Aboriginal Race of America. 121 



nearly four hundred crania, derived from tribes inhabiting almost 

 every region of both Americas, and have been astonished to find how 

 the preceding characters, in greater or less degree, pervade them all. 



This remark is equally applicable to the ancient and modern na- 

 tions of our continent ; for the oldest skulls from the Peruvian ce- 

 meteries, the tombs of Mexico and the mounds of our own country, 

 are of the same type as the heads of the most savage existing tribes. 

 Their physical organization proves the origin of one to have been 

 equally the origin of all. The various civilized nations are to this 

 day represented by their lineal descendants who inhabit their an- 

 cestral seats, and differ in no exterior respect from the wild and un- 

 cultivated Indians ; at the same time, in evidence of their lineage, 

 Clavigero and other historians inform us, that the Mexicans and 

 Peruvians yet possess a latent mental superiority which has not 

 been subdued by three centuries of despotism. And again, with 

 respect to the royal personages and other privileged classes, there is 

 indubitable evidence that they were of the same native stock, and 

 presented no distinctive attributes excepting those of a social or po- 

 litical character. 



The observations of Molina and Humboldt are sometimes quoted 

 in disproof of this pervading uniformity of physical characters. Mo- 

 lina says that the difference between an inhabitant of Chili and a 

 Peruvian is not less than between an Italian and a German ; to 

 which Humboldt adds, that the American race contains nations 

 whose features differ as essentially from one another as those of the 

 Circassians, Moors and Persians. But all these people are of one 

 and the same race, and readily recognized as such, notwithstanding 

 their differences of feature and complexion ; and the American na- 

 tions present a precisely parallel case. 



I was at one time inclined to the opinion that the ancient Peru- 

 vians, who inhabited the islands and confines of the Lake Titicaca, 

 presented a congenital form of the head entirely different from that 

 which characterizes the great American race ; nor could I at first 

 bring myself to believe that their wonderfully narrow and elongated 

 crania, resulted solely from artificial compression applied to the 

 rounded head of the Indian. That such, however, is the fact, 

 has been indisputably proved by the recent investigations of M. 



R 



