The Ancient Monuments of North and South America, 2nd ed.

by C. S. Rafinesque

ADDITIONS.

1. The Mexican Antiquities have lately been illustrated in many splendid works, by Aglio, Kingsborough, Dupaix, Baraden, St. Priest, Nebel, Icaza, Gondra, Waldeck &c. In a clever review of these works (in the foreign review) it is distinctly asserted that the Tul-tecas (people of Tul,) or American Atlantes, were quite a different people from the Later Mexican tribes, that their monuments are equal in interest to those of Egypt and Syria, with colossal and even Cyclopian structures—which agrees with my former statements, and I have traced them in America from Missouri to Chili, but their central seats and empires were from Mexico to Quito. Their great temple at Otolum near Palenque was equal to Solomon’s temple. Their mythology was quite peculiar and Asiatic, their maindeity was Hun-aku (first cause) comparable to Anuki the Syrian Cybele, their Astronomy was antediluvian, the year of 360 days or 18 months of 20 days.

2. The first monuments of the United States may be ascribed to the Talegas, a northern branch of these Atlantes. The oldest monuments of Peru long before the Incas with those of Brazil and Oronoco are related thereto, and were erected by their Southern tribes, the Atules and Talahets.

3. In a late work of Harcourt (1838) all these ancient monuments of America, Africa, Europe and Asia, are ascribed to the Arkites saved at the flood of Noah; which was also the previous opinion of M’culloh in his American researches. But some Antiquaries are yet seeking in America traces of the Adamites.

4. The Tulawas and Telingas nations and languages of Decan of Southern India, are probably of Atlantic or Tulanic (Syn. of Turan or Tartary) descent; and these nations sent colonies furher east in early times to Polynesia and perhaps as far as America! yet the bulk of Oceanic population from Madagascar to Japan and Australia is of Hamite descent, by the regular structure of all the languages; while this seldom happens in America as in China and Tartary.

5. The late attempts of tracing analogies of origin and descent between the Chinese and Polynesian Nations, are quite vain. The Chinese Nations are evidently Asiatic and primitive akin to the Tartars and Turks (the modern Turans,) their language have the same inverse position, and monosylabic structure. The idea of Harcourt to deem the Chinese the real Semetic stock of Languages, is worthy of enquiry. He has proved that the Obri (Hebrew) was in reality a Hamite language, the posterity of Abraham having adopted a dialect of the Acuri (Assyrian) and Xnoni (Canaanit;) but the Arabic languages and nations, so akin thereto must then also be Hamites! and the old Arabians alone were Semites.

5. Meantime the Turanic or Japhetic nations and languages (IFH meaning widely spread is our Japhet) should be the real Turans and Atlantes, including the Medians, Caucasians, Hindus, Pelagians, Thracians, Slavonians, Goths, and nearly two thirds of the American Nations, the most civilized and powerful of them. But it appears to me that the Celts and Cantabrians were like the Etruscans and Phenicians of Hamite Origin. It is strange that all the brown or black nations of Africa, Asia and Oceania are also of similar descent.

7. In my work on the Ancient American Nations, may be seen which were the oldest or earliest in America, and to which other nations elsewhere they are most intimately connected. I have proved that two great nations of America the Aruac including the Haytians and tribes from Florida to Patagonia, with the Sekeh or old Chilians, having branches from Chili to Brazil; were certainly very akin in language with the ancient Greeks and Italians and Spaniards, or rather their ancestors the Pelagic, Oscan and Cantabrian Nations.

8. The American Atlantes of North America (Talegas) the Tols and Chontals of Anahuac and Central America, the Muyzcas of Tunca and Peru; with the ancient Peruvians of mixt origin, were certainly the most civilized nations of this continent, as their monuments prove it, and their languages are of Japhetic or Turanic structure, having their major affinities in Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Illyrians, Slavonians &c; but some also with the African Atlantes or ancient and modern Lybians, Getulians, Shellus &c.

9. The Guarani group of languages and nations in South America was most widely spread from Guyana to Paraguay, and all over Brazil. It is quite monosyllabic, with the Hamite or African structure, having its affinities all over Africa, where hardly any except the Qua or Hottentot nation are of Chinese? or Turanic descent by structure of speech.