1358 



VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



ficient reason ; and if this be the case, another 

 link of transition exists, which, with those 

 previously named, brings the two groups into 

 such relations, that their separation cannot be 

 justified. By Dr. Latham, accordingly, the 

 Syro- Arabian or Semitic race is ranked with 

 the African under the general designation 

 Atlantidce. 



IV. AMERICAN NATIONS. The aboriginal 

 inhabitants of America have been considered 

 by some ethnologists as a department of the 

 human family very distinct from the inhabit- 

 ants of the Old World ; and attempts have 

 been frequently made to define them as a race 

 by physical characters. But these attempts 

 have been founded upon a very imperfect 

 acquaintance with the nations peopling this 

 vast continent ; for, taken in the aggregate, 

 they are by no means uniform either in phy- 

 sical qualities, in intellectual endowments, 

 moral character, or grade of civilisational 

 development ; nor is the line of distinction 

 between them and the rest of mankind nearly 

 so obvious or strongly marked as is usually 

 imagined. Thus the native Americans have 

 been described as " red-men ; " but there are 

 tribes equally red, and perhaps more deserv- 

 ing that epithet, in Africa and Polynesia ; and 

 the American nations are by no means all of 

 a red or copper hue, some being as fair as 

 many European people, others being brown 

 or yellow, and others nearly, if not quite, as 

 black as the Negroes of Africa. Again, it 

 has been attempted by anatomists to dis- 

 tinguish the American races by a certain con- 

 figuration of skull and form of features ; and 



Fig. 845. 



even Dr. Morton, in his splendid work en- 

 titled " Crania Americana," has given his 

 authority in support of the opinion, that such 

 distinctive characters are to be found " in the 

 squared or rounded head, the flattened and 

 vertical occiput, the high cheek-bones, the 

 ponderous maxillae, the large quadrangular 

 orbits, and the low receding forehead." 

 Nevertheless, even he is obliged to admit that 

 very considerable diversities present them- 

 selves in the cranial conformation of the 

 American nations ; and he altogether ex- 

 cludes the Esquimaux, who, according to the 

 evidence of language, must be regarded as 

 being as truly an American people as any 

 other, in spite of their obvious conformity to 

 the Mongolian type of cranial configuration. 

 And it will be observed that many of the 

 characters just enumerated are those of the 

 Mongolian cranium ; a decided approximation 

 to which may be seen among several tribes, 

 whose dwelling is much further south than 

 that of the Esquimaux. The testimony of 

 travellers who have visited parts of the con- 

 tinent remote from each other, and who have 

 scrutinized with observant eyes the physi- 

 ognomy and form of head, not in individuals 

 only, but in nations, is very decided as to the 

 marked varieties in configuration which pre- 

 sent thonselves among these ; thus, says that 

 eminent zoologist, M. D'Orbigny, " A Peru- 

 vian is more different from a Patagonian, and 

 a Patagonian from a Guarani, than is a Greek 

 from an Ethiopian or a Mongolian." The ac- 

 companying figures present examples of this 

 diversity (jftgs. 845 and 846). 



Fig. 846. 



Indian of the Oto tribe, basin of the Jtfississippi. 

 (From the " Atlas du Voyage du Prince de Neu- 

 wied."*) 



Notwithstanding this diversity in their phy- 

 sical characters, however, there is strong 

 evidence that the American nations constitute 

 one natural family, bound together by com- 

 munity of descent. This appears from the 



South American of the Charruan tribe. (From 

 a portrait by Werner, in the Museum of Paris.) 



remarkable relationship which has been dis- 

 covered among their languages ; not, however, 

 in their words or even their roots, but in their 

 grammatical construction. In regard to vo- 

 cabulary, indeed, there are few parts of the 



