as well as many distinct languages ; and we have sëén the same type
as that of the Polynesians scattered throughout all climates, and yet
speaking dialects of the same language.
It now remains to be shown that, (with perhaps some very partial
exceptions along the Pacific coast,) the types of America are entirely
distinct from those of Oceanica ; and that American languages, civilizations,
social institutions, &c., are utterly opposed to Oceanic1 influence,
while differing, too, amongst each other. It is from the so-called
Polynesian and Malay races that many writers have derived the population
of America; yet in no two types of man do we find cranial
characters more widely different. The heads which we have copied
from the Atlas of M. le Docteur Dumoutier, (who accompanied M. Jac-
quinot in the Exploring Expedition of 1837-’8-’9-’40, of the Astrolabe
and Zélée, sent out by the French government,) were all taken
by the daguërreofype process, either from nature or from plaster-
casts ; and are therefore not only beautifully executed, hut perfectly
reliable. To the eye of the anatomist, these heads will be found to
present a most striking contrast with those of the aboriginal Americans
which we are about to produce. It is much to be regretted,
however, that we-have not complete measurements of these Oceanic
heads, their various diameters, internal capacity, &c., after the plan
adopted by Morton; but I presume such essentials will appear in
full, when the text is published. It will be observed, furthermore, that
the American heads differ more widely from all the Oceanic crania than
they do even from those of the Chinese or true Mongol races, whence
our American Indians are still supposed by fabulists to be derived.
The Oceanic races, including even the Sandwich Islanders, when
compared with our Indians, exhibit crania more elongated, more
compressed laterally, less prominent at the vertex, and more prognathous,
in type. American races, I shall render evident, are
strongly distinguished by the very reverse of all these points, in
addition to their own greatly-flattened occiput. Whilst running the
eye, too, over Dumoutier’s long series of Oceanic heads, I was struck
by one remarkable difference : viz., the greater amount of brain
behind the meatus of the ear than in the skulls of the aborigines
of America ; and the reader will notice vertical lines, rendering this
fact obvious.
A m er ic a n G r o u p .
The author of Crania Americana separated [supra, p. 2761 the
racesjpf this continent into two grand divisions : viz., the T oltecan and
the B a r ba r o u s tribes. That luminous paper — Inquiry into the Distinctive
Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America515—amply
justified the traveller’s adage, that “ he who has seen one tribe of
Indians, has seen all.
' « The half-clad Fuegian, shrinking from his dreary winter, has the same characteristic
lineaments, though in an exaggerated degree, as the Indians of the topical plains and
these again, resemble the tribes which inhabit the region west of the Rocky Mountains
those of the great Valley of the Mississippi, and those, again, which, skirt the Eskimaux on
S e North. AU possess alike the long, lank, black hair, the brown or cinnamon-co ored
skin the heavy brow, the dull and sleepy eye, the full and compressed bps, and the salien ,
but dilated nose The same conformity of organization is not less obvious in the osteo-
K S S S - S E 3 C 3 s^ re or roimded he: d> b e d S e ” v e r t i c a l occiput, the large quadrangular orbits, a n d the low, reoeding forehea . . . .,
exceptions to a general rule do not alter the peculiar physiognomy of the Indian
a s undeviatingly characteristic as that of the Negro ; for whetherwe see him m the a hletic
Charib or the stunted Chayma, in the dark Californian or the fair Borroa, he is an Indian
still, and cannot be mistaken for a being of any other race.
And above all anatomists, Morton bad tbe best nghtto pronounce.
We have seen [swpra, p. 325] how his unrivalled “ collection embraces
410 skulls of 64 different nations and tribes of Indians.”
Time, moreover, from ante-historical — nay, even from geological
epochas, down to the present hour, appears to have wrought little or
no change on the physical structure of the American aborigines. Dr.
Lund’s communication to the Historical and Geographical Society of
Brazil,519 on the human fossil crania discovered by him in the Province
of Minas Geraes, added to the published decisions of Dr. Meigs
on the Santas fossilized bones, with those of Dr. Moultrie on the
Guadaloupe fossilized head, settle that matter conclusively [supra,
pp. 347, 350] : nor do the last-discovered fossilized jaws with perfect
teeth, and portions of a foot, from Florida, now in the possession of
Prof. Agassiz, negative this deduction ; although such vestiges* still
imbedded in conglomerate, may not be cited in the affirmative.
Lund’s language, as rendered by Lieut. Strain, IT. S. §gj is unequivocal
: —
“ Tbe question tben arises, who were these people? what their mode of life? of what
■ race ? and what their intellectual perfection ? The answers to these questions are, happily,
less difficult and doubtful. He examined various crania, more or less perfect, m order to
determine the place they ought to occupy in the system of Anthropology. The narrowness
of the forehead, the prominence of the zygomatic bones, the maxillary and orbital conformation,
all assign to these crania a place among the characteristics of the American race.
And it is known, says the Doctor, in continuation, that the race which approximates nearest
to this is the Mongolian; and the most distinctive and salient character by which we distinguish
between them, is by the greater depression of the forehead of the former. In this
point of organization, these anoient crania’show not only the peculiarity of the American
race, but this peculiarity, in many instances, in an excessive degree ; even to the entire
disappearance of the forehead. We must allow, then, that the people who occupied this
country in those remote times, were of the same race as those who inhabited it at the time
of the conquest. We know that the human figures found sculptured on the ancient monuments
of Mexico represent, for the greater part, a singular conformation of the head
being without forehead — the cranium retreating backward, immediately above the super