Man, Past and Present Part 38

(2) That a similar land connection was again in existence at the close of the last glacial epoch, and probably continued up to comparatively recent times, as indicated by the close resemblance of related living mammalian species on either side of the present Behring Strait. (3) That the first authentic records of prehistoric man in America have been found in deposits that are not older than the last glacial epoch, and probably of even later date, the inference being that man first found his way into North America at some time near the close of the existence of this last land bridge. (4) That this land bridge was broad and vegetative, and the climate presumably mild, at least along its southern coast border, making it habitable for man.

Rivet[745] points out that from Brazil to Terra del Fuegia on the Atlantic slope, in Bolivia and Peru, on the high plateaux of the Andes, on the Pacific coast and perhaps in the south of California, traces of a distinct race are met with, sometimes in single individuals, sometimes in whole groups. This race of Lagoa Santa is an important primordial element in the population of South America, and has been termed by Deniker the Palaeo-American sub-race[746].

The men were of low stature but considerable strength, the skull was long, narrow and high, of moderate size, prognathous, with strong brow ridges, but not a retreating forehead. There is no reliable evidence as to the age of these remains. Hrdli[vc]ka, after reviewing all the evidence says, "Besides agreeing closely with the dolichocephalic American type, which had an extensive representation throughout Brazil, including the Province of Minas Geraes, and in many other parts of South America, it is the same type which is met with farther north among the Aztec, Tarasco, Otomi, Tarahumare, Pima, Californians, ancient Utah cliff dwellers, ancient north-eastern Pueblos, Shoshoni, many of the Plains Tribes, Iroquois, Eastern Siouan, and Algonquian. But it is apart from the Eskimo, who form a distinct subtype of the yellow-brown strain of humanity[747]."

Rivet[748] adds that an examination of the present distribution of the descendants of the Lagoa-Santa type shows that they are all border peoples, in East Brazil, and the south of Patagonia and Terra del Fuegia, where the climate is rigorous, in desert islands of west and southern Chili, on the coast of Ecuador, and perhaps in California. This suggests that they have been driven out in a great eccentric movement from their old habitat, into new environment producing fresh crossings.

There is an absence of this high narrow-headed type throughout the northern part of South America, and a prevalence of medium or sub-brachycephalic heads which are always low in the crown. These are now represented by the Caribs and Arawaks, but there was more than one migration of brachycephalic peoples from the north.

To return to North America. As we have just seen Hrdli[vc]ka recognises a dolichocephalic element in North America, and various ethnic groups range to p.r.o.nounced brachycephaly. Nevertheless he believes in the original unity of the Indian race in America, basing his conclusions on the colour of the skin, which ranges from yellowish white to dark brown, the straight black hair, scanty beard, hairless body, brown and often more or less slanting eye, mesorrhine nose, medium prognathism, skeletal proportions and other essential features. In all these characters the American Indians resemble the yellowish brown peoples of eastern Asia and a large part of Polynesia[749]. He also believes that there were many successive migrations from Asia.

The differences of opinion between Hrdli[vc]ka and other students is probably more a question of nomenclature than of fact. The eastern Asiatics and Polynesians are mixed peoples, and if there were numerous migrations from Asia, spread over a very long period of time, people of different stocks would have found their way into America. "It is indeed probable," Hrdli[vc]ka adds, "that the western coast of America, within the last two thousand years, was on more than one occasion reached by small parties of Polynesians, and that the eastern coast was similarly reached by small groups of whites; but these accretions have not modified greatly, if at all, the ma.s.s of the native population[750]."

The inhabitants of the plains east of the Rocky Mountains and the eastern wooded area are characterised by a head which varies about the lower limit of brachycephaly, and by tall stature. This stock probably arrived by the North Pacific Bridge before the end of the last Glacial period, and extended over the continent east of the great divide.

Finally bands from the north, east and south migrated into the prairie area. The markedly brachycephalic immigrants from Asia appear to have proceeded mainly down the Pacific slope and to have populated Central and South America, with an overflow into the south of North America. It is probable that there were several migrations of allied but not similar broad-headed peoples from Asia in early days, and we know that recently there have been racial and cultural drifts between the neighbouring portions of America and Asia[751]. Indeed Bogoras[752] suggests that ethnographically the line separating Asia and America should lie from the lower Kolyma River to Gishiga Bay.

Owing to these various immigrations and subsequent minglings the cranial forms show much variation, and are not sufficiently significant to serve as a basis of cla.s.sification. In parts of North America the round-headed mound-builders and others were encroached upon by populations of increasingly dolichocephalic type--Plains Indians and Cherokees, Chichimecs, Tepanecs, Acolhuas. Even still dolichocephaly is characteristic of Iroquois, Coahuilas, Sonorans, while the intermediate indices met with on the prairies and plateaux undoubtedly indicate the mixture between the long-headed invaders and the round-heads whom they swept aside as they advanced southwards. Thus the Minnetaris are highly dolicho; the Poncas and Osages sub-brachy; the Algonquians variable, while the Siouans oscillate widely round a mesaticephalous mean.

The Athapascans alone are h.o.m.ogeneous, and their sub-brachycephaly recurs amongst the Apaches and their other southern kindred, who have given it an exaggerated form by the widespread practice of artificial deformation, which dates from remote times. The most typical cases both of brachy and dolicho deformation are from the Cerro de las Palmas graves in south-west Mexico. Deformation prevails also in Peru and Bolivia, as well as in Ceara and the Rio Negro on the Atlantic side. The flat-head form, so common from the Columbia estuary to Peru, occurs amongst the broad-faced Huaxtecs, their near relations the Maya-Quiches, and the Nahuatlans. It is also found amongst the extinct Cebunys of Cuba, Hayti and Jamaica, and the so-called "Toltecs," that is, the people of Tollan (Tula), who first founded a civilised state on the Mexican table-land (sixth and seventh centuries A.D.), and whose name afterwards became a.s.sociated with every ancient monument throughout Central America. On this "Toltec question" the most contradictory theories are current; some hold that the Toltecs were a great and powerful nation, who after the overthrow of their empire migrated southwards, spreading their culture throughout Central America; others regard them as "fabulous," or at all events "nothing more than a sept of the Nahuas themselves, the ancestors of those Mexicans who built Tenocht.i.tlan," _i.e._ the present city of Mexico. A third view, that of Valentini, that the Toltecs were not Nahuas but Mayas, is now supported both by E. P. Dieseldorff[753] and by Forstemann[754]. T. A. Joyce[755]

suggests that the vanguard of the Nahuas on reaching the Mexican valley adopted and improved the culture of an agricultural people of Tarascan affinities whose culture was in part due to Mayan inspiration, whom they found settled there. Later migrations of Nahua were greatly impressed with the "Toltec" culture which had thus arisen through the impact of a virile hunting people on more pa.s.sive agriculturalists.

On the North-west Pacific Coast similar ethnical interminglings recur, and Franz Boas[756] here distinguishes as many as four types, the Northern (Tsimshian and others), the Kwakiutl, the Lillooet of the Harrison Lake region and the inland Salishan (Flat-heads, Shuswaps, etc.). All are brachycephalic, but while the Tsimshians are of medium height 1.675 m. (5 ft. 6 in.) with low, concave nose, very large head, and enormously broad face, exceeding the average for North America by 6 mm., the Kwakiutls are shorter 1.645 m. (5 ft. 4-3/4 in.) with very high and relatively narrow hooked nose, and quite exceptionally high face; the Harrison Lake very short 1.600 m. (5 ft 3 in.) with exceedingly short and broad head (C. I. nearly 89), "surpa.s.sing in this respect all other forms known to exist in North America"; lastly, the inland Salish of medium height 1.679 m. (5 ft. 6 in.) with high and wide nose of the characteristic Indian form and a short head.

It would be difficult to find anywhere a greater contrast than that which is presented by some of these British Columbian natives, those, for instance, of Harrison Lake with almost circular heads (88.8), and some of the Labrador Eskimo with a degree of dolichocephaly not exceeded even by the Fijian Kai-Colos (65)[757]. But this violent contrast is somewhat toned by the intermediate forms, such as those of the Tlingits, the Aleutian islanders, and the western (Alaskan) Eskimo, by which the transition is effected between the Arctic and the more southern populations. It is not possible at present to indicate even in outline the chronology of any of the ethnic movements outlined above. Warren K.

Moorehead[758] agrees with the great majority of American archaeologists in holding the existence of palaeolithic man in North America as not proven[759], the so-called palaeoliths being either rejects or rude tools for rough purposes. When man migrated to America from North and East Asia whenever that period may have been, he appears to have been in that stage of culture--or rather of stone technique--which we term Neolithic, and the drifting movement ceased before he had learnt the use of metals.

A further proof of the antiquity of the migrations is afforded by linguistics. A. F. Chamberlain a.s.serts[760] that "it may be said with certainty, so far as all data hitherto presented are concerned, that no satisfactory proof whatever has been put forward to induce us to believe that any single American Indian tongue or group of tongues has been derived from any Old World form of speech now existing or known to have existed in the past. In whatever way the multiplicity of American Indian languages and dialects may have arisen, one can be reasonably sure that the differentiation and divergence have developed here in America and are in no sense due to the occasional intrusion of Old World tongues individually or _en ma.s.se_.... Certain real relationships between the American Indians and the peoples of north-eastern Asia, known as 'Paleo-Asiatics,' have, however, been revealed as a result of the extensive investigations of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition.... The general conclusion to be drawn from the evidence is that the so-called 'Paleo-Asiatic' peoples of north-eastern Asia, _i.e._ the Chukchee, Koryak, Kamchadale, Gilyak, Yukaghir, etc. really belong physically and culturally with the aborigines of north-western America.... Like the modern Asiatic Eskimo they represent a reflex from America and Asia, and not _vice versa_.... It is the opinion of good authorities also that the 'Paleo-Asiatic' peoples belong linguistically with the American Indians rather than with the other tribes and stocks of northern or southern Asia. Here we have then the only real relationship of a linguistic character that has ever been convincingly argued between tongues of the New World and tongues of the Old."

It is not merely that the American languages differ from other forms of speech in their general phonetic, structural and lexical features; they differ from them in their very morphology, as much, for instance, as in the zoological world cla.s.s differs from cla.s.s, order from order. They have all of them developed on the same polysynthetic lines, from which if a few here and there now appear to depart, it is only because in the course of their further evolution they have, so to say, broken away from that prototype[761]. Take the rudest or the most highly cultivated anywhere from Alaska to Fuegia--Eskimauan, Iroquoian, Algonquian, Aztec, Tarascan, Ipurina, Peruvian, Yahgan--and you will find each and all giving abundant evidence of this universal polysynthetic character, not one true instance of which can be found anywhere in the eastern hemisphere. There is incorporation with the verb, as in Basque, many of the Caucasus tongues, and the Ural-Altaic group; but it is everywhere limited to p.r.o.nominal and purely relational elements.

But in the American order of speech there is no such limitation, and not merely the p.r.o.nouns, which are restricted in number, but the nouns with their attributes, which are practically numberless, all enter necessarily into the verbal paradigm. Thus in Tarascan (Mexico): _hopocuni_ = to wash the hands; _hopodini_ = to wash the ears, from _hoponi_ = to wash, which cannot be used alone[762]. So in Ipurina (Amazonia): _nicucacatcaurumatinii_ = I draw the cord tight round your waist, from _ni_, I; _cucaca_, to draw tight; _tca_, cord; _turuma_, waist; _tini_, characteristic verbal affix; _i_, thy, referring to waist[763].

We see from such examples that polysynthesis is not a primitive condition of speech, as is often a.s.serted, but on the contrary a highly developed system, in which the original agglutinative process has gone so far as to attract all the elements of the sentence to the verb, round which they cl.u.s.ter like swarming bees round their queen. In Eskimauan the tendency is shown in the construction of nouns and verbs, by which other cla.s.ses of words are made almost unnecessary, and one word, sometimes of interminable length, is able to express a whole sentence with its subordinate clauses. H. Rink, one of the first Eskimo scholars of modern times, gives the instance: "Suerukame-autdlasa.s.soq-tusaramiuk-tuningingmago-iluarin-gilat = they did not approve that he (_a_) had omitted to give him (_b_) something, as he (_a_) heard that he (_b_) was going to depart on account of being dest.i.tute of everything[764]." Such monstrosities "are so complicated that in daily speech they could hardly ever occur; but still they are correct and can be understood by intelligent people[765]."

He gives another and much longer example, which the reader may be spared, adding that there are altogether about 200 particles, as many as ten of which may be piled up on any given stem. The process also often involves great phonetic changes, by which the original form of the elements becomes disguised, as, for instance, in the English _hap'oth_ = half-penny-worth. The attempt to determine the number of words that might be formed in this way on a single stem, such as _igdlo_, a house, had to be given up after getting as far as the compound _igdlorssualiortugssarsiumavoq_ = he wants to find one who will build a large house.

It is clear that such a linguistic evolution implies both the postulated isolation from other influences, which must have disturbed and broken up the c.u.mbrous process, and also the postulated long period of time to develop and consolidate the system throughout the New World. But time is still more imperiously demanded by the vast number of stock languages, many already extinct, many still current all over the continent, all of which differ profoundly in their vocabulary, often also in their phonesis, and in fact have nothing in common except this extraordinary polysynthetic groove in which they are cast. There are probably about 75 stock languages in North America, of which 58 occur north of Mexico.

But even that conveys but a faint idea of the astonishing diversity of speech prevailing in this truly linguistic Babel. J. W. Powell[766]

points out that the practically distinct idioms are far more numerous than might be inferred even from such a large number of mother tongues.

Thus, in the Algonquian[767] linguistic family he tells us there are about 40, no one of which could be understood by a people speaking another; in Athapascan from 30 to 40; in Siouan over 20; and in Shoshonian a still greater number[768]. The greatest linguistic diversity in a relatively small area is found in the state of California, where, according to Powell's cla.s.sification, 22 distinct stocks of languages are spoken. R. B. Dixon and A. L. Kroeber[769] show however that these fall into three morphological groups which are also characterised by certain cultural features. It is the same, or perhaps even worse, in Central and in South America, where the linguistic confusion is so great that no complete cla.s.sification of the native tongues seems possible. Clements R. Markham in the third edition of his exhaustive list of the Amazonian tribes[770] has no less than 1087 entries. He concludes that these may be referred to 485 distinct tribes in all the periods, since the days of Acuna (1639). Deducting some 111 as extinct or nearly so, the total amounts to "323 at the outside" (p.

135). But for such linguistic differences, large numbers of these groups would be quite indistinguishable from each other, so great is the prevailing similarity in physical appearance and usages in many districts. Thus Ehrenreich tells us that, "despite their ethnico-linguistic differences, the tribes about the head-waters of the Xingu present complete uniformity in their daily habits, in the conditions of their existence, and their general culture[771]," though it is curious to note that the art of making pottery is restricted here to the Arawak tribes[772]. Yet amongst them are represented three of the radically distinct linguistic groups of Brazil, some (Bakari and Nahuqua) belonging to the Carib, some (Aueto and Kamayura) to the Tupi-Guarani, and some (Mehinaku and Vaura) to the Arawak family.

Obviously these could not be so discriminated but for their linguistic differences. On the other hand the opposite phenomenon is occasionally presented of tribes differing considerably in their social relations, which are nevertheless of the same origin, or, what is regarded by Ehrenreich as the same thing, belong to the same linguistic group. Such are the Ipurina, the Paumari and the Yamamadi of the Purus valley, all grouped as Arawaks because they speak dialects of the Arawakan stock language. At the same time it should be noted that the social differences observed by some modern travellers are often due to the ever-increasing contact with the whites, who are now encroaching on the Gran Chaco plains, and ascending every Amazonian tributary in quest of rubber and the other natural produce abounding in these regions. The consequent displacement of tribes is discussed by G. E. Church[773].

In the introduction to his valuable list Clements Markham observes that the evidence of language favours the theory that the Amazonian tribes, "now like the sands on the sea-sh.o.r.e for number, originally sprang from two or at most three parent stocks. Dialects of the _Tupi_ language extend from the roots of the Andes to the Atlantic, and southward into Paraguay ... and it is established that the differences in the roots, between the numerous Amazonian languages, are not so great as was generally supposed[774]." This no doubt is true, and will account for much. But when we see it here recorded that of the Carabuyanas (j.a.pura river) there are or were 16 branches, that the Chiquito group (Bolivia) comprises 40 tribes speaking "seven different languages"; that of the Juris (Upper Amazons) there are ten divisions; of the Moxos (Beni and Mamore rivers) 26 branches, "speaking nine or, according to Southey, thirteen languages"; of the Uaupes (Rio Negro) 30 divisions, and so on, we feel how much there is still left to be accounted for. Attempts have been made to weaken the force of the linguistic argument by the a.s.sumption, at one time much in favour, that the American tongues are of a somewhat evanescent nature, in an unstable condition, often changing their form and structure within a few generations. But, says Powell, "this widely spread opinion does not find warrant in the facts discovered in the course of this research. The author has everywhere been impressed with the fact that savage tongues are singularly persistent, and that a language which is dependent for its existence upon oral tradition is not easily modified[775]." A test case is the Delaware (Leni Lenape), an Algonquian tongue which, judging from the specimens collected by Th. Campanius about 1645, has undergone but slight modification during the last 250 years.

In this connection the important point to be noticed is the fact that some of the stock languages have an immense range, while others are crowded together in indescribable confusion in rugged upland valleys, or about river estuaries, or in the recesses of trackless woodlands, and this strangely irregular distribution prevails in all the main divisions of the continent. Thus of Powell's 58 linguistic families in North America as many as 40 are restricted to the relatively narrow strip of coastland between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, ten are dotted round the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to the Rio Grande, and two disposed round the Gulf of California, while nearly all the rest of the land--some six million square miles--is occupied by the six widely diffused Eskimauan, Athapascan, Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan, and Shoshonian families. The same phenomenon is presented by Central and South America, where less than a dozen stock languages--Opatan, Nahuatlan, Huastecan, Chorotegan, Quichuan, Arawakan, Gesan (Tapuyan), Tupi-Guaranian, Cariban--are spread over millions of square miles, while many scores of others are restricted to extremely narrow areas. Here the crowding is largely determined, as in Caucasia, by the alt.i.tude (Andes in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia; Sierras in Mexico).

It is strongly held by many American ethnologists that the various cultures of America are autochthonous, nothing being borrowed from the Old World. J. W. Powell[776], who rendered such inestimable services to American anthropology, affirmed that "the aboriginal peoples of America cannot be allied preferentially to any one branch of the human race in the Old World"; that "there is no evidence that any of the arts of the American Indians were borrowed from the Orient"; that "the industrial arts of America were born in America, America was inhabited by tribes at the time of the beginning of industrial arts. They left the Old World before they had learned to make knives, spear and arrowheads, or at least when they knew the art only in its crudest state. Thus primitive man has been here ever since the invention of the stone knife and the stone hammer." He further contended that "the American Indian did not derive his forms of government, his industrial or decorative arts, his languages, or his mythological opinions from the Old World, but developed them in the New"; and that "in the demotic characteristics of the American Indians, all that is common to tribes of the Orient is universal, all that distinguishes one group of tribes from another in America distinguishes them from all other tribes of the world."

This view has been emphasised afresh by Fewkes[777], though of recent years it has met with vigorous opposition. At the conclusion of his article "Die melanesische Bogenkultur und ihre Verwandten[778]" Graebner attempts to trace the cultural connection of South America with South-east Asia rather than with the South Seas, the main links being represented by head-hunting, certain types of skin-drum and of basket, and in particular three types of crutch-handled paddle. According to him the spread of culture has taken place by the land route and Behring Strait, not across the Pacific by way of the South Seas, a view to which he adheres in his later work. An ingenious and detailed attempt has also been made by Pater Schmidt[779] to trace the various cultures determined for Oceania and Africa in South America. Apart from the great linguistic groups usually adopted as the basis of cla.s.sification, Schmidt would divide the South American Indians according to their stage of economic development into collectors, cultivators, and civilised peoples of the Andean highlands. Though this series may have the appearance of evolution, in point of fact "each group is composed of peoples differing absolutely in language and race, who brought with them to South America in historically distinct migrations at all events the fundamentals of their respective cultures.... As we pa.s.s in review the cultural elements of the separate groups, their weapons, implements, dwellings, their sociology, mythology, and religion we discover the innate similarity of these groups to the culture-zones of the Old World in all essential features[780]." The author proceeds to work out his theory in great detail; the earlier cultures he too considers have travelled by the enormously lengthy land route by way of North America, only the "free patrilineal culture" (Polynesia and Indonesia) having reached the west coast directly by sea[781].

W. H. Holmes[782] draws attention to a.n.a.logies between American and foreign archaeological remains, for example the stone gouge of New England and Europe. He hints at influences coming from the Mediterranean and even from Africa. "Even more remarkable and diversified are the correspondences between the architectural remains of Yucatan and those of Cambodia and Java in the far East. On the Pacific side of the American continent strange coincidences occur in like degree, seeming to indicate that the broad Pacific has not proved a complete bar to intercourse of peoples of the opposing continents ... it seems highly probable considering the nature of the archaeological evidence, that the Western World has not been always and wholly beyond the reach of members of the white, Polynesian, and perhaps even the black races."

Walter Hough[783] gives various cultural parallels between America and the other side of the Pacific but does not commit himself. S. Hagar[784]

brings forward some interesting correspondences between the astronomy of the New and of the Old Worlds, but adopts a cautious att.i.tude.

More recently the problem has been attacked with great energy by G.

Elliot Smith[785]. His investigations into the processes of mummification and the tombs of ancient Egypt led him to comparative studies, and he notes that certain customs seem to be found in a.s.sociation, forming what is known as a culture-complex. For example, "in most regions the people who introduced the habit of megalithic building and sun worship also brought with them the practice of mummification." Also a.s.sociated with these are:--stories of dwarfs and giants, belief in the indwelling of G.o.ds and great men in megalithic monuments, the use of these structures in a particular manner for special council, the practice of hanging rags on trees in a.s.sociation with such monuments, serpent worship, tattooing, distension of the lobe of the ear, the use of pearls, the conch-sh.e.l.l trumpet, etc. In a map showing the distribution of this "heliolithic" culture-complex he indicates the main lines of migration to America, one across the Aleutian chain and down the west coast to California, the other and more important one, across the Pacific to Peru, and thence to various parts of South America, through Central America to the southern half of the United States. Contrary to Schmidt, Elliot Smith postulates contact of cultures rather than actual migrations of people; he considers it possible that a small number of aliens arriving by sea in Peru, for example, might introduce customs of a highly novel and subversive character which would take root and spread far and wide. The Peruvian custom of embalming the dead certainly presents a.n.a.logies to that of ancient Egypt, and Elliot Smith is convinced that "the rude megalithic architecture of America bears obvious evidence of the same inspiration which prompted that of the Old World." In a later paper Elliot Smith[786] adduces further evidence in support of his thesis "that the essential elements of the ancient civilization of India, Further Asia, the Malay Archipelago, Oceania, and America were brought in succession to each of these places by mariners, whose oriental migrations (on an extensive scale) began as trading intercourse between the Eastern Mediterranean and India some time after 800 B.C. and continued for many centuries." This dissemination was in the first instance due to the Phoenicians and there are "unmistakable tokens that the same Phoenician methods which led to the diffusion of this culture-complex in the Old World also were responsible for planting it in the New[787] some centuries after the Phoenicians themselves had ceased to be" (_l.c._ p.

27). Further evidence along the same lines is offered by W. J.

Perry[788] who has noted the geographical distribution of terraced cultivation and irrigation and finds that it corresponds to a remarkable extent with that of the "heliolithic" culture-complex, and by J.

Wilfrid Jackson[789] who has investigated the Aztec Moon-cult and its relation to the Chank cult of India, the money cowry as a sacred object among North American Indians[790], sh.e.l.l trumpets and their distribution in the Old and New World[791] and the geographical distribution of the sh.e.l.l purple industry[792]. He points out that we have ample evidence of the practice of this ancient industry in several places in Central America, and refers to Zelia Nuttall's interesting paper on the subject[793]. Elliot Smith also discusses "Pre-Columbian Representations of the Elephant in America[794]" and remarks "coincidences of so remarkable a nature cannot be due to chance. They not only confirm the identification of the elephant in designs in America, but also incidentally point to the conclusion that the Hindu G.o.d Indra was adopted in Central America with practically all the attributes a.s.signed to him in his Asiatic home." Elliot Smith believes that practically every element of the early civilisation of America was derived from the Old World. Small groups of immigrants from time to time brought certain of the beliefs, customs, and inventions of the Mediterranean area, Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia, Babylonia, Indonesia, Eastern Asia and Oceania, and the confused jumble of practices became a.s.similated and "Americanised" in the new home across the Pacific as the result of the domination of the great uncultured aboriginal populations by small bands of more cultured foreigners. These highly suggestive studies will force adherents of the theory of the indigenous origin of American culture to reconsider the grounds for their opinions and will lead them to turn once more to the writings of Bancroft[795], Tylor[796], Nuttall[797], Macmillan Brown[798], Enoch[799] and others.

There is no satisfactory scheme of cla.s.sification of the American peoples. Although there is a good deal of scattered information about the physical anthropology of the natives it has not yet been systematised and no cla.s.sification can at present be based thereon. A linguistic cla.s.sification is therefore usually adopted, but a geographical or cultural grouping, or a combination of the two, has much practical convenience. As Farrand[800] points out "It must never be forgotten that the limits of physical, linguistic and cultural groups do not correspond; and the overlapping of stocks determined by those criteria is an unavoidable complication."

An inspection of the map of the distribution of linguistic stocks of North America prepared by J. W. Powell[801] which represents the probable state of affairs about 1500 A.D. shows that a few linguistic stocks have a wide distribution while there is a large number of restricted stocks crowded along the Pacific slope. The following are the better known tribes of the more important stocks together with their distribution.

_Eskimauan_ (Eskimo), along the Arctic coasts from 60 N. lat. in the west, to 50 in the east. _Athapascan_, northern group, Dene or Tinneh (including many tribes), interior of Alaska, northern British Columbia and the Mackenzie basin, and the Sarsi of south-eastern Alberta and northern Montana; southern group, Navaho and Apache in Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico; the Pacific group, a small band in southern British Columbia, others in Washington, Oregon and northern California.

_Algonquian_, south and west of Canada, the United States east of the Mississippi, the whole valley of the Ohio, and the states of the Atlantic coast. Blackfoot of Montana, Alberta, south and further east, Cheyenne and Arapaho of Minnesota. The main group of dialects is divided into the Ma.s.sachusett, Ojibway (Ojibway, Ottawa, Illinois, Miami, etc.) and Cree types. The latter include the Cree, Montagnais, Sauk and Fox, Menomini, Shawnee, Abnaki, etc. _Iroquoian_, in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec; Hurons in the valley of the St Lawrence and lake Simcoe.

Neutral confederacy in western New York and north and west of lake Erie.

The great confederacy of the Iroquois or "Five Nations" (Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga and Mohawk, to which the Tuscarora were added in 1712) in central New York; the Conestoga and Susquehanna to the south. A southern group was located in eastern Virginia and north Carolina, and the Cherokee, centred in the southern Appalachians from parts of Virginia and Kentucky to northern Alabama. _Muskhogean_ of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, including the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole, etc. and the Natchez. There are several small groups about the mouth of the Mississippi. _Caddoan_. The earliest inhabitants of the central and southern plains beyond the Missouri belonged to this stock, the largest group occupied parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, it consists of the Caddo, Wichita, etc. and the Kichai, the p.a.w.nee tribes in parts of Nebraska and Kansas and an offshoot, the Arikara in North Dakota. _Siouan_, a small group in Virginia, Carolina, Catawba, etc. and a very large group, practically occupying the basins of the Missouri and Arkansas, with a prolongation through Wisconsin, where were the Winnebago. The main tribes are the Mandan, Crow, Dakota, a.s.siniboin, Omaha and Osage. _Shoshonian_ of the Great Plateau and southern California. The two outlying tribes were the Hopi of north Arizona and the Comanche who ranged over the southern plains. Among the plateau tribes are the Ute, Shoshoni, Mono and Luiseno. _Yuman_, from Arizona to Lower California.

From the data available J. R. Swanton and R. B. Dixon draw the following conclusions[802]. "It appears that the origin of the tribes of several of our stocks may be referred back to a swarming ground, usually of rather indefinite size but none the less roughly indicated. That for the Muskhogeans, including probably some of the smaller southern stocks, must be placed in Louisiana, Arkansas and perhaps the western parts of Mississippi and Tennessee, although a few tribes seem to have come from the region of the Ohio. That for the Iroquoians would be along the Ohio and perhaps farther west, and that of the Siouans on the lower Ohio and the country to the north including part at least of Wisconsin. The dispersion area for the Algonquians was farther north about the Great Lakes and perhaps also the St Lawrence, and that for the Eskimo about Hudson Bay or between it and the Mackenzie river. The Caddoan peoples seem to have been on the southern plains from earliest times. On the north Pacific coast we have indications that the flow of population has been from the interior to the coast. This seems certain in the case of the Indians of the Chimmesayan stock and some Tlinglit subdivisions.

Some Tlinglit clans, however, have moved from the neighbourhood of the Na.s.s northward. Looking farther south we find evidence that the coast Salish have moved from the inner side of the coast ranges, while a small branch has subsequently pa.s.sed northward to the west of it. The Athapascan stock in all probability has moved southward, sending one arm down the Pacific coast, and a larger body presumably through the Plains which reached as far as northern Mexico. Most of the stocks of the Great Plateau and of Oregon and California show little evidence of movement, such indications as are present, however, pointing toward the south as a rule. The Pueblo Indians appear to have had a mixed origin, part of them coming from the north, part from the south. In general there is to be noted a striking contrast between the comparatively settled condition of those tribes west of the Rocky mountains and the numerous movements, particularly in later times, of those to the east."

With regard to the Pacific coast Dixon[803] notes that it "has apparently been occupied from the earliest times by peoples differing but little in their culture from the tribes found in occupancy in the sixteenth century. Cut off from the rest of the country by the great chain of the Cordilleras and the inhospitable and arid interior plateaus, the tribes of this narrow coastal strip developed in comparative seclusion their various cultures, each adopted to the environment in which it was found....

"In several of the ingenious theories relating to the development and origin of American cultures in general, it has been contended that considerable migrations both of peoples and of cultural elements pa.s.sed along this coastal highway from north to south. If, however, the archaeological evidence is to be depended on, such great sweeping movements, involving many elements of foreign culture, could hardly have taken place, for no trace of their pa.s.sage or modifying effect is apparent.... We can feel fairly sure that the prehistoric peoples of each area were in the main the direct ancestors of the local tribes of today....

"In comparison with the relative simplicity of the archaeological record on the Pacific coast, that of the eastern portion of the continent is complex, and might indeed be best described as a palimpsest. This complexity leads inevitably to the conclusion that here there have been numerous and far-reaching ethnic movements, resulting in a stratification of cultures."

W. H. Holmes has compiled a map marking the limits of eleven areas which can be recognised by their archaeological remains[804]. He points out that the culture units are, as a matter of course, not usually well-defined. Cultures are bound to over-lap and blend along the borders and more especially along lines of ready communication. In some cases evidence has been reported of early cultures radically distinct from the type adopted as characteristic of the areas, and ancestral forms grading into the later and into the historic forms are thought to have been recognised. Holmes frankly acknowledges the tentative character of the scheme, which forms part of a synthesis that he is preparing of the antiquities of the whole American continent.

North America is customarily divided into nine areas of material culture, and though this is convenient, a more correct method, as C.

Wissler points out[805], is to locate the respective groups of typical tribes as culture centres, cla.s.sifying the other tribes as intermediate or transitional. The geographical stability of the material culture centres is confirmed by archaeological evidence which suggests that the striking individuality they now possess resulted from a more or less gradual expansion along original lines. The material cultures of these centres possess great vitality and are often able completely to dominate intrusive cultural unity. Thus tribes have pa.s.sed from an intermediate state to a typical, as when the Cheyenne were forced into the Plains centre, and the Shoshonian Hopi adopted the typical Pueblo culture.

Wissler comes to the conclusion that "the location of these centres is largely a matter of ethnic accident, but once located and the adjustments made, the stability of the environment doubtless tends to hold each particular type of material culture to its initial locality, even in the face of many changes in blood and language." It is from his valuable paper that the material culture traits of the following areas have been obtained.

I. Eskimo Area. The fact that the Eskimo live by the sea and chiefly upon sea food does not differentiate them from the tribes of the North Pacific coast, but they are distinguished from the latter by the habit of camping in winter upon sea ice and living upon seal, and in the summer upon land animals. The kayak and "woman's boat," the lamp, harpoon, float, woman's knife, bowdrill, snow goggles, trussed-bow, and dog traction are almost universal. The type of winter shelter varies considerably, but the skin tent is general in summer and the snow house, as a more or less permanent winter house, prevails east of Point Barrow.

The mode of life of all the Eskimo, as F. Boas[806] has pointed out, is fairly uniform and depends on the distribution of food at the different seasons. The migrations of game compel the natives to move their habitations from time to time, and as the inhospitable country does not produce vegetation to an extent sufficient to support human life they are forced to depend entirely upon animal food. The abundance of seals in Arctic America enables man to withstand the inclemency of the climate and the sterility of the soil. The skins of seals furnish the materials for summer garments and for the tent, their flesh is almost their only food, and their blubber their indispensable fuel during the long dark winter when they live in solid snow houses. When the ice breaks up in the spring the Eskimo establish their settlements at the head of the fiords where salmon are easily caught. When the snow on the land has melted in July the natives take hunting trips inland in order to obtain the precious skins of the reindeer, or of the musk-ox, of whose heavy pelts the winter garments are made. Walrus and the ground seal also arrive and birds are found in abundance and eaten raw.

The Eskimo[807] occupy more than 5000 miles of seaboard from north-east Greenland to the mouth of the Copper river in western Alaska. Many views have been advanced as to the position of their centre of dispersion; most probably it lay to the west of Hudson Bay. Rink[808] is of opinion that they originated as a distinct people in Alaska, where they developed an Arctic culture; but Boas[809] regards them "as, comparatively speaking, new arrivals in Alaska, which they reached from the east." A westward movement is supported by myths and customs, and by the affinities of the Eskimo with northern Asiatics. There was always hostility between the Eskimo and the North American Indians, which, apart from their very specialised mode of life, precluded any Eskimo extension southwards. The expansion of the Eskimo to Greenland is explained by Steensby[810] as follows:--the main southern movement would have followed the west coast from Melville Bay, rounded the southern point and proceeded some distance up the east coast. From the Barren Grounds north-west of Hudson Bay the Polar Eskimo followed the musk-ox, advanced due north to Ellesmere Land, then crossed to Greenland, and, still hunting the musk-ox, advanced along the north coast and down the east coast towards Scoresby Sound. Another line of migration apparently started from the vicinity of Southampton Island and pursued the reindeer northwards into Baffin Land; on reaching Ponds Inlet these reindeer-hunting Eskimo for the most part turned along the east coast.

Physically the Eskimo const.i.tute a distinct type. They are of medium stature, but possess uncommon strength and endurance; their skin is light brownish yellow with a ruddy tint on the exposed parts; hands and feet are small and well formed; their heads are high, with broad faces, and narrow high noses, and eyes of a Mongolian character. But great varieties are found in different parts of the vast area over which they range. The Polar Eskimo of Greenland, studied by Steensby, were more of American Indian than of Asiatic type[811]. Of their psychology this writer says, "For the Polar Eskimos life is deadly real and sober, a constant striving for food and warmth which is borne with good humour, and all dispensations are accepted as natural consequences, about which it is of no use to reason or complain." "The hard struggle for existence has not permitted the Polar Eskimo to become other than a confirmed egoist, who knows nothing of disinterestedness. Towards his enemies he is crafty and deceitful--he does not attack them openly, but indulges in backbiting.... It is only during the hunt that a common interest and a common danger engender a deeper feeling of comradeship[812]."

Still less Mongolian in type are the "blond Eskimo" recently encountered by Stefansson in south-west Victoria Island[813], who are regarded by him as very possibly the mixed descendants of Scandinavian ancestors who had drifted there from west Greenland. It is known that Eric the Red discovered Greenland in the year 982 and that 3 years later settlers went there from the Norse colony in Iceland.

The winter snow houses, which are about 12 15 ft. in diameter and 12 ft. high, usually with annexes, are always occupied by two families, each woman having her own lamp and sitting on the ledge in front of it.

If more families join in making a snow house, they make two main rooms.