THROUGHOUT THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 415 



of the New "World, cannot be over estimated, though it is not im- 

 probable that an exaggerated value has been assigned to the signifi- 

 cance of their specialities. In more than one trait characteristics 

 are recognized common both to Polynesian and African idioms ; and 

 further consideration suggests the probability that the special syn- 

 thetic tendency pertains fully as much to an immature stage of de- 

 velopment of these languages, as to any specific individualizing fea- 

 ture born of the New "World's insulation. As, moreover, the opin- 

 ion advanced by Gallatin, after mature investigation, of the cor- 

 respondence of the Esquimaux language to those of the true Indians 

 of America, in the same degree that these possess elements in com- 

 mon, is acknowledged to be correct : the assumed philological unity 

 of the American Indians amounts to no more than a predominance 

 of certain linguistic tendencies analogous to such as, in the Old 

 "World, embrace widely varied ethnic and geographic areas. " Phy- 

 sically," says Latham, " the Eskimaux is a Mongol and Asiatic; 

 philologically he is American, at least in respect to the principles 

 upon which his speech is constructed."* 



The same manifestation of a predisposed tendency to shape 

 the evidence to a foregone conclusion, or to assume as special 

 whatever varies from the Normal type, may be traced in 

 various other lines of argument; such as, for example, where, 

 in proof of the essential ethnic difference between the Esquimaux 

 and tie true Indian of America, the traveller Heme is quoted 

 as stating that " the Indian tribes who are their proximate 

 neighbours on the South, once excused an unprovoked massacre of 

 Esquimaux men, women and children, by asserting that they were a 

 people of a different nature and origin from themselves." Such a 

 lire of argument would prove other tribes, besides the Esquimaux, 

 to be of a different nature and origin. Similar evidence, indeed, 

 might suffice to show that the Anglo-Saxons of the ancient King- 

 corn of Northumbria, so soon as they were separated by the political 

 boundary line of the Sark or Tweed, became essentially different 

 races ; for assuredly no Indians and Esquimaux could manifest more 

 deadly hatred to each other than that which intensifies the wild vigor 

 of the old Border Minstrelsy. 



But it is not necessary to go beyond the American pale for similar 

 evidences. The Gluanches, discovered by Columbus in 1492, at- 

 tracted his attention by their gentle manners and inoffensive habits, 

 and from them he learned of the Caribs, a fierce and warlike people 



* Varieties of Man, p. 290. 



