CHAPTER XXIY. 



CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA (INCLUDING MEXICO). 



PEEVIOUS to the extermination, or reduction in numbers, of many tribes by the Spanish 

 conquest, there appears to have been a continuous transition from the natives of North America 

 to those inhabiting the southern half of the New World; some of the tribes of Central 

 America being nearly related to certain North American stocks, while others came closer to 

 those of South America. And even at the present day, when many of the links have been 

 snapped, the South American natives are, in regard to physical characters, very similar to their 

 northern kinsmen; so much 

 0, indeed, that the distinc- 

 tions between them are due 

 more to differences in customs, 

 culture, and language (which 

 latter is, however, essentially 

 of the same general type) than 

 to variation in physical char- 

 acters. The general physical 

 similarity of all the Central 

 and South American tribes is 

 the more remarkable when 

 the great physical differences 

 presented by different parts of 

 the immense country they 

 inhabit are taken into con- 

 sideration. From the tropical 

 forests of Brazil to the snow- 

 clad peaks of the Andes, and 

 from these, again, to the open 

 pampas of Argentina, the wilds 

 of Patagonia, and the hail- 

 swept shores of Tierra del 

 Fuego, the aboriginal inhabi- 

 tants present a singularly 

 slight degree of divergence 

 from one common type. 



As we have seen in the 

 last chapter, the North Ameri- 

 can aborigines, with the 

 marked exception of the Pueblo 

 Indians, present a great general 

 similarity in their common 

 mode of life and degree of 

 culture; none of them, in their 



. . , , , T CARIBS OF THE UPPER ORINOCO VALLEY. 



original state, having advanced 



553 



Photo by Rau] 



