164 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



section, whether the term had best be kept up or amended, or a new 

 term substituted. It is quite worth while to discuss the name, con- 

 sidering what an important question of anthropology is involved in 

 the institution it expresses. In this region there were found Iroquois, 

 Algonquins, Dakotas, separate in language, and yet whose social life 

 was regulated by the matriarchal totem structure. May it not be in- 

 ferred from such a state of things, that social institutions form a 

 deeper-lying element in man than language or even physical race- 

 type ? This is a problem which presents itself for serious discussion, 

 when the evidence can be brought more completely together. 



It is obvious that, in this speculation, as in other problems now pre- 

 senting themselves in anthropology, the question of the antiquity of 

 man lies at the basis. Of late no great progress has been made toward 

 fixing a scale of calculation of the human period, but the arguments as 

 to time required for alterations in valley-levels, changes of fauna, evo- 

 lution of races, languages, and culture, seem to converge more conclu- 

 sively than ever toward a human period short indeed as a fraction of 

 geological time, but long as compared with historical or chronological 

 time. While, however, it is felt that length of time need not debar 

 the anthropologists from hypotheses of development and migration, 

 there is more caution as to assumptions of millions of years where no 

 arithmetical basis exists, and less tendency to treat everything prehis- 

 toric as necessarily of extreme antiquity, such as, for instance, the Swiss 

 lake-dwelling and the Central American temples. There are certain 

 problems of American anthropology which are not the less interesting 

 for involving no considerations of high antiquity ; indeed, they have 

 the advantage of being within the check of history, though not them- 

 selves belonging to it. 



Humboldt's argument as to traces of Asiatic influence in Mexico is 

 one of these. The four ages in the Aztec picture-writings, ending with 

 catastrophes of the four elements, earth, fire, air, water, compared by 

 him with the same scheme among the Banyans of Surat, is a strong 

 piece of evidence which would become yet stronger if the Hindoo book 

 could be found from which the account is declared to have been taken. 

 Not less cogent is his comparison of the zodiacs or calendar-cycles of 

 Mexico and Central America with those of Eastern Asia, such as that 

 by which the Japanese reckon the sixty-year cycle by combining the 

 elements seriatim with the twelve animals. Mouse, Bull, Tiger, Hare, 

 etc. ; the present year is, I suppose, the second water-ape year, and the 

 time of day is the goat-hour. Humboldt's case may be re-enforced by 

 the consideration of the magical employment of these zodiacs in the 

 Old and New World. The description of a Mexican astrologer, sent 

 for to make the arrangements for a marriage by comparing the zodiac 

 animals of the birthdays of bride and bridegroom, might have been 

 written almost exactly of the modern Calmucks ; and in fact it seems 

 connected in origin with similar rules in our own books of astrology. 



