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Charles A. Shook
(1876-1939) Cumorah Revisited (Cincinnati: Standard Pub. Co., 1910) |
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Origin of Polygamy (1910) | Origin Book of Mormon (1914) | Mormons & Mound-Builders
Doctrines & Dogmas (1897) | Book of Mormon Lectures (1901) | Jewish Indians?
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216 CUMORAH REVISITED CHAPTER V. Were the Ancient Central Americans and Mexicans the Jaredites and Nephites? --The Color of the Ancient Central Americans and Mexicans -- The Culture of the First Inhabitants of Central America -- The Direction of Migration of the Ancient Peoples -- The Contact of the Ancient Central Americans and Mexicans -- The First Civilized People Not Exterminated -- The Extent of the Ancient Empires --Traditional History of the Toltecs. (pages 216-255 are under construction) Were the Ancient Central Americans and Mexicans the Jaredites and Nephites? The Color of the Ancient Central Americans and Mexicans The Culture of the First Inhabitants of Central America The Direction of Migration of the Ancient Peoples The Contact of the Ancient Central Americans and Mexicans The First Civilized People Not Exterminated The Extent of the Ancient Empires Traditional History of the Toltecs.The ancient civilization of Central America and Mex ico is to be ascribed to two distinct peoples, the Mayas and Nahuas. That there were other tribes which pos sessed considerable advancement is not to be doubted, but, as these exerted the widest influence and played the leading parts in those regions, antiquarians are wont to divide primitive culture into two branches, the Mayan and Nahuan. Bancroft says: "Notwithstanding evident marks of similarity in nearly all the manifestations of the progres- sional spirit in aboriginal America, in art, thought and religion, there is much reason for and convenience in referring all the native civilization to two branches, the Maya and the Nahua, the former the more ancient, the latter the more recent and widespread." Native Races, Vol. II., pp. 90, 91. And Short says of these peoples: "The venerable civilization of the Mayas, whose forest-grown cities and crumbling temples hold entombed a history of vanished glory, no doubt belongs to the remotest period of North American antiquity. It was old when the Nahuas, then a comparatively rude people, first came in contact with CUMORAH REVISITED 217 it, adopted many of its features, and grafted upon it new life." North Americans of Antiquity, p. 519. Whether or not these peoples were related is not known. They differed widely from one another in lan guage, monuments and hieroglyphics, and their points of resemblance .were only such as could be due to contact; hence ethnologists are led to the conclusion that, if these stocks are related, their separation from one another must have occurred at a very late date, after which they developed their culture in different channels. The Mayas are supposed to have come originally from the north. They are known to some writers as the Col- huas, and these apply the name Maya only to that branch of their descendants who inhabit Yucatan. Tradition an:! archaeology agree in affirming that they were the builders of the cities of Yucatan not only, but also of the more ancient cities of Palenque, Copan and Quirigua in Chi apas, Honduras and Guatemala. The Nahuas were an enterprising branch of the great Uto-Aztecan family. Their traditions say that they en tered Mexico and Central America after the Mayas, coming from the north. Their history is usually divided into four periods or epochs : the pre-Toltecan, previous to the sixth century ; the Toltecan, from the sixth to the eleventh century ; the Chichimecan, from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, and the Aztecan, from the fifteenth century to the Spanish Conquest. 1 The Toltecs, accord ing to tradition, were their most cultured and progressive tribe, and the Aztec bards never tired of singing of their golden age. Dr. Brinton denies that the Toltecs, as they are commonly described, ever existed, and claims that they were only an unimportant gens of the Azteca. 2 "Native Races," Vol. V., pp. 157, 158. 2 "Essays of an Americanist," pp. 83-100. 218 CUMORAH REVISITED Most ethnologists, however, do not share in this conclu sion, and consider them a bona-fidc tribe. Mormon writers declare that the ancient civilized peoples of Central America and Mexico, those who erected the prehistoric cities of those regions, were the Jaredites and Nephites. Elder Stebbins says: "And when they come forward and tell us that the more ancient ruins were built upon by a people later, whose manners of construction and of architecture were different from those of the former people, showing that there were two civilizations and two periods in the history of the country, what can I say but that they were the Jaredites and the Nephites, just as the Book of Mormon tells us they were?" Book of Mormon Lectures, p. 45. Elder Etzenhouser, another Mormon archaeologist., writes: "We have now presented Short, Pidgeon and Bancroft, three eminent authorities, on there having been two distinct peoples, and who preceded the aborigines of America, in the possession of this land, which supports -the claim of the Book of Mormon for the Jaredite and Nephite colonizations." The Book Unsealed, p. 10. And Miss Louise Palfrey says: "The only theory that will agree with all the facts and circumstances of archaeological source, and that is compelled to invent no excuses, overlook or discard no prominent feature of tradition, relic or ruin, is that there were two distinct civilizations before the time of the Aztecs and the Incas, one preceding the other and confining its limits to North America, while the seat of its highest develop ment, hence its greatest age, was in Central America." Divinity of the Book of Mormon Proven by Archaeol ogy, p. 178. But the fact that research has shown that two distinct CUMORAH REVISITED 219 peoples controlled, in ancient times, the regions where the principal ruins are found, in numerical agreement with the Book of Mormon, is not in itself sufficient to prove that they were the Jaredites and Nephites, the point these writers so gratuitously assume. There are several forceful objections that must be removed before Jared can be identified with Votan, or the land of Moron be proved to have been the empire of Xibalba, or the Nephites be identified with the Toltecs. But I am ready to grant that, if the Jaredites and Nephites are to be identified with any New World nations at all, they must be with the Mayas and Nahuas, for these peoples, judging by the monuments, came the nearest to reaching the stage of culture described in the Book of Mormon of any nation in America, with the ex ception possibly of the Peruvians, and their history covers at least a portion of the time in which the Book of Mormon claims that those regions in which they were located were inhabited by its peoples. If the identification which Mormon writers make of the builders of the ancient cities of Central America and Mexico with the Jaredites and Nephites be well founded, the ethnologist is confronted with a number of facts which will materially affect many of the conclusions at which he has arrived. If these authors are correct, the following conclusions are true : the distant ancestors of the Aztecs, Mayas, Quiches and Cakchiquels were of the Caucasian race; the Colhuas, or Mayas, were the first inhabitants of the American continent, and came bring ing with them the civilization of the Old World; they were totally exterminated, after sixteen centuries, in a long and disastrous war, the last battle of which was fought in western New York ; they were succeeded, after a few centuries, by the Toltecs, or Nahuas, who came 220 CUMORAH REVISITED from South America; the governments of the two peo ples were not confined in their jurisdiction to Mexico and Central America alone, but the northern boundary line of both was extended northward as far as the Great Lakes, while the southern boundary line of the second lay as far south, at least, as the southern limits of Colombia; the two nations were here consecutively and not at the same time; and the empire of the first came to an end in 600 B. C, while that of the second ended about 400 A. D. These are some of the conclusions that must be reached if the "two distinct peoples" of Bancroft and Short were the Jaredites and Nephites. But, on these conclusions, archaeologists will not agree with Mormon writers ; every one of them is contradicted by the facts derived from the traditions of the people and from archaeological research. THERE IS PROOF THAT THE ANCIENT RACES OF CENTRAL AMERICA AND MEXICO WERE IDENTICAL WITH THE PRESENT AMERICAN. The Mayas and Aztecs, at the time of the Spanish Conquest, were described as well-formed races of a tawny color. As they were erecting the same kinds of edifices, using the same kinds of hieroglyphics, worship ing the same gods, practicing the same arts and com puting time by means of the same calendar system as their predecessors, we set out with the presumption that they were like them in color and physical features the same race. And this presumption can only be set aside by well-founded, not inferential, evidence. These tribes had well-preserved traditions of the im portant events in their history, which reached back to, at least, their advents into the central region. While, so far as their chronology is concerned, these traditions CUMORAH REVISITED 221 can not be depended upon, many of the events they record are known to have transpired by the corrobora tory evidences of the monuments. The traditions tell us of the founding of the Maya and Toltec empires, of the erection of their capital cities, of the introduction of new religious ideas, of the progress and prosperity of the people and of the subsequent breaking up of nations and scattering of tribes, all of which accounts have been fully corroborated from monumental and linguistic sources. Yet not a hint is thrown out in any tradition that the ancestors of the Mexican and Central American races were white and that they were transformed in color to coppery by a miracle. Such a miracle, widely known of in 420 A. D., could hardly have failed of being trans mitted in the traditions of the country to the time of the Conquest. The crania of the country present no diversities by which the ancient may be distinguished from the modern races. The same conformations and deformations of skull observed among the tribes at the time of the Con quest are to be seen in the crania from the ancient burial- places. On certain remains taken from the ancient sepulchres at Ticul, Yucatan, Bancroft remarks : "The skeletons and skulls dug up at Ticul were pronounced by Dr. Morton to belong to the universal American type." Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 282. One of the peculiar customs of the inhabitants of this part of the continent was that of flattening the fore head by pressure. This practice was in vogue when the Spaniards first came, and the deformation of the skull was looked upon as a mark of beauty and refine ment. But this same custom was practiced by the ancient races, and this would imply a continuity of race from the earliest times to the present. "That it was practiced to a 222 CUMORAH REVISITED considerable extent," says Bancroft, "in remote times by people inhabiting the country, seems to be shown by the deformed skulls found in their graves, and by the sculp tured figures upon the ruins." Native Races, Vol. II., p. 281. Another evidence of the ethnical identity of the ancient and modern inhabitants is in the faces sculptured in profile upon the monuments of the country. That these are the faces of the native population is not to be doubted, while their dress, ornamentation and attitude indicate that they are representations of priests, warriors and states men. Galindo says of the carved faces on the monuments of Palenque: "The physiognomies of the human figure in alto relievo indicate that they represent a race not differ ing from the modern Indians ; they were, perhaps, taller than the latter, who are of a middle or rather small stat ure, compared with Europeans." Travels in Mexico, p. 163. The bas-reliefs of Yucatan are also declared by Na- daillac to show features plainly Indian. "The bas-reliefs are remarkable ; all the faces are of the present Yucatan type, and contrast strongly with the pointed heads and retreating foreheads represented at Palenque, and which are said to be still met with amongst the inferior moun tain races." Prehistoric America, p. 341. Reclus, in speaking of these same bas-reliefs, re marks: "The type of such figures is the same as that of the present natives, especially the Eastern Lancandons, except that it is highly exaggerated, especially in the temples of Palenque." The Earth and Its Inhabitants, Vol. II., p. 160. Again, the figures that these ancient peoples moulded of themselves out of clay possess Indian physiognomies. CUMORAH REVISITED 223 Certain of these images from the mounds of Zachila, Oajaca and Cuilapa are said by Bancroft to agree in features with the Zapotecs, the present inhabitants of those localities. "Those figures which are moulded in human form agree in features with the Zapotec features of modern times." Native Races, Vcl. IV., p. 376. And, lastly, as indicative of the direct relationship of the ancient and modern races, we have their paintings in which the human figure is painted reddish brown. Says Short: "Blue, red, yellow and green are the colors em ployed, though the human figures are painted reddish brown." With these facts before him, the reader will observe that archaeological evidence is opposed to the theory that the ancient peoples, those who built the cities of Central America and Mexico, were of the Caucasian race. THE FIRST PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA WERE SAVAGES OF THE LOWEST TYPE. This is directly contrary to the teachings of the Book of Mormon and to the theory of its defenders, according to which the first Americans were highly-civilized immi grants from the Tower of Babel. Apostle Kelley says of them: "They brought with them the civilization, the arts, sciences, habits, customs, traditions and language of their day and time." Presidency and Priesthood, p. 258. They are said to have landed upon the east coast of Central America, "near the mouth of the river Motagua," and to have "finally fixed their capital (Moron) at what is now known as the ruins of Copan on the Copan River, Honduras ; possibly it was at Quirigua, on the Motagua River, Guatemala." Report of the Committee on Amer ican Archaeology, p. 70. As the two old Mayan cities, 224 CUMORAH REVISITED Copan and Quirigtia, stand about an equal show with the Committee of being Moron, it is evident that they look upon the ancient Mayas as being identical with the Jaredites. But the theory that the first inhabitants of Honduras and Guatemala were civilized peoples is opposed by the traditions of the natives. Votan, the white and bearded civilizer, who is said to have come from over the sea, is declared to have found that country inhabited by a race of people known under the general name of Chichimecs, "dogs," who were savage? of the lowest type, building no cities, having no agriculture, eating their meat raw, and, for refuge from the storms, fleeing to the recesses of the forests and to the caves of the mountains. And, whether we consider Votan a real person or a mytho logical character, the fact remains the same, that the civilized Mayas had savage predecessors who preceded them in the valley of the Usumacinta. Nadaillac says : "The most ancient traditions made him come from a land of shadow, beyond the seas; on his arrival, the inhabitants of the vast territories stretch ing between the Isthmus of Panama and California lived in a state which may be compared with that of the people of the stone age of Europe. A few natural caves, huts made of branches of trees, served them as shelter; their only garments were skins obtained in the chase ; they lived upon wild fruits, roots torn out of the ground and raw flesh of animals which they devoured while still bloody." Prehistoric America, p. 264. With this Baldwin agrees : "According to these writ ings, the country where 'the ruins are found was occu pied in successive periods by three distinct peoples, the Chichimecs, the Colhuas and the Toltecs, or Nahuas." Ancient America, p. 198. CUMORAH REVISITED 225 Of the first people he says : "The most ancient people, those found in the country by the Colhuas, are called Chichimecs. They are described as a barbarous people who lived by hunting and fishing, and had neither towns nor agriculture." Ibid. The Committee on American Archaeology tell us that the Colhuas were the Jaredites and the Toltecs the Nephites. Who, then, were the Chichimecs, the people who were here before the Colhuas came? THE CIVILIZED NATIONS OF CENTRAL AMERICA AND MEXICO CAME FROM THE NORTH. With the Book of Mormon the direction of aboriginal migration was from south to north in both Americas; but, if we follow traditional, linguistic and archaeological indications, we must conclude that the ancient nations of Central America and Mexico came from the opposite direction. i. The traditions of the Mayas and Nahuas declare that they came originally from a more northern latitude. Brinton says of the Maya tradition : "The uniform assertion of these legends is that the ancestors of the stock came from a more northern latitude, following down the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. This is also supported by the position of the Huastecs, who may be regarded as one of their tribes left behind in the general migration, and by the tradition of the Nahuas which assigned them a northern origin." The American Race, P. 154. Mrs. Susan Hale sums up the accounts of the migra tions of the various pre-Chichimecan tribes from the north in the following: "We can not stop to be very much interested in this rudimentary people, called Qui- names, who have left us scarcely more than a name and 226 CUMORAH REVISITED little even of legend to charm us. ... Whence they came, therefore, it is vain to speculate: how long they were there, what manner of men they were. A wave of life more civilized swept down upon them from the north and exterminated the whole race, so that we have noth ing more to tell about them. The tribes which have the credit of destroying the giants bear the names of Xica- lancas and Ulmecs. . . . Next came the Mayas, still always from the north. Although they left some traces upon Anahuac, they, too, moved farther on, to establish in Yucatan and the territory between Chiapas and Cen tral America their greatly advanced civilization. The Otomies, still with the same northern origin, spread themselves very early over the territory which is now occupied by the states of San Luis, Potosi, Guanajuato and Queretaro, reaching Michoacan, and spreading still farther. . . . Mixtecas and Zapotecas are names of other people who came to occupy Anahuac, but the Toltecs are the first of these ancient tribes distinguished for the advancement of their arts and civilization, of which their monuments and the results of excavation give abundant proof. The legends of those tribes who came to Mexico over the broad path leading down from the north refer to an ancient home, of which they retained a sad, vague longing, as the Moor still dreams of the glories of Gren ada." The Story of Mexico, pp. 18, 19. And Nadaillac says : "All these men, whether Toltecs, Chichimecs or Aztecs, believed that their people came from the north, and migrated southward, seeking more fertile lands, more genial climates, or, perhaps, driven before a more warlike race ; one wave of emigration suc ceeding another." Prehistoric America, p. 13. So prevalent was this tradition among the Nahuatl tribes of the sixteenth century that even Bancroft, who CUMORAH REVISITED 227 denies their northern origin, is forced to admit it. "It is not probable," he says, "that this idea of a northern origin was a pure invention of the Spaniards; they doubtless found among the Aztecs with whom they came in contact what seemed to them a prevalent popular notion that the ancestors of the race came from the north." Native Races, Vol. V., p. 217. And yet Elder Walker, in the face of this widely stated tradition, has the boldness to say: "By the ruins and traditions, it appears that the Olmecs, Toltecs, Az tecs, et al., can be traced through Central America to Peru." Ruins Revisited, p. 150. A statement that no man can truthfully make who is familiar with the traditions. 2. The languages of the Mayas and Nahuas prove that they came originally from the north. It is an indisputable fact that both the Maya and Nahuatl tongues are related to the tongues of tribes who dwell to the northward and whose traditions declare that they came from regions still farther north. The Mayas are connected with the Huastecs who reside on the Rio Panuco, and the Nahuas with the Sonorans and Shosho- nians whose tribes are scattered as far to the north as the Columbia River. On the relationship of the Nahuas to northern stocks, and what this fact proves as to their southerly move ment, Thomas writes : "If Buschmann be correct in uniting the Ute or Shoshone group of dialects with and making them a part of the Nahuatl or Mexican stock, named by Dr. Brinton the 'Uto-Aztecan Stock,' we have, in the spread of this extensive family, what would seem to be incontrovertible evidence of the tendency in this western section to southern movements. Members of this family are scattered from the vicinity of the Colum- 228 CUMORAH REVISITED bia River to the Isthmus of Panama; and so far as any evidence has been found in regard to the movements of the tribes, it indicates they were southward." American Archaeology, p. 316. The indications are that the Uto-Aztecan family, of which the Nahuan, Sonoran and Shoshonian are the branches, had its origin at some point between the Rocky Mountains and the Great Lakes. This is the conclusion of Dr. Gibbs, arrived at after an exhaustive study, and has also been reached by both Dr. Brinton and Professor Thomas, after independent research. Brinton says : "That very careful student, Mr. George Gibbs, from a review of all the indications, reached the conclusion that the whole group came originally from the east of the Rocky Mountain chain, and that the home of its ancestral horde was somewhere between these mountains and the Great Lakes. This is the opin ion I have also reached from an independent study of the subject, and I believe it is as near as we can get to the birthplace of this important stock." The American Race, p. 121. Of the branches of this stock, the Nahuas were the first to move southward, stopping for some time in the region of the Gila, where they created the germ of that culture which afterwards reached its highest point of development in central and southern Mexico, and then poured down upon Anahuac in successive waves, the Olmecs and Xicalancas leading, then the Toltecs, then the Chichimecs, and, lastly, the Aztecs and kindred tribes. The great Nahuan branch was followed by the Sonoran, which dwelt, at the time of the Discovery, in the States of Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango ; while the Shoshonians came last and took up their residence en the Columbia River and in adjacent territory. CUMORAH REVISITED 229 3. The architecture of the Mayas and Nahuas proves that they must have originally come from the north. It was long a favorite opinion with archaeologists that the civilization of Central America was indigenous to that section, and it was assumed that that region had been a sort of radiating center from which the various nations went out to people the New World. 1 But this assumption will have to be relinquished, for it is now known that Central America not only did not germinate the culture of the other regions of America, where men had reached a considerable degree of advancement, but that she de rived her own civilization from without. This is proved by the fact that the successive steps, the rude beginnings and the intermediate stages of a developing architectural art, found in Egypt and other countries where civiliza tions have been begun and carried to a high degree, are wholly wanting in Chiapas and Yucatan. The Mayas, when they entered the central region, were artisans and mechanics with advanced ideas of architecture. "How are we to account for this absence of earlier forms," asks Thomas, "except upon the theory that when the tribes entered their historic seats they had already be come proficient in the builder's art?" American Archae ology, p. 341. When the works of Mexico and Central America are carefully studied, it is observed that there is a general architectural improvement from the Gila on the north to the Usumacinta on the south, as though there had been a constant but slow trend of population southward. A line of continually developing architectural forms may be traced from the region of the Gila, in Arizona, through Casas Grandes, in the State of Chihuahua, ancl 1 "Prehistoric Races," pp. 339, 340, 230 CUMORAH REVISITED Zape, in Zacatecas, to Mexico, and from thence to Chi apas and Yucatan. This route, evidently, was the ancient thoroughfare over which the Mayas and Nahuas trav eled on their way to Anahuac and Central America. The initial efforts at pyramid and terrace building, carried to so high a grade in Central America, were made on the Gila, as is evidenced in the mounds and artificial plat forms there to be found. At Casas Grandes, while in general type the architecture is unquestionably like that of Arizona, transitional forms appear, and, by the time Quemada is reached, the impress of a northern influence becomes fainter with more of a tendency toward Cen tral American forms. These facts prove that the monu ments from the Gila to Honduras were erected by the same people, or related peoples, who moved by slow stages, and frequent stops, southward, increasing in power and civilization on the way. This is the easiest and best explanation of the transitional architectural forms of northern and southern Mexico. 1 To fortify this argument, I here introduce the testi mony of three as competent archaeologists as have ever written on the subject of antiquities, at least two of whom have made careful personal investigations on the field. Thomas says : "In fact, the evidence of gradual ad vance toward a higher grade in the architectural art is seen beyond question as we advance southward from Ari zona to Quemada, be our opinion in regard to the authors of these works what it may. We must confess that, so far as we are able to judge from all that has been written in regard to the ruins of the southwest, there seems to be no other reason for denying this advance in type than a 1 "American Archaeology," Chapter XXIII. CUMORAH REVISITED 231 fixed purpose to maintain a theory." American Archaeology, p. 349. In support of his belief, he gives us a quotation from the well-known archaeologist, Bandelier, part of which is as follows : "It seems, therefore, that between the thirty- fourth and the twenty-ninth parallels of latitude the aboriginal architecture of the southwest had begun to change in a manner that brought some of its elements that were of northern origin into disuse, and substituted others derived from southern influences ; in other words, that there was a gradual transformation going on in ancient aboriginal architecture in the direction from north to south." Ibid, p. 350. He also gives us the following from Charnay: "Las Casas Grandes, the settlements in the Sierra Madre, the ruins of Zape, of Quemada, recalling the monuments at Mitla, others in Queretaro, together with certain fea tures in the building of temples and altars which remind one of the Mexican manuscripts, from which the Toltec, Aztec and Yucatec temple was built, make it clear that the civilized races came from the northwest." Ibid, p. 349. The name of the ancient country from which the Maya and Nahua tribes are said to have come is given differently in the traditions. The Toltecs called it Hue Hue Tlapallan, "Old Old Red Land;" the Chichimecs, Amequemecan, and the Aztecs, Aztlan, "White Land," or Chicomoztoc, "Seven Caves," while the Mayas spoke of it as Tulan Zuiva, or "Seven Ravines." It was vaguely located in the north somewhere and was to the tribes of Mexico and Central America what Palestine is to the Jew and Grenada to the Moor. Archaeologists have been puzzled to know just where in the north to locate it and varied have been their conjectures. Bald- 232 CUMORAH REVISITED win, Foster and Short have looked for it in the Missis sippi Valley and have identified the Mexican and Central American tribes with those who built the mounds, but recent discoveries, by which the tribes resident in the valleys at the time of the Discovery are identified with the Mound Builders, have effectually refuted this theory. Briart claims a location for it near Lake Tulare in Cali fornia, Becker on the Rio Colorado, and Humboldt on the Gila. Of all these theories, and many others that might be mentioned, the last two are the most probable. The con stant mention of caves and ravines in the old accounts may refer to the manner of life followed by the tribes, when they resided in the north, of living in cliffs and caves, while the colors red and white, by which the ancient country was designated by the Toltecs and Az tecs, may refer to the color of the cliffs or mountains. On this point Professor Thomas writes : "Why there has been such persistent refusal on the part of scholars to accept, as at least possible, the theory that the tradition of the 'Seven Caves' or 'Seven Ravines' (Chicomoztoc and Tulan Zuiva) refers to the cliff dwellings or cave dwellings of northwestern Mexico and Arizona, is dif ficult to account for. There is nothing in this supposi tion contrary to the traditions, nor to the generally accepted theory of the course of migrations. The num ber seven does not necessarily play any particular role in the solution of this problem. Numbers were determined from some incident or circumstance which may or may not be known. Seven may have been selected because of some superstition, or because it was understood that seven was the number of tribes belonging to a certain group or stock, or it may have arisen in many other ways. It is, therefore, immaterial in this relation. The CUMORAH REVISITED 233 reference, therefore, in the Nahuatl and Maya traditions to seven caves, although largely mixed with myth, may be interpreted as possibly referring to the cliff or cave dwellings, or to this mode of living while in the north. This would be appropriate as explaining the frequent reference in these traditions to darkness, gloom and a sunless condition. It is well known that caves were often resorted to in the southern regions as places for holding religious ceremonies and other purposes." American Archaeology, p. 355. It is also a fact of history that many of the towns on the southern Gila were deserted in 1540 when Coronado visited them; these and others, which have not yet been discovered, may have been among the works of the old Mayan and Nahuan tribes. Besides, it is now known that tribes of the Uto-Aztecan family, notably the Mokis of the Shoshonian and the Pimas of the Sonoran branch, have built cliff houses within historic times. Putting these facts all together, we have pretty strong proof that the Mayas and the Nahuas came from the north not only, but also that the ancient country in which they began to lead a life of civilization was somewhere in the northwestern part of Mexico, or in the southwestern part of the United States. The most prominent opponent of the northern origin of the Nahuatl tribes is Bancroft. For several reasons he opposed the theory and tried to find Hue Hue Tlapal- lan in the Usumacinta region and to connect the Toltecs with Xibalba. He did not, however, bring them from south of the Isthmus, and so his theory can not be made to do service in the interest of the Book of Mormon. He argued that no ruins had been discovered in the north which could have been the initial steps in Maya and Nahua architecture, and that no Aztec or Maya dia- 234 CUMORAH REVISITED lects had been found in that direction; both of which conclusions, since his day, have positively been proved untrue, as we have seen. 1 Many more of his opinions in nowise conflict with the theory of a northern derivation. The consensus of opinion among scientific men upon the origin of the Maya and Nahua tribes is, however, that they came from the north to those countries which they inhabited in historic times. "The Toltecs directed their course toward the south." Brian's Aztecs, p. 38. "It results from the evidences in our possession that there has existed a continuous and general tendency of migration from north to south in the two Americas." Preadamites, p. 395. "Here, again, enters speculation upon the location of that country of the Toltecs. No one knows certainly where it was, but everything points to its having been in the north." Ober's History of Mexico, p. 26. "When the Toltecs, who led the van of the great Aztec migration from the north, settled in Mexico, they are said to have found it inhabited by the Olmecas or 1 Since writing this I have come across a statement from Bancroft in which he concedes that there is no good reason why the foundations of the Nahua and Maya civilizations may not have been laid in the North west. In opposing the theory of Buckle, that the development of civiliza tion is dependent upon the heat and moisture of the tropics, he says (Vol. II., p. 53) : "Indeed, there is no reason why the foundations of the Aztec and Maya-Quiche civilizations may not have been laid, north of the thirty-fifth parallel, although no architectural remains have been discovered there, nor any other proof of such an origin; but upon the banks of the Gila, the Colorado, and the Rio Grande, in Chihuahua, and on the dry, hot plains of Arizona and New Mexico, far beyond the limits of Mr. Buckle's territory where 'there never has been found, and we may con fidently assert, never will be found,' any evidence of progress, are to-day walled towns inhabited by an industrial and agricultural people, whose existence we can trace back for more than three centuries, besides ruins of massive buildings of whose history nothing is known." CUMORAH REVISITED 235 Olmees, a nation to which the learned Siguenza ascribed the construction of the pyramids of Teotihuacan." American Antiquities, p. 200. 'The Toltecs arrived in Anahuac, or the country now called Mexico, migrating from the north." Types of Mankind, p. 286. "Before the Christian era the Nahoa immigration from the north made its appearance." The Mound Builders, p. 147. "No reasonable doubt exists but that the Athapascas, Algonkins, Iroquois, Chahta-Muskokis and Nahuas all migrated from the north or west to the regions they occupied." Myths of the New World, p. 47. "The prevailing opinion among scholars of the pres ent day, so far as published, appears to be that the Nahuatl group originated in, or at least came from some place north of, the known localities of the tribes com posing the family." American Archaeology, p. 316. We have three lines of evidence, then, which refute the Book of Mormon claim that the ancient inhabitants of Central America and Mexico came from over the sea and from South America. First, the traditions ; second, the languages, and, third, the architectural features. These evidences strongly declare that the ancient Mayas and Nahuas came from the north. THE ANCIENT MAYAS AND NAHUAS WERE NEAR NEIGH BORS, CAME CONSTANTLY IN CONTACT, AND WERE LONG IN INTIMATE ASSOCIATION WITH EACH OTHER. The Jaredites are declared to have landed upon American soil in the year 2224 B. C, and to have been here until the year 600 B. C., when they were extermi nated at Hill Ramah in western New York. The Ne- phites, we are told, immediately followed them and con- 236 CUMORAH REVISITED tinued until 385 A. D., when they suffered defeat at the hands of the Lamanites. The Jaredites and Nephites are said to have been distinct peoples and never to have come in contact, except in the case of the Jaredite Coriantumr, who survived the destruction of his people and who dwelt with the Zarahemlaites "nine moons." But the American traditions show that the two ancient civilized peoples of Central America and Mexico were here at the same time, were near neighbors, were often at war with each other, and exerted a mutual influence in the development of their respective civiliza tions. Says Short : "The pyramidal structure we have found employed by both Mayas and Nahuas, with certain mod ifications and with such resemblances as would seem to indicate that both peoples had been originally, or at an early day, near neighbors, and that the younger people, at least the more recent in their occupancy of Mexico and Central America, the Nahuas, may have copied the pyramid in its perfected form from the Mayas." North Americans on Antiquity, p. 224. Says Bancroft: "First, as already stated, the Maya and Nahua nations have been within traditionally his toric times practically distinct, although coming con stantly in contact." Native Races, Vol. V., p. 166. And Thomas declares : "It is also generally conceded, or at least intimated, and apparently in accordance with the most reliable data, that the Mayas and Zapotecs, if not derived in the far distant past from the same original stem as the Nahuatl tribes, had long been in intimate association with the latter." American Archaeology, p. 354. This is a most forceful argument against the Mor mon theory that the "two distinct people" of Central CUMORAH REVISITED 237 America and Mexico were the Jaredites and Nephites, for, if the Mayas and Nahuas were "near neighbors," came ''constantly in contact" and were in "intimate asso ciation" with each other, they could not have been iden tical with the Book of Mormon nations, who are said to have been here consecutively. Tradition further tells us that the Nahuas were the force that overthrew the old, effete empire of Xibalba. Bancroft sums up the historical facts, as given in the Quiche manuscript, the Popol Vuh, in the following: "The Quiche traditions, then, point clearly to, first, the existence in ancient times of a great empire somewhere in Central America, called Xibalba by its enemies; sec ond, the growth of a rival neighboring power ; third, a long struggle extending through several generations at least, and resulting in the downfall of the Xibalban kings ; fourth, a subsequent scattering the cause of which is not stated, but was evidently war, civil or for eign of the formerly victorious nations from Tulan, their chief city or province; fifth, the identification of a portion of the migrating chiefs with the founders of the Quiche-Cakchiquel nations in possession of Guatemala at the Conquest." Native Races, Vol. V., p. 185. The facts, as gleaned from the fields of traditional history and archaeology, are as follows : Some hundreds of years ago, probably not earlier than the beginning of the Christian era, there appeared in Central America from the north a civilized people known to us as the Mayas, or Colhuas. These subjugated the barbarous tribes, taught them the arts of civilized life and established an empire, which, at the height of its glory, included under its sway the valley of the Usumacinta and adjacent terri tory. When this people had become settled in their new home there appeared to the north of them a new people, 238 CUMORAH REVISITED speaking a new language, who settled in central and southern Mexico. The indications are that the two peoples lived peaceably side by side for some time, until the Nahuas had developed sufficient strength to over throw the Votanic sovereigns. This was accomplished, however, only after a long and bloody struggle. Ban croft speaks of this conflict as "a long struggle extend ing through several generations at least, and resulting in the downfall of the Xibalban kings." Native Races, Vol. V., p. 186. And Short says: "While we do not attach much certainty to the Abbe's" DeBourbourg's "date, still we think that the fall of Xibalba was due to Nahua influences brought to bear upon the ancestors of the Quiches." North Americans of Antiquity, p. 227. The overthrow of this empire did not consist in the extermination of a people, but in the destruction of a government and the scattering of its subjects or their absorption among the victorious Nahuas. , "The old civilization was merged in the new, and practically lost its identity ; so much so that all the many nationalities that in later times traced their origin to this central region were proud, whatever their language, to claim relationship with the successful Nahuas, whose institu tions they had adopted and whose power they had shared." Native Races, Vol. V., p. 234. These facts are against the Book of Mormon. The Jaredites and Nephites never came in contact ; the latter had nothing to do with the downfall of the former; and the first people, after their overthrow, were not merged with the second. We are justified, therefore, in conclu ding that the Mayas and Nahuas were not the Jaredites and Nephites. CUMORAH REVISITED 239 THE BUILDERS OF THE ANCIENT CITIES OF CENTRAL AMERICA ARE NOT AN EXTERMINATED RACE. Apostle Kelley asserts : "Further, it is known that the oldest nation that inhabited America has long since been exterminated. So says the 'Book of Mormon.' So says tradition. So says modern research." Presidency and Priesthood, p. 264. But we are compelled to dissent from this opinion of Apostle Kelley. That the Book of Mormon says that the oldest nation which inhabited America has long since been exterminated we allow, but when it comes to tradi tion and modern research we are not prepared to con cede that they agree with the Book of Mormon. It can be shown that tribes and nations have been broken up by war, famine and pestilence ; that they have been scat tered in different directions and merged with other tribes and nations, and that they have lost their former glory ; but it can not be proved that an ancient and widespread race, like the Jaredite, ever lost its existence in the way in which the Book of Mormon declares this people lost theirs. Everywhere throughout the New World the evidences proclaim loudly and emphatically against the theory of 'Vanished," "lost" and "extinct" races, using these terms in the sense in which they are applied to the Book of Mormon peoples. The Mound Builders, about whom so much mystery hung for a number of years, are now positively proved to have been only tribes of American Indians, and so critically have their remains been studied that in many instances the very tribes who built the works of certain localities are known. The same is also true of the Cliff Dwellers. While, according to Brinton, the people who erected Copan and Quirigua, said by the 240 CUMORAH REVISITED Josephite Committee on American Archaeology to be Jaredite cities, are represented to-day by no less than nineteen distinct tribes, as follows : Aguatecas, Cakchi- quels, Chaneabals, Chinantecos, Choles, Chortis, Huas- tecas, Ixils, Lacandons, Mams, Mayas, Mopans, Quek- chis, Quiches, Pokomams, Pokonchis, Tzendals, Tzutu- hils and Uspantecas. 1 That Mormon writers identify the Jaredite cities with those of the Mayas in Yucatan, Honduras, etc., is made evident by a statement in "Book of Mormon Lectures," p. 64. Mr. Stebbins says in this place : "The chief Jared ite cities were not in Mexico, but south in Yucatan, Hon duras, etc." If this is true, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Peten, Palenque, Quirigua, Copan and Utatlan are all the work of an exterminated race who met their final defeat in a battle in western New York six centuries before Christ. This, I do not hesitate to say, is putting the overthrow of their builders before the erection of the cities them selves, for but very few, if any, of our best-informed writers of to-day would feel justified in giving any of them an antiquity of more than nineteen hundred years. The theory that the cities mentioned were erected by an exterminated race is not advanced, so far as I can learn, by any author of any prominence whatever who has written within the last quarter of a century, although at the time the Book of Mormon came out some of the more ignorant and visionary believed it. It belongs to that class of theories broached and defended by such fanatics as George Jones, Lord Kingsborough and Jo- siah Priest. Bancroft says on the relationship of the ancient Cen- 1 "The American Race," p. 158. ' . CUMORAH REVISITED 241 tral Americans to those of the present day: "I deem the ground sufficient, therefore, for accepting this Central American civilization of the past as a fact, referring it not to an extinct ancient race, but to the direct ancestors of the peoples still occupying the country with the Spaniards, and applying to it the name Maya as that of the language which has claims as strong as any to be considered the mother tongue of the linguistic family mentioned." Native Races, Vol. II. , p. 117. Squier also attributes the cities of Central America to the ancestors of the present native population. "All of them were the work of the same people, or of nations of the same race, dating from a high antiquity, and in blood and language precisely the same race, . . . that was found in occupation of the country by the Spaniards, and who still constitute the great bulk of the population." Palacio, Carta, pp. 9, 10. Tylor, the eminent anthropologist, writes: "The sculptures and temples of Central America are the work of the ancestors of the present Indians." Tyler's Re searches, p. 189. Brinton says on the identity of the builders of Pa- lenque and Copan with the present-existing tribes: "At the time of the conquest the stately structures of Copan, Palenque, T'Ho and many other cities were deserted and covered with an apparently primitive forest ; but others not inferior to them, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Peten, etc., were the centers of dense population, proving that the builders of both were identical." The American Race, P- 155- And Short says of the builders of Palenque: "Under the shadow of the magnificent and mysterious ruins of Palenque a people grew to power who spread into Guate mala and Honduras, northward toward Anahuac and 242 CUMORAH REVISITED southward into Yucatan, and for a period of probably twenty-five centuries" from 955 B. C. to the Spanish Conquest "exercised a sway which at one time excited the envy and fear of its neighbors." North Americans of Antiquity, p. 203. The conclusion of these authors is founded upon the most conclusive evidence. Palenque, Copan and T'Ho were uninhabited at the time of the Conquest, not because their builders had been exterminated in a fatal conflict in western New York, but because they had been broken up into fragmentary nations and had been scat tered to different parts of the central region. Yucatan is identified by the Committee with the Jaredite land of Nehor. And, as it is not identified with any Nephite country, we infer that with them its ruined cities were all the work of that extinct race. But this is not true. The cities of Yucatan were among the later works of the Maya people, and were not built by an extinct race. Uxmal, according to Thomas, was built by the Tutul Xiu, a royal family, probably not much earlier than the beginning of the twelfth century, and was in habited at the time of the Conquest. And Chichen Itza was probably founded in the sixth century A. D., and was also inhabited when the Spaniards first visited it. While, as for Mayapan, one account says that it was one of the tributary capitals of Xibalba, while another de clares that it was built by Kukulkan after leaving Chichen Itza. But, be the dates of the founding of these cities what they may, one thing is certain: they were founded by the ancestors of the present native popula tion and not by an extinct race. "It may then be ac cepted," writes Bancroft, "as a fact susceptible of no doubt that the Yucatan structures were built by the Mayas, the direct ancestors of the people found in the CUMORAH REVISITED 243 peninsula at the Conquest and of the present native popu lation." Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 283. I challenge the Committee on American Archaeology to prove by trustworthy and well-authenticated evidence that the first civilized people of Central America, those who built Copan and Quirigua, were exterminated in the sense in which the Jaredites are said to have been exterminated. THE EMPIRES OF THE MAYAS AND NAHUAS WERE CON FINED TO CENTRAL AMERICA AND MEXICO. We are informed that the empire of the Jaredites extended from Honduras on the south to the Great Lakes on the north, and east and west from ocean to ocean. The Nephites included within their domain not only all of this territory, but also in addition that part of South America now known as the United States of Colombia, and, in earlier times, also Peru. Throughout their respec tive empires these peoples, during their respective epochs, were of a uniform degree of civilization, practiced the same arts, possessed the same customs, worshiped the same God, were under the same laws, spoke the same language, and erected the same kinds of buildings. Ether says of the Jaredites : "And the whole face of the land northward was covered with inhabitants ; and they were exceeding industrious, and they did buy and sell, and traffic one with another, that they might get gain. And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work. And they did have silks, and fine twined linen ; and they did work 244 CUMORAH REVISITED all manner of cloth, that they might clothe themselves from their nakedness. And they did make all manner of tools to till the earth, both to plow and to sow, to reap and to hoe, and also to thrash. And they did make all manner of tools with which they did work their beasts. And they did make all manner of weapons of war. And they did work all manner of work of exceeding curious wprkmanship. And never could be a people more blest than were they, and more prospered by the hand of the Lord.'' Ether 4 : 7. The "land northward," on the Committee's maps, is the name of that country lying south of the Great Lakes and north of Mexico, the "land of Heth." Evidently, in its broader sense, it included not only this territory, but also Mexico and a part at least of Central America. Upon the "whole face" of this land the inhabitants were engaged in the same occupations and practiced the same arts, implying a uniform degree of culture from Central America northward to what is now the boundary-line between Canada and the United States. The following is a description given of the Nephites at the period of their widest extent: "Now, the land south" South America "was called Lehi, and the land north" North America "was called Mulek, which was after the sons of Zedekiah ; for the Lord did bring Mulek into the land north, and Lehi into the land south. And behold, there was all manner of gold in both these lands, and of silver, and of precious ore of every kind; and there were also curious workmen, who did work all kinds of ore, and did refine it; and thus they did become rich. They did raise grain in abundance, both in the north and in the south. And they did flourish exceedingly, both in the north and in the south. And they did multiply and wax exceeding strong in the land. And they did raise CUMORAH REVISITED 245 many flocks and herds, yea, many fallings. Behold, their women did toil and spin, and did make all manner of cloth, of fine twined linen, and cloth of every -kind, to clothe their nakedness." Helaman 2 : 27. But, when we carefully examine the evidences, tradi tional, linguistic and archaeological, we find no proof of the former existence of these lost empires. The Mayan Empire, with which the Jaredite must be identified if with any, had its center in the Usumacinta Valley, and in its widest extent only comprised the territory of the present states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Yucatan, Guatemala and a part of Honduras. At the time of the Conquest its descendants were confined to this territory, with the exception of an outlying colony, the Huastecs, in the valley of the Rio Panuco, which undoubtedly was left behind in the original migration from the north. The capitals of this empire, according to tradition, were Palenque in Chiapas, Copan in Honduras arid Mayapan in Yucatan. The empire of the Toltecs occupied central and southern Mexico. At the period of its greatest power it comprised only the confederated states of Culhuacan, Otompan and Tollan. This is all that can be said for the extent of the two most advanced and prosperous empires of antiquity in that part of the New World. To move the boundary- line of the first northward as far as the Great Lakes, and the boundary-lines of the second northward to the Great Lakes, and southward at least to Ecuador, is to go directly contrary to all traditional, linguistic and archae ological indications. There are no proofs by which to establish a national connection between the ancient inhabitants of the Mis sissippi Valley and those of Central America. The 246 CUMORAH REVISITED peoples of the two sections were wholly different in their culture stata. Their structures were dissimilar, except that they were built upon pyramidal bases. The Mound Builders used no cut stone or mortar; they had no hieroglyphical writing; their sculpture work was con fined to the carving of shells, bones and small pieces of stone ; their structures were all of wood or other perish able materials ; they worked the metals in a cold state and knew nothing of the arts of smelting and alloying; and they depended, in a great measure, upon the chase for food. On the other hand, the Mexicans and Central Americans built large and imposing palaces and temples of cut stone, laid in well-tempered mortar; they reached a high degree of proficiency in hieroglyphical writing; they were good sculptors and covered their buildings with ornamental and graphic designs ; they had well- organized governments ; and they were experts in the arts of alloying and smelting metals. Yet, notwithstanding these well-marked differences, Mr. Stebbins asserts : "Science fully establishes that a great nation formerly lived in the United States, and all unite in saying that the evidences are that this wonderful civilization had its base and origin in Central America and Mexico, and that from those countries it spread over the United States." Lectures, p. 57. But it is hard to understand how a civilized people from Central America, practicing advanced arts and under the government of the mother country, moving up into the Mississippi Valley, should suddenly relapse into a state of savagery and give up the arts of cutting, polishing and carving stone and the use of mortar; the smelting and alloying of metals, and the art of hiero glyphical writing. And yet this is just what occurred, if the ancient inhabitants of the Mississippi Valley came CUM OR AH REVISITED 247 from Mexico and Central America. Mr. Stebbins' claim that a "wonderful civilization" once existed in the United States is wholly incorrect. The Mound Builders were not one whit ahead of the Chata Muskokis, Cherokees and Iroquois when these tribes were first seen by the whites. On this point Professor Thomas speaks as follows : "Nothing trustworthy has been discovered to justify the theory that the mound builders belonged to a highly civilized race, or that they were a people who had attained a higher culture status than the Indians." Mound Exploration, p. n. Again, Mr. Stebbins' assertion that "all unite in say ing that this wonderful civilization had its base and origin in Central America and Mexico" is also without foundation, for the great body of archaeologists to-day deny that the arts of the Mississippi Valley were derived from the South. "There is, it is now reasonably certain," says Nadaillac, "no good ground for connecting the builders of the earthworks of the Mississippi Valley with the Central American people who erected the remarkable monuments which will hereafter be referred to. But, until very recently, it has been a favorite and not unnat ural hypothesis which served to temporarily appease an ignorance, pardonable in itself, but now no longer neces sary." Prehistoric America, p. 13. There is but one similarity that might indicate a con nection between the peoples of the two sections they both erected pyramidal mounds upon which they built their edifices. But here the analogy ends, for those north of Mexico are minus the ricnly-sculptured and richly-or namented temples which crown the summits of those in Central America. This leads us to conclude that, while the art gems of each people undoubtedly came from a common source, they must have diverged at a time when 248 CUMORAH REVISITED the two were in a savage state, before the invention of sculpturing, hieroglyphical writing and other arts for which the Mayas were justly famous and which were not practiced by the Mound Builders. On this point Thomas remarks : "It is true that trun cated pyramidal mounds of large size and somewhat regular proportions are found in certain sections, and that some of these have ramps or roadways leading up to them. Yet when compared with the pyramids or teocalli of Mexico and Yucatan the differences in the manifestations of architectural skill are so great, and the resemblances are so faint and few, as to furnish no grounds whatever for attributing the two classes of works to the same people. The facts that the works of the one people consist chiefly of wrought and sculptured stone, and that such materials are wholly unknown to the other, forbid the idea of any relationship between the two. The difference between the two classes of monu ments indicates a wide divergence a complete step 4n the culture status." The Problem of the Ohio Mounds; p. 14. There is, likewise, no evidence of a national connec tion between the ancient peoples of South America and those of Central America and Mexico. At the Discovery the Peruvians were wholly unlike the Mayas and Nahuas in religion, government, language, architecture and sculp turing, and their remains indicate that these differences had existed from the time the two peoples began to walk in the pathway of civilization. The theory of the Book of Mormon is that the people who built the most ancient cities of Peru were those of the second epoch of civilization in Central America and Mexico. But this theory is untenable, for the reason that the Peruvians and Central Americans had no con- CUM RAH REVISITED 249 nection after they began the erection of those cities attributed by the Mormons to Jaredite and Nephite workmanship. In other words, the separation of the two peoples dates back to a period preceding any to which we are carried by the archaeological evidences. So far as the evidence goes, the civilizations of the two sections were indigenous and were developed wholly independent of each other. Says Baldwin: "It may be that all the old American civilizations had a common origin in South America, and that all the ancient Americans whose civilization can be traced in remains found north of the Isthmus came origi nally from that part of the continent. This hypothesis appears to me more probable than any other I have heard suggested. But, assuming this to be true, the first migra tion of civilized people from South America must have taken place at a very distant period in the past, for it preceded not only the history indicated by the existing antiquities, but also an earlier history, during which the Peruvians and Central Americans grew to be as different from their ancestors as from each other. In each case the development of civilization represented by existing monuments, so far as we can study it, appears to have been original." Ancient America, p. 246. The "existing antiquities" of Peru are, many of them, identified by the Committee with the works of the Ne- phites. The ancient city of Cuzco is identified with the Book of Mormon city of Nephi ; Huanuco, with Ishmael ; Gran Chimu, or Trujillo, with Middoni; Riobamba, with Amulon, and Cuelap-Tingo, with Lehi-Nephi. But, if Baldwin is correct, these cities were built after, not before, the separation of the peoples of Peru and Central America. Bancroft sustains Baldwin : "The Maya and Peruvian 250 CUMORAH REVISITED peoples may have been one in remote antiquity; if so, the separation took place at a period long preceding any to which we are carried by the material relics of the Votanic empire" those said to have been erected by the Jaredites "and of the most ancient epoch of the south ern civilization, or even by traditional annals and the vaguest myths." Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 806. This is putting the separation of the two peoples back of the erection of those monuments which are attributed to the Jaredites, making it wholly impossible for a people from Peru to have built any of the cities of Central America, or to have been under the same government with their builders. The facts, therefore, seem to show that the two civilized nations of Central America and Mexico were confined, in their civilizations and governments, to the central region, and to the central region alone, and that they had no control over any people or territory south of the Isthmus of Panama or north of the northern boundary-line of Mexico. Therefore they could not have been the Jaredites and Nephites. THE TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF THE TOLTECS PRESENTS NO FEATURES SIMILAR TO THE HISTORY OF THE NEPHITES. Elder Stebbins thinks that the Toltecs were the Nephites. He says: "I believe that the people spoken of in tradition and in history as the Toltecs are those named Nephites in the Book of Mormon." Lectures, p. 230. If this is true, we may expect to find in their tradi tions proofs by which this identification may be con firmed. But, unfortunately for Elder Stebbins, there is nothing in the traditions to substantiate his theory, as CUMORAH REVISITED 251 will be seen in the following brief historical account. It appears that the first movement of the Nahuas into Central America occurred after the Mayas had become fully settled in the Usumacinta Valley. At the time of their immigration the Mayas were in the height of their glory, their government comprising within its jurisdic tion the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Yucatan, Guatemala and western Honduras. There are reasons for believing that the Nahuas founded their capital at Tulan in Chi apas, and that, after living peaceably side by side with the Xibalbans for a number of years, they finally devel oped sufficient strength to overthrow their old, effete empire. Following the fall of Xibalba the Nahua power continued to increase until about the fifth century, when it ended "in revolt, disaster and a general scattering of the tribes." With the sixth and seventh centuries Toltec supremacy was achieved in Mexico. It is probable that, with the scattering of the Nahua people, many of them moved northward into that country and passed under the dominion of the Toltecs, who may have been originally but a small tribe or a ruling family. The Toltec con federacy was composed of three small kingdoms named from capital cities, Culhuacan, Otompan and Tollan, each of which had its turn as the ruling power. Culhuacan and Otompan corresponded very nearly with the Aztec states, Mexico and Tezcuco; Tollan joined them on the northwest. The date of the Toltec departure from Hue Hue Tlapallan is given differently by different writers. Ixtlilxochitl gives two dates, 338 and 439; Veytia gives 596; Clavigero, 544 or 596, and Muller, 439. It is wholly impossible to determine the date positively, but 544 A. D. is the one adopted by most of the later writers as being the nearest correct. The story of the departure of the Toltecs and their 252 CUMORAH REVISITED subsequent settlement in Mexico is, briefly, as follows. Chalcatzin and Tlacamihtzin, two chiefs of royal blood, undertook to depose the king of Hue Hue Tlapallan, with the result that they and their followers were driven out of their kingdom and were forced to flee for their lives. This was the beginning of the Toltec migration from the north, which lasted, according to Ixtlilxochitl, 104 years. Their first capital in the land of Mexico was Tollantzinco, where they dwelt eight years, until their removal to Tollan, where the Toltec empire proper was founded. Seven years after their establishment at Tollan the chiefs, seven in number, came together to effect a permanent union between their bands, and, by the advice of their prophet, Hueman, sent an embassy with presents to the court of the Chichimec king, Icauhtzin, who gave them his second son, Chalchiuh Tlatonac, to be their first sovereign. This young man was renowned for his fine personal appearance, wisdom and goodly character, and for the excellent service he rendered his people. Soon after ascending the throne the young king decided to take a wife, and chose as his queen the beautiful daugh ter of Acapichtzin, one of the Toltec chiefs. The history of the Toltecs from this on is very confused, and tj obtain a correct list of their kings is impossible owing to this confusion and to the custom which they had of giv ing a number of names to the same ruler according to his power and prominence. Suffice it to say that for five centuries the Toltec government exercised the strongest influence in Mexico of any. Its cities were renowned for their splendor, its kings for their power, its armies for their valor, its people for their progress and skill, and its religion for its bloodlessness, human sacrifices being abandoned under the reign of one Quetzalcoatl. But, finally, the empire weakened under the repeated CUMORAH REVISITED 253 attacks of the Chichimecs, and the last Toltec king, Topiltzin, was forced to flee, following which the coun try passed under Chichimec rule. 1 There has been much written concerning the Toltecs which undoubtedly is pure fiction, but that a people bear ing that name did exist and did build some of the works attributed to them is accepted as established by most authors. The points derived from these traditions, that may be accepted as in a true sense historical, are ( I ) the general tendency of Nahuatl migrations from north to south; (2) the founding of the Toltec kingdom in the sixth or seventh century and its continuance for a few hundred years; (3) the confinement of its government to central and southern Mexico ; and (4) the prosperity of its capital cities, Culhuacan, Otompan and Tollan. Let the reader compare this brief outline of Toltec history with that of the Nephites, and he will find no agreement at all by which to confirm the belief of Mr. Stebbins that the Toltecs and Nephites were one and the same people. Not only are the traditions devoid of any historical similarity to the account of the Nephites, but there is also no resemblance between the names of men and of places given in these traditions and those given in the Book of Mormon. TOLTEC CHARACTERS. NEPHITE CHARACTERS. Chalcatzin. Nephi. Tlacamihtzin. Ammon. Hueman. Helaman. Chalchiuh Tlatonac. Alma. Totepeuh. Amaron. Huetzin. Amulek. 1 "Native Races," Vol. V M Chapter IV. 254 CUMORAH REVISITED Quetzalcoatl. Topiltzin. Mitl. Papantzin. Chicon Tonatiuh. Nauhyotl. Lachoneus. Hagoth. Mosiah. Gideon. Mormon. Moroni. TOLTEC CITIES AND PLACES. NEPHITE CITIES AND PLACES. Culhuacan. Otompan. Tollan. Tollantzinco. Cholula. Teotihuacan. Quauhtitlan. Jalisco. Tultitlan. Xico. Teancum. Angola. Boaz. Desolation David. Joshua. Shem. Jordan. Shim. Mulek. In this chapter seven arguments have been presented against the claim that the ancient inhabitants of Central America and Mexico were the Jaredites and Nephites. They are, briefly: (i) The ancient inhabitants of those regions, judging from various evidences, were of the present race. (2) The first people of Central America were savages instead of civilized men, as the Book of Mormon declares. (3) The ancient peoples came from the north instead of from the east or south, as the Jaredites and Nephites are said to have come. (4) These ancient peoples were here at the same time and not con secutively, as the Jaredites and Nephites are said to have been. (5) The oldest civilized people of Central Amer ica, those who built Palenque, Copan and Quirigua, are not an extinct race in the sense in which the Jaredites are said to be extinct. (6) The aboriginal governments of CUM OR AH REVISITED 255 these peoples were confined to Central America and Mexico and had no control over tribes north of Mexico or south of the Isthmus. And (7) the traditional history of the Toltecs presents no points of agreement, in either names or details, or even in general outline, with the his tory of the Nephites as given in the Book of Mormon. I think from these considerations that the identification made by Mormon writers of the "two distinct peoples" of Bancroft and Short with the Jaredites and Nephites may be safely dismissed as fanciful and erroneous. 1 1 In this chapter and elsewhere in this book, I have followed DeBour- bourg and have employed the terms "Colhuas" and "Xibalba" as names for the ancient Central American people and their empire. I have so employed these terms, fully aware that such an application of them is objected to by many learned scholars, in the absence of better designations. "Colhua" is the Nahua term for "ancestors," while "Xibalba" is the Quiche name for the underworld and literally means "the place of dis appearance." |
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372 CUMORAH REVISITED CERTAIN FEATURES OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION WHICH PLAINLY OPPOSE THE BOOK OF MORMON. 1. The ancient Americans did not manufacture iron.On the other hand, the peoples described in the Book of Mormon are said to have been iron workers who did not use stone at all in the manufacture of their tools and weapons, and who were as far advanced as the civilized nations of Europe, Asia and Africa in the time of Christ. The Book of Mormon says of the Jaredites: "And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals." -- Ether 4:7. On the use of iron among the Nephites, we have the following passages: "And I" -- Nephi "did teach my people to build buildings: and to work in all manner of wood,, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance." 2 Nephi 4:3. "And we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceeding rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron, and copper, and brass, and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of war." -- Jarom 1:4. "And it came to pass that king Noah built many elegant and spacious buildings; and he ornamented them with fine work of wood, and of all manner of precious things, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of brass, and of ziff, and of copper." -- Mosiah 7:2. In proof of this claim we are referred to the fact that certain South American tribes had names for the CUMORAH REVISITED 373 metal in their languages. "Some of the languages of the country, and perhaps all," says Baldwin, in speaking of Peru, "had names for iron; in official Peruvian it was called quillay, and in the old Chilean tongue panilic. 'It is remarkable/ observes Molina, 'that iron, which had been thought unknown to the ancient Americans, has particular names in some of their tongues.' It is not easy to understand why they had names for this metal, if they never at any time had knowledge of the metal itself." -- Ancient America, p. 248. Elders Etzenhouser and Stebbins also mention the finding of certain iron and steel tools in the mounds of North America as corroborating these passages in the Book of Mormon. These finds consisted of the remains of iron, and perhaps steel, knives, part of a steel bow, etc. Mr. Stebbins gives the destructiveness of rust as the reason why more of such implements have not been found. He says: "Of course this fact of the speedy decay of iron and steel is sufficient reason why weapons and tools that were used by the Jaredites and Nephites have not been found by us. But the testimonies already presented leave no room for saying that the Book of Mormon is false in saying that those ancients did have full knowledge and use of iron and steel in those ancient times." -- Lectures, p. 278. But, after nearly a hundred years of research, our archaeologists have decided that these evidences are in sufficient to establish the claim that the ancient Americans were workers in iron. The mere fact that some of the South American tribes had names for the metal proves nothing, as these names may have been invented in a number of ways. They may have been coined at the time these tribes first saw the iron implements of the whites, or, what is more probable, they may have been 374 CUMORAH REVISITED applied to the metal in its crude state. As iron ore is found in all parts of America, and as some of the tribes are known to have worked it into implements by a process of chipping and grinding, this latter seems the most reasonable explanation of the presence of these names in the vocabularies of certain tribes. Nothing can be better established than that the Peruvians did not use manufactured-iron tools and implements. As for the iron articles in the mounds of North America, instead of proving that the Mound Builders were iron workers, they prove that those mounds in which they have been found have been erected within historic times. These tools and implements bear so many marks of European workmanship that this can no longer be either successfully denied or reasonably doubted. The following account from Professor Thomas, of the finding of an old-fashioned case-knife in a mound in Tennessee, in the "Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology," 1 will make this plain: "Suppose, for example, that a mound is found in Tennessee, which in appearance, construction and contents, with a single exception, is in every respect pre cisely like those attributed to the so-called Veritable Mound Builders,' and that this single exception is an ordinary, old-fashioned, steel-bladed 'case-knife' with a bone handle, found at the bottom of the tumulus, where it could not reasonably be attributed to an intrusive burial, must we conclude that the Veritable Mound Builders' manufactured knives of this class? Yet a case precisely of this kind in every particular occurred during the investigation carried on by the Bureau of Ethnology in 1884." __________ 1 See also "Ohio Mounds" and "Work in Mound Exploration" for similar relics. CUMORAH REVISITED 375 I presume that there is not a Latter-day Saint who will claim that this bone-handled case-knife was manufactured by the Mound Builders, and as there are many other relics from the mounds as conclusively European, we can reasonably attribute the rest to the same source. The assertion that oxidization will account for the al most total absence of iron tools and weapons among the antiquities of America is without good foundation, for the conditions of many localities in the Old World, where iron tools and implements of great age have been found in an excellent state of preservation, are not as conducive to the preservation of the metal as are the conditions of many of the localities of the New. In the debris of Khorsabad, Babylonia, Hilprecht tells us, Place discovered "iron implements of every description in such a fine state of preservation that several of them were used at once by his Arab workmen." -- Explorations in Bible Lands, p. 83. At Nimrud Layard found "a large quantity of iron scales of Assyrian armor" (Ibid, p. 106), besides "iron implements such as picks, saws, hammers, etc." (Ibid, p. 124). While* at Nippur a number of iron nails and two iron bands were taken from the ruins (Ibid, p. 505). Now, if the ancient Americans used iron and steel exclusively for cutting tools and weapons, why can we not find them, or at least their rust, in the cold, dry regions of Peru and Arizona? In both these countries even vegetable matter has been preserved for untold centuries. In Peru we find not only the preserved corpses of the ancient inhabitants, but also such articles and materials as cactus thorns, wool, thread, locks of hair, pieces of cloth sometimes entire, wooden needles, cocoa leaves and shells entombed with them. While in the section of the Cliff Dwellers, deposited with the mummies, have been found such articles 376 CUMORAH REVISITED and materials as ears of corn, yucca leaves, skins, pumpkin shells, cornmeal, wooden spoons and cotton cloth. It is indeed strange, if the early inhabitants of those regions were Nephites and Gadiantons, that their more perishable possessions have been preserved, while every vestige of their iron tools and weapons has been wiped out. We are informed by good authorities that in Peru stone was used exclusively by the ancient inhabitants out of which to manufacture their surgical instruments. Probably the most complete collection of ancient crania from that country was that of Dr. Manuel Antonio Muniz, at one time surgeon-general of the army of Peru. His collection consisted of over a thousand crania, of which nineteen were trephined, several more than once. All of these crania, with the exception of the nineteen, were destroyed a few years ago in a political disturbance, and these, with a single exception, were placed in the National Museum of the United States for preservation. In his excellent paper, "Primitive Trephining in Peru," published in the "Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology," p. 59, Prof. W. J. McGee de scribes these trephined skulls, with others from the same country, and says on the instruments used by the ancient inhabitants for the purpose of performing this operation: "Putting the various dimensions" of the incisions made in the skulls "together, they are found to define a blade corresponding with an ordinary stone knife or spearhead, or with an arrowpoint attached to a short haft, while the dimensions are inconsistent with those possessed by any known cutting instrument of metal. Considering next the longitudinal striae in the sides of the kerfs, it appears that they would naturally and necessarily be produced by the reciprocal operation of a knife or spearhead chipped CUMORAH REVISITED 377 from stone of coarse texture, or of such structure as to give a splintery fracture, and that these features would not be produced by any known single-point tool of metal, polished stone, tooth or shell. Accordingly, the detailed features displayed by the collection afford practically conclusive evidence that the incising instrument was a stone blade of common form and character. There is absolutely no suggestion in any of the specimens that the kerfs were produced by any other kind of tool, either of other material than stone or of other form than a blunt, single-tip blade." Peru presents to us a number of imposing ruins built of colossal stones. How these stones could have been prepared without steel tools has been the wonder of archaeologists. Elder Phillips, in his tract, "The Book of Mormon Verified," p. 15, asks: "How could such works be hewn from stone without iron tools?" And then sarcastically exclaims: "Perhaps they did it with their finger nails!" That they did it with neither iron tools nor yet with their finger nails we know. On their substitute for steel Prescott writes: "The natives were unacquainted with the use of iron, though the soil was largely impregnated with it. The tools used were of stone, or more frequently of copper. But the material on which they relied for the execution of their most difficult tasks was formed by combining a very small portion of tin with copper. This composition gave a hardness to the metal which seems to have been little inferior to that of steel." -- Conquest of Peru, Vol. I., p. 92. That the ancient Peruvians did not use iron and steel tools is now conceded. Says Bancroft: "Iron ore is very abundant in Peru, but the only evidence that iron was used is the difficulty of executing the native works of excavation and cutting stone without it, and the fact that 378 CUMORAH REVISITED the metal had a name in the native language. No traces of it have ever been found." -- Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 794. Passing up into the land of the Mayas, we find no evidence whatever that this people, or any other who inhabited that region, used the metal. One of the strongest evidences of this is that the hard, flinty spots in the stones from which their statues were carved are left uncut. "That iron and steel were not used for cutting implements," says Bancroft, "is clearly proved by the fact that hard, flinty spots in the soft stone of the statues are left uncut, in some instances where they interfere with the details of the sculpture." -- Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 102. He adds that the chay-stone points found in the ruins are sufficiently hard to work the soft material. Dellenbaugh says: "So far no prehistoric iron has been found in the ruins of Yucatan." -- North Americans of Yesterday, p. 81. Nadaillac says of the remains of Chiapas and Yucatan: "Hieroglyphics, true conventional signs, mark then a period of human evolution. They are met with on the monuments of Chiapas as on those of Yucatan; on the walls of Palenque or Copan as on those of Chichen Itza or Quirigua; they were sculptured or engraved on granite or on porphyry, with quartzite and obsidian implements. Iron, we repeat, was absolutely unknown; no where do we find it mentioned, and nowhere do we meet with the characteristic rust which is the undeniable proof of its presence." -- Prehistoric America, pp. 377, 378. At the time of the Conquest the Mexicans, Prescott tells us, "used only copper instruments, with an alloy of tin, and a siliceous powder, to cut the hardest stones, and some of them of enormous dimensions." He adds: "This CUMORAH REVISITED 379 fact, with the additional circumstance that only similar tools have been found in Central America, strengthens the conclusion that iron was neither known there nor in ancient Egypt." -- Conquest of Mexico, Vol. III., p. 406. As the Mexicans at the time of the Conquest used only these simple tools, and as there is no evidence of the prehistoric use of iron, we are justified in believing that their early ancestors had no others. Notwithstanding the fact that a few iron implements have been found in the mounds, all archaeologists, of any note whatever, declare that the Mound Builders did not use this metal. "He" -- the Ohio Mound Builder -- "failed to grasp the idea of... the use of metal (except in the cold state)." -- Primitive Man in Ohio, p. 200. "The Mound Builders were acquainted with several of the metals, and had their implements and ornaments of copper; silver in the form of ornaments is occasionally found; galena occurs in considerable quantities, while no trace of iron has been discovered." -- The Mound Builders, p. 72. "There is no evidence that the use of iron was known, except the extreme difficulty of clearing forests and carving stone with implements of stone and soft copper." -- Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 779. "Iron and bronze appear to have been practically unknown to them, and in no part of a vast territory they occupied have excavations revealed the existence or the use of any metal but native copper, with its associated silver, gold and a few fragments of meteoric iron." -- Prehistoric America, p. 129. "The use of iron as a metal was unknown in America previous to the discovery by Columbus." -- American Archaeology, p. 11. 380 CUMORAH REVISITED 2. The ancient Americans did not have the horse. The Book of Mormon declares that the Jaredites and Nephites had the horse and other domestic animals. Of the former, Ether says: "And the Lord began again to take the curse from off the land, and the houre of Emer did prosper exceedingly under the reign of Emer; and in the space of sixty and two years, they had become exceeding strong, insomuch that they became exceeding rich, having all manner of fruit, and of grain, and of silks, and of fine linen, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious things, and also all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kind of animals which were useful for the food of man; and they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants, and cureloms, and cumoms: all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants, and cureloms, and cumoms." -- Ether 4:3. After the extermination of the Jaredites these domestic animals became wild, and when the Nephites entered Peru they are said to have found in the wilderness "both the cow, and the ox, and the ass, and the horse, and the goat, and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men." -- 1 Nephi 5:45. See also Enos 1: 6, Alma 12:11 and Alma 12:24. To make it appear to their readers that these references relative to the use of the horse by the civilized nations of ancient America are confirmed by scientific research, Mormon writers 1 hand out the following quotations from geologists: "In North America ... in the Champlain period there were great elephants and mastodons, oxen, horses, stags, __________ 1 "Stebbins," p. 279. "Etzenhouser," pp. 23, 24. "Blair," p. 166. CUMORAH REVISITED 381 beaver, and some edentates in quartenary North America, unsurpassed by any in the world." -- J. D. Dana, LL. D., in "Text-book of Geology," p. 319. "We know that the equine type of quadrupeds existed in America from the period of the Eocene. We are, in fact, acquainted with twenty-one species of horse-like animals, and the genus of true horses has been traced down to the times preceding the present." -- Professor Winchell, in "Evolution," p. 82. "Seven species of rhinoceros existed on the plains of Colorado; twenty-seven species of horses also cropped the herbage of those vast savannas, varying in size from that of our domestic variety, down to that of a New Foundland dog." -- Professor Hayden, in "Explorations of the West." If our Mormon friends will grant that the Jaredites and Nephites were here in the "Champlain period," or before that in the period of the "Eocene," we will grant that they could have had horses in abundance, but until this concession is made we shall feel ourselves justified in denying that these quotations in any way corroborate the claim of the Book of Mormon. No one who has studied geology will deny that in the earlier epochs the horse was an inhabitant of this continent along with many other species now extinct. And it is also probable that the horse and man were coexistent for sometime after the latter's arrival. Thus much I concede. But that the horse was here when man had developed himself into a semi-civilized being, and at the time those cities which have been attributed to the Jaredites and Nephites were erected, I most emphatically deny. For some unknown cause the horse long ago became extinct on the western continent, and remained so until the coming of the Europeans. "There is no doubt," says 382 CUMORAH REVISITED Brinton, "but that the horse existed on the continent contemporaneously with post-glacial man; and some paleontologists are of the opinion that the European and Asian horses were descendants of the American species; but for some mysterious reason the genus became extinct in the New World many generations before its discovery." -- The American Race, p. 50. That it was not employed as a beast of burden by the builders of the structures of Peru, Central America and the Mississippi Valley is made evident by the absence of its remains among the ruins and of its carved form on any of the ancient statuary. "The builders" -- of the mounds -- "had no beasts of burden. These large structures were, therefore, built by man unaided." -- Prehistoric America, p. 85. "The mound builders had neither iron nor steel of which to form spades and shovels, nor had they beasts of burden to assist in the transportation of material." -- American Archaeology, p. 61. "The Amerinds of North America as a race possessed no beast of burden but the dog... The Amerinds encountered on the plains of Texas in 1540 by Coronado were using the dog, just as they afterwards used the horse, for transporting tents and tent-poles." -- North Americans of Yesterday, pp. 276, 277. 3. The ancient Americans did not possess the domesticated cereals of the Old World. Mosiah says of the Nephites: "And we began to till the ground, yea, even with all manner of seeds, with seeds of corn, and of wheat, and of barley, and with neas, and with sheum, and with seeds of all manner of fruits; and we did begin to multiply and prosper in the land." -- Mosiah 6: 2. But where is the proof of this extraordinary assertion? CUMORAH REVISITED 383 It seems very probable that, if the Americans had once had wheat and barley, they would not have given up their cultivation and use, and yet they were not to be found in America when the Europeans came. "Wheat, rye, barley, oats, millet, and rice," says Nadaillac, "were unknown to the Indians." -- Prehistoric America, p. 4. Besides, no remains of wheat, barley or Oriental corn have ever been found in any of the ancient granaries or cemeteries on the continent. In Peru, Arizona and at Madisonville, Ohio, maize, in some instances charred, has been taken from graves and other places, but not a vestige of wheat or barley has ever been found. |
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384 CUMORAH REVISITED
CHAPTER VIII.
Throughout the entire continent the native races held certain fundamental religious beliefs in common. All American tribes, with probably not an exception, held as sacred the number 4, which answered to the four cardinal points from whence come the fertilizing showers; a belief in, and a fear of, unseen spirits seems to have pervaded universally the native mind, while the notion of the former appearance of culture heroes, and the cultural improvement attending their appearance, was found not only among the more civilized tribes, but also among CUMORAH REVISITED 385 many who are not classed as civilized. But, on the other hand, as we trace the religious conceptions and practices of the red race further, we find them differing to an astonishing degree, so that, instead of one system, we find them presenting many systems differing in their deities, in the organization of their priesthoods, in their conceptions of the after life, and in their rites and ceremonies. The lowest form of theism in America was fetichism; the highest, that form of polytheism known as henotheism, which is defined as "the worship of the nature powers as personified, but making some one of these powers the chief object of worship and ascribing to it a personal character, but also personifying other nature powers and making them subordinate." 1 Between these wide extremes lay a broad field of various grades and diversified forms of religious thought. Says Nadaillac: "So far as we can judge at the present day, religious ideas were met with amongst all the American races, but with the most striking contrasts. Some tribes had not got beyond fetichism, the most degraded and primitive form of worship. Idolatry, which prevailed amongst the nations of Central America, was a higher form; the savage adored the waves of the sea, the trees of the forest, the waters of the spring, the stars of the firmament, the stones beneath his feet; he invested with supernatural power the first object to strike his eyes or impress his imagination. The idolater is superior to the fetich worshiper; he adores the god of the sun, of the sea, of the forest, of the spring; he often clothes this god, before whom he trembles, with a human form, and attributes to him the passions of his own heart. __________ 1 "Myths and Symbols," p. 4. 386 CUMORAH REVISITED Monotheism, from a purely philosophical point of view, is a great advance. It has been said that the Aztecs adored an invisible god, Teotl, the supreme master, but this fact is disputed, and everything goes to prove on the contrary that polytheism existed amongst them, and a very inferior polytheism, too, to that, for instance, which history records among the Egyptians or the Greeks. The number of secondary divinities was very considerable; every tribe, every family, every profession had its patrons, and thought to do honor to its gods by severe fasts, prolonged chastity, baths -- purifications, and often also cruel mortifications." Prehistoric America, pp. 291, 292. Aboriginal American worship may be divided into five stages or classes, 1 which are: 1. Spirit worship, the worship of invisible spirits, which appears most prominently among the fishing tribes of the far north, the Tinneh and the Aleuts. This form of religion is called shamanism. 2. Fetich worship, the worship of stones, trees, mountains, etc. It appears extensively among the tribes of the southwest. 3. Animal worship, the worship of beasts, birds and reptiles, such as the dog, coyote, eagle and rattlesnake. Animal worship was chiefly the religion of the hunting tribes of North America. 4. Sky worship, the worship of the heavenly bodies and the elements and phenomena which in the savage mind are intimately associated with the sky. This form, which appears in all parts of the New World, includes the worship of the sun, moon, stars, thunder, lightning, wind, the clouds and rain. 1 Rev. S. D. Peet differs slightly from this classification. See "Myths and Symbols," Chapter XIII. CUMORAH REVISITED 387 5. Hero Worship, the worship of heroes and deified men, found in its highest form of development among the Aztecs, Mayas and other advanced tribes. It is believed that this classification is broad enough to include all the varied forms of worship of the native races of this continent. These forms seldom, if ever, appear alone in any one tribe, but are associated together, although one form may appear with greater prominence than the rest. On the origin of the American religious systems various opinions have been expressed, but these may be grouped together in two general theories. One is that they are, either in whole or in part, of exotic origin; the other is that they are of indigenous origin and development. By those who hold to their exotic origin the supposed belief of the Indian in a "Great Spirit" and a "Happy Hunting-ground," his use of the symbolism of the cross, his belief in a flood or floods, and a hundred other points of resemblance to the beliefs and practices of the Old World nations, are held up as proof of his Asiatic, European or African origin. But this theory no longer holds the assent of the larger body of American anthropologists. To most of the later students the American religions, like everything else pertaining to the ancient culture of this continent, were of indigenous origin and development, the points of resemblance proving, not common origin, but common nature and like environment. On the similarity of the myths of America to those of the Old World, Dellenbaugh writes as follows: "There is in some respects so great a similarity between the myths of the New World and those of the Old that it was at first assumed that there must have been early communication with Europe, but more careful analysis has shown that this is but another evidence of 388 CUMORAH REVISITED what may be called the parallelism of human develop ment. Even where the similarity is greatest there is nothing to prove that the myths did not originate independently, and they are merely the results of similar thoughts, in similar stages of ignorance, about the sun, the sky and natural forces." -- North Americans of Yesterday, p. 396. There are four lines of evidence by which a conclusion on the character of the ancient American religions may be arrived at: 1. By history -- by the accounts that have been given of native worship by the Europeans who first came in contact with it. History, however, can only give us the beliefs and rites of the American tribes since 1492, yet from them we can draw some reasonable inferences as to the character of the religions of pre-Columbian times. 2. By mythology -- by the myths and traditions that have been handed down from generation to generation. This, however, is not so certain, as it is impossible always to tell just what is historical and what is purely mythical. 3. By etymology -- by the meaning of their terms for god, heaven, spirit, etc. Such terms are intimately inter woven into man's religious fabric, and the ideas that they conveyed to the historic tribes will be a clue which will throw a ray of light on the beliefs and practices of their ancestors. 4. By archaeology -- by those relics which they have left, such as temples, altars, idols, burial-places, etc. This is the most certain of all the ways of determining what the ancient Americans believed and practiced. The structure of their temples, the carvings on their statuary, the forms of their altars and the designs painted on their CUMORAH REVISITED 389 temple walls are certain indices of their religious opinions. The Book of Mormon teaches that the first Americans, the Jaredites, were monotheists; that, after their destruction, they were followed, about 600 B. C., by a colony from Jerusalem which kept the law of Moses; that this colony, soon after its arrival, divided into two factions, the Nephites and Lamanites, the first continuing in the faith of their fathers, the second apostatizing therefrom; that, at the advent of Christ, the Nephites became Christians, and continued as such nearly down to their overthrow in 385 A. D.; while the Lamanites, with the exception of during a short period, continued a sinful and vain people. This, in brief, is the outline of the religious history of the ancient Americans as given in the Book of Mormon. Mormons tell us that the Indian's belief in the "Great Spirit," his traditions of culture heroes who in some points resembled Jesus Christ -- his knowledge of the Trinity, his fear of the spirit of evil, his belief in the immortality of the soul, a resurrection of the dead, future rewards and punishments, and a "Happy Hunting-ground," and his practice of baptism, with many other beliefs and ceremonies, fully substantiate the claim of the Book of Mormon that Judaism and Christianity were the religions of the civilized peoples in ancient times. But I do not hesitate to say that neither in the archaeological remains, nor in the myths and traditions, nor in the religious terms, nor in the beliefs and practices of the historic tribes, is there any evidence that the ancient Americans were Jews and Christians, 390 CUMORAH REVISITED THE NATIVE IDEA OF GOD. The popular conception of the deity of the red man is that of a personality to whom all the tribes gave the appellation of "Great Spirit." Novelists and poets have used this term until the great majority of the people are wholly ignorant of its erroneousness. Even Catlin, whose interesting book on Indian life we all read with delight, says: "The first and most striking fact amongst the North American Indians that refers us to the Jews is that of their worshiping, in all parts, the Great Spirit, or Jehovah, as the Hebrews were ordered to do by divine precept, instead of a plurality of gods, as the ancient pagans and heathens did, and the idols of their own formation." Of course the Mormons have profited by the popular belief, and refer to it as another proof that the Indians are descendants of the children of Israel, as claimed in the Book of Mormon. 1 Says Elder Stebbins: "Their worship of Jehovah, calling him Yohewah, is itself a good assurance of their Hebrew origin." -- Lectures, p. 244.But nothing can be further from the truth than this assertion, as all students of the native American religions know, for the Indian, using this term in its broadest sense as covering the tribes of both North and South America, knew absolutely nothing of the "Great Spirit" or the "Happy Hunting-ground" until he came under the preaching of the white missionary. Instead, he worshiped 1 The "Book of Mormon" tells us that the ancient Americans believed in this mythical being. "And then Ammon said, Believest thou that there is a Great Spirit? And he said, Yea. And Ammon said, This is God. And Ammon said unto him again, Believest thou that this Great Spirit, who is God, created all things which are in heaven and in the earth? And he said, Yea, I believe that he created all things which are in the earth; but I do not know the heavens" (Alma 12:14). This is only another of those marks by which the human origin of the book is betrayed. CUMORAH REVISITED 391 the wind, the earth, the sea, the waterfall, the sun, the volcano and deified animals and men. Says Parkman: "In no Indian language could the early missionaries find a word to express the idea of God. Manitou and Oki meant anything endowed with supernatural powers, from a snakeskin or a greasy In dian conjurer up to Manabozho and Jouskeha." -- The Jesuits in North America, p. 79. Says Brinton: "Of monotheism, either as displayed in the one personal, definite God of the Semitic races, or in the pantheistic sense of the Brahmins, there was not a single instance on the American continent." -- Myths, p. 69. Says Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith: "The 'Great Spirit.' so popularly and poetically known as the god of the red man, and the 'Happy Hunting-ground,' generally reported to be the Indian's idea of a future state, are both of them but their ready conception of the white man's God and Heaven. This is evident from a careful study of their past as gleaned from the numerous myths of their prehistoric existence." -- Second Report Bureau American Ethnology, pp. 52, 53. Says Mooney: "In religion the Kiowa are polytheists and animists, deifying all the powers of nature and pray ing to each in turn, according to the occasion. Their native system has no Great Spirit, no heaven, no hell, although they are now familiar with these ideas from contact with the whites; their other world is a shadowy counterpart of this." -- Seventeenth Report Bureau American Ethnology, p. 237. Says Gushing of the Zunis: "That very little distinction is made between these orders of life, or that they are at least closely related, seems to be indicated by the absence from the entire language of any general term 392 CUMORAH REVISITED for God." -- Second Report Bureau American Ethnology, p. 11. Says Major J. W. Powell: "Nations with civilized institutions, art with palaces, monotheism as the worship of the Great Spirit, all vanish from the priscan condition of North America in the light of anthropologic research. Tribes with the social institutions of kinship, art with its highest architectural development exhibited in the structure of communal dwellings, and polytheism in the worship of mythic animals and nature-gods remain." -- First Report Bureau American Ethnology, p. 69. Says Dellenbaugh: "They had no understanding of a single 'Great Spirit' till the Europeans, often uncon sciously, informed them of their own belief." -- North Americans of Yesterday, p. 375. The words for God in the American tongues originally conveyed no idea of personality and unity, but sim ply the mysterious, the incomprehensible, the wonderful and the unknown, and were often rendered into English by the vulgar term "medicine." Brinton, in speaking of these words, says: "A word is usually found in their languages analogous to none in any European tongue, a word comprehending all manifestations of the unseen world, yet conveying no sense of personal unity. It has been rendered spirit, demon, God, devil, mystery, magic, but commonly and rather absurdly by the English and French 'medicine/ In the Algonkin dialects this word is manito and oki, in Iroquois otkon, in the Hidatsa hopa; the Dakota has wakan, the Aztec teotl, the Quichua huaca, and the Maya ku." -- Myths, p. 62. A few years ago a young Pottawatamie informed me that their word manito might with equal propriety be applied to Jehovah or a rattlesnake, and when requested to give its exact meaning he replied wifch a wave of the hand: "It means CUMORAH REVISITED 393 simply the wonderful, the mysterious, anything you can not understand." This word, as were also the others mentioned, was applied to the serpent that softly glided through the grass, to the conjurer who performed some trick the secret of which was not understood, to the noise in the forest the cause of which was unknown, to the power of the waterfall, to the cardinal points of the compass from whence come the showers, and, after the advent of the Europeans, to the white man's God, his spirit and his devil. Whatever the Indian could not understand was manito, wakan or otkon. Among nearly all the American tribes the gods were mythic animals and men and the elements and phenomena of nature. The dog, for instance, was the chief deity in the province of Huanca in Peru, and when the Inca Pachacutec carried his arms into that country he found its image installed in the temple as the supreme object of worship. Likewise in North America the coyote was worshiped by the Shoshones, who called it their ancestor, and the Nahuas paid it such high honor that they erected for it a temple of its own, with a large congregation of priests set apart to its service, carved its image in stone and gave it an elaborate funeral when dead. 1 Michabo, or the Great Hare, was worshiped by the Algonkin tribes as their common ancestor. Brinton says of him: "From the remotest wilds of the northwest to the coast of the Atlantic, from the southern boundaries of Carolina to the cheerless swamps of Hudson Bay, the Algonkins were never tired of gathering around the winter fire and repeating the story of Manibozho or Michabo, the Great Hare. With entire unanimity their various branches, the 1 "Myths," pp. 160, 161. 394 CUMORAH REVISITED Powhatans of Virginia, the Lenni Lenape of the Dela ware, the warlike hordes of New England, the Ottawas of the far north, and the western tribes perhaps with out exception, spoke of 'this chimerical beast,' as one of the old missionaries calls it, as their common ancestor. The totem or clan which bore his name was looked up to with peculiar respect." -- Myths, p. 193. The serpent was the object of worship and respect among the Quiches. Their wind god Hurakan was other wise called the Strong Serpent, who controlled the power of the storm. Such names as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz and Kukulkan signify "Bird Serpent," and these gods were deities of the wind or air in Mexico, Guatemala and Yucatan. In North America the rattlesnake was looked upon with special reverence by the Algonkins, Iroquois, Creeks, Cherokees and, in fact, most other tribes. It also appears extensively in the symbolisms of the Mound Builders. 1 The bird was worshiped in all parts of America. In the northern continent the Algonkins attributed to it the making of the winds and claimed that the clouds were but the spreading of its wings, while in both Mexico and Peru there were colleges of augurs whose duty it was to divine the future by watching the course and interpreting songs of birds. The eagle was paid special honor by the Creeks, Cherokees, Dakotas, Natchez, Arkansas and Zuni. The owl was the god of the dead with the Nahuas, Quiches, Mayas, Peruvians, Araucanians and Algonkins. And the dove was held in high repute by the Hurons, Mandans and Mexicans, who believed that it was inhabited by the souls of the dead. 2 On the animal worship of the Indian tribes Powell 1 "Myths," p. 130. 2 "Myths," p. 129. CUMORAH REVISITED 395 says: "Many of the Indians of North America, and many of South America, and many of the tribes of Africa, are found to be zootheists. Their supreme gods are animals tigers, bears, wolves, serpents, birds." -- First Report Bureau American Ethnology, p. 33. Says Dellenbaugh: 'The religion of most of the Amerinds was zootheism that is, their gods were deified men and animals." -- North Americans of Yesterday, p. 375. The Indians also worshiped the elements and phenomena of nature. The ancient Creeks worshiped the wind under the name of isakita immissi, "The Master of Breath." Since the advent of the missionary among them this term is applied to the true God. Parallel with this is the Choctaw hushtoli, "The Storm Wind," and the Cherokee oonaivleh unggi, "The Eldest of the Winds." The Eskimo still pray to sillam innua, "Owner of the Winds," as the highest existence, and Brinton says of the four demigods that so frequently appear in the mythology of Central America, Mexico and Peru: "The ancient heroes and demigods, who, four in number, figure in all these antique traditions, were not men of flesh and blood, but the invisible currents of air who brought the fertilizing showers." -- Myths, p. 97. The sun was originally worshiped in all parts of America. Bancroft says: "Brasseur de Bourbourg, Tylor, Squier and Schoolcraft agree in considering sun-worship the most radical religious idea of all civilized American religions." -- Native Races, Vol. III., p. 110. Mr. Lucian Carr says that "everywhere in the valley east of the Mississippi the Indian was a sun-worshiper." Report Smithsonian Institution (1891), p. 536- Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith says of the Iroquois: "The pagan Indians worship the sun, moon, stars, thunder, 396 CUMORAH REVISITED and other spirits rather vaguely defined." -- Second Report Bureau American Ethnology, p. 112. Mooney says of the Kiowa: "The greatest of the Kiowa gods is the sun." -- Seventeenth Report Bureau American Ethnology, p. 237. The Hurons claimed that their chiefs descended from the sun, and that the sacred pipe was presented by that luminary to the western Pawnees and was by them transmitted to the other tribes. The Mandans and Minitarees had a similar tradition. The Iroquois also worshiped the sun, as did also the Natchez, who erected temples and offered sacrifices in its honor. Of other tribes who held this luminary in special veneration are the Delawares, Osages, Sioux, Araucanians, Peruvians and Creeks. 1 The semi-civilized tribes, who were more advanced in their theistic ideas, had large pantheons. In addition to a worship of the sun, moon, stars and thunder, the Peruvians invoked Papapconopa to insure a good harvest of sweet potatoes; Caullama, the protector of flocks; Chichic, the god of landed property, and Lacarvillca, the god of irrigation. The more ignorant also worshiped the condor, puma, owl and serpent and such products of the earth as maize and potatoes. By some even the dead were invoked as the protectors of the family. They offered flowers, incense and such animals as tapirs and serpents to their gods, and on special occasions a child or a virgin was slain before the image of the sun. 2 The Mexicans also are to be specially noticed on account of the size of their pantheon. Some have thought that their supreme god was Teotl, the "Supreme Creator and Lord of the Universe," but, on the contrary, Brinton 1 "American Antiquities," pp. 352, 353. 2 "Prehistoric America," pp. 436, 437. CUMORAH REVISITED 397 and others hold that this term, like manito and wakan, was only an expression for the mysterious and supernatural and did not convey the idea of personality. But, be this as it may, below Teotl were other orders or gods, and this refutes the claim that they were monotheistic in their worship. "Rightly does Wuttke contend," says J. G. Muller, "against any conception of this deity as a mono theistic one, the polytheism of the people being considered for polytheism and monotheism will not be yoked together; even if a logical concordance were found, the inner spirits of the principles of the two would still be opposed to each other." -- Native Races, Vol. III., p. 183. Prescott says: "The Aztecs recognized the existence of a supreme Creator and Lord of the universe. But the idea of unity of a being, with whom volition is action, who has no need of inferior ministers to execute his purposes was too simple, or too vast, for their understandings; and they sought relief, as usual, in a plurality of deities, who presided over the elements, the changes of the seasons, and the various occupations of man. Of these there were thirteen principal deities, and more than two hundred inferior; to each of whom some special day, or appropriate festival, was consecrated." -- Conquest of Mexico, Vol. I., p. 57. Gallatin says: "Their mythology, as far as we know it, presents a great number of unconnected gods, without apparent system or unity of design. It exhibits no evidence of metaphysical research or imaginative powers. Viewed only as a development of the intellectual faculties of man, it is in every respect vastly inferior to the relig ious systems of Egypt, India, Greece or Scandinavia. If imported, it must have been from some barbarous country, and brought directly from such country to Mexico, since no traces of a similar worship are found in the 398 CUMORAH REVISITED more northern parts of America." -- Native Races, Vol. III., p. 186. And, recollect, the Mexican system was the most highly developed of any on the American continent; yet, in the face of all this, we are coolly met with the as sertion that the Indian, "in all parts," was a worshiper of the Great Spirit of Jehovah. Viscomte de Bussiere says: "The population of Cen tral America, although they had preserved the vague notion of a superior eternal God and creator, known by the name of Teotl, had an Olympus as numerous as that of the Greeks and the Romans." -- Native Races, Vol. III., p. 187. Next to Teotl, the principal god of the Aztecs, if a god at all, comes Tezcatlipoca, "Shining Mirror," who was regarded as the creator of heaven and earth and the rewarder of the just and punisher of evil-doers. The god of the dead was Mictlanhuatl, "Rational Owl," with whom was associated the goddess Mictlancihuatl. Ome-teuchtli, "Twice Lord," and Omecihuatl, "Twice Wo man," were divinities who watched over the world from an enchanted city in the heavens. The sun and moon were deified under the names Tonathiu and Meztli. Quetzalcoatl, "Feathered Serpent," was their god of the air. The Aztec Neptune was Tlaloc, and their terrible god of war was Huitzilopochtli, or Mexitli, whose altars so often ran with Spanish blood at the time of the Conquest. These are only a few of the more important of the Mexican divinities. The chief divinities of the Mayas were Hunab Ku, "The Only God," the Supreme Being, the Creator, the Invisible One; Ixazaluoh, his spouse, goddess of weav ing; Itzamna, "Dew of the Morning," the personification of the East or Rising Sun; Kukulkan, the Mayan Quetzalcoatl, CUMORAH REVISITED 399 the personification of the West or Setting Sun; Kin Ich, their divinity of Noontide; Ix Kan Leom, "The Spider Web," goddess of medicine and childbirth; the Bacabs, her four sons, gods of the four cardinal points; Yum Chac, god of rain; Yum Kaak, god of harvest; Cum Ahau, "Lord of the Vase;" Zuhuy Kak, "Virgin Fire," patroness of infants; Zuhuy Dzip, "Virgin of Dressed Animals," their goddess of hunting; Ix Tabai, another hunting goddess and goddess of those who hanged themselves, etc. 1 "The Mayas," says Bancroft, "were not behind their neighbors in the number of their lesser and special divinities, so that there was scarcely an animal or imaginary creature which they did not represent by sacred images." -- Native Races, Vol. III., p. 463. I am sure that the above-given facts are sufficient to convince the reader that his long-cherished conception of the Indian's deity as the "Great Spirit" is groundless, and also that they are sufficient to convince him that the theistic conceptions of the American Indian were of the crudest type, closely connecting him with the forms, elements and phenomena of that nature with which he was familiar. On the whole continent there are only two instances where the worship of an immaterial god was instituted: among the Quichuas of Peru and the Nahuas of Tezcuco. These, Brinton says, "as the highest conquests of American natural religions deserve special mention." A careful study of the circumstances connected with the institution of this form of worship in these countries shows that it was not a belief handed down from generation to generation from ages long past, nor yet a development out of the old religions, but a truth unconsciously stumbled on 1 "Mayan Primer," p. 37, 400 CUMORAH REVISITED to by two men who found these religions inadequate to satisfy the longings of the human heart and the reason ings of the human mind. The monotheistic worship of Peru was instituted by the Inca Yupanqui, who in 1440, before a grand religious council held at the dedication of the Temple of the Sun, is said to have made the following address: "Many say that the sun is the maker of all things. But he who makes should abide by what he has made. Now, many things happen when the sun is absent; therefore he can not be the universal creator. And that he is alive at all is doubtful, for his trips do not tire him. Were he a living thing, he would grow weary like ourselves; were he free, he would visit other parts of the heavens. He is like a tethered beast who makes a daily round under the eye of a master; he is like an arrow, which must go whither it is sent, not whither it wishes. I tell you that he, our Father and Master the Sun, must have a lord and master more powerful than himself, who constrains him to his daily circuit without pause or rest." -- Myths, p. 72. The other instance of the introduction of monothe istic ideas into the native religion was in Tezcuco. Nezahuatl, the lord of that country, had long besought his gods to give him a son to inherit his throne, but to no avail. At last in despair he is said to have exclaimed: "Verily, these gods that I am adoring, what are they but idols of stone without speech or feeling? They could not have made the beauty of the heaven, the sun, the moon and the stars which adorn it, and which light the earth with its countless streams, its fountains and waters, its trees and plants, and its various inhabitants. There must be some god, invisible and unknown, who is the universal creator. He alone can console me in my affliction and take away my sorrow." -- Myths, p. 73, CUMORAH REVISITED 401 In both of these countries temples are said to have been erected to this unknown god and his worship instituted, but not to the exclusion of the worship of the other gods, for in both sections the old deities continued to receive the same adoration as before, and when the Span iards entered Peru they not only found temples to these deities, but they also found the temple of the new god polluted by a hideous image set up within it, before which the votaries paid their devotions, and by hideous paintings on the walls. There is not a particle of evidence to show that the American race ever held to the belief in a single Great Spirit analogous to the God of the Jewish and Christian religions, all reports to the contrary being misrepresentations. On the contrary, their gods were spirits, deified animals and men and the forms, elements and phenomena of nature, and, if we may judge by their myths, carvings and paintings, they never had any other. THE MAYAN TRINITY. It is contended by Lord Kingsborough that the Mayas worshiped a Trinity composed of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. He gets his information from Torquemada, De Salcar and other early Spanish writers. His quotation from De Salcar is as follows: "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." -- Book of Mormon Lectures, pp. 238, 239. He claims that, according to this tradition, Bacab was born of a virgin, Chibirias, and was afterwards put to death by Eopuco, who scourged him,402 CUMORAH REVISITED put a crown of thorns upon his head and crucified him by tying him to a cross. He claims further that the tradition states that after being dead three days he came to life and ascended to the Father, following which Estruach came and filled the earth with whatever it stood in need of. This tradition is readily accepted by the Mormons, who give it wide publicity in their works as confirming their belief that the ancient Americans were worshipers of the true God. Dr. James E. Talmadge, in his "Two Lectures on the Book of Mormon," p. 36, says: "Many traditions and some records, telling of the predestined Christ and his atoning death, were current among the native races of this continent long prior to the advent of Christian discoverers in recent centuries. Indeed, when the Spaniards first invaded Mexico, their Catholic priests found a native knowledge of Christ and the Godhead, so closely corresponding with the doctrines of orthodox Christianity, that they, in their inability to account for the same, invented the theory that Satan had planted among the natives of the country an imitation gospel for the purpose of deluding the people." Following this he gives the foregoing tradition of the Trinity. Mr. Stebbins also devotes several pages of his "Book of Mormon Lectures" to this and similar traditions. But that such a myth ever existed in the traditional lore of the natives is positively impossible. This was discovered long ago by the students of American traditions, and these stories were given up as spurious. This account, then, was either invented by the natives them selves in order to make their beliefs appear to conform to the Christian, or else it was invented by the Catholic priests. In speaking of it, Short says: "In fact, the story is the Apostles' Creed without the 'Credo,' and is probably CUMORAH REVISITED 403 as much the work of the credulous and imaginative Spanish Fathers as of the designing natives. The story ought to be repudiated without question." -- North Americans of Antiquity, p. 231. And Bancroft disposes of it in these words: "The inquiries instituted by Las Casas revealed the existence of a trinity, the first person of which was Izona, the Great Father; the second was the son of the Great Father, Bacab, born of the virgin Chibirias, scourged and crucified, he descended into the realms of the dead, rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; the third person of the trinity was Echuah, or Ekchuah, the Holy Ghost. Now, to accuse the reverend Fathers of deliberately concocting this and other statements of a similar character is to accuse them of acts of charlatanism which no religious zeal could justify. On the other hand, that this mysterious trinity, this Maya Christ myth, had any real existence in the original belief of the natives, is so improbable as to be almost impossible. It may be, however, that the natives, when questioned concerning their religion, endeavored to make it conform as nearly as possible to that of their conquerors, hoping by this means to gain the good will of their masters, and to lull suspicions of lurking idolatry. Bacab, stated above to mean the Son of the Great Father, was in reality the name of four spirits who supported the firmament; while Echuah, or the Holy Ghost, was the patron god of merchants and travelers." -- Native Races, Vol. III., pp. 462, 463. The names of the four Bacabs, as given by Brinton, are: Hobnil, Canzicnal, Zaczini and Hozan ek. They stood, respectively, for the cardinal points, south, east, north and west; for the days, Kan, Muluc, Ix and Cauac; for the elements, air, fire, water and earth; and 404 CUMORAH REVISITED were represented by the colors, yellow, red, white and black. 1 Their mother was not Chibirias, but Ix Kan Leom, "The Spider Web," the goddess of medicine and childbirth. On Ek Chua, "The Black Companion," Brinton remarks: "God of the cacao planters and the mer chants, as these used the cacao beans as a medium of exchange." -- Mayan Primer, p. 42. So this fanciful theory of an Indian trinity falls to the ground, and the Book of Mormon loses one more of its choice "collateral evidences." WAS QUETZALCOATL JESUS CHRIST? Another very absurd theory is that which identifies our Lord with Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god of the air. Kingsborough is the most prominent advocate of this opinion. He claims that in a certain piece of ancient sculpture work, discovered in Mexico by Mons. Dupaix, this god is represented as wearing a crown of thorns, that in a bust now preserved in the British Museum he holds in his hand a fan and a sickle, and that in the Borgian manuscript he is represented, pictographically, as dying upon a cross between two reviling thieves. Put ting these evidences together, he decides that the Americans knew of the crucifixion of our Lord upon the cross of Calvary.On the supposed representation of the crucifixion of Quetzalcoatl, as given in the Borgian manuscript, he says: "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." 1 "Mayan Primer," p. 41, CUMORAH REVISITED 405 -- Quoted in Book of Mormon Lectures, p. 239. He says further that in the seventy-second, seventy-third and seventy-fifth pages, as well as in the fourth page, of this manuscript, are paintings "which actually represent Quecalcoatle crucified and nailed to the cross." The Mormons have eagerly seized these quotations, with others from the same author, and give them wide publicity as proving that the ancient Americans knew of the crucifixion of Christ. "When we read of these evidences," writes Elder Stebbins, "we see the very character and work of Jesus Christ, and also his suffering, presented to us." -- Lectures, p. 241. And on the bust of Quetzalcoatl, in which that god is holding a fan and a sickle, he says: "We can see the meaning of the fan and the sickle, for it is written of Christ, 'Whose fan is in his hand;' and when he shall come again he shall come with the sickle, as shown in Rev. 14: 14-19." Lectures, p. 240. The Brighamites, also, have not spoken in uncertain terms on the identity of the Lord with this Mexican deity. Says Elder John Taylor: "The story of the life of the Mexican divinity, Quetzalcoatl, closely resembles that of the Saviour; so closely, indeed, that we can come to no other conclusion than that Quetzalcoatl and Christ are the same being." -- Mediation and Atonement, p. 201. But this belief rests, not upon acknowledged facts, but upon certain inferences drawn from the statuary and paintings of* the country, and that, too, by Lord Kingsborough, a writer half crazed and fanatical. No archae ologist of reputation holds to this theory at the present time, for upon a comparison of it with the evidences upon which it is based its ridiculousness is made apparent at once. While Mormon writers make good use of his statements, they are very careful that the public shall not 406 CUMORAH REVISITED see the figures from the Codex Borgianus, which Kings- borough claims are representations of Quetzalcoatl cru cified. In 1888 a prominent Josephite elder went to the Cincinnati Exposition, where a set of Kingsbo rough was on exhibition, and copied a number of extracts from it relative to the character, work and death of this god. These extracts were published the following year in the Josephite magazine, Autumn Leaves, and afterwards in "Book of Mormon Lectures," "Divinity of the Book of Mormon Proven by Archaeology," and other Mormon works. But why did this elder, after he had put himself to so much trouble to see a set of Kingsborough's "Mex ican Antiquities," not sketch, or have sketched, the fig ures which the latter claims represent the crucifixion scene of Quetzalcoatl? The reason is obvious. He knew full well that a glance at these pictographs would for ever destroy the force of Kingsborough's claim with every unbiased reader and the Book of Mormon would lose some highly valued evidence. Although Kingsborough's work is very rare and ex pensive, being long out of print, I have succeeded in locating three sets: one in Cambridge, Mass.; another in the library of the State Historical Society of Wis consin, at Madison, and still another in the library of the Field's Museum, Chicago. Through the kindness of the librarian of the last-mentioned institution, I was permit ted to sketch the figures on pages 4 and 75 of the "Bor- gian Codex." The pictograph on page 4 (Fig. 12) of this manuscript is the one which Kingsborough declares represents Quetzalcoatl crucified "between two persons who are in the act of reviling him; and who hold, as it would appear, halters in their hands, the symbols, per haps, of some crime for which they were themselves go ing to suffer;" while the one from page 75 (Fig. 13) is CUMORAH REVISITED 407 also said to represent a crucifixion scene. The pictographs on pages 72 and 73 I was unable to sketch, be cause of their complexity, but they no more suggest a crucifixion scene than they do the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox. Those that I have been so fortunate as to obtain comprise only one- fourth of the pages from which they are taken, there being three other
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408 CUMORAH REVISITED has ever been able to see the identity between our Lord and Quetzalcoatl. Clavigero thinks that the latter was a real person, who, after his departure from Cholula, was apotheosized and made a god; Tylor identifies him with the sun; De Bourbourg holds that he was the
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CUMORAH REVISITED 409 of America and those which existed in the far East, consists in the fact that there was a constant progress, and the conception of Divinity grew higher as civil ization advanced; and yet, strange to say, no such char acter ever appeared on the continent of America, as that which was embodied in the person of Jesus Christ." Myths and Symbols or Aboriginal Religions (Introduction). That the reader may decide for himself whether or not there is anything in the character and life of Quetzalcoatl to identify him with Jesus Christ, I here give the commonly received tradition of him: "The god of the air, among all the nations of Ana-huac, was called Quetzalcoatl; that is to say, 'serpent decked with feathers.' It was related that he had been a high priest of Tollan, and that he was a man with a white skin, a high stature, a broad forehead, large eyes, long, black hair and a bushy beard. For propriety's sake, he always wore ample garments; he was so rich that he possessed palaces of silver and fine stones. . Industrious, he had invented the arts of smelting metals and of work ing stone. The laws which he had given men proved his knowledge, and his austere life his wisdom. When he wished to promulgate a law, he sent a hero whose voice could be heard a hundred leagues away, to proclaim it from the summit of Tzatzitepetl (mountain of clamors). "In the time of Quetzalcoatl, % maize attained such enormous dimensions that a single ear was all a man could carry. Gourds measured not less than four feet, and it was no longer necessary to dye cotton, because all colors were produced by nature. The other products of the earth naturally attained dimensions similar to those of Indian corn; singing-birds and birds of brilliant plumage abounded. All men were then rich. In a word, the 410 CUMORAH REVISITED Aztecs believed that the reign of Quetzalcoatl had been the golden age of the country they inhabited. "Like the Saturn of the Greeks, with whom we may compare him, the god of Toltec origin abandoned his country. When its prosperity was at its height, Tezcat- lipoca, for some unknown reason, appeared to him in the form of an old man, and revealed to him that the will of the gods ordained that he should betake himself to the kingdom of Tlapallan. At the same time he offered him a beverage by means of which Quetzalcoatl believed he might acquire immortality. But he had scarcely swal lowed the draught when he was seized with such an irresistible desire to repair to Tlapallan that he immedi ately set out, escorted by a number of his followers, sing ing hymns. Near the village of Cuauhtitlan, Quetzal coatl threw a number of stones against a tree, which adhered to the trunk. Near Tlanepantla he placed his hand on a rock, which preserved the impression of it an imprint which the .Mexicans showed to the Spaniards after the Conquest. "Finally, when Quetzalcoatl reached Cholula, the in habitants of that city conferred the supreme power on him. The integrity of his life, the gentleness of his manners, his repugnance to every species of cruelty, won the hearts of the Cholulans. From him they learned how to smelt metals an art which afterwards rendered them celebrated. For a long time they obeyed the laws he gave them. To Quetzalcoatl they attribute the rites of their religion and their knowledge of the division of time. "After a sojourn of twenty years at Cholula, Quetzalcoatl resolved to continue his journey towards the imaginary city of Tlapallan, taking with him four young nobles. Having arrived in the province of Ooatzacoalco, CUMORAH REVISITED 411 he discharged his followers, and charged them to tell the Cholulans that he would shortly return to them. The Cholulans confided the government of their city to the mandatories of their benefactor in memory of the friend ship he had for them. Gradually the report of the death of Quetzalcoatl spread; he was then proclaimed god by the Toltecs of Cholula, and afterwards declared protector of their city, in the center of which they raised in his honor a high mountain, which they crowned with a temple. From Cholula the worship of Quetzalcoatl, ven erated as the god of the air, extended over the whole country." Briart's Aztecs, pp. 119-122. In this account nothing is said of the crucifixion of Quetzalcoatl, and the inference is that he died a natural death. I think that the reader will readily see that the theory that Quetzalcoatl was Jesus Christ is founded wholly upon Kingsbo rough's inferences drawn from the paintings and carvings of the country, and not upon any authentic tradition. THE INDIAN DEVIL. The Book of Mormon, like the Bible, teaches the existence of a devil, the "Prince of Darkness," a being morally antithetical to God. It declares that a belief in the existence of this being was held by the ancient races of the continent, and Mormons insist that it was still en tertained among the natives at the time of their first con tact with Europeans. But this opinion is untrue. No such being as the devil of the Christian religion appears in the mythologies of America. Those gods called "devils" by the early missionaries and travelers were, in fact, only their gods of the underworld Plutos, not devils. The most competent students of the native religions tell us that the412 CUMORAH REVISITED American tribes did not divide their gods into morally antithetical classes; that is, according to their goodness and badness. The Indian's conception of good and evil differed vastly from ours. To him those gods who sent the sunshine and the rain, gave him good crops and stocked the forests with game and the streams with fish were good; those who sent the frost to kill the corn, dis ease to destroy the people and calamity in general were bad. To him the manifestations of deity were physical, not moral, manifestations. Says Parkman: "In the primitive Indian's conception of a God the idea of moral good has no part. His deity does not dispense justice for this world or the next, but leaves mankind under the power of subordinate spirits, who fill and control the universe. Nor is the good and evil of these inferior beings a moral good and evil. The good spirit is the spirit that gives good luck, and ministers to the necessities and desires of mankind; the evil spirit is simply a malicious agent of disease, death and mischance." The Jesuits in North America, p. 78. On this point Brinton, speaking comprehensively of all the tribes, says: "The various deities of the Indians, it may safely be said in conclusion, present no stronger antithesis in this respect than those of ancient Greece and Rome. Some gods favored man and others hurt him; some, like the forces they embodied, were benef icent to him, others injurious. But no ethical contrast, beyond what this would imply, existed to the native mind." Myths of the New World, p. 82. Father Bruyas, in translating the word "devil" into Iroquois, had to use the word otkon, their word for the supernatural, which he elsewhere used as the equiva lent of our word "spirit." Father Rogel, in 1570, told some of the tribes of Georgia that the deity they worshiped CUMORAH REVISITED 413 was a demon, which made them so indignant that they left him to preach to the winds after explaining that, instead of a wicked being, he was the god who sent all good things. It has been declared that the Algonkins of New England worshiped a good deity called Kiehtan, and an evil one, Hobbamock, "who," says Winslow, "as farre as we can conceive, is the Devill." The former is simply the word for "great," with a final n, and is thought to be an abbreviation of Kittanitowit, the great manito, in vented by the whites, and "not the appellation of any per sonified deity." And the latter, instead of being the "Devill," is, according to Winslow's own statement, "the kindly god who cured diseases, aided them in the chase, and appeared to them in dreams as their protector," and is said by Dr. Jarvis to be "the oke or tutelary deity which each Indian worships." The deity Juripari, of certain tribes in Brazil, said to be their evil spirit, turns out to be only their name for the supernatural in general. The deity Aka-kanet, of the Araucanians, declared to be their "father of evil," is, instead, the benign power throned in the Pleiades, who sends fruit and flowers and is ad dressed by them as "grandfather." Cupay of the Peruvians was not "the shadowy embodiment of evil," as Prescott claims, but was their god of the dead, analogous to Pluto of the Greek and Mictlantecutli of the Mexican mythology. Loskiel, a Moravian missionary among the Lenape, says that "the idea of a devil, a prince of dark ness, they first received in later times through the Euro peans." Dr. Matthews says of the Hidatsa: "The Hi- datsa believe neither in a hell nor a devil." Rev. G. H. Pond says of the Dakotas: "I have never been able to discover from the Dakotas themselves the least degree of evidence that they divide the gods into classes of good and evil, and am persuaded that those persons who repre- 414 CUMORAH REVISITED sent them as doing so do it inconsiderately, and because it is so natural to subscribe to a long-cherished popular opinion." 1 Gatchet says of the Creeks: "The idea that the Creeks knew anything of the devil of the Christian religion is a pure invention of the missionaries." 2 The Iroquois deity Hinu, which Morgan 3 says was their "Evil Spirit," was, in fact, only their "beneficent Thun der God," whose mission was "only to promote the wel fare of that favored people, though isolated personal offenses might demand from him a just retribution." 4 The lack of any moral differentiation between the American deities is only another of those marks by which the American religions are classed with the inferior religions of the world. It disproves the claim that their ancestors were Jews and Christians. THE AMERICAN CROSS. The veneration of the cross among the nations of the New World is held up as further proof that the Ameri cans knew of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. "Another evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon," says Apostle Blair, "is seen in the fact that it teaches, in Alma 16: 26, and in Ether I: n, and elsewhere, that the ancient inhab itants of America knew concerning the crucifixion of Christ, both by revelation and by history, and were there fore acquainted with the cross as a religious symbol; and in the further fact that the antiquities of America disclose that the cross was so used by the ancients." Joseph the Seer, p. 163. That the cross appears among the symbolisms of 1 "Myths," pp. 75-79. 2 "Migration Legend of the Creeks," Vol. I., p. 216. 3 "Ancient Society," p. 117. 4 "Second Rept. Bu. Am. Ethno.," p. 52.CUMORAH REVISITED 415 America is not denied, but that it has here the same significance that it has among Christian nations is most seriously objected to. Marquette found a large cross set up in an Indian village on Green Bay, a symbol of the Mide society. On a skeleton discovered in a mound near Zollicoffer Hill, Tennessee, was found a peculiarly shaped copper ornament surmounted with a cross, and crosses have been taken from a mound near Chillicothe, Ohio, and from one in the Cumberland Valley; but the fact that some of the mounds in all of these sections have been erected within post-Columbian times makes the an tiquity of these relics uncertain. But of the antiquity of the symbol of the cross at Cuzco, on the Cozumel Island, Yucatan, in the bas-reliefs of Palenque and in the Codices of Central America and Mexico, there can be no doubt. The question before us is, Does the existence of the cross among the antiquities of America prove that the ancient Americans knew of Christ's crucifixion? In the first place, the cross, even as used by Oriental nations, is not exclusively a Christian emblem, and so the American cross, if brought from the Old World at all, may have been brought from some heathen country and at a time before the crucifixion of our Lord. The cross appears on the oldest monuments of Egypt as the symbol of eternal life It was a religious emblem among the Phoenicians, whose goddess, Astarte, was commonly fig ured bearing a Latin cross. One of the old Assyrian kings is represented on a monument at Nineveh as wear ing around his neck the four sacred symbols, the cres cent, the star or sun, the trident and the cross. While in China it stood as the symbol of conception long before the beginning of the Christian era. But there is no need of looking to the Old World for the derivation of the American cross. It is a simple 416 CUMORAH REVISITED figure, easily made, on account of which it is not to be wondered at that it appears in the symbolisms of the ancient nations of this continent along with the circle, square and other simple figures. But there is, however, one indisputable fact connected with its use on this continent: it conveyed to the native mind no such signifi cance as it conveys to ours, but stood universally as the symbol of the four cardinal points, or of the four winds that bring the fertilizing showers. On its significance among the tribes of Yucatan one of the old chroniclers says: "Those of Yucatan prayed to the cross as the god of rains when they needed water." And Las Casas tells us that the natives of Chiapas erected altars in the form of the cross near their principal springs. When the Muyscas sacrificed to the goddess of waters they extended strings across some sacred lake, at right angles and in the direction of the four cardinal points, and at the point of intersection made their offerings of precious stones and precious oils. In time of drought the Lenape conjurer went to some secluded place, drew a cross on the ground, with its arms pointing toward the four cardinal points, and, after placing a piece of tobacco or some other offering on the point of intersection, cried aloud to the spirits of rain for relief. The Blackfeet honored their wind-god by arranging boulders on the prairies in the form of a cross. And the Creeks, on the occasion of their puskita, honored the four winds by making a cross of four logs extending in the four cardinal directions, and making new fire by friction at the point where they came together. On the significance of the Mexican cross Brinton says: "It represented the god of rains and of health, and this was everywhere its simple meaning." -- Myths of the New World, p. 114. CUMORAH REVISITED 417 Bancroft remarks: "With the Mexicans the cross was a symbol of rain, the fertilizing element, or, rather, of the four winds, the bearers of rain." -- Native Races, Vol. III., p. 469. And, in speaking of the cross in the Walam Olum and other American records, Peet says: "In these various records the circle was the symbol of the sun, the cross was the symbol of the winds, the square was the symbol of the four quarters of the sky, and the crescent the symbol of the moon." -- Myths and Symbols, p. 186. This is its true meaning in ancient American symbolism; we need look for no other. THE AMERICAN PRIESTHOODS. Latter-day Saints declare that there are certain features observed in the priesthoods of America which strongly suggest the Jewish. Says Elder Phillips: "High priests were a Jewish institution, and were also had in America according to the Book of Mormon; this Ban croft confirms; also Donnelly says: 'The priesthood was thoroughly organized in Mexico and Peru. They were prophets as well as priests,'" -- Book of Mormon Verified, p. 23. No Mormon will insist, however, that the American priesthoods, at the time of the Discovery, were exactly like the Jewish, but only that they bore certain marks by which the former existence of Judaism and Christianity may be proved. Their theory is that in the apostasy of the Lamanites some of the beliefs and institutions of Judaism and Christianity were retained and have come down to us in a more or less mutilated con dition mingled with heathen superstitions. But the mere fact that both peoples had priests proves nothing as to their relationship, for the same may be said for all nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples. The fact418 CUMORAH REVISITED is, however, that the American priestly systems partook more of the nature of the priestly systems of Africa and Polynesia than they did of those of the Jews and Chris tians. This will be observed as we pass on. In the first place, as distinguishing the American priesthoods from the Hebrew, we find the priests of our native tribes officiating at the altars of heathen gods. Those of Mexico attended upon the worship of Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Centeotl, Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, gods with few of the attributes of Jehovah, to whom they offered sacrifices and said prayers. In Yucatan they served such gods as Kukulkan, Zamna and Kin Ich, while in Peru they officiated at the altars of the sun, moon and other deities. It is estimated that the whole number of idolatrous priests in Mexico was close to one million, five thousand of whom officiated in the great temple of the capital. In the second place, the American priesthoods dif fered widely from the Hebrew and Christian in struc ture. Among the Algonkins there were three orders of priests, the wdbeno, mide and jossakeed. The last no white man could enter. At the head of the Aztec hierarchial system stood the Teotecuhtli, "divine lord," who superintended the secular affairs, and the Hueiteopixqui, "high priest," who had charge of all religious matters. Next below these was the Mexicatlteohuatzin, a sort of vicar-general, appointed to look after the public worship, the priesthood and the schools throughout the kingdom. He was assisted by two coadjutors, the Huitzuahuacteohuatzin and the Tepantehuatzin. Below these stood the Topiltzin, the chief sacrificer, and his five assistants: the Tlalquimiloltecuhtli, keeper of relics and ornaments; the Ometochtli, composer of hymns; the Tlapixcatzin, musical director; the Epcoaquacuiltzin, master of ceremonies; CUMORAH REVISITED 419 and a number of other dignitaries of less degree. The priesthoods of Yucatan and Peru were equally as complex. In the third place, the American priests offered hu man sacrifices and sometimes ate human flesh, practices that connect them with the lowest forms of religion. Historians differ as to the number of human sacrifices offered in Mexico every year. A safe estimate is twenty thousand. These victims were mostly prisoners of war, but in some instances parents offered their children, even, that their gods might not fail of being served. It is asserted that certain Central American nations waged war for the ostensible purpose of obtaining sacrifices for their altars, and this assertion seems well founded. Just v.'hen the practice of offering human sacrifices was intro duced no one can tell, but it is certain that it dates from pre-Toltec times, although it is said that the Toltecs under Quetzalcoatl broke away from it. In the fourth place, the American priests were nec romancers, clairvoyants, mesmerists and adepts in occult ism. These, again, are marks, not of either Judaism or Christianity, but of paganism. A number of these prac tices are described in "Myths of the New World," by Brinton. There is nothing whatever to show that the priestly idea in the native American religions came from the Jewish or Christian. On the contrary, the American priesthoods were, in organization and practice, connected with the lower religious systems of the world. RITES AND CEREMONIES. When the Spanish priests first came to Mexico they found certain rites, ceremonies and institutions which strongly reminded them of certain of the rites, ceremonies420 CUMORAH REVISITED and institutions of the Jews and Christians. Among these were baptism, auricular confession, the celebration of the eucharist, circumcision, the laying on of hands and penance, and from the descriptions that they have left one would suppose that the ancient Americans were very good Roman Catholics. The missionaries accounted for these similarities either upon the supposition that the gospel had been preached here by St. Thomas in the first century, or that these similarities to the Jewish and Christian religions were the inventions of the devil for the purpose of deception. In speaking of these supposed analogies to the Chris tian faith, Prescott says: "We should have charity for the missionaries who first landed in this world of won ders; where, while man and nature wore so strange an aspect, they were astonished by occasional glimpses of rites and ceremonies which reminded them of a pure faith. In their amazement, they did not reflect whether these things were not the natural expression of the relig ious feeling common to all nations who have reached even a moderate civilization. They did not inquire whether the same things were not practiced by other idolatrous people They could not suppress their wonder as they beheld the cross, the sacred emblem of their own faith, raised as an object of worship in the temples of Anahuac. They met with it in various places; and the image of a cross may be seen at this day, sculptured in bas-relief, on the walls of one of the buildings of Palenque, while a figure bearing some resemblance to that of a child is held up to it, as if in adoration. "Their surprise was heightened when they witnessed a religious rite which reminded them of the Christian communion. On these occasions an image of the tutelary deity of the Aztecs was made of the flour of maize, CUMORAH REVISITED 421 mixed with blood, and, after consecration by the priests, was distributed among the people, who, as they ate it, 'showed signs of humiliation and sorrow, declaring it was the flesh of the deity.' How could the Roman Catholic fail to recognize the awful ceremony of the eucharist ? "With the same feelings they witnessed another cere mony, that of the Aztec baptism, in which, after a solemn invocation, the head and lips of the infant were touched with water, and a name was given to it; while the goddess Cioacoatl, who presided over childbirth, was implored 'that the sin, which was given to us before the beginning of the world, might not visit the child, but that, cleansed by these waters, it might live and be born anew.' "It is true, these several rites were attended with many peculiarities, very unlike those in any Christian church. But the fathers fastened their eyes exclusively on the points of resemblance. They were not aware that the cross was the symbol of worship, of the highest antiquity, in Egypt and Syria; and that rites, resembling those of communion and baptism, were practiced by. pagan nations, on whom the light of Christianity had never shone. In their amazement, they not only mag nified what they saw, but were perpetually cheated by the illusions of their own heated imaginations. In this they were admirably assisted by their Mexican converts, proud to establish and half believing it themselves a corre spondence between their own faith and that of their conquerors." -- Conquest of Mexico, Vol. III., pp. 383-387. The Latter-day Saints 1 have been as quick to see these analogies to the Jewish and Christian faiths as 1 "Divinity of the Book of Mormon," pp. 49, 50, "Book of Mormon Verified," p. 20. 422 CUMORAH REVISITED have the old Catholic missionaries, and they hold them up as conclusive proof that the Book of Mormon is true in its teachings on the religions of the ancient Americans. But, as Prescott says, they are not aware "that the cross was the symbol of worship, of the highest antiquity, in Egypt and Syria; and that rites, resembling those of communion and baptism, were practiced by pagan nations on whom the light of Christianity had never shone," and they magnify these resemblances, being "perpetually cheated by the illusions of their own heated imagina tions." When the matter is carefully looked into, these rites lose much of their similarity to the Jewish and Christian. Let us first take up a number of cases in which the application of water ceremonially played an important part for the purpose of ascertaining whether they do or do not suggest the former practice of Christian baptism on this continent. On certain occasions the Tupi priests of Brazil assem bled the people together, filled large jars with water, and, after repeating some magical words over them, sprinkled the congregation with palm branches. 1 The Maya priests sprinkled both their idols and the votaries with water which either had to be morning dew or that which flowed from a well of which no woman had ever tasted. 2 A Natchez chief, when persuaded against his will not to offer himself on the pyre of his ruler, took water and washed his hands, as did Pilate of old, to signify that he would not bear the moral responsibility for not dying. The ancient Peruvians, after confessing their sins, bathed in the river, repeating the formula: "O thou River, re ceive the sins I have this day confessed unto the Sun, 1 "Myths," p. 147. 2 "Myths," pp. 147, 148. CUMORAH REVISITED 423 carry them down to the sea, and let them never more appear." The Navajo, who carries a dead body to its burial, holds himself unclean until he has washed himself in water specifically prepared by certain ceremonies. As the reader has noticed, repeated bathings were essential to a proper observance of the busk of the Creeks. In Peru the child was immersed by the priest in water which afterwards was buried in the ground. The Cherokees believe that the rite must be performed when the child is three days old, or else it will die, but the origin of this belief and practice is very doubtful. Among the Zapotecs the child, as soon as it was born, was immersed in a near-by river by its parents, who invoked the inhabitants of the water to extend their protection to it. In the mar riage ceremony of the Nahuas the wedded pair had water poured over them by the officiating priest while they were seated upon green reed mats. The Mayas believed that ablutions washed away sins, and children were baptized between the ages of three and twelve years, the parents fasting for three days before the ceremony. And among the Cherokees ceremonial purification by water was essential as a preliminary to every undertaking. It preceded their game of ball, their green-corn dance, their search for a wife, etc. 1 Of the so-called ordinance of baptism among the Aztecs, Briart writes: "Usually, the midwife washed the new-born, and said to him: 'Receive this water, for thy mother is the goddess Chalchiutlicue. This bath wipes out the stains that come from thy fathers, cleanses thy heart, and gives thee a new life/ Then, addressing her self to the goddess, she asked her to grant her prayer. Next, taking the water in her right hand, and breathing 1 "Myths," pp. 150, 151. 424 CUMORAH REVISITED on it, she moistened the mouth, the head and the breast of the child with it, and bathed him, saying: 'May the invisible god descend upon this water, may he wipe out all thy sins, may he guard thee against evil fortune! Gracious creature, the gods Ometeuctli and Omecihuatl have created thee in the highest heaven, to send thee to this earth; but know thou that life is sad, painful, and full of misery and evil, and that thou canst eat only by working. May God help thee in the many troubles that await thee!' After this discourse she congratulated the father, the mother and the relatives. The bath over, they consulted the soothsayers in regard to the good or bad fortune in store for the child. The sign that marked the day of his birth was noted, and also the one that ruled during the period of the last thirteen years. If the child was born at midnight, they compared the preceding day and the day following. These observations completed, the soothsayers foretold the future lot of the new-born. If the day was considered ill-omened, the second bath of the child was postponed for five days. The second bath was more important than the first; the relatives, the friends and a number of children were invited to be present. If the father was rich, he gave a banquet and pre sented a garment to each guest. If he was a soldier, he made a little dress, a miniature bow and four little arrows for the new-born; if a laborer or artisan, some little tools like those used in his own trade. The same was done in the case of girls, for whom little spindles were made. A number of lights were ignited, and the midwife carried the child about the court of the dwelling, placed it on a heap of leaves, near a basin, and repeated the words already quoted. Rubbing all his limbs, she added: 'Where art thou, evil fortune? Leave the body of this child/ She then raised him above her head, offered him to the CUMORAH REVISITED 425 gods, and prayed them to grant him all the virtues. She then invoked the goddess of the waters, next the sun and the earth. Thou, O Sun, father of all living,' she said, 'and thou, O Earth, our mother, accept this child, protect it as though it were thine own son! If he must be a soldier, may he die in battle, defending the honor of the gods, so that he may be able to enjoy in heaven the pleas ures reserved for the brave who sacrifice in such a good cause.'" -- The Aztecs, pp. 196-198. Following these ceremonies the child was given a name, and, if a boy, the tiny implements of warfare were buried in a field where it was supposed he might in the future fight; while, if a girl, the spindle was buried in the dwelling underneath the stone for pounding maize. The Maya rite, which was quite similar, was called zihil, which signifies "to be born again." It was con sidered essential to a pure life and a protection against misfortune and evil spirits. It was administered to chil dren of both sexes at any time between the ages of three and twelve years. The parents desiring their children baptized notified the priest, who published notices throughout the town of the day upon which the ceremony was to be performed. This done, the fathers selected five of the most influential men of the community to act as assistants, and for three days before fasted and refrained from sexual intercourse. When the time arrived the guests gathered in the home of one of the parents where the ceremony was to be performed. In the courtyard fresh leaves were strewn, upon which the boys were arranged in a row in charge of godfathers and the girls in charge of godmothers. After the purification of the house, with the object of casting out the demons, which was done by the children throwing, one by one, a handful of cornmeal and incense upon a brazier, the priest, 426 CUMORAH REVISITED clothed in the robes of his office, proceeded to perform the ceremony. This consisted in blessing the children and purifying them with hyssop, at the same time offer ing up prayers in their behalf, following which one of the five assistants, dipping a bone in water, moistened their foreheads, their features, their fingers and their toes, after which the priest cut from their hair a certain bead which had been attached in childhood, gave them flowers to smell and performed other simple rites. A grand ban quet, called emku, "the descent of god," was then held, which was followed by a strict fast for the nine succeed ing days. 1 It requires a wide stretch of the imagination to see in any of these native ceremonies a suggestion of the former practice of Christian baptism on this continent. Christian baptism consists in a simple immersion of a be liever in water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and to this all Latter-day Saints without exception agree. But, in some of these cere monies, water was applied by sprinkling and pouring; in others the rite was performed at intervals, sometimes repeatedly; in others the candidate, if such he may be called, baptized himself; and in still others it was per formed in honor of heathen gods and goddesses and was connected with superstitions of the grossest kind. I am willing to let the reader decide for himself whether or not the practice of applying water to the person cere monially by the American Indians is suggestive of the rite of Christian baptism. As strong objections may be made to the claim that certain rites found in America were but the ordinance of Christian communion in a perverted form. In Nicaragua, 1 Bancroft, II:684. CUMORAH REVISITED 427 during certain observances, the worshipers "sprinkled maize with the blood from their privy parts, and it was distributed and eaten as blessed bread." Native Races, Vol. II., p. 710. At the feast celebrated in honor of their first captain, Vichilopuchitl, the Mexicans "made a cake of the meal of bledos, which is called tzoali, and, having made it, they spoke over it in their manner, and broke it into pieces. These the high priest put into cer tain very clean vessels, and with a thorn of maguey, which resembles a thick needle, he took up with the utmost reverence single morsels, and put them into the mouth of each individual, in the manner of a com munion." Ibid, Vol. III., p. 323. Among this same people, at the feast of their god of banquets and guests, Ome Acatl, a similar rite was performed. Dough was taken and kneaded by the principal men into the form of a bone, called the bone of Ome Acatl. After spending the night in gluttony and drunkenness, this bone was divided, at the break of day, and each one ate that which fell to his lot. Again, among the same people at the feast of Huitzilopochtli a dough image of this god was broken up and distributed among the men. This celebration was called teoqualo, meaning "the god is eaten." And in Peru at the feast of Raymi a cake made of the fine flour of maize by the Virgins of the Sun was eaten, and the fermented liquor of the country was drunken by the nobles at a banquet over which the Inca presided. These are the rites which the Spanish missionaries mistook for Christian communion, and are those which the Mormons refer to in order to prove that Christianity was once the religion of America. 428 CUMORAH REVISITED COSMOGONY. There are few tribes but who have some theory of the origin of things and of the appearance of man upon the earth. Brinton mentions two in the New World who have not, the Rootdiggers of California and the Eskimo. These seem content to suppose that things have always continued as they are, and will always so continue. But to most men, as reason has asserted itself, nature has suggested its beginning and also its end. At first, says the Greek, all was chaos, a shapeless mass. First appeared the spirit of love, Eros; then the broad-chested earth, Gaea; then the darkness, Erebus, and the night, Nyx, from the union of which sprang the clear sky, Aether, and the day, Hemera. The earth of itself brought forth the firmament, Uranos, and the mountains and sea, Pontos, following which, from Uranos and Gaea, sprang the Titans, Giants and Cyclops. Out of these beginnings also sprang the gods of the Olympus, the heroes and the human race. According to Egyptian cosmogony, the universe is a gradually developing divinity, a quaternity, not a unity, composed of four members: Kneph, Spirit; Neith, mat ter; Sevech, time, and Pascht, space. These were con ceived of as independent and underived. Of the four, Sevech and Pascht were passive, while Kneph and Neith, who combined to produce the world, were active. Neith was thought to be a great ball around which Kneph brooded in preparing it for its transformation. The first product of the union was Ptah, the fire and light element; in the next stage the firmament, Pe, and the earth, Anuke, were produced; following which the sun, moon and stars were created and hung in the heavens. CUMORAH REVISITED 429 The cosmological myth of the Chinese describes the primal state as one of darkness and chaos. From an egg came a being called Poon-koo-wong. Out of the lower half of the shell of the egg he made the earth and out of the upper half the heavens. With his right hand he made the sun and with his left the moon and stars, fol lowing which he created the five elements earth, fire, water, metal and wood. He caused a vapor to rise from a piece of gold and also one from a piece of wood, which, breathing upon, he transformed, respectively, into a male and a female principle. From the union of these two principles sprang a son and a daughter, who were the beginning of the human race. The native Americans, too, had various myths ac counting for the origin of things and the advent of man upon the earth. The cosmogony of the Aztecs and kindred tribes is as follows: "According to the Nahuatlacs, there existed, before the creation of the universe, a heaven, inhabited by Tonacatecuhtli and his wife Tbnacacihuatl, who in time procreated four sons. The skin of the oldest, Tlatlauhquitezcatlipoca, was red; that of the second, Yayauhqui, black, and his instincts evil; that of the third, Quetzalcoatl, was white; while the youngest, Huitzilipochtli, was a mere skeleton covered with a yellow skin. "After six hundred years of idleness the gods resolved to act. They named Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilipochtli as executors of their will; these thereupon created fire, and then a demi-sun. They afterwards created a man, Oxo- moco, and a woman, Cipactonatl, whom they commanded to cultivate the ground with care. Cipactonatl, who was also required to spin and weave, was endowed with the gift of prophecy. As a reward for her oracles she was 430 CUMORAH REVISITED given grains of maize to serve as food for her descend ants. The gods then made Mictlanteuchtli and his com panion, Mictlancihuatl, whom they appointed rulers of the infernal regions. This done, they divided time into days, months and years. "Resuming their work, they created a first heaven, inhabited by two stars, one male, the other female; then a second, which they peopled with Tetzahuacihuatl ('women skeletons'), intended to devour human beings when the end of the world came. In the third heaven they placed four hundred men, yellow, black, white, blue and red. The fourth heaven served as a residence for birds, which thence descended to the earth; in the fifth, which was peopled with fiery serpents, comets and fall ing stars had their origin. The sixth was the empire of the wind, the seventh that of dust, and the eighth the abode of the gods. It was not known what existed be tween this one and the thirteenth, the rtsidence of the immutable Tonacatecuhtli. "In this creation, water received a special organiza tion; for the gods met to form Tlalocaltecuhtli and his wife, Chalchiutlicue, who became masters of the liquid element. In the dwelling inhabited by these two were four pools filled with different waters. The water of the first pool helped germination, that of the second withered the seed, the water of the third froze them, and that of the fourth dried them. Tlaloc, in his turn, created a multitude of small ministers charged with the execution of his orders. Furnished with an amphora and armed with a wand, these pygmies carried the water where the god directed them, and sprinkled it as rain. Thunder was produced whenever one of them broke his jar, and the lightning which struck men was nothing but a fragment of the shattered vessel. In the midst of the waters CUMORAH REVISITED 431 a great fish, called Cipactli, charged with sustaining and directing the earth, had been created. 'The first woman bore a son; as he had no com panion, the gods made him one out of a hair. The demi- sun illuminated the world imperfectly, hence Tezcatli- poca undertook the task of fashioning a complete star. The Nahuatlacs believe that the sun and moon wandered in space. The sun a curious detail traversed half the space open before him, and then retreated. His image in the west was only his reflection. Lastly, the four gods created the giants, and then Huitzilipochtli's bones took on a covering of flesh. "Discord broke out among the creators. Quetzalcoatl, with a blow of his stick, precipitated Tezcatlipoca into the water, where he was transformed into a tiger, and took his brother's place as the sun. After a period of more than six hundred years, the great tiger Tezcatlipoca gave Quetzalcoatl a blow with his paw, and precipitated him in turn from the heavens. The fall of the god pro duced such a wind that almost all mankind perished; those who survived were transformed into monkeys. "The quarrels of the gods took long to subside. Tezcatlipoca rained fire over the earth, Chalchiutlicue flooded it, and then it was necessary to re-people it. Whereupon Camaxtle-Huitzilipochtli, striking a rock with his stick, caused the Chichimec-Otomites, who had peopled the earth before the Aztecs, to come forth." The Aztecs, pp. 104, 105. Of the cosmogony of the Mayas we know but little. It is known, however, that, like the Nahuas, they divided the period of the existence of the universe into epochs, at the close of each of which there occurred a general destruction of both gods and men. Aguilar, an early writer, claims that the native books recorded three such 432 CUMORAH REVISITED periodical cataclysms, the first being called may admit, "general death;" the second, oc na kuchil, "the ravens enter the houses," which signifies that the inhabitants were all dead, and the third, him ye til, a universal del uge, during which the surface of the water was within the distance of one stalk of maguey from the sky. Ac cording to this account the present is the fourth age of the world instead of the fifth, as the Nahuas believe. Their "terrestrial Paradise," where men were created, was called hun anhil, and the first man was anum, from the verb anhel, to stand erect. 1 The Quiches have left us the richest mythological legacy of all of the American tribes. According to their account, nothing existed in the beginning but a broad expanse of sea. The first creation was that of the earth, with the mountains and trees upon it, which was spoken into existence by Gucumatz, the Creator, Former, Dominator and Feathered Serpent. The next step was that of bringing into being the various forms of animal life, but, as the beasts could not speak, a curse was pronounced upon them and it was decreed that their flesh should be humiliated and that they should be killed and eaten. The gods, then, took counsel relative to the making of man. The first man was made of clay, but as he was without cohesion, consistence, motion or strength, he was con sumed in the water. Next they made a man of wood and a woman out of a certain kind of pith, but these also were unsatisfactory, for while they moved about and peopled the earth with a race of wooden manikins like them selves, they were without heart and intelligence and could not worship their creators, so the gods sent death and destruction upon them and they were all destroyed 1 "Mayan Primer," p. 46. CUMORAH REVISITED 433 excepting a few who now exist in the woods in the form of apes. Once more the gods counseled together and made four perfect men of yellow and white maize. With these they were highly pleased, and as they slept they made four women for them, who became their wives and from whom the divisions of the Quiche race sprang. It appears that subsequently other men were created from whom came the other tribes. 1 At first all was water, say the Athapascas, when the raven with eyes of fire, glances of lightning and the clap ping of whose wings was thunder, descended upon this primal ocean, from which the land instantly arose and remained on the surface. By him all the varieties of animals were created and from him all the tribes of this stock trace their descent. 2 According to the picture writing of the Miztecs, be fore time all things were orderless and water covered the slime and ooze that then composed the earth. Through the efforts of two winds, Nine Serpents, per sonified as a bird, and Nine Caverns, personified as a winged serpent, the waters subsided and the land ap peared. 3 The Guaymis, of Costa Rica, relate that before all things was Noncomala, who formed the world and the waters, but they were in darkness and clouds. So, cohab iting with the water sprite, Rutbe, he produced two male twins, who, after thriving with their mother for twelve years, left her to become the sun and moon, the twin lights of the world. 4 The Iroquois claim that their female ancestor, being 1 Bancroft, III: 42-54. 2 "Myths," p. 267. 3 "Myths," p. 230. 4 "Myths," p. 231. 434 CUMORAH REVISITED kicked from the sky by her angry husband, fell to an island in the great sea which was constructed for her by the beaver, otter and muskrat. 1 The tribes of Los Angeles County, California, have an account that their god, Quaoar, coming down from heaven, reduced the primal chaos to order and put the world on the back of seven giants, following which he created the lower animals, and, lastly, a man and a woman. 2 According to the Koniagas there resided in heaven a great deity, Shi jam Schoa, who created two beings and sent them down to the earth, the raven accompanying them as light-bearer. Here this original pair set things in order by making the sea, rivers, mountains and forests. 3 The Kiowa claim that their ancestors came from a hollow cottonwood log at the bidding of a supernatural progenitor. They came out one at a time until it came the turn of a pregnant woman, who stuck fast in the hole and thus blocked the way for the rest, which accounts for the numerical smallness of that tribe. Their supernatural progenitor also gave them the sun, divided the day and night, exterminated a number of vicious monsters, rendered the ferocious animals harmless and taught them the simple art of hunting. When this was done he took his place among the stars. 4 The Cherokee cosmogonic myth bears the marks of native origin. According to it there was a time when there was nothing below the heavens but water. The animals were all above, in Galunlati, which was very 1 "Myths," p. 231. 2 Bancroft, III: 84. 3 Bancroft, III: 104. 4 "Seventeenth Kept. Bu. Am. Ethno.," pn .52, 153. CUMORAH REVISITED 435 much crowded. They wondered what was below the water, and so the little water-beetle volunteered to go and see if he could find out. It darted hither and thither over the water, and, finding no firm place to rest, dived down to the bottom and brought up some soft mud, which began to grow and soon became an immense island. This island was afterwards fastened to the vault of the sky by four cords, from each of its four corners. At first the land was very wet and no animal could live on it, so they sent out the buzzard, which flew all over the earth, but found no resting-place. As he flew over what afterwards was the Cherokee country, he became very tired and his wings began to strike the ground. Wherever the ground was struck a valley was made, and wherever they turned up again a mountain was made, and this accounts for the mountainous condition of North Carolina and adjacent territory where the Chero- kees originally lived. When the land became dry the animals came down, but it was still dark, and so they got the sun and set it in its track to give light by day. 1 In none of these accounts do we meet with any fea tures specially suggestive of the account given in the first three chapters of Genesis. They are all very origi nal, emanating from simple minds upon whom the light of divine revelation never shone. They betray the fact that their ancestors, like themselves, were enthralled in nature, and that their conceptions of the origin and end of things were formed under the influence of these sur roundings. If the American Indian is a descendant of the Jew, and if the Christian religion was once only about seventeen hundred years ago the universal relig ion of America, how is this utter absence of Jewish 1 "Nineteenth Rept. Bu. Am. Ethno.," p. 239. 436 CUMORAH REVISITED cosmogonic features in the mythology of the American race to be accounted for? MYTHOLOGY. It is asserted that there is a striking similarity between some of the American myths and the historical accounts of the children of Israel. Among the Ojibwas is found a tradition which resembles, somewhat closely, the account of Joseph and his brethren. The Tusayan have a tradition of their migrations according to which they were guided by a pillar of fire like Israel of old. The Pai Utes had a wilderness journey during which they were given drink from a magic cup, which never became empty, and were miraculously fed. And among the Tusayan, again, their culture hero passed dry shod through lakes and rivers whose waters were divided by a staff thrown into them. 1These, and similar myths which present some of the aspects of the Jewish historical accounts, are referred to as proving that the American Indians are descendants of Israel. Apostle P. P. Pratt says: "The Indians of America are of Israel, as some of their manners, customs and traditions indicate." -- A Voice of Warning, p. 79. The slight similarities mentioned are sufficient to cause comment, but are not sufficient to prove a relationship between the children of Israel and the American Indians. Says Dellenbaugh: "Certain resemblances between the myths of the Amerinds and those of the Israelites increased the belief that the American race is the lost tribes. The Mormons specially hold to this opinion. But there is positively no ground for the belief." -- North Americans of Yesterday, p. 403. __________ 1 "North Americans of Yesterday," pp. 403-405. CUMORAH REVISITED 437 As well might it be assumed that the American race is an offshoot from the Ethiopian, for the folklore of our Southern negro presents a number of striking resemblances to the myths and traditions of the American Indians. "There is also a strong resemblance," says Dellenbaugh, "between many of the Amerind myths and stories and those of the negro, as any one may see who will compare them with Harris's delightful Uncle Remus." -- North Americans of Yesterday, p. 405. Shall we decide from this that the American Indians are of African descent? Ignatius Donnelly, who experiences little difficulty in finding analogies, also traces a number of parallels between the folklore of the Indians and that of the Greeks, Germans and Irish. 1 Some of the resemblances amount almost to identities. But these mythological analogies are comparatively too few and are traceable in too many directions to prove anything. They must be considered as mere coincidences. It is claimed, in support of the Book of Mormon, that certain American tribes had traditions according to which their ancestors were once in possession of a sacred bookwhich after generations was hid in the earth. The following extractfrom Boudinot is often quoted: "There is a tradition related by an aged Indian of the Stockbridge tribe, that their fathers were once in possession of a 'Sacred Book' which was handed down from generation to generation, and at last hid in the earth, since which time they have been under the feet of their enemies." -- A Voice of Warning, p. 82. Boudinot's work appeared in 1816, fourteen years before the Book of Mormon came out, and I am satisfied __________ 1 "Atlantis," pp. 150-160. 438 CUMORAH REVISITED that it was this story that suggested the idea of buried records to the perpetrators of the Mormon fraud. I have not been able to find that this story has ever been substantiated; its value to us, therefore, is small. But there is another version of it as given by Josiah Priest: "Dr. West, of Stockbridge (Mass.), relates that an old Indian informed him that his fathers in this country had not long since been in the possession of a book which they had for a long time carried with them; but, having lost the knowledge of reading it, they buried it with an Indian chief." -- Book of Mormon Lectures, p. 265 If our Mormon friends will kindly tell us the name of the Indian chief with whom the Nephites buried their plates, we may be able to place more credence in their application of this story to the depositing of the Book of Mormon in Hill Cumorah. ESCHATOLOGY. Most all of the Indian tribes had some conception of a future life. Brinton mentions only one, the Lower Pend d'Oreilles, among whom such a belief was entirely wanting. The New England tribes called the soul chemung, the Quiche natub, the Eskimo tarnak, the Dakota nagi and the Pottawatamie gepam, which words simply mean the shadow. In the Mohawk the word for soul, atonritz, is from atonrion, to breathe. The missionaries to an Oregon tribe, in translating the Bible into their language, finding no word for soul, were forced to translate it by a word meaning "the lower gut." The Iroquois and Algonkin believed that man had two souls, one of a vegetative character, the other ethereal. The Dakotas increased the number, with Plato, to three, one of which went to a warm country, another to a cold,CUMORAH REVISITED 439 while the third stands guard over the body. Certain Oregon tribes placed a soul in every member of the human body. 1 The Book of Mormon teaches that men will be rewarded or punished according to the degree of good and evil done in this life. This was the belief of the Nephites. It teaches the doctrines of a heaven of eternal bliss where souls purified from all sin and saved by the blood of the Son of God will live forever, and a hell of eternal punishments. "I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end, they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness." -- Mosiah I:12. "And now, I have spoken the words which the Lord God hath commanded me. And thus saith the Lord: They shall stand as a bright testimony against this people, at the judgment day; whereof, they shall be judged, every man, according to his works, whether they be good, or whether they be evil; and if they be evil, they are consigned to an awful view of their own guilt and abominations, which doth cause them to shrink from the presence of the Lord, into a state of misery and endless torment, from whence they can no more return." -- Mosiah I:16. But no such theories of the after-life appear in the religions of the Americans. The world to come was usually a counterpart of this, or, if they believed in any rewards and punishments at all, the good rewarded was not a moral good nor the evil punished a moral evil. "Nowhere," says Brinton, "was any well-defined doctrine __________ 1 "Myths," Chapter IX. 440 CUMORAH REVISITED (pages 440-461 under construction) that moral turpitude was judged and punished in the next world. No contrast is discoverable between a place of torments and a realm of joy ; at the worst, but a nega tive castigation awaited the liar, the coward, or the nig gard." Myths, p. 283. The soul of the Indian was not thought to go to hell for murder, theft, lying or rapine, nor to heaven for virtue or honesty; but, if there were any higher places for it in the next world, they were reached by the num ber of scalps taken, the number of ponies stolen or by the attention paid to certain rude, primitive ceremonies. Parkman says : "The primitive Indian believed in the immortality of the soul, but he did not always believe in a state of future reward and punishment. Nor, when such a belief existed, was the good to be rewarded a moral good, or the evil to be punished a moral evil. Skillful hunters, brave warriors, men of influence and consideration, went, after death, to the happy hunting- ground; while the slothful, the cowardly and the weak were doomed to eat serpents and ashes in dreary regions of mist and darkness. In the general belief, however, there was but one land of shades for all alike." The Jesuits, p. 80. A belief in a heaven and a hell where moral good is rewarded and moral evil is punished was not even to be found among the more civilized nations. Says Brinton : "If the conception of a place of moral retribution was known at all to the race, it should be found easily recog nizable in Mexico, Yucatan or Peru. But the so-called 'hells' of their religions have no such significance, and the spirits of evil, who were identified by early writers with Satan, no more deserve the name than does the Greek Pluto." Myths, p. 291. With the Aztecs the souls of men went to three CUMORAH REVISITED 441 places. The soul of the warrior slain in battle, of the prisoner sacrificed by the enemy and of the woman dying in childbirth, went to the dwelling of the sun. The souls of those killed by lightning, or who were drowned, or who died of such diseases as clropsy, tumor or leprosy, as well as the children sacrificed to Tlaloc, went to a cool, agreeable place called Tlalocan ; while the rest, good, bad and indifferent, went to a "hell" called Mictlan, the only disagreeable feature of which was darkness. 1 The Mayas believed in a place of everlasting delight and voluptuous repose, where the good recline beneath the shade of the Yaxche, eating dainty food and drink ing delicious drinks. This place of delight was especially open to those who committed suicide by hanging, as the goddess Ix Tabai carried them thither herself. The wicked, Bancroft says, went to Mitnal, but Brinton de clares that this was only the universal state to which all must "come at last." ' A certain un warlike tribe of Guatemala believed that only those who died a natural death were accorded a future life; the bodies of the slain were, therefore, left to the beasts and vultures. 3 With the Quiches all the dead went to Xibalba, "the place of disappearance," supposed to be under the ground. 4 The Tlascaltecs thought that the souls of people of prominence enter, at death, into the bodies of the higher animals and into gems and clouds, while the souls of less rank pass into the forms of the lower animals. 5 The Nicaraguans claimed that the souls of slain war- 1 Bancroft, III: 532. 2 "Mayan Primer," p. 44. 3 Bancroft, III: 542. 4 "Myths," p. 292. 5 Bancroft, III: 539. 442 CUMORAH REVISITED riors enter the sunrise regions, where all the good go, but the evil, those who do not reverence the gods, are doomed to annihilation in the abode of Miquetanteot. 1 Among the Mosquitos the belief prevailed that heaven is open to all, because of which at birth they tied a bag of seeds around the neck of the infant to pay his ferriage across the river of death beyond which lies paradise. 2 When the Hidatsa dies, according to Dr. Matthews, his soul lingers for four nights around the camp or vil lage, when it departs to the village of the dead. Here, if it has been brave, self-denying and ambitious on earth, it is held in honor ; if not, it is despised. 3 According to the Chippewa belief the soul of the dead man goes to a region to the south situated by the great ocean. Before reaching it, however, a river has to be crossed, the only bridge over which is a large snake. Those who die by drowning never reach the other side, but are thrown into the river and remain there forever. Others, who die in a lethargy or a trance, coming to the stream, are prevented from crossing by serpents, and return to reanimate their bodies. Those who get over spend their time in various ways. Those who have been good spend it in singing and dancing and feeding upon mushrooms, which are there very abundant. The souls of the bad are simply haunted by phantoms. If a man has been wronged, his soul may haunt his persecutor. 4 None of these beliefs suggest to an unbiased mind the eschato logical theories advanced in the Book of Mor mon. In the main the tribes made no distinction between the states of the good and the bad in the world to come, 1 Bancroft, III: 543. 2 Bancroft, III: 543. 3 "First Rept. Bu. Am. Ethno.," p. 199. 4 "First Rept. Bu. Am. Ethno.," p. 199. CUMORAH REVISITED 443 and where they did these terms did not convey to their minds the same senses that they convey to ours. If they had a heaven at all, it was not reached by moral well doing, but, as Brinton tells us, "by the manner of death, the punctuality with which certain sepulchral rites were fulfilled by relatives, or other similar arbitrary circum stance beyond the power of the individual to control." ] If the ancient Americans held to the beliefs stated in the Book of Mormon, how is their total absence among the American Indians to be accounted for? THE CHARACTER OF THE ANCIENT AMERICAN RELIGIONS AS REVEALED IN THE REMAINS. In the foregoing pages of this chapter I have endeav ored to show that the Mormon claim that the American Indians originally believed in a single Great Spirit, a Trinity, the crucifixion of Christ, a devil, a heaven and a hell, practiced baptism and celebrated the eucharist evi dences of the former existence of Christianity meets with no confirmation in either the beliefs and ceremonies of existing tribes, their myths and traditions or their religious terms. Our present inquiry will be : Is the theory, that the ancient Americans were Jews and Chris tians, suggested in the relics and remains? A large proportion of the antiquities of America are sacred antiquities. In North America we have the temple mounds which are known to have been used in some in stances as bases for religious structures ; in Mexico, the crumbling temples of Teotihuacan, "The City of the Gods," and the pyramids of Cholula ; in Central America, the temples of Palenque and the idols and altars of Copan ; and in Peru, the mysterious edifices of Pacha- 1 "Myths," p. 283. 444 CUMORAH REVISITED camac and Tiahuanaco. These antiquities all bear wit ness that the ancient Americans were religious peoples who worshiped gods, believed in a hereafter, offered sac rifices and performed various religious rites. In the Old World the archaeologist has little difficulty in arriving at a conclusion as to the general character of the ancient religions. The idols, the altars, the temples, the religious paintings and the hieroglyphical inscriptions of Egypt and Assyria leave him with no doubts as to the idolatrous character of the ancient religions of those countries. It requires but a passing glance for him to see that they did not partake of the distinctive features of Judaism and Christianity. But the evidences in Egypt and Assyria show no more conclusively that the old re ligions were not Judaism and Christianity than do those of America. Here, too, the idols, the temples, the altars, the religious paintings and the hieroglyphical inscriptions all testify to the idolatrous character of the ancient wor ship. There is not a figment of evidence to sustain the theory that the builders of Copan and Quirigua were monotheists, or that the builders of Chimu, in Peru, and Cholula and Teotihuacan, in Mexico, were Jews and Christians. I shall now put before the reader a number of reasons based upon the archaeology of the country, for believing that the ancient Americans were all pagans and idolaters. i. We infer the heathen character of the ancient relig ions of America from the utter absence on this continent of both Jewish and Christian antiquities. Although the Book of Mormon declares that as soon as the Nephites had become fully settled in Peru they built a temple "like unto Solomon's," and that afterwards they erected "temples," "sanctuaries" and "synagogues," "after the manner of the Jews," the Mormon archaeolo- CUMORAH REVISITED 445 gist has never been able to point out the remains of a single Jewish religious edifice on the continent. Neither has he been able to point out a single religious structure that bears evidence of ever having been used in Christian worship. The temples of America were no more like the religious edifices of the Jews and Christians than a light house is like the Mosque of Omar. They were built upon a different plan and were adapted to entirely different modes of worship. The temples of Peru we know were used chiefly for the worship of the sun and moon, while many of those of the Mississippi Valley were constructed for the same purpose. The Book of Mormon claim that the Nephites in the latter section of the continent built "temples," "synagogues" and "sanctuaries" of wood and cement is positively refuted both by the absence of such structures and the fact that the Mound Builders used neither cement nor mortar. In Mexico there are as few grounds for this claim as in the Mississippi Valley. No archaeologist that I have ever heard of, whose writings are considered authoritative, mentions the finding of a single Jewish or Christian temple, altar, painting or inscription. With one accord they all declare that the ancient inhabitants of those countries were pagans and idolaters. It will not do to claim that the ravages of time and of the warlike Lamanites have completely obliterated every trace of these structures, for, considering the wide spread extent of these faiths and the length of time in which they were held, this would be next to impossible. Egypt and Assyria, too, have had their wars, and time and the elements have affected their ruins, but, neverthe less, enough data remain for the archaeologist to deter mine without difficulty the character of their worship, the names of their gods and many of their religious cere monies and beliefs. If the ancient Americans were Jews 446 CUMORAH REVISITED and Christians, will the Mormon Church kindly tell us where the archaeological proof of it is to be found? 2. We infer the heathen character of the ancient American religions from the similarity in plan of the ancient places of worship to those of historic tribes. No matter where you may go, the ancient structures were built after the pattern of the modern. This is true in Peru, Central America, Mexico and the Mississippi Valley. It will hardly be denied that, when the Europeans first met the American tribes, the latter were all idolaters and pagans. In Peru, Central America and Mexico, as well as in the Mississippi Valley and in the less civilized parts of the continent, the early settlers found the natives worshiping animals, the elements, deified heroes and idols, offering human, animal and vegetable sacrifices and practicing heathen rites. All of these tribes and nations had places of worship varying in splendor and stability from the bark-covered hut of the North American medicine man to the large and elaborately decorated structures of Mexico and Peru. Among the Natchez, and certain other tribes of the Mississippi Valley, the temples were built upon the sum mits of truncated pyramids, and in them perpetual fires were kept burning in honor of the sun. "The confirm atory testimony of early explorers," says Nadaillac, "shows that the valley of the Mississippi, as well as the districts now forming the States of Ohio, Florida and Georgia, was inhabited by warlike nations, who tilled the ground, lived in fortified towns, erected their temples on eminences, often artificial, and worshiped the sun. These were the men who repulsed Narvaez when he endeavored to conquer Florida in 1528." -- Prehistoric America, p. 189. CUMORAH REVISITED 447 The temples of Mexico and Central America were also built upon the summits of high and artificial emi nences. The great temple of Mexico, which was erected only a few years before the Discovery, was built upon a high mound, which, with the court at its base, covered the large square now occupied by the great cathedral. The court was paved with stones which were so smooth than the Spanish cavalry hardly dared to venture upon them, and was surrounded by a wall made of dressed and sculptured stone and mortar, 4,800 feet in circum ference, nine feet high and built facing the four cardinal points. It was also pierced by four gates. From the center of the court rose the great pyramid, 375 feet long by 300 broad at the base and 325 by 250 at the summit and 86 feet high. The mound rose in five superimposed, perpendicular terraces, was composed of earth, stones and clay, and was covered with square pieces of stone of equal size, fitted together with cement and coated with lime or gypsum. At the northwest corner the ledges were graded to form a series of 114 steps, each about nine inches high, leading from terrace to terrace, and so arranged that the edifice had to be completely encircled to reach the summit. The steps were of stone, and the platform on the top of the mound was of the same material and polished like the court below. On the sum mit, at the east end of the platform, stood two towers, each with three stories and each fifty-six feet in height. The lower story of each was made of masonry, the two upper of wood, with wooden cupolas, well painted, adorning their roofs. The sanctuaries were in the lower stories, one being dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the other to Tezcatlipoca. The images of these gods stood upon stone altars, three or four feet high, and were covered with rich curtains hung with tassels and pellets of gold, 448 CUMORAH REVISITED Before these altars stood the terrible stone of sacrifice, a green block five feet long by three wide and three high, bulging in the middle so as to make the extraction of the heart easy. The walls and ceilings were painted with monstrous figures and ornamented with stucco and carved woodwork. In 1486, at the dedication of this temple, 72,344 captives were sacrificed, and ever after wards, up to the overthrow of the Aztec people, its altars were hardly ever dry from the blood of man. 1 The temples of the Mayas, at the time of the Con quest, resembled those of Mexico, in being built upon high eminences which were made of, or faced with, stone. In speaking of the Spaniards, Bancroft says : "They found the immense stone pyramids and buildings of most of the cities still used by the natives for religious services, although not for dwellings, as they had prob ably never been so used even by their builders." Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 281. This was true of the religious structures of Uxmal, Tuloom, Chichen Itza and Peten, which are comparatively modern cities. The reader has now set before him the chief features of the religious architecture of historic tribes, and is prepared to discern the similarity between it and the religious architecture of the ancient inhabitants. Everything goes to prove that the "veritable Mound Builders," like the Natchez, built their temples of perish able materials upon artificial eminences. The so-called temple mounds are found scattered throughout the Mis sissippi and Ohio Valleys. Chief among them are those at Marietta, Ohio ; Cahokia, Illinois, and Seltzertown, Mis sissippi. As these mounds are identical in size and shape with those found in process of erection, or used, by his- 1 Bancroft, II: 577. CUMORAH REVISITED 449 toric tribes when the Spanish and French settlers first came into the country, we can not escape the conclusion that the Mound Builders, like the Natchez and other his toric tribes, employed them as bases for their temples of the sun. And this is the opinion of our archaeologists. Says Foster: '"The Mound-builders worshiped the elements the sun, the moon, and particularly fire. They erected their fire-altars for sacrifice on the highest summits." Prehistoric Races, p. 182. Says MacLean: "It is not improbable that the Mound Builders erected their great temple mounds to the worship of the sun, moon and stars." The Mound Builders, p. 126. And Peet declares that "some of the mound relics evidently present the tokens of a combined animal and sun worship, and some even of combined sun worship and idol worship." Myths and Symbols, p. 126. Chief among the ancient temples of Mexico are those of Cholula and Teotihuacan. At both of these places the ruins have an antiquity reaching back beyond the begin ning of the Aztec period. But the temples of both were built upon the general plan of the temples of the historic tribes, and, further, it is known that they were not built for the worship of Jehovah, but of heathen divinities. The great temple mound at Cholula is said to be 7,740 feet square at the base, formerly rising to the height of two hundred feet, with a platform two hundred feet square on the summit. It was originally terraced like the pyramid of Mexico, but, instead of its sides being faced with stone, they were faced with sun-dried bricks. It was also built facing the four cardinal points. While it certainly dates back to the earliest period of Toltec history, and perhaps further, it was still used at the time of the Conquest and was the scene of a fierce conflict between the natives and the Conquistadores. Tradition 450 CUMORAH REVISITED says that it was erected in honor of the Nahua god of the air, Quetzalcoatl, and there seems to be no just reason for denying this explanation of its origin. At Teotihuacan we find two immense pyramids and the Camino de los Muertos, "Pathway of the Dead." The larger of these pyramids is known to have been "built for the worship of the sun. It is about 2,800 feet in circum ference at the base and 180 feet high, the level summit being about one hundred feet square. It was divided into four stories by three terraces, each between twenty and thirty feet wide. The remains of a zigzag stairway are still visible on the east side, though it is supposed that the real stairway was on the west side. The other temple, that of the moon, is about two thousand feet in circumference at the base and is of proportional height. It is wholly impossible that the temples of Cholula and Teotihuacan were built for Jewish or Christian worship, for they were not constructed "after the manner of the Jews," while their similarity to modern structures, with the traditions of their origin, prove that they were erected for the worship of heathen gods. In Central America the most ancient ruins, probably, are those of Palenque, Copan and Quirigua. At Pa- lenque the best-preserved ruins are those of the "Pal ace," and of the temples of the "Three Tablets," of the "Bas-reliefs," of the "Cross" and of the "Sun." All of these structures, like those of Yucatan, were built upon the summits of truncated pyramids which were origi nally faced with stone. This feature, with the similarity of the hieroglyphics to those of Yucatan, proves that the builders of Palenque were the ancestors of the Mayas. The structures of this city are lavishly decorated with bas-reliefs and sculpture work, yet it hardly needs to be said that none of the figures represent religious CUMORAH REVISITED 451 scenes familiar to Jews and Christians. They are all of heathen character and show that the religion of the ancient differed but little, if any, from the religion of the modern inhabitants. At both Copan and Quirigua we meet with pyramids and hieroglyphics similar to those of Palenque and Yucatan. The fact that both the ancient and modern inhabit ants of North America employed truncated, terraced and stone- faced pyramids as bases for their temples strongly implies that if their religions were not identical, they were certainly similar. 3. We infer the heathen character of the ancient American religions from the presence of idols in the most ancient remains. On the idols from the mounds, Rev. S. D. Peet writes as follows : "The idols found in the mounds are very significant. These images remind us of those sometimes seen on the facades of the palaces in Central America. They also remind us of the worship of the god of war, of rain, of death, and the god of light, which prevailed in Mexico. These idols became scattered, some being found in Ohio and various parts of the Mississippi Val ley; but the images found in the so-called Mead houses' of the southern tribes indicate that their religious system was different from that of the Ohio tribes. The idols of the stone-grave people are of various sizes, from large stone images, two feet or more in height, to small clay figures not over three inches in length. They were made of sandstone, limestone, fluor spar and stalactite, as well as of clay. Some have been discovered in caves, others on the summits of high mounds, a few in the depths of the mounds; but a large majority have been picked up from the surface. One of these is represented in the cut. It was found in a cave in Knox County, Tennessee. 452 CUMORAH REVISITED It may have been fashioned from a large stalactite. It is twenty inches in length and weighs thirty-seven pounds. It shows a prominent nose, heavy eyebrows, full cheeks, broad square chin and retreating forehead; all of which are features of the Muscogees or Southern Indians. The mouth is formed by a projecting ring; a groove runs across the face, between the nose and mouth; in this respect it resembles the sculptured figures found in Mex ico and Central America. Another idol in a sitting posi tion was found in Perry County, Tennessee. Gen. G. P. Thruston, the best authority on the antiquities of Ten nessee, has described several stone idols and terra-cotta images found in the stone-grave settlements at Nash ville. These show flattened forehead and vertical occi put, characteristic of the crania of the stone-grave race. He says the features of the face were of a heavy Ethi opian cast, similar to those of the dark image in the pottery idols shown in the plate. Traces of garments are sometimes found on images of clay. The hands of the clay figures were frequently found in the same position. Mr. Caleb Atwater mentions two idols, found in a tumulus near Nashville, Tennessee ; another, near Natchez, Mis sissippi. Thomas Jefferson mentions two Indian busts, found on the Cumberland River. Du Pratz says the Natchez had a temple filled with idols, images of men and women of stone and baked clay. According to the 'Brevis Narratio/ the Indians venerated, as an idol, the column which Ribault had erected, to which they offered the finest fruits, perfumed oils, bows and arrows, and decorated it with wreaths of flowers." The Mound Builders, pp. 336-339. These idols are sufficient to prove that the Mound Builders were neither Jews nor Christians, but idolaters. The idols of Mexico and Central America are like- CUMORAH REVISITED 453 wise found among the most ancient ruins, indicating that the builders of the ancient cities were idolaters. At Panuco, Mexico, Vecelli found thirty small archaeologi cal specimens, among them rudely shaped figures of females, cut mostly from limestone, with peculiar head dresses. At Tusapan, in the same country, fragments of stone images, made to represent human and animal forms, were discovered. At Mitla, in the State of Oajaca, a stone idol was found which represents a human figure seated and cross-armed, with a peculiar, tube- shaped ornament running horizontally along the side of the face. And in the States of Oajaca, Zachila and Cuilapa certain terra-cotta images were taken from the graves. As the historic tribes of these localities wor shiped similar images, it seems conclusive that the an cient inhabitants were idolaters. Copan is acknowledged by nearly all archaeologists to be one of the most ancient of the cities of America, which the Mormons also maintain by giving it a possible identification with the Jaredite capital, Moron. Yet its builders were idolaters, as is shown by the presence of at least fourteen immense stone idols among its ruins. Of eight whose dimensions are given, the smallest is nearly twelve feet high by three and a half wide and thick. In each a human face, generally with calm and pleasing countenance, adorns the center in front, having in some cases a beard and a mustache. The hands, in nearly every instance, rest back to back upon the breast, while above and around the head is "a complicated mass of the most elaborate ornamentation, which utterly defies verbal description." These idols bear every evidence of being as old as the other monuments, and the presence of altars directly in front of them proves beyond doubt that they were the objects of worship. 454 CUMORAH REVISITED At Quirigua, three or four hundred yards from the principal pyramid, a group of sculptured idols were found resembling somewhat closely those at Copan. The largest of the group is twenty-six feet high, and the smallest nine feet. On these idols Bancroft says: "The idols scattered over the surface of the ground, instead of being located on the pyramids, may indicate here, as at Copan, that the elevations served as seats for spectators during the religious ceremonies, rather than as temples or altars on which sacrifice was made." Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 114. But this form of stone images was not confined to Copan and Quirigua alone, but has also been observed in other localities into which the Maya tribes spread. In 1852 Colonel Mendez accidentally discovered near Lake Peten, on the southern borders of Yucatan, two ruins which consisted of traces of stone walls and monoliths sculptured in high relief and decorated with figures re sembling those on the monoliths of Copan and Quirigua. In the same locality he found "a collection of sculptured blocks upon a round disk, on which are carved hiero glyphics and figures of the sun and moon with a pros trate human form before them." Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 138. This goes to prove that the ancient inhab itants of this locality were sun and moon worshipers. At Lorillard City Charnay found a stone image of enormous size, with its head adorned with a head-dress spread out in the form of a fan. Idols from the cities of Yucatan are rare, yet some have been found. The probabilities are that such as escaped the hands of the fanatical Spanish priests were buried by the natives to prevent their desecration. Ban croft says: "The scarcity of idols among the Maya antiquities must be regarded as extraordinary. The CUMORAH REVISITED 455 double-headed animal and the statue of the old woman at Uxmal ; the nude figure carved on a long, flat stone, and the small statue in two pieces at Nohpat ; the idol at Zayi, reported as in use for a fountain ; the rude, un- sculptured monoliths of Sijoh ; the scattered and vaguely mentioned idols on the plains of Mayapan, and the fig ures in terra cotta collected by Norman at Campeche, complete the list; and many of these may have been originally merely decorations for buildings. That the inhabitants of Yucatan were idolaters there is no pos sible doubt, and in connection with the magnificent shrines and temples erected by them, stone representa tives of their deities carved with all their aboriginal art and rivaling or excelling the grand obelisks of Copan, might naturally be sought for. But in view of the facts, it must be concluded that the Maya idols were small, and that such as escaped the fanatic iconoclasm of the Span ish ecclesiastics were buried by the natives, as the only means of preventing their desecration." Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 277. The idols from Peru are also few in number, most of them being small. The larger part, probably, being made of gold and silver, went to the melting-pots of the Spanish invaders. At Pachacamac, however, the Span iards found a temple, well painted and decorated, in a small recess of which there stood a wooden idol of the Creator, at the feet of which they found numerous gold and silver ornaments, the gifts of the devotees. At Tia- huanaco, Cieca de Leon, who accompanied Pizarro, found two stone idols in human form, apparently made by skillful artificers. One of these, which was carried to La Paz in 1842, is said to have measured three and a half yards in length, and to have been clothed in long vestments different from those worn by the Incas at the 456 CUMORAH REVISITED time of the Conquest. In 1846 several others were dug ao in the same vicinity, with some very large blocks of cut stone, which were used for millstones. The presence of idols in the antiquities of both North and South America, with the utter absence of both Jew ish and Christian remains, indicates very plainly that the ancient inhabitants were idolaters. 4. The presence of altars among the antiquities of America, which bear marks of having been used for the offering of human sacrifices, is another strong proof of the heathen character of the ancient religions. In the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys archaeologists have found a class of mounds which they have called "altar mounds." The peculiar feature about them, and that which gives them their name, is an altar of clay or stone found in the center and resting upon the original surface. Upon these altars are sometimes found charred human bones, from which it has been inferred that they were employed as the places where human sacrifices were offered to heathen divinities. Still others hold that they were used, as they certainly have been in historic times, for the burning of prisoners at the stake, which cruel practice was semi-religious in character. In either case their builders were heathenish and Idolatrous. At Copan, directly in front of the statues or idols previously described, stand blocks of stone which were used for altars. These stones are six or seven feet square and four feet high and take a variety of forms. Their sides are also ornamented with sculpture work and hieroglyphics. One of these altars is made to represent the back of a tortoise; another is carved to represent the head of death. On the upper surface of each there are a number of grooves which, says Bancroft, "are strongly suggestive of flowing blood and slaughtered victims." CUMORAH REVISITED 457 At Quirigua similar altars have been {_nd, however not in front of the idols, but buried at some distance from them in moss and earth. They are most all of oval form, with hieroglyphics covering their sides, while one of them is supported upon two colossal heads and is inclosed, with one of the idols, by a wall with steps. At Palenque, in the Temple of the Cross, and directly in front of the tablet of the cross, is an altar. While at Orizava, in Vera Cruz, has been found a sacrificial yoke, made of green jasper, identical in shape with the sacri ficial yokes of the Aztecs. These yokes were put around the neck of the victim to hold the head while the heart was being extracted. Tradition declares that human sacrificing dates from a remote antiquity and that it was practiced, with an intermission or two, by the tribes of both the Mayan and Nahuan stocks down to the time of the Conquest. Of the human sacrifices among the Mayas Nadaillac says : "These sacrifices, which dated from a very remote antiq uity, lasted until the Spanish Conquest." Prehistoric America, p. 268. Among the Nahua tribes they dated from pre-Toltec times, but afterwards, under the regime of Quetzalcoatl, were done away with, and the practice was not resumed until a few centuries before the Dis covery. Says Bancroft: "Most prominent among his peculiar reforms, and the one that is reported to have con tributed most to his downfall, was his unvarying opposi tion to human sacrifice. This sacrifice had prevailed from pre-Toltec times at Teotihuacan, and had been adopted more or less extensively in Culhuacan and Tol- lan." Native Races, Vol. V., p. 261. 5. The identification of certain etchings, paintings and carvings of the old races, as representations or symbols of divinities worshiped &v historic tribes, is 458 CUMORAH REVISITED another proof of the heathen character of the ancient religions. Carvings, images and places of worship of such divinities as Quetzalcoatl, or Kukulkan, Tlaloc and Itzamna, have been discovered in the ruins of Uxmal, Chichen Itza and Palenque. On this point we have the following from Rev. S. D. Peet: "M. Charnay has described the pyramid called El Castillo, in Chichen Itza, and thinks that the building on it was a shrine to Cuculkan or Quetzalcoatl, for this is the pyramid which has the serpents for balustrades, and the feathered serpent is the symbol of this 'Culture Hero.' He has ascribed the shrine which contains cross No. 2, at. Palenque, to Tlaloc, for he recognizes the eye of Tlaloc in one of the figures on the facades and thinks the palm leaves and masks were also emblems. The shrines at Uxmal and Lorillard, especially the one with heavy cornice and massive pillars, he also ascribes to Cukulkan, as he recognizes the feather-headed serpent in the pillars. The stone lintel at Lorillard, which con tains a seated figure, he ascribes to the same divinity. The statue represented as lying upon the back and hold ing a vase in the hands, which was found by M. Le Plongeon at Chichen Itza, he ascribes to Tlaloc, inas much as there are carved on the stone a sheet of water, aquatic plants and fish, all of which are the emblems of Tlaloc. Others, however, think it represents the Maya Bacchus, or god of wine. The doorpost on the Castillo at Chichen Itza, which has sculptured figures -vith head dress, girdle, sash, sandal, wand and a bearded face, with the vine expressing speech extending from the mouth, Charnay thinks represents Quetzalcoatl, on ac count of the beard. Another figure on the capital above the pillars has a turban with a feather head-dress and CUMORAH REVISITED 459 stands with upraised arms supporting the entablature. He wears large bracelets, a collar of precious stones, a shield, a richly embroidered mantle, and has a long, flow ing beard and the same symbols of speech in front of him. This figure, Charnay thinks, also represents Quet- zalcoatl. There is a figure or a statue standing on a pyramid with a peculiar head-dress, a garment or flowing robe with crosses upon it, but which has no beard. This statue, Dr. Hamy thinks, represents Quetzalcoatl, for he recognizes the symbols of that hero, the cross and the robe. The tablet of the cross, No. 2, at Palenque, Dr. Brinton thinks, represents Quetzalcoatl, as it contains the bird on the summit of the cross, and represents two figures as offering sacrifice to the bird. With as much reason we may identify the shrine or temple with the three tablets, as the shrine of the goddess Centeotl, the wife of Tlaloc, for there are three figures en the piers of this temple which represent a female with a child in the arms, which is the emblem of this goddess among the Nahuas." Myths and Symbols, pp. 405, 406. Itzamna, the god of the rising sun among the Mayas at the time of the Conquest, was also worshiped by the ancient inhabitants of Chiapas and Yucatan, if we can rely upon the testimony of the monuments. He was symbolized by a tapir and a human hand, and tapir snouts and human hands are found both in the Codices and upon the monuments. In the Troano and Dresden Codices Itzamna appears with a snout, and with a tusk protruding from each side of his mouth. At Uxmal he is represented by the so-called "elephant trunks," which have been made the basis of so many conjectures as to the Asiatic origin of the builders. At Kabah he appears again in an inscription holding a serpent in his hand. And at Palenque he is represented on various masks and 460 CUMORAH REVISITED statues by the characteristic tapir snout, and on certain slate tablets from the same region by the sacred tapir and the human hand. These symbols prove beyond doubt that in ancient as well as in modern times Itzamna was worshiped as a god by the Maya people. In the sixteenth century many of the tribes of Amer ica worshiped the human organs of generation. The early missionaries found phallic worship in Yucatan, Nicaragua, Honduras, Tlascala, Mexico, Panuco and Peru. But the sculptured phalli from all these sections prove conclusively that it was also practiced by the ancient peoples. The evidences of this are co clear that Stephens says: "The ornaments upon the external cor nice of several large buildings" in Yucatan "actually consisted of membra conjuncta in coitu, too plainly sculptured to be misunderstood. And, if this were not sufficient testimony, more was found in the isolated and scattered representations of the membrum verile, so ac curate that even the Indians recognized the object, and invited the attention of Mr. Catherwood to the originals of some of his drawings as yet unpublished." Native Races, Vol. III., p. 504. Phalli have also been discovered among the antiquities of the Mound Builders, the Peru vians and at Copan, though not at Palenque, where, says Bancroft, "there is not among the many tablets or deco rations in stucco a single figure which would be offen sive to the most prudish modesty." Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 358. The evidences of ancient sun-worship are also to be found among the antiquities. "Sun-worship," says Fos ter, "practiced by the ancient inhabitants of Central America, Mexico, by the Natchez Indians, and undoubt edly by the Mound Builders, can be traced back to the remotest antiquity." Prehistoric Races, p. 311. Sun CUMORAH REVISITED 461 symbols have been found in Peru, at Copan, at Teoti- huacan and in the Mississippi Valley. 6. The effigy mounds of North America strongly indi cate that the Mound Builders zvere animal worshipers. It has already been stated that the North American Indian tribes worshiped beasts, birds and reptiles of various kinds, such as the dog, coyote, eagle, owl and rattlesnake. The effigy mounds prove that the Mound Builders did the same. The effigies are found chiefly in Wisconsin and adjoining territory, though a few are found in Ohio and Georgia. They are in the shape of men, lizards, serpents, bears, birds, turtles and spiders. In Ohio the two most important are the Great Serpent and the Alligator mound; in Wisconsin, the Great Ele phant. Rev. S. D. Peet says of their evident purpose: "The effigies may have been used as totems by the people, and thus show to us the animal divinities which were worshiped and the animal names given to the clans." The Mound Builders, p. 24. In closing this chapter, it may be said that the sacred antiquities of the New World prove conclusively that the ancient Americans were animal, idol, sun and phallic worshipers, and that they offered human sacrifices. If they were Jews and Christians, why can not the evi dences of it be found? |
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