334 
21. The mound-builders, whoever they were, can be almost 
certainly traced from the city of Mexico to the Gulf, and thence 
northwards up the Mississippi; and the mounds, as well as the 
ancient ruins, exhibit the serpent prominently : hence their 
worship of the serpent appears conclusive ; and we find, moreover, 
that they were sun-worshippers, or, rather, Sabian worshippers 
also, as disks, representing the sun and moon, have been 
excavated from the mounds, and even a figure representing an 
astronomical observer (fig. 22) from one of their ruins. Sun- 
worship in Canaan was symbolized in the same way, the habit 
had been contracted by the Hebrews, who used in this wor- 
ship f< sun images,” which Asa is recorded to have taken away 
(2 Chron. xiv. 5). 
22. Here then also we have identically the same worship, and 
with it we find the same addiction to human sacrifice ; moreover, 
Hie god or gods must have been considered beneficent, as the 
victim, according to Prescott, went through a state of pre- 
paration to fit him for the glorious result of his voluntary 
act, and was decked with flowers and external emblems of 
felicity, showing a further confirmation of the good and evil 
attributes. The human sacrifices in Canaan are fully recorded. 
23. In the Hindoo Pantheon we find a curious instance of the 
mythical properties of a serpent deity (fig. 23). Crishna, being in 
ieopardy on one occasion, caused an immense serpent to appear, 
into the mouth of which he, his followers, and his flocks, entered 
and took refuge. The fable is illustrated in one of the diagrams, 
and seems to me to imply voluntary immolation to the serpent 
god; or it may have reference to an erection constructed lor 
defence, in the form of a serpent deity, — a sanctuary in short,-— 
as we find in an ancient Mexican book * an account of a temple, 
circular in form, and the entrance representing the mouth of a 
serpent , opened in a frightful manner, and extremely terrifying 
to those who approached it for the first time. Here in the 
circular form we have again the ring, the emblem of perfection 
or eternity, combined with a visible representation of cruelty. 
Pigs 24 and 24 a give examples of similar refuge. The one 
represents the god Nilus, surrounded by the protecting in- 
fluence of the eternal serpent. The other a mother and child 
protected by Chnuphis. On the point of human sacrifice there 
is one obiect of it not perhaps so clearly proved to be universal 
as that of the sacrifice itself, yet sufficiently so, by its wide 
diffusion as a custom, to make its universality probable : it con- 
stitutes a feature, moreover, entirely of the apostate class, viz. : 
24. Divination by the death of a victim. This was practised 
* Quoted in J. D. Baldwin’s Ancient America, p. 28„ 
