Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-05-04
ORIGIN OF THE INDIANS.
There Is Question as to Whether They Were of the Asiatic or
 Aryan Stock.

California Indians have disproved the most widely developed theory of all sci- ence, according to the expert of the American bureau of ethnology, says the San Francisco Chronicle. For centuries the science of race has been studied on the supposition that all nationalities sprung from common stock The sim. ilarity in language between the Greek, the Hindoo and the Englishman were thought to prove identity of origin.
 The fact that the words of household use were so frequently the same in hun dreds of tongues was taken as proof that, after all, we were descendants of some common father who lived in the dim past, thousands of years ago. This theory was crysatlized till men spoke of the Aryans, those people who once lived in central Asia and by emigration from there populated Europe India and afterward America
 Tn word, it was held that from one people with one speech the inhabitants of the world became multitude of peo- pies, with a thousand tongues.
 This theory is now abandoned by many American scientists They say that in the beginning there were numberless tribes each with language of it's own. They say that since that beginning these tribes have become fewer, that their languages have become fused. The log ical outcome, according to the American ethnologists, is one people with one language.
 They base their assertions largely on the state of affairs found here in Cali fornia. Because of facts observed among our native Indians, they affirm that sim ilarity of speech does not point to the same origin, but to the joining together of races once separate.
 Some of the figures given are very i'm teresting. Four-fifths of the linguistic area of the continent lies east of the Pa cific coast, but this four-f1fths has only one-fifth the number of languages. Four-fifths of all Indian languages are found here within the comparatively small area of the Pacific coast.
 While in all other parts of the coun- try there are traces of progressive civ- ilizations, there is record of but one primitive civilization in California.
 The Californa Indians hold their lan- guages sacred, as if they were the basis of all organization.
 Taking these facts, scientists say: The less the development, the greater the number of languages.
 The inference is plain, according to the ethnoIogists. The farther back we go into the past the less civilization and the more languages. Clear at the first end of history is no civilization and countless languages. At the other will be a perfect civilization and one lan- guage.
 As Director J. W. Powell of the bu- reau of ethnology, says in his annual re- port:
 "In the study of the languages of the earth we find in general way that the more primitive the culture of the people the fewer are the people who speak the common tongue and the greater are the number of distinct tongues. By world wide review of this subject we reach the conclusion that every tribe in the begin nings of things of human speech spoke distinct language"
 The man who has studied the Indians of California for the bureau of ethnol- ogy is w. J. McGee. He has lived among all the surviving aborigines and studied their languages and customs. Associ- ated with him was w H. Holmes, of the United States National museum. The district examined by them included the Table mountain region from the Yabu river south to the Tule river; that por- tion of the northern coast range center ing about Ukiah; the Sacramento val ley about Stockton and the coast of southern California
 WELL MET FOR THE WORK.