as large vessel bears the name of some object, generally an animal, a figure of which adorns the bows. Any peculiarly successful decorations of this sort are much esteemed and are rewarded with a slave.44 Among the Haidah of the Charlotte Islands, again, the nobles bear copper shields, on which are engraved crests.45 They are also very fond of dramatic dances and theatrical representations, which are performed with masks, as is the case with the Thlinkites, and even some tribes in Oregon,46 well as with all the inhabitants of Vancouver's Island. 47 Social conditions were far more highly developed among the Thlinkites and Vancouver tribes than on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. The houses were stationary, which was necessitated by the fishery, and were sometimes like barracks. The chiefs possessed great power; a distinction into nobles and plebeians had arisen, and slavery existed among the Kolushes, the Haidahs, and the Vancouver tribes. VII. THE ABORIGINES OF AMERICA. If the human species has peopled the world from a single centre of creation, and if its cradle is not in America, the New World must have received its first inhabitants from the Old. When they entered the Western Continent they were certainly still in a very barbarous stage, although their language possessed the rudiments of its future character, and although they may have known how to produce fire, and used bows and arrows. We cannot suppose that these immigrants made long voyages, but at most that they crossed Behring's Straits. It is not impossible that the first migrations took place at a time when what is now the channel of Behring's Straits was occupied by an isthmus. The climate of those northern shores must then have been much milder than at the present day, for no currents from the Frozen Ocean could have penetrated into the Pacific. That the severance of Asia 44 Lütke, Voyage autour du monde, vol. i. p. 212. W. Dale, Alaska, pp. 413 and 417. 45 R. Brown, as above. 47 Whymper, Alaska, p. 58. 46 Waitz, Anthropologie, vol. iii. p. 335. American Immigrations. I 401 from America was, geologically speaking, very recent, is shown by the fact that not only the straits but the sea which bears the name of Behring is extraordinarily shallow, so much so indeed that whalers lie at anchor in the middle of it. But it is always dangerous to rely on geological events which themselves require more accurate proof. We therefore prefer to assume that at the time at which the Asiatics passed over into America, Behring's Straits already possessed their present character. We must, however, remember the first question which Gauss the great mathematician addressed in 1828, at Berlin, to Adalbert von Chamisso the circumnavigator, namely, whether the coast of America was visible from any point in Asia, that in such a way the two worlds might be connected by a triangle. Chamisso was able to answer this query in the affirmative,3 so that no accidental discovery need be supposed, for the Asiatics of Behring's Straits, when they crossed over to America, saw their goal before their eyes. Luxurious Europeans, indeed, think it strange that people whom we must suppose still without any means of protection, could have continued to exist in a climate so severe. But they forget that the children of the north are more comfortable in severe weather than in a milder temperature. "When, in winter mornings," wrote George Steller, "I was freezing under my featherbed and fur coverlets, I saw the Itelmes, and even their little children, lying in their kuklanka naked and bare half-way down the chest, without coverlets or featherbeds, and yet were warmer to the touch than I was." In another place he adds that the Kamtskadals always place a large vessel filled with water, which they cool with pieces of ice, by their side at night, and drain this to the last drop before the break of day. But the case of the Fuegians is yet more convincing, for the first immigrants to America were probably as undeveloped as these people, many of whom endure all weathers in total nudity. Darwin, who saw a woman in this state, adds, "It was raining heavily, and the fresh water, together with the spray, trickled down her body. In another harbour not far distant, a woman 1 Lütke, Voyage autour du monde, vol. ii. p. 209. 2 Whymper, Alaska, p. 94. 3 Chamisso, Gesammelte Werke, vol. i. p. 146. who was suckling a recently born child came one day alongside the vessel, and remained there out of mere curiosity, whilst the sleet fell and thawed on her bosom, and on the skin of her child.” A few pages further on he says again, "We were well clothed, and though sitting close to the fire were far from too warm; yet these naked savages, though further off, were observed, to our great surprise, to be streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting." "4 This is sufficient to convince any one that even for beings on the level of the Fuegians, a climate such as that of Behring's Straits would not impede a migration from Asia to America. But the proof that the aborigines of America took this road. consists in their Mongoloid characters. In the last chapter it was shown that the Asiatic and American tribes of Behring's Straits are so much alike as to be mistaken for one another. In the United States even adherents of the doctrine of the plurality of the human species have admitted that all the aborigines of America resemble each other as much as "full-blooded Jews," and that the Mongolian is the only race with which they can properly be closely connected.5 A. von Humboldt, moreover, attributes to the natives of Mexico all the Mongolian characters, with the sole exception of the nose, even the obliquely set eyes," which latter peculiarity he also ascribes to the Chayma in the north-east of Venezuela.7 The obliquely set eyes and prominent cheek-bones of the inhabitants of Veragua were noticed by Moritz Wagner, and according to his description, out of four Bayano Indians from Darien, three had thoroughly Mongolian features, including the flattened nose.8 James Orton the traveller was also struck by the likeness of the Zaparo of the Napo River, east of the Cordilleras of Quito, to the Chinese. In 1866 an officer of the Sharpshooter, the first English man-of-war which entered the Paraná River in Brazil, remarks in almost the same words of the Indians of that district, A Naturalist's Journey round the World, pp. 213, 220. Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, vol. i. p. 381. Mongolian Characters. 403 that their features vividly reminded him of the Chinese. 10 Burton describes the Brazilian natives at the falls of Cachauhy as having thick, round Kalmuck heads, flat Mongol faces, wide, very prominent cheek-bones, oblique and sometimes narrow-slit Chinese eyes, and slight moustachios." Another traveller, J. J. von Tschudi, declares in so many words that he has seen Chinese whom at the first glance he mistook for Botocudos, and that since then he has been convinced that the American race ought not to be separated from the Mongolian. 12 His predecessor, St. Hilaire,'s noticed narrow, obliquely set eyes and broad noses among the Malali of Brazil. Reinhold Hensel,14 says of the Coroados that their features are of Mongoloid type, due especially to the prominence of the cheek-bones, but that the oblique position of the eyes is not perceptible. Yet the oblique opening of the eye, which forms a good though not an essential characteristic of the Mongoloid nations, is said to be characteristic of all the Guarani tribes in Brazil. 15 Even in the extreme south, among the Hiullitches of Patagonia, King saw a great many with obliquely set eyes. 16 Those writers who separate the Americans as a peculiar race fail to give distinctive characters, common to them all, which distinguish them from the Asiatic Mongols. All the tribes have stiff, long hair, cylindrical in section. The beard and hair of the body is always scanty or totally absent. 17 The colour of the skin varies considerably, as might be expected in a district of 110° of latitude; it ranges from a slight South European darkness of complexion among the Botocudos to the deepest dye among the Aymara, 18 London, 1867. 10 Nautical Magazine, vol. xxxvi. p. 564. 13 Voyage au Brésil, vol. i. p. 424. 14 Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, vol. iii. p. 128. 1869. 15 Orbigny, L'homme américain, p. 62. 16 Latham, Varieties, p. 415. 17 This was remarked even by the Jesuit Charlevoix (Nouvelle France, vol. iii. p. 311) and Catlin (North American Indians, p. 328) and more recently by Musters (Among the Patagonians, p. 172). That bearded men appear occasionally among the Comantschs, will surprise no one who knows how many Spanish women these predatory hordes have carried off into slavery. 18 See above, p. 89. or to copper red in the Sonor tribes, 19 But no one has tried to draw limits between races on account of these shades of colour, especially as they are of every conceivable gradation. American skulls often have projecting jaws, but, as in the Asiatic Mongols, prognathism is never very great. Pruner Bey20 states that the shape of the American skull is very variable. "The heads of the Botocudos," he continues, "do not differ essentially from the Chinese; those of the Toltec nations are like those of the Javanese, and those of the New Zealanders may be compared with those of the Redskins." According to Welcker's skull measurements, the average breadth varies from 74 in Brazilians to 80 in Caribs and Patagonians. Thus they vary as much as in the Asiatic Mongolian group. Yet, except in the case of the Araucanians,2 Barnard Davis has not ventured to state the proportions of breadth and height in the case of the aboriginal population of America, although a considerable number of skulls were at his disposal. But on both continents the children's heads are shaped by artificial means. This was customary in North America not only among the Flatheads of Vancouver's Island and Oregon,22 but occurred also among the Algonkin tribes in the east of the United States.23 In the southern continent this practice obtained among all the civilized nations of the Andes, and hence we find in skulls of the Muysca, the old inhabitants of Quito and Peru, indices of breadth as high, and even higher, than 100. At present, therefore, it is impossible to say within what limits the breadth and height of uninjured American skulls vary; but the few individual tribes in which it has been accomplished proved to be mesocephalic or brachycephalic, as was to be expected, if they belong to the Mongolian race. The narrow-slit and often obliquely set eyes, which have been remarked in individual tribes in both continents as far as the 19 Waitz, Anthropologie, vol. iv. p. 200. 20 Resultats de craniométrie. Mem. de la Société d'Anthropologie, vol. ii. p. 13. 21 Breadth 80, height 80. Thesaurus Craniorum, p. 357. 22 See above, p. 398. 23 Hence the French called the tribes with artificially and entirely round skulls "têtes de boule." Charlevoix, Nouvelle France, vol. iii. p. 324. |