300 
VI. Let me conclude with, a few words upon miscellaneous 
analogies or affinities. Herodotus gives an account of the 
custom of scalping among the ancient Scythians, which sin- 
gularly corresponds with the habits of the North American 
Indian. The New Zealanders possess a small but powerful wea- 
pon for close combat, made of bone or stone, somewhat in the 
shape of a beaver’s tail, sharp and strong enough to split open 
an enemy^s skull, through the end of which, nearest the hand, 
is a hole for the wrist-cord. Whether a weapon in every way 
a facsimile of this was likely to have been thought of by an 
independent race may be open to doubt. It is certain, how- 
ever, that the ancient Peruvians had exactly the same instru- 
ment, even to the hole drilled through the handle and the 
wrist-cord. Yet, with this exception, no such instrument is 
found in any part of the world. 
The people of Java, according to Sir Stamford Raffles, 
regulate their markets by a week of five days. So, in ancient 
Mexico, a month was divided into four weeks of five days 
each (there being eighteen months in the year) ; and on 
the last of these five days there was a public fair or 
market.* 
The Aztecs of ancient Mexico believed also in the past 
destruction of the world at four successive epochs ; so with 
the Hindus. Among the Mantschu Tartars there are the 
following signs in the zodiac, viz., the tiger, hare, serpent, 
monkey, dog, bird. These six signs are also found in the 
Mexican calendar. There is a singular instrument for striking 
fire represented in an ancient Mexican painting, in which a 
man twists a long stick with both hands as it presses upon a 
flat piece of wood which he keeps firm with his feet. This 
instrument is exactly the same as that in use among the 
Malays of Sumatra, and the aborigines of Ceylon. Among the 
ancient Peruvians, great religious festivals were regulated by 
the solstices and equinoxes, which were carefully calculated, f 
So with the Chinese. And just as the Emperor of China, 
once every year, holds a plough in the presence of his people, 
to show his respect for agriculture, so with the ancient kings 
of the Incas. J These Incas, too, like our own Anglo-Saxon 
race, were in the habit of drinking healths at their feasts; 
and, like the ancient Persians, they had an elaborate system 
of government despatches by running posts. 
This list might very easily be enlarged ; but without any fur- 
ther advantage to our argument; for if the cumulative force of all 
* Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico , B. i. chap. 4. 
t Prescott’s Conquest of Peru , B. i., chap. 5. 
% Count Carli’s Lettres Americaines , tom. ii., p. 78. 
