limit myself to pointing out that his fig. 1, pl.
XIV, exhibits a group of five circles in a circle which strikingly recall
the Mexican examples and the Maya ho=5. As each of the foregoing symbols
is intelligible and belongs to a group of ideas which I have shown to have
been general throughout America, but to have necessarily originated in the
northern hemisphere, it seems pretty clear that they must have gradually
found their way to Brazil and Guiana from the north by means of coast
navigation and traffic.

3. Concerning the bowl in the hand of the figure occupying the middle of
the swastika a few remarks should be added to those already given on pp.
72 and 93.

Formed of clay the bowl was an expressive symbol of the earth. Placed in
elevated positions on the terraces of the temples, and filled by the first
annual showers which fell upon the parched earth, the bowl of celestial
water naturally became invested with peculiar sanctity, and was gradually
regarded as containing particular life-giving qualities. One use to which
bowls full of water were put, in ancient Mexico, seems to explain further
the ideas associated with them. It is well known that bowls of water were
used at night for divination purposes, just as were black obsidian
mirrors. This seems to prove that the latter were a subsequent invention
which was adopted because it permanently afforded a surface for purposes
of reflection.

In the native Maya chronicles the reflection of a star upon the trembling
and moving surface of the water, is given as the image of the Creator and
Former, the Heart of Heaven, and it was believed that the divine essence
of life was thus conveyed to earth by light shining on and into the
waters. It is well known that it was customary for the priests of the
Great Temple of Mexico to bathe at midnight after fasting, in a sacred
pool so deep that the water appeared to be black. This
artificially-produced peculiarity would have rendered its surface
particularly useful for the observation and registration of the movements
of stars by their reflections.

Thomas Gage quaintly tells us, moreover, that at the consecration of a
certain idol "made of all kinds of seeds that grow in the country ... a
certain vessell of water was blessed with many words and ceremonies, and
that water was preserved very religiously at the foot of the Altar for to
consecrate the King when he was crowned and also to blesse any Captain
Generall, when he shou