Aboriginal Race of America. 193 



ia the dark Californiaii or the fair Borroa, he is an Indian still, 

 and cannot be mistaken for a being of any other race. 



The same conformity of organization is not less obvious in 

 the osteological structure of these people, as seen in the 

 squared or rounded head, the flattened or vertical occiput, the 

 high cheek bones, the ponderous maxillae, the large quadran- 

 gular orbits, and the low, receding forehead. I have had op- 

 portunity to compare nearly four hundred crania, derived from 

 tribes inhabiting almost every region of both Americas, and 

 have been astonished to find how the preceding characters, in 

 greater or less degree, pervade them all. 



This remark is equally applicable to the ancient and mod- 

 ern nations of our continent ; for the oldest skulls from the 

 Peruvian cemeteries, the tombs of Mexico and the mounds of 

 our own country, are of the same type as the heads of the 

 most savage existing tribes. Their physical organization 

 proves the origin of one to have been equally the origin of 

 all. The various civilized nations are to this day represented 

 by their lineal descendants who inhabit their ancestral seats, 

 and differ in no exterior respect from the wild and unculti- 

 vated Indians ; at the same time, in evidence of their lineage, 

 Clavigero and other historians inform us, that the Mexicans and 

 Peruvians yet possess a latent mental superiority which has 

 not been subdued by three centuries of despotism. And 

 again, with respect to the royal personages and other privi- 

 leged classes, there is indubitable evidence that they were of 

 the same native stock, and presented no distinctive attributes 

 excepting those of a social or political character. 



The observations of Molina and Humboldt are sometimes 

 ({uoted in disproof of this pervading uniformity of physical 

 characters. Molina says that the difference between an in- 

 habitant of Chili and a Peruvian is not less than between an 

 Italian and a German ; to which Humboldt adds, that the 

 American race contains nations whose features differ as essen- 

 tially from one another as those of the Circassians, Moors and 

 Persians. But all these people are of one and the same race^ 

 and readily recognized as such, notwithstanding their differ- 



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