Peruvian antiquities, by M.E. Rivero, and J.J. von Tschudi, tr. by F.L. Hawks

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Page 48 - The eldest of the brothers mounted to the summit of a. ridge, and threw with his sling a stone to each of the four quarters of the world, thus taking possession of the soil for himself and his family. He afterward gave a name to each one of the quarters...
Page 38 - ... bone (os interparietale) perfectly distinct; a bone which, as its name indicates, will be found placed between the two parietals, and having a form more or less triangular, whose sharpest angle is above, and is bounded by the posterior edges of the parietal bones, while its base attaches itself to the occipital bone, by a suture which runs, from the angle of union of the temporal with the occipital bone, a little above the upper semicircular line, to the similar angle on the opposite side. It...
Page 104 - Jesus, y añadió el P. Juan de Figueredo de la misma compañía. Ahora nuevamente corregido y aumentado en muchos vocablos y varias advertencias, notas y observaciones para la mejor inteligencia del Idioma y perfecta instruccion de los Parochos y Cathequistas de los Indios. Por un religioso de la misma compañía. Lima 1754. 8V".
Page 107 - Quipu. It is probable that these knots were at first applied to purposes of enumeration only; but, in course of time, this science was so much perfected that those skilled in it attained to the art of expressing by knots historical relations, laws and decrees; so that they could transmit to their descendants the most striking events of the empire: and thus the Quipu might supply the place of documents and chronicles.
Page 19 - ... regularly organized as that of the most civilized countries. Clothed with a powerful and effective authority which extended its arms to man in every condition and in all the stages of his life, the Mexican priests were mediators between man and the Divinity; they brought the newly...
Page 91 - The analogy so much relied on between the words of the American languages and those of the ancient continent have induced us to make an approximate estimate, as far as our means would permit, of the numerical value of the idioms of both hemispheres ; and the result was that, from between eight and nine thousand American words, one only could be found analogous in sense and sound to a word of any idiom of the ancient continent.
Page 235 - ... performed their ablutions. His old companions in their long blue gowns rose up before him, now scattered forever, and their home a desolation and ruin. But this convent contains one memorial far more interesting than any connected with its own ruin; one that carries the beholder back through centuries of time, and tells the story of a greater and a sadder fall. In one of the lower cloisters going out from the north, and under the principal dormitory, are two parallel corridors. The outer one...
Page 168 - ... Pyrulce thus venerated by the ancient Indians of Canada West, closely corresponded to the Conopas, or rude Penates of the Peruvians, as described by Rivero and Von Tschudi. Any singular or rare object in nature or art seems to have sufficed for one of these Peruvian minor deities, amulets, or charms. " Every small stone or piece of wood of singular form was worshipped as a Conopa. These private deities were buried with their owners, and generally hung to the neck of the dead.
Page 39 - It is a circumstance worthy of the attention of learned anthropologists, that there is thus found in one section of the human race a perpetual anomalous phenomenon which is wanting in all others, but which is characteristic of the ruminant and carnivorous animals.
Page 9 - But that which most tends to fortify the opinion as to the Hebrew origin of the American tribes is a species of ark, seemingly like that of the Old Testament. This the Indians take with them to war. It is never permitted to touch the ground, but rests upon stones or pieces of wood, it being deemed sacrilegious and unlawful to open it or look into it. The...

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