Though the sculptures of the two civilisations are not, as has been
said, strikingly alike in detail, they are similar in subjects. They
represent, for the most part, when not strictly religious, processions,
battle-scenes, and pictures of the daily life of the people. There are,
too, bas-reliefs showing the conquered submitting to the conqueror, the
details being much like those of the famous carving on the rock at
Behistun. There is not much in such similarities, as the carvings of any
race would tend to be stereotyped in a common form. Where valuable
evidence would be looked for is in the fields of religion and mythology.
So far, wherever we have been able to show similarities between the
architectures of America and the East, Buddhism has been the prevailing
religion of the part of the latter in question. Do we then find any
likeness between the religion of the Mayans and Buddhism?
In entering upon this part of our inquiry, we must remember that the
religion of a mere handful of invaders, as we must presume the Oriental
builders to have been, would not appeal to the natives so much as would
their arts. When you have admitted the conservative tendencies of all
peoples in matters religious, it gives an added weight to any genuine
parallels which are traceable between two religions in such an argument
as the present. We believe we can show such genuine parallels; but first
we must refer once more to the suggestion that the elephant was sacred
to the Mayans. We have shown that no reliance can be placed on the
zoological deductions made from the so-called elephant-trunk ornaments
on the Mayan buildings. But on the general question, the fact that the
elephant has apparently never been indigenous to America would seem to
settle the matter. No race has ever been shown to have worshipped an
animal they have never actually seen. Some writers have tried to prove
that the elephant or its congener, the mammoth, existed in America
contemporaneously with man. Professor Newberry, in an article "The
Ancient Lakes of Western America" (_U.S. Geological Survey Report_,
Washington, 1871), writes: "The elephant and mastodon continued to
inhabit the interior of our continent long after the glaciers had
retreated beyond the upper lakes, and when the minutest details of
surface topography were the same as now.... It is even claimed here as
on the European continent that man was a contemporary of the mammoth and
that here, as there, he contributed largely to its final extinction."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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