Daily camera., 1897-08-12
THE AMERICAN INDIAN.
Scientific Research to Ascertain
His True Origin.
He May Have Come from Asia and OF
MOnSOlian Stock-A FavOrite
Notion of Some Sci
entists.

Scientists, and laymen also, will
watch with considerable interest for
results to come from the expedition OF
DR.. Frank Boas, the eminent cthnolo-
gist of the American Museum of Nat
ural History, in search of evidence that
the American Indian came originally
from Asia and was of Mongolian stock.
Dr. Boas has gone to British Columbia
and Alaska, where the Indian blood that
is left is purcst and where, presumably,
the Mongolian connection is most ap-
parent in the natural condition of the
primitive tribes, if it is to be f und at
all. The passage of the red men across
the Behring straits from northwestern
Asia, and so down into the great con-
tinent of America, has always been
rather favorite notion in the scientific
mind, and while there is sometimes a
striking facial resemblance between
individuals of the Pacific coast tribes
and individuals of the Chinese and Tar
tar nations, there seems little real evil
.dence to Sustain the scientific hypothe-
sis beyond the admitted fact that pas
sage between the continents of Asia
and North America across the straits
would be easy by even the most primi-
tive means of water travel. Then,
the Chinese have been navigators since
they were first known to the people of
Europe, and might well have crossed
the Pacific at its narrowest part, or
e+,, ifrht hoy-a hann
ried across by stress of weather in pre-
historic, as they have been known to
be carried in historic times. But the
Chinese, the Mongolians, are of race
which does not readily Jose racial char
acteristics. These peoples have con-
structive and intricate language, where
as the tongues of the Indians are of the
most primitive kind and if they are
really Mongolians they present the
strange spectacle of race which has
not only lost its original speech and its
original customs and traditions, but
separate tribe, has built for itself a new
speech made of sounds in imitation of
the cries of animals, to which arbitrary
meanings have been attached, each
tribe creating for itself new customs
and new traditions growing out of its
own immediate environment.
The American Inulan certainly had
no more tradition OF Mongolian origin
than of origin in the lost continent of
Atlantis, the hills and rivers and lakes
Immediately surrounding him making
his world, and the stories handed down
in particular tribes of migration from
land to the westward might mean
that the tribes came from places ten
miles or 10000 miles in that direction.
Some of the tribes, notably the Natchez.
had traditions of both eastward and
westward tribal movements, and, al
though little is known of this particular
tribe, exterminated very early in the
history of white occupation of the con-
tinent, it is known that it differed in
language, appearance and habits from
the tribes surrounding it. Again, the
Indians dwelling on the islands in the
Santa Barbara channel, also perishing
early, are known to have been a su-
ftilOl IdSG W 'lldt oh illC
from which the islanders were sepa-
rated by less than 30 miles of water,
stronger, of little color, more intelli-
gent and less sullen.
This strong and strange distinction
between tribes dwelling side by side
on the American continent was not at
all unusual, seeming to indicate rather
the progressive development of a race
sui generis than the varying decline of
a race fallen from another and a differ
ent civilization. The Iroquois and the
Creeks achieved confederacy and civil
government, while Indians all about
them were savage, and the Aztecs and
the Peruvians were as civilized along
different lines as the Europeans of
their day. 1t is not, indeed, an eXtrav-
agant supposition that if the discovery
of America had been delayed 500 years
Americans would have discovered Eu-
rope-although there is against it the
action of that great Law which seems
to impel race movement toward the
west. The same law runs, also
against the theory that the Indians
were a wave of Mongolians moving east
ward in search of new homes. The
limitation of the scientist lies in this
that, because Asia was the cradle of oul
own race, we conceive it to have beer
the cradle of every other. Is race
peculiar to America an impossible con
ception ?-San Francisco Bulletin.
Echo Usea TO measure Distances.