114 ELLIOT SMITH, Distribution of Mummification. 



and occasionally a process of embalming was resorted to. 

 The bowels were taken out and replaced by aromatic 

 substances." " The art was an ancient one, however, 

 dating from the Toltecs as usual, yet generally known 

 and practised throughout the whole country" (p. 604). 

 He then proceeds to describe " a curious mode of pre- 

 serving bodies used by the lord of Chalco," which con- 

 sisted of desiccation ; and adds a singularly interesting 

 reference to libations, not only curiously reminiscent of 

 the ancient Egyptian practice, but also described in 

 language which might be regarded as a paraphrase of the 

 Pyramid text expounded by Blackman (5). " Water was 

 then poured upon its [the mummy's] head with these 

 words : ' this is the water which thou usedst in this 

 world ' — Brasseur de Bourbourg uses the expression 

 ' C'est cette eau que tu as recue en venant au monde ' " 

 (Bancroft, 3, Vol. II., p. 604). 



It is altogether inconceivable that such a curious 

 practice, embodying so remarkable an idea, could by 

 chance have been invented independently in Egypt and 

 in America. This can be no mere coincidence, but proof 

 of the most definite kind of the derivation of these Toltec 

 and Aztec ideas from Egypt. 



Bancroft further describes (3, p. 604 et seq.) a whole 

 series of other ritual observances, many cf which find 

 close parallels in the scenes depicted in the royal 

 Egyptian tombs of the New Empire. 



I have already referred to Tylor's case (102) of the 

 adoption in toto by the Aztecs of the Japanese Buddhist's 

 story of the soul's wanderings in the spirit-land. In the 

 case recorded by Bancroft almost the same story is 

 reproduced, but with the characteristic Egyptian additions 

 relating to parts of the way guarded by a gigantic snake 

 and an alligator respectively [in the Egyptian ritual it is 



