iHOMAs.] ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC TYPES. 725 



way; ;i disposition to. and iieiiiliar I'acility in, certain arts, such as carvings in 

 wood, etc. 



Some are details of art related to religious or mythological ideas, such as the rejio- 

 titiou of elaborate forms in a certain attitude, with relation to myths therefore pre- 

 sumably similar in foriu or origin. 



Some are similar myths themsoh-es, a step further in the retrospect. 



If these were of natural American growth, stages in development out of a uniform 

 state of culture, it might fairly be expected that we should lind them either sporad- 

 ically distributed without order or relation .as between family and family wherever 

 a certain stage of culture liad been reached or distributed in certain families wher- 

 ever their branches were to be found. This we do not find. 



The only other alternative which occurs to me is that these features have been 

 impressed upon the American aboriginal world from without. If so, wheneef 



Northern Asia gives us no help whatever. Tlie characteristics referred to are all 

 foreign to that region. 



If nations from the eastern shores of the Atlantic were responsible, we should 

 expect thi' Atlantic shores of America to show the results of the intluence most 

 clearly. This is not the case, but the very reverse of the case. 



We are then obliged to turn toward the region of the Pacific. 



The great congeries of islands known to geographers as Polynesia and Melanesia 

 stretch toward South America in latitude 25^ south, as in no other direction. Here 

 we have a stream of islands from Papua to the Paumotus, dwindling at last to single 

 islets with wide ga])8 between, Elizabeth, Ducie, Easter Island, Sala-y-(jomez, San 

 Felix, St. Ambrose, from which comparatively it is but a step, swept by the northerly 

 current to the Peruvian co.ast. We observe also that these islands lie south from the 

 westerly south equatorial current, in the slack water between it and an easterly cur- 

 rent and in a region of winds blowing toward the east. 



Here, then, is a possible way. 



I have stated how the peculiar and remarkable identity of certain carvings asso- 

 ciated with religious rites turned my attention to the .Melanesian islands. 



The customs, etc., I have called attention to are, ])articularly, the use of masks 

 and carvings to a more than ordinary degree, labretifery, human-head preserving; 

 Identity of myths. ' 



Prof. Diill calls attention to the singular form of carving, repre.sent- 

 ing a figure with the tongue hanging out, and usually cominuuicatiiig 

 with a frog, otter, bird, .snake, or lish, observed on tlie northwest coa.st 

 ttoni Oregon to Prince William .sound and also in Mexico and Nica- 

 ragua. We may add that this feature is found in numerous instances 

 in statues and bas-reliefs from Mexico to the Isthmus, also in the codi- 

 ces of Mexico and Central America, but seldom if ever appears in the 

 antiquities of the Atlantic division. 



The prominent Tlaloc nose of Mexican and Central American flgures, 

 of which the supposed elephant proboscis is but one form, and the 

 bird bill (thunder bird) of the northwest coast are but different methods 

 of representing the same idea, and one is undoubtedly an outgrowth of 

 the other. The method of superimposing, in totem posts and statues, 

 one figure upon another, usually combining hunuin and animal, is 

 found, except in California, from Alaska to the Isthmus, and is a true 

 Pacific type, being almost unknown in the Atlantic division. 



The angular designs on the pottery and basketry are another marked 



1 Pp. 146, 147. 



