752 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



and civilization increase in all countries, so will sculpture and architecture advance 

 in grandeur and in beauty of design ; and tliese advancements, like those in Indian 

 weapons, suggested by the demands of elegance and comfort in buildings or of beauty 

 and nature in sculpture, with nature everywhere the same for its models, will neces- 

 sarily in all countries arrive sooner or later at more or less resemblance. 



A sculptured statue found amongst the antiquities of Mexico or Yucatan, if it re- 

 sembles ever so closely an Egyptian statue, it is no evidence whatever that it was 

 transported from Egypt to America, or that the sculptor of it came from that country 

 bringing his tools and his models with him ; it only proves that in both countries men 

 have alike an inherent talent for art, and that working from similar models and in 

 similar material they have arrived at equal perfection, both copying closely their 

 model and their works, consequently and necessarily resembling one another. 



An ethnologist finds amongst the American Indians a wooden spoon, precisely the 

 same in proportions and shape as the wooden spoons brought from the Kalmuk Tartars 

 in Asia. This, though only evidence for a bad theory, proves just as much as resem- 

 blance in statuary, or of facades, doorways, &c, in ancient palaces. It proves that 

 man's ingenuity and necessities in both countries led him to build facades and door- 

 ways, and to adapt the length and shape of his spoon to suit the motions of his arm 

 and the bowl of it to fit his mouth. 



The ancient Egyptians, before the construction of their stupendous monuments 

 and their grand groups in sculpture which now stand to astonish the world, lived in 

 tents like the Aztec Indians previous to their building the cities of Palenque, Copan, 

 and Uxmal. And the two native races, developing the talent with which nature had 

 endowed them for those grand purposes, probably constructed those vast edifices on 

 the two continents about the same time. 



In the two countries the wonder is, not that there should be a resemblance in their 

 monuments, but that the people who built them, and arose by their own talents to 

 such grandeur in art and such luxury, should have fallen short of all history which 

 should have recorded their greatness. 



To the theory so often and so strongly advanced of an Egyptian or Asiatic origin 

 of the American Indians, there are yet other and stronger objections to be produced 

 before the subject is disposed of. 



The theory of such a mode of peopling a whole continent involves, as will be seen, 

 difficulties and objections (considering the time at which such supposed emigrations 

 took place) in effect equal to impossibility itself. I say impossibility, because the 

 Aztec ruins in Yucatan and Guatemala, which speak a language which no one can 

 deny, are as old as the most ancient monuments of Egypt, and are unquestionably 

 the results of the growth of a civilization from savage native tribes, which growth 

 itself must have required some thousands of years. 



The evidence that those monuments were not the works of Egyptian architects is 

 that, though in some respects they bear a resemblance, not an Egyptian inscription 

 or hieroglyphic mark is to be found amongst them, and also that if the Egyptians, 

 in so advanced a state of civilization and art, emigrated to the continent of America, 

 and built such stupendous palaces and edifices, it is quite impossible, though the 

 people have perished, that history should have been, until the date of Columbus, in 

 ignorance of the American continent. 



From the above dates and evidences of dates we are bound to infer that the Amer- 

 ican native races are as ancient as any of the races of the Old World, whose an- 

 tiquity is known by their monuments. 



Then let us see, if the builders of those monuments were Egyptians or Asiatics, 

 what objects they had in coming to America, how they found their way there, and 

 how they got there (at least 6,000 years ago, if at ail), when civilization, with the 

 art of navigation, and stimulated by commerce, by science, and the thirst for gold, 

 never reached there until within the last 400 years. 



There is nothing in history, sacred or profane, to prove a peopling of one continent 

 from the other, and probably for ever, as at the present time, presumption will be 



