7. The maize. No fact is more remarkable in the history of Indian civilization, than the extensive diffusion and cultivation of the maize. In South America it is found, together with other useful plants, in regions where it cannot be indigenous. In the other continent, though it is manifestly the native production of a warmer climate, it was cultivated by tribes inhabiting very high latitudes. In Massachusetts, there was a clear and distinct tradition, that it had been obtained from the "southwest;" and in New York, it was said to be the gift of "the southern Indians, who received their seed from a people who resided still further south ;" and before its introduction they fed upon roots and the bark of trees.* It cannot be denied, that in South America the progress of civilization may be traced from north to south, and in North America in the contrary direction. Every thing seems to point to the plains of Peru, and of New

den. Van Der Donck's New Netherlands, in Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc., vol. i. N. S. p. 201. This subject attracted the attention of Dr. Morton, in his Crania Americana, from which work several instances noted in the text have been taken. Perhaps some clue to the origin of this curious custom, may be gathered from the hint contained in the following extract from Charlevoix. Believing, as the Indians generally did, that death was but a passage to another life, and as it were, a second birth, it is possible that the position of the corpse, when placed in the grave, was originally intended to be emblematic of their ideas upon that subject. "The dead body," says that author, "dressed in the finest robe, with the face painted, the arms and all that belonged to the deceased by his side, is exposed at the door of the cabin, in the posture it is to be laid in the tomb; and this posture is the same, in many places, as that of the child before its birth." * Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. iii. p. 219. Van Der Donck's New Netherlands, in Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc., vol. i. p. 137.

Spain as the two radiating points of the arts, and perhaps as the sources of all the aboriginal population.*

7. Customs. At the time of the discovery, the smoking of tobacco was a custom prevalent among nearly all the Indians of both Americas; and the sacred character of the calumet, with the ritual ceremony of smoking to the sun and to the cardinal points, was almost equally general. The practice of cutting off the heads of those enemies who had fallen in battle, and of scalping; the habits of eradicating the beard, shaving various parts of the head, and of cranial compression, were common to many native families of both continents; and finally, in the institution of clan-ship, observable in South, as well as in North America;† in the domestication of the dog, and the use

* It may be interesting to see the extension of the use of copper. The Peruvians, Mexicans, and perhaps the Mound-builders, were acquainted with the art of hardening, and fabricating instruments of that metal. Acosta says the Indians used copper weapons.—Lib. iv. c. 3. The natives of Chile, says Molina, made use "of the bell-metal copper which is very hard; of this they made axes, hatchets and other edged tools.”—Molina, vol. ii. p. 21. Fernando de Soto saw axes of copper in Florida, "which they said was mingled with gold." -A Relation of the Invasion and Conquest of Florida, etc., p. 75, cited in Am. Phi. Tr., vol. iv. p. 202,-and Garcillasso de la Vega confirms this statement. Captain Smith, Verazzano, and other early voyagers observed articles of wrought copper in general use for ornaments and other purposes, by the Indians along the North Ameriçan coast. The Caracoli of the Charibs is thought to have been composed of copper, and silver and gold.-Sheldon, in Arch. Am., vol. i. p. 398. The inhabitants of New England appear to have possessed and manufactured "chains, collars and drinking cups" of copper.-Brierton, in Smith's Travels, vol. i. p. 107.

† Dobrizhoffer, vol. ii. p. 440.

of that animal in sacrifices; in the custom of tatooing; in the semi-mythological method of explaining eclipses; in the prac tice of piercing the lips and ears, and wearing ornaments in the apertures; in the preparation of intoxicating liquors from native products, and in the use of vapor-baths, we discover analogies, not universal, but, in connection with other proofs, sufficiently forcible to favor a belief in the relationship and common descent of all the tribes, barbarous and cultivated. The most usual objection opposed to this opinion, is the great diversity of the native languages, but it is just such a diversity as might be anticipated, were the epoch of the dispersion of this race placed at a very early period: while, on the other hand, the general resemblance of all the languages, in their structure, is explicable only upon the supposition of their common origin at some such remote age. Upon instituting a comparison on other points, the great family likeness that prevails in all the customs and institutions, from the Fuegians to the Esquimaux, can be owing neither to accident, nor to the operation of the same natural causes and influences; it is often arbitrary, and unless traced to an ancient affiliation, exhibits a most extraordinary phe

nomenon.

CHAPTER III.

ABORIGINAL MIGRATIONS.

IN the examination of the ruins in North America, the traditions connected with them, and their localities, those in the southern portion of the continent present undoubted claims to the highest antiquity. We there trace the strongest and most decisive marks of a primitive people, in monuments and institutions of a primeval character closely allied to the type of ancient civilization upon the old continent. Conceding Asia to have been the birth-place of man, the first seats of a colony from the eastern hemisphere, must be sought upon the shores of the ocean. The claims of Florida to this preference have already been examined. On the west and north-west the ruins in the United States are limited, and nowhere along the shores of the Pacific until we reach Mexico, are there any relics of antiquity; but as we penetrate further to the south, we find these ancient memorials increase, until arriving at that region, which stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, we find a territory, teeming with the vestiges of a great people, rich in stupendous monuments, and abounding in proofs of an ancient, and a primitive population. Here, therefore, are we compelled to place the first abode of the civilized nations-the original centre, whence population was diffused and radiated, through the immense regions of the north. But here we perceive, also, traces of many national changes, revolutions and

migrations, the precise order, succession and history of which, it is impossible to indicate. Two distinct epochs, however, may be observed, denoted by some peculiar features in architecture, institutions, and traditions. The first, which has sometimes been called the age of the Toltecs, was characterized by many of the distinctive forms of primitive civilization and by a mild religion. In this era the vast terraced pyramids of Cholula and Teotihuacan were erected, and even then were in existence, those mythological fables, and those systems of astronomy, and hieroglyphical painting, which were common to most of the nations of Anahuac, Guatemala and Yucatan. The ruins of Palenque, Copan, Mitlan and Uxmal, not only present many mutual analogies, but are closely related by numerous characteristic features to those of Mexico; they appear however to be the most ancient, or rather to be the productions of the most ancient people, and not to have been of Aztec origin. When the Toltecs, who led the van of the great Aztec migration from the north, settled in Mexico, they are said to have found it inhabited by the Olmecas or Olmees, a nation to which the learned Siguenza ascribed the construction of the pyramids of Teotihuacan. At the south, the Mixtecas and Zapotecas, who spoke original languages, and in whose vicinity the ruins of Mitlan are found, appear also to have been ancient nations. The Toltecs in their next movement passed into Guatemala, which was occupied by civilized tribes, speaking idioms unlike the Aztec; and there left traces of their invasion in some remains of their language. They do not seem however to have proceeded into Yucatan, for the Maya tongue which pervades that peninsula, and penetrates even into Guatemala, contains no Aztec words. It appears