De Guignes, and Sir William Jones,† conduct, without BOOK difficulty, the one his Huns and Thibetans, the other his LXXV. Hindoos, into the New World. Forniel, whose work we have not been able to consult, was the first to insist on the Japanese being brought forward, who, it is true, may in reality lay claim to a great number of American words. Forster has attached a great deal of importance to the dispersion of a Chinese fleet, an event of too recent a date to have produced any great influence upon the population of America.‡ For half a century, the passage of the Asiatics by Bhering's Straits, has been raised to the rank of an historical probability by the researches of Fisher, Smith Barton, Vater, and Alexander de Humboldt. Yet these learned men have never maintained that all the Americans were descendants of Asiatic colonies. An intermediate opinion, which unites the pretensions of Mixed the Europeans, Asiatics, Africans, and even the South Sea hypothesis. Islanders, has received the sanction of some writers of considerable weight. Acosta§ and Clavigero appear as its supporters. The latter insists, with reason, on the high antiquity of the American nations. The indefatigable philologist, Hervas,¶ also admits the hypothesis of their mixed origin. It has been learnedly dismissed by George de Horn.** This ingenious writer excludes from the population of America the negroes, of whom no indigenous tribe has been discovered in the New World; the Celts, Germans, and Scandinavians, because, amongst the Americans, neither light hair nor blue eyes are to be met with; the Greeks, and Romans, and their subjects, on account of *Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, t. XVIII. p. 503. † Asiatic Researches, t. I. p. 426. History of the Discoveries in the North. • Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las Indias, J. I. c. 20. p. 36. Vocabulario Poliglotto, ** Georg. Hornii, De Originibus Americanis, lib. IV. Hag. Com. 1699. VOL. V. LXXV. BOOK their timidity as navigators; and the Hindoos, because the mythologies of the Americans contain no traces of the dogma of the transmigration of souls. He then deduces the primitive origin of the Americans from the Huns, and Cathayan Tartars. Their migration appears to him to be very ancient. Some Phoenicians and Carthaginians must have been thrown on the western coast of the new continent. Still later, the Chinese conveyed themselves thither. Facfour, king of southern China, he contends, fled thither, to escape the yoke of Koublai Khan; and was followed by many hundred thousand of his subjects. Manco-Capac was also a Chinese prince. This systema mere tissue of conjecture when it first appeared, sufficiently harmonises with the facts that have been subsequently observed, and which we have above collected together. Some bold and unceremonious writer has only to seize on these facts, combine them with the hypothesis of Horn, and thus favour the world with a true and authentic history of the Americans. It is not improbable that, at some future day, America, in the height of her civilization, may in her turn boast that she is the cradle of the human race. Already, two learned individuals of the United States have maintained, that the tribes of the north of Asia may just as readily be descendants of the Americans, as the latter of them.* In the present state of our knowledge, the wise will stop short at the probabilities which we have pointed out, without vainly endeavouring to combine them into a system. N. B.-When the first edition of this volume was published in 1817, we were still unacquainted with that volume of Mithridates, (Berlin, 1812, Part III. § 23.) which contains the admirable discourse of M. Vater on the languages of America. The interruption of our communications with Germany, prevented Bernard Romans' Natural History of Florida; New York, 1776. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, p. 162. us even from knowing that it had appeared. The results of BOOK the researches of M. Vater, agree in the most essential points LXXV. with our own; only he has attended less to the geographical connexions upon which the following table is founded. But his labours furnish many additional arguments in favour of our conjectures, though we cannot properly afford them a place in a system of Universal Geography. Whoever wishes to prosecute the subject farther, will find ample information in the above and the succeeding volume (1817) of Mithridates. M. Vater has carefully collected tables of analogous words in the languages of the old and new world. Between the American, Coptic, and Japanese (8); the Malay (11); the Sanscrit (5); the west coast of Africa (20); the Basque (8); the Celtic (19); and the Caucasian languages (9), he points out many similarities. He also demonstrates by a table, the connexion of the Greenlandish and Tchouktchese (26); and in another, the connexion of the North Asian with the American dialects in general.-The figures in brackets, indicate the number of analogies given for each. Upon the whole, he thinks it a demonstrable fact," that on the north-east parts of America, in Greenland, and on the coast of Labrador; as also to the west of it, as in the vicinity of the Asian coast, there dwells a people which is one and the same race with the inhabitants of the north-east coast of Asia, and of the islands lying between the two hemispheres."-Part III. page 339. TABLE Of the Geographical connexion of the American and Asiatic The sun, in New-England, kone; in Yakoute, kouini; in Ouigur, kien ; * All the American words are taken from the works, already quoted, of Messrs. Smith Barton and Vater. The latter has taken a great number of them from printed Dictionaries, or Manuscripts. Some had been communicated to him by M. A. de Humboldt. BOOK 2. The sun, in Chiquito, souous; in Mosca, soua; in Yakoute, solous, star; in Mantchew, choun, sun: in Ostiac, siouna; in Andi, souvou ; in Wogul, sowa, star.-In Sanscrit, sourya ; in Zend, shour.* 3. Idem, in Quichua, inti; in Lulean, inni; in Aleutian, inkak, (the firmament); in the Tounguse of Ochotsk, ining, (day). In Lower Javanese, ginni, fire; in Batta, Iniang, (God.) 4. Idem, in Chippeway, kesis; in Mahicanne, keeschog; in Tcheremisse, ketche (S. B.) 5. Idem, Nii, and nee, the sun in Kinai (Russian American) connects itself with ne, day, light, in Birman; nic, eye, in Lieukieu; ne, eye, in Chilian; neoga, eye, or eyes, in Abipon. The moon, in Aztec, mextli ;† in Afghan, maischta; in Russian, msiaitsch; in Aware, mos; in Sanscrit, masi. 2. Idem, in Chili, couyen; in Mossa, cohe; in Jesso, or Aino, kounetsou, (with the article affixed); in Youkagir, konincha; in Estonian, kouli ; in Finnish, koun. In these names we have corrected the Spanish and English orthography only as far as was necessary to render the analogy evident. The connexions that were commenced by Messrs. S. Barton and Vater, and which we have not been able to complete, we have marked with the initials of those learned gentlemen's names. Sometimes, also, we have indicated by points those very remarkable gaps in the connexion of words, which yet are indisputable. The words of the Aleutian Islands, and of the island of Kadjak, are taken from Sauer, in his relation of Billing's Voyage. The Kamtchadale, Youkagir, and Yakoute words, are from the same source. The Tonguse, from Sauer, Georgi, &c. The Mantchew words were communicated to us by M. Jules de Klaproth. The Jesso, or Aïno, words are taken from a manuscript vocabulary of M. Titsingh. The Japanese terms are also from a vocabulary by the same gentleman, in the Mémoires de la Société de Batavia. The Lieukieu and Birman expressions are from vocabularies published by M. de Klaproth, in his Asiatic Memoirs. The Sanscrit and Malay words, &c. are borrowed from Mithridates. The high and low Japanese, from the Mémoires de Batavia.-The Polynesian, from Cook, Entrecasteaux, &c. The Ouigur and Afghan words, and those of the Caucasian tribes, the Andi, Aware, or Chunsag, Kaboutsch, Kasikoumuks, &c. &c. from the Memoirs of M. Klaproth. The Wogul, Ostiac, Permian, and Finnish words, are taken from Vater, Smith Barton, and Mithridates. The Lithuanian, Courlandish, Pruczian, (or old Prussian,) from a manuscript vocabulary. We may class together the sounna of the Goths and Germans; the sol of the Latins and Manni, or Scandinavians, anterior to the Goths, (vid Edda Sæmundina, Alvismâl, Strophe 16), and the saulous of the Lithuanians. ↑ Tli is only a common termination in Mexican, or Aztec. The stars, in Huastic, ot; in Tartar, oda, (V.)* Idem, in Chickasaw, phoutckik; in Japanese, fouschi. Idem, in Algonquin and Chippeway, alank; in Kotowze, alagan; in Heaven, in Huastec, tiab; in Poconchi, taxab...........;t in Chi- Second connexion by the north: in Tunguse, tor; in Kittawin, to; in 2. Idem, in Delaware, hacki; in Narraganset, auke; in Persian, chaki ; 3. Idem, in Peruvian, lacta; in Yucatan, lououn (S. B. and V.); in Youkagir, lewie and lifie, (in the ablative, lewiang; in the Finnish of Olonetz, leiwou ; in Ingousche and Tchetchengue, laite; in Birman, lai, country. Fire, in Brazilian, tata; in Muscogulgne, toutkah; in Ostiac, tout; in Wogul, tat (S. B.); in some Caucasian dialects, tzah; in Mantchew, toua; in Finnish, touli. Water, in Delaware, mbi and beh; in Samoiede, bi and be; in Kurile, pi (S. B.); in Tunguse, bi-alga, the waves; in Mantchew, bira, river ; in Albanian, oui and vie. 2. Idem, in Mexican, atl; in Wogul, atil, river (S. B.)‡ 3. Idem, in Vilela, ma; at Norton-Sound, mooe; in Tchouktche, mok ; in Tunguse, mou; in Mantchew, mouke; in Japanese, mys; in Lieukieu, minsou.§ According to what the learned M. Klaproth has informed us, M. Vater ought to be thus corrected: in Mongul, odon. The name of fire, ot, in Ouigonie, may be looked upon as approaching the Tartar, od. † This immense blank has offered us only one single analogous word, tiba, rain, in Youkagir. The approach is the more accurate, as tebbes, and debbes, in the Lithuanian languages, mean the sky, clouds. These words appear inaccurate. They ought to be, in Mexican, all; in Wogul, atil; the great river, aqua, aa, ach, &c. &c. ♦ M. Vater discovers these American words in the moui of the Copts, and in the Mauritanian ma. The resemblance is perfect; but, we ought to be told what M. Vater understands by Mauritanian. As to the Copt, it has received many words from the Asiatic. BOOK LXXV. |