VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



Fig. 847. Fig. 848. 



1359 



South American of the Puri tribe, interior of Brazil. 

 {After Rugendas.} 



globe in which so many dialects, or even dis- 

 tinct languages, are spoken within such 

 limited areas ; and thus, if difference in this 

 respect be considered as a sufficient reason 

 for denying the mutual affinity of the races, 

 the number of separate stocks must be enor- 

 mously multiplied. On the other hand, the 

 mutual relationship just indicated, which con- 

 sists more particularly in the very remarkable 

 agglutination of words or portions of words, 

 has been found in all the American languages 

 which have been carefully examined, including 

 some of the most important dialects spoken 

 in parts of the continent very remote from 

 each other. And it is easily shown that this 

 practice, carried on without any regular sys- 

 tem, but according to the wants and caprices 

 of each detached community, will, in the 

 absence of such a literature as gives fixity to 

 a language, almost necessarily induce such 

 changes, that two offsets of the same stock, 

 developing themselves under different circum- 

 stances, shall cease in a few generations to be 

 mutually intelligible. There are other causes, 

 too, in the character of the people themselves, 

 and in the mode in which they employ lan- 

 guage, which tend to introduce such varia- 

 tions. Their speech is, for the most part, 

 rather an expression of their own ideas and 

 emotions, than a reflex of external things, 

 much more subjective than objective ; and hence 

 their names for the most familiar objects, or 

 the simplest ideas, are long compound words 

 or epithets, which are in striking contrast with 

 the brief terms employed for the same pur- 

 poses by most other nations. This feature 

 in their phraseology seems common to all 

 the American languages ; and it is strikingly 

 indicative of a fundamental peculiarity in the 

 psychical character of the people, namely, a 

 predominance of the imaginative and rhetorical 

 disposition, over the mere sensuousness which 

 is observable among most nations that have 



South American of the Achagua tribe, basin of the 

 Orinoco. {From a portrait by M. Routing) 



attained to a similar grade of material pro- 

 gress. Those, indeed, who are most familiar 

 with the psychical nature of the aborigines of 

 America, have been struck with the manifes- 

 tations they present of greater energy and 

 mental vigour, of a more reflective nature, of 

 greater fortitude, and of more consistent per- 

 severance in their various pursuits and enter- 

 prises, than are to be met with among any of 

 the aboriginal nations of the Old World ; and 

 these peculiarities are in great part due to the 

 intensity of their selfish emotions, which ex- 

 hibits itself in the sullen and unsocial cha- 

 racter, the proud apathetic endurance, the 

 intensity of hatred and revenge, the feeble 

 influence of the benevolent affections, and the 

 deep malice-concealing dissimulation, which 

 are so remarkable in the dwellers amid the dark 

 solitudes of the American forests. Among 

 many of the American nations, moreover, 

 traces have been observed of ancient institu- 

 tions, complicated forms of government, 

 regulated despotisms or monarchies, privileged 

 orders, hierarchical and sacerdotal ordinances, 

 systematic laws (the result of reflection and a 

 settled purpose) connected with marriage, in- 

 heritance, family relationships, &c. and other 

 customs, that mark a very early progress 

 in social development, the forms of which are 

 in great degree peculiar to them. Their 

 opinions, moreover, respecting a future state, 

 and the nature and attributes of invisible 

 agents, are strikingly different from those of 

 nations who have never emerged from primi- 

 tive barbarism. They have had in use, more- 

 over, from time immemorial, cultivated 

 plants and domestic animals, different from 

 those of the Old World ; and their earliest 

 traditions refer the knowledge of these to 

 some fabulous person, who descended from 

 the gods, or who suddenly made his appear- 

 ance among their ancestors ; thus indicating 

 the remoteness of the era of their separation 



