EXTRACTS  FROM  KINGSBOROUGH'S
MEXICAN  ANTIQUITIES.
______

VISCOUNT KINGSBOROUGH was an English antiquarian, was born in 1795, and was the son of the Earl of Kingston. In 1830 he published his "Antiquities of Mexico, Comprising Facsimiles of Ancient Mexican Paintings," &c. He died in 1837, having expended a fortune and the most of his life on his matchless work, which consists of nine ponderous folio volumes.

Vol. 1. contains a copy of the collection made by Mendoza, preserved in the Bodlean [sic] library at Oxford, England; of the Codex Telleriano, in the library of Paris; fac-similes of the collection of Botturini; and copies of other paintings in the Bodlean library.

Vol. II. contains manuscripts from the Vatican paintings of Laud; paintings from the Institute of Bologna; from Vienna and Berlin, and bas-reliefs from Antigua.

Vol. III. contains fac-similes of the Borgian collection at Rome, and paintings from Dresden, Hungary, and the Vatican.

Vol. IV. contains Monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix, in French.

Vol. V. consists of translations from the first three volumes, by Augustine Aglio.

Vol. VI. consists oí intepretation of collection of Mendoza; explanation of Codex Telleriano-Remensis; explanation of Codex Vaticanus, and Notes.

Vol. VII. contains "Historia Universal De Nueva Espanya;" by Las Casas.

Vol. VIII. contains Supplementary Notes, Supplementary Extracts, a Treatise on the Jewish Descent of the Indians, and The Letters of Cortez.

Vol. IX. contains Chronico Mexicano, by Tozozomoc, and Historia Chichemeca, by Ixtlilochitl, and Retos Antiques E Idolatrías De Las Indios La Nueva Espanya.

The following extracts are made from the sixth and eighth volumes and pages indicated. S. F. W.

Vol. VI. page 4: "In Peter Martyr's work: They knew them (the Cherebians) [to] ‘honor the cross, although lying somewhat, and in another place compassed about with lines, they put it upon such as are new-born, supposing the devils fly from that instrument; if any fearful apparition be seen at any time by night, they set up the cross, and say that the place is cleansed by that remedy; and being demanded whence they learned this, and the speeches which they understand not, they answer that those rites and customs came by tradition from the elders to the younger.'"

"Gomara says that in Yucatan a cross of copper or wood was placed over the graves of the dead."

Page 46: -- "A very remarkable representation of the ten plagues which God sent on Egypt in order to punish Pharaoh's hardness of heart occurs in the eleventh and twelfth pages of the Borgian manuscript. Moses is there painted as holding up in his left hand his rod which became a serpent, and with a furious gesture calling down plagues on the Egyptians. These plagues were frogs, locusts, lice, flies, &c.; all of which seem to be represented in the pages referred to; but the last and most dreadful were the thick darkness which overspread Egypt for three days, and the death of the first-born of the Egyptians, the former of which is represented by the figure of an eclipse of the sun, and the latter by Meclanteotl (or god of the dead) descending in the form of a skeleton, or a cadaverous body, from the God of Moses. The curious symbol of one serpent swallowing another occurs likewise in the nineteenth page of the same manuscript. It is not extraordinary that the Mexicans, who were acquainted with one portion of Genesis -- that relating to the migration of the children of Israel from Egypt, -- should have not been ignorant of another."

Page 50: "Now let us proceed briefly to state the plea and pretext by which the Ingas [sic] subdued those countries under their yoke. They professed to the people that after the deluge, with which event the Indians were universally acquainted, the human race was again propagated and multiplied by the Ingas alone; for that seven heroes came forth from the cave of Pacaritambo and procreated, in the manner which has been mentioned, new nations and people; whence it was fit and just that all mankind should obey, and submit to, the Ingas their ancestors and progenitors. They made this also a boast, that they alone of all men, possessed the

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pure and true knowledge of the worship and honor due to God; and hence in Cusco, as in some holy land, the temples exceed the number of four hundred, and the neighboring territory was everywhere full of religious mysteries."

"It has been before remarked that the Mexicans in many of their customs resembled the Peruvians and that their religion was probably derived from a common source. Viracocha being the same deity as Tetzcatlepoca and Huitzilopuchtli, although worshipped under a different name.

"The belief which the Mexicans and Peruvians entertained of their origin is likewise an argument in favor of their common descent. The former of these nations pretended that their ancestors had proceeded from seven caves; the latter that they were descended from seven heroes who came out of the same caves.

51 -- "M. De Humboldt has observed that if we knew exactly in what part of the globe the ancient kingdoms of Tulan, Tlapallan, Huetlapallan, Amaquemecan, Aztlan, and Chicomoztoe were situated, we might be able to form an opinion of who the ancestors of the Mexicans were, and from what country they passed over to America. By an attentive examination of the meaning of these proper names, and the mutual comparison of one with another, Tulan signifies the country of reeds; Tlapallan, the Red Sea; Iluetlapallan, the Old Red Sea; Amaquemecan, the country of the veil of paper; Aztlan, the country of the flamingo; and Chicomoztoe, the seven caves * * * In the absence of facts we employ conjecture* * * Egypt is the country to which all these names refer: and that the colony which arrived in early ages in America from the East, were Jews from Alexandria."

Page 53: "Montezuma told Cortez that their ancestors had come from the same part of the globe as the Spaniards, situated toward the rising sun."

Page 54. (Peter Martyr): "Cortez said to Montezuma 'What more wicked and abominable; what more foolish? * * * Ye slaughter so many human bodies every year for these insensible images' sakes.' Montezuma: 'Hearken, O, Cortez! The ceremonies of sacrifice left us by tradition from our ancestors, these we observe and have hitherto exercised.'"

Page 87: "The interpreter of the collection of Mendoza means to say that the Mexican paintings were, in the first instance, given to the native Mexicans, that they might consult together on their proper meaning, whose real testimony he afterward took down when they had come to an agreement as to the right signification of the symbols representing the cities tributary to the crown of Mexico. And Sahugan says, that he assembled, in a similar manner, the Indians of Tescuco and Mexico who were most conversant with the antiquities of their country, in order that they might explain to him the signification of their ancient paintings as the best authority which he could follow in writing the history of New Spain."

Page 102: "The Mexicans celebrated in this month (Panquetzilitzli) the festival of the loaf, which was in this manner: They made a large loaf of the seed of bledos, which they called tzoctli, and of honey; and after having made it, they blessed it in their manner, and broke it, and the high priest put it into a very clean vessel, and took a thorn of maguey, with which he with great reverence took up a morsel and put it into the mouths of every one of the Indians, as if in the manner of a communion."

Page 107: "Quecalcoatle is he who was born of the Virgin; who was called on earth Chimalman, and in heaven, Chalchihuitztli, which means the precious stone of penance or of sacrifice. He was saved in the deluge, and was born in Zivenavitzcatl, where he resides." "They call this the fast of the Lords; it lasted four days, that is to say, from the first day of Ocelotl to four earthquakes. This fast was a kind of preparation for the end of the world, which they said would happen in the day of four earthquakes, so that they were thus daily in expectation of that event. Quecalcoatle was he who they say created the world; and they bestowed on him the appellation of Lord of the Wind, because they said that Tonacatecotle, when it appeared good to him, breathed and begat Quecalcoatle. They erected round temples to him without any corners. They said that he it was that formed the first man, They celebrated a festival, on the sign of the four earthquakes, to the destroyer, with reference to the fate which again awaited the world; for they said that it had undergone four destructions,

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and that it would again be destroyed. He alone had a human body like that of men, the other Gods were of an incorporeal nature. -- (Codex Telleiano-Remensis.)

(Foot-note.) "Quecalcoatle is said to have been attended by many deformed persons and crook-backs, corcovados, on his way to Cholula."

"The extreme pertinacity which the Indians, both in Peru and Mexico, displayed in adhering to their old religion, frequently laying down their lives in its defense, and affirming when reasoned with upon the subject, that if Christianity was good for the Castillans, their own religion was no less for them, is a convincing proof that the signs and wonders which the Mexicans believed that Huitzilopuchtli had wrought in their favor (to which the hand and outstretched arm so often occurring in Mexican paintings probably alludes) and the oracles of Pachacama, revered in Peru, maintained the greatest ascendancy over their minds; and in this obstinacy, in blindly persisting in a persuasion which Christians told them was false, it must be confessed that the Indians closely resembled the Jews. The second reason for believing that Judaism was the religion of the Indians is, that they used circumcision. The third, that they expected a messiah. The fourth, that many words incorporated in their language and connected with the celebration of their rites, were obviously either of Hebrew or Greek derivation. The fifth, that Las Casas, the Bishop of Chiapa, who had the best means of verifying the fact, was of this opinion. Sixth, that the Jews themselves, including some of their most eminent Rabbis, such as Menasseh Ben Israel and Montecenio, who, though not a rabbi, was a Jew who had visited America, maintained it by both verbal statements and in writing. The seventh is the dilemma in which the most learned Spanish authors, such as Acosta and Torquemada, have placed their readers by leaving them no other alternative than to come to the decision whether the Jews had colonized America and established their rites among the Indian or whether the devil had counterfeited in the New World the rites and ceremonies which God gave his chosen people. The eighth is the resemblance which many of the Indian rites and ceremonies bore to those of the Jews. The ninth is the similitude which existed between many of the Indian and many of the Hebrew moral laws. The tenth is the knowledge which the Mexican and Peruvian traditions implied that the Indians possessed of the history contained in the Pentateuch. The eleventh, the Mexican tradition of the Teomoxtle or divine book of the Toltecas. The twelfth is the Mexican history of their famous migration from Aztalan [sic – Aztlan?. The thirteenth is the traces of Jewish superstition, history, tradition, laws, manners and customs, which are found in the Mexican paintings. The fourteenth is the frequency of sacrifices amongst the Indians, and the religious consecration of the blood and the fat of the victims. The fifteenth is the style of architecture of their paintings. The sixteenth is the fringes which the Mexicans wore fastened in their garments. The seventeenth is a similarity in the manners and customs of Indian tribes far removed from the central monarchies of Mexico and Peru (but still within the pale of religious proselytism) to those of the Jews, which writers who were not Spaniards have noticed, such as Sir William Penn, who, recognizing a probably fanciful likeness between the features of Indian and Jewish children, says:

'When you look upon them you would think yourself in the Jew's quarter at London. Their eyes are little and black like the Jews; moreover they reckon by moons; they offer the first fruits, and have a kind of feast of tabernacles. It is said that their altar stands upon twelve stones. Their mourning lasts a year. The customs of their women are like those of the Jews. Their language is masculine, short, concise, and full of energy, in which it much resembles the Hebrew. One word serves for three, and the rest is supplied by the understanding of the listeners. Lastly, they were going into a country which was neither planted nor known, and he that imposed this condition upon them was well able, to level their passage thither; for we may go from the eastern extremities of Asia to the western extremities of America.'

"If Sir William Penn had had an opportunity of beholding on what purple thrones the sovereigns of Peru and Mexico sat, he would perhaps have exulted less at the idea of the Jews having miraculously passed from the old continent to the new, either by the division of the waters of the

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Euphrates, as foretold by Esdras, or those of old ocean itself, the only remaining obstacle that could stop the march of the chosen people of God. We for our own part, should be almost tempted at the bare mention of such a prodigy to declare ourselves of the faith of the Irishman, who, on hearing a similar relation, gaily exclaimed, 'I believe it all but the first step.'"

EXTRACTS  FROM  KINGSBOROUGH'S
MEXICAN  ANTIQUITIES.
______

"It is said that Topelcin Quecalcoatle was born on the day of seven canes, and they celebrated on this day of seven canes, a great festival in Cholula, to which they came from all parts of the country and the cities, and brought great presents to the Lords of the temple; and they did the same on the day that he disappeared or died, which was the day of one cane. These festivals happened at the expiration of every period of fifty-two years." -- Vol. vi., page 118.

"It was after the deluge that the custom of sacrificing commenced. -- Comment: -- According to Scripture, therefore, sacrifices commenced immediately after the deluge; but sin, according to the Mexicans, commenced very much earlier, for they believe that sin began with time. Noah was called by the Mexicans Patecatle, and Cipaquetona; they said that he "invented the art of making wine, which it is generally agreed was not known before the deluge (since the patriarchs Noah and Lot were ignorant of its effects), and that he was preserved with six others in the ahuehuete or ark of fir, (which is one less than Moses said were saved from the deluge; since eight persons entered the ark), and that shortly afterwards his descendants built the tower of Tulan or Cholula, partly from curiosity to see what was going on in heaven and partly from fear of another deluge; but that Tonacatecutle, becoming incensed at their presumption, destroyed the tower with lightning, and scattered the workmen. Hence the Mexicans probably bestowed the epithet of Tepeva, or the dispenser, on their supreme deity." -- p. 119.

"The God of the three-fold dignity resides in homuocan, that is to say, the place of the Holy Trinity, who, according to the opinion of their old men. by their word formed Cepotenal and a woman, Xurnio; and these are the pair who existed before the Deluge, who begat Tocatintle, as we shall presently relate."

"It is remarkable that the figure of the sun and moon turned into blood frequently occurs." -- p. 159.

"Torquernada says the Bishop of Chiapa, when he passed through Yucatan, sent his ecclesiastic to the interior of the country, who at the end of a year wrote to him that he had questioned a principal lord about the ancient religion, who informed him that they knew and believed in God, who resided in heaven; and that their God was the Father, Son and Holy Ghost: that the Son was called Bacab, who was born of a virgin named Chibirias, who was in heaven with God, and that the name of the mother of Chibirias was Oschil; and that the Holy Ghost was called Echuah. Bacab, the Son, they said, was put to death by Eopuco, who scourged him and put a crown of thorns upon his head, and placed him with his arms stretched upon a beam of wood, to which they believed he had not been nailed, bnt tied; and that he died there, and remained during three days dead, and the third day came to life and ascended to heaven, where he is with the Father; and immediately afterward Echuah coming, who is the Holy Ghost, filled the earth with whatever it stood in need of."

"Ysnextli, they represented her as Eve, always weeping and looking at her husband Adam. She is called Ysnextli. which signifies eyes blind with ashes, and this refers to the time subsequent to sinning by plucking the roses. They accordingly

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declare that they are still unable to look up to heaven, and in recollection of the happy state which she lost, they fasted every eight years on account of this fall; and this fast was on bread and water only. Th?? fasted the eight days preceding the sign of one rose; and on the arrival of the sign they prepared to celebrate the festival." -- p. 141.

"Botturrini [sic] observes in the following passage, speaking of the planets, that "the week of the Chiapauas, resembling that of the Toltecas, consists of seven days."

"In the year four house, or in 1509, they perceived a light by night which lasted longer than forty days. Those who saw it saw that it was discernable throughout all New Spain and that it was very great and very brilliant, and that it was situated in the East, and that ascending from the earth it reached the skies. This was one of the prodigies that they beheld before the arrival of the Christians."

Note. -- "It has been observed above . . that it was probably some volcanic eruption. * * * Many other prodigies are related to have preceded the fall of Mexico, equal, both in number, in magnitude, and in impossibility, to those declared by Josephus to have attended the destruction of Jerusalem. Strange voices are said to have been heard in the air, and the serene vault of heaven to have been disturbed by the mimic combats of armed hosts. The sister of Montezuma, who was dead and buried, is pretended to have come to life, and many other signs and wonders to have happened. -- p. 144.

Plate 1. of Codex Vaticanus: "Homeyoca. which signifies place in which exists the Creator of the universe, or the First Cause, to whom they gave the name of Hometeul, which means the God of the three-fold dignity, or three Gods, the same as Olemris. They call this place in which he resides Zivenavi Chepaniucha, * * * and by another name, Homeiocan, that is to say. the place of the Holy Trinity, who, according to the opinion of many of the old men, begot, by their word Cepatenal, and a woman named Xumia; and these are the pair that existed before the deluge who begat Tocateutle, as we shall relate."

Note -- "The worst argument that has been used to defend the doctrine of the Trinity, and one that displays the greatest ignorance, is that by which reasoners, like Dr. Warburton in his Divine Legation of Moses, seek to address common-place arguments to unreflecting minds, viz.; that if this doctrine had not been revealed to man by divine inspiration, it would never have entered human contemplation, since laying aside the consideration of whether such a belief was entertained by the Indians, who on this admission can not be supposed, from the rude state of science amongst them to have been the inventors of it, but rather to have derived it, with the knowledge of many other Christian mysteries, from more civilized regions of the globe." - - p. 156.

"Amongst the many arguments which might be brought forward to show that Christianity had in very early ages extended itself to America, one of the strongest and most convincing is the fact that the doctrine of the Trinity was known in Peru, New Spain and Yucatan. This fact rests on the authority of very respectable writers. Acosta. in his Natural and Moral History of the Indies, distinctly asserts it; and the celebrated Las Casas, bishop of Chiapa, as cited by Torquemada, says that he had heard it from a person worthy of credit whom he charged to make inquiries into the religion of the inhabitants of the peninsula of Yucatan. A distinguished writer also, of the present age, the Baron De Humbolt, says that the Muyscas, the ancient inhabitants of Bogota, likewise believe in the existence of a Trinity. -- p. 158.

Solacar says: "The chiefs and men of rank in the province of Chiapa were acquainted with the doctrine of the most holy Trinity. They called the Father Icona, the Son Bacab, and the Holy Ghost Estruach, and certainly these names resemble the Hebrew, especially Estruach that of the Holy Ghost does, for Ruach in Hebrew is the Holy Ghost.

"As in the tradition current in Yucatan of Bacab and his crucifixion (which both Remesal and Torquemada have recorded, the latter on the authority of Las Casas himself, and which it deserves particularly to be noticed each author has accompanied with some new circumstance in his relation, Remesal informing us that the name of the respectable ecclesiastic who gave the information to Las Casas, was Francis Hernandez, and Torquemada that it was Eopuca who scourged and put to death Bacab) so in these Mexican paintings many analogies may be traced between

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the events to which they evidently relate and the history of the crucifixion of Christ as contained in the New Testament. The subject of them all is the same, -- the death of Quecalcoatle upon the cross, as an atonement for the sins of mankind. In the fourth page of the Borgian manuscript, he seems to be crucified between two persons who are in the act of reviling him: who hold as it would appear halters in their hands, the symbols perhaps of some crime for which they were themselves going to suffer. It is very remarkable that, although Quecalcoatle strictly enjoined honesty, temperance and chastity to the Mexicans, he still should have been esteemed by thieves as their patron god, as we learn from the following passage of the twenty-second chapter of the fourteenth book of Torqnemeda's Indian Monarchy: 'Amongst the abuses which these nations practiced one was they had a sign in their false judicial astrology which they named Ceacatl, of which they said that those who were born in it, if they were nobles would be turbulent, and if they were common people, would become thieves addicting themselves to the superstitions and wicked arts of those whom they called Timapalytotique, these were generally fifteen or twenty in number, who when they wished to rob any house, made an image of Coocatl or one of the god Quetzalcohuate, and went in a body, dancing to the place where they intended to commit the robbery; and he who carried the figure or this false god (who assuredly was false since he led such a worthless band as these) preceded them, leading the way, and likewise another who carried the arm of a woman who had died in her first childbed.' Torquemada, in recording this superstitious practice does not attempt to explain in what it might have originated; regarded simply in the light of a superstition, the Mexican belief that one of their principal gods favored and protected thieves is not more open to the keen shafts of satire than those fables of classical antiquity, against which the early fathers launched all their wit and learning and often sullied with exceptionable passages their otherwise pure and spotless pages." -- p. 166.

Page 163: "Las Casas says that Gomez, was in Nexapa, in the province of Guixaca, and the vicar of the convent showed him sheets of paper, drawings copied from extremely ancient paintings on long pieces of leather, rolled up and much smoked, &c. * * * She who represented Our Lady had her hair tied up in the manner in which the Indian women tie up their hair, and in the knot behind was fastened a small cross, by which it was intended to show that she was the most holy, and that a great prophet would be born of her, who would come from heaven, whom she should bring forth without connection with a man, still remaining a virgin: and that his own people would persecute that great prophet, and meditate evil against him, and would put him to death, crucifying him upon a cross; -- and accordingly he was represented in the paintings as crucified, with his hands and feet tied to the cross without nails. The article of the resurrection, how he had to return to life again, to ascend into heaven, was likewise painted. The Dominican fathers said they found those things among some Indians who inhabited the borders of the coasts of the South Sea, who stated that they received these memorials from their ancestors."

The Mexicans seem to have confounded together in their tradition of four ages and four destructions of the world the fictions of Greece respecting the four ages; the traditions of the Hebrews respecting the fall of man, the loss of Paradise and the deluge; the belief of Christians in the accomplishment of prophecy, in the downfall of four great empires of antiquity, and the Jewish account of the destruction of Jerusalem. -- p. 160.

"Torequemada informs us that Quecalcoatle had been in Yucatan, and was there adored. The interpreter of the Vatican Codex says, in the following curious passage, that the Mexicans had a tradition that he, like Bacab, died upon the cross; and he seems to add, according to their belief, for the sins of mankind."

"Gomara says the Spaniards noticed the resemblance of the Peruvians to Jews. 'They are all very like Jews in appearance and voice, for they have large noses, and speak through the throat. The dress of the Peruvians was like the ancient Jewish dress."

Cogulludo in History of Yucatan: -- "The ecclesiastics of the provinces, whose care accelerated the conversion of the Indians to our holy Catholic faith, animated

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with the zeal which they felt for their interests, not only destroyed and burned all the idols which they worshiped, but likewise all the books which they possessed, composed after their peculiar style, by which they were enabled to preserve the memory of past events and whatsoever else they imagined might furnish occasion for the practice of superstition or pagan rites. This is the reason why some particular facts which I wished to notice in this work can not be ascertained; but even the knowledge of their historical annals has been denied to posterity, for nearly all their histories were committed to the flames without any attention being paid to the difference of the matter of which they treated. Neither do I approve of that suggestion, nor do I condemn it: but it appears to me, that secular history might have been preserved in the same manner as that of New Spain and other conquered provinces has been preserved, without its being considered to be any obstacle to the progress of Christianity. I shall however, in consequence, be able to say little more than that which has already been written of their religious usages in the time of paganism."

"If more of the historical paintings and monuments of Yucatan had been preserved, we should probably have been able to have determined, whether Bacab and Quecalcoatle were only two different names for the same deity, who was worshiped alike by the Mexicans and the people of Yucatan. Torquemada informs us on the authority of Las Casas, that Quecalcoatle had been in Yucatan, and was there adored. The interpreter of the Vatican Codex says, in the following curious passage, that the Mexicans had a tradition that he like Bacab, died upon the cross, and he seems to add, according to their belief, for the sins of mankind. This tradition which rested solely upon the authority of the anonymous interpreter of that manuscript, acquires the most authentic character from the corroboration which it receives from several paintings in the Codex Borgianus which actually represent Quecalcoatle crucified and nailed to the cross. These paintings are contained in the fourth, seventy-second and seventy-fifth pages of the above mentioned manuscript; the article of his resurrection, burial and descent into hell appears also be be represented in seventy-first and seventy-third pages of the same." -- p. 165.

"In the seventy-second page of the Borgian Manuscript, Yestapal Nanazcaya, or the fourth age of the Mexicans, that of flints and canes, memorable for being the era of the birth of Quecalcoatle and of the destruction of the province and city of Tulan seems to be represented. Quecalcoatle is there painted in the attitude of a person crucified, with the impression of nails both in his hand and feet, but not actually upon a cross, and with the image of death beneath his feet, which an angry serpent seems threatning to devour. The skulls above signify that the place is Tzonpantli, a word which exactly corresponds with the Hebrew proper name Golgotha. The body of Quecalcoatle seems to be formed out of a resplendent sun, and two female figures with children on their backs are very conspicuously presenting an offering at his feet. The Mexicans sometimes added the epithet Tlatzalli to Tezonpantli when the signification of both names became the place of precious death or martyrdom; Tlatzalli meaning in the Mexican language, precious or desired. The seventy-third page of the Borgian manuscript is the most remarkable of all: for Quecalcoatle is not only represented there as crucified upon a cross of the Greek form, but his burial and descent into hell are also depicted in a very curious manner; his grave which is somewhat in the shape of a cross, and strewed with bones and skulls symbolical of death, resembles likewise that kind of building which the Indians of New Spain constructed in the courts of their temples, which they called tlaco and in which they played the religious game of the ball, instituted perhaps in commemoration of him. The head of the devouring monster on the left signifies his descent into hell, and seems to compel Michtlantecutli, the Lord of the dead, to do him homage. Michtlanticutli, it may be observed, was a different personage from Zontemogue, the former presiding over hell, the region of the dead, and the latter over hell, the place of punishment for the wicked. The Mexicans, like the early Christians, seem sometimes to have personified hell and death; and Milton has followed their example, unwisely gilding error with poetry. -- p. 166.

To be continued.

THE  STORY  OF  THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON.
BY  ELDER  H. A. STEBBINS.

CHAPTER XIV.
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[initial pages, 225-227 not copied]

... There are so many evidences in relation to the ancient people of America, and of their wonderful civilization that it is hard to make choice of matter to present with these chapters. But, along with the testimonies of Montesinos, Humboldt, Prescott, Baldwin and others, already in part presented, the author would now gather important evidences from the writings of M. Desire Charnay, the French traveler and explorer. He visited Mexico and Yucatan in 1857-8 and again in 1880-1, and studied the sculptured monuments of a lost people and the ruins of their great cities. For his work Allen Thorndyke Rice, of New York, wrote the introduction, from which the following extracts are made:

"This interesting volume, now offered to American readers, is the outcome of an expedition which received strong support in the United States, and enriched the museums of Paris and Washington with valuable collections. * * * The expedition aimed at the careful reproduction of Central American monuments, and a systematic investigation of the ruined cities and other remains of ancient civilization in Central America and Mexico. It was dispatched under the joint auspices of the governments of the United States and France. The means were provided not only of photographing bas-reliefs and hieroglyphic inscriptions, but of making careful casts of them. Copies of these casts were to be presented to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, and to the French Government. The collection and preservation of these reproductions formed one of the most valuable features of the enterprise, offering as they now do, to students of all countries, an ample field for investigation, and possibly the materials requisite for a solution of the language problem by some future Champollion. "In the face of great difficulty and discouragement M. Charnay has succeeded in securing and safely transporting numerous casts of the important palaces and temples of Central America, now on exhibition in the museums of Paris and Washington, after the destruction if the first collection of hostile Indians. * * * These monuments are of surpassing grandeur; their annals and the tale that their hieroglyphics strive to tell are still unsolved. * * * Yet how few Americans of our day have any conception of the stately edifices of monumental Mitla, or of Palenque, with its magnificent palaces, its terraces, and temples, its pyramids and sculptured ornaments. The story of Spanish rule in America is familiar to all, but comparatively few have any knowledge of those splendid relics that crown the entire nucleus of New Spain, and which, despite the havoc of time, speak to us so eloquently of a noble culture reaching back beyond the Conquest. More, no doubt, would have been known but for the untimely end of the distinguished traveler, John L. Stephens.

"All the marvels of Eastern fable pale before the vision of a New World emerging like a mirage from the Western seas, peopled by strange races, glorious in the richness of its tropical vegetation, its forests teeming with curious animal forms, its mines reputed to contain inexhaustible stores of gold and gems. The bounds of human empire had suddenly been widened, and the world's compass was increased by an unknown quantity. * * * Thence came gold and silver to be coined in all the mints and curiously wrought in all the jeweler's shops of Europe and Asia.

"Of the innumerable questions to which the discovery of America gave rise, the most difficult to answer, perhaps, was that regarding the origin of the newly discovered races. * * * In support of a derivation from Noah, we are constantly referred to the native flood-myths, and to the tradition of a foreign origin. According to the Lord Kingsborough, who is a willing believer in Scriptural analogies, the Mexican tradition of a deluge bears 'unequivocal marks of having been derived from a Hebrew source.'

* * * As a sequel to the flood-myths we come upon traditions of the building of a tower of refuge, and this has led some writers to identify the Americans with certain of the builders of Babel, who were scattered over the earth after

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the confusion of tongues." -- Rice's Introduction to Charnay's "Ancient Cities of the New World," pages 9 to 17.

While Mr. Rice does not believe (nor does M. Charnay) that the ancient Americans were of Hebrew origin, and that it is doubtful if they came from any European or Asiatic country, still Mr. Rice says that it is true that there are "striking resemblances between the architectural style of America and of several Old World countries; and slight, but seemingly real, points of affinity in language; while a consensus of traditions shows an aboriginal knowledge of certain countries beyond the sea inhabited by 'white-faces.'"

He says farther: -- "One of the distinctive features of Mexican architecture is the pyramidal form of the buildings, or their substructures. On this account, chiefly, an attempt has be?? made to trace a connection between America and Egypt, in civilization if not in race. * * * Most of the ruined towns have such mounds, but the great pyramid of Isamal is peculiar in consisting of two pyramidal piles of masonry, one on the top of the other, the base of the whole measuring not less than eight hundred and twenty feet on each side, and the first platform six hundred and fifty feet. The pyramidal form is also finely seen in the Casa Gobernador (Governor's House) at Uxmal, which is described as the most stately in form and proportions of all the structures of the kind. Here three successive terraces form the base which holds aloft the grand ornate building, and they add to its looks of spacious, magnificence.

According to Stephens the carved work is equal to the finest Egyptian work. It would be impossible, he says, with the best instruments of modern times to cut stone more perfectly * * * Add to this the difficulty of quarrying large masses of stone, of conveying them long distances through a rough country, and of raising them to great altitudes, and the construction of vast edifices seems truly marvelous. "Whether or not it will be in human power to decipher the hieroglyphics, and to give to history the annals they so vainly strive to tell, is a question yet to be settled," and he says that the problems thus presented are worthy of the attention of the greatest intellects of Europe and America, and that it is "reasonable to expect that some new Champollion will yet do for the early annals of our continent what has already so amply been done for the history of ancient Egypt." He adds that the monuments "attest the prosperity of what was one of the finest and most populous regions of the earth," and says that the scholar, with the photographs and plaster casts in sight, may now, in effect, have before his eyes "Copan with all its mysteries; its columns scored with hieroglyphics; its rows of death's heads on its sculptured walls; its nameless kings and gods; and to his unimpassioned research we must trust to bring before us once more the old faith of an ancient and mighty priesthood, and the lost knowledge and strange arts of a cultivated and vanished people." -- Rice's Introduction to Charnay, pages 20 to 23.

But there is no reason to believe that the great intellects of Europe and America will be able solve this great problem, which is attracting so much attention just now, unless God shall give to some one the key to the mysterious languages that are engraven upon the walls and monuments of the lands of Jared and of Zarahemla. Already has God given much unto men, if the great and wise would but consider it, and if they would seek unto him for more after his own way. But for the fulness and for the closing scenes of "his act, his strange act," they will have to wait, even till I e shall "make it plain." The chief things in M. Charnay's book will be given along with succeeding chapters of this story, in connection with extracts from Stephen's works, and from the writings of other explorers.

To be continued.

EXTRACTS  FROM  KINGSBOROUGH'S
MEXICAN  ANTIQUITIES.
______

On the seventy-fifth page of the Borgian Manuscript Quecalcoatle is again represented as crucified, and one of his hands and both his feet seem to bear the impression of nails; he appears from the phonetic symbol placed near his mouth, to be uttering an exclamation, and his body is strangely covered with suns. If the Jews had wished to apply to their Messiah the metaphor of the Sun of Righteousness, they would have perhaps painted him with such emblems; and perverting in like manner another expression of Scripture, -- "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end," -- have painted the signs dedicated to Quecalcoatle before and after the signs allotted to the twelve tribes of Israel, as seems to be the case on the seventy-fourth page of the Borgian Manuscript where the skull or symbol of death placed over the other signs may signify that he had redeemed them from it.

The two signs dedicated to Quecalcoatle were the cattle, or the wind, and the green feathered serpent, which occupy the first and the last places amongst these signs. The seventy-first page of the manuscript seems to represent a cross overshadowed by the wings of a cherub, beneath which Quecalcoatle is reclining, whilst the figures on the sides and the mutilated human limbs around, may bear some allusion to the punishment of his enemies. The eagles which are represented on the same page, remind us that that bird is sometimes mentioned in the Old Testament as an instrument of divine wrath, as in the eleventh verse of the forty-sixth chapter of Isaiah:

"Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country; yea I have spoken it, I will also bring to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it."

Since the Jews interpret the Old Testament in so different manner from Christians, and contend that the Messiah is spoken of under innumerable types which the latter refuse to recognize, because they have not been noticed by the apostles, we may reasonably demand whether the eagle was one of them, and whether the representation of Quecalcoatle, borne upon the wings of an eagle, which occurs on the fourth page of the Borgian Manuscript, may not allude in some manner to the fourth verse of the nineteenth chapter of Exodus?

"Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle's wings, and brought you unto myself." It is remarkable that in these Mexican paintings the faces of many of the figures are black, whilst the nails on the hands and feet of others are long, and more like the talons of a bird than human nails, and that the visage of Quecalcoatle is frequently painted in a deformed manner. Even here Jewish absurdity and the perversion of ancient prophecy seem to betray themselves. The Jews esteemed long nails as the symbol of the divine ordinance, "Be ye fruitful and multiply," and it is therefore probable from this as well as from other reasons which are enumerated in the following passage (taken from a little work treating of their religion) that they would have added them to the representations of their heroic or mythological personages: "They look so attentively to their nails because of their great fruitfulness."

And, as regards the deforming of features, which the Mexicans attributed to Quecalcoatle, the words of Isaiah, in the fifty-second chapter of his prophecies, which the Jews believed referred to their Messiah, and which they might have

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understood in an exaggerated sense, must also be recollected:

"Behold my servant shall deal prudently. * * * He hath no form or comeliness."

Notwithstanding the reserve which the early Spanish historians imposed upon themselves in treating of Quecalcoatle (whose name in fact would scarcely have been handed down to us but for the preservation of a chance copy of the first edition of the "Indian Monarchy" of Torquemada, from which a second edition was printed at Madrid in 1723), we are still enabled to give some description of his busts, some of which it may be supposed were very deformed, and others much less so."

(Text of Plate III and IV.)

"The second place in which these unfortunate people believed was hell, which they affirmed that the souls of those who died by the hands of justice, or by disease, or by any other kind of natural or violent death, were conducted, the souls of those who perished in war excepted, which passed to heaven. In this region of hell they supposed that there existed fair gods."

168. Both a fan and sickle were sometimes placed in the hand of Quecalcoatle, as it would appear from busts which is preserved in the British Museum, the countenance of which is mutilated, though not deformed, and the curve of the sickle in the right hand broken off. Reasons are given in another place for assuming the bust to be of Quecalcoatle, but it would seem that the Mexican artist intended to give an expression of youth and beauty to the face, nor is it surprising that the image should not always have been sculptured with a deformed visage, according to the description of Torquemada:

"Since the same motives which induced some Spanish writers, whilst openly reviling the other Mexican gods, to speak almost in respectful terms of Quecalcoatle, namely: a regard to the excellence of his moral precepts, and the exemplary conduct of his life, might have inclined the Mexicans occasionally to represent him with a sweet and benignant expression of countenance."

Torquemada, in the sixth book of his "Indian Monarchy," thus eulogizes Quecalcoatle:

"In truth the dominion of Quetzalcohuatle was sweet, and he exacted no service from them but easy and light things, instructing them in such things as were virtuous, and prohibiting such as were wicked, evil and injurious, teaching them likewise to abhor them."

169. Mons. Dupaix discovered in the province of Tlascala, which bordered on Cholula, a bust which so exactly corresponds with the description given by Herrera of the image of Quecalcoatle, which was adored in that city, that we can not refrain from referring to the Fifty-third Plate of the Second Part of hie Monuments, which contains a representation of it under the number 123. The bird's face was perhaps only a mark or visor, symbolical of his absence: or it might have been the bill of the Huicuan and have alluded to the proper name Hurtzelopuchtle, and to the bird which invited the Mexicans out of the bush to set out on their pilgrimage from Aztalan [sic].

It deserves to be remarked, that both of the hands of the figure seem to be pierced with nails, the heads of which are invisible. The tradition current in Yucatan, that Kopuco crowned Bacah with thorns appears also to be preserved in its head-dress. A crown of thorns of another fashion may perhaps be recognized on the head of another piece of ancient sculpture discovered by Mons. Dupaix. This figure, in relievo, is represented in the Ninth Plate of his Monuments, Part Third, number Thirteen: and the crown seems to be formed out of the thorny leaves of the aloe.

If such testimony as that of Las Casas, Kemesal, De Salcar and Torquemada. may, from the importance of the subject, still stand in need of further corroboration before belief can be yielded to the traditions of Yucatan, which even went so far as to affirm that Bacab had been crucified by Eopueo, it is afforded by the discovery of which Mons. Dupaix made of a cross in a temple, when investigating the ruins of the ancient city of Palenque, which was situated on the borders of Yucatan.

Although, in anticipation of the objection which some persons may be inclined to make, that the finding of a cross on the confines of Yucatan was no proof that the people of that province believed, as a matter of faith, in the crucifixion of

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an individual, we shall insert a passage from Cogulludo's History of Yucatan, which is very remarkable, as the cross there mentioned had the image of a person crucified sculptured upon it:

"In the middle of the court formed by the cloister of our convent in the city of Merida, there is a stone cross, the thickness of the four several sides of which is about six inches, and their length a yard; its length has evidently been diminished by a part having been broken off. The figure of a saint crucified, of about half a yard in length, is sculptured in mezzo-relievo on the same stone. It is understood to have been one of the crosses which in the times of Indian paganism were discovered in the island of Cozeumel. Many years ago it stood in the upper part of the church; and it is reported that, from the period when it was placed there, scarcely any flashes of lightning struck the convent, although it had often been struck before that time. Being blown down in a storm they carried it into the lower body of the church where we saw it for some time, leaning against the foot of the altar of the Chapel of Captain Alonzo Carrio de Valdes, with little decency. The reverend father, brother Antonio Ramirez, on being elected Provincial, both on account of that which was rumored of this cross, and in order to place it in a more decent situation, caused a foundation composed of stones to be constructed for it with steps up to it, and a pillar in the middle of sufficient height, on the top of which was fixed the cross in an upright position, with the image of the crucified saint turned toward the east, its extremities being gilt and worked with beautiful mouldings. With the general consent of both ecclesiastics and of the laity, and in order not to affirm aught which was not entirely certain, an inscription was placed on the back of it which says:

"This cross was found in Cozeumel without tradition."

176. Botturini says: "No pagan nation refers primitive events to fixed dates like the Indians. They recount to us the history of the creation of the world, of the deluge, of the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel, of the epochs and ages of the world, of their ancestors' long travels in Asia, with the years precisely distinguished by their corresponding characters.

They record in the year of Seven Rabbit« the great eclipse which happened at the crucifixion of Christ our Lord; and the first Indians who were converted to Christianity, who at that time were perfectly well acquainted with their own chronology, and applied themselves with the utmost diligence to ours, have transmitted to us the information that from the creation of the world to the happy nativity of Christ, five thousand one hundred and ninety-nine years have elapsed, which is the opinion or computation of the Seventy."

175. "These miserable men hence invented certain dreams, the result of their own blindness, relating that a god of the name of Citlallatonae, which is the sign seen in heaven, called St. James, or the milky-way, sent an embassador from heaven on an embassy to a virgin of Tulan, called Chimalman [which name signifies a shield] who had two sisters, one named Tzochitlique and the other Conetlique; and that the three being alone in the house, two of them perceiving the embassador of heaven died of fright, Chimalman remaining alive, to whom the embassador announced that it was the will of God that she should conceive, a son; and having delivered to her the message he rose and left the house. As soon as he had left it she conceived a son, without connection with man, who was called Quetzalcoatle, who they say is the God of the air, and his temples are round, in the manner of churches, although to that time such was not the fashion of their temples. He was the inventor of temples of this form, as we shall show. He it was, as they say, who causes hurricanes, and in my opinion was the god whom they called Citoladuali, and it was he who destroyed the world by winds.

"This painting here is wanting, together with another, which represented that as soon as this son of the virgin was born he possessed the use of reason. The son of the virgin, Topilcin Quecalcoatle, knowing that the vices of men wore necessarily the cause of the troubles of the world, determined on asking the goddess Chalchenitlican, who is she who remained after the deluge with the man in the tree and is the mother of the god Tlaloque. whom they have made goddess of water, that they might obtain rain, as they stood in need of it, etc."

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(Note.) "The painting seems to represent the embassador or angel announcing the message to Suchiquecal, who was Eve, or the woman whose seed was to bruise the serpent's head, which prediction seems to be alluded to in the seventy-fourth page of the Lesser Vatican Manuscript, which immediately follows another, representing Quecalcoatle slaying the beast whose power was in its tail.

"The Mexican religion was peculiarly austere, unlike the religions of antiquity, and those which still prevail in Asia, with the exception of the Lamaism of Thibet, which some learned men have supposed to be an offshoot of Nestorianism, it permitted not even the slightest levity, in the service of the gods, cruel and sanguinary in the extreme, it notwithstanding professed to inculcate rigid morality.

178. "It is a remarkable fact, that the brazen altar in Leviticus, an engraving of which may be found in the old editions of Prideaux's Connection, is a model in miniature of the Mexican Teocallis; they are quite alike, except that the ascent to the Teocallis was by stairs consisting of steps and the ascent to the brazen altar was by an inclined plane."

183. (Plate XV Codex Vaticanas.) "Of Quecalcoatle they related that proceeding on his journey he arrived at the Red Sea, which is here painted, and which they named Tlapallan, and that entering into it they saw no more of him, nor knew what became of him, except that they say that he desired them at the time of his departure to restrain their grief and to expect his return, which would take place at the appointed time. And accordingly they expect him even to the present time; and when the Spaniards came to this country they believed that it was he; and even at a later period, in the year 1550."

186. Capotecus revolted, they alleged as the cause of their insurrection, the report of their god, which was to redeem them, had already come. Quecalcoatle was born on the sign which they call Ove Cane; and the year to which the Spaniards arrived commenced on the sign of Ove Cane, according to their ancient computation; whence the occasion arose of their believing that the Spaniards were their god, because they said that he had foretold that a bearded nation would arrive in those countries who would subject them; and they did not comprehend how the devil, who invented all that, could know what was at the future time to happen; because there was no grounds for inferring this, except that as wars have been so common and natural amongst men, from the beginning of the time, when sin began, and mankind are so ambitious of usurping the dominion of others, he might have chosen to utter this prediction in order that when any other nation should subject them he might take credit to himself, saying, that long ago he had prophesied it to them; and so in fact it happened: they adored him as a god, as will be seen, for they believed it certain that he had ascended into heaven and was that star which is visible at the north of the sun before the break of day, which is the planet Venus; and they represented him accordingly as has already been shown."

[[The Book of Mormon contains prophecies of Columbus and Europeans coming here and subduing the nations. -- Ed.]]

186. (Cortez letters to Charles V.) "All, especially Montezuma, replied, that they had already informed me that they were not the native race of the country; that a long period of time had elapsed since their forefathers came to settle it, and that they could easily believe that they might have erred in some matters of their former faith since it was so long since they had quitted their mother country: and that I, as having more recently arrived, should be better acquainted with the things which they ought to yield their faith to and believe, than they themselves: and that I should tell them these things and cause them to comprehend them, and that they would do that which I desired them, which was better."

187. "An infinite variety of facts connected with the customs, religions rites and ceremonies, and opinions of the Indians, are utterly inexplicable, except on the supposition that America has in early ages been colonized by Christians: and not a few others are difficult to be accounted for, unless we suppose that colonies had proceeded to that continent from Egypt. In the first class may be reckoned the Christian doctrines and traditions discovered in America; in the second the discovery of Greek crosses in many provinces of New Spain, and of brass money, in the shape of a cross.

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as of the Greek letter (T). The art of embalming, which in Peru was carried to the highest perfection; the pyramidal shape of the Mexican Teocallis, some of which, for example the temple of Cholula, and that discovered by Mons. Dupaix among the ruins of the city of Palenque, were like Egyptian pyramids, hollow in the interior; the use of the temazcalli, or vapor bath, which was very general in New Spain; but above all, the invention of the Mexican calendar, which nearly agreeing with the Coptic, especially in an extraordinary intercalation of a month every four years displayed an exact knowledge of the duration of the year, which it is impossible to suppose their own proficiency in astronomy enabled the Mexicans to attain, and for which the Copts were indebted to the ancient Egyptians. The Mexican calendar seems likewise to have borrowed certain numbers which it employed from the Coptic; four was a number in high esteem in the Abyssinian Church, because it was that of the Evangelists, five was the day of fasting amongst the primitive Christians, which the Copts esteemed with or more than the Sabbath. The number eight was also much prized, because the ceremony of circumcision took place on the eighth day after the birth of the infant. That this Jewish rite adopted by the Copts, was performed originally with a stone knife, as is evident from the twenty-fifth verse of the fourth chapter of Exodus, and from other passages of Scripture, which circumstance induced Garcia to suppose that the reason why the tecpatl, or flint knife, was held in much reverence by the Mexicans, was on account of its connection with circumcision. And Torquemada says that the Totonacas, a numerous nation of New Spain inhabiting a mountainous country to the east of Mexico, near the sea-coast, circumcised their children on the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth day after their birth, and that the high priest, or the priest next to him in rank, performed the ceremony with a stone knife. It deserves also to be remarked, that in the Mexican calendar the number eight, in connection with the sign of the flint, was much esteemed."

To be continued.

THE  STORY  OF  THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON.
BY  ELDER  H. A. STEBBINS.

CHAPTER XV.
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[initial pages, 308-309 not copied]

... The conclusions of the celebrated Josiah Priest on the subject of the Asiatic origin of the American Indians, and about their tradition of the deluge, the confusion of languages, etc., are in agreement with many other writers. He says that the authors of the great works found in America seem to have retained the ideas received from their fathers at the time of the building of Babel better than did many of the nations of Europe. Upon this he writes as follows:

"This is consented to on all hands, and even contended for by the historian, Humboldt. In order to show the reader the propriety of believing that a colony, very soon after the confusion of the language of mankind, found their way to what is now called America, we give the tradition of the Aztec nation, who once inhabited Aztalan [sic]. The tradition commences with ?? account of the Deluge, as they had preserved it in books made of the buffalo and deer skin, on which account there is more certainty than if it had been preserved by mere oral tradition, handed down from father to son. They begin by painting, or, as we would say, by telling us that Noah, whom they call Tezpi, saved himself with his wife, whom they call Xoehimietzal, on a raft or canoe. The raft or canoe rested on or at the foot of a mountain which they call Colhuacan. The men born after this deluge were born dumb. A dove from the top of a tree distributes languages to them in the form of olive leaves. They say that on this raft besides Tezpi and his wife were several children, and animals, with grain, the preservation of which was important to mankind." -- Priest's American Antiquities, pp. 199, 200.

Mr. Priest asks the question if the raft is not the ark, the mountain Ararat, and if the men said to have been born dumb do not well represent the confusion of tongues, equal to being dumb, because of their being unable to converse with each other. And if the dove and the olive leaves, the children, the animals, the grain preserved, are not all in harmony, to a great degree. with the Biblical account of the ark, the deluge, and the tower, and certainly one must admit that they are.

Mr. Priest continues upon the same point: "When the Great Spirit ordered the waters to withdraw, Tezpi sent out from his raft a vulture, which never returned, on account of the great number of dead carcasses it found to feed upon. Is not this the raven of Noah, which did not return when it was sent out the second time. and for the very reason here assigned by the Mexicans? Tezpi sent other birds, one a humming bird. This bird alone returned, holding in its beak a branch covered with leaves. Is not this the dove? Tezpi, seeing that fresh verdure now clothed the earth, quitted his raft, near the mountain Colhuacan. They say that the tongues which the dove gave to mankind were infinitely varied, and when they received them they immediately dispersed. But among them were fifteen heads or chiefs of families which were permitted to speak the same language, and these were the Toltecs, the Aculhncans and the Aztecs, who embodied themselves together and traveled they knew not where, but at length arrived in the country of Aztalan, or lake country." -- American Antiquities, p. 200.

We note here a wonderful harmony between the Aztec tradition and the history given in the Book of Mormon concerning; the language of the people that left the tower of Babel for America after the confusion of tongues; for they agree in the fact that this first colony retained the use of the original language of the earth, that which was spoken before the rebellion at Babel and its consequences. We read as follows: "Jared came forth with his brother and their families, with some others and their families, from the great tower, at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people. * * * And the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord and the

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Lord did have compassion upon Jared; therefore he did not confound the language of Jared and his brother. * * * And the Lord had compassion also upon their friends and their families, and they were not confounded. * * * And they did travel in the wilderness, and did build barges in which they crossed many waters, being directed continually by the hand of the Lord. And the Lord would not suffer that they should stop in the wilderness beyond the sea, but he would that they should come forth even unto the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands." -- Book of Mormon, pp. 301, 302, 303.

Thus we see that the book that was written by the people of olden time who came upon this continent, and whose words were hid up to come forth in latter days, is fully testified to by the tradition kept by their descendants, as certified to by the wise of our day who, have for many years, made these subjects their study.

Mr. Priest says that he obtained knowledge of the tradition, and also the engraving of which he speaks, from Baron Von Humboldt's volume of "Researches in Mexico," and that Humboldt himself found it painted on a manuscript book, one made of the leaves of some tree that were suitable for the purpose, after the manner of the ancient nations of Asia, around the Mediterranean. He relates how Humboldt found many other "painted representations" on the native books and on the prepared skins of animals, delineating the leading circumstances and history of the fall of man, of the serpent deceiving the woman, and of the murder of Abel by Cain.

In writing further of this historical picture and its valuable testimony, and of the group of men receiving their different languages from the dove, before their scattering abroad, -- Mr. Priest says:

"The purity of this tradition is evidence of two things: 1. That the book of Genesis, as written by Moses, is not, as some have imagined, a cunningly devised fable; because these Indians can not be accused of Christian priestcraft, nor yet of Jewish priestcraft, their religion being solely of another cast, wholly idolatrous. 2. That the earlier nations came directly over after the confusion of the ancient language and the dispersion, on which account its purity has been preserved more than among the wandering tribes of the old continents.

"There is another particular in this group of dumb human beings that is worthy of notice, which is that neither their countenances nor the form of their person agree at all with the countenances or formation or the common Indians. * * * If so then it is evident that the Indians were not the first people who found their way to this country.

"Among these ancient nations are found many more traditions corresponding with the accounts given bv Moses respecting the creation, the fall of man bv means of a serpent, the murder of Abel by his brother, etc., all of which are denoted in their paintings, as found by the earlier travelers among them." -- American Antiquities. pp. 202, 203.

Another tribe, the Mayas, are thus spoken of by H. H. Bancroft:

"Votan * * * was the supposed founder of the Maya civilization. He is said to have been a descendant of Noah, and to have assisted at the building of the tower of Babel. After the confusion of tongues he led a portion of the dispersed people to America." -- Native Races, vol. 5, page 27.

Quotations to the same effect might be made from Delafield, Donnelly, and other writers, but it seems unnecessary. However it would be well to give some of the views entertained about the ancients of America having been of Asiatic origin, and, moreover, that they were acquainted with the manners, customs and arts of the Egyptians, which would also agree with the Book of Mormon in its account that the colony that came over under Lehi were Jews from Jerusalem. For the Jews had been acquainted with Egypt and her people (or over a thousand years before Lehi emigrated, and doubtless borrowed some of the peculiarities of that people. And a colony of them in a new country, and dividing out into various parts of it, were more likely to make use of some of those peculiarities of architecture and sculpture than were those living in an old community. Bancroft says:

"The theory that America was peopled, or at least partly peopled, from Kastern Asia, is certainly more widely advocated than any other, and, in my opinion, is moreover based upon a more reasonable and logical foundation than any other." -- Native Races, vol. 5, page 30.

On the same page Bancroft quotes the learned Humboldt as saying: "It appears most evident to me that the monuments, methods of computing time, systems of cosmogony, and many myths of America, offer striking analogies with the ideas of eastern Asia, analogies which indicate an ancient communication."

Albert Gallatin writes as follows, as quoted by Bancroft: "I can not see any possible reason that should have prevented those, who after the dispersion of mankind towards the east and northeast, from having reached the extremities of Asia and passed over to America, within five hundred years after the flood. However small may have been the number of those first emigrants, an equal number of years would have been more than sufficient to occupy, in their own way, every part of America." -- Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, vol. 1, page 179.

While Bancroft himself does not believe that the original Americans originated in Egypt, as some scientists have made claim, but which is contrary to the Book of Mormon, as already shown), still he admits as follows: "Resemblances have been found between the calendar systems of Egypt and America, based chiefly upon the length and division of the year, and the number of intercalary and complementary days." -- Native Races, vol. 5, page 62.

Mr. John Delafield in his celebrated work on antiquities says:

"We find one feature common to the architectural genius of these races, which is to be discovered nowhere else. We allude to the surprising mechanical power that they must have employed in constructing their works of massive masonry, such as the present race of man has attempted in vain to move. Travelers in Egypt are filled with amazement at the stupendous blocks of stone with which the pyramids, temples,

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and tombs are constructed. In Peru the same is observed. * * * Another feature presents great analogy: Their buildings, particularly their sacred houses, were covered with hieroglyphics. Each race, Egyptian, Mexican and Peruvian, recorded the deeds of their gods upon the walls of their temples. Nay, science was also sculptured thereon in both countries, in the form of zodiacs and planispheres, corresponding even in signs. In the sanctuaries of Palenque are found sculptured representations of idols which resemble the most ancient gods, both of Egypt and Syria. Planispheres and zodiacs exist which exhibit a superior astronomical and chronological system to that which was possessed by the Egyptians." -- Antiquities of America, pp. 59, 60.

In relation to the harmony found to exist between the calendar systems of the Egyptians and the Ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, already referred to by Bancroft, we gather the following from Dalafield. It is a portion of a letter from Mons. Jomard. a scientist who had carefully investigated the astronomical computations and calendar system of the ancient Egyptians. He thus wrote to Delafield:

"I have also recognized in your memoir on the division of time among the Mexican nations, compared with those of Asia, some very striking analogies between the Toltec characters and institutions observed on the banks of the Nile. Among these analogies there is one which is worthy of attention. It is the use of the vague year of three hundred and sixty-five days (composed of equal months and of five complementary days equally employed at Thebes and in Mexico, a distance of three thousand leagues). It is true that the Egyptians had no intercalation, while the Mexicans intercalated thirteen days every fifty-two years. * * * In reality the intercalation of the Mexicans comes to the same thing as that of the Julian calendar, which is one day in four years, and, consequently supposes the duration of the year to be three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours. Now it is remarkable that the same solar year of three hundred and sixty-five days, six hours, adopted by nations s? different * * * relates to a real astronomical year, and belongs peculiarly to the Egyptians. * * * It would be superfluous to examine how the Mexicans obtained this knowledge. Such a problem would not be soon solved. But the fact of the intercalation of thirteen days every cycle, that is, the use of a year of three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter, is a proof that it was either borrowed from the Egyptians, or that they had a common origin." -- Delafield's American Antiquities, pp. 52, 53.

---

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EXTRACTS  FROM  KINGSBOROUGH'S
MEXICAN  ANTIQUITIES.
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(Page 192. Plate 16. Codex Vaticanus.)

This they say is the representation of that tower which we have already mentioned that they built in Cholula, which the old men say was constructed in this manner. Those Indians who were under that chief who had escaped from the deluge, name[d] Xllua, made bricks out of a mountain in Tlaltnanalco called Cocotle; and from Tlaltnanalco to Cholula, Indians were placed to pass the bricks and cement from hand to hand, and thus they built this tower, that was named Tulan Culula, which was so high that it appeared to reach heaven. And being content, since it seemed to them that they had a place to escape from the deluge, if it should again happen, and from whence they might ascend to heaven, -- a chalcuitl, which is a precious stone, fell from thence and struck it to the ground." * * *

(Page 200. Plate 20.)

"We certainly ought to deplore the blindness of this people and the cunning of Satan, who in this manner has persevered in counterfeiting the Scriptures; since he communicated to these poor people the knowledge of the temptation of our mother Eve, and of the inconsistency of our father Adam, under the fiction of this woman, who is turned toward her husband, as God declared to our mother Eve, (and she shall desire towards her husband), whom they call Isnextli, who is the same as Eve, who is always weeping, with her eyes dim with ashes, with a rose in her hand, emblematical of her grief, being in consequence of having gathered it. And accordingly they say that she can not behold heaven; wherefore in recollection of the happiness which, on that account, she lost, they celebrate a fast every eight years, on account of this calamitous event; the fast was on bread and water. They fasted during the eight signs preceding the entrance of the rose, and when that sign arrived they prepared themselves for the celebration of the festival. They affirm that every series of five days comprised in this calendar was dedicated to this fall, because on such a day Eve sinned. They were accordingly enjoined to bathe themselves on this night, in order to escape disease."

204. "I can not omit to remark, that one of the arguments that persuades me that this nation descends from the Hebrew, is to see what knowledge they have of the Book of Genesis; for, although the devil has succeeded in mixing up so many errors, his lies are still in such a course of conformity with Catholic truth, that there is reason to think that they have had acquaintance with this book. Since this and the other four books which follow, which are the Pentateuch, were written by Moses, and were only found amongst the Hebrew people, there is very strong ground for supposing that this nation proceeds from them. The manner in which they came to this country is unknown. Further proof of this fact may be found in their frequent sacrifices and ceremonies; one amongst others was * * *

The Jews considered the brazen serpent which Moses lifted up in the wilderness as a famous type of the coming of their future Messiah. And since the Mexicans were so well acquainted with the early history of the Pentateuch, and with the signs and wonders which Moses performed in Egypt, by lifting up his rod, which became a serpent, it is probable that they were not ignorant of the history of the brazen serpent, and that Quecalcoatle (which proper name

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signifies the feathered serpent) was so named after the memorable prodigy of the serpent in the wilderness, the feathers perhaps alluding to the rabbinical tradition that the fiery serpents which bit the children of Israel, and which God sent suddenly against them, were of a winged species. Representations of the lifting up of serpents frequently occur in Mexican paintings, and the plagues which Moses called down upon the Egyptians by lifting up his rod, which became a serpent, are evidently referred to in the eleventh and twelfth pages of the Borgian Manuscript. An allusion to the passage of the Red Sea, the waters of which rolled back to allow the children of Israel pass, and were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left, as it is said in the twenty-second verse of the fourteenth chapter of Exodus, seems also to be contained on the seventy-first page of the lesser Vatican Manuscript; and the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, and the thanksgiving of Moses may perhaps be signified by the figure on the left, on the same page, of a man falling into a pit or gulf, and by the hand on the right, stretched out to receive an offering."

255. "The Toltecas were most probably Jews who had colonized America in very early ages, bringing along with them the knowledge of various arts, and instructing the Indians in them, but especially propagating among them their own religious doctrines, rites, ceremonies, and superstitions, which seemed to have pervaded the New World from one end of that vast continent to the other, and even to have extended to some of the islands in the Pacific Ocean; for we read in Captain Cook's voyages of the rite of tatooing, or consecration, or putting apart, or making unclean for a definite period of time, both animate and inanimate things; and also that the natives of some of those islands, which were probably peopled from America, practiced circumcision."

290. -- BEARDED TRIBE

"But still, the account of a bearded tribe amongst the Indians inhabiting a mountainous district of the Capotecas [sic - Zapotecs?), who were designated by the Spaniards Mexis or Mexies [sic - Miztecas?), and who, according to their report, exceeded all Indian tribes in cannibalism, and were cruelly exterminated by them, (principally with the assistance of mastiffs), must excite our suspicion as to whether they might not have been Jews. Herrera says: 'In the province of the Mixies, that has been already mentioned, which is twenty leagues distant from Guaxaca, the people are of a good stature, have long beards, (which is an uncommon thing in these parts), and their language is very thick in pronunciation, like that of the Germans.'"

From a painting which occurs on the eighty-seventh page of the Codex Vaticanus, it would appear that the Capoticas were a bearded people, as well as the Mexes. The two nations bordered on each other, and alliances might sometimes have taken place between them.

"If the Mexes were Jews, it is probable that their ancestors constructed the palaces of Mictlan and other splendid monuments in the territory of the Capotions, which M. Dupaix is not inclined to attribute to the art and industry of the latter people. That the Mexes were not the barbarous people that Spanish authors describe them, is evident from the superior knowledge which they possessed of the art of Indian warfare; for, whilst the Tlaxcaltecas with an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men could scarcely preserve their independence against Montezuma, and had in fact consented to the payment of a slight tribute, as is evident from the forty-fourth plate of the collection of Mendoza, where the symbol of their state is found amongst those of the other tributary cities and nations, and is numbered twenty-three. The Mexes are said by Herrera to have resisted all the efforts of Montezuma to subdue them, although their entire population did not exceed two thousand men. Another proof of their possessing a certain degree of civilization is, that they employed historical paintings, in which they recorded the brave actions of their country men."

296. "It is certainly surprising to see how nearly the Jewish costume is imitated in some of the Mexican paintings. In the twelfth page of that manuscript of the Bodlean [sic] library, which seems to represent the migration of the Mexicans, or some other subject connected with a descent into hell, and which is unfortunately only a fragment of a larger painting, from which a part has evidently been torn off, the figure occurs of a Mexican priest in a dress very like that of the high priest of

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the Jews; the linen ephod, the breastplate, and the border of pomegranates, described in Exodus, are there in a manner represented. The golden bells are wanting, but those ornaments will be found in the valuable painting preserved in the Royal library of Dresden, attached to the dress of several of the figures, to which they are appended by certain hemmings or fringes, as was ordained in the twenty-eighth of Exodus, in the case of the dress of the Jewish high priest, 'And beneath,' &c. Was it the fruit or the flower of the pomegranate, we ask, that was worked on the garments of the priest? The fruit appears to be imitated on the dress of the priest in the Oxford manuscript; but the flower, which may be that of the pomegranate, occurs as a symbol in the representations of several of the Mexican temples. "It has boon remarked above that the dress of the Mexican priest bears only a partial resemblance to that of the Jewish high priest; for it will be immediately perceived that besides the golden bells, the girdle and mitre are wanting. Gomara has observed, that a girdle sometimes formed a part of the Indian costume; and in the great variety of sacerdotal habits in use among the Indians, there is no difficulty in supposing, that what on one occasion might have been worn, might on another have been omitted. The Archbishop of Saint Domingo, Augustine Duvila, whose testimony must have great weight in a question of this kind, has also affirmed that the sacred vestments discovered in Tamaculapa were very like those worn by the high priests of the Jews. The head of the above mentioned priest seems to be ornamented with ribbons interwoven with the hair; but the Mexican tecutli, or crown, which bore a much closer resemblance to the head dress of Aaron than the Episcopal mitre, is represented in the same page of the Oxford Manuscript on the head of another figure. It also frequently occurs amongst the paintings of the collection of Mendoza, and is there always painted blue. This crown, or mitre, was worn by Mexican kings, and likewise by the judges; the former has it richly adorned with plates of gold. Those kings united, it is to be supposed, pontifical with regal dignity, although the ostensible head of the Mexican religion was the high priest, who at his consecration to the office was anointed with oil of olli, mixed with blood. Moses declares in the sixth verse of the twenty-ninth chapter of Exodus, that he was commanded by God to "Put the mitre upon his head, and put the holy crown upon the mitre;" and in the twentieth verse to "Kill the ram, and take of his blood, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about."

"It is evident, from the passage in Exodus which has been quoted, that the holy crown was distinct from the mitre, &c. * * * Three things deserve to be mentioned of the Mexican mitre. It frequently consisted of a plate of gold on a blue ground; it was tied to the head by a lace or ribbon: and it was peculiarly worn on the forehead of the king or priest. In Peru, a tassel hanging from the bead of the Inca was the symbol of regal dignity; but some of the Incas wore a crown more nearly resembling an Episcopal mitre, if the portraits of those monarchs prefixed by Herrera to hie Decade are not ideal."

298. "The Egyptian priests, some of whose customs the Jews seem to have imitated, notwithstanding the hatred they bore to the Egyptian nation, wore also, when discharging the functions of supreme judicature, a breast-plate with the image of Truth engraved upon it, as Diodorus Siculus testifies."

"The figures in the Oxford Manuscript before referred to, are in the original paintings large and coarsely executed, with little apparent regard to minute details; it is impossible, therefore, to decide whether the breast-plate on the priest represented on the twelfth page, is square or round, or whether it contains one or more precious stones. The breast-plates worn by the Mexican priests appear to have been of different shapes and sizes, and to have been set with various numbers of precious stones. In the thirtieth page of the original Mexican painting, preserved in the library of the Vatican, the figure of a priest or some other personage occurs, with a round breast-plate attached by a chain to his neck; and near him appears to be two or three breast-plates

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one of a square and the other of a round form.

"From the forty-second verse of the twenty-eighth chapter of Exodus: "And thou shall make them linen breeches to cover their nakedness: from the loins even unto the thighs they shall reach." It would appear that the mantle, worn from a sense of decency by the Mexican priests round their loins, very much resembled the breeches which Moses made for Aaron and his sons. It says in the thirty-seventh and following verses of the fifteenth chapter of Numbers: "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them make fringes in the borders of their garments, throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue; and it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them." It was to be expected that so solemn an injunction to the Jews to wear fringes on the borders of their garments would be scrupulously obeyed throughout their generations; accordingly we find in the fifth verse of the twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew: "But all their works they do for to be seen of men; they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments."

Reference to the eighth page of the Oxford Manuscript, before mentioned, will show that it was a Mexican custom also to wear fringes and borders fastened to the apparel; and an examination of any of the Mexican paintings contained in these volumes will fully establish the fact. The Oxford Manuscript, which has been so often referred to, it has already been observed, is incomplete. This original Mexican painting is drawn in a very coarse style, on paper of the metl, and unlike other Mexican paintings, it rolls up instead of being folded; some of the figures are uncolored, and the subject is probably historical or mythological, and it has been supposed connected with the descent of some fabulous personage into hell, since in a Christian calendar, that is to say, a Mexican painting explanatory of the rites and doctrines of Christianity, which we have had the opportunity of seeing, hell is always represented by the symbol of the upper jaw of a serpent, and the Jewish notion of descending as it were into a pit, seems also to be preserved.

(Note). -- It is probable that the lower orders amongst the Jewish populace dressed exactly like the Mexicans, wearing simply a mantle girded round their loins, which slight covering was even dispensed with by their prophets when they prophesied (Isa. 20; 1 Sam. 19). To the Greeks this manner of prophesying would have appeared as extraordinary and unbecoming, as the hallowed cave from which the Delphic oracles were delivered, or the tripod and the inspired priestess, were in the eyes of the early fathers. The oracles had in fact sunk into contempt for some time before the Christian era; since their predictions having so often failed, mankind began at last to suspect them; but that stress which some theologians lay on the cessation of oracles, which, like the cessation of sacrifices amongst the Jews, they say was occasioned by the coming of the Messiah; appealing moreover to a treatise of Plutarch on the subject, to prove that the oracles did cease about that time, -- is unnecessary, since what becomes of their argument, if it can be proved that oracles existed in the New World long after the establishment of Christianity, and that the Jews there revived their old sacrifices? With respect to oracular inspiration, considered as a long prevailing belief of some of the greatest and wisest nations of antiquity, it may be observed that it was not so absurd as many Christian writers have represented it. For the principle having been admitted, that men might occasionally receive divine warnings of events likely to compromise great interests, the idea which suggested itself to the ancients, of establishing oracles, that on the one hand they might not appear to neglect the admonitions of heaven, nor on the other to suffer the populace to be deluded by false prophets, such as were frequent among the Jews -- was founded on policy and a regard for the public good."

313. "In the thirty-ninth page of the Mexican paintings, now in Pesth, Hungary, a curious representation of Quecalcoatle, as it would appear, occurs in the shape of a serpent fixed to a pole."

"Mention has already been made of ablutions as common amongst the Mexicans; but the confession which was customary among the Peruvians is still more

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surprising. Acosta, in the twenty-fifth chapter of the fifth chapter of the fifth volume of his history, describes it."

302. "We are induced from all these considerations to believe that the Peruvian sacrifices of atonement and burnt offerings were originally instituted amongst the Indians by the Jews; and that time had corrupted them, as likewise the feast of the passover, into a mass of superstitions."

To be continued.

EXTRACTS  FROM  KINGSBOROUGH'S
MEXICAN  ANTIQUITIES.
______

313. -- "The following chapter, which is taken from the Third Book of Garcías: Origin of the Judeans, we here insert in the original Spanish, with the translation annexed, both because it contains many scriptural authorities to prove that the Jews in ancient times did frequently profane religion by the celebration of human sacrifices and likenesses, because Garcia inclines to the opinion that their descendants introduced that shocking custom into Peru. This chapter is entitled, Como los Judeas; los Indias, le curon sacrificia, de Nwnos. * * * (See 2 Kings 17th).' "And they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils. * * * And they asked the blood of the innocent.'"

Manasseh passed his sons through the fire; Achaz sacrificed a son.

"It can not be doubted that human sacrifices were common throughout Palestine. And if the Holy Land was polluted with these abominable rites, which the Jews are said to have learned from their neighbors, the Canaanites, where is the difficulty in supposing that in after ages they wore transplanted to American soil by their descendants. * * * It is a very remarkable fact that the Indians were accustomed to pass their sons through the fire as a kind of baptism. * * * "

420. -- "It deserves to be remarked that as amongst the Jews certain cities were appointed as cities of refuge, by which criminals might fly and escape the punishment of the law; so amongst the Mexicans and amongst most of the Indian States, there were appointed places of refuge to which culprits might fly and claim the rights of the sanctuary, but that murderers could avail themselves of this privilege, as anciently was the case in Christendom, is neither probable nor asserted by any Spanish historian. The places of refuge amongst the Indians were the palaces of kings, named by the Mexicans tecpan; and wherever there was a place, there it may be supposed was a city of refuge likewise. But it may also be imagined, although it is not so expressly stated by Spanish writers, that the Mexican teocalli, especially the greater temples of Mexico, were places of refuge, and that the city of Cholula was a place of refuge."

326. -- "The reflection that human sacrifices were common among the Jews at one period of their history, as among the Mexicans and Peruvians, must give rise to grave reflections. * * *"

338. -- "What shall we say when we find * * * that the Indians of New Spain did expect a Messiah, whom they even named Mexi, which name exactly resembles the Hebrew, whose advent they expected in the year of the Cane, or the year of the Lord. Although Cortex is himself silent on the subject, Torquemada has recorded in the thirteenth and fifteenth chapters of the Fourth Book of his 'Indian Monarchy,' the curious fact, that when the Spanish general arrived on the coast of New Spain, he was not only taken by the Mexicans for their Messiah, but actually received their adorations in that character, seated on a throne erected for that purpose on the deck of his ship. To this belief of the Mexicans Torquemadais inclined to attribute the rapid progress of the Spanish arms, as the necessary consequence of the general commotion into which their empire was thrown by the rumor everywhere circulated that the Messiah had come to take possession of his kingdom."

351. -- * * * Cortez kept the matter a secret, because there were those who did not wish it to be known in Europe that he had been taken for the Messiah in America. But great as was the folly of Montezuma, in thus blindly following the faith of his ancestors, it does not surpass that of some modern Jews, inhabitants of Morocco, who annually confine in a coffin a virgin of their own race, in the hope that she may give birth to their expected Messiah."

378. Temples. -- "It is obvious that we can not compare the temple of Jerusalem, as a whole, with any of the Mexican temples, because we have not a perfect idea of all its parts. It is only from scattered passages of Scripture that we are enabled to guess that there were many features of resemblance between these different structures. That Solomon's temple was high, we learn from 2 Chron. 2:31, where it is expressly so designated: 'And this house which is high, shall be an astonishment unto every one that passeth by it, so that

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he shall say, why hath the Lord done thus unto this land and unto this house?' That it had an ascent, which was probably eight steps up to it, is incidentally mentioned in 2 Chron. 9:2-4, which contains an account of the queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon: 'And when the queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, and the house that he had built, and the meat at his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel; his cupbearers also, and their apparel, and his ascent by which he went up into the house of the Lord; there was no more spirit in her.'

"A causeway is also mentioned in 1 Chron. 26: 16 as leading to the latter temple. 'To Shuppim and Hosah the lot came forth westward, with the gate Shallecbeth, by the causeway of the going up, ward against ward.'"

"It is impossible when reading what Mexican mythology records of the war in heaven and of the war of Zontemonque and the other spirits: of the creation of light by the word of Tonacaticutli, and of the division of the waters; of the sins of Yxtlaohuhqui, and his blindness and nakedness; of the temptation of Suchiquecal, and her disobedience in gathering roses from a tree, and the consequent misery and disgrace of herself and all her posterity, -- not to recognize Scriptural analogies. But the Mexican tradition of the Deluge is that which bears the most unequivocal marks of having been derived from a Hebrew source. This tradition records that a few persons escaped in the Ahuehuete, or ark of fir, when the earth was swallowed up by the deluge, the chief of whom was named Patecatle or Cipaquetona; that he invented the art of making wine; that Xelua, one of his descendants, at least one of those who escaped with him in the ark, was present at the building of the high tower, which the succeeding generation constructed with the view of escaping from the deluge should it again occur; that Tonacatecutle, incensed at their presumption, destroyed the tower with lightning, confounded their language and dispersed them; and that Xelua led a colony to the New World." -- ???. Antiq. tom. vi.

409. -- (Torquemada): "Another ecclesiastic named Brother Diego de Mercado, a grave father, who has been definator of this province of the holy gospel, and one of the most exemplary men and greatest doers of penance of his time, relates, and authenticates this relation with his signature, that some three years ago, conversing with one of the Otomies, about seventy years old, respecting matters concerning our faith, the Indian told him that they in ancient times had been in possession of a book which was handed down successively from father to son in the person of the eldest, who was dedicated to the safe custody of it, and to instruct others in its doctrines. These doctrines were written in two columns, and between column and column Christ was painted crucified with a countenance of anger. They accordingly said that Lord was offended, and out of reverence would not turn even the leaves with their hands, but with a small bar which they had made for the purpose. which they kept along with the book. On the ecclesiastic's questioning the Indian as to the contents of the book and its doctrines, he was unable to give him further information, but simply replied that if the book had not been lost, he would have seen that the doctrine which he taught and preached to them and those which the book contained were the same."

"It is so singular a fact that the Indians of Mexico and Peru should have believed with Christians in many doctrines which were held to be peculiarly and exclusively Christian, and to constitute a line of demarcation between Christianity and all other religions that it appears a convincing proof that Christianity must, in early ages, have been established in America, and that ancient communication existed between the old and the new continents at a period long antecedent to the age of Columbus."

"In pointing out some of the leading doctrines of Christianity, the knowledge of which was likewise found amongst the Indians, it may be proper to observe that although it might be easier shown that the Indians believed in the existence of Deity, in the immortality of the soul, and in a future state of rewards and punishments; still, as these are intuitive truths which all religions teach, which all ages have believed, so inferences will be attempted to be drawn from them, since the Romans, the Greeks, the Mahometans, or the Hindoos, might by the same arguments have proved to have carried on intercourse in former ages with the Indians.

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The doctrines were peculiarly Christian, a belief in which the Indians likewise professed. However mixed up with other superstition, and from which inferences may be fairly drawn, are the following: That of a Trinity, of original sin, of repentance, of penance, of a vicarious atonement, of a future Redeemer, and of the resurrection of the body."

"But, besides exhibiting a certain degree of conformity on these doctrinal points, they likewise seem to have been formerly acquainted with the sacraments, although superstition had lamentably perverted these ancient mysteries of the Christian church, since traces of them may be found in various rites and ceremonies common alike to the Mexicans and Peruvians."

"Having briefly mentioned what the particular doctrines of Christianity were, which the gravest writers assert were known to the Indians before the arrival of the Spaniards in the New World, we shall proceed separately to adduce proofs to show that the above mentioned doctrines did in reality constitute a portion of the Indian faith; and, although many testimonies from different authors might be cited in confirmation of each article, it will be sufficient in this place to quote the single authorities of men like Acosta, Peter Martyr, Garcia, and Torqucmada, whose writings are highly appreciated in Spain, and are also known to the rest of Europe."

"Several historians of the New World mention Suchiquecal, and the sin which she committed in eating the fruit of a tree."

"The doctrine of a vicarial atonement, or of a sacrifice for sin, whereby the guilt of one party is expiated and atoned for by the innocent blood of another, was also well known to the Indians; and the question is carious, how traces of this doctrine should have been discovered in America, and how, on the supposition of these traces, affording indications of Christianity having in earlier ages existed in that continent, the doctrines of a purer faith could have thus degenerated, and in time have become mingled with such barbarous superstitions."

"If our surprise is excited by the discoveries that the Peruvians were not altogether ignorant of the nature of a vicarial sacrifice, or atonement, it will be produced in no less degree when we discover that the inhabitants of New Spain generally believed in the coming of a future Redeemer or Savior, whose advent, as welt as the last destruction of the world, may seem to have expected at the close of the certain stated periods corresponding with the artificial cycles of time which they displayed in their calendars. That future Redeemer was Quecalcoatle. The letters of Cortez to Charles the Fifth fully prove that about the time when the Spaniards first arrived in America, the expectation was very general in New Spain of the appearance of Quecalcoatle, and for many years afterward that expectation continued; so difficult it is to root out ancient prejudices, since we are informed that the mere report of their God having come to redeem them, induced the Capotecas to revolt in the year 1550."

"Gomora, speaking of this expectation, says: 'The Indians viewed with attention the dress, deportment and beards of the Spaniards. They were astonished at seeing the horses feed and gallop; they were terrified at the glittering of their swords, and fell to the ground at the report and noise of their artillery, thinking that heaven was bursting with thunder and lightning, and they said of the ships, that it was Quecacoatle who was coming, bringing his temples with him. since he was the God of the air who had left them, and whose return they expected.'" -- La Conquesta.

"A most striking proof of the firmness of the faith of the Mexicans in Quecalcoatle is afforded by the relation which Cortez, in his third letter to diaries the Fifth, and Gomara in his 'Conquest of Mexico,' gave of the events which occurred during the last days of the siege of that city. Gomara, describing the state of extremity to which the Mexicans had been reduced, and their obstinacy in resisting the Spaniards to the last, says: 'Cortez being desirous of seeing how much of the city remained yet to be gained, ascended a high tower, looked around him and perceived that there was an eighth part. On the following day he returned to the attack of the remaining portion. He commanded his troops to kill none but those who defended themselves. The Mexicans lamented their unhappy fate, entreating the Spaniards to conclude their work of slaughter. And certain chiefs

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called to Cortez in a very pressing manner, who hastened to the spot, imagining that it was to treat of terms of surrender. Having placed himself by the side of a bridge, they addressed him: 'Since you are the son of the sun, why do you not finish with his course? O sun! that canst encircle the earth in so short a space of time as a single day and one night, kill us at once, and relieve us at once from such great and protracted sufferings; since we desire death, in order to go and rest with Quecalcoatle, who is expecting us.'"

---

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THE  STORY  OF  THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON.
BY  ELDER  H. A. STEBBINS.

CHAPTER XVII.
______

[initial pages, 361-362 not copied]

...the Jaredites... dwelt in Honduras, Yucatan, Chiapas and Mexico. Some believe that they were identical with the Mound-Builders of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. And this is probable, because the book [of Mormon] shows that they went north and east from Mexico in the days of their division and decline, and scientific men hold that the Mound-Builders were a different people from the progenitors of the Indians, that they were a peculiar race throughout, and that they perished from off the earth, giving place to a later and dissimilar people, the ancestors of the various colored tribes that were found in America by the European discoverers and explorers. Some scientific men think that the Mound-Builders were the same as those in Mexico called Toltecs. This is doubtful; because the tradition of the Toltecs seems to denote that they lived and flourished after the birth of Christ; notwithstanding they, like the Jaredites, are said to have mainly vanished from sight before the Aztecs ruled in Mexico. But probably the Toltecs were a remnant of the Nephites before they gave way to the Lamanites, or were incorporated among them and by amalgamation and degeneracy lost their superiority. Of the Toltecs Charney "says

"All that the Toltecs did was excellent, graceful and delicate. Exquisite remains of their buildings, covered with ornamentation, together with pottery, toys, jewels, and many other objects, are found, for, says Sahagun, 'they had spread everywhere. The Toltecs were" good architects and skilled in the mechanic arts. They built great cities like Tula, the ruins of which are still visible, whilst at Totonac they erected palaces of cut stone, ornamented with designs and human figures that recall their chequered history. At Cuernavaca were palaces built entirely of cut stone.' Torquemeda speaks of the Toltecs in the same terms, observing that ' they were supposed to have come from the west and to have brought with them maize, cotton, seeds, and the vegetables found in this country; that they were cunning artists in working gold, precious stones, and other curious things.' Clavigero thinks that 'they were the first nation mentioned in American traditions, and justly celebrated for their culture and mechanical skill, and that the name Toltec came to be synonymous with architect and artificer.'" -- Ancient Cities of the New World, pages 82, 83.

The Book of Mormon shows that the first nation in American tradition were the Nephites (the Jaredites having perished only in name), and that the Nephites came originally from the west, across the sea, bringing all needful seeds with them; and that afterwards they emigrated from Peru into Yucatan, Mexico and further north. Also the scientific men of our time agree that there was an ancient emigration from South America into North America; that some came by sea; and that there were different periods of settlement and of civilization in Central America and Mexico as well as in the United States. Prof. J. D. Baldwin says concerning these matters:

"The civilized life of the ancient Mexicans and Central Americans may have had its original beginning somewhere in South America, for they seem more closely related to the ancient South Americans. * * * I find myself more and more inclined to the opinion that the aboriginal South Americans are the oldest people on this continent." -- Ancient America, page 185.

"It has sometimes been assumed that the Aztecs came to Mexico from the north, but there is nothing to warrant this assumption, nothing to make it probable. * * * Investigation has made it probable that the Mexicans or Aztecs went to the valley of Mexico from the South." -- Ancient America, pages 217, 218.

Of the Mound-Builders, whether they were the Jaredites or Nephites we do nut decide. Mr. Baldwin says:

"The facts that the settlements and works of the Mound-Builders extended through Texas and across the Rio Grande indicates very clearly their connection with the people of Mexico, and goes far to explain their origin. * * * We cannot suppose the Mound-Builders to have come from any other part of North America, for nowhere else north of the Isthmus was there any other people capable of producing such works as they left in the places where they dwelt. (In the Ohio and other valleys of the United States.) Beyond the relics of the Mound-Builders themselves no traces of the former existence of such a people have been discovered in any part of North America save Mexico and Central America. * * * It is not unreasonable to suppose that the civilized people of those regions extended their settlements and also migrated across the Gulf into the Mississippi Valley. In fact the connection of settlements bv way of Texas appears to have been unbroken from Ohio to Mexico." -- Ancient America, page 73.

At a meeting of the 'American Science Association,' held in Chicago, August 7-11, 1868, Prof. J. W. Foster claimed that the evidences were that the ancient Peruvians "carried on commerce with distant 'arts of the continent, as relics prove." At the same meeting Dr. J. H. Gibbon said, "The hieroglyphics of Central America represent sailors, priests, and classes and kinds of men different from the native races of America."

On page 209 of "Ancient America," Mr. Baldwin relates that in 1502, at an island off the coast of Honduras, Columbus met some Mayas, who came there "in a vessel of considerable size" from a port in Yucatan, thirty leagues distant; that it was a trading vessel, "freighted with a variety of merchandise, and that it used sails."

Of the ancient people, and of their mounds, their pyramids, their buildings and of the materials used in them, Baldwin says:

"Coming from Mexico and Central America they would begin their settlements on the Gulf coast, and afterwards advance gradually up the river to the Ohio valley. Their constructions were similar in design and arrangement to those found in Mexico and Central America. * * * Pyramidal platforms or foundations for important edifices appear in both regions, and are very much alike. There is evidence that they used timber for building purposes. In one of the mounds opened in the Ohio Valley two chambers were found with remains of the timber of which the walls were made, and with arched

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ceilings precisely like those in Central America, even to the overlapping stones. The resemblance is not due to chance. This method of construction was brought to the Mississippi Valley from Mexico and Central America." -- Ancient America, pp. 70, 71.

"This ancient race seems to have occupied nearly the whole basin of the Mississippi and its tributaries, with the fertile plains along the Gulf." -- Ancient America, page 32.

Speaking of the ancient Colhuan nation who dwelt in Yucatan, Honduras, Chiapas, etc., Baldwin remarks:

"Some of the traditions state that the Colhuas came from the east in ships. * * * If accepted as vague historical recollections they could be explained by supposing that the civilized people called Colhuas came from South America through the Carribeun Sea, and landed in Yucatan and Tabasco. They are universally described as being the people who first established civilization and built great cities. * * * The Colhuas are connected with vague references to a long and important period in the history previous to the Toltec ages. They seem to' have been in some respects more advanced in civilization than the Toltecs. * * * Some of the principal seats of the Coliman civilization were in the region now covered by the great forest. * * * In my judgment it is not improbable that they came by sea from South America. * * * Tradition places their first settlements on the Gulf coast in Tabasco, between Tehauntepec and Yucatan." -- Ancient America, pp. 108, 199, 200.

That the ancient dwellers in Central America and Mexico did use cement, and in a variety of ways, is attested by Charney:

"The interior of the pyramid is composed of clay and volcanic pebbles. * * * Over this was a thick coating of stucco (cement), such as was used for dwellings. Where the pyramid is much defaced its incline is from thirty-one to thirty-six degrees, and where the coatings of cement still adhere, forty-seven degrees. * * * If by an effort of the imagination we were to try and restore this dead city (Teotihuaean), restore her dwellings, her temples and pyramids, covered with pink and white coatings, surrounded by verdant gardens, intersected by beautiful roads paved with red cement, the whole bathed in a flood of sunshine, we should realize the vivid description given by Torquemada (as follows): 'All the temples and palaces were perfectly built, whitewashed and polished outside. All the streets and squares were beautifully paved, and they looked so daintily clean as to make you almost doubt their being the work of human hands, destined for human feet. Nor am I drawing an imaginary picture; for, besides what I have been told. I myself have seen the ruins of temples, with noble trees and beautiful gardens full of fragrant flowers.' The outline of the pyramids is everywhere visible, and serves as a beacon to guide the traveler to the ruins of Teotihuacan. * * * We set out under the escort of an Indian, and soon reached an immense mound known as the Citadel, measuring over sixteen hundred and fifty feet on the sides. It is a quadrangular enclosure, consisting of four embankments some nineteen feet high and two hundred and sixty feet thick, on which are ranged fifteen pyramids. * * * On the opposite bank of the torrent we noticed in some places three layers of cement, laid down in the same way and consisting of the same materials, as I can certify. This cement is identical with that of Tula, except that there it was probably done for the sake of solidity; whereas here, where the city was demolished several times, it was due to the fact that the new occupants did not care to clear the ground of all the rubbish. This supposition becomes almost a certainty, when we add that numerous fragments of pottery have been found between the layers. Besides this is amply exemplified in Rome and other cities, where ancient monuments are divided from later ones by thick layers of detritus." -- Ancient Cities of the New World, pp. 129, 130.

"Here also the floors and walls are coated with mortar, stucco, or cement, save that in the dwellings of the rich they are ornamented with figures, with a border like an Aubusson carpet The colors are not effaced; red, black, blue, yellow and white are still discernible." -- Ancient Cities, page 146.

Of the ruins now called Comalcalco, Charney says: "When these excavations first began, statues, stones of sacrifice (indicative of later times), columns, huge flags, and cement were unearthed. Unfortunately the whole was destroyed by these ignorant people. The rains consist of groups of pyramids of different dimensions, so extensive as to cover twenty-four miles. A country gentleman tells me that he has counted over three hundred of these artificial mounds on his own property. Besides these ruins others are to be met at Blasillo, situated on the Toltec march of migration. * * * I hear that an important city formerly existed there, whose monuments, like those of Comalcalico, consist of columns, statues and caryatides. This city having the same origin; and Toltec migration, Toltec civilizing influence being admitted as well as proved, these two cities would be the first built by them after their great migration." -- Ancient Cities, page 190.

"The walls of the palace were without any ornamentation, save a layer of smooth painted cement. * * * Some thirty-five feet to the southeast of the palace, on a cemented platform, is a tower of three stories, of which two are still standing. * * * Facing this pyramid, to the north. hidden by the luxuriant vegetation of a virgin forest, are three other pyramids. All were crowned with temples, the" walls of which are still standing. The layers of demolished cement leave uncovered the body of the walls. * * * Hundreds of other pyramids, every one occupied by palaces, stretch as far as the seaboard, buried in the depths of the forest, presenting innumerable monuments to be brought to light, for which years, numerous workmen, and iron constitutions are required for the future explorers. I have shown the way -- let others follow. The stupendous ruins, of which we have had but a glimpse, imply an immense amount of labor, and a dense population. It is quite clear that the present Tabasco, with a population of one hundred thousand, could not produce monuments so imposing as those of Comalcalco. The question arises, Who built them ages before the Conquest; and what became of the numerous population which such

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monuments presuppose?" -- Ancient Cities, pp. 199, 200, 203, 206, 207.

On page 204 M. Charney says that the towers, the palaces, and the tern pies, "must have gleamed on the astonished gaze of the Spaniards, as did the walls of the maritime cities of Yucatan," at the time of the Conquest nearly four hundred years ago.

J. L. Stephens is quoted as saying of the palace of Palenque that the floors were "of cement as hard as the best seen in the remains of Roman baths and cisterns," and I find that he mentions it as covered with stucco and painted. Also the following by him:

"The stucco is of admirable consistency, and hard as stone. It was painted, and in different places about it we discovered the remains of red, blue, yellow, black and white?" -- Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, Vol. 2, page 311.

In relation to the statement in the Book of Mormon that the timber had been cut off in many parts of this north land before the Nephites took possession, we find that scientific men, without knowing of or caring for the book, believe that such was the fact, and that the timber grew up again after the days of the Mound- Builders. The trees are found as a forest, alike upon the palaces and pyramids of Central America and upon the mounds and fortifications of the United States, those in the south being hidden entirely from view by the overgrown and almost impenetrable forests. Of the Mound-Builders Mr. Baldwin says: "No trace of their ordinary dwellings is left. These must have went to dust long before great forests had again covered most of the regions through which they were scattered." -- Ancient America, page 34.

To be continued.

THE  STORY  OF  THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON.
BY  ELDER  H. A. STEBBINS.

CHAPTER XVIII.
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[initial pages, 402-403a not copied]

... That the ancients of America were an agricultural people, to the extent and completeness that is spoken of in the Book of Mormon, is fully confirmed by many who ha