File:Essays of an Americanist. I. Ethnologic and archaeologic. II. Mythology and folk lore. III. Graphic systems and literature. IV. Linguistic (1890) (14778377151).jpg

Identifier: essaysofamerican00brin (find matches)
Title: Essays of an Americanist. I. Ethnologic and archaeologic. II. Mythology and folk lore. III. Graphic systems and literature. IV. Linguistic
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Brinton, Daniel Garrison, 1837-1899
Subjects: Indians America -- Antiquities
Publisher: Philadelphia, Porter & Coates
Contributing Library: Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston University

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
s, with the same signification. Moreover, theyear-cycles of both these nations were represented by a circleon the border of which the years were inscribed. In Mayathis was called 2iazlazon katun, the turning about again, orrevolution of the katuns.f The Aztec figure of the year-cycle is so instructive that Igive a sketch of its principal elements (Fig. 21), as portrayedin the atlas to Durans History of Mexico. J aud iii). Dr. Ferraz de Macedo says that the most common decorative design onboth ancient and modern native Brazilian pottery is the ring-cross in the form of adouble spiral, as in Fig. 19 (Essai Crilique sur les Ages Prehistorique deBresil, p. 40).A very similar form will be found in the Bologna Codex, pi. xviii, in KingsboroughsMexico, Vol. ii. *See Mallerj^, Pictography of the North American Indians, pp. S8, 89, 128, etc. •fThis name is given in L,anda, Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 313. XHistoria de la Nueva Espana, Trat. Ill, cap. i. i6o ESSAYS OF AN AMERICANIST.
Text Appearing After Image:
In this remarkable figure we obser\^e the development andprimary signification of those world-wide S3anbols, thesquare, the cross, the wheel, the circle, and the svastika.The last-mentioned is seen in the elements of the brokencircle, which are : TIME-WHEELS AND SUN-MOTIONS. l6l These, conventionalized into rectilinear figures for scratch-ing onstone or wood, became : Fig. 23. In the Mexican time-wheel, the years are to be read fromright to left, as in the Dakota winter-counts ; each of thequarter circles represents thirteen years ; and these, also, areto be read from right to left, beginning with the top of thefigure, which is the East, and proceeding to the North,South and West, as indicated. The full analysis of this suggestive and authentic astrono-mical figure will reveal the secret of most of the rich sym-bolism and mythology of the American nations. It is easyto see how from it was derived the Nahuatl doctrine of thenahua ollin, or Four Motions of the Sun, with its accessorieso

Note About Images