It is scarcely necessary to recall here that the flint-knife was a well-known ancient Mexican emblem, nor to point out the importance of the conclusion that two well-defined symbols which played an important rôle in the Mexican and Mayan cult of the Below and of the Earth-mother, are actually found in use amongst Californian Indians at the present day.
A whole flood of light is thrown upon native symbolism, however, by the information obtained from the Zuñi Indians by Mr. F. H. Cushing. The following passage, from their Creation myth, affords the most positive confirmation of the foregoing conclusion, that the bowl or vase was the native emblem of the earth-mother. The Zuñi speaker said: "Is not the bowl the emblem of the Earth, our Mother? For from her we draw both food and drink, just as the babe draws nourishment from the breast of its mother. And round, as is the rim of the bowl, so is the horizon...."(11) Interesting as this explanation of the native symbolism undoubtedly is, it becomes most important when its full significance is realized and we recognize that originally earthenware bowls themselves were looked upon as sacred emblems formed indeed out of the material of the earth itself. This fact places the invention and manufacture of earthen vessels in an entirely new light and enables us to conjecture and understand why, quite apart from their utility, so much care and decoration were lavished upon them and why, indeed, they were constantly buried with the dead. They obviously served as sacred emblems of the earth-mother, to whose care the dead body was confided, and originally the intention probably was to propitiate her by the beauty of the sacred vessels, which, to be symbolical of her bounty, necessarily contained food and drink.
Without pausing to discuss how easily this custom would have gradually given birth to the belief that the food and drink thus offered were intended for the use of the dead body itself, or its soul, I would point out that, in the absence of clay vessels, a stone, rough or worked, would have also served as an appropriate emblem of the earth-mother, being as it were, of her own substance. It is well known that in ancient Mexico this custom prevailed. There we also find that the bowl- or vase-shaped grave was employed, with a deeply religious and symbolical meaning. This is clearly revealed by a native drawing in the "Lyfe of the Indians," representing a native burial. The deceased, represented by his skull only, has been placed in a deep hole, figured as a large inverted horse-shoe, painted brown and covered with small "horse-shoe" marks. The same religious symbolism which led to the adoption of a definite form of sepulchre, typifying the element earth, would evidently account for the adoption for burial purposes, of large clay vessels into which the remains of the dead were placed. In some localities these clay burial urns were, as we know, made large enough to contain the dead body itself. The difficulty of manufacturing these would naturally have led to the general adoption of cremation, simply as a means of reducing the remains so that they could repose in the sacred image of the earth. Cremation would, moreover, be a rite full of meaning since, to the native mind, earth was inseparable from its twin element fire, and both together constituted the "Below."