245 Origin of the American Nations. 



and from them alone it would appear that the Americans 

 are defcended. Of this I (hall here give a few proofs. 



I ft, The Hottentot women, from the age of twelve, always 

 wear thongs of (beep or calves (kin wrapped round their legs 

 from the knee down to the ancle bone. The inhabitants of 

 the Caribce iflands, in America, bind fimilar thongs around 

 the legs of their women after the age of twelve, only with 

 this difference, that the latter are of cotton. This difference 

 is owing to the Hottentots having plenty of cattle and fheop, 

 in which the Caribs are deficient. The women, therefore, 

 alone wear fuch bandages on their legs ; the reafon of which 

 perhaps is, that the women go out to the fields and woods to 

 labour, and consequently muft fecure their legs and feet from 

 being pricked by briers and thorns. 



2d, When a Hottentot widow intends to marry again, for 

 each hufband with whom fhe is afterwards united fhe muft 

 cut off a joint of one of her fingers, always beginning with 

 the little finger. The Tucumans, a people of Brazil, have a 

 fimilar cuftom ; for on certain occafions, but of a different 

 nature, they muft cut off one finger of the left hand. The 

 Hottentot women cut off a joint when they marry again, but 

 the Brazilians cut off their fingers on the death of their neareft 

 relations. 



3d, The Hottentot and the Carib women bend the limbs 

 of their deeeafed friends till they affume that form which they 

 had in the mother's womb. 



4th, The idolatrous negroes in Africa have almoft the 

 fame religious ceremonies as the Americans, but it would be 

 too tedious to enumerate them. Thofe defirous of making 

 fhe companion may perufe the account of George Candidius, 

 the Dutch clergyman. 



I have coneluded, from the cuftom s common to both na- 

 tions, that the Peruvians are defcended from the Chinefe, 

 though they are feparated by an extenfive ocean. If this be 

 probable, the probability in regard to the inhabitants of 

 the weftern coaft of Africa is frill greater, for of all people 

 of the earth thefe approach the neareft to the Americans. 

 Thefe two people, however, are feparated by the Atlantic ; 

 but the breadth of it from Guinea to Brazil is not more than 

 twenty decrees; and befides this, an eafterly wind generally 

 prevails in that fea, which fometimes drives the European 

 (hips to the coafi of Brazil. I am not, however, of opinion 

 that America was peopled from China and the weftern coaft 

 of Aiiica alone. As the fmall boats of the Laplanders, which 

 • can carry only one man, and which are employed for cateri- 

 ng 



