Donald W.
Hemingway, in his book, Christianity in
America Before Columbus? (Salt Lake City: Hawkes Publishing, 1988),
attempted to present evidence of knowledge of Christianity in the Americas
before Columbus. While, as with many works, it engages in parallelomania, it
did have some good material here and there. One such topic relates to knowledge
of something akin to infant baptism in Central America among the natives when
the Spaniards arrived. On why this is relevant to the Book of Mormon, see The Dispute about Infant Baptism among the Nephites: Evidence of 19th century origins for the Book of Mormon?. Note the following quotes provided by Hemingway:
The lords, leading men, nobles, and rich
merchants, when a son or daughter was born to them, paid much heed to the sign,
the day, and the hour in which he was born. And of this they forthwith set out
to inform the judicial astrologers, and to ask as to the good fortune or ill of
the child who was born. And if the sign in which he was born was propitious,
they had him baptized at once; and if it was adverse they sought the most
favourable house of that sign [in which] to baptize him. When they baptized
him, they banqueted the kinsmen and friends, so that they would be present at
the baptism, and then they gave food and drink to all the guests, and also to
the children of the whole suburb. They baptized him at sunrise in the house of
his father. The mid-wife baptized him, uttering many prayers and performing
much ceremony over the child. This [same] feat they also observe today in the
baptism of their children, as to feasting, eating, and drinking. (Sahagun, Book
2, p. 39) (pp. 52-53)
And when the midwife had arranged the baby,
when he had cut his naval cord, then she bathed the baby. [As] she continued
washing him, she proceeded to address him. She said to him, if male: ‘Approach
thy mother the goddess Chalchiuhtli icue . . . May she receive thee! May she
wash thee, may she cleanse thee! May she remove, may she transfer the
filthiness which thou hast taken from thy mother, from thy father! May she
cleanse thy heart; may she make it fine, good! May she give thee find, good
conduct! (Sahagun, Book 6, p. 175) (p. 53)
Then she poured water on the crown of his
head. He said to him: ‘My youngest son, my youth, take receive the water of the
lord of the earth, our sustenance, our refreshment, which is that which
cleanseth one, that which batheth one . . . May it remove, may it destroy the
manner of things thou wert given with which thou wert arrayed in the beginning the
bad, the evil’ . . . Thereupon she bathed him all over; she massaged him. She
proceeded to speak to him: ‘Wherever thou art, as thou art a baby cast down to
earth: go, move! Now the baby liveth again; she is born again; now be becometh
clean, he becometh pure again.’ (Sahagun, Book 6, p. 202) (p. 55)
They [the Spaniards] witnessed another
ceremony, that of the Aztec baptism; in which, after a solemn invocation, the
head and lips of the infant were touched with water, and a name was given to
it; while the goodness Cioacoatl, who presided over childbirth, was implored, .
. . ‘that the sin, which was given to us before the beginning of the world,
might not visit the child, but that cleansed by these waters, it might live and
be born anew!’ (Prescott, Mexico, p. 696) (p. 55)
When the sun had risen, the midwife, taking
the child in her arms, called for a little earthen vessel of water . . . She
placed herself with her fact towards the west, and immediately began to go
through certain ceremonies . . . After this she sprinkled water on the head of
the infant, saying, ‘O my child! take and receive the water of the Lord of the
world, which is our life, and is given for the increasing and renewing of our
body. It is to wash and to purify.’ (Prescott, Mexico, p. 696, note 26) (pp.
55-56)
When these things were ended, they gave the
child the name of some one of his ancestors, in the hope that he might shed a
new lustre over it. The name was given by the same midwife, or priestess, who baptized
him. (Prescott, Mexico, pp. 696, 697, note 26) (p. 58)
The full
bibliographical information for the sources above are:
Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, A History of Ancient Mexico, volume 1: 1547-1577 (trans. Fanny R. Bandelier; The Rio Grande Press, Inc.)
William H.
Prescott, History of the Conquest of
Mexico and History of the Conquest of Peru (New York: The Modern Library)
