to be carefully studied, for the trunk is crowned by four stems bearing
single leaves and is encircled by a serpent, _can_, the homonym for the
numeral four=kan. A fringed mantle and a scroll hang from the coils of the
serpent's body, two footsteps are painted on the scroll and, pointing
downwards, express "descent," as do also the falling drops of liquid on
the stems of the tree which grows from a peculiar glyph with subdivisions,
which has points of resemblance with the glyph under the footless divinity
(fig. 33, I). An obsidian mirror, with cross bars, is painted in front of
the latter, which displays the same descending footsteps on its mantle.
The head and eyes of a snail, the symbol of parturition, are above its
face and a wreath of flowers crowns its head. Tedious as such a minute
analysis may seem, it is nevertheless necessary, in order to gain a
perception of the extent to which symbolism was practised in the picture
writings found in the Maya MSS., accompanied by the cursive calculiform
glyphs. It seems that, in no. II, we have a presentation of the Maya "tree
of life," and that scrolls, on which descending footsteps are depicted,
are intended to convey the meaning that life is descending from Above into
the egg and seeds by virtue or decree of the celestial power. It should be
noted here that the phenomenon of a living bird issuing from the hard and
inanimate egg-shell had made as deep an impression upon the ancient
philosophers in Mexico as elsewhere, and that the power "to form the
chicken in the shell" was deemed one of the most marvellous attributes of
"the divine Moulder or Former," as is further set forth in the "Lyfe of
the Indians."

The foregoing illustrations establish, at all events, that the Mayas, like
the Mexicans, associated the sacred vase with seeds and germination. The
vase, illustrated by Doctor Brinton, exhibits the seed and radicle; and
this is also found on the symbol for earth, which, in the Cortesian Codex,
is associated with the image of a serpent, possibly the equivalent of the
Mexican Cihuacoatl, or female serpent.

If, after mustering this close array of analogies, we next examine the
glyph cib, we find that it exhibits the seed and radicle in the centre of
a square, three sides of which are decorated with what Doctor Brinton has
termed the "pottery decoration(?)." This consists of short lines, such as
are employed in Mexican pictography, in the well-known sign for tlalli, or
land,