CHAPTER XIX.

WHENCE CAME THE ABORIGINES OF AMERICA?

Many and varied are the answers to this interrogation, like Gaul, they are

divided into three parts, or classes, the impossible and absurd, the

possible, and the probable.

Most of the writers on this subject seem to have evolved out of their inner

consciences or imaginations a fine-spun theory, and then to have marshaled

all the evidence possible in support of it.

Should there be other facts which do not support their theory, so much the

worse for those facts. Wherever it is possible they are tortured and

perverted into supporting what it is predetermined to prove. But if this

can not be done by any sophistry or jugglery of words, then the facts in

question are coolly ignored.

Now we do not expect to settle this long-mooted question, but we have

honestly and carefully investigated the subject in all its bearings, and

without any preconceived theory to support.

Instead of trying to begin with the American Indian and trace the line of

descent back to its source, we have reversed this order, and, beginning

with the source and starting point of all the nations and tribes of the

earth, which is the dispersion of mankind at the Tower of Babel, we have

endeavored to trace that branch or branches of the Shemites which peopled

this hemisphere.

But it might be asked, is such a thing possible after the lapse of ages?

The reader shall be the judge _after,_ not _before,_ he knows the position

we take, and our reasons for it.

However, before beginning our task proper, we want to consider other

theories which have been advanced and stoutly defended, to account for the

inhabitants and civilization found in America.

One of these theories is (or was) that the original civilizers of Mexico

and Central America were the "lost ten tribes of Israel." It was first

promulgated by the Spanish monks, who established missions in Mexico and

Central America, a class of men to whom the world is indebted for a great

variety of amazing contributions to the literature of hagiology. According

to this theory the "lost ten tribes" left Syria, or Assyria, or whatever

country they dwelt in at the time, traversed the whole extent of Asia,

crossed over into America at Behring's Strait, went down the Pacific coast

almost the full length of North America and established that wonderful

civilization of Central America.

If it required forty years for the ancestors of those same ten tribes to

journey from Egypt to Canaan, a distance of a few hundred miles at most,

we are curious to know how much time, in the estimation of those who

advocate this theory, would be necessary for this interminable journey?

The kingdom of the ten tribes was destroyed not long previous to the year

700 B. C., at which period the Jews of the Northern Kingdom were not noted

for their architecture or other evidences of civilization. They were

incapable of building their own Temple without aid from the Tyrians.

Moreover, there is nowhere a fact, a suggestion, or a circumstance of any

kind to show that the "lost ten tribes" _ever left_ the countries of

Southwestern Asia, where they dwelt after the destruction of their kingdom.

They were "lost" to the Jewish nation because they rebelled against God and

worshiped idols. After their subjugation by the Assyrians in 721 B. C. they

were to a great extent absorbed by the surrounding nations.

To assume that a population came over and passed down to Mexico, Yucatan

and even to South America, carrying with them their arts, but not

exercising them on this interminable journey, is ridiculous. No pottery has

yet been found between the Yukon and the Humbolt, or even further south.

It was also assumed that either the ten tribes, or a Jewish colony, were

the ancestors of the American Indians.

But, as J. H. Beadle well says: "It would certainly be an amazing thing if

such a people as the Jews could, in a few centuries, lose all trace of

their language, religion, laws, form of government, art, science and

general knowledge, and sink into a tribe of barbarians. But when we add

that their bodily shape must have completely changed, their skulls

lengthened, the beard dropped from their faces, and their language

undergone a reversion from a derivative to a primitive type--a thing

unknown in any human tongue--the supposition becomes too monstrous even to

be discussed."

There are three other characteristics in which the Jew and the Indian are

diametrically opposite. From the time of David and his harp, the Jewish

people have been among the great musicians of the world, while the Indian,

like the Chinese, can make a diabolical din sufficient to drive Orpheus

crazy, but has no idea of harmony. The Jews have been the financiers of the

world throughout the ages, but the Indians have no conception of the value

of a dollar.

From the very beginning of Jewish history certain animals, such as cattle,

sheep and fallow deer were considered "clean" and allowed by their law for

food. Other animals, such as swine, dogs and hares, were considered

"unclean," and forbidden as food. The same rule obtains among orthodox Jews

to this day. But among the North American Indians there is no such thing as

"clean" or "unclean" animals. "All is grist that comes to their mill." An

Indian will positively eat anything, from the paunch and intestines of a

buffalo or beef and their _contents,_ to a dog, skunk, snake or horned

toad. Most of the so-called "Blanket" Indians have no conception of

cleanliness in their food or cooking, but to a civilized man it is

indescribably filthy.

We might add that the theory that America was peopled by a colony of Jews

is substantially that of the Mormons, who, to bolster it up, ask us to

believe that an angel appeared to one Joseph Smith and told him to dig in

a certain hill in Ontario County, New York. This he did September 22, 1823,

and found certain gold plates engraved with Egyptian characters. Having

translated it through the aid of a scribe (Smith being a poor writer), and

by means of a "curious instrument, called by the ancients the Urim and

Thummim, which consisted of two transparent stones, clear as crystal, set

in the two rims of a bow, and used by seers to receive revelation of things

distant, or of things past or future," {FN} he found it a Divine

revelation, which proved conclusively that the Indians were descendants

from a Jewish colony which came in ships to this continent.

* * * * *

{FN} Parley P. Pratt.

Is it not remarkable that those plates, though giving an account of _Jews,_

were engraved in _Egyptian_ characters? And that Smith, though confessedly

an ignorant man and a poor writer, could translate Egyptian, one of the

most difficult languages in the world? We are skeptical and can only say,

show us the golden plates and the Urim and Thummim, and it sufficeth us. We

are persuaded that Joseph Smith did not find any such plates, but that he

preceded Barnum in discovering that "the American people delight to be

humbugged."

We desire now to consider what is designated as the _Phoenician theory._

Intelligent investigators who use reason in their inquiries sufficiently to

be incapable of accepting the absurdities of monkish fancy, maintained that

this civilization came originally from the Phoenicians. To those who

believe that this civilization was imported, this seems more reasonable

than any other theory, for more can be said to give it the appearance of

probability.

{Illustration: Japanese girl in Ukiah (Alaska) Indian costume.}

It is well known that the Phoenicians were preeminent as the colonizing

navigators of antiquity. They were an enlightened and enterprising maritime

people, whose commerce traversed every known sea, and extended its

operations beyond the "Pillars of Hercules" into the "Great Exterior

Ocean." The early Greeks said of these people that they "went everywhere

from the extreme East to the extreme West, multiplying settlements on all

seas." But the great ages of this race are in the distant past, far beyond

the beginning of recorded history. Indeed, history has knowledge of only a

few of their later communities--the Sabeans of Southern Arabia, the people

of Tyre and Sidon, the Carthaginians, and the settlements on the coast of

Spain and Britain. In fact, the Phoenicians gave the name to Great Britain

which it still retains, that of Brittan-nock, the _land of tin._ It is not

difficult to believe that communities of Phoenicians were established all

around the Mediterranean, and even beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, in ages

quite as old as Egypt or Chaldea, and that they had communication with this

hemisphere. Why did the ancients say so much about a "great Saturnian

Continent" beyond the Atlantic if nobody in prehistoric ages had ever seen

that continent? They said it was there and we know they were right; but

whence came their knowledge of it, and such knowledge as led them to

describe it as "larger than Asia (meaning Asia Minor), Europe and Libya

together?" This ancient belief must have been due to the fact that their

greatest navigators, the Phoenicians, had communication with America in

early prehistoric times.

The Phoenicians undoubtedly had more communication with this continent than

they had with surrounding nations with reference to it. They of all the

ancient peoples knew how to keep state secrets. They would rather _supply_

other nations with gold, silver, precious stones, tin, peacocks, ivory,

almug wood, and other commodities, than to tell whence they obtained them.

The voyages to this continent must have taken place at a very remote

period, which was imperfectly recollected and never fully revealed to other

nations.

But they must have had some vague knowledge of ancient America, as is shown

by Plutarch's mention of a "Great Saturnian Continent beyond the Cronian

Sea," meaning the Atlantic Ocean, and the fact that Solon brought from

Egypt to Athens the story of the Atlantic Island, which was not entirely

new in Greece. Humbolt tells us that Procles, an ancient Carthaginian

historian, says:

"The historians who speak of the islands of the exterior sea (the Atlantic

Ocean) tell us that in their time there were seven islands consecrated to

Proserpine, and three others, of immense extent, of which the first was

consecrated to Plato, {_sic_ Pluto?} the second to Ammon, and the third to

Neptune. The inhabitants of the latter had preserved a recollection

(transmitted to them by their ancestors) of the island Atlantis, which was

extremely large, and for a longtime held sway over all the Islands of the

Atlantic Ocean."

Diodorus Siculus, another great historian, who lived about forty years

before the Christian era, gives this account of a country which was

evidently Mexico, or Central America:

"Over against Africa lies a great island in the vast ocean, _many days sail

from Libya westward._ The soil is very fruitful. It is diversified with

mountains and pleasant vales, and the towns are adorned with stately

buildings." After describing the gardens, orchards, and fountains, he tells

how this pleasant country was discovered. He says, the Phoenicians, having

built Gades (Cadiz) in Spain, sailed along the western coast of Africa. A

Phoenician ship, voyaging down south, was "on a sudden driven by a furious

storm far into the main ocean, and, _after they had lain under this tempest

many days,_ they at last arrived at this island." There is a similar

statement in a work attributed to Aristotle, in which the discovery is

ascribed to Carthaginians, who were Phoenicians.

According to Strabo, the art of night sailing was taught in Ancient Tyre;

and the Arabians and Chinese certainly used the mariner's compass before it

was brought from China to Venice by Marco Polo in 1260.

After doubling the Cape of Good Hope, and while continuing his voyage to

India, Vasco de Gama found the Arabians on the coast of the Indian Ocean

using the mariner's compass, and vessels equal in quality to his own.

The world has always been prone to underrate the achievements of the

ancients, especially with reference to their maritime skill, but many

concede that the Phoenicians were exceptional. Their known enterprise, and

this ancient knowledge of America, so variously expressed, strongly

encourage the hypothesis that the people called Phoenicians came to this

continent, established colonies in the region where ruined cities are

found, and filled it with civilization.

It is also claimed that symbolic devices similar to those of the

Phoenicians are found in the ruins of Mexico and Central America, and that

old traditions of the natives described the first civilizers as "bearded

white men who came from the East in ships." It will be remembered that this

same tradition was communicated to Cortez by Montezuma. Therefore it is

urged that the people described in the native books and traditions as

"Colhuas" must have been Phoenicians.

If correct, this theory would be certain of demonstration for they were

preeminently a people of letters and monuments. The Phoenician alphabet is

said to be the parent of all the alphabets of Europe except the Turkish. If

they were responsible for this civilization they must have left some trace

of their language. But none has been found. Nor can any similarity be

traced in the ruins of Copan and Palanque with other ruins known to have

been erected by the Phoenicians. Therefore we can not reasonably suppose

this American civilization originated by people of the Phoenician race,

whatever may be thought of the evidence of their acquaintance with this

continent.

The most strenuous advocate of the theory that America, was first peopled

from the sunken continent of Atlantis, was Brasseur de Bourbourg. He

studied the monuments, writings and traditions left by this civilization

more than any other man; and actually learned to decipher some of the

Central American writings.

His Atlantic theory of the old American civilization is that it was

originated on a portion of this continent which is now under waters of the

Atlantic Ocean. It supposes the continent extended, anciently, from New

Granada, Central America and Mexico, in a long, irregular peninsula, so far

across the Atlantic that the Canary, Madeira, and Azores, or Western

Islands, may be remains of this portion of it. In other words, it was not a

large island or continent, as the ancients claimed, but a large peninsula

joined on to the main land at Central America.

High mountains stood where we now find the West India Islands. Beyond

these, toward Africa and Europe, was a great extent of fertile and

beautiful land, and here arose the first civilization of mankind, which

flourished many ages, until at length this extended portion of the

continent was engulfed by a tremendous convulsion of nature, or by a

succession of such convulsions, which made the ruin complete. After the

cataclysm, a part of the Atlantic people who escaped destruction settled in

Central America, where, perhaps, their civilization had been previously

introduced. The reasons urged in support of this hypothesis make it seem

possible, if not probable, to imaginative minds. Even men like Humboldt

have recognized in the original legend the possible vestige of a widely

spread tradition of earliest times. From this standpoint only can it be

seriously considered.

Plutarch, in his life of Solon, mentions the fact that while that sage was

in Egypt "he conferred with the priests of Psenophis, Sonchis, Heliopolis

and Sais, and learned from them the story of Atlantis." Brasseur de

Bourbourg cites Cousin's translation of Plato's record of this story, to

strengthen his position, as follows:

"Among the great deeds of Athens, of which recollection is preserved in our

books, there is one which should be placed above all others. Our books tell

that the Athenians destroyed an army which came across the Atlantic Sea,

and insolently invaded Europe and Asia; for this sea was then navigable,

and beyond the strait where you place the Pillars of Hercules there was an

island larger than Asia (Minor) and Libya combined. From this island one

could pass easily to the other islands, and from these to the continent

which lies around the interior sea. The sea on this side of the strait (the

Mediterranean), of which we speak, resembles a harbor with its narrow

entrance; but there is a genuine sea, and the land which surrounds it is a

veritable continent. In the Island of Atlantis reigned three kings with

great and marvelous power. They had under their dominion the whole

Atlantis, several other islands, and some parts of the continent. At one

time their power extended into Libya, and into Europe as far as Tyrrhenia:

and uniting their whole force, they sought to destroy our countries at a

blow; but their defeat stopped the invasion and gave entire independence to

all the countries on this side the Pillars of Hercules. Afterward in one

day and one fatal night, there came mighty earthquakes and inundations,

which engulfed that warlike people. Atlantis disappeared beneath the sea

and then that sea became inaccessible, so that navigation on it ceased on

account of the quantity of mud which the engulfed island left in its

place."

This invasion took place many ages before Athens was known as a Greek city.

It is referred to an extremely remote antiquity. The festival known as the

"Lesser Panathenaea," which, as symbolic devices used in it show,

commemorated this triumph over the Atlantes, is said to have been

instituted by the mythical Erichthonius in the earliest times remembered by

Athenian tradition.

Brasseur de Bourbourg also claims that there is in the old Central American

books a constant tradition of an immense catastrophe of the character

supposed; that this tradition existed everywhere among the people when they

first became known to Europeans; and that recollections of the catastrophe

were preserved in some of their festivals, especially in one celebrated in

the month of Izcalli, which was instituted to commemorate this frightful

destruction of land and people, and in which "princes and people humbled

themselves before the divinity, and besought him to withhold a return of

such terrible calamities." This tradition affirms that a part of the

continent extending into the Atlantic was destroyed in the manner supposed,

and appears to indicate that the destruction was accomplished by a

succession of frightful convulsions. Three are constantly mentioned, and

sometimes there is mention of one or two others. "The land was shaken by

frightful earthquakes, and the waves of the sea combined with volcanic

fires to overwhelm and engulf it." Each convulsion swept away portions of

the land, until the whole disappeared, leaving the line of the coast as it

is now. Most of the inhabitants, overtaken amid their regular employments,

were destroyed; but some escaped in ships, and some fled for safety to the

summits of high mountains, or to portions of the land which, for a time,

escaped immediate destruction. Quotations are made from the old books in

which this tradition is said to be recorded, verifying Abbe Brasseur's

position. But, as J. D. Baldwin says, "To criticise intelligently his

interpretation of their significance, one needs to have a knowledge of

those books and traditions equal at least to his own."

In addition to this so-called proof by the traditions of both the old and

new world, he adds this philological argument:

"The words _Atlas_ and _Atlantic_ have no satisfactory etymology in any

language known to Europe. They are not Greek, and can not be referred to

any known language of the Old World. But in the Nahnatl language we find

immediately the radical _a. atl,_ which signifies water.

"From this comes a series of words, such as _atlan,_ on the border of or

amid the water, from which we have the adjective Atlantic. A city named

_Atlan_ existed when the continent was discovered by Columbus, at the

entrance of the Gulf of Uraba, in Darien, with a good harbor; it is now

reduced to an unimportant pueblo named Aela."

We think the foregoing is a fair statement of the argument advanced by the

Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, in support of his theory. We might add that the

late Ignatius Donnelly, in his popular work, "Atlantis, the Antediluvian

World," takes much the same position, and, like the venerable Abbe, gives

free rein to his vivid imagination, and is restrained by no doubts

suggested by scientific indications.

So far from geology lending the slightest confirmation to the idea of an

engulfed Atlantis, Prof. Wyville Thompson has shown, in his "Depths of the

Sea," that while oscillations of the land have considerably modified the

boundaries of the Atlantic Ocean, the geological age of its basin dates as

far back, at least, as the later secondary period. The study of its animal

life, as revealed in dredging, strongly confirms this, disclosing an

unbroken continuity of life on the Atlantic sea-bed from the Cretaceous to

the present time; and, as Sir Charles Lyell has pointed out, in his

"Principles of Geology," the entire evidence is adverse to the idea that

the Canaries, the Madeiras, and the Azores are surviving fragments of a

vast submerged island, or continuous area of the adjacent continent. There

are, indeed, undoubted indications of volcanic action; but they furnish

evidence of local upheaval, not of the submergence of extensive continental

areas.

The leading geologists all agree that "our continents have long remained in

nearly the same relative position," and the highest authorities in science

concur in the belief that "the main features of the Atlantic basin have

undergone no change within any recent geological period."

While, therefore, this theory appeals with subtle power to the imagination,

by reason of its seductive plausibility; yet to those who attach any value

to scientific evidence, such speculations present no serious claims on

their study. On the other hand, it will be rejected without much regard to

what can be said in its favor, for it interferes with current beliefs

concerning antiquity and ancient history, and must encounter vehement

contradiction from habits of thought fixed by these beliefs.

Baldwin well says, that "Some of the uses made of this theory can not

endure criticism. For instance, when he makes it the basis of an assumption

that all the civilization of the Old World went originally from America,

and claims particularly that the supposed 'Atlantic race' created Egypt, he

goes quite beyond reach of the considerations used to give his hypothesis a

certain air of probability. It may be, as he says, that for every pyramid

in Egypt there are a thousand in Mexico and Central America, but the ruins

in Egypt and those in Central America have nothing in common. The two

countries were entirely different in their language, in their styles of

architecture, in their written characters, and in the physical

characteristics of their earliest people, as they are seen sculptured or

painted on the monuments. An Egyptian pyramid is no more the same thing as

a Mexican pyramid than a Chinese pagoda is the same thing as an English

light-house. It was not made in the same way, nor for the same uses. The

ruined monuments show, in general and in particular, that the original

civilizers in America were profoundly different from the ancient Egyptians.

The two peoples can not possibly explain each other."

With reference to this theory, from the foregoing reasons, we are compelled

to bring in the Scotch verdict, "_Not proven._"

One other theory we must notice briefly before giving what we believe to be

the true theory, which will meet the requirements.

It is claimed by certain intelligent men, of sufficient learning to know

better, that the North American Indian is indigenous to this continent, his

ancestors, or first parents, having been created here just as were Adam and

Eve in the Garden of Eden. In other words, the Western Hemisphere was

peopled from one pair and one center just as was the Eastern Hemisphere.

J. Lee Humfreville, in his "Twenty Years Among Our Savage Indians," takes

this position.

Even the distinguished naturalist, Professor Agassiz, is quoted as saying

that "The anatomical differences between the different races, and

especially those which distinguish the black and white, indicate a

diversity of origin."

It is contended by others that, "The separation of the races from each

other for unknown ages by great oceans and by formidable and almost

impassable continental barriers, opposes the probability that they are

descended from one parentage, and migrated from one spot."

If there be any logic in this theory, it is essential not only to have an

Adam and Eve in America for the Red Race, but another pair in Africa for

the Black Race, another in China for the Yellow Race, and still another in

Polynesia for the Brown. Perhaps the learned comparative anatomists (all of

whom belong to the White Race) will be gracious enough to concede that

Adam and Eve were _their first parents?_

Dr. J. L. Cabell, in his work on "The Common Parentage of the Human Race,"

gives the following very good reason why it is more rational to suppose

that the world was peopled by the progeny of a single pair radiating from

one spot, than by many miraculous creations of the ancestors of the races

placed originally in their present habitats: "Inasmuch as it has been shown

that man has the power of undergoing acclimation in every habitable quarter

of the globe, and had the means of facilitating his migration from his

original birthplace, while moreover, he is susceptible of undergoing

variations in bodily stricture, and in intellectual and moral tendencies,

which variations, once acquired, are subsequently perpetuated by descent,

_it is contrary to the observed ways of Providence to multiply miracles,

and especially the highest miracles, in order to achieve a result which was

clearly practicable by natural processes._"

Baron Humboldt, the great German scholar, has advanced an unanswerable

argument to prove the unity of the human race and their descent from one

pair. In his "Cosmos" he says: "The different races of men are forms of one

sole species. They are not different species of a genus, since in that case

their hybrid descendants would be unfruitful. But it is known that people

of every race and color, from the highest to the lowest, intermingle and

propagate descendants different from either parent."

However, it is unnecessary to go outside of the Scripture to prove the

unity of the human race. In Genesis iii:20, we read, "Adam called his

wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living." The same

thought is brought out in I. Cor. xv:22, by the declaration, "For as in

Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive." In Gen. ix:1, we

read, "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, be fruitful,

and multiply, and replenish the earth." In verse 19 of the same chapter we

read, "These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the _whole earth

overspread._" In this chapter we find a command of God touching this

question, and proof that it was literally obeyed.

In Gen. x:32, we find this statement: "These are the families of the sons

of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and by these were the

nations divided in the earth after the flood."

The argument in the New Testament is just as strong in support of the unity

of the race.

In giving the great commission Christ said "Go ye into _all the world,_

and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark xvi:15). In the seventeenth

chapter of Acts we find that Paul said on Mars' hill, "God, that made the

world and all things therein . . . _hath made of one blood all nations of

men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,_ and hath determined the

times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." In Gal.

iii:28 Paul also assures us, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is

neither bond nor free; for ye are all _one_ in Christ Jesus."

In John xvii:20-21, Christ uttered both a prayer and a prophecy sure of

fulfilment when he said: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them

also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be

_one;_ as thou Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be

_one in us._"

Since, then, the theories of a diversity of origin of the races, and that

the American Indian is indigenous to this continent, are both opposed by

the teaching of God's Word, it follows that both are wrong, and can not be

sustained.

We stand squarely by the Bible. _Men_ may come and men may go, but _God's

Word_ will endure _forever._

Having disposed of these "_theories,_" and proven that all of them are more

or less fallacious, and the last rather more than less, we are ready to

"Take up the White Man's burden," and show how the ancestors of the Red Man

got to this hemisphere, as also to account for the civilization found here.

{Illustration: Original map showing author's theory that South and Central

America were peopled by {Shemites. ? word missing in original}}

Let us go back to the Tower of Babel, or Confusion, so called because God

there confounded the language of the people, and "scattered them abroad

from thence upon the face of all the earth."

Concerning Ham, Japheth and Shem, it is written: "These are the three sons

of Noah; and of them was the whole earth overspread" (Gen. ix:19).

Broadly speaking, we find that Ham and his descendants received Africa,

Arabia, Canaan and Persia. Japheth and his descendants received Central,

Northern and Western Asia and all of Europe.

We will not follow the history of these two sons of Noah further at this

time except to say that the descendants of Ham were the first, and those of

Japheth the last to establish civilization.

As to Shem and his descendants, broadly speaking, their possessions began

with Canaan, which was taken from the Hamites and extended east and

southeast through Southern Asia, including what is now known as India,

Burmah, China, Japan, and the great ancient Malay or Polynesian Empire.

As proof that they migrated eastward, we read of the sons of Joktan, a near

descendant from Shem, "And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest

unto Sephar, _a mount of the East._"

We thus find that the general direction of the Shemites was east. As proof

that the adjacent islands were peopled at this early age, Josephus says, in

his "Antiquities of the Jews," chap. v., "After this they were dispersed

abroad on account of the difference of their languages, and went out by

colonies everywhere, and each colony took possession of that land unto

which God led them, so that the whole continent was filled with them, both

the inland and maritime countries. There were some also who passed over the

sea in _ships,_ and inhabited _the islands;_ and some of those nations

still retain the denominations which were given them by their first

founders, but some have lost them, and some have only admitted certain

changes in them, that they might be more intelligible to the inhabitants."

There can be but one meaning to this language. It is that the Hamites

extended their settlements to the islands adjacent to Africa, such as

Madagascar and the Cape Verde Islands. The Japhethites extended their

settlements to those adjacent to Europe, such as the British Islands, and

the Shemites extended their settlements to those islands they found east

and southeast from Asia, which were beyond a doubt what afterward became

the Malay or Polynesian Empire.

This empire was described by El-Masudi, who wrote in the tenth century. He

represented it as lying between the dominions of India and China, and as an

empire whose splendor and high civilization were greatly celebrated; and he

says: "The population, and the number of the troops of this kingdom, can

not be counted, and the islands under the sceptre of its monarch (the

Mahrajh, the Lord of the Sixth Sea) are so numerous that the fastest

sailing-vessel is not able to go round them in two years."

We find this empire was referred to by Ptolemy and Marco Polo, the great

Venetian traveler, who visited it. They called it Ja-ba-din. It included

the peninsula of Malacca, Aracan, Chittagong, the country of the Lower

Ganges, the coast of Coromandel, the Island of Borneo, one of the largest

in the world, Celebes, Java and Sumatra, and all others between Australia

and Eastern Asia. Traces of the colonies and ancient commercial power of

the Malays are found in the Indian Ocean, the Isles of Bourbon and

Mauritius in the Southern Hemisphere, whose aborigines are of Malayan

descent. Moreover, the descendants of the Malays, with much of their

language, and traces of their ancient civilization, are found on all the

larger islands between Asia and this hemisphere, as also the western part

of South America.

Pickering, the learned ethnologist of the United States Exploring

Expedition, commanded by Lieutenant Wilkes, during a three-years' voyage,

who had an excellent opportunity for comparing the different races of the

Pacific Ocean and the opposite shores of the continents separated by it,

thinks that all the copper-colored aborigines of North and South America

are of Mongolian descent except the Esquimaux (who seem to be of the same

race with the Northern Asiatics), and the aboriginal Peruvians and

Chilians, whom he supposes to be of Malayan extraction; and he has made

that distribution of them upon the ethnographical chart published with the

maps of the report of the expedition. His opinion is entitled to great

respect, and is substantially the same as that of the celebrated

missionary, Williams, who, after spending thirty years among the tropical

islands of the Pacific Ocean, was massacred by the savages of one lately

discovered.

He was a devoted Christian hero, a splendid scholar, and was deeply

interested in natural science. He published an account of his researches

and life in the Pacific in a work known as "The Missionary Enterprise," in

which he proved conclusively that all the copper-colored occupants of the

Sandwich, Society and Friendly Isles, and, indeed, all the other groups of

that ocean, and also the Quichuas, or Incas Indians of Peru, are of Malayan

origin. Their complexion and anatomical traits are the same; and their

languages are all dialects of those of Malacca, as he has proved by placing

a sufficient number of common words from each of their tongues in parallel

columns. The Malays, and their kindred in these clusters of isles, are, as

their ancestors were in past ages, as nautical in their habits as the

ancient Phoenicians or the Northmen.

As Prof. Edward Fontaine well says in his great work, "How the World Was

Peopled," "The settlement of the islands of the Pacific, and even of the

western shores of South America, was not only an easy task to the nautical

Malays of the empire of 'the islands of the sixth sea,' but, in some cases,

an unavoidable consequence of their adventurous life upon the ocean. The

strong and regular winds which blow across the Pacific facilitate the

voyages of all who attempt its passage. The inhabitants of it use now, as

they have done from time immemorial, vessels admirably adapted to its

navigation. They still send 'ambassadors in vessels of bulrushes upon the

waters.' {FN} Their double canoes, made of the hollowed trunks of trees

strongly lashed together, and furnished with what are termed 'outriggers,'

formed of light and buoyant logs of bamboo attached to their gunwales, and

projected a considerable distance beyond their sides, can not be capsized.

The _bamboo_ is the _Arundo giganteus_ (the gigantic bulrush); and, when

the boat is rolled by the waves from side to side, these outriggers rest

upon them and prevent it from turning over. They are dexterous anglers and

expert swimmers. The feat of Leander, in swimming across the Hellespont, is

often outdone by the almost amphibious natives of the Polynesian isles.

Embarked with their families in their double canoes, and supplied with

their calabashes (large, strong gourds of water), and angling and fowling

implements, they live upon the ocean's breast, which affords ample

nourishment for all their simple wants. The copious showers, which fall

during the prevalence of the monsoons (winds which blow six months in one

direction, and the other six in the opposite), furnish them with an

abundant supply of water. So free is that ocean from storms that it has

acquired the name it bears, the Pacific. Far out of sight of land, they are

in no great danger of any accident, except that of losing their reckoning.

They are very liable to this misfortune from the want of a compass, a

knowledge which their ancestors probably possessed, but which they have

lost. If they miss their course, which often happens, their lives are not

much imperiled, but it is then almost impossible for them to regain their

native isles. They can live upon the fish, aquatic fowl, eggs, coconuts

and other food afforded by the surface of the deep, and drift before the

gale until it wafts them to America, or to some island west of its shores."

* * * * *

{FN} Isaiah xviii,2.

In this manner South America undoubtedly received her largest, earliest and

most civilized population. They were of the _Shemitic_ branch of the human

family, _Malay Polynesian division,_ and reached the shores of Chile and

Peru, by way of _the islands of the Pacific._ We have shown by quotations

from the Bible and Josephus that one branch of the descendants of Shem

journeyed east, took to ships and settled the adjacent islands of the sea.

Now these people must have had some knowledge of ship-building and

navigation. Had not their ancestors been saved in the ark? {FN} And were

not the Hamites, or Phoenicians, becoming a great maritime people possibly

at this very period, on the shores of the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean?

* * * * *

{FN} A ship recently constructed on the plan of the ark has proven a

perfect success as a vessel for heavy freight.

So we have proven that they actually started across the Pacific Ocean not

many centuries after the dispersion at Babel. Is it not the most reasonable

and probable conclusion that since the western shore of the Pacific was

their place of embarkation, and eastward their direction (and we have

certainly proven these two points), that America would eventually be their

_goal_ or _destination?_

God had told the descendants of Noah to "Multiply and replenish the earth";

they at first refused to obey his command, whereupon He determined to make

them obey, and, as we have seen, confounded their language and dispersed

them. Now is it reasonable that He would have been satisfied with a partial

obedience, resulting only in the peopling of a few islands of the Pacific,

when the boundless continent of America lay upon its other shore? Can any

reasonable man believe that those ancient mariners, propelled by the power

of Omnipotence in fulfilment of His command, and with the known spirit of

restlessness and discontent which has characterized the progressive men of

all ages, could discover a few islands lying in the direction they were

sailing, but fail to eventually find a _vast hemisphere_ lying in the same

course and extending through four of the zones of the earth?

We submit that in drifting before the wind, or even in a voyage of

discovery, many islands lying almost in the wake of the ship might be

passed at night without discovery, but it is absolutely impossible to pass

a continent without seeing it and touching it at some point.

Men find islands peopled and evidence of a former civilization which the

inhabitants can give no account of, and it excites little or no interest,

but if a continent is discovered with civilized people, and evidence of a

greater civilization in its past history, they at once get excited and

begin to evolve a fine-spun theory out of the thin air, and charge it all

up to the Phoenicians, lost ten tribes of Israel, the inhabitants of the

sunken continent of Atlantis, or that God created another Adam and Eve,

from whom the people of this continent had their origin. In the classic

language of Puck, "What fools these mortals be." They can people the

islands of the Pacific without another Adam and Eve, or the aid of the

Phoenicians, but if it is a continent under consideration, it is

impossible. Why not, in the study of ethnology and history, follow the

leading of facts, rather than force the facts to prove a pet theory?

Besides the ancient evidence given, there is much modern proof that South

America, at least, was first settled by the Malays from Polynesia.

Captain Cook found at Watteoo three natives of Otaheite, who had lost their

ocean-path and had been blown away 550 miles from the land of their birth.

Kotzebue found on one of the Caroline isles a native of Ulea, who had been

driven by the wind, after a voyage of eight months, to this spot, which is

fifteen hundred miles from his native isle. He and his companions had

performed this remarkable voyage in an open single canoe with outriggers.

Numerous similar involuntary exploits of this maritime race are related. A

singular case is mentioned in the official narrative of the Japan

Expedition, conducted by Commodore Perry. On his return voyage, in the open

west Pacific Ocean, he took on board a boat-load of twelve savages, who

called themselves Sillibaboos. They could give no intelligible idea of the

island from whence they came, and which has not been discovered. They were

lost and were drifting before the wind, they knew not where, and had been

wandering upon the unknown waters many days; but they were in good

condition, and supporting themselves well upon the produce of the prolific

ocean which swelled around them. Amid the numerous clusters of islands

which gem its bosom, they would probably have soon found a new home.

One of the most remarkable voyages recorded of modern times was that of

Captain Bligh and his companions. It seems that the worthy captain of the

good ship-of-war Bounty was sent by the British Government in 1787, to

transplant the bread-fruit and other esculents, indigenous to the tropical

islands of the Pacific, to Jamaica, and other islands of the West Indies

belonging to Great Britain. He remained more than a year in Otaheite,

completed his cargo of seeds and plants and set sail for Jamaica. But while

they were yet in sight of the island, a majority of the crew, headed by

Lieutenant Christian, mutinied and seized the ship. Captain Bligh and

twenty men who were faithful to him were put in an open boat only

twenty-five feet long. Only five days' rations of wine, water, bread and

pork were thrown into it with them. They had a compass, but no weapons,

mast or sail and the gunwales rose only a few inches above the surface of

the water. In this frail craft they were turned adrift to perish upon the

ocean. The mutineers doubtless thought that they would be sunk by the first

storm that might arise or be massacred by the first savages they might

meet. These desperate mutineers were incited to commit this crime by an

aversion to leave the lazy life they had led the past year with the

amiable and profligate natives of Otaheite, among whom they had formed

attachments, and an unwillingness to resume the hardships of sailors under

the strict discipline of Captain Bligh. This officer proved himself a hero,

able to meet successfully the dangers of his desperate situation, and to

triumph over them by his skill and courage, and lived to be promoted to the

rank of admiral, under Lord Nelson, for services at the battle of

Copenhagen. With a pair of apothecary's scales he divided the scant

provisions of five days to make them last for _fifty_ in which he hoped to

reach the Philippine Islands, or Java, nearly four thousand miles distant.

Favored by the monsoon, which blew steadily from the east (six months later

it would have blown in the opposite course), in the direction of those

islands, by stormless showers, by alternate rowing, bailing and resting the

crew, by his persevering watchfulness, and their implicit obedience to his

judicious orders, he accomplished in that time this almost miraculous

voyage, with the loss of only one man, who was killed by the savages of an

unknown island lying in his course, with whom he attempted to barter for

supplies.

Remember this successful voyage of nearly four thousand miles (farther than

across the Atlantic Ocean) from the Society Islands to Timour, was made in

fifty days. Moreover, it was made in an open boat, inferior to those

mentioned by Homer and Virgil, or to any sculptured upon the monuments of

Egypt and Assyria, and with only the tenth part of the provisions necessary

for such an enterprise. This voyage shows that the Malays or the Arabians

could have accomplished a similar feat of nautical skill in past ages.

Again we are indebted to Prof. Edward Fontaine for this remarkable story.

Should the reader care to follow the fortunes of Christian and his fellow

mutineers he will find the entire account in the sixth chapter of "How the

World Was Peopled."

The Malay empire began to decline about the tenth century, when their

continental possessions were taken from them by the Tartar Khans,

Mohammedan sultans and rajahs, who founded new dynasties in China, Farther

India and Hindostan. They also lost their distant island colonies, and

their civilization waned in Asia. Myriads of them, dwelling upon the

islands near that continent, degenerated into the fierce and daring pirates

who were so long the terror of the Eastern seas. Others, more remote, lost

even the use of the compass, and sank into the condition of the Sandwich

and Society Islanders; while those in Peru, separated long from their

Asiatic mother-country, and thrown on their own resources, established and

maintained an _original_ civilization which amazed their Spanish

conquerors.

There is evidence of ancient civilization in the ruins found on many of the

larger islands of the Pacific Ocean, especially the Society, Friendly,

Easter and Sandwich groups, but these ruins are essentially different from

anything found in America.

It has been proven conclusively that the ancient Malayan empire was

maritime and commercial; it had fleets of great ships, and there is

evidence that its influence reached most of the Pacific islands. This is

shown by the fact that dialects of the Malay language have been found in

most of these islands as far in this direction as Easter Island. The

language of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islanders, for instance, is Malayan,

and has a close relationship to that now spoken in the Malay islands.

The Malays still read and write, have some literature and retain many of

the arts and usages of civilization, but they are now very far below the

condition indicated by their ancient ruins, and described by El Masudi, who

traveled among them a thousand years ago.

It is practically certain that their ships visited the western coast of

America, and traded with the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians in the days of

their greatest power and activity. This theory amounts almost to a

certainty when it is remembered that the Malays made such a permanent

settlement of the Easter Islands as to leave their language there.

According to old traditions of both Mexico and Peru, the Pacific coast in

both countries was anciently visited by a foreign people, who came in

ships. The unmistakable traces of Malay influence everywhere in the islands

of the Pacific can have but one meaning. The Malays formerly sailed the

ocean, occupied its islands and doubtless visited America.

The Abbé de Bourbourg is responsible for the statement that "It has been

known to scholars nearly a century, that the Chinese and Japanese were

acquainted with the American continent in the fifth century of our era.

Their ships visited it. They called it Fu-Sang, and said it was situated at

the distance of twenty thousand _li_ from Ta-Han. M. Leon de Rosny has

ascertained that Fu-Sang is the topic of a curious notice in the

'Wa-Kan-San-tai-dzon-ye,' which is the name of the great Japanese

Encyclopedia. In that work Fu-Sang is said to be situated east of Japan,

beyond the ocean, at a distance of about twenty thousand _li_ (between

seven and eight thousand miles) from Ta-nan-Kouek. Readers who may desire

to make comparisons between the Japanese descriptions of Fu-Sang and some

country in America, will find astonishing analogies in the countries

described by Castaneda, Fra-Marcos de Niza, in the province of Cibola." In

Peru, in the time of Pizarro, the oldest and most enduring stone structures

were said to have been built by "bearded white men," who came from the

_west_ and were called "sons of the sea." They were probably Malays or

Arabians.

This is the only evidence we have found of an imported civilization in

Peru, and this is more legend and tradition than positive history.

We are firmly convinced that civilization or self-improvement began among

the savages of America, probably Peru, as it did three thousand years or

more ago among the savages of Egypt and Babylon. We believe that the

civilization found in America originated _here_ and nowhere else. It is

neither an importation nor imitation of anything else on earth. As a recent

explorer of the ruins of Peru, Central America and Mexico well says, "The

American monuments are different from those of any other known people, of

a new order, and entirely and absolutely anomalous; they stand alone."

It is quite probable that, having been established in Peru, civilization

gradually drifted north to Central America and Mexico. Certain it is the

Spaniards first heard of the wealth of the Incas from the people inhabiting

the isthmus and the region north of it.

We purpose, however, only to show _how_ the aborigines and civilization got

to America, not how they spread over the land, and our conclusions are that

the first inhabitants came through the Pacific Islands from southeastern

Asia and landed in South America at least three thousand years ago, and

there established an original civilization, perhaps only a few centuries

later than Egypt or Babylonia. Many other peoples, including the

Phoenicians, must have visited the eastern shore of America since, but they

found a high degree of civilization _already established._ All these

seafaring people could possibly do was to augment, or suggest improvements

to the civilization they found here, or else do as the foolish and wicked

Spaniards, destroy it.

{Illustration: Japanese man in the garb of a Ukiah (Alaska) Indian.}

So much for the primeval settlement and civilization of South and Central

America, but what about the aborigines of the Northern Continent?

Again we will go back to the dispersion of mankind at Babel. We have seen

that of the three sons of Noah, the descendants of Japheth peopled the

greater portion of Asia, including the northern and northeastern sections.

And the Japhethites were the last to establish a civilization, though they

are to-day the most civilized people on earth. From this branch of the

family of Noah came the Mongolians, Tartars and Scythians, those rude

barbarians who spread over the steppes of northern Asia. These nomadic

people were constantly waging war with each other, and weak tribes often

fled before the devastating approach of a stronger to escape destruction.

In this manner the vast continent of Asia was gradually traversed until

pursued and pursuers reached the extreme limits of the peninsula of

Kamtchatka.

Occasionally a multitude of their tribes, dwelling as cultivators of the

earth, or migrating in hordes over the grassy steppes of Asia, have been

united under the sway of such conquerors as Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. At

one time 1,400,000 horsemen marched under the banner of the latter, who

boasted that the grass would never grow again in the tracks made by the

withering march of his squadrons.

Gibbon, in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," informs us that the

hosts of warlike nomads from western Asia, who overran the Roman Empire,

were generally Tartar tribes with different names, flying from the

invasions of great conquerors who were devastating the central regions of

that vast continent, and whose revolutions were only made known to Europe

by the swarms of barbarians poured upon her borders, who were escaping from

their enemies.

Their weaker enemies had to save themselves by a prompt and abject

submission, or by a precipitate flight to regions far beyond their reach.

To escape such dangers many of them at different times doubtless crossed

the Aleutian Archipelago and Behring's Strait, as the modern Asiatics in

Kamtchatka yet do, to North America.

Having reached their destination on the further shore, they would naturally

tend toward the South and Southeast, attracted by a climate continually

improving in mildness, and a country more fertile and abounding in wild

fruit and game, the farther south they proceeded. They seem to have

followed one another in different centuries; and those who first found

their way to the valleys of the Ohio and lower Mississippi, and to Mexico,

came in contact with other races from southeastern Asia, who had preceded

them long enough to establish a civilization.

In this manner was the continent of North America peopled, because the

Esquimaux or "eaters of raw flesh," for this is the meaning of the word,

came also from the extreme northern portion of Asia, having been expelled

by their more warlike neighbors, who seemed to have literally wanted them

to "get off the earth," for they were dwelling then, as they do now, on the

extreme northern edge of it.

Either through choice, or from fear of the red Indians, the Esquimaux

spread out along the coast of the Arctic Ocean until their habitat extended

from the shores of eastern Greenland to Asia, a length of more than three

thousand miles though only a few leagues in breadth. The Esquimaux are a

curious and interesting people. They are, moreover, very ingenious and

courageous, or they could not subsist in that inhospitable and treeless

region of "icy mountains." {FN} They have a swarthy appearance because of

their habit of greasing, and never washing their faces; but when once this

filth is scrubbed off it is found that they are white, rather than

copper-colored, and entirely unlike the North American Indians, being also

very short and stout, but fully equal to them in strength and superior in

some respects, for while the North American Indians had no domestic animals

or beasts of burden when discovered, the Esquimaux had domesticated the

reindeer and arctic dog, and yoked them to his sled.

* * * * *

{FN} The author once heard Miss Olof Krarer, "The Little Esquimaux Lady,"

living then at Ottawa, Illinois, whose age at the time was thirty-eight

years; height, 40 inches; weight, 120 pounds. She had been well educated,

and her lecture about the manners and customs of her people was intensely

interesting. She was born in Greenland, but crossed with her family to

Iceland in sledges.

We will now give other evidence in support of our theory. It should be of

some significance that the traditions of many of the North American savages

point to the Northwest as the direction whence their ancestors migrated

originally.

Cuvier, the great naturalist, and the greatest of all comparative

anatomists, classifies the whole human race into only three varieties, the

white, black and yellow. This is certainly the most simple and correct. He

includes the whole of the aboriginal races of the American Continent in the

same class to which he assigns the Chinese, Japanese, Mongols and Malays.

He could find nothing to distinguish our American aborigines from these

Asiatics, except a greater average projection of the nose, and somewhat

larger eyes. He is evidently correct in placing them all in one class--_the

yellow race._ He asserts that if a congregation of twelve representatives

from Malacca, China, Japan, Mongolia and the unmixed natives of the

Sandwich Islands, the pure-blooded Chilian, Peruvian and Brazilian Indians,

and others selected from the unmixed Chickasaws, Comanches, or any other

North American tribes, were all assembled, and dressed in the same costume,

or exhibited undressed and unshaven, that the most skilful painter or the

most practised anatomist, judging from their appearance only, could not

separate them into their different nationalities. He would decide that they

were all the same people, and men of one type.

Another evidence of the Tartar origin of the North American Indian is the

universal practice of scalping their enemies, which bloody custom was

observed by their ancestors, the Scythians, whose ancient dominion embraced

all Russia in Asia, and even extended into Europe. Their complexion,

straight black hair, scant beards, black eyes and general appearance,

identify them with the Asiatic yellow race of Cuvier.

The great majority of the aboriginal tribes of North America prove their

descent from the Scythians of northeastern Mongolia, by their anatomical

marks, as we have seen, their manners, customs and superstitions, as

strongly as their relations, the modern Japanese, Chinese and Tartars. They

show substantially the same color, and high cheek-bones. They exhibit the

same fondness for narcotics and stimulants, substituting indigenous plants,

like the tobacco, and coca, for the betel-nut, hemp and poppy. Their

wandering habits, the use of the bow, the wearing of the scalp-lock,

represented by the long, plaited cue of the Chinese, and cultivated by all

the warriors of the most savage and warlike of the North American tribes,

and observed by no nation of antiquity except the Scythians; the common

belief among them all, that all material things, whether men, animals, or

weapons, have souls or spiritual counterparts, in the invisible and eternal

world; the worship of the spirits of their ancestors, and many other

strongly marked peculiarities, identify all the branches of this yellow

race as blood relations and the descendants of the Scythians.

The great German scholar, Oscar Peschel, in his work called "The Races of

Man," says: "It is not impossible that the first migrations took place at a

time when what is now the channel of Behring's Strait was occupied by an

isthmus. The climate of those northern shores must then have been much

milder than at the present day, for no currents from the Frozen Ocean could

have penetrated into the Pacific. That the severance of Asia from America

was, geologically speaking, very recent, is shown by the fact that not only

the strait, but the sea which bears the name of Behring is _extraordinarily

shallow,_ so much so indeed that whalers lie at anchor in the middle of

it."

Sir Daniel Wilson, LL.D., F.R.S.E., president of the University of Toronto,

says, in "The Lost Atlantis," "The present soundings of Behring's Strait,

and the bed of the sea extending southward to the Aleutian Islands,

entirely accord with the assumption of a former continuity of land between

Asia and America." But it is always dangerous to rely on geological events,

which themselves require more accurate proof. We therefore prefer to assume

that at the time at which the Asiatics passed over into America, Behring's

Strait already possessed its present character. In this connection it is

worth remembering that the first question asked by Gauss, the great German

mathematician, of Adalbert von Chamisso, the circumnavigator, at Berlin, in

1828, was whether the coast of America was visible from any point in Asia;

in such a way that the two continents might be connected by a triangle?

Chamisso was able to answer this query in the affirmative, so that no

accidental discovery need be supposed, for the Asiatics of Behring's

Strait, when they crossed over to America, saw their goal before their

eyes.

Lest it should be thought strange that people who were still without

adequate means of protection could have continued to exist in a climate so

severe, we will quote from George Steller, who states that children of the

North are more comfortable in severe weather than in a milder temperature.

"When, in winter mornings," he wrote, "I was freezing under my feather-bed

and fur coverlets, I saw the Itelmes, and even their little children, lying

in their _kuklanka_ naked and bare halfway down the chest, without

coverlets or feather-beds, and yet were warmer to the touch than I was." In

another place he adds that the Kamtskadals always place a large vessel

filled with water, which they cool with pieces of ice, by their side at

night, and drain this to the last drop before the break of day.

This shows that the rigid climate would not impede a migration from Asia

to America. In fact, as Peschel assures us, "Trade has always been carried

on between the Behring's Strait nations of Asia and America. The Tshuktshi

pass over to Diomede's Island, and the Malemutes cross from the extreme

northwesterly point of America to exchange reindeer hides for furs. The

trade is so brisk that the clothing of the natives several hundred miles up

the Yukon River consists of Asiatic skins obtained from the Tshuktshi."

George Steller states that, "the inhabitants of Choumagin Islands, on the

coast of Alaska, are as like the Itelmes of Kamtchatka as one egg is to

another."

When the exploring expedition sent out by the Empress of Russia (Catherine)

made their report it was stated that the narrow sea which divides

Kamtchatka from Alaska is full of islands, and that the distance from a

promontory at the eastern extremity of Asia, and the coast of America, is

not more than two degrees and a half of a great circle. The report further

stated that there is the greatest reason to suppose that Asia and America

once joined at this place, as the coasts of both continents appear to have

been broken into capes and bays, which answer each other. Moreover, the

inhabitants of both sides resemble each other in their persons, habits,

customs, food and language. It is also added that the boats of the

inhabitants of each coast are very similar. And when they found that the

natives on the American side pointed across to the opposite shore as the

source whence their ancestors came, they considered that it amounted to

little less than a demonstration that North America was peopled from this

part of Asia.

After we had reached our conclusions, we were gratified to find that

Ridpath, the greatest historian of recent years, takes substantially the

same position. In his great work on "The Races of Mankind," he says:

"There is hardly any longer doubt as to the ethnic relationship of these

races and their connection with the peoples of Asia and Polynesia. The

testimony of many sciences--linguistics, archeology, traditions, and

especially ethnology proper--points uniformly to the Asiatic and Pacific

derivation of the ancestors of those widely distributed races extending

northward and southward from the Arctic archipelago to the Strait of

Magellan, and westward and eastward from the Alaskan peninsula to

Pernambuco.

"By common consent the ethnic history of our American continents should

begin from the _West._ It is evident that the American Mongoloids--for so

we may designate the aboriginal nations of the New World--are connected by

race affinity and descent with the Asiatic and Polynesian Mongoloids.

"The routes by which they came were two or, at the most, four: The one by

way of Polynesia; the other, Siberia. The first, or Polynesian line, seems

to have divided, sending one branch through lower Polynesia against the

central western coast of South America, while the upper or western branch

was directed by way of the Sandwich Islands to Mexico and Central America.

The second, or Siberian route (many centuries later), one branch appears to

have gone by way of Behring's Strait, and the other through the Aleutian

Islands." In this manner, we believe South America was peopled in remote

antiquity by the Malays of Polynesia, and North America by rude barbarians

from northeastern Asia. We do not assume that all the aborigines of the two

continents came in this way. But for the many unanswerable reasons given,

we do believe that the earliest, most numerous and probably most disposed

to civilization, came in this manner to South and Central America, where

they established an original civilization; and that the most numerous, but

also the latest and most barbarous aborigines of North America came from

northeastern Asia.

Having become established in America, they gradually spread from west to

east until they reached the Atlantic coast. Here in time they came in

contact with a few representatives of other races from Europe, Western Asia

and Africa, who, at various times and at different points, reached the

eastern shore. But the few were absorbed by the larger population, with

little visible result save to augment their numbers, give variety to the

physiognomy of certain tribes, and perhaps modify the civilization where it

existed.

We know of at least two modern instances of voyages having been made from

Europe to America, and there were doubtless others of prehistoric times. We

refer now to the discovery of America by Herjulfson in A. D. 986, who was

driven in sight of Newfoundland or Labrador while sailing from Iceland to

Greenland. Fourteen years later, the actual discovery of America was made

by Lief Erickson, who sailed from Greenland and reached Labrador in the

spring of the year 1001. After landing and making explorations, he and his

companions continued along the coast southward until they reached

Massachusetts, Rhode Island and possibly New York harbor. Other Norsemen

afterward reached America, but they made no permanent settlements, planted

no colonies, and kept their knowledge of the new continent a state secret.

The other instance of a pre-Columbian voyage to America is that of the

Welsh prince, Modoc or Madog, which is told in the old Welsh books as

follows:

About the year 1168 or 1169 A. D., Owen Gwyneeld, ruling prince of North

Wales, died, and among his sons there was a contest for the succession,

which produced a civil war. His son Madog, who had "command of the fleet,"

took no part in this strife. Greatly disturbed by the public trouble, and

unable to reconcile his two brothers, he resolved to leave Wales and go

across the ocean to the new land at the west, of which he had probably

heard through the Irish or Norse navigators. Accordingly, in the year 1170

A. D., he left with a few ships, going south of Ireland, and sailing

westward. The object of this voyage was to explore the western land and

select a place for settlement. He found a pleasant and fertile region,

where his settlement was established. Leaving one hundred and twenty

persons, he returned to Wales, prepared ten ships, induced a large company,

some of whom were Irish, to join him, and sailed again to America. Nothing

more was ever heard in Wales of Prince Madog or his settlement.

It is supposed that Madog settled somewhere in the Carolinas, and that his

colony, unsupported by new arrivals from Europe, and cut off from

communication with that side of the ocean, became weak, and, after being

much reduced, was destroyed or absorbed by some powerful Indian tribe. In

our colonial times, and after, there was no lack of reports that relics of

Madog's Welshmen, and even their language, had been discovered among the

Indians; but generally they were entitled to no credit. The report of Rev.

Morgan Jones, made in 1686, and published in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for

the year 1740, is quoted by Baldwin in his "Ancient America," as follows:

"These presents certify all persons whatever, that in the year 1660, being

an inhabitant of Virginia, and chaplain to Major-General Bennet, of

Mansoman County, the said Major-General Bennet and Sir William Berkley sent

two ships to Port Royal, now called South Carolina, which is sixty leagues

southward of Cape Fear, and I was sent therewith to be their minister. Upon

the 8th of April we set out from Virginia and arrived at the harbor's mouth

of Port Royal the 19th of the same month, where we waited for the rest of

the fleet that was to sail from Barbadoes with one Mr. West, who was to be

deputy governor of said place. As soon as the fleet came in, the smallest

vessels that were with us sailed up the river to a place called Oyster

Point; there I continued about eight months. At last, being almost starved

for want of provisions, I and five others traveled through the wilderness

till we came to the Tuscarora country.

"There the Tuscarora Indians took us prisoners, because we told them we

were bound to Roanock. That night they carried us to their town and shut us

up close, to our no small dread. The next day they entered into a

consultation about us, and, after it was over, their interpreter told us

that we must prepare ourselves to die next morning, whereupon, being very

much dejected, I spoke to this effect in the Welsh tongue: 'Have I escaped

so many dangers, and must I now be knocked on the head like a dog!' Then

presently came an Indian to me, which afterward appeared to be a war

captain belonging to the sachem of the Doegs (whose original, I find, must

needs be from the Old Britons), and took me up by the middle, and told me

in the British (Welsh) tongue I should not die, and thereupon went to the

Emperor of Tuscarora, and agreed for my ransom and the men that were with

me.

"They (the Doegs) then welcomed us to their town, and entertained us very

civilly and cordially four months, during which time I had the opportunity

of conversing with them familiarly in the British (Welsh) language, and did

preach to them in the same language three times a week, and they would

confer with me about anything that was difficult therein, and at our

departure they abundantly supplied us with whatever was necessary to our

support and well doing. They are settled upon Pontigo River, not far from

Cape Atros. This is a brief recital of my travels among the Doeg Indians.

"Morgan Jones,

The son of John Jones, of Basateg, near Newport, in the County of

Monmouth. I am ready to conduct any Welshmen or others to the country.

New York. March 10th, 1686."

Baldwin says, "other accounts of his 'travels' among the 'Doegs' of the

Tuscarora nation were published much earlier, but no other has been

preserved. His veracity was never questioned. What shall be said of his

statement? Were the remains of Prince Madog's company represented in these

'Doeg' Tuscaroras? He is very explicit in regard to the matter of language,

and it is not easy to see how he could be mistaken. They understood his

Welsh, not without needing explanation of some things, 'difficult therein.'

He was able to converse with them and preach to them in Welsh; and yet, if

he got an explanation of the existence of the Welsh language among these

'Doegs,' or sought to know anything in regard to their traditional history,

he omits entirely to say so. Without meaning to doubt his veracity, one can

only regret that he did not give a more intelligent and complete account of

these 'travels.'"

{Illustration: Ukiah (Alaska) Indian in the garb of a Japanese.}

It may be remembered that in the early colonial times, the Tuscaroras were

sometimes called "White Indians." Fontaine adds the following facts, which

may be regarded as an imperfect continuation of the history of this Welsh

colony, whose lost annals can never be completely restored:

"The tribe of Mandan Indians was discovered by Lewis and Clarke on the

Upper Missouri, during their expedition to discover the sources of the

Missouri and Columbia rivers, sent to perform that perilous duty under the

presidency of Mr. Jefferson, and which embraced the years 1805-1807. They

spent the winter of 1805-6 among these Indians, but did not learn their

traditions. To the astonishment of Lewis and Clarke many of these savages

had blue eyes, and their hair was generally silky and very abundant, and,

except red and auburn, of all the colors which distinguish the tresses of

the various inhabitants of England and Wales. The ethnological problem

presented by their peculiarities was, I think, solved satisfactorily by

George Catlin, the painter, who visited them and spent some months with

them in 1832. He understood Welsh, and found in their language _fifty pure

Welsh_ words, one hundred and thirty nearly so, and many others of Welsh

derivation. They used a circle of stones in the construction of the hearths

of their huts; they preserved the art of making _the Welsh blue beads;_ and

they navigated the Missouri River in a canoe, like the Welsh _coracle,_

made of willow limbs and rawhide of a peculiar construction, and used

nowhere in the world except in Wales. It was _a tub pulled,_ instead of

being _propelled,_ by a paddle. Their tradition was, that their ancestors

came across the 'great water' from the East; while other tribes of the

United States point to the Northwest as the direction from which they

migrated. Catlin verified the correctness of their tradition as having come

from the East, down the Ohio, and up the Missouri, by tracing the ruins of

their huts, easily recognized by the Welsh hearthstones, up the Ohio River,

as far as he examined it. This interesting tribe, he tells us, was nearly

exterminated by the smallpox in 1837; and their destruction, as a separate

clan, was completed soon afterward, when they were vanquished by their

inveterate enemies, the Rickarees, and their remnant became incorporated

with that tribe.

"The Tuscaroras inhabited the banks of the Yadkin, and other rivers of the

northwestern parts of North Carolina, whose waters interlock with those of

Green River, and other tributaries of New River, the principal branch of

the Great Kanawha, which empties into the Ohio. The great forests of these

regions abounded in game, and many of their valleys, and the

mountain-plateaus separating them, still afford excellent hunting-grounds.

The migration of these Welsh Indians up the Yadkin, and down the Ararat,

Green, New and Kanawha rivers to the Ohio, was easily accomplished; and

this, I think, was their route to the Missouri. Connecting these facts and

examining them properly led to the conclusion of Catlin, that _the Mandans

are the descendants of Madog and his followers,_ mixed with various Indian

tribes."

During the reign of Charles II., a book known as "The Turkish Spy," was

written by an Italian, John Paul Marana, who was at one time in the service

of the Sultan of Turkey. This book was published in London, in 1734, and

gives an interesting account of the condition of affairs of the kingdoms of

western Europe. Speaking of the British possessions in North America, he

says: "There is a region of that continent inhabited by a people whom they

call Tuscoards and Doegs. Their language is the same spoken by the British

or Welsh; and these Tuscoards and Doegs are thought to be descended from

them."

But it might be asked how is it these Indians are called Tuscaroras or

Tuscoards, and Doegs in North Carolina, and Mandans on the upper Missouri?

Catlin has given an ingenious and plausible explanation of this change of

name. He says Mandan is the name of the _Woodroof,_ or Welsh madder, used

for dying red, and he thinks the Welsh gave the name Mandan to these

Indians on account of the beautiful red they used in dying the

porcupine-quills. It is claimed by some writers that the Cherokees, who

were neighbors to the Tuscaroras, and the most intelligent and predisposed

to civilization of all the North American tribes, had also a fusion of

Welsh blood, but the evidence is not so complete as that of the Tuscaroras

and Mandans.

With reference to the mounds and mound builders there have been many

learned but unreasonable theories advanced which have resulted only in

"confusion worst confounded." We have reached a conclusion, and have since

been gratified to find that two among the clearest and most reasonable

writers on this subject, practically indorse our position in almost every

detail. We refer now to J. H. Beadle, in his great work, "The Undeveloped

West"; and J. D. Baldwin, in "Ancient America." The general term "Mound

Builders" is applied to a people who have left evidence of extensive works

in various parts of the United States, especially in the vicinity of the

Mississippi and Ohio rivers and their tributaries. These are of three

kinds: mounds, square and circular enclosures, and raised embankments of

various forms. Unlike all the mounds in Mexico, Central and South America,

those in our country have no trace of buildings on them. Why? We will let

J. W. Beadle answer this question. Said he, "Until I visited Arizona I had

no answer. There the solution was easy. In those regions stone was

abundant and timber was scarce here the reverse was the case. Our

predecessors built of wood, the others of stone; the works of the latter

remain to this day, while wooden buildings would leave no trace after one

or two centuries, if indeed they were not burned by the savages as soon as

abandoned."

From what is seen in the Southern and Western States antiquarians have

reached the following conclusions: 1. The so-called Mound Builders were no

wandering and feeble tribes, but constituted a large population under one

central government; this is shown by the extent of the works, as well as

their completeness and scientific exactness. 2. A large area around their

settlements was cleared of timber and cultivated, showing that they were an

agricultural people. 3. As nature does not give a forest growth to

abandoned fields, without a preparatory growth of shrubs and softer timber,

and as forest trees have been found on their mounds showing at least six

hundred years of growth, it follows that they left our country nearly a

thousand years ago. 4. From the increase of fortifications north-ward, and

the broad flat mounds, suitable only for buildings southward, it is proven

that at the South they were at peace; but as they advanced northward they

came more and more into contact with the wild tribes, before whom they

finally retired toward the south.

The excavations of the mounds show clearly that their builders had

commercial intercourse with Mexico and Central America, and it seems

probable that they had otherwise a very close relation to the people of

those countries.

Antiquarians have therefore searched diligently in the few remaining books

and traditions of the Mexicans, and Central Americans, for mention of the

origin and history of the Mound Builders. Nor have they searched in vain.

"It is believed," says Baldwin, "that distinct reference to their country

has been found in the books still in existence, and there appears to be

reason for this belief."

Brasseur de Bourbourg, one of the few investigators who have explored them,

says: "Previous to the history of the Toltec domination in Mexico, we

notice in the annals of the country two facts of great importance, but

equally obscure in their details: First, the tradition concerning the

landing of a foreign race, conducted by an illustrious personage, who came

from an Eastern country; and, second, the existence of an ancient empire

known as Huehue-Tlapalan, from which the Toltecs or Nahuas came to Mexico,

in consequence of a _Revolution_ or _Invasion,_ and from which they had a

long and toilsome migration to the Aztec plateau."

He believes that Huehue-Tlapalan was the country of the Mound Builders in

the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. According to the native books he has

examined, it was somewhere at a distance in the northeast; and it is

constantly said that some of the Toltecs came by land and some by sea.

Sahagun learned from the old books and traditions that the Toltecs came

from that distant northeastern country; and he mentions a company that came

by sea, settled near the Tampico River, and built a town called Panuco.

Brasseur de Bourbourg finds that an account of this or another company was

preserved at Xilanco, an ancient city situated on the point of an island

between Lake Terminos and the sea, and famous for its commerce, wealth and

intelligence. The company described in this account came from the northeast

in the same way, it is said, to Tampico River, and landed at Panuco. It

consisted of twenty chiefs and a numerous company of people. Torquemada

found a record which describes them as people of fine appearance. They went

forward into the country and were well received. He says they were

industrious, orderly and intelligent, and that they worked metals and were

skilful artists and lapidaries. All the accounts say the Toltecs came at

different times, by land and sea, mostly in small companies, and always

from the northeast. This can be explained only by supposing they came by

sea from the mouth of the Mississippi River, and by land through Texas. But

the country from which they came was invariably Huehue-Tlapalan.

Cabrera says Huehue-Tlapalan was the ancient country of the Toltecs. Its

simple name was Tlapalan, but they called it Huehue, old, to distinguish it

from three other Tlapalans which they founded in the districts of their new

kingdom. Torquemada says the same. We are compelled to accept a fact so

distinctly stated and so constantly reported in the old books, especially

as the following statement is also made in connection with it, to account

for the Toltec migration, that Huehue-Tlapalan was successfully invaded by

Chichinecs, meaning _Barbarous Aboriginal Tribes,_ who were united under

one great leader. Here is the statement (a little condensed) touching this

point:

"There was a terrible struggle, but, after about thirteen years, the

Toltecs, no longer able to resist successfully, were obliged to abandon

their country to escape complete subjugation. Two chiefs guided the march

of the emigrating nation. At length they reached a region near the sea

named 'Tlapalan-Conco,' where they remained several years. But they finally

undertook another migration, and reached Mexico, where they built a town

called 'Tollanzinco,' and later the city of Tullan, which became the seat

of their government."

Brasseur de Bourbourg says: "In the histories written in the Nahuatl

language, the oldest certain date is nine hundred and fifty-five years

before Christ." If this date is authentic it would follow that the Nahuas,

or Toltecs, left Huehue-Tlapalan more than a thousand years previous to the

Christian era, for they dwelt a long time in the country of Xibalba as

peaceable settlers before they organized the civil war which raised them

to power. The Toltecs were in turn overthrown by the Aztecs, who held sway

at the time of the Spanish conquest.

The Toltecs came originally from Mexico or Central America, and when they

were expelled from the Ohio and Mississippi valleys by hordes of wild

Indians from the north, they simply returned to their "Father Land"; but

they had been absent so long they appeared as a different people. Baldwin

well says "The fact that the settlements and works of the Mound Builders

extended through Texas and across the Rio Grande indicates very plainly

their connection with the people of Mexico, and goes far toward explaining

their origin. In fact, the connection of settlements by way of Texas

appears to have been unbroken from Ohio to Mexico. These people could not

have come from any other part of North America, for nowhere else north of

the isthmus was there any other people capable of producing such works as

they left in the places where they dwelt. We have other evidence of

intercourse between the two peoples; for the _obsidian_ dug from the

mounds, and perhaps the _porphyry_ also, can be explained only by supposing

commercial relations between them."

The Aztecs, whom the Spaniards found, were the last of at least three

civilized races, and much inferior to the Toltecs immediately preceding

them. Their history indicates that they were merely one of the original

races, who overthrew and mingled with the Toltecs, adopting part of their

religion and civilization. The Peruvian Incas, found by Pizarro, seem to

have been the second of the series of races or dynasties. But civilization

is of slow growth; it must have required at least a thousand years for the

first of the three dynasties to have developed art and learning enough to

erect the buildings we find. De Bourbourg and other antiquarians have given

to that race before the Incas, the authors of the original civilization,

the name of Colhuas.

This much is, to say the least, reasonable conjecture. It is probably a

thousand years since the Mound Builders left our country; a previous

thousand years of settlement and occupation; and a thousand years for the

precedent civilization to develop. Or, beginning in Mexico, we have a

thousand years of Spaniard and Aztec; a previous thousand years for Toltec

immigration and settlement, and a thousand years before that for the

Colhuas to develop, flourish and decline. This carries us back near to the

time when the same course of events was inaugurated in the Eastern

Hemisphere. We _know_ that it has required so long to produce the

civilization of Europe and Asia; all reasoning by analogy goes to show that

at least as long a time has been required to produce equally as great

civilization in America.

Indeed it is not a stretch of the imagination to conclude that within a few

centuries of the same period when the Northern Barbarians were sweeping

down on Southern Europe and smiting its civilization with the besom of

destruction, that history was repeating itself on this continent in the

expulsion of our civilized Mound Builders, and the destruction of

everything perishable by _our_ Northern Barbarians, the wild Indian tribes,

the American Tartars, who also came from northern Asia, and who were,

broadly speaking, the same race.

These are my views on this much mooted question. I do not pretend to have

settled the matter, and still look for more light. But, "what I have

written, I have written," after much investigation and careful thought. I

send this book forth on its mission, and through its printed pages have

endeavored to "speak as to wise men;" and to _that class_ will only add,

"judge ye what I say."

Just as we were about to publish this work, our attention was called to an

illustrated article in the _Cosmopolitan_ giving an account of the

expedition sent out by Morris K. Jesup, president of the American Museum of

Natural History, of New York.

Mr. Jesup has spent a large sum of money, and eight years' time, in a

minute study of the aboriginal tribes of northwest America and Siberia, the

results of which will soon be published in twelve volumes.

The principal object of this expedition was to find an answer to the

question, How was this continent peopled? It was believed by Mr. Jesup and

his advisers that by studying tribal customs, characteristics, traditions

and languages of the oldest remaining tribes of northeastern Asia and

northwestern America, the mooted question could be settled.

This was accordingly done, but, strange to say, their conclusions are, that

instead of America being peopled by tribes from northeastern Asia, "it

seems most probable that the emigration has been from the interior of

America westward to the Pacific coast, and thence on to Asia."

There is not a hint in the article under consideration of anything like

proof (whatever there may be in the twelve volumes), and even if it were

established, which is not claimed, it would still fail of an answer to the

question as to how America was peopled.

The world cares but little for a fine-spun theory as to how Asia was

peopled, and if this is the principal result of the millions of money,

eight years of time and twelve quarto volumes, then it would almost seem

that "the mountain has labored and brought forth a mouse."

But we believe the twelve volumes will throw very much more light on the

subject, and concede that it would be an injustice to judge of the results

of the expedition by a brief magazine article, and await the complete

report with intense interest.

The illustrations of this article, four of which we are able to reproduce

by courtesy of the _Cosmopolitan,_ are very fine and very suggestive.

The reader will remember that our position is that the tribes of eastern

Asia and western America, more especially those of Siberia and Alaska, were

originally one race and sprang from the same source.

Moreover, we agree with Cuvier that the Chinese, Japanese, Mongols and

American Indians all belong to the same yellow race. These four pictures,

representing a Japanese man and maiden in the dress of Ukiah (Alaska)

Indians; and a Ukiah man and maiden in the Japanese costume, prove our

position beyond cavil.

A study of the pictures will convince the most skeptical, that, dressed the

same, they would look like brothers and sisters of one family. They show

further what an important part dress and visual impression play in the

formation of popular ideas of racial characteristics.

An Indian costume effectually changes a Japanese into a very life-like

American aborigine. In the same way Japanese dress works the most puzzling

transformation in the Indians.

We were looking for pictures to illustrate this last chapter in general,

and the unity of the yellow and red race in particular, when we received

the article and four pictures. They have interested the author, and he

trusts they will the reader, as they are rare and out of the usual order.

Our task is done. It is for the reader to say whether or not it is well

done.

{Illustration: Finis.}

End of Project Gutenberg's Lives of Famous Indian Chiefs, by Norman B. Wood