Page 139 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961
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&heir adherance to forms andusages; their skill in minute man-
' ufactures; their imitative genius; their patient perseverence in
the execution of difficult enterprises, and the celestial claims of
@
the Incas, are all characteristic of the Chinese."
They bore a still closer resemblance to the people of Hin-
doostan in their division into castes, their worship of the heav-
enly bodies and the elements of nature, and their scientific
knowledge of agriculture. They also resembled the Egyptians
in the same particulars, and also in their practice of embalming
the dead.+
I In their land tenures and agrarian laws, they seem to have
copied c:losely from the ancient Spartans; and the coincidences
between them both and certain reformers of our own times, are
still more remarkable. In civil polity, some have discovered
apparent resemblances between the Peruvians and the Romans
and Anglo-Saxons; but these relate entirely to expedients which
would very naturally suggest themselves to a semi-civilized
people. It is indeed quite natural to suppose that some fee-
tures of the Peruvian and Mexican civilization were indigenous,
and yet its main characteristics are too strongly marked, to
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admit of such an explanation, and viewed in connection with all
the other facts of their history, we are fully warranted in look-
ing to the nations of the Old World, for the types of that
-
civilization.
By the indications of their progress over the continent, we
had before traced the various branches of the Indian race back
to the north-west coast and into the Ocean, and returned to find,
in their mythology, laws and institutions, and the general
features of the civilization of the more cultivated tribes, new
bearings to guide us in our search for a more specific origin.
*Conquest of Peru, vol. 1, p. 164. "Count Carli," says Mr. Prescott, "has
amused himself with tracing out the different points of reaemblance between
the Chinese and the Peruvians. The emperor of China was styled the Son of
Heaven, or of the Sun He also (like the Inca) held a plough once a year, in
the presenoe of his people, to show his respect for agriculture, and (as in Peru)
the solstices and equinoxes were noticed to determine the period of their reli-
gious festivals. The coinc~dences are curious.7, Page 165.
tib.
