The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1897-10-29
THE AMERICAN INDIAN.
Scientific Research to Ascertain
His True Origin.
He May Have Come from Asin and of
Monaghan 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-
aist OF the American Museum of Nat
ural History, in search of evidence that
the American Indian came originally
from Asia and WIS of Mongolian stock
DR.. BoGs has gone to British Columbia
and Alaska, where the Indian blood that
is left is pdrest and where, presumably,
the Mongoiian connection is most APP
parent in the natural condition OF the
primitive tribes, if it is to be und at
all. The passage of the red men across
tLe Behriag straits from northwestern
Asia. and 50 down into the great con-
7inent of America, has always been
rather fayorite notion in the scientific
mind, aad while there is sometimes
striking facial resemblance between
individuals of the Pacific coast tribes
and individuals of the Chinese and Tar
tar nations, there seems little real evil
deucc to sustain the scientific hypothe-
sis ueyond the admitted fact that pas
and North America across the straits
would bc easy by even the most print
tive means of water travel. Then,
tie Chinese have been navigators since
they we're first known to the people OF
Europe, and might well have crossed
the Pacific at its narrowest part, or
cvea stray junks might have been car
or IF o
historic, rs they have been Known to
he carried in historic times. But the
Chiueac. the Mongolians, are OF race
which dCas not readily lose racial char
acter;atics. These peoples have con-
structive and intricate language, where
IS the topgues of the Indians are OF the
most primitive kind, and if they are
really Moagolians they present the
strange spectacle of race which has
not only lost its original speech and its
original customs and traditions, but
cach little group of which, forming a
separate tribe, has built for itself new
speech made of sounds in imitation of
tie cries oil 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 Indian certainly had
no mere 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
n land to the westward might mean
that the tribes came from places ten
miles or 10000 miles in that direction.
Some of tie tribes, notably the Natchez.
had traditions of both eastward and
westward tribal movements, and, al
though l;ttle is known of this particular
tribe, eXtcrminatcd very early in the
history Of white occupation of the con-
lireut, 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 Tar 5ara channel, also perishing
early, are known to have been SUI
perior race to that on the mainland
from which the islanders were scpa-
rated by lcss 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 race
sui gcncris than the varying decline of
4 race fallen from another and differ
cnt civilization. The Ircquois and the
Greeks achieved confederacy and civil
while Indians all about
them were savage, and the Aztecs ard
the PerIWidns were MS civilized along
different lines as the Europeans of
their day. Ii is not, indeed, an extrav-
arant supposition that if the discovery
of America lad been delayed 500 years
Americans you'd have discovered Eu-
rope-a!thou2h 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 wave Of Mongolians moving east |
ward in search Of new homes. The |
Of the scientist lies in this. |
that. because Asia was the cradle of orr |
own race, We conceive it TO have been |
the cradle OF every other. Is a race |
peculiar TO america an impossible con-
Francisco Bulletin.