Mr. Ranking on the Origin of American Indians. 327 



suddenly, which omen portended certain ruin*. The Indians, 

 who came with the Spaniards from Mexico and Tlascala, were 

 persuaded of the identity of their origin with the Guatemalans, 

 Juarros, p. 165. It was in Veragua, the south province of 

 Guatemala, that Columbus saw the first solid architecture of 

 stone and lime, and copper hatchets at Honduras. He found 

 a warlike people, and a chief, at whose dwelling 300 skulls of 

 enemies were exhibited. Columbus felt persuaded that this 

 was the coast of Asia. (See Life of Columbus, by Washing- 

 ton Irving, vol. iii. pp. 200, 225, 259.) Thus the architecture 

 and civilization of Guatemala cannot be referred to an earlier 

 period than A.D. 1052, and much of it is no doubt considerably 

 later, from its corresponding with the gigantic style of the Pe- 

 ruvians and Mexicans. 



Since the publication of No. V. of this Journal, the writer 

 has conversed with Mr. Herrick, who had been an agent for a 

 fur company, and who resided several years with the Indians, 

 The Winnebagos, near Lake Michegan, he recognised instantly, 

 in the portraits of the Palenque inhabitants, some of which 

 are complete resemblances. He describes them as a tall, well- 

 made people, brave, honourable, and dignified in their deport- 

 ment ; and that they sit cross-legged, and smoke their pipes 

 just like the Turks of Europe, to whom they bear so strong a 

 personal likeness. They also make exactly the same rude 

 drawings and marks as those represented in Strahlenberg's 

 History of Siberia. (Since writing the above, the heroic de- 

 portment and description of Kedbird, their wealthy chief, who 

 voluntarily surrendered himself to justice, for killing a man, 

 and who died in prison, is a confirmation. — Morning Herald^ 

 June 2, 1828.) 



We shall now describe some other Indians. " We passed 

 by a village of the Cappa, (lat. 34°.) They worship but one 

 divinity, which discovers itself in a certain animal, such as it 

 shall please their jugglers, or priests, to pitch onf . When that 

 animal dies there is great mourning, and a new mortal deity is 



* The Mexicans and Peruvians, it has been shown in their history, were equally 

 Buperstiiious with regard to omens. " Para Hotun, which means the city of th© 

 Tiger, was built on tlie Kerlon in the time of the Grand Kublai, and was so named 

 from the cry of a tiger, which they thought a good omen." — Du Haider ii. 251. 



t This is precisely a Calmuc custom, — Pallas, toI, i. p. 570. 



