IV. AMERICAN NATIONS. —The aboriginal inhabitants of America have been considered by some ethnologists as a department of the human family very distinct from the inhabit ants of the Old World ; and attempts have been frequently made to define them as a race by physical characters. But these attempts have been founded upon a very imperfect acquaintance with the nations peopling this vast continent ; for, taken in the aggregate, they are by no means uniform either in phy sical qualities, in intellectual endowments, moral character, or grade of civilisational development ; nor is the line of distinction between them and the rest of mankind nearly so obvious or strongly marked as is usually imagined. Thus the native Americans have been described as " red-men; " but there are tribes equally red, and perhaps more deserv ing that epithet, in Africa and Polynesia ; and the American nations are by no means all of a red or copper hue, some being as fair as many European people, others being brown or yellow, and others nearly, if not quite, as black as the Negroes of Africa. Again, it has been attempted by anatomists to dis tinguish the American races by a certain con figuration of skull and form of features ; and even Dr. Morton, in his splendid work en titled " Crania Americana," has given his authority in support of the opinion, that such distinctive characters are to be found " in the squared or rounded head, the flattened and vertical occiput, the high cheek-bones, the ponderous maxillae, the large quadrangular orbits, and the low receding forehead." Nevertheless, even he is obliged to admit that very considerable diversities present them selves in the cranial conformation of the American nations ; and he altogether ex cludes the Esquimaux, who, according to the evidence of language, must be regarded as being as truly an American people as any other, in spite of their obvious conformity to the Mongolian type of cranial configuration. And it will be observed that many of the characters just enumerated are those of the Mongolian cranium ; a decided approximation to which may be seen among several tribes, whose dwelling is much further south than that of the Esquimaux. The testimony of travellers who have visited parts of the con tinent remote from each other, and who have scrutinized with observant eyes the physi ognomy and form of head, not in individuals only, but in nations, is very decided as to the marked varieties in configuration which pre sent themselves among these; thus, says that eminent zoologist, M. D'Orbigny, " A Peru vian is more different from a Patagonian, and a Patagonian from a Guarani, than is a Greek from an Ethiopian or a Mongolian." The ac companying figures present examples of this diversity (figs. 845 and 846).
Notwithstanding this diversity in their phy sical characters, however, there is strong evidence that the American nations constitute one natural family, bound together by com munity of descent. This appears from the remarkable relationship which has been dis covered among their languages ; not, however, in their words or even their roots, but in their grammatical construction. In regard to vo cabulary, indeed, there are few parts of the globe in which so many dialects, or even dis tinct languages, are spoken within such limited areas ; and thus, if difference in this respect be considered as a sufficient reason for denying the mutual affinity of the races, the number of separate stocks must be enor mously multiplied. On the other hand, the mutual relationship just indicated, which con sists more particularly in the very remarkable agglutination of words or portions of words, has been found in all the American languages which have been carefully examined, including some of the most important dialects spoken in parts of the continent very remote from each other. And it is easily shown that this
practice, carried on without any regular sys tem, but according to the wants and caprices of each detached community, will, in the absence of such a literature as gives fixity to a language, almost necessarily induce such changes, that two offsets of the same stock, developing themselves under different circum stances, shall cease in a few generations to be mutually intelligible. There are other causes, too, in the character of the people themselves, and in the mode in which they employ lan guage, which tend to introduce such varia tions. Their speech is, for the most part, rather an expression of their own ideas and emotions, than a reflex of external things, much more subjective than objective ; and hence their names for the most familiar objects, or the simplest ideas, are long compound words or epithets, which are in striking contrast with the brief terms employed for the same pur poses by most other nations. This feature in their phraseology seems common to all the American languages ; and it is strikingly indicative of a fundamental peculiarity in the psychical character of the people, namely, a predominance of the imaginative and rhetorical disposition, over the mere sensuousness which is observable among most nations that have attained to a similar grade of material pro gress. Those, indeed, who are most familiar with the psychical nature of the aborigines of America, have been struck with the manifes tations they present of greater energy and mental vigour, of a more reflective nature, of greater fortitude, and of more consistent per severance in their various pursuits and enter prises, than are to be met with among any of the aboriginal nations of the Old World ; and these peculiarities are in great part due to the intensity of their selfish emotions, which ex hibits itself in the sullen and unsocial cha racter, the proud apathetic endurance, the intensity of hatred and revenge, the feeble influence of the benevolent affections, and the deep malice-concealing dissimulation, which are so remarkable in the dwellers amid the dark solitudes of the American forests. Among many of the American nations, moreover, traces have been observed of ancient institu tions, — complicated forms of government, regulated despotisms or monarchies, privileged orders, hierarchical and sacerdotal ordinances, systematic laws (the result of reflection and a settled purpose) connected with marriage, in heritance, family relationships, &c. and other customs, — that mark a very early progress in social development, the forms of which are in great degree peculiar to them. Their opinions, moreover, respecting a future state, and the nature and attributes of invisible agents, are strikingly different from those of nations who have never emerged from primi tive barbarism. They have had in use, more over, from time immemorial, cultivated plants and domestic animals, different from those of the Old World ; and their earliest traditions refer the knowledge of these to some fabulous person, who descended from the gods, or who suddenly made his appear ance among their ancestors ; thus indicating the remoteness of the era of their separation from the inhabitants of the Old World, who have similar mythical legends in regard to the introducers of their first arts and acquire ments.