The sentiment of shame, one
of the first we find developed, led to the belief that to forego fleshly
pleasures was a meritorious sacrifice in the eyes of the gods. In this
persuasion certain of the Aztec priests practised complete abscission or
entire discerption of the virile parts, and a mutilation of females was
not unknown similar to that immemorially a custom in Egypt.[147-2] Such
enforced celibacy was, however, neither common nor popular.
Circumcision, if it can be proven to have existed among the red
race--and though there are plenty of assertions to that effect, they are
not satisfactory to an anatomist--was probably a symbolic renunciation
of the lusts of the flesh. The same cannot be said of the very common
custom with the Aztec race of anointing their idols with blood drawn
from the genitals, the tongue, and the ears. This was simply a form of
those voluntary scarifications, universally employed to mark contrition
or grief by savage tribes, and nowhere more in vogue than with the red
race.
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