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  RELIGIONS ANCIENT AND MODERN

  THE MYTHOLOGIES OF
  ANCIENT MEXICO AND PERU




RELIGIONS: ANCIENT AND MODERN.


  ANIMISM.
    By EDWARD CLODD, Author of _The Story of Creation_.

  PANTHEISM.
    By JAMES ALLANSON PICTON, Author of _The Religion of the Universe_.

  THE RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT CHINA.
    By Professor GILES, LL.D., Professor of Chinese in the University
    of Cambridge.

  THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE.
    By JANE HARRISON, Lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge, Author
    of _Prolegomena to Study of Greek Religion_.

  ISLAM.
    By SYED AMEER ALI, M.A., C.I.E., late of H.M.'s High Court of
    Judicature in Bengal, Author of _The Spirit of Islam_ and _The
    Ethics of Islam_.

  MAGIC AND FETISHISM.
    By Dr. A. C. HADDON, F.R.S., Lecturer on Ethnology at Cambridge
    University.

  THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT.
    By Professor W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, F.R.S.

  THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.
    By THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, late of the British Museum.

  BUDDHISM. 2 vols.
    By Professor RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., late Secretary of The Royal
    Asiatic Society.

  HINDUISM.
    By Dr. L. D. BARNETT, of the Department of Oriental Printed Books
    and MSS., British Museum.

  SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION.
    By WILLIAM A. CRAIGIE, Joint Editor of the _Oxford English
    Dictionary_.

  CELTIC RELIGION.
    By Professor ANWYL, Professor of Welsh at University College,
    Aberystwyth.

  THE MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
    By CHARLES SQUIRE, Author of _The Mythology of the British
    Islands_.

  JUDAISM.
    By ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, Lecturer in Talmudic Literature in Cambridge
    University, Author of _Jewish Life in the Middle Ages_.

  SHINTO. By W. G. ASTON, C.M.G.

  THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT MEXICO AND PERU.
    By LEWIS SPENCE, M.A.

  THE RELIGION OF THE HEBREWS.
    By Professor YASTROW.




  THE MYTHOLOGIES
  OF ANCIENT MEXICO
  AND PERU

  By
  LEWIS SPENCE


  LONDON
  ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
  1907


  Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty




FOREWORD


It is difficult to understand the neglect into which the study of the
Mexican and Peruvian mythologies has fallen. A zealous host of
interpreters are engaged in the elucidation of the mythologies of Egypt
and Assyria, but, if a few enthusiasts in the United States of America
be excepted, the mythologies of the ancient West have no following
whatsoever. That this little book may lead many to a fuller examination
of those profoundly interesting faiths is the earnest hope of one in
whose judgment they are second in importance to no other mythological
system. By a comparative study of the American mythologies the student
of other systems will reap his reward in the shape of many a parallel
and many an elucidation which otherwise would escape his notice; whilst
the general reader will introduce himself into a sphere of the most
fascinating interest--the interest in the attitude towards the eternal
verities of the peoples of a new and isolated world.      L. S.




CONTENTS


  CHAP.                                           PAGE

    I. THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN RELIGIONS,             1

   II. MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY,                            9

  III. THE PRIESTHOOD AND RITUAL OF THE
         ANCIENT MEXICANS,                          27

   IV. THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS,       44

    V. PERUVIAN RITUAL AND WORSHIP,                 58

   VI. THE QUESTION OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE
        UPON THE RELIGIONS OF AMERICA,              71

       A LIST OF SELECT BOOKS BEARING ON THE
         SUBJECT,                                   79




  THE MYTHOLOGIES OF
  ANCIENT MEXICO AND PERU




CHAPTER I

THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN RELIGIONS


The question of the origin of the religions of ancient Mexico and Peru
is unalterably associated with that of the origin of the native races of
America themselves--not that the two questions admit of simultaneous
settlement, but that in order to prove the indigenous nature of the
American mythologies it is necessary to show the extreme improbability
of Asiatic or European influence upon them, and therefore of relatively
late foreign immigration into the Western Hemisphere. As regards the
vexed question of the origin of the American races it has been thought
best to relegate all proof of a purely speculative or legendary
character to a chapter at the end of the book, and for the present to
deal with data concerning the trustworthiness of which there is little
division of opinion.

The controversy as to the manner in which the American continent was
first peopled is as old as its discovery. For four hundred years
historians and antiquarians have disputed as to what race should have
the honour of first colonising the New World. To nearly every nation
ancient and modern has been credited the glory of peopling the two
Americas; and it is only within comparatively recent years that any
reasonable theory has been advanced in connection with the subject. It
is now generally admitted that the peopling of the American continent
must have taken place at a period little distant to the original
settlement of man in Europe. The geological epoch generally assumed for
the human settlement of America is the Pleistocene (Quaternary) in some
of its interglacial conditions; that is, in some of the recurrent
periods of mildness during the Great Ice Age. There is, however, a
possibility that the continent may have been peopled in Tertiary times.
The first inhabitants were, however, not of the Red Man type.

Difficult as is this question, an even more difficult one has to be
faced when we come to consider the affinities of the races from whom the
Red Man is descended. It must be remembered that at this early epoch in
the history of mankind in all likelihood the four great types of
humanity were not yet fully specialised, but were only differentiated
from one another by more or less fundamental physiological
characteristics. That the Indians of America are descended from more
than one human type is proved by the variety of shapes exhibited in
their crania, and it is safe to assume that both Europe and Asia were
responsible for these early progenitors of the Red Man. At the period in
question the American continent was united to Europe by a land-bridge
which stretched by way of Greenland, Iceland, and the Faröe Islands to
Northern Europe, and from the latter area there probably migrated to the
western continent a portion of that human type which has been designated
the Proto-European--precursors of that race from which was finally
evolved the peoples of modern Europe.

When we come to the question of the settlement of America from the
Asiatic side we can say with more certainty that immigration proceeded
from that continent by way of Behring Strait, and was of a
Proto-Mongolian character, though the fact should not be lost sight of
that within a few hundred miles of the point of emigration there still
exists the remains of an almost purely Caucasian type in the Ainu of
Saghalien and the Kurile Islands. However, immigration on any extensive
scale must have been discontinued at a very early period, as on the
discovery of America the natives presented a highly specialised and
distinctive type, and bear such a resemblance one nation to another, as
to draw from all authorities the conclusion that they are of common
origin.

According to all known anthropological standards the Amerind (as it has
been agreed to designate the American Indian) bears a close affinity to
the Mongolian races of Asia, and it must be admitted that the most
likely origin that can be assigned to him is one in which Asiatic, or to
be more exact, Mongolian blood preponderates. The period of his
emigration, which probably spread itself over generations, was in all
likelihood one at which the Mongolian type was not yet so fully
specialised as not to admit of the acquirement under specific conditions
of very marked structural and physiological attributes.[1] In recent
years large numbers of Japanese have settled in Mexico, and in the
native dress can hardly be distinguished from the Mexican peasants.

Of course it would be unsafe to assume that, once settled in the
Western Hemisphere, its populations were subject to none of those
fluctuations or race-changes which are so marked a feature in the early
history of European and Asiatic peoples. It is thought, and with
justice, that some such race-movement convulsed the entire northern
division of the continent at a period comparatively near to that of the
Columbian discovery. Aztec history insists upon a prolonged migration
for the race which founded the Mexican Empire, and native maps are still
extant in several continental collections, which depict the routes taken
by the Aztec conquerors from Aztlan, and the Toltecs from Tlapallan,
their respective fatherlands in the north, to the Mexican Tableland.
This, at least, would appear to be worthy of notice: that the
'Skraelings' or native Americans mentioned in the accounts of the
tenth-century Norse discoverers of America, by the description given of
them, do not appear to be the same race as that which inhabited the New
England States upon their rediscovery.

As regards the origin of the American mythologies it is difficult to
discover traces of foreign influence in the religion of either Mexico or
Peru. At the time of their subjugation by the Spaniards legends were
ripe in both countries of beneficent white and bearded men, who brought
with them a fully developed culture. The question of Asiatic influences
must not altogether be cast aside as an untenable theory; but it is well
to bear in mind that such influences, did they ever exist, must have
been of the most transitory description, and could have left but few
traces upon the religion of the peoples in question. If any such contact
took place it was merely of an accidental nature, and, when speaking of
faiths carried from Asia into America at the period of its original
settlement, it is first necessary to premise that Pleistocene Man had
already arrived at that stage of mental development in which the
existence of supernatural beings is recognised--a premise with which
modern anthropology would scarcely find itself in agreement.

Almost exhaustive proof of the wholly indigenous nature of the American
religions is offered by the existence of the ruins of the large centres
of culture and civilisation which are found scattered through Yucatan
and Peru. These civilisations preceded those of the Aztecs and Incas by
a very considerable period, how long it is impossible in the present
state of our knowledge of the subject to say. Those huge, buried cities,
the Ninevehs and Thebeses of the West, have left not even a name, and
of the peoples who dwelt in them we are almost wholly ignorant. That
they were of a race cognate with the Aztecs and Toltecs appears probable
when we take into account the similarity of design which their
architecture bears to the later ruins of the Aztec structure. Yet there
is equally strong evidence to the contrary. At what epoch in the history
of the world these cities were erected it would at the present time be
idle to speculate. The recent discovery of a buried city in the
Panhandle region of Texas may throw some light upon this question, and
indeed upon the dark places of American archæology as a whole. In the
case of the buried cities of Uxmal and Palenqüe a great antiquity is
generally agreed upon. Indeed one writer on the subject goes so far as
to place their foundation at the beginning of the second Glacial Epoch!
He sees in these ruins the remnants of a civilisation which flourished
at a time when men, fleeing from the rigours of the glacial ice-cap,
huddled for warmth in the more central parts of the earth. It is
unnecessary to state that this is a wholly preposterous theory, but the
fact that the ruins of Palenqüe are at the present time lost in the
depths of a tropic forest goes far to prove their great antiquity.

Arguing, then, from this antiquity, we may be justified in assuming that
in these now buried cities the mythology of Mexico was partly evolved;
that it was handed down to the Aztec conquerors who entered the country
some four hundred years before its subjugation by Cortes, and that it
received additions from the tribal deities. In the case of the Peruvian
mythology we may argue a similar evolution, which, as we shall see
later, had been spread over a considerably shorter period.




CHAPTER II

MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY


The Mexican Empire at the period of its conquest by Cortes had arrived
at a standard of civilisation comparable with that of those dynasties
which immediately preceded the rule of the Ptolemies in Egypt. The
government was an elective monarchy, but princes of the blood alone were
eligible for royal honours. A complex system of jurisdiction prevailed,
and a form of district and family government was in vogue which was
somewhat similar to that of the Anglo-Saxons. In the arts a high state
of perfection had been reached, and the Aztec craftsman appears to have
been a step beyond the slavish conventionalism of the ancient Egyptian
artist. In architecture the Mexicans were highly skilled, and their
ability in this respect aroused the wonder of their Spanish conquerors,
who, however, did not hesitate to raze to the ground the splendid
edifices they professed so much to admire. As road-builders and
constructors of aqueducts they chiefly excelled, and a perfect system of
posts was established on each of the great highways of the empire.

With the Aztecs the art of writing took the form of hieroglyphs, which
in some ways resembled those of the ancient Egyptians; but they had not
at the period of their conquest by Cortes evolved a more convenient, and
cursive method, such as the hieratic or demotic scripts employed in the
Nile valley. In astronomical science they were surprisingly advanced and
exact. The system in use by them was wonderfully accurate. It is,
however, quite erroneous to suppose that it has affinities with any
Asiatic system. They divided the year into eighteen periods of twenty
days each, adding five supplementary days, and providing for
intercalation every half-century. Each month contained four weeks of
five days each, and each of the months had a distinct name. That the
Aztecs were possessed of exact astronomical instruments cannot be
proved; but in the thirteenth plate of Dupaix's _Monuments_, (Part II.)
there is a representation of a man holding to his face an instrument
which might or might not be a telescope.[2] The astronomical dial was
certainly in use among them, and astrology, and divination in its every
shape were frequently resorted to.

In the manual arts the Aztecs were far advanced. Papermaking was in a
moderate state of perfection, and the dyeing, weaving, and spinning of
cotton were crafts in which they excelled. Feather-work of supreme
beauty was a staple article of manufacture, but in the metallic arts the
absence of iron had to be compensated for by an alloy of copper,
siliceous powder, and tin--an admixture by the use of which the hardest
granite was cut and shaped, and the most beautiful gold and silver
ornaments fashioned. Sharp tools were also made from obsidian, and in
the barbers' shops of the city of Mexico razors of the same stone were
in use.

To the art of war the Aztecs--a military nation who won and held all
they possessed by force of arms--attached great importance. Training in
the army was rigorous, and the knowledge of tactics displayed appears to
have been very considerable.

Although the Aztecs had founded and adopted from other nations a
complete pantheon of their own, they were strongly influenced by the
ancient sun and moon worship of Central America. _Ometecutli_ (twice
Lord) and _Omecihuatl_ (twice Lady) were the names which they bestowed
upon these luminaries, and they were probably the first deities known to
the Aztecs upon their emergence from a condition of totemism. The sun
was the _teotl_, _the_ god of the Mexicans, but it will be seen in the
course of this chapter that the national deities and those acquired by
the Aztecs in their intercourse with the surrounding peoples of Tezcuco
and Tlacopan somewhat obscured the worship of those elementary gods.

Through all the confusion of a mythology second only in richness to
those of Egypt and Hellas can be traced the idea of a supreme creator, a
'god behind the gods.' This was not the sun, but an Allfather, addressed
by the Mexican nations as 'the God by whom we live'; 'omnipotent, that
knoweth all thoughts, and giveth all gifts'; 'invisible, incorporeal,
one God, of perfect perfection and purity.' The universality of this
great being would seem (as in other mythologies) to have led to the
deification of his attributes, and thus we have a pantheon in which we
can trace all the various attributes of an anthropomorphic deity. This
subdivision of the deity was not, however, responsible for all the gods
embraced by the Mexican pantheon. Many of these were purely national
gods--and two at least had probably been raised to this rank from a
condition of symbolic totemism during a period of national expansion and
military success.

Such a god was the Mexican Mars, Huitzilopochtli, a name which signifies
'Humming-bird on the left,' a designation concerning the exact
derivation of which there is considerable difference of opinion. The
general explanation of this peculiar name is that it may have arisen
from the fact that the god is usually represented as having the feathers
of a humming-bird on the left foot. Before attempting an elucidation of
the name, however, it will be well to examine the myth of
Huitzilopochtli.

Huitzilopochtli was the principal tribal deity of the Aztecs. Another,
though evidently less popular name applied to him, was Mextli, which
signifies 'Hare of the Aloes.' Indeed a section of the city of Mexico
derived its name from this appellation. The myth concerning his origin
is one the peculiar features of which are common to many nations. His
mother, Coatlicue or Coatlantona (she-serpent), a devout widow, on
entering the Temple of the Sun one day for the purpose of adoring the
deity, beheld a ball of brightly coloured feathers fall at her feet.
Charmed with the brilliancy of the plumes, she picked it up and placed
it in her bosom with the intention of making an offering of it to the
sun-god. Soon afterwards she was aware of pregnancy, and her children,
enraged at the disgrace, were about to put her to death when her son
Huitzilopochtli was born, grasping a spear in his right hand and a
shield in his left, and wearing on his head a plume of humming-bird's
feathers. On his left leg there also sprouted the flights of the
humming-bird, whilst his face and limbs were barred with stripes of
blue. Falling upon the enemies of his mother he speedily slew them. He
became the leader of the Aztec nation, and after performing on its
behalf prodigies of valour, he and his mother were translated to heaven,
where she was assigned a place as the Goddess of Flowers.

The Müllerism of fifteen or twenty years ago would have assigned
unhesitatingly the legend of Huitzilopochtli to that class of myths
which have their origin in natural phenomena. In the _Hibbert Lectures_
for 1884, M. Réville, the French religionist, professes to see in the
Mexican war-god the offspring of the sun and the 'spring florescence.'
Mr. Tylor (_Primitive Culture_) calls Huitzilopochtli an 'inextricable
compound parthenogenetic deity.' A more satisfactory solution of the
myth would seem to the present writer to be that the origin of
Huitzilopochtli was partly totemic--that, in fact, the humming-bird was
the original totem of the wandering tribe of Aztecs prior to their
descent upon Anahuac. The humming-bird is of an extremely pugnacious
disposition, and will not hesitate to attack birds considerably larger
than itself. This courage would appeal to a warlike tribe bent on
conquest, and its adoption as a totem and as a standard in the wars of
the Aztecs would naturally follow. This standard was known as the
_Huitziton_ or _Paynalton_, the 'little humming-bird' or 'little quick
one,' and was a miniature of Huitzilopochtli borne by the priests in
front of the soldiers in battle. This totem, then, took rank as the
national war-god of the Aztecs. The commerce of the mortal woman with
the animal is common to many legends of a totemic origin, as may be
witnessed in the myths of many of the present-day American Indian tribes
who believe their ancestors to have been the progeny of bears or wolves
and mortal women, or as many Norse and Celtic families in Early Britain
believed themselves to be able to trace a similar ancestry.

However, Huitzilopochtli had a certain solar connection. He had three
annual festivals, in May, August, and December. At the last of these
festivals, an image of him was modelled in dough, kneaded with the blood
of sacrificed children, and this was pierced by the presiding priest
with an arrow, in token that the sun had been slain, and was dead for a
season. The totem had, in fact, become confounded with the sun-god, the
deity of the older and more cultured races of Anahuac, who had been
adopted by the Aztecs on their settlement there. The myth had, in fact,
to be revised in the light of the later adoption of a solar cultus; so
that here as in so many of the myths of other lands we find an amicable
blending of rival beliefs which have been almost insensibly fused one
into another.

But another originally totemic deity had gained high rank in the Aztec
pantheon. This was Tezcatlipoca, whose name signifies 'Shining Mirror.'
He was the brother of Huitzilopochtli, and in this brotherhood may be
discerned the twofold nature of the Huitzilopochtli legend. Tezcatlipoca
was not the blood-brother of the war-god of the Aztecs, but his brother
in so far as he was connected with the sun. Tezcatlipoca, then, was the
god of the cold season, and typified the dreary sun of that time of
year. But he was also (probably as an afterthought) the God of Justice,
in whose mirror the thoughts and actions of men were reflected. It seems
probable to the present writer that Tezcatlipoca may originally, and in
another clime, have been an ice-god. The facts which lead to this
assumption are the period of his coming into power at the end of summer,
and his possession of a shining mirror. Another of Tezcatlipoca's names
signifies 'Night Wind.' He was evidently regarded also as the 'Breath of
Life.' He may originally have been a wind demon of the prairies.

Tezcatlipoca's plaited hair was enclosed in a golden net, and from this
plait was suspended an ear wrought in gold, towards which mounted a
cloud of tongues, representative of the prayers of mankind. The
ever-present nature of the 'Great Spirit' is also typified by
Tezcatlipoca, who wandered invisible through the city of Mexico to
observe the conduct of the inhabitants. That he might be enabled to rest
during his tour of inspection, stone seats were placed for his reception
at intervals in the streets. Needless to say no human being dared to
occupy those benches.

But the most unique of all the gods of Mexico was Quetzalcoatl. This
name indicates 'Feathered Serpent,' and the deity who owned it was
probably adopted by the Aztecs upon their settlement in Mexico, called
by them Anahuac. At all events, Quetzalcoatl stood for a worship which
was eminently more advanced and humane than the degrading and sanguinary
idolatry of which Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca were the prime
objects. That he was not of Aztec origin but a god of the Toltecs or of
the elder peoples who had preceded them in Anahuac is proved by a myth
of the Mexican nations, in which his strife with Tezcatlipoca is
related. Step by step Quetzalcoatl, the genius of Old Anahuac, resisted
the inroads of the newcomers as represented by Tezcatlipoca. But he was
forced to flee the country over which he had presided so long, and to
embark on a frail boat on the ocean, promising to return at some future
period. The Aztecs believed in and feared his ultimate return. He was
not one of their gods. But in their terror of his vengeance and return
they attempted to propitiate him by permitting his worship to flourish
as a distinct caste side by side with that of Huitzilopochtli and
Tezcatlipoca.

Réville, writing in 'the mythical age,' as the decade of the 'eighties
of last century has wittily been designated, sees in Quetzalcoatl the
east wind, and quotes Sahagun to substantiate his theory.[3] But
Quetzalcoatl was 'Lord of the Dawn.' In fine he was a culture-god, and
was closely connected with the sun. It would be impossible in the space
assigned to me to enter fully into an analysis of the origin of this
most interesting figure. There is, however, reason to believe that
Quetzalcoatl was one of those early introducers of culture who sooner or
later find a place among the deities of the nation they have assisted in
its early struggles towards civilisation. The strife between
Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, according to Réville, typifies the
struggle between the wind and the cold and dry season. It is more
probable that it typifies the strife between culture and barbarism. The
same authority points out that it is Tezcatlipoca and not
Huitzilopochtli who attacks Quetzalcoatl. But Tezcatlipoca, was the god
of austerity, and perhaps of the cold north, and thus the proper
opponent of a luxurious southern civilisation. I have gone more fully
into the question of the origin of Quetzalcoatl in the last chapter of
this work, as a more prolonged consideration of the subject would be
somewhat out of the scope of the present chapter.

The worship of Quetzalcoatl was antipathetic if not directly opposed to
that of the other deities of Anahuac. It had a separate priesthood of
its own who dressed in white in contradistinction to the sable garments
which the priests of the other divinities were in the habit of wearing,
and its ritual discountenanced if it did not forbid human sacrifice.
Quetzalcoatl possessed a high priest of his own, who was subservient,
however, to the Aztec pontiff, and who only joined the monarch's
deliberative council on rare and extraordinary occasions. There can be
no doubt that the good reception given to Cortes and the Spanish
conquerors was solely on account of the Quetzalcoatl legend, which
insisted upon his return at some future period, and the Aztecs
undoubtedly regarded the arrival of the strange white men as a
fulfilment of this prophecy.

Tlaloc was the god of rain--an important deity for a country where a
droughty season was nothing less than a national disaster. His name
signifies 'the nourisher,' and from his seat among the mountains he
despatched the rain-bearing clouds to water the thirsty and sun-baked
plains of Anahuac. He was also the god of fertility or fecundity, and in
this respect appears to have been analogous to the Egyptian Amsu or
Khem, the ithyphallic deity of Panopolis. He was the wielder of the
thunder and lightning, and the worship connected with him was even more
cruel, if possible, than that of Huitzilopochtli. One-eyed and
open-mouthed, he delighted in the sacrifice of children, and in seasons
of drought hundreds of innocents were borne to his temple in open
litters, wreathed with blossoms and dressed in festal robes. Should they
weep, their tears were regarded as a happy augury for a rainy season;
and the old Spanish chroniclers record that even the heartless Aztecs,
used to scenes of massacre as they were, were moved to tears at the
spectacle of the infants hurried, amid the wild chants of frenzied
priests, to the maw of this Mexican Moloch.

The statues of Tlaloc were usually cut in a greenish-white stone to
represent the colour of water. He had a wife, Chalchihuitlicue (the lady
Chalchihuit), and by her he possessed a numerous family which are
supposed to represent the clouds, and which bear the same name as
himself. At one of his festivals the priests plunged into a lake,
imitating the sounds and motions of frogs, which were supposed to be
under the special protection of the water-god.

Xiuhtecutli (lord of fire), or Huehueteotl (the old god), was one of the
most ancient of the Mexican deities. He is usually represented as
typifying the nature of the element over which he had dominion, and in
his head-dress of green feathers, his blackened face, and the
yellow-feathered serpent which he carried on his back, the different
colours observed in fire, as well as its sinuous and snake-like nature,
are well depicted. Like Tezcatlipoca, he possessed a mirror, a shining
disc of gold, to show his connection with the sun, from which all heat
emanated, and to which all heat was subject. And here it will be well to
remind the reader of the statement made near the commencement of this
chapter that the god _par excellence_, the sun, was more or less
manifested in all the principal deities of Anahuac; that in fact these
deities _were_ the sun in conjunction with some attribute of a totemic
or naturalistic origin.

The first duty of an Aztec family when rising in the morning was to
consecrate to Xiuhtecutli a piece of bread and a libation of drink. He
was thus analogous to Vulcan, who, besides being the creator of
thunderbolts and conflagration, was also the divinity of the domestic
hearth. Once a year the fire in every Mexican house was extinguished,
and was rekindled by friction before the statue of Xiuhtecutli by his
priests.

The two principal goddesses of the Aztecs were Centeotl, the
maize-goddess, the Ceres of Mexico, and Tlazolteotl, the goddess of
love. The name Centeotl is derived from centli (maize) and teotl
(divinity), and is often confounded with that of her son, who bore the
same name. Like the Virgin or the Egyptian Hes, she bears in her arms a
child, who is the young maize, who afterwards grows to bearded manhood.
Centeotl was the goddess of sustenance, and was often represented as a
many-uddered frog, to typify the food-yielding soil. Her daughter,
Xilonen, was the tender ear of the maize. Appalling sacrificial rites
were celebrated in connection with the worship of this goddess, in which
women were the principal victims. These are dealt with in the chapter on
ritual and ceremonial.

Tlazolteotl, the goddess of love, or, more correctly, of sensuality, was
the object concerning whom the deities of the Aztec Olympus waged a
terrible war. Her abode was a lovely garden, where she dwelt surrounded
by musicians and merrymakers, dwarfs and jesters. At one time she had
been the spouse of Tlaloc, the rain-god, but had eloped with
Tezcatlipoca, and thus she probably represents nature, who in one season
espouses the rain-god and in another the god of the cold season. The
myths concerning Tlazolteotl are most unsavoury, and consist chiefly of
tales concerning her seductive prowess.

Mictlan was the Mexican Pluto. The name signifies 'Country of the
North'--the region of waste and hunger and death, and was used both of
the place and the deity. There, surrounded by fearful demons
(Tzitzimitles), he ruled over the shades of the departed much as did
Pluto, and, like his classical prototype, he possessed a consort, or
rather consorts, since he had several wives. The representations of him
naturally give to him a most repulsive aspect, and he is usually
depicted in the act of devouring his victims.

The minor gods of the Aztecs were legion--indeed various authorities
estimate their numbers from two hundred and sixty to two thousand--and
of these it will only be possible to deal with a few of the more
important.

Ixtlilton (brown one) was the god of healing, and was analogous to
Æsculapius. The priests connected with his worship vended a liquor which
purported to be a sort of 'cure-all.' Xipe (the bald) was the tutelar
deity of goldsmiths. He was, in reality, a form of Huitzilopochtli, and
probably indicated the idea that gold had some connection with the sun.
Mixcoatl (cloud serpent) was the spirit of the waterspout, and was
propitiated rather than worshipped by the semi-savage mountaineers in
the vicinity of Mexico. Omacatl (double reed) was the god or spirit of
mirth and festival. Yacatecutli (guiding lord) was the god of travellers
and merchants. Indeed the commercial class among the Aztecs were more
exact concerning his worship than in that of almost any other of their
deities. His symbol was the staff usually carried by the people of the
country when on a journey, and this stick was an object of veneration
among travellers, who usually prayed to it as representative of the god
when evening brought their day's march to a close.

The Tepitoton, or diminutive deities, were household gods of the lares
and penates type, and were probably connected with a species of
Shamanism, the origin of which may either have been prior to or
contemporary with the adoption of the worship of the greater gods.
Their existence might appear to suggest the presence of fetishism in the
Aztec religion, but the theory of a Shamanistic origin for these
household deities seems the more likely one.




CHAPTER III

THE PRIESTHOOD AND RITUAL OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS


The resemblance of the Mexican priesthood to that of Ancient Egypt was
very marked. However, the influence of the priests among the people of
Anahuac was even greater than that of the analogous caste among the
people of Khemi. Their system of conventual education permitted them to
impress their doctrines upon the minds of the young in that indelible
manner which secures unfaltering adhesion in later life to the dogmas so
inculcated; and no doubt the ever-present fear of human sacrifice
assisted them mightily in their dealings with the people. In short, they
were all-powerful, and the Mexican, accustomed to their influence from
the period of childhood to that of death, submitted unquestioningly to
their rule in all things, spiritual and temporal.

The religious ethics of the Mexican priesthood were lofty and sublime
in the extreme, and had but little in common with their barbarous
practices. They had been borrowed from the more cultured Toltecs, who
during their sole tenure of Anahuac had evolved a moral code to which it
would be difficult to take exception. But although this exalted
philosophy had been adopted by the fierce and uncultured Aztecs, it had
become so obscured by the introduction of cruel and inhuman rites and
customs as to be almost no longer recognisable as the pure faith of the
race they had succeeded in the land. The germ and core of the Aztec
religion was the idea of the constant necessity of propitiating the gods
by means of human sacrifice, and to this aspect of their religion we
will return later.

We have already seen that underlying the mythology of the ancient
Mexicans was the idea of a supreme Being, a 'Great Spirit.' In the rites
of confession and absolution particularly was this Being appealed to in
prayer, and the similarity of these petitions to those offered up by
themselves so impressed the monkish companions of the Spanish conquerors
that their astonishment is very evident in their writings. It is
unlikely that these priests would admit a soul of goodness in the evil
thing it was their business to stamp out; and their testimony in this
respect is of the highest value as evidence that the Aztec Religion
possessed at least the germ of the eternal verities.

The Aztecs believed that eternity was broken up into several distinct
cycles, each of several thousand years' duration. There would seem to
have been four of these periods, concerning the length and nature of
which the old Spanish writers on the subject differ very materially. The
conclusion of each was (according to the Mexican tradition) to witness
the extinction of humanity in one mighty holocaust, and the blotting out
of the sun in the heavens. Whether this universal upheaval applied only
to the sons of men, or, like the Teutonic Gotterdämmerung, or the
Scandinavian Rägnarok, had an equal significance for the gods, is not
clear. It is worth remarking, however, that it premises the mortal
nature of the sun, and, therefore, the existence of a creative agency
with the ability to set another sun in its place.

With the Mexicans the question of a future life was a very nebulous one,
though perhaps no more so than with the ancient Greeks or Romans. There
was more than one paradise. Mictlan, the shadowy sombre place of the
dead, was the resting-place of the majority, for the Aztecs fully
believed that the higher realms of bliss were preserves for the
aristocracy where the lowly might not enter. And this, in passing, is
perhaps an explanation of the marvellously speedy adoption of
Christianity by the Mexican natives subsequent to the conquest of
Anahuac. Of the higher realms of bliss the 'Mansion of the Sun' was
perhaps the most desirable. There the principal pleasures consisted in
accompanying the sun in his course, and the amusement of choral dancing.
Souls in this paradise might also enter the bodies of humming-birds, and
flit from flower to flower. The exercise of the chase lent to this place
something of the character of a Valhalla, and we hear something of
Gargantuan banquets. Here, too, the blessed might animate the clouds,
and float deliciously over the world they had quitted.

The paradise of Tlaloc was the special dwelling of those who had lost
their lives by drowning, of sacrificed children, and of those who had
died of disease caused by damp or moisture. But two exceptions were made
as regarded the souls of others, and these related to warriors slain in
battle, and women who had died in child-bed, who were permitted to enter
paradise as having forfeited their lives in the service of the state.

All the science and wisdom of the country was embodied in the priestly
caste. The priests understood the education of the people, and so
forcibly impressed their students with their knowledge of the occult
arts that for the rest of their lives they quietly submitted to priestly
influence. The priestly order was exceedingly numerous, as is proved by
the fact that no less than five thousand functionaries were attached to
the great temple of Mexico, the rank and offices of whom were
apportioned with the most minute exactitude. The basis of the priesthood
was eminently aristocratic, and its supreme pontiff was known by the
appellation of _Mexicatl Teohuatzin_, or 'Mexican Lord of Divine
Matters.' Next in rank to him was the high priest of Quetzalcoatl, whose
authority was limited to his own priesthood, and who lived a life of
strict seclusion, not unlike that of the Grand Lama of Tibet. This was
probably a remnant of old Toltec practice. The pontiff seems to have
wielded a very considerable amount of political power, and to have had a
seat on the royal council.

The life of an Aztec priest was rigorous in the extreme. Fasting and
penance bulked largely among his duties, and the idea of the
implacability of the gods which was current in the priesthood appears
to have driven many priests to great extremes of self-inflicted torture.
They dressed entirely in black (with the exception of the caste of
Quetzalcoatl, who were clothed in white), and their cloaks covered their
heads, falling down at each side like a mantilla. Their hair was
permitted to grow very long. They bathed every evening at sunset, and
rose several times during the night for the purpose of paying their
devotions. Some of their orders permitted marriage, while others were
celibate, but all, without distinction, passed an existence of severe
asceticism. As has been said, departmental duties were strongly marked.
Some were readers, others musicians, while others again, probably the
lower orders, attended to the sacred fires, and the more menial offices,
the grand duty of human sacrifice devolving upon the higher orders of
the prelacy alone.

There was also an order of females who were admitted to the practice of
all the sacerdotal functions, omitting only that of human sacrifice.
These appear to have been more of the description of nuns than of
priestesses. Fakirs and religious beggars also abounded, but these seem
to have taken upon themselves mendicant vows for a space only.

Education was wholly sacerdotal. That is, though secular studies were
communicated to the young, the principal part of their training
consisted of religious instruction. The schools were situated in the
temple precincts, and entering these at an early age the boys were
instructed by priests, and the girls by nuns. They resided within the
temple buildings, and those who did not, and who probably consisted of
the lower orders, were enrolled in a society called the
_Telpochtiliztli_, which met every evening at sunset to perform choral
dances in honour of Tezcatlipoca. A secondary school also existed,
called the _Calmecac_, in which the lore of the priests and the reading
of the hieroglyphs, astrology, and the kindred sciences were taught the
young men, whilst the girls became experts in the weaving of costly
garments for the adornment of the idols, and the wear of the higher
orders of the hierarchy.

When the boys and girls left the school at the age of fifteen they were
either sent back to their families, or to public service, to which they
were often recommended by the priests. Others remained to become in
their turn priests or nuns in different convents.

Severe educational tests were required for entrance into the
priesthood, and grades were many. The priests, we have seen, might
occupy one of several ranks, and the nuns could become abbesses, or
merely retain the position of simple sisters, according to their
ambition and abilities. The lower ranks were designated
_Cihuaquaquilli_, or 'lady herb-eaters,' while the higher orders were
known as _Cihuatlamacasque_, or 'lady deaconesses.'

The Spanish conquerors of Mexico were astonished to find among this
peculiar people a number of rites which appeared in many respects
analogous to some of those practised by Catholics. Such were the use of
the cross as a symbol, communion, baptism, and confession. The cross,
which was designated, strangely enough, 'Tree of our Life,' was merely
the symbol of the four winds, which were indeed the life of Anahuac. As
regards confession and absolution, these were permitted to a person only
once in his existence, and that at a late period of life, as any
repetition of the pardoned offence was held to be inexpiable. Penance
was apportioned, and absolution given much in the same manner as in the
Roman Catholic Church. There appears to have been more than one kind of
communion. At the third festival of Huitzilopochtli they made an image
of him in dough kneaded with the blood of infants, and divided the
pieces among themselves. In the case of Xiuhtecutli a similar image was
placed on the top of a tree, which, like our Christmas trees, had been
transported from the forest to the town, and when the tree was thrown
down and the image broken, the people scrambled for the pieces, which
they devoured.

In the rite of baptism the principal functionary was the midwife. She
touched the mouth and breast of the infant with water in the presence of
the assembled relations, and invoked the blessing of the goddess
Cihuatcoatl, who presided over childbirth (and who was a variant of
Centeotl, the maize-goddess) upon it. But it is unlikely that she did so
in the devoutly Christian language ascribed to her by Sahagun.

At death the corpse of a Mexican was dressed in the robes peculiar to
his guardian deity, and in this can be perceived an analogy to every
dead Egyptian becoming an Osirian, or Osiris himself. Covered with paper
charms, as the Egyptian mummy was covered with metal or faïence symbols,
the body was cremated, the ashes placed in an urn, and preserved in the
house of the deceased. At the death of a rich man many slaves were
sacrificed to bear him company in the world beyond the grave. This was
obviously a meaningless survival of a prehistoric custom. Valuable
treasures were often buried with the wealthy, and a rich man would often
have his private chaplain sacrificed at his tomb to assist him with
ghostly counsel and comfort in the other world.

Among the ancient Mexicans every month was consecrated to some
particular deity, and in their calendar every day marked a celebration
of some greater or lesser divinity. Those differed considerably in their
character. Some were light and joyous, and their ritual abounded in the
use of flowers and song. Others (and these, unhappily, were in the
majority) were stained with the hideousness of human sacrifice.

The temples of the Ancient Mexicans were very numerous. They were called
_teocallis_,[4] or 'houses of God,' and were constructed by facing huge
mounds of earth with brick and stone. They were pyramidal in shape, and
built in stages which grew smaller as the summit was reached. The bases
of some of these teocallis were more than one hundred feet square. The
great teocalli at Mexico, for example, was three hundred and
seventy-five feet long at the base, and three hundred feet in width.
Its height was over eighty feet. It consisted of five stages, each
communicating with the other by means of a staircase which wound around
the entire edifice. In the case of some teocallis, however, the
staircase led directly up the western face of the building. At the top
two towers, between forty and fifty feet in height, stood perched upon a
broad area. Inside these were kept the idols of the gods to whom the
teocalli was sacred. Before these towers stood the stone of sacrifice,
and two altars upon which the fires blazed night and day. In the city of
Mexico six hundred of these fires rendered any artificial illumination
at night superfluous. Through the very construction of these temples all
religious services were of a public nature. In front of the great
teocalli of Mexico stretched a court twelve hundred feet square, around
which clustered the chapels of minor deities, and those captured from
conquered peoples, as well as the dwellings and offices set apart for
the attendant priests.

Although it appears that the Toltecs, the forerunners of the Aztecs in
Mexico, had at one period of their history been prone to human
sacrifice, they had almost entirely discarded the practice at the time
of their downfall. Some two hundred years before the coming of the
Spaniards the Aztecs had adopted this abomination, and were in the habit
of sparing the lives of immense numbers of prisoners of war solely for
the purpose of offering them up to the national gods. As their empire
extended, these holocausts became greater and more common. On the
teocalli of Mexico the Spaniards could count one hundred and thirty-six
thousand human skulls piled in a horrid pyramid.

Of the sacrifices the most important was that signifying the annual
demise of Tezcatlipoca. The most handsome of the captives who chanced to
be in the hands of the Aztecs was chosen for the purpose. It was
necessary that he should be without spot or blemish, as it was intended
that he should represent Tezcatlipoca himself. He was taken in hand by a
body of tutors, who instructed him how to play his allotted part with
the dignity and grace to be expected from a divine being. Arrayed in
magnificent robes typical of his godhead, and surrounded by an
atmosphere of flowers and incense, he led the life of a voluptuary for
the space of nearly a year. On the occasion of his appearance in the
public streets he was received by the populace with all the homage due
to a god, but was strictly guarded, nevertheless, by eight pages, who
in reality were merely gaolers. Within a month's time of his immolation
four beautiful girls were given him as wives, and he was feasted and
fêted by the nobility as the incarnation of Tezcatlipoca.

On the day preceding the sacrifice the victim was placed on one of the
royal canoes, and accompanied by his four wives, was rowed to the other
side of the lake. That evening his wives bade him farewell, and he was
stripped of his gorgeous apparel. He was then conducted to a teocalli
some three miles from the city of Mexico. In scaling this he threw away
the wreaths of flowers with which he had been adorned, and broke in
pieces the musical instruments with which he had amused his hours of
captivity. Crowds thronged from the city to behold the act of sacrifice.
On reaching the summit of the teocalli the victim was met by six
priests, five of whom led him to the sacrificial stone, a great block of
jasper with a convex surface. On this he was placed by the five priests,
who secured his head, arms, and legs, whilst the officiating priest,
robed in a blood-red mantle, dexterously opened his breast with a sharp
flint knife. He then inserted his hand into the gaping wound, and
tearing out the still palpitating heart, held it aloft towards the sun.
Then he cast the bleeding offering into a vessel containing burning
copal, which lay at the feet of the image of Tezcatlipoca. A species of
sermon was then delivered by one of the priests to the people in which
he drew a moral from the fate of the victim illustrative of the
inevitable conclusion of all human pleasure by the hand of death.

Huitzilopochtli had also a representative sacrificed every year who had
to take part in a sort of war-dance immediately before his immolation,
and a woman was annually sacrificed to Centeotl, the maize-goddess.
Before her death she took part in several symbolic representations which
were expressions of the various processes in the growth of the harvest.
The day before her sacrifice she sowed maize in the streets, and on the
arrival of midnight she was decapitated and flayed. A priest arrayed
himself in the still warm skin and engaged in mimic combat with soldiers
who were scattered through the streets. Part of the skin was then
carried to the temple of Centeotl the Son, where a priest made a mask of
it in the likeness of the presiding deity, and afterwards sacrificed
four captives in honour of the occasion. The skin was then carried to
the frontiers of the empire, and buried. It was supposed that its
presence there acted as a talisman against invasion.

We have before described the sacrifices of children to Tlaloc. Even more
gruesome were the awful doings at the festival of Xiuhtecutli, when the
unhappy victims were half-roasted and finally despatched by having their
hearts torn out. Cannibal feasts often followed these sacrifices--feasts
which were the more horrible in that they were accompanied by all the
accessories of a high standard of civilisation; but it must be
remembered that their purport was essentially symbolic, and in no way
partook of the nature of the orgies of flesh-famished savages.

When the great temple of Huitzilopochtli was dedicated in 1486, the
chain of victims sacrificed on that occasion extended for the length of
two miles. In this terrible massacre the hearts of no less than seventy
thousand human beings were offered up! In the light of such appalling
wickedness it is difficult to blame the Spanish conquerors of Anahuac in
their zeal to blot out the worship of the deities whom they designated
'horrible demons.' These victims were nearly always captive warriors of
rival nations, and it was on rare occasions only that native Mexicans
were led to the stone of sacrifice unless, indeed, they were
malefactors.

The great jubilee festival, which was celebrated every fifty-two years
throughout the empire, marked the coincidence of four times thirteen
solar and four times thirteen lunar years. This the Mexicans called a
'sheaf of years,' and when the first day of the fifty-third year dawned,
the ceremony of _Toxilmolpilia_, or 'the binding-up of years,' was held.
Priests and people gazed feverishly at the Pleiades to see if they would
pass the zenith. Should they do so the world would hold on its course
for another similar period; if not, extinction would instantly follow.
Fire was kindled upon a victim's breast by the friction of wood, and
whenever it was alight the prisoner's heart was plucked out, and along
with his body was consumed upon a pile of wood kindled by the new fire.
As the flames ascended, and it was seen that the Pleiades had crossed
the zenith, cries of joy burst from the assembled people below. Faggots
were lighted at the sacred pyre, and domestic fires rekindled from them.
Humanity had been respited for a generation.

It is difficult to believe that a people so imbrued in a religion of
bloodshed could have been punctilious in matters of morality, and it is
still more difficult to believe the evidence of Sahagun and Clavigero
concerning their personal piety. It seems certain, however, that as a
race the Aztecs were austerely moral, pious, truth-loving, and loyal as
citizens, and even the sanguinary priests do not appear to have reaped
any benefit from their terrible offices. All the evidence would seem to
show that it was the belief in the existence of cruel and insatiable
gods which rendered the priests and people alike callous and insensible
to the taking of human life, and this is the more easily understood when
it is remembered that the Aztecs had at a comparatively late period
emerged from a state of migratory savagery into the heirship of an
ancient and complex civilisation.[5]




CHAPTER IV

THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS


The civilisation of the Ancient Peruvians, although in many ways
analogous to that of the Aztecs, was strangely dissimilar in some of its
aspects. The peoples of the two empires were totally unaware of each
other's existence, and were divided by dense tracts of mountain, plain,
and forest, where the most intense savagery prevailed. It seems probable
that the Peruvian culture had its origin in the region of Lake Titicaca,
and that it was of an indigenous character admits of little doubt. Like
the Mexicans, the Peruvians had displaced an older civilisation and an
older race. What was the nature of that civilisation, and thanks to what
people it flourished, it is at present impossible to say. Scattered over
the surface of the Peruvian slope are Cyclopean ruins, the sole remnants
of the works of a more primeval people. These ruins are chiefly to be
found in the neighbourhood of Lake Titicaca and Cuzco, the ancient
metropolis of the Incas. Whatever may have been the architectural
ability of this ancient people, the usurpers had little to learn from
them in this respect, or, more strictly speaking, having borrowed their
methods, continued faithful to them. The temples and mansions of the
Peruvians were massive and handsome, but for the most part covered only
with a thatch of Indian maize straw. They made long, straight,
macadamised roads which they pushed with surprising engineering skill
through tunnelled mountains, spanning seemingly impassable gorges with
marvellously constructed bridges. The temples and the palaces of the
Incas were adorned with gold and silver ornaments of fabulous value and
skilful design. Sumptuous baths, supplied with hot and cold water by
means of pipes laid in the earth, were to be found in the houses of the
aristocracy, and a high state of comfort and luxury prevailed.

To describe the social polity of the Peruvians is to describe their
religion, for the two were one and the same. The empire of Peru was the
most absolute theocracy the world has ever seen, much more absolute, for
example, than that of Israel under the Judges. The Inca was the direct
representative of the sun upon earth. He was the head, the very
keystone of a socio-religious edifice to equal which in intricacy of
design and organisation the entire history of man has no parallel to
offer.

The Inca was the head of a colossal bureaucracy which had ramifications
into the very homes of the people themselves. Thus after the Inca came
the governors of provinces, who were of the blood-royal; then officials
were placed above ten thousand families, a thousand families, a hundred,
and even ten families, upon the principle that the rays of the sun enter
everywhere. Personal freedom was a thing unknown. Each individual was
under direct surveillance, as it were, branded and numbered like the
herds of llamas which were the special property of the sun incarnate,
the Inca. Rules and regulations abounded in a manner unheard of even in
police-ridden Prussia, and no one had the opportunity in this vast
social machine of thinking or acting for himself. His walk in life was
marked out for him from the time he was five years of age, and even the
woman he was to marry was selected for him by the responsible officials;
the age at which he should enter the matrimonial state being fixed at
not earlier than twenty-four years in the case of a man and eighteen in
that of a woman. Even the place of his birth was indicated by a coloured
ribbon (which he dared not remove) tied round his head.

The Peruvian legend of the coming to earth of the sun-race, of whom the
Inca was held to be the direct descendant, told how two beings, Manco
Capac and Mama Ogllo or Oullo, the offspring of the Sun and Moon,
descended from heaven in the region of Lake Titicaca. They had received
commands from their parent, the sun-god, to traverse the country until
they came to a spot where a golden wedge they possessed should sink into
the ground, and at this place to found a culture-centre. The wedge
disappeared at Cuzco, which Garcilasso el Inca de la Vega (the most
important of the ancient chroniclers of Peru) interprets as meaning
'navel,' or, in twentieth-century idiom, 'Hub of the Universe,' but
which possibly possesses a more exact rendering in the words 'cleared
space.'

The city founded, Manco Capac instructed the men in the arts of
civilisation, and his consort busied herself in teaching the women the
domestic virtues, as weaving and spinning. Leaving behind them as
earthly representatives their son and daughter, they reascended to
heaven, and from the children they left upon earth the race of Incas
was said to have sprung. Thus it was that all Peruvian monarchs must
marry their sisters, as it was not permissible to defile the offspring
of the blood of the Son by mortal union--the breaking of which law
assisted in the ruin of the Peruvian empire.

Like the Mexicans, the Peruvians appear to have acknowledged the
existence of a Supreme Being. The attributes of this Supreme Being,
through the fostering care of a special cultus, soon developed the rank
of deities, each having a strongly marked identity.

The most important individual deities next to the Sun were Viracocha and
Pachacamac, and these, curiously enough, were deities who had been
admitted to the Peruvian pantheon from a still older faith.

The name Viracocha was, besides being the specific appellation of a
certain deity, a generic name for divine beings. It signifies 'Foam of
the Water,' thus alluding to the legend that the god had arisen out of
the depths of Lake Titicaca. On his appearance from the sacred waters
Viracocha created the sun, moon, and stars, and mapped out for them the
courses which they were to hold in the heavens. He then created men
carved out of stone statues made by himself, and bade them follow him to
Cuzco. Arrived there he collected the inhabitants, and placed over them
one, Allca Vica, who subsequently became the ancestor of the Incas. He
then returned into Lake Titicaca, into the waters of which he
disappeared.

It is evident that this legend clashes strongly with that of the solar
origin of the Incas, and it would seem to have been put forward by a
rival priesthood which had survived the introduction of solar worship,
but which was not powerful enough to combat it.

Viracocha was usually represented as a god bearded with water-rushes,
and this hirsute adornment is so far significant in that it may have
some connection with the older legends of the Peruvians which tell of a
white and bearded race which advanced to Cuzco, the centre of
civilisation, from the regions of Lake Titicaca. He is also spoken of as
being without flesh or bone, yet swift in movement, and this description
does not leave us long in doubt as to his real nature. He was the
water-god, the fertiliser of all plant life. In the somewhat arid
country surrounding Lake Titicaca that great body of water would
undoubtedly come to be regarded as the generator of all fertility to be
found in its vicinity. Hence Viracocha's origin. His consort was his
sister Cocha, the lake itself. He, like Tlaloc among the Mexicans, had a
penchant for human sacrifice, but his worship was by no means so
sanguinary as was that of his Mexican prototype.

We must then regard Viracocha as the god of a faith anterior to the
sun-worship which obtained in Peru at the time of the Spanish conquest.
But we shall also be forced to admit that Pachacamac (whose name we
bracketed with that of Viracocha a few paragraphs back), although a
member of the Peruvian pantheon and a great god, was but there on
sufferance. The name Pachacamac signifies 'earth-generator,' and the
primitive centres of the worship of this deity were in the valleys of
Lurin and Rimac, near the city of Lima. In the latter once stood a great
temple to Pachacamac, the ruins of which, alone, now remain. Pachacamac
would seem to have borne the reputation of a great civiliser, and to
some extent he usurped the claims of Viracocha to this honour.
Viracocha, so runs the legend, was defeated by him in combat, and fled,
whereupon the victor created a new world more to his liking by the
simple expedient of transferring the race of men then upon earth into
wild animals, and creating a new and higher humanity. He was also a god
of fertility, as on the remains of his temples fishes are to be found
evidently symbolising this attribute.

The hostility of Pachacamac and Viracocha has a mythical significance.
Pachacamac was the god of volcanoes, earthquakes, and subterranean fire,
and was therefore hostile to water. His worship was much more mysterious
than that of Viracocha. The Peruvians, in fact, regarded Pachacamac as a
dreaded and unseen deity, at whose mutterings in the centre of the earth
they prostrated themselves in dread. Rimac, indeed, where the worship of
this god had its focus, means 'the speaker,' 'the murmurer,' and a kind
of oracular character appears ultimately to have been associated with
the name of this terrible deity, who on occasion demanded to be appeased
by human sacrifice.

The myth of Pacari Tambo, the 'house of the dawn,' a legend of the
Collas, a tribe of mountaineers dwelling to the south-west of Cuzco,
throws some light on this strife between Viracocha and Pachacamac. Four
brothers and sisters (runs the legend) issued one day from the caverns
of Pacari Tambo. The eldest ascended a mountain, and cast stones to all
the cardinal points of the compass to show that he had taken possession
of the land. The other three were averse to this, especially the
youngest, who was the most cunning of all. By dint of persuasion he
managed to get the obnoxious brother to enter a cave. As soon as he had
done so he closed the mouth of the cave with a great stone, and
imprisoned him there for ever. He then, on pretence of seeking his lost
brother, persuaded the second to ascend a high mountain, from which he
cast him, and, as he fell, by dint of magic art changed him into a
stone. The third brother, having no desire to share the fate of the
other two, then fled. The first brother appears to be the oldest
religion, that of Pachacamac; the second, that of an intermediate
fetishism, or stone worship; and the third, Viracocha. The fourth is the
worship of the Sun, pure and simple, the youngest brother, but the
victor over the other older faiths of the land. This is proved by the
circumstance that the name applied to the youngest brother is Pirrhua
Manca, an equivalent to that of Manco Capac, the Son of the Sun.

This, however, does not altogether tally with what might be called the
'official' legend, the myth promulgated by the Incas themselves.
According to this the Sun had three sons, Viracocha, Pachacamac, and
Manco Capac. This stroke of policy at once blended all three religions;
but by another stroke of politic genius, the earthly power was vested in
Manco Capac, the other two deities being placed in subordinate
positions, where they were concerned chiefly with the workings of
nature. To Manco Capac, and his representatives, the Incas, alone, was
left the dominion of mankind.

We will now pass to a consideration of the minor deities of the Peruvian
mythology. These were numerous, and had been mostly evolved from nature
forces and natural phenomena. Among the more important was Chasca, the
planet Venus, the 'long-haired,' the 'Page of the Sun.' Cuycha, the
rainbow, was the servant of the sun and moon. He was represented in a
private chapel of his own, contiguous to that of the Sun, by large
plates of gold so fired as to represent the various colours in the
prismatic hues of the rainbow. Fire, also, was an object of profound
veneration with the Peruvians, derived, as it was believed to be, from
the sun. Its preservation was scrupulously attended to in the Temple of
the Sun and in the House of the Virgins of the Sun, of which an account
will be found in the next chapter.

Catequil was the god of thunder. He is represented as possessing a club
and sling, the latter evidently being intended to symbolise the
thunderbolt. He was a servant of the Sun, and had three distinct
forms--Chuquilla (thunder), Catuilla (lightning), and Intiallapa
(thunderbolt). Temples were erected to him in which children and llamas
were sacrificed at his altars. The Peruvians had, and still have, a
great dread of thunder, and sought to pacify Catequil in every possible
manner. Their children were sacred to him as the supposed offspring of
the lightning.

We now descend gradually and almost insensibly in the scale of deism,
until little by little we reach a condition of gross idolatry, not far
removed from that still practised by many African tribes. Here we find
even vegetables adored as symbols of sustenance. The potato was
glorified under the appellation of acsumama, and the maize as saramama.
Trees partook of divine attributes, and we seem to see in this condition
of things a state analogous to the reverence paid by the early Greeks
and Romans to Sylvanus and his train, and the vivification of trees by
the presence within them of dryads.

Certain animals were treated with much reverence by the Peruvians. Thus
we find the serpent, especially Urcaguay, the keeper of subterranean
gold, an object of great veneration. The condor or vulture of the Andes
Mountains was the messenger or Mercury of the Sun, and he held the same
place on the sceptre of the Incas as the eagle on the sceptre of the
Emperor of Germany or Russia. Whales and sharks were also worshipped by
the people who lived near the sea.

But in all this nature and animal worship it is difficult to detect a
totemic origin.[6] The basis of totemism is the idea of blood-kinship
with an animal or plant, which idea in the course of generations evolves
into an exaggerated respect, and finally (under conditions favourable
for development) into a full-blown mythology. At first it would appear
as if the perfect organisation of the Peruvian state and its peculiar
marriage laws had originated in a condition of totemism; but had
totemism ever entered into the constitution of the Peruvian religion at
any period of its development, it would have left as deep an impression
upon it as it did in the case of the Egyptian religion--that is, some of
the more important deities would have betrayed a totemic origin. That
they betray an origin wholly naturalistic there is no room for doubt.
And here the root difference between the Mexican and Peruvian
mythologies may be pointed out--that although both systems had grown up
from various constituents grouping themselves around the central worship
of the Sun, the constituents of the Aztec religion were almost wholly
totemic, whereas those of the Peruvian religion were naturalistic.[7]

But the factor of fetishism was not wanting in the construction of the
Peruvian religion. All that was sacred, from the sun himself to the tomb
of a righteous person, was _Huaca_, or sacred. The chief priest of Cuzco
was designated Huacapvillac, or 'he who speaks with sacred beings,' but
the principal use to which the term _Huaca_ was put was in reference to
objects of metal, wood, and stone, which cannot be better described than
as closely resembling those African fetishes so common in our museums.
These differed considerably in size. The reverence for them was probably
of prehistoric origin, and in this cultus we have the second brother
whom Pirrhua Manca changed into a stone. They were believed by the
Peruvians to be the veritable dwelling-places of spirits. Many of these
Huacas were public property, and had gifts of flocks of llamas dedicated
to them. The majority, however, were private property.

It will be necessary to mention one more deity. This is Supay, god of
the dead, who dwelt in a dreary underworld. He was the Pluto of Peruvian
mythology, and is usually portrayed as an open-mouthed monster of
voracious appetite, into whose maw are thrown the souls of the departed.

For the study of the worship of old Peru the materials are less
plentiful than in the case of the Mexican mythology. Stratum upon
stratum of belief is discovered, like those in the ruins of some ancient
city where each yard of earth holds the story of a dynasty. To the
student of comparative religion an exhaustive study of the complex
mythology of the ancient Peruvians offers an almost unparalleled
opportunity for comparison with and elucidation of other mythologies,
since in it the process of its evolution is exhibited with greater
clearness than in the case of any other belief, ancient or modern.




CHAPTER V

PERUVIAN RITUAL AND WORSHIP


With the Peruvians, as with the Mexicans, paradise was a preserve of the
aristocrats. The poor might languish in the gloomy shades of the Hades
presided over by Supay, Lord of the Dead, but for the Incas and their
immediate relatives, by whom was embraced the entire nobility, the
Mansions of the Sun were retained, where they might dwell with the Sun,
their father, in undisturbed felicity. In a community where everything
was ordered with military exactitude, sin meant disobedience, and
consequently death. Indeed it took the form of direct blasphemy against
the Inca, and was thus stripped of the purely ethical sense it holds for
a free population. The sinner expiated his crime at once, and was
consigned to the grey shades of the underworld, there to pass the same
nebulous existence as his more meritorious companions. Some writers upon
Peru refer to a belief on the part of the people in a place of
retribution where the wicked would expiate their offences by ages of
arduous toil. But there is little ground for the acceptance of these
statements.

Strictly speaking, there was no priesthood in Peru. The ecclesiastical
caste consisted of the Inca and his relatives, who were also known as
Incas. These assumed all the principal positions in the national
religion, but were unable, of course, to fill all the lesser provincial
posts. These were undertaken by the priests of the local deities, who
were at the same time priests of the imperial deities, a policy which
permitted the conquered peoples to retain their own form of worship, and
at the same time led them to recognise the paramountcy of the religion
of the Incas. Nothing could be more intense than the devotion shown by
all ranks of the population to the person of the Inca. He was the sun
incarnate upon earth, and his presence must be entered with humble mien
and beggarly apparel, and a further show of humility must also be made
by carrying a bundle upon the back.

The High Priest, who has been already alluded to as holding the title of
Huacapvillac, or 'He who converses with divine beings!' also held the
more general one of Villac Oumau, or 'Chief Sacrificer.' He derived his
position solely from the Inca, but made all inferior appointments, and
was answerable to the monarch alone. He was invariably an Inca of
exalted rank, as were all the priests who officiated at Cuzco, the
capital. Only those ecclesiastics of the higher grades wore any
distinguishing garb, the lower order dressing in the same manner as the
people.

The existence of a Peruvian priest was an arduous one. It was necessary
for him to master a ritual as complex as any ever evolved by a
hierarchy. At regular intervals he was relieved by his fellow-priests,
who were organised in companies, each of which took duty for a specified
period of the day or night. The duties of the Peruvian priesthood,
whilst even more exacting than that of the Mexican, did not appear to
have been lightened in a similar manner by the acquirement of knowledge,
or by mental exercise of any description, and this may be partly
accounted for by the fact that the art of writing was discouraged among
them, probably on the assumption that the whole duty of man culminated
in unfailing obedience to the Inca and his representatives, and that the
acquirement of further knowledge was the work of supererogation.

It is deeply interesting to notice (isolated as was everything Peruvian)
that it was in this far corner of America that the native evolution of
the temple took place, as distinguished from the altar or teocalli.
Originally the Peruvian priesthood had adopted that pyramidal form of
structure now familiar to us as that in use by the Mexicans, but as time
went on they began to roof over these high altars, and this practice at
length culminated in the erection of huge temples like that at Cuzco.

The great temple of Cuzco, known as _Coricancha_, or 'The Place of
Gold,' was the greatest and most magnificent example of Peruvian
ecclesiastical architecture. The exterior gave an impression of
massiveness and solidity rather than of grace. Round the outer
circumference of the building ran a frieze of the purest gold, and the
interior was profusely ornamented with plates of the same metal. The
doorways were formed from huge monoliths, and the whole aspect of the
building was Cyclopean. In the dressing of stone and the fitting of
masonry the Peruvians were expert, and the placing of immense blocks of
stone appears to have had no difficulties for them. So accurately indeed
were these fitted that the blade of a knife could not be inserted
between them. Inside the Temple of the Sun was placed a great plate of
gold, upon which was engraved the features of the god of the luminary,
and this was so placed that the rays of the rising sun fell full upon
it, and bathed it in a flood of radiance. The scintillations from a
thousand gems, with which its surface was enriched, lent to it a
brilliance which eye-witnesses declare to have been almost
insupportable. Enthroned around this dazzling object were the mummified
bodies of the monarchs of the Inca dynasty, giving to the place an air
of holy mystery which must have deeply impressed the pious and simple
people. The roof was composed of rafters of choice woods, but was merely
covered in by a thatching of maize straw. The principle of the arch had
never been thoroughly grasped by the Peruvians, and that of adequate
roofing appears to have been equally unknown to them.

Surrounding this, the principal temple, were others dedicated to the
moon; Cuycha, the rainbow; Chasca, the planet Venus; the Pleiades; and
Catequil, the thunder-god. In that of the moon, the mother of the Incas,
a plate of silver, similar to that which represented the face of the sun
in his own sanctuary, was placed, and was surrounded by the mummified
forms of the dead queens of the Incas. In that of Cuycha, the rainbow,
as already explained, a golden representation of the arch of heaven was
to be found, and the remaining buildings in the precincts of the great
temple were set apart for the residences of the priests.

The most ancient of the temples of Peru was that on the island of
Titicaca, to which extraordinary veneration was paid. Everything in
connection with it was sacred in the extreme, and in the surrounding
maize-fields was annually raised a crop which was distributed among the
various public granaries, in order to leaven the entire crop of the
country with sanctity.

All the utensils in use in these temples were of solid gold and silver.
In that of Cuzco twelve large jars of silver held the sacred grain, and
censers, ewers, and even the pipes which conducted the water-supply
through the earth to the temple, were of silver. In the surrounding
gardens, the hoes, spades, and other implements in use were also of
silver, and hundreds of representations of plants and animals executed
in the precious metals were to be found in them. These facts are vouched
for by numerous eye-witnesses, among whom was Pedro Pizarro himself, and
subsequent historians have seen no reason to regard their descriptions
as in any way untrustworthy.

As in Mexico, so in Peru, the Spanish conquerors were astonished to find
among the religious customs of the people practices which appeared to
them identical with some of the sacraments of the Roman Catholic faith.
Among these were confession, communion, and baptism. Confession appears
to have been practised in a somewhat loose and irregular manner, but
penance for ill-doing was apportioned, and absolution granted. At the
festival of Raymi, which we will later examine, bread and wine were
distributed in much the same manner as that prescribed in Christian
communities. Baptism also was practised. Some three months after birth
the child was plunged into water after having received its name. The
ceremony, however, appears to have partaken more of the nature of an
exorcism of evil spirits than of a cleansing from original sin.

Like the ancient Egyptians, the Peruvians practised the art of embalming
the dead, but it does not appear that they did so with any idea in view
of corporeal resurrection as did the former. As to the method by which
they preserved the remains of the dead, authorities are not agreed,
some believing that the cold of the mountains to which the corpses were
subjected was sufficient to produce a state of mummification, and others
that a process akin to that of the Ancient Egyptians was gone through.

Burnt offerings were very popular among the Peruvians. They were chiefly
made to the sun, and were, in general, not unlike those made by the
Semites.

As with the Mexicans, the sacred dance was a striking feature of the
Peruvian religion. These choral dances were brought to a very high state
of perfection, and in the case of the common people were often wild and
full of the fire of abandoned fanaticism. The Incas, however, possessed
a dance of their own, which was sufficiently grave and stately. At great
festivals two choral dances and hymns were rendered to the sun, each
strophe of which ended with the cry of _Hailly_, or 'triumph.' Some of
those Peruvian hymns were preserved in the work of a Spanish composer,
who in 1555 wrote a mass, into the body of which he introduced these
curious waifs of American melody. That choral dances are still in favour
with the aborigines of Peru is proved by the evidence of Baron Eland
Nordenskjöld, who arrived (August 1907) from an eight months'
ethnological expedition to some of the Andes tribes. He states that the
'so-called civilised Indians--the Quichuas and Aymaras--living around
Titicaca ... have retained many customs unaltered or but slightly
modified since the time of the Incas.... Thus it was found that the
Indians often worship Christ and the Virgin Mary by dances, in which the
sun is used as the symbol for Christ, and the moon for the Virgin Mary.'

With the Peruvians each month had its appropriate festival. The
solstices and equinoxes were of course the occasions of the most
remarkable of these, and four times a year the feast of Raymi or the
dance was celebrated with all the pomp and circumstance of which this
strange and bizarre civilisation was capable. The most important of
these was held in June, when nine days were given up to the celebration
of the Citoc Raymi, or gradually increasing sun. For three days previous
to this event all fasted, and no fire might be kindled in any house. On
the fourth great day the Inca, accompanied in procession by his court
and the people, who followed _en masse_, proceeded to the great square
to hail the rising sun. The scene must have been one of intense
brilliance. Clad in their most costly robes, and sheltered beneath
canopies of cunning feather-work in which the gay plumage of tropical
birds was æsthetically arranged, the vast crowd awaited the rising of
the sun in eager silence. When he came, shouts of joy and triumph broke
from the multitude, and the cries of delight were swelled by the crash
of wild melody from a thousand instruments. Louder and louder arose the
joyous tumult, until topping the eastern mountains the luminary shone in
full splendour on his worshippers. The riot of sound culminated in a
mighty pæan of thanksgiving. Libations of maguey, or maize-spirit, were
made to the deity, after first having touched the sacred lips of the
Inca. Then marshalling itself once more in order of procession, all
pressed with one accord to the golden Temple of the Sun, where black
llamas were sacrificed, and a new fire kindled by means of a concave
mirror. Divested of their sandals the Inca and his suite spent some time
in prayer. Occasionally a human victim--a maiden or a beautiful
child--was offered up in sacrifice, but happily this was a rare
occurrence, and only took place on great public occasions, such as a
coronation, or the celebration of a national victory. These sacrifices
never ended in cannibal feasts, as did those of the Aztecs. Grain,
flowers, animals, and aromatic gums were the usual sacrificial offerings
of the Peruvians.

The Citua Raymi was the festival of the spring, and fell in September.
It was known as the Feast of Purification. The country must be purified
from pestilence, and to secure this, round cakes, kneaded in the blood
of children, were eaten. To secure this blood the children were merely
bled above the nose, and not slaughtered, as with the more ferocious
Aztecs--almost an example of the substitution of the part for the whole.
These cakes were also rubbed upon the doorways, and the people smeared
them all over their bodies as a preventive against disease. The circuit
of the state of Cuzco was then made by relays of armed Incas, who
planted their spears on the boundaries as talismans against evil. A
torchlight procession followed, after which the torches were cast into
the river as symbolic of the destruction of evil spirits.

The festival of the Aymorai, or harvest, fell in May, when a statue made
of corn was worshipped under the name of Pirrhua, who seems to be an
admixture of Manco Capac and Viracocha in his rôle of fertiliser. The
fourth great festival, Capac Raymi, fell in December, when the
thunder-god shared the honours paid to the Sun. It was then that the
younger generation of Incas after a vigorous training received an honour
equivalent to that of knighthood.

The Peruvians possessed a fully developed conventual system. A number of
maidens, selected for their beauty and their birth, were dedicated to
the deity as 'Virgins of the Sun.' Under the guidance of _mamacones_, or
matrons, these maidens were instructed in the nature of their religious
duties, which chiefly consisted in the weaving of priestly garments and
temple-hangings. They also watched over the sacred fire which had been
kindled at the feast of Raymi. No communication with the outside world
was permitted to them, and detection in a love-affair meant living
burial, the execution of the lover, and the entire destruction of the
place of his birth. In the convent of Cuzco were lodged between one and
two thousand maidens of the royal blood, and at a marriageable age these
became brides of the Sun in his incarnate shape of the Inca, the most
beautiful being selected for the harem of the monarch.

Sorcery and divination were frequently employed by the Peruvians, and
the _Huacarimachi_, 'They who make the gods speak,' were held in great
veneration by the ignorant masses. The oracles in the valleys of Lima
and Rimac were much resorted to, and auguries of all descriptions were
in popular favour.

The Peruvians were ignorant of morality as we appreciate the term. That
they were, however, a most moral people there is every evidence. But as
has been before pointed out, all crime was a direct offence against the
majesty of the Inca, who, as viceroy of the Sun on earth, had been
blasphemed by the breaking of his law. Under such a régime the true
significance of sin was bound to be obscured, if not altogether lost.
Terror took the place of conscience, and the necessity for implicit
obedience gave no scope to the true moral sense--probably to the
detriment of the entire community.

The political and religious history of Peru is unique in the annals of
mankind, and its study offers a startling instance of what prolonged
isolation may work in the mind of man. That the Peruvian mind, isolated
in a remote part of the world as it was, was never wholly blind to the
existence of a great and beneficent creative Power, the degradation of a
cramping theocracy notwithstanding, is triumphant proof that the
knowledge of that Power is a thing inalienable from the mind of man.




CHAPTER VI

THE QUESTION OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE UPON THE RELIGIONS OF AMERICA


The space at my disposal for dealing with this most difficult of all
questions is such as will enable me only to outline its salient points.
As I pointed out at the beginning of the first chapter, the question of
the origins of the American religions was almost identical with that of
the origins of the American race itself.

That the Red Man was not the aboriginal inhabitant of the American
continent, but supplanted a race with Eskimo affinities, is extremely
probable. At all events, the 'Skraelings,' with whom the early Norse
discoverers of America had dealings, were not described by them as in
any way resembling the North American Indian of later times. If this be
granted--and Indian folklore would seem to strengthen the hypothesis--we
must then find some other home for the Red Man than the prairies of
North-east America for the five centuries between the Norse and
Columbian discoveries. He may, of course, have dwelt in the north-west
of the continent, a solution of the problem which appears to me highly
feasible. That his affinities are Mongolian it would be absurd to
dispute; but--and this is of supreme importance--these affinities are of
so archaic an origin as to preclude all likelihood of any important or
numerous Asiatic immigration occurring for many centuries before either
the Norse or Columbian discovery.

Coming to a period within the ken of history, there is just the
possibility that Mexico, or some adjacent country of Central America,
was visited by Asiatic Buddhist priests in the fifth century. The story
is told in the Chinese annals of the wanderings of five Buddhist
priests, natives of Cabul, who journeyed to America (which they
designate Fusang) _viâ_ the Aleutian Islands and Kamchatka, a region
then well known to the Chinese. Their description of the country,
however, is no more convincing than are the arguments of their
protagonist, Professor Fryer of San Francisco, who sees Asiatic
influence in various elephant-headed gods and Buddha-esque statuary in
the National Mexican Museum. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon
that any foreign influence arriving in the American continent in
pre-Columbian times was not sufficiently powerful to have more than a
merely transitory influence upon the customs or religious beliefs of the
inhabitants.

This leads us to the conclusion that the religions of Mexico and Peru
were of indigenous origin. Any attempt to prove them offshoots of
Chinese or other Asiatic religion on the basis of a similarity of art or
custom is doomed to failure.

But however satisfactory it may be to brush aside unsubstantial theories
which aspire to the honour of facthood, it would be a thousand pities to
ignore the numerous intensely interesting myths which have grown up
round the idea of foreign contact with the American races in
pre-Columbian times. Let us briefly examine these, and attempt to
discover any point of contact between them and similar American myths.

I have previously alluded to the myth of Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl was
a Mexican deity, but in reality he was one of the older pre-Aztecan gods
of Anahuac. He is sometimes represented as a being of white complexion
and fair-bearded, with blue eyes, and altogether of European appearance.
It will be remembered that on the entrance into Anahuac of Tezcatlipoca
he waged a war with that god in which he was worsted, and eventually
forced to depart for 'Tlapallan' in a canoe, promising to return at some
future date. It will also be recollected how the legend of
Quetzalcoatl's return influenced the whole of Montezuma's policy towards
the Spanish conquistadores, and how the fear of his vengeance was ever
before the Aztec priesthood. Quetzalcoatl, strangely enough, was reputed
to have sailed for 'Tlapallan' from almost the identical spot first set
foot upon by Cortes on his arrival on the Mexican coast.

The Max Müller school of mythologists see nothing in Quetzalcoatl but a
god of the wind. With them Minos was a myth. So was his palace with its
labyrinth until its recent discovery at Knossos. I am fain to see in
Quetzalcoatl a real personality--a culture-hero; but I will suggest
nothing concerning his non-American nationality. At the same time it
will be interesting to examine, firstly, those European myths which
speak of men who set out for America; and, secondly, those American
myths which speak of the existence of 'white men,' or 'white tribes,'
dwelling upon the American continent.

Passing over the sagas of the Norse discovery of America, which are by
no means mythical, we come to the Celtic story of the finding of the
great continent. When the Norsemen drove the Irish Celts from Iceland,
these fugitives sought refuge in 'Great Ireland,' by which, it is
supposed, is intended America. The Irish _Book of Lismore_ tells of the
voyage of St. Brendan, abbot of Cluainfert in Ireland, to an island in
the ocean destined for the abode of saints, and of his numerous
discoveries during a seven years' cruise. The Norse sagas which tell of
this 'Great Ireland' speak of the language of its inhabitants as
'resembling Irish,' but as the Irish were the nation with which the
Norsemen were best acquainted, this 'resemblance' appears to smack of
the linguistic classification of the British sailorman who applies the
term 'Portugee' to all languages not his own. The people of this country
were attired in white dresses, 'and had poles borne before them on which
were fastened lappets, and who shouted with a loud voice.'

But another Celtic people claimed the honour of first setting foot upon
American soil. The Welsh Prince Madoc in the year 1170 sailed westwards
with a fleet of several ships, and coming to a large and fertile
country, landed one hundred and twenty men. Returning to Wales he once
more set out with ten vessels, but concerning his further adventures
Powell and Hakluyt are silent. Nor does the authority of the bard
Meredith ap Rees concerning him rest upon any more substantial basis.[8]
Stories of Welsh-speaking Indians, too, are not uncommon. Two slaves
whom the Norsemen of 1007 sent on a foraging expedition into the
interior of Massachusetts were Scots, although their names--Haki and
Hakia--hardly sound Celtic.[9]

Innumerable are the legends of 'white Indians'--the 'white Panis,'[10]
dwelling south of the Missouri, the 'Blanco Barbus, or white Indians
with beards,' the Boroanes, the Guatosos of Costa Rica, the Malapoques
in Brazil, the Guaranies in Paraguay, the Guiacas of Guiana, the
Scheries of La Plata--but modern anthropology scarcely bears out the
stories of the 'whiteness' of these tribes. On a similar footing are the
travellers' tales concerning the existence of Indian Jews--to prove
which Lord Kingsborough squandered a fortune and compiled a work on
Mexican antiquities the parallel of which has not been known in the
entire history of bibliography.[11]

More convincing are the Mexican and Peruvian legends concerning the
appearance of white and bearded culture-bringers. These legends are, it
must be admitted, shadowy enough, but are so persistent and resemble
each other so closely as to give some grounds for the supposition that
at some period in the history of Mexico or Peru a member or members of
the 'Caucasian' race may have stumbled into these civilisations through
the accidents of shipwreck. But it is exceedingly dangerous to premise
anything of the sort; and, as has been said before, the influence of
such wanderers could only have been infinitesimal.

Enough, then, has been said to show that the origins of the religions of
Mexico and Peru could not have been of any other than an indigenous
nature. Their evolution took place wholly upon American soil, and if
resemblances appear in their systems to the mythologies or religions of
Asia, they are explicable by that law now so well known to
anthropologists and students of comparative religion, that, given
similar circumstances, and similar environments, the evolution of the
religious beliefs of widely separated peoples will proceed upon similar
lines.




SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY


MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY

(_Those authorities marked with an asterisk are also applicable to the
subject of Peruvian Mythology_).

  SAHAGUN, _Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España_. (English
    translation edited for the Hakluyt Society by Clements R. Markham
    in 1880.)

  TORQUEMADA, _Los veynte y un libros Rituales y Monarchia Yndiana_.

  IXTLILXOCHITL, _'Historia Chichimeca' and 'Relaciones' in_ Lord
    Kingsborough's _Mexican Antiquities_, vol. ix.

  PRESCOTT, _Conquest of Mexico_.

  *HUMBOLDT, _Vues des Cordillères et Monuments des Peuples de
    l'Amérique_.

  CLAVIGERO, _Storia antica del Messico_. (English translation by
    Charles Cullen. London, 1787.)

  BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG, _Histoires des Nations civilisées du
    Mexique et de l'Amérique-centrale_, and _Quatre Lettres sur le
    Mexique_.

  BANCROFT, _Native Races of the Pacific States of North America_.

  KINGSBOROUGH, _Antiquities of Mexico_.

  *RÉVILLE, _The Hibbert Lectures_, 1884.

  *PAYNE, _History of the New World_, vols. i. and ii.

  TYLOR, _Anahuac_.

  BRINTON, _The Myths of the New World_.

  WINSOR, _Narrative and Critical History of America_.


PERUVIAN MYTHOLOGY

  MONTESINOS, _Mémoires historiques sur l'Ancien Perou_. (Translated
    from the Spanish MS. in Ternaux-Compans, vol. xvii.)

  GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA, _Comentarios reales_. (English translation
    for the Hakluyt Society by Clements R. Markham. London, 1869, 1871.)

  LACROIX, '_Perou_,' in vol. iv. of _L'Amérique_ in _L'Univers
    Pittoresque_.

  HUTCHINSON, _Two Years in Peru, with Explorations of its
    Antiquities_. London, 1873.

  PRESCOTT, _Conquest of Peru_, 1848 (or better, Sonnenschein's new
    edition, or that in Everyman's Library).

  MARKHAM, _A History of Peru_, 1892; and _Rites and Laws of the Incas_.

  LORENTE, _Historia Antigua del Perú_, 1860-3.


  The works of Prescott upon Mexico and Peru (which are perhaps the
  most popular and accessible upon the antiquities of these
  countries) are nevertheless sadly meagre in their accounts of the
  respective mythologies of the Nahuatlaca and the Incas. Indeed in
  each of them but a few pages is given to the faith of the
  aborigines. In some later editions, however (notably in the recent
  popular editions of Mr. Sonnenschein), excellent variorum notes
  have been added by the editors. A great deal of Prescott's work is
  now quite obsolete and misleading. The works of Mr. Brinton have
  superseded them; but it is doubtful if Prescott will ever be
  surpassed in narrative charm. The best English work on the subject
  is Mr. Payne's _History of the New World called America_, cited
  above, a work which is a veritable storehouse of knowledge upon
  aboriginal America. These works are, however, rather too erudite
  in tone for the general reader, and by no means easy to come by. A
  most excellent catalogue of American historical and mythological
  literature is published by Mr. Karl Hiersemann of Leipsic.


Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh
University Press




FOOTNOTES:


[1] The fact of the rapid approximation of the European colonists to the
American type might, however, be quoted against this view.

[2] It must be borne in mind that the science and arts of the Aztecs
were almost immediately lost in consequence of the intolerance of the
Spanish Conquistadores.

[3] An absolutely erroneous one.

[4] The temple, with all its purlieus and courts, was named _teopan_;
the central pyramid, _teocalli_.

[5] There is reason to believe, however, that the sacrifices of the
Aztecs were made not so much for the purpose of placating the gods as
for the imagined necessity of rejuvenating them and keeping them alive.
Of some of the sacrifices, at least, this is certain.

[6] The veneration of an animal or plant _which does not identify a
tribe_ is not 'totemism' but 'naturalism,' or nature-worship.

[7] The evidence of Garcilasso would seem to show that the early
Peruvians possessed a totem-system; this, however, would appear to have
been by some process totally eliminated. It will be seen that I
differentiate between 'naturalism' and 'totemism.' 'Totemism' is the
adoption of an animal or plant symbol by a _tribe_ originally for the
purpose of identification. It later grows into the belief in
blood-kinship with the symbol. 'Naturalism' is the worship of the wind,
the sun, or other natural phenomena.

[8] The legend is the basis of some hundred of lines of bookish fustian
by Southey, who follows Hakluyt in making Mexico the theatre of the
prince's adventures.

[9] _Antiquitates Americanæ._ Were they Picts?

[10] Pawnees.

[11] This monumental work, which, apart from its letterpress, is
exceedingly valuable in respect of numerous splendid plates representing
Aztec MSS., is in nine huge volumes, and was published in London in
1831. Its original price was £175 coloured, and £120 uncoloured. Its
noble author sought to prove that the Mexicans were the Lost Ten Tribes
of Israel.




Transcriber's Notes:


  Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.