Chapter 7

'During the reign of the dynasty _Tsi_, in the first year of the year-naming[E] 'Everlasting Origin,' (Anno Domini 499,) came a Buddhist priest from this kingdom, who bore the cloister name of Roci-schin, that is, Universal Compassion, (_Allgemeins Mitleiden_: according to King-tscheu it signifies 'an old name,[F]') to the present district of Hukuang, and those surrounding it, who narrated that 'Fusang is about twenty thousand Chinese miles in an easterly direction from Tahan, and east of the middle kingdom. Many Fusang-trees grow there, whose leaves resemble the Dryanda Cordifolia;[G] the sprouts, on the contrary, resemble those of the bamboo-tree,[H] and are eaten by the inhabitants of the land. The fruit is like a pear in form, but is red. From the bark they prepare a sort of linen, which they use for clothing, and also a sort of ornamented stuff.[I] The houses are built of wooden beams; fortified and walled places a unknown.

'THEIR WRITING AND CIVIL REGULATIONS.

'They have written characters in this land, and prepare paper from the bark of the Fusang. The people have no weapons, and make no wars, but in the arrangements of the kingdom they have a northern and a southern prison. Trifling offenders were lodged in the southern, but those confined for greater offenses in the northern; so that those who were about to receive grace could be placed in the southern prison, and those to the contrary in the northern. Those men and women who were imprisoned for life were allowed to marry. The boys resulting from these marriages were, at the age of eight years, sold for slaves; the girls not until their ninth year. If a man of any note was found guilty of crimes, an assembly was held: it must be in an excavated place, (_Grabe_.) There they strewed ashes over him, and bade him farewell, as if he were dying. If the offender were one of a lower class, he alone was punished; but when of rank, the degradation was extended to his children and grandchildren. With those of the highest rank it attained to the seventh generation.

'THE KINGDOM AND THE NOBLES.

'The name of the king is pronounced _Ichi_. The nobles of the first class are termed Tuilu; of the second, Little Tuilu; and of the third, Na-to-scha. When the prince goes forth he is accompanied by horns and trumpets. The color of his clothes changes with the different years. In the first two of the ten-year cyclus they are blue; in the two next, red; in the two following, yellow; in the two next, red; and in the last two, black.

'MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

'The horns of the oxen are so large that they contain ten bushels, (Schaeffel.) They use them to hold all manner of things. Horses, oxen and stags, are harnessed to their wagons. Stags are used here as cattle are used in the Middle Kingdom, and from the milk of the hind they make butter. The red pears of the Fusang tree keep good throughout the year. Moreover, they have apples and reeds; from the latter they prepare mats. _No iron is found in this land; but copper, gold, and silver are not prized, and do not serve as a medium of exchange in the market._

'Marriage is determined upon in the following manner. The suitor builds himself a hut before the door of the house where the one longed for dwells, and waters and cleans the ground every morning and evening. When a year has passed by, if the maiden is not inclined to marry him, he departs; should she he willing, it is completed. When the parents die, they fast seven days. For the death of the paternal or maternal grandfather they lament five days; at the death of elder or younger sisters or brothers, uncles or aunts, three days. They then sit from morning to evening before an image of the ghost, absorbed in prayer, but wear no mourning clothes. When the king dies, the son who succeeds him does not busy himself for three years with state affairs.

'In earlier times these people lived not according to the laws of Buddha. But it happened that in the second year-naming 'Great Light,' of song, (A.D. 458,) five beggar monks, from the kingdom Kipin, went to this land, extended over it the religion of Buddha, and with it his holy writings and images. They instructed the people in the principles of monastic life, and so changed their manners.'

Such is the account of Mexico, as given by the old Buddhist monk Hoei-schin. What is there authentically known of ancient America and its inhabitants which confirms his account?

In the Fusang tree we have, according to the opinion of Neumann, the _Agave Americana_ or Great American Aloe, called by the Indians Maguey, which is remarkably abundant in the plains of 'New-Spain,' and which supplies so many of the wants of its inhabitants even at the present day. An intoxicating drink, paper, thread, ropes, pins, and needles, (from the thorns,) and clothing, are all furnished by it, so that a traveler, observing the ease with which these are obtained, declares that in Mexico the Maguey plant must first be exterminated ere the sloth and idleness which now so generally afflict them, can be checked. Such a curious plant, supplying to such an extent, and so exclusively, so many of the needs of life, would naturally be the first object noted by an explorer.

Very remarkable is the observation that 'in this land no iron is found, and that copper, gold, and silver, are not prized;' from which we may infer that they were known, and probably abundant, and that they 'do not serve as a medium of exchange in the market.' It is needless to point out the fact that this was the case not only in ancient Mexico, but also in Peru, and that these were probably the only countries on the face of the earth where 'the precious metals' were held in such indifference. Be it observed that the monk Hoei-schin says nothing of the abundance of gold and silver; he simply remarks as a curious fact, that they were not used as a circulating medium.

In commenting on this record, Neumann judiciously reminds the reader that the information given by Hoei-schin and other Buddhist travelers, goes back into a period long anterior to the most remote periods alluded to in the wavering legends of the Aztecs, resting upon uncertain interpretations of hieroglyphics. One thing we know, that in America as in Europe, one wave of emigration and conquest swept after another, each destroying in a great measure all traces of its predecessor. Thus in Peru, the Inca race ruled over the lower caste, and would in time have probably extinguished it. But the Incas themselves were preceded by another and more gifted race, since it is evident that these unknown predecessors were far more gifted than themselves as architects. 'Who this race were,' says Prescott, (_Conquest of Peru_, chap. i. pp. 12, 13, ed. 1847,) 'and whence they came, may afford a tempting theme for inquiry to the speculative antiquarian. But it is a land of darkness that lies far beyond the domain of history.'

But as the American waves of conquest flowed South, it is no extravagant hypothesis to assume that the race of men whom the monk encountered in Mexico may possibly have had something in common with what was afterward found further south, in the land of the Incas. One thing is certain; that there is a singularly Peruvian air in all that this short narrative tells us of the land 'Fusang.' Fortified places, he says, were unknown; and Prescott speaks of the system of fortifications established through the empire as though it had originated--as it most undoubtedly did--with the Incas. Most extraordinary, however, is the remark of the monk, that the houses are built with wooden beams. As houses the world over are constructed in this manner, the remark might seem almost superfluous. It is worth observing that the Peruvians built their houses with wooden beams, and as Prescott tells us, 'knew no better way of holding the beams together than tying them with thongs of _maguey_.' Now be it observed, that the monk makes a direct transition from speaking of the textile fiber and fabric of the maguey to the wooden beams of the houses--a coïncidence which has at least a color of proof. It may be remarked, by the way, that this construction of houses 'tied up,' was admirably adapted to a land of earthquakes, as in Mexico, and that Prescott himself testifies that a number of them 'still survive, while the more modern constructions of the conquerors are buried in ruins.'

Most strikingly Peruvian is the monk's account of 'the Kingdom and the Nobles.' The name Ichi, is strikingly suggestive of the natural Chinese pronunciation of the word Inca. The stress laid on the three grades of nobles, suggests the Peruvian Inca castes of lower grade, as well as the Mexican; while the stately going forth of the king, 'accompanied by horns and trumpets,' vividly recalls Prescott's account of the journeyings of the Peruvian potentate. The change of the color of his garments according to the astronomical cycle, is, however, more thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of the institutions of the Children of the Sun than any thing which we have met in the whole of this strange and obsolete record. 'The ritual of the Incas,' says Prescott, 'involved a routine of observances as complex and elaborate as ever distinguished that of any nation, whether pagan or Christian. Each month had its appropriate festival, or rather festivals. The four principal _had reference to the Sun_, and commemorated the great periods of his annual progress, the solstices and equinoxes. Garments of a peculiar wool, and feathers of a peculiar color, were reserved to the Incas. I can not identify the blue, red, yellow, and black, but it is worthy of remark that the rainbow was his special attribute or scutcheon, and that the mere fact that his whole life was passed in accordance with the requisitions of astronomical festivals, and that different colors were reserved to him and identified with him, establishes a strange analogy with the narrative of Hoei-schin.

'Of this subject of the cycles and change of colors corresponding to astronomical mutations, it is worth noting that Montesinos[J] expressly asserts that the Peruvians threw their years into cycles of ten; a curious fact which has escaped the notice of Neumann, who conjectures that 'it may have been a subdivision of the Aztec period, or have even been used as an independent period, as was indeed the case by the Chinese, who term their notations 'stems.' It is worthy of remark,' he adds, 'that among the Mongols and Mantchous these 'stems' are named after colors which perhaps have some relation to the several colors of the royal clothing in the cycles of 'Fusang.' These Tartaric tribes term the first two years of the ten-year _cyclus_, 'green and greenish,' the two next, 'red and reddish,' and soon, yellow and yellowish, white and whitish, and finally, black and blackish.'

I am perfectly aware that Peru is not Mexico; but I beg the reader to keep in mind my former observation, that Mexico _might_ have been at one time peopled by a race who had Peruvian customs, which in after-years were borne by them far to the South. The ancient mythology and ethnography of Mexico presents, however, a mass of curious identities with that of Asia. Both Mexico and Peru had the tradition of a deluge, from which seven prisoners escaped; in the hieroglyphs of the former country, these seven are represented as issuing from an egg.

It is remarkable that a Peruvian tradition declares the first missionaries of civilization who visited them to have been white and bearded. 'This may remind us,' says Prescott, 'of the tradition existing among the Aztecs, in respect to Quetzalcoatl, the good deity, who, with a similar garb and aspect, came up the great plateau from the East, on a like benevolent mission to the natives.' In like manner the _Aesir_, children of Light, or of the Sun, came from the East to Scandinavia, and taught the lore of the Gods.

The Peruvian embalming of the royal dead takes us back to Egypt; the burning of the wives of the deceased Incas, reveals India; the singularly patriarchal character of the whole Peruvian policy is like that of China in the olden time; while the system of espionage, of tranquillity, of physical well-being, and the iron-like immovability in which the whole social frame was cast, brings before the reader Japan, as it even now exists. In fact, there is something strangely Japanese in the entire _cultus_ of Peru, as described by all writers.

It is remarkable that the Supreme Being of the Peruvians was worshiped under the names of _Pachacomac_, 'he who sustains, or gives life to the universe,' and of _Viracocha_, 'Foam of the Sea,' a name strikingly recalling that of Venus Aphrodité, the female second principle in all ancient mythologies. Not less curious was the institution of the Vestal Virgins of the Sun, who were buried alive if detected in an intrigue, and whose duty it was to keep burning the sacred fire obtained at the festival of Raymi.

'Vigilemque sacraverat ignem Excubias divûm æternas.'

This fire was obtained as by the ancient Romans, on a precisely similar occasion, by means of a concave mirror of polished metal. The Incas, in order to preserve purity of race, married their own sisters, as did the kings of Persia and other Oriental nations, urged by a like feeling of pride. Among the Peruvians, _Mama_, signified 'mother,' while _Papa_, was applied to the chief priest. 'With both, the term seems to embrace in its most comprehensive sense, the paternal relation, in which it is more familiarly employed by most of the nations of Europe.'

It should be borne in mind, that as in the case of the Green Corn festival, many striking analogies can be established between the Indian tribes of North-America and the Peruvians. Gallatin has shown the affinity of languages between all the American nations; at the remote age when the monk visited Mexico, it is possible that the _first race_ which subsequently spread southward occupied the entire north.

Let the reader also remember that while the proofs of the existence or residence of Orientals in America are extremely vague and uncertain, and supported only by coïncidences, (singular and inexplicable as the latter may be,) the _antecedent probability_ of their having come hither, is far stronger than that of the Norse discovery of this country, or even that of Columbus himself. When we see an aggressive nation, with a religious propaganda, boasting a commerce and gifted with astronomers and geographers of no mean ability, (and the accuracy of the old Chinese men of science has been frequently verified,) advancing century after century in a certain direction, chronicling correctly every step made, and accurately describing the geography and ethnography of a certain region, we have no good ground to deny the last advance which their authentic history claims to have made, however indisposed we may be to admit it. One thing, at least, will probably be cheerfully conceded by the impartial reader; that the subject well deserves further investigation, and that it is to be hoped that it will obtain it from those students who are at present so earnestly occupied in exploring the mysteries of Oriental literature.

* * * * *

STATE RIGHTS.

The theory of State Rights, as expounded by its advocates in its application to the several States of the American Union, is subversive of all government, and calculated to destroy our political organization. Its tendency is to weaken the central government by minute division of the power necessary for its maintainance. Without power to make its authority respected, no government can live. The doctrine of State Sovereignty detracts from this authority by lessening the power which upholds it. Thirty-four-States, each claiming exclusive authority to act independently on any given subject, have only one thirty-fourth part of the strength that they would have, were they all acting under and controlled by one central head. That central head in our Union is the Federal Government, formed by and growing out of the Constitution, and it must exist for the protection of each of its thirty-four members, as well as for itself, the connecting power. Its acts must not be disputed by any one of the States or by any number of them acting in concert. If one or more States may defy the central authority or attempt to withdraw from its government, any other States may do likewise, to the ruin of the political fabric erected at so much cost, and in its place would spring up scores of weak and unprotected communities. But, says the State rights advocate, this central power will have too much authority, too much control over the States; will become despotic, and in time destroy the liberties of the people. How? By whom will those liberties be destroyed? This central power, styled the Federal Government, is formed by the people, is of the people, is for the people, and has only such power as the people gave it; and thus being of and from the people, it (or they) can not destroy its (or their) own liberties. Were our government hereditary instead of elective; were our institutions monarchical instead of republican; had we privileged classes perpetuated by primogeniture, there might be some danger of placing too much power in the hands of the Federal Government; but formed as our institutions are, framed as our Constitution is, educated as our people are, there can be no fear of having the central power or general Federal Government too strong, or its authority supreme. Without strength there can be no authority; without authority there can be no respect; without respect there can be no government; without government there can be no civilization. The doctrine of State rights as applied to the communities forming the American Union, elevates the State over the nation, demands that the Federal shall yield to the State laws, and completely ignores the supremacy of the united authority of the whole people. This theory carried out logically, would make counties equal to States; towns equal to counties; wards and districts equal to towns; neighborhoods equal to districts and wards; and to come down to the last application of the principle, every one man in a neighborhood equal to the whole, in fact, superior, if the State rights doctrine be true, that the State is supreme within its own limits. The application of this principle ends society by destroying the order based on authority, and placing the State above the Nation, and the individual above the State. Civilized societies are but the aggregation of persons coming or remaining together for mutual interest and protection. This mutual interest requires certain rules for the protection of the weak from the encroachments of the strong in the society, as well as from outside enemies. These rules take the form of laws. These laws must be administered; their administration requires power. This power is placed in the hands of certain members of this society, community, or State, as the case may be, for the good of the whole State, and each individual claiming protection from the State, or whose interest is promoted by being a member thereof, is under moral as well as legal obligations to submit to this authority thus exercised by the chosen executors of the public will. Rights that might pertain to one man on an island by himself, do not attach to man in civilized communities. There he must not go beyond the landmarks established by law, and he agrees to this arrangement by remaining in the State or community. The same principle is equally applicable to the States of the American Union. Before the adoption of the Federal Constitution, they were separate, distinct, and so far as any central head or supreme governing power was concerned, independent States, or, in fact, sovereignties. True, they had tried to get along under a sort of confederation agreement, a kind of temporary alliance for offensive and defensive ends, but which failed from its own inherent weakness, from the lack of that cohesiveness which nothing but centralization can give. Prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, these different States were like so many different individuals outside of any regular society; were merely so many isolated aggregations of non-nationalized individuals. Experience showed them their unfortunate condition; as separate States they had no strength to repel a common enemy, no credit, no money, no authority, commanded no respect. So it is with an individual outside of society. These States were then in the enjoyment--no, not in the enjoyment but merely in possession--of State rights to the fullest extent. They had the right to be poor; the right to be weak; the right to get in debt; the right to issue bills of credit, (was any one found who thought it right to take them?) the right to wage war with any of their neighbors; the right to do any and all acts pertaining to an independent sovereignty; but these rights were not all that the people of these States desired; and after trying the independent and the confederate State policy until experience had shown the utter fallacy of both, they met in convention and passed the present Constitution, and formed themselves into ONE NATION. This Constitution, compact, copartnership, confederation, combination, or whatever it may be called, was and is the written foundation (voluntarily made) on which the NATION is built and maintained.

The charter, instrument, or Constitution, defines, by common consent and mutual agreement of the parties voluntarily forming it, the powers, rights, and duties of the national government growing out of and based on this Constitution. Among the powers thus delegated to the National or Federal Government, and to be used by the legislative authority thereof, are the following:

'ARTICLE I.--SECTION 8.

'The Congress shall have power--

'1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.

'2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States.

'3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.

'4. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies, throughout the United States.

'5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.

'6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States.

'7. To establish post-offices and post-roads.

'8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

'9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court.

'10. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations.

'11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.

'12. To raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.

'13. To provide and maintain a navy.

'14. To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

'15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.