78 ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



occupied the country at the time of the invasion of the Spaniards. This author 

 considers the celebrated Cozumel cross preserved at Meridia, which chiims the credit 

 of being the same originally worshipped by the natives of Cozumel, as, after all, 

 nothing but a cross that was erected by the Spaniards in one of their own temples 

 after the conquest. 



It is, however, well established that the cross was found in Mexico before the 

 conquest, and the Spaniards could not suppress their wonder as they beheld the 

 cross, the sacred emblem of their own foith, raised as an object of worship in the 

 temples of Anahuac. They met with it in various places. 



Archaeologists have noticed tliat the early writers laid great stress upon the fact 

 that crosses were discovered in various parts of America at the time of the con- 

 quest, and deduced therefrom some very extraordinary conclusions. Don Carlos 

 de Siguenza Y. Gougora speaks of one drawn from the cave of INIizteca Baxa, 

 and venerated in his day in the Conventual Church of Tonala, dedicated to St. 

 Dominic. This cross, he avers, was discovered by the music of angels being heard 

 in the cave, on a long vigil of the glorious apostle St. Thomas, who, according to 

 his hypothesis, introduced Christianity into America immediately after the era of 

 Christ., 



Gomara mentions crosses in Yucatan ; and Bonturini testifies to having fre- 

 quently met with them in paintings. Mr. Squier has shown, however, that his 

 error consists in mistaking the symbolical Tonacaquahultl, or Tree of Life, for a 

 cross. Mr. Squier, in his work on Nicaragua, notices the occurrence of the cross 

 in some of the aboriginal remains. A number described at Zapatero are distin- 

 guished by this feature. 



These facts may be viewed by some as indicating that the inhabitants of 

 America have, at various times, come in contact with the civilizations and religions 

 of Asia and Europe, even before the recognized period of the discovery and explora- 

 tion of the American continent ; and, when considered in connection with the results 

 of my explorations of the aboriginal remains of Tennessee, it is clearly established 

 that, in the absence of historical records, it is difficult and perhaps impossible to 

 form a correct judgment of even the approximate age of the aboriginal mounds 

 and stone graves of Tennessee, merely from the discovery of copper crosses and 

 certain symbolical paintings on earthen vessels. The more important inference 

 appears to be that the mound-builders and stone-grave race of the Mississippi 

 valley had a common origin or near affinity Avith the aboriginal inhabitants of 

 Mexico and Central America. 



