ABSTRACT

So little is known of the customs of the aboriginal races of America, that it is impossible to say whether flagellation formed a part of their judicial system. But it is a remarkable fact that some of the most subtle and far-fetched notions that have entered into the minds of men were to be found among the Indians. Thus prayer, prophecy, monastic life, the confession of sin to an appointed confessor, the immortality of the soul, and hopes of a state of future bliss, belief in witchcraft, and the propitiation of idols by living sacrifices—the deepest thoughts and the wildest superstitions—it was found, were not unknown in the new world. The system of penance was inculcated in Mexico and some parts of South America. Amongst the Mexicans there suddenly appeared Quet-zalcohuatl (green-feathered snake—green feathered means eloquent), a white and bearded man, of broad brow, dressed in strange dress, a legislator, who recommended severe penances, lacerating his own body with the prickles of the agave and the thorns of the cactus, but who dissuaded his followers from human sacrifice. While he remained in Anahuac it was a Saturnine reign; but this great legislator, after moving tp the plains of Cholula, and governing the Cholulans with wisdom, passed away to a distant country, and was never heard of any more.