AUTOCHTHONIC ORIGIN.

129

enthusiasm and imagination have warped his calmer judgment; as it is, the Atlantis theory is certainly not proved, and we may therefore reasonably decline to accept it. In my opinion there is every reason to believe that his first interpretation of the Codex Chimalpopoca was the true one, and that the 'double meaning' had no existence save in his own distorted fancy, 200

It only remains now to speak of the theory which ascribes an autochthonic crigin to the Americans. The time is not long past when such a supposition would have been regarded as impious, and even at this day its advocates may expect discouragement if not rebuke from certain quarters. 261 It is, nevertheless, an opinion worthy of the gravest consideration, and one which, if we may judge by the recent re

260 See farther, concerning Atlantis: Brasseur de Bourbourg, MS. Troano, tom. i., pp. 29-32, 199; Irving's Columbus, vol. i., pp. 24, 38, vol. iii., pp. 419, 492-4, 499-512; Baril, Mexique, p. 190; Dally, Races Indig., p. 7; Farcy, Discours, in Antiq. Mex., tom. i., div. i., pp. 41-2; De Costa's PreColumbian Dise. Amer., p. xiii.; Heylyn's Cosmog., pp. 943-4; Sanson d'Abbeville, Amérique, pp. 1-3; Willson's Amer. Hist., pp. 90-1; Warden, Recherches, pp. 97-113; Carli, Cartas, pt i., p. 1; Brasseur de Bourbourg, in Landa, Relacion, pp. xviii.-cxii.; Davis' Anc. Amer., p. 13; Malte-Brun, Précis de la Géog., tom. i., pp. 28-30, 213-15; Wilson's Prehist. Man, pp. 392-3; Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vi., pp. 181-4; Foster's PreHist. Races, pp. 394–9; Larrainzar, Dictamen, pp. 8–25; Stratton's MoundBuilders, MS.; Bradford's Amer. Antiq., pp. 216-22; Baldwin's Anc. Amer., pp. 174-84; Mitchill, in Amer. Antiq. Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 340; Faliés, Etudes Hist. sur les Civilisations, tom. i., pp. 185-93, 218; M'Culloh's Researches on Amer., pp. 26-32; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i., pp. 42, 130-206, tom. ii., pp. 46, 163-214; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. i., pp. 14-18, 22; Monglave, in Antiq. Mex., pp. 57-60; Cabrera, Teatro, in Rio's Description, p. 126; Villagutierre, Hist. Cong. Itza, pp. 5-6; Purchas his Pilgrimage, vol. v., pp. 799-801; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 29; West und Ost Indischer Lustgart, pt i., pp. 4-5; Montanus, Nieuwe Weereld, pp. 18-19; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. iv., p. 31; Despréaux, in Museo Mex., tom. ii., pp. 84-6; Major's Prince Henry, p. 88; Rafinesque, in Priest's Amer. Antiq., pp. 123-4; Domenech's Deserts, vol. i., pp. 42-6, 413-14; Fontaine's How the World was Peopled, pp. 256-7; Herrera, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. i., cap. ii.; Smith's Human Species, p. 83; Soc. Géog., Bulletin, tom. iv., p. 235.

261 Davis, Anc. Amer., p. 12, thinks that a portion of the animals of the original creation migrated west. 'If this idea,' he says, 'is new to others, I hope it may be considered more reasonable than the infidel opinion, that men and animals were distinct creations from those of Asia.' "Think you,' he adds sagely, 'they would have transported venomous serpents from the old to the new world?'

VOL. V. 9

sults of scientific investigation, may eventually prove to be scientifically correct. In the preceding pages it will have been remarked that no theory of a foreign origin has been proven, or even fairly sustained. The particulars in which the Americans are shown to resemble any given people of the Old World are insignificant in number and importance when compared with the particulars in which they do not resemble that people.

The

As I have remarked elsewhere, it is not impossible that stray ships of many nations have at various times and in various places been cast upon the American coast, or even that adventurous spirits, who were familiar with the old-time stories of a western land, may have designedly sailed westward until they reached America, and have never returned to tell the tale. The result of such desultory visits would be exactly what has been noticed, but erroneously attributed to immigration en masse. strangers, were their lives spared, would settle among the people, and impart their ideas and knowledge to them. This knowledge would not take any very definite shape or have any very decided effect, for the reason that the sailors and adventurers who would be likely to land in America under such circumstances, would not be thoroughly versed in the arts or sciences; still they would know many things that were unknown to their captors, or hosts, and would doubtless be able to suggest many improvements. This, then, would account for many Old World ideas and customs that have been detected here and there in America, while at the same time the difficulty which arises from the fact that the resemblances, though striking, are yet very few, would be satisfactorily avoided. The foreigners, if adopted by the people they fell among, would of course marry women of the country and beget children, but it cannot be expected that the physical peculiarities so transmitted would be perceptible after a generation or two

of re-marrying with the aboriginal stock. At the same time I think it just as probable that the analogies referred to are mere coincidences, such as might be found among any civilized or semi-civilized people of the earth. It may be argued that the various American tribes and nations differ so materially from each other as to render it extremely improbable that they are derived from one original stock, but, however this may be, the difference can scarcely be greater than that which apparently exists between many of the Aryan branches.262

Hence it is many not unreasonably assume that the Americans are autochthones until there is some good ground given for believing them to be of exotic origin. To express belief, however, in a theory incapable of proof appears to me idle. Indeed, such belief is not belief; it is merely acquiescing in or accepting a hypothesis or tradition until the contrary

262 Concerning unity or variety of the American races, see: Prichard's Researches, vol. i., p. 268, vol. v., pp. 289, 374, 542; Morton's Crania Amer., p. 62: Bradford's Amer. Antiq., pp. 197-98; Baldwin's Anc. Amer., pp. 66-7; Maury, in Nott and Gliddon's Indig. Races, p. 81; Humboldt, Essai Pol., tom. i., p. 83; Humboldt, Vues, tom. i., pp. 21-36; Willson's Amer. Hist., p. 89; Jones' Hist. Anc. Amer., p. 4; Smith's Human Species, p. 251; Catlin's N. Amer. Ind., vol. ii., p. 234; Domenech's Deserts, vol. 1., pp. 3-4.

263 I am compelled to believe that the Continent of America, and each of the other Continents, have had their aboriginal stocks, peculiar in colour and in character-and that each of these native stocks has undergone repeated mutations, by erratic colonies from abroad.' Catlin's N. Amer. Ind., vol. ii., p. 232; Bradford's Amer. Antiq., pp. 224-5, thinks it consonant with the Bible to suppose distinct animal creations, simultaneously, for different portions of the earth.' A commentator on Hellwald who advocate autochthon theory remarks that: the derivation of these varieties from the original stock is philosophically explained on the principle of the variety in the offspring of the same parents, and the better adaptation and consequent chance of life. Smithsonian Rept., 1866, p. 345. "That theory is probably, in every point of view, the most tenable and exact which assumes that man, like the plant, a mundane being, made his appearance generally upon earth when our planet had reached that stage of its development which unites in itself the conditions of the man's existence. In conformity with this view I regard the American as an autochton.' The question of immigration to America has been too much mixed with that of the migration in America, and only recently has the opinion made progress that America has attained a form of civilization by modes of their own. Neither the theory of a populating immigration or a civilizing immigration from the old world meet any countenance from the results of the latest investigations. Helliwald, in Id., p. 330. All tribes have similarities among them which make them distinct from old world. Brasseur de Bourbourg,

is proved. No one at the present day can tell the origin of the Americans; they may have come from any one, or from all the hypothetical sources enumerated in the foregoing pages, and here the question must rest until we have more light upon the subject.

Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 23. Dr. Morton says the study of physical conformation alone, excludes every branch of the Caucausian race from any obvious participation in the peopling of this continent, and believes the Indians are all of one race, and that race distinct from all others. Mayer's Observations, p. 11. We can never know the origin of the Americans. The theory that they are aborigines is contradicted by no fact and is plausible enough. Morlet, Voyage, tom. i., pp. 177-8. The supposition that the Red Man is a primitive type of a human family originally planted in the western continent presents the most natural solution of the prob lem. The researches of physiologists, antiquaries, philologists, tend this way. The hypothesis of an immigration, when followed out, is embarrassed with great difficulties and leads to interminable and unsatisfying speculations. Norman's Rambles in Yuc., p. 251. God has created several couples of human beings differing from one another internally and externally, and these were placed in appropriate climates. The original character is preserved, and directed only by their natural powers they acquired knowledge and formed a distinct language. In primitive times signs and sounds suggested by nature were used, but with advancement, dialects formed. It requires the idea of a miracle to suppose that all men descend from one source. Kames, in Warden, Recherches, p. 203. The unsuccessful search after traces of an ante-Columbian intercourse with the New World, suffices to confirm the belief that, for unnumbered centuries throughout that ancient era, the Western Hemisphere was the exclusive heritage of nations native to its soil. Its sacred and sepulchral rites, its usages and superstitions, its arts, letters, metallurgy, sculpture, and architecture, are all peculiarly its own.' Wilson's Prehist. Man, p. 421. Morton concludes that the American Race differs essentially from all others, not excepting the Mongolian; nor do the feeble analogies of language, and the more obvious ones in civil and religious institutions and the arts, denote anything beyond casual or colonial communication with the Asiatic nations; and even these analogies may perhaps be accounted for as Humboldt has suggested, in the mere coincidence arising from similar wants and impulses in nations inhabiting similar latitudes. Crania Amer, p. 260. I am firmly of opinion that God created an original man and woman in this part of the globe, of different species from any in the other parts." Romans Concise Natural Hist. of E. and W. Florida. Altamirano, the best Aztec scholar living, claims that the proof is conclusive that the Aztecs did not come here from Asia, as has been almost universally believed, but were a race originated in America, and as old as the Chinese themselves, and that China may even have been peopled from America.' Evans' Our Sister Rep., p. 333. Swan believes that whatever was the origin of different tribes or families, the whole race of American Indians are native and indigenous to the soil.' N. W. Coast, p. 206.

CHAPTER II.

INTRODUCTORY TO ABORIGINAL HISTORY.

ORIGIN AND EARLIEST HISTORY OF THE AMERICANS UNRECORDED— THE DARK SEA OF ANTIQUITY--BOUNDARY BETWEEN MYTH AND HISTORY-PRIMITIVE ANNALS OF AMERICA COMPARED WITH THOSE OF THE OLD WORLD-AUTHORITIES AND HISTORICAL MATERIALTRADITIONAL ANNALS AND THEIR VALUE - HIEROGLYPHIC RECORDS OF THE MAYAS AND NAHUAS-SPANISH WRITERS-THE CONQUERORS—THE MISSIONARIES THE HISTORIANS-CONVERTED NATIVE CHRONICLERS-SECONDARY AUTHORITIES-ETHNOLOGY— ARTS, INSTITUTIONS, AND BELIEFS-LANGUAGES-MATERIAL MONUMENTS OF ANTIQUITY-USE OF AUTHORITIES AND METHOD OF TREATING THE SUBJECT.

The preceding résumé shows pretty conclusively that the American peoples and the American civilizations, if not indigenous to the New World, were introduced from the Old at a period long preceding any to which we are carried by the traditional or monumental annals of either continent. We have found no evidence of any populating or civilizing migration across the ocean from east or west, north or south, within historic times. Nothing approaching identity has been discovered between any two nations separated by the Atlantic or Pacific. No positive record appears even of communication between America and the Old World,-intentionally by commercial, exploring, or warlike expeditions, or accidentally by shipwreck,--previous to the voyages of