1888.] loo [Biinton. 



in this he is borne out by primitive American art, as we shall see. 

 The twent}^ elevations which surround the stone, corresponding 

 in number to the twenty days of the Maya month, indicate at 

 once that we have here to do with a monument relating to the 

 calendar. 



Turning now to the development of this class of figures in 

 primitive American art, I give first the simplest representations 

 of the sun such as those painted on buffalo skins by the Indians 

 of the Plains, and scratched on the surface of rocks. The exam- 

 ples are selected from manj^ of the kind published by Col. Garrick 

 Mallery.* 



Fig. 14. 



The design is merely a rude device of the human face, with four 

 raj^s proceeding from it at right angles. These four rays repre- 

 sent, according to the unanimous interpretation of the Indians, 

 the four directions defined by the apparent motions of the sun, 

 the East and West, the North and South. By these directions 

 all travel and all alignments of buildings, corpses, etc., were de- 

 fined ; and hence the earth was regarded as four-sided or four- 

 cornered ; or, when it was expressed as a circle, in accordance 

 with the appearance of the visible horizon, the four radia were 

 drawn as impinging on its four sides : 



-=:H 



Fig. 15. Fig. 16. 



Fig. 15 is a design on a vase from Marajo, Brazil, and is of com- 

 mon occurrence on the pottery of that region. f Fig. 1 6 repre- 



* Mallery, Pictography of the North American Indians, in Fourth Annual Report of the 

 Bureau of Ethnology, p. 239. 

 t Dr. Ferraz de Maeedo, Essai Critique sur les Ages Prehistorique de Bresil, p. 38 (Lisbonne, 



1857). 



