40 THE GROUP or THE CROSS. 



about as bad as that which derives the American Indians from the Jews; and yet 

 Lord Kingsborough has expended a great deal of learning in the vain attempt to 

 prove the descent of the Mexicans from the Hebrews. 



The cross certainly was a symbol in the old world in ages anteceding the 

 Christian era,* and in the new long before Columbus unfurled the banner of 

 Castile and Leon on the shore of Gruanahani. Crosses of different forms often 

 occur on Egyptian sculjitures and paintings. A small cross with an oval or 

 round handle, the crux ansata, is very frequently seen, as a symbol of life, in the 

 hands of Egyptian deities. On coins struck at Sidon, Berytus, etc., Astarte, the 

 Syrian goddess, whose worship was accompanied by rites of an obscene character, 

 is represented as holding in her hand a long cross resembling those carried in 

 Catholic processions. The goddess is seen standing either in a boat or in a 

 temple, the cross being always the most conspicuous among her attributes.f 

 This emblem, indeed, was common among many ancient nations, and though it 

 may often have been employed as a mere ornament, it is probable that, where it 

 appeal's in ante-Christian times in a perceptibly symbolic character, it was intended 

 to express the reciprocal principles of nature. This is a subject on which I have 

 no intention to enlarge in this publication, and I only allude to it on account of its 

 bearing on the significance of the cross in America. However, it will be evident to 

 every one, who has the faculty of divesting himself for a time from now prevailing 

 ideas, that the mysteries of generation must have powerfully acted upon the 

 imagination of men in earlier ages, and must have led, in consequence of a 

 tendency characteristic of a certain stage in human development, to the symboli- 

 zation of that life-giving and life-continuing agency. In the course of time the 

 meaning of the emblem became modified, though it always appears to relate in 

 some sense to the creative -energy of nature. 



We know from the testimony of several early Spanish authors that the 

 cross was venerated in Yucatan as a rain-procuring agent. When Grijalva 

 landed, in 1518, on the now deserted and forest-covered Island of Cozumel,J near 

 the coast of Yucatan, he was surprised at the sight of such a cross erected in an 

 enclosure of one of the numerous temples on the island. " They saw," says 

 Herrera, " some sanctuaries and temples, and one in particular, in the shape of a 

 four-sided tower, broad at the base and hollow at the top, where there were 

 four large windows and corridors. This hollow part formed the chapel, in 

 which were idols, and at its back was a sacristy where the objects used in 



* The cross, it is well known, was also an instrument of punishment among many ancient nations, and as 

 such tecame the symbol of Christianity after the death of its founder. 



f Such coins are figured in McCulloh's " Besearches etc."; Baltimore, 1829, pp. 332-33, and in Laiitau's 

 " Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains ;" Paris, 1725, torn, i, plancbe 17. 



t The Island of Cozurael (originally Cuzamil, '-Island of Swallows" — Isla de Golondrinas — according to 

 CogoUudo) was, prior to the advent of the Spaniards, a sort of Indian Mecca, to which the natives made pilgrimages 

 for performing their religious ceremonies. 



