of
chants to be employed in exorcising diseases. Consequently it came to be
fixed as a limit in exercises of preparation or purification. The
females of the Orinoko tribes fasted forty days before marriage, and
those of the upper Mississippi were held unclean the same length of time
after childbirth; such was the term of the Prince of Tezcuco's fast when
he wished an heir to his throne, and such the number of days the Mandans
supposed it required to wash clean the world at the deluge.[94-1]

No one is ignorant how widely this belief was prevalent in the old
world, nor how the quadrigesimal is still a sacred term with some
denominations of Christianity. But a more striking parallelism awaits
us. The symbol that beyond all others has fascinated the human mind, THE
CROSS, finds here its source and meaning. Scholars have pointed out its
sacredness in many natural religions, and have reverently accepted it as
a mystery, or offered scores of conflicting and often debasing
interpretations. It is but another symbol of the four cardinal points,
the four winds of heaven. This will luminously appear by a study of its
use and meaning in America.

The Catholic missionaries found it was no new object of adoration to the
red race, and were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious
labors of Saint Thomas or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. It was the
central object in the great temple of Cozumel, and is still preserved on
the bas-reliefs of the ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it
had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and
was suspended as an august emblem from the walls of temples in Popoyan
and Cundinamarca. In the Mexican tongue it bore the significant and
worthy name "Tree of Our Life," or "Tree of our Flesh" (Tonacaquahuitl).
It represented the god of rains and of health, and this was everywhere
its simple meaning. "Those of Yucatan," say the chroniclers, "prayed to
the cross as the god of rains when they needed water." The Aztec goddess
of rains bore one in her hand, and at the feast celebrated to her honor
in the early spring victims were nailed to a cross and shot with arrows.
Quetzalcoatl, god of the winds, bore as his sign of office "a mace like
the cross of a bishop;" his robe was covered with them strown like
flowers, and its adoration was throughout connected with his
worship.[96-1] When the Muyscas would sacrifice to the goddess of waters
they extended cords across the t