476 A PROBLEM IN AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGY. 



the American race is formed, a little less extravagant to affirm of 

 Europe than of America that the crania everywhere and at all periods 

 have conformed, or even approximated, to one type. 



"As an hypothesis, based on evidence accumulated in the Crania 

 Americana, the supposed homogeneity of the whole American aborig- 

 ines was perhaps a justifiable one. But the evidence was totally insuffi- 

 cient for any such absolute and dogmatic induction as it has l)een made 

 the basis of. With the exception of the ancient Peruvians, the com- 

 prehensive generalizations relative to the southern American continent 

 strangely contrast with the narrow basis of the premises. With a 

 greater amount of evidence in reference to the northern continent, the 

 conclusions still go far beyond anything established by absolute proof; 

 and the subsequent labors of Morton himself, and still more of some 

 of his successors, seem to have been conducted on the principle of 

 applving practically, and in all possible bearings, an established and 

 indisputable scientific truth, instead of testing by further evidence a 

 novel and ingenious hypothesis." 



At the close of this instructive paper are the following words: 



"If these conclusions, deduced from an examination of Canadian 

 crania, are borne out by the premises, and contii'med by further investi- 

 gation, this much at least may l)e affirmed: That a marked difierence 

 distinguishes the northern trit)es. now or formerly occupying the 

 Canadian area, in their cranial conformation, from that which pertains 

 to the aborigines of Central America and the southern valley of the 

 ^Mississippi: and in so far as the northern differ from the southern 

 tribes they approximate more or less, in the points of divergence, 

 to the characteristics of the Eskimo, that interuKnliate ethnic link 

 between the Old and the New World, acknowledged by nearly all 

 recent ethnologists to be physically a Mongol and Asiatic, if philok)gi- 

 cally an American." 



The third paper of the meeting to which! shall refer was by another 

 of our former presidents, the then well-known student of Indian insti- 

 tutions and the author of the League of the Iroquois (1851). In this 

 paper on " The laws of descent of the Iroquois,""' Morgan discusses the 

 league as made up of five nations, each of which was subdivided into 

 tribes, and he explains the law of marriage among the tribes, the 

 family relationship, and the descent in the female line as essential to 

 the maintenace of the whole sj^stem. He then says: 



"Now the institutions of all the aboriginal races of this continent 

 have a family cast. They >)ear internal evidence of a common pater- 

 nity, and point to a common origin, but remote, both as to time and 

 place. That they all sprang from a common mind, and in their pro- 

 gressive development have still retained the impress of original ele- 

 ments, is abundantly verified. The Aztecs were thoroughly and 

 essentiall V Indian. We have glimpses here and there at original insti- 

 tutions which suggest at once, b.v their similarity, kindred ones among 

 the Iroquois and other Indian races of the present day. Their intel- 

 lectual characteristics, and the predominant features of their social con- 

 dition, are such as to leave no doubt upon this question; and we believe 

 the results of modern research upon this point concur with this con- 



