ion came from the East, and that God had delivered them from the pursuit of their enemies and had opened to them a way over the sea. Other traditions reveal to us the Qninames as delivered up to the most unnatural vices of ancient society. Whether the Cyclopean ruins scattered over the continent,—vast masses of stone placed one upon another without cement, which existed before the splendid cities whose ruins are yet seen in Central America,—whether these are the work of this race, or of one still older, is entirely uncertain.
The most ancient language of Central America, the ground on which all the succeeding languages have been planted, is the Maya. Even the Indian languages of to-day are only combinations of their own idioms with this ancient tongue. Its daughter, the Tzendale, transmits many of the oldest and most interesting religious beliefs of the Indian tribes.
All the traditions, whether in the Quiche, the Mexican, or the Tzendale, unite in one somewhat remarkable belief,—in the reverent mention of an ancient Deliverer or Benefactor; a personage so enveloped in the halo of religious sentiment and the mist of remote antiquity, that it is difficult to distinguish his real form. With the Tzendale his name is Votan;[1] among the many other names in other languages, quetzalcohuatl is the one most distinctive. Sometimes he appears as a wise and dignified legislator, arrived suddenly among an ignorant people from an unknown country, to instruct them in agriculture, the arts, and even in religion. He bears suffering in their behalf, patiently labors for them, and, when at length he has done his work, departs alone from amid the weeping crowd to the country of his birth. Sometimes he is the mediator between Deity and men; then again, a personification of the Divine wisdom and glory; and still again, the noble features seem to be transmuted in the confused tradition into the countenance of Divinity. Whether this mysterious person is only the American embodiment of the Hope of all Nations, or whether he was truly a wise and noble legislator, driven by some accident to these shores from a foreign country, and afterwards glorified by the gratitude of his people, is uncertain, though our author inclines naturally to the latter supposition. The expression of the Tzendale tradition, "Votan is the first man whom God sent to divide and distribute these lands of America,” (Vol. I. p. 42.) indicates that he found the continent inhabited, and either originated the distribution of property or became a conqueror of the country. The evidence of tradition would clearly prove that at, the arrival of Votan the great proportion of the inhabitants, from the Isthmus of Panama to the territories of California, were in a savage condition. The builders of the Cyclopean ruins were the only exception.
The various traditions agree that this elevated being, the father of American civilization, inculcated first of all a belief in a Supreme Creator, Lord of Heaven and Earth. It is a singular fact, that the ancient Quiche tradition represents the Deity as a Triad, or Trinity, with the deified heroes arranged in orders below,—a representation not improbably connected with the Hindoo conception. The belief in a Supreme Being seems to have been generally diffused among the Central American and Mexican tribes, even as late as the arrival of the Spaniards. The Mexicans adored Him under the name of ipalnemoaloni, or “Him in whom and by whom we are and live.” This “God of all purity,” as he is addressed in a Mexican prayer, was too elevated for vulgar thought or representation. No altars or temples were erected to him; and it was only under one of the later kings of the Aztec monarchy that a temple was built to the “Unknown God.”
The founders of the early American civilization bear various titles: they are
- ↑ The resemblance of this name to the Teutonic Wuotan or Odin is certainly striking, and will afford a new argument to the enthusiastic Rafn, and other advocates of a Scandinavian colonization of America.-Edd
