199 
and the meaning of the hieroglyphical paintings^, 
they referred every thing to the system they had 
previously formed ; like the Romans, who saw 
nothing among the Germans and Gauls but 
their own worship, and their own divinities. 
When we examine this question by the rules of 
the most rigid analysis, we find nothing among 
the Americans, which leads to the supposition^ 
that the Asiatic nations migrated to the New 
Continent after the establishment of Christianity. 
I am very far from denying the possibility of 
these posterior communications ; I am not igno- 
rant*, that the Tchoutskis annually crossed 
Behring’s Straits to make war on the inhabit- 
ants of the north-west coast of America ; but I 
think I may affirm, from the knowledge we have 
acquired since the end of the last century of the 
sacred books of the Hindoos, that, in order to 
explain these resemblances of traditions, of 
which all the first missionaries speak, we have 
no need to recur to Western Asia, peopled by 
nations of the Semetic race ; these same tra- 
ditions, of high and venerable antiquity, are 
found both among the followers of Brahma, and 
among the Shamans of the eastern steppes of 
Tartary. 
We will resume this important subject, either 
* See my Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle-Espagne, vol. 2, 
p, 502, 8vo edition. 
