Origin and Migrations oftlie Polynesian Nation. 109 



all the remarkable phenomena of Indo-American life and Indo- 

 Ameriean civilisation. 



With that modesty which is the usual accompaniment of eminent 

 genius, the illustrious traveller Humboldt merely informs us that 

 the Indo-American nations, from North to South, were all one 

 people, wbo had been separated from the rest of mankind at a 

 period of time exceedingly remote, and in the very earliest dawn 

 of civilisation. The great German philosopher and traveller 

 knew nothing of the Polynesians, or of their solitary isles, and 

 could never have conceived the possibility of these islands of the 

 great South Sea having been the cradle of the Indo-American 

 race. 



But another eminent traveller and philosopher, although greatly 

 inferior to Humboldt — I mean Dr. Von Martius, of Bavaria^*- 

 unhesitatingly pronounces the Indo-Americans, or red race of 

 men, an imperfect and inferior edition of humanity, created on 

 the spot and doomed to a speedy extinction ; having no brother- 

 hood or relationship with us, the rest of mankind. In short, 

 while Humboldt merely affirms the absolute identity of the Indo- 

 American race from the farthest north to the farthest south, and 

 their separation from the rest of mankind at a period of the 

 remotest antiquity, thereby leaving the question of their origin 

 and derivation for further and future research, Dr. Yon Martius, 

 with all the dogmatism of an inferior mind, or rather with all the 

 modest assurance and the cant of modern infidelity, decides at 

 once that the Indo-American nations are an inferior edition of 

 humanity, created on the spot, and having no connection with 

 the rest of mankind at all. But as one positive fact is worth 

 any number of mere negations, I shall now proceed, 

 to demonstrate that the Indo-Americans and the Poly- 

 nesians are one and the same people, and that neither 

 the one nor the other of these tribes of men invali- 

 dates, either in its origin or in its intellectual character, the 

 Scriptural declaration that Grod hath made of one blood all the 

 nations of men "for to dwell on all the face of the earth." "With 

 this view I shall show you, in the first place, that the civilization 

 of the more civilised Indo-American nations was exclusively 

 Polynesian, and cast entirely in a Polynesian mould. I shall 

 then show that the phenomena of language, and of what may be 

 called literature in America, point directly to a Polynesian origin ; 

 and I shall conclude by showing that the same singular manners 

 and customs prevail among the wild and uncivilized tribes of 

 both nations. 



1. The peculiar type of the civilisation of the Indo-American 

 nations is exhibited in some measure at least in the very remark- 

 able architectural remains that are scattered in great profusion 

 over both of the American continents. These consist of pyra- 



