times is very imperfect, but not altogether wanting. The
accurate and experienced Alexander von Humboldt considered
the native Americans of both continents to be substantially
similar in race-characters. Such a generalization will become
sounder, if, as is now generally done by anthropologists, the
Eskimo with their pyramidal skulls, dull complexion and flat
noses are removed into a division by themselves. Apart from
these polar nomads, the American indigenes group roughly
into a single division of mankind, of course with local variations.
If our attention is turned to the natives of Mexico especially,
the unity of type will be found particularly close. The native
population of the plateau of Mexico, mainly Aztecs, may still
be seen by thousands without any trace of mixture of European
blood. Their stature is estimated to be about 5 ft. 3 in., but
they are of muscular and sturdy build. Measurements of their
skulls show them mesocephalic (index about 78), or intermediate
between the dolichocephalic and brachycephalic types of mankind.
The face is oval, with low forehead, high cheek-bones,
long eyes sloping outward towards the temples, fleshy lips, nose
wide and in some cases flattish but in others aquiline, coarsely
moulded features, with a stolid and gloomy expression. Thickness
of skin, masking the muscles, has been thought the cause
of a peculiar heaviness in the outlines of body and face; the complexion
varies from yellow-brown to chocolate (about 40 to 43
in the anthropological scale); eyes black; straight coarse glossy
black hair; beard and moustache scanty. Among variations
from this type may be mentioned higher stature in some districts,
and lighter complexion in Tehuantepec and elsewhere. If now
the native Americans be compared with the races of the regions
across the oceans to their east and west, it will be seen that their
unlikeness is extreme to the races eastward of them, whether
white Europeans or black Africans. On the other hand they
are considerably like the Mongoloid peoples of north and east
Asia (less so to the Polynesians); so that the general tendency
among anthropologists has been to admit a common origin,
however remote, between the tribes of Tartary and of America.
This original Connexion, if it may be accepted, would seem to
belong to a long-past period, to judge from the failure of all
attempts to discover an affinity between the languages of America
and Asia. At whatever date the Americans began to people
America, they must have had time to import or develop the
numerous families of languages actually found there, in none of
which has community of origin been satisfactorily proved with
any other, language-group at home or abroad. In Mexico
itself the languages of the Nahua nations, of which the Aztec
is the best-known dialect, show no Connexion of origin with the
language of the Otomi tribes, nor either of these with the
languages of the regions of the ruined cities of Central America,
the Quiché of Guatemala and the Maya of Yucatan. The
remarkable phenomenon of nations so similar in bodily make
but so distinct in language can hardly be met except by supposing
a long period to have elapsed since the country was first inhabited
by the ancestors of peoples whose language has since passed into
so different forms. The original peopling of America might then
well date from the time when there was continuous land between
it and Asia.
It would not follow, however, that between these remote ages and the time of Columbus no fresh immigrants can have reached America. We may put out of the question the Scandinavian sea-rovers who sailed to Greenland about the 10th century. But at all times communication has been open from east Asia, and even the South Sea Islands, to the west coast of America. The importance of this is evident when we consider that late in the 19th century Japanese junks still drifted over by the ocean current to California at the rate of about one a year, often with some of the crew still alive. Further north, the Aleutian islands offer a line of easy sea passage, while in north-east Asia, near Bering’s Strait, live Chukchi tribes who carry on intercourse with the American side. Moreover there are details of Mexican civilization which are most easily accounted for on the supposition that they were borrowed from Asia. They do not seem ancient enough to have to do with a remote Asiatic origin of the nations of America, but rather to be results of comparatively modern intercourse between Asia and America. Humboldt (Vues des Cordillères, Pl. xxiii.) compared the Mexican calendar with that in use in eastern Asia. The Mongols, Tibetans, Chinese and other neighbouring nations have a cycle or series of twelve animals, viz. rat, bull, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, goat, ape, cock, dog, pig, which may possibly be an imitation of the ordinary Babylonian-Greek zodiac familiar to ourselves. The Mongolian peoples not only count their lunar months by these signs, but they reckon the successive days by them, rat-day, bull-day, tiger-day, &c., and also, by combining the twelve signs in rotation with the elements, they obtain a means of marking each year in the sixty-year cycle, as the woodrat year, the fire-tiger year, &c. This method is highly artificial, and the reappearance of its principle in the Mexican and Central American calendar is suggestive of importation from Asia. Humboldt also discussed the Mexican doctrine of four ages of the world belonging to water, earth, air and fire, and ending respectively by deluge, earthquake, tempest and conflagration. The resemblance of this to some versions of the Hindu doctrine of the four ages or yuga is hardly to be accounted for except on the hypothesis that the Mexican theology contains ideas learnt from Asiatics. Among Asiatic points of resemblance to which attention has since. been called is the Mexican belief in the nine stages of heaven and hell, an idea which nothing in nature would suggest directly to a barbaric people, but which corresponds to the idea of successive heavens and hells among Brahmans and Buddhists, who apparently learnt it (in common with our own ancestors) from the Babylonian-Greek astronomical theory of successive stages or concentric planetary spheres belonging to the planets, &c. The Spanish chronicles also give accounts of a Mexican game called patolli, played at the time of the conquest with coloured stones moved on the squares of a cross-shaped figure, according to the throws of beans marked on one side; the descriptions of this rather complicated game correspond closely with the Hindu backgammon called pachisi (see Tylor in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., viii. 116).
The native history of Mexico and Central America is entitled to more respect than the mere recollections of savage tribes. The Mexican pictures so far approached writing proper as to set down legibly the names of persons and places and the dates of events, and at least helped the professional historians to remember the traditions repeated orally from generation to generation. Thus actual documents of native Aztec history, or copies of them, are still open to the study of scholars, while after the conquest interpretations of these were drawn up in writing by Spanish-educated Mexicans, and histories founded on them with the aid of traditional memory were written by Ixtilxochitl and Tezozomoc. In Central America the rows of complex hieroglyphs to be seen sculptured on the ruined temples probably served a similar purpose. The documents written by natives in later times thus more or less represent real records of the past, but the task of separating myth from history is of the utmost difficulty. Among the most curious documents of early America is the Popol-Vuh or national book of the Quiché kingdom of Guatemala, a compilation of traditions written down by native scribes, found and translated by Father Ximenez about 1700, and published by Scherzer (Vienna, 1857) and Brasseur de Bourbourg (Paris, 1861). This book begins with the time when there was only the heaven with its boundaries towards the four winds, but as yet there was no body, nothing that clung to anything else, nothing that balanced itself or rubbed together or made a sound; there was nought below but the calm sea alone in the silent darkness. Alone were the Creator, the Former, the Ruler, the Feathered Serpent, they who give being and whose name is Gucumatz. Then follows the creation, when the creators said “Earth,” and the earth was formed like a cloud or a fog, and the mountains appeared like lobsters from the water, cypress and pine covered the hills and valleys, and their forests were peopled with beasts and birds, but these could not speak the name of their creators, but could only chatter and croak. So man was made first of clay, but he was strengthless and senseless
