IV . TH E AMERI CAN GROUP.
I have hitherto arranged the numberless indigenous tribes of North
and South America into two great families: one of which, the Tolte-
can, embraces the demi-civilized communities of Mexico, Bogota, and
Peru; while the other division includes all the Barbarous tribes.
This classification is manifestly arbitrary, hut eveiy attempt at subdivision
has proved yet more so. Much time and care will he requisite
for this end, which must he based on the observations of D’Or-
higny for South America, and those of Mr. Gallatin for the Northern
[division of the] continent.
These subdivisions, after all, must he for the most part geographical
; for the physical character of the American races, from Cape Horn
to Canada, is essentially the same. There is no small variety of complexion
and stature; hut the general form of the skull, the contour
and expression of the face, and the color and texture of the Hair,
together with the mental and moral characteristics', all point to a
eommon standard, which isolates these people from the rest of mankind.
The same remark is applicable to their social institutions and
their archaeological remains; for Humboldt has shown that the latter
are marked by the same principles of art, from Mexico to Peru;*
and Mr. Gallatin has decided, beyond controversy, that while their
multitudinous tongues are connected by obvious links, they are at
the same time radically different from the Asiatic or any other
languages.
Mr. Gallatin finds this analogy among the AmericanTanguages to
extend to the Eskimaux— and he. accordingly separates them from
the Mongolian race, and regards them as a section of the great American
family. This view may possibly be Sustained by future inquiries
; hut the mere fact that the Eskimaux and the proximate Indian
tribes speak dialects of one language, is of itself no proof that they
belong to the 'same race. Thus, we may reasonably suppose that the
| Asiatic nomades, having arrived on this continent at various and distant
periods, and in small parties, would naturally, if not unavoidably,
adopt more or less of the language of the people among whom
they settled, until their own dialect was finally merged in that of the
Chippewyan and other Indians who hound them on the south.
When, on the other hand, famine, caprice, or a redundant population,
has forced some of these people hack again, across Behring’s
Strait, to Asia, they have carried with them the mixed dialect of the
Eskimaux; whence it happens that the latter tribes and the Tchutch-
* Monuments, II. p. 5.
chi possess some linguistic elements in common : but here the analogy
ceases abruptly, and is traced no farther;*
My collection emhrac.es 410 skulls of 64 different nations and tribes
of Indians, in which the two great divisions of this race are represented
in nearly equal proportions, as the following details will show.
T h e T o l t e c a n F amily.-—Of 213 skulls of Mexicans and Peruvians,
201 pertain to the latter people, whose remains have been selected
with great care by the late Dr. Burrough, Dr. Ruschenb erger, and Dr.
Oakford. To the latter gentleman, I am under especial obligations
for his kindness in personally visiting, on my behalf, the venerable
sepulchres of Pisco, Pachacamac, and Arica. These ceropteries, at
least the last two, are believed not to have been used since the Spanish
conquest ; and they certainly contain the remains of multitudes
of Peruvians of very remote, as well as of more recent times.
Every one who has paid attention to the subject is aware, that the
Peruvian skull is of a rounded form, with a flattened and nearly vertical
occiput. It is also marked by an elevated vertex, great inter-
parietal diameter, ponderous structure, salient nose, and a broad,
prognathous maxillary region. This is the type of cranial conformation,,
to which afi the tribes, from Cape Horn to Canada, more or less
approximate. I admit that there are exceptions to this rule, some of
which I long ago pointed out, in the Crania Americana, and others
have recently been noticed among the Brazilian tribes by Prof. Retzius.
This rounded form of the head, so characteristic of the American
nations, is in some instances unintentionally exaggerated by thè simple
use of the .cradl e-board, in common use among the Indians. * A*
But on the other hand, whole tribes,, from time immemorial, have
been in the practice, of moulding the head into artificial forms of singular
variety and most distorted proportions. These were made the
subject of the following experiment. * * *
[The] indomitable savages who yet inhabit the base of the Andes,
on the eastern boundary of Peru, will no doubt prove to have a far
larger brain than their feeble neighbors whose remains we have examined,
from the graves of Pachacamac, Pisco, and Arica.
If we take the collective races of America, civilized and savage, we
find, as in the Table, that the average size of the brain, as measured
in the whole sériés of 338 skulls, is but 79-cubic inches.
In connexion with this subject, it may not he irrelevant to observe
that the human cranial hones, discovered by Dr. Lund, in the cavern
near the Lagoa do Sumidouro, in Brazil, and seemingly of a strictly
fossil character, conform in all respects to the aboriginal American
* See my Inquiry into the Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America,
p. 27.