died in childbirth. These went to the sun in the sky, and dwelt up in the bright heavens. After four years they returned to earth, and under the form of bright-plumaged singing birds rejoiced the hearts of men, and were again spectators of human life.

In this Aztec doctrine the ruler of the underworld is spoken of as Mictlantecutli, which the obtuse missionaries persistently render as the devil.

The name means simply “Lord of the Abode of the Slain,” or of the dead. In several of myths he is brought into close relation with the Aztec national hero-god, Quetzalcoatl.

Like Osiris, Quetzalcoatl was said to be absent, to have gone away to the home of the sun, that home where the sun rests at night. More specifically, this was said to be under the earth, and it was spoken of as a place of delights, like Tlalocan. Its name was Cincalco, which means the House of Abundance; for no want, no dearth, no hunger and no suffering, were known there. With him dwelt the souls of his disciples and the Toltecs, his people, and at some day or other he and they would return to claim the land and to restore it to its pristine state of perfection.

The thoughts in these faiths which I have described are the same. In each of them the supposed history of the destiny of the soul follows that of the sun and the stars. In all of them the spirits are believed to descend into or under the surface of the earth, and then, after a certain lapse of time, some fortunate ones are released to rise like the orbs of light into the heavens above.

Striking analogies exist among them all. The river which in each flows through the underworld, is nothing else than the great world-stream which in the primitive geography of every nation is believed to surround the habitable land, and beyond which the sun sinks at night. To reach the abode of the sun in the west this river must be crossed.

The numbers 4 and 8 which occur in the Egyptian and Aztec geography of the underworld, are relics of the sacredness attached to the cardinal points.

The ruler of the realm of shadows is not a malevolent being. Osiris, Hades or Pluto, Mictlantecutli, Quetzalcoatl, all originally represented the sun in its absence, and none of them in any way corresponds to the mediæval or modern notion of the devil. As Osiris, who is unquestionably the departed Sun-god, was represented with heavy and braided hair, so his Aztec correlative was also named Tzontemoc, which means, he of the abundant falling hair. In each case the analogy was to the long slanting rays of the setting sun.

The role of the dog in these myths is a curious one. He appears as a guardian and preserver. Even Cerberus is good to the good soul. It has been argued by the eminent Sanscrit antiquary Rajendalala, in his late volume on the Indo-Aryans, that this is a reminiscence of an ancient custom of throwing the dead bodies to the dogs to be consumed, rather than have them decay. This to me is not a very satisfactory explanation, but I have none other to offer in its place, and I therefore merely call attention to this singular similarity of notions.

Though I have confined my comparison to these three ancient nations, you would err widely if you imagine that it is for lack of material to extend it. I could easily summon numberless other analogies from classic, from Persian, from Turanian, from Semitic sources, to show that these notions were almost universal to the race of man.

They carried themselves into early Christian teachings, and to-day the wording of this ancient Sun-myth is repeated in most of the churches of Christendom. We have but to mention the “river of death” which is supposed to limit human life; we have but to look at the phraseology of the Nicene Symbol, where it is said that Christ “descended into hell (Hades),” and after three days rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, to see how persistently the old ideas have retained their sway over the religious sentiments and expressions of man.

What I am about to say is, to a certain degree, polemical. My intention is to combat the opinions of those writers who, like Dr. Hamy, M. Beauvois and many others,^[173] assert that because certain well-known Oriental symbols, as the Ta Ki, the Triskeles, the Svastika and the Cross, are found among the American aborigines, they are evidence of Mongolian, Buddhistic, Christian or Aryan immigrations, previous to the discovery by Columbus; and I shall also try to show that the position is erroneous of those who, like William H. Holmes, of the Bureau of Ethnology, maintain that “it is impossible to give a satisfactory explanation of the religious significance of the cross as a religious symbol in America.”^[174]

In opposition to both these views I propose to show that the primary significance of all these widely extended symbols is quite clear; and that they can be shown to have arisen from certain fixed relations of man to his environment, the same everywhere, and hence suggesting the same graphic representations among tribes most divergent in location and race; and, therefore, that such symbols are of little value in tracing ethnic affinities or the currents of civilization; but of much import in investigating the expressions of the religious feelings.

Their wide prevalence in the Old World is familiar to all students. The three legs diverging from one centre, which is now the well-known arms of the Isle of Man, is the ancient Triquetrum, or, as Olshausen more properly terms it, the Triskeles,^[175] seen on the oldest Sicilian coins and on those of Lycia, in Asia Minor, struck more than five hundred years before the beginning of our era. Yet, such is the persistence of symbolic forms, the traveler in the latter region still finds it recurring on the modern felt wraps used by the native inhabitants.^[176] As a decorative motive, or perhaps with a deeper significance, it is repeatedly found on ancient Slavic and Teutonic vases, disinterred from mounds of the bronze age, or earlier, in Central and Northern Europe. Frequently the figure is simply that of three straight or curved lines springing from a central point and surrounded by a circle, as:

In the latter we have the precise form of the Chinese Ta Ki, a symbolic figure which plays a prominent part in the mystical writing, the divination and the decorative art of China.^[177]

As it is this symbol which, according to Dr. Hamy, the distinguished ethnologist and Director of the Museum of the Trocadero, Paris, indicates the preaching of Buddhistic doctrines in America, it merits close attention.

The Ta Ki, expressed by the signs:

is properly translated, “The Great Uniter” (ta, great; ki, to join together, to make one, to unite); as in modern Chinese philosophy, expressed in Platonic language, the One is distinguished from the Many, and is regarded as the basis of the numerical system. But as the Chinese believe in the mystic powers of numbers, and as that which reduces all multiplicity to unity naturally controls or is the summit of all things, therefore the Ta Ki expresses the completest and highest creative force.

In Chinese philosophy, the Universe is made up of opposites, heaven and earth, light and darkness, day and night, land and water, concave and convex, male and female, etc., the highest terms for which are Yin and Yang. These are held to be brought into fructifying union by Ta Ki. Abstractly, the latter would be regarded as the synthesis of the two universal antitheses which make up all phenomena.^[178]

The symbolic representation of Yin and Yang is a circle divided by two arcs with opposite centres, while the symbol of Ta Ki adds a third arc from above uniting these two.

It is possible that these symbols are of late origin, devised to express the ideas above named. One Chinese scholar (Mr. S. Culin) tells me that it is doubtful if they occur earlier than the twelfth century, A. D., and that they were probably introduced for purposes of divination. In this case, I believe that they were introduced from the South, and that they originally had another and concrete significance, as I shall explain later.

Others consider these symbols as essentially Mongolian. The Ta Ki or Triskeles is to them the Mongolian, while the Svastika is the ethnic Aryan symbol. Such writers suspect Indo-European immigration where they discover the latter, Chinese immigration were they find the former emblem.

The Svastika, I need hardly say, is the hooked cross or gammated cross, usually represented as follows:

the four arms of equal length, the hook usually pointing from left to right. In this form it occurs in India and on very early (neolithic) Greco-Italic and Iberian remains. So much has been written upon the Svastika, however, that I need not enter upon its archæological distribution.

Its primary significance has been variously explained. Some have regarded it as a graphic representation of the lightning, others as of the two fire-sticks used in obtaining fire by friction, and so on.

Whatever its significance, we are safe in considering it a form of the Cross, and in its special form obtaining its symbolic or sacred association from this origin.

The widely-spread mystic purport of the Cross symbol has long been matter of comment. Undoubtedly in many parts of America the natives regarded it with reverence anterior to the arrival of Europeans; as in the Old World it was long a sacred symbol before it became the distinctive emblem of Christianity.

As in previous writings I have brought together the evidence of the veneration in which it was held in America, I shall not repeat the references here.

I believe we may go a step further and regard all three of these symbols, the Ta Ki or Triskeles, the Svastika, and the Cross as originally the same in signification, or, at least, closely allied in meaning. I believe, further, that this can be shown from the relics of ancient American art so clearly that no one, free from prejudice, and whose mind is open to conviction, will deny its correctness.

My theory is that all of the symbols are graphic representations of the movements of the sun with reference to the figure of the earth, as understood by primitive man everywhere, and hence that these symbols are found in various parts of the globe without necessarily implying any historic connections of the peoples using them.

This explanation of them is not entirely new. It has previously been partly suggested by Professors Worsaae and Virchow; but the demonstration I shall offer has not heretofore been submitted to the scientific world, and its material is novel.

Beginning with the Ta Ki, we find its primary elements in the symbolic picture-writing of the North American Indians. In that of the Ojibways, for example, we have the following three characters:

Of these, the Fig. 7 represents the sunrise; Fig. 9, sunset; Fig. 8, noonday. The last-mentioned is the full day at its height.^[179] Where, in rock-writing or scratching on wood, the curve could not conveniently be used, straight lines would be adopted:

thus giving the ordinary form of the Triskeles. But the identical form of the Ta Ki is found in the calendar scroll attached to the Codex-Poinsett, an unpublished original Mexican MS., on agave paper, in the library of the American Philosophical Society. A line from this scroll is as follows: