In addition to baptism, the tribes of Mexico, Central America and Peruresembled the nations of the old world in their rites of confession,absolution, fasting, and marriage before priests by joining hands. Theyhad even a ceremony resembling the Eucharist, in which cakes marked withthe Tau (an Egyptian form of cross) were eaten, the people calling themthe flesh of their God. These exactly resemble the sacred cakes of Egyptand other eastern nations. Like these nations too, the people of the newworld had monastic orders, male and female, in which broken vows werepunished with death. Like the Egyptians they embalmed their dead, theyworshipped sun, moon, and planets, but over and above these adored aDeity "omnipresent, who knoweth all things ... invisible, incorporeal,one God of perfect perfection" (see Sahagun's _Historia de NuevaEspana_, lib. vi.).