The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1872-03-02
The Peopling of America.


The latest intelligence from our
Pacific coast reports that Japanese
Junk had come ashore on one of the
islands of Alaska, with three living
Japanese on board. The vessel had
been disabled in storm off Japan,
and had drifted two thousand five
hundred miles in nine months, twenty
three of the crew perishing from hum
ger and exposure. This striking oc-
curTence is by no means unparalleled.
just forty years ago, a Japanese YES
sci, with living men on board, came
ashore near the mouth of the Colum-
bia. River, in Oregon. 1t had cargo
of rice, and the crew consequently had
enough to eat, their only drink was
water from occasional rains. Such oc-
currences assist greatly in explaining
how America was peopled-ib ques-
ton very perplexing to our ancestors,
though late geographical and ethono-
logical researches show that there is
very little mystery about it. The ia
panese are evidently of the same race
with our Indians, their language be-
ing to some extent similar to those of
our Western tribes; and it is not at
all unlikely that during the thousands
of years of which Japanese history
goes back, many vessels may have
tioated from their shores to ours,
bearing living persons of both sexes.
But, even if it were impossible for
them to cross the ocean, it is certain
that Asiatics could easily make their
way to America across Behring's
Straits, or by the Aleutian Islands,
the distances between which would be
an easy voyage for canoe. Ten or
twelve years ago, the Appletons pub
lished an account of voyage down
the Amoor, by Perry McDonough Col
Inns, the first American who ever de-
scended that river. Inhis journal, he
constantly spoke of the wild tribes on
it's banks as :. Indians" We remem-
Der asking him at the time why he
called them such, and he replied, " Be-
cause they are Indians He was fa-
miliar, by long personal observation,
with the tribes in Oregon and Cali
fornia, and he declared he could see
no material difference between them
and the tribes on the AmoOr. He is
man of plain common sense, with a
mind not obfuscated by chronological
or antiquarian studies; and the idea
had apparently never entered his head
that the Amoor tribes were not In
dians. Their appearance, their gar
ments, their mode of life, and the
lodges in which they dwelt, he said
| were all similar to these of those of
| the natives of 0regon. Their lam
guage, also, seemed to him very much
the same, though, of course, he had
no critical knowledge of their dialects.
Taking this resemblance for granted,
therefore, and there being no great
difficulty in crossing the ocean by way
of the Aleutian Islands, even in can
oes, there is no longer any mystery
about the peopling of America. DR..
LePlongeon, learned gentleman now
in our city, in fact maintains, after
long study of Peruvian antiquities,
that civilization and population orig
mated oE this continent, and that the
arts, customs, manners, and religious
of the Chinese, the HindoOs, the As
syrians and Egyptians, are only de-
veloped limitations of Peruvian origi-
nalsi 1t is well known that, accord
ing to Agassiz and other eminent ge-
ologists, this continent. was the first
land that rose above the ocean that
formerly covered the whole surface of
the earth.-4ppIeton's Journal.