Introduction. xxv 



It was also used in India as the receptacle for libations, 

 which, as I have already mentioned, was one of the essen- 

 tial ritual procedures for animating the dead, and in course 

 of time for performing the same devotional act for the 

 deity. 



Thus it was intimately interwoven into the very 

 texture of the remarkable culture-complex of which these 

 practices represent a few of the ingredients 



Mrs. Zelia Nuttall has published a remarkable scene 

 from an unpublished manuscript of Sahagun's. now at 

 Florence, representing the ancient Mexicans'act of homage 

 to the sun. ' Two priests offer blood by piercing their 

 ears, two others burn incense in a characteristically Egyp- 

 tian fashion, and another pair blow conch-shell trumpets. 17 

 The use of the shell trumpet in a similar ceremonial for 

 sun-worship in Indonesia indicates one stage in the route 

 from Crete to America. One might multiply such illus- 

 trations almost without limit to demonstrate the reality 

 of the cultural bonds between these shell-elements and 

 the rest of the sun-cult both in the New World and in 

 the Old. 



One of the most remarkable proofs of the derivation 

 of the civilisation of America from the Old World is 

 afforded by the representation in Maya and Aztec docu- 

 ments of unmistakably Indian religious scenes, often with 

 a Far Eastern tinge. The late Sir Edward Tylor called 

 attention to a clear example of such transference. 18 



Humboldt, Stolberg and Tschudi have cited others. 19 



17 A Penitential Rite of the Ancient Mexicans," Archaeological and 

 Ethnological Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. I, 

 No. 7, 1904. 



18 "On the Diffusion of Mythical Beliefs as Evidence in the History 

 of Culture," Report British Association, 1894, p. 774 



13 See Bancroft "The Native Races of the Pacific States of North 

 America," Vol. V., p. 40 et set]. 



