being clearly intentional since it
recurs in both cases. This circumstance furnishes additional proof that,
in these capitals as elsewhere, the same great primary division into the
Above and Below prevailed and shows that the representative rulers of
these two castes respectively wore beards or none.

The beard, as an insignia of rank, occurs in several Mexican MSS. and
careful observation shows that it is most frequently represented as worn
by a high-priest, usually painted black and sometimes wearing the skin of
an ocelot. It is found associated with advanced age and with red, the
color of the north, a fact which coincides with the position assigned to
bearded effigies at Copan and Quirigua. In Mexican Codices the culture
hero, Quetzalcoatl, is figured with a beard, and tradition records that
this was his distinctive feature. Images of Quetzalcoatl=the air-god,
represent him with a beard, and the calendar-sign Ehecatl=wind, is
composed of an elongated mouth and chin to which a beard is attached.

Several of the monuments at Quirigua are the largest of the kind which
have been found on the American continent. Stelae E and F are twenty-two
and twenty-five feet high respectively, and both exhibit two human
effigies standing back to back. In point of fact, with a few exceptions,
amongst which are female effigies, the majority of stelae at Quirigua are
double, namely, A, C, D, E, F, K, in Mr. Maudslay's work, part XI. I
cannot but regard this as a proof that in a peaceful, flourishing and
long-established state, the dual form of government maintained itself
successfully for an extended period of time. On Stela E is one of the most
remarkable ancient American portrait-statues that has yet been discovered.
It portrays a man with noble and strongly marked features, an aquiline
nose and a narrow chin beard, like a goatee.

The Maya dictionaries supply us with the clue to the meaning attached to
the beard in pictorial art. The word for beard is meex and for "bearded
man," ah-meex, or ah-meexnal, if the beard was long. On the other hand,
ah-mek-tancal is the Maya name for "governor and ruler of people or of a
town," and ah-mektanpixan means high priest. The first two syllables of
these titles, being identical with the word for a "bearded man," seem to
explain the reason for the association of rank with a beard, and _vice
versa_. Added to preceding data it aids in forming the conclusion that the
bearded personages on the stelae