The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 5, Primitive History

243

Recherches, p. 157. Griffiths related his adventures to a native of Kentucky, and they were published in 1804, by Mr Henry Toulmin, one of the Judges of the territory of Mississippi. See Stoddard's Sketches of Louisiana, p. 475; Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, vol. i., 1805.

244

Amer. Antiq. Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 305.

245

We read farther: 'But what is still more remarkable, in their war song he discovered, not only the sentiments, but several lines, the very same words as used in Ossian's celebrated majestic poem of the wars of his ancestors, who flourished about thirteen hundred years ago. The Indian names of several of the streams, brooks, mountains and rocks of Florida, are also the same which are given to similar objects, in the highlands of Scotland.' All this, could we believe it, would fill us with astonishment; but the solution of the mystery lies in the next sentence: 'This celebrated metaphysician (Monboddo) was a firm believer in the anciently reported account of America's having been visited by a colony from Wales long previous to the discovery of Columbus.' Priest's Amer. Antiq., p. 230. It is this being a 'firm believer' in a given theory that makes so many things patent to the enthusiast which are invisible to ordinary men.

246

Monastikon Britannicum, pp. 131-2, 187-8, cited in De Costa's Pre-Columbian Disc. Amer., p. xviii.

247

See Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vi., pp. 188-90; De Costa's Pre-Columbian Disc. Amer., pp. xviii. – xx.

248

Mœurs des Sauvages Amériquains Comparées aux Mœurs des Premiers Temps. Paris, 1724.

249

García, Orígen de los Ind., pp. 189-92.

250

Pidgeon's Trad., p. 16.

251

Landa, Relacion, pp. lxx. – lxxx.

252

Hist. Anc. Amer., p. 107. In the Greeks of Homer I find the customs, discourse, and manners of the Iroquois, Delawares, and Miamis. The tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides paint to me almost literally the sentiments of the red-men, respecting necessity, fatality, the miseries of human life, and the rigour of blind destiny. Volney's View of the Climate and Soil of the United States of America. London, 1804.

253

See Priest's Amer. Antiq., pp. 385-90; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 255; Scenes in Rocky Mts., pp. 199-202; Villagutierre, Hist. Conq. Itza, p. 6; Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vi., pp. 184, 527-8.

254

See Baldwin's Anc. Amer., p. 177; Foster's Pre-Hist. Races, pp. 394-5.

255

Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 6.

256

'Imaginez un livre entier écrit en calembours, un livre dont toutes les phrases, dont la plupart des mots ont un double sens, l'un parfaitement net et distinct de l'autre, et vous aurez, jusqu'à un certain point, l'idée du travail que j'ai entre les mains. C'est en cherchant l'explication d'un passage fort curieux, relatif à l'histoire de Quetzal-Coatl, que je suis arrivé à ce résultat extraordinaire. Oui, Monsieur, si ce livre est en apparence l'histoire des Toltèques et ensuite des rois de Colhuacan et de Mexico, il présente, en réalité, le récit du cataclysme qui bouleversa le monde, il y a quelques six ou sept mille ans, et constitua les continents dans leur état actuel. Ce que le Codex Borgia de la Propagande, le Manuscrit de Dresde et le Manuscrit Troano étaient en images et en hiéroglyphes, le Codex Chimalpopoca en donne la lettre; il contient, en langue nahuatl, l'histoire du monde, composée par le sage Hueman, c'est-à-dire par la main puissante de Dieu dans le grand Livre de la nature, en un mot, c'est le Livre divin lui-même, c'est le Teo-Amoxtli.' Brasseur de Bourbourg.Quatre Lettres, p. 24.

257

Id., p. 39.

258

In the Codex Chimalpopoca, Brasseur reads that 'à la suite de l'éruption des volcans, ouverts sur toute l'étendue du continent américain, double alors de ce qu'il est aujourd'hui, l'éruption soudaine d'un immense foyer sous-marin, fit éclater le monde et abîma, entre un lever et un autre de l'étoile du matin, les régions les plus riches du globe.' Quatre Lettres, p. 45.

259

Id., p. 108.

260

See farther, concerning Atlantis: Brasseur de Bourbourg, MS. Troano, tom. i., pp. 29-32, 199; Irving's Columbus, vol. i., pp. 24, 38, vol. iii., pp. 419, 492-4, 499-512; Baril, Mexique, p. 190; Dally, Races Indig., p. 7; Farcy, Discours, in Antiq. Mex., tom. i., div. i., pp. 41-2; De Costa's Pre-Columbian Disc. Amer., p. xiii.; Heylyn's Cosmog., pp. 943-4; Sanson d'Abbeville, Amérique, pp. 1-3; Willson's Amer. Hist., pp. 90-1; Warden, Recherches, pp. 97-113; Carli, Cartas, pt i., p. 1; Brasseur de Bourbourg, in Landa, Relacion, pp. xviii. – cxii.; Davis' Anc. Amer., p. 13; Malte-Brun, Précis de la Géog., tom. i., pp. 28-30, 213-15; Wilson's Prehist. Man, pp. 392-3; Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vi., pp. 181-4; Foster's Pre-Hist. Races, pp. 394-9; Larrainzar, Dictamen, pp. 8-25; Stratton's Mound-Builders, MS.; Bradford's Amer. Antiq., pp. 216-22; Baldwin's Anc. Amer., pp. 174-84; Mitchill, in Amer. Antiq. Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 340; Faliés, Études Hist. sur les Civilisations, tom. i., pp. 185-93, 218; M'Culloh's Researches on Amer., pp. 26-32; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i., pp. 42, 130-206, tom. ii., pp. 46, 163-214; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. i., pp. 14-18, 22; Monglave, in Antiq. Mex., pp. 57-60; Cabrera, Teatro, in Rio's Description, p. 126; Villagutierre, Hist. Conq. Itza, pp. 5-6; Purchas his Pilgrimes, vol. v., pp. 799-801; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 29; West und Ost Indischer Lustgart, pt i., pp. 4-5; Montanus, Nieuwe Weereld, pp. 18-19; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. iv., p. 31; Despréaux, in Museo Mex., tom. ii., pp. 84-6; Major's Prince Henry, p. 83; Rafinesque, in Priest's Amer. Antiq., pp. 123-4; Domenech's Deserts, vol. i., pp. 42-6, 413-14; Fontaine's How the World was Peopled, pp. 256-7; Herrera, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. i., cap. ii.; Smith's Human Species, p. 83; Soc. Géog., Bulletin, tom. iv., p. 235.

261

Davis, Anc. Amer., p. 12, thinks that a portion of the animals of the original creation migrated west. 'If this idea,' he says, 'is new to others, I hope it may be considered more reasonable than the infidel opinion, that men and animals were distinct creations from those of Asia.' 'Think you,' he adds sagely, 'they would have transported venomous serpents from the old to the new world?'

262

Concerning unity or variety of the American races, see: Prichard's Researches, vol. i., p. 268, vol. v., pp. 289, 374, 542; Morton's Crania Amer., p. 62; Bradford's Amer. Antiq., pp. 197-98; Baldwin's Anc. Amer., pp. 66-7; Maury, in Nott and Gliddon's Indig. Races, p. 81; Humboldt, Essai Pol., tom. i., p. 83; Humboldt, Vues, tom. i., pp. 21-36; Willson's Amer. Hist., p. 89; Jones' Hist. Anc. Amer., p. 4; Smith's Human Species, p. 251; Catlin's N. Amer. Ind., vol. ii., p. 234; Domenech's Deserts, vol. i., pp. 3-4.

263

'I am compelled to believe that the Continent of America, and each of the other Continents, have had their aboriginal stocks, peculiar in colour and in character – and that each of these native stocks has undergone repeated mutations, by erratic colonies from abroad.' Catlin's N. Amer. Ind., vol. ii., p. 232; Bradford's Amer. Antiq., pp. 224-5, thinks it consonant with the Bible to suppose 'distinct animal creations, simultaneously, for different portions of the earth.' A commentator on Hellwald who advocates autochthon theory remarks that: 'the derivation of these varieties from the original stock is philosophically explained on the principle of the variety in the offspring of the same parents, and the better adaptation and consequent chance of life.' Smithsonian Rept., 1866, p. 345. 'That theory is probably, in every point of view, the most tenable and exact which assumes that man, like the plant, a mundane being, made his appearance generally upon earth when our planet had reached that stage of its development which unites in itself the conditions of the man's existence. In conformity with this view I regard the American as an autochthon.' The question of immigration to America has been too much mixed with that of the migration in America, and only recently has the opinion made progress that America has attained a form of civilization by modes of their own. Neither the theory of a populating immigration or a civilizing immigration from the old world meet any countenance from the results of the latest investigations. Hellwald, in Id., p. 330. All tribes have similarities among them which make them distinct from old world. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 23. Dr. Morton says the study of physical conformation alone, excludes every branch of the Caucasian race from any obvious participation in the peopling of this continent, and believes the Indians are all of one race, and that race distinct from all others. Mayer's Observations, p. 11. We can never know the origin of the Americans. The theory that they are aborigines is contradicted by no fact and is plausible enough. Morelet, Voyage, tom. i., pp. 177-8. The supposition that the Red Man is a primitive type of a human family originally planted in the western continent presents the most natural solution of the problem. The researches of physiologists, antiquaries, philologists, tend this way. The hypothesis of an immigration, when followed out, is embarrassed with great difficulties and leads to interminable and unsatisfying speculations. Norman's Rambles in Yuc., p. 251. God has created several couples of human beings differing from one another internally and externally, and these were placed in appropriate climates. The original character is preserved, and directed only by their natural powers they acquired knowledge and formed a distinct language. In primitive times signs and sounds suggested by nature were used, but with advancement, dialects formed. It requires the idea of a miracle to suppose that all men descend from one source. Kames, in Warden, Recherches, p. 203. 'The unsuccessful search after traces of an ante-Columbian intercourse with the New World, suffices to confirm the belief that, for unnumbered centuries throughout that ancient era, the Western Hemisphere was the exclusive heritage of nations native to its soil. Its sacred and sepulchral rites, its usages and superstitions, its arts, letters, metallurgy, sculpture, and architecture, are all peculiarly its own.' Wilson's Prehist. Man, p. 421. Morton concludes 'that the American Race differs essentially from all others, not excepting the Mongolian; nor do the feeble analogies of language, and the more obvious ones in civil and religious institutions and the arts, denote anything beyond casual or colonial communication with the Asiatic nations; and even these analogies may perhaps be accounted for, as Humboldt has suggested, in the mere coincidence arising from similar wants and impulses in nations inhabiting similar latitudes.' Crania Amer., p. 260. 'I am firmly of opinion that God created an original man and woman in this part of the globe, of different species from any in the other parts.' Romans' Concise Natural Hist. of E. and W. Florida. 'Altamirano, the best Aztec scholar living, claims that the proof is conclusive that the Aztecs did not come here from Asia, as has been almost universally believed, but were a race originated in America, and as old as the Chinese themselves, and that China may even have been peopled from America.' Evans' Our Sister Rep., p. 333. Swan believes that 'whatever was the origin of different tribes or families, the whole race of American Indians are native and indigenous to the soil.' N.W. Coast, p. 206.

264

Vol. ii., pp. 523-52.

265

pp. 544-9.

266

The fact that they were Spaniards and Catholics is enough to condemn them with critics of a certain class, of which Adair may be quoted as an example: 'I lay little stress upon Spanish testimonies, for time and ocular proof have convinced us of the labored falsehood of almost all their historical narrations… They were so divested of those principles inherent to honest enquirers after truth, that they have recorded themselves to be a tribe of prejudiced bigots.' Amer. Ind., p. 197.

267

Historia Antigua de la Nueva España, MS. of 1588, folio, 3 volumes. A part of this work has recently been printed in Mexico. I have a manuscript copy made by Mr C. A. Spofford from that existing in the Congressional Library in Washington.