[XI-129] I refer to the left hand figure in the cut on p. 348, vol. iv., of this work. For examples of the amulets mentioned, see illustrations in Payne Knight's Worship of Priapus.
[XI-130] See vol. i., of this work, p. 93; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. iv., p. 48; See vol. ii., of this work, pp. 719-20.
[XI-131] Boturini, Idea, p. 13; see also this volume, [pp. 243]-[4].
[XI-132] See vol. i., of this work, pp. 200, 414, 566-6; vol. ii., p. 676, and account of Yucatec feasts in chap. xxii. In citing these brutish orgies I do not presume, or wish to assert, that they were in any way connected with phallus worship, or indeed, that there was anything of a religious nature in them. Still, as they certainly were indulged in during, or immediately after the great religious festivals, and as we know how the phallic cult degenerated from its original purity into just such bestiality in Greece and Rome, I have thought it well to mention them. There is much truth in the following remarks on this point, by Mr. Brinton, though with his statement that the proofs of a recognition of the fecundating principle in Nature by the Americans are 'altogether wanting,' I cannot agree. He says: 'There is no ground whatever to invest these debauches with any recondite meaning. They are simply indications of the thorough and utter immorality which prevailed throughout the race. And a still more disgusting proof of it is seen in the frequent appearance among diverse tribes of men dressed as women and yielding themselves to indescribable vices. There was at first nothing of a religious nature in such exhibitions. Lascivious priests chose at times to invest them with some such meaning.... The pretended phallic worship of the Natchez and of Culhuacan, cited by the Abbé Brasseur, rests on no good authority, and if true, is like that of the Huastecs of Panuco, nothing but an unrestrained and boundless profligacy which it were an absurdity to call a religion. That which Mr. Stephens attempts to show existed once in Yucatan, rests entirely by his own statement on a fancied resemblance of no value whatever, and the arguments of Lafitau to the same effect are quite insufficient. There is a decided indecency in the remains of ancient American art, especially in Peru, (Meyen) and great lubricity in many ceremonies, but the proof is altogether wanting to bind these with the recognition of fecundating principle throughout nature, or, indeed, to suppose for them any other origin than the promptings of an impure fancy. I even doubt whether they often referred to fire as the deity of sexual love. By a flight of fancy inspired by a study of oriental mythology, the worship of the reciprocal principle in America has been connected with that of the sun and moon, as the primitive pair from whose fecund union all creatures proceeded. It is sufficient to say if such a myth exists among the Indians—which is questionable—it justifies no such deduction; that the moon is often mentioned in their languages merely as the "night sun;" and that in such important stocks as the Iroquois, Athapascas, Cherokees, and Tupis, the sun is said to be a feminine noun; while the myths represent them more frequently as brother and sister than as man and wife; nor did at least the northern tribes regard the sun as the cause of fecundity in nature at all, but solely as giving light and warmth.' Myths, pp. 149-50; Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. v., pp. 416-17.
[XI-133] For a full account of this feast see vol. ii., of this work, pp. 329-30.
[XII-1] 'The preconceived opinions,' says Brinton, 'that saw in the meteorological myths of the Indian a conflict between the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, have with like unconscious error falsified his doctrine of a future life, and almost without an exception drawn it more or less in the likeness of a Christian heaven, hell, and purgatory.... Nowhere was any well-defined doctrine that moral turpitude was judged and punished in the next world. No contrast is discoverable between a place of torments and a realm of joy; at the worst, but a negative castigation awaited the liar, the coward, or the niggard.' Myths, p. 242.
[XII-2] Prehistoric Times, p. 139.
[XII-3] See vol. ii., pp. 618, 623.
[XII-4] Myths, p. 257.