Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 144

"It is very certain that thousands of American Indians, especially those of small stature or of dwarfish tribes, bear a most extraordinary likeness to Mongols."[540:3]

John D. Baldwin, in his "_Ancient America_," says:

"I find myself more and more inclined to believe that the wild Indians of the North came originally from _Asia_, where the race to which they belong seems still represented by the _Koraks_ and _Cookchees_, found in that part of Asia which extends to Behring's Straits."[540:4]

Hon. Charles D. Poston, late commissioner of the United States of America in Asia, in a work ent.i.tled, "_The Pa.r.s.ees_," speaking of an incident which took place "beyond the Great Wall," says:

"A Mongolian came riding up on a little black pony, followed by a servant on a camel, rocking like a windmill. He stopped a moment to exchange pantomimic salutations. He was full of electricity, and alive with motion; the blood was warm in his veins, and the fire was bright in his eye. I could have sworn that he was an _Apache;_ every action, motion and look reminded me of my old enemies and neighbors in _Arizona_. They are the true descendants of the nomadic Tartars of Asia and preserve every instinct of the race. He shook hands friendlily but timidly, keeping all the time in motion like an Apache."[540:5]

That the continents of Asia and America were at one time joined together by an isthmus, at the place where the channel of Behring's straits is now found, is a well known fact. That the severance of Asia 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.[541:1] This is evidently the manner in which America was peopled.[541:2]

During the _Champlain_ period in the earth's history the climate of the northern portion of the American continent, instead of being frigid, and the country covered with sheets of ice, was more like the climate of the Middle States of the present day. Tropical animals went North, and during the Terrace period--which followed the Champlain--the climate changed to frigid, and many of these tropical animals were frozen in the ice, and some of their remains were discovered centuries after.

It was probably during the time when the climate in those northern regions was warm, that the aborigines crossed over, and even if they did not do so at that time, we must not be startled at the idea that Asiatic tribes crossed over from Asia to America, when the country was covered with ice. There have been nations who lived in a state of nudity among ice-fields, and, even at the present day, a naked nation of fishermen still exist in Terra del Fuego, where the glaciers stretch down to the sea, and even into it.[541:3]

Chas. Darwin, during his voyage round the world in H. M. S. Beagle, was particularly struck with the hardiness of the Fuegians, who go in a state of nudity, or almost entirely so. He says:

"Among these central tribes the men generally have an otter-skin, or some small sc.r.a.p, about as large as a pocket-handkerchief, to cover their nakedness, which is barely sufficient to cover their backs as low down as their loins."[541:4]

One day while going on sh.o.r.e near Wollaston Island, Mr. Darwin's party pulled alongside a canoe which contained six Fuegians, who were, he says, "quite naked, and even one full-grown woman was absolutely so. It was raining heavily, and the fresh water, together with the spray, trickled down her body. In another harbor not far distant, a woman, 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 naked bosom, and on the skin of her naked baby!"[542:1]

This was during the winter season.

A few pages farther on Mr. Darwin says that on the night of the 22d December, a small family of Fuegians--who were living in a cove near the quarters--"soon joined our party round a blazing fire. 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 scorching. They seemed, however, very well pleased, and all joined in the chorus of the seamen's songs; but the manner in which they were invariably a little behind was quite ludicrous."[542:2]

The Asiatics who first crossed over to the American continent were evidently in a very barbarous stage, although they may have known how to produce fire, and use bows and arrows.[542:3] The tribe who inhabited Mexico at the time it was discovered by the Spaniards was not the first to settle there; they had driven out a people, and had taken the country from them.[542:4]

That Mexico was visited by Orientals, who brought and planted their religion there, in a comparatively recent period, is very probable. Mr.

Chas. G. Leland, who has made this subject a special study, says:

"While the proofs of the existence or residence of Orientals in America are extremely vague and uncertain, and while they are supported only by coincidences, the antecedent probability of their having come hither, or having been able to come, is stronger than the Norse discovery of the New World, or even than that of Columbus himself would appear to be. Let the reader take a map of the Northern Pacific; let him ascertain for himself the fact that from Kamtschatka, which was well known to the old Chinese, to Alaska the journey is far less arduous than from China proper, and it will be seen that there was in all probability intercourse of some kind between the continents. In early times the Chinese were bold and skillful navigators, to whom the chain of the Aleutian Islands would have been simply like stepping-stones over a shallow brook to a child. For it is a well ascertained fact, that a sailor in an open boat might cross from Asia to America by the Aleutian Islands in summer-time, and hardly ever be out of sight of land, and this in a part of the sea generally abounding in fish, as is proved by the fishermen who inhabit many of these islands, on which fresh water is always to be found."[543:1]

Colonel Barclay Kennon, formerly of the U. S. North Pacific surveying expedition, says:

"From the result of the most accurate scientific observation, it is evident that the voyage from China to America can be made without being out of sight of land more than a few hours at any one time. To a landsman, unfamiliar with long voyages, the mere idea of being 'alone on the wide, wide sea,' with nothing but water visible, even for an hour, conveys a strange sense of desolation, of daring, and of adventure. But in truth it is regarded as a mere trifle, not only by regular seafaring men, but even by the rudest races in all parts of the world; and I have no doubt that from the remotest ages, and on all sh.o.r.es, fishermen in open boats, canoes, or even coracles, guided simply by the stars and currents, have not hesitated to go far out of sight of land. At the present day, natives of many of the South Pacific Islands undertake, without a compa.s.s, and successfully, long voyages which astonish even a regular Jack-tar, who is not often astonished at anything. If this can be done by savages, it hardly seems possible that the Asiatic-American voyage was not successfully performed by people of advanced scientific culture, who had, it is generally believed, the compa.s.s, and who from an early age were proficient in astronomy."[543:2]

Prof. Max Muller, it would seem, entertains similar ideas to our own, expressed as follows:

"In their (the American Indians') languages, as well as in their religions, traces may possibly still be found, before it is too late, _of pre-historic migrations of men from the primitive Asiatic to the American Continent, either across the stepping-stones of the Aleutic bridge in the North, or lower South, by drifting with favorable winds from island to island, till the hardy canoe was landed or wrecked on the American coast, never to return again to the Asiatic home from which it had started_."[543:3]

It is very evident then, that the religion and mythology of the Old and New Worlds, have, in part, at least, a common origin. Lord Kingsborough informs us that the Spanish historians of the 16th century were not disposed to admit that America had ever been colonized from the West, "chiefly on account of the state in which religion was found in the new continent."[543:4]

And Mr. Tylor says:

"Among the ma.s.s of Central American traditions . . . there occur certain pa.s.sages in the story of an early emigration of the Quiche race, which have much the appearance of vague and broken stories derived in some way from high Northern lat.i.tudes."[543:5]

Mr. McCulloh, in his "Researches," observes that:

"In a.n.a.lyzing many parts of their (the ancient Americans') inst.i.tutions, especially those belonging to their cosmogonal history, their religious superst.i.tions, and astronomical computations, we have, in these abstract matters, found abundant proof to a.s.sert that there has been formerly a connection between the people of the two continents. Their communications, however, have taken place at a very remote period of time; for those matters in which they more decidedly coincide, are undoubtedly those which belong to the earliest history of mankind."

It is unquestionably from _India_ that we have derived, partly through the Persians and other nations, most of our metaphysical and theological doctrines, as well as our nursery tales. Who then can deny that these same doctrines and legends have been handed down by oral tradition to the chief of the Indian tribes, and in this way have been preserved, although perhaps in an obscure and imperfect manner, in some instances at least, until the present day? The facts which we have before us, with many others like them which are to be had, point with the greatest likelihood to a common fatherland, the cradle of all nations, from which they came, taking these traditions with them.

FOOTNOTES:

[533:1] Baring-Gould's Legends of the Patriarchs, p. 46.

[533:2] Squire's Serpent Symbol, p. 67.

[533:3] Ibid. Here we see the parallel to the _Grecian_ fable of Epimetheus and Pandora.

[533:4] Brinton: Myths of the New World, p. 203. Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 27.

[533:5] Ibid.

[533:6] Brinton: Myths of the New World, p. 204.

[533:7] See Chapter V.

[533:8] See Ibid. and Chambers's Encyclo., art. "Transmigration."

[534:1] See Chapter XI.

[534:2] See Chapter X.

[534:3] See Chapter XI.

[534:4] Ibid.

[534:5] See Early Hist. Mankind, p. 252; Squire's Serpent Symbol; and Prescott: Con. Peru.

[534:6] See Ibid., and the Andes and the Amazon, p. 454.

[534:7] See Early Hist. Mankind, p. 842.

[534:8] Ibid.

[534:9] See Chapter XII.

[534:10] See Chapter XXV.

[534:11] See Chapter XX.

Mr. Prescott, speaking of the Pyramid of Cholula, in his Mexican History, says: "On the summit stood a sumptuous temple, in which was the image of the mystic deity (_Quetzalcoatle_), with _ebon_ features, unlike the fair complexion which he bore upon earth." And Kenneth R. H.

Mackenzie says (in Cities of the Ancient World, p. 180): "From the woolly texture of the hair, I am inclined to a.s.sign to the Buddha of India, the Fuhi of China, the Sommonacom of the Siamese, the Xaha of the j.a.panese, and the Quetzalcoatle of the Mexicans, the same, and indeed an African, or rather Nubian, origin."

[534:12] See Chapter XXII.

[534:13] See Chapter XXIII.