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Carved in the lintel are the names of these personages, represented by their totems—a leopard-head for Coh; and a boar-head as well as a turtle for Aac, this word meaning both boar and turtle in Maya. Aac is pictured within the disk of the sun, his protective deity, which he worshipped, according to mural inscriptions at Uxmal. Full of anger he faces his brother. In his right hand there is a badge ornamented with feathers and flowers. The threatening way in which this is held suggests a concealed weapon. Among the people of Tahiti, eloquent bards went to battle among the warriors, inciting them with glowing words; those orators carried a bunch of green leaves which served to hide a dangerous weapon made from the bone of the sting-ray. A fell intent disguised beneath blossoms suggests the treacherous way in which Coh was slain.

The face of Coh, also, expresses anger. With him is the feathered serpent, emblem of royalty, thence of the country, more often represented as a winged serpent protecting Coh. In his left hand he holds his weapons, down; while his right hand clasps his badge of authority, with which he covers his breast as if for protection, and demanding the respect due to his rank.

So in Mayach as in Egypt,2 and in every place where Maya civilization has penetrated, we find the sun and the serpent inimical to each other. Are we to see in the Egyptian myth of Horus (the sun) killing the serpent Aphophis, by piercing his head with a lance, a tradition of the hostility of the brothers Aac and Coh in Mayach? Both belonged to the

1 Ellis (W.), Polynesian Researches, vol. i., chap. xi., p. 287.

2 Sir Gardner Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, vol. iii., chap. xiii., pp. 59, 144, 154.

Can (serpent) dynasty. In Greece we find a reflection of the Egyptian myth in the fable of Apollo (the sun) killing the serpent Python. In the "Mahabharata" Krishna-that is,

HORUS KILLING THE SERPENT APHOPHIS.

the god Vishnu in his eighth avatar-kills the serpent Anantha, the seven-headed, enemy of the gods, when he was wrestling with the goddess Parvati.1

1

During their captivity in Babylon, the Jews, among other legends of the Chaldees, learned the tradition of the enmity between the woman and the serpent, that Hilkiah, the highpriest,2 introduced at the beginning of Genesis. The Christians received it from the Jews; and to this day the Church

'J. T. Wheeler, Mahabharata, vol. i., "Legends of Krishna."

22 Kings, chap. xxii., verses 8-10; also 2 Chron., chap. xxxiv., verse 15. See Appendix, note xvii.

Genesis, chap. ii., verse 15.

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