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Temple of the Sun, at Cuzco, and the same object was worshipped in Yucatan, and the adjacent countries.

Marine shells have been exhumed from the mounds, were sacred in Mexico, and have been discovered in the huacas. Cloths of a manufacture similar to those fabricated at the south,. were wrapped around the mummies of the Kentucky caves: articles of gold and silver, and beads and necklaces appear in the mounds; and the use of the precious metals, and of beads and necklaces was common to the southern nations. The Peccari, the bones of which have been found in one of the Kentucky caves, is the Mexican hog, an animal not indigenous in the north. Some of the northern nations venerated the owl; the Evil Spirit, or malign God of the Mexicans was called "Tlacatecolotl," or rational owl; and the sculptured owl discovered in one of the Ohio tumuli, appears to have been suspended from the roof of some building, like many of the Mexican sacred sculptures. The Cyclopean arch of inverted steps, was probably used in Peru, is perceived in the Mexican and Toltec edifices, and in the stone buildings in Missouri. Covered ways, leading from the ancient towns and cities to adjacent streams, are observable in Mexico and the United States; the Mexicans and the Mound-builders wore buskins, conical caps, and head-dresses somewhat similar; and in fine, all three of these groups of nations employed mirrors in their religious ceremonies, constructed brick and earthenware, wrought in some of the metals and in stone, built roads, and conduits for water, and attained considerable perfection in agriculture. It thus appears, from this brief comparison, that America presents three points of ancient civilization, between which, so far as may be gathered from monuments and relics, some striking analogies are developed.

CHAPTER II.

ANCIENT CIVILIZATION-ABORIGINAL MIGRATIONS.

I. Decline of ancient civilization. If the examination of the architectural monuments, and other remains of these three families of civilized nations, appears in a measure, to identify their origin, or at least to justify the inference, that they were constructed by members of the same primitive branch of the human race, separated after their arrival on this continent; whither are we to look for the origin of the other, and less civilized class of American aborigines? Whence came the tribes of barbarous Indians? It may, possibly, be considered somewhat extraordinary, and unphilosophical, to search for any traces of their derivation from an ancient and civilized race, among the arts, customs, and traditions of rude and ignorant savages. But although many of the Indian tribes, as well at the period of the discovery as at present, might be estimated as rude, and some of them nearly at the lowest grade of humanity, there exists reason for asserting of them, in common with other families of men, a descent from a more enlightened ancestry. It is indeed a grave question whether any portions of our race, however abased, have not retrograded from a more advanced stage of knowledge and intelligence. Many refined theorists upon the rights, laws, and institutions of mankind, have been wont to picture an original condition of social infancy, whence in slow gradation all the arts and sciences have emerged. Unquestionably, vast regions

of the earth are now occupied by tribes in this state of barbarism, but is it certain that such was their original condition; or cannot we, rather, by some feeble glimmerings of light amid their dark and unseemly institutions, perceive the wreck and fragments of a higher degree of knowledge, the remains of a more beautiful and lofty order of things?

Historically, no such period of common and universal degradation has ever existed, if we place any reliance upon ancient authorities, or upon that most venerable of all records, the Bible. We find no foundation for such an opinion, amid the relics which have been transmitted to us, both from sacred and profane sources, of the human condition before the deluge. Man, as we are told in the Genesis, was formed in the express image of his Maker,—and what more vigorous and comprehensive language could have been chosen, to indicate that his moral and intellectual faculties were of the highest and noblest order and capacity? The primitive members of the human family, also, were probably not enervated in their mental and physical power, to such an extent as in subsequent ages, by the effect upon the human constitution of great moral turpitude and sensual excess, which appear to have the power of impairing the original perfection of our nature, by a gradual and hereditary increment. It has been suggested, likewise, that the duration of antediluvian life was favorable to more thorough, complete, and rapid attainments in knowledge, from the opportunity afforded for prolonged individual observation, experience and reflection.* The learning of a short life just developed into im

* The remark of Josephus on this point, is, at the least, curious. "Wherefore," he says, "on account of their virtue, as well as for the perfection of the arts of astronomy and geometry, which they invent

portant principles and results, was not suddenly cut short and buried in the grave, to attain an imperfect resurrection with the youth of a new generation, after toil and study; but ages rolled on, during the sure and steady course of uninterrupted individual observation, and in the life of a single person sciences might spring from the germ, into full and ample expansion. In any event it is certain, that the nearer we approach the creation, the more are evidences exhibited of great spiritual and intellectual attainments,-of revelations from heaven,-communions with the Creator,-an understanding of great moral truths, and an extensive knowledge in physical science. By the dim and misty light, with which we see darkly this distant period, enough is still perceptible, to infer that the human mind, instead of being debased, held an exalted condition, from which it subsequently fell. The origin of the art of writing lies beyond the reach of authentic profane history, and language appears to have been thus represented, before the picture-writing and hieroglyphic systems were in use. Yet there are several traditions, which ascribe to it an origin before the flood. Eustathius says that the Pelasgians were called divine, because they alone, of all the Greeks, possessed the use of letters after the deluge.* The accuracy of the genealogies of the Genesis favors the same idea; the art of writing is mentioned in the book of Job,† one of the most ancient of works, and at least it may be permitted

ed, God permitted them (the Patriarchs) a longer life, inasmuch as they would have been incapable of predicting any thing with certainty, unless they lived six hundred years, for such is the period of the completion of the great year."—Josephus. Antiq., lib. i. c. 3.

* Com. Iliad, p. 841.

† Job 13: 26; 19: 23, 31.

to say, that "it might be improper to assert that letters were unknown before the deluge."*

But let us examine in other respects. Of Adam's two sons, one was a tiller of the earth, and the other a shepherd ;—as we proceed from the creation towards the era of the flood, we learn that social institutions existed, that the useful arts were practised, and that music and astronomy were cultivated. There were artificers in brass and iron,-the ark was constructed,the year was divided into months, and there are good reasons for supposing, was calculated at its real duration. Sir William Drummond has endeavored to show that the zodiac was actually divided ;† Noah was acquainted with the division of animals into clean and unclean, and consequently, to a certain extent, with natural history. The author just cited proves that the Babylonians considered their country to have been rich and flourishing before the deluge ;§ and Job attributes his knowledge to the former age. Immediately after that event, we find additional tokens of civilization. The division of the heavens into constellations is clearly pointed out in the book of Job, and probably the representation of these by the figures of animals. Shortly after the deluge, we read of "bows of steel and molten mirrors;" as appears from the account of Babel,

*Josephus, 1, 2. Amm. Marcell. lib. 22. Astle's Origin and Progress of Writing, p. 46. Wall on Egn. Hieroglyphics. Davies' Celtic Researches, pp. 34, 40.

† Origines, vol. ii. p. 121.

Mr. Davies has ably examined some of these proofs of antediluvian civilization, in his "Celtic Researches."

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