582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



CERTAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SOUTH AMERICANS 



OF TO-DAY 



By Professor HIRAM BINGHAM 



TALE UNIVERSITY 



~1 FNTIL very recently, the average newspaper article and the talk 

 v-J of the average person, so far as it went, took it for granted that 

 South America was a region devoted to revolutions and fevers, where 

 individuals called South Americans spent their time in a cheerful state 

 of anarchy. There are novels and plays that still maintain this pleas- 

 ing fiction, although, thanks to a recent enlightened secretary of state 

 and an energetic director of the Bureau of American Republics, we 

 know much more about South America than we did. In fact, we are 

 beginning to distinguish to a certain extent between the stable re- 

 publics of Argentina and Chile and the troublesome ones like Vene- 

 zuela, but we still like to speak of the people as " South Americans " 

 and it is fair to do so. 



A race is rising in South America that is different from anything 

 that the world has yet seen. It is a hybrid product composed for the 

 most part of the blood of Spaniards and South American aborigines, 

 such as Quichuas, Araucanians and Abipones. There is also an in- 

 filtration of various European stocks. It is true that there are differ- 

 ences between the peoples of the several South American republics, 

 just as there were great differences between the aboriginal Indian 

 tribes. At the same time, there is so much of the blood that came from 

 the Hispanic peninsula and this has been for so many generations the 

 dominant factor, that it is possible to consider the people of South 

 America more or less as a whole. 



It must also be admitted at the beginning that there are many 

 South Americans who can not be included in any general criticism. 

 There are many families of pure Castilian ancestry who rightfully re- 

 sent any implication that they are hybrids because they are South 

 Americans. And they would also prefer not to have the pure-blooded 

 Indians counted as South Americans, although the latter constitute a 

 majority of the population in several republics, notably Bolivia and 

 Peru. We ought easily to be able to appreciate the fact that such a 

 broad term as " South American " must include many diametrically 

 opposite types, for foreigners are finding it increasingly difficult, nay 

 almost impossible, to define and fix the limit of our own characteristics 

 as " Americans." A hundred years ago it was simple enough. People 

 of English descent dominated things everywhere. To-day we are a 



