The Indigenous Civilizations of America [pp. 468-474]

1875.] THE INDIGENOUS CIVILIZATIONS OF AMERICA. 473
feast that would immortalize their memory. Consequently the descriptions of
some of these entertainments are exceedingly curious and interesting. Professional jesters were kept by the kings
and nobility, exactly as they were in the
contemporary European courts.
The religious festivals were of a very
sanguinary character, and of very frequent occurrence; for, as Mr. Bancroft
says, these people "were close observers of nature, but like other nations in a
similar or even more advanced stage of
culture, the Greeks and Northmen for
example, they entirely misunderstood the
laws which govern the phenomena of
nature, and looked upon every natural
occurrence as the direct act of some
particular divinity." Sanguinary these
festivals must have been, indeed; for it
is written, upon good authority, that "at
almost every monthly feast, and at numerous other grand celebrations, several
hundred human hearts were torn hot
from living breasts as an acceptable offering to the Nahua gods and a pleasant
sight to the people." On some occasions the victims were little children, on
others men or women. Sacrifices varied
in number, place, and manner, according to the nature of the festival. Usually the victims suffered death by having
the breast opened and the beating heart
torn out, but many were drowned, burned, or starved to death, while some fell
in the gladiatorial sacrifice reserved for
prisoners of war of approved valor. In
point of bloodiness, Dahomey can not
compare with Anahuac. Zumarraga, the
first Bishop of Mexico, says, in a letter
of the I2th of June, I53I, addressed to
the general chapter of his order, that in
that capital alone 20,000ooo human victims
were annually sacrificed. Some authors
quoted by Gomara affirm that the number of the sacrificed amounted to 5o,ooo.
Acosta writes that there was a certain
day of the year on which 5,ooo were sacrificed in different places of the empire;
VOL. I4.-31.
and another day on which they sacrificed 20,000. Some authors believe that
on the mountain Tepeyacac alone, 20,ooo were immolated in honor of the goddess Tonantzin. Torquemada, in quoting, though unfaithfully, the letter of
Zumarraga, says that there were 20,000
infants annually sacrificed. Las Casas,
however, in his refutation of the bloody
book written by Doctor Sepulveda, reduces the barbarities committed by his
beloved Indians to a much smaller scale.
The arts and manufactures of these
people form far too extensive a subject
for me to in any manner treat of them
here.
In their treatment of diseases they of
course resorted largely to the mummeries so universally observed by the doctors of savage or semi-civilized peoples.
Medicines were, however, given in all
the usual forms of draught, powder, injection, ointment, plaster, etc., the material for which was gathered from the
three natural kingdoms in great variety.
The dead were buried by some nations and burned by others. The custom of destroying or burying clothing,
food, implements, and weapons with the
body, or of leaving them upon the grave,
that they, or rather their spirits, might
serve the deceased while on his journey
to the future world, and perhaps during
his sojourn there, was almost universally observed. The reader will perhaps
call to mind here Bulwer's version of the
well-known lines of Schiller's "Nadowessian Death-song:"
"Here bring the last gifts-and with these
The last lament be said;
Let all that pleased, and yet may please,
Be buried with the dead.
" Beneath his head the hatchet hide
That he so stoutly swung;
And place the bear's fat haunch beside The journey hence is long.
"And let the knife new sharpened be,
That, on the battle-day,
Shore with quick strokes-he took but three The foeman's scalp away."