“The aboriginal people of America are generally considered as a department of the human family very distinct from the inhabitants of the Old World. The insulated situation of the continent, and the fact that it was so long unknown, and the tribes which it contains so long cut off from intercourse with other nations, are among the circumstances which have contributed to produce this impression. The American nations, taken in the aggregate, are neither among themselves so uniform and unvaried in the physical and moral qualities, nor is the line of distinction between them and the rest of mankind so strongly marked and so obvious, as most persons imagine. Yet it must be admitted that certain characters are discoverable which are common, or nearly so, to the whole of this department of nations; that there are strong indications, if not proofs, of a community of origin, or of very ancient relationship among them; and that in surveying collectively the people of the New World, we contemplate human nature under a peculiar aspect. On comparing the American tribes together, we find reasons to believe that they must have subsisted as a separate department of nations from the earliest ages of the world. Hence, in attempting to trace relations between them and the rest of mankind, we cannot expect to discover proofs of their derivation from any particular tribe or nation in the Old Continent. The era of their existence, as a distinct and insulated race, must probably be dated as far back as that time which separated into nations the inhabitants of the Old World, and gave to each branch of the human family its primitive language and individuality.”
The points which are supposed to indicate this relationship of the American aborigines inter se, and their distinction from the inhabitants of our continents, are, 1st, the structure of their language, in which—
“Striking analogies of grammatical construction have been recognised, not only in the more perfect languages, as that of the Incas, the Aymara, the Guarani, the Mexican, and the Cora, but also in languages extremely rude. Idioms, the roots of which do not resemble each other more than the roots of the Sclavonian and Biscayan, have resemblances of internal mechanism similar to those which are found in the Sanscrit, the Persian, the Greek, and the German languages.”
And, 2dly, their moral and social state, indicating a people which has anciently possessed institutions of a highly civilized character, such as, according to Dr Martius—
“A complicated form of government, regulated despotisms or monarchies, privileged orders, hierarchical and sacerdotal ordinances, systematic laws, the results of reflection, and a settled purpose, connected with marriage and inheritance, and family relationships, and other customs, which are strongly contrasted with the simple and unreflective habits of rude and uncivilized nations.
“The languages of these nations abound, as he says, with words expressive of metaphysical views and abstract conceptions. Their opinion respecting a future state, the nature and attributes of invisible agents, are strikingly different from those of nations who have never emerged from primitive barbarism. Another fact which tends, as M. Martius observes, to confirm the opinion that natives of the New World have fallen from a state of greater refinement, is their use, from immemorial ages, of certain domesticated animals and cultivated plants, and the notions which they entertained of the first acquisition of these possessions. Of such animals and plants the people of the Old World have their peculiar stock, and the American nations have their own entirely different.
“In the Old World we know not whence our horses, our dogs, cattle, and the various kinds of cerealian gramina were obtained, and the American nations are equally at a loss, when we enquire for the original stock of the dumb dog of the Mexicans, the llama, the root of the mandioca, the American corn, and of the quinoa.
“In the ancient world there were traditions of some mythical benefactors of mankind. Ceres, Triptolemus, Bacchus, Pallas, and Poseidon, who had contributed their gifts, corn and wine, the sacred olive, and the horse, and we infer that all these had been known from periods of remote antiquity.
“In America, likewise, tradition refers the knowledge of cultivated plants and domestic animals, and the art of tilling the earth, to some fabulous person who descended from the gods, or suddenly made his appearance among their ancestors, such as the Manco-Capac of the Peruvians, and the Xolotl and the Xiuhtlato of the Tollecas and Chicimecas.
“The remains of ancient sculpture and architecture spread over Mexico, Yucatan, and Chiapa, as well as over the high plain of Quito and other parts of South America, and the extensive works of art, consisting of fortifications and other relics, discovered in the Tenessi country, as well as in the inland parts of New Mexico on the Rio Gila, afford some further support to the hypothesis of M. Martius.