The Incas, in order to preserve purity of race, married their own sisters, as did the Kings of Persia, and other Oriental nations.[537:1]
The Peruvian embalming of the royal dead takes us back to Egypt; the burning of the wives of the deceased Incas reveals India; the singularly patriarchical character of the whole Peruvian policy is like that of China in the olden time; while the system of espionage, of tranquillity, of physical well-being, and the iron-like immovability in which their whole social frame was cast, bring before us Japan—as it was a very few years ago. In fact, there is something strangely Japanese in the entire cultus of Peru as described by all writers.[537:2]
The dress and costume of the Mexicans, and their sandals, resemble the apparel and sandals worn in early ages in the East.[537:3]
Mexican priests were represented with a Serpent twined around their heads, so were Oriental kings.[537:4] The Mexicans had the head of a rhinoceros among their paintings,[537:5] and also the head of an elephant on the body of a man.[537:6] Now, these animals were unknown in America, but well known in Asia; and what is more striking still is the fact that the man with the elephant's head is none other than the Ganesa of India; the God of Wisdom. Humboldt, who copied a Mexican painting of a man with an elephant's head, remarks that "it presents some remarkable and apparently not accidental resemblances with the Hindoo Ganesa."
The horse and the ass, although natives of America,[537:7] became extinct on the Western Continent in an early period of the earth's history, yet the Mexicans had, among their hieroglyphics, representations of both these animals, which show that it must have been seen in the old world by the author of the hieroglyph. When the Mexicans saw the horses which the Spaniards brought over, they were greatly astonished, and when they saw the Spaniards on horseback, they imagined man and horse to be one.
Certain of the temples of India abound with sculptural representations of the symbols of Phallic Worship. Turning now to the temples of Central America, which in many respects exhibit a strict correspondence with those in India, we find precisely the same symbols, separate and in combination.[537:8]
We have seen that many of the religious conceptions of America are identical with those of the Old World, and that they are embodied or symbolized under the same or cognate forms; and it is confidently asserted that a comparison and analysis of her primitive systems, in connection with those of other parts of the globe, philosophically conducted, would establish the grand fact, that in ALL their leading elements, and in many of their details, they are essentially the same.[538:1]
The architecture of many of the most ancient buildings in South America resembles the Asiatic. Around Lake Titicaca are massive monuments, which speak of a very ancient and civilized nation.[538:2]
E. Spence Hardy, says: