Opening the text

Error's chains : $b How forged and broken : A comparative history of the national, social and religious errors that mankind has fallen into and practised from the creation down to the present time.Dobbins, Frank S. (Frank Stockton)

Religion

Error's chains : $b How forged and broken : A comparative history of the national, social and religious errors that mankind has fallen into and practised from the creation down to the present time.

Name: Error's chains : $b How forged and broken : A comparative history of the national, social and religious errors that mankind has fallen into and practised from the creation down to the present time.
Author: Dobbins, Frank S. (Frank Stockton)

Dobbins, Frank S. (Frank Stockton)

Idols and images -- Worship; Mythology; Religions

This wide-spread tradition accelerated the success of the Spaniards,
whose light skins and long dark hair and beards were regarded as
evidences of their affinity with the long-looked-for divinity. The
Mexican priesthood formed a rich and powerful order of the State and
were so numerous that Cortez found as many as 5,000 attached to the
temple of Mexico. The education of the young of both sexes remained,
till the age of puberty, in the hands of the priests and priestesses,
and the sacerdotal class were thus able to exercise a widely-diffused
influence, which, under the later rulers, was almost equal to that
of the emperor himself. The women shared in all the occupations of
the men, and were taught, like them, the arts of reading, writing,
ciphering, singing in chorus, dancing, etc., and they were even
initiated into the secrets of astronomy and astrology. These facts
indicate a civilization far above that of many other nations and
tribes.

  [Illustration: SUN-WORSHIP AMONG THE PERUVIANS.]


                              THE INCAS.

The government of Peru was a theocracy. The Inca was at once the
temporal sovereign and the supreme pontiff. He was regarded as the
descendant and representative of the great deity, the sun, who was
supposed to inspire his counsels, and speak through his orders and
decrees. Hence even slight offenses were punished with death, because
they were regarded as insults offered to the divinity. The race of
the Incas was held sacred. To support its pretensions, it was very
desirable that it should be kept pure and distinct from the people;
but human passions are often too strong for the dictates of policy;
and though the marriages of the family were confined to their own
race, the emperor, as well as the other males of the blood royal, kept
large harems stocked with beauties drawn from all parts of the empire,
and multiplied a spurious progeny, in whom the blood of the “children
of the sun” was blended with that of the “children of the earth.”
Among a simple-minded and credulous people the claims of the Incas to
a celestial origin seem to have been implicitly believed. They were
blindly obeyed, and treated with a respect bordering on adoration, by
the nobles and the common people.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Religion

Error's chains : $b How forged and broken : A comparative history of the national, social and religious errors that mankind has fallen into and practised from the creation down to the present time.

Dobbins, Frank S. (Frank Stockton)

Idols and images -- Worship; Mythology; Religions

This wide-spread tradition accelerated the success of the Spaniards,
whose light skins and long dark hair and beards were regarded as
evidences of their affinity with the long-looked-for divinity. The
Mexican priesthood formed a rich and powerful order of the State and
were so numerous that Cortez found as many as 5,000 attached to the
temple of Mexico. The education of the young of both sexes remained,
till the age of puberty, in the hands of the priests and priestesses,
and the sacerdotal class were thus able to exercise a widely-diffused
influence, which, under the later rulers, was almost equal to that
of the emperor himself. The women shared in all the occupations of
the men, and were taught, like them, the arts of reading, writing,
ciphering, singing in chorus, dancing, etc., and they were even
initiated into the secrets of astronomy and astrology. These facts
indicate a civilization far above that of many other nations and
tribes.

  [Illustration: SUN-WORSHIP AMONG THE PERUVIANS.]


                              THE INCAS.

The government of Peru was a theocracy. The Inca was at once the
temporal sovereign and the supreme pontiff. He was regarded as the
descendant and representative of the great deity, the sun, who was
supposed to inspire his counsels, and speak through his orders and
decrees. Hence even slight offenses were punished with death, because
they were regarded as insults offered to the divinity. The race of
the Incas was held sacred. To support its pretensions, it was very
desirable that it should be kept pure and distinct from the people;
but human passions are often too strong for the dictates of policy;
and though the marriages of the family were confined to their own
race, the emperor, as well as the other males of the blood royal, kept
large harems stocked with beauties drawn from all parts of the empire,
and multiplied a spurious progeny, in whom the blood of the “children
of the sun” was blended with that of the “children of the earth.”
Among a simple-minded and credulous people the claims of the Incas to
a celestial origin seem to have been implicitly believed. They were
blindly obeyed, and treated with a respect bordering on adoration, by
the nobles and the common people.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Error's chains : $b How forged and broken : A comparative history of the national, social and religious errors that mankind has fallen into and practised from the creation down to the present time.

Error's chains : $b How forged and broken : A comparative history of the national, social and religious errors that mankind has fallen into and practised from the creation down to the present time.

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