They are simply
indications of the thorough and utter immorality which prevailed
throughout the race. And a still more disgusting proof of it is seen in
the frequent appearance among diverse tribes of men dressed as women and
yielding themselves to indescribable vices.[149-1] There was at first
nothing of a religious nature in such exhibitions. Lascivious priests
chose at times to invest them with some such meaning for their own
sensual gratification, just as in Brazil they still claim the _jus primae
noctis_.[149-2] The pretended phallic worship of the Natchez and of
Culhuacan, cited by the Abbe Brasseur, rests on no good authority, and
if true, is like that of the Huastecas of Panuco, nothing but an
unrestrained and boundless profligacy which it were an absurdity to call
a religion.[149-3] That which Mr. Stephens attempts to show existed once
in Yucatan,[149-4] rests entirely by his own statement on a fancied
resemblance of no value whatever, and the arguments of Lafitau to the
same effect are quite insufficient.
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