292 PHYSICAL ETHNOLOGY. 



like results follow wliPii the same critical investigation is applied to other proofs 

 adduced in support of this attractive but unsubstantial theory. Dr. Morton, after 

 completing his elaborate and valuable illustrations of American craniology, intro- 

 duces an engraving of a mummy of a Muysca Indian of New Granada, and 

 adds : "As an additional evidence of the unity of race and species in the Amer- 

 ican nations, 1 shall now adduce the singular fact that, from Patagonia to Canada, 

 and from ocean to ocean, and equally in the civilized and uncivilized tiibes, a 

 peculiar mode of placing the body in sepulture has been practiced from imme- 

 morial time. This peculiarity consists in the sitting posture."* The author 

 accordingly proceeds to marshal his evidence in proof of the practice of such a 

 mode of interment among many separate and independent tribes; nor is it diffi- 

 cult to do so, for it was a usage of greatly more extended recognition than his 

 theory of "unity of race and species" implies. It was a prevailing, though by 

 no means universal mode of sepulture among the tribes of the New World, as 

 it was among many of those of the Old, recorded by the pen of Herodotus, and 

 proved by sepulchral disclosures pertaining to still older eras. The British 

 cromlechs show that the very same custom was followed by their builders in 

 primitive times. The ancient barrows of Scandinavia reveal the like fact, and 

 abundant evidence proves the existence of such sepulchral rites„ in ancient or 

 modern times, in every quarter of the globe; so that, if the prevalence of a 

 peculiar mode of interment of the dead may be adduced as evidence of the unity 

 of race and species, it can only operate by reuniting the lost links which restore 

 to the red man his common share in the genealogy of the sons of Adam. But 

 ancient and modern discoveries also prove considerable diversity in the sepulchral 

 rites of all nations. The skeleton has beaa found in a sitting posture in British 

 cromlechs, barrows, and graves, of dates to all appearance long prior to the era 

 of Roman invasion, and of others unquestionably subsequent to that of Saxon 

 immigration; but evidences are found of cremation and urn-bui'ial, in equally 

 ancient times; of the recumbent skeleton under the cairn, and barrow, in the 

 stone cist, and in the rude sarcophagus hewn out of the solid trunk of the oak ; 

 and in this, as in so many other respects, the British microcosm is but an epi- 

 tome of the great world. Norway, Denmark, Germany, and France all supply 

 similar evidences of varying rites; and ancient and modern customs of Asia 

 and Africa confirm the universality of the same. In the Tonga and other islands 

 of the Pacific, as well as in the newer Avorld of Australia, the custom of bury- 

 ing the dead in a sitting posture has been repeatedly noted; but it is not uni- 

 versal even among them; nor was it so in America, though affirmed by Dr. 

 Morton to be traceable throughout the northern and southern continents, and, 

 by its universality, to afford "collateral evidence of riie affiliation of all the 

 American nations." So far is this from being the case that nearly every ancient 

 and modern sepulchral rite appears to have had its counterpart in the New 

 WoiLl ; and in this, as in many other respects, its isolation from the older con- 

 tinents in affinities and corresponding characteristics, '£ not in actuaj intercourse, 

 disappears on more extended research. To follow out all the varied indications 

 of such analogy or parallelism would lead to a very extensive range of inquiry, 

 which I shall not now enter upon. But one seemingly trifling analogy, trace- 

 able in the correspondence of the rude weapons and implements of flint and 

 stone wrought and fashioned by the aborigines of America, with those recovered 

 f-'om the ancient barrows of northern Europe, connects the early traces of 

 man in both hemispheres by means of arts which are acquiring a new and com- 

 prehensive significance. 



The development of primitive archseology, by the labors of Thomsen and his 

 Danish fellow-laborers, into a systematic science, laid the foundations for that 

 novel and profoundly interesting inquiry which now tempts the ablest geologists 



* Crania Americana, p. '244. 



