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Show 242 BOOK VI. ~ HIST .ORY PF ~rEXICO. {; becaufe they believed him to be invifible 1 and.named him only orm, 11 t"on of God in their language 7'£•ot!, a word by the common appe a 1 . ' . . . · · 1 refemblm· g lnll'l l more m· 'ts meanmg than m ItS piOnunciatLOn t 1e 1 . . h h. h 'Jheos of the Greeks: but they applied to him certam e.plt ets '; 1~ were ]1 1·g h i y expreu~1 ve of th·e grandeur and power . w. h1ch .t heyH con- ce1· ve d . 1u ·m t o poun· er1.s They called him Ipalnt!moam, that IS, e by : • · • 1 · (c f w h om we 11. ve; an d l".'!T- t'''o 'que Nahuaque' He who has; all m 11m cl . But their knowledge and wodhip of this. f~tpr~me Bemg was ~~[cured and in' a m.a nner lofl: in the crowd of de1t1es mvented by thau fuper-fiitTiohne. y believed in an evil fp-irit, the enemy ~f m~n ~c.· d 1 · h tl 111 , w 11c 1ey called 'Jlacatecolototl, or Rational Owl, and fatd that h~, ~ften appeared to m<m for the purpofc of terrifying or doing them 4-n m.Jury. With refpeCl: to the foul, the barbawus Otomi~s, as ~h.ey ~ell us, ~elieved that it died together with the b<?(ly: wht~ the ~ext~at)s, With all the other poUfhed natiQns of Anahuac, ~Q!ilildere~ 1t as Immortal; allowing, at the fame ti1ue, that bleffing. of 1mmortahty to the fouls of brutes, arui not reftraining it to rational b~ings alone (a}. They di!tingui{lted ~hree plac~s for tl)e fouls w~en fep7r~ted from the body. l'hofe of foldiers who died in battle Of 111 capt1v1ty among their enemies, and thofe of women who died in labour, went to the houfe of the fun, whom. they confidered as the Prince of Glory, where they led a life of endl fs delight j where, every day, at the firfi ap- . pearance of the Cun's rays they hailed his birth with rejoici~gs; and with dancing, and the mufic of infiruments and of votces,_ attended him to his meridian; . there they met the fouls of the women, and witlr the fame fefiivity accompanied him to his fetting. If religion is intended only to ferve the purpofes of government, as has been imagined by moft of the free-thinkers of our times, fure1,r tl~ofe n~ti9ns could not forge a fyftem of belief better calculated to mfp1re theu: foldiers with courage than one which promifed fo high, a reward after their death. They next fuppofed that thefe fpirits after four years of' that glorious life, went to animate clouds, and· birds of beautiful fea tjlers and of fwcet fong; but always at liberty to rife again to heaven, (a) The idea' here nfcribcd to the Mexicans, with ref peer to the fou!a of brutes, will appear more fully when we 1hull come to fpeak of their funeral rites. or . ' H I S T 0 R ·~Y 0 F M E X I C 0. or to defcend upon the earth to warble and fuck the flowers. 'fhe people of Thfcala believed that the fouls of perfons of tank went, after their death, to inhabit the bodies of beautiful and fweet fingin3 . birds, and thofe of the nobler quadrupeds; while the fouls of i11fetior perfons were fuppofed to pafs into weazlcs, beetles, and fuch other meaner animals. w ·her'lce we fee that the abfurd fy.ll:em of the Pythagore. m tranfmigration, which has been fo firmly fettled, and fo widely propagated throughout the countries of the • a.ll:, has not wanted its advocates in thofe of the Wefi (b). the fouls of thofe that? Wete drowned, or firuck by lightning, of thofe who died by dropfy, tumors, wounds, and other fuch difeafes, went, as the Mexicans believed,~ along with the fouls of children, at leall of thofe \ovhich were facri ficed to 1"/a/oc the god of water, to a cool and delightful place, called 'I/alocan, where that god reiided, and where they were to enjoy the m'o~ delicious repa1l: , with every other kind of pleafure. In the inner part of the greater temple of Mexico there was a particular place where they fuppofed that on a certain day of the year all the ehildrert which had beet) f.'ltrificed to 'J/aloc, catbe, m1d invifibly affifted af the ceremony. The Mtrzteca! had a perfuafion, that a great cavern in a lofty mountain, in rheir province, was the entrance into paradife; arid their nobleS' and great men, therefore, always took care to be buried near the caveth, in order to be nearer that place of delight. Lafily, the third place allotted for the fouls of thofe who fuffered any other kind of death, was the Mifilmz, or hell, which they conceived to be a place of utter darknefs, in which reig'ned a god, called Mi'filantentflli (lord of hell), and a goddefs named MiCI/ancii:Juat/. I am of opinion that they believed hell to be a place in tlie centre of the earth ·(c); but they did not imagine that the fouls underwent any other punifhment there than what th~y fuffered from the darknefs Of their abode. (b) Who woulJ believe that rc fyllcm fo prcpoltcrous and improbable as that of the Pyth~gorcan tranfmigr:nibn, !hould be fupported by a philofopher of the enlightened eighteenth centt1ry. Yet it has been fcrioufly maintained, lately, by a Frenchm;m, in a book printed :It Paris, under the title of" The Yeat· Two thoufauJ four hundred and forty." (c) Dr. Slguenz:l \Vas of opinion, that the Mexicans placed hell in the nort!.ern part of d1 «;: earth ; as the f:une word 111illlampa, lignified to·wm·tls tbe Nv•·th, and to'<r.vm·t!s Hell. But, I rather tlllnk they placed it in the center, fot· that is the meaning of the narne of rJlal.vit·co, which they gnve to the rcmplo of the gotl of hell. After all it iB pt>lli ble th :lt the Mexicans thcmfelvca Alight hold Jitlercnt opinions upon the fubjccr. . I i 2 The |
