THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE AMERICAN LANGUAGES. 65 



which make their civilizations a late importation from the Old World 

 are gi-adually being abandoned and cast aside. Prof. Campbell, how- 

 ever, comes to the conclusion that the Aztecs were Hittites, and 

 brought their hieroglyphs from Syria. Let us consider the Mexicans 

 first, as the Maya-Quiches are evidently a people of much greater 

 antiquity. A recent writer says : — "The movement by which in a 

 remote antiquity, the peoples of Central America ascended towards 

 the north, carrying with them their relative civilization to Mexico 

 and beyond, was reversed at the epoch of our middle-ages by a 

 migration in the opposite direction, and it is probably to invasions 

 of this description that we must asci'ibe the fall of the Maya civiliza- 

 tion of the isthmic region " (Dr. A. Reville, Native Religions of 

 Mexico and Peru, p. 20). The traditions of the Aztecs have been 

 held by many to betoken an Asiatic origin ; but they are much cor- 

 rupted and bear in many cases evidences of Spanish influence. The 

 prevailing view is that the Nahua nations came from the north-west 

 the Huehue Tlapalan being held to be the region round the Rio 

 Colorado. Buschmann, it is true, has pointed out ti-aces of the 

 Aztec in the languages of the Pacific coast, and it seems to me that 

 there are similar traces in the language of Kamtschatka ; but all 

 these are best explained (they are but faint) by migrations from the 

 primitive Aztec seat in America, rather than by making the Aztecs 

 a colony from Asia. Some recent writers have held with some show 

 of reason that the Nahua tribes came from the east • in fact some of 

 their oldest traditions point to the north-east as the point of oricrin. 

 With regard to the Aztecs I am inclined to connect them with the 

 northern tribes of America, with whom their language shows them 

 to have been related ; and it is rather curious that some of their 

 legends represent their forefathers as coming from a land of sandy 

 wastes strewn with bowlders, which seems to point to a northern 

 region; besides, Aztlan (the white land) may find its explanation 

 here, as may also Huehue Tlapalan (the old red land), thouf^h it 

 seem at first contradictory of the former. A linguistic chain of 

 evidence seems to connect the Aztecs with the Athapascan tribes 

 but their later development seems to have taken place in the valley 

 of the Gila and Colorado. 



Much has been written on the relations of the civilizations of 

 Mexico and Central Amei-ica ; the prevailing veiw being that though 

 the Mayas preceded the Mexicans, the civilization of the latter shows 

 5 



