126 ELLIOT Smith, Distribution of Mummification. 



dependence is to be followed out. Evidence of the same 

 kind was brought forward in support of the theory, not 

 sufficiently recognised by writers on culture history, of the 

 Asiatic influences under which the pre-Columbian culture 

 of America took shape. In the religion of old Mexico 

 four great scenes in the journey of the soul in the land of 

 the dead are mentioned by early Spanish writers after 

 the conquest, and are depicted in a group in the Aztec 

 picture-writing known as the Vatican Codex. The four 

 scenes are, first, the crossing of the river ; second, the 

 fearful passage of the soul between the two mountains 

 which clash together ; third, the soul's climbing up the 

 mountain set with sharp obsidian knives ; fourth, the 

 dangers of the wind carrying such knives on its blast. 

 The Mexican pictures of these four scenes were compared 

 with more or less closely corresponding pictures repre- 

 senting scenes from the Buddhist hells or purgatories as 

 depicted on Japanese temple scrolls. Here, first, the 

 river of death is shown, where the souls wade across ; 

 second, the souls have to pass between two huge iron 

 mountains, which are pushed together by two demons ; 

 third, the guilty s'ouls climb the mountain of knives, whose 

 blades cut their hands and feet ; fourth, fierce blasts of 

 wind drive against their lacerated forms, the blades of 

 knives flying through the air. It was argued that the 

 appearance of analogues so close and complex of Buddhist 

 ideas in Mexico constituted a correspondence of so high 

 an order as to preclude any explanation except direct 

 transmission from one religion to another. The writer, 

 referring also to Humboldt's argument from the calendars 

 and mythic catastrophes in Mexico and Asia, and to the 

 correspondence in Bronze Age work and in games in 

 both regions, expressed the opinion that on these cumu- 

 lative proofs anthropologists might well feel justified in 



