In the first place, sitting cross-legged is not an Aztec custom.  I do not think we ever saw an Indian in Mexico sitting cross-legged.  In the picture-writings of the Aztecs, the men sit doubled up, with their chins almost touching their knees; while the women have their legs tucked under them, and their feet sticking out on the left side.  On the other hand, this attitude is quite characteristic of the Yucatan sculptures.  At Copan there is an altar, with sixteen chiefs sitting cross-legged round it; and, moreover, one of them has a head-dress very much like that of the Xochicalco chief (except that it has no serpent), and others are more or less similar; while I do not recollect anything like it in the Mexican picture-writings.  The curious perforated eye-plates of the Xochicalco chief, which he wore—­apparently—­to keep arrows and javelins out of his eyes, are part of the equipment of the Aztec warrior in the picture-writings, while Palenque and Copan seemed to afford no instance of them; so that in two peculiarities the remarkable sculpture before us seems to belong rather to Yucatan than to Mexico, and in one to Mexico rather than to Yucatan.

It is not even possible in all cases to distinguish Central American sculptures from those of Mexican origin.  Among the numerous stone figures in Mr. Christy’s museum, some are unmistakably of Central American origin, and some as certainly Mexican; but beside these, there are many which both their owner and myself, though we had handled hundreds of such things, were obliged to leave on the debatable ground between the two classes.

So much for the resemblances.  But the differences are of much greater weight.  The pear-shaped heads of most of the Central American figures, whose peculiar configuration is only approached by the wildest caricatures of Louis Philippe, are perfectly distinctive.  So are the hieroglyphics arranged in squares, found on the sculptures of Central America and in the Dresden Codex.  So is the general character of the architecture and sculpture, as any one may see at a glance.

It is quite true that the so-called Aztec Astronomical Calendar was in use in Central America, and that many of the religious observances in both countries, such as the method of sacrificing the human victims, and the practice of the worshippers drawing blood from themselves in honour of the gods, are identical.  But there were several ways in which this might have been brought about, and it is no real proof that the civilization of either country was an offshoot from that of the other.  To consider it as such would be like arguing that the negroes of Cuba and the Indians of Yucatan had derived their civilization one from the other, because both peoples are Roman Catholics, and use the same almanac.  On the whole I am disposed to conclude that the civilizations of Mexico and Central America were originally independent, but that they came much into contact, and thus modified one another to no small extent.