An inquiry into the origin of the antiquities of America / By John Delafield, Jr. With an appendix, containing notes, and 'A view of the causes of the superiority of the men of the Northern over those of the Southern Hemisphere', by James Lakey.

  • John Delafield
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the origin of the antiquities of America / By John Delafield, Jr. With an appendix, containing notes, and 'A view of the causes of the superiority of the men of the Northern over those of the Southern Hemisphere', by James Lakey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to have, in every lunar month, three holidays and market days, [catu,] and that the people were obliged to work, not seven, but eight consecutive days, taking rest on the ninth.” * This is, however, wrapped in some obscurity. One inference may be deduced therefrom, and that of no light weight, viz: that in this regularly returning period, whether of seven or of nine days, a Sabbath was observed — a day of rest was appointed and kept. Whence could this custom have derived its origin? What nations do we find with their regularly returning sabbath, other than those who came from the birth-place of the world? The North American Indian knows no sabbath, and in this instance may be noticed the dissimilarity of the ancient race of America, compared with the Mongolian family which expelled them to Mexico and Peru, from the prairies of the Wabash and Ohio. “We see, from what has been said elsewhere, that the Mexican year exhibited, like that of the Egyptians, and that of the new French calendar, the advantage of a division into months of equal duration. The seven complementary days, the epagomenai [ —11 erayiy.wtu'i— J of the Egyptians, were indicated by the Mexicans under the name of nemontemi, or ‘ empty.’’ ” f This is no slight analogy, to find the system of intercalation and the number of complementary days identical between Mexico and Egypt. But perhaps a still more striking instance presents itself to us in a comparison of the zodiacal signs of southern Asia and this civilized aboriginal race of America. Baron Humboldt collected and arranged in a tabular form the names of the Mexican hieroglyphic zodiacal signs. They were compiled by him from the various writers of the sixteenth century. From this it appears that a great proportion of the names by which the Mexicans indicated the twenty days of their month, are those of a zodiac used since the remotest antiquity by the inhabitants of eastern Asia. The table to illustrate this is here introduced, viz: * Vues des Cordilleres, p. 129. t Vues des Cordilleres, p. 130.