06 INTRODUCTION. 



This applies equally to the oldest crania from Peruvian and Mexi- 

 can cemeteries, and the mounds of the Mississippi valley, and tlie 

 existing [ndian ti 



Tho moral traits are equally strongly marked. Among them an 

 a sleepless caution, which influences every thought and action, and 



• their proverbial taciturnity and invincible firmness ; ■ I 

 war and destruction ; habitual indolence and improvidence; indiffer- 

 ence to private property; and the vague simplicity of their religious 

 observances. These arc the same from the humanized Peruvian to 

 the nidcst Brazilian Bavage. 



They arc averse t<> the restraints of civilization, and seem incapa- 

 ble of reasoning on abstract subjects; they improve not in mechan- 

 ical pursuits, in making their huts or their boats; their imitative 

 faculty is very small. The long annals ol rv labor give no 



authentic exception to this state of things. Contrasted with 

 barbarous tribes are the Mexicans and Peruvians, whose civilization 

 has been before sufficiently alluded to. If it be asked bow nations, 

 derived from the same stock, should differ so widely, it may be 

 replied that the contrast is the same between the Saracens, who 

 established their kingdom in Spain, and the Hedouins of the Desert, 

 between the Greeks of the present day and the Greeks of the age 

 of Pericles ; and yet these last are known to bi long to the same 

 stock. What accounts for the one may explain the other. 



In maritime enterprise the American Indian is very much behind 

 other races, even in situations where the ocean invites him to use it 

 as a means of subsistence or communication. In this respect he dif- 

 fers greatly from the Malay, (or Homo Neptunianus, as he might be 

 called,) to whom some consider the American related in Califor- 

 nia, &c. 



Their manner of interment is so different from that of other races, 

 and so prevalent anion? themselves, that it constitutes another means 

 of identifying them as a single and peculiar race. This consists in 

 burying the dead in the sitting posture, the legs being flexed against 

 the abdomen, the arms being bent, and the chin supported on the palms 

 of the hands. This prevails, with but few exceptions, from north 

 to south. 



The Esquimaux differ so widely from the Americans, in physi- 

 cal and moral traits, and their aquatic habits, that their ethno- 

 graphic dissimilarity seems evident to him. He thinks there is no 

 more resemblance between the Indian and Mongolian, in physical 

 characters, in arts, architecture, mental and social features, (es- 

 pecially nautical skill.) than between any other two distinct races. 

 The Mongolian theory is objectionable on account of its vastness 



