MAN IN AMERICA
It was necessary to form some idea, if only in outline, of the
magnitude and extent of the great geological changes of which we have
just spoken, in order to judge properly the question of the antiquity
and origin of man in America.
When the Europeans came to this continent at the end of the fifteenth
century they found it already inhabited by races of men very different
from themselves. These people, whom they took to calling 'Indians,'
were spread out, though very thinly, from one end of the continent to
the other. Who were these nations, and how was their presence to be
accounted for?
To the first discoverers of America, or rather to the discoverers of
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Columbus and his successors),
the origin of the Indians presented no difficulty. To them America was
supposed to be simply an outlying part of Eastern Asia, which had been
known by repute and by tradition for centuries past. Finding,
therefore, the tropical islands of the Caribbean sea with a climate and
plants and animals such as they imagined those of Asia and the Indian
ocean to be, and inhabited by men of dusky colour and strange speech,
they naturally thought the place to be part of Asia, or the Indies. The
name 'Indians,' given to the aborigines of North America, records for
us this historical misunderstanding.
But a new view became necessary after Balboa had crossed the isthmus of
Panama and looked out upon the endless waters of the Pacific, and after
Magellan and his Spanish comrades had sailed round the foot of the
continent, and then pressed on across the Pacific to the real Indies.
It was now clear that America was a different region from Asia. Even
then the old error died hard. Long after the Europeans realized that,
at the south, America and Asia were separated by a great sea, they
imagined that these continents were joined together at the north. The
European ideas of distance and of the form of the globe were still
confused and inexact. A party of early explorers in Virginia carried a
letter of introduction with them from the King of England to the Khan
of Tartary: they expected to find him at the head waters of the
Chickahominy. Jacques Cartier, nearly half a century after Columbus,
was expecting that the Gulf of St Lawrence would open out into a
passage leading to China. But after the discovery of the North Pacific
ocean and Bering Strait the idea that America was part of Asia, that
the natives were 'Indians' in the old sense, was seen to be absurd. It
was clear that America was, in a large sense, an island, an island cut
off from every other continent. It then became necessary to find some
explanation for the seemingly isolated position of a portion of mankind
separated from their fellows by boundless oceans.
The earlier theories were certainly naive enough. Since no known human
agency could have transported the Indians across the Atlantic or the
Pacific, their presence in America was accounted for by certain of the
old writers as a particular work of the devil. Thus Cotton Mather, the
famous Puritan clergyman of early New England, maintained in all
seriousness that the devil had inveigled the Indians to America to get
them 'beyond the tinkle of the gospel bells.' Others thought that they
were a washed-up remnant of the great flood. Roger Williams, the
founder of Rhode Island, wrote: 'From Adam and Noah that they spring,
it is granted on all hands.' Even more fantastic views were advanced.
As late as in 1828 a London clergyman wrote a book which he called 'A
View of the American Indians,' which was intended to 'show them to be
the descendants of the ten tribes of Israel.'
Even when such ideas as these were set aside, historians endeavoured to
find evidence, or at least probability, of a migration of the Indians
from the known continents across one or the other of the oceans. It
must be admitted that, even if we supposed the form and extent of the
continents to have been always the same as they are now, such a
migration would have been entirely possible. It is quite likely that
under the influence of exceptional weather--winds blowing week after
week from the same point of the compass--even a primitive craft of
prehistoric times might have been driven across the Atlantic or the
Pacific, and might have landed its occupants still alive and well on
the shores of America. To prove this we need only remember that history
records many such voyages. It has often happened that Japanese junks
have been blown clear across the Pacific. In 1833 a ship of this sort
was driven in a great storm from Japan to the shores of the Queen
Charlotte Islands off the coast of British Columbia. In the same way a
fishing smack from Formosa, which lies off the east coast of China, was
once carried in safety across the ocean to the Sandwich Islands.
Similar long voyages have been made by the natives of the South Seas
against their will, under the influence of strong and continuous winds,
and in craft no better than their open canoes. Captain Beechey of the
Royal Navy relates that in one of his voyages in the Pacific he picked
up a canoe filled with natives from Tahiti who had been driven by a
gale of westerly wind six hundred miles from their own island. It has
happened, too, from time to time, since the discovery of America, that
ships have been forcibly carried all the way across the Atlantic. A
glance at the map of the world shows us that the eastern coast of
Brazil juts out into the South Atlantic so far that it is only fifteen
hundred miles distant from the similar projection of Africa towards the
west. The direction of the trade winds in the South Atlantic is such
that it has often been the practice of sailing vessels bound from
England to South Africa to run clear across the ocean on a long stretch
till within sight of the coast of Brazil before turning towards the
Cape of Good Hope. All, however, that we can deduce from accidental
voyages, like that of the Spaniard, Alvarez de Cabral, across the ocean
is that even if there had been no other way for mankind to reach
America they could have landed there by ship from the Old World. In
such a case, of course, the coming of man to the American continent
would have been an extremely recent event in the long history of the
world. It could not have occurred until mankind had progressed far
enough to make vessels, or at least boats of a simple kind.
But there is evidence that man had appeared on the earth long before
the shaping of the continents had taken place. Both in Europe and
America the buried traces of primitive man are vast in antiquity, and
carry us much further back in time than the final changes of earth and
ocean which made the continents as they are; and, when we remember
this, it is easy to see how mankind could have passed from Asia or
Europe to America. The connection of the land surface of the globe was
different in early times from what it is to-day. Even still, Siberia
and Alaska are separated only by the narrow Bering Strait. From the
shore of Asia the continent of North America is plainly visible; the
islands which lie in and below the strait still look like
stepping-stones from continent to continent. And, apart from this, it
may well have been that farther south, where now is the Pacific ocean,
there was formerly direct land connection between Southern Asia and
South America. The continuous chain of islands that runs from the New
Hebrides across the South Pacific to within two thousand four hundred
miles of the coast of Chile is perhaps the remains of a sunken
continent. In the most easterly of these, Easter Island, have been
found ruined temples and remains of great earthworks on a scale so vast
that to believe them the work of a small community of islanders is
difficult. The fact that they bear some resemblance to the buildings
and works of the ancient inhabitants of Chile and Peru has suggested
that perhaps South America was once merely a part of a great Pacific
continent. Or again, turning to the other side of the continent, it may
be argued with some show of evidence that America and Africa were once
connected by land, and that a sunken continent is to be traced between
Brazil and the Guinea coast.
Nevertheless, it appears to be impossible to say whether or not an
early branch of the human race ever 'migrated' to America. Conceivably
the race may have originated there. Some authorities suppose that the
evolution of mankind occurred at the same time and in the same fashion
in two or more distinct quarters of the globe. Others again think that
mankind evolved and spread over the surface of the world just as did
the various kinds of plants and animals. Of course, the higher
endowment of men enabled them to move with greater ease from place to
place than could beings of lesser faculties. Most writers of to-day,
however, consider this unlikely, and think it more probable that man
originated first in some one region, and spread from it throughout the
earth. But where this region was, they cannot tell. We always think of
the races of Europe as having come westward from some original home in
Asia. This is, of course, perfectly true, since nearly all the peoples
of Europe can be traced by descent from the original stock of the Aryan
family, which certainly made such a migration. But we know also that
races of men were dwelling in Europe ages before the Aryan migration.
What particular part of the globe was the first home of mankind is a
question on which we can only speculate.
Of one thing we may be certain. If there was a migration, there must
have been long ages of separation between mankind in America and
mankind in the Old World; otherwise we should still find some trace of
kinship in language which would join the natives of America to the
great racial families of Europe, Asia, and Africa. But not the
slightest vestige of such kinship has yet been found. Everybody knows
in a general way how the prehistoric relationships among the peoples of
Europe and Asia are still to be seen in the languages of to-day. The
French and Italian languages are so alike that, if we did not know it
already, we could easily guess for them a common origin. We speak of
these languages, along with others, as Romance languages, to show that
they are derived from Latin, in contrast with the closely related
tongues of the English, Dutch, and German peoples, which came from
another common stock, the Teutonic. But even the Teutonic and the
Romance languages are not entirely different. The similarity in both
groups of old root words, like the numbers from one to ten, point again
to a common origin still more remote. In this way we may trace a whole
family of languages, and with it a kinship of descent, from Hindustan
to Ireland. Similarly, another great group of tongues--Arabic, Hebrew,
etc.--shows a branch of the human family spread out from Palestine and
Egypt to Morocco.
Now when we come to inquire into the languages of the American Indians
for evidence of their relationship to other peoples we are struck with
this fact: we cannot connect the languages of America with those of any
other part of the world. This is a very notable circumstance. The
languages of Europe and Asia are, as it were, dovetailed together, and
run far and wide into Africa. From Asia eastward, through the Malay
tongues, a connection may be traced even with the speech of the Maori
of New Zealand, and with that of the remotest islanders of the Pacific.
But similar attempts to connect American languages with the outside
world break down. There are found in North America, from the Arctic to
Mexico, some fifty-five groups of languages still existing or recently
extinct. Throughout these we may trace the same affinities and
relationships that run through the languages of Europe and Asia. We can
also easily connect the speech of the natives of North America with
that of natives of Central and of South America. Even if we had not the
similarities of physical appearance, of tribal customs, and of general
manners to argue from, we should be able to say with certainty that the
various families of American Indians all belonged to one race. The
Eskimos of Northern Canada are not Indians, and are perhaps an
exception; it is possible that a connection may be traced between them
and the prehistoric cave-men of Northern Europe. But the Indians belong
to one great race, and show no connection in language or customs with
the outside world. They belong to the American continent, it has been
said, as strictly as its opossums and its armadillos, its maize and its
golden rod, or any other of its aboriginal animals and plants.
But, here again, we must not conclude too much from the fact that the
languages of America have no relation to those of Europe and Asia. This
does not show that men originated separately on this continent. For
even in Europe and Asia, where no one supposes that different races
sprung from wholly separate beginnings, we find languages isolated in
the same way. The speech of the Basques in the Pyrenees has nothing in
common with the European families of languages.
We may, however, regard the natives of America as an aboriginal race,
if any portion of mankind can be viewed as such. So far as we know,
they are not an offshoot, or a migration, from any people of what is
called the Old World, although they are, like the people of the other
continents, the descendants of a primitive human stock.
We may turn to geology to find how long mankind has lived on this
continent. In a number of places in North and South America are found
traces of human beings and their work so old that in comparison the
beginning of the world's written history becomes a thing of yesterday.
Perhaps there were men in Canada long before the shores of its lakes
had assumed their present form; long before nature had begun to hollow
out the great gorge of the Niagara river or to lay down the outline of
the present Lake Ontario. Let us look at some of the notable evidence
in respect to the age of man in America. In Nicaragua, in Central
America, the imprints of human feet have been found, deeply buried over
twenty feet below the present surface of the soil, under repeated
deposits of volcanic rock. These impressions must have been made in
soft muddy soil which was then covered by some geological convulsion
occurring long ages ago. Even more striking discoveries have been made
along the Pacific coast of South America. Near the mouth of the
Esmeraldas river in Ecuador, over a stretch of some sixty miles, the
surface soil of the coast covers a bed of marine clay. This clay is
about eight feet thick. Underneath it is a stratum of sand and loam
such as might once have itself been surface soil. In this lower bed
there are found rude implements of stone, ornaments made of gold, and
bits of broken pottery. Again, if we turn to the northern part of the
continent we find remains of the same kind, chipped implements of stone
and broken fragments of quartz buried in the drift of the Mississippi
and Missouri valleys. These have sometimes been found lying beside or
under the bones of elephants and animals unknown in North America since
the period of the Great Ice. Not many years ago, some men engaged in
digging a well on a hillside that was once part of the beach of Lake
Ontario, came across the remains of a primitive hearth buried under the
accumulated soil. From its situation we can only conclude that the men
who set together the stones of the hearth, and lighted on it their
fires, did so when the vast wall of the northern glacier was only
beginning to retreat, and long before the gorge of Niagara had begun to
be furrowed out of the rock.
Many things point to the conclusion that there were men in North and
South America during the remote changes of the Great Ice Age. But how
far the antiquity of man on this continent reaches back into the
preceding ages we cannot say.