The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-06-29
May There Not Have Been a Race
Peculiar to America.

Peculiar to America
From the San Francisco Bulletin.
Scientists and laymen also, will watch
with considerable interest for results to
come from the expedition of DIR. Frank
Boas, the eminent ethnologist OF the Amer
lean Museum of Natural History, In
search of evidence that the American In
dian came originally from Asia and was
of Monaghan stock. DIR. Boas has already
reached Seattle on the way to British Co
lumbia and Alaska, where the Indian
blood that is left is purest and where,
presumably, the Monaghan connection is
most apparent in the natural condition Of
the primitive tribes, If it is to be found at
all. The passage of the red men across
the Boring straits from Northwest tern
Asia, and so down into the great CONT
nent of America, has always been rather
favorite notion in the scientific mind
and while there is sometimes a striking
facial resemblance between individual of
the Pacific coast tribes and individuals
of the Chinese and Tartar nations, there
seems little real evidence to sustain the
scientific hypothesis beyond the admitted
fact that passage between the continents
of Asia and North America across the
straits would be easy by even the most
primitive means of water travel. Then,
the Chinese have been navigators since
they were first known to the people Of
Europe, and might have crossed the Pa
cific at its narrowest part or even
stray junks might have been carried
| across by stress of weather In prehistoric
as they have been known to be carried in
historic times. But the Chinese, the Mon
golians are of a race which does not
readily lose racial characteristics. These
peoples have constructive and intricate
| language, where as the tongues of the
Indians are of the most primitive kind,
and il they are really Mongolians they
present the strange spectacle OF a race
which has not only lost its original speech
and it's original customs and traditions,
but each little group of which, forming a
separate tribe, has built for itself a new
| speech made of sounds in imitation OF the
| cries of animals, to which arbitrary mean
| ings have been attached, each tribe Great
| ing for itself new customs and new tradi-
tions growing out of its own immediate
environment.
The American Indian certainly had no
more tradition OF Monaghan 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 a land to the
westward might mean that the tribes
came from places ten miles or 10000 miles
| I'm that direction. Some OF the tribes. no.
tably the Natchez, had traditions OF both
eastward and westward tribal movements,
and, although little is known OF this par
/ ticular tribe, exterminated very early In
the history OF white occupation OF the
continent, II Is known that II differed In
| language, appearance and habits from the
tribes surrounding II. Again, the Indians
| dwelling on the islands In the Santa Bar
bara channel, also perishing early. are
known TO have been "a superior race 20
| that on the mainland, from which the
Islanders were separated by less than thlr.
| ~ miles Of water stronger OF little color
more intelligent and less sullen.
This strong and strange distinction be-
tween tribes dwelling side by side on the
American continent was not at all un-
| usual, seeming 10 indicate rather the pro.
gressive development OF a race sui gene
ris than the varying decline OF "a race
4 fallen from another and n different civil.
zation. The Iroquols and the Creeks
achieved confederacy and civil govern
ment while Indians all about them were
/ savage, ana tho Aztecs and the Peruvians
were as civilized along different lines ar
| the Europeans OF their day. II is not in
| deed. an eXtravaEant suppositlon that n
/ the discovery Of America had been DELAY
Il ed 900 years. Americans would have dis
/ covered Europc-alhough there Is against
/ IL the action OF that great law which
seems to impel race movement toward the
4 west The same law runs, also, against