6 AUTHENTIC HISTORY 



longed to the old contiueut; both, but especially the Americans, are 

 characterized by a prominence of the jaws; the elongated occiput is 

 common to the American and the Asiatic ; and there is to each the same 

 obliquity of the face. Between the Mongolian of Southern Asia and 

 Northern Asia there is a greater difference than between the Mongolian 

 Tatar and the North American. The Iroquois is more unlike the 

 Peruvian than he is unlike the wanderer on the steppes of Siberia. 

 Physiology has not succeeded in defining the qualities which belong to 

 every well-formed Mongolian, and which never belong to an indigenous 

 American ; still less can geographical science draw a boundary line be- 

 tween the races. The Athapascas cannot be distinguished from Algon- 

 quin Knisteneaux, on the one side, or from Mongolian Esquimaux, on 

 the other. The dwellers on the Aleutian Isles melt into resemblances 

 with the inhabitants of each continent, and at points of remotest distance, 

 the difference is still so inconsiderable, that the daring Ledyard, whose 

 ardent curiosity filled him wdth the passion to circumnavigate the globe 

 and cross its continents, as he stood in Siberia with men of the Mongolian 

 race before him, and compared them with the Indians who had been his 

 old play-fellows and school-mates at Dartmouth, writes deliberately, that 

 'universally and circumstantially, they resemble the Aborigines of 

 America.' On the Connecticut and the Oby, he saw but one race. 



''He that describes the Tungusians of Asia seems also to describe the 

 North American. That the Tschukchi of Northeastern Asia and the 

 Esquimaux of America are of the same origin, is proved by the affinity 

 of their languages — thus establishing a connection between the continents 

 previous to the discovery of America by Europeans. The indigenous 

 population of America offers no new obstacle to faith in the unity of 

 the human race." 



Having thus far attended exclusively to theories and opinions origi- 

 nating with scholars and writers of Caucasian extraction, a brief sum- 

 mary of Aborirjinal tradition on the subject under notice may prove 

 interesting and instructive, although the reader will soon perceive that 

 not much light need be expected from that quarter. 



Schoolcraft ^ states that what may be regarded in the traditions of the 

 Indians, respecting the world, their origin and their opinions of man, as 

 entitled to attention, is that they believe in a Great Merciful Spirit, by 

 whom the earth, the animals and man were created, and in a great evil 

 spirit, able to disturb the benevolent purposes of the Great Good Spirit. 

 They state, generally, that there was a deluge at an ancient epoch, which 

 covered the earth and drowned mankind, except a limited nuinbe]'. They 

 speak most emphatically of a future state, and appear to have some con- 

 fused idea of rewards and punishments, w^hich are allegorically repre- 



iVol. I. 17—59. 



