6 INTRODUCTION. 



That there is a marked difference between the tribes of the northern 

 portion of the State bordering on Oregon and the degraded remnants of 

 those of the rest of the State until its southern portion is reached, is evident, 

 and though this degradation is unquestionably due, in great part, to the 

 central and southern tribes having been largely brought into a condition of 

 slavery about the missions and reduced by domestication and disease, still 

 the early accounts show a marked contrast in favor of the northern and 

 southern portions, even including the peninsula, over the central part of the 

 present State of California, rendering it extremely probable that the pre- 

 vailing blood was somewhat different; and it must not be forgotten in this 

 connection that Dr. Pickering, of the United States Exploring Expedition, 

 expresses himself very decidedly of the opinion that the tribes of the Sacra- 

 mento had Polynesian affinities of a marked character,* and that he classed 

 the Californian with the Malay race. Though to accept Dr. Pickering's 

 view and consider the Californians as Malays, would be slightly changing 

 the ground from Mr. Powers' determination that they have Chinese affini- 

 ties, yet the statements of the two authors are conclusive as to the marked 

 difference which they have each noticed between the Indians of the North 

 and East and those of Central California; and it must be remembered that 

 in both cases it is simply an endeavor to discriminate between two groups 

 of a single type, while the type itself, as now existing, is made up of rays, 

 the uniting centre of which has probably long been buried with the races 

 of the past.f 



* Races of Man. Bonn's edition, p. 108. 



tFor several interesting statements relative to the theory of possible connection of Chinese, 

 Japanese, and Polynesians with the tribes of the Pacific coast of America, see, among others, articles by 

 the following authors : 



Beechey, Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Behring's Strait, in his Majesty's ship Blos- 

 som, in the years 1825- '28. London, 1831, Part 1, p. 186. 



Wilson, Prehistoric Man, 2d ed., p. 601. 



Dall and Davidson, Remarks in the Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 1873, 

 vol. iv, p. 268. 



Forbes, History of Upper and Lower California. London, 1839, p. 299. 



Davis, Overland Monthly, October, 1872. 



Brooks, Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 1875, vol. vi, p. 95. In this paper 

 Mr. Brooks offers evidence of the American origin of the Chinese, p. 113. 



Powers, Atlantic Monthly, March, 1874, p, 313. 



As stated in a preceding note, Mr. Powers in his last work does not mention the theory of Chinese 

 contact which he had formerly advanced, but substitutes for it an "invasion from the north before the 



