Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-08-17
Copyright. 1907 by John Elfreth Watklns)
HAT our popular notions concern

IA L o0E popular NOUOnS concern
ing the indian are largely lament
able fallacies, disseminated by
the novelist, poet and historian,
was emphasized to me the other
day in the course of an interview with Prof.
William Henry Holmes. chief of the bureau
of American ethnology. This bureau is
tered under the guardianship of the Smith
sonian Institution Its function is the
classification and study of the aboriginal
tribes OF the United States, and the able
man at its head is geologist, a.nthropolo-
Sist and arChaeologist. He has done scien-
tiffc work under the Smithsonian for the
past quarter of a century. was professor
in the Chicago University and head curator
of anthropology in the National Museum be-
fore being appointed 10 his present position
to succeed the late Maj. J. w. Powell, He
has made archaeological studies in Mexico.
California and many sother parts of the
country. and in 1898 he received the LotTbet
quinquennial prize of $1,000 for the excel
lence of his archaeolo2ic work. He Is cura-
tor of the National Gallery of Art is a
well-known. watarcolor painter. and his
works have occupied places of honor in
the most important art exhibitions of this
country.
His characteristics which would most I'M
press an interviewer are his conservatism.
his intolerance of error and his indefatiga-
biltty in searching for truth.
l asked Prof Holmes to sum up for me
In popular language what his bureau had
learned to date concerning the real Indian
how he came here, whence he came and
when he came. | asked him also to cor
rect the most egreSious errors concerning
the Indian which corrupt the popular mind
and to speculate far as ne could concern
ing the future of the fast-vanishing red
man
Origin of the Indian.
Did the Indian probably originate on
this continent? Was there a cradle of the
race here-an American Garden of Eden,
so to speak," l asked at the outset.
The theory that the Indian originated on
the American continent has been sup
ported by a number of scientific men," he
replied. Some OF them go far as to
hold that the Indian developed on this con-
t!nent from some form of ape; but this Is
discounted by the fact that America has no
existing species of the higher quadrLmana.
and that no fossil remains of apes that coulcs
have been ancestors of the human race have
yet been found here. Moreover, the more
we study the red race the more we note not
only that they take high rank as compared
with the races Of Asia and Africa. but that
their physical and mental makeup is so
nearly Identical with that of the higher
races OF the Old world that theories OF Sepa-
rate origin seem entirely unrea sonable and
untena BILE. My opinion therefore. is that
they spread to America from the old world"
How did they probably Gomez"
You will see here that nature Offered
number of bridges, or ferries, rendering
passage from the eastern to the western
continent possible, even to OF print
tive culture"
Prof. Holmes led me to large globe
which stood by his desk and with his finger
traced these possible paths
Bridge From Europe to America.
Evidence has been offered that the northern
portions OF America, here, were once 1000
to 5000 feet above their present level. This