1879.] Anthropology. 195 
“In each of the other two allegorical sculptures, a human being 
is devoured by a bird—perhaps the Bird of the Sun—as it wears 
the image of the sun on the breast. This myth, again, has arisen 
independently in many lands. 
“ The advancement of a people is also said to be measured by 
their religious conceptions. If we inquire into the stage which 
the evolution of the religious sentiment had reached among the 
people of Santa Lucia, we shall find that they were passing from 
the adoration of the sun and other heavenly bodies to the worship 
of men—Anthropomorphism. Among the deities in the sculp- 
with human forms. The entire body is not given, but only the 
upper, nobler part. In the images of the deities are preserved 
the natural human features, not disfigured by any addition of 
animal organs or fantastic attributes. 
“The sculptures prove, alas! that human sacrifices were prac- 
tised by their makers. e mode of immolation was peculiar. 
It was not the entrails of the victims which were dedicated to the 
gods, nor the heart torn from the breast and thrown at the feet of 
the idol; but we see here the noblest part of the body, the head, 
severed and presented to the deity. i 
“ Finally, the language of a nation and the methods of repre- 
_ senting it are valuable indications of their status in culture. The 
same may be said of their numeral system. 
“It has been frequently affirmed that the aborigines of Amer- 
ica had nowhere arisen high enough in civilization to have char- 
acters for writing and numeral signs; but the sculptures of Santa 
Lucia exhibit signs which indicate a kind of cipher writing, 
higher in form than mere hieroglyphics. From the mout 
most of the human beings, living or dead, emanates a staff vari- 
ously bent, to the sides of which nodes are attached. These 
nodes are of different sizes and shapes, and variously distributed 
on the sides of the staff, either singly, or in twos and threes—the 
last named either separated or in shape of a trefoil. This man- 
ner of writing not only indicates that the person is speaking, or 
praying, but also indicates the very words, the contents of the 
speech or prayer. It is quite certain that each staff, as bent and 
ornamented, stood for a well-known petition which the priests 
could read as easily as those acquainted with a cipher dispatch 
can know its purport. Further, one may be allowed to conjecture 
that the various curves of the staves served the purpose of strength 
and rhythm, just as the poet chooses his various metres for the 
Same purpose. 
“In the supplications of human beings this staff and its knots 
have a simple form, in the speeches of death the bends are angu- 
lar; but the staves emanating from the deities are exceedingly 
complicated, and proceed, not from the mouth, but from the head 
or neck. To the variously bent and ramified staves of the deities, 
