204 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



THE SOUTH AMEEICAN INDIAN AS A 

 GEOGRAPHIC STUDY 



William H. Haas, Northwestern University 



South America offers many surprises to the traveller, 

 but none of them is more arresting than those which re- 

 late to the Indian. He gives an atmosphere to the west 

 coast countries which has no counterpart anywhere. At 

 first sight of some of the world's famous ruins, such as 

 Sacsahuaman, Ollantaytambo, Tiahuanaco, and others, 

 there comes an almost irresistible conviction that the 

 builders of these tremendous structures with their huge 

 blocks of stone were of a better blood than that of the 

 modern Quechua or Aymara with his sullen and hope- 

 lessly sad hang-dog expression. Nevertheless, the near 

 ancestors of these spiritless people were a part of the 

 proud and powerful Inca Empire. 



The contrasts between a brilliant past and a sordid 

 present is in constant juxtaposition. The resourceful- 

 ness of the ancestors, their activity, application, and con- 

 ceptions of big things are everywhere as evident as the 

 filth, the poverty, and the degradation of the descendants, 

 making the contrasts all the more striking. It is hard 

 to believe that living in the same general physical en- 

 vironment in contact with a superior, at least a more ad- 

 vanced race, should have produced such a marvelous 

 change in such a remarkably short time. 



It is not surprising, therefore, that for many years the 

 belief existed among most investigators that the Incas-, 

 the Chibchas, the Mayas, the Aztecs, and our own Mound- 

 builders were of a different racial stock than that of the 

 Indian of today. Little by little, however, an overwhelm- 

 ing mass of evidence has accumulated, which shows that 

 all belong to the same stock, and that practically all their 

 cultural evolution, as shown in major and minor antiqui- 

 ties, has taken place in the New World. This has been 

 done in a comparatively short time, for we have no undis- 

 puted evidence of glacial man in America. Various evi- 

 dences tend to show that the American Indian came to 

 this continent shortly after the stone polishing stage had 

 been inaugurated in the land from which he came. 



