Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8) / Aboriginal America

by Unknown

Of all European countries, the most has been done in France, by way of periodical system and corporate organizations, to advance the study of American anthropology, ethnology, and archæology. The Annales des voyages, de la géographie et de l’histoire, traduits de toutes les langues Européennes; des relations originales, inédites,[1929] the publication of which was begun by Malte-Brun in 1808 and continued to 1814, and the Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, begun in 1819 and continued with a slightly varying title till 1870, are sources occasionally of much importance. At a later day, Edouard Lartet and others have used the Annales des Sciences Naturelles as a medium for their publications. We hardly trace here, however, any corporate movement before the institution of the Société de Géographie de Paris in 1820. In 1824 it issued the first volume of its Recueil de Voyages et de Mémoires, which reached seven volumes in 1864, and had included (vol. ii.) an account of Palenqué and the researches of Warden on the antiquities of the United States. Since this society began the issue of its Bulletin in 1827, it has occasionally given assistance in the study of American archæology.

The earliest distinctive periodical on the subject was the Revue Américaine, of which, in 1826-27, three volumes, in monthly parts, were published in Paris.[1930] In 1857 a movement was inaugurated which engaged first and last the coöperation of some eminent scholars in these studies, like Aubin, Buschmann, V. A. Malte-Brun, Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, Jomard, Alphonse Pinart, Cortambert, Léon de Rosny, Waldeck, Abbé Domenech, Charencey, etc. The active movers were first known as the Comité d’Archéologie Américaine, and they issued an Annuaire (1863-67) and one volume, at least, of Actes (1865), as well as a collection of Mémoires sur l’archéologie Américaine (1865). This organization soon became known as the Société Américaine de France, and under the auspices of this name there has been a series of publications of varying designation.[1931] Its Annuaire began in 1868, and has been continued. The general name of Archives de la Société Américaine de France covers its other publications, which more or less coincide with the Revue Orientale et Américaine par Léon de Rosny, the first series of which appeared in Paris in 10 vols., in 1859-65, followed by a second, the first volume of which (vol. xi. of the whole) is called Revue Américaine, publié sous les auspices de la Société d’Ethnographie et du Comité d’Archéologie Américaine, and is at the same time the fourth volume of the Actes de la Société d’Ethnographie Américaine et Orientale. The whole series is sometimes cited as the Mémoires de la Société d’Ethnographie.[1932] The series, already referred to, of the Archives de la Soc. Amér. de France is made up thus: Première série: vol. i., Revue Orientale et Américaine; ii., Revue Américaine; iii. and iv., Revue Orientale et Américaine.[1933] The nouvelle série has no sub-titles, and the three volumes bear date 1875, 1876, 1884.

The student of comparative anthropology will resort to the Materiaux pour l’histoire positive et philosophique (later primitive et naturelle) de l’homme, the publication of which was begun at Paris in 1864 by Gabriel de Mortillet, and has been continued by Trutot, Cartailhac, Chautre, and others. This publication has contained abstracts of the proceedings of an annual gathering in Paris, whose Comptes rendu have been printed at length as of the Congrès international d’anthropologie et d’archéologie préhistoriques (1865, etc.).[1934]

Léon de Rosny published but a single volume of a projected series, Archives paléographiques de l’Orient et de l’Amérique (Paris, 1870-71), which contains some papers on Mexican picture-writing. Rosny and others, who had been active in the movement begun by the Comité d’Archéologie Américaine, were now instrumental in organizing the periodical gathering in different cities of Europe, which is known as the Congrès international des Américanistes. The first session was held at Nancy in 1875, and its Compte Rendu was published in two volumes (Nancy and Paris, 1876). The second meeting was at Luxembourg in 1877 (Compte Rendu, Paris, 1878, in 2 vols.); the third at Brussels in 1879 (Compte Rendu); the fourth at Madrid in 1881 (Congreso internacional de Américanistas. Cuarta reunion, Madrid, 1881); the fifth at Copenhagen (Compte Rendu, Copenhagen, 1884); and others at Chalons-sur-Marne, Turin, and Berlin. The papers are printed in the language in which they were read.

The Mémoires de la Société d’Ethnographie (founded in 1859) began to appear in 1881, and its third volume (1882) is entitled Les Documents écrits de l’Antiquité Américaine, compte rendu d’une mission scientifique en Espagne et en Portugal, par Léon de Rosny, avec une carte et 10 planches. The fourth volume is P. de Lucy-Fossarieu’s Ethnographie de l’Amérique Antarctique (Paris, 1884). In the second volume of a new series there is an account by V. Devaux of the work in American ethnology done by Lucien de Rosny as a preface to a posthumous work[1935] of Lucien de Rosny, Les Antilles, étude d’Ethnographie et d’Archéologique Américaines (Paris, 1886).

Latterly there has been a consolidation of interests among kindred societies under the name of Institution Ethnographique, whose initial Rapport annuel sur les récompenses et encouragements décernés en 1883 was published at Paris in 1883. This society now comprises the Société d’Ethnographie, Société Américaine de France, Athénée Oriental, and Société des Etudes Japonaises.

In England, organized efforts for the record of knowledge began with the creation of the Royal Society, though certain sporadic attempts had earlier been known. America was represented among its founders in the younger John Winthrop, and Cotton Mather was a contributor to its transactions, and there has occasionally been a paper in its publications of interest to American archæologists.[1936] The Society of Antiquaries began to print its Archæologia in 1779 and its Proceedings in 1848, and the American student finds some valuable papers in them. The British Association for the Advancement of Science began its Reports with the meeting of 1831, and it has had among its divisions a section of anthropology. In 1830 the Royal Geographical Society began its Journal with a preliminary issue (1830-31, in 2 vols.), though its regular series first came out in 1832. Its Proceedings appeared in 1855, and both publications are a conspicuous source in many ways relating to early American history.[1937] Closely connected with its interest has been the publication begun under the editing of C. R. Markham, and called successively Ocean Highways (1869-73, vol. i.-v.), with an added title of Geographical Review (1873-74), and lastly as The Geographical Magazine (vol. i.-iii., 1874-76).

The Ethnological Society published four volumes of a Journal[1938] between 1844 and 1856, and resuming published two more volumes in 1869-70. Its contents are mainly of interest in comparative study, though there are a few American papers, like D. Forbes’s on the Aymara Indians of Peru. This society’s Transactions was issued in two volumes, 1859-60; and again in seven volumes, 1861-69.

Meanwhile, some gentlemen, not content with the restricted field of the Ethnological Society, founded in London an Anthropological Society, which began the publication of Memoirs (1863-69, in 3 vols.); and in this publication Bollaert issued his papers on the population of the new world, on the astronomy of the red man, on American paleography, on Maya hieroglyphics, on the anthropology of the new world, on Peruvian graphic records,—not to name other papers by different writers. The Transactions and Journal of the society, as well as the Popular Magazine of Anthropology (1866), made part in one form or another of the Anthropological Review, begun in 1863, and discontinued in 1870, when the Journal of Anthropology succeeded, but ceased the next year. The Proceedings of the society make one volume, 1873-75, under the title of Anthropologia, and the society also maintained a series of translations of foreign treatises, the first of which was Theodor Waitz’s Introduction to Anthropology, ed. from the German by J. F. Collingwood (1863); and this was followed by a version by James Hunt, the president of the society, of Professor Carl Vogt’s Lectures on Man, his place in Creation and in the history of the Earth (1864), and by other works of Broca, Pouchet, Blumenbach, etc.