1 I) • BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HUenrg W. Sage 1891 \A^i~7Jt DATE DUE - " tj&#**? J JiJvU '"^ ** GAYLORD PRINTED IN U 5 A THIS EDITION IS LIMITED TO FIFTEEN HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED FROM TTPE Cornell University Library !m The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924088419928 V MOUND-BUILDERS' WORKS NEAR CHILLICOTHE, ROSS COUNTY, OHIO Vol. I. p. 61 HISTORY OF America before C MERICA BEFORE LxOLUMBUS According to Documents and Approved Authors BY P. DE ROO MEMBER OF THE ARCH/EOLOGICAL CLUB OF THE LAND VAN WAES AND OF THE UNITED STATES CATHOLIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA VOLUME I AMERICAN ABORIGINES PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1900 ^ ft 01 toy % A-T-T-Tl "'T Copyright, 1900, BY P. De Roo. \ PRINTED BY J. a. UPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. PREFACE Foe several years I searched the Vatican Secret Ar- chives to obtain reliable information regarding the history of one of the Roman pontiffs, Alexander VI., who is as much slandered as he is little known. While garnering from the richest of historical treasuries the most important notes for my study, I happened, once in a great while, to meet with some original and un- published record pertaining to the religious history of America, either of the time of the Spanish discovery or before it. No wonder if, an American, I considered those documents highly valuable, and copied them care- fully. Little by little I had gathered a number of papers which some of my friends deemed to be worthy of publication. They attached especial importance to the records of papal intercourse with American territory previous to the discovery of Columbus. My compilation was necessarily of incoherent and, for most readers, of useless material ; which, however, if employed to advantage, might serve as a foundation for some interesting historical work. I went, there- fore, to search other libraries and ancient publications to complete my notes and fill up the intervening gaps. The results were very gratifying ; but, through a nat- ural effect of inquiry, I was soon persuaded that more labor was needed ; for what I learned of Christianity in America shortly before Columbus set me on the track of an evangelization earlier than that to which my first documents had reference. I was meeting on every side with vestiges of a Christianity which evidently VI PREFACE. was not introduced by the relatively late Northmen. A student will hardly stop at a question. I consulted more authors, both ancient and modern, to find a so- lution of the puzzle. In ascending along the river of ages I became convinced that every ray of light in the midst of growing darkness was of inestimable value, if not to discover ancient positive facts and events, at least to perceive their probability, their pos- sibility or impossibility. I tried to catch every such ray and to treasure it up, groping my way under the guidance of the learned who had, before me, inquired into the very beginnings of the American nations. By ways and byways I travelled past the biblical Adam, even unto the very limit of all material beings, to the scientific moneron. Here, of course, I was compelled to stop and return. In coming back I was as careful and inquisitive as I had been on my tentative journey out, taking at every step the direction of those of my knowing guides whom I found to be acquainted best with the particular fields which we had to traverse in succession ; and I noted down all the most reliable in- formation that I could obtain. In all these literary travels I kept a steady eye on the religious particulars that seemed to be of any in- terest ; but I could not help noticing, also, most im- portant circumstances, events, and institutions which principally pertain to the social and political life of the American nations and tribes that have risen, flour- ished, and fallen before the great discovery of Co- lumbus. After completing my notes and observations, I thought that a fitting, comprehensive title of them all would be " History of America before Columbus ;" and I feel confident that their perusal may be agreeable and instructive, particularly, for readers who have PREFACE. Vll imagined that there scarcely exists any history of our continent before Columbus's time. I have paid special attention to all such facts as are either difficult or not at all to be found in former liter- ature in any methodical form. With this object in view, I have readily sacrificed the idea of writing an evenly balanced and classical composition, allowing the largest space to events and circumstances which are the least known to the American public or not known at all to professed historians themselves ; even though, in general history, these particulars should be of minor importance. Nor was it my only intention to teach things unknown, but also to correct some errors in regard to ancient American history that have been, knowingly or unknowingly, brought forth on the occasion of the late Columbian centenary. The nature of the documents from which I have commenced my study has caused the religious trend which pervades my work ; yet I have neglected the social, civil, and political interests neither of our abo- rigines nor of the European immigrants in America. The authentic records, set forth either in the text or copied in the appendix, I propose as settling the points of which they treat. In choosing my teachers and guides among the writers before me, I have aimed at accepting those who have made themselves a com- mendable name by their deep science or acknowledged scholarship during these last decades of modern research, as also those ancient historians who are universally rec- ognized as authorities, either for their classic attainments or their peculiar facilities for truthful information while writing as eye- and ear-witnesses. I trust that personal religious conviction shall not have biassed my statements or conclusions, because I have made it my duty to hear the testimony of dissenting and infidel authors as well Vlll PREFACE. as, and even more than, that of those of my own faith. And right here I feel almost obliged to apologize for my frequent notes and extracts from two authors whose • religious ideas are either extremely vague or absolutely null when not inimical to Christianity. My only ex- cuse is that H. H. Bancroft and W. H. Prescott are extraordinarily rich in statements of particular and well-defined facts, which are, at any rate, required as the basis and substance itself of any work that may make pretensions to the title of an historical com- position. As my credentials, I next give the catalogue of the original manuscript codices which I have utilized in my book, and of a couple that I have had occasion to mention. As further authority, I append the list of authors whose works I have personally consulted, and the more extensive roll of other writers who influenced the opinions of those whom I had the advantage of reading myself. I might here add a general synopsis of all the matter treated in my work, but the reader will obtain from the detailed " contents" of each volume a sufficient knowledge both of the various subjects of which I am to speak and of their logical connection. May I succeed in entertaining and instructing my readers, and I shall feel repaid for my labor. P. De Eoo. Poktland, Oregon. ARCHIVES AND MANUSCRIPTS CONSULTED. Archivium S. Consistorii Yaticanum, Eome. Acta Consistorialia ab Anno 1409 ad 1433. Provisiones iDnocentii VIII. et Alexandri VI., or Acta Consistorialia, 1489 ad 1503. Acta Consistorialia ab Anno 1492 ad 1523. Archivium Apostolicum Secretum Vaticanum, Eome. Eegestum 7 : Innocentii III., Bullarium, An. VIII., IX., Tomus IV. Eegestum 38 : Joannis XXI., Bullarium, An. I., Tomus I. Eegestum 276 : Gregorii XI., Bullarium Camerale, An. III., Tomus III. Eegestum 407 : Nicolai V., de Curia, Liber II. Eegestum 777. Eegestum Avenionense : Clementis VII., Tomus LII. Joannis XXII. Bpistolaj 2191, 2192, 2195, 2196, 2199. Obligationes, No. 66. Obligationes, No. 72. Obligationes No. 306, alias 55 : Primus Obligationum Eu- genii, PP. quarti, 1431 ad 1439. Obligationes No. 566, alias 65 vel 66 : Eugenii IV., Nieolai IV., Calixti III., Pii II., et Pauli II. Obligationes No. 595, alias 60 : Martini V., Obligationes S. Collegii ab Anno 1422 ad 1428. Obligationes No. 596, alias 64: Obligationes Collegii sub Martino V., Eugenio IV. ab Anno 1427 ad 1443. Obligationes No. 604, alias 65 : Martini V. et Eugenii IV. Divisionum, Anno 1428 ad 1437. Provisiones, Anno 1433 ad 1468. Eationes CollectoriaB Svetiffi, Norwegise, Gotise et Anglise, 1306, 1313, 1326. Armarium 12, No. 121 : Acta Consistorialia. Armarium 12, No. 122 : Anno 1517 usque ad 1534, Acta Consistorialia diversa. Armarium 25, No. 18. X ARCHIVES AND MANUSCRIPTS CONSULTED. Armarium 29, No. 50: Alexandri VI. Diversa Camera, 1492 ad 1495, Liber I. Armarium 35, No. 12 : Urbani VI., Bonifacii IX., Innocentii VII., Gregorii XII. Litterse Decimarum et Collectori- arum. Armarium 39, No. 16 : Sixti IV. Brevia ad Principes, Anno 1483, Tomus I. Schede G-arampi. Archivium Lateranense, Borne. Begestum Bonifacii IX., Anno I., Liber II. Bonifacii IX., Anno 13, Liber Provisionum. Bonifacii IX., Tomus 34. Bonifacii IX., Tomus 96. Bonifacii IX., Tomus 102. Innocentii VII., Tomus 125. Joannis XXIII., Tomus 142, vel Anno I., Liber VII. Martini V., Tomus 255, vel Anno VIII., Liber 108. Sixti IV., Anno X., Liber I. Bibliotheca Barberiniana, Bome. MS. Codex XL., No. 16, not foliated. Bibliotheca Corsiniana, Bome. Cod. 244 or Col. 36, D, 2. Cod. 377. Cod. 776 or Col. 39, G, 2 : Chronica Fr. Joannis de Capis- trano. Bibliotheca Vaticana, Bome. Pars Ottoboniana, Cod. 65. Pars Ottoboniana, Cod. 2651. Pars Ottoboniana, Cod. 3057. Bibliotheca Vittorio Emanuele, Bome. MSS. Sessoriani, No. 46 : Liber Taxarum omnium Beclesi- arum et Monasteriorum diligentissime emendatus ad exemplar Libri Sacri Collegii et Camere Apostolice. MSS. Sessoriani, No. 413. MANUSCRIPTS MENTIONED. British Museum, London. Eger- No. 1374: Nicolaus Herborn, ton MS. Relatio vera de Novis Insulis. Stadtbibliothek. Treves. MS. Cod. PRINTED LITERATURE CONSULTED. Academie des Inscriptions, Vol. XXVIII. Acosta, Jose de. The Natural and Moral History of the Indies ; London, 1880. A reprint of the English transla- tion of 1604, from the Spanish. Acta Sanctorum (Bolland.) : acl 3 Februarii. Acta Sanctorum (Bolland.) : Acta SS. Brendani et Maclovii ; ad diem 16 Maii, Vol. III. ; Antverpise, 1680. Acta Sanctorum (Bolland.) : ad diem 9 Junii, Vita Si. Columba? ; Antverpice, 1698. Acta Sanctorum (Bolland.) : ad diem 29 Julii, Vol. VII. : Vita S. Olai ; Antverpise, 1731. Adam Bremensis. Historia ... or G-esta Hammaburgensis Ec- clesise Pontificum, ap. Pertz, Monumenta. Adam arrived in Bremen in the year 1067, and wrote about the beginning of the last quarter of the eleventh century. His authority is admitted by all. Adam Bremensis. De Situ Danise. Adanman, St. Vita S. Columba?, ap. Fowler, Adamni Vita S. Columbaj; Oxford, 1894. Adanman, highly praised by Bede the Venerable, by Ceolfrid Alcuin, Fordun, and all Irish writers, and mentioned as a saint in the English Martyrology, compiled all the principal facts and inci- dents of the life of his predecessor, St. Columba, who died only twenty-seven years before the birth of his biographer. The Angli- can bishop, Forbes, calls Adamnan's Life of St. Columba the soli- tary record of the history of the Church of Scotland, and, with the exception of Bede and the Pictish Chronicle, the chief trust- worthy monument till we come to the Margaretan reformation. The Duke of Argyll well says that "we find in Columba's Life not only the firm foothold of history, but the vivid portraiture of an individual man." Adamnan died an abbot of Hy in a.d. 704. Ailly, d', or Petrus Alliacus, a.d. 1360-1425, a cardinal. Cos- mographia. A. Lapide, Corn. Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram ; Pari- siis, 1877. Xll PRINTED LITERATURE CONSULTED. Allen, C. F. Histoire de Danemark; Copenhague, 1878. This work was crowned in Denmark. Allioli, Dr. Joseph Franz. Die Heilige Schrift des Alten und Neuen Testamentes ; Munchen und Landshut, 1853. Amat di S. Filippo, Pietro. G-li Illustri Viaggiatori Italiani; Eortia, 1885. American Catholic Quarterly Eeview, The. Philadelphia, 1876, seq. American Cyclopaedia. American Ecclesiastical Eeview. Anderson, Johann. Nachrichten von Island, Greenland und der Strasse Davis ; Hamburg, 1746. Anderson, Easmus B. America not discovered by Columbus; Chicago, 1877. Antiquaires du ]STord. Memoires des . . . ; Copenhague, 1836, seq. Arbois de Joubainville, d'. Les Premiers Habitants de i'Eu- rope ; Paris, 1889. Arcelin, Adrien. XTEpoque Glaciaire, in Congres Scientifique, Sec. VITL, p. 70 ; Paris, 1891. Archivio Storico Italiano. Firenze, 1842, seq. Assal, W. Nachrichten uber die friiheren Einwohner von Nordamerika ; Heidelberg, 1827. Augustin, St. De Civitate Dei. Bailly. Lettres a M. de Voltaire sur FAtlantide de Platon ; Paris, 1805. Balan, Pietro. Storia d'ltalia ; Modena, 1877. Drawn mainly from the Archives of Modena. Baldwin, John D. Prehistoric Nations ; New York, 1874. Bancroft, George. History of the United States. Bancroft, Hubert Howe. The Native Eaces of the Pacific States of North America ; New York, 1875. The work shows the faults of employing several independent contributors, in a want of uniform discrimination, and in that pro- miscuous avidity of search which marks rather an eagerness to amass than a judgment to select and give literary perspective. (Thus J. Winsor.) Baronius, Cassar. Annales Ecclesiastici ; Lucae, 1741 — together with Critica Historico-Chronologica Antonii Pagii. BaBtian, Adolf. Die Culturlander des Alten Amerika ; Berlin, 1878. PRINTED LITERATURE CONSULTED. Xlll Baumgartner, Alex. Nordische Fahrten, oder Island und die Faroer ; Freiburg im Breisgau, 1889. Beamish, North Ludlow. The Discovery of America by the Northmen in the Tenth Century ; London, 1841. Beamish, N. L. Voyages of the Northmen to America ; Boston, 1877. Beauvois, E. La Decouverte du Nouveau Monde par les Ir- landais et les Premieres Traces du Christianisme en Amerique avant l'An 1000 ; Nancy, 1875. Beauvois, E. Les Derniers Vestiges du Christianisme Preche du 10 e au 14 e Siecle dans le Markland et la Grande Irlande. Les Porte-Croix ; Paris, 1877. Beauvois, E. Origines et Fondation du Plus Ancien Eveche du Nouveau Monde ; Paris, 1878. Bekkerus, Immanuel. Platonis Opera Omnia. Belknap, Jeremy. American Biography ; Boston, 1794. Bembo, Pietro Cardinale. Istorie Veneziane latinamente Scritte ; In Venezia, 1718. Berthelot. Histoire Physique, Politique et Naturelle de File de Cuba, de Eamon de la Sagra. Bible, Holy. Bircherodus. Schediasma de Orbe Novo non Novo ; Altdorf, 1683. Boletin de la Eeal Academia de la Historia; Madrid, 1891, 1892. A very learned publication. Bollandists. See Acta Sanctorum. Boscana. Breviarium Eomanum. Brockhaus. Allgemeine Encyclopedie der Wissenschaften oder Conversations Lexicon ; Leipzig, 1872. Brooks. In San Francisco Evening Bulletin, March 2, 1875. Brownell, Charles. The Indian Eaces ; New York, 1853. Buache. Memoire sur l'lle de Frislande, in Memoires de l'Aca- demie Eoyale des Sciences, 1787. Butterfield, General. A lecture, in New York Freeman's Journal, November 5, 1892. Casas. See Las Casas. Cass, General. In American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. XVIII. Charlevoix, Pierre Francois-Xavier. Histoire de File Espa- gnole ou de S. Domingue ; Amsterdam, 1733. XIV PRINTED LITERATURE CONSULTED. Charlevoix, Pierre Francois-Xavier. History of Paraguay. Note. — When the work of Charlevoix is not mentioned, his Histoire de l'lle Espagnole is meant. Charney, Desire. Cites et Buines Americaines; Paris, 1861. And its translation, The Ancient Cities of the New "World ; New York, 1887. Chevalier, Ulysse. Repertoire des Sources Historiques du Moyen Age ; Paris, 1877-1886. Chiesa Eussa, della; e delle sue Eelazioni colla Sancta Sede della Sua Nascita sino a Caterina II. Clarke, E. H. In American Catholic Quarterly Beview, Vol. XV. Coleecion de Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de Espafia ; Madrid, 1842, seq. Compte Eendu du Congres Scientifique International des Catho- liques, Tenu a Paris du l er au 6 Avril, 1891 ; Paris, 1891. Compte Eendu du Congres Scientifique International des Catho- liques.— Section : Sciences, Histoire, 1894. Congres International des Americanistes. Congres Scientifique. See either " Compte Eendu." Cook's Voyages ; Dublin, 1784. Cooley, W. Desb. The History of Maritime and Inland Dis- covery; London, 1830. And its incorrect French transla^ tion, Histoire Generale des Voyages ; Paris, 1840. Costa, B. P. De. Sailing Directions ; Albany, 1869. Costa, B. P. De. The Precolumbian Discovery of America by the Northmen ; Albany, 1ST. Y., 1890. This is a small but learned and reliable monograph. Costa, B. F. De. The Northmen in Maine ; Albany, N. Y., 1870. Crantz, David. History of Greenland ; London, 1767. Cronau, Eudolf. Amerika ; Leipzig, 1892. Cushing. In Transactions of the New York Academy of An- thropology, December, 1888. DAilly, or Petrus Alliacus. See Ailly. Dandolo, Conte Tullio. Cristoforo Colombo; Milano, 1891. Dante Alighieri. Divina Commedia. D'Arbois de Joubainville. See Arbois. Daru. Histoire de la Eepublique de Venise ; Paris, 1826. De Guignes. In Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, T. XXVIII. Dehio. Erzbisthum Hamburg-Bremen ; Berlin, 1877. PRINTED LITERATURE CONSULTED. XV Depping. Histoire des Expeditions Maritimes des Normands au X mo Sieele ; Paris, 1826. De Eoo, Peter. De Wonderbare Maagd Sinte Amelberga; Brussel, 1872. Diplomatarium Islandicum ; Kaupmannhofh, 1857. Diplomatarium Norvegicum. Ed. by Lange and Unger. Donahoe's Magazine. Donis, Nicholaus Germanus. Ptolemtei cosmographise Libri VIII. ; TJlmse, 1482. Du Cange. Glossarium Medife et Infimse Latinitatis; Niort, 1883. Duchesne. Liber Pontificalis ; Paris, 1889. Duran, Diego. Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espafla ; Mex- ico, 1867. Duro. Cesareo Pernandez. In Boletin de la Eeal Academia de la Historia, T. XXI. East Oregonian. A daily paper of Pendleton, Oregon. Eubel, Conrad. Hierarchia Catholica Medii Mvi ; Miinster. Parnum, Alex. Visits of the Northmen to Ehode Island ; Providence, 1877. Picinus Marsilius. Too Oetoo nXarwvo? Aizavra ra So^wfieva ; Pran- cofurti, 1602. Fiske, John. The Discovery of America; Boston and New York, 1892. Pita, Pidel. In Boletin de la Eeal Academia de la Historia, T. XXV. Porster. Histoire des Decouvertes et des Voyages faits dans le Nord. A translation. Foster, J. W. Prehistoric Eaces of the United States of America; Chicago, 1874. Fowler, J. T. Adamni Vita S. Columba? ; Oxford, 1894. Gaffarel, Paul. Histoire de la Decouverte de TAmerique ; Paris, 1892. Gaffarel, Paul. Des Voyages de St. Brendan et des Papas. Gams, Pius Bonifatius. Series Episcoporum ; Eatisbonse, 1873. Garcilasso de la Vega, El Inca. Comentarios Eeales . . . de los Incas del Peru ; Madrid, 1723. Garcilasso was born at Cuzco, from a Spanish conqueror and a lady of the royal Inca family, in the year 1540, and died at Cor- dova in 1616. He was an eye-witness of a considerable portion of the facts narrated in his Comentarios, and obtained his further in- formation from other eye-witnesses, both Spanish and Peruvian. His honesty is above suspicion. XVI PRINTED LITERATURE CONSULTED. Gass, Patrick. A Journal of the Voyages and Travels of a Corps of Discovery ; Pittsburg, 1807. G-leeson, "W. History of the Catholic Church in California; San Francisco, 1872. Gomara, Francisco Lopez de. Historia de las Indias; Sara- gossa, 1553. Or, Storia Generale delle Indie ; Eoma, 1556. Gomara is a scholarly writer and an eye-witness of most facts narrated by him. G-ottlob, Ad. ,Aus der Camera Apostolica ; Innsbruck, 1889. Graberg da Hemso. A translation of Eafn's Memoire sur la Decouverte de lAmerique aux X e Siecle. Gragas. See Magnussen. Gravier, Gabriel. Decouverte de lAmerique par les JSTormands au X e Siecle ; Paris et Eouen, 1874. Guerin, Paul. Les Petits Bollandistes ; Paris, 1888. Guignes, de. In Academie des Inscriptions, T. XXVIII. Hafniensis Societas. Scripta, Pars II. Hakluyt Society. Divers Voyages touching the Discovery of America ; London, 1850. Ed. by John Winter Jones. Hayes, Isacco. La Terra di Desolazione; Milano, 1874. An Italian translation. And the original Land of Desolation. Haynes, Henry W. In Winsor's Narrative and Critical His- tory of America. Herbermann, Charles G. Torfason's Ancient Vinland; New York, 1888. Note. — Unless otherwise stated, this work is referred to. Herbermann, Charles G. Education in Ancient Babylonia, Phoe- nicia, and Judea. In American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. XVIII. Herder's Conversations-Lexicon ; Freiburg im Breisgau, 1882. Herrera, Antonio de. Historia General de los Hechos de los Castelanos en las Islas i tierra firme del Mar Oceano; Madrid, 1601. And another edition. The work of Herrera (a.d. 1549-1625) must be admitted to have extraordinary merit. Herrera has brought together a vast quantity of information in respect to the institutions and usages of the Indian nations, collected from the most authentic sources. (Pres- cott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. ii. p. 91, seq. ) Hettinger, Franz. Apologie des Christenthums ; Freiburg im Breisgau, 1867. Hin forna Logbok. See Magnussen. PRINTED LITERATURE CONSULTED. XV11 Hornius, Georgius. De Originibus Americanis ; Hagse Comitis, 1652. Horn is very erudite. This work is referred to, unless other- wise stated. Hornius, Georgius. Ulyssea. Horsford, Eben Norton. The Discovery of the Ancient City of Norumbega ; Cambridge, 1889. Horsford, Eben Norton. The Defences of Norumbega ; Boston and New York, 1891. Hugues, Luigi. Storia della Geografia ; Torino, 1891. Humboldt, Priedrich Heinrich Alexander von. Vues des Cor- dilleres; Paris, 1816. Humboldt, Priedrich Heinrich Alexander von. Bxamen Critique de l'Histoire de la Geographie du Nouveau Continent; Paris, 1837. Huitfeldt. See Lange. Hutson, Charles Woodward. The Story of Language ; Chicago, 1897. Icazbalceta, Gioach. Garcias. Giovanni di Zumarraga, Primo Vescovo di Messico; Quaracchi, 1891. Irving, Washington. Works, Vol. III. : Vida y Viajes de Cris- tobal Colon ; Santiago, 1859. Jacker, Edward. In American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. III. p. 255 : The Mental Capacity of the American Indian as indicated by his Speech. Jaffe, Loewenfeld, etc. Regesta Pontificum Eomanorum ; Lip- zias, 1885. Jarnsida edr Hakonarbok. See Sveinbjornsson. Jomard. Lies Monuments de la Geographie ; Paris, no date. Jousset, Dr. P. Les Origines Asiatiques de la Civilization en Amerique avant Christophe Colomb, in Congres Scientifique, Paris, 1891. Kastner, Adolphe. Analyse des Traditions religieuses des Peu- ples indigenes de 1' Amerique ; Louvain, 1845. Kosma de Papi, Carolus. Liturgica Sacra Catholica ; Eatis- bonae, 1863. Kretschmer, Konrad. Die Entdeckung Amerika's (and Maps) ; Berlin, 1892. Kuntsmann, Friedrich. Die Entdeckung Amerika's; with beautiful Atlas explained ; Munchen, 1859. Lafiteau. DecOuvertes et Conquetes des Portuguais; Paris, 1734. XV111 PRINTED LITERATURE CONSULTED. Lambecius, Petrus. Origines Hamburgenses, I. Lange, Cbr. C. A. og Unger, Carl E. og Huitfeldt, H. J. Diplomatarium Norwegicurn ; Cbristiania, 1847. Langebek, Jacob. Scriptores Eerum Daniearum ; Hafnia3, 1872. Lappenberg, Jo. M. Mgri. Adami Gesta Hammaburgensis Ec- clesise Pontificum. Las Casas, Bartolome de, first bishop of Chiapa. Historia Gene- ral de las Indias, in t. lxiii., seq., of Coleccion de Docu- mentos Ineditos para la Historia de Espana. Las Casas was an eye-witness of the facts he narrates. He is honest, yet somewhat partial towards the American natives. Leelercq, Chrestien. Nouvelle Eelation de la Gaspesie, qui con- tient les mceurs et la religion des Sauvages Gaspesiens Porte-Croix, adorateurs du Soleil, et d'autres peuples de l'Amerique Septentrionale, dite le Canada; Paris, 1691. Leo XIII. Encyc. " Quarto abeunte soeculo," April 12, 1892. Lescarbot. Histoire de la Nouvelle France ; Paris, 1618. L'Estrange, Hamon. Americans no Jewes ; or, Improbabilities that the Americans are of that Eace ; London, 1652. Letronne. Eecherches Geographiques et Critiques sur le livre [of Dicuil] " De Mensura Orbis Terra? ;" Paris, 1814. Liljegren, Joh. Gust. Diplomatarium Suecanum, Svenskt Di- plomatarium; Stockholm, 1829. Lingard, John. The History of England ; New York, 1879. Liiken, Dr. Heinrich. Die Traditionen des Menschengeschlechts ; Miinster, 1869. Mabillon. Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti, Soeculi IV. MafFei, Joannes Petrus. Historiarum Indicarum Libri XVI. ; Colonise Aggrippinse, 1590, and Cadomi, 1614. Magnussen, Pinn, et alii. Gragas or Hin forna Logbok Islen- dinga sem nefnist Gragas ; Havnise, 1829. Malipiero, Domenieo. Annali Yeneti, in Archivio Storico Itali- ano, Ser. I., T. VII., p. i. Mallet. Northern Antiquities. An English translation of Intro- duction a l'Histoire de Danemarck ; London, 1770. Maltebrun, Conrad. Geografia Universale; Milano, 1815. An Italian translation. Marsillio Picino. See Picinus. Martyr, Peter, dAngleria. De Eebus Oceanicis et Novo Orbe, Decades tres ; Colonial, 1574. Matthews, G. C. In the Appeal Avalanche, Memphis, November 6, 1892. PRINTED LITERATURE CONSULTED. XIX Maurer, Konrad. Island ... bis zum TJntergange des Frei- staats; Miinchen, 1874. Meibom. Eerum Germanicarum, T. II. Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires du Nord ; Copenhague, 1836, seq. Mercer, Henry C. The Hill-Caves of Yucatan ; Philadelphia, 1896. Mier, de, Dr. Servando Teresa. A Memoir to the Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva Bspana of Sahagun ; Mexico, 1829. Migne. Patrologise Cursus, Series latina ; Paris. Mizzi, M. A. M. Cristoforo Colombo ; S. Pier d' Arena, 1891. Montamis. Nieuwe Weereld. Moosmiiller, Oswald. Europaer in Amerika vor Columbus; Eegensburg, 1879. Muller, Max. Lectures on the Science of Language ; New York, 1878. Munch, P. A. In Memoires des Antiquaires du Nord, 1845-49. Munch, P. A. Codex diplomaticus Monasterii Saneti Michaelis, vulgo Munkalif. Nadaillac, Marquis de. Prehistoric America; New York, 1884. Nadaillac, Marquis de. Les plus Anciens Yestiges de l'Homme en Amerique, in Congres Scientifique, YIIL, 118. Navarrete, Martin Fernandez. Coleccion de Yiages y Descubri- mientos ; Madrid, 1858-1880. North American Eeview. O'Donoghue, Denis. Brendaniana, St. Brendan the Yoyager in Story and Legend ; Dublin, 1893. O'Kane Murray, John. Popular History of the Catholic Church in the United States ; New York, 1876. O'Kane Murray, John. Lives of the Catholic Heroes and Heroines in America ; New York, 1882. O'Eeilly, Bernard. Greenland and the Adjacent Seas : Voyage of 1817 ; London, 1818. Oviedo y Valdes, Gonzalo Fernandez de. Historia General de las Indias Occidentales ; Sine loco. Oviedo was an eye-witness of what he wrote. Pagius, Antonius. Critica in Annales Baronii et Eaynaldi ; Lucse, 1741, seq. Paravey. Eecueil de Six Memoires sur l'Amerique. Payne, Edw. John. History of the New "World ; New York, 1892. I.—b XX PRINTED LITERATURE CONSULTED. Pertz, Georg. Henr. Monumenta Germanise Historica ; Hano- verse, 1846. Peschel, Oscar. Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen ; Stuttgard, 1877. Peschel, Oscar. Geschichte der Erdkunde ; Miinchen, 1877. Ed. Sophus Buge. Peschel, Oscar. Volkerkunde. Peyrere, Isaac de la. Eelation du Groenland ; Paris, 1663. Plato (Aristokles), 428-348 B.C. Opera Omnia, Ed. Marsilius Eicinus, Francofurti, 1602; Ed. Godfredus Stallbaum; Ed. Immanuel Bekkerus. Pontanus, Joh. Isacius. Eerum Danicarum Historia ; Amstelo- dami, 1631 — together with De Situ Danise. Potthast, Augustus. Eegesta Pontificum Eomanorum ; Berolini, 1874. Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico; Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co. Prescott, "William H. History of the Conquest of Peru ; Bos- ton, 1857. Prescott, William H. Ferdinand and Isabella. Procopius. De Bello Gothico ; Basileaa, 1531. Quatrefages, A. de. The Human Species ; New York, 1893. Note. — This work is referred to when not otherwise directed. Quatrefages, A. de. Histoire generale des Paces humaines. Eafinesque, C. S. The American Nations ; Philadelphia, 1836. Eafn, Chas. C. Antiquitates Americanee sive Scriptores Sep- tentrionales Eerum Ante-Columbianarum ; Hafnise, 1837. This is one of the most valuable contributions ever made to the study of the history and geography of our continent. Eafn, Chas. C. Memoire sur la Decouverte de l'Amerique au Dixieme Siecle ; Copenhague, 1843. 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Historica Ecclesiastica Islandise. Torfseus, Thormodus. Gronlandia Antiqua ; Havnise, 1715. Torfseus, Thormodus. Ancient Yinland. See Herbermann. Torquemada, Joan de. Monarchia Indiana ; Madrid, 1723. Yan den Bergh, C. Nederland's Aanspraak op de Ontdekking van Amerika voor Columbus ; Arnheim, 1850. Yan Speybrouck, August. Christoffel Colomb en de Ontdek- king van Amerika ; Brugge, 1892. Yerkinderen, P. Ildefons. Christoffel Colomb ; Gent, 1891. Yincent, Prank. Norsk. Yiollet-le-Duc. Cites et Euines Americaines ; Paris, 1861. Wadding, Lucas. Annales Minorum ; Eomse, 1736. Warachtige ende grondige beschryvinge van het groot en goutryck Coningryck van Guiana. Webb, Alfred. A Compendium of Irish Biography ; Dublin, 1878. Webster, Noah. A Dictionary of the English Language; Spring- field, 1873. Wetzer und Welte. Kirchenlexicon. (The article " Groenland" is from Eev. Perger.) Winchell, Alexander. Preadamites, or a Demonstration of the Existence of Men before Adam ; Chicago, 1890. Winsor, Justin. Narrative and Critical History of America ; Boston and New York, 1869. This is a selection of well-studied essays from several modern writers. PRINTED LITERATURE CONSULTED. XX111 Wouters, Henricus G-uilielmus. Historic Ecclesiastic® Compen- dium ; Lovanii, 1858. Wyfliet. Histoire universelle des Indes Orientales et Occiden- tals. Wyfliet. Descriptionis Ptolemaicse Augmentum ; ed. 1603. Zahm, J. A. Bible, Science, and Faith ; Baltimore, 1895. Zahm, J. A. The Age of the Human Bace. In American Cath- olic Quarterly Review, Yol. XYIII. Zeno, Carlo, ap. P. Amat. Dello Scoprimento dell' Isole Fris- landa . . . and Septentrionalium Partium Nova Tabula. AUTHORS QUOTED. Abbott, Dr. .Elianus, Claudius ; first and sec- ond centuries a.c. jEngus Cele-D6. Book of Litanies. Agassiz. Agnese, Battista. Albertus Magnus. Albornoz. Alcuin. Alderete, Bernardo de. Allegre. Historia de la Compania de Jesus : Nueva Espafia. Ameghino. La Antiguedad del Hombre en la Plata. American Geologist : A Review. American Naturalist, The : A Re- view. Ammianus Marcellinus. Anderson, John J. A Grammar- school History of the United States. Andrews, Dr. Annals of Science, Cleveland. Anthropological Institute of Great Britain, May, 1885. Anthropological Review, No. XIII. Appuleius ; second century a.c. De Mundo. Archseologia Americana. Archivos do Museu National, 1876. Ari hinn Frode. Landnamab6k ; or, Register of the taking Posses- sion of the land. It contains a full account of all the early set- tlers in Iceland. It is of the same character, though vastly superior to the English " Domes- day Book," and is probably the most complete record of the kind ever made, by any nation. It contains the names of three thousand persons and of fourteen hundred places. It gives a cor- rect account of the genealogies of the families, and brief notices of personal achievements. It was begun by Frode, born 1067, died 1148, and. was continued by Kal- stegg, Styrmer, and Thorsden, and completed by Hauk Erland- son, lagman and governor of Ice- land, who died in the year 1334. (De Costa, Discovery, p. 21.) Aristoteles, 384-322 b.c. Arius Montanus. Arngrim. Chronicon Islandise. Arngrim, Johnsson or Jonas. Cry- mogEea ; Hamburg, 1610. Arnkel, Trogillus. Arnobius. Adversus Gentes. Asiatic Society of Japan, Transac- tions of the. Aspa. Atwater, Caleb. Aubin. In Meinoires des Anti- quaires du Nord, 1840-1844. Aughey, Dr. Avezac, d'. lies d'Afrique. Azurara. Chronica de Guine\ Babbitt, Miss. Bacon of Verulam. Nova Atlantis. Bacon, Roger. Bairos, de. Bakewell. Balboa. Baldwin. Ancient America. Bandelier, A. F. Bardson or Bardsen, Ivar. De- scriptio Groenlandise. Barry. History of the Orkney Islands. Barton, B. S. AUTHORS QUOTED. XXV Bassus, Frank. Baxter. Baylies. Beatty. Bede the Venerable, St. Be Ele- mentis Philosophise. Behaim, Martin. Benincasa, Andrew. Benzoni. Bernal Diaz del Castillo. Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva Espafia. He was an eye-witnes of the facts he relates. Bernaldez. Storia del Messico, and Historia de los Reges Catholicos, MS. Betanzos. Bianco, Andrea. Bias Valera. Blefken, Ditmar. Blocius. Bordone, Benedetto. Isole del Mondo. Boscana. Boson, Card. Boturini. Boule. Bowen, Benjamin F. America dis- covered by the Welsh. Boyce, Dr. Brackenbridge. Bradford. American Antiquities. Brand, Professor. Brasseur de Bourbourg. Histoire des Nations Civilisees du Me- xique et de PAm6rique Cen- trale. Brinton, Daniel G. Myths. Broca, Paul. Races of Men. Braca, James. Brulio, Joaquin. Bryant, William Cullen. A Popu- lar History of the United States. Brynjulvson, Dr. Gislius. In An- tiquariske Annaler, Band IV. Bueno, Ramon. Burmeister. Bussseus. Ed. Schedarum Arii Polyhistoris. Bustamente. Editor of Sahagun's Historia General. Butler, Alban. Cabot, Sebastian. Map of 1544. Cabrera. Teatro. Camargo, Diego Munoz. Historia de Tlaxcala. Camargo is a Tlascalan mestee of the sixteenth century, and a very reliable historian. Cano, John del. Caradoc. History of Wales. Carli. Caro, Rodrigo. Cartier, Jacques. Discours du Voy- age fait par le capitaine Jacques Cartier en la terre neufve de Canada. Ed. Michelant. Carver. Caspari. Casterano, Carlo Horatii da. Catlin. American Indians. Chambers's Journal. Champlain. Les Voyages du Sr. de Champlain. Charton, E. Voyageurs Anciens et Modernes. Charton, E. Le Tour du Monde. Chrysostom, St. John. Cicero, M. T., 106-43 b.c. Cieza de Leon, Pedro. Cronica del Peru. The author (a.d. 1528-1560) was an eye-witness of nearly all the facts stated by him. Clavigero. Storia Antiqua del Mes- sico. Clavius, Claudius. Clement of Alexandria, St. Clinton, De Witt. Cluver or Cluverius. Works ; ed. 1739. Cogolludo, Diego Lopez. Historia de Yucathan ; Madrid, 1688. Colgan. Cordeyro. Cosa, Juan de la. Cosmas Indicopleustes. Court de G6belin. Monde Primitif. Crantor. XXVI AUTHORS QUOTED. Crantzius, Albertus. Danias, Sue- cise, Norvagiee Chronaca. Crawford, T. P. Cresson, Hilbom T. Croll. Crowe. Cushing. Cuvier. Discours sur les Revolu- tions du Globe. Dalechamp. Dall, Professor. Daly. In the Gentleman' '» Magazine. Danforth, Dr. Darwin. Origin of Species. Darwin. Descent of Man. Davalos. Miscel. Austr. Colloq. David Camerarius. Calendar of Saints. Dawkins. Dawson, Sir John William. Fossil Men. De Goes, Damiao. Chronica do Serenissimo principe D. Joao. Deluc. Democratic Review. Desceliers, Peter. Map of 1544. Desor. Diaz. Itin6raire. In Ternaux- Compans, Sene I., T. X. Dickine, F. V. Dicuil. De Mensura Orbis Terree. Diodorus of Sicily, 100 b.c. Dixon. Dolomieu. Journal de Physique. Donnelly, Ignatius. Atlantis ; New York, 1882. Diimmler. Ostfr. Eeich. Duponceau. Easton, Peter. Ebeling. Erdbeschreibung und Geschichte von Amerika. Eccard. Corpus Historicum. Edrisi, Arabian geographer of the twelfth century. Eggers, von. Elliott, E. T. Emerson. Eratosthenes, 276-194 b.c. Ethan. Ethnological Society, American. Euripides, 480-407 b.c. Helena. Euthymius. Evans. Fagnani. Falb, Dr. R. Figuier, M. L. Les Merveilles de P Industrie; Paris, Furne, s. d. (1873). Finseus, Adrian. Flagelli. Fitzroy. Fontaine. How the World was peopled. Forchhammer. Fordun. Scotichronicon ; about a.d. 1380. Formaleoni, Vincenzo. Fra Mauro. Fremont. Fuenleal, bishop of San Domingo. Gagnseius. Galardi. Galindo. Galvano. Garcia. Gardner, Job. Garibay. Gatschet and Harvey. Gaudran, Dr. Gay. Popular History of the United States. Geike, James. Genebrardus. Chronography. Geoffroy of Monmouth, bishop of Saint Asaph in 1152. Gervasius of Tilbury. Otia Impe- rialia. Gibbon. Decline and Fall. Gibs, Dr. George. Giebel. Tagesfragen. Gilbert, G. K. In Proceedings of the American Association. Gilbert, Sir Humphrey. Giordan. Gregory of Nazianz, St. Gooding, Jos. Goodnow, I. P. Goodrich, Aaron. A History of the Character and Achievements of the so-called Christopher Co- lumbus. AUTHORS QUOTED. XXV11 Gregg. Gregory, St. Moralia. Greenwood, Isaac. Gronlands Historiske Mindesmaer- ker ; or, Greenland's Historical Monuments. Grotius (De Groot), Hugo. Guzman, Lewis de. Indian Expe- ditions. Haeckel, Ernst. History of Crea- tion. Haldingham, Richard. Hales. Analysis of Chronology. Hamconius. Frisia. Hanno, circa 500 B.C. nepiV\ovs. Harcourt. Harris. Harrison's Discourse. Harrisse. Notes on Columbus. Hasselbach. Codex Pomeranise Diplomaticus. Haupt. Headley, P. C. The Island of Fire. Heath, Dunbar. In Anthropo- logical Review, No. XIII. Heaviside, John T. C. American Antiquities ; or, the New World the Old. Heckewelder, Johann. History of the Indian Nations of Pennsyl- vania ; Philadelphia, 1818. Hellwald, von. In Smithsonian Report, 1866. Herbert. Heredia y Sarmiento. Sermones. Herodotus, died 408 b. c. Histories. Hesiod, 900-800 b.c. Works and Days. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. Young Folks' History of the United States. Hilary, St. Hildreth. Holm. Description of New Swe- den. Holmes. Glacial Man in the Tren- ton Gravels. Homer, 1000-900 B.C. Hommel. Honorius of Autun. De Imagine Mundi. Hopkins, Evan. Horace, Flaccus Q., 65-9 b.c. Horsford. Landfall of Leif Erik- son. Humboldt, Friedr. Heinr. Alex, von. Essai politique sur la Nou- velle Espagne ; Paris, 1811. Humboldt, Friedr. Heinr. Alex, von. Kosmos ; 1845-48. Humboldt, Friedr. Heinr. Alex, von. Monuments des Peuples indigenes de l'Amerique. Hume. England ; ed. 1822. Huxley. Hyggeden, Ranulf. Icazbalceta, Gioachino Garcias. Documentos para la Historia de Mexico ; 1864. Institute, Anthropological, of Great Britain ; May, 1885. Isidore of Seville. Origines. Ixtlilxochitl, Fernando de Alva. Relaciones, and Historia Chi- chimeca, MS. ; transl. by Ter- naux-Compans. Ixtlilxochitl, a lineal descend- ant of the kings of Tezcuco, died in the beginning of the sev- enteenth century. His works contain much reliable informa- tion. Jackson. Jacques de Vitry. The World's Map. James. Jansenius. Jerome, St. John a Bosco. Bibl. Floriac. John Chrysostom, St. John of Halifax. De Sacro Bosco. John of Salisbury. Johnston. Account of the Present State of the Indian Tribes in- habiting Ohio. In Archaeologia Americana, T. I. Jordanes. Journal of Geology. Juarros. Joubainville. Les Premiers Habi- tants de 1' Europe. XXV111 AUTHORS QUOTED. Jubinal, Achille. La Legende La- tine de S. Brandaines ; Paris, 1836. Judacis, Cornelius de. Julian, St. Kallenbach. Kane, Dr. Arctic Explorations. Kaulen. Kendal, A. E. Kes, P. Kingsborough, Lord. Mexican Antiquities ; London, 1829. Klaproth. Nouveau Journal Asia- tique, 1832. Klemm. Culturgeschichte. Klempin. Pommersches Urkun- denbuch. Kneeland, Samuel. An American in Iceland. Kneeland, Samuel. Wonders. Kohl. In second series, first vol- ume, of the Documentary His- tory of Maine : A History of the Discovery of the East of Maine. Koppmann. Zeitschrift des Ve- reins fur Hamb. Gesch. Kosmos : A Review. Krantz, Albert. Rerum Germani- carum Historia. Labbe. Concilia. Lacerda, J. B. de. Contribucoes ao Estudio anthropologico das Racas indigenas do Brazil. La Conte. Elements de Geologie. Lacroix ChevriSres de Saint Vallier, John Bapt. de. Estat present de l'Eglise et de la Colonie Francaise dans la Nouvelle France. Lafitau. Mceurs des Sauvages Americains. Lagos, Ferreira. Laing. Ed. the Heimskringla Saga. Lallemant, Charles. Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1626. Landa. Relacion. Lankester, E. R. La Perouse. Laplace. Exposition. Lappenberg, Jo. M. Hamburg- isches Urkundenbuch. Larousse. Dictionnaire. Latham. Leidy. Leland, Chas. G. Fusang, or The Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century. Lelewel and Kohl. A History of the Discovery of Maine. In Doc- umentary History of the State of Maine, second series, first vol- ume. Lenormant, Fr. Les Premieres Civilizations. Leo Castrensis. Apologetics. Lequereux. Leslie, Jameson, and Murray. Dis- covery and Adventures in the Polar Seas. Lewis, H. C. Lieber. Lindenbrog. Codex MS. Lisboa, de. Llwyd or Lloyd, Humphrey, translator of Caradoc. Lok, Michael. London Geographical Society, VIII. Longinus, Caesar. Extract of All Journies. Los Rios, Pedro de. Lubbock, Sir John. L' Homme avant l'Histoire. A translation of Barbier. Ludewig. Literature of the Amer- ican Languages. Lund, Dr. Lyell, Sir Charles. Lyschander, Claudius. Macgregor. Progress of America. Macpherson.-. History of Great Britain. Macrobius. Circa a.d. 395-423. Magazine, Nineteenth Century. Major, R. Henry. The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers, Nieold and Antonio Zeno, to the North- ern Seas in the Fourteenth Cen- tury ; London, 1873. (Hakluyt Soc.) AUTHORS QUOTED. XXIX Major, E. H. The Site of the Lost Colony of Greenland determined. Maldonatus. Malvenda. Antechrist. Mandeville, John. Voiage. Manet. Notions historiques sur la ville de S. Malo. Marana, Paul. Turkish Spy. Marcellinus. Marchand. Marco Polo. Viaggi. Marinus Tyrius. Marsh, Ph. Mather, Cotton. In Philosophical Transactions for 1741. Mathieu. Maurelle. Maurice. Indian Antiquities. Mayer, Brantz. Mexico as it was. McGee. Meares. Mecklenburgisches Urkunden- buch. Mela, Pomponius. De Situ Orbis. Menant. Elements d'Epigraphie Assyrienne. Mendieta. Historia Ecclesiastica. Mendoza, Gonzalo. Mercator, Gerhard. Messenius, Johannes. Scandia II- lustrata. Metz, Dr. C. L. Meyer. Michael, F. Mindesmaerker. See Gronlands Historiske Mindesmaerker. Molina. Montesinos, Fernando. Memoriae Antiguas Historiales del Peru, and Annales. Moraez, Em. de. Moran, Card. Acta Sti. Brendani. Moreau de Damartin. Histoire de l'Acadie francaise. Moreau de Damartin. In Institut Historique, T. IX. : La Pierre de Taunton. Morgan, H. L. Morse, E. S. Mortillet, de. Morton, Samuel George, M.D. Crania Americana. Moses of Chorene. Motolinia, the Indian name ( " poor man") of Toribia de Benavente, 0. S. F., a zealous and saintly missionary in Central America during the first half of the six- teenth century. Historia de los Indios de Nueva Espafla. "As his integrity and his means of information are unquestionable, his work is of the highest au- thority in relation to the an- tiquities of the country and its condition at the period of the Conquest." (Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, ii. 93, aeq.) Miiller. Sagabibliothek. Mtiller, Johannes. Philosophy of Man. Miiller, Max. Amerikanische Ur- religionen. Munch, P. A. Geographiske Op- lysninger om Orknoeerne. In Annaler, 1852. Munch, P. A. Det Norske Folks Historie. Murray, Andrew. Murray, Thomas. Mustero. Universal Cosmography. Nature : A Review. New American Cyclopaedia. Newbery, Professor. Newcomb, Professor S. Popular Astronomy. Nicephorus of Constantinople. Nieremberg, John Eusebius. His- toriae Naturse. Nineteenth Century. A magazine. Nordenskjold. Fac-simile Atlas. Nott and Gliddon. Indigenous Races of the Earth. Nouvelles Annales des Voyages. Nunez de la Vega. Odericus Vitalis, a.d. 1075-1150. Historia Ecclesiastica. He was the Chronist of the Normans. A most reliable author. O'Halloran. XXX AUTHORS QUOTED. Olafsen and Pavelsen. Eeise durch Island. Olives de Majorca, Jaime. Ondegardo. Relaciones, MS. His reports are among the best authorities in regard to the an- cient institutions of the Incas. Opmer. Oppert. Ordonez y Aguiar. Origen. Orosius. Orozco y Berra. Geografia de las Lenguas de Mexico. Ortelius. Palacio. Palfrey. History of New England. Palmerius. Panvinius. Pareto, Bartholomew de. Peixoto. Peringskiold. Ed. Snorre Sturlu- son's Heimskringla. Perizonius. Perrault, Julien. Relation de quel- ques particularity du lieu et des habitants du Cap Breton. In Relations des Jesuites. Petau. Philo. Philoponi, Honorius. Navigationes Patrum Ord. S. Bened. Picigano. Pickering. Piedrahita. Conquista de Granada. Pilling, James Constantine. Bib- liography of the Eskimo Lan- guage. In Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887. Pimentel. Memorie sobre la Raza Indigena. Pindar, 522-441 b.c. Pineda. Pinkerton. Histor. Scot. Pinstus. Pizarro, Fernando. Pizzigani. Plinius, Cajus Secundus, a.d. 23-79, Historia Naturalis. Plutarch, a.d. 50-125. Ponte, Joannes a. Utriusque Mo- narchise. . . . Popular Science Monthly. Poseidonius, 165-130 B.C. Postel, William de. Postlewayt. Powell, Major. Contributions. Prestwich. Geology. Priest. American Antiquities. Proceedings of the Boston Natural History Society. Proclus, a.d. 412-485. Prunes, Matthew. Ptolemeus, Claudius, born circa a.d. 70. Pughe, Dr. W. D., and Williams. Pulci, Luigi, II Morgante Maggiore. Putnam. Pytheas, fourth century b.c. ne- pi7rAovs. Raffinson. Ramos, Alonso. History of Copa- cavana. Ramusio. Raccolta di Viaggi. Rask. In Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, XVIII. Ree. Cyclopaedia. Reisch, George. Reiset. Relandus. Rembertus, S. Vita. Si. Anscharii. Review, Anthropological, No. XIII. Review, Democratic. Revista da Exposicao Brazileira, 1882, by J. B. de Lacerda. Rhaban Maurus, a.d. 774-856. Riant. Expeditions et Pelerinages des Scandinaves en Terre Sainte au temps des Croisades. Ribadeneira. Flower of Saints ; Life of St. Thomas. Ridpath, John Clark. A History of the United States. Rink, Dr. Eskimoiske Eventyr og Map, World's Rio. Description. Robert d'Auxerre. Image. AUTHORS QUOTED. XXXI Ionian, one of the twelve first mis- sionaries of Hispaniola. loth, Dr. tuiz, Antonio. Conquista Espi- ritual del Paraguay, luscelli. luysch. labin. Sagas. As to their authority, see Chapter XIV. of Vol. II. Saga. Annales Isl. Eegii. Saga. Annales Island. Vetustis- simi. !aga. Annals of Gotskalk. laga. Annals of Resen. Saga. Einar Sokkeson. Saga. Eirikr hinn Raudha. Saga. Eyrbyggja. Saga, Flaomanna. In Gronlands Historiske Mindesmaerker. Saga. Flateyarb6k. Saga. Fostbroedhra. In Gron- lands Historiske Mindesmaerker. Saga. Gripla. Saga. Hoyer's Annals. Saga. Hungrvaka ; published Haf- niee, 1778. Saga. Islendingabok. Saga. Islenskir Annaler. Saga. Konungab6k, or Codex Frisianus. Saga, Kristni. Saga. Landnamabok. Saga. Logman's Annals. Saga. Olaf, St., or Heimskringla. Saga. Olaf Tryggvason. Saga. Rimbegla. Saga, Skalholt. Discovered in 1863 near the church of Skalholt by Ph. Marsh (?). Saga. Thorfinn Karlsefne, ap. Rafn, Antiq. Amer. Saga. MS. No. 192 of Arna-Mag- neana Collection, Copenhagen. Saga. MS. 736 of the Arna-Mag- neana Collection. Saga. MS. 770c. of the Arna-Mag- neana Collection. Sahamayhua. Saint- Vallier, de, Ev£que de Que- bec. Estat present de 1'Eglise et de le Colonie francaise dans la Nouvelle France. Salazar, Stephen de. Sanchez de Huelva, Alonso. Pre- cursores fabulosos de Colon. In La Illustration Espanola y Ame- ricana; Madrid, 30 de Marzo, 1892. Sanchoniaton, 2000 b.c. Sarmiento, Juan de. Relacion de Ja sucesion y govierno de los Yngas Sefiores naturales que fueron de las Provincias del Peru. Saussure. Sayce. Scaliger. Schliemann, Dr. Schoolcraft. Archaeology. Schraeder. Schroder. St. Brandan ; Erlangen. Schroeter. In Antiquar. Tidskrift, 1849-1851. Schuck, Professor. Science. A Review. Seneca, Lucius A., a.d. 2-65. Sewall, Stephen. Siguenza. Simpson. Simson. Jahrbucher des Frank- ischen Reichs. Skardza, Bjorn Jonas. Skretchly. Smith. Human Species. Smith, Dr. Jer. W. C. Dialogues on the Northmen. Smith, Toulmin. Squier, E. G. Serpent Symbol in America. Stapleton, Thorn. De Tribus Tho- mis. Steinbeck. Hand-Kalender. Stephanius, Sigurd. Stephens, John L. Incidents of Travel in Central America. Stephens, John L. Incidents of Travel in Yucatan ; London, 1843. Stiles, Ezra. Stolberg, Count. XXX11 AUTHORS QUOTED. Strabo, b.c. 66-a.d. 24. Geogra- phica. Sturluson, Snorre. Suidas. Tacitus, Publius Cornelius, a.d. 54-117. Germania, and Vita Agricolae. Tait. Recent Advances on Physi- cal Science. Theodat, Sagard. Histoire du Ca- nada. Theodoretus. Theophrastes, b.c. 370-288. 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A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America ; London, 1699. Wagner, A. Geschichte der Ur- welt. Waldeck. Wallace. In Nineteenth Century, October, 1887 : Antiquity of Man in North America. Wallace, James. Account of the Orkney Islands. Warden, D. B. Recherches sur les Antiquites de l'Amerique Sep- tentrionale. Waren, James. De Scriptoribus Hibernis. Washington, Secretary of the Lon- don Geographical Society. West Indische Spieghel. Whately, Richard. Origin of Civ- ilization. Whedon, Dr. Whitney, Professor. In Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Vol. VI. Whittlesey, Colonel Charles. Wilhelmi, Karl. Heidelberger Jahrbucher der Literatur, 1839. Wilhelmi, Karl. Island, Hvitra- mannaland, Gronland, und Vin- land ; Heidelberg, 1842. Wilson, Dr. Daniel. Prehistoric Man. Winckler. Winthrop, James. Woldike. A Dissertation upon the Origin of the Greenland tongue. In Scripta a Societate Hafniensi, Pars II. Woodward. AUTHORS QUOTED. XXX111 Wormskjold. Skandinaviske Lit- eratur-Selskabs Skrifter, 1814. Wrangel. Nouvelles Annales des Voyages. Wright, Professor G. Frederick. Geology. Wright, Thomas. Preface to edi- tion of The Early English Metri- cal and Early English Prose Life of St. Brandan. Wyman, Dr. Zaltieri. Zesterniann, Dr. In Ethnological Society, American Proceedings in 1851. Zieglerus, Jacobus. Schondia. Zurla, Card. Zurita. Rapport : A translation of Ternaux-Compans. CONTENTS. VOLUME I. AMERICAN ABORIGINES. PAGE Illustration: Mound-builders' Works near Chillicothe, Eoss County, Ohio apud iii Preface v Archives and Manuscripts consulted ix Printed Literature consulted xi Authors quoted xxiv Contents xxxv Illustration : The World's Planisphere apud 1 Illustration : Mexico and Central America apud I CHAPTEE I. ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN MAN. Darwin's Moneron evolving into Man 1 Our Indians' Sudden Transmutation of Species admitted by the Latest Scientists 3 Human Descent from an Ape, if not Disgraceful, yet Un- scientific 4 The Ape-Man extremely Ancient 6 The Ape-Man not an American Autochthon 8 Did God create Several Human Eaces ? 9 The American Eed Skins, no Autochthonous Eace 10 Unity of the Human Species 11 Usher's Bible Chronology, no proof in favor of Winchell's Preadamites 14 The Assumed Principle of "Progress," no Argument in Favor of Preadamites*. 16 Winchell misquotes and misinterprets the Bible 19 Was the First Man an American ? 20 Asia probably the Cradle of Mankind 23 The American Indians testify to their Foreign Origin 24 I. — c xxxv XXXVI CONTENTS. CHAPTBE II. ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA. PAGE Scientists disagree on the Antiquity of Man in America 26 No Proofs from Petite Anse or Nebraska Loess 27 The Doubtful Trenton Interglacial Man 28 Eelics of Glacial Man in Various Localities 29 The Old Claymont and the Arizona Man 31 The Calaveras Skull, etc 32 Antiquity of Man in South America 34 Diverging Opinions regarding the Period or Periods of Glaciation 35 The Glacial Man either more than One Billion Two Hun- dred and Eighty Million, or less than Ten Thousand Years Old 37 The Niagara Falls as a Chronometer 38 Scientists puzzled at the World's Chronology 41 Bible Chronology Interpretation 43 The Bible no Text-Book of Chronology 45 CHAPTEE III. PRE-CHRISTIAN AMERICAN NATIONS. Primeval Inhabitants of America 48 The Dolichocephalous Eace and the Brachycephalous 48 The Kitchen Middings 50 Antiquity of the Kitchen Middings 51 Diet and Cannibalism of the Kitchen Middings 53 Origin of the Kitchen Middings 53 - Kitchen Middings in Europe 55 Civilization and Eeligion of the Kitchen Middings 55 The Legendary Hohgates 56 The Cave Dwellers 57 The Mound-builders between the Alleghanies and the Eocky Mountains 59 Monuments of the Mound-builders 61 Fortifications and Signal-Mounds 62 Temple- and Burial-Mounds 64 Mortal Eemains in the Mound-builders' Tumuli 65 Eich Metals and Eelics of the Mound-builders' Art and Industry 66 CONTENTS. XXXV11 PAGE Material Civilization of the Mound-builders 69 The Mound-builders' Pottery 70 Agriculture, Commerce, and Science of the Mound-builders. . 71 The Mound-builders Numerous and Well-Governed 73 Epoch of the Mound-builders' Disappearance 75 Origin of the Mound-builders 76 The Mound-builders in Northwestern Europe 79 Causes of the Mound-builders' Extinction 81 Religion of the Mound-builders 82 CHAPTER IY. OTHEK ANCIENT AMERICAN NATIONS. Ruins of Maya Cities in Yucatan 85 Great Antiquity of the Maya Cities 86 The Maya Monuments are of Western Pattern 87 Maya Civilization different from the Aztec 89 Grand Monuments on Easter Island 91 Religion of the Mayas and their Hero-god 92 Did the Mayas hear St. Thomas or Buddhist Teachers ?. ... 93 The Mayas in Brazil 94 Cliff Dwellers and Pueblo Indians 95 Cliff Dwellings 96 Agriculture and Industry of the Cliff Dwellers 97 Cliff Dwellers' Mummies, Belief in a Future Life 99 Modern Remnants of the Cliff Dwellers 100 Pueblo Indians and their " Casas Grandes" 102 Canals for Navigation, Irrigation, and Water Supply 104 Religion of the Pueblos, their Hero-god, and his Virgin- Mother 105 Pueblo Traditions of Man's Creation and Fall, the Deluge, and the Tower of Babel 107 Pueblos and Cliff Dwellers probably Semi-Civilized Asiatics 108 Our Modern Indians, their Records 109 Antiquity of the Lin api- Algonquin Nations Ill Linapi Book of Genesis 112 The Linapis immigrate and scatter over North America. . . 112 The Linapis on the Lakes about the Time of Christ 114 Linapi Record of the Northmen's and other Whites' Arrival 115 XXXV111 CONTENTS. CHAPTEE V. NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. PAGE Sanchoniathon knew America and the Eoute to it 117 Homer's Elysium and Pindar's Islands of the Blest across the Western Ocean lio Plutarch's 'Hnetpos, or Great Continent and Cronian Sea 120 The Great Continent spoken of by Cicero, Macrobius, and Theopompus 1^1 The Americans knew the Eelative Extent of both Hemi- spheres 1^2 Eegular Voyages of North Americans to Europe 123 Authority of Plato's Critias and Timseus 125 Plato's Atlantis accepted as Historical 127 Plato's Sources of Information 129 Plato's Geography of the Western Continent 134 Produce and Biches of the Island Atlantis 135 Description of Atlantis's Capital and Temple 137 Population and Government of the American Empire 139 Eeligion and Morals of the Atlantides 141 The Atlantides defeated by the Athenians 143 Submersion of Atlantis 143 Aristoteles and Theophrastus on the Great Western Island 145 Theopompus on the p.zyaXi) *Hn£ipo ^3 H r-V t- 1 o ► ' HI ;> H g a H M o t> o o ft> X * HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS CHAPTEE I. ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN MAN. A question more easily proposed than answered obtrudes itself upon the inquirer into American pre- historic times : Who was the first man of the Western Continent, and how did he originate ? When we ask for information from the fashionable school of science sprung up during the latter half of our century, the disciples of Darwin afford us answers as amazing to our intelligence as humiliating to our pride. In fact, the idea of the first man, whether in the Old, or in the New World, should simply be put aside as impertinent, and we should rather learn the history of the primal, self-created Moneron, which is a thing much like to a solitary fermenting atom ! This moneron expanded during the process of fermentation, probably feeding on another self-produced, but weaker molecule ; and it developed, by way of evolution, into some species of living being, how humble soever it may have been ; and thus became the first leader of the progress of the nineteenth century, and, indeed, of all ages. Nor did it stop at this first improvement, but turned itself into sea-weed, dry-land vegetation, and, I— 1 1 2 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. later on, into sensitive beings and animals, which, from a creeping worm, eventually became large and won- derful beasts. Great progress had been made so far, but the moneron was but a brute as yet. More was desired : reason and free will, guided by connatural perception of moral good and evil, of a superior, infi- nite Being, and of the continuation of existence after this life. In the present condition of science we cannot exactly state the time at which the improved moneron made its first effort to acquire the specific differentiation of the human kind, but we know that, some day, it assumed the shape and brains of the clever and deceitful simia, which soon grew up into a baboon, that still curtailed its spinal elongation and regulated the grammatical rules of its speech, and honestly earned the title of a man, thus becoming the worthy progenitor of our species. Mr. Dunbar Heath, a clergyman of the Church of England, and afterwards a scientist, says, 1 " I confine myself to the accepting and explaining known and knowable phenomena. It is known that anthropoids existed throughout Europe. It is knowable that they became mute men. It is knowable that these mutes gasped after articulation and, in a few spots, attained to it. Those who did so at one particular spot I call Aryans, whether that one spot was in Asia or in the submerged continent of Atlantis." 2 Why not in the rest of America ? Those statements are founded not only on deep philo- sophical thought and careful scientific researches, but they are also, in a measure, borne out by the traditions of some of the oldest American tribes, " who are quite 1 Anthropological Review, No. 2 Ap. Southall, p. 53. xiii. p. 36. ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN MAN. 3 content, in many instances, to believe that their earliest ancestor was a dog or a coyote," and seem, therefore, entitled to some sympathy from the latest school of modern science ; although it is true that their process of development was rather abrupt, and that they did not require very many links in the chain of evolu- tion." 1 It does not seem that H. H. Bancroft had a right to call this tradition " the grossest conception of the mys- tery of the beginning of man," when we hear a similar sentence pronounced by the modern ethnologist, Daniel G. Brinton : " If science refuse to accept the doctrine of specific creation, it must refuse also, for lack of com- plete evidence, to accept the doctrine of gradual evo- lution, the old Darwinian doctrine. The theory of ' evolution by a leap' is just as good as any other theory. According to this, man sprung from some high order of mammal, the great tree-ape, perhaps, by a freak ; just as men of genius are freaks, and as all the vegetable and animal kingdoms show freaks," — just as the North American Indian was a freak of the coyote ! Bisum teneatis, amici. 2 In fact, the Indians' chain of evolution was shorter than even that of our modern scientists, who learnedly admit the system of rapid transmutation, according to which the first bird broke forth from the egg of a rep- tile, and other animals, man not excepted, suddenly appeared as the offspring of an entirely different species. The learned Naudin also rejects the idea of gradual transmutations, which require millions of years to effect the change of a single plant. He insists, on the con- trary, upon the suddenness with which most of the variations observed in plants have been produced, and 1 H. H. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 18, n. 2 See "East Oregonian" of Pen- 41 ; see Document XIII. dleton, December 19, 1893. 4 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. regards it as a representation of what must have hap- pened in the successive genesis of living beings. Dar- win himself, in the last edition of his works, recognizes the reality of these sudden leaps, which have taken place without transitions between one generation and another, and confesses that he has not taken sufficient account of them in his earlier writings !" 1 This agreement of the modern scientists with the American savages, on such a deep and important ques- tion, is quite remarkable, indeed. The testimony of our Indians is not, however, absolutely conclusive, be- cause " Darwinism is reversed by many of the Wash- ington tribes, who hold that animals and even some vegetables are descended from man ;" 2 " while, as we advance farther south, the attempt to solve the problem of the first American's origin grows less simple, and the direct instrumentality of the gods is required for the formation of man." 3 Our modern scientists are not any more particular than the Eed Skins in regard to the original nobility of their race, but, although none of them become so un- scientific as to admit any divine interference with their primeval origin, they, no better than our simple Indians, agree on the scientific appearance of man in this world. As a proof, let me quote a passage of the very learned scientist, Elisee Reclus : 4 "As Professor Huxley re- marks, the difference in capacity between the skull of civilized man and that of the" — fossil, perhaps civil- ized — " man of Neanderthal or Borreby much exceeds the difference which exists between ancient human skulls and those of the largest-sized monkeys. Must 1 De Quatrefages, The Human - , Ibid. Species, pp. 90, 122. 4 P. 437. 2 H. H. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 18, n. 41. ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN MAN. we, therefore, conclude, with Carl Vogt and many other anthropologists, that man is descended from one or several species of these quadrumania, which have grad- ually developed by the process of selection or through a contest for life extending throughout a long lapse of ages ? We have here a theory which, far from being humiliating to mankind," — as also thinks Dr. Zahm, — " should, on the contrary, prove a source of pride. Our own immense progress should justify a very consider- able expectation on this point. Nevertheless, although it is all very well to set up and discuss these grave hypotheses, we must be on our guard against accepting them as demonstrated facts, as long as no direct evi- dence has been definitely brought forward." In the midst of the conflicting traditions of our abo- rigines and the timid conclusions of our scientists, it is a matter of common prudence to admit, with the greater number of men of scientific fashion, that the first man was the son of an ape. But in this theory it is evident that our former question needs to be amended, and we should rather ask, Which was the first baboon in America sufficiently perfected to be called a man? a question which we leave to the domain of mental phi- losophy ; the more readily as the votaries of modern science do not themselves give it a strictly historical solution. Neither do they give it a scientific solution. One of the main objections to Darwin's derivative evo- lution and gradual transmutation of species is the scien- tifically established fact, in both the vegetable and the animal kingdoms, of the sterility in most cases, or of the reversion or disordered variation of hybrids, and of the fertility of mongrels. Instead of answering, Dar- win takes his stand upon our ignorance on the sub- ject of crossings between wild varieties or races. But ignorance ought to be no city of refuge for scientists. 6 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. And yet " possibility, chance, and personal conviction" are invariably adduced by the fashionable school as convincing arguments. The question of the moneron's development into a modern scientist has often been argued on the ground of palaeontology, and Darwin and his disciples have been asked to point out a single instance of those series which ought, according to them, to unite the parent species with its derivatives. They admit their ina- bility, but reply that the extinct flora and fauna have left very few remains, that we know only a small portion of these ancient archives, that the facts which favor their doctrine are doubtless buried under the waves which submerged continents, etc. " This man- ner of treating the question," Darwin concludes, " di- minishes the difficulties considerably, if it does not cause them to disappear altogether." 1 The method is easy, but is it scientific ? No syllogism without a minor, no science with missing links. These missing links not only are the main supports of the fashionable theory, but also afford its votaries a welcome latitude in their broad hypotheses regarding the advent of the first ape-man. They allow them to confidently declare that " the numerous and interesting discoveries presented to us by the extensive investiga- tions of contemporary anthropology into the primeval history of the human race place the important fact, long since probable for many other reasons, beyond a doubt : that the human race, as such, has existed for more than twenty thousand years, and that it is also probable that more than a hundred thousand years, perhaps many hundred thousands of years, have elapsed since its first appearance," perhaps in simian form. 2 1 De Quatrefages, pp. 100, 101. quoted by Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., '' Ernst Haeckel, vol. ii. p. 298, vol. xviii. p. 564. ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN MAN. 7 "The countless transformations which resulted in giving to one or several animals, whose environment was specially favorable, the distinguishing character- istics of the human species were so insensible that it is impossible, not only to fix the date of the apparition of man, but also to predicate of any given individual that it was the first representative of humanity in its stage of development. Haeckel tells us unambiguously that the evolution of our race from the lower forms of animal life took place so slowly that we can in no wise speak of the first man," and Skretchly finds traces of the humanized simia in the pliocene epoch of Califor- nia. 1 Mr. Wallace states that man must have existed as man in pliocene times, and the intermediate forms connecting him with the higher apes probably lived during the early pliocene or the miocene period. 2 In the first edition of his " Origin of Species," Darwin claimed three hundred and six million six hundred and fifty-two thousand four hundred years for the denuda- tion of the world ; which, he informed us, was a mere trifle in comparison with that which was requisite for the establishing of his theory. These are large figures, it is true ; but they are still small beside the many milliards of thousand years which, Haeckel assures us, have elapsed since man's original ancestor, the primal, self-created moneron, appeared on this globe of ours. 3 It is true that other scientists of no mean renown, math- ematicians and physicists, have calculated that, at the time Darwin's species were progressing, the earth was 1 On the occurrence of stone 2 "Antiquity of Man in North mortars in the ancient (pliocene) America." Nineteenth Century, times in the river gravels of October, 1887 ; quoted by Congres Butte County, California, Anthrop. Scient., viii. sec. p. 122; Amer. Instit. of Great Britain, May, 1885 ; Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. xviii. p. 564. quoted by Congres Scient., viii. s Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. sec. p. 122. xviii. p 730. 8 HISTORY OF AMEEICA BEFOEE COLUMBUS. in a fluid condition and at a white heat ; 1 yet we love to approve this enterprising encroachment on eternity by our modern anthropologists, because, if they degrade man by assigning him a brutal pedigree, they singularly enhance his greatness by liberally allowing unrestrained antiquity to his ancestral stock. Moreover, should any student be deterred from ac- cepting the learned theory by the numerous myriads of years required for its justification, I may be allowed to remark that a somewhat shorter period might suffice, under favorable circumstances, to account for the grad- ual specific improvements, which, no doubt, went on faster in the youth of the simian family than we see them proceed in its present decrepit age. The favorable circumstances to which I allude do not seem to have ever obtained in these United States, nor in any por- tion of America ; but the learned tell us that the east- ern parts of Africa offer most exceptional advantages to a rapid development of anthropoids, and modern dis- coveries confirm their assertions. Nay, we are informed that, should an earnest searcher take the trouble, he would find on the bottom of the Indian Ocean any number of skeletons, wherewith to establish the un- doubted certainty of the ape's gradual improvement and transformation into a reasoning being. Once a man, the ape, it appears to us, should not have found any great difficulty in emigrating to develop still further in America ; particularly so in the supposition that the Indian Ocean is a sunken part of Africa and of Asia, which was, in pliocene times, probably con- nected with the New World through the Sound Islands, Australia and Polynesia. From all this we may further conclude that the first 1 Tait, Recent Advances on Phys- Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. xviii. p. 731 ; ical Science, quoted by Amer. others, ibid. ORIGIN OF THE , AMERICAN MAN. 9 simian man in America was no autochthon, but an immigrant from the Dark Continent. It might be highly interesting to hear modern an- thropologists discuss the question whether the dark- colored tribes that the Spaniards met with in the West Indies were perhaps his direct descendants ; but as it is our special intention to discover the first vestiges of Christianity in this continent, and as we cannot expect to find any religion among a brute race grown up from a self-created moneron, we must needs turn our atten- tion to the ancestors of the real, true man, of the American who justly claims a nobler origin, distin- guishes between moral good and evil, and feels it his duty to worship his Almighty Creator and Judge. It is needless to state that the enigma of man's ap- pearance on earth can be solved only by the admission of the teaching of Christianity, — namely, that God Almighty gave him existence through the creative act of his gratuitous love. " It may be proper," says Winchell, 1 " to enunciate here the fundamental prin- ciple that, however remote, and through whatever number of links in the chain of causation the remotest discovered physical antecedent of an event may be, no physical antecedent can be viewed as essentially causal ; and we are constrained by a philosophic necessity to posit self-existent and self-sufficient causation at every beginning." But we should not neglect the question, Where man was created, whether the first American was to the manor born, or had left, as it happens to-day, a trans- marine country to build a better home in our Western Continent? A much-noted modern scientist, Elisee Reclus, says, very wisely, 2 " Although this question is 1 Preadamites, p. 3. " P. 437. 10 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. yet insoluble, none is more discussed by anthropolo- gists. Some maintain that the primitive unity of the race is an indisputable fact, and that it could not be denied without making a kind of attack against the majesty of mankind ; others are of the opinion that there were three, four, five, ten, or eleven primitive groups ; there are some, also, who talk of hundreds of various races which have sprung up here and there, at different epochs, on continents and islands, like the plants, the seeds of which were sown, so to speak, at random." That may suffice for modern science ; and, for the present, we shall object only to the assumption in regard to the seeds and plants. With the single mistake of taking one end for the other, modern scientific anthropology is quite correct when it states, 1 " Peoples and races are every day more and more mixed up, the frontiers of countries are dis- appearing, and, by cross-breeding upon cross-breeding, all men will ultimately become one and the same fam- ily." This would be a consoling prophecy, were it not for the actual fact that crossing is the principal means of multiplying the human races. 2 " In America comparative philologists have been encouraged to prove the impossibility of a common origin of languages and races, in order to justify, by scientific arguments, the unhallowed theory of slavery," says Muller ; 3 yet few are the advocates of the thesis which pretends that the first American. man originated in America, and was not a descendant of Adam and Eve. The peculiar color of the Red Skins is their special argument. Mr. de Quatrefages, however, justly remarks that, of the four groups into which the color of the human races may be divided, the least charac- 1 Elisee Reclus, p. 439. 3 Max Muller, Lectures on the 2 Cf. de Quatrefages, ch. xxiii. Science of Language, p. 22. ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN MAN. 11 teristic is the red. On the one hand, in America the Peruvian, the Araucanian, and other southwestern races are more or less deep brown, and the Brazilio- Guaranians are of a yellowish color, slightly tinted with red. On the other hand, there has been found a tribe on the island of Formosa as red as the Algon- quins, and more or less copper-tints are met with among Corean and African populations. Moreover, the red color appears as the sole effect of the crossing between races, neither of which possesses it. Fitzroy informs us that in New Zealand it frequently characterizes the half-breeds of English and Maories, as the yellow is generally the color of the mulattoes. 1 H. H. Bancroft assures us that " the question of the unity of the human kind, as considered without bias by modern scientific men, remains undetermined, though it may be fairly said that the best of the argument is on the side of those who maintain the primitive diversity of man," 2 his principal argument being an inference from the alleged discrepancy between the chronology of the Holy Bible and that of modern science. 3 This position is, however, opposed by philosophy and science as well as by the teachings of religion. It is argued, indeed, that Almighty God never makes use of two different means when one is sufficient to procure the desired effect. There was no need of an original human couple to people America, even though it should be proved that Adam was created in the Eastern Con- tinent. It is an established fact, also, that, no matter how far we ascend the course of time, we always find the man of the New World perfectly similar in skeleton and bones to the man of the Old World — a fact all the more striking as the other mammals of the two conti- 1 De Quatrefages, p. 359. s Ibid., p. 9. 2 H. H. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 8. 12 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. nents greatly differ in that respect from one another. 1 The same similarity is observable in the works of man in both hemispheres : weapons, implements, earthen- ware, all have the same shapes, the same varieties, the same ornaments. In both continents man manifests the same instincts of association, the same wants lead him to the same means of providing for them. The identity of man's ingenuity in all countries, in all climes, is not less remarkable nor less conclusive than the uniformity of his bodily structure. 2 " I hold," says Winchell, "that the blood of the first human stock flows in the veins of every living human being ;" and in regard to the American nations, he adds, in particu- lar, that " all researches hitherto made have resulted in the conviction that an American race of men, as dis- tinct from Mongoloids, is only a prepossession arising from their continental isolation and the remoteness from their Asiatic kinsmen." s Abbott made similar statements before tbe Boston Society of Natural Sciences. " All who examine the localities," he said, " admit that the evidences of man in the so-called palaeolithic or river-drift age, are essentially the same both in Europe and America ;" and Professor Putnam, before the Boston Natural History Society, repeated the same. " You will have noticed," said he, " from the comparison of the forms of the implements, that man's requirements were about the same on both sides of the Atlantic, when he was living under conditions of climate and environment which must have been very nearly alike on both conti- nents, and when such animals as the mammoth and the mastodon, with others now extinct, were his con- 1 Cf. A. von Humboldt, Vues, 2 CongrSs Scient., viii. sec. pp. Introd., vii. 128, 129. 3 Preadamites, pp. v, 67. ORIGIN OP THE AMERICAN MAN. 13 temporaries." 1 Johannes Muller, in his " Philosophy of Man," says, " The different races of mankind are forms of one sole species, by the union of two of whose members descendants are propagated. They are not different species of a genus, since, in that case, their hybrid descendants would remain unfruitful." Von Humboldt remarks, 2 "Whilst we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men. There are nations more susceptible of cultiva- tion, more highly civilized, more ennobled by cultiva- tion than others, but none in themselves nobler than others." 3 European scientists and philosophers are, after all, almost a unit in accepting the Christian doctrine of the unity of the human race ; nor would it accord with sound reason to grant any importance in the discussion to the vague and senseless traditions of American tribes that have, almost each one, a cosmogony of their own. The Marquis de Nadaillac 4 concludes the argument by stating that by various reasons we are led to decide against the existence of autochthonous man in the New World. 5 Professor A. de Quatrefages devotes several chapters of his " Human Species" to the scientific proofs of the unity of mankind. Morton and Agassiz, who upheld the distinct, autochthonous origin of the American Indian, were also taken to task by such writers as Wilson, Latham, and Pickering ; and even two of the most celebrated of the evolutionists reject the autochthonous view; for Darwin's "Descent of Man" and Haeckel's " History of Creation" consider 1 Congres Scient., viii. sec. p. 5 Cf. the learned lecture of Fr. 128, n. 5. Hettinger, " Apologie des Christen- 2 Kosmos, vol. i. p. 362. thums," Bd. ii. : "Die Abstam- 3 Ap. Foster, p. 366. mung des Menschengeschlechtes 4 Prehistoric America, p. 519. von Einem Paare." 14 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. the American man as an emigrant of the Old World, in whatever way the race may have developed. The autochthonous view is decidedly losing ground. 1 " The essential unity of mankind in all the peculiar charac- teristics of humanity is an incontestable fact which cannot be affected by any differences of race or lan- guage. Whatever theory denies this fact or makes [tries to make] it uncertain is false to human nature, as it appears and speaks for itself in every race and in every language." 2 Professor Winchell admits the unity of mankind and the exotic origin of the American natives, but denies their descent from our first parents, Adam and Eve. Winchell has written a book entitled " Pread- amites ; or, A Demonstration of the Existence of Men before Adam," a book almost as replete with facts and science as with suppositions and erroneous guess-work. He devotes six of the four hundred and seventy-four pages, namely, Chapter XII., to the discussion of the subject announced, and touches upon it several times in the rest of his learned and interesting work. He claims, rather broadly, that until the Spanish discovery all the aboriginal families of our continent had immi- grated either from Asia or from Polynesia, and that they all originally belonged to the Mongoloid race ; and he pretends that the Mongoloids were no descend- ants of Adam, but anterior to him. It is evident that we can afford no space to follow the professor in all his hypotheses and statements, but our subject requires that we should make one or two remarks bearing on the main issue. The author candidly says, 3 " In maintaining that 1 Winsor, vol. i. pp. 374, 375. 8 Preadamites, p. 445. 2 Baldwin, Prehistoric Nations, p. 16. ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN MAN. 15 the black [and other] races are descended from pre- adamites, I have depended largely on the truth of the two following propositions : (1) The time from Adam (according to accepted chronology) [he means the chronology of the Protestant bishop, Usher] to the date at which we know the negro type had been fully established is vastly too brief for so great a divergence, in view of the imperceptible amount of divergence since such date. (2) No amount of time would suffice for the divergence of the black races from the white man's Adam, since that would imply degeneracy of a racial and continental extent, and this is contrary to the recognized principle of progress in nature." We contest the truth of these two propositions on the following grounds : As we shall more fully notice farther on, the inter- pretation of the Bible chronology varies widely, and, in fact, there is not, strictly speaking, any Bible chro- nology. Consequently, the time intervening between Adam and the establishment of the negro type cannot, from the Bible, be determined with any certainty. Winchell states 1 that the negro race was fully estab- lished two thousand years before Christ, and that the amount of its divergence since that date is impercepti- ble. If, therefore, we admit with him the theory of slow progress, the principle of continuity, we shall be driven to accept an antiquity of the human kind more enormous, more fabulous, than that expressed by the millions of years of the wildest speculators, from whom "Winchell himself seems to dissent. 2 The imperceptible divergence of the negro race from its own type of four thousand years ago is no basis of calculation of the time needed for the development of 1 Ch. xiii. 2 Ch. xxvii. 16 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. this ancient type ; since it is rational to believe that the moral and the physical circumstances, which have caused the racial features of the Negroes, necessarily tend to preserve intact the effect of their former in- fluence. As a consequence of this action of enduring circumstances, we find all the various types of mankind in various countries, and there preserved, under the same or similar material and religious conditions. Winchell concurs in this view when he says, " Because, locally and temporarily, physical conditions may re- main unchanged, it follows that co-ordinated organiza- tion may, locally and temporarily, remain unchanged." * Darwin states that the result of his " Natural Selec- tion" is, essentially, to adapt animals and plants to the conditions of existence in which they have to live. But, if harmony is once established between organized beings and their surroundings, the " Struggle for Ex- istence" and " Selection" could only result in consoli- dating it : the conditions of life, alterative in their action at first, become preservative of their eventual results. 2 The space between Adam and two thousand years before Christ may have been quite sufficient to change the color of the skin and other features of either the black, the yellow, or the white race, when, as we can notice, a much shorter period suffices to im- prove the lower races placed in more favorable circum- stances of climate, food, and education, and to degrade better stock under adverse conditions. 3 In regard to the second proposition we should re- mark, — It is hardly proper for science to establish pre- tendedly infallible principles, such as "progress in nature," and to set aside contradicting facts, especially 1 P- 270. s Dr. Whedon, ap. Winchell, p. 2 Cf. de Quatrefages, p. 96. 279 ; cf. Southall, p. 27. ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN MAN. 17 when both history and daily experience put forth a continual protest. As plants and brutes can be improved by training and cultivation, so they will degenerate to their lowest specific capacity and worth if only neglected by man. Any farmer will testify to this universal law of nature. Why not apply it to man ? Winchell himself agrees that " detached fragments of races but slightly advanced, because they have been hemmed within a range of conditions so hostile to ad- vancement as to have arrested the normal progress which the main body of their race proceeded to achieve. This is in accordance with the facts of bio- logical history at large." 1 But, if accidental circum- stances do foil the essential law of progress, in prevent- ing progress, why not in causing retrogression ? The professor justly felt the need of giving this useless warn- ing : " Great care," indeed, " must be exercised, to eliminate all cases of real degradation below any normal condition in the past life of the race." 2 The author candidly acknowledges that " indeed, since, in the outward progress of physical processes, there may occur temporary and local relapses to con- ditions once passed, it follows that co-ordinated organi- zation may experience local and temporary retro- gression." 3 Notwithstanding such admitted facts, the iron-cast a priori principles must be saved, and the avrog e n - 3L 116 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. parents have for sign an aureola ; the Snake nation is marked by a forked tongue ; other peoples mentioned have other glyphs ; the token of European white im- migrants is the cross ! * Did, perhaps, the Christian symbol emblazon the sails of Leif Ericsson's vessel as it did those of Columbus's galleys ? Besides the Linapi songs there exist a few Indian legends that might justly claim a student's attention ; but we could not here allow them space, because their import is of such a doubtful and abstruse character that they are apt rather to obscure than to enlighten America's incipient history. Much valuable information is, no doubt, preserved by Central American hieroglyphics ; but these have un- happily remained a sealed book until this day. We consequently must, for further intelligence regarding our earliest history, turn our eyes to the records of the Old World, and search whether the ancient writers of the eastern hemisphere had any knowledge of the west- ern, whether from their beautiful pages any information may be gleaned to promote our study. No one is, less than ourselves, sanguine as to the result of these new inquiries ; yet we would not feel justified in neglecting to make them, when we consider that they are not likely to be fruitless altogether, be- cause neither the condition of ancient arts and sciences in general nor any positive fact in particular forbid us to admit that the learned of primitive ages may have known their transmarine contemporaries as we our- selves know the lands and nations beyond the Pacific and the Atlantic wastes. 1 Rafinesque, t. i. p. 158, n. 36. CHAPTEE V. NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. The Phoenician, Sanchoniathon, who, after Moses, is the oldest of all known historians, and lived twenty or twenty-two centuries before Christ, not only heard of the continent lying beyond the Atlantic Ocean, but seems to have been well acquainted with its inhabitants. In the few pages of his works, preserved by the quota- tions of subsequent authors, he tells of the cosmogony of the Atlantides and of their doctrine of man's first appearance on earth ; he relates the fratricidal war of two sons of their first deified man and the marriage of their Uranus with Tithis, his sister, 1 and speaks with high praise of their sciences and arts. 2 To the Phoenicians does also the learned geographer von Humboldt 3 trace back the knowledge of our Western Continent's existence, which we find repeat- edly and with a certain uniformity expressed, he says, even through the most remote centuries. He doubts whether the ocean route to Plutarch's Great Continent had been determined by the Phoenicians' real discov- eries of the New World or by their fanciful imagination. We could hardly admit the latter supposition when we reflect that the highway between Europe and America as described at the time of Christ has been during long historic periods frequented by the ships of either hemi- sphere, as we shall point out more clearly hereafter. 1 Phoenicia had not yet lost the 2 Baily, p. 62. traditions which Moses has re- s Examen, vol. i. p. 193. corded in the first chapters of Gen- esis. 117 118 HISTOEY OF AMEEICA BEFOEE COLUMBUS. It is not unlikely that Phoenician vessels, passing by the regular trade-posts of the Scilly Islands, have struck the American coast, 1 and nothing but our invin- cible ignorance prevents us from surmising the existence of a regular intercourse between the two continents at the time of, and before, Sanchoniathon. It is quite natural that the cosmographical sciences of the ancient commercial nation should have spread from Tyre and Sidon to Memphis in Egypt, where the sacerdotal caste carefully recorded in their sacred temple books all useful or interesting information, and to Athens in Greece, once of all the world the most flourishing centre of advanced literature ; but geographi- cal knowledge of foreign countries has always been in proportion to the business relations with them ; and as Greece entertained no practical intercourse with Amer- ica, it is easily understood that the cosmography and the history of our continent never received any great atten- tion from its people, while also the Phoenicians' geo- graphical knowledge grew narrower and dimmer as special circumstances restricted and put an end to their distant voyages. Yet all the early writers of Greece profess their belief in the existence of certain regions situated in the West beyond the bounds of their actual knowledge ; and it is evident that the tales of Homer, far from being arbitrary, were founded on very ancient and widely diffused traditions of almost obliterated truth. 2 Homer, who composed the two masterpieces of an- cient poetry, nine hundred, according to some chronol- ogists, or, according to others, fourteen hundred years before Christ, placed the Elysium on the western verge of the earth, the home of the heroes exempt from 1 B. F. De Costa, Pre-columbian 2 W. D. Cooley, The History, vol. Discovery, p. 11. i. pp. 17, 25. NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 119 death, "where life is easiest to man. No snow is there, nor yet great storm nor rain, but Ocean always sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill West to blow cool on men." x He has left a picture of the easy, in- dolent, and altogether happy life of America's equa- torial natives, graphically describing the Elysian plain situated at the extremity of the western sea, where, under- a serene sky, the favorites of Jove, exempt from the common lot of mortals, enjoy eternal felicity. 2 Some writers conclude, with less certainty, from Homer's epopee, that he was not ignorant of the pitia- ble tribes who then as now inhabited the artic regions of our continent. Homer, says Cooley, 3 makes Ulys- ses reach, past the isle of iEolus, a race of cannibals. The hero crosses the ocean and comes at last to the ends of it, where the Cimmerians dwell, wrapped in profound gloom, for they see neither the rising nor the setting sun, and the veil of night is constantly spread above them. Homer had heard of the ocean and Cimmeria in the West, but he knew not how far off they were. Homer's Kt[i(iepioi, may perhaps be identified with the Cimbri of Tacitus and Ptolemy, and found in the misty, gloomy regions of northwestern Germany ; but his Elysium could not well be removed from American territory. In like manner does Hesiod, a Greek poet of the ninth century before Christ, locate the Happy Isles, the abode of departed heroes, beyond the dark, deep ocean. 4 " Those who have the courage to remain steadfast thrice in each life, and to keep their souls altogether 1 Odyssey, B. iv. 1. 561, etc., ap. 3 The History, vol. i. p. 15. Winsor, vol. i. p. 13. * W. D. Cooley, The History, vol. 2 Odyssey, B. iv. I. 765 ; cf. H. i. p. 25 ; Winsor, vol. i. 13. H. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 67; Bailly, p. 43. 120 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. from wrong," Pindar sang, " pursue the road of Jupi- ter to the castle of Saturn," in the northeastern parts of America, " -where o'er the Isles of the Blest ocean breezes flow, and flowers gleam with gold, some of the land on glistering trees, while others the water feeds, and with bracelets of these they entwine their hands and make crowns for their heads." 1 The Islands of the Blest were never lost to human memory nor to literature until the latest discovery of the Western Continent ; they remained for the Celtic and other European nations, until their conversion to Christianity, the longed-for home of a happier life here- after. These Happy Isles in the immediate vicinity of our continent, if not the South American main-land itself, were visited eight hundred years before the Christian era by the celebrated navigator Hanno, if we may be- lieve his Il£pt7i/loug, in which it is stated that after having passed the pillars of Hercules or Strait of Gib- raltar, and having left the African coast, he sailed directly to the West for the space of thirty days, and then met with land. 2 America's northern parts, suggested by Homer's land of the Cimmerians, are more clearly, though confusedly still, indicated by a relatively recent writer, — namely, by Plutarch, who, during the first century of our era, relates in his dialogue " De Facie in Orbe Lunse," or The Face on tlie Moon's Disk, what the learned con- sider to be traditions of most ancient Greek mythology, 3 and should therefore find a place among the testimonies of the oldest writers. 1 Pindar, Olymp., ii. 66-85, 8 Von Humboldt, Examen, t. i. Paley's translation. See also Eu- p. 191, seq.; Gravier, p. xxviii, seq.; ripides, Helena, ap. Winsor, vol. Winsor, vol. i. p. 23 ; O'Donoghue, i. p. 13. p. 306, and already the geographer 2 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 195. Ortelius. NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 121 The island Ogygia, says Plutarch, lies at a distance of five days navigation west of Great Britain ; and far- ther, in the same direction of the summer's setting sun, or west-northwest, at equal distances of three more days' voyages, are situated three other islands, in one of which Jupiter has imprisoned and chained with the bonds of an everlasting sleep his conquered antagonist, the god Saturn. Farther still, at five thousand stadia from Ogygia, but closer to the last of the other islands, is located the great mysterious- continent that encom- passes the ocean. The Cronian Sea, which here forms a gulf as large as the Caspian Lake, is so smooth and shallow, so full of mud, of sand-banks and reefs, that it would be impossible to cross it but in rowing vessels ; of old it was thought, he adds, that this sea was all frozen. 1 Plutarch's "HnsLpog stretched much farther to the North than the Eastern Continent, his own Oixovfievri ; and its inhabitants pretended that their country was the world's main-land, while they call us islanders, says the Cheronean philosopher, because we are surrounded by the ocean. 2 This last remark, simple as it may ap- pear, is fraught with conclusions of such an interesting nature that a student will readily forego chronological order, in search of confirmation of Plutarch's statement, which, indeed, we find already expressed by the Roman orator. Cicero, who admitted a second inhabited continent interpreted by Macrobius in the beginning of the fifth century after Christ as corresponding with North and South America, 3 places in the mouth of its people the boasting words, " All the land inhabited by you is but 1 Von Humboldt, Examen, t. i. p. 198 ; Gravier, p. xxix ; Southall, pp. 193, 195 ; Gravier, p. xxix. p. 21. 2 Von Humboldt, Examen, t. i. 3 Edw. J. Payne, p. 38. 122 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. a small island," " Omnis enim terra quae colitur a vobis, parva qusedani insula est." * This expression of national pride and probably a physical truth was re- corded, centuries before, by an author who probably was not the first to repeat an opinion which belonged to a system of Hellenic legends of the highest antiquity, says the learned von Humboldt. 2 Of the works of Theopompus, who wrote in the fourth century before Christ, some important fragments were preserved by Strabo, and in the "Varise His- toric" or Various Histories of iElianus Claudius, 3 in which the original author likewise asserts that Europe, Asia, and Lybia are but islands surrounded by the ocean, beyond which lies a continent of immense magnitude. The judicious editor Perizonius remarks, on the occa- sion of this statement, that the ancients have doubtless, as through a dark cloud, seen something of America, by means of Egyptian and Carthaginian traditions and by reasoning on the form and location of our globe ; 4 but it is hardly probable that the ancient theory in regard to the relative extent of both landed hemispheres should, in spite of all these authors' narratives, be cred- ited to scientists of the Old World. If it is thus a rational conclusion that aboriginal American geographers instructed the learned of the other hemisphere in the world's universal cosmography, we are entitled to propose two not impertinent and im- portant questions : What grounds did ancient Ameri- cans have to assert that their continent was xar' h^oyriv or, by antonomasia, the continent of the world ? Had 1 Somnium Soipionis, cap. vi. von Humboldt, Examen, t. i. p. 2 Examen, t. i. p. 114. 199 ; De Costa, The Pre-columbian * Lib. iii. cap. xviii. Discovery, p. 10 ; Gravier, p. xxxi 1 Hornius, lib. i. cap. x. p. 56 ; and n. 1, ibid. ; Gleeson, vol. i. p. JElian, edit. Lugdun, 1701, p. 217 ; 197. NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 123 they lived at the epoch in which the slow third motion of the earth allowed them a favorable temperature to explore the vast regions of the North Pole, and to es- tablish what is still suggested by the eastern shores of Greenland, John Mayen, and Spitzbergen Islands, that our continent formed an immense half-moon around the Old World, and, to a great extent, justified the bold reports of ancient European geographers ? We leave the answer to this former complex interrogation to the hardy explorers who, in our own days, brave the in- creasing difficulties of northern discoveries ; and we put the latter question, intimated by the foregoing state- ment and pertaining more directly to historical science, — namely, How did the ancient Americans know that the Old World is but an island duly surrounded by water ? There can be only two ways of explaining this strange fact. The learned American aborigines must either have received their chorographic information from their ancestors who immigrated from the eastern insular Oixov^ievri, or themselves have crossed the ocean stream and surveyed the eastern hemisphere ; or, at least, have come in contact with its pristine better geographers. This latter explanation may have the appearance of a daring assumption ; still there is no scarcity of good reasons for its logical support. We have noticed already the probable immigration into northwestern Europe by both the American Kitchen Middings and the Mound-builders. 1 Plutarch adds, in his " Dialogue of the Face on the Moon's Disk," that primitive Ameri- cans regularly made a voyage to European parts every thirty years. " Every thirty years," he says, " when the planet Saturn, which we call Qaivuv, and they 1 Supra, pp. 55, 79, seq. 124 HISTORY OF AMEEICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Nvxtovpog or Night-watch, enters the sign of Taurus, the inhabitants of the Cronian continent despatch cer- tain representatives, called ©aopeig to be present at the feasts which take place on that occasion in the island of Ogygia." The mission of these envoys was of a danger- ous character. Their first destination was the islands which we just mentioned as lying opposite the great continent, inhabited by a race of Greek origin, among whom Hercules had restored the language and customs of the mother country, says Plutarch. Here, for thirty days, the sun would not be hidden more than one hour, and during this short night there would be light suffi- cient to catch lice, as the monk Dicuil afterwards put it. It is necessary to observe that this particular is indicative of Greenland or Iceland. After a sojourn of ninety days in these boreal regions, the American dele- gates availed themselves of the first favorable wind to set sail again for the end of their voyage. Lamprias heard all these interesting details from Scylla, who had received them from a stranger arrived in Carthage from the Saturnian Islands. 1 The Greek colonies of the northern isles are ques- tionable, indeed, and we may have our doubts as to the regular visits of Americans to the dubious island of Ogygia ; yet it would be hypercritical to reject Plu- tarch's authority altogether. Von Humboldt 2 does not deny that mythological reports of pristine information have exercised a great influence upon the positive geo- graphical science of classic Greece and Rome, a science which, when rightly understood, is as respectable for its relative accuracy as for its antiquity ; and he seems to admit that the Cheronean philosopher's statements were 1 Von Humboldt, Examen, t. i. ! Examen, t. i. pp. 192, 193. pp. 199-201 ; Gravier, p. xxix ; Bas- tian, Bd. ii. S. 440. NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 125 founded on the reports of Atlantic Ocean sailors no less than on Greek ancient tradition. Whichever the grounds of Plutarch's statements may be, the state- ments themselves singularly agree with geographical realities ; his equidistant islands are clearly the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland ; his gulf, large as the Caspian Sea, corresponds with the waters that stretch out be- tween Cape Farewell and Labrador ; the difficulties and dangers encountered there remind us of the obstacles and perils that beset navigation in those regions to-day, and his description of Iceland or Greenland summer nights is evidence that the Cronian sea had been ploughed by Mediterranean vessels. These topographic remarks lead us to incidentally notice that the name of one of America's principal boundaries, the Atlantic Ocean, quite familiar to later writers, such as Diodorus of Sicily, Strabo, and Pliny, was mentioned already in the fifth century before Christ by Euripides and by Herodotus, — 'H e£« atriXeav Qa.Xa.GGa n 'AtXayirli; xaXeoftEvy;. 1 If just now we paid attention to the worth of Plu- tarch's evidence in regard to American ancient history, we ought to be more particular in discussing the credi- bility of an author much more important, on account of both his greater antiquity and the larger amount of his interesting information. Solon is quoted sometimes as a writer bearing on the history of our continent, but the testimony which we may have inherited from him has come to us through the pen of Plato or Aristocles, who wrote at the beginning of the fourth century before our era. The authenticity of Plato's writings is beyond all question, nor was there ever any doubt raised as to the 1 Bailly, p. 43 ; Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 438. 126 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. credibility of the great philosopher's statements ; but, owing likely to the ignorance of the scientists of our era, who were not sufficiently prepared to receive his lore regarding our continent, those of his works that treat of America have been subject to the most widely different interpretations. The famous humanist, Mar- silio Ficino, 1 remarks already that some writers before him — the Syrian Porphyrius, Proclus, and even Origen — considered Plato's " Timseus" and " Critias" as alle- gorical compositions, and Konrad Kretschmer 2 adduced quite lately Strabo and the Neo-Platonists as authorities for his own opinion, — namely, that Plato's description of the Atlantis is a myth. The great geographer, von Humboldt, 3 is reserved in expressing his opinion, yet he seems inclined to believe that the Athenian philosopher has spoken of the Atlantis as of a known reality. America's ancient name in Europe was certainly no new invention of Plato, who, no matter what the source of his information may have been, had evidently learned of the western world, of the continent, from the writings of his predecessors. The information which he received in regard to our hemisphere from the ancient savants can hardly leave a doubt that Plato's " Critias" is, if not a strictly historical account, a relation, at least, founded on fact and historical truth. It is no wonder if suspicions of allegory and fiction should have arisen during the centuries in which the knowledge of America's very existence had almost vanished from Europe, but at all times, and especially as science increased, have the learned considered the great philosopher as an adept of ancient American history. 1 P. 1097. ' Examen, t. i. pp. 113, 115. 2 S. 156, 159, 160. NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 127 Not to speak of other ancient authors to whom we shall refer in the sequel, we may remark that the Jewish writer Philo (20 b.c-54 a.d.) and the Plato- nist Crantor were inclined to admit the literal interpre- tation of Plato's Atlantidic description. 1 Tertullian (second century A.c.) 2 and Arnobius (fourth century A.c.) 3 agreed with the pagan savant Ammianus Mar- cellinus (third century a.c.) in admitting the former existence of Plato's island, Atlantis; and we have noticed 4 that Cosmas Indicopleustes believed our continent to be the cradle of the human race. It would not be difficult to find several authors of the first Christian centuries and of the middle ages who relied on Plato's narrative in their prophecies of discoveries in the mysterious West, and Christopher Columbus himself was undoubtedly encouraged by his belief in the objective truth of Plato's "Timseus" and " Critias ;" but after our continent was again discovered at the end of the fifteenth century, almost every Euro- pean scientist accepted the literal interpretation of the Athenian philosopher's description of countries in and beyond the Atlantic Ocean. Suffice it to mention, among many others, Ortelius and Mercator, who be- lieved that America is the ancient Atlantis, as also did their contemporaries, Gomara, 6 Father Jose" de Acosta, 6 and Las Casas, who writes a whole chapter on Plato's Atlantis as being America. 7 Of the same opinion were William de Postel, who sustained Plato's statements by Mexican etymology ; Wyfliet, 8 Bacon of Verulam, 9 ' Kretschmer, S. 160, who cites " Bk. i. ch. 12, p. 36 ; ch. 22, Proclus as another abettor of the p. 64. literal interpretation of Plato. ' Cf. Justin Winsor, vol. i. p. 2 Apologeticus, cap. 40. 43. 3 Adversus Gentes, lib. i. 8 Historie Universelle des Indes * Supra, p. 21. Orientales et Occidentales, p. 60. 5 Historia de las Indias, Sara- 9 Nova Atlantis, 1638, p. 364 ; cf. gossa, 1553, fo. 119. Konrad Kretschmer, S. 166. 128 HISTOEY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Cluver, who thought that Plato's narrative was due to geographical knowledge of America ; 1 George Horn, 2 and the Swiss Bircherodus, who concluded a lengthy- discussion in favor of the literal interpretation of Plato. At the end of the seventeenth century Nicolas and William Sanson published a map of America, with the name of Atlantis Island, divided among the ten heirs of Atlas, 3 and Robert of Vaugondy, after them, gives the title of Old World to the delineation of our western hemisphere.* Stallbaum, in his learned edi- tion of Plato's works, 6 and Paul Gaffarel are effective defenders still of the old philosopher's knowledge of the American continent. The infidel Bailly 6 wrote to his incredulous friend de Voltaire, " Plato, when yet a child, listened to his grandfather Critias, then ninety years old, who, when young, had been taught by Solon, a friend of his father. The report is, therefore, based on a clear and well- defined tradition ; nor can there be a more sacred source of history more deserving of our confidence." Our erudite historian Winsor declares Plato's At- lantis to be a myth ; but the reader of his learned dis- cussion 7 is strongly influenced by the arguments and authorities set forth to believe as truthful and correct the contrary opinion. 8 1 Works, ed. 1739, p. 667 ; cf. narrative of Plato as simply his- Justin Winsor, vol. i. p. 43. torical : 2 De Originibus Americanis, post Crantor, Plato's first commen- initium. tator. 3 Novus Orbis sive Atlantis In- Proclus, who quotes from the sula, Paris, 1689. "Ethiopic History" of Marcellus 4 Orbis Vetus, 1762. a statement that, according to cer- R Prolegomena de Critia, vol. vii. tain historians, there were several p. 99. islands in the external sea sacred 6 P. 25. to Proserpine, and also three others ' Vol. i. p. 41, seq. of great size, one consecrated to 8 Winsor, indeed, produces the Pluto, one to Ammon, and another, following authors accepting the the middle one, a thousand stadia NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 129 It may please our readers to see the venerable source of Plato's information exposed to them in its original simplicity and purity. in size, devoted to Neptune ; and the inhabitants preserved the re- membrance of the Atlantic Island which once existed there and was truly prodigiously great, and which for many ages had dominion over all the islands in the Atlantic Sea. Poseidonius (135-51 b.c. ) and Strabo, Geogr., lib. ii., If 3, 6. Pliny, Hist. Nat., ii. 92. Ammianus Marcellinus, xvii. 7, If 13. In the "Scholia" to Plato's " Republic" it is said that at the great Panathenea there was carried in procession a "peplum," a richly embroidered robe of Minerva, or- namented with representations of the contest between the giants and the gods ; while on the "peplum" carried at the minor Panathenaic games could be seen the war of the Athenians against the Atlantides, Even von Humboldt accepted this as an independent testimony in favor of the antiquity of the story. Tertullian, De Pallio, 2; Apol., p. 32. Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, i. 5. Cosmas Indicopleustes, ed. Mont- faucon, i. 114-125 ; ii. 131, 136-138 ; iv. 186-192 ; xii. 340. Image du Monde, thirteenth century, ap. Gaffarel in Revue de Geographie, vi. A number of scholars have en- deavored to find in the hydrogra- phy of the Atlantic, or, as indicated by the resemblances between the flora, fauna, and civilization of America and of the Old World, ad- ditional reasons for believing that such an island like Plato's Atlantis had once existed and had disap- I.— 9 peared after serving as a bridge by which communication between the continents was for a time carried on. We may add that the conclu- sions of those studies have been singularly strengthened of late by the result of the Atlantic soundings. Winsor adds Gomara. Guillaume de Postel. George Horn. Bircherod, Bircherodii Schedi- asma de Orbe Novo non Novo, Alt- dorf, 1683. Cellarius. The Sansons and Vaugondy (1669, 1762). Stallbaum, Plato, vii. p. 99, n. e. Cluverius, Introduct., ed. 1729, p. 667. Hyde Clark, Examination of the legend of Atlantis in reference to proto-historic communications with America, in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, iii. pp. 1-A6. Blaskett, Researches into the Lost Histories of America, p. 31. Ortelius and Mercator, Thesau- rus Geogr., arts. Atlantis, Gades, Gadirus. Taylor, Introduction to the "Timaeus." Bart, de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, lib. i. cap. viii. Kircher, Thesaurus Geogr., art. Gadirus. Becman, Fortia d'Urban, Turne- fort, De la Borde, Bory de St. Vin- cent. D'Avezac, Isles Africaines de P Ocean Atlantique, pp. 5-8. Carli, Delle lettere Americane, ii., let. vii., seq. ; xiii., seq. Lyell. 130 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. " Hermocrates : He (Critias) has told us what he has heard long ago, and I wish, Critias, that you would tell it now over again. 1 " Critias : I shall do so, if it pleases also our third companion, Timseus. " Timceus : It pleases me, of course. " Critias : Hear then, O Socrates, a history very strange, indeed ; yet altogether true ; as it was once told by Solon, the wisest of the seven wise. Solon was familiar with, and a fast friend of, Dropidas, our great- grandfather, as he himself often states in his songs. Now, he said to our grandfather, Critias, as the old man related to us in his turn, that great and wonderful had been the ancient deeds of the city of Athens, although obliterated now by long ages and the ruin of nations ; and one especially, the greatest of all, which it behooves to recite now." We may be allowed to insert here a remark of the scholarly Marsilio Ficino. 2 The story here told is no Brasseur de Bourbourg, H. H. many authors, Winsor supports the Bancroft, Le Plongeon, Retzius, opinion of Plato's Atlantis being a Smithsonian Report, 1859, p. 266. sheer fable, by the authority of Forbes (1846), Heer (1856), Un- Longinus, of old. ger (1860), Kuntze, W. Stephen Acosta and Cellarius, Notitise Mitchell (1877), J. Starkie Gardner Orbis Antiquae, lib. i. cap. xi. (1878), Edw. H.Thompson (1879). D'Anville, Bartoli, Gosselin, Gaffarel, Etude sur les Rapports Ukert. de F Atlantis et de l'Ancien Conti- Humboldt [who is rather in nent avant Colomb, Paris, 1869; favor of the contrary persuasion]. Revue de Gebgraphie, t. vi., vii. Martin, in his work on the D. P. de Novo y Colson, Ultima "Timseus." Teoria sobre la Atlantida, 1881. Professor Jowett, Bunburg, Wmchell (1880). Archer-Hind. Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis, New Encyclopaedia Britannica. York, 1882. But Winsor affords no special Dr. Guest, Origines Celticee, Lon- argument in favor of this latter don, 1883, i. 119, seq. opinion. A. J. Weise, The Discoveries of 1 See Document III., a. America, New York, 1882. 2 P. 1097, Introd. ad "Critias vel In opposition to such and so Atlanticus." NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 131 fiction, but history, he says ; first, because Plato is used to give the name of fable to whatever he invents ; while here, he assures us that his report is historical, as he also states in his " Timseus," where he warns the reader not to disbelieve the facts because of their wonderful- ness ; second, because he is most careful in describing the plain source of his own information. In fact, he continues thus : "Socrates: 1 You say well, but what then is the exploit, which Critias has narrated after Solon's authority ? " Critias : I will tell the ancient recital as I heard it when a boy. Critias was at the time, as he said, already close to ninety years of age, and I was about ten years old, . . . and I remember perfectly well. O Amynander, had Solon completed the history which he imported here from Egypt, I am of the opinion that neither Hesiod nor Homer nor any other poet would have become more renowned than he." We must observe that Plato's " Critias" or descrip- tion of Atlantis is not a finished work. Did he stop his narrative where Solon stopped before him ? . . . Here some one interrupted the slow old man by saying, " But what, then, is that history, O Critias ? Tell it all from the beginning," said he ; " what and how Solon narrated it, and by whom it was listened to as truth." . . . " Critias : There is in Egypt a very large city, Sais. Solon said that, having travelled there, 2 he was highly honored by its inhabitants, and that, after having in quired into antiquity from its most experienced priests, 1 See Document III., a. himself (von Humboldt, Examen, 2 Some are of the opinion that t. i. ) ; but this gratuitous supposi- Plato, having visited Egypt, tion hardly agrees with Plato's brought his information from Sais general character of uprightness. 132 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. he had found out that neither he nor any other Greek knew anything at all, so to say, of ancient lore. He said that one day, to attract them into a conversation upon ancient memories, he commenced to speak of Athens's oldest records, and that one very old priest answered, O Solon, Solon ! you Greeks, you are children always, there is not an old man in Greece. "Hearing this, Solon asked, How can you say that? " He said, You all are young of mind, you have not the least idea of antiquity from ancient reports, no science at all of olden times. On the contrary, all that is saved of pristine records can be read with us. . . . Anything, indeed, that has happened with you or with us, or in any other place, and is reported to us ; anything beautiful or grand, or events remarkable for any other reason that have taken place anywhere, all that is of old written down and kept in the temples of this country, . . . while, O Solon, the genealogies upon which you expatiate, according to your traditions, fall little short of childish tales." Let it be noticed, in passing by, that the author was aware of the difference between fact and fiction, and that, while he reports the arguments of the Egyptian priests to undeceive Solon in regard to Athenian his- tory, he would not likely, a serious philosopher as he is, try to force upon his reader imaginary statements, set forth as actual truth, regarding an important part of the world. After having given in his " Timseus" the information that he wished to impart, he concludes by the following particulars, which cannot but increase our confidence in his historical truthfulness : " Such, O Socrates, are the statements of the older Critias, according to the recitals of Solon, which I summarized after his rehearsal, . . . for what we have NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 133 learned in childhood we remember wonderfully well, and I would be altogether surprised if I should have forgotten anything of what I eagerly listened to so long ago. I heard then with so much pleasure and amusement the words of the old man who taught me, goodheartedly answering my numerous questions, that they remained in my memory like an indelible en- caustic writing. ... I am able, O Socrates, not only to give a summary account, but to narrate the particu- lars as I heard them. " Socrates : And what other narrative should be pre- ferred to this, which is all the more remarkable for not being an invented myth but a history absolutely true f" In his work, " Critias or Atlantis," Plato introduces the same Critias, who says, — 1 " If we shall have remembered rightly and com- municated the words once spoken by the priests and brought over here by Solon, it is clear enough, we think, to this company that we shall have sufficiently accomplished our duty. This now should be done at once, and there is no reason to wait any longer." We will now listen to the younger Critias recounting in both Plato's " Timseus" and " Critias" what the older had learned from Solon. It is as follows : " The wise man [Solon] had been struck at the re- buke of the old priest of Sais, and, pressed by all his desire of learning, he begged the priests to enter in a correct and coherent form upon the history of the ancient citizens of Athens. 2 " Then the priest said, We are not envious, Solon, and I will tell for your sake and for the sake of your city. " The annals of this our commonwealth, since eight thousand years, are written down in our holy books. 1 See Document III., b. 2 Ibid., c. 134 HISTORY OP AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. The writings state how your city at one time destroyed a power that insolently ran over the whole of both Europe and Asia and had fiercely rushed forth out of the Atlantic Ocean. " And let us first of all recall to mind that it is, in round numbers, nine thousand years since war was declared between those who lived beyond the Pillars of Hercules and all those who inhabited this side." * Before relating the catastrophic issue of this struggle, as interesting as gigantic, Critias gives us an almost complete description of our hemisphere in prehistoric times. " Then," he continues, 2 " that ocean" — to wit, the At- lantic — " was navigable ; it contained an island oppo- site the mouth which you call, as you say, the Pillars of Hercules. The island itself was greater than Asia [then known, i.e., Asia Minor] and Lybia [then known, i.e., Berbera] together. From this island the voyagers at the time had access to the other islands of that ocean , and from these latter islands to the whole great conti- nent lying close beyond them and around that other sea, the true sea ; for, the waters, like those within the mouth of which we spoke, seem to be but small ponds with some inlet, but that other sea can justly be called the sea, and that land which surrounds it can, in all truth, be named the continent." These last bold assertions perfectly agree with the statements of ancient Greek mythology as recorded by Plutarch, 3 and of Theopompus ; * and the whole of Plato's system of American geography becomes evident as soon as we admit his following paragraph, the prob- 1 The learned fairly agree that sons. (Bailly, p. 27 ; H. d'Arbois these Egyptian years were not our de Joubainville, ch. ii. p. 16. ) solar years, that each was likely no 2 See Document IV., a. longer than one of our four sea- s Supra, p. 121. 4 Supra, pp. 122, 123. NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 135 ability, not to say the credibility, of which we will expose farther on. "The island Atlantis now submerged through the effect of earthquakes has become a region of mud, and an obstacle for those who sail from here to reach the high seas." We are not the first nor are we likely to be the last to admit the concordance between Plato's description and geographical data. Herrera 1 states that many considered Critias's " narrow mouth" as the Strait of Gibraltar, his "ocean" as the Atlantic Ocean, his " great island" as the once existing Atlantis, his " far- ther islands" as the Leeward and the Windward Islands, his "great continent" opposite the smaller islands as the Western Continent, and, finally, his " true sea" as the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. Acosta 2 and Charlevoix 3 propose the same interpretation, which since then has obtained more and more credit in the learned world. Plato's statement of the political power of the Atlan- tis contains a further illustration of his general geog- raphy : " In this island Atlantis," he says, " the kings exer- cised a great and wonderful power, being the masters of the whole of the island itself, of other islands, and of parts of the continent. Besides that, they were also at the head of the people of Lybia as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as the Tyrrhenian Sea." Critias further continues by giving a more particular description of the island Atlantis, from which we select a few interesting details : 4 " Those kings," he says, " in consequence of their authority, received many things imported from with- 1 Dec. i. lib. i. cap. i. p. 2. 3 T. i. p. 87. 2 Bk. i. ch. xii. p. 36. 4 See Document IV., 6. 136 HISTOKY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. out ; but the island itself furnished the greater part of their comforts of life. And first, all the solid metals that are dug out from the mines and all those that are fusible, besides that which we now only know by name, but was then abundantly dug up from the bowels of the earth in many places of the island, — namely, the species of metal designated as orichalch, the most precious, with the exception of gold, in the estimation of the people of those times. The forest affords all that is necessary for architectural purposes, and the prairie yields abundantly what is required for the food of both domestic and wild animals. There is also, on the island, a very large species of elephants, and there is food for all other animals that live in the marshes, by the lakes, and along the rivers, as well as for all those that roam on the mountains and on the plains. There are also great numbers of the largest and most vora- cious beasts. " Besides all that, there are all the odoriferous plants that the earth produces anywhere to-day ; its soil brings forth all that pertains to roots, to cereals, to wood, to distilling juices, to flowers or fruits, and it all thrives well. It further yields cultivated and dry fruit, which we use as victuals, and all the rest that is used for food, and whose various species we generally call vege- tables. There are also to be found all the trees that produce beverage, eatables, unguents, as well as, for the sake of fun and pleasure, the shell fruits, such as chest- nuts, that are hard to preserve, and all the sweetmeats loved by the workingmah, which we put up to fully satisfy our appetite. "The island that once, in those days, had exist- ence under the sun, holy, beautiful, and admirable as it was, brought forth all these things in infinite abundance." NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 137 Other ancient authors speak equally well of America ; but what these do not say let us continue to hear from Critias : " Gathering all those riches from the earth," he adds, " they erected the temples, and the royal residences, and the ports and the navy-yards, and improved all the rest of the country. . . . One after another, in- heriting the beautiful structures, always excelled his predecessor as best he could, until their dwelling-place looked admirable, for both the greatness and the beauty of their works." We could not afford to copy here all the details of Plato's lengthy description of the capital city, but we should not overlook the picture he draws of its great temple : " The royal buildings," he says, " within the fortress were erected in this manner : There, in the centre, stood apart the sacred and inaccessible temple of the goddess Cliton and of the god Neptune, surrounded with an enclosure of gold, within which, in the begin- ning, was engendered and born the dynasty of the ten kings, and where, coming together from the ten prov- inces, they offered yearly sacrifices in honor of each of them. Neptune's temple was one stadium [six hundred and seven English feet] in length, and three hundred feet wide ; its height was in proportion to its other dimensions, but its front had a somewhat barbaric appearance. The entire outside of the temple was covered with silver, with the exception of the roofs, which were overlaid with gold. As for the interior, the ceiling was of ivory variegated with gold and ori- chalch, and all the rest — walls, columns, and pave- ments — were covered with orichalch. The statues there erected were of gold ; that of the god was standing on a chariot, holding the reins of six winged steeds, and so tall as to touch the very ceiling. Around it were one 138 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. hundred Nereids riding their dolphins ; for such, at the time, people thought their number to be ; and many- other statues of private individuals were placed near by. Around the temple on the outside were standing the golden images of all the women and of all the men who had descended from the ten kings, and many other great monuments both of kings and of private individ- uals of the city itself and of all the provinces under its rule. There was an altar there also, which in size and workmanship corresponded with the edifice itself, and the royal buildings near by were in proportion to the greatness of the empire and to the beauty of the sacred edifices." 1 It is not necessary to expatiate on the bridges of the city, on its aqueducts, baths, gymnasia, and race-tracks, which its people had built for usefulness and sport ; but we should not neglect to notice that " its dock-yards were full of triremes and of the apparel that pertains, to them ; and it was all rigged up in good shape. In the neighborhood of the port were living a multitude of people in numerous houses built closely together. The haven and the largest port were filled with ships, merchants arrived from all parts, and day and night one could hear on every side the voices and shouting and bustle of the throngs. . . . 2 " The whole country is said to have been very high and cut abruptly from the ocean ; but the district about the city is all a plain that surrounds the city, and is itself encircled, down to the sea, by low mountains ; it is smooth and level, of an oblong shape, measuring to its other end three thousand stadia [that is, three hun- dred and fifty-eight miles] , and about its middle, from the sea upward, two thousand [or two hundred and 1 See Document IV., c. 2 Ibid., d. NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 139 thirty-eight miles]. As regards the whole island, it stretches towards the West, with its mountains exposed to the North. And in these mountains it has many and rich agglomerations of neighbors. ..." Did the Atlantis of Plato extend from the Madeira Islands to Cuba, and are the Azores or Flemish Islands its northern mountain-tops? Learned men, as von Humboldt, 1 and Maltebrun, 2 accuse Solon and Plato of inconsistency or contradiction in their statements of the size of Atlantis, — once, they say, declared greater than Asia and Africa together, and once set forth as being two thousand by three thousand stadia. But these authors, in all other respects of the highest au- thority, must have but superficially read Plato's " Cri- tias," where the surveyor clearly distinguishes between the whole island and the plain that lay around its capital. " Quadrilateral as it was, it was, in the main, rec- . tangular and oblong ; but it lost this shape by the digging round about it of a trench, the statement of whose depth, width, and length is simply incredible when this is compared with all other works of human hands. " It was established that the ballot should designate each officer among the men of the plain who were fit for war, and the total number of the ballots amounted to sixty thousand. But it is said that the number of the inhabitants of the mountains and of the other parts was simply infinite." Critias describes also the government of the prehis- toric western empire: 3 "We must now acquaint you with the government of these enemies of our city, as it was established from the beginning, and, if we have not 1 Examen, t. i. p. 173. 3 See Document V., a. 2 T. i. p. 73. 140 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. lost our memory, according to what we heard when yet a child ; for with you, our friends, that knowledge ought to be in common. " Now then, Neptune, having by the casting of lots obtained the Atlantis, established there his progeny, born from a mortal woman in some place of the island. He raised five male twins, and having divided the whole island Atlantis into ten parts, he assigned to the first-born or the oldest, Atlas by name, the maternal home and country around it, which was the largest and the best, and established him king of the others, whom he made governors, giving to each one the government of many people and of much country. . . . " All these and their descendants lived there during many generations, reigning over numerous other islands of the ocean, even over the inhabitants on .this side of the Pillars of Hercules, as far as Egypt and the Tyr- rhenian Sea, as we said before. And this Atlantic lin- eage waxed numerous and otherwise honorable, and acquired such an abundance of riches as never before was in the possession of any other kings and will not easily be hereafter. Anything they might want was procured to them, whether in the city or in any other part of the country. "Their relative power and mutual association were regulated by the orders of Neptune, which were set forth to them by the law and by the jurisprudence of their forefathers, written down on a column of ori- chalch in a temple of Neptune about the centre of the island. They therefore assembled alternately every fifth and every sixth year, allowing to all, whether equals or superiors, an equal share in the deliberations ; and when gathered together they maturely considered what belonged to their common interests, examined whether any one had become guilty of trespass, and NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 141 rendered justice. When on the point of sitting in judgment they first gave security to one another in the following manner : A number of steers having been let loose in the temple of Neptune, the ten of them, but each one by himself alone, made vow to the god to catch for him an acceptable victim, and commenced the chase without a lance, armed only with sticks and las- soes. Whichever steer they laid hold on they brought to the column and killed it on the column's top, accord- ing to the written legislation. " There existed many other laws for each one of the kings in regard to things sacred ; but the holiest of all was never to carry arms against one another ; but each was obliged to assist all others in case that anybody should undertake to destroy their kingly race in any city whatever. Having, as their predecessors, delib- erated in common about the measures relating to war and all other public affairs, they gave the leadership to Atlas's descendants." Before proceeding any farther, we should stop a mo- ment here to reflect on the kind of sacrifice offered up to Neptune in prehistoric America. It consisted of animals slaughtered in honor of the apparently one God. The advanced civilization of the ancient At- lantides was thus free from the degrading human sac- rifices which afterwards polluted our continent during so many centuries. Material welfare, arts, and sciences walked hand in hand with philosophy and religion either comparatively or absolutely pure. The Greek philosopher had no knowledge of the Hebrew records of man's creation and of his original divine worship ; but we cannot fail to see the close resemblance of his Neptune with the Almighty God, of his mortal woman with our first mother, of his Atlantidic sacrifices with those of Abel, of his arts and general welfare in the 142 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. distant West with those of Adam's immediate descend- ants. By so far is all this true that we venture to surmise that typical Christianity was the first religion of American nations. This supposition derives no in- considerable weight from the following further state- ments, replete with matter for serious reflection. Critias continues : 1 " For many generations, as long as the nature of the god lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and had a mind well disposed towards their parent deity, for their thoughts were true and grand in every re- spect. Using meekness and prudence in every-day occurrences and towards one another, they despised all temporal things but virtue, and they considered as rather a burden the plenty of gold and the abundance of other possessions ; neither did they, satiated with food, fall into error as unable to govern themselves be- cause of their riches ; but, moderate as they were, they plainly saw that all those goods increase through mu- tual charity and virtue, and, on the contrary, that through the desire and esteem of them these virtues are destroyed. Through such principles and the divine nature still lasting, all things improved for them, as we said before. But after the divine portion had been reduced to naught in them by the admixture of much mortal, and human customs had prevailed, then they first became disgraced, being unable to bear transitory things, and appeared despicable to one who could ob- serve, having lost the most beautiful part of what is most honorable." These remarks of Plato are certainly as great thoughts as those which he grants to the ancient At- lantides, and, had he written the second half of his 1 See Document V., 6. NOTIONS OF AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 143 " Critias," we might expect to find in it that the shame- ful loss of primeval righteousness brought them down to an unjust ambition which was the cause of their punishment at the hands of the Athenians and of the gods, as it is related by the priest of Sais at the end of the philosopher's " Timseus," in this manner : "The Atlantic kings, 1 having combined all their strength, undertook one day to enslave at one swoop all your country and ours, and all that lies on this side of the Strait. Then, O Solon, through the courage and power of your people, became evident to all men the importance of your city. For, excelling all others in audacity and in the arts of war, either at the head of the Greeks, or facing alone the calamity while the others fled before it, she underwent the most extreme dangers ; but, having conquered at last, she erected a trophy of the arms of her assailants, preserving from slavery those who were not enslaved yet, and gener- ously liberating all others who were living on this side of Hercules's boundary. "Afterwards extraordinary earthquakes and floods took place, the calamity lasting one day and one night, and your warlike apparel suddenly sank down in the earth, and the island Atlantis likewise disappeared, engulfed by the ocean. Hence has that sea become impervious and impassable even now, sailing being prevented by its great shallowness, which was caused by the mud left behind by the sunken island." Although upheavals and depressions of the crust of the earth are well-known facts, yet it is but recently, says Bancroft, 2 that any important signification has been attached to this striking statement of the great Athe- nian philosopher. True, it had been frequently quoted 1 See Document V., c. 2 "Vol. v. p. 124. 144 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. to show that the ancients had a knowledge more or less vague of the continent of America, but no particular value was set upon the assertion that the mysterious land was, ages ago, submerged and lost in the ocean. Of late years, however, it has been discovered that traditions and records of cataclysms similar to that referred to by the Egyptian priest have been preserved among the American nations, and this discovery has • led several learned and diligent students of New- World lore to believe that, after all, the story of Atlantis, as recorded by Plato, may be founded upon fact, and that in by-gone times there did actually exist in the At- lantic Ocean a great tract of inhabited country, form- ing, perhaps, part of the American continent. This theory is to-day sustained by many scientists, who conclude, from the comparison of the flora and fauna of both hemispheres, that America and Africa must have been close neighbors, while others, after study- ing deep-sea soundings as carefully as sea-captains do, arrive at the same conclusion, from the fact that the whole bed of the Atlantic, where the Atlantis Island is said to have been situated, consists of extinct vol- canoes, and is, by the side of the Azores, the Madeiras, the Canary, and the Cape Verd Islands, dotted with reefs so numerous that it has all the appearance of a depressed mountainous country. 1 The existence at some former period of such an island, or rather con- tinent, seems to be regarded by geologists as a well- attested fact. 2 These arguments would hardly fail to bring convic- tion, should the evidence of Plato be strengthened by that of other ancient authors ; but the testimonies of 1 Cf. O'Donoghue, p. 307 ; Short, 2 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, p. 476, n. 2. vol. iii. p. 356, n.* ; Winchell, p. 381. NOTIONS OP AMERICA IN ANCIENT GREECE. 145 these only go to confirm his general statements regard- ing the western world. 1 Aristoteles, Plato's contemporary and his equal if not his superior in philosophy, clearly speaks of our con- tinent, and his description thereof added courage to Christopher Columbus in searching the old route to it, as is admitted by ancient and modern authors. 2 The possibility of meeting land by sailing westward from the western coast of Africa is sufficiently pointed out in the last lines of the second book, chapter xiv. of his " Treaty on Heaven ;" he is of the opinion that the intervening distance is not extraordinarily great, and speaks of the elephants that were common to the oppo- site coasts of both continents. 3 " It is said," he further writes, " that the Carthaginians have discovered beyond the Pillars of Hercules a very fertile island, which, however, is devoid of inhabitants, but full of forests and navigable rivers, and abounds in fruit. It is situated many days' voyage from the main-land. Some of the Carthaginians, charmed with the fertility of that coun- try, conceived the idea of getting married and of going to establish themselves there, but it is said that the 1 H. H. Bancroft (vol. v. p. 1' eruption des volcans, ouverts sur 127) says Brasseur de Bourbourg's toute l'6tendue du Continent Am6- theory supposes that the continent ricain, double alors de ce qu'il est of America occupied originally the aujourd'hui, 1' eruption soudaine Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean d'un immense foyer sous-marin fit Sea, and expanded in the form of eclater le monde, et abima, entre a peninsula so far across the Atlan- un lever et un autre de l'6toile du tic that the Canary Islands may matin, les regions les plus riches du have formed part of it. All this globe." (Quatre Lettres, p. 45. j extended portion of the continent 2 Geo. Hornius, lib. i. cap. x. p. was engulfed by a tremendous con- 56 ; B. F. De Costa, Pre-columbian vulsion of nature, of which tra- Discovery, p. 11 ; Ed. J. Payne, p. ditions and written records have 50 ; R. H. Clarke in Amer. Cath. been preserved by many American Quar. Rev., vol. xvii. p. 307; Aa. peoples; and he adds (Ibid., n. passim. 258) : In the Chimalpopoca, Bras- s Alex, von Humboldt, Examen, seur reads that "a la suite de t. i. p. 38. I.— 10 146 • HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. government of Carthage forbade any one to attempt to colonize the island, under penalty of death ; for, in case it were to become powerful, it might deprive the mother country of her possessions there." 1 Theophrastus, the former philosopher's disciple, no- tices the same western lands. 2 Theopompus not only mentions the jxsyaJkri "Hnsipog that lies beyond the ocean which encircles the Old World, 3 but his Silenus tells Midas, king of Phrygia, of the populous cities to be found in it, 4 one of them having more than a million inhabitants ; he tells of its large animals and of its people, who are twice as tall and live twice as long as we ; who have peculiar cus- toms and laws quite different from ours, and possess great quanties of gold and silver, which they value less than we do iron. He also tells of their European exploration, as we shall observe hereafter. 5 An illustrious navigator of the fourth century B.C., a contemporary of Theopompus, gives us evident proof that the farther we recede, either in time or space, from ancient Oriental literature, the less information we can expect from European authors in regard to our western hemisphere ; we descend a river whose waters grow less and finally get lost in its sandy bed. 1 W. Gleeson, vol. i. p. 196 ; D. and compasseth round about. And O'Donoghue, p. 306. that without this worlde there is a 2 Hornius, lib. i. cap. x. p. 56. continent or percell of dry lande 3 Supra, p. 122. which in greatnesse, as hee re- * Ap. Bastian, Bd. ii. 8. 440. ported, was infinite and unmeas- 5 ©av/iao-ia, referred to by von urable, that it nourished and main- Humboldt, Examen, t. i. p. 206 ; tained by the benefite of the greene d'Arbois de Joubainville, ch. ii. p. medowes and pasture plots, sun- 17 ; W. Gleeson, vol. i. p. 196^A drye bigge and mighty be'astes ; translation of the year 1576/ap\ that the men which inhabite the Winsor, vol. i. p. 21: "Silenus\ same climats, exceede the stature tolde Midas of certaine Islands, ■ of us twise, and yet the length of named Europa, Asia, and Libia, there life is not equale to ours." which the ocean sea circumscribeth CHAPTER VI. ANCIENT EUROPEAN GLIMPSES OF AMERICA. Pythias of Marseilles had been raised on the Medi- terranean Sea, and knew the greater part of the Eastern Continent. After having sailed on the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, probably as far as Iceland, he wrote a book with the significant title " rfjg Hepiobog," Around the World. The Western Continent was lost for him, as it seems to have been already for Aristoteles, who thought that the Carthaginian distant possessions lay on the eastern coasts of Asia. 1 The Arabian geographer Edrisi asserted, also, that the sea of China, which washed the lands of Gog and Magog, was one with the Dark Sea or Atlantic Ocean. 2 Pope Alexander VI., speaking of Gardar in Greenland, could not describe any better its location on the Ameri- can hemisphere than by stating that it was situated "in fine mundi," on the border of the globe ! 3 It was, in fact, as late as a.d. 1524, that, through a letter of Giovanni Verrazzano, it became known in Europe again that the West Indies was no part of Asia, but a continent by itself. 4 Eratosthenes, 5 following in the path of Aristoteles, 1 Gravier, p. xv ; von Humboldt, Divers. Alex. VI. , Armar. 29, t. 50, Examen, t. i. p. 38 ; W. D. Cooley, fo. 23. Maritime and Inland Discovery, * " Un altro mondo maggiore dell' vol. i. p. 55. Europa, dell' Africa e quasi dell' 2 Cf. von Humboldt, Examen, t. Asia." (P. Amat, p. 185.) i. p. 52. 5 276-194 b.c. 3 Archiv. Secret. Apostol. Vatic, 147 148 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. believed in the absolute possibility of finding land on a westward course, but thought the distance too great for the voyagers of his time, — namely, the two-thirds of the world's circumference. In this opinion he found but little acceptance by his contemporaries, and Posei- donius 1 reckoned that the width of the ocean inter- vening between the west coast of Spain and the east coast of China was nearly equal to that of the known world. 2 Marinus Tyrius fell into the opposite excess again, extending the breadth of the oixov^isvYj or in- habited earth to fifteen hours, and leaving only nine hours of the sun's course to be traversed by the west- ward voyager. He had wiped away the space occupied by our continent, as also did Lucius A. Seneca, who made light of the distance between the western coast of Europe and the eastern coast of Asia. " Pray," he asks, " how far is it from the farthest shores of Spain westward to those of India? A very few days' sail, with a fair wind." 3 Ptolemy* reduced the extravagant area of the known world to the statement of Posei- donius, and his theory was accepted all through the middle ages. 6 All these statements and references abundantly prove that for many centuries the learned men of Europe had hardly any idea of their antipodes or of the antip- odal continent, which they had mercilessly drowned in the billows whose extent they were discussing. This should not, however, lead to the belief that all appre- hension of our landed hemisphere and all former infor- mation relating to it had irreparably been lost. Some 1 165-130 b.c. ventus implevit.'' (Qusestionum 2 Edw. J. Payne, pp. 37, 41. Naturalium Libri vii., prcef. If 11 ; 3 " Quantum enim est, quod ab Payne, pp. 41, 42. ) Cf. von Hum- ultimis littoribus Hispaniae usque boldt, Examen, t. i. pp. 99, 162. ad Indos jacet? Paucissimorum * Born circa a.d. 70. dierum spatium, si navem suus s Edw. J. Payne, p. 44. ANCIENT EUROPEAN GLIMPSES OF AMERICA. 149 yague idea and positive doubt of it continued among the learned of Europe, even down to Columbus. Diodorus of Sicily still writes, probably copying an older author, that the Phoenicians had discovered a large island in the Atlantic Ocean, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, several days' journey from the coast of Africa. This island abounded in all manner of riches. The soil was exceedingly fertile, the scenery diversified by rivers, mountains, and forests. It was the custom of the inhabitants to retire during the summer to mag- nificent country-houses which stood in the midst of beautiful gardens. Fish and game were found in great abundance. The climate was delightful, and the trees bore fruit in all seasons of the year. The Phoenicians discovered this fortunate island by accident, being driven on its coast by contrary winds. On their return they gave glowing accounts of its beauty and fertility. The Tyrians, who were noted sailors, desired to colonize it, but the senate of Carthage opposed their plans, either through jealousy and a wish to keep for themselves any commercial benefit that might be derived from it ; or, as Diodorus relates, because they wished to use it as a place of refuge in case of need. 1 About the year 80 B.C. Sertorius, being for a time driven from Spain by the forces of Sulla, fell in, when on an expedition to Bsetica, with certain sailors who had just returned from the " Atlantic islands," which they described as two in number, distant ten thousand stadia from Africa and enjoying a wonderful climate. The account in Plutarch is quite consistent with a pre- vious knowledge of the islands, even on the part of Sertorius. Be this as it may, the glowing praises of the eye-witnesses so impressed him that only the un- 1 H. H. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 67 ; The Eecent Origin of Man, pp. 21, "W. Gleeson, vol. i. p. 197 ; Southall, 574 ; Winsor, vol. i. p. 24. 150 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. willingness of his followers prevented his taking refuge there. We may notice that the great distance from Africa points to American territory. 1 Strabo 2 is the next writer who alludes to our western hemisphere, saying, "Eratosthenes sets forth lengthy arguments to persuade his readers that, were it not for the width of the Atlantic Ocean, we might sail, along the same parallel, from Spain to India, across what is left of the world when we take Europe and Asia from it. . . . Moreover, we might find two and even more inhabited countries, particularly close to the circle that passes by China, or Nankin in China." In another place he again intimates the existence of unknown lands between western Europe and eastern Asia. 3 The Latin poet Horace 4 evidently meant the western hemisphere by the unknown islands far away in the encircling ocean, on which, he told his countrymen, they might take refuge in the iron age of the Roman empire. He describes them as full of riches, yielding spontaneous crops of cereals and wine, and made safe and secure by being almost unknown to the sailors of the time. Virgil, his contemporary, plainly intimates his vague knowledge of our distant shores when he expresses the Romans' proud ambition of extending their dominion beyond the limits of India and Africa, to the very spot where Atlas, away in the western ocean, sustains the columns of the heavens. 5 Everybody knows the prophecy of Seneca in his " Medea :" 6 " Nothing has remained in its old place in this pervious world. The Indian quaffs the Jaxartes's 1 Winsor, vol. i. p. 26. 147, 152 ; A. van Speybrouck, 5 Born 66 B.C. Christoffel Colomb, p. 43. 3 Geographica, lib. i. pp. 113, 114 * 65-9 b.c. Aim., or pp. 64, 65 Cas. ; lib. ii. p. 6 See Document VI., a. 179 Aim., or 118 Cas., quoted by 6 Ibid., b. von Humboldt, Examen, t. i. pp. ANCIENT EUROPEAN GLIMPSES OF AMERICA. 151 waters and the Persian those of the Elbe and of the Rhine. After many years the time shall come that the ocean will loosen the bonds with which it confines the earth, and that the great continent will be thrown open. Thetis will uncover new worlds, and Thule shall no longer be the farthest land." Acosta and others considered the chorus of Seneca's " Medea" as a mere poetical fancy, but Payne 1 thinks that it may be derived from the statements of Aristoteles and Strabo. P. H. Clarke 2 supposes it to have been a divine inspiration, and we are of the opinion that the poet's prophecy likely rests on strictly historical in- formation. The Pomans were at his time the masters of a large portion of Albion, whose natives, especially those of modern Scotland, were undoubtedly acquainted with the Tartars of the northern islands, Iceland and Greenland, and of the northeastern coast of America. No wonder, therefore, if it had come to Seneca's ears that such mysterious lands existed as those which he hoped his country would subjugate one day, as it had subjugated Persia and Germany. A few years later the elder Pliny 3 stated again the sphericity of the earth and the relatively small extent of the Atlantic Ocean ; he knew the Fortunate or Madeira Islands, and reported the belief of many of his contemporaries, — namely, that beyond these islands there were yet to be found a number of others. 4 Pomponius Mela 5 had perhaps these latter in view when he spoke of his " Alter Orbis" or Other World. 6 1 P. 41. des Zeitalters der Entd., S. 29, n. 2 Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. 2; Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. xvii. p. 305. xvii. p. 307. 3 23-79 a.d. 5 41 a.d. * Historia Naturalis, lib. vi. cap. " De Situ Orbis, i. 9, 4 ; ii. 7, 7 ; xxxvii. : "Sunt qui ultra eas For- cf. von Humboldt, Examen, t. i. tunatas putant esse quasdamque p. 153. alias." Cf. O. Peschel, Geschichte 152 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Hornius 1 thinks that they are the same distant islands mentioned by Appuleius 2 in his book "De Mundo," About the World. The Dutch antiquarian 3 calls our attention to a passage of an erudite rhapsodist of the same epoch, iElianus Claudius, who rehearses Theo- pompus's exciting description of the great continent, larger than Asia, Europe, and Lybia together, 4 and the words of Marcellinus asserting that in the Atlantic Ocean there is an island of greater importance than Europe, 6 and to which the Canaries were subject. 6 We should have stopped, before this, our inquiry into the European ancient knowledge of the American continent, were we to strictly follow the order of chro- nology ; but we trust it may please our readers if, guided by laws of logical thought, we still further con- tinue to examine how much there was known in the Old World of our western hemisphere, even down to Columbus's discovery. Christianity has always been not only the jealous guardian of divinely revealed truth, but also the pre- server and promoter of all human science ; she has carefully saved what few faint notions she has inherited from paganism regarding our western world, and, in God's own good time, she has developed them into full and complete knowledge. St. Clement of Alexandria, at the end of the second century, and St. Jerome, during the fourth, wrote of the worlds that lay beyond the ocean. St. Jerome says, 7 " We seek with reason what the Apostle means in these words when he says, ' You have walked for a while according to the course of this world,' 8 whether he 1 Lib. i. cap. x. p. 56. 5 " In Atlantico mari Europseo 2 Second century after Christ. orbe potior insula." 3 Lib. i. cap. x. p. 56. 6 Winehell, p. 381. * Southall, p. 21 ; supra, p. 146, ' Super cap. ii. ad Ephesios. n. 5. 8 Eph. ii. 2. ANCIENT EUROPEAN GLIMPSES OF AMERICA. 153 would have us to understand that there is another world which neither is, nor depends on, this world ; or other worlds whereof Clement writes in his epistle, ' The ocean and the worlds which are beyond the ocean.' " 1 St. Gregory, 2 commenting upon a letter of St. Clement, likewise assures us that, in crossing the ocean, we would meet another world, nay, other worlds. 3 Nor is it true that the other Fathers of the Church opposed and condemned the theory of the earth's sphericity and of antipodal countries. Edw. J. Payne answers well : 4 " Lactantius does not deny the sphericity of the earth ; St. Augustine admits it as not improb- able. 5 What the Fathers deny is the existence of human beings under another divine dispensation. Men of learning, whether ecclesiastics or not, believed in the spherical earth with its Terra Australis or 'Av*i%6uv in the southern hemisphere. The sole dispute was whether it had any inhabitants. Isidore of Seville, in the seventh century, held that it had not ; Venerable Bede, in the eighth century, that it had." 6 In addition to these writers, we might mention Jor- danes, Orosius, Dicuil, and Moses of Chorene. Not many to-day can illustrate the truth of the earth's sphericity more clearly than the author of 1 Cf. Acosta, bk. i. ch. xi. p. 32 ; learning as well as the religion of H. H. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 68 ; Hor- the pagans in its ban, is unde- nius, lib. i. cap. x. p. 56. niable ;" even though he refutes 2 End of the fourth century. the general imputation by the par- 3 Ant. de Herrera, dec. i. lib. i. ticulars of the next following sen- cap, i. p. 1. tence. He correctly states, indeed, 4 P. 46, seq. that "Gerbert, Albert the Great, 6 Cf. Winsor, vol. i. p. 31. It is Roger Bacon, Dante were as famil- sad to see an author of Mr. Winsor' s iar with the idea of the earth-globe erudition humor his public with as were Hipparchus and Ptolemy ; such unwarranted assertions as, that it was assumed by Isidore of "That knowledge dwindled after Seville and taught by Bede." the fall of the Roman empire, that 6 His "De Elementis Philoso- the early church included the phias," lib. iv. 154 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. "L'Image du Monde," an anonymous poem of the thirteenth century. " If two men," he says, " were to start at the same time from a given point, and to go, the one east, the other west, they would needs meet at the place whence they set out," 1 — if not on the opposite hemisphere. For later times the treatise of John of Halifax, " De Sacro Bosco," is enough to refute the singular error that the doctrine of the earth's sphericity was discred- ited during the middle ages and only revived after the exploit of Columbus. Macrobius, an author of St. Augustine's time, sup- posed a second Northern and a second Southern oixov- [ikvv] or inhabited earth, on the other side of the globe, roughly corresponding to North and South America, 2 which may readily be considered as the fourth part of the world of Isidore of Seville, 3 who also speaks of islands lying beyond the Atlantic shores about the centre of the waters. 4 One century later, Alcuin 5 and his disciple Rhaban Maurus 6 taught that there was a fourth quarter of the earth yet unseen by mortal eyes. 7 This last remark would seem to prove that but little attention had been paid in Continental Europe to the highly probable exploration and evangelization of America by the Irish monk St. Brendan and his com- panions in the sixth century ; but the sixth century had not its newspapers to divulge important events all over the world, nor were the religious of that epoch of saints 1 "Si que andui egaumont alas- s Origines, lib. xiv. cap. v. ; cf. sent, von Humboldt, Examen, t. i. pp. II convendroit qu'il s'encon- 111, 153. trassent * Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 439. Dessus le leu dont il se mu- 5 732-804 a.d. rent." 6 774-856 a.d. ( Ap. Winsor, vol. i. p. 37. ) 7 Edw. J. Payne, p. 47. 2 Edw. J. Payne, p. 37. ANCIENT EUROPEAN GLIMPSES OF AMERICA. 155 anxious to have their deeds known heyond the walls of their archival vaults, and it was only about the eleventh century that the records of St. Brendan excited the pious mind of holy souls and of a few savants beyond the shores of the Island of Saints. Nor should we wonder if St. Brendan's exploits remained unnoticed so long, when we consider that those of the Northmen were ignored by their literary southern neighbors until, we might say, this very century of ours. But, whether the learned men of Europe paid attention to it or not, it is a well-settled and historical fact to-day, that our continent was visited, settled, and evangelized at the close of the tenth century by the newly converted in- habitants of Iceland and Norway. While the North- men themselves did probably not know that they had discovered the American continent, the scholars of central and southern Europe continued their learned speculations and faded lore about lands and islands of the Atlantic Ocean. Of these were Honorius of Autun 1 and Gervasius of Tilbury. 2 The German Dominican friar, Albert of Bollstadt or Albertus Magnus, Vincent of Beauvais, in his " Specu- lum Majus," John of Salisbury, the English Francis- can friar Roger Bacon, all authors of the same epoch, admitted not only another continent, but, also, that it was inhabited, and, furthermore, that it was possible to estab- lish communication with it. Their statements greatly encouraged Christopher Columbus in his glorious under- taking. George Beisch has, in his " Margarita Philo- sophica," preserved the same ancient traditions. 3 1 Twelfth century. De Imagine perialia ; Leibnitz, Scriptores Re- Mundi, lib. i. cap. xxxvi. ; Migne, rum Brunsvicarum, t. i. p. 919 ; t. clxxii. col. 152 ; CongrSs Scient., CongrSs Scient., v. sec. p. 170. v. sec. p. 170. * Edw. J. Payne, p. 48 or 49 ; von 2 Thirteenth century. Otia Im- Humboldt, Examen, t. i. p. 111. 156 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. A great Christian and great poet of the thirteenth century, to whom Americanists have not paid sufficient respect, Dante, 1 has actually, in his "Divina Corn- media," discovered the American continent two cen- turies before Columbus. Suffice it to translate a few of his lines, 2 where he intimates it as his opinion that it is more difficult to sail all along the Mediterranean sea than to reach the New World across the western ocean : " I and my companions were old and stiff when we arrived at these narrow straits, where Hercules marked down the limits of his journeys to warn man against going any farther, leaving me Seville at my right and Septa at my left. Brothers, said I, who through a hundred thousand perils have finally reached the West, do not refuse to find out, during the short space which is left us yet of our bodily existence, the realities of the world devoid of people that lies beyond the setting sun. Consider your noble extraction ; you were not made to live like brutes, but to pursue virtue and knowledge." We shall simply add that these words are too clear to be a poet's prophetic dream, and must have their foun- dation in preserved knowledge of our western world. A learned English traveller of the fourteenth cen- tury, John Mandeville, 3 relates a quaint legend which he heard in his youth and should not be altogether overlooked here. "A man," he says, "had started from England to go and discover the world. He had gone so long by land and by sea that he had gone all around the earth ; and it happened that after he went to Norway a tempest carried him to an island, and when he was in that island he well knew that it was the island where he had heard his own language spoken before." Edw. J. Payne 4 remarks here that 1 1265-1321. s 1327-1372. 2 See Document VII. ' P. 70. ANCIENT EUROPEAN GLIMPSES OP AMERICA. 157 the full circumstances of the discoveries of the North- men were only to be heard of in the sagas of Iceland, but that the description of one fertile island which they had found had penetrated into the literary world of southern Europe. It was this island, he says, known by the name of Wineland, which the Englishman of Mandeville's legend was supposed to have reached, and which afterwards, yet already before Columbus's discov- eries, was the object of the yearly researches of Bristol's and Lisbon's mariners in western waters. We might doubt, however, whether John Mandeville had not rather taken his curious story from the ideas set forth by his learned countryman, the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon. 1 A contemporary of Mandeville was the great Cardi- nal d'Ailly or Petrus Alliacus. 2 He had no idea that America was a special continent,- but he seems to have been of the opinion which prevailed for years after Columbus's discovery, — namely, that the Western Con- tinent, situated where it is, was a northeastern exten- sion of Asia. This we are entitled to conclude from his asserting that the earth stretches forth much farther to the East than is taught by Ptolemy, and that, ac- cording to physicists, the ocean which extends between the eastern coasts of India and the western cliffs of Africa is not very wide ; for it is well known, he adds, that it can be crossed in a few days with favorable winds ; and hence it is evident that the uttermost parts of India cannot be very distant from those of Africa. The water flows from pole to pole between the coasts of both. 3 What some of the European savants of the middle 1 1214-1294. — Von Humboldt, 3 Cosmographias, cap. 19 ; cf. Examen, t. i. p. 58 ; Payne, p. 50. von Humboldt, Examen, t. i. p. 2 1360-1425. 77. 158 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ages had described in their scholastic prose, others had represented on inaccurate maps. Yet from both it is evident that Europe at the time was aware of the ex- istence of certain lands situated far away in the At- lantic Ocean. Not to speak of many other instances recorded by Jomard, 1 suffice it to notice the map of Picigano of the year 1367, where we find the dubious Antilia located about the centre of the Atlantic waves. 2 Another map of 1384 places the Madeiras in their rightful location, in spite of such as pretend that they were not discovered before 1419, although they had most probably been visited by many earlier mariners. 3 In the library of St. Mark in Venice are two pen- drawn maps, one of Vincenzo Formaleoni and another dated 1455 (?), which record the imaginary island Antilia about the central meridian of the Atlantic Ocean. 4 Andrea Bianco, a geographer of the same epoch, and Martin Behaim drew, within the outlines of the same supposititious island, all that was left of Plato's ancient tradition and all that had penetrated into literary Europe from the Northmen's discoveries. The fictitious islands, such as Man Satanaxio, with which the expanse of the Atlantic had been studded during the middle ages, are witnesses to the same or to still more progressive opinions. It seems, indeed, that, as the epoch of Columbus's discovery drew nearer, the conceptions regarding the western hemisphere became bolder and more accurate ; but it remains doubtful whether this development of scientific conjectures was caused by the adventurous voyages of Portuguese seamen or derived from the 1 Les Monuments de la G6ogra- 3 Cf. Ibid., p. 234. phie. 4 M. A. M. Mizzi, Cristoforo Co- 2 Cf. W. D. Cooley, The History, lombo, p. 14 and n. 3. p. 236. ANCIENT EUEOPEAN GLIMPSES OF AMERICA. 159 scanty intercourse of southern Europe with the Ice- landic owners of historical manuscripts relating the deeds of their ancestors on American soil. The fact is, that the following lines of a Florentine poet of the fifteenth century hardly fall short of the learned plead- ings of Columbus himself before the Commission of Salamanca. Pulci, 1 says E. H. Clarke, 2 has, in poetic form given the world of that century an insight into the coming discovery, a prophecy which, no doubt, fell under the vigilant eye of the man that fulfilled it. The poet puts the words in the mouth of the devil, to refute the general belief that the world ended at the Pillars of Hercules : " Know that this theory is false ; his bark The daring mariner shall urge far o'er The western wave, a smooth and level plain, Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel. Man was in ancient days of grosser mould, And Hercules might blush to know how far Beyond the limits he had vainly set The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way. Men shall descry another hemisphere, Since to one common centre all things tend. So earth, by curious mystery divine "Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres. At our antipodes are cities, states, And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore. But see, the sun speeds on his western path, To glad the nations with expected light." s Here in these remarkable and spirited words of the poet-prophet we find settled and elucidated, with ease and grandeur of conception, the important questions which afterwards perplexed and disconcerted the grave 1 1431-1487. 3 II Morgante Maggiore, Pres- 2 Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. cott's translation. See Document xvii. p. 306. VII., b. 160 HISTOKY OF AMERICA BEFOKE COLUMBUS. judges of Salamanca. The sphericity of the earth, the centre of gravity, the antipodes, the hemispheres, con- tinents studded with cities, states, and empires are all described, and the little caravel, on board which Co- lumbus sailed and saw or explored them all, was " the dullest sea-boat" which made the prophesied voyage. It is probable that these lines did not escape the searching eye of Christopher Columbus. We know that the great discoverer was encouraged in his daring enterprise by the letters of another Florentine, — namely, of the learned cosmographer Paolo Toscanelli, with whom he corresponded in the year 1474. It is, however, Columbus himself, if we except the peasants of Iceland, who, in all the Old World of his time, was the best^informed man in all that pertains to our western hemisphere, as evidently appears from his eloquent pleadings before the courts of Europe and the Commission of Salamanca. He had passionately studied all sacred and ancient lore regarding the western world, he had carefully collected all the in- formation from later Portuguese and other mariners, he had perhaps heard the positive and well-authenti- cated statements of Icelanders in regard to the North- man discoveries of America. We do not believe that Columbus's great achievement was the effect of divine inspiration, although God's providence may have as- sisted him more than his clerical friends ; but we rather think that he acted upon the data of his memory, which had become a store-room of all ancient and contempo- rary knowledge of our hemisphere. The immortal discoverer thus closes a long yet in- complete series of learned Europeans who kept alive, though faint it grew, the flame of knowledge of the western world. If it be true that science is pro- gressing, our successors may one day enjoy the great ANCIENT EUROPEAN GLIMPSES OF AMERICA. 161 satisfaction of learning what was known of America in such lands as China, Tartary, and Siberia, what was recorded of our ancient history upon the richly carved slabs of Palenque, Chichen-Itza, and of other ruined cities of Central America. But, compelled as we are to leave it to later students to reveal what was further known of our continent among foreign nations, we may cause pleasure to our readers by gathering from his- torical records the knowledge which our aborigines, also, had acquired of transmarine countries. I.— 11 CHAPTEK VII. DISCOVERIES OF EUROPE BY AMERICAN NATIVES. It is a matter of course that the various ancient immigrants into America were acquainted with their native countries, as we are with England, Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, etc. ; and, no doubt, the American progeny of those first settlers, centuries after them yet long before the Northman and the Columbian discoveries, knew of the Old World, which, in com- parison with their own continental home, they called " an island ;" * and they, occasionally, sailed over to it. We have already spoken of the American Kitchen Middings establishing settlements along the western coast of northern Europe, 2 and of the Mound-builders erecting their tumuli and other characteristic monu- ments in Ireland and Denmark. 3 Farnum 4 admits the close resemblance which exists between numerous earthworks, sepulchral tumuli, implements of flint, and pottery found in the United States and in the North of America, and similar structures and fragments discov- ered in the countries bordering on the German Ocean and the Baltic Sea. Nadaillac 5 is another of the many learned Americanists from whose evidence we might infer that from our continent settlers went over to northwestern Europe, although, possibly, the contrary might be the fact in above-mentioned cases. It is not necessary to repeat the statements of Plato, 6 1 Supra, p. 122. i P. 13. 2 Supra, p. 55, seq. 5 Prehistoric America, p. 470. 8 Supra, p. 80, seq. 6 Supra, pp. 135, 143. 162 DISCOVERIES OF EUROPE BY AMERICAN NATIVES. 163 from which, it would appear that about twelve thou- sand Egyptian years before Christ the inhabitants of our continent, through the medium of their relations with the Atlantic empire, entertained for a long time a regular intercourse with the most important portions of Africa and Europe ; nay, that they were the rulers of the Old World, until the courage and military skill of the Greeks and destructive elements of nature com- bined drove them back to the West and into relative oblivion. Let it be added, that if the severe critic, von Humboldt, 1 does not expressly admit Plato's political relations of the two continents, he yet acknowledges the fact of an irruption into Europe from the West, and of a gigantic war between the peoples of both the east and the west side of the Strait of Gibraltar. DArbois de Joubainville 2 is authority for the state- ment of another American invasion of Europe. " One day," he says, " the aborigines of America concluded to cross the Atlantic, and landed, ten millions in number, on the shores of the Hyperboreans, whom they over- powered at once, and surveyed all their country. They asked information from them in regard to the Eastern World, and were told that the Hyperboreans were the happiest of all nations of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Hearing this, the Americans went back without making any further explorations or conquests." 3 The first record of this remarkable event is from Theopompus of Chios, and was saved by iElianus Claudius. Silenus related to King Midas many wonders of the great continent and of the two cities, — Machimus, the warlike, and Euseues, the city of peace, — and how the inhabitants of the former once made an attack upon Europe, and came first upon the Hyperboreans ; but 1 Examen, t. i. pp. 107, 108. s Of. von Humboldt, Examen, t. 2 Ch. ii. p. 17. i. pp. 198, 206. 164 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. learning that they were esteemed the most holy of the dwellers in that island, they " had them in contempte, detesting and abhorring them as naughty people, of preposterous properties and damnable behaviour ; and for that cause interrupted their progresse, supposing it an enterprise of little worthinesse or rather none at all, to travaile into such a country." x There is what is called the Egyptian theory, pre- tending that America was settled from Egypt; but John T. C. Heaviside, in his " American Antiquities, or the New World the Old, and the Old World the New," maintains the reverse theory, — namely, of the Egyptians being migrated Americans. 2 Be this as it may, it is, according to linguistic evi- dence, highly probable that Americans not only sailed to Europe, but established there a settlement which endures to this very day ; we mean the small, peculiar nation of the Basques in the northwestern portion of Spain. Ethnologists are puzzled at the existence of this tribe on the boundaries of two powerful kingdoms, to which they seem to be unwilling to sacrifice their cus- toms or their language especially. Linguists almost universally declare that the Basques are Americans, perhaps survivors of Plato's Atlantis, but no Euro- peans. D Arbois 3 refers to the authority of Mr. Whit- ney, one of the most noted linguists of this century, to assert that no European dialect resembles the Basque language in grammatical structure so closely as the aboriginal American languages. Short 4 remarks that "it is worthy of note that several eminent scholars have observed the remarkable similarity of grammati- cal structure between the Central American and certain transatlantic languages, especially the Basque and some 1 Ap. Winsor, vol. i. p. 22. s Ch. ii. p. 22. 2 Winsor, vol. i. p. 41. 4 P. 476. DISCOVERIES OF EUROPE BY AMERICAN NATIVES. 165 of the languages of western Africa." 1 Bastian 2 like- wise states, under the authority of the learned Vater, that no language, so much as that of the Basques and of the Congolese, resembles the language of the Amer- ican aborigines. 3 Peschel relates the opinion of Paul Broca, saying that the Euscara, the language of the Basques, stands quite alone or has mere analogies with the American type. 4 The New American Cyclopaedia is more frankly in accord with the learned generally when it states that the Euscara has some common traits with the Magyar, Osmanli, and other dialects of the Ural-Altaic family, as, for instance, with the Finnic in the Old World, as well as with the Algonquin Linapi language and some others in America. For this reason the Basques are classed by some writers with the remains of the Finnic stem of Europe in the Ubic family of nations, and by others in that of the Allophyle race. 5 We will see hereafter that the north Asiatic and European Finns were among the first peoples to pass to our western hemisphere in a westerly direction, about the same time that kindred tribes entered the American continent across Behring Strait. It is more than likely 1 Cf. Maury, in Nott and Glid- tracted from hill, dead, and egun, don's Indigenous Races of the day. . . . The fact is indisputable Earth, pp. 81-84 ; Prescott, Con- and is eminently noteworthy, that quest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 379 there has never been any doubt and n. 49. that this isolated language resem- 2 Bd. ii. S. 437. bles in its grammatical structure 3 Dr. Farrar, quoted by John T. the aboriginal languages of the Short (p. 476, n. 2), says, "One vast opposite continent, and those thing is certain in regard to the alone." Cf. Alfred Maury, in Nott Basque language, — namely, that it and Gliddon's Indigenous Races of is polysynthetic, like the languages the Earth, p. 48. of America. Like them, and them * Races of Men, ap. "Winchell, p. only, it habitually forms its com- 149. pounds by the elimination of cer- 5 Art. Basques, ap. Winchell, p. tain radicals in the simple words ; 149. so that, e.g., ilhun, twilight, is con- 166 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. also that the Allophyle race was represented in Amer- ica by the Aihos of Yesso, who found their path along the Kurile and the Aleutian Islands. We should, therefore, find no objection to the conclusion of learned linguists considering the Basques as either Finns or Amos ; provided, however, that it be granted, on the other hand, that they are descendants of these primeval nations through the medium of the American Linapis, or the Atlantides of Plato, because ethnology teaches us that the Allophylians were driven eastward, 1 while there is no vestige whatever of the Finnic family having ever migrated from its northern home in the Old World to the southwestern portions of Europe. Nor can it easily be admitted that the Finns and cog- nate tribes should have migrated from their original country in northwestern Asia, all the way through Persia, Egypt, northern Africa, Spain, France, Prussia, and Russia, to finally settle again on the borders of the Arctic Ocean, and should, on their long journey, have left behind in sunny Spain a few stragglers to become the founders of the curious Basque nation. We leave it to the learned Belgian missionaries to further inquire into the linguistic and blood relations between the aborigines of Congo and those of America, which are indicated by the foregoing quotations ; but it is proper to observe that, while in the horizontal section of the hair the elongated ellipse characterizes the Negro, the oval form belongs to the Aryan, and the circle de- notes the American, the section of a Basque's hair refers him to the American family. 2 We have no record to prove that any national inter- course took place between America and Europe since the American settlement of Biscay or the glorious vic- 1 Cf. Winchell, p. 143. 2 De Quatrefages, p. 364. DISCOVERIES OF EUROPE BY AMERICAN NATIVES. 167 tories of prehistoric Athens, but there is ground for the supposition that the Americans never lost sight of the route to the Old World, and that for a long time they kept up some business relations with it. Certain it is that even within historic times their daring vessels landed on various occasions at European points, and we cannot help declaring that we feel repugnant to admit, as sole factor of ancient transatlantic voyages, the storms and winds which, till this day, are well known to engulf many a frail ship, but carry no longer an Esquimau fishing-craft in all safety across the Atlantic Ocean. One of these well-authenticated voyages was recorded by Cornelius Nepos 1 in his historical fragments, as stated by two subsequent authors. Pliny 2 says, " The northern circumnavigation is spoken of by Nepos, who narrates how the king of the Swabians made a present to Quintus Metellus Celer, once a colleague of the consul L. Afrianus and proconsul of Gaul at the time, of some Indians who had left their country on a trading voyage and had been swept by tempests into Germany." Another author of the first century after Christ, Pomponius Mela, quotes the same passage in a slightly different manner : " Besides Homer and the natural philosophers," he says, " who assert that the sea surrounds the whole world, there is also Cornelius Nepos, whose authority is all the greater for being so recent. This writer calls up as witness Q. Metellus, who told that, when he was proconsul of Gaul, the king of the Bavarians gave him certain Indians, and that by inquiring he had learned that they had ar- rived from the seas of India, and, after having sailed all the way, had finally set foot on German soil. 3 1 94-24 b.c. 3 See Document VIII., a, b. 2 23-97 a.d. 168 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Quintus Metellus, who had no idea of the eastern coast of America, was misled by the Asiatic features of his Indians, as was afterwards Columbus, and mistook them for natives of the southeastern parts of Asia. It was believed, as appears from Pliny and Mela, that they had circumnavigated Siberia, then entered the Caspian Sea, which was considered as a gulf of the Arctic Ocean, and finally wandered, wonderfully enough, into Ger- many. Gomara 1 was the first to trace home the Amer- ican merchants held in captivity by the Roman pro- consul. They were of Labrador, he says, and the Romans mistook them for Indians because of their color. The learned have generally admitted both the report of Cornelius Nepos and the interpretation of the Spanish historian, as, among others, von Humboldt, 2 Horn, 3 Maltebrun, 4 and Hettinger, 5 who quotes A. Wagner, 6 in asserting that the Esquimaux' canoes have landed in Norway and on the shores of the Baltic Sea. In fact, records have been kept of some of these curious arrivals into Europe in later years ; but, con- sidering their relatively great number, we might suspect of negligence the annalists of the first Christian centu- ries, when we find no report any more of Americans crossing the Atlantic Ocean until we reach the twelfth century of our era. Otto, bishop of Freisingen, who died in the year 1158, relates that under Frederic Barbarossa, his con- temporary, a vessel from India carrying Indian mer- chants landed peradventure in Lubeck, a port of Ger- many. 7 1 Historia de las Indias ; Cara- 5 Bd. ii. S. 280. goca, 1553, fo. vii. 6 GescMchte der Urwelt, Bd. ii. 2 Examen, t. ii. p. 262. S. 235. * Lib. i. cap. ii. p. 12. 7 Cf. Solorzano Pereira, lib. i. 4 T. v. p. 259. cap. v. If 12, p. 51. DISCOVERIES OF EUROPE BY AMERICAN NATIVES. 169 Galvano 1 says, "In the yeere 1153 it is written that there came to Lubec one canoa with certaine Indians, like unto a long barge, which seemed to have come from the coast of Baccalaos" or Newfoundland, " which standeth in the same latitude that Germanie doth." iEneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., copies the same report of Otto of Freisingen in his " Description of Asia and Europe," 2 from which it was probably taken by subsequent historians and geographers, such as Gomara, von Humboldt, 3 and Gaffarel, 4 who places the event in the year 1160. In this latter particular the French historian agrees with Sir Humphrey Gil- bert, from which we might suppose the former voyage to have been a financial success, and the American merchants to have soon landed in Lubeck again. Nor can we object the frailty of the Esquimau boats against the possibility of their extensive sea- voyages ; for we have records commanding the highest respect, and stating that in the year 1189 fourteen men sailed betwixt the icebergs from Greenland to Iceland in a kayak that was nailed together with wooden pegs and sewed up with animal sinews. 5 The captain of this craft was called Asmundus Kastandratzius, 6 who sailed from the Greenland Cross Islands and safely landed in the Icelandic haven of Breidafjord. Before that feat he had visited the Finns in the northern parts of Russia, and in the year 1190 he left Iceland again, but his kayak was not heard of since. 7 1 Cf. Winsor, vol. i. p. 74, n. 3. at the time were provided with 2 Cap. 2, p. 8. seaworthy ships, an exact copy 3 Examen, t. ii. p. 269. of which crossed the Atlantic to 4 Histoire, p. 169. be exhibited at the late Chicago 5 K. Maurer, S. 15, ref. to Islenz- World's Fair. kir Annalar. ' Langebek, t. iii. p. 69 : Annales 6 An Esquimau, undoubtedly, for Islandorum Eegii. the Northman settlers of Greenland 170 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Others of his countrymen lost their vessels on dry land, for, as James Wallace relates in his " Account of the Orkney Islands," an Esquimau canoe was pre- served in the church of the island Burra, one of the Orkneys, where the aborigines of Greenland were known under the name of Finn-men. 1 In like manner, Von Humboldt, in his " Views of Nature," refers to well-authenticated cases of American natives, supposed to have been from Labrador or Greenland, who had been carried by currents from the Western to the Eastern Continent. There is till this day a canoe in the museum of Marischal College, Aberdeen, which was picked up by a ship on the Aberdeen coast, with an Esquimau in it still alive and surrounded by his fishing-gear. 2 Bastian 3 borrows from Pallas the information that the Esquimaux were driven or sailed to the Orkney island Eda as late as the year 1680 ; but Gaffarel, 4 who follows the account of Wallace, places this visit — another, perhaps — two years later. Still, both agree to record at the date of 1684 one more voyage of the people of northeastern America to Westrey, another island of the Orkney group. The latter adds that one of their kayaks was placed on exhibition in the city of Edinburgh. 6 Several authors are of the opinion that commercial interests were the object of these American voyagers, and we feel inclined to think that they were simply occasional instances of an uninterrupted business in- tercourse between northeastern America and the north- ern islands and peninsulas of western Europe. This intercourse, as we shall notice farther on, had com- 1 Von Humboldt, Examen, t. ii. 3 Bd. ii. S. 438. pp. 260, 272. 4 Histoire, p. 170. 2 Southall, p. 573. 5 Of. also Maltebrun, t. v. p. 259. DISCO VEEIES OF EUROPE BY AMERICAN NATIVES. 171 menced before the eighth century after Christ, and, not unlikely, long before our era, as Plutarch 1 would allow us to suppose, and the relative narrowness of the north Atlantic channel, together with the prox- imity of its archipelagos and capes, would prompt us to admit. It is not, however, to their neighboring European islands only that ancient Americans directed their prows. They have been noticed also in more southern latitudes. Cardinal Peter Bembo 2 relates in the year 1508 as a curiosity that, whilst the Europeans were discovering various parts of the Western Continent, the Americans were exploring the shores of the Eastern. " Whilst a French vessel was sailing near the coasts of Brittany," he says, " it took up a skiff built of saplings split in two and covered with solid bark of trees, and containing seven men of small size and of a dusk color. The faces of these men were broad and marked with violet streaks. They were dressed in fish-skins covered with stains, and wore on their heads a crown of painted reeds interwoven with seven ornaments like earlaps. They ate raw flesh and drank blood as we do wine. No one could understand their speech. Six of them died, and the seventh, a young man, was taken to Rouen, where the king resided." The continuator of Palmerius recounts the same event in somewhat varying terms. " In the year 1509," he says, " there was carried to Bouen, a city of France, a portable boat, like those that we can see in the New World ; and in it were seven Indians of that country, who were of a dark-reddish color, like men of the woods, with thick lips and scars on their faces extending from the ear to the middle of the chin, and resembling 1 Supra, p. 123. 2 See Document IX., a, b. 172 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. livid veins crossing their cheeks. They were naked, covered only with a belt provided with a contrivance to cover their shame. They had no beard at all, no down, nor a single hair with the exception of those of the head and eye-lids." It is hardly worth while to remark that the livid scars or violet streaks on the faces of the foreign visitors were nothing else but the fanciful colored stripes with which our aborigines still enhance their natural beauty. 1 It seems, indeed, that the Americans were best ac- quainted with the northern parts of Europe, but they did not stop their explorations at the latitude of Brit- tany. Farther south, at the very heart of the Atlantic Ocean, they were seen in their " barcas cubiertas" or covered boats, — namely, in the Azores, where the Flem- ish discoverers and settlers admired, during the fif- teenth century, that mysterious race of men who seemed to rise from the ocean like fish in their bivalvular shell. 2 We might, on reliable authority, 3 extend further the list of the several discoveries of Europe by ancient Americans, if their numerous landings on European soil could be titled with this misnomer ; but we venture to say that the above related facts are proof sufficient of a thesis which would state that both the Northmen and Columbus, in making their glorious discoveries of the American continent, did no more than courageously follow the track laid out for them long before by those people whose fallen progeny has earned, through its crimes and degradation, to be ruled and civilized again by the Christian nations of Europe. Written history is 1 Cf. Hornius, lib. i. cap. ii. p. 14 ; 2 Cf. von Humboldt, Examen, t. von Humboldt, Examen, t. ii. p. ii. p. 259. 261 ; Gaffarel, Histoire, p. 169 ; Bas- 3 Gravier, p. 199 ; alii, tian, Bd. ii. S. 433. DISCOVERIES OF EUROPE BY AMERICAN NATIVES. 173 often the most criminal of tribunals, and we need the judgment of Christ to correct the mistakes of the high- est courts on earth. That is known long since, but in the meanwhile we venture to say that the aboriginal inhabitants of our hemisphere have not till this day received their meed for ancient bravery, nautical skill, and wonderful attainments in geography and in every branch of material advancement and of civilization generally. Ancient, prehistoric America was, indeed, a civilized world. CHAPTEE VIII. CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. We are almost afraid to state that the most ancient nations of America had attained a high degree of civ- ilization ; for, indeed, this assertion contradicts twice the pet theory of quite a class of scientists, — the novel modern law of perpetual human progress, according to which our contemporary Red Skins should all be artists and philosophers, while their oldest predecessors on this continent should have burrowed in the earth, stupid as brutes, if they were not brutes altogether. We feel reassured, however, in considering that the specious theory is not endorsed, either by venerable authors of old or by learned men of modern times ; and we shall prove that it is not in accord with stubborn facts. Many ancient peoples of the Orient, if not all of them, says Zahm, 1 were firm believers in the golden age, an age of justice and happiness which distin- guished the first era of the world's history from all subsequent periods, and placed the beginnings of hu- manity on a much higher level than our race has since been able to attain. " Then," says Hesiod, in his " Works and Days," " without chagrin or disquiet, ex- empt from labor and sorrow, men lived like gods. In- firmity, the companion of old age, was unknown. People enjoyed, even in advanced years, the pleasures of youth, and death to them was but a sweet sleep. A fruitful earth spontaneously furnished the most de- 1 Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. xviii. p. 562. 174 CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 175 licious fruits, and the abundance thereof removed all occasion of envy. The peaceful and voluntary occu- pation which they found in providing for their daily needs removed the tedium of leisure and the weariness entailed by idleness." x We have no positive proof to say that primordial Americans enjoyed paradisian bliss, although the state- ment of the great poet has its counterpart in the tra- dition of several Indian tribes, one of which was written down by a Chippewa native poet, and is here annexed. 2 Sir William Dawson, in his " Fossil Man," and Southall, in his "Recent Origin of Man," de- clare it an unfounded assumption that primitive man was a savage. 3 What we have said before may con- vince any unprejudiced reader that our prehistoric nations — the Mound-builders, 4 the Mayas, 5 and the Pueblos 6 — were no savages, and the description of Atlantis, which we have read 7 from Plato's " Critias," strikingly confirms the conclusive tale told us in regard 1 " The arguments that the evo- arts as was displayed at subsequent lution school of archaeology has epochs. In the light of Schlie- based on the development of civil- mann's discoveries, not to speak ization, as attested by the alleged of others pointing in the same di- gradual transition from the use of rection, made in Egypt and among stone to that of bronze, and from the ruins of Assyria and Babylonia, bronze to iron, are decidedly nega- and bearing on the condition of tived in Greece and Asia Minor, primitive man - in the Orient, the In the finds at Troy especially conclusion seems to be inevitable there is the most striking evidence that Hesiod was right and that of devolution or degeneration of the modern evolution school is the inhabitants who successively wrong, that the history of our race occupied this historic spot. Here is not one of development but one as well as at Mycenae, the orna- of degeneration." (Zahm, Bible, ments and implements discovered p. 272.) even in the lowest strata, far from 2 See Document X. indicating a state of savagery and 3 Cf. Justin Winsor, vol. i. p. 380. utter degradation, betoken one of * Supra, pp. 61-75. high civilization, and of as thor- 5 Supra, pp. 85-89. ough an acquaintance with the 6 Supra, pp. 102, 104. working of metals and the fictile 7 Supra, pp. 137-141. 176 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. to the advanced civilization of the primitive inhabi- tants of the Western World by the relics of the grand and artistic monuments of America's primitive races. But little more should be required to prove the thesis which we set forth as a conclusion of the foregoing chapter. Proceeding from north to south, we find from distance to distance unmistakable traces of mighty, skilful, and learned nations that had either wholly dis- appeared from the face of the earth, or had become degenerated and degraded to such an extent as to be irrecognizable at the time of not only the Spanish, but even of the Northman discoveries. Vestiges of artistic progress are left in America's northernmost regions, but its date could not be assigned, says von Humboldt. 1 W. Gleeson relates 2 that shortly before leaving Lower California the Jesuits discovered in the mountains several extensive caves hewn out of the solid rock, like those of Elephanta in southern Hindoostan. In these, painted on the rock, were rep- resentations of men and women decently clad, as well as of different species of animals. One of the caves is described by a missionary as fifty feet long, fifteen high, and formed in the manner of an arch. The entrance being entirely open, there was sufficient light to observe the painted figures. The males were represented with their arms extended and somewhat elevated, while one of the females appeared with her hair flowing loosely over her shoulders and a crown of feathers on her head. Those pictures did not reproduce the modern tribes, whose males entirely dispensed with clothes, had not the least idea of artistic painting, nor were in pos- session of tools to dig comfortable habitations in the heart of the rock ; but they gave convincing evidence 1 Examen, t. ii. p. 135. 2 Vol. i. p. 100. CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 177 of a more ancient population, more enlightened and more advanced in material civilization, as it was also of greater physical stature. The latter is confirmed as well by the assertions of the inhabitants, who unani- mously affirmed to the first Christian missionaries the prior existence of a powerful, gigantic race, as by the fossil remains there discovered, for instance, by the human skeleton measuring eleven feet, found by Father Joseph Rotea at the mission of Kadakamong. This Indian tradition in regard to a previous gigantic race is wide-spread among the native races of the Pacific coast. The historian of these numerous tribes does not unreasonably explain it in the following manner : 1 "It results," he says, " from the existence of grand ruins in many parts of the country, far beyond the constructive powers of the savage native, and therefore, in his eyes, the work of giants, — as they were intellectually, when compared with their degenerate descendants," whom the conquistadores met in New Spain. The Mayas were intellectual giants, indeed. The ruins of their vast public works, of their costly edifices, of their sculptures and paintings, and of their finely carved symbolic writings attest the height of a civiliza- tion of which we might well be proud to-day. And yet all these evidences of a glorious past lay buried for long centuries before Columbus's discovery in the virgin forests of Yucatan. Palenque, Uxmal, Copan, and several other ruined cities of Central America are as grand and beautiful monuments on the cemeteries of the New World as are Troy, Babylon, and Thebes on those of the Old; and their antiquity does not seem to be less venerable. They certainly pertain to America's remotest period. 2 They were ruins, more 1 H. H. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 139. 2 Short, p. 519 ; Congres Scient., viii. sec. p. 111. I— 12 178 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. than they are now, in the sixteenth century ; the natives of the neighboring region knew nothing of their origin, and no notice whatever of the existence of such cities ap- pears in the annals of the surrounding civilized nations during the eight or nine centuries preceding the Span- ish conquest. Bancroft 1 is even of the opinion that the Maya grandeur was already at its height several centuries before Christ. We might here recall to mind a pertinent remark of the learned von Humboldt, 2 say- ing, "I do not pretend that no intellectual culture or social order has reigned in New Spain before the time of the Aztecs, for we know that the Toltecs, successors to the Mayas, possessed a hieroglyphic writing and knew astronomy well enough to have a more correct idea of the year's duration than most European na- tions, although they had sunk into degradation already before the eleventh century of our era." The same author 3 makes a similar observation in re- gard to the South American aborigines. " We know," he says, " that the Peruvian tribes were fallen to the lowest level of brutality before the mysterious arrival of the Incas." Horn's sickening description of their horrid savagery leaves no doubt of the geographer's assertion ; i yet there are vestiges, he adds, of civili- zation in Peru anterior to the Celestials' monuments of Cuzco. On the shores of Lake Titicaca in Peru still endure imposing remains of cyclopean architec- ture, which the Peruvians themselves acknowledge to be of older date than the advent of the Incas, and to have furnished these with the models of their later buildings. 6 1 Vol. v. pp. 167, 539. 5 Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 2 Examen, t. ii. p. 133. 105, ap. Prescott, History of the 3 Ibid. Conquest of Peru, vol. i. pp. 11, 4 Hornius, lib. iv. cap. x. p. 248. 12. CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMEKICA. 179 The imperishable remains of the oldest architecture in Peru ought to be of themselves sufficient evidence of a civilization that was never equalled in historic times. The most interesting are those of the palace or temple near the village of Tiahuanaco, on the southern side of Lake Titicaca. They consist of a quadrangular space, entered by the famous monolithic door-way and sur- rounded with large stones standing on end, and of a hill or mound encircled with ruins of a wall consisting of enormous blocks of stone. The whole covers an area about twelve hundred feet long and one thousand and fifty feet wide. There is a lesser temple, about a quarter of a mile distant, containing stones thirty-six feet long by seven broad, and others of sixteen by twenty-six feet, having recesses chiselled in them which have been compared to seats of judgment. The weight of two of those stones has been calculated at from one hundred and forty to two hundred tons each. 1 Cronau 2 gives us similar information. In the ruins of Tiahuanaco, he says, are to be found stones twenty- five feet long and six feet thick, and in one of its smaller temples lies a stone of nearly eight feet wide that is thirty-seven feet in length. Their average weight is estimated at two hundred tons. The won- der waxes greater when we reflect that, as no quar- ries could be found in or near Tiahuanaco, these huge masses were hauled a distance of from eighteen to forty-eight miles over a country like that where the ruins remain. The monolithic portal of the palace of Tiahuanaco is one block of hard trachytic rock, now deeply sunk into the ground. Its height above the ground is seven feet two inches, its width thirteen feet five inches, its thick- 1 Winsor, vol. i. p. 215. 2 S. 81, seq. 180 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ness one foot and a half, and the opening is four feet and a half by two feet nine inches ! The outer side is ornamented with accurately cut niches and rectangular mouldings. The whole of the inner side, from a line level with the upper lintel of the door-way to the top, is a mass of sculpture, which speaks to us, in difficult riddles, alas ! of the customs and art-culture, of the beliefs and traditions of a by-gone race, and of a won- derful ancient and lost civilization. The masonry of the ruins is admirably worked, ac- cording to the testimony of all visitors. Squier says, "The stone itself is dark and exceedingly hard trachyte, it is faced with a precision that no skill can excel, its lines are perfectly drawn and its right-angles turned with an accuracy that the most careful geometer could not surpass. I do not believe," he adds, " there exists a better piece of stone-cutting, the material con- sidered, on this or on the other continent." From all this Winsor draws a conclusion which a moment's reflection will perfectly justify : " There is reason," he says, "to believe that a powerful empire had existed in Peru centuries before the rise of the Inca dynasty." Sacsahuaman, the fortress overlooking the city of Cuzco, is, beyond comparison, the grandest monument of an ancient civilization in the New World. Like the pyramids and the coliseum, it is imperishable. At Ollantay-tampu or Tambo the ruins are of various styles, but the later works are raised on ancient Cyclopean foundations. There are six porphyry slabs of six or seven feet by twelve feet high, stone beams fifteen and twenty feet long, stairs and recesses hewn out of the solid rock ! It is clear from the evidence of the most careful investigators, such as Cieza de Leon, that there was no CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 181 real knowledge of the origin of these wonders at the time of the Incas. 1 We should here be allowed to make a suggestion, — namely, that the breaches made by the elements and time in the monuments of Titicaca and Sacsahuaman be filled up with modern brick walls, and further fitted out with all modern improvements, for the comfortable accommodation of all such scientists, and anthropolo- gists especially, who suffer with the mania of necessary human progress and of progress generally, and who refuse to see that at the very beginning of humanity, inasmuch as history and archaeology are able to testify, man was civilized to such a degree as to put to shame, even the least important, the material manifestations of human intelligence being taken into consideration, the proud, self-complacent elect, we shall not say of modern science, but of modern literature. The comparison be- tween the grand, lasting, inimitable achievements of a nation anterior to the Incas and the frail works of modern progress would be a revelation to them, and allow them henceforth to scan their own species with sane, naked eyes. Future explorers are likely to discover in Chili and Patagonia ruins as interesting as those of Peru ; but, walking on paths opened already, we shall cross the Andes to find further traces of primeval American civilization in the ancient graveyards of the Ancon, in the trenches of the Amazon, and on the islands of Marrajo. Suffice it to state that here, as well as all along the Pacific coast, there are evident traces of a race anterior to the modern Indians, and most inter- esting for its advanced degree of civilization. 2 All these are some of the physical evidences of the material progress of the first inhabitants of our western 1 Winsor, vol. i. pp. 215-221. 2 Boletfn, t. xxi. p. 222. 182 HISTORY OF AMEEICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. hemisphere ; and this material civilization, if we may- use that expression, is a significant token of their mental condition ; for it is well known that the mind has ever directed the hand. Baldwin truthfully asserts, 1 in general, that " the most ancient people of antiquity at the earliest periods in which we can see and study them, show us that civilization was older than their time. It is apparent in their architecture, in the varied possessions and manifestations of their civilized life, in their riches and magnificence, and in the splendor of their temples and royal palaces, that they had many of the arts and sciences which we deem modern." No reader can expect direct and absolute proof that America's primeval aborigines were in possession of civilization, justly so called ; that all their faculties of body, mind, and heart were bearing fruitful blossom ; but we have all reasons to admit that their society was built upon the deepest foundations of true civilization, upon the belief in one true God, and upon the practice of offering sacrifices to Him. Plato's " Critias" is ex- plicit on this latter particular, 2 and modern science has clearly established that monotheism, the only rational religion, becomes the more apparent as we extend farther our researches into the history of the nations, not only of Asia, but of America as well. 3 It is a question as interesting as difficult to determine what was the source of America's primordial civilization. Were the vaunted theory of progress as true as it is false, were it a law of nature as it is an expression of modern pride, it would be but a facile induction that our most ancient and wonderful monuments were erected by a race that had slowly but surely developed from the most abject barbarism to a state of admirable culture. 1 P. 31. ' CongrSs Soient., viii. sec. p. J Supra, p. 141. 114 ; H. H. Bancroft, vol.uii. p. 187. CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 183 We could not, historically, contradict this plausible assertion, but should it rest on fact we would, by right of the same inductive reasoning, expect to find our Red Skins, not in the huts and wigwams wherein they live, but in palaces built of carved and polished moun- tain-peaks. The savagery of our Indians, as well as the abject condition of millions of Africans, and, in fact, of all nations upon whom never shone the light of Christianity, is a sufficient rebuke of a theory held by thoughtless pedants, by misnomer entitled modern scientists. 1 The rude African tribes described by Agatharchides of old, and lately by James Bruce, have not improved their condition. Thousands of years have passed over them without bringing them any ma- terial or mental progress, any melioration or discovery. Were not the conclusion of a saddening comparison between the evident culture of ancient American abo- rigines and the condition of our modern Indians a sufficient ground for our objection, we might further adduce the statements of other scientists, whose learning and wisdom have sustained their renown for many cen- turies. Hesiod, as intimated before, together with the majority of the earlier Greek and Oriental writers, regarded mankind as having descended from a higher to a lower plane, and stated that people of the later periods of the world's history appeared degraded, when compared with those who lived happy and godlike lives in the golden age of humanity's beginnings. Modern archaeology seconds ancient philosophy. According to the brilliant researches of Dr. Schlie- mann at Hissarlik, the site of ancient Troy, and at Mycenae, there was neither a stone age nor a metal age in Greece and Asia Minor. Stone, bronze, and iron 1 Cf. Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, p. 520. 184 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. are utterly confounded in the strata uncovered by the scientific excavations at Troy, and the deeper the dig- gings the more manifest are the evidences of advanced culture. Rousseau's pure state of nature has been discovered nowhere yet, while, on the contrary, as soon as we step over the limits of Christian realms we meet with de- grading unnatural vices, such as polygamy, drunken- ness, debauchery, idolatry, and with consequent misery of the masses, and depopulation. Every stage and degree of barbarism is, therefore, a falling off from a higher culture more in conformity with the innate dictates of the human reason and heart. " Man was born to go astray, and he went astray," says a modern infidel philosopher ; 1 and Nadaillac, though in very mild terms, applies the principle to our special subject when saying, " The still enduring monuments of pre- historic American aborigines would appear to justify a belief that the Indians once possessed a civilization superior to the condition to which their descendants have been reduced by defeat or indulgence in too much alcohol and other causes." Ancient civilization is at- tested by eloquent ruins, and present degradation stalks under our eyes. Yet the two extremes should not com- mand a universal verdict for all time ; and we are of the opinion that De Costa gives the truthful history of American civilization condensed in a few words when he writes : 2 " From the mounds and other pre- historic monuments found in America we can only infer that, age after age, nations and tribes rose to greatness and then fell into decline, barbarism and rude culture holding alternate sway." The final result, how- ever, of all these oscillations proves rather unfavorable 1 Bailly, p. 38. 2 Pre-columbian Discovery, p. 9. CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 185 in all the territories of the New World where the church found no opportunity yet to exert her beneficial influence upon the natives. The meditations of a late serious thinker have partly become American history and, no doubt, are prophecy as well. " In the same measure," says Kastner, 1 " that the knowledge of the true God becomes darkened in man's heart, super- stitious ideas extend their influence, egotism develops and causes selfishness and revenge to take the place of pity and mercy, brutal instincts replace reason and infect the soul with savage propensities, and their con- sequences are homicidal orgies and all the sequels of abominations and infamies, which at all times were the inseparable company of idolatry and devil-worship. Why did God doom to destruction and anathema the ancient inhabitants of Palestine ? ' Because they did works hateful to Thee, O Lord, by their sorceries and wicked sacrifices. And those merciless murderers of their children and eaters of men's bowels and devourers of bjood, when they swore by Thee ; and those parents sacrificing with their own hands helpless souls : it was Thy will to destroy them by the hands of our parents, that the land which is of all most dear to Thee might receive a worthy colony of the children of God.' " 2 Philanthropic hearts honestly bewail the gradual extinction of our Indian tribes under the fatherly care of our government, but historians rather busy them- selves with the past, and inquire into the actual origin of the high culture that rendered immortal the ances- tors or predecessors of our despised and vanishing aboriginal races. H. H. Bancroft 3 slightingly states that a former vicar general of the Catholic diocese of Boston, the 1 P. 114. 3 Vol. v. p. 125. * Wisdom, xii. 4-8. 186 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Rev. Brasseur de Bourbourg, " attempts to prove that all civilization originated in America or in the Occi- dent instead of in the Orient, as has always been supposed;" and, a few pages farther, he seems to endorse, or even improve upon, the same theory when, misled by prejudice, he pens the following lines : x "It only remains now to speak of the theory which ascribes an autochthonic origin to the Americans. The time is not long past when such a supposition would have been regarded as impious, and even at this day its advocates may expect discouragement, if not rebuke from certain quarters. It is, nevertheless, an opinion worthy of the greatest consideration, and one which, if we may judge by the recent results of scientific investigation, may eventually prove to be scientifically correct." The theories of Bancroft and of Brasseur are inseparably connected, and are absolutely true on the simple con- dition that Adam and Eve were created in America ; for it is from Adam, as the Greek lexicographer Suidas correctly states, that arts and sciences are de- rived. Should not, however, such be the case, 2 or should the first inhabitants of our hemisphere have grovelled in barbarism, as it is admitted no less gratui- tously than generally, then it is evident that prehistoric civilization was imported into America ; because as men gather no grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles, 3 so cannot the causes of savagery, error, and immorality develop into the foundations of civilization. Truth and ethics cannot be obtained but from the mouth of a well- informed teacher. Richard Whateley* afiirms that nations may become degraded, but that no nation unaided by a superior race ever succeeded in raising 1 Vol. v. p. 129. * Origin of Civilization ; cf. Win- 2 Supra, p. 22, seq. sor, vol. i. p. 380. 8 Matt. vii. 16. CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 187 itself out of barbarism. " Such is the very nature of barbarism," says Hornius, " that unless it be reformed by foreigners it will grow worse and worse." x The fact is that Christian Europe is needed to-day to lift up from degradation the Red Skins of America as well as the Negroes of Africa, and that a similar fact took place of old appears from the ancient tradi- tions of our aborigines. " All the American culture- heroes present the same general characteristics," says Bancroft. 2 " They are all described as white, bearded men, generally clad in long robes, appearing suddenly and mysteriously upon the scene of their labors. They at once set about improving the people by instructing them in useful and ornamental arts, giving them laws, exhorting them to practise brotherly love and other Christian virtues, and introducing a better and milder form of religion. In such guise or on such mission did Quetzalcoatl appear in Cholula, Votan in Chiapas, Wixepecocha in Oajaca, Zamna and Cukulcan with his nineteen disciples in Yucatan, Gucumatz in Guate- mala, Viracocha in Peru, Sume and Paye-Tome in Brazil, the mysterious apostle mentioned by Rosales in Chili, and Bochica in Columbia." Since prehistoric American civilization was most probably of foreign origin, the question naturally arises, From what parts of the Old World was it imported, to what nations of the Eastern Continent belonged the first American culture-heroes or, what is more likely, the first civilized races that settled on our western hemisphere ? This question introduces us to the difficult and in- tricate researches regarding the various settlements of foreign peoples on American soil in prehistoric times, 1 Lib. iv. cap. i. p. 250. 2 Vol. v. p. 23. 188 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. before the advent of the heavenly civilizer and Redeemer of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ. Were we allowed to base our conclusions on the civil and religious con- dition of our Indians at the time of, and after, the Spanish discovery, we would confidently make the assertion that some of the civilized nations of Asia and Christian people of Europe had taken possession of the central and occidental portions of our continent, driving a former brutalized race towards both north- eastern and southeastern parts. But the very question is to find the source of a more ancient culture, of the still attested glory of the American nations that had fallen so low many centuries already before historic times. The learned have expressed all kinds of opinions on this subject, but we find only two facts that may safely guide us in this research, — namely, the striking simi- larity which exists between the most ancient ruins of Central America and Peru and those of various islands in Polynesia and of Asiatic India ; and secondly, the enduring universality and clearness of certain pre- Christian traditions. 1 We have no space here to give many particulars and establish the stated similarity ; suffice it to remark that all the principal characteristics of ancient American monuments — their cyclopean ma- terial, their plastering, their painting, their sculptures, their hieroglyphics, and their general plan — correspond to those of the ruins discovered in the woods of India, in Java, and in Polynesia. Thus also, and in particu- lar, "near the mouth of the Euphrates have inscrip- tions been found dating back to 4000 b.c. There were two races, the Akkadi and the Sumiri, who ruled in these parts, building great cities and temples. . . . Some 1 Jousset, in CongrteScient., viii. sec. p. 112 ; Bancroft, vol. v. p. 12, seq. CIVILIZATION OP ANCIENT AMERICA. 189 recent discoveries make it not unlikely that, at a very- early stage of its development, the Akkad civilization formed the basis of the wonderful civilization of Egypt ; and there are traces of its extension eastward into the lands of the Dravida and of the Cambojans in the two Indian peninsulas, and possibly from ancient Camboja, across the ocean, to the lands of the Quiches, the Mayas, and the Quichuas in America. . . . From the first the Akkadi seem to have built upon terraces, both to remove their edifices above the low alluvial plain and to give them an imposing appearance. The great structures of Ur rose in terraces ; its brick walls were decorated with blue enamel, polished agates, alabaster, marble slabs, mosaics, copper nails, and gold plates. There was great splendor of adornment. Rafters of palm wood supported the roofs." 1 And again, it is pretty well agreed that humanity's oldest traditions, recorded in the Bible, have been pre- served better in America than they have been among the ancient nations of the Old World, if we except the Jewish people. 2 "It is impossible," says Viscount Kingsborough, " on reading what Mexican mythology records of the war in Heaven and of the fall of Zon- temoque and the other rebellious spirits, of the crea- tion of light by the word of Tonacatecutli and of the division of the waters, of the sin of Yztlacohuhqui and his blindness and nakedness, of the temptation of Suchiquecal and her disobedience in gathering roses from a tree, 3 and of the consequent misery and disgrace of herself and all her posterity, not to recognize scrip- 1 Hutson, pp. 106, 108. on coarse paper of the aloe, round 2 Of. Ad. Kastner. the root of which tree is entwined 3 Lord Kingsborough assures us a serpent whose head, appearing that the Toltecs had paintings of a above the foliage, displays the fea- garden with a single tree standing tures and countenance of a woman. in the centre, one especially, drawn 190 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. tural analogies. But the Mexican tradition of the deluge is that which bears the most unequivocal marks of having been derived from a Hebrew source." 1 Let the narration be interrupted a moment to remark that the source of those traditions need not necessarily be, and is not likely, a Hebrew source, since they re- late facts which are recorded in the last and not in the first book of Holy Scripture ; 2 but it is rather the dis- torted information which originated with the proximate progeny of Noe, that spread all over the earth after the confusion of their language, and was afterwards confirmed by Christian apostles and immigrants. We refer our readers to Document I., a, b, c; and continue the relation of Kingsborough. " This tradi- tion of the deluge records," he says, " that a few persons escaped in the Ahuehuete or ark of fir, when the earth was swallowed up by the deluge, the chief of whom was named Patecatle or Cipaquetona ; that he invented the art of making wine ; that Xelua, one of his descend- ants, at least one of those who escaped with him in the ark, was present at the building of a high tower, which the succeeding generation constructed with a view of escaping from the deluge, should it occur again ; that Tonacatecutli, incensed at their presump- tion, destroyed the tower with lightning, confounded their language, and dispersed them ; and that Xelua led the colony to the New World." 3 According to the native Mexican historian Ixtlilxo- chitl, the Toltec tradition relates that after the con- fusion of tongues the seven families who spoke the Toltec language set out for the New World, and wan- dered one hundred and four years over large extents of land and water. Finally they arrived at Huehue 1 Mex. Antiq., vol. vi. p. 401. s Mex. Antiq., vol. vi. p. 401. 2 Apocalypse, xii. 7. CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 191 Tlapallan in the year " one flint," five hundred and twenty years after the flood. These and similar traditions are found all over the American continent, among people of all grades of barbarism and civilization, to such an extent that it seems unlikely that they should have originated with the unimportant, dubious Hebrew immigrants, whom but few learned men admit to have reached our hemi- sphere. Nor were they first taught by Christianity, of which they form but secondary tenets, and which had not illumined some of the aboriginal tribes, when they gave evidence of certain knowledge of the deluge and of the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel as recorded in Holy Scripture. Neither could we admit that these teachings of oldest history might have been imported by later immigrants from the countries where, in most ancient times, they were hardly recognizable any more. We are, therefore, inclined to believe that these aboriginal traditions are simply truthful, and were brought into America by the nearest descendants of the patriarch Noe, who had taken their course in an easterly direction, landing in America, either at Behring Strait or, after sailing through Polynesia, on the western coast of Central America and Peru, as is plainly intimated by the ancient monuments of these countries. Our continent appears, consequently, to be indebted to eastern Asia for the glories of its most bril- liant period ; and, in spite of a great amount of literature, we subscribe to the conclusion of P. Jousset : 1 " Primeval American civilization is not autochthonous, nor was it developed by the efforts of its first savage nations ; but, advanced as it was, it was imported from eastern Asia." 2 1 Congres Scient., viii. sec. p. 117. "on ne trouve de vestiges d'une 2 "Nulle part," Jousset says langue a flexion: preuve nouvelle (Congres Scient., viii. sec. p. Ill), que l'Europe et la race Aryenne 192 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. We do not, however, intend to say that the western portion of the Old World had no share at all in America's greatness before the Christian era. Not a few writers defend the opinion that the Egyp- tians, who sailed around Africa and far away into the Indian and the Atlantic Ocean, left in America some architectural and linguistic vestiges of their presence. 1 The Tyrians are mentioned as having landed on our continent, 2 and the Phoenicians generally, who were a nation of mariners and colonists on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, find many advocates of their claim to American discoveries and settlements ; but since the writers of antiquity hardly distinguish between the mother country and its colony of Carthage, we shall not try to discriminate the special merits of either. It is known that the Phoenicians were well acquainted with the eastern parts of the Atlantic Ocean, and had regular commercial intercourse with the miners of the Scilly Islands, with the Hibernians, the English, and the inhabitants of the Baltic coasts, where a number of ancient Phoenician coins have been unearthed. 3 Gaf- farel 4 affords several arguments to prove that, through the medium of the Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Romans had a knowledge of the alga- or weed-sea, near the centre of the Atlantic. Horn 6 expresses the adventurous opinion that the Indian races of Yucatan, Cuba, Hayti, Brazil, and Patagonia are of Phoenician descent ; and he assures us 6 that the Phoenicians landed n'ont contribue' en aucune facon 2 Winsor, vol. i. p. 40. au premier peuplement et a la s Gaffarel, t. i. p. 56 ; Cronau, civilization primordiale de l'Am6- S. 99. rique." 4 T. i. p. 57. 1 Rotteck, Bd. vii. S. 36 ; Congrds 6 Lib. i. cap. xi. Scient., viii. sec. pp. 112, 113; 6 Lib. ii. cap. vi. p. 84; cap. vii. Winsor, vol. i. p. 40 ; H. H. p. 91. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 55, seq. ; alii passim. CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 193 and established settlements in America at three different epochs, — the first time, when they sailed in company with Atlas, the son of Neptune ; and this voyage was followed by several others, for, as their colony of Car- thage was often attacked by the Tyrians and the Mauritanians, some of the colonists went on board their ships, and, sailing past Cadiz, made a new settle- ment on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The undertaking proved to be so great a success that several Carthaginian families set out to join it. Other ancient writers relate the particulars in a somewhat different manner. The Carthaginians, they say, accidentally discovered a beautiful island in the Atlantic Ocean, and several of them went out to build their homes on it, until the Senate decreed that such would be hence- forth forbidden under pain of death. This version probably coincides with the second advent of the Phoenicians, according to Horn's con- clusions from ancient authors, as Aristoteles, Theo- pompus, and Diodorus of Sicily, whose reports we have noticed above, 1 and here deserve our attention again because they afford new evidence in favor of American primeval civilization. Indeed, the Cartha- ginians did not, as it might be too readily imagined, meet with savage nations dwelling in caves, but with a thriving people having cities of a million inhabitants, and prosperous enough to have both summer and winter residences, which the Phoenicians declared to be simply magnificent. 2 According to Horn 3 and several more authors, 4 there 1 Supra, pp. 145, 146, 149. ■' Lib. ii. cap. viii. p. 94. 2 Cf. Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 441 ; Ran- * Arius Montanus, Genebrardus, nesque, p. 193 ; Maltebrun, t. i. p. Vatable, Postel, Crowe, Fontaine, 73 ; Herrera, dec. i. lib. i. cap. i. Carver, Pineda ; cf. H. H. Ban- p. 1 ; Aa. Passim. croft, vol. v. pp. 64, 65. I.— 13 194 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. was a third and last epoch of Phoenician voyages to America at the time of the Jewish king Solomon, in whose employ they sailed to Hayti, to Peru, or perhaps to Oregon, in order to supply the gold that was needed for the temple of Jerusalem. Other learned men think, however, that the famous Ophir, teeming with gold and precious stones, had been found in Sofala, on the Persian Gulf, in the island Ceylon or in some part of the East Indies ; x and truly we could hardly admit Horn's statement, — namely, that the Phoenicians set out from the mother country, navigating the whole Mediterranean Sea and farther westward to reach Ophir, when we simply read the scriptural account, 2 — " And king Solomon made a fleet in Asiongaber, which is by Ailath on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram, king of Tyre or Phoenicia, sent his servants in the fleet, sailors that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and they brought from thence four hundred and twenty talents of gold." The text of the II. Paralipomenon 3 is almost identical with the foregoing, — " Then Solomon went to Asion- gaber, and to Ailath on the coast of the Red Sea, which is in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent him ships by the hands of his servants, and skilful mari- ners ; and they went with Solomon's servants to Ophir." It is evident that the ships and seamen of Tyre's king went to Solomon's assistance by the way of the former canal of Suez, which connected the river Nile with the Red Sea ; but it is equally clear that, had the fleet been destined for a westward voyage, the preparations for it would have been made in Phoenician havens close by Jerusalem, and Hiram's mariners would have 1 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 65, n. 136. 3 Ch. viii. 17, 18. 2 III. Kings, ix. 26-28. CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 195 been spared the trouble of a circular voyage, as useless as tedious and expensive. We feel, therefore, further inclined to believe that Ophir lay towards the South of Jerusalem, or in some district of the Indian Ocean. Some one, however, might suppose that Solomon's gold was fetched to him from America's coast over the largest expanse of water on the globe. That the Phoenicians at some time landed on Ameri- can soil could not well be denied in the presence of ancient reports ; but, as Gravier justly observes, 1 if any vague account of their discoveries was kept, it reached us disfigured by Hellenic fanciful imagination. Hornius does not, however, stop at the information which he laboriously culled from ancient literature ; he tries to establish the similarity of several very peculiar customs of the New- World aborigines anterior to the Scythian invasion with those of the ancient Phoenicians and with other analogies. But while some of these American customs, as, for instance, frequent human sacrifices, seem to be of a relatively recent period, there are differences between the two peoples that would be hard to conciliate. Such is the difference of their languages and of the hairy or bald facial skin of either. Other writers have supported the Phoenician theory by adducing the Dighton Writing Pock found in the Taunton River, and which Gebelin enthusiastically affirms to be evidently a Phoenician monument. But the sagacious and learned von Humboldt cannot find any symmetrical lines on it, and declares it to be an insignificant sketch similar to those found on some Norwegian rocks, while Lelewel and Rafn have of late very ingeniously interpreted it as a Northman monu- 1 P. xiv. 196 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ment of the eleventh century of our era. 1 la fact, this stone of Taunton Eiver has done good service to a dozen conflicting theories and may never afford posi- tive evidences in favor of any, just as the inscribed stone of Grave Creek Mound, the inscription of which consists of twenty-two characters confessedly alpha- betic. Ten of these are said to correspond, more or less exactly, to the Phoenician, fifteen to the Celtiberic, fourteen to the Old British, Anglo Saxon, or Bardic, five to the Runic, four to the Etruscan, six to the ancient Gallic, four to the ancient Greek, and seven to the old Erse. 2 It is useless to produce any more pretendedly Phoenician monuments found in America ; they all are equally dubious. 3 Bancroft carefully describes 4 two Hebrew relics discovered in the United States, but the beautiful preservation of the one and the material of the other, consisting of raw-hide and parchment, would hardly allow us to consider them as being of pre-Christian origin. A similar remark ought to be made in regard to most analogies between the belief of the Indian tribes at the time of the Spanish conquest and the religion of the Jewish people ; for, as will appear in the sequel, it is almost certain that the Christian religion was preached at various times in America before Columbus's dis- covery ; and, while Christianity accepts all the funda- mental tenets of Jewish dogmas and morals, and highly respects the typical liturgy of the Old Testament, there is no reason to disbelieve that the apparently Judaic vestiges may be explained by the fact of early Chris- tian missions. The alleged similarities actually bear 1 Of. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 74, 3 Cf. Solorzano, lib. i. cap. ix. n. 151 ; Gravier, troisieme partie, Tf 55, p. 117 ; Rotteck, Bd. vii. S. ch. iii. ; infra. 36 ; Winsor, vol. i. p. 40 ; alios. 2 H. H. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 75. * Vol. v. pp. 93, 94. CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 197 the imprint of Christian teaching to such an extent as to make the judicious Waldeck assert that, " If the Tol- tecs were Jews, they must have visited the Old World to obtain the Christian dogmas apparent in their cult." The vestiges of former Christianity in America, besides a few other very weak arguments, have led the enthusi- astic Lord Kingsborough, Brasseur de Bourbourg, and several more to believe that the American Red Skins are descendants of Israel, or, at least, that the Lost Tribes have founded important settlements in our hemi- sphere. Giordan, Meyer, Crawford, Juarros, Em. de Moraez, Ethan, Smith, Beatty, besides the Mormons, are of that same opinion, which, however, does not seem to deserve any more attention to-day. 1 Horn % discusses it, but does not admit it. Bancroft 3 has a valuable foot-note, from which we copy here : " In opposition to the Hebrew theory, we read that Wolff, the Jew traveller, found no Jewish traces among the tribes of North America. " The strong trait in Hebrew compound words of inserting the syllable ' el' or a single letter in the names of children derived from either the primary or the secondary names of the deity does not prevail in any Indian tribe known to me. Neither are cir- cumstances attending their birth or parentage, which were so often used in the Hebrew children's names, ever mentioned in these compounds. Indian children are generally named from some atmospheric phenome- non. There are no traces of the rites of circumcision, anointing, sprinkling, or washing, considered as conse- crated symbols. Circumcision was reported as existing 1 Cf. Bancroft, vol. v. pp. 77- 3 Vol. v. p. 96, referring to Fon- 102. taine's " How the World was peo- 2 De Origin. Amer., Prsef. pled," p. 157. 198 HISTOEY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. among the Sitkas on the Missouri, but a strict exam- ination proved it to be a mistake. 1 " The Eev. T. Thorowgood published in 1650 a work entitled ' Jewes in America or Probabilities that the Americans are of that race.' This was answered in 1652 by Sir Hamon L'Estrange, in a book entitled ' Americans no Jewes or Improbabilities that the Americans are of that race.' L'Estrange believes that America was peopled long before the dispersion of the Jews, which took place fifteen hundred years after the flood. A strong mixture of Jewish blood would have produced distinct customs, etc., which are not to be found. The analogous customs and rites adduced by Thorowgood, L'Estrange goes on to say, are amply refuted by Acosta and other writers. The occasional cannibalism of the Jews was caused by famine, but that of the Americans was a usual practice. The argument that the Americans are Jews because they have not the Gospel is worthy only of ridicule, when we see that millions of other infidels are in the same condition. Of the Hebrew theory, Baldwin, who de- votes nearly two pages to it, writes : ' This wild notion, called a theory, scarcely deserves so much attention. It is a lunatic fancy, possible only to men of a certain class, which in our time does not multiply.' 2 " Tschudi regards the arguments in favor of the Jewish theory as unsound. 3 Acosta notices the ob- jection, that the Jews should have preserved their language, customs, and records in America as well as in other places. 4 Macgregor argues that the Americans could not have been Jews, for the latter people were 1 Schoolcraft's Archaeologia, vol. * Ancient America, p. 167. iii. p. 61, ap. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 3 Peruvian Antiq., p. 11. 96, n., as also the next following * Hist, de las Indias, pp. 79-80. notes. CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMEEICA. 199 acquainted with the use of iron as far back as the time of Tubalcain ; they also used milk and wheaten bread, which the Americans could and would have used if they had once known of them. 1 Montanus believes that America was peopled long before the time of the dispersion of the Jewish tribes, and raises objections to nearly every point that has been adduced in favor of a Hebrew origin. 2 The difference of physical organi- zation is alone sufficient to set aside the question of Jewish origin. That so conservative a people as the Jews should have lost all the traditions, customs, etc., of their race is absurd. 3 Rafinesque advances as objec- tions to the Jew theory that the ten Lost Tribes are to be found scattered over Asia ; that the Sabbath would never have fallen into disuse if they had once intro- duced it into America ; that the Hebrews knew the use of iron, had plows, and employed writing ; that cir- cumcision is practised only in one or two localities in America ; that the sharp, striking Jewish features are not found in Americans ; that the Americans eat hogs and other animals forbidden to the Jews ; that the American war customs, such as scalping and torturing, cannibalism, painting the bodies, and going naked, are not Jewish in the least ; that the American languages are not like Hebrew." * For these and similar reasons, which the reader can easily find in several other works, we are of the opin- ion that the first Jews who ever set foot on American soil were those who, in spite of the restrictions of Fer- dinand and Isabella, secretly went on board the ships which Christopher Columbus and his contemporaries steered to the New World. 1 Progress of America, vol. i. p. 24. i Priest's American Antiquities, 2 Meuwe Weereld, p. 26, seq. pp. 76-79, ap. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 3 Democratic Review, vol. xi. p. 97, n. 617. 200 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Why should not the Irish race, now represented in every nook and corner of the globe, set forth the claim that their modern migratory spirit is an unadulterated inheritance of their pre-Christian ancestors, and that their ancient forefathers who came over to Iberia and Erin, glorious with primordial civilization, as is vouched by the relics of their admirable round towers, simply continued in their western direction, and brought to our continent the light that illuminated it with so much brilliancy ? Denis O'Donoghue, with patriotic piety, writes as follows : " The Celtic inhabitants of ancient Erin, in pre-Christian times as well as long after the advent of St. Patrick, held firmly and constantly a belief in the existence, in one shape or another, of a great western land, and they had very probably found similar notions prevailing among the races that had colonized Ireland before they occupied it. The Celts are supposed to have commenced their migration from Spain into Ireland about a thousand years before the Christian era. They had been borne along from the far East by the main stream of colonization, which, as historians and antiquaries assure us, has from the earliest ages steadily flowed from east to west, until they landed on the shores of ancient Erin. This western island they colonized and permanently occupied ; but beyond it still lay the great western land towards the setting sun, the object of their ancestral belief and ambition. Did those migratory Celts, whose nomadic instincts had urged them from Asia to Ireland, make no movement farther west during the following cen- turies? It is hard to think that such masterful ten- dencies as actuated the race had spent all their force within the Irish shores, or that those adventurous Celts, while their faith in the existence of the great western land probably grew more vivid as they advanced in CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 201 their migrations towards the West, made no attempts, put forth no efforts, to approach or reach it during so many ages. It is very probable that many of them still nursed yearnings and aspirations to seek out that mysterious land, and, in obedience to these, made ef- forts to penetrate and traverse the wide ocean that lay between them and the object of their desires ; and we may well believe that such daring attempts were some- times crowned with success." 1 Such are the learned pleadings in behalf of a possibility, but they contain no proof of historical fact. The claims set forth by a few theorists in behalf of the Greeks and of the Romans for the honors of ancient American civilization are scarcely founded upon any better ground ; and, in fact, the arguments in favor of the latter relate to an epoch posterior to the one under consideration. It is, namely, said that Rufus, Arch- bishop of Cosenza, made a present to the Pope of a coin of the reign of Emperor Augustus which had been found in American mines ; and that the Domini- can father, Joseph de Guerra, received from an Indian woman another coin bearing the imprint of Emperor Trajan, which she had inherited from her ancestors ; 2 but the accounts of the discoveries of these Roman and of similar Greek relics could hardly stand the test of historical criticism. We may well, furthermore, sup- pose that should the twilight of the pagan civilization of Europe have illumined the supposed barbarian tribes of America, we would find brilliant reports of the glorious feat in our classic authors, who were never slow in recording the great deeds of their country. Yet these are silent. The Spanish discoverers have found descendants of 1 Brendaniana, pp. 309, 310. 2 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 441, n. 202 HISTORY OF AMEKICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. African settlers in America ; but can we look to the dark Lybian races for teachers of the bright prehistoric nations of our continent? We noticed before that the models — if not copies — of the grand prehistoric monuments of America are to be found in Polynesia and in the East Indies. What we know of civilization in Polynesia would not justify the assumption of America's former civilization origi- nating in its archipelagos. Modern researches establish the fact that not only in Egypt and Persia but all over India the level of literature, science, and culture gener- ally has grown lower and lower with the lapse of time ; and, therefore, if the height of prehistoric civilization on our continent must be measured by the standard of its prehistoric works and monuments, we are compelled to the conclusion that, if southern Asia is the source of faded American glory, its first colonies must have arrived in the New World shortly after or before the biblical deluge. Can it be supposed that the architects and builders of ancient America's grand and admirable ruins were immigrants from Asia's central and northern countries ? Indeed, there hardly remains any doubt, as we will see farther on, that the Tartars or Scythians were among the first ancestors of our modern Indians ; but while it is well established that no savage nation ever attempted to make far-distant settlements, we cannot base an hypothesis of American civilization upon the data of Tartar or Scythian known history. The fact, therefore, of a civilization that long cen- turies ago flourished and worked wonders on our conti- nent is an insoluble puzzle, not only for the adepts of the theory of progress, but also for the scientists who refuse to admit the golden age of humanity, original revelation, and consequent civilization ; and it has led CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 203 many serious writers to gravely discuss the question whether it was not Christianity that was the leading cause of the architectural and other wonders, whose ruins we still admire on American soil. These ruins are lasting witnesses of high culture in many respects ; and when we consider that to-day the various degrees of savagery and of civilization all over the earth are in proportion to the knowledge and practice of the Christian religion, we should not wonder if some au- thors conclude that America bears evident traces of early Christian evangelization, especially when we take into account the doctrines, as numerous as singular, that are common among Christians and prehistoric civilized Americans. 1 1 Infra. CHAPTEK IX. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMERICA. To open an interesting chapter with a poetical state- ment, we shall relate a short Mormon story : 1 The Lost Tribes of Israel, almost immediately upon their arrival in America, separated into two distinct nations. The Nephites, so called from the prophet Nephi, who had conducted them, were persecuted on account of their righteousness by the others, who called them- selves Lamanites , from Laman, their chief, a wicked and corrupt man. In spite of the numerous blessings which they had received, the Nephites themselves fell from grace and were terribly punished for their in- gratitude and wickedness. A thick darkness covered the whole continent, earthquakes cast mountains into valleys, many towns were swallowed up, and others destroyed by fire from heaven. Thus perished the most perverse among the Nephites and the Lamanites. Those who survived these judgments were informed, by certain celestial and terrestrial phenomena, of the birth and death of Christ, which had long before been pre- dicted by their prophets, and they even received a visit from Christ, who, before his ascension, appeared in the midst of the Nephites in the northern part of South America. His instructions, the foundation of the New Law, were engraved on plates of gold, and some of them are to be found in the Book of Mormon, but by far the greater part will be revealed only to the Saints at a future time. When Christ had ended his mission 1 Of. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 204 THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMERICA. 205 to the Nephites he ascended to Heaven, and the apostles designated by him went to preach his gospel throughout the continent of America. In all parts the Nephites and the Lamanites were converted to the Lord, and for three centuries they lived a godly life. But towards the end of the fourth century of the Christian era they returned to their evil ways, and once more they were smitten by the arm of the Almighty. A terrible war broke out between the two nations, which ended in the destruction of the ungrateful Nephites. Driven by their enemies towards the North and Northeast, they were defeated in a final battle near the hill of Cumorah, in the State of New York, where their historical tab- lets have since been found by Joseph Smith ! On the occasion of this tale we might also rehearse a Christian legend, — namely, that Our Lord, during the forty days between his resurrection and his ascension, walked with unequal giant strides over the earth, and that wherever he set down his foot a church must be built in the sequel of time. Should this pious story be truthful, it would be evident that Christ strode over our hemisphere in many directions. No one has seriously pretended that Christ, during his visible mission on earth, has ever visited our con- tinent ; but America was part of the world, over which he sent his apostles to teach his doctrine of salvation. The question of his apostles' actual preaching in Amer- ica has been taken up long since according to the rules of historical criticism. Nor is it of secondary interest, as is evident from the fact that it was the only subject of discussion capable of ruffling the harmonious equa- nimity of the learned members of the Americanistic congresses at Copenhagen and Luxemburg. 1 1 Gaffarel, t. i. p. 428, n. 1. 206 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. The first man plainly to assert the evangelization of America by the apostle St. Thomas was probably the learned and famous scientist and lapidary Jaime Ferrer de Blanes, who wrote from Burgos to the discoverer Columbus on the 5th of August, a.d. 1495, " I, Sefior, I meditate upon this great mystery, — to wit, that the divine and infallible Providence sent the grand apostle Thomas from the West to the East to promulgate in the Indies our holy Christian law; and you, Sefior, he despatched by the opposite way from the East to the West ; so that, according to the divine will, you have reached the uttermost parts of Upper India, for the purpose of letting the descendants hear what the an- cestors have neglected of the preaching of Thomas, in order that the word may be fulfilled : ' Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth ;' and pretty soon, with the divine assistance, you shall be in the great gulf, on the shores of which the glorious Thomas has left his saintly body." 1 De Blanes, however, had the East Indies in view. B. de las Casas, bishop of Chiapa, writes that, already then, it was thought that the apostle St. Thomas had left certain vestiges in Portuguese Brazil. 2 Charlevoix 3 says that, according to Oviedo's confident assertion, the two apostles St. James and St. Paul have preached the Gospel in the Antilles or Ancient Hesperides. Following is a note from Prescott : * " Piedrahita, the historian of the Muyscas, is satisfied that St. Bar- tholomew, whose travels are known to have been ex- tensive, paid a visit to Peru, and scattered over it the 1 Navarrete, t. ii. p. 119 ; Amer. 8 Histoire de l'lle Espagnole, t. i. Cath. Quar. Rev. , vol. xvii. p. 50 ; p. 90. ad Rom. x. 18. 4 Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 109, 2 Coleccion de Documentoa, t. 66, n. 36. Append., cap. cxxiii. p. 454. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMERICA. 207 seeds of religious truth.. 1 The Mexican antiquaries consider St. Thomas as having had charge of the mis- sion to the people of Anahuac. These two apostles then would seem to have divided among themselves the New World, at least the civilized portions of it. "Velasco, a writer of the eighteenth century, has little doubt that they did really come." 2 We do not remember having read in Oviedo any passage containing such an assertion, but we have noticed the following : 3 "If it was from Castile that, in our days, the knowledge of the holy Gospel went over to, and was spread in, the West Indies, it is not to say that the wild nations of those countries did not from the very times of the apostles have a knowledge of the Christian redemption and of Our Lord Jesus Christ shedding his blood for mankind. We must rather believe that the Indians of those countries had forgotten those truths." Sahagun, 4 another important witness in the case, states that the famous Mexican law-giver Quetzalcoatl was one of the many Yucatan prophets who at various times renewed the teachings of Chilam Cambal, whose name signifies, in the Chinese language, St. Thomas. A. Lapide refers 5 to Thomas Stapleton, who proves, he says, in his " Three Thomas" that St. Thomas the apostle has in his peregrinations reached the uttermost limits of India, preached to the Chinese, and even sailed to the New World, to America. We have not sufficient space for the names of all the authors who advocated the thesis of St. Thomas's mission in America. Many might be quoted, besides 1 Conquista de Granada, parte i. * Ap. de Mier, p. iv. lib. i. cap. iii. 6 "Vol. xvi. p. 635, in Joan, cap. 2 Hist, de Quito, t. i. p. 89. xx. v. 24. 3 Fo. ix. lib. ii. cap. vii. 208 HISTORY OF AMEKICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Garcia, Torquemada, Siguenza, and other Spanish writers, 1 besides Kingsborough, Gleeson, De Costa, 2 and modern authors generally ; but it is easily observed that they all establish their opinion upon identical foun- dations, — to wit, upon the authority of ancient and revered writers, who may have had a knowledge of America's existence and of its religious condition from human sources, yet especially drew their conclusions from the statements of Holy Writ ; and, again, upon the vestiges and traditions of the New World that are adduced as evidences of St. Thomas's mission in our hemisphere. The first of the authorities quoted is that of St. Clement, a contemporary of the apostle St. Thomas, from whom he may have learned the existence of " the other world" that he speaks of in his letter to the Corinthians. 3 Solorzano 4 states, in spite of his wishes, that there seem to be vestiges of Gospel preaching in the New World, and adds that Tertullian, 6 after having asserted that the voice of the apostles and the doctrine of Christ had been heard by all nations of the earth, especially enumerates the Parthians, the Medes, the Elamites, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, the Armenians, the Phry- gians, the Cappadocians, the people of Pontus, Asia Minor, and Pamphylia, the Egyptians, the Africans, the Romans, the Jews, the Getuli, the Moors, the Spanish, the Gauls, the Britons, the Sarmatians, the Dacians, the Germains, and the Scythians ; and then subjoins that the same voice and doctrine had been heard by the in- habitants of many more strange countries and islands 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 270 ; Saha- 3 Sahagun, lib. i. p. xviii. gun, lib. i. p. xix. i De Indiarum Jure, p. 185, n. 2 Discovery, p. 15 ; Kingsbor- 52, 53. ough, Mex. Antiq., vol. vi. p. 332. 5 Contra Judeeos, cap. vii. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMEKICA. 209 unknown to us, and which, he says, we could not enu- merate, yet in which is known the name of Christ, who has come and reigns, before whom the gates of all cities have been opened and none remained closed, before whom all iron chains have been broken and steel locks have been unbarred. " Does not Tertullian," Solorzano says, " indicate, as it were, with his finger the distant re- gions of which we have no knowledge ?" — of America ? Tertullian also applies to the apostles personally the words, 1 " Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the whole world." 2 St. John Chrysostom and Theophylactus are likewise of the opinion that the Gospel was preached among all the nations of the earth before the destruction of Jeru- salem by the Roman general Titus. 3 Oviedo* and others refer to the learned Pope St. Gregory, who plainly asserts 6 that the mystery of our redemption has been announced in every part of the world. The two great continents of America could not well be excluded from the meaning of such aD expression. These ancient Doctors of the Church relied espe- cially, in making their bold assertions, upon the text of Holy Scripture and, in particular, on the commission which the apostles received from our Lord Jesus Christ, and on the statements of the apostles themselves. In- deed, " Jesus coming spoke to them, saying : All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Going there- fore, teach ye all nations : baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 6 And, according to St. Mark : 7 " He said to them : Go 1 Psalm xviii. 5 ; ad Rom. x. 18. i Fo. ix. lib. ii. cap. vii. 2 Ad versus Marcion, lib. iv. cap. 5 Moralia, ad cap. xvi., Job. 43. 6 Matt, xxviii. 18, 19. 3 A. Lapide, t. xviii. p. 182, in 7 Ch. xvi. 15, 16. Epist. ad Rom. x. 17. I.— 14 210 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ye into the whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved ; but he that believeth not, shall be condemned." This command might perhaps be understood to apply to the apostles together with all their successors, all the more, as there is added in St. Matthew : 1 " And behold I am with you, even to the consummation of the world." But it is more in harmony with our idea of the mercy of God, " who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth," 2 to interpret it as personally regarding those who received it, and who seem to have thus understood it ; for, before sepa- rating at Jerusalem, the apostles divided the world among themselves, and went forth in every direction to obey their Divine Master. Collateral texts confirm our interpretation. The same commission is related by St. Luke as follows : 3 "And he said unto them : Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead the_ third day ; and that penance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things." There can be no doubt but the apostles are meant per- sonally here, as they only had personally heard and seen " these things," and should now, " commencing at Jerusalem," go and testify to them before all nations. The same injunction is further made in the Acts of the Apostles, which are a partial history of its fulfilment, in such terms as remove the least shadow of a doubt : " But he said to them : You shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth." 4 1 Ch. xxviii. 20. s Ch. xxiv. 46^8. " I. Tim. ii. 4. * Acts i. 7, 8. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS m AMERICA. 211 The apostles had been passive witnesses of Christ's words and deeds, and now should be active witnesses to the same, as they actually became in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and, why not logically add ? in the most distant portions of the world. That they were faithful servants and fulfilled the Lord's command is evidenced by their own testimony. St. Mark closes his gospel with the words : " But they [the apostles] going forth, preached everywhere, the Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs that followed." x We should not exaggerate the meaning of the word " everywhere ;" but neither could we grammatically allow it to cover only one-half of the earth, or even the Roman empire only. St. Paul, who, according to known history, travelled as much as any other apostle, and is said to have preached in America, testifies in several places that he and his colleagues evangelized the whole world. Writing to the Romans, 2 he tersely argues on the responsibility of all who did not believe in the teachings of Christ. He acknowledges that such as did not hear the Gospel preached — that is, individuals — cannot be held respon- sible or as guilty ; but, he says, where are they — namely, the nations — which at this day, in all the world, can allege invincible ignorance as an excuse, since the words of authorized preachers — that is, of the apostles and of their co-laborers — have resounded everywhere ? Here are his own words : " Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved. How then, shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed ? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard ? And how shall they hear, with- out a preacher ? And how shall they preach, unless 1 Ch. xvi. 20. 2 Ch. x. 13-18. 212 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. they be sent ? as it is written : How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things ! But all do not obey the gospel, for Isaias saith : ' Lord, who hath be- lieved our report ?' Faith, then, cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. But I say : Have they not heard? Yes, verily their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the whole world." St. Paul had already before said to the Romans that the Christian faith in which they believed " was spoken of in the whole world," 1 and, consequently, had already then been preached in every country of the earth. Equally strong, if not even more conclusive, are the words of the Apostle to the Colossians : 2 " We give thanks to God and the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, . . . hearing your faith in Christ Jesus, . . . which is come unto you, as also it is in the whole world ; and bringeth forth fruit, and groweth, even as it doth in you." And farther on, in the same chapter, 3 he adds : " He [Christ] hath reconciled you, ... if so ye continue in the faith, . . . which you have heard, and which is preached in all the creation that is under heaven." The reader has noticed that Holy Scripture has made use of almost every possible wording to make us believe that the Gospel, at the very time of the apostles of Christ, had been preached everywhere, among all nations, to every creature or human tribe, even to the uttermost part of the earth, unto the ends of the whole world, and in all the creation that is under heaven. An honest reader would feel disappointed if he should be told that the whole selection of these universal ex- 1 Ad Rom. i. 8. a Verses 21-23. a Ad Col. i. 3-6. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMEKICA. 213 pressions, in spite of well-known historical facts, only designates a relatively small portion of the earth, or only the Roman Empire; and the most saintly and learned men have, at all times, understood them in their obvious, grammatical sense. As a proof of this we will mention only one learned author, who was upright enough, although he had assumed to defend a widely dif- ferent thesis, to give us a list of the most authoritative writers that stand in favor of our persuasion. Don Juan de Solorzano Pereira, an important Spanish doctor of the sixteenth century, quotes 1 as against his thesis — that the Spaniards had first introduced Christianity into America — the names of St. Hilary, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Thomas, Euthymius, Theophylac- tus, Tostatus, Gagnseius, Jansenius, Maldonatus, and other commentators of St. Matthew's twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters ; St. Ambrose, interpreting the tenth chapter of St. Luke ; Bede, on the thirteenth chapter of St. Mark ; Adrian Finseus, in his work " Flagelli ;" 2 Pinstus, commenting the second chapter of Daniel ; Leo Castrensis, in the first book of his " Apologetics ;" Genebrardus, in the second book of his " Chronography." He adds that the opinion of the apostles' personal preaching in America is specially upheld by Fr. Stephen de Salazar in the third chapter of his sixteenth " Discourse on the Symbol of the Apostles ;" as also by Acosta, in his " History of the Indies ;" 3 by John a Ponte ; 4 by Fr. John a Torque- mada, in his " Indian Monarchy ;" 5 by Malvenda, in his third book on the " Antichrist ;" 6 and by John del Cano, commenting Psalm xviii. 1 De Indiarum Jure, lib. i. cap. i TJtriusque Monarch, lib. ii. cap. xiv. p. 177, n. 2, 3. ii. 2 Lib. ii. cap. xii. 5 Lib. xv. cap. iv., vii., xlviii., et * Lib. v. cap. xxv. xlix. 6 Cap. ii., xxv., seq. 214 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Solorzano, however, in defence of his false theory, objects to the grammatical understanding of all those scriptural expressions, and alleges 1 similar phrases, having a quite restricted meaning ; as, 2 " In those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that the whole world should be enrolled." The parity, however, is more apparent than real ; for, as regards the quota- tion, the authority of Caesar Augustus, restricted within the boundaries of the Roman empire, evidently con- fines the meaning of "the whole world" within the same limits ; while the context of any of the scriptural passages, adduced as records of the apostles' universal evangelization, does not oppose the belief that the Church, already in its beginning, truly was, as it is styled by the first Holy Fathers, Catholic or Universal. On the contrary, the obvious sense of all those texts is more in keeping with the mercy of God, with the gen- eral tenor of Holy Scripture, and with the duties of the apostles, expressed by St. Paul, when he says, 3 "To the Greeks and to the Barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise, I am a debtor." Solorzano also objects the text, "Now there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven." 4 But while it does not appear how these words should weaken our opinion, they might well be brought forth as an argument in favor of it, because there is evidently question here of the Jew- ish colonies " among all nations under heaven," the " devout inhabitants of Jerusalem" spoken of being " Jews." Should it be proved, as it seems to be gener- ally admitted, that the Israelites had established small colonies, not only within the various parts of the Roman 1 De Indiarum Jure, lib. i. cap. s Ad Rom. i. 14. xiv. If 73, p. 190. * Acts ii. 5. 2 St. Luke ii. 1. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMERICA. 215 empire and the other countries mentioned in the same chapter, 1 but, as they have now, among every nation under heaven, we might readily argue that, as they are scattered yet all over the world, to bear witness to the truth of the Christian religion, so they had been, by an especial providence of God, during their Babylonian and Assyrian captivity, sent out to every portion of the earth to be, as other St. Johns the Baptist, path-finders and harbingers of the first heralds of the fulfilment of their own typical religion. There is no human record to show that the possibil- ity, not to say the probability, of the apostles' preach- ing in every continent of the world ever was an actual fact ; but is not the Sacred Book the most reliable of all histories, or does the truth of the inspired word depend on confirmation by a few remnants of the old writings of pagan authors, who took no interest in events relating to a new religion which they considered as an insignificant, contemptible sect ? The silence of secular history could, at best, make out an argument ab ignorantia, a passive reason drawn from ignorance. It is proposing a weaker argument still to say that the apostles could not evangelize the New World be- cause of the impossibility of communication between it and the Old World. Indeed, it is well known that long voyages were accomplished at the time of our Redeemer and previously to it. The Americans sailed to Europe about that time, 2 and we see the apostles' countrymen regularly gathering in Jerusalem from every part of the globe. Would it, therefore, be an unreasonable in- duction to assume that St. James, St. Paul, or St. Thomas found, either in the Phoenician ports or in those of the Red Sea, vessels waiting to transport them to the Amer- 1 Acts ii. 9-11. 2 Supra, p. 167. 216 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ican shores ? The relative deficiency of the history of our ancestors renders us altogether too proud of our boasted modern progress, and makes us imagine that the messengers of the Almighty could not sail to those Polynesian islands and to the adjoining continental shores, to which must have navigated, at some distant epoch, the savage tribes who inhabit them to this day. Let it, however, for the sake of argument, be granted that human means of transportation to America from Palestine or European coasts were unknown during the lifetime of the apostle St. Thomas. Would it logically follow that St. Thomas was never in America, that the apostles never preached in every country of the world ? Is not the whole establishment of Christianity one sin- gle great miracle, too little noticed ? Are not the his- torically known journeys and voyages of the twelve fisherman a real prodigy? Solorzano himself 1 con- fesses his belief in the possibility of the true faith being spread by the apostles over all the regions of the earth, how distant soever and unknown ; and if, he says, the spread of the Gospel was to be made in a miraculous manner, as civil history amply testifies it was, there is no reason to deny that the apostles of Christ may have penetrated into every country, no matter how distant and how little known, in a shorter space of time than that in which the prophet Habacuc was trans- ported from Judea to Babylon and back again, 2 or the deacon Philip from the desert to Azotus. 3 The little, indeed, that we positively know of the apostles' distant peregrinations is proof sufficient that " the Lord worked withal." St. Thomas, in particular, travelled all through Par- thia, Media, Persia, Hircania, and Bactria, and then went 1 De Indiarum Jure, lib. i. cap. 2 Daniel xiv. 32-38. xiv. If 67, p. 188. » Acts viii. 40. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMERICA. 217 on farther east to India proper, 1 where Greek-speaking Christian congregations still exist at Socotera, the place where the missionary Theophilus was preaching at the time of Emperor Constantine, where, in the sixth cen- tury, Cosmas Indicopleustes, Arabian freighters in the ninth, and finally the Portuguese in the year 1507, met with a Christian population. According to the traditions of the Syrian Christians, the apostle passed by Socotera and landed at Cranganor, where the first conversions of the Indians took place. He established Christian com- munities all over the coasts of Coromandel and Mala- bar, until he shed his blood for the doctrine he was teaching in a place since called Beit Tuma or House of Thomas. This tradition is related already by St. Gregory of Nazianz and by a merchant of Alexandria, who found Christians also in Ceylon. 2 Nicephorus 3 and generally the authors above related by Solorzano further state that St. Thomas preached among the Chi- nese and the easternmost nations of India. It would, therefore, be no great wonder if he had followed those people on their eastward route to Polynesia and to our continent. 4 There are, indeed, to be found in America some pre- historic vestiges that point to the apostle St. Thomas's presence. It is not time yet to follow the traces of Christian doctrine and of Christian practice which the discover- ers of the sixteenth century noticed in every part of our hemisphere, and we shall now only refer to such particulars as bear directly upon the question at issue. The most ancient traditions of the Peruvians tell of a white, bearded man named " Thonapa Arnava," and 1 Breviar. Rom., ad Dec. xxi. * Solorzano, De Indiarum Jure, * Peschel, Entdeckungen, S. 5. lib. i. cap. xiv. p. 185, n. 54. a Lib. ii. cap. iv. 218 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. religiously honored in Callao, who arrived in Peru from a southern direction, clothed with a long violet garment and red mantle. He taught the people to worship Pa- chacamac, the Supreme God and Creator, instead of the sun and the moon ; he healed the sick and restored sight to the blind. Everywhere, at his approach, the demons took to flight. With the chief of Peccari- tampu he left his notched stick to remind him of the Commandments. After he had cursed the city of Yam- querupa, that had persecuted him and was afterwards engulfed by the ocean, he was made a prisoner in Cara- vaya and led to the adjoining hill, to the top of which he had carried a cross. Set free again by a beautiful boy, who appeared to him and touched his bonds, he escaped, sailing, together with the young man, on his mantle spread open on the lake. He finally arrived at Copacabana by the lake Titicaca, where he was put to death, and his corpse was placed on a canoe which, destined for a barren island, foundered in the waves. 1 Horn 2 timely remarks that proper names generally undergo some slight variations in passing over from one language to another, giving as instances 'O&vaGevg, the same as Ulysses, and Aiag, Ajax ; wherefore, we should not wonder if Thonapa represents Thoma-7ta7tag or Father Thomas. The surname Arnava is not unrea- sonably interpreted from the Peruvian Quichua dialect, wherein " arma" or " arna" signifies to bathe or pour water, because it is related that the ceremonies of bap- tism originated with St. Thomas in Peru. 3 The author just referred to observes that the apostle's name seems to be perpetuated still among the South American tribes, since in the year 1810 the chief of the Caraibs 1 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 58-67. ' Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 67. * Lib. iii. cap. xix. p. 219. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMERICA. 219 on the Essequibo Eiver was known as Mahanarva, Thomas the Baptist. 1 In Peru the apostle's name seems to have been kept, also, in a more original form than that of Thonapa ; for, as Sahagun curiously remarks, the Peruvians gave to their missionaries, after the Spanish conquest, the name of " Paytumes" or " Padres Tomes." 2 The Chilians likewise told of a bearded and shod man, who had appeared to their forefathers, healing the sick and procuring them desired rain. 3 It is, however, especially among the oldest nations of Brazil that the memory of the apostle has been religiously kept. They have preserved the tradition that he preached to them. 4 Lescarbot relates as follows : 5 " Emmanuel Nobrega, Provincial of the Society of Jesus in Brazil, testifies that on the bank of a Brazilian river are to be found the footprints of a holy man who, to escape his pagan pursuers walked across the river, and is called by the natives Zome, who seems to be none other than the apostle St. Thomas." 6 The great missionary of the Brazilians, John de Leri, 1 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 67. Uruguay, on whose bank a spot is 2 P. iv. noticed where he sat down to rest. s Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 50. According to ancient reports, it is 4 Nieremberg, Historise Naturae, said that he foretold the advent of lib. xiv. cap. cxvii ; cf. Bancroft, men who would announce to their vol. v. p. 26, n. 61. Nieremberg descendants the faith of the true writes: "The East Indians still God. This tradition proves to be a show a path followed by St. Thomas great consolation and encourage- on his way to the Peruvian king- ment for the preachers of our doms. The memory of the apos- Holy Religion, who suffer much in tie's preaching is also preserved by spreading the Church among those the Brazilians, and a similar tra- barbarous nations." dition exists among other savage 5 P. 722. American tribes. It is related, in 6 A. Lapide, t. xviii. p. 182 ; in particular, that St. Thomas had Epist. ad. Rom. x. 17 ; cf. Les Petits gone to Paraguay along the Iguazu Bolandistes, by Paul Guerin, t. xiv. River ; afterwards to Parana on the p. 413. 220 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. explained one day to them the origin of the world and how they should believe in its Creator. They listened to him with the greatest attention and evident signs of astonishment. But when he had finished his discourse one of their old men arose to answer. " You have told us wonderful things," he said, " that have recalled to our minds what we have often heard from our fore- fathers — namely, that very long ago a certain Mair, a bearded and clothed stranger, had been with them to reduce them under the dominion of the God whom he announced, and he spoke to them as you do to us ; but they would not submit. When he left another came, who, for a punishment, distributed arms to them, with which they have ever since been killing one another. Yet neither will we change our mode of living, because, if we should, all our neighbors would deride us." Horn writes 1 that St. Thomas preached among the Brazilians, or ; at least, was known to them ; for, as it ap- pears from their traditions, they still remembered the saintly man whom they called the " Meyre Human ;" and for two reasons he believes that this personage was the apostle St. Thomas ; first, because of the name ; for "Meyre" signifies in their language a stranger with beard and clothes, and Human is but a slight transfor- mation of the apostle's name ; second, because the par- ticulars related of him in Brazil correspond with those remembered of their apostle by the Indians of the coast of Malabar. Sahagun 2 assures us that one who will read the chronicles of Brazil, especially those writ- ten by Padre Manuel de Nobrega, will see that in that country, from ancient times is preserved, besides the names of Jesus and Mary, the one of St. Thomas, who has preached in it. 1 Lib. iii. cap. xix. pp. 218, a Dissertation of Dr. de Mier, p. 219. iii. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMERICA. 221 As a result of arduous researches Bastian has lately published the following interesting particulars: 1 A white, bearded man, Tzume by name, came from the East to teach agriculture and introduce corn into Brazil, where he opened roads by making the forest trees move back, while the wild animals crouched before him ; and he turned into boomerangs the missiles of the Cablocos who assailed him. After that he departed on the river, leaving the imprints of his feet on the neighboring rocks, and these traces of Tzume are to be found in east- ern Brazil, in the province of San Paolo, on the " Praya de Embare," between Santos and San Vincente, and on the mountain-tops of Serra do Mar, in Espiritu Santo and Bahia, near Gorjahu, where Emanuel Nobrega has. contemplated them, as he writes in a letter of the year 1552. 2 Let us remark, in passing by, that while the Bra- zilian name of St. Thomas, Meyre Human, is already explained, the other, Zome or Tzume bears a striking resemblance to the apostle's appellation familiar to us. It is also said that St. Thomas entered Paraguay 3 and the neighboring states. Sahagun * relates that the commissary of the Franciscans, who, with four more religious, had been sent to La Plata, wrote on the 1st of May, a.d. 1538, from Port Don Rodrigo to one of the members of the Council for the Indies a remarka- ble letter, in which he states that the Christians had been received like angels by the natives, from whom he had learned that, four years before, a prophet called Eguiara had been there and had announced to them that ere long Christians, brothers of St. Thomas, would come to baptize them, and that they would do them no 1 Bd. ii. S. 60, 879. 3 Nieremberg, lib. xiv. cap. cxvii. ; 2 Solorzano, l)e Indiarum Jure, cf. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 26. lib. i. cap. xiv. If 59. i P. iii. 222 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COETJMBUS. harm, but, on the contrary, much good. The writer had further seen from the songs which the prophet had taught, that he had ordered them to observe the Com- mandments and many other teachings of the Christians. This report is hardly more surprising than the ex- tract made by Gaffarel * from the History of Paraguay by Charlevoix, 2 who narrates that when, in the year 1609, the Fathers Cataldino and Moceta penetrated the wilderness of America to convert the Guaranis, the cacique, Maracana, and some other head-men of the tribe assured them that long ago, according to their ancestral traditions, a learned man named Pay Zuma or Pay Tuma had preached in their country the faith of Heaven and had converted many of them. Yet in leaving he had foretold them that they and their de- scendants would abandon the worship of the true God, whom he had made known to them, but that after many centuries other messengers of the same God would come with a cross like the one that he was carrying, and would restore among their descendants the religion which he had taught. Some years later, when the Fathers Montoya and Mendoza entered the district of Taiati, in the province of Santa Cruz, the Indians, see- ing them come with crosses in their hands, received them with great demonstrations of joy. The missiona- ries, manifesting their astonishment, were told the same story which had been heard by Cataldino and Moceta. These natives designated their ancient apostle, also, by the name of Pay Abara or Celibate Father. Pay Zuma seems, however, to have been the more common appellation, because, in all these regions, the first Chris- tian missionaries of the sixteenth century were called Payzumas by the aborigines. 3 1 P. 429. 3 Of. Horn, lib. iii. cap. xix. p. 2 Vol. i. p. 312. 218 ; Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 60. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IS AMERICA. 223 Traditions similar to these are reported in a few more districts of South America, such as those of the Tupi- nambas, and along the Uruguay Kiver, where is still shown a spot where the apostle sat down to rest. 1 But it is a remarkable fact that there seems to be no re- membrance of him in the northern half of our conti- nent, although Sahagun, commented by Dr. de Mier, 2 assures us tbat the famous Mexican high-priest and civilizer Quetzalcoatl, was none other than St. Thomas ; for, he says, " Cohuatl" means not serpent, as is often said, but "twin," — i.e., the name of the apostle who was called AiSvfios, or " twin," — an interpretation con- firmed by the fact that in Mexico there was no serpent worship, no serpent being represented on any altar. He adds that a man learned like Siguenza was of the same opinion. 3 Nay, Sahagun goes farther, and makes the confident though hazardous assertion that we must abandon ourselves to the blindest pyrrhonism if we refuse to admit that " a white, venerable man, with long hair and beard, and walking with a staff, has preached a holy law and the fast of forty days all over America, and erected crosses worshipped by the Indians, to whom he announced that other men of his own religion would come from, the East to instruct and rule them. Such is a fact," he says, " established by all the histo- ries written by Spaniards as well as by the hiero- glyphics of Mexico and the quipos of Peru ;" and, he adds, 4 in confirmation of his broad thesis : " Father Calancha, born in the city of La Plata, fills the whole of the second book of his Chronicle of St. Augustine of Peru with arguments in favor of the position that the Gospel was preached in all the Indies by the apostle 1 Meremberg, lib. xiv. cap. cxvii. ; 3 Vol. i. p. xix or 296. ap. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 26, n. 61. i Historia General, p. viii. 2 Vol. i. p. xiv or 291. 224 history or America before coltjmbus. St. Thomas, who is the only apostle declared by the Fathers of the Church to have gone to barbarian and unknown nations. In that work the reader will notice the great number of Spanish and of foreign authors who have upheld the theory, such as Fr. Alonzo Ra- mos, in his ' History of Copacavana ;' Ribadeneira, in his ' Flower of Saints' and ' Life of St. Thomas,' and many others ; he will notice that, while over-zealous mission- aries pounded out ancient inscriptions on rocks vener- ated by the Indians as precious relics or souvenirs of the venerable man who preached them a holy law, St. Toribius, archbishop of Lima, gave orders to cover all such places with chapels, being convinced that the old traditions were deserving of Christian respect. The reader will notice how those traditions are confirmed by the ancient hymns of the Peruvians and by their quipos or knotted-string records." Horn also testifies 1 to the common opinion of the learned that St. Thomas preached in America. Many more could be mentioned, but we make free to suppose that the amount of evidence produced may be sufficient to convince an unprejudiced reader that probably the Christian religion was promulgated in all the principal parts of the world already at the time of Christ's apos- tles, America not being excepted. Gaffarel 2 reaches the climax of German hypercriti- cism when he, after admitting the fact of the South American tradition in behalf of the preaching of St. Thomas on our continent, tries to explain it away in the following fashion : " Is it not very likely," he asks, " that those pious legends are inventions of missiona- ries who wanted to be important ? We feel inclined to believe," he adds, " that during the first days of the con- 1 Lib. iv. cap. xv. p. 276. ' Histoire, p. 429. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMERICA. 225 quest in the sixteenth century, some Spanish priest has tried to evangelize the American nations and has partly succeeded, and that his memory has lasted. The In- dians, though unacquainted with chronology, have mis- taken years for centuries and the facts of yesterday for events of the long ago." Does Gaffarel truly believe that the Peruvians and the Mexicans had no chronological records ; that the Indians, credited with no little amount of intelligence, solemnly declared to be ancestral tradi- tion of the mystic past that which they themselves had heard for the first time from a stranger trying to sub- vert all their ancient belief? Well-known history tells us that in no country of America has there been the space of a lifetime between the first Spanish priests' ar- rival and the presence of those who first recorded the venerable legends. In fact, it is historically certain that during the sixteenth century and ever since Christian missionaries have immediately succeeded one another in every part of America, in such a manner that Gaffarel's explanation cannot be admitted without impeachment of the first missionaries' veracity. And does he believe that the first Spanish priests, who sought and found in Brazil and Paraguay a martyr's — that is, a truthful wit- ness's — death, went out there to convince the hostile barbarians of fabricated aboriginal traditions of their own ? Does he believe that the hundreds of missionaries in every portion of South America have conspired to set forth as ancient traditions of the natives the actions and teachings of their companions, not one being intel- ligent enough to discover, and honest enough to expose the pious fraud ? To admit all this the French savant needs to be more credulous than critical. Solorzano, whose task it was to prove that the Spaniards had been the first apostles of America, and, therefore, had another title of dominion, — a thesis false I.— 15 226 HISTOB.Y OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. from one end to the other, — appeals to the authority of Herrera, 1 who is of the opinion, in that passage, that not one of the apostles of Christ ever set his foot on American soil ; and to Davalos, 2 who states that Rami- rez, bishop of La Plata in Peru, had inquired into the particulars of the cross of Carabuco and other legends, and had found them to be unreliable. He is obliged, for the sake of his cause, to discard the historic bearing of Indian traditions generally. 3 Yet, unable to deny all credibility of the curious ancient reports, he finally takes up courage to conclude that they who first taught the Christian religion in America were the very devils if not Spaniards ; 4 and, at the acknowledged loss of his principal proposition, he consoles himself with the erro- neous idea that the American aborigines had forgotten every Christian notion at the time of his dear coun- trymen's appearance among them. 5 The contrary, however, is evident, as we shall see later on ; and we would hardly mistake in saying that the greater half of Christian doctrines and practices were kept alive among the more civilized nations of our continent at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The tracks of Christian messengers in Central Amer- ica looked actually so new and fresh at the time that, considering the general laws of civil and religious prog- ress and retrogression, we could hardly accept the the- ories of those who, like Horn, 6 contend that St. Thomas was only indirectly known in America, — namely, that the lasting memory of the Apostle had been imported by the Tartars or Scythians, who had, according to high probabilities, peopled the greater portion of the Ameri- can territory. 1 Dec. v. lib. iii. cap. vi. in fine. i Ibid., p. 193, If 94. 2 Misc. Austr. Colloq., fo. 164, seq. 5 Ibid., p. 193, f 95. 3 De Indiarum Jure, p. 192, If 92. 6 Lib. iii. cap. xix. p. 219. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMERICA. 227 St. Thomas has, indeed, most likely, preached to the Scythians in Asia ; but it is not, according to ordinary human events, probable that their children migrating far away would have preserved, with relative purity, ennobling doctrines of a mother country which soon fell back into abject barbarism. Moreover, we shall notice farther on that the Tartar migrations seem to be rather pre- than post-Christian ; and, if the remem- brance of St. Thomas had been imported only, the ves- tiges of the apostle's departing feet could not have been impressed upon the rocks of the Brazilian Andes. This same reasoning, we think, holds out against the few who suppose that the name of, and the veneration for, the Brazilian "Meyre Human" may have been intro- duced by the migrating disciples of "Mar Tomas," who, about the year 600, restored in the East Indies the Christian religion, then much neglected there, and of whom mention is made by Luis de Guzman in his " Indian Expeditions," by de Bairos and other writers. Sahagun, as we noticed before, 1 and a few more authors have fallen into another excess by identify- ing the apostle St. Thomas with the Mexican Quetzal- coatl, who, let it be remarked at once, has all the appear- ances of belonging to a later period. Bancroft 2 makes a statement which, if correct, ought to settle this ques- tion to the satisfaction of the learned dissidents, and to reconcile Sahagun with himself. He says, "During the Olmec, period — that is, the earliest period of Nahua power — the great Quetzalcoatl appeared. His teach- ings, according to the traditions, had much in common with those of Christ in the Old World, and most of the Spanish writers firmly believed him to be identical with Supra, p. 223. 2 Vol. v. pp. 200-202. 228 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. one of the Christian apostles, probably St. Thomas. 1 "We shall find very similar traditions of another Quetzal- coatl, who appeared much later, during the Toltec period. ... As we shall see," he says, " the evidence is tolerably conclusive that the two are not the same ; yet it is more than likely that the traditions respecting them have been considerably mixed both in native and in European hands." No better arguments to prove the personal difference between the apostle St. Thomas and the later famous Mexican Quetzalcoatl could possibly be offered than those held out by Sahagun himself, commented by Dr. de Mier. 2 Quetzalcoatl, he very correctly says, estab- lished in New Spain monachal institutions, where were taken the three vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity, whose inmates went around begging the neces- saries of life, clad in white tunics, with their arms crossed on their breasts and their heads humbly bowed down. The first institution of monks, at least of this kind, is not anterior to the fourth century. The brilliant clothing of Quetzalcoatl was that of Oriental bishops, never worn by the apostles of Christ, and the papas of New Spain, whom we might call vestiges of him, were vested, like our bishops, even with the mitre, which consisted of most exquisite feather work, while the priests in all religious functions made use of rochets or surplices, 3 — all things unknown to the apostles. Some authors pretend that the crosses found in America date from St. Thomas ; but they could have been given only by a later Quetzalcoatl, since the cross became an object 1 Veytia, Hist. Antig. , lib. i. cap. 2 Historia General, vol. i. p. xx xix ; Dr. de Mier, ap. Sahagun, lib. or 297. iii., Suplem. ; Bustamente ; Dr. Si- 3 He refers to Torquemada, t. ii. guenza, ap. Prescott, Conquest of lib. ix. cap. xxviii. Mexico, vol. i. p. 61, n. 5 ; vol. iii. p. 367 and n. 22. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMERICA. 229 of glory and veneration, publicly at least, no sooner than at Emperor Constantine's time. If the vestiges of Christianity found in Central America date, as is generally admitted, from Quetzalcoatl, it is evident that this missionary was a personage distinct from the apostle St. Thomas, because of the following fur- ther reasons : The bishops of ancient Anahuac were, it is true, elected in Oaxaca by popular vote, as were the first bishops of the Church ; but they were also consecrated with holy oil, as was the emperor of Mexico, whilst at the apostles' time the Order was conferred only by the imposition of hands. The constant psalmody that resounded night and day in the Mexican monasteries, and the offices of archdeacons, chanters, treasurers, and school-directors, that were all found in the teocallis of New Spain, are no apostolic institutions. The first bishops of the Church were called elders, but those of Mexico bore the title of bishops of later times : that of TlaTtdc,, Pope, Father, — a name evidently imported, as it has in the Mexican tongue no meaning at all. The explanation of this name, of the facts just mentioned, and of many more of the same nature, is obvious if Quetzalcoatl had been an abbot or bishop of a later period ; but it seems impossible in the supposition that St. Thomas and the famous Central American civilizer were one and the same person. Sahagun, who had no idea of the Irish abbot St. Brendan, finally concludes that the remains of Christian doctrine and cult, found in America at the beginning of the six- teenth century, had their foundation in the teachings, not of the apostle St. Thomas, but of some other bishop of the Oriental or Asiatic Church; perhaps, he says, of the homonymous St. Thomas who worked so many prodigies in East India during the fifth and 230 HISTOBY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. sixth centuries, and is so highly celebrated in the Syriac liturgy. 1 Veytia 2 is of the opinion that two great apostles preached in America : the former twelve years, he says, after the death of Christ, the other during the fifth or the sixth century of the Christian era. It is, indeed, almost historically certain that Quetzalcoatl represents two very distinct Christian teachers and civilizers of the New World. We could not reasonably deny that some of the apos- tles of Christ, apparently St. Thomas, have preached in our continent. The highly probable inductions from Holy Scripture must needs influence the opinion of Christian students, as they did the persuasion of several ancient Fathers of the Church. Nor can any serious historian afford to simply overlook the old American traditions, so singularly consistent in so many different parts of our extensive hemisphere. St. Thomas and the disciples, whom he ordained to assist and to succeed him, as did all the other apostles of Christ, had not the lasting success of St. Peter in Rome ; but other mis- sionaries followed him in early Christian centuries, to renew his work and to teach the pure doctrines, morals, and worship, of which the Spaniards have met so many evident vestiges at the time of their discovery and conquest. The first epoch of America's evangelization belongs most probably to the era of its primordial and unsur- passed glory, since we find in one of its most magnifi- cent ruins, in the Temple of the Cross of Palenque, artistic relics which many learned antiquarians have considered as indubitable tokens of Christian worship. Historical severity prevents us from proposing our 1 Historia General, vol. i. p. 2 Sahagun, Memoir of Dr. de xxii. Mier, p. xix. THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS IN AMERICA. 231 argument in a more convincing form; but we trust that the simple exposition of ancient traditions and facts entitles us to the conclusion that the grandeur of prehistoric America was owing to both primeval divine revelation and to its completion in the Christian dis- pensation, the two being actually but one. Divine teaching was the source of ancient America's glory ; its neglect, the cause of the degradation of our modern Indians. To prove this latter assertion we shall endeavor to give a brief description of the Ameri- can people as the Spaniards and other European nations first found them to be : sunken, in many respects, to a level below that of the Red Skins of these United States, in spite of the commixture, in some districts, of social features pertaining to a kind of civilization, whose semi-historical traditions allow us a glance into the condition of nations that had perished and disappeared already. Before proceeding farther, we wish to state, however, that we do not consider every American nation of the fifteenth century as having lost the last tenet of religious doctrine and morals, for we shall fortunately have many occasions to notice the reverse. Yet, so deeply was prim- itive revelation obscured in the minds of our aborigines generally, that Daniel G. JBrinton feared not to assume to prove a sweeping preconceived theory, according to which the very idea of God and of religion worth the name had disappeared from every nook and corner of the Western Continent. He declares, while depriving American mythology of all historical value, that the myths kept fresh by rehearsal were constantly nour- ished by the manifestations of Nature, " which gave them birth." And in the treatment of his subject he considers the whole aboriginal people of America as a unit. Winsor tersely and correctly observes that " this 232 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFOKE COLUMBUS. unity of the American races is far from the opinion of other ethonologists." The same judicious author further remarks that Brinton enforces his view of the American hero-gods, as if these were a spontaneous production of the mind and not the reminiscence of historic events, as well as other views of his, with a degree of confidence that does not help him to convince the cautious reader ; as when he speaks of the opinions of those who disagree with him, " as having served long enough as the last refuge of ignorance." Brinton allows himself other disparaging assertions, in the defence of his solitary system, when he says that " he does not know of a single instance on this con- tinent of a thorough and intelligent study of a native religion made by a Protestant missionary ;" and again when he masses the evidence to show, as he thinks, that " on Catholic missions has followed the debase- ment, and on Protestant missions the destruction, of the Indian race." I would exceed the limits of my plan by proving his injustice towards the civilizing action of Catholicity, — as in Mexico, — and I leave it to Protestant writers to clear their churches from the other reproach. 1 Brinton's fundamental thesis receives some strength fron E. G. Squier's tendency to consider all American myths as having some force of nature for their motive, and H. H. Bancroft pays respectful attention to this theory, which, as a general thing, is devoid of founda- tion. As for ourselves, we do not set up any a priori system ; but, as it behooves an historian, we look for precise statements of facts, which we record as we find them, reserving the right, however, to draw from them such general conclusions as their number and similarity may force upon an attentive observer. 1 Winsor, vol. i. pp. 429, 430. CHAPTEE X. A SYNOPSIS OF THE CIVIL HISTORY OF OUR NATIVES. America was inhabited, at the time of Columbus's discovery, by four or five distinct groups of nations. The sturdy descendants of ancient Northman settlers were still holding out on the western coast of Green- land, in spite of repeated raids of their pagan neigh- bors, and were granted a new bishop during the very time of the first discovery voyage of Columbus. Of these interesting people we shall give ample infor- mation. The present British Dominion and our United States were inhabited by the numerous savage tribes whose lingering remnants greatly resemble their parents yet. The eastern slope of South America, as well as the Antilles, was the abode and hunting-ground of many nations, physically like to those of the northern half of our continent, but generally more degraded and fero- cious still. Central America and the strip of land west of the Andean summits formed the territories of two powerful empires, which, although widely different in other characteristics, were both remarkable for their singular amalgam of civil, scientific, and religious insti- tutions, and of the fiercest savagery and corruption. The emperors of Mexico and the Incas of Peru had erected large public buildings and religious edifices that were not devoid of interest and testified to some degree of architectural skill; but their monuments were nothing to compare with the grand artistic relics of their ancient predecessors, while in all the rest of 233 234 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. America, aside from the miserable huts of the nomadic Indians, not a single memorial could be found to give evidence to national history for several centuries past. Much has been written and very little is known about the international relations of the numerous peoples and tribes in America during half a dozen centuries preceding Columbus's discovery. All we know with certainty is, that wars were numerous and cruel all over the hemisphere. Tribes were drowned in their blood, while others were driven away from their ancestral homes. Game and women in the North, human victims in the Centre, and human flesh in the Southeast were the general objects of constant warfare, in which the stronger human animal destroyed or exiled the weaker. The Esquimaux, slowly driven to their snowy haunts, succeeded, in turn, in levelling the settlements of the ancient Irish and Northmen in the Northeast. Other tribes were thrust away from their hunting-grounds of the Rocky Mountains to the shores of the Atlantic, and in Mexico one nation took the place of another. The peaceful tribes of the Antilles and of Brazil formed the game of their cannibal neighbors, and the kings of Cuzco reduced into servitude the brutal people grazing between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean. We could not afford the space to acquaint our read- ers with all the intricate probabilities which, in the absence of historical records, have been set forth in re- gard to the social revolutions and the numerous politi- cal changes that took place among the American peoples during early Christian times. Yet we are in possession of some pretty definite knowledge concerning the actual movements of the American nations. H. H. Bancroft, and Prescott in his Histories of the Conquest of Mex- ico and of Peru, afford us some valuable information, CIVIL HISTORY OF OUR NATIVES. 235 enlarged by other writers. Winchell 1 gives a fair synopsis, from which we make a few extracts. It is the opinion of Dr. Rink that the Esquimaux once lived in the interior of North America, and that they have been pressed northward and northwestward, and even back, across Behring Strait, by the hardier and more powerful hunting tribes ; while it is duly re- corded that the Esquimaux have occupied regions much farther south than they do at present. The Kopag-Mut, now relegated in Alaska and Siberia to the border of the frozen ocean, formerly extended two hundred miles up the Mackenzie River. At the beginning of the last century, according to Charlevoix, Esquimaux were occasionally seen in Newfoundland, and about the year 1000 they lived farther south on the Atlantic coast. Several Icelandic sagas relate that Leif Ericsson founded a colony in a region, now Rhode Island, where he encountered some dwarfish natives, whom he called Skraelings. Certainly the stately Algonquins, whom the first white settlers met in New England, could not be described by Icelanders as dwarfish ; and we have in the facts ground for a belief that much of North America was once occupied by the Esquimau tribes, afterwards driven north by the warlike Indians of the Linapi race. The opinion of Dr. Rink is accepted and developed by Professor Dall, who has spent several years in Alaska. The first appearance of the Esqui- maux in Greenland after or about the middle of the fourteenth century is a fact and date in accordance with their gradual removal from the interior of America. Many of the tribes of Washington and Oregon have been in motion westward. Dr. George Gibbs conjec- tures that the Tahkali and Selish families, with perhaps 1 P. 388, seq. 236 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. the Shoshoni and some others, originated east of the Eocky Mountains. Near the coast the movements of migration have, in most instances, been southward. The Tchinooks have traditions of a northern origin. Dr. Gibbs names several tribes which are known to have moved south- ward. The Shoshoni themselves have been driven in a southern as well as in a western direction. The Mexican nations had likewise traditions of south- ward removals which are still more articulate. They are represented as proceding from a distant country in the Northeast, named Aztlan. Before the arrival in Anahuac of the founders of the Aztecan State, sev- eral other migrations had taken place from the same region and the same stock of people, who displaced the tribes already in possession, as the Olmecs, the Otomi, the Totonacs, the Mistecs, the Tarascos, and the Zapote- cas. Two general routes seem to have been pursued by the Nahuatlac emigrants : One was on the east of the Rocky Mountain ranges, along the valley of the Mis- sissippi to the Gulf, and thence over the lowland bor- der through Tamaulipas and San Leon towards the Mexican table-land ; the other route lay west of the Eocky Mountains. Early in the seventh century the Toltecs arrived from the same northeastern quarters. Their migra- tion probably extended over centuries. The monarchy which they established fell to pieces about the year 1018, and a remnant of the Toltec people sought a rufuge in Guatemala and Nicaragua. The Chichimecs, who from time immemorial had hung on their north- ern borders, now assumed possession on the site of the former Toltecan State. Soon after began the invasion of the group of tribes known as the Nahuatlacs. The seventh and the last CIVIL HISTORY OF OUR NATIVES. 237 of these was the celebrated Aztecs, who arrived after a considerable interval. From the Aztecs' annals we learn that they issued from Aztlan in the year 1090. In their paradise of the Anahuac table-land they reared or adulterated that civilization which excited the wonder, the horror, and the cupidity of the Spaniards. As Hellwald observes, a doubt can scarcely exist that the countries of the Isthmus were reached by migrations from Anahuac. The Chibcas or Muyscas of New Granada, stretching as far as Cundinamarca and Bogota, possess some myths which clearly remind us of the Toltecs. Distinct evidences of migrations are found in Peru. On the rise of the Inca domination the Aymaras had been in possession since a mythical antiquity. Many of the monuments of Peru pertain to this older people. The sepulchral mounds were theirs ; the gorgeous tem- ple of Pachacamac was theirs ; the extensive structures near Tiahuanaco, on Lake Titicaca, were theirs, and perhaps also the ruins of the ancient Caxamarquilla. These people retreated before the Incas, towards the Southwest and the South, and in the fifteenth century they were as far as Chili. The Incas themselves had very probably a northern origin. Their civilization presents so many points of resemblance with that of the Toltecs that we are constrained to regard them as near relatives, if, indeed, they were not the Toltecs them- selves, appearing in due time after the decay of their empire in Mexico. This is the conclusion of that saga- cious observer and almost inspired generalizer, Alexan- der von Humboldt ; and this view is entertained by von Hellwald and, as I judge, by ethnologists generally. The Inca Garcilasso de la Vega 1 acknowledges that 1 Comentarios, lib. i. cap. xvii. p. 20 ; lib. ii. cap. i. p. 32. 238 HISTOEY OF AMEEICA BEEOEE COLUMBUS. he could not exactly state the number of years since " our Father, the Sun, sent his first children to Peru ;" but it is so long ago, he says, that its memory has been lost. He holds that the event took place " over four hundred years ago," — that is, during the twelfth cen- tury. Yet he remarks that Father Bias Valera ascribes it to the eleventh, or even to the tenth, century. Tbe history of the earlier races of Mexico and Cen- tral America, resting on traditions or on questionable records, is full of obscurity and doubt. The number and diversity of the architectural and other remains found on the soil of Mexico and of the adjacent regions, and the immense variety of the spoken languages, with the vestiges of others that have passed out of use, point to conclusions that render the subject one of the most attractive fields for critical investigation. 1 The advent of the Nahua nations in Central Amer- ica is even more uncertain than that of the Incas in Peru. According to the oldest traditions of our civil- ized aborigines, — the only historical sources on the sub- ject, — the Nahuas overthrew the old effete monarchy of Chibalba, or the higher-cultured ancient Mayas, at a date which may approximately be fixed within a cen- tury before or after the beginning of our era. " Respect- ing the ensuing period of Nahua greatness in central America nothing is recorded, save that it ended in civil war, disaster, and a general scattering of the tribes, at some period probably preceding the fifth century. The national names that appear in connection with the closing struggles are the Toltecs, the Chichimecs, and the Quiches, none of them apparently identical with the Chibalbans." 2 Cabrera gives the year 181 B.C. as the date of the Toltecs' arrival ; Brasseur de Bour- 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, 2 H. H. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 234. vol. i. p. 9, n. CIVIL HISTORY OF OUR NATIVES. 239 bourg, the last of the fourth century as the time of their migration ; Veytia and Clavigero add another century. 1 The native historian Ixtlilxochitl states that the Toltecs were banished from their country, sailed and coasted on the South Sea, arrived at Huitlapalan, the Gulf of California or a place on the coast of California, in a.d. 387 ; coasted Xalisco, arrived at Guatulco, and finally at Tulancingo, in Anahuac, in the sixth century. 2 Tradition attributes to the Toltecs a higher culture than that found among the Aztecs in later times. Pres- cott expresses the same opinion when stating that the Toltecs were well instructed in agriculture and many of the most useful mechanical arts, were nice workers of metals, and, in short, were the true fountains of the civilization which afterwards distinguished this part of the continent. 3 They introduced the cotton-plant and the maize, they built cities and pyramids, whose sides per- fectly corresponded with the cardinal points ; they had a picture-writing, and their solar year was calculated with greater accuracy than that of the ancient Greeks or Romans. 4 Their name became synonymous with all that is skilful and excellent in art. Nopaltzin, one of the wisest kings of their conquerors, the Chichimecs, did all in his power to advance among his people the civilization of the vanquished, whom he employed as masters of agri- culture and liberal arts. For centuries after, all that was great and perfect in Mexico was ascribed by the natives to their otherwise long-forgotten Toltec predecessors. 6 This civilization, through which they had gradually ascended in power among their neighbors during the 1 Cabrera, Teatro, p. 90 ; Veytia, 3 Conquest of Mexico, ref. to t. i. p. 208 ; Clavigero, t. i. p. Ixtlilxochitl, Sahagun, and Veytia. 46, ap. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 211, 4 Rotteck, Bd. vii. S. 63. n 73 s Bancroft, vol. v. pp. 240, 320, 2 Ap. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 214 and passim ; Prescott, Conquest of n. 76, ibid. ; Nadaillac, p. 271. Mexico, vol. i. p. 88. 240 HISTOBY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. sixth and seventh centuries, did not, however, save them from ruin. During the most flourishing period of its five traditional centuries of duration, the Toltec empire was properly a confederacy ; but in the beginning of the eleventh it had become a kingdom, vice had spread among all classes of society, and its king Acxitl was wholly unable to check the torrent of moral corrup- tion. Indeed, in his desire to atone for former mis- takes, he seems to have resorted to such severe measures as defeated his laudable aims by converting his former friends and flatterers into bitter foes. The empire of Tollan or Tulla, thus weakened by immorality and dis- cord, gave way to the growing power and authority of the rude mountainous Chichimec nations, and Acxitl Topiltzin left his throne and country in the year 1062. 1 Veytia, however, assigns the Chichimec victory to the year 1117, Ixtlilxochitl gives several different dates, varying from 962 to 1015, and Clavigero names 1170, while other historians still will have it that the ruin of the Toltec power preceded the Chichimec invasion. 2 The history of these ancient periods in the Mexican provinces is far from being correctly known. Prescott, than whom no better informed writer could be con- sulted, presents the following considerations in speak- ing of the monuments of Teotihuacan, the most an- cient remains probably on the Mexican soil : " What thoughts," he says, " must crowd the mind of the trav- eller as he wanders amidst these memorials of the past ; as he treads over the ashes of the generations who reared these colossal fabrics, which take us from the present into the very depths of time ! But who were their builders ? Was it the shadowy Olmecs, whose his- tory, like that of the ancient Titans, is lost in the mists 1 Bancroft, vol. v. pp. 239, 278, 2 Nadaillac, p. 282. 281-285. CIVIL HISTORY OF OUR NATIVES. 241 of fable ; or, as commonly reported, the peaceful and in- dustrious Toltecs, of whom all that we can glean rests on traditions hardly more secure ? What has become of the races that built them ? Did they remain on the soil, and mingle and become incorporated with the fierce Aztecs who succeeded them, or did they pass on to the South ? It is all a mystery, over which time has thrown an impenetrable veil, that no mortal hand may raise. A nation has passed away, — powerful, populous, and well advanced in refinement, as attested by their monuments, — but it has perished without a name. It has died and made no sign !" 1 During the commencement of the Chichimec domi- nation, several more tribes of the same Nahua race en- tered the territories of New Spain under the name of Nahuatlacas. Acosta, whose statement is sustained by the greater number of historians, says, " The Navatla- cas came from farre countries, which lie toward the North, where now they have discovered a kingdomme they call New Mexico. By the computation of their bookes it is above eight hundred yeeres since these Na- vatlacas came foorth in their country ; reducing which to our account, was about the yeere of Our Lord seven hundred and twenty, when they left their country to come to Mexico. They stayed foure score years upon the way, according to the will of the devill who spake visibly unto them. They entered the land of Mexico in the yeare 902 after our computation." 2 There were seven nations of Nahuatlacas which set- tled down in Mexico, one after another, the same author says. Bancroft adds that, indeed, the list of Nahuatlaca tribes who were at one time together at Chicomoztoc comprises only seven, according to most authors. They 1 Conquest of Mexico, vol. ii. p. 2 Bk. vii. ch. vii. p. 449, seq. 378. I.— 16 242 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. are named for the most part after the localities in which they subsequently settled, in or about Anahuac, and are as follows : the Xochimilcas, Chalcas, Tepa- necs, Acolhuas, Tlahuicas, Tlascaltecs, and the Aztecs or Mexicans. 1 The Acolhuas, better known by the name of Tezcu- cans, from their capital, Tezcuco, on the eastern border of the Mexican lake, were peculiarly fitted by their comparatively mild religion and manners for receiving the tincture of civilization which could be derived from the few Toltecs that had remained in the country. They gradually stretched their empire over the ruder tribes of the North, while their capital was filled with a nu- merous population, busily employed in many of the more useful and even elegant arts of a civilized com- munity. 2 In this palmy state they were suddenly assaulted by a warlike neighbor, the Tepanecs, their own kin- dred, and inhabitants of the same valley as themselves. Their provinces were overrun, their armies beaten, their king assassinated, and the flourishing city of Tezcuco became the prize of the victor. From this abject con- dition the uncommon abilities of the young prince Nezahualcoyotl, the rightful heir to the crown, backed by the efficient aid of his Mexican allies, at length redeemed the State and opened to it a new career of prosperity. The Mexicans came from the North to the highlands of Anahuac towards the beginning of the thirteenth century. For a long time they continued shifting their quarters to different parts of the Mexican valley, but at 1 To these some writers add the huixcas. (Acosta, bk. vii. ch. vii. Tarascos, Matlaltzincas, Malinal- p. 449 ; Bancroft, vol. v. p. 307. ) cas, Cholultecs, Huexotzincas, 2 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, Cuitlahuacs, Mizquicas, and Co- vol. i. p. 15, seq. CIVIL HISTORY OF OUR NATIVES. 243 last they halted on the southwestern borders of the principal lake in the year 1325, and laid the foundations of their future city by sinking piles into the shallows ; for the low marshes were half buried under water. Such were the humble beginnings of Mexico, the Venice of the Western World. The Aztecs gradually increased in numbers and strengthened themselves by various improvements in their polity and military discipline, while they estab- lished a reputation for courage as well as for cruelty in war, which made their name terrible throughout the valley. In the early part of the fifteenth century, the prince of Tezcuco succeeded in mustering such a force as, with the aid of the Aztecs, placed him on a level with the Tepanecs, the conquerors of his father. In two successive battles the latter were defeated, their chief slain, and their territory, by one of those sudden re- verses which characterize the wars of petty states, passed into the hands of the Mexicans, in return for their important services. Then was formed that remarkable league, which has no parallel in history. It was agreed between the States of Mexico, Tezcuco, and the neighboring little king- dom of Tlacopan, that they should mutually support each other in their wars, offensive and defensive ; and that, in the distribution of the spoil, one-fifth should be assigned to Tlacopan and the remainder be divided — in what proportion is uncertain — between the two other powers. Certain it is that Mexico obtained eventually the greatest increase of territory, while Tezcuco itself was reduced almost to the condition of a vassal. What is more extraordinary than the treaty itself is the fidelity with which it was maintained. During a century of uninterrupted warfare that ensued, no instance occurred where the parties quarrelled over the division of the 244 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COIAJMBTJS. spoil, which so often causes shipwreck of similar con- federacies among civilized nations. The allies soon overleaped the rocky ramparts of their own valley, and by the middle of the fifteenth century had spread down the sides of the table-land to the borders of the Gulf of Mexico. Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, gave evidence of the public prosperity. Its frail tenements were supplanted by solid structures of stone and lime, and its population rapidly increased. Fortunately, the throne was filled by a succession of able princes, who knew how to profit by their enlarged resources and by the martial enthusiasm of the nation. Year after year saw them return to their capital loaded with the spoils of conquered cities and with throngs of devoted captives. No state was able long to resist the accumulated strength of the confederates. At the be- ginning of the sixteenth century, just before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztec dominion reached across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and, under the bold and bloody Ahuitzotl, its arms had been carried into the farthest corners of Guatemala and Nicaragua. The history of the Mexicans suggests some strong points of resemblance to that of the ancient Romans, not only in their military successes, but in the policy which led to them, as also in the partial adoption of the religion and civilization of the conquered nations. Defeat, however, and the consequent tribute of pro- duce, of labor, and of life kindled and fanned in the hearts of the conquered races the passion of revolt and revenge ; the yoke of the arrogant strangers galled their curbed necks, and they were anxious to cast it off on the first occasion. The Aztec tyrants did not, as the Peruvian Incas, incorporate into one people the victors and the vanquished, but considered the latter as their CIVIL HISTORY OF OUR NATIVES. 245 servants, to be made obedient by oppression. The once independent but now down-trodden caciques or chief- tains were anxiously looking for, yet almost despairing to find, an opportunity of ridding themselves of the ever- increasing burdens imposed upon them by the proud, lewd, and cruel tyrants of Mexico. Such is nearly all the scant information that could with any confidence be drawn from aboriginal tradi- tions and dubious records in regard to American civil history during the first fifteen centuries of the Chris- tian era. The ruin, however, of the two most powerful and cultured commonwealths of our continent has been duly recorded by both the men who violently conquered them and by those who mildly brought them a higher, the Christian civilization. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Aztecs had not only excited the hatred of the most power- ful nations outside the bounds of the Mexican val- ley by their raids for slaves and human victims, but by their arrogant, overbearing spirit they had made themselves also obnoxious at home. Their enemies readily assisted the Spanish conqueror Cortes in sub- duing them, and were happy to submit to a foreign despotism, which, although far from being mild, yet imposed upon them less duties and saved their blood from being shed in honor of the " murderer from the beginning." 1 After the Mexican emperor, Montezuma, had died a prisoner in the camp of the invading Spaniards, not one of his provinces rose to avenge his captivity and the disgrace to which he had been subjected. The fearful 1 St. John viii. 44. The fore- Prescott's other great work, the going particulars are taken almost "History of the Conquest of Peru," verbatim from the " History of the in writing the last paragraphs of Conquest of Mexico," vol. i. p. 15, this chapter. seq. We rely on this, as also on 246 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. execution of the ISToche Triste was the exclusive work of the citizens of the capital. In vain did Cuitlahua, Montezuma's brother and successor, call upon the Tlas- calans and other cognate tribes of the empire to de- fend their common religion and country, although it was evident that the foreigners were so weakened as to be unable to resist a Nahua coalition. When Cortes lay siege to the city of Mexico, it was the former Mex- ican subjects who did most of the fighting and of the subsequent destruction of the doomed city ; and when, finally, in the year 1521, Guatemozin, the last Mexican ruler, was taken a prisoner and afterwards put to death, he had but few subjects left that would mourn over him. Not one arose to revenge him or to give him another Aztec successor. But ere long the whole of the ancient empire was submissive to its foreign conquerors, and so quiet and comparatively well pleased that even a Spaniard could travel unmolested from one end of the country to another. Such was the shameful end of the most powerful empire of America's second period of civilization, at the time that it had extended as far as the oceans would permit, and had enjoyed for some time already the full fruition of ancestral victories. Its ruin had been pre- pared long before by its gigantic crimes, and particu- larly by the bloody tyranny of its monarchs. The subversion of the other great and civilized country of ancient America, of Peru, differed from that of the former in several respects. Unnatural vices of the Peruvians justified abundantly the punish- ment which Divine Providence allowed the greedy Spaniards to inflict upon them ; but Pizarro's task was heavier than that of Cortes, because he had to meet numerous tribes strongly united through the wise policy of their rulers. CIVIL HISTORY OF OUR NATIVES. 247 Peru was at the time of the Spanish conquest in the growing strength of manhood. Since Manco Capac had laid the foundation of the latest Peruvian empire, several Incas, his successors, had gradually conquered and incorporated the various wild tribes of Peru proper till Tupac Inca Yupanqui led his armies across the borders of Chili to the South, and his son, Huayna Capac, conquered for him the southern prov- inces of the State of Quito. After his accession to the throne, this latter prince reduced under his sceptre the entire northern State, almost as large, rich, and refined as that of Peru itself. By a daughter of the dispos- sessed ruler of Quito, Huayna Capac had a favorite son, to whom by last will he left most impolitically the northern half of his empire, whilst his legitimate heir, Huascar, was to be satisfied with the ancient Incas' ter- ritories. This policy, as the dying father might easily have foreseen, soon gave occasion to rivalry among his children, the result of which was a fierce war between the two countries which had been bitter enemies for many years. Atahuallpa, the heir of the northern provinces, succeeded in defeating his elder brother, whom he cast into prison, and whose royal insignia and authority he assumed all over the reunited king- doms. These important events took place a few months be- fore the landing in Peru of the Spanish adventurer Pizarro, whose confidence in his undertakings they greatly increased. It does not appear, however, that the late divisions of the Peruvian empire were of any special avail towards the victories of the Spaniards. Yet Atahuallpa met at the hands of the white foreign- ers with the punishment of his ambition and of his cruelty towards his own relatives, the greater number of whom he had put to death, while confining his own 248 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. defeated brother in the prison in which, it is said, he ordered him to be murdered when he had become a prisoner himself. Pizarro, in order to succeed more easily in subduing the Peruvians by using the influence of a Peruvian prince, set up as a successor to Atahuallpa, whom he had condemned to a shameful death, the brother of his victim, the young Toparca, around whose forehead he bound the crimson borla or tasselled fringe which was to claim from the people for him, or, in fact, for Pizarro, the blind obedience ever paid to the Incas adorned with these royal insignia. But Pizarro was greatly disappointed soon after by the death of Toparca in the Spanish camp, and obliged to renew the mock ceremonies of an Inca coronation. More unfortunate in his choice this time, he appointed as the next theatre-king of Peru the second legitimate Son of Huayna Capac, Manco by name, who received the borla with all customary solemnities in the city of Cuzco, to the supreme satisfaction of the natives, who felt happy by imagining that the son of their late glorious Inca was yet to rule over them. A few days after, however, on the 24th of March, 1534, Pizarro named all the officers who were to exercise any real authority in the capital of Cuzco. Manco, soon aware of the intentions of his pre- tended benefactor, finally succeeded in his attempts to escape from the custody of his masters, and, collecting from far and near his Indian warriors, lay siege to his own capital, held by the enemy, and made for several weeks tremble in the balance the fate of the Spanish invaders. Compelled to seek security in his mountain fastnesses, he continued a fierce guerilla warfare, until he was at last, in the year 1544, put to death in his own camp by a party of Spaniards. A Manco had opened CIVIL HISTORY OF OUR NATIVES. 249 the brilliant line of Peruvian kings, another Manco closed it forever. The most tedious researches have succeeded in giving us historical certainty only in regard to the last years of the civilized kingdoms of pre-Columbian America ; and no scholar has ever attempted to look up the his- tory of the thousands of tribes, whose mutual relations by alternate wars and treaties of peace are so intricate and obscure that we can never expect to know any more of them than their modern descendants. We may truly say that the ancient civil history of our continent is a blank or a sealed book. Yet we can have a more complete and satisfactory knowledge of the religious and social institutions of ancient Ameri- can peoples from the fact that their own traditions are singularly explained and completed by the testimony of the European discoverers and civilizers of the six- teenth century. These were intelligent and reliable witnesses of existing realities, which, when we take into consideration the more lasting character of such insti- tutions, allow us to make reasonable inductions as to doctrines and relations of a similar order in by-gone times. CHAPTEE XL IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. True to evidence, we are compelled to commence the account of the moral condition of our post-Christian aborigines by a negative and, for those who are able to understand, a most distressing statement, — to wit, that, if we except Greenland and Iceland, the one Almighty God was not clearly known, nor duly worshipped, on the broad extent of our hemisphere at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Canadians, says Lescarbot, 1 have no form of re- ligious worship, neither has any of the tribes of New France, north of the Spanish dominion, with the only exception of the Virginians, who seem not entirely to neglect the honor of their gods. We may consider as an expression of man's religious instinct the ludicrous ceremonies of our Indians' medi- cine-men, who pretend to expel or catch the evil spirits, the causes of sickness ; but, besides these juggling per- formances, no act of religious worship is found to be performed by the native tribes of the Eocky Moun- tains. It is probable, however, that private prayers are offered on exceptional occasions to the unseen Being, known by some Indians under the name of the Great Spirit. The apparently most ancient of all North American aborigines, the Linapi Algonquins, have a national hymn, preserved for us by Heckewelder, in which such a petition is recorded. On the eve of their departure for war they prayed : 1 Pp. 718, 722. 250 IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 251 " Oh, poor me, who am just about to depart to fight the enemy, and know not if I shall return to enjoy the embraces of my children and wife ! " Oh, poor creature, who cannot order his own life, who has no power over his own body, but who tries to do his duty for the happiness of his nation ! " Oh, thou Great Spirit above, take pity on my chil- dren and on my wife ; keep them from sorrowing on my account ; grant that I may succeed in my enterprise, that I may kill my enemy and bring back trophies of war. " Give me strength and courage to fight my enemy ; grant that I may return and see my children again, see my wife and my relations ; have pity upon me and preserve my life, and I will offer to thee a sacrifice." 1 This last phrase is proof that the highest form of divine worship was not altogether unknown to this ancient nation. Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, who lived and trav- elled nine continuous years in the southern portions of the United States, wrote to Emperor Charles V. : " Our Lord God will permit, in his infinite mercy, that during your reign all these nations willingly submit to the true God who created and redeemed them. This we con- fidently expect, because, on our journey of two thou- sand leagues in this country, we have found neither idolatry nor sacrifices of any kind." z " In the South," says Las Casas, 3 " on the coast of Paria and in its neigh- borhood, there is not a temple to be found ; and when we go farther east and south as far as Brazil, we can- not discover any knowledge of God ; not even idols are worshipped." ' De Quatrefages, p. 492. 3 Ibid., p. 459. J Coleccion de Documentos, B. de las Casas, t. lxvi. p. 457. 252 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. The Brazilians themselves had no worship at all, 1 no more than their southern neighbors of La Plata, with whom the adoration of idols was likewise unknown. The idea and cult of the Supreme Being were thus uni- versally lost to the numerous tribes of the Atlantic slope, apparently the most ancient and certainly the most degraded of America. With those who were not destitute of every notion of religion, there were still traces to be found of the most primitive and least contemptible form of idolatry, — namely, of the sun- and moon-worship. Some authors consider this worship as typical only and addressed to the Creator of these luminaries ; but it is already' con- demned in the strongest terms by the holy man Job, who says, 2 " If I beheld the sun when it shined, and the moon walking in brightness : and my heart in secret hath rejoiced, and I have kissed my hand with my mouth : which is a very great iniquity and a denial against the most high God." This kind of idolatry may be ascribed to the abo- rigines of the Argentine Republic, 3 who declared the sun to be more excellent than all other creatures ; and to those of the northern coast of South America, who admitted the star of day to be superior to their other idols and gods. Both the peaceful and the warlike nations of the Antilles recognized as great deities the firmament and its shining lights ; 4 and, together with some springs of sweet water, the sun and the moon were the gods of Cibola, — that is, of the southwestern parts of our United States. 6 Las Casas says, however, that the sun-worship was not strictly idolatrous among the 1 Maffei, lib. ii. p. 74. 4 P. Martyr, De Rebus Oceanicis, 2 Job xxxi. 26-28. p. 7. 3 Colecoion de Documentos, B. 6 Las Casas, in Coleccion de de las Casas, t. lxvi. p. 462. Documentos, t. lxvi. p. 457. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 253 tribes of the Eio Grande, who had, he says, some knowledge of the true God, whom they intended to adore when they paid honor to the great luminary. The opinion of the ancient historian finds confirmation in the statement of Bancroft, 1 who writes that the 01- chones, a coast tribe between San Francisco and Mon- terey, identify the sun with that Great Spirit, or, rather, that Big Man who made the earth and who rules in the sky ; and so we find it again, he adds, in the neighbor- hood of Monterey and San Luis Obispo, where the first fruits of the earth were offered to the great light, and his rising was greeted with cries of joy. Mendieta 2 ap- plies — on what grounds we do not see — this benevolent explanation to all the American aborigines, worshippers of the sun, and in particular to the Peruvians, whose first Inca and his sister-bride were considered as the sun's children, as were, similarly, Adam and Eve those of the Almighty Creator. Whether the one true God thus received any medi- ate worship we shall not decide ; but it cannot be de- nied that the sin of idolatry was extensively committed in many parts of America. Irving thinks that the In- dians of Hayti intended to worship the Supreme Being when venerating the firmament and its great lights ; but he agrees that they also had a large number of inferior deities, incorporated or imprisoned in statues, pictures, and other material forms ; and all of them were served, says Payne, with a ceremonious worship, in which rude hymns were chanted, and manioc bread was offered in sacrifice and afterwards distributed among the worshippers. 3 Around the Gulf of Paria the natives were in possession of various household 1 Vol. iii. p. 161. 3 Washington Irving, Vida y 2 Hist. Eccles., p. 88, ap. Ban- Viajes, lib. vi. cap. x. p. 475; Ed- croft, vol. iii. p. 194. ward J. Payne, p. 352. 254 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COETJMBTJS. gods and goddesses, without giving them any worship ; while in the southern parts of Central America a small number of idols were honored with oblations of plants and of other inanimate things. 1 Idol worship had descended in Peru to the lowest possible and most degrading level. To understand bet- ter ancient Peruvian idolatry, says the Inca of Cuzco, Garcilasso de la Vega, it is necessary to distinguish two different periods. During the former some of the tribes were like peaceful beasts, others like ferocious brutes ; their gods were in keeping with their abject and shame- ful manner of living, as well in regard to the great number as to the vileness of the things that they wor- shipped. In fact, they adored herbs, flowers, and trees of all kinds, and various animals, such as tigers, lions, bears, and serpents, before which they would not flee, rather preferring to be killed and eaten by them. Nor was there a beast so mean and filthy to which they would not pay some religious tribute and veneration as to a divine superior. 2 Garcilasso remarks farther on 3 that the Incas subdued and civilized those low-fallen creatures. They, indeed, raised the standard of their religious and social condition, abolished the vilest of their idols, and reduced the number of human vic- tims offered to the gods in the least degraded of the conquered provinces. Nor was the sun the only false god of the civilized Peruvians ; the moon was worshipped as his sister-wife, and the stars were revered as part of her heavenly train, while the fairest of them, Venus, was venerated as the page of the sun, whom she attends so closely in his 1 Coleccion de Documentos, B. 12 ; Prescott, Conquest of Peru, de las Casas, t. lxvi. pp. 459, vol. i. p. 85. 477. 3 Comentarios, lib. i. cap. xvii. p. 2 Comentarios, lib. i. cap. ix. p. 20. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 255 rising and setting. They dedicated temples also to the thunder and lightning, in which they recognized the sun's dread ministers, and to the rainbow, which they worshipped as a beautiful emanation of their glorious deity. In addition to these, the subjects of the Incas enrolled among their gods many objects in nature, as the winds, the earth, the air, great mountains and rivers, which impressed them with ideas of sublimity and power, or were supposed, in some way or other, to exercise a mysterious influence over the destinies of man. Their religious system, far from being limited even to all these objects of devotion, embraced within its ample folds the numberless deities of the conquered tribes, whose images were transported to the capital, where the burdensome charges of their worship were defrayed by their respective provinces. 1 The Inca and his learned nobility or the " amautas" had inherited from a more ancient and more civilized Peruvian race a fair knowledge of the only one true God, and gave him worship ; nay, the great feast of Capac Raymi was to be celebrated by all the people in honor of the Creator of all things ; but even at the royal court had grown up, around the purer primitive cult, a supplementary worship of creatures, such as heavenly bodies and objects supposed to represent the first ancestors of tribes, as well as the prototypes of things on which man's welfare depended, like flocks and animals of the chase, fruit, and corn. 2 The king or Inca was practically the most dreaded and the most exacting of all the Peruvian idols. Neither did material civilization save the Aztecs or Mexican people from the disgrace of idol-worship and of its fearful consequences. Nay, " whereas the tem- 1 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. 2 Winsor, vol. i. p. 233. i. pp. 92-94. 256 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. poral power was greatest, there superstition hath most increased, as we see in the realms of Mexico and Cuzco, where it is incredible to see the number of idols they had, for within the city of Mexico there were above three hundred." 1 The Aztecs, Prescott writes, 2 recog- nized the existence of a Supreme Creator and Lord of the Universe ; but, says Nadaillac, 3 this assertion is dis- puted, and everything goes to prove, on the contrary, that polytheism existed among them, and a very infe- rior polytheism, too. . . . Most certainly the devil had never set up in any other portion of the earth idols of a more sanguinary appetite nor of a shape, especially when daubed with human gore, more terrifying and repulsive than those of Montezuma's cultured empire. Idolatry is one form of devil-worship, sorcery with qualified superstition is another. It would take much space and time to give an adequate idea of this crimi- nal practice in the different countries of ancient Amer- ica, which, for the shame of our age of progress, we must acknowledge not to be uprooted yet, when we see the religious instinct of thousands of our countrymen reduced to blind, stupid confidence in a worn mule-shoe nailed up above the lintel of their back-door ! We may, however, copy here a page of an author who, in his ridicule of superstition, evinces his ignorance of its actual cause. " The Mayas," says Bancroft, 4 " namely, the most ancient known and probably the most civil- ized inhabitants of Central America, like their succes- sors, the Nahuas, were grossly superstitious. They believed implicitly in the fulfilment of dreams, the in- fluence of omens, and the power of witches and wizards. 1 Old English translation of 2 Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. Acosta, The Natural and Moral 57. History of the Indies, bk. v. ch. 3 Prehistoric America, p. 292. sxvii. p. 371. * Vol. ii. p. 796. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 257 No important matter was undertaken until its success had been foretold and a lucky day determined by the flight of a bird or by some similar omen. The cries or appearance of certain birds and animals were thought to presage harm to those who heard or saw them. They as firmly believed and were as well versed in the black art as their New England brethren of a hundred years ago, and they appear to have had the same enlightened horror of the arts of gramarye, for in Guatemala, at least, they burned witches and wizards without mercy. They had among them, they said, — and here sorcery is combined with superstition, — sorcerers who could meta- morphose themselves into dogs, pigs, and other animals. Others there were who could by magic cause a rose to bloom at will, and could bring whomsoever they wished under their control by simply giving him the flower to smell. Unfaithful wives, too, would often bewitch their husbands, that their acts of infidelity might not be dis- covered. All these things are gravely recounted by the old chroniclers, 1 not as matters unworthy of credence, but as deeds done at the instigation and with the co- operation of the devil. Cogolludo, speaking of the per- formances of a snake-charmer, says that the magician took up the reptile in his bare hands, as he did so using certain mystic words, which Cogolludo wrote down at the time, but, finding afterwards that they were an in- vocation of the devil, he did not see fit to reproduce them in his work. The Spanish Fathers, if we may judge from their writings, believed in the Aztec deities as firmly as the natives ; the only difference was that the former looked upon them as devils and the latter as gods." The opinion of the Fathers was simply correct. 1 And historians more serious in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., t. than Bancroft, such as Cogolludo, viii. p. 144 ; Oviedo, t. iv. p. 55 ; Hist. Yuc, pp. 181-184 ; Las Casas, Gomara, Hist. Ind., fo. 264. I.— 17 258 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFOKE COLUMBUS. The anonymous " Rudo Ensayo," dated a.d. 1763, 1 states that, in Sonora or the northwestern province of Mexico " no trace has been found of idolatrous worship, — no idols or objects which would indicate that such a thing had existed up to the present time. The only devotion that has been observed is one to the devil, and this is rather caused by fear and stupidity than by in- clination. I am led to believe this because in all the ranches or villages there has always been one or more sorcerers ; at least they are called so ; and these have ever been suspected and feared on account of the belief that they can do evil." Material culture did not banish sorcery from Peru any better than it did from Central America. Divina- tion was solemnly practised. The priest, after opening the body of the victim., sought in the appearances which it exhibited to read the lesson of the mysterious future. If the auguries were unpropitious, a second victim, as the omen secundum of pagan Rome, was slaughtered, in the hope of securing more comfortable assurance. 2 Acosta testifies 3 that the sorcerers of Peru conversed with the devil and knew from him things that could not otherwise be known. Cieza de Leon relates several instances of bodily apparitions of the evil spirit to his votaries of Peru. 4 No wonder if the same diabolical practice existed in more barbarous regions. In Brazil the poor people were at the mercy of soothsayers and augurs. They had no clothes to be robbed of, but their scanty food was the prey of sorcerers and impostors. 6 The aborigines of Hayti had their sorcerers or medicine- 1 Eecords of the American Cath- * Bk. v. ch. xxvi. p. 367. olic Historical Society, vol. v. p. 4 Ap. Prescott, Conquest of Peru, 171. vol. i. p. 108, n. 35. 2 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. 5 Maffei, lib. ii. p. 74. i. pp. 106, 129. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 259 men, as those of the United States and of Canada have them still. 1 Deceivers plying their lucrative art were probably as numerous at that time as gypsies and spirit mediums are to-day ; but it cannot be denied that the evil spirit answered sometimes magicians' conjurations by taking possession of the degraded people's bodies, as we find it related by Las Casas speaking of the Brazilian tribes. 2 Lescarbot 3 bears out and develops the assertion of the Indians' great defender when he writes that the devil personally appeared to the Brazilians, and at times most mercilessly beat and tortured them. The poor people, he says, fell into trances of despair when they saw " Aignan," as they called the wicked one, coming to them in the form of an animal or in some fantastic shape. The Canadian savages, through the medium of their magicians, called " Aoutmoins," also communicated with the devil, who seems to have been less cruel here than in South America, for he contented himself with throwing dirt into their eyes, as was witnessed by Jacques Cartier ; or with scratching his minions, as he did a certain Memberton, who became a faithful Christian from a sorcerer that he had been. 4 The natives of Central America fared no better. Herrera testifies that the evil spirit had become the absolute master of the immoral Indians of Hispaniola, that he appeared and spoke to them in various shapes, driving them, deceived and blind, to diabolical worship. He likewise appeared to the people of Yucatan, espe- cially in Acuzamil and Xicalanco, where he required human sacrifices to be offered to him. 6 We have no 1 Irving, Vida y Viajes, lib. vi. i Lescarbot, liv. vi. ch. v. p. 727 ; cap. x. p. 475. cf. Brownell, p. 26. 2 Coleccion de Documentos, B. 5 Herrera, lib. iii. cap. iv., liv. ; de las Casas, t. lxvi. p. 459. Van Speybrouck, bl. 109. 3 P. 722. 260 HISTORY OP AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. information as to the special rites of this unmixed and direct devil-worship, but only know that it mainly took place in the midst of orgies of licentiousness and drunk- enness. 1 Nor was this particular feature exclusively proper to downright devil-worship ; it often accompanied or concluded the ceremonies of sorcerers' liturgy, which, in California, generally ended, says Father Venegas, in the most abominable gratification of appetites and pas- sions, in which all seemed to be determined to violate every principle of modesty, reason, and shame. 2 Such is yet and will ever be the characteristic trait of devil- worship, whether in the wilds of Africa or in the dark- ened halls of our cities. It always was the devil's aim to replace in man the image of God with the caricature of the brute. As a consequence, we should not wonder if ebriety was a common vice in ancient America. It would be a tedious and loathsome labor to describe the drunken habits of the various tribes ; and the craving appetite for " fire-water" of the aborigines' modern descendants in every part of our hemisphere sufficiently vouches for the truth of the assertion. It may suffice, therefore, to cast a glance at the intemperance of those nations, whom their high degree of culture should have saved from the disgrace. The Mayas of Central America were a civilized people ; yet, according to Landa, who is the best authority concerning the religious festivals of the Yu- catecs, every religious fast was compensated by religious drunken carousals. In the month of Zac a great feast was held, which lasted three days and was attended with incense-burning, bloody sacrifices, and general 1 Coleccion de Dooumentos, t. z Gleeson, vol. i. p. 134. liii. p. 321 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 361, n. 22. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 261 orgies. In the month of Mac the solemnities in honor of the gods of the cornfields ended by eating and drinking and making merry. In the month of Muan, however, at the feast of the cacao-planters, no one was allowed to drink more than three glasses of wine about the temple ; but the worshippers made up for the re- striction at the house of the man who had given the feast. In the month of Pax a religious feast was held by the nobles and the priests of the country, where the Nacon or general of their armies was specially honored, and lasted several days. The ceremonies were concluded with a grand banquet, at which all got drunk except the Nacon. The following morning the general made a speech to his noble officers, recommending to them to faithfully observe in town and country the feasts of the gods. This they did ; for, coming home, they com- menced a three months' celebration with the people of their respective places. All through these three months the excesses in which the people indulged were pitiful to see : cuts, bruises, and eyes inflamed with drink were plentiful among them ; to gratify their passion for drink they cast themselves away. The first day of the month of Pop, the Maya New Year's day, was an occasion of rejoicing, in which all the nation took part, and whose long ceremonies terminated by inevitable banquets and orgies. In the month of Zip the feast of the hunters and fishers was celebrated in a similar manner ; and, on another occasion, the hunters, with their wives, did special honor to their particular gods, with religious oblations and dances, during which all present, priests and others, became, to quote the words of Bishop Landa, " as drunk as baskets." 1 We might continue to read about the festivities of the Mayas, but the finale is invariably the same. 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 690-711. 262 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. The Aztecs of Mexico were another powerful nation of advanced culture. The charitable Mendieta speaks of the people as very temperate ; 1 and so also Torque- mada, Clavigero, and Camargo. 2 Motolinia, however, and other good authorities take an opposite view of the native character in this respect. Giocch. Garcias Icaz- balceta, a learned writer of aboriginal descent, relates 3 a statement of Motolinia, who says the Aztecs drink so excessively that they do not stop till they fall like dead of sheer drunkenness, and they glory in drinking much and in getting drunk. A fact which ought to settle the question is, that the Mexicans had several tutelary divin- ities of drinkers and drunkards, which they solemnly worshipped. During the month called Tepeilhuitl the Mexican Bacchus was especially honored with the slaughter of human beings ; and during the month fol- lowing there were ceremonies again in honor of the god of wine, during which sacrifices of male and of female slaves were offered by the liquor dealers. 4 Their dead-letter laws enacted against drunkenness and the excessive severity of these are other proofs of the prevalence of the vice, which was the consuming canker of their race as well as of other Indian tribes in later days. It was punished in the young with death, and in older persons with loss of rank and confiscation of property ; 5 and yet, at the end of their festive re- pasts, the older guests continued at table, sipping the intoxicating liquor called " pulque," and gossiping about olden times, till the virtues of the exhilarating beverage put them in good humor with their own. 6 An eye- witness writes in a.d. 1763 : " Drunkenness is not so 1 Hist. Eccles., pp. 138-140. i Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 334, 335. 2 Ap. Prescott, Conquest of Mex- 5 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, ico, vol. i. p. 38, n. 18. vol. i. p. 37. 3 Colecc. de Docum., t. i. p. 32. 6 Ibid., vol. i. p. 139. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 263 bad among the nations of Sonora as among others that we hear of. The Pimas, particularly those of the mountains, are still addicted to the habit. The wine or drink, with which they become intoxicated, is made out of maize, the maguey called mezcal, wheat, Indian fig, and other things ; but the worst of all is made of the alder tree, because its effect lasts for several days." 1 " In their carousals and conventicles they follow their whims unrestrained." 2 The Peruvians, says Prescott, 3 were, like the Aztecs, immoderately addicted to an in- toxicating liquor made from fermented maize, one kind of which, the " sora," was of such strength that its use was forbidden by the Incas, at least to the common people. We are well aware that no government nor religion can be impeached if some individuals transgress its laws of peace and morality, but when we see whole nations with their leaders given to vice, when we see so-called religions teach and sanction immorality, we cannot but condemn such nations to destruction, and declare such religions to have been originated by the infernal enemy of mankind. Such was the case in regard to the sin of ebriety in ancient America. Were we ignorant of the fact that another vice, more heinous yet and more degrading than drunkenness, — namely, lewdness, — is an unavoidable consequence of false religions and an inseparable companion of devil- worship, the principle of St. Jerome, saying that he will never believe a drunkard to be chaste, 4 would direct us to look for revolting unchastity among the inebriate aborigines of our continent. Dancing and 1 Rudo Ensayo, MS. transl. in ' Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. Records of the American Catholic 139. Historical Society, vol. v. p. 174. * Super Epist. ad Titum, cap. i. 2 Ibid., p. 175. in illud : " Non vinolentum." 264 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. drinking were the favorite pastimes of the Peruvians. Like the slaves and serfs of other lands, whose posi- tion excluded them from more serious and ennobling occupations, they found a substitute in frivolous and sensual indulgence. Lazy, luxurious, and licentious are the epithets bestowed on them by one of those who saw them at the time of the Spanish conquest. 1 Oviedo 2 asserts, in general, that the morals of the Indians were abominable, worse than brutal, shame being unknown ; Herrera, 3 that the Indians of His- paniola were very immoral ; and we all know the moral plague of both contemporaneous and successive polygamy among our native tribes. Kinship through females only was the rule in aboriginal America. In- dissoluble marriage, whether monogamous or polyga- mous, seems to have been unknown. The marriage relation was terminable at the will of either party. In fact, marriage among the Indians seems to have been but the natural mating of the sexes. 4 Orgies characterized by the grossest licentiousness were met with at different places along the Pacific coast, as among the Nootkas, the Upper and Lower Californians, in Sinaloa, Nicaragua, and especially in Yucatan, where every festival ended in. a debauch. " To the honor of the Flatheads, who live on the 1 "Heran muy dados a la lujuria que por ser muchas, no las digo." y al bever ; tenian acoeso carnal (Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. con las hermanas y las mugeres de pp. 107, 173, ref. to Pedro Pizarro, sus padres, como no fuesen sus Descub. y Conq., MS., whom lie mismas madres, y aun algunos thinks to be rather severe. ) avia que con ellas mismas lo hacian 2 Lib. v. cap. iii. fo. xlviii. y ansi mismo con sus hijas. Es- a Dec. i. lib. iii. cap. iv. p. 88. tando borrachos tocavan algunos i Fiske, vol. i. p. 64 ; Clay Mc- en el pecado nefando ; emborra- Cauley, The Seminole Indians of chavanse muy a menudo, y estando Florida, in Fifth Annual Report of borrachos, todo lo que el demonio the Bureau of Ethnology, Wash- les traia a la voluntad hacian. . . . ington, 1887, p. 497. Tenian otras muchas maldades IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 265 west side of the Eocky Mountains and extend some dis- tance down the Columbia, we must mention them as exceptions, as they did not exhibit those loose feelings of carnal desire, nor appear addicted to the common cus- toms of prostitution ; and they were the only nation on the whole route (from St. Louis, Missouri, to the Pacific Ocean) where anything like chastity was regarded." * A contemporary writer states that " in the uprising of the Pimas [of Sonora in a.d. 1751] the marriages which had been abolished and which even in their own lan- guage were called diabro-buhuturss, meaning marriages by the devil, were re-established ; the most powerful stealing by force from the helpless the wives they had legitimately married in the church. The ceremonies of their heathenish weddings are not fit to be described in detail ; I shall only mention the more decent. They gather together, old and young, and the young men and marriageable women are placed in two files. At a given signal the latter begin to run, and at another signal the former follow them. When the young men overtake the young women, each one must take his mate by the left nipple and the marriage is made and confirmed. After this preliminary ceremony they devote them- selves to dancing, and I remember to have heard, brides as well as bridegrooms dance in the costume of primi- tive innocence. Then all at once they take mats of palm-tree leaves, which are prepared beforehand, and without further ceremony each couple is placed on a mat, and the rest of the people go on rejoicing with songs and dances until break of day." 2 During a certain annual festival held in Nicaragua, 1 Gass, A Journal, pp. 189, 190. 2 Rudo Ensayo, of 1763, trans- Patrick Gass was a member of lated in " Records of the American the Lewis and Clark expedition of Catholic Historical Society," vol. v. 1804^1806. p. 175. 266 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. women of whatever condition could commit crime with any one, without incurring any disgrace. All these carousals, indulged in during or immediately after the great religious feasts, are evident indications of the public, thorough, and utter immorality which prevailed throughout the race. 1 Public prostitution, more com- mon than in our time, was tolerated if not encouraged all over Central America. Parents could expose their daughters to vice without any shame, and it was no unusual thing that the poor creatures of the lower classes were thus sent on a tour through the land to earn a criminal marriage portion. 2 Divorce was granted on as trivial grounds as it is to-day, and adulterous concubinage was more frequent than it is in our large cities. Decency prevents us from speaking of the unnatural vices of the Maya nations, — vices, it is said, introduced and excused by one of their gods, or one of their demons, as Las Casas accurately calls him. 3 Not only in Yucatan, but in Mexico also, did idolatry and devil-worship introduce and foster the vice of im- purity. Tezcatlipoca, the chief god of the Nahuas, was adored as a love-god, according to Boturini, who adds that the Nahua Lotharios held disorderly festivals in his honor to induce him to favor their designs. 4 In Tlascala and the neighboring republics the month of Quecholli was the " month of love," and great numbers of young girls were sacrificed to their three goddesses of sensual delights. Among the victims were many 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. pp. 507, 508, cap. vii. ; Miiller, Amerikanische n. 132, and vol. ii. p. 676, ref. to Urreligionen, S. 663, as ref. to by Mr. Brinton and divers ancient Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 676, n. 55, 56. authors. 3 Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 671-677. 2 Oviedo, t. i. pp. 252, 316 ; t. iv. * Boturini, Idea, p. 13, quoted pp. 37, 51 ; Gomara, Hist. Ind., fo. by Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 507. 233, seq. ; Herrera, dec. iii. lib. iv. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 267 fallen women, who voluntarily offered themselves to die in the temple from pure religious fervor, not from remorse or repentance, as no particular disgrace was attached to a life of prostitution. Unnatural vice, forbidden in some parts of Montezuma's empire and tolerated in others, was during this month allowed to exhibit itself on the public streets. To make short the history of this empire's corrup- tion, we will finish by leaving the reader to judge for himself how deleterious must have been upon the people the shameful scandal given them by their governors and emperors themselves. The emperor of Mexico at the time of the conquest was keeping about him more than a thousand women, and this number is increased by most historians to three thousand, and by Oviedo to four thousand, including the female attendants and slaves. Of these, we are told on good authority, one hundred and fifty were at times the burdened victims of Montezuma's profligacy, and every adulteress became a murderess before her offspring was born. 1 Nor should we be astonished at the un- natural cruelty of Montezuma's concubines when we know that out of the hundred and fifty of his father's children, Montezuma himself, on ascending the throne, had put to death most of his brothers, and made pres- ents of his sisters to whom he pleased. 2 Immorality 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 182, ref. to se las daban para ser sus mugeres, Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., t. i. 6 61 lo mandaba hacer asf ; 6 las p. 230; Gomara, Conq. Mex., fo. tenia mui guardadas y servidas ; y 107 ; Herrera, dec. ii. lib. vii. cap. algunas veces 61 daba algunas dellas ix. ; Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq. , fo. a quien queria favorecer y honrar 67 ; West Indische Spieghel, bl. de sus principales. Ellos las reci- 246 ; Oviedo, t. iii. p. 505. bian como un don grandisimo. . . . 2 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 183; "Tenia Tuvo su padre de Montezuma 150 Montezuma una casa mui grande en hijos 6 hijas, de los quales los mas que estaban sus mugeres, que eran mat6 Montezuma, y las hermanas mas de 4000 hijas de sefiqres, que caso muchas dellas con quien le 268 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. at the royal court of Tezcuco was no less enormous than it was in the palace of Montezuma. 1 Among the highly praised virtues of Nezahualpilli, who died in the year 1515, we must, doubtless, according to the prevailing standard, count his taking at once three Mexican princesses for wives, and his keeping a harem of over two thousand women, if we may believe his lineal descendant, the historian Ixtlilxochitl. 2 As it is but natural, the example of the kings was followed by the princes, who also used to entertain a great number of concubines. 3 Similar statements of dissoluteness are made in re- gard to the cultured kingdom of the Incas of Peru, where the remains of ancient art are decidedly obscene. 4 The Inca, considered as a god by his people, not only availed himself of the right of polygamy to a very lib- eral extent, but gave the revolting example of incest by choosing one of his own sisters for a wife. 5 We have no special evidence to assert that the Peru- vians were as cruel as the Mexicans towards their un- born progeny ; but, if murder is used to walk in the footsteps of lewdness, we may well infer that the means of abortion were known and applied in Peru, as they were in most parts of the American continent, and par- ticularly in the Antilles, where the native mothers con- spired to deny their Spanish masters any more servants, pareci6, y el tubo 50 hijos y hijas, cap. xlvi., ap. Prescott, Conquest 6 mas ; y aoaeoi6 algunas veoes of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 436. tener 50 mugeres prefiadas, y las 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, mas dellas mataban las criaturas vol. i. p. 179. en el cuerpo, porque asf dicen que 2 Winsor, vol. i. p. 148 ; Nadaillac, se lo mandaba el Diablo, que ha- Prehistoric America, p. 289. blaba con ellas, y decfales que se s Zurita, ap. Prescott, Conquest sacrificasen ellas las orejas y las of Mexico, vol. i. p. 186. lenguas y sus naturas, 6 se sacasen * Brinton, Myths, p. 149, quoted mucha sangre 6 se la ofreciesen, 6 by Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 508, n. 132. asf lo hacian en efeto. (Oviedo, 5 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. Hist, de las Ind., MS., lib. xxxiii. i. pp. 19, 35. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 269 by refusing to their offspring the right of seeing the light of day. 1 If, perhaps, the educated mothers of Peru avoided the danger of suicide by allowing their infants to be born alive, it is a well-established fact that many a Peruvian parent became guilty of a barbarity greater still. The royal Prophet writes of the Jews perverted by their idolatrous neighbors : " They served their idols ; and they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils ; and they shed irjnocent blood : the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan ; and the land was polluted with blood, and was defiled with their works, and they went a whoring with their own inventions. And the Lord was exceed- ingly angry with his people, and he abhored their in- heritance, and he delivered them into the hands of the nations, and they that hated them had dominion over them." 2 Such is the history of Peru and of Mexico. We all sufficiently know that the devil tries, above all, to deprive man, the favorite creature of God, of spiritual and eternal life ; but it is not sufficiently noticed that, wherever his dominion is admitted, he hates us enough, for God's sake, to try and deprive us also of temporal life. The infernal tyrant ruled Amer- ica at the time of Columbus's discovery and spared no human lives. Civilized Peru paid him a heavy tribute of blood. The Inca Garcillasso de la Vega tells us 3 that the ancient Peruvians killed men to honor their idols ; but, he says, the Incas offered no human sacrifices. This pardonable assertion of the native nobleman is, however, contradicted by all other historians. Bastian 4 admits that the Peruvian kings may have lessened the number 1 Peschel, S. 431. 8 Comentarios, cap. xi. p. 13. 2 Psalm cv. 36hU. " Bd. i. S. 453. 270 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. of religious murders, but there is sufficient evidence, he says, that they did not abolish them. Lescarbot and von Humboldt 1 relate the fact of human sacrifices in cul- tured Peru ; and an ancient reliable historian who was in that country a long time, Acosta, writes as follows : 2 " Whenas the Peruvian king Huayna Ceapac died (who was father to Atahualpa, at wbat time the Span- iards entered), they put to death above a thousand per- sons of all ages and conditions for his service, to accom- pany him in the other life. 3 After many songs and drunkenness, they slew them ; and these that were ap- pointed to death held themselves happy. They did sacri- fice many things unto them, especially young children ; and with the blood they made a stroke on the dead man's face, from one ear to the other." He adds : i " In Peru they sacrificed men whom they thought to be agreeable to the Sun. Besides this, they used to sacri- fice young children of foure or six yeares old unto tenne ; and the greatest part of these sacrifices were for the affaires that import the Inca, as in sickness for his health, and when he went to the warres for victory ; or when they gave the wreathe to their new Inca. In this solemnitie they sacrificed the number of two hun- dred children, from four to ten years of age : which was a cruel and inhuman spectacle. The manner of the sac- rifice was to drawne them and bury them with certaine representations and ceremonies ; sometimes they cutte off their heads, annointing themselves with the blood from one eare to another. They did likewise sacrifice vir- gines, some of them that were brought to the Ynca from the monasteries. In this case there was a very great and 1 Vues, t. i. p. 268. Relation, MS., cap. lxv., and Her- 2 Bk. v. ch. vii. p. 313. rera, Hist. Gen., dec. v. lib. iii. 3 Cf. Prescott, Conquest of Peru, cap. xvii. vol. i. p. 340, ref. to Sarmiento, * Bk. v. ch. xix. p. 344. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 271 general abuse." The age of fifteen years was the fatal epoch for hundreds of these bright, well-educated maid- ens to be slaughtered in honor of their idols, when not to be sacrificed to the passions of the princes. 1 Similar evidence is given by Molina, Cieza de Leon, Montesinos, Balboa, Ondegardo. Cieza observes, how- ever, that the numbers of human victims and the fre- quency of such offerings have been exaggerated by the Spaniards. 2 Prescott states that sacrifices among the Peruvians consisted of animals, grain, flowers, and sweet-scented gums, sometimes of human beings ; on which occasions a child or a beautiful maiden was usually selected as the victim. But, he says, such sacrifices were rare, being reserved to celebrate some great public event, as a coronation, the birth of a royal heir, or a great vic- tory. Indeed, the conquests of the Incas might well be deemed a blessing to the Indian nations, if it were only for the diminution of human sacrifices, although their death was a curse in this regard ; for, at their burial, a number of attendants and favorite concubines, amount- ing sometimes, it is said, to a thousand, were immolated on their tomb. Four thousand of these victims, ac- cording to Sarmiento, graced the funeral obsequies of Huayna Capac, the last of the Incas before the coming of the Spaniards. The burials of the deceased noble- men were likewise completed by the sacrifice of their wives and principal domestics, who were to bear them company and do them service in the happy regions beyond the clouds. 3 " Although they of Peru," says Acosta, " have sur- passed the Mexicaines in the slaughter and sacrifice of 1 Payne, p. 564 ; Acosta, bk. v. 8 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. ch. xv. p. 332 ; Aa. passim. i. pp. 32, 90, 105. 2 Winsor, vol. i. p. 237. 272 history or America before columbtjs. their children, yet they of Mexico have exceeded them, yea, all the nations of the worlde, in the great number of men which they had sacrificed, and the horrible manner thereof." 1 Nor did the Mexicans abstain from sacrificing small children also. During the first days of each year a feast was celebrated in honor of the gods of rain and water, at which a great number of suckling infants were immolated. The little ones were mostly bought from their mothers, though sometimes they were voluntarily presented by parents who wished to gain the particular favor of the gods. The sacrifices were made upon six different mountains and in the lake of Mexico. These places were visited one after another by a great procession of priests, followed by a vast mul- titude of people thirsting after the sight of blood and, according to several authors, hungering after the flesh of the babes. The innocent victims were carried to their death upon gorgeous litters, adorned with plumes and jewels. No wonder that, as the old chroniclers say, the people wept as the doomed infants passed by. They all were butchered or drowned. 2 At another feast of the same gods several little boys were shut up in a cavern and left to die of fear and hunger. 3 The Zapotec tribe sacrificed children to their inferior deities, men to their gods, and women to their goddesses. 4 Women were also butchered in honor of the female idols of Mexico on several occasions. Some were be- headed and their hearts were torn out, while hanging from the back of a stooping priest, and others were cast upon the sacrificial stone, where the religious butcher 1 Bk. v. oh. xx. p. 346. America, p. 293 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. 2 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, p. 305 ; vol. iii. p. 332. vol. i. p. 81 ; Nadaillac, Prehistoric 3 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 308. 4 Ibid. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 273 cut open their breasts, pressing a stick or a swordfish- bone against their tbroats to prevent them from scream- ing. 1 At the feast of the merchants a number of slaves, bought and fattened for the purpose, were slain and eaten. 2 On other occasions slaves and criminals were to fill the required number of victims, whenever there would be any deficiency of prisoners of war. These, however, to wit, captives, taken on the battle-field, formed the ordinary supply of miserable beings that were sacrificed to the hatred of the devils and to the cruelty of their heartless worshippers, and rarely did the supply fail to be sufficient for the occasion. Indeed, war on the neighboring tribes was instigated by the Aztec priests and carried on for the sole purpose of taking alive innocent people to be sacrificed to the idols. 3 Duran devotes a whole chapter to the description of Montezuma's council with the grandees of his empire, in regard to constant wars, whose object it was to exer- cise the youthful nobility and to capture victims for the religious festivities, 4 if, forsooth, we are allowed to call festivities the horrible massacres of which they mainly consisted. In fact, there was no feast, no religious so- lemnity in Mexico, without the shedding of human blood and the taking of human life under the most atrocious and truly diabolical circumstances. The greatest number both of male and of female vic- tims were slain with the knife. The usual ministers of the sacrifice were six servants of the " murderer from 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 326. perpetua guerra que contra Tlax- 2 Ibid., p. 394, seq. cala, Vescotzinco y Cholula, At- 3 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xxi. p. 351. lixco y Tecoac y contra Tliliuhqui- 4 Duran, t. i. The Capitulo tepee se avia de tener, para traer XXIX. is entitled: "Del consejo Indios al sacrificio en las soleni- que se tuvo entre el rey Monte- dades, y para exercitarse los hijos zuma I. y sus grandes, sobre la degrandes." I.— 18 274 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. the beginning," called priests. When the victim had been carried naked, or driven gayly attired, up to the temple, they seized him and threw him prostrate on his back upon the altar, two holding his legs, two his feet, and the fifth his head ; the high priest then approached, cut open the wretch's breast with a heavy knife of ob- sidian, and, with a dexterity acquired by frequent prac- tice, tore forth the yet palpitating heart, which he first offered to the sun, and then threw at the foot of the idol ; taking it up, he again offered it to the god, and finally burned it, preserving the ashes with great care and veneration. Sometimes the heart was placed with a golden spoon in the mouth of the idol. If the victim was a prisoner of war, as soon as he was sacrificed they cut off the head to preserve the skull, and then threw the body down the temple steps for other savage pur- poses. 1 At the feast of Xipe, the patron deity of the gold- smiths, the corpses of the victims were flayed, and the skins were given to certain priests or college youths, who went from house to house, dressed in the ghastly garbs, with the arms dangling, singing, dancing, and asking for contributions ! Could any but an infernal fiend sink man into such infamy ? 2 A body of forty-five Spaniards, mostly invalids, igno- rant of Cortes' s disasters in Mexico, were transporting thither a large quantity of gold at the very time that their countrymen were on the retreat to Tlascala. As they passed through the Tezcucan territory they were attacked and most of them massacred on the spot, and the rest sent for sacrifice to Mexico. The arms and accoutrements of these unfortunate men were hung up 1 Duran, t. i. p. 484 ; Bancroft, Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 79 ; vol. ii. p. 307 ; Nadaillac, Prehis- Aa. passim, toric America, p. 293 ; Prescott, 2 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 311 ; alii. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 275 as trophies in the temples, and their skins, stripped from their bodies, were suspended over the bloody shrines, as the most acceptable offering to the offended deities. 1 Prescott describes one of the Aztec sacrifices wit- nessed by the Spaniards besieging the Mexican capital : It was towards evening ; the tranquillity of the hour was suddenly broken by the strange sounds of the great drum in the temple of the war-god. The Spaniards turned their eyes to the quarter whence the noise pro- ceeded ; they there beheld a long procession winding up the huge sides of the pyramid, for the camp of the Spanish captain, Alvarado, was pitched scarcely a mile from the city, and objects are distinctly visible at a great distance in the transparent atmosphere of the table-land of Anahuac. As the long file of priests and warriors reached the flat summit of the " teocalli" the Spaniards saw the figures of several men stripped to their waists ; some of whom, by the whiteness of their skins, they recognized as their own countrymen. They were the victims for sacrifice. Their heads were gaudily decorated with coronals of plumes, and they carried fans in their hands. They were urged along by blows, and com- pelled to take part in the dances in honor of the Aztec war-god. The unfortunate captives, then stripped of their sad finery, were stretched, one after another, on the great stone of sacrifice. On its convex surface their breasts were heaved up conveniently for the diabolical work of the priestly executioner, who cut asunder the ribs by a strong blow with his sharp razor of " itzli" stone, and, thrusting his hand into the wound, tore away the heart, which, hot and reeking, was de- 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. ii. p. 449. 276 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. posited on the golden censer before the idol. The body of the slaughtered victim was then hurled down the steep stairs of the pyramid, and the mutilated remains were gathered up by the savages beneath, who soon prepared with them the cannibal repast, which com- pleted the abomination. 1 Many lives were taken in a manner more horrible still. During the month called Teotleco or Coming of the gods, the deities, it was said, visited the great temple, leaving their footprints on a mat at the en- trance. Their arrival, which lasted several days, was celebrated with dances and libations, and every evening with the sacrifice of several slaves, thrown one after another, in the midst of whistling and infernal din, on a great bed of live coal which was glowing on the summit of the temple mound. At the feast of the god of fire a number of men were barbarously killed in his honor. Each naked and bound captive was borne upon the shoulders of a priest to the top of the temple, where smouldered a great heap of burning coal. Into this the bearers cast their living burdens, and, when the cloud of dust was blown off, the dull red mass could be seen to heave, human forms to writhe and twist in agony, and the crackling of human flesh could be heard. But the victims were not to die by fire. In a few moments, before life was extinct, the blackened and blistered wretches were raked out by the watching priests and cast upon the stone of sacrifice ; their breasts were cut open and their trembling hearts torn out and thrown into the final fire. 2 Such atrocities were always accompanied with general 1 Bernal Diaz, Historia dela Con- xii. cap. xxxv., ap. Prescott, Con- quista, cap. clii. ; Oviedo, Historia quest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 142. de las Indias, MS., lib. xxxiii. cap. 2 Duran, t. i. p. 484; Nadaillac, xlviii. ; Sahagun, Historia, MS. , lib. Prehistoric America, p. 295 ; Ban- croft, vol. ii. pp. 330, 333. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 277 carousing, dancing, and drinking ; yet, for the honor of the natives of Vescotzinco, it must be stated that, al- though doing no better at home, they one day became scandalized at the barbarity of the cultured Mexicans, when they saw them slowly torture and kill with arrows the writhing victims reeled upon poles in front of the temple of the goddess Toci. In their indignation they went and set fire to the harpy's sanctuary the following night. 1 A last form of human sacrifices in Mexico was ob- served at harvest time, when the first fruits were offered to the sun. A great number of captives, or criminals in their stead, were sacrificed on the occasion in a peculiarly inhuman manner. Two huge suspended stones were laboriously drawn in opposite directions, and then simultaneously let loose to dash against each other. One victim after another was pushed to the fatal meeting-point and crushed in horrible death, while thousands burst out in triumphant vociferations ! 2 " O Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him ? Thou hast made him a little lesser than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour ;" but " man, when he was in honour, did not understand : he hath been compared to senseless beasts, and made like to them." 3 Would that the rebuke could be no severer ; but man, under the devil's empire, stops at no crime that the brute abhors. Nor were these aberrations from human reason and human feeling exceptional cases in civilized Mexico. Every moon introduced half a dozen religious feasts, and every feast was stained with fresh human blood. 4 1 Duran, t. i. p. 484. * Torquemada, Monarq. Ind. , t. 2 Nadaillao, Prehistoric America, ii. p. 255, ref. to by Bancroft, vol. p. 295 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 340 ; ii. p. 304, n. 3 ; Duran, t. ii. p. Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., t. i. p. 249. 147. 3 Psalm viii. 5, 6 ; xlviii. 21. 278 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Hundreds of men were deprived of life to obtain success in war, and the victory cost the lives of thousands. The coronation of an emperor was disgraced with murders, while hecatombs of human hearts were offered to the idols ; and at his death hundreds of slaves were buried with him. Similar inhuman tribute was exacted from the common people by subaltern grandees. 1 At the feast of Camaxtli, which Duran calls the feast of the Trinity, more men were sacrificed than at any other, says this author, because, he continues, the day was celebrated even in the most wretched towns and hamlets. In the city of Mexico alone six hundred persons at least were deprived of their lives, and more than four hundred were butchered in the rest of the empire. If to these we add the men and the women sacrificed during the other festivities, we shall come to the conclusion that in Mexico more people lost their lives at the hands of idolatrous priests than from natural death. 2 Las Casas, the enthusiastic apologist of the natives, who never was in Mexico, reduces the annual victims of Montezuma's empire to a relatively small number ; but John Zumarraga, who in the year 1530 had been appointed the first bishop of Mexico, says in a letter of June 12 of the following year, ad- dressed to the General Chapter of the Franciscans in Spain, that in that capital alone twenty thousand human victims had annually been slain. Some authors quoted by Gomara affirm that the number of the sacrificed amounted to fifty thousand. Acosta writes that there was a certain day of the year on which five thousand were killed at different places of the empire, and an- other day on which they sacrificed twenty thousand. Some authors believe that on the mountain Tepeyacac 1 Duran, p. 406, alibi ; Rotteck, 2 Duran, t. ii. p. 147 ; Bancroft, Bd. vii. S. 65. vol. ii. p. 315. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 279 alone twenty thousand men were yearly butchered in honor of the goddess Tonantzin. 1 Admitting exagger- ation on the part of the Spanish historians, says Na- daillac, it is probable that only in the interior of Africa could such wholesale slaughter as really occurred in Mexico be paralleled. 2 No page in all human history relates a more diaboli- cal outrage than the one on which is recorded the dedication of the great teocalli or temple of the supreme Mexican idol, Huitzilopochtli. The inauguration took place in the year 1486, in the presence of the chief princes and of six millions of people from all quarters ; and seventy-two thousand three hundred and forty- four captives, arranged in two long files, were slain during the four days of its duration. 3 Winsor says, " Ahuitzotl succeeded in 1486 to the Mexican throne. He conducted fresh wars vigorously enough to be able within the year, if we may believe the native records, to secure sixty or seventy thousand captives for the sacri- ficial stone, so essential a part of the dedication of Huitzilopochtli's temple." 4 Some authors state the number of the victims at sixty thousand four hundred and sixty, 5 and the codex Telleriano-Eemensis, written some fifty years after the conquest of Mexico, reduced the amount to twenty thousand. 6 But even this, what a frightful number of cold-blooded murders on one re- ligious occasion ! Heartless devil-worshippers capable of such enormi- 1 Barberiniana, MSS. , cod. xl. No. 577, ref . to Torquemada, Monarq. 16, not foliated; Kastner, p. Ill; Ind., t. i. p. 186; Vetancourt, Tea- Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. tro Mex., pt. ii. p. 37. i. p. 82 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 308, 4 Vol. i. p. 148. n. 8. 6 Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Mes- 2 Prehistoric America, p. 297. sico, t. i. p. 257 ; Kastner, p. 111. 3 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, 6 Ap. Prescott, Conquest of Mex- vol. i. p. 83 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. ico, vol. i. p. 83, n. 30. 280 HISTORY OP AMERICA BEFOBE COLUMBUS. ties were capable also of glorifying in them. The heads of a certain class of victims were cut off after their hearts had been torn out, and served as material for ghastly trophies that were to adorn the approaches of the idols' slaughter-houses. On their way to Mexico, Cortes and his army entered a large town that possessed thirteen teocallis or temples. In the suburbs they found a receptacle in which, according to Bernal Diaz, were stored a hundred thousand skulls of human victims, all piled up and ranged in order ! He reports the number as one which he had ascertained by counting them him- self. Whatever faith we may attach to the precise ac- curacy of his figures, the result is equally startling. The Spaniards were destined to become familiar with such appalling spectacles as they came nearer the capital of the Aztecs. 1 Historians relate that in front of the principal en- trance to the temple of Mexico there was a mound built of stone and lime, with innumerable skulls of prisoners of war inserted between the stones. At the foot of the mound were two towers built entirely of skulls and lime ; and on the top, seventy or more upright poles, each with many other sticks fastened crosswise to it at intervals from top to bottom ; and to each extremity of the cross-sticks were affixed five skulls. They go on to say that the soldiers of Cortes counted these skulls and found them to amount to one hundred and thirty- six thousand. Those that composed the towers they could not count. 2 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, que eran mas de cien mil, y digo vol. i. p. 393, from Bernal Diaz, otra vez sobre cien mil." Historia de la Conquista, cap. Ixi. : 2 Kastner, p. Ill ; Bancroft, vol. "Puestos tantos rimeros de cala- ii. p. 431 ; ref. to Gomara, Conquest veras de muertos, que se podian of Mexico, fo. 121 ; Acosta, p. 333 ; bien contar, segun el concierto con Herrera, dec. ii. lib. vii. cap. xviii. ; que estavan puestas, que me parece Montanus, Meuwe Weereld, bl. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 281 Monuments of this kind — Scythian trophies — are monuments of unnatural human depravity ; and yet those ghastly piles were raised by the leaders — the emperors, princes, and priests — of a nation that by misnomer is called a civilized nation. This paradox should not surprise us, however, when we see the lead- ers of modern societies, whether public or secret, set the example of public corruption. But the common people, the sufferers of wicked rulers, as long as the dictates of human nature have not been stamped out altogether, have felt, and at times objected to, the vile tyranny by which they were controlled. Acosta 1 affords us a striking illustration of this fact when he makes the statement that " A grave, religious man in New Spain told me that when he was in that country he had de- manded of an antient Indian, a man of qualitie, for what reason the Indians hadde so soone received the Lawe of Jesus Christ and left their owne, without making any other proofe, triall, or dispute thereon ; for it seemed they had changed their religion without any sufficient reason to move them. The Indian answered him : ' Believe not, Father, that we have embraced the Law of Christ so rashly as they say, for I will tell you that we were already weary and discontented with such things as the idolls commanded us, and we determined to leave it and to take another Law. But whenas we found that the religion that you preached had no cruel- ties in it, and that it was fit for us, and both just and good, we understood and beleeved that it was the true Law ; and so we received it willingly.' Which answer of this Indian agrees well with what we read in the first Discourse, that Fernand Cortes sent to the em- peror Charles V., wherein he reportes that, after he had 242 ; Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, ' Bk. v. ch. xxii. p. 352. vol. i. p. 83 ; vol. ii. p. 147. 282 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. conquered the city of Mexico, there came embassadors to him from the province and commonwealth of Me- choacan, requiring him to send them his Law, and that he would help them to understand it, because they in- tended to leave their owne, which seemed not good unto them : which Cortes granted." 1 No wonder if the people of Michoacan made such a request; for their deities, like those of nearly all the other provinces of the Mexican empire, were as bloodthirsty as those of the capital, 2 and received a proportionately equal number of bleeding human hearts. There are but few evidences to sustain the assertion of the learned W. Assal, 3 who says that human sacri- fices and cannibalism used to be customary among the North American Indians ; but we could hardly venture to dispute his conclusions when we notice that wherever the devil has been worshipped, even from the East to the West of the cultured eastern hemisphere, religious celebrations were an occasion of cold-blooded murder. 4 The practice of human sacrifices has existed among many nations, says Prescott, not excepting the most polished nations of antiquity, to say nothing of Egypt, where, notwithstanding the indications on the monu- ments, there is strong reason for doubting it. It was of frequent occurrence among the Greeks, as every scholar knows. In Rome it was so common as to re- quire to be interdicted by an express law less than a hundred years before the Christian era, a law recorded in a very honest strain of exultation by Pliny ; in 1 After reading such contempo- 2 Bancroft, vol. iii. pp. 446, 460. rary statements, it is refreshing to 3 S. 95. hear some modern writers assert * Kastner, pp. 106, 107 ; Lingard, that the horrors of the Inquisition vol. i. pp. 19, 46. were the means of the Mexicans' conversion. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 283 spite of which, however, traces of the existence of the practice may be discerned till a much later period. 1 The fact of these revolting sacrifices is clearly es- tablished in regard to other American countries, and particularly in regard to Central America. Yucatan was perhaps the least degraded country on our conti- nent in post-Christian times, for the gods of the Yuca- tecs demanded far less human lives at the hands of their worshippers than those of the Nahua or Mexican nations. The pages of Yucatec history are not marred by the constant blood-clots that soil the Nahua record. Nevertheless, religion in this country was not free from human sacrifice ; and although captives taken in war were used for this purpose, yet it is said that such was the inhabitants' devotion that, should a victim be want- ing, they would doom their children to the altar rather than let the gods be deprived of their due. 2 The festivals of Nicaragua were proclaimed from the steps leading to the sacrificial stone by the priest hold- ing the instrument of sacrifice in his hand. He made known who and how many were to be slain, and whether they were to be prisoners taken in battle or individuals reared among themselves for the purpose. When the victim was stretched upon the stone, the officiating minister opened his breast, plucked out his heart, and daubed his face with the blood. He next dismembered the body, and gave the heart to the high- priest, the feet and hands to the king, the thighs to the one who had captured him, the entrails to the trumpet- 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, peasing the Marcomans, who were vol. i. p. 82 and n. 28, ibid., ref. to then invading the empire, by de- Pliny, Hist. Nat. , lib. xxx. sees. 3, livering to them for sacrificial pur- 4, and Horace, Epod. in Canidiam. poses the prisoners whom he had As late as a.d. 270 a Roman em- taken in war. peror, Aurelian, declared to the 2 Herrera, dec. ii. lib. iii. cap. Roman Senate his intention of ap- liiii. fo. 47 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 704. 284 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ers, and the remainder to the people, that all might eat ; for it was thought that there was no good luck in store that year for one who should not swallow his morsel of the flesh. When they ate foreigners sacri- ficed, they held exciting dances and passed the days in drunken revels and smoking. 1 Las Casas asserts that in Guatemala the hands and feet of the human victims were given to the king and the high-priest, the rest to other priests ; but that no part was left for the people. It appears, however, from nearly all other historians, that the civil and religious chiefs were not the only cannibals in Guate- mala. 2 Cogolludo, with other authors generally, admits the fact of human sacrifices and of cannibalism in Yucatan, and relates that Aguilar's shipwrecked companions were sacrificed and eaten by the natives. 3 Mercer likewise states that " human bones scattered in the rubbish of the Yucatan caves indicate that the old inhabitants were addicted to cannibalism." 4 Spanish prisoners were devoured in several parts of New Spain ; but Albornoz says that the Indians of Honduras gave up eating the flesh of the white victims because it was too tough and stringy. 5 As the other tribes of Central America, those of Darien and Panama ate the flesh of their human vic- tims ; 6 and Bastian, after several contemporary writers, assures us that farther south, even in civilized Peru, 1 Herrera, dec. ii. lib. iii. cap. lacion, p. 165 ; Bancroft, vol. iii. p. liiii. fo. 47 ; P. Martyr, dec. vi. lib. 472 ; Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vi. ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 709. The vol. i. p. 271. heads of the victims were piled up 4 Hill-Caves of Yucatan, p. 161. into trophies, as in Mexico. (P. 6 Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, Martyr, ibid.) p. 268. 2 See Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 725 and 6 Peschel, Zeitalter der Entd., S. n. 9. 359. 3 Hist. Yuc, p. 25 ; Landa, Re- IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 285 the grandees of the country satisfied their unnatural appetite on the flesh of their fellow-beings. 1 On his first voyage of discovery, Pizarro landed with a small body of men on the Peruvian coast, and, ad- vancing a short distance into the interior, fell in with an Indian hamlet. It was abandoned by the inhab- itants, who, on the approach of the invaders, had be- taken themselves to the mountains ; and the Spanish, entering their deserted dwellings, found there a good store of maize and other articles of food, and rude orna- ments of gold of considerable value. Food was not more necessary for their bodies than was the sight of gold to stimulate their appetite for adventure. One spectacle, however, chilled their blood with horror. This was the sight of human flesh, which they found roasting before the fire, as the barbarians had left it, preparatory to their obscene repast. The Spaniards, conceiving that they had fallen in with a tribe of Caribs, retreated precipitately to their vessel. They were not steeled by sad familiarity with the spectacle, like the Conquerors of Mexico. 2 Peru was endowed with a regular government, it was advanced in learning and material progress, and we have a right to be astonished when we find it contam- inated with the most disgraceful vice of crudest sav- agery ; but it is a fact, testified by all history, that material civilization will not prevent social crime nor social infamy. Our subject affords us another sad and striking illustration. Mexico was, doubtless, the most civilized country in America at the time of the Spanish discov- ery, and yet nowhere on earth was there ever a more 1 Bd. i. S. 458. 2 Thus W. H. Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 221. 286 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. sanguinary nation that feasted on human flesh at almost every civil or religious solemnity. 1 At ordinary sacrifices, as soon as the heart had been torn out, the victim was flung down the temple steps, whence it was carried to the house of the warrior by whom it had been taken captive, and was cooked and eaten at a feast given by him to his friends. At one of the merchants' feasts a number of slaves were killed and eaten. The wretches were bought some time be- forehand at the slave mart in Azcapuzalco, kept clean, and fattened for the occasion. If we may credit the assertion of some authors, says Bancroft, the bodies of the little children that were religiously butchered or drowned in Mexico were eaten as a choice delicacy by the priests and chief men. 2 During the Aztec domina- tion, says the same author, the custom of eating the flesh of sacrificed enemies became almost universal among the inhabitants of the Mexican empire. That cannibalism, for the sake of food, unconnected with religious rites, was ever practised, there is little evidence to show ; yet the anonymous Conqueror tells us that they esteemed the flesh of men above all other food, and risked their lives in battle solely to obtain it. Bernal Diaz writes that they sold it at retail in the markets, and Veytia with Clavigero positively asserts that this was a fact among the Otomi tribe. 3 After giving a detailed bill of fare of Mexican repasts, Prescott adds : " One other dish, of a disgusting nature, was sometimes added to the feast, especially when the celebration partook of a re- ligious character. On such occasions a slave was killed, and his flesh, elaborately dressed, formed one of the ' Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, * Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, pp. 268, 295 ; Acosta, bk. v. ch. vol. i. p. 87 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. xx. p. 349 ; Eotteck, Bd. vii. S. 305, 307, 309, 358, 395, 396. 65. s Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 308, 357. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 287 chief ornaments of the banquet. Cannibalism in the guise of an Epicurean science, becomes even the more revolting." 1 During their residence in the Mexican provinces the companions of Cortes witnessed more than once the barbarous rites of the natives, their cruel sacrifices of human victims, and their disgusting canni- bal fetes. " Some of us have seen it," says the Letter of Vera Cruz, " and those who have assert that it is the most terrible and the most frightful thing they ever saw." The Letter computes that there were fifty or sixty persons thus butchered and devoured in each of the temples every year, giving an annual consumption, in the countries which the Spaniards had visited before October, 1519, of three thousand or four thousand vic- tims. However loose this arithmetic may be, the gen- eral fact is appalling. 2 The other neighboring nations followed the example of the citizens of Mexico, having also solemn banquets at which they devoured the flesh of their sacrificed cap- tives and slaves. Such was, in particular, the case with those of Michoacan and Tlascala. At the taking of Mexico the Tlascaltec soldiery feasted upon the bodies of the slain Mexicans, and Cortes, although shocked, was unable to prevent the outrage. 3 The tutelary deity of the Tlascalans was the same ferocious war-god as that of the Aztecs, though with a different name ; their temples, in like manner, were drenched with the blood of human victims, and their boards groaned under the same loathsome food. 4 1 Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 2 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, 157, ref . to Sahagun, Hist, de vol. i. p. 351 and n. 5, ibid. Nueva Espafia, lib. iv. cap. xxxvii. ; 3 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xx. p. 349. lib. viii. cap. xiii. ; lib. ix. cap. x.- i Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, xiv. ; Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., vol. i. p. 408. lib. xiii. cap. xxiii. ; Relacion d'un gentil' huomo, ap. Ramusio. 288 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Nor was it along the western coast of our continent only that the unnatural practice prevailed. Bastian assures us that cannibalism was raging in nearly every part of America. 1 The word itself is derived from the abomination existing in the islands first discovered. Columbus, says Webster, 2 in a letter to the Spanish monarchs, of October, 1498, mentions that the people of Hayti lived in constant fear of the Caribales, or Caribbees, — the inhabitants of the smaller Antilles ; which form of the name was afterwards changed into the Low Latin Canibales, in order to express more forcibly their character by a word intelligible through a Latin root, canis, dog, — doggish fury after (human) flesh. Maffei 3 testifies that, farther south, the Brazilian na- tives were addicted to the same shocking vice, which even extended eastward into Africa by way of the Ca- nary Islands. 4 As in Central and South America, so also cannibal- ism and human sacrifices used to be customary among the ferocious tribes of North America. 5 The abomina- ble practice was not common here, as it was with the civilized nations, yet often, as a religious ceremony, the flesh of the tortured captive was eaten, his heart being divided into small pieces and given to the young men and boys, that it might communicate its courage to them. On the 16th day of March, 1649, the saintly 1 S. 645. '1 Re et Rezina de Spagna ghe ha 2 Art. Cannibal. consegna de presentar per suo nome 3 Lib. ii. p. 76. alia Signoria ; et 6 un de i cinque * Domen. Malipiero, Annali Ve- Re presoni, che ghe son stati con- neti, in Archivio Storico Italiano, duti con le caravele che andete all' ser. i. t. vii. pt. i. p. 487: "1497, aquisto delle Canarie ; e confessa Francesco Capelo e zonto dalla so che'l no abhoriss ecarne humana ambassaria de Spagna et e vegnu massimamente de nemissi." con le galie de Barbaria ; e ha con- 6 Assal, S. 95. duto captivo un Re de Canaria, che IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 289 Father Brebceuf was made a prisoner by the Iroquois, who, after a succession of other revolting tortures, scalped him. On seeing him nearly dead, they laid open his breast, and came in a crowd to drink the blood of so valiant a man. A chief tore out his heart and devoured it. 1 The bravery which the savages pretended to imbibe with the blood of their foes was necessary to them to meet another evil of their barbarism, — the constant wars with the neighboring tribes, the endless bloody feuds that kept desolate the fairest and most extensive coun- tries of our continent. Mutual hatred and slaughter forbade them having a home and drawing from the rich soil the necessaries and comforts of life. These human brutes, exposed to all kinds of hardships and sufferings, roamed from plain to plain, finding their work and coarse pleasure alike in killing man and beast, in abusing the weaker sex, and in observing some un- couth forms of superstition and devil-worship. 2 Such, generally, was and will be the miserable condition of the wild American tribes, unless the law of Christian charity has elevated them or will yet elevate them to a higher level, not only of spiritual enlightenment but also of material prosperity. 3 Neither were the temporal circumstances of the peo- ple at large any better among those that we call civil- ized nations. A few noblemen had numerous privi- leges, and their power over the common classes was nearly absolute. Fuenleal, bishop of San Domingo, 1 O'Kane Murray, Popular His- word, applied to the Iroquois tribe tory, pp. 41, 68, ref. to Parkman. by their enemies about the lower Cannibalism was practised by the Hudson. (Fiske, vol. i. p. 50 and n.) Red Skins of the United States. In 2 Payne, p. 166. this connection it may be observed 3 See Garcilasso de la Vega, Co- that the name "Mohawk" means mentarios de los Incas del Peru, "Cannibal." It is an Algonquin lib. ii. cap. i. p. 32. I.— 19 290 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. writes to Charles V. of the lower orders, that they were and still are so submissive that they allow themselves to be killed or sold into slavery without complaining. 1 A fit of anger of the Peruvian Inca would cost the lives of the inhabitants of a whole province, 2 while the policy of the Aztec monarchs pursued towards their subjects was to enforce obedience and submission by enacting laws that made death the penalty of the most trivial offences. 3 The governors and princes took the example of the emperor. Father Acosta writes that " so great is the authority of the caciques over their vassals, that these latter dare not open their lips to complain of any order given to them, no matter how difficult or disagree- able it may be to fulfil. Indeed, they would rather die and perish than incur the wrath of their lord. For this reason the nobles frequently abuse their power, and are often guilty of extortion, robbery, and violence towards their vassals." Camargo tells us that the plebeians were content to work without pay for the nobles if they could only secure their good will by so doing. 4 It is a matter of course that these trembling, down- trodden people were to provide the victims for the idols, the tools for the passions of their rulers, and the luxu- ries for their tyrannical aristocracy. They were al- lowed to live and to toil, if they could prevent starva- tion. Besides rents and dues, the proportion in which taxes were paid for the imperial court is stated at from thirty to thirty-three per cent, of everything made and produced in the Mexican empire. Oviedo affirms that 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 191. quoted in Pimentel, Memorie sobra 2 Rotteck, Bd. vii. S. 69. la Raza Indigena, p. 81, and Ca- 8 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 185. margo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvelles 4 Ibid., p. 217, ref. to Acosta, Annales des Voyages, t. xcix. p. De procuranda Indorum Salute, 130. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 291 each tax payer, in addition to one-third of his property, delivered one out of every three of his children, or a slave instead, for the sacrifice ; and if he failed to do this he forfeited his own life. 1 " In Michoacan," says Herrera, 2 " they gave as tribute to the king all they had, when required to give it ; even their wives and children, when he wanted them." They were worse than slaves. The duties of the tax collectors were not very arduous, as the people hastened to pay their dues before being called upon ; but during the reign of Mon- tezuma II. the taxes increased so enormously, owing to the great extravagance of the court, that this commend- able zeal cooled down very considerably. As in Italy to- day, the populace had not wherewith to pay any more. 3 A formal prayer addressed to the god Tezcatlipoca gives us a description of the utter destitution to which the people were sometimes reduced : " O our Lord, I present myself here before thee, to say some few words concerning the need of the poor people, the people of none estate nor intelligence. When they lie down at night, they have nothing, nor when they rise in the morning ; the darkness and the light pass alike in great poverty. Know, O Lord, that thy subjects and ser- vants suffer a sore poverty, that cannot be told of more than that it is a sore poverty and desolateness. The men have no garments, nor the women, to cover them- selves with, but only certain rags rent in every part, that allow the air and the cold to pass through every- where. With great toil and weariness they scrape to- gether enough for each day, going by mountain and 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 235 ; Oviedo, 3 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 237 ; Pres- t. iii. p. 502. cott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 2 Dec. ii. lib. vii. cap. xiii. ; dec. 306. iii. lib. iii. cap. x., quoted by Ban- croft, vol. ii. p. 235, n. 36. 292 HISTOKY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. wilderness seeking their food ; so faint and enfeebled are they that their bowels cleave to their ribs and all their body re-echoes with hollowness ; and they walk as people affrighted, the face and the body in likeness of death. If they be merchants they now sell only cakes of salt and broken pepper ; the people that have something despise their wares, so that they go out to sell from door to door and from house to house ; and when they sell nothing they sit down sadly by some fence or wall, or in some corner, licking their lips and gnawing the nails of their hands, for the hunger that is in them ; they look on the one side and on the other, at the mouths of those that pass by, hoping, peradven- ture, that one may speak some word to them. O com- passionate God, the bed on which they lie down is not a thing to rest upon, but to endure torment in ; they draw a rag over them at night and so sleep ; there they throw down their bodies and the bodies of children that thou hast given them. For the misery they grow up in, for the filth of their food, for the lack of covering, their faces are yellow and all their bodies of the color of earth. They tremble with cold, and for leanness they stagger in walking. They go weeping and sighing and full of sadness, and all misfortunes are joined to them. Though they stay by a fire, they find little heat. O our Lord, most clement, invisible, and impalpable, I supplicate thee to see good to have pity upon them, as they move in thy presence, wailing and clamoring and seeking mercy with anguish of heart ! . . ." 1 Yet mercy implored from the idol was denied by the tax collector, who sometimes sold into slavery the pitiable wretches unable to satisfy the greediness of prodigal rulers. 1 Sahagun, t. ii. lib. vi. p. 39, quoted by Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 204. IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 293 The condition of the lower caste in Peru was less pitiful than that of the poorest class in Mexico, yet far from being enviable. The impositions on the Peruvi- ans seem to have been sufficiently heavy, says Prescott. On them rested, he continues, the whole burden of maintaining not only their own order, but every order in the State. The members of the royal house, the great nobles, even the public functionaries and the numerous body of the priesthood, were all exempt from taxation. The whole duty of defraying the expenses of all kinds belonged to the people, besides that of shedding their blood in time of war. They were to till all the available soil, a great portion of which was destined for the support of temples and priests ; an- other part, more considerable still, was reserved for the Inca, his household, and the general government, and the remainder of the land was divided among them in equal shares. It was provided by law that every Peruvian should marry at a certain age. A lot of land was then assigned to him, sufficient for his own maintenance and that of his wife. An additional por- tion was granted for every child, the apportionment of the soil being renewed every year, and the possessions of the tenant increased or diminished according to the number of his family. The Peruvian could not better his condition ; his labors were for others rather than for himself. How- ever industrious, he could not add a rood to his own possessions nor advance himself one hair's breadth in the social scale. As he was born so he was to die. Yet, on the other hand, if no man could become rich, no man could become poor. No spendthrift could waste his substance, no adventurous schemer could im- poverish his family by speculation. The law con- stantly directed all to enforce a steady industry and 294 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. a sober management of affairs ; and when a man was reduced to poverty by misfortune the arm of the law was stretched out to minister relief from the revenues of his royal master. Like a useful brute, he was cared for when suffering, but when able-bodied was compelled to work. The great hardship in the case of the Peruvian was that he was not the free agent of his own activity nor of his own feelings. He tilled the soil or worked at a trade, according to the dictates of government officers, without money and with little property of any kind, paying his taxes in labor. Even his time he could not properly call his own, for it was a crime against the State to be wasteful in time, and thus defraud the ex- chequer. The Peruvian, laboring all his life for others, might be compared to the convict in a treadmill, going the same dull round of incessant toil, with the con- sciousness that, however profitable the results to the State, they were nothing to him. The government pre- scribed to every man his local habitation, his sphere of action, nay, the very nature, quality, and quantity of that action. He ceased to be a free man, and it might almost be said that the law relieved him of personal responsibility. His sentiments and affections them- selves were regulated by legal enactments. At the age of twenty-four years the young man of the lower order was to choose a bride from eighteen to twenty years old, and his choice was restricted within narrow limits, while his parents and his curaca or local governor, especially, effectively guided his possible preferences. The day of his marriage was set for him, and his dwelling made ready at the charge of the district. The very existence of the individual was absorbed by that of the community, personified by the higher caste and the Inca. His hopes, and his fears, his joys IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 295 and his sorrows, the tenderest sympathies of his nature, which would most naturally shrink from observation, were all regulated by law. He was not allowed even to be happy in his own way. 1 The government of the Incas was the mildest, but the most absolute and searching of despotisms. Superstition and the severity of the laws kept the Peruvian serfs to the task and within the bounds that had been assigned them ; for death was the penalty of almost every transgression, and rebellion against the " Child of the Sun," the Inca, was the greatest of all crimes, whose chastisement was so rigorous that some- times whole provinces, trying to cast off the galling yoke, were laid waste after the last of their grown men had been put to death. 2 The people of Peru were not slaves, in the strictest sense of the word, but their condition was little better than that of real serfs. Personal liberty and freedom of action were allowed to the common classes in the Mexican empire ; but here also were numbers of people reduced to the lowest state of actual bondage. Slavery was enforced and recognized by law and usage throughout the entire country inhabited by the ISTahua nations. Tax collectors seized the man when his contributions were not forthcoming, poverty drove people to sell their children and themselves, and the penalties for transgressions of the laws afforded a con- siderable supply to the slave market. Slaves were continually offered for sale in every 1 One might suppose that the orders, which, they fondly be- educated Peruvians imagined the lieved, were to keep pace with common people to have no souls ; their condition on earth. (Pres- so little is said of their opinions as cott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. to the condition of these latter in 89, n. 2. ) a future life, while they are diffuse 2 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. on the prospects of the higher i. pp. 45, 48, 59, 60, 82, 113-115. 296 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. town, but the principal slave-mart in the Mexican empire seems to have been the town of Azcapuzalco, about six miles from Mexico, where fairs were regu- larly held for the sale of these unfortunate beings. They were brought there by their masters, dressed in their gayest apparel, and instructed to sing, dance, and display their little stock of personal accomplish- ments, so as to recommend themselves to the purchaser. Cortes also speaks of Acalan, a city of Guatemala, as a place where an extensive trade in human kind was carried on. Slave-dealing was an honorable calling among the Aztecs. 1 While in Nicaragua the chiefs of the conquered ene- mies were killed and eaten, the common captives were enslaved ; but in Central America, as well as on the plains of Anahuac, the slaves lived in constant fear of finishing their lives of toil and shame by being slaughtered and devoured at some religious celebration. 2 Hard labor, the misery and disgrace of slavery, and the sacrifice of blood and life either on a battle-field or on a demon's altar were the common destiny of the civilized American natives, while a few individuals, proportionately very few, enjoyed the riches of the land and the fruits of the people's toil and suffering ; while one heartless master, the first idol of his country, was allowed to ruin both the souls and the bodies of millions trembling before him. Such has always been the object and the result of infidel governments the world over. Where God and his church are denied, the devil puts up his rich minions to do his fiendish work. Montezuma ground his people under the bur- 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, ' Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 217, 219, vol. i. p. 149, ref. to Sahagun, His- 223, 650. toria de Nueva Espafia, lib. ix. cap. iv IMMORALITY AND MISERY IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 297 den of taxes, corrupted thousands of female slaves, and repeatedly ordered the massacre of thousands of men ; but he himself worshipped the devil, who during the night " appeared uuto him and gave him answer," says Thomas Gage, 1 in a golden chapel built in the middle of vicious, howling beasts. Place together the Sultan of Constantinople, the millionaires of Wall Street, and the wretches of the slums of London, and you will have some idea of aboriginal American countries. The influence of Christianity, although often dis- owned, is a powerful safeguard of the poor, the labor- ers, the masses of modern society ; but if the millions of common people have so much to complain of to- day, who shall faithfully draw the dark picture of the tribes that were living in times and countries in which the golden rule of the love of God and man was not held before the eyes of rulers and subjects? Garcilasso de la Vega, the Cuzcoan Inca, states, as noticed already, that the former Peruvians were, some like tamed brutes, others like ferocious beasts. 2 Maffei says, 3 that the Brazilians, scattered over an immense country without laws or any form of government, were more alike to wild animals than to men. Articulate speech, says Payne, 4 the knowledge of fire, and the use of rude implements of stone and wood but poorly distinguished the American Indian from the lower mammals. The particular features of the Indian's intellectual and moral condition are accurately summed up by Rotteck : 5 Scarcity of mental conceptions, incapacity 1 New Survey, p. 99, quoted by 3 Lib. ii. p. 76. Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 164. * P. 166. 2 Comentarios, lib. i. cap. ix. p. 6 Bd. vii. S. 61. 12. 298 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. for supersensuous or abstract ideas, brutal thought- lessness, lack of providence, dislike of mental work, complete surrender to temporary sensual enjoyments and childish plays, credulity, stupid superstition, and complacent indolence, besides consummate egotism, hardheartedness, insensibility towards man and beast, cruelty, knavery, reticence, and sullenness. The In- dian's apparently good qualities themselves root in ignoble grounds : his love for his children is but low instinct, that ends with the helplessness of the little ones ; nor do his children make him any return for it, for, as soon as they can take care of themselves, their progenitors become strangers to them. More- over, there is nothing of kindness towards the weaker sex : woman is man's slave, more pitiable in America than anywhere else. Gratitude is altogether unknown to the Indian. 1 His social institutions are reduced to the preservation of his own tribe or. the destruction of another by war, and to the revenge of personal insults by a semblance of justice. Of institutions for the promotion of common welfare or progress he knows- nothing, and the very family relations are of the loosest kind. Is not this Darwin's missing link between beast and man? 1 So also states Maffei in regard to those of Brazil, in particular. (Lib. ii. p. 76.) CHAPTER XII. URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. In the presence of so much religious abasement, of abject immorality, of inhuman cruelty, and of real beastliness, as we have just noticed, no one will dispute the conclusion that the American Indians of the six- teenth century were either the descendants of slowly degraded nations of ancient civilized America, or the progeny of semi-barbarous strangers. It is, however, very difficult, not to say impossible, to decide which of the two probabilities is the actual fact. The theory of human degradation on our hemisphere will find no feeble argument in the mental and physical condition of most American aborigines, who were so thoroughly brutalized that they could easily be driven from their homes to the adjoining woods, but were ab- solutely incapable of migrating from one continent to another. A second proof of aboriginal presence of our native races, and, consequently, of their degeneration on American soil, may be deduced from their traditions, which seem to establish that their pilgrim fathers were near relatives of Noe ; for, indeed, as we shall notice farther on, several of them were well versed in the biblical lore of that patriarch's epoch. According to Ixtlilxochitl, the Toltec tradition relates that, after the confusion of tongues at Babel, the seven families who spoke the Toltec language set out for the New World, wandering one hundred and four years over large ex- tents of land and water. 1 Yotan, the supposed founder 1 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 18, n. 40 ; substantiated by several authorities. 299 300 HISTOEY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. of the ancient and advanced Maya civilization, is said to have been a descendant of Noe, and to have assisted at the building of the Tower of Babel. After the con- fusion of tongues he led a portion of the dispersed peo- ple to America, where he established the kingdom of Chibalba and built the city of Palenque. 1 We know that wherever continued divine doctrine does not uphold a nation, this nation is doomed to be misled by the shortcomings of human reason and by human passions, and eventually to fall into barbarism ; and we fully admit, therefore, that the American natives of the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries may be the direct descendants of the wonderful Mound- builders and Cliff Dwellers and of the highly cultured citizens of the kingdom of Chibalba. Yet we feel rather inclined to think that the In- dian tribes, which since five centuries are being replaced by other peoples, themselves displaced or exterminated more ancient and equally effete nations. Our reasons are not such as an historian might require, — recorded facts ; but if we follow the general law, that nothing under the sun is new, 2 and that history repeats itself, we will easily admit that the Western Continent has been subjected to the same vicissitudes as the Eastern, — namely, that one nation has successively driven out another whenever the weight of the latter's crimes was full in the balance of eternal justice. Kepeated examples of this are striking in the histories of Persia, Greece, and Italy, not to speak of Palestine, Barbary, Spain, England, and Ireland. In fact, we find races succeed races in every country whose history has been written, as we see them yet in Africa and on our continent, where not only the black and the red, 1 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 27. 2 Eccles. i. 10. URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 301 but even some fair colonies, are vanishing to make room for others. Nor is it the general philosophy of history only that bears us out in this opinion. Certain actual facts convey the same conviction to the most learned writers. Sev- eral American tribes have traditions, others had hiero- glyphic records, through which they claim to have originally come from foreign lands — a tradition hardly possible in the supposition of their lineal descent from Americans of four thousand or five thousand years ago. Other particulars point in the same direction. If the continent was peopled from Asia, it was necessarily from younger nations, says Dr. Wilson. 1 Emigration from eastern Asia only took place in the latter part of the fifth century of the Christian era, and it by no means aids us in determining the origin of our earliest population, says Tschudi. 2 Colonel Smith thinks that, for ages, immigration into America has been as it is now, — namely, continuous, down to the beginning of the thirteenth century. 3 That the new settlers arrived, as to-day, from widely differ- ent countries and peoples is not less probable. Some authors, with Morton as their leader, have as- serted that the resemblance among the various Ameri- can tribes is such as to suggest the conclusion that they all descend from the aboriginal parent-stock ; nay, more than one has gone so far as to declare them specifically different from all Old- World nations, and New- World autochthones. The aborigines of the Western World, says Prescott, were distinguished by certain peculiari- ties of organization which have led physiologists to regard them as a separate race. These peculiarities are their reddish complexion, approaching to a cinnamon 1 Prehistoric Man, p. 615. 2 De Quatrefages, p. 238. 2 P. 24, ap. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 31. 302 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. color; their straight, black, and exceedingly glossy hair; their beard, thin, and usually eradicated ; their high cheek-bones, their eyes obliquely directed towards the temples, their prominent noses, and their narrow fore- heads falling backward with a greater inclination than those of any other race except the African. These characteristics of the American aborigines are found to bear a close resemblance to those of the Mongoloid race, and especially to the people of eastern Tartary. 1 The more common features among the American abo- rigines, and, above all, the color which distinguishes them the most from Old- World races, must be ascribed to the peculiar conditions of life on our continent. These local agencies and requirements are unable to obliterate all hereditary peculiarities, but constantly tend to introduce some uniform special characteristics. For the sake of illustration we here copy a curious page from "The Human Race" of the illustrious Pa- risian, Professor de Quatrefages : 2 " The English race was only definitely settled in the United States at the time of the Puritan immigration about the year 1620, and of the arrival of Penn in 1681. Twelve genera- tions, at the most, separate us from this epoch, and, nevertheless, the Anglo-American, the Yankee, no longer resembles his ancestors. The fact is so striking that the eminent zoologist Andrew Murray, when en- deavoring to account for the formation of animal races, thinks he cannot do better than appeal to the condition of mankind in the United States. " The subject, moreover, is not wanting in precise de- tails, which are vouched for by a number of travellers} 1 On nepeutse refuser d'admettre Humboldt, Essai Politique, t. i. p. que l'espece humaine n' off re pas 367, ap. Prescott, Conquest of Mex- de races plus voisines que le sont ico, vol. iii. p. 385, n. 68. ) oelles des Americains, des Mongols, 2 Pp. 254, 255. ■des Mantchoux et des Malais. (Von URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 303 by naturalists and physicians. At the second genera- tion the English Creole in North America presents, in his features, an alteration which approximates him to the native races. Subsequently the skin dries and loses its rosy color, the glandular system is reduced to a minimum, the hair darkens and becomes glossy, the neck becomes slender, and the size of the head di- minishes. In the face the temporal fosses become pronounced, the cheek-bones prominent, the orbital cavities hollow, and the lower jaw massive. The bones of the extremities are elongated, while their cavity is diminished, so much so that in France and in England gloves are specially made for the United States, with exceptionally long fingers. Lastly, in the woman the pelvis, in its proportions, approaches that of the man. " Are these changes signs of a degeneration already accomplished and of an approaching extinction, as Knox asserts ? I think a reply to this assumption is hardly necessary. Although modified, the physical type is not lowered in the scale of races. The Yankee race, formed by the American conditions of life, remains worthy of its elder sisters in Europe. " The African transported into our country has also undergone remarkable changes. His color has paled, his features have improved, and his physiognomy is altered. ' In the space of one hundred and fifty years,' says E. Reclus, ' he has passed a good fourth of the distance which separates him from the whites, so far as external appearance goes.' Ly ell's opinion is almost the same. Moreover, after visiting two negro churches in Savannah, he remarked that the odor so character- istic of the race was scarcely appreciable. A long medical experience in New Orleans has shown Dr. Visinie that the blood of the negro Creole has lost the excess of plasticity which it possessed in Africa. Let 304 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. us add, with Reiset, de Lisboa, and even Nott and Gliddon, that while the physical type has undergone modification, the intelligence has improved, and we shall have to recognize that in the United States a sub-negro race has been formed, derived from the imported stock." Thus the European white and the African negro, when under the influence of new conditions of life, in our Republic, have both undergone modifications. Moreover, both, according to Reclus and Brasseur de Bourbourg, approximate to the indigenous races. Both these authors seem to admit that, at the end of a given time, whatever their origin may be, all the pos- terity of American immigrants will become Red Skins, and, I would add, not be any worse for it, provided the unalterable principles of religion and civilization be guarded inviolate. From the common physical standard of the features of our modern aborigines there are deviations, in the same manner, if not to the same extent, as in other quarters of the globe. Thus we find, amidst the general prevalent copper or cinnamon tint, nearly all gradations of color, from the European white to a black, almost African, while the complexion capriciously varies among different tribes in the neighborhood of one another. 1 The ethnological significance of the color of our natives has often been and is yet exaggerated. De Quatrefages correctly remarks 2 that, of the four groups into which the colors of human races may be divided, the least characteristic is the red. On the one hand, in America, the Peruvian, the Araucanian of Chili, and other tribes are more or less deep brown ; the Brazilio- Guaranians are of a yellowish color slightly tinted with red, while white and black are duly represented, as we 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, * P. 359. vol. iii. pp. 384, 385, and notes, ibid. URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 305 shall notice soon. On the other hand, in Formosa Island a tribe has been found as red as the Algon- quins, and more or less copper tints are met with among Corean and African populations. The Mexicans are noticed by von Humboldt, as dis- tinguished from the other American aborigines whom he has seen, by the quantity of beard and moustache. 1 Bancroft, who at one time is in favor of the autoch- thonic hypothesis, states, in another place, that the various tribes and nations differ so materially from one another as to render it extremely improbable that they are derived from one original stock. 2 Vivier de Saint Martin, who wonders at the uniform dissimilarity of our Indians from all the nations of the Eastern Conti- nent, agrees, however, that the tribes all along the Arctic Ocean, known as the Esquimaux, are a race ab- solutely distinct from all other American natives, and that the Guaranis of Brazil form another striking ex- ception to the general rule. 3 " That America was peo- pled at different times," says Nadaillac,* " by scions of different races is highly probable, from the physical differences to be observed between the remains of its prehistoric man and the complexion and features he bequeathed to his historic descendants." Bradford 6 also believes the Americans to have originated from many sources and stocks. Horn 6 said already that the American natives are a mixture- of other adventitious nations, as appears from the great differences in their bodily features, in their customs and innumerable di- 1 Essai Politique, t. i. p. 361, ap. 4 P. 531. Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. 5 American Antiquities, p. 423, iii. p. 384, n. 64. quoted by Bancroft, vol. v. p. 59, 2 Vol. v. pp. 9, 131. n. 128. 3 Nouveau Dictionnaire de G6o- 6 Lib. i. cap. iii. p. 23. graphie Universelle, art. Am6rique, Ethnologic I.— 20 306 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. verse languages. Rafinesque, 1 an indefatigable in- quirer, more particularly specifies these differences when he writes : " American anthropography teaches that there were men of all sizes, features, and com- plexions in this hemisphere before a.d. 1492, notwith- standing the false assertions of many writers, who take one nation for the whole American group." The Uskihs, the Puruays, the Parias, the Chons, etc., were as white as the Spaniards, and fifty such tribes were found in South America. Along the whole of the northwest coast Meares, Marchand, La Perouse, Dixon, and Maurelle have observed populations which, judging from some of their descriptions, we would take to be of pure white ancestry. On the upper Missouri the Kiawas, Kaskaias, and the Lee Panis possess, we are assured, the attributes of the purest white races, in- cluding their fair hair. 2 The Mandans have, from our present point of view, always attracted attention. Cap- tain Graah, again, found in Greenland men speaking Esquimau, but tall, thin, and fair, and evidently of Scandinavian descent. Ferdinand Columbus, in his Relation of his father's voyages, compares the inhabi- tants of Guanahani to the Canary Islanders, and describes the inhabitants of San Domingo as still more beautiful and fair. In Peru the Charazanis also re- semble the Canary Islanders, and differ from all the surrounding tribes. 3 On the contrary, many tribes of Choco, the Mana- bis, the Yaruras, and others were as black as Negroes. Father Roman, one of the first twelve missionaries after Columbus's discovery, states that a black people came 1 Pp. 57, 193. Tussapa band of the Flathead na- 2 Sergeant Patrick Gass, a mem- tion were "the whitest Indians he berof the a.d. 1804-1806 Lewis-and- ever saw." (A Journal, p. 134. ) Clark exploration, states that the 8 De Quatrefages, p. 200. TJEAL- ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 307 to Hayti from the South or Southeast, who had darts of guanin, — a composition of gold, silver, and copper, — and were called the Black Guaninis. These might have been the Negroes of Quareca mentioned by Peter Martyr d' Angleria, or some other American negro nation, the like of which there were many, as we may see in Rafinesque's " Account of the Ancient Black Nations of America." Such are the Charruas of Brazil, the black Carabees of St. Vincent in the Gulf of Mexico, the Jamassi of Florida, the dark-complexioned Califor- nians, who are perhaps the dark men mentioned in Quiche traditions, and by some old Spanish adven- turers. Such, again, is the tribe of which Balboa saw some representatives in his passage of the Isthmus of Darien in the year 1513. It would seem, from the expressions made use of by Gomara, that these were Negroes. This type was well known to the Spaniards, and, if they had encountered black men with glossy hair, like the Charruas, they would undoubtedly have been impressed by it and would have mentioned the fact. 1 All the other shades of brown, tawny, and coppery were scattered everywhere. Women as fair as English milkmaids were found in Central America. Along the northwest coast dwell numerous tribes which, according to accounts, must be widely distinguished from the Indians of the in- terior. The Tlinket or Koloshian family, consisting of several tribes, are represented as lighter-colored than any other North American aborigines. They have, in- deed, been described as having as fair a complexion, when their skins are washed, as some inhabitants of Europe ; and this feature, accompanied sometimes with auburn hair, has been considered as indicating an origin different from that of the copper-colored tribes. 2 1 De Quatrefages, p. 200. 2 Winchell, p. 326. 308 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Winchell further adds that Dr. Morton insisted upon the racial unity of the American aborigines and their distinctness from the Mongoloids. In dissenting from positions so generally accepted on the high author- ity of Dr. Morton, I have the support of recent ethno- logical writers of the highest rank. Professor Retzius, a pioneer in exact craniometry, says, " It is scarcely possible to find anywhere a more distinct distribution into dolichocephali and brachycephali than in America. From all that I have been able to observe, I have arrived at the opinion that the dolichocephalic form prevails in the Carib Islands and in the whole eastern part of the American continent, from the extreme northern limits to Paraguay and Uruguay in the South ; while the brachy cephalic prevails in the Aleu- tian Islands and on the main-land, from the latitude of Behring Strait, through Oregon, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chili, the Argentine Republic, and Patagonia, to Terra del Fuego." x The brachycephalic tribes of America are found, for the most part, on that side of the continent which looks towards Asia and the islands of the Pacific, and they seem to be related to the Mongol races. Dr. Daniel Wilson has advanced very singular views, and has supplied tables of measure- ments from two hundred and eighty-nine skulls, by which the question is placed beyond all possible con- troversy. 2 Some tribes had scanty beards, like Tar- tars, Chinese, Berbers ; others had bushy beards. The Tinguis or Patagonians were from seven to eight feet high, while the Guaymas measured only from four to five feet. The reader has noticed already the great differences 1 Retzius, Present State of Eth- Smithsonian Annual Report, 1859, nology in Relation to the Form of pp. 264-267. the Human Skull, translated for 2 Winchell, p. 338. URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 309 which existed among the numerous and antagonistic tribes of our continent in regard to religious and social institutions or the absence of these. Winchell is led by his contempt for the black race to declare the Amer- ican aborigines to be of one and the same Mongoloid stock, carrying water on both shoulders, when he says, 1 " The ethnic characters of the Mongoloids are traced throughout the two Americas in a considerable diver- sity of color-shades, features, and social conditions, and an immense diversification of dialects, especially upon the northern continent." He notes how Major Powell insists that " North America furnishes more than sev- enty-five stocks of languages, and how it is generally agreed that the languages of the feral tribes of South America are at least equally diversified." He goes so far as to say, in spite of what he wrote four lines before, that " the most divergent of the American types is prob- ably that of the Innuit or Esquimau, which might with propriety be regarded as standing for a distinct race, and is sometimes so separated." He adds, " Compared with the continental Indians, Professor Dall says, the strength and activity of the Orarians — i.e., the Innuit, Tuski, Aleuts, and Esquimaux along the sea-coast — far exceed those of any northern Indians with whom I am acquainted. They are much more intelligent and superior in every essential respect. At no point does there seem to be any intercourse between the Es- quimaux and the Indians except in the way of trade. They never intermarry." 2 The fact is, that their lan- guages — the great characteristic of nations — differ no less than the other distinguishing variations of the American tribes. On no other continent, says Bancroft, 3 can there be 1 P. 320. * Vo1 - "i- P- 2 Winchell, pp. 321, :!22. 310 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. found such a multitude of distinct languages, which approach one another in scarcely a single word or syl- lable, as in America; and it is easy to prove from linguistics that the nations of the New World were originally thrown together from different parts. 1 A friend of ours had spent a considerable portion of his useful life in evangelizing the native tribes of a rel- atively small district about the common confines of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon ; and when in the year 1887 he entered our county to take charge of the Umatillas, he told us that now he was compelled to go to work to study his seventh Indian language, no two of which appeared to have anything in common. Payne 2 makes a similar statement in regard to other portions of America. " Side by side," he says, " in many parts there still exist tribes speaking languages devoid of all apparent resemblance. Among the thirty-five languages of Mexico, for example, the Mexican, Otomi, Tarascan, Mayan, and Miztec seem to have no words whatever in common, and the Otomi differs from all others in being not agglutinative but monosyllabic." The languages of the present New Mexico prove that the people speaking them were subdivided into three, or even four, distinct races, 3 and Prescott remarks that 1 What strikes one most foroi- than twelve hundred languages bly is the vast number of American were spoken in the two Americas, languages. Adelung, in his " Mith- Some of these were dialects; but ridates," put the number at twelve even these differed widely from the hundred and sixty-four, and Lude- parent tongue in vocabulary. . . . wig, in his ' ' Literature of the Amer- They all differed wholly from one ican Languages," put it roundly at another in vocabulary, and there eleven hundred. Squier on the was also structurally great diversity other hand, was content with four among them." ThusHutson. (The hundred. The discrepancy arises Story of Language, pp. 141, 142.) from the fact that where one scholar 2 P. 166 ; cf . Prescott, Conquest sees two or three distinct languages, of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 379. another sees two or three dialects of 3 Gatschet and Harvey, ap. Na- one language. (Fiske, vol. i. p. 38. ) daillac, in Donahoe's Magazine, " It has been estimated that more vol. xxxv. p. 678. URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 311 South America, like North America, is broken up into a great variety of dialects, or rather languages, having little affinity with one another. 1 Dr. Jacker contends 2 that the Algic tongue has many affinities with the Semitic family ; yet it is generally con- sidered that most American languages are not inflective or Indo-European hut agglutinative or Turanian, 3 and introduced, according to Maltebrun, 4 by the Perms, the Finns, and the Tartar tribes of northern Siberia. We have given an idea of some ancient nations that inhabited our hemisphere in prehistoric times, and it is a fact sufficiently proved that America had also her quaternary man. Since geological revolutions do not involve the disappearance of existing human races, there can hardly be a doubt that in America there are descendants still of men who were contemporary with the mastodon, just as in Europe we find the descendants of those who were contemporaries of the mammoth. But it is highly probable that the most pronounced ethno- logical elements, such as yellow, white, and black, which we encounter at the present time, have overspread this continent by means of later immigration. This fact is proved by history in a certain number of cases. 5 De Quatrefages is of the opinion that our modern Red Skins, in the basin of the Missouri, date only from the 1 Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 80. ison of the grammatical structure 2 Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Musko- iii. p. 255. gee, and Seminole languages, with 3 For examples of this language, the Ural-Altaic tongues, in which see Document XL, a, b, c, d, e. he develops many interesting The Turanian family of languages points of resemblance. (Congres is termed by Duponceau the poly- des Americanistes, Luxembourg, synthetic system ; by von Hum- 1877, t. ii. p. 56 ; Short, p. 496. ) boldt, the agglutinative ; by Lieber, * Geografla Universale, t. v. p. the holophrastic. Others call it 207. the aggregative, the incorporative 5 De Quatrefages, The Human language. Mr. Forchhammer has Species, p. 201. published a truly scientific compar- 312 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ninth, or at most from the eighth century of our era, 1 but the Algonquin tribes are certainly older. 2 Payne 3 condenses the conclusions of his predecessors when he states the American aborigines and their lan- guage to be of Turanian origin. They were driven, he says, by the Caucasian race from Europe and the greater part of Asia into our western hemisphere. Charles Her- bermann singularly strengthens this statement when, in a learned essay/ he writes : " Modern research has proved beyond a doubt that the Babylonians and As- syrians, as well as the later Chaldeans, were of Semitic extraction. But these Semitic nations were not the original inhabitants of the country watered by the two great rivers of Mesopotamia, nor were the culture and learning of Babylon and Ninive built up by them. To the Sumirians and Accadians belongs this proud honor. Before Babylon became the capital of a great Semitic empire the kingdom of Sumir and Accad had flourished and passed away. . . . Who were these Sumirians, whose very names were unknown to our fathers ? Op- pert, Lenormant, Sayce, Schrader, Tiele, Hommel, Haupt, Winckler, Kaulen, all agree that they were a race nowise allied to the Semites. According to many assyriologists they belonged to the Ural-Altaic or Tar- tar family of peoples, the same to which belong the European Hungarians or Magyars, the Turks, and the Finns in Europe. Their language was agglutinative. From them the Semitic Babylonians borrowed their art, their science, and their system of writing." These Su- mirians, however, and, in fact, most nations of the Ural- Altaic family, have become singularly degraded since the days of their power and culture on the banks of 1 De Quatrefages, The Human 3 P. 160. Species, p. 207. * Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. 2 Supra, p. 113, seq. xviii. p. 450. URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 313 the Euphrates, as we find it stated by both ancient clas- sics and modern historians ; and all the information we have of this fallen race affords strong indications that our latest aborigines, taken in general, belong to the same. Not only the similarity of language, but the facial features also, and the whole frame of body are evidences, says Assal, 1 that the American Indians descend from north- Asiatic nations. The Tartar race-type, with its dull physiognomy, reddish-brown skin, beardless chin, and cold and impassive temperament, is common to all American natives. The main type has undergone countless local variations, but the Turanian man has reached his perfect development in Kentucky and Virginia, says Payne. 2 Assal 3 states that the Chero- kees, the Osages, and the Miamis very strikingly re- semble the people of Asiatic Tartary ; and Horn 4 makes a similar remark regarding the Appalaches and the Peruvian Tambos. Herodotus 5 wrote already of a Turanian nation, of the Scythians, that they had no towns, no fortified places ; that they took their dwellings — that is, their wagons — with them wherever they would go ; that they were good horsemen and bowmen, living, not on bread, but on the flesh of animals. 6 Horace calls them fugi- tives. 7 Tacitus 8 writes of the Finns, who are another branch of the Ural-Altaic stock in the North of Europe, that they were extraordinarily barbarous and shame- fully poor ; without weapons, horses, or houses ; sub- sisting on herbs, dressing in skins, and sleeping on the ground. We might ask whether the remarks of those 1 S. 82. 6 Histor., lib. iv. 2 P. 165. ' Lib. i., ode 35. 3 g. 82. 8 Germania, quoted by Joubain- 4 Lib. iii. cap. x. p. 176. ville, Les premiers habitants de 5 484-408 B.C. l'Europe, ch. i. p. 13, n. 314 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ancient authors do not correctly apply to the mode of life of our American natives ? From the identity of various peculiar customs among our Indians and the people of ancient Scythia, Horn 1 concludes the identity of their origin ; and, indeed, no one will deny that habits like the one reported by Las Casas 2 are as characteristic as filthy. The natives of Hispaniola had a very nasty habit, he says, — namely, they ate the lice of their heads, pretending that the vermin was born from their flesh and blood, and that by eating it they restored to themselves what had been stolen from them. Nor are they the only people on earth to indulge in such repulsive diet ; for, according to Mustero, in the Fifth Book of his Universal Cosmog- raphy, the Tartars, like the apes, eat one another's vermin, not only from the head, but from any part of the body where they may catch it ; and the same habit exists among the Budini of Scythia. Painting the body may be considered as another racial peculiarity, and it might lead us to think that the American aborigines are allied to the Caucasian family, whose fairest specimens, even until this day, bedaub and destroy their native beauty with unwhole- some painting stuff; were it not for the fact that our deceiving belles delight in pale consumptive tones, while the rude Indian warrior gives his preference to gaudy hues that outshine his natural colors. We are not aware that . the custom of using paint instead of clothing ever belonged to the people of Great Tartary, but it was common with an ancient nation of Scotland, therefore called the Picts, Picti or Painted, who were one of the Scythian tribes that immigrated into northern Europe, arriving at the British Isles in the 1 Lib. iii. cap. x. p. 178. 2 Coleocion de Documentos, t. lxvi. ; Historia de las Indias, p. 504. URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 315 year 87 of our era, after having passed along the glacial coasts and islands of the Eastern Continent. 1 All these resemblances are striking, indeed ; but the shocking features of Tartar ferocity are so much alike to our natives' barbarism that we can hardly doubt the identity of both nations. Patagonian women were, and are likely yet, put to death as soon as their fertile years were over. When a cacique or chief in Hayti was suffering with a fatal sickness his people respect- fully hanged him ; 2 and when one of his tribe was in danger of death it was his right to decide that he should be hanged. Several Indians are yet in the habit of carrying their dying people to the neighboring woods, allowing them to take care of themselves, and to return if they may. The ancient inhabitants of Ice- land, of Ural-Altaic origin, simply killed their old and sickly folks ; 3 and the Laplanders, another Scythian nation, abandon their old sick people along the road to die. 4 Would that the heartlessness of the Turanian race should have stopped at their maltreatment of dying persons, but strength and health were enticements for their more inhuman cruelty. Europe of the fifth cen- tury, with its men, women, and children, has been mowed down by them. Nor were they satisfied with murdering their victims, but, as our Indians, they ex- ercised their barbarity upon the corpses, taking along, as proofs of their valor, the scalps of the slain, 5 and, as the Mexicans, putting on, as a garment of honor, the fresh skin of their enemies flayed alive. Already Herodotus gives an account of scalping done by the 1 Lescarbot, liv. vi. ch. x. p. 809. i Vincent, Norsk, S. 139. 2 Washington Irving, lib. vi. cap. 5 Maltebrun, t. v. p. 212 ; Lescar- x. p. 480. bot, p. 721. 3 Procopius, De Bello Gothico. 316 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Scythians, and shows that they wore the hideous trophy in the same manner as our North American aborigines. 1 The soldiers of Cortes were horror-stricken in seeing the human skulls that had accumulated around the temples of Mexico ; but Tamerlane had his Turkestans to erect around the vanquished city of Ispahan trophies consisting of seventy thousand bleeding human heads ; and only two centuries ago Nadir of Khorasan ordered his Tartars to pile up, like canon-balls in an arsenal, the heads of defenceless people, all along his murderous path and on the tops of religious edifices, whenever he would enter a city of conquered India or Persia. 2 Gibbon 3 notices three such collections, thus fancifully disposed, of these grinning horrors, — in all, two hun- dred and thirty thousand heads piled up ! The Scythians, according to Herodotus, sacrificed, as the Mexicans, to their bloodthirsty deities a considerable number of prisoners taken in war ; and, as in Mexico, the sacrifice took place on the summit of a pyramidal monument, and the corpses were cast down around its base. The brutal mode of immolation was identical, as we may infer from one of the laws of Djengys-Khan, — namely, by tearing the palpitating heart from the victim's cloven breast. 4 Mallet 5 states that, as in Mexico and Peru wives and servants were slain and buried with their masters, so it was customary with the Scythian inhabitants of ancient Scandinavia to burn the wives of a dead man together with his corpse. The most disgraceful feature of American savagery itself was not wanting in the type of the parent-stock. 1 Histor., Melpomene, sec. (>4, ap. 3 Decline and Fall, ed. Milnian, Presoott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. vol. i. p. 52 ; vol. xii. p. 45, ap. i. p. 48, n. 38, and Southall, p. 40. Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. 2 Maltebrun, t. v. p. 721 ; Kast- ii. p. 148, n. 36. ner, p. 110. * Kastner, pp. 109, 113, n. 1 . 5 T. i. p. 300. URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 317 Cannibalism was practised in Scythia. Strabo already, with several other historians, asserts that it was from Scythia that the horrible custom first spread into other parts of the world. 1 Marco Polo notices a civilized people in southeastern China and another in Japan who drank the blood and ate the flesh of their captives, esteeming it the most savory food in the world ; 2 and the Mongols, according to Sir John Mandeville, regarded the ears "sowced in vynegre" as an exquisite delicacy. 8 Cannibalism evidently spread from Scythia into the countries that were settled by Scythian emigrants ; and thus it is well known that it raged at one time in the northern portions of Europe, invaded, as we shall pres- ently see, by the Scythian or Turanian race. " We felt happy to learn," Pope John IX. or X. writes to Heriveus, bishop of Rheims, "that the Northmen, who used to feast on human blood, have, through your exhortations and the divine assistance, been brought to rejoice at having been redeemed and refreshed by the ambrosian blood of Christ. 4 Anderson 5 likewise asserts that, as the native Greenlanders, Skraelings, or Esquimaux, so also the Finns, of Scythian or Tartar origin, were addicted to cannibalism. 1 Commanducandorum hominum * Joannes, etc. , reverentissimo morem Scytharum esse traditur. confratri nostro Heriveo Rhemorum (Strabo, lib. iv. et lib. vi.) Aunque Archiepiscopo . . . Extitimus . . . algunas naciones usaron comer gaudentes, siquidem de ipsa gente came humana, pero la fuente de Northmannorum, quas ad fidem, toda esta bestialidad fueron los divina inspirante dementia, con- Scythas. (Coleccion de Documen- versa, olimhumano sanguine grassata, tos, t. lxvi. B. de las Casas, p. 513 ; nunc vero vestris exhortationi- Boletfn, t. xxi. p. 308. ) bus, Domino cooperante, ambrosio 2 Viaggi, lib. ii. cap. Ixxv., ap. Christi sanguine se gaudet fore re- Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. demptam atque potatam. (Migne, iii. p. 374, n. 38. t. cxxxi. col. 27, from Mansi, Con- 3 Voiage, ch. xxiii., ap. Prescott, ciliorum Generalium, t. xviii.) Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 374, 5 Nachrichten, p. 284. n. 38. 318 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. This last characteristic degradation of both the Amer- ican aborigines and of the Scythians was by itself suffi- cient to let Las Casas suspect that the latter people must have come over and settled a portion of our con- tinent, although he had hardly any ground to guess at the route which they might have followed. 1 General Cass wrote in the same manner in the year 1829 : 2 " That the American Indian tribes are branches of the great Tartar stock is generally believed at the present day. Many points of resemblance, both physical and moral, leave little doubt upon the subject. But why, when, or by what route they were conducted from the plains of Asia to those of America it were vain to inquire and impossible to tell." We have, however, more information on this latter point to-day, and it is generally admitted that the an- cestors of the greatest number of American aborigines have, in their migrations from the Old to the New World, taken first a northward course, when driven by the Semitic race from the Asiatic southern and central countries, 3 and, when reaching the coast of the Arctic Ocean, have divided themselves into two bodies, trav- elling farther on, — the one westward and the other in an easterly direction, — to meet again in the icy regions of the western hemisphere. 4 All authors agree that American immigrants have passed through the sterile cold countries of the North, where Divine Providence has so disposed islands and 1 Coleccion de Documentos, t. anny of their neighbors had be- lxvi. B. de las Casas, p. 513. come intolerable. (CongresScient., 2 Historical Sketches of Michi- viii. sec. p. 108, ref. to de Quatre- gan, p. 110, ap. Amer. Cath. fages, Histoire Generale des Races Quar. Rev., vol. xviii. p. 704. humaines, p. 588. Supra, p. 312.) 3 According to Guatemalian tra- 4 Horn, lib. iii. cap. v. p. 151 ; ditions the first immigrants of that Aa. passim. country left Asia when the tyr- URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 319 capes as to form gigantic bridges between the Eastern and the Western Continent. The Chipeways have a tradition that they came from a distant land where a bad people lived, and had to cross a long, narrow lake filled with islands, where ice and snow never melted away. 1 If the " Popol Vuh," the sacred book of the Quiches, deserves the impor- tance that some writers attach to it, it will be worth while to translate a few lines which confirm the fore- going opinion. The various Quiche' tribes on their way had assembled at " Tulan Zuiva," the Seven Caves, which must have been in the far North, for " the people could not stand the frost ; they were trembling with cold and chattering teeth, their hands and feet were benumbed, so that they could keep a hold of nothing when they arrived there. Rain and sleet ex- tinguished their fires. They finally left the country where the sun rises [that is, travelled westward] ; but their hearts were sighing. Alas ! they said, in leaving, we will no more see the dawn announce the rising sun that illumines the face of the earth. Some of them were left behind on the way, for some remained asleep there, while each tribe always arose to espy the sun's messenger-star. This herald of the break of day was constantly before their minds when they came from the parts where the sun does rise, from far away, as we are now told. They came this way, as if they had no ocean to cross, for they walked on scattered stones, that were rolling on the sands. Full of anguish, they were unable to sleep, and, waiting for the dawn, they had no rest. Would we could at last see the sun rise, they said ; how, they said, could we tear ourselves away from a country where, united, we were so happy ?" 2 1 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 22, ref. to 2 Gravier, p. xi ; Bancroft, vol. Warden, Recherches, p. 190. v. p. 548. 320 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. If those words mean anything at all, they mean that the Quiches' ancestors have come by the way of Europe, along a route that lies about the Arctic Circle. Edw. Payne, however, objects to the opinion that America was ever settled from Europe before the tenth century, 1 and I deem his objection to be worth a refu- tation. There is no possible doubt that Ural-Altaic tribes migrated from " Magnum Suithiod," Scythia or Great Tartary towards the Northwest, and occupied all the northern parts of Europe. A fragment of an Ice- landic manuscript of the fourteenth century, founded upon older writings, states the fact in the following terms : " All truthful histories written in northern lan- guages commence with the time that the Turks and Asiatics inhabited the North and brought with them the tongue called Noroenu, which was spoken at one time in Saxony, Denmark, and Sweden, in Norway and part of England." 2 Vincent 3 describes the Laplanders as being yellowish brown, as having large heads, with broad, low foreheads, slanting, black eyes, flat, short noses, wide mouths, high cheek-bones, scanty beards, and long, rigid, black hair. They belong to the Finnic group of the great Turanian family, he says, and adds the particulars, not uncommon with our Indians : that they practise polygamy and sell their marriageable daughters ; the richest of these commanding one hun- dred, and the poorest, twenty, reindeer. The Lap- landers were known already in the sixth century of our era as a tribe of the Ural-Finnic family. 4 Procopius does not mention the Markfinns of north- ernmost Norway, but he heard of the Scritifinns estab- lished on the shores of the Bothnian Gulf. 6 Besides 1 P. 34. * Peschel, Geschichte der Erd- 2 Langebek, t. ii. p. 34. kunde, ed. Sophus Ruge, S. 88. 3 S. 126-134. 5 De Bello Gotbico, lib. ii. cap. URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 321 those, other nations of the same race still occupy the northern coast as far as the river Obi, — to wit, the Perms, the Samoyeds, and the Tscheremis. 1 All these tribes continue to live, as their American brethren, on the proceeds of their hunting and fishing. Still every summer they board their canoes and pro- ceed farther north and west, to the islands of Nova Zembla, Kalgouew, and Bear ; and they used to extend their excursions as far as John Mayen, Iceland, and Greenland. The waters, the air, and the land of those regions abound in game of various kinds, and the climate is not uncomfortable during three or four sum- mer months, even to-day ; while, for reasons to be ex- posed hereafter, we may believe that it was much milder in centuries gone by. Nova Zembla, Green- land, and the intervening islands are designated, as early as the first century, by Pomponius Mela, as the habitation of the Huns and Finns, 2 and an ancient anonymous writer tells us that authors before him con- sidered the Skraelings, whom the Northmen met in the present New England States, as lineal descendants of the Laplanders of Europe. 3 Should we be allowed to draw any inference from their names rather than from the shape of their crania, we would feel inclined to think that the Esquimaux and the Russian Laplanders are one and the same nation, for the former call themselves Abenakiseskimantsik, which signifies eaters of raw fish, and the Russians call their boreal friends Sirojed'zi, with the same mean- ing.* Anderson 5 came to an equivalent conclusion when 1 Maltebrun, t. i. lib. xv. p. 324; "Hann (Thorbjorn) fann ok ein- Horn, lib. iii. cap. v. p. 151. ninn Skraelfngja, thaer thjodir 2 Horn, lib. iii. cap. v. p. 151, kalla suinar baekr Lappa." seq. * Graberg da Hemso, Translation 3 C. C. Rafn, Antiquitates, p. of Rafn's Discovery of America, p. 196, translating the ancient MS. 41. " Arnaa-Magnaeanum No. 770c": 5 Nachrichten, p. 284. I.— 21 322 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. he expressed trie opinion that the Siberian Tartars, the Samoyeds, went over to the American continent by the way of Nova Zembla and neighboring islands. Torfseus subscribes to the same theory in his Ancient Vinland. Procopius of Cesarea, the most learned of Byzantine historians, wrote in the beginning of the sixth century a very interesting page bearing on our present subject. He bad received particular information in regard to the islands and territories lying beyond the Arctic Circle, which he designates as Thule, an island, he adds, ten times as large as Britain, but, for the greater part, an uninhabited waste. He had wondered at the number and the customs of its people ; but what had struck him the most was that the sun towards the end of the sum- mer did not leave the horizon for the space of forty days, while six months later, at the close of the winter season, he did not rise nor was seen for an equal length of time. From both these remarks we now understand that Procopius had been informed not only about the island Thule or Iceland, but also in regard to the American regions to the Northwest of it. He doubted the state- ments, but, not having the desired occasion of verifying them by himself, he made inquiries from people who came to Constantinople from those very regions. 1 Being thus satisfied of the truth, Procopius writes down what he had heard from the seafarers that car- ried on trade between sunny Byzantium and the frozen lands of the North. After telling how the semi-civil- ized Heruli, defeated by the Langobards, had event- ually migrated to this distant island Thule, he gives a description of its inhabitants : " The districts best cultivated and built upon are divided among thirteen 1 Later on, we will see that this singular assertion of Procopius has nothing very objectionable. URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 328 very numerous nations that have, each one, their own king. Yet among them there is one tribe of barba- rians who are called Scritifinns. Their manner of life is that of wild beasts ; they wear neither clothes nor foot-gear ; they drink no wine nor raise food from the soil, which they do not till ; nor do their women perform any such labor, but they take their wives along on their hunting expeditions. Indeed, the woods, which are no doubt very extensive in that country, and the high mountains abound with game. Their only subsist- ence, therefore, are the wild animals they catch on the chase. They cover themselves with their skins, while linen or woollen fabrics are not in use ; nor have they either the knowledge or the tools for sewing, but using the sinews of their game they bind the hides together and throw them around their bodies. In other re- spects the Thulites do not differ considerably from other mortals, for they worship a great number of gods and demons, some of whom they consider as living in heaven, others in the air, and governing land and sea ; others yet they have, that are said to dwell in waters, springs, and streams, and especially to these do they offer all kinds of sacrifices. But their most precious victim is the first man they take a prisoner of war, and whom they immolate to Mars, 1 the greatest of their gods. Yet it is customary with them not only to kill the victim, but they first hang him alive from a tree, then drag him through thistles and thorns, and, thus torturing him in various inhuman ways, they finally put him to death. It is well proved," says the historian, "that such are the people among whom the Heruli went forth to live." 2 Procopius may have made some slight mistakes, but 1 Huitzilopochtli of the Mexi- 2 See Document XVII. cans? 324 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. his statements agree with the general teaching of his- tory. It would be hypercriticism to call in question the fact that the Finns or some one of their neighboring Turanian relations have been among the earliest tribes, and perhaps the very first from Europe, to discover and settle our western hemisphere. 1 Dr. Vincent 2 further confirms this conclusion when he says, " One is struck by the palaeolithic implements and specimens of the rude attempts at art by primeval European Cave-men contained in the Ethnographical Museum of Copen- hagen ; they resemble in many important respects those now in use among the Esquimaux ;" and it is interest- ing to note that quite recently Professor Dawkins has expressed his belief, from their mode of living and especially their not caring to bury the dead, that the Cave-men were indeed a sort of Esquimaux, and that these latter people of the present time represent the Cave-men as they lived in Europe in ages long past. The various tribes along the Polar Circle are much like them even until this day. The Copenhagen Mu- seum also exhibits a number of American antiquities made of stone, urns and arrow-heads, that remarkably resemble those of the stone age of northern Europe. 3 It has further been observed that the ancient fishing and hunting implements of the Greenland Esquimaux bear a striking resemblance to those of the Alaskan and of the Aleutian tribes, which, in turn, are quite similar to those of the Siberian Tartars. 4 This last similarity is easily understood, as there can 1 Horn. lib. iii. cap. vii. p. 162, descendants of the Catholic North- ably refutes the silly opinion of men of the eleventh century ! Hugo Grotius, lately revived by 2 P. 26. the grave Gravier (IXme Partie), 8 Antiquaries du Nord, 1845-49, that our present Indians are the p. 20. 4 Ibid., p. 26. URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 325 be no doubt that America has received a great number of its settlers by the way of Behring Strait and of the Aleutian archipelago. Mere induction led the first historians of America to believe that there must be somewhere a place where the American continent was actually connected with Asia, or severed from it only by a narrow strip of water, a spot where Asiatics had found an easy passage into the New World. 1 Philological researches made by Relandus caused him to declare, in a curious disserta- tion upon American languages, that the northern re- gions of our continent were peopled by northern Asiatic tribes. 2 Maltebrun 3 drew a similar conclusion from his own comparison of American and of Asiatic languages, — namely, that Asiatic tribes related by language and blood with the Finnic, migrated into America, by follow- ing the shores of the Arctic Ocean and crossing Behring Strait. The Esquimaux, says Pilling, 4 with perhaps two or three exceptions, cover a wider range of terri- tory than any of the other linguistic stocks of North America. From Labrador on the East, their habita- tions dot the coast-line to the Aleutian Islands on the West, and a dialect of the language is spoken on the coast of northeastern Asia. " While," says Winchell, 5 " we cannot fail to be impressed by the ethnic distinc- tions of American Orarians or Esquimaux and Ameri- can Indians of the interior, there is equally apparent an ethnic resemblance between American and Asiatic Orarians. The Chuk-luk-mut or Namollos residing on 1 Torquemada, t. i. lib. i. cap. x. 3 T. v. p. 206. p. 29 ; Solorzano, Politica Indiana, 4 Bibliography of the Eskimo p. 21. Language, Preface, ap. Amer. 2 Woldike, A dissertation upon Quar. Rev., vol. xviii. p. 707. the Origin of the Greenland tongue, 5 P. 322. in Scripta a Societate Hafniensi, parte ii. p. 140. 326 history or America before columbus. the Asiatic shores of Behring Strait are very near kindred of the Esquimaux." Sophus Euge * had summarized the learned conclu- sions of many previous authors when he wrote that Behring Strait is a natural, inviting way of communi- cation between both continents, and that the tribes in- habiting both shores belong to one and the same nation. Bancroft 2 gives a long list of serious writers who all make identical assertions. The theory that America, or at least the northwestern part of it, was peopled by Tar- tars or tribes of northeastern Asia is supported by many authors, he says. There certainly is no reason why they should not have crossed Behring Strait, the pas- sage being easy enough ; all the more, as it is frequently frozen over in winter, thus affording not only to rude hunting men, but even to wandering brutes, a solid road from one continent to the other, while in clear weather East Cape and Cape Prince of Wales are, through the medium of the Diomede Islands, in sight of each other. The width of the strait is commonly stated at thirty- six to thirty-nine geographical miles, and its depth at thirty fathoms only. The former presence of the hairy mammoth on both sides is a strong indication that a land-connection formerly existed. In summer Esqui- mau boatmen very frequently make the passage from one side to the other for commercial purposes. In- deed, there is a tribe of Esquimaux, the Okee-og-mut, occupying the islands in the strait, who subsist as commercial traders, and regularly conduct the traffic between the Asiatic and the American shore. 3 De Quatrefages wrote in the same manner : " The proximity of the two continents at Behring Strait, the 1 Bd. i. S. 4. 3 Winchell, p. 398. 2 Vol. v. pp. 38, 54. URAL-ALTAIC ORIGIN OF OUR ABORIGINES. 327 existence in this channel of the St. Lawrence Islands, the largest of which is situated exactly half-way between the two opposite continents, the connection formed be- tween Kamtchatka and the peninsula of Alaska by the Aleutian Islands, the maritime habits of all these peo- ples, the presence of the Tchukchees on the two oppo- site shores, the voyages which they undertake from one continent to the other on simple matters of commerce, leave no doubt as to the facility with which the Asiatic races could pass into North America through the polar regions." 1 " At all events," says Bancroft, 2 " it is cer- tain that from time immemorial constant intercourse has been kept up between the natives on either side of the strait ; indeed, there can be no doubt that they are one and the same people." 1 Human Species, p. 199. 2 Vol. v. p. 28. CHAPTER XIII. EAST-ASIATIC, POLYNESIAN, AND OTHER IMMIGRATIONS. The Aleutian archipelago, in connection with Cape Lopatka and the Koorile Islands, forms, between east- ern Asia and northwestern America, another natural highway of communication, which to many seems to be easier and more practicable than that of Behring Strait. 1 From Attou, the westernmost of the Aleutians, to Kamtchatka, it is said to be about four hundred and ten geographical miles. The Commander's Islands, however, break this interval : Miedna Island is but one hundred and eighteen miles from Kamtchatka, and Behring's, only one hundred and seventy-five from Attou. These distances over a boisterous sea are re- garded by Professor Dall as impassable for the rude navigators of primitive times. But, even though we might suppose, in spite of truth, that primitive nations were ignorant sailors, these distances were no obstacle to immigration by the way of the Aleutian Islands. Pro- fessor Dall himself informs us that the Pribyloff Islands in the Behring Sea are inhabited by Aleuts, and yet the nearest of the Aleutians is about one hundred and eighty miles distant, as well as any other land. Prom this it appears that voyages, said to be impossible, were made and made often to discover and settle these solitary 1 Rotteck, Bd. vii. S. 56 ; Ban- his Human Species, p. 238, " Immi- croft, vol. v. p. 28, quoting Latham, gration from Asia appears to have Simpson, Brasseur de Bourbourg, taken place mostly by the Aleutian Prescott, and Smith, who says, in Islands." 328 EAST-ASIATIC AND OTHER IMMIGRATIONS. 329 isles. There is no need of recalling to mind the much longer voyages effected by the Polynesian natives. 1 The Aleutian bridge was, therefore, practicable, and it was the direct route to our shores for several of the numerous Asiatic nations, as for the Tunguses, the Yakootsks, the Kamtchatkans, the Mongols, and the Mantchoos, all of whom, more or less related to the Samoyeds and the Finns, crossed at various times the northern Pacific Ocean, and, mingling again in the New World with kindred tribes, finally spread over the greater portion of our hemisphere as far as the Gulf of Mexico and even to the southern parts of South Amer- ica. Everywhere, as we have seen before, they left the impress of their native characteristics as to physique, language, customs, and barbarism generally, 2 while the peculiar circumstances of climate and food, as well as their mixture with less numerous immigrants of Ma- laisian origin, may, during long centuries, have devel- oped among them the distinctive color of most American aborigines. The Aleutian-Koorile bridge across the northern Pacific, extending, as it does, farther to the Southwest, along the islands of Japan, also afforded facilities for American immigration to the Japanese, the Coreans, the Chinese, and other nations of eastern Asia ; and, from numerous authorities and indications, it would appear that these conveniences have not been neglected by the eastern Asiatics. The fact is that the diversity of languages, including the monosyllabic, along the western coast of North and of Central America suffi- ciently proves the successive arrival of settlers from divers countries, which are easily understood to lie either within or on the western shores of the Pacific Ocean. Cf. Winchell, p. 399. 2 Cf. Maltebrun, t. v. p. 205 ; Rotteck, Bd. vii. S. 56, 57. 330 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Along the sea-shore, says Bancroft, 1 the speech of the people is broken into innumerable fragments. South of Acapulco the Aztec tongue holds the seaboard for some distance ; but farther south, as well as on the coast of the Gulf of California, there is found a great diver- sity in languages and dialects. In California the con- fusion becomes interminable, as if Babel-builders from every quarter of the earth had here met to the eternal confounding of all. It is not at all improbable that Malays, Chinese, or Japanese, or all of them, did at some time appear on our Pacific shores. Horn 2 estab- lishes with solid arguments that actually the southern Mongols, the Coreans, the Japanese, and the Chinese founded some colonies on American soil. Bastian, 3 Maltebrun, 4 and a number of other writers referred to by Bancroft 6 are of the same opinion. " I have, when young," says Dr. de Mier, " read a book written in Canton, China, in which an English- man, whose name I forget, demonstrated that during the first six centuries of the Church there existed a con- stant intercourse between America and China." 6 The scholiast of Carli also gives evidences of commerce between Mexico and China during the fifth century. The habit of burning the dead, familiar to both Mongols and Aztecs, is in itself but slender proof of a common origin. The body must be disposed of in some way, and this one is perhaps as natural as any other. But when to this is added the circumstance of collecting the ashes in a vase, and of depositing the single article of a precious stone along with them, the coincidence is remarkable. A proof of a higher kind 1 Vol. iii. p. 559. R Vol. v. p. 32. 2 Lib. iv. cap. v. p. 238. 6 Sahagun, Historia General, Me- 3 Bd. ii. S. 436. moir of Dr. de Mier, post init. 4 T. v. p. 205. EAST-ASIATIC AND OTHER IMMIGRATIONS. 331 is found in the analogies of science. We shall soon notice the peculiar chronological system of the Aztecs. They distributed the years into cycles, and reckoned by means of periodical series, instead of numbers. A similar process was used by the various Asiatic nations of the Mongol family, from India to Japan. A corre- spondence quite as extraordinary is found between the hieroglyphics used by the Aztecs as signs of days, and the zodiacal signs which the eastern Asiatics employed as terms of their series. The symbols of the Mongolian calendar are borrowed from animals. Four of the twelve are the same as the Aztec ; three others are as nearly the same as the different species of animals of the two hemispheres would allow, and the remaining five refer to no creature then found in Anabuac. The resemblance went as far as it could. 1 It is not impossible, therefore, that the Aztecs and other Nahua nations have had their primeval origin in China or Japan ; but most likely they migrated to our continent in a northeastern direction and landed in the neighborhood of the Alaskan peninsula. Traditions of a western or northwestern origin were found among the more barbarous tribes, and were preserved by the Mexicans both orally and upon hieroglyphic maps. These are admitted to agree in representing the popu- lous North as the prolific hive of the American races. From this quarter, Prescott asserts, the Toltecs, the Chichimecs, and the kindred races of the Nahuatlacs came successively up the great plateau of the Andes, spreading over its hills and valleys down to the Gulf of Mexico. In the northwestern districts of New Spain, at the distance of a thousand miles from the capital, dialects have been discovered showing intimate affinity 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. pp. 375, 376. 332 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. with the Mexican ; and in the higher latitudes, in the neighborhood of Nootka, tribes still exist whose lan- guages both in termination and general sound of the words, bear considerable resemblance to the Aztec. 1 On the other hand, there exists a remarkable resem- blance of physical features between several tribes of southern Alaska and the Japanese. Not long since Ann Arbor counted among its students a native Aleut brought from Unalaska, while several Japanese fre- quented the University ; and it is instructive to remark that none but the closest observers could distinguish the Aleut from the Japanese. 2 Some authors have even exaggerated the importance of Chinese immigrations, and have considered the Mongolic race as the principal parent-stock of the American aborigines. They mainly insist upon the pretended physical similarity between both races, yet this resemblance is denied by many writers. Thus, Kneeland 3 says that if Americans are placed side by side with Chinese, hardly any resemblance will be found in physical character, except in the general contour of their faces and in their straight black hair, while their mental characteristics are entirely opposite. Neither do their religion, laws, customs, etc., agree in the least. Our own experience has taught us that the Indian of the United States hates and despises the Chi- nese more than he does the European. Nor could we ever find more physical similarity between the two races than there exists between dark red and pale yellow. Winchell i finds great resemblance between the fea- tures of the hunting tribes of North American Indians 1 Presoott, Conquest of Mexico, 2 Winchell, p. 68, n. 1. vol. iii. p. 381-384, ref. to Vater, 8 Wonders, p. 53, quoted by Ban- Mithridates, Theil iii. Abtheilung croft, vol. v. p. 38, n. iii. S. 143, 212. * P. 343. EAST-ASIATIC AND OTHER IMMIGRATIONS. 333 and those of the Polynesians. Both races are charac- terized by a brownish-olive color ; both are tall, and in height surpass the Mongoloid Asiatics; the eyes are straight, while obliquity is of frequent occurrence among tribes more distinctly Mongoloid ; the nose, sometimes Asiatic, is more frequently large, prominent, bridged, and even aquiline. This is a characteristic of the Papuan branch of the Negrito race, while the typical Mongoloid nose is short and depressed ; the face is oval and not flat, and it is longer than in Asiatics ; the cranium is smaller and more dolichocephalous, and the face less prognathous. The resemblance to the Mongols seems, however, to be greater farther north. Wrangel x says, " It is enough to look at an Aleut to recognize the Mongol." Nor should we wonder at this when we notice that most probably some east- Asiatic immigrants have come by the Koorilo-Aleutian route to the American shores. Yet it is likely that the greater number have more di- rectly crossed the Pacific Ocean ; some of them perhaps against their will and wishes, driven by adverse winds and tempests, or unable to resist the action of the Japan current or Kouro-Siwa ocean stream, which is very apt to carry Japanese vessels to the Californian shores. Gomara 2 assures us that a few years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico fragments of a ship from Cathay were found washed upon its coast ; and there have been since a great many instances of Japanese junks drifting upon the American seaboard. Brooks 3 gives a series of forty-one particular cases, beginning in the year 1782, twenty-eight of which date since 1850. 1 Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, 3 San Francisco Evening Bulletin, t. cxxxvii. p. 213. March 2, 1875 ; cf. Bastian, Bd. ii. 2 Historia General, quoted by von S. 437. Humboldt, Examen, t. ii. p. 67. 334 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. But what need is there of following the modern fashion of explaining America's ancient settlements by means of storms and shipwrecks? Nadaillac 1 justly remarks that a knowledge of navigation no better than that possessed at present by the lowest people of Mela- nesia would have enabled a migration along the line of the thirtieth parallel, south, to reach the coast of America in time to give it a considerable population. We know that the rudimentary knowledge of modern Malays is not the standard of nautical science, as we find it recorded at the time of Kings Solomon and Hiram, and before it. We know that this science was still preserved by the eastern and the southern Asiatics until the beginning of modern times, when for centuries the Chinese and the Polynesians shipped to Arabia and Persia, over a watery extent almost as large as that between Asia and America, the rich products, pearls, and spices, which the mercantile republics of Genoa, Venice, and Florence put on the markets of all Europe. We know that an admiral of Japan has, in our days, directed a navy that may venture to meet in contest any fleet of the world. When we further consider that the numerous groups of islands, far apart on the broad Pacific Ocean, — the Sandwich, the Carolinas, the Samoa, the Cook, the Marquises, the Low Islands, and so many more small islets lost in the waves of the wide expanse, — were all found and settled by human beings that no one will venture to call autochthones, then it seems to be not only reasonable but unavoidable to admit that in prehistoric times people were sailing on the great ocean just as securely and as intelligently as they are now. The most remarkable example, probably, of a direct 1 P. 523. EAST-ASIATIC AND OTHER IMMIGRATIONS. 335 intercourse of the Polynesian aborigines between re- mote points is furnished to us by Captain Cook, who found the inhabitants of New Zealand not only with the same religion, but speaking the same language as the people of Otaheite, distant more than two thousand miles. 1 Science should have progressed sufficiently to-day not to let us consider any longer our oldest ancestors, from whom, after all, we have learned what we know and many of whose arts are lost to us, as imbecile infants, who could not reach the next shore but by means of an intelligent storm. We admit that science may become obfuscated at certain epochs, together with, and as a consequence of, the loss of divine faith and revelation ; but history bears us out in the conviction that science and religion went hand in hand during the golden age of human existence ; and if afterwards we have seen nations rise to the advancement of their pristine fathers, they are exclusively such as have been illumined again by the teachings of the God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ. We boast of progress, and yet we are simply going back to the spot from which our fore- fathers wandered away, when we discover a continent or an island that was found and settled by the ancestors of its aborigines. We have noticed already 2 that one of the very oldest and perhaps the most civilized of all the American na- tions, the Mayas of Xibalba, had from man's primordial home come over into America, most likely by the way of the Polynesian archipelagos ; and there is every reason to believe that the second, less illustrious period of American immigration witnessed the arrival of many 1 Cook's Voyages, Dublin, 1784, Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 359, vol. i. bk. i. ch. 8, ap. Prescott, n. 9. 2 Supra, pp. 91, 92. 336 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS.' a vessel sailing over the same route. Rotteck 1 points to the Malay race for an explanation of the most striking varieties found on our western coast, among the other- wise uniform type of American aborigines. Horn, Gro- tius, and other high authorities admit that our conti- nent has received part of its population from southern lands, — Australia and Australasia ; 2 and Nadaillac s recognizes Melanesian features on some of our abo- riginal tribes. " In treating of the traditions of the civilized tribes of America," says Hutson, " and of the monumental remains that still attest their stage of cul- ture, I shall touch upon many points that would seem to indicate the derivation of their civilization from the Old World. One clear proof of the origin of at least some part of this civilization from abroad is the fact that the banana was grown largely in America before the Spaniards came. When Pizarro landed on the coast of Peru, he was met by the natives with a present of bananas served in a lordly dish. In the tombs of the Incas, moreover, beds composed of banana-leaves have been found. Now, the bananas of America have never been found in the wild state. They are all seedless. The wild banana is a native of the Malay region, and produces seed. This seed-producing variety grows in Cochin-China, the Philippines, Ceylon, and Khasia. The seedless variety could have been transported to the New World only in the form of a root or sucker." * Maltebrun 5 ventures to say that the Mexican teocallis are modern monuments to testify to the Indians' Asiatic origin : " Truncated pyramids, surrounded by other smaller ones, they are imitations of the py- ramidal temples, called Scio-Madon and Scio-Dagon 1 Bd. vii. S. 57. l Hutson, The Story of Language, 2 Hornius, lib. iii. cap. xx. p. 220. pp. 146, 147. * Prehistoric America, p. 522. 5 T. v. p. 211. EAST-ASIATIC AND OTHER IMMIGRATIONS. 337 among the Brahmans, and Pkahton in the kingdom of Siam." The Mexicans themselves, Assal writes, 1 are, in their bodily structure, other monuments witness- ing their descent from Australasian ancestry ; their countenance and size are like those of south-Asiatic nations, he says ; as are likewise their brown skin, their scanty beard, long black hair, small hands and feet, and their slender frames ; these latter features distinguishing them from the Tartar Indians of North America. The Chimus are an instance of numerous migrations by way of the Polynesian islands. Tradition relates that these people came from the open sea on board their frail canoes, and took possession of the coast south of Peru for a distance of eight hundred miles, studding it with numerous constructions. The ruins of Chimus, their metropolis, cover an area of nine by eighteen miles. They were the only aboriginal American In- dians acquainted with the industry of bronze, and raised the art of pottery and metal vessels to a high degree of perfection. Often at war with the Peruvian Incas, they preserved their national independence and continued in their hostilities even until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores. The crania of their de- scendants are still identical with those of the Poly- nesians. 2 It may not be out of place here to relate the state- ment of Acosta, 3 that the natives of Yea and of Arica, on the south Peruvian coast, reported "that in old time they were wont to saile farre to the Islands of the West ; so as there wants no witnesses to prove that they sailed in the South Sea" or Pacific Ocean " before i S. 85. 3 Bk. i. ch. xix. p. 56. 2 Jousset, in Congres Scient., viii. sec. p. 110, n. 1. I.— 22 338 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. the Spaniards came thither." They had not forgotten the route by which they had come. 1 Winchell 2 gives an enterprising account of a Poly- nesian immigration. A type of Mongoloids," he says, " strayed to the shores of South America by the Poly- nesian communication. Few at first, they were unable to force a passage northward along the western slopes of the Andes already occupied. They filed through the passes of the mountains into the plains of the Gran Chaco and the pampas of the La Plata. The low- lands and borders of broad rivers suited the hereditary instincts of the posterity of islanders. In due time all South America eastward of the Andes fell into their possession. When they stood on the shores of the Caribbean Sea they dared embark upon its waves. Island invited them from island. They reached the greater Antilles. They rested on the Tortugas. They invaded the peninsula of Florida, and another conti- nent was open before them. Spreading northward and westward, they pressed the older occupants from their presence. The white man arrived and found these movements of population in progress" ! One particular immigration from southern Asia, whether legendary or real, — namely, of five Buddhist priests, — is said to have taken place in the fifth century of our era. Great scholars have spent late hours on 1 " Zabaja was a great maritime tion, Demonstrating their Ancient power, and probably much older Discovery and Progressive Settle- than the Christian era. This was ment of the Continent of Amer- an empire of the people whom we ica.' Von Humboldt and others know as the Malays, who no longer have stated their belief that Amer- represent the civilization that made ica was visited in prehistoric times their nation great in ancient by people from the Asiatic world, times. . . . Rev. Dr. Lang pub- who went there across the Pacific lished at London in the year 1834 Ocean." (Baldwin, pp. 264, 265.) a volume entitled ' The Origin and 2 P. 405. Migrations of the Polynesian Na- EAST-ASIATIC AND OTHER IMMIGRATIONS. 339 this intricate historical question. De Guignes, a French savant, first introduced it to the learned world in the year 1761 ; x an Englishman wrote a book entitled " Fu-sang, or the Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century," 2 and an en- terprising American journalist lately delivered a fine lecture on that subject. 3 Short 4 makes a concise and truthful statement when he writes : The original docu- ment on which the Chinese historians base their rela- tion was the report of a Buddhist missionary named Hoei-Shin or Hwui-Shan, who in the year 499 after Christ, claims to have returned from a long journey of discovery to the remote and unknown East. This report, whatever may be its intrinsic value, was ac- cepted as true by the Chinese, and found its way into the History of Li-yan-tcheou, written at the beginning of the seventh century after Christ. . . . Hoei-Shin states that in earlier times the people of Fu-Sang lived not according to the laws of Buddha, but it happened that in the year 458 of our era five beggar monks from the kingdom of Kipin went to this land, extended over it the religion of Buddha, and with it his early writings and images ; they instructed the people in the principles of monastic life, and thus changed their manners. Fu-Sang was situated twenty thousand " li" 5 to the east of the country of Tahan, and an equal distance to the east of China. One species of its trees, also called fu-sang, procured timber, food, clothing, paper, etc., to its inhabitants. These people possessed neither arms nor troops, and never waged war. 6 Hoei- 1 Academie des Inscriptions, t. Avalanche, Memphis, November 6, xxviii. p. 5. 1892. 2 London, 1875, Charles G. Le- * P. 148. ] an( j 5 A Chinese "li" is about one- 3 G. C. Matthews, The Appeal- third of a mile. 6 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 34. 340 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Shin reports several more strange particulars, from which the learned draw the most opposite conclu- sions. Klaproth, in his critique on de Guignes's theory, that America was long since known to the Chinese, uses the distance given by the monk to show that Fu-Sang was Japan, and Tahan the island Sa- ghalien. De Guignes's paper, he says, proves noth- ing. By a similar course of reasoning it might be shown that the Chinese reached France, Italy, or Poland. 1 The knight Paravey proved, to his own satisfaction, in a.d. 1844, that Buddhist monks set out from Cabool to introduce their religion into America, and he afforded new arguments in 1847. 2 Dr. Gaudran has written the history of the Buddhist immigrants, 3 and several authors, like Tschudi, Viollet-le-Duc, and Count Stol- berg, think they find the effects of their missionary labors in the analogies between the religion of Mexico and that of southern Asia. 4 Cronau, 5 on the contrary, after discussing the subject, comes to the sweeping conclusion that this whole story is but hollow imagi- nation of diseased brains, and that there never was any relation between Fu-Sang and America. Buge 6 is less decisive. The report, he says, is fabulous to a great extent, but it contains particulars that we cannot reject without proof, and the Fu-Sang question is not settled yet. Von Humboldt grants that the monuments, divi- sions of time, and several myths of the former inhab- itants of America offer a striking analogy with the customs of eastern Asia ; but yet, referring to Klap- roth, he asserts that de Guignes mistakes in announcing 1 Nouv. Journ. Asiatique, 1832, 3 CongrSs Scient., viii. sec. p. 112, p. 335, quoted by Bancroft, vol. v. n. 3. p. 36. 4 Short, p. 152. 2 Six Memoires. 6 S. 107. 6 Entdeckungsgeschichte, S. 4. EAST-ASIATIC AND OTHER IMMIGRATIONS. 341 that the Chinese have known America since the fifth century of our era. 1 Should, however, the report of Hoei-Shin prove to be fictitious, or to not relate to our continent, it would, none the less, remain certain that Asia, both north and south, as well as Polynesia and northern Europe, pro- cured to America a great, if not the greater, number of its aboriginal tribes. Whether Africa, in olden times, planted any colony in the western hemisphere is very doubtful, although it could not be denied that a few Negroes, at least, crossed the ocean and propagated on our shores. Rot- teck 2 admits that Africans may have concurred towards the formation of some peculiar varieties of American tribes, and Maltebrun finds traces of African languages in America. 3 Yet a better proof of ancient Negro arrivals is the fact of Negro colonies found by the Spanish and Portuguese discoverers on the eastern coasts of South and of Central America. 4 Mendoza encountered a tribe of Negritos, 5 and Balboa, when on his famous expedition of the discovery of the Pacific Ocean, met in the old province Quareca, at only two days' travel from the Gulf of Darien, with a settlement of Negroes, who were, says P. Martyr, of the fiercest and most ferocious nature. Other similar small com- munities were found in Panuco, Yucatan, in Nicaragua, and other provinces. 6 The only possible question yet remains, — namely, What route did the colored people follow on their way to America ? Maltebrun 7 is of the opinion that they came over the longest stretch of water on earth, over 1 Anderson, America not Discov- * Congres Scient., viii. sec. pp. ered, p. 122. See supra, p. 330. 107, 132. 2 Bd. vii. S. 57. 5 Cf. Bancroft, vol. i. p. 571, seq. 3 T. v. p. 205. 6 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 259. 7 T. v. p. 205. 342 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. the Indian and the Pacific Ocean; but the learned generally set forth the greater probability of their haying crossed the Atlantic, where the equatorial cur- rent and the fair trade-winds are exceptionally favor- able to westward voyages. The discovery of Negro settlements on the eastern coast of Brazil hardly per- mits any further doubt to remain on this question. Twice during the last century, in the years 1731 and 1764, have small ships, passing from one point of the Canary Islands to another, been driven by storms into the region of the trade-winds and of the equato- rial current, and have drifted as far as America. What has happened in our time must often have happened before. 1 We should not wonder, therefore, at the early presence of African Negroes on our continent. If from the existence of black people in America at the time of its latest discovery we are allowed to con- clude the fact of ancient Melanesian and African im- migrations, the presence of various white aboriginal tribes, which we have noticed before, 2 can leave no doubt that the fair nations of the Eastern Continent have contributed in olden times towards the population of the New World. We might here remember what has been said of the uncertain yet probable settlements of the Phoenicians or Carthaginians in the western hemisphere, 3 the Jewish theory might rise again before our minds, 4 and the Irish reader does not forget the plausible suppositions which have been set forth in regard to the Celts trav- elling all over the earth in pre-Christian times as well as to-day. 6 We have no objections to make to conclu- sions derived from such premises, and, frankly, we are 1 De Quatrefages, p. 202. * Supra, pp. 196, seq. 2 Supra, p. 306. 5 Supra, pp. 200, seq. 3 Supra, pp. 192, seq. EAST-ASIATIC AND OTHEE IMMIGEATIONS. 343 in favor of the opinion holding that our continent was visited of old and settled, time and again, by almost every nation of the Old World, as it is nowadays. To say, however, that fair Christian peoples of Eu- rope have established colonies in various parts of America, we can point not only to the color and features of ancient tribes, but especially to doctrines, customs, and even to venerable ruins, as to reliable wit- nesses testifying with historical certainty to the discov- ery and settlement of America by European Christian nations centuries before the birth of Columbus. 1 It shall be the object of the second volume of this work to inquire into these latter European immigra- tions and to give their history. 1 Infra. CHAPTEK XIV. SEMI-CIVILIZATION OF WESTERN AMERICA. We have in a former chapter * given a succinct de- scription of the dark, abominable side of American society at the time of the Spanish conquest. It is but justice to state that our natives, especially those of Central America and of the western part of South America, present also, to even a casual observer, a brighter and more gratifying aspect, which should, in turn, be considered by all who wish to form a just and complete estimate of them. We shall, therefore, notice some of the better features strikingly apparent in the antagonistic dualism of In- dian society, particularly in the two more civilized and powerful empires of our continent. Should the limits of our plan allow, we might also detect several evidences of advanced culture among commonwealths of second- ary rank. Of these we shall, however, mention but one instance, — namely, the warlike and independent republic of Tlascala, whose capital, of the same name, must have been of considerable size and importance, if, as Cortes asserts, thirty thousand souls were often gathered in the market on public days. These meet- ings were a sort of fairs held, as usual in all the great towns of New Spain, every fifth day, and attended by the inhabitants of the adjacent country, who brought there for sale every description of domestic produce and manufacture with which they were acquainted. They peculiarly excelled in pottery, which is considered 1 Supra, pp. 250, seq. 344 SEMI-CIVILIZATION OF WESTERN AMERICA. 345 as equal to the best in Europe. It is a further proof of civilized habits that the Spaniards found barbers' shops there and baths, both of vapor and of hot water, habitually used by the inhabitants. A still higher proof of refinement may be discerned in a vigilant police that repressed everything like disorder among the people. 1 A regular government may not always be for the benefit of the larger number of citizens, but, if it is always a sign of some degree of civilization, we could not universally assert that Mexico, Central America, and Peru were barbarous countries. Their system of civil, military, and executive administration was almost perfect ; although, while tyrannical absolutism is far inferior to free republicanism, we must remark that the American civilized aborigines had retrograded on the road of progress. The republic of Tlascala was the only district where a monarch was not the only ruler. At the time of the conquest it was governed by four supreme lords, each independent in his own terri- tory and possessed of equal authority with the others in matters concerning the welfare of all. A parlia- ment, composed of these four lords and the rest of the nobility, settled the affairs of government, especially those relating to peace and war. 2 In its first stages the Mexican monarchy partook rather of an aristocratic than of an absolute nature. Though the king was ostensibly the supreme head of the state, he was expected to confer with his council, composed of the royal electors and other exalted per- sonages, before deciding upon any important step ; and, while the legislative power rested entirely in his hands, the executive government was intrusted to regularly 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, ! Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 141. vol. i. p. 464. 346 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COETJMBES. appointed officials and courts of justice. As the em- pire, owing to the able administration of a succession of conquering princes, enlarged in size, the royal power gradually increased until the time of Monte- zuma II., when the authority of all tribunals was almost reduced to a dead letter, if opposed to the desires or commands of the king. The neighboring powerful kingdom of Michoacan was likewise governed by an absolute monarch, 1 as also were the Central American States. The Incas of Peru made laws and had them enforced, according to their personal whims, which were considered all over their provinces as authentic interpretations of the will of their great god, the sun. Another evidence of civilization, as well as of wicked- ness, were the codices of numerous laws, made and mul- tiplied by America's ancient monarchs and sanctioned by extreme or even cruel severity. The courts, whose duty it was to apply them and to punish their trans- gressors, were regularly constituted and legally graded. The Mexicans had in each principal city of the empire a supreme judge, who heard appeals in criminal cases from the court immediately below him, and from whose decision no appeal was allowed. Such was the respect paid to this exalted personage, that whoever had the audacity to usurp his power or insignia suffered death, while his property was confiscated and his family en- slaved. The next court was supreme in civil matters, and could only be appealed from in cases of a crimi- nal nature. It was presided over by three subordinate judges. Further, there was in each ward of the city a magistrate annually elected by its inhabitants, and whose office resembled that of our municipal judges. Appeal lay from him to the higher civil court. Inferior 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 139. SEMI-CIVILIZATION OF WESTERN AMERICA. 347 to him were supervisors of a certain number of families, who had themselves their bailiffs and constables. The resemblance of the tribunals of Tezcuco to those of modern times was greater still. 1 Besides the various tribunals for the general administration of justice, there were others that had jurisdiction in cases of a peculiar nature only. There was a court of divorce and another that dealt only with military affairs. The special juris- diction of another tribunal extended over matters per- taining to art and science, while a fourth had charge of the royal exchequer, of taxes, and tributes, and of those employed in collecting them. 2 Nothing seemed to be lacking in the form of admin- istering justice. The mode of procedure in the law courts of Mexico and Tezcuco was strict and formal ; the contesting parties were defended by their lawyers, and brought in their sworn witnesses ; the judges hur- ried the cases to an end, and finally the sentence, with the whole proceedings, was carefully recorded. We can readily presume that the judges' time was mainly taken up by cases of justice, when we consider that commerce was quite flourishing among the civilized American aborigines. The merchant princes of Tlate- lulco, which formed a part of Mexico, had tribunals of their own, to which alone they were responsible for the regulation of all matters of trade. They became inso- lent and overbearing, meddling without scruple in the public affairs of the nations through whose territory they had to pass, and, trusting to the dread of the armies of Mexico for their own safety, their caravans became little less than armed bodies of robbers. Rulers, however, of allied or friendly provinces, mindful of the benefits procured by travelling mer- 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 434, seq. ' Ibid., p. 442. 348 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. chants, constructed roads and kept them in repair, fur- nished bridges or boats for crossing unfordable streams, and, at certain points remote from towns, built houses for the travellers' accommodation. This class of merchants were generally on the roads, not seldom for many months at a time, exporting goods from their own home and importing foreign merchan- dise, to be displayed on the public market-places. The market of Tlatelulco was the grandest in the country, and Cortes tells us that more than sixty thousand per- sons assembled there every day. It was an open plaza, surrounded with porticos or booths, in which were ex- hibited all kinds of food, animal and vegetable, cooked and uncooked ; all the native cloths and fabrics, in the piece and made up into garments, coarse and fine, plain and elaborately embroidered to suit the taste and the means of the purchasers ; precious stones and orna- ments of metal, feathers, or shells ; implements and weapons of metal, stone, and wood ; building material, — lime, stone, lumber, and brick ; articles of household furniture, matting of various degrees of fineness, me- dicinal herbs and prepared medicines, fire-wood and coal, incense and censers, cotton and cochineal, tanned skins, various kinds of beverages, an infinite variety of dishes and pottery, and other articles too numerous to mention. 1 Nahua trade was generally carried on by means of barter or exchange of merchandise, but regular pur- chases were not uncommon. It seems that there was no coined money, yet several substitutes furnished a medium of circulation. Chief among these were grains or bags of cacao, of a species somewhat different from that employed in making chocolate. Gold-dust kept in 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 148 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 384. SEMI-CIVILIZATION OP WESTERN AMERICA. 349 translucent quills was another, as also were small pieces of copper, of tin, and of cotton cloth. 1 The mercantile system of the Maya or Central American nations was the same as that of the Mexi- can empire. The Peruvians were not a commercial people, and had no knowledge of money. In this they were infe- rior to the Mexicans, but in another respect they were superior to them, since they made use of weights to de- termine the quantity of their commodities — a thing wholly unknown to the Aztecs. This fact is ascertained by the discovery of silver balances, adjusted with per- fect accuracy, in some of the tombs of the Incas. 2 Coasting vessels on both oceans, canoes on the lakes, and the backs of thousands of carriers brought to the Mexicans the produce of the soil and the industry of foreign nations, which they repaid with the fruits of their own labor and skill. Their looms did as exquisite work as ours to-day. The cotton mantles worn by their nobility and princes were of exceeding fineness of texture, so much so that it required an expert to determine whether they were of cotton or of silk, says Solis. 3 In this branch of industry they were equalled by the people of Peru, who manufactured the silken vicugna wool into richly colored stuffs of so beautiful and deli- cate a texture that Philip II. , king of Spain, with all the luxuries of Europe and of Asia at his command, did not disdain to use them. 4 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, 2 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. vol. i. p. 148 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. i. pp. 154, 155. 381. A cacao nib was worth about 3 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, three cents. Bustamente believes vol. i. p. 146; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 374. that the golden quoits with which * Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. Montezuma paid his losses at gam- i. p. 29, and Garcilasso de la Vega, bling also served as money. Coment., pt. i. lib. vi. cap. i. 350 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Feather-work was another industry in which the Mexicans excelled all nations. The noblest ornaments of their grandees were the state mantles woven with the feathers of the humming-bird, which, so highly praised by Cortes, were admired in Europe more than any other American fabric. 1 The Tarascos of Michoa- can were, however, their competitors in this particu- lar branch, the splendid plumage of the birds of this country aifording them abundant material for artistic mosaics. 2 Other provinces and places of civilized America had, as we often see to-day, their own peculiar branches of skilful industry in which they surpassed their neigh- bors. All ancient authors speak of the pottery of the Mayas as most excellent in workmanship, material, and painting, and even excelling that of Etruria. Next to it was the earthenware of Cholula, whose jewellers were renowned far and wide, as well as its potters. The goldsmiths of Azcapuzalco, the painters of Tezcuco, and the shoemakers of Tenayocan were the leaders in their respective professions. 3 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, was finished on both sides alike ; vol. i. p. 147 ; Bancroft, vol iii. p. the delicacy of the texture was 301. such as to give it the lustre of silk, 2 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 515. The Pe- and the brilliancy of the dyes ex- ruvians were, in all these branches cited the admiration and the envy of industry, the rivals of the North of the European artisan. The Pe- American nations. They showed ruvians produced also an article of great skill in the manufacture of great strength and durability by different articles for the royal mixing the hair of animals with household, from the delicate ma- wool ; and they were expert in the terial, which, under the name of beautiful feather-work, which they "vigonia" wool, is now familiar held of less account than the Mex- to the looms of Europe. It was icans did, from the superior quality wrought into shawls, robes, and of the materials for other fabrics other articles of dress for the mon- which they had at their command, arch, and into carpets, coverlets, (Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. and hangings for the imperial pal- p. 149. ) aces and the temples. The cloth 3 Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 383, 752. SEMI-CIVILIZATION OF WESTERN AMERICA. 351 Of the progress in mechanical arts in Central Amer- ica we can form some idea from the description which Brasseur de Bourbourg gives of the gorgeous furniture used in the houses of the wealthy in Yucatan. 1 The stools, he writes, on which they seated themselves cross- legged after the Oriental fashion, were of wood and precious metals, and often made in the shape of some animal or bird; they were covered with deer-skins tanned with great care and embroidered with gold and jewels. The interior walls were sometimes hung with similar skins, though more frequently decorated with paintings on a red or a blue ground. Curtains of the finest texture and most brilliant colors fell over the door- ways, and the stucco floors were covered with mats of exquisite workmanship. Bich-hued cloths covered the tables. The plate would have done honor to a Per- sian satrap. Graceful vases of chased gold, alabaster, or agate, worked with exquisite art; delicate painted pottery excelling the Etruscan, candelabra for the great odorous pine torches, metal braziers diffusing sweet perfumes, a multitude of little trinkets, such as little bells and grotesquely shaped whistles for sum- moning attendants ; in fact, -all the luxuries which are the result of an advanced material civilization were found in the homes of the Maya nobility. The houses that contained all these treasures were in proportion with them, if we consider their dimensions and material ; but they all were low, one-story buildings. As decorations, we find balconies and galleries, sup- ported by square or round pillars which were often monoliths ; but as these were adorned with neither capital nor base, the effect must have been rather bare. 2 1 Histoire des Nations Civilisees, vol. ii. p. 787, who doubts, how- t. ii. p. 68, quoted by Bancroft, ever, the accuracy of the account. 2 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 555. 352 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COEUMBUS. The teocallis or temples, raised on earthen pyramids, consisted at times of two or even three stories, but were as devoid of architectural art as were the common dwellings. The entrances and angles of the Mexican buildings were profusely ornamented with images, sometimes of their fantastic deities and frequently of animals, and the latter were executed with great accu- racy. Sculptured images were so numerous that the foundations of the cathedral of Mexico are said to be entirely composed of them. The most remarkable piece of sculpture yet disinterred is the great calendar- stone found on the "Plaza Mayor" of the city. It consists of dark porphyry, and in its original dimen- sions, as taken from the quarry, is computed to have weighed nearly fifty tons. It was transported from the mountains beyond Lake Chalco, a distance of many leagues, over a broken country intersected by water- courses and canals. In crossing a bridge which trav- ersed one of these latter, in the capital, the supports gave way and the huge mass was precipitated into the water, whence it was with difficulty recovered. The fact that so enormous a fragment could be thus safely carried for leagues in the face of such obstacles and without the aid of cattle — for the Aztecs had no ani- mals of draught — suggests to us no mean ideas of their mechanical skill and of their machinery, and implies a degree of cultivation little inferior to that demanded for the geometrical and astronomical sciences displayed in the inscriptions of this very stone. 1 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, cans, and the Peruvians should vol. i. pp. 143-146, ref. to Gama, never have detected the use of Descripcion, pt. i. pp. 110-114 ; iron, which lay around them in von Humboldt, Essai, t. ii. p. 40. abundance ; and that they should It is worthy of remark, says Pres- each, without any knowledge of cott (Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. the others, have found a substitute 153) that the Egyptians, the Mexi- for it in such a curious composi- SEMI-CIVILIZATION OF WESTEKN AMERICA. 353 There was comfort in the buildings of new Spain, but these had no beauty. Art had dwindled away since the epoch of the Toltecs. Sculpture, the noble maid of architecture, although far from insignificant, had followed the decline of its mistress. Utility was the best feature of architectural enter- prise at the time, and manifested itself most particu- larly in the defensive works of the various cities and in their water-works, that might still be taken as models in these our own times. Space prevents us from giving full information, but we shall present an instance of each. Tlascala was well defended against its ancient Aztec enemy by a wall of stone and mortar, which stretched for six miles across a valley, from mountain to mountain, and formed the boundary line of the republic. This wall was nine feet high, twenty feet broad, and surmounted by a breastwork a foot and a half in thickness, behind which the defenders could stand while striking down the assailants under a shower of arrows and stones. The only entrance was in the centre, where the walls did not meet, but described a semicircle, one overlapping the other, with a space ten paces wide and forty long between them. The other side also was defended by breastworks and ditches. 1 Military architecture was not less advanced in the civilized kingdom of our southern continent. Towards the north of Cuzco, on a rugged eminence, rose a strong fortress, the remains of which at the present day excite, by their vast size, the admiration of the traveller. It was defended by a single wall of great thickness and twelve hundred feet long on the side facing the city, where the precipitous character of the ground was of tion of metals as gave to their tools that has been lost by the civilized almost the temper of steel, a secret European. 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 568. I.— 23 354 history or America before columbus. itself almost sufficient for its defence. On the other quarter, where the approaches were less difficult, it was protected by two other semicircular walls of the same length as the preceding. The fortress proper consisted of three towers, one appropriated to the Inca and the two others occupied by the garrison. The hill was excavated below the towers, and several subterranean galleries communicated with the city and the palaces of the Inca. The fortress, the walls, and the galleries were all built of stone, the heavy blocks of which were not laid in regular courses, but so disposed that the small ones might fill up the interstices between the great. They formed a sort of rustic work, being roughly hewn, except towards the edges, which were finely wrought, and, though no cement was used, the several stones were adjusted with so much precision and united so closely that it was impossible to introduce even the blade of a knife between them. Many of these blocks were of cyclopean size, some of them being fully thirty-eight feet long by eighteen broad and six feet thick. "We are filled with astonishment," says Prescott, " when we consider that these enormous masses were hewn from their native bed and fashioned into shape by a people ignorant of the use of iron ; that they were brought from quarries from twelve to forty-five miles distant without the aid of beasts of burden ; were trans- ported across rivers and ravines, raised to their ele- vated position on the sierra, and, finally, adjusted there with the nicest accuracy, without the knowledge of tools and machinery familiar to the European." x Fortifications are the most imperative requirements of a city in time of war ; water- works are the first in time of peace. The emperors of Mexico waged war 1 Conquest of Peru, vol. i. pp. 16-18, ref . to a number of ancient authors. SEMI-CIVILIZATION OF WESTERN AMERICA. 355 in the neighborhood, and provided for peace at home. Their capital had excellent water-works. The numer- ous fountains which adorned it were fed by the aqueduct that brought water from the hill of Chapultepec, about two miles off, and was constructed upon a causeway of solid masonry five feet high and five feet broad, run- ning parallel to the Tlacopan public road. This aque- duct consisted of two pipes of masonry, each carrying a volume equal in bulk to a man's body, or to three men's bodies, as Las Casas says, or even equal to the body of an ox, as is recorded by Gomara. The limpid fluid was conducted by branch pipes to different dis- tricts of the city to supply fountains, tanks, ponds, and baths. At the numerous canal bridges there were res- ervoirs, into which the pipes emptied on their course, and here the boatmen who made it a business to sup- ply the inhabitants with water received their cargoes on the payment of a fixed price. A vigilant police watched over the distribution of the water and the care of the pipes, only one of which was in use at a time, while the other was being cleansed. This would remind a visitor of the Roman " Aqua Pia," and of the crystal bottomless spring near Subiaco, with the remark, how- ever, that the latter water-works are in many respects inferior to those of ancient Tenochtitlan. 1 We might further speak at length of another proof of ancient material civilization, — namely, of the public roads in the States of Central America, which were, at great expense of public wealth and labor, built and, every year, after the main fall of rain, carefully repaired. Of the public roads of Peru, von Humboldt says that they may be compared to the most beautiful highways of the Romans which he has seen in France, Italy, or 1 Cf. Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 565. 356 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Spain, and are among the most useful and stupendous works executed by man. 1 Their broken remains are still in sufficient preservation to attest their former magnificence. There were many of these roads, trav- ersing different parts of the kingdom, but the most con- siderable were the two which extended from Quito to Cuzco, and, again diverging from the capital, continued in a southern direction towards Chili. One of these passed over the grand plateau of the Andes, and the other along the lowlands on the borders of the ocean. The former was much the more difficult achievement, from the character of the country. It was conducted over pathless mountain-ranges buried in snow; gal- leries were cut for miles through the living rock ; rivers were crossed by means of bridges that swung sus- pended in the air ; precipices were scaled by stairways hewn out of the native bed ; ravines of hideous depth were filled up with solid masonry ; in short, all the difficulties that beset a wild and mountainous region and might appall the most courageous engineer of mod- ern times were encountered and successfully overcome. The length of the road is variously estimated at from fifteen hundred to two thousand miles. Being destined for pedestrians only, as there were no beasts of burden but the small llama in the country, its breadth scarcely exceeded twenty feet. It was built of heavy flags of freestone, and, in some parts at least, covered with a bituminous cement, which time had made harder than the stone itself. The other road, the causeway between the mountains and the ocean, was raised on a high embankment of earth, defended on either side by a wall of clay or stone ; and trees and odoriferous shrubs were planted along the 1 Vues, p. 294, ap. Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 67. SEMI-CIVILIZATION OF WESTERN AMERICA. 357 margin, regaling the sense of the traveller with their perfumes and refreshing him by their shade, so grateful under the burning sky of the tropics. All along these highways caravansaries were erected at the distance of ten or twelve miles from each other, for the accommo- dation more particularly of the Inca and his suite, but also of his armies and those who journeyed on public business. There were few other travellers in Peru. 1 Agriculture, although practised without the aid of any beast of draught and with the most rudimentary implements, was far advanced in Peru. Not only the fertile table-lands produced an abundant harvest, but immense sand-wastes were made to yield beautiful cereals and fruits by intelligent irrigation and the ap- plication of fertilizers of different kinds. The rough and steep mountain-sides were, at great expense of pa- tience and labor, divided into superimposed terraces, which greatly added both to the beauty and the rich- ness of the country. Trades of all kinds, inherited from father to son, had likewise attained a high degree of perfection. 2 As in Peru, so also in Mexico, were mechanical professions hereditary in the various families, and, as a consequence, produced, as we have just seen, works still deserving of admiration. It is well known that the Mexicans were not, or hardly, inferior to the Peruvians in making their native soil produce all kinds of food. We might speak of many more actual evidences of the culture of our despised natives, but we rather hurry on to find more conclusive proofs of their civilization as not unbecoming rational, human beings, and truly 1 Other interesting particulars of 2 Cf. Prescott, Conquest of Peru, these public roads may be found in vol. i. pp. 131-138. Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. pp. 62-69. 358 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. worth the name ; proofs which consist in the possession of scientific knowledge and of religious truth. The last two kings of Tezcuco, as is related by their descendant Ixtlilxochitl, generally encouraged arts and sciences. We have had occasion already to notice that medicine must have been quite a popular science in Mexico. Mathematics had attained a high degree of perfection, and, applied to astronomy, had produced the most wonderful results. The Mexicans were well ac- quainted with the movements of the sun and the moon, and even of some of the planets ; while celestial phe- nomena, such as eclipses, were carefully observed and re- corded. Their method of computing time, for ingenuity and correctness, equalled, if it did not surpass, the sys- tems adopted by contemporaneous European and Asiatic nations. Their ordinary year was, like ours, of three hundred and sixty-five days, but they knew, as well as we, that this length of time did not complete the tropical year. According to some authors, they had, as we, every four years, their bissextile or leap-year ; but it seems probable that they returned to the more correct astro- nomical time at the end only of their cycle of fifty-two years by intercalating thirteen days. Gama asserts that they came still nearer to our latest calculations and the almost correct calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII. in a.d. 1582 by adding only twelve days and a half every fifty-two years. " They waited till the ex- piration of fifty-two vague years, when they interposed thirteen days, or rather twelve and a half, this being the number which had fallen in arrear," says Prescott. 1 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 513, 514 ; dred and sixty-five days, five hours, Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. forty-eight minutes, and forty-eight i. p. 115 ; Brasseur de Bourbourg, seconds, is only two minutes and Hist. Nat. Civ., t. iii. p. 469. The nine seconds longer than the Mexi- correct length of the tropical year, can, which agrees with the cele- as computed by Zach at three hun- brated calculation of the astron- SEMI-CIVILIZATION OF WESTEEN AMERICA. 359 It would be as tedious as useless to examine in what manner they performed this singular intercalation, either by inserting a number of days between their cycles or by adjusting their civil and ritual years, which latter contained only two hundred and sixty days. 1 Be this as it may, the whole computation of time was marked out on a stone known as the Mexican calendar-stone, which bears sufficient evidence of the Aztecs' wonderful proficiency in astronomical science. Nezahualcoyotl, the learned king of Tezcuco, divided the burden of government among a number of depart- ments, such as the council of war, the council of finance, the council of justice, and the council of state. He also established an extraordinary tribunal called the council of music, which, notwithstanding its restricted denomination, was devoted to the encouragement of science and art generally. Works of astronomy, chronology, history, or of any other science were re- quired to be submitted to its judgment before they could be made public. This censorial power was of some moment, at least with regard to the branch of history, where the wilful perversion of truth was made a capital offence by the bloody code of Nezahual- coyotl. This body, which was selected from the best- instructed persons in the kingdom with little regard to rank, had supervision of all the productions of litera- ture and art and of the nicer fabrics. It decided on the qualifications of the professors in the various branches of science, on the fidelity of their instructions to their pupils, the deficiency of which was severely punished, and it instituted examinations of these latter. In short, omers of the Caliph Almamon, quest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 116, n. which fell short about two minutes 40. of the true time. See Laplace, l Lord Kingsborough, Mex. Ant. , Exposition, p. 350 ; Prescott, Con- vol. vi. pp. 103, 104. 360 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. it was a board of education for the country. On stated days historical compositions and poems treating of moral or traditional topics were recited before it by their authors. Seats were provided for the three kings of Tezcuco, Tenochtitlan, and Tlacopan, who deliberated with the other members of the council on the respec- tive merits of the productions, and distributed prizes of value to the successful competitors. Such are the marvellous accounts transmitted to us of this institution, an institution certainly not to have been expected from the aborigines of America, and deserving of imitation to-day. It is calculated to give us a higher idea of the refinement of the people than even the noble architectural remains which still cover some parts of the continent. Architecture is, to a certain extent, a sensual gratification, addressing itself to the eye ; but the institution in question was a literary luxury, and argued the existence of a taste in the nation, which relied for its gratification on pleasures of a purely intellectual character. 1 A liberal education was not allowed the children of the common people in Peru ; the acquisition of science was exclusively reserved for the higher caste, for fear that the low populace might rise up, become proud, and impair or destroy the government. It was enough for these to learn the trades of their parents, without meddling with administration and bringing public offices into disrepute. 2 But the children of Inca line- age and of curacas or provincial governors were at an early age placed under the direction of the amautas or wise and learned men, to be instructed in all the differ- 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, p. 137; Veytia, Hist. Antig., lib. vol. i. pp. 171-173, ref. to Ixtlilxo- iii. cap. vii. chitl, Hist. Chich.,MS., cap. xxxvi.; 2 Garcilasso de la Vega, Coment., Clavigero, Storia del Messico, t. ii. pt. i. lib. viii. cap. viii. SEMI-CIVILIZATION OF WESTERN AMERICA. 361 ent kinds of knowledge in which the teachers themselves were versed, with especial reference to the stations they were to occupy in after-life. They were initiated in the peculiar rites of their religion, most necessary to those who were to assume sacerdotal functions, and studied the laws and principles of the administration, in which many of them were to take part. They all were taught to speak the court dialect with purity and elegance, and to acquire a proficiency in sciences and liberal arts. 1 That sciences flourished under the government of the Incas is amply established by the Commentaries of Garcilasso de la Vega. 2 The title of the twenty-first chapter of his second book is : " Of the Sciences known by the Incas, and first of Astronomy ;" the heading of the twenty-second is : " How they knew to reckon the Length of the Year, the Solstices and Equinoxes ;" of the twenty-third : " They reckoned the Solar Eclipses, and What they did in regard to those of the Moon." In Chapter XXIV. he relates " their science of medicine and how they healed the sick ;" in the twenty-fifth he mentions the " medicinal plants, with whose virtues they were acquainted ; and in Chapter XXVI. he describes " their knowledge of Geometry, Geography, Arithmetic, and of Music." He states, in particular, as do the first American historians generally, that the Peruvians were far advanced in the science of num- bers, recording in a peculiar manner, by means of quipos or knots made in strings of various colors, all the taxes and contributions paid or due all over the Incas' dominion. 3 1 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, 3 Garcilasso, Comentarios, lib. ii. vol. i. pp. 116-118. cap. xxvi. p. 65. 2 Comentarios, lib. ii. cap. xxi.- xxvi. 362 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. From all this it is, indeed, evident enough that the few civilized nations of America at the time of the Spanish conquest were not only elevated far above the savage tribes that still linger among us, but had attained a degree of culture little below the one which we admire in ancient Athens and Rome. Yet we have seen before that they were grossly deficient in those doctrines which are the indispensable foundation of all civilization worth the name, — that is, of true re- ligion and consequent morality. Their irreligion, or rather their shameful idolatry, with its inseparable moral degradation, had brought them down, in many respects, to the lowest rank of reasonable beings ; and still in the midst of their mental and moral aberrations they were not altogether deprived of such natural principles and truths as might have preserved them from falling as low as they did. CHAPTEK XV. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS PRESERVED IN ANCIENT AMERICA. When we consider the religious system of the Aztecs, we are struck with its apparent incongruity ; as if some portion of it had emanated from a comparatively re- fined people, open to gentle influences, while the rest breathes a spirit of unmitigated ferocity. It naturally suggests the idea of two distinct sources, and author- izes the belief that the Aztecs had inherited from their predecessors a milder faith, on which was afterwards engrafted their own mythology. The latter was domi- nant and gave its dark coloring to the creeds of the conquered nations, and the funereal superstition settled over the farthest borders of Anahuac. 1 They worshipped the sun and other creatures, they lavished divine honors upon cruel, sanguinary devils, represented by grotesque, forbidding, and filthy statues, although they had some idea and, we might almost say, a true knowledge of the " 'Ayv6arci @£6J," 2 Unknown God. It is a point of Christian doctrine that no one can be saved without the belief in the One God, and we might reasonably doubt whether the Almighty has ever al- lowed his existence to be forgotten by any nation on earth. The writers who treat of the history of the American races avow that, at the time of the landing of the Spaniards on the Western Continent, there was not one that did not recognize the existence of a Supreme Deity and Arbiter of the universe. The notion of a unique immaterial Being, of an invisible power, had survived the shipwreck of pure primitive creeds. Thus 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, 2 Acts xvii. 23. vol. i. p. 57. 363 364 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. writes the infidel Bancroft. 1 Max Miiller says that henotheism, which is the temporary pre-eminence of one God oyer the host of gods, was as near monotheism as the American aborigines ever came ; but the merits of this assertion consist in its novelty. Squier, 2 although inclined to find in the forces of nature the motive of American myths, maintains that there was a sort of ru- dimentary monotheism pervading all America's reli- gious views. 3 " It is a remarkable fact," says Prescott, 4 " that many, if not most, of the rude tribes inhabiting the vast American continent, however disfigured their creeds may have been in other respects by a childish superstition, had attained to," or rather preserved, " the sublime conception of one Great Spirit, the Creator of the universe, who, immaterial in his nature, was not to be dishonored by an attempt at visible representa- tion ; and who, pervading all space, was not to be cir-- cumscribed within the walls of a temple." 5 Thus did the wild Chippeways recognize the " Merciful Spirit," their " Gitchymonedo," who had produced heaven and earth by a powerful act of his will. 6 With some the idea of one Supreme God was but vague and hazy, while with others it was quite definite and distinct. Ixtlilxochitl has preserved some poems of his ancestor, Nezahualcoyotl, who died in the year 1472, king of Tezcuco, which would justify the as- sertion of the Spanish historian telling us that that king worshipped one invisible God, the likeness of whom it was impossible for mortal to conceive. 7 Kings- borough extracts a statement from the same native author's "Historia Chichimeca" when he says that 1 Vol. iii. p. 185. 6 Liiken, S. 23 ; ref. to School- * Serpent Symbol in America. craft, the American Indians, p. 203, 8 Winsor, vol. i. p. 430. and AusL, 1857, nr. 33, S. 792. 4 Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 87. ' Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, 5 Brownell, p. 25. p. 289. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 365 Nezahualcoyotl held for false all the gods which the people of that land adored, asserting that they were but statues or demons hostile to the human race ; "for he was very wise in moral questions, and no man took more trouble in searching where he might find light to demonstrate the existence of the true God and Cre- ator of all things, as has been seen in the Discourse of his history, and as bear testimony the songs which he composed on this subject." 1 In these hymns he said that there is but one God, the Maker of heaven and earth, who sustained all He had made and created, and that He dwelt where was no second, above the nine heavens, where He alone could reach ; that He had never been seen in human shape or any other form ; that after death the souls of the virtuous go to dwell with Him, and that those of the wicked go to another place, the lowest of the earth, a place of hardships and horrible pains. Ixtlilxochitl, as reported by Prescott, 2 relates that his ancestor Nezahualcoyotl having been married some years without the blessing of issue, the priests repre- sented to him that it was owing to his neglect of the gods of his country, and that the only remedy was to propitiate them by human sacrifice. The king reluc- tantly consented, and the altars once more smoked with the blood of slaughtered captives. But it was all in vain ; and he indignantly exclaimed, " Forsooth, the gods that I now worship, and are idols of stone that neither speak nor feel, could never make the beautiful heavens, the sun and the stars which illumine them and give light to the earth ; nor the rivers, the waters, the fountains, the trees, and the plants that beautify the earth ; nor the nations that possess it ; nor any 1 Mex. Antiq., vol. ix. p. 261. 2 Conq. of Mex., vol. i. p. 192. 366 HISTOE.Y OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. other creature. Some most powerful God, mysterious and unknown, must be the Creator of the whole uni- verse. It is He alone that can console me in my affliction and succor me in the great anguish under which my heart is suffering." He then withdrew to his rural palace of Tezcotzinco, where he remained forty days, fasting, and praying at stated hours, and offering up no other sacrifice than the sweet incense of copal and aromatic herbs and gums. At the expiration of this time he is said to have been comforted by a vision assuring him of the success of his petition. At all events, such proved to be the fact ; and this was followed by the cheering intelligence of the triumph of his arms in a quarter where he had lately experienced some humiliating reverses. Greatly strengthened in his former religious con- victions, he now openly professed his faith, and was more earnest to wean his subjects from their degrading superstitions and to substitute nobler and more spiritual conceptions of the Deity. He built a temple in the usual pyramidal form, and on the summit a tower nine stories high to represent the nine heavens ; a tenth was surmounted by a roof painted black, profusely gilded with stars on the outside and incrusted with metals and precious stones within. He dedicated this sanctuary to " the Unknown God, the Cause of Causes." No image was allowed in the edifice, as unsuited to the " Invisible God," and the people were expressly pro- hibited from profaning the altars with blood or any sacrifice other than that of the perfume of flowers and sweet-scented gums. Rafinesque 1 relates that the Supreme God of the Haytians bore five significant names, preserved by 1 P. 166. PRIMEVAL TEUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 367 Father Roman, who was one of the first band of Christian missionaries in America after Columbus's discovery. They were, first, " Attabei," the One Being ; second, " Jemas," the Eternal; third, " Guacas" or " Apito," the Infinite ; fourth, " Siella," the Almighty ; fifth, " Zuimaco," the Invisible. The Chilians had similar names for their Supreme God, whom they considered as father or mother of another great deity dwelling in the sun. It is remarkable, says Miiller, 1 that Acosta should have known nothing about the adoration of a highest invisible God in Mexico under the name of Teotl. 2 And yet this adoration has been reported in the most certain manner by others, and made evident from more exact statements regarding the nature of this deity. He has been surnamed Ipalmemoani, — that is, He through whom we live ; and Tloquenahuaque, which means, according to Molina, who is the best authority in matters of Mexican idiom, He upon whom depends the existence of all things, preserving and sustaining them. a The true God was little honored by the more savage tribes, but prayers were often offered to him in the Mexican empire, and these prayers present a more complete description of Him. The following extract from one made in time of war clearly establishes his acknowledged superiority over all other gods : " . . . See good, O our Lord, that the nobles who die in the shock of war be peacefully and agreeably received, and with bowels of love by the Sun and the Earth, that are father and mother of all. ..." Sahagun relates another prayer descriptive of the true Christian 1 Amerikanische Urreligionen, S. Culturgeschichte, Bd. v. S. 114 ; 473, in Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 183. Brantz Mayer, Mexico as it was, 2 eeds, Deus. p- HO, ap. Bancroft, vol. iii. pp. 3 Cf. Kastner, p. 42 ; Klemm, 184, 188. 368 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. God : * " O God Almighty, who givest life to man, who callest us thy servants, do me the signal mercy of giving me all that I stand in need of; let me enjoy thy clem- ency, thy kindness and sweetness ; have pity on me, open the hands of Thy bounty towards me." A prayer to get rid of a bad ruler, translated from the same Sahagun, 2 commences as follows : " O our Lord, most clement, that givest shelter to every one that approaches, even as a tree of great height and breadth ; thou that art invisible and impalpable, thou art, as we under- stand, able to penetrate the stones and the trees, see- ing what is contained therein. For this same reason thou seest and knowest what is within our hearts, and readest our thoughts. Our soul in thy presence is as a little smoke or fog that rises from the earth. It cannot at all be hidden from thee, the deed and the manner of living of any one, for thou seest and knowest his secrets and the sources of his pride and ambition. Thou knowest that our ruler has a cruel and hard heart, and abuses the dignity that thou hast given him. . . ." 3 Short 4 is not serious when he derides Lord Kings- borough for believing that the Mexicans worshipped an invisible, incorporeal Unity. The Peruvian Inca, Garcilasso de la Vega, 5 writes of his own nation that they adored the sun as their visible god, but the Inca kings and their friends, the philosophers, discovered by the means of natural reason the true Supreme God our Lord, who created heaven and earth, and whom they called " Pachacamac." 6 1 T. i. p. xxvii. 6 The belief in one Supreme God * Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 217. existed in Peru before the advent 3 Cf . Prescott, Conquest of Mex- of the Inca dynasty, as appears ico, vol. i. p. 58. from the fact that the temple of * P. 460. Pachacamac was built long before, 6 Comentarios, lib. ii. cap. ii. p. not far from Lima, in a province 34. conquered by them. (Prescott, PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 369 Pachacamac is a word composed of " Pacha," signify- ing the universe, and of " camac," which is the present participle of the verb " cama," that means to animate. They held this sacred name in such veneration that they did not dare to pronounce it ; and when they were compelled to use it, they did so only with the greatest demonstrations of veneration and worship. When asked who Pachacamac was, they answered that it was he who gave life to all that lives, and supports it all ; that they did not, however, know him, and, therefore, built no temples for him nor offered him sacrifices, but that they worshipped him in their hearts and held him as the Unknown God. 1 Winsor says, " The religion of the Incas and of the learned Peruvians was a worship of the Supreme Cause of all things, the ancient God of earlier dynasties, com- bined with veneration for the sun as the ancestor of the reigning dynasty, for the other heavenly bodies, and for the ' malqui' or remains of their forefathers." Again, " The weight of evidence is decisively in the direction of a belief on the part of the Incas, that a Supreme Being existed, which the sun must obey as well as all other parts of the universe. This subordination of the sun to the Creator of all things was inculcated by suc- cessive Incas. They did not know the sun as their creator, but as created by the Creator, says Molina. Salcamayhua tells us how the Inca Mayta-Capac taught that the sun and moon were made for the service of man, and how the chief of the Collas, addressing the Inca Vira-Cocha, exclaimed, ' Thou, O powerful Lord of Cuzco, dost worship the Teacher of the universe, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 91, ref. ' Cf. Nadaillac, Prehistoric Amer- to Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., ica, p. 437. MS., and Sarmiento, Relacion, MS., cap. xxvii. ; and vol. i. pp. 442, 443. ) I.— 24 370 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. while I, the chief of the Collas, worship the sun.' The evidence on the subject of the religion of the Incas, collected by the viceroy Toledo, shows that they wor- shipped the Creator of all things though they also ven- erated the sun ; and Montesinos mentions an edict of the Inca Pacha-Cutec, promulgated with the object of enforcing the worship of the Supreme God above all other deities. The speech of the Inca Tupac- Yupan- qui, showing that the sun was not God, but was obeying laws ordained by God, is recorded by Acosta, Bias Valera, and Balboa, and was evidently deeply im- pressed on the minds of their Inca informers. The Inca compared the sun to a tethered beast, which always makes the same round, or to a dart, which goes where it is sent and not where it wishes. The prayers from the Inca ritual, given by Molina, are addressed to the god Ticsi Viracocha ; the sun, the moon, and the thunder being occasionally invoked in conjunction with the principal deity. " The worship of this creating God, the Dweller in space, the Teacher and Ruler of the universe, had been inherited by the Incas from their ancient predecessors of the cyclopean age." 1 His own mysterious existence is not the only truth which God has manifested to mankind ; and, although the greater portion of primordial revelation had, in the course of centuries, become dim and obscure and almost forgotten, yet unmistakable traces and evidences of sev- eral more of its teachings were to be found on our hemi- sphere at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It cannot be denied that even the profoundest of all mysteries, the. doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, was held in several parts of America, illustrated sometimes by ' Winsor, vol. i. p. 232. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 371 such particulars as would make us believe that here, as in the Old World, it had been revived by Christianity. Rafinesque assures us 1 that traces of a triple god, as he styles it, have been found from Ohio to Peru ; in fact, all over America. 2 The Cochimis, a Californian tribe, were in possession of a remarkable tradition, says Gleeson. 3 They believed in the existence in heaven of an omnipotent Being, whose name, in their language, signified " He who lives." He had, they affirmed, two sons begotten unto him without any communication with woman. The first had two names, one of which implied "perfection" and the other "velocity." The name of the second was " He who maketh lords." Although they gave the title of Lord indifferently to all three, when asked by the missionaries how many spirits there were, they answered, " Only one, he who created all things." Father Roman speaks of a triune God of the Hay- tians. 4 In Cunclinamarca or Bogota the god or deified apos- tle Bochica was represented with a triple head, and this strange symbol was to remind his worshippers of three persons in one God. 5 Acosta 8 writes : "In Peru there was some similarity to our dogma of the Blessed Trinity in their Chief- sun, Son-sun, and Brother-Sun. I remember that, being in Chuquisaca, an honourable priest shewed me an information, which I had long in my hands, where it was prooved that there was a certain Huaca or ora- tory, whereas the Indians did worship an idoll called Tangatanga, which they said, was One in three and Three in one. And as this priest stood amazed thereat, i p. eg. 4 Rafinesque, p. 191. 2 P. 191. 5 Kastner, p. 41. 3 y i. i. p. 137. 6 Bk. v. ch. xxviii. p. 373. 372 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. I saide that the devill had taught it, stealing it from the Eternal Truth for himself!" x The mystery of the Blessed Trinity seems not to have been altogether unknown to the Mexicans. On the 20th of March they celebrated the first feast of their year, in honor of an idol which, although one, they worshipped under three different names, and, al- though having three names, they worshipped as one and the same god ; almost in a manner in which we believe in the most holy Trinity. The names of the god were " Totec," the frightful and terrible Lord ; " Xipe," the disconsolate and maltreated Man ; " Tlatlauhquitezcatl," the Mirror flaming with splendor. And this idol was not a local one, but its feast was celebrated all over the land as being that of the universal deity. 2 The natives of Campeche assured the Spanish mis- sionaries that their religious teacher, Quetzalcohuatl, had given them images to explain his doctrine, and, in particular, a triangular stone, as an illustration of the Blessed Trinity, with which mystery they were well acquainted, says Sahagun, and in whose name they were baptized. 3 We know of the Quiche trinity in Guatemala, " Tohil, Awilix, and Gucumatz," 4 but nowhere in Central Amer- ica nor in any part of our continent was the dogma of the Blessed Trinity more explicitly or more accurately known and believed than among the Chiapans. And to say this we have no less an authority than the first bishop of Chiapa, B. de las Casas himself, who writes : 6 1 Bastian states that the Peruvian 3 Hist. Gen., vol. i. p. xx : " . . . Mecca, the lake of Titicaca, was la Trinidad, que conocian muy the principal place for worship of bien, y en cuyo nombre se bauti- the Peruvian trinity, Apuynti, zaban todos." Churiynti, and Yntiphuanque. * Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 648. (Bd. i. S. 485. ) 5 Coleccion de Documentos, t. 2 Duran, t. ii. p. 147. lxvi. cap. cxxiii. p. 453. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 373 " There" — i.e., near a seaport of his diocese — " I found a good secular priest, of mature age and honorable, who knew the language of the Indians, having lived among them several years ; and because I was obliged to travel on to the chief town of my diocese, I ap- pointed him my vicar, asking him and giving him charge to visit the tribes of the inland, and to preach to them in the manner that I gave him. The same priest, after some months, or even a year, as I think, wrote to me that he had met with a chief from whom he had made inquiries in regard to his ancient belief and religion, which they were used to follow in that country. The Indian answered him that they knew and believed in God who dwells in the heavens, and that that God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Father's name was Icona, and he had created man and all things ; the Son had for name Bacab, and he was born from a maiden always virgin, called Chibirias, that lives in the heavens with God. The Holy Ghost they called Echuac. They say that Icona means the Great Father ; of Bacab, who is the Son, they tell that Eopuco put him to death, had him scourged, and placed a crown of thorns on his head, and hung him with extended arms from a pole ; not meaning that he was nailed, but bound to it ; and to better explain, the chief extended his own arms. There he finally died, and remained dead three days, and the third day he came to life again and ascended to Heaven, where he is now with his Father. Immediately after came Echuac, who is the Holy Ghost and who supplied the earth with all that was needed. When the Indian was asked the meaning of Bacab or Bacabab, he said that it meant Son of the Great Father, and that the name Echuac signified Merchant. And, in fact, the Holy Ghost brought good merchandises to the earth, since 374 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. he satiated the world, that is, the people of the world, with his abundant divine gifts and graces." The reader will allow us to make a short digression hy adding a few more lines from Las Casas's quaint and interesting relation. "Chibirias," he continues, " means Mother of the Son of the Great Father. The chief further said that all men must die for a time, but they knew nothing of the resurrection of the body. . . . The common people, however, believe only in three per- sons, Icona and Bacab and Echuac, and in Chibirias, the mother of Bacab, and in the mother of Chibirias, called Hischen, who, as we say, was St. Ann. All the foregoing thus said was written to me by that secular priest named Francis Hernandez, and I keep his letter among my papers. He further said that he took that chief to a friar of the order of St. Francis who was stationed in that neighborhood, and had him to repeat it all before the Franciscan. Both priests were left in wonderment. If those things are true, it would seem that our holy faith was announced in that land ; but in no other part of the Indies have we obtained such information, although some imagine to have found in the land of Brazil, now in possession of the Portu- guese, some traces of the apostle St. Thomas ; * and such doctrine did not extend farther. " At any rate, the land and kingdom of Yucatan offer things more strange and more ancient than other countries, as, for instance, its grand edifices, built in an admirable and exquisite manner, and its writings with characters of a special kind. All this is a secret, which God only knows." Most subsequent authors, commencing with Torque- mada, 2 have admitted and more or less correctly copied Las Casas's puzzling report. 1 Supra, p. 219. 2 T. iii. lib. xv. cap. xlix. p. 133. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 375 We shall, farther on, try to elucidate the secret, but must, for the present, give our attention to the preser- vation by the American natives of a few more funda- mental doctrines of primeval revelation, such as the one regarding the origin of the world and of ourselves. The reader will have noticed already that the idea which the American aborigines had of their Supreme God included the notion of an almighty power which had brought forth all that exists beside Him, as Acosta plainly states : * " The Indians commonly acknowledge a supreme Lord and author of all things." 2 In a letter of the Franciscan friar, Judocus De Bycke, of Mechlin, written in the convent of Quito, January 12, 1556, it is clearly said that the Peruvian natives acknowledged a Creator of all things, although their most ostensible worship was in honor of the sun. 3 The most ancient Peruvian myth points to the re- gion of Lake Titicaca as the scene of the creative operations of a deity or miracle-working God. This God is said to have created the sun, the moon, and the stars, or to have caused them to rise out of that lake. He also, at Tiahuanaco, created men of stone or clay, making them pass under the earth and appear again out of caves, tree-trunks, rocks, or fountains, in the different provinces which were to be peopled by their descendants. 4 Among the other most civilized nation — namely, in Mexico — the truth of divine Creation was accepted as well ; " but," says Bancroft, 6 " there appear to have been two principal schools of opinion in Anahuac, differing as to who was the immediate creator of the world. The more advanced, ascribing its inspiration to Toltec 1 Bk. v. cap. iii. p. 301. 3 Verkinderen, bl. 111. 2 Cf. Congwis Scient., viii. sec. p * Winsor vol. i. p. 222. 114. 5 Vol. iii. p. 55. 376 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. sources, seems to have flourished notably in Tezcuco. It taught that all things had been made by one God, supreme, omnipotent, and invisible." The other school sustained a mediate creation, as we shall presently observe. 1 On the occasion of his first visit to the emperor of Mexico, Cortes endeavored to explain to him the Chris- tian doctrine, ascending to the origin of things, — the creation of the world, the first man and woman, and so on. But Montezuma was not open to argument or persuasion. He doubted not the God of Cortes was a good being ; but his own gods, also, were good to him. Yet, what his visitor had said of the creation of the world was the same that the Mexicans had believed long ago. 2 The neighbors of the Mexicans, the Cochimis of Lower Calfornia, amid an apparent multiplicity of gods, say there is in reality only one, who created heaven and earth, plants, animals and man. 3 The Pericues, also of Lower California, call the creator Niparaja, and say that the heavens are his dwelling- place. 4 In Upper California the religious notions of several tribes, stripped of many extravagances, were remarkably correct. They held that the creation of the world was the work of an invisible, omnipotent Being, to whom some gave the name of Nocumo, and others of Chinighchinigh. The " Popol Vuh" or national book of the Guate- malan Quiches, a book much in vogue among the learned, and probably authentic, gives an extensive account of creation, from which we take, according to 1 Cf. Document XII. 3 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 137 ; Ban- 2 Bernal Diaz, Historia de la croft, vol. iii. p. 83, quoting Clavi- Conquista, cap. xc, ap. Prescott, gero, Storia della Cal., t. i. p. 139. Conquest of Mexico, vol. ii. p. 86, * Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 83 ; Glee- n. 38. son, vol. i. p. 134. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 377 Bancroft, 1 the following extracts : " And the heaven was formed, and all the signs thereof set in their angle and alignment, and its boundaries fixed towards the four winds by the Creator and Former, and Mother and Father of life and existence ; by whom all move and breathe, the Father and Cherisher of the peace of nations and of the civilization of his people ; whose wisdom had projected the excellence of all that is on earth, or in the lakes, or in the sea. Behold the first word and the first discourse : There was as yet no man, nor any animal, nor bird, nor fish, nor crawfish, nor any pit, nor ravine, nor green herb, nor any tree ; nothing was but the firmament. The face of the earth had not yet appeared ; only the peaceful sea and all the space of heaven. There was nothing yet joined together, nothing that clung to anything else ; nothing that balanced itself, that made the least rustling, that made a sound in heaven. There was nothing that stood up ; nothing but the quiet water, but the sea, calm and alone in its boundaries ; nothing existed, nothing but immobility and silence, in the darkness, in the night. 2 Alone was the Creator, the Former, the Dominator, the Feathered Serpent : those that en- gender, those that give being, they are upon the water like a growing light. 3 And he spake, they consulted together, and they meditated ; they mingled their words and their opinions ; and the creation was verily after this wise : Earth ! they said, and on the instant it was formed ; like a cloud or a fog was its beginning. Then the mountains rose over the water like great lobsters, in an instant the mountains and the plains were visi- 1 Vol. iii. p. 44. the face of the deep." (Gen. i. ' If that is poetical, this is sub- 2. ) lime: "And the earth was void 3 " And the Spirit of God moved and empty, and darkness was upon over the waters." (Gen. i. 2.) 378 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ble, 1 and the cypress and pine came in sight. The earth and its vegetation having thus appeared, 2 it was peopled with the various forms of animal life. 3 And the Makers said to the animals, ' Speak now our name, honor us, as your mother and father ; speak, call on us, salute us !' So was it said to the animals. But the animals could not answer, they could not speak at all after the manner of men ; they could only cluck and croak, each murmuring after its kind in a different manner. This displeased the creators, and they said to the animals, ' Inasmuch as you cannot praise us, neither call upon our names, your flesh shall be hu- miliated, it shall be broken with teeth, ye shall be killed and eaten.' " Again the gods took council together ; they deter- mined to make man. So they made a man of clay, 4 and when they had made him, they saw that it was not good. The Quiche" creators tried to make better men of wood, but where displeased with their work again, and rained upon them night and day from heaven with a thick resin. And the men went mad with terror ; they tried to mount upon the roofs, and the houses fell, they tried to climb the trees, and the trees shook them far from their branches ; the bird Xecotcovach came to tear out their eyes. Thus were they all devoted to chastisement and destruction save only a few, who were 1 " God also said : Let the waters 3 " And God said : Let the earth that are under the heaven, be bring forth the living creature in gathered together into one place ; its kind, cattle and creeping things and let the dry land appear. And and beasts of the earth according it was so done." (Gen. i. 9. ) to their kinds. And it was so 2 "And he said: Let the earth done." (Gen. i. 24.) bring forth the green herb, and * And God created man to his such as may seed, and the fruit tree own image, to the image of God yielding fruit after its kind, which he created him, male and female may have seed in itself upon the he created them. . . . And the earth. And it was so done." (Gen. Lord God formed man of the slime i. 11.) of the earth." (Gen. i. 27 ; ii. 7.) PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 379 preserved as memorials of the wooden men that had been, and these now exist in the woods as little apes. Once more are the gods in council, and the Creator and Former made four perfect men. They had neither father nor mother, neither were they made by the ordi- nary agents in the work of creation ; but their coming into existence was a miracle extraordinary, wrought by the special intervention of him who is pre-eminently the Creator. Verily, at last, were there found men worthy of their origin and of their destiny. But the gods were not wholly pleased ; they had overshot their mark ; these are as gods, they said ; they would make themselves equal to us ; lo, they know all things, great and small. And the Creator breathed a cloud over the pupil of their eyes. Then the men slept, and there was counsel in heaven, and women were made ; and when the men awoke their hearts were glad because of the women." x A document or book of about equal value with the Popol Vuh is the Mexican " Chimalpopoca" manuscript. From it we learn that the Creator produced his work in successive periods : In the sign Tochtli the earth was created, in the sign Acatl was made the firmament, and in the sign Tecpatl the animals. Man, it is added, was made and animated by God out of ashes or dust on the seventh day, but finished and perfected by Quetzal- coatl. 2 That man was created to the image of God was a part of the Mexican belief, says Kingsborough. 3 Another point of coincidence with the Scripture record is found in the Mexican goddess " Cioacoatl" or serpent-woman, whom the Aztecs addressed as Our Lady and Mother, 1 Cf. Gen. ii. 21 ; iii. 5, 23 ; vii. s Mex. Antiq., vol. vi. p. 174, ap. 12 ; viii. 6, 16. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 86. 2 Our Lord Jesus-Christ? 380 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. the first goddess who brought forth, who bequeathed the sufferings of childbirth to women as the tribute of death ; by whom sin came into the world. In all this we see much to remind us of the mother of the human family. 1 Similar traditions were preserved among the tribes north of the Mexican empire. The Papagos of the Gila valley tell that the Great Spirit made the earth and all living things before he made man. He de- scended from heaven, and, digging in the earth, found clay, such as the potters use, which, having ascended again into the sky, he dropped into the hole that he had dug. Immediately there came out the hero-god Montezuma, and, with his assistance the rest of the Indian tribes in order. Last of all came the Apaches, wild from their first origin, running away as fast as they were created. 2 The Pimas, a neighboring people, relate that the earth was made by a certain Chiowotmahke. It ap- peared in the beginning like a spider's web, stretching far and fragile across the nothingness that was. Then the god flew over all lands in the form of a butterfly till he came to the place he judged fit for his purpose, and there he made man. The Creator took clay in his hands and, mixing it with the sweat of his own body, kneaded the whole into a lump ; then he blew upon the lump till it was filled with life and began to move, and it became man and woman. In Upper California, also, man was made of a handful of dust 3 by the invisible omnipotent Being. 4 Creation was not, however, considered everywhere as 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, 3 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 120 ; Ban- vol. iii. p. 366, ref. to Sahagun, lib. i. croft, vol. iii. pp. 78, 84. cap. vi. ;lib. vi. cap. xxviii., xxxiii. * Supra, p. 376. See Document 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 76. XIII. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 381 being the immediate work of the Supreme God. The Pericues of Lower California x ascribed it rather to one of the three children born to him from a bodiless god- dess. As we have noticed already, the greater number of the civilized Mexicans granted the honor of creation to Tezcatlipoca, who was not their original god, while yet other secondary gods disputed his claims. 2 We could not well look for information on this sub- ject to the more degraded tribes of eastern parts. The Indians with whom we came in contact do not trouble their minds with the beginning and termination of sublunar things ; the world commenced for them when their grandfather was born ; nor do they care when it may end. Neither do they, in the mean time, trouble their indolent minds with thinking of, or worshipping, its possible author. This, however, is not the case with all the Red Skins of the United States. Some tribes of 'the eastern coast and of the St. Lawrence River had pretty fair notions of the Creator and Governor of the earth. Their " Great Spirit," the " Michabou" of the Algonquins, the " Agrescoue" of the Iroquois, was the Father of all existing beings. To him alone true wor- ship was offered by smoking the sacred calumet towards the four points of the horizon and the zenith. He him- self or his messengers watched over the children and directed the events of this world. Again, it was to him, before all other deities, that the Red Skin addressed his supplication when he prayed, and his thanks when he had obtained his requests. I might here multiply examples and quotations, but I shall confine myself to reminding the reader of the song of the Linapis on the eve of their departure for war : " Oh, poor me, who am just about," and so on, as supra, page 251. 1 Cf. supra, p. 376. 2 Mendieta, Hist. Eccles., p. 81. 382 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. We are further told by Lesearbot 1 that the natives of the State of Virginia, and, as we are informed by Rafi- nesque, the ancient tribes of Chili, preserved traditions regarding the origin of all things ; both, however, tes- tifying in favor of a mediate creation. 2 The Virginians believed in many gods, one of whom was the principal god and had always been. Willing to make the world, he first made other gods, whom he used as means and instruments for its production as afterwards for its gov- ernment. They held, in particular, that woman was made first, and conceived man from one of the created gods. The Chilians admitted that their Supreme God was father or mother of another great god, who was dwell- ing in the sun and had created the heavens and the earth, as also the " Zemis" or angels, — that is, male and female lesser gods worshipped in idols. Some of these. Zemis, they say, became bad beings and devils, who send diseases, hurricanes, earthquakes, and thunder to desolate the earth and mankind. It is admitted that some created deities and spirits remained good, as they were made, and friendly to man ; nay, it would seem that the Jewish and Christian doctrine of guardian angels was not a stranger in Mex- ico and Central America. Every place and everything there had their presiding divinities ; every city, every family, every individual had their celestial protectors, to whom worship was offered. 3 According to many reports, the most savage tribes were specially favored in this respect. To every one of their shaman or medi- cine-men were attached a certain number of spirits as familiars, while there were others on whom he might call in an emergency. 4 1 Liv. vi. ch. iv. p. 716. •" Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 187. 2 Rafinesque, p. 167. * Ibid., p. 148. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 383 Further inquiry would still more clearly prove that it was an almost universal belief among the Ameri- can aborigines that there were two distinct and an- tagonistic orders of superior beings. The Californian Cochimis and Pericues asserted that the Lord who liveth created numerous spirits that revolted against him, and are, since then, both his and our enemies. To these spirits they gave the appropriate name of liars and deceivers. Their business was to be ever on the alert, so that when men departed this life they might seize them, take them to their own abode, and thus prevent them from ever seeing the Lord who liveth. 1 The latter tribe plainly stated that in former time a tremendous battle took place between the celestial powers. A certain Bac or Wac conspired with several companions against the Supreme God, Niparaya. In a battle, which was the consequence, Bac was overcome, driven out of heaven, and confined, with his followers, in a cave under the earth. It is impossible, says Kingsborough, when reading what Mexican mythol- ogy records of the war in heaven, not to recognize Scriptural analogies. 2 The Pericues added that all quarrelling, fighting, and bloodshed were displeasing to Niparaya, but agreeable to Bac, because all who died guilty of such acts would go to the latter's king- dom, and become subject to him. 3 The Californians, as most American aboriginal tribes 1 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 137. heaven. And that great dragon 2 Mex. Antiq., vol. vi. p. 401. was cast out, that old serpent, who quoted by Bancroft, vol. v. p. 12. is called the devil and satan, who "And there was a great battle in seduceth the whole world ; and he heaven ; Michael and his angels was cast unto the earth, and his fought with the dragon, and the angels were thrown down with dragon fought and his angels ; and him." (Apoc. xii. 7-10.). they prevailed not, neither was s Gleeson, vol. i. p. 135 ; cf. Ban- their place found any more in croft, vol. iii. p. 169. 384 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. and the Chinese, trouble themselves but little in regard to the good God, who shall do them no harm ; but they are exceedingly afraid of evil spirits, whom they know to be totally wicked, and whom they honor, in the mistaken hope of preventing their mischief by worshipful service. 1 There can be no doubt that the Mexicans believed in the existence of infernal, wicked spirits, on the part of one who has seen the original Aztec manuscript of the Borgia museum of Veletri. On one of its pages are represented the evil genii, with horns on their heads, taking their flight towards the four corners of the earth, to fulfil the orders of their chief. One of them is painted in red, the color in Mexico for blood and blood- shed. 2 The Mexicans, Clavigero says, believed in an evil spirit, the enemy of the human race, whose bar- barous name signified Rational Owl, and the curate Bernaldez speaks of the devil being embroidered on the dresses of Columbus's Indians in the likeness of an owl. 3 It may be a question whether ancient Americans represented the devil in the shape of a serpent, al- though the serpent-worship, which was none but devil- worship, seems to have existed in some parts. The Apaches still hold that every rattlesnake contains the soul of a bad man or is an emissary of the evil spirit. The Piutes of Nevada have a demon-deity in the form of a serpent still supposed to exist in the waters 01 Pyramid Lake. ♦ The wind, when it sweeps down among the nine islands of the lake, drives the waters 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 158 ; Brown- 3 Storia del Messico, t. ii. p. 2 ; ell, p. 25. Historia de los Reyes Cat61icos, 2 Kastner, p. 44, quoting Alex. MS., cap. 131, ap. Prescott, Con- von Humboldt, Monuments des quest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 58, n. Peuples indigenes de l'Amerique, 4. planche xxxvii. fig. 7. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 385 into the most fantastic swirls and eddies, even when the general surface of the lake is tolerably placid. This, the Piutes say, is the devil-snake causing the deep to boil like a pot ; and no native in possession of his five sober wits will be found steering towards those troubled waters at such a time. 1 Whence such traditions but from man's primordial history recorded by Moses ? 2 " It is impossible," says Kingsborough, " when reading what Mexican mythol- ogy records of the sin of Yztlacoliuhqui and his blind- ness and nakedness, of the temptation of Suchiquecal and her disobedience in gathering roses from a tree, and of the consequent misery and disgrace of herself and all her posterity, not to recognize scriptural analogies again." 3 Veytia remembers having seen a Toltec or an Aztec map representing a garden with a single tree in it, round which was coiled a serpent with a human face ! i Our first parents were, in punishment of their diso- bedience, condemned to die ; but they were also taught that death would not prevail upon their soul, and that even their dead bodies would one day come to life again to partake in the reward or in the chastisement assigned to the soul, according to their deeds. These important truths of revelation have not only been religiously preserved by Adam's nearer posterity, 6 but have also 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 135, ref. to rise out of the earth : and I shall Charlton, in Schoolcraft' sArchseol., be clothed again with nay skin, vol. v. p. 209, and to San Francisco and in my flesh I shall see my God, Daily Evening Post of August 12, whom I myself shall see, and my 1872. eyes shall behold, and not another : 2 Gen. iii. this my hope is laid up in my 3 Mex. Antiq., vol. vi. p. 401. bosom." (Jobxix. 25-27.) "Mar- L Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, tha saith to him : I know that he vol. iii. p. 367, n. 19. [the deceased Lazarus, her brother] 5 "I know that my Redeemer shall rise again in the resurrection liveth, and in the last day I shall at the last day." (St. John xi. 24. ) I.— 25 386 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. endured among many of the later aboriginal races of our continent. Only a few of the most savage tribes seem to have been unconscious of their spiritual soul, while others, exaggerating, believed in spirits or souls of even inani- mate things, such as snow-shoes, bows, and arrows ; and the spirits of these, the Gaspesians said, were to serve the soul of their owner after his death. 1 The learned Peruvians had a very correct idea of the two parts of which man is composed. They clearly dis- tinguished the intelligent and immaterial soul, the " runa," an immortal spirit, from the body made of clay, and to which they gave the significant name of " alpacamasca" or animated earth. 2 Bastian 3 quotes Blocius to state that the people of Chuquisaca believed in the immortality of the soul ; and Acosta says, in general, 4 that the Indians of Peru believed commonly " that the soules lived after this life, and that the good were in glorie and the bad in paine, so as there is little difficultie to persuade them to these articles." Among the Peruvian Chimus the dead had a special order of priests, who played an important part on the solemn day when the various tribes came together, carrying with them the dried bones of their parents. Covered with festive garments and adorned with feathers, they came forth blowing into copper or silver trumpets and into large marine conch-shells, and be- laboring tambourines and other vases. The ceremonies were appropriate, "for it was," says an old Spanish writer, "as if both the living and the dead were marching to the Last Judgment." 6 1 Leclercq, Nouvelle Relation de s Bd. i. S. 494, n. 2. la Gaspesie, ch. xii. * Ch. vii. 2 Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, " Cronau, S. 89. p. 435 ; Garcilasso, Comentarios, lib. ii. cap. vii. p. 42. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 387 It does not seem, however, that these people had a very correct opinion of the manner of life of the dis- embodied souls ; for, while they dried and embalmed the corpses, they placed food and drink by their side for the sustenance of their still living souls. 1 Their neighbors, the Brazilian aborigines, not only placed food for several days upon the graves of their dead, but also hung up a hammock over them, in the conviction that the deceased continued to eat and to sleep as they had done on earth. 2 The immortality of the human soul was likewise admitted in all Central America and in Mexico. 3 Farther north, in Upper California, the natives gener- ally believed that, when the dead bodies were cremated, the heart was never consumed, but went to a place destined for it by the Great Spirit. By the heart they evidently meant the soul, for which they had no word in their language. 4 The Cochimis, in particular, supposed their departed ancestors and parents to inhabit the northern regions, and to pay them an annual visit. The females were obliged to procure large quantities of the best fruits and berries of the country for this solemn occasion. When the anniversary day had arrived the male portion of the community, in company with the dead who were supposed to be among them, assembled and feasted upon the provisions, while the women and children remained at a distance, weeping and lament- ing the death of their relatives and friends. 5 Similar, though more solemn, feasts were celebrated by the civilized nations. 1 Bastian, Bd. i. S. 476. to Kingsborough, Mex. Antiq., vol. 2 Mafiei, lib. ii. p. 75. vi. p. 167. 3 Peschel, Zeitalter der Entdeck- * Gleeson, vol. i. p. 127. ungen, S. 359; Short, p. 463, ref. 5 Ibid., p. 139. 388 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. The Tlascaltecs gave to the Mexican month Maturity of the Fruit the name of Hueymiccailhuitl or Great Festival of the Dead. Both in Tlascala and in other parts of the Mexican empire the priests and nobles passed several days in the temple, weeping over their ancestors and singing their heroic deeds. The families of lately deceased persons assembled upon the terraces of their houses and prayed with their faces turned towards the North, where the dead were supposed to sojourn. 1 The Nez-Perces, the Flatheads, and some of the Haidah tribes believed that the wicked, after expiating their crimes by a longer or shorter sojourn in the land of desolation, were admitted to the abode of bliss. Those who died a natural death were consigned with the wicked to the purgatorial department, situated in the forest, there to be purified before entering the happy " Keewuck." The Nez-Perces believed in the special purgatory of metempsychosis, — namely, that the beavers were men condemned to atone their sins before they could resume the human form. 2 The Miztecs of Oajaca complimented, and presented addresses to, the corpse of a chief, just as if he were alive. Like the Aztecs, they believed that the soul wandered about for a length of time before entering into perfect happiness, and visited its friends on earth once a year. 3 On the eve of that day the house was prepared as for a festive occasion, a quantity of choice food was spread upon the table, and the inmates went out with torches in their hands, bidding the spirits enter. They then returned and squatted down around the table with crossed hands and eyes lowered to the ground ; for it was thought that the spirits would be 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 331. 3 Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. ' Ibid., vol. iii. p. 520. Nat. Civ., t. iii. p. 23. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 389 offended if they were gazed upon. In this attitude they remained till morning, praying their unseen vis- itors to intercede with the gods in their behalf, and then they arose, rejoiced at having observed due respect for the departed. The food which the dead were sup- posed to have rendered sacred by inhaling its virtue, was distributed among the poor. 1 From all this it is evident enough that the most en- lightened American nations firmly believed in the in- tercourse of the dead with people yet living on earth. But a question may be raised, — namely, whether the religious performances of the living were of a eulo- gistic and entreating, or rather of a sympathizing character, and propitiatory for the poor souls that were wandering between heaven and earth before they would obtain steady repose and bliss. The worship- pers may have had either one or both objects in view, as it is well known that part of the ceremonies con- sisted in singing the praises of their deceased heroes and great men, while it is plainly stated that an order of priests in Oajaca had charge to offer expiatory sac- rifices for the relief of their ancestors' ghosts, as was also practised by most Asiatic nations and by the Jews particularly. 2 The American natives, as a rule, knew full well that the immortal souls of their dead were not all in the same condition, but that some could not be too highly congratulated, while the state of others was calling forth commiseration and assistance if possible. 3 ' Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 622. and religiously concerning the res- 2 Kastner, pp. 97-100 ; II. Mach. urrection. ... It is therefore a xii. 43, 46 :" And making a gather- holy and wholesome thought to ing, Judas Machabee sent twelve pray for the dead, that they may thousand drachms of silver to Jeru- be loosed from sins." salem for sacrifice to be offered for 3 Brownell, p. 25. the sins of the dead, thinking well 390 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. The northeastern Gaspesians believed in a land of the hereafter, where the souls of the good lived in a quiet, beautiful country affording hunting-sport and abundance, apart from the souls of the wicked, that slept on dry fir-branches and fed on the bark of trees. 1 Lescarbot 2 assures us that the east- American abo- rigines generally admit the immortality of the soul, the good being, after the body's death, in a place of rest, and the bad suffering in an inextinguishable fire, in a dark, deep cave of the distant West, which they call " Popogusso." Such, he says, is the belief of our eastern Virginians. 3 O'Kane Murray 4 states the belief of most eastern tribes when he says, " For all there was but one spirit- land or future state, yet all were not to be equally happy when they reached that bourne whence no traveller returns. Skilful hunters and brave war- riors went to the happy hunting-ground, while the slothful, the cowardly, and the weak were doomed to eat serpents and ashes, in dreary regions of mist and darkness. According to some Algonquin traditions, heaven was a scene of endless festivity, the ghosts dancing to the sound of rattle and drum, and greeting with hospitable welcome the occasional visitor from the living world ; for the spirit-land was not far off, and roving hunters sometimes passed its confines unawares." In making inquiries on the western coast of our con- tinent, we will obtain similar information. The next world was to be for the Upper Californians an earthly paradise where they would enjoy every sensual pleasure and gratification. 6 The doctrine of hell, according to the most orthodox 1 Leclercq, ch. xii. p. 308, seq. * Popular History, p. 44. * Liv. vii. ch. iv. p. 716. 5 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 127. 3 Cf. Kastner, p. 100. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 391 theology, was held by the Mexicans, 1 who also believed that the wife of their cruel war-god Huitzilopochtli, conducted the souls of warriors who perished in defence of their homes and of religion to the " house of the sun," the Aztec heaven, where they would enjoy ever- lasting happiness. " The great, the wise, the valiant, the beautiful, alas ! where are they now ? They are all mingled with the clod ; and that which has befallen them shall happen to us and to those that come after us. Yet let us take courage, illustrious nobles and chieftains, true friends, and loyal subjects ; let us aspire to that heaven where all is eternal and corruption cannot enter." Thus sang the king of Tezcuco before his court. 2 But in the Mexican heaven there were various de- grees of happiness, and each dead man was appointed to his place, according to his rank and deserts in this life. The high-born warrior who fell gloriously in battle did not meet on equal terms the base-born rustic who died in his bed. The most blissful portion of the " house of the sun" was the abode of the brave; lower heavens possessed a less degree of splendor and happiness, which ever decreased until the place of the masses, of those who had lived an obscure life and died a natural death, was reached. 3 According to Prescott, 4 the Mexicans believed in a third state of existence in the future life, — namely, they thought that a class of people with no other merit than that of having died of certain diseases, capriciously selected, were to enjoy a negative existence of indolent contentment. Heroes who had fallen in battle or died 1 Kingsborough, Mex. Antiq., t. (Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 163, seq., quoted by Short, p. i. p. 196, and n. 65, ibid.) 463. 3 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 511. 2 Aspiremos al cielo, que alii todo i Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. es eterno y nada se corrompe. 65, ref. to Sahagun and Torque- mada. 392 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. in captivity, defunct princes, and other persons of merit were, in a manner, canonized by the Tlascaltecs, and their statues placed among the images of the gods, whom, it was believed, they had joined to live in eter- nal bliss. 1 The learned king of Tezcuco, of whom we have spoken before, 2 simply asserted that the souls of the virtuous went up after death to the one true God, while the souls of the bad went to another place, some most infamous spot of the earth, filled with horrible hardships and sufferings. 3 In Yucatan the souls of the good enjoyed happiness under the protection of the gigantic Ceiba, while those of the wicked were punished in hell. 4 The respectful behavior of the Castilians during Holy Mass made a profound impression upon the natives of Hayti, and prompted an old cacique to declare a por- tion of their own religion. He addressed Columbus, and said : " You have come to these lands that you never saw before, and you have caused all our tribes and nations to fear and to tremble. I let you know, how- ever, that, according to what we believe here, there are, for the next life, two places to which the souls go that leave their bodies, — One, a bad place, covered with dark- ness, prepared for those who disturb and maltreat man- kind ; the other, a good and delightful place, where are to dwell those who during their life on earth loved the peace and quietude of nations. Therefore, if you think that you have to die, and that every one must expect retribution according to what he shall have done here, you will not do harm to those who shall not have done any to you." The admiral remained astonished at the wisdom and prudence of the old Indian. 6 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 188 ; vol. iii. 3 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 197. p. 331. ' Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 373. 2 Supra, pp. 364, 391. s Herrera, dec. i. lib. ii. cap. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 393 The belief in a just reward or punishment after death was spread nearly all over North and Central America ; nor was it denied in the southern half of our hemi- sphere. Lescarbot x tells us that, according to the sav- age Brazilians, the souls of the wicked went off with " Aignan," the evil spirit that tormented them, whilst the souls of the good passed beyond the mountains to dance and feast with their ancestors. The Peruvians, the Inca Garcilasso says, 2 believed that after this life there is another, where the bad will be punished and the good rewarded. They divided the universe into three worlds, — the world above, whither, they said, the good ascended to be recompensed for their virtues ; the world where we live, and, in its centre, the world below, into which the wicked were flung. To illustrate their faith they called this last world the house of the devil, and accorded divine honors to some of their dead, whom they declared to inhabit the world above in the company of their gods. 3 Acosta denies, 4 and a few writers after him, that the Incas had a knowledge of the resurrection of the body, probably because the Peruvians had no correct idea of man's future, everlasting life ; but all his contemporaries agree in stating that the future reviviscence of human bodies was known in ancient Peru as well as it is there to-day. The Incas, says one of their descendants, 5 held the doctrine of the resurrection ; not, indeed, as the be- ginning of a life of glory or suffering, but of another temporal life on earth. On the decease of an Inca, his palaces were abandoned, all his treasures, except what xiv. p. 71 ; Coleccion de Docu- 3 Cf. Nadaillac, Prehistoric Amer- mentos, t. lxii., Las Casas, cap. ica, p. 436 ; Kastner, p. 104; Pres- xcvi. p. 61 ; Irving, t. i. p. 480. cott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 89. 1 Liv. vii. ch. iv. p. 717. 4 Ch. vii. 2 Comentarios, lib. ii. cap. vii. p. 5 Garcilasso de la Vega, Comen- 42. tarios, lib. ii. cap. vii. p. 42. 394 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. were employed in his obsequies, his furniture and ap- parel were suffered to remain as he left them, and his mansions, save one, were closed up forever. The new sovereign was to provide himself with everything new for his royal state. The reason of this was the popular belief that the soul of the departed monarch would return after a time to reanimate his body on earth ; and they wished that he should find everything to which he had been used in life prepared for his reception. 1 The corpse itself of the deceased monarch was skilfully embalmed, removed to the great temple of the sun at Cuzco, and placed with those of his ancestors. All these bodies, clothed in the princely attire which they had been accustomed to wear, were placed on chairs of gold opposite the mummies of their queens, and sat with their heads inclined downward, their hands placidly crossed over their bosoms, their countenances exhibit- ing their natural dusky hue. It seemed like a com- pany of solemn worshippers fixed in devotion, so true were the forms and lineaments to life. 2 The people took great care to gather in a safe place the hair and nails when they trimmed their heads or fingers. " Several times have I asked from different Indians," Garcilasso says, 3 " what their reason was in doing this, and I invariably received for answer, ' You know,' they said, ' that we all who are born have to live once more in the world, and the souls have to rise from their graves with all that once belonged to their bodies ; and in order that our souls should lose no time in searching after their hair and finger-nails, — for 1 Acosta, bk. vi. ch. xii. ; Garci- Primera, MS., and Garcilasso de la lasso de la Vega, Comentarios, pte. Vega, Comentarios, pte. i. lib. v. i. lib. vi. cap. iv., ap. Prescott, cap. xxix. Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 32. 3 Comentarios, lib. ii. cap. vii. 2 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. p. 42. i. p. 33, ref. to Ondegardo, Relac. PRIMEVAL TRUTHS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 395 on that day there will be much confusion and hurry, — we keep them now together in one place.' " No wonder if the Peruvians were in the deepest conster- nation when they saw the avaricious Spaniards enter their burial vaults and caves and, to rob the gold and precious stones given along to the dead, not only throw aside the precious packages of hair, but cut and tear the winding sheets and fling in every direction the broken bones of the religiously preserved corpses. They begged with tears the heartless conquerors to take pity on their beloved dead parents, and not to scatter and mix their bones, for fear that they could never arise to life again. 1 The Mayas of Yucatan believed in the resurrection of the body, says Peter Martyr, 2 and in parts of Mexico, as in Peru, the bones of the dead were de- posited in a convenient place, where the soul might easily find and reassume them. The opinion under- lying the various Mexican customs of preserving the remains of the dead, says Brinton, 3 was, that a part of the soul or one of the souls remained with the bones, and that these were the seeds which, planted in the earth or preserved unbroken in safe places, would in time put on once again a garb of flesh and germinate into living human beings. In fact, there is an Aztec tradition, according to which the first parents of the human race had their origin in the buried bone of a giant sprinkled with the blood of inferior gods. 4 Once a month, at the appearance of the new moon, the natives of Upper California assembled and danced as on a festive occasion, singing and shouting at the 1 Lescarbot, liv. vii. ch. iv. p. * Bancroft, vol. iii. pp. 59, 514 ; 716; Hornius, lib. iv. cap. xv. cf. Kingsborough, Mex. Antiq., p. 278 ; Aa. passim. t. vi. p. 163, quoted by Short, 2 Kastner, p. 100. p. 463. 3 Myths, p. 257. 396 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. same time, " As the moon dieth and cometh to life again, so we also, having to die, will live again." Did they also look for a resurrection ? However this be, it seems certain that the belief of the resurrection was not confined to the civilized aborigines. Lescarbot 1 assures us that the eastern tribes had at least a vague notion of it, and were telling stories of» dead persons who had come to life again. We know that upon the resurrection of the dead there is to follow the most solemn and momentous drama at which any creature shall ever assist ; but it seems that the American natives were in possession of but scant or no information regarding the last or uni- versal judgment. And, in fact, this dogma, although it be in perfect consonance with human reason and primordial revelation, rather pertains to the series of doctrines which God manifested in the Christian Dis- pensation. The Mexicans, however, had some idea of the end of the world, which they thought would happen at the close of one of their cycles of fifty-two years, — namely, on the day of " Four Earthquakes," — and they were in expectation of the great event. 2 The Tarascos of Michoacan, according to Herrera, 3 admitted a future judgment with an irrevocable sentence of re- ward in heaven or punishment in hell ; 4 and Hornius 5 asserts that a similar belief existed in Yucatan. 1 Liv. vii. ch. iv. p. 716. * Dec. iii. lib. iii. cap. x. 2 Kastner, p. 101 ; Bancroft, vol. * Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 541. iii. p. 272. 5 Lib. i. cap. iv. p. 35. CHAPTER XVI. THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. The fundamental religious dogmas, the vestiges of which we have found among the natives of America, may be considered as the common inheritance of all mankind, and are to a great extent the conclusions of sound human reason. It is no wonder, therefore, if they were not altogether forgotten by our aborigines ; but it is more remarkable that these people have pre- served the memory of quite a number of practices and events which, it is true, are set forth in the oldest records of humanity as belonging to the parent stock of all nations, but have no direct relation with the dictates of natural reason and law. Nay, authors are not wanting to assert that many customs are found among the American natives which could have no other origin but those of the Jewish nation. " And it came to pass," says the Bible, 1 " after many days, that Cain offered of the fruits of the earth, gifts to the Lord. Abel also offered of the firstlings of his flock, and of their fat ; and the Lord had respect to Abel and to his offerings." Such were also the sacri- fices offered on our continent in more remote periods. As long as monotheism was the distinct religion in Peru nothing but flowers, incense, and animals was laid upon the altars, tapirs and serpents being the principal victims. At the grand festival of the Raymi or sacred fire a llama was immolated. Human sacri- fices were gradually introduced as idolatry developed, 1 Gen. iv. 3, 4. 397 398 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. and were upheld by the Incas. 1 The Mexican Chi- chimecs, until the arrival of the Aztecs, who taught them idolatry, were used to offer to the sun, their representative of the Supreme God, bunches of grass and other innocent oblations, if we can believe the assertion made to Father de Olmos by one of their oldest chiefs. The Nahua commentary of a Chichimec historic drawing likewise states that formerly these people butchered no men in honor of the false gods ; their sacrifices were of decapitated birds and snakes, with whose blood they sprinkled the sod, almost as it was ordered by Almighty God for the religious services of the Jews. 2 Some peaceful rites, inherited from their predecessors, the Toltecs, continued to be practised even by the cruel Mexicans. Many of their ceremonies, says Prescott, were of a light and cheerful complexion, consisting of national songs and dances, in which both sexes joined. Processions were made by women and children crowned with garlands and bearing offerings of fruits, ripened maize, or sweet incense of copal and other odoriferous gums, while the altars of the deity were stained with no blood save that of animals. 3 Bancroft relates 4 that in the province of Sonora, on the Gulf of California, the vague feelings of awe and reverence, with which the savage regarded the unseen, unknown power, began at last to somewhat lose their vagueness and to crystallize into the recognition of a power to be represented and symbolized by a god made with hands. The offerings thereto began to lose more and more their primitive simplicity, and the blood, with- 1 Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, 51, 53 ; Lev. iv. 6, 17 ; v. 9 ; viii. p. 437; Congres Scient., Anthro- 30; II. Paral. xxix. 24. pologie, pp. 114, 115. s Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, 2 Congres Scient., Philologie, pp. vol. iii. p. 77. * Vol. iii. p. 178. THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 399 out which, he sneeringly says, is no remission of sins, commenced to stain the rude altar, which a more ar- cadian race had only heaped with flowers and fruit. The natives of Sonora, says Las Casas, 1 bring many deer, wolves, hares, and birds before a large idol, at the sound of many flutes and other musical instruments ; then, cutting open the animals through the middle, they take out their hearts and hang them round the neck of the image, wetting it with the flowing blood. This was the transition from legitimate to subsequent abominable oblations. All these sacrifices were liturgical. There is, conse- quently, no need of remarking that the public service of God, introduced by Enos 2 was remembered on our continent. It is evident from Holy Scripture that not every nation of the world, old already then, remained faith- ful to the just and salutary institution of Enos ; for one, at least, is most severely censured because of its impiety ; and when we compare the various texts of Holy Writ, 3 we may readily conclude that this nation constituted the generality of mankind at Noe's time. These peo- ple are called the giants. Whether the name be due to their size or to their pretended power, to their pride and their gigantic corruption, we shall not decide ; but we wish to call the reader's attention to the fact that the memory of this wicked nation has been kept fresh in the traditions of divers tribes of the American natives. The Olmecs of Tlascala prided themselves on having destroyed the giants. 4 These Giants, called Quinames, as Ixtlilxochitl states, were survivors of the 'great de- 1 Historia Apologetica, t. iii. cap. 3 Gen. vi. 4 ; Deut. ii. 20 ; Wisd. clxviii. x i v - 6 ; Eccl. xvi. 8 ; Baruch iii. 26. » Gen. iv. 26. * Kastner, p. 102. 400 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. struction which closed the second age of the world. They were, according to Veytia, more like brutes than rational beings ; their food was raw meat of birds and beasts, which they hunted indiscriminately, besides fruits and wild herbs. Going naked, with dishevelled hair, they cultivated nothing, but they knew how to make pulque with which to inebriate themselves. They were cruel and proud. The Olmecs, whom they allowed to settle on their lands, were treated well enough at first, but soon obliged to serve them as slaves, to hunt and to fish for them. Thus ill-treated, the Nahuas found their condition insupportable. Another great cause of offence was that these giants were addicted to sodomy, a vice which they refused to abandon, even when they were offered the daughters of the new-comers. At last it was resolved at a council of the Olmec chiefs to free themselves once for all from their oppressors. The giants were invited to a magnificent banquet ; the rich- est food and the most tempting native beverages were set before the guests gathered at the feast, and, as a result of their unrestrained appetites, they soon fell senseless like so many blocks of wood, to the ground. The Olmecs slew them to a man. 1 The plain which in the United States of Colombia stretches between Suacha and Bogota is even to-day called by the natives the Giants' Land. 2 ■ Garcilasso de la Vega records a tradition as he him- self heard it in Peru. They affirm, he says, in all Peru, that certain giants came by sea to the cape now called St. Helen's in large barks made of rushes. These giants were so enormously tall that ordinary men reached no higher than their knees, their long, unkempt hair covered their shoulders, their eyes were 1 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 197. 2 Kastner, p. 102. THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 401 as big as saucers, and the other members of their bodies were of correspondingly colossal proportions. They were beardless ; some of them went naked, and others covered with the skins of wild beasts. There were no women with them. Having landed at the cape, they established themselves at a spot in the desert, and dug deep wells in the rock, which to this day continue to afford excellent water. They lived by rapine, and soon desolated the whole country. Their appetites and glut- tony were such that, it is said, one of them would eat as much as fifty ordinary persons. At last, having for a long time tyrannized over the country and committed all manner of enormities, they were suddenly destroyed by fire from heaven and an angel armed with a flaming sword. As an eternal monument of divine vengeance, their bones remained unconsumed, and may be seen at the present day. 1 The later Mexican traditions give but little infor- mation in regard to the giant race. They say, how- ever, that at the beginning of man's history giants began to appear on earth. His first age or " sun" was called the " Sun of Water," and it was ended by a tremendous flood in which every living thing per- ished except, following some accounts, one man and one woman of the giant race. Pedro de los Eios, also, reports the legend that at the time of the cataclysm the country was inhabited by giants, of whom some perished utterly, others were changed into fishes, while seven brothers of them found safety by closing themselves into certain caves in a mountain called Tlaloc. No event in all the primeval history of mankind was more universally known by the American aborigi- 1 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 49. I.— 26 402 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. nes than this disastrous flood, from which only eight human beings escaped alive. We would widely exceed the limits of our plan should we try to relate the interesting traditions of every American tribe in regard to the universal deluge ; and should we allow more space than the subject requires, we might incur the censures of our modern scientists, who prove to their own satisfaction that the statement of Genesis is but a brilliant myth. We know that, had the Mosaic flood been a particular or local cataclysm only, the Scriptures would not be at fault for saying that " the waters filled all on the face of the earth," * because the expression " the face of the earth," and others similar to this, are often used in the sacred pages in a figurative rather than a grammatical sense, to designate only the writer's country. Yet we cannot help stating that we are con- siderably influenced in forming our opinion by the testimony of, we may say, every nation of the earth in favor of the universality of the deluge. Is it an au- thoritative mission of the fledgling, modern geology, — I mean, of a few antagonistic infidels and Christian liberals whose learned investigations can, after all, be well compared to the scratching of a hen, — is it their mission to convince the nations of the earth of their error in believing the Mosaic flood to have been uni- versal ? But look, they say, at the measurable growth of the deltas of the Nile, the Mississippi, and other rivers ; at the uniform retrocession of the Niagara and other waterfalls ; is it not evident, at first inspection, with the aid of the simplest calculation, that the natural water-powers of the earth have been undis- turbed at their steady work many thousands of centu- 1 Gen. vii. 18. THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 403 ries before the time of the Mosaic deluge and eve a before the Mosaic creation ? The objection is specious, indeed. In regard to the time of creation, we will content ourselves with the question, How did modern geology, or science at large, find out that Almighty God created a smooth baby- world, upon which every accident of moun- tain-ridge and river-bed, and every knoll and canyon, must have grown, like a man's beard and wrinkles, through the gradual effect of showers or other natural causes ? How is it proved that the ocean was originally contained within regular lines, formed by high perpen- dicular cliffs, over which the rivers' waters must have slowly dropped the refuse of the land, to fill the abyss at first, and afterwards invade it with dry-land deltas ? Modern science is remarkable, above all, for its airy foundations ; and, to cut short any further discussion, we will simply remark that Adam and Eve were not cre- ated as new-born infants, nor were the trees, from whose fruit they were to subsist, planted in the seed. Did the Creator follow another plan in producing all the rest of the world ? or was it not rather becoming his power and love that the first man should behold creation as we behold it now, beautiful in its variety, strong in its adult form ? We acknowledge, such ideas are not con- sonant with the slow growth of ourselves and of our works ; but it is becoming the omnipotent wisdom of God that his works should remain a puzzle for our lim- ited understanding. " He hath made all things good in their time, and hath delivered the world to their discussions, although man cannot find out the work which God hath made from the beginning to the end." 1 Neither should geological science offer any serious 1 Eccles. iii. 11. 404 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. objection to the belief in the universality of the bibli- cal flood. It would, on the contrary, seem that such volumes of water returning from off the earth, going and coming, as are spoken of in the seventh and eighth chapters of Genesis, were the proper if not the neces- sary agents to lay bare the rocky mountain-tops, to hollow out a Grand Canyon, to start a Niagara River, to carry off from the dry land, along a newly dug river-bed, earth enough to fill up considerable portions of the watery deep and to create in it large triangular provinces, the formation of which by the slow process of ordinary alluvium would require a time fit to frighten the stoutest imagination. Diluvial torrents were re- quired to cut in the hard stone the deep gullies which allow the mountain rivulets to speed down to their death in larger streams. Nothing but diluvial currents, hard- ened to steel in their unnatural depth, were capable of breaking off and of transporting hundreds of miles those huge masses which, in our ignorance, we call erratic rocks. Nothing but the wild whirling waters of the deluge could in their fell swoop have laid bare immense forests, to accumulate the woods into vast cavities, and there to cover them with improvised strata, until they now furnish us with fuel both excellent and abundant. Several more scientific arguments might here be indicated in support of the old general admission of a universal deluge, but we should rather continue our historical labor ; and this we shall, after proposing an answer to the strongest objection against the biblical record, — namely, that, had the Western Continent been submerged together with the Eastern, we would not be apt to find in America the brute animal population with which it abounds. 1 It is readily admitted that 1 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 29. THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 405 a single couple of any species would in a relatively short space of time settle a whole zone suitable to its nature. But how did these immigrants from among the progeny of the beasts preserved in Noe's ark come over to America ? It is well agreed, in the first place, that numerous species could easily cross Behring Strait, hanging on their wings or walking over the ice. Birds of all kinds may successively have immigrated on the masts and cordage of ancient sailors, as we have wit- nessed ourselves, on one of our transatlantic voyages, a small bird that followed the steamer all the way from the English shore to the haven of New York. In the second place, we have already observed that our hemisphere has received its human population from almost every other quarter of the globe ; and, as it is done to-day, so was it likely of old, — to wit, immigrating people took with them such brutes as were to be for them of any benefit, use, or pleasure. But did they take along, one might ask, worms and vermin and other obnoxious creeping or flying things ? One immigrant may have cared for an animal that another would have crushed under foot, and the fact is that the most fastidious sailor cannot prevent taking along in his keel quite a number of animal species, which he would exterminate if he could. There is no ship without a mouse. Bancroft expresses thus the strongest part of his ob- jection : " It is not to be supposed," he says, " that fero- cious beasts and venomous reptiles were brought over by the immigrants, nor is it more probable that they swam across the ocean." We should not wonder how- ever, if some vicious animals found their way to our con- tinent in spite of those who took them along. Even to-day tarantulas and vipers are often unwelcome ar- rivals from distant transmarine countries. Nor would there be any great difficulty in accounting for the 406 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. presence of lions and tigers, of rattlesnakes and boas, if it were ascertained that any of the ancient American immigrants were possessed of the same spirit of curi- osity or desire of learning which animates our modern nations, in both the Old and the New World, and causes them to gather, at great expense, animals of all kinds, whether tame or ferocious, in their zoological gardens and menageries. Bancroft states 1 that such has been the case. " The Aztec monarchs took special pleasure," he says, " in maintaining zoological collec- tions on an immense scale. Montezuma II. caused to be erected in the city of Mexico an immense edifice surrounded by extensive gardens, which was used for no other purpose than to keep and display all kinds of birds and beasts. One portion of this building consisted of a large open court, paved with stones of different colors and divided into several compartments, in which were kept wild beasts, birds of prey, and reptiles. The larger animals were confined in low wooden cages made of massive beams. They were fed upon the intestines of human victims and upon deer, rabbits, and other animals. The birds of prey were distributed, according to their species, in subterranean chambers, which were more than seven feet deep and upward of seventeen feet in length and breadth. One- half of each chamber was roofed with slabs of stone, under which perches were fixed in the wall, where the birds might sleep and be protected from the rain ; the other half was covered only with a wooden grating which admitted air and sunlight. Five hundred tur- keys were daily killed to feed these birds. Alligators were kept in ponds walled round to prevent their escape, and serpents in long cages or vessels large 1 Vol. ii. p. 163. THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 407 enough to allow them to move about freely. These reptiles were also fed on human blood and intestines." Is it not probable that some such ferocious brutes were set at liberty by whimsical owners, or escaped from their prison to propagate their species in woods and marshes ? Moreover, St. Augustin plainly intimates his belief that, " as by God's command at the time of creation the earth brought forth the living creature after its kind, so a similar process may have taken place after the deluge in islands too remote to be reached by animals from the continent." 1 In making these remarks we do not intend to swell the difficulties which scientists unavoidably meet on the grounds of history in regard to the universally attested fact of the world's submersion ; and, leaving to others to establish the correctness of the common interpretation of the Mosaic record, we restrict ourselves to the facile observation that, if the deluge did not cover the western hemisphere, it could not well be denied, however, that our aborigines had their racial beginnings with such people as had been either the exceptional survivors of a widespread though local flood, or the witnesses, at least, of a most disastrous inundation. Our plan, moreover, would not admit a thorough investigation of this ques- tion, on which Christian exegetics are quite undecided, although the better arguments and the most venerable authorities favor the almost universal opinion. Our digression has seemingly led us far away from our subject, but it may help us to better understand the historic importance of our natives' traditions concerning the deluge. " No tradition has been more widely spread among 1 De Civitate Dei, t. v. p. 987, quest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 358, ed. Paris, 1636, ap. Prescott, Con- n. 6. 408 HISTORY OF AMEEICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. nations than that of a deluge," says Prescott. 1 " In- dependently of tradition," he continues, " it would, in- deed, seem to be naturally suggested by the interior structure of the earth and by the elevated places on which marine substances are found to be deposited. It was the received notion, under some form or other, of the most civilized people in the Old World and of the barbarians in the New." 2 The simple tradition of a universal inundation was preserved, indeed, among probably the greater number of the aborigines of the Western World. Nadaillac 3 likewise states that a general belief in a deluge or universal flood is widely spread among the American races, and can hardly be attributed to Chris- tian teaching. Short, 4 who dismisses as either imaginary or accidental all other biblical analogies in America, admits the " remarkable tradition of the deluge and its literal correspondence in detail to the Mosaic account." Resuming again our exploration journey from North to South, we first find the Gaspesians of the North- east to be acquainted with the deluge of Noe. 5 Ac- cording to their apostle and historian, they believed that their great god, the sun, had created the earth and divided it into several parts by large lakes, and had placed in each division a man and a woman, who lived to a very old age. Yet these people became wicked, together with their children, who killed one another. Seeing this, the Sun shed tears of sorrow, and 1 Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. and the pairs of different kinds of p. 363 and n. 14, ibid. animals. (De Dea Syria, sec. 12. ) 2 The Chaldean and the Hebrew The same report is found in the accounts of the deluge are sub- Bhagawatu Purana. stantially the same. Among the 3 Prehistoric America, pp. 525, pagan writers, none approach so 527. near to the Scripture narrative as 4 P. 465. Lucian, who, in his account of the 5 Gravier, p. 170. Greek traditions, speaks of the ark THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 409 rain fell from heaven in such a quantity that the waters ascended to the tops of the rocks and of the highest mountains. This flood, which, they said, was all over the earth, compelled them to seek safety in their bark canoes ; but all was in vain, and they all miserably perished, a furious gale tossing and upsetting their frail vessels. All were buried in the horrible abyss with the exception, however, of a few old men and of a few women who had been the best and the most virtuous of all. After that the god came to console the survivors over the loss of their relatives and friends. 1 The Thlinkeets of the Northwest relate that a gen- eral flood was brought on by a man's jealousy, but many persons escaped drowning by taking refuge in a great floating building. When the waters fell, this building grounded upon a rock and broke in two ; in the one fragment were left those whose descendants speak the Thlinkeet language, in the other remained all whose descendants use another idiom. 2 The Mattoles of northern California regard Taylor Peak, a mountain in their vicinity, as the point on which their forefathers took refuge from a destructive inundation. 3 Other Californian tribes tell of a great flood in which all people perished, or, at least, of a time when the whole country, with the exception of Mount Diablo and Reed Peak, was covered with water. There was a coyote on the peak, the only living thing the wide world over, and there was a single feather tossing about on the rip- pled water. The coyote was looking at the feather, and, even as it looked, flesh and bones and other feathers came and joined themselves to the first, and 1 Chrestien Leclercq, p. 38. 3 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 125 ; Ban- 2 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 103 ; vol. croft, vol. v. p. 14. v. p. 14. 410 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. became an eagle. The coyote and the eagle began after a time to feel lonely, and they created other men ; and, as these multiplied, the waters abated till the dry land came to be much as it is now. The natives in the vicinity of Lake Tahoe say that the lake was formed by an immense wave that rose from the sea and swept across the continent, engulfing all but a very small remnant. 1 So also the Chippewayan deluge covered all the earth except the mountain-tops, upon which many of the people saved themselves.^ The Papagos, south of the Gila River, speak of a mighty flood that destroyed all life on earth except the hero-god Montezuma, and his friend the coyote, which had foretold the deluge. The former had hollowed out a boat for himself and kept it in readiness on the top- most summit of Santa Rosa, while the latter had gnawed down a great cane by the river bank. When the waters rose, Montezuma entered his bark and the coyote its hollow cane, stopping up the end with a cer- tain gum. Afterwards the Great Spirit, with Monte- zuma's assistance, created other animals and other men. 3 Their neighbors, the Pimas, told the story in a differ- ent manner, — namely, that in the twinkling of an eye there came a peal of thunder, and a green mound of water reared itself over the plain, where it seemed to stand for a second ; then, cut incessantly by the light- ning, it flung itself over the land, and all perished, with the exception of one man, if, indeed, he were a man : Szenkha, the son of the Creator, who had saved himself, floating on a ball of gum or resin. An eagle, which had a bad reputation in that land, had also escaped the fearful catastrophe ; but Szenkha, suspecting the bird of 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. pp. 88, 89. 3 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 76. 2 Mackenzie's Voyages, p. cxviii., quoted "by Bancroft, vol. v. p. 14. THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 411 having had something to do with bringing on the flood, made a ladder on which he climbed up to the eagle's nest and killed it, and he gave life again to the dry- bones of several children that the beast had devoured ; thus repeopling the world. 1 The account of the deluge, as preserved by the Ta- rascos of Michoacan, is almost identical with that of Holy Scripture. Their Noe, called Tezpi, entered with his wife and children a large vessel, into which he had introduced animals of various kinds and a quantity of grain and seeds. When the waters began to subside, Tezpi sent out a vulture, which fed upon the carcasses that were strewed on every side, and it never returned. Then Tezpi sent out other birds, among which was a humming-bird. And when the earth commenced to be covered with a new verdure, the humming-bird returned to the vessel, carrying green leaves, and then Tezpi landed on the mountain of Colhuacan. 2 Coxcox was the name of the Mexican Noe, and his wife was called Xochiquetzal, and these were the only persons saved from the great flood which covered all the face of the earth in the " Sun of Water." They were saved in the hollow trunk of an " ahahuete" or bald cypress. When the waters abated, they landed their ark on the peak of Colhuacan, where they in- creased and multiplied. On the Aztec paintings pre- served in the Vatican library we see the fortunate couple floating on the destructive waves in a hollow trunk covered with green leaves. 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 79. Is not Herrera ; Bancroft, vol. iii. pp. 66, this also a reminiscence of man's 67 ; Kastner, pp. 49, 50, ref. to Alex, either promised or accomplished von Humboldt, Monuments des redemption by the true Son of God, Peuples indigenes, pp. 226, 227 ; 0. L. J. C. ? Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. 2 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 546, ref. to iii. p. 364 ; Southall, p. 35. 412 HISTORY OP AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. The Tlascaltecs, the Zapotecs, the Miztecs, and the Tarascos are said to have had similar pictures. 1 The memory of the deluge was more definite with the Toltecs than with their successors, the Mexi- cans. It is found in their histories that man and all the earth were destroyed by great showers and by lightning from heaven, so that nothing remained ; and the most lofty mountains were covered up and sub- merged to the depth of " caxtolmoletltli" or fifteen cubits ; but men commenced to multiply again, from the few who escaped destruction in a " toptlipetlacali" or closed chest. 2 Going farther south, we meet with less- defined yet unmistakable traditions of the universal deluge. In Nicaragua, a country where the principal language was a Mexican dialect, it was believed that, ages ago, the world was destroyed by a flood, in which the greater part of mankind perished. Afterwards the gods re- stocked the earth as at the beginning. 3 The Indian tribe of the Achies in Guatemala were, also, in possession of paintings which represented the deluge ; but the Spanish friars, in their inconsiderate zeal to overthrow idolatry, destroyed. them all by fire, for fear that those pictures might be objects or tools of impious worship. 4 The Isthmians believed that the world was peopled by a man who with his wife and children escaped the great flood. 5 Father Roman, one of the pioneer missionaries of the West Indies, relates the Haytian tradition in re- gard to the deluge, which was known also in Cuba. 6 1 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 140 ; Preseott, 3 Ibid., vol. iii. p. 75. Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 4 Torquernada, torn. iii. lib. xv. 363 ; Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 66 ; Kast- cap. xlix. p. 133. ner, p. 49. 5 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 14. 2 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 20. e Raflnesque, p. 175. THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 413 Von Humboldt found the record of the deluge among the Indians along the Orinoco ; and the more savage Brazilian tribes had still some idea of Noe and of the flood, but it was so confused and faint as to allow us the conclusion that since the great cataclysm they had had no intercourse with people of our world, says Maffei. 1 Several legends of the same kind were current among the various tribes of Peru. One of them re- lated that after the deluge seven persons issued from a cave where they had saved themselves ; and by them the earth was peopled again. 2 According to another Peruvian legend, two brothers escaped from a great inundation of the world in much the same manner, by ascending a mountain that floated upon the waves. When the waters retired they found themselves alone on earth, and, having consumed all their provisions, they went down into the valleys to seek after more food. Whether they were successful in their search the tradition does not say ; but, if not, their surprise must have been agreeable when, on re- turning to the hut which they had built on the moun- tain, they found food ready prepared for them by un- known hands. Curious to know who their benefactor could be, they took counsel together and agreed that one should hide himself in the hut, while the other would go down to the valley. The brother who re- mained concealed himself carefully, and his patience was soon rewarded by seeing two " aras" with faces of women, who immediately set about preparing a meal 1 Ed. 1590, lib. ii. p. 74 ; South- who came from as many caves in all, p. 35. Aztlan. (Prescott, Conquest of 2 One of the traditions of the Peru, vol. i. p. 88, n. 1, ref. to Mexicans deduced their descent, Acosta, bk. vi. ch. xix. ; bk. vii. and that of the kindred tribes, in ch. ii. ; Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., like manner, from seven persons MS.) 414 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. of bread and meats. But it was not long before the aras became aware of the presence of the concealed man, and they instantly essayed flight, but the man seized one of them, which afterwards became his wife. By her he had six children, — three sons and three daughters, — from whose union sprang the tribe of the Canaris, whose descendants to this day hold the ara — a kind of bird — in great veneration. Herrera * gives a native tradition, which relates that long before the time of the Incas there was a great deluge, from which some of the natives escaped by flee- ing to the mountain-tops ; but the mountain tribes as- sert that only six persons were saved on a balsa or raft. 2 Lord Kingsborough thinks that the Peruvians be- lieved the rainbow to be a sign that the earth would not again be destroyed by water ; and an anonymous writer adds that for them the rainbow was not only a mere sign, but an active instrument to prevent the recurrence of the catastrophe, through the pressure of its extremities upon the ocean waves after they were swelled by excessive rains. 3 This remarkable analogy with the Mosaic narration was also found to exist in Upper California, where several tribes were accustomed to express their belief in the pacific disposition of the deity by saying, " We are not afraid, because Chinighchinigh does not wish 1 Dec. v. lib. iii. cap. vi. the land, destroying all life. Hap- 2 Still another Peruvian legend pily the mountain of refuge floated relates how a shepherd, with his on the waves until, after five days, family and flocks, was saved from the water subsided and dry earth the universal cataclysm. Ob- appeared again. In the course of serving the sad mein of his llamas, time the world was peopled anew he interrogated the stars, which by the descendants of the shep- told him of the approaching ca- herd of Ancasmarca. (Bancroft, lamity. None too soon did he vol. v. pp. 14-16.) flee to the mountain Ancasmarca, 3 Kingsborough, Mex. Antiq., for suddenly the ocean burst over vol. viii. p. 25. THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 415 to, neither will he, destroy the world by another submersion." 1 If these last statements be correct, it would follow that the Californians and the Peruvians had more faith in the promise of God 2 than their progenitors, Noe's nearer descendants ; for, the intention of these in projecting their tower that should reach heaven was not only to make their name famous, but also to pre- pare a place of safety against a repetition of the diluvial cataclysm. The undertaking was no success, but it left an imperishable memory even among the builders' descendants in the transmarine world. The tower of Babel is, indeed, clearly remembered by several abo- riginal nations of our continent, especially of Central America. Ixtlilxochitl 3 relates the tradition of the Toltecs, according to which the few men who escaped the deluge, 4 after multiplying again, built a " zacuali" or tower of great height, in which to take refuge when the world should be destroyed a second time. After this their tongue became confused and, not understand- ing one another any longer, they went to different parts of the world. The Toltecs, seven in number, and their wives, who understood one another's speech, after crossing great lands and seas and undergoing many hardships, finally arrived in America, which they found to be a good land and fit for habitation. When Coxcox and his wife Xochiquetzal 5 had landed on the peak of Colhuacan they increased and multiplied, and children began to gather about them ; but these were all born dumb. A dove came, however, 1 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 126. Mex. Antiq., vol. ix. p. 321, quoted 2 Gen. ix. 11-16. by Bancroft, vol. v. p. 21. * Eelaciones, in Kingaborough's ' Supra, p. 412. 5 Supra, p. 411. 416 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. and gave them tongues, innumerable languages. On an ancient hieroglyphical map, first published by Car- reri, who was vindicated from suspicion as to his integrity by Boturini, Clavigero, and von Humboldt, there is also depicted a dove with the hieroglyphic emblem of languages, which it is distributing to the children of Coxcox. 1 Only fifteen of the descendants of Coxcox could at all understand one another, and these were the ancestors of the Nahua nations. Thus runs the Mexican tradition, which the learned von Humboldt 2 further relates when he says, "Wodan, one of the fifteen ancestors of the American nations, was a grandson of the venerable old man, 3 who with his family escaped the fury of the flood, and was one of those who, according to the Chiapan legend, had helped in building the monument that was to reach heaven but remained unfinished through the anger of the gods. After each family had received a different language, Teotl ordered Wodan to go and settle Ana- huac," the Mexican table-land. The Cholulans, another tribe of the Nahua nation, had a special tradition, according to which one of the seven giants saved in the caves of Mount Tlaloc, 4 named Xelhua or the Architect, went to Cholula and began to build an artificial mountain, still nearly one hundred and eighty feet high, as a monument and memorial of the Tlaloc that had sheltered him and his when the angry waters swept through all the land. The bricks — for it was made of, or rather cased with, bricks, like the Mosaic Babel — were manufactured in Tlamanalco, at the foot of the Sierra de Cocotl, and 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, 3 Noe was six hundred years old vol. iii. p. 364. when he entered the ark. (Gen. 2 Monuments des Peuples indi- vii. 11. ) genes, p. 148, quoted by Kastner, * Supra, p. 401. p. 58. THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 417 passed to Cholula from hand to hand along a file of men — whence these came is not said — stretching be- tween the two places. Then were the anger and the jealousy of the gods aroused, as the huge pyramid rose up steadily, threatening to reach the clouds and the great heaven itself; and the gods launched their fire upon the builders and slew many, so that the work was stopped. The half-finished structure, afterwards dedicated by the Cholulans to Quetzalcoatl, with whom we will become acquainted farther on, still remains to show that the giant had deserved well his title of Architect. 1 The Cholulan tradition, as told by Duran, 2 differs somewhat from the foregoing version. " I inquired," he says, " about the ancient Mexican legends, from a native of Cholula who was a hundred years old, and well versed in the antiquities of his tribe. ' Take pen and paper,' he answered me, ' because you could not remember all that I am to tell you : At first, there was nothing but a dark world, without any creature in it ; but as soon as light was made with the sun rising in the East, gigantic men with ugly features made their appearance and took possession of this earth. Desirous of knowing the rising and the setting of the sun, they divided themselves into two groups, those of one group travelling east on their search, and the others west, until the ocean prevented them from going any farther. They returned, therefore, and, unable to get at the sun by his rising or sinking, whilst, however, they were enamoured with his light and beauty, they decided to build a tower tall enough to reach him in his course. 1 Kastner, p. 56, quoting Monu- Humboldt, Vues des Cordill&res, t. ments des Peuples indigenes of i. p. 114 ; Prescott, Conquest of Alex von Humboldt, p. 227 ; Ban- Mexico, vol. iii. p. 365 ; alii, croft, vol. iii. p. 67, quoting von 2 T. i. p. 6. I.— 27 418 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. They set out gathering materials, found clay and a very sticky bitumen, and they hurried on to erect the tower, and raised it so high that, they say, it seemed to attain to the sky. And the Lord above, annoyed at their work, spoke to the inhabitants of heaven : ' You have noticed how those of the world have built a high and superb tower to climb up hither, after the beauty and light of the sun ; come and let us confound them, for it is not right that those of the world, living in the flesh, should mix up with us.' The inhabitants of heaven sallied forth at once, like thunderbolts, by the four corners of the earth and demolished the monument. Terrified and trembling, the giants fled in every direction." A tradition very similar to the Bible narrative ex- isted among the natives of Chiapa. According to Bishop Nunez de la Vega, 1 they had a story, cited as genuine by von Humboldt, 2 which not only agrees with the Scripture account of the manner in which Babel was built, but also with that of the subsequent disper- sion of mankind and the confusion of tongues. 3 Duran is of the opinion that such traditions must be remnants of Christian doctrine taught to the Americans in former times. After the deluge spoken of in the Lake Tahoe myth the few who escaped erected a great tower, the strong making the weak do the work. This, it is distinctly stated, they did that they might have a place of refuge in case of another flood. But the Great Spirit was filled with anger at their presumption, and amidst thunder and lightning and showers of molten metal he seized the oppressors and cast them into a cavern. 4 1 Towards the close of the seven- 3 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, teenth century, hence less impor- vol. iii. p. 365, n. 18. tant. 4 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 89 ; vol. v. 2 Vues des Cordilleres, p. 148. pp. 17, 18. THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 419 The Papagos of northern Mexico tell us that their hero-god, Montezuma, very carelessly governed the post-diluvial race of men, 1 and provoked the anger of the Great Spirit, who, to punish him, pushed back the sun to that remote part of the sky which he now occu- pies. But Montezuma hardened his heart, and, col- lecting all the tribes to aid him, set about building a house that should reach up to heaven itself. It had already attained a great height, and contained many apartments lined with gold, silver, and precious stones, the whole of it threatening soon to make good the boast of its architect, when the Great Spirit launched his thunder and laid its glory in ruins. Confounding times and persons, the Papagos add that while Monte- zuma continued in his rebellion, the Great Spirit sent an insect flying away towards the East, to an unknown land, in order to invite the Spaniards. These came, made war upon Montezuma, destroyed him, and utterly dissipated the idea of his divinity. 2 We have noticed before that, even in the far-off North, the Thlinkeets remembered the confusion of languages shortly after the deluge. 3 The great events of the flood and of the dispersion of nations belong to the history of all mankind, and it is but natural that vestiges of their history should be found everywhere ; but not a few writers have gone so far as to conclude the immigration of Israelites into America from the fact that several historical incidents and customs peculiar to the chosen people of God seem to have anciently been known and practised on our continent. Short, 4 after Kingsborough, establishes numerous analogies between the Jewish and the Mexican codes 1 Supra, p. 410. 3 Supra, p. 409. 2 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 77. * P. 463. 420 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. and customs, and Acosta assures us that " the Indians had an infinite number of ceremonies and usages which reminded of the ancient law of Moses." 1 While Kastner asserts 2 that circumcision was prac- tised on the island of Cozumel, in Yucatan, and all along the coast of the Mexican Gulf as far as Florida, Peter Martyr says that some of those people, but not all, were circumcised, and a closer study of the first historians proves that the Jewish rite was not known in ancient America at all. Some Indians slit and bled their tongues, their ears, or any one of their members in honor of their idols, and this fact was likely the cause of an exaggerated report. Landa 3 and Cogol- ludo 4 deny the fact, while Las Casas, the inquisitive first bishop of Chiapa, and the Indians themselves know nothing of it. 5 Acosta likewise denies, and Her- rera is silent. 6 The reader may find a remembrance of one of the " ten plagues of Egypt" in the fact that, when it hails, the natives of the northwestern portion of Mexico take a common reed grass, called " baguigo" in the Opata language, and stand it up at the doors of their houses, believing that by this means the hail will be induced to pass by inoffensive. 7 Other souvenirs of Jewish history and rites of the Mosaic law seem to have been more real, and to have actually existed among a few of America's aboriginal nations. Thus are the Yucatecs said to have had a tradition according to which they originally came from the far East, passing through the sea which God had 1 Bk. v. ch. xxvii. p. 369. 6 Hornius, lib. iv. cap. xv. p. 278. 2 P. 13. ' Anonymous "Rudo Ensayo" of 9 Relaoion, p. 162. a.d. 1763, translated in Records of 4 Hist. Yuc, p. 191. the American Catholic Historical 5 Cf. Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 278, Society, vol. v. p. 174. 270, n. 55, pp. 679, 680 and n. THE BIBLE KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 421 made dry for them. 1 The remembrance of this bibli- cal event was also utilized in other cases. Duran, 2 who had received considerable information in regard to an ancient religious teacher, driven by his enemies from one province of New Spain to another, asked one day an old Indian whether he knew any particulars of To- piltzin's pilgrimages. " He commenced at once," says the historian, " to recite for me the fourteenth chapter of Exodus, telling how the Papa — that is, the apostle Topiltzin — had proceeded to the border of the sea, fol- lowed by a great multitude of people ; how he had struck the waters with his staff and thus opened a road for himself through them ; how he had entered them with his followers, and his pursuers had followed after him ; but, thereupon, the waters had fallen back to their natural place, and never was anything more heard of his enemies. When I noticed that he had read the same book which I had perused myself, and knew where he was to end his story, I begged him not to continue rehearsing the Exodus, with which he was acquainted so well that he was also going to tell me of the snake-bites and of the miraculous cure." Gleeson relates 3 that the rude temple of the great god Chinighchinigh and its enclosure had special privi- leges in keeping with the respect and veneration paid to it by the people. Like several Christian churches in former times, he says, it possessed the right of asy- lum. This right was borrowed from the old law. 4 Whoever, he continues, entered within its sacred pre- cincts and sought its protection, no matter what crime he might have committed, was from that moment sup- posed to be free, and could appear among his own 1 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 22 ; cf. 2 T. ii. p. 76. Exod. xiv. 21, acq., and parallel s Vol. i. p. 123. scripture texts. 4 Jos. xx. 422 HISTOEY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. without any fear of the consequences of his misdeed. Should reference ever happen to be made to the act, the aggrieved would merely say, " You sought the protection of Chinighchinigh ; if you had not done so, we would have killed you ; he, however, will chastise you one day for your wickedness." We may close this chapter with the remark that the Mexicans celebrated the Jewish feast of the New Fire, 1 and had their festivity of the Remission of Sins and the use of sacred unctions, as the Jews. 2 Authors like Garcia, Lord Kingsborough, and Adair find traces of many more Old-Testament rites and cere- monies among the natives of our continent. 3 But, as they wanted arguments to prove their theory of the Jewish origin of the American nations, they have set forth some facts and analogies which are extremely doubtful, and which, as we noticed already, 4 would not, even when real, add much weight to their preconceived opinion. 1 Kastner, p. 102 ; cf. II. Mac. i. that their feasts of the New Fire The solemnities of the New Fire, should be more correctly connected both in Mexico and Peru, are thus with the Christian ceremonies of held by several authors as being of Holy Saturday. Jewish origin. Considering, how- 2 Hornius, lib. iv. cap. xv. p. ever, the great number of Christian 278 ; Aa. passim. practices, which we shall find 3 Cf. H. H. Bancroft, vol. v. p. among the natives of those coun- 78, seq. tries, we are rather of the opinion 4 Supra, p. 196. CHAPTEE XVII. CHRIST AND HIS CROSS KNOWN IN ANCIENT AMERICA. It is a question whether the Aztecs and other American natives received their customs and historical memories analogous to those of the Jews from Jewish immigrations and teachings, or rather from some .Chris- tian source of doctrine ; for, it is well known that the Catholic Church, as well as the Jewish religion, admits of sacred unctions in cases like those in which they were practised by the Mexican people, and has, further- more, always respectfully remembered the Old Testa- ment and Israelitic liturgy ; nay, has always considered as a basis of her teachings the primeval truths which our aborigines seem to have preserved, more or less intact, from the time of original revelation. This latter hypothesis finds considerable strength in the fact that most ancient and modern authors agree in saying that the -Christian religion has been taught on our conti- nent at an epoch not so very much anterior to the Co- lumbian discovery. Bastian 1 establishes the latter opinion by the numer- ous analogies he points out between the religious belief and practices of the Christians and those of American aborigines. Von Humboldt 2 admits the parity to be so striking as to have given the Spanish missionaries a fine opportunity to deceive the natives, by making them believe that their own was none other than the Chris- tian religion. " Not a single American missionary who 1 In his Culturlander des Alten 2 Vues des CordillSres, t. ii. p. Amerika, passim. 305. 423 424 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. has, until this day, left any writing has forgotten to notice the evident vestiges of Christianity, which had in former times penetrated even among the most savage tribes," says Dr. de Mier, commenting on Sahagun's History. 1 Quite a number of ancient writers, such as Garcilasso de la Vega, 2 Solorzano, 3 Acosta, 4 and others are equally explicit in asserting that several Christian tenets and practices were found among our aborigines ; but they deny their introduction by Christian teachers, giving, strange to say, to the devil the honor of spread- ing the light of Christianity, in spite of his hatred for it. The archbishop of San Domingo, Davilla Padilla, a royal chronicler, wrote a book to prove that Christian apostles had formerly preached in the West Indies. 6 Torquemada is of the same opinion, although he admits the possibility of the devil's Christian teaching. 6 The same author relates a particular, the correctness of which we have no reason to doubt, and which by itself would seem to afford satisfactory evidence on this sub- ject. " A friar," he says, " named Diego de Mercado, a grave man and a dignitary of his Order, one of the most exemplary religious of his time, told and wrote above his signature that years ago he had held a con- versation with an Otomi Indian over seventy years old on matters relating to our holy faith. The Indian narrated to him how, long ago, the Otomis were in pos- session of a book, handed down from father to son and guarded by persons of importance, whose duty it was to explain it. Each page of that book had two col- umns, and between these columns were paintings which 1 Sahagun, p. v. * Bk. vii. last ch. p. 531. 2 Comentarios, lib. ii. cap. vi. 5 Sahagun, t. iii. p. vi. p. 41. 6 T. iii. lib. xix. cap. xlviii., xlix. 3 De Indiarum Jure, lib. i. cap. xiv. 1f 73, p. 189. CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 425 represented Christ crucified, whose features wore the expression of sadness ; and such is the God who reigns, they said. For the sake of reverence, they did not turn the leaves with their hands, but with a tiny stick kept along with the book for that purpose. The friar having asked the Indian what the contents of the volume were and its teachings, the old man could not give the details, but said that, were it in existence yet, it would be evident that the teachings of that book and the preaching of the friar were one and the same. But the venerable heirloom had perished in the ground, where its guardians had buried it at the arrival of the Spaniards." * Does not this simple recital recall to our memory some one of those precious manuscripts jealously guarded in princely libraries, which the monks of the first Christian centuries patiently wrote and artistically enriched with pious illuminations? And was not the precious treasure of the Otomi tribe brought among them by some of those monks who, after copying and studying in their convents the word of God and the liturgy of the Church, went forth to preach Christ crucified and his doctrine of salvation to barbarous nations in foreign lands ? Father de Mercado continues, 2 telling what further discoveries he made in regard to the natives' dogmatic theology, — namely, that in some provinces of New Spain, as among the Totonacs, the people expected the advent of the Son of the great God into this world ; and it was said he had to come in order to renew all things ; meaning by this not a spiritual renovation, but an earthly material improvement, as they expressed it by saying that at his coming the loaves of bread would be much larger and everything else would grow better 1 Torquemada, t. iii. lib. xv. cap. 2 Torquemada, t. iii. lib. xv. cap. xlix. p. 134 ; cf. Icazbalceta, p. 357. xlix. p. 134. 426 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. in like manner. With the intention of hastening the arrival of the Son of God, they celebrated a religious feast at a certain season of the year and sacrificed eighteen persons, men and women, whom they en- couraged to die with the thought that they were to be the messengers of the country to the great God, sent to ask and beg him that he would deign to despatch them his Son, who would deliver them from their misery and anguish, and particularly from that obligation and servitude by which they were held to offer human sacrifices, a heavy and fearful burden and the cause of much pain and sorrow. No one shall fail to notice that a Christian idea underlies the singular expectation of the Totonacs ; but we might doubt whether it was the ardent prayer of the apostles, — " Thou shalt send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created : and thou shalt renew the face of the earth," — or rather the longing expectation of the Gentiles and of Israel to see the Saviour, 1 the true Son of God. Almighty God mercifully responded in his own good time to the wishes and prayers of mankind by the incarnation of his divine Son and birth from the blessed Virgin Mary. Are there any vestiges of this great event among the ancient inhabitants of our hemisphere ? We did not in our researches find any of the more savage American tribes to have any idea of the Son of God made man, if we except some parts of Brazil, where we also met with traces of the apostle St. Thomas's preaching. One of the Manaicas' traditions states, indeed, that a woman of accomplished beauty, who had never been wedded to man, gave birth to a most lovely child. This child, after growing up to 1 Psalm ciii. 30 ; Gen. xlix. 10 ; Jer. xiv. 8. CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 427 man's estate, worked many wonders, raised the dead to life again, made the lame walk and the blind see. Finally, having one day called together a great number of people, he ascended into the air and was transformed into the sun who enlightens this earth. 1 Neither was this mystery unknown to the more civilized nations of Central America. We have men- tioned already 2 the belief of the Chiapans, according to which the god Bacab was born of a virgin, Chibi- rias, who is now in heaven with him. Sahagun relates 3 that the Tlascaltecs designated one of their principal gods by the name of " Camaxtle," which means the Naked Lord. He was to them what Christ represented on the cross is to us, for they asserted that he was endowed with both the divine and the human natures, and was born from a devout and holy virgin named " Coatlicue," who brought him forth without lesion of her virginity, on the mount Coatepec de Tula. All this information, says Sahagun, was first given to the Toltecs by Quetzalcoatl. This Quetzalcoatl is often confounded with his di- vine Master, whose doctrine and precepts he published and observed. According to Motolinia's account, the Mexican Adam married a second time, and had from " Chimamatl," his second wife, an only son named Quetzalcoatl, who grew up a chaste and temperate man, and originated, by his preaching and practice, the custom of fasting and mortification. He never married nor knew any woman, but lived in continence and chastity all his days. He is now held as a deity, and an infinite number of temples have been raised to his worship. Mendieta states that according to other traditions no mention is made of his father, 1 Gaffarel, t. i. p. 428. 3 T. i. p. xxvii. 2 Supra, p. 373. 428 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. but only of his mother, Chimalma, who, as she was sweeping the temple one day, found a small green stone, named chalchiuite, which she picked up ; and through the virtue of this emerald she became miracu- lously pregnant. 1 Torquemada, relating still another version of the same original tradition, says, 2 "The Mexicans knew of the Visitation of the Angel to Our Lady, but expressed it by a metaphor, — namely, that something very white, similar to a bird's feather, fell from heaven, and a virgin bent down, picked it up, and hid it below her cincture, and she became pregnant of ' Huitzilopochtli,' or better ' Teo-Huitz-lopochtli,' which name Borunda explains as meaning the Lord of the thorn or wound in the left side. 3 It is always the same ®sog ex napBevov, God the virgin's son. 4 The fulfilment of the expectation of the nations, 5 according to the prophecy of Isaias, vii. 14, had been announced to the ends of the world. Whilst we find the Indians paying divine honors to the wonderful offspring of a virgin-mother, we have distinct evidence that they held in great veneration this mother of God ; nay, the Mexicans actually wor- shipped her as a goddess. Wherever they built a temple in honor of Quetzalcoatl there was also found a shrine in honor of his mother. They represented 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. pp. 249, 250, says Milman, according to a tradi- quoting Icazbalceta, t. i. p. 10 ; tion known in the West, was born Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 480. of a -virgin. So was the Fohi of 2 T. iii. lib. xv. cap. xlix. p. 133. China and the Schakaof of Thibet, s Cf. Sahagun, t. i. p. xxvii. no doubt the same, whether a 4 The reader has, on p. 106, no- mythic or a real personage. The ticed already a tradition of the Jesuits in China, says Barrow, same kind among the Pueblo In- were appalled at finding in the dians. A similar notion in respect mythology of that country the to the incarnation of their princi- counterpart of the "Virgo Dei- pal deity existed among the people para." (Vol. i. p. 99, n. ; Prescott, of India beyond the Ganges, of Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 60, n. China, and of Thibet. "Budh," 5 Gen. xlix. 10. CHEIST AND HIS CKOSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 429 her as a fair lady with the bloom of rosy youth upon her face, to indicate that her spotless virginity suffered no harm, when, through the intervention of heaven, she gave birth to the " Lord of the thorny crown." There she stood adorned with a wealth of treasures almost like those bestowed on her son, her garment studded with precious stones, symbols of her chastity, and her mantle blue like the sky and spangled with golden stars. They gave her, among other titles, that of " Tonacayohua," that is, Lady or mother of him who became incarnate among us. This goddess, says Tor- quemada, forbade and abhorred human sacrifices. 1 Bartholomew de las Casas undoubtedly indicates the same virgin-mother, although he calls her the " wife of the Sun," when he writes 2 that in the province of the Totonacs a principal goddess, the Sun's wife, was held in high esteem and veneration as the great Sun himself. " The reason why they loved and served her was that she did not require men to be killed for sacrifice, but rather hated and prohibited such oblations. She was held as an advocate with the great god, for she told them, through her images, that she was speaking with him and interceding for them. The people had great confidence in her, and hoped that, through her inter- cession, the Sun would send down his child to free them from the dire slavery in which the other gods required human sacrifices from them, — a horrible taxa- tion which they did not grant but for the threatenings of the devil. The papas and nuns revered her as well as the common people. Two priests, who lived like monks, served in her temple night and day, and were considered as saints because they were chaste and ir- reprehensible ; and so we would have considered them 1 Sahagun, t. iii. p. xiii or 290. Ixvi., B. de las Casas, Append., cap. 2 Coleccion de Documentos, t. oxxi. p. 444. 430 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ourselves had it not been for their infidelity." We may subjoin here, without warranting it, however, a statement of von Humboldt, 1 — to wit, that the Fran- ciscan friar Mark de Niza crossed the thirty-sixth parallel in search of the bearded king Tartarax, who was said to worship a golden cross and the image of a woman called the Lady of heaven. Both the mode and the object of our Lord's in- carnation are represented in the rare and valuable Mexican codices, if we can believe the learned inter- preters of their paintings. Quetzalcoatl is he who was born of the virgin, called Chalchihuitzli, which means the precious stone of penance, says the author of the " Explanation of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis." 2 Tonacatecotl, the Mexican supreme deity, begot Quet- zalcoatl, not by connection with woman, but by his breath alone, when he sent his ambassador to the virgin of Tulla. They say it was Quetzalcoatl who effected the reformation of the world by penance. His father had created the world, but men had given themselves up to vice, on which account it had been frequently destroyed, but now had Tonacatecotl sent this his son into the world to reform it. 3 Quetzalcoatl undertook the reformation of the sinful world through preaching, by word and example, the virtues of self-denial and fasting, of chastity and piety, of charity towards men, and of a pure religion towards the one true God. 4 For a time he succeeded in Tulla, where, according to some reports, his virgin-mother, Chimalma, lived ; but in spite of all the wondrous good he did in that province, like Christ, he was 1 Examen, t. ii. p. 204. Codice Mexicano, ap. Kingsbor- 2 Ap. Kingsborough, Mex. Antiq. , ough, Mex. Antiq., vol. v. p. 184; vol. v. pp. 135, 136. Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 554. 3 Spiegazione delle Tavole del * Aa. passim. CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IK ANCIENT AMERICA. 431 persecuted, and finally driven out by the majority of the people. Carrying a cross, he came to the valley of the Zapotecs. 1 We have noticed before that the Chiapan son-god, Bacab, who had been scourged by Eopuco and crowned with thorns, 2 had also been the divine son of the Mexican virgin goddess. 3 This same son of Chibirias or Chimalma had been put to death by crucifixion ; 4 and this sacrilegious crime had been perpetrated on a Friday. So had the Chiapans been informed by bearded men who in ancient times had taught them to confess their sins and to fast every Friday in honor of the death of Bacab. 6 Another circumstance of our Saviour's death seems to be remembered in Mexico, for it is related in its traditions that, at the disappearance of Topiltzin or Quetzalcoatl, both sun and moon were covered in dark- ness, while a single star appeared in the heavens. 6 Our Lord's resurrection is plainly brought to mind by the statement of the venerable Chiapan chief, who asserted that the crucified Bacab remained dead three days and on the third day came to life again. 7 Before going farther, we may remark that it is par- ticularly through his death and resurrection that Christ conquered death and the powers of hell ; and it is of in- terest to recite in this connection the curious tradition of the Guatemalan natives. Bishop Las Casas is author- ity for it. 8 " It is a common opinion in the kingdom of Guatemala," he says, " that, at a distance of thirty 1 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 528. lxvi. ch. cxxiii. p. 453, B. de las 2 Supra, p. 373. Casas ; Sahagun, p. iii. 3 Supra, p. 428. 6 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 487. * Supra, p. 373 ; Kingsborough, ' Supra, p. 373. Mex. Antiq., vol. vi. pp. 507, 508, 8 Colleccion de Documentos in- quoted by Bancroft, vol. v. p. 27, editos, t. lxvi., B. de las Casas, n. 62. p. 456. 5 Coleccion de Documentos, t. 432 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. leagues from its capital, in the province of Ultlatlan, now Vera Paz, there was born a god, Exbalanquen by name, who set out to make war upon the powers of hell and fought against its inhabitants, whose king he made a prisoner, together with a great host of his army. After his victory he returned to the earth with his spoils, but the king of hell asked him not to be ejected from his dwelling, alleging that already now it was three or four degrees below the region of light. For answer Exbalanquen gave him, in his anger, a dreadful kick, telling him to go back and to take along all that would be dry, rotten, and stinking on earth." The tradition adds the unexpected circumstance that when, after his victory, the god went back to Vera Paz, the people refused to receive him with the solem- nities and songs that he required ; in consequence of which he went to another kingdom, where he was received according to his wishes. St. John remarks in like manner, " He [Christ] came unto his own, and his own received him not ;" 1 and the Gentiles became the heirs of the promises made to the people of Israel. To be candid, we must acknowledge that the tradition ends with a particular which would seem to subvert our insinuated analogies with Christian history. It is, namely, said that Exbalanquen introduced human sacrifices into Guatemala. 2 Resuming the ancient American history of our Sa- viour where we left it, we should next inquire as to the reminiscences of his ascension to heaven. Such souve- 1 St. John i. 11. given rise to the notion, and con- 2 The learned editor of the nected the eating of the flesh of American Ecclesiastical Review, Jan- Christ with a habit of their de- uary, 1898, p. 50, makes here an praved nature. The Romans held, interesting remark: "Possibly," as we know, similar notions about he says, "a misconception of the the early Christians." Eucharistic institution may have CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 433 nirs are actually found in several parts. The supreme god of Upper California, Chinighchinigh, was believed to be an immortal spirit, and yet underwent the penalty of death. When asked where he desired to be buried, his answer was that he would go up into heaven, where he would take an account of the actions of all men, and reward or punish them accordingly. " When I die I shall ascend above the stars," he said, " where I shall always behold you; and to those who have kept my commandments I shall give all they ask of me ; but those who obey not my teachings nor believe them I shall punish severely. I will send unto them bears to bite and serpents to sting ; they shall be without food, and have diseases that they may die." 1 When their religious teacher and reformer Wixipe- cocha left the Miztecs, he first went off to the moun- tains, on the summit of which he appeared to them for a few moments, and then vanished on his way to lands unknown. 2 The hero-god of Yucatan, Cukulcan, who was probably one and the same personage with Wixipe- cocha, Topiltzin, and Quetzalcoatl, left Cholula under different circumstances, which are not, however, without some analogy to those of the ascension of our Lord. Cukulcan told his priests that the mysterious Tlapallan was his destination ; and, turning towards the East, proceeded on his way until he reached the sea at a point a few miles south of Vera Cruz. Here he be- stowed his blessing upon four young men who accom- panied him from Cholula, and commanded them to go back to their homes bearing the promise to his people that he would return to them and again set up his king- dom among them. Then embarking in a canoe made 1 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 124 ; ref. to 2 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 528. Boscana, p. 256. I.— 28 434 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. of serpent skins, or on a raft, according to Sahagun, he sailed away towards the East. 1 So also departed in an easterly direction the creator of the Mojave tribe, Matevil, who was wont in time past to dwell with them ; and in like manner was he in latter days to return again, to prosper and live with his people forever. 2 The last great event of the history of Our Lord and the blissful result of his passage through this world are beautifully told in the Algonquin-Ojibway legend called " The Sea-Gull :" ' Now Keezis [Jesus] — the great life-giver, From his wigwam in Waubii-nong 3 Eose and wrapped his shining blanket Round His giant form and started, Westward started on his journey, Striding on from hill to hill-top. Upward then he climbed the ether, On the bridge of stars he travelled, Westward travelled on his journey To the far-off Sunset Mountains, To the gloomy land of shadows. ' On the lodge-poles sang the robin, And the brooks began to murmur ; On the south-wind floated fragrance Of the early buds and blossoms. From old Pgboan's 4 eyes the tear-drops Down his pale face ran in streamlets ; Less and less he grew in stature, Till he melted down to nothing." 5 1 Short, p. 271. 5 Compare with " The Orient from 2 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 175. on high hath visited us : to en- 3 1, e., the White Land or the land lighten them that sit in darkness of white people, Europe, the East — and in the shadow of death." — St. to which probably some of the Al- Luke i. 78, 79. (Mrs. Cordenio A. gonquin nation had sailed. (See Severance, Indian Legends of Min- Supra, ch. vii. ) nesota, pp. 152, 153. ) * The old man, or Winter. CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 435 The tradition of the Pericues of Lower California related the whole history of Christ in a few words : Niparaya was their Great Spirit. He had a spouse, and by her, although they never cohabited, three sons : one, who was called Cuajup or True Man, was born on earth in the mountains of Acaraqui, and lived a long time among men in order to instruct them. He was most powerful and had a great number of followers, having descended into the bowels of the earth and brought them thence. But these ungrateful beings, despising his benefits, formed a conspiracy against him, put a crown of thorns upon his head, and slew him. Though dead, his body still remains incorrupt and extremely beautiful ; he does not speak, but he has a bird through which he communicates. 1 It is not our intention to exaggerate the importance of these coincidences of ancient American traditions with the history of our Saviour ; but their Christian origin and Christian meaning could hardly be called in question, if we should happen to find, alongside with them, among the same aborigines, such emblems, doc- trines, and practices as evidently are Christian exclu- sively. Who will deny that, if the cross, the peculiar symbol of Christianity, should be found in Yucatan, it would stamp as Christian the tradition of its inhabi- tants, according to which they believed that their son- god, born of a virgin, died crucified ? 2 Let it be stated at once that crosses, sacred emblems of our holy religion, 3 were met with by the Spanish and other discoverers not only in Yucatan, but also in several other parts of America. Columbus himself, as early as the 16th of Novem- 1 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 135. s By and by we will speak of 2 Supra, p. 373. other significations of the cross. 436 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ber, 1492, found a beautiful cross on one of the Bahama Islands, in the Sea of Our Lady, as he named that part of the ocean. 1 When, in the year 1518, Grijalva landed on the island of Cozumel, he and his companions were greatly puzzled at the sight of numerous crosses which they met both on the inside and the outside of the temples. At one place, in particular, they found a temple in the shape of a square tower, which contained the idols ; attached to it was a small building where the instru- ments for the sacrifices were kept, and farther yet a court-yard enclosed with a crenellated whitewashed wall. In the centre of this yard stood a cross of lime- stone nine feet high, around which the natives at times walked in procession with great devotion and respect, begging for rain. 2 De las Casas adds 3 that the cross was the rain-god in Cozumel, to whom they sacri- ficed quails in seasons of drought. When asked how they had come in possession of that symbol, some of them answered that a very beautiful man had passed through their island and had left this token as an everlasting memorial ; others said they reverenced it because a man more resplendent than the sun bad died on it. 4 If Cozumel was a sacred place of pilgrimages for the Yucatecs, 6 it was not so because of its crosses, for all ancient authors agree in saying that crosses were as numerous in the adjoining peninsula as they were in 1 Roselly de Lorgues, t. i. p. 324. s Coleccion de Documentos, t. 2 Herrera, dec. ii. lib. iii. cap. i. lxvi. , B. de las Casas, ch. cxxiii. p. p. 75 ; Sahagun, t. i. p. 278 ; Glee- 453. son, vol. i. p. 141 ; Bancroft, vol. i P. Martyr, dec. iv. cap. i. ; iii. p. 470, ref. to several other his- Hornius, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 35. torians ; Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 375 ; 5 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 375. Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. pp. 225, 266. CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 437 the island itself. One of these writers, Herrera, 1 states that every village of Yucatan had its temple or altar, where the people went to worship their idols, among which were many crosses of wood and other material ; and Sahagun, 2 that crosses were found even on the breasts of corpses buried long since. 3 In Yucatan and Guatemala were found the ruins of the oldest cities of our continent, and in them crosses are discovered, some of which are of such a shape — namely, Latin crosses or " cruces immissse" — that they seem not to exceed the fifth century of our era. Two such crosses were un- earthed in Palenque, the one being the principal object of worship in one of its sanctuaries, which is therefore called the Temple of the Cross. It is a bass-relief marble tablet, now on exhibition in the vestibule of the National Museum at Washington. The centre repre- sents a Latin cross surmounted by a grotesque bird, and resting upon a base ornamented with several figures, among which the Christian symbol, the fish, 4 has not been forgotten. On each side stands a human figure, apparently priests, the one making offerings and the other, in a stiff attitude, appearing to pray to the deity. The whole group evidently represents a scene of religious worship. 5 At a small distance from Palenque, in the so-called Lorillard City, Charnay 6 found another cross of decidedly Latin shape, and on one of that place's prehistoric door-lintels two standing personages are represented as respectfully offering a cross to each other. 7 1 Dec. ii. lib. iii. cap. liv. fo. 47. Cross ; Charnay, p. 86 ; Bancroft, 2 T. i. p. 278. vol. iii. p. 470 and n. 24 ; Gravier, 3 Cf. Hornius, lib. iv. cap. xv. p. p. 172, n. ; von Humboldt, Ex- 278 ; Gleeson, vol. i. p. 141. amen, t. ii. p. 354. 4 '\\Qvr 'Itjctous Xpicrrds ®eov Yios Etiirrjp. 6 P. 86. 5 Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, 7 Gaffarel, t. i. p. 434. p. 324 ; American Cyclopaedia, art. 438 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COI/UMBUS. In the year 1576 Palacio saw in the ancient city of Copan another cross with one of its arms broken. 1 The great antiquity of the primitive Maya nation and of their cities would seem to form an objection to the hypothesis of any relation existing between Chris- tianity and the crosses discovered in their ruins ; but the learned Viollet-le-Duc asserts that these ruins indi- cate a stage of decadence in architecture ; from which we might infer that the symbols of Christianity were first introduced into the powerful empire of Xibalba when it was verging already towards its destruction — an event which, according to several authors, took place in the seventh century after Christ. 2 Nor was it in Central America only that the cross was held in great veneration. The Spaniards found crosses also in Cholula, Tullan, Tezcuco, and Xalisco. Fernando Cortes was astonished at the sight of large stone crosses, evidently objects of worship, which he saw in various places. It was, actually, the worship of the cross which, reminding the conqueror of his native country, induced him to give to Anahuac the name of New Spain. 3 In like manner did Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Holy Cross of the Ridge, receive its name from the fact that the Indians of that locality showed to their Spanish conquerors a cross chiselled into a rock, and for which they had great reverence and devotion. 4 There are instances of the great symbol of Chris- tianity being found among the civilized tribes of South America, as well as among those of the northern half 1 Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, ico, vol. i. p. 167 ; Prescott, Con- p. 327. quest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 225 ; 2 Cf. Bancroft, vol. v. pp. 630- Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 375. 632. * Sahagun, Dissertation of de 3 Gleeson, t. i. p. 142, ref. to Mier, p. iv. Veytia, Historia Antigua de Mex- CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 439 of our hemisphere. The Inca Garcilasso de la Vega * describes one of ancient Peru. " The Inca kings of Cuzco," he says, " had been in possession of a white and rosy marble cross. They could not say how long a time they had it ; I saw it in the year 1560 in the vestry of the cathedral of that metropolis. The cross formed a square, being as wide as it was long, — namely, rather less than three-fourths of a ' vara,' or twenty- seven inches, — and it was three inches in thickness. Made of one block, it was of fine workmanship, its angles being correctly cut, and its material finely pol- ished and shining. They used to keep it," he adds, " in one of their royal residences, in an apartment called ' huaca' or chapel. They gave no religious worship to it, but held it in veneration, perhaps on account of its beauty, or for some other reason which they could not clearly define." Garcilasso censures the ecclesiastical authority of Cuzco for keeping the valuable monument concealed in a vestry-room. " It should, beautifully adorned, be placed on the altar," he says, " in order to attract the natives by their own heirlooms to the accept- ance of our faith ; as also should be held forth, for the same purpose, the similarity of their laws and regu- lations with the dictates of the law of nature and the precepts of our holy religion." 2 Father Joaquin Brulio tells us of another, a wooden cross, worshipped by the people of Peru from time im- memorial. Speaking of this cross, Father Garcia says that when Drake, the English captain, arrived on the coast he endeavored to destroy it, but did not succeed. Three times he cast it into the fire, and three times it came forth from the flames uninjured. He then tried 1 Comentarios, lib. ii. cap. iii. p. 278 ; Nadaillac, Prehistoric Amer- 36. ica, pp. 175, 327. 2 Cf. Hornius, lib. iv. cap. v. p. 440 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. to break it into pieces, but was unsuccessful again. Allegre 1 substitutes, bowever, tbe name of Candisb to tbat of Drake, and adds tbe particular that the cross was of an extremely heavy wood and different from any kind to be found in the province. Tbe venerable emblem was afterwards transferred to the city of Gua- xaca by Bishop Cervantes, there to be venerated by the Christians ever since. A smaller cross was made from one of the arms, and placed in a chapel of the discalced Carmelites of that place. Bartholomew de las Casas, bishop of Chiapa, having instituted an inquest into its origin, tells us tbat, according to the tradition of the natives, it was erected in that city by a venerable white man with a long beard and flowing white robes, who, accompanied by several companions, instructed their ancestors in the doctrines and practices which were found to resemble those of the Christian religion, and who had commanded that when a race would arrive which would venerate that symbol they should accept its religion. 2 We will close these particulars by stating that there were found in Peru, in a prehistoric tomb, two double vases, either of which was surmounted by a statue bear- ing in its arms a relatively large Latin or " immissa" cross. 3 Should we meet with crosses in the countries only of tbe so-called civilized American aborigines, we might, under the pressure of recent tendencies, set up a theory of unfounded explanation ; but, to the dismay of modern scientists, it is historically established that tbe Christian emblem was venerated also by the most barbarous of American natives in either part of our hemisphere. 1 Historia de la Compania de s Gravier, p. 171, n. 2, ref. to M. Jesus, Nueva Espafia, vol. i. p. 103. L. Figuier, Les Merveilles de l'ln- 2 Gleeson, t. i. p. 172. dustrie, p. 337, fig. 242. CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 441 We shall not insist upon its presence in Venezuela, whose people might have been influenced by the Incas of Peru in making use of the St. Andrew's or " discus- sata" cross to protect themselves against sorcerers and devils ; 1 but the Jesuit missionary Ruiz mentions the discovery of a cross in Paraguay ; 2 and similar relics were found in Brazil, in Mizteca, Queretaro, Tepique, and Tianquiztepec. 3 Other puzzles of the same kind and apparently more difficult to solve arise in the East and Northeast. On a skeleton discovered beneath a mound at Zollicoffer Hill, Tennessee, a copper ornament of quite peculiar form was found. The cross surmounting it led people to suppose that it was of European origin. Dr. Jones mentions the same emblem as an ornament on some engraved shells and copper relics likewise found in Tennessee. A skeleton taken from one of the Chilli- cothe mounds bore a cross upon its breast, and the figure of a man with a cross engraved upon its shoul- ders was discovered beneath a mound in the Cumber- land Valley. 4 The most curious of all reports regarding the worship of the cross in ancient America comes, however, from a Recollet Franciscan, Chrestien Leclercq, who, in the year 1675, arrived as a missionary in Canada, went in 1677 to evangelize a savage tribe on the Miramichi River in the present New Brunswick, then called Gas- pesia, where he remained for eight successive years, and returned to France, in 1687, to fill the honorable and 1 Coleccion de Documentos, t. Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay, lxvi., B. de las Casas, cap. cxxv. 1f23, 25. p. 464 ; Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 375, ref. * Gleeson, t. i. p. 142 ; Bancroft, to Herrera. vol. iii. p. 468, n. 18. 2 Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, 4 Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, p. 327 ; von Humboldt, Examen, p. 175. t. ii. p. 354 ; ref. to Antonio Ruiz, 442 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. important position of guardian of the monastery of Lens in Artois. We shall extract a few passages bearing upon our subject from his interesting " Rela- tion," the copies of which have become very scarce. He says, 1 " The ancient religious homage bestowed upon the cross, even until this day, by the savages of the Miramichi River, to which we have given the august name of Holy Cross River, might well make us believe that, in some way or another, those people have in times past received a knowledge of the Gospel and of Christianity, which must afterwards have been lost through the negligence and licentiousness of their an- cestors. I have met some of them, whom we call ' Porte-Croix,' Cross-bearers, who show, infidels as they are, a singular veneration towards the Holy Cross : they carry it, represented on their clothes and on their skin ; they hold it in their hands on all their journeys and voyages, and they place it without and within their huts as a distinguishing mark of their superiority over the other Canadian tribes. " Judging this particular to be one of the most im- portant of my ' Relation,' I have deemed proper to re- cite, after my twelve years' careful researches, the origin of this worship of the Cross." 2 After describing the sun-worship of the Cross-bearers, which consisted in respectful greeting of, and praying to, the sun at his rise and setting, Leclercq adds : 3 " I do not know how you will accept their tradition in regard to the introduction among them of the veneration of the cross. The legend is, that a fierce epidemic was raging among their forefathers and laying low many of them. The best, the wisest, and the most considerable of the old men, at their council-meeting had fallen 1 P. 40. 3 P. 172. * Pp. 169, 170. CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 443 asleep with profound sadness at the sight of the general desolation and of the impending extinction of their tribe, should not the Sun rescue them soon with power- ful intervention. During this painful sleep a man of exquisite beauty appeared to them with a cross in his hands, and told them to take courage, to return home, to make crosses after the pattern of his own, and to give them to the head of every family ; and he promised them that all who would reverently receive the crosses would infallibly be saved from all their woes. 1 The savages, believing in dreams with superstitious credu- lity, did not neglect this one in their extreme distress. The good old people went back to their tents, and called a general meeting of all that was left alive of the nation. All unanimously agreed to receive with honors the sacred sign of the cross which heaven offered to them for the end of their misfortune and a new begin- ning of happiness. They did well, for from that in- stant the epidemic ceased, and even those who suffered of it already were miraculously cured. 2 " This admirable effect led them to expect from the cross wonders greater still in times to come, and they concluded to decide no business, to undertake no journey, without the aid of the cross. It was resolved in council that all, not even the little children excepted, must wear a cross in their hands, on their vestments, or on their skin, whenever they would appear in the presence of others. When there was any important concern at hand, such as making peace or declaring war, the chief called together the ancient of the tribe. These com- menced by erecting a cross nine feet high, and then they took their seats in a circle around it, each one holding a small cross in his hands. The chief stated 1 P. 174. 2 P. 175. 444 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COEUMBUS. the object of the meeting, and each councilman solemnly proffered his opinion. It was under the aegis of the Christian symbol that the final resolution was taken. When the council decided to despatch an ambassador to a neighboring or foreign tribe, the chief invited within the circle the young brave chosen to that effect, and, after having told him the reason of his selection and the object of the mission, he drew from his bosom a cross wonderfully beautiful, carefully wrapped up in all he had the most precious ; then showing it to the whole assembly, he made a formal speech, to rehearse all the blessings obtained for the nation through this sacred emblem. Finally, he ordered the envoy to ap- proach and reverently receive the cross, and, when hanging it around his neck, he spoke these words : ' Go, and preserve this cross which shall preserve thee from all danger among those to whom thou art sent.' And the whole council approved the words of the chief with the ordinary exclamation of ' Hoo, hoo, hoo !' Then the ambassador set out on his way, the beautiful cross hanging from his neck ; only when going to sleep did he take it off and lay it under his head as a preserva- tive from evil spirits ; and at his return he solemnly gave it up again to the chief, in presence of the council to whom he was to make a report of his achieve- ments. 1 " In a word the Gaspesian Cross-bearers undertook nothing without the intervention of the cross. When travelling on the water, they had one fastened to each end of their slender bark canoes as a protection against shipwreck ; and their chief used it constantly as a cane, and had it set up in the most honorable place of his cabin. 1 P. 180. CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 445 " Such was formerly the respect and veneration of those people for the sacred symbol, as it is yet ; for no one of the Cross-bearers' tribe is without having it rep- resented on his clothing or on his skin. The cradles and the wraps of infants are adorned with a cross, as are the pieces of bark that cover the huts ; snow-shoes and canoes are marked with it. Women expecting a mother's joy have the part of their blanket or shawl that covers their stomach adorned with a cross made of red-stained porcupine quills, in order to place their precious fruit under its powerful protection. Besides all this, each individual religiously keeps a small cross made of shells or beads, which is as precious to him as holy relics are to us, and which he would not barter for the most liberal offers." As an instance of this, he relates the fact of a woman swimming across the Miramichi River, abandoning her all on its bank, yet preserving her cross between her teeth. 1 " It is a public fact," he continues, " that the burial grounds of these Cross-bearers are known by the crosses planted over their graves, and resemble more the church-yards of Christians than the necropoles of savages. They went forth, to put up the mysterious emblem on the last resting-places of their dead, to localities three hundred miles distant. They even placed a cross on their dead people's chests within the coffins, with the confidence that this sign would accom- pany them into the next world, in which they firmly believed, and would there allow their ancestors to recognize them as distinguished from all the other despised nations of New France. 2 " The garden-plots of the living, their fishing waters, and their hunting districts were marked off by crosses, 1 P. 184. 2 Ibid. 446 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. as well as their cemeteries ; and it was a delight to meet from time to time with this honored landmark along their water-courses, where it was erected, at various distances, with double and triple branches." Any ordinary reader will have noticed already that the confidence in the sign of the cross was excessive and superstitious on the part of the Cross-bearers ; and the very natural consequence was that when the sacred emblem did not afford them their exorbitant expecta- tions, they lost even their reasonable confidence in it to such an extent that, when Father Leclercq appeared among them to restore the worship of the cross, the generality of the nation had hardly preserved any veneration for it, and its religious respect was kept up only by some older representatives of the tribe. The Cross-bearers had almost been wiped out by unsuccessful wars with the Iroquois, says Leclercq, and by three or four successive epidemics that had ravaged the country ; and their younger children had lost almost all reliance on the ancient miraculous shield of their ancestors ; the cross was no longer the centre of their council-meetings. So evident it is, says the philosophizing friar, that when even the holiest prac- tices are not kept up by the illuminating activity that originated them, they necessarily suffer from fatal hu- man inconstancy ; clearly insinuating again what he expressed before, — namely, the want of teachers to continue the work of former civilizers. The practical tradition of the Cross-bearers of Gas- pesia was not, however, lost altogether, as appears from an incident of Father Leclercq's missionary excursions. One day, he relates, he visited a native named En- jougoumouet, not yet baptized, although fifty or sixty years old. He was quite surprised at seeing a beautiful cross adorned with beads set up in the principal place CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 447 of the tent, where it stood between two women, one of whom was his legitimate wife and the other a concu- bine, who had miraculously come down from heaven to assist him, the Indian said. 1 " I respectfully took that cross in my hands," he writes, " and finding in that object of piety a suitable occasion to instruct those savages, I told Enjougoumouet that this was the sign of a Christian and the emblem of our salvation, but that it also taught purity and condemned the criminal bigamy in which he was living ; and, as a consequence, that he had now either to send away his concubine or give up his cross. ' If it is so/ the Indian answered, ' I would rather a thousand times abandon not only the woman that came from heaven, but even my wife and my children themselves, than part with this cross, which by birthright I have inherited from my ances- tors; and I want to leave it to my oldest son, as a mark of superiority of the Miramichi nation above all other tribes of New France.' He promised to obey, and the young woman herself, touched by my words, left for her parents' home and was instructed for baptism." 2 Father Leclercq concludes by saying : " I leave the reader to judge for himself in regard to the origin of the cross among the Gaspesians, as I have no better authority in stating the facts than the testimony of those savages and my personal experience among them." Father Charlevoix, inclined to disbelieve what he cannot account for, takes the easy method of accusing the honest friar of deceptive invention ; although he does not make the same charge against the second bishop of Quebec, who, after Leclercq's return to Europe, sent another priest to the Indians of Holy 1 Relation, p. 238. 2 P. 239. 448 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Cross River, and who, after visiting them himself, published a report 1 which confirms in every respect the relation of the first missionary, to which it even adds some very interesting details, — namely, among several others, that the chief of the tribe was distin- guished by small crosses which he carried on his shoulders and which were joined with the one that he bore on his chest, thus forming a kind of pallium. These crosses were trimmed with blood-red stained porcupine quills. Besides these, the chief had three other crosses, — to wit, triple crosses or with triple arms, like the papal cross ; and one of these was to adorn his canoe, another the entrance, and the third the centre of his cabin. These details show that the bishop's report was not taken from the one of Father Leclercq, whose " New Relation" was, moreover, published only three years later. 2 We shall not follow Beauvois in giving further proofs, against Charlevoix and Lafitau, of the credi- bility of Father Leclercq, but rather refer the reader to this modern historical critic, 3 as also to Gaffarel,* Gravier, 8 Bastian, 6 and others who simply admit the facts as related. The easy method of denying the statements of the first missionaries and historians in regard to the crosses discovered all over ancient America, or of treating them as idle stories, has found several adherents among subsequent writers. 7 But this system entails the grave and unwarrantable accusation of wilful deception on the 1 Estat present de l'Eglise et de ' 2 Beauvois, Les Derniers Vestiges la Colonie francaise dans la Nou- du Christianisme, p. 14. velle France, par Mr. l'Eveque de s Les Derniers Vestiges, etc., p. Quebec, John Bapt. de Lacroix 15, seq. Chevrieres de Saint Vallier, ap. 4 T. i. pp. 290, 444-450. Beauvois, Derniers Vestiges, p. 11, R P. 174. seq. R Bd. ii. S. 375. 7 Hornius, p. 8 ; alii. CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 449 part of many simple-hearted friars and reliable authors, and of stolid credulity on the part of a host of learned critics. " Those crosses," says von Humboldt, 1 " are no monkish tales, and deserve to be taken into earnest consideration." The fact of their existence being admitted, the sig- nificance of the ancient crosses cannot be doubtful, it seems. The same von Humboldt, a better geographer and historian than were Lafitau and Charlevoix, re- ceives as truthful not only the narration of Father Leclercq, but also his conjecture as to the Christian origin of the singular veneration of the cross in Gas- pesia. Both the discoverers and the missionaries of the sixteenth century were convinced that the crosses they met with among the American aborigines were emblems of Christianity, although their introduction was a perplexing and insolvable puzzle to them. This very ignorance of their origin, and the glories that would arise for the Church from the prima-facie evi- dence and signification of these crosses, — namely, that Christian teachers had brought to the American races the light of civilization long before the Spanish and other conquistadores spread over them the gloomy shadows of servitude and extinction, and that what- ever we find of social order and material progress among our most advanced Indian nations was probably the scanty remainder of a once flourishing Christian society, — are for many writers sufficient reasons to deny the ancient existence of at least some of those crosses and to torment their own brains in order to substitute a vulgar or even an immoral meaning in the place of the lofty Christian idea expressed by these venerated religious symbols. 2 1 Examen, t. ii. p. 354. 2 As does Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 469. I.— 29 450 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Mr. Stephens thinks that the celebrated Cozumel cross, preserved at Merida, which claims the credit of being the same originally worshipped by the natives of Cozumel, is, after all, nothing but a cross that was erected by the Spaniards, after the conquest, in one of their own temples in that island. This pretended fact he regards as completely invalidating the strongest proof offered at this day that the cross was recognized by the Indians as a symbol of worship. 1 But the real proof of the existence of the cross as an object of wor- ship in the New World does not so much rest on monu- ments like this, as on the unequivocal testimony of the Spanish discoverers themselves. Moreover, the general character of the irreproachable first missionaries in that country excludes the supposition of such useless attempt at deceit on their part. It is objected that in Egypt a piece of wood fastened horizontally to an upright beam indicated the height of the overflow of the Nile, and we add that similar marks of the overflow of the Tiber can be seen in Christian Rome. But does it not require a consider- able amount of reasoning and of good will to draw from such a common mark the startling conclusion that " in Egypt the cross came to be worshipped as a symbol of life and generation, or feared as an image of death and decay" ? 2 Be this as it may, there is no evidence to prove that such a signification was attached to the Latin cross by aboriginal Americans, nor even that they made use of it as a high-water-mark along the rivers. 3 Others consider the cross merely as an astro- nomical sign, in particular as a symbol of the solstices. 4 We fail to see the analogy, but must acknowledge 1 Travels in Yucatan, vol. ii. 3 Gravier, p. 173, n. ch. xx. * Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 470, ref. to 2 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 469. several authors. CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 451 that the cross is, for many centuries already, the sign of addition or of multiplication in arithmetic. With the Mexicans it was the symbol of the four winds, the bearers of rain ; and this is probably the reason why many of our weather vanes surmount yet a horizontal cross, the branches of which are adorned with the letters N, E, S, W. Brinton proposes another explanation, quite as likely : From a statement that the Mexicans had cruciform graves, he concludes that the cross refers to four spirits of the world who were to carry the de- ceased to heaven. Bancroft, 1 however, remarks that there seems to be a mistake in both of these positions, and thinks that some of the crosses, lacking the head piece, resemble somewhat the Mexican coin. While speaking of coin, we should not forget to notice that on the moneys of Sidon, of the third century be- fore Christ, we see the goddess Astaroth holding in her hand a rod surmounted with a small cross ; 2 and Sar- gon, who ascended the throne of Assyria in the year 721 before our era, is represented with an ear-ring of the shape of a cross. 3 We might mention several more instances of the cross being used as an ornament in pagan antiquity, as it is still, both with Christians and infidels ; as an orna- ment not only of mortal beings, but also of dead gods, examples of which have been carefully looked up in Egypt and in India ; nay, the hammer of the Scandi- navian Thor is admitted to be a cross. Mr. Maurice, in his " Indian Antiquities," 4 writes : " Let not the piety of the Catholic Christian be offended at the asser- tion that the cross was one of the most usual symbols among the hieroglyphics of Egypt and India." No ; a 1 Vol. iii. p. 470, n. 22. 3 Gravier, p. 173, n. * Von Humboldt, Examen, t. ii. * Vol. ii. p. 361. p. 355. 452 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Catholic Christian will not be scandalized at such a trifle when he himself uses, every day, the letters T and X. In fact, the form of the cross is and has always been, with a thousand varieties, in such common use that Mr. Menant 1 declares it to be an artist's whim, devoid of all symbolism ; and Bancroft, although mis- taking in fact, is right in theory, when he says, " The symbol itself is so simple and suggestive of so many ideas" — and of no ideas at all — " that it seems to me most reasonable to suppose that the natives adopted it without foreign aid." It is, however, hardly necessary to remark that the cross, reduced to the proportions of a writing character, of a capricious ornament, of a jewel, or even of the ad- junct of a worshipped idol, is not the cross that we spoke of as being unexpectedly discovered in America. This latter cross is not an ornament, but ornamented; not an adjunct, but an individuality by itself; not a mark or means of worship, but worshipped ; it is not a symbol of rain or bodily cure, but a power from which rain and health are implored with prayer and sacrifice. And, indeed, it is actually a power, because, after all, it is the Christian emblem, the symbol of that Tree of Life, " Tonacaquahuitl," as the Mexicans call it, dying upon which our Saviour has restored to us a right to that happy everlasting life which the first parent of mankind had lost by eating the fruit of the tree which might be called the Tree of Death. This cross was the Christian cross, the only one ever worshipped in the wide world. 2 It is well known, in- deed, that the cross, in its own entity, as an individual thing, was ever held as an object, not of respect and veneration, but of contempt and contumely. Palacio 1 Elements d'Epigraphie Assyri- 2 Cf. Gaffarel, t. i. p. 434. enne, ap. Gravier, p. 173, n. CHRIST AND HIS CBOSS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 453 asserts that the Palenque cross proves the Tyrian origin of the aborigines ; but Hornius answers well that Pala- cio's error is evident from the fact that the cross was nowhere honored before Christ died on it, and that the Tyrians made use of it as an instrument to inflict the most ignominious death. 1 The cross was the instrument of the most degrading capital punishment, not only with the Phoenicians, but also with the Romans, the Asiatics, and nearly all nations of antiquity, 2 and in particular with the Jews, who were afraid that their victim, our Lord Jesus-Christ, might die on the way to Calvary, and thus escape the disgrace of the most shameful death. Only since our Saviour has glorified the cross by his blood has it become an object of honor and triumph and of religious veneration among his disciples of the Old World and of our continent ; for here, as there, was the cross, as cross, whether of wood, of stone, or of gold, a sacred emblem, receiving the re- spectful prayers and oblations, if not the idolatrous worship, of the people. In temples of religion and by the hearths of the homes, in the palaces of the kings and in the graves of the serfs was it found to be so evidently an object of devotion, that the Christian dis- coverers and missionaries had no doubt of the ancient American crosses being the same grand symbol of Christianity as those they had carried along from their native countries. To exclude all doubt on this important subject, we shall add that in ancient America were discovered not only representations of the cross on which our Saviour died, but also of our Saviour himself dying on it ; that is, not only crosses, but crucifixes also. 1 Palacio, ap. Bancroft, vol. iii. * Boletfn, t. ix. p. 177 ; American p. 470, n. 24 ; Hornius, p. 129, ni Cyclopaedia, art. Cross, fallar. 454 HISTORY OP AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Diego Duran relates how a Spaniard asserted under oath that he had seen a crucifix chiselled on one of the abrupt walls of a ravine in the country of the Zapo- tecs. 1 Another such crucifix was discovered sculptured on a rock near Tepic in the province of Jalisco. 2 Bernardino de Sahagun states that in the year 1570 some Franciscan friars worthy of belief had seen in Oaxaca certain pictures executed on deer-skins and representing divers scenes of Christian history. One of them exhibited a group of two women standing side by side, and of a third in front of them who was hold- ing a wooden cross and contemplating a naked man that was stretched out on a similar cross, to which his hands and his feet were tied with cords. 3 Does not this painting recall to our mind the text of St. John, " Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magda- lene" ? 4 Torquemada, another learned and pioneer missionary of Mexico, relates the same facts, with suf- ficient variation to show that he is a second original witness ; and he adds that the nation of the Otomis were until his time carefully preserving a venerable old manuscript, written in two columns, whose inter- vening spaces were filled with illuminations, one of which represented Christ crucified. 5 A specimen of prehistoric American crucifixes can be seen until this day : Las Casas speaks of a most re- markable cross found in the island of Cozumel. It was made of stone and cement, ten palms or nearly seven 1 Historia de las Indias de Nueva 791, ap. CongrSs International des Espana, t. ii. p. 76 ; Gaffarel, t. i. Americanistes, 1883, p. 133, and p. 435, and Congress International Gaffarel, t. i. p. 436. des Americanistes, 1883, p. 133. * St. John xix. 25. See Document XV. 6 CongrSs International, 1883-84, 2 Gaffarel, t. i. p. 436. p. 133 ; Torquemada, lib. xv. cap. 3 Sahagun, lib. xi. cap. xiii. p. xlix. CHRIST AND HIS CROSS IK ANCIENT AMERICA. 455 feet high, and worshipped in one of the temples. 1 A companion of Cortes had admired the same cross, be- cause he saw on it the figure of a man crucified. 2 The image was made of cement, and a foot and a half high. This cross and crucifix was afterwards transferred to the convent of the Franciscan friars in the town of Merida, as attested by an authentic inscription repro- duced by Diego Lopez Cogolludo. The historian of Yucatan further relates the interesting particulars, that the venerable monument was placed in the cloister- yard of their convent ; that it was about three feet wide, with stem and arms of six inches square ; that, probably while transported, it had undergone a frac- ture of its upright stock, and that a small piece of it had been lost. He does not neglect the important detail that a holy crucifix, half a yard in size, and chiselled in demi-relief, was attached to it. 3 After the destruction of their monastery one of the friars ex- tracted it from the ruins and placed it in the wall of the first left-side altar of the church of the Mejorada. The fact was related to the traveller Stephens, who saw the cross and says, " It is of stone, has a venerable appearance of antiquity, and has extended on it in half-relief an image of the Saviour, made of plaster, with the hands and feet nailed." 4 Should there ever be established a continental mu- seum of American antiquities, we would suggest that 1 CongrSs International, 1883-84, p. 201: "Tiene sacada de medio p. 134, ref. to Las Casas, t. v. p. relieve en la misrna piedra una 453. figura de un santo crucifijo, corno 2 Gaffarel, t. i. p. 434, ref. to de media vara de largo." Icazbalceta, Documentos para la 4 John L. Stephens, Incidents of Historia de Mexico, 1864, p. 555. Travel in Yucatan, p. 378, quoted 3 CongrSs International, 1883-84, by CongrSs Internatioual, 1883-84, p. 134, ref. to Cogolludo, Historia p. 135, and Gaffarel, t. i. p. 435 ; de Yucathan, Madrid, 1688, lib. ii. cf. Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 470, n. cap. xi. p. 96, and lib. iv. cap. ix. 23. 456 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. the crucifix of Merida, together with the other ancient crucifixes, crosses, and Christian books and relics dis- covered or yet to be discovered in our hemisphere, be placed or represented in one special section, to which might appropriately be given the title of Prehistoric Monuments of Christianity in America ; for if the sig- nificance of the crosses may be subject to infidel cavil and sophistry, no one, we presume, will contest the Christian meaning of the images of our crucified Lord and Redeemer, as no other institution, society, or re- ligion ever thought of venerating such an emblem. We understand the consequences of our bold opinion, and we agree that from it one might inductively argue the necessity of finding in ancient America remnants of doctrine and vestiges of morals no less argumenta- tive of prehistoric Christian evangelization than the religious emblems themselves. A sign may outlast its idea, but it may readily be supposed that a truth will continue to sustain its expression. We feel it, there- fore, our imperative duty to further inquire whether the religious tenets and practices of pre-Columbian Americans justify the theory that America was either partly or wholly a Christian country long before the fifteenth century of our era. CHAPTER XVIIL BAPTISM AND HOLY EUCHARIST IN ANCIENT AMERICA. We have seen 1 that the fundamental truths of the Christian religion, which are also truths of natural reason and of primeval revelation, were not altogether unknown to the American aborigines ; we have also noticed 2 that select Indian traditions afford American material to rewrite the history of Christ and of his blessed mother ; but, before giving an assertive form to conclusions of many ancient writers, it may be required that we should set forth such unmistakable analogies between the doctrines and practices of the American natives and those of the church of Christ as should prevent any reasonable man from venturing to deny the actual establishment of Christianity in the greater part of our western hemisphere and its powerful influence for good during centuries anterior to the Columbian discovery. We disclaim, of course, any analogy with the cruel, immoral, and barbarous customs of the Aztecs and of kindred nations which we have exposed ; but since the actual condition of religious institutions in civilized America was truly a dualism of antagonistic principles, we should not be astonished at finding, in the midst of the lowest degradation, evidences of sound doctrine and of virtuous practices. The sixth book of Sahagun's "History of New Spain," relating the solemn prayers and addresses of the Mexicans on private and on public occasions, teems 1 Supra, p. 363, seq. 2 Supra, p. 425, seq. 457 458 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. with lessons of great wisdom and of the purest ethics, with teachings of good sense and of genuine Chris- tianity, 1 as we may judge from the following short extracts : "... Is it possible, O Lord, that this calamity and scourge should not be for our correction and amend- ment, but for our total destruction and ruin ?" 2 "... And deign to do it, O Lord, for the sake of thy liberality and of thy magnificence ; because no one is worthy nor deserves through his dignity or merits to receive from thy bounty, but only through thy goodness." 3 "... But God sees you suffer and forbear, and he will answer for you and avenge you, if you are humble with all men ; and, besides, he will have mercy and bestow honors upon you." 4 The most striking parallel with the words of Christ is in this formal advice : "... Neither gaze with curiosity upon the face or apparel of higher persons, still less upon women, and least of all on married women ; because the proverb says that he who. looks intently at a woman commits adultery with his eyes." ~° The Mexicans prayed thus at the accession of a new ruler, and spoke to Tezcatlipoca, their principal deity : " To-day the sun has risen upon us, warming us ; to us has been given a glittering axe to rule and govern our nation, has been given a man to take upon his shoulders the affairs and troubles of the state. He is to possess thy throne and seat, having and holding the same in thy name and person some few days. O Lord, we marvel that thou hast, indeed, set thine eyes on this 1 Sahagun, Historia General de cap. i., ap. Prescott, Conquest of las Cosas de Nueva Espafia, lib. vi. ; Mexico, vol. i. p. 68, n. 13. Gaffarel, t. i. p. 439. 8 Ibid., cap. ii. 2 Sahagun, Hist. Gen., lib. vi. l Ibid., cap. xvii. 5 Ibid., cap. xxii. ; Matt. v. 28. BAPTISM AND EUCHARIST IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 459 man, rude and of little knowledge, to make him for some days, for some little time, the governor of this state, nation, province, and kingdom. It may be that he will fill this office defectively ; perhaps he will lose his office through his childishness, or it will happen through his carelessness and laziness ; or, perhaps, his arrogance and the secret boasting of bis thoughts will destroy him. Since this poor man is put in this risk and peril, we supplicate thee, who art our Lord, our invisible and impalpable protector, under whose will and pleasure we are, who alone disposes of, and provides for, all, we supplicate thee that thou see good to deal mercifully with him. Deign to provide him with thy light, that he may know what he has to think, what he has to do, and the road that he has to follow, so as to commit no error in his office contrary to thy disposition and will. Thou knowest what is to happen to him in this office both by day and night. If this ruler-elect of ours do evil, with which to provoke thine ire and indignation and to awaken thy chastisement against himself, it will not be of his own will or seeking, but by thy permission or by some impulse from without ; for which we entreat thee to see good to open his eyes, to give him light ; open also his ears and guide him, not so much for his own sake as for that of those whom he has to rule over and carry on his shoulders. We supplicate thee that now, from the beginning, thou inspire what he is to conceive in his heart and show him the road he is to follow, inasmuch as thou hast made of him a seat on which to seat thyself; and also, as it were, a flute that, being played upon, may signify thy will. Make him, O Lord, a faithful image of thyself, and permit not that in thy throne and hall he make himself proud and haughty ; but rather see good, O Lord, that quietly and prudently he rule and govern 460 HISTORY OP AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. \ those iu his charge, who are common people ; do not permit him to insult and oppress his subjects, nor to give over, without reason, any of them to destruction. Permit it not, O Lord, that the decorations, badges, and ornaments, which he already wears, be to him a cause of pride and presumption, but rather that he serve thee with humility and plainness. May it please thee, O our Lord, most clement, that he rule and gov- ern this thy seignory, which thou hast committed to him, with all prudence and wisdom. May it please thee that he do nothing wrong or to thine offence ; deign to walk with him and direct him in all his ways. But if thou wilt not do this, ordain that from this day henceforth he be abhorred and disliked, and that he die in war at the hands of his enemies." * The reader has undoubtedly noticed already the lofty Christian thoughts that pervade this beautiful prayer, and so clearly set forth the divine origin of all power and authority, as well as the responsibility of a ruler before God's tribunal. The doctrine of actual grace and of the benevolent co-operation of divine Providence could hardly be more strongly expressed. The words of our Lord, " I am the way, and the truth, and the life," 2 seem to re-echo in this prayer, which further indicates that the people who recited it had heard of the encouraging statement of Moses, verified nowhere as it is in the Catholic Church : " Neither is there any nation so great, that hath gods so nigh them, as our God is present to all our petitions." 3 To find the like of the salutary admonitions here given to the new ruler, we must turn to the solemn ceremonies on the occasion of a pope's coronation or of the consecration of a king. jun, Historia General de 2 St. John xiv. 6. las Cosas deNueva Espafia, lib. vi., 3 Deut. iv. 7. ap. Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 210, seq. BAPTISM AND EUCHARIST IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 461 This prayer may suffice to give us an idea of the numerous literary compositions that played such an important part on all solemn occasions with the natives of New Spain. They all are replete with such pure and grand ideas as evidently bear the impress of Chris- tian teaching. The same must be said of the Mexican formularies destined for use in private life, a sample of which is the grave advice of an Aztec mother to her grown-up daughter, which we copy from Sahagun : " My beloved daughter, very dear little dove, you have already heard, and attended to, the words which your father has spoken to you. What more can you hear than what you have heard from your lord and father, who has fully told you what is becoming for you to do and to avoid ? Nevertheless, that I may do my whole duty towards you, I will say to you some few words. The first thing that I earnestly charge upon you is, that you observe and do not forget what your father has now told you, since it is all very precious ; and persons of his condition rarely publish such things ; for they are the words which belong to the noble and wise, valuable as rich jewels. See, then, that you take them and lay them up in your heart, and write them in your bowels. If God gives you life, with the same words will you teach your sons and daughters, if God shall give them to you. Take care that your garments are such as are decent and proper ; and observe that you do not adorn yourself with much finery, since this is a mark of vanity and folly. As little becoming is it, that your dress should be very mean, dirty, or ragged ; since rags are a mark of the low, and of those who are held in contempt. Let your clothes be becoming and neat, that you may neither appear fantastic nor mean. When you speak, do not hurry your words from un- easiness, but speak deliberately and calmly. Do not 462 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. raise your voice very high, nor speak very low, hut in a moderate tone. Neither mince when you speak, nor when you salute, nor speak through your nose ; hut let your words be proper, of a good sound, and your voice gentle. Do not be nice in the choice of your words. In walking, my daughter, see that you behave becom- ingly, neither going with haste, nor too slowly, since it is an evidence of being puffed up to walk too slowly, and walking hastily causes a vicious habit of restless- ness and instability. Therefore, neither walk very fast nor very slowly ; yet, when it shall be necessary to go with haste, do so ; in this, use your discretion. And when you may be obliged to jump over a pool of water, do it with decency, that you may neither appear clumsy nor light. When you are in the street, do not carry your head much inclined, or your body bent, nor go with your head very much raised, since it is a mark of ill breeding ; walk erect and with your head slightly inclined. Do not have your mouth covered, or your face, from shame, nor go looking like a near-sighted person, nor, on your way, make fantastic movements with your feet. Walk through the street quietly and with propriety. Another thing that you must attend to, my daughter, is that, when you are in the street, you do not go looking hither and thither, nor turning your head to look at this and that ; walk neither look- ing at the skies nor on the ground. Do not look upon those whom you meet with the eyes of an offended person ; nor have the appearance of being uneasy, but of one who looks upon all with a serene countenance. Doing this, you will give no one occasion of being offended with you. Show a becoming countenance, that you may neither appear morose, nor, on the other hand, too complaisant. See, my daughter, that you give yourself no concern about the words you may hear BAPTISM AND EUCHARIST IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 463 in going through the street, nor pay any regard to them, let those who come and go say what they will. Take care that you neither answer nor speak, but act as if you neither heard nor understood them ; since, doing in this manner, no one will be able to say with truth that you have said anything amiss. See, likewise, my daughter, that you never paint your face, or stain it or your lips with colors, in order to appear well, since this is a mark of vile and unchaste women. Paints and coloring are things which bad women use, the immodest, who have lost all shame and even sense, who are like fools and drunkards, and are called prostitutes. But, that your husband may not dislike you, adorn yourself, wash yourself, and cleanse your clothes ; and let this be done with moderation, since, if you wash yourself and your clothes every day, it will be said of you that you are over-nice, too delicate. My daughter, this is the course you are to take, since in this manner the ancestors from whom you spring brought us up. Those noble and venerable dames, your grandmothers, told us not so many things as I have told you ; they said but few words, and spoke thus : ' Listen, my daughters ; in this world it is necessary to live with much prudence and circumspection. Hear this allegory, which I shall now tell you, and preserve it, and take from it a warn- ing and example for living aright. Here, in this world, we travel by a very narrow, steep, and dangerous road, which is as a lofty mountain ridge, on whose top passes a narrow path ; on either side is a great gulf without bottom ; and when you deviate from the path you fall into it. There is need, therefore, of much discretion in pursuing the road.' My tenderly loved daughter, my little dove, keep this illustration in your heart, and see that you do not forget it ; it will be to you as a lamp and a beacon so long as you shall live in this world. 464 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Only one thing remains to be said, and I have done. If God shall give you life, if you shall continue some years upon the earth, see that you guard yourself care- fully, that no stain come upon you ; should you forfeit your chastity and afterwards be asked in marriage and should marry any one, you will never be fortunate, nor have true love ; he will always remember that you were not a virgin, and this will be the cause of great affliction and distress ; you will never be at peace, for your husband will always be suspicious of you. O my dearly beloved daughter, if you shall live upon the earth, see that not more than one man approach you, and observe what I now shall tell you, as a strict com- mand. When it shall please God that you receive a husband, and you are placed under his authority, be free from arrogance ; see that you do not neglect him, nor allow your heart to be in opposition to him ; be not disrespectful to him. Beware that at no time or place you commit against him the treason called adul- tery. See that you give no favor to another, since this, my dear and much-loved daughter, is to fall into a pit without bottom, from which there is no escape. Accord- ing to the custom of the world, if it shall be known, for this crime they will kill you, they will throw you into the street, for an example to all the people, where your head will be crushed and dragged upon the ground. Of these a proverb says, ' You will be stoned and dragged upon the earth, and others will take Warning at your death.' x From this will arise a stain and dishonor upon our ancestors, the nobles and senators from whom we are descended. You will tarnish their illustrious fame and their glory by the filthiness and impurity of your sin. You will, likewise, lose your reputation, your 1 Cf. Deut. xxii. 22 ; Levit. xx. 10 ; St. John viii. 7. BAPTISM AND EUCHARIST IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 465 nobility, and honor of birth ; your name will be for- gotten or abhorred; of you will it be said that you were buried in the dust of your sins. And remember, my daughter, that though no man shall see you, nor your husband ever know what happens, God, who is in every place, sees you ; x he will be angry with you, will excite the indignation of the people against you, and will be avenged upon you as he shall see fit. By his command you shall be either maimed, or struck blind, or your body shall wither, or you shall come to extreme poverty, for daring to injure your husband. Or, perhaps, he will deliver you up to death, and put you under his feet, sending you to a place of torment. Our Lord is compassionate ; but, if you commit treason against your husband, God, who is in every place, will take vengeance on your sin, and will permit you to have neither contentment, nor repose, nor a peaceful life ; and he will excite your husband to be always unkind towards you, and always to speak to you with anger. My dear daughter, whom I tenderly love, see that you live in the world in peace, tranquillity, and contentment, all the days that you shall live. See that you disgrace not yourself, that you stain not your honor, nor pollute the lustre and fame of your ances- tors ; see that you honor me and your father and reflect glory on us by your good life. May God prosper you, my first-born, and may you come to God, who is in every place." 2 The religious ceremonies and laws observed by the civilized natives of America still more clearly point to the fact of prehistoric Christianity on our conti- nent. If we except the baptism of penance administered 1 Of. Eccl. xxiii. 25, 27, 28. Preseott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. 2 Sahagun, lib. vi. cap. xix., ap. iii. p. 405. I.— 30 466 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. by the precursor of our Lord, 1 and the Jewish legal ceremony in admitting proselytes from gentile circum- cised nations, 2 the sacrament of baptism is so exclusively peculiar to the Christian dispensation, that we could hardly surmise its administration in our western hemi- sphere before the arrival of Christian missionaries after Columbus's discovery. These missionaries, however, and other writers of that time assure us that baptism — to all intents the sacrament of baptism — was administered in several American districts from time immemorial. Herrera evidently mistakes when he asserts that this religious rite was practised in Yucatan only. 3 The new-born infants of the Canary Islands were baptized by women, who poured water on their heads, whilst pronouncing a certain form of words, 4 as it was done in Yucatan. The Caribbean islanders and the Penn- sylvania continentals of old used to solemnly plunge their babes into cold water in the presence of two witnesses, — a man and a woman, — and gave them a name on that occasion. 5 Baptism was conferred in the territories of Cempoala, Tezcuco, Tlacopan, and throughout the vast empire of Mexico. 6 Gleeson adds, 7 with less evidence, that the sacred rite was also per- formed in South America ; but it is certain that in no place was it more universally admitted than in Central American countries. Sahagun 8 writes that when the holy bishop of Chiapa arrived at Campeche, in the year 1544, on his way to his diocese, in company with 1 St. Mark i. 4 ; St. Luke iii. 3 ; 5 Kastner, p. 72. Acts xiii. 24. 6 Hornius, lib. i. cap. iv. p. So ; 2 Kastner, p. 70, ref . to Disserta- Acosta, bk. v. ch. xxvii. p. 369 ; tion sur le Bapt6me des Juifs, dans Short, p. 462, ref. to Kingsborougli, la Sainte Bible, avec des notes Mex. Antiq., t. vi. p. 45 ; Gaffarel, tirees du Commentaire de D. An- t. i. p. 438 ; Gleeson, vol. i. p. 146. gustin Calmet, xix. 239. 7 Vol. i. p. 146. 3 Hornius, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 35. 8 Lib. i. cap. iii. "■ Ibid., lib. ii. cap. xiii. p. 128. BAPTISM AND EUCHARIST IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 467 several Dominican friars, he not only saw what Montejo had written about the baptism of the Yucatecs, but also learned that all the natives of that country were baptized, no one being allowed to marry before the sacred ceremonies had been performed on him. 1 It was the duty of all the Mayas to have their children baptized, for they believed that by this ablution they received a purer nature, were protected against evil spirits and possible misfortunes. They held, moreover, that an unbaptized person, whether man or woman, could not lead a good life nor do anything well. 2 Baptism was in the Mexican empire a religious cere- mony, 3 which in Yucatan was called " Zih.il," signify- ing to be born again ; * and the Nahua nations freely admitted that it would cleanse the soul from all sin, as will soon appear from the ceremonies with which it was administered. The American aborigines seem to have been aware of the absolute necessity of the sacrament of baptism to eternal salvation, 5 for to many of them it was, in spite of the Christian law, administered twice, 6 — first privately, immediately on the birth of the infant, and afterwards publicly, in the presence of friends and relatives. 7 The second lustration usually took place 1 Sahagun, lib. i. p. xx ; Ban- p. 414 ; t. viii. p. 18 ; Sahagun, lib. croft, vol. ii. p. 669, ref. to Veytia, i. cap. iii., who states : "Dando Hist. Ant. Mej., t. i. p. 183; Cogol- al bautismo el nombre de Renas- ludo, Hist. Yuc, p. 191; Juarros, cencia, como Jesuoristo le llama en Hist. Guat, p. 196. el Evangelio : 'Nisi quis renatus 2 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 682. fuerit,' " etc. (St. John iii. 5.) 3 Short, p. 462, ref. to Kings- 5 "Amen, amen, I say to thee: borough, Mex. Antiq., t. vi. p. 45. unless a man be born again of 4 Hornius, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 35 ; water and the Holy-Ghost, he Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 736, n. 2, ref. to cannot enter into the kingdom of Landa, who says, "Con vocablo God." (St. John iii. 5.) que quiere decir : Nacer de nuovo 6 Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 270-272. 6 otra vez ;" Short, p. 462, ref. to ' Gleeson, vol. i. p. 148. Kingsborough, Mex. Antiq., t. vi. 468 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. on the fifth day after birth; but in every case the astrologers and diviners were consulted, and, if the signs were not propitious, baptism was postponed till a day of good augury would come. 1 Thus did it happen that the priests of Cempoala waited sometimes a whole year before pouring water on the children's heads and mumbling an unintelligible formula of baptism. 2 The children of Yucatan were generally baptized when three years old ; or, as Bancroft states, the rite was administered to children of both sexes at any time between the ages of three and twelve years. 3 Older children, however, were to prepare for the ceremony by a confession of their sins, as were the Christian neophytes of old and are yet our modern converts who have received a doubtful baptism. 4 The importance of the sacred rite was illustrated by the duty imposed upon the very parents, to fast and abstain from carnal indulgence for three days before the bap- tism of their children and a whole week after it. 5 There were other preparations of a purely pagan order : the portals of the dwelling were decorated with green branches, flowers and sweet-smelling herbs were scattered over the floors and court-yard, and the ap- proaches to the house were carefully swept ; cakes were baked, maize and cacao ground, and delicacies of every description prepared for the table ; nor were the liquors forgotten, for any shortcoming in this respect would reflect severely on the hospitality of the host. When the great day had come and all was ready, 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 371 ; von 4 Sahagun, Historia General de Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, las Cosas de Nueva Espafia, t. i. t. ii. p. 311 ; Kastner, p. 68. p. iii ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 683. 2 Hornius, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 35, 5 Hornius, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 35 ; ref . to Peter Martyr. lib. iv. cap. xv. p. 278 ; Sahagun, 3 Hornius, lib. iv. cap. xv. p. Historia de las Cosas de Nueva 278 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 682. Espafia, t. i. p. iii. BAPTISM AND EUCHARIST IN ANCIENT AMEBICA. 469 the relatives of the family assembled before sunrise, and other friends dropped in as the day advanced; each, as he congratulated the host, presented a gift of clothing for the infant and received in turn a present of mantles, flowers, and of choice food. In the course of the morning the midwife carried the child to the court-yard and placed it upon a heap of leaves, beside which was set an earthenware vessel filled with clear water, and several miniature implements, insignia of the father's trade or profession. If he was a noble or a warrior, the articles consisted of a small shield and a bow, with arrows of a corresponding size placed with their heads directed towards the four cardinal points. Another set of arms made from dough of amaranth- seed and bound together with the dried navel-string of the infant was also at hand. If the child was a girl, there were placed beside it, instead of the little weapons, a spindle and distaff and some articles of girl's clothing. 1 The midwife, who was the minister of baptism, was then ready to perform the religious functions. Such were the preparations for the sacred rite among the Nahua tribes. The Mayas of Yucatan prepared for it in a different manner. When parents desired to have their children baptized they notified the priest who was to perform the ceremony. The latter then published throughout the town a notice of the day on which the rite would take place, being careful to fix upon a day of good omen. This done, the fathers of the children who were to be baptized selected five of the most honored men of the town to assist the priest 1 Von Humboldt, Vues des Cor- p. 370, n. 26 : all copying Torque- dilleres, t. ii. p. 311 ; Kastner, p. mada, t. ii. p. 457, and Sahagun, 69 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 272 ; Pres- Historia General de las Cosas de cott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. Nueva Espana, t. i. lib. iv. 470 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. during the ceremony. When the appointed day arrived, all assembled with the children to be baptized in the house of the giver of the feast, who was usually one of the wealthiest of the parents. Fresh leaves were strewn in the court-yard, and there the boys were ranged in a row in charge of their godfathers, while in another line were the girls with their godmothers. The cere- monies then commenced with the exorcisms. The priest, namely, proceeded to purify the house, and then to cast out the devil. For this purpose four benches were placed, one in each of the four corners of the court-yard, and upon them were seated four of the as- sistants, holding a long cord that passed from one to an- other and thus enclosed a portion of the yard. Within this enclosure were the children and those fathers and officials who had fasted. A bench was placed in the centre, upon which the priest was seated, with a brazier, some ground corn, and incense. The children were directed to approach one by one, and the priest gave to each a little of the ground corn and incense, which, as they received it, they cast into the brazier. When this had been done by all, they took the cord and brazier and a vessel of wine, and gave them to a man to carry them outside the town, with injunctions not to drink any of the wine and not to look behind him. With such ceremony the devil was expelled. 1 The Mexican midwife changed the order of the modern ritual by placing the exorcisms after the bap- tism proper ; but her way of performing them was better in accord with the Christian form. Washing the body of the child, she exclaimed, " Whencesoever thou comest, thou that art hurtful to this child, leave him and depart from him, for he now liveth anew and 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 683, ref . to 183 ; Herrera, Hist. Gen. , dec. iv. Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., t. i. p. lib. x. cap. iv. BAPTISM AND ETJCHAKIST IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 471 is born anew ; now he is purified and cleansed afresh, and our mother Chalchiuitlicue again bringeth him into the world. Evil one, wheresoever thou art, be- gone, avaunt !" * The sacred rite commenced at the rising of the sun, when the midwife, addressing the infant, said, " O eagle, O tiger, O brave little man and grandson of mine, thou hast been brought into the world by thy father and mother, the great lord and the great lady. Thou wast created in that house which is the abode of the supreme gods that are above the nine heavens. Thou art a gift from our son Quetzalcoatl, the omnipresent; be joined to thy mother, Chalchiuitlicue, the goddess of water." Then, imitating the various unctions prescribed by the Christian ritual, she placed her dripping fingers on the lips of the child, saying, " Take this, for upon it thou hast to live, to wax strong, and to flourish ; by it we obtain all necessary things ; take it." Then, touching the child on its breast with her moistened fingers, she said, " Take this holy and pure water, that thine heart may be cleansed." In the same manner she touched the crown of its head. After these preliminaries the essential rite was ad- ministered. The midwife poured water on the child's head, saying, " Receive, O my child, the water of the Lord of the world, which is our life, and is given for the increasing and renewing of our body. It is to wash and to purify. I pray that these heavenly drops may enter into thy body and dwell there ; that they may destroy and remove from thee all the evil and sin which was given to thee before the beginning of the world ; since all of us are under its power, being all the chil- 1 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 140 ; Presoott, referring to Sahagun, Historia Gen- Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 370, eral de las Cosas de Nueva Espafia, n. 26 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 273 : all t. ii. lib. vi. cap. 37. 472 HISTOEY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. dren of Chalchiuitlicue." x Besides this, Bancroft 2 gives another, slightly different, reading of the Mexi- can formula of baptism and of the washing. " Then the midwife," he writes, " dipped the child into water and said, ' Enter, my son, into the water ; let it wash thee ; let him cleanse thee who is in every place ; let him see good to put away from thee all the evil that thou hast carried with thee since the beginning of the world, the evil that thy father and thy mother have joined to thee.' " Other variations occurred in the sac- ramental essentials. Peter Martyr relates that the priests of Cempoala poured the water from a small vase upon the heads of those to be baptised in the form of a cross, 3 while they pronounced an unintelligible formula, as remarked before. In Yucatan, on the contrary, bap- tism was administered by aspersion. The priest held in his hand some byssop, fastened to a short stick ; he blessed the children and, offering up some prayers, purified them with the hyssop, with much solemnity. Sahagun adds 4 that the aspersion was made under the invocation of the Blessed Trinity, of which, he says, they had an accurate knowledge. 5 The final unction with chrism according to our ritual was represented by the principal officer who had been elected by the fathers, and who now took a bone, which he dipped in a certain water and with which he moist- ened the foreheads, faces, fingers, and toes of the neo- phytes. 6 Not even the ceremonies of the imposition of the 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 273 ; Pres- 2 Vol. iii. p. 371. cott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. 3 Hornius, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 35. p. 370, ref. to Sahagun, Historia i Historia General de las Cosas General de las Cosas de Nueva Es- de Nueva Espafia, t. i. p. xx. pafia, lib. vi. cap. 37 ; Gleeson, vol. 5 Supra, p. 372. i. p. 149, ref. to Clavigero, History 6 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 684, ref. to of Mexico, vol. i. p. 317. Landa, Belacion, p. 150. BAPTISM AND EUCHARIST IN ANCIENT AMEEICA. 473 white cloth and the giving of the burning candle were neglected by the American aborigines. 1 The peculiar circumstance of imposing a name upon the children on the occasion of their baptism was observed everywhere. The ceremonies of baptism ended in the banquet- room, where all present seated themselves according to age and rank ; and the eating and drinking festivities lasted twenty days, or even longer if the father was wealthy. 2 Of the Christian sacrament of confirmation no special traces are to be found in ancient America, unless some one would consider as such the religious ceremonies with which the foreheads of the Yucatecs were anointed by their priests. 3 The Holy Eucharist, on the contrary, is vividly re- called to the mind of a Christian by remarkable re- ligious ceremonies in both American continents. The reader will notice the important essential differences between the ancient American and our religious mys- teries ; but adulterations, great as they may be, should not prevent us from admitting their common origin, when we consider that, only three centuries after the Protestant coryphei said Holy Mass, some of their suc- cessors celebrate the Lord's Supper with pure water in which dried raisins have been soaked for twenty-four hours. Acosta 4 has left us a quaint description of the com- munion of the Peruvians with the sun, their great visible god, and with his son, their Inca : " In the first moneth [June] they made in Peru a most solemne feast. The Mamaconas, which are a kind of nunnes of the 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 683 ; vol. 3 Hornius, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 35 ; iii. p. 375. lib. iv. cap. xv. p. 278. 2 Sahagun, t. i. lib. iv. ; Bancroft, i Bk. v. ch. xxiii. p. 345, 355. vol. ii. p. 276. 474 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Sunne, made little loaves of the flower of mays, died and mingled with the blood of white sheepe 1 which they did sacrifice that day. Then presently they com- manded that even all strangers should enter, who set themselves in order ; and the Priests gave to every one a morcell of these small loaves, 2 saying unto them, that they gave these peeces to the end they should be united and confederate with the Ynca ; and that they advised them not to speake nor thinke any ill against the Ynca, but alwaies to beare good affection, for that this peece should be a witness of their intentions and will ; and if they did not as they ought, he would discover them and be against them. They carried these small loaves in great platters of gold and silver appointed for that use, and all did receive and eat these peeces, thanking the Sunne infinitely for so great a favour which he had done them ; protesting that during their lives they would neither do nor thinke anything against the Sunne nor the Ynca : and with this con- dition they received this foode of the Sunne." The same Acosta gives to the twenty-fourth chapter of his Natural and Moral History the title of "In what manner the devil tries to counterfeit in Mexico the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament and Holy Com- munion." 3 Sahagun relates, says his commentator, Dr. de Mier, 4 that the Mexicans celebrated a Pasch at the same time that we celebrate Easter, — " in the moneth of Maie," says Acosta, 6 after a fast of forty days, during which they abstained from meat, wine, spices, and wives. 1 Of the ovis pudu, or of some 2 Blessed and consecrated by species of llama. Garcilasso de la them. (Kastner, p. 82.) Vega, however, states that the flour s Gaffarel, D6couv. , t. i. p. 438. was mixed with the blood of in- i Sahagun, Hist. Gener., t. i. p. fants. (Kastner, p. 83.) xx. 5 Bk. v. ch. xxiv. p. 356. BAPTISM AND EUCHARIST IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 475 After this, lustral water was blessed and other prepara- tions were made for a special feast of the great god Huitzilopochtli. 1 Two days before the feast the young virgins of the convent adjoining the temple ground a great quantity of blite seed, together with roasted maize, the Mexican wheat, which they mixed into a dough with black honey from the maguey. 2 Of this dough they moulded a statue of the god equal to his permanent wooden effigy, which they then carried out of their cloister, to hand it over to the young men of the monastery. These religious, together with the priests, marching in procession, took the fragile statue up to the temple amid the sound of trumpets and other noisy instru- ments. After this the girls brought to the boys a great number of lumps of the same dough fashioned into the shape of human bones, which were all laid at the feet of, and around, the paste statue of Huitzilo- pochtli. The occasion was enlivened with dancing and music till late in the evening. Vigils were kept all night in the temple, as by the Christians of old and by the friars of later centuries. Early the following morning throngs of people were seen ascending the steps of the pyramidal teocalli or temple, to make their oblations of maize and blite seed, and others with the human victims, whose blood was to desecrate the inno- cent offering of bread. When all were gathered within the spacious temple-yard, the high-priest, the other priests, and their attendants sallied forth, adorned with 1 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 155, referring Sahagun, Hist. Gener., t. i. p. xx : to Veytia, Hist. Antiq. Mex., vol. " no de otro" than Huitzilopochtli. i. p. 187, assures us that the god 2 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 297, gives here concerned was Centcotl, the no authority for his assertion that god of corn ; but this statement is the dough was kneaded with the not sustained by the older histori- blood of children, ans, and expressly contradicted by 476 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. their richest regalia, from their adjoining monastery, and, placing themselves in order about .the dough statue and bones, they proceeded with songs and dances to bless and consecrate them, making use of the very word " consecration," says Torquemada. From that moment the dough fixtures, both statue and bones, were considered by all as the very flesh and bones of their god Huitzilopochtli. 1 Acosta continues to relate that, after this consecration, the same divine honors were paid to the paste image of Huitzilopochtli and to the circumjacent bones as to his wooden statue ; for " then came forth the sacrificers," he says, " who beganne the sacrifice of men, and that day they, did sacrifice a greater number than at any other time, for that it was the most solemne feast they observed." After that there was a general dancing of the virgins and of everybody else. 2 Soon a solemn procession was organ- ized through the principal wards of the city of Tenoch- titlan or Mexico and the neighboring towns, at each of which places several men were murdered in the usual barbarous way. A circumstance worthy of notice is that the priest who acted the main part in this solemnity was the representative of the god Quetzalcoatl. 3 All through -this day and the following night the priests vigilantly watched the dough statue of Huitzi- lopochtli, so that no oversight or carelessness should interfere with the veneration and service due to it. Early the next day they took down the statue and set it on its feet in a hall, where but a few besides the king were admitted. Then the priest, named after Quetzal- 1 Sahagun, Hist. Gener., t. i. p. of the Indies, bk. v. ch. xxiv. p. xx ; Acosta, bk. v. ch. xxiv. p. 359. 356 ; Duran, ii. 90 ; Gleeson, vol. i. 3 Von Humboldt, Vues des Oor- p. 156 ; Torquemada, lib. vi. cap. dilleres, t. i. p. 352 ; Kastner, p. xxxviii. ; Aa. passim. 81 ; Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 298 ; Saha- 2 The Natural and Moral History gun, Hist., Gener., t. i. p. xx. BAPTISM AND EUCHARIST IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 477 coatl, took a dart tipped with flint and hurled it into the breast of the statue, which fell on receiving the stroke. Upon this the priests advanced to the fallen image, and one of them pulled forth the heart and gave it to the king, and the others divided the re- mainder into two equal parts for the two principal dis- tricts of the city, according to Torquemada. 1 Sahagun, however, the relation of whom Dr. de Mier prefers to any other, states that four deacons, dressed in rochets, took each one a part of the statue and of the bones to each of the four wards of Mexico, to give a small por- tion to every one of the people to eat ; and this was called " teocuals," or the god is eaten. " They made many peeces, as well of the idol itselve as of the tron- chons which were consecrated, and they gave them to the people, in manner of a communion, beginning with the greater, and continuing unto the rest, both men, women, and children, who received it with such teares, feare, and reverence, as it was an admirable thing ; saying that they did eate the flesh and bones of god : wherewith they were grieved. Such as had any sicke folkes, demanded thereof for them, and carried it with great reverence and veneration." The most scrupulous care was taken that not the least crumb should fall to the ground. Another striking analogy with the laws of the Christian dispensation is that the Mexican communi- cants were obliged to observe the natural fast since the previous midnight. As Acosta relates, "There was a commandment very strictly observed throughout all the land, that on the day of the feast of the idoll Vitziliputzli they should eate no other meate but this paste and honey, whereof the idoll was made. And 1 T. i. p. 293 ; t. ii. pp. 41, 71. 478 HISTOKY OF AMEEICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. this should be eaten at the point of day ; and they should drinke no water nor any other thing till after noone : they held it for an ill signe, yea, for sacrilege, to doe the contrarie." Sahagun adds that for this reason the water was, on that day, hid from the little children, who were also admitted to partake of the communion. 1 To put aside all doubt as to the significance of all this, says Sahagun, it may suffice to remark that one of the special ceremonies of all this liturgy consisted in putting a man on a cross, and in striking with a cane the head of one extended on another cross. 2 In fact, the mandate of Christ on the eve of his passion — " Do this for a commemoration of me" 3 — could hardly be more faithfully obeyed. In closing this paragraph, we shall remark that the feast of Huitzilopochtli was not the only occasion on which the Mexicans practised the rite of religious communion. They were in the habit of cooking tiny loaves of bread at several festivals, and of eating them, as for a communion with the god of the day. Thus did the young men, during our month of November, eat the flesh of the supreme god Tezcatlipoca, under the appearance of blessed bread. 4 The Totonacs made a dough of first-fruits from the temple garden, and of the blood of three infants sacrificed at a certain festival. Of this the men above twenty-five years of age and the women above sixteen partook every six months. As the dough became stale it was moistened with the heart's blood of ordinary victims. 5 1 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xxiv. p. 359 ; * Coleccion de Docurnentos in- Sahagun, Hist. Gen., t. i. p. xx ; editos para la Historia de Espana, Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. t. liii. p. 324. iii. p. 369, ref. to Veytia, Hist. 5 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 440, ref. to Ant., lib. i. cap. xviii. Torquemada, Mendieta, Las Casas, 2 Sahagun, Hist. Gen., t. i. p. xx. etc. 3 St. Luke xxii. 19. BAPTISM AND EUCHARIST IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 479 The Mexicans were compelled to prepare themselves for several of their religious feasts by strict fasts and abstinences of different kinds, but they were not obliged to " prove themselves," * to purify their souls by the sacrament of penance, before eating the flesh of their gods, as Christians are, before receiving holy commu- nion. Yet, it is a well-known fact that auricular con- fession was practised by them, as also by several other nations of prehistoric America. ' I. Cor. xi. 28 ; II. Cor. xiii. 5. CHAPTEE XIX. PENANCE AND CONFESSION IN MEXICO AND PERU. As the Christians, so the Mexicans performed works of penance, by fasting and by chastising and mortifying themselves. Fasting was considered as an atonement for sin, and thus as a preparation for high festivals. An ordinary fast was the abstinence from meat for a period of from one to ten days and the taking of but one meal a day, at noon ; at no other hour could so much as a drop of water be swallowed. In the " divine year" a fast of eighty days was observed. Some of the fasts held by the priests lasted one hundred and sixty days ; and owing to the insufficient food allowed and terrible mutilations practised, these long fasts not infrequently resulted fatally to the devotees. The high-priest some- times set a shining example to his subordinates by going into the mountains and passing several months there in perfect solitude, praying, burning incense, drawing blood from his body, and supporting life upon uncooked maize. 1 Among the Nahua nations there were fasts to be observed by all the people during eighty consecutive days, during which nothing but maize cakes, without red pepper, were to be eaten, no baths to be taken, and no communication with women indulged in. 2 Similar fasts and abstinences were, and are yet among the pagan natives, quite usual in most parts of 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 440, ref. to p. 343; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., t. i. Torquemada, t. ii. p. 212 ; Acosta, lib. iii. p. 275. 2 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 313. 480 CONFESSION IN MEXICO AND PERU. 481 our continent. The savage Caribbeans themselves kept long superstitious fasts. 1 The longest, however, of all reported general fasts was the one observed by the Cholulans and the Tlascalans every four years, which lasted one hundred and sixty days. — "My yoke is sweet, and my burden light," says Christ. 2 Veytia 3 states that it is a constant and uniform tradition among the aborigines of Mexico and Central America that it was Quetzalcoatl who introduced the Latin fast of forty days, teaching, moreover, that the penance of fasting ought to be accompanied with works of charity to the orphans and the poor, not only for the sake of humanity, but also for the love of God. All these fasts and abstinences had their grounds in the law of nature observed more or less by all nations of the earth, and according to which it is but just that man should atone for his many offences against the commandments of Almighty God. But here again we find a new instance of the abuse made of the natural dictates of the human heart whenever the devil, man's original enemy, has obtained dominion over him. It is simply horrible to hear or to read of the atrocious tortures which not only the victims, but also the sacri- ficers according to Satan's rite, had to endure. Mexi- can penitents often walked barefooted on agave leaves and cactus branches covered with their stinging thorns ; at stated times during the year the false gods required their worshippers to draw blood from their lips, ears, and other members, to pierce their tongues several times, and to thrust grass-leaves, straws, and reeds through the fresh, bleeding wounds. To carry burning coals 1 Van Speybrouck, Christoffel 3 Hist. Antig., p. 175, quoted by Colomb., bl. 109. Gleeson, vol. i. p. 178, n. 1. 2 St. Matt. xi. 30. I.— 31 482 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. on their naked scalps was a not uncommon practice of penitential torture for the natives of New Spain, and especially for their younger priests and friars. Penances of the same nature and others more bar- barous still were performed by several tribes of North American Indians, as they were by the Phoenicians, the Buddhists, and the Chinese. 1 Nor was the virtue of penance only, but, what is truly surprising, the sacrament also was practised in several parts of ancient America ; if, at least, we can give that name to religious performances which singu- larly coincide with the sacred rite that, peculiar to Christianity, constitutes the very hardest of its duties. Voluntary acknowledgment of sins and crimes, auricu- lar confession, was frequently made, in Peru. " In Peru they confessed themselves verbally, almost in all provinces ; they used this confession when their chil- dren, wives, husbands, or their caciques were sicke, or in any great exploite. When their Ynca was sicke, all the provinces confessed themselves, chiefly those of the province of Callao. . . . Our men say, that in the province of Chucuito, even at this day [end of the six- teenth century], they meete with the plague of pagan confessors, whereas many sick persons repaire unto them." 2 The great place of Peruvian pilgrimages was the rock of Titicaca on the island of the same name, the place from which the sun had first risen to dispel the darkness of the earth. Three succes- sive doors led to the temple ; but before crossing the first, the numerous pilgrims were expected to con- fess their sins. 3 " The Ynca, however, or Peruvian 1 Aoosta, diversis locis ; Sahagun, 2 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xxv. p. 360- Hist. Gen., p. 184, as quoted by 362; Winsor, vol. i. p. 240; Bas- Gafiarel, t. i. p. 438 ; Icazbalceta, tian, Bd. i. S. 484. Coleocion de Documentos, t. i. p. 3 Cronau, S. 84. 58 ; Kastner, p. 93. CONFESSION IN MEXICO AND PERU. 483 emperor, confessed himselve to no man, but onely to the Sunne." x Herrera assures us that confession was practised in Nicaragua. 2 It was also in Guatemala. Before the priest performed the marriage ceremony he desired the young man and his bride to confess to him all the sins of their past life ; the mother was confessed when any difficulty arose in childbirth, and, if the wife's confes- sion alone did not have the desired effect, the husband was called upon to avow his sins ; in common sick- nesses the physician merely applied the usual remedies, but it was thought that a severe illness could only be brought on by some crime committed and unconfessed ; and in such cases the doctor insisted upon the sick man making a clean breast of it, and confessing such sin, even though it had been committed twenty years before. 3 The custom of confessing their sins likewise existed among the natives of Yucatan 4 and of Honduras, where the mothers were obliged to prepare for confinement by making their confession. 5 Voluntary acknowledgment of sins was observed also by the Mexicans ; but, although some authors assert that they went to confession on the occasion of their mar- riages, 6 it is more generally admitted that they con- fessed only once in their lives, — namely, when they felt death approaching, convinced, as they were, that sins once forgiven in confession could be forgiven no more, when committed over again. 7 1 Aoosta, bk. v. ch. xxv. p. 361. ' Dicese que se confesaban los 2 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 151. viejos y de los grandes peoados de 3 Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 669, 678, la carne. De esto bien se arguye 795. que aunque habian hecho muchos * Hornius, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 35. pecados en tiempo de su juventud, 5 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 277. no se confesaban de ellos hasta la 6 Gaffarel, Decouv., t. i. p. 438, vejez ; por la opinion que tenian, ref. to Herrera, dec. iv. lib. v. If de que el que tornaba & reincidir 25. en los pecados al que se confesaban 484 HISTOKY OF AMERICA BEFOBE COLUMBUS. The reason and object of all these people, in submit- ting to the humiliating rite, was the same that has actu- ated all Christians since the time that Christ said to his apostles, " Eeceive ye the Holy Ghost : whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them ; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." x They firmly believed that their confessors enjoyed divinely dele- gated power to free them from their crimes and render them agreeable to their gods ; and this happy change from sinfulness to sanctity was in many districts repre- sented by putting on new clothes when confession was over. 2 It is a quite remarkable fact that this remission of sins by confession was admitted by the civil courts of ancient Mexico ; and, as a consequence, many an old sinner went to confess to the priest his murders and adulteries, in order to keep his head or to save his bones from being crushed between the swinging rocks. Even until this day, says Sahagun, many Mexicans confide in confession as a means to escape civil pun- ishment. It not rarely happens that, when one has committed an odious crime, he takes refuge in our mon- astery, declaring his desire to do penance for deeds that he cannot reveal ; he works in the garden and sweeps the house and does all . he is told to do. After a few days he makes a sincere confession, asking a testimonial signed by the confessor, which he forthwith carries to the nearest government officer, whether governor or judge, in order to prove that, having done penance and confessed, he is now free from human prosecution. The missionary Fathers did not at first understand this Indian trick, thinking that the required testimo- una vez, no tenia remedio. (Saha- Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. gun, t. i. lib. i. cap. xii. p. 15 ; Dr. i. p. 71.) Servando de Mier, ibid. ; Gaffarel, 1 St. John xx. 22, 23. t. i. p. 438 ; Gleeson, vol. i. pp. 151, '' Gleeson, vol. i. p. 153 ; Bastian, 153, ref. to Veytia, Hist. Mex. ; Bd. i. S. 181. CONFESSION IN MEXICO AND PEEU. 485 nial was only to prove the fact of yearly confession, as in some parts of Europe. 1 The penitential rite of Christianity was not for the civilized aborigines of our continent, as it is to-day, one of the principal obstacles to conversion. They were used to acknowledge their sins to their priests in infidelity. " The office of confessor was, in Peru, likewise exer- cised by women," says Acosta ; 2 while, on the contrary, the Mcaraguans would not confess but to priests who were living a celibate life. 3 Nor was every priest au- thorized to hear the confession of every crime ; as there were, at least in Peru, " some sinnes reserved for the superiors," 4 who appointed the confessors of lower rank. All, however, were, under threat of the severest penalties, obliged to keep secret the confessions made to them. It should be remarked, says Sahagun, that such as heard the acknowledgment of sins kept their sacred trust ; never did they tell what they had heard in confession, because they held that they did not hear it themselves, but rather their gods, before whom alone sins had been revealed. It was not supposed that a man had heard them, nor that they had been told to a man, but to a god. 5 It seems that, with one or two exceptions, 6 this law was strictly observed indeed. 7 The right dispositions of a Christian penitent are not 1 Sahagun, commented by Dr. de tenian que no lo habian oido ellos, Mier, t. i. lib. i. cap. xii. p. 15 ; sino su dios, delante de quien solo Gaffarel, t. i. p. 438 ; Prescott, se descubrian los pecados : no se Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 71. pensaba que hombre los hubiese 2 Bk. v. ch. xxv. p. 361 ; Nadail- oido, ni a hombre se hubiesen lac, Prehistoric America, p. 438. dicho, sino a Dios. (Sahagun, t. 3 Herrera, dec. ii. lib. iii. cap. i. lib. i. cap. xii. p. 15 ; Acosta, bk. ccvi. fo. 195. v. ch. xxv. p. 361 ; Prescott, Con- 4 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xxv. p. 360. quest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 71. ) 5 Es de saber que los satrapas que 6 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xxv. p. 361. oian los pecados, tenian gran se- ' Herrera, dec. ii. lib. iii. cap. creto, que jamas decian lo que ha- ccvi. fo. 195. bian oido en la confesion, porque 486 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. obscurely signified by the words of the Mexican priest before hearing the confession. "O Lord," — thus he addressed the deity,— "thou art the parent and most ancient of all the gods. Behold this thy servant, who presenteth himself here before thee in affliction, with much sorrow and grief for having erred and been guilty of crimes worthy of death, for which he is greatly grieved and afflicted. Most merciful Lord, who art the acceptor and defender of all, receive the repentance of this thy creature and servant." Then he said to the penitent, " My son, thou hast come into the presence of the most merciful and beneficent God, thou hast come to declare thy hidden sins and crimes, thou hast come to open to him the secrets of thy heart. Lay open all without shame in the presence of our Lord, who is called Tezcatlipoca. It is certain thou art in his pres- ence, although thou art unworthy to see him, although he does not speak to thee, for he is invisible and impal- pable. Take care, then, how thou comest, what kind of heart thou bringest ; do not hesitate to reveal thy secret sins in his presence ; recount thy life, relate thy works in the same manner as thou hast committed thy excesses and offences ; lay open thy maladies in his presence, and manifest them, with contrition, to our Lord God, who is the acceptor of all, and who, with open arms, is ready to embrace thee and to receive thy confession. Take care thou dost not conceal anything through shame or heedlessness." The penitent then solemnly promised to declare the truth ; after which he proceeded to the confession of his sins. 1 " They hold opinion that it is a heinous sinne to conceale any thing in confession." 2 The Mexican priest gravely admonished his penitent to make his con- 1 Gleeson, vol. i. pp. 153, 154, 2 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xxv. p. 161. from Sahagun. CONFESSION IN MEXICO AND PERU. 487 fession sincere and entire. " O my brother," he told him, " thou hast thrown thyself down the banks of the river and among the snares and nets, whence, without aid, it is not possible that thou shouldst escape. The sins that thou hast confessed are not only snares, nets, and wells into which thou hast fallen, but they are also wild beasts, that kill and rend both body and soul. Peradventure hast thou hidden some one of thy sins, weighty, huge, filthy, unsavory ; hidden something now published in heaven, earth, and hell ; something that now stinks to the uttermost part of the world ? Tell wholly all that thou hast done, as one that flings him- self into a deep place, into a well without bottom." x Concealment of sins was guarded against in a more practical manner by the confessors of Peru. The pen- itent was to take along a ball of red clay and a large cactus thorn. After the confession was ended the priest pierced the ball with the tborn, and if it broke into two parts, instead of in three, the confession had been defective and was to be made over again. At other times " the Ychuyri or confessors discovered by lottes, or by the view of some beast-hides, if anything were concealed, and then punished the penitents with many blowes with a stone upon the shoulders untill they had revealed all." 2 After the penitent's complete avowal the Mexican confessor gravely continued : " O our most compassion- ate Lord, if this man have told all the truth, and have freed and untied himself from his sins and faults, he has received the pardon of them and of what they have incurred. This poor man is even as a man that has slipped and fallen in thy presence, offending thee in 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 222, from 2 Bastian, Bd. i. S. 481 ; Acosta, Sahagun, t. ii. lib. vi. bk. v. ch. xxv. p. 361 ; Gleeson, vol. i. p. 152. 488 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. divers ways, dirting himself also, and casting himself into a deep cavern and a bottomless well. He fell like a poor and lean man, and now he is grieved and dis- contented with all the past ; his heart and body are pained and ill at ease ; he is now filled with heaviness for having done what he did ; he is now wholly deter- mined never to offend thee again. In thy presence I speak, O Lord that knowest all things, that knowest also that this poor wretch did not sin with an entire liberty of free will ; he was pushed to it and inclined by the nature of the sign under which he was born. And since this is so, O our Lord most clement, pro- tector and helper of all ; since also this poor man has gravely offended thee, wilt thou not remove thine anger and thine indignation from him? Give him time, O Lord, favor and pardon him, inasmuch as he weeps, sighs, and sobs, looking before him on the evil he has done, and on that wherein he has offended thee. He is sorrowful, he sheds many tears, the sorrow of his sins afflicts his heart ; he is not sorry only, but terrified also at thoughts of them. This being so, it is also a just thing that thy fury and indignation against him be appeased, and that his sins be thrown on one side. Since thou art full of pity, O Lord, see good to pardon and to cleanse him ; grant him the pardon and remis- sion of his sins, a thing that descends from heaven as water very clear and very pure to wash away sins, with which thou washest away all the stain and impurity that sin causes in the soul. See good, O Lord, that this man go in peace, and command him in what he has to do ; let him go to do penance and weep over his sins." 1 After this absolution, in the Greek deprecatory form, the Mexican confessor went on to give some salutary 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 221, from Sahagun, t. ii. lib. vi. CONFESSION IN MEXICO AND PERU. 489 admonitions and to impose penances upon his penitent. " Thou hast snatched thyself from hell," he said, "and hast returned again to come to life in this world as one that comes from another. Now thou hast been born anew, thou hast begun to live anew, and our Lord God gives thee light and a new sun. Therefore I entreat thee to stand up and strengthen thyself, and to be no more henceforth as thou hast been in the past. Take to thyself a new heart and a new manner of living, and take good care not to turn again to thine old sins. To conclude, I tell thee to go and learn to sweep, and to get rid of the filth and sweepings of thy house, and to cleanse everything, thyself not the least, and" — to unite crime with penance — " seek out also a slave to immolate him before the god ; make a feast to the principal men and let them sing the praises of our Lord [in drunkenness] . It is, moreover, fit that thou shouldst do penance, working a year or more in the house of the god ; there thou shalt bleed thyself and prick thy body with maguey thorns ; and, as a penance for the adulteries and other vilenesses that thou hast committed, thou shalt, twice a day, pass osier twigs through holes pierced in thy body, once through thy tongue and once through thine ears. This penance shalt thou do, not alone for the carnalities above men- tioned, but also for the evil and injurious words with which thou hast insulted and affronted thy neighbors, as also for the ingratitude thou hast shown with refer- ence to the gifts bestowed on thee by our Lord, and _ for thine inhumanity towards thy neighbors. There remains nothing more to be said to thee. Go in peace, and entreat the god to aid thee to fulfil what thou art obliged to do." * Such is the strange medley of truly 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 224, from Sahagun, t. ii. lib. vi. 490 HISTOBY OP AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Christian virtues and heathenish abominations which pervades the Aztec liturgy, intimating sources widely different. The barbarous penances imposed by the Mexican confessors are in keeping with the cruelty of their religion. The human sacrifice was replaced in Peru by the oblation of some animal, and, as in Nicaragua, the chastisements inflicted on the confessing penitents by the Peruvian priests were usually in proportion to the gravity of their sins ; although it is observed by Acosta that " they received penaunce sometimes very sharpely, especially when the offender was a poore man and had nothing to give his confessor." 1 Such are the most interesting particulars of ancient American confession of sins, which, whether of Chris- tian origin or not, bear a striking similarity to the rites of the sacrament of penance. An old Indian told one of the first Christian missionaries of Chiapa that, according to an old tradition handed down from generation to generation, confession had been intro- duced among them by twenty strangers, who had, in olden times, come to their country. Fifteen of these were still known by name, and their leader was called Cukulcan ; they wore large mantles, sandals, and long beards, and went bare-headed. 2 This Cukulcan, probably the same as the Mexican Quetzalcoatl, was a religious reformer, who has after- wards been deified and worshipped ; likely a European .and possibly a Christian bishop, who has left behind a priesthood not only hearing confessions, but similar in many other respects to the Catholic clergy. 3 1 Bastian, Bd. i. S. 478 ; Herrera, lxvi. oh. cxxiii. p. 453, B. de las dec. ii. lib. iii. cap. ccvi. fo. 195 ; Casas. Acosta, bk. v. ch. xxv. p. 361. 3 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, 2 Coleccion de Docurnentos, t. vol. iii. p. 367. CHAPTER XX. PRIESTHOOD, RELIGIOUS ORDERS, MARRIAGES, EDUCA- TION, AND CHRISTIAN RITES IN ANCIENT MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND PERU. No one was admitted, among the Maya and the Nahua nations, to the sacred functions of religion but after a careful preparation and novitiate in religious schools and monasteries. Up to the time of com- mencing his novitiate and for four years after it was ended the candidate for the priesthood was supposed to have led a perfectly chaste life ; otherwise he was judged unworthy of being admitted into the Order. His only food during one year of probation was herbs, wild honey, and roasted maize ; his life passed in silence and retirement, and the monotony of his ex- istence was only relieved by waiting on the priests, taking care of the altars, sweeping the temple, and gathering wood for the fires. Young men of all classes of society had access to the priestly functions, although in some places the pontifical dignity was hereditary, or reserved for the king and his sons. 1 The Mexican priests, and especially their higher pontiffs, were ordained and consecrated with great solemnity, and anointed with a mixture of a fluid called, in the Totonac tongue, " ole" and of children's blood. 2 In many places the high-priests were called popes, " Papas," and wore a mitre not unlike that of 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 208, et 2 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xiv. p. 331 ; passim. Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 214 ; vol. iii. p. 433. 491 492 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. our bishops. 1 During religious ceremonies their cos- tumes were as gorgeous as the Christian paraphernalia, while on ordinary occasions they wore an ample black robe, rarely a white, reaching to the ground, their heads being covered with a hood that allowed their hair to fall over their shoulders. 2 It was the province of the Mexican and, it seems, also of the Peruvian priests to attend to all matters relating to religion and to the instruction of youth. Some took charge of the sacrifices, others were skilled in the art of divination, a number of them were in- trusted with the arrangement of the festivals and the care of the temple and sacred vessels, others applied themselves to the composition of hymns and attended to the singing and music. The priests, who were learned in science, superintended the schools and col- leges, made the calculations for the annual calendar, and fixed the days of religious feasts ; those who pos- sessed literary talent compiled historical works and collected material for the libraries. To each temple was attached a school and a monastery, which we might call a Chapter, the members of which enjoyed privileges similar to those of our canons. 3 One par- ticular duty of the Mexican clergy was to pray for, and to impart their blessing to, the people that were humbly bowing before them, 4 until the day would come that they should cut open their breasts and tear out their palpitating hearts. Each priest had his special duties, and each had his rank, particularly in our northern continent, in a well- defined ecclesiastical hierarchy. There were the Teo- 1 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xiv. p. 330 ; 2 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 213, quoting Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 213, 215 ; Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones. Coleccion de Documentos, t. lv. 3 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 203 ; Kast- p. 327 ; Duran, t. ii. lamina 11". ner, p. 92. * Duran, t. ii. lamina 11\ OTHER CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS. 493 huatzin, the Quetzalcoatk the Huitznahuac-Teohuatzin, the Huey-Teopixqui, and the Teopixqui or common priests. Besides these, who took rank according to the importance of their several duties, there was a crowd of other dignitaries succeeding each other in perfect order. In fact, if this co-ordination was not a remnant of a Christian institution, we might well subscribe to the quaint remark of Acosta, who says, " The devill, counterfeiting the use of the Church of God, hath placed in the order of his priests in Mexico, some greater or superiors, and some lesse ; the ones as acolites, the others as levites." 1 The priests of the civilized American aborigines were supported in the same manner as are those of the Christian religion. Confined to the performance of their religious duties, they were forbidden to engage in secular affairs ; but their living was provided for by " great offerings made unto them and the revenues and inheritance of their gods, which were many and also verie rich." The huacas or temples of Peru and the teocallis of Mexico had their endowments of lands and servants, both male and female. 2 The vast revenues needed for the support and repair of thousands of tem- ples in New Spain, and for the maintenance of the immense army of priests that officiated in them, were derived from various sources. The greatest part was supplied from large tracts of land, which were the property of the teocallis, and were held by vassals under certain conditions, or worked by slaves. Besides this, taxes of grain, especially first-fruits, were levied upon the communities and stored in granaries attached to the temples. The voluntary contributions — from a cake, 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 201 ; Acosta, 2 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xiv. p. 331 ; bk. v. ch. xiv. p. 330. Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 47 ; Payne, p. 597. 494 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. feather, or robe, to slaves or priceless gems, given in fulfilment of vows or at the numerous festivals — formed no unimportant income. Whatever surplus remained of the revenues after all expenses had been defrayed is said to have been devoted to the support of charitable institutions and the relief of the poor ; exactly as it was directed by canonical legislation and is practised yet by the Church in modern Europe. 1 A last and not the least remarkable analogy between the Catholic clergy and the ancient priesthood of New Spain consists in the fact that quite a number of the latter were, after voluntary choice, obliged to live a pure celibate life. We have noticed before 2 that the Nicaraguans would not confess their sins but to unmar- ried priests. The influence which the priests of Zapoteca were supposed to have with the gods, and the care which they took to keep their number constantly recruited with scions of the most illustrious families, gained them great authority among the people ; but what especially added to the credit of their profession was the strict propriety of their manners and the excessive rigor with which they guarded their chastity. In Miztecapan, the young clergy, after four years' apprenticeship, were allowed, almost as in the Greek Church, to marry, if they chose, and to perform priestly functions ; but, if they preferred a single life, they entered into one of the monasteries which were dependencies of the temples. Higher authority and ecclesiastical dignities were gen- erally granted to members of the latter class ; yet, if one of them violated his vow of chastity, he was basti- nadoed to death. The celibate priest who, in Mexico, committed the same offence, was banished, his house demolished, and his property confiscated. The virtue 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 430 ; Pres- 2 Supra, p. 485. cott, Conquest of Mexico, i. 74. OTHER CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS. 495 of the high-priests themselves was protected by the most stringent laws ; thus, at Ichatlan, should the pontiff forget the duties of celibacy, he was cut in pieces, and his bloody limbs were given as a warning to his suc- cessor. 1 The pontifical dignity being hereditary in Yopaa of Zapoteca, the difficulty arising from strict continence was bridged over by introducing, once a year, a bright virgin to the venerable high-priest, who was allowed to get drunk on the occasion. 2 Positive statements, furthermore, confirm the infer- ence which we might draw from the severity of the laws, — namely, that the observance of pontifical or priestly continence was far below perfection among the civilized aborigines of our continent. 3 It seems, however, that perpetual chastity was more faithfully observed in the monasteries and convents of Mexico and of Peru. There existed, indeed, in both countries, such reli- gious institutions, both for males and for females, as closely resembled the monastic Orders of the Church, having the three evangelical counsels as their principal features. We know that in Peru there were religious commu- nities for men, although perhaps not quite distinct from the general priesthood ; and, says Clavigero, 4 different Orders for men and for women dedicated themselves in Mexico to the worship of some particular gods. Some lived in community, others had a superior in their dis- trict and assembled in a house, at sunset, to dance and sing the praises of their god. 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 208, 212, tenian por honrosa costumbre, que 469 ; vol. iii. p. 433. ellos las quitassen la virginidad." 2 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 529 ; Ban- i History of Mexico, vol. i. p. croft, vol. ii. p. 143. 277, ap. Gleeson, vol. i. p. 144. 3 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 790 : " Porque 496 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. We have just noticed 1 that the younger clergymen, who chose not to marry, entered a monastery ; and while performing their regular duties, they increased the austerity of their life. The king or the nobles, each in his own territory, provided for their wants ; and certain women, sworn to chastity, prepared their food. They never left their house, except on special occasions, — to assist at some feast, to play at ball in the court of their sovereign lord, to go on a pilgrimage for the ac- complishment of a vow made by the king or by them- selves, or to take their place at the head of the army, which, on certain occasions, they commanded. 2 Of the several religious Orders proper, the most re- nowned for its sanctity was that of the " Tlamacaxqui," consecrated to the service of Quetzalcoatl, to whom is referred the institution of ecclesiastical communities in Mexico. 3 The superior of this Order, who was called after the god, and whom all were strictly to obey, never deigned to issue from his seclusion except to confer with the king. Its members led a very ascetic life, living on coarse fare, dressing in simple black robes, and performing all manner of hard work. They bathed at midnight and kept watch until an hour or two before dawn, singing hymns to Quetzalcoatl. On occasions some of them retired into the desert to lead a life of prayer and penance in solitude. 4 There existed among the Totonacs a peculiar kind of aged monks, devoted to their goddess Centeotl. They led a very austere and retired life, and their character was, according to the Totonac standard, irreproachable. None but men over sixty years of age, who were wid- 1 Supra, p. 494. 4 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 436 ; Kast- 2 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 208. ner, p. 92. 8 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 367. OTHER CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS. 497 owers, of virtuous life, and estranged from the society of women, were admitted into the Order. Their num- ber was fixed, and when one of them died another was received in his stead. They were so highly respected that not only were they consulted by the common peo- ple, but also by the great nobles and the high-priest himself. They listened to those who asked their ad- vice, sitting on their heels, with their eyes fixed upon the ground; and their answers were received as ora- cles even by the kings of Mexico. They were habitu- ally employed in making historical paintings, which they gave to the high-priest, that he might exhibit and explain them to the people. 1 Acosta gives the description of another religious in- stitution, quite different from the foregoing in several respects : " Within the circuit of the great temple of the city of Mexico were two monasteries, one of vir- gins, the other of young cloistered men of eighteene or twenty years of age, which they called religious. They weare shaved crownes, as the friars in these partes, their haire a little longer, which fell to the middest of their eare, except the hinder part of the head, which they let growe the breadth of foure fingers downe to their shoulders, and which they tied uppe in tresses. These young men, that served in the temple of Vitzlipultzli, lived poorely and chastely, and did the office of Levites, ministering to the priests and chiefe of the temple their incense, lights, and garments ; they swept and made cleane the holy places, bringing wood for a continual fire to the hearth of their god, which was like a lampe that stille burnt before the altar of their idoll. Besides these young men, there were other little boys, as nov- ices, that served for manual uses, as to deck the temple 1 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 144, quoting vol. iii. p. 437, quoting Las Casas Clavigero ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 214 ; and Mendieta. I.— 32 498 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. with boughs, roses, and reeds, give the priests water to wash with, give them their rasors to sacrifice, and goe with such as begged alms, to carry it. All these had their superiors ; they lived so honestly, as when they came in publike where there were young women, they carried their heads very lowe, with their eyes to the ground, not daring to behold them. They had linnen garments, and it was lawful for them to goe into the city, foure or six together, to aske alms in all quarters, and when they gave them none it was lawful to goe into the corne fields and gather the eares of corne or clusters of mays, which they most needed, the maister not daring to speake nor hinder them. They had this liberty be- cause they lived poorely, and had no other revenues but almes." 1 They also practised bloody penances ; but, while some of them vowed their whole lives to the service of the gods, nearly all returned to the gay world after one year's experience of asceticism. 2 As just observed, there was also a convent of young maidens attached to the great temple of Mexico, and the number of female religious communities in the Aztec empire was not less than that of monastic institu- tions for men. The convents were conducted on the general plan of the monasteries, and the religieuses were equally re- markable for the purity and austerity of their lives. They took vows either for life or only for a time. Upon entering the convent each girl had her hair cut short. They all lived in silence and retirement, under strict obedience to their superiors, without having any com- munication with men or relatives. Not even their fathers or mothers were admitted to visit them. Some were required to rise about two hours before midnight, 1 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xv. p. 336. 2 Cf. Duran, t. ii. pp. 86, 88. OTHER CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS. 499 others at midnight, and others yet at daybreak, to stir up and keep the fire burning and to offer incense to the idols. In this function they assembled with the priests, yet separated from them, the men form- ing one wing and the women the other, both under the inspection of their superiors, who prevented any disorder, and all walking with eyes modestly bent upon the ground and without daring to cast a glance to one side or to the other. Every morning they prepared the offering of provisions, which was presented to the idols and, after sacrifice, consumed by the priests. The nuns themselves fasted strictly, first breaking their fast at noon, and taking but a scanty meal in the evening. Vegetables were their only food, except on feast days, when they were permitted to taste meat. Their time not occupied in religious duties was employed in spin- ning and weaving beautiful cloths for the dress of the idols, and in decorating the sanctuaries. Nothing was more zealously attended to than the chastity of these virgins ; the least impropriety was un- pardonable, and death was the penalty of the violation of their vow ; and, when the trespass remained an en- tire secret, the nun endeavored to appease the anger of the gods by fasting more strictly and living in greater austerity, for she dreaded that, in punishment of her crime, her flesh would rot. 1 Nicolas Herborn further learned the following de- tails from the Franciscan who, in the year 1532, had been sent from New Spain to the General Chapter of Toulouse : "There were," he says, "before the advent of our missionary brothers, a great number of convents > Acosta, bk. v. ch. xv. ; Clavi- vera de Novis Insulis, from MS. gero, t. ii. p. 42 ; Bancroft, vol. ii. Cod. 1374 of the Treves City Li- pp. 205, 206 ; vol. iii. p. 435 ; Glee- brary, ante finem. son, vol. i. pp. 145, 146; Relatio 500 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. in the city of Tumbez, Peru, into which no man, nor even the father or the mother of a nun, was allowed to enter. Only two old men were there as directors, and none but pure virgins were sent to the community. " They had in their convent a gold statue five cubits high, representing a young maid with a babe in her arms ; they gave her the name of Merea and offered her incense. If they happened to suffer with sore feet or hands, they invoked her and presented her with a hand or a foot of gold, thus eventually recovering health again !" x In Yucatan existed an Order of vestals, all the mem- bers of which entered of their own free will, and gen- erally enrolled themselves for a certain length of time. Some, however, remained forever unmarried in the ser- vice of the temple, and were apotheosized. Their duty was to tend the sacred fire and to keep strictly chaste. Those who broke their vows were shot to death. 2 Landa tells us that the Chichen Itza pontiff-kings lived in a state of strict celibacy ; and Diaz relates that a tower was pointed out to him on the coast of Yuca- tan which was occupied by women who had dedicated themselves to a single life. 3 In Peru there likewise were a great number of 1 MS. Cod. No. 1374 of the City Li- brachiisque infantulum gestans ; et brary of Treves : Nicolaus Herborn, hanc mereain appellavere, huic Provincialis Min. Observ., Relatio thura iectabantur, hanc colebant; vera de Novis Insulis, ante fineni : hanc interpellare solite, si quando "Erant ante fidem Christi predica- vel pes vel manus indoluit, et con- tain in ea urbe — Tumbes provincie ferebant aureum pedem aut certe parichen — rnulta virginum monas- auream rnanum imagini, et ita de- teria, ad que nemo virorum, imo muni consequebantur sanitatem." nee pater aut mater, audebat in- 2 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 473, quoting trare. Soli duo senes illis prefecti several authors ; Bastian, Bd. ii. S. fuerunt, nulleque nisi virgines pure 373. ad earum mittebantur consortium. s Diaz, Itineraire, in Ternaux- Erat illis imago aurea quinque cu- Compans, serie i. t. x. p. 13, ap. bitorum, virginis flguram preferens Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 672. OTHER CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS. 501 convents, one at least in every province ; but the most renowned of all was that of Cuzco, which contained no less than fifteen hundred inmates, all of whom belonged to the families of the Incas and of the highest nobility. The Peruvian nuns were strictly cloistered, and had, for special duty, to keep the sacred fires constantly burning in honor of the sun. Each community, living under one superior or " Appopanaca," was divided into two classes of devotees, — the older, who were bound to perpetual continence and called Mamaconas ; and the younger elect, or " Acclas," who were, for the present, living under the severest laws of chastity, but whose future state of life was yet quite undecided. They gen- erally entered the convent at the age of eight years. 1 " They took them from thence," says Acosta, " being above the fourteene, sending them to the court with sureguards. Whereof some were appointed to serve the Guacas or sanctuaries, keeping their virginities forever ; some others were for the ordinary sacrifices they made for the health, death, or warres of the Ynca ; and the rest served for wives and concubines to the Ynca and unto other his kinsfolkes and captaines, unto whom hee gave them, which was a great and honorable recom- pense. This distribution was made every year. " These monasteries possessed rents and revenues for the maintenance of these virgins, which were in great numbers. " It was not lawful for any father to refuse his daugh- ters when the governor or Appopanaca required them for the service of these monasteries. Yea, many fathers did willingly offer their daughters, supposing it was a great merit to be sacrificed for the Ynca. 1 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xv. p. 332 ; i. p. 106 ; Prescott, Conquest of Garcilasso de la Vega, Comenta- Peru, vol. i. p. 109, seq. ; Kastner, rios, lib. ii. cap. ix. ; lib. iv. cap. p. 94 ; Gleeson, vol. i. p. 144. 502 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. " If any of these Mamaconas or older nuns, or of the Acclas or younger girls, were found to have trespassed against their honour, it was an inevitable chastisement to bury them alive or to put them to death by some other kind of cruell torment," * unless they could swear that they had pleased the great Peruvian god himself, the sun. 2 We must finally remark that, besides the cloistered nuns, there were quite a number of young Peruvian women who took the vow of perpetual virginity, al- though living in the midst of married people, as the pious maids among the Christians. The Inca Gar- cilasso de la Vega, who had an old aunt leading such a manner of life, assures us that the laws of the country effectually protected their virtue, and that they were highly respected by the whole community. 3 As in Mexico, so in Peru, was it not women only but some men also that were leading a monastic life. Here also were hermits meditating in solitary places, who appear to have been under a rule, with an abbott called " Tucricac," and younger men, named " Hua- mac," going through their novitiate. These " Huan- caquilli" or hermits took vows of chastity, obedience, poverty, and penance.* As the consecrated virgins, they enjoyed the highest confidence and esteem of their countrymen. Nor should we wonder at this, nor doubt the state- ment of the native historian of Peru, when we see an- gelic purity commanding respect and veneration even among the most depraved classes of society ; but we may well marvel at meeting, among the lewd and cruel 1 Acosta, bk. v. ch. xv. p. 332. s Comentarios, cap. vii. p. 112. 2 Bastian, Bd. i. S. 452, quoting * Winsor, vol. i. p. 240, n. 1. Gomara: "Que la emprefio Pa- chacamac, que es el Sol." OTHER CHRISTIAN SACRA.MENTS AND INSTITUTIONS. 503 aborigines of both American continents, with priestly and monastic institutions, which, although far inferior to those of Christianity in the observance of the most difficult of virtues, still imitated and, in particular cases, may have equalled the latter in the practice of heavenly counsels, which Christ himself would not impose upon any of his disciples. It is a matter of high interest for students to find out the origin of celibacy and virginity among the Ameri- can civilized natives ; but our inquiries did not afford us all the information desired in regard to our southern continent. The traditions of the Mexicans and of the neighboiv ing nations uniformly point to some mysterious foreign apostle, as to the teacher and model of these anoma- lous features of their religious system. It may suffice for the present to notice the one of Zapoteca, accord- ing to which the original inhabitants of that region were the disciples and followers of a stranger, a white- skinned personage named Wixipecocha. A vague legend relates that he came by sea, bearing a cross in his hand, and debarked in the neighborhood of Tehuantepec. He is described as a man of a vener- able aspect, having a bushy, white beard, dressed in a long robe and a cloak, and wearing on his head a covering shaped like a monk's cowl. Wixipecocha taught his disciples to deny themselves the vanities of this world, to mortify the flesh through penance and fasting, and to abstain from all sensual pleasures. Adding example to precept, he utterly abjured female society, and suffered no woman to approach him, ex- cept in the act of auricular confession, which formed part of his doctrine. This extraordinary conduct caused him to be much respected, especially as it was a wonder unheard of among these people, that a man 504 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. could pass his life in celibacy. 1 Let it be added that the Toltec Quetzalcoatl, who was most probably the same personage as the Zapotecan Wixipecocha, was, like him, austere in manner, good and gentle, and withal most chaste, not marrying, but avoiding the company of women. He also introduced many new religious ordi- nances, and, according to some authorities, the estab- lishment of monasteries and nunneries. 2 We may readily presume that the white foreign apostle, although leading a virginal life himself, did not neglect publishing the sacred rites which are to consecrate the more common condition of life, — the conjugal union. If he was, as many historians admit, a Christian missionary of the Toltec nation, it would be evident that the Aztecs, the barbarous conquerors of the former, afterwards abolished, to a great extent, both the ceremonies that sanctify matrimony and the holy laws that govern it. We could, indeed, discover but few or no analogies between a Christian marriage and an Aztec wedding. The very essentials of the sacred alliance were almost everywhere, in the Mexican empire, destroyed by law- ful polygamy and concubinage ; and the bond of mat- rimony, although generally declared indissoluble, was no strict impediment to divorces and adulterous unions. 3 It may, however, be observed that marriages between blood relations or those descended from a common an- cestor were not allowed among the Nahua nations, and the Mayas of Central America had similar impediments of matrimony. Among the Pipiles of Salvador, an an- cestral tree, with seven main branches, denoting degrees of kindred, was painted upon cloth ; and within these seven branches or degrees none was allowed to marry, 1 H. H. Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 209, 2 Ibid., vol. v. p. 258. 210. 3 Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 263, 671, alibi. OTHER CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS. 505 except as a recompense for some great political or war- like service rendered. Within the fourth degree of con- sanguinity no one, under any pretext, could marry. In Yucatan there was a peculiar prejudice against a man marrying a woman who bore the same name as himself, and so far was this fancy carried, that he who did not submit to it was looked upon as a renegade and an outcast. Neither could a man marry there the sister of his deceased wife, his step-mother, or his mother's sister ; but with all other relatives on the maternal side marriage was lawful. 1 It rarely happened that a marriage took place with- out the sanction of parents and relatives, and he who married without such consent had to undergo penance, and was looked upon as ungrateful and ill bred. The care and trouble of finding a bride for the young man generally devolved upon his parents, or, in some places, upon his priest. It was also the priest's duty to direct the young couple in their preparation for the solemn event, by prescribing to them the observance of fasts and prayers ; and the most important part of the cere- mony was performed by him, as by the authorized rep- resentative of religion, which was always inseparable from the marriage contract among all civilized nations of the earth. The Mexican priest made a long address to the betrothed couple, in which he defined the duties of the conjugal state, and pointed out to tbem the obe- dience a wife should observe towards her husband, and the care and attention the latter should give to her, and how he was bound to maintain and support her and the children they might raise. The bridegroom was en- joined to bring up and educate those children near him, teaching all according to their abilities to become use- 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 665, ref . to Herrera, Hist. Gen. , dec. iv. lib. viii. cap. x., and others. 506 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ful members of society, and forming them to habits of industry and religion. A wife's duties, he said, were to labor and aid her husband in obtaining sustenance for their family. Both were exhorted to be faithful to each other, to maintain peace and harmony between themselves, to overlook each other's failings, and to help each other, ever bearing in mind that they were to be united for life by a tie which only death could sever. 1 Polygamy was, however, permitted among the Mexi- cans, though chiefly confined, probably, to the wealth- iest classes, — a decline from better times, in which were written the formal advices of a father to his son, wherein it is said, " Notice, my son, what I say to you ; how the world is now used to engender and to multiply, and, because of this generation and multi- plication, God has ordained that one woman should have one man, and one man should have one woman." 2 "The Mexicaines were married by the handes of their priestes in this sort : The bridegroome and the bride stood together before the priest, who tooke them by the hands, asking them if they would marrie ; then, having understood their willes, he tooke a corner of the vaile wherewith the woman had her head covered, and a corner of the man's gowne, the which he tied together on a knot; and so led them thus tied to the bride- groomes house, where there was a harth kindled ; and then he caused the wife to go seven times about the harth, and so the married couple sate downe together, and thus was the marriage contracted." 3 From what has been said before, it can easily be imagined that the lewd "Mexicaines freely indulged, 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 251, 256, Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. 257, 669, alibi. i. p. 154 and n. 39, ibid. 2 Sahagun, lib. vi. cap. xxi., ap. s Acosta, bk. v. ch. xxvii. p. 370. OTHER CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS. 507 on such occasions, in feasting, dancing, and drinking." No wonder if divorces were frequent. Of the last of the Christian sacraments, of Extreme Unction, we found no trace among the American abo- rigines ; nor can a religion, idolatry, that murdered so many of its votaries, be expected to afford sacred means for alleviating the pains and pangs of death. Death, on the contrary, and consequent burials were often, in Mexico, as in many other infidel countries, the occasion of horrible cruelties. It is but too well known, for the disgrace of civiliza- tion without Christianity, that in ancient Mexico, Peru, Cundinamarca, as in Scythia and China, and until lately, under Protestant England's protection, in some parts of East India, wives and concubines, servants, ministers and minstrels of kings and grandees were slain at their graves, buried alive, or burnt together with the corpses of their former masters. 1 As a diversion from those inhuman scenes we may be allowed to relate a story told by the reliable Acosta. 2 " A Portugall, who, being captive among the barbarians, had beene hurt with a dart, so as he lost one eye ; and as they would have sacrificed him to accompany a nobleman that was dead, he said unto them that those that were in the other life would make small account of the dead if they gave him a blind man for a com- panion, and that it were better to give him an attend- ant that had both his eyes. The reason being found good by the barbarians they let him go." Diabolical hatred, aiming at the destruction of God's beloved creature, had stimulated the Aztecs to dispose by cremation of the greater number of their corpses, 1 Kastner, pp. 105-107 ; Acosta, 2 Ch. vii. p. 314. ch. viii. ; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 610 ; Aa. passim . 508 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. but it appears that their predecessors, the Toltecs, as also the Peruvians, showed greater respect to the relics of their deceased relatives, by giving them a decent burial. 1 A remnant of better information in Mexico was that the disposal of dead bodies was considered as a sacred function, and therefore confided to the priests, who always assisted with religious ceremonies, either at a dead man's last resting-place or at his gloomy funeral pyre, and sang the funeral offices. " At these mortua- ries they did eate and drinke ; and if it were a person of quality, they gave apparell to all such as came to the interrement. When any one dyed, they layd him open in a chamber, untill that all his kinsfolkes and friendes were come, who brought presents to the dead, and sa- luted him as if he were living. The obsequies con- tinued tenne days, with songs and plaints and lamenta- tions, and the priests carried away the dead with so many ceremonies, and in so great number, as they coulde scarce accoumpt them. To the captaines and noble- men they gave trophees and marks of honour according to their enterprises and valor imployed in the warres and governments : for this effect they had armes and particular blasons. They carried these markes and blasons to the place where he desired to be buried or burnt, marching before the body and accompanying it, as it were, in procession, where the priests and officers of the temple went with divers furnitures and orna- ments ; some casting incense, others singing and sound- ing mournefull flutes and drummes." 2 The Mexicans also sprinkled the face of the corpse with water. 3 Twenty days after the burial further offerings were made, together with a sacrifice of four or five slaves ; on 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 609 ; Acosta, 3 Short, p. 463, ret to Kings- ch. viii. ; alii. borough, Mex. Antiq., t. viii. p. 2 Acosta, ch. viii. 248. OTHER CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS. 509 the fortieth day two or three more victims were slain ; on the sixtieth, one or two ; and the final immolation, consisting of ten or twelve slaves, took place at the end of eighty days, and put an end to the mourning. 1 Due abstraction being made of the inhuman sacri- fices that accompanied Mexican burials, we leave it to the informed reader, who has ever witnessed the cus- toms of rich people's funerals in Europe, to notice the analogies existing between the funeral rites of civilized American aborigines a,nd the religious ceremonies with which Christians were of old, and are yet, laid away in their blessed dormitories. Nor could we help observing several more curious similarities between the customs and usages of the Nahua, Maya, and Peruvian nations and those of Christian peoples in religious matters, which, however, may seem to be of less importance. Education was of a religious character wherever it existed in ancient America. In the empire of Mexico the schools were annexed to the temples, and the in- struction of the young of both sexes was a monopoly in the hands of the priests. Boys were generally sent to the colleges between the ages of six and nine years, and were placed in charge of priests specially appointed for that purpose, who instructed them in the branches most suitable to their future calling. All were in- structed in religion, and particular attention was given to good behavior and morals. 2 The daughters of lords and princes were educated in large buildings attached to the principal sanctuaries. They were presided over by vestal priestesses brought up in the temple, who watched with great vigilance over those committed to their care. Day and night the 1 H. H. Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 613. 2 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 242 ; Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 148. 510 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. exterior of trie building was strictly guarded by old men, and the maidens could not even leave their apart- ments without a guard. If any one broke this rule and went out alone, her feet were pricked with thorns till the blood flowed. When they went out, it was to- gether with, and watched over by, the matrons. They had to sweep the precincts of the temple occupied by them, and to attend to the sacred fire ; they were taught the tenets of their religion, and shown how to draw blood from their bodies when offering sacrifice to the gods ; they learned to make feather-work, to spin, to weave mantles, and to be skilful and diligent in all household affairs. They generally remained until taken away by their parents to be married. 1 In Guatemala the youths assisted the priests in their duties, and received, in turn, an education suited to their condition in society. There were schools in every principal town, and the highest of these was a seminary in which were maintained seventy masters, and from five to six thousand children were educated ' and provided for at the expense of the royal treasury, — a regular university. Here, also, girls were placed in convents, under the superintendence of nuns, until about to be married. 2 We have already intimated that education was of a similar character in Peru. As innocence had its houses of protection, so also had guilt, in certain countries, its places of refuge. The Jewish cities of refuge and the Christian churches of old were represented in California by the " vanqueech" or temple-yard, to which any criminal might flee, and then return among his own without any further fear of punishment. 3 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 245 ; Pres- 2 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 663. cott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 3 Gleeson, vol. i. p. 123 ; Ban- 148. croft, vol. iii. p. 167 ; supra, p. 421. OTHER CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS. 511 At their accession to the throne the kings of Mexico were sprinkled with holy water, anointed with a black ointment, and crowned amid solemn religious cere- monies, like Christian kings. 1 The king received holy water to drink, and so also his captains whenever they would start on the war- path. Holy water was likewise used in several other religious rites, and was, therefore, reverently kept under the altar of the temple. 2 Exorcisms or the casting out of devils were prac- tised not only by the civilized but also by the most barbarous American aborigines, especially in cases of sickness, as attested by ancient historians and witnessed even until this day. A new house could not be occupied in Central America until it had been purged of the evil spirit, and formally blessed with religious rites. 3 The eves and vigils of great feasts were strictly observed with fasts and other works of penance by the civilized nations of both the northern and the southern continent. In Mexico, at the festival in honor of " Toci," Mother of the gods, the women delivered during the year un- derwent a purification and presented their children to the idols. In the evening a signal was sounded from the temple, and the mothers, attired in their best, ac- companied by friends and preceded by torch-bearers and servants carrying the babes, made the tour of the town or quarter. They stopped at every temple to leave an offering and a lighted torch for the presiding goddess. At the temple of Toci greater offerings were made, and 1 Several ancient authors, — Acos- dieta, t. ii. cap. 19, p. 109 ; Bastian, ta, Torquemada, Sahagun, etc., Bd. i. S. 459, ref. to Torquemada. quoted by Bancroft, vol. ii. pp. 145- 3 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 785, ref. to 147 ; Fiske, vol. i. p. 115. Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc, p. 184. 2 Gaffarel, t. i. p. 438, ref. to Men- 512 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. here the priests performed the ceremony of purification by pronouncing certain prayers over the women. 1 Religious processions were of frequent occurrence, among the Aztecs particularly. At some places they were almost continual, if, at least, we can give that name to the constant influx of strangers, that came from every direction to worship the popular gods of these holy cities. Pilgrimages, a practice of piety already known to the Jews and so common in Christianity from its very beginning, were often made to numerous sanctuaries of ancient America. The city of Cholula, which had been the principal see of the great apostle and god Quetzalcoatl, continued until the time of the Spanish discovery to be the centre of concourse for Mexican pilgrims. 2 The number of these was so great at the time of the conquest as to give an air of mendicity to the motley population of the city. ISTor was Cholula the resort only of the indigent devotees. Many of the kindred races had temples of their own in that city, in the same manner as several Christian nations have in Rome ; and each temple was provided with its own peculiar ministers for the service of the deity to which it was consecrated. In no other place was there such a concourse of priests, so many processions, or such a pomp of ceremonial, of sacrifice, and of religious fes- tivities. Cholula was to the Nahuatlacs what Mecca is to the Mohammedans or Jerusalem to the Christians, — the Holy City of Anahuac. The religious rites were not always performed, however, in the pure spirit origi- nally prescribed by its tutelary deity, whose altars, as well as those of the Aztec gods, were often stained with human blood. 3 ' Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 279. 3 Presoott, Conquest of Mexico, a Ibid., vol. v. p. 496. vol. ii. p. 8. OTHER CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS. 513 Izamal, the sacred sources of Chichen Itza, on the continent, and the temple of Ahulneb, on Cozumel Island, were the most frequented places of pilgrimage in Yucatan. Public roads led to them from all the principal cities of the peninsula. 1 Zapoteca's most visited shrine was the city of Zeetopaa ; 2 and Pizarro found in the temples of the island La Plata, near Puerto- Viejo, a number of pieces of silver artistically worked into the shape of hands, heads, and other members of the human body, evidently left there as votive offerings by pious visitors who had obtained either real or imaginary cures. 8 In Peru the pious practice of pilgrimages was as common as it was in the northern civilized countries. The great temple of Pachacamac or god-creator, twenty miles south of Lima, was visited by thousands of trav- ellers, and the number of pilgrims flocking to the holy rock of his representative, the Sun, on the island Titicaca, was so great that it had been found necessary to erect extensive buildings for their accommodation. 4 " The oracles delivered from the dark and mysterious shrine of Pachacamac," says Prescott, " were held in no less repute among the natives of Peru than the oracles of Delphi obtained among the Greeks. Pil- grimages were made to the hallowed spot from the most distant provinces, and the city of Pachacamac had become among the Peruvians what Cholula was among the people of Anahuac. The shrine of the ancient deity, of the Creator of the world, enriched by the tributes of the pilgrims, had become one of the most opulent in the land ; and Atahuallpa, anxious to 1 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 736, n. 1, ' Bastian, Bd. i. S. 465 ; cf. supra, ref. to Landa and Herrera; Ban- p. 500. croft, vol. iii. p. 466 ; vol. v. p. 618. * Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. 2 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 532. i. pp. 16, 91, 101 ; Cronau, S. 85. I.— 33 514 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. collect his ransom as speedily as possible, urged Pizarro to send a detachment in that direction to secure the treasures before they could be secreted by the priests of the temple." 1 The number and variety of annual festivals, both in ancient Mexico and Peru, present certain analogies with the Christian ecclesiastical calendar, but one es- pecially of their religious feasts forcibly reminds us of a solemn observance of our own religion, — that, namely, of the New Fire. On Good Friday all lights are extinguished in our churches to recall to our minds the death of our Saviour, the Light of the world, and, on the day following, the grand anniversary of Christ's resurrection is ushered in by the pious rite of the striking and blessing of the new fire, from which all candles and lamps are lighted again. This symbolical ceremony, introduced in the seventh century, is uni- versally observed in the Church since the middle of the eighth. 2 The festival of the New Fire observed by the civil- ized nations of ancient America, though differing in important details, was of an analogous import. The Mexicans believed that the world had been destroyed at four successive epochs, and expected an- other catastrophe, as destructive as the preceding, to take place at the close of a cycle of fifty- two years. Towards the end of each such period they abandoned themselves to fear and despair ; the holy fires were suffered to go out in the temples, and none were lighted in their dwellings. On the evening of the last, " un- lucky," day of the year a procession of priests moved from the capital towards a lofty mountain about two leagues distant. On reaching the summit, they stood 1 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. * Kozma de Papi, p. 361, n. 1. i. p. 443. OTHER CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS. 515 still until the constellation of the Pleiades approached the zenith. Then they kindled new fire by the friction of sticks placed on the breast of a noble human victim just slain. The flame was soon communicated to a funeral pile, on which the body of the slaughtered man was thrown. As the light streamed up towards heaven, shouts of joy and triumph burst forth from the countless multitudes which covered the hills, the terraces of the temples, and the house-tops, with eyes anxiously bent on the mount of sacrifice. Couriers, with torches lighted at the blazing beacon, rapidly bore them over every part of the country, and the cheering element was seen brightening on altar and hearth-stone for the circuit of many a league, long before the rising sun gave assurance that a new cycle had commenced its march and that the laws of nature were not to be reversed for the Aztecs. The following thirteen days were given up to ribald festivities. 1 Perhaps the most magnificent of all the national solemnities in Peru was the feast of Raymi, held at the summer solstice, when the sun, having receded to the southern extremity of his course, retraced his path, as if to gladden the hearts of his chosen people with his presence. On this occasion a fire was kindled by means of a concave mirror of polished metal, which, collecting the rays of the sun into a focus upon a quantity of dry cotton, speedily set it on fire. When the sky was over- cast, and the face of the good deity was hidden from his worshippers, — which was esteemed a bad omen, — fire was obtained by means of friction. The new sacred flame was intrusted to the care of the Virgins of the sun, and if, by any neglect, it was suffered to go out in the course of the year, the event was regarded as a 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 128, seq. 516 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. calamity that boded some strange disaster to the mon- archy. 1 In times of pestilence and of other public afflictions not only were impious sacrifices offered to the Mexican deities, but all the people flocked to the temples to im- plore also by fervent supplications the mercy of the sanguinary gods. Nor was any national matter of importance decided upon before the light and advice of the idols had been implored. It was the duty of the officiating priest, on all such occasions, to make or recite a beautiful long prayer ; and the whole meeting cordially answered " Mayiuh," so be it, amen. 2 1 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. tian, Bd. ii. S. 736, from Hen-era ; i. pp. 103, 106. Sahagun, t. i. p. xxvii. 2 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 209 ; Bas- CHAPTEE XXI. WAS AMERICA CHRISTIANIZED FROM ASIA? No modern student of American antiquity fails to notice the close and striking resemblances between several leading particulars of Christian faith, morals, and ceremonies and those of ancient American religions. Sahagun, who wrote in Mexico about the middle of the sixteenth century, and took such great pains to be cor- rectly informed in regard to all religious rites of our aborigines, states already that all the Spanish mission- aries who wrote in America before him had pointed out the numerous vestiges of Christianity to be found even among the savage Indian tribes. 1 The Peruvian historian, Garcilasso de la Vega, although opposed to the opinion of his contemporaries, cannot help relating several religious performances which can hardly be any- thing but Christian, and which he indirectly admits to be such. 2 Icazbalceta, the native Mexican writer, assures us that many regulations, preserved by immemorial tradition among his people, were so much like those proclaimed by the Spanish missionaries, that, to follow the latter, there was no need of receding from what was admitted long before. 3 H. H. Bancroft, almost as rich as Lord Kingsborough in his information regarding our aborigines, could not well avoid the acknowledgment that many rites and ceremonies were found to exist among the civilized nations of America, which were 1 Dr. de Mier, ap. Sahagun, p. v. 3 Giov. di Zumarraga, Primo Ves- 2 Comentarios, lib. ii. cap. vi. p. covo di Messico, carta 107. 40. .517 518 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. very similar to certain ordinances observed by Jews and Christians in the Old World. But, true to the credu- lous spirit of infidelity, he sees no good reason to sup- pose the many curious similarities to be anything else but fortuitous coincidences. Coincidences, so many, so striking, in faith, in morals, and liturgy ! Coincidences, indeed, little short of wonders ! 1 Nadaillac 2 explains these wonderful coincidences by asserting that " the Christian myths of the Indians ap- pear to have their root in the natural tendencies of the human mind in its evolution from a savage state ;" and we would gladly admit the explanation, how vague and complicated soever it may be, if it were not for the par- tiality of the novel law of evolution in favoring the civ- ilized Americans only, and for its evident uselessness ever since the beginning of historic times. And, how do natural tendencies develop, for example, the practice of auricular confession ? Nadaillac, however, redeems himself by rejecting an- other interpretation of the remarkable similarities, when he says that "no dissemination of merely Christian ideas since the conquest is sufficient to account for the Indian myths." f It is not possible, indeed, that, as some anti- Catholic writers with great simplicity pretend, the Christian missionaries of all parts of Europe should have conspired to make the clever Mexicans and Peru- vians believe that the new religion which they were preaching was the religion of their forefathers and their own ; to make them believe that the new doctrines of Christianity were their own venerable traditions ; or that it was the new-comers who had framed the religious calendars of their ancestors, and other inconsistencies of the same character. Nay, it is well established that, 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 439. 3 Ibid. 2 Prehistoric America, p. 531. WAS AMERICA CHRISTIANIZED FROM ASIA? 519 on the contrary, many a priest, during the first years after the latest discovery of America, was on his guard against imposition from the natives, when these would tell him that they knew, long before, the doctrines and practices preached to them of late by the foreign religious teachers. One such interesting instance is related by Father Leclercq * in regard to the worship of the cross which he found established among the natives of Gaspesia. " Here," he says, " are a few short reasons which com- pel me to believe that the veneration of the cross had commenced among these barbarians before the first arrival of the French in their country. One day I wanted them to acknowledge that other missionaries before me had taught them to reverence the cross. ' What !' the chief interposed, ' thou art a patriarch ; thou wantest us to believe all thou sayest, and thou re- fusest to admit what we affirm ; thou art not forty snows old yet, and dwellest only two years among the savages, and thou pretendest to know our maxims and traditions better than our forefathers who taught them to us ! Dost thou not meet every day the old man Quiondo, who is more than a hundred and twenty snows of age, and has seen the first ship landing in this country ? He often told thee that the Miramichi savages did not receive from the French the use of the cross, and that what he knows of it himself he has heard it from his parents, who lived as long, at least, as himself. Thou seest, therefore, that we received the cross long before the French sailed to our shores. But shouldst thou hesitate to give in for that reason, here is another which cannot fail to convince thee of the truth. Thou art intelligent, since thou art a patriarch and speakest 1 Pp. 274, 275. See Document XIV. 520 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. with God. Now, thou knowest that the Gaspesian nation extends from Cape des Hosiers to Cape Breton ; thou knowest that the savages of Ristigouche are our countrymen and brethren, who speak the same language as we ; thou wert there before coming here ; thou hast preached to them, and thou hast seen the old men, that were baptized by other missionaries before thee, while we have been deprived of that blessing till now. It is true, as thou sayest, that the cross is the sacred symbol which distinguishes Christians from infidels ; how, then, could the patriarchs have given it to us, rather than to our brethren of Ristigouche, whom they baptized, and who have not, however, venerated the mark of the Christians, as did our ancestors, who received no bap- tism. It is evident, therefore, that it is not through the missionaries, if we are in possession of the mys- terious emblem.' " That reasoning is of savages, but none the less con- clusive, because," the father continues, " it is true that the savages of Ristigouche are baptized and yet do not carry the cross, but were formerly used to wear sus- pended from their necks the image of a salmon as their country's badge of honor." T We have noticed 2 that the first Spanish priests of Central America were no less astonished and incredu- lous than the French of Canada at their frequent meet- ing with no doubtful vestiges of Christianity among the pagan Indians. Not only is it inconceivable that our missionaries of the sixteenth century should have attempted, in the presence of thousands of intelligent witnesses, to fraud- ulently represent the success of their own preaching as ancient traditional belief and practice of their converts ; 1 Chrestien Leclercq, p. 270, seq. 2 Supra, p. 374. See Document XIV. WAS AMERICA CHRISTIANIZED FROM ASIA? 521 but they all, convinced that they were the very first apostles of our continent, felt naturally inclined to disbelieve their eyes and ears, rather than to admit that Christianity had ever before set foot on the west- ern world. Hence we easily understand why most of them are very sparing in their statements of the above- mentioned traditions and religious rites of the Indians, ,nd why there are no historians wanting, both lay and cclesiastic, to positively deny all parity between the American and our own religious faith and liturgy, even tough they cannot help relating numerous facts that eidently contradict their denial. Gonzales de Oviedo, Grcilasso de la Vega, Lafiteau, and Charlevoix are reiarkable examples. 1 ^either could modern critics call into doubt the truifulness of these parsimonious statements of the con- temorary historians. Bancroft, betimes as hypercriti- cal h infidel as any, admits that the Mexican prayers, as reorted by Sahagun, contain a great deal that is origial, indigenous, and characteristic in regard to the Mexiin religion ; and the historian's evidence, he adds, as prtented by a hearer and eye-witness at first hand, by a ian of strongly authenticated probity, learning, and, awe all, of strong sympathy with the Mexican people,beloved and trusted by those of them with whom e came in contact, and admitted to the famil- iarity c a friend with their traditions and habits of thought— for all these reasons his evidence, however we mayasteem it, must be heard and judged. In a subjoine* note the same author relates the extraordi- nary caretaken by Sahagun, not to be deceived by, nor to mistal the testimony of, his native authorities. 2 Prescott takes a remark which goes to prove that the 1 Cf. Beams, Les Derniers Ves- 2 Vol. iii. p. 231. tiges, p. 1. 522 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. prudent friar did not, on the other hand, intend to de- ceive his readers. " It might he supposed," he says, " that the obloquy which the missionary had brought on his head by his honest recital of the Aztec traditions would have made him more circumspect in his ' rifaci- mento' or correction of his former narrative. But I have not found it so, or that there has been any effort , to mitigate the statements that bore hardest on his/ countrymen." The truthfulness of Sahagun's colleagues, the olde/ Christian historians of America, is equally well estat lished ; and it would be no sound criticism to call ii doubt the reality of the numerous and evident vestijj of a more ancient publication of Christianity in o'r western hemisphere. The royal chronicler and first archbishop of &n Domingo, Padilla, wrote a book to prove that the S»n- ish missionaries were not the first apostles of Ameca. 1 Icazbalceta comes to the conclusion that the Chrifian principles of the Aztec religion had in by-goneftges been introduced by preachers now unknown. 2 Slor- zano, although combating this general opinion/can- not help stating that many of his predecessors wre in favor of it, and, among others, he also quotes Tfque- mada. 3 Torquemada, however, unable to imagiB who the former Christian missionaries might hav/ been, admits the possibility of a theory which, for ti same reason, was held by several of his companions, — iamely, that the devil himself had taught his deludeflndian worshippers the religion of Christ ! * Acosta isery ex- plicit in this regard : " That which is difficu in our law, to believe so high and sovereign mistep, hath 1 Dr. de Mier, in Sahagun, t. iii. 3 Lib. i. cap. xiv. If J P- 186. p. vi. ' Lib. xv. cap. xliJ alias t. iii. 2 Giov. di Zumarraga, carta 107. lib. xix. cap. xlviii., |x. WAS AMERICA CHRISTIANIZED FROM ASIA? 523 beene easy among the Indians," he says, " for that the Divell had made them comprehend things of greater diflicultie, and the self-same things which he had stolen from our Evangelicall law : as their manner of commu- nion and confession, their adoration of three and one, and such other like : the which against the will of the enemy have holpen for the easie receiving of the truth by those who before had embraced lies." * The learned Protestant Hornius sides with the friar Torquemada and the Inca Garcillasso to advocate the probability of Satan having taught among the civilized nations of our continent many things which he had stolen from the Christian religion. 2 But common sense sustains Dr. de Mier when he says, " It is quite strange, indeed, that the devil should have become a manufacturer of crosses and a teacher of Christian doctrine. The enemy of the Gospel is not so stupid as to prepare the human minds to receive it, by making them believe its highest myste- ries. Such ridiculous explanations only finish proving that the facts are undeniable." 3 Nor does the explanation of Prescott 4 give any bet- ter satisfaction than the devil-theory. " It is more reasonable," he says, " to refer such casual points of resemblance to the general constitution of man, and the necessities of his moral nature. The points of resemblance are too numerous, and, in many cases, the resemblance is too great, to be the work of empty chance. The Christian mysteries admitted by the an- cient Peruvians and Mexicans could hardly find their origin in man's constitution ; nor are religious prac- tices, like baptism, fasting, celibacy, and a cloistered 1 Last ch. p. 531. 3 Ap. Sahagun, t. i. p. vi. 2 Hornius, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 33 ; * Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 109. Garcilasso de la Vega, Comenta- rios, lib. ii. cap. vi. p. 41. 524 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. life, to be considered as necessities of man's moral, yet corrupt, nature. More reasonable and better historical causes should be found to account for the presence of Christian faith and Christian rites in ancient America. It is hardly possible to admit, even as a reasonable supposition, the opinion of a few Spanish historians, — namely, that the vestiges of Christianity still existing on our continent at the beginning of the sixteenth century may have had their origin in the preaching of the Apostle St. Thomas, which, after all, is not absolutely proved ; while, on the contrary, there are no arguments wanting to make us believe that this origin is not anterior to the sixth or the seventh century of our era. 1 Gaffarel 2 makes the self-evident remark that the source of ancient American Christianity should not be looked for, but in the fact of some immigration into our continent from some Christian country, or, at least, of the arrival of a few men that may have taught Chris- tianity here. He adds, with less probability, that, the number of those immigrants being likely too small to impose their religion upon the natives, they have com- promised with them to accept their barbarous idolatry, if amalgamated with their own religion. Our next duty, therefore, will be to inquire from what part of the world, from the East or from the West, such Christian immigration or immigrations may have landed upon the shores of our hemisphere. Not a few authors strenuously contend that the semi- civilization of Mexico, Central America, and Peru, as found by the Spanish discoverers, had its origin in east- ern Asia. " It appears unquestionable to me," says von Humboldt, " that the monuments, methods of com- 1 Supra, pp. 228-230. 3 Hist, de la Ddcouv., t. i. p. 446. WAS AMERICA CHRISTIANIZED FROM ASIA? 525 puting time, systems of cosmogony, and many myths, which I have discussed in my ' Monuments of the In- digenous American Nations,' offer striking analogies with the ideas of eastern Asia, analogies that indicate an ancient communication." 1 Maltehrun notices the great similarities between the religions and the astronomical systems of Mexico and Peru and those of Asia. In the calendar of the Aztecs, as well as in that of the Mongolian Kalmucks and of the Tartars, the months bear the names of animals, and the names of several days of the month are the same. The four great festivals of Peru coincide with those of China. The hieroglyphics and the record strings used by the ancient Chinese singularly remind us of the Mexican figurative writing and of the quipus of the Peruvians. 2 Dr. de Mier tries to prove that the Mexican calendar, both civil and religious, is almost identical with the one of the Chinese Tartars, 3 and it is well known that the languages of both the Pacific coasts are either agglutinative or monosyllabic. 4 " After carefully considering all the particulars, we cannot doubt," says Hornius, " that the Mexicans, the Peruvians, and the Chilians are the descendants of the Mongols, the Chinese, and the East Indians." 5 Civ- ilization, as it passed into Europe by Egypt and Asia Minor, went over to America by the way of China, 1 Examen, t. ii. p. 68, and Kos- department of Libertad, seem to be- mos, S. 461. long to a different race from those 2 Maltebrun, t. v. p. 212 ; Kast- of the surrounding countries. They ner, pp. 27, 40. live and intermarry only amongst 3 Sahagun, t. i. p. 11. themselves, and speak a language 4 The language of the Otomis in which is perfectly understood by Mexico is decidedly monosyllabic, the Chinese, who have been and we read in " Geografla del brought to Peru during these last Peru," by Paz Soldan : "The in- few years." (De Quatrefages, p. habitants of the village of Eten in 204. ) the province of Lambayeque and 5 Lib. iv. cap. i. p. 224. 526 HISTOKY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Japan, and the islands. 1 It is a grand, remarkable fact, indeed, more convincing than all other considerations, that an advanced civilization, manifested by its monu- ments, its public highways, civil institutions, and the character of its solemn worship, was found by the Span- ish discoverers to exist only in the part of our continent opposite to Asia, while the eastern slope was inhabited by nomadic hunting tribes, fallen to the lowest level of barbarism. While powerful and industrious peoples, with regular governments, laws, and cities, flourished upon the sandy coasts of the Pacific and on the lofty table-lands of the Andes, at heights where cold and hunger were formidable enemies, the Portuguese found but a scattering population, steeped in the saddest abasement, in the fertile districts of Brazil where can- nibalism has continued to rage till our own day. 2 It can hardly be doubted that both the material progress and the moral infamy of the civilized Ameri- can kingdoms of the sixteenth century were a faithful image of what existed in the eastern portions of the Old World, and were introduced from there by post- Christian, relatively modern immigrations. Although justly refusing to admit an Asiatic origin of the American aborigines generally, Cronau s aids in proving that between both the Pacific coasts there has long been a frequent intercourse. The famous traveller of the thirteenth century, the Franciscan friar, William Ruysbroek, who was, in the year 1254, for several months in Caracaroum, the capital of the Tartar- Mongol empire, learned from a French goldsmith re- siding there that there was a nation called " Tante" or " Mante" inhabiting certain islands towards the East, 1 Memoires des Antiq., 1840-44, p. 72; Nadaillac, Prehistoric Amer- p. 138. ica, p. 466. 2 Von Humboldt, Examen, t. ii. 3 S. 108. WAS AMERICA CHRISTIANIZED FROM ASIA? 527 where the sea was frozen in winter, who were unable to prevent the Tartars from invading them on the ice, and had despatched ambassadors to the Grand- Khan to offer him a yearly tribute of two thousand "jascots," in order to obtain his good will and pro- tection. 1 It is easily understood that these islands could not be but those of Behring Sea and the north- western American shores. Nor is there any difficulty, therefore, in admitting that the Nahua nations were successive swarms of the Grand-Khan's empire, suffi- ciently civilized to introduce into Mexico the material progress so much admired by the Spaniards. Cara- caroum was, indeed, according to Ruysbroek's report, a large city well fitted for the comforts and luxuries of a powerful monarch with a numerous court. We have observed already 2 the striking and charac- teristic analogies — physical, social, religious, and moral — which existed between the Scythian-Tartar-Mongolic races and the greatest number of American aboriginal tribes. These analogies were particularly noticeable among the numerous nations that intermixed and suc- ceeded one another in the Mexican empire. Therefore, although no strictly historical proof may warrant the assertion, it is allowed to assume that the northeastern Asiatic peoples did not stop their immi- grations into our continent at the close of the more ancient epoch of American national events, but rather, in post-Christian times also, continued to consider as one of their provinces the sunny land of New Spain, as they did hold Alaska until quite recently. After reading several long, intricate, and puzzling histories of the Nahua nations, which all pretended to have come from the North, we cannot help thinking 1 Rohrbacher, t. xviii. p. 560, 2 Supra, pp. 313-317. seq. ; Cooley, Historie, p. 270. 528 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. that northern Asia was their native land, from which they had crossed the Pacific Ocean on either the Behring or the Aleutian bridge, to gradually descend towards more inviting southern climes. Some authors have judiciously considered the mi- gration of the Toltecs and of their cognate Mexican tribes as connected with the national commotions that for hundreds of years shook the steppes of central Asia. They think that while savage hordes like the Avares and the Hunni were driven westward on their destructive march through Europe, other tribes of higher culture, to escape the sword of victorious foes, set out from the banks of the Lena River or of the Baikal Lake in an easterly direction, crossed the Pacific Ocean, and eventually became, through their civiliza- tion, a blessing to our western shores. 1 The relation of minor particulars and considerations as to mutual influence of both the rising and of the declining nations in Mexico would naturally lead us to the statements already set forth in regard to the moral and religious condition of New Spain at the time of the latest discovery ; but we feel confident that our readers are sufficiently informed in this respect to allow us to proceed with our inquiry into the advo- cated Asiatic origin of the second period of civilization on our continent. Not only the northern, but also the eastern- central region of Asia is credited with having contributed its share to the ancestry of our cultured aborigines. Cer- tain allusions to a Chinese colony, made by Marco Polo and Gonzalo Mendoza, led Horn, Forster, and other writers to suppose that the Chinese, driven from their country by the Tartars about the year 1270, embarked, 1 Rotteck, Bd. vii. S. 63. WAS AMERICA CHRISTIANIZED FROM ASIA? 529 under their leader Facfur, to the number of one hun- dred thousand, in a fleet of one thousand vessels, and having arrived at the coast of America, there founded the Mexican empire. 1 As Warden justly remarks, however, it is not probable that an event of such im- portance would be passed over in silence by the Chinese historians, who rendered a circumstantial account of the destruction of their fleet by the Tartars about the year 1278 of our era, as well as of the subjugation of their country by those people. 2 The same serious objection may be made to the opinion of a Chinese immigration having originated the civilized nation of Peru about the same epoch. 3 The well-known tradition, according to which the first Inca, Manco, and his wife, Coya Mama, were chil- dren of the sun, and by that god sent to Peru, gives us sufficiently to understand that they were foreigners to that country. Allowing a reign of twenty years to each of the twelve successive Incas, we might conclude that the first one made his appearance about the year 1287. There being no sign nor reason whatever to suppose that he had come from other American parts, we are obliged to admit that his native country was either Asia or Polynesia. Nor is it a wonder that eastern Asia should have been the original home of western America's culture, since, according to all probabilities, there existed, at the time of the latest discovery and long after, a regular intercourse between the opposite shores of the Pacific Ocean. Gomara, who witnessed the conquest of Mexico and was a contemporary of the expeditions which fol- lowed, tells us that companions of Francesco Vasquez 1 Hornius, lib. iv. cap. xiii. p. 2 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 37, ref. to 263. Warden, Recherches, p. 65. 3 Rotteck, Bd. vii. S. 67. I.— 34 530 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. de Coronado, in sailing up the Western Sea as far as the fortieth degree of northern latitude, happened upon ships laden with merchandise, which, as they were led to understand by the sailors, had been at sea for more than a month. The Spaniards concluded that they had come from Cathay or China. 1 The people of Japan had, it seems, knowledge of the American continent, for Montanus tells us that three ship captains, named Henrik Corneliszoon, Schaep, and Wilhelm Byleveld, taken prisoners by the Japanese and carried to Jeddo, were shown a sea-chart, on which America was drawn as a mountainous country adjoin- ing Tartary. 2 The following narrative was made in the year 1725, three or four years before the discovery of Behring Strait ; and the exact details in regard to the general direction of the American northwestern coast and of its bend at the peninsula of Alaska — which for brevity's sake we omit — are a sure proof of its credibility. We copy it from de Quatrefages : 3 " The Indian traveller, Moncacht-Ape", was certainly a remarkable man. Im- pelled by the desire which drove Cosma from Koros to Thibet, — the wish to discover the original home of his tribe, — he went at first in a northeasterly direction as far as the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, then re- turned to Louisiana, and started again for the North- west. Having ascended the Missouri to its sources, he crossed the Rocky Mountains, and reached the Pacific Ocean by descending a river which he called ' the Beautiful,' and which can be none other than the Co- lumbia River. There he heard of white, bearded men, provided with arms hurling thunder, who came every 1 De Quatrefages, p. 205. 3 P. 205. 2 Nieuwe Weereld, til. 39, quoted by Bancroft, vol. v. p. 54. WAS AMERICA CHRISTIANIZED FROM ASIA? 531 year in a great boat to look for wood which they used for dyeing, and carried off the natives to reduce them to a state of slavery. Moncacht-Ape, who was ac- quainted with the nature of fire-arms, advised his friends to prepare an ambuscade. The plans which he suggested were a complete success : several of the ag- gressors were slain. The Americans saw that their as- sailants were no Europeans, for their clothes were quite different and their arms were clumsy, while their powder was coarser and did not carry so far. Every- thing, on the contrary, tended to show that they were Japanese, accustomed to make descents upon this coast of America, like those of lawless modern crews in search of sandal-wood of Melanesia, who seize the col- ored natives whenever they have an opportunity, and sell them off to cotton-planters of Australia." De Quatrefages concludes the narrative with the in- ference that, although it may wound our pride, we must acknowledge that the Chinese and Japanese knew and by different ways explored America long before the Europeans discovered it. 1 The truth of this sweeping assertion is very doubtful when we recall to mind what has been said of the first American settlements ; but we agree with the learned generally that the over-estimated, the material culture of Mexico and Peru and of the in- termediate western countries of our continent, as exist- ing at the time of the Spanish conquest, ought to be credited to the glories of eastern Asia : to the Tartar- Mongols, to the Chinese, perhaps ; maybe to the Jap- anese, the East Indians, or to some Polynesian tribes now sunk below the level of their enterprising ances- tors. Prescott makes the following remark : " A close resemblance may be found between the Peruvian insti- 1 P. 206. 532 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. tutions and some of the despotic governments of eastern Asia, where despotism appears in its more mitigated form and the whole people seem to be gathered to- gether like members of one vast family. Such were the Chinese, for example, whom the Peruvians resem- bled in their implicit obedience to authority, their mild yet somewhat stubborn temper, their solicitude for forms, their reverence for ancient usage, their skill in the minuter manufactures, their imitative rather than inventive cast of mind, and their invincible patience in the execution of difficult undertakings. " A still closer analogy may be found with the na- tives of Hindostan in their division into castes, their worship of the heavenly bodies and the elements of nature, and their acquaintance with the scientific prin- ciples of husbandry. To the ancient Egyptians, also, they bore considerable resemblance in the same par- ticulars, as well as in those ideas of a future existence which led them to attach so much importance to the permanent preservation of the body." * There still remains, however, the interesting and highly important question regarding the origin of the more refined and more humane element, which we have observed to exist, as the gold under its dross, in Mexi- can society ; the great question regarding the origin of Christian principles and practices, which softened down the barbarous features of Mexican institutions and con- tributed, in no mean degree, to keep alive a nation whose gigantic crimes and vices seemed to doom it to an early self-destruction. Was it from Asia, also, from Tartary, India, or China that Christianity was introduced into Anahuac and Peru ? Dr. de Mier stoutly replies that he will make 1 Conquest of Peru, vol. i. pp. 164, 165. WAS AMERICA CHRISTIANIZED FROM ASIA? 533 us see America's Christian institutions to have their origin in China ! 1 Kastner seems to be of the same opinion. 2 A safe plan for arriving at a correct answer is to inquire what amount of Christianity eastern Asia possessed at the time, and was, consequently, able to impart to the settlements it established in the New World. The Scythians, or rather their cognates, the Tartar-Mongolian nations, were most probably, as we have seen before, 3 the ancestors of the most ancient American tribes, and perhaps of later colonies on our western coast. The legend of the Roman Breviary 4 tells us that St. Philip, after having received the Holy Ghost, had his lot cast to preach the gospel among the Scythians, and converted nearly the whole of that nation. Origenes, Tertullian, St. John Chrysostom, and Theodoretus tes- tify that the light of Christian doctrine shone upon Scythia and Sarmatia at the time of the apostles. 6 The Turks received several Christian rites from the Tartars, who were not, in ancient times, unacquainted with the emblem of the cross, which they had drawn with ink on their foreheads, when, as ambassadors of their coun- try, they went to visit Maurice, the emperor of Con- stantinople, during the last quarter of the sixth century. 6 These reports, meagre as they are, contain substan- tially the sum of information which we have of ancient Christianity among the Tartar nations. Ruysbroek, who visited them in the middle of the thirteenth cen- tury, does not by any means give us a flattering descrip- tion of Christianity in the capital of the " Grand-Khan," Caracaroum, where he found a confusion of all Asiatic 1 Sahagun, t. i., Dissertation of "'Ad. l nm Maii, lect. iv. Dr. de Mier, p. ii. 5 Delia Chiesa Russa, p. 1. 2 P. 27. 6 Hornius, lib. iii. cap. xix. p. s Supra, pp. 312-320. 217 ; Rohrbacher, t. ix. p. 269. 534 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. religions and Asiatic infidelity. The Chinese Tuinians, as Ruysbroek calls the Asiatic idolaters, the Nestorians, the Saracens, and probably the Eutychians, held there at the time a Congress of Religions, — perhaps the first, — where the Catholic friar was the principal speaker, while the Tuinians indulged in copious drinking ; and from which no apparent good resulted. 1 Ruysbroek said Holy Mass in Caracaroum, heard confessions, and baptized more than sixty persons on Easter Sunday of the year 1253 ; but these ministra- tions simply testify to a foreign population of scattered individuals from distant Christian countries, such as Hungary, Alania, southern Russia, Georgia, and Ar- menia, as he plainly reports. Tartar Mongolia itself was infidel at the time, and, as the Grand-Khan proudly stated, under the religious direction of the sorcerers, whose dictates were the people's law. 2 Later historical information exhibits Tartary and Mongolia as the undisputed dominion of infidelity and devilism, down to modern times, in which a few Chris- tian missionaries risk their lives for the enlightenment of those countries. After such reports of Christian history in Tartar Mongolia, we leave it to our readers to judge of the probabilities of Christianity having been planted on American soil by immigrations from that region. We are of the opinion that these probabilities are slim indeed ; all the more, when we consider that various Christian rites were found to exist on this continent, which never had anything in common with the sects of Nestorius or Eutyches. Did not rather the Chinese introduce Christianity into America? We have remarked that the Chinese 1 Rohrbacher, t. xviii. pp. 568,569. Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. xxv. 2 Ibid., t. xix. pp. 168, 169. See p. 1, seq. WAS AMERICA CHRISTIANIZED FROM ASIA? 535 origin of the civilized American nations is of minor probability ; x neither could we honestly defend the opinion of Chinese origin in regard to the Christian faith and liturgy of Mexico and Peru, even though it would be as likely as it is not that China procured their later settlers to the western shores of America. A synopsis of Chinese earlier Christianity bears out this opinion. It is thought that the apostle St. Thomas evangelized some portion of China. 2 In the year 1570, according to da Casterano, but rather in 1625, a monument as im- portant as curious was discovered at Si-ngan-fu, in the province of Scen-si, by Chinese laborers digging for the foundation of a house, and was placed in a neighboring temple. It was a stone five feet wide and ten feet high, adorned with a cross and covered with ancient Chinese and stranghelos characters, which, being deciphered, gave the information that it was erected in the year 782, in memory of the introduction into the Celestial Empire of the Christian religion by the priest Olopen, six hundred and thirty-five years after Christ. It re- lates that several Chinese emperors were converted to the faith and ordered churches to be built all over the ten provinces of their vast dominion. 3 The monument further states that Olopen introduced into China several of his colleagues from the West, and was raised to the pontifical dignity. In the year 698 the Chinese Bud- dhists, and in 712 the literati, persecuted and slandered Christianity, which, after many sufferings, was favored again by a wise emperor and flourished more than ever. The principal mysteries and tenets of our holy 1 Supra, p. 332. 3 Pietro Amat, p. 322 ; Malte- 2 Carlo Horatii da Casterano, ap. brun, t. i. p. 403 ; Rohrbacher, t. Pietro Amat, p. 321 ; Wouters, t. i. x. pp. 178, 179 ; Wouters, t. i. p. p. 362. 362. 536 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. religion were also epitomized on the marble, on whose sides were preserved, in stranghelos, or Chaldaic char- acters, the names of the first priests, of the bishop, and his rural deans. 1 Were these Catholics, or were they Nestorians ? The monument does not state ; but gen- eral history sufficiently indicates them to have been sectarians. Through many vicissitudes of imperial dy- nasties they continued their existence in China, where, in the thirteenth century, they held fifteen cities, with a bishop residing in Segin, probably Si-ngan-fu in eastern China, where not a few vestiges of Christian institutions have since been discovered. 2 We have just noticed that when the Belgian friar, William Euysbroek, had been sent to the Asiatic potentates by the French king, St. Louis, he found a few Christian families sojourning in the Tartar-Mongol capital. His science and demeanor, and more likely the welcome embassy confided to him, had, it would seem, so well pleased both the Grand-Khans of Mon- golia and of China that they, in turn, despatched ambassadors to the Christians, and in particular to the Pope of Rome, requesting him to send them teachers of the true religion. Marco Polo, who, shortly after Ruysbroek, stayed in China for several years, was, on his return to Venice in 1295, the carrier of one such request, remembered by Christopher Columbus and by his learned correspondent Toscanelli. 3 The consequence of these cordial relations, fostered by the Popes, was the sending of several missionaries into the Chinese empire, the greater number of whom were friars of the Order of St. Francis. The most remarkable among his companions was John da Monte 1 Aa. locis lilt. cit. ' Van Speybrouck, bl. 47 ; von 2 Wouters, t. ii. p. 95 ; Gooley, Humboldt, Examen, t. i. pp. 213 Histoire, p. 268. 214. WAS AMERICA CHRISTIANIZED PROM ASIA? 537 Corvino, who, in the year 1305, had already built two churches in Peking, the capital of China. 1 In 1307 Pope Clement V. appointed him a metropolitan of all China, and ordered seven more Minorites to be conse- crated bishops and made his suffragans. 2 The next year he was followed in Peking by several other Fran- ciscan friars, among whom was Andrew da Perugia, afterwards bishop of Zaitun, or Canton. The blessed Oderic, called da Pordenone or del Friuli, remained in Asia from 1316 till 1330, and made many conver- sions in the Chinese capital, where he resided three years, and of which he has left us a most interesting description. 3 The archbishop of Peking, John da Monte Corvino, lived, together with his Franciscan co-laborers, in their regularly established monastery until his death, when he was succeeded, in the year 1333, by Nicolas, a friar of the same religious order. The new prelate arrived as carrier of friendly letters from Pope John XXII. to the various governors and emperor of the Mongolic empire, and his embassy was several times reciprocated by the Chinese monarch, whose policy was most favor- able to the extension of our holy religion. 4 Between 1338 and 1353 Giovanni Marignoli spent some years in Peking as legate of Pope Benedict XI. to the Grand-Khan, and also travelled in Ceylon and Hindostan. 5 The happy dispositions of the Tartar-Mongolian princes lasted as long as their dynasty ; but the re- bellion of a Chinese general, sustained by the insur- rection of eastern Mongolia, deprived them, about the 1 Maltebrun, t. i. p. 381 ; Peschel, rico da Pordenone, ap. Pietro Amat, Zeitalter, S. 17. p. 26. 2 Rohrbacher, t. xix. p. 414 ; * Rohrbacher, t. xx. p. 152, seq. Pietro Amat, p. 322. 5 Piske, vol. i. p. 291. 3 Peschel, Zeitalter, S. 17 ; Ode- 538 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. middle of the fourteenth century, of their throne and their beneficent authority. The succeeding dynasty of Ming-ciao, unfavorable to the Christians, forbade the entrance of the empire not only to the Tartars, but also to all foreigners. The consequence of this rigidly enforced edict was that the Chinese missions, unable yet to supply their own clergy, were soon deprived of teachers and pastors, and the greater number of them dwindled away into their previous infidelity and Buddhism. In the year 1370 Pope Urban V. still appointed William Du Prat, a Parisian doctor, as arch- bishop of Peking, and several members of the Order of St. Francis as missionaries to China; but it is doubtful whether they ever succeeded in penetrating into the Celestial Empire, nor does it appear that this mission had any success at all. 1 After this digression the reader will be able to judge for himself of the likelihood or possibility that the Peruvian and the Mexican tenets and practices of Christianity had their origin in China. Catholicity never was in that country but in the condition of a few poor and scattered missionary establishments, and this only since a period that seems rather late in regard to the time of the advent of our civilized abo- rigines. Nestorianism has likely had an earlier and stronger foothold ; yet, from all information combined, we must conclude that this sect itself never had any considerable number of adherents in the eastern parts of China, in those provinces from which the Chinese immigrations, if any, would more probably have taken their departure. Moreover, such features as priestly and religious celibacy, and other Christian vestiges which we have noticed before, could hardly have re- ' Da Casterano, ap. Pietro Amat, p. 324 ; Rohrbacher, t. xx. p. 409 ; Peschel, Zeitalter, S. 17. "WAS AMEKICA CHRISTIANIZED FEOM ASIA? 539 ceived their origin from the married priesthood of a heresy that succeeded in infecting Christians, but, no better than any other, in converting or civilizing infidel nations. " From whence, rather than from Cathai," says Hor- nius, 1 " could Christian rites have been introduced into America?" This question of the learned Protestant is not an assertion, but the expression rather of his despair of ever finding a plausible source of the unde- niable evangelization of the western portion of our continent, of such despair as drove him to look for that source in the hell of the damned. 2 We shall confine our researches within the terres- trial sphere, yet we should not surrender to the diffi- culties of the question, however insurmountable they may appear to be. Our hope of success in solving it satisfactorily ought to be sustained by a reasonable expectation of discovering some clue to the preachers of ancient American Christianity among the very peo- ple with whom its vestiges were found to exist. Are there no traces pointing to its origin, in those countries, at least, — namely, Central America, Mexico, and Peru, — where a considerable number of its doctrines and ceremonies have endured ? We do not look for strictly historical evidences among our natives to locate this origin, but we may expect to obtain from their tra- ditions a valuable guidance to the countries where we may find it. ' Lib. iv. cap. xv. p. 27H. 2 Lib. i. cap. iv. p. 33 ; lib. iv. cap. xv. p. 280. CHAPTER XXII. QUETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. The legendary stories of our aborigines are so nu- merous and lengthy, so intricate, often so contradictory to one another, and more frequently so utterly non- sensical and ridiculous, that it not only requires a con- siderable amount of patience to read them, especially in the bulky works of Brasseur de Bourbourg, Lord Kingsborough, and H. H. Bancroft, but also that the reader can but with difficulty discover in that labyrinth of myths a few lines of historical truth. Yet among all these traditions there is one than which none other is more uniformly or more clearly told by all the civil- ized American nations. It is, namely, the legend of an extraordinary man, perhaps canonized in Europe and apotheosized all over Central America, of a hero-god who came from a for- eign country to reform the religion of the Mexican tribes and of their southern neighbors, and who is known generally under the Aztec name of Quetzal- coatl. This apostle and civilizer should not, as we remarked before, 1 be confounded with the ancient Maya legislator and chronicler Votan, nor with St. Thomas, the apostle of Christ ; but it is the universal opinion of the learned that Quetzalcoatl is identically the same personage with the contemporary religious and civil reformer whom various nations have deified under different names ; 2 1 Supra, pp. 93, 227, seq. guage, p. 150 ; who, however, con- 2 Cf. Hutson, The Story of Lan- founds Votan with Quetzalcoatl. 540 QTJETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 541 that he is the same with Huemac or Vemac, as the Mexicans also called him ; with Topiltzin, as he was more anciently known in Tulla by the Toltecs ; with Wixipecocha, under whose name he was venerated by the Zapotecs ; with Zamna, Cozas or Cukulcan, the theocratic ruler of Yucatan ; nay, with Bochica, the civilizer of Cundinamarca or New Granada, and with Viracocha of Peru. 1 Quetzalcoatl arrived at Tulla, the Toltec capital, from Panuco, a small place on the Gulf of Mexico, where he had first landed. 2 Duran 3 likewise relates that Topiltzin was a foreigner, but could not learn from what parts he had come. His name, given him by the natives, signified " Beau- 1 It is evident enough that Cu- kulcan was the same as the Quet- zalcoatl of the "Codex Chimal- popoca," and the Gucumatz of the "Popol Vuh." (Bancroft, vol. v. p. 621. ) " The most popular of the deified heroes of the Mayas were Zamna and Cukulcan, not unlikely the same personage under two names ; and both are quite likely identical with Quetzalcoatl. The opinion derives its strongest aid from the alleged disappearance of Quetzalcoatl in Goazacoalco, just at the epoch when Cukulcan appeared in Yucatan." (J. Winsor, vol. i. p. 434 ; Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 465. ) Miiller argues with Ixtlilxochitl that Quetzalcoatl and Huemac were one and the same person, although, in some places, Huemac is repre- sented to be the sworn enemy of Quetzalcoatl. (Ibid., p. 431.) The people also of Yucatan reverenced this god Quetzalcoatl, calling him Cukulcan. (Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 260.) Torquemada identifies Cu- kulcan with Quetzalcoatl. (Ban- croft, vol. v. p. 619.) Bochica, le legislateur des Indiens de Cundi- namarca, Bogota, 6tait comme tous les sages de l'Amerique, un homme de race barbue, adonnfi a d'aus- teres penitences, fils du Soleil a l'instar du Manco-Capac des Peru- viens. Bochica etait represents avec trois tetes, et ce triple em- bleme mysterieux se resumait en une seule et m6me divinity. Bo- chica partagea les Muyzcas du pla- teau de Bogota en quatre tribus, regla le calendrier et disparut a Iraca, la plus populeuse des villes de Cundinamarca, qui servit apres lui de residence aux pontifes de la nation. (Kastner, p. 41 ; cf. Win- sor, vol. i. p. 434. ) 2 Sahagun, t. i. p. xii. The peo- ple of Yucatan revered Quetzal- coatl, under the name of Cukul- can, saying that he came to them " from the West," but that is from New Spain, where he first landed ; for Yucutan is eastward therefrom. (Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 260. ) 3 T. ii. p. 74. 542 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. tifully feathered serpent." Cukulcan, his Maya or Yucatec appellation, had exactly the same meaning. It was the name of princes and Toltec kings, and prob- ably designated some honorable title, which, if we should -make a few learned considerations, might be found to be The Great or the Glorious Man of the Country. 1 The signification of " feathered twin" has been invented to preposterously identify Quetzalcoatl with Didymus or St. Thomas the apostle. 2 The Indians remembered well that their god Quet- zalcoatl had not been like one of themselves. They described him as a white or pale-faced man, of portly person, with broad forehead, great eyes, long black hair, and a heavy rounded beard. 3 The Zapotecan Wixipecocha was also a white-skinned apostle, 4 and the Toltecan Topiltzin is described as having all the same features, to which Duran adds that his beard was of a fair color and his nose rather large. He was very reserved in his manners, plain and meek with those who approached him, passing most of his time in meditation and prayer in his cell, and showing himself but seldom to the people. 5 What time he did not consume in prayer he employed in erecting oratories and altars in all the wards of the cities where he resided, hanging pictures on the walls and above the altars, which he reverenced by kneeling before them. He generally slept on the hard floor of the sanctuaries that he was building, for his life was as penitential as it was pious. 1 Dr. de Mier, ap. Sahagun, t. i. s Coleccion de Documentos, t. p. xi, remarks: " Todo el imperio Ixvi. p. 449, B. de las Casas ; Son- de Mexico se llamaba ' Colhuacan,' croft, vol. iii. pp. 250, 255, 274. Pais de las culebras." * Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 209. 2 Thomas, who is called Didy- 5 Duran, t. ii. p. 73. mus, Ai'Sunos, twin. (St. John xi. 16.) QUETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 543 Very abstemious at all times, Topiltzin often observed long and rigorous fasts, practising severe penances and even bloody self-chastisements, as is likewise stated of the homologous Quetzalcoatl. 1 De las Casas testifies z that Quetzalcoatl lived a most honest and chaste life ; Sahagun, that he never married nor ever was in the company of a woman, except in the act of auricular confession. 3 While, according to tra- ditional report, he was born of a virgin mother, Her- rera states that he remained a virgin himself. 4 The Yucatec legends also notice the celibacy of Cukulcan and his general purity of morals. 5 Of Huemac it is related tbat the lords of the country one day suggested to bim to marry. The holy man answered them that, indeed, he had resolved to take a wife, and was to do so when the oak-tree would bear figs and the sun would rise in the West, when we would cross the ocean on foot and the nightingales would have beards like men. 6 Quetzalcoatl is described as having worn during life, for the sake of modesty, a garment that reached down to his feet, like the Wixipecocha of the Zapotecs and the Cukulcan of the Yucatecs, whose robe, it is said, was not only long, but ample also, thus closely resembling the garb of Christian clergymen, and particularly that of religious friars. 7 For shoes, Cukulcan wore sandals, walking along bare-headed ; 8 nor is it said that his mantle was, like that of his equivalent Wixipecocha, provided with a monk's cowl for head-gear. 9 From 1 Duran, t. ii. p. 73 ; Bastian, Bd. 6 Duran, t. ii. p. 77. ii. S. 486. ' Bancroft, vol. iii. pp. 209, 260 ; 2 Coleccion de Documentos, t. Coleccion de Documentos, t. lxvi. lxvi. p. 449. cap. cxxiii. p. 453, B. de las Casas. 3 T. i. p. xii. 8 Coleccion de Documentos, t. 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 250 ; Her- lxvi. cap. cxxiii. p. 453. rera, ap. Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 518. 9 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 209. 5 Short, p. 229. 544 history or America before columbus. the Mexican traditions we learn that Quetzalcoatl, also, wore a cloak, which Bancroft calls a blanket over all, in one place, and a long white robe, in another ; adding that, according to Gomara, it was decorated with. crosses. 1 Herrera relates that these crosses were of a red color, and Las Casas, that with such a mantle he was first seen at his landing in Panuco. 2 He carried in his hand a staff, whose form is doubtful, but it is told that Wixipecocha's had the shape of a cross, like those of ancient times and of the Orthodox bishops yet, while Quetzalcoatl's rather resembled a sickle, or our Latin bishops' crosier with its long adorned crook.* Bancroft 4 tells us that Quetzalcoatl wore a mitre on his head ; but Duran 5 learned from an Indian, who explained to him a volume of historic paintings, that Topiltzin did not assume his mitre of precious feathers except when he was celebrating religious feasts, as it is the practice of our officiating Christian abbots and bishops. The date of Quetzalcoatl's arrival in Panuco or in any other place of New Spain would be a grand land- mark, a shining beacon-light for the historical in- quirer ; but questions of chronology can hardly ever be solved with the help of aboriginal traditions, upon whose data nothing but more or less probable or pos- sible conjectures can be founded. We should not wonder, therefore, if the learned widely differ in as- signing the time of America's deified civilizer. It is generally conceded, however, that Quetzalcoatl was a hero of a pre-Aztec period. 6 Several authors place his career about the eleventh or the twelfth century, and 1 Vol. iii. pp. 260, 274. * Vol. iii. p. 274. 2 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 488 ; Kast- 6 T. ii. p. 77. ner, p. 91. " Dr. de Mier, Sahagun, t. i. p. 3 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 209 ; vol. xii. iii. p. 274. QUETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 545 Mr. Aubin, of Mexico, names the year 1002 as the date of his appearance in Tulla, and 1051 as that of his re- turn to eastern parts. It is observed, however, that such an epoch cannot be sustained in the light of the historical manuscripts of Scandinavian Iceland. 1 Her- rera, with greater probability, places Quetzalcoatl within the ninth century. 2 The apostle's antiquity seems to be greater still, and most likely to ascend to the beginning of the Toltec domination, if we are allowed to draw any inference at all from the legends of the Mexicans and neighboring tribes, who refer to the Toltecs most of what we have found to be great and good in their religious and social institutions, as will appear yet farther on. According to Torquemada, Quetzalcoatl came at the time that the Toltecs occupied the country, and the native historian Ixtlilxochitl connects him even with the pre-Toltec tribes of Olmeca and Xicalanca. 3 If these latter opinions should prove to be the most correct, as they appear to be for several reasons, it would follow that the great white civilizer, the " fair god" of Central America, un- doubtedly anterior to the tenth, may have landed on the Mexican coast as early as the sixth century of our era. The duration of Quetzalcoatl's labors in America is more uncertain still. After his departure his memory was held in benediction till, in later times, when idolatry prevailed again, he was placed among the gods, and his relics, in the form of green stones that had belonged to him, were preserved with great veneration by the Cholulans.* 1 Cogolludo places itinthetwelfth, 2 Short, p. 230; Bancroft, vol. ii. and Brasseur de Bourbourg in the p. 633. eleventh century ; Short, p. 230 ; 3 J. Winsor, vol. i. p. 431. Memoires des Antiquaires, 1840- * Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 260 ; Bas- 1844, p. 9 ; Nadaillac, Prehistoric tian, Bd. ii. S. 486. America, Append., p. 537. I.— 36 546 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. These excessive honors were bestowed upon him, as honors are generally bestowed upon captains and other superiors, not only in consideration of his own per- sonal merits, but also of the great services rendered by his saintly companions and co-religionists, who, with him and likely long after him, performed the great work of conversion and civilization, which, evidently, it was impossible for one man to accomplish among so many nations of Central America's extensive ter- ritory. Dr. de Mier, commenting Sahagun, 1 tells us that, in- deed, Quetzalcoatl appeared in Panuco, accompanied by seven or, according to other traditions, by fourteen companions, dressed like himself. We know from Duran 2 that Topiltzin, also after his arrival in Amer- ica, admitted into his Order, called " Quequetzalcohua" or Priests of the Order of Quetzalcoatl, new disciples, whom he instructed to pray and to preach. 3 The Chi- apan tradition, therefore, related by Las Casas, 4 should not be considered as being in contradiction with the former, when it states that Cukulcan came over to the Yucatecs in company of nineteen or twenty co-laborers, as reported also by Torquemada. 6 Quetzalcoatl' s companions observed strict celibacy, 6 and all who landed with him wore long beards, 7 as their leader. Their dressing apparel consisted of san- dals, a robe that fell to the feet, and a mantle of black color, as it is generally related. Their hair was their head-dress. 8 Duran, however, 9 assures us that the dis- ciples of Topiltzin wore colored robes and a piece of cloth on their heads. 1 T. i. p. xii. 6 Sahagun, t. i. p. xii. 2 T. ii. p. 73. ' Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 371 ; Ban- 3 Cf. Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 259. croft, vol. iii. p. 465 ; vol. v. p. 619. L Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 371. 8 Ibid. ; Sahagun, t. i. p. xii. « a « Ap. Bancroft, vol. v. p. 619. 9 T. ii. p. 76. QUETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 547 A curious particular of the ancient traditions is, that as Cukulcan in Yucatan had a privileged disciple, named Cozas, so also Quetzalcoatl showed special affection to his companion, Totec or Xipe, with whom he some- times walked around, ordering the rocks to hurst asun- der and give them free passage. Of Xipe it is further said that he was bald-headed, and it is thought that the shaving of the hair in Xalisco was done in his honor. In fact the customs and habits of a Christian clergy- man or monk are mentioned as more generally observed by him than by his prelate, who is often represented as assuming the position of a temporal king. Still the Mexicans turned the meek disciple Xipe into a most sanguinary god, 1 as they did his charitable master. The grand success of their labors and their imperish- able memories prove the fact of the high consideration in which the companions of Quetzalcoatl were held by the natives on account of their virtues and science. The people, says Duran, 2 gave them the title of " Tol- teca," which means, he adds, mechanics or experts in every art. This and other reasons intimated already might suggest the idea that the very name of the Tol- tec nation was an appellation of dignity procured from their neighbors and successors, through the honor- orable designation of their eastern civilizers. We will notice presently that Quetzalcoatl and his band of saintly missionaries were instrumental, indeed, in raising to a higher plane the material interests of the people whom they had undertaken to reform, to instruct, and we would almost say, to Christianize ; but it is evident, from the aboriginal traditions, that they considered it their first and principal duty to instruct them in a purer, probably in the true, religion. 1 Baatian, Bd. ii. S. 492 ; Ban- 2 T. ii. p. 73. croft, vol. iii. p. 412, seq. 548 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Quetzalcoatl, says de Mier, 1 was the high-priest of Tulla, and sent forth his disciples to preach a new and holy law in Huaxaca and other provinces, — namely, in Tlascala and even in the mountains of the wild Chi- chimecs, the giants of that time. It is known with certainty, Duran states, 2 that, as soon as he had a few disciples and had built a few churches and altars, he despatched his companions to preach in the mountains as well as in the villages below, and their voices were heard as the sounds of a trumpet at a distance of two or three leagues. They preached, and worked miracles in such a manner that the people gave them the name of Toltecas, and it is certain that they did wonderful things ; for even to-day you can ask the natives, Who made that opening through the mountains ? who made this fountain spring forth ? who discovered this cave ? or who erected that edifice ? and they will invariably answer that the Toltecas, the disciples of the Papa, did it. No wonder if Duran concludes that Quetzalcoatl must have been some envoy of God, who, endowed with power from above, tried, with the assistance of wonder- working co-laborers, to convert the Nahua nations to the holy law of the gospel. We have had several occasions already to notice Christian doctrines and practices introduced by Quet- zalcoatl or identical heroes into the religious institu- tions of the American civilized aborigines, and it may suffice here to recall but a few points of the doctrine preached by him and his disciples among the nations of New Spain. His fundamental dogma was the unity of the true God, whom, according to d'Alva, 3 he called by the sig- nificant though little euphonious name of " Teotloque- 1 Sahagun, t. i. p. xii. s Ap. Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 490. 2 T. ii. pp. 74, 77. QTJETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 549 Nahuaque-Hachiguale-Ipalnemoani-Ilhuicahua-Haltic- paque," which means, God of the earth, Creator of all things, worshipped and obeyed by all creation, Master of heaven and earth. Some writers add that he also taught the mysteries of the Blessed Trinity and of the Incarnation. 1 Together with idolatry, he severely condemned all criminal, and especially human, sacrifices; allowing no bloody offerings but those of quails, doves, and other small game. 2 Such authorities as Las Casas 3 and Sa- hagun 4 assure us that Quetzalcoatl would not even admit of any kind of animals as oblations agreeable to God ; the sacrifices which he approved and offered being only of bread, flowers, incense, and other perfumes. 5 It was evidently against his will and intentions, if it should be true that his severe self-chastisements after- wards became an occasion for reintroducing, even in his honor, the bloody human sacrifices against which he had so earnestly objected. 6 The gentle apostle was universally opposed to blood- shed and murder, stopping his ears with his fingers when one would speak of war to him. The common people loved and reverenced him, because he was the courageous defender and protector not only of their lives, but also of their temporal goods, against assault, robbery, and all injustice. Peace and charity were the virtues upon which he laid the greatest stress. 7 ' Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 250 ; Gleeson, vol. i. p. vol. iii. p. 367, ref. to Veytia, His- 189. toria Antigua, lib. i. cap. xv. ; Glee- 6 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 486. son, vol. i. p. 183 ; supra, p. 371, 7 Coleccion de Documentos, t. seq. lxvi., B. de las Casas, p. 449 ; Sa- 2 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 486, 518. hagun, t. i. p. xii ; Bancroft, vol. 3 Coleccion de Documentos, t iii. p. 250 ; Short, p. 267, ref. to lxvi. p. 449. Mendieta, Hist. Eccles., pp. 82, 86. 4 T. i. p. xii. 92, 397, and Clavigero, Hist. Ant. 5 Of. Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 705 ; del Messico, pp. 11-13. 550 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Quetzalcoatl ordained and appointed many new re- ligious ceremonies and festivals, and it is held for certain that he made the calendar of all the feasts. 1 The fast observed on Fridays in Chiapan was ascribed to the institution of his equivalent, Cukulcan, as were also referred to the white, bearded apostle the fasts of forty and of seventy days, as well as other forms of penance still observed by the natives at the time of the Spanish conquest. 2 We have noticed already 3 that the practice of auricular confession was of the same origin. From these few details of Quetzalcoatl's teaching one naturally feels induced to believe that all the ves- tiges of Christianity of which we have spoken had their beginnings from him and his disciples or co- laborers in the American mission. And this induction is all the more justified when we notice the positive statements of Indian tradition that it was he who first introduced crosses like those which the Spaniards found at Cuatulco, Tlascala, Tehuantepec, and in various other places, as remarks Dr. de Mier, commenting on the history of Sahagun, 4 and Duran in his " History of New Spain." 6 The reader has already observed that the principal object of Quetzalcoatl and of his companions was re- ligious reform, evangelization ; but the spiritual ad- vantages which they procured their benighted clients were, as any philosopher will understand, accompa- nied with the most remarkable temporal and material benefits. As a result of his peaceful spirit and exertions, the 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 259. * Supra, p. 490 ; Bastian, Bd. ii. 2 Sahagun, t. i. p. xii ; Coleccion S. 371, 492. de Documentos, t. lxvi., B. de las * Historia General, t. i. p. xii. Casas, p. 453. 5 T. ii. p. 76. QUETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 551 blessing of peace settled down upon the city of Cholula, which he had chosen for his residence. War was not known during his sojourn there; the reign of old Saturn repeated itself. The enemies of the Cholulans came with perfect safety to his temple, and many wealthy princes of other countries erected new ora- tories for the religion he was preaching. Thus Short, referring to Mendieta. 1 Peace, the very foundation of all earthly boon, par- ticularly for warlike nations as the Nahuas were, gave to Quetzalcoatl and his companions an opportunity to develop the various arts of peace. De las Casas testi- fies that the first reason why the Cholulans reverenced so highly the memory of Quezalcoatl was because he taught them the art of casting gold and silver and of working those precious metals, — a craft upon which they highly prided themselves, and which secured them considerable income from their neighbors. 2 Quetzalcoatl was, indeed, a great artificer and very in- genious, and taught several mechanical trades. Not only the silversmith, but also the sculptor, the painter, and the architect flourished under the patronage of the god-king, as we are led to believe from the testimony of both tradition and material remains. 3 Of all the mechanical sciences, however, that are credited to the white missionary, the one of cutting precious stones is best remembered in the native traditions ; and the dressing of the green stone, called chalchiuite, has long been a profitable industry of the Cholulans.* Agriculture, the noblest and most important of all occupations, seems to have been greatly improved in 1 Short, p. 270, ref. to Mendieta, 3 Short, p. 270 ; Bancroft, vol. iii. Hist. Eccles., p. 82, seq. p. 255. 2 Coleccion de Documentos, t. 4 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 501 ; Ban- lxvi., B. de las Casas, p. 449 ; Ban- croft, vol. iii. pp. 240, 255. croft, vol. iii. pp. 240, 250. 552 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Mexico by the followers of Quetzalcoatl. It is admitted that the Olmecs, the Toltecs' predecessors, raised maize, small red pepper or chile, and beans ; but the subsequent nations were indebted to the Toltecs for a small species of wheat, the cotton-plant, the allspice-tree, and for other most useful vegetables. 1 It is, finally, said of Zamna that he was the teacher of letters and the author of all civilization in Yucatan. 2 Nadaillac remarks 3 that, according to the legends of the Chibcas of Colombia, those people wandered about naked, without laws and without culture, until a stranger, Bochica, came from distant regions and taught them the art of clothing themselves, of building houses, and of living in society. Under the beneficial influence of Quetzalcoatl and of his companions, Cholula soon acquired great promi- nence as a Toltec city, and prosperity reigned in all the country around. Tradition tells us that wherever Quetzalcoatl ruled there were riches and abundance, and the air was filled with fragrance and song-birds, — an actual golden era ; but when he went south with his song-birds drought set in and his palaces of gold, silver, and precious stones were destroyed. It is stated, indeed, that already in Tulla, his first American resi- dence, Quetzalcoatl was very rich. He had whole houses made of chalchiuites, others made of silver, others of white and red shells, others of precious wood, others of turquoises, and others yet of rich feathers. He had all that was needed to eat and to drink ; maize was abundant, and a head of it was as much as a man could carry clasped in his arms ; pumpkins measured a fathom round ; the stalks of the wild amaranth were 1 Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Mes- 2 Short, p. 229. sico, t. i. p. 127, ap. Bancroft, vol. 3 Prehistoric America, p. 460. ii. p. 343, n. QUETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 553 so large and thick that people climbed them like trees ; cotton was gathered in of all colors, — red, scarlet, yel- low, violet, whitish, green, blue, blackish, gray, orange, and tawny, — and these colors on the cotton were natu- ral to it ; thus it grew. Further, it is said that in the city of Tulla there abounded many sorts of birds that sang with much sweetness. The vassals or adherents of Quetzalcoatl were also very rich and wanted nothing ; they were never hungry, they never lacked maize nor ate the small ears of it, but burned them like wood to heat the baths. 1 It is likewise reported that one of the most pros- perous eras in the later history of the peninsula of Yucatan followed upon the appearance of Cukulcan. 2 We should not be puzzled nor astonished at the won- derful material advantages resulting from the preach- ing and labors of Quetzalcoatl and of his companions, when we reflect that purer religion and purer morals necessarily pave the road towards the happiness of nations ; when we remember that many of the most flourishing cities of Europe received their origin and in- crease from similar holy bands of missionaries sent forth by the ancient Order of St. Benedict ; when, finally, we see the same kind of progress going on under our very eyes, as at Mount Angel, in Oregon, for example, where, at the same time that they teach religion and good morals, the Benedictine monks also lead the van of 1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 113 ; vol. dyes of human art. The air was iii. pp. 238, 240, 241 ; Prescott, filled with intoxicating perfumes Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 61, and the sweet melody of birds, writes in the same manner: "Un- In short, these were the halcyon der him, the earth teemed with days which find a place in the fruits and flowers, without the mythic systems of so many nations pains of culture. An ear of Indian in the Old World. It was the corn was as much as a single man golden age of Anahuac." could carry. The cotton, as it grew, 2 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 119. took of its own accord, the rich 554 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. agriculturists, of mechanics, of scientists, of linguists, and of the most learned in every profession. If we consider, however, the vastness of the prov- inces in which Quetzalcoatl is said to have labored, the greatness of his accomplishments, and the durability of his success, all of which are amply established by native legends and ancient monuments, we must admit that, without a signal miracle of Almighty God, these results could never have been attained by one leader, however ingenious, having but fourteen co-laborers, however skilful. We cannot, therefore, prevent the suspicion that, centuries after the events, the Mexican and other American aborigines have, as it is their wont to do, confounded a series of facts into one episode, and a suc- cession of persons with the same religion, habits, and exertions into one and the same hero, whom they dei- fied under one collective name. And again, it seems difficult to admit that a band of eight or even fifteen persons were equal to the task of assailing the warlike Nahua nations in their religious errors and immoral practices, of teaching them arts and sciences, and to rise at once to the possession of supreme power among them. Were there no tradition, no testimony whatever on this subject, yet good sense and general history would suggest the opinion that Quetzalcoatl must have been accompanied and sustained, not only by a few harmless religionists, but also by a considerable colony of white strong people from his own eastern country. This question of lay people having come with Quet- zalcoatl and having settled upon the plateaux of New Spain has often been either slighted or altogether neg- lected by modern historians ; yet not a few evidences of such a fact have been reported by the first Spanish missionaries. Torquemada states that a band of people came from the North by way of Panuco, dressed in long QUETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 555 black robes ; that thence they went to Tulla, where they were well received, but this region being already thickly populated, they moved to Cholula. They were great artists and skilled in working metals. With them was Quetzalcoatl, a man with a fair and ruddy complexion and a long beard. 1 " According to the Quiches' traditions, the primitive tribe of the Nahoas, the ancestors of the Toltecs, lived in a distant East, beyond immense seas and lands. Amongst the families that bore with least patience this long repose and immobility, those of Canub and of Tlocab may be cited, for they were the first who deter- mined to leave their country. The Nahoas sailed in seven barks or ships, which Sahagun calls Chicomoztoc or the seven grottos. It was at Panuco, near Tampico, that those strangers disembarked. They established themselves at Paxil, with the Votanites' consent, and their state took the name of Huehue-tlopallan. It is not stated from whence they came, but merely that they came out of the regions where the sun rises. The supreme command was in the hand of a chieftain whom history calls Quetzalcohuatl, that is to say, Lord par excellence." Bancroft thus relates another version of the great Indian tradition. 2 Bandelier thinks it safe to say that Quetzalcoatl began his career as a leader of the migration moving southward, with a principal sojourn at Cholula, introducing arts and purer worship. This is substantially the view taken by J. G. Miiller, Pres- cott, and Wuttke. 3 A quite remarkable incident of Quetzalcoatl's history is, as narrated by Sahagun, 4 that, after leaving Ono- hualco or Yucatan, yet before returning to his native 1 Torquemada, t. i. p. 245, seq., 3 Winsor, vol. i. p. ap. Short, p. 268, n. 1. * T. i. p. xii. 2 Vol. iii. p. 270. 556 HISTOKY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. eastern country, he went to visit in their first settlement his former disciples, who, it is said, refused to return with him, because they felt well where they were, and were married in the land of their adoption. This last particular, altogether unsuitable for his preaching com- panions, who are universally stated to have lived a chaste, single life, is but history repeating itself with successive Spanish and French colonists. The reader will have noticed that, according to Tor- quemada, the skilful Toltecas arrived from the North, and such is the opinion of several other writers, — namely, that the present States of Florida and Ohio, with other adjoining States, were the Toltecs' prehis- toric Tlapallan. Should this theory prove to be the correct one, it would be a considerable help towards the explanation of the historical difficulties under consider- ation, while it would be in perfect accord both with other aboriginal traditions and with the Icelandic ancient records, which are justly considered to-day as histori- cal sources. In fact, the Indians who, about the year 1750, abandoned the States of Florida, Ohio, and others of that neighborhood were telling that in the long ago their hunting-grounds had been taken up by a white race, that made use of iron implements. Farther on we shall speak of that same country, as known by the Scandinavians under the name of White-man's Land or Ireland the Great. 1 Both older observations and recent studies have sin- gularly corroborated the natives' tradition regarding Quetzalcoatl's white colony. Bancroft 2 relates with innocent gusto how the women of Jalisco found great favor in the eyes of the reverend Father Torquemada, who was shown one there, he says, that might be con- 1 Gafiarel, Decouv., t. i. p. 425 ; 2 Vol. ii. p. 625. Icelandic MSS. QUETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 557 sidered a miracle of beauty ; indeed, so fair was her skin that she looked like an English milk-maid, says a more recent author ; so well-proportioned was her body and so regular her features that the most skilful painter would have been put to it to do her justice. And these nattering notices he extended to the people of that country in general. 1 Another racial feature which fair women admire was found by Oviedo in Nic- aragua, on a man about seventy years of age, who, namely, had a long, flowing white beard. 2 The scholar Hornius takes great pains to prove that the Americans are no descendants of the Celts nor of the Norwegians, but he carefully makes an exception in regard to the Yucatecs. 3 Mr. Aubin, of Mexico, combines both ancient and modern testimonials when, from Aztec manuscripts and late observations, he con- cludes that, as there are indisputable evidences of Chris- tianity in America before Columbus, so there are of a white population ; and he is of the opinion that the two facts are closely related to each other and prove a third one, — to wit, that in prehistoric times there has existed a frequent, if not a regular, intercourse between Amer- ica and Europe. 4 Our late erudite and critical his- torian, Justin Winsor, sets forth the conclusions of Bandelier, which we have just noticed, — namely, that Quetzalcoatl and his companions, the apostles and civ- ilizers of the Nahua tribes, were the leaders of eastern immigrants on their march to more southern countries. 5 One of our most learned and sensible anthropologists, de Quatrefages, 6 admits the ancient presence of white European nations on American soil, when he thinks it 1 Vol. ii. p. 625, n. 82. *M6moires des Antiquaires du 5 Historia Gen., t. iv. p. Ill, ap. Nord, 1840-1844, p. 9. Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 731. 5 Vol. i. p. 432. 3 Lib. i. cap. iv. p. 28. 6 P. 364. 558 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. almost evident that the Scandinavians must have intro- duced their fair hair among several tribes of the Amer- ican shore, and that the facts noticed by P. Martyr, Kes, and James, in regard to the hair of the Parians, the Lee-Panis, the Kiawas, etc., are one of the proofs of the Scandinavians' extension beyond the Gulf of Mexico. For all these reasons it would be hypercriticism to deny the fact that but a few centuries after Christ a colony of Christian emigrants from Europe sailed either to Mexico directly or to the eastern coasts of these United States, from which they afterwards extended in a southwesterly direction, even though the American records of their establishment may be scanty and their history be a blank page in the annals of our aborigines, which almost exclusively refer to their leader. We will, later on, gather more information on this interest- ing subject by drawing from European sources, but we should now continue to hear testimony from Indian tradition regarding the white colony's chieftain. The history of Quetzalcoatl's missionary career offers many analogies with that of our Lord, who went about doing good, whom at one time the Jews wanted to make king, whom they denied and persecuted, and whom they worshipped after his death. 1 According to Duran, 2 the apostle made a great number of conversions imme- diately after his landing in Panuco, to the great dis- pleasure of the idolaters, whose priest, Tezcatlipoca by name, pretended to have come down from heaven to oppose the new doctrine. He gathered around him all that was vicious and wicked, and commenced to perse- cute the holy men, driving them from place to place until they were obliged to seek refuge in Tulla. Here 1 Acts x. 38 ; St. John vi. 15. 2 T. ii. p. 75. QUETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 559 Topiltzin stopped for some months and years ; but his enemies followed him and caused him so many diffi- culties that, tired at last of the persecution, he deter- mined to leave the city to which he had procured peace and wealth. 1 Sahagun gives Huemac as the name of Topiltzin's or Quetzalcoatl's enemy in Tulla, and states that he killed seven of his disciples. 2 The fugitive passed along the border of the lake of Mexico, before the city was built, directing his steps to Cholula, where the inhabitants received him with the greatest reverence, and were blest, as we noticed before, by his presence for a space of twenty years. Ever since its inhabitants have excelled in various mechanical arts, especially in the working of metals and in the manufacture of cotton and agave cloths and of a deli- cate kind of pottery, rivalling, it is said, that of Flor- ence in beauty. 3 This place became not only the richest, but also the holiest of all Mexico, and the great centre of devotion and pilgrimage for all the neigh- boring provinces. 4 Sahagun relates that Huemac, persevering in his wicked persecution, finally appeared against him with a powerful army at the gates of Cholula ; and the meek apostle, rather than to expose his friends to the horrors of war, quietly retired by the road he had come, taking with him four of the principal and most virtuous youths of that city. He journeyed for a hundred and fifty leagues, till he came to the sea in a distant prov- ince called Goatzacoalco. 5 It is not stated whether 1 Cf . Short, p. 270 ; Bancroft, Ooleocion de Documentos, t. lxvi. , vol. iii. p. 240. B. de las Casas, pp. 449, 451. 2 T. i. p. xii. 5 Sahagun, t. i. p. xii ; Bancroft, 3 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 251 ; Coleccion de Docu- vol. ii. p. 4. mentos, t. lxvi., B. de las Casas, p. 4 Short, p. 245 ; Bancroft, vol. iii. 451. p. 251 ; Sahagun, t. i. p. xii ; 560 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. further persecution was trie cause of it ; but after an uncertain length of time Quetzalcoatl disappeared from Goatzacoalco, and about the same epoch made his appearance in Yucatan as the famous reformer and civilizer of that peninsula. The hero, here called Cu- kulcan, entered from the West with nineteen followers, all wearing full beards, long robes, and sandals, but no head-covering. 1 Having thus left the provinces of the Nahua nations, Quetzalcoatl seems to have been at last delivered of the relentless pursuits of Tezcatlipoca, who had left no stone unturned to drive away the declared enemy of human sacrifices and of idols. It may be of interest to the reader if we copy here a page of Bancroft 2 relating in a quaint form one of the fantastic means to which the unscrupulous enemy had resorted : " Tezcatlipoca turned himself into a hoary-headed old man, and went to the house of Quetzalcoatl, saying to the servants there, ' I wish to see and speak to your master.' Then the servants said, ' Go away, old man, thou canst not see our king, for he is sick ; thou wilt annoy him and cause him heaviness.' But Tezcatlipoca insisted, and said, ' I must see him.' Then the servants bid the sor- cerer to wait, and they went in and told Quetzalcoatl how an old man without affirmed that he would see the king and would not. be denied. And Quetzalcoatl answered, ' Let him come in ; behold, for many days have I waited for his coming.' So Tezcatlipoca en- tered, and he said to the sick man, ' How art thou ?' adding, further, that he had a medicine for him to drink. Then Quetzalcoatl answered, 'Thou art wel- come, old man ; behold, for many days have I waited 1 Sahagun, t. i. p. xii ; Bancroft 2 Vol. iii. p. 242, ref. to Kings- vol, iii. p. 465 ; vol. v. p. 619. borough, Mex. Antiq., vol. vii. p. 109, and Sahagun, t. i. lib. iii. QUETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 561 for thee.' And the old sorcerer spake again : ' How is thy body, and how art thou in health?' 'I am ex- ceedingly sick,' said Quetzalcoatl ; ' all my body is in pain ; I cannot move my hands nor my feet.' Then Tezcatlipoca answered, 'Behold this medicine that I have ; it is good and wholesome and intoxicating. If thou wilt drink it thou shalt be intoxicated and healed and eased at the heart, and thou shalt have in mind the toils and fatigues of death and of thy departure.' ' Where,' cried Quetzalcoatl, ' have I to go ?' ' To Tul- lantlapallan,' replied Tezcatlipoca, ' where there is an- other old man waiting for thee. He and thou shall talk together, and on thy return thence thou shalt be as a youth, yea, as a boy. And Quetzalcoatl, hearing these words, felt his heart move, while the old sorcerer, insisting more and more, said, ' Sir, drink this medi- cine.' But the king did not wish to drink it. The sorcerer, however, insisted : ' Drink, my lord, or thou wilt be sorry for it hereafter ; at least, rub a little on thy brow and taste a sip.' So Quetzalcoatl tried and tasted it and drank, saying, ' What is this ? It seems to be a thing very good and savory ; already I feel my- self healed and quit of mine infirmity ; already I am well.' Then the old sorcerer said again, ' Drink once more, my lord, since it is good ; so thou shalt be the more perfectly healed.' And Quetzalcoatl drank again and made himself drunk ; and he began to weep, and his heart was eased and moved to depart, and he could not rid himself of the thought that he must go, for this was the snare and deceit of Tezcatlipoca. So Quetzalcoatl set out upon his journey, and Tezcatli- poca proceeded further guilefully to kill many Toltecs, and to ally himself by marriage with Vemac, who was the temporal lord of the Toltecs, even as Quetzalcoatl was the spiritual ruler of that people." I.— 36 562 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Many more such fabulous incidents of Quetzalcoatl's migrations are reported in the ancient Mexican tra- ditions, and some of them are more or less analogous to the miracles performed by our Lord Jesus-Christ. The legends of the Yucatecs represent Cukulcan in all the same principal features of Quetzalcoatl, while differing, however, in some secondary aspects. It is said that Mitla, the capital of Zapoteca, which, for the beauty of its edifices, favorably compared with the other cities of Yucatan, was built by Cukulcan and his disciples. A tradition of that province tells us that one day an old man of venerable aspect suddenly came out of the lake Huixa, accompanied by a young girl of incomparable beauty. This old man was clothed in a dress and mantle of brilliant blue, and wore a mitre on his head. He gave to the country wise and just laws, and disappeared as mysteriously as he had arrived. 1 Cukulcan was seen at several places in Yucatan, but at last settled in Chichen Itza, where he governed for ten years. Herrera gives him two brothers, and states that the three collected a large population and reigned together in peace for many years over the Itzas at Chichen, where they erected magnificent temples in honor of their gods. The three brothers lived a most holy and continent life, neither marrying nor associ- ating with women ; but at last one of them, Cukulcan, left his companions and adopted Mayapan as his capital, which he also built up and beautified, erecting grand temples for the gods and palaces for his subordinate lords, among whom he divided the surrounding country and towns. He ruled here most wisely and prosper- ously for several years ; but after fully establishing the government and instructing his followers in regard 1 Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, p. 255 ; Herrera, dec. iii. lib. ii. p. 363, ref. to Torquemada, vol. i. cap. xi. ; and Veytia, lib. i. p. 164. QUETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 563 to their duties and the proper means of ruling the country peacefully, he determined, for some motive not revealed, to abandon the city and the peninsula, 1 — as a shadow of Christ ascending to heaven. Sahagun, 2 also, notices the mysterious departure of Cukulcan from Yucatan ; where, when about to leave, the master divided his government among four of his disciples. In like manner did he send back to Cholula the four young men whom he had taken along with him down to the ocean in the province of Goat- zacoalco; and at their return the Cholulans divided their state into four principalities, and gave the gov- ernment to the four favorites of their god-king. Four of their descendants always ruled over these tetrarchies till the Spaniards came. 3 Duran 4 relates as follows the departure of Topiltzin from Tulla : "After having made an important prophecy, he commenced to travel from village to village, giving its proper name to every place and mountain, and a great multitude of people followed him from every locality. He went on till he reached the sea, and there, with a single word, made an aperture in a high mountain and entered into it." Others say that he extended his mantle on the sea, made a sign with his hand over it, and stepped upon it ; and lo ! sitting down, he commenced his voyage on the water, and was never seen again. We noticed before that, according to another version, he sailed on a raft made of snakes. Prescott says, 5 " When he reached the shores of the Mexican Gulf, he took leave of his followers, promising that he and his descendants would revisit them hereafter ; and 1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 465 ; vol. s Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 259. v. pp. 619, 620, ref. to Herrera, * T. ii. p. 75. Hist. Gener., dec. iv. lib. x. cap. 5 Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. ii., and others. p. 61. 2 T. i. p. xii. 564 HISTORY OP AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. then, entering his wizard skiff, made of serpents' skins, embarked on the great ocean for the fabled land of Tlapallan." The Codex Chimalpopoca states that he died in Tlapallan four days after his return. 1 Few benefactors of mankind receive during their life the reward due to their eminent services. First after their death are just honors paid to them and statues erected in honor of them. Thus, also, was Quetzalcoatl deified after his departure, and honored even with human sacrifices, especially at the centres of pilgrimage to his shrines in Cholula, Chichen, and Mayapan. 2 The Spaniards found the gentle apostle worshipped as a god with bloody, murderous oblations, — a double crime, against which he had so loudly protested ; a sign, also, that the purer innocent religion which he had taught had, in its most fundamental doctrines, been gradually lost or suddenly subverted in later times. The primary cause of the downfall of Quetzalcoatl's religious establishments in America may have been the misbehavior of his disciples and colonists ; since it is a plain fact in general history that, wherever the Chris- tian religion was perverted or destroyed, the catastrophe had been prepared by the relaxation of its adherents. This opinion gains ground from the reports of the local traditions which, as we noticed before, 3 state that at the end of the apostle's career his countrymen of Tulla refused to leave with him a district that was in the hands of his enemies, and were well pleased with their unholy alliances with the idolatrous women of Mexico. Bancroft also relates* that the former co- laborers of Cukulcan at Chichen Itza gradually gave 1 Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Coleccion de Documentos ; Ban- Nat. Civ., t. ii. p. 18, ap. Bancroft, croft, vol. iii. pp. 251, 465. vol. iii. p. 465, n. 13. 3 Supra, p. 556. 2 B de las Casas, t. Ixvi. p. 449, 4 Vol. v. p. 620. QITETZALCOATL AND HIS WHITE COLONY. 565 themselves up, after his departure, to an irregular and dissolute life, and their conduct finally moved their subjects to revolt, and to kill them. The immediate cause, however, evidently was the fight of idolatry with its horrible sacrifices against the newly published religion. Some writers think that the perverse mixture of cruel idolatry and gentle Christianity may have been the result of slow corruption of the latter in the midst of semi-civilized American nations ; and the modern religious history of these United States affords but too many sad arguments for that opinion, — namely, the loss of thousands of individuals, in high and low posi- tions, who, in their native country, were most devoted to a religion similar to, or identical with, that of Quet- zalcoatl, and are daily corrupted by the boasts and examples of older infidel settlers. Yet, if we establish our conclusions on ancient tra- dition rather than on modern experience, we must feel inclined to think that the mongrel confusion of Chris- tianity and of inhuman idolatry in the so-called civil- ized countries of ancient America was the result of bloody wars between the adherents of either religion. " At all events," says the abbreviator Short, 1 " Quetzal- coatl had an enemy, Tezcatlipoca, whose worship was quite opposite in its character to that of the former, being cruel and celebrated with horrid human sacrifices. A struggle ensued in Tulla or Tollan, between the opposing systems, which resulted favorably to the bloody deities and the faction that sought to establish their worship in preferenee to the peaceful and ascetic service of Quetzalcoatl." 2 Tezcatlipoca or Huemac, as we just noticed, after driving the meek reformer from Tulla, 1 P. 269. 2 Cf. Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 241, seq. 566 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. appeared against him before Cholula at the head of a powerful army, killed many Toltecs, and allied him- self by marriage with Vemac, who was the temporal lord of the Toltecs. These particulars leave hardly any doubt as to the manner in which Quetzalcoatl's beneficent religion was subverted. As Christianity was almost destroyed in Europe during the fifth century by hosts of bloodthirsty barbarians, so was the doctrine of peace overwhelmed in Mexico by the fierce Chichi- mecs, who put an end to both the religion and the dominion of the Toltecan empire. The Chichimecs adopted, however, as afterwards did the Aztecs, a considerable portion of the Toltecan civil- ization, and lived under a system of religious dualism, like their Asiatic relatives, who also worshipped idols and ate the flesh of human victims, while they pre- served some vestiges of evangelical doctrine. 1 1 Cooley, Histoire G6n6rale, t. i. p. 319 ; Maffei, lib. i. p. 37. « « « A A i CHAPTER XXIII. QTJETZALCOATL's RETURN TO AMERICA. The signal benefits, material and social, derived from the white apostle's doctrine sufficiently account for its partial preservation among the Mexican and Central American peoples ; but we venture to think that the deep impression made upon the people by the parting words of Quetzalcoatl acted also as a powerful preservative of his other teachings ; for these words, never forgotten nor misunderstood, continued to inspire awe and fear until they were eventually accomplished. We learn from Duran 1 that when Topiltzin or Quetzalcoatl had resolved to leave the city of Tulla he called a meeting of all the inhabitants and foretold to them the arrival of a foreign nation, that would come from the East and land in their country. These strangers would wear outlandish garbs of various colors, be dressed from head to foot, and even have a cover on their heads. They would be sent by God to punish them for the ill-treatment and affront afflicted upon him by expelling him from their city. Then great and small would perish, no one being able to escape the hands of those, his children. He told them further that neither they nor their children nor grandchildren would see the advent of those nations, which would arrive, he said, at the time of the fourth or fifth gener- ation, and would become their masters and maltreat them and cast them out of their land, even so as they 1 T. ii. p. 75. 567 568 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. now treated him. Hearing all this, they at once recorded in their picture-writing the prophecy which the papa had made to them, in order that its memory should never be lost, but that they might wait to see its fulfilment, — as they saw it in the Spaniard's arrival, says Duran. Quetzalcoatl had no time to call together the people of Cholula in his hurried flight from the army of Tezcatlipoca, but when he was safe in the distant province of Goatzacoalco, he sent back his four youth- ful companions to go and announce to their country- men that most certainly, at some future time, there would arrive among them, from regions where the sun rises, across the sea, and guided by the stars, white men with full beards like himself, who would sub- jugate their land ; and that those foreigners were his brethren. 1 " Wherever he left," Sahagun says, 2 " Quetzalcoatl told, as his last words, that others of his brethren or of his religion would come to teach and to rule them ; and he indicated to them several signs of the ap- proaching event ; all of which," he adds, " were realized at the advent of the Spaniards." 3 The Mexican Indians, down to the last day of their empire, had no doubt regarding the necessary accom- plishment of Quetzalcoatl's prophecy, and, therefore, they religiously kept his image or statue — an ugly, rude carving with a large, full-bearded head — in a reclining position and covered with blankets, to signify that the god was yet asleep in the far-off East, but would get on his feet again and return to assume once 1 B. de las Casas, p. 449, t. lxvi. s Cf. M6moires des Antiquaires of Coleccion de Documentos ; Ban- du Nord, 1840-1844, p. 9 ; Gleeson, croft, vol. iii. pp. 251, 259. vol. i. p. 184, and Aa. passim. 2 T. i. p. xii, Remarks of Dr. de Mier. quetzalcoatl's RETURN TO AMERICA. 569 more the government of Mexico, 1 and would bring back with him the golden age of abundance and peace. This prophecy was so common among the people that they even applied it to other personages. Thus is it related of the Colhuas that on one occasion, when a movable feast in honor of Tezcatlipoca chanced to fall upon the day fixed for the celebration of Huitzilo- pochtli, they postponed the former, and thereby so offended Quetzalcoatl's ancient enemy that he also predicted the destruction of the monarchy and the subjugation of the people by a strange nation, which would introduce a monotheistic worship. 2 Thus, also, is it said that Acxitl Topiltzin, the last of the Toltec kings, after his defeat by the Chichimecs, made use of these words in his farewell to his friends : "I have retired toward the East, but I will return, after five hundred and twelve years, to avenge myself on the descendants of my enemies." 3 The year " Ce Acatl" had been set by the departing apostle as the date for the accomplishment of his pre- dictions, which, furthermore, would in time be clearly foreboded through certain extraordinary and wondrous events. 4 The universal belief in the return of Quetzalcoatl, or rather of a white, bearded nation from across the eastern ocean, was afterwards considerably strengthened by another mysterious prophet. Sahagun 5 and Tor- quemada 6 relate almost with the same words that when 1 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 487, 500 ; when we consider the common Short, p. 271 ; Bancroft, vol. iii. burthen of the prophecy and its pp. 240, 260. fulfilment. 2 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 339, ref. to * Gleeson, vol. i. pp. 174, seq., Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. 185, ref. to "all the most ancient Civ., t. iii. p. 538. historians," and in particular to 3 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 279, writes Boturini ; Bancroft, vol. v. p. 201. five thousand and twelve years ; 6 T. i. p. 278. but this appears to be a mistake, 6 T. iii. lib. xv. cap. xlix. p. 132. 570 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Francis de Montejo commenced, in the year 1527, the conquest of Yucatan, he was peacefully received in certain provinces, where he was told that, not long be- fore, an Indian high-priest, called Chilam-Cambal and regarded by them as a great prophet, had announced that, within a short time, a bearded white nation would arrive from where the sun rises, that they would carry aloft the sign of the cross, which he showed to them, and which, he said, their gods could not resist ; and these would take to flight. He further announced that the foreigners would subdue the natives, who were to aban- don their idols and to worship one God. And the prophet ordered stone crosses to be made and placed in the temple-courts, saying that the cross was the true tree of the world ; and this being a thing new to them, many people went to look at those crosses and venerated them ever since. This was the cause, the two ancient historians add, why the Indians asked Fernando de Cordova whether he had come from where the sun was born ; and why, when they saw Montejo and his soldiers pay so much respect to the cross, they were convinced that their prophet Chilam-Cambal had told them the truth. It is the place here to mention an analogous tradition of the Matlaltzincas of Michoacan. Bancroft says 1 that they reverenced very highly a great reformer, Surites, a high-priest who preached morality and, in- spired by a prophetic spirit, is said to have prepared the people for a better faith which was to come from the direction of the rising sun. The festivals of the Peranscuaro, which corresponded to our Christmas, and of the Zitacuarencuaro or Resurrection, were instituted by Surites. Finally, if we can rely on an authenticated 1 Vol. iii. p. 446. QUETZALCOATl/s RETURN TO AMERICA. 571 document of the conqueror of Mexico, the prophecy of Quetzalcoatl was renewed before the Aztec emperor, in the year 1384, by another bearded white missionary, who preached the same pure and salutary doctrine as his illustrious predecessor. 1 As the time for the fulfilment of the great prophecy was drawing nearer, the signs of the actual accomplish- ment appeared one after another, wonderful and dread- ful for those pagan, corrupt, and credulous people. We must not speak of the earthquake that destroyed the pyramid of Cholula, only a few days after Quetzalcoatl's departure, and was for the people a sufficient voucher of the truth of his predictions. 2 But in the year 1510 the great lake of Tezcuco, without the occurrence of a tempest or earthquake, or any other visible cause, be- came violently agitated, overflowed its banks, and, pouring into the streets of Mexico swept away many of the buildings in the fury of its waters. In 1511 one of the turrets of the great temple took fire, like- wise without any apparent cause, and continued to burn in defiance of all attempts to save it. In the fol- lowing years three comets were seen, and not long be- fore the coming of the Spaniards a strange light broke forth in the East. It spread broad at its base on the horizon, and, rising in a pyramidal form, tapered off as it approached the zenith. It resembled a vast sheet or flood of fire emitting sparks, or, as an old writer ex- presses it, " seemed thickly powdered with stars." At the same time low voices were heard in the air, and doleful wailings, as if to announce some strange, mys- terious calamity. These portentous phenomena took place every night for the space of a whole year. 3 1 See Document XVI. * Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, 2 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 201. vol. i. p. 309 ; Gleeson, vol. i. pp. 175, 185. 572 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. The day of Quetzalcoatl's return was looked forward to with hope or with apprehension, according to the interest of the believers, but with general confidence throughout the wide borders of Anahuac. Montezuma was convinced, in accordance with the assertions of his prophets and augurs, that his estate and riches were to perish within a few years at the hands of certain nations that would come during his lifetime and destroy his happiness. He, therefore, lived in constant fear, sad- ness, and anxiety. 1 Terrified at the apparitions in the heavens, he took counsel of Nezahualpilli, king of •Tezcuco, who was a great proficient in the subtle science of astrology. But the royal sage cast a deeper cloud over his spirit by reading in these portents the impending downfall of the empire. 2 Other alarming prodigies had taken place at the birth of Ixtlilxochitl, a son of Nezahualpilli ; and these, together with the gloomy aspect of the planets, led the astrologers, who cast the infant's horoscope, to advise the king to take the life of his child, because, they said, if he lived to grow up, he was destined to unite with the enemies of his country and overturn its institutions and religion. The father answered that it was useless to take measures against the decrees of the God Creator of all things ; that it was not devoid of mystery and according to the God's secret judgments, if He should give him such a son at the very time when the prophecies of the ancestors were nearing their accomplishment, when new nations were to come to take possession of the land, — namely, the children of Quetzalcoatl, whose arrival from eastern 1 Las Casas, MS., lib. iii. cap. 120, Acosta, tak. vii. ch. xxiii. ; Her- ap. Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, rera, Hist. Gener., dec. ii. lib. v. vol. i. p. 309, n. 8. cap. v. ; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., 2 Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva Es- MS., cap. lxxiv., ap. Prescott, Con- pafia, MS., lib. xii. cap. i. ; Ca- quest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 309. margo, Hist, de Tlascala, MS. ; qxjetzalcoatl's RETURN TO AMERICA. 573 parts was now expected. 1 It is related that the em- peror, in the year 1517, in his zeal to appease the irate deities, ordered the temple of Huitzilopochtli to be cov- ered from top to bottom with gold, precious stones, and rare feathers. His minister of finance, ordered to supply the cost of this extravagant act of piety by im- posing a new tax on the people, objected, but his objec- tions were removed by putting him to death. News had come that frightful foreign ships had touched the coast of Yucatan ; and to prevent the danger Montezuma had, in the year 1518, ordered the last of the long series of sacrificial immolations on a large scale. But almost before the groans of the dying victims had died away there came to the ears of the Aztec sovereign the startling tidings that the eastern strangers had again made their appearance, this time on the Totonac coasts of his own empire. In fact, John de Grijalva and his companions had followed the Gulf coast northward and reached the spot where now stands the city of Vera Cruz. 2 Not only the Mexican suzerain, but also his feudal kings and lords were terrified. The appearance of the Spaniards on the American coasts, the predictions of disaster which all the soothsayers agreed in deriving from constantly recurring omens, the approaching sub- jugation of his people to a race of foreigners, in which Nezahualpilli firmly believed, had a most depressing effect on the Tezcucan king. He withdrew with his favorite wife and a few attendants to the palace of Tez- cotzinco, announcing his intention of spending his re- maining days in solitude; but six months later he returned to Tezcuco, retired to his most private apart-' 1 Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., 2 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 478. cap. lxix. , ap. Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. ii. p 454, n. 33. 574 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. ments, and refused to see any visitors. Some time afterwards, when his family insisted on being admitted to his presence, his death was announced. 1 In the mean time measures had been taken to pre- vent, if possible, the impending calamity. All Aztec officials in the coast provinces had strict orders to keep a constant lookout for the eastern strangers, and, in case of their arrival, to treat them kindly ; but by pre- tence of traffic and by every possible means to ascer- tain who they were, whence they came, and what was the nature of their designs. In accordance with these orders, Pinotl, the Aztec governor of Cuetlachtlan, and his Mexican subordinates were foremost among the visitors to the wonderful ships of Grijalva. Paintings were quickly yet carefully prepared of the strangers, their ships, their weapons, and of every strange thing observed, and with the startling news and the pictured records the royal officials hastened to Mexico and com- municated their information to Montezuma. The em- peror, concealing as well as possible his anxiety, and forbidding the messengers to make the news public, immediately assembled his royal colleagues and his council of state, laid the matter before them, and asked their advice. The opinion was unanimous that the strangers were the children of Quetzalcoatl return- ing in fulfilment of the ancient prophecies, and that they should be kindly received, kindness towards them being the only means of conciliating the good will of the numerous Mexican followers, even that late, of the ancient prophet. An embassy was sent with rich pres- ents to the coast, but it was of no avail ; the Spaniards had departed, with a promise or a threat, rather, of returning at an early date. 1 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 473. QUETZALCOATL S RETURN TO AMERICA. 575 The events that followed, down to the fulfilment of that promise through the arrival of Fernando Cortes, in the year 1519, are not very definitely recorded ; but the next months formed a period of the greatest anxiety for the Aztec rulers, and of mingled dread and hope for their numerous enemies. Interest in the one absorbing topic caused all else to be forgotten. There was not, as before, any thought of conquest, of revolt, of tribute. Even the bloody rites of Huitzilopochtli were much neglected, and the star of the peaceful Quetzalcoatl and of his sect was in the ascendant. Prophets and old men throughout the country were closely questioned re- specting their knowledge of the ancient traditions ; old paintings and records were taken from every archive and carefully compared with those relating to the new- comers. The loss of the precious documents burned by Itzcoatl was now seriously felt ; the glass beads and other trinkets obtained from the Spaniards, and even carefully treasured fragments of ship-biscuits, were for- mally deposited, with all the old Toltec ceremonies, in the temple of Quetzalcoatl. 1 Such was in Mexico the anxious expectation of its instant religious and social ruin, while the return of Cukulcan and the restoration of his peaceful and chari- table doctrine were looked for with joy by the greater number of its southern tributaries, who afterwards wil- lingly submitted to the authority of the Spanish gen- erals. In a few districts, however, the white, bearded people arrived a few years before the date set by Chilam-Cambal, as we may notice from the answer of Canec of Peten to the Christian missionary, — namely, that, although his father had promised to embrace Christianity, he would postpone his conversion for a 1 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 479. 576 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. while longer, because the cross was announced to re- turn in the thirteenth space of time, whereas this was only the third. 1 The Peruvian king, Huayna Capac, who had un- doubtedly heard of the expedition of Pizarro and Al- magro as far as the Rio de San Juan, intimated his apprehension that they would return, and that some day, not far distant perhaps, the throne of the Incas might be shaken by these strangers. 2 Other accounts, which had obtained a popular currency, not content with this, connect the first tidings of the white men in Peru with predictions long extant in the country, and with supernatural apparitions which filled the hearts of the whole nation with dismay. Comets were seen flaming athwart the heavens, earthquakes shook the land, the moon was girdled with rings of fire of many colors, a thunderbolt fell on one of the royal palaces and consumed it to ashes, and an eagle chased by sev- eral .hawks was seen, screaming in the air, to hover above the great square of Cuzco, when, pierced by the talons of its tormentors, the king of birds fell lifeless in the presence of many of the Inca nobles, who read in this event an augury of their own destruction. Huayna Capac himself, calling his great officers around him, as he found he was drawing near his end, announced the subversion of his empire by the race of white and bearded strangers, as the consummation predicted by the oracles after the reign of the twelfth Inca, and he enjoined it on his vassals not to resist the decrees of Heaven, but to yield obedience to its messengers. 3 Nor was it only in every kingdom of Central Amer- 1 Bastian, Bd. ii. S. 371. * Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. 2 Sarmiento, Relacion, MS., cap. i. p. 334, ref. to Garcilasso de la Ixv., ap. Prescott, Conquest of Vega, Comentarios, parte i. lib. ix. Peru, vol. i. p. 334. cap. xiv. QUETZALCOATLS RETURN TO AMERICA. 577 ica and of Peru that this expectation existed at that time, but even the Haytians had a presentiment of the destruction of their idolatrous religion, according to what they had learned, they said, from their own gods, 1 Nay, all over the Antilles the discoverers were received as a holy race, as expected gods. Too late the Indians knew that the Spanish convicts were not even saints. 2 No wonder, says Short, 3 when the fleet of Cortes hove in sight on the horizon, almost in the same place where Quetzalcoatl had disappeared, that the Mexicans, who had been waiting for centuries for the prince of peace to return, believed their waiting to be at an end. The coast natives sprang immediately to their canoes and commenced to row towards the vessels, and, as they arrived near the ships and saw the Spaniards, they kissed the prows of their crafts in sign of adoration. 4 When Cortes landed they sacrificed a man to him, and sprinkled him and his companions with the blood of the wretched victim. 5 The news of the conqueror's landing, together with the pictures of his ships, horses, and other wonderful equipments, was carried to the city of Tenochtitlan with the swiftness of an arrow. Montezuma, with trembling hand, compared the fresh writing with his ancient records, convened his council of state, asking especially the advice of the wise king of Tezcuco. The more they considered the matter the better they were convinced that Quetzalcoatl had actually returned to resume his ancient rule over the land. They concluded that the best policy to follow was that of gaining his 1 Gomara, cap. xxxii. fo. 30 T °. 5 Short, p. 271 ; Bancroft, vol. iii. 2 Dr. de Mier, ap. Sahagun, t. i. p. 276 ; cf. Duran, Apend., p. ult. ; p. iv. Las Casas, p. 449, t. lxvi., Coleccion 3 P. 271. de Documentos. * Gleeaon, vol. i. p. 184, quoting Sahagun. I.— 37 578 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. good will by sending him the richest presents of jewels, gold, featherwork, and precious stones ; and yet of keep- ing him away by saying that the emperor did not wish to see him, out kindly requested him to return from whence he had come. 1 While the Spaniards were occupied with their new settlement of Villa Eica, they were surprised by the presence of an embassy from Mexico. The envoys, on coming before Cortes, presented him with the rich gifts of their master, who had no doubt, they said, but Cortes and his companions were the strangers whose arrival had so long been announced by their oracles. They desired, however, that he should not proceed on his intended visit to the Mexican capital. 2 Cortes accepted the presents, but did not grant the petition. A few weeks later, when the conqueror had demanded a passage through the territories of the Tlas- calan republic, their great council was convened, and a considerable difference of opinion prevailed among its members. Some advised conciliatory measures, " because we know," they said, " from our ancestors, that a nation is to come from the regions where the sun rises, to intermarry with us, and we are to form one nation with them, and they are foretold to be white and bearded men." 3 Others, among whom was the courageous general, Xicotencatl, were in favor of re- fusal and armed opposition. The latter opinion pre- vailed ; but after the armies of the Tlascalan republic had been repeatedly defeated by the Spanish invaders, their general, Xicotencatl, in tendering his submission, also admitted that his victors might be the strangers who, it had been so long predicted, would come from 1 Duran, t. ii. p. 78. 8 Camargo, Hist, de Tlaxcala, ap. 2 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. vol. i. p. 348. i. p. 412, n. 15. QUETZALCOATL S BETTJRN TO AMERICA. 579 the East to take possession of the country, and he begged them to use their triumph with moderation. 1 The faith in Quetzalcoatl's return, which Cortes was careful enough not to contradict, not only opened to him the way to make Montezuma his unwelcome visit, hut was also the principal cause of all his brilliant success. The reader has noticed the contentions of earlier times in Tollan and Cholula between Tezcat- lipoca and Quetzalcoatl. With the growth of the Mexican influence, the bloody rites favored by Tezcat- lipoca had prevailed under the auspices of the san- guinary Aztec god, Huitzilopochtli, and the worship of the gentle Quetzalcoatl, though still observed in many provinces and many temples, had, with its priests, been forced to take a secondary rank. But the people were filled with terror at the horrible extent to which the later kings had carried the immolation of human victims ; they were sick of blood and of divinities that thirsted after it. A reaction was experienced in favor of the rival deity and priesthood. And now, just as the oppressed subjects of idolatrous tyranny were learning to remember with regret the gentle teach- ings of Quetzalcoatl, and to look to that god for relief from their woes, their prayers were answered, the god's predictions were apparently fulfilled, and his promised brethren, if not himself, made their appearance on the eastern ocean. " The arrival of Cortes was, in one sense," says Bancroft, and we add, was in every sense, " most marvellous ;" 2 most marvellous, indeed ! When, on his second expedition against Mexico, 1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, astonishment caused to the infidel vol. i. p. 455. writer by the accomplishment of a Bancroft, vol. v. p. 482. His the prophecy, in conjunction with slur cast upon the- clergy that con- the peculiar preparatory circum- tinued Quetzalcoatl's beneficent stances of the country's political doctrine could not lessen the condition. 580 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. Cortes had occupied Tezcuco once more, the rulers of Chalco, another important city situated on the eastern extremity of the lake of that name, sent a message to the captain-general, proposing to put themselves under his protection and command if he would enable them to expel the Aztec garrison. Corte"s acquiesced in their petition, and his lieutenant Sandoval soon returned to Tezcuco, accompanied by the two young lords of the city, sons of the late cacique. These informed the conqueror that their father had died, full of years, a short time before. With his last breath he had ex- pressed his regret that he should not have lived to see Malinche, as Cortes was called by them. He had believed that the white men were the beings predicted by the oracles as one day to come from the East and take possession of the land, 1 and had enjoined on his children, should the strangers return to the valley, to tender them their homage and allegiance. Cortes re- ceived a similar application from various other towns that were disposed, could they do so with safety, to throw off the Mexican yoke. 2 Religion and politics combined to turn the natives against their country's acknowledged master, in favor of a foreign invader with a handful of soldiers ; but religion alone directed the powerful master himself to resign his crown and promise allegiance to an ultra- marine potentate, Charles V., simply because the Span- ish king was, in his persuasion, the representative of a religious teacher who had, in times gone by, done so much good to his country and had — explain who can 1 "Porque ciertamente sus ante- nosotros." (Bernal Diaz, Hist, de passados les avian dicho, que avian la Conquista, cap. cxxxix., ap. de seflorear aquellas tierras horn- Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. bres que vernian con barbas de iii. p. 13, n. 11.) hazia donde sale el Sol, y que por 2 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, las cosas que han visto, eramos vol. iii. pp. 11-13. QUETZALCOATLS RETURN TO AMERICA. 581 — announced the arrival of his co-religionists at a time which was, from all indications, universally believed to be the time of Montezuma himself. 1 When receiving the first visit of Cortes, Montezuma told him that his ancestors were not the original pro- prietors of the land. They had occupied it but a few ages, he said, and had been led there by a great being, who, after giving them laws and ruling over the nation for a time, had withdrawn to the regions where the sun rises. He had declared, on his departure, that he or his descendants would again visit them and resume his empire. The wonderful deeds of the Spaniards, their fair complexions, and the quarter whence they came, all showed that they were his descendants. 2 The rumor of Montezuma's submission to the king of Spain was soon circulated through the capital and the country. Men read in it the decrees of Providence. The ancient tradition of Quetzalcoatl was familiar to all ; and where it had slept, scarcely noticed, in the memory, it was now revived with many exaggerated details. It was said to be part of the tradition that the royal line of the Aztecs was to end with Monte- zuma, and his name, the literal signification of which is " sad," or " angry lord," was construed into an omen of his evil destiny. 3 1 Sahagun, t. i. p. v. Cortes 2 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, wrote to Charles V. that he had vol. ii. p. 86, ref. to Relacion Se- succeeded with Montezuma, "es- greda de Cortez : " E siempre hemos pecialmente en hacelle creer que tenido, que de los que de 61 de- V. M. era a quien ellos esperaban. scendiessen habian de venir a so- Engafiado asi Monteuhsoma junto juzgar esta tierra, y a nosotros los reyes y senores de su imperio, como a sus vasallos." y arengandoles con la misma tra- 3 Gomara, Cronica, cap. xcii. ; dicion que sabian, y estaba escrita Clavigero, Storia del Messico, t. ii. en sus monumentos, se reconocio p. 256, ap. Prescott, Conquest of por feudatario del supuesto Quet- Mexico, vol. ii. p. 193. zalcohuatl." (Cf. Prescott, Con- quest of Mexico, vol. ii. p. 190. ) 582 HISTORY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. I conclude my account of the tradition common to all civilized and to a few barbarous nations of America by mentioning a curious remark of the learned Bas- tian, 1 — namely, that the Peruvian king Atahuallpa recognized De Soto and the Spanish companions of Fernando Pizarro, whose coming had been predicted by the god Viracocha, from the stone statues erected in ancient times by Yahuar-Capac. It might be expected from us that, before finishing this chapter, we would draw some general inferences from the numerous facts related. We trust that no intelligent reader would contradict us, if we should consider it sufficiently demonstrated that the Christian religion was preached in America during the first centuries of our era ; that Quetzalcoatl was a Christian prelate who landed in America, accompanied by several inferior missionaries and a number of people from some part of Christian Europe, and that he established a settlement in the territories of the Mexican empire or, perhaps, on the eastern coasts of our United States, from whence they eventually extended their race and religion along the Mexican Gulf. We might find, in the facts above reported, sufficient ground for a reasonable doubt whether the true omniscient God was not the author of Quetzalcoatl's prophecy and of its punctual accomplishment ; but we have no intention to write a philosophy of ancient American history, and we re- strict ourselves within the bounds of history itself, simply relating past events as we may have succeeded in learning them. We shall, therefore, be satisfied if the reader will grant us leave to draw from the fore- going pages but one conclusion, which to our under- standing seems to be indisputable, — namely, that some 1 Bd. ii. S. 126. QUETZALCOATLS RETURN TO AMERICA. 583 European immigrants have introduced into America the Christian doctrines, symbols, and practices, of which such unmistakable evidence has been found by the discoverers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. All other deductions, which may easily be arrived at, we leave to the intelligence of our readers, while we take upon ourselves the further difficult task of searching after the European nations and the Christian apostles, whose acquaintance will solve the strange, puzzling questions necessarily suggested to the most indifferent minds by the universally admitted state- ments made heretofore. Who was Quetzalcoatl, and from what part of Europe did he come with his bearded disciples and white colonists ? APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS. DOCUMENT I., a. LINAPI NATIONAL SONGS. 1 First Song: The Creation, etc. 2 1. At first there was nothing but sea-water on the top of the land, AM. 2. There was much water, and much fog over the land, and there was also Kitanitowit, the God-Creator. 3. And this God-Creator was the first being, Saye-Wis, an eternal being, and invisible, although everywhere. 4. It was he who caused much water, much land, much cloud, much heaven. 5. It was he who caused the sun, the moon, and the stars. 6. And all these he caused to move well. 7. By his action it blew hard, it cleared up, and the deep water ran off. 8. It looked bright, and islands stood there, Menak. 9. It was then, when again the God-Creator made the makers or spirits, Manito-Manitoak. 10. And also the first beings, Owiniwak, and also the angels, Angelatawiwak, and also the souls, CMchankwak : all them he made. 11. And afterwards he made the man-being, Jin-Wis, ances- tor of the men. 12. He gave him the first mother, Netamigaho, mother of the first beings, Owini. 13. And fishes he gave him, beasts he gave him, birds he gave him. . 14. But there was a bad spirit, Makimani, who caused the bad beings, Makowini ; black snakes, JVakowak, and monsters or large reptiles, Amangarnek. 1 0. S. Eaflnesque, The American 2 Kef. to pp. 109, 111, 112, 190. Nations, t. i. p. 122, seq. 585 586 APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS. 15. And caused also flies, and caused also gnats. 16. All the things were then friends and stood there. 17. Thou being Kiwin, good God, Wunand; and the good makers or spirits were such. 18. With the Jins Nijini, the first men, and the first mother, their wives, which were Fairies, Nantinewak. 1 19. The first food of the Jins and Fairies was a fat fruit, Qattamin. 20. All were willingly pleased, all were easy thinking, and all were well-happified. 21. But after a while a Snake-priest, Powako, brings on earth secretly the snake-worship, Initako, of the god of the snakes, Wakon. 22. And there came wickedness, crime, and unhappiness. 23. And bad weather was coming, distemper was coming, with death was coming. 24. All this happened very long ago, at the first land Netamaki, beyond the great ocean, Kitahikan. DOCUMENT I., 6. Second Song: The Flood, etc. 2 1. There was, long ago, a powerful snake, Maskanako, when the men had become bad beings, Makowini. 2. This strong snake had become the foe of the Jins, and they became troubled, hating each other. 3. Both were fighting, both were spoiling, both were never peaceful. 4. And they were fighting, least-man, Mattapewi, with dead- keeper, Nihanlowit. 5. And the strong snake readily resolved to destroy or fight the beings and the men. 6. The dark snake he brought, the monster, Amangam he brought, snake rushing water he brought. 7. Much water is rushing, much go to hills, much penetrate, much destroying. 8. Meantime at Tula, at that island, Nanabush (the great hare Nana) became the ancestor of beings and men. 3 1 Compare " Jins Nijini" with the 2 Kef. to pp. Ill, 112, 190. Jins of China and Iran, the Jains 3 Nana appears to be Noe. of India, and the Gens of Eome. DOCUMENT I., C. 587 9. Being born creeping, he is ready to move and dwell at Tula. 1 10. The beings and men all go forth from the flood, creeping in shallow water, or swimming afloat, asking which is the way to the turtle-back, Tularin? 11. But there were many monsters, Amangamek, in the way, and some men were devoured by them. 12. But the daughter of a spirit helped them in a boat, saying : come, come ; they were coming and were helped. 3 As an annex to this second song, follows a hymn to Nanabush in rhymes, of which the beginning is as follows : 1. Nanabush, Nanabush became the grandfather of all, the grandfather of the beings, the grandfather of the men, and the grandfather of the turtles. 2. The men were there, the turtle there ; they were turtling altogether. 3. He was frightened, he the turtle ; he was praying, he the turtle ; let it be to make well. 4. Water running off, it is drying in the plains and the moun- tains, at the path of the cave ; elsewhere went the powerful action or motion. DOCUMENT I., c. Third Song : Fate after the Flood, Emigration to America.* 1. After the flood, the manly men, Linapewi, with the manly turtle-beings 6 dwelt close together at the cave-house and dwell- ing of Talli. 2. It freezes was there, it snows was there, it is cold was there. 3. To possess mild coldness and much game, they go to the northerly plain, to hunt cattle they go. 4. To be strong and to be rich, the comers divided into tillers and hunters, Wikhichifc, Elowichik. 1 Tulla is the ancient seat of the nesque, t. i. p. 170 ; from the work Toltecs and of the Mexican na- of Father Koman, in Columbus's tions, as we shall see farther ; Tu- Life, by his son. ) Ian or Turan or Central Tartary in s The name of the boat or raft is Europe. Mokol,— Mogul, Mongol? 2 To the Haytians Hayti was a 4 Kef. to pp. 112, 190. great animal like the turtle, as was 5 The later American red-skinned their country to the Chinese, the aborigines (?). Hindoos, and the Linapis. (Eafi- 588 APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS. 5. The most strong, the most good, the most holy, the hunters they are. 6. And the hunters spread themselves, becoming Northerlings, Easterlings, Southerlings, Westerlings. 7. Thus the white country, Lumonaki, north of the turtle- country, became the hunting country of the turtling true men. 8. Meantime all the Snakes were afraid in their huts, and the snake-priest, Nakopowa, said to all : let us go. 9. Easterly they go forth at Snakeland, Akhokink, and they went away earnestly grieving. 10. Thus escaping by going so far and by trembling, the burnt land, Lusasaki, is torn and is broken from the snake for- tified land, Akomenaki. 11. Being free, having no trouble, the Northerlings all go out, separating at the land of snow, Winiaken. 12. The fish resort to the shores of the gaping sea, where tarried the fathers of White Eagle and White Wolf, Waplanewa, Waptumewi. 13. While our fathers were always boating and navigating, they saw in the East, that the Snake-land was bright and wealthy. 14. The Head-beaver, Wihlamok, and the Big-bird, Kicholen, were saying to all : let us go to the snake-island, Akomen. 15. By going with us, we shall annihilate all the snaking people, Wemaken. 16. Having all agreed, the Northerlings and Easterlings went over the water of the frozen sea, to possess that land. 17. It was wonderful when they all went over the smooth deep water of the frozen sea, at the gap of the snake sea in the great ocean. 18. They were ten thousand in the dark, who all go forth in a single night in the dark, to the snake-island of the Eastern land Wapanaki in the dark, by walking, all the people, Olini. 19. They were the manly North, the manly East, the manly South; with manly Eagle, manly Beaver, manly Wolf; with manly hunter, manly priest, manly rich ; with manly wife, manly daughter, manly dog. 20. All coming there, they tarry at Firland, Shinaki. But the Western men, doubtful of the passage, preferred to remain at the old turtle-land. 1 1 Were not these the tribes of lied with the American Esqui- northeastern Siberia, so closely al- maux ? DOCUMENT II., b. 589 " Thus end these interesting and positive ancient traditions," Eafinesque says. DOCUMENT II.. a. SECOND SERIES OF LINAPI OR NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS' SONGS: Their History in America. 1 First Song. 2 1. Long ago, the fathers of men were then at Shinaki or Firland. 2. The path-leader was the White Eagle, Wapalanewa, or First chief, who leads them all there. 3. The Snake-island was a big land, a fine land, and was explored by them. . . . ******** 10. After him there Chilili, Snowbird, 5th chief, was king, who says : let us go south. 11. To spread the fathers of men, Wokenapi, and to be able to possess more. 12. South he goes, the Snowbird; but east he goes, the Beaver-he, Tamakwi. DOCUMENT II., b. Second Song. 3 ******** 17. After Ayamek, 6th king, came ten kings, in whose time there was much warfare south and east. 4 ******** 21. King afterwards was Matemik or Town-builder, 20th king, who built many towns. *i* ^1* ^i* *fi ^t* *p *jC jjc 23. King afterwards was Olumapi, manly recorder or bundler, 24th king, who caused many writings. ******** 28. There was no raining, and no corn grew. East he goes, Shiwapi, 28th king, far from the sea. 1 C. S. Eafinesque, The American * Modern times repeat ancient Nations, t. i. p. 131, seq. history ; to exauctorate ancient 2 Kef. to pp. 109, 113. possessors entails lasting war. 3 Ibid. 590 APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS. 29. Over hollow mountain, Oligomunk, at last to eat he went at a fine plain, Kalokwaming, of the cattle-land. ******** 32. Being angry, some went easterly and secretly went far off. . . . DOCUMENT II., c. Third Song. 1 ******** 34. It was at the Yellow Eiver, Wisawana, where there was much corn, large meadows ; and again were huilt towns. 2 ******** 39. Wingenund, Mindful, 38th king, was king and pontiff, who made many festivals. 3 ******** 43-47. The kings (42d to 46th) were warring. 4 48. To the sunrise, he said, Opekasit, 46th king, let us go, and there are many who together go east. . . . DOCUMENT II., d. Fourth Song? 61. South of the lakes they settle the council fire, and the friends, Talamatan, north of the lakes. 62. But they were not always friends, and were conspiring when Crunitakan, Long-mild, 54th king, was king. DOCUMENT II., e. Fifth Song. 6 5. Lekhihitin, Writer, 60th king, was king, and painted many books, Wallamolumin? 1 Eef. to p. 113. * That epoch seems to have been 5 Under the thirty-fourth king. one of invasions by many nations, 3 Bafinesque, t. i. p. 154, n. 20, which compelled the Linapis to remarks that Wingenund must migrate farther east. have been another legislator and 5 Eef. to pp. 113, 114. high-priest, and that his festivals 6 Eef. to p. 114. are called Gentiko and known by ' Another historian. many nations. DOCUMENT III., a. 591 9. Tankawon, Little Cloud, 64th king, was king, while many went away. 10. The Nentegos and the Shawanis went to the south lands. 1 DOCUMENT II., /. Sixth Song. 3 ******** 26. All the hunters reach the salt sea of the sun, Gfishiksha- pipek, which was again a big sea. 27. Makhiawip, Eed arrow, 76th king, was king at the tide water. ******** 39. Pitenumen, Mistaker, 83d king, was king, and saw some one come from somewhere. 40. At this time, from the east Sea was coming a whiter Wapsi. . . . DOCUMENT II., g. Seventh Song. 3 ******** 58. Nenachihat, Watcher, 96th king, was king and looking at the sea. 59. At this time, north and south, the Wapayachik came, the white or eastern moving souls. 60. They were friendly and came in big bird-ships. Who are they ? * DOCUMENT III., a. plato's credibility in eegabd to atlantis. 6 " ''Ep/ioKp&TW '0 6" ovv %/iiv \6yov eloiiyfyaaTo in ircJiatac iutowjs, iv aai vvv teye, & Kpiria . . . Kpmaf • Tairra XPV <5p?"i t* *"l rat rpirii) koivu/xu Tt/ia'u,) Ijwdoiai. Tf^iatof * Aoxel flip). Kperiac 'Aieove 6r), it Sd/cparef, Jrfryav /idXa yh> ar/mov, iravr&iraoi ye y.ip> 1 Eaflnesque, t. i. p. 156, n. 24, nals, so curious, and so plain when observes: "The Linapi tribes be- properly understood and trans- gin to disperse about six hundred lated," says Eaflnesque, t. i. p. 140. years after Christ." 6 Platonis Opera Omnia, Timseus, 2 Eef. to p. 114. ed. Godfredi Stallbaum, t. vii. p. 82, 8 Item. and ed. Immanuelis Bekkeri, pars 1 "Thus end these poetical an- iii. vol. ii. p. 9. (Ref. to p. 130.) 592 APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS. dAtfSoiif, ovv o'mcTo; mi ccp66pa tyiTioi; rijiiv AponlSov tov irpoTrdrnrov, KaScmep Tiiyci 7roUax°b Ka ^ abrdc ev T 9 noifjcu- Ilpdc 6s Kpuiav tov Tfphepov Ttdimov cIttcv, <5f airepvqpAvsvev av vpbt; tifiaS 6 yipov, bri peydXa ml davpaOTa, rycd" sir) ■Ka'Kaid ipya "rijt ir6%eu( iir6 Xpdvov Kai fypdco'iraXaiov cuuikou; "Kbyov ov viov dv6p6c. 'Kv pev yap 6% Tore K/mthzc, <5c Ipi, cxc6bv iyyv; rjitj tov ivcvfimvra irov, eyb 6s ti) jiaheTa Scicctik. . . . (Stallb., p. 85 ; Bekker, p. 11.) '0 <5s) yipov, aS6pa yap ovv pipvqptu, paka rt ijeBrj Kai dia/ieidi&ca; emev El ye, <5 'Apbvav6pe, pfj naptpyo ry noiiioei. mre- XpfaaTO, hXK iaitovSaicti. mddirep iMuoi, tov tc X6yov ov art 3 Alyvirrov 6evpo rpiiymro, cmcriTicae (Solon), . . mrd ■/ ipjjv 661-av, ovre 'Hoiodog ovte 'Opypoe ovtc dAAof ov6ci{ noajrfc evSotupoTcpoc iytvero dv ttotc avTov. Tjc ff %v 6 Myoe, % (T i> tyy nopevdelc; o~ 2, 'ZSXov, "EMijvee ad waldlc tare, yipov 61 "ETiXtjv oi/c iartv . . . (Bekker, p. 13.) 'Ambpas oivv, IIuc tI tovto TJiytvs ; tyfivav TSioi cert, c'meiv, rdf ifivxdc ndvre;' ovSepiav yap iv aira'ic Ixcre 6c' apxaiav amfyv iraTiatav 66%av ov6i fidOy/m xpfo<<> no!tbv ov6£v .... (Stallb., p. 91 ; Bekk., p. 14.) Jldvra 6e ao^dficva Tiiyerai iraXaidraTa (in Egypt) . . "Qaa 6c f/ nap* i/ilv rj T%6e f) Kai mr' aXkov t&kov ov ami) loftcv, cl jroii rt «a/Uv f/ fiiya yeyovev y ml Ttva 6ia, Trdvra ytypa/i/iiva ek itaJaiov riff iartv iif Tol; iepoic ml cecoo/iha .... (Stallb., p. 92.) To yovv vvv 6r) ytvtaTjoyrfiivra^ <5 X6?iov t irepi tov nap' v/iiv a 6iij7St(, irai6ov fipaxv u 6ia TaxpaTts, into t«> iraTiaiov TS.pi/riov Kar' amrjv ttjv 267iavoc, o( evvrd/toe e'urelv, aK^raof . . . Td nai6ov liaWifiaTa Bavpaorbv ix £l Tl livr)pxiov\ 'Eyii yap a piv x®it f/mvaaovK av old* el 6vvaifurp) awavra iv p.vfijn) itdXiv Aafielv Tama 6'e a irdfinoTuov xp6vov Aa^/coa, Txavxa^aai ffav/idoaip,' av el t'i p.t avrov 6tairi Qavp&aat ml itaoav npoBvpiav cr^eiv, 6c6pcvo( rav kpiav irdvra 6t' &Kpif3eiac ol ra mpl tSv icafai iro/Xcrav ijfii SizTSeiv. Tdv oiv iepia /lamv bKraiaexMuv Irdv dptdpbc yiypanrai. . . . , (Stallb., p. 99; Bekk., p. 17.) Aeyei yap fa yeypappiva, oatjv 17 ir6hg vpwr liraves irori tibvap.iv vftpu ■Kopevopbitp apa cirl irhoav Evptinqv na.1 Aoiav, i%o6eV bppffiuaav Ik tov 'AtTmvtixov irM.yovg (Critias : Stallb., p. 388 ; Bekk., p. 149.) TI&vtov di) irpoTov pvrjadCipev on rb KCip6%aiov %v evaKig ^tAra ^ T 1 fy>' °v yeyovog IprtvWi) n6/\epc; rol( ff iirip HpaK- Attfl; oTiJ/lof £fo KarocKOvci kqJ toZc ivrbc naoiv," DOCUMENT IV., a. EXTENT OF THE ATLANTIC EMPIRE. 8 " . . . . Tore yap iropeioi/iov rjv to ckcI iriXayof vijoov yap npb nil ardparoc tlxev, o Rafelre, £>$ ipare iptic, 't&paMovg oTffla;. 'H Si vrjaoq apa Aif}'v>n; riv /cat 'Acta; /tei£uv, if ijc cniflaTov lici raj a/lZac vfjcovf rol£ tot' iylyvero iropcvopivotc, ex o*£ tov vijBun) crel Tip) Karavrmpv nacav ymipov Trp> trepl tov akrfiiviv Ikuvov rrovTov. T&deplv yap, baa fords tov crdpaTog oil /\(yopev, tyaivcTai Tuprpi OTtvdv Ttva iX^v eloir/\ow Ixeivo ££ nefayo; ivrog, y t£ Trcpiexovaa aiird yri navTeTiog a/\rftS>s bpBlnaf av "kbyoiTO iprupos. 'Ev ip>iag. (Critias : Stallb., p. 389 ; Bekker, 149.) .... 'AxlavriSog v^aov . ..,ijv Si) Aif}v7/g Kai 'kaiag fiel£ a vijaov ovaav iipauev elval ■K&re, vvv Si imb aeuT/idv Svaav anopov irrjhbv Tdig ivdevSe exiMovaiv iiri rb nihiyog, txrre pjiittn mpebeodai,iajfarrip> irapaox&v." DOCUMENT IV., b. PRODUCTS OF THE ATLANTIS. 1 " TloTM yh> yap Sia tt)v apxyv avrolg (the ten kings of Atlantis) ■xpwfyem egodev, ir%eiara Si % vijaog avri) irapeixero elg toj tov fttov KaraaKevdg, nparov fih> baa imb /teralteiag bpvTTb/teva arepeb. Kai baa ttikto. yiyove, ml to vvv bvofiaZS/ievov li&t-ov, Tore di irteov ovb/iarog fy rb yivog ck yfjg opwrd/ievov bpeixakKov Kara rbwovg voTMbg Tijg vijaov, nXijv xpvGw Ti/u&rarov hi Tolg-Tbre Inr nal baa vkri irpbg Tct tov tektovuv Suvcovfifiara napixerat, ir&vra tyipovaa afBova, to te av mpl to, J da Imvag jjjiepa Kai aypia Tpefovoa. Kat Sq ml eXe^ivruv %v avry yhog wtelaTov. TSopi) y&p Toig te aUmg (6otg, baa naff ekr) Kai Vijivag Kai irorajiovg baa r" a{i nar' bpri kai ■baa iv Tdig veSioig vepzTai, ^vfVKaai itapfp) aSyv, Kai rovriji Kara Tavrd tu f&4> fityioTQ iretyvKbTi Kai ■Koh)^opaTa.T( l >. Xipbg 6% Tovrotg, baa evdSr) Tptyei irov 'yrj ra mn>, frifav f) X^VS V fWiw rj xv^dv otoktov eire avBav eire mpirav, efepi re Taiira Kai l$epj3ev ei. "Ert Si t6v rjptpov mpnttv, t6v re tjqpbv, bg fijuv Tpoijiijg hem eon, Kai baoig x&P lv T0V ohov npoo- XP&/ieTa--Ka?tf>v/iEi> Si avTov to piprj l-vfiiravra boirpia — Kai tov baog fti/livof, ■K&paTa Kai Pp¶ Kai ate'ifi/tara £pw, TraiSiag Te 8f ivem JiSovqg re yb/ove Sva6iiaab~ picrrog aKpoSpvuv Kapirbg, baa Te irapa/Midta n7ii]ap.0VTjg fieraSbpma ayan^rd K&fivavn riBe/iev. "Airavra Tavra j} t<5te nori ovaa if faty vfjooc lepa Kali te Kai Baviiaara koI iMlBeoiv awetpa fyepe. lavTa ovv la/ipdvovreg ir&vra irapa Tfjg yfts KareaKeva^ovro to re lepa. Kai Taf fiaaikiKhg omijaeig ml tovq Tiiphiag Kai to. veiipca'-Kal §i/iizaaav rijv hXKrp) X"P av > Toig.Se h> ratjei SiaKoa/iovvreg. .... "Erepog Si nap' irepov Sexb/ievog, KEKoampiva Koa/icyv, iirepe^aWKero elg Svvajiiv a€i rbv e/mpoaBev, eug elg eKizTjit-iv fieyiBeoi. KaXKeai re epyuv ISslv ttjv oIktioiv hneipyaaavTO." DOCUMENT IV., c. neptune's temple in atlantis's capital.* " To Si 6% Tijg aKponblxag ivrbg (Haaiheia KareoKevao/iha aS" tjv 'Ev p&aq yx» Up6v ayiov avrbBt Tijg re TLT&tTovg Kai tov JloaeiSavog a^arov afelro, trepifib'fap XpvaiJ ■xepifiepkrinhov, tovt' h J Kaf hpx&g fytryaav Kai Kar 1 iviavrbv ck iraaav tcji« dim, Id/Sjeuv 6paia aiirbae airereTurw lepa ZKeivuv iKaartp. Tov Si Tloaeidavog 1 Platonis Opera Omnia, Critias, 2 Platonis Opera Omnia, Critias, ed. Stallbaum, t. vii. p. 409 ; ed. ed. Immamielis Bekker, pars iii. Bekker, pars iii. vol. ii. p. 160. vol. ii. p. 164. (Ref. to pp. 137, (Ref. to p. 135.) 138.) DOCUMENT IV., d. 595 avT&v vc&; fjv, oraSiov ph pijKOC, evpo; Si rpial wTiiBpois, vtyoe 6' hirl toItoi( dp- ftcrpov ISelv, elSo; Si n j3ap/3apu(bv J^owof. Xldvra Si l£u6ev irepiqfetfav rbv vetsv ipyipu, nTafv raw anpuriiplurv, to Si aKpurt)pia XP V "¥- Ta SiivrSg, ttjv piv bpo(jnjv ifo$avTiv7fv ISelv naoav Xp vo '? KC ^ bpuxahKip ncTToi.iiXip.hTiv, to Si aUn mhvra rav Toixuv ti ml Kidvuv ml lSa$ov( bpeixdTiXij) itepikXa^w. Xpvaa Si ayaXpara he- Gnjaav, rbv uhi 6ebv If apparo; iarara ef irroitTipuv Imruv rjyioxov, avr&v re mb peyiBovs ry Kopvfy Tysipoffis k rb ptyeBqc ml to Tijg Ipyaaia; rairri) rj? KaraoKevq, koX to fiaoiltia mrH ravTcL irplirovra piv t$i t^j apxvs peyiBei, nphrovra Si Tip irepl ri Upa k6g flip." DOCUMENT IV., d. HAVEN AND NEIGHBORHOOD OF ATLANTA'S CAPITAL.' " Td Si veapia Tpcfjpav pcara fjv ml cmvov baa rprfpeoi npoarjusi, rravra- Si! ifyprvpha Imvag .... (Stallb., p. 417 ; Bekker, p. 167). Tovto Si) Kav (i. e. in the neighborhood of the haven) awoxe'iTO piv virb iroXXCrv ml nvuvCm o'udjoew, 6 Si avavXovg ml 6 piryuSTog Xipfp) iyepe nXolov ml ipftbpov aQiKvov/ilvav ir&vTOd'ev ) ipavfyi nal 86pvj3ov TtavroSanbv Krirrov re fieff fyipav ml Sih \vkto<; imb nX^Oovs irapexofihov. lb phi o$v iiGTv mi rb nepl rijv apxalav olntjaiv cxeSbv ug- Tin" eXex9>f, vvv Siefivti/tSvevTai- njf ff aKfois x&P a S &£,% ^ ff4 f £ '^ £ Kai T * T W Sid«aap.fiaeu$ elSo( ano/ivti/tovevaai Treipariov. UpaTOv ftiv dbv 6 tSttos anas hteyero oQbdpa re bfqVic ml in&ropo; h BaMrr^f, rb Si nepl t^v ir6?uv irov neSiov, intivriv piv nepiix ov , ™>Tb Si itiiK^ nepiexi'p^vov bpeai fiixpi TA^S ^ ddKarrav mBeiphoig, "Kelav ml bpaMs, irpbpqices Si nav, iirl piv darepa TputxMos. Ti Si nepl avrbv bpq rire ipvelro nv^tfof ml piyedog ml k6Wu>; irapa ir&vra t& vvy bvra ytyavivat, iroXkas piv tihpai; nal nvlowria? irepuiinuv h iavroig ix avTa • • • (Stallb., p. 418; Bekk., p. 168.) Terpdyavov ph> alff imypxe ™ jrAeZur' 6p6bv ml Ttp6prjKeQ- b n S 1 ivs'Xzme, KOtefiBwro r&fpov kvk^j mpiopvxScloiK. Tb Si p&Bog jail wMro;-Tb re pfmc avTtjQ amcrov piy rb, TiexBh, a; xupo™'"!™ ipyw, irpb; Ttiig HWuoig Sianovf/paai Toaovrov elvai .... (Stallb., p. 420; Bekk., p. 169.) t&SjBos Si, tov phi h tu mSiy xPV°ip<*> irpbq irbXeium avSpatv hhaxTO rbv liKfjpov emarov waptxeiv avSpa fyepfaa, rb Si rtfii rliipov ptrytBoc el;Sem Semitic itV, a; re arf apxyc ey'evero, jivfijiris av pi) areprfiapev av in iraicSec; bvrec qKovaa/iev, eif rb peaov, ai)Ta viiv airoSaoopev vpiv roZf QiXoit; elvai Koivd . . ; . (Stallb., p. 405; Bekker, p. 158.) KaBdirep ev role irpiaBev eXex&il ' r£ / ) ' T Vf rav 6eav Mjl-euc, in Kareveipavro yfv naaav ivBa piv pei^ov; 7Jil-ei£, b/Ba Si ml i /tdrrovf , iepa Bvaias re airolc /carau/cetrajovref, ovtu Si) /cat tS)v vijaov HoaetSav Tijv 'Ar/lavrMa Aa^ov cityovov; iavrov mTiptuoev e/c Bvyrije yvvaucdg yewfjaag ev rivi rdira rotuSe rijs vijaov .... (Stallb., p. 407 ; Bekker, p. 159.) HaiSov Si apfaevuv irfare yeveaeig StSvpovg yewqeifievoc eBpiiparo, ml ri)v vijaov Ttjv 'ArXavriSa iraaav Sim. pipt; mraveipaz ruv piv itpiafivraTuv Tip nporepa yevopevu T7/V re fir/rptfav ol/a/aiv ml ri)v KvnXa Ji^iv, •x'heiaTTiv ml ap'usri)v ovaav, awivecpe, flaatXia re rav aXkuv mreaTTioe, rovg 6k alXovg apxovTaq, imara Si apx^v ttoXTJJiv avBpimav ml ttmov ■koXKijs X&P a C ISoicev. . . . (Stallb. p. 408 ; Bekker, p. 160.) Ovrot Si) n-dvrec avroi re ml ixyovoi tovtov iirl yevea; m>XM; 6,"/cow apxovrec pev iroklCiv aXhav Kara rd rriXayog vijaov, in Si, &oirep ml Ttpdrepov ipjrffltj, pixp 1 re Alyvirrov ml Tvppqv'tas rwv cvt6c Sevpo iitdp- Xovrec. "ArAavro? Si) tzoTm phi a\lo ml ri/icov ylyverai yevog, fiaoilevs Si 6 wpea- JUtotoc ael rf vpea^vrdra tov ixydvav irapaStSovg eiri yevedg ■Ko'Xkas ri/v fiaaCheiav Siiaa^ov, nfaniTOv piv KZKXTjpivoi ■kK^Bu Toaoirrov, bao; ovre re npdaBev ev Swa- are'taic rial fiaoiktov yiyovtv ovre irare vcrepov yeveaBai fiflSioe, mreoicevao/iiva Si navra tjv avToie baa 'ev ■Kb'kei ml baa Kara. tt)v aXhp> x^>P av ^l v fyyov mraamva- caaBai. (Stallb., p. 421 ; Bekker, p. 170.) Tav Sim fiaacXiav eif imaros ev ftiv to naff avrbv fikoei /card Tijv avrov ndliv rav hvSpCty nal ruv itXeusrvn) vSftov ^px^i KoTid^av ml &7Tcktiwvq bv riv' iBeAfyoeiev. 'H Si iv aTOJ/Xai; apx?/ ml Kotvuvia Kara emaroUg j/v rcif tov Tiooecduvos, 6g 6 v6fu>; avrolg irapiSti/ce, ml ypdpipara into Tav irpaTutv ev orljfa) yeypap.jii.va bpuxa\\dvt) t ?) koto p.iariv ttjv vijaov ckeito iv Upifi TloaetSavoe. 02 Si) 6C eviavrov wipirrov, rore Se evaTikai- cktov, tjweteyovro, rcj re dprla ml t£> ireptTTy pepog laov airovEftovreg, ^vKkeydfizvoi Si irepl re Tav kocvov eflovXevovTo ml tf^rafov el rif rj wapapaivoi, ml eSiaa^ov. "Ore Si Smafciv piX- 2diev ) iziareis a^JKijKaig ToidaSe eSiSoaav irpdrepov. 'AipeTav bvrav Tavpuv iv rep tov TloaeiSavoc lepa, povot- yiyvdpevoi Sim bvrec, ivev^&pevot tu> 6ea~ rd Kexapia- /levov avTu Bipa ileiv, dvev atSijpov fiAoif ml jipdxois iBf/pevov, bv Si ekoiev tov raipav, irpb$ ttjv ar^h/v irpoaayaydvreg mra mpvip^v airsyf iotpaTTOv /card Tav ypapp&Tav. . . . (Stallb., p. 423 ; Bekker, p. 172.) Ndpoi Si noMol piv aXhm ncpl rd hpa Tav [Saaikiuv imOTav fjaav iSioi, to. Si pkyusTa pjj re irori bnhi e/r' d/U#lo«r olaeiv, [Soifiiiaeiv re irivra;, av irov tc; povijaeuc npbf re ra; dei t;vp(3ai. vovaaf rvxac ml irpb; aXM/Xov; xP^>p ev <>i, Sib ttA^v aperijg iravra virepopuvrec c/titcpa fiyovvTo ra irapdvra, Kai paSiug ifepov oiov ajjflof rbv tov xpvaov re ml rSyv aXKav KT7iftaTin> bynov, a7X ov peBiovre; vnoTpvtyijs Sia whrnrov' aKpiropec avrav ovte; iobaXKovro, vrjfyovres Si 6Ji KaBe&puv brt Kai ravra navra in fyiXiac; ttjs Kotvijg fieri aperrjq avSjaverai, ry Si tovtuv oirovSy Kai ripy ipBivei ravra re avra mKeiwi fwa- rt&KKvrai rovroig. 'E/c S% toyiapov re tovovtov ml Qvoeuc Beta; irapapevobaift wavr' avro'i; rfii^Br] a nplv ScfjT&opeVi 'Etrel 6' sj tov Beov piv poipa eljiTqXoc eyiyvero iv avrolc; noKKip rip fivrrcj ml kcMAkis avaKtpavwfitvti, to Si avBp&mvov ifiog ewexparei, Tire ydy to. irap&vra Qipeiv aSwaTovirsc eaxvpSvow, ml tC> Swapkvu pev opav aloxpol Karefyaivovro, ra KaXfaara aVd tov ripiardruv awoXMjvree;." DOCUMENT V., c. ATLANTIS'S DEFEAT AND SUBMERSION.' ""Avn/ Sri iraoa gwaBpoioBelaa el; hi fi Svvapic (of the Atlantic Kings) r re irap' iplv (Athenians) Kai rbv nap' rjplv (Egyptians) Kai t6v evrbc; rov orSparoc ir&vra rimov pup izor' cTrexeipyoev ippy SovXoiodai. Tire oiv vpav, <5 E6?wv, rijt; TrdAeuf y Svvapic elc anavrac dv6p6irovc Siafavt/c apery re mi php) eyivero- wavruv yap irpoOT&aa evilnix' 1 ? Kai Tex va 'S boat Kara wotepov, to. piv Tov'EXX7/vav fiyov- pivj), TaS" ami) povade'iaa £| av&yiais rwv aXKuv airoaravnm, iirl tov( k(?x aTOV S aipuiofihT) Ktvovvovg, Kparrjaaqa piv Tail cmdvrav rpdiraia aveorqae, robe Si pf) rra 6eSoro7j>pevav<; 6ieni>h)oe SovTuudijvai, tov£ <5* a^Xovg, oaoi mroiKOvpev evrdf bpuv 'HpaxAfiuv, a