A curious variety of religious literature is what are called the
Passions, _Las Pasiones_, which are found among the natives of the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec. These prose chants took their rise at an early
period among the sodalities (_cofradias_), organized under the name
of some particular saint. Each of these societies possessed a volume,
called its Regulations (_Ordenanzas_), containing, among other
matters, a series of invocations, founded on the history of the Passion
of Christ. During Holy Week, certain members of the fraternity, called
_fiscales_, gather in the church, around one of their number, who
reads a sentence in a loud voice. The fiscales repeat it in a chanting
tone, with a uniform and monotonous cadence. It is probable that these
chants are the compositions of the Indians themselves. Dr. Berendt
obtained several copies of these, some in the Chapaneca of Chiapas, and
others in the Zoque of the Isthmus, which are now in my hands.




Section 5. _Oratorical Literature._


The love of the American Indian for oratorical display has been
commented on by almost all writers who have studied his disposition.
Specimens of native eloquence have been introduced into school books,
and declaimed by many an aspiring young Cicero. Most of them are,
doubtless, as fictitious as Logan's celebrated speech, which was exalted
by the great Jefferson almost to a level with the outbursts of
Demosthenes, to be reduced again to very small proportions by the
criticisms of Brantz Mayer.[58]