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clearly that the places to which these tables are adapted must be situated between the tropics, because they are altogether inapplicable at a greater distance from the equator." And (page 298): "From this long induction, the conclusion which seems obviously to result is that the Indian astronomy is founded upon observations which were made at a very early period; and when we consider the exact agreement of the places which they assign to the sun and moon and other heavenly bodies, at that epoch, with those deduced from the tables of De la Caille and Mayer, it strongly confirms the truth of the position which I have been endeavoring to establish concerning the early and high state of civilization in India."

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NOTE VII. (Page 15.)

99.66

sea

(1) In Maya there are several words for "ocean, all conveying the idea of fiery or yellow liquid. To comprehend the motives that prompted those who applied these names to the element by which the planet is mostly covered would require a thorough acquaintance with the geological notions of the ancient Maya scientists. But when we reflect that names were generally given to objects by onomatopoeia, those of the sea may perhaps shadow such notions. A long dissertation on the subject would here be certainly out of place. I will therefore content myself with giving the etymon of the words, leaving it to each reader to draw his own conclusions. By consulting Maya dictionaries we find the various words for "sea, ""ocean," to be kanah, kaanab, kaknab, kankab. The first I have explained in the text, according to the monumental inscriptions and the characters in ancient Maya books, in which a serpent head invariably stands as symbol of the sea-the Mighty Serpent.

The second, kaanab, is a word composed of two primitives-kaa, "bitter;" and nab, which has various meanings"gold," "unction," "palm of the hand." In the countries of the Western Continent it was customary to anoint the kings by pouring over their heads and bodies gold-dust held in the palm of the hand. Is it a coincidence that the god, among

1

1 Fr. Pedro Simon, Noticias Historiales de las Conquistas de Tierra Firme en el Nuevo Reino de Grenada. Apud Kingsborough, vol. iii.

the Assyrians, who presided over the unction of the kings, was called Nabo; and that Nub, in Egypt, was the surname of the

god Set,1 and Neb meant lord?

title for a viceroy in India. wealth.2

In our day Nabob is still the

It also means a man of great

In aftertimes gold was replaced by oil in the royal unction, and by lustral water, poured from the palm of the hand, in the ceremony of purification.

The third word, kaknab, is composed of two primitives —kak, “fire,” and nab, "the palm of the hand." Like the Egyptians, the Mayas figured the earth as an old man with his face turned toward the east, holding in his hand the spirit of life, Fire, the "soul of the universe," the primordial cause of all things, according to the Yajur-veda, and to all ancient philosophers whose maxim was Corpus est terra, anima est ignis.

3

The Aryans, and all peoples allied to them, represented the earth as a woman and called it "Mother Earth," even as we do to-day. Would not this show that the Egyptians were not of Aryan stock as some Egyptologists pretend; but, on the other hand, that they were closely related to the Mayas ?—a fact which becomes more and more evident as we study deeper their traditions, their manners, and their customs, and compare more carefully their cosmogonic conceptions and astronomical notions.

As to the fourth word, kankab, it is also composed of the two primitives, kan, "yellow," and kab, "hand." It seems 1 Henry Brugsch, History of Egypt under the Pharaohs, vol. i., pp. 212236; vol. ii., pp. 120-246.

2 Webster's Dictionary.

* Codex Cortesianus, plates vii.-viii.

See illustrations, plates lv.-lvi.

Asiatic Researches, vol. viii., pp. 431-433.

to have originated in the same personification of the earth as an old man, with a golden or fiery hand, a yellow hand. It is the same conception of the fire and the water allied to produce all things, that we see portrayed in the cosmogonic diagrams of the Mayas, the Hindoos, and the Chaldees.

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NOTE VIII. (Page 82.)

Mr.

(1) In his work "Lares and Penates," Mr. William Burckhardt Barker, in Chapter IV., "On Certain Portraits of Huns and their Identity with the Extinct Races in America," says: "Mr. Abington's observations on this piece (55), a head of most monstrous form, in a conical cap, are of so remarkable a nature that I must be permitted to publish them here. Abington says: "This is the most extraordinary thing in the whole collection. On the first view I was struck with the identity of its strange profile with the figures sculptured upon the monuments and edifices of an extinct people in Central America. Many of Stephens's engravings represent the same faces exactly.' Is it not a faithful and correct por

trait of a Hun?

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America have only been wondered at, but not explained. Does not this head identify them with the Huns, and thereby let light in upon a dark mystery? The following sketches of the sculptures in Central America, taken from Stephens's plates1 and the Quarterly Journal, will show that my notion of the matter is not a mere fancy. Heads so very unusual, not to say unnatural, though found in such distant places, must surely have come from the same stock. We have written descriptions of the inhuman appearance of the Huns who devastated the nation; but I

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1 John L. Stephens, Incidents of Travels in Central America and Yucatan, (The author.)

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