Zelia Nuttall

“ Historical evidence, to which I shall revert more fully proves, indeed, that a native American ruler and reformer actually employed the following reasoning in order to convert his council and people from the worship of the sun to that of a superior divinity which could have been no other but Polaris: “It is not possible that the sun should be the God who created all things, for if so he would sometimes rest and light up the whole world from one spot. Thus it cannot be otherwise but that there is someone who directs him and this truly is the true Creator.” ”

“ On descendants of ancient pole-star worshippers, whose entire religion and civilization were based on the idea of fixity and rotation, the unaccountable change in the order of the universe must indeed have produced a deep impression. Under such conditions it seems but natural that a great awakening of doubt and speculation should take place, that worship should be transferred from stars known to be subject to change, to the unseen, incomprehensible but ever-present eternal power which ruled the universe. ”

“ It is only when we reflect what an admirable means of establishing communal life and activity the mere act of building under direction and guidance must have been, that we appreciate the fine wisdom of the ancient kings, civilizers and culture-heroes, who were, first of all, master builders, architects and masons and who began the work of rearing an empire by directing the erection of a monument which, by its form, expressed the all-pervading plan of organization. ”

“ She is the mild and gracious mother of creation, “loves the king and his priesthood,” but is also the mighty commanding goddess of war who clothes herself in fiery flame, appears as a violent destroyer and sends down streams of fire upon her enemies. “The distinguishing position of both the Babylonian and Assyrian Ishtar is her independent position. Though at times brought into close contact with Ashur she is not regarded as the mere consort to any god—no mere reflection of a male deity, but ruling in her own right on a perfect par with the great gods of the pantheon. ”

“ God sees what the persons do who rule over his domains and when they err in their office he laughs at them, but in silence, for he is god, and is omnipotent and can mock at whom he will. For he holds all of us in the palm of his hand and rocks us about, and we are like balls or round globes in his hands and we go rolling from one side to the other and make him laugh, and he serves himself of us as we go moving about on the palm of his hand! ”

“ This leads me to think that, as I groped in darkness, searching for light, I unwittingly struck the true key-note of that great universal theme which humanity, with a growing perception of existing, universal harmony, has ever been striving to seize and incorporate into their lives. ”

“ The foundations of religious orders were as many attempts to realize the Christian ideal, and to this day the Roman Catholic Church, whose clergy and religious orders unquestionably afford a splendid living example of devotion to a common cause, self-abnegation, obedience and humility, clings to the ideal of a state in which temporal power is wielded by a hierarchy raised to rulership from all ranks, merely by virtue of personal, moral and intellectual qualities. Throughout the Christian church the ideal of religious democracy prevails. ”

“ It is as easy to see how the standard of Assur, which always marked the central place of worship, should have been evolved, as it is to realize why the fire-stick, rod or sceptre should have been adopted by monarchs as an emblem of central rulership, and why, finally, each centre of government should have adopted some specific symbol which, mounted on the staff, became its tribal or national emblem. ”

“ It is also reasonable to infer that the region of the high plateau and valley of Mexico, possibly before the formation of the great lagoons, was the cradle of ancient American civilization, where, during countless centuries, the native race literally and figuratively cultivated its own maize and simultaneously developed the set of ideas which formed the basis of its intellectual evolution. ”

“ The carved band on the Calendar-stone, with its twenty signs, determined once and for all time the exact position to be taken up in all public assemblages, in councils, sacred dances, and likewise controlled the exposition of the products of the land in the great market-place. What is more: each division of the people, by reason of its indissoluble union to one element and one region, also had its own season during which it led in ceremonial observances. ”

“ Let us examine some of the records of the great intellectual movement that swept at one time, like a wave, over the ancient centres of civilization. The eighth, seventh and sixth centuries before our era are marked by the growth of the Ionian philosophy which, as Huxley tells us, “was but one of many results of the stirring of the moral and intellectual life of the Aryan-Semitic population of Western Asia. The conditions of the general awakening were doubtless manifold, but there is one which modern research has brought into great prominence. ”

“ The above evidence suffices to show that, on the one hand, Amen-Ra is constantly referred to as the “One god, without a second, the knowledge of whose nature is concealed from men and gods, who reveals himself in innumerable forms; who exerts hidden control and universal dominion and is associated with stability and power, time and eternity.” ”

“ If it be admitted, as I think is evident, that the site of the capital was chosen and mapped out in accordance with these ideas, then we undoubtedly have, in ancient Mexico, not only one of the most remarkable “Holy Cities” ever built by mankind, but also the most convincing proof of the great antiquity and high development of the civilization under whose influence one of the greatest capitals of ancient America was founded. ”

“ In the light shed by the Codex Fuenleal, before cited, it was easy to see that the entire performance dramatized the mythical combat between Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli for the position of the ruling power, in the heavens—the sun. At the same time it was decidedly puzzling to find celestial supremacy personified by a man, firmly fastened to one spot, the centre of a stone circle. It was impossible not to perceive the identity of thought underlying the representation of this prisoner and the pictures of Tezcatlipoca, the one-footed or lame god—Xonecuilli the Ursa Minor. ”

“ All living beings rest on the five-spoked wheel, ... the horses draw the never-aging wheel through space, whence the eye of the sun on which all life depends, looks down. The seventh of those born together they call ‘that born alone’: this is the self-created thirteenth or central month; the six twinned months are said to be those begotten of the gods. ”

“ It is thus evident that the first men, who rudely scratched the outline of Ursa Major or Minor on a rock, took what was probably one of the most momentous steps in the history of the human race, and it is easy to see how a variety of combinations of circumstances would have led many men, in widely-separated localities and at different periods of the world's history, to perform precisely the same action. ”

“ Over and over again different writers have pointed out undeniable analogies and resemblances between the highest forms of American civilization and that of China, India, Asia Minor, the Mediterranean and Western European countries. At the same time modern research has shown that the seafarers, whom we shall conveniently designate as the Phœnicians, acted as the intermediaries of ancient Old World civilization and formulated a culture which incorporated and formed a curious compound of elements drawn from different countries and people. ”

“ The two brave captains, undaunted by the arrogant words by which she attempted to terrify them, responded: 'If you are as valiant as you describe yourself to be, we are not less so; but you are a woman and it is not meet that it should be said of us that we took up arms against women;' and without speaking further they left her, much affronted that a woman should challenge and defy them. ”

“ An almost grotesque human figure is represented as issuing from it and holding in its hand a maize plant which bends upwards and curves over the shell. Its leaves are drawn with maize-seeds on and amongst them, in the same conventional way that has been noticed on the central tree, and human heads again simulate the corn-cob. An acquaintance with Mexican and Zuñi symbolism enables us to grasp the significance of this composite symbol which figuratively expresses the common birth and growth of the substance of plant and human life. ”

“ Indeed, it is only possible to understand the reason why various American tribes wandered about in ardent and earnest search for the stable middle of the earth, when it is assumed that they must have been driven from their former place of residence by volcanic disturbances which made a firm piece of ground under foot seem to be the most desirable of all earthly benefits. I venture to assert that this search and the ideal of stability would not have been suggested so forcibly to people who had never experienced a long succession of more or less terrible earthquakes. ”

“ Diodorus Seculus says that, according to Babylonian notions, “the world is ‘a boat turned upside down’ and resting on the waters. The appearance in outline of this image presented the three divisions of the universe: the heavens=Anu upheld by the serpent body of Tiamat; the earth, the dwelling of Bel-Marduk, the ‘chief of gods;’ and the watery deep or ‘Apsu’ beneath, the dwelling of Ea” (Jastrow) . This imagery authorizes the inference that the sacred ship or ark was associated with this conception of the earth as a boat resting on the line dividing the sky from the watery deep. ”

“ In ancient Mexico, at the approach of the rainy season, religious ceremonies are performed in honor of the mountains which were looked upon as active agents in the production of rain, because they attracted and gathered the clouds around their summits. The tops of mountains were thus regarded as the sacred place where the sky and heaven met and produced the showers which vivified the earth. Pilgrimages and offerings to mountain summits formed a part of the duties of the Mexican priesthood, but in the cities the pyramid temple served as a convenient substitute for the mountain. ”

“ It is obvious that the habitual employment, by the astronomer priests, of a mirror so placed in the sanctuary as to catch the reflection of the pole-star through an open doorway, would lead to the discovery of the movements of the sun and the positions it assumes during the year. The flashing of a beam of sunlight once a year, at the period of the summer solstice, upon the mirror which constantly reflected the pole-star, would naturally suggest the idea of “the union of the day-sun with the night-sun” and seem particularly impressive as it was at this period that the Nile began to rise. ”

“ The circumstance that, in remotest times, the king of Rome, the acknowledged metropolis or mother city, was accompanied, on public occasions, by twelve lictors or administrators of justice, each carrying the axe tied in a bundle of rods, shows that, at one time, the government was administered by thirteen individuals—a method we shall find again in ancient Ireland and Scandinavia. The history of Rome reveals that the different variants of governmental scheme adopted, one after the other, under influences emanating from Greece and Egypt, were reared upon the familiar universal plan. ”

“ In the latter country where the contrast of light and darkness and of the duality of nature seems to have been most powerfully felt, the gradual institution, on a footing of equality of a diurnal masculine and nocturnal feminine cult or of a separate sun and moon worship, led to the formation of two equally powerful castes of priest-astronomers who devised their respective calendars and cults and ultimately stood in open rivalry and antagonism towards each other, as children of heaven and light: sun worshippers ”

“ If I may venture to hazard a general observation about the ancient civilizations of Western Asia I should say that, whereas the primeval centre of primitive pole-star worship in Babylonia had, in course of time, brought forth as its highest development the monotheism of the Israelites, and as its lowest the cults of Ishtar and [pg 354] Bel, it also appears to have given birth to a reproduction of its former self, to the Assyrian empire, in which the most ancient form of culture was preserved intact, and in time spread its influence not only to other nations but also back to Babylonia itself. ”

“ In the native Maya chronicles the reflection of a star upon the trembling and moving surface of the water, is given as the image of the Creator and Former, the Heart of Heaven, and it was believed that the divine essence of life was thus conveyed to earth by light shining on and into the waters. It is well known that it was customary for the priests of the Great Temple of Mexico to bathe at midnight after fasting, in a sacred pool so deep that the water appeared to be black. ”

“ Practice would demand that each band should be under leadership, and be divided into those who collected and carried material, and those who placed it in position, at each side of the pyramid. The necessity for general supervision and directorship, extending over the four bands of workers alike, would, of itself, create central rulership upon which would devolve the duty of enforcing an equal division of labor, which would create, in turn, some form of systematic routine and rotation. ”

“ The mythical sacred mountain Meru, the throne of the supreme eternal power, constituted the fixed centre of the world and strikingly exemplified quadruplicate division and organization, being associated with four lakes and four rivers; four mythical animals and four guardians. In consonance with this plan Brahma was endowed with four heads and four hands; the empire was divided into four quarters and seven zones, and the population into four castes identified with four colors, and governed by a king and seven councillors. ”