330 ABORIGINES. 



titude of greater and smaller groups, and that almost 

 entire exclusion and excommunication with regard to 

 each other, in which mankind presents its different 

 families to us in America, like fragments of a vast ruin," 

 alluded to by Dr. Von Martins, likewise reminds one of 

 the scattered wandering tribes of beings, that rove from 

 place to place in the interior of Borneo. It has been 

 said that the astronomy of Mexico is of Asiatic origin, 

 and philologists inform us that the Malay and Peruvian 

 dialects have many words that may be referred to com- 

 mon roots ; and it is singular that in many of their habits 

 and customs may be traced a sort of similarity. For in- 

 stance, the use of the sumpitan and poisoned arrows is in 

 vogue among the wild people of Guiana, as it is among 

 our Mends the Dyaks ; the habit of filing the teeth sharp, 

 and of using a constant masticatory, as lime with a narcotic 

 leaf, is peculiar both to Peruvians and to Malayo-Poly- 

 nesians. As with languages, so it is with the aborigines 

 of any climate, the more primitive their condition, the 

 more nearly they approximate a simple common type ; 

 and we may thus account for the casual resemblance ob- 

 served between the savages of America and those of the 

 Indian Archipelago. Amongst the Malays and Bugis, 

 civilization has imprinted certain moral and physical 

 peculiarities, which enables them, although of the same 

 family of mankind, to stand out in bold relief from their 

 more ignorant, primitive, and less-fortunate brothers. 



The " Filipinos," or the peaceable people of Bisayan 

 origin, that constitute the principal portion of the popu- 

 lation of the Philippine Islands, believe that the aboriginal 

 races of the interior came originally from Borneo, and it 



