Chapter III: The Australic Stock

Under the heading of the Australic branch, I would class together the primitive inhabitants of the peninsula of Hindostan and of the semi-continent of Australia.

The collocation may seem hazardous, but it has its reasons. The physical traits of the two are not remote. In both the hair is black and curly, showing Negritic blood, the skull is medium or long, the lips are full, the nose not prominent, the color brown, and there is a beard. The relationship of the Australians to some of the hill tribes of central India has been referred to as possible by the naturalist Wallace, and the linguist Caldwell finds Australian analogies in the Dravidian tongues, and points out that both are of the agglutinative type, and with family resemblances.[171] The suggestion seems close at hand that the Australian is a compound of the Negritic stock of Australasia with the Malay, the Dravidian perhaps with the Malay, and also with some other Asian people.[172] The English ethnologist, C. Staniland Wake, has advanced an almost equivalent theory to the effect that a straight-haired stock combined with the Australasian Negrito to form the Australians, but this straight-haired people he would attach to the “Caucasian” (Eurafrican) race, for which there is little or no evidence.[173]

_1. The Australian Group_

Occupies the whole semi-continent of Australia and the island of Tasmania south of it. The last of the Tasmanians perished some years ago, and Carl Lumholtz, one of the most recent of Australian explorers, calculates the survivors of the native inhabitants of that continent at not over 30,000 individuals of pure blood.

Their appearance differs considerably, although it is generally conceded that they speak related idioms, and originally came from one lineage and language. The Tasmanians had quite frizzly or woolly hair, and according to reliable observers correspond closely in habits and appearance to the Papuas.[174] Among the Australians of the north and northeast coast this resemblance is still accentuated, and no wonder, when the islands in Torres straits, one in sight of the other, form natural stepping stones from New Guinea to Australia. On the west coast the hair is straighter, and the signs of Malay blood are obvious. The color varies from dark to light brown, and the beard is generally full, the body being also well supplied with hair.[175]

The culture status of the Australians is generally put at the very lowest. Their roving tribes are without government, they do not till the ground, they go naked, and do not know the bow and arrow. Their weapons are the spear and the boomerang, a crooked club which they throw at the object. The story that it returns to the thrower is only true of some used in sport (Lumholtz). Marriage among them is by robbery or purchase, and the women are treated with deliberate cruelly. Cannibalism in its most revolting form is usual, and the sick are deserted. Their religion is a low fetichism, and they have no idols nor forms of worship. Certain rites, as fasting, sacrificing, and solemn dancing, clearly have reference to the supposed supernatural powers. In some parts, however, they draw figures of animals with charcoal on the sides of caves, and manufacture rude stone carvings.[176] They chip flakes into spear-points, and are skilful in making fire from friction, in catching animals and other simple arts. Their songs are numerous, and are chanted in correct time.

The _corroborees_, or dances, constitute their principal religious and social festivals. These are usually celebrated at night, by the light of great fires, and accompanied by a horrible clangor, which passes for music, produced from drums, flutes, and a sort of tambourine. The chants relate to adventures in war and love, in boasting recitals, and in descriptions of ancestral power. The initiation of the young of both sexes into the duties of adult life is always accompanied with some solemnities, such as fasting, incising the flesh in lines so as to leave prominent scars, cutting the hair, breaking one or more teeth, and with local mutilations of a painful and shocking character.

As usual among the primitive peoples, sickness and death are regarded, not as natural events, but as the maleficent action of evil spirits or living enemies. When ill, therefore, the services of the priest or magician is called in to counteract the sorcery and to name the adversary who sets it on foot. These adepts employ the same Shamanistic practices, rubbing, blowing, sucking, howling, which are popular with them everywhere, and if these fail, at least at death they can suggest who the hidden enemy has been, and thus furnish a pretext for the avenger of blood to start forth on his murderous mission.

In some parts the dead are burned; in others, the flesh is scraped from the bones, or the body is exposed until they are cleaned by the ants and other animals, and then they are carefully collected and placed in an ossuary; or again, the body is buried in the hut where the death took place, this is torn down and thrown on the grave, and the place is deserted. The spirits of the dead are supposed to haunt the place where the body is left, and as a rule to exercise an evil influence on the living. Food is occasionally placed on the grave, and some ceremonies of mourning are repeated for eleven months; usually, the survivors refrain from repeating the name of the deceased, even if it is a word of common use.[177]

Rudimentary as was their culture, it is interesting to notice that they had developed the conception of writing. They were accustomed to send information, and even describe events, by incising peculiarly formed notches, lines and figures on pieces of wood, called “message sticks.” These would be sent by runners for hundreds of miles, and could be read by the recipient through the conventional meanings assigned to the characters.[178]

_2. The Dravidian Group._

I have already given you a description of the general appearance of the Dravidas or Dravidians. There is some physical resemblance among them all, but here the similarity ceases, as they vary greatly in culture and language. They are held to have been the pre-Aryac population of India, and one of their tribes, the Brahui, is found north of the mountains, in Beloochistan. When the Aryans entered India, about two thousand years before our era, they either subjugated, destroyed or drove to the south these earlier possessors of the soil. They either became the lowest caste in the Aryac states, the “sudras,” or they fled to the swamps and hills. Their total number at present is about 50,000,000.

Linguistically they are divisible into two distinct groups, the Dravidas proper, and the Mundas. To the former belong the Tamuls, the Telugus, the Canarese, the Malayalas, the Todas, the Khonds, and other tribes of less importance. The skin of all these is brown, the hair curly, the head tending to dolichocephaly. The Todas of the Neilghery hills are regarded as of unusually pure blood. They are tall, with full beards and prominent noses, the hair black and bushy. Undoubtedly many of the Dravidas partake of Aryac blood through the long domination of that stock.

Most of the Dravida nations are cultured, possessing a written language and a literature. They are pastoral and agricultural in habits, and usually the women are well treated, and enjoy a certain degree of freedom. Monogamy is the prevalent custom, but polyandry (see p. 53) is frequent, and infanticide, particularly of female children, is looked upon with approval. Their religion is a nature-worship of a low order, consisting principally of conjurations against evil spirits and divination by sorcerers.

The Munda tribes include the Kohls, the Santals, the Bhillas and others, dwelling on the highlands of the interior, northwest of Calcutta. They are hunting and agricultural peoples, having a better reputation among the Europeans than their Hindoo neighbors. The physical type among them is variable, natives of the same village differing in color and hair, indicating frequent crossings with the Aryac and other foreign stock.

The languages of the Dravidians, though of the type called agglutinative, have no demonstrative connection with those of the Sibiric (Altaic) stock, and the efforts to connect them historically are visionary. The original roots are monosyllabic, which are modified by the addition of suffixes. These suffixes often show the same “vocalic harmony” to which I have referred in some of the Sibiric idioms (above, p. 212); but its action is reversed, as while in Turkish, for example, the vowel of the suffix alters the vowel of the root, in Telugu it is the latter which controls the former.

Although all the Dravida tongues have borrowed more or less from the Sanscrit, it has been in words only, and their peculiar structure stands as ever wholly apart from all Aryac speech. There is something that looks like inflection in them, but the case-endings are merely particles referring to place, and not true grammatical cases. They are still in that stage of growth where the distinction of verb and noun is ill-defined, and relative pronouns are absent.

The literature which has been developed in these tongues is of respectable extent. That of the Tamils of southern Hindostan and northern Ceylon stands in the front rank. It is in both prose and poetry, special forms of expression being characteristic of the latter. Everywhere it reveals Aryac inspiration, and illustrates the general traits of the Dravidian intellect, ready facility in imitating and adapting the forms of a higher civilization, but limited originality and independence of thought.

LECTURE IX.

THE AMERICAN RACE.

CONTENTS.--Peopling of America. Divisions.

1. The Arctic Group. Members. Location. Character. 2. The North
Atlantic Group. Tinneh, Algonkins, Iroquois, Dakotas, Muskokis,
Caddoes, Shoshonees, etc. 3. The North Pacific Group. Tlinkits,
Haidahs, Californians, Pueblos. 4. The Mexican Group. The Aztecs
or Nahuas. Other nations. 5. The Inter-Isthmian Group. The Mayas.
Their culture. Other tribes. 6. The South Atlantic Group. The
Caribs, the Arawaks, the Tupis. Other tribes. 7. The South Pacific
Group. The Qquichuas or Peruvians. Their culture. Other tribes.

The American Race includes those tribes whom we familiarly call “Indians,” a designation, as you know, which perpetuates the error of Columbus, who thought the western land he discovered was a part of India.

I shall not undertake to discuss those extensive questions, Who are the Indians? and, When was America peopled? and, By what route did the first inhabitants come here? These knotty points I treat in another course of lectures, where I marshal sufficient arguments, I think, to show satisfactorily that America was peopled during, if not before, the Great Ice Age; that its first settlers probably came from Europe by way of a land connection which once existed over the northern Atlantic, and that their long and isolated residence in this continent has moulded them all into a singularly homogeneous race, which varies but slightly anywhere on the continent, and has maintained its type unimpaired for countless generations. Never at any time before Columbus was it influenced in blood, language or culture by any other race.

So marked is the unity of its type, so alike the physical and mental traits of its members from Arctic to Antarctic latitudes, that I cannot divide it any other way than geographically, as follows:

1. Arctic Group.
2. North Atlantic Group.
3. North Pacific Group.
4. Mexican Group.
5. Inter-Isthmian Group.
6. South Atlantic Group.
7. South Pacific Group.

All the higher civilizations are contained in the Pacific group, the Mexican really belonging to it by derivation and original location. Between the members of the Pacific and Atlantic groups there was very little communication at any period, the high Sierras walling them apart; but among the members of each Pacific and each Atlantic group, the intercourse was constant and extensive. The Nahuas, for instance, spread down the Pacific from Sonora to the straits of Panama; the Inca power stretched along the coast for two thousand miles; but neither of these reached into the Atlantic plains. So with the Atlantic groups; the Guarani tongue can be traced from Buenos Ayres to the Amazon, the Algonkin from the Savannah River to Hudson Bay; but neither crossed the mountains to the west. The groups therefore are cultural as well as geographical, and represent natural divisions of tribes as well as of regions.

The northernmost of this division is

_1. The Arctic Group._

This group comprises the Eskimo and Aleutian tribes.

The more correct name for the former is that which they give themselves, _Innuit_, “men.” They are essentially a maritime people, extending along the northern coasts of the continent from Icy Bay in Alaska on the west, almost to the Straits of Belle Isle on the Labrador side. Northward they reach into Greenland, where the Scandinavians found them about the year 1000 A. D., although it is likely that these Greenland Eskimos had come from Labrador no long time before.[179]

Throughout the whole of this extensive distribution, they present a most remarkable uniformity of appearance, languages, arts and customs. The unity of their tribes is everywhere manifest.

The physical appearance of the Eskimos is characteristic. Their color is dark, hair black and coarse, stature medium, skull generally long (dolichocephalic, 71-73). The beard is scant and the cheek bones high.

They usually have a cheerful, lively disposition, and are much given to stories, songs and laughter. Neither the long nights of the polar zone, nor the cruel cold of the winters, dampens their glee. Before their deterioration by contact with the whites, they were truthful and honest. Their intelligence in many directions is remarkable, and they invented and improved many mechanical devices in advance of any other tribes of the race. Thus, they alone on the American continent used lamps. They make them of stone, with a wick of dried moss. The sledge with its team of dogs is one of their devices; and gloves, boots and divided clothing are articles of dress not found on the continent south of them. Their “kayak,” a light and strong boat of sealskins stretched over a frame of bones or wood, is the perfection of a sea-canoe. Their carvings in bone, wood or ivory, and their outline drawings, reveal no small degree of technical skill; and they independently discovered the principle of the arch and apply it to the construction of their domed snow-houses. The principal weapons among them are the bow and arrow and the lance.

The Aleutians proper live on the central and eastern islands of the Archipelago named from them. Their language differs wholly from the Eskimo. At present they are largely civilized.

_2. The North Atlantic Group._

The spacious water-shed of the Atlantic stretches from the crests of the Rocky Mountains to the Eastern Ocean. Whether the streams debouch into Hudson Bay or the Gulf of Mexico, their waters find their way to the Atlantic. The most of this region was in the possession of a few linguistic stocks, whose members, generally at war with each other, roved widely over these lowlands.

The northernmost of them was the _Athapasca_ stock. Its members called themselves Tinnéh, “people,” and they are also known as Chepewyans, an Algonkin word meaning “pointed skins,” applied from the shape of the skin robe they wore, pointed in front and behind.[180]

Their country extended from Hudson Bay to the Cascade Range of the Rocky Mountains, and from the Arctic Ocean southward to a line drawn from the mouth of the Churchill river to the mouth of the Frazer river. The northern tribes extend westward nearly to the delta of the Yukon river, and reach the seacoast at the mouth of the Copper river. At some remote period, some of its bands forsook their inhospitable abodes in the north, and following the eastern flanks of the Cordillera, migrated far south into Mexico, where they form the Apaches and Navajos, and the Lipans near the mouth of the Rio del Norte.

The general trend of the pre-historic migrations of the Tinnéh, seems to have been from a centre west of Hudson Bay, whence they diverged north, west, and southwest.

In physical features they are of average stature and superior muscular development. The color varies considerably, even in the same village, but tends toward a brown. The skull is long, the face broad, and the cheek-bones prominent.[181]

In point of culture the Tinnéh stand low. The early missionaries who undertook the difficult task of bringing them into accord with Christian morals have left painful portraitures of the brutality of the lives of their flocks. The Apaches have for centuries been notorious for their savage dispositions and untamable ferocity. They are, however, skilful hunters, bold warriors, and of singular physical endurance.

Immediately south of the Athabascans, throughout their whole extent, were the _Algonkins_. They extended uninterruptedly from Cape Race, in Newfoundland, to the Rocky Mountains, on both banks of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. The Blackfeet were their westernmost tribe, and in Canada they embraced the Crees, Montagnais, Micmacs, Ottawas, etc. In the area of the United States they were known in New England as the Abnakis, Passamaquoddies, Pequots, etc.; on the Hudson, as Mohegans; on the Delaware, as Lenape; in Maryland, as Nanticokes; in Virginia, as Powhatans; while in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, the Miamis, Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos and Chippeways, were of this stock. Its most southern representatives were the Shawnees, who once lived on the Tennessee, and, perhaps, the Savannah river, and were closely related to the Mohegans of New York.

Most of these tribes were agricultural, raising maize, beans, squash and tobacco; they occupied fixed residences in towns most of the year; they were skilled in chipping and polishing stone, and they had a definite, even rigid, social organization. Their mythology was extensive, and its legends, as well as the history of their ancestors, were retained in memory by a system of ideographic writing, of which a number of specimens have been preserved. Their intellectual capacities were strong, and the distinguished characters that arose among them--King Philip, Tecumseh, Black Hawk, Pontiac, Tammany, Powhatan--displayed, in their dealings of war or peace with the Europeans, an ability, a bravery and a sense of right, on a par with the famed heroes of antiquity.

The earliest traceable seat of this widely extended group was somewhere between the St. Lawrence River and Hudson Bay. To this region their traditions point, and there the language is found in its purest and most archaic form. They apparently divided early into two branches, the one following the Atlantic coast southward, the other the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes westward. Of those that remained, some occupied Newfoundland, others spread over Labrador, where they were thrown into frequent contact with the Eskimos.

Surrounded on all sides by the Algonkins, the _Iroquois_ first appear in history as occupying a portion of the area of New York State. To the west, in the adjoining part of Canada, were their kinsmen, the Eries and Hurons; on the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania, the Conestogas; and in Virginia, the Tuscaroras. All were closely related, but in constant feud. Those in New York were united as the Five Nations, and as such, are prominent figures in the early annals of the English colony. The date of the formation of their celebrated league is reasonably placed in the fifteenth century.

Another extensively dispersed stock is that of the _Dakotas_. Their area reached from Lake Michigan to the Rocky Mountains, and from the Saskatchewan to the Arkansas rivers, covering most of the valley of the Missouri. A fragment of them, the Tuteloes, resided in Virginia, where they were associated with the Monacans, now extinct, but who were probably of the same stock.

They are also called the Sioux. Their principal tribes are the Assiniboins, to the north; the Hidatsa or Crows, at the west; the Winnebagoes to the east; the Omahas, Mandans, Otoes, and Poncas, on the Missouri; the Osages and Kansas to the south.

The _Chahta-Muskoki_ stock occupied the area of what we call the Gulf States, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. They comprised the Creeks or Muskokis, the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and later the Seminoles. The latter took possession of Florida early in the last century. Previously that peninsula had been inhabited by the Timucuas, a nation now wholly extinct, though its language is still preserved in the works of the Spanish missionaries.

The Creeks and their neighbors were first visited by Fernando de Soto in 1540, on that famous expedition when he discovered the Mississippi. The narratives of his campaign represent them as cultivating extensive fields of corn, living in well fortified towns, their houses erected on artificial mounds, and the villages having defences of embankments of earth. These statements are verified by the existing remains, which compare favorably in size and construction with those left by the mysterious “Mound Builders” of the Ohio valley. In fact, the opinion is steadily gaining ground that probably the builders of the Ohio earthworks were the ancestors of the Creeks, Cherokees, and other southern tribes.[182]

Much of the area of eastern Texas, and the land north of it to the Platte River, were held by various tribes of the _Caddoes_. Fragments of them are found nearly as far north as the Canada line, and it is probable that their migration was from this higher latitude southerly, though their own legends referred to the east as their first home. They depended for subsistence chiefly on hunting and fishing, thus remaining in a lower stage of progress than their neighbors in the Mississippi valley.

Sometimes this is called the _Pani_ family, from one of their members, the Pawnees, on the Platte River. Their most northerly tribe was the Arickarees, who reached to the middle Missouri, and in the south the Witchitas were the most prominent.

The _Kioways_ now live about the head-waters of the Nebraska or Platte River, along the northern line of Colorado. Formerly they roamed over the plains of Texas, but according to an ancient tradition, they came from some high northern latitude, and made use of sleds.[183]

Omitting a number of small tribes, whose names would weary you, I shall mention in the Atlantic group the _Shoshonee_ bands, called also Snake or Ute Indians. They extended from the coast of Texas in a northwesterly direction over New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada, to the borders of California, and reached the Pacific near Santa Barbara. Many of them are a low grade of humanity, the lowest in skull-form, says Professor Virchow, of any he has examined on the continent. The “Root-diggers” are one of their tribes, living in the greatest squalor. Yet it would be a serious error to suppose they are not capable of better things. Many among them have shown decided intellectual powers. Sarah Winnemucca, a full blood Pi-Ute, was an acceptable and fluent lecturer in the English language,[184] and their war chiefs have at times given our army officers no little trouble by their skill and energy.

The Comanches are the best known of the Shoshonees, and present the finest types of the stock. They are of average stature, straight noses, features regular, and even handsome, and the expression manly. They are splendid horsemen and skilful hunters, but men never given to an agricultural life.

_3. The North Pacific Group._

The narrow valleys of the Pacific slope are traversed by streams rich in fish, whose wooded banks abounded in game. Shut off from one another by lofty ridges, they became the home of isolated tribes, who developed in course of time peculiarities of speech, culture and appearance. Hence it is that there is an extraordinary diversity of stocks along that coast, and few of them have any wide extent.

In the extreme north the _Tlinkit_ or _Kolosch_ are in proximity to the Eskimos near Mount St. Elias. They are an ingenious and sedentary people, living in villages of square wooden houses, many parts of which are elaborately carved into fantastic figures. Their canoes are dug out of tree trunks, and are both graceful in shape and remarkably seaworthy. With equal deftness they manufacture clothing from skin, ornaments from bone, ivory, wood and stone, utensils from horn and stone, and baskets and mats from rushes.[185]

To the south of them are the Haidahs of Vancouver’s island, distantly related in language to the Tlinkit, and closely in the arts of life. Their elaborately carved pipes in black slate, and their intricate designs in wood, testify to their dexterity as artists. South of them are various stocks, the Tsimshian on the Nass and Skeena rivers, the Nootka on the sound of that name, the Salish, who occupy a large tract, and others.[186]

All the above are north of the line of the United States. Not far south of it are the Sahaptins, or Nez Percés, who are noteworthy for two traits, one their language, which is to some extent inflectional, with cases like the Latin, and the second, for their commercial abilities. They owned the divide between the headwaters of the Missouri and of the Columbia rivers, and from remote times carried the products of the Pacific slope--shells, beads, pipes, etc.--far down the Missouri, to barter them for articles from the Mississippi valley.

The coast of California was thickly peopled by many tribes of no linguistic affinities, most of whom have now disappeared. They offer little of interest except to the specialist, and I shall omit their enumeration in order to devote more time to the Pueblo Indians and Cliff-dwellers of New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona.

These include divers tribes, Moquis, Zuñis, Acomas and others, not related in language, but upon the same plane of culture, and that one in many respects higher than any tribe I have yet named to you. They constructed large buildings (pueblos) of stone and sun-dried brick, with doors and windows supported by beams of wood; they were not only tillers of the soil, but devised extensive systems of irrigation, by which the water was conducted for miles to the fields; they were both skilful and tasteful in the manufacture of pottery and clothing; and as places of defence or retreat they erected stone towers and lodged well-squared stone dwellings on the ledges of the deep cañons, known as “cliff houses.”

_4. The Mexican Group._

The nations of leading prominence in this group spoke the Aztec or Nahuatl tongue. On the arrival of Cortes, they controlled the territory from the Gulf to the Pacific, and their colonies and commerce extended far north and south. They dwelt in populous cities built of brick and stone, were diligent cultivators of the soil, made use of a phonetic system of writing, and had an ample literature preserved in books.

The physical traits of the Aztecs were nowise peculiar. Their skulls were moderately long or medium, though a few are brachycephalic, the forehead narrow, the face broad. The hair is occasionally wavy, and they present more beard than most of the other Indians. The color is from light to dark brown, the nose prominent, and the ears large. In stature they are medium or less, strongly built and muscular. Persons ill-made or deformed are rare, and among the young of both sexes graceful and symmetrical forms are not uncommon.

The governments of the various nations were based on the system of clans, gentes or totems, which was common not only in America, but in most primitive communities. Each gens had a right of representation, and the land belonged to its members, not as individuals, but as parts of the clan. The highest officer of the State was in early times elected by the chiefs of the gentes, but later the office became hereditary.

Of all the arts, that of architecture was most developed. The pyramid of Cholula compares in magnitude with the most stupendous results of human labor. It has four terraces, and its base is a square, 1500 feet on each side. Similar structures are found at Papantla, Teotihuacan, and other localities. They are built of earth, stone, and baked brick, and could only have been completed by the united and directed labor of large bodies of workmen. The cities of ancient Mexico were many in number, and contained thousands of houses. Tenochtitlan was surrounded by walls of stone, and its population must have been at least sixty thousand souls.

Of their cultivated plants the most important were maize, cotton, beans, cacao and tobacco. An intoxicating beverage, called _octli_, was prepared from the fermented juice of the agave, but its use was limited by stringent regulations, and repeated drunkenness was punished with death.

The Aztecs were in the “bronze age” of industrial development. Various tools, as hoes, chisels and scrapers, ornaments, as beads and bells, formed of an alloy of tin and copper, and copper plates of a crescentic shape were used as a circulating medium in some districts. In welding and hammering gold and silver they were the technical equals of the goldsmiths of Europe of their day. Most of their cutting instruments, however, were of stone.

They were lovers of brilliant colors, and decorated their costumes and buildings with dyed stuffs, bright flowers, and the rich plumage of tropical birds. Such feathers were also woven into mantles and head-dresses of intricate designs and elaborate workmanship, an art now lost. Their dyes were strong and permanent, some of them remaining quite vivid after four centuries of exposure to the light.

In order to obtain the materials used in their arts and to exchange their completed products, they carried on an active commerce, both domestic and foreign. All the cities had market days, when the neighboring country people would flock in great numbers to town, and the journeys of their merchants extended far toward the Isthmus of Panama.

The national religion was a polytheism built up on a totemic worship; that is, it was originally a nature worship grafted upon the superstitious devotion paid to the presiding genius of the gens. Huitzilopochtli was the chief divinity of the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan, Quetzalcoatl was especially adored at Cholula, and the two Tezcatlipocas, the one dark and one white, were other prominent mythical figures. According to the myth these four were brothers, but engaged in a series of contentions among themselves, which repeatedly wrecked the world.[187]

The Nahuas were by no means the only nation who had made decided progress in culture. In Michoacan, to the northwest of the valley of Mexico, dwelt the Tarascos. They spoke a totally different tongue, but according to Aztec legend had accompanied the Nahua from a northern region into their Mexican homes. Physically they are described as a taller and handsomer folk than the Nahuas, with a language singularly vocalic and musical. Bold in war, they were never subject to the Aztecs, and appear to have been their equals in the arts. They constructed houses of stone, and made use of a hieroglyphic writing to preserve the records of their ancestors.[188]

The Mixtecs and Zapotecs were neighboring tribes, who lived on and near the Pacific above the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. By tradition both nations came together from the north; “mixtecatl” in Nahuatl means “people from the cloudy land.” To them are attributed the remarkable edifices of Mitla, stone-built structures, whose walls are elaborately ornamented with rude stone mosaics in meander designs or “grecques.” The roofs seem to have been supported by solid pillars of granite, some of which are still in place. Of the age or purposes of these buildings we know nothing, as they were deserted and in ruins when first visited by the Spaniards.

There are many smaller tribes in Mexico of independent stocks, but a catalogue of their names would be of little use. The most widely distributed are the Otomis. They are of small stature, dolichocephalic, and averse to civilization. According to tradition they are the oldest occupants of the land, possessing it before the arrival of the Nahuas. Their language in singularly difficult, nasal and primitive. In form it is almost monosyllabic, with a tendency to isolation. This has led some writers to believe it akin to the Chinese, for which there is not the slightest ground.

_5. The Inter-Isthmian Group._

Between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and that of Panama the continent narrows to a point, and the pressure of the population advancing from both directions forced a large number of diverse nationalities into a limited area. Only one of these could lay claim to a respectable civilization, most of the others living in primitive savagery.

This people, the Mayas, occupied the whole of the peninsula of Yucatan, and the territory south of it to the Pacific Ocean. It was divided into a number of independent tribes, the principal of which were the Quiches and Cakchiquels, in the present State of Guatemala. In all there were about eighteen dialects of the tongue, each of which can easily be recognized as a member of the stock.

There can be little doubt that the common ancestors of these tribes moved down from the north, following the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. This is the statement of their most ancient traditions, and it is supported by the presence of one of their tribes, the Huastecas, on the shore of the Gulf, near Tampico. It has been calculated that their entrance into Yucatan was about the beginning of the Christian era.

Physically the Maya peoples are of medium height, dark in hue, the skull usually long (dolichocephalic), the nose prominent, and the muscular force superior. The artist Waldeck compares their features to those of the Arabs.

Their mental aptitudes are reflected in the culture they developed under circumstances not the most favorable. As architects they erected the most remarkable monuments on the continent. The elaborate decorations in stone, the bold carving, the free employment of the pointed arch, and the size of the edifices in the ancient cities of Palenque, Copan, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and others, place them in the front rank among the wondrous ruins of the ancient world.

They were a decidedly agricultural people, cultivating maize, cotton, tobacco, peppers, beans, and cacao. The land was portioned out with care, each house-holder being granted an area in proportion to the size of his family. The cotton was woven into cloth, skilfully dyed, and cut into graceful garments. The dyes were vegetable substances, collected from the native forests. What is not elsewhere paralleled in America, they carried on an extensive apiculture, domesticating the wild bee in wooden hives, and obtaining from its stores both wax and honey.

Their weapons and utensils were mostly of stone. There is no evidence that the Maya tribes had the metallurgical skill of the Nahuas. Obsidian, jade, agate, and chert were the materials from which they made their tools and weapons.

In war and the chase they were expert with the bow, the long lance, and the blow-pipe or sarbacane, a device recurring in both North and South America, as well as familiar to the Malays. The war-club, the sling and the tomahawk or hand-axe were also known to them.

Small quantities of gold, silver and copper were found among them, but not in objects of utility. They were prized as materials for ornaments, and were employed for decorative purposes.

The art of writing was familiar to most of the Maya tribes, and especially to those in Yucatan. The Spanish authors assert that the Quiches in Guatemala had written annals extending eight hundred years before the conquest, or to 750 A. D., and the chronicles of the Mayas which have been preserved, refer to a still more remote past, possibly to about 300 A. D. The script was quite dissimilar in appearance from the Mexican.

Adjoining or near the numerous branches of the Maya peoples, there dwelt several outliving colonies of Nahuas in the Isthmian region, who have left there interesting relics of their culture. The Pipiles near the Pacific coast were the authors of a series of excellent bas-reliefs carved on slabs of stone, which have recently come into the possession of the Berlin museum.[189] The Nicaraos, between the Pacific Ocean and Lake Nicaragua, and on the islands in this lake, were the sculptors of the strange figures in stone pictured by Squier in his travels, and some of which are now in the Smithsonian museum; while the Alaguilacs in Western Guatemala have left ruins which have not yet been explored.[190] All these tribes were Nahuas of pure blood.

On the shores of Lake Managua, to the east and west, were the Mangues, a people of some cultivation, acquainted with a form of hieroglyphic or picture writing, very skilful in pottery, and agricultural in habits.[191] It has been ascertained that they are a branch of the Chapanecs, who dwelt in the province of Chiapas, Mexico.

The other tribes around Lake Nicaragua were wild. The Woolwas on the north, and the Huatusos along the Rio Frio to the east, depended on hunting and fishing for a livelihood. So also did most of the tribes of Honduras, Vera Paz and the Isthmus. The only nation which distinguished itself in the arts were the Cuevas, in and around Chiriqui Bay. They were adroit in the treatment of gold. The early writers describe them as prominent in general culture and certain technical arts. To them we attribute the gold figures disinterred from the mounds of Chiriqui and its neighborhood. They are manufactured by two methods, the one by soldering gold wires drawn out into the finest thread upon thin hammered plates of the same metal, the wire forming the design; the other by casting hollow figures.[192] The skill displayed often excites the astonishment of the jewellers of our own day.

_6. The South Atlantic Group._

The interminable forests of Brazil and the endless plains of the Pampas were at the discovery thickly peopled by bands of roving nations, dependent chiefly on the products of woods and streams for their support. None of them had sedentary dwellings, none knew the art of building with brick or stone, and none laid much stress on agriculture. Some of them had, however, considerable technical skill in various directions, and few if any of them could be assigned to as low a status as the Australians, for example.

The ruling people on the northern coast and the Lesser Antilles at that time were the _Caribs_. They possessed much of the coast line from the Isthmus of Panama to the mouth of the Orinoco, and many of the smaller southern islands of the West Indian archipelago. They had established a colony on Hayti, but probably not on Cuba, and their expeditions, so far as we know, never reached Florida. According to their own statements, all the island Caribs came from the mainland at no long period before the Discovery. Recent researches have shown that the original home of the stock was south of the Amazon, and probably in the highlands at the head of the Tapajoz River. A tribe, the Bakairi, is still resident there, whose language is a pure and archaic form of the Carib tongue.[193]

They were a finely formed set of men, the skull long but variable, their color dark, large narrow nose, prominent cheek bones, wide mouth, and thin lips.

Their language is rich in vowels and pleasant to the ear. In some districts that spoken by the women varied in some degree from that in use among the men. This is not without other examples among the American race, and appears to have arisen partly from the custom of capturing women from other tribes for wives, partly from a tendency to easy dialectic variation in the languages themselves.

The _Arawaks_ occupied on the continent the area of the modern Guiana, between the Corentyn and the Pomeroon rivers, and at one time all the West Indian Islands. From some of them they were early driven by the Caribs, and within forty year of the date of Columbus’ first voyage the Spanish had exterminated nearly all on the islands. Their course of migration had been from the interior of Brazil northward; their distant relations are still to be found between the headwaters of the Paraguay and Schingu rivers.

The extensive slope which is watered by the Amazon and its tributaries is peopled by numerous tribes whose affinities are obscure. Those on the plains near the coast belonged to the _Tupi-Guarani_ stock. This extended along the Atlantic from Rio de la Plata to the Amazon, embracing in the north the Tupis or Tupinambas, and on the south the Guaranis. Scattered tribes of the stock extended westward to the Paraguay and Madeira rivers, reaching to the foot hills of Andes. Though positive data are lacking about their early migrations, the evidence at hand tends to show that these were from south to north, and that the Tupis displaced an earlier people of a different physical type and a lower grade of culture.

This is the result derived both from a comparison of existing dialects and from explorations in the artificial shell-heaps, or _sambaquis_, which are found along the coast. Many of them are of great size and very ancient. They contain skulls of an inferior type, with low foreheads, prominent and strong jaws, and short skulls (brachycephalic), while the Tupi skull is more fully developed and long (dolichocephalic). Similar shell-heaps, proving an equally rude people, are found along the coast of Guinea, and both among the Arawaks of that locality, and still more among the Goajiros of the peninsula of that name on the coast of Venezuela, who are distantly related to the Arawaks, do we find the brachycephalic skull and strong jaws of the builders of the “sambaquis.” We may suppose, therefore, that the Tupis drove these earlier residents to the shores of the northern ocean.[194]

In frequent contiguity with the Tupis was another stock, also widely dispersed through Brazil, called the _Tapuyas_, of whom the Botocudos in eastern Brazil are the most prominent tribe. To them also belong the Ges nations, south of the lower Amazon, and others. They are on a low grade of culture, going quite naked, not cultivating the soil, ignorant of pottery, and with poorly made canoes. They are dolichocephalic, and must have inhabited the country for a long time, as the skulls found in the caves at Lagoa Santa, in connection with the bones of extinct animals, are identical in form with those of the Botocudos, and probably belonged to their ancestors.

West of the Paraguay River is an extensive plain called El Gran Chaco, beginning at the eighteenth degree of south latitude, and continuing to the Pampas of Buenos Ayres. This region was peopled by numerous wandering tribes, the Abipones, the Guaycurus, the Lules, and scores of others. They were in nowise related to the Guaranis, having short skulls, different linguistic stocks, and an inferior grade of culture. As they were warlike, and in constant strife with the whites, as well as among themselves, they have now nearly disappeared.

The tribes of the Pampas were on a similar plane of development, and have also given way before the march of the white race.

In the extreme south of the continent are the Patagonians and Fuegians. The former are sometimes called Tehuelches, or Southerners. They are a nomadic and hunting people, dark olive-brown in color, tall in stature and robust.

The Fuegians are generally quoted as among the most miserable of savages. Though exposed to a damp and cold climate and always insufficiently nourished, they wear scarcely any clothing, and are content with wretched huts of branches and weeds. They have long skulls (about 75), long, narrow eyes, well-shaped noses, and generally are good specimens of one of the American types. Their language is eminently polysynthetic and rich in terms to express the objects and incidents of their daily life.

_7. The South Pacific Group._

The principal nations in the South Pacific group are the Chibchas and the Qquichuas.

The former, called also Muyscas, resided near the Magdalena River, near the present city of Bogota. They were sedentary, agricultural, and skilful in a number of arts. Their agriculture extended to maize, potatoes, cotton, yucca and other vegetables, and their fields were irrigated by canals. As potters and goldsmiths they ranked among the finest on the continent, and both for symmetry of form and richness of decoration some of the vases from their district cannot be surpassed from American products.

The most powerful and cultivated of the South American nations were the Qquichuas of Peru. Originally they were a small tribe near Lake Titicaca, where they dwelt in close relations to the Aymaras. About 1000 A. D., their chief, Manco Capac, conquered the valleys to the north and founded the city of Cuzco. His successors added to the territory of the state until it extended from a few degrees north of the equator to about 20° south latitude, or a distance along the coast of over 1500 miles. In width it varied from 200 to 400 miles. Of course it embraced a variety of distinct stocks, so that it is impossible to speak of any “Peruvian” type of skull or features, the less so as it was the policy of the Incas, as the rulers were called, to remove conquered tribes to distant parts of the realm.

The social organization of Peru rested upon the political union of clans or gentes, as it did in most other American nations. The ruler of the realm acted in accordance with the advice of the council elected by the gentes, but also exercised at times an autocratic power, and it would be an error to consider him not more independent than the war-chief of one of the hunting tribes. The office was hereditary in the female line, provided a satisfactory candidate appeared; otherwise it was elective.[195]

No American nation surpassed the Peruvians in agricultural arts. Maize, cotton, coca, potatoes, and tobacco were the principal crops. As the arable land in the narrow vales of their country was limited, they increased its extent by constructing terraces along the mountain sides, and to guard against the aridity, numerous dams were built, from which canals carried the water for miles to the various fields. Fertilizers were dug into the soil, and a rotation of crops observed to prevent its exhaustion. The domestication of animals had advanced further in Peru than elsewhere on the continent. Besides the dog, and a fowl like a goose, they had large herds of lamas, an animal they used for food and also for carrying burdens, though its chief value was its wool. This was spun and woven into articles of clothing, mats, etc. Quantities of cloth from this substance and from cotton are exhumed from the ancient tombs. The specimens are often in good preservation, showing geometrical designs worked with symmetry, and dyed of various bright colors.

In the mountain regions the houses were generally of stone, and in the arid coast lands, of sun-dried bricks. They were located in groups surrounded by walls, also of stone or brick. The stones were sometimes fitted together with extraordinary nicety, or elsewhere were united with mortar or cement. Recent travellers have stated that the stone-work on some of the ruins of the Inca palaces is equal to that in any part of the world; this is especially true of the mysterious ruins of Tiahuanaco, near Lake Titicaca, where some of the most complete work on the continent is to be found.

These architects had not discovered the pointed arch, as had the Mayas, and in the details of their structures, as in the forms of their doors and the perfect simplicity of their walls, it is clearly seen that they had no connection with the northern civilizations. The structures were rarely erected on pyramids or mounds, and frequently were of several stories in height.

Their skill in the reduction and manufacture of various metals excited the admiration of the Europeans. Among the articles they offered the Spaniards were utensils, both solid and hollow, of gold, imitations of fruits and animals of the same substance, golden butterflies, idols, birds, masks, and mace-heads. Groups of half a dozen figures in various attitudes have been found of solid silver, the symmetry and expression being well preserved.

There was a like exuberance in the forms they gave their pottery. The jars and vases were imitations of every kind of object around them--fish, birds, reptiles, fruits, men, houses. Often the product is so symmetrical that one is tempted to believe it was formed by a potter’s wheel; but this invention, so ancient in the old world, was never known to the American Race. Curious ingenuity is displayed in the production of whistling or musical jars, which will emit a note when the fluid is poured in; or trick-jars, which cannot be emptied unless turned in a certain direction, not at first obvious. The art of glazing was not known, and most of the pottery seems to have been sun-dried only.

With the materialistic notions of religion and of a future life which they entertained, it was regarded of the utmost importance that the body should be preserved undisturbed in the tomb. Hence it was often carefully mummified, and the sepulchres were selected in the most secret and inaccesible location, either a cave on the side of a precipice, or if in the plains the grave was levelled, so that no sign of it appeared on the surface.

South of the Peruvian monarchy were the Araucanians, occupying the area of the modern state of Chili. They were a warlike, hunting race, physically and also linguistically akin to the tribes of the Pampas. Neither the Incas nor the Spaniards succeeded in reducing their indomitable spirit. In culture they had gained an advantage over the Pampean tribes by their relations to the Qquichuas, but were far behind the latter in general aptitude in the arts. Much of their subsistence was dependent on the chase, and they are not classed among the partly civilized natives of the continent. They are described as tall and robust, the skull brachycephalic, the face round, the nose short and rather flattened.

LECTURE X.

PROBLEMS AND PREDICTIONS.

CONTENTS.--I. ETHNOGRAPHIC PROBLEMS. 1. The problem of acclimation.
Various answers. Europeans in the tropics. Austafricans in cold
climates; in warm climates. The Asian race. Tolerance of the
American race. Theories of acclimation. Conclusion. 2. The problem
of amalgamation. Effect on offspring. Mingling of white and black
races. Infertility. Mingling of colored races. Influence of
early and present social conditions. Is amalgamation desirable?
As applied to white race; to colored races. 3. The problem of
civilization. Urgency of the problem. Influence of civilization
on savages. Failure of missionary efforts. Cause of the failure.
Suggestions.