The same singular custom which is found among the Jews and the Hindoos, for "a man to raise up seed for his deceased brother by marrying his widow," was found among the Central American nations. (Las Casas, MS. "Hist. Apoloq.," cap. ccxiii., ccxv. Torquemada, "Monarq. Ind.," tom. ii., 377–8.)
No one but the Jewish high-priest might enter the Holy of Holies. A similar custom obtained in Peru. Both ate the flesh of the sacrifices of atonement; both poured the blood of the sacrifice on the earth; they sprinkled it, they marked persons with it, they smeared it upon walls and stones. The Mexican temple, like the Jewish, faced the east. "As among the Jews the ark was a sort of portable temple, in which the Deity was supposed to be continually present, so among the Mexicans, the Cherokees, and the Indians of Michoacan and Honduras, an ark was held in the highest veneration, and was considered an object too sacred to be touched by any but the priests." (Kingsborough, "Mex. Antiq.," vol. viii., p. 258.)
The Peruvians believed that the rainbow was a sign that the earth would not be again destroyed by a deluge. (Ibid., p. 25.)
The Jewish custom of laying the sins of the people upon the head of an animal, and turning him out into the wilderness, had its counterpart among the Mexicans, who, to cure a fever, formed a dog of maize paste and left it by the roadside, saying the first passer-by would carry away the illness. (Dorman, "Prim. Super.," p. 59.) Jacob's ladder had its duplicate in the vine or tree of the Ojibbeways, which led from the earth to heaven, up and down which the spirits passed. (Ibid., p. 67.)
Both Jews and Mexicans offered water to a stranger that he might wash his feet; both ate dust in token of humility; both anointed with oil; both sacrificed prisoners; both periodically separated the women, and both agreed in the strong and universal idea of uncleanness connected with that period.
Both believed in the occult power of water, and both practised baptism.
