lithic culture introduced
purely Western ideas. These were developed by the local people in their
own way, constantly intermingling a variety of cultural influences to
weave them into a distinctive fabric, which was compounded partly of
imported, partly of local threads, woven locally into a truly Indian
pattern. In this process of development one can detect the effects of
Mycenaean accretions (see for example Longhurst's Plate XIII), probably
modified during its indirect transmission by Phoenician and later
influences; and also the more intimate part played by Babylonian,
Egyptian, and, later, Greek and Persian art and architecture in
directing the course of development of Indian culture.

Incidentally, in the course of the discussions in the foregoing pages, I
have referred to the profound influence of Egyptian, Babylonian and
Indian ideas in Eastern Asia. Perry's important book (_op. cit. supra_)
reveals their efforts in Indonesia. Thence they spread across the
Pacific to America.

In the "Migrations of Early Culture" (p. 114) I called attention to the
fact that among the Aztecs water was poured upon the head of the mummy.
This ritual procedure was inspired by the Egyptian idea of libations,
for, according to Brasseur de Bourbourg, the pouring out of the water
was accompanied by the remark "C'est cette eau que tu as recue en venant
an monde".

But incense-burning and blood-offering were also practised in America.
In an interesting memoir[125] on the practice of blood-letting by
piercing the ears and tongue, Mrs. Zelia Nuttall reproduces a remarkable
picture from a "partly unpublished MS. of Sahagun's work preserved in
Florence". "The image of the sun is held up by a man whose body is
partly hidden, and two men, seated opposite to each other in the
foreground, are in the act of piercing the helices or external borders
of their ears." But in addition to these blood-offerings to the sun, two
priests are burning incense in remarkably Egyptian-like censers, and
another pair are blowing conch-shell trumpets.

[Illustration: Fig. 6.--Representation of the ancient Mexican Worship of
the Sun.

The image of the sun is held up by a man in front of his face; two men
blow conch-shell trumpets; another pair burn incense; and a third pair
make blood-offerings by piercing their ears--after Zelia Nuttall.]

But it was not merely the use of incense and libations and the
identities in the wholly arbitrary attributes of the Ameri