OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 259 



handed down from generation to generation. These dances, which have special 

 names, as the buffalo dance, the war dance, the feather dance, and the fish dance, 

 are sometimes the recognized property of t. particular society or brotherhood, but 

 usually belong to the nation at large. Each has its own peculiar plan, steps and 

 method, its songs and choruses and its musical instruments ; and eacli is adapted 

 to some particular occasion. The dance is universally recognized amongst them as 

 a mode of worship, whence its elaborate character and wide distribution. Amongst 

 the Village Indians of New Mexico their dances are the same to day they were 

 centuries ago, and they are not distinguishable in their order, steps, and method, or 

 in their songs, choruses, and musical instruments, from the dances of the Iroquois, 

 the Dakotas, the Ojibwas, or the Blackfeet. They reveal the same conceptions, are 

 adapted to the same condition of society, and were apparently derived from a 

 common source. 



Fifthly. The Structure of Indian Society. The evidence from the structure of 

 Indian society bears decisively in the same direction. In the tribal organization, 

 whicli prevailed very generally, though not universally, amongst them ; and more 

 especially in their form of government by chiefs and councils, a uniformity of 

 organization prevailed throughout aU the Indian nations of North America, the 

 Village Indians inclusive. 



Lastly. Conformation in Cranial Characteristics. Dr. Morton collected and pre- 

 sented the evidence from this source. He subdivides the " American," which is 

 the fourth of his five great races of mankind, into two families, the American and 

 the Toltecan, the latter embracing the Village Indians.^ The ethnic unity of the 

 American aborigines, with the exception of the Eskimo, was one of the principal 

 conclusions reached by his investigations. It is proper to remark, however, that 

 the sufficiency of the evidence from this source to sustain this conclusion has been 

 repeatedly questioned.^ The systems of relationship of the several nations thus far 

 considered confirm Dr. Morton's conclusion to the extent of the number of nations 

 represented in the Table, whether the facts upon which he relied are found incon- 

 clusive or otherwise. 



From the commencement of this investigation the author has been extremely 

 desirous to procure the evidence in full, which the system of consanguinity and 

 affinity of the Village Indians might afford upon this important question. Its 

 determination is of paramount importance in Indian ethnography, as well as neces- 

 sary to its further advancement. So long as a doubt rests upon it, substantial pro- 

 gress is arrested. In the present attempt to establish the existence of an Indian 

 family upon the basis of their system of relationship, a nucleus only has thus far 

 been formed. Unless the Village Indians are found to be constituent members of 

 this family, in virtue of a common descent, the family itself will lose much of its 

 importance. The genetic connection of the two great divisions of the American 

 aborigines is rendered so far probable by the several considerations before adduced 



' Crania Americana, p. 5. 



» Dr. J. Aitken Meigs, Trans. Acad. Nat. Soi., Philadelphia, 18G0. " Observation.s upon the 

 Form of the Occiput in the Various Races of Men," cf. Wilson's Prehistoric Man, sec. ed. ch. xx. 



