The Myths of the North American Indians

by Lewis Spence

An ethnological connexion has been traced for the Red Man of North America, with equal parade of erudition, to Phoenicians, Hittites, and South Sea Islanders. But one of the most amusing of these theories is that which attempts to substantiate his blood-relationship with the inhabitants of Wales! The argument in favour of this theory is so quaint, and is such a capital example of the kind of learning under which American ethnology has groaned for generations, that it may be briefly examined. In the author's Myths of Mexico and Peru (p. 5) a short account is given of the legend of Madoc, son of Owen Gwyneth, a Welsh prince, who quitted his country in disgust at the manner in which his brothers had partitioned their father's territories. Sailing due west with several vessels, he arrived, says Sir Thomas Herbert in his Travels (1634), at the Gulf of Mexico, "not far from Florida," in the year 1170. After settling there he returned to Wales for reinforcements, and once more fared toward the dim West, never to be heard of more. But, says the chronicler, "though the Cambrian issue in the new found world may seeme extinct, the Language to this day used among these Canibals, together with their adoring the crosse, using Beades, Reliques of holy men and some other, noted in them of Acusano and other places, ... points at our Madoc's former being there." The Cambrians, continued Sir Thomas, left in their American colony many names of "Birds, Rivers, Rocks, Beasts and the like, some of which words are these: Gwrando, signifying in the Cambrian speech to give eare unto or hearken. Pen-gwyn, with us a white head, refered by the Mexicans to a Bird so-called, and Rockes complying with that Idiom. Some promontories had like denominations, called so by the people to this day, tho' estranged and concealed by the Spaniard. Such are the Isles Corroeso. The Cape of Brutaine or Brittaine. The floud Gwyndowr or white water, Bara bread, Mam mother, Tate father, Dowr water, Bryd time, Bu or Buch a Cow, Clugar a Heathcocke, Llwynog a Fox, Wy an Egge, Calaf a Quill, Trwyn a Nose, Nef Heaven; and the like then used; by which, in my conceit, none save detracting Opinionatists can justly oppose such worthy testimonies and proofes of what I wish were generally allowed of."

Antiquity of Man in America

To turn to more substantial conclusions concerning the racial affinities of the Red Man, we find that it is only within very recent times that anything like a reasoned scientific argument has been arrived at. Founding upon recently acquired geological, anthropological, and linguistic knowledge, inquirers into the deeper realms of American ethnology have solved the question of how the Western Hemisphere was peopled, and the arguments they adduce are so convincing in their nature as to leave no doubt in the minds of unbiased persons.

It is now admitted that the presence of man in the Old World dates from an epoch so far distant as to be calculated only by reference to geological periods of which we know the succession but not the duration, and research has proved that the same holds good of the Western Hemisphere. Although man undoubtedly found his way from the Old World to the New, the period at which he did so is so remote that for all practical purposes he may be said to have peopled both hemispheres simultaneously. Indeed, "his relative antiquity in each has no bearing on the history of his advancement."

It is known that the American continent offers no example of the highly organized primates—for example, the larger apes—in which the Old World abounds, save man himself, and this circumstance is sufficient to prove that the human species must have reached America as strangers. Had man been native to the New World there would have been found side by side with him either existing or fossil representatives of the greater apes and other anthropoid animals which illustrate his pedigree in the Old World.

The Great Miocene Bridge

Again, many careful observers have noticed the striking resemblance between the natives of America and Northern Asia. At Bering Strait the Old World and the New are separated by a narrow sea-passage only, and an elevation of the sea-bed of less than two hundred feet would provide a 'land-bridge' at least thirty miles in breadth between the two continents. It is a geological fact that Bering Strait has been formed since the Tertiary period, and that such a 'land-bridge' once existed, to which American geologists have given the name of 'the Miocene bridge.' By this 'bridge,' it is believed, man crossed from Asia to America, and its subsequent disappearance confined him to the Western Hemisphere.

American Man in Glacial Times

That this migration occurred before the Glacial period is proved by the circumstance that chipped flints and other implements have been discovered in ice-drift at points in Ohio, Indiana, and Minnesota, to which it is known that the southern margin of the ice-sheet extended. This proves that man was driven southward by the advancing ice, as were several Old World animal species which had migrated to America. However, it is difficult in many cases to accept what may seem to be evidence of the presence of prehistoric man in North America with any degree of confidence, and it will be well to confine ourselves to the most authentic instances. In the loess of the Mississippi at Natchez Dr. Dickson found side by side with the remains of the mylodon and megalonyx human bones blackened by time. But Sir Charles Lyell pointed out that these remains might have been carried by the action of water from the numerous Indian places of burial in the neighbourhood. In New Orleans, while trenches were being dug for gas-pipes, a skeleton was discovered sixteen feet from the surface, the skull of which was embedded beneath a gigantic cypress-tree. But the deposit in which the remains were found was subsequently stated to be of recent origin. A reed mat was discovered at Petit Anse, Louisiana, at a depth of from fifteen to twenty feet, among a deposit of salt near the tusks or bones of an elephant. In the bottom-lands of the Bourbeuse River, in Missouri, Dr. Koch discovered the remains of a mastodon. It had sunk in the mud of the marshes, and, borne down by its own ponderous bulk, had been unable to right itself. Espied by the hunters of that dim era, it had been attacked by them, and the signs of their onset—flint arrow-heads and pieces of rock—were found mingled with its bones. Unable to dispatch it with their comparatively puny weapons, they had built great fires round it, the cinder-heaps of which remain to the height of six feet, and by this means they had presumably succeeded in suffocating it.

In Iowa and Nebraska Dr. Aughey found many evidences of the presence of early man in stone weapons mingled with the bones of the mastodon. In California, Colorado, and Wyoming scores of stone mortars, arrow-heads, and lance-points have been discovered in deposits which show no sign of displacement. Traces of ancient mining operations are also met with in California and the Lake Superior district, the skeletons of the primitive miners being found, stone hammer in hand, beneath the masses of rock which buried them in their fall. As the object of these searchers was evidently metal of some description, it may reasonably be inferred that the remains are of comparatively late date.