American Aboriginies

Back of the Columbian Era of fourteen years (1492-1506) lies primitive America. America "as she lay by the sources of Time;" mysterious, unknown, primeval America, with "her vigorous, primitive sons." There is something fascinating in the study of pre-Columbian America. The American Continents, North and South, are so vast, their ancient people so incomprehensible as to their origin and history, that they will furnish a rich field for Archaeological and Ethnological research for many a century yet to come.

Ever since 1492 there has been an unsolved question of international interest. Who are the American Indians? Whence came the inhabitants of the new-found world? The inquiry has furnished the subject of many a ponderous folio, with answers as varied as the questioners. But have we ever heard the question asked, "Whence came the African negroes?" The reply is anticipated, "from Africa!" They constitute the African, or negro, subspecies of man. Yet, when the question is asked, "Who are the Red-men of America?" our wise men shake their heads and reply, "We are divided!" Whey do they not answer, "From America!" For the misnamed Red-men of our Western Continent constitute just as distinct a sub-species of the human race as do the African for the Caucasians. There are those who say that the great five Continental areas have each molded the prehistoric man into a type of body and mind peculiar to itself, hence the five races of men.

A theory has been advanced, also, that these Five Races represent five simultaneous creations. We read in Genesis, Chapter 1st, 27th verse, "So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." The plural form is used in the first chapter, and the singular form in the second chapter of Genesis. From the second chapter of Genesis, on, the Old Testament is the continued history of one pair. The Adam and Eve, the man and the woman, from whom, by direct descent, the Christ came. Sacred history introduces other peoples and races of men; but the Adamic creation of man, from Genesis to Revelation, is sufficient, as a type, for the purpose of God in the creation of man. The theory of the simultaneous creation of the five races in no way conflicts with the Sacred Scriptures. These five races, so the advocates of this theory affirm, have peopled the whole earth, each pair having been adapted to the "Garden" in which they were placed. And still further, they argue, no new race has been found to exist. Men of all climes and countries are either of the Caucasian, or white race; Malay, or brown; Ethiopian, or black; Mongolian, or yellow; American, or red. The scientists, who accept the theory, therefore dismiss as trivial all attempts to connect the Aborigines of America, whom we mis-call Indians, with any other race genealogically; nor do they attempt to trace the found on the American Continents to the forms of the Old World.

The great search of these scientists is now only to obtain a clue as to the antiquity of the Red-race. Philology is the strongest test now used in the classification of the races. It is upon Philology that American Ethnology is based. Eighty distinct languages are traceable in North America, and one hundred in South America. These have separated into so many dialects, as spoken by different tribes, that the Indian, or native American languages, number several hundred.

Dr. Daniel G. Brinton in his essay on "Native Dialects" says: "The exceeding diversity of languages in America, and the many dialects into which they have split, are cogent proofs of the vast antiquity of the red race, stretching back tens of thousand of years. Nothing else can explain these multitudinous forms of speech. But, underlying all these varied forms of expression, there are found some roots common to all, and never quite absent from any of them, that are totally unlike any other than American languages." This, then, is strong proof that red-men are indigenous to America, and all effort to find a foreign origin for them has thus far failed. But opposed to this theory of specific diversity is the still more firmly established theory of the unity of the human race, and some of the deepest thinkers of today are going back to the opinion of St. Paul and the first chapter of Genesis.

The North American Indians have been classified under three great divisions:

Dr. Brinton in his "Race and Peoples" says: "All the higher civilizations are contained in the Pacific group. The Mexicans belong to it by derivation and original location."

The history of America, as we know it, begins with the close of the fifteenth century. But while this is true in a general sense, yet strictly speaking, the history of the different sections of the Continents, North and South, begin with the first knowledge obtained of them by European nations. Thus the discovery of the "New World" was progressive.