Aboriginal Race of America. 201 



I have elsewhere ventured to designate these demi-civihzed 

 nations by the collective name of the Toltecan Family : for 

 although the Mexican annals date their civilization from a 

 period long antecedent to the appearance of the Toltecas, yet 

 the latter seem to have cultivated the arts and sciences to a 

 degree unknown to their predecessors. Besides, the various 

 nations which at different times invaded and possessed them- 

 selves of Mexico, were characterized by the same fundamen- 

 tal language and the same physical traits, together with a 

 strong analogy in their social institutions : and as the appear- 

 ance of the Incas in Peru was nearly simultaneous with the 

 dispersion of the Toltecas, in the year 1050 of our era, there 

 is reasonable ground for the conjecture that the Mexicans and 

 Peruvians were branches of the genuine Toltecan stock. 

 We have alluded to a civilization antecedent to the appearance 

 of the Incas, and which had already passed away when they 

 assumed the government of the country. There are tradi- 

 tional and monumental evidences of this fact which can leave 

 no doubt on the mind, although of its date we can form no 

 just conception. It may have even preceded the Christian 

 era, nor do we know of any positive reasons to the contrary. 

 Chronology may be called the crutch of history ; but with all 

 its imperfections it would be invaluable here, where no clue 

 remains to unravel those mysterious records which excite our 

 research but constantly elude our scrutiny. We may be per- 

 mitted, however, to repeat what is all-important to the present 

 inquiry, that these Ancient Peruvians were the progenitors of 

 the existing Aymara tribes of Peru, while these last are iden- 

 tified in every particular with the people of the great Inca 

 race. AH the monuments which these various nations have 

 left behind them, over a space of three thousand miles, go 

 also to prove a common origin, because, notwithstanding some 

 minor differences, certain leading features pen^ade and charac- 

 terize them all. 



Whether the hive of the civilized nations was, as some 

 suppose, in the fabled region of Aztlan in the north, or wheth- 

 er, as the learned Cabrera has endeavored to shew, their na- 

 tive scats were in Chiapas and Guatimala, we may not stoj 



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