BOOK the figured writing of the Mexicans and the Quipos of Peru. LXXV. In a word, the whole political system of the Peruvian Incas, grations of and of the Zaques of Condinamarca, was founded on a union of the civil and ecclesiastical powers in the person of an incarnate Deity.* Without attaching to these analogies any decided importance, we may remark, notwithstanding, that America, by its customs, not less than its languages, manifestly proves the former existence of communications with Asia. But these communications must have been anterior to the development of the creeds and mythologies actually prevailing amongst the Asiatic nations in the present day. Were this not the case, the appellations of some of their divinities would necessarily have been conveyed from one continent to the other. No American tradition whatever ascends to the incalculably remote period of these communications. The people of South America have almost no historical remembrances. The traditions of the northern nations go no farther than merely assigning that region, in which the Missouri, the Colorado, and the Rio-del-Norte take their rise, as the country of a very great number of their tribes. Known mi- In general, from the seventh to the thirteenth century, the Ameri- the population appears to have been continually flowing can people. back towards the south and east. It is from the regions situated to the north of the Rio Gila, that those nations of warriors issued, who, one after the other, inundated the country of Anahuac. The hieroglyphical pictures of the Azteques, have transmitted to us the remembrance of the principal epochs connected with the migration of the American people. This migration bears some analogy with the one which, in the fifth century, plunged Europe into a state of barbarism, of which, even in the present day, we *Fischer, Conjectures on the origin of the Americans; in Pallas, Noveaux Mémoires sur le Nord, t. III. p. 289-312; copied into Sherer, Recherches Historiques et Geographiques sur le Noveau-Monde, Paris, 1777. This longknown work has been literally copied in a series of articles inserted in the Moniteur, five years ago. LXXV. still experience the fatal consequences in many of our social BOOK institutions. The nations that traversed Mexico, left behind them, on the contrary, evident traces of culture and civilization. The Toulteques appeared there, for the first time, in the year 648; the Chichimeques, in 1170; the Nahualteques, in 1178; the Acoulhues and the Azteques, in 1196. The Toulteques introduced the cultivation of Indian corn and of cotton. They constructed towns and roads, and, above all, those great pyramids that still remain the objects of our admiration, the faces of which are very accurately adjusted to the four points of the compass. They were acquainted with the use of hieroglyphical paintings; knew how to fuse metals, and hew the hardest stones; and had a more perfect solar year than either the Greeks or Romans. The efficiency of their government manifestly proved that they were descended from a people who must themselves have previously experienced great vicissitudes in their social condition. * Whence, however, was this civilization derived; and where is the country from which the Toulteques and the Mexicans issued? the place of Traditions and historical hieroglyphics bestow the names Hypothesis of Huehuetlapallan, Tollan, and Aztlan, upon the original respecting abode of these wandering nations. Nothing now indicates their dean ancient civilization of mankind to the north of the Rio-parture. Gila, or in the northern regions explored by Hearne, Fiedler, and Mackenzie. On the north-west coast, however, between Nootka Sound and Cooke's River, in Norfolk Bay and Cox's Inlet, the natives shew a decided taste for hieroglyphical paintings. When we advert to the monuments which an unknown people left in southern Siberia; and compare the epoch of the first appearance of the Toulteques with that of the great revolutions of Asia, from the earliest movements of the Hiongnoux, one is tempted to believe that the conquerors of Mexico must * Humboldt, Essai polit. t. I. p. 370 and 404. Marchand's Voyage, t. I. p. 259. 261. 375. Dixon, p. 332. BOOK have been a civilized nation, that had fied from the banks LXXV. of the Irtish, or of the lake Baikal, to escape from the yoke of the barbarous hordes of the central plateau of Asia.* Various traditions. The great displacement of the American tribes of the north is established by other traditions. All the indigenous natives of the southern United States pretend to have arrived from the west, after crossing the Mississippi. According to the opinion of the Muskohges, the great people from whom they are descended still inhabit the west. Their arrival, however, cannot be dated earlier than the sixteenth century. The Senecas were formerly a neighbouring tribe. The Delawares found on the banks of the Missouri a people who spoke their language. According to Mr. Adair, the Choktaws are descended from the Chickasaws, at a subsequent period to the Muskohges. The Chipiouans, or Chepawayens, alone have any tradition that seems to indicate their emigration from Asia. They once dwelt, say they, in a country situated very far to the west, from which they were driven by a wicked nation. They traversed a long lake filled with islands and ice-bergs. Winter reigned on every side during their passage. They disembarked near the Copper River. These circumstances cannot possibly be applicable to any thing but the emigration of a people of Siberia, who must have crossed Behring's Straits, or some other unknown strait still more to the north. Yet, notwithstanding this tradition, the language of the Chipiouans is not of a more Asiatic character than the other idioms of America. Their name has no more a place in the immense nomenclature of Asiatic tribes, ancient and modern, than that of the Hurons, which has been so unhappily compared with the Huires of Marco Polo, and the Huiar of Carpin, who are merely Ouigours.+ * Compare Humboldt, t. I. p. 373, II. 502, III. 231. + Smith Barton, p. 47. See History of Geography, Book XIX. In the last place, these traditions, monuments, and cus- BOOK toms, as well as idioms, render it extremely probable that LXXV. there must once have been invasions of the new continent Concludby Asiatic nations; but, at the same time, every circum- ing result. stance concurs to throw back the epoch of these events to the darkness of ages anterior to history. The arrival of a colony of Malays, mixed with Madagascars and Africans, is a very probable event, but is enveloped in still more, impenetrable obscurity. The general mass of the native population of America is indigenous. of the hypothesis. After having thus detailed the whole of our researches Hypothesis respecting and our conjectures respecting the origin of the Americans, the origin it would be a source of useless fatigue to our readers, were Americans. we to enter into a long analysis of all the opinions that have been advanced on this subject. It suffices to know that every thing has been imagined. The very conveni- Hebrew ent resource of the dispersion of the Israelites, has been brought forward by a great number of writers, amongst whom only one deserves notice, the Englishman, Adair, who, with considerable erudition, has shewn the affinity which exists between the manners of the ancient Hebrews and the people of Florida and the Carolinas.* These affinities prove, in general, merely a communication with Asia; and, in some of them, such as the use of the exclamation Hallela yah, he seems to be mistaken. The Egyptians have been assigned as the ancestors of the Egyptians. Mexicans, by the learned Huet, Athanasius Kircher, and by an American of erudition, whose vast researches have not been given to the world. The astronomical and chronological systems are totally different. The styles of architecture and of sculpture may resemble one another amongst different nations; and, accordingly, the pyramids Adair's History of the American Indians, p. 15-220. Garcia, Origende los Indios d'el Nuevo-Mundo, liv. III. Valencia, 1607. New edition by Barcia. Madrid, 1729. † Huet, de Navig. Salomon. Siguenza, Extract in Equiara, Bibliotheca Messicana. Compare Humboldt, Vues et Monumens. BOOK of Anahuac bear a closer comparison with those of IndoLXXV. China than of Egypt. The Canaanites have been put in requisition by Gomara, in consequence of the feeble analogy with their customs that has been observed on TerraFirma. Many writers have maintained the reality of the expeditions of the Carthaginians into America; and it is impossible altogether to deny the possibility of such an event. We are too little acquainted with the language of this celebrated people, a mixed race of Asiatics and Africans, to assume the privilege of deciding that no trace of an invasion of the Carthaginians really does exist. With a greater degree of certainty we can exclude the Celts, notwithstanding the etymological dexterity made use of to discover Celtic roots in the Algonquin. The ancient Spaniards have also very feeble claims; their naviof Grotius, gation was exceedingly limited. The Scandinavians have preserved historical documents, which establish the fact of their voyages to Greenland; but they do not go farther back than the tenth century, and merely prove that America was already completely peopled-a very powerful argument in favour of the high antiquity of the American nations. The celebrated Hugo Grotius has very awkwarkly combined this historical fact with some conjectural etymologies, for the purpose of deriving the population of North America from the Norwegians, who, except in Iceland and Greenland, have left only faint traces behind them in the west. Hypothesis Asiatic hypothesis. The purely Asiatic origin of the Americans has met with numerous supporters. The learned philologist Brerewood, was, perhaps, the first by whom it was proposed. By the Spanish historians it was only partially admitted. *Gomara, Hist. Indiana. t. I. p. 41. † Garcia, l. c. liv. II. Compomanes, Antiguedad Maritima de Carthago. Hugo Grotius, de Orig. Gent. America. De Laet, Notæ ad dissert. Hug. Enquiry touching the diversity of Languages and of Religions, London, |