212 



The First Men. 



householder; and while we are not prepared to say that the word Tsh 

 is identical therewith, we think we cannot be mistaken in the coii- 

 clasioQ that its employment indicates an important advance toward 

 that specilio type ot man. The designations Ish and Tshah are used \\\ 

 a scene which occurred during the inter-glacial period, if our division 

 of days or periods is correct. If we are not mistaken, therefore, wo 

 have here recorded the development of man of the Engis type, as being 

 the specific characteristic of the seventh day. To follow the question 

 further would be to lead us far beyond the limits of our inquiry. We 

 refer to it here merely to add another link to the chain of argument, 

 part of the merits of which, if it has any, is to be found in its synchro- 

 nous arrangement of the facts of science and history, such as wc have 

 just attempted, and the affording of a key to some of the perplexin<][ 

 problems of tradition. 



From the Mound Builders to the man of Engis, in time of develop- 

 ment, was a long distance. If the first men upon this continent came 

 originally from Asia, a long period must have elapsed before the mi- 

 gration was consummated; and that the first men njoon this continent 

 did come from Asia is clear, for the reason that there arc no traces in 

 America of any mammal lower than man from w^iich the genus homo 

 could have been developed. If God made man out of a lower order. 

 He must have done so on the eastern continent. 



We turn from the inviting field open before us, relative to the de- 

 velopment of man, in ord.er to inquire of the first men in America the 

 traditions current among them as to the origin of man. The oldest 

 traditions in connection therewith are found in Central America. What- 

 ever force or vitality we may give these traditions, we cannot escape 

 the significance of the fact that in the Xehuatel (or Toltecan) language 

 the radical «, atU has the various meanings of water, man, and the top 

 of the head. From this comes a series of w^ords, sucli as ailan, on the 

 border of, or amid the water, and others. The root At or Ad is found 

 among primeval peoples everywhere, and everywhere means the first 

 man or ruler. 



Traditions of the origin of man, as they are found among ancient 

 races, are generally figurative, or overgrown with crude conceptions, 

 or surrounded by mythical accretions. The traditions prevailing 

 among the Atlans, if w^e may so term them, are no exception. They 

 have been embodied in the Popel Vuh, a work which, whatever may 

 be said about it, undoubtedly contains the ideas prevailing among 

 these ancient peoples as to the origin of man. Divested of their accre- 

 tions, these traditions are quite in harmony with the account of crea- 

 tion given in the creation series of Chaldean tablets, when relieved of 

 their mythological conceptions. We shall interpret these traditions in 



