73 



These tribes have been classified in the following families : 



Mexican Family ; Totonaca Family ; 



Sonorense Opata-Pima Family ; Mixteco-Zapoteca Family ; 



Guaicura y Cochimi Laimon Fam- Matlalzinga 6 Pirinda Family ; 



ily ; Maya-Quiche Family ; 



Seri Family ; Chontal Family : 



Tarasco Family ; Huave Family ; 



Zoque-Mixe Family ; Apache Family ; 



Otomi Family. 



There is a great deal of similarity between the Mexican Indians 

 and the Malay Asiatic races especially the Japanese branch which 

 gives foundation to the idea that the aborigines of Mexico originally 

 came from Asia, or vice versa. 1 Their intensely black hair and eyes, 

 their brown or yellow color, their small stature and the slight obliquity 



1 The following extracts from the San Francisco, Cal., Bulletin of June 7, 1897, 

 confirm my views on the subject : 



" Information is received from Australia concerning the reports of F. W. Christian 

 of the Polynesian Society, who has returned to Sydney after an extended tour of the 

 islands of the South Seas, the Caroline group especially, where he has been on a suc- 

 cessful search for ethnological specimens. These reports are of great importance to the 

 scientific world and are said to let much light on a vexed question which has puzzled the 

 most learned savants for years. Mr. Christian has discovered extensive traces of the 

 Chinese and Japanese in the islands of the Pacific, and claims to have discovered evi- 

 dence pointing to the existence of a civilization of nearly two thousand years ago, which 

 is linked with the ancient civilization in Central America, and will probably explain the 

 origin of the Aztec races. 



" Under the auspices of the Polynesian Society, according to advices from Sydney, 

 via Honolulu, received per Coptic yesterday, Mr. Christian worked. The gentleman 

 spent nearly two years looking for traces of the Chinese in the islands, and was lucky 

 enough to find ancient records, specimens of handiwork and weapons which proved 

 that Asiatic races were extensive traders among the South Sea group thousands of years 

 ago. Evidence of a very decisive nature was secured which shows that a large trade 

 was carried on via the islands of the Caroline group, between China and Central Am- 

 erica, and that the ancient Chinese were more inclined to emigrate than their latter-day 

 brethren and colonized extensively. 



" Extensive inquiries were made as to the traditions of the islanders, and many 

 discoveries were made concerning the early history of the Malays with regard to naviga- 

 tion, all proving that the Torres strait's route to the Pacific was not taken, but that 

 voyages were made to many of the Caroline islands. 



' ' The coincidence is a strange one that a despatch from Hermosillo, Mexico, dated 

 June 6th, reports that a rock recently discovered in the mountains of Magdalena dis- 

 trict, State of Sonora, which is covered with Chinese inscriptions, has just been visited 

 by Sen Yup, a well-educated Chinese of Guaymas. He says the inscriptions are Chi- 

 nese, but are somewhat indistinct. He made a copy of them, and has translated enough 

 of the lines to show that the writing was probably inscribed on the rock at least two 

 thousand years ago. " 



