Votan, another mysterious personage, closely resembling Quetzalcoatl in many points, was the supposed founder of the Maya civilization. He is said to have been a descendant of Noah and to have assisted at the building of the Tower of Babel. After the confusion of tongues he led a portion of the dispersed people to America. There he established the kingdom of Xibalba and built the city of Palenque.[I-63]
Let us turn now from these wild speculations, with which volumes might be filled, but which are practically worthless, to the special theories of origin, which are, however, for the most part, scarcely more satisfactory.
Beginning with eastern Asia, we find that the Americans, or in some instances their civilization only, are supposed to have come originally from China, Japan, India, Tartary, Polynesia. Three principal routes are proposed by which they may have come, namely: Bering Strait, the Aleutian Islands, and Polynesia. The route taken by no means depends upon the original habitat of the emigrants; thus the people of India may have emigrated to the north of Asia, and crossed Bering Strait, or the Chinese may have passed from one to the other of the Aleutian Islands until they reached the western continent. Bering Strait is, however, the most widely advocated, and perhaps most probable, line of communication. The narrow strait would scarcely hinder any migration either east or west, especially as it is frequently frozen over in winter. At all events it is certain that from time immemorial constant intercourse has been kept up between the natives on either side of the strait; indeed, there can be no doubt that they are one and the same people. Several writers, however, favor the Aleutian route.[I-64]
DIFFUSION OF ANIMALS.
But there is a problem which the possibility of neither of these routes will help to solve: How did the animals reach America? It is not to be supposed that ferocious beasts and venomous reptiles were brought over by the immigrants, nor is it more probable that they swam across the ocean. Of course such a question is raised only by those who believe that all living creatures are direct descendants of the animals saved from the flood in Noah's ark; but such is the belief of the great majority of our authors. The easiest way to account for this diffusion of animals is to believe that the continents were at one time united, though this is also asserted, with great show of probability, by authors who do not think it necessary to find a solid roadway in order to account for the presence of animals in America, or even to believe that the fauna of the New World need ever in any way have come from the Old World. Again, some writers are inclined to wonder how the tropical animals found in America could have reached the continent via the polar regions, and find it necessary to connect America and Africa to account for this.[I-65]
The theory that America was peopled, or, at least partly peopled, from eastern Asia, is certainly more widely advocated than any other, and, in my opinion, is moreover based upon a more reasonable and logical foundation than any other. It is true, the Old World may have been originally peopled from the New, and it is also true that the Americans may have had an autochthonic origin, but, if we must suppose that they have originated on another continent, then it is to Asia that we must first look for proofs of such an origin, at least as far as the people of north-western America are concerned. "It appears most evident to me," says the learned Humboldt, "that the monuments, methods of computing time, systems of cosmogony, and many myths of America, offer striking analogies with the ideas of eastern Asia—analogies which indicate an ancient communication, and are not simply the result of that uniform condition in which all nations are found in the dawn of civilization."[I-66] Prescott's conclusions are, first: "That the coincidences are sufficiently strong to authorize a belief, that the civilization of Anahuac was, in some degree, influenced by that of Eastern Asia. And, secondly, that the discrepancies are such as to carry back the communication to a very remote period; so remote, that this foreign influence has been too feeble to interfere materially with the growth of what may be regarded, in its essential features, as a peculiar and indigenous civilization."[I-67] "If, as I believe," writes Dr Wilson, "the continent was peopled from Asia, it was necessarily by younger nations. But its civilization was of native growth, and so was far younger than that of Egypt."[I-68] That "immigration was continuous for ages from the east of Asia," is thought by Col. Smith to be "sufficiently indicated by the pressure of nations, so far as it is known in America, being always from the north-west coasts, eastward and southward, to the beginning of the thirteenth century."[I-69] "That America was peopled from Asia, the cradle of the human race, can no longer be doubted," says Dupaix; "but how and when they came is a problem that cannot be solved."[I-70] Emigration from eastern Asia, of which there can be no doubt, only "took place," says Tschudi, "in the latter part of the fifth century of the Christian era; and while it explains many facts in America which long perplexed our archæologists, it by no means aids us in determining the origin of our earliest population."[I-71] "After making every proper allowance," says Gallatin, "I cannot see any possible reason that should have prevented those, who after the dispersion of mankind moved towards the east and northeast, from having reached the extremities of Asia, and passed over to America, within five hundred years after the flood. However small may have been the number of those first emigrants, an equal number of years would have been more than sufficient to occupy, in their own way, every part of America."[I-72] There are, however, writers who find grave objections to an Asiatic origin, the principal of which are the absence of the horse, the "paucity and the poverty of the lactiferous animals, and the consequent absence of pastoral nations in the New World." For, adds a writer in the Quarterly Review, "we can hardly suppose that any of the pastoral hordes of Tartars would emigrate across the strait of Behring or the Aleutian Islands without carrying with them a supply of those cattle on which their whole subsistence depended."[I-73]
THEORY OF ORIGIN FROM CHINESE.
THE COUNTRY OF FUSANG.
The theory that western America was originally peopled by the Chinese, or at least that the greater part of the New World civilization may be attributed to this people, is founded mainly on a passage in the work of the Chinese historian Li yan tcheou, who lived at the commencement of the seventh century of our era. In this passage it is stated that a Chinese expedition discovered a country lying twenty thousand li to the east of Tahan, which was called Fusang.[I-74] Tahan is generally supposed to be Kamchatka, and Fusang the north-west coast of America, California, or Mexico. As so much depends upon what Li yan tcheou has said about the mysterious country, it will be well to give his account in full; as translated by Klaproth, it is as follows: In the first of the years young yuan, in the reign of Fi ti of the dynasty of Thsi, a cha men (buddhist priest), named Hoeï chin, arrived at King tcheou from the country of Fusang; of this land he says: Fusang is situated twenty thousand li[I-75] to the east of the country of Tahan, and an equal distance to the east of China. In this place are many trees called fusang,[I-76] whose leaves resemble those of the Thoung (Bignonia tomentosa), and the first sprouts those of the bamboo. These serve the people of the country for food. The fruit is red and shaped like a pear. The bark is prepared in the same manner as hemp, and manufactured into cloth and flowered stuffs. The wood serves for the construction of houses, for in this country there are neither towns nor walled habitations. The inhabitants have a system of writing and make paper from the bark of the fusang. They possess neither arms nor troops and they never wage war. According to the laws of the kingdom, there are two prisons, one in the north, the other in the south; those who have committed trifling faults are sent to the latter, those guilty of graver crimes to the former, and detained there until by mitigation of their sentence they are removed to the south.[I-77] The male and female prisoners are allowed to marry with each other and their children are sold as slaves, the boys when they are eight years of age, the girls when they are nine. The prisoners never go forth from their jail alive. When a man of superior mark commits a crime, the people assemble in great numbers, seat themselves opposite the criminal, who is placed in a ditch, partake of a banquet, and take leave of the condemned person as of one who is about to die. Cinders are then heaped about the doomed man. For slight faults, the criminal alone is punished, but for a great crime his children and grandchildren suffer with him; in some extraordinary cases his sin is visited upon his descendants to the seventh generation.
The name of the king of this country is Yit khi; the nobles of the first rank are called Toui lou; those of the second, 'little' Toui lou; and those of the third, Na tu cha. When the king goes out, he is accompanied by tambours and horns. He changes the color of his dress at certain times; in the years of the cycle kia and y, it is blue; in the years ping and ting, it is red; in the years ou and ki, it is yellow; in the years keng and sin, it is white; and lastly, in those years which have the characters jin and kouei, it is black.