^6 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



filled with cinnamon, myrrh, and all sorts of spices ; after a certain 

 time it was swathed in lawn fillets, which were glued together by 

 gum, and crusted over with most exquisite perfumes. 



The rite of circumcison was one practiced among the Phoe- 

 nicians, Hebrews, and Egyptians. It was instituted among the 

 Hebrews in the time of Abraham as a sign and seal of the covenant 

 which God had made with him. It was known among all the 

 nations mentioned as an expressive and emblematical symbol of 

 purity, as a means of purging moral turpitude, and propagating 

 righteousness. 



What is our surprise, then, to find this same rite established 

 among the Toltecs and early races of Central America, endowed 

 with the same moral properties as it possessed among the nations 

 enumerated. Such a ceremony as this inducted among the early 

 American races at a period, (we know not when), could only have 

 been known to them as an hereditary rite, or as a graft from some 

 other nation. Outside of Egypt or Phoenicia to what other nation 

 can we trace it ? 



Schoolcraft says a peculiar belief among the early American 

 tribes was, that the souls of men, upon death, continued to live in 

 the bodies of animals or other men, the existences thus continued 

 being graded according to the manner in which the lives of their 

 possessors had been conducted ; if life was just, the continued 

 existence was of a high order ; if unjust, or wicked, the souls 

 descended into the bodies of toads and reptiles, RoUin says : " It 

 is to Egypt that Pythagoras owed his favorite doctrine of Metempsy- 

 chosis, or the transmigration of souls. The Egyptians beheved that 

 on the death of men their souls transmigrated into other human 

 bodies, and that if they had been vicious, they were imprisoned in 

 the bodies of unclean or ill-conditioned beasts, to expiate in them 

 their past transgressions ; and that, after a revolution of some 

 centuries, they again animated other bodies." 



The Egyptians prognosticated the future from the condition of 

 the internal organs of animals offered in sacrifice. A like custom 

 was performed by the priests among the Peruvians. 



No one but the high priest of the Egyptians was supposed to 

 enter the sacred recess of the inner temple, the " Holy of Holies." 

 This same observance was rigidly enforced among the Peruvians 



