The word Maya, though not familiar to modern ears, is a most interesting one to the antiquary. It appears to have originated with the great nation whose people, as well as their language and country, bore that name, even thousands of years back; their empire extended over the land comprised between the isthmus of Tehuantepec and that of Darien; known collectively to-day as Central America.

Dr. Le Plongeon has shown that in Yucatan and in Egypt the radical MA, of the word Maya, meant earth and place. This word was used by Hindoo sages to indicate matter, the earth, as it is found in their cosmogonic diagram. All matter being regarded as illusion, the word maya, in India, has that meaning. The mother of Buddha was Maya Devi (Beautiful Illusion). Maya is matter, the feminine energy of Brahma. But in the Indian epic, “Ramayana”, Maya is spoken of as a great magician, an architect, a terrible warrior and famous navigator, who took forcible possession of, and settled in, the countries at the south of the Hindostan peninsula. Plainly, the poet personified as one hero the Maya colonists who long ago made their way westward, across the Pacific, and settled there.

On the shores of the Mediterranean we find nations whose ancestors seem to have been intimate with the Mayas, for the names of their country, of their cities, and of their divinities can be traced to the Maya tongue. Furthermore, their traditions, customs, architecture, mode of dress, weapons, and even their alphabetical letters are like those of the Mayas. From records in stone and MSS. we learn something of the philosophy of the Maya sages; and the same ideas are found among nations living in Asia and Africa.

Nothing could be more significant than the universality of the word Maya. In one country it is the name of a god or goddess; in another that of a hero or heroine; elsewhere that of a cast, tribe or country. This word is never used to indicate anything unimportant. In Greece the goddess Maia was daughter of Atlas, mother of Hermes, the good mother KubÉle, the Earth, Mother of the gods. We see a vestige of her worship in the still popular festival of the Maya or May Queen, fair goddess of spring, May, that very month when the Earth, matter, Maya, lives again, refreshed by the nourishing rain which, then particularly, after a season of drought, pours down upon those latitudes where the Maya nation had its birth.

The Maypole dance is yet performed among the natives of Yucatan, the land where it probably originated. The dancers are invariably thirteen in number, which may be another reminiscence of the land submerged beneath the waves of the Atlantic on the thirteenth day of the Maya month of Zac.

This Maypole dance, called in Yucatan “Ribbon Dance” is unquestionably a vestige of sun worship; the ancients, versed in astronomy, thus celebrated the sun’s entrance into Taurus, and the vernal equinox. The Maypole, as known in Europe, has been satisfactorily shown to be the remains of an ancient institution of Persia, India, and Egypt, where Maya civilization was carried in past ages. The May Queen is a personification of the goddess Maya, the feminine forces of nature; possibly too of that Maya country whence it came. In Yucatan there is no queen connected with the dance; there it is and was sun worship pure and simple.

In Yucatan, as in the British Isles and elsewhere, the pole is planted before the residences of leading citizens, and the dance is performed for a recompense. In Ireland the dancers wore over their other dress white shirts, a detail which becomes interesting in view of the fact that the Maya people always dress exclusively in white.

In Dr. Le Plongeon’s prolonged studies among the remarkable Ruins on the Yucatan peninsula, after finding, by much patient endeavor, a clue to the hieroglyphic signs covering the walls of ancient palaces and temples, he clearly saw that the word CAN was inscribed in a variety of ways on all the buildings, and as he advanced in his studies, he learned that this had been the title of several monarchs who constituted a powerful dynasty. It is a remarkably interesting fact that the same title, spelled Khan, is to-day given to rulers in many of the Asiatic nations; furthermore, the principal emblem on the banners of those Khans is the serpent or dragon.

Continued research, including excavations and a close study of every object found, together with several tableaux of mural paintings, convinced Dr. Le Plongeon that he had succeeded in tracing certain incidents which occurred in the last family of the CAN dynasty, and which led to its downfall. Upon studying the famous Troano MS., he found the same story recorded there; and the tragic events resulting from the acts of one member of that family, Prince Aac, are the theme of the present poem.

The scene is laid at Chichen, which appears to have been the favorite city of the CANS, judging from certain indications, among these the prevalence of the serpent as an ornament in all the buildings. These serpents are represented covered with feathers indicating that they were emblems of Maya potentates. On ceremonial occasions royal personages and high officials wore mantles of feathers, whose colors varied according to the rank of the individual; yellow being that of the royal family, red that of the nobility, and green that of the learned men. The word CAN has in the Maya language a great variety of meanings, as Dr. Le Plongeon explains in his works; it is the generic name for serpent.

The personages whom Dr. Le Plongeon succeeded in tracing were—the CAN, his Queen, Zo?; their three sons—Cay, Aac, and Coh; and two daughters—MÓo and NictÉ. There was also an aged man named Cay, the High Priest, elder brother of the King. This venerable person is introduced in the early part of the poem. When he died, his nephew and namesake, Cay, succeeded to his position and title. Let it be noted that the High Priest was, as among the Egyptians and the Hindoos of old, superior in authority to the King himself.

At the death of King Can, his daughter MÓo became Queen of Chichen. As among the Egyptians, and the Incas in Peru, so among the Mayas, royal brothers and sisters were obliged to marry each other; in Siam and some other places the same custom exists to-day. One of MÓo’s brothers had therefore to be Prince consort. Aac aspired to her hand, but Coh, a valiant leader in battle, and favorite with the people, was her own choice. This gave rise to lamentable events which caused the ruin of the dynasty, Aac refusing to be reconciled.

In a carving on stone, as well as in the Troano MS. and the Codex Cortesianus, Dr. Le Plongeon has found records of the destruction by earthquake, followed by submergence, of a great island in the Atlantic ocean. The author of the Troano MS. affirms that this land disappeared under the waves 8,060 years before the inditing of that volume. It is not known when the book in question was written, but judging from Egyptian records, the cataclysm must have occurred between ten and eleven thousand years ago. In the Maya books the lost land is called MU.

Lately Dr. Le Plongeon has discovered, in translating the inscriptions, written in Maya language with Egyptian and Maya characters, which adorn the faces of the Pyramid of Xochicalco, situated sixty miles to the southwest of the city of Mexico, in the State of Morelos, eighteen miles from the city of Cuernavaca, that said pyramid was a commemorative monument raised to perpetuate the memory of the destruction of the land of Mu among coming generations, and that it was made an exact model of the sacred hill in Atlantis which Plato in his Timoeus describes as having been crowned by a temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon.

Looking at scenes depicted in mural paintings, one is driven to the conclusion that the Mayas were much addicted to the study of occult forces; they certainly used magic mirrors and appealed to haruspicy in their desire to foretell events. As may be seen in Dr. Le Plongeon’s “Queen MÓo”, one tableau represents a wiseman examining the cracks induced by heat on the shell of an armadillo and the marks made by the vapor; from these signs he endeavors to read the fate of the young Princess MÓo. The soothsayer, of the imperial family of China uses a turtle in the same way in a ceremony called Puu, for the royal family only, and in state affairs of exceptional importance.

Another tableau, also reproduced in “Queen MÓo”, represents one man in his feather mantle, mesmerizing another, showing that hypnotism was anciently made use of in Yucatan by priests and wisemen.

There can be no doubt that certain stones were considered efficacious, as talismans. Jadeite, particularly that of a beautiful apple-green, mottled with grey, was held in high esteem by the Mayas, if they did not regard it as sacred. They called it “Bones of the Earth” because it was the hardest stone known to them. Of the many varieties of jadeite, for which no less than a hundred and fifty names have been found, according to Fischer, the apple-green is the most rare.

In the great square of the old city of Chichen, Dr. Le Plongeon discovered, in the thick forest, two very ancient tombs with some of their decorative sculptures yet in place; those on one, enabled him to see that the tomb had been erected to the memory of Coh by his widow, Queen MÓo. In it he found a statue of the Prince consort; also a large white stone urn, containing what proved, by chemical analysis, to have been human flesh, charred and preserved in red oxide of mercury. In the same urn, among other relics, was a beautiful ornament of green jadeite, like those decorating the necks of various personages portrayed in the sculptures of certain edifices.

In connection with the statue it must be observed that the ancient Mayas held a belief similar to that entertained by the Egyptians, regarding the condition of the soul after death, and in the same way made a statue of the deceased, with the idea that this would give the individual a hold upon life. The natives who aided in bringing Coh’s statue to light, out of the mausoleum where it had remained concealed for thousands of years, invariably spoke of it as the “Enchanted Prince”, and frequently assured its discoverer that he had succeeded in finding it because he himself had dwelt there in past ages, and was one of the great men whose effigies were seen on all sides.

When the larger portion of the charred viscera found in the urn was burned, to reduce it to ashes, the natives standing by exclaimed—“A majestic shade ascends amid the smoke! It is the form of the enchanted Prince, that seems to fade into nothingness.” So impressed were the men by what their imagination had evoked, that all ran from the spot in a state of agitation.

On the day when the statue, weighing three thousand pounds, was taken out of the monument, a party of hostile Indians suddenly emerged from the forest. One of their number was aged, and he remarked to his companions, “This represents one of our great men of antiquity.” Then the young men paid homage to the statue by bending one knee, in a manner peculiar to those people.

Traditions of their ancestors are not altogether lost among the natives, as some travelers assert. Many still perform rites and ceremonies in the depths of forests or in unexplored caverns, in the darkness of the night, but keep their secrets to themselves, remembering the tortures inflicted on their fathers by the Spanish priests to oblige them to forego the religious observances that had been dear to those of their race for countless generations.

In connection with the song to the rain-gods it may be said that although the natives of Yucatan are to-day Catholic in name, they really prefer to render homage to some statue of their forefathers, and cling tenaciously to a few of their old divinities. Among these may be mentioned Balam (tiger), guardian of the crops, likewise appealed to as a rain-god. In a subterranean cavern a few miles from Chichen, there is an old image of a man with long beard; this serves as a representation of Balam, and to it offerings are made. The antiquity of the carving cannot be doubted, similar ones existing on pillars at the entrance of a very ancient castle at Chichen. The figure in the cavern is on its knees, its hands are raised to a level with its head, palms upturned. On its back is a bag containing what the natives say is a cake made of corn and beans. The statue is now black, owing to the incense and candles with which its devotees frequently smoke it. Previous to the planting of grain, they place before it a basin of cool beverage made of corn, also lighted wax candles and sweet-smelling copal, imploring the god to grant an abundant harvest. When the crops ripen, the finest ears are carried to the grimy divinity by men, women, and children, who within the cavern dance and pray all day long, some of their quaint instruments serving as accompaniment to the Latin litanies which they chant, without having even the vaguest idea of their meaning.

The sun-dance mentioned in the Preface, is occasionally performed by Indians in Yucatan at the time of the vernal equinox. Twenty men take part—corresponding to the number of days in the ancient Maya month—but ten dress as women, whence it may be inferred that in olden times the dancers were of both sexes. All their faces are covered with masks of deer-skin, and each has on his head the inverted half-shell of a calabash, with turkey feathers standing up through a hole in the centre. They wear their usual spotless white garments, and sandals. Those clad as women are ornamented with large bead necklaces, principally red, in imitation of old Maya coin, and all the dancers have ear-rings. The hostile Indians^[1] still pierce their ears as their ancestors did; the rank of a chief being indicated by his having a ring in the left ear only, or in the right, or in both.

The Master of the dance wears a stiff circular cap, surrounded by upright peacock feathers that sway with every movement, towering above all the dancers, and about his shoulders is a string of big sea-shells. From his neck hangs a metallic representation of the sun, in whose centre is an all-seeing eye within a triangle, from which depends a large tongue, symbol of power and wisdom.

One man carries a white flag on which is painted an image of the sun, and a man and woman on their knees worshiping it. Three men, apart from the dancers, play a clarionet, a sacatan, and a big turtle-shell beaten with deer-horns. The Master marks time with a rattle, and in his other hand has a three-thonged whip like the flagellum of Osiris in Egypt; throughout the performance he remains standing close to the flag-staff.

Each dancer holds in his left hand a fan of turkey feathers whose handle is a claw of that bird; and in his right a small rattle made of a calabash shell, fancifully painted, containing pebbles and dried seeds. These rattles remind us of the sistrums used anciently in the temples of Egypt.

Around the pole on which the flag is furled, the dancers walk three times, with solemn tread, groping their way as if in darkness. Suddenly the flag is unfurled, the sun appears, all draw themselves up to their full height, raise their eyes and hands, and utter a unanimous shout of joy.

Now the dance commences, round and round the pole they go with various steps and motions, not graceful, but energetic and full of meaning. The dance is intended to represent, among other things, the course and movement of our planet around the sun. The chief and the dancers sing alternately:

The melody and strange accompaniment are impressive and stirring, the rattles being particularly effective, now imitating the scattering of grain, then by a brisk motion of every arm sending forth a sound like a sudden rainfall on parched leaves, or a thunder clap in the distance, uniting with a shout raised by the dancers at the conclusion of each chorus. The fans, kept in motion, are emblematic of refreshing breezes.

The flag on the pole is undoubtedly a modern addition, simply to indicate what the dance originally was; of old, the pole itself represented the central orb; as the round towers did in Ireland, Persia, and India; the conical stones in Phoenicia; the pyramids and obelisks in Egypt, etc.—for in America, as in those countries, sun worship was the religion of the people.

Finally, the expression “Will Supreme” in the opening line of the poem is used in the sense of the Maya word UOL (or will) as applied by the Mayas of ancient times to the First Great Cause. This subject has been fully treated elsewhere by Dr. Le Plongeon.