Mexican temple and that its form must have had some symbolical
meaning. The foregoing data indicate that it probably was emblematic of
the Above and Centre and was therefore regarded as the fitting place of
sacrifice to the Sun and Heaven, whilst offerings to the Earth were most
appropriately made in circular openings recalling the rim of the bowl and
the round line of the horizon. It will be seen further on that the cone
recurs in native architecture and that its use as a symbol, in the course
of time, culminated in the pyramid.

[Illustration.]

Figure 37.

Let us return to it in its rudimentary stage, as a perpendicular line
arising from a medium level, forming an inverted tau. The widespread
employment amongst American peoples of the inverted and upright tau-shape
as emblems of the Above and Below is abundantly proven and doubtlessly
arose as naturally as "the Chinese characters Shang=Above, employed as a
symbol for Heaven, and Lea=Below or Beneath, employed as a symbol for
Earth. These are formed, in the one case, by placing a man (represented by
a vertical line) above the medium level (represented by a horizontal line)
and in the other below it" (Encyclopedia Britannica, art. China) fig. 37.
Another equally graphic presentation of the analogous thought is furnished
by the familiar Egyptian sign which exhibits a loop or something rounded
and hollow above and a perpendicular line beneath the medium level. It is
well known that the tau occurs in Scandinavia and is popularly named
Thor's hammer (fig. 38). Merely as a curious analogy I point out that in
fig. 25, no. 2, from the Vienna Codex, we have an American instance of a
tau-shaped object held in the hand in a ceremonial rite.

[Illustration.]

Figure 38.

The late and lamented Baron Gustav Nordenskjoeld observed that the
entrances to the ruined estufas of the ancient cliff-dwellers of Colorado
were in the shape of an upright tau and it is well known that this is also
the case amongst the Pueblo Indians of the present day. By means of a
photograph taken by Dr. A. Warburg of Berlin, whilst witnessing the
Humis-katshina dance of the Moqui Indians at Oraibi, in May, 1896, I am
able to affirm that the native dancers wear masks and high head-ornaments,
partly of wood, on which reversed and upright tau-symbols are painted, the
first in a ligh