78 



NUMERAL WORSHIP AND THE BUILDING UP 

 OF THE IMAGES AND PERIOD SYMBOLS. 



It is an apology I have already made, and shall have to make repeatedly, that much 

 which is set down in this work appears to be little more than assumption on my part; 

 yet there is not a statement in it of whose truth I am not as firmly convinced as 

 though it had passed the ultimate ordeal of proof. The difference between sighting a 

 conclusion toward which you see many shadowy things all pointing directly and of 

 arriving at it finally by a broad highway of incontestable evidence involves, in most 

 cases, the labor of years to construct that plain thoroughfare. The premature publi- 

 cation of this fragmentary study has not allowed me time to make good roads in all 

 directions, but I have projected my theories along no line where I do not clearly see 

 firm ground and the material with which a solid road-bed will eventually be built. 

 After long experience with these shadowy guides, one comes to have a sort of intuition 

 as to their trustworthiness; and, in case it be favorable, and there be unanimity 

 among the indices and reasonableness in the conclusion they point to, the intuition 

 becomes transmuted unawares into conviction. The frequent instances in which for 

 lack of time I have had to dispense with forthwith proof, but have found that it came 

 surely later on, have inspired me with a great deal of faith in this intuitive instinct ; 

 and so I am going to base the most daring theory of all on little else than it — if at the 

 conclusion of this chapter the reader shall be pleased to regard it so. 



The entire Archaic fabrication — glyphs, period signs, ornaments, idols, stelae, altars, 

 and altar-pieces — was, in my judgment, built up of numeral symbols and dedicated to 

 number worship. The whole thing was a cold-nosed mathematical calculation from 

 the bed-rock up. I speak in the vernacular of my habitat, for I had rather my 

 unlettered neighbours of the Pacific Slope should understand me than both the literary 

 and scientific worlds. Each of the day signs had a numerative value. There were 

 periods of days that had their respective signs. The month symbols were built up of 

 added or multiplied numerals, either in connection with or apart from these numerical 

 day periods. In the ordinary form, the ahau was built up of 5 multiplied by 72 ; the 

 katun of the ahau multiplied by 20; the cycle, of 20x7,200; the great cycle, of 

 20 katuns multiplied by 13; and the grand period, by a combination of numerals so 



