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    The Popo! Vuh is the LEAST known of all scriptures accessible III the west. A Red man wrote it, some few centuries ago, in Guatemala. He had knowledge. John sutter: if you doubt that soul-Iuminant wisdom lives in the hearts of the Modocs. He says if you question how these humble Modocs got their knowledge, take a hint.

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    The Popo! Vuh is the LEAST known of all scriptures accessible III the west. A Red man wrote it, some few centuries ago, in Guatemala. He had knowledge. John sutter: if you doubt that soul-Iuminant wisdom lives in the hearts of the Modocs. He says if you question how these humble Modocs got their knowledge, take a hint.

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    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    590 views43 pages

    HPB - The Book of The Azure Veil

    Uploaded by

    edcartagena
    The Popo! Vuh is the LEAST known of all scriptures accessible III the west. A Red man wrote it, some few centuries ago, in Guatemala. He had knowledge. John sutter: if you doubt that soul-Iuminant wisdom lives in the hearts of the Modocs. He says if you question how these humble Modocs got their knowledge, take a hint.

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    of 43
    a ean Se Lim, ee pee oe NOW Oh deere wr NPB sin TPH Lg tere S THE BOOK OF THE AZURE VEIL. EXPLANATORY. Least known of all scriptures accessible in the west is The opel Vuk. A Red man wrote it, some few centuries ago, in Guate- mala. He had knowledge. Like most men who have knowledge, his name is unknown in the west. If you doubt that soul-luminant wisdom lives in the hearts of the Red men of the Americas, listen to what Joaquin Miller, the Poet of the Sierras, says of the Modoes: “It might shock you if I said that the Indian knows more of the Unknown than the Christian does. Truth is a great galvanic battery” (The Story of My Life). If you question how these humble Modoes got their knowledge, You may take a hint from this story told by a dull-souled missionary of a savage he met in the American forests: “The manner in which, he says, he obtained the spirit of divina- tion was this: he was admitted into the presence of a great man, ‘who informed him that he loved, pitied, and desired to do him good. It was not in this world that he saw the great man, but in a world above, at a vast distance from this, The great man, he says, was clothed with the day, yea, with the brightest day he ever saw: a day of many years, yea, of everlasting continuance! ‘This whole world, he says, was drawn upon him, so that in him the earth and all things in it might be seen. I asked him if rocks, mountains and seas were drawn upon, o appeared in, him? He replied that every thing that was beautiful and lovely in the earth was upon him, and might be seen by looking om him, as well as if one was on the earth to take a view of them there. By the side of the great man, he says, stood his shadow, or spirit, for he used ‘chichung, the word they commonly make use of to express that of the man which survives the bedy, which word properly signifies a shadow. ‘This shadow, he says, was as lovely as the man himself, and filled all places, and 2 LUCIFER. ‘was most agreeable as well as wonderful to him. Here, be says, he tarried some time, and was unspeakably entertained and delighted with a view of the great man, of his shadow, and of all things in him, And what is most of all astonishing, he imagines all this to have passed before he was born; he never had been, he says, in this world at that time, and what confirms him in the belief of this is, that the great man told him that he must come down to earth, be born of such a woman, meet with such and such things. . At this time, he says, the great man asked him what he would choose in life; he replied, first to be a hunter, and afterwards to be a ‘pow-wow,' or divine; whereupon the great man told him he should have what he desired, and that his shadow should go along with him down to earth, and be with him for ever, ‘There was, he says, all this time no words spoken between’ them; the conference was not carried on by any human language, but they had a kind of mental intelligence of each other's thoughts, dispositions and proposals. After this, he says, he saw the great man no more, but supposes he now came down to earth to be bom; but the shadow of the great ‘man still attended him, and ever after continued to appear to him in dreams and other ways. This shadow used sometimes to direct him in dreams to go to such a place and hunt, assuring him he should there mect with success, which accordingly proved so; and when he had been there some time the spirit would order him to another place, so that he had sticcess in hunting, according to the great man's promise made to him at the time of his choosing this em- ployment. “There were some times when this spirit came upon him in a special manner, and he was full of what he saw in the great man, and then, he says, he was ail light, and not only light himself, but it was light all around jim, so that he could see through men, and knew the thoughts of their hearts” (Daud Brainerd’s Fournal). Even a mercenary adventurer says of some of the wildest tribes in North America: “Simply to call these people religious, would con- vey but a faint idea of the deep hue of piety and devotion which pervades the whole of their conduct. ‘Their honesty is immactlate; and their purity of purpose, and their observance of the rites of their religion, are most uniform and remarkable. They are, cer- tainly, more like a nation of saints than a horde of savages” (Capt. THE BOOK OF THE AZURE VEIL, 43 Bonneville’s notes, quoted in Washington Irving’s Rocky Aoun- tains), But the author of Prfol Vuk belonged to a cultured people, who built great cities of hewn stone, with temples vast and imposing, the ruins of which still stand, though for long centuries the destruc. tive elements of a tropical clime have sought to devour them; in a land where voleanoes of fire are ever aflame, the volcano of water ever a perpetual fountain; where the ground is ever a-tremble with earthquake shocks; a land of unfathomable lakes, of subterranean rivers, and rivers that come and go in periods of years; of wondrous caverns unexplored; where the earth yields rubies, silver and gold; a land where rains are deluges, and the lightning carves into fantastic shapes the iron-bearing mountains. Such a country can be mother only to men who have souls, lovers of the mysterions, the illimitable; men who look upon nature in a large way; men to whom the sword of the Christian invader brought death and downfall, but never sub- mission or servitude. A few of these people still survive in a part of their country which the foot of no white man has ever pressed} there they follow in freedom and peace their priests who have the soul-sight, cling to the religion of their forefathers, and practise the magic of old Of the written literature of this murdered nation hardly a frag- ment remains. The Christian priests bumed the manuscripts by the thousand; and the survivors of Quiché concealed the rest. The translation of Tie Popul Vik here given is from the text and word for-word French rendering of the Abbé Brassetir de Bourbourg, who also published with it an elaborate commentary of his own, which is, like most commentaries, valueless and misieading. Much speci lative matter of that kind has been written by western scholars, who all follow a blind trail that leads nowhere. At its entrance let 1s post the laconic warning “No Thoroughfare,” and turn to the Red men themselves, their literature, traditions and monuments, ‘The numerous nations and tribes of both Americas are off- shoots of 2 single race. The forefathers of that race dwelt in a land over which the waves of the morose Atlantic now intone a dirge. So say the traditions of the Red men, and no books are needed to confirm the story—the waves will tell it to any man who will but still his thoughts and listen. Nature is not dumb even “8 44 LUCIFER. when man is unhearing. Always she will speak to the listening ear. ‘That was the fourth great Race; only in the imagery of the Red man these Races are called “Suns,” and these Suns are de- stroyed in tura by Fire and Water, the ancestors of mankind each time being preserved in the Seven Caverns of the Earth: we of the Fifth Sun have emerged from four of these Caverns. Thus in a wondrous epic of the Shiwi Indians: “In the days of the new, after the times when all mankind had come forth from one to other of the ‘four great cavern wombs of earth,’ and had come out into the light of our father, the sun, they journeyed, under the guidance of A-hai-iu-ta and Ma-tsai-le-ma, twin children of the sun, immortal youths, toward the father of all men and things, eastward” (Frank H. Cushing, Mfy Adventures in Zui). And even as these perished Races are reborn, so each man stricken by death does but rest awhile in the sacred “Lake where ive ‘our others,’ and whither go our dead,” and is then reborn on earth, ‘The Red “Children of the Sun” do not worship the One God. For them that One God is absolutely impersonal, and ali the Forces emanated from that One God are personal. This is the exact reverse of the popular western conception of a personal God and impersonal working forces in nature, Decide for yourself which of these beliefs, is the more philosophical. ‘These Children of the Sun adore the Pluméd Serpent, who is the messenger of the Sun. He was the God Quetzaleoatl in Mexico, Gueumatz in Quiché; and in Peru he was called Amaru, From the latter name comes our word America. Amaruca 4s, terally translated, “Land of the Pluméd Serpent.” ‘The priests of this God of Peace, from their chief centre in the Cordilleras, once ruled both Americas. All the Red men who have ‘remained true to the ancient religion are still under their sway. One of their strong centres was in Guatemala, and of their Order was the author of the book called Pofo! Vuh. In the Quiché tongue Gucumatz is the exact equivalent of Quetzalcoatl in the Nahuatl Ianguage; gucfoa/, the bird of paradise; coaé!, serpent—“ the Serpent veiled in plumes of the paradise-bird.” Even the Professor of the Science of Religions at the College de France (so titled, presumably, Lecause guiltless of understanding (THE BOOK OF THE AZURE VEIL, 45 the meaning of any religion), has to say of the Pluméd Serpent: “There was something mysterious and occult about the priesthood of this deity, as though it were possessed of divine secrets or promises, the importance of which it would be dangerous to under- value” (Albert Réville, D.D., Hibber! Lectures, 1804), Unless the nature of this Bird-Serpent is understood, The Popo! Vuh remains a sealed book. For the present, let us look no further for the meaning of the symbols than the Bil. “Behold, I send you as sheep [neophytes] into the midst of wolves [the profane}: be ye therefore wise as serpents [magicians], and guileless as doves [mystics] (Jatt, x. 16). ‘The serpent symbolizes the electric fire, in nature and in man, and therefore, also, the ascetic in whom it is active. “By his spirit the Heavens are beautified ; His hand hath formed the undulating Serpent [lightning]. Lo, these are but the ontermost of his paths: And how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?” (Fol, xvi. 13, 14). And the Seventy [a cautious hint for 7 «7 or 49) returned with joy, saying: ‘Dominator, even the Gods are subject into us through thy Name.’ He said unto them: ‘I beheld Satan {the Ser- pent of Eden] falling as Lightning from the Heavens” (Lud, x. 17, 18) “Give not the holy thing [Inner teachings] unto the dogs [wrangling sectarians}, neither cast your pearls [spiritual intuitions and psychic events] before the swine [materialists whose experience is limited to rooting in the earth]: lest peradventure they shall trample them with their feet, and turn again and tend you. Ask, and it shall be given unto you... . Or what man of you, whom. his son shall ask for bread [religious instruction], will he give him a stone [the white “stone” of seership]? Or shall ask also for a fish [desire to follow a married life], will he give him a serpent [devote him to the ascetic life]? If ye, therefore, being still in wretched plight [under the bondage of rebirth], know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall the Father in the Heavens give the Holy Breath unto those who demand it? Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and spacious 46 LUCIFER. the way that leadeth to perdition [the Breath or serpent-fire in its procreative signification], and many be they that enter in thereby; for narrow is the gate and straitened the way that leadeth unto life [the upward path of the fire, leading to the mystic “second birth”), and few are they that find it” (Mad, vii. 6-14, and Luke, xi. 6-13). Even as the Serpent is the symbol of the divine electric Fire, so the Dove stands for the solar and Innar magnetic radiance of the pure-souled man, or Mystic. “Will ye lie among the sheepfolds [circles of neophytes), As the wings of a dove covered with silver [lunar], And her pinions with yellow gold [solar]2” (Paains, Ixviii. 13) “Thave beheld the Breath descending out of the Heavens as a Dove, and it abode upon him, And I myself knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize in water, he himself said unto me, ‘Upon whomsoever thon shalt see the Breath descending, and abiding upon him, this is he that baptizeth in the Holy Breath" (John, i. 32, 33) TNow the quetzal, the sacred bird of the Guatemalans, is a symbol identical with that of the Christian Dove; and between the Qnetzal-pluméd Serpent, who is the “Heart of the Heavens," and the Christ who saw the serpent falling as lighting from the Heavens, and upon whom the Holy Breath descended from the Heavens asa Dove, abiding upon him, there is no difference: alike they express the sacred truth of the soul and spirit of Nature, the soul and spirit of Man. | POPUL VUH. IvtRopvction. Tue following is the source of the ancient legendary lore of the land which is called Quiché, Here we shall begin the story of other days, the primal cause and origin of all that has been done in the City of Quiché, and among the tribes of the Quiché nation. We shall now set forth the outbreathing, the manifestation, and the illumination of all that was in the Darkness, the energizing of its Aurora by the Will of the Creator and the Former, of Him-who- engenders, of Him-who-gives-being, whose names are: The air- ‘THE BOOK OF THE AZURE VEIL. 7 tube Hunter of the Sleeping Animal; The air-tube Hunter of the Unsleeping Animal; The Great White-rayed One; The Domina- tor; The Pluméd Serpent; The Heart of the Lakes; The Heart of the Sea; The Master of the green-waving Planisphere; The Lord of the Azure Expanse. It is thus that we invoke, we pean and we glorify together those who are the Great Mother and the Great Father, whose name is Sun-God, Moon-Goddess, Guardian and Protectress; twice Great ‘Mother, twice Ancestor; as it is told in the Quiché legends, in which is related all that they did together for the brightening of the Life, for the enlightenment of the Word. | The following is what we shall write, and we place it in writing because, since the “Word of God” has been promulgated, and here- after during the cycle of Christianity, the Book of the Azure-green- veil is no longer to be seen, in which it could be clearly perceived that it had come from the further shore of the Sea; which Book has been called “The Record of our existence in the Overshadowing ‘World, and how we there beheld Light and Life.” [\.— PART I. Cuapree I. ‘Puts is the. First Book written of old, but the perception of it is hidden from him who looks with his eyes, who thinks with his brain, Marvellous was its appearance and its portrayal of the cycle in which all was formed and finished that is in the Heavens and oa the Earth, the symbols of the cube and the square, the proportions of their angles and their sides, and the establishment of parallels in the Heavens and on earth, at the four limits, at the four cardinal points, as it was ordered by the Creator and the Former, the Mother and the Father of Life, of Being, by whom all act and breathe, Life-giver and Nourisher of the initiated devotees who are the Peace of Peoples, whose wisdom has brooded over the symmetry of all that exists in the Heavens, on the earth, in the lakes and in the seas. This is the recital of how everything was in latency, calm and silent; all was motionless, all was peace, and void was the immensity’ of the Heavens. Behold, then, the first Word and the first Utterance. As yet existed no man, no animal; no creatures that fly, that swim, or that ws 8 LUCIFER. live both on earth and in water, no wood, no stone, no heights, no depths, no grass, no forests: the Heavens alone existed, ‘The face of the earth did not manifest itself yet; only the tranquil Sea was, and all the space of the Heavens. Nothing was embodied, nothing was correlated to any other thing; nothing was equilibrated, nothing caused the slightest attr tion or any sound in the Heavens. ‘There was nanght vertical; there was only the still water, Sea calm and solitary within its limits; for there was nothing which existed. All was immobility and silence in the Darkness, in the Night; only the Creator, the Former, the Dominator, the Pluméd Serpent, they who engender, they who give being, were on the waters as an ever-increasing Light, ‘They are enveloped in a Halo of green-fringéd blue: that is why their name is “The Serpent with plumes of the Paradise Bird.” Of the greatest Sages is their Being: that is why the Heavens exist, and the Heart of the Heavens; such is the name of the Deity; it is thus that he is invoked, __ It is then that his Word came here with the Dominator and the Phuméd Serpent, in the Darkness and in the Night; and that it spoke with the Dominator, the Plaméd Serpent. And they spoke; then they consulted together and pondered; they compre- shended each other; they joined their words and’ their counsel ‘Then, while they yet consulted, it became day. And, at the moment of the Aurora, Man manifested himself, whilst they, in the darkness and in the night, were holding counsel upon the production and growth of trees and creeping vines, of sentient beings and Humanity by him who is the Heart of the Heavens, whose name is Hurakan. Light is the first herald of Hurakan; the second is the undula- tion of the lightning-ash; the third is the thunder-bolt which strikes: and these three are the Heart of the Heavens. And these came with the Dominator, the Pluméd Serpents then they deliberated concerning organized life, what its germs should be, and how that Light should originate which was to be the vehicle and nourisher of the Man in the Heavens. “Let it be done thus,” it was said: “drink deep of the water, that it may retire and cease to cover, so that the Earth may exist, ‘THE BOOK OF THE AZURE VEIL. 49 that it may solidify, presenting its surface to receive the seed-beings, and that the Dawn may shine through the Heavens upon the Earth; for we shall obtain neither recognition nor adoration until the Human Being exists, the being endowed with Reason.” ‘Thus they spoke, whilst the Earth was formed by them. Thus, of a truth, the Creation took place, and the Earth was spoken into being: “Earth!” cried they, and instantly the Earth took form. Like a mist or a cloud was its formation into its material con- dition; when, like sea-fish rising, the mountains appeared above the water; in a moment uprose those great mountains. Only by marvellous might and power could that be performed which had been meditated upon as to the shadowing forth of the mountains and valleys, simultaneously with the creation of the forests of cypress and pine which sprang up over their surface. ‘Then was the Pluméd Serpent filled with gladness. “Thon art welcome,” he cried, “O Heart of the Heavens, O Hurakan, O Un- ulation of the Lightning, O ‘Thunderbolt which strikes!” “That which we have spoken into being and have given form shall be brought to completion,” they replied. First were formed the earth, the mountains and the plains; the ways of the waters being divided, the streams winding in serpentine courses between all the mountains; the waters being thus disposed. when the mighty mountains were unveiled. ‘Thus was the fashioning of the earth when it was formed by those who are the Heart of the Heavens and the Heart of the Earth; for thus are called those who first gave fertility to them, the Heavens as yet untroubled, the Earth suspended in the midst of the waters of space. ‘Thus was her vivification, she becoming vivified during their meditation upon her shadowing-forth and accomplishment. ARETAS. (To be continued.) 129 THE BOOK OF THE AZURE VEIL. (Continued from p. 49.) . Sor ahaha: tre EcPLANATORY. lem etainity =f Tine reat Gods, as given in The Popol Vie, ate tours bat they are invoked by ten names (nine Gods synthesized by a tenth, an Arora, and collectively named the Plaméé Serpent), and are_ divided into two hosts, called respectively Twice Great Father“of the Sun, and Twice Great Mother of the Moon n neagakjg seyen solar Gods and seven lunar. In the Great Sea of Space six of these Gods become manifest as an ever-increasing light, and are again synthesized by the Phunéd Serpent, the seventh, because enveloped in his Azure-and-green Halo. They constitute seven hosts of the “greatest sages.” ‘Then to two of these Gods, the Dominator (more literally, “He who is on High") and the Pluméd Serpent, comes the Word of the Deity— that Supreme who is never inchided in any enumeration of the Gods, and is never given any specific name. These seven are the Divine Man of the first Dawn. ‘The Word calls into activity the threefold Electric Fire, Hurakan, by whom the creative work is carried on. The waters are drained, the earth spoken into existence; and the sacred mountains uprise, velveted with cypress and pine, the life waters flowing in serpentine courses between them; all being accomplished by the threefold Fire, Hurakan, impelled by the power of meditation of the Gods. These mountains are symbolical of the life-centres of the earth; being mentioned later on as the seven volcanoes created at the dawn of the Aurora, In all this work but seven of the fourteen Gods are engaged; the other seven appear only when nascent man is to be ensouled, when all fourteen are named. Essentially there are only seven Gods, since they are generally given as solar-lunar couples. ‘The system is purely pantheistic, the creation taking place within, and all being for ever enveloped by, the halo of the Plumtd id tiwwone 12 130 LUCIFER, Serpent. The same conception of the creation of the world is shown in the sculpture over the doorway on the east facade of an ancient temple in the ruins of Chichen-Itza, thus deseribed by Dr. Le Plongeon “Effectively, in the tablean we see represented a luminous egg, emitting rays, and floating in the midst of the waters where it had been deposited by the Supreme Intelligence. In that egg is seated the Creator, his body painted blue, his loins surrounded by a girdles the holds a sceptre in his left hand; his head is adorned with @ plume of feathers} he is surrounded by a sexpent” (Sacrad Mysterdes “Among the Mayas and the Quichés). In the chapter of Pufol Vuh that follows, seven orders of Nature-sprites are created; being unable to speak the name of the Gods, or to invoke the threefold Fire, they are rejected; and the Gods then mould man out of red earth. He is a failure. Another attempt is made, but che second race is a failure, like the first. ‘Then a fourfold man is created by the Sun-God and Moon-Goddess; the people of this third race are sexual, stupid and wooden, incap- able of invoking the Gods. POPOL VUH. Cuapren II. ARTERWARDS they brought into existence the Nature-sprites of the mountains, who are the watchers over all the forest growths, the beings who dwell upon those mountains, deer, birds, lions, tigers, vipers, and snakes of brilliant colours, watchers over the serpents, trailing vines. ‘Then spoke he who engenders, he who gives being: "Should there be silence, inaction, when there is the shade of the trees and vines? Uscless are these unless there ate beings to watch over them.” ‘Phus they spoke while quickening the vivification they were sustaining, and immediately deer and birds came into existences ‘whereupon they apportioned to the deer and birds their dwellings. “Po the siver-banks, O deer! In the ravines you shall sleep, staying on the greensward, beneath the undergrowth ; in the forests you shall multiply; upon four feet shall you go.” ‘And it was done as it was told to them. (THE BOOK OF THE AZURE VEIL. Br ‘Then were apportioned equally the dwellings of the large birds and the sinall. “On the tops of the trees and trailing vines you shall lodge, © birds; there yor shall build your nests, there you shall multiply, You shall develop yourselves amid the branches of the trees and trailing vines.” ‘Thus instructed, the deer and birds performed their task, and all went to their dwellings. ‘Thus to the animate beings of the earth, he who engenders, he who gives being, distributed their habitations, They being formed, then, deer and birds, he said to them, alike to these deer, these birds, by the organ of the Creator and Former, of him who engenders, of him who gives being: “Cry, warble, now that the power of crying and warbling is given you; cause your language to be heard, each one after his Kind." ‘Thus was it said to the deer, birds, lions, tigers and serpents. “Speak, then, our name; render adoration to us, your father, your mother, Invoke Hurakan, the flashing of the lightning, and thunderbolt which strikes, the Heart of the Heavens, the Heart of the Earth, the Creator, the Former, the Engenderer, the Giver-of- being. Speak, invoke us and salute us!” ‘Thus was it said to them. But it was not in their power to speak as man speaks. ‘They did nothing but make inarticulate sounds, being nable to utter any form of language; each one according to his kind murmured in a different manner. When the Creator and the Former perceived that they could not speak, they said one to the other: “They could not say our name, although we are their Creator and Former. This is not good.” ‘Then to the animals they said: “Behold, you shall be changed, because you are incapable of speaking. Therefore, we have modi. fied onr promise, because it has been impossible for you to speak. Your food and nourishment, your dens and dwellings, you shall have, Dut they shall be in the ravines and forests; for our glory is not perfect, since you cannot invoke us. “There shall yet be beings, truly, who will be able to invoke Us; we shall make them capable of obeying. Now do your task; as to your flesh, it shall be torn by the tooth"—thus was it predicted for them. “Behold, then, your fate;” and this which was spoken to them 132 LUCIFER, was at the same time notified to all the large and small Nature- beings on the face of the earth. But they desired to try again their fortune, to have another chance; so they combined to contrive a new method of adoration Yet as they could not understand each other's language, they accom- plished nothing, and the attempt was a failure. “Thus it was that their forms were humiliated, and that all the wild animals now here upon the face of the earth were reduced to deing killed and devoured. Hence became necessary a fresh attempt to make creatures, by the Creator, the Former, him who engenders, him who gives being. “Let us try anew} already comes the sced-time, for, behold, the Aurora! Let us ereate those who shall be ott vehicles and nourishers. What can we do that we may be invoked, and that we may be made manifest upon the face of the earth? We have already essayed our first work and creature; but it was impossible for them to salute and adore us. Therefore let us try to make men, devout and reverent, to be out vehicles and nourishers.” “they spoke. ‘Then took place the creation and moulding of man.“ Of red earth they moulded his flesh." ‘They saw that it was not good; for he lacked solidity, was jointless, powerless, incompetent and mud-like; he could not revolve Jhis head, his face was only sculptured on one side; his vision was veiled, and he could not look behind thim; he had been endowed with the gift of language, but he was without intelligence: so he was dissolved by the water without being able to stand upright. ‘Then said again the Creator and the Former: “The more we try, the more incapable he is of walking and of reproducing himself. Let an intelligent being be formed.” ‘They remade and destroyed again their work and creature. phen they said: “What shall we do that beings may blossom out who will be adorers of us, invokers of us?” ‘They said, whilst they consulted anew: “Let us say to the Sun- God, the Moon-Goddess, to the Air-tube Hunter of the Sleeping ‘Animal, to the Air-tube Hunter of the Unsleeping Animal: ‘We must try afresh to determine his destiny, the period of his forma tion.” 12 THE ROOK OF THE AZURE VEIL. 133 ‘Then took place the consultation with these fortune-tellers, the Great Mother of the Sun, and the Great Mother of the Dawn; ths are they called by the Creator and the Former, for those are the vanes ofthe Son-Godand gs Noon-Godtes. don Care (Sd And the host of Hurai&ai Wiifed the Dominatorand the Plamed Serpent; and they said to the Sun-ruler, and to him of the Forma- tion, who are the fortune-tellers: “Tt is time to design anew com cerning the constituents of the man created, of the man formed, so that he may be indeed our vehicle and noutisher, in prder that we may be invoked and manifested. tems to ” Begin, then, your incantation, O you who engender and pur © A+“ Ket » forth into the world, Great Mother and Great Father, Sun-God, Moon-Goddess; cause the germination to be made, that the Dawn may whiten, that we may be invoked, adored and made mauifest by the man outlined, by the man shadowed-forth, by the man formed, by the man embodied. So let it be done. “Display your name, O Air-tube Hunter of the Sleeping Animal, © Air-tube Hunter of the Unsleeping Animal, two-fold Engenderer, two-fold Giver of Being, White-rayed One, ‘Thors-crowed One, He of the Emerald, the Jeweller, the Chiseller, the Architect, the Master of the Green-waving Planisphere, the Lord of the Azure Expanse, the Master of the Incense, the Ruler of the Ethereal City, Great Mother of the Sua, Great Mother of the Dawn for this you shall be called by our works and our creatures. “Make your passes over your grains of maize, over your cork- tree beans, to foresee if what we are working at will come to pass, while we carve his face and his mouth out of wood.” ‘Thus was it said to the fortune-tellers. At the moment for casting the lot, and saluting him who nade the prediction with grains of maize and cork-tree beans, “Sun and Creature!” then said to them an old man and an eld woman, But this old man was the master of the cork-tree beans, the Suii-Gods and this old woman was the Sui-robed, the giver of form, the Moon-Goddess of Increase. ‘Then they said, at the moment when the sun stood in mid- heaven “It is time for us to reach our decision; speak, and let us Jisten; then we shail tell whether the wood shall be eut and carved by the Creator and Former, and whether it shall be your vehicle 134 LUCIFER. and nourishes, at the moment when the germination shall be made and when the dawn shall whiten, SOQ maize, O beans, O Sun, O created being, generate other creatures.” ‘Thus was it said to the maize and beans, to the Sun dnd ereated being. Blush, O Heart of the Heavens, kiss not the fips and the cheeks of the Dominator, the Pluméd Serpent! ‘Then they made their forecast of the future: ‘It is in this w wwe must make your mannikins carved in wood who tall and reason Aippantly on the face of the earth.” ered ane amo w'So be it” was the answer. In the saine instant sprang tnio"* existence the wooden mannikin; men reproduced themselves, men reasoned; and these are the people who inhabit the surface of the earth. They lived and multiplied; they begat sons and daughters, manniikins worked in wood, but they had not heart or wisdom, nor memory of their Former and Creator. ‘They led a useless existence and lived like the four-footed brute creation. ‘They remembered not the Heart of the Heavens—and, behold how they perished. Te was only a trial and experiment at making men, who spoke at frst, but whose faces withered; feeble their hands and feet; they had neither blood nor nutrition, neither moisture nor fat; sunken cheeks were their faces, withered were their feet and hands, emaciated theit Aesh. Tt was because they did not direct their thonghts to the over shadowing Father who bestows life. Such were the first men who existed in great numbers hete on the surface of the earth ‘ARETAS, (Zo be continued.) 220, THE BOOK OF THE AZURE VEIL. (Continued fram p. 136) sh EXPLANATORY, Asdyfig towing oo te ven nes of mente a et Iunary the last three and one-half are solar. ‘The former are sym~ {50d olized in Popol Vuh by the men made of red earth, the cork-wood, and the pith of the pliaut reed, who are destroyed because they are incapable of invoking Hurakan, the threefold solar fire. From these failures of the third race the monkeys are descendants; but the psychic remnant of the race contintes, and has to be subjugated by the child of the sun, the God of the Colours, before the real man can be manifested upon the earth. So, from this point on to the end of the second book, we have in Popol Vich a series of allegories concerning the child of the sun, explaining the inner constitution of man, the method of awakening the psychic centres by means of the threefold fire, and the formation of the various ethereal bodies. The meaning of these allegories is so obvious that an elaborate analysis of them is unnecessary; but a few illustrations from Ashiwi and other sources may make them a little clearer. For the Ashiwi and other Red men of the Pueblos in the south-western United States are of the same original stock as the Quichés, and through the protection afforded them by the powerful northern Republic have escaped the religious persecution which forced the Lacandones of Central America to exclude all white men from their territory. And though for four hundred years no new applicant has taken the higher degrees in their religion, they have retained the magical meanings of their ancient myths, ‘As usual in such writings, when telling of the creation of the earth, sum, moon and stars, the real subject is the inner constitution of man and his spiritual rebirth; this is as true of the first chapters of Genesis, where the six days of labour and seventh of rest refer to the seven earth-lives of the neophyte, as it is of Popol ish, where « ‘THE ROOK OF THE AZURE VEIL. 201 the child of the sun descends into the Underworld and vanquishes its nuler, Seven-deaths; hence the Pluméd Serpent, in one of its many significations, is simply—man. Among the Ashiwi is thus represented: KO-LOWESL THE PLUMED SERPENT, (In the above, as in other llustrations to follow, the colours are indicated thus: violet, ZZ; blue, BX: yee low, 5 red, ji) In the pictograph, the red-and-yellow figures to the right and left of the moon are butterflies: with the Zuitis the butterfly is a symbol of the soul, or rather the lunar body of the soul, With the Nahuas it was replaced by the humming-bird, called by them “sun's hair.” ‘Thus, in the hall of the five-terraced temple of Mexico were images of two gods, placed on azure pedestals: to the right was “Shining Mirror,” the god of Law, who, in his erystal mirror rayed with plumes of every colonr, saw all that has been, is, or shall be, in the world of men; at his left was “Humming-bird to the Left,” the immaculate son of “Our Mother, the Lady Serpent,” who through the prowess of her son became the goddess of flowers. Forming an inverted tau in the radiating sphere of the Pluméd Serpent are two tubes, violet and ruby-coloured respectively, with a white line between them. ‘They are, in meaning, the same as the Air-tube Hunter of the Sleeping Animal, the Air-tube Hunter of the Unsleeping Animal, and the Great White-rayed One, of Popol Vu. The body of the serpent has three divisions, and above its head is the winged globe which symbolizes the “‘single eye” of the seer, the “pineal gland” and “optic thalami.” (May the gods pardon the use of such tncouth terms for what the old Druids expressed by the mistletoe berry and leaves, where heaven and earth kissed each 222 LUCIFER, other!) In Popo! Vuh, this appears as the elastic ball, by vibrating which the child of the sun goes to the Underworld. ‘The blankspace oneither side of the magicline leading to the heart of the serpent is called ‘the entrance path” (o ne yathl kwd to na). ‘The child of the sun is a twofold being, the “two young devo- tees," who are the “gods of the colours," gadail, from g'ibak (Maya), to paint, applied to the coloured symbolical images in the temples. ‘They have two names, both applicable to each of them: one is com- pounded of the seventh and twelfth signs of the Quiché calendar, but we have given it in this translation as Light-bringer, since this god is identical with the “Day-maker,” who is the Divinity of Light in the myths of the northern Indians; the other name is Master of the Airtube. This air-tube is the sarbacana, the terrible blow- gin ttsed by the natives of Central and South America. The jearned Dr. Brinton, A.M., M.D., Prof. American Archzeology and Linguistics in the University of Pennsylvania, asserts that “such a name bears little meaning in this relation—Hittle relevancy to the nature and functions of God.” After much linguistic engineering, he extracts from it the meaning “the chief master of magical power,” when it “has a distinctly relative signification, one intimately asso- ciated with the most recondite mysteries of religion; it expressed the divine power which the priests and prophets claimed to have received from the gods.” Let us bow before the decisions of Science, especially when a western master of medicine touches upon psycho-physiology. ‘These two gods are found in Ashiwi mythology, and Mr. Cushing says of them: “They are believed to be single in spirit, yet dual in form, the child or children of the God of the Sun, and to guard from year to year, from sunrise to sunset, the vale and children of those they were first sent to redeem and guide” (1/y" Adventures in Zui’), In a paper on “Zuiti Fetiches” he gives an extract from a mythologic epic which he catls the Zuii Tiad: “Although oral, this epic is of great length, metrical, rhythmi- cal even in parts, and filled with archaic expressions nowhere to be found in the modern Zui, It is to be regretted that the original diction cannot here be preserved. I have been unable, however, to record literally even portions of this piece of aboriginal literature, as it is jealously guarded by the priests, who are its keepers, and i publicly repeated by them only once in four years, and then only in va ‘THE BOOK OF THE AZURE VEIL. 223 the presence of the priests of the various orders. As a member of one of the latter I was enabled to listen to one fourth of it... I therefore give mere extracts, mostly furnished from memory, and greatly condensed, but pronounced correct, as far as they go, by one of the above-mentioned priests. “Tue DrvING OF THE Worp—In the days when all was new, men lived in the four caverns of the lower regions (the ‘Four ‘Wombs of the World’). In the lowermost one of these men first came to know of their existence. It was dark, and as men increased they began to crowd one another and were very unhappy. Wise mei came into existence among them, whose children supplicated them that they should obtain deliverance from such a condition of life. “It was then that the ‘Holder of the Paths of Life,’ the Sun- Father, created from his own being two children, who fll to earth for the good of all beings. ‘The Sun-Father endowed these children with immortal youth, with power even as his own power, and created for them a bow (the Rain Bow) and an arrow (Lightning). For them he made also a shield like unto his own, of magic power, and a knife of flint, the great magic war knife. ‘The shield was a mere net-work of sacred cords on a hoop of wood, and to the centre of this net-shield was attached the magic knife. “These children cut the face of the world with their magic knife, and were borne down upon their shield into the caverns where all man dwelt, ‘There, as the leaders of men, they lived with their children, mankind. “They listened to the supplications of the priests. ‘They built a ladder to the roof of the first cave, and widened with their flint knife and shield the aperture through which they had entered. ‘Then they led men forth into the second cavern, which was larger and not quite so dark. “Exe long men multiplied and bemoaned their condition as defore, Again they besought their priests, whose supplications ‘were once more listened to by the divine children. As before, they led all mankind into the third world. Here it was still larger and like twilight, for the light of the sun himself sifted down through the opening. To these poor creatures of the dark the opening itself seemed a blazing sun. “But as time went on men multiplied even as they had before, vA 224 LUCIFER. and at last, as at first, bemoaned their condition. Again the two children listened to their supplications, and it was then that the children of men first saw the light of their father, the Sun. “The world had been covered with water. It was damp and unstable, Earthquakes disturbed its surface. Strange beings rose up through it, monsters and animals of prey. As upon an island in the middle of a great water, the children of men were led forth into the light of their father, the Sun, It blinded and heated them, so that they cried to one another in anguish, and fell down, and covered their eyes with their bare hands and arms, for men were black then, like the caves they came from, and naked, save for a covering at the loins of rush, like yucca fibre, and sandals of the same, and their ees, like the owl's, were unused to daylight. “Eastward the two children began to lead them, toward the Home of the Sun-Father. “Now, it happened that the two children saw that the earth must be dried and hardened, for wherever the foot touched the soil water gathered—as may be seen even in the rocks to-day—and the monsters which rose forth from the deep devoured the children of men, ‘Therefore, they consulted together and sought the advice of their creator, the Sun-Father. By his directions, they placed their magic shield upon the wet earth. ‘They drew four lines a step apart upon the soft sands. Then the older said to the younger, ‘Wilt thou, or shall T, take the lead?" “

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