The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

194 HISTORY OF INITIATION
From what people soever the Americans descended, or
in whatever manner that vast continent was originally
it is certain that the first
furnished with human beings ;
inhabitants brought with them a system of mysteries
8
which they applied to the purposes of religious worship ;
and though this system, in process
of time, was almost
entirely lost amongst the scattered tribes which led an
erratic life in its deepest wilds, yet many of the truths
on which it was founded, were preserved in a deteriorated
form, by the two great nations which had planted themselves
on each side of the Isthmus of Panama.
The entire system adopted by the Mexicans, though
highly symbolical, bore a character of dark and gloomy
"
austerity. The priests were wont to select for their
religious incantations, rocky caverns, lofty mountains,
and the deep gloom of eternal forests." 9
They worshipped
many deities, 10 the chief of which were Teotl, the
invisible and n
supreme being ; Virococha, the creator, 12
Vitzliputzli or Huitzilopochtli, as the name is spelt by
13
Humboldt, the god of mercy ; Tescalipuca, the god of
vengeance ; Quetzalcoatl, 14 the Mexican Mercury, or god
8
Sir W. Jones says truly, that the religion of Mexico and Peru was
substantially the same as that practised by the various nations of the
eastern hemisphere. (Asiat. Res., vol. i., p. 268.) And why should it
not? It was evidently derived from the same source ; the Scythic
superstition as practised by the architects on the plain of Shinar.
9 Fab. Pag. Idol., vol. iii., p. 200. See also Maur. Ind. Ant., vol. ii..
p. 39. Purch. Pilgr., b. viii., c. 12, and Humb. Res. Amer. vol. ii. 244.
p!
10 Some say they had two thousand gods. (Univ. Displ.. vol. i., p.
176.)
11 1S Humb. Res. Amer., vol. i., p. 83. Acosta. Hist. Ind., p. 380.
13 Even this deity, with all the benign attributes which some ascribe
to him, is represented as delighting in the blood of human victims.
' ;
It is said in an old tradition, that
he came into the world with a dart
in his right hand, and a buckler in his left, and his head covered with
a helmet crowned with green feathers. His first feat at his birth was
to kill his brothers and sisters ;" and hence originated the sanguinary
rites that were offered to him. (Humb. Res. Amer., \?ol. i., p. 220.)
14 " Quetzalcoatl, whose name signifies Serpent clothed with green
feathers, from coatl, serpent and quetzalli, green feathers, is the most
mysterious being of the whole Mexican mythology. He was a white
and bearded man, high priest of Tula, legislator, chief of a religious
sect, which, like the Sonyasis and Buddhists of Hindostan, inflicted
on themselves the most cruel penances. In a Mexican drawing in the
Vatican library, I have seen a figure representing Quetzalcoatl appeasing
by his penances the wrath of the gods, when 13.060 years after