ficed the number of two hundred children of the age defcribed above, which was a cruelle and inhumane fpectacle. The manner of the facrifice was to drowne them and bury them with certaine reprefentations and ceremonies; and fometimes they cut off their heads, anointing themfelves with the blood. They did likewife facrifice virgins; and, if a native were ficke, and the ecclefiaftic tolde him confidently that he fhould die, they did then facrifice his own fonne to the SUNNE, or to VIRACHOCA, defiring them to be fatisfied with him, and spare the life of the father."* In the following page of the fame author we read as follows: Although they of Peru have furpaffed the Mexicans in the slaughter and facrifice of their children, yet they of Mexico have exceeded them, yea and all the nations of the worlde, in the great number of men which they facrificed, and in the horrible manner thereof. The men, thus facrificed, were taken in the warres, neither did they use these folemne facrifices, but of captives in this they followed the custom of the ancients," Acofta might here have added, in particular that of the Scythians, and * Acofta's Hiftorie of the Indies, p. 380, edit quart. Lond. and the Druids, their direct defcendants; as I have little doubt of very fhortly demonftrating. In truth, the ordinary warres they carried on were only made to obtain captives for their facrifices; and, therefore, when they did fight, they laboured to take their enemies alive for the purpose of enjoying their facrifices."* The facrifice was performed upon a raised terrace, which cannot fail of bringing to the reader's recollection the high quadrangular altar of the Scythian favages, and the ceremony itfelf is thus defcribed: "The fovereign prieft carried a great knife in his hand of a large and sharpe flint: another priest carried a collar of wood, wrought in form of a fnake" he might have faid the ferpent, the fymbol of that fun, whofe devoted victims they were. "The other four priefts, who affifted, arranged themselves in order, adjoining to the pyramidal ftone, whereof I have spoken; being directly against the doore of the chapell of their idoll. This stone was so pointed, as that the man who was to be facrificed, being laid thereon upon his back, did bend in fuch fort, as occafioned the ftomach to feparate upon the flightest incifion of the knife. When the facrificers * Acofta's Hift. of the Indies, p. 382. were were thus in order, they brought forth fuch as had been taken in warre, and caufed them to mount up those large ftairs, in rank, to the place were the ministers were prepared. As they respectively approached those minifters, the latter feized them, two of them laying hold of the two feet and two more of the two hands of the unhappy victim, and in this manner caft him on his back upon the pointed ftone, while the fifth fastened round his neck the ferpentine collar of wood. The high priest then opened his ftomach with a knife with wonderful dexterity and nimblenefs, tearing out his heart with his hand, which he elevated fmoking towards the funne, to whom he did offer it, and presently, turning towards the idol, did caft the heart towards it, besmearing his face with the blood. In this manner were all the victims facrificed, and the bodies afterwards precipitated down. the ftairs, reeking with their gore. There were ever forty or fifty victims, at the leaft, thus facrificed." The above paffage I have given unabridged, because in it are enumerated certain particulars, as the wooden ferpent, the pyramidal ftone, and the offering to the Sun the heart of the victim, which exhibit ftill lefs equivocal marks of the fimilarity prevailing ; vailing in the theology of the two continents nor can I, for the fame reason, prevail upon myself to omit his relation of their very remarkable veneration for fountains and rivers, and their frequent ablution in them. "An : ciently there were Indians appointed to perform facrifice to fountains, fprings, and ri vers, whose waters paffe through the towns. To this day, they are honoured with a confiderable share of the ancient respect paid to them but a more especial regard and reverence is paid to the meeting of two rivers; and there they perform ablutions, anointing themfelves first with the flower of mays, adding thereto divers ceremonies, as they do likewife in their bathes."* That portion, however, of the theological system of the Americans, to which I wish to direct the more particular attention of the reader, is contained in the following paffage, where this reverend father, in pious indignation, acquaints us, that "the devil, after his manner, hath brought a Trinity into their idolatry; for, the three images of the Sun, called APOMTI, CHURUNTI, and INTIQUAQQUI, are terms that fignify FATHER and LORD SUN, the SON SUN, and the BROTHER SUN, In like manner they named the Acofta's Hift. of the Indies, p. 379. THREE THREE IMAGES of CHUQUILLA, which is the god that rules in the region of the air." But, according to this writer, they go a step farther than the acknowlegdement of a mere Triad of Deity, and worship a direct Trinity in Unity for," in Cuquifaco there is a certaine oratory, where they worship a great idol, whom they call TANGATANGA, which fignifies ONE IN THREE and THREE IN ONE."* Of these three Triads, the first very much refembles the Triplafios Mithras, or threefold power of God in the Sun, adored by the Perfians; and the second is parallel to the Jupiter Pater, Jupiter Soter, and Jupiter Ultor, of the Greeks; or, if the reader chooses rather to understand it phyfically, in respect to the ætherial element, this American Eendra may be the Jupiter Tonans, Jupiter Serenus, and Jupiter Pluvius, all which names are respectively conferred upon him by ancient writers; but the third is an evident perverfion of the dogma of a purer theology handed traditionally down, through a channel long since forgotten, from thofe holy patriarchs, to whom the eternal Father was pleased to reveal the awful fecrets of that nature, which, without fuch revelation, it is utterly impoffible for finite Acofta's Hift. of the Indies, p. 418. |