II. It was not till 1823 that Amy Boué gave Cuvier some human bones

which he had found in the _loess_ of the Rhine, near Lahr, in the

Duchy of Baden. Boué regarded these bones as fossils. Cuvier refused

to admit this conclusion. He has often been reproached with this, but

the reproach is unjust. Cuvier had too often seen pretended _fossil

men_ change either into mastodons or salamanders, or even into

simple contorted blocks of sandstone, not to be on his guard, and,

in presence of a fact hitherto unique, he thought it wiser to admit

a disturbance which would have carried into the loess bones of much

later date than that of the formation of this layer.

But Cuvier, whatever may have been said of him, never denied the

possibility of the discovery of _fossil men_. He has, on the

contrary, formally admitted the existence of our species as anterior

to the latest revolutions of the globe. “Man,” he says, “may have

inhabited some country of small extent from which he repeopled the

earth after these terrible events.” We see that the praises and

reproaches which have been addressed to our great naturalist on

account of an opinion which he never held, are equally undeserved.

The reserve, perhaps exaggerated, which Cuvier imposed upon himself,

and the confidence which was placed in him, weighed heavily upon

science by impeding the comprehension of the value of observations

made by Tournal (1828-1829) in L’Aude, by Christol (1829) in Le Gard;

by Schmerling (1833) in Belgium; by Joly (1835) in Lozère; by Marcel

de Serres (1839), in L’Aude, and by Lund (1844) in Brazil. In 1845

almost all the savants, properly so called, shared the opinion so

well stated by Desnoyers. Without regarding the existence of fossil

man as impossible, they did not think that the discovery had as yet

been made.

It is to the persevering efforts of a distinguished archæologist,

Boucher de Perthes, that we owe the proof of a fact so long denied,

and now universally admitted. Under the influence of certain

philosophical ideas, little calculated to procure him followers, he

had admitted _à priori_ the existence of human beings anterior to the

present man, from whom they must have differed considerably. He hoped

to find either their remains themselves, or the products of their

industry, in the upper alluvial deposits. Watching either himself or

through his agents the excavation of the gravel-pits near Abbeville,

he collected there a number of flints, more or less rudely worked,

but bearing the unmistakable impress of the hand of man. Some of his

publications (1847) brought him visitors, who in their turn carried

on the search. Soon after, M. Regollot (1855) and M. Gaudry (1856)

obtained from the gravel of Saint Acheul hatchets similar to those of

Abbeville, and declared themselves convinced. The English savants,

Falconer, Prestwich, and Lyell, after having visited the collection

of Boucher de Perthes, did the same, and had many imitators.

III. In spite of the discoveries which were multiplied in caverns and

gravel-pits, even in the neighbourhood of Paris, the same objections

were brought against the believers in fossil man which Cuvier had

opposed to Amy Boué. The juxtaposition of the remains of extinct

animals and human bones, or articles of human workmanship, were

attributed to a _reformation_ effected by water. The high authority

of M. de Bramont lent new force to this argument. He compared the

alluvium of the neighbourhood of Abbeville to his _terrains des

pentes_, formed, he said, by storms of an exceptional violence, which

only happened once in a thousand years, and which heap up together

materials derived from different beds. As for the objects discovered

in caverns they inspired still less confidence than the others, on

account of the ease with which the bed might be undermined by eddies,

which would tend to deposit in the heart of a subjacent layer objects

derived from the upper layers, without destroying either the one or

the other.

Many men of high intellect still hesitated, until M. Lartet published

his remarkable work upon the grotto of Aurignac (1861). Here doubt

was impossible. This grotto, or rather rock-shelter, was closed at

the time of its discovery by a slab of stone brought from a distance;

M. Lartet discovered, either in the interior or at the entrance,

the bones of eight or nine species of animals which are essentially

characteristic of quaternary deposits. In his memoir he gives details

of all the remains. Some of these animals had evidently been eaten

upon the spot, their bones, partly carbonized, still bore the trace

of fire, the charcoal and ashes of which were discovered; those of a

young tichorhine rhinoceros showed marks made by flint implements,

and their spongy extremities had been gnawed by carnivora; the

species of the latter was shown by his excrement, which was

recognized as that of the _hyena spelæa_.

The grotto or rock-shelter of Aurignac is excavated in a small

mountainous group, a spur of the plateau of Lanémézan, which the

Pyrenean drift has never reached. It is, therefore, free from the

objections drawn from the intervention of aqueous currents. Thus the

facts made known by M. Lartet were generally accepted at once in

their fullest signification. These facts show that man lived in the

midst of a quaternary fauna, which he used as food, including the

rhinoceros, and was followed by the hyena of this epoch, who finished

the remains of his meals. The coexistence of man with these fossil

species was proved.

A few ill-judged attacks were still made by savants, who did not

accept the testimony of these facts, among others that of the

discovery of a human jaw made by Boucher de Perthes. But the

discoveries became so numerous that the last among them was soon

reduced to silence, and had to submit to the mention of _fossil man_

without raising the slightest protest.

IV. It would be too tedious and, indeed, useless to enumerate

here all these discoveries. I will only mention some of the most

striking ones associated with the names of Lartet and Christy,

his enthusiastic colleague. At Les Eyzies, these indefatigable

investigators discovered a stalagmitic layer formed of a veritable

breccia, which contained worked flints, ashes, charcoal, and bones of

different quaternary animals. Large slabs of this breccia now figure

in many collections. In this same grotto they found a vertebra of

a young reindeer pierced by a flint which had broken in the bone,

thus causing the death of the animal. Finally, in 1864, M. Lartet

had the pleasure of being present at the discovery of a plate of

mammoth ivory, upon which a representation of the animal itself had

been carved with a sharp flint by an artist of La Madeleine. In this

drawing are found the characteristic traits of the mammoth, as they

are known to us from the remains of the animal which are at times

found preserved, _with its thick fur and long hair_, in the ice of

Siberia.

For man to be able to draw the portrait of any animal species,

he must have been contemporaneous with it. Now proofs of this

nature have rapidly become more numerous and striking. In l’Ariége

M. Garrigou found a representation of the cave bear traced on a

pebble. M. de Vibraye extracted from the grotto of Laugerie-Basse

a sketch of a fight between reindeer remarkably well drawn upon a

piece of schist. The same animal has been discovered represented in

sculpture in the same rock-shelter, and again in the rock-shelter

of Montastruc, where M. Peccadeau de l’Isle found his wonderful

dagger-handles.

I need not speak here of the weapons, tools, and instruments of every

kind, from the simple knife to barbed arrow-heads, and harpoons, to

laurel-leaf shaped lance-heads, and daggers toothed and grooved,

which equal the finest specimens found in Denmark. I will only remark

that all these objects prove the existence of man, and that we now

count by the thousand articles made by him during the geological

period preceding our own.

Without being nearly so abundant, the remains of man himself have

been discovered in every part of the quaternary formation. Although

several European states have contributed towards this mass of

discoveries, by far the greater number occurred in France and Belgium.

I cannot here enter into details, some of which will be more

advantageously discussed in another part of the book. I will only

mention the cave of Cro-Magnon, which was discovered by the railway

engineers in 1860, not far from the station of Les Eyzies, and

which has given us the type of one of the best characterized fossil

races. Nor can I pass over in silence the successful and laborious

researches made by M. Martin from 1867 to 1873 in the quarries near

Paris, the results of which enabled M. Hamy to fix the succession of

types in our immediate neighbourhood. Lastly, I would allude to the

investigations of M. Dupont in the valley of the Lesse. Commenced in

1864, and continued during seven years with an unequalled activity,

they have presented to the Museum at Brussels about 80,000 worked

flints, 40,000 bones of animals, now all named, the crania of

Furfooz, and twenty-one jaws, including the now celebrated _jaw of

Naulette_.

It is not only in Europe that the existence of fossil man has been

proved. Even in 1844 Lund had announced that he had found in certain

caverns in Brazil human bones associated with remains of extinct

animals. He afterwards withdrew his statement, doubtless owing to the

distrust with which every announcement of this kind was received.

But his observations, which, unfortunately, were never published in

detail, were probably correct. In 1867 M. W. Blake announced to the

Congress of Paris that in the auriferous deposits of California, and

especially near the village of Sonora, weapons, instruments, and even

stone ornaments were frequently found associated with the bones of

the mammoth and the mastodon. Dr. Snell, who lives in this locality,

possesses a large and rich collection of them. Dr. Wilson published

some facts of the same nature in 1865.

V. It became necessary, in order to prevent our being lost amidst

these riches of every description, to distribute them in a

methodical manner, and arrange them in order of time. The universal

preponderance of weapons, tools, sculpture, drawings, etc., has

led archæologists to propose different classifications essentially

founded upon the difference of the types presented by these articles,

and upon the material from which they were made. The classification

which M. de Mortillet has applied to the Museum of St. Germain is of

this kind. But such classifications, though very convenient for the

arrangement of a public collection, have the inconvenience of being

rather artificial. The naturalist and the anthropologist ought to

give the preference to palæontological or geological data.

Lartet preferred the former. He connected the division of quaternary

times with the predominance and extinction of the great mammalia. The

cave-bear, which was the first to disappear, he employed to mark the

most ancient period; the mammoth and the tichorhine rhinoceros, which

survived it, characterised the second; the reindeer and the aurochs

have served to mark the third and fourth.

This classification has the inconvenience of being purely local,

since the disappearance of quaternary species did not take place

everywhere at the same time, and was not general. In reality the age

of the reindeer still continues in Lapland, and that of the aurochs

is prolonged, a little artificially it is true, in the forests of

Lithuania. But Lartet’s method connects human groups with animal

types; it characterises the epochs by an event palæontologically

important; it preserves the relation between the succession of

periods and biological events; it offers, therefore, serious

advantages if taken for what it is. This was very clearly understood

by the eminent author of the theory; he has only applied it to France.

Since M. Lartet made his splendid investigations, fresh facts have

come to light, and, as it often happens, distinctions, which at

first were apparently most pronounced, have now been partly effaced.

Therefore M. Dupont has proposed to reduce to two the four ages of

Lartet, which is perhaps excessive even for Belgium. M. Hamy, again,

has admitted three ages as corresponding to the mean and new river

levels of M. Belgrand. This division of quaternary times has the

advantage of being connected with geological phenomena; it at least

partly loses the too exclusively local character, and it ought for

this reason to be preferred.

Let us, nevertheless, consider the subject for a moment from Lartet’s

point of view, which permits of an interesting comparison. We have

seen in Denmark the succession of three vegetable species; the

beech, the oak, and the pine bring us to the commencement of the

present modern epoch. In France the successive disappearance of

four animal species, the cave-bear, mammoth, reindeer, and aurochs,

which at first were contemporaneous on our soil, characterises so

many epochs which embrace the whole quaternary period. Man has been

contemporaneous with them all; he made use of their flesh for food,

and has left representations of them in sculpture and drawings.

VI. Can we go further and find traces of man even in tertiary times?

Falconer, the celebrated English palæontologist, prematurely lost

to science, did not hesitate to reply in the affirmative. But he

only expected to find tertiary man in India, and M. Desnoyers has

discovered him in France.

It was in 1863, in the gravel-pit of Saint-Prest, near Chartres, that

M. Desnoyers himself found a tibia of rhinoceros bearing marks of

incision and grooves similar to those which had been so often noticed

in the bones of bears and reindeer eaten by quaternary man. A careful

comparison and numerous facts of the same nature, shown in different

collections, authorised him to announce that man might be traced

beyond the glacial epoch, and had lived in pliocene times.

But M. Desnoyers only brought forward proofs of a single kind, and

such as are not appreciated at their full value until we are used to

them. Thus his work was at first received with a certain amount of

distrust. He was asked to produce, if not pliocene man himself, at

least some objects of his industry, and, in particular, the weapons

which would enable him to attack, and the knives with which he could

cut up the elephant and rhinoceros, or the great deer, whose bones

all bear the marks of more or less deep incision which he attributes

to man. M. l’Abbé Bourgeois soon replied to these demands, and in

the presence of the worked flints which he placed before competent

judges, all doubt disappeared.

Unfortunately, the gravel of Saint-Prest is considered by a

sufficient number of geologists to belong rather to quaternary

deposits, which are more recent than undoubted tertiary formations.

It ought probably to be placed in the period of transition which

separates two distinct epochs. Perhaps it is contemporaneous with

the deposit of the Victoria cave in Yorkshire, from which Tiddeman

extracted a human fibula, and which this naturalist regarded as

having been formed a little before the great glacial cold. In short,

the discoveries of MM. Desnoyers and Tiddeman take back the existence

of man to the confines of the tertiary period.

The discoveries in Italy take us still further. On different

occasions, and since 1863, some Italian savants thought that they had

discovered in undoubted pliocene deposits traces of human industry,

and even human bones. These results were, however, for different

reasons successively doubted and rejected by the most competent

judges.

But M. Capellini has just discovered, in 1876, clearer proofs of

man’s existence in pliocene times in the clay deposits of Monte

Aperto, near Sienne, and in two other places. The eminent professor

of Bologna has found in these localities, the age of which is not

contested, bones of the balœnotus bearing numerous deep incisions,

which it seems to me could only have been produced by the action of

a cutting instrument. In some cases the bone has been broken off

upon one of the faces of incision, whilst the other is smooth and

sharply defined. Judging from woodcuts and casts, it is impossible

to avoid admitting that the cuts have been made upon fresh bones.

These incisions differ entirely from those found upon the bones of

halitherium found in the miocene falunian strata of Pouancé. I have

always thought it impossible to attribute the latter to man, as

decidedly as I think those which we are now discussing ought to be

attributed to his agency. The existence of pliocene man in Tuscany

is, then, in my opinion, an acquired scientific fact. Nevertheless,

I should admit that this conclusion is not yet unanimously accepted,

and that it is disputed by M. Magitot, among others, who relies upon

his own experience.

VII. The researches of M. l’Abbé Bourgeois take us still further

back. This practised and persevering observer has discovered in

the department of Loir-et-Cher, in the Commune of Thénay, flints,

the shape of which he thinks can only be attributed to man. Now

geologists are unanimous in considering these deposits as miocene,

belonging to the mean tertiary age.

But the flints of Thénay, generally of small size, are almost all

very roughly shaped, and many palæontologists and archæologists have

considered the fractures to be due to nothing more than accidental

blows. In 1872, at the Congress of Brussels, the question was

submitted to a commission of the most competent men of Germany,

England, France, Belgium, and Italy, and the judges disagreed.

Some accepted and some rejected all the flints exhibited by M.

l’Abbé Bourgeois. Some considered that a small number only could be

attributed to human industry. Others, again, thought it right to

reserve their judgment and to wait for fresh facts.

I joined the ranks of the latter. But since then fresh specimens

discovered by M. l’Abbé Bourgeois have removed my last doubts.

A small knife or scraper, among others, which shows a fine

regular finish, can, in my opinion, only have been shaped by man.

Nevertheless, I do not blame those of my colleagues who deny or

still doubt. In such a matter there is no very great urgency, and

doubtless the existence of miocene man will be proved, as that of

glacial and pliocene man has been—by facts.

VIII. Thus, man was most certainly in existence during the quaternary

epoch and during the transition age to which the gravels of

Saint-Prest and the deposits of the Victoria cave belong. He has,

in all probability, seen miocene times, and consequently the entire

pliocene epoch. Are there any reasons for believing that his traces

will be found further back still? Is the date of his appearance

necessarily connected with any epoch? For an answer to these

questions I only see a single order of facts to which we can apply.

We know that, as far as his body is concerned, man is a mammal, and

nothing more. The conditions of existence which are sufficient for

these animals ought to have been sufficient for him also; where they

lived, he could live. He may then have been contemporaneous with the

earliest mammalia, and go back as far as the secondary period.

Palæontologists of high merit shrink from this proposition. They do

not admit even the possibility of the existence of man in miocene

times. All the mammalian fauna of this period have, they say,

disappeared; how should man alone have resisted against causes which

were sufficiently powerful to cause a complete renewal of all the

beings with which he was most nearly connected?

I recognise the force of the objection; but I also take into account

human intelligence, which they seem to forget. It is evidently owing

to this intelligence that the man of Saint-Prest, of the Victoria

cave, and of Monte Aperto has been able to survive two great

geological epochs. He protected himself against cold by fire, and

so survived till the return of a more genial temperature. Is it not

possible, therefore, to imagine that man of an earlier period should

have found in his industry the necessary resources for struggling

against the conditions which the transition from the later secondary

times to the earlier tertiary must have imposed upon him.

In fact, the most careful judges acknowledge that man has seen

the accomplishments of one of the great changes on the surface of

the globe. He has lived in one of the geological epochs to which

he was but lately thought to be a complete stranger; he has been

contemporary with species of mammalia which have not even seen the

commencement of the present epoch. There is then nothing impossible

in the idea that he should have survived other species of the same

class, or have witnessed other geological revolutions, or have

appeared upon the globe with the first representatives of the type to

which he belongs by his organisation.

But this is a question to be proved by facts. Before we can even

suppose it to be so, we must wait for information from observation.

BOOK IV.

ORIGINAL LOCALISATION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.

CHAPTER XIV.

AGASSIZ’S THEORY.—CENTRES OF CREATION.

I. With the exception of Australasia, with which we are but very

imperfectly acquainted, and of some islands and deserts which we

need not take into account, all the regions visited by man since

the commencement of the era of modern discoveries have proved to be

more or less inhabited. In wandering over the globe of which he took

possession, the European has met with man everywhere, and quaternary

palæontology reveals him to us upon the most distant shores of the

two continents.

Are all these different populations indigenous? Is man a native

of the countries where he is represented by history, and where

travellers have met with him? or has he rather invaded by degrees

the surface of the globe, starting from a certain number of

points, or from a single one? In other words, has man, who is now

_cosmopolitan_, originally been more or less _localised_?

These questions have been answered alternately in the different

senses which they admit of. Unfortunately these solutions have too

often been influenced by considerations entirely foreign to science.

It has been thought necessary to adopt either the one or the other

in the name of dogma or philosophy, and this question has been

confounded with that of monogenism and polygenism, without seeing

that upon this particular point the two doctrines must lead anyone

who remains faithful to the data of science to the same result.

Science has already been shown to be our only possible guide; let us

examine her teaching on this subject.

II. The doctrine which admits the multiplicity of the geographical

origins of man, has been more frequently asserted, than sustained by

more or less serious arguments. Agassiz is the only naturalist who

has developed and defined it, by supporting it with general data.

We must, therefore, first examine these data. A very short account

will explain the reasons why I must, with regret, oppose one of the

men whose learning and character I have always held in the highest

estimation.

There are singular points of resemblance, and no less striking

contrasts between Agassiz and the most extravagant disciples of

Darwin. The illustrious author of the _Essay on Classification_ is

as exclusive a morphologist as the latter; neither in his opinion

nor in theirs, does the idea of _filiation_ form any connection with

that of _species_; he declares, as they do, that the questions of

crossing, of constant or limited fertility, have no real interest.

We are justified in attributing these opinions, so strange in such

an eminent zoologist as Agassiz, to the nature of his early works.

It is well known that he commenced his career with his celebrated

researches upon fossil fishes. We have already remarked upon the

influence which is almost inevitably exercised by fossils, where form

alone has to be considered, where nothing calls attention to the

genealogical connection of beings, and where we meet with neither

parents nor offspring.

But while Darwinists admit the perpetual _instability_ of specific

forms and their _transmutation_, the illustrious professor of

Cambridge believes in their _absolute immutability_. Upon this

fundamental point he is in exact opposition to Darwin. In 1840,

whilst proclaiming the unity of the human species, he admits

that the diversity which it presents is the result of _original

physical differences_. This is really nothing more than a mitigated

polygenism; and, like every polygenistic doctrine, compels its author

to place man in contradiction to general laws. In 1845, Agassiz

himself accepted this consequence in a memoir upon the geographical

distribution of animals and man. He attributed the diversities of

both to the same causes. “But,” he adds, “whilst in every zoological

province animals are of _different species_, man, in spite of the

diversity of his _races_, always forms one and the same species.” The

following year he declared his belief in “an indefinite number of

primordial races of men created separately.”

Agassiz has collected and developed all his theories in a memoir

inserted at the beginning of the great polygenistic work entitled

_Types of Mankind_. It is clear that Nott and Gliddon, the authors

of this work, were perfectly aware of the real meaning of a doctrine

which proclaims the specific unity of man, while at the same time

admitting that the human races have been created separately with all

their distinctive characters. We, also, must not be deceived, but

recognise Agassiz as a true polygenist.

I shall, therefore, be obliged to make all those objections to the

theory of the eminent naturalist which have already been stated.

Moreover, the singular association which he has endeavoured

to establish between the _unity of species_ and the _original

characterisation of races_, has led him into contradictions and

consequences which are peculiar to him, and which it would scarcely

be possible to pass by in silence.

Agassiz, like the greater number of polygenists, gives no intimation

of what he means by the word _race_. Yet he makes use of it

incessantly and declares, for example, that he is ready to show that

“the differences existing between human races are of the same nature

as those which separate families, genera, and species of apes or

other animals....” “The chimpanzee and the gorilla,” he adds, “do

not differ from each other more than Mandingoes from the Negroes of

Guinea; there is less difference between either of them and the

orang, than there is between the Malay or the White and the Negro.”

Must not the logical consequence of such positive language be, that

man forms a zoological family comprising several genera and many

species, precisely similar to the family of anthropoid apes? But

no; Agassiz devotes a new paragraph to declaring that this opinion,

which he has expressed so clearly, agrees entirely with the theory of

unity, and in no way brings human fraternity into question. In one

of his first memoirs upon questions of this nature, he declared that

_man is an exceptional being_, and we shall see how far he pushes

this unavoidable consequence of his theories.

In a letter addressed to the same authors, and printed in the

_Indigenous Races of the Earth_, Agassiz returns to the same subject.

He here insists upon considerations which, in his first work, he had

merely alluded to, and which we are truly astonished to receive from

his pen. In order to show that the same local causes have acted upon

man and animals, he draws attention to the resemblance of colour,

which, according to him, exists between the complexion of the Malay

and the colour of the hair of the Orang; from the same point of view

he compares the Negrittoes and Telingas with the gibbons.

If it were possible to consider seriously this comparison between

the skin of a human group, and the colour of the hair of an animal,

we should have no lack of arguments to bring against the author. I

shall only remind my readers that black gibbons are found in Sumatra,

which is one of those islands where men are considered by Agassiz to

resemble the orang in colour.

Carried away by the heat of controversy with those naturalists who

admit the unity of the geographical origin of man, Agassiz goes much

further than this. He considers the various languages as being of

primitive origin as well as all other characters. Men, he asserts,

were created by nations, each of which appeared upon the globe with

its own language. He draws a comparison between these languages and

the voices of animals; he laughs at philologists for their belief in

the discovery of any connection between one language and another.

In his opinion, there is just as much relation between one human

language and another, as between the growling of different species

of bears, the mewing of the cats of the two continents, the quacking

of ducks, or the song of thrushes, who all pour forth their gay and

harmonious notes, each in its dialect, which is neither inherited nor

derived from another.

Philologists will most certainly reject the law as laid down by

Agassiz. But I must also protest against the comparison admitted by

this illustrious naturalist. If I attribute a _language_ to animals,

I do not forget how rudimentary it is. I recollect that no animal has

ever learnt the language of another. I know too well the distance

there is between _animal interjections_ and _articulate speech_, and

I am as well aware as anyone that to use such an instrument, so as

to produce from it _true languages_, can only be accomplished by the

superior intelligence of man.

Agassiz, when he had arrived at this point, must have felt that he

had lost himself, and that, in trying to harmonise the idea of a

single human species with that of several races of distinct origin,

he was entering an endless labyrinth. His last work betrays the

signs of this embarrassment only too clearly. It is probably in the

hope of escaping from it that the author has finally even denied the

existence of species. After having again rejected the criterion drawn

from crossing and degrees of fertility, he adds: “With it disappears

in its turn the pretended reality of species as opposed to the mode

of existence of genera, families, orders, classes and branches.

Reality of existence is, in fact, possessed by individuals alone.”

Thus, from adhering solely to morphology, from a disregard of the

physical side of the question, from having allowed themselves to be

guided by a logic which is only founded upon incomplete data, Agassiz

and Darwin have arrived at a similar result. Both have disregarded

this great fact, intelligible to common sense, demonstrated by

science, and which governs everything in zoology, as it does in

botany, the division, namely, of organised beings into elementary and

fundamental groups which propagate in space and time. But Darwin,

starting from the _phenomena_ of _variations_ which are presented by

these beings, considers _species_ as only _races_. Agassiz, entirely

preoccupied with the _phenomena_ of _fixity_, finally considers

_individuals_ only as existing in living nature. Both forget that

the great Buffon passed successively to both these extremes only to

return again to the doctrine which includes and explains all facts,

and which may be summed up in these words: distinction of _race_ and

_species_.

III. In spite of these dogmatic assertions, when it comes to

application of any kind whatever, Agassiz, like Lamarck in former

times, and Darwin in our own day, is obliged to use the word

_species_ in the sense in which it is employed by so many others. In

the memoir, from which I have already quoted, animal and vegetable

_species_ are constantly being discussed. Their geographical

distribution serves as a foundation to the theory of human origins.

The author admits that they could not have arisen upon one and the

same point of the globe; that the centres of creation were numerous,

and that the species diverging from these centres give to the actual

flora and fauna all their characteristic features.

Up to this point Agassiz has only accepted the doctrine of centres

of creation, a doctrine entirely French in origin, having been

formulated by Desmoulins and developed by M. Edwards.

What is due to Agassiz is the reproduction, in the name of science,

of a theory at first proposed by La Peyrère in the name of theology:

giving to man the whole world as his original home: the admission

that the human races originated in the same places as the groups of

animal and vegetable species, and the connection of one of these

races with each centre of creation; the multiplication of the

number of human creations to such a degree as to profess that “man

was created by nations,” endowed from the first with all their

distinctive characters, and each speaking its own special language.

There is, at first sight, no absurdity in the idea itself, nothing

at all contradictory to anything which we have as yet met with. We

have seen above that physiology leads to the conclusion that “human

groups are _to all appearance_ descended from one primitive pair.” It

goes no further than that. Anyone who confines himself to inferences

drawn from this order of facts might, therefore, accept the theory of

Agassiz as, it is true, a very gratuitous hypothesis, but convenient

in order to account for the distribution and actual diversity of

human types.

This is no longer the case when we turn to another branch of the

natural sciences, _zoological_ and _botanical geography_. We then

can easily prove that the theories of Agassiz tend to make an

exception of man, to place him at variance with the general laws of

the geographical distribution of all other organised beings, and,

consequently, that they are false.

IV. I fully agree with the views of Agassiz, as far as _centres of

creation_, or rather _centres of appearance_ are concerned.

All who confine themselves to the data of observation and experiment

will see at once that all animal and vegetable species could not

have originated upon any one spot of the globe. The former shows us,

in various regions, different types and species, living naturally

in countries which present almost precisely the same conditions of

existence. The latter teaches us that we can transport the greater

number of species from one region to another, and that they will

prosper there, if the conditions of existence are the same; that, on

the contrary, arctic and tropical species cannot, even temporarily,

be submitted to the action of the same conditions; that neither can

withstand the action of a temperate climate. It is impossible with

all these facts to avoid the conclusion that plants and animals had

several points of appearance.

But if I accept this doctrine as the only one reconcilable with

facts, it is upon the condition of adopting it entirely, and as

developed by studies upon the geographical distribution of all living

beings. Now, works of this kind are numerous at the present time.

For all phanerogamous plants we have the work of M. Ad. de Candolle,

which has been a standard work ever since its appearance.

Animals have not yet had their de Candolle. The great work of M.

Alphonse Edwards will partly fill up this gap for the more southern

regions of the globe. In the meantime, important investigations have

been made in some of the principal classes. Buffon, by his admirable

researches upon the geography of mammals, opened the way, in which

he has been followed by the two Geoffroy Saint-Hilaires, Fr. Cuvier,

and Andrew Murray; Dumeril and Bibron have studied reptiles from the

same point of view; Fabricius, Latreille, Macley, Spence, Kirby,

and Lacordaire have done the same for insects; M. Milne Edwards has

worked out the distribution of the crustacea; I have endeavoured to

do as much for the annelids. Finally, a great number of works bearing

upon the lower groups have long been known to science, and Agassiz

himself has largely contributed to increase our knowledge in this

direction.

A certain number of general facts stand out from this mass of

research, which we call _laws_. If the theory of Agassiz is true, it

ought to agree with these laws. Now the disagreement is apparent from

the outset.

Let us prove, in the first place, that this theory includes two very

distinct ideas: that of the original cosmopolitanism of the human

species; and, secondly, that of a geographical connection between the

human race and the animal or vegetable groups observed in a common

centre. Let us examine the truth and error contained in this last

statement.

Agassiz holds that the influence of the centre of appearance is

general and absolute. It extends to all the products of the soil as

well as to those of fresh and salt waters. A country is just as much

characterised by its plants and animals as by its human beings. In

his opinion, an essentially local force seems to have produced all

beings, or at least to have imprinted upon them a common mark.

This generalisation was inevitable. Any one who wishes to attach a

human race to each centre of appearance is compelled to localise in

each one of them the original cause of all the animal and vegetable

forms which are indigenous in it. For all living beings geographical

coincidence must be absolute.

Now there is generally no such coincidence. From the waters of a

river to the banks which enclose it, the contrast may be striking.

This is exactly what was shown by the discoveries of Agassiz himself

in the ichthyology of the Amazon. To anyone who accepts the results

published by the illustrious traveller, it is evident that this

fauna may be divided into groups much more narrowly confined than

those of terrestrial fauna. The same fact may be observed upon the

shores of two seas separated by even a very narrow strip of land. The

terrestrial fauna and flora are the same throughout the whole extent

of the isthmus of Suez, whilst M. Edwards has not found a single

species of crustacea common to both the Mediterranean and the Red

Sea, and the study of annelids has led me to the same result.

Moreover, the same region may be the centre of appearance for one

class of animals, but by no means for another. Australia, for

example, is one of the most characteristic centres for mammals, and

stands alone from this point of view among the surrounding countries.

With respect to insects Australia agrees, on the contrary, with

New Zealand, New Caledonia and the neighbouring islands. I have

borrowed this last fact from Lacordaire. It has the more value since

this entomologist has multiplied the centres of appearance to a

much greater extent than Agassiz, and has, therefore, made their

characterisation easier.

Thus the coincidence admitted by Agassiz, far from extending to all

the organised beings of a region, does not even exist in certain

cases between the different classes of animals alone.

V. Agassiz divides the entire surface of the globe into nine great

regions or _kingdoms_. I cannot here give in detail the numerous

criticisms to which the fixed limits and characterisation of these

centres are open. I shall confine myself to a few short remarks upon

each.

1. _Polynesian Kingdom._ We shall see presently that it is impossible

to regard Polynesia as a centre of human appearance. This region

has been entirely peopled by migration from the Indian Archipelago,

the history of which has been partly preserved. The first kingdom

of Agassiz must be struck out as far as we are concerned; it is an

exclusively animal and vegetable centre. Agassiz, moreover, though he

supports it in the text and upon the map, does not assign it a place

in the illustrated table, in which he sums up his ideas.

2. _Australian Kingdom._ Agassiz includes New Guinea in this kingdom.

He thus destroys the homogeneity of the mammalogical fauna. At the

same time he unites the several human races of Australia with the

Negrittoes and Papuans. This alone destroys all unity of type.

3. _Malay or Indian Kingdom._ This kingdom comprises India, the Malay

Archipelago, and the Andaman Islands. Now, anterior to the Aryan

conquest, Yellows and Blacks lived in India. The latter are still

found in a pure state in the peninsula of Malacca, and in the Andaman

Islands; Malaysia presents a perfect mixture of most different races,

from the White to the Negro. The Malays, properly so-called, are much

rather a population levelled by the action of Islamism, than a race

in the true sense of the word; they present in a high degree the

characters of intercrossing. All these facts protest against the idea

of making these regions a centre of human appearance.

4. _Hottentot Fauna._ Agassiz abandons the expression kingdom in

speaking of the south of Africa, without giving any reason for

the change. Whatever the cause may be, this is one of the least

unfavourable regions for the application of his theory. From a

geological or botanical point of view, South Africa constitutes

a veritable centre. The Bosjesman and the Hottentot might be

considered as the characteristic human type. But the Negroes

of Delagoa and the Kaffirs still protest against this partial

coincidence.

5. _African Kingdom._ This region is considered by Agassiz to

comprise the rest of Africa, with the exception of the shores of

the Mediterranean. He adds Madagascar and the southern half of the

Arabian peninsula. Now, from a mammalogical point of view, Madagascar

forms a little centre of itself, whilst the human population is

very mixed. The Hovas are very slightly modified Malays, and the

languages of the Sacalaves themselves indicate relations with the

Malayo-Polynesians. As to the continental portion of the kingdom, it

is enough to remark that it includes Negroes, Abyssinians, Arabs,

etc. History, as well as the present state of things, protests

against the connection made in this case by the author.

6. _European Kingdom._ This division Agassiz considers as

comprising the entire circumference of the Mediterranean, Persia

and Beloochistan. Consequently it embraces very different fauna and

flora; it mixes up Aryan, Semitic and Chamitic populations, and takes

no account of history. Agassiz himself recognises this fact, and

declares that he has only taken into consideration prehistoric times.

Since the Quaternary epoch, however, France alone has supported

tribes which were tall and dolichocephalic, and others which were

short and brachycephalic. Finally, although Agassiz includes the

Persians with the Europeans, he leaves out the Hindoos who are

ethnologically connected with them, and places them in an entirely

different kingdom.

7. _Mongolian or Asiatic Kingdom._ This kingdom encloses all the

central portion of Asia, beginning at the Bolor and the Himalayas,

and extending as far as Japan. The Mongol is taken as the human type

of this vast extent of country. But Agassiz forgets the Aryans of

the Bolor, the white Jutchis, the Japanese of the same type, the

Aïnos, etc. He unites, therefore, people which belong to at least two

extreme types of mankind.

8. _American Kingdom._ Agassiz makes but one kingdom of the whole

of America, whilst all zoologists and botanists are agreed in

dividing it into at least two great and distinctly characterised

centres. He adopts the opinion of Morton, who only admits one human

race in America, with the exception of the Esquimaux. Now, since

the publication of d’Orbigny’s _Homme Américain_, it is no longer

possible to believe in this uniformity. The numerous investigations

which have been undertaken upon this question have, moreover, proved

still more strongly the multiplicity of races admitted by this

traveller. Again, if the human races of America are compared with

those of the old world, we shall find, with a few exceptions, a very

close connection with Asia, especially in certain populations of

Central America: if we compare the fauna and flora, the connection

is, on the contrary, closer in North America. These facts are in

direct opposition with the theory of Agassiz.

9. _Arctic Kingdom._ This latter kingdom deserves a little more

attention than the others. It comprises all the northern regions of

the two continents. The southern limit is somewhat arbitrarily fixed

by Agassiz at the zone of forests. In no region of the world does

man meet with such identical conditions of existence, for all are

governed by cold. It would seem, therefore, to be better able than

any other to justify the author’s theory, and yet facts agree but

very slightly with it.

Agassiz characterises this kingdom by the existence of one plant and

six species of animals, five mammals and one bird. The plant is the

Iceland lichen (cenomyce rangiferina). Now, this lichen is so little

characteristic of polar regions that it is found in many parts of

France, and even in the neighbourhood of Paris at Fontainebleau. M.

Decaisne believes that our hares and rabbits live upon it in winter,

as the reindeer do in Lapland. Further, the observations recently

made in Greenland by the German Polar Expedition, show that in this

country, which, of all countries in the Arctic Kingdom, should most

readily adapt itself to the conceptions of Agassiz, and which is

inhabited by pure-blooded Esquimaux, possesses scarcely one vegetable

species which can be said to be peculiar to it, and that a great

number of them are found in the Alps, and upon the summits of the

Vosges. It is a result of the return of heat after the glacial epoch,

the species which resisted it having emigrated in altitude as well as

in latitude.

In animal species, the white bear and the walrus are really polar.

The same may be said of the Greenland seal considered as a species.

But as a type we meet with it everywhere; as a genus it inhabits all

the seas of Europe. The reindeer inhabited France in the Quaternary

epoch; it was living in Germany in Cæsar’s time; it descended yearly

to the Caspian Sea during the lifetime of Pallas. The true whale

used to visit our coast before it was driven away by man. Finally,

at this day, the eider duck builds yearly in Denmark, ten to fifteen

degrees south of the Polar circle. Thus, in the six species mentioned

by Agassiz as peculiar to his Arctic Kingdom, three at least belong

equally to his European Kingdom.

Agassiz was certainly more capable than anyone else of nicely

characterising the region in question, if it had been possible to

do so. He failed, because there is in reality no such thing as

a true Arctic fauna. The cause of this lies in the extension of

more southern fauna, which become impoverished as they advanced

northwards, but change their character very slightly. In reality,

this kingdom is broken up into independent provinces, or rather, is

connected with regions situated more to the south, and consequently

better divided. The Polar region, says Lacordaire, in speaking of

insects, is characterised less by the speciality of its products than

by their scarcity. All these facts, again, are the consequence of the

peopling of the Arctic regions after the glacial epoch.

It would seem that man at least might present at the pole the

homogeneity supposed by the theory. It is not so, however, whatever

may be the assertions of Agassiz upon this subject. “A peculiar

race of man,” he says, “live there, known in America by the name of

Esquimaux, elsewhere by that of Lapps, Samoyedes or Tchouktchis....

The uniformity of their characters throughout the whole extent of

the Arctic seas unites them in a striking manner with the fauna with

which they are so closely connected.”

There are, in these words of Agassiz, grave ethnological and

anthropological errors. The uniformity of characters of which

he speaks does not exist at all. It will suffice to remind my

readers that the Lapps are one of the most brachycephalic, and the

Esquimaux one of the most dolichocephalic races with which we are

acquainted. In fact, these two races are so entirely distinct that no

anthropologist has ever dreamt of establishing a connection between

them.

As to the Samoyedes and Tchouktchis, they have not always inhabited

the icy lands where we now meet with them. The former have still a

recollection of having come from the south, and M. de Tchiatchef has

discovered the original stock upon the confines of China. The latter

settled at Behring’s Straits but a short time ago to free themselves

from Russian conquest, against which they had bravely struggled.

They subjugated and absorbed the Yukagires, their predecessors. They

differ, moreover, equally from Esquimaux and Lapps.

Thus, in the Arctic Kingdom, where all the most favourable conditions

for the display of any truth which the ideas of Agassiz may possess

are brought together, everything protests against these ideas.

In spite of his vast knowledge, he could not characterise it

zoologically in a precise manner; the special fauna which he admits

does not exist; the identity of populations which he proclaimed

disappears under the slightest examination.

Finally, the theory which attaches a human race to every centre of

appearance as a local product of that centre, ought to be rejected by

anyone who sets the least value upon the results of observation.

CHAPTER XV.

PROGRESSIVE LOCALISATION OF ORGANISED BEINGS.—CENTRES OF

APPEARANCE.—ORIGINAL LOCALISATION OF MAN.

I. An eminent man may draw incorrect conclusions from the existence

of centres of appearance without their existence being any the less

real. Unconnected with animal or vegetable centres, the human races

might have their own; man might have come into existence wherever we

meet with him. But, before we accept this original cosmopolitanism,

we must assure ourselves that it subjects man to general laws. Now we

shall see that this hypothesis is, on the contrary, at variance with

all general facts presented by plants as well as animals.

II. Let us first prove that no animal or vegetable species inhabits,

as man does, almost the entire globe.

The assertion of Ad. de Candolle could not be more precise as far

as plants are concerned. “No phanerogamous plant,” he says, “is

distributed over the entire surface of the earth. There are only

eighteen whose area extends to half the globe. No tree or shrub

figures among these plants, which are so widely distributed.” This

latter remark belongs to an order of considerations which we shall

meet with again.

Being unable to enter into an examination of all the facts which

are offered by the various classes of the Animal Kingdom from this

point of view, I shall confine myself to a few details upon birds and

mammals.

We should expect to find the former presenting very extensive areas

of habitation by reason of their mode of locomotion. It is, in fact,

among them that we find some of the species which most deserve the

epithet of cosmopolitan. They do not, however, equal man in this

respect.

The stock-dove, the parent stock of our domestic pigeon, extends

from the south of Norway to Madeira and Abyssinia, from the Shetland

Islands to Borneo and Japan; but it does not reach as far as either

the equator or the polar circle; and it is wanting both in America

and Polynesia.

The fulvous vulture is found in all the temperate regions of the old

world, crosses the equator in Africa and descends as far as the Cape.

But we do not meet with it either in our polar regions, in America or

in Polynesia.

The peregrine falcon has perhaps of all animals the widest area. It

is found in America, as also in all the warm or temperate regions of

the old world. It is supposed to exist in Australia, but we do not

meet with it either in Polynesia or in the polar regions.

Among mammals, whales, on account of their immense powers of

locomotion and the continuity of seas, would seem to be adapted to

true cosmopolitanism. This, however, is not the case. They are almost

all confined within relatively very limited areas, and rarely pass

beyond their customary boundaries. Commodore Maury regarded the

equatorial sea as forming an invincible obstacle to their passage

from one hemisphere to the other. Two exceptions have, however,

been observed to this rule. A rorqual (_Megaptera longimana_) and

a _Sibaldius laticeps_ are said to have crossed this barrier, and

to have passed from our seas to those of the Cape and of Java.

These exceptions might easily be explained by various accidental

circumstances. Supposing however we were to accept them as testifying

an exceptional relative cosmopolitanism, we still have the fact that

they have never been met with in the Pacific Ocean.

With the exception of whales, we shall find nothing at all resembling

cosmopolitanism. Setting aside the whole of Oceania, we only find,

as common to both the Old and the New World, two or three ruminants,

perhaps a bear, a fox and a wolf. All these species are, moreover,

more or less polar, and are wanting in the central regions of the

two worlds. Finally, there is not one species of cheiroptera or

quadrumana which is indigenous both in America and the Old World.

Beyond those species which man has disseminated by making them follow

his migrations, animals and plants evidently occupy their natural

area, wherein lies the centre from which they have spread. We see

that even after this dispersion none of them have acquired an area of

habitation which can be compared to that of man.

The admission that the human species appeared in every place in which

it is found, attributing to it an original cosmopolitanism, would

make it a solitary exception in contradiction to the facts presented

by all other species. An hypothesis which leads to such a conclusion

should be rejected as irreconcilable with the results of observation.

If man is now to be found everywhere, it is owing to his intelligence

and industry.

III. This conclusion is forced even upon polygenists themselves;

unless, indeed, they would reject, as inapplicable to man, the laws

of zoological and botanical geography.

In fact, to whatever extent they may have multiplied their human

species, they have been obliged, upon even the slightest study of

natural history, to unite them into a single genus. Now, all that has

just been said of _species_ applies equally to _genera_. The area

of habitation is doubtless increased, and, for example, some genera

of cetaceans, as dolphins and rorquals, are found in all seas; and

amongst terrestrial mammals, some genera of ruminants and carnivora

inhabit, in a greater or less degree, both the Old and the New World.

But they are all absent in the greater part of Oceania.

Moreover, the higher the types, the fewer is the number of these

genera of widely extended areas. Cheiroptera, which are not provided

with a nasal membrane, have some genera common to both the Old and

the New World. This is no longer the case in cheiroptera, in which

the nose is provided with a membrane. There is not a single genus

among them, any more than among quadrumana, which inhabits both

America and the Old World.

Consequently, polygenists must admit that the species of which their

_human genus_ is composed could not have come into existence in every

place where man is now found, unless they wish to make a striking

exception of this _human genus_.

IV. Should we wish to regard the human races as forming a _family_

composed of several _genera_, or even as an _order_ comprising

several _families_, the same difficulties would present themselves.

Setting aside the marsupials and edentata, to which we shall return,

it is true that the great normal orders of terrestrial mammals,

the ruminants, rodents, insectivora, and carnivora are almost

as cosmopolitan as man. But this is no longer the case with the

cheiroptera, not one of which passes the polar circle. As to the

quadrumana, it is well-known that they are wanting in Europe, with

the exception of the Rock of Gibraltar, in North America and in the

greater part of Asia and Oceania. Thus it appears that, even in the

extreme hypothesis which I have here indicated, it would not be in

the animal types which present the greatest resemblance to man, but

among the carnivora or ruminants that we should be forced to seek for

geographical analogies in favour of the pretended cosmopolitanism of

the _human order_.

V. This limitation of the areas of habitation of animals, which

is evidently related to their degree of elevation in the scale of

beings, is a general fact which we also meet with in plants. On this

point Ad. de Candolle speaks as follows:—“The mean area of species

is smaller according as the class to which they belong has a more

complete, a more highly developed, or, in other words, a more perfect

organisation.”

The _progressive localisation_ of organised beings, increasing

in degree as they become more perfect, is, then, a general law.

Physiology will readily account for this fact.

The perfection of organisms is the result of division of labour,

which demands the multiplication of functional apparatus. As the

anatomical instruments become more numerous and special, the

functions do the same. From this cause alone the conditions of

harmony between the living being and the conditions of life which

surround it become more and more definite. Consequently, the animal

or the plant only finds its really favourable conditions in a

constantly diminishing area. Beyond these limits the conditions of

life change, the struggle for existence becomes more hazardous, and

the spread of the species, genus, family, or even order is arrested.

Man alone, armed against the conditions of life by his _intelligence_

and _industry_, is capable of overcoming conditions of existence

which would be an impassable barrier _to his material organisation_.

The law of progressive localisation is in direct opposition to the

doctrine of the original cosmopolitanism of the human species.

In putting it aside, polygenists, properly so called, might draw

attention to the diffusion of the genera of dolphins and rorquals;

polygenistic monogenists of the school of Agassiz might argue from

the facts mentioned above in connection with the genera of megaptera

and sibaldius; they might both say: The general law of localisation

offers two exceptions; why should not man form a third?

The analogy, it is clear, is fundamentally wrong. Dolphins, rorquals

and sibaldius belong to the lowest order of mammals; man, even if his

body alone is considered, belongs incontestably to the highest order.

Unless we make him a solitary exception, it is to the laws of the

superior groups that he should be subject, and not to those of the

inferior.

Thus, we are so far justified in affirming that man could not have

been originally cosmopolitan. But we can go further.

VI. Without having come into existence in every place where we now

meet with him, man may have had several centres of appearance. Let us

examine this latter question. The laws of progressive localisation

and the characterisation of centres enable us both to put the

question and to solve it.

Let us re-examine from this point of view the animal groups,

setting aside all inferior groups and confining our attention to

anthropoid apes. In this family, which most closely resembles man

in its organisation, there are degrees also. The law of progressive

localisation applies to this limited group equally with the entire

kingdom.

We meet with the entire family in Asia, in the peninsula of Malacca,

in Assam to 26° N. Lat., in Sumatra, Java, Borneo and in the

Philippine Islands; in Eastern Africa from 10° S. to 15° N. Lat.

The gibbon genus, however, which is the lowest, is the only one

which occupies the whole of Asia. The orang is confined to Borneo

and Sumatra. In Africa the chimpanzee extends almost from the Zaïre

to Senegal; the gorilla has only been found on the Gaboon, and

perhaps in Ashantee. Were he to occupy all the space which is still

left blank upon that part of our maps by travellers, his area of

habitation would even then be very limited. Thus, the higher the

anthropoid type, the more limited the area of habitation.

If we consider the material organism alone, the human type is

incontestably superior to that of the orang or gorilla. He must

then have been originally localised just as much as these animal

types. It will perhaps be objected that the great apes are gradually

disappearing, and that the few survivors do no more than show that

they once existed in greater numbers. This would be an entirely

gratuitous hypothesis having no foundation in facts, and we shall

at least be permitted to reply, that the gorilla and the orang

might very well have continued to exist in those places where the

chimpanzee and gibbon are still living. Now, what are the areas

occupied by the latter compared with the human area?

VII. I have, as yet, neglected exceptional types, such as the

marsupials, the edentata, the makis, etc.; I did not wish to argue

from aberrant forms; I confined myself to demonstrating the _laws_

in action in species of a so-called normal organisation. Aberrant

types have, however, a very high value, and furnish us with further

instruction.

These types almost always characterise either the great centres of

appearance, or the secondary centres or geographical regions. Not

to mention mammals, I must remind my readers that Australia has its

marsupials; South Australia, the ornithorynchus; polar America, the

musk-ox; central America, the edentata; Africa, the giraffe; Asia,

the yak; the Cape, the gnu; Madagascar, the makis and aye-aye; the

Gaboon, the gorilla, etc.

Man, also, is evidently an exceptional or aberrant type among

mammals. He, alone, is constructed for a vertical position; he,

alone, has true hands and feet; he, alone, exhibits the highest

degree of cerebral development, and possesses that superiority of

intelligence which makes him master of all around him.

To allow that the human type, though the most perfect of all types,

the exceptional genus in the midst of all others, has come into

existence in several centres of appearance without characterising

any, would be to make him a solitary exception.

However strong may be our polygenistic tendencies, and however many

species we may admit, we cannot help acknowledging that the original

localisation of the human genus in a single centre of appearance

and the characterisation of this centre by him are the logical

consequence of all the facts attested by zoological geography.

With still greater reason the monogenists will consider the

privileged species which predominates over all others as one of those

special types which characterise the centre, or the region in which

they have appeared, as the ornithorynchus, the aye-aye, and the gnu

characterise South Australia, Madagascar and the Cape.

Finally, the laws of zoological geography lead us to consider the

human species as unmistakably characteristic of a single centre of

appearance. Moreover, they justify us in concluding that this centre

cannot have been of greater extent than that of the gorilla and the

orang.

VIII. Is it possible to go still farther and to endeavour to

determine the geographical position of the human centre of

appearance? I cannot here enter into the details of this problem. I

shall confine myself to determining its meaning, and to indicating

the probable solutions of it from the data of science of the present

time.

I must observe, in the first place, that in considering an animal or

vegetable species, even those whose area is most circumscribed, no

one thinks of trying to discover the precise spot upon which it may

have first appeared. There is always something very vague in such a

determination and it is necessarily approximative. It is still more

difficult when the species in question is of universal distribution.

Within these limits we are justified in at least forming conjectures

which, as such, have a certain amount of probability.

The question presents very different aspects according as we confine

ourselves to the present or take into consideration the geological

antiquity of man. Nevertheless, the facts are of the same order and

seem to indicate two extremes. The truth lies, perhaps, between the

two.

We know that in Asia there is a vast region bounded on the south and

south-west by the Himalayas, on the west by the Bolor mountains,

on the north-west by the Ala-Tau, on the north by the Altai range

and its offshoots, on the east by the Kingkhan, on the south and

south-east by the Felina and Kuen-Loun. Judging from the present

state of things, this great central region might be regarded as

having contained the cradle of the human species.

In fact, the three fundamental types of all the human races are

represented in the populations grouped round this region. The black

races are the furthest removed from it, but have, nevertheless,

marine stations, where we find them either pure or as mixed races,

from the Kioussiou to the Andaman Islands. Upon the continent they

have intermixed with almost every inferior caste and class of the

two peninsulas of the Ganges; they are still found pure in both,

ascend as high as Nepaul, and extend west as far as the Persian Gulf

and Lake Zareh, according to Elphinstone.

The yellow race, either pure or in places mixed with white elements,

seems to be the only one which occupies the space in question; it

peoples all the north, east, south-east, and west. In the south it

is more mixed, but forms, nevertheless, an important element in the

population.

The white race, from its allophylian representatives, seems to have

disputed the central area itself with the yellow race. In early

times, we find the Yu-tchi and the Ou-soun to the north of the

Hoang-ho; and in the present day cases of white populations have

been observed in Little Thibet and in Eastern Thibet. The Miao-Tsé

occupy the mountain region of China; the Siaputh are proof against

all attack in the gorges of the Bolor. Upon the confines of the area

we meet with the Aïnos and the Japanese of high caste, the Tinguianes

of the Phillippine Islands; in the south with the Hindoos. In the

south-west and west the white element, either pure or mixed, reigns

supreme.

No other region of the globe presents a similar union of extreme

human types distributed round a common centre. This fact, alone

is sufficient to suggest to the mind of the naturalist the

conjecture which I have expressed above; but we may appeal to other

considerations.

One of the most important is drawn from philology. The three

fundamental forms of human language are found in the same countries

and under similar relations. In the centre, and south-east of our

area, the monosyllabic languages are represented by those of China,

Cochinchina, Siam and Thibet. As agglutinative languages, we find in

the north-east and north-west the group of Ougro-Japanese, in the

south that of the Dravidian and Malay, and in the west the Turkish

languages. Lastly, Sanscrit with its derivatives, and the Iranian

languages represent in the south and south-west the inflectional

languages.

It is to the linguistic types gathered round the central region

of Asia that all human languages must be referred; whether from

their vocabulary or their grammar, some of these Asiatic languages

bear a close resemblance to languages spoken in regions often very

distant, or separated from the area in question by entirely different

languages. We know that several philologists, M. Maury among others,

establish an intimate connection between the Dravidian languages and

Australian idioms, and that M. Picot has discovered numbers of Aryan

words in our oldest European languages.

Finally, it is from Asia again that our earliest domesticated animals

are derived. Isidore Geoffroy is entirely agreed with Dureau de la

Malle upon this point.

Thus, the present epoch alone considered, everything points to this

great central plateau, or rather to this great enclosure. There, we

are inclined to say, the first human beings appeared and multiplied

till the populations overflowed as from a bowl and spread themselves

in human waves in every direction.

IX. Palæontological studies have, however, very recently led to

results which are capable of modifying these primary conclusions.

MM. Heer and de Saporta have informed us that in the Tertiary

period Siberia and Spitzbergen were covered with plants, indicating

a temperate climate. MM. Murchison, Keyserlink, de Verneuil, and

d’Archiac tell us that, during the same period, the _barren-lands_ of

our day supported large herbivorous animals, such as the reindeer,

the mammoth, and the tichorhine rhinoceros. All these animals made

their appearance at the commencement of the Quaternary period. It

seems to me that they did not come alone.

I have said above that the discoveries of M. l’Abbé Bourgeois

testify, in my opinion, to the existence of a _tertiary man_. But

everything seems to show that as yet his representatives were but

few in number. The Quaternary populations, on the contrary, were, at

least in distribution, quite as numerous as the life of the hunter

permitted. Are we justified in imagining that during the Tertiary

period man lived in polar Asia side by side with those species which

I have just mentioned, and that he supported himself by hunting them

as he afterwards did in France? The fall of temperature compelled

the animals to migrate southwards; man must have followed them to

find a milder climate, and to be within reach of his customary game.

Their simultaneous arrival in our climates and the apparently sudden

multiplication of man would thus be easily explained.

The centre of human appearance might then be carried considerably

to the north of the region I have just been discussing. Perhaps

prehistoric archæology or palæontology will some day confirm or

confute this conjecture.

However this may be, no facts have as yet been discovered which

authorise us to place the cradle of the human race elsewhere than

in Asia. There are none which lead us to seek the origin of man

in hot regions either of existing continents, or of one which has

disappeared. This view, which has been frequently expressed, rests

entirely upon the belief that the climate of the globe was the same

at the time of the appearance of man as it is now. Modern science

has taught us that this is an error. From that time there is nothing

against our first ancestors having found favourable conditions of

existence in northern Asia, which is indicated by so many facts

borrowed from the history of man, and from that of animals and

plants.

BOOK V.

PEOPLING OF THE GLOBE.

CHAPTER XVI.

MIGRATIONS BY LAND.—EXODUS OF THE KALMUCKS FROM THE VOLGA.

I. At the point which we have now reached, the connection of facts

and of their consequences proposes a fresh problem. Physiology has

proved that there exists but _one species_ of man, of which the

human groups are races. Zoological geography has taught us that this

species was originally localised in a relatively very limited space.

It is now met with everywhere, because it has spread by irradiation

in every direction from this centre. The _peopling of the globe by

migrations_, is the necessary consequence of the preceding facts.

Polygenists, and the partisans of the autochthony of nations have

declared that these migrations are _impossible_ in a certain number

of cases, and have brought forward this pretended impossibility as

an objection to the doctrine which I uphold. Here, again, I turn to

facts for my answer.

II. I confess that I never understood how any value could be attached

to this argument. Migrations are almost universal in history, and in

the traditions and legends of the new as well as of the old world.

We find them among the uncivilised nations of our time, and among

tribes which are still lingering in the lowest stage of savage

life. With every increase and extension of knowledge, we learn to

appreciate better the wandering instincts of man. Human palæontology

and prehistoric archæology are daily adding their testimony to that

of the historic sciences.

To judge from this kind of information alone, it seems more than

probable that the entire globe was peopled by means of migrations and

colonisations. The primordial and uninterrupted immobility of any

human race would be a fact at variance with all analogy. It would,

once constituted, doubtless establish, except under exceptional

circumstances, a more or less considerable number, generally the

great majority of its representatives; but in the course of ages it

could not fail to have cast off swarms.

III. The supporters of autochthony lay especial stress upon two

orders of considerations, the one drawn from the social condition of

nations when still in their infancy and unprovided with the means of

action which we now possess, the other from the obstacles which a

hitherto invincible nature would oppose to their movements.

The first objection evidently rests upon an imperfect appreciation of

the aptitudes and tendencies developed in man through his different

modes of life. The very imperfection of the social condition, far

from arresting the diffusion of the human species, must rather have

been favourable to it. Agricultural nations are of necessity settled;

to pastoral nations, less bound to the soil, special conditions are

indispensable. Hunters, on the contrary, by reason of their mode of

life, of the necessities which it imposes, and the instincts which it

develops, cannot but spread in every sense. A vast space is necessary

to their existence; as soon as the numbers increase, even in a slight

degree, they are forced to separate or to destroy each other, as is

shown so clearly in the history of the Red-Skins. Nations of hunters

and shepherds are then alone fitted for great and distant migrations.

Agricultural nations are rather colonists.

Ancient history itself entirely confirms these theoretical

inductions. We know what the invaders of the Roman world were, the

destroyers of the Eastern Empire, the Arab conquerors. The case was

the same in Mexico. The Chichimequi here represent the Goths and

Vandals of the Old World. If Asia has so often overrun Europe, if

North America has so often sent devastating hordes into more southern

regions, it is because in these two countries man was still in a

barbarous or savage state.

IV. Were natural obstacles indeed insurmountable to nations destitute

of our perfected means of locomotion? This question must be

considered from two points of view, as the migrations in question are

by land or sea.

The former demands but little attention. The weakness of man, and the

strength of the barriers which the accidents of land, vegetation, or

fauna might oppose to him, have unquestionably been much exaggerated.

Man has always been able to vanquish ferocious animals, the

rhinoceros having formed part of his food as early as the Quaternary

period. His course has never been arrested by mountains, even when

encumbered by everything which could make the passage most difficult.

Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants, and Bonaparte with

artillery. The progress of the Asiatic hordes was no more stopped by

the Palus Meotides than that of Fernand de Soto by the marshes of

Florida. Deserts are daily traversed by caravans; and as to rivers,

there is not a savage who does not know how to cross them upon some

raft or other.

The truth, as is too well proved by the history of travel, is, that

man alone stops man. Where the latter did not exist, there was

nothing to oppose the progress of tribes or nations advancing slowly

and at their own leisure, outstripping or passing each other in turn,

establishing secondary centres, from which, after a time, fresh

migrations would take place. Even in an inhabited country, a superior

invading race would not act otherwise. It was thus that the Aryans

conquered India, that the Paouians advanced, who, starting from a

centre still unknown, arrived at the Gaboon with a line of front of

about 250 miles.

V. I might dwell upon these general considerations, but it will be

better to recall briefly a fact which, though of recent date, is too

generally forgotten, and which shows how an entire population can

effect a great migration although they meet with obstacles of every

kind over a great tract of country.

About the year 1616 a horde of Kalmucks, impelled by motives with

which we are unacquainted, abandoned the confines of China, and

crossed Asia in order to establish themselves in the Khanate of

Kazan, upon either shore of the Volga. They placed themselves under

the dominion of Russia, who readily received the new colonists and

respected their patriarchal government. In return, the Kalmucks

proved themselves faithful subjects, and on several occasions,

furnished the Russian army with numerous and valuable detachments

of cavalry. This good feeling lasted till the time of the Empress

Catherine, when she, having to choose between two aspirants named

Oubacha and Zebeck-Dorchi, nominated the former to the government

of the horde. The infuriated Zebeck determined, in revenge, to lead

his fellow-countrymen back to China. Seconded by the chief Lama, he

even persuaded Oubacha himself to join, and the conspiracy, though it

included the entire nation, was conducted with such secrecy that it

escaped the interested vigilance of Russia.

On Jan. 5th, 1771, the Kalmucks might have been seen assembling

on the left bank of the Volga. Every half hour groups of women,

children, and aged numbering from 15,000 to 20,000, set out in

waggons or upon camels, escorted by a body of cavalry 10,000 strong.

A rear-guard of 80,000 picked men covered the retreat of the

emigrants. A Russian officer, who was detained a prisoner for part of

the journey, and has preserved these details for us, estimated the

whole assemblage at more than 600,000 souls.

The Kalmucks felt the necessity for haste, in order to escape the

attempts which would assuredly be made by Russia to detain them. In

seven days they had accomplished more than 100 leagues, with the

weather dry but cold. Many of the cattle had succumbed, and the want

of milk was beginning to be felt, even for the children. On arriving

at the banks of the Djem, they met with their first serious disaster;

an entire clan, numbering 9000 horsemen, was massacred by Cossacks.

At the first intelligence of this flight, however, Catherine had

despatched an army with instructions to bring back the fugitives. The

latter had to pass, at a distance of eighty leagues from the Djem,

a defile which must be taken at any price. They advanced by forced

marches. Unfortunately snow set in, and they were obliged to stop

for ten days. On arriving at the defile, they found it occupied by

Cossacks, who were however routed, defeated, and massacred by Zebeck.

The defile was passed, but they were forced to redouble their speed,

for the Russian army was upon them. They killed and salted all the

remaining cattle, and left behind every incapable woman or child, and

all their aged or sick. The winter increased in severity, and though

they burnt all their saddles and waggons, every encampment was marked

by hundreds of frozen corpses. At length the spring came to alleviate

their sufferings, and in the beginning of June, they crossed the

Torgai, which flows into Lake Aksakal, to the N.N.E. of Lake Aral.

In five months the emigrants had accomplished 700 leagues; they had

lost more than 250,000 souls, whilst the camels alone remained of all

their animals. The Russian officer, Weseloff, who was shortly after

set at liberty, was able to regain the Volga with no other guide than

that of the trail of corpses left upon the route.

The unfortunate fugitives had hoped to enjoy a rest after having

crossed the Torgai. But the Russian army still followed, and was

even reinforced by terrible auxiliaries, the Bashkirs and Kirghises,

hereditary enemies of the Kalmucks. This light cavalry was now in

advance, and it would be necessary to fight with them while still

flying from the Russians. They were also obliged to skirt the desert,

where they would have perished from hunger, and to cut their way

through countries where the inhabitants rose in arms to protect their

territories against the famished invaders. Winter had given place to

Summer; the emigrants suffered as much from the heat as they had done

from the cold, so that the rate of mortality was unaltered.

At length, in the mouth of September, the horde reached the frontiers

of China. For many days they had had no water. At the sight of a

small lake they all rushed forward to quench their thirst; the

confusion was general, when the Bashkirs and Kirghises, who had never

for a moment ceased to harass the fugitives, threw themselves upon

the infatuated crowd, and would, in all probability, have annihilated

them. Fortunately, the Emperor Kien-long was hunting in the

neighbourhood, accompanied, as usual, by a small army. Informed of

the arrival of the Kalmucks, he had recognised them in the distance.

The sound of his artillery restored the courage of those who were

allowing themselves to be massacred, and their persecutors suffered a

bloody defeat. It should be added that Kien-long distributed amongst

those whom he had saved, the lands which are occupied by their

descendants at the present time.

The exodus of the Kalmucks is a sufficient answer to every argument

that can be advanced on the subject of primitive migration by land.

In eight months, in spite of the intense extremes of cold and heat,

of incessant attacks from implacable enemies, and in spite of

hunger and thirst, this nation had accomplished a distance equal in

a straight line to one-eighth of the circumference of the earth.

If we take into consideration all the enforced detours, we ought

probably to double the amount. With such facts as these, how can

we doubt the possibility of still longer expeditions for a tribe

advancing peacefully by stages, and having only to contend against

the difficulties presented by the soil or wild beasts?

CHAPTER XVII.

MIGRATIONS BY SEA.—POLYNESIAN MIGRATIONS.—MIGRATIONS TO NEW ZEALAND.

I. The greater number of the defenders of autochthony allow that

there is no fundamental impossibility in migration by land, but

maintain that it is different in migrations by sea. The peopling

of America, and especially that of Polynesia, by emigrants from

our great continent, is, in their opinion, far more than could

possibly be undertaken or accomplished by nations unacquainted with

the science of astronomy, and the improved method of navigation.

According to them, geographical conditions, winds and currents, must

oppose an insurmountable obstacle to any enterprise of this nature.

Starting from Polynesia, let us see how much truth there is in these

assertions. This will be taking, so to speak, the bull by the horns,

for no other part of the globe seems to justify to such an extent,

the opinions of autochthonists.

II. Polynesia is not quite so isolated as we are accustomed to

think. A study of the map alone should be sufficient to justify us

in holding that a maritime people, accustomed to the navigation of

the Malay Archipelago, might, on some occasion, have pushed as far as

New Guinea. This fact is now established above all dispute. Beyond

New Guinea, the Archipelago of New Britain and the Solomon Islands

would put, so to speak, any fairly adventurous navigators on their

way to the Fiji Islands; once arrived at this archipelago, however

little they may have been impelled by the spirit of discovery, they

must easily have reached Polynesia properly so called. New Zealand to

the south, and the Sandwich Islands to the north, remain, however,

beyond the limits of this route, as it is pointed out by geography.

For bold mariners to be stopped in their advance, winds and currents

must have been invariably contrary and irresistible. The stronger

the belief in the universality and absolute constancy of the _trade

winds_ in these regions, the more was this action attributed to them.

But the investigations which have been carried on in the interests

of science, the writings of Commander Maury, and the charts of

Captain Kerhallet, have taught us that the variable winds due to

the _cloud-ring_ extend over almost twenty degrees in the maritime

area in question. We know, moreover, that every year the _monsoon_

drives back the trade winds and blows beyond the Sandwich and Tahiti

Islands, so that instead of the winds being contrary, they are, for

many months, very favourable for ships sailing eastward.

Considerations drawn from currents lead almost to the same

conclusions. In the Pacific, the equatorial current running from east

to west forms in reality two great distinct oceanic streams separated

by a large counter current flowing in the reverse direction. The

latter skirts almost the whole northern portion of the Polynesian

area; it thus, as it were, forms the outlet from the Indian

Archipelago. There is every indication of its having played some part

in the history of the dispersion of races in all parts of Oceania and

to the east of the Malay peninsula.

Finally, we know that there is no absolute regularity in the

atmospheric phenomena in the regions of the Pacific, any more than

elsewhere. This ocean has in common with others its typhoons and

its tempests, which suddenly change the direction of the winds and

carry ships before them in spite of currents. Islands, both large

and small, with which it is beset, must often have been visited by

sailors who had thus lost their way, of which we shall presently

quote examples.

Far from being _impossible_, the peopling of Polynesia by navigators

starting from the Indian Archipelago is relatively _easy_ at certain

times of the year, provided only that the navigators are courageous

and not afraid of losing sight of land. Now we know the character of

the Malay populations in this respect.

Again, those who have taken all these circumstances into

consideration, Malte-Brun, Homme, Lesson, Rienzi, Beechey, Wilkes and

others, have not hesitated to regard Polynesia as having been peopled

by migrations advancing from west to east.

III. Writers, on the contrary, who have only consulted the imperfect

knowledge which we till lately possessed of these seas, and the

ordinary direction of the winds, have either believed in autochthony

or have invented various theories to explain the presence of man in

this multitude of islands and remote islets.

Ellis held that the Polynesians had been conveyed from America

to Oceania by winds and currents, but this hypothesis has had

scarcely any adherents. It is in too direct contradiction with all

the physical, philological, and social characters, which refer the

Polynesians to the Malay races as strongly as they separate them from

the Americans.

Dumont d’Urville has proposed a theory which, at first sight,

is more satisfactory, and still has a few supporters. In his

opinion, Polynesia is the remains of a great continent which was

originally connected with Asia. This land sank after some geological

revolutions; the sea covered the plains and hills, the highest

summits only being now visible and forming the present archipelago.

The Polynesians are the descendants of those who survived the

catastrophe.

This hypothesis has the advantage of preserving those relations which

were broken by that of Ellis. And, curious to relate, it agrees with

the tradition of the deluge as preserved by the Tahitians. They say

that the great inundation happened without either rain or tempest. It

was the sea which rose and covered the whole earth with the exception

of a flat rock where one man and a woman took refuge. We might say

that there was nothing in this account but a mistake which is easily

understood. The sea never rises, but the land may sink, and other

people besides the Tahitians have been deceived.

Nevertheless, we cannot accept the theory of Dumont d’Urville. It is

in contradiction to the zoological facts so thoroughly investigated

by Darwin and Dana. If some of the atolls of Oceania shew signs of

subsidence, a great number of islands offer incontestable proofs of

upheaval, and Tahiti itself is one of the latter.

But the most serious argument which can be brought against d’Urville

is derived from the inhabitants themselves. If travellers agree upon

one point, it is that from the Sandwich Islands to New Zealand, from

the Tonga Islands to Easter Island, all the Polynesians belong to

the same race, and speak the same language with mere variations of

dialect.

Now the Polynesian area, the limits of which I have just pointed out,

is of greater extent than the whole of Asia. What would an _Asiatic

Polynesia_ be like, if that continent were to sink beneath the waters

and leave only the summits of its mountains visible, where some

representatives of the present inhabitants might take refuge? Is it

not at once evident that each archipelago, and often each island,

would have its own race and language?

The considerations drawn from the identity of populations and

languages in Polynesia are of themselves sufficient to justify

the assertion that all the Islanders have a common origin; and

consequently, that, starting from some unknown point, they have, in

their advance from archipelago to archipelago, peopled by degrees the

maritime world in which we find them.

Horatio Hale, the eminent anthropologist of the scientific expedition

of the United States, was the first to approach the problem from

a general point of view; he solved it as far as he was able with

the data collected by himself, and sketched the first chart of

Polynesian migrations. Fresh facts have been obtained since that

time. Sir George Grey has published the historical songs of the

Maories; Thomson, Shortland, and Hochstetter have brought to light

fresh traditions; M. Remy published a history of Hawaii arranged by

a native. M. Gaussin has carried off the prize in philology by his

admirable work upon the Polynesian language; the Dépôt of the French

Marine has received special documents from Tahiti to which General

Ribourt, Admiral Lavaud, and Admiral Bruat have added the results

of their own researches. These unpublished materials have been

liberally placed at my disposal, and I have added to them some facts

which have been forgotten. I have thus been able to confirm, from

a general point of view, the conclusions of Hale, making, however,

some important modifications, and to complete, again with some

modifications, his chart of migrations. My readers will understand

that I cannot here enter into a detailed discussion, and I must beg

to refer them to my work upon _The Polynesians and their Migrations_.

I shall confine myself to a short summary of the results which, I

believe, it demonstrates.

IV. Both physical and philological characters show that the

Polynesians are a branch of those Malay races which are divided into

numerous groups by shades of difference, sometimes strongly marked.

It is to one of these groups which are least distant from the white

type that the nations in question must be referred.

The starting point of these migrations, which were to extend so far

into the east, was Boeroe Island, which is represented in all maps

between Celebes and Ceram. This conclusion, already proposed with

some diffidence by Hale, seems to me to be placed beyond a doubt by

all the traditions collected at Tonga by Mariner, with whose work the

learned American seems to have been unacquainted.

On quitting the Malay seas, the emigrants must have followed as

nearly as possible the course given above. Repulsed doubtless by

the black races which then, as now, occupied New Guinea, they

passed Melanesia. Some canoes, however, probably separated from

the others, reached the eastern extremity of this great island, and

there founded a colony recently discovered by Commander Moresby. It

is this colony which has doubtless furnished the several archipelagos

of Melanesia with at least a part of the Polynesian elements which

have been observed by several travellers. We know, however, thanks

to the researches of M. de Rochas, that the Polynesian elements of

the little archipelago of the Loyalty Islands is due to an emigration

passing in 1770 from the Willis Islands to New Caledonia.

The great stream of emigration must have left all Melanesia to the

south, and have separated into three branches. One would arrive at

the Samoa Islands, another at the Tonga Islands, and a third at the

Fiji Islands. The two first archipelagos were evidently uninhabited,

the latter already possessed by a black population. An alliance was

at first made, however, between the aborigines and the emigrants, but

before long the _war of races_ broke out, the Malays were expelled,

probably leaving behind them some of their women. In this manner the

mixed character of the Fijian population was produced, with which

all travellers have been struck. The ejected Malays gained the Tonga

Islands. Finding them occupied by fellow-countrymen they attacked and

defeated them. Instead of massacring or enslaving them they invented

_serfdom_, an institution which has only been met with in this

archipelago.

Whilst the Malay colonies founded in the Fiji and Tonga Islands were

dispersed and desolated by a fratricidal war, those in the Samoan

archipelago prospered. The population became denser: the spirit

of adventure was not as yet extinguished, fresh emigrations took

to the sea, advancing in the direction which had led to the first

discoveries. At this period the island of Savaï played an important

part, according to the universal testimony of Polynesian traditions.

Its name appears in almost all the archipelagos, scarcely modified

by local dialects, in the Sandwich Islands and in New Zealand, in

the Marquesas Islands as well as in Tahiti, and as far as the

Manaïa Islands. Finally, Tupaïa, in drawing the curious map, which

has been preserved by Forster, designates Savaï as the mother of all

the others, and represents it as much larger than Tahiti. This is an

error, but this very error proves beyond a doubt the importance of

this locality from our present point of view.

With the exception of a single emigration, which passed directly from

Tonga to the Marquesas Islands, it is from the Samoan archipelago,

and from Savaï in particular, that all the great expeditions appear

to have started, which formed secondary centres elsewhere. Tahiti

and the Manaïa Islands are the two principal. The former peopled the

north of the Pomotous and part of the Marquesas, which, in turn,

sent out colonists to the Sandwich Islands, where, however, they had

been preceded by the Tahitians. The latter, in which there were both

Tahitians and Samoans, pushed their colonies as far as Rapa, to the

Gambier Islands, to the south-east extremity of Polynesia and to New

Zealand in the south-west.

V. We have only isolated and very incomplete accounts of the greater

number of these migrations. Though sufficient to remove all doubt

as to the fact, they tell us nothing of the circumstances which

accompanied or followed them. It is quite otherwise when we come to

consider New Zealand. Thanks to the songs collected by Sir George

Grey, we possess the detailed history of this colonisation. This

exception is doubly fortunate as giving us information upon a number

of important points, and precisely in reference to those islands

which, from being situated at a great distance from Polynesia,

properly so called, favour autochthonic hypotheses more than all the

rest of the area. It seems to me, therefore, to be advisable to enter

into a few details upon the subject.

It is the inhabitants of Rarotonga, one of the principal islands of

Manaïa, who had the honour of discovering and colonising New Zealand.

An emigration from Tonga may, however, at some unknown period have

possibly joined them.

The Christopher Columbus of this little world was a certain Ngahué,

who was compelled to fly from his country to escape the persecutions

of a queen, who wished to rob him of a jasper stone. It was doubtless

chance which led him to New Zealand. He here discovered several

pieces of jasper, which probably restored him to the favour of the

_female chief_, for we do not hear that he was molested on his return

to Rarotonga.

During the absence of Ngahué a general war had broken out in his

island. The vanquished party followed the advice of the traveller,

who persuaded them to go and occupy the recently discovered land

with him. Several chiefs joined together and constructed six canoes,

the names of which are still preserved. The song translated by Sir

George Grey informs us that one of them, the _Arawa_, was made of a

tree which had been felled in Rarotonga, situated on the other side

of Hawaïki. This was one of those _secondary Savaïs_ which I have

mentioned above, and the place from which the emigrants started.

“Once,” says one of those songs already quoted, “our ancestors

separated; some were left at Hawaïki, and others came here in canoes.”

The same song describes the accidents of the voyage, the storms which

the navigators met with, the care bestowed upon the first culture of

the soil, the exploring expeditions undertaken in the new country,

and the disagreements which occurred between the different crews.

They show that the connection with the mother country continued

to exist for some time, so much so indeed that a young woman

accomplished the voyage with only a few companions, and warlike

expeditions started sometimes from Hawaïki and sometimes from the

colony to avenge some of those outrages which were considered by

these races as demanding the life of the offender.

There is nothing astonishing in these passages. The Polynesians knew

perfectly well how to direct their course at sea by the stars, and

the route from one point to another once observed was inscribed, if

we may use the expression, in a song which would never be forgotten.

They had a very correct general idea of the whole of their maritime

world. The map drawn by Tupaïa, which I have reproduced in my book,

is equal to those of our savants of the Middle Ages, while it

embraces a considerable area. Tupaïa had seen for himself several of

the islands which he represents. According to the calculations of

Cook, he must have gone westward to a distance of 1,600 miles. But

it was from the _sacred songs_ of his country that he acquired his

knowledge of the rest of Polynesia, and was able to sketch it with

tolerable accuracy.

As to the _canoes_ in question, they were the same as the pirogues,

which are mentioned by all travellers with admiration, and are

declared by Cook to be very suitable for long voyages. This is a fact

which is often established by the very precise details contained in

some of the songs translated by Sir George Grey. We see, for example,

one of the emigrant chiefs, Ngatoro-i-Rangi, “mount upon the roof of

the hut constructed upon the platform which joined the two canoes.”

We have only to add that the _Arawa_ and other similar vessels

generally carried 140 warriors, and it will at once appear how devoid

of foundation are the assertions of those writers who declare these

voyages to have been impossible for want of sufficient means of

transport.

VI. The various documents which we now possess have not only been of

service in proving beyond a doubt the general fact of migrations,

and in acquainting us with the circumstances by which some of them

were accompanied; they even enable us to indicate with very tolerable

exactness the date of some of the most important.

This result is generally obtained by the genealogies of the principal

families. Each forms a kind of litany, which is sung in fixed rhythm,

and of which each verse contains the name of a chief and those of his

wife and son. Anyone, therefore, capable of remembering a song of one

hundred verses may easily learn the longest of these genealogies.

Confided to memory by the _Arepos_ or _Keepers of the Archives_, they

were preserved with jealous care. Thomson informs us that in New

Zealand a serious inquiry was made into these verbal documents, and

their authenticity was so well established, that they have an equal

value in matters of justice with our deeds.

Now, in the Marquesas, Gattanewa, the friend of Porter, who was

descended from the first colonists of the Tongan portion of the

archipelago, had only eighty-eight predecessors. At Hawaï, the

genealogy of the Tamehameha, according to M. Remy, is contained in

seventy-five verses. In 1840, according to Williams, Rarotonga was

governed by the twenty-ninth descendant of Karika, the founder of

the colony. In the Gambier Islands M. Maigret saw the twenty-seventh

reigning chief since the arrival of the first colonists from

Rarotonga.

Hale has shown very clearly that the Hawaïan genealogy contains at

the outset, like many others in Europe, some fabulous personages. He

considered it necessary to remove the first twenty-two verses. Some

such correction should very probably be made in that of the Marquesas

Islanders. As to those of Rarotonga and the Gambier Islands they are

too recent to have been already contaminated by fable.

Hale, guided by considerations which I cannot here discuss,

attributes to each verse of these genealogies the value of a

_generation_, from twenty-five to thirty years. Thomson and M. Remy,

however, having had time to gather more precise information, regard

them as indicating merely _reigns_. Calculating the mean duration of

these reigns from that given by the list of French kings from Clovis

to Louis XVII., we obtain as a result 21·13 years.

According to these data, the arrival of the Tongans in the Marquesas

Islands must have taken place in the year 417 of our era; that of the

Tahitians in about 701; Karika must have colonized Rarotonga in 1207,

and the Gambier Islands have been peopled in 1270.

For New Zealand we have a double source of information, and the

results thus obtained agree so well that we cannot doubt their

accuracy. The genealogies of the greater number of the Maori chiefs

go back as far as those bold pioneers whose history I have related.

Thomson, who has examined several, considers that the number of

chiefs who have succeeded each other in every family since the

colonization, may be estimated at about twenty. Taking the kings of

England as a term of comparison, he attributes to the _reign of each

chief_ a duration of 22-1/35 years. These data took him back to the

year 1419. The list of French kings would only give the year 1457.

On the other hand, in one of the songs preserved by Sir George Grey,

there is an account of the history of the son of Hotunui, one of the

colonizing chiefs of New Zealand, and of his immediate descendants.

At the fourth generation a daughter was born, “from whom,” the legend

adds, “are descended in eleven generations all the principal chiefs

now living of the tribe of Ngalipaoa.” Taking thirty years for each

generation, we find that the migration of Hotunui took place 450

years before the time when Sir George Grey received the document

(about 1850), which carries us back to the year 1400.

Thus, these Maories, whom autochthonists regard as children of the

soil, cannot have landed in New Zealand earlier than the beginning of

the fifteenth century.

VII. I have hitherto only spoken of more or less voluntary

migrations, such as might be induced by a spirit of adventure, civil

troubles, or the authority of a priest despatching an excess of

population in search of new countries. But in treating of Polynesia,

we must, as I have already remarked, take accidents by sea into

consideration. Several examples are known. It was in this manner that

Toubouaï was peopled, which at the close of the last century, within

an interval of a few years, received three canoes from different

islands, one of which was Tahiti. All three had been carried away by

a storm and driven ashore upon this island, which, till then, had

been uninhabited.

Such, again, is the history of the chief Touwari and his companions,

men, women, and children, discovered by Captain Beechey upon

Byam-Martin Island, which they had begun to colonize. They had

started from Anaa, an island situated two hundred and forty-five

miles to the east of Tahiti, to go and pay homage to Pomare, but

were surprised at Maïatea by _the monsoon, which had come sooner

than usual_. Driven to the south-east into the midst of the Pomatou

Islands, they landed at first on Barrow Island. Finding, however, no

means of subsistence, they took to the sea again, and fell in with

the island where they were found by the English navigator.

This example is perfect, since it realises all the circumstances

indicated by the theory. It establishes the existence of regular

relations between islands situated at great distances from each

other; it proves one of those occurrences which must more than once

have caused these bold navigators to wander from the usual route;

it shows how a remote island was able to receive all the elements

of a colony; it leaves no doubt as to the possibility of dispersion

going on in an exactly opposite direction to that of the trade

winds. We need only add that the passage from Maïatea to Barrow and

Byam-Martin Islands is more than five hundred and sixty miles, and we

shall understand without any difficulty how Polynesia was peopled by

voluntary or accidental colonization.

VIII. There is one more circumstance which it is important to

observe, and which is completely at variance with all autochthonist

hypotheses, that, namely, on approaching the islands where they have

been discovered by us, the Polynesian found them uninhabited.

The songs, for which we are indebted to Sir George Grey, show that

in New Zealand the greater number of the first emigrants met with no

traces of a previous population. One only, named Manaïa, found upon a

promontory aborigines of the country. This exception, from the very

reason that it is unique, proves that this population could not have

been very numerous. It has slightly altered the type of the lowest

grades of the Maories, to which it has been confined. The portrait

published by Hamilton Smith, and one of the skulls in the possession

of the Museum, inform us that these supposed aborigines were Papuans.

It is evident that they had reached New Zealand in consequence of

some mischance similar to those I have just mentioned, and had not

even had time to multiply sufficiently to occupy the entire shores of

the North Island.

The traditions of the Sandwich Islands furnish us with a fact of

the same nature. They tell us that the first colonists coming from

Tahiti found in these islands _gods_ and _spirits_, who inhabited the

caves and with whom they entered into alliance. It is evident that we

have here a troglodyte people, whose importance the legend has been

pleased to exaggerate, and whose origin it is not difficult to find.

If Kadou, whose history has been preserved by Kotzebue, instead of

leaving the Caroline Islands for the Radak Islands, had started from

the latter, and if he had made almost the same passage in the same

direction, he would have landed in the Sandwich Islands.

The mixture of Polynesian and Micronesian races at once explains

the darkness of colour and want of purity in the features of the

Hawaïans. Perhaps the same cause may account for the difference in

features, manners, and industry which is presented by some tribes of

the Low Archipelago.

Apart from these few and, as we see, very feeble exceptions, all

the islands of Polynesia appear to have been uninhabited when the

navigators from Boeroe or their descendants landed. This fact is

distinctly proved by traditions in Kingsmill, Rarotonga, Mangarewa,

the Toubouaï Islands, etc. Purity of race testifies that this was

also the case with the Tonga, Samoa, and Marquesas Islands.

IX. Finally, the facts to which I have been obliged to confine

myself are entirely opposed to the theories of autochthonists, and

lead to the following conclusions: Polynesia, a region which, from

its geographical conditions, seems at first sight to be isolated

from the rest of the world, has been peopled by means of voluntary

migrations and accidental dispersion, passing from west to east,

at least as a general rule. The Polynesians, coming from Malaya,

and the Isle of Boeroe in particular, first established and settled

themselves in the Archipelagos of Samoa and Tonga. Thence they

invaded by degrees the maritime world open before them; they found,

almost without an exception, that all the countries where they landed

were uninhabited, and only on two or three occasions met with very

small tribes of a more or less black type.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MIGRATIONS BY SEA.—MIGRATIONS IN AMERICA.

I. The peopling of Polynesia and America is a problem which presents,

if I may use the expression, inverse conditions. There is, in

reality, no geographical difficulty in the latter. The proximity of

the two continents at Behring Straits, the existence in this channel

of the Saint Laurence islands, the largest of which is situated

exactly half-way between the two opposite continents, the connection

formed between Kamschatka and the peninsula of Alaska by the Aleutian

Islands; the maritime habits of all these peoples; the presence of

the Tchukchees on the two opposite shores; the voyages which they

undertake from one continent to the other on simple matters of

commerce, leave no doubt as to the facility with which the Asiatic

races could pass into North America through the Polar Regions.

More to the south, the current of Tessan, the _kouro-sivo_, or _black

stream_ of the Japanese, opens a great route for navigators. This

current has frequently cast floating bodies and abandoned junks upon

the shores of California. Instances of this fact have been observed

in our own time. It is impossible that they should not also have

happened before the period of European discoveries. Asiatic maritime

nations must at all times have been carried to America from all those

places which are washed by the Black Stream.

The Equatorial current of the Atlantic opens a similar route leading

from Africa to America, and there are some evidences, rare it is

true, showing that wrecks have been carried in this direction. It is

possible, therefore, that the same may also have happened to man.

II. We shall not, therefore, be surprised at finding in the New World

representatives of races which seem to belong originally to the Old

World; we shall easily understand the multiplicity of American races,

which is perhaps still contested by some of Morton’s followers, but

firmly established in the opinion of every unprejudiced person by

the testimony of Humboldt and d’Orbigny’s classical work on _L’Homme

Américain_.

Black populations have been found in America in very small numbers

only, and as isolated tribes in the midst of very different nations.

Such are the Charruas of Brazil, the black Carabees of Saint-Vincent

in the Gulf of Mexico, the Jamassi of Florida, the dark-complexioned

Californians, who are, perhaps, the dark men mentioned in Quiché

traditions, and by some old Spanish adventurers.

Such, again, is the tribe of which Balbao saw some representatives

in his passage of the Isthmus of Darien in 1513. Yet it would seem,

from the expressions made use of by Gomara, that these were true

Negroes. This type was well known to the Spaniards, and if they had

encountered black men with glossy hair, like the Charruas, they would

undoubtedly have been much impressed by it, and would have mentioned

the fact.

The white type is more widely represented in America than the black.

Along the whole of the north-west coast, Meares, Marchand, La

Pérouse, Dixon and Maurelle have observed populations, which, judging

from some of their descriptions, would seem to be of pure white race.

Upon the Upper Missouri, the Kiawas, Kaskaïas and the Lee Panis

possess, we are assured, the attributes of the purest white races,

including their fair hair. The Mandans have, from our present point

of view, always attracted attention. Captain Graa, again, found in

Greenland men speaking Esquimau, but tall, thin, and fair. In South

America, Ferdinand Columbus, in his relation of his father’s voyages,

compares the inhabitants of Guanaani to the Canary Islanders, and

describes the inhabitants of San Domingo as still more beautiful and

fair. In Peru, the Charazanis, studied by M. Angrand, also resemble

the Canary Islanders, and differ from all the surrounding tribes.

L’Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg imagined himself surrounded by Arabs

when all his Indians of Rabinal were around him, for they had, he

says, their complexion, features, and beard. Finally, Gomara and

Pierre Martyr offer a similar testimony, and the latter speaks of the

Indians of the Parian Gulf as having fair hair (_capillis flavis_).

It is useless to insist upon the anthropological relations between

America and Asia. Most travellers have insisted upon this point. I

have heard M. de Castelnau say, “When I was surrounded by my Siamese

servants, I imagined myself in America;” and M. Vavasseur, assisting

at the visit of the Siamese ambassadors, remarked, “But those are

my Botocudos.” I should, however, observe that the skull in the

Collection in the Paris Museum indicates less resemblance than the

external characters.

America has, moreover, its distinct races with which the foreign

elements have more or less blended. She has also had her _quaternary

man_. This is a fact which must not be overlooked, and by which

the problem is singularly complicated. We shall presently see that

geological revolutions do not involve the disappearance of existing

human races. There can be no doubt that in America there are

descendants of men who were contemporary with the mastodon, just as,

in Europe, we find the descendants of those who were contemporaries

of the mammoth. Unfortunately our knowledge of the physical

characters of the American fossil man is as yet very slight.

III. It does not, however, seem to me the less probable that the

most pronounced ethnological elements, such as White, Yellow, and

Black, which we encounter at the present time, have overspread this

continent by means of migration. This fact is proved by history in a

certain number of cases; and some very simple considerations seem to

me to render others no less probable.

For example, we only find black men in America in those places which

are washed by either the Kouro-Sivo, or the Equatorial Current of the

Atlantic or its divisions. A glance at the maps of Captain Kerhallet

will at once show us the rarity and the distribution of these tribes.

It is evident that the more or less pure black elements have been

brought from the Asiatic Archipelagos and from Africa through some

accident at sea; they have there mixed with the local races, and have

formed those small isolated groups which are distinguished by their

colour from the surrounding tribes.

The presence of Semitic types in America, certain traditions

of Guiana, and the use in this country of a weapon entirely

characteristic of the ancient Canary Islanders, can be easily

explained in the same manner, and the explanation rests upon positive

facts. Twice during the last century, in 1731 and 1764, small ships

passing from one point of the Canary Islands to another have been

driven by storms into the region of the trade winds and equatorial

current, and have drifted as far as America. What has happened in our

time must often have happened before. We cannot then be surprised at

finding upon the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, tribes which are more

or less related to the African Whites by their physical characters.

IV. The geographical position of the continents at once explains

why the yellow type has so many representatives in America.

Supposing, which seems to be contradicted by some evidences, that the

coast-lines have not altered since the latest geological era, the

facilities presented by the passage are quite sufficient, and the

Asiatic races have profited by them to a considerable extent. America

was known to them long before Europeans possessed anything beyond

legends on this subject, the meaning of which is still hotly disputed.

It is to De Guignes that we owe the discovery of this fact, the

importance of which is evident. He revealed to Europe what he had

learnt in Chinese books. These books speak of a country called

Fou-Sang, situated at a distance, to the east of China far beyond

the limits of Asia. De Guignes did not hesitate to identify it

with America. To the proofs drawn from the Chinese books, he added

some isolated and hitherto forgotten facts which were borrowed from

Europeans, from George Horne, Gomara, etc.

The work of the French Orientalist was received with a very singular,

yet accountable repugnance. Apart from the mistrust excited by every

unexpected discovery, many people were annoyed to find that Europeans

had been preceded by Asiatics in the New World; it seemed to them

to be dethroning Christopher Columbus. A Prussian, who had become a

naturalized Frenchman, gave the support of his great learning to all

who required no more than the contradiction of the fact, and it was

almost unanimously agreed that De Guignes had deceived himself. More

justice is now done to him, and anyone who will study the question in

an unprejudiced spirit, cannot but acknowledge that he is right.

Klaproth held that Fou-Sang was nothing else than Japan. He forgot

that the country of which the Chinese writers spoke contained

copper, gold and silver, but no iron. This characteristic, which is

inapplicable to Japan, agrees, on the contrary, in every respect with

America. To support his assertion, he maintained that the Chinese

could neither recognize their direction nor measure distances in

their voyages with precision. He forgot that they were acquainted

with the compass 2000 years before our era, and that they possessed

maps far superior to the vague conjectures of the Middle Ages.