The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-09-22
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THE cHIRIoUI GOLD IMAGES.
From the Philadelphia BaIIetin ofSept 10.

From the Philadelphia Bdlletn of Sept 10.
Those who are DESTROYS of seeing or obtain
ing something very curious should 90 to Messrs.
Bailey, & Co., the jewellers, and inspect the
golden images from the graves of Chiriqui. In
themselves they are grotesque and odd enough,
in all conscience, to attract any lover of remark
able fancy objects. OF clear gold, rudeTs made,
and yet not so rude by any means as to be
classified with the works of mere savages, they
are attractive even as works of art. They are
at least so well made as to have very distinctly
impressed on them the peculiar style of cer-
tain race which was as far advanced in civil
zation as the Egyptian in other words, they
have an aesthetic character of decided value.
The student, familiar with art in all its phases,
will rank them as only second TO the Egyptian,
and will decide that only frmly-established
religion and state of society could have pro-
duced them. a
But to the man who has labored at that prim-
tive mythology which lies at the root of all
mytholegies, ust as the vanished Arian tongue
lies at the root of ell Indo-European languages,
these images are of incredible interest. The
gold-digger who unearthed the amulets is not
more overwhelmed with overpowering feeling
at their discovery, than the student at the ire
mendous food-tide Of proof Of identity between
the old civilization of the two hemispheres
fish amulet, so well known in all lands, typical,
like all of them, of generations mythic type,
preserved even by the Gnostic Free Masons of
the Middle Ages, and borrowed from the East,
by Orientalized Christians, to symbolic Christ.
There are many forms, too, of the identical
potbellied Phalhc figure, known to almost
every land, and which has formed the subject
ofearnest argument among Irish and other an
tiquaries. 1t was from this source, this print.
tive Cupid, for such he is, rude as he looks that
the Baals-Baal Peor and the hollow metallic
Baal Moloch, giving forth roaring, believing,
or peating, when children were burnt alive in
hinn-were derived, and it is curious to remark
that the Chiriqui gold Phallic image is gener-
ally a bell.
There is also the double dragon-headed fig
ure, with one head on its tail, which occurs in
Chinese ornaments, and which is perfectly
Chinese in its general appearance, though the
prevailing style of these figures is Mexican. But
it would require long article to point out the
many startling points Of identity between these
mythical amulets and the religious relics of the
OLD World. They afford to us convincing
proof that Orientals once had intercourse with
Mexico, that the religion which they brought
here was modified by something like Chinese
influence; possibly, however, at so early time
Z that Chinese culture had not then assumed
its present form; and, finally that Professor
Neumann's work on the Chinese in Mexico in
the Fifth Century is entitled to more attention
than it has received.
Finally, we would express the desire that all
persons who are able to do SO would have, if
not casts, at least photographs taken of these
images, and see that they are properly preserved
in bur public libraries. Sometimes there are
scores of them together, and even small pho.
tograph of the whole would be invaluable to
the scholar. It is painful to think of these
wonderful relics being scattered and melted,
when every one Of them is page in the most
extraordinary and mysterious portion of the
book of history-relics of that early time when
all mankind spoke but one tongue and had but
one religion. We viii guaranty that such pho
tographs will SELL And we would also beg that
those who can will obtain and preserve the pot
terry OF these graves. The time is coming when
weishall have historical museums, IN which our
early antiquities viii be kept, not as "curios-
tiles for the vulgar, but as material for his
tory and art. 3 ~ heta
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