It relates that, at a certain stage of the creation, "the most perfect of all priests and fathers named Yanáuluha ... brought up from the underworld, the water of the inner ocean and the seeds of life production" ... Subsequently, on a feathered staff he carried, "appeared 4 round things, seeds of moving beings, mere eggs they were; two blue like the sky and two red like the flesh of the earth-mother."...
I cannot but think that these words from a purely native source explain the Copan sculpture more correctly than any inference that could be made, and authorize the explanation that the central figure represents the "four times lord," or "lord of the four winds," titles which were applied in Mexico to Quetzalcoatl and Xiuhtecuhtli. At the same time the bas-relief teaches us that "the four winds" had a deeper meaning than has been realized, for it represents life-giving breath carrying with it the seeds of the four vital elements, emanating from the central lord of life, spreading to the four quarters and dividing itself so as to disseminate vitality throughout the universe. The title Kukulcan=the Divine Four, also serpent, proves to be even more expressive of this conception of a central divinity than the Mexican Divine Twin, or serpent. I am therefore inclined to consider that it originated with a Maya-speaking people, to whom, more graphically than to any one else, this bas-relief would have served, as a joint image of the star-god, the heart of heaven, named Hura-kan; of the terrestrial lord Ah-cuch-cab, the heart or life of the State; of the State, with its hun-kaal or one count of twenty subdivisions of people and its quadruple head and body and, finally, of the native cosmology.
The Copan swastika enables us to come to another interesting conclusion. It is a refined representation of the set of thoughts suggested by Polaris, the idea of a stable centre being graphically rendered. Movement in four directions is also symbolized. As, in the latitude of Copan, Ursa Minor is the only circumpolar constellation which could have been observed in four opposite positions, it is obvious that Ursa Minor with Polaris must have constituted the Maya Celestial Heart or Life=cuxabal. The following points remain to be discussed in connection with the Copan swastika.