The American Egypt: A Record of Travel in Yucatan

by Channing Arnold; Frederick J. Tabor Frost

This Japan Current is such a simple solution of the thorny transit problem for those who favour the Asiatic theory, that they have all agreed to adopt it, and have never been able to tear themselves away from it for a moment and look elsewhere. What if there were other currents? What if there was a direct current communication between the Malaysian portion of Asia and Central America? We take no credit for discovering currents. We have simply looked to see whether, if our theory is otherwise good, the invading architects would have an advantage of a current in their long voyage. And we have found one.

The prevailing winds blow six months of the year west to east, and the currents would seem at first to be coast currents. But all are not so. There is the great Equatorial Current rising on the Peruvian coast (where it is known as the Peru Current) between south latitude 30° and 40°. For a time it keeps by the coast, running in a N.N.W. direction until it reaches the Equator, where it turns and runs in an almost direct line across the Pacific between the Equator and 10° south latitude. This powerful current will not, of course, serve the purpose of our argument, as it goes in the wrong direction. But there is another current known as the Counter Current, running north of the Equator east to west. It is first noticeable among the many small island currents in the Indian Archipelago, and then takes a course to the E.S.E. of Borneo and south of the Philippines and out into the Pacific. On its course it runs through the Caroline Islands and the Marshall Group. At between 160° and 170° longitude west Greenwich it is reinforced by a branch of the southern Equatorial Current which runs swiftly round Christmas and Fanning Islands and turns on a backward course. On an average its rate for the whole distance is about two knots per hour, or nearly as fast as the Japan Current. It spends itself on the coast of Central America between the Equator and 10° north latitude, part of it turning south until it is swallowed up again by the Equatorial currents, the other half turning north and eventually merging into the Mexican Current coming down from the north. This current fulfils all the requirements of our argument. It would naturally land emigrants from Malaysia on the coast of Central America between 10° and 14° north latitude.

The most ambitious of Sea Migrations in early times are perhaps those of the Polynesians. Starting, it is assumed from their own traditions, from Samoa, their present distribution over the Southern Pacific shows that they did not hesitate to make immense sea journeys under circumstances which to our modern minds seem almost impossible. For the Polynesians had no boats but the open canoe or dug-out still used by the islanders to-day. These Polynesian migrations are fact, not theory; and thus when we come to reflect upon the problem of a migration from, say, Java to Central America, we begin to see how really practicable it all is. For the ships in the East were not dug-outs, but were actually built of planks. The Chinese traded with India and the Malaysian islands during the fifth and sixth centuries, and used decked boats for the trade. They knew of the compass from the earliest times, and actually used it for navigation from the third and fourth centuries onward. From them the peoples of India and Malaysia learnt shipbuilding, if they had not already developed it. Thus our migrating architects would, in all probability, have quite decent-sized vessels in which they could make the voyage to America.

But it may be asked what impulse to migration these peoples could have had. If our dates are accurate, the case is a fairly clear one. Buddhism started, as every one knows, in India. During the fourth and fifth centuries the persecution of the Buddhists began, and ended finally in their being driven out of India. As an early result of the movement which was bringing about their expulsion, they established themselves in Burma. Buddhism was acknowledged in China, as the third religion of the Empire, as early as 65 A.D. The religion spread into the Indian Archipelago soon after it reached Burma and the Malay Peninsula, and the building of the Buddhist Temple at Boro Budor in Java was begun between 600 and 700 A.D., though, owing to wars and invasions, it was not finished until about 1430.

But the course of Buddhism did not run smooth in Java. The Buddhist settlers were involved in wars with neighbouring Malay peoples, and the building of the great temple was, it is certain, much interrupted. The disturbed condition of their tenure would tend to drive some of the settlers into fresh migration. Probably about the eighth century a band of these undertook a voyage in search of a new home. There is ample evidence to show that the disturbed state of Malaysia was such at this time as to cause constant kaleidoscopic changes of population. On the mainland in Cambodia, Angkor Vhat, which, as we have shown, resembles the ruins of Central America, was probably at that time inhabited. The Khmers who built it have never been properly traced. They were possibly swallowed up in the great racial cataclysm which was then taking place thereabouts. Some of them may have been driven into the islands, and were possibly the designers of Boro Budor. Perhaps the band of immigrants who reached America were Khmers; but this, of course, must remain mere surmise. Our theory involves the assumption that some Eastern people professing Buddhism, and skilled in the type of architecture associated with early Buddhist buildings, did reach Central America.

We have tried to show that such a voyage was possible, and now let us follow their route. Taking Java as their starting-point, we have shown how the currents cross the Pacific to the Caroline Islands. This group, lying directly in the course of a migrating people, would be certain to be a resting-place on their journey. They might, perhaps, stay some weeks, perhaps months there, possibly leaving some of their number behind them when they finally started out again. Here, then, one would expect to find some trace of their culture, and that is exactly what we do find. There are architectural remains in the Carolines, though these have never yet been properly studied. But there is evidence that they are just such relics as we should expect of the men who were to be the tutors of the Mayans. F. W. Christian, in his book The Caroline Islands (London, 1899), says on p. 80, speaking of the ruins on the east coast of Ponape, "Somewhat similar in character would be the semi-Indian ruins of Java and the Cyclopean structures of Aké and Chichen Itza in Yucatan. A series of huge rude steps brings us into a spacious courtyard, strewn with fragments of fallen pillars, encircling a second terraced enclosure with a projecting frieze or cornice of somewhat Japanese type." The tradition of the Ponapeans in regard to these ruins is, Mr. Christian tells us, "Two brothers, Ani-Aramach, Godmen or Heroes, named Olo-chipa and Olo-chopa, coming from the direction of Chokach, built the breakwater of Nan-Moluchai and the island city it shuts in. By their magic spells one by one the great masses of stone flew through the air like birds, settling down into their appointed place."

From the photographs reproduced by Mr. Christian it would seem that the ruins were distinctive of no special type of architecture, but were such as one would expect to be put up by those who had only made the islands their home for a very short period, or, as is far more likely, did not even stop to build but imparted a slight knowledge to the natives, whose subsequent productions would be thus uncouth. Their next halting-place would be the Marshall Islands, but whether there are any ruins there we do not know. It is almost next to certain that intelligent search would reveal such.

The distance between Java and the coast of Central America at the point which we wish to indicate as the likely landingplace is about 9,000 miles. The Caroline Islands are about 700 miles from the south-east corner of the Philippines, the last sight of land a people migrating from Java by the route we adopt would get. The Carolines would be in their route for 1,500 miles, as this archipelago is a specially widespread one. From the Carolines to the Marshall Islands is about 450 miles; and then on to the American coast is about 6,000 miles, with the smaller unnamed islands lying north of Christmas Island between longitude 160° and 175° west of Greenwich intervening for about 1,000 miles of their course. Between this point and the American coast would be the longest stretch of open sea the migrators would have to face.

We do not suggest that they would come over in great numbers. They followed the course of the current to America, and would be thrown on the coast where it struck in its greatest force. The Pacific Counter Current turns off into two branches on nearing the coast at about 10° north latitude, part going to the south and part north. If they took the southern branch they would come in contact with the Equatorial Current coming up from Peru, and inevitably be carried out to sea again. On the other hand, if they took the northern branch, they would be carried for some miles along the coast until about latitude 13°, where the current runs in closest, and there would be the most probable spot for them to land.