su pusilanimidad, i cobardia, porque no temiesen, viendo los Enemigos, que venian en su seguimiento, i de cobardes se bolviesen à Egipto.' With regard to the cowardice of the Americans, he writes: 'Cuenta la Historia, que entrò Cortès, en la Conquista de Nueva-España con 550 Españoles, i de estos eran los 50 Marineros: i en Mexico tuvo, quando lo ganò, 900 Españoles, 200,000 Indios, 8 °Caballos: murieron de los Nuestros 50, i de los Caballos 6. Entrò Piçarro en el Perù con pocos mas de 200 Españoles, con los quales, i con 6 °Caballos tuvo Victoria contra el Rei Atanualpa.' Not only at the time of the Conquest, he adds, did the Americans scatter and run on the discharge of a musket, but even at the present day, when they are familiar with firearms, they do the same.
Orígen de los Ind., pp. 85-6.
164
Immediately afterwards he says that the Jews and Americans were alike, because they both bathed frequently.
165
This scarcely seems to be a parallelism, and certainly would not be, had the worthy Father written, as he well might: 'freedom and the hardships of the desert,' instead of 'manna and the promised land'.
166
To show García's style and logic, which are, indeed, but little different from the style and reasoning of all these ancient writers, I translate literally, and without embellishment of any kind, his attempts to prove that whatever differences exist at the present day between the Jew and the American, are due to the special act of God. 'It was divinely ordained that men should be scattered throughout all countries, and be so different from one another in disposition and temperament, in order that by their variety men should become possessed of a different and distinct genius; of a difference in the color of the face and in the form of the body; just as animals are various, and various the things produced by the earth, various the trees, various the plants and grasses, various the birds; and finally, various the fish of the sea and of rivers: in order that men should see in this how great is the wisdom of Him that created them. And although the variety and specific difference existing in these irrational and senseless beings causes in them a specific distinction, and that in men is only individual, or accidental and common; the Most High desired that this variety and common difference should exist in the human species, as there could be none specific and essential, so that there should be a resemblance in this between man and the other created beings: of which the Creator himself wished that the natural cause should be the arrangement of the earth, the region of the air, influence of the sky, waters, and edibles. By which the reader will not fail to be convinced that it was possible for the Indians to obtain and acquire a difference of mental faculties, and of color of face and of features, such as the Jews had not.' Orígen de los Ind., p. 105.
167
'Y finalmente, si nos dixeren, que solos aquellos siete generos de Gentes, que he nombrado, que son Colcos, Egypcios, Etiopes, Fenices, Syros de Palestina, i Syros de los Rios Termodon, i Pantenio, i sus vecinos los Macrones fueron los que vsaron en el Mundo la circuncision… A Herodoto, i à los que alegaren lo referido, se responde, que sin duda los Hebreos fueron los primeros que la vsaron, por mandado de Dios.' Orígen de los Ind., p. 110.
168
See Orígen de los Ind., pp. 119-23, for examples of linguistic resemblances.
169
Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. viii., pp. 19-20, vol. vi., p. 536.
170
Id., vol. viii., p. 21.
174
Id., pp. 67, 218-19, 240.
177
'Y el Ynga Yupangue entraba solo, y él mismo por su mano sacrificaba las ovejas y corderos.' Betanzos, Historia de los Ingas, lib. i., cap. xi., quoted in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. viii., p. 156.
178
Id., pp. 157, 236, 389, vol. vi., pp. 273-5.
179
Id., vol. viii., p. 160.
182
Id., pp. 174-82. He presents a most elaborate discussion of this point. See also vol. vi., pp. 512, 523.
183
Id., vol. viii., p. 238.
186
Id., p. 258, vol. vi., p. 236.
188
Id., p. 208. 'Representations of the lifting up of serpents frequently occur in Mexican paintings: and the plagues which Moses called down upon the Egyptians by lifting up his rod, which became a serpent, are evidently referred to in the eleventh and twelfth pages of the Borgian Manuscript. An allusion to the passage of the Red Sea … seems also to be contained in the seventy-first page of the Lesser Vatican MS.; and the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, and the thanksgiving of Moses, may perhaps be signified by the figure on the left, in the same page, of a man falling into a pit or gulf, and by the hand on the right stretched out to receive an offering.'
190
Id., p. 232, et seq. Kingsborough reasons at some length on this point.
193
Id., pp. 272-3, 333-5, 392-3; vol. viii., pp. 121-2, 142-3, 391.
194
Id., vol. vi., pp. 300-1; vol. viii., p. 137.
195
Id., vol. vi., p. 504, vol. viii., p. 18.
196
Id., vol. vi., p. 125.
199
Id., p. 246. Duran sustains the theory that the Indians are the descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel. After giving several reasons founded on the Scriptures, he refers to the traditions obtained by him from the old people of the country. They related that their ancestors, whilst suffering many hardships and persecutions, were prevailed upon by a great man, who became their chief, to flee from that land into another, where they might have rest; they arrived at the sea-shore, and the chief struck the waters with a rod he had in his hands; the sea opened, and the chief and his followers marched on, but were soon pursued by their enemies; they crossed over in safety, and their enemies were swallowed up by the sea; at any rate, their ancestors never had any further account of their persecutors. Another tradition transmitted from generation to generation, and recorded in pictures, is, that while their first ancestors were on their journey to the promised land, they tarried in the vicinity of certain high hills; here a terrible earthquake occurred, and some wicked people who were with them were swallowed up by the earth opening under their feet. The same picture that Father Duran saw, showed that the ancestors of the Mexican people transmitted a tradition, relating that during their journey a kind of sand (or hail) rained upon them. Father Duran further gives an account furnished him by an old Indian of Cholula (some 100 years old) concerning the creation of the world: The first men were giants who, desirous
