torical proofs, is still further borne out by certain vestiges left in our country. "The traces of Irish origin," says Beamish together with Rafn, "which have been observed among some of the Indian tribes of North and Central America, tend also to strengthen the presumption that these countries had been colonized from Ireland at some remote period of time."1 Such was the costume of the Darien tribe, which Lionel Wafer describes when saying, "They were all in their finest robes, which are long white gowns reaching to their ankles and adorned with fringes at the bottom,”—like those of the Irish Papas.2 The same author further states that their way of reckoning is much like that of the Highlanders of Scotland and of Ireland, who say, instead of thirty-one, thirty-two, etc., one score and eleven, one score and twelve, while the former say eleven and twenty, twelve and twenty; so also the Highlanders reckon, for fifty-three, thirteen and two score, as the Darien Indians two score and thirteen, only reversing the items.

3

Some authors also notice as an indication of Irish origin the presence in Central America of persons whose ethnic character quite distinguished from that of the Spanish, recalls the beautiful white type of the human race, when they place this curious particular in connection with the popular traditions of both the Yucatecs and of the Toltecs, according to which their ancestors arrived from the East across the ocean. The inference is weakened, however, by the possibility, though sheer possibility, of the fair natives having derived their

1 Beamish, Discovery, p. 211; Rafn, Antiquitates, p. 449: "In indigenis America Septentrionalis reperiri quædam Hibernicæ originis vestigia plures docti et experti viri observaverunt."

2 Pp. 37, 142, ap. Beamish, Discovery, p. 215.

3 Ibid., p. 214.

Cf. de Quatrefages, p. 364.

remarkable features from the problematic Welsh colonies, of which we are to speak hereafter.'

At all events, it seems more correct to state that, while the Toltec tradition, as preserved by the Aztecs, relates that their civilizing god Quetzalcoatl and his companions landed on the shores of the Mexican Gulf, several historians consider the Toltec nation as immigrants from northeastern territories, and in particular from the present State of Ohio. Their forefathers were, it would seem, the famous Mound-builders, and these, it is claimed by some writers, originated from Ireland. We have expressed our own modest opinion, but we do not oppose the persuasion of others who think that many migratory Celts, perhaps many colonies of them, had reached the shores of the Western Continent long before the time of St. Brendan," and that among these the voyager saint exercised his saving and civilizing ministry, and placed the Christian religion on a solid and enduring basis; leaving some of his saintly brethren and zealous successors to spread farther still, from province to province, the light of that religion, of which we have found such numerous and evident vestiges in the Mexican empire and all along the shores of the Pacific Ocean.*

Lord Kingsborough supposes," says Short, that the crosses found in Mexico may have been carried there by Irish monks, "especially as Mr. von Humboldt informs us that the first Spanish monks and missionaries gravely discussed the question of whether Quetzalcoatl was an Irishman;" and we venture to conclude that

1

4 Gleeson, vol. ii. p. 343; Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, p. 526; Beamish, Discovery, p. 216.

See supra, vol. i. pp. 77, 78; O'Donoghue, p. 332. 3 Supra, p. 17, seq.

O'Donoghue, p. 330, ref. to Mr. Daly, in The Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1888; Gleeson, Append., part iv.

5 Mex. Antiq., vol. vi. p. 190, ap. Short, p. 464.

there is great probability of the "Papas" of Quetzalcoatl's teocalli being Irish Papas in olden times.

To confirm us in this opinion we have more reasons than the singular coincidence of the honorable name of both Irish and Mexican priests. There is also the coincidence of the epoch in which the Irish missionaries commenced their labors in Hvítramannaland and in which the Toltecs made their appearance on the Mexican plateaux,-to wit, the end of the sixth century; as well as that of the time-namely, the middle. of the eleventh century-in which both the Toltec domination and the settlements of Great Ireland mysteriously disappeared from the scene of history.'

The reader will have no difficulty in establishing several more similarities between the particulars of our information regarding the Irish colonies in America and the vestiges of Christianity and of its apostles in Mexico and in the neighboring countries. And if well-authenticated facts do not afford us the absolute certainty of our holy religion having been established by the saintly monks of Ireland in several portions of our continent, yet we could not logically deny our assent to a fact which, historically probable, is the only possible explanation of other undeniable, historical realities. We have, indeed, presented superabundant proof of Christianity's existence in Central America shortly before the eleventh century; but no nation whatever, save the Irish who at that time had colonies in Mexico's neighborhood, can be thought of as having sent forth the saintly priests who planted and watered it there.

he

O'Donoghue forestalls a plausible objection when "To these ancient Irish missions in America

says,

1 Supra, vol. i. p. 239; Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 96; Gravier, p. 236, ref. to a letter of Aubin, in Mémoires

de la Société des Antiquaires du Nord, 1840-43, pp. 9-12.

2 P. 331, n.

it may be objected that if they had taken place there would remain more distinct traces of them in our early histories. It may be replied that many important events of much later American history continued profound secrets to the outer world for several hundred years. The discovery of Greenland by the Northmen in the tenth century, and their colonizations there and farther south on the American continent for nearly four centuries, consisting not merely of scattered settlements, but of organized societies governed by laws and magistrates, such as ruled in Iceland, were utterly unknown to European scholars and historians until the early years of the present century. Robertson, who wrote and published his History of America towards the end of the last century, knew nothing about them. The fact that events as noteworthy as these in American history remained thus unknown for hundreds of years should have taught, as an able writer on this subject remarks, antiquaries, historians, and philosophers of all classes to be less dogmatic in their assertions regarding the events of primeval history, by proving that intercourse and various relations between distant races and nations may have been established and long continued on points and at periods not dreamed of in their theories."

We have no positive information regarding the end of the Irish colonies in America, but it seems probable that their fortunes were involved in the ruin of the Toltec empire, which, burdened with the vices of rulers and subjects, gave way to the invading power of the Chichimec tribes. These barbarians, not unlike those who ravaged Christian Europe with fire and sword, are represented as having entered upon the Mexican provinces from a northern direction; and it is not improbable that, before they subverted the venerable

temples of Anahuac, they had wended their destructive course through the districts of Hvítramannaland, driven into exile its Christian priesthood, and scattered the better part of the nation among the natives of more southern lands. Ixtlilxochitl, the best authority on the traditions of his country, reports that the Toltecs, migrating from Anahuac on the breaking up of their empire, spread themselves over Guatemala, Tehuantepec, Goatzacoalco, Campeachy, Tecolotlan, and the coasts and neighboring isles of both the North- and the South Seas.1 Neither are there reasons wanted for believing that the Toltecs, or at least some of their clergy, extended their migration or their flight still farther to the South and reached the provinces of Peru. We have noticed before that the primeval civilization of this country had degenerated and fallen to the lowest level of idolatry and brutishness; 2 but we have observed also that afterwards the Peruvians had been elevated to a high degree of mental and material culture, and the first missionaries of the fifteenth century were greatly astonished to find them in possession of several tenets of Christian doctrine and practising a number of Christian rites. This remarkable improvement, or, better, this radical change, had taken place about four hundred years before the coming of the Spaniards, early in the twelfth century, and shortly after the ruin of the Toltec dominion in Anahuac; or even a hundred years earlier, according to Balboa and Velasco, when the spiritual power of Quetzalcoatl's disciples and their spirit of proselytism were at their zenith.

3

A popular tradition of the Peruvians ascribed their

1 Relaciones, MS. No. 5, ap. Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 397 and n. 93.

3

'Supra, vol. i. p. 254.

Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 11, n. 12.