The works of Prescott upon Mexico and Peru (which are perhaps the most popular and accessible upon the antiquities of these countries) are nevertheless sadly meagre in their accounts of the respective mythologies of the Nahuatlaca and the Incas. Indeed in each of them but a few pages is given to the faith of the aborigines. In some later editions, however (notably in the recent popular editions of Mr. Sonnenschein), excellent variorum notes have been added by the editors. A great deal of Prescott's work is now quite obsolete and misleading. The works of Mr. Brinton have superseded them; but it is doubtful if Prescott will ever be surpassed in narrative charm. The best English work on the subject is Mr. Payne's History of the New World called America, cited above, a work which is a veritable storehouse of knowledge upon aboriginal America. These works are, however, rather too erudite in tone for the general reader, and by no means easy to come by. A most excellent catalogue of American historical and mythological literature is published by Mr. Karl Hiersemann of Leipsic.
Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The fact of the rapid approximation of the European colonists to the American type might, however, be quoted against this view.
[2] It must be borne in mind that the science and arts of the Aztecs were almost immediately lost in consequence of the intolerance of the Spanish Conquistadores.
[3] An absolutely erroneous one.
[4] The temple, with all its purlieus and courts, was named teopan; the central pyramid, teocalli.
[5] There is reason to believe, however, that the sacrifices of the Aztecs were made not so much for the purpose of placating the gods as for the imagined necessity of rejuvenating them and keeping them alive. Of some of the sacrifices, at least, this is certain.
[6] The veneration of an animal or plant which does not identify a tribe is not 'totemism' but 'naturalism,' or nature-worship.