314 BIMANA, 



Many writers have commented on the close similarity between the 

 native tribes of America and the nations of Mongole lineage in the Old 

 World ; and some regard the former as a ramification of the latter, or, in 

 other words, as a branch of the Mongole stock. Such is the opinion of 

 Lesson, who, in his manual, places his Rameau Americain under the 

 Mongole section, observing, that " this branch, which constitutes the 

 population of the American continent, presents numerous varieties : of 

 these, the most remarkable are the Peruvian and the Mexican races, which, 

 occupying intertropical territories, founded respectively two great empires. 

 The second race is that of the Araucanians, which comprehends many sub- 

 varieties. The third is that of the Patagonians, confined, with that of the 

 Puelches, to the southern extremity of America. Numerous tribes, of 

 Brazil, Guiana, the Floridas, and of Canada, again form groups charac- 

 terized with difficulty : nevertheless, the Botacudos of Brazil appear to 

 belong definitely to the Mongole family." Cuvier states it as his opinion, 

 that the Americans are not distinctly referable to any of our Old World 

 varieties ; while, at the same time, they are destitute of a character at 

 once precise and constant, which would stamp them as distinct. As to 

 their copper-red complexion, he remarks, it is not one of sufficient 

 value ; but their hair, generally black, and their scanty beard, would 

 induce physiologists to assign them to the Mongole type, did not their 

 features, as prominent, their nose as well developed as that of the 

 European, and responding to the European type of form, oppose 

 such an arrangement. Their languages are as innumerable as are the 

 tribes ; nor have demonstrative analogies, either among them, or between 

 them and those of the Old World, been as yet detected. " If the Chaymas," 

 says Humboldt, in his Personal Narrative, "and all the natives in general 

 of South America and New Spain, resemble the Mongole race, in the 

 form of the eye, in their high cheek-bones, their straight and flat hair, 

 and the almost entire want of a beard, they essentially differ from them 

 in the form of the nose, which is of moderate length, prominent in 

 every part, and thick toward the nostrils, which, as in all the nations 

 of the Caucasian race, are directed downward." 



That the skulls of the American tribes, as is remarked by Dr. 

 Prichard, display the same broad and pyramidal form as the heads of 

 Turanian nations, has been repeatedly noticed by various travellers, 

 who have all insisted upon the general resemblance which certainly 

 exists between these two great sections of mankind. M. de Humboldt, 



and who appear to have been more advanced in civilization than the present tribes, whose territories 

 are now the possession of the white man. It is probably of a people antecedent to the foundation of 

 the Peruvian empire by Manco Capac, that the elongated skulls brought from Titicaca are the relics. 

 In New Andalusia, near the cataracts of the Orinoco, are subterranean excavations in the granite 

 rock, containing both the bones and dried mummies of the ancient Aturians ; some are in baskets, 

 others in sarcophagi of unbaked clay, ornamented with painted figures of Crocodiles. 



