The uses to which the pyramidal strums were put in Mexico were very different fro those to which they were put in Egypt and n neighboring civilized nations. If the healthof Mexico and Central America have affinity with those of the Old World it is des dedly not with those of the civilization of r*le Mediterranean. So, after reviewing the esr dente which would derive the original from European or African we are forced to come back to the native re ditions, which offer us the only glimmer :* light in the darkness. As has already Its stated, these traditions point to the north as ie original home of the Nahua people; and init" tigators have taken this to mean somewhere Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado or Califora All these conjectures may be partially true. it is probable the Nahuas were, at vaitt stages of their exodus, in these several plar= But at is still more probable that they from much farther north and that, in dr• migrations southward, they followed the Pa: coast for a considerable portion of the tri There is a very suggestive similarity berwer the customs, culture and mythologies of Nahuas and those of Kwakiutl people of f3• ish Columbia ; and between those of the lit:* and those of the races of northeastern whom they resemble in appearance. But gr; ing though these similarities are, they show, by their several stages of development, that a very considerable space of time must have elapsed since these widely-separated races were in contact with one another.
The similarity of the myths and customs of other western and northern tribes would seem to connect them with the Nahua and with the people of northeastern Asia. As the Nahua and the Maya show affinities in culture, cus toms and traditions sufficient to suggest that they had a common origin, and as the more recent linguistic and ethnological investigations would seem to confirm this suggestion, the latter probably came from the same original habitat as the Nahua; but in their journey southward, instead of keeping to the coast, they made their migration eastward across the con tinent.
There are, in Mexico, races much older than the Nahua and the Maya, races that have, un doubtedly, been profoundly influenced by these latter arrivals, but have retained certain char, acteristics which still proclaim their earlier ori gin. Of these the Otomi, cojointly with the Chichimeca, are credited, in Nahua mythology, with being the first races created by Camaxtli, the Tlaxcalteca creator. Primitive though these peoples were, it is almost certain, how ever, that they were not the aboriginal races of Mexico; for in places we meet with strange tongues, curious wrecks upon the strand of time, that seem to have no affinity withthose of the races dominant in the days Of Moc tezuma.
Distribution of glance at an ethnological map of Mexico shows that the country is divided into a great number of race areas. One of these, comprising Lower CO
fornia and a part of Sonora on the Pacific side, was populated, in historical times, by races of a low culture, who had undoubtedly been driven to these confines by the conquering Nahua and other races who swept over the great, up land plateaux. Along the Rio Grande, in parts of Sonora, Chihuahua and Coahuila were no madic Athapascans; while east and southeast of these was a still larger area covered by two great, distantly-related families, the Packawan and the Tamaulipeco, who occupied a part of Coahuila, all of Nuevo LeOn and most of Tamaulipas. The country included between these areas already mentioned. Guanajuato, Michoacan and the Pacific Ocean, was held by the Nahua, a part of whom had migrated southward into Colima, Guerrero, Morelos, Mexico, Puebla, Vera Cruz and parts of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, of which they held both the north and the south sides. In the heart of their territory, however, were the Tarascans, who occupied the state of Michoa can, and the Otomi who held Hidalgo, Quere taro, Guanajuato and parts of San Luis Potosi and Mexico; while on the Gulf coast, stretch ing north from the city of Vera Cruz to Tel manlipas, were the Totonaco and the Hnas teca, races distantly related to the Maya of Yucatan, Campeche, Tabasco, Chiapas, Guate mala and British Honduras. Across the southern half of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, stretching like a great blanket into Oaxaca, \Vera Cruz, /Chiapas and Tabasco, lay the Zoque; and between the latter and the Nahua of Morelos and Guerrero is the home of the great Zapoteca-Mixteca race AU these separate ethnic divisions show decidedly distinctive racial characteristics. Their languages, industrial arts and mythologies pres ent such variations and dissimilarities as could only come from distinct races or from families separated from one another in the early stages of their tribal life. Therefore Mexican ethnology has to deal with these races as such, and also with their relation to one another and the general influence they have had upon one another ethnically; for the mixing and the blending of the races which have successively appeared in. Mexico, have been going on for ages, just as they are going on to-day, with added European and other elements.
But though the native ethnic elements are gradually losing their distinctiveness, or have already lost it, as in Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosi, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila and northern Chihuahua, yet there are many states, like Michoacan, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas and Yucatan, where the native languages are still Spoken with comparative purity. In these parts of the country racial characteristics persist.