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Sacred Mysteries

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Sacred Mysteries

AMONG

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES,

11,500 YEARS AGO

THEIR REIvATION TO THE SACRED MYS-
TERIES OF EGYPT, GREECE,
CHALDEA AND INDIA

FREEMASONRY
Jtt ©iuwa Atttiertnr ta % ^tmpU of ^aUxman

ILLUSTRATED

BY
AUGUSTUS LE PLONGEON

Author of "A Sketch of the Ancient Inhabitants of Peru, and their Civilization;'

'Vestiges of the Mayas;" "Essay on Vestiges of Antiquity;" "Essay on

the Causes of Elarthquakes;" Religion of Jesus compared with the

Teachings of the Church;" "The Monuments of Mayax; and their

Historical Teachings."

QUEEN MCX3 AND THE EGYPTIAN SPHINX

aa a sequel to Sacred Mysteries

THIRD EDITION

PUBUSHED BY

MACOY PUBUSHING AND MASONIC SUPPLY COMPANY

NEW YORK CITY. N. Y. U. S. A.

1909

Entered according to Act of

Congress, March 15, 1886, by

AUGUSTUS LE PLONGEON

in the Office of the Librarian of

Congress at Washington

See List of Books on page 164

THE SETIY G£NTf;R

MR. PIERRE LORILLARD,

THIS SMALL HISTORICAL STUDY OF THE SACRED MYSTERIES
PRACTICED IN REMOTE AGES BY THE MAYAS AND QUICHES

3) a ^tBptttfttUvi ^thicuUh,

AS A FEEBLE TESTIMONIAL OF MY APPRECIATION OF HIS EF-
FORTS TO HELP IN REMOVING THE VEIL THAT HAS SO
LONG HUNG OVER THE HISTORY, CUSTOMS AND CIVI-
LIZATION OF THE ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF
THIS WESTERN CONTINENT.

AUGUSTUS LE PLONGEON

New York, May 20th, 1886

PREFACE.

The forests of Yucatan and Central America are
to-day, for the majority of the people of the United
States, even those who call themselves scientific and
well informed, as much a terra incognita, as Amer-
ica was to the inhabitants of Europe before its dis-
covery by Cristobal Colon in 1498, when for the first
time he came in sight of the northern coast of South
America, and navigated along it from the mouth of
the river Orinoco to Porto Cahello in the Oolfo
Triste.

A few, having perused the books of J. L. Stephens,
Norman, and other tourists who have hurriedly vis-
ited the ruins of the ancient cities that he hidden in
the depths of those forests, have a vague idea that
there exist the remains of stone houses built some
time or other before the discoveiy, aver authorita-
tively that "their builders were but little removed
from the state of savagism, and that none of their
handwork is worth the attention of the students of
our age. Their civilization, they confidently say,
was at best very crude. They were ignorant of the

VI PREFACE.

art of writing; and the scanty records of their his-
tory chronicled on deer-skins, in pictorial represen-
tations, are well nigh unintelligible. They had no
sciences, no mental culture or intellectual develop-
ment. They were in fact a race whose intelligence
was for the most part of lower order. From what
they did nothing is to be learned that has any direct
bearing on the progress of civilization." In no wise
can they be compared with the Egyptians or the
Chaldees, much less with the Greeks or Romans;
it is not, therefore, worth our while to spend time
and money in researches among the ruins of their
cities. It is to Greece, it is to Egypt, to Chaldea, that
Americans must go in order to make new discoveries.
In those countries must be established schools for
study of Greek, or Egyptian, or Chaldean archaeol-
ogy: and American schools have been estabUshed at
Athens and Alexandria, and expeditions sent to
Syria, to the shores of the Euphrates.

But the European scientists, who for many years
past have explored those old fields in order to obtain
reHcs to fill the shelves of the museums of their cap-
itals and turned up the soil of the Orient in search
of archaeological treasures, now look to the Western
continent in quest of the origin of those ancient civ-
ilizations which they have been unable to find in
the countries where they once flourished; and they
look with that reverence which true learning begets,

PREFACE. vu

on those ancient American temples and palaces that
are objects of contempt for some modern American
scientists.

Thus we see established in Paris the '^ Societe des
Americanistes " whose sole object is the study of all
things pertaining to ancient American civilization.
That Society, composed of students, spares no efforts
to obtain knowledge respecting the architectm'e, the
sciences, the arts, the language, and the civiHzation
of the people who inhabited, in remote ages, the
various countries of this Western continent. A
premium of 25,000 francs lias been offered for the
discovery of an alphabet or key to the inscriptions
carved on the walls of the monuments in Yucatan
and Central America. M. Desire Charnay has been
sent to obtain molds of the sculptures and other
precious relics that he hidden and lost in the recesses
of the Central American forests. Casts have been
made from such squeezes as he obtained. These
casts adorn the Trocadero Museum at Paris, dupli-
cates of the same having been presented to the
Smithsonian Institute at Washington by Mr. Pierre
Lorillard of New York. This gentleman is the only
American who has ever contributed with his wealth
and influence (he has spent 25,000 dollars) in expedi-
tions for the recovery of facts and objects that may
throw light on the ancient history of America.

Then again we have in Europe the international

vm PREFACE.

"Congres des Americanistes " that convenes every
four years in one of the capitals of Europe for the
purpose of collecting all new data, obtained in the in-
terval, concerning ancient American civilization.

In England, at Cambridge, there is in the Univer-
sity a large building especially dedicated to Central
American archaeology. There are to be seen, as I
am informed by General Sir Henry Lef roy, the casts
and photographs obtained by Mr. Maudslay, a
wealthy gentleman who has devoted his time and
wealth to the work of obtaining facsimiles in
plaster and photographs of the ancient monuments
of Honduras and Guatemala.

But what have we in New York, in the United
States, in fact, to offer to students of American
archaeology ?

True, Mr. George Peabody, among his many bene-
factions, left a sum of money for the foundation of
a museum to be specially dedicated to the collection
of objects pertaining to American archaeology. Such
museum exists at the University of Cambridge,
Massachusetts. It bears his name. Does it contain
anything that may throw light on the history of the
ancient inhabitants of this Western Continent? I
once wrote to an influential gentlemen connected
with the University asking him to propose to the
trustees the purchase of a copy of my collections of
casts and mural paintings. His answer dated July

PREFACE. IX

23d, 188^, was; "I will send your letter to one of
*Hhe trustees, enjoining him to accept its offer, but
" I fear they will treat that proposal as they have so
" many others and say no ! The collection of trac-
"ings they ought to secure. The time has come
*' when such things should be got at any cost. We
"shaU soon be as they are in India, hunting
*' everywhere for things which were easily to be
" had a few years ago."

My correspondent has visited the ruined cities of
Yucatan; he knows the value of my collections.

I have done all in my power to caU the attention
of American scientists, of the men of leisure and
money, to the fact that in New York perfect fac-
similes of the palaces and temples of the Mayas could
be erected in Central Park, both as ornament to the
place, and object of study for the lovers of American
archaeology who may not have the means, nor the
time, nor the desire, to run the risk of submitting
to the privations and hardships that those who wish
to visit the ruined cities, must inevitably encounter.

But alas ! aU in vain.

Three years ago I had casts made from some of the
stereotyped moulds made by me of the sculptures at
Uxmal and offered them for exhibition in the Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art in Central Park. They
have been placed in the cellar, out of the way, *' for
want of space against the wall." The public has

X PREFACE.

never seen them. I once remonstrated with one of
the trustees, and proposed to sell to the museum a
copy of the collection of fresco paintings from
Chichen Itza, last remnants of ancient American art.
The answer of the gentleman was "No! those things
are not appreciated, they are looked upon as of no
value." Nevertheless, some of the illustrations in
this book are photographs of the same despised casts
and mural paintings.

During the last lecturing season I offered to sev-
eral literary, scientific and historical societies, to
give lectures illustrated with views made by us of
the monuments, and enlarged with the stereopticon.
In every instance I received the same answer.
"Our people are not interested in such a subject."
What ! Americans not interested in American
antiquities! in ancient American history! in ancient
American civiUzation!

Desiring to make the subject known before the
lecture season was over, en desespoir de cause, I
asked Dr. John Stoughton Newbury, of the School
of Mines at Columbia College, if he could give me a
chance to present the subject before the members of
the New York Academy of Science. I had no hope
of a favorable answer; but to my great surprise Pro-
fessor Newbury received my offer enthusiastically.
Mrs. Le Plongeon lectm-ed on the monuments of
Yucatan on the 2nd of March last, at Columbia Col-

PREFACE. Xl

lege. Let the ladies and gentlemen who were pres-
ent say if the facts and views presented to them
were of sufficient interest to command their attention.
A lady, Mrs. Francis B. Arnold, residing at 21 West
12th Street, New York, was so pleased that she
asked Mrs. Le Plongeon to lecture at her own house
to a select party of friends. Let again the ladies and
gentlemen who were present at Mrs. Arnold's liouse,
say if there is nothing worth seeing and studying in
the remains of ancient American civilization.

Let Mrs. Arnold and Dr. Newbury accept our
heartfelt-thanks for affording us an opportunity of
presenting ancient America to a few appreciative
minds, if no more.

Mrs. Le Plongeon and I have written two works
on Yucatan. One is: "Monuments of Mayax, and
their historical teachings," The other: "Yucatan,
its ancient palaces and modern cities; Ufe and cus-
toms of the Aborigines." We have offered them to
several publishing houses, but the same answer has
been given by aU. " There is no money in the pub-
lication of such books; American readers do not care
for this subject."

Notwithstanding such rebuffs, I made up my mind
to present to American readers some of the historical
facts that have been brought to light by deciphering
the bas-rehefs and mural inscriptions, by means of
the ancient hieratic Maya alphabet discovered by me.

PREFACE.

Ancient Maya Hieratic alphabet ac-
cording to mural inscriptions.

Egyptian Hieratic alphabet ac-
cording to Messrs. Champollion le
Jeune and Bunsen.

O. A. O.

i^. 1. ^.

ea.a

B.S. □.

\i^. ^ o.

H
1

}. w r

K. <^.<^.G^,<S.

J. c4.C^.(?.

Sv.-^:^

©./..

©./Z.n/.

n- =-oi-

d^.cs.fli.ca

•

/vw CNO- 9.

A^V^-— •

<^-

M. n. 8.'

B.O.

88.(1.

D-Ei.

T. O.Zik.

A.C^.^.

^=>.

<*) . <^.<^>o.

X. a. .

/. k

/. XW.III.

^-— — • NwiWv •

[eJ:*^.

ffa.c?.

r^.C

i^~ HH»

i7 .

If the perusal of this book fails to awaken in this
country an interest in ancient American civilization
and history, then I will foUow the advice said to
have been given by Jesus of Nazareth to his dis-
ciples when sending them on their mission of
spreading the gospel among the nations: "And
"whomsoever shall not receive you, nor hear you,
"when ye depart thence, shake off the >iust under

PREFACE. XUl

"your feet. . ." St. Mark, chap, vi., verse 11 — for
I shall consider it useless to spend more time, labor,
and money on the subject in the United States, re-
membering the fate of Professor Morse, when he
asked Congress for permission to introduce his elec-
tric telegraph in this country.

In this small book (which two of the most prom-
inent firms in New York have positively refused to
pubhsh behoving it to be a bad speculation), I pre-
sent 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
learned men and historians. It is for you. Reader,
to judge if they are worthy your consideration.

ILLUSTRATIOI^S.*

Symbolical stone found in the Mausoleum of high

pontiff Cay at Chichen. 19

View of the pyramid called "House of the Dwarf,"

at Uxmal, 34

Ground plan of the Sanctuary, 85

Ground plan of the Temple of Mysteries, . . . 86

Part of cornice surrounding the Sanctuary, ... 39

Cross bones and skeletons carved on the cornice of the

Sanctuary, 89

Part of a statue with apron on which is sculptured the

image of an extended hand. (From Uxmal.) . . 40

Symbolical slab with title of the high pontiff, . . 45

Symbols from the turret dedicated to the high pontiff

Cay in the palace of King Can, at Uxmal, . . 65

Tableau of the creation, from the east facade of the

palace at Chichen-Itza, 72

Prince Coh in battle (from mural paintings at Chichen-
Itza), 78

Prince Coh's body laid out for cremation (from mural

paintings at Chichen-Itza), 80

Slab from Prince Coh's Mausoleum, at Chichen, leop-
ard eating the heart of his enemies, .... 85

Dying leopard with human head, from Prince Coh's

Mausoleum at Chichen-Itza, 86

Priest of Osiris making an offering (from the tombs of

Thebes), 86

rvi ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAQB

Statue of Prince Coh, found in his Mausoleum at
Chichen-Itza, now in the National Museum in the

City of Mexico, 87

Slab from Prince Coh's Mausoleum at Chichen, repre-
senting Queen Moo, under the figure of a macaw,
eating the heart of her enemies, .... 88
Tableau of the Mastodon worship, at Chichen, . . 93
Sculptures on monolith gate at Tiahuanuco (Peru),
from a model in the museum of the Long Island
Historical Society in Brooklyn, .... 102
Small terra cotta heads from British Honduras, . . 104
Symbols of lower Egypt (from Sir Gardner Wilkin-
son's works on Egypt), 115

PlateXVII, partll. ofTroanoM.S., . . . .116

Plate XXV. part II. of Troano M.S., head dress of

mother Earth, 118

Bas-reliefs from small room at the foot of Prince Coh's

monument at Chichen-Itza, .... 118, 119

Maps of the Maya Empire, 120

Yaxche, sacred tree of the Mayas, 124

Plate VI., part II. of Troano M.S., .... 126

Worship of sacred tree (Papaya) from a Mexican M.S.,

in the library of the British Museum, . . . 134
Plate XXIV., part I., Troano M.S., . . . .137
Sons of King Can, represented under the symbol of
deer-heads, totem of the country, plate XVI, part
II. of Troano, M.S., 139

* From drawings and pbotographs made by the author, and engraved by A. F.
Bingler & Co., New York City.

SACRED MYSTERIES

AMONG

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES.

THERE are authors who attribute the origm
of modern Free Masonry to the followers of
Pythagoras, because some of the specula-
tions of that Philosopher concerning the meaning
of the numbers are to be found in the esoteric
doctrines taught in the masonic lodges. Others,
on account of the Christian symbols that have
been incorporated in the decoration of things
pertaining to Masonry, following the Swedish sys-
tem, say that the Essenes and first Christians founded
it. Others, again, make it originate in the building
of Solomon's temple, many Jewish names, emblems
and legends, taken from the Bible, having found
their way into the rites of initiation to several de-
grees. Others, still, make it go back to Adam. Ask
them why — they do not know. While not a
few, and I among them, earnestly beheve that
Masonry existed before Adam was created. I

ft SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

believe it, because I am convinced that this pre-
tended ancestor of man is a myth and has never
existed. Thomas Payne and those of his school say
that the Druids were the fathers of the craft; they
being worshipers of the sun, moon and stars : and
these jewels of the firmament being represented on
the ceilings of the M. ' . lodges. Dance of Villoison
speaks of Herculaneum as its birth place, because of
the many similarities that existed between the col-
legia of the Eomans and the lodges of the operative
Masons of the middle ages. Michael Andrew Ram-
say, a Scotch gentleman, in a discourse dehvered in
Paris in 1740, suggested the possibihty of the fra-
ternity having its origin, in the time of the crusades,
among the Knight Templars, and he explains it in
this way : —

The Pope, Clement V., and PhiUippe-le-bel, King
of France, fearing the power of the Templars and
coveting their immense wealth, resolved to destroy
the Order. When, in 1308, Jacques de Molay, then
Grand Master of the Order, was preparing an expe-
dition to avenge the wrongs and disasters suffered
by the Christians in the East, the Pope, who was the
only power to which, in the spiritual, the Templars
owed allegiance, enticed him to France.

On his arrival he was received with every mark of
friendship: but, soon after, the King caused him to be
arrested together with some of the other dignitaries,

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 6

accusing them of the most heinous crimes, imputing
to them the secret rites of their initiation. By order
of the Archbishop of Sens and his provincial coun-
cil, Jacques de Molay, Guy of Auvergne and several
other officers of the Order were burned alive on
March 18, 1314.

The Pope, by a bull dated on the 2d of April, and
pubUshed on the 2d of May 1312, that he issued on
his own responsibility, the Council of Vienne, in
Dauphine, being adverse to hasty measures, declared
the Order abohshed throughout the world. The ex-
ecution of the Grand Master and his companions
gave the coup de grace to the Order. Some of the
Knights who had escaped to Portugal continued the
Order. They assumed the title of Knights of Christ,
which it bears to this day; but it never recovered its
former prestige and power.

Jacques de Molay before dying had appointed
Johan Marcus Larmenio as his successor to the office
of Grand Master. The Knights who, fleeing from
the persecution, had taken refuge in Scotland at the
Court of King Robert Bruce, refused to recognize his
authority; and pretending to reestablish the Order
of the Temple, imder the allegory and title of Archi-
tects, protected by the King, laid the foundation of
the Order of Free and Accepted Masons of the Scot-
tish Rite in 1314.

This new society soon forgot the meaning of the

4 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

execratory oath that the members were obKged to
take at their initiation ; the death of Clement V.,
of PhiUippe-le-bel, of the accusers and enemies of
Jacques de Molay and the other Knights who had been
executed, having removed the object of their ven-
geance. Still they continued to decorate their lodges
with tokens commemorative of the death of the
Grand Master, to impose on all new members the
obligation of avenging it, which they signified by
striking with an unsheathed dagger at unseen beings,
his supposed murderers, although all their efforts
were now directed to the restoration of the honor
of their association. This allegory is well-known
to the Knights of Kadosh. A century had scarcely
elapsed when this idea also was abandoned, the
founders and their disciples having passed away.
Their successors saw only allegories in the symbols
of the Order, and the extensive use of words and
texts from the Bible was then introduced. Of their
work but httle is positively known until the reign of
Charles I. of England, when their mysterious initia-
tions began to attract attention.

The enemies of Cromwell and of the Republic,
having in view the reestabhshment of the monarchy,
created the degree of Grand Master to prepare the
minds of the Masons for that event. King Wil-
Uam III. was initiated. Masonry, says Preston, was
very much neglected as early as the reign of James

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 6

II., and even after this period it made but slow prog-
ress until 1714, when King George I. ascended the
throne.

Three years later, in February 171 Y, the first Grand
Lodge was estabUshed in London. A committee
from the four lodges then existing in that city met
at the tavern of the "Apple Tree " and nominated
Anthony Sayer, who was elected Grand Master on
the 24th of the following June, day of St. John the
Baptist, that for this reason was selected as patron
of the Order.

This origin of the craft is credited by many of the
best authorities on the subject. They found their
opinion on the fact that many of the ceremonies
practiced by the Architects are still observed among
the Masons ; and that the Grand Lodge preserved,
with the spirit of the ancient brotherhood, its fun-
damental laws. There are others, however, who
likewise claim to be well informed, that pretend it
did not originate in any order of chivalry, but in
the building fraternities of the Middle Ages.

Be the origin what it may, the fact is that after
the establishment of the Grand Lodge at "Apple
Tree Tavern," Masonry spread over Europe at a
rapid rate, notwithstanding the bitter opposition of
the Church of Kome that fulminated against it its
most terrible anathemas as early as 1738 at the in-
stigation of the Liquisition. Pope Clement XII., on

6 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

the 28th of April of that year, caused a prohibitory
bull to be issued against Free Masonry, entitled In
Eminenti, in which he excommunicated all Masons;
and the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, by edict in the
name of the High Priest of the God of Peace and
Mercy, decreed the penalty of death against them in
1Y39 ; and on May 18 1751, Pope Benoit XIV. re-
newed the bull of Clement XII. by another beginning
with these words: Providas Romanorum Pontificum.

The Order was introduced in France in 1725, and
on the 14th of September 1732, all Masonic Asso-
ciations were prohibited by a decree of the Chamber
of Pohce of the Chatelet of Paris.

In 1727, Lord Coleraine founded a lodge in Gib-
raltar, and in the succeeding year in Madrid, the
capital of Spain, the strong-hold of the Inquisition.

But in 1740, in consequence of the bull of Clement
XII., King PhiUp V., of Spain, promulgated an ordi-
nance against the Masons in his kingdom, many of
whom were arrested and sent to the galleys. The
Inquisitors took advantage of the opportunity to
persecute the members of a lodge they discovered
in Madrid. They caused them to be loaded with
chains, to be obHged to row in the galleys without
other retribution than scanty rations of victuals of
the poorest quahty, but an abundant supply of bas-
tinado. Fernando VI. renewed the ordinance on
July 2 1751, making Masonry high treason.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 7

The brotherhood made its appearance in Ireland
in 1730. It is not positively known if it existed in
the country before that time.

In 1732 it crossed the Atlantic and was imported
in America. In that year a lodge was held in " Tun
tavern " in Philadelphia, the B, *. having previously
met in Boston, which may be regarded as the birth-
place of American Free Masonry. Henry Price was
the first provincial Grand Master appointed by the
Grand Lodge of England on April 30th, 1733.

The same year witnessed its estabhshment in va-
rious cities of Italy. In 1735, the Grand Duke Fran-
cis of Lorraine was initiated. He protected the
Masons, and the craft flourished in Italy until 1737,
when Juan Gaston of Medicis, Grand Duke of Tus-
cany, issued a decree of prohibition against it. Soon
after his death, which occurred the same year, the
lodges which had been closed were reopened. It was
not long, however, before they were denounced to the
Pope Clement XII., who issued his buU of 28th of
April 1738, and sent an inquisitor to Florence who
caused various members of the society to be cast into
dungeons. They were set at Hberty as soon as
Francis of Lorraine became Grand Duke of Tuscany.
He not only protected the Masons, but founded lodges
in Florence and other places in his estates.

In 1735 a lodge was estabhshed in Lisbon the
capital of Portugal. It wiU be remembered that

8 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

some of the Knights Templars, under the title of
"Knights of Christ," had kept aUve the ancient
order in that comitry in defiance of the Pope's
thunderbolts.

Among the Masons initiated in England were
a great many Germans as early as 1730. These seem
to have met occasionally in traveling in Germany,
or to have corresponded with each other; but no
lodge is known to have existed previous to the year
1737, when one without name was estabhshed in
Hamburg, although Grand Master Lord Strathmore
had authorized in 1733, eleven gentlemen and Broth-
ers to open one.

In 1740, B. Puttman, of the Hamburg lodge, re-
ceived a patent of Provincial Grand Master from
England, and the lodge assumed the title of Absa-
lom.

King Frederick II., denominated the Great, whilst
still Crown Prince, had been initiated; and from the
time of his initiation took great interest in the wel-
fare of the brotherhood. Crowned King of Prussia,
he continued to give it his support, assuming the
title of ^^ Great master universal, and Conservator of
the most ancient and most respectable association of
ancient free masons or architects of Scotland. " Ma-
sonry enjoyed under his reign such consideration,
that many German princes, following his example,
were initiated; and so many of the nobihty joined

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 9

the society, that to belong to it came to be regarded
as a mark of nobility and high breeding.

Notwithstanding his multifarious State duties, and
the many wars that took place during his reign, which
demanded his constant attention, he found time to
frame a constitution to cement together again the
Order that at one time, owing to external persecu-
tions on the one hand, to internal dissensions, suscita-
ted by the incorporation to it of the Eosicrucians and
still more that of the Illuminati, on the other seemed
on the eve of falling asunder. That constitution,
signed by him in his palace at Berhn, on the 1st of
May 1Y86, savedFree Masonry from annihilation in
Germany for many regarding it with suspicion at-
tacked and persecuted it: the Catholics because it
came from Protestant England; the Protestant
clergy looked upon it as hostile to Christianity, be-
cause of the teachings and symbols altogether Catho-
lic of the 18th degree, those of Rosa Cruz, whose
motto "we have the happiness of being in the paci-
fic unity of the sacred numbers," and "in the name
of the holy and indivisible Trinity," bespeaks its
Jesuit origin. The people believed in the accusation
of witchcraft and sorcery, made against it by its
enemies, because of the vail of secrecy thrown over
their meetings.

Authors have endeavored to show that modem
free-masonry is not derived from the mysteries

10 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

of the ancients. J. G. Findel, an advocate of
this opinion, says: "Seeing that the ancient sym-
boHcal marks and ceremonials in the lodges bear
a very striking resemblance to those of the mysteries
of the ancients some have allowed themselves to
be deceived, and led others astray imagining they
can trace back the history of the craft into the
cloudy mists of antiquity. Instead of endeavoring
to ascertain how and when these ceremonies were
introduced into our present system, they have taken
it for granted that they were derived from the
rehgious mysteries of the ancients."

Now, if we merely consider the tokens of recogni-
tion, the pass words and secret words, the decora-
tions of the lodges, according to the degrees into
which modern Masonry is divided, tokens, words
and decorations nearly all taken from the Bible and
symboUcal of events, real or imaginary, some of
which are said to have taken place in comparatively
modern times, after the decline and final discontin-
uance of the ancient mysteries in consequence of
the spread of Christianity; others having occurred
in the early days of the Christian era; others at the
time of the building of Solomon's Temple, all of which
had certainly nothing to do with the rehgious mys-
teries of Egypt, Chaldea, Greece, Etruria, etc., that
were instituted ages before the pretended occurrence
of those events, then we may positively affirm that

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 11

it is not derived from these. But if, on the other
hand, we obsei've, and it is difficult to overlook
it, that these symbols are precisely the same that
we find in the temples of Egypt, Chaldea, India,
and Central America, whatever may have been the
esoteric meaning given to them by the initiated
of those countries, we are bound to admit that a
link exists between the ancient mysteries and Free
Masoruy. It is for us to try to discover when that
link was riveted and by whom.

If the theory of Chevaher Ramsay be true, that
is, if modern Masonry had its beginning in the
Society of Architects founded in Scotland under the
protection of King Robert Bruce, and the title of
"Ancient and Accepted Masons of the Scottish rite, "
seems to favor that opinion, then we may trace its
origin to the order of Knight Templars; and through
them to the ancient mysteries practiced in the East
from times immemorial. It is well known that one
of the charges made against Jacques de Molay and
his associates by their accusers was that they used
secret rites in their initiations. Their four oaths
were weU known; but not their rites of initiation.
What were they ?

We are told that the aim of the Society of Archi-
tects was to perpetuate the ancient Order of the
Temple. It is therefore to be presumed that they
continued to observe the rites and ceremonies prac-

12 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

ticed in the chapters of the Templars, to use them at
the initiations of members into the new Society, to
whom they communicated the intimate meaning of
their symbols. Were these rites analogous to those
observed in the initiations to the symbohcal degrees ?
These degrees were, it must be remembered, the only
ones originally recognized by the brotherhood; as
there are but three in the Society of Jesus; the Neo-
phites — the Coadjutors — and the Profess; as there
were anciently among the priests of the temples of
Egypt, who indeed considered it a great honor to be
judged worthy of admission to the third degree; that
is, to participation in the greater mysteries. Was
their explanation of the symbols similar to that
taught in M. • . lodges ? The Templars were accused,
as Masons are to day, by the Romish Church, since
it has lost its hold and influence on the association,
of the crime of heresy, and many Masons have
suffered death by being burnt alive as heretics.

From whom did the Templars receive those sym-
bols, and their esoteric meaning, in which we plainly
trace the doctrine of Pythagoras ? No doubt from
the Christians who, like the Emperor JuUan, the
Bishop Synnesius, Clement of Alexandria and
many other pagan philosophers, who had been in-
itiated to the mysteries by the priests of Egypt, be-
fore being converted to Christianity. In that case
the connection of modern Masonry with the ancient

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 13

religious mysteries of Egypt, consequently with
those of Greece and Samothracia is easily traced;
and the resemblance of the symboUcal marks and
ceremonials of M. • . lodges with those of the mys-
teries naturally accounted for. Thus it is that many
masonic authors may have been led to trace the
origin of the craft to followers of Pythagoras; and
others to the Essenes and first Christians.

Krause, in his work, has endeavored to prove
that Masonry originated in the associations of opera-
tive masons that in the Middle Ages travelled
through Europe, and by whom the cathedrals,
monasteries, and castles were built; whose funda-
mental laws, traditions, customs and tools are now
used in the lodges in a figurative sense.

These associations may have sprung from the
building corporations of the Romans: if so, we have
a connecting link between the lodges of the Middle
Ages and the mysteries of the ancients. The initiates
of the architectural collegia of the Romans did not
call themselves Brothers; this is a title that came
into use only when the Christian Masonic fraterni-
ties adopted it. They styled themselves Collega or
Incorporatus.

They worked in buildings apart or in secluded
rooms; and the constitution of M." . lodges, so far as
the officers, their titles and duties, and the symbols
are concerned, is so similar to theirs that one might

14 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

be inclined to believe that the early Masons imitated
the Eoman collegia.

This theory is not without semblance of plausi-
bility. Eome, during several centuries, held sway
over Gaul and Britain. Eoman colonists settled in
various parts of those countries. With their lan-
guage and customs they imported many, of their
institutions and associations. That of the builders or
collegia, as is manifest from the remains still existing
of the magnificent roads and edifices of various kinds
constructed by them. The Collegae held their
lodges wherever they estabhshed themselves; no
doubt initiated new members. In the course of time,
when those countries freed themselves from the yoke
of Eome, these societies of builders became the asso-
ciations of the itinerant operative masons which
inherited the symbols, tokens and pass words of the
Collegae. These, in aU probabihty, had received them,
either from the Chaldean magicians, who flocked to
Eome at the beginning of the Christian era, when
the progress of philosophical incredulity had shaken
the confidence in legal divination; or from some of
the priests of inferior order, all initiated to part of the
lesser mysteries, that, when the sacerdotal class hav-
ing lost in majesty, power and wealth, in order to
preserve whole its numerous hierarchy, repaired to
the Capital of the world to escape misery by levying
contributions on the creduhty and superstition of
the people.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 15

The Christian Church, on the one hand, the Koman
emperors on the other, fearing the influence of those
magicians and priests, persecuted them even to
death. These learned and wise men formed secret
societies to preserve and transmit their knowledge.
These societies lasted during the Middle Ages — the
Eosicrucians, the Theurgists, among them. Leibnitz,
one of the greatest men of science that ever lived,
who died in Hanover, in 1716, at the age of seventy
years, became a member of one of these societies;
and there received an instruction he had vainly
sought elsewhere.

Were their mysterious meetings remnants of the
ancient learned initiations ? Everything tends to
make us suspect it. The trials and examinations to
which those who applied for initiation were obhged
to submit; the nature of the secrets they possessed;
the manner in which they were preserved. In these
again may be found an explanation of why so many
of the Pythagorean doctrines made their way into
Masonry.

Of the ceremonies performed at the initiation into
the mysteries of Egypt we know but little at present,
for the initiated were very careful to conceal these
sacred rites. Herodotus tells that if any person di-
vulged any part of them, he was thought to have
called down Divine judgment upon his head, and it
was accounted unsafe to abide in the same house

16 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

with him. He was even apprehended as a public
offender and put to death.

Still, on reading the visions in the book of Henoch,
and comparing them with what we know of the
trials to which were subjected the apphcants for
initiation into the greater mysteries of Eleusis and
Egypt, and those of Xibalba, one can scarcely refrain
from behoving that, under the title of Visions, the
author relates his experience at the initiation, and
what he learned in the mysteries before being con
verted to Christianity. That book is behoved to have
been written at the beginning of the Christian era,
when, under the yoke of the Roman emperors, the
customs and rehgion of the Egyptians fell into de-
cadency; and the Christian bishops of Alexandria,
such as George, Theophilus, Cyril, the murderer of
the beautiful, learned and noble Hjrpathia, daughter
of the mathematician Theon, persecuted the wor-
shipers of Isis and Osiris, and converted their temples
into Christian churches, after defacing and white-
washing the ancient sculptures that covered their
walls, on which they painted rough images of saints.
It may be that its author, although having embraced
Christianity, still retained in his heart of hearts a
strong love for the ancient institutions that were
fast disappearing in the midst of the political and
rehgious dissensions that were raging at the time.
Fearing lest the learning of the priests of old and the

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 17

knowledge he had acquired by his initiation into the
mysteries should become lost, the dread of death be-
ing removed by the new order of things, he put, for
greater safety, in the mouth of Henoch, as instruct-
ing his son, what he had seen and learned in the
secrecy of the temples.

Let us hope that further discoveries in the ruins
of the temples, or in the tombs, may put into our
possession some papyrus whose contents will throw
hght on the subject, and reveal these secrets. The
masonic objects found under the base of the obelisk,
known as Cleopatra's needle, now in Central
Park, New York, show that many of the symbols
pertaining to the rites of modern Free Masonry,
where used in Egypt by building organizations and
architects at least 1900 years ago. And although I
do not agree with all the conclusions of Dr. Fanton,
notwithstanding they are approved by some of the
high masons at Cairo and Alexandria, I am ready to
recognize many of the emblems, and admit that they
belonged to the mysteries, if their meaning anciently
was not quite the same as we give them to-day.

The reluctance of the Egyptians to admit strangers
to the holy secret of their mysteries was for a very
long time insuperable. However, they seem to have
relaxed at rare intervals, in favor of personages
noted for their wisdom and knowledge. So they
admitted the great philosopher Thales, who went to

18 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

Egypt to learn geometry and astronomy, about 587
years before the Christian era. Eumolpus, king of
Eleusis, who, on returning to his country, instituted
the mysteries of that name in honor of the goddess
Ceres, that presided over the crops and other fruits
of the earth. Orpheus, the celebrated Greek poet,
obtained likewise the honor of the initiation, and
estabHshed the Orphic ceremonies, which, according
to Herodotus, were observed alike by the Egyptians
and the Pythagoreans. It must be remembered that
Pythagoras, after being submitted to extremely se-
vere ordeals, to cause him to desist from his desire of
being initiated, was, on account of his firmness,
granted the privilege of initiation. Many of the rites
and ceremonies were therefore brought from Egypt
to Greece. Speaking of the Thesmophoria festivals in
honor of Ceres, next in importance to the mysteries
of Eleusis, Herodotus says: "These rites were
brought from Egypt into Greece by the daughters
of Danaus, who taught them to the Pelagic women;
but in the course of time they fell into disuse, except
among the Arcadians who continued to preserve
them. The Pelasgians had also initiated the inhab-
itants of Samothracia. They in tm^n taught the
Athenians the mysteries of the ' Cabiri. ' "

From that it results that if we desire to obtain an
insight of the Egyptian mysteries, we must see what
happened at the initiation into those of Greece.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 19

No one could be admitted to the greater unless
they had been purified at the lesser, and one year at
least had elapsed since they had become mystai or
initiated.

The initiation to the greater mysteries when the
Mystai took the degree of Ephoroi, that is Inspector,
by being instructed in the secret rites, except a few
reserved for the priests alone, was as follows:

The candidate, being crowned with myrtle, which
was used instead of the acacia, was admitted by
night into an immense building called the Mystikos
Sekos, that is the "mystical enclosui*e." At their
entrance they purified themselves by washing their
hands in holy water, being at the same time ad-
monished to present themselves vdth minds pure
and undefiled, without which external cleanhness of
the body would by no means be accepted. After
this the holy mysteries were read to them from a
book called Petroma, because the book consisted of
two stones fitly cemented together. I have discov-
ered such stones, last year, in the mausoleum of high
pontiff Cay, in the city of Chichen-Itza, in Yucatan.
The priest who conducted the ceremonies was called
hierophantes. He proposed certain questions, to
which answers were returned in a set form. Then,
strange and amazing objects presented themselves.
Sometimes the place they were in seemed to shake, as
if an earthquake was occurring, or whirl roimd and

20 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

round as if carried away in a tornado. Sometimes it
appeared bathed in bright and resplendent Kght, and
flames seemed to issue from the walls, threatening
to consume the temple; and all of a sudden they
were extinguished by invisible hands, and the most
profound obsciu-ity succeeded to the dazzhng radi-
ance. Flashes of hghtning, at intervals, broke
forth with extreme brilliancy, only to make the dark-
ness more dark, when peal after peal of thmider
caused the building to shake to its very foundations.
These were succeeded by loud cries for help and
laments of persons in great agony; soon to be re-
placed by the most frightful noises and bellowings,
and terrible apparitions. The nerves of the appli-
cants were tried to the utmost, and required to be
stnmg by the most indomitable will and moral as
well as physical courage, to enable them to with-
stand to the last such awful trials.

All the faint hearted were invariably rejected and
refused admission to the next degree, the Epopteia^
or Inspection. Powerful narcotic drugs were ad-
ministered to the timorous, that plunged them into
a deathhke sleep, from which they emerged with
but confused recollections, if not entire f orgetf ulness,
of the terrible scenes they had witnessed, and which
they beheved to be produced by some frightful
dream or dreadful nightmare.

I will now quote from the book of Henoch. Chap.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 21

xiv. ver. 12. — "I saw a spacious habitation built
with stones of crystal. The roof had the appear-
ance of agitating stars and flashes of hghtning.
Flames burnt around its walls, its portals blazed with
fire. This dwelling was hot as fire — cold as ice.'*
Chap. xvii. ver. 1. — " They raised me up into a cer-
tain place where there was the appearance of burning
fire, and when they pleased, they assumed the hke-
ness of men, — (ver. 3) — and I beheld the receptacles
of Hght and of thunder at the extremities of the place.
There was a bow of fire and arrows in their quiver —
a sword of fire and every species of Kghtning."

Chap. xxi. vers. 4. — " Then I passed to another
terrific place — (ver. 5) — where I beheld the opera-
tion of a great fire blazing and ghttering, in the
midst of which there was a division — columns of
fire struggled together to the end of the abyss and
deep was their descent. (Ver 6.) — This was the place
of suffering."

Those who resisted to the last the trials of the
Autopsia, as the initiation was called, were then dis-
missed with these three words : Kon-x Om Pan-x,
which, strange to say, have no meaning in the Greek
language. Captain Wilford, in his Essay on Egypt,
says they correspond to the words Cansha Om Pan-
sha, which the Brahmins pronounce every day to an-
nounce to the devotees that the religious ceremonies
are over. They have been translated, " retire, O re-

23 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

tire, profane ! " Corresponding to the ite missa est
of the CathoHc Church.

These words are not Sanscrit, but Maya. ^^ Con-ex
OmonPanex,^^ go, stranger, scatter ! are vocables, of
the language of the ancient inhabitants of Yucatan,
still spoken by their descendants, the aborigines
of that country. They were probably used by the
priests of the temples, whose sumptuous and awe-
inspiring ruins I have studied during fourteen years,
to dismiss the members of their mystic societies,
among which we find the same symbols that are
seen even to-day in the temples of Egypt as in the
M.*. lodges.

I will endeavor to show you that the ancient
sacred mysteries, the origin of Free Masonry conse-
quently, date back from a period far more remote
than the most sanguine students of its history
ever imagined. 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 rites and ceremonies, not only
to the banks of the Nile, but to those of the Eu-
phrates, and the shores of the Indian Ocean, not less
than 11,500 years ago.

But let us return to the mysteries of Eleusis. In
the trials to which the Mystai were subjected to try
their fitness to become Ephoroi, Masons no doubt
recognize several of the ceremonies that took place

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 33

at their initiation into the craft. If Free Ma-
sonry had not its origin in the ancient Sacred Mys-
teries, how could these rites have found their way
into it ?

The Ephoroi were now prepared for the third
degree, the Epopteia — the most sacred of all. In this
the Epoptai or "Inspectors of themselves" were
placed in presence of the gods, who were supposed
to appear to the initiated. Proclus, a philosopher,
disciple of the divine Plato, in his comjnentaries on
the RepubHc of his master, says: " In all initiations
and mysteries, the gods exhibit themselves under
many forms, and appear in a variety of shapes.
Sometimes their unfigured Hght is held forth to
view. Sometimes this hght appears under a human
form, and sometimes it assumes a different shape."
And again, in his commentaries on the first Alci-
biades: " In the most holy of the mysteries, before
the god appears, the impulsions of certain terrestrial
demons become visible, allming the initiated from
undefiled good to matter." Then all the seductions
that human mind can imagine to excite the passions
were placed within the grasp of those who aspired
to become Epoptai. They were invited to freely
give way to voluptuousness, to the enjoyment of all
kind of mundane pleasures, before they renounced
them forever. Nothing that could possibly entice
apphcants to fall from their state of moral and physi-

24 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

cal purity was omitted; all that could be done to
induce them to yield to temptation was resorted to.
If in a moment of weakness they allowed their
senses to obtain the mastery over their reason, woe
to them ! for before they could reaUze their position,
before they had time to recall their scattered
thoughts, the bright surroimdings disappeared as
by magic; they were plunged in the most dense ob-
scurity; the ground gave way under their feet; and
they were precipitated into a deep abyss, from
which if they escaped with their hfe, they never did
with their reason,

Theon of Smyrna, in his work Matematica, di-
vides the mysteries into five parts.

1. The purification.

2. The reception of sacred rites.

3. The Epopteia, or reception.

4. End and design of the revelation, the building
of the head and fixing of the crowns.

5. The friendship and interior communion with
God, the last and most awful of all the mysteries.

It is supposed the prophet Ezekiel alludes to
these initiations, when he speaks of the abomina-
tions committed by the idolatrous ancients of the
house of Israel in the dark, every man in the cham-
bers of its imagery.

Here again, I wiU quote from the book of Henoch:
Chap. xxii. — " From thence I proceeded to another

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 25

spot where I saw on the West a great and lofty
mountain, a strong rock and four delightful places."

Chap. xiv. ver. 14. — "Then I went to another
habitation more spacious than the former. Every
entrance which was opened before me was erected
in the midst of a vibrating flame. Ver. 18. — Its
floor was on fire, above were Mghtning and agitated
stars, whilst its roof exhibited a blazing fire. Ver.
21. — One of great glory sat upon the orb of the
briUiant sun. Ver. 24. — A fire of great extent con-
tinued to rise up before him."

It is said that the ordeal through which the candi-
dates were obliged to pass previous to admission into
the Egyptian mysteries, were even more severe,
and that Pythagoras, wise philosopher as he was,
had a narrow escape from it.

The priests alone could arrive at a thorough under-
standing of the mysteries. So sacred were their
secrets held that many of the members of the
sacerdotal order, even, were not admitted to a par-
ticipation of them; but those alone who proved
themselves deserving of the honor; since Clement of
Alexandria, tells us: "the Egyptians neither en-
trusted their mysteries to every one, nor degraded
the secrets of divine matters by disclosing them to
the profane, reserving them for the heir apparent
to the throne, and for such of the priests as excelled
in virtue and wisdom."

26 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

From all we can learn on the subject, the mys-
teries consisted of two kinds, the greater and the
lesser, divided into many classes. The candidate
for initiation had to be pure, his character without
blemish. He was commanded to study such lessons
as tended to purify the mind. Great was the honor
of ascending to the greater mysteries and it was diffi-
cult to attain to it. An inscription of a high priest
at Memphis, says Mr. Samuel Birch, states: "That
he knew the arrangements of the Earth, and those
of HeHopolis and Memphis; that he had penetrated
the mysteries of every sanctuary; that nothing was
concealed from him; that he adored God and glorified
Him in all His works, and that he hid in his breast
all that he had seen." Had he not kept his secrets
so carefully concealed, no doubt he would have told
us that at one of the initiations the figure of the
god Osiris, in whose honor the mysteries were cele-
brated, and whose name the initiates did not dare
pronounce, appeared to the candidate, as it did at
HeHopolis to Pianchi, king of Ethiopia.

At a later period, when the ancient customs had
become relaxed owing to the invasion of the coun-
try by foreigners and to the government passing
from the hands of native rulers to those of Persian,
of Greek or Eoman governors, many, besides the
priests, came to be admitted to the lesser mysteries.
But all had to pass through the different grades and

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 27

conform to the prescribed rules, as in the case of
Thales, Eumolpus, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato,
Herodotus and others.

I will not here describe at length the initia-
tions to the mysteries in honor of the Sun God,
Mithra, instituted by Zoroaster, but only state that
Porphyrins, on the testimony of Eubulus, says that
this philosopher and reformer having selected a
cavern in a pleasant locahty in some mountains
near Persia, dedicated it to Mithra, the Sun, creator
and father of all beings; that he divided it into
geometrical figures intended to represent the chmates
and elements; in a word that he imitated in a small
way the order and disposition of the universe by
Mithra. After him, it became customary to conse-
crate caverns for the celebration of mysteries; as we
see yet in Japan and India.

The candidates for initiation to the Mithra mys-
teries were submitted to the most awful trials —
among which one was to try the docihty and cour-
age of the apphcant. He was ordered by the priest
to kill a man. According to Plutarch, in his Hfe of
Pompeius, these mysteries were brought to the
Occident by CiKcian pirates about sixty-eight years
before the Christian era. They were weU received
by the Greco-Latin world, and the initiated were
soon to be counted by thousands. In the time
of the Emperor Adrian, the mysteries of Mithra had

28 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

become so popular that Pallas, a Greek writer, com-
posed a poem on the subject, that Porphyrius has
preserved in a special treatise on the abstinence from
the use of animal flesh.

The mysterious initiations vividly impressed the
imagination, as at times and by way of expiation,
human victims were offered and immolated. The
ceremonies of the priests consisted, says Origenes,
in imitating the motions of the celestial bodies,
those of the planets, in fact of the heavens. The
Initiated took the names of the constellations and
dressed themselves as animals. A theology purely
astronomical was taught in these mysteries, in
which they used the purification by water in honor
of the goddess Ardvi goura andhita, "She of the
celestial waters;" the confession of sins; and a sort
of eucharist, or offering of bread, still observed by
the Parsis or fire worshippers in India. It may be
said that during the last years of the Roman Empire,
the rehgion of Mithra had become the state rehgion.
It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, if it extended
to the Roman provinces of Gaul and Britain, and if
some of its rites have found their way into Free
Masonry, and are practised to the present day; thus
again relating it with very ancient sacred mysteries,
estabhshed by Zoroaster, the author of the Zend-
Avesta at least 1,100 years before Christ, although
Hermippus, the Greek translator of his work, places
him. 5, 000 years before the taking of Troy.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 29

If we go to Hindostan, there we will learn of a
secret society of wise and learned men, whose ob-
ject is the study of philosophy in all its branches,
but particularly the spiritual development of man.
The leading fraternity is established in Thibet; and
the high pontiff and other dignitaries of the Lama
reHgion belong to it. They are known throughout
India by the name of Mahatmas or Brothers. To
obtain this title it is necessary to suffer a long and
weary probation, and pass through ordeals of terri-
ble severity. Many of the Chelas, as the aspirants
are called, have spent twenty, even thirty years of
blameless and arduous devotion to their task, and
stiU they are in the earher degrees, looking forward
to the happy day when they may be judged worthy
to have the title of Brother conferred upon them.

These Mahatmas are the successors of those secret
societies of learned Brahmins, so celebrated for their
wisdom, from very remote ages, in India; and of
whose colleges or lodges, always built on the summit
of high mounds, either natural or artificial, Alexan-
der, the Great, when he achieved the conquest of that
country, was never able to take possession. Philo-
stratus informs us, that their mode of defense consist-
ed in surrounding themselves with clouds, by means
of which they could at will render themselves visible
or not, and hurling from their midst tempests and
thunder on their enemies. Evidently in those early

30 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

times they had discovered gunpowder, or some
other explosives of Hke uature, and made use of
them to explode mines and destroy their assailants.
These same Brahmins claimed to have been the
teachers of the Egyptians, who, according to that,
would have received their civihzation and scientific
knowledge from them, as also did the Chaldeans.
It is well known that the Magi were strangers who
came to Babylon, possessors, says the prophet Dan-
iel, not only of a special learning, but of a peculiar
tongue. They formed a powerful society into which,
at the beginning, none but those of their own people
were admitted, as their science was both exclusive
and hereditary, A certain rehgious character was
attached to the whole body; every priest must be a
Chaldean, but every Chaldean was not a priest. They
passed their whole Uves in meditating questions of
philosophy. Astronomy was their favorite study;
but they acquired great reputation for their astrol-
ogy. They were versed in the arts of prophesying,
of explaining dreams and prodigies, and the omens
furnished by the entrails of victims offered in sacri-
fice. The parents taught the children. At their head
was a high pontiff with the title of Rab-mag, Vener-
able, or according to its meaning in the Maya lan-
guage, J/a6-mac, '^ the old man.'''' At Babylon they
were the ruling order, the advisers of the King.
Nothing is known to-day of their rites of initiation;

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 31

but they must have been very similar to those of
the Egyptians, since the civihzation of Chaldea and
that of Egypt were twin sisters; offspring from
the same parents.

I have endeavored in a cursory manner to show
that the ancient sacred mysteries were estabhshed
for the same purpose in every civihzed nation of
antiquity, that is for the cultivation of science; the
acquirement of knowledge; the bettering of man's
moral and physical nature; the development of his
intellectual and mental faculties; the understanding
and study of the laws that govern the material and
spiritual world, thus bringing him into closer con-
tact with Deity. They kept their learning and dis-
coveries a profound secret, surrounding them with
mysterious allegories, and enigmatical symbols, for,
as says Strabo: "to surround the things that are
holy with a mysterious obscurity is to make Divinity
venerable, is to imitate its nature that escapes man's
senses," or, as Gregory of Nazianze, wrote to Jerome:
"the less ignorant men understand the more they
admire," and as the priests of to-day, in fact of all
times, of aU reUgions, they wished to be regarded
by the masses as dispensers of the god's favors, as
mediators between the Deity and man.

This similarity of the rites practiced in the initia-
tions, the identity of symbols, proves that these rites
and symbols had been commimicated from one to an-

32 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

other, just as in modern Free Masonry the initiations
are the same in the lodges, the world over, having
been carried to the most distant lands, by travelers,
colonists or missionaries, from the fountain head, the
Grand Lodge of England.

But with respect to the ancient Sacred Mysteries,
the query arises as to where they originated. We
know that from Egypt and Chaldea they were
brought to Greece and Rome. From whom did
the Egyptians and Chaldeans receive them? The
Brahmins asserted that the Magi and the Hiero-
phants were their disciples.

Admitting this assertion to be true, may we not
ask, from whom did the Brahmins learn them ? No
doubt, if we question them on the subject, they will
answer that they are the originators of these mys-
tic rites, and secret societies of learned men; and
with difficulty we could gainsay their assertion,
were it not that Plutarch and other Greek writers,
who have described the Eleusinian mysteries, have
taken care to preserve the words used at the closing
of the ceremonies by the officiating priest; and also
made known to us the name and shape they gave
to their place of meeting.

It is well known that the Brahmins, in many of
their religious ceremonies, make use of words that
are not Sanscrit, but are said to belong to a very
ancient form of speech — now dead — the Akkadian,

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 33

spoken by the inhabitants of the countries situated
along the banks of the Euphrates, near its mouth.
Strange as it may appear, this language presents
many affinities with the Maya, which is still the ver-
nacular of the aborigines of Yucatan and other
coimtries south of the Peninsula. The fact is that
the words con-x — om — pan-x, mean nothing in
Greek, but, as we have said, are pure Maya vocables,
that have the same meaning as that given to can-
sha — om — Pansha by Captain Wilford.

That is not aU, We are also told that the place or
temple where the initiated assembled to perform
their ceremonies, had the form of a rectangle, i f
and that it represented the "Universe." Modern
Masons have wrongly translated that idea by the
Sanscrit word loga, from which the word lodge has
been derived, and the form of M. * . lodges adopted.

The shape of the temples was that of the Egyptian
letter if called "ma", a word that also means place,
country and, by extension, the Universe. The Egyp-
tians adopted it, therefore, not because they believed,
as Dr. Fanton suggests, that the earth was square or
oblong, for they knew full well it was spherical, but
because the sign of the word ma , conveyed to their
mind the idea of the Earth, as the word earth repre-
sents it to ours. But ma is also the radical of May-
ax; and likewise, in the Maya language, it means
the country, the Earth. The Mayas selected the

34 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

oblong square i i to represent it, because it is the
geometrical figure that is nearest in shape to the
contours of the Yucatean peninsula.

So we have found a bridge to cross the vast ex-
panse of water that hes between the Eastern and
Western Continents — a clue that may lead us to the
birth-place of the ancient sacred mysteries in those
f^ "Lands of the West," ^ that "Land of
Kui,^^ the mother-land of the gods and of the ances-
tors of the Egyptians, where the god Osiris reigned
supreme over the souls emancipated from the tram-
mels of matter.

In the depths of the forests that cover the soil of
Central America, he hidden, under a cloak of ver-
dure, the ruins of ancient cities. There, are to be
seen the crumbling, awe-inspiring remains of grand
old monuments; mementos of the power and civili-
zation, of the scientific and intellectual attainments
of the mighty races that erected them, and have
disappeared forever in the abyss of time.

At Uxmal, one of these ancient great metropolis
in Yucatan, there exists an artificial mound of pecu-
Uar construction.

The entire stinicture measured 29 metres (about
95 feet) in height; 66 metres (214 feet 6 inches) in
length at the base, and 33 metres (107 feet 3 inches)
in width. The lower part is formed of the frustum
of an eUiptical cone 14 metres (45 feet 6 inches) in

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES.

height, divided into 7 gradients, each 2 metres high.
On the upper plane of the frustum, which forms
a terrace 35 metres long by 10 metres wide, are con-
structed the Sanctuary, or Holy of Hohes, facing
west, whose ground plan is made in the shape of a
cross with a double set of arms; and a truncated

East.

West.

GROUND PLAN OF SANCTUARY.

rectangular pyramid G metres high, the upper plane
of which supports the crowning edifice 6 metres
high, 29 metres long and 7 metres wide.

This building emblem of the " Lands of the West, "
is composed of three separate apartments 2m. 25c.
wide, having originally no communication with each
other. Holes have been bored in the partition walls
that have much weakened the construction ; for

SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

what purpose it is difficult to surmise, unless it be
for the love of destruction.

The rooms at the extremities are of the same size,
5m. 50c. (about IT feet 10 inches) long, while the
middle chamber is Tm. 25c. in length. The door of
this chamber faced west, and led, by means of a
smaU stair, to a terrace formed by the roof of the
sanctuary.

East

West.

GB0I7ND PLAN OF TEMPLE OF MYSTERIES.

From there the learned priests and astronomers,
elevated above the mists of the plains below, could
without hindrance follow the course of the celestial
bodies, in the clear cloudless sides of Yucatan,
where at times the atmosphere is so pure and trans-
parent that stars are clearly visible to the naked eye,
that require the aid of the telescope to be seen in
other countries.

The doors of the other rooms faced East. The
ceihngs, like those of aU the apartments in the
monuments of Yucatan and Central America, form
a triangular arch. This shape was adopted by the
builders, not because they were ignorant of how to
construct circular arches since they erected edi-

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 37

fices roofed with domes, but in accordance with
certain esoteric teachings pertaining to the mysteries
and relating to the mystic numbers 3.5.7.

This kind of arch is also found in the ancient
tombs of Chaldea, at Mughier — in the center of the
great pyramid of Ghizeh, in Egypt — in the most
ancient monuments of Greece, as the treasure room
at Mikene, in the tombs of Etruria and other places.

Here, again, we learn from the book of Henoch,
that the subterranean building that he constructed
in the land of Canaan in the bowels of the moun-
tain, with the help of his son Mathusalath, was in
imitation of the nine vaults that were shown to
him by the Deity, each apartment being roofed with
an arch, the apex of which formed a key-stone with
mirific characters inscribed on it. Each of the nine
letters, we are told, represented one of the nine
names traced in characters emblematical of the at-
tributes of Deity. Henoch then constructed two
triangles of the purest gold, and traced two of the
mysterious characters on each. One he placed in
the deepest arch; the other he entrusted to Mathu-
salath, to whom he communicated important secrets.

Tbou art Bait (the soul); thou art Athor, one of the Bia; and thou art AkorL
Hail, father of the world! hail, triform God!

38 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

The triangular arches appear, therefore, as land-
marks of one and the same doctrine, practised in
remote times, in India, Egypt, Chaldea, Greece,
Etruria and Central America.

In the ceilings of the rooms situated at the north
and south extremities of the building are carved in
pecuhar and regular order, in deep intagho, semi-
spheres, ten centimeters in diameter, intended to
represent the stars that at night so beautify the
firmament. Inside of the triangle formed at each
end of said rooms by the converging lines of the arch
are also several of these semispheres — those in the
north room form a triangle (Fig. 1); while those in

Fie. 1. Fig. 2.

the south room, five in number, figure a trapezium
(Fig. 2); with one of these half spheres in the middle.
The middle chamber is now devoid of decorations
of any sort. Its length, seven meters, is to-day the
only vestige which remains to indicate that in it, in
former times, were practised rites and ceremonies
pei-taining to the third degree of initiation. This
chamber could be reached by walking on the nar-
row terrace round the building; but I feel certain
that those whose privilege it was to assemble vdthin

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 39

its walls, got to it from the west side. There was
a stairway nine metres wide, beautifully orna-
mented, leading from the court yard adjoining the
priests' palace, to the entrance of the sanctuary.
Thence another small stairway 2m. 40c. wide, sit-
uated on the north side of the sanctuary, led to the
upper terrace, to the roof of that monument, and to
the middle chamber. The access to the north and
south rooms was by a grand stairway of ninety-six;
steps, each 20cm. high, that led to the upper terrace
surrounding the whole edifice. This stairway, sit-
uated on the east side of the mound, is fourteen
metres (45 feet 6 inches) wide, and, like that on the
east side, so steep as to require no Kttle practice and
care to ascend and descend its narrow steps with
comparative safety and ease.

A few centimetres above the lintel of the entrance
to the sanctuary is a cornice that surrounds the
whole edifice. On it are sculptured these symbols,

many times repeated. On the under part of this
cornice are small rings cut in the stone, from which
curtains were suspended to hide the Holy of Holies
from profane gaze.
The exterior of the monument was once upon a

40 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

time ornamented with elaborate and beautifully
executed sculptures, which have now, in great part,
disappeared. Still those that adorn the exterior
walls of the sanctuary, remain as specimens of the
beautiful handiwork and of the great skill of the
artists; whilst the exquisite architectural proportions
of the whole edifice bespeak the mathematical and
other scientific attainments of the architects who
planned the building and superintended its erection.
The ornaments that cover these walls are remark-
able in more than one sense. They are not only
inscriptions in the Maya language, written in char-
acters identical vdth, and having the same meaning
and value as those carved on the temples of Egypt;
but among them are symbols known to have be-
longed to the ancient sacred mysteries of the Egyp-
tians, and to modern Free Masonry. In August
1880, among the debris, at the foot of the mound
just described, I found pieces of what once had
been the statue of a priest.
The part of the statue, from
the waist to the knee, par-
ticularly attracted my atten-
tion. Over his dress the
personage wore an apron
with an extended hand, as
seen in the adjoining illustra-
tion. A symbol that will easily be recognized by
members of the masonic fraternity.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 41

We must not forget that Plato informs us that
the priests of Egypt assured Solon, when he visited
them 600 years before the Christian era, that all
communications between their people and the in-
habitants of the "Lands of the West" had been
interrupted for 9,000 years, in consequence of the
great cataclysms, during which, in one night, the
large island of Atlantis disappeared, submerged
under the waves of the ocean. Are we not then
right if we surmise that the monuments of Mayax
existed 11,500 years ago, and that mysteries, similar
to those of Egypt, were celebrated in them 'i To
support that belief we have the symbols already
mentioned as existing in the chambers, the con-
struction of the chambers themselves, the sculptures
carved on the cornice that surrounds the sanc-
tuary, representijig cross bones and skeletons, with
arms and hands uplifted, tokens that many of the
Masons again cannot fail to recognize; besides other
emblems that I will endeavor to explain, which
exist on the walls of the residence of the priests,
an edifice adjoining that temple. This may be
considered the oldest known edifice in the world
consecrated to secret rites and ceremonies; and its
builders the founders of the sacred mysteries, that
were transported from Mayax to India, Chaldea,
Egypt, Etruria, by colonists or missionaries.

What the ceremonies of initiation were among the

42 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

Mayas, it is difficult to surmise at present, all their
books, except four that still exist, having been de-
stroyed 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. We learn from the Popol-
Vuh, sacred book of the Quiches, that the apphcants
for initiation to the mysteries were made to cross
two rivers, one of mud, the other of blood, be-
fore they reached the four roads that led to the
place where the priests awaited them. The crossing
of these rivers was fuU of dangers that were to be
avoided. Then they had to journey along the four
roads, the white, the red, the green and the black,
that led to where the council, composed of twelve
veiled priests, and a wooden statue dressed and wear-
ing ornaments as the priests, awaited them. When
in presence of the council, they were told to salute
the King; and the wooden statue was pointed out to
them. This was to try their discernment. Then they
had to salute each individual, giving his name or title
without being told; after which they were asked to
sit down on a certain seat. If, forgetting the respect
due to the august assembly, they sat as invited,
they soon had reason to regret their want of good
breeding and proper preparation, for the seat, made

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 43

of stone, was burning hot. Having modestly de-
clined the invitation, they were conducted to the
"Dark house," where they had to pass the night,
and submit to the second trial. Guards were placed
all round, to prevent the candidates from holding
intercourse with the outer world. Then a lighted
torch of pine wood and a cigar were given to each.
These were not to be extinguished. Still they had to
be returned whole at sunrise, when the officer in
charge of the house came to demand them. Woe to
him who allowed his torch and cigar to get con-
sumed ! Terrible chastisements, death, even, awaited
him.

Having passed through this second trial success-
fully, the third was to be suffered in the " House of
Spears." There, they had to produce four pots of
certain rare flowers, without communicating with
any one outside, or bringing them at the time of
their coming; and had also to defend themselves,
during a whole night, against the attacks of the best
spearmen, selected for the purpose, one for each
candidate. Coming out victorious at dawn, they
were judged worthy of the fourth trial. This con-
sisted in being shut for a whole night in the " Ice
house," where the cold was intense. They had to
prevent themselves from being overcome by the cold
and frozen to death.

The fifth ordeal was not less terrible. It consisted

44 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

in passing a night in company with wild tigers, in
the "Tiger house," exposed to be torn to pieces,
or devoured ahve, by the ferocious animals. Emerg-
ing safe from the den, they had to submit to their
sixth trial in the " Fiery house." This was a burn-
ing furnace where they had to remain from sunset
to sunrise. Coming out unscorched, they were ready
for the seventh trial, said to be the most severe of
all, in the " House of the bats." The sacred book
tells us it was the house of Camazotz, the " God of
the bats," full of death-deahng weapons, where the
God himself, coming from on high, appeared to the
candidates and beheaded them, if off their guard.

Do not these initiations vividly recall to mind what
Henoch said he saw in his visions? That blazing
house of crystal, burning hot and icy cold — that
place where were the bow of fire, the quiver of
arrows, the sword of fire — that other where he had
to cross the babbling stream, and the river of fire —
and those extremities of the Earth full of all kinds
of huge beasts and birds — or the habitation where
appeared one of great glory sitting upon the orb of
the sun — and, lastly, does not the tamarind tree in
the midst of the earth, that he was tpld was the
Tree of Knowledge, find its simile in the calabash
tree, in the middle of the road where those of Xibal-
ba placed the head of Hunhun Ahpu, after sacrific-
ing him for having failed to support the first trial of

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 45

the initiation ? Even the title fnj ^ [p =. V V
Hach-mac, "the true, the very man," of the high
priest in Mayax, that we see over the bust of High
Pontiff, prince Cay Canchi, son of King Can at Ux-
mal, recalls that of the chief of the Magi at Babylon.
These Avere the awful ordeals that the candidates
for initiation into the sacred mysteries had to pass
through in Xibalba. Do they not seem an exact
counterpart of what happened, in a milder form at
the initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries ? and
also the greater mysteries of Egypt, from which
these were copied ? Does not the recital of what the
candidates to the mysteries in Xibalba were required
to know, before being admitted, in order to distin-
guish the wooden statue pointed out to them as the
King from the veiled Brothers; to avoid seating them-
selves on a burning hot stone seat; to keep lighted
the torch and cigar and prevent them from being
consumed; to produce the flowers asked from them
while isolated from the world in a guarded chamber;
to defend themselves from the attacks of dexterous
spearmen; to protect themselves against the intense
cold of the "Icehouse;" to remain unhurt amidst
wild tigers; or unscorched in the middle of a burn-
ing furnace ; recall to mind the wonderful similar
feats said to be performed by the Mahatmas, the
Brothers in India, and of several of the passages
of the book of Daniel, who had been initiated to the

46 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

mysteries of the Chaldeans or Magi which, accord-
ing to Eubulus, were divided into three classes or
genera, the highest being the most learned ?

Will it be said that the mysteries were imported
from Egypt or Chaldea or India, or Phoenicia to
America ? Then I will ask when ? By whom ? What
facts can be adduced to sustain such assertion ? Why
should the words with which the priest at the con-
clusion of the ceremonies in the Eleusinian mysteries,
and the Brahmins at the end of their rehgious cere-
monies, dismiss the assistants, be Maya instead of
Greek or Sanscrit words ? Is it not probable that
the dismissal continued to be uttered in the language
of those who first instituted and taught the cere
monies and rites of the mysteries to the others?
That sacred mysteries have existed in America from
times immemorial, there can be no doubt. Even
setting aside the proofs of their existence, that we
gather from the monuments of Uxmal, and the
description of the trials of initiation related in the
sacred book of the Quiches, we find vestiges of them
in various other countries of the Western Continent.

Garcilasso de la Vega informs us that in Peru, it
was illicit for any one not belonging to the nobility
to acquire learning. There again, as in Egypt, in
Chaldea, Etruria, India, Mayax, science was the
privilege of the priests and kings. The sacerdotal
class held the pre-eminence. Sacerdotal orders were

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 47

conferred only upon young men who had given
proofs of sufficiency for such important office;
and before they could be received into the Society
of the Amautas or wise men, which was considered
a great honor, they had to submit to very severe
ordeals. The rites and ceremonies of initiation were
imported in Peru by the ancestors of Manco Capac,
the founder of the Inca dynasty, who were colonists
from Central America, as we learn from an unpub-
lished MS., written by a Jesuit father, Eev. Anello
OUva, at the beginning of the year 1631, in Lima;
and now in the library of the British Museum in
London. The name Quichua, of the general lan-
guage of Pern, points directly to the Quiches as the
branch of the Maya nation that carried civihzation
to that country.

If from South America we go to New Mexico,
there we find the Zufiis, and other Pueblo Indians.
Having preserved their independence by shaking off
at an early period the yoke of the Spaniards, they
have been little influenced, if at all, by the civiliza-
tion of the Europeans, and hve to-day as their ances-
tors did many centuries back; preserving "with great
care, not only the purity of their language, which
they teach their children to speak correctly, but their
customs, traditions, and ancient rehgious rites and
obsei-vances.

Mr. Frank Gushing, who was commissioned by

48 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

the Smithsonian Institution, at Washington, to
make a study of their customs and manners, has
been adopted by the tribe, and has now become one
of their most influential chiefs. Among the many
interesting things discovered by him, not the least
is the existence of twelve sacred orders, with their
priests, their initiations, their sacred rites, as
carefully guarded as the secrets of the ancient
sacred mysteries to which they bear gi-eat re-
semblance. 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. The Nahualts invaded and for a long
time held sway over Mexico and some of the
northern portions of Central America. The abori-
gines of those countries at last expelled them from
their territories, when they scattered in all directions,
about the end of the XIII. century a.d. Some
reached as far north as the guLf of CaHf ornia and
Arizona. The Yaqui Indians, neighbors of the
Mayos, and who inhabit the countries watered by
the rivers Yaqui and Mayo in Sonora, are descen-
dants of a Nahualt tribe, from which in all proba-
bility, the adjoining nations, the inhabitants of the
seven cities of Cibola, the Zufiis among them, learned
many of their rehgious practices; and the institution

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 49

of the twelve sacred orders, that recall the twelve
priests who presided at the initiation into the sacred
mysteries at Xibalba.

Seeking for the origin of the institution of the
sacred mysteries, of which Masonry seems to be the
great-grandchild , following their vestiges from coun-
try to country, we have been brought over the vast
expanse of the blue sea, to this western continent,
to these mysterious "Lands of the West" where
the souls of all good men, the Egyptians behoved,
dwelt among the blessed. It is, therefore, in that
country, where Osiris was said to reign supreme, that
we may expect to find the true signification of the
symbols held sacred by the initiates in all countries,
in all times, and which have reached us, through
the long vista of ages, still surrounded by the veil,
well-nigh impenetrable, of mystery woven round
them by their inventors. My long researches among
the ruins of the ancient temples and palaces of the
Mayas, have been rewarded by learning at the foun-
tain-head the esoteric meaning of some at least of
the symbols, the interpretation of which has puz-
zled many a wise head — the origin of the mystifi-
cation and symboUsm of the numbers 3, 5, and 7.

Whoever has read history knows that in all
nations, civihzed as well as uncivilized, from the re-
motest antiquity, the priests have claimed learning
as the privilege of their caste, bestowed upon them

50 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

by special favor of the Euling Spirit of the universe.
For this reason they have zealously kept from the
gaze of other men their intellectual treasures, and
surrounded them with the veil of mystery. They
have carefully hid all their discoveries, scientific or
artistic, under the cover of symbols, reserving their
esoteric or secret meaning for the initiated; giving to
the people only such exoteric or pubKc explanation
of them as best suited their purpose. They put into
practice the principle, that "It was necessary to
keep the discoveries of the philosophers in the works
of art or nature from those unworthy of knowing
them," enunciated by the erudite and celebrated
English monk Eoger Bacon, one of the most learned
men of his time, who was confined during many
years in a prison cell by his ignorant brethren on
account of his great erudition. This same principle
is yet closely adhered to by the Brahmins, the Bud-
dhist priests of Thibet, the Adepts of India, and I
might add the Jesuits among the Christians, al-
though they are very inferior in knowledge to the
others; the secrecy they have observed for centu-
ries, and do still observe, being their best guarantee
of power and honor.

Judging from the numerous devices and emblems
that formed the ornamentation of the temples and
palaces in the ancient ruined cities of Yucatan, the
priests of Mayax seem to have been as addicted to

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 51

symbology as their congeners in India, Egypt, Chal-
dea and other countries. Among these devices and
symbols, several belong clearly to their sacred mys-
teries.

The study of the relics of ancient Maya civiUza-
tion 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. These, having received them from both the
Chaldees and the Egyptians, have consigned the re-
lation in the Pentateuch, a book long attributed to
Moses, but now beheved by Matthew Henry and
other commentators, who pride themselves upon
their orthodoxy, to have been written in times sub-
sequent to the foundation of the Hebrew monarchy.
Might it not be possible that, in Mayax also, could
be found the origin of the mystification of the num-
bers 3, 5, and 7, regarded as mystic by all civilized
nations of antiquity all over the earth ?

Surely this mystification must have originated
with one of these nations and been carried to the
others either by colonists, missionaries, or travelers.
It is not admissible, or even presumable, that the
same idea and mysticism has been attached to these
numbers by aU these different peoples without being
communicated from one to another. Such abstruse
speculations respecting the outological properties of

52 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

numbers can not be ascribed to the first workings
of the human mind in its incipient steps toward in-
tellectual development. In its awakening, human
intellect, still unable to comprehend the causes of the
natiu-al phenomena that take place, as everyday
occurrences, in the material existence of man, does
not soar in the elevated regions of metaphysics or
of philosophical and abstract theories. Do we not
see, even in our midst, that men who hve in igno-
rance ascribe the manifestations of the powers of
nature to unseen, mighty beings, of whom they con-
tinually stand in awe; to whom they tribute homage,
and address prayers filled with the superstitious
fears that these fancies of their untutored imagina-
tion inspire in them ? Abstract conceptions, numeri-
cal combinations, metaphysical speculations, philos-
ophical hypothesis, are productions of highly culti-
vated inteUigences, of minds accustomed to reason
on causes and effects, to deduce things unseen from
things seen.

The mysticism with which these numbers have
been invested, their symbohzation in the sacred mys-
teries, must have had its origin in material causes,
palpable to physical senses, the memory of which
became lost in the course of ages, altered by being
transported among peoples living far away from
the nation that conceived the idea, by passing from
mouth to mouth, in the secrecy of initiations, genera-

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 53

tion after generation. The idea of a sole and om-
nipotent Deity, who created all things, seems to have
been the universal behef in early ages, among all the
nations that had reached a high degree of civiliza-
tion. This was the doctrine of the Egyptian priests.
They called the Divine Intelligence Kneph, and
placed him above and apart from the Triads.
Damascius, an eclectic philosopher, who taught in
the schools of Athens, about the year 526 of the
Christian era, in his "Treatise on Principles," says
that " they asserted nothing of the first principle of
all things, but celebrated it as a thrice unknown
darkness, transcending all intellectual perception."
Proclus, platonic philosopher, director of the school
of Athens in 450 after Christ, says: " the Demiurges
or Creator is triple, and the three intellects are the
three kings, he who exists, he who possesses, he
who beholds. These three intellects, therefore, he
supposes to be the Demiurge; the same as the three
kings of Plato, and as the three whom Orpheus cele-
brates under the names of Phaenes, Ouranos, and
Kronos, kings of the great " Saturnian continent,"
in the Atlantic ocean.

In Chaldea, the twin sister of Egypt, daughter of
Poseidon, king of the " Lands beyond the sea " and
Lybia, we find that notwithstanding the apparent
polytheistic character which, from the earliest times,
rehgion had assumed, it was possible for the priests

54 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

and learned men, if we give credence to Pythagoras,
Democritus, and other philosophers, to account by
esoteric explanation for the multiplicity of their
gods, resolving them into the powers of nature, thus
reconcihng the whole scheme with monotheism.
In fact, above and apart from the personages which
peopled their Pantheon and were reverenced with
equal respect by kings and people, they recognized
a superior deity, Ra, so far removed from their first
triad, that they did not know how to worship it.
The meaning of the name Ra seems to have been
unknown to the historians. They only assert that
it means God emphatically; but its origin still re-
mains a mystery. In Egypt they gave that name
to the " Sun " particularly, as the fount of all things,
the Ufe-giver and sustainer of all that exists on
earth. La, in the Maya language, means "that
which has existed forever. The eternal truth."

So it is evident that the ancient Chaldeans recog-
nized a supreme being, a divine essence, Ra, to which
the Triads were subordinate.

The same conceptions about Deity existed in India
from the remotest antiquity. H. T. Colebrooke, in
his notice on "the Sacred Books of the Hindoos"
says: "In the last part of the Niroukta, dedicated
exclusively to the divinities, it is thrice affirmed that
there are only three gods; and that these three gods
designate one sole deity. The gods are three only,

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 55

whose mansions are the Earth, the intermediate re-
gions and heavens; that is the fire, the air, and the
sun; but Pradjapati, the Lord of all creatures, is
their collective God. In fact there is but one God,
the "great Soul" Maha-atma. It is caUed the
*' Sun," because the sun is the soul of all beings, of
aU that moves, and of aU that does not move. The
other gods are only parts or fractions of his person.
The behef in a Triune God has also existed from very
early ages among the Chinese philosophers. Lo-pi, a
Chinese writer, who flourished toward the eleventh
century of the Christian era, during the Songs dy-
nasty, explaining certain passages of the Hi-Tse,
says: That the " Great Term," is '' the Great Unit "
and the great Y. That the Y has neither body or
shape. That all that has body and shape was made
by that which has no body or shape. Tradition re-
counts that the " Great Term " or the " Great Unit "
comprehends three; that one is three and three are
one.

Hiu-Chin, who hved under the dynasty of the
Hans, is the author of a Chinese dictionary called
Choueven in which he has preserved many ancient
traditions. He wrote about the beginning of the
Christian era. Explaining the character Y he says:
In the first beginning reason subsisted in unity.
Reason made and divided Heaven and Earth ; con-
verted and perfected all things. And Tao-Tse, a con-

56 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

temporary of Confucius, who wrote the Tao-te-King,
a book reputed very profound, said more than five
hundred years before Christ: "That reason, Tao,
produced one. That one produced two, that both
produced three; and that three had produced all
things." All early writers who have given an ac-
count of the rehgion of the ancient Peruvians, teU
us that they worshiped a mighty unseen being who
they beUeved had created all things, for which rea-
son they called him Pacha camac. He, being incom-
prehensible, they did not represent under any shape
or figure, although they raised a magnificent temple
in his honor on the sea coast that rivaled in wealth
and splendor those dedicated to the Sun at Titicaca
and Cuzco. We are also informed that He stood at
the head of a trinity composed of Himself — Pacha-
camac — Con — and Uiracocha.

In this conception of a Supreme Being, Creator of
aU things, we see reflected the teachings of the Popol-
vuh, Sacred book of the Quiches, in which we read,
" that an that exists is the work of Tzakol — the Crea-
tor— who by his wiU caused the Universe to spring
into existence, and whose names are Bitol — the
maker — Atom — the engenderer — Qaholom — He who
gives being.

The fact that the same doctrine of a Supreme
Deity composed of three parts distinct from each
other, yet forming one, was universally prevalent

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 57

among the civilized nations of America, Asia and
the Egyptians, naturally leads to the inference that
at some time or other, communications and rela-
tions more or less intimate have existed between
them. They must, then, have imparted /their tra-
ditions, metaphysical speculations, and intellectual
attainments one to another.

In fact, all historians agree with Philostratus
and admit that commercial intercourse did exist be-
tween Egypt and India. Nay more, Eusebius asserts
that in the reign of Memnon, king of Ethiopia, a
body of Ethiopians from the countries about the
Indus river migrated and settled in the valley of the
Nile. And the many Chinese bottles, ^vith inscrip-
tions in that language, found in the tombs of Thebes,
prove, beyond the least doubt, that communications
have existed between the inhabitants of China and
the Egyptians in times very remote, as is conject-
ured from the inferior quality of the bottles, that
some seem to believe were manufactured before the
art of making objects of porcelain reached the high
degree of perfection to which it attained afterward.

On the other hand, the vase with Chinese inscrip-
tions found by Dr. Schliemann in the lowest stratum
of his excavations at Hissarlik, inscriptions that were
partly deciphered by the eminent indianist Mr. Emile
Burnouf and afterward thoroughly interpreted by
the great Chinese scholar Fi-Fangpao, when am-

58 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

bassador at Berlin, and proved to mention the
fact of the vase having contained samples of Chinese
gauze, shows that active commercial intercourse was
carried on by the Chinese with Greece and Asia
Minor even before the siege of Troy. '

These conceptions concerning the Triune God
have come down through the vista of ages, to the
present day, preserved in the works of the philoso-
phers, and are still held sacred by many among
Christians and Brahmins. But we do not learn from
their sacred books where, when or how said doctrine
originated. Whatever may have been the source
from which it sprang, it is certain that the priests
and learned men of Egypt, Chaldea, India, or China,
if they still knew the true history of its origin at
the time they wrote, kept it a profound secret, and
imparted it only to a few select among those initiated
in the sacred mysteries.

We need not seek for information among the
fathers of the Christian Church, for they are as silent
as the tomb on the subject. They admitted into
their tenets the notion of a Triune God as taught by
the pagan philosophers, and appropriated it, as they
have many other of their teachings and theories,
without knowing, without inquiring, concerning
their origin. The councils pronounced them revela-
tions from on high; unfathomable mysteries not to
be investigated; and imposed them as dogmas, to be

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 69

implicitly believed, with blind faith, as they are
to-day, by the followers of the Romish Church.
Through their adherents the idea of the three per-
sons in the Godhead has found its way into Free
Masonry, and on the columns that adorn the temple,
in the working of one of the degrees, we read these
inscriptions: " In the name of the holy and indivisi-
ble Trinity;''^ and further down, "PFe have the
happiness to dwell in the pacific unity of the sacred
numbers.

To those initiated to the lesser mysteries the doc-
trine was presented under the garb of the compU-
cated metaphysical speculations with which it has
reached us. Such explanations of the symboKcal na-
ture of the mystic numbers were given to them so as
to make it well-nigh impossible to obtain a fair under-
standing of their purport. By the perusal of the
extracts just quoted it is easy to see that all the
reasonings concerning the mystic value of number 3
and its relations to a Supreme Deity are mere
fancies of the imagination, vague speculations,
fallacious cavils; meaningless for practical and in-
quiring minds. So far as explaining the nature of
the Deity all philosophers agree in admitting that
it transcends the intelligence of man since man
is finite; and what is finite will never be able to
comprehend that which is infinite.

Some of the Greek philosophers reflected in their

60 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

teachings, as well as in their writings, the doctrines
they had learned from their teachers, the priests
of Heliopolis, Memphis and Thebes. From them
we may gather a glimmer of dim Kght pointing
toward the origin of the symbolization of the num-
bers. We have said that Proclus asserts that the
three component parts of the triple deity were three
intellects or three Kings — a fact corroborated by
Plato, who also had been admitted to the mysteries,
and by Orpheus, who celebrated these three Kings,
in the ceremonies instituted by him, that He'rodotus
says were identical with the Egyptian mysteries.

Pythagoras, who had received his knowledge of
the numbers and their meaning from the Egyptians,
taught his disciples that God was number and har-
mony. He caused them to honor numbers and
geometrical diagrams with the names of the gods.
The Egyptians Ukened nature to the equilateral tri-
angle, the most perfect and beautiful of all triangles;
and according to Sei-vius, assigned the perfect num-
ber 3 to the great God.

The Chaldees symbolized the Eusoph or great hght,
by an equilateral triangle; and in the Sri-Santara or
cosmogonical diagram of the Hindoos, which has
served as model for many of their temples, the name-
less, the great Aum that dwells in the infinite, is fig-
ured as an equilateral triangle. The Egyptians held
the equilateral triangle as the symbol of " Nature "

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 61

beautiful and fruitful. In the hieroglyphs it was
the emblem of worship. We see, over the main
altar, in all the ancient CathoUc churches, the repre-
sentation of an equilateral triangle containing the
all-seeing eye of Osiris, as symbol of Deity. 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 accus-
tomed to consider as the " Old World," and guided
by the three words of dismissal used by the Brah-
mins, 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 into the "Lands of the West," there
again we wiU find that the triangle was also sym-
bohcal among the Mayas and their neighbors.

We see it in the position of the three semispheres
carved, as already said, at each end of the noi-th-
ern chamber of the building above the sanctu-
ary at Uxmal. We next meet with it in the tri-
angular arches that form the ceihngs of the apart-
ments in all the temples and palaces, in fact in aU
the edifices of Mayax, as weU as in those of Palenque
and other locahties of Central America,

The general plan of these edifices is the same
everywhere; not because they were built by the
same architects, or at the same period, but because

62 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

their constniction was in accordance with certain
teachings pertaining to the mysteries. In all the
buildings, whatever their size, the ground plan was
in the shape of an oblong square i i. that is of
their letter M, pronounced Ma. Ma is the contrac-
tion of Mam, the ancestor, as they denominated the
Earth, and by extension the Universe. 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 M, both to the Mayas
and to the Egyptians. In fact, in Egypt and in
Mayax, the figure i \ in the hieroglyphs, stands
for Earth and Universe. It wiU be noticed by ex-
amining their plans, that this was also the shape
of the apartments in the temples and palaces of
Chaldea, of Egypt and Greece; that of the tombs of
the Etruscans; hence, no doubt, was assigned to
the masonic lodges in our days.

The triangular ceihng in those countries, and
there is no reason for doubting that it was the same
in the " Lands of the West," was symboHcal of the
Triune God, the Euling Spirit of the Universe, sup-
posed to reside in the heavens, above all things.
(This accounts for the constellations of the firma-
ment being represented on the ceihngs).

According to Zoroaster, He is the fire, the sun, the
Mght; that the later Platonists have described as
power, intellect, soul, or spirit; and the ancient

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 63

theologians, who invoked the sun in their mysteries,
according to Macrobius, as power of the world,
hght of the world, spirit of the world; that Plutarch
gives as intelligence, matter, kosmos, beauty, order,
the world; of these three he says, " universal nature
may be considered to be made up, and there is rea-
son to conclude that the Egyptians were wont to
liken this nature to what they called the most beau-
tiful and perfect triangle."

It will be noticed that the geometrical figure
formed at the ends of each of these apartments, by
the Hues of the ceiHngs, sides, and floor, is a penta-
gon, 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.

Then, lastly, the number of planes forming the
rooms — ^the two of the ceihngs, the two of the sides,
the two of the ends, and that of the floor — seven
in all, shows conclusively not only why the builders
adopted the triangular arch instead of the circular,
but also that the plan of their buildings was con-
ceived in strict adherence to the mystic numbers 3,
5, 7, or their multiples, as we see by the height of
the pyramids; the number of courses of the stones
forming the walls; that of the terraces on which the
temples stood; that of the degrees of the stairs by
which they were reached.

64 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

Only two edifices of different construction have
been found among the ancient cities of the Mayas.
One, now completely ruined, having been shat-
tered by a thunderbolt in 1848, was in Mayapan.
That place was destroyed, according to Bishop
Landa, in the year 1446 of the Christian era, by the
lords and nobles of the country, to put an end to the
dynasty of the Cocomes that governed with tyran-
nical rule. The other, stiU standing, although much
injured by the action of time and vegetation, is to
be seen in the most ancient city of Chichen. These
buildings were consecrated to the study of astrono-
m}'-; no doubt also to the performance of certain
reUgious ceremonies connected with the worship of
the sun, moon, and other celestial bodies. They
were circular; their ground plan formed three con-
centric circles representing the Zodiac, and their
vertical section, in its general outlines, conveys to
the mind that, in their inward or esoteric construc-
tion, placed before the eyes of the masses yet hidden
from them, the architect wished to represent the
figure of the mastodon, which was venerated by the
people as image of Deity on Earth; probably because
^is pachyderm was the largest and most powerful
creature that hved in the land.

Among the ornaments which beautified one of
the seven turrets that adorned the south fagade of
the north wing of the ancient palace of King Can,

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 65

and were dedicated to each of the seven members
composing his family, on that set apart to com-
memorate the name of his eldest son Cay (Fish), the
high pontiff, are seen these symbols:

Fig. 1. Fig. 2.

My knowledge of the symbols and sacred charac-
ters used by the learned priests of Mayax, in the
mural inscriptions and ornaments of their temples
and palaces, enables me to understand their exoteric
meaning. The first (Fig. 1) is composed of an equi-
lateral triangle with the apex downward; through
it passes a ribbon tied in a knot. The triangle seems
here to represent the whole country, the " Lands of
the "West," composed of three great continents,
"North and South America " of to-day, and "the
great island," called Atlantis by Plato, that disap-
peared in the midst of an awful cataclysm, under
the waves of the ocean, as described by the author
of the Troano MS., who thus confirms the account
of it given by the priests of Egypt, to Solon.
The ribbon tied in a knot would indicate that

66 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

the initiates, to whom the esoteric explanation
of the symbol had been imparted, were boimd to
each other, to secrecy and to their oath. Its
hidden meaning may have been that the equi-
lateral triangle represented Deity ever watchful,
always creating — Nature in which we move, and live
and have our being, in which all things are bound.

The second emblem (Fig. 2) seems to have belonged
more particularly to the highest degree of the sacred
mysteries, since we find it among other symbols
sculptured on the slabs that formed the external
casing of the mausoleum raised to the memory of
the high pontiff Cay. This second emblem is also a
ribbon, tied up so as to form three loops, each oc-
cupying one angle of an oblong square, image of
the Universe; the fourth angle being adorned with
flat folds, that are emblematic of Mayax the seat or
head of the government, so arranged as to form the
steps — 5 in number — of a throne. This accounts for
their being placed at the upper angle. The three
round loops are symboHcal of the three great parts
composing the " Lands of the West," that the Greek
mythologists figured by the trident of Poseidon,
their god of the sea. As to the sign o, in Mayax
as in Egypt, it was meant to represent the sun.
It was placed in the middle of the square simply to
signify that as the sun was the centre of the uni-
verse, the vivifying soul of aU things, so his repre-

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 67

sentative the " Child of the Sun,^^ the high priest,
was the Hght that illumined the secrets of the sacred
mysteries by his wisdom; and whose knowledge
made him the fit ruler of the country. O Is also
the first letter of the Maya and Egyptian alphabets,
corresponding to our Latin letter A, initial of Ah,
maya mascuUne article, denoting strength, power
— Ah being likewise the first syllable of the word
Ahau King.

We know as yet too Uttle of the religious tenets
of the ancient priesthood of Mayax, to venture upon
an explanation. All we can assert positively is that
number 7 was the particular appendage of the third
degree of the mysteries. It was considered as en-
dowed with great potentiaUty; was as Pythagoras
says, the vehicle of life, containing soul and body.

What motives may have induced the f oiuiders of
the mysteries in Mayax to select the numbers 3, 5,
7, as symbols of the various degrees into which they
divided them, we can at present only sin-mise. It
is probable that certain natural causes, or the com-
memoration of important events which had taken
place in the hfe of the nation, or in that of the
family of the founders of the dynasty that governed
it, suggested their adoption. The fact is that the
seven members of that family were collectively
symbohzed by the emblem of the Ah-ac-Chapat
or Seven Headed Serpent. It is diflicult to prog-

68 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

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

Landa, m his ' ' Eelation of the things of Yucatan, ' '
says: " The sons or the nearest relatives succeeded to
the high priest in his dignity; with him was the key
of their sciences, and in that they most concerned
themselves, because it was the priests who gave ad-
vice to the lords and answered their queries. . . .
It was the high priest who nominated the priests for
cities or villages which had none, examined them as
to their proficiency in sciences and ceremonies. He
entrusted to them the things of their office, and
bade them give good example to the people. The
priests employed themselves in the service of the
temple and in teaching their divers sciences, par-
ticularly how to wi'ite the books that contained
them. They taught the sons of the other priests
and the younger sons of the princes who were sent
to them in their childhood, if they saw them in-
clined for that profession."

In order to understand the explanation of the
possible origin of the mystification of the numbers
3, 5, and T, it is necessary to know something of the
people among whom it seems to have originated.

If we start from the mouths of the Mississippi
Kiver and travel due south, across the Gulf of Mex-

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 69

ico, at a distance of exactly four hundred and eighty
miles, we come to the northern coast of the Yuca-
tecan Peninsula. Its north-easternmost point, Cape
Catoche, is one hundred and twenty miles from
Cape San Antonio, the western end of the island of
Cuba, Yucatan divides the Gulf of Mexico from
the Caribbean Sea. It is comprised between the 17°
30' and 21° 50' of latitude north, and the 88° and
91° of longitude west from the Greenwich me-
ridian. Its leng-th is, therefore, 260 miles from
north to south, and its breadth 180 miles from east
to west. The whole country is a fossihferous lime-
stone formation, elevated a few feet only above the
sea; its maximum height in the interior being
about 70 feet. Although its rocky surface, bare for
the most part, is, in places only, covered with a few
inches of tillable loam, formed by the detritus of the
stones and the decomposition of vegetable matter,
its soil is of surprising fertility.

The whole country is now covered with weU-nigh
impenetrable forests. A bird's eye view of it from
the top of one of the lofty pyramids, that seem like
light-houses in the midst of that ocean of foliage,
impresses the beholder with the idea that he is look-
ing on an immense sea of verdure having for boun-
dary the horizon, and whose billows come to die,
with gentle murmur, at the foot of the monument
on which he stands. Not a hill, not a hillock even,

70 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

breaks the monotony of the landscape, which is only
relieved by clusters of palm trees that loom here
and there, as islets, above the dead green level.

Anciently, this country, now well nigh depop-
ulated, was thickly peopled by a highly civilized
nation, if we are to judge by the great number of
large cities whose ruins exist scattered in the midst
of the forests throughout the country, and by the
stupendous edifices, once upon a time temples of the
gods, or palaces of the kings and priests, whose
walls are covered with inscriptions, bas-reliefs, and
other interesting sculptures that equal in beauty of
design and masterly execution those of Egypt and
Babylon.

The author of the Troano MS. — a very ancient
treatise on geology, one of the four known books
which escaped destruction at the hands of Bishop
Landa and other fanatical Catholic monks who
accompanied the Spanish invaders, when, after a
struggle of twenty years, they at last, in 1541, be-
came masters of the country — tells us that anciently
the peninsula was called May ax; that is, the primi-
tive land, the terra firma. 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 site of the govern-
ment was at Uxmal; but the great emporium of

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 71

their arts and sciences, the heart, consequently, of
that marvellous civilization, was at Chichen-Itza;
that became a vast metropolis. In its temples pil-
grims from aU parts came to worship, and even
offer their own persons as a sacrifice to the Al-
mighty, by throwing themselves into the sacred
well from which the city took its name. There
also came the wise men from afar, to consult the
H-Menes, learned priests, whose coUege still exists. '
Among these foreigners, were bearded men whose
features vividly recall those of the Assyrians of old,
and the Afghans of to-day.

From Chichen this great civilization seems to have
extended its influence to the remotest parts of the
Earth, and to have exercised its controlling power
among far distant and heterogeneous nations. 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. Wherever we find it,
there also are found vestiges of the language, of the
customs, of the religion, of the cosmogonical and
historical traditions of the people of Mayax. Many
of these traditions have been recorded in the sacred
books of various nations and have come to be
regarded as the primitive history of mankind. To
quote a few instances. The creation of the world,
according to their conceptions, is sculptured, and

72 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

forms an interesting tableau over the door- way, on
the east fagade of the palace at Chichen-Itza.

It might serve as illustration for the relation of
the creation, as we read of it at the beginning of
the first chapter of the Manava Dharma Sastra, or
ordinances of Menu; a book compiled, says the
celebrated indianist, H. T. Colebrooke, about 1300
years before the Christian era, and from other and
more ancient works of the Brahmins. Said relation
completed, however, by the narrative of the myth
according to the Egyptians as told by Eusebius in
his work Evangelical Preparations.

Effectively, in the tableau we see represented a
luminous egg emitting rays, and floating in the
midst of the waters where it had been deposited by
the Supreme Intelligence. In that egg is seated the
Creator, his body painted blue, his loins surrounded
by a girdle; he holds a sceptre in his left hand; his
head is adorned with a plume of feathers; he is sur-
rounded by a serpent, symbol of the Universe.

Porphyrins, speaking of Jupiter, the Creator in
the Orphic mysteries, says, "the philosophers, that
is the initiated, represented him as a man, seated,
aUuding to his immutable essence ; the upper
part of the body, naked, because it is in its upper
portions (in the skies) that the Universe is seen most
uncovered; clothed from the waist below because the
terrestrial things are those most hidden from view.

hw;JH>

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 73

He holds a sceptre in his left hand because the
heart is on that side, and the heart is the seat of
understanding that regulates all the actions of
man." And again, " the Egyptians call Kneph the
intelligence, or creative power. {Kneph, or be it
Kaneh, seems a cognate of can-hel, a Maya word
the meaning of which 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 as-
serts, ' ' That they represented Kneph, or the Effi-
cient Cause, as a man of a blue color, with a girdle
roiuid his loins, a sceptre in his hand, a crown on
his 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 Uke manner
and with the same symbols, by the philosophers
of India, of Egypt, and of Mayax, are mere coinci-
dences ? If they are not the result of hazard, they
must have been conceived by the wise men of one
of these countries, that, no doubt, in which the
civilization was the oldest, and communicated to
others; these, in turn, taught them to their neigh-
bors, as we know the Egyptians did to the Greeks.

74 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

Again, we read in Genesis that at a very early-
period in man's history, a certain man murdered his
brother through jealousy. The victim we are told
was named Abel, his murderer Cain.

No doubt the writer of the book simply re-
peated the story he had learned from the Egyptian
priests, concerning the murder of Osiris {in whose
honor the mysteries were instituted), by his brother
Set, through jealousy; making such alterations in
his narration as not to divulge the secrets he had
sworn to keep.

If any of those initiated to the higher mysteries
were still acquainted with the true histoiy of the
murder, they kept it a profound secret; and only
gave of it such exoteric explanations as best suited
their purpose. Very httle can be learned from the
ancient historians. Herodotus always excuses him-
self from speaking on the subject; although he as-
serts he is well acquainted with what pertained to
the mysteries: and what we gather from the book of
Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride, is a version invented
to satisfy the initiates of the lower degrees. In it
Osiris is represented as having become the culture
hero of Egypt. After ascending the throne, having
taught his subjects the arts of civilization, he under-
took an expedition from Egypt, in order to visit and
dispense the same benefits to the different countries
of the world. He left his wife and sister Isis in

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 75

charge of the affairs of the kingdom which she ad-
ministered aided by the counsels of her friend and
preceptor Thoth. Isis, being extremely vigilant,
Set, her other brother, had no opportunity for mak-
ing innovations in the government. StiU he desired
to sit on the throne. After the return of Osiris, he
conspired against him and persuaded seventy-two
other persons to join with him in the conspiracy,
together with a certain queen of Ethiopia named
Aso who happened to be in Egypt at the time. He
invited his unsuspecting brother to a banquet, and
caused a beautiful chest to be brought into the ban-
queting-room. It was much admired by all. He
then, as if in jest, offered to give it to the person it
fitted best, AU tried getting into it one after an-
other, but it did not fit any as well as Osiris when
he in turn laid himself down in it. Then Set, aided
by the conspirators, closed the lid and fastened it on
the outside with nails.

This story of a brother being slain at the request 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. The reci-
tal of this event being identical with that archived
in the sculptures and mural paintings still existing
on the walls of certain edifices at Chichen-Itza, and

76 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

with the account of it recorded in the second part of
the Troano MS. would seem to indicate that the re-
lation of the fratricide was brought to India by some
Maya traveler or missionary ; or maybe by the colo-
nists from Mayax that Valmiki tells us took posses-
sion of and settled, in very remote ages, in the coun-
tries, at the south of the Indo-Chinese peninsula,
known to-day as Dekkan. They, of course, brought
to their new home with the language and customs,
the civiHzation, traditions, and folk-lore from the
mother country. Among these the tradition that,
in very ancient times, the son of one of their primi-
tive rulers murdered his brother through jealousy,
in order to possess himself of his wife, with whom he
had fallen in love, and of the reins of the govern-
ment.

In the inflated style of the Hindoo poets Valmiki
recounts the murder of Bah. The story is as fol-
lows. There were two princes named BdU and Sou-
griva, sons of a king of the Monkey nation. After
the death of their father. Bah the eldest was caUed
to the throne, being elected sole monarch and su-
preme lord by the people. A terrible feud had
originated between BdU and Maya on account of a
woman they both coveted. Maya challenged Bali to
mortal combat and allured him into an ambush.
BaH not returning after a time was beUeved to have
succumbed, and his brother Sougriva ascended the

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 77

throne. Bali returned however, and finding his
brother installed in his place accused him of treason
in the council of the nobles and before the people.
He charged him with causing the news of his death
to be circulated in order to usurp the reins of the
government. Then he banished him from court,
sent him adrift without means, depriving him of his
home, his wife and his social position.

Sougriva met Rama; besought his help to avenge
his wrongs. Having received his promise to kill
Bah, strong in the protection of such an ally, he
challenged his brother to mortal combat, although
he knew that alone he was not a match for him.
During the encounter that ensued, Rama who was
present, seeing that Sougriva was being badly
beaten, sent an arrow through the breast of Bah
and killed him. The last word of that prince to his
slayer who was standing by him, were: " What
glory dost thou expect to reap from the death thou
hast given me whilst I was not even looking toward
thee ? Hidden thou hast wounded me in a coward-
ly manner while my attention was engrossed in
that duel." And so Bali was treacherously slain.

We learn from the sculptures and mural paintings
that adorn the walls of the palaces at Chichen-Itza
and Uxmal that king Can (Serpent) the founder, or
maybe the restorer, of these ancient cities, had three
sons whose names were Cay (Fish), Aac (Turtle),

78 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

and Coh (Leopard), and two daughters, Moo (Ma-
caw), and Nide (Flower).

It was the law among the Mayas that the young-
est of the brothers should marry the eldest of the sis-
ters to insure the legitimate and divine descent of
the royal family. This same custom of princes of
royal blood marrying their sisters existed among
the Egyptians from the earhest days, and it became
in after times general; such alliance being consid-
ered fortimate. It also prevailed with the Ethio-
pians, the Greeks, those of Mesopotamia in the time
of the patriarchs, the Pei-uvians, and many other na-
tions. Prince Coh was a brave and successful war-
rior; at the head of his followers, whom he had often
led to victory, he had conquered many nations and
greatly added to the glory and extent of the Maya
empire. Being the youngest of the brothers, he was
the one who had to marry Moo, the eldest of the
sisters. She, on her part, loved him dearly and was
proud of his exploits. After the death of King Can,
their father, the country was parcelled among his
children. Moo became the queen of Chichen, and
many of the lords swore allegiance to her. After
her death she received the honors of apotheosis;
became the goddess of fire, and was worshiped
in a magnificent temple, built on the summit of a
high and very extensive pyramid whose ruins are
stiU to be seen in the city of Izamal.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 79

Aac, the second son of king Can, was also in love
with her. To his lot had fallen the ancient metrop-
oHs Uxmal, "the three times rebuilt." His head-
less and legless statue is stiU to be seen over the main
entrance on the f agade of the palace known as the
"House of the Governor," at that place. The flay-
ed bodies of his two brothers and his eldest sister are
at his feet ; their heads hang from the belt round his
waist : and the ruins of his private residence, orna-
mented with turtles, — his totem — yet exist at the
northwest corner of the second of the three ter-
races on which the palace is built. The law of the
land and her own predilection for Coh were insur-
mountable barriers that prevented Aac from mar-
rying Moo. He was not a warrior but a courtier.
He spent his hfe in idleness amidst pleasures and
f rivoUties. Still he was envious of the fame won by
his yomiger brother ; jealous of him because of the
love of the people, and still more of that of his
sister and wife. He allowed his evil passions to gain
the mastery over his better feelings. He incited a
conspiration agamst the friends of his childhood,
with the object of killing his own brother, to obtain
forcible possession of the sister he so much coveted,
seize the reins of the government, and become the
supreme lord of the whole enipire.

In the carvings on the wooden lintels over the en-
trance of Coh's funereal chamber, in the paintings

80 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

that adorn its walls, and in which that part of the life
of the personages concerned in these events is por-
trayed, Aac is represented full of wrath, holding
three spears in his hand, engaged in a terrible alter-
cation with Coh. From the sculptures that adorned
his mausoleum we learn that he was murdered
treacherously by being stabbed with a spear three
times in the back; and the author of the Troano
MS. in giving an account of that murder and its
consequences, has recorded this fact and illustrated
it in the first section of plate xiv., in the second
part of his work. [When I disinterred his statue, I
f oimd in an urn his heart, partially cremated, and the
flint head of the spear with which he was slain.] In
one of the tableaux of the mural paintings the body
of Coh, surrounded by his wife, his sister Nicte, his
children and his mother, is being prepared for crema-
tion; the heart and other viscera having been ex-
tracted to be preserved in urns. A similar custom
prevailed among the Egyptians of high rank whose
bodies were embalmed according to the most expen-
sive process. The internal parts of the body having
been removed, were cleansed, embalmed in spices
and various substances, then deposited in four vases
that were placed in the tomb with the coffin.

At the death of Coh the whole country became
involved in a civil war. The conspirators, partisans
of Aac, striving to seize the reins of the government.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 81

the friends of Prince Coh fighting to avenge his
death and in defense of their queen. The goddess
of war favored at times one party, then the other.
Aac, in order to obtain the preponderance, had re-
course to diplomacy. He renewed his suit for the
hand of his sister. He sent messengers to her, with
a present of fruits, begging her to accept his love
now that she was free. The scene is vividly pictured
in the mural paintings.

Queen Moo is represented seated in her house situ-
ated in the middle of a garden. At her feet, but
outside of the house to indicate that she does not
accept it, is a basket full of oranges. Her extended
left hand shows that she declines to listen to the mes-
senger who stands before her in an entreating posture,
and that she scorns the love of Aac who is seen on
a lower plane, making an obeisance. Over his head is
a serpent, typical of his name. Can, looking as lov-
ingly as a serpent can be made to look, at a Macaw
perched on the top of a tree and above the figure of
the queen whose totem it is. The tree is guarded by
a monkey in a threatening attitude. This monkey
here, as in Egypt the cynocephalus, is the emblem
of the preceptor of Moo, symbol therefor of wisdom.

This tableau is most interesting and significant,
since in it we have a natural explanation of the
myth of the temptation of the woman by the ser-
pent. Here we have the garden, the woman, the

82 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

temptor, and the fruit. " The story of this family-
incident passing from mouth to mouth, from gener-
ation to generation, from country to country, has be-
come disfigured probably by peoples that did not
hold woman in as high esteem, or did not honor her
as much as the Mayas did. Perhaps, also, an old
misanthropical bachelor, hater of the fair sex, wrote
a distorted account of the tradition,out of spite at
having been jilted by his lady-love, and his version
was accepted by the author of Genesis, if he
himself did not make the alteration. The fact is
that the author of the Troano MS. — (Plate xvii.,
part second) as the artist who painted the scene
just described — asserts that she refused to listen
to Aa&s entreaties, in consequence of which the
civil war continued. At last Moo and her fol-
lowers succumbed. She feU into the hands of Aac
who, after ill-treating her, she having jfled, put to
death Cay the high pontiff, his elder brother, who
had sided with the queen of Chichen, with right and
justice. In token of his victory, Aac caused his
statue — the feet resting on the flayed bodies of his
kin, their heads being suspended from his belt — to
be placed over the main entrance of the royal pal-
ace at Uxmal, where, as I have said, its remains
may be seen to-day

I may add here in explanation of the tableau of
the scene in the garden, that the present of a basket

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 83

of oranges was the offer of marriage made by Aac
to Moo. It is usual with the aborigines of Yucatan,
that yet retain many of the customs of their fore-
fathers, when a young man wishes to propose mar-
riage to a girl to send by a friend as a present, a fruit,
or flower, or sweetmeat. The acceptance of the pres-
ent is the sign that the proposal of the suitor is ad-
mitted, and from that moment they are betrothed;
whilst the refusal of the present means that he
is rejected. A similar custom exists in Japan. When
a young lady expects a proposal of marriage a con-
venient flower-pot is placed in a handy position on
the window-sill. The lover plants a flower in it. If
next morning the flower is watered he can present
himself to his lady-love knowing that he is wel-
come. If on the contrary, the flower has been up-
rooted and thrown on the side-walk, he weU under-
stands he is not wanted.

The family name of the kings of Mayax was Can
(serpent) as Khan is still the title of the Kings of
Tartary and Burmah, and of the governor of pro-
vinces in Persia, 'Afghanistan and other countries in
Central Asia. Can was therefore the family name
of Aac. The meaning of the writer of Genesis when
he says that the serpent spoke to the woman and se-
duced her with a fruit is now easily understood.

The account of the fratricide in Genesis, in the
Kamayana, or in the papyri of Egypt, is nothing

84 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

more or less, with a slight variance, than the story of
the feuds of king Can's children. This story, treas-
ured by the priests of Egypt and India, consigned in
their sacred books and poems, has been handed down
to us among the primitive traditions of mankind.

Nowhere, except in Mayax, do we find it as form-
ing part of the history of the nation. Nowhere, ex-
cept in Mayax, do we find the portraits of the actors
in the tragedy. There, we not only see their portraits
carved in bas-rehefs, on stone or wood, or their
marble statues in the round, or represented in the
mural paintings that adorn the walls of the funereal
chamber built to the memory of the victim, but we
discover the ornaments they wore, the weapons they
used, nay, more, their mortal remains.

The following is the certificate of Charles 0.
Thompson, Principal and Professor of Chemistry at
the Worcester Free Institute, who made the chemi-
cal analysis of part of the cremated remains found in
the stone urn that was near the chest of the statue
that occupied the centre of the mausoleum raised to
the memory of the famous warrior Coh, twenty
feet below the upper plane of the monument.

Worcester, Mass., Sept. 25, 1880.

"Stephen Salisbury, Jr., Esq., submits an un-
" known solid for qualitative examination.

" Under microscope it presents a certain compact-
*'ness and horny aspect characteristic of animal

^^^^^^K-^.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 85

** matter which has been charred hi a close vessel,
"it loses 9 per cent, when dried at 100° and 9 per
"cent, more by combustion. After calcination,
"a dross and residue remains which contains 3 per
"cent, fenic oxide, a Httle alumina and much siUca.
"Warm water exposed to action of residue shows
"traces of potash and soda.

' ' These results are consistent with the theory that
"the mass was once part of a human body which
"has been burned with some fuel."

"Charles O. Thompson."

There is a fact certainly worthy of notice, and this
is that the names of the personages mentioned in
the various accounts of the fratricide are precisely
identical, or are words having the same signification.
May not that be regarded as unimpeachable proof
that they all refer to the same event ?

No one who has any knowledge of philology will
ever deny that A-bel — A-bal — Bal-^ — Balam are
identical words.

A, contraction of Ah, is the Maya mascuhne arti-
cle, the. Bal is the radical of Balaw. Balam is for
the superstitious aborigines, even to-day, the Yumil
Kaax — the "Lord of the fields" the '''^ Leopard"
which they also call Coh. The totem of the victim of
Aac is the leopard: and it is so represented in the
bas-reliefs and sculptures.

In Egjrpt, the spotted skin of the leopard, usually
without the head, but sometimes with it, was al-

SACRED MYSTERIES AMUi\Lr

ways suspended near the images and statues of
Osiris. The skin of a leopard was worn as a mantle

over the ceremonial dress
of his priests. Besides,
when represented as King
of the Amenti — of the
' ' West" — the symbol of
Osms was always a crouch-
i n g leopard .^g^
with an open
eye over it.

We must not lose sight of the fact that the leop-
ard's skin worn by Nimrod and Bacchus was a sacred
appendage to the Mysteries. It was used in the
Eleusinian as weU as in the Egyptian mysteries in-
stituted in honor of Osiris. It is mentioned in the
earhest speculations by the Brahmins on the mean-
ing of their sacrificial prayers the Aytareya Brah-
mana, and is used in the agnishtoma the initiation
rites of the Soma mysteries. When the neophyte
is to be born again he is covered with a "leopard
skin," out of which he emerges as from his mother's
womb. A leopard skin is worn by the African war-
riors, who are so fortunate as to possess one, as a
charm to render them invulnerable to spears ac-
cording to the French traveler Paul du Chaillu. It
would seem as if the manner in which Coh met his
death, by being stabbed with a spear, had been known

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 87

to their ancestors, and that they imagined that
wearing his totem would save them from being
wounded with the same kind of weapon used in kill-
ing him. That the inhabitants of Africa had com-
munications with those of the Western Continent
there can be no doubt, since populations of black
people existed on the isthmus of Panama and other
localities at the time of the first arrival of the Span-
iards; besides their pictures can be seen in themm-al
paintings at Chichen.

As to the name Osir, or be it Ozil, it would seem
to be a nickname given to Coh on account of the
great love his sisters, and the people in general, pro-
fessed for him. Ozil is a Maya verb that means to
desire vehemently. He, therefore, who was very
much desired — dearly beloved,

Osiris in Egypt, Abel in Chaldea, Bali in India,
are myths, Coh, in Mayax, is a reality — a warrior
whose mausoleum I have opened; whose weapons
and jade ornaments are in my possession; whose
heart I have found, and a piece of which was ana-
lyzed by Professor Thompson; whose statue, with
his name inscribed on the tablets occupying the
place of the ears, I have unearthed. This is now
in the National Musemn in the City of Mexico,
one of the most precious relics in that institution,
having been robbed from me, by force of arms, by
the Mexican authorities.

SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

Isis was the wife and sister of Osiris. The word
Isis may simply be a dialectical mode of pronounc-
ing the Maya word ioin (idzin) the younger sister.
Her headgear, as a goddess, was a vulture. That
bird was her totem and the peculiar type of mater-
nity. Isis was often called the great mother-goddess
Mau; a word certainly as suggestive of the name

Moo, sister and wife of Coh and queen of Chichen,
as the vulture is of the Macaw. It must not be
forgotten that one of the titles of Isis was the
royal wife and sister.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 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 tem-
ples and palaces of the Mayas, and contained in the
pages of the Troano MS., do notbeheve that Osiris
and his sister Isis were deified persons who had hved
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 Seh and Nut,
were deified after their death and worshiped as
gods of the elements. My object is not here to en-
ter into long explanations on these historical
disclosures, I refer the reader who wishes to know
more of the subject to my work, " The Monuments
of Mayax and their Historical Teachings."

As to the names Cain, Set, Sougriva, Aac, they
all convey the idea of something belonging to or
having affinity with water.

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

Set is a cognate word of the Maya Ze, to ill-treat
with blows. Can a name be more appropriate to
designate one who has killed his brother with three
thrusts of his spear; and his sister by kicking her to
death, as Aac is represented doing by the author of
the Troano MS.?

90 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

Set, after being treated with the same honor as the
other members of the family of Seb, came to be re-
garded as the Evil principle and was called Nuhti,
that is, according to the Maya language, the adver-
sary, from nup adversary and ti for. He also was
the Sun God, the enemy of the serpent. Here again
we have a most singular resemblance, to say the
least. Aac, in the sculptures of Mayax, is always
pictured surrounded by the sun as his protecting
genius; while the serpent, emblem of the country,
always shields Coh and his sister- wife within its
folds. The escutcheon of the city of Uxmal shows
that the title of that metropolis was the " Land of
the Sun." In the bas-rehefs of the queen's chamber
at Chichen, the followers of Aac are seen to render
homage to the Sun; the friends of Moo to the ser-
pent. So in Mayax as in Egypt, the Sun and the
Serpent were inimical. In Egypt this enmity was a
myth; in Mayax a dire reahty.

The hippopotamus and the crocodile were emblems
of Set. Plutarch says "that at Hermopolis there
"was a statue of Set, which was a hippopotamus
' * with a hawk upon its back fighting with a serpent."
Both the hippopotamus and the crocodile are am-
phibious animals, having consequently much affin-
ity with water.

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

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 91

The name Sougriva, of the brother of Bali, is a
word composed of three Maya primitives, zuc, lib, ha,
zuc, quiet, tranquil; lib, to ascend, and ha, water —
"He who tranquilly rises on the water" as the
turtle does.

The universal deluge is another tradition of the
early days that was credited by certain civihzed na-
tions of antiquity.

The Egyptian priests who, from times immemo-
rial, had kept in the archives of the temples a
faithful account of aU events worthy of being re-
membered, derided the Greek philosophers when
they spoke of the deluge of DeucaHon and the de-
struction of the human race. Their answer was
that as they had been preserved from it the inun-
dation could not have been universal; they even
added that the Hellenes were childish in attaching
so much importance to that event, as there had
been several other local catastrophes resembling it.
They told Solon that the greatest cataclysm on
record in their books was that during which Atlan-
tis disappeared under the waves of the ocean, in
one day and night, in consequence of violent earth-
quakes and volcanic eruptions; that from that
time all communications between their people and
the inhabitants of the "Lands of the West " had
become interrupted; the occurrence having taken
place 9,000 years before his visit to Egypt.

92 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

An account of that fearful event was also pre-
served by the learned men of Mayax who give of it
a description identical with that given by the Egyp-
tians, Nearly all the nations living on the western
continent have kept the tradition of it, but they do
not pretend that all mankind was destroyed.

In Mayax the learned priests caused a relation of
it to be carved in intagho on the stone that forms
the lintel over the interior doorway in the rooms on
the south side of their college. The building is
known to this day by the name of Akab-oib, the
dark, or terrible writing.

The author of the Troano MS., a work, I have al-
ready said, on geology, dedicates several pages at
the beginning of the second part to the recital of
that fearful cataclysm, and the phenomena which
then took place. This leaves no longer room for
doubting that a large continent existed in the middle
of the Atlantic ocean, and which was destroyed with-
in the memory of man; and that the narrative by
Plato of the submersion of Atlantis is, in the main,
correct. The Maya author represents the lost land
by the figure of a black man with red Hps, which
would imply that it was mostly inhabited by a race
of black men. In this case, the presence of black-
skinned populations on the Western continent, an-
terior to the advent of the Spaniards, would be
easily accounted for. The Mayas Uke the Egyp-

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 93

tians represented the world as an old man. Plu-
tarch says they called East the face, North the
right side, South the left side; this conception has
reached our days, only we reckon the East as the
right hand. West the left. North the face.

When the author of the Troano MS., speaks of the
** Master of the land ' ' par excellence, that is king Can
deified, he pictures him sometimes with a human
body, painted blue, and the head of a mastodon.
On the fagade of the building at Chichen Itza
called by the natives Kuna, the house of God, to
which Stephens, in his work on Yucatan, gives the
name of Iglesia, is a tableau representing the wor-
ship of that great pachyderm, whose head, with its
trunk, forms the principal ornament of the temples
and palaces built by the members of king Can's
family.

This tableau is composed of a face intended for
that of the mastodon. Over the trunk and between
the eyes formerly existed a human head, which has
been destroyed by mahgnant hands. It wore a
royal crown. This is still in place. On the front
of it is a small portrait cut in the round of some
very ancient personage. On each side of the head
are square niches containing each two now head-
less statues, a male and a female; they are seated,
not Indian fashion, squatting, but with the legs
crossed and doubled under them, in a worshiping

94 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

attitude. Each carries a symbol on their back;
totem of the nation or tribe by which the mastodon
was held sacred. Under these figures, are two tri-
angles j^%< emblems of offerings and worship in
Mayax as in Eygpt. So also was the other symbol
image of a honey-comb, an oblation most
grateful to the gods, since with the bark of the
Balche tree, honey formed the principal ingredient
of Balche, that beverage so pleasing to their palate:
the same that under the name of nectar, Hebe
served to the inhabitants of Olympus. It is the
Amrita, stiU enjoyed, on the day of the full moon,
by the gods, the manes and the saints, according to
the Hindoos; although it was the cause of the war
between the gods and the Titans, and is the origin
of many sanguinary quarrels among the tribes of
equatorial Africa even in our days.

These symbols leave no doubt as to the fact that
the personages represented by the statues are in the
act of worshiping the mastodon.

The corona of the upper cornice, that above the
mastodon's head, is formed of a peculiar wavy
adornment often met with in the ornamentation of
the monuments erected by the Cans. Emblematic
of the serpent, it is composed of two letters N jux-
taposed, monogram of Can ^^. The corona of
the lower cornice is made of two characters | j *— l^

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 95

that read in Maya Ah oam, He of the throne — the
monarch.

In Japan the seven members of the Can family,
deified and figured by the same symbols as in
Mayax, are worshiped to-day in the shrine of the
palace at Tokio, dedicated to the goddess symbo-
lized by a bird. This goddess caUs to mind the god-
dess Moo of the Mayas, or Isis of the Egyptians.
In the upper part of the shrine, over and above
aU the other attendants who have wings and
beaked noses, is seen an elephant couchant, the
god of fire standing on his back. In the midst
of the flames that surround him is the head of a
bird. So in Chichen we see the followers of queen
Moo, who, we are informed by the author of the
Troano MS. became the goddess of fire, carrying
her totem, a bird, in their head-gears.

The Japanese claim to be offspring of the gods,
and produce two different genealogical tables in
support of their assertion. These gods amounting
to seven, are said to have reigned an almost incalcu-
lable number of years in the coimtry; although
they assert that these primitive gods were spiritual
substances, incorporeal. They were succeeded by
five terrestrial spirits, or deified heroes, after whom
appeared the Japanese themselves.

Here again we have a reminiscence, as it were,
of the twelve gods, that the Egyptians told Hero-

96 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

dotus, had governed their country, an incalculable
number of years, before the reign of Menes their
first terrestrial king. These gods were converted
by the Greeks into the twelve deities, dwellers of the
Olympus. The twelve serpent heads, brought to
light by me in December, 1 883, from the center of
the mausoleum of the high-pontiff Cay, at Chichen-
Itza, are emblematic of the twelve rulers, who had
reigned in Mayax in times anterior to the great
cataclysm when the Land of Mti was submerged ;
whose portraits, with the sign cimi, dead, adorn the
east f agade of the palace with the tableau of creation,
showing that they existed in very early times. Of
these rulers we again find a dim tradition in China
in the Tchi, also called che-cull-tse — the twelve chil-
dren of the emperor of Heaven, Tien-Hoang, who
had the body of a serpent. Each of these Tchi are
said to have lived eighteen thousand years, and to
have reigned in times anterior to Ti-hoang, sover-
eign of the country in the middle of the land.

From this short digression let us return to the
worship of the mastodon which we find very
prevalent in India in that of the elephant Ganesha,
the god of prudence, of wisdom, of letters, repre-
sented as a red colored man with the head of an
elephant. He is invoked by the Hindoos of aU sects
at the outset of any business. No one would dream
of writing a letter or a book without previously

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 97

saluting Ganesha. His image is seen at the cross-
ing of the roads, oftentimes decorated with a gar-
land of flowers, the offering of some pious devotee.
Architects place it in the foundation of every edi-
fice. It is sculptured or painted at the door of every
house as a protection against evil; at one of the en-
trances of every Hindoo city, that is called Ganesha-
pol, as weU as in some conspicuous door of the pal-
ace. We have already seen that in the most ancient
edifices of Mayax the mastodon's head with its
trunk is the principal and most common ornament.
Are these mere coincidences ? The name Ganesha-
pol would be according to the Maya language, the
head of Ganesha; pol, in Maya, being the head. If I
wished to go further I might say that in Ganesha
we have a dialectical pronoimciation of Can-ex,
' ' the serpents. ' ' No deity in the Hindoo pantheon is
so often addressed; and his titles are so numerous
that hke Osiris it might be named Myrionymus
" with ten thousand names."

So many are the legends accounting for the ele-
phant head, it may be safely assumed that its
origin is unknown. May not its worship have
been introduced in India, with many other cus--
toms, that for instance of carrying the children
astride on the hip; of printing an impression of the
himian hand, dipped in red hquid, on the walls
of the temples and other sacred buildings by devo-

98 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

tees etc. ; by colonists from Mayax where these cus-
toms prevailed, and the worship of the mastodon
was widely spread if not general? This surmise
assumes the semblance of probability when we con-
sider that the body of Ganesha is painted red, the
color characteristic of the American race, and the
symbol of nobihty of race among the Egyptians.

The elephant was not among the animals wor-
shiped by them. They do not seem to have been
much acquainted with it. But the imprint of the
red hand, so commonly seen on the walls of the
temples of Mayax and India, has never been ob-
served in the temples of Egypt; neither did the
Egyptian women carry their children astride on their
hip, as do still those of India and Yucatan, al-
though many other customs were common to the
people of these countries. It is probable that the
colonists from the " Lands of the West " who set-
tled in the valley of the Nile, replaced the worship
of the mastodon, which did not exist in the country,
by that of the bull, the largest and most useful of
their domestic animals; and that this was the origin
of their veneration for the bull Apis, as those
who were initiated into the mysteries of Osiris
weU knew, being told that Apis ought to be re-
garded as a fair and beautiful image of their souL

From the remotest antiquity the serpent was
held by every people in the greatest veneration as

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 99

the embodiment of divine wisdom. We have al-
ready said that Eusebius asserts that the Egyptians
figured emblematically Kneph, the Creator, as a ser-
pent; and that the Maya learned priests represented
the engendered, the ancestor of aU beings, in the
sculptures, protected within the coils of the serpent.
Mr. Stanyland Wake, in his book on the origin of
the serpent worship writes: "the student of my-
thology knows that certain ideas were associated by
the people of antiquity with the serpent, and that
it was the favorite symbol of peculiar deities; but
why that animal rather than any other was chosen
for that purpose is yet uncertain."

The late Mr. James Fergusson in his work on
" Serpent and Tree Worship," a work so fuU of eru-
dition and interesting researches, whilst he conclu-
sively shows that these worships were common to
aU civihzed and half civiHzed natioiis of antiquity,
fails to indicate the country where they originated.
All authors who have written on the subject, admit
that their origin is still an impenetrable mystery; al-
though they agree that they are so intimately con-
nected as to make it impossible not to believe it
must have been the same.

The hmited scope of this book does not allow me
to give the matter aU the space it deserves. I wiU
therefore content myself, with bringing forth such
facts as will conclusively show, at least to unpreju-

100 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

diced minds, that the serpent and tree worship in-
deed originated on this "Western continent," and
from the same cause; ''the love of the country,"
from the amor-patrice, still so firmly rooted in the
heart of the aborigines, that it is difficult to induce
them to leave the spot where they are born, even to
better their condition. Everywhere on the Eastern
continents serpent worship is connected with myth-
ological narratives, metaphysical speculations, or
astronomical conceptions, far above the intellectual
and scientific attainments of the mass of people
among whom it prevailed.

These were mere fictions invented by the priests
and learned men, to conceal either the real facts, or
may be, their own ignorance of them. Still, an-
xious to maintain the preponderance and power that
knowledge gave them over the multitudes, and hav-
ing to satisfy their curiosity, they imagined such
explanations as best suited the notions current in
their times and the ideas of the people.

In early days the serpent, emblem of Kneph, the
Creator, was the agathodcemon, the good genius. It
is stiU so regarded by the Chinese, who consider it
one of their most beautiful symbols. Later, when
it became emblematical of Set or Typho, the slayer
of Osiris, it was looked upon with horror, as the
evil principle, the destroyer, the enemy of man-
kind. It has ever since continued to be so held by

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 101

the Jews, the Christians, the Mahometans, in fact
by all peoples whose rehgious tenets are founded on
the Bible. If the tree and serpent were worshiped
throughout the Eastern continents from the shores
of the Atlantic ocean to those of the Pacific, from
Scandinavia to Egypt and the Asiatic peninsulae,
their worship was not less spread amongst the
nations that inhabited the "Lands of the West."
We find vestiges of it everywhere on the Western
continent; from the banks of Brush creek, in
Adams county, in the State of Ohio, where still ex-
ists, on the crest of a mound, the effigy of a great
serpent 700 feet long, entirely similar to that dis-
covered by Mr. John S. Phene in Glen Feechan,
Argyleshire, in Scotland, to the ancient city of Tia-
huanuco, whose ruins are 13,500 feet above the
level of the Pacific on the shores of lake Titicaca,
near the frontier of Bohvia, on the high plateau
of the Andes. There is yet to be seen a very re-
markable doorway formed out of a single mono-
lith 13 feet 5 inches long, 7 feet high above the
ground, and 18 inches thick. This monoHth has
attracted the attention of d'Orbigny and the other
travelers who, Uke myself, have been struck with
astonishment by the beauty of the sculptures that
adorn its south-eastern facade. Mayas, no doubt,
were the unknown builders of that great city; since
in the sculptures mentioned, we find, as in the tern-

102 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

pies of Japan, the totem of prince Coh, of his wife
and sister Moo, and of their father king Can
(serpent).

I will make here a short digression in order to de-
scribe these sculptures, that with the knowledge we
possess to-day of the history of the founders of the
principal ruined cities of Mayax, afford us another
proof that the builders of that city of Tiahuanuco
belonged to a then highly civiUzed nation, which
sent colonists to the remotest parts of the earth,
as the EngUsh do to-day, and to whose historical
annals may be traced many of the primitive tradi-
tions of mankind. This city was already in i-uins
when Manco Capac laid the foundation of the Inca's
empire, and had been constructed by giants he-
fore the sun shone in heaven, as the natives said
to the Spaniards when questioned as to its an-
tiquity.

We have seen that the members of the family of
king Can, are still worshiped in the temples of
Japan, as of old they were in those of Egypt; we
now meet unimpeachable records of them, carved
on very ancient monuments, on the shores of lake
Titicaca, at the foot of the great glaciers of Sorata
and nUmani, as we have found them in mytho-
logical lore of India and Greece. Will it be said
that these are mere coincidences ?

The front of this monolithic gate was once upon

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 103

a time as highly poHshed as the material, trachite,
will permit. The whole space above the doorway is
divided into four bands about eight inches high.
The lower band contains seventeen small heads, in
low relief, adorned in a somewhat similar manner
to that of the central figure. Seven of these, those
directly under that figure wear, Hke it, a badge that
seems to be a plume composed of three feathers.
These small heads are separated by grecques having
macaw's heads at their saHent sides; these grecques
are the symbol of power and strength. In the
ancient Maya and Egyptian alphabets the grecque
is equivalent to our latin letter H. Ah is the Maya
masculine article, and it conveys to the mind the
idea of might and power; this, taken in connection
with the macaiv''s head, totem of Moo, the queen of
Chichen, signifies the mighty, the powerful Moo.

The other bands are divided into squares of the
same size, except in the center over the doorway,
where there is a figure 32 by 21 inches.

Its head, the form of which is not only convention-
al, as its square eyes and mouth indicate, but hkewise
emblematical, consists of three superposed layers in
the shape of escutcheons, the uppermost of which
is sculptured so as to represent a human face.
These three escutcheons as the three feathers of the
plume that adorns it, the triple throne on which the
figure seems to stand, the three dots on each cheek,

104 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

the three oblong squares on the breast-plate, the
three macaw's heads at the extremities of the triple
sceptre it holds in its hands, are symboHcal of the
three great western regions that the Egyptians
designated by the generic name of ^^ Lands of the
Wesf^ and represented by the character iJljiiflM
which is an image of the crown worn by some of
the high chiefs in Mayax, That the central figure

was meant to represent these countries, the sign
I, that stands in heu of the mouth, indicates.

It is the letter M, pronounced Ma, of the Maya and
Egyptian ancient alphabets. It is the radical of May-
ax, name of the Maya empire. But Ma in Egypt as
in Mayax, is a word that signifies land, country, and
by extension universe; and in Mayax as in Egypt
I I is one of the signs for land.

The head is surrounded by rays divided into groups
of four; four on the top, four on each side, and four
on the under part. Each ray is terminated by a
circle with a dot in the center O, a sign very often
met with on the monuments of Mayax; particularly
on the trunk of the mastodon's heads. It is the
first letter of the ancient Maya and Egyptian alpha-

f ' 'virvT'*^

THE MAYAS AND THE QXHCHES. 105

bets, and correspond to our letter A, the initial
of the Maya word Ahau, king. This would indi-
cate that the central figure was likewise symboHcal
of the king par excellence, ruler of the empire,
whom the kneehng 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. The name of this great king we
read in the four heads of leopards, terminating the
rays at the upper angles, and those in the middle
on each side of the escutcheon, and in the four rays
of each group. Translating these symbols by means
of the Maya language, we find that Can Coh was
the name of the potentate; and that he was a mem-
ber of the Can family, rulers of Mayax. This fact
is indicated by the serpent heads at the lower angles
of the escutcheon, those at the extremities of the
breast-plate, the four oblong squares carved on the
ribbons that support it, and the number of rays
forming each group round the head.

In Maya four is can; but can also means serpent,
hkewise power. Number /oitr according to Pythag-
oras, was particularly connected with Mercury, the
Thoth of the Egyptians, as the deity who imparted
intellectual gifts to man. The Tetrahtus or number

106 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

four represented the mystic name of the Creative
Power; and in later times it meant intellect, wis-
dom, all that is active. Pythagoras asks: "How
do you count ? " Mercury: " one, two, three, four. "
Pythagoras: " Do you not see that what are four to
you are ten and oiu* oath ? those (1, 2, 3, 4,) added
together, forming ten, and four containing every
number within it." The four leopard heads are his
totem, Kancoh, Coh being leopard. Further on,
I will refer more in detail to these personages,
and to the role they have played in the civilization
of the world, having been, and being still, wor-
shiped in many countries under different names.
The peculiar shape of the sceptre held in the left
hand of the figiu-e, the upper part of which is bifur-
cated, each end terminating with the head of a
macaw, totem of the queen Moo of Chichen-Itza, sis-
ter and wife of Coh, and its undulations, like those
of a serpent in motion, seem intended as an emblem
of the three great regions that composed the empire
that is Mkewise portrayed in the three rows of kneel-
ing winged personages. The upper portion of said
sceptre is symboUcal of the Western continent, di-
vided into two great parts united by the Isthmus of
Panama. The lower was meant to represent that
extensive island that sunk beneath the waves of the
Atlantic ocean, about 11,500 years ago.
The sceptre held in the right hand of the central

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 107

figure being whole, would show that the entire
country was governed by a potentate to whom the
rulers of the seventeen nations, into which the em-
pire was divided, paid homage and acknowledged
as their suzerain. These seventeen divisions of the
empire are indicated by the seventeen small heads
sculptured on the lower band, and the seventeen
signs of land that adorned the arms, the breast-
plate, and the ribbon from which it is suspended.

Of the small kneeling winged figures, those of the
middle row are portrayed with the heads of macaws
to signify that they are the particular adherents of
queen Moo, that here, as in Mayax, carry her totem
as a badge or sign of recognition; whilst the others
have human heads, but wear on their crowns her
totem, in token that they recognize her as their
suzerain. All these figures are ornamented with
twelve serpents, arranged in groups of three, whilst
the sash they carry across their body from the
shoulder to the waist on the opposite side, termi-
nates in a peculiar knot adorned with the four cir-
cles, that we have said stood for the word Ahau,
that is king, indicating that their lord paramount is
a member of the Can (serpent) dynasty. The whole
tableau recalls vividly, that presented by the kneel-
ing beaked nosed personages in attendance at the
shrine of the bird deity at Kioto.

Mr. Angrand, the well known French archaeolo-

108 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

gist, finds, and with reason, a coincidence between
these sculptures and those of Central America, hav-
ing a corresponding symbohcal significance. In
them he sees the proof of the identity of origin, of
the intimate relationship of the builders of Tiahua-
nuco and those of Palenque, Ocosingo, and Xochi-
calco. He might have added, and be nearer to the
truth, those of the cities of Mayax, that were
founded many centuries before those mentioned by
him.

In Mayax, it is where, indeed, the image of the
serpent, as a symbol, is most commonly met with.
We see it on almost every edifice iu every city. It
is one of the favorite ornaments, especially at
Chichen-Itza, of which place it seems to have been
the particular protecting genius. There it is found
everywhere. It guards the entrance of aU pubHc
edifices. It is at the foot of their grand stair-
ways, as if defending the ascent. The columns
that support their porticos are representations of
it. Its head forms the base, its body the shaft.
The nobles and other personages of high rank wore
adornments made in the shape of serpents. Chi-
chen may indeed be called the " City of Serpents "
par excellence. If we, therefore, wish to know the
true meaning of the serpent as a symbol, if we de-
sire to inquire as to the motives that led to its wor-
ship, it is necessary to question the learned priests

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 109

of that city; to consult the books in which the phi-
losophers of Mayax have consigned their knowledge
and their esoteric doctrines.

The origin of the " Serpent Worship " they tell us,
can be traced to two apparently distinct causes.
One, the esoteric, taught only to a few select of
those initiated in the greater mysteries, is the
homage to be tributed by the creature to the Crea-
tor. The other, the exoteric, inculcated on the un-
initiated, was the love of the country, and the re-
spect due by the subjects to their rulers, living
images and vicars of the Deity on earth.

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
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 from whom they
had received this symbol, that was the same used by
the Mayas. A clue to this mystery can no doubt
be found in the cosmogonical notions prevalent
among the ancient civilized nations; for, strange
to say, they seem to have been ahke with all.
We read in the Manava-dharma-sastra that the
visible universe in the beginning was nothing but
darkness. Then the great, self -existing Power dis-

110 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

pelled that darkness, and appeared in all His splen-
dor. He first produced the waters; and on them
moved Narayana the divine spirit.

Berosus, recounting the ancient legend of the
creation according to the Chaldeans, says: "In the
beginning all was darkness and water; and therein
were generated monstrous animals and strange and
pecuhar forms. . . 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).

Genesis recounts that: "In the beginning the
Earth was without form and void; and darkness was
upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God
moved upon the face of the water. And God said,
Let there be hght and there was light."

In Primander, that modern critics consider the
most ancient and authentic of the first philosophical
books of Egypt, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus,
in the dialogue between Thoth and Primander, the
Supreme Intelligence, we read these words of Thoth.
" I had then before my eyes a most prodigious spec-
tacle. AU things had resolved themselves into
hght. A marvellous, pleasing and seducing sight it
was to contemplate. It fiUed me with dehght. After
a while a horrid shadow, which ended in obhque
folds, and assumed a humid nature, agitated itself
with terrific noise. Prom it escaped smoke with

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. HI

uproar, and a voice was heard above the din. It
seemed as the voice of the Hght; and the verb came
forth from that voice of Ught; that verb was car-
ried upon the humid principle. Out of it came
forth the fire pure and hght, and rising, it was lost
in the air that, spirit-Uke, occupies the intermediate
space between the water and the fire. The earth
and the water were so mixed that the surface of the
Earth covered by the water appeared nowhere."

And in what are termed the modern Hermetic
books, the origin of things is thus explained: " The
principle of all things existing is God, and the intel-
lect, and nature, and matter, and energy, and fate,
and conclusion, and renovation. For there were
boimdless darkness in the abyss, and water, and a
subtile spirit, intellectual in power, existing in
chaos. But the holy hght broke forth, and the ele-
ments were produced from among the sand of a
watery essence."

In the Popol- Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiches,
we read: " This is the recital of how everything was
without Ufe, calm and silent, all was motionless and
quiet; void was the immensity of the heavens; the
face of the Earth did not manifest itself yet; only
the tranquil sea was, and the space of the heavens.
All was immobihty and silence in the darkness, in
the night; only the Creator, the Maker, the Domi-
nator, the Sei-pent covered with feathers, they who

112 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

engender, they who create, were on the waters as an
ever increasing hght. They are sun-ounded by green
and blue, their name is Gucumatz."

We have already said how the Maya sages have
taken care to perpetuate their cosmogonical concep-
tions, 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 identical with those of the Hindoos
and the Egyptians. It cannot be argued that this
identity of ideas about the origin of things, arrived
at by the wise men of India, Egypt, and Mayax,
and expressed in as nearly the same words as the
genius of the vernacular of these various countries
admits, is piirely accidental; or, that they have ar-
rived separately at the same conclusions on the sub-
ject, without communicating one with the other.
The notion and its explanation must have originated
with one, and been taught to the others just as our
modern scientific discoveries, or rehgious beliefs,
are carried from country to country, even the most
remote, and made known to their inhabitants.
What should we think of the man who would pre-
tend that the railway, electric telegraph, and many
other of the latest inventions, instead of having
originated in one particular country, nay, more, in
the brain of a particular man, have sprung simulta-
neously among all the various nations which make

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 113

use of them ? Would not that man be regarded as
a born idiot or a fit subject for a lunatic asylum ?
We can easily understand how these cosmogonical
notions have passed from the Egyptians to the
Chaldees or to the Hindoos or vice versa; but who
brought them to the "Lands of the West" and
when ? Who can say they did not arise among the
inhabitants of the " Western continent; " and were
not conveyed by them to the other nations ?

In my work "Queen Moo and the Egyptian
Sphinx," I have shown how the legends accompany-
ing 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 Egyp-
tian civihzation. How the ancient Maya hieratic
alphabet, discovered by me, is as near ahke 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 beheve that the
cosmogonical conceptions, so widely spread, origi-
nated with the Mayas, and were communicated by
them to all the other nations among which we find
their name.

An analysis of the tableau of creation, carved on
the fagade of the palace at Chichen-Itza, cannot fail,

114 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

therefore, to prove interesting. In it we shall find a
proof of the scientific attainments of its designers;
and also the reason why the serpent came to be
worshiped all over the Earth.

The philosophers of Mayax must have known
that the waters cover the greatest part of the globe
(about three fifths); and that water being a com
bination of gases (oxygen and hydrogen), the most
subtile of fluids, must have been the first form of
matter produced. This is why on each side and on
the top of the tableau they placed the symbol of

water i5^^J^A/v; taking care to leave without it,
/WVV\A

at the upper part, a portion equal to two-fifths of its
length. In the midst of the waters they represented
the figm-e of an egg, that is a germ. Why an egg
and not any other seed ? Is it because their study
of physiology had made them acquainted with
the fact, that no being exists on Earth, but that is
born from an egg ? They represented the egg emit-
ting rays. The rays of the light into which says
Thoth, all things resolved themselves; that, says
the Quiche, author of the Popol-Vuh, appeared on
the water as an increasing brightness that bathed
the Creator, the feathered serpent, the Kneph, as
the Egyptians would name it, in green and azure.
It is weU to notice that the symbols of water termi-
nate with the head of serpents; because they com-
pared the waves of the ocean to the undulations of

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 115

the serpent's body while in motion. For this rea-
son 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 ex-
plains why the Quiches, the Mayas, the Egyptians,
the Hindoos, represented the world, and, by exten-
sion, the maker of it, as a serpent. Thus it is that
they placed a serpent within the egg, behind the
creator to indicate that this symbol is the totem of
the ancestor of all beings. And here we have one
of the origins of the serpent worship: that is, the
adoration of the Creator.

In Egypt the goddess Uati, the genius of the
lower country, is at times represented as a serpent
with inflated breast, the body standing erect over a
basket or sieve, the lower part resting against a fig-
ure resembhng our numeral 8. At times again, as
a winged serpent, with inflated breast, wearing on
its head a cap or crown of peculiar shape, that it

Fia. 1. Fig. 2,

is said to be the crown of lower Egypt. Why the
Egyptians selected such symbols to represent the
lower country, we are not informed; and it is doubt

116

SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

ful if the learned Egyptologists could explain the
motive.

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

The author of the Troano MS., sometimes pic-
tures Mayax as a serpent with an inflated breast
(Plate. XVn., Part II.), at other times as a serpent
with part of the body bent in the shape of the Yuca-
tan peninsula,* and the artists who executed the

* An interpretation of the Maya legend explanatory of the il-
lustration may not be amiss, inasmuch as it shows that the ser-
peant was the symbol of the country.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 117

paintings in the funereal chamber of Prince Coh,
typified the country as a winged serpent, with the
back painted green, the belly yellow, wearing a
blue crown on the head, its tail ending with a pecu-
liar dart resembling in general contour the southern
continent of America.

This is not the place to give minute explanations
of these symbols which I have considered in another
work, I simply wish to consign here such facts as can-
not be attributed altogether to hazard. So the pecu-
liar twist against which rests the body of the serpent,
emblem of the lower country, is exactly the same that
forms the symbol /^--v\^^^^^^~^ used in the Troano
MS., to represent vS^j^^^^^jJ the gulf of Mexico
and the Caribbean sea, whose waters bathe the

Beginning at the top of the column, it reads as follows:

Ahau Eb Kan cib Lamat

A-ha-u Heb Kanaan cib Lam-a-ti
that is literally: He-wuter-Basin turn abundant fluid submerge

the land.

Freely translated,

The Master of the basin of water turns it: abundant fluid sub-
merges the land.

A glance at the illustration will suffice to show that the interpre-
tation is correct. In my work " The Monuments of Mayax," etc.,
I give a more complete explanation of it.

118 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

peninsula of Yucatan, that seems as if standing
erect between them as the serpent in the Egyptian

sign. As to the sieve, it is called, by the natives of
that country, Mayab. Mayab was, in past ages,
one of the names of the peninsula. The crown
of Lower Egypt ^ , is precisely that worn by
certain chieftains, \^ — • whose portraits we see in
the bas-reUefs at l/^""^ Chichen-Itza. There the
peak was worn in front; in Egypt at the back: may
be as a mark of respect on the part of the Egyp-
tians toward their mother country, to signify that
as the child, Egypt must stand behind its parent, as
it is customary for children to do among the aborig-
ines of Yucatan.

Since the Egyptians and the Mayas used iden-
tical signs as symbols of the country in which
they hved, may it not be inferred that the same
cause prompted their selection ? We must not lose
sight of the fact that the winged serpents intro-
duced into the paintings of Egypt, are merely em-
blematic representations connected with the mys-

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 119

terious rites of the dead, and the mode of being in
Amenti; that is, in the "Lands of the West"
where the souls of the departed were supposed to re-
turn and exist, after being liberated from their
mortal body. In early days Uati or Mati, the coun-
try of Mayax, was one of the divinities, worshiped
by the settlers on the banks of the Nile; and the
asp, not any other snake, played a conspicuous part
in the religious mysteries, and was universally
honored.

Here, again, we may ask why ? What possible
relation can exist between the asp and the coun-
try; between the asp and the office of king or
the attributes of Deity ? Still it was the badge of
royalty, worn as an ornament on the head-dress of
kings and gods. Is the selection of the asp as a
mark of distinction to be ascribed to a mere whim ?
May not that predilection be assigned to the fact
that, when angry, it dilates its breast; and when in
that condition it recalled to the minds of the colo-
nists, the geographical contours of the land of their
forefathers in the West, and the way it was rep-
resented in the books, from which they had studied
in their childhood? 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-

120

SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

blem of lower Egypt (Figs. 1 and 2, p. 115.), the
head being the peninsula of Yucatan, anciently
the seat of the government; and that the south-
ern continent would be the dart of its tail, as
pictured by the Maya artists. The green color of

its back, the verdant tropical forests that cover the
land; the yellow belly, the internal volcanic fires
that cause the surface to wriggle hke a serpent; the
blue crown on its head, the blue canopy of heaven
above; the wings, the smoke of the volcanoes;
the fins, the high peaks of the chain of mountains
that traverses the country from north to south, part
of the Cordilleras, that are as the backbone of the
continent.
The intense love of their country is one of the

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 121

most striking characteristics of the aborigines to
the present day. That love may be said to
amount to fanaticism. In it we find another ori-
gin of the serpent worship, emblem of the mother-
land.

In the Serpent mantra, in the Aytareya Brah-
mana, a passage speaks of the Earth as the Sarpa
Rajni, the queen of the serpents, and the mother
of all that moves, still worshiped by the Nagas,
dweUers in the vaUey of Cashmere.

In Mayax the primitive rulers derived their title
Can (serpent) from the shape of the contours of their
empire, as the priests of the sun received theirs
from the name Kin of that luminary. Their emblem
however, was not a winged serpent, with a dart at
the end of the tail, but a rattlesnake covered with
feathers; image of the feathered mantle used by the
king, the high-pontiff, and other high dignitaries, as
ceremonial dress. This feathered rattlesnake adorns
the walls of the royal mansions. It is seen at Ux-
mal, on the east fagade of the west wing of king
Can's palace and at other places. After their death
these rulers, images of Deity on earth, received
the honors of apotheosis. They became gods and
goddesses and were worshiped as such. In Assyria
the symbol of the winged sei-pent was replaced by
that of the winged circle, emblem of Asshur, the
supreme deity of the Assyrians; and this symbol is

123 SACRED Hn^STERIES AMONG

seldom found in the sculptures except in imme-
diate connection with the monarch. It seems to
be also closely related with the sacred or symbohcal
tree.

Here again, is another origin of " Serpent Wor-
ship," in that of the kings of Mayax under the sym-
bol of the " feathered serpent." One of the names
for rattlesnake, in Maya, is Ahau-Can, the royal
serpent. In the sculptures the king is often repre-
sented by this emblem with seven rattles at the end
of the tail; seven having been the number of the
members of king Can's family. In Egypt the kings
and queens were honored as gods after their death.
In Greece and other countries, the heroes were deified
and worshiped as divinities.

From aU antiquity and by aU nations, the tree
and serpent worship have been so closely identified,
as to guarantee the inference that their origin is the
same, although it seems difficult to comprehend
what possible analogy may exist between them,
vdthout a knowledge of the place where it origi-
nated, of the people that first instituted it, of their
traditions and pecuHar notions. Many learned stu-
dents have published the results of their researches
on the subject. None, however, has yet assigned a
birthplace to the tree or serpent worship.

The late Mr. James Fergusson tells us that he is
incHned to believe that it was in "the mud of

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 133

the lower Euphi-ates, among a people of Turanian
origin, and spread thence to every country of the
old world." This is truly indefinite. Then comes
the query: what about the tree and serpent worship
among the inhabitants of the Western continent ?
For they also had their sacred trees; and with them
as with the natives of the Eastern world, the tree
was symboHcal of eternal Ufe.

The oak tree was dedicated to Baal, the chief god
of the Phoenicians and other eastern nations. Under
it the Druids performed their most sacred rites in
honor of CEseus, the Supreme Being. The ash was
venerated by the Scandinavians. The inhabitants of
the island of Delos believe the gigantic palm tree to
be the favorite production of Latona. The people
of Samos, Athens, Dodona, Arcadia, worshiped in
sacred groves, as those of Canaan. In India the
worship of the tree is of very ancient date, as in the
island of Ceylon: in the courtyard of every monas-
tery a bo-tree (ficus Indicus) is planted. Nowhere,
however, do we find the origin of that worship
mentioned.

Mr. Fergusson advises us to look to the Egyp-
tians, these being the most ancient civilized people,
for an explanation of it, averring that it undoubt-
edly prevailed among them befoi-e the multifari-
ous Theban pantheon was elaborated. In Egypt
the tamarisk was the holy tree chosen to over-

124 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

shadow the supposed sepulchre of Osiris, the king
of Amenti. The persea was sacred to Athor, the
regent of the West, often identified with Isis. The
sycamore was consecrated to Nut, mother of Isis
and Osiris, frequently represented in the paintings
of the tombs, standing in its branches, pouring
from a vase, a liquid which the soul of the departed,
under the form of a bird with a human head, catches
in his hands. It is the water of eternal hfe. So
the trees were particularly sacred to the deities con-
nected with Amenti, that is, to the deified kings and
queens from the " Lands of the West."

We are told that the sacred tree was an emblem
found in frequent association with the " winged cir-
cle" in Assyria. As this symbol is always met
with in immediate connection with the monarchs, it
would seem that the worship of the tree bears a
close relation to, if it is not typical of, that of the
deified heroes and kings.

To understand the relationship between the tree,
the winged serpent or "circle" and the "mon-
archs" it is again necessary to consult the annals
left carved in stone or written in their books by the
wise men of Mayax. From them we learn that
the Mayas held certain trees sacred, Landa, Cogol-
ludo, and other early writers teU us that, even as
far down as the time of the Spanish conquest, the
aborigines beUeved in the immortaUty of the soul,

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 135

that would be rewarded or punished in the Uf e be-
yond the grave, for its deeds whilst in the body.
Their reward was to consist in dwelling in a delect-
able place, where pain was unknown, where there
would be an abundance of deHcious food, which they
would enjoy, with eternal repose, in the cool shade
beneath the evergreen and spreading branches of
the yaxche (ceiba tree), which is found planted,
even to-day, in front of the main entrance of the
churches, throughout Yucatan and Central America.
Sometimes the churches are built in the midst of
groves of ceiba trees, that in some locahties are re-
placed by the gigantic palm tree {Palma real).

The Maya empire was of old, according to the au-
thor 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 Yucatecan
peninsula. (See map, page 120.) Here we have the
key to the origin of the tree worship, and its intimate
relation to the winged serpent and the king. It is
again the worship of the country symbohzed by a
tree, as it also was by a serpent, or by the Euler.
Thus we find a natural explanation of the tradition
current among the ancient nations, that the tree
par excellence, the tree of hfe, 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

126

SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

between the two great continents, North and South
America, forming the " Lands of the West." *

* The legend reads commencing from the top of the left hand
column —

to WJ ^ © § P

Can Ahau Cimen eb for heb Ezanab Kan

the King dead forcing its earthquake has risen

master of the basin way

of water

(beginning again at the top of the second column)

ED
Can

cib

lamat

foot sank air — wind filled up crater — or bosom

of the volcanoes

— = IH •*•• • ^

uac luumilob umukan can kak-mul Timanik

six fertile lands umukan four volcano Timanik

Freely translated :

Can, the master of the basin of water, who was dead, forcing

his way by means of the earthquake, has risen. Can's foot sank.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 127

This relation of the tree, the serpent and the
country in the middle of the World, is confirmed by
the Chinese writers, commentators on the Chou-
king, one of the most ancient hterary monmnents
of China. Speaking of the Tien-Hoang or kings of
heaven, Yong-ciii says: Tien-hoang had the body
of a serpent. He was the origin of letters. He
gave names to the ten Kan, and to the twelve Tchi,
in order to determine the place of the year; and
Yuen-leao-faii, another writer, says that Kan means
the tru7ik of a tree, and that Tchi are the branches,
reason why they are called Che-cull-Tse, the twelve
children. It is weU to remark here that the chil-
dren of king Can were called Can-chi, which is
stiU a family name among the aborigines.

Ti-HTJANG, king of the Earth, is also called Hoang-
kiun, that is, he who reigns sovereignly in the mid-
dle of the earth, and also Tse-yuen, or the son prin-
ciple, the engendered, the Brahma of the BDindoos,

the air having filled up the crater of the volcano. Six fertile
lands have appeared in Umukan (Cuba) and four volcanoes in
Timanik (one of the small Antilles.)

The Maya writers, as the author of the Troano, etc,, sonaetimes
represented the Earth under the figure of an old woman ajid
called it mam — the grandmother. She is here represented hold-
ing in her left hand the sign of the smoke, and darting a jave-
lin emblem of the volcanic energy, and in her right hand she
holds the symbol of the "Land of the Scoi-pion" " Zinaan," the
West India Islands of our days. The deer head represents the
Maya Empire.

128 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

the Kneph of the Eygptians, the Menen of the
Mayas.

The cross is another sacred symbol much rever-
enced by all nations, civiUzed and semi-civilized,
ages before the estabUshment of Christianity: and
although we find representations of it in almost
every part of the world, from its mere deUneation
scratched on the rock, to the stately temples and
admirably hewn caves of Elephanta in India, still
nowhere do we learn of its origin. There are
several varieties of crosses, but all may be traced
back to the primitive form which resembles the
Latin cross.

Among the earhest type known on the Eastern
continents is the "Crux Ansata," called the "Key
of the Nile." It was the "symbol of symbols"
among the Egyptians, the Phoenicians and the
Chaldees, being the emblem of the life to come. It
was placed on the breast of the deceased, sometimes
as a simple T on the fulcrum of a cone; sometimes
represented as supported on a heart. It is also seen
adorning the breasts of statues and statuettes in
Palenque, Copan, and other ancient cities of Guate-
mala, Nicaragua, and various locaHties of Central
America. Everywhere it was associated with water.
In Babylon it was the emblem of water deities. In
Egypt, Assyria, and Britain, it was emblematical of
creative power and eternity. In India, China, and

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 129

Scandinavia of heaven and immortality. In Mayax
of rejuvenescence and freedom from physical suffer-
ing. The cross, as a symbol, was placed on the
breast of the initiate after his new birth was accom-
plished in the Bacchic and Eleusinian mysteries.

Eemesal and Torquemada assert, in their respec-
tive works, that when in 1519, the Spaniards, under
Hernan Cortez, landed at the island of Cozumel,
they found crosses which the natives worshiped as
gods in their temples. After them many writers,
on their authority, have affirmed the same thing.
'rhiB, however, seems to have been a mistake. Ber-
na) Diaz del Castillo, who accompanied Cortez, does
not mention the existence of such symbols in Cozu-
mel, but emphatically says that Cortez, having or-
dered the destruction of the idols that were in the
sanctuaries, caused an image of the Virgin Mary to
be placed in their stead, and near it a wooden cross,
made by two of his carpenters, to be erected, rec-
ommending the natives to take great care of them
when he left. Dr. Pedro Sanchez de Aguilar, an-
other of the early writers, maintains that the stone
crosses found afterward in the island were made in
imitation of that of Cortez; and Bishop Landa, al-
though a most zealous missionary, intent on con-
verting the aborigines to the Catholic faith, does
not mention the existence of crosses in Cozumel be-
fore the advent of the Spaniards; a fact he would

130 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

certainly have taken advantage of in his predication
of the gospel, and would not have failed to mention
in his work, had he been satisfied that the symbol
really existed.

There can be no doubt that in Mayax, m very re-
mote ages, the cross was an emblem pertaining to
the sacred mysteries. 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 Amer-
ica. Only one image of a perfect cro^s have I ever
met with in the ancient edifices of Yucatan besides
the ground plan of the sanctuary at Uxmal. (See
page 35.) It forms part of the inscription carved
on the lintel of the doorway of the east fagade of the
palace at Chichen. Still tradition tells us that the
cross was symboHcal of the " God of Rain.^' If so,
they made no image of it, nor did they celebrate
any festival in honor of it at the time of the con-
quest, but held it simply as a notion of their fore-
fathers.

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 god-
dess Maya, the good dame, mother of the gods, the
^^ Southern Cross, ^^ appears perfectly perpendicular
above the Hne of the southern horizon. This is why
the Catholic church celebrates the feast of the ado-

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 131

ration of the holy cross on the third day of that
month, which it has consecrated particularly to
the Mother of God, the Good Lady, the virgin Ma-
B-ia, or the goddess Isis anthropomorphised by
Bishop Cyril of Alexandria.

In aU localities situated within the 12th and 23d
degree of latitude north, about the beginning of
January, the dry season sets in and no more rain
falls during several months. In May and April in
the countries Hke Yucatan, where there is no water
on the surface of the ground, aU things become
parched; the trees and shrubs lose their leaves, na-
ture looks desolate, all Hving beings thirst for a
drop of moisture, the birds and other wild crea-
tures, mad with thirst, lose their characteristic shy-
ness and venture near the haunts of man, imperil-
ing their hves in search of water; death, for want
of it, seems to threaten aU creation.

But four bright stars appear in the south. A
shining cross stands erect above the southern hori-
zon. It is the heavenly messenger that brings good
tidings to aU, for it announces that the flood-gates
of heaven soon shall be open; that the so longed for
rain wiU shortly descend from on high, and with
it joy and happiness, new hfe to aU creatures.
Man hails with thankful heart, welcomes with
songs of gladness, this briUiant harbinger of the life
to come, for indeed it is a god for him, the God of

132 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

Kain that rejuvenates nature, frees man and all
other creatures from physical sufferings, brings
felicity to them — heaven therefore — and, with re-
newed Ufe, immortality. Is it not the creative
power that is eternally renovating and revivifying
all things on the surface of the earth ? Is it then
strange that all nations, in every age, should have
worshiped the cross as symbol of the life to come
and immortality, and held it in so great veneration ?
It must be remembered that aU the civiMzed nations
in the " Lands of the West " and in the " Eastern
Continent, "^ dwelt in latitudes where the constella-
tion known as "the Southern Cross" is visible
during the month of May, and that the first showers
soon follow its apparition above the horizon. From
these of course it was transmitted to the others fur-
ther north, that accepted the symbol, without under-
standing its meaning, and in aftertimes many spec-
ulations have been indulged in concerning its origin:
but the unsophisticated natives, in the midst of
their forests to-day, rejoice at the sight of the
" Southern Cross " and prepare to sow their fields.

The origin and meaning of the mystical T, that
symbol of "hidden wisdom" as it has been de-
nominated by scholars of our days, found on aU
Egyptian monuments, in the temples, in the hands
of the gods, in the tombs on the breast of the mum-
mies, also met with in the ancient edifices of Mayax,

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 133

and on the statues and altars in the temples at
Palenque, has given rise to many speculations on
the part of modem savants. They have not reached
yet any conclusion, although its name TAXJ says
plainly, that it is nothing more or less than a repre-
sentation 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 month for water; " hence for the resurrection of
nature — for the new Ufe to come.

The complex form of the mystical T which is
formed of a cone with two arms extending, one
each side, and an oval placed immediately above
them, has been denominated by the Egyptologists
crux-ansata. It is not of Eygptian origin. It has
its prototype in the conoidal pillar, surmounted by
a sphere, used by the Babylonians as symbol of hfe
and death; death being but the beginning or nursery
of life. 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 trunk of
the yaxche, from the foot to the top, forms a perfect
cone from which the main branches shoot in an
horizontal direction. Its leafy top, seen from a dis-
tance, presents the appearance of a half sphere of
verdure. The cone, the tau and the criLX-ansata

134

SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

were for those initiated to the mysteries the same
symbol, emblematical of Deity, of the life to come,
of the dual powers, of fertility. 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.

From a Mexican MS. in British Museum. (Add. MS. b. m. 9789.)

In straying apparently so far from the main ob-
ject of these pages, and tracing to their true origin
the primitive traditions of mankind and many
of the rehgious symbols common to all the civil-
ized nations of antiquity, by dispelling the mists
that have accumulated around them in the long vista

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 135

of ages, my aim has been to show that they all
emanated from one and the same source, and that
this source was the country of Mayax, in the
"Lands of the West." Ancient sacred mysteries,
have been celebrated in the temples of Eygpt, Chal-
dea, and India, from ages so remote that it is no
longer known by whom or where they were first
instituted. Herodotus tells us that the daughters
of Danaus instituted the Thesmophoria in honor of
the goddess Ceres, in imitation of the mysteries cele-
brated in Egypt in honor of Isis, and taught them
to the Pelasgic women. That Eumolpus, king of
Eleusis, instituted in his own country the Eleusinian
mysteries on his return from Egypt, where he had
been initiated by the priests as Orpheus who
founded in Thracia those that bear his name; but
who taught the rites of initiation, the use of the
symbols and their meaning, to the Hierophants of
Egypt, to the magi of Chaldea, to the Gymnoso-
phists of India ?

The mode of initiation, the use of the same sym-
bols, with an identical signification ascribed to
them, by peoples Uving so far apart whose customs
and manners were so unlike, whose rehgion, so far
at least as external practices were concerned, dif-
fered so widely, show that these mysteries origi-
nated with one people, and were carried to and
promulgated among the others. As we do not find

136 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

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 aU. the other countries, carved on the
walls of the temples of their gods, and the palaces
of their kings ? Their history may afford the clue
to the original meaning of said symbols, as their
language has given us the true signification of the
words used by the celebrating priest to dismiss the
initiates in the Eleusiiiian mysteries, or by the
Brahmins at the end of their reUgious ceremonies,
and as it has revealed the so long hidden mystery
of the mystical Tau.

That sacred mysteries were celebrated from times
immemorial in the temples of Mayax, Xibalba,
Nachan (Palenque of to-day), Copan and other places
of Central America there can be no doubt, since
besides the symbols sculptured on the walls of the
temples and palaces, in two distinct instances, we
see the rites and the trials of initiation described in
the Popol-Vuh; and as these rites and trials were
identical with those to which the appHcants to
initiation in the mysteries of Egypt, Greece, Chal-
dea and India were subjected, we are justified in

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES.

137

seeking in Mayax for the causes that may have in-
duced the founders of the sacred mysteries to select
the odd numbers 3, 5, and 7, instead of the even 2,
4, and 6 for mystic numbers.

The symboUzation of number 3 may possibly be
accounted for in two different ways. One is sug-
gested by the sceptre of Poseidon, that Plato says
was the first king of Atlantis, and is represented by
the Greek mythologists as being a son of Kronos;
his three-pronged trident being an allusion to the
three great islands that formed his kingdom.
North and South America and Mu, that now lies
buried under the waves of the Atlantic ocean.
The emblem hX / placed in the hands of Vul the
god of the *ji^ atmosphere in the Chaldean
mythology, ) found also in those of the Hin-
doo gods, may hkewise represent the
three worlds or great regions that
the Egyptian and Maya hierogram-
matists designed by the character
ililMili 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:

I® @ ^

that is: PPeu, caban for cabahaan has struck again — bat — ax.
Freely translated: PPeu has struck again the tree with his ax.

138 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONO

simile of which we find in Scandinavia, in the three
roots of the sacred ash Yggdrasil, mystic-world
tree, and the tliree heavens, and the three worlds
whose destruction, by water, was prophesied by
Vishnu. The deification of the "World" com-
posed of three parts forming a great whole, may
have been the origin of the Trimourti, or Triune
god, so prevalent among the ancient nations of
antiquity, and probably led to the mystification
of nimiber 3. We find it symbolized all over the
earth, in every nation. We see it in Mayax in
the three platforms on which are raised the most
ancient edifices ; in the three rooms that formed
the temple where the mysteries were performed ;
in the three steps that led to the first or lower
platform in all sacred edifices ; in the 21 metres
(3x7) of all the principal pyramids in Yucatan;
in the three concentric circles of the Zodiac.
We meet with it constantly in India, in the
vyahritis or three sacred words; the three orna-
ments or saranas; the three principal classes; the
three ways of salvation; the three fetters of the soul

PPeu was the name of one of the twelve ancient rulers who
governed the country in times anterior to the great cataclysm
during which the Atlantic island was submerged. Deified after
his death he became one of the protecting genii of the land,
whose effigies still adorn the east fagade of the palace at Chichen
Itza, where they are placed, between the eyes, over the trunks of
the mastodon's head, and surrounded with an aureola.

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 139

or gunas; the three eyes in Siva's forehead; the
three strands of the sacred cord worn by the initi •
ates of the three principal classes: the three letters
of the sacred word A.u.m. In Egypt the three
thonged flagelum of Osiris; the triple phallus car-
ried in procession at the festival of the Paamylia in
honor of the birth of Osiris, and also the triads, as
Ukewise in Chaldea.

Another way of accounting for the mystification
of number 3, is by taking heed of the indications of
Orpheus, Plato, Proclus, and the other Greek philoso-
phers who had been admitted to the participation
of the secrets communicated in the mysteries to
those worthy of being entrusted with them. They
tell us that the three intellects of the Demiurgos, of
the triple deity, were " three kings.''''

The author of the Troano MS.,
relates at some length the history
of the three sons of king Can; and
of the troubles that arose among
them when, after the death of their
father, the reins of the government
fell into their hands. Of that fact #

a faint tradition, very much distorted, seems to have
still existed among the aborigines of Central Amer-

* Symbol of the three sons of King Can — represented under the
emblem of the three deer heads — Uluumil ceh, "the land of the
deer," being one of the names of the country of the Mayas.

140 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

ica at the time of the Spanish conquest; for Bishop
Landa states: " That is was said that once upon a
time three lords, brothers, governed the country
together." Those three brothers, sons of king Can,
are reahties, personages who have certainly Uved a
mundane existence, since we not only have their
portraits, their weapons, and their ornaments, but
also their mortal remains. They recall vividly the
three sons of Adam, the three sons of Seb, and the
three sons of Kronos. The author of the Troano
MS., informs us that the members of the family of
king Can were deified after their death, and wor-
shiped in temples, the ruins of which still exist
buried in the depths of the forests of Yucatan un-
der a shroud of verdure. It is not at all improbable
that Cay, the elder brother and high-pontiff having
instituted with his father the sacred mysteries,
took as symbol of the various degrees into which
they divided them, the number of the members of
their family, in order to perpetuate their name and
history through the coming ages. This explanation
seems the more plausible, if we remember that
Eusebius tells us that the Egyptians represented the
supreme Deity under the shape of a serpent (Can-
hel) that was as superior to the triads, as the father
is to his children in whom he rejoices. ^'Numero
Deus impare gaudet.''^ In this connection the three
Hoang-ti, of Chinese mythological times, might

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 141

also be mentioned. They too had the shape of ser-
pents.

Among the ancient civihzed nations of the east-
ern continents number 5 was also considered mys-
tic. Frequent mention is made of it in their sacred
books. In China it occupies a conspicuous place
among the celestial or perfect numbers, as 1, 3, 5, 7,
9, are called in the y-king, or Canonical book of
Changes; a very ancient work, so highly esteemed
by the wise philosopher Confucius (Kong-fou-tse)
that he was seldom seen without it. There we read
of the five elements, water, fire, wood, metal, and
earth; of the five kinds of grain; of the five colors,
black, red, green or blue, yeUow and white; of the
five tastes, salt, bitter, sour, acid, and sweet; of the
five tones in music; of the five relations of hfe be-
tween men; those between a king and its ministers,
a father and his children, a husband and his wife,
elder and younger brothers, and between friends; of
the five virtues, philanthropy, uprightness, decorum,
prudence, fidehty; of the five organs of the body,
kidneys, heart, Hver, lungs, and spleen; of the five
Chang- ti, or elementary generations; Of the five
parts that form the heavens; of the five seasons of
the year; of the five genii that govern the five ele-
ments; of the five principal mountains of the em-
pire; of the five tutelary mountains.

In India nimiber 5 is also very prevalent in things

142 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

pertaining particularly to psychological concep-
tions or religious observances; so they speak of the
five organs of intelligence, by means of which the
external objects are perceived; of the five organs
of action; the five elements, the five great obla-
tions; of the five gi-eat sacrifices; the five great
fires, etc. In Maya^x it was Uke^wise a mystic
number, since we find this simbol • • carved at
each end of the southern apartment • •in the edi-
fice consecrated to the celebration of the sacred
mysteries. It appears in the number of steps lead-
ing from the courtyards or terraces to the principal
apartments in the " House of the Governor," " the
palace of king Can'''' and other edifices at Uxmal,
and in other buildings. 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. In the rites of
modern Freemasonry, it is still the sacred number
related to the second degree. In the Troano MS.,
the legends of all the compartments into which the
work is divided, as in chapters, are composed of
five characters, to indicate that said legends are the
headings, that is ho-ol, the beginning, the head.

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

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 143

wife Zoo, two daughters, Moo and Nicte, whose
names bear a striking resemblance to T-Mau, one of
the names of Isis and Nihe her sister. So king
Can by his wife Zoo, had five children, just as Seh
had by his wife Nut in Egypt; these being Aroeris,
Set, Osiris, Isis, and Nike. Strange coincidence,
that may, however, give us a knowledge of the
origin of the mystification of number five.

Seven seems to have been the sacred number par
excellence among all civiHzed nations of antiquity.
Why ? This query has never been satisfactorily an-
swered. Each separate people has given a different
explanation, according to the peculiar tenets of
their rehgion. That it was the number of numbers
for those initiated to the sacred mysteries there can
be no doubt. Pythagoras, who had borrowed his
ideas on numbers from the Egyptians, calls it the
"Vehicle of life," containing body and soul, since
it is formed of a quartenary, that is: Wisdom and
Intellect; and a trinity or action and matter. Em-
peror Juhan, in Matrem and in Oratio, expresses
himself thus: " Were I to touch upon the initiation
into our secret mysteries, which the Chaldees bac-
chised, respecting the seven-rayed god, Mghting up
the soul through him, I should say things unknown
to the rabble, very unknown, but well known to
the blessed Theurgists."

Whatever that knowledge may have been, and

144 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

their esoteric explanation of the cause of the mys-
tification of number seven, can only be surmised to-
day; but it is not improbable that it was to be found
in some event in the early history of the race whose
traditions we find scattered broadcast over the
Earth. We have seen that the family of king
Can was composed of seven members, who became
rulers of the seven cities that bear their names, the
ruins of which still exist in the forests of Yucatan,
and by the beauty and richness of the ornamentation,
the massiveness and finish of the walls of their
temples and palaces, excite the admiration of the
beholder. These personages, deified after their
death, have been worshiped in various countries,
and are yet in some, under different names. May
not the remembrance of the existence of these seven
ancient rulers of Mayax, have been the origin of
the tradition of the seven divine rulers of Egypt; of
the seven Manous that according to the Brahmins,
governed the world in the night of times; of the
seven Bichis or holy personages who assisted them;
of the seven princes of the Persian court; and the
seven councillors of the ting; of the seven Ameshas-
pants or first angels; of the seven great gods of the
Assyrians; or the seven primitive gods regarded
by the Japanese as their ancestors and said by them
to have governed the world during an incalculable
nmnber of years; of the seven Cabiri, worshiped

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 145

by the Pelasgians at Lemnos and Samothracia; the
seven great gods in theogony of the Nahuatls ? Do
we not see a simile of the Ah 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 Kneph or the
Mehen {Canhel) of the Mayas; or in the seven serpents
that form the crown of Siva; or again in the Seven-
rayed god Heptaktis, of which the emperor Juhan
was so reluctant to speak ?

It would seem that the duration of certain rehg-
ious festivals was fixed to commemorate the exist'
ence on Earth of these seven primitive gods or rulers,
the tradition of which we find in all countries
where we meet with vestiges of the Mayas. So we
see the seven days of the festival of the Eleusinian
mysteries; the seven days of the festival in honor of
the buU Apis, a symbol of Osiris; the seven days of
the feast of the tabernacles. The septenary system,
was also adopted for the same purpose no doubt;
in Mayax, since we find the seven cities dedicated
to each of the members of king Can's family; the
seven pyramids that adorned the city of Uxmal; the
seven turrets that ornamented the south f agade of the
north wing of king Can's palace at Uxmal, each tur-
ret inscribed with the name of one of the members

146 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

of his family; those dedicated to the females being
on the east end of the wing. The seven gradients
into which is divided the third or uppermost of the
three platforms that serve as a substructm-e to the
temples and palaces; the seven superposed gradients^
forming all the pyamids, calling to mind the seven
terraces of the temple of the seven hghts at Bor-
sippa, the most perfect form of Chaldee "temple
tower," and the " pyramid degrees " at Sakkara, al-
though in this Egyptian pyramid the gradients are
more numerous. The seven rooms buUt on the west
side of the conical mound that supports the temple
in which the mysteries were performed at Uxmal:
each room again being dedicated to one of the
members of king Can's family; the bust of the per-
son to whom it was consecrated being affixed over
the doorway. The seven courses of the stones used
in the construction of the walls and of the triangu-
lar arches that form the ceilings of the rooms. The
same system prevails in the arrangement of the
grand gallery in the centre of the great pyramid at
Ghizzeh in Egypt. In that monument as in all the
antique edifices of Mayax, the proportional scale
followed by the architects in the drawing of their
plans is in accordance with the numbers 3, 5, Y, and
their multiples.

The predilection of the nations of antiquity in
which the sacred mysteries were celebrated, for

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 147

number seven appears in many ways. The seven
days that the rainfall that produced the deluge
lasted, according to the Chaldeans, is reproduced in
the seven days of the prophesy of the deluge by
Vishnu to Satyravata, as we read of it in the
Bhagavata purana; and the seven days of the
prophesy of the same event, made by the Lord to
Noah, according to Genesis; on account of the
seven days of rainfall the Babylonian priests used
seven va^es in the sacrifices; and in the hierarchy of
Mazdeism, the seven Mar outs or genii of the winds;
the seven rounds of the lad<iler in the cave of Mith-
ra. The Aryans had the seven horses that drew the
chariot of the sun; the seven Apris or shapes of the
flame; the seven rays of Agni; the seven steps of
Buddha at his birth. The Egyptians had divided
their nation into seven classes; the week into seven
days: according to them the creation was com-
pleted in seven days. Among the Hebrews, we
find the seven lamps of the ark, and of Zacharias
vision; the sei;ew branches of. the golden candlestick;
the seven days of the feast of the dedication of the
temple; the seven years of plenty; and the seven
years of famine. In the Christian dispensation, the
seven churches with the seven angels at their head;
the seven golden candlesticks; the seven heads of
the beast that rose from the sea; the seven seals of
the book; the seven trumpets of the angels; the

148 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

seven vials full of the wrath of God; the seven last
plagues of Apocalypse. In Greek mythology, the
seven heads of the hydra killed by Hercules, the
seven islands sacred to Proserpine mentioned by
Proclus.

The prevalence of seven as a mystic number
among the inhabitants of the " Western Continent "
is not less remarkable. It frequently occurs in the
Popol- Vuh. We find it besides in the seven families
said by Sahagim and Clavigero to have accompanied
the mystical personage named Votan, the reputed
founder of the great city of Nachan, identified by
some with Palenque. In the seven caves from which
the ancestors of the Nahualts are reported to have
emerged. In the seven cities of Cibola, described
by Coronado and Mza, the site of which has been
accurately fixed by Mr, Frank Cushing in the im-
mediate neighborhood of the village of Zuni. In
the seven Antilles; in the Seven heroes who, we are
told, escaped the deluge.

' Can it be maintained that this acceptation of
seven as a mystic number by nations so heterogene-
ous and living so far apart, and from the remotest
ages, is purely accidental ? The origin of its mysti-
fication has never been explained. It has been
transmitted to us by our predecessoi's, who them-
selves had accepted it from theirs, without knowing
why it was made the sacred nmnber of the third

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 149

degree in the rites of initiation into Freemasonry.
True, in receiving the degree the initiated are told
the esoteric meaning attached to it in modern times;
but this meaning does not give the origin of its
mystification. In fact, it is an invention of our days.

That it was the sacred number of the highest de-
gree of the sacred mysteries in May ax is evident.
We have seen that 3 was the number of the male
children of king Can; 5 that of his sons and daugh-
ters; T was consequently that of the members of
the whole family. It is not therefore improbable
that to commemorate that fact, T was made the
sacred number of the third degree of their sacred
mysteries, and that this was the origin of its mys-
tification.

In these pages I have presented, without com-
mentaries, a few of the facts that twelve years re-
searches among the ruins of the antique temples
and palaces of the Mayas, a knowledge of their
language (stiU 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, civiHzation, cosmogonical conceptions, re-
ligious tenets and practices of the ancient inhabi-
tants of Yucatan.

150 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

It is for you, reader, to judge if such facts are
worthy your consideration, and of the truthful-
ness of my assertion that a knowledge of the his-
tory of the primitive dwellers in these "Lands of
the West" will help to raise the veil that has
covered during so many centuries the origin of the
first traditions of mankind. Although in the first
annual report of the executive committee of the
"Archaeological institute of America," we read
that: " The study of American archaeology relates
indeed to the monuments of a race that never at-
tained to a high degree of civilization and that has
left no trustworthy records of continuous history.
It was a race whose intelligence was for the most
part of a low order, whose sentiments and emotions
were confined within a narrow range, and whose
imagination was never quickened to find expression
of itself in poetic or artistic forms of beauty. From
what it was or what it did, nothing is to be learned
that has any direct bearing on the progress of civil-
ization." With all due respect for the learning of
the gentlemen who have attached their names to so
astounding an assertion, I beg to differ from their
opinion expressed so emphatically. I differ because
I have seen and photographed the constructions left
by the mighty races that have preceded us on this
continent. They have not. Because I have studied
for years, in situ, these monuments that attest to the

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 151

high civilization of their builders. They have not.
Because I have learned the language in which they
have consigned part at least of their history in in-
scriptions carved on stones, and read some of said
inscriptions. They have not. Indeed, on this con-
tinent, not far from New Orleans, exist the reUcs of
past generations which are as interesting, if not
more so, as those of Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, and
Italy; as deserving the attention of aU students of
archaeology, of history, of ethnology, and philology.
It is time yet to save from utter destruction the last
records of ancient American history, that are crum-
bUng every day more and more, and are being de-
stroyed by the hand of ignorance and cupidity. A
few years more, and all intelligible traces of them
wiU have disappeared. Will nothing be done in this
country to preserve what remains of the ancient
American civilization? of that civilization which
seems to have been the fountain-head at which the
philosophers of all nations, in the remotest an-
tiquity, have come to acquire knowledge and drink
inspiration from the learning and wisdom of the
Maya sages.

Americans have established in Athens schools for
the study of Greek Archaeology; in Alexandria, for
the decipherment of the inscriptions carved on the
walls of the temples, on the obeUsks, and in the
papyri found in the tombs in Egypt; is it not time

152 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG

that students in United States should direct their
attention to the ancient history of the continent on
which they hve ? It is not altogether lost, and the
tongue in which it is written is not a dead language.
Maya is one of the oldest forms of speech, coeval, if
not anterior to Sanscrit. The names Alpha, Beta,
Gamma, etc., etc., of the letters of the Greek alpha-
bet, form a curious epic poem in that lang-uage.
There are many interesting inscriptions in it that
only await decipherment to illumine the past records
of the race in America. Many of these precious doc-
uments exist in the City of New York. They will
reveal the history of the mighty nations that have
dwelt on this "Western Continent; " they will tell
us of the origin of many of our primitive traditions.
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 archaeology can learn with their language,
what the Maya sages knew of man's origin, of his
intellectual development, of the past of their people,
of the colonists they sent to other parts of the world,
where they carried the arts, sciences, and rehgion of
the mother country and its civilization from which
our own is descended ?

After twelve years of incessant labors and great
hardships, unaided by any government or scientific
society, having to encounter opposition, and sur-

THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 153

mount countless difficulties placed maliciously in
our way by those whose duty it should have been to
afford us all protection, robbed of our finds by the
Mexican government which has even refused to
indemnify us for the money expended in making
these discoveries, Mrs. Le Plongeon and myself,
after saving from destruction many important docu-
ments and relics, have at last found a key that will
imlock the door of that chamber of mysteries. Shall
it be allowed to remain closed much longer ? We
have lifted, in part at least, the veil that has hung
so long over the history of mankind in America in
remote ages. Shall it be allowed to fall again?
Will no efforts be made by American students, by
men of wealth and leisure in the United States, to
remove it altogether ?

INDEX.

AaCy his history, 78-79.

— protecting genius of, 90.

— offer of marriage by, 83.
Abel, murder of, 74.

— meaning of the name of, 85.
Adam, a myth, 1.
Adrian, Emperor, 37.

Ah - ac - chapat, seven-headed
serpent, its meaning, 67.

Akkadian language, 33.

Alom, the creator, 56.

Alexander the Great, 29.

Amautas, 47,

Angrand, quoted, 108.

Arch, triangular, 37.

Architects, foundation of soci-
ety of, 3.

Ardvi goura anahita (god-
dess), 28.

Asp, badge of royalty, why,
119.

— figure of Central America,

120.
Atlantis, submerged, 41.

— record of submersion of, in

Egypt and Mayax, 91.

— figured as a black man, 92.

— its destruction, 11,500 years

ago, 106.
Aum, figured as an equilateral
triangle, 60.

Auvergne, (Guy of) burned
ahve, 8.

Bacon, Roger, quoted, 50.

Balche, nectar, amrita, bev-
erage of the gods, 94.

Bdli, murdered, 77.

Bearded men in Mayax, 71.

Benoit (Pope), renews bull of
excommunication, 6.

Berosus, on the creation of the
world according to the
Chaldees, 110.

Bird deity at Kioto, Japan,
107.

Birch, Samuel, quoted, 26.

Bitot, creator, 56.

Black populations in America,
87.

Bottles, Chinese, found in the
tombs of Egypt, in the
ruins of HissarUk, 57.

Brahmins, 29-32.

Brothers (in India), 29.

Bnice, Robert, gives protec-
tion to the Knights Tem-
plars, 3.

Building Associations, Ro-
man, 14.

Bumouf, Emile, 57.

156

INDEX.

Cabiri (mysteries), 18.
Camazotz, god of bats, 44.
Can, king of Mayax, 45.

— his family, 77.

— royal titles of, 83.

— deified, and represented

with a mastodon's head,
93.

— members of his family wor-

shiped in Japan, 95.

Cay, high pontiff, 19, 45.

Chamber of Police of Paris,
prohibit Freemasonry, 6.

Charles I., King, 4.

Chichen-Itza, the city of ser-
pents, 108.

C7iristians, first, 1.

Church of Rome opposes Free-
masonry, 5.

— accuses M.". of heresy,

burns them alive, 12.

— persecutes Chaldean magi-

c i a n s and Egyptian
priests, 14.

Cibola, seven cities of, 48.

Cilician pirates, 27.

Circular buildings in Yuca-
tan, their use, 64.

Clement V. (Pope), abolishes
the order of Knights
Templars, 3.

— entices Jacques de Molay

to Paris, 2.

— death of, 4.

Clement XII. (Pope), excom-
municates all Free-
masons, 6.

— persecutes them, 7.

Clement of Alexandria, quot-
ed, 25.

Cogolludo, quoted, 124.

Coh, murdered by his brother,
80.

— who was, 78.

— analysis of remains of, 84.

— statue of, robbed by Mexi-

can Government, 87,
Colebi'ook, H. T., quoted, 54,

72.
Collegia of Romans, 2, 13.
Coleraine, Lord, founded a

lodge in Gibraltar and

another in Madrid, 6,
Communications between

Egypt and India and

China, 57.
Conceptions concerning a

Triune God, 53, 54, 55, 56,

58.
Confucius, 56.

— quoted, 144.
Coronado, quoted, 148.
Creation of the world, myth

found in Chichen-Itza,
72.

— myth of, in various coun-

tries, 109.

— its origin traced to Mayax,

111.

— portrayed on East faQade

of Palace at Chichen-
Itza, 112.

— tableau of, explained, 114.
Cromwell, 4.

Cross, as sacred symbol of
water deities among all
nations, of the life to
come, and eternity, 128.

INDEX.

157

Cross, as symbol in Bacchic
and Eleusinian mys-
teries, 129.

— symbol of the, in America,

129.

— god of rain, 130.

— southern, 132.

Crown of lower Egypt, the
same as that worn by
kings in Mayax, 118.

Customs, many similar in In-
dia, Mayax, and Egypt,
97.

Cushing, Frank, quoted, 47,
148.

Cyril, (Bishop) murderer of
Hypathia, persecuted the
worshijjers of Isis and
Osiris, 16.

Egyptian civilization, birth-
place of, 113.

Emperors, Roman, persecuted
the Chaldean magicians
and Egyptian priests to
death, 15.

Ephoroi, 19, 22.

Epoptai, 23.

Essenes, 1,

Eubulus, quoted, 27, 46.

Eumolpus, initiated to Egypt-
ian sacred mysteries in-
stituted those of Eleusis,
18. ■

Etcsebius, quoted, 57, 72, 99.

Eusoph, equilateral triangle,
60.

Damascitis, quoted, 53.

Danaus'' Daughters, 18.

Daniel, prophet, quoted, 30,
45.

Degrees (3) in Freemasonry,
among the Jesuits, and
the Egyptian priests, 12.

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

— what the Egyptians said of,

91.

— relation of, in Troano M.S.

and mural inscriptions,

92.
Dem,ooritus, 54.
Druids, ?.

Fanton, (Dr.) opinion of, 17,33.
Fergusson, James, quoted, 99,

122, 123.
Fernando, VI., of Spain,

makes Freemasonry high.

treason, 6.
Fi'Fangpao, 57.
Findel, J. G., opinion of, 10.
Four, number, its meaning,

105.
Francis of Lorraine (Duke)

initiated, protects

masons, founds lodges, 7.
Fratricide, account of the

same in Genesis, Ramay-

ana, papyri of Egypt,

inscriptions of Mayax,

84.

158

INDEX.

Freemasonry , various
opinions concerning orig-
in of, 1, 2.

— persecuted, 5, 6.

— established in France and

Spain, 6.

— in Ireland, Italy, America,

Lisbon, 7.

— in Germany, 8.

— origin of, traced to Ameri-

ca, 22.
Frederick II. of Prussia, in-
itiated, assumes the title
of G. •. M.". Universal,
frames a constitution, 8,
9.

(jfanesha, god of letters, its re-
presentation, its worship,
96.

— origin of its elephant head,

97.

Qareilasso de la Vega,
quoted, 46.

George I. ascends the throne,
5.

George (Bishop), persecutes
the worshipers of Isis
and Osiris, 16.

Gods, twelve, of Egyptians,
Greeks, Mayas, Japan-
ese, Chinese, 96.

Grand Master, degree of,
created. 4

Grand Lodge., first establish-
ed in London, 5, 32.

Gregory of Nazianze, quoted,
31.

Gucumatz, winged serpent,
the creator, 112.

Hach-mac, 45.

Henoch, book of, quoted, 16,

21, 24, 25, 37, 44.
Herodotus, quoted, 15.

— concerning the Thesmo-

phoria, 18, 60.

— quoted, 74, 134.
Hermippus, 28.

Hermetic books, relation of
creation in modern, 111.
Hierophantes, 19, 32.
Hiu-chin, quoted, 55.
House, dark, 43.
House of spears, 43,

— ice, 43.

— tiger, 44.

— fiery, 44.

— of bats, 44.
Hunhun Appu, 44.

Hluminati, incorporated into

Freemasonry, 9.
Initiations into Egyptian

mysteries, but little

known, 16.

— into Eleusinian mysteries,

19, 20, 22, 23, 24.
Inquisition persecutes

Masons, 5.
Isis, meaning of the name, 87.

— her title, her totem, 88.

INDEX.

159

Isis, believed to be a fabulous
being, 89.

James II., 4.

Japanese, offspring of the

twelve gods, 95.
Jerome, Saint, 31.
John the Baptist, St., selected

patron of the M. '. Order,

5.
Juan Gaston of Medieis,

(Duke) persecutes

Masons, 7.

Khan, titles of kings in Asia,
origin of it, 83.

Kings, three, 60.

Kneph. name of the creator,
53.

Knights of Christ, order of,
founded, 3.

Knights Templars, take ref-
uge in Scotland and
Portugal, 3.

— refuse to recognize the au-

thority of J. M. Larme-
nio, 12.

— received their symbols

from Christians initiated

into Egyptian mysteries,

12.
Krause, quoted, 13.
Kronos, king of the " Lands of

the West," 53.

La, meaning of the word, 54,

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

Landa (Bishop), quoted, 64,
68, 70, 124.

Larmenio, Johan Marcus —
appointed Grand Master
of the K. Templars, 3.

Leibnitz, initiated into Free-
masonry, 15.

Leopard skin as a symbol, 86.

Lopi, quoted, 55.

Ma, the world, 33.
Macrohius, his meaning of the

triangular arch, 63.
Magi, 30, 32.
Maha-atma, the great soul,

55.
Maha-atma^, the brothers, 29,

45.
Manco Capac, founder of the

Inca empire, 47.
Marriage, custom among the

Mayas, 78.
Maria, Virgin, goddess Maia-

Isis anthropomorphised,

131.
Mastodon, worship of, 93.
— explanation of tableau re-
presenting the worship

of, 94.
Maya, name found in various

countries, 71. Challenges

B41i. 76.

160

INDEX.

Maya empire figured as a ser-
pent, 116.

— empire figured as a tree,

125.

— empire the land of the

deer in the middle of the
earth, 126.

— according to the Chinese

represented as a tree, 127.
May ax, description of the

country of, 69.
Matthew, Henry, 51.
Mathusalath, 37.
Memnon, King of Ethiopia,

57.
Jfewes, wise men of the Mayas,

71.
Mithra, mysteries of, 27.
2Ioo, who she was, 78.

— history of conspiracy,

against, 81.

— :^ejects the love of Aac, 82.
Molay, Jacques de, enticed to

Paris and arrested, 2.

— burnt alive, 3.

— appoints his successor, 3.
Moses, 51.

Mystai, the initiated, 19.

Number 7, origin of its sym-
bohzation, 143, 149.

Oblong Square, its meaning,
34.

— its origin as symbol, 62.

— forms the ground plan of

temples and palaces, 62.

Oliva, Annello, Path., 47.

Origenes, quoted, 28.

Orpheus , initiated into
Egyptian sacred myster-
ies founds the orphic, 18,
53, 60, 135.

Orphic Mysteries, 73.

Osiris, 34, 49.

— murder of, 74.

— culture hero, 74.

— his history, 75.

— meaning of the name, 87.

— believed to be a mythical

being, 89.
Ouranos, 53.

Nahuatls, 48.

Names, various, of Cain ex-
plained, 89,

Niroukta, 54.

Niza, 148.

Number 3, origin of its sym-
bolization, 136.

— 5, origin of its symboliza-
tion, 141, 142.

Pachacamac, 56.

Pallas, 28.

Parsis, 28.

Payne, Thomas, 2.

Pentagon, as a symbol, its
meaning, 63.

Pentateuch, not written by
Moses, 51.

Petroma, 19.

Phillippe-le-bel, causes the ar-
rest of J. de Molay, 2.

INDEX.

161

PMllippe-le-hel. death of, 4.

Philip V. of Spain., persecutes
masons, 6.

PMlostratus, quoted, 29, 57.

PhcBTies, 53.

Pianchi, King of Ethiopia, in-
itiated, 26.

Plato., quoted, 41, 53.

— relation of submersion of

Atlantis correct, 92.

Plates from Troano M.S., ex-
planation of, 117 (note),
12G (note), 137 (note), 139
(note).

Plutarch, quoted, 27, 32, 63,
74, 90, 93.

Pompeius, 27.

Popol-mih, initiations de-
scribed in, 42, 56.

— creation of the world in,

111.
Porphyrins, quoted, 27, 28.

— his explanation of the

image of the creator, 72.

Poseidon, 53.

Pradjapati, 55.

Preston, J. G., 4.

Price, Henry, first American
Grand-master, 7.

Primander, most ancient
Egyptian book, also Su-
preme Intelligence, 110.

Proclus, quoted, 53, 60.

Proposal of7narriage,inode of,
in Mayax and Japan, 83.

Piittman, B., first Grand-mas-
ter in Germany, 8.

Pythagoras, 1.

— his narrow escape when in-

itiated, 25, 54.

Pythagoras, God number and

harmony, according to,

— on number four, 106. [60.

Qaholom, name of the creator,

56.
Quichua language, 47.

Ra, meaning of the name, 54.

Rab-mag, name of the chief
of the Magi, 30.

Ramsay, Michael Andrew, 3.

— origin of Freemasonry ac-
cording to, 11,

Rooms in temples, their shape
symbolical, 63.

Rosicrucians, their incor-
poration into Free-
masonry, 9.

Salisbury, Stephen, 84.

Sanctuary at Uxmal, descrip-
tion of, 35.

Schliemann, Henry, quoted,
57.

Set, meaning of the name, 89.

— becomes the evil principle,

89.

— enemy of the sun, 89.

— his protecting genius, 90.

— his emblem, 90.

162

INDEX

Serpent, 98.

— origin of its worship un-

known, 100.

— when considered an evil

genius, 100.

— image of the creator, 100-

109.

— traces of its worship all

over the world, 101.

— origin of its worship ac-

cording to the Maya
priests, 109.

— symbol of the country in

Mayax and in Egypt, 116.

— worshiped still in India,

121.

— title of the Kings of Mayax,

121

— origin of, and tree worship

in America, 123.

/Solon, 41.

<8owZ, Maya belief in immortal-
ity of the, 124.

Sougriva, causes the death of
Billi, 77.

— meaning of the name, 90.
JStrabo, quoted, 31.
JStrathmore, Lord, Grand-
master, 8.

Symbols, masonic, identical in
the temples of Egypt,
Chaldea, India, and Cen-
tral America 11

— masonic, in Uxmal, 65, their

meaning, 66, 67.

— found under the base of

Cleopatra's needle. 17.

— of worship, the same in

Mayax, Egypt,and Peru,
94. 105.

Symholization of number
three, 136.

— of number five, 142.

— of number seven, 149.

Tao-tse, 55.

Tau, meaning of mystic, 132.

— complex form of, its origin,
132

Temple of mysteries at Ux-
mal, 36.

Temptation, origin of tempta-
tion of the woman in the
garden, 82, 83.

Thales, initiated to Egyptian
sacred mysteries. 18.

Theon, of Smyrna, quoted, 24.

TheopMlus (Bishop), perse-
cutes the worshipers of
Isis and Osiris, 16.

Thesmophoria, mysteries of
Ceres, 134.

Thompson, Charles O., certi-
ficate of chemical analy-
sis, 84, 85.

ThotJi, god of letters in
Egypt, his description of
the creation, 110.

Tiahuanuco, explanation of
sculptures on Monolith-
gate, at, 102.

Ti-Hoang, king of the country
in the middle of the land,
96.

TieU'Hoang, his twelve chil-
dren, 96. [124.

Tree worship in America, 128,

INDEX.

16S

Tree worship by the Phoenic-
ians, Druids, Scandina-
vians, the inhabitants of
Delos, Samos, Athens,
Dodona, Arcadia, Ca-
naan, India, Ceylon, 133.
Egypt, Assyria, 124.

— relationship between the

serpent and tree wor-
ship, 134.

— sacred, among the Mayas,

134.
Triangle as a symbol, 60.

— its meaning among the

Mayas, 61,

— its meaning among the

Egyptians, 63.
Triangular Arches, symbols
of a Triune God, 63.

Wilford^ Captain, quoted, 33.

William III., King of Eng-
land, initiated into Free-
masonry, 4

Winged circle, symbol of,
134.

Words of dismissal, 21.

— their meaning, 22, 33.

Worshipers of Isis and Osiris
persecuted by Bishops
George. Theophilus,
Cyril, 16.

Zihalba, 42, 45, 48, 49.

Uati, goddess, genius of lower

Egypt, its symbols, 115.
Uiracocha, god, 56.

Taqui nation, 48.

Yaxche, sacred tree among the
Mayas, 134.

— origin of the cruz-ansata,
of the cone as symbol of
the mystic Tau, 132.

Valmiki, quoted, 75, 76.
Villoison, Dance de, quoted, 3.

Wake, Stanyland, quoted, 99.

Zend-anesta, 28.
Zoroaster, institutes the mys-
teries of Mithra, 27, 28.
— his explanation of the tri-
angular arch, 63.
ZuM Indians, 47, 48.

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22261 Cross Masonic Chart, Revised 1.75

22256 Crucifixion, by an Eye Witness i.oo

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2241 1 Cyclopedia of PYaternities. Stevens 4.50

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22301 Diagram of Parliamentary Rules. Smith 50

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22331 Dream Child 75

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22351 Early History and Antiquities. Fort, 3.50

22366 Early History and Proceedings, N. Y. Vol. I 2.50

22361 Early History, New York. Ross, 2.50

22371 Eden to Malta. Belter, 1.50

22381 Egyptian Symbols. Portal, Simons 1. 00

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2241 1 Encyclopedia of Fraternities. Stevens, 4.50

22091 Five Grand Periods of Masonry — Oliver 1.50

22471 Five Jewels of the Orient, The — Burton i.oo

22490 Floral March. Simpson 40

22481 Floral Work. Bunnell 40

22481 Paper 25

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22866 Heroines of Jerico. Ceremonies. Cloth. Dickson .75

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22281 Introduction and History, A. A. S. R 2.00

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Full text of "Sacred mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches, 11,500 years ago : their relation to the sacred mysteries of Egypt, Greece, Chaldea and India : Freemasonry in times anterior to the Temple of Solomon"

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