Chapter XIX: Whence Came the Aborigines of America? (1)

Many and varied are the answers to this interrogation, like Gaul, they are divided into three parts, or classes, the impossible and absurd, the possible, and the probable.

Most of the writers on this subject seem to have evolved out of their inner consciences or imaginations a fine-spun theory, and then to have marshaled all the evidence possible in support of it.

Should there be other facts which do not support their theory, so much the worse for those facts. Wherever it is possible they are tortured and perverted into supporting what it is predetermined to prove. But if this can not be done by any sophistry or jugglery of words, then the facts in question are coolly ignored.

Now we do not expect to settle this long-mooted question, but we have honestly and carefully investigated the subject in all its bearings, and without any preconceived theory to support.

Instead of trying to begin with the American Indian and trace the line of descent back to its source, we have reversed this order, and, beginning with the source and starting point of all the nations and tribes of the earth, which is the dispersion of mankind at the Tower of Babel, we have endeavored to trace that branch or branches of the Shemites which peopled this hemisphere.

But it might be asked, is such a thing possible after the lapse of ages? The reader shall be the judge _after,_ not _before,_ he knows the position we take, and our reasons for it.

However, before beginning our task proper, we want to consider other theories which have been advanced and stoutly defended, to account for the inhabitants and civilization found in America.

One of these theories is (or was) that the original civilizers of Mexico and Central America were the "lost ten tribes of Israel." It was first promulgated by the Spanish monks, who established missions in Mexico and Central America, a class of men to whom the world is indebted for a great variety of amazing contributions to the literature of hagiology. According to this theory the "lost ten tribes" left Syria, or Assyria, or whatever country they dwelt in at the time, traversed the whole extent of Asia, crossed over into America at Behring's Strait, went down the Pacific coast almost the full length of North America and established that wonderful civilization of Central America.

If it required forty years for the ancestors of those same ten tribes to journey from Egypt to Canaan, a distance of a few hundred miles at most, we are curious to know how much time, in the estimation of those who advocate this theory, would be necessary for this interminable journey?

The kingdom of the ten tribes was destroyed not long previous to the year 700 B. C., at which period the Jews of the Northern Kingdom were not noted for their architecture or other evidences of civilization. They were incapable of building their own Temple without aid from the Tyrians. Moreover, there is nowhere a fact, a suggestion, or a circumstance of any kind to show that the "lost ten tribes" _ever left_ the countries of Southwestern Asia, where they dwelt after the destruction of their kingdom. They were "lost" to the Jewish nation because they rebelled against God and worshiped idols. After their subjugation by the Assyrians in 721 B. C. they were to a great extent absorbed by the surrounding nations.

To assume that a population came over and passed down to Mexico, Yucatan and even to South America, carrying with them their arts, but not exercising them on this interminable journey, is ridiculous. No pottery has yet been found between the Yukon and the Humbolt, or even further south.

It was also assumed that either the ten tribes, or a Jewish colony, were the ancestors of the American Indians.

But, as J. H. Beadle well says: "It would certainly be an amazing thing if such a people as the Jews could, in a few centuries, lose all trace of their language, religion, laws, form of government, art, science and general knowledge, and sink into a tribe of barbarians. But when we add that their bodily shape must have completely changed, their skulls lengthened, the beard dropped from their faces, and their language undergone a reversion from a derivative to a primitive type--a thing unknown in any human tongue--the supposition becomes too monstrous even to be discussed."

There are three other characteristics in which the Jew and the Indian are diametrically opposite. From the time of David and his harp, the Jewish people have been among the great musicians of the world, while the Indian, like the Chinese, can make a diabolical din sufficient to drive Orpheus crazy, but has no idea of harmony. The Jews have been the financiers of the world throughout the ages, but the Indians have no conception of the value of a dollar.

From the very beginning of Jewish history certain animals, such as cattle, sheep and fallow deer were considered "clean" and allowed by their law for food. Other animals, such as swine, dogs and hares, were considered "unclean," and forbidden as food. The same rule obtains among orthodox Jews to this day. But among the North American Indians there is no such thing as "clean" or "unclean" animals. "All is grist that comes to their mill." An Indian will positively eat anything, from the paunch and intestines of a buffalo or beef and their _contents,_ to a dog, skunk, snake or horned toad. Most of the so-called "Blanket" Indians have no conception of cleanliness in their food or cooking, but to a civilized man it is indescribably filthy.

We might add that the theory that America was peopled by a colony of Jews is substantially that of the Mormons, who, to bolster it up, ask us to believe that an angel appeared to one Joseph Smith and told him to dig in a certain hill in Ontario County, New York. This he did September 22, 1823, and found certain gold plates engraved with Egyptian characters. Having translated it through the aid of a scribe (Smith being a poor writer), and by means of a "curious instrument, called by the ancients the Urim and Thummim, which consisted of two transparent stones, clear as crystal, set in the two rims of a bow, and used by seers to receive revelation of things distant, or of things past or future," {FN} he found it a Divine revelation, which proved conclusively that the Indians were descendants from a Jewish colony which came in ships to this continent.

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{FN} Parley P. Pratt.

Is it not remarkable that those plates, though giving an account of _Jews,_ were engraved in _Egyptian_ characters? And that Smith, though confessedly an ignorant man and a poor writer, could translate Egyptian, one of the most difficult languages in the world? We are skeptical and can only say, show us the golden plates and the Urim and Thummim, and it sufficeth us. We are persuaded that Joseph Smith did not find any such plates, but that he preceded Barnum in discovering that "the American people delight to be humbugged."

We desire now to consider what is designated as the _Phoenician theory._

Intelligent investigators who use reason in their inquiries sufficiently to be incapable of accepting the absurdities of monkish fancy, maintained that this civilization came originally from the Phoenicians. To those who believe that this civilization was imported, this seems more reasonable than any other theory, for more can be said to give it the appearance of probability.

{Illustration: Japanese girl in Ukiah (Alaska) Indian costume.}

It is well known that the Phoenicians were preeminent as the colonizing navigators of antiquity. They were an enlightened and enterprising maritime people, whose commerce traversed every known sea, and extended its operations beyond the "Pillars of Hercules" into the "Great Exterior Ocean." The early Greeks said of these people that they "went everywhere from the extreme East to the extreme West, multiplying settlements on all seas." But the great ages of this race are in the distant past, far beyond the beginning of recorded history. Indeed, history has knowledge of only a few of their later communities--the Sabeans of Southern Arabia, the people of Tyre and Sidon, the Carthaginians, and the settlements on the coast of Spain and Britain. In fact, the Phoenicians gave the name to Great Britain which it still retains, that of Brittan-nock, the _land of tin._ It is not difficult to believe that communities of Phoenicians were established all around the Mediterranean, and even beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, in ages quite as old as Egypt or Chaldea, and that they had communication with this hemisphere. Why did the ancients say so much about a "great Saturnian Continent" beyond the Atlantic if nobody in prehistoric ages had ever seen that continent? They said it was there and we know they were right; but whence came their knowledge of it, and such knowledge as led them to describe it as "larger than Asia (meaning Asia Minor), Europe and Libya together?" This ancient belief must have been due to the fact that their greatest navigators, the Phoenicians, had communication with America in early prehistoric times.

The Phoenicians undoubtedly had more communication with this continent than they had with surrounding nations with reference to it. They of all the ancient peoples knew how to keep state secrets. They would rather _supply_ other nations with gold, silver, precious stones, tin, peacocks, ivory, almug wood, and other commodities, than to tell whence they obtained them. The voyages to this continent must have taken place at a very remote period, which was imperfectly recollected and never fully revealed to other nations.

But they must have had some vague knowledge of ancient America, as is shown by Plutarch's mention of a "Great Saturnian Continent beyond the Cronian Sea," meaning the Atlantic Ocean, and the fact that Solon brought from Egypt to Athens the story of the Atlantic Island, which was not entirely new in Greece. Humbolt tells us that Procles, an ancient Carthaginian historian, says:

"The historians who speak of the islands of the exterior sea (the Atlantic Ocean) tell us that in their time there were seven islands consecrated to Proserpine, and three others, of immense extent, of which the first was consecrated to Plato, {_sic_ Pluto?} the second to Ammon, and the third to Neptune. The inhabitants of the latter had preserved a recollection (transmitted to them by their ancestors) of the island Atlantis, which was extremely large, and for a longtime held sway over all the Islands of the Atlantic Ocean."

Diodorus Siculus, another great historian, who lived about forty years before the Christian era, gives this account of a country which was evidently Mexico, or Central America:

"Over against Africa lies a great island in the vast ocean, _many days sail from Libya westward._ The soil is very fruitful. It is diversified with mountains and pleasant vales, and the towns are adorned with stately buildings." After describing the gardens, orchards, and fountains, he tells how this pleasant country was discovered. He says, the Phoenicians, having built Gades (Cadiz) in Spain, sailed along the western coast of Africa. A Phoenician ship, voyaging down south, was "on a sudden driven by a furious storm far into the main ocean, and, _after they had lain under this tempest many days,_ they at last arrived at this island." There is a similar statement in a work attributed to Aristotle, in which the discovery is ascribed to Carthaginians, who were Phoenicians.

According to Strabo, the art of night sailing was taught in Ancient Tyre; and the Arabians and Chinese certainly used the mariner's compass before it was brought from China to Venice by Marco Polo in 1260.

After doubling the Cape of Good Hope, and while continuing his voyage to India, Vasco de Gama found the Arabians on the coast of the Indian Ocean using the mariner's compass, and vessels equal in quality to his own.

The world has always been prone to underrate the achievements of the ancients, especially with reference to their maritime skill, but many concede that the Phoenicians were exceptional. Their known enterprise, and this ancient knowledge of America, so variously expressed, strongly encourage the hypothesis that the people called Phoenicians came to this continent, established colonies in the region where ruined cities are found, and filled it with civilization.

It is also claimed that symbolic devices similar to those of the Phoenicians are found in the ruins of Mexico and Central America, and that old traditions of the natives described the first civilizers as "bearded white men who came from the East in ships." It will be remembered that this same tradition was communicated to Cortez by Montezuma. Therefore it is urged that the people described in the native books and traditions as "Colhuas" must have been Phoenicians.

If correct, this theory would be certain of demonstration for they were preeminently a people of letters and monuments. The Phoenician alphabet is said to be the parent of all the alphabets of Europe except the Turkish. If they were responsible for this civilization they must have left some trace of their language. But none has been found. Nor can any similarity be traced in the ruins of Copan and Palanque with other ruins known to have been erected by the Phoenicians. Therefore we can not reasonably suppose this American civilization originated by people of the Phoenician race, whatever may be thought of the evidence of their acquaintance with this continent.

The most strenuous advocate of the theory that America, was first peopled from the sunken continent of Atlantis, was Brasseur de Bourbourg. He studied the monuments, writings and traditions left by this civilization more than any other man; and actually learned to decipher some of the Central American writings.

His Atlantic theory of the old American civilization is that it was originated on a portion of this continent which is now under waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It supposes the continent extended, anciently, from New Granada, Central America and Mexico, in a long, irregular peninsula, so far across the Atlantic that the Canary, Madeira, and Azores, or Western Islands, may be remains of this portion of it. In other words, it was not a large island or continent, as the ancients claimed, but a large peninsula joined on to the main land at Central America.

High mountains stood where we now find the West India Islands. Beyond these, toward Africa and Europe, was a great extent of fertile and beautiful land, and here arose the first civilization of mankind, which flourished many ages, until at length this extended portion of the continent was engulfed by a tremendous convulsion of nature, or by a succession of such convulsions, which made the ruin complete. After the cataclysm, a part of the Atlantic people who escaped destruction settled in Central America, where, perhaps, their civilization had been previously introduced. The reasons urged in support of this hypothesis make it seem possible, if not probable, to imaginative minds. Even men like Humboldt have recognized in the original legend the possible vestige of a widely spread tradition of earliest times. From this standpoint only can it be seriously considered.

Plutarch, in his life of Solon, mentions the fact that while that sage was in Egypt "he conferred with the priests of Psenophis, Sonchis, Heliopolis and Sais, and learned from them the story of Atlantis." Brasseur de Bourbourg cites Cousin's translation of Plato's record of this story, to strengthen his position, as follows:

"Among the great deeds of Athens, of which recollection is preserved in our books, there is one which should be placed above all others. Our books tell that the Athenians destroyed an army which came across the Atlantic Sea, and insolently invaded Europe and Asia; for this sea was then navigable, and beyond the strait where you place the Pillars of Hercules there was an island larger than Asia (Minor) and Libya combined. From this island one could pass easily to the other islands, and from these to the continent which lies around the interior sea. The sea on this side of the strait (the Mediterranean), of which we speak, resembles a harbor with its narrow entrance; but there is a genuine sea, and the land which surrounds it is a veritable continent. In the Island of Atlantis reigned three kings with great and marvelous power. They had under their dominion the whole Atlantis, several other islands, and some parts of the continent. At one time their power extended into Libya, and into Europe as far as Tyrrhenia: and uniting their whole force, they sought to destroy our countries at a blow; but their defeat stopped the invasion and gave entire independence to all the countries on this side the Pillars of Hercules. Afterward in one day and one fatal night, there came mighty earthquakes and inundations, which engulfed that warlike people. Atlantis disappeared beneath the sea and then that sea became inaccessible, so that navigation on it ceased on account of the quantity of mud which the engulfed island left in its place."

This invasion took place many ages before Athens was known as a Greek city. It is referred to an extremely remote antiquity. The festival known as the "Lesser Panathenaea," which, as symbolic devices used in it show, commemorated this triumph over the Atlantes, is said to have been instituted by the mythical Erichthonius in the earliest times remembered by Athenian tradition.

Brasseur de Bourbourg also claims that there is in the old Central American books a constant tradition of an immense catastrophe of the character supposed; that this tradition existed everywhere among the people when they first became known to Europeans; and that recollections of the catastrophe were preserved in some of their festivals, especially in one celebrated in the month of Izcalli, which was instituted to commemorate this frightful destruction of land and people, and in which "princes and people humbled themselves before the divinity, and besought him to withhold a return of such terrible calamities." This tradition affirms that a part of the continent extending into the Atlantic was destroyed in the manner supposed, and appears to indicate that the destruction was accomplished by a succession of frightful convulsions. Three are constantly mentioned, and sometimes there is mention of one or two others. "The land was shaken by frightful earthquakes, and the waves of the sea combined with volcanic fires to overwhelm and engulf it." Each convulsion swept away portions of the land, until the whole disappeared, leaving the line of the coast as it is now. Most of the inhabitants, overtaken amid their regular employments, were destroyed; but some escaped in ships, and some fled for safety to the summits of high mountains, or to portions of the land which, for a time, escaped immediate destruction. Quotations are made from the old books in which this tradition is said to be recorded, verifying Abbe Brasseur's position. But, as J. D. Baldwin says, "To criticise intelligently his interpretation of their significance, one needs to have a knowledge of those books and traditions equal at least to his own."

In addition to this so-called proof by the traditions of both the old and new world, he adds this philological argument:

"The words _Atlas_ and _Atlantic_ have no satisfactory etymology in any language known to Europe. They are not Greek, and can not be referred to any known language of the Old World. But in the Nahnatl language we find immediately the radical _a. atl,_ which signifies water.

"From this comes a series of words, such as _atlan,_ on the border of or amid the water, from which we have the adjective Atlantic. A city named _Atlan_ existed when the continent was discovered by Columbus, at the entrance of the Gulf of Uraba, in Darien, with a good harbor; it is now reduced to an unimportant pueblo named Aela."

We think the foregoing is a fair statement of the argument advanced by the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, in support of his theory. We might add that the late Ignatius Donnelly, in his popular work, "Atlantis, the Antediluvian World," takes much the same position, and, like the venerable Abbe, gives free rein to his vivid imagination, and is restrained by no doubts suggested by scientific indications.

So far from geology lending the slightest confirmation to the idea of an engulfed Atlantis, Prof. Wyville Thompson has shown, in his "Depths of the Sea," that while oscillations of the land have considerably modified the boundaries of the Atlantic Ocean, the geological age of its basin dates as far back, at least, as the later secondary period. The study of its animal life, as revealed in dredging, strongly confirms this, disclosing an unbroken continuity of life on the Atlantic sea-bed from the Cretaceous to the present time; and, as Sir Charles Lyell has pointed out, in his "Principles of Geology," the entire evidence is adverse to the idea that the Canaries, the Madeiras, and the Azores are surviving fragments of a vast submerged island, or continuous area of the adjacent continent. There are, indeed, undoubted indications of volcanic action; but they furnish evidence of local upheaval, not of the submergence of extensive continental areas.

The leading geologists all agree that "our continents have long remained in nearly the same relative position," and the highest authorities in science concur in the belief that "the main features of the Atlantic basin have undergone no change within any recent geological period."

While, therefore, this theory appeals with subtle power to the imagination, by reason of its seductive plausibility; yet to those who attach any value to scientific evidence, such speculations present no serious claims on their study. On the other hand, it will be rejected without much regard to what can be said in its favor, for it interferes with current beliefs concerning antiquity and ancient history, and must encounter vehement contradiction from habits of thought fixed by these beliefs.

Baldwin well says, that "Some of the uses made of this theory can not endure criticism. For instance, when he makes it the basis of an assumption that all the civilization of the Old World went originally from America, and claims particularly that the supposed 'Atlantic race' created Egypt, he goes quite beyond reach of the considerations used to give his hypothesis a certain air of probability. It may be, as he says, that for every pyramid in Egypt there are a thousand in Mexico and Central America, but the ruins in Egypt and those in Central America have nothing in common. The two countries were entirely different in their language, in their styles of architecture, in their written characters, and in the physical characteristics of their earliest people, as they are seen sculptured or painted on the monuments. An Egyptian pyramid is no more the same thing as a Mexican pyramid than a Chinese pagoda is the same thing as an English light-house. It was not made in the same way, nor for the same uses. The ruined monuments show, in general and in particular, that the original civilizers in America were profoundly different from the ancient Egyptians. The two peoples can not possibly explain each other."

With reference to this theory, from the foregoing reasons, we are compelled to bring in the Scotch verdict, "_Not proven._"

One other theory we must notice briefly before giving what we believe to be the true theory, which will meet the requirements.

It is claimed by certain intelligent men, of sufficient learning to know better, that the North American Indian is indigenous to this continent, his ancestors, or first parents, having been created here just as were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In other words, the Western Hemisphere was peopled from one pair and one center just as was the Eastern Hemisphere.

J. Lee Humfreville, in his "Twenty Years Among Our Savage Indians," takes this position.

Even the distinguished naturalist, Professor Agassiz, is quoted as saying that "The anatomical differences between the different races, and especially those which distinguish the black and white, indicate a diversity of origin."

It is contended by others that, "The separation of the races from each other for unknown ages by great oceans and by formidable and almost impassable continental barriers, opposes the probability that they are descended from one parentage, and migrated from one spot."

If there be any logic in this theory, it is essential not only to have an Adam and Eve in America for the Red Race, but another pair in Africa for the Black Race, another in China for the Yellow Race, and still another in Polynesia for the Brown. Perhaps the learned comparative anatomists (all of whom belong to the White Race) will be gracious enough to concede that Adam and Eve were _their first parents?_

Dr. J. L. Cabell, in his work on "The Common Parentage of the Human Race," gives the following very good reason why it is more rational to suppose that the world was peopled by the progeny of a single pair radiating from one spot, than by many miraculous creations of the ancestors of the races placed originally in their present habitats: "Inasmuch as it has been shown that man has the power of undergoing acclimation in every habitable quarter of the globe, and had the means of facilitating his migration from his original birthplace, while moreover, he is susceptible of undergoing variations in bodily stricture, and in intellectual and moral tendencies, which variations, once acquired, are subsequently perpetuated by descent, _it is contrary to the observed ways of Providence to multiply miracles, and especially the highest miracles, in order to achieve a result which was clearly practicable by natural processes._"

Baron Humboldt, the great German scholar, has advanced an unanswerable argument to prove the unity of the human race and their descent from one pair. In his "Cosmos" he says: "The different races of men are forms of one sole species. They are not different species of a genus, since in that case their hybrid descendants would be unfruitful. But it is known that people of every race and color, from the highest to the lowest, intermingle and propagate descendants different from either parent."

However, it is unnecessary to go outside of the Scripture to prove the unity of the human race. In Genesis iii:20, we read, "Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living." The same thought is brought out in I. Cor. xv:22, by the declaration, "For as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive." In Gen. ix:1, we read, "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." In verse 19 of the same chapter we read, "These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the _whole earth overspread._" In this chapter we find a command of God touching this question, and proof that it was literally obeyed.

In Gen. x:32, we find this statement: "These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood."

The argument in the New Testament is just as strong in support of the unity of the race.

In giving the great commission Christ said "Go ye into _all the world,_ and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark xvi:15). In the seventeenth chapter of Acts we find that Paul said on Mars' hill, "God, that made the world and all things therein . . . _hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,_ and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." In Gal. iii:28 Paul also assures us, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free; for ye are all _one_ in Christ Jesus."

In John xvii:20-21, Christ uttered both a prayer and a prophecy sure of fulfilment when he said: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be _one;_ as thou Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be _one in us._"

Since, then, the theories of a diversity of origin of the races, and that the American Indian is indigenous to this continent, are both opposed by the teaching of God's Word, it follows that both are wrong, and can not be sustained.

We stand squarely by the Bible. _Men_ may come and men may go, but _God's Word_ will endure _forever._

Having disposed of these "_theories,_" and proven that all of them are more or less fallacious, and the last rather more than less, we are ready to "Take up the White Man's burden," and show how the ancestors of the Red Man got to this hemisphere, as also to account for the civilization found here.

{Illustration: Original map showing author's theory that South and Central America were peopled by {Shemites. ? word missing in original}}

Let us go back to the Tower of Babel, or Confusion, so called because God there confounded the language of the people, and "scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth."

Concerning Ham, Japheth and Shem, it is written: "These are the three sons of Noah; and of them was the whole earth overspread" (Gen. ix:19).

Broadly speaking, we find that Ham and his descendants received Africa, Arabia, Canaan and Persia. Japheth and his descendants received Central, Northern and Western Asia and all of Europe.

We will not follow the history of these two sons of Noah further at this time except to say that the descendants of Ham were the first, and those of Japheth the last to establish civilization.

As to Shem and his descendants, broadly speaking, their possessions began with Canaan, which was taken from the Hamites and extended east and southeast through Southern Asia, including what is now known as India, Burmah, China, Japan, and the great ancient Malay or Polynesian Empire.

As proof that they migrated eastward, we read of the sons of Joktan, a near descendant from Shem, "And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar, _a mount of the East._"

We thus find that the general direction of the Shemites was east. As proof that the adjacent islands were peopled at this early age, Josephus says, in his "Antiquities of the Jews," chap. v., "After this they were dispersed abroad on account of the difference of their languages, and went out by colonies everywhere, and each colony took possession of that land unto which God led them, so that the whole continent was filled with them, both the inland and maritime countries. There were some also who passed over the sea in _ships,_ and inhabited _the islands;_ and some of those nations still retain the denominations which were given them by their first founders, but some have lost them, and some have only admitted certain changes in them, that they might be more intelligible to the inhabitants."

There can be but one meaning to this language. It is that the Hamites extended their settlements to the islands adjacent to Africa, such as Madagascar and the Cape Verde Islands. The Japhethites extended their settlements to those adjacent to Europe, such as the British Islands, and the Shemites extended their settlements to those islands they found east and southeast from Asia, which were beyond a doubt what afterward became the Malay or Polynesian Empire.

This empire was described by El-Masudi, who wrote in the tenth century. He represented it as lying between the dominions of India and China, and as an empire whose splendor and high civilization were greatly celebrated; and he says: "The population, and the number of the troops of this kingdom, can not be counted, and the islands under the sceptre of its monarch (the Mahrajh, the Lord of the Sixth Sea) are so numerous that the fastest sailing-vessel is not able to go round them in two years."

We find this empire was referred to by Ptolemy and Marco Polo, the great Venetian traveler, who visited it. They called it Ja-ba-din. It included the peninsula of Malacca, Aracan, Chittagong, the country of the Lower Ganges, the coast of Coromandel, the Island of Borneo, one of the largest in the world, Celebes, Java and Sumatra, and all others between Australia and Eastern Asia. Traces of the colonies and ancient commercial power of the Malays are found in the Indian Ocean, the Isles of Bourbon and Mauritius in the Southern Hemisphere, whose aborigines are of Malayan descent. Moreover, the descendants of the Malays, with much of their language, and traces of their ancient civilization, are found on all the larger islands between Asia and this hemisphere, as also the western part of South America.

Pickering, the learned ethnologist of the United States Exploring Expedition, commanded by Lieutenant Wilkes, during a three-years' voyage, who had an excellent opportunity for comparing the different races of the Pacific Ocean and the opposite shores of the continents separated by it, thinks that all the copper-colored aborigines of North and South America are of Mongolian descent except the Esquimaux (who seem to be of the same race with the Northern Asiatics), and the aboriginal Peruvians and Chilians, whom he supposes to be of Malayan extraction; and he has made that distribution of them upon the ethnographical chart published with the maps of the report of the expedition. His opinion is entitled to great respect, and is substantially the same as that of the celebrated missionary, Williams, who, after spending thirty years among the tropical islands of the Pacific Ocean, was massacred by the savages of one lately discovered.

He was a devoted Christian hero, a splendid scholar, and was deeply interested in natural science. He published an account of his researches and life in the Pacific in a work known as "The Missionary Enterprise," in which he proved conclusively that all the copper-colored occupants of the Sandwich, Society and Friendly Isles, and, indeed, all the other groups of that ocean, and also the Quichuas, or Incas Indians of Peru, are of Malayan origin. Their complexion and anatomical traits are the same; and their languages are all dialects of those of Malacca, as he has proved by placing a sufficient number of common words from each of their tongues in parallel columns. The Malays, and their kindred in these clusters of isles, are, as their ancestors were in past ages, as nautical in their habits as the ancient Phoenicians or the Northmen.

As Prof. Edward Fontaine well says in his great work, "How the World Was Peopled," "The settlement of the islands of the Pacific, and even of the western shores of South America, was not only an easy task to the nautical Malays of the empire of 'the islands of the sixth sea,' but, in some cases, an unavoidable consequence of their adventurous life upon the ocean. The strong and regular winds which blow across the Pacific facilitate the voyages of all who attempt its passage. The inhabitants of it use now, as they have done from time immemorial, vessels admirably adapted to its navigation. They still send 'ambassadors in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters.' {FN} Their double canoes, made of the hollowed trunks of trees strongly lashed together, and furnished with what are termed 'outriggers,' formed of light and buoyant logs of bamboo attached to their gunwales, and projected a considerable distance beyond their sides, can not be capsized. The _bamboo_ is the _Arundo giganteus_ (the gigantic bulrush); and, when the boat is rolled by the waves from side to side, these outriggers rest upon them and prevent it from turning over. They are dexterous anglers and expert swimmers. The feat of Leander, in swimming across the Hellespont, is often outdone by the almost amphibious natives of the Polynesian isles. Embarked with their families in their double canoes, and supplied with their calabashes (large, strong gourds of water), and angling and fowling implements, they live upon the ocean's breast, which affords ample nourishment for all their simple wants. The copious showers, which fall during the prevalence of the monsoons (winds which blow six months in one direction, and the other six in the opposite), furnish them with an abundant supply of water. So free is that ocean from storms that it has acquired the name it bears, the Pacific. Far out of sight of land, they are in no great danger of any accident, except that of losing their reckoning. They are very liable to this misfortune from the want of a compass, a knowledge which their ancestors probably possessed, but which they have lost. If they miss their course, which often happens, their lives are not much imperiled, but it is then almost impossible for them to regain their native isles. They can live upon the fish, aquatic fowl, eggs, coconuts and other food afforded by the surface of the deep, and drift before the gale until it wafts them to America, or to some island west of its shores."

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{FN} Isaiah xviii,2.

In this manner South America undoubtedly received her largest, earliest and most civilized population. They were of the _Shemitic_ branch of the human family, _Malay Polynesian division,_ and reached the shores of Chile and Peru, by way of _the islands of the Pacific._ We have shown by quotations from the Bible and Josephus that one branch of the descendants of Shem journeyed east, took to ships and settled the adjacent islands of the sea.

Now these people must have had some knowledge of ship-building and navigation. Had not their ancestors been saved in the ark? {FN} And were not the Hamites, or Phoenicians, becoming a great maritime people possibly at this very period, on the shores of the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean?

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{FN} A ship recently constructed on the plan of the ark has proven a perfect success as a vessel for heavy freight.

So we have proven that they actually started across the Pacific Ocean not many centuries after the dispersion at Babel. Is it not the most reasonable and probable conclusion that since the western shore of the Pacific was their place of embarkation, and eastward their direction (and we have certainly proven these two points), that America would eventually be their _goal_ or _destination?_

God had told the descendants of Noah to "Multiply and replenish the earth"; they at first refused to obey his command, whereupon He determined to make them obey, and, as we have seen, confounded their language and dispersed them. Now is it reasonable that He would have been satisfied with a partial obedience, resulting only in the peopling of a few islands of the Pacific, when the boundless continent of America lay upon its other shore? Can any reasonable man believe that those ancient mariners, propelled by the power of Omnipotence in fulfilment of His command, and with the known spirit of restlessness and discontent which has characterized the progressive men of all ages, could discover a few islands lying in the direction they were sailing, but fail to eventually find a _vast hemisphere_ lying in the same course and extending through four of the zones of the earth?

We submit that in drifting before the wind, or even in a voyage of discovery, many islands lying almost in the wake of the ship might be passed at night without discovery, but it is absolutely impossible to pass a continent without seeing it and touching it at some point.

Men find islands peopled and evidence of a former civilization which the inhabitants can give no account of, and it excites little or no interest, but if a continent is discovered with civilized people, and evidence of a greater civilization in its past history, they at once get excited and begin to evolve a fine-spun theory out of the thin air, and charge it all up to the Phoenicians, lost ten tribes of Israel, the inhabitants of the sunken continent of Atlantis, or that God created another Adam and Eve, from whom the people of this continent had their origin. In the classic language of Puck, "What fools these mortals be." They can people the islands of the Pacific without another Adam and Eve, or the aid of the Phoenicians, but if it is a continent under consideration, it is impossible. Why not, in the study of ethnology and history, follow the leading of facts, rather than force the facts to prove a pet theory?

Besides the ancient evidence given, there is much modern proof that South America, at least, was first settled by the Malays from Polynesia.

Captain Cook found at Watteoo three natives of Otaheite, who had lost their ocean-path and had been blown away 550 miles from the land of their birth.

Kotzebue found on one of the Caroline isles a native of Ulea, who had been driven by the wind, after a voyage of eight months, to this spot, which is fifteen hundred miles from his native isle. He and his companions had performed this remarkable voyage in an open single canoe with outriggers. Numerous similar involuntary exploits of this maritime race are related. A singular case is mentioned in the official narrative of the Japan Expedition, conducted by Commodore Perry. On his return voyage, in the open west Pacific Ocean, he took on board a boat-load of twelve savages, who called themselves Sillibaboos. They could give no intelligible idea of the island from whence they came, and which has not been discovered. They were lost and were drifting before the wind, they knew not where, and had been wandering upon the unknown waters many days; but they were in good condition, and supporting themselves well upon the produce of the prolific ocean which swelled around them. Amid the numerous clusters of islands which gem its bosom, they would probably have soon found a new home.

One of the most remarkable voyages recorded of modern times was that of Captain Bligh and his companions. It seems that the worthy captain of the good ship-of-war Bounty was sent by the British Government in 1787, to transplant the bread-fruit and other esculents, indigenous to the tropical islands of the Pacific, to Jamaica, and other islands of the West Indies belonging to Great Britain. He remained more than a year in Otaheite, completed his cargo of seeds and plants and set sail for Jamaica. But while they were yet in sight of the island, a majority of the crew, headed by Lieutenant Christian, mutinied and seized the ship. Captain Bligh and twenty men who were faithful to him were put in an open boat only twenty-five feet long. Only five days' rations of wine, water, bread and pork were thrown into it with them. They had a compass, but no weapons, mast or sail and the gunwales rose only a few inches above the surface of the water. In this frail craft they were turned adrift to perish upon the ocean. The mutineers doubtless thought that they would be sunk by the first storm that might arise or be massacred by the first savages they might meet. These desperate mutineers were incited to commit this crime by an aversion to leave the lazy life they had led the past year with the amiable and profligate natives of Otaheite, among whom they had formed attachments, and an unwillingness to resume the hardships of sailors under the strict discipline of Captain Bligh. This officer proved himself a hero, able to meet successfully the dangers of his desperate situation, and to triumph over them by his skill and courage, and lived to be promoted to the rank of admiral, under Lord Nelson, for services at the battle of Copenhagen. With a pair of apothecary's scales he divided the scant provisions of five days to make them last for _fifty_ in which he hoped to reach the Philippine Islands, or Java, nearly four thousand miles distant. Favored by the monsoon, which blew steadily from the east (six months later it would have blown in the opposite course), in the direction of those islands, by stormless showers, by alternate rowing, bailing and resting the crew, by his persevering watchfulness, and their implicit obedience to his judicious orders, he accomplished in that time this almost miraculous voyage, with the loss of only one man, who was killed by the savages of an unknown island lying in his course, with whom he attempted to barter for supplies.

Remember this successful voyage of nearly four thousand miles (farther than across the Atlantic Ocean) from the Society Islands to Timour, was made in fifty days. Moreover, it was made in an open boat, inferior to those mentioned by Homer and Virgil, or to any sculptured upon the monuments of Egypt and Assyria, and with only the tenth part of the provisions necessary for such an enterprise. This voyage shows that the Malays or the Arabians could have accomplished a similar feat of nautical skill in past ages.

Again we are indebted to Prof. Edward Fontaine for this remarkable story. Should the reader care to follow the fortunes of Christian and his fellow mutineers he will find the entire account in the sixth chapter of "How the World Was Peopled."

The Malay empire began to decline about the tenth century, when their continental possessions were taken from them by the Tartar Khans, Mohammedan sultans and rajahs, who founded new dynasties in China, Farther India and Hindostan. They also lost their distant island colonies, and their civilization waned in Asia. Myriads of them, dwelling upon the islands near that continent, degenerated into the fierce and daring pirates who were so long the terror of the Eastern seas. Others, more remote, lost even the use of the compass, and sank into the condition of the Sandwich and Society Islanders; while those in Peru, separated long from their Asiatic mother-country, and thrown on their own resources, established and maintained an _original_ civilization which amazed their Spanish conquerors.

There is evidence of ancient civilization in the ruins found on many of the larger islands of the Pacific Ocean, especially the Society, Friendly, Easter and Sandwich groups, but these ruins are essentially different from anything found in America.

It has been proven conclusively that the ancient Malayan empire was maritime and commercial; it had fleets of great ships, and there is evidence that its influence reached most of the Pacific islands. This is shown by the fact that dialects of the Malay language have been found in most of these islands as far in this direction as Easter Island. The language of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islanders, for instance, is Malayan, and has a close relationship to that now spoken in the Malay islands.

The Malays still read and write, have some literature and retain many of the arts and usages of civilization, but they are now very far below the condition indicated by their ancient ruins, and described by El Masudi, who traveled among them a thousand years ago.

It is practically certain that their ships visited the western coast of America, and traded with the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians in the days of their greatest power and activity. This theory amounts almost to a certainty when it is remembered that the Malays made such a permanent settlement of the Easter Islands as to leave their language there. According to old traditions of both Mexico and Peru, the Pacific coast in both countries was anciently visited by a foreign people, who came in ships. The unmistakable traces of Malay influence everywhere in the islands of the Pacific can have but one meaning. The Malays formerly sailed the ocean, occupied its islands and doubtless visited America.

The Abbé de Bourbourg is responsible for the statement that "It has been known to scholars nearly a century, that the Chinese and Japanese were acquainted with the American continent in the fifth century of our era. Their ships visited it. They called it Fu-Sang, and said it was situated at the distance of twenty thousand _li_ from Ta-Han. M. Leon de Rosny has ascertained that Fu-Sang is the topic of a curious notice in the 'Wa-Kan-San-tai-dzon-ye,' which is the name of the great Japanese Encyclopedia. In that work Fu-Sang is said to be situated east of Japan, beyond the ocean, at a distance of about twenty thousand _li_ (between seven and eight thousand miles) from Ta-nan-Kouek. Readers who may desire to make comparisons between the Japanese descriptions of Fu-Sang and some country in America, will find astonishing analogies in the countries described by Castaneda, Fra-Marcos de Niza, in the province of Cibola." In Peru, in the time of Pizarro, the oldest and most enduring stone structures were said to have been built by "bearded white men," who came from the _west_ and were called "sons of the sea." They were probably Malays or Arabians.

This is the only evidence we have found of an imported civilization in Peru, and this is more legend and tradition than positive history.

We are firmly convinced that civilization or self-improvement began among the savages of America, probably Peru, as it did three thousand years or more ago among the savages of Egypt and Babylon. We believe that the civilization found in America originated _here_ and nowhere else. It is neither an importation nor imitation of anything else on earth. As a recent explorer of the ruins of Peru, Central America and Mexico well says, "The American monuments are different from those of any other known people, of a new order, and entirely and absolutely anomalous; they stand alone."

It is quite probable that, having been established in Peru, civilization gradually drifted north to Central America and Mexico. Certain it is the Spaniards first heard of the wealth of the Incas from the people inhabiting the isthmus and the region north of it.

We purpose, however, only to show _how_ the aborigines and civilization got to America, not how they spread over the land, and our conclusions are that the first inhabitants came through the Pacific Islands from southeastern Asia and landed in South America at least three thousand years ago, and there established an original civilization, perhaps only a few centuries later than Egypt or Babylonia. Many other peoples, including the Phoenicians, must have visited the eastern shore of America since, but they found a high degree of civilization _already established._ All these seafaring people could possibly do was to augment, or suggest improvements to the civilization they found here, or else do as the foolish and wicked Spaniards, destroy it.

{Illustration: Japanese man in the garb of a Ukiah (Alaska) Indian.}

So much for the primeval settlement and civilization of South and Central America, but what about the aborigines of the Northern Continent?

Again we will go back to the dispersion of mankind at Babel. We have seen that of the three sons of Noah, the descendants of Japheth peopled the greater portion of Asia, including the northern and northeastern sections. And the Japhethites were the last to establish a civilization, though they are to-day the most civilized people on earth. From this branch of the family of Noah came the Mongolians, Tartars and Scythians, those rude barbarians who spread over the steppes of northern Asia. These nomadic people were constantly waging war with each other, and weak tribes often fled before the devastating approach of a stronger to escape destruction. In this manner the vast continent of Asia was gradually traversed until pursued and pursuers reached the extreme limits of the peninsula of Kamtchatka.

Occasionally a multitude of their tribes, dwelling as cultivators of the earth, or migrating in hordes over the grassy steppes of Asia, have been united under the sway of such conquerors as Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. At one time 1,400,000 horsemen marched under the banner of the latter, who boasted that the grass would never grow again in the tracks made by the withering march of his squadrons.

Gibbon, in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," informs us that the hosts of warlike nomads from western Asia, who overran the Roman Empire, were generally Tartar tribes with different names, flying from the invasions of great conquerors who were devastating the central regions of that vast continent, and whose revolutions were only made known to Europe by the swarms of barbarians poured upon her borders, who were escaping from their enemies.

Their weaker enemies had to save themselves by a prompt and abject submission, or by a precipitate flight to regions far beyond their reach. To escape such dangers many of them at different times doubtless crossed the Aleutian Archipelago and Behring's Strait, as the modern Asiatics in Kamtchatka yet do, to North America.

Having reached their destination on the further shore, they would naturally tend toward the South and Southeast, attracted by a climate continually improving in mildness, and a country more fertile and abounding in wild fruit and game, the farther south they proceeded. They seem to have followed one another in different centuries; and those who first found their way to the valleys of the Ohio and lower Mississippi, and to Mexico, came in contact with other races from southeastern Asia, who had preceded them long enough to establish a civilization.