Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/150



T chief antiquities of the Mexicans which have descended to our times, are of a religious character; and their gods, their temples, their pyramids, and their funeral vases, alone remain, after every other important record of a material character has wasted before Time and the bigoted rapacity of the Spaniards. An inquiry in relation to their religion is therefore interesting, as a memorial of the past. Debase a nation as much as you may; crush out its spirit beneath the iron heel of despotism; tear from it and destroy every record of its greatness and its ancestry; yet the miserable remnant which survives the ruin, will still retain, amid changed laws, changed customs, and even a changed faith, the shadow of some of the rites, and the recollection of the gods who were adored by its ancestors. The spirit seems to cling with traditionary fervor to the belief of our fathers. Thus, in Mexico, even after three centuries of the dominion of a foreign Priesthood, the Indian worship, (as I shall have occasion hereafter to show,) still tinges the rites of the Catholic; and I have been credibly informed, that, even now, the keepers of the University sometimes find garlands and flowers which have been hung around that hideous statue, whose figure has just been exhibited in the preceding engraving.

Clavigero, who, with Veytia, is unquestionably the best writer on Mexican history, informs us, that the ancients believed there were three places assigned to their departed spirits.

The soldiers who died in battle fighting for their country, or, who perished in captivity, and the souls of women who died in childbirth, went to the House of the Sun, where they led a life of endless delight. "At morning they hailed the luminary with music and dancing, attended him in his journey to the meridian, where they met the souls of women, and with similar festivities accompanied him to his setting."

After years of these pleasures their spirits were transformed into clouds, or birds of beautiful plumage and pleasant song; but they had power to ascend again, whenever they desired, to heaven. The