The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-01-05
Canon Good, the Famous Mis-.
sionary, Tells How He Dis
covered Them.
SURPRISED AND DELIGHTED
The Details of the Whence and Where
of the Indian Tribes of the
Far West.

Canon Good, the missionary who claims
that northwestern Indians are of Asiatic
origin, gives the following interesting let
ter, stating his views in detail on the sub
iect:
have been asked by THE CALL to add
something more to what it has already
reported in announcing my arrival in this
City as to the foundation of my conVic-
lions and conclusions that the Indian race,
for whose salvation and general i'm prove
ment I have given the best years of my
ministerial life, as representative of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,
are of Asiatic or more definitely of laura
MAN or Tartaree origin.
Iapproach the subject with considerable
diffidence in my ability to do full justice
to so difficult an inquiry.
Far away from books, literary society
and centers of civilization, and dependent
entirely upon his own peculiar modes of
investigation, one is apt to grow self
opinionated and pulled up with his own
supposed findings and knowledge, forget
ting it is but as a drop in the bucket as we
draw water out of the great well of truth,
which, as we all know, lies proverbIally low
down, and [ trust therefore the numerous
readers of THE CALL will give me credit for
only wishing to contribute something,
however little, to already acquired facts,
and that what I have to say must be taken
for what it is worth.
Certainly our very learned literati in
EurOpe-the giants IN comparative phil
ology and anthropology-gen too
rapidly on these questions, because thew
had not obtained a sufficient amount of
data reaching from the east to the ex-
treme west to come to safe conclusions
upon such confessedly obscure questions.
Already they have corrected their rapid
assumptions, and If my own researches
while hidden from the world have in any
way contributed to so desirable a result T
am amply repaid for all the toll and brain
sweat the reduction OF one oral tongue of
the natives of this great continent has cost
me.
In respect to the original inhabitants of
this continent from the Arctic Circle to
the Terra del Fuego OF South America
and the subsequent colonization by sue
Cessive waves of migration sweeping over
1t from the east, do most strongly affirm
t2at abundant evidence exists of the &C.
cupatiOn of this continent by countless
aboriginal races, whose origin is shrouded
in the darkness of primeval ages, and
that Just as Europe received wave after
wave OF migratory and predatory bodies OF
conquering people, which flowed on ever
continuously from east to west, SO we
here on this side of the world have had a
repetition OF the same overfowIng, of race
after race.
Some years after I had become
immersed, may say, in the meshes of
the Thompson tongue, had grown deeply
Impressed with the multiplicity of faces
that bespoke foreign origin. bethought
me that l would open again the tenth and
eleventh chapters of Genesis, which con-
tain ali the reliable account we possess
concerning the great dispersion of races,
and read it as though I had never seen
1t before. The first point of Importance
that struck me was that we are told that
| the defeated builders of Babel Tower were
mysteriously if not to say miraculously
moved to disperse themselves in divers
directions. They were then scattered over
| the face OF the earth, according to their
nations and tongues and families, and of
these were the nations divided after the
flood.
These were the representative of the
historical nations recorded in Holy Writ
| the superior races who were to overcome
not only the earth but the inferior, unhis-
torlcal and indigenous people of a former
creation or origin. Each division that thus
went forth would contain the more highly
civilized and polished, the true nomadics,
and the outer fringe OF those who were al
most become as savage as those whom
they were to conquer. They would carry
with them their language, customs and
TRADITIONS, and at that time they may
have had means of locomotion and trans
portation that were subsequently lost to
view.
In this way we should expect to find on
this continent whittier a certain percent
age of the original hosts who spoke at first
but one language before the flood
came and settled down-repres entatives of
all these grades and classes-and so we do
find the highly civilized Aztecs, SO like
the Egyptians, therefore nomadics and
those OF a decidedly inferior grade. Our
people were of a nomadic character, and
when | inquired further they had a name
for their nation. They were the Ne-KIa-
Kap-a-Muk nation, and they were divided
up into families or sects. They spoke the
Ne-KIa-Kap-a-Muk Cheen language. cog
nate with the languages of two contiguous
tribes-the Towappa Muk and the Sla-H ea
Muk people.
This seemed to throw a ray of light
certainly upon their origin. and the next
thing was to establish all the connecting
links of the chain which should bind
them in this far-off land to their as
sumed original home in the center of
Asia.
The points are numerous and deeply in
teresting, which, with your permission,
will preserve foI a second paper.
CANON Coon.