The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 6, December 1837

Transcriber's Note: The following Table of Contents has been added for the convenience of the reader.
Vol. X DECEMBER, 1837. No. 6.

NUMBER FOUR.
'Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains Clank over sceptred cities; nations melt From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt The sunshine for a while, and downward go.'
In view of the reasons heretofore suggested, why it is improbable that either the Egyptians, the Carthaginians, or the Romans, were the first inhabitants of this continent, and why, from the present state of our knowledge, no other distinct nation of people is entitled to the exclusive reputation of having been the primitive discoverers of America, the reader is very naturally led to inquire for the evidences assigned by the advocates of particular theories for the sources of their origin. These evidences, although important to the antiquarian, cannot, from the brevity and popular mode proposed by us in treating this subject, be critically stated. We have, nevertheless, offered some reasons and inferences of our own, why those evidences cannot be conclusive; and we would refer others to our own or other means of information, should they feel disposed to make farther investigations. However plausible the story of Votan may have appeared, as testimony in point, the reader shall judge, from a few facts which will be here noticed, whether even that has much probability to support it. No one at least can deny the greater safety of doubting, where there is no better proof, should he not, with others, arrive at the ultimate conclusion, that the best evidence of all may be in favor of the opinion that these people originated where their relics are now found.
It has been said that the occasional resemblance observed among the ruins of Tulteca to those of the Egyptians, Romans, etc, affords no just grounds for attributing their origin to those nations, any more than to others whose remaining arts they equally resemble. Almost every ancient people might, in fact, from similar points of resemblance, claim the same distinction. Beside the particulars noticed in previous numbers, it might be mentioned, en passant , that had the Tultecans been Egyptian, they would most certainly have retained the language of Egypt, the signs, the worship, etc.; but this was not the fact. Had they been Romans, they would likewise have continued the language, the customs, and the religion of Romans; yet this was not the case; and so it would have been, had they been derived from any other nation. Above all, perhaps, would they have borne a personal resemblance to their progenitors, a circumstance far from truth. Religion, without doubt, is the last thing in which a people becomes alienated; yet we see no cöincidence in this respect between these people and their reputed originals. How then shall we account for their origin, but by supposing them, sui generis , Tultecans? Finally, it will be admitted, that unless the story of Votan presents some clue by which to solve the problem—and we do not see that it has even the claim of probability—we are not permitted, by the facts in evidence, to attribute the first American population to any other people of the earth.