much conjecture, and is an important one,‘as it necessarily involves
the origin of American civilization. The following facts are certainly
very significant: —
1. All those nutritious plants cultivated and used for food in the'
other hemisphere, such as millet, rice, wheat, rye, barley, and oats,
as well as our domestic animals—horses, cattlt* sheep, camels, goats,
&c., were entirely unknown to the Americans.
2. Maize, the great and almost sole foundation of American civilization,
is exclusively indigenous, and was not known to the other
hemisphere until after the discovery of America.379
The kind of beans by the Spaniards called frijoles, still cultivated
by the Indians in Mexico and Central America, is indigenous to our
continent, and even now unused in the other.
If these facts he conceded, as they have heretofore, been by all
naturalists and areheeologists, it will not be questioned that the agriculture
of America was of domestic origin, as well as the semi-civilization
of any Indian cultivators. These premises alone establish a
primitive origin and high antiquity for the American races.
Inquiry into their astronomical knowledge, theft arithmetic, division
of time, names of days, &c., will show that their whole system was
peculiar; and, if not absolutely original, must antedate all historical
times of the Old World, since it has no parallel on record. The
Chaldeans, the Chinese, the Egyptians, and other nations of the East- f
ern hemisphere, had divisions of time and astronomical knowledge
more than 2000 years b. c .; nevertheless, among ancient or modern
Indians, there remains no trace of these trans-Atlantic systeins.
“ Almost all the nations of the world appear, in their first attempts to compute time, to
have resorted to lunar months, which they afterwards adjusted in various ways,.in order to
make them correspond with the solar year. In America, the Peruvians, the Chilians, and
the Muyscas, proceeded in the same way; hut not so with the Mexicans. And it is a
remarkable fact, that the short period of seven days (our week), so universal in Europe and
in Asia, was unknown to all the Indians, either of North or South America.” 380 [gad this
learned and unbiassed philologist lived to read Lepsius,38i he would have excepted the
Egyptians; who divided their months into three decades, and knew nothing of weeks of
seven days. Neither did the Chinese, ancient or m o d e r n ,382 ever observe a “ seventh day of
rest.” — Gr. R. Gr.]
“ All the nations of Mexico, Yucatan, and probably of Central America, which were
within the pale of civilization, had two distinct modes of computing time. The’ first and
vulgar mode, was a period of twenty days; which has certainly no connection with any
celestial phenomenon, and which was clearly derived from their system of numeration, or
arithmetic, whioh was peculiar to them.
<£ The other computation of time was a period of thirteen days, which was designated as
being the count of the moon, and which is said to have been derived from the number of
days when, in each of its evolutions, the moon appears above the horizon during the greater
part of the night., . .
“ We distinguish the days of our months by their numerical order— first, second, third,
&c., day of the month; and the days of our week by specific names — Sunday, Monday,'
&c. The Mexicans distinguished every one of their days of the period of twenty days, by
a specific name— Cipactli, Ehecatl, &c. ; and every day of the period of thirteen days, by a
numerical order, from one to thirteen.” ^
These can be neither called weeks nor months — they were arbitrary
divisions,, used long before the Christian era, and no doubt long
before the Americans had any idea of the true length of the solar
year. This they arrived at with considerable accuracy, but, as we
have reason to believe, not many centuries before the Spanish conquest.
With regard to the origin of the astronomical knowledge of
American races, there has been much discussion. Humboldt has
pointed out some striking coincidences in the Mexican modes of computing
time, names of theft months, and similar accidents, with those
of Thibet, China, and other Asiatic nations ; which (were philology
certainty, and old Jesuit interpretation safe,) would look very much
ns if they had been borrowed, and engrafted on American systems
at“ a comparatively recent period. On the other hand, 'he has laid
stress upon some of the peculiarities especially distinguishing thé
Mexican calendar, and which cannot be ascribed to foreign origin
such as the fact already mentioned, that the Mexicans never counted
by months or weeks.
“ What is remarkable too [says Humboldt], is, that the calendar of Peru affords indubitable
proofs not only of astronomical observations and of a certain degree of astronomical
knowledge, but also that their origin was independent of that of the Mexicans. If both
the Mexican and Peruvian calendars were not the result of their own independent observations,
we must suppose a double importation of astronomical knowledge one to Peru,
and another to Mexico — coming from different; quarters, and by people possessed of different
degrees of knowledge. There is not in Peru any trace of identity of the names of the
days, or of a resort to the combination of two series. Their months were alternately of
twenty-nine and thirty days, to which eleven days were added, to complete the year.”
How, if the Mexican calendar differed, “toto ccelo,” from that of the
Peruvian, it follows that their respective origins were distinct ; and
if neither, as Humboldt indicates, was constructed upon a foreign or
Asiatic basis, how are any suppositions of antique intercourse between
the two hemispheres justified by astronomy ? "Why, if the Peruvians
did not borrow from the Mexicans, (their contemporaries on the same
continent,) should they not have taught themselves, just as the Mexicans
did their ownselves, systems as unlike each other as they are
separated by nature, times, and spaces, from every one adopted by
those types of mankind, whose physical structure is from these Americans
utterly diverse ?
Some of the astronomical observations of the Mexicans were also
clearly local : the two- transits of the sun, for instance, by the zenith
of Mexico, besides others.
Assuredly the major portion, then, of the astronomical knowledge
of the .aboriginal Americans was of domestic origin ; and any of the