530 ARCHEOLOGY 



critical analysis of local names), archeology, and history will have 

 to work together in order to furnish even an approximately correct 

 idea of the former distribution of the tribes and of their mutual 

 relations. 



It is primarily from archeology that we may expect an answer 

 to the question where was the old racial connection between North 

 America (perhaps with Florida for a bridge), the West Indies, 

 and South America. The fruitful investigations of Clarence B. 

 Moore and the lamented Gushing afford matter for much thought. 

 Unfortunately, the exact archeological investigation of the West 

 Indian region has only just begun. And, although remarkable 

 discoveries have been made on the island of Marajo and the banks 

 of the Amazon opposite to it, yet the investigation as to South 

 America also is still too incomplete for us to do more (with that 

 of the intervening territory hardly even planned out) than make 

 a conjectural statement as to any extensive connection. There 

 are certain single details such as the Haitian game of batey, 

 resembling the game of ball called tlachtli by the Mexicans, the 

 use of some of the Mexican teponaztli, similar wooden drums, and 

 the like which seem to point to a connection between the West 

 Indies and Central America. Indeed, Columbus, on his first voy- 

 age, during the passage from Cuba to Haiti, had definite news of 

 a land in the west, very rich in gold, whose inhabitants wore clothes. 

 It seems to me, too, that it is possible to demonstrate a family 

 connection between the Arawaki speech of Guiana and the Maya 

 tongues. 



But American archeology is most at home in the lofty plateaus of 

 the Andes and the strips of coast immediately below them, and 

 especially in Mexico and Central America. In these regions, inhabited 

 by people of advanced culture, brilliant performances were achieved 

 in the first generation after the conquest, which have only within 

 the last half century been properly appreciated and studied in de- 

 tail. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was the scene 

 of the labors of some accomplished scholars, such as Siguenza y 

 Gongora. Padre Antonio Alzate published a description of the 

 pyramid of Xothicalco; and Leon y Gama, in his famous work 

 Dos Piedras, described the great stone monuments found in the 

 principal square of Mexico in connection with the paving and canal 

 system. The imposing personality of Alexander von Humboldt 

 attracted the interest of the whole civilized world to these anti- 

 quities; and men like Captain Dupaix, Alaman, Carlos Maria Bus- 

 tamante, Fernando Ramirez, Manuel Orozco y Barra, and my 

 esteemed colleague Alfredo Chavero have laid the foundations 

 on which we are now trying to build. Here, more than elsewhere, 

 it is evident how much history needs the aid of archeology, especially 



