The American Indian/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI
NEW WORLD ORIGINS
The aim of the preceding chapters has been to convey a general idea of the content of the science of anthropology in so far as it applies to the New World. The ultimate goal of investigation in this field in the New World is the discovery of the origin of the Indians and the causes and conditions leading to the development of their culture. Though thus simply stated, the problem is truly complex. We have seen what a great array of facts must be considered and how one must draw upon the resources of zoology, geography, and geology, before the various parts of the problem can be formulated for critical consideration. As to the origin of the New World man himself, we have achieved one point: viz., that he migrated hither from Asia where his nearest relatives still reside. Yet, we are far from the truth as to the exact relationship between the Indian and the Asiatic, and have still much to learn as to his own subdivisions. Again, when we turn to culture, we are confronted with another problem of origins. One of our objectives in this volume has been the formulation of the anthropological view of culture to which end we have reviewed and classified the facts, or manifestations, of the phenomenon of culture in so far as they seemed necessary to the comprehension of current problems and interpretations. This view we have stated to be the historical conception of culture origins.
Now, with the main facts before us and recognizing that the differentiation of cultures is a historical phenomenon, we should be able to project the general outlines of man's career in the New World. Recalling our conclusion that the Indian came here from Asia at a relatively recent period, we find ourselves confronted with the question as to what elements of culture man brought with him when he crossed over to America. Even the casual reader will be impressed by the close general parallelism between the two halves of the world, and, it is this obvious fact more than anything else, that has stimulated speculative writings upon the subject. Repeated efforts have been made to show that all the higher culture complexes of the New World were brought over from the Old, particularly from China or the Pacific Islands. Most of these writings are merely speculative and may be ignored, but some of the facts we have cited for correspondences to Pacific Island culture have not been satisfactorily explained. Dixon[1] has carefully reviewed this subject, asserting in general that among such traits as blowguns, plank canoes, hammocks, lime chewing, head-hunting cults, the man's house, and certain masked dances common to the New World and the Pacific Islands, there appears the tendency to mass upon the Pacific side of the New World. This gives these traits a semblance of continuous distribution with the Island culture. Yet it should be noted that these traits, as enumerated above, have in reality a sporadic distribution in the New World and that there are exceptions. On the other hand, there is no great a priori improbability that some of these traits did reach the New World from the Pacific Islands. Satisfactory proof of such may yet be attained, but such discoveries would not account for New World culture as a whole. Then there is abundant data to show that the Polynesians are recent arrivals in the Pacific;[2] in fact, Maya culture must have been in its dotage long before they were within striking distance of the American coast.
In the preceding discussions, we found evidences of a certain unity in the fundamentals of culture for all parts of the New World, and unless we find among these some fundamentals that are also conspicuous in the Old World, we need look no farther than the New for their place of origin. The Old World also has its fundamental traits, particularly the ancient cultures of Asia, but so far, few close parallels between these and those of the New have come to light. Again, the originality of many New World traits is apparent when our subject is viewed from the cultural horizon of the Old World. It has been very aptly said that the fundamentals of Old World culture are expressed by the terms "cereals, cattle, plough, and wheel."[3] Yet, what have we found in the New World that can be set down as specifically similar to these? We are left, therefore, little choice but to recognize that the cultures of the New World peoples were developed independently of the ancient centers of higher culture in the Old.
The old argument against such a conclusion was that the barbarous Indian was incompetent to develop the cultures of Yucatan and Peru. This view is now somewhat antiquated, but still lingers as a kind of intellectual reaction in the minds of modern Europeans. Perhaps back of it is a habit of thought, since in Old World culture, in which we ourselves live and think, fundamental traits are often found to have a single origin. For example, the horse, ox, wheat, glass, printing, gunpowder, etc., seem to have had each a single place of origin from which they were diffused. Yet, in contemplating New World culture we must not forget that the comparisons between the two hemispheres should be specific. It will not do, for instance, to say that because agriculture is found in both the Old and New Worlds, one must have been derived from the other, for we are here dealing with a mere abstraction, like eating, writing, fishing, etc. The proper method is to examine the agricultural traits found in each hemisphere. Thus, one basic factor in agriculture is the development of specific food plants. Let us, therefore, compare the plants cultivated by the Indian with those grown in the Old World.
De Candolle[4] has listed more than forty plants grown by the Indians whose wild ancestors were, without reasonable doubt, peculiar to the New World. On the other hand, the ancestors of the leading food plants of the Old World have been found peculiar to it. Thus, we find that each hemisphere developed agriculture by drawing upon its own peculiar flora and that in consequence their seed lists had nothing in common before 1492. Now, when we consider the rapidity with which maize, tobacco, and other New World plants were taken up in the Old World after the commemorable voyage of Columbus, it is scarcely conceivable that the peoples of the two hemispheres could ever have been in contact without exchanging some of their seeds and certainly impossible to assume that the agriculture of the New World was directly derived from the Old.
But our case does not rest upon this one observation, for there are others of almost equal weight. The wheel is a fundamental concept in the Old World and clearly of great antiquity, but is singularly absent from the New World,[5] even its spinners and potters failing to grasp the principle. The use of iron is another, though perhaps later, invention of the Old World that remained peculiar to it. However, the facts of cultivated plants and the wheel, which must be very ancient in origin, make a strong case for the peopling of the New World either at a very remote period or by wild tribes only, such as might arise from contact between the historic tribes of Alaska and Siberia.
On the other hand, the New World peoples did achieve some of the specific inventions of the Old; for instance, the making of bronze and casting gold, silver, copper, etc.; again, in certain methods of weaving and dyeing. It is sometimes objected that the knowledge of these traits could have been handed over or relayed from southern Asia to Mexico by the intervening wild tribes; but this seems fanciful, for while we do find certain traits spread over adjacent parts of the two continents, as the sinew-backed bow, the bowdrill, the magic flight myth, the opium type of smoking, all of which are considered as of Asiatic origin, their distribution is continuous from Alaska downward, and fades out before we reach the southern continent. Further, it has been assumed that the ideas underlying a trait could be carried along as part of a myth and so pass from one of the higher cultures of Asia to Mexico by way of Siberia and Alaska. There is no a priori improbability in this notion that specific ideas can be carried from tribe to tribe as constituent parts of mythical tales. The difficulty is that notwithstanding our very complete knowledge of typical tribal mythologies, we are so far unable to find examples of such extensive transmissions of the process concepts underlying specific culture traits. As we have noted under Mythology, myths do seem to have carried a few mythical conceptions from the Old World to the New, but these have remained as mere parts of tales and do not function in practical life.
Hence, the general condition for any interpretation of Old and New World relations is the full recognition that their great culture centers were well isolated by a complex chain of wilder hunting peoples and that direct contact between the two was impossible without modern means of transportation. Only such traits could, therefore, filter through from one to the other as were assimilated by these more primitive tribes. When we consider their great number and the diversity of their speech, we realize that Mexico was completely isolated from China in agriculture, 'metal work, and similar arts, but not necessarily so in simpler traits like the sinew-backed bow. The proof of independent development thus rests largely in chronological and environmental relations.
The age-societies of the Plains Indians of North America are an illustration of this point. The only other places in the world where they exist seem to be in Melanesia and eastern Africa. In each case they have a restricted distribution.[6] What, then, shall be said of this case? If similarity in culture is in itself evidence of common or genetic origin, then these peoples must have been in contact with each other. But there are no reasons for believing that they ever were in contact. Yet, there are those who would regard these societies as survivals of a time when all the world had them as a part of its culture. Now the best way to approach this assumption is to appeal to chronology. These societies in America have been thoroughly studied; yet, none of the recorded facts favors their antiquity of origin. In fact, a few Plains tribes are known to have acquired some of these societies within a century and for the phenomenon as a whole, 500 to 700 years seems a liberal estimate of its age. But what chances had these tribes to meet the Melanesian or the Masai of Africa during this period? Further, this age-grading system in America can be identified with one group of villages in the heart of the Plains area, from whom it was borrowed by the other tribes. These villages must, therefore, be considered as the originators of the trait as it appears in the New World.
We must not overlook one difficulty in dealing with culture similarities of this kind; viz., the proof that these similarities are real. Recently, Elliot Smith[7] revived the discussion of certain elephant-like figures found on Maya sculptures. In this case, we may doubt the reality of the similarity between these figures and southern Asiatic drawings of elephants, because those who have studied the Maya sculptures themselves, instead of the pencil sketches made by earlier observers, find proof that another creature was in the artist's mind. In cases of this kind when we are dealing with the conventionalized drawings of the New World and the Old, it can scarcely be expected that the mere objective similarity between a few of these drawings is to be taken as proof of their identity in origin. Other check data must be appealed to before even a useful working hypothesis can be formulated. Yet, if it should ultimately turn out that a stray vessel did drift ashore in Mexico and land a sculptor who created a new art motif such would be a mere incident in the culture history of the New World. Further research into the chronology of archæological remains ought to show just how abruptly this fancied elephant motif appeared and at what relative period. In such chronological data the basis for the real solution to the problem may be expected.
Again, when the similarity of cultural phenomena has actually been demonstrated, empirical procedures cease and interpretation begins. This interpretation is, in last analysis, speculative It is truly amusing to read some passages in current anthropological literature in which writers who, considering their own observations of similarity valid, offer the most fantastic interpretations which they assert are strictly empirical. We should bear in mind, then, that the comparative study of Old and New World cultures is no mere diversion. Superficial and hasty comparisons will retard rather than hasten the solution of the main problem. Patient, unremitting toil in the trenches of the archæologist, and not spectacular flights on the part of curio hunters and literary enthusiasts, will show at what periods, and in what forms, the assumed similarities came into existence.
We must now take leave of our brief review of culture in the New World. We have found the highest centers of culture in Mexico and Peru to be not really unique growths, but to possess many of the fundamental traits common to the wilder folk in the marginal areas of both continents. New World culture is thus a kind of pyramid whose base is as broad as the two Americas and whose apex rests over Middle America. We have found no just ground for assuming that the culture of the Maya was projected into the New World from the Old, where it rested as an isolated replica of cultures beyond the Pacific. That influences of various kinds did reach the New World from the Old is apparent, but each of these must, upon its own merits, particularly as to its chronology, be subjected to the most exacting investigation.
However, the discovery of New World origins is not merely a problem in culture. Language is also regarded as a reliable index to origin. So far, no evidence has come to hand that would identify a single New World language with an Old World stock. In fact, the only language found in both America and Asia is the speech of the Eskimo, represented in Asia by a small group of villages, on the extreme eastern coast of Siberia. This exception may be ignored in this instance. Then, though there is great diversity of language within the New World itself, we have a right to expect that if colonies were planted here by an Old World culture, such colonization would have grafted-in Old World tongues. Yet, so far, there is no trace of such intrusion. Hence, as the case stands today in language, we must conclude that the separation of New World man from the man of the Old World, was exceedingly remote, so remote that the existence of an advanced state of culture among the original stock is improbable.
Finally, there is the question of blood. Our review of New World somatic characters revealed the essential unity of the Indian population. It is also clear that there are affinities with the Mongoloid peoples of Asia. Hence, we are justified in assuming a common ancestral group for the whole Mongoloid-Red stream of humanity. We have already outlined the reasons for assuming the pristine home of this group to be in Asia, but when it comes to locating the precise cradle land of this parent group, we must proceed with caution. This is, however, not of prime importance, for if we start with the known facts, the present distribution of the Mongoloid-Red stem, we note that it concentrates in the colder northern halves of both hemispheres where the cultures of its units are primitive, but that in each case its southern outposts developed complex cultures. The New World branch can claim originality for its high center and while it is clear that the ancient Chinese center was stimulated by non-Mongoloid centers, the pioneer students of Chinese origins have already presented a strong brief for their priority in many Old World inventions.[8] Thus, the future may lead to the opinion that inherent in this Mongoloid stem was a germ of originality which blossomed forth wherever the environment permitted, and we may be able by contrasting these two independent cultures—the ancient Chinese and the Maya—with those of southern Asia and Europe, to arrive at last at the knowledge of elements peculiar to both. What these may be, we can but guess, but there seems to be a similarity between the Indians and the Asiatics in the weakness for loosely coordinated social groups, failure to develop nationalism, and relatively greater regard for tradition. Returning to our subject, we may note that the geographical position of these two centers of higher cultures on the frontiers of the extended swarming ground of the Mongoloid-Red stem, one of which could not have been borrowed from the other, necessitates the assumption of a northern cradle land and an expansion into more favorable environments. It also presupposes a main horde of the Mongoloid-Red peoples with a culture not materially different from that of the great mass of wilder North Asiatic and American tribes known to history. Like a great crescent this horde stretched from Cape Horn, through Alaska, across Asia and beyond to the shores of the Baltic and the Mediterranean. It appears, in the main, as a virile horde of hunting and fisher-folk most at home in cold, elevated, or semi-arid lands. Among other traits, we find the main body characterized by tailored skin clothing, the sinew-backed bow, the snowshoe, the sled, etc. These are all fairly primitive characters; yet, wherever the outposts of this great horde met with favorable uplands they developed agriculture and other complex traits. It seems, therefore, that the solution of our New World problem lies as much in the heart of Asia as in Mexico or Peru. But, reverting once more to this great Mongoloid-Red horde, we may ask from what sources in its primitive cultures sprang the impulses that produced the two great cultures of ancient China and Yucatan? In the New World, the fundamentals of Maya culture are found among the wilder folk; in Asia there are also evidences that Chinese culture sprang from the primitive heritage of the original Mongoloid group settling in the valley of the Yellow River.[9] And while it is true that the most fundamental traits in Old World culture can not be ascribed to these same early Chinese, they did, nevertheless, achieve great originality in the invention of new traits, many of which are now elements of modern culture. Hence, unless we return once more to the old theory of the fall of man, we must look upon these two great cultural achievements as the special contributions of the Mongoloid-Red peoples to the culture of mankind.
Now, as a final conclusion to this volume on the man of the New World and his culture, we beg the reader's indulgence in the formulation of an hypothetical statement. The New World received a detachment of early Mongoloid peoples at a time when the main body had barely developed stone polishing. That this was contemporaneous with the appearance of stone polishing in Europe does not necessarily follow, for future research in Asia may show it to have been much earlier. One or more periods of climatic change followed, cutting off ready communication with the mother-land and forcing both the Old and New World wings southward. In the former, they came in contact with other differentiated groups from whom they received culture stimuli, but in the New World they had only themselves. Yet, in the course of time, the increase of numbers and the development of sub-social groups led to considerable varieties of culture. Some of the probable traits brought from the mother-land are the fire-drill, stone chipping and polishing, twisting of string, the bow, throwing stick, the harpoon, simple basketry and nets, hunting complexes, cooking with stones in vessels of wood, bark or skin, body-painting, and perhaps tattooing, and the domestication of the dog. Some of these may have filtered through Alaska from time to time, but the facts in the case favor the view that in the main they came in with the original immigrants. Independently, the New World developed agriculture, pottery, the higher types of basketry and cloth weaving, the working of the softer metalf and the manufacture of bronze. The progress in astronomical knowledge and the fine arts compares favorably with that achieved by the early Asiatics. Yet, in all we see the marks of originality which are alone sufficient evidence of their independent origin.
The centers of civilization in the New World were the highlands of Mexico and western South America which, as they developed, reacted to the stimulus of their more backward brothers in other parts of the land in much the same fashion as did the different groups of Mongoloid peoples in Asia. One of the significant points in our discussion has been the identification of the fundamental widely diffused complexes in the cultures of the New World, many of which seem to center in the Mexican and Andean regions of higher civilization and from which their respective radiations are often apparent. The more recent studies of ancient Chinese culture show that a somewhat parallel condition existed in Asia. Apparently, then, we have a more isolated people in the New World who did not travel the road to higher culture so rapidly as their relatives in Asia, the connection between whose centers of development having long been broken by climatic changes and later almost completely blocked by hordes of primitive hunter and fisher-folk. As to what a few more thousand years of this freedom would have done for the New World, we can but speculate; yet, one can scarcely forego the regret that the American Indians did not start on their career many years earlier than they did.