the Pacific, would certainly be able to take the further step to the American continent; and Easter Island, with its huge stone monuments, may fairly be regarded as one of the stepping-stones in this migration, which may have been originally accidental, for it cannot be doubted that from time to time vessels have been driven by storms from their destined course, and carried by currents to unknown lands, and some of the scattered islands of the Pacific may have been thus peopled, whilst the Peruvian and Mexican traditions of strangers coming by sea and teaching them agriculture and other arts, appear to me to have a basis of fact, although American antiquaries reject the legends and believe in the indigenous origin of these early civilizations. That strangers appearing suddenly in the midst of barbarous peoples are regarded as supernatural beings and often venerated accordingly, we know from many historical records, of which I will cite two instances in modern times. First that of Buckley, in Australia, who chancing to take a spear from the grave of a chief, was looked upon as the embodied spirit of the deceased, and was consequently treated with great respect and consideration by those who had never before seen a white man. In the second place there is the recorded instance of several whites, and amongst them three or four women, who were wrecked at the mouth of a small river on the south-east coast of Africa in the early part of last century. One of these women was taken as a wife by a Kaffir chief, and enjoyed for many years the chief place of authority in the tribe, amongst whom she seems to have been most highly venerated. This chieftainess, known as Quma, who was probably English, as she had a daughter named Bess, seems to have taught the tribe to eat fish,1 which no other Kaffir tribe will touch, and also to cultivate the sweet potato. Mr. Van Reenan, who had been sent from the Cape to inquire about these shipwrecked whites, describes them as then (in 1790) old He says he would have taken the three women. 1 Mr. Kay noticed heaps of oyster-shells in the villages of this tribe. 66 surviving-Quma being dead-back to the colony, but they begged to remain with their children and grandchildren. Quma's son Daapa was a great chief, and it is said his enemies dared not attack him when in his prime with less than double or treble his force. "For," said one, "he and his men have the white man's blood in them." Daapa told Mr. Kay, the missionary who relates this history, that his mother was white, that her hair was at first long and black, but before she died it was quite white. Asked why he resided near the sea, he replied, "Because it is my mother; from thence I sprang, and from thence I am fed when hungry." This," says Mr. Kay, "I am told is a figure of speech frequently used by him in reference to the wreck of his mother and the supply of fish which he and his people obtain from the deep in cases of emergency." 1 Quma had five children, but only Daapa and his sister Bess survived at the time of Mr. Kay's visit, and he says truly, had these been dead the traditionary accounts in the fourth or fifth generation might have been regarded as mere romance. The description he gives of the mixed descendants of these white women is of interest to anthropologists. Daapa's children, by several wives, numbered twenty-two, eleven being sons. eldest seems to be about forty-five, and in point of appearance is one of the most haggard, filthy, and illlooking natives I ever met with. Some of the others also are anything but handsome; their black shaggy beards, long visages, eyes somewhat sunk, prominent noses, and dirty white skins give them a wild and very unpleasant aspect." One of these sons of Daapa, grandson of the shipwrecked Quma, was named Johnny. "The word of Quma was a great word," said the natives. When Quma our eyes saw, the hungry were always fed." The Here then we see in modern history an incident similar to that related in the Peruvian story of Manco Capac and Mama Oello, who, being strangers coming up 1 Caffrarian Researches, by Stephen Kay, p. 304. 2 Ibid. p. 306. from the sea, taught the natives the cultivation of maize and other useful arts. Why should this be regarded as incredible in Peru, and set down as a sun myth, when a similar incident undoubtedly happened in South Africa a century ago, causing changes in the food and agriculture, and in the physical characteristics of at least one Kaffir tribe? The human race may be aptly compared to the waves of the sea, ever in motion, carried by currents from coast to coast, sometimes dashed by storms against unknown rocks to fall in spray far inland, leaving no trace behind save perhaps in a water-borne seed, to spring up as a new plant, or in a piece of wreckage at which men may marvel. The great onward movement is migration, always in process; the storm-tossed spray is an accidental incident in the migration, which yet may be productive of great things, as we have seen in the introduction of new blood, new manners and customs, new beliefs, new implements and improvements in art. A great migration, or series of migrations, which has been productive of the most momentous consequences to the human race, has lately become the subject of a great conflict of opinion among scholars, chiefly philologists—it is that of the great white race, formerly denominated Caucasian, from the supposed region of their origin as a race, and known later as Aryan. This race, which has become the dominant race of the world, had always been supposed to have originated somewhere in Central Asia, and to have spread thence to India and Persia on the one hand, and Europe on the other. Lately, however, German scholars, notably Penka and Schrader, have come to the conclusion that Scandinavia, or the countries adjoining the Baltic, must have been the primitive home of the Aryans, and this theory has been taken up enthusiastically by Canon Isaac Taylor and Professor Sayce, who find their nearest congeners in the Finns. This theory is based chiefly upon linguistic grounds, with which I am not competent to deal; but it may be broadly stated that from the words used to designate trees, animals, and certain articles in common use in the various Aryan languages, it is concluded that the early Aryans before their several migrations, knew the oak, the birch, the beech, the fir, the bear, the wolf, the stag, the elk, and other things pertaining to Northern Europe, such as barley and rye, but knew nothing of wheat, which is a more southern grain, nor of the palm and the tiger, which are distinctly Asiatic. They say also that the primitive Aryans must have lived near a sea where the lobster, the seal, and the oyster were found, all which would seem to denote a northern seacoast more in accord with the Baltic than the Caspian. The subject is altogether too wide, and too much in dispute, to be entered upon here, the only generally accepted facts being that this white, or Aryan race, occupy, and have occupied for unknown ages, India and Persia, as well as Europe; that they must have had some point of dispersal which up to this present is not known; but they certainly were not indigenous in India, or in Central Europe, where there are evident traces of more than one older race. Meanwhile it may be affirmed that the origin and migrations of this great Aryan race remain undetermined, although the theory of Penka seems gaining ground; but the disputes on the subject among the learned show how complicated is that which at the first glance might seem to be the most easily traceable of human migrations. Their appearance in Europe brings us to the Bronze Age, for they were undoubtedly acquainted with the use of metal. Whether they are to be identified with the Kelts has not yet been determined, but it is certain that since their advent civilization has made rapid progress; the use of metal tools and weapons gave their users a great advantage over the users of stone implements, although, doubtless, stone continued to be used for many purposes long after the introduction of bronze,1 1 An instance of this may be cited from the recent discoveries of Mr. Flinders Petrie in Egypt, for in the cities explored he found implements of stone, copper, and bronze, all apparently in use at and probably even into the Iron Age; but with the Bronze Age we may consider the era of civilization to have fairly begun at least in Europe, and doubtless a similar stage of progress had been reached long ages before in the far East and in Egypt, which has always been in the van of human progress. the same time. It must be borne in mind that it is the entire absence of all metal which constituted the age of stone. |