OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 257 



Simpson, in 1849 ; that of Capt. Sitgreaves, in 1852 ; and that of Lieut. Ives, in 1857. 

 To these must be added the expedition to determine the Mexican boundary, in 1850, 

 under Hon. John R. Bartlett ; and the exploration for a railroad route to the Pacific, 

 on the thirty-fifth parallel, in 1854, under Lieut. Whipple. From these sources a 

 large amount of additional information has been gained both of the country and of 

 its inhabitants. 



The present. Village Indians of New Mexico are the lineal descendants of those 

 found in the country at the Conquest. Some of them occupy the same sites, and 

 the same identical houses which their forefathers occupied when first discovered ; 

 and such new pueblos as have since been constructed, are, many of them, upon the 

 ancient model. They still retain the greater part of their ancient customs, usages, 

 and arts. An opportunity, therefore, is still offered to recover their languages, their 

 architectural, agricultural, and other mechanical arts, as well as their civil and 

 domestic institutions, which, when procured, may prove of immense value in American 

 ethnology. If the true history and interpretation of the civilization of the Village 

 Indians of Mexico, Central America, and Peru are ever reached, it will probably 

 be effected through a comparison of their arts and institutions with those of the 

 present Village Indians. It is, therefore, a fortunate circumstance that even a 

 fragmentary portion of this great division of the American aborigines still remain 

 upon the continent, in the full possession of their original domestic institutions, 

 and in the practice of many of their primitive arts. The intellectual life of a 

 great family impresses a common stamp upon all their works. The marks of the 

 uniform operation of minds cast in the same mould, and endowed with the same 

 impulses and aspirations inherited from common ancestors, can be successfully 

 traced through periods of time, and into widely separated areas. In their archi- 

 tecture, in their tribal organization, in their dances, in their burial customs, in 

 their systems of relationship, the same mental characteristics are constantly revealed. 

 It is not impossible to arrive at safe conclusions from comparisons founded exclu- 

 sively upon intellectual manifestations crystallized in these several forms. These 

 Village Indians are, at the present moment, the true and the living representatives 

 of the indigenous civilization which was found in both North and South America ; 

 and notwithstanding the mass of fiction which has usurped the place of history, 

 there are strong reasons for believing that they are no unfit representatives of the 

 Village Indians in general ; and that all there was of this civilization, invention 

 for invention, institution for institution, art for art, in a word, part for part, may 

 still be found amongst them, and in existing memorials of their past history. The 

 great differences supposed to exist must be set down to a very considerable extent 

 to the marvellous powers of the constructive faculty which authorship develops. 



Whether or not the Village and Roving Indians are of one blood by descent, 

 from common American ancestors has not been established in the affirmative so 

 decidedly as to command universal acquiescence. There are several distinct and 

 independent lines of evidence, all of which converge to an affirmative conclusion, 

 and yield collectively such a body of testimony as to render this conclusion extremely 

 probable. These may be briefly stated as follows : 



First. Unity of Physical Type. It cannot be denied that the Indian form and 



33 March, 1870. 



