OCR Text |
Show 204 DISSF.RT. I. ~ H 1 .s T 0 R' Y ~o F M E X I C 0. are t h e 1c 0un da tt·o ns ~")' f the above mentioned OJ,inions, .c o. lleC tecl an. d ·11 11. d · h g eat {11ew of erudition by the Domuucan Garcw, 1 U1lr~te WIt a r ' . . . and th ofe lea rned Spaniards who reprinted his work w1.th add1t10ns: which thofe who pleafl: may confult, as we have no tunc to refute them. · h · · f We cannot, however, di(pcnfe with the mention oft e op.m1ons o D . S1. gnenz, a, adopted a. lfo by the famous bi!h..o p F. P. Dame. liiuet,. as t· t appears t o us. to be the bell: founded. · Sw~::~u ,e. nza was petfuadeJ, that the nations which p opled the Mex tcan emptre belongtd to the poll: ·rity of .Naphtuhim, and that their ancdl:ors, having left .Egypt not long after the confufion of tongues, travelled toward.s Atnen n. . he rca!ons ,on which he grounds this opinion are mentioned only m the Bibliotheca Mcxicana. As we are deprived of his cxcdknt manu[ c ripts, we can only cite them, 0\S Eguiara did, in the Bibliothcca above.! mentioned. Thofc rcafon s, from what appears, are fir!l:, theconformityof thofL: A tne-rican nations with the Egyptians in the confl:ruCtion of pyramidal edifices, and the ufe of hieroglyphics in the method of computing time, in their drefs, and in fome of their cufioms; and, lafily, the rcfemblance of the word T'eotl of the Mexicans to the Theuth. of the Egyptians, which occalloned bi£hop Huet to adopt the fame fentimcnt with Sigucnza. If this opinion is propofed as a conjeCture, we !hall not contradict it: but if it is ofFered as a truth on which we arc to depend, tlw proofs do not appear fuflicient. . Siguenza conceived that the children of Naphtuhim fet out from Egypt towards America. t!Ot long after the confufion of tongues ; it would therefore be neceG'ary to make the comparifon of the cuftoms of the Americans with thofc of the firH Egyptians, not of their defcendants who dwelt in Egypt many years after, and fro111 whom the Americans are not believed to be de(cend d. Bnt who can imagine that the Egyptians, immedi, tely after the difperfion of the people, beg~ n to build pyramids, and make u[e of hieroglyphi cs, and tlut from thenceforward th y ordered and arranged their years and months in the form they had afterw<lrd. ? All thofe thin gs were certainly pofl: erior to that epoc~, nor was it nccefii1ry to have ft:en the pyrclmids of Egypt to make the Ame.ricans think of building fnch ki ud of edifices; for H I S T 0 R Y 0 F M E X I C 0. for the mountains alone were fufii~.:icnt to fuggef1: them: whoever defires to build an ccitfice to immortalize his name, wi 1 eafi ly think ·Of making it in the form of a pyramid; becaufe no other fort of building can be raiied to the f1me heigh t with fo little expencc ;\nd trouble, as the higher it rifes the fewer materials in proportion are required. Befides, the .l\1cxican ed1fices were t:nt.irely different from thofe of ~gypt: The latter were truly pyramidal, the fonner not; they were compofe~ of three, four, or fi ve ii1uare or oblong bodies, of which the higher was leis jn amplitude than the lower; thoic of the Egyptians were in gc:ner-.1 hollow, thofc of the M~xicans folid; thcfe fervcd for the bafes of their fan Cl:uaries, thofe for the fepulchres of their kings.. The temples of the Mexicans and other nations of Anahuac, were of a fp ecies fo fi uglllar, that we do not know th~y were ever ufed by any other people of the world : on which accOLmt they ought to be conlidered as an original invention of the Toltccas or fame other people more ancient than them. In the mode of computing time, the Mexicans were much more !imilar to the Egyptians; that is, of the latter Egyptians, not of the former,. of who[~ method we know nothing. The Egypti11n fohr year was compofed of three hundred and fixty-five days, like that of the Mexicans: the one and the other,contained three hundred and fixty -five days in their months, and as the Egyptians arlded five d:1ys to their Jaf1 month Mtjori, fp did the Mexicans to their month Izcalli, in which particular they ag.reed with the Perfians ;. but in other refpeets, there was a great difference between them; the Egyptian year confifl:ed of twelve months and thefe of thirty days, the Mexican year confified of eighteen months and thefe of t.wen.ty days (c}. The Egyptians, like many qther nations of the old continent, cqnnted by weeks; the Mexicans by periods· of five days in their ci'lil and thirteen days in their religious year. The Mexicans, like the Egyptians, employed hieroglyphics; but how many other nations have done the fame to conceal the myfteries of their religion s ; and if the Mexicans learned hieroglyphics fr.om the Egyptians, why had they not Q}[o tbe ufe of letters from them? Be- (<') We fpenk of the religious year of the Mexicans, · for of their civil or :dlronomic"l year· \Ve huve uo a .. co~lnt, caufe 2':)7 DISS F.R T. I. '--v--J |