Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/221

 The t eft monies of Spanifo writers. 209

The Spanifh writers tell us, that the Mexicans had a feaft, and month, which they called Hueitozolti, when the maiz was ripe, every man at that time bringing an handful to be offered at the temple, with a kind of drink, called Utuli, made out of the fame grain. But they foon deck up an idol with rofes, garlands, and flowers, and defcribe them as offering to it fweet gums, &c. Then they fpeedily drefs a woman with the apparel of either the god, or goddefs, of fait, which muft be to feafon the human facrifices, as they depicture them according to their own difpofitions. But they foon change the fcene, and bring in the god of gain, in a rich temple dedicated to him, where the merchants apart facrifke vaft numbers of purchafed cap tives. It often chagrines an inquifitive and impartial reader to trace the contradictions, and chimerical inventions, of thofe afpiring bigoted writers ; who fpeak of what they did not underftand, only by figns, and a few chance words. The difcerning reader can eafily perceive them from what hath been already faid, and muft know that this Spanifh mountain in labour, is only the Indian firft fruit-offering, according to the ufage of our North-American Indians.

It is to be lamented that writers will not keep to matters of fact : Some of our own hiftorians have defcribed the Mohawks as cannibals, and con tinually hunting after man*s flefh ; with equal truth Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, and others report, that in Britain there were formerly Anthropo phagi, " man-eaters."

Garcillafib de La Vega, another Spanifli romancer, fays, that the Peru vian fhepherds worihipped the ftar called Lyra, as they imagined it pre- ierved their flocks : but he ought firft to have fupplied them with flocks, for they had none except a kind of wild fheep, that kept in the moun tains, and which are of fo fastid a fmell, that no creature is fond to ap proach them.

The fame afpiring fictitious writer tells us, the Peruvians worfhipped the Creator of the world, whom he is pleafed to call Viracocba Pachuyacba ka hie : any perfon who is in the leaft acquainted with the rapid flowing wanner of the Indian American dialects, will conclude from the wild ter mination that the former is not the Peruvian divine name. Next to this .great Creator of the univerfe, he affirms, they worihipped the fun ; and

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