The Tartars also worshiped God as a Trinity in Unity. On one of their medals, which is now in the St. Petersburgh Museum, may be seen a representation of the triple God seated on the lotus.[378:1]
Even in the remote islands of the Pacific Ocean, the supreme deities are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, the latter of which is symbolized as a bird.[378:2]
The ancient Mexicans and Peruvians had their Trinity. The supreme God of the Mexicans (Tezcatlipoca), who had, as Lord Kingsborough says, "all the attributes and powers which were assigned to Jehovah by the Hebrews," had associated with him two other gods, Huitzlipochtli and Tlaloc; one occupied a place upon his left hand, the other on his right. This was the Trinity of the Mexicans.[378:3]
When the bishop Don Bartholomew de las Casas proceeded to his bishopric, which was in 1545, he commissioned an ecclesiastic, whose name was Francis Hernandez, who was well acquainted with the language of the Indians (as the natives were called), to visit them, carrying with him a sort of catechism of what he was about to preach. In about one year from the time that Francis Hernandez was sent out, he wrote to Bishop las Casas, stating that:
"The Indians believed in the God who was in heaven; that this God was the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that the Father was named Yzona, the Son Bacab, who was born of a Virgin, and that the Holy Ghost was called Echiah."[378:4]
The Rev. Father Acosta says, in speaking of the Peruvians:
"It is strange that the devil after his manner hath brought a Trinity into idolatry, for the three images of the Sun called Apomti, Churunti, and Intiquaoqui, signifieth Father and Lord Sun, the Son Sun, and the Brother Sun.
"Being in Chuquisaca, an honorable priest showed me an information, which I had long in my hands, where it was proved that there was a certain oratory, whereat the Indians did worship an idol called Tangatanga, which they said was 'One in Three, and Three in One.' And as this priest stood amazed thereat, I said that the devil by his internal and obstinate pride (whereby he always pretends to make himself God) did steal all that he could from the truth, to employ it in his lying and deceits."[378:5]
The doctrine was recognized among the Indians of the Californian peninsula. The statue of the principal deity of the New Granadian Indians had "three heads on one body," and was understood to be "three persons with one heart and one will."[378:6]