Aboriginal Races of America [pp. 59-92]

Aboriginal Races of America.
ded them. It will be conceded that a colony, or a nation,
could never lose its language so completely, unless through
conquest and amalgamation; in which case they would adopt
another language. But, even when a language ceases to be
spoken, some trace of it will continue to exist in the names
of individuals, of rivers, places, countries, etc. The names
of Moses, Solomon, David, Lazarus, Isaac and Jacob, are
still found among the Jews every where, though the Hebrew
language has ceased to be spoken for more than 2,000 years.
And the names Mississippi, Missouri, Orinoka, Ontario, Se neca, Alabama, and a thousand other Indian names, will
live for ages after the last Red man is mingled with the
dust. They have no likeness to any in the Old World.
In treating American races, our prescribed limits do not
permit us to go into details respecting the infinitude of
tribes which compose them. Our purpose at present is sim ply to bring forward such facts as may be sufficient to esta blish their origin and antiquity. The broad division of Dr.
Morton, into two great families, which contrast in many
points strongly with each other, is sufficiently minute, viz:
"The Toltecanr nations and the Barbarous tribes." This
classification is somewhat arbitrary, but it is impossible,
in our day, to establish any but very broad boundary
lines. Here, as in the Old World, wars, migrations, amalga mations, etc., have, (luring several thousand years, disturbed
and confused nature's original work; and we must now deal
with masses as we find them. In fact, our main object in
alluding at all here to the diversity of types, among the Abo
rigines of America, is to give another illustration of a position advanced elsewhere. We have shown that the great
divisions of the earth, or the different Zoological provinces,
were populated by groups of races, bearing to each other
certain family resemblances; though, in reality, these races
originated in many, and not in a single pair; thus forming
proximate, and not identical species. The Mongols, the
Caucasians, the Negroes, the Americans, each constitute a
group of this kind. In speaking of the Caucasian races,
for example, we have shown that the Jews, Egyptians, Hindoos, Pelasgians, Romans, Teutons, Celts, Iberians, etc.,
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