UC-NRLF CAPTAIX GEO. PALMER, R.N., F.R.G.S. THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. ERRATUM. In page 155, Qth line from bottom of page, for Gothic read Sothic. THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR OR, THE EARLIEST LINKS BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW CONTINENTS. BY CAPTAIN GEORGE PALMER, R.N., F.R.G.S., AUTHOR OF "SCRIPTURE FACTS AND SCIENTIFIC DOUBTS," "KIDNAPPING IN THE SOUTH SEAS," ETC. ETC. ETC. HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXXIX. Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury. THIS VOLUME IS IDeDicateD TO MY VERY DEAR WIFE, ELLEN, AND 3fn affectionate HER ESTEEMED BROTHER, JAMES DOUGLAS, ESQ., 04 / TV 7 OF CAVERS. PREFACE. ""*HE following pages were, for the most part, delivered as lectures to working men in the schoolroom at Cavers, Roxburgh shire, but were of necessity stripped of many technicalities that would have been unsuitable. The migrations of the human race, the laws that regulate the ocean currents, as well as those of the atmosphere, and the unity of the human race, were the chief subjects dwelt upon, together with personal adventures at different places visited during eight years cruising on the Pacific and Australian stations. M317398 viii PREFACE. What I have written has been the result of many years careful study. Mr. Prescott, speaking of the much-vexed question respect ing the origin of the American nations, calls it " that pans asinorum which has called forth so much sense, and nonsense, on both sides of the water ; and will continue to do so, as long as a new relic or unknown hieroglyphic shall turn up, to irritate the nerves of the antiquary." Critical and Hist. Essays, p. 227. Whether these pages are to be classed under the head of sense or nonsense, I must leave the reader to judge ; but in examining the various authors (a list of whom is given), I have endeavoured to collect as many facts as possible, hoping thus to arrive at some probable conclusion as to what nation or people of the Old Continent first trod the shores of the New. In a previous volume, I have shown PREFACE. young students the necessity of holding fast to the Bible as the revealed word of God ; and in these days of ever-increasing sceptical intellectualism, when human reason is exalted and worshipped, and when the oracles of the Living God are deliberately set aside, it is necessary again and again to put them on their guard. New theories are always being launched on the troubled sea of speculation, without being brought to the balances of the Sanc tuary, where alone they can be measured, weighed, and proved ; and the Proceedings of the British Association, unfortunately, from time to time only give an impetus, like a hydraulic ram, in assisting these wretched craft off the stocks, where they would assuredly have stuck fast, if not thus aided, to the everlasting chagrin of their builders. The late Dr. Norman Macleod, whom nobody would call narrow-minded, once ad- PREFACE. vised some of these would-be scientific gentlemen to rewrite the first chapter of Genesis, somewhat after this fashion : 1. The earth was without form and void. 2. A meteor fell on the earth. 3. The result was fish, flesh, and fowl. 4. From these proceeded the British Asso ciation. 5. And the British Association pronounced it all tolerably good. This is a fair specimen of the condescend ing manner in which some men write and speak of the word of God. Bishop Colenso has just published the seventh part of his " Examination of the Pentateuch ; " and a more blasphemous and silly work could hardly have been sent forth by even Tom Paine : Voltaire would certainly have treated it with the utmost contempt as unworthy of serious notice. PREFACE. xi The true Christian does not allow him self to be carried away by arguments how ever specious, or theories however plausible, but is content to believe the testimony of Jesus Christ Himself, when He said, "There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings^ how shall ye believe my ivords ? " (John v. 45470 If the following pages shall in any degree cause the student to examine for himself the writings of those learned men who believe in the word of God, and who are as truly scientific as their opponents who write against it, and thus prevent him from abandoning his judgment blindfolded into the hands of sceptics and free-thinkers, I shall be more than satisfied, feeling con vinced that no really unprejudiced person, xii PREFACE. seeking for light and guidance from the Holy Spirit, will be able to resist the testi mony of " the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (i Peter i. 23.) G. P. April, 1879. WORKS EXAMINED. Sir C. Lyell s Principles of Geology. Antiquity of Man. Ansted s Ancient World. Ellis s Polynesian Researches. Cook s Voyages. Markham s Cuzco and Lima. Malte Brim s Travels. Beechy s Voyages. Kotzebue s Wallace s Maury s Physical Geography of the Sea. Humboldt s Cosmos. Asiatic Researches. ,, Antiquities of America. Heeren s Historical Researches. Squier and Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Catlin s North American Indians. Prescott s History of Mexico. Peru. Rivero and Tschudi, Peruvian Antiquities. Mackenzie s Travels in North America. Lord Kingsborough s Antiquities of Mexico. Stephens Central America and Yucatan. xiv WORKS EXAMINED. Mollhausen s Diary. Davis s China. Hue s Tartary. Herodotus. Faber s Horas Mosaicse. Delafield s Antiquities of America. Eadie s Oriental History. Adair s North American Indians. Southey s Brazil. Royal Geographical Society s Proceedings. Morton s Crania Americana. Prichard s Physical History of Mankind. Royal Physical Society s (Edinburgh) Proceedings. Turner s Congenital Deformities of the Human Crania. Bernard Davis on the Neanderthal Skull. Wilson s Prehistoric Man. Max Miiller s Science of Language. Farrar s Families of Speech. Brace s Manual of Ethnology. Kirk s Age of Man. Russell s Polynesia. Prescott s Historical Essays. Taylor s Natural History of Society. Dawson s New and Old Worlds. Douglas Errors of Religion. Sir W. Jones Origin of Families and Nations. Bryant s Analysis of Antient Mythology. Hamilton Smith s Natural History of Man. Rawlinson s Ancient Researches. Smith s Ancient History. EXPLANATION OF MAP. The three coloured stars in Asia Minor indicate the country from whence radiated " the three sons of Noah ; and of them was the whole earth overspread." (Gen. ix. 19 ; Acts xvii. 26.) JAPHETH (enlargement), yellow. SHEM (possession), blue. HAM (heat), red. Red arrows (unfeathered) show the TRADE WINDS. (feathered) COUNTER TRADES. Black arrows (feathered) show the DIRECTION OF CURRENTS. Yellow lines denote the Aryan-speaking nations ; Blue Semitic Red Turanian with the exception of the Phoenicians, who spoke a Semitic language. The dotted lines represent the probable tracks of migration. CONTENTS. PAGE I. INTRODUCTION 3 II. THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR ... 27 III. EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA ... 57 IV. EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA (continued") 95 V. THE ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF MEXICO . 125 VI. THE ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF PERU . .163 VII. CRANIAL PECULIARITIES OF THE AMERICAN NATIONS I99 VIII. CONCLUSION 225 I. INTRODUCTION. r I ^HE Holy Scriptures, God s revealed word to man, inform us that the human race proceeded originally from one pair, namely, Adam and Eve. The Holy Spirit, speaking by Moses, says, " Adam called his wife s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living " (Gen. iii. 30). Also, after the destruction of this race by the deluge, except eight persons, which fact is attested by Job, Isaiah, St. Paul, and St. Peter, and above all by our Saviour, we read, " the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth : and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah ; and of them was the whole earth overspread " (Gen. ix. 18, 19). Later on, the same Spirit, speaking by St. 4 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Paul, says, " And hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the earth ; and hath determined the times before ap pointed, and the bounds of their habitation " (Acts 17, 26). Thus to every thoughtful and devout mind the fact is for ever settled as to the unity of our race, and the investigations of men of learn ing and research have but tended to prove this from time to time. It is, however, the fashion among a certain class of shallow minds to throw overboard these plain and explicit statements, and to treat with contempt those grand truths con tained in the Bible. To such men it is useless to appeal to the labours of Sir W. Jones and Dr. Prichard, or to the works of Paley, Bryant, or Faber, because they are " willingly ignorant," and boldly set forth theories and opinions with as much assurance as if they were facts and truths. The sceptical geologist, ethnologist, or com parative anatomist, like his brother theologian, INTRODUCTION. condescend to tell us that these learned men we have mentioned were very well in their day, but that now, with our superior light and knowledge, the results of their investigations are quite antiquated ; in fact, the science and theology of these gentlemen, like the College of Surgeons in Moliere s play of "The Mock Doctor," proceed on an entire new principle/ Much nonsense has been written on this new principle, but there is nothing new under the sun : men have cavilled at the Divine state ments, and at those whose investigations in science have proved them correct, from the earliest times ; but in the present day they seem to have grown somewhat bolder, and make assertions with as much confidence and gravity as if they were stating serious facts ; and the result is, young students are entrapped into the belief that they have an undoubted and established authority for what they say, and which is of course taken for granted when " Professor " is prefixed or " F.R.S." appended to their names. 6 THE MIGRA TION FROM SHINAR. f The discussions upon arrow-headed flints, ancient pottery, bones of extinct animals, and human skulls, have been very ingenious, and occasionally amusing, but the arguments of those who are endeavouring to prove that the human race existed upon this earth five hundred thousand years ago, are not only far from convincing, but in many instances simply childish. The Darwinian theory has its devoted fol lowers, who go to far greater lengths than Mr. Darwin himself. Again, the Atomic theory is one of the purest conjecture ; but, nevertheless, those who believe that by some happy accident life was conveyed to this planet in some chemical com bination, are very numerous ; not that many perhaps have really examined the matter very closely, but have been content to take for granted the monstrous statements which have from time to time been advanced in its favour. It often happens that pupils will outrun their masters, and be quite content to take his hints INTRODUCTION. for assertions, and to dogmatize where he only had advanced a conjecture. Nevertheless, it is certain that Sir John Lubbock, Professor Huxley, Mr. Darwin, and Sir C. Lyell, together with many other learned men, have much to answer for in leading the youth of this country away from the solid ground of true belief, into those dangerous quicksands of speculative error which can only end in the shipwreck of all their best hopes when the day comes in which these dreams will be put to the test, and when these miserable cobwebs of so-called science will be swept away by the judgment of the Great Day. The Bible was not given us as a text-book for astronomy, geology, or chemistry, but to teach us our duty to our Creator, and to tell us of the glorious salvation wrought for us by our Saviour Jesus Christ, for all those who believe in and accept Him as their Redeemer and Advocate ; but, at the same time, it is equally certain that all true science will but confirm and establish what God has deigned 8 THE MIGRA TION FROM SHINAR. to reveal to us, for " the Scripture cannot be broken ; " and despite all that has been written against it, all the insinuations and sneers launched in opposition to its truths, " the word of our God shall stand for ever." Speculative philosophy, like speculative theo logy, grows every year more wild ; but as true science is unfolded by careful and laborious research, as each thread of the seemingly tangled skein is patiently unravelled, so surely do we find the works of God corresponding with His word. A well-balanced mind is content to examine and wait, until fresh facts are accumulated which warrant its arriving at some satisfactory conclusion. Perhaps no instance is more indicative of warning in late years than that given by the famous Neanderthal skull, or calvarium, and on which such a hasty verdict has been given by some who would certainly not have accepted such solitary and unsupported evidence on any point affecting their own interests. INTRODUCTION. Dr. J. Bernard Davis, in a most able pam phlet, states that a skull in his possession closely resembles that of the Neanderthal, and which he believes to be no other than the calvarium (z>., a skull wanting the lower jaw) of a modern Englishman. He considers the Neanderthal calvarium to be simply an abnor mal example, and that it owes its peculiar form to synostosis of the cranial bones before the calvarium had attained its full development. He remarks : " In the investigation of skull-forms, for whatever pur pose they may be studied, due weight should be given to every kind and degree of deformative influence. Of these influences there are various kinds morbid, de velopmental, artificial, posthumous, of different species. None are more fertile in producing deformities, often of a very curious and bizarre appearance, than synostosis, or the premature ossification of one or more of the sutures between the cranial bones. The calvarium is liable to the invasion of this deforming influence from the earliest period of life. From it results, immediately, an arrest of the development of the brain in the position of the suture itself ; and, remotely, an increased develop ment at some other point where the sutures are open and allow expansion. A more precise law has been educed by the investigations of Professor R. Virchow, that, by the io THE MIGRA TION FROM SHINAR. too early ossification of a suture, the development of the skull is arrested in the diameter perpendicular to that suture." The Neanderthal Skull : Its peculiar Confor mation explained anatomically. And yet, on this, and on some other equally unsupported geological data, the human race is to be thrown back into the dark mists of unknown centuries, even to so remote a period as the Miocene epoch ! The progressive development of animals and plants may or may not be true, but until some more satisfactory evidence is forthcoming than we have at present, we must state our firm conviction as to the falsity of the whole theory. But be this as it may, none of these specula tions hold good as to man : man stands alone and distinct from the other creations of God, and, as Professor Hitchcock truly observes, "Could a single example be produced in which a human embryo stopped at and became an insect, or a fish, or a monkey, there might be some plausibility in the supposition. But it is as certain to become a man, as the sun is to rise and set ! and, therefore, the human condition results from laws as fixed as those that regulate the movements of the heavenly bodies." INTRODUCTION. 11 It is astonishing how much men will take for granted in the writings of others when coinciding with their own opinions, and the encomiums that have been lavished on " The Antiquity of Man," if bestowed solely on the study and research it contains, would be fair enough, but when applied to the conclusions at which Sir Charles Lyell arrives are lament able in the extreme. If the learned author had been a devout believer in the Bible, all his wonderful research and carefully gathered evidence would have been used on the side of truth ; but, unfortunately, the reverse is the case, and his admirers and followers are blinded as to the many absurdities that his work con tains. These have been ably exposed by Dr. Kirk, of Edinburgh, in his work called " The Age of Man." In it he shows the fallacy of the conclusions that Sir Charles arrived at ; and lays bare, with no unkind hand, many of the glaring inconsistencies and defective reasoning of the late great geologist. One in particular, " The argument from the 1 2 THE MIGRA TION FROM SHINAR. growth of Peat," is a fair specimen of the way plain facts are distorted to suit a preconceived theory. The accumulation (growth is an incorrect word to use) of peat has been nrade to serve the purpose of throwing back the existence of the human race long anterior to the seven thousand years of the Bible account : indeed, what with the deposits in caverns, and frag ments of pottery, with an occasional skull or two, man roamed the earth somewhere about five hundred thousand years ago, according to the computations of these learned men. Let the following facts speak for themselves : "To give the reader an intelligent view of the argu ment which springs from the peat, it is necessary to explain its formation. There is a large class of plants whose roots are naturally converted into carbon, as the plants themselves grow on the surface of land or water. If you take up one of these plants with a good long portion of its root, you find that the lower portion of that root has become black, or, in other words, has been carbonized. It is this black substance, or carbon, which forms the special ingredient in all real peat. When this has been formed by the natural growth of the peat-producing plants, it has the effect of car- INTRODUCTION. 13 bonizing, to a great extent, all vegetable substances around which it gathers. Even the heart of oak that has got imbedded in it becomes black as coal, and is preserved as a substance which is almost entirely composed of carbon. There is thus a double increase secured for the mass, which is all regarded as a growing peat. So long as the peat-producing plants are growing on the surface, these are adding their carbonized roots to the bulk beneath ; and so long as their stems and other proportions, together with all additional vegetable matter that may mingle with these, are falling or floating into the bog, so long the peaty accumulation increases in volume. " It will be carefully observed here, that the peat itself (when once fairly formed by the carbonizing of its living producers) does not grow. It no more does so than the kindred substance of coal grows in the mine, or the bed into which the mine is driven. " If the plants on its surface are removed, or killed, in any way, and no further supplies of vegetable matter are introduced, the peat must remain as it is without further increase. It is consequently untrue, in strict language, that peat grows, though it is true that it is increased, as it is produced, by the growth of vegetation on its surface. " Failing to observe this very obvious truth, as we shall see, led Sir Charles Lyell, and his French friend, M. Boucher de Perthes, into a very ludicrous mistake. "When the black or carbonaceous matter, which is properly called peat, has been formed, it mixes easily with water, making that yellow, or brown, or black, or 14 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. miry, so as to cause the mixture to be like thick tar in appearance. " In a part of Renfrewshire, what the country people call grule peats are formed out of this mixture, by being simply lifted in portions between the two hands, and laid in order on the turf, to be baked by the heat of the sun. In this state peat mosses, like other liquids or semi-liquids, seek their levels, and flow from higher on to lower beds, as the formation of the surface allows. Hence a deep hollow is filled, not only by the growth of the peat-producing plants on the surface of the water or marsh immediately above, but from the flow of peat from higher to lower ground. This causes the surface of vast regions of peat to be quite flat, while the bottoms on which they lie are very far from being so. It causes also the thicknesses of the same mass of peat to be extremely unequal. "It accounts, too, for beds of peat passing down the sloping beach, and getting beneath the sea, where no peat- producing vegetation ever grows. "It seems nearly incredible that a man of Sir Charles Lyell s scientific standing should allow himself to reason as if he were profoundly ignorant of all these obvious conditions of peat formation. " For example, when speaking of an accumulation of peat, of which he makes a very great deal, he says : The workmen who cut peat, or dredge it up from the bottom of swamps or ponds, declare that in the course of their lives none of the hollows which they have formed, or caused by extracting peat, have ever been refilled, even to a small extent. They deny, therefore, INTRODUCTION. that the peat grows. This, as M. Boucher de Perthes observes, is a mistake, but it implies that the increase in one generation is not very appreciable by the un scientific." Antiquity of Man, p. no. " Only let us note this," says Dr. Kirk, " as a speci men of the advanced knowledge and mode of reason ing by which the Bible is to be removed from the belief and confidence of man. . . . The workmen were right, and they properly used the language, peat does not grow. The unscientific happened, in this case, to have retained their common sense, but the scien tific were wrong the educated had allowed their wits to go wool-gathering! And yet these are the gentlemen we are invited to follow when we leave the Bible, in order to enjoy the privilege of advanced views ! " The Age of Man, pp. 67 70. It is but fair to the memory of Sir C. Lyell to state that he candidly acknowledged his error to Professor Kirk. The absurd conclusions at which many have but too readily arrived, owing to hasty and preconceived judgment, are clearly illustrated by Dr. Duns, F.R.S.E., in a paper read by him before the Royal Society of Edinburgh on the I /th March, 1862, and four years before Dr. Kirk wrote the "The Age of Man." It goes far to show the need of caution and 1 6 THE MIGRA TION FROM SH1NAR. modesty in advancing theories about peat accumulations. The following extract is an account of a landslip that took place in Scotland : About 7 A.M. on Monday, August 12, 1861, a young man about to cross the Auchingray moss, Lanarkshire, heard all around him a noise like that of the sea : "Looking up the moss to the west, he was surprised and alarmed to notice, as he said, the whole bog sinking and rising in a wavy way for some minutes, and then breaking up with a loud crash. " Dr. Duns visited the place a few day later, and made the following observations: " The area set in motion may be roughly estimated as about 300 feet broad at B B, and 1 320 in length from A on the west to A d on the east. In its course it met with elevations at C C. The most formidable of these lies on the north side. This gave the flow a direction to the south, and led to the deposit of the tongue marked D, which is about 160 feet long by no feet broad, and is made up of masses of peat from i foot to 4 feet thick. " When the soil set in motion by the slip reached the extreme south of the tongue marked D, it again turned north, and, bending north by east, it met a plantation of Scotch firs, which stretches from the highway down to the stream which drains the moss. INTRODUCTION. 1 8 THE MIGRA TION FROM SHIN A R. "A few of the trees have been carried several yards forward, and now stand in an upright position, as if they had not been moved from their place. Some have been violently thrust top downwards into the underlying clay. Others have been placed horizon tally on the edge of arrested lumps of peat. The flow at this point covered part of another cornfield. A little to the north of A d t it filled a whinstone (trap) quarry 15 feet deep at F. At the narrow neck E E, the depth of the flow was more than 12 feet. Turning this neck, it met the Limeridge railway a mineral traffic branch of the Slamannan line swept part of it away, covered a large portion of it, and did much damage to a third cornfield lying north-east of the line. " Turning from the Limeridge railway, the flow filled a small natural basin, marked G G. Many of the lumps left here were of great size. One measured 7 feet by 4 feet, and was nearly 6 feet deep. At H, on the east of this basin, great quantities of flow were carried into Binniehill Burn. As the stream at this point is confined by steep banks, the floated peat must have been 6 feet deep, judging from the traces it left on both sides. "At I, it entered the haugh described (by a young lad) 1 as wide as Clyde at Broomielaw bridge. " The next place favourable to the flow spreading, occurs in the haugh (flat ground near a river) opposite Binniehill House, which stretches down in the direction of the Avon, on the east of Slamannan village. Here it covered the highway at two points, and left in many places about 2 feet of peat on the top of soil which had been under cultivation. INTRODUCTION. 19 " On visiting the district last month, I noticed that the part marked D on the plan has already begun to lose many of the characteristic marks of disturbance, and is fast assuming all the appearances of a regularly formed gradual deposit. " Now, were mining or other operations to lead to the opening up of this sixty or seventy years hence, the surface geologist might find in the section materials for generalizations of the most startling kind. " A section made to the surface of the trap would reveal the following points, blue clay, several feet of peat, a grey soil having embedded in it the straw and grains of the common oat, and, on the top of all, peat, say six feet thick. " Peat, the observer might affirm, is deposited at the rate of one foot in thickness in three hundred years. This layer shows all the evidences of gradual deposit through long centuries ! Six feet in thickness, it tells the interesting tale of eighteen hundred years. Our Caledonian forefathers must then have been much misrepresented by the Romans. At the period of the Roman invasion the Celts could not have been rude savages. Proofs are before us which would satisfy the most sceptical. They were devoted to agriculture. Here are distinct traces of Avena satival That iron instrument embedded in the grey soil a rude form, no doubt, of our highly polished and curved harrow-tooth bears witness to considerable progress in the useful arts ! " Such reasoning is not uncommon, based on data almost as reliable as those furnished by the Auchingray 20 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. landslip." Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. xvi., No. i, July, 1862. The works of Dr. Lawrence and Colonel Hamilton Smith on the Natural History of Man, together with some others of less note, have dene much harm in the unbelief they display regarding the most explicit statements of the Bible ; and although written some years ago, have nevertheless been too often used as text-books by those whose opinions unfortu nately coincide with theirs in tacitly assuming the Holy Scriptures are only partly inspired, and that consequently the accounts contained in them are not worthy of credence. The former celebrated anatomist of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, in his lectures alluding to the difference in the races of mankind, asks the questions, " Are these all brethren ? Have they descended from one stock ? or must we trace them to more than one ? and, if so, how many Adams must we admit ? " He then quotes the opinion of Voltaire, who INTRODUCTION. 21 he deems of far greater credit than Moses, and adds : " The Mosaic account does not, however, make it quite clear that the inhabitants of all the world descended from Adam and Eve. Moreover, the entire or even partial inspiration of the various writings comprehended in the Old Testament, has been and is doubted by many persons, including learned divines, and distinguished oriental and biblical scholars." Natural History oj Man, pp. 209 213. Colonel Smith does not so openly impugn the Bible account, but he unmistakably lets us know his opinion. He says : " Although the existence of man upon the face of the earth, to a very remote period, cannot be denied, it still remains a question in systematic zoology, whether man kind is wholly derived from a single species, divided by strongly marked varieties, or sprung successively or simultaneously from a genus having no less than three distinct species, synchronising in their creation, or pro duced by the hand of nature at different epochs, each adapted to the peculiar conditions of its period, all en dowed with the power of intermixing and reproducing filiations, up to a certain extent, in harmony with the intermediate locations which circumstances, soil, climate ? and food necessitate." Natural History of the Hiiman Species, p. 113. Now, if there had been several centres of 22 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. creation, to which pair does the account in Genesis refer ? Which Adam and Eve is there mentioned ? Did all the pairs of human beings thus placed in different parts of the earth fall into sin by disobeying God s command, and were they all driven forth from their re spective Edens ? Supposing these questions answered satisfactorily, there is still the Deluge to get over, which swept away all these races. I have pointed out in a previous book the insuperable difficulties that exist in accepting these theories, even on purely exegetical grounds, and altogether apart from that faith which is necessary to understand the Divine records ; and I am not intending to go over the old ground, except so far as quoting a few passages that bear on the subject. The unity of design throughout the whole Bible is so marvellous, that those who reject it on the grounds of its being a human composition, and, consequently, not divinely inspired, must be credulous indeed. INTRODUCTION. 23 Can any of these sceptics point out any monuments, inscriptions, or records, that dis prove a single statement in the word of God ? Not one ; or they would most certainly parade them incessantly before us in triumph ; but not one single circumstance can be brought forward. On the contrary, every monument, inscription, and record, so far as we have been enabled to decipher them, have only confirmed its truth, and in the most re markable manner ; nay, more they have actually cleared up some of the Scriptural difficulties which had for so long perplexed us. And yet we are asked to throw overboard the word of God, and cling to the statements of men, who, although possessed of great talents, have set themselves in direct opposition to the Bible ! It is insulting to our reason and common sense, to say nothing as to the utter shipwreck of our faith, and of everything we hold dear, to expect us to cast adrift from those moorings 24 THE MIGRA TION FROM SHINAR. so firm and secure, fixed on the Rock of Ages, and to drift away, without chart, compass, or rudder, on the dark and unknown sea of un belief. fr0m II. THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. r I A HE most ancient genealogical tree of the human race is found in the fifth chapter of Genesis " the generations of Adam ; " and the next one that is given, namely, in the tenth chapter, together with the first chapter in the first book of Chronicles, will be the one we now have to consider. The descend ants of Noah were destined by God to over spread the whole earth. " Be ye fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply ; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein" (Gen. ix. i, 7). We must go back to this old family record for any true and reliable information we want in regard to the descendants of Noah. 28 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. It has been well pointed out that a careful study of ancient history, based on the biblical account, will show that " the material civiliza tion of the world was begun by the race of Ham, put to the highest uses by the race of Shem, and, if the phrase may be allowed, popu larized and made the handmaid of energetic progress by the race of Japheth, to whom Noah s prophecy gave the highest development of worldly greatness." Smith s Antient History, p. 48. The post-diluvians were not to confine themselves to any one particular district, as they evidently wished to do : thus the Almighty, to frustrate their intention, gave to each family a different language, or three distinct offshoots from the original tongue in which they had spoken. The researches of learned philologists con firm this, showing that in course of years branch dialects issued from these three. Cuvier classes them as Caucasian, Mongolian, and Ethiopian. THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 29 Prichard by cranial formation, as Oval or elliptical, Pyramidal, and Prognathous. Colonel Hamilton Smith classes them as i. Bearded type; 2. Beardless type; 3. Woolly- haired type. Dr. Latham, while making seven divisions, classes them under three heads, as Atlantidoe, lapetidae, and Mongolidse. In like manner, with regard to language, Sir William Jones classes them as Sanscrit, Arabic, Sclavonic or Tartarian. Professor Max Miiller, as Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian. These authorities all agree that the human race sprang from three branches of one parent stock. Sir W. Jones remarks, "First, that the various languages of the world are traceable to three primitive ones : that these are essen tially different in their construction from each other ; but that all the languages of Asia and of the world finally resolve themselves into these. Second, that the several nations of mankind are, in a similar manner, found to have descended from three distinct races, or families. And, thirdly, that there is ample reason for believing that those several tribes of mankind, and those several 30 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. primitive languages, are clearly traced to, and are found to have emanated from, ancient Iran an important dis trict, and which is geographically the same as that described in the Scriptures as the plains of Shinar." Origin of Families and Nations, vol. iii., pp. 34, 53, 178, 1 86. The fallacy of supposing that different pairs of human beings were originally placed by the Almighty in different localities, is apparent to every devout and intelligent mind. The Bible not only most distinctly teaches the contrary, but the learned researches of men, whose writings cannot be gainsayed, also testify that all races of men are brethren ; that we are of " one blood ; " and that our common father was made in the " likeness of God," " a little lower than the angels ; " and instead of being created in a low, savage, and barbarous state, he was, on the contrary, endowed with the greatest intelligence, moulded in perfect sym metry and physical beauty, in fact, the last, and certainly most wonderful, of the Creator s handiwork. Following the Septuagint text, which was THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 31 always quoted by our Lord and His apostles, we find that the period during which the ante diluvians possessed the earth was 2232 years; and by the light of the fourth chapter of Genesis, we find that they had made no inconsiderable progress in the arts and sciences : "The attainments of the antediluvians in the arts" says Dr. Cox, " appear to have been considerable. The smelting of metals is mentioned, and a sort of com munity, (as we understand the sacred historian,) who, in the time of Tubal-Cain, the seventh in descent from Adam, were artificers in brass and iron (Gen. iv. 22). At the same period, and in the same family, we read of a remarkable proficiency in the science of music, and the terms used are probably generic ; the word which we render harp meaning all stringed instruments, and the other, rendered organ, all wind instruments Josephus," he continues, has some learned fabling on the skill of Seth in the science of astronomy ; hierogly phic pillars of his erection being, as that historian states, extant in his own time. Certain it is, that of all the sciences astronomy appears to have been early known in great perfection. The astrology of the Chaldasans was the daughter of the true science, we cannot doubt, if its other parent was superstition ; and the Hindoo observations which have been recently made known to us, argue a very early acquaintance with the heavens. The most unequivocal proof, however, of the state of antediluvian science, is found in the celebrated work of 32 THE MIGRATION FROM SKINAR. Noah, the building of the ark. This vessel, reckoning eighteen inches only to the cubit, by which it is described, would be of the enormous burden of 42,413 tons, equal to about the burden of eighteen of our first-rate men-of- war. Now, though the command to construct such a vessel in the heart of a continent might well be, as it was, divine, and some directions were appended to the command respecting its size and structure, we apprehend that no person who has not been professionally accus tomed to ship-building, in our own times, would very successfully engage in the task of the patriarch, upon his instructions ; and we have no reason to suppose there was anything supernatural in his skill." Sacred History and Biography, p. 36. We may consider it certain that Noah and his three sons were in possession of whatever learning and knowledge then existed on the earth. Moreover, we can well believe that that " preacher of righteousness," on receiving the command of God to prepare the ark, was suf ficiently well skilled to direct those about him in the execution of the work. Adam died in the year of the world (i.e., in the renovation of the earth from its chaotic state, Gen. i. 3,) 930, and would consequently be contemporary with Lamech, the father of THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 33 Noah, for a period of fifty-six years. In like manner, Shem, the son of Noah, would be contemporary with Isaac for fifty years. " Thus, through the whole period of antediluvian history, whatever knowledge was communicated to our first parents, would have to travel but through one single person, Lamech, to Noah." Sacred History, p. 39. We contend that those who hold man to have sprung from the ape, and endeavour to prove that he gradually and painfully ascended the scale of organized beings, have neither religion nor science to support them. On the contrary, everything is dead against such shallow reasoning, if reasoning it can be called. Man has fallen from his high estate has descended, instead of ascended ; and history testifies to the long period that he requires when once fallen to ascend the scale of civiliza tion, and points at the same time, with corre sponding accuracy, to the comparatively short time that it is necessary for him to decline in intellectual vigour, and sink by rapid steps to barbarism. The reason is obvious, and summed 3 34 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. up in one short sentence from the word of God : " God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil con tinually " (Gen. vi. 5). Even after the Divine wrath had been poured out upon a guilty world, and the Deluge had swept away these races, we find Ham, the youngest son of Noah, no better than he was before. Sin dwelt within the ark, and soon its effects were seen in those who, we are told, were " of one language and of one speech ; " and thus it came to pass that from the plains of Shinar " the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth" (Gen. xi. 8). In Genesis xi. I, we read that " the whole earth was of one language and of one speech." What language was this ? Was it the same as that spoken by Jehovah to Adam when He walked with him in Eden in the cool of the day Many philologists who scout the idea that THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 35 Hebrew was the primitive tongue of mankind, simply on account of the comparative poorness of its construction, " its utter vagueness and mistiness, its almost penurious absence of moral and temporal distinctions," would point to the more perfect Aryan as being more worthy of the language first given to man by his Creator, while some would have us believe that Adam derived his speech from imitating the cries of the different animals around him ! It is extraordinary that the author of the " Life of Christ " should say, " Whether ultimately all languages are not dialects of one whether millenniums back, in the impenetrable night of ages, there ever was a period when all the representatives of the entire human family (if such representatives there were) expressed themselves in the same forms of speech is a question which will cer tainly never be settled, and which as certainly there is no shadow of linguistic evidence to prove." Families of Speech, p. 56. Surely Canon Farrar must have forgotten the verse quoted above in Genesis xi. I, and the history of the dispersion from Babel. The matter has been settled by God Him. 36 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. self, and placed on record, and all the philo logists in the world cannot disprove it. It however by no means follows that Adam was given a language that to us seems the most perfect, one bit more than he was given a suit of broadcloth, or a handsome modern residence to dwell in. He was clothed with the skins of beasts, " coats of skins," and other wise placed in a position to labour and earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, whether by agriculture or by hunting, and it is there fore more probable that his language and that of the antediluvians was of the simplest form, in fact, belonging to what we should class under the head of Turanian, perhaps approach ing the monosyllabic Chinese, or the aggluti nating Samoydic, from which in process of time was born the stately Semitic and the flexible and more perfect Aryan. As we have already seen, the present languages are classed under three heads, namely, Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan. Some confusion has arisen with rega rd to the former THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 37 name, as it cannot be said to belong to a family, as a multitude of languages and dialects are included under this class ; but it is a name that has been adopted for want of a better : the term Allophylian, however, used by Prichard, can easily be bracketed with it, as indicating the languages spoken by the human family that cannot be classed as either Aryan or Semitic. The following are the three classes of speech : ARYAN SEMITIC TURANIAN, or ALLOPHYLIAN From "lord," in the Sanscrit, or the word AR, " to plough," consisting of the Indie and Iranic tongues, and belonging to the family of Japheth. ( Consisting of those languages spoken 1 by the races that sprang from Shem, j viz., Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, \ and Aram. So called from Turan, the barbarous countries "outside" or beyond Iran and the Aryans, consisting of all the other languages, and springing from both Ham and Japheth. (See Map.) 38 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Professor Max Miiller, in speaking of the science of language, says, "It leads us up to that highest summit from whence we see into the very dawn of man s life on earth, and where the words which we have heard so often from the days of our childhood And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech assume a meaning more natural, more intelligible, more convincing, than they ever had before." Vol. i., p. 409. It would be well for those who have got far ahead of the Bible, (if we are to judge by their language) to ponder over the above passage from the work of the greatest living philologist. " Whether," says Mr. Smith, " the Turanian race was nearer to the Hamitic or to the Semitic family, is one of the most difficult problems of Ethnology. The most probable opinion seems to be that the Turanian was the stage of speech which the different races carried with them when they first left their primeval seats ; that it was developed by the race of Ham, who, as the earliest cultivators of science and art, would be the first to require new forms of language, into the stage seen in the Hamitic dialects of Africa and Southern Asia ; and that these were again modified, by contact with Semitic races, into the forms of speech called Semitic. The Aryan languages seem to have passed out of the Turanian stage by a still more direct process." Ancient History, p. 54. THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 39 This opinion is fully endorsed by Dr. Daw- son, of Montreal, in his interesting papers contributed to the Leisure Hour of 1874. He says, " The time is probably approaching when it will be admitted that all languages are radically the same, and that they all have their roots in those archaic forms of speech to which we apply the term Turanian. Whence this unity of speech ? Can it have sprung from the inde pendent growth of thought and language in many centres, or from the slow development of speech through count less generations of semi-brutal and semi-articulate men ? Does it not rather point to the formation of language at no very distant date chronologically, and among rational and thoughtful beings, and also to a time when the earth was of one tongue and one speech ?" If this be a correct view, it at once clears away a multitude of philological cobwebs that have been spun by different writers as to the origin of the Basque language in Spain, the Otomi of North America, and the Guaranee of South America. Thus the ancient Basques, or Iberians, who are found surrounded by Aryan-speaking nations, are in all probability of the same origin as the Finns and Laps in Northern 40 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Europe, and the remains of one great family, now classed as Turanian, that anciently ex tended all over Europe. Taking the plain of Shinar (Gen. xi. i 9) as our starting-point, we find the people engaged in the singular project of defeating, if possible, the Divine command, " Be ye fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth," by building a city and tower, " lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." We know the result of their impiety, and an interesting fragment in the Sibylline oracles shows how widely was the cause of the dis persion of the human race known : " But when the judgments of the Almighty God Were ripe for execution ; when the Tower Rose to the skies upon Assyria s plain, And all mankind one language only knew ; A dread commission from on high was given To the fell whirlwinds, which with dire alarm Beat on the Tower, and to its lowest base Shook it convulsed. And now all intercourse, By some occult and overruling power, Ceased among men : by utterance they strove, Perplex d and anxious, to disclose their mind ; But their lip fail d them ; and, in lieu of words, THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 41 Produced a painful babbling sound : the place Was hence call d Babel ; by th apostate crew Named from th event. Then sever d far away, They sped uncertain into realms unknown : Thus kingdoms rose ; and the glad world was fill d." Bryant s Analysis of Ant. MythoL, vol. iii., p. 78. These ancient oracles were fragments of the patriarchal histories, and were destroyed about a century before the Christian era, by fire at Rome. Many of the particulars were, how ever, re-collected, together with some fresh ones, not considered authentic. (For which see Bishop Horsley and Faber.) The Semitic and Japhetic (z>., Aryan) families moved off to the north, west, and east, following the rivers and valleys : gradually getting separated by increasing numbers in course of years, and radiating from their respective centres, new dialects were rapidly developed as they became lost to one another by the screen of the great mountain ranges and their ever-increasing distance. Mizraim (Hamite) migrated to the south 42 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. and south-east, while the younger son of Noah remained about the locality of Shinar. Nimrod, his grandson, the son of Cush, built the city of Babel, afterwards called Babylon. Thus we find both the Egyptian and Baby lonian kingdoms, the first on record, and marked by their massive buildings, were originally Hamitic, and for many years quite distinct from either Aryan or Semitic influence. But this did not last ; the Hamitic races were under the curse : " Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren Blessed be the Lord God of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant, God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant" How complete has been the fulfilment of this wonderful prophecy, let history attest, to the everlasting confusion of all infidels. Since the fall of the two first monarchies founded by the Hamites, namely, Babylon and Egypt, we hear no more of them as a great THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 43 people : the Aryan and Semitic families come in on all sides and take possession ; the pure Hamites disappear, and become incorporated with their more powerful brethren, who take the lead in the world s civilization. The two nations that were most advanced in civilization in America at the time of the Conquista, were the Mexicans and Peruvians, but they had been preceded by at least one, if not more, nations that had passed away, but who had left indisputable evidence that they were in considerable advance of those nomadic tribes that were found in possession of the country by the Spaniards, not only in archi tecture, and in the working of metals, but in general civilization. We shall find that they possessed several points of similarity to some of the Asiatic nations, as well as to those of Egypt, all pointing to a common origin. The Indians who roamed the splendid country through which flows the Mississippi and Ohio in North America, the Gila and 44 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Colorado in Central, and the Amazon and Orinoco in South America, were rude bar barians, destitute of civilization, their hand against every man, and every man s hand against them. Not so those people who had gone before them ; their remains were everywhere to be found scattered throughout a vast extent of country, in much the same way as the remains of Roman encampments and earthenware are found in Britain ; and Mr. Delafield, of the Historical Society of Ohio, remarks that " a map of North America, delineating each of these ruins in situ, would exhibit a connexion between the various groups of ancient walls, by means of intermediate mounds, a signal on which, by fire or otherwise, would transmit with ease and telegraphic despatch the annunciation of hostile approach or a call for assistance." The earthworks at Marietta consist of mounds and walls of earth in different forms. The largest enclosure contains forty acres, surrounded by an earthen wall thirty-six feet THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 45 broad at the base, and in some places even now ten feet high. Circular mounds are seen thirty feet in diameter and five feet high. Some of these mounds display great skill in engineering. One at Miami has bastions and curtains which have been declared by compe tent military authorities to be in accordance with the proper rules of fortification. In the Mammoth mound in Virginia, vaults were found containing skeletons, with ivory ornaments of peculiar construction about six inches long, nearly two thousand ivory beads (wampum), copper bands, and fragments of isinglass. The ivory ornaments were similar to those found in the graves of the Egyptians and Peruvians. Fragments of earthenware and plates of copper have been taken from some of these mounds, quite different from those in use among the present Indians. Smelting works have been found in the present county of Washington, with large trees growing on and around them, and situated 46 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR among hills abounding in iron ore. But at the conquest the Indians knew nothing of iron. The Rev. Mr. Harris remarks, " In some of these mounds have been found plates of copper riveted together, copper beads, various imple ments, and a very curious kind of porcelain. The Indians regard them with as much sur prise as we do." Sculptured stones have also been found, which no one can decipher, as well as weapons of brass, which the learned Humboldt remarks " are indications that those very countries have formerly been inhabited by industrious nations, which are now traversed only by tribes of savage hunters." Again, we see in the ruined cities of Central America remains of a more polished people than existed at the time of its discovery, although not so dissimilar as those of North America ; while in South America the remains of massive architecture attest the grandeur the Indians of Peru had attained in that art pre vious to the arrival of the Incas. THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 47 We shall have occasion to show, as we proceed, the connexion between these early races ; and that, so far from being indigenous to the soil, as some writers have stated, they were of the same blood as the rest of the human family. There is no essential difference between a red skin and a white or a black one. Dr. Prichard arrives at the following con clusions, after summing up the investigations of modern anatomists, " that there is no organic difference between the skin of the European and that of other races of men that gives reason to imagine a diversity of species in mankind ; but, on the contrary, that tran sitions take place, to a certain extent, inde pendently of the agency of climate and the principal causes of variations, from the con ditions of structure belonging to one race to those which characterise the other." Natural Hist, of Man, chap, x., p. 84. We shall find that by applying the test of language and religion, as well as comparing 48 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. the similarity that exists in the different manners and customs of the nations of the Old and New Continents, that a common identity can be satisfactorily established be tween them. All nations that have been found scat tered abroad on the earth, have some tradi tion regarding their religion, or that of their ancestors, that are similar to the accounts we find in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis. Now it is not possible that the accounts of the creation of the world, of the first man and woman, the temptation of the devil in the form of a serpent, the conse quent fall and the expulsion from Paradise, together with the account of the Deluge and its subsequent events, could have been kept secret, or that the various nations, when they were scattered abroad, should not have pre served many fragments of these accounts. It would be egregious folly to imagine that Noah and his family when they left the ark were rude savages, or that events THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 49 that had happened before the Flood were soon forgotten. When Jehovah announced to Moses His title, " I am that I am," it was treasured up by both Egyptians and Hindoos, though planted far apart, the former belonging to the Semitic family, and the latter to the greater and wider-spread Aryan race, com monly called Indo-European. On the veiled statue of Isis were inscribed these words : " / am all that has been, is, and ever shall be, and no mortal has raised my veil." In like manner, the Supreme Being is represented as having addressed himself to Brahma thus : " Even I was, even at first, not any other thing ; that which exists un- perceived ; supreme ; afterwards / am tJiat which is ; and he who must remain am I." Sir W. Jones On the Hindoos, vol. iii., p. 354- Plutarch, De Tsid et Osirid, quoted by Bryant in his Analysis of Ant. Mythology. We see the recognition of the Supreme 4 50 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Being in the Brahma of the Hindoos ; the Belus of the Chaldaeans ; the Ormuzd of the Persians ; together with Con amongst the Peruvians, and Tezcatlipoca of the Mexicans. In like manner, the temptation and fall of our first parents are pictured in the poisonous serpent Kali-naga, or Kaliya, of the Hindoos ; the serpent god Naga, or Nachash, in Chaldsea ; the serpent Ahriman of the Persians, who stung to death the first man ; together with the Chinese dragon, and the serpent of the Mexicans, and the Scandi navian Midgard serpent. Likewise, we have no difficulty in tracing the Deluge. Fohi was the Noah of China ; the Fish-Avatar of Vishnou, Satyavrata of Hindoostan, was saved in the ship Argha ; in Chaldsea, Xisuthrus was preserved, with his wife and children, in an immense vessel with all sorts of animals ; the man-bull of Persia was also saved in an Arg, and landed on Mount Albordi ; the Osiris of Egypt, who entered his ark on the seventeenth day of the THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 5 month Athyr (which exactly corresponds to the day and month in Genesis, namely, the seven teenth day of the second month, Jyar or Zif) ; and we have also Cox-cox, or Tezpi, in Mexico, whose description is identical with that of Noah. Again, the destruction of the Tower of Babel, and the confusion of tongues, is repre sented in the Hindoo writings by the sacred mount Meru, by the tower of Belus in Chaldaea, and by the pyramid of Cholula in America. In fact, we find all the ancient nations adoring a Supreme Being, although under different names, and their cosmogonies en veloped in fables. We find sacrifices, and in some cases marriage, instituted ; traditions, more or less obscure, respecting the early history of our race, together with the de struction of the animal world by a deluge ; and we are therefore justified in coming to the rational conclusion that all these tradi tions emanated from one source, namely, the Hebrew inspired writings. 52 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Mr. Faber truly says, " Had a single people only given an account of the creation somewhat resembling that of Moses, or pre served a tradition that one of their ancient kings escaped from the waters of a deluge, we might then with jus tice conclude that the former of these coincidences was merely accidental, and that the latter related entirely to a partial inundation. But when we find that nearly all the pagan cosmogonies bear a strong likeness to each other, though different deities may be represented by different nations, as completing the work ; and when we meet with some tradition of a deluge in every country, though the persons saved from it are said, in those various accounts, to have reigned in various dis tricts widely separated from each other ; we are con- stiained to allow that this general concurrence of belief could never have originated from mere accident." Horce Mosaica, chap, ii., p. 19. With regard to some naturalists who insist that man has gradually ascended the scale of organization, that he has from some unknown period struggled from something lower than the ape, through long centuries, to what he is now, we can only say that such miserable theories are only fit for the brains that boast of such an ancestry. Professor Max Muller asks, THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. 53 " Where, then, is the difference between brute and man ? What is it that man can do, and of which we find no signs, no rudiments, in the whole brute world? I answer without hesitation : the one great barrier between the brute and man is Language. Man speaks, and no brute has ever uttered a word. Language is our Rubicon, and no brute will dare to cross it. This is our matter-of-fact answer to those who speak of development ; who think they discover the rudiments at least of all human faculties in apes ; and who would fain keep open the possibility that man is only a more favoured beast, the triumphant conqueror in the primeval struggle for life." Science of Language, Lecture ix., P- 367- But we have higher testimony than this. The word of God tells us, " So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him ; male and female created He him" (Gen. i. 27). St. Paul says, " Adam is the figure of Him that was to come" (Rom. v. 14). Again, quoting the eighth Psalm, the same apostle says, " Thou madest him (man) a little lower than the angels ; Thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of Thy hands " (Heb. ii. 7). 54 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. In the following pages we shall have occasion to notice how man, when left to himself, always sinks to deeper degradation, and final extinction, and that the savage never rises in the social scale unaided. III. EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. T3Y what people, and from what quarter, ^"^^ was the continent of America first in habited ? is a question that has never been satisfactorily answered, although it has always been one of deep and absorbing interest to the antiquarian and philologist The veil that at present surrounds with doubt and uncer tainty those wonderful and interesting ruins which at the present day exist in Central America, as well as the ancient remains of populous nations that formerly lived on the plateaus of Mexico and Peru, races who pre ceded the Aztecs and Peruvians, and who so silently disappeared, is but as yet only parti ally lifted. Whence came they ? The ruins of their cities, now buried beneath the humid 58 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. soil of Yucatan, and overshadowed by the gigantic forest trees that have sprung up amidst their courts and temples, sufficiently testify that a race far advanced in civilization once possessed the country, and ruled over those lands where now in many places an almost impenetrable wilderness exists. This circumstance, however, is not peculiar to America, for we have but to glance at the Old Continent to find similar examples, par ticularly in India ; but we possess more or less information with regard to these remains of civilization in Asia through the medium of the Hindoo and other records. In like manner, the past magnificence of Egypt and Assyria have been gradually unfolded by means of their graven monuments, but it does not seem probable that the tablets of hieroglyphics at Palenque, Copan, and Quirigua will be so soon or so easily deciphered. In all probability it is upon the Central American monuments that any future dis coveries regarding the primitive races, belong- EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 59 ing at least to that part of the continent, mainly depend, for at present we have little more than tradition to guide us, although there are many indications that may serve to show us the right quarter towards which to direct our gaze. The gigantic and time-worn memorials of these mysterious people are surely deserving a more minute investigation than has yet been bestowed on them. Mr. Stephens, in his interesting work, describes them as being worthy of comparison with those existing in Egypt or India ! Few and slender are the links of the chain that connect the primitive races of the new continent with their brethren of the old : still they exist, although no western Rosetta-stone has as yet been discovered that may enable us to decipher the mysterious hieroglyphics of Palenque and Copan, and it will be a matter of the greatest difficulty, if indeed it be now possible, to break through the spell which for centuries has enveloped with doubt and 60 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. uncertainty those interesting monuments of ancient civilization. It is necessary, while examining the different conjectures that have been made as to the early migrations of the three typical races of the human family, to bear in mind that it is possible the geographical aspect of our planet has undergone considerable alteration during even the historic period of some four thousand five hundred years ; and although we have satisfactory evidence that few of the great mountain ranges or large rivers have under gone any material change since the universal deluge, still we have ample data to satisfy us that many tracts of land have been the scene of tremendous convulsions through the agency of volcanic eruptions, when rivers have been diverted from their courses, and turned into different channels, vast portions of land up heaved, and, on the other hand, large tracts of country submerged. We see instances of these disturbing causes at the temple of Puzzoli, at the ruins of EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 61 Mahabalipuran, together with ancient Cutch in India. Old Callao was sunk beneath the waters of the Pacific during the terrible earthquake in 1746. In 1/62, a large river in India dried up, and sixty square miles of land sunk down, along the Chittagong coast, while at the same time a large tract was raised at Cheduba, and in the island of Ramree. "According to the accounts of the Chinese and Japanese chroniclers, several volcanoes have risen from the bed of the sea on the coasts of Japan and Corea during the historical period. In the year 1007 a roar of thunder announced the appearance of the volcano of Toinmoura or Taulo, on the south of Corea ; and then, after seven days and seven nights of profound darkness, the mountain was seen. It was no less than four leagues in circum ference, and towered up like a block of sulphur to a height of more than a thousand feet. More than this, the celebrated Fusi Yama itself, the highest mountain in Japan, is said to have been upheaved in a single night from the bosom of the sea, twenty-one and a half centuries ago." Paper read by Mr. H. Houuarth before the RL Geo. Soc., vol. xliii., p. 256. In the Neiv Zealand Herald of October 14, 62 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. 1878, information has been received from Lieutenant Home, of H.M. Schooner Sandfly, respecting the harbour of Port Resolution, Tanna, in the New Hebrides, and given to him by the Rev. Mr. Neilson, the resident missionary : "On the loth January, 1878, there was the very severe earthquake, the land on the north shore rising some twenty feet or more. On the I4th February there was another very severe shock, when the same land rose another twelve feet, as near as he could calculate ; also a reef extending about two hundred yards in a north easterly direction from Cook s Pyramid, a wash at all. states of the tide ; at the same time the small bay to the north of this harbour was filled in entirely by the falling forward into the sea of upwards of a hundred and fifty acres of earth and rock, making the coast line almost straight, and about a hundred and fifty feet high. For three square miles to the northward of Port Reso lution, it is one mass of loose earth and rock, with numerous hot-springs. The harbour is much contracted, and the dangers much increased. When the second shock took place, there was a surf from twenty to thirty feet high, raised by the land falling into the sea ; this rushed into the harbour, taking everything before it." When visiting Tanna in March 1869, I noticed the elevation of the coral beds some EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 63 forty feet above the sea level, showing they had been upheaved. The volcano of Yasowa was, as usual, in full activity, an explosion taking place with great regularity every five and a half minutes, when large pieces of rock and a quantity of cinders were ejected. The earthquake of 1822 raised the coast of Chili, about Conception, two and a half feet, and Captain Fitzroy found dead mussels ten feet above high-water mark. Darwin s Nat. Voyage, p. 310. The harbour of Wellington, New Zealand, was raised four and a half feet by the earthquakes of 1855. There are two buried temples near Avan- tipura, in Cashmere, which according to Sir C. Lyell must have sunk down at some period not later than the fourteenth century. Professor Ansted, in alluding to the changes of level in Asia, says, " These changes are of comparatively recent date, many of them having gone on even during the historic period. Probably much of the low land of Central Asia has only at a very recent period emerged from the sea." 64 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Again he remarks, " A chain of islands, nearly continuous, may then have existed in what is now called the North Pacific Ocean, bringing the islands east and south of the Philippines into close relation with Australia, and, with the Archi pelago, extending many hundred miles to the east of that continent ; while Australia may also have been then extended westward and northward between the tropics." AnstecPs Ancient World, chap, xiv., pp. 315, etc. In connexion with this last conjecture, it is not a little remarkable that some of the South Sea Islanders state that their islands were formerly all united in one large continent, but that the gods in anger destroyed it, and scattered them over the ocean. Ellis s Poly nesian Researches, vol. ii., p. 40. The disruption of an isthmus like Suez or Panama would have the effect of checking the migration of tribes in earlier times, while the drying-up of some large river, or even one of its tributaries, would force whole tribes to abandon that part of the country and move in another direction in search of water. In like manner, the disappearance of islands in an ocean would have the effect of isolating EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 65 those that remained, perhaps for many hun dreds of miles from the mainland, and thereby cutting off all communication in the direction the primitive inhabitants may have come from. How Easter Island was peopled is still a great puzzle, for it is twelve hundred miles from any other group, and two thousand four hundred and sixty miles from the mainland of South America. These islanders, when dis covered, possessed neither the means nor the knowledge to construct anything similar to the statues which still exist on the island, the workmanship of which, according to Captain Cook, was not inferior to the best piece of masonry in England. Some of these statues were lying overthrown, and measure 27 feet, and 8 feet across the shoulders, while others still standing appeared much larger. The platforms on which they stood averaged from 30 feet to 40 feet long, 1 2 feet to 1 6 feet broad, and from 3 feet to 1 2 feet high, all built of hewn stones in the Cyclopean style, having no cement. 5 66 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Although the inhabitants belong to the same race as the Sandwich Islanders, Tahitians, and New Zealanders, (for Cook found them speak ing the same language, and having similar features and colour,) they possessed only four canoes, and these so small as to be incapable of containing more than four persons. Mr. Clements Markham says, " Captain Cook, in writing of these remains, might be describing the temple of Pachacamac, or the ruins of Tiahuanuco, so marked is the resemblance." Cook s Voyages, 1774 : Cuzco and Lima y chap, i., p. 1 8. These facts are the more singular when we consider this island lies within the belt of the south-east trade wind, which canoes would have to encounter in order to get to the eastward towards the mainland, being in lat. 27 8 S. ; and, moreover, it is out of the influence of the south equatorial current. Ships coming from the northward which are bound for Chilian or Peruvian ports, after passing Easter Island, seldom get their heads EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 67 towards the coast much before lat. 35, making a slightly curved course from lat. 32. But notwithstanding the voluntary transits different races may have made, and did make, owing to unsuccessful wars, increase of numbers, or from a spirit of enterprise, we have well- authenticated instances of members of the Polynesian family having performed forced voyages, drifting about in canoes, owing to being blown off their own coasts, and having landed hundreds of miles distant from whence they started. Malte-Brun says: in 1696, two canoes containing thirty people were thrown by storms and contrary winds on the Philippine Islands, eight hundred miles from their homes. Captain Beechey gives an interesting account of three canoes, with natives from Anao, or Chain Island, in the South Pacific, being dis persed by the monsoon to several uninhabited islands: he found them six hundred miles from their own home, and took them back ; but 68 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. many had perished, during their involuntary voyage, from hunger. Kotzebue tells us that Kadu and three of his countrymen were driven from Ulea ; they drifted about for eight months, sustaining themselves with rain water and fish, and were eventually cast upon the islands of Aur, their distance from home in a direct line being no less than fifteen hundred miles. In 1721, two canoes, one of which contained twenty-four and the other six persons, men, women, and children, were drifted from an island called Farroilep, to the island of Gua- ham, one of the Marians, a distance of two hundred miles. Captain Beechey discovered forty natives of Tahiti, cast on a desolate island, and named by him Byam Martin Island ; and while Mr. Ellis was at Tubai, a canoe from Tahiti, bound to the Paumotu or Pearl Islands, had drifted on shore with some of the islanders. Vol. i., P- 55- In 1767, Pitcairn Island was uninhabited, EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 69 but in 1789 the mutineers of the Bounty reached there from Tahiti with several women, and when H.M.S. Briton touched there in 1814, forty-six people were found on it, and some infants. In 1825 there were sixty-six; and in 1831, when moved to Tahiti at their own request, there were eighty-seven ; while in 1855, when I visited them, they numbered many more, and the younger portions of the community were shortly after taken to Norfolk Island. Again, in 1820, a canoe arrived at Maurua, close to Borabora (Society Islands), that had been nearly three weeks at sea, and driven from Rurutu, one of the Austral Islands, more than seven hundred miles to the south east, and this was within the influence of the south-east trade wind. There is only one way of accounting for this, namely, by supposing the canoe to have been swept down across the south-east trade, and to the southward, when it reached the calm belt of Capricorn and the counter current ; and then, encountering the north-west and westerly winds, was driven back 70 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. into the trade. Or she might have been driven across the trade wind to the northward, and so have got into the counter equatorial current, which carried her westward until she again got into the influence of the trade. We were set N. 73 W., fifty-three miles in twenty-four hours, in H.M.S. Amphitrite, on the 3Oth December, 1854, by this counter current, while on the passage from the Sand wich Islands to Raitea (Society group). " On the most distant solitary islands discovered in recent years, such as Pitcairn s, on which the mutineers of the Bounty settled, and on Fanning s Island, near Christmas Island, midway between the Society and Sand wich Islands, although now desolate, relics of former inhabitants have been found. Pavements of floors, foundations of houses, and stone entrances have been discovered ; and stone adzes or hatchets have been found at some distance from the surface." And with regard to the traditions of the Society and Harvey islanders, and their in voluntary voyages in canoes, the same writer says, " If we suppose the population of the South Sea Islands to have proceeded from east to west, these events illus- EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 71 trate the means by which it may have been accom plished ; for it is a striking fact that every such voyage related in the accounts of voyagers, preserved in the traditions of the natives, or of recent occurrence, has invariably been found, from east to west, directly opposite to that in which it must have been, had the population been altogether derived from the Malayan Archipelago." Ellis s Polynesian Researches, vol. iv., pp. 124 126. Bishop Selwyn has given his opinion (and we could have no better on this subject) that the larger groups of islands in the vast Pacific Ocean seem to have " acted like great nets, and caught the stray canoes that had been drifting about before the storm." The migra tions which took place, he remarks, were not always accidental, for in the Caroline Islands the natives started off in swarms in their canoes to find a new home, their former homes having become too crowded. The Sandwich islanders it is almost certain came from the Georgian group, and the New Zealanders came from the Sandwich Islands to the Navigators ; and in the memory of their own traditions, according to Bishop Selwyn, 72 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. " thirty or forty generations back, came to New Zealand." But the Pacific Islands are inhabited by two distinct races of men, to which we shall have occasion to refer. Wallace mentions two instances, in 1682 and 1684, when some Esquimaux were driven to sea in their canoes and reached the Orkneys in safety. But the most significant instance on record, and nearer in approach to our subject, is the fact that only a few years ago a Japanese junk was picked up on the American coast near the mouth of the Columbia river, and another was driven ashore on the Sandwich Islands. These vessels must have been driven off their own shores while coasting, the Japanese having no trade with other people at that time, and carried to the places where they were found by the prevailing westerly winds and the " Black stream," or Japan current. Professor Maury, speaking of this current, says, EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 73 " The natives of the Aleutian Islands, where no trees grow, depend upon the drift-wood cast ashore there for all the timber used in the construction of their boats, fishing tackle, and household gear. Among this timber, the camphor-tree, and other woods of China and Japan, are said to be often recognized." Physical Geography of the Sea, Art. 395, p. 196. Behring s Straits are at the present day only forty miles across, and may at some period have been considerably less, if the two conti nents did not actually unite. It is, however, a communication easy for canoes, especially as in clear weather the shores of the two continents are distinctly visible. A little further to the south, the chain of the Aleutian Islands stretch across from what was formerly Russian America to within a hundred and thirty miles of the coast of Kamtchatka, forming another probable means of communication, aided as we have seen by the prevailing winds and current. When on the passage from the Sea of Okhotsk to Sitka, in H.M.S. Amphitrite, we experienced a south-easterly set nearly the whole way across. This Japan current takes 74 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. much the same course as the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic, but does not possess either the velocity or high temperature of the latter. Looking at the probable means of early transit on the Atlantic side, we find the nearest communication with America is by the Faroe Islands and Iceland. The Scandinavian manuscripts inform us that as far back as A.D. 875, voyages were made between Iceland and Scandinavia, when a settlement was founded by the Northmen, and from whence they reached Greenland in the year 983. But the Esquimaux, long previous to this date, had spread along the northern shores, as the Scandinavian adven turers found them inhabiting Greenland, and were told by them that another nation existed further south, and occupied a large portion of land. They described them as altogether different from themselves ; that they wore white clothing, carried long poles with cloth on them, and uttered strange cries. Humboldt says that " in the oldest sagas, EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 75 the historical narrations of Thorfiun Karlsefne, and the Icelandic Landnama books, these southern coasts between Virginia and Florida are designated by the name of the White Men s Land." Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 236. In the beginning of the tenth century, Gunnbjorn, the son of Ulf Krake, a Norwegian, discovered some large rocks due-west from Iceland (the Skerries). In 982 A.D., Erick the Red, with his father, being outlawed for murder, fled westward, and found land which he called Midjokul ; and then he sailed in a southerly direction, seeking for the nearest habitable land. The following year (983), he came to Ericksfiord. In 985 he went back to Iceland, and in 986 returned, and settled in this land, which he called Greenland. This account is taken from a most inte resting paper, called " The Site of the Lost Colony of Greenland determined, and Pre- Columbian Discoveries of America confirmed, from fourteenth-century documents," by R. H. 76 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Major, F.S.A., and Secretary F.R.G.S., read 9th June, 1873. This paper contains an account how one Nicolo Zeno, a member of one of the noblest and most ancient families in Venice, set forth in the early part of the fourteenth century on a voyage of discovery into the northern seas. He was wrecked on what he describes as the island of Frislanda, and rescued from the wreckers by the chief called Zichmmi. A long account is given of his adventures, which had for many years been doubted, but which Mr. Major proves to have been accurate. He says, " The Zeno document is now shown to be the latest in existence, as far as we know, giving details respecting the important lost east colony of Greenland, which has been so anxiously sought for." Among other things, he mentions the existence of an island between Iceland and Greenland, and Mr. Major says, "In the 1507 edition of Ptolemy, is a most valuable map of the world, made by a German named Johann Ruysch, a map which would be eminently remarkable EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 77 as an engraved map if only for its very early date, but it is pre-eminently so from the fact that it is the first engraved map on which America is laid down." And it is on this map that the destruction of the island laid down on Zeno s chart is noted as having taken place in the year 1456, by volcanic eruption, where now exists a shoal full sixty miles long from north to south, and about twenty-five miles from east to west, soundings being marked on it from twenty- five to a hundred fathoms. After the Norsemen had been some time in Greenland, the Skroellings (Esquimaux), who came from Northern Siberia, invaded Green land in the middle of the fourteenth century, and slaughtered all the Norsemen. Ivar Bardsen was sent to succour the sister colony, and to drive away the Skrcellings. He found, however, on arriving there, neither Christian nor heathen, but only some cattle running wild, which his people took on board their vessels and returned home. It is still a matter of doubt whether Iceland 78 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. itself did not receive its first inhabitants from America, as in the oldest chronicles of that island the first inhabitants are called " West men, who had come across the sea." The ancient Irish accounts all agree in stating that letters and the arts of civilization were introduced into their country by a people called Phenians, who evidently were of a dif ferent stamp from those foolish people who have borrowed this name in the present day, and by their silly attempts at rebellion have done so much to check the prosperity of their country. The ancient Phenians are sup posed to have come from the Mediterranean to Spain, and then to the British islands. It would be interesting to know whether these early settlers were a Phoenician or a Carthaginian colony. The extracts given by Heeren from the Carthaginian commander Himilco, of the coun tries of Europe beyond the Pillars of Hercules, mention the " ^Estrymnide (Scilly) Islands," also the " Holy Island (once so called), which lies EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 79 expanded on the sea, the dwelling of the Hibernian race." But it is possible the Carthaginians may have been driven into that sea which Himilco describes as having himself been on for four months ; " for here no wind wafted the bark, so motionless stood the indolent wave. Sea weed abounds, and retards the vessel in her course ; while monsters of the deep swarm around." We could not have a clearer description of the " Sargasso Sea " westward of the Canary Islands ; but he speaks again of the sea " beyond the Pillars, on Europe s coast," into which he says " no ship has yet ventured," and where "thick fogs rest on the waters."- Heeren s Carthage: Hist. Researches, vol. i., App., p. 502. A most interesting account from another Scandinavian MS. makes mention of a vessel that was driven off the coast of Iceland in the year A.D. 999, bound for Sweden ; she was reported to have been lost with all on board, 8o THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. but some time after another vessel from Iceland met with contrary winds and strong north-east gales, which drove her on an unknown coast, where the people on board discovered their own countrymen whom they had supposed lost at sea. One year later, Lief Eiricksson (Lief, the son of Eric the Red) discovered America Proper, about the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut, naming it " Vinland the Good." Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 603. The Phoenicians were undoubtedly the ear liest maritime people of the old continent, and we have seen them establishing colonies in the countries north of the Straits of Gibraltar, and working tin mines in Spain, Britain, and probably Ireland ; and as the compass was then unknown, (at least in Europe,) their voyages were performed by coasting along the shore. But they were not long in discovering the rich peninsula of India by way of the Red Sea ; and in the reign of Pharaoh-Neco they dis covered the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, twenty-one centuries before the Portu- EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 81 guese, Vasco de Gama, found the same way to the Indies in 1497, and may probably have reached America, not only by the medium of the Faroe Islands and Iceland, but by way of the Cape de Verde Islands and the Canaries, as, independent of accidental discovery by being driven across the North Atlantic, the same spirit of enterprise that animated Columbus, the same trade winds, and the same equatorial current, may possibly have transported them to the shores of Brazil, or the islands of the Antilles. The inscriptions on the Dighton rock, on the east side of the Taunton river in Massachusetts, has puzzled antiquaries not a little, some pro nouncing them to be Phoenician characters, others, amongst whom is Mr. Schoolcraft, Scan dinavian. The learned Humboldt considers it probable they are Carthaginian. The natives, at the time of the first European settlement, said that strangers in wooden houses had sailed up the Taunton river, conquered the red men, and engraved the marks on the rock, which 6 82 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. is now covered with the water of the river. Humboldfs Researches, vol. i., p. 152. The sketch given, in the work of Messrs. Squier and Davis, of a flint knife from a Scandinavian barrow, and of a hornstone one taken from a mound in Ohio, together with an obsidian knife from the pyramid of Teotihuacan in Mexico, all exhibit the most marked resem blance. Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, chap, xiii., p. 215. Again, there is no doubt but that the Welsh colony under Prince Madoc that sailed from that country in ten vessels in the latter part of the twelfth century, reached the shores of America. They could not have been the " white men " south of the Esquimaux, as the latter had been spoken of four hundred years before. Madoc probably reached the shores of Florida, and established himself and com panions on the banks of the Mississippi and Ohio, travelling by degrees to the interior of the continent, where their remains are now found. Catlin, who gives a very minute EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 83 description of the Mandan tribe of Indians (now extinct), says that he believes them to be the remains of this lost colony, as he traced them down from nearly 48 N. to the junction of the Ohio with the Mississippi, a distance of eighteen hundred miles. He found their remains and fortifications on the Ohio, a hundred and twenty miles eastward of the present town of Cincinnati. He remarks : " These ancient fortifications, which are very numerous in that vicinity, some of which enclose a great many acres, and being built on the banks of the rivers, with walls in some places twenty or thirty feet in height, with covered ways to the water, evince a knowledge of the science of fortifications, apparently not a century behind that of the present day, were evidently never built by any nation of savages in America, and present to us incon testable proof of the former existence of a people very for advanced in the arts of civilization, who have, from some cause or other, disappeared, and left these imperish able proofs of their former existence." Catlings North American Indians, vol. ii., p. 259. The well-built huts of the Mandans, their canoes, so similar to the early Welsh coracle, together with their superior manufacture of pottery, their light hair and eyes, show un- THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. mistakably their close connexion in early times with a more civilized race ; and the following list of Mandan and Welsh words give con clusive evidence that Prince Madoc with his followers reached this country. ENGLISH. MANDAN. WELSH. PRONOUNCED I Me Mi Me You Ne Chwi Chwe He E A A She Ea E A It Ount Hwynt Hooynt We Noo Ni Ne They Eonah Hwna (masc.) Hona (fern.) Hoona Hona Those ones Yrhai Hyna No, or There) is not ) Megosh Nagoes Nagosh {Nage No . . Nag Na Head Pan Pen Pan The Great 1 (Maho Mawr Penacthir * Maoor Panaether Spirit j } Peneta Ysprid mawr f Uspryd maoor The old documents also mention a country called Huitramannaland, or Whiteman s land, and supposed to be the country of North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. * To act as a great chief ; head or principal ; sovereign or supreme. t The Great Spirit. EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 85 There is a tradition among the Shawanese Indians, who emigrated some years ago from Florida and settled in Ohio, that Florida was inhabited by white people who possessed iron instruments. " Perhaps," says Mr. Major, " the most interesting, as showing the existence of Scandinavian people and customs in America at that period, is the statement of their making beer, which, as Zeno says, is a kind of drink that northern people take as we do wine. "- Journal Rl. Geo. So., vol. xliii., p. 201. The traditions of many of the great Indian tribes, now disappearing, attest their having originally come from some other country. The nation of the Chepewyan (sometimes confounded with Chippeways) were formerly a numerous and powerful people who in habited the country between the parallels of 60 and 65 N., and 100 and 1 10 W. They state that they originally came from another country inhabited by a very wicked people ; that they traversed a great lake which was narrow, shallow, and full of islands ; they suffered great misery as they were always in 86 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. ice ; they landed at the mouth of a river (the Coppermine ?) where the land was full of copper. Mackenzie says this people evidently came from the western coast, and spread eastward ; and a tribe of them is known to exist on the upper part of the Saskatchiwine river. The most powerful of all appear to have been the great Ahaton nation, of which the Algonquins, the Chippeways or Ojibbeways, Pawnees, Choctaws, Hurons, Delawares, and Cherokees, form a part. The name Ahaton signifies " men who live about the great fall." This is the fall of St. Anthony, on the north branch of the Mississippi, and to the westward of Lake Michigan. The Delawares, many hundred years ago, lived in the western part of the continent, and migrated from thence about the same time as the Iroquois or Kistenaux, which means " chief of men." Mackenzie found the whole of the country between the great lakes and Hudson s Bay inhabited by them. EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 87 The Delawares and Iroquois both met on the banks of the Mississippi, and drove the inhabitants, the Alligervi, or Alleghans, who dwelt on the eastern side of the river, out of their territory, after many bloody battles had been fought, the Alleghans re treating down the river. In like manner, the Cheyennes, the remnant of a powerful nation, were driven by the Sioux across the Missouri. The Sioux formed part of the Dacotah nation, or " the nonpareils," the Picanaux, Blood, Blackfeet, and Foxes belong to this people. The Sioux Indians display the least aptitude for civilization, or for a fixed place of abode ; and from their general appearance there is much to remind us of the nomadic hordes of Tartary. They ultimately drove the Cheyennes into the Black hills, at the upper end of the Cheyenne river ; and it was the circumstance of their being found in that locality that made the French traders give them that name. The original name of the parent tribe was Shaway, which 88 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Washington Irving states lived on a branch of the Red River that flows into Lake Win nipeg. The North American Indians, although so similar in their general appearance, are never theless very diverse in many of their manners and customs. For instance, we find the Chinooks, belonging to the W T akash nation, in Oregon and Vancouver s Island, compress ing the heads of their children, and burying their dead ; while the Tuckoli burn theirs, and do not flatten the skull ; and yet both are found to the west of the Rocky Moun tains, and not far from each other. The Tuckoli say they migrated from the sea- coast, and they are totally distinct from the surrounding tribes. Enough has been said to show that com munication had taken place between the two continents through the medium of Iceland as early as the ninth century of our era, and that at that time America was found inhabited by two different people, namely, EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 89 the Esquimaux, who are of the same family as the Lapps of Europe and the Samoyedes of Asia, and therefore are classed under Turanian, and the " white men " spoken of by the Esquimaux as inhabiting the country (the " good vinland ") to the south of them, and who may have been Phoenicians or Carthaginians. Humboldt says, " In the west, the Canary Islands and the Azores, (which the son of Columbus, Don Fernando, considered to be the first Cassiterides discovered by the Cartha ginians,) and in the north, the Orkneys, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland, became the intermediary stations of transit to the new continent. They indicate the two paths by which the European portion of mankind became acquainted with Central and North America." Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 129. It is necessary to bear in mind that nearly all the traditions, so far as we can trace them, point to the north as the quarter from whence the Toltecs, Aztecs, and many other nations came. Mr. Delafield in his interesting work has a facsimile of an Aztec map, no less than seventeen and a half feet long, which 90 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. was obtained by Mr. Bullock from the col lection of the unfortunate Boturini, repre senting the history of their journeys. Anti quities of America, p. 96. Humboldt is of opinion that the Toltecs derived their origin from the Huns. Adair, who lived forty years among some of the tribes, assures us their origin is Israelitish. Cabrera labours to show that the Phoenicians first peopled America. Sandoval endeavours to prove that the new continent received its first inhabitants from Ceylon and India. Lord Kingsborough, in his magnificent work of nine folio volumes, is quite as positive as Adair that they are of Hebrew origin. Colunio assigns them a Gaelic origin, while Charron assures us they are of Celtic ex traction. Robertson is of opinion, with Humboldt, that we must look for their ancestors among the Tartar tribes of Asia. To the impartial and delightful pages of EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 91 Prescott, together with the keen judgment of Humboldt, as well as to the interesting works of Dr. Wilson, and Professor Dawson of Montreal, we are most indebted in our endeavours to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion. At one stage of our investigations we imagine the right trail has been struck, only to lose it again after a short time ; those circumstances deemed so similar with regard to two nations of the Old and New Conti nents at the commencement, will be met by equally dissimilar ones a little further on, severing for the time all the imaginary ties of relationship. Still, as here and there the print of the mocassin, or a broken twig, will direct the Indian on the war-path in pursuit of his object, so we have corresponding indications of being on the right track ; and although actual proof is often wanting, we nevertheless by patient investigation are able to arrive at a fair and reasonable conclusion. We turn first of all to the two nations of 92 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. the New World who were found at the time of the conquest by the Spaniards, the centres of civilization in North and South America, namely, those of Mexico and Peru. icjraticms f0 America, (Continued.} IV. EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. (Continued?) T N the map that accompanies this volume will be seen the routes by which the early voyagers probably passed from the Old to the New Continent. We know for certain that the Northmen discovered Greenland, and the land farther south, in the latter part of the tenth century of our era ; and that they found the Skrcellings, or Esquimaux, there before them, with the account of still another race of "white men" further south. These Skrcellino-s o being of the same race as the Samoyedes of Northern Asia, must have come across either by Behring s Straits or by the same way as the Northmen themselves. The former way is the most probable, as their stations can be traced on the northern shores of Siberia and 96 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. on Bank s Land and the Parry Islands in North America. Mr. Markham says, "It is at least certain that when Eric the Red planted his little colony of hardy Norsemen at the mouth of one of the Greenland fiords, in the end of the tenth century, he found the land apparently far more habitable than it is to-day." We also know that the Welsh colony under Prince Madoc reached the shores of America, probably about Florida, in the early part of the twelfth century. But it is to a far earlier migration than either of these that we have to look. Who were these " white men " that had reached America before the Scandinavians ? When we look to the maritime exploits of the Phoenicians, their voyages to the British islands for tin, together with their circum navigation of Africa, we see the probable earliest discoverers of the New World from the Atlantic side. "The port of Gades (Cadiz)" says Heeren, "must be regarded as the chief place, and as the new starting-point, EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 97 for all these distant voyages. Gades was adapted for the navigation of the ocean, whose boundless expanse seemed to dare the hardy adventurer to the discovery of what lay beyond." Diodorus Siculus says they (the Phoenicians) had discovered " an island in the ocean many days sail to the west of Lybia (North Africa), the romantic description of which almost forces upon our remembrance some of the Fortunate Islands of the South Sea." Hcerens Historical Researches, vol. i., p. 103. Was this island one of the Canaries, or Cape de Verdes ; or was it possibly one of the Antilles? We are reminded of that poem of the " Morgante Maggiore " by Luigi Pulci, which was written before the voyages of Columbus, and previous to the discoveries of Galileo or Copernicus, and which Mr. Prescott has quoted in his Critical and Historical Essays, p. 293. The Italian poet predicts the dis covery of another continent beyond the ocean, and alludes to the theory of gravitation. Dante, two centuries before, had expressed the 7 98 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. same belief in an undiscovered quarter of the globe. The fiend, alluding to the vulgar superstition entertained of the Pillars of Hercules, thus addresses his companion : " Know that this theory is false ; his bark The daring mariner shall urge far o er The western wave, a smooth and level plain, Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel. Man was in ancient days of grosser mould, And Hercules might blush to learn how far Beyond the limits he had vainly set, The dullest seaboat soon shall wing her way. Men shall descry another hemisphere, Since to one common centre all things tend ; So earth, by curious mystery Divine, Well-balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres. At our Antipodes are cities, states, And thronged empires, ne er divined of yore. But see, the sun speeds on his western path, To glad the nations with expected light." Canto xxv., stanzas 229, 230. Yes, long previous to the Scandinavian dis covery of the " good vinland," the Phoenicians had in all probability crossed the Atlantic in those latitudes where a fishing-smack can run with the greatest ease, and where the gentle EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 99 trade winds and the equatorial current com pensate the sailor for the hardships he has en dured off Cape Horn, or in the Bay of Biscay. Colonel Hamilton Smith alludes to the similarity that existed between some of the Carib institutions, together with words in their language, to those of the Phoenicians. Nat. Hist,, p. 259. We find a very close resemblance between the Phoenician characters and those of Central America, and a glance at the accompanying table will show this. There has been considerable doubt among philologists how to class the Phoenicians whether as Hamites or Semites ; but with regard to the language there can be no doubt that it was a Semitic one, and most closely allied with the Hebrew ; the language of the Carthaginians must therefore also be of the same branch. But in the tenth chapter of Genesis we read that " Canaan begat Sidon, his first-born," the oldest of the Phoenician states, and this would loo THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. consequently class the Phoenicians as Hamites, and not Semites. Dr. Farrar says, " If the Phoenicians were indeed pure Semites, they form a most singular exception to the general peculiarities of their race. Little of what we have said respecting the Semitic race in general, applies to them. Unlike their national kindred, the Phoenicians were energetic, they were enterprising, they were artistic, they were grossly immoral, they were freely polytheistic. In short, they were almost everything that the other Semites were not, and scarcely anything that the other Semites were. If they were a pure race, they would go far (as do the Mexicans in America) to shake to its very foundations the conception of ineradicable race-distinctions which have long prevailed among so many ethnologists. The argument against their being Semites is in part derived from the fact that the tenth chapter of Genesis classes them among the children of Ham Perhaps the true solution of the difficulties which meet us in finding them possessed of a civilization wholly unlike that of the other people who spoke their language, lies in the fact indicated in the book of Genesis by the fraternal relation of Ham to Shem : perhaps, in fact, we may assume that there was at an early period a close intercourse and rapid interchange of relations between the descendants of Ham and those of Shem, and that, in consequence, the Hamites sometimes adopted the language of the Semites while they retained tendencies and institutions of a wholly different character." Families of Speech, p. 101. EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 101 Mr. Smith, with many others, thinks the Phoenicians came into Palestine as immigrants from the East, displacing the older population mentioned in the Bible by the name of Rephaim, Zuzim, Zamzummim, etc., as the native traditions of the Phoenicians derived their origin from the shores of the Persian Gulf. And if the Hyksos, or shepherd kings of Egypt, who Manetho expressly calls Phoeni cians, were a branch of this migration, it would account for the similarity in the alphabetic characters of the two nations. Again, we know that the Phoenician differed only as a dialect from the Hebrew, a Semitic language. Abraham had no difficulty in com municating with the sons of Heth (Gen. xxiii.) ; but Joseph s brethren were obliged to have recourse to an interpreter when they went down into Egypt to buy corn (Gen. xlii.) Thus, if the primitive Canaanites had been driven out by the Phoenicians, they, becoming incorporated with them to a great extent, and following their wickedness and idolatry, 102 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. became the second inhabitants of Canaan, and therefore the Canaanites of the Bible history who were devoted to destruction. The curse of Noah was on Canaan, the sou of Ham. Ham was nevertheless the founder of the two great ancient civilizations, Egypt and Babylonia, while the blessing pronounced on Shem was delayed for a long period. The curse on Canaan did not come into operation for four hundred years, showing the goodness and severity of God. Thus in the earliest times we find un mistakable evidence of the Hamitic race being the civilizers of the human family ! It was not till the kingdoms of Egypt and Babylonia sank, that the Aryan and Semitic nations, descended respectively from Japheth and Shem, took the lead in the progress of mankind. " Alphabetic writing, astronomy, sculpture, navigation, agriculture, plastic art, and textile industry, seem, all of them, to have had their origin from Egypt and Babylon, Mizraim and Nimrod, both descendants of Ham." Rawlinsotfs Ancient Researches , vol. i., p. 75. In the Canary Islands traces have been dis- EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 103 covered of a race that bore, in some respects, a strong resemblance to both the Egyptians and Phoenicians. These ancient people, called Guanches, are supposed to have been of Semitic origin, and their traditions state they were descended from a great and powerful people. Their crania are similar to those found near Lake Titicaca in Peru. They embalmed their dead like the Egyptians and Peruvians. These Guanches made a gallant resistance against their invaders in the beginning of the fifteenth century. They are described as of great stature, but of very simple habits. It is undeniable that the Carthaginians, who sprung from the Phoenicians, found an Asiatic population already settled in North Africa when they arrived, probably about B.C. 2400 or 2300, as they continued paying a tax or tribute for the site of their city of Carthage. Mr. Smith says, "These nations, the Maxyas, were a branch of the great Berber race, which was spread then as now over 104 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. the whole of North Africa, between the chain of the Atlas and the sea. They were of Asiatic origin, and belonged, like the Phoenicians, to the Semitic family. They sup planted, and drove back into the interior, the African races of the Libyans and Gastulians. Sallust has preserved a curious tradition, which was translated to him from the Punic books of King Hiempsal, of the immigration of the new settlers from Asia. They formed, he said, a portion of the army, composed of various races, which Hercules led abroad to seek adventures. When the hero died in Spain, his followers were scattered ; and bodies of them, consisting of Medes, Persians, and Armenians, were transported by their ships to the northern shores of Africa. Here the Medes and Armenians, mingling with the Libyans near the shores of the Western Ocean, founded the nation of the Mauri, or Mauretanians ; the Persians, mixing with the more warlike Gaetulians of the centre, became the ancestors of the roving Numidians, and established the most powerful of the native kingdoms, Numjdia, the scene of that famous war which the his torian related." Smith s Ancient History, vol. ii., p. 389. Prichard says, " the extension of this race (Berber) through the Canary Islands is a curious and interesting discovery of modern times." His conclusions are as follows : " On the whole, the evidence appears to show that the Berber is a Hebraso-African tongue, like the Ghyz and the Amharic. With an enormous difference of vocabu lary, its pervading genius is thoroughly the same ; and, EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 105 following grammatical peculiarities as our guide, the received doctrines on this subject would seem to justify the inference that the Berbers are a race anciently con nected by blood with the Canaanites and the Ethiopians." Nat. History of Man, vol. i., p. 275. Dr. Earth remarks that the Berbers are clearly recognized as the Tamhu of the Egyp tian monuments. They were of a light colour, wore earrings, and had a peculiar curl on the right side of the head. Here, then, in the Canary Islands we find a probable stepping-stone to the new world in very early times by either the Carthaginians or by the Berbers. If, as Mr. Newman conjectures, the great Berber race of North Africa was anciently con nected by blood with the Canaanites and Ethiopians, then we have good reason for thinking that this ancient race furnished the primitive population to the Canary Islands, who in all probability found their way, whether by accident or design, to the Antilles, and thence to South America. Dr. Prichard says there is sufficient evidence 106 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. in the remains of the language of the Guanches to prove their descent from the Berbers, and gives twenty-one words in both languages. Vol. ii., p. 36. The word Charaibe, or Carib, means war like people, and a remnant still remains on the island of St. Vincent. The Caribs of the isles were a fine, handsome race ; their tradition states that their ancestors came from the mainland, and killed all the males, but saved the females, "The Carib women spoke a different language from that of their husbands, because the Caribs had killed the whole male population of the Arawakes, and married their women ; and something similar seems to have taken place among some tribes in Greenland." Max Miiller, Science of Language, quoting Hervas., Catalogo i., pp. 212 and 369. The Caribs closely resembled the Goahiros, and it is very probable that the marauders were these people. The Goahiros who inhabit the country between the Rio de la Hecha and the Gulf of Maracaibo, are, according to Sullivan, the only original tribe in the torrid EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 107 zone that retains its liberty. They bear a great resemblance to * the Caribs, being fierce and untamed, and they differ from the other tribes in appearance. Again, the Natchez tribe, which formerly existed in Florida, but is now extinct, had a tradition that their forefathers came from the rising sun across the big salt lake, that the voyage was long, and that they were nearly perishing with hunger when they reached America. They buried their dead in a crouch ing posture, the chin resting on the knees ; and Stephens found all the corpses in Yucatan buried in the same manner. We shall also see that in Peru the mummies were found in the same posture. Both Humboldt and Rivero refer to the story of Votan, the personage mentioned in the Indian MS. of Chiapa (Central America), who called himself a " chivim," or serpent, and lord of the " sacred drum," called in the Chiapa language Tapanahuasec. Humboldt remarks the similarity of the loS THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. great calendar stone of the Mexicans, and the representations cut upon it, to the Kala, or god of Time, amongst the Hindoos, and to the Moloch of the Phoenicians, " from which very country there can be but little doubt America received a portion of its first inhabitants." Researches in Ant. America, vol. i., p. 176. We therefore think it highly probable that, from the opposite shores of North Africa, one of the first streams of human migration found its way to the Antilles, and thence to Florida, as well as to the coast of Brazil, and in course of time dispersed itself along the great water highways of the Amazon and Orinoco, and through the Isthmus of Panama to Central America. On the Pacific side, we have seen the Skrcellings (Esquimaux) advancing by the northern coasts from Asia to America. Behring s Straits form the nearest communi cation by which the Alleghans, Toltecs, Chichi mecs, and Aztecs came across from Asia to the great lake country of America. If the country of Aztalan is really the " lake country," then EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 109 we find it took them four hundred and sixteen years of wandering to reach the Mexican plateau, during which time they had fifteen halting-places, probably of many years duration. That these nations followed each other by successive waves of migration from the shores of Asia, there is no reason to doubt. All their traditions point to the north-west as the quarter from whence their ancestors came. They passed from about lat. 42 N. through Ohio, Mississippi, and Illinois, and their remains still exist in these regions ; none are found north of the great lakes. Colonel Hamilton Smith says the Finnic and Tartar dialects resemble the Aztec, like wise the Othomi. Captain Cook found the language about Nootka sound similar to the Mexican in the frequent ending of the words in /, //, and z. Mr. Prescott says, "The languages spread over the western continent far exceed in number those found in any equal population in the eastern. They exhibit the remarkable anomaly of differing as widely in etymology as they agree in organi- i io THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. zation ; and, on the other hand, while they bear some slight affinity to the languages of the Old World in the former particular, they have no resemblance to them whatever in the latter." But there is an exception in the Othomi language, which was widely spoken ; and they appear, in conjunction with the Totonacs, to have inhabited the country " before the arrival of the Chichimecs" Dr. Prichard remarks on the Othomi as a very remarkable people, from the circumstance that, while all the other known languages of American are polysyllabic, and abounding with complicated constructions, the Othomi, as it has been proved by a late writer, a native of Mexico, Don E, Naxera, was a monosyllabic dialect " It would seem to belong to the same family of languages with the Chinese and Indo-Chinese idioms." Nat. Hist, of Man, vol. ii., p. 512. This circumstance, coupled with the account given by De Guignes, in a translation made from the Chinese annals, of a voyage that had been made by them to Foo-sang, a country EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. in which by its geographical position must have been the north-west coast of America, in the fifth century A.D., proves that intercourse had taken place between the Chinese and America about A.D. 458, as it was in that year five bonzes from Samarkand are said to have preached Buddhism to the newly discovered Americans. The historian Robertson considers the Othomies to have been the residue of the original inhabitants of North America, that is, of its first inhabitants ; if this be the case, they must have been identical with the Alleghans, or Mound-builders. But further proof of communication between the two continents is found in the striking similarity that existed in the zodiacal signs of the Aztecs and the Tartar nations. Mr. Prescott says, "The symbols in the Mongolian calendar are borrowed from animals. Four of the twelve are the same as the Aztec; three others are as nearly the same as the dif ferent species of animals in the two hemispheres would allow j the remaining five refer to no creature found ii2 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. in Anahnac. The resemblance went as far as it could. The similarity of these conventional symbols among the several nations of the East, can hardly fail to carry conviction of a common origin for the system, as regards them. Why should not a similar conclusion be applied to the Aztec calendar, which, although relating to days instead of years, was, like the Asiatic, equally appropriated to chronological uses, and to those of divination ? " Mexico, vol. ii., p. 487. The cycles of the Asiatic nations differed, however, from the American ; thus, the Mexican, fifty-two years. Peruvian, none. Hindoo, sixty years. Chinese, Egyptian, Chaldaean, Persian, But the Aztec number of lunar months of thirteen days, contained in a cycle of fifty-two years, corresponded precisely with the number of years in the great Sothic period of the Egyptians, namely, 1491, a period in which the seasons and, festivals came round to the same place in the year again. EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 113 The signs of the zodiac (as given on next page) are copied from Humboldt s researches concerning the institutions and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of America. Leaving for a moment these civilized nations that were found at the conquest inhabiting the Mexican plateau, we find unmistakable evi dence of a returning tide of migration that had taken place in the intertropical regions of the Pacific. The peculiar formation of so many of the islands in that vast ocean tell the tale of gradual subsidence : the barrier reefs that en circle the vast majority of them show that for many hundreds of years they have been slowly sinking beneath the waters of the ocean, and only here and there do we find evidence of an upheaval having taken place. This, however, is not the case on the western coast of America ; for there we see in every successive earthquake (and they occur rapidly) the signs of the coast having been raised. The forces that elevated the vast chain of the 8 ii4 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. - sf ! i o -^s < ^ S <^ ^j t/5 K ^ 9 52 oj {-> O 2 a ^ J rt SO " 35 M U <; 1 fc Ci -t-> *o o ^ "l^-l < K iiili.li c^UP^H < QK rt > gig SJ U IH ^-.^ 5 O ^ !H ^ h K W Ja w c* in -3-5 <2J2~ ga ? i H ^^ g *o ^"2 ^-^ 2^1 SOU !-. i J JDrtaJs^^ f ? ?^ a^ 5>3 i W M w s ii niiii ii|i o g o "" o S g | < i S C 21 o fcjO < rrt LJ I W) & ^ &^ - 3 rt p W a X H 1|: ioort^i S^l,!- P ^o <u U h2 !_S;^<O ii^O^rt ^ s-i Q S 1 1 * rt O b 1 W 2 2 w g ^j d C4 ^ K S o ^ O )H H ^, ^ ^ -iQhSOH c/^H > ^J a o<t c :- J >>^ 2 5< ^ H H O 2 II fi|tf||| l||| ||3 oo gH 020 P HH^^SW HO l!^-- 5 ^ w ro *h< J! jiii S ^ ^ " " w ^ IH2 |i| ffiS^^i 111 O EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 115 Andes, and which have left so many terraces, particularly in Chili, are still in operation, and though perhaps reduced in force and frequency from what they once were, are nevertheless strll felt in the terrible throes of those active volcanoes which are so numerous on the coast, and which extend across to the Sandwich Islands and Japan, and along the whole coast of Kamchatka. Mr. Ellis says, "The natives of the eastern part of New Holland, and the intertropical islands within 30 E., including New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, and the Fijis, appear to be one nation, and in all probability came originally from the Asiatic islands to the northward, as their skin is black, and their hair woolly and crisped, like the inhabitants of the mountainous parts of the Asiatic islands. But the inhabitants of all the islands east of the Fijis, including the Friendly Islands and New Zealand, though they have many characteristics in common with these, have a number essentially different." Polynesian Researches, vol. iv., p. 432. The New Hebrides, lying north and south, appear at some time or other to have been the meeting-place of people of different types. n6 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. The vast number of islands that are scattered over the North and South Pacific Oceans have been divided into five groups, by Mr. Crawford, namely, 1. Malaisia : this includes the East Indian islands, comprising the Philippines, and Sumatra, Java, Celebes, and Borneo; inhabited by Malays. 2. Melanesia : New Guinea, New Britain, Solomon Islands, and New Hebrides; inhabited by a dark, woolly-haired race. 3. Australia ; inhabited by a black race with straight hair. 4. Micronesia : Pellew, Ladrone, Banabe, and several small groups east of the Philippines, extending from about 132 E. to 178 W. longitude; and from 21 N. to 5 S. latitude; inhabited by a mixed race. 5. Polynesia: East Pacific islands, as the Navigators , Friendly, Society, Sandwich groups, and New Zealand ; inhabited by a race like the Malay. With regard to the last-named group, Mr. Ellis thinks that the Sandwich Islands were EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 117 settled before the Society, the Georgian, or the Friendly, south of the equator ; and gives as a reason, that their genealogies extend much farther back. Two races exist among the island groups, one similar in many respects to the negro, though superior ; the other resembling the eastern Asiatics. No one who has visited the different islands can fail to be struck with the distinctive character of these two peoples. Traces of this mixture are plainly discernible even among the New Zealand tribes, while the Fijis seem to be a mixture of the Papuan and Polynesian. The Papuans are a magnificent race, with black skin, crisp hair, and fine features, the lips being much thinner than the negro. The Polynesian race more nearly approach the Malay, having a light copper-coloured skin, strong slightly curled hair, and the head short and broad, with a remarkably flat posterior head like that of the American ii8 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Indians. Their language, however, is decidedly of Asiatic origin. It is generally admitted that the Malay, Melanesian, and Polynesian, are all descended from one stock ; and the Micronesians are a mixture of all three, as their language proves. The resemblance between the Indians of Central America and the Polynesians is very marked, and the stone images and platforms found on many of the islands are so similar to those of Peru, that there seems good reason for believing the eastern islands of the Pacific were peopled at one time from America, though now fused with a Malay element. The pyramidal structures of many of the temples in the South Sea Islands lead one insensibly to America. The large building in Atehurn was 270 feet long, 94 feet wide, and 50 feet high : a flight of steps led to the summit. The outer stones of this pyramid, composed of coral and basalt, were laid with great care, and hewn or squared with immense labour, EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 119 especially the corner-stones. Houses for the priests were in the enclosure, as well as for those who kept the idols. Ruins of temples are found in every direc tion, on the summit of hills and in groves. Again, in the Society group, the heads of the children were compressed, not however for beauty, but to add terror to their aspect when they should become warriors. The forehead and back of the head were pressed upwards. Like the Peruvians, they embalmed their dead at the Society and Georgian groups. They did not last long, like the South Ameri can mummies, as the humidity of the soil prevented this, but the bones were afterwards buried, and the skull preserved. The system of taboo is generally regarded as having its origin in Asia. It was change able and arbitrary, though connected with religion. Mr. Russell remarks that a piece of land, a single tree, a whole herd or a single animal, a house or a whole island, could be tabooed. 120 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. This at first sight appears very arbitrary, but the more I examined into this singular custom when among the different islands, the more convinced was I of its reason and usefulness, when not the result of caprice. For instance, when at Nukahiva (Marquesas Islands) all the chickens were under taboo in the Hapa valley, and not a soul dared touch one ; and upon making inquiries I ascertained that there had been a great run upon them by some whaling vessels a few weeks back, and if precautions had not been taken they would have had none left. I have known a stream in New Zealand, connecting two lakes, tabooed in like manner, and putting us to great inconvenience, but why was this ? It was the breeding season of the different water-fowl, and the chiefs showed their wisdom in not allowing them to be disturbed. Our fishing Acts, and laws with regard to the killing of game only at certain seasons, are only taboo under a dif ferent guise. EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. 121 Taboo is not in use among either the Pellew or Ladrone islanders. A glance at the map will show the direction of the winds and currents in the Pacific Ocean, by means of which the numerous islands have become peopled. Mr. Ellis says, "Whether some of the tribes who originally passed from Asia, along the Kurile and Aleutian Islands, across Behring s Straits to America, left part of their number, who were the progenitors of the present race, inhabiting these islands, and that they, at some subsequent period, either attempting to follow the tide of emigration to the east, or, steering to the south, were by the north-east trade winds driven to the Sandwich Islands, whence they proceeded to the southern groups ; or whether those who had traversed the north-west coast of America sailed either from California or Mexico across the Pacific under the favouring influence of the regular easterly winds, peopled Easter Island, and continued, under the steady easterly or trade-winds, advancing westward till they met the tide of emigration flowing from the larger groups or islands in which the Malays form the majority of the population, it is not easy now to determine. But a variety of facts connected with the past and present circumstances of the inhabitants of these countries, authorise the conclusion that either part of the present inhabitants of the South Sea Islands 122 THE MIGRATION FROM SHIN A R. came originally from America, or that tribes of the Polynesians have, at some remote period, found their way to the continent." Polynesian Researches, vol. ii., p. 48. Mr. Russell also remarks that, notwith standing the obscurity which continues to hang over the subject, "when all the circum stances are duly weighed, it may not seem unreasonable to conclude that the southern islands have been colonized both directly, through the medium of the Malay establish ments on either side of Torres Straits, and also by means of casual migrations into the northern parts of America, and a subsequent departure from the same continent in a lower latitude." Russell s Polynesia, p. 36. ^ntlmi f nfjdritefs 0f V. THE ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF MEXICO. / nr*HE Mexican traditions all agree that the Toltecs, who were the first known tribe that appeared in Anahuac, together with the Chichimecs and Acolhuans who followed them, came from a northerly direction ; and Mr. Prescott remarks that, among several of the neighbouring tribes, traditions of a north-west origin exist, and that the Mexicans themselves preserved, both orally and by hieroglyphic maps, the different stages of their migration from the northward. Unfortunately, the Romish bigots at the time of the conquest of this country destroyed everything they could lay their bloodstained hands upon ; amongst these fanatics, Zu- marraga, the first Archbishop, played a con- 126 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. spicuous part by burning a numerous collection of these paintings ; and well may the accom plished American historian doubt which had the strongest claims to civilization, the victors or the vanquished. It appears that the Toltecs remained in the Mexican valley for four centuries, and then mysteriously disappeared, owing to their being reduced by pestilence and unsuccessful wars. Prescotfs Mexico, vol. i., chap. i. According to Fuentes, the chronicler of the kingdom of Guatemala, the kings of Quiche and Kachiquel were descended from the Toltecs, who when they came into the latter country found it entirely inhabited by people of different nations. The manuscript of Don Juan Torres, the grandson of the last king of the Quiches, and obtained by Fuentes from the historian Father Francis Vasques, states that the Toltecs themselves were descended from the house of Israel ! who after the exodus from Egypt fell into idolatry. In fear of Moses, they separated ANCIENT MEXICO. 127 from him under a chief named Tanub, and crossed from one continent to the other, (in what manner is not mentioned,) to a place they called " the seven caverns," not far from the Mexican lake, and where they founded the city of Tula. From the Hebrew chief (?) Tanub sprang the kings of Tula and Quiche. The fifth monarch, it is said, was directed by an oracle to leave Tula with all his people, who had multiplied exceedingly : they took a southerly direction, and, after wandering for some years, settled near the lake Atitlan in Guatemala, and built a city, calling it Quiche. Another document, from a person calling himself Votan, and said to have been found in a cavern in charge of certain Indians of Soconusco, in Central America, was destroyed by another Spanish bigot, named Nunez de la Vega, in 1690; but a copy is reported by Doctor Pablo Felix de Cabrera to have been in the hands of Don Ramon de Ordonez y Aquiar in Ciudad Real. Votan says he travelled from one continent 128 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. to the other, (how he does not say,) and had met seven families of the Tzequil (his own) nation ; he also states that he led seven other families from a city he calls Valum Votan, but he does not mention on which continent this city was. He says he is a serpent, for he is a chivim, which Cabrera thinks means Givim, or Hivim, i.e., a descendant of Heth, the son of Canaan. The city of Tripoli was anciently called Chivim, therefore he thinks the expression of Votan, interpreted, would mean, " I am a Hivite of Tripoli," a city which he calls Valum Votan. Cabrera thinks that the thirteen serpents mentioned by Votan are the thirteen Canary Islands ! Mr. Stephens, in his work on Central America and Yucatan, mentions that another manuscript in the possession of the Indians of San Andres Xecul, relates that when Montezuma, emperor of Mexico, was taken prisoner by Cortez, he sent a private ambas sador to his ally and relation Kicah Tanub, king of Quiche, for assistance, stating that ANCIENT MEXICO. 129 white men had taken him prisoner, and that the whole strength of his empire was unable to resist them. Clavigero, in his history of Mexico, alludes to this document, and states that among the Chiapanese Indians in Central America, an ancient MS. was discovered in the language of that country, in which Votan is mentioned as having been present at that great building which was made by order of his uncle, in order to mount up to heaven, and that then it was all people were given their language. This allusion to the tower of Babel, in imita tion of which it is very probable the pyramid of Cholula was built, is not a little singular. Humboldt is of opinion the Canary Islands were early known to the Phoenicians ; and it is equally certain the ancient inhabitants of the Canaries, called Guanches, had traditions of being descended from a great and powerful nation, as we have previously noticed ; and the similarity existing in their mummies to those of Egypt is alluded to by many writers. 9 130 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Humboldt remarks that Votan reminds us of the Scandinavian Wodan, or Odin, whose name, according to Bede, "gave kings to a great number of nations." Humboldfs Researches, vol. i., p. 175. At present we have to trace the Aztec migration after their arrival in America, and we at once pass from mere conjecture to some certainty, as according to Prescott this migration commenced from the country of Aztalan, about A.D. 778, and continued during a period of four hundred and sixteen years, until they reached the Mexican lake. Whether we shall ever ascertain with certainty where the country of Aztalan was situated in which the Aztecs first settled on arriving in America, is doubtful, but Humboldt places it about the North American lakes, in lat. 42 N. "Atl" signifies "water," and thus Aztalans, or Aztecas, would mean " people of the lakes." He gives the following places as their halting stations : ANCIENT MEXICO. 131 1 . Place of humiliation, called " the grot toes." 2. Place of fruit trees. 3. Place of herbs and broad leaves. 4. Place of human bones. 5. Place of eagles. 6. Place of precious stones and minerals. 7. Place of spinning. 8. Another place of eagles, called Quanktli Tepee. 9. Place of walls, or " the seven grottoes." i o. Place of thistles, sand, and vultures. 1 1. Place of obsidian mirrors. 12. Place of water. 13. Place of the divine monkey, Teozo- moco. 14. Place of the high mountain, called Cho- paltepec, or " mountain of locusts." 15. Came to the vale of Mexico, and saw an eagle perched on a cactus tree. The country passed through is supposed to be that of the present Ohio, Mississippi, and Illinois ; and they state the cause of their 132 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. migration to have been owing to warriors from the north and north-east driving them south by force of arms. If their " Divine book," Teoamoxtli, which is said to have been in existence at the time of the conquest, should ever come to light, we may hope, and not before, to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion. It is said this book was compiled by a Tezcucan doctor towards the close of the seventh century, and gave an account of their religion, arts, and sciences, as well as a history of their migration from Asia ! It was, however, never seen by a European, and Mr. Prescott evidently disbelieves in its existence. If their Toltec predecessors journeyed over the same countries, or some portion of them, then the " seven caverns " mentioned in the Torres MS. may be identical with the " seven grottoes " in the Aztec account ; and if the former document be authentic, we can then account for the disappearance of the Toltecs ANCIENT MEXICO. 133 from the Mexican plateau, when they again wandered south into Central America, and once more settled down near the water, namely, the lake Atitlan in Guatemala. The tracks of these early people are distinguishable by the remains of buildings that exist on the rivers Gila, Colorado, and Rio Grande, together with those in the country lying to the north and north-west of Mexico. Mollhausen, speaking of them, particularly those on the Rio Grande, says, " The diffusion of the Aztec names of localities, from the interior of the Mexican highlands Coahuila, Chihua hua, and Michuacan, to Guatemala, Nicaragua, Hon duras, and Costa Rica ; the numerous Aztec words to be found in the primitive language of Sonora, as well as that now spoken on the Island of Omotepec, in the great lake of Nicaragua, declare how extensive were the wanderings of the ancient inhabitants of Anahuac. Among the ruins that are found at various parallels between the valley of the Rio Grande and the Pacific, it is very obvious that the further south they lie, the more culture and artistic skill they exhibit. The ancient towns of the south have not fallen so completely into decay as the more northerly, and the unlearned observer 134 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. cannot but ask, amongst whom should these ruins have originated, but amongst the ancient races, who, during a journey that lasted for centuries, were doubtless making progress in civilization ; and when they left one halting- place to build new dwellings elsewhere, applied the experience they had gradually acquired to the improve ment of their mode of architecture. In this manner may perhaps be explained the difference between the mere heaps of ruins on the little Colorado, the better preserved Casas Grandes on the Gila, and the temples and other highly artistic structures found in Mexico." Mollhauserfs Diary of a Journey from the Mississippi to the Coasts of the Pacific, vol. ii., pp. 77 79. If Humboldt read the Toltec paintings aright, they would appear to have come from the north-west of the river Gila, from a place called Huchuctlapallan, about the year 544 of our era ; at which period, the total ruin of the dynasty of Tsin had occasioned great commotions among the nations in the east of Asia ; " thus if the Toltecs named the cities they built in Anahuac after those they were obliged to abandon in the unknown northern country, then, if we shall at any time discover in North America a people acquainted with the names of Huchuctlapallan, Aztlan, Teocol- ANCIENT MEXICO. 135 huacan, Amagnemecan, Tehuajo, and Copalla, their origin will be ascertained." Humboldfs Researches, vol. i., p. 170. With regard to the Hebrew origin of some of the American nations, advocated so strongly by Lord Kingsborough and Adair, we know that the deepest obscurity still enshrouds the lost ten tribes of Israel, as only those of Judah and Benjamin returned to Jerusalem on the invitation of Cyrus in 536 B.C. The ten tribes probably spread through the East, as Grosier makes mention of a large body of Jews that had reached China 200 B.C. ; and Mr. Davis, in his work on China, quotes a letter from the Jesuit Pere Gozani regarding a people called by the Chinese Taio-kin-kaio (the sect that divides the sinew), in allusion to the practice of circumcision. Again, the Affghans call themselves the Beni-Israel, have strongly marked Jewish features, and several very similar customs to the ancient people of God, although their 136 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. language is not a Semitic one, but an Aryan dialect called Pushtu. The Kareens, formerly masters of Burmah, are also very like the Jews ; but we must class their language under the head of Turanian or Allophylian. The head-dress of buffalo horns found in use by nearly all the chiefs and braves of the north-western tribes of North America, reminds us of the Jewish " keren/ a symbol of power and command (Deut. xxxiii. 1 7 ; Job xvi. 1 5) ; and Catlin says this head dress is only used on great occasions, and is emblematical of dignity and strength among them." Catlin s North American Indians, vol. i., p. 104. The rite of circumcision that existed among some of the North American tribes long ago, is interesting, but not convincing, as we know that rite existed among the Egyptians, Ethi opians, and Colchians from time immemorial, according to Herodotus. Euterpe, 104. The Phoenicians and Syrians learnt it from the ANCIENT MEXICO. 137 Egyptians. Though Noah was worshipped under the Indo-Sythic name of II, this ap pellation was also given to Abraham by the Phoenicians, this " identical II, who devoted his only son as a sacrifice, is said to have first adopted the rite of circumcision, and to have imposed it upon his followers." Faber s Horcz Mosaiccz, vol. i., p. 180. The infidel Voltaire considers the origin of this mysterious rite to rest with the Egyptian priests of Isis and Osiris, through whom every thing on earth was productive ; and further remarks that it was necessary to be circum cised to become a priest of Egypt ; the natural conclusion to his mind being that the Jews borrowed it from their taskmasters when in Egypt. Now, what are the real facts ? Abraham was commanded, 2000 B.C., not only to circum cise those born in his house, but also every one that was bought with money, and who was not of his seed (Gen. xvii. 9 14). Living as he did surrounded by the Canaanitish 138 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. nations, many of whom were his servants, (Hagar, Sarah s maid, was an Egyptian,) and travelling as he afterwards did into Egypt, we can understand how it came to pass that the rite of circumcision spread to the neighbouring nations. There is little doubt but that the worship of the Phallus among the Greeks at the festival of Bacchus (Euterpe, 49), on which occasion Plato says he has seen the whole city of Athens drunk at once, as well as the obscene worship of the Lingum in India, originated from the corruption of the Hebrew rite by the Egyptians and Phoenicians. Consequently we cannot take it as evidence that because circumcision existed among certain tribes in North America, that therefore they were Jews. But at the same time we must confess to many extraordinary similarities that did exist between several of these tribes and ancient Israel. The following are perhaps the most singular. The Indian high-priest wears a breastplate, ANCIENT MEXICO. 139 made of a white conch-shell, and around his head, either a wreath of swan feathers, or a long piece of swan skin doubled, so as to show only the snowy feathers on each side. These remind us of the breastplate and mitre of the Jewish high-priest. They have also a magic- stone which is transparent, and which the medicine-men consult ; it is most jealously guarded even from their own people, and Adair could never procure one. Is this an imitation of the Urim and Thummim ? Again, they have a feast of first-fruits, which they celebrate with songs and dances, repeat ing, " Halelu Halelu Aleluiah," and then, " Aleluiah Haleluiah Alelu-yah," with great earnestness and fervour. They dance in three circles round the fire that cooks these fruits on a kind of altar, shouting the praises of Yo He Wah (Jehovah ?). These words are only used in their religious festivals ; and they have no image of the Supreme Being from Hudson s Bay to the Mississippi. HO THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. In examining the ponderous volumes of Lord Kingsborough, rich as they are in detail of the manners, customs, and hieroglyphic MSS. of the Aztecs, we cannot but perceive a very strong bias in favour of establishing the lost tribes of Israel on the American continent. He mentions the following coincidences as the most remarkable. The Mexican chronology being based upon that of the Toltecs, their computation of time began in the year called Ce Tecpatl, or " One Flint." This corresponds with one of the Nac- shatras or Lunar Houses of the Hindoos, called " Razor." This is significant enough when we remember the Aztec knives were made of flint or silex. The sun stood still for one entire day, in the year " seven rabbits," which in the Aztec chronology corresponds with the year 2555 after the Creation, and which is only two years different from the date assigned by Usher and Blair to Joshua s command on that memorable ANCIENT MEXICO. 141 day, 1451 B.C., when the "sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day" (Joshua x. 13). The Aztec deluge was also indicated by " one flint." Cox-cox and his wife are repre sented together in a boat floating on the waters at the foot of a mountain. The waters rose to the height of " caxtolmalictli," which is fifteen cubits, the exact height mentioned in the Bible : " fifteen cubits upwards did the waters prevail ; and the mountains were covered " (Gen. vii. 20). The neighbouring people of Michuacan had a still further tradition, namely, that Tezpi and his wife Xochiquetzal, and several children, were saved from the universal flood on a raft, with various animals and birds. After some time, a hummingbird was sent out from it, and returned with a twig in its mouth. We find the Indians of Chiapa also pre served the name of their Noah, Teoponahuatl, or Teponahuaste, which means " the lord of the hollow piece of wood ; " this, according to 142 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Dupaix, is shaped like a canoe. Vol. viii., pp. 24 26. The old Sabsean worship, originating from the Chaldsean shepherds, appears to have been the religion of the Toltecs. According to Veytia, their earliest temples were dedicated to the sun, moon, and stars. The moon they regarded as the wife of the sun, and the stars as his sisters. The statue of the sun, described by Boturini, was situated on the largest pyra mid of Teotihuacan, and that of the moon on an inferior one ; several of smaller dimen sions being dedicated to the stars. The Aztec traditions state they found these temples on their entrance into Anahuac, and that the prin cipal ones were re-dedicated to Tonatiuh, the sun, and Meztli, the moon.- Prescotfs Mexico, Book i., chap, vi., and note. We now come to notice an historical event which influenced more than one nation of the new world. In the eleventh century of our era, certain white men with long flowing beards, made ANCIENT MEXICO. 143 their appearance on the American continent. Quetzatcoatl in Mexico, Mango Capac in Peru, and Bochica in Brazil, all gave laws, and in troduced a new religion to the inhabitants of these countries, which they engrafted on that which already existed. The former of these personages, Quetzat coatl, first claims our attention. He arrived in the Mexican valley and taught the Toltecs agriculture and the art of working metals, remaining amongst them twenty years ; he then re-embarked in his canoe on the Atlantic Ocean for the unknown land of Tlap- allan, promising to return at some future time with his attendants. Tlapallan, according to Dupaix, signifies " red country," on account of the colour of the soil, and he supposes the country about Sonora and California to be that of Tlapallan. Antiquities of Mexico, p. 27. But as this would take us to the Pacific and not the Atlantic coast, it is difficult to accept this statement of his. There is, however, no doubt but that this 144 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. personage appeared among them, for it was owing to his last words that the handful of Spaniards under Cortez ever obtained a footing in the country. The Mexican emperor, Monte- zuma, in several signs believed he read the downfall of his empire, and that the de scendants of Quetzatcoatl were about to take possession of the land ; and the first question that greeted the Spaniards was, whether they had come from the East, so deeply rooted in their minds was the promise of his return. In like manner, the Tezcucan king, Neza- hualpilli, when advised by the astrologers to take away the life of his infant son, who, they predicted, would league himself with his father s enemies, replied, " the time had arrived when the sons of Quetzatcoatl were to come from the East to take possession of the land." Pr escott s Mexico, Book v., chap. vii. A splendid pyramid was erected at Cholula to him by the Toltecs, according to some accounts, but I am inclined to think the temple on its summit only was dedicated to him, as ANCIENT MEXICO. 145 the main structure was of very ancient date, and in all probability erected, if not for the same purpose, at least in imitation of the tower of Belus in Chaldaea. It was 1423 feet at the base, and 177 feet high : its sides faced the cardinal points of the compass, like that of Belus and the Egyptian pyramids. It was for a long time supposed to be solid, but in the year 1805 a road was cut through it, when a chamber was discovered built of stone ; two skeletons were also found, together with nume rous vases. It is to be deeply regretted that no pains were taken to preserve these relics of a past age ; but in a country like Mexico, groaning as it always has done under the rule of mili tary robbers and ignorant priests, nothing can be expected. The spirits of Nunez de la Vega and Zumarragua still remain in the ascendant. What renders the pyramid of Cholula the more remarkable, is the tradition attached to it similar to the history of the tower of 10 146 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Babel. Humboldt gives the following account, taken from a Mexican MS. in the Vatican library : " Before the great inundation, which took place four thousand eight hundred years after the creation of the world, the country of Anahuac was inhabited by giants. All those who did not perish were transformed into fishes, save seven, who fled into caverns. When the waters subsided, one of the giants, Xelhua, surnamed the Archi tect, went to Cholula, where, as a memorial to the mountain Tlaloc, which had served as an asylum to himself and his six brethren, he built an artificial hill in form of a pyramid. He ordered bricks to be made in the province of Tlamanaclo, at the foot of the Sierra Cocotl ; and to convey them to Cholula, he placed a file of men, who passed them from hand to hand. The gods beheld with wrath this edifice, the top of which was to reach the clouds. Irritated at the daring attempt of Xelhua, they hurled fire on the pyramid ; numbers of the workmen perished ; the work was discontinued, and the monument was afterwards dedicated to Ouetzatcoatl, the god of the air ." Humboldt s Researches, vol. i., p. 96. At the time of the conquest, this pyramid was still called " the mountain of unbaked bricks," and Faber truly says, if the Spanish priests had been the authors of this legend, we may be morally certain that the pyramid ANCIENT MEXICO. 147 of Cholula would never have been pronounced to be a studied copy of the diluvian mount Tlaloc. This pyramid has a broader base than any other edifice of the kind on either continent, being twice as long as the great pyramid of CJieops. But a smaller one that existed to the east of Cholula, and nearer the Mexican Gulf, had six stories, and was, according to Hum- boldt, more tapering than any other monument of the kind in America. It had three stair cases leading to the top, and was built entirely of hewn stone. Whether the Aztecs, on arriving in Mexico, improved on these structures that they found left there by the Toltecs, or whether the pyramidal form of temple was their own kind of architecture, it is certain that the builders of the Cholulan pyramid had no knowledge of the arch, as the chamber discovered when making the road from Puebla to Mexico was built of stones overlapping each other, similar to the ruins discovered by Stephens in Central 148 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. America, and which also has been found in several Egyptian edifices. In the structure of the pyramidal " teocallis," or houses of God, in Mexico, we find the strongest resemblance to that of Belus in Chaldsea ; and Humboldt remarks, " It is impossible to read the descriptions which Hero dotus, or Diodorus Siculus, have left us of the temple of Jupiter Belus, without being struck with the resemblance of that Babylonian monument to the teocallis of Mexico." Humboldfs Researches, vol. i., p. 82. There were several hundreds of these in Mexico, and all of a pyramidal form. On the top was the stone of sacrifice, and two towers, the sanctuaries of the presiding deity, together with the altars containing the sacred fire, which was never allowed to go out except once in fifty-two years, the duration of the Aztec cycle. The numerous remains of mounds of earth which lie (or did so formerly) over the country of Virginia, Florida, and all over the Missis sippi valley, are very similar to the Mexican ones. ANCIENT MEXICO. 149 Messrs. Squier and Davis, who minutely ex amined these structures, remark, "The pyramidal structures are always truncated, sometimes terraced, and generally have graded ascents to their summits. They bear a close resemblance to the teocallis of Mexico ; and the known uses of the latter are suggestive of the probable purposes to which they were applied." Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley ) chap, i., p. 3. The Toltecs were taught by Quetzatcoatl to sacrifice only fruits, flowers, and scented gums ; and we have no evidence that they ever sacri ficed human beings ; this horrid custom not being introduced into Anahuac until the early part of the fourth century, or about two hundred years before the coming of the Spaniards. This barbarous custom soon reached a fearful height in the Aztec worship, and, according to Prescott, the yearly sacrifices throughout the empire amounted to thousands. Zumarragua and Torquemada estimate them at twenty thousand ; Herrera and Acosta at the above number in one day. Ixtlilxochitl enumerates eighty thousand four hundred annually ; and 150 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. in the year of the conquest it exceeded a hundred thousand. The companions of Cortez, we are informed, counted no less than a hundred and thirty- six thousand skulls in one of the buildings kept for the heads of those that fell in sacri fice. Bernal Diaz himself says he counted a hundred thousand, all piled and arranged in order. For like examples we have to go to Asia, when Timour and other Tartar kings piled up skulls in vast numbers, not, however, to commemorate religious sacrifices, but as trophies of their conquests. The former, on one occasion, ordered seventy thousand from Ispahan, and ninety thousand from Bagdad, to be piled in the form of a pyramid ; and one of the caliphs, in like manner, caused an immense number of skulls to be collected and piled in an apartment of the convent of Saba. In their rites of sepulture we are at a loss for any comparison between any one particular ANCIENT MEXICO. 151 nation of the old continent, as in Mexico the dead were as often buried as burned. The monarch was generally burned ; his ashes being deposited in a golden vase with some jewel or precious stone, which forcibly reminds us of a like ceremony among the Hindoos. Again, in Tartary the bodies of rich people are burned, while those of the poorer class are interred. Hue s Tartary, chap, iii., p. 70. Sometimes the Aztecs buried the deceased together with all his treasures, while slaves were always sacrificed at the death of a noble. A custom very similar to the Chinese existed among the Aztecs, namely, that of strewing the body with pieces of white paper. In China this ceremony occurred in spring and autumn, when the tombs of relations were visited. The Aztecs were only cannibals at their religious festivals. We do not find them banqueting on human flesh, like the ferocious Goths, the Polynesian islanders, or the Nootka Sound chiefs, merely to gratify their degraded 152 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. appetite ; but the body of the victim was served up as a religious feast, together with delicate and choice viands, and attended by both sexes, who, as Mr. Prescott remarks, conducted themselves with all the decorum of civilized life. We cannot trace this strange custom to any other nation, although a faint resemblance is found in Tahiti, when at a certain ceremony the eye of the human victim was offered to the king by the priest, who appeared to eat it, but invariably passed it to an attendant. Ellis s Polynesian Researches, vol. i., p. 336. The war god of the Aztecs, called Huitzilo- potchli, was supposed to have been born of a virgin, like Buddha in India, and Sammon- codon in Siam. This tradition, derived from the early promise of a Messiah to the Jews, was perpetuated amongst the primitive nations, by means of the Hebrew prophecies, frag ments of which had crept into the Sibylline oracles, that a Deliverer was to be born of a virgin. ANCIENT MEXICO. 153 Now it is certain Buddha, meaning " the Sage," and supposed to be the ninth incarna tion of Vishnu, appeared in India a thousand years before Christ, and the Nestorian doctrines did not reach China until nearly six hundred years after Buddhism had penetrated from India ; consequently this doctrine, originally springing from a true source, became (like so many others) corrupted by priestcraft, and the true advent of the promised " seed of the woman," who was to "bruise the serpent s head," and ultimately to triumph over all His enemies, was thus by the cunning craftiness of men, anticipated by lying tradition, con sequently rendering the promise of no effect to their miserable dupes. But in the Aztec system of astronomy we find much similarity to some of the Asiatic nations. Like the Egyptians, they added five complementary days to make up their year to three hundred and sixty-five days ; while, together with the Persians and Egyptians, they used the figure of a serpent as the symbol of 154 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. an age. Their cycle of fifty-two years was denoted by a wheel. According to Humboldt, a serpent with its tail in its mouth, forming a circle, surrounds the wheel, and denotes by four knots the four indications, or tlalpilli. This emblem is similar to the serpent, or dragon, which among the Egyptians and Persians represents the century, a revolution, or aevum. The same learned author shows the re markable resemblance between the Tartar and Mexican zodiacs : MANTCHOU-TARTARS. Pars Tiger. Taaulai Hare. Mogai Serpent. Petchi Ape. Nokai Dog. Tukai Bird, hen. MEXICANS. Ocelotl Tiger. Tochtli Hare, rabbit. Cohuatl S erpent. Ozomatli Ape. Itzcuintli Dog. Quanhtli Bird, eagle. " If," says he, " we consult the works composed at the beginning of the conquest, by Spanish or Indian authors, who were ignorant even of the existence of a Tartar zodiac, we shall see that at Mexico, from the seventh century of our era, the days were called tiger, dog, ape, hare or rabbit, etc., as throughout the whole of Eastern Asia the years still bear the same name in the Thibetan, ANCIENT MEXICO. 155 Mantchou-Tartar, Mongol, Calmuck, Chinese, Japanese, Corean, and all the languages of Tonquin and Cochin- <3nn&. n -Humbold?s Researches, vol. i., pp. 289, 345. But the Mexicans had calculated their year with such nicety as to come nearer the mark than the European nations. Their epoch was reckoned from our year of A.D. 1091, and soon after they had migrated from Aztlan. The calendar of the priests, which they constructed for themselves, and which was called a lunar reckoning, although, as Mr. Prescott points out, it had no accom modation to the revolutions of the moon, cor responded precisely with the number of years in the great Gothic period of the Egyptians, namely, 1491, when the seasons and festivals came round to the same place in the year again. Like so many of the nations of the old world, the Aztecs had the " serpent worship " engrafted in their religious system ; the " coat- pantli," or wall of serpents, enclosed the area in which stood the great teocalli of Mexico. 156 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. The goddess Cioacoatl, or serpent- woman/ the first goddess that brought forth, and " by whom sin came into the world" had doubtless the same origin as the serpent Typhon of the Egyptians, the Ahriman of the Persians, who stung to death the first man, together with the Naga, or Nachish, of Chaldaea, and the Kali-naga of the Hindoos. All these traditions emanated from one source, and, as I have pointed out in " Scrip ture Facts and Scientific Doubts," are but corrupt offshoots of the true patriarchal and Mosaic accounts of the temptation and fall of our first parents through the medium of the serpent " that old serpent the devil." The hieroglyphic paintings of the Mexicans represent the four cycles, or ages, in which famine, fire, wind, and water are successively depicted as destroying the human race ; and are similar to the four ages of the Hindoos, and mentioned in the Bhagavita Pourana. Mr. Delafield thinks they refer to real and not imaginary events, namely, ANCIENT MEXICO. 157 1st. The cycle ending m famine, as the same that happened during Joseph s time in Egypt, that " seven years" when, we read in Genesis, " all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn ; because the famine was so sore in all lands." 2nd. The cycle of fire, which represented the destruction of the cities of the plain. 3rd. The cycle of wind represented the de struction of the Tower of Babel as mentioned by Josephus, when hurricanes were sent by the Almighty : several traditions are corroborative of this, although no mention is made of it in Genesis. 4th. The cycle of water represented the universal deluge. Antiquities of America. Mr. Delafield was puzzled at these events being in reversed order, but he was not then aware that the Mexican hieroglyphics are read from right to left, and therefore the order of the cycles are correct, and place that of water first. Faber made the same mistake at first from following the Spanish historians. This, 158 THE DISPERSION FROM SHINAR. however, proves them to be genuine, and free from priestly cookery. Enough has been now said to show that analogies existed, more or less clear, between the Mexicans and some of the Asiatic nations ; and it is almost certain that the early tribes, such as the Toltecs and Chichimecs, migrated from some locality north of Anahuac, probably the region of the Great Lakes, but not farther, as Adair agrees with Squier and Davis that no ancient buildings, pyramidal mounds, or tumuli, exist north of the Lake country. Along the valley of the Mississippi, however, and particularly in the present state of Ohio, these remains lie thick, ten thousand tumuli having been discovered in Ross county alone ; and they are, or rather were, scarcely less numerous in Virginia, while larger pyramids are found of great size : that in the vicinity of Miamisburgh, Montgomery county, Ohio, is 68 feet in perpendicular height, and 852 feet in circumference at the base, containing 311,353 cubic feet. Another at Cahokia, Illinois, a ANCIENT MEXICO. 159 truncated pyramid, was 90 feet high, and upwards of 2,000 feet in circumference, having a level summit several acres in extent. It appears also probable that these early nations came originally from the shores of Asia ; and although it is a favourite and con venient plan to land the lost tribes of Israel in America, still we have good grounds for thinking a portion of them may with reason be included amongst the numerous tribes that in course of time found their way through Persia and Chinese Tartary to the New Con tinent. * learnt Inhabitants 0f |)ent ii VI. THE ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF PERU. "\ X 7HEN we consider the wise, firm, and politic sway of the Peruvian Incas, their admirably regulated empire, their laws and institutions which provided for the meanest of their subjects, and contrast them with those of the fierce Aztec emperors, who governed more by the sword than by justice and policy, and who made their vassals tremble at the remotest corner of their empire, we see that the two nations had but little in common, if indeed they were acquainted with one another. But it is necessary to. bear in mind that the early history of Peru, like that of Mexico, is clearly divided into two parts. In the latter country, the peaceful and industrious 1 64 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Toltecs appear first, and the conquering Aztecs follow them, engrafting their religion on that of Quetzatcoatl ; so in like manner in Peru, we find on the western or Pacific side of the Andes a similar revolution when the Incas subdued the tribes around the shores of Lake Titicaca, the ancient worship of the Sun being re-established by Manco Capac. The ancient edifices on Lake Titicaca were in existence at a period long prior to the Incas ; and, like the Aztecs in Mexico, they superseded a more ancient race. The pyra mids of Cholula and Teotihuacan, Toltecan monuments, were found by the Aztecs when they arrived on the Mexican plateau, and both they and the remains on Lake Titicaca were anciently dedicated to the Sabsean worship. Mr. Markham says, " It seems cer tain, from various emblems found carved upon the ruins, and from tradition, that the worship of the Sun and Moon was established amongst the Aymaras for ages before the ANCIENT PERU. 165 conquest of their country by the Incas of Cuzco." Travels in Peru and India, p. 113. The temple of Pachacamac, near Lima, ap pears to have been dedicated by the Chinchas to their god of that name, signifying, "He who sustains and gives life to the universe." No image represented him, who they wor shipped as the son of Con, the Supreme Being ; and it was not until the arrival of the Incas as conquerors from the eastern slopes of the Andes, that the actual worship of the Sun was introduced. A gorgeous temple dedicated to that luminary was then erected close to that of Pachacamac, and the natives were told that their god Pachacamac was the son of the Sun himself. Rivera s Peruvian Antiquities, p, 149; Prescotfs Peru, Book i., chap. iii. This temple was built of adobes, or sun- dried mud bricks, though of great size and durability in a comparatively rainless region, while the more ancient edifices on the shores of Lake Titicaca were of stone. 166 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. It is worthy of notice that Manco Capac in Peru, Quetzatcoatl in Mexico, and Bochica in Brazil, all appear about the same time on the American continent. And it will be remembered that the discovery of the middle and southern parts of North America by the Scandinavians, which we have previously noticed, occurred about the same time, as the earliest date assigned to Manco Capac s arrival was about 1021 A.D. ; but these early adventurers had reached the coast of New foundland, under Bjarm Herjulfson and Lief Ericson, about 986 or 1000. That both the Aztecs and Peruvians were visited by stranger reformers is certain ; but whether they both came from the same quarter is not so certain, for while we find Quetzatcoatl inculcating only the sacrifice of fruits and flowers among the Toltecs, there is every reason to believe the Incas introduced human sacrifices into Peru, for previous to their arrival we do not find any trace of it, either among the Collas, Aymaraes, or ANCIENT PERU. 167 Chinchas. As Quetzatcoatl departed from the Toltecs, so probably did Manco Capac from the Aymaraes, after having established a form of government based on their religion, and im parting to them the blessings of civilization. Rivero says, " Our minute and recent investigations go to prove that the Incas do not derive their origin from the legislator above named (be his name Manco Capac or any other) by a succession of blood, but from a native family established in the royal dignity by the stranger reformer." Peruvian Antiquities, p. 67. Mr. Markham is also of this opinion. After dividing the ancient empire of the Incas into five regions, namely, Ynca, Collao, Chinchasuya, Quitu, and Yunca, he divides the Ynca region into the six following tribes, Yncas, Canas, Quichuas, Chancas, Huancas, and Rucanas. He says, " The above six nations were closely allied, and seem to have a common origin The Ynca country was bounded on the west by the precipitous gorge of the Apurimac, and on the east by the Pancartampu river. North and south it extended along the valley of Vilcamayu, which passed through its centre, from Ouequesana to the fortress of Tampu. 1 68 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. " It thus consisted of a rich and fertile central valley, enjoying an Italian climate, and yielding corn and fruit in abundance, and a mountainous tract on either side with pastures and rugged heights. Cuzco is on the western highland, between the central valley and the Apurimac. The district is about seventy miles by sixty miles in extent. " The proper name for the aboriginal people of this tract is Ynca. All the chiefs, or rather heads of Aylhis, or lineages, were called Yncas, and it was not until later times that the name was assumed as the special title of the royal family." He further remarks that "there is no evidence for the belief that the Yncas originally came from a dis tance." Paper read before the RL Geo. Soc., July 10, 1871. Mr. Markham also goes into a somewhat long dissertation on what he calls " the blunder " of authors calling the Collao natives by the name of Aymara, but it is only a few years ago since he himself made the same mistake. It is, however, now ascertained that the people of the Collao were not called Aymaras at or before the Spanish conquest ; that the real Aymaras were a small Quichua tribe living in a part of Peru remote from the ANCIENT PERU. 169 Collao ; and that the people inhabiting the basin of the Lake Titicaca, properly the Collao district, should be called Collas. For the future, we trust no author will again commit such a " blunder " as to call the Collas natives Aymaraes, although they may not have the opportunity of examining all the Spanish writers, who we think knew very little about the subject. Mr. Prescott does not seem to place any credence in the legend of Manco Capac and his sister-wife, and thinks it was devised " at a later period, to gratify the vanity of the Peruvian monarchs, and so give additional sanction to their authority by deriving it from a celestial origin." Conquest of Peru, vol. i., p. ii. The first Inca, Manco Capac, began to reign (it is said) A.D. 1021 ; and the last Inca, Atahualpa, died on the scaffold, by order of Pizarro, in 1533: the other four were Incas only in name. These dates give a period of five hundred and twelve years for the Inca i;o THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. dynasty, which is manifestly too long for only fourteen sovereigns. It is generally supposed that Manco Capac did not reign more than two hundred and fifty years before the coming of the Spaniards, perhaps about the close of the thirteenth century. In Peru, wives and domestics were sacrificed at the tombs of their lords, and at the funeral obsequies of the Inca Huayna Capac, a thousand men alone are said to have been slain ; and Sarmiento says four thousand victims suffered on that occasion. The Egyptians and Chinese appear to be the only nations of the Old Continent that were exempt from the barbarous custom of human sacrifice ; there is, however, a tradition that a young virgin was annually sacrificed to the Nile, and Josephus asserts the Hindoos anciently offered up a youth or maiden to the Ganges. In Peru, young virgins and children were sacrificed to the Sun, but only on extra ordinary occasions ; and the immolation of human beings appears to have been reserved ANCIENT PERU. 171 chiefly for their funeral ceremonies, like the ancient Scythians ; the Peruvians were not cannibals, like the Aztecs. Both the Pharaohs and Incas were elabo rately embalmed. The latter monarchs, with their Coyas (queens), were found in a wonder ful state of preservation ; so that when the Spaniards removed some of these royal mummies from Cuzco to Lima, they appeared as if but just dead. They were found de posited in the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, seated on their thrones ; while their Coyas were placed in that part of the edifice dedicated to the Moon, which was considered the wife of the Sun. Their intestines were hermetically sealed up in jars of gold. The corpses of the common people were not embalmed, but were universally found in a sitting posture, the head generally resting upon the hands, which were placed on the knees. In Egypt, however, the bodies are found in a recumbent posture. We learn from Herodotus that the Scythian i;2 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. kings were embalmed ; and at their funeral obsequies, one of the royal concubines was strangled, and, together with the principal ser vants and horses, buried with him. Melpo mene, 71, etc. We find again a great similarity that existed between the Peruvians and Egyptians in the system of caste : all occupation descended from father to son. But the most singular resemblance to the Egyptians was that of their Penates, called Canopas by the Peruvians, and Canopa, or Canoba, by the latter ! They were used precisely for the same purpose, the sepultures of both people containing them. Peruvian Antiquities, p. 172, and Note. Again in Peru, as in China and Egypt, the Inca combined the office of high-priest and monarch. The ancient Pharaohs exercised the functions of the priesthood ; but as the empire became extended, this was impossible, and the monarch had recourse to deputies, still retaining, how ever, the chief regulation of the rites and ANCIENT PERU. 173 ceremonies used for the worship of the dif ferent gods. Amongst other ceremonies, we find the Inca, with all his court, going forth to pierce the earth with a golden instrument, which is exactly similiar to the Chinese emperors, who, when the sun reached the fifteenth degree of Aquarius, ploughed up a small portion of the ground in the enclosures round the temple dedicated to the Earth. Davis s China, chap. ix. ; Peruvian Ant., p. 194. At their principal feast of Raymi, which occurred at the summer solstice, multitudes flocked to Cuzco to take part in the cere- monies : nobles and plebeians, rich and poor, came in their gala dresses. The Inca pre sided ; and on the first beams of the rising sun, returning as it then was to the north, he took two golden cups, filled with the sacred chicha prepared by the Virgins of -the Sun, and, pouring one out before the luminary as a libation, drank part of the other to the health and prosperity of his family, they each receiving 174 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. a small portion of it in smaller vessels of gold. A young llama was then sacrificed, generally of a black colour, and auguries sought for in its entrails. It is difficult to ascertain the truth with regard to the kindling of the sacred fire by means of a burnished metallic mirror whether it was done at this feast of Raymi, or at that celebrated at the vernal equinox, at which time the Inca went through the ceremony of inauguration for those youths who were eligible for the honour of bearing arms, and had passed an examination, having arrived at man s estate. They had their ears bored with a golden bodkin ; and after kissing the hand of the monarch, received from him richly orna mented sandals, and woollen drawers, together with a girdle for the loins. All these cere monies have great resemblance to those of the ancient Persians. Again, we find a similarity to the Persians, Egyptians, and Assyrians in the incest practised by the Peruvian monarchs. The Coya, or ANCIENT PERU. 175 legitimate queen, was his sister ; it could not be otherwise, as a son of the Sun he could not ally himself to a mere mortal ; and yet the Incas found it agreeable to have several hun dred concubines picked from the most beautiful of the Virgins of the Sun, by whom they con descended to beget a numerous posterity, some of them leaving as many as three hundred children. Incest existed in Egypt long before the Ptolemies ; and, according to Heeren, this custom probably arose from a desire to pre vent strangers from succeeding to the throne. Historical Researches, vol. ii., p. 332 ; and Eadie s Oriental Hist., chap, iv., p. 156. In vain do we seek in the few hieroglyphics that have been found on the Peruvian monu ments for similarities with those of any other nation. They, like the Aztecs, had no alpha bet ; the quippus, consisting of knotted coloured threads, was principally used by them. This method of conveying signs by different coloured thread was not original in Peru, and it is sup- 1 76 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. posed was introduced by the first Inca, Manco Capac. The coloured threads composing the quippus had different meanings : thus, yellow signified gold ; white, silver ; red, soldier, war ; green, maize, etc.; but so insufficient were they to express the intelligence sent from a distant province, that the quippu-camazoc (de cipherer of quippus) was always necessary to accompany them. The word quipu signifies a knot ; and appears to be similar in use to the wampum belts of the North American Indians. This practice, according to Humboldt, was in use among the ancient Asiatic tribes, and also among the Canadians. The wampum belts described by Catlin consisted of various coloured shells, cut into little bits, and strung on deer s sinews, some times worn round the neck, but also interwoven with the waist-belt. Among some of the North American tribes, the keeper of the wampum answered to the decipherer of the quippus in Peru. Adair says of the tribes adjoining the ANCIENT PERU. 177 Mississippi, that " they count certain very remarkable things by knots of various colours and make, after the manner of the South American aborigines." Although the maguey (Argave Americana) is indigenous to both North and South America, the Peruvians never used it for picture-writing, like the Mexicans ; and this Mr. Prescott considers decisive evidence that the two nations were not acquainted with each other. But Humboldt saw bundles of these writings among the Panoes of South America ; and Castelnau and Rivero state they were written on plantain leaves, and said to contain the history of their ancestors ! Boturini found some real Mexican quippus in the country of the Tlascaltecks ; and the Urrequenas Indians on the Rio Negro in Brazil also used them. Adair s North American Indians, p. 75 ; Southey s Brazil, p. 723 ; Catlin, vol. i., p. 222, and Note. The language spoken in Peru was for the most part the Quichua, but it was by no means 12 1 78 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. the only one. It is said the Incas had a secret language of their own, but this is generally doubted, as no traces of it have yet been discovered. A few words of the Quichua have been seized hold of by different writers as resembling corresponding ones in the Sanscrit, Hebrew, Chinese, and Carthaginian, but without much result. The Aymara language of Bolivia very much resembles the Quichua, and Rivero considers them to have the same root. The Puquina language, spoken in some of the valleys on the coast, is radically different from any other American idiom. This fact is not confined to the Puquina, for the Guaranee race are found in Paraguay, with a language almost monosyllabic, and which, according to Professor Leoni Levi, bears a close analogy with the Chinese. " How came they," he asks, " to be in the centre of South America ? Are they remnants of the Inca race of Peru ? " The Quichua language has several dialects, namely, the Quiteno, the Lamana, the Yunca, ANCIENT PERU. 179 and some others. In the south of Peru is the Cusquefios, "which alone," says Rivero, "should be taken as the standard by the student." It is the pure Quichua. It must be borne in mind that the empire of the Incas extended far beyond the present republic of Peru. It stretched to the south into Bolivia, Chili, and the Argentine Republic, and on the north to Ecuador. But the Incas could never succeed in making progress south of the Maypocho river, and the Spanish conquerors Almagro and Valdivia fared no better when attempting to subdue the Arau- canians of Chili, and they were acknowledged independent from sheer necessity. On crossing the Chilian Andes by the Us- pallata pass, in 1858, I passed the " Inca s Lake," about ten thousand feet above the sea level, and on the Argentine side bivouaced by the " Inca s Bridge." According to Velasco, the Incas, on arriving with their conquering legions at Quito, were astonished to find a dialect of the Quichua i8o THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. spoken there, although it was unknown over much of the intermediate country ; " a singular fact, if true," adds Mr. Prescott. Conquest of Peru, vol. i., p. 115, and Note. The Quichua language was the language of " the court, the capital, and the surround ing country, the richest and most compre hensive of the South American dialects." Although Von Tschudi, Pickering, Turner, and others, have done much to unravel the multi tudinous skein of languages and dialects of South America, much still remains to be done, and we strongly suspect that the number of radically different languages will be found to be small. It is remarkable that neither the Peruvians nor Mexicans ever discovered the use of iron, which was so plentiful about them ; in this respect they resembled the Egyptians, whose instruments for cutting stone were composed only of copper and silex. Rivero found those in Peru to contain from five to ten per cent, of the latter substance in the different chisels ANCIENT PERU. 181 and hatchets he analyzed. Some of their weapons of war, such as the club, were the exact counterpart of those used by the New Zealanders, and were made from the chonta, a hard species of palm. The Peruvian balsas, or rafts, on Lake Titi- caca, were propelled by rush sails ; and, accord ing to Castlenau, identical with those of Egypt as used on the Nile, and which may be seen sculp tured on the tomb of Rameses III. in Thebes. Again, we find a marked resemblance in the architecture of the Peruvians and Egyptians. Among the ruins of old Huanuco, near the town of Aquamiro in Peru, the sides of the doors approximate each other, and support a stone lintel. The walls are a yard and a quarter in thickness, and of cut stones well cemented together. Signer Rivero, speaking of them, says, The architecture of these ruins is singularly distinct from that of the other edifices in the time of the Peruvian emperors, and according to all appearances derives its origin from an era more remote than the dynasty of the Incas. Peruvian Antiquities^ p. 277. 1 82 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. The Peruvians acknowledged that the ruins of Lake Titicaca existed long before the coming of Manco Capac. But Rivero is wrong in saying they knew how to construct the arch, and, singularly enough, quotes Mr. Stephens work on Yucatan in support of his opinion, when the very reverse is the case. The nearest approach to the arch was the two sides rising and meeting each other, and then covered with a coping-stone at the top. In all the ancient ruins in America, whether North or South, no true arch with its keystone has yet been discovered. The early Theban caverns were partly arched in like manner, but the Egyptians themselves never attained to the true one. Heeren traces the Egyptian architecture to its true source, namely, in Meroe in Ethiopia, where comparing the pyramidal architecture of that country to Egypt, he says, " We shall see another proof of what has already been partly established; namely, that what had its rise in ANCIENT PERU. 183 Ethiopia was perfected in Egypt, of which we shall still see further proofs." Heererfs Hist. Researches, vol. i., P- 394- The description given by Ciea de Leon of the temples that existed on the island of Lampuna, cannot fail to strike the reader with its resemblance to those buildings so graphi cally described by Mr. Stephens in Yucatan. The obscurity of the interior, the hideous sculptures covered with hieroglyphics, together with the large sacrificial stone or altar in the centre, are all similar ; coupled with the fact that a statue at Quirigua, near Copan, in Central America, twenty feet high, with the front part resembling a man, and the back part a woman, was exactly identical to another image found in Peru about two leagues from the town of Hilavi, where a sculptured stone three times the height of a man, represented a male figure on one side facing the west, and a female on the other looking east. Will it be believed that the Jesuit Arriaga employed more than thirty persons for three days to 1 84 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. demolish this most interesting monument ? See a description of both in Stephens Yucatan, vol. i., chap, vii., and Rivero s Peruvian Ant^ pp. 167 246. The Inti-huasi, or " House of the Sun," at Cuzco, shows a superiority over any other building on the New Continent, and Sarmiento says he had never seen throughout Spain, except in Toledo and Cordova, anything to be compared with its walls, and the laying of its stones. The fortress of Cuzco, which was built during the reign of the Inca Pachacutec, or his son Yupanqui, of huge polyangular stones, fitted so perfectly, that no mortar or cement was necessary. These immense stones were quite rough, except at the joints, which were polished. Some of them were fifty feet in length, twenty- two in height, and six in width. Only in the ruins of Baalbek do we find such gigantic masonry. The roads and canals made by the Incas were the wonder and admiration of the Spaniards, ANCIENT PERU. 185 carrying water along the sides of the sierras for more than a hundred and twenty leagues, in aqueducts from six to eight feet in height. The Peruvian knowledge of astronomy was, however, very poor compared with the Mexican, or even that of the Musycas, who inhabited the same southern plateau as themselves. These latter people regulated their calendar on the same general plan of cycles and periodical series as the Aztecs. The Hindoos, Chinese, Egyptians, Chaldaeans, and Persians, all had cycles of sixty years, while that of the Mexicans contained fifty-two years ; the Peruvians, however, had none. Their huata, or year, was divided into twelve months, and at Cuzco it began in the winter solstice, while at Quito it commenced in the summer. Their religious festivals were regulated by the solstices and equinoxes, like the Chinese ; and Garcilasso de la Vega mentions eight towers that were erected in Cuzco, four to the east and four to the west of the city, in order 1 86 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. to mark the exact time of the summer and winter solstices by the sun s shadow. But they were deficient in any astronomical calculations which were of importance. Similar ceremonies to baptism, confirmation, and extreme unction were in existence among the ancient Peruvians, and, like the cross dis covered in the island of Cozumel, Gulf of Mexico, which was dedicated to Tlaloc, the " god of rain," puzzled the Spanish priests not a little. A few days after the birth of the child, the father and mother, with the amauta (priest), washed it with water, pronouncing some mys tical words, in order to conjure away all evil influences that might in future be exercised over it. Confirmation was the second naming of the child when it had arrived at the age of puberty ; feasting and dancing followed this ceremony, the hair and finger-nails being cut off, and offered to the family Canopus, or household gods. In like manner, before their principal ANCIENT PERU. 187 feasts, they confessed their sins, having pre viously fasted several days, when penance was enjoined. The ceremony of extreme unction was nothing more than the priest muttering some words over the dying person, in order to drive away the devil, or any other evil spirit that might be hovering about. The former rite, resembling baptism, was also practised by the Aztecs ; and although it had no reference to the Christian ceremony, it was doubtless derived from Asia, as the Egyptians, Hindoos, and Persians all had a similar rite. Prescotts Mexico, Book i., chapter iii., and App. ; Prescotfs Peru ; Peruvian Anti quities, pp. 1 80 182. These purely pagan ceremonies ought not to have surprised the Spaniards, at least the intelligent portion of them, by their similarity to their own rites : if they had only taken the trouble to examine the source they sprang from, they would have found them identical in that respect. 1 88 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. It is a well-known fact that when Caprini, who was sent by Pope Innocent IV., in 1246, to the East, examined the rites and ceremonies of the Chinese Buddhists, he was astonished at their similarity to the Romish ones ; and again in 1253, when Rubrugnis reached the court of the Great Khan, he also was struck with the marked resemblance in the forms of worship of the Lama and the Pope. " That they should count their prayers," says Gutzlaff, " by means of a rosary, and chant masses for both the living and the dead ; that they should live in a state of celibacy, shave their heads, fast, etc., might be perhaps accounted for as a mere coincidence of errors into which men are prone to fall ; but their adoration of Tien-how, Queen of Heaven, (called also Shingmoo, the Holy Mother, ) must be a tenet engrafted upon Buddhism from foreign traditions." Davis s China, chapters xii., xiv. We can trace an analogy between the Chinese goddess Tien-how and the Carthaginian virgin goddess Ccelestis, also Urania and the Moon, and who is probably alluded to by the prophet Jeremiah in chap. vii. 1 8, and chap. xliv. 1 7 2 5, of his prophecy ; this " Queen of Heaven " is doubtless identical with the Greek Iphigenia, ANCIENT PERU. 189 daughter of Agamemnon, to whom the Scythian Tauri sacrificed all who suffered shipwreck. Herodotus, Melpomene, 103. When some Arabian Christians (?) made a goddess of the Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord, and offered a cake to her as to the Queen of Heaven, Epiphanius condemns their heresy as " impious and abominable," and during the reign of Constantine, the " doctrine of demons," or devils, mentioned by St. Paul to Timothy, was established in the professing Christian Church under the worship of saints and angels. How it came to pass that the same temples and altars of Jupiter, Venus, and Bacchus were re-dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Peter, Paul, etc. ; how the same ceremonies in use among the pagans, such as the lighting of lamps and candles in broad daylight, hanging up votive offerings, together with the canonization of deceased worthies ; carrying images in pompous processions ; confessions, penances, celibacy of sexes, etc. ; how these tenets of heathenism 190 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. crept into the early Church, and how error after error sprang from this amalgamated worship until the whole culminated in Popery, is a matter of history, and a most interesting study for the unbiassed student. According to the Litany of the Tibetan Buddhists, Godama professed to have taken upon himself the nature of man, in order to suffer for the good of all living beings ; and that, when himself free from sin, he also desired to free the world from sin. See hymn translated by Csoma Karosi, Prinsep s Tibet, P- 153. If, as some suppose, the Buddhist religion emanated from the ten tribes of Israel, carried captive into the regions about the Caspian Sea, then we can understand how the promise of a deliverer became engrafted on the Jewish worship, intermingled as it had become with the pagan worship of Baal, Ashtoreth, Milcom, and other heathen deities. The Jewish pro phecies relating to the Messiah were in all probability better understood and appreciated ANCIENT PERU. 191 by them when in captivity than they ever were in the days of prosperity ; and like their brethren who returned under the edict of Cyrus to Palestine, idolatry was for a time at least abandoned, until, by the constant intercourse with the surrounding heathen nations, paganism again took firm root among them. It has been pointed out that the Peruvians had one Buddhistic notion prominent in their creed, namely, the successive incarnations of Deity in the persons of their rulers. Dr. Cooke Taylor says, "There is a perfect similarity between the attributes of the Incas of Peru and the Lamas of Tibet. It deserves to be added, that in the provinces where the empire of the Incas was not established, human sacri fices were as common as in Mexico." Nat. State of Society t vol. i., p. 302. The Sakai (Buddhists) arrived in India about a hundred years after the return of the Jews from Assyria to Palestine : this would consequently be 436 B.C., reckoning from 606, Usher s date for their being carried into captivity. 192 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. Their remains may be traced from Bactria, a district of Persia, close upon the eastern borders of the Caspian Sea, where the Israelites were carried away captive by Hoshea, king of Assyria, who placed them " in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes " (2 Kings xvii. 6), through Mongolia and Tibet to China, and through India to Ceylon, Burmah, Siam, and the islands of Formosa and Japan. In Cashmere, the Sakian era, or the new religion of Prince Asoka, appears to have commenced about 307 B.C. " It should be remembered," says Dr. Moore, " that Buddhism, as it now exists in India, Ceylon, and the Indo-Chinese territories, does not fairly represent that form of it which originated with Sakya. It has been corrupted by various pagan additions, and has assumed shapes according to the idolatries it has encountered, until at length but little of the original creed appears in its pure form. For instance, the celibacy of the priests of Buddha is now universal, and yet, according to their own records, it appears that Sakya himself was married twice, and that he gave his disciples precepts concerning the qualities which should determine their choice of a wife." The Lost Tribes, p. 198. ANCIENT PERU. 193 We see the same perversion of true Chris tianity in Popery, which age after age has glossed over, and added to, the pure faith once delivered to the saints. The human heart is the same, whether in India or Italy ; and Paganism, Judaism, and Christianity are mixed up from time to time, and presented as the true religion, to those who are thirsting for the pure water of life. We have thus glanced at some of the most striking analogies that existed in the religion and architecture, as well as the manners and customs, of the Aztecs and Peruvians ; but it will be mainly on language that we shall have to depend for ascertaining with any degree of certainty the exact quarter from whence these two civilized people originally came. As the great water highways of South America, the Amazon and Orinoco, with their numerous tributaries, become better known, philologists will doubtless be able to ascertain with more certainty than at present many interesting facts regarding the language of 13 194 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. those tribes that hunt and fish on their banks ; and the time may not be far distant when the remnants of a once polished people will be brought to light, and the true origin of the Inca race of Peru be no longer a question of doubt. To the enterprising traveller no subject can be more interesting than such a search, and we shall look with confidence to men like Chandless, Church, and Simson, together with the members of the South American Mission, who will be actuated by very different feelings from those of the Romish bigots at the time of the Spanish conquest, who destroyed all the valuable manuscripts and interesting monu ments they could possibly collect together, and vied with each other in the magnitude of these literary bonfires. Anything like light and truth was to them intolerable, being utterly foreign to their nature ; and whether it was wantonly destroying a valuable monument, consuming a pile of hieroglyphic paintings, or roasting a few dozen Indians before breakfast, ANCIENT PERU. 195 these wretches appear to have been equally in their element ; and we cannot wonder at the Indian noble at the stake replying to his Christian tormentors, who were as usual urging their blasphemous dogmas upon him at the last moment, that he would prefer remaining out of heaven if he thought he would meet any Spaniards there. Cranial mtliarrfas rrf VII. CRANIAL PECULIARITIES OF THE AMERICAN NATIONS. of the most singular customs that prevailed on the American continent was that of compressing the heads of the children ; it was not, however, universal ; but most of the Indian tribes both in North and South America practised it. The only people on the Old Continent addicted to this singular custom, were the Macrocephali, on the shores of the Euxine. In Tahiti the heads of youths were com pressed, and the Caribs also appear to have done the same ; but while in Tahiti it was to strike terror into the enemy, in America it was considered a mark of beauty. This strange custom was doubtless be queathed to them, and has been retained in 200 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. memory of a race that possessed elongated heads, and which possibly may be the same as those whose high-nosed profiles and re ceding foreheads are still seen depicted on the Central American ruins, a race, perhaps a master one, that has passed away. The extraordinary flat-crowned and elon gated crania discovered by Mr. Pentland in Bolivia would tend to lead to this conclusion ; and although it is the opinion of some anthropologists that these Titicacan skulls had never been subject to artificial pressure, it has since been conclusively proved, to my mind at least, that they have. Dr. Prichard, a high authority on this subject, says, " The custom was very general throughout North and South America, and the same practice prevailed among the ancient Peruvians ; consequently, it is more than probable that the ancient skulls of Titicaca owed their strange configuration to a process which we know is capable of explaining the phenomena, than that they constituted an original race, a circumstance of which we have no other evidence than that derived from the shape of the cranium. Professor Scouler has given CRANIAL PECULIARITIES. 201 the sketch of an infant skull of one of the Columbran tribes, which is as much elongated as the skulls brought by Mr. Pentland from Titicaca." Physical History of Mankind, vol. i., p. 220. When at Vancouver s Island in 1856, I procured two skulls, one belonging to the Chinook tribe, the other unknown ; the former was most extraordinarily flattened in front, the whole skull being considerably broadened and thrown back, but it had not the elongated appearance that is the principal characteristic of the Titicaca crania, and I have invariably noticed this excessive width in the heads of the living chiefs among the Chinooks in con tradistinction to the length of those skulls brought from the highlands of Peru. It might reasonably be supposed that if the practice of flattening the head was uni versal among the ancient Peruvians that inhabited the elevated region about Lake Titicaca, it would account for the elongated crania found in their huacas ; but Signer Rivero and Dr. Von Tschudi, after having examined hundreds of crania, inform us many 202 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. of these skulls are natural, and have not been artificially subject to pressure. According to them, three distinct races in habited that part of the South American con tinent before the coming of the Incas. The first, called the Chinchas, dwelt between the tenth and fourteenth degrees of south lati tude, and occupied the shores of the Pacific as far inland as the Cordilleras. The skulls of this race are only sometimes found artificially flattened. The second race, M. D Orbigny calls the Aymaraes ; they inhabited the Peru-Bolivian plateau, and it is said that in this race com menced the dynasty of the Incas ; their crania exhibit a peculiarity different from the other, particularly in their remarkable arch. The third race is called the Huancas, which inhabited the territory between the Cordilleras and the Andes, and extended from the ninth to the fourteenth degree of south latitude. There is not so much positive information about this race as the other two, but the CRANIAL PECULIARITIES. 203 characteristic formation of their crania distin guishes them from the others by the depressed frontal bone. Von Tschudi says, " Those philologists are undoubtedly in error who suppose that the different phrenological aspects offered by the Peruvian race were exclusively artificial. This hypothesis rests on insufficient grounds ; its authors could have made their observations solely on the crania of adult individuals, as it is only a few years since two mummies of children were carried to England, which, according to the very exact description of Dr. Bellamy, belonged to the tribe of Aymaraes. The two crania (both of children scarce a year or two old) had, in all respects, the same form as those of adults. We our selves have observed the same fact in many mummies of children of tender age, who, although they had cloths about them, were yet without any vestige or appearance of pressure of the crania. " More still : the same formation of the head presents itself in children yet unborn ; and of this truth we have had convincing proof in the sight of a fcetus, enclosed in the womb of a mummy of a pregnant woman, which we found in a cave of Huichay, two leagues from Tarma, and which is at this moment in our collection. Professor D Outrepoint, of great celebrity in the depart ment of obstetrics, has assured us that the fcetus is one of seven months age. It belongs, according to a very clearly defined formation of crania, to the tribe of the Huancas." Peruvian Antiquities, p. 35. 204 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. I have quoted this authority at length to show how easy it is to build a theory on a solitary and isolated point. This alleged proof would not be conclusive as to the natural formation of this race, even supposing this fcetal cranium to have been the normal condition of the child when so found. But when we consider the manner in which the Peruvians buried their dead, the whole case falls to the ground. In common with all the American Indians, they invariably placed their corpses in a crouching posture, with the knees drawn up to the chin, and the whole position constrained and unnatural, thus rendering it more than probable that the pressure in this way exerted on the abdominal region of the mother imme diately after death must have produced the elongated formation of the fcetal head described in this solitary instance, the unnatural position of the corpse rendering it certain that an undue pressure, and that of a very consider able nature, must have been brought to bear CRANIAL PECULIARITIES. 205 against the foetus, described as being one of no less than seven months, and which the sketch given by Dr. Von Tschudi fully corroborates. Again, due allowance should be made for cases where malformation occurs (and these are not a few) ; but in any case such a soli tary instance as the one quoted cannot establish the fact that this remarkable cranial configuration was the normal condition of this ancient people. It is, however, very certain that the Peruvians at the time of the conquest were found com pressing the heads of their children, as they were forbidden by Spanish law to do so ; while the same practice appears to have been adopted by tribes remote from each other in both North and South America, such as the Chinooks and Choctaws, inhabiting the former portion of the continent, and the Omaguas and Red Caribs, the latter. Adair says, the Choctaws do it to beautify them selves, and call the white traders " long-heads " by way of contempt. 2o5 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. We find the Indian tribes round South Carolina, and all the way to New Mexico, following the same custom : " To effect this, they fix the tender infant on a kind of cradle, where his feet are tilted above a foot higher than a horizontal position ; his head bends back into a hole made on purpose to receive it, where he bears the chief part of his weight on the crown of his head upon a small bag of sand, without being in the least able to move himself. The skull, resembling a fine cartilagi nous substance in its infant state, is capable of taking any impression." Affair s American Indians, p. 8. This is somewhat similar to the way in which the Chinooks compress the head, which is done by placing a board upon the frontal bone. While in Vancouver s Island, a mother held her infant up for me to sketch, the flattening bandage having been just removed. It is con sidered a mark of beauty and distinction, and is confined almost entirely to the sons of chiefs. This custom may have descended from the old Aturian Paltas, or Flatheads, now extinct in Peru and Brazil, but recognizable on the sculptures of Palenque in Central America, and still practised by the miserable remnants of a CRANIAL PECULIARITIES. 207 once powerful and prosperous nation who have wandered further to the northward. In Tahiti, the forehead and back of the head were pressed upward : this practice has been discontinued for many years in the Society group, but it will be necessary to remember that it did once exist. Catlin found the Minatarees, in North America, with very receding foreheads and aquiline noses, but they did not compress their children s heads. He says, " I recollect to have seen in several publications on the antiquities of Mexico, many rude drawings made by the ancient Mexicans, of which the singular profiles of these people forcibly remind me, almost bringing me to the conclusion that these people may be the descendants of the race who have bequeathed those curious and inexplicable remains to the world, and whose scattered remnants, from dire and unknown necessities of those dark and unveiled ages that have gone by, and have been jostled and thrown along through the hideous and almost impenetrable labyrinths of the Rocky Mountains to the place of their destination where they now live." Catlings North American Indians, vol. i., p. 193. It is also well known that the Natchez tribe, who migrated from Mexico at two different 208 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. periods, also flattened the heads of their children. On examining the crania from the North American mounds, and comparing them with some of those found in Peru, great similarity is observable, especially in the flattened occiput, but there is no proof that this peculiarity arises from anything but artificial causes. The question will naturally be asked, Are these ancient and peculiar crania found only in the highlands of Peru ? An essay by Dr. Warren, of Boston, U.S., answers this conclusively ; and an extract is quoted by Mr. Delafield in his work on " American Antiquities " : " The crania found in these mounds (i.e., ancient mounds of North America,) differ from those of the exist ing Indians, from the Caucasian and European, and, in fact, from all existing nations, so far as they are known. The forehead is broader and more elevated than the European ; the orbits are small and regular : the jaws are sensibly prominent, less so than in the Indian, but more so than in the European, owing principally to a greater breadth of the palatine plate of the os palati. But the most remarkable appearance in these heads is CRANIAL PECULIARITIES. 209 an irregular flatness in the occipital region, evidently produced by artificial means." "The Aztecs," says Humboldt, "who do not now dis figure the heads of their children, represent their prin cipal divinities, as their hieroglyphic manuscripts prove, with a head more flattened than any I have seen among the Caribs." It is necessary to be on our guard against an extraordinary statement made by Dr. Tschudi. After describing the three different Peruvian tribes, he says, " In conclusion, it may be proper to notice an osteo- logical anomaly, very interesting, which is observed in the crania of all the three races ; and it is this : that those children of tender years, in the first months after their birth, present an interparietal bone (ps interparietale) perfectly distinct ; a bone which, as its name indicates, will be found placed between the two parietals, and having a form more or less triangular, whose sharpest angle is above, and is bounded by the posterior edges of the parietal bones, while its base attaches itself to the occipital bone by a suture which runs from the angle of union of the temporal with the occipital bone, a little above the upper semicircular line, to a similar angle on the opposite side. It follows that this interparietal bone occupies precisely that part of the occiput which in the other crania is occupied fay the upper portion of the occipital, and which is connected with the parietals by the lambdoidal suture. 14 210 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. " At four or five months this bone is regularly united to the occipital, and the union begins at the middle of the suture, and advances by little and little towards both sides ; although even after a year it is not found com pletely effected, but in the middle only : a furrow shows the trace of the suture ; this furrow is not obliterated even at the most advanced age, and may be easily recognized in the crania of all these races. " Dr. Bellamy was the first who made mention of this bone, which he had occasion to remark in one of the mummies before mentioned. Among the numerous crania which we had the opportunity to examine in Peru, we have had the means of convincing ourselves that this suture is invariably found either open, or closed in part, or completely united to the occipital bone, and well indicated by a furrow very clearly marked. " It is a circumstance worthy of the attention of learned anthropologists, that there is thus found in one section of the human race a perpetual anomalous phenomenon which is wanting in all others, but which is characteristic of the ruminant and carnivorous animals." Peruvian Antiquities, p. 37. After such a positive and minutely described characteristic, I was hardly prepared to find it most flatly contradicted by several learned men, one of whom, Dr. Archibald Smith, had resided at Lima for a considerable time. While in Peru, I took with my own hands a skull from an ancient huaca near the ruins of CRANIAL PECULIARITIES. 211 Pachacamac ; the lower part of the mound had fallen out, and several skulls were easily obtain able. The one I got had no mark of any interparietal suture, although a ridge did exist across the lower part of the occipital bone, but which is simply that caused by muscular action, traces of which may be found to exist, more or less distinct, in the crania of every race of man, and has nothing to do with any ossified suture whatever. Dr. James M Bain of Edinburgh kindly gave me his opinion on this skull, and the following are extracts from a paper read by him before the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh in April 1863. After detailing the opinions of Dr. Tschudi and Signer Rivero on Peruvian crania, together with Dr. Bellamy s notice to the British Association in 1841, and the allusions made by Colonel Hamilton Smith and Dr. Lund on the same subject, he said, " The skull in my possession appears to have belonged to a young person, the sutures being open and distinct, 212 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. and only fourteen teeth being present in the upper jaw. " The ossa wormiana extend in the line of the lamb- doidal suture, from an inch above the posterior inferior angle of the parietal bone, and are nearly an inch in breadth. The skull belongs to the brachycephalic type, and is somewhat prognathous. " The occipiti-frontal diameter is 6 T % inches, the inter- parietal diameter is 5^ inches, and the vertical height, measured from the middle of the sagittal suture interiorly to the anterior edge of the occipital foramen, is about 5 inches. " The horizontal circumference of the skull, extending from the glabella along the upper margin of the squamous suture, and over the occipital protuberance, is 19^ inches. The skull, without the lower jaw, weighs 21^ ounces of millet seed, the anterior portion 10^ ounces, and the posterior 26 ounces, which is nearly in the ratio of one to three. "It is unnecessary to enter into further details, as the above are sufficient for comparison with other crania." He went on to say, " I have thus briefly referred to the authorities and statements upon which the hypothesis of a distinct race of man has been founded, and hitherto pretty generally accepted. The chief osteological characters are the peculiar flattening of the skull, and the assertion of the constant presence of an interparietal bone, or os Incce, as it is termed by Von Tschudi, in compliment to the nation in which the peculiarity is said alone to be iound. CRANIAL PECULIARITIES. 213 The question has been ably and successfully investigated by Dr. Archibald Smith, whose long residence in Lima afforded him favourable opportunities for that purpose. He applied to Dr. Lorenti, one of the best authorities in Peru on such subjects, who assured Dr. Smith that Tschudi s statement was utterly untrue. Dr. Smith afterwards went to the museum, and saw native Indian skulls from ancient tombs in which the sutures were visible, but only one showed signs of a wormian bone at all. The so-called interparietal bone, represented as characteristics of the skulls of the Peruvian Indian race, is not even traceable in any one of the Jive skulls in the Lima museum. A skull from the ruins of Pachacamac, in the Edinburgh museum, has no such peculiarity, neither have two skulls from the Chinchas, in the possession of Professor Simpson, the osteological cha racter in question, and therefore, none such can be said to be typical of the Peruvians as a race." Proceedings of the Physical Society, Edinburgh, Session 1862-63, P- 75- Dr. M Bain kindly took me with him when he examined the skulls from South America deposited in the Phrenological Museum of Edinburgh, but only two were found with the wormian bones situated at the occipital spine in the line of lambdoidal suture, namely, those marked 297 and 301 ; and five had no wormian bones at all. 214 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. On examining the crania marked Peruvian at the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, I found only one had an open suture extending the whole way across the occipital bone, as described in the foregoing quotation from " Peruvian Antiquities ; " and it is not a little singular that the only Peruvian skull in the British Museum, labelled Lima, possessed the same characteristic. The height of this bone (wormian, super-occipital, or interparietal ?) from the base to the apex, is in the former skull 2 inches, and in the latter i 6 inches ; the frontal bones in both skulls are apparently artificially flattened. It will be seen that the statements of Signer Rivero and Dr. Tschudi are based on excep tional cases, and that the desire to establish a distinct race of man as having at one time inhabited the highlands of Peru is untenable. We see that some few of the Peruvian crania do possess this remarkable characteristic ; but so far as I have been able to ascertain, it is CRANIAL PECULIARITIES. 215 not found in any of the elongated Titicaca skulls, where it might with most reason be suspected to exist. But this peculiarity is not confined to Peruvian skulls only. Those who have care fully examined Dr. Morton s work on " Crania Americana " will have noticed the same feature in a Cayuga skull (Plate 35) of North America, which tribe formed one of the Iroquois nation, whose cautiousness and cun ning were proverbial even among the sur rounding Indian nations. This skull has the occipital bone divided in a horizontal direction, the suture being as distinctly marked as any of those previously alluded to. A Clatsap skull (Plate 46) also exhibits the same feature : this cranium has been evidently subjected to unequal pressure, a greater force having been used on the right side of the frontal bone. A Chinook skull (Plate 43) and a Huron (Plate 37) also present the same peculiarity ; but the suture, although dividing the occipital 2i 6 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. bone horizontally, is situated higher up towards the union of the parietals. But we have further proof that this characteristic is not peculiar to any particular race of man, which has been so confidently asserted ; for Mr. Turner, the Senior Demon strator of Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh, states in a paper to the Edinburgh Medical Journal of July and August 1865, on the " Congenital Deformities of the Human Cranium," that this interparietal bone is not confined to American crania. " Variations," he says, " also occasionally occur in the mode of ossification of the cerebral part of the occipital bone itself. One of the best known of these consists in the presence of a transverse suture extending from one side of the lambdoidal suture to the opposite, and separating the whole, or a great part, of the supra-spinous from the cerebellar portion of the occipital bone. The interparietal bone thus formed was at one time supposed to be a characteristic feature of the Peruvian crania, and was named by Von Tschudi, in accordance with this view, os Inccz. But it is now known that this opinion was based on imperfect observation ; for not only is the interparietal bone of exceptional occurrence even in the Peruvian skull, but it may exist as an individual peculiarity in the crania apparently of men of any race. n CRANIAL PECULIARITIES. 217 It will thus be seen how cautious we should be in accepting conclusions based on solitary instances of cranial development, or peculiar formation, or upon those that have been framed in order to support preconceived theories. In seeking for a resemblance among the nations of the Old Continent that were in the habit of compressing the skull, the Macrocephali do not seem to stand alone. Hippocrates, Strabo, and Pliny speak of them, and the former writer says they considered those most noble who had the longest heads, and this was achieved by compressing the head in infancy. Bat this custom was also preva lent in the region about Mount Caucasus and the Caspian, as well as on the shores of the Black Sea ; and from various sources we find that the nations east of these regions were in the habit of practising it. Dr. Wilson says an ancient medal struck in the time of Attila the Hun, in the year 452, shows this singular configuration : 218 THE MIGRATION FROM SH1NAR. "On one side is represented the ruined city, and on the other the bust of the Hunnish leader in profile, with the same form of head as that shown in the supposed Avar (Hun) skulls." Several of these skulls have been found in Savoy, one near Lausanne, and another in Fuersbrunn in Austria. One at Villy, in Savoy, exhibits " the profile with the singular vertical elongation which appears to have constituted the ideal type of masculine beauty among the Asiatic followers of Attila, as among the Natchez, the Peruvians, and other tribes and nations of the New World." Speaking of their " bestial deformity," these fierce Avars " became a synonym for inhuman monster, under the various forms of German Hunne, Russian Obri, French Bulgar, or Bougre, and the English Ogre. Such were the people whose macrocephalic, or rather obliquely de pressed skulls, are believed to have been recovered, in recent years, in Switzerland, Germany, and on the shores of the Euxine, presenting strange abnormal proportions, so singularly corresponding to those of the New CRANIAL PECULIARITIES. 219 World, that the experienced traveller and physician, Dr. Tschudi, has claimed one of the most characteristic of them as no true European discovery, but a lost relic from some ancient Peruvian tomb. Not to Europe, how ever, do they really belong, but seemingly to the nomad Mongols and Ugrians of the great steppes of Northern Asia, in the vast wilds of which we lose them as they spread away eastward towards the Okotsk Sea, the Aleutian Islands, and Behring s Straits." Prehistoric Man, vol. ii., pp. 300 302. Again, let it be borne in mind that a posthumous compression is by no means an impossibility, when the corpse was placed in a particular soil without coffin or protection, as a perfectly symmetrical skull is the exception, and not the rule. In Dr. Morton s large collection of skulls, there is but one that can be called symmetrical in those classed Peru. Dr. Wilson, in his able and interesting work on " Prehistoric Man," quotes the follow- 220 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. ing remarks from Dr. Meigs, who divides the American crania into three primary classes : "ist. The protuberant occiput, which is exhibited among the nations of the New World by the Esqui maux, Chippeways, Hurons, and more or less among thirty- six different American tribes or nations. " 2nd. The vertically flattened occiput he assigns as more or less prevalent among sixteen tribes, and charac teristic of the majority of the Mound-builders. " 3rd. The full and rounder or globular occiput cha racterizes nine American nations or tribes, and occurs occasionally in a great number. " But the final summary of Dr. Meigs goes even further than this ; and treating, as it does, not solely of the American, but of the human occipital formation, it very effectually deals with all theories of radical diver sities of human varieties or distinct species, in so far as this important subdivision of osteological evidence is concerned, by affirming, as the result of observations made on eleven hundred and twenty-five human crania, that there is a marked tendency of these forms to graduate into each other, more or less insensibly. None of these forms can be said to belong exclusively to any race or tribe. None of them, therefore, can be regarded as strictly typical ; for a character or form to be typical should be exclusive and constant. " Vol. ii., p. 265. Independent of the fusion of different families of the human race, and the consequent variety of cranial formation which must be the inevitable CRANIAL PECULIARITIES. 221 result, we find that climate and soil, coupled with different modes of life, produce in the course of years marked changes in the human race. A close observer cannot fail to be struck with the tendency that the New Englander has of approximating to his Indian neighbours, not in degenerating, but in physical appearance. The high cheek-bone, the sallow complexion, together with the long straight hair, all indicate a tendency to graduate into those characteristics which mark those races who inhabit the New Continent. The Indians themselves know at a glance an Englishman from an American, as the latter have found to their cost. In concluding these few remarks on the cranial peculiarities of these early races, enough has been said to show that a race of people who very early found their way to the New World, were different in some physical respects to the majority of the nations that were found inhabiting the same regions by the Spaniards ; 222 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. that they artificially flattened the skull, and were in an advanced state of civilization as compared to the other races who succeeded them; and it is highly probable that the pre sent Indian tribes in both North and South America who flatten the skull are descended from that people whose singular profiles are portrayed on the tablets of Central America. FROM THE REV. C. FORSTEFS HARMONY OF PRIMEVAL ALPHABETS. Hebrew Alphabet and Characters from Ethiopia. Phoenician Alphabet from Ruins of Citium Cyprus. Alphabet from Monuments of Central America. I A B G D Y Z H I C L M N F Ts K R Sh T X n n D s 3?ff n 100800 HF H 999 fti* i VIII. CONCLUSION. N endeavourine to arrive at some sort of conclusion regarding the early migrations of the nations of the Old Continent to the New, we cannot fail to be struck with the many singular analogies that are presented to us, and it is a matter of astonishment that so many writers have persisted in looking only to one quarter namely, Asia as the country from whence America received her first inhabitants. First, with regard to language, we must class the American nations generally under the now commonly called Turanian, or, more strictly speaking, Allophylian, although we find slender traces here and there of Aryan dialects. These nations, distinct for the most 15 226 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. part from either Aryan or Semitic affinities, were nomads, and their remains are found in Europe as well as Asia by their numerous tumuli, containing hunting implements, such as flint arrow-heads and bone knives, together with fragments of pottery. They were gene rally ignorant of agriculture, and subsisted by hunting and fishing. According to Mr. Delafield and Dr. Dawson, the Alleghans and Toltecans are the oldest North American people of whom we have any record. " In North America," says Dr. Dawson, "a compara tively civilized and well-developed race would seem to have had precedence of all others, a statement which we shall find may apply to Europe also, notwithstand ing the mythical notions of a paleolithic age of barba rism" These Alleghans, or Mound-builders, as they have been called, can be traced right across Siberia by their tumuli and mural defences ; and Mr. Delafield believes them to have been Cushites. When found in America, they inhabited the CONCLUSION. 227 rich and fertile country between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies, and their remains are found near Lake Superior, where they worked the copper mines of that dis trict. They seem to have come from the north western quarter, and we must therefore place them in the van of those Asiatic tribes that were the first to cross Behring s Straits, or by the chain of the Aleutian Islands, but who were driven out of their country by the ever- advancing swarms from the same direction of which the Chichemees, Tlascallans, and Aztecs played so important a part, and whose empire was found consolidated in Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest. The features of these old Alleghans denote a people with rounded, short, and sometimes high heads and features, which, while American , were less marked and softer than those of the more barbarous tribes that soon poured in from the north, and drove them away south, as the same cast of countenance appears on 228 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. fragments of pottery that have been found in the mounds attributable to the Toltecans and Central Americans. Two very distinct types are found in the old mounds of North America, " one short and high, with a respectable frontal develop ment ; another, low-browed, and retreating in the frontal aspect." Two forms of skull are also found in Peru, one rounded or globular, the other elongated. These elongated crania are declared to be the oldest of the two races, but both are clearly of the Turanian class. Mr. Brace, speaking of the Turanians, says, " though generally Mongol in features, they are sometimes found clearly resembling Negroes, and at others almost Aryan in physical beauty." Manual of Ethnology, p. 113. This is accounted for by the fact that only a portion of the family of Japheth con stitute the Aryan proper, namely, the south eastern branch which emanated from the fertile region of Bactriana, of which the Indie CONCLUSION. 229 and Iranic families are the representatives, and from which sprang the now dead languages of the Sanscrit and Zend respectively. " It is a common popular statement," says Dr. Dawson, "that all the languages of the American continent are innumerable, and mutually unintelligible. In a very superficial sense this is true, but profound investigation shows that the languages of America are essentially one. Their grammatical structure, while very complex, is on the same general principles throughout Further, a very slight acquaintance with these languages is suffi cient to show that they are connected with the older languages of the eastern continent by a great variety of the more permanent root words, and with some even in grammatical structure. So persistent is this connexion, that pages might be filled with modern English, French, or German words which are allied to those of the Algonquin tribes, as well as to the oldest tongues of Europe and the East." The New World and the Old (Leisure Hour, 1874,) p. 796. These Algonquin tribes it is almost certain came into America from the south-east, and therefore by the Atlantic ; and I believe them to have been the Berber tribes of North Africa, who were afterwards followed by the Phoenicians and their Carthaginian descend ants. (See Map.) 230 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. It is ascertained that the Finnic and Tartar dialects (Allophylian or Turanian) resemble the Aztec, but neither the Knisteneaux or Algonquin languages have any words ending in tl ; therefore, says Mr. Dawson, " both in language and religion, such special affinities as exist connect the Algonquin tribes with the Aryan races, or rather with the Pelasgic elements which formed the front of the Aryan wave, and were perhaps as much Turanian as Aryan. In like manner, the same indications connect the Toltecans, Peruvians, and Alleghans with the south of Asia. Still, all these elements must have been nearer to each other than they have been in historic times, when the early migrations to America took place." The New World and the Old, p. 527. Thus it is more than probable that America received its first inhabitants when the Turanians were still in the ascendant ; and the traces of Aryan words that are found in the languages of some of the tribes, like the Algonquin and Othomi, must be the result of a later migration, but probably long before the one we know took place in the tenth century A.D. by the Scandinavians, and again by the Welsh, CONCLUSION. 231 (both of whom were Aryan-speaking nations) in the fourteenth century. And if, looking to Asia, Quetzatcoatl, Bochica, Mango Capac, etc., were Buddhist priests, then we have a fresh importation of an Aryan language. "The very name of Buddha, changed in Chinese into Fo-t o and Fo, is pure Sanskrit, and so is every word and every thought of that religion." Max Miiller, p. 149- "The religion of the Turanian races," remarks Dr. Dawson, may be expected to be the least mixed with the later ideas of revelation, and most stamped with the impress of its earlier truths, as well as with the general features of natural religion," and it is just this feature which strikes us in the primitive races of America. They are Turanian in features, language, religion, and customs ; and a careful study of them reveals the same characteristics as those of the early nations of Europe, Asia, and North Africa, as they existed before the advancing waves of the Aryan and Semitic races swept over them. The Alleghans probably became incorpo rated with the peaceful and industrious Toltecs, 232 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. as both people seem to have been driven from their country by the fiercer tribes that poured in from Asia. They retreated south into Central America, and some travellers think that their descendants still survive. Captain L. Brine, R.N., in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society in 1870, "On the Ruined Cities of Central America," remarks, " It is only in the interior, and in the secluded valleys among the mountains, and in the districts adjacent to the ancient ruined cities, that the descendants of the aboriginal Toltecan race are to be found ; and these can be traced partly by language, partly from a peculiar type of feature, but chiefly by the wonderful persistency with which they retain certain ancient superstitions and certain household usages. There is quite sufficient evidence to enable it to be clearly assumed that the descendants of those advanced races which raised the temples of Palenque and Uxmal, and which built the fortress and mounds of the interior, are still existing in the neighbour hood." "With respect to the affinities," he continues, "between the Palenquian and Mexican hieroglyphics which have been so much denied, it seems to me impossible for an impartial investigator not to ?dmit that great similarities do exist. In fact, there can be no doubt but that the builders of the ruined cities of Central America, and the builders of the great altars and Teo-calli of Mexico, were COWCLUSfON. 233 originally of cognate races under slightly different con ditions of civilization." It must be remembered that any difference that may exist between the hieroglyphics of Central America and those of Mexico, has been pointed out by Mr. Stephens in his work on Yucatan, as consisting in the former being cut on stont) while the latter are drawn on the A^atv JfcrttttJia, as seen in Lord Kings- borough s collection. He further says, in regard to the buildings and monuments, " They are not the works of a people who have passed away, and whose history is lost, but of the same races who inhabited the country at the time of the Spaniards conquest, or of some not very distant progenitors. w - Yucjtait) vol. ii., p. 445. Gulindo says that Copan was a colony of Toltecas. Its king held dominion of the country extending to the eastward from that of the Magas, or Yucatan, and reaching from the Bay of Honduras nearly to the Pacific, containing on an average about ten thousand square miles, now included in the modern 234 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. states of Honduras, Guatemala, and Salvador, and possessing several populous and thriving towns and villages. The aborigines of this kingdom still use the Charti language, being a mixture of the Toltec dialect with some other still more ancient in those parts. If a purely Aryan or Semitic people had reached America alone, there would be little difficulty in tracing their origin, as in all probability they would have possessed a written language. But we find no written language in either North or South America, only hieroglyphic paintings, quippus, wampum, and totems ; and consequently the dialects are not only multitudinous, but ever-changing and increasing: thus it is not uncommon to find in close proximity to each other, and bearing all the marks of a common ancestry, tribes not able to understand each other. The same is the case in the New Hebrides in the South Pacific, where in a cluster of islands lying within thirty or forty miles only from each other, the languages are quite dif- CONCLUSION. 235 ferent in some instances radically so ; while on the large islands of the same group there are tribes which are only separated by a range of hills, that cannot communicate with each other by speech. With regard to Semitic customs that are found among some of the North American Indians, we have already alluded to the works of Catlin, Adair, and Lord Kingsborough, in which those writers conclude the Jews had at an early period reached America ; but we have great difficulty in believing that they did so in any numbers, first, because they were not a maritime nation ; and, secondly, because the analogies that existed may be applicable to any of the primitive Semitic nations that had contact with the chosen people, or any of the neighbouring nations like the Egyptians, Babylonians, or Phoeni cians. But it is not at all improbable that after the dispersion of the ten tribes into the cities of the East, many of this interesting people 236 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. again fell under the yoke of a still more savage tyranny than that from which they had escaped, and had exchanged their Assyrian masters only to be found as slaves in the train of those Mongol chieftains who eventu ally passed over to the New Continent and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Notice has been made of the returning current of migration among the islands of the Pacific, namely, from east to ivest. It is possible that the now isolated group of the Sandwich Islands, in the North Pacific, were peopled from Asia in the first instance, and then afterwards from America ; be this as it may, there can be little doubt that the Marquesas, Society group, and New Zealand received a considerable portion of their in habitants from the Sandwich Islands, and that Easter Island caught stray canoes from the Society Islands, or direct from the mainland of America. We think the latter the most probable, from the circumstances already mein tioned in a previous chapter, and that a CONCLUSION. 237 continuous chain of islands probably existed right across the South Pacific. It is supposed by Prichard that the differ ences in the New Zealanders may be caused by the mixing of the Polynesian on a Papuan stock, and which latter existed on the islands previously : thus the darkest of these people would be descended from the aborigines. With regard to South America, and more especially the empire of the Incas, there are unmistakable evidences of an early migration from Africa. But at the same time there is an equal similarity in many of the Peruvian and Muscayan customs that point to Asia. The " bearded white men," when they ap peared amongst the primitive inhabitants of Bolivia and Peru, who had spread to these elevated regions up the great rivers Amazon and Orinoco, taught the people a religion and gave them a form of government very analogous with that of Japan and Tibet. Iraca, in Bogota, the city where the reformer Bochica is last heard of, was like Cholula to 238 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. the Mexicans, and Pachacamac and Cuzco to the ancient Peruvians and Incas a holy city. There were two chiefs in Iraca, a temporal one, and the pontiff, like in Japan. The word sua y or zuha, denotes in the Muscayan language both the day and the sun. It was one of the surnames of Bochica, and the word sue, meaning a European or white man, is derived from it. Hnmboldfs Researches, vol. ii., pp. 107 110. Prescott remarks that the calendar of the Musycas was very similar to that of the Aztecs. We cannot fail to observe many similarities in the primitive inhabitants of both North, Central, and South America. The mark of the red hand mentioned by Stephens as being found on the Central American ruins, was also noticed by Catlin among several North American tribes. He also mentions that some of the figures sculptured on the walls of Chichen Itza, in Yucatan, are very similar to those discovered on the stone dug up in the Plaza at Mexico, where the great teocallis, in the time of Montezuma, stood. CONCLUSION. 239 Mr. Schoolcraft informed Mr. Stephens that the red hand is used by the North American Indians to denote supplication to the Deity, or Great Spirit ; and it stands in the system of picture-writing as the symbol of strength, power, or mastery thus derived. Blake also mentions this mark on Peruvian mummies. Humboldt says, " Perhaps the ancient inhabitants of Peru had already passed over the elevated plain of Mexico ; in fact, Ulloa, who was well acquainted with the style of Peruvian archi tecture, was struck with the great resemblance certain old edifices of Western Louisiana bore, in the distribution of doors and niches, to the tamboes built by the Incas ; and it is not less singular, according to the traditions collected at Lican, the ancient capital of the kingdom of Quito, that the quippus were known to the Purnays long before they were subdued by the descendants of Manco Capac." Humboldfs Researches, p. 169. We think it probable that the Alleghans and Toltecans, when driven south, passed into Central and South America, but that the Incas came in from the Atlantic, and were of the same nation as the Algonquins who entered North America, both people coming from North Africa, and being of Berber origin. 240 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. It is very remarkable that the obelisk from Luxor, now at Paris, has sculptured on it the same figures as are found on the tablets of Palenque in Central America, viz., a king, or god, seated on a throne, holding in one hand a rod grasped in the middle, having on its top the figure of a small bird. The arm holding this is extended towards a person resting on one knee before him, and offering from each of its hands that which is either food, drink, or incense, to the one on the throne. The head ornaments are of the most fantastic description. The same, although much larger, but with out variation, is cut in the stones of the ruined city of Central America in many places. This circumstance, combined with their ela borate system of embalming, the identical use of the Canopa, or household deities, and the similarity of architecture, together with the unnatural practice of incest, point to an early intercourse, if not relationship, between the Peruvians and the Egyptians, or a* race of people very closely allied to the latter. CONCLUSION. 241 But all these customs could only have been engrafted on much earlier ones which the Incas found in existence when they crossed the Andes, just as we have seen the worship of Pachacamac superseded by that of the Incas themselves. There is one point which has been much insisted upon by some recent scientific writers that must not be left unnoticed in these con cluding remarks ; and that is, the oft-repeated assertion that the human race has gradually developed from a very low type, something akin to the ape. We should much like to know on what grounds these writers base their belief. The authority of Holy Scripture is dead against them, and in like manner the testimony of the earliest traces of man which have hitherto been discovered^ points to a directly opposite conclusion. If we had not the light of the sacred page to guide us in this matter, we should never theless have to confess that when a tribe or 16 242 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. nation is found in a savage or barbarous state, it is because it has degenerated from its primitive condition, and not that it is slowly emerging from barbarism. This can be proved. Look at the Portuguese penal colony in Fernando Noronha ; the Spaniards of unmixed blood in Equador ; the Arabians in Socotra and Nubia ; the Irish in Sligo and North Mayo ; and the Weddas of Ceylon ; all. these are instances, in the historic period, how soon a people withdrawn from the blessings of religion and civilization, and subject during successive generations to " hunger and igno rance, the two great brutalizers of the human race/ will rapidly degenerate. On the other hand, it is proved that religion and civilization will elevate and ennoble the type, whatever it may be, and wherever it may be found. The negro, for instance, in a state of freedom and in contact with a pure religion, becomes improved in every respect ; and the testimony CONCLUSION. 243 of different missionaries is to the effect that in the third generation the heads of the children begin to change to a higher type. There can be no doubt that in the course of centuries a new physical type is produced, according to the climate, soil, and habits of the people transplanted. With regard to the negro being found por trayed on the Egyptian monuments 2000 B.C., with the same physiognomy as at the present day, why should it be thought necessary to suppose five hundred thousand years or so to have elapsed before such a change could be produced ? From the Deluge (taking the mean of the date of the Septuagint, Hales, Jackson, and Josephus, viz., 3,179 years) to the time when it is probable the Theban sculptures were executed (about 2000 B.C.), is a period of nearly twelve hundred years, which gives ample time for the negro race to have been developed, and the curse of Noah to have taken effect, even supposing we are to put on one side the 244 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. possibility of a miraculous interposition with regard to the posterity of Canaan, of whom it was said, " Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren," and this is three times repeated. Professor Kitchen Parker, F.R.S., says " These race distinctions of character took place rapidly, I have no doubt. Your Yankee is a good sub species already, and a fine new type he is good luck to him ! but he has lost for ever the full form, fresh colour, mild expression, and quiet self-possession of that happiest of all breeds, the Anglo-Saxon." Transactions of the Victoria Institute, Vol. x., No. 37. But, apart from these considerations, when we examine the most ancient remains of our race that have yet been discovered in the caves of Europe, what do we find ? Men of splendid physique, and of a high intellectual type. One of the oldest skeletons, that of Cro- Magnon, belongs to an old man six feet in height the skull very long, but of propor tionate breadth, so that Dr. Dawson remarks, " The brain was of greater size than in average modern men, and the frontal region was largely and well developed. In this respect, this most ancient skull fails CONCLUSION. 245 utterly to vindicate the expectations of those who would regard prehistoric men as approaching to apes." This, it will be seen, is no abnormal skull like the Neanderthal, which we have before noticed, but that of a man of a high organic type. The same testimony is before us in the ancient skeletons of other caves, as those of Lesse and Dordogne, men who hunted and fished in Southern France, and from certain indications are supposed to have been con temporary with the last period of the mammoth in Europe. Certain it is that these cave-men hunted the reindeer, the bear, and probably the mammoth, as their bones are found mixed together. There is, however, some doubt whether these remains may not be antediluvian, as they are found in many in stances washed together with sand and gravel. Whether this is the case or not, we nowhere find man in a low, debased form, or with any characteristics approaching the ape ; on the contrary, the very reverse is the case. " The gigantic palaeolithic men of the European caves," says Dr. Dawson, " are more probably representatives of 246 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. that fearful and powerful race who filled the antediluvian world with violence, and who reappear in postdiluvian times as the Anakim and traditional giants, who con stitute a feature in the early history of so many countries. Perhaps nothing is more curious in the revelations as to the most ancient cave-men than that they confirm the old belief that there were giants in those days (Genesis vi. 4)." The same evidence is repeated in the most ancient skeletons of America. Prof. Swallow, of Missouri, informed Dr. Dawson that he had opened two burial-mounds in that state, " on which vegetable soil two feet thick had accumulated, and around which six feet of alluvial silt had been deposited." In this alluvium was found the tooth of a mastodon. " Perhaps," says Dr. Dawson, " no American interment can lay claim to greater antiquity, and the bones of buried corpses had been resolved almost entirely into dust. Yet earthen vessels found with them showed the Alleghan type of features, and the only skull secured was of the same type." The New World and the Old, p. 185. That bones of men and animals are found mixed together in great confusion in certain caverns, and under circumstances that lead to the conclusion that water was the agent that CONCLUSION. 247 placed them there, no one can doubt ; but these deposits in caverns are not necessarily so ancient as some writers would have us imagine. There is a passage in the seventh chapter of Genesis and eleventh verse, which seems to have escaped the observation of these gentlemen, if, indeed, they condescend to read Genesis at all, and that is, " the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up ; " and again in chapter viii. 2, 3, "T/ie fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was re strained ; and the waters returned from off the earth continually ; " and again in the fifth verse, "and the waters decreased" (were in-going and decreasing) " continually until the tenth month." Does not this language tell us that water welled up from the bowels of the earth in vast quantities, in addition to the terrible down pour from the skies, when God destroyed man and beast from off the earth at the Deluge ? and does not this account also tell us that 248 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. when the waters abated, they returned again into the bowels of the earth from whence they had issued ? And if so, does it not follow as a natural consequence that the remains of men and animals were washed into caverns by the currents that were then put in motion on this awful occasion ? Professor Challis, F.R.S., considers that " the separation of the neolithic age from the palae olithic, as indicated by geological phenomena, was caused by a cataclysm identical with the Deluge of Scripture." Paper read April 5, 1875, Transactions of the Victoria Institute, Vol. x., No. 37. But at the same time I do not think we have to go back so far for many of the breccia that have been found, as they may be equally accounted for by the action of rivers that have rolled through these caverns and deposited their burden in them, as witness the Sicilian caves ; and Professor Kirk points out that " the very alterations which change a system of caverns from being the bed of a CONCLUSION. 249 running stream to tie the comparatively dry bed of a fossiliferous deposit, as we have seen, occur in a week, or even in a day, as the effect of an earthquake, and cannot possibly indicate anything as to the age of the relics they enclose." Age of Man, p. 167. Thus we find the remains of man on both continents indicating the truth of the Bible statement, that " God made man upright ; but they have sought out many inventions " (Eccles- vii. 29), that " God created man in His own image" (Gen. i. 27), that he fell from his high estate, and although permitted to discover (or, was perhaps divinely taught) many useful arts (Gen. iv. 21, 22), still "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen. vi. 5). In these pages we have not once spoken of faith that faith without which it is impos sible to please God (Heb. ix. 6). We have appealed to common sense alone ; but there is a limit even to common sense a boundary 250 THE MIGRATION FROM SHINAR. line over which reason cannot pass. It is just here that faith in the revealed word of God steps in and offers to be our guide. This faith is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and must be asked for ; but we know that it will not be asked for in vain (Luke ii. 1 3). When, therefore, we are exercising the measure of reasoning powers that God has given us, we at the same time cling with childlike faith to the truths of His word and His word is truth (John xvii. 17), then, and not till then, shall we find that " the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. (Isaiah xl. 4.) The unity of our race is indubitably marked with one sad stamp, namely, sin, and which is the birthright of every child that is born ; but let us thank God for the wondrous remedy He has provided for all who will accept it the sacrifice of His beloved Son Jesus Christ when, on the cross of Calvary, the just suffered for the unjust ; where justice and mercy met, justice being satisfied, and mercy flowing out CONCLUSION. 251 to all, for " where sin abounded, grace did much more abound " (Romans v. 20). Thus we have the full assurance of God s love to the fallen race of Adam that nothing can undermine ; and like the Israelite in Egypt, we are securely sheltered behind the blood of the accepted sacrifice, for " the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin " (i John i. 7). Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. ARY LOAN !UN 3 1 2 2003 LD 21A-50m-3, 62 iTnOTol (\\ A TfiTJ General Library University of California YB 20595