318 Dr Prichard 07i the Varieties 



skulls and features, and the American tribes near Brazil, 

 Many tribes in the Western World have flatter features, more 

 approaching to the Mongolian, than the nations of North Ame- 

 rica ; and if we were to adhere to a classification founded en- 

 tirely on the principle of physical peculiarities, it would be dif- 

 ficult to discover a precise line of discrimination, by which all 

 the native tribes of Americans are to be distinguished from the 

 groups of nations which constitute Cuvier*s ' race MongoUque.'' 

 If the triple division of skulls is maintained, those of the Ame- 

 rican nations must be referred to the Mongolian form. Here, 

 then, we have a wide extension of this family, which thus comes 

 to include a greater assemblage of nations beyond the limits of 

 Asia, whose languages, though multiplied, have some common 

 characters ; and it is worthy of notice, that those common cha- 

 racters are the very reverse of the peculiarities, which, as above 

 mentioned, distinguish the Chinese and Indo-Chinese languages 

 from all others. The latter are monosyllabic, and hardly in- 

 flected ; the American languages, as we have observed, abound 

 in long polysyllables, and in their modes of inflection are re- 

 fined and elaborate, admitting almost infinite variety of termi- 

 nation and change of structure. As a class of languages, they 

 have obtained the distinguishing term polysinthetic. 



" The Malays, a people whose original seat, or, as I would 

 rather say, earliest known position, is the island of Sumatra, 

 and from whom were descended, as it appears, all the Poly- 

 nesian tribes of the great Southern Ocean, associate themselves 

 more nearly with this department of nations than any other ; 

 and if referable to either of the three divisions, must be in- 

 cluded in the Mongolian department. The history of these 

 tribes will present us with many physical phenomena very ad- 

 verse to the fundamental principle on which the tripartite di- 

 vision of races can alone be maintained. This principle is the 

 assumption that all physical characters are permanent and im- 

 mutable. Now, we have reason to believe that some of the 

 tribes of Polynesian islanders have deviated in a most remark- 

 able manner from the physical character most generally pre- 

 valent in their stock. Individuals are seen among the natives 

 of the Society Islands of fair and sanguine complexion, and the 

 Marquesans are among the finest races of men existing ; their 



