Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/209

 teftimomes of Spanifl) writers.

ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, and the North-Americans, according- to the manner of their morefque paintings : likewife, the very national name of the primitive Chikkafah, which they ftile Chichemicas, and whom they, repute to have been the firft inhabitants of Mexico, However, I lay little i^refs upon Spanifh teftimonies, for time and ocular proof have convinced us of the laboured falfhood of almoft all their hiftorical narrations concern ing every curious thing relative to South America. They were fo di- vefled of thofe principles inherent to honeft enquirers after truth, that they have recorded themfelves to be a tribe of prejudiced bigots, ftriving to aggrandife the Mahometan valour of about nine hundred fpurious ca tholic chriftians, under the patronage of their favourite faint, as perfons by whom heaven defigned to extirpate thofe two great nominal empires of. pretended cannibals. They found it convenient to blacken the natives with ill names, and report them to their demi-god the mufti of Rome, as facri- ficing every day, a prodigious multitude of human victims, to numerous idol-gods..

The learned world is already fully acquainted wkh the falfehood of their hiftories ; reafon and later difcoveries condemn them. Many years have elapfed, fince I firft entered into Indian life, befides a good ac? quaintance with feveral fouthern Indians, who were converfant with the Mexican Indian rites and cuftoms ; and it is incontrovertible, that the Spanifh monks andjefuits in defcribing the language, religion, and cuf- toms, of the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, were both unwilling, and incapable to perform fo arduous an under-taking,, with juftice and truth. They did not converfe with the natives as friends, but defpifed, hated, and murdered them, for the fake of their gold and filver : and to excufe their own ignorance, and moft (hocking, cool, premeditated murders, they artfully defcribed them as an abominable fwarm of idolatrous cannibals offering human facrifices to their various falfe deities, and eating of the unnatural victims. Neverthelefs, from their own partial accounts, we can trace a near agreement between the civil and martial cuftoms, the religious worfhip, traditions, drefs, ornaments, and other particulars of the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, and thofe of the prefent North-Ame rican Indians,

Acofta

�� �