908 report— 1884. 



stones among the Iroquois and other tribes. Now, if the probability be granted 

 that these various American notions came from Asia, their importation would not 

 have to do with any remotely ancient connection between the two continents. The 

 Hindu element-catastrophes, the East Asiatic zodiac-calendars, the game of back- 

 gammon, seem none of them extremely old, and it may not be a thousand years 

 since they reached America. These are cases in which we may reasonably suppose 

 communication by seafarers, perhaps even in some of those junks which are brought 

 across so often by the ocean-current and wrecked on the Galifornian coast. In 

 connection with ideas borrowed from Asia there arises the question, How did the 

 Mexicans and Peruvians become possessed of bronze ? Seeing how imperfectly it 

 had established itself, not even dispossessing the stone implements, 1 have long 

 believed it to be an Asiatic importation of no great antiquity, and it is with great 

 satisfaction that I find such an authority on prehistoric archfeology as Professor 

 Worsaae comparing the bronze implements in China and Japan with those of Mexico 

 and Peru, and declaring emphatically his opinion that bronze was a modern novelty 

 introduced into America. While these items of Asiatic culture in America are so 

 localised as to agree best with the hypothesis of communication far south across 

 the Pacific, there are others which agree best with the routes far north. A remark- 

 able piece of evidence pointed out by General Pitt-Rivers is the geographical distri- 

 bution of the Tatar or composite bow, which in construction is unlike the long-bow, 

 being made of several pieces spliced together, and which is bent backwards to 

 string it. This distinctly Asiatic form may be followed across the region of 

 Behring's Straits into America among the Esquimaux and northern Indians, so that 

 it can hardly be doubted that its coming into America was by a northern line of 

 migration. This important movement in culture may have taken place in remotely 

 ancient times. 



A brief account may now be given of the present state of information as to 

 movements of civilisation within the double continent of America. Conspicuous 

 among these is what may be called the northward drift of civilisation, which comes 

 well into view in the evidence of botanists as to cultivated plants. Maize, though 

 allied to, and probably genetically connected with an Old World graminaceous 

 family, is distinctly American, and is believed by De Candolle to have been brought 

 into cultivation in Peru, whence it was carried from tribe to tribe up into the 

 North. To see how closely the two continents are connected in civilisation, one 

 need only look at the distribution on both of maize, tobacco, and cacao. It is 

 admitted as probable that from the Mexican and Central American region agri- 

 culture travelled northward, and became established among the native tribes. 

 This direction may be clearly traced in a sketch of their agriculture, such as is 

 given in Mr. Lucien Carr's paper on the ' Mounds of the Mississippi Valley.' The 

 same staple cultivation passed on from place to place, maize, haricots, pumpkins, 

 for food, and tobacco for luxury. Agriculture among the Indians of the great 

 lakes is plainly seen to have been an imported craft by the way in which it had 

 spread to some tribes but not to others. The distribution of the potter's art is 

 similarly partial, some tribes making good earthen vessels, while others still boiled 

 meat in its own skin with hot stones, so that it may well be supposed that the 

 arts of growing corn and making the earthen pot to boil the hominy came 

 together from the more civilised nations of the south. With this northward 

 drift of civilisation other facts harmonise. The researches of Buschmann, pub- 

 lished by the Berlin Academy, show how Aztec words have become embedded 

 in the languages of Sonora, New Mexico, and up the western side of the con- 

 tinent, which could not have spread there without Mexican intercourse extending 

 far north-west. This indeed has left many traces still discernible in the indus- 

 trial and decorative arts of the Pueblo Indians. Along the courses of this 

 northward drift of culture remain two remarkable series of structures probably 

 connected with it. The Casas Grandes, the fortified communal barracks (if I may 

 so call them) which provided house-room for hundreds of families, excited the 

 astonishment of the early Spanish explorers, but are only beginning to be 

 thoroughly described now that such districts as the Taos Valley have come within 

 reach by the railroads across to the Pacific. The accounts of these village-forts 



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