Prehistoric structures of Central America. Who erected them? A lecture

LIBRARY

OF

i GEORGE F. DANFORTH, \

ROCHESTER, N. Y.

J. D. M.

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Prehistoric Structures

-OF-

CENTRAL AMERICA.

WHO ERECTED THEM?

A^ LECTURE,

BY

MARTIN INGHAM TOWNSEND,

OF TROY. NEW YORK.

TROV, X. V. :

T. ). II! HI. ION, PRINTER, HARMONS HALL BUILDING

1895.

PREHISTORIC CENTRAL AMERICA
AND PERU.

THE ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN SCHOLARS

KNEW OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE

WESTERN CONTINENT.

In the earlier existence of the Greek and Roman
peoples, knowledge was extremely limited. These
peoples were without any mode of perpetuating or
transmitting knowledge until the days, a little
more than a thousand years before the Christian
Era, when Cadmus brought from Phoenecia the
letters which had been invented and adopted there
for the representation and expression of articulate
sounds ; and by the combination of these letters to
transmit and perpetuate human ideas. There is
scarce a race of savages in our day where the mass
of the body politic are as profoundly ignorant as
were the great body of the Greek people a thousand
years before Christ.

Even those men who made such acquisitions of
knowledge as were possible in that day, could only
learn from the lips of their imperfectly trained
teacher, and bv travel to those countries which the
barbarous condition of the world allowed them to
visit ; and even after the learned men of the Greek
Islands came to know the power of letters, how
small must have been the amount of knowledge ex-
isting in the world, and how slow must have been
its spread amongst the untaught commonalty of the
then Greek world ? In the day when the Phoenician

ship Argo made a voyage to Colchis, at the east end
of the Black Sea, it so fired the imagination of the
Greek poets that they dreamed of the voyage and
composed poems about it for centuries.

Indeed it was not until the Romans, just before
the Christian Era, had subdued all the borders of
the historic Mediterranean Sea, that free intercourse
amongst the inhabitants prevailed. Up to that
period every people, as a rule, carefully guarded all
knowledge of their own wealth, and of their own
acts and possessions from the rest of mankind, in-
stead of making public expositions to attract the
attention of the outside world to their useful
achievements, and they sometimes passed laws for
inflicting the severest punishments upon citizens
who should reveal to the outside world the loca-
tions, nature, or extent, or value of their posses-
sions.

Still, we glean from the ancient writers the
following announcements.

1. That ancient book entitled "The Book of
Wonders," ascribed to Aristotle, contains the fol-
lowing : tkWhen the Carthagenians, who were
masters of the western ocean, observed that many
traders and other men, attracted by the fertility of
the soil and the pleasant climate, had fixed there
their homes, they feared that the knowledge of this
land should reach other nations, a great concourse
to it of men from the various lands of the earth
would follow, that the conditions of life, then so
happy on that island, would not only be unfavor-
ably affected, but the Carthagenian Empire itself
suffer injury, and the dominion of the sea be wrest-
ed from their hands ; and so they issued a decree
that no one, under penalty of death, should there-
after sail thither." This passage is quoted, not

5

merely with a claim that it refers to the Continent
of America, hut for the purpose of showing how
carefully the Phoenician people, whether Asiatic,
Carthagenian, or Spanish, guarded from the great
world the foreign discoveries which they had made,
and where their kindred were enjoying prosperity ;
and to enable us to see how little likely their dis-
coveries would be to come to the knowledge of
the great mass of mankind.

2. Let us look for a moment at some of the
things which the ancient Greek and Latin authors
have said indicating their knowledge of the exist-
ence of a western continent. Crates, a commentator
on Homer, is quoted by authority of Strabo, a very
learned author of the century before Christ, as
saying that Homer means in his account of the
western Ethiopians the inhabitants of the Atlantis
or the Hesperides, as the unknown world of the
west was then variously called.

3. Pliny also 6 : 31-36, locates the western Ethi-
opians somewhere in the Atlantic. This shows that
Crates and Pliny believed that the great poet Homer
believed in the existence of a great continent on the
western shore of the Atlantic ocean.

4. Plato says in his Timaeus, Chapter VI. : "The
sea" (the Atlantic ocean), "was indeed navigable
and had an island fronting the mouth which you in
your tongue call the Pillars of Hercules, and this
island is larger than Libya- and Asia put together,
and there is a passage hence for travelers of that
day to the rest of the islands, as well as from those
islands to the whole opposite continent that sur-
rounds the real sea.

5. Humboldt quotes that Anaxagoras, who was

6

born five hundred years B. C, and was a most
eminent Greek philosopher, speaks of the grand
division of the world beyond the ocean.

6. Aelian in his Varia? Historian, Book 3, Chapter
IS, cites Theopompus, an eminent Greek historian,
born about three hundred years B. C, as stating
that the Meropians inhabit a large continent beyond
the ocean, in comparison with which the known
world was but an island.

7. Aristotle says in Chapters 84 and 85 : "Be-
yond the Pillars of Hercules, they say that an inhab-
ited island was discovered by the Carthagenians,
which abounded in forests and navigable rivers and
fruits of all kinds, distant from the continent many
days' sail. And while the Carthagenians were
engaged in making voyages to this land, and some
had even settled there on account of the fertility of
the soil, the Senate decreed that no one thereafter,
under penalty of death, should voyage thither.'1
Aristotle was born three hundred and eighty-four
years before Christ.

8. Diodorus of Sicily, who lived in the century
preceding the Christian Era, says in his Book 5, — 19
and 20, that it was the " Phoenicians instead of the
Carthagenians who were cast upon a most fertile
island opposite Africa, where the climate was that
of perpetual spring, and that the laud was the
proper habitation for gods rather than men."

He speaks of the continent, however, at length
and with great detail, enumerating its fertile valleys
and navigable rivers, its rich and abundant fruits
and supply of game, its valuable forests and its
genial climate.

9. Pliny quotes Statius Sebosus, in his volume 2,
page 106, Bohn, as saying that the tao Hesperides
are forty-two days' sail from the coast of Africa.

THE PHOENICIAN PEOPLE WERE EQUAL TO
THE DISCOVERIES ON THE WESTERN CON-
TINENT, IF WE JUDGE THEM BY WHAT THEY
ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHED.

The prophet Isaiah, writing soon after seven hun-
dred and fifty years before Christ, in the twenty-
third chapter of his prophecy, gives us a pretty good
idea of the unlimited commerce and the unlimited
prosperity of the merchants of Tyre. Among other
things he says the following, speaking of the City
" Whose antiquity is of ancient days." He calls
the City " The Crowning City," " whose merchants
are princes, whose traffickers are the honorable of
the earth." The wealth and luxury of Tyre
was eternally injurious to the Jewish people from
the time of their return from Egypt to Canaan to
the carrying away of Israel to Babylon in the later
days. The Jewish husbandman, dazzled by the
luxuries of Tyre and Sidon, was affected as those in
more moderate circumstances are in later days, by
the manners and customs of their rich neighbors,
and wTere building groves in high places under
which to worship, as did the priests of Baal in Pal-
estine, and under the oaks in the northwest of
Europe, where they acquired the name of Druids.
They forsook the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
and worshipped Baal and Ashtaroth and Astarte,
the Phoenician Venus.

They even sacrificed their children to Moloch, the
relentless fire god, as Baal appeared in his sterner
characteristics. But upon the loss of wealth which
Phoenicia sustained in the wars with Nebuchadnez-
zar and subsequently with Alexander, the Phoeni-
cians ceased to be conspicuously wealthy and lux-
urious, and Israel was left to worship that God who

called their father Abraham from upper Chaldea,
and who afterwards brought him out of the " House
of Bondage " in Egypt after having been four hun-
dred years enslaved there.

We have now glanced at the widespread influence
of the Phoenician people over the borders of the
Mediterranean sea and over the west and northwest
of Europe.

Let it be remembered that what we have said
upon this subject is founded upon authentic evi-
dence from ancient history and modern fact.

Let us look for a moment now and see what these
peoples accomplished through the waters of the Red
sea and upon the waters easterly of the straits of
Bab-el-Mandeb. After Solomon had associated with
Hiram, King of Tyre, and Hiram, the son of Abif,
the chief of the mechanics who built the temple,
and become acquainted with the wealth brought
home by Phoenician ships from the great outside
world, his spirit of Jewish thrift was excited, and
he determined to share in the profits of nautical ad-
ventures. In the first book of Kings, chapter 9,
verses 26, 27 and 28, we find the following : " And
King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion Geber,
which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea,
in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy
his servants, shipmen who had knowledge of the
sea, with the servants of Solomon.

"And they came to Ophir and fetched from
thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and
brought it to King Solomon.'' In the 18th chapter
of this book, 11th and 12th verses, we find the fol-
lowing : ' ' And the navy also of Hiram that brought
gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty

9

of nlmug trees and precious stones, and the king
made of the almug trees pillars for the house of the
lord and for the king's house, harps also and psal-
teries for the singers. There came no such almug
trees nor were seen unto this day.''

In the Second of Chronicles, chapter 9, verses 10
and 11, we find the following : " And the servants
also of Hiram and the servants of Solomon, which
hrought gold from Ophir, brought algum trees and
precious stones, and the king made of the algum
trees terraces to the house of the lord and to the
king's palace, and harps and psalteries for the sing-
ers, and there were none such seen before in the
land of Judah."

In Second Kings, chapter 10, verse 22, we find the
following: "For the king had at sea a navy of
Tharshish with the navy of Hiram. Once in three
years came the navy of Tharshish bringing gold and
silver, ivory and apes and peacocks." This navy of
Tharshish is beyond question the navy of big ships
manned by Jews and Phoenicians, and the expres-
sion here used beyond question is used in the sense
we should use in speaking of a navy of big ships, or
Baltimore Clippers.

In Second Chronicles, chapter 3, verse 6, we find
the following : " And he garnished the house with
precious stones for beauty, and the gold was gold of
Parvaim."

We will not at the present time stop to ask where
was Ophir, where was Parvaim, where did the
sailors of Tyre, so skilled in navigation and so capa-
ble of navigating the western ocean, as we have
seen them to be, as to make successful voyages over
2

10

to the Orkneys, a distance of some four thousand
miles from their homes, spend the three years dur-
ing which they were absent on their voyages from
the easterly gulf of the Red Sea ? No Jewish lexi
con tells us of almug or algum trees ; no Hebrew
writer undertakes to describe them. Bat that en-
terprising publicist, O1 Donovan, who for the pur-
poses of knowledge a few years ago traversed the
Caucasus, crossed the Caspian sea and buried him-
self for two or three years among the still wild
tribes of Turkestan, tells us that after his liberation
from the Turks, and while traveling in eastern Per-
sia towards the capital, he found a tree which
attracted his attention because its fibre reminded
him of that of the Lignum Vita?, which tree the
natives called " The Yalgam." Here we have Solo
mon's algum tree with the name scarcely modified.
Would it be the strangest thing that ever happened
if these "yalgam,'7 "almug," or "algum" trees, so
beautiful as to be unequalled by anything known in
Palestine, and for that reason set up as ornaments
in God's house, should turn out in the day when all
things become known to be rosewood and mahogany
from the west coast of Central America, taken on
board by Solomon's servants on their return from
Parvaim or Peru and the old mines of Potosi, where
they had gone for the gold which filled the coffers
of Solomon. It may be said that such would be a
long voyage ; true, but not much longer than a voy-
age to the Orkneys. Authentic profane history
tells us that between six and seven hundred years
before the birth of Christ, Pharaoh Necho, King of
Egypt, built a fleet in the "Red Sea, manned it with
Phoenician sailors and sent them out upon the
waters to discover the shape and dimensions of
the continent of Africa. These sailors passed
down through the straits of Bab et Mandel and

11

clear around the Cape of Good Hope and the
•continent of Africa more than two thousand years
before Vasco Degama, and coining in through the
straits of Gibraltar after an absence of about two
years. Their food supply run low, their supply was
mainly wheat, they tied up their ships, landed,
plowed the ground with sharpened sticks, cast their
bread, not upon the waters, but upon the ground,
and thus raised a new crop of wheat, preparing to
supply their wants until they should return to
Egypt, that eternal land of plenty.

It will be remembered that for centuries previous
to the close of the Punic wars under Hannibal the
Phoenician people owned and controlled the whole
north of Africa, west of Egypt, and the whole of
Spain up to the Ebro, and the whole of Cyprus and
a very large portion of Sicily, and that when the
ancient writers, and even modern writers speak of
Spain, the Carthagenians and northern Africa, they
refer to the people who sprang from the commercial
cities on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean sea,
occupying a territory of not more than one hun-
dred miles in extent north and south, and extend-
ing back into Syria not more than fifteen miles,
whence all these people sprang, and applied to them
the general term of Phoenicians.

From the authorities we have quoted we think
there can be no doubt but that here and there a
learned man among the Greek scholars had come to
believe that some eastern navigator had discovered
a western world exceedingly productive and beauti-
ful, and that a population of eastern origin had
sprung up and existed in the lands so discovered.

12

IF THE WESTERN CONTINENT HAD REALLY
BEEN DISCOVERED ACCIDENTALLY, OR OF
SET PURPOSE, WHAT EASTERN NATION
WOULD BE MOST LIKELY TO HAVE BEEN
THE DISCOVERERS OF THIS WESTERN
WORLD.

Nineveh and Babylon are never spoken of as hav-
ing sent even a keel boat out upon the seas. Egypt
has been called the "Cradle of The Arts" and the
" Birthplace of Science and Civilization," but Egypt
never attained the maritime power or skill to enable
her to navigate the waters of the Mediterranean
beyond the mouths of her eternal river.

Greece, after wards so celebrated for science, art
find philosophy, was at the day of which Homer
sung, a mere association of savage groups, engaged
in wars instead of seeking commercial profits in dis-
tributing the products of civilized life among the
nations of mankind.

And Romulus and Remus had not yet emerged
from the sheep folds upon the Italian hills But
very early in the history of the world, and as stu-
dents of history believe, earlier than the call of
Abraham, the interests of mankind had called into
existence along the eastern shore of the Mediterra-
nean Sea an active and intelligent population which
had engaged in commerce as a means of subsistence,
and were carrying it on with such success as was
possible in the then condition of the world of man-
kind A civilization had sprung up at a very early
period along the banks of the united rivers, the
Tigris and the Euphrates, and from the Persian gulf
to Nineveh and Nimroud, where was produced a
great variety of articles of necessity and luxury

13

unknown to the rest of the world. We all under-
stand the story told of Aehan, who secreted in the
floor of his tent a Babalonish garment about four-
teen hundred years before the Christian era, while
Israel was battling against Ai See Joshua, Chap.
8. The children of Japhet had passed up through
Persia to the Caucasus, and from the Caucasus
around the Black Sea to the waters of the Danube
and the Grecian Islands. The luxuries produced in
the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris, called
Mesopotamia, furnished a ready basis for a success-
ful commerce across the desert by the way of
Damascus to the shores of the Mediterranean ; and
it was by this means that a commerce sprang up
along these shores such as the world had never
seen, and which rendered the people resident there
the leaders in all the arts of life, including the art
of navigation, throughout the then known world,
a result but twice paralleled on earth, once in the
middle ages at Venice and once in our own age at
our magical Chicago. This enabled this people to
become the leaders of their race down to about six
hundred years before Christ, when there came that
terrible war wherein Nebuchadnezzar, by besieging
Tvre, caused "every head of that people to become
bald and every shoulder to become pealed." Tyre
subsisted after the siege of Nebuchadnezzar, but
Tyre never attained again the prosperity or in-
fluence which she possessed at the commencement
of this memorable siege. She had before this time
planted two hundred and fifty cities upon the north
coast of Africa, including the celebrated city of
Carthage. She had settled and occupied two hun
dred cities in the territory of Spain, and for cen.
turies occupied the whole of that country up to the
Ebro. The Jewish historians speak of Spain as
Tharshish. Greek writers speak of Spain as Tar-

14

tesus. Jewish historians and prophets speak of the
ships of Tharshish as the most magnificent sea-
going crafts known to the worid. as we for half of
a century boasted of our Baltimore Clipper. Her
sailors passed beyond the Pillars of Hercules and
passed up the northwest coast of France and estab-
lished their religion, the worship of Baal, or the
sun, among the simple people of Bretagne so firmly
and universally that at this day at Carnac, in the
Morbihan, there stand more Phoenician funereal
monuments of unknown antiquity than can be
found together in any form of religion in any other
portion of the world's surface. They discovered tin
in the Scilly Islands, off the coast of Cornwall, and
wrought those mines for centuries. Those Islands
were known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as
the Cassiterrides, or Tin Islands. They worked
both tin and copper mines in Cornwall, and made
profits on the sale of the products throughout the
known world. They passed up the British channel
and through the German Ocean, and in the im-
mense sand dunes at the mouth of the Baltic dis-
covered and utilized that beautiful product of the
primeval forests called amber, which they dug from
the sand hills. They took with them their priests
(the priests of Baal) and introduced the worship of
the sun, and made that worship paramount and uni-
versal in England, Ireland and Scotland, as well as
in Bretagne and the northwest of France. So thor-
oughly has the religion of Baal been fastened upon
the peoples of these regions that portions of them
at this day salute the arrival of the Summer Solstice,
June twenty-fourth, with burning fires, the precise
meaning of which is forgotten, but through those
fires in all the early portions of the present century
the inhabitants have jumped with their little ones
in their arms, as the phrase goes, on Saint John's

15

eve, "for luck.'' The wizard of the north, Sir
Walter Scott, in his song entitled "Hail to the
Chief,'1 in the Lady of the Lake, has the following
when speaking of " Clan Alpines Pine ":

" Ours is uo saplin,
Chance sown by the fountain,
Blooming at Beltane," (Baaltime)
" In winter to fade."

Indeed the literary men of Scotland very gener-
ally call the Summer Solstice the Beltane. One
of the finest of the smaller towns in England even
to this day bears the name of Belper, (i. e. Baalpeor.)

They built that wonderful prehistoric open air
temple, still standing upon Salsbury Plain, and
bearing the name of Stonehenge, the most wonder-
ful monument now standing upon the earth's sur-
face. They built several other circular open air
temples in the British Islands, and conspicuously
among them, away up in the Orkneys, above
Scotland, a very perfect and beautiful one called the
"Standing Stones of Stennes."

They visited the Azore Islands, west of Gibraltar,
out in the Atlantic ocean, and as we learn by
Chateaubriand's Outretombe, Phoenician coin in the
last century was found scattered in the soil of these
Islands. A man who carries his eyes about him
will rarely enter a large Irish assembly, or an
assembly of Canadian Frenchmen whose blood
comes principally from Bretagne, without noticing
here and there a swarthy complexion surrounding
intensely bright flashing eyes which speak of Spain
and Carthage and the blood of warmer climes.

About one thousand years before Christ, Solo-

16

mon, the Prince of Israel, resolved to build a tem-
ple to the God of Abraham which should exhibit on
Mount Zion architectural skill and beauty such as
the world had never seen. The construction of
that erection was intrusted entirely to the people
of Phoenicia ; everything was perfected at Tyre so
completely that "no hammer or instrument of iron
sounded upon the building" after its component
parts reached the Mount of God. Even the basins
that were to be used in the Lord's house were con-
structed by the artizans of Phoenicia.

17

IS THERE ANY EVIDENCE EXISTING UPON
THE WESTERN CONTINENT SHOWING OR
TENDING TO SHOW WHENCE THE PEOPLE
WHO ERECTED THE PREHISTORIC STRUC-
TURES ON THE WESTERN CONTINENT CAME ?

FIRST.

The soil, climate and productions of the Peninsula
of Yucatan, and that part of Mexico and Guate-
mala where these prehistoric remains are found,
are precisely what are described by the European
writers who speak of the beauty, the loveliness and
the grandeur of the Hesperides and the homes
founded by eastern adventurers beyond the western
ocean.

SECOND.

The prehistoric structures found in those regions
and in neighboring regions are all built on plans
and patterns borrowed from lands bordering the
Mediterranean Sea, although the structures seem
to have followed verbal descriptions rather than
exact mechanical patterns.

All of these structures north of Panama seem to
have been erected for public purposes, and probably
in connection with the offices of some form of
religion ; and every structure of them, of which any
appreciable portion is standing, is built upon or in
connection with pyramids as perfectly pyramidal
and regularly constructed as were the pyramids of
ancient Egypt. Most of these pyramids, however,
are mere earth mounds, instead of being construct-
ed of brick or stone as were those upon the banks
of the Nile. Let us refer to a few of the localities
where these pyramidal structures are most con-
spicuous.
3

18

At Copau, situate at the western border of Hon-
duras, and by the side of the river Copan, is a large
enclosure, some two miles in extent, bounded upon
the one side by the Copan river, on the bank of
which are walls of beautiful cut and fitted stone
rising to the height of fifty to one hundred feet,
designed to keep the earth upon that side of* the
river from being carried away by floods. This river
at this place constitutes one side of a tract of land
laid out nearly in a square, along the outer sides of
which, at regular intervals, are constructed, and
still remaining, a very large number of pyramids
made of hewn stone evidently designed to outline
this extended sacred field.

This field within, is ornamented with a wealth of
statuary, monuments and figures of idols, practi-
cally inconceivable in amount ; but we count this
statuary of no importance now, as we are confining
our attention to the tendency of this prehistoric
people to erect pyramids. For a fuller account of
this locality we refer to Stephens' Travels' in Cen-
tral America, Chiapas and Yucatan, Vol. 1, Chap. 8.

At Santa Cruz Del Quiche, within the State of
Chiapas, Mexico, there exists a pyramid erected for
defensive purposes, constructed of earth and terra-
ced as it rises, of enormous proportions ; upon its
top is a regular fortification upon the top of which
rises a pyramidal temple above the fortification.
This structure is particularly described by Stephens
in the work above quoted? in his second volume,
chapter 10, page 161, &c.

At Occasingo in Chiapas, there is a conspicuous
pyramid constructed of earth, of somewhat exalted
proportions, upon the top of which is a small pyr-
amidal temple having over its porch the ornamenta-
tion which is so common upon the temples of

19

ancient Egypt, and occasionally seen in the land of
Phoenicia, to wit : a winged globe wrought in
stone. The globe itself has become loosened, and
has dropped from its place upon the front of the
temple but still rests upon the ground before it,
while the wing to which it was attached remains in
place upon the temple as perfect as when it was
first wrought For a description of these works at
Occasingo, see Stephens' second volume, chapter 15,
page 25S, &c.

The same sort of pyramidal structures remain in
admirable preservation conspicuous at Palenque,
in Chiapas, where an immense pyramid still exists
standing in great perfection with an elegant temple
upon its top. Pyramidal structures and shapings
are found everywhere at Palenque. See Stephens'
Work, above quoted, vol. 2, chap. 20, page 337, &c.

At Uxmal, also in Chiapas, we have another ex-
hibition of pyramidal structures with temples upon
their tops. We refer again to the same work of
Stephens, vol. 2, chap. 25, page 120, &c.

These remains, to which we have referred, have
far greater importance in our investigation than can
be attached to the mere building of pyramidal
structures. The wealth of sculpture found at the
places referred to is immensely great and deserves
the attention of scholars and thinking men to an
extent greater than we can now devote to them.

In our view, the people who erected those struct-
ures possessed a knowledge and civilization far in
advance of the population that surrounded them,
and that the surrounding populations to a great
degree imitated their examples and adopted their
religion.

20

That, as we believe, led to the construction at
Cholula, a little town now of ten thousand inhabit-
ants, fifteen miles from Puebla, on the road leading
from Vera Cruz to Mexico, on the plains of Anahuac,
at the height of 6912 feet above the sea, of that
immense pyramid of earth still standing, 177 feet
in height, measuring 1445 feet on either side, and
ascended by 120 steps.

There are two other pyramids at Otumba, seven
leagues north-east of the City of Mexico, and in the
language of the aboriginal inhabitants, called, one
"The House of the Sun," and the other, "The
House of the Moon." The House of the Sun is 680
feet square at the base, and 221 feet high.

On the top of this there was originally erected a
great statue of the sun. The uther pyramid is
much smaller but rises to the height of 144 feet,
and on its top was a statue of the moon. Upon the
plain about these structures are a number of
smaller pyramids not necessary to be described. —
The sides of all the pyramids here constructed cor-
respond with the cardinal points of the compas.
The pyramids that we have referred to are all pat-
terned after those constructed upon the banks of
the Nile, and are all found about the west border of
Yucatan, about the north border of Guatamala and
south of the centre of the great Eepublic of Mexico.

It will be well to remember that the mountains
and plains of North America cover millions of
square miles north and east of the country where
these pyramids have been constructed, and that
those mountains and plains are covered in many
places with earth mounds of an almost inconceivable

21

variety of forms, and yet the form of the pyramid
seems to be utterly unknown on the Western Con-
tinent, except in the narrow region that we have
delineated. We might, perhaps, be justified in
asking : From what people on earth could this
building of pyramids be copied except from those
dwelling upon the banks of the Nile \

22

THE RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF THE PEOPLES WHO
CONSTRUCTED THE WONDERFUL PREHIS-
TORIC TOWERS AND TEMPLES UPON THE
CONTINENT OF AMERICA.

They were the worshipers of Baal, the god wor-
shiped by the Phoenicians, and paid their devotions
to him with the same rites that they practiced
wherever their influence was effective.

It will be remembered that Baal was supposed to
exist and was worshiped as a being of biform
existence. In his beneficent qualities, as the sun, he
was supposed to be the author and sustainer of all
life and the fountain of all pleasures. In his sterner
character wherein he was known as Moloch or
Molech, by the children of Israel, he was the most
cruel, stern, relentless monster that the imagina-
tion of man ever depicted, and his votaries every-
where sought to conciliate him by presenting him
with the most horrid scenes of human agony.
Attempts were every where made to conciliate him
by laying human captives upon his altar, and for
want of captives taken in war, such peaceful citi-
zens as the priests saw fit to select.

Human victims were constantly dying upon a
thousand altars not only in Phoenicia, but in all
western and north-western Europe.

It was firmly believed b}r the votaries of Moloch
that he could be most readily conciliated by the
offering of children upon the altars, that he most
especially delighted in the sacrifice of the first born
of every family. Men thus offering "the fruit of
their bodies for the sin of their souls." Early in the
history of this worship it was deemed sufficient if

23

children passed through the fires without the de-
struction of their lives, but down the ages it came
to be believed, that if a family would secure the favor
of this deity, the oldest child of each union must be
actually roasted to conciliate favor. Even good old
Abraham who had been called from upper Chaldea
to receive all the land of Israel for him "and his seed
forever, conceived the idea that God required the
roasting of the son of Sarah upon the hill of Zion,
and never relented until a ray of common sense
enlightened his intellectual vision, after he had
actually bound Isaac to the altar.

We have referred to the beautiful monuments
that still exist at Uxmal, Palenque, Occasingo,
Queche and Otumba, and to the temples and mon-
uments still standing there. Upon all these beauti-
ful structures are engraved in the living stone, or
wrought in stucco, most striking representations of
the sun with a huge priest on either side, standing
with arms outstretched each holding in his hands a
naked child offering it to the relentless deity. The
practice of burning human beings as offerings to
the sun existed very extensively down to the date
of the Spanish conquest. Showing that the same
so-called religion which prevailed in western Europe
before the Roman conquest, was still paramount
and terribly enforced among these settlers in
America, though so far removed from the parent
stock. We have spoken thus far of American
remains which are found north of the Isthmus of
Panama, but there are still existing, in the old land
of Peru, structures which for thousands of years
have been telling the story of their origin.

There are all over this land of Peru remains not
of palaces and temples, but of roads and water-

24

courses, showing a mechanical skill such as perhaps
cannot be found in any part of the earth elsewhere
as existing as early as these must have been con-
structed.

The people who did this work are absolutely
extinct. Many have supposed that in the popula-
tion of Central America there is still a remainder of
the blood of the people who once dwelt there, thus
rendering the local inhabitants in some degree
superior to the aboriginal Indians of that country.
Not so in Peru. It is only from the structures
which we find and the conditions which attend
them that, any evidence is found that there ever
was in Peru, any people superior to the dull Indians
of the mountains.

The traditions of the country speak of one Manco
Capac appearing in the country at some indefinite
period, and that he and his family descendants were
rulers for a long course of time, ruling and control-
ing the business and social life of the population of
Peru. That blood had been long extinct before the
Spanish conquest.

Let us see for a moment whether anything re-
mains to show what were the religious ideas of
Manco Capac, and those coming with and descended
from him. We find abundant remains of struct-
ures and carved columns in the almost desert
regions of Atacama, in the high lands of what is
now Bolivia, between Peru and Chili, between
twelve and thirteen thousand feet above the level
of the sea. These structures and carved monu-
ments are largely gathered about the lake of
Titicaca. At Sillustani on a promontory extend-
ing into that lake, is constructed a stone circle as an
outdoor temple, standing more perfect to-day than

25

Stonehenge or Stennes, or the structures at Carnac
in Bretagne. It is undoubtedly an outdoor temple
for the worship of the sun. See Squires' Travels
in the Lauds of Incas, page 384, &c.

This, taken by itself, might not prove to a certain-
ty that this outdoor temple was for the worship of
the sun, but at Tiahuanuco, in the same work, at
page 2S8 to 292 inclusive, we have the whole story
told as plainly as it could be in a thousand printed
volumes. Over the entrance to a cemetery is a
carved monolith, or single stone, on which is the
following described carving : Centrally over the
gateway upon this monolith is a well carved figure
of the sun, and upon the right hand and the left
hand and below, are sculptured some fifty figures
of beings with human bodies, and the wings of
angels as imagined and represented in western
Asia and in Europe. Half of the angels have
human bodies, angel wings and the heads of hawks.
The Romans and the Greeks held Mercury to be the
god of eloquence and of wisdom.

Instead of furnishing him with the wings of the
Asiatic angel, they clothed his head in a cap close
to the ears with wings extended from the ears, and
with other wings extended from his ankles.

It will be remembered that when Paul and Barn-
abas were upon their great mission through Asia
Minor, preaching the gospel, the people became
very much excited at Paul's preaching at Lystra
and Derbe, and believing that the gods themselves
had come to them, they called Barnabas, Jupiter,
and the orator Paul, Mercurius. See acts of the
Apostles, Chap. 14, 12th verse.

4

26

In the Egyptian economy, Thoth was worshiped
as the god of wisdom and eloquence, and represent-
ed as possessing a human body with a hawk's head.
Both regions representing the hawk as the embodi-
ment of wisdom among the feathered creation.
Here at Tiahuanuco, we have the Greek and Egyp-
tian god of wisdom, furnished with the wings of the
Asiatic angel, and standing in eternal attendance
upon the Phoenician sun god. All these figures are
perfect, as showing the ideas and intentions which
led to their construction, yet indicating in the
roughness of the work that they had been con-
structed by one who was without exact measure-
ments, probably without patterns, and without the
means of obtaining either measurements or pat-
terns. In this cemetery at Tiahuanuco, one will
find a hundred structures so like the round tow-
ers upon the south coast of Ireland as strongly to
awaken one's attention. So that, Manco Capac
and his descendants were not only sun worshipers
but very strongly imbued with the ideas which
originated in the eastern and southern coasts of
the Mediterranean sea.

Thus we have seen that the prehistoric people
who built the structures in Central America and
Mexico, which have in these later days filled the
civilized world with wonder and admiration, were
constructed by a people whose knowledge of
science and the arts had reached the same point of
advancement as had been reached upon the banks
of the Nile, and in the cities of Phoenicia, for at
least a thousand years before the Christian era.
That in the erection of these structures they had
implicitely followed the patterns, even to their
ornamentation, of structures and ornaments then
known and adopted in ancient Egypt. That their
religious beliefs were identical with those which

27

prevailed among the Phoenician people upon the
eastern shores of the Mediterranean sea, upon the
coast of north-western Africa and throughout the
entire west and north-western portions of Europe.
They were sun worshipers, offering infants and
full grown human victims to appease the wrath
and conciliate the favor of their god. And we
have farther seen that that strange people called
the Incas, bnilt outdoor temples of standing stones,
and upon the entrance to their cemeteries engraved
the effigies of the same god worshiped in Central
America, and in so large a portion of the eastern
world.

So we think we may say, with entire confidence,
that it was known to many learned men in ancient
times that there were settlements upon the conti-
nent of America, and that the dreams of the
Western Islands of the Blest, and of the gardens of
the Hesperides, rested upon most substantial facts.
Modern scholars, looking at the matter casually,
have allowed themselves to conclude that, because
these discoveries were made at a very early period
in the history of the world, by a peoj^le who were
unable to build their ships according to the rules of
modern science, and were compeled to navigate
stormy oceans without the aid of steam, and prob-
ably without the aid of the mariner's compass,
could never have navigated wide seas and stormy
oceans .

But how baseless this idea is found to be, when
we come to see how easily and successfully the
Phoenician people traversed northern, western and
eastern oceans, and brought home the products of
the whole world to enrich themselves and the
peoples among whom Providence had fixed their
destinies ! And how strangely such a suggestion

28

sounds when addressed to the understanding of
peoples who have seen again and again the boister-
ous Atlantic traversed from continent to continent
by three men, two men, and even a single man, in
an open boat ! So that the origin of this people, who
were so conspicuous at one time in Central Ameri-
ca, is certainly found to have been of the Phoeni-
cians from Tyre, Sidon or Aridas or from Tharshish
or Carthage or the settlements towards the west.
The settlement of these countries must have been
very early, and their location must have been
guarded by all the pains and penalties so graphic-
ally described in the ancient authors which we
have quoted. Intercourse with Central America
from the east must have ceased before the discovery
of letters, for nowhere that we have discovered
throughout the extent of the American settlements
has a letter been found of any form whether Cuni-
forai, Greek, Roman, Hebrew or Phoenician.
These western settlers must have been entirely
ignorant of Egyptian hieroglyphics, for the figures
upon their walls show the invention of a system of
hieroglyphics more complicated than anywhere else
discovered, and which no Champollion has yet been
able to translate. The human mind was not dor-
mant here but its discoveries are utterly lost to
mankind. It will be asked what has become of
this Central American population who wrought the
works in question ? This can only be answered
from conjecture. The number of actual settlers
from the east were doubtless few. In erecting the
structures which have been so much admired and
wondered at, they doubtless used the labors of un-
told thousands of the aboriginal inhabitants, appeal-
ing perhaps to their fears and desires to conciliate
the favor of that God, whose terrors made the

29

Phoenecian priests such an irresistable power over
the nations in the west and north of Europe.

But if for a moment superstition lost its terrors,
this little flock of more intelligent incomers were
powerless to resist the avenging hands of the mil-
lion aboriginal barbarians. But we are not en-
gaged in discussing the mode in which this people
became extinct, but choose to confine ourselves to
the questions, who were they, and where did they
come from \ We say without hesitation, that when
Columbus parted from Palos in Spain, he sailed
from a Phoenician city, in Phoenician vessels,
manned by Phoenician crews to rediscover worlds
that the Phoenician ancestors of these men had
known and settled not less than three thousand
years before. We believe that traditions had al-
wa}^s existed in Spain, whose blood up to the Ebro
is almost purely Phoenician, of these western
worlds discovered by their fathers. No nation north
of Spain could be induced to give any considerable
attention to the arguments and solicitations of Col-
umbus. True, Ferdinand and Isabella were of
northern blood, red haired Goths, but their northern
blood had been nourished for a thousand years upon
the hillsides of Northern Spain, and they had be-
come Spaniards in fact, with all Spanish beliefs and
tendencies. Beyond all question Columbus took
into account the Norwegian and Icelandic voyages
and the voyage of Madoc with his Welsh brethren.
But Columbus knew that those voyages only claimed
to relate to lands lying west and north-west of the
Straits of Gibraltar. But when Columbus unfurled
his sails outside these Straits, in latitude thirty-five,
he made no effort to find the lands claimed to have
been discovered by the Icelanders, Norwegians or
Welsh, but directed his course to a point from fifteen

30

to twenty degrees farther south, and thus reopened
to the knowledge of the world what should have
been the happy islands of the west and the storied
gardens of the Hespericles. We make no doubt
that the Incas of Peru were brought to that country
by the ships of the same Phoenician people. But
the Incas were very few in number, and came to
Peru with mechanical knowledge and the knowl-
edge of pottery far in advance of that possessed by
the settlers in Central America, and their works
initiated for the purpose of improving water courses
and constructing roads were far more beneficial to
mankind than the temples erected to Baal in Cen-
tral America, although the Incas, though more in-
telligent than the settlers in Central America, were
not yet emancipated from belief in that heathen
god. Manco Capac, the first Inca, may have been
left, for aught we know, by Solomon's fleets from
Eziongeber, when in search of rosewood, mahogany,
and gold, and may have been one of those skilled
mechanics that built Solomon's Temple, and con-
structed the basins for it, and thus have become
enlightened in religious matters, although he had
not yet advanced so far as to entirely abandon the
worship of Baal.

We are not unaware that Peruvian tradition
introduces Capac into Peru at a much later period,
but no confidence can be placed in dates suggested
by a people utterly unacquainted with letters or
figures, and we make no suggestion as to the exact
time when the first Inca showed himself in Peru.
It may be asked what we are to say in regard to the
storied Atlantis, and especially, what shall we say
to the fancies of Ignatius Donnelly, who has writ-
ten such a beautiful romance in regard to that
island supposed by him to have existed, and have

31

been the actual birthplace of man. Our reply is that
Central America was the only true Atlantis ; and
that Atlantis sunk in the ocean only when its dis-
coverers became weakened in the face of the bar-
barous people who surrounded them and lost their
supremacy in the commercial world among the
nations. Beyond what was true of Central America,
Atlantis was a dream of fancy at an age of the
world when fancy supplied the place of facts to an
uninstructed people.

x o t e .

I am under strong obligations to Mr. George R.
Howell, Archivist of the New York State Library, for
the aid he has given me in selecting from ancient Greek
and Roman authors their substantial statements in regard
to what they considerered in their day to have been
discoveries in the western world.

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