2. Ibid., p. 352.]
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Verily the bands that knit the races of the earth together are wonderful indeed, and they radiate, as I shall try to show, from one spot of the earth's surface, alike to Polynesia, Europe, and America.
Let us change the scene again to the neighborhood of the Aztecs:
We are told of two youths, the ancestors of the Miztec chiefs, who separated, each going his own way to conquer lands for himself:
"The braver of the two, coming to the vicinity of Tilantongo, armed with buckler and bow, was much vexed and oppressed by the ardent rays of the sun, which he took to be the lord of that district, striving to prevent his entrance therein. Then the young man strung his bow, and advanced his buckler before him, and drew shafts from his quiver. He shot these against the great light even till the going down of the same; then he took possession of all that land, seeing that he had grievously wounded the sun and forced him to hide behind the mountains. Upon this story is founded the lordship of all the caciques of Mizteca, and upon their descent from this mighty archer, their ancestor. Even to this day, the chiefs of the Miztecs blazon as their arms a plumed chief with bow and arrows and shield, and the sun in front of him setting behind gray clouds."[1]
Are these two young men, one of whom attacks and injures the sun, the two wolves of the Gothic legends, the two comets, who devoured the sun and moon? And did the Miztec barbarians, in their vanity, claim descent from these monstrous creatures of the sky? Why not, when the historical heroes of antiquity traced their pedigree back to the gods; and the rulers of Peru, Egypt, and China pretended to be the lineal offspring of the sun? And there are not wanting those, even in Europe, who
[1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 73.]
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yet believe that the blood-royal differs in some of its constituents from the blood of the common people