Aboriginal Race of America. 203 



form an intermediate link between the two. Such are the 

 AraucanianSj whose language and customs, and even whose 

 arts, prove their direct affiliation with the Peruvians, although 

 they far surpass the latter in sagacity and courage, at the 

 same time that their social institutions present many features 

 of intractable barbarism. So also the Aztec rulers of Mexi- 

 co at the period of the Spanish invasion, exhibit, with their 

 bloody sacrifices and multiform idolatry, a strong contrast to 

 the gentler spirit of the Toltecas who preceded them, and 

 whose arts and ingenuity they had usurped. Still later in this 

 intermediate series were the Natchez tribes of the Mississippi, 

 who retained some traces of the refinement of their Mexican 

 progenitoi-s, mingled with many of the rudest traits of savage 

 life. It is thus that we can yet trace all the gradations, link 

 by link, which connect these extremes together, showing 

 that although the civilization of these nations is fast becom- 

 ing obsolete, although their arts and sciences have passed away 

 with a former generation, still the people remain in all other 

 respects unchanged, although a variety of causes has long 

 been urging them onward to deep degradation and rapid ex- 

 tinction. Strange as these intellectual revolutions may seem, 

 we venture to assert that, all circumstances being considered, 

 they are not greater than those which have taken place be- 

 tween the ancient and modern Greeks. If we had not incon- 

 testable evidence to prove the fact, who would believe that the 

 ancestors of the Greeks of the present day were the very 

 people who gave glory to the Age of Pericles ! 



It may still be insisted that the religion and the arts of the 

 American nations point to Asia and Egypt ; but it is obvious, 

 as Humboldt and others have remarked, that these resemblan- 

 ces may have arisen from similar wants and impulses, acting 

 on nations in many respects similarly circumstanced. '■'■ It 

 would indeed be not only singular but wonderful and unac- 

 countable," observes Dr. Caldwell, " if tribes and nations of 

 men, possessed of similar attributes of mind and body, re- 

 siding in similar climates and situations, iniluenced by simi- 

 lar states of society, and obliged to support themselves by 

 similaj means, in similar pursuits, — it would form a problem 



