Part 1 (1/2)
Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History.
by Henry R. Schoolcraft.
NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
At a special meeting of the New York Historical Society, November 17th, 1846, being the Forty-Second Anniversary of the Society, Hon. LUTHER BRADISH in the Chair, on motion of Mr. PHILIP HONE, it was unanimously
_Resolved_, That the thanks of the Society are due to Mr. HENRY R.
SCHOOLCRAFT, for his learned and interesting Address, delivered this evening, and that a copy be respectfully requested to be deposited in the archives of the Society, and published.
Extract from the Minutes.
ANDREW WARNER,
_Recording Secretary_.
AN ADDRESS.
To narrow the boundaries of historical mystery, which obscures the early period of the American continent, is believed to be an object of n.o.ble attainment. Can it be a.s.serted, on the ground of accurate inquiry, that man had not set his feet upon this continent, and fabricated objects of art, long anterior to the utmost periods of the monarchies of ancient Mexico and Peru? Were there not elements of civilization prior to the landing of c.o.xc.o.x, or the promulgation of the gorgeous fiction of Manco Capac? What chain of connection existed between the types of pseudo-civilization found respectively at Cuzco, west of the Andes, and in the valley of Anahuac? Did this chain ever link in its causes the pyramids of Mexico with the mounds of the Mississippi valley? It is not proposed to enter into the details of this discussion. Such an inquiry would far transcend the limits before me. It is rather designed to show the amplitude of the field as a subject of historical inquiry, than to gather its fruits. It will entirely compa.s.s the object I have in view, if the suggestions I am to make shall have the tendency, in any degree, to draw attention to the topic, and to denote the strong incentives which exist, at the present time, to study this ancient period of American history. This is the object contemplated.
Nations, in their separation from their original stocks, and dispersion over the globe, are yet held together by the leading traits, physical and intellectual, which had characterized them as groups. And in spreading abroad, they are found to have left behind them a golden clue, which we recognize in physiology, languages, arts, monuments, and mental habitudes. These traits are so intimately interwoven in the woof of the mind, and so firmly interlaced in the structure and tendencies to action of the whole organization of the man, that they can be detected and generalized after long eras of separation, and the most severe mutations of history. Such is the judgment, at least, of modern research. Ethnology bases its claims to confidence in the recognition of the dispersed family of man, in these proofs. And when they have been eliminated from the dust of antiquity, they are offered as contributions to the body of well considered facts and inferences, which are to compose the thread of antique history and critical inquiry.
And what, it may be inquired, are the evidences the study produces, when these means of scrutiny come to be applied to the existing red race of this continent? or to their predecessors in its occupancy? Do their languages tell the story of their ancient affinities with Asia, Africa, or Europe? Do we see, in their monuments and remains of art, increments of a pre-existing state of advance, or refinement, in the human family, in other parts of the globe? It is confessed, that in order to answer these enquiries, we must first scrutinize the several epochs of the nations with whom we are to compare them, and the changes which they themselves have undergone. Without erecting these several standards of comparison, no certainty can attend the labor. All nations and tribes upon the face of the globe, whom we can make sponsors for the American tribes, are thus const.i.tuted the field of study, and we have opened to our investigations a theme at once n.o.ble and sublime.
Philosophy has no higher species of inquiry, beneath Infinitude, than that which establishes the original affinities of man to man.
We perceive, in casting our minds back on the track of nations from whom we are ourselves sprung, a strong and clear chain of philological testimony, running through the various nations of the great Thiudic[1]
type, until it terminates in the utmost regions of the north. This chain of affiliation, though it had a totally diverse element in the Celtic, to begin with, yet absorbed that element, without in the least destroying the connection. It runs clearly from the Anglo Saxon to the Frisic, or northern Dutch, and the Germanic, in all its recondite phases, with the ancient Gothic, and its cognates, taking in very wide accessions from the Latin, the Gallic, and other languages of southern Europe; and it may be traced back, historically, till it quite penetrates through these elementary ma.s.ses of change, and reveals itself in the Icelandic. Two thousand five hundred years, a.s.suming no longer period, have not obliterated these affinities of language. Even at this day, the Anglo Saxon numerals, p.r.o.nouns, most of the terms in chronology, together with a large number of its adverbs, are well preserved in the Icelandic. And had we no history to trace our national origin, the body of philological testimony, which can be appealed to, would be conclusive of the general question.
[1] Forster.
Does Asia offer similar proofs of the original ident.i.ty, or parentage of its languages with America? This cannot be positively a.s.serted. But while there is but little a.n.a.logy in the sounds of the lexicography, so far as known, it is in this quarter of the globe, that we perceive resemblances in some words of the Shemitic group of languages, positive coincidences in the features of its syntax, and in its unwieldy personal and polysyllabical and aggregated forms; and the inquiry is one, which may be expected to produce auspicious results. On the a.s.sumption of their Asiatic origin, therefore, it is evident that the Indian tribes are of far greater antiquity than the Anglo Saxon. Not only so, but they appear on philological proofs to be older, in their national phasis, if we except, perhaps, the Chinese, than the present inhabitants of the north-eastern coasts of Asia, and the East India Islands. But we are not to pursue this topic. The general facts are merely thrown out, to denote the far reaching and imperious requirements of philology.
When we examine the American continent, with a view to its ancient occupancy, we perceive its surface scarified with moats and walls--its alluvial level plains and vallies bearing mounds, teocalli and pyramids. Its high interior alt.i.tudes, in the tropical regions, are covered with the ruins of temples and cities--and even in the temperate lat.i.tudes of the north, its barrows and mounds are now found to yield objects of exquisite sculpture, and many of its forests, beyond the Alleghanies, exhibit the regularity of antique garden beds and furrows,[2] amid the heaviest forest trees. Objects of art and implements of war, and even of science, are turned up by the plough.
These are silent witnesses. With the single exception of the inscription stone, found in the great tumulus of Grave Creek, in Virginia, in the year 1838,[3] there is no monument of art on the continent, yet discovered, which discloses an alphabet, and thus promises to address posterity in an articulate voice. We must argue chiefly from the character of the antique works of art.
[2] MSS. of the Am. Ethn. Society. Vide Catalogue, Vol. I.
[3] Trans. Am. Ethn. Society. Vol. I.
But although the apparent hieroglyphics of Yucatan and Central America have not been read, nor a history of much incident, or a remote antiquity, deduced from the pictorial scrolls of Mexico, it is impossible not to a.s.sign to the era of American antiquities, a degree of arts, science, agriculture and general civilization, to which the highest existing nomadic or hunter tribes had no pretence. It is a period of obscurity, of which inquirers might perhaps say, that the darkness itself is made to speak. It tells of the displacement of light. All indeed beyond the era of Columbus, is shrouded in historical gloom. We are thus confined within the short cycle of some three hundred and fifty years. A little less than twelve generations of men.
Beyond this period, we have an ante-historical period, which is filled, almost exclusively, with European claimants of prior discovery. We will name them in their order. They are the Scandinavians, the Cimbri and tribes of Celtic type, and the Venetians. Still prior, is the Asiatic claim of a predatory nation, who, in the days of the Exodus, lived in caves and dens of the earth, under the name of Horites,[4] and who culminated at a later era, under the far-famed epithet of Phoenicians--a people whose early nautical skill has, absolutely, no cotemporary.
[4] Forster.
Scandinavian antiquities have recently a.s.sumed the highest interest, which the press and the pencil can bestow. Danish art and research have achieved high honors in disinterring facts from the dust of forgotten ages. And we may look to the ill.u.s.trated publications, which have been put forth at Copenhagen, under royal auspices, as an example of what literary costume and literary diligence, may do to revive and re-construct the antiquarian periods of the world's history. The publication of the ancient northern Sagas, and the ballads of the Scandinavian Skalds, has revealed sufficient of the history of the early and bold adventures, in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, to show that these hardy adventurers not only searched the sh.o.r.es of Iceland and Greenland, and founded settlements and built churches there; but pushed their voyages west to the rocky sh.o.r.es of Heluiland, the woody coasts of Markland, and the vine-yielding coasts of ancient Vinland. These three names geography has exchanged in our days, for Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Ma.s.sachusetts. Perhaps some other portions of New England may be embraced by the ancient name of Vinland.
The ancient songs and legends of a people may be appealed to, as these Sagas and ballads have been, for historical proof, as it is known that the early nations celebrated their heroic exploits, in this manner.
Authors tell us that Homer but recited the traditions of his countrymen. The nautical and geographical proofs, by which portions of the North Atlantic sh.o.r.es have been identified by the bold spirit of northern research, are certainly inexact and to some extent hypothetical. In extending the heretofore admitted points of discovery and temporary settlement, south to Ma.s.sachusetts and Rhode Island, they carry with them sufficient general plausibility, as being of an early and adventurous age, to secure a.s.sent. And they only cease to inspire a high degree of historical respect, at the particular points where the identification becomes extreme, where the pen and pencil have to some extent distorted objects, and where localities and monuments are insisted on, which we are by no means sure ever had any connection with the acts of the early Scandinavian adventurers, and sea kings. This period of the ante-Columbian era, is one of deep interest in American history, and invites a careful and candid scrutiny, with a sole eye to historical truth.
We have also a Celtic period, falling within the same general era of the Scandinavian, which, at least, deserves to be examined, if it be only to clear away the rubbish that enc.u.mbers the threshold of the ancient period of our Indian history. This claim to discovery, rests chiefly upon a pa.s.sage in old British history, which represents two voyages of a Welsh Prince, who in the twelfth century, sailed west from the coasts of Britain, and is thought by some writers, to have reached this continent. The discovery of Columbus was of such an astounding character and reflected so eminent a degree of honor, both on him and the Court which had employed this n.o.ble mariner, that it is no wonder other countries of maritime borders, should rake up the arcana of their old traditions, to share in the glory. If these ancient traditions have left but little worthy of the sober pen of history, they have imposed on us, as cultivators of history, the literary obligation to examine the facts and decide upon their probability. If Prince Madoc, as this account a.s.serts, sailed a little south of west, he is likely to have reached and landed at the Azores. It is not incredible, indeed, that small s.h.i.+ps, such as the Britons, Danes and Northmen used, should have crossed the entire Atlantic at the era, between the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, although it is not probable. It is nearly certain, however, that should such a feat have been performed in the twelfth century, the natives of the American coasts, who were inimical to strangers, would, in no long period, have annihilated them. With a full knowledge of the warlike and suspicious elements of Indian character, such a result might have been predicted in ordinary cases. But that these tribes, or any one of them, should have adopted, as is contended, the _language_ of a small and feeble colony of foreigners, either landing or stranded on the coast; nay more, so fully adopted it as to be understood by any countrymen of the Prince, five hundred years afterwards,[5] is a proof of the national credulity of men, who are predetermined to find the a.n.a.logies which they ardently seek.