HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



3 



faid that he often appeared to men for the purpofe of 

 terrifying or doing them an injury. 



With refpeft to the foul, the barbarous Otomies, as 

 they tell us, believed that it died together with the body: 

 while the Mexicans, with all the other poliihed nations 

 of Anahuac, confidered it as immortal ; allowing, at the 

 fame time, that blefTmg of immortality to the fouls of 

 brutes, and not retraining it to rational beings alone {a). 



They diftinguifhed three places for the fouls w T hen fe- 

 parated from the body. Thofe of foldiers who died in 

 battle or in captivity among their enemies, and thofe of 

 women who died in labour, went to the houfe of the fun, 

 whom they conlidered as the Prince of Glory, where 

 they led a life of endlefs delight ; where, every day, at 

 the firfl appearance of the fun's rays they hailed his birth 

 with rejoicings ; and with dancing, and the mufic of in- 

 ftruments and of voices, attended him to his meridian ; 

 there they met the fouls of the women, and with the 

 fame feflivity accompanied him to his fetting. If religion 

 is intended only to ferve the purpofes of government, as 

 has been imagined by mod of the free-thinkers of our 

 times, furely thofe nations could not forge a fyftem of be*. 

 lief better calculated to infpire their foldiers with cou- 

 rage than one which promifed fo high a reward after their 

 death. They next fuppofed that thefe fpirits after four 

 years of that glorious life, went to animate clouds, and 

 birds of beautiful feathers and of fweet fong ; but always 

 at liberty to rife again to heaven, or to defcend upon the 

 earth to warble and fuck the flowers. The people of 

 Tlafcala believed that the fouls of perfons of rank went, 

 after their death, to inhabit the bodies of beautiful and 



fweet 



(■*) The ideas here afcribed to the Mexicans, with refpect to the fouls of 

 fcrutes, will appear more fully when we mall come to fpeak of their funeral rite*. 



