WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 9 



1 



3S8, 399, 629, and so on, and the question is asked, Why may 

 they not have reached Mexico on the east? Migration on paral- 

 lels of latitude with no intervening ocean is one matter; to go from 

 latitude 30° on one side of the Pacific almost to the Arctic Ocean, 

 and down on the other side nearly to the equator, is quite another 

 exploit. It is assumed that five priests had gone to Mexico in 468 

 a. d., and there ingrafted Buddhistic cult on the races with whom 

 they came in contact. It is simply beyond reason to believe that the 

 introduction of Buddhism into Mexico antedated by half a century 

 its introduction into Japan. Communication between Korea and 

 Japan has been from the earliest times one without effort or peril: 

 in the one case a trip of a day or more, in the other case a journey 

 of unnumbered thousands of miles through perilous seas, across 

 stormy fiords and raging waters, including arctic and tropical 

 climates and contact with multitudinous savage hordes. Those who 

 hold that Mexico and Central America were powerfully affected by 

 Asiatic contact must be called upon to explain the absence of cer- 

 tain Asiatic arts and customs which would have been introduced by 

 any contact of sufficient magnitude to leave its impress so strongly 

 in other directions. A savage people takes but little from a civilized 

 people save its diseases, gunpowder, and rum. The contact of bar- 

 barous with civilized people results in an interchange of many useful 

 objects and ideas, but these introductions must be through repeated 

 invasions and by considerable numbers. Peschel, while believing in 

 the Asiatic origin of the American race, would place the time far 

 back in the savage state. He repudiates the Fusang idea, and ex- 

 presses his belief that " a high state of civilization can not be trans- 

 mitted by a few individuals, and that the progress in culture takes 

 place in dense populations and by means of a division of labor which 

 fits each individual into a highly complex but most effective organi- 

 zation," and then insists that " the phenomena of American civili- 

 zation originated independently and spontaneously"; and Keane 

 shows how interesting the social, religious, and political institutions 

 of America become when " once severed from the fictitious Asiatic 

 connection and influences." That the savage derives little or derives 

 slowly from contact with a superior race is seen in the fact that he 

 still remains savage. Thus the Ainu, a low, savage people, though 

 they have been in contact with the Japanese for nearly two thou- 

 sand years, have never acquired the more powerful Mongolian arrow 

 release, while the Persians, though Aryan, yet early acquired this 

 release from their Mongolian neighbors. The Scandinavians, who 

 in prehistoric times practiced the primary release, yet later acquired 

 the more efficient Mediterranean method. Let us for a moment con- 

 sider what would have occurred as a result of an Asiatic contact with 



