Mexico were liable. But, if they were barbarous to their prisoners, they were also cruel to themselves.

It is true that the priests of Mexico did not exceed many other pagan priests in their voluntary inflictions-those of Japan, for example, who tore their flesh from their legs and arms with their own teeth, and surpassing the most ferocious animals, their bloody superstition has placed them beyond all comparison to any thing known within the compass of human observation. Nor can we without injustice to the Mexicans conceal the fact, that those unblushing obscenities, and childish puerilities, ascribed to the objects of their worship by the Greeks, Romans, and other ancient nations, were never to so great an extent attributed by the Mexicans to the gods they adored. The perfections of their deities were of an awfully stern and bloody character. Their supreme god they enrobed with higher attributes than paganism had ascribed to the Jupiter of the old world. Him they represented by no external form, as they believed him to be invisible, and invested with perfections too exalted to be symbolized by any objects of sense. They expressed the eminence of his perfections by the strongest terms of their most expressive language. "In him, (said they,) all that live have being; he is the circumference of all things, and the fountain of every perfection." They called him Teoll; a name which several able writers have derived from Theos, the Greek name of the Supreme Being; and doubtless the names are less similar in their sound than in the ideas they convey. But those just and sublime views entertained by the Mexicans of their supreme deity were totally lost in the devotions they rendered to the unnumbered gods which their superstition had created. Of these, there were thirteen whom they deemed very great; and the numberless multitude of the others were adorable, though of far less dignity. Their divinities not only shone in the sun and moon, and glowed in every star of heaven, but they peopled the mountains and valleys, the hamlets and cities, the rivers and lakes, and the fields and groves. Like the idolators of the old continent, they worshiped beings of both sexes, but they never ascribed to them those unheard-of atrocities which Greece and Rome imputed to their highest divinities. Some of the tribes of Mexico believed that the dreary receptacle of departed offenders was located in the centre of the globe that there, in an abode of untold torments, the wicked would agonize with the corrupt companions of their mortal pilgrimage. But the Otomies and a few other barbarous clans held death to be the annihilation of all who sunk under its dominion; while the Mexicans attributed immortality to both men and beasts, believing that the brutal, no less than the human spirit, soared above the stroke of dissolution, and in some mode survived for ever.

Those who fell in the field of battle, or in a state of captivity, or in giving birth to a child, towered above all earthly scenes, and were borne to the house of the sun. Here, with this prince of glory, they passed a long period of exquisite delight. They hailed every day with rejoicing at the first appearance of the sun's rays, and accompanied him, with the most thrilling music of harps and voices, to his meridian point; and there meeting with the blissful souls of departed women, they attended him together, with festivity, amid the ravishments of the sweetest song, to his place of setting.

VOL. X.-April, 1839.

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But by others of these nations the absurd system of Pythagorean transmigration was embraced. This dream of philosophy, which was so ancient in its origin, and so extensive in its prevalence, found its way into the new world many centuries before the immortal Columbus stepped on its shores. According to this system, the brutes of the field, and the birds of the air, are animated by human souls. Those individuals of elevated station, and illustrious virtue, entered at death the most noble quadrupeds that excel among domestic animals, or range over the boundless plains. Others of this class were allowed, at their demise, to change into the most sprightly birds-those adorned in the most dazzling plumage, and warbling the sweetest songs. But to the multitude which descended to death from the common walks of life humbler allotments were assigned. The souls of such inhabited the lower classes of brute beings-the croaking frog or crawling reptile was the form in which many of them appeared. Those citizens who died of a certain class of diseases or accidents ascended, with the souls of infants, to the god, to whom those innocents had been sacrificed, to enjoy with that deity all the pleasure peculiar to a god of his rank, especially the most delicious repasts, with all the enchantments of celestial music. The Mistecas persuaded themselves, that a vast cavern, located in their province, was the entrance into that paradise to which men of high birth were admitted. Near the mouth, therefore, of this famous cavern their nobles were usually interred, that their journey might be shorter, and their access more ready to the sacred regions of subterranean bliss.

But the religion of these superstitious millions did not consist in a harmless system of these golden dreams; its integral parts were composed of many black and bloody realities. It required a number of priests so enormous as to impose an alarming burden on the state. Those of Mexico amounted to at least one million. Thus every two families, on an average, throughout the nation was computed to sup. port one of these instruments of superstition. This expense was exclusive of that vast sum required to build the thousands of their temples, to feed the perpetual fires with which their sacred ovens glowed, and to supply their altars with those unnumbered offerings which were heaped upon them.

This system of superstition inflicted cruelties on its votaries at the very contemplation of which Christian sympathies stand aghast. Among these their public fasts may be reckoned. Some of these continued three, four, and five days; others twenty, eighty, and one hundred and sixty days, respectively; and one of their most distinguished fasts-which was only observed by some of the priests-was protracted through four years: but this could never be repeated a second term; for, if the constitutions of those who endured the agony of this abstemiousness were such that they survived four years, they became so entirely prostrated as to be incapable of future hardship. In all other fasts one meal was taken each twenty-four hours, but no wine or animal food could be allowed. But during this fast only enough of the most simple food was taken to prevent death by starvation.

Several fasts were preparatory to great festive occasions, and during that, especially, of one hundred and sixty days, they inflicted on

themselves the most shocking sufferings. They shed their blood as if it had been a redundant fluid, and tore their own flesh as exasperated savages would mangle the victims of their fury. Many of them pierced through their ears, lips, tongues, and the muscles of their legs and arms, daily, with the sharpest thorns of aloes. Through the holes thus cruelly made, they introduced pieces of cane prepared for the purpose. These were sixty in number: the first was the smallest ; the other fifty-nine were so prepared as that their size gradually increased with their number, and thus each one successively inserted in the incision enlarged the wound, and rendered the pain increasingly excruciating. They also had rough rods prepared to draw through the holes made in their tongues. This operation was performed during several months, at stated intervals of a few days; and though these voluntary sufferers became exceedingly weak by this penitential process, and endured the most indescribable torments during the passage of these rods through their inflamed tongues, they were compelled, during the whole operation, with a loud voice, to sing praises to their gods. All these bloody instruments of torture were deposited as sacred memorials of the sufferer's penitence. So bloody were these men in their penance, that a lake in which they bathed, near the great temple, was perpetually tinged with their gore. And so monstrous were their ideas of what would be grateful to their divinities, that, prior to their offering a sacrifice to them, on a mountain, or in a cavern, they daubed themselves with a horrible ointment, composed of the ashes of poisonous insects, and the mashed bodies of living ones, combined with noxious herbs. After this odious composition was prepared, and had been offered to the gods, the priests covered themselves with it, and then were considered proof against harm of every description. The great temple was the exclusive residence of the high priest. All his ceremonious duties must be performed with the most scrupulous exactitude: any failure was fatal. In such an event, he was torn in pieces, and, as a matter of warning, his bloody limbs were exhibited to his successor.

But the most heart-chilling feature in this gloomy system was the fearful destruction it made of human life. Of the twenty thousand human victims it annually demanded, a large majority were prisoners of war; others were purchased for that dreadful purpose. The manner in which these horrid rites were performed varied in some parts of the ceremony at different occasions. Usually six priests were employed in each offering. The victim was placed with his back on the altar, one priest was placed at each hand and foot, another at the head, with a wooden instrument, in the form of a coiled serpent fixed about the neck, that the least degree of motion might be prevented. The form of the altar being convex, raised the body of the victim in an arched position; while his breast was thus raised, and kept motionless as the stone on which he was stretched, the bloody priest approached, and with a knife of flint opened the breast, tore out the heart, and while it was yet palpitating, offered it to the sun; then, after casting it at the feet of the idol, he offered it in due form to that divinity, and finally burning it, he preserved the ashes with the most sacred veneration. But, when the idol was sufficiently large and hollow, the heart of the victim was introduced by a golden spoon into the mouth of the

god, and his lips were anointed by the blood of the sacrifice. No sooner was the heart of the victim torn from his breast, than his head was taken off, and the bloody corpse cast to the ground from the loft in which the altar was placed. Then those who claimed a right to the remains cooked the body, and, with their friends, feasted on that human flesh which had been offered to their gods. But when the Otomies tore the sacrificed victim to pieces they hung it up about the market for sale.

The Zapotecas sacrificed men to their great gods, women to their goddesses, and children to their inferior deities. The mode of their doing this varied as the different occasions demanded on which the sacrifices were offered. The women, who represented certain god. desses, were beheaded, standing on the shoulders of other women.

At the great festival of the arrival of their gods, the victim was put to death by fire. To the great god Ilatoe they sacrificed two children ́ of each sex, by cruelly drowning them; and to the honor of the same idol, several boys, at the age of seven, were devoted at another festival. These were purchased for the purpose of sacrificing. They did not, however, die at a stroke by the butcher's hand, but were confined in dismal caverns, which rung with their shrieks, till wasted by hunger and overwhelmed by fear they sunk unpitied into a most agonizing death.

But the most distinguished of all the human sacrifices offered by the Mexicans was that which was entitled the Gladiatorian. This was performed near the great temple in each of the larger cities, near which a large space was reserved for that purpose. In the centre of this area there was elevated a polished stone, several feet in diameter, eight feet above the common level; the prisoner, standing on this stone, was chained to it by one foot; a shield and sword were then put into his hands: he was to contend with an antagonist perfectly unconfined, and much better armed than himself. If the prisoner succeeded in vanquishing six in succession, he then received his liberty, and recovered whatever he had lost. But, if he failed to do this, the moment he was conquered the priests dragged him away to the great altar; and, whether they found him dead or alive, they tore his heart from his breast, and, as on other occasions, with great cere. mony, offered it to their god. This chance, however, of avoiding so dreadful a death was deemed a special privilege granted only to the bravest of the prisoners. The citizen who vanquished the intended sacrifice was cheered by the loud applause of the assembled thousands, which roared like thunder from the mighty throng: he was rewarded by the king himself with distinguished honor.

But of all the Satanic rites connected with this horribly bloody system none was more appalling than that which commenced the festival of each four years. On this occasion two slaves were sacrificed; from each of these the skin was taken entire, and their thigh bones were perfectly stripped of their covering. The next day two of the most eminent priests wrapped themselves in these bloody skins, and armed themselves with the thigh bones of these victims, and with dismal howling descended the stairs of the temple, raving like demoniacs. The vast crowd below caught the phrensy, and with the most deafening shouts exclaimed, Yonder come our gods!

At the close of these memorable rites six prisoners were taken by as many priests and fastened to the tops of trees planted for the occasion. Scarcely had the priests descended the trees when their bound victims were transfixed by a thousand arrows; they then reascended, unchained the dying wretches, cast them to the ground, dragged them to the altar, tore out their hearts, and, as in other cases, offered them to their gods. This sacrifice completed the dreadful round of bloody rites observed on this great festival.

Large portions of South America are still the dominions of uncivilized Indians. Though the Spaniards subdued the most closelypopulated parts, and converted all such into Catholics, the remaining tribes are very numerous which have never been subdued by European arms, or converted by Roman missionaries. These still practice all the superstitious rites which they had observed centuries before the discovery of the new world. Whatever therefore was true of the monstrous superstitions of these at the conquest is no less true of them at this moment. The most improved nations of South America worshiped the sun; and, in the remotest periods to which the faint lights of tradition carry us back, many of them offered human sacrifice to that imaginary deity.

Nor is this diabolical practice of pouring out human blood on the altars of superstition yet entirely extinct among these superstitious millions. A horrid example of this is found among the Muyseas, near the Oronoco. This tribe, which was once numerous, brave, and considerably cultivated, is extremely sanguinary in its worship. One of the cruelties to which they were led by their superstition was the sacrifice of a boy, fifteen years of age. This victim was compelled to live from infancy in the chief temple of the nation until he was to be offered: then the priests led him out to a high column, erected for the purpose, on a sacred spot. This was done with great ceremony, in the presence of the assembled tribe; he was then firmly bound to the column and murderously dispatched by the arrows of the warriors. The priest then approached the bleeding victim, tore out his heart, and offered it on the altar of Bochica, in honor of this and other divi. nities which they adored.

If we except a few of the most degraded tribes, we shall find the aborigines of South America to have believed from time immemorial in the immortality of both men and brutes. The ground of their be lief, with regard to the animal tribes, is to be sought in the Pythagorean system of transmigration; that absurd fancy, which teaches that human souls at death enter brutal natures, to feed in the field, roam in the desert, swim in the waters, or soar in the air, was doubtless brought from the eastern continent by the early wanderers of the new world. Though it did not lead them, as it had done millions in the East, to hold sacred the life of the meanest animals, it served to reduce more nearly to a level in their view the brutal and human natures. Hence the horrid practice of eating human flesh, which still obtains among these savage tribes; for, according to this system, the difference between an ox and a man consisted merely in the one being the less noble, and the other, the more noble form of the same being: to eat the ox and the man, therefore, was to eat the same being in