A curious study of it has been made by the well-known archaeologist, the Count de Charencey.[1]
The invocation to these four points of the compass in its modern form was fortunately obtained and preserved in the original tongue by that indefatigable student, the late Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, while on a visit to the plantation of Xcanchakan, in the interior of Yucatan.[2] The translation of it runs as follows :—
"At the rising of the Sun, Lord of the East, my word goes forth to the four corners of the heaven, to the four corners of the earth, in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.
"When the clouds rise in the east, when he comes who sets in order the thirteen forms of the clouds, the yellow lord of the hurricane, the hope of the lords to come, he who rules the preparation of the divine liquor, he who loves the guardian spirits of the fields, then I pray to him for his precious favour, in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.
"I confide this virgin seed to the ground with my holy love, and I beg of thee to extend to me thy blessing with thy whole heart and thy pure love, and to insure me thy kindly favour ; for I trust all in the hands of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost."
Such is an example of the strange mixture of heathen and Christian superstition which has been the outcome of three centuries of so-called Christian instruction !
There still continue to be relics of an ancient form of fire-worship which once prevailed commonly throughout the peninsula. The missionaries refer to it as "the festival of fire,"[3] but the exact rites performed were so carefully concealed that we have no description of them. That they are not yet out of date is apparent from a copy of a
- ↑ Charencey, Den Couleurs considérées comme Symholes des Points de l'Horizon chez les Peuples du Nouveau-Monde, in the Actes de la Societe Philologique, tome vi. (Octobre, 1876).
- ↑ Chrestomathie de Littérature Maya, p. 101, in the second volume of the Etudes sur le Système Graphique et la Langue des Mayas (Paris, 1870).
- ↑ "La fiesta de fuego, que hasta ahora en esta provincia se hacia."— Fr. Diego Lopez Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatan, tomo i. p. 483 (3rd ed. Merida, 1867).
