The third, so far from isolating the Otomi from the other languages of America, exhibits more than an average number of miscellaneous affinities, especially with the languages of California.
As to the Chinese and the other Seriform tongues, the question is not how like they are to the Otomi, but how much more like they are to the Otomi than to the Maya. And here the difference in favour of the Otomi is even less than we expect; since (merely from the doctrine of chances) two (or more) languages with short words will have a greater number of similarities (real or accidental) than two (or more) dissyllabic or polysyllabic languages.
So far, then, from isolating the Otomi as much as Naxera has done, I am disinclined to adopt, to their full extent, the far more moderate views of Molina and Gallatin; admitting at the same time that, of all the tongues of the New World, its structure, from being either anaptotic or imperfectly agglutinate, is the most remarkable.
The rude and imperfect civilization of the Otomis has often been contrasted with the better developed character of the—
MEXICANS (ASTEK).
Strictly speaking, this is a geographical rather than an ethnological term; perhaps it is more political than geographical. It means, as nearly as can be, the kingdom of Montezuma, as it was found by the Spanish conquerors of the fifteenth century. This seems, historically speaking, to have consisted of several states, more or less incorporated with that of the sovereign city; incorporated either in the way of confederation, as was the case with Tescuco, or as subject nations like the more distant dependencies. In the consolidation of the Mexican empire, I see nothing that differs in kind, from the confederacies of the Indians of the Algonkin, Sioux, and Cherokee families, although in degree, it had attained a higher development than has yet appeared; and I think that whoever will take the trouble to compare Strachey's[158] account of Virginia, where the empire of Powhattan had, at the time of the colonization, attained its height, with Prescott's Mexico, will find reason for breaking down that over-broad line of demarcation which is so frequently drawn between the Mexicans and the other Americans.
I think, too, that the social peculiarities of the Mexicans of Montezuma are not more remarkable than the external conditions of climate, soil, and land-and-sea relations; for it must be remembered that, as determining influences, towards the state in which they were found by Cortez, we have—
1. The contiguity of two oceans.
2. The range of temperature arising from the differences of altitude produced by the existence of great elevation, combined with an intertropical latitude, and the consequent variety of products.
3. The absence of the conditions of a hunter-state; the range of the buffalo not extending so far as the Anahuac.