Page 131 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

ANNUAL ADDRESS. 127
derived much valuable information, and might have derived much
more, but for the fanaticism which destroyed, as relics of hea-
thenism, many of their pictorial records and charts. From those
which remained to be studied, and from their general oral tra-
ditions, it appears that the most remarkable race that had
occupied the country, were the Toltecs. They came to Mexico,
probably before the close of the 7th century. They came from
the north, but from what parts, was unknown. They had a good
knowledge of agriculture and the more useful mechanic arts-
were skilled in working metals-introduced the complex arrange-
ments of time adopted by the Aztecs, and were the originators of
the Mexican civilization under the Aztec monarchy. They
established their capital at Tula, north of the Mexican Valley,
and doubtless constructed the edifices, the remains of which are
still seen there. They became masters of Mexico and are sup-
posed to have erected the ancient buildings found in various parts
of the country. They maintained their ascendancy for about
four hundred years, and then, by a series of disasters, they
disappeared, and as Mr. PRESCOTT supposes, spread over Cen-
tral America and the neighboring Isles.

it must have been dropped there at a time when the visits of Europenns to these
regions were extrcmely rare and their travels confined to the water courses
and their immediate banks, nnd when such images, brought from Asiatic coun-
tries, were rarely possessed by them. Again, it seems highly improbable thaB
an early explorer, who would find it difficult enough to carry such stores as
were essential to his existence, would cumber himself with a block of marble
weighing four or live pounds, as an object of mere idle curiosity. On the other
hand, a Budhist from China or India, cast upon our N. W. Coast, if he chanced
to possess such s treasure or had the skill to produce it, would regard its pre-
servation and presence, in all his wanderings, as of the greatests importance;
and so would his descendants till the superstition had faded out. It is the opin-
ion, also, of competent judges that thcro is nothing in the quality of the marble
from which this image is out, to identify it as exclusively Asiatic. The late
learned Dr. PERC~VAL, then our State Geologist, after a careful examination of
it, pronounced the marble to be precisely the same in kind as tbat found in two
distlnct locnlities in this State, and better authority upon this point could not,
perhaps, be adduced.
We should indeed use great caution in drawing important conclusions fiom
such isolnted facts as this and the discovery of the Indian skull on the Delta of
the Mississippi; but all the ciroumstances connected with the discovery of this
image, aeea strongly to favor the conclusion that it was derived from China or
Hindooston, through the Indian race, either as on imported article or an imported
idea; and if this be correct, it follolrs necessarily that some of our Indians are
the descendants of the Budhists of those regions.