THE HIBBERT LECTURES, 1884. LECTURES ON THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF RELIGION AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE NATIVE RELIGIONS OF MEXICO AND PERU. DELIVERED AT OXFORD AND LONDON, In APRIL and MAY, 1884 . By ALBERT RÉVILLE, D.D. PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE OF RELIGIONS AT THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE. Translated by PHILIP H. WICKSTEED, M.A. WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; And 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 1884. [ All Rights reserved. ] LONDON: PRINTED BY C. GREEN AND SON, 178,

P.  16, note , under Acosta , add, "E[dward] G[rimstone]'s translation was edited, with notes, for the Hakluyt Society, by Clements R. Markham, in 1880." P.   17, note , lines 4 and 5, to "English translation" add "in epitome."     "     lines 8 and 9 , for "Ixtilxochitl" read "Ixtlilxochitl."     "     line 7 from below, for "note" read "notes." P.   32, line 10 from below, for "bases" read "basis." P.   34, line 1 , for "lama" read "llama." P.   35, last line , insert "and" after "America." P.

I am about to speak to you on a subject little known in general, though it has already been studied very closely by specialists of great merit—I mean the religions professed in Mexico and Peru when, in the sixteenth century, a handful of Spanish adventurers achieved that conquest, almost like a fairy tale, which still remains one of the most extraordinary chapters of history. But I shall perhaps do well at the outset briefly to explain the very special importance of these now vanished religions.

The region with which we are now to occupy ourselves comprises the space bounded on the South by the Isthmus of Panama, washed East and West by the oceans, and determined, roughly speaking, towards the North by a line starting from the head of the Gulf of California, and sweeping round to the mouths of the Mississippi with a curve that takes in Arizona and Southern Texas. In our day, this southern portion of North America is broken into two great divisions, the first and most southern of which i

The widely-spread error that makes Montezuma, the Mexican sovereign that received Fernando Cortes, the absolute master of the whole district of the present Mexico, is explained by the fact, that of the three confederate states that of the Aztecs was by far the strongest, most warlike and most dreaded. It was constantly extending its dominion by means of a numerous, disciplined and admirably organized army, and little by little the other two states were constantly approaching the condition of vas

One of the fundamental traits of this regional religion, then, is the pre-eminence of the Sun, regarded as a personal and animated being, over all other divinities. At Guatemala, amongst the Lacandones, he was adored directly, without any images. Amongst their neighbours the Itzas, not far from Vera Paz, he was represented as a round human head encircled by diverging rays and with a great open mouth. This symbol, indeed, was very widely spread in all that region. Often the Sun is represented put

To begin with, we must note that the ancient Central-American cultus of the Sun and Moon, considered as the two supreme deities, was by no means renounced by the Aztecs. Ometecutli (i.e. twice Lord ) and Omecihuatl ( twice Lady ), or in other words supreme Lord and Lady, are the designations under which they are always indicated in the first rank in the religious formulæ. All the Mexicans called themselves "children of the Sun," and greeted him every morning with hymns and with trumpet peals, ac

Such was the impression made upon a Spanish soldier and a good Catholic by the sight of the two chief deities of the Mexican people. To him they were simply two abominable inventions of Satan. Let us try to go a little further below the surface. Uitzilopochtli signifies Humming-bird to the left , from Uizilin (Humming-bird), and opochtli (to the left). The latter part of the name is probably due to the position we have just seen noticed to the left of the other great deity, Tezcatlipoca. But why

We must now proceed with our review of the Mexican deities, but I must be content with indicating the most important amongst them; for without admitting, with Gomara—who registered many names and epithets belonging to one and the same divinity as indicating so many distinct beings—that their number rose to two thousand, we find that the most moderate estimate of the historians raises them to two hundred and sixty. We shall confine ourselves, then, to the most significant. The importance of rain

We have some little difficulty in our times, familiar as we are with spiritual conceptions of God and the divine purposes, in comprehending the extreme importance which sacrifices, offerings, gifts to the divine being, assumed in the eyes of peoples who were still enveloped in the darkness of polytheism and idolatry. And perhaps we may find it more difficult yet to realize the primitive object and intention of these sacrifices. There can be no doubt that they were originally suggested by the ide

Human sacrifice, Gentlemen, appears to have been a universal practice; but wherever the human sympathies developed themselves rapidly, it was early superseded by various substituted rites which it was supposed might with advantage replace it. Such were flagellation, mutilation of some unessential part of the body, or the emission of a certain quantity of blood. This last practice, in particular, might be regarded as an act of individual devotion, a gift made to the gods by the worshipper himself

Ladies and Gentlemen , We pass to-day from North to South America; and as in the former we confined ourselves to the district which presented the Europeans of the sixteenth century with the unlooked-for spectacle of a native civilization and religion in an advanced stage of development, so in the latter we shall specially study that other indigenous civilization, likewise supported and patronized by a very curious and original religion, which established itself along the Cordilleras on the immen

Ladies and Gentlemen , You will remember that when last we met we traced out the legendary origin of the royal house of the Incas. Starting from the shores of the Lake Titicaca and the city of Cuzco, and progressively extending its combined religious and political dominion over the numerous countries situated west of the Cordilleras, it had welded them into one vast empire, centralized and organized in a way that, in spite of its defects, extorts our admiration. You had occasion to notice the ex

And now it is high time that we examined that religion which was so closely associated with the whole national life of Peru. From all that I have said already, you will easily understand that the Sun has never been worshipped more directly or with more devotion than in Peru. It was he whom the Peruvians regarded as sovereign lord of the world, king of the heaven and the earth. His Peruvian name was Inti , "Light." The villages were usually built so as to look eastward, in order that the inhabita

We may now return to the other deities who were officially incorporated in the family or retinue of the Sun. The rainbow, Cuycha , was the object of great veneration as the servant of the Sun and Moon. He had his chapel contiguous with the temple of the Sun, and his image was made of plates of gold of various shades, which covered a whole wall of the edifice. When a rainbow appeared in the clouds, the Peruvian closed his mouth for fear of having all his teeth spoilt. [85] The planet Venus, Chasc

Let us now turn to the priesthood which presided over the worship of these numerous deities. There was no sacerdotal caste in Peru, or, to speak more correctly, the Inca family constituted the only sacerdotal caste in the strict sense of the word. This family retained for itself all the highest positions in the priesthood, as well as in the army and administration. These priests of the higher rank bore special garments and insignia, while the lower clergy wore the ordinary costume. At the head o

The Peruvian cultus had given birth to the temple; and, indeed, it is highly interesting to witness what one may call the "genesis of the temple" on this soil, so different from those of the Old World. There were temples, indeed, before the Incas, but they differed both in style and in signification from those reared under their patronage. In Peru, as in Mexico, the temples were originally neither more nor less than extremely lofty altars; that is to say, artificial elevations, on the summit of

It has been asked whether the native religion of Peru rested any system of elevated morals on its fundamental principles. Gentlemen, I am persuaded that religion and morals unite together and interpenetrate each other in the higher regions of thought and life. Perhaps the most distinct result of our Christian education is the full comprehension of the fact that what is moral is religious, and that immorality cannot on any pretext be allowed as legitimately religious. But we must certainly yield

And now it only remains for us to draw the inferences and conclusions suggested by our examination of the ancient religions of Mexico and Peru, so closely associated with the remarkable though imperfect civilizations to which the two nations had attained. We have not stayed to discuss the hypotheses that have so often been put forward, to attach these religions and civilizations to some immigration from the Old World. The fact is that all these attempts rest on the arbitrary selection of some fe