Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's
University, and Alev Akman
THE RED MAN'S CONTINENT
A CHRONICLE OF ABORIGINAL AMERICA
By Ellsworth Huntington
NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO.
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1919
PREFACE
In writing this book the author has aimed first to present in readable
form the main facts about the geographical environment of American
history. Many important facts have been omitted or have been touched
upon only lightly because they are generally familiar. On the other
hand, special stress has been laid on certain broad phases of geography
which are comparatively unfamiliar. One of these is the similarity of
form between the Old World and the New, and between North and South
America; another is the distribution of indigenous types of vegetation
in North America; and a third is the relation of climate to health and
energy. In addition to these subjects, the influence of geographical
conditions upon the life of the primitive Indians has been emphasized.
This factor is especially important because people without iron tools
and beasts of burden, and without any cereal crops except corn, must
respond to their environment very differently from civilized people of
today. Limits of space and the desire to make this book readable have
led to the omission of the detailed proof of some of the conclusions
here set forth. The special student will recognize such cases and
will not judge them until he has read the author's fuller statements
elsewhere. The general reader, for whom this book is designed, will be
thankful for the omission of such purely technical details.
CONTENTS
I. THE APPROACHES TO AMERICA II. THE FORM OF THE CONTINENT III. THE
GEOGRAPHIC PROVINCES OF NORTH AMERICA IV. THE GARMENT OF VEGETATION V.
THE RED MAN IN AMERICA BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
THE RED MAN'S CONTINENT
CHAPTER I. THE APPROACHES TO AMERICA
Across the twilight lawn at Hampton Institute straggles a group of
sturdy young men with copper-hued complexions. Their day has been
devoted to farming, carpentry, blacksmithing, or some other trade. Their
evening will be given to study. Those silent dignified Indians with
straight black hair and broad, strong features are training their hands
and minds in the hope that some day they may stand beside the white man
as equals. Behind them, laughing gayly and chattering as if without a
care in the world, comes a larger group of kinky-haired, thick-lipped
youths with black skins and African features. They, too, have been
working with the hands to train the mind. Those two diverse races, red
and black, sit down together in a classroom, and to them comes another
race. The faces that were expressionless or merely mirthful a minute ago
light up with serious interest as the teacher comes into the room. She
stands there a slender, golden-haired, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon girl
just out of college--a mere child compared with the score of swarthy,
stalwart men as old as herself who sit before her. Her mobile features
seem to mirror a hundred thoughts while their impassive faces are moved
by only one. Her quick speech almost trips in its eagerness not to waste
the short, precious hour. Only a strong effort holds her back while she
waits for the slow answers of the young men whom she drills over and
over again in simple problems of arithmetic. The class and the teacher
are an epitome of American history. They are more than that. They are an
epitome of all history.
History in its broadest aspect is a record of man's migrations from
one environment to another. America is the last great goal of these
migrations. He who would understand its history must know its mountains
and plains, its climate, its products, and its relation to the sea and
to other parts of the world. He must know more than this, however,
for he must appreciate how various environments alter man's energy and
capacity and give his character a slant in one direction or another.
He must also know the paths by which the inhabitants have reached their
present homes, for the influence of former environments upon them may be
more important than their immediate surroundings. In fact, the history
of North America has been perhaps more profoundly influenced by man's
inheritance from his past homes than by the physical features of his
present home. It is indeed of vast importance that trade can move freely
through such natural channels as New York Harbor, the Mohawk Valley, and
the Great Lakes. It is equally important that the eastern highlands of
the United States are full of the world's finest coal, while the central
plains raise some of the world's most lavish crops. Yet it is probably
even more important that because of his inheritance from a remote
ancestral environment man is energetic, inventive, and long-lived in
certain parts of the American continent, while elsewhere he has not the
strength and mental vigor to maintain even the degree of civilization to
which he seems to have risen.
Three streams of migration have mainly determined the history of
America. One was an ancient and comparatively insignificant stream from
Asia. It brought the Indian to the two great continents which the white
man has now practically wrested from him. A second and later stream was
the great tide which rolled in from Europe. It is as different from the
other as West is from East. Thus far it has not wholly obliterated the
native people, for between the southern border of the United States on
the one hand, and the northern borders of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay
on the other, the vast proportion of the blood is still Indian. The
European tide may in time dominate even this region, but for centuries
to come the poor, disinherited Indians will continue to form the bulk of
the population. The third stream flowed from Africa and was as different
from either of the others as South is from North.
The differences between one and another of these three streams of
population and the antagonisms which they have involved have greatly
colored American history. The Indian, the European, and the Negro
apparently differ not only in outward appearance but in the much more
important matter of mentality. According to Brinton * the average brain
capacity of Parisians, including adults of both sexes, is 1448 cubic
centimeters. That of the American Indian is 1376, and that of the Negro
1344 cubic centimeters. With this difference in size there appears to
be a corresponding difference in function. Thus far not enough accurate
tests have been made upon Indians to enable us to draw reliable
conclusions. The Negro, however, has been tested on an extensive
scale. The results seem to leave little doubt that there are real and
measurable differences in the mental powers of races, just as we know
to be the case among individuals. The matter is so important that we may
well dwell on it a moment before turning to the cause of the differences
in the three streams of American immigrants. If there is a measurable
difference between the inherent brain power of the white race and
the black, it is practically certain that there are also measurable
differences between the white and the red.
* D. G. Brinton. "The American Race."
Numerous tests indicate that in the lower mental powers there is no
great difference between the black and the white. In physical reactions
one is as quick as the other. In the capacity of the senses and in the
power to perceive and to discriminate between different kinds of objects
there is also practical equality. When it comes to the higher faculties,
however, such as judgment, inventiveness, and the power of organization,
a difference begins to be apparent. These, as Ferguson * says, are
the traits that "divide mankind into the able and the mediocre, the
brilliant and the dull, and they determine the progress of civilization
more directly than do the simple fundamental powers which man has in
common with the lower animals." On the basis of the most exhaustive
study yet made, Ferguson believes that, apart from all differences due
to home training and environment, the average intellectual power of the
colored people of this country is only about three-fourths as great as
that of white persons of the same amount of training. He believes it
probable, indeed, that this estimate is too high rather than too low. As
to the Indian, his past achievements and present condition indicate that
intellectually he stands between the white man and the Negro in about
the position that would be expected from the capacity of his brain. If
this is so, the mental differences in the three streams of migration
to America are fully as great as the outward and manifest physical
differences and far more important.
* G. O. Ferguson. "The Psychology of the Negro," New York, 1916.
Why does the American Indian differ from the Negro, and the European
from both? This is a question on which we can only speculate. But we
shall find it profitable to study the paths by which these diverse races
found their way to America from man's primeval home. According to the
now almost universally accepted theory, all the races of mankind had
a common origin. But where did man make the change from a four-handed,
tree-dwelling little ape to a much larger, upright creature with two
hands and two feet? It is a mistake to suppose that because he is
hairless he must have originated in a warm climate. In fact quite the
opposite seems to be the case, for apparently he lost his hair because
he took to wearing the skins of slain beasts in order that he might have
not only his own hair but that of other animals as a protection from the
cold.
In our search for the starting-place of man's slow migration to America
our first step should be to ascertain what responses to physical
environment are common to all men. If we find that all men live and
thrive best under certain climatic conditions, it is fair to assume that
those conditions prevailed in man's original home, and this conclusion
will enable us to cast out of the reckoning the regions where they do
not prevail. A study of the relations of millions of deaths to weather
conditions indicates that the white race is physically at its best when
the average temperature for night and day ranges from about 50 to 73
degrees F. and when the air is neither extremely moist nor extremely
dry. In addition to these conditions there must be not only seasonal
changes but frequent changes from day to day. Such changes are possible
only where there is a distinct winter and where storms are of frequent
occurrence. The best climate is, therefore, one where the temperature
ranges from not much below the freezing-point at night in winter to
about 80 degrees F. by day in summer, and where the storms which bring
daily changes are frequent at all seasons.
Surprising as it may seem, this study indicates that similar conditions
are best for all sorts of races. Finns from the Arctic Circle and
Italians of sunny Sicily have the best health and greatest energy under
practically the same conditions; so too with Frenchmen, Japanese, and
Americans. Most surprising of all, the African black man in the United
States is likewise at his best in essentially the same kind of weather
that is most favorable for his white fellow-citizens, and for Finns,
Italians, and other races. For the red race, no exact figures are
available, but general observation of the Indian's health and activity
suggests that in this respect he is at one with the rest of mankind.
For the source of any characteristic so widespread and uniform as this
adaptation to environment we must go back to the very beginning of the
human race. Such a characteristic must have become firmly fixed in the
human constitution before primitive man became divided into races, or at
least before any of the races had left their original home and started
on their long journey to America. On the way to this continent one race
took on a dark reddish or brownish hue and its hair grew straight and
black; another became black skinned and crinkly-haired, while a
third developed a white skin and wavy blonde hair. Yet throughout the
thousands of years which brought about these changes, all the races
apparently retained the indelible constitutional impress of the climate
of their common birthplace. Man's physical adaptation to climate seems
to be a deep-seated physiological fact like the uniformity of the
temperature of the blood in all races. Just as a change in the
temperature of the blood brings distress to the individual, so a change
of climate apparently brings distress to a race. Again and again, to be
sure, on the way to America, and under many other circumstances, man has
passed through the most adverse climates and has survived, but he has
flourished and waxed strong only in certain zones.
Curiously enough man's body and his mind appear to differ in their
climatic adaptations. Moreover, in this respect the black race, and
perhaps the red, appears to be diverse from the white. In America an
investigation of the marks of students at West Point and Annapolis
indicates that the best mental work is done when the temperature
averages not much above 40 degrees F. for night and day together. Tests
of school children in Denmark point to a similar conclusion. On the
other hand, daily tests of twenty-two Negroes at Hampton Institute for
sixteen months suggest that their mental ability may be greatest at a
temperature only a little lower than that which is best for the most
efficient physical activity. No tests of this sort have ever been made
upon Indians, but such facts as the inventiveness of the Eskimo, the
artistic development of the people of northern British Columbia and
southern Alaska, and the relatively high civilization of the cold
regions of the Peruvian plateau suggest that the Indian in this respect
is more like the white race than the black. Perhaps man's mental powers
underwent their chief evolution after the various races had left the
aboriginal home in which the physical characteristics became fixed.
Thus the races, though alike in their physical response to climate,
may possibly be different in their mental response because they have
approached America by different paths.
Before we can understand how man may have been modified on his way from
his original home to America, we must inquire as to the geographical
situation of that home. Judging by the climate which mankind now finds
most favorable, the human race must have originated in the temperate
regions of Europe, Asia, or North America. We are not entirely without
evidence to guide to a choice of one of the three continents. There is
a scarcity of indications of preglacial man in the New World and an
abundance of such indications in the Old. To be sure, several skulls
found in America have been supposed to belong to a time before the last
glacial epoch. In every case, however, there has been something to throw
doubt on the conclusion. For instance, some human bones found at Vero
in Florida in 1915 seem to be very old. Certain circumstances, however,
suggest that possibly they may not really belong to the layers of gravel
in which they were discovered but may have been inserted at some later
time. In the Old World, on the contrary, no one doubts that many human
skulls and other parts of skeletons belong to the interglacial epoch
preceding the last glacial epoch, while some appear to date from still
more remote periods. Therefore no matter at what date man may have
come to America, it seems clear that he existed in the Old World much
earlier. This leaves us to choose between Europe and Asia. The evidence
points to central Asia as man's original home, for the general movement
of human migrations has been outward from that region and not inward.
So, too, with the great families of mammals, as we know from fossil
remains. From the earliest geological times the vast interior of Asia
has been the great mother of the world, the source from which the most
important families of living things have come.
Suppose, then, that we place in central Asia the primitive home of
the thin-skinned, hairless human race with its adaptation to a highly
variable climate with temperatures ranging from freezing to eighty
degrees. Man could not stay there forever. He was bound to spread to
new regions, partly because of his innate migratory tendency and partly
because of Nature's stern urgency. Geologists are rapidly becoming
convinced that the mammals spread from their central Asian point of
origin largely because of great variations in climate. * Such variations
have taken place on an enormous scale during geological times. They
seem, indeed, to be one of the most important factors in evolution.
Since early man lived through the successive epochs of the glacial
period, he must have been subject to the urgency of vast climatic
changes. During the half million years more or less of his existence,
cold, stormy, glacial epochs lasting tens of thousands of years have
again and again been succeeded by warm, dry, interglacial epochs of
equal duration.
* W. D. Matthew. "Climate and Evolution," N. Y. Acad. Sci., 1915.
During the glacial epochs the interior of Asia was well watered and full
of game which supplied the primitive human hunters. With the advent
of each interglacial epoch the rains diminished, grass and trees
disappeared, and the desert spread over enormous tracts. Both men
and animals must have been driven to sore straits for lack of food.
Migration to better regions was the only recourse. Thus for hundreds
of thousands of years there appears to have been a constantly recurring
outward push from the center of the world's greatest land mass. That
push, with the consequent overcrowding of other regions, seems to have
been one of the chief forces impelling people to migrate and cover the
earth.
Among the primitive men who were pushed outward from the Asian deserts
during a period of aridity, one group migrated northeastward toward
the Kamchatkan corner of Asia. Whether they reached Bering Sea and the
Kamchatkan shore before the next epoch of glaciation we do not know.
Doubtless they moved slowly, perhaps averaging only a few score or
a hundred miles per generation, for that is generally the way with
migrations of primitive people advancing into unoccupied territory. Yet
sometimes they may have moved with comparative rapidity. I have seen a
tribe of herdsmen in central Asia abandon its ancestral home and start
on a zigzag march of a thousand miles because of a great drought. The
grass was so scanty that there was not enough to support the animals.
The tribe left a trail of blood, for wherever it moved it infringed upon
the rights of others and so with conflict was driven onward. In some
such way the primitive wanderers were kept in movement until at
last they reached the bleak shores of the North Pacific. Even there
something--perhaps sheer curiosity--still urged them on. The green
island across the bay may have been so enticing that at last a raft of
logs was knotted together with stout withes. Perhaps at first the men
paddled themselves across alone, but the hunting and fishing proved so
good that at length they took the women and children with them, and so
advanced another step along the route toward America. At other times
distress, strife, or the search for game may have led the primitive
nomads on and on along the coast until a day came when the Asian home
was left and the New World was entered. The route by which primitive
man entered America is important because it determined the surroundings
among which the first Americans lived for many generations. It has
sometimes been thought that the red men came to America by way of the
Kurile Islands, Kamchatka, and the Aleutian Islands. If this was their
route, they avoided a migration of two or three thousand miles through
one of the coldest and most inhospitable of regions. This, however,
is far from probable. The distance from Kamchatka to the first of the
Aleutian Islands is over one hundred miles. As the island is not in
sight from the mainland, there is little chance that a band of savages,
including women, would deliberately sail thither. There is equally
little probability that they walked to the island on the ice, for the
sea is never frozen across the whole width. Nevertheless the climate may
at that time have been colder than now. There is also a chance that a
party of savages may have been blown across to the island in a storm.
Suppose that they succeeded in reaching Bering Island, as the most
Asiatic of the Aleutians is called, the next step to Copper Island would
be easy. Then, however, there comes a stretch of more than two hundred
miles. The chances that a family would ever cross this waste of ocean
are much smaller than in the first case. Still another possibility
remains. Was there once a bridge of land from Asia to America in this
region? There is no evidence of such a link between the two continents,
for a few raised beaches indicate that during recent geological times
the Aleutian Islands have been uplifted rather than depressed.
The passage from Asia to America at Bering Strait, on the other hand,
is comparatively easy. The Strait itself is fifty-six miles wide, but
in the middle there are two small islands so that the longest stretch
of water is only about thirty-five miles. Moreover the Strait is usually
full of ice, which frequently becomes a solid mass from shore to shore.
Therefore it would be no strange thing if some primitive savages, in
hunting for seals or polar bears, crossed the Strait, even though they
had no boats. Today the people on both sides of the Strait belong to
the American race. They still retain traditions of a time when their
ancestors crossed this narrow strip of water. The Thilanottines have
a legend that two giants once fought fiercely on the Arctic Ocean. One
would have been defeated had not a man whom he had befriended cut the
tendon of his adversary's leg. The wounded giant fell into Bering Strait
and formed a bridge across which the reindeer entered America. Later
came a strange woman bringing iron and copper. She repeated her visits
until the natives insulted her, whereupon she went underground with her
fire-made treasures and came back no more. Whatever may have been the
circumstances that led the earliest families to cross from Asia to
America, they little recked that they had found a new continent and that
they were the first of the red race.
Unless the first Americans came to the new continent by way of the
Kurile and Aleutian Islands, it was probably their misfortune to
spend many generations in the cold regions of northeastern Asia and
northwestern America. Even if they reached Alaska by the Aleutian route
but came to the islands by way of the northern end of the Kamchatkan
Peninsula, they must have dwelt in a place where the January temperature
averages -10 degrees F. and where there are frosts every month in the
year. If they came across Bering Strait, they encountered a still more
severe climate. The winters there are scarcely worse than in northern
Kamchatka, but the summers are as cold as the month of March in New York
or Chicago.
Perhaps a prolonged sojourn in such a climate is one reason for
the stolid character of the Indians. Of course we cannot speak with
certainty, but we must, in our search for an explanation, consider the
conditions of life in the far north. Food is scanty at all times, and
starvation is a frequent visitor, especially in winter when game is hard
to get. The long periods of cold and darkness are terribly enervating.
The nervous white man goes crazy if he stays too long in Alaska. Every
spring the first boats returning to civilization carry an unduly large
proportion of men who have lost their minds because they have endured
too many dark, cold winters. His companions say of such a man, "The
North has got him." Almost every Alaskan recognizes the danger. As one
man said to a friend, "It is time I got out of here."
"Why?" said the friend, "you seem all right. What's the matter?"
"Well," said the other, "you see I begin to like the smell of skunk
cabbage, and, when a man gets that way, it's time he went somewhere
else."
The skunk cabbage, by the way, grows in Alaska in great thickets ten
feet high. The man was perfectly serious, for he meant that his mind was
beginning to act in ways that were not normal. Nowhere is the strain of
life in the far north better described than in the poems of Robert W.
Service.
Oh, the awful hush that seemed to crush me down on every hand, As I
blundered blind with a trail to find through that blank and bitter land;
Half dazed, half crazed in the winter wild, with its grim heartbreaking
woes, And the ruthless strife for a grip on life that only the sourdough
knows! North by the compass, North I pressed; river and peak and plain
Passed like a dream I slept to lose and waked to dream again. River
and plain and mighty peak--and who could stand unawed? As their summits
blazed, he could stand undazed at the foot of the throne of God. North,
aye, North, through a land accurst, shunned by the scouring brutes, And
all I heard was my own harsh word and the whine of the malamutes, Till
at last I came to a cabin squat, built in the side of a hill, And I
burst in the door, and there on the floor, frozen to death, lay Bill. *
* From "Ballads of a Cheechako."
The human organism inherits so delicate an adjustment to climate that,
in spite of man's boasted ability to live anywhere, the strain of the
frozen North eliminates the more nervous and active types of mind. Only
those can endure whose nerves lack sensitiveness and who are able to
bear long privation and the strain of hunger and cold and darkness.
Though the Indian may differ from the white man in many respects, such
conditions are probably as bad for him as for any race. For this reason
it is not improbable that long sojourns at way stations on the cold,
Alaskan route from central Asia may have weeded out certain types of
minds. Perhaps that is why the Indian, though brave, stoical, and hardy,
does not possess the alert, nervous temperament which leads to invention
and progress.
The ancestors of the red man unwittingly chose the easiest path
to America and so entered the continent first, but this was their
misfortune. They could not inherit the land because they chose a path
whose unfavorable influence, exerted throughout centuries, left them
unable to cope with later arrivals from other directions. The parts of
America most favorable for the Indian are also best for the white man
and Negro. There the alerter minds of the Europeans who migrated in the
other direction have quickly eliminated the Indian. His long northern
sojourn may be the reason why farther south in tropical lands he is even
now at a disadvantage compared with the Negro or with the coolie from
the East Indies. In Central America, for instance, it is generally
recognized that Negroes stand the heat and moisture of the lowlands
better than Indians. According to a competent authority: "The American
Indians cannot bear the heat of the tropics even as well as the
European, not to speak of the African race. They perspire little, their
skin becomes hot, and they are easily prostrated by exertion in an
elevated temperature. They are peculiarly subject to diseases of hot
climates, as hepatic disorders, showing none of the immunity of the
African. Furthermore, the finest physical specimens of the race are
found in the colder regions of the temperate zones, the Pampas and
Patagonian Indians in the south, the Iroquois and Algonkins in
the north; whereas, in the tropics they are generally undersized,
short-lived, of inferior muscular force and with slight tolerance of
disease." * "No one," adds another observer, "could live among
the Indians of the Upper Amazon without being struck with their
constitutional dislike to heat. The impression forced itself upon my
mind that the Indian lives as a stranger or immigrant in these hot
regions." * * Thus when compared with the other inhabitants of America,
from every point of view the Indian seems to be at a disadvantage, much
of which may be due to the path which he took from the Old World to the
New.
* D. G. Brinton, "The American Race," pp. 34, 35.
* * H. W. Bates, "The Naturalist on the River Amazons." vol.II,
pp. 200, 201.
Before the red man lost his American heritage, he must have enjoyed it
for thousands upon thousands of years. Otherwise he never could have
become so different from his nearest relative, the Mongol. The two are
as truly distinct races as are the white man and the Malay. Nor could
the Indians themselves have become so extraordinarily diverse except
during the lapse of thousands of years. The Quichua of the cold
highlands of Peru is as different from the Maya of Yucatan or the Huron
of southern Canada as the Swede is from the Armenian or the Jew.
The separation of one stock from another has gone so far that almost
countless languages have been developed. In the United States alone
the Indians have fifty-five "families" of languages and in the whole of
America there are nearly two hundred such groups. These comprise over
one thousand distinct languages which are mutually unintelligible and at
least as different as Spanish and Italian. Such differences might arise
in a day at the Tower of Babel, but in the processes of evolution they
take thousands of years.
During those thousands of years the red man, in spite of his Arctic
handicap, by no means showed himself wholly lacking in originality and
inventive ability. In Yucatan two or three thousand years ago the Mayas
were such good scientists and recorded their observations of the stars
so accurately that they framed a calendar more exact than any except
the one that we have used for the last two centuries. They showed still
greater powers of mind in inventing the art of writing and in their
architecture. Later we shall depict the environment under which these
things occurred; it is enough to suggest in passing that perhaps at this
period the ancestors of the Indians had capacities as great as those of
any people. Today they might possibly hold their own against the white
man, were it not for the great handicap which they once suffered because
Asia approaches America only in the cold, depressing north.
The Indians were not the only primitive people who were driven from
central Asia by aridity. Another group pushed westward toward Europe.
They fared far better than their Indian cousins who went to the
northeast. These prospective Europeans never encountered benumbing
physical conditions like those of northeastern Asia and northwestern
America. Even when ice shrouded the northern part of Europe, the rest of
the continent was apparently favored with a stimulating climate. Then
as now, Europe was probably one of the regions where storms are most
frequent. Hence it was free from the monotony which is so deadly in
other regions. When the ice retreated our European ancestors doubtless
followed slowly in its wake. Thus their racial character was evolved in
one of the world's most stimulating regions. Privation they must have
suffered, and hardihood and boldness were absolutely essential in the
combat with storms, cold, wild beasts, fierce winds, and raging waves.
But under the spur of constant variety and change, these difficulties
were merely incentives to progress. When the time came for the people of
the west of Europe to cross to America, they were of a different caliber
from the previous immigrants.
Two facts of physical geography brought Europe into contact with
America. One of these was the islands of the North, the other the
trade-winds of the South. Each seems to have caused a preliminary
contact which failed to produce important results. As in the northern
Pacific, so in the northern Atlantic, islands are stepping-stones from
the Old World to the New. Yet because in the latter case the islands are
far apart, it is harder to cross the water from Norway and the Lofoten
Islands to Iceland and Greenland than it is to cross from Asia by way of
the Aleutian Islands or Bering Strait. Nevertheless in the tenth century
of the Christian era bold Norse vikings made the passage in the face of
storm and wind. In their slender open ships they braved the elements
on voyage after voyage. We think of the vikings as pirates, and so
they were. But they were also diligent colonists who tilled the ground
wherever it would yield even the scantiest living. In Iceland and
Greenland they must have labored mightily to carry on the farms of which
the Sagas tell us. When they made their voyages, honest commerce was
generally in their minds quite as much as was plunder. Leif, the son of
that rough Red Eric who first settled Greenland, made a famous voyage
to Vinland, the mainland of America. Like so many other voyagers he was
bent on finding a region where men could live happily and on filling his
boats with grapes, wood, or other commodities worth carrying home.
In view of the energy of the Norsemen, the traces of their presence
in the Western Hemisphere are amazingly slight. In Greenland a few
insignificant heaps of stones are supposed to show where some of them
built small villages. Far in the north Stefansson found fair-haired,
blue-eyed Eskimos. These may be descendants of the Norsemen, although
they have migrated thousands of miles from Greenland. In Maine the
Micmac Indians are said to have had a curious custom which they may
have learned from the vikings. When a chief died, they chose his largest
canoe. On it they piled dry wood, and on the wood they placed the body.
Then they set fire to the pile and sent the blazing boat out to sea.
Perhaps in earlier times the Micmacs once watched the flaming funeral
pyre of a fair-haired viking. As the ruddy flames leaped skyward and
were reflected in the shimmering waves of the great waters the tribesmen
must have felt that the Great Spirit would gladly welcome a chief who
came in such a blaze of glory. *
* For this information I am indebted to Mr. Stansbury Hagar.
It seems strange that almost no other traces of the strong vikings
are found in America. The explanation lies partly in the length and
difficulty of the ocean voyage, and partly in the inhospitable character
of the two great islands that served as stepping-stones from the Old
World to the New. Iceland with its glaciers, storms, and long dreary
winters is bad enough. Greenland is worse. Merely the tip of that
island was known to the Norse--and small wonder, for then as now most
of Greenland was shrouded in ice. Various Scandinavian authors, however,
have thought that during the most prosperous days of the vikings the
conditions in Greenland were not quite so bad as at the present day. One
settlement, Osterbyden, numbered 190 farms, 12 churches, 2 monasteries,
and 1 bishopric. It is even stated that apple-trees bore fruit and that
some wheat was raised. "Cattle-raising and fishing," says Pettersson,
"appear to have procured a good living.... At present the whole stock of
cattle in Greenland does not amount to 100 animals." * In those days the
ice which borders all the east coast and much of the west seems to have
been less troublesome than now. In the earliest accounts nothing is said
of this ice as a danger to navigation. We are told that the best sailing
route was through the strait north of Cape Farewell Island, where today
no ships can pass because of the ice. Since the days of the Norsemen the
glaciers have increased in size, for the natives say that certain ruins
are now buried beneath the ice, while elsewhere ruins can be seen which
have been cut off from the rest of the country by advancing glacial
tongues.
* O. Pettersson, "Climatic Variations in Historic and Prehistoric
Times." Svenska Hydrogrifisk--Biologiska Kommissioneur Skrifter, Haft V.
Stockholm.
Why the Norsemen disappeared from the Western Hemisphere we do not
exactly know, but there are interesting hints of an explanation. It
appears that the fourteenth century was a time of great distress. In
Norway the crops failed year after year because of cold and storms.
Provinces which were formerly able to support themselves by agriculture
were obliged to import food. The people at home were no longer able to
keep in touch with the struggling colony in Greenland. No supplies came
from the home land, no reenforcements to strengthen the colonists and
make them feel that they were a part of the great world. Moreover in the
late Norse sagas much is said about the ice along the Greenland coast,
which seems to have been more abundant than formerly. Even the Eskimos
seem to have been causing trouble, though formerly they had been a
friendly, peaceable people who lived far to the north and did not
disturb the settlers. In the fourteenth century, however, they began to
make raids such as are common when primitive people fall into distress.
Perhaps the storms and the advancing ice drove away the seals and
other animals, so that the Eskimos were left hungry. They consequently
migrated south and, in the fifteenth century, finally wiped out the
last of the old Norse settlers. If the Norse had established permanent
settlements on the mainland of North America, they might have persisted
to this day. As it was, the cold, bleak climate of the northern route
across the Atlantic checked their progress. Like the Indians, they had
the misfortune of finding a route to America through regions that are
not good for man.
Though islands may be stepping-stones between the Old World and the New,
they have not been the bringers of civilization. That function in the
history of man has been left to the winds. The westerlies, however,
which are the prevailing winds in the latitude of the United States and
Europe, have not been of much importance. On the Atlantic side they were
for many centuries a barrier to contact between the Old World and the
New. On the Pacific side they have been known to blow Japanese vessels
to the shores of America contrary to the will of the mariners. Perhaps
the same thing may have happened in earlier times. Asia may thus have
made some slight contribution to primitive America, but no important
elements of civilization can be traced to this source.
From latitude 30 degrees N. to 30 degrees S. the tradewinds prevail. As
they blow from the east, they make it easy for boats to come from Africa
to America. In comparatively recent times they brought the slave ships
from the Guinea coast to our Southern States. The African, like the
Indian, has passed through a most unfavorable environment on his way
from central Asia to America. For ages he was doomed to live in a
climate where high temperature and humidity weed out the active type
of human being. Since activity like that of Europe means death in a
tropical climate, the route by way of Africa has been if anything worse
than by Bering Strait.
By far the most important occurrence which can be laid at the door of
the trade-winds is the bringing of the civilization of Europe and the
Mediterranean to the New World. Twice this may have happened, but
the first occurrence is doubtful and left only a slight impress. For
thousands of years the people around the Mediterranean Sea have been
bold sailors. Before 600 B.C. Pharaoh Necho, so Herodotus says, had
sent Phenician ships on a three-year cruise entirely around Africa. The
Phenicians also sailed by way of Gibraltar to England to bring tin from
Cornwall, and by 500 B.C. the Carthaginians were well acquainted with
the Atlantic coast of northern Africa.
At some time or other, long before the Christian era, a ship belonging
to one of the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean was probably blown to
the shores of America by the steady trade-winds. Of course, no one
can say positively that such a voyage occurred. Yet certain curious
similarities between the Old World and the New enable us to infer with a
great deal of probability that it actually happened. The mere fact, for
example, that the adobe houses of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico are
strikingly like the houses of northern Africa and Persia is no proof
that the civilization of the Old World and the New are related. A
similar physical environment might readily cause the same type of house
to be evolved in both places. When we find striking similarities
of other kinds, however, the case becomes quite different. The
constellations of the zodiac, for instance, are typified by twelve
living creatures, such as the twins, the bull, the lion, the virgin,
the crab, and the goat. Only one of the constellations, the scorpion,
presents any real resemblance to the animal for which it is named. Yet
the signs of the zodiac in Mediterranean lands and in pre-Columbian
America from Peru to southern Mexico are almost identical. Here is a
list showing the Latin and English names of the constellations and their
equivalents in the calendars of the Peruvians, Mexicans, and Mayas. *
* See S. Hagar, "The Bearing of Astronomy on the Problems of the
Unity or Plurality and the Probable Place of Origin of the American
Aborigines, in American Anthropologist," vol. XIV (1912), pp. 43-48.
Sign English Peruvian Mexican Maya
--------------------------------------------------------
Aries Ram Llama Flayer --
Taurus Bull (originally Stag)
Stag Stag or Deer Stag
Gemini Twins Man and Woman Twins Two Generals
Cancer Crab Cuttlefish Cuttlefish Cuttlefish
Leo Lion Puma Ocelot Ocelot
Virgo Virgin (Mother Goddess of Cereals)
Maize Mother Maize Mother Maize Mother
Libra Scales (originally part of Scorpio)
Forks Scorpion Scorpion
Scorpio Scorpion Mummy Scorpion Scorpion
Sagittarius Bowman Arrows or Spears
Hunter and War God Hunter and War God
Capricornus Sea Goat Beard Bearded God --
Aquarius Water Pourer Water Water Water
Pisces Fishes(and Knot) Knot Twisted Reeds --
Notice how closely these lists are alike. The ram does not appear in
America because no such animal was known there. The nearest substitute
was the llama. In the Old World the second constellation is now called
the bull, but curiously enough in earlier days it was called the stag in
Mesopotamia. The twins, instead of being Castor and Pollux, may equally
well be a man and a woman or two generals. To landsmen not familiar
with creatures of the deep, the crab and the cuttlefish would not seem
greatly different. The lion is unknown in America, but the creature
which most nearly takes his place is the puma or ocelot. So it goes with
all the signs of the zodiac. There are little differences between
the Old World and the New, but they only emphasize the resemblance.
Mathematically there is not one chance in thousands or even millions
that such a resemblance could grow up by accident. Other similarities
between ceremonies or religious words in the Old World and the New might
be pointed out, but the zodiac is illustration enough.
Such resemblances, however, do not indicate a permanent connection
between Mediterranean civilization and that of Central America. They do
not even indicate that any one ever returned from the Western Hemisphere
to the Eastern previous to Columbus. Nor do they indicate that the
civilization of the New World arose from that of the Old. They simply
suggest that after the people of the Mediterranean regions had become
well civilized and after those of America were also sufficiently
civilized to assimilate new ideas, a stray ship or two was blown by
the trade-winds across the Atlantic. That hypothetical voyage was the
precursor of the great journey of Columbus. Without the tradewinds this
historic discoverer never could have found the West Indies. Suppose that
a strong west wind had blown him backward on his course when his men
were mutinous. Suppose that he had been forced to beat against head
winds week after week. Is there one chance in a thousand that even his
indomitable spirit could have kept his craft headed steadily into the
west? But because there were the trade-winds to bring him, the way was
opened for the energetic people of Europe to possess the new continent.
Thus the greatest stream of immigration commenced to flow, and the New
World began to take on a European aspect.