dead over a year, standing in the middle of the widow’s house attached to
a kind of upright ladder of poles. They tint him from time to time with
red chalk (ochre) and keep his skin soft by anointing it with coconut
oil” (p. 137).
In the Berlin Museum für Volkerkunde there are mummies of two children,
photographs of which, obtained from Professor von Luschan, are reproduced
by Dr. Haddon. They were given to Dr. Bastian by the Rev. James Chamlers
in 1880, having been obtained at Stephen’s Island. One of them is a small
girl a few days old. The body is painted red all over, except the scalp
and eyebrows, which are blackened. The other one was a small girl two or
three years of age treated in a similar way; the incision for embalming
is on the _left_ side and has been sewn up.
“In 1845 Jukes saw on the lap of a woman of Darnley Island the body of
a child a few months old which seemed to have been dead for some time.
It was stretched on a framework of sticks and smeared over with a thick
red pigment, which dressing she was engaged in renewing. (“Voyage of the
‘Fly,’” Vol. I., 1847, p. 246)” (p. 138).
“Macgillivray (“Voyage of the ‘Rattlesnake,’” Vol. II., 1852, p. 48)
also refers to a mummy of a child in Darnley Island. Sketches of the two
Miriam mummies in the Brisbane Museum will be found on Plate 94 of Edge
Partington and Heape’s Ethnographical Album of the Pacific Islands, third
series. [Compare also Plate 2, Figure 4, in Brockett’s “Voyage to Torres
Straits,” Sydney, 1836]” (p. 137).
“On about the tenth day after death, when the hands and feet have become
partially dried, the relatives, using a bamboo knife, remove the skin
of the palms and soles, together with the nails, and then cut out the
tongue, which is put into a bamboo clamp so that it may be kept straight
while drying. These were presented to the widow, who henceforth wore
them” (p. 138).
A great deal of further information in regard to this practice is given
by Haddon and Myers in their important monograph. Among other things
they call attention once more to the custom of preserving the skull in
the Torres Straits Islands where mummification is practised. The use
of masks and ceremonial dances to assist the performers so as the more
realistically to play the part of the deceased is welcome confirmation of
the conclusion drawn from geographical distribution that such practices
were intimately related to mummification and form part of the ritual
genetically linked to it.
Dr. Hamlyn-Harris, the Director of the Queensland Museum, gives an
account (=27=) of the two mummies from the Torres Straits, which are
now in Brisbane; and he adds further interesting information which
he obtained from Mr. J. S. Bruce, of Murray Island, who was also one
of Dr. Haddon’s informants. During my recent visit to Australia Dr.
Hamlyn-Harris very kindly gave me every facility for examining these two
mummies (as well as the Australian mummies in the Queensland Museum); and
I also examined another specimen in the Macleay Museum of the University
of Sydney. I am preparing a full report on all of these interesting
specimens.
From the Torres Straits the practice of mummification spread to
Australia, as Flower (=19=), Frazer (=22=), Howitt (see Hertz, =33=),
Roth (=71=) and Hamlyn-Harris (=28=), among others, have described. Roth
says “Desiccation is a form of disposal of the dead practised only in the
case of very distinguished men. After being disembowelled and dried by
fire the corpse is tied up and carried about for months.” (=71=, p. 393).
The mummy was painted with red ochre (Fraser, =22=).
In Roth’s photographs, as well as in the mummies which I have had
the opportunity of examining, the embalming-incision was made in the
characteristically Egyptian situation in the left flank. In one of the
mummies in the Brisbane Museum (see =28=, plate 6) the head is severely
damaged. Examination of the specimen indicates that incisions had been
deliberately made. Perhaps it was an attempt to remove the brain, which
ended in destruction of the cranium.
A curious feature of Australian embalming is that the body was always
flexed, and not extended as in the Torres Straits. At first I was
inclined to believe that this may be due to the influence of the Early
Egyptian (Second Dynasty) procedure (=89=), but a fuller consideration of
the evidence leads me to the conclusion that the adoption of the flexed
position is due to syncretism with local burial customs, which were
being observed when the bringers of the “heliolithic” culture reached
Australia. It is probable that the boomerang came from Egypt, _viâ_ East
Africa, India (=12=) and Indonesia at the same time.
Several curious burial customs which may be regarded as degradations of
the practice of mummification occur in Australia, but the consideration
of these I must defer for the present.
In the discussion on Flower’s memoir (=19=), Hyde Clarke justly
emphasized “the importance of the demonstrations in reference to their
bearings on the connection of the Australian populations with those of
the main continents, and in the influence exerted in Australasia at a
former time by a more highly cultivated race. This, to his mind, was the
explanation of the relations of the higher culture, whether with regard
to language, marriage and kindred, weapon names, or modes of culture,
such as the mummies now described, the modes of incision, and form of
burial. He did not consider these institutions, as some great authorities
did, indigenous in Australia” (=19=, p. 394).
Corroborative evidence is now accumulating (=70=), which will definitely
establish the reality of the influence thus adumbrated by Clarke 37 years
ago.
Frazer (=22=, p. 80) says the burial (in Australia) on a raised stage
reminds him of the “towers of silence,” and adds:—“This novelty of a
raised stage can scarcely be a thing which our blacks have invented for
themselves since they came to Australia; and if it is a custom which
some portion of their ancestors brought with them into this country,
I would argue from it that these ancestors were once in contact with,
or rather formed part of, a race which had beliefs similar to those of
the Persians; such beliefs are not readily adopted by strangers; they
belong to a race.” Frazer proceeds to contrast this practice with the
other Australian custom of desiccation, which, he says, “corresponds to
the Egyptian practice of mummification” (p. 81): but, as Hertz (=33= _et
supra_) has pointed out, they were inspired by the same fundamental idea,
however much the present practitioners of the two methods may fail to
realize this in their beliefs and traditions. The interesting suggestion
emerges from these considerations that the peculiar Persian burial
customs may be essentially a degraded and profoundly modified form of the
ancient Egyptian funerary rites.
In his “Polynesian Researches” William Ellis (=15=) gives an interesting,
though unfortunately too brief, account of the Tahitian practice of
embalming. Among the poor and middle classes “methods of preservation
were too expensive” to be used, but the body was “placed upon a sort of
bier covered with the best native cloth” while awaiting burial (p. 399).
“The bodies of the dead, among the chiefs, were, however, in general
preserved above ground: a temporary house or shed was erected for them,
and they were placed on a kind of bier ... sometimes the moisture of the
body was removed by pressing the different parts, drying it in the sun,
and anointing it with fragrant oils. At other times, the intestines,
brains, etcetera were removed: all moisture was extracted from the body,
which was fixed in a sitting position during the day, and exposed to the
sun, and, when placed horizontally at night was frequently turned over,
that it might not remain long on the same side. The inside was then
filled with cloth saturated with perfumed oils, which were also injected
into other parts of the body, and carefully rubbed over the outside every
day” (pp. 400 and 401).
“It was then clothed, and fixed in a sitting posture; a small altar was
erected before it, and offerings of fruit, food and flowers, were daily
presented by the relatives, or the priests appointed to attend the body.
In this state it was preserved several months, and when it decayed, the
skull was carefully kept by the family, while the other bones etc. were
buried within the precincts of the family temple” (p. 401).
Ellis makes the significant comment:—“It is singular that the practice of
preserving the bodies of their dead by the process of embalming, which
has been thought to indicate a high degree of civilization, and which
was carried to such perfection by one of the most celebrated nations of
antiquity, some thousand years ago, should be found to prevail among
this people.” The whole of the circumstances attending the practice of
this custom, and the curious ritual and the behaviour of the mourners,
as described by Ellis, no less than the details of the process, in fact
afford the most positive evidence of its derivation from Egypt.
Ellis says “it is also practiced by other distant nations of the Pacific,
and on some of the coasts washed by its waters.” “In some of the islands
they dried the bodies, and, wrapping them in numerous folds of cloth,
suspended them from the roofs of their dwelling-houses” (p. 406).
Ellis notes the remarkable points of identity between the Tahitian
account of the deluge and not only the Hebrew but also those of the
Mexicans and Peruvians and many other peoples (p. 394).
In Glaumont’s summary (=24=, p. 517) five modes of burial are described
as being practised in New Caledonia. The first is burial in the flexed
position; 2nd, extended burial in caves; 3rd, exposure of the body in
trees or on the mountains; 4th, mummification; 5th, the body erect or
reposing in a dug-out canoe. With regard to the method of embalming,
this is practised only in the case of a chief. The body of a chief soon
after death was covered with pricks into which were introduced the juices
of certain plants with the object of preventing decomposition of the
tissues. Afterwards the body was suitably dried or smoked, then it was
dressed in its best clothes, its face painted red and black, and then
the body was preserved indefinitely. A hole was made at the top of the
hut, and by means of this they haul up the mummy. After it has been
exposed in this way for a certain time, the body was withdrawn from the
hole into the house, which was then carefully shut up and became taboo
with all that it contained. Analogous customs are found in New Zealand
and elsewhere in Oceania. A singularly strange custom is now in use in
the New Hebrides and in the Solomon Islands. The father and son, for
example, or the husband and wife, having just died, they smoke the head
alone as in New Zealand, but they make (with bamboo covered with cloth)
a mannikin, having roughly the human form; then they tattoo the whole of
the surface; fastened upon each shoulder—and this is the strange part
of it—is a piece of bamboo, to one of which they attach the father’s
head and the other that of his son. [The account is not altogether
intelligible here.] The heads are painted white and black. With reference
to the placing of the body in a canoe, this is reserved for chiefs only.
When a chief dies, messengers go in all directions, repeating “The sun is
set.” This expression springs from the idea that the chief is a god, the
supreme Sun-god.
These procedures afford a remarkably complete series of links with the
“heliolithic” cult as practised elsewhere in the west and east. The
account of the curious attachment of the heads to the shoulders of the
dummy figure throw some light upon the custom (to which I have referred
elsewhere in this communication) in Mallicolo (=61=, p. 138) and in
America of representing human faces on the shoulders of such models. It
is a remarkable fact that in certain of the Mallicolo figures the phallus
is fixed to the girdle in a very curious manner, exactly analogous to
that recently described and figured by Blackman from an Egyptian tomb of
the Middle Kingdom at Meir.
Embalming was a method rarely employed in New Zealand.
“After the extraction of the softer parts, oil or salt was rubbed into
the flesh, and the body was dried in the sun or over a fire; then the
mummy was wrapped in cloth and hidden away.”
“In some parts of New Zealand the skeletons of mummified bodies are found
in the crouching or sitting posture” (Macmillan Brown, =7=, p. 70).
In Schmidt’s _Jahrbücher der gesammten Medicin_, 1890, Bd. 226, p. 175,
there is an abstract of an article on Samoa by P. Burzen in which, among
other things, the three Egyptian operations of circumcision, massage and
mummification are described as being practiced.
The embalming is done by women. After removing the viscera, which are
buried or burnt, the eviscerated corpse is then soaked for two months in
coconut oil, mixed with vegetable juices. When the body is fully treated
and no more fluid escapes from it, the hair which had previously been cut
off, is stuck on again with a resinous paste. The body cavity is packed
with cloth soaked in vegetable oil and resinous materials: then the
mummy is wrapped up with bandages, the head and hands being left exposed.
The body so prepared is put in a special place where it is preserved
indefinitely.
“In Pitcairn Island 1,400 miles due west of Easter Island carved stone
pillars or images of a somewhat similar character to those of Easter
Island” are found (Enoch, =16=, p. 274).
“Another 1,400 miles to the north-west takes us to Tahiti. The natives
of Tahiti buried their chiefs in temples; their embalmed bodies, after
being exposed, were interred in a couching position. Mention is made of a
pyramidal stone structure, on which were the actual altars, which stood
at the farther end of one of the squares.”
“There are many close analogies between the sacrificial practices and
those of Mexico” (p. 275).
In their extensive migrations the carriers of the “heliolithic” culture
took with them the custom of circumcision, and introduced it into most of
the regions where their influence spread. In some of the areas affected
by the “heliolithic” leaven the more primitive operation of “incision”
is found. This consists not of removing the prepuce, but merely slitting
up its dorsal aspect (=69=, p. 432). It was the method employed in Egypt
in pre-dynastic times, when it was the custom to hide the phallus in a
leather sheath suspended from a rope tied round the body. The practice of
“incision” and the use of the pudendal sheath persists in some parts of
Africa until the present day (see _Journ. Roy. Anthropol. Instit._ 1913,
p. 120).
Rivers claims that “the practice of incision arose in Oceania as a
modification of circumcision” (=69=, p. 436): but I think the possibility
of it having been introduced from the west along with or before the
practice of circumcision needs to be considered.
Another remarkable practice which probably formed part of the
equipment of the heliolithic wanderers was massage. It was employed
by the Egyptians as early as the Sixth Dynasty, as we know from the
representations of the operations in a Sakkara _mastaba_ (Capart, =11=).
Piorry (=57=) has given an account of the wide range of the practice
of massage, from Egypt to India, China and Tahiti, and the high state
of efficiency attained in its use in ancient times in India and China.
The Chinese manuscript _Kong-Fau_ contained detailed accounts of the
operation. Piorry remarks, “it is clear that for us its development did
not originate from the practices described in the books of Cong-tzée or
the compilation of Susrata.”
From Rivers’ interesting account of massage in Melanesia (=67=) it is
evident that the method must have an origin common to it and the modern
European practice, and that it could not have arisen amongst a barbarous
people like the Melanesians, who have the most extraordinary conceptions
as to why and how it serves a therapeutic purpose. Although we have no
evidence to prove that massage spread along with the heliolithic culture,
the fact that it has a similar geographical distribution, and certainly
was extensively practised in Egypt long before the great migration
began, suggests that it may represent another Egyptian element of that
remarkable culture-complex.
In his masterly analysis of the cultures of Oceania (=69=) Rivers has
given a useful summary of the evidence relating to the practice of
preserving the body, and has drawn certain inferences from these and
other burial practices, which I propose to examine. “In some cases,
as in Tikopia, interment takes place either in the house or within a
structure representing a house, while in Tonga and Samoa the bodies of
chiefs are interred in vaults built of stone. Often the body is buried in
a canoe or in a hollowed log of wood, which represents a canoe” (=69=, p.
269). From the evidence to which reference has been made in the course
of the present memoir it is unnecessary to insist at any length on the
importance and obvious significance of these facts. But I question the
inference Rivers draws (p. 270) from the burial in boats. He says “the
practice can be regarded as a result of the fact of migration, and does
not show that the use of a canoe was the practice of the immigrants
in their original home.” The practice is so widespread, however, and
in Egypt and elsewhere had such a deep-rooted significance that it is
difficult to believe this custom was not brought by the immigrants with
them. I am willing to admit that the special circumstances of the people
of Oceania naturally emphasized what may be called the “boat-element”
in the funerary ritual; but the association of the use of boats with
burial is so curious and constant a feature of the “heliolithic” culture
where-ever it manifests itself (_vide supra_) as hardly to have arisen
independently in different parts of the area of distribution.
“A second mode of treatment is preservation of the body, either in the
house or on a stage often covered with a roof. Some kind of mummification
is usually practised in these cases, by continual rubbing with oil,
drying by means of a fire, and puncture of the body to hasten the
disappearance of the products of decomposition.”
“In some parts of Samoa there is a definite process of embalming in
which the viscera are removed and buried. A body thus treated lies on a
platform resting upon a double canoe, and in many other places a canoe
is used as a receptacle for the body while it is undergoing the process
of mummification” (p. 269). This association of the use of a canoe with
a method of preservation obviously Egyptian in origin naturally provokes
comparison with the use of boats in the Egyptian funeral ceremonies.
An instance is the boat found in the tomb of Amenophis II. (=81=). The
platform is probably a type of bed found elsewhere in the region under
consideration (see, for instance, Roth’s account of the Queensland
sleeping-platform) and represents the bier found so often elsewhere
(_vide supra_). This is in no way inconsistent with Rivers’ view that
“exposure of the dead on platforms is only a survival of preservation in
a house” (p. 273).
Earlier in this memoir I have explained why the Egyptians came to attach
special importance to the head, and how the less cultured people of
Africa, when faced with the difficulties of preserving the body, saved
the skull (or in some cases the jaw). When it is recalled how widespread
this custom is in other parts of the “heliolithic area,” and how
deep-rooted were the ideas which prompted so curious a procedure, Rivers’
independent inference in regard to this matter is fully confirmed. “Many
practices become intelligible as elements of a single culture if we
suppose that a people imbued with the necessity for the preservation
of the body after death acquired ... the further idea that the skull
is the representative of the body as a whole; if they came to believe
that the purpose for which they had hitherto preserved the body could
be fulfilled as well if the head only were kept” (p. 273). This is
unquestionably true: but I dissent from Rivers’ qualification that this
modification happened “perhaps in the course of their wanderings towards
Oceania,” because it has already been seen that it had occurred before
the wanderers set out from the East African coast. There is, of course,
the possibility that Africa may have been influenced by a cultural reflux
from Indonesia, such as has been demonstrated in the case of Madagascar;
but there are reasons for believing that the facts under consideration
cannot be explained in this way.
In thus venturing upon criticisms of Rivers’ great monograph I should
like especially to emphasize the fact that these comments do not refer
in any way to his attack on the “orthodox” ethnological position. On
the contrary, the views that I am setting forth in this communication
represent a further extension of Rivers’ own attitude that the Oceanic
cultures have been derived mainly from contacts with other peoples. A
series of practices which he has hesitated to recognise as having been
introduced, but inclined to regard as local developments, I hold to be
part of the immigrant culture. The use of boats for burial, the custom
of regarding the head as an efficient representative of the whole body
and the practice of “incision” as well as circumcision (=69=, p. 432)
are examples of customs, which he regards as local developments in the
Pacific: but all three are equally distinctive of Ancient Egypt and occur
at widely separated localities along the great “heliolithic” track. The
linking-up of sun-worship with all the other elements of the “heliolithic
cult” also compels me to question his limitation of such worship to
certain regions only in Oceania (=69=, p. 549); even though I fully admit
that the data used by Rivers are not sufficient to justify any further
inference than he has drawn from them.
My aim is then, not an attempt to weaken Rivers’ general attitude, but
enormously to strengthen it, by demonstrating that each culture-complex
was brought into the Pacific in an even more complete form than he had
postulated. Nor does my criticism affect his hypothesis of a series of
cultural waves into Oceania. Here, again, I am prepared to go not only
the whole way with him, but even further, and to seek for additional
cultural influences which he has not yet defined.
Most modern writers who refer in any way to the preserved bodies which
have been found in vast numbers in Peru and in other parts of America
assume that these bodies have been preserved not by embalming or any
other artificial method or mode of treatment, but simply as the result
of desiccation by the unaided forces of nature. Although in the great
majority of cases there are no obvious signs of any artificial means
having been employed to preserve the bodies, yet a not inconsiderable
number of examples have come to light to demonstrate the reality of the
practice of mummification in America (=3=; =37=; =58=; =63=; and =106=).
Yarrow’s classical monograph (=106=) established the reality of the
practice of embalming in America quite conclusively. Moreover the fact
that practically every item of the multitude of curiously distinctive
practices found widespread in other parts of the world, in the most
intimate association with methods of embalming certainly inspired by
Egypt, puts it beyond all reasonable doubt that the variety of American
practices for preserving the body is also to be attributed to the same
source.
In his book on the “History of the Conquest of Peru,” Prescott makes the
following statement:—“When an Inca died (or, to use his own language, was
called home to the mansion of his father, the Sun) his obsequies were
celebrated with great pomp and solemnity. The bowels were taken from the
body and deposited in the Temple of Tampu, about five leagues from the
capital. A quantity of his plate and jewels was buried with him, and a
number of his attendants and favourite concubines, amounting sometimes,
it is said, to a thousand, were immolated on his tomb....
“The body of the deceased Inca was skilfully embalmed and removed to
the great Temple of the Sun at Cuzco. There the Peruvian sovereign on
entering the awful sanctuary might behold the effigies of his royal
ancestors, ranged in opposite files—the men on the right and their queens
on the left of the great luminary which blazed in refulgent gold on the
walls of the temple. The bodies, clothed in princely attire which they
had been accustomed to wear, were placed on chairs of gold, and sat
with their heads inclined downwards, their hands placidly crossed over
their bosoms, their countenances exhibiting their natural dusky hue—less
liable to change than the fresher colouring of a European complexion—and
their hair of raven black, or silvered over with age, according to the
period at which they died. It seemed like a company of solemn worshippers
fixed in devotion, so true were the forms and lineaments to life. The
Peruvians were as successful as the Egyptians in the miserable attempt
to perpetuate the existence of the body beyond the limits assigned to
it by nature. [Note—Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., M.S.—Garcilasso, Com. Real.,
parte i., lib. v., cap. xxix. The Peruvians secreted their mummies of
their sovereigns after the Conquest, that they might not be profaned
by the insults of the Spaniards. Ondegardo, when corregidor of Cuzco,
discovered five of them, three males and two females. The former were the
bodies of Viracocha, of the great Tupac, Inca Yupanqui, and of his son,
Huayna Cupac. Garcilasso saw them in 1650. They were dressed in their
regal robes, with no insignia but the llautu on their heads. They were
in a sitting position, and, to use his own expression, ‘perfect as life,
without so much as a hair of an eyebrow wanting.’ As they were carried
through the streets, decently shrouded with a mantle, the Indians threw
themselves on their knees, in sign of reverence, with many tears and
groans, and were still more touched as they beheld some of the Spaniards
themselves doffing their caps in token of respect to departed royalty.
(_Ibid._ _ubi supra._) The bodies were subsequently removed to Lima; and
Father Acosta, who saw them there some twenty years later, speaks of them
as still in perfect preservation]” (=58=, pp. 19 and 20).
Later on in the same work Prescott, relying again on the somewhat,
questionable authority of Garcilasso’s works, makes a statement which in
some respects may seem to be at variance with what I have just quoted:—
“It was this belief in the resurrection of the body which led them to
preserve the body with so much solicitude—by a simple process, however,
that unlike the elaborate embalming of the Egyptians, consisted in
exposing it to the action of the cold, exceedingly dry and highly
rarified atmosphere of the mountains. [Note.—Such indeed seems to be the
opinion of Garcilasso, though some writers speak of resinous and other
applications for embalming the body. The appearance of the royal mummies
found at Cuzco, as reported both by Ondegardo and Garcilasso, makes it
probable that no foreign substance was employed for their preservation.]
As they believed that the occupations in the future world would have
great resemblance to those of the present, they buried with the deceased
noble some of his apparel, his utensils, and frequently his treasures;
and completed the gloomy ceremony by sacrificing his wives and favourite
domestics to bear him company and do him service in the happy regions
beyond the clouds. Vast mounds of an irregular or more frequently oblong
shape, penetrated by galleries running at right angles to each other
were raised over the dead, whose dried bodies or mummies have been found
in considerable numbers, sometimes erect, but more often in the sitting
posture common to the Indian tribes of both continents” (p. 54).
In the light of the information concerning the practices in other parts
of the world, which I have collected in the present memoir, there can
be no doubt of the substantial accuracy of these reports, and that they
refer to real embalming and not to mere natural desiccation.
Hrdlička has adduced positive evidence of the adoption of embalming
procedures (=37=).
In his report, “Culture of the Ancient Pueblos of the Upper Gila River
Region, New Mexico and Arizona,” Walter Hough (=36=) publishes excellent
photographs of two mummies of babies, but he gives no information as to
the method of preservation.
There are four Peruvian mummies in the Anatomical Museum in the
University of Manchester, three of which are adults, and one of them a
baby. In only one of them is there any positive evidence of artificial
measures having been adopted for the preservation of the body, and in
this case the condition of the mummy was a most amazing one. The body
was clad in woollen garments in the usual way, and was wearing a woollen
peaked cap, the apex of which was furnished with a bunch of feathers. The
body was placed in a sitting position, and a large wound extending across
the trunk had been covered with cloth strongly impregnated with resinous
material. The legs were sharply flexed upon the body and the arms were
bound up in front. But to my intense amazement I found the shoulder
blades on the front of the chest, and on examination found that the
thorax was turned back to front. As the head was already separate there
was nothing to show what position it originally occupied; and it seemed
impossible to explain how it had been possible to twist the vertebral
column in the lumbar region as to bring the thorax back to front. In
order to solve this mystery I removed the resin-impregnated cloth, which
was firmly fixed to the abdominal wound, and found that the body had
been cut right across the abdomen and packed with wool after the viscera
had been removed. Then the abdomen and thorax had been stuck together by
means of the broad strip of cloth with resinous paste as an adhesive.
But for some reason which is not very apparent, or probably through mere
carelessness, the thorax had been placed the wrong way round, and it
had become necessary, in order to restore some semblance of life-like
appearance to the monstrosity, forcibly to twist the arms at the shoulder
joints in order to get them into the position above described. [Since
this was written I have learned that in certain American tribes it is
the custom to dress the corpse with a coat turned back to front. This
seems to suggest that the curious procedure just described may have been
dictated by the same underlying idea, whatever it may be.] In the cranium
of this case the remains of the desiccated brain were still present,
and although there was a quantity of brownish powder along with it, the
evidence was not sufficiently definite to say whether or not any foreign
material had been introduced into the cranial cavity. In the case of the
other three bodies, as I have already mentioned, there was no evidence,
apart from the excellent state of preservation, to suggest what measures
had been taken to hinder the process of decomposition.
In his account of the obsequies of the Aztec kings, Bancroft (=3=,
Vol. II., p. 603) tells us that “the body was washed with aromatic
water, extracted chiefly from trefoil, and occasionally a process of
embalming was resorted to. The bowels were taken out and replaced by
aromatic substances.” “The art was an ancient one, however, dating from
the Toltecs as usual, yet generally known and practised throughout the
whole country” (p. 604). He then proceeds to describe “a curious mode
of preserving bodies used by the lord of Chalco,” which consisted of
desiccation; and adds a singularly interesting reference to libations,
not only curiously reminiscent of the ancient Egyptian practice, but also
described in language which might be regarded as a paraphrase of the
Pyramid text expounded by Blackman (=5=). “Water was then poured upon its
[the mummy’s] head with these words: ‘this is the water which thou usedst
in this world’—Brasseur de Bourbourg uses the expression ‘C’est cette eau
que tu as reçue en venant au monde’” (Bancroft, =3=, Vol. II., p. 604).
It is altogether inconceivable that such a curious practice, embodying so
remarkable an idea, could by chance have been invented independently in
Egypt and in America. This can be no mere coincidence, but proof of the
most definite kind of the derivation of these Toltec and Aztec ideas from
Egypt.
Bancroft further describes (=3=, p. 604 _et seq._) a whole series of
other ritual observances, many of which find close parallels in the
scenes depicted in the royal Egyptian tombs of the New Empire.
I have already referred to Tylor’s case (=102=) of the adoption _in toto_
by the Aztecs of the Japanese Buddhist’s story of the soul’s wanderings
in the spirit-land. In the case recorded by Bancroft almost the same
story is reproduced, but with the characteristic Egyptian additions
relating to parts of the way guarded by a gigantic snake and an alligator
respectively [in the Egyptian ritual it is of course the Crocodile; see
Budge, “The Egyptian Heaven and Hell,” Vol. 1, p. 159]. This is a most
remarkable example of syncretism between the Egyptian ritual of the New
Empire with Buddhist practices on the distant shores of America.
As the connecting link between the Old and New World, it may be noted
that in Oceania “everywhere is the belief that the soul after death must
undertake a journey, beset with various perils, to the abode of departed
spirits, which is usually represented as lying towards the west” (=61=,
p. 138).
Reutter (=63=) gives a summary of information relating to the practice of
embalming in the New World and particularly amongst the Incas. The custom
of preserving the body was not general in every case, for amongst certain
peoples only the bodies of kings and chiefs were embalmed. The Indian
tribes of Virginia, of North Carolina, the Congarees of South Carolina,
the Indians of the North-West Coast, of Central America and those of
Florida practised this custom as well as the Incas. In Florida the body
was dried before a big fire, then it was clothed in rich materials and
afterwards it was placed in a special niche in a cave where the relatives
and friends used to come on special days and converse with the deceased.
According to Beverley (1722) the tribes of Virginia practised embalming
in the following way:—The skin was incised from the head to the feet
and the viscera as well as the soft parts of the body were removed.
To prevent the skin from drying up and becoming brittle oil and other
fatty materials were applied to it. In Kentucky when the body had been
dried and filled with fine sand it was wrapped in skins or in matting
and buried either in a cave or in a hut. In Colombia the inhabitants of
Darien used to remove the viscera and fill the body cavity with resin,
afterwards they smoked the body and preserved it in their houses reposing
either in a hammock or in a wooden coffin. The Muiscas, the Aleutians,
the inhabitants of Yucatan and Chiapa also embalmed the bodies of their
kings, of their chiefs, and of their priests by methods similar to those
just described, with modifications varying from tribe to tribe. Reutter
acknowledges as the source of most of his information the memoirs of
Bauwenns, entitled “Inhumation et Cremation,” and Parcelly, “Étude
Historique et Critique des Embaumements”; but most of it has clearly
been obtained from Yarrow’s great monograph (=106=). Alone amongst the
people of the New World who practised embalming the Incas employed it not
only for their kings, chiefs and priests, but also for the population
in general. These people were not confined to Peru, but dwelt also in
Bolivia, in Equador, as well as in a part of Chili and of the Argentine.
Mummified bodies were placed in monuments called Chullpas. According
to De Morcoy these Chullpas were constructed of unbaked brick and were
sometimes built in the form of a truncated pyramid, twenty to thirty feet
high, in other cases simple mausolea of a simple monolith. The burial
chamber inside them was square and as many as a dozen mummies might be
buried in a single one. The bodies were sharply flexed and were placed in
a sitting position. An interesting and curious fact about these mummies,
or at any rate those from Upper Peru, was that all of them presented on
the forehead or on the occiput a circle composed of small holes through
the wall of the cranium, which had probably been used for evacuating the
brain and for the introduction of preservative substances.
Yarrow (=106=) refers to the fact that the Indians of the North-West
coast and the Aleutian Islands also embalm their dead. This, like the
practice of tattooing (Buckland, =10=), serves to map out the possible
alternative northern route taken by the spread of culture from Asia to
America (_vide supra_ the account of Aino embalming; also _Map II._).
In his account of the Araucanos of Southern Chile (_Journ. Roy. Anthr.
Inst._, Vol. 39, 1909, p. 364) Latcham describes how, when a person of
importance dies of disease, these people believe that some one must
have poisoned him. They “open the side of the deceased” and extract the
gall-bladder, so as to obtain from the bile contained in it some clue
as to the guilty person. “The corpse is then hung in a wicker frame and
under it a fire is kept smouldering till such time as the perpetrator be
found and punished.”
This confused jumble of practices suggestive of a blending of the
influences of Egyptian embalming and Babylonian hepatoscopy is also
obviously linked to the customs of Oceania and Indonesia.
Scattered in certain protected localities along the whole extent of the
great “heliolithic” track the ancient Egyptian [also Chaldean and Indian]
practice of burial in large urns or jars occurs. In America also it is
found; but, according to Yarrow, it is restricted to certain people of
New Mexico and California, although similar urns have been found in
Nicaragua.
After the coming of the first great “heliolithic” wave, Asiatic
civilization did not cease to influence America.
There are innumerable signs of the later effects of both Western and
Eastern Asiatic developments. For instance, there is the coming of the
practice of cremation. The fact that such burial customs are spread
sporadically in the islands of the Pacific suggests that the custom may
have been carried to America by the same route as the main stream of the
“heliolithic” cult; but against this is the evidence that cremation was
practised especially on the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains, and in
Mexico rather than in Peru. It seems more probable that the main stream
of the later wave of culture, of which cremation is the most distinctive
practice, took the northern route skirting the eastern Asiatic littoral
and then following the line of the Aleutian Islands.
In the account of the method of mummification adopted by the Virginian
Indians (_supra_) it was seen that the whole skin was removed and
afterwards fitted on to the skeleton again. Great care and skill had
to be used to prevent the skin shrinking. Apparently the difficulties
of this procedure led certain Indian tribes to give up the attempt to
prevent the skin shrinking. Thus the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador, as
well as certain tribes in the western Amazon area, make a practice of
preserving the head only, and, after removing the skull, allowing the
softer tissues to shrink to a size not much bigger than a cricket ball
(=44=; =52=, p. 252, and =61=, p. 288).
According to Page (=52=), who has described one of the two Jivaro
specimens now in the Manchester Museum, desiccation by heat was the
method of preservation. He adds, “‘Momea’ and ‘Chancha’ are the names
commonly given to such specimens by the natives.” Surely the former must
be a Spanish importation!
A comparison of this variety in the methods of preserving the body
in America with the series of similar practices which I have been
following from the African shore, makes it abundantly plain that there
can be no doubt as to the source of the American inspiration to do such
extraordinary things. The remarkable burial ritual and all the associated
procedures afford strong corroborative evidence.
But the proof of the influence of the civilizations of the Old World on
pre-Columbian America does not depend upon the evidence of one set of
practices, however complex, bizarre and distinctive they may be.
The positive demonstration that I have endeavoured to build up in this
communication depends upon the fact that the whole of the complex
structure of the “heliolithic” culture, which was slowly built up in
Egypt during the course of the thirty centuries before 900 B.C., spread
to the east, acquiring on its way accretions from the civilizations of
the Mediterranean, Western Asia, Eastern Africa, India, Eastern Asia and
Indonesia and Oceania, until it reached America. Like a potent ferment it
gradually began to leaven the vast and widespread aboriginal culture of
the Americas.
The rude megalithic architecture of America bears obvious evidences of
the same inspiration which prompted that of the Old World; and so far
as the more sumptuous edifices are concerned the primary stimulus of
Egyptian ideas, profoundly modified by Babylonian, and to a less extent
Indian and Eastern Asiatic, influences is indubitable. Comparison of the
truncated pyramids of America, of the Pacific, Eastern Asia and Indonesia
with those of ancient Chaldea, affords quite definite corroboration of
these views. It would be idle to pretend that so complex a design and so
strange a symbolism as the combination of the sun’s disc with the serpent
and the greatly expanded wings of a hawk, carved upon the lintel of the
door of a temple of the sun, could possibly have developed independently
in Ancient Egypt and in Mexico (see especially Bancroft, =3=, Vol. IV.,
p. 351).
But it is not merely the designs of the buildings and their association
with the practice of mummification (and later, in Mexico, with
cremation), but the nature of the cult of the temples and all the
traditions associated with them that add further corroboration. Thus, for
example, Wake (=103=, p. 383), describing the geographical distribution
of serpent-worship (the intimate bond of which with sun-worship and in
fact the whole “heliolithic” cult was forged in Egypt, as I have already
explained), writes:—“Quetzalcoatl, the divine benefactor of the Mexicans,
was an incarnation of the serpent-sun Tonacatlcoatl, who thus became the
great father, as the female serpent Cihuacoatl was the great mother, of
the human race.” “The solar character of the serpent-god appears to be
placed beyond all doubt.... The kings and priests of ancient peoples
claimed this divine origin, and ‘children of the sun’ was the title of
the members of the sacred caste. When the actual ancestral character
of the deity is hidden he is regarded as ‘the father of his people’
and their divine benefactor. He is the introducer of agriculture, the
inventor of arts and sciences, and the civilizer of mankind.”
Writing of the Maya empire, Bancroft (=3=, Vol. V., p. 233) says:—“The
Plumed Serpent, known in different tongues as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz,
and Cukulcan, was the being who traditionally founded the new order of
things.”
Even the most trivial features of the “heliolithic” culture-complex make
their appearance in America. Thus, for example, Harrison tells us that:—
“The artificial enlargement of the lobe [of the ear] appears originally
to have been adopted in India for the purpose of receiving a solar disc”
(=29=, p. 193).
“The early Spanish historian mentioned that an elaborate religious
ceremony took place in the temple of the Sun at Cuzco, on the occasion of
boring the ears of the young Peruvian nobles” (p. 196).
“The practice of enlarging the ear lobes was connected with Sun-worship”
(p. 198).
So also in the case of circumcision, tattooing, and almost every one of
the curious customs I have enumerated in the foregoing account. Then,
again, all the characteristic stories of the creation, the deluge, the
petrifaction of human beings and of spirits dwelling in rocks, and of
the origin of the chosen people from an incestuous union make their
appearance in Mexico, Peru and elsewhere.
The peculiar Swastika symbol, associated with the “heliolithic” cult by
pure chance in the place of its origin, which the people of Timor, in
Indonesia, regard as the ancient emblem of fire, the Son of the Sun, also
appears in America.
Even so bizarre a practice as the artificial deformation of the head
(=48=, pp. 515 to 519), which seems to have originated in Armenia,
became added to the repertoire of the fantastic collection of tricks of
the “heliolithic” wanderers, and was adopted sporadically by numerous
isolated groups of people along the great migration route. For some
reason this strange idea “caught on” in America to a greater extent than
elsewhere and spread far and wide throughout the greater part of the
continent.
Many other curious customs might be cited as straws that indicate clearly
which way the stream of culture has flowed. For instance Keane (=42=, p.
264) states that “like the Burmese the Nicobarese place a piece of money
in the mouth of a corpse before burial to help it in the other world”;
and Hutchinson (=38=, p. 448) supplies the link across the Pacific:—“Men,
women and children [in ancient Peru] had frequently a bit of copper
between the teeth, like the obolus which the pagan Romans used to place
in the mouth to pay ferry to the boatman Charon for passage across the
Styx.”
This reference to Charon reminds us also of the widespread custom,
apparently originating in Egypt and spread far and wide, right out into
the Pacific and America, of the association of a boat with the funerary
ritual, to ferry the mummy to the west.
Certain distinctive aspects of phallism in America might also be
mentioned as evidence of the influence of Old World practices.
In the appendix (part 1) to his “Conquest of Mexico,” Prescott (=59=)
summarises fully and fairly the large and highly suggestive mass of
evidence available at the time when he wrote in favour of the view that
the pre-Columbian civilization of Mexico and Peru had been inspired from
Asia. In view of the apparent conclusiveness of his statement of the
evidence it becomes a matter of some interest and importance to enquire
into the reasons which, in the face of the apparently overwhelming
testimony of the facts he has summarised, restrained him from adopting
the obvious conclusion to which his whole argument points.
Referring to the numerous islands of the Pacific as one means of access
of population to America, Prescott quotes Cook’s voyages to illustrate
how easily the Polynesians travelled from island to island hundreds of
miles apart, and adds, “it would be strange if these wandering barks
should not sometimes have been intercepted by the great continent, which
stretches across the globe, in unbroken continuity, almost from pole to
pole.
“Whence did the refinement of these more polished races [of America]
come? Was it only a higher development of the same Indian character,
which we see, in the more northern latitudes, defying every attempt at
permanent civilization? Was it engrafted on a race of higher order in
the scale originally, but self-instructed, working its way upward by
its own powers? Was it, in short, an indigenous civilization? or was
it borrowed, in some degree, from the nations of the Eastern world? If
indigenous, how are we to explain the singular coincidence with the East
in institutions and opinions? If Oriental, how shall we account for the
great dissimilarity in language, and for the ignorance of some of the
most simple and useful arts, which, once known, it would seem scarcely
possible should have been forgotten? This is the riddle of the Sphinx,
which no Œdipus has yet had the ingenuity to solve.”
In the light of the facts brought together in the present memoir, it
requires no Œdipus to answer the riddle. For the only two objections
which Prescott raises in opposition to the great mass of evidence he
cites in favour of the derivation of American civilization from the
Old World can easily be disposed of. Rivers has completely disposed of
one by his demonstration of the fact that people—moreover those on the
direct route across the Pacific to America—do actually “forget simple
and useful arts” (=65=). The other objection is equally easily disposed
of, when it is remembered that it requires only a few people of higher
culture to leaven a large mass of lower culture with the elements of a
higher civilization (see also on this point, Rivers, =68=). Moreover, if
language is made a test, the affinities of the various American tribes
one with the other would have to be denied. Thus, the language difficulty
cuts both ways. But when we have disposed of his objections, the whole of
his admirable summary then becomes valid as an argument in favour of the
derivation of American culture from Asia across the Pacific.
Since then it has become the fashion on the part of most ethnologists
either contemptuously to put aside the probability or even the
possibility of the derivation of American civilization from the Old
World (characteristic examples of this attitude will be found in Fewkes’
address, =18=, and Keane’s text-book, =41=). On the other side the
discussion has been seriously compromised from time to time by a wholly
uncritical and often recklessly inexact use of the evidence in support
of the reality of the contact, which has to some extent prejudiced the
serious discussion of the problem. Perhaps the least objectionable of
such unfortunate attempts are Macmillan Brown’s (=7=) and Enoch’s books
(=16=). The former has been led astray by grotesque errors in chronology
and the failure to realize that useful arts can be lost. Enoch, on the
other hand, has collected a large series of interesting but incompatible
statements, and has made no serious attempt to sift or assimilate them.
But from time to time serious students, proceeding with the caution
befitting the discussion of so difficult a problem, have definitely
expressed their adherence to the view that elements of culture did spread
across, or around, the Pacific from Asia to America (=8=; =9=; =10=;
=15=; =20=; =21=; =29=; =30=; =38=; =48=; =49=; =50=; =51=; =60=; =73=;
=102=; =103= and =105=). Among modern demonstrations I would especially
call attention to the evidence collected by Dall (=73=, p. 395), Cyrus
Thomas (=73=, p. 396), Tylor (=102=) and Zelia Nuttall (=49= and =50=),
and of the older literature the remarkable statement of Ellis (=15=,
p. 117). [In Mrs. Nuttall’s monograph (=49=) there is a great deal,
especially in the introductory part, to which serious objection must
be taken: but in spite of the strong bias in favour of “psychological
explanation” with which she started, eventually she was compelled to
admit the force of the evidence for the spread of culture.]
For detailed statements concerning the discussions of this problem in
the past the reader is referred to Bancroft’s excellent summary (=3=),
which also supplies a wonderfully rich storehouse of facts and traditions
wholly corroborative of the conclusions at which I have arrived in the
present memoir.
I find it difficult to conceive how there could ever have been any doubt
about the matter on the part of anyone who knows his “Bancroft.”
It will naturally be asked, if the case in proof of the actual diffusion
of culture from Asia to America is so overwhelmingly convincing, on what
grounds is assent refused? One school (of which the most characteristic
utterance that I know of is Fewkes’ presidential address, =18=) refuses
to discuss the evidence: with pontifical solemnity it lays down the dogma
of independent evolution as an infallible principle which it is almost
sacrilege to question. I can best illustrate the methods of the other
school of reactionaries by a sample of its dialectic.
No single incident in the discussion of the origin of American
civilization has given rise to greater consternation in the ranks of the
“orthodox” ethnologists than Tylor’s statement (=102=):—
“The conception of weighing in a spiritual balance in the judgment of
the dead, which makes its earliest appearance in the Egyptian religion,
was traced thence into a series of variants, serving to draw lines of
intercourse through the Vedic and Zoroastrian religions, extending from
Eastern Buddhism to Western Christendom. The associated doctrine of
the Bridge of the Dead, which separates the good, who pass over, from
the wicked, who fall into the abyss, appears first in ancient Persian
religion, reaching in like manner to the extremities of Asia and Europe.
By these mythical beliefs historical ties are practically constituted,
connecting the great religions of the world, and serving as lines along
which their interdependence is to be followed out. Evidence of the same
kind was brought forward in support of the theory, not sufficiently
recognised by writers on culture history, of the Asiatic influences under
which the pre-Columbian culture of America took shape. In the religion
of old Mexico four great scenes in the journey of the soul in the land
of the dead are mentioned by early Spanish writers after the conquest,
and are depicted in a group in the Aztec picture-writing known as the
Vatican Codex. The four scenes are, first, the crossing of the river;
second, the fearful passage of the soul between the two mountains which
clash together; third, the soul’s climbing up the mountain set with sharp
obsidian knives; fourth, the dangers of the wind carrying such knives on
its blast. The Mexican pictures of these four scenes were compared with
more or less closely corresponding pictures representing scenes from the
Buddhist hells or purgatories as depicted on Japanese temple scrolls.
Here, first, the river of death is shown, where the souls wade across;
second, the souls have to pass between two huge iron mountains, which are
pushed together by two demons; third, the guilty souls climb the mountain
of knives, whose blades cut their hands and feet; fourth, fierce blasts
of wind drive against their lacerated forms, the blades of knives flying
through the air. It was argued that the appearance of analogues so close
and complex of Buddhist ideas in Mexico constituted a correspondence
of so high an order as to preclude any explanation except direct
transmission from one religion to another. The writer, referring also to
Humboldt’s argument from the calendars and mythic catastrophes in Mexico
and Asia, and to the correspondence in Bronze Age work and in games in
both regions, expressed the opinion that on these cumulative proofs
anthropologists might well feel justified in treating the nations of
America as having reached their level of culture under Asiatic influence.”
One might have imagined that such an instance, especially when backed
with the authority[18] of our greatest anthropologist, who certainly has
no bias in favour of the views I am promulgating, would have carried
conviction to the mind of anyone willing to be convinced by precise
evidence. But not to Mr. Keane! In endeavouring to whittle down the
significance of this crucial case, he incidentally illustrates the
lengths of unreason to which this school of ethnologists will push their
argument, when driven to formulate a _reductio ad absurdum_ without
realizing the magnitude of the absurdity their blind devotion to a
catch-word impels them to perpetrate.
In Keane’s “Ethnology” (=41=, pp. 217-219) the following passages are
found:—
“It is further to be noticed that religious ideas, like social usages,
are easily transmitted from tribe to tribe, from race to race. [Most of
my critics base their opposition on a denial of these very assumptions!]
Hence resemblances in this order, where they arise, must rank very low as
ethnical tests. If not the product of a common cerebral structure, they
can prove little beyond social contact in remote or later times. A case
in point is [Tylor’s statement, which I have just quoted].
“The parallelism is complete; but the range of thought is extremely
limited—nothing but mountains and knives, beside the river of death
common to Egyptians, Greeks, and all peoples endowed with a little
imagination.” “Hence Prof. E. B. Tylor, who calls attention to the
points of resemblance, builds far too much on them when he adduces
them as convincing evidence of pre-Columbian culture in America taking
shape under Asiatic influences. In the same place he refers to
Humboldt’s argument based on the similarity of calendars and of mythical
catastrophes. But the ‘mythical catastrophes,’ floods and the like, have
long been discounted, while the Mexican calendar, despite the authority
of Humboldt’s name, presents no resemblance whatsoever to those of the
‘Tibetan and Tartar tribes,’ or to any other of the Asiatic calendars
with which it has been compared. ‘There is absolutely no similarity
between the Tibetan calendar and the primitive form of the American,’
which, ‘was not intended as a year-count, but as a ritual and formulary,’
and whose signs ‘had nothing to do with the signs of the zodiac, as
had all those of the Tibetan and Tartar calendars’ (D. G. Brinton, ‘On
various supposed Relations between the American and Asian races,’ from
_Memoirs of the International Congress of Anthropology_, Chicago, p.
148). Regarding all such analogies as may exist ‘between the culture
and customs of Mexico and those of China, Cambodia, Assyria, Chaldæa,
and Asia Minor,’ Dr. Brinton asks pertinently, ‘Are we, therefore, to
transport all these ancient peoples, or representatives of them, into
Mexico?’ (_ib._ p, 147). So Lefevre, who regards as ‘quite chimerical’
the attempts made to trace such resemblances to the Old World. ‘If there
are coincidences, they are fortuitous, or they result from evolution,
which leads all the human group through the same stages and by the same
steps’ (‘Race and Language,’ p. 185).
“Many far more inexplicable coincidencies than any of those here referred
to occur in different regions, where not even contact can be suspected.
Such is the strange custom of _Couvade_, which is found to prevail among
peoples so widely separated as the Basques and Guiana Indians, who could
never have either directly or indirectly in any way influenced each
other” (=34=).
It is surely unnecessary to comment at length upon this quibbling, which
is a fair sample of the kind of self-destructive criticism one meets
in ethnological discussions nowadays. Talking of the “limitation of
the range of thought” when out of the unlimited possibilities for its
unhampered activities the human mind hit upon four episodes of such a
fantastic nature, Keane taxes the credulity of his readers altogether too
much when he solemnly tries to persuade them that such ideas are the most
natural things in the world for mankind to imagine!
Surely it would have been better tactics frankly to admit the identity
of origin, and then, following the example of Hough (=35=), minimize its
importance by indicating the variety of possible ways by which Asiatic
influence may have influenced America sporadically in comparatively
recent times.
But instead of this, Keane insisted upon pushing his refusal to admit the
most obvious inferences to the extreme limit and invoked the practice
of _Couvade_ as the _coup de grâce_ to the views he was criticizing.
But it was singularly unfortunate for his argument that he selected
_Couvade_. His dogmatic assertion that the two peoples he selected are
“so widely separated” that they could “never have either directly or
indirectly in any way influenced one another” is entirely controverted
by the fact that, although _Couvade_ is, or was, a widespread custom,
all the places where it occurred are either within the main route of
the great “heliolithic culture-wave” or so near as easily to be within
its sphere of influence. Thus it is recorded among the Basques,[19] in
Africa, India, the Nicobar Islands, Borneo, China, Peru, Mexico, Central
California, Brazil and Guiana. Instead of being a “knockout blow” to the
view I am maintaining, the geographical distribution of this singularly
ludicrous practice is a very welcome addition to the list of peculiar
baggage which the “heliolithic” traveller carried with him in his
wanderings, and a striking confirmation of the fact that in the spread
from its centre of origin this custom must have travelled along the same
route as the other practices we are examining.
After the artificialities of Keane and Fewkes, it is a satisfaction to
turn back to the writings of the old ethnologists who lived in the days
before the so-called “psychological” and “evolutionary explanations” were
invented, and were content to accept the obvious interpretation of the
known facts.
More than eighty years ago, Ellis (=15=, p. 117) with remarkable insight
explained the relationships of the Polynesians and their wanderings, from
Western Asia to America, with a lucidity and definiteness which must
excite the enthusiastic admiration of those familiar with the fuller
information now available. On p. 119 he cites an interesting series of
racial factors, usages and beliefs in substantiation of the cultural link
between the Pacific Islands and America.
Quite apart from the mere evidence provided by the arts, customs and
beliefs in favour of the transmission of certain of the essential
elements of American civilization from the Old World, there is a
considerable amount of evidence of another kind, consisting no doubt
to a large extent of mere scraps. For instance, there are not only the
stories of Chinese and Japanese junks arriving on the American shore
and of American traditions of the coming of pale-faced bearded men from
the east,[20] but there is also a certain amount of evidence from the
physical characters of the population themselves. It has been raised
as an objection by many people that if there had been any considerable
emigration of Polynesians into America they would have left a much
more definite trace of their coming in the physical characters of the
people of America than is supposed the case. But this argument does not
necessarily carry very much weight, for the number of such Polynesians
who reached America would have been a mere drop in the ocean of the vast
aboriginal population of the Americas. Moreover, there is a certain
amount of evidence of the presence of people with Polynesian traits in
certain parts of the Pacific littoral. Von Humboldt stated the people
of Mexico and Peru had much larger beards and moustaches than the rest
of the Indians. But there is a more striking instance in substantiation
of the reality of this mixture of Pacific people in America which
raises the possibility that a certain number of Melanesians, whose
physical characters, being more obtrusive by contrast than those of the
Polynesians, were more easily detected. In Allen’s memoir (=2=, p. 47)
the following statements are found:—
“Sir Arthur Helps tells us in his ‘History of Spanish Conquest in
America’ that the Spaniards, when they first visited Darien under Vasco
Nunez, found there a race of black men, whom they (gratuitously as
it seems to me) supposed to be descended from a cargo of shipwrecked
negroes; this race was living distinct from the other races and at enmity
with them,”
and on page 48,
“Perhaps other black tribes may be discovered upon a more careful
enquiry, and if the theory of Crawford be accepted, which represents
the inhabitants of Polynesia in Ante-historic times as being a great
semi-civilized nation who had made some progress in agriculture and
understood the use of gold and iron, were clothed ‘with a fabric made of
the fibrous bark of plants which they wove in the loom,’ and had several
domesticated animals, a new and unexpected light may possibly be thrown
upon the origin of primitive American culture. It is certain that massive
ruins and remains of pyramidal structures and terraced buildings closely
analogous to those of India, Java and Cambodia, as well as to those of
Central America, Mexico and Peru, exist in many islands of Polynesia,
such as the Ladrone Islands, Tahiti, Fiji, Easter Island and the Sandwich
Islands, and the customs of the Polynesians are almost all of them found
to exist also amongst the American races.”
“Perhaps here, then, we have the ‘missing link’ between the Old World
civilizations and the mysterious civilizations of America.”