bear some affinity with Zapotec reliefs, but here again the "Peruvian" character of the decoration is paramount. Affinities with Peruvian archæology extend into Michoacan, where the practice of providing the mummy-pack of the dead with a false head prevailed, and similarities with Peruvian beliefs may be seen in the Mexican custom of providing the deceased with a dog to convey his soul to the underworld, and in ill-treating dogs during eclipses of the moon. Resemblances also exist between the Peruvian and Maya cultures; certain stone reliefs showing a figure seated in a niche have been found at Manabi in Ecuador (where again traditions of immigration by sea survive), which look very like travesties of some of the Piedras Negras stelæ; while the famous monolith discovered at Chavin de Huantar in the Andes bears a very distinct "Maya" stamp, though it is related also to the art of the Nasca valley. But great caution is necessary in dealing with similarities of this nature, which may arise from no more than a common psychology, and may bear witness only to the "American" basis shared by both cultures.
With the possible relations which Mexican and Maya culture may bear to those of the outer world I do not propose to deal at all. The past has shown the futility of speculating upon insufficient evidence, and it is sad to note how large a proportion of the literature dealing with American archæology serves only as a monument to wasted energy and misplaced zeal. It is impossible to deny a certain superficial similarity, often surprising, between the Maya ruins and those of south-east Asia, but these disappear for the most part upon closer analysis. Mere similarity of ornament means nothing when the ornament in question is found to symbolize beliefs of an entirely different character; from the constructional point of view the buildings differ essentially; while the absolute gulf which separates the American language, calendrical system and vegetable
