of the
scheme and not only signify its territorial but also its governmental
features. It is noteworthy that, in Nahuatl as in the Quechua, the title
for minor chief is homonymous with the word for fingers.

The Nahuatl pilli is a title for a chieftain or lord and also signifies
child and fingers or toes. A finger is ma-pilli, the prefix ma, from
maitl=hand, designating the fingers as the children of the hand. The thumb
is qualified by the prefix uei=great.

Having gained a recognition of the above facts it is not difficult to
understand the meaning of certain sceptres in the form of an open hand
which occur as symbols of authority borne by chieftains in the native
Codices.(41) I know of one important instance, indeed, where an arm with
an open hand is represented as standing upright in the centre of a circle
divided into sections and zones (similar to fig. 28, nos. 1, 3, 5, and 6).

The above mentioned examples, which I shall illustrate later, have led me
to infer that whilst the arm symbolized one of the four divisions of the
State, the hand symbolized its capital, the thumb its central ruler and
the fingers his four officers or pilli, the rulers of the four quarters of
the minor seat of government. In another publication I shall produce
illustrations showing that the foot was also employed as an emblem of rule
and that Mexico, Yucatan and Central America furnish us with actual proofs
that the hands and the feet respectively symbolized the upper and lower
divisions of the State.

It is thus curious to compare the name for thumb=uei-ma-pilli and the name
Uei-mac (literally, great hand) which Sahagun gives as that of the
"temporal" coadjutor of the Mexican culture-hero Quetzalcoatl, as well as
the term, our toe=totecxopilli with the well-known title Totec=our chief
or lord. In Yucatan the word for hand=kab is, as I shall demonstrate
further on, actually incorporated in the title of the lords of the four
quarters=Bakab. I am almost inclined to find a trace of a similar
association in the Quechua word for fingers=pallca and the title palla
bestowed upon noble women.

I have already mentioned in the preceding pages that the natural basis of
the all-pervading native numerical division into 4x5=20 was the finger and
toe count. The following table exhibits the general custom to designate 20
as one man or one count.(42)

Word for Man. Word for 20.
Nahuatl. tlacatl. cem-pouall