IV.
Migrations.
As already stated, some confusion exists in native American traditions relative to migrations. This doubtless arises from the fact that the native traditions confound the three great migrations of which the Book of Mormon speaks, viz., the Jaredite, Nephite and Mulek migrations, and also the subsequent intercontinental movements among both Nephites and Lamanites, especially those following the disaster at Cumorah, with the general migrations from the old world. This confusion in the native traditions results in dividing the writers on American antiquities, both in respect of the number of migrations and the direction whence they came, as also the time of them. It should be stated that there are some respectable authorities who doubt ancient migrations at all, holding the native population of America, and also its civilization, to be indigenous.
Migration passages already quoted in connection with the Tower of Babel matter, are as follows: "The Toltecs reached America [from the Tower] and became the founders of a numerous race." "The Quiches speak of white men who came from the land of the sun. The people of Yucatan believe that their ancestors had come from the east across a great body of water that God had dried up to let them pass over."[[17]] Here it will be observed that with these traditions of the migration from the east has been coupled the Bible story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, through which God opened a way to let them pass.[[18]]
It is also to be observed that in some instances the American traditions fix the building of the notable tower to escape floods in the western world.[[19]] Not a surprising variation when one considers how oral tradition, unchecked by written annals, distorts facts. From another passage already given,[[20]] after referring to the facts of the confusion of languages, it is stated that the people went to different parts of the world; then, "the Toltecs, seven in number, and their wives, who understood one another's speech, after crossing great lands and seas and undergoing great hardships, finally arrived in America, which they found to be good land and fit for habitation. * * * Only fifteen of the descendants of Coxcox could at all understand one another, and these were the ancestors of the Nahuac nations."[[21]] In this last quotation one perceives very clearly in outline the story of the Jaredite migration as follows: First, the number of the colony is small. The Book of Ether represents that the Jaredite colony crossed the great waters between their native land and America in eight barges;[[22]] and they were small.[[23]] The two principal families of this colony, that of Moriancumr and Jared, some time after reaching America, are set down as follows: The former had of sons and daughters twenty-two; while the number of sons and daughters of the latter were twelve, he having four sons. Some of these sons and daughters may, of course, have been born en route to, and after the arrival in, America—that, at least, is a very great probability—and hence the original colony would be cut down by as many as were so born.[[24]] The number of "friends" of Jared and his brother who accompanied them from Babel to America are set down at "about twenty and two souls, and they also begat sons and daughters before they came to the promised land.[[25]] This may mean that the twenty-two friends were all adults, while the number of children is not given; or it may mean that they numbered twenty-two including children. In any event the Jaredite colony was not large, and it is quite possible that the families were not more than seven in number as held in the native tradition before us.
Second, the American traditions represent that the colony which came from the tower and peopled America all understood each other's language, and the number of them was fifteen; which, if this number represents the adult members of the colony, we have again about the seven families indicated in the foregoing passage; and it will be remembered that when the Lord made known to the prophet Moriancumr that he was about to confound the languages of the people, his brother Jared suggested to him that he ask the Lord not to confound their language; "and it came to pass that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon Jared, therefore he did not confound the language of Jared."[[26]] A second appeal was made in behalf of their friends (who we have already learned numbered twenty-two) that their language might not be confounded; "and the Lord had compassion upon their friends, and upon their families also, that they were not confounded."[[27]]
Third, this colony, of the American traditions, crossed great lands and seas and underwent many hardships before finally arriving in America. Now Ether's account of the Jaredite journey: "And it came to pass that they did travel in the wilderness, and did build barges, in which they did cross many waters, being directed continually by the hand of the Lord. And the Lord would not suffer that they should stop beyond the sea in the wilderness, but he would that they should come forth even unto the land of promise"—America.[[28]] Arriving on the shores of the great ocean which separated them from the land of their destination they received a commandment to build barges for crossing this ocean. "And it came to pass that when they had done all these things they got aboard of their vessels or barges and set forth into the sea, commending themselves unto the Lord their God. And it came to pass that the Lord God caused that there should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind."[[29]] This journey continued three hundred and forty-four days upon the water. This surely was "crossing great lands and seas and undergoing many hardships."
Fourth, the American tradition says that the Toltec colony finally arrived in America, which they found to be a good land, "and fit for habitation." Concerning the land to which the Jaredite colony came Ether says that it is "a land of promise, which is choice above all other lands which the Lord had preserved for a righteous people."[[30]] In other words, to use the language of the native American tradition, it was "a land fit for habitation."
Other passages on the fact of ancient migrations to America follow; but I caution the reader again concerning the confusion existing in the traditions on this subject, which arises, as I believe, from the traditions mingling indiscriminately together the three migrations of the Book of Mormon, and later movements of native tribes since the overthrow of the Nephites at Cumorah.
One fact appears probable, and that is that there was a tendency of population extending over a long period from the north toward the south, one driving another before it as one wave of the sea follows that in advance of it. We cannot do better than compare these successive invasions, with those of the barbarous races that quarreled over the parts of the dismembered Roman empire, or with that of the Aryans, who from the farther end of Asia fell in hordes first upon India and Persia and then upon the different countries of Europe, giving to the vanquished as the price of their defeat a culture undoubtedly superior to that they had formerly possessed. [[31]]
That successive waves of migration occurred there is no reason to doubt, and that these successive bodies of immigrants differed to some extent in culture and in race is highly probable.[[32]] * * * The ancient American races preserved the tradition of distinct migrations, in their hieroglyphics and pictographs.[[33]]
That America was peopled from Asia, the cradle of the human race, can no longer be doubted, but how and when they came is a problem that cannot be solved.[[34]]