The Red Man's Continent - Chapters I-II



CHAPTER I.
THE APPROACHES TO AMERICA

Across the twilight lawn at Hampton Institute straggles a group of sturdy 
young men with copper-hued complexions. Their day has been devoted to 
farming, carpentry, blacksmithing, or some other trade. Their evening will 
be given to study. Those silent dignified Indians with straight black hair 
and broad, strong features are training their hands and minds in the hope 
that some day they may stand beside the white man as equals. Behind them, 
laughing gayly and chattering as if without a care in the world, comes a 
larger group of kinky-haired, thick-lipped youths with black skins and 
African features. They, too, have been working with the hands to train the 
mind. Those two diverse races, red and black, sit down together in a 
classroom, and to them comes another race. The faces that were 
expressionless or merely mirthful a minute ago light up with serious 
interest as the teacher comes into the room. She stands there a slender, 
golden-haired, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon girl just out of college--a mere 
child compared with the score of swarthy, stalwart men as old as herself 
who sit before her. Her mobile features seem to mirror a hundred thoughts 
while their impassive faces are moved by only one. Her quick speech almost 
trips in its eagerness not to waste the short, precious hour. Only a 
strong effort holds her back while she waits for the slow answers of the 
young men whom she drills over and over again in simple problems of 
arithmetic. The class and the teacher are an epitome of American history. 
They are more than that. They are an epitome of all history. 

History in its broadest aspect is a record of man's migrations from one 
environment to another. America is the last great goal of these 
migrations. He who would understand its history must know its mountains 
and plains, its climate, its products, and its relation to the sea and to 
other parts of the world. He must know more than this, however, for he 
must appreciate how various environments alter man's energy and capacity 
and give his character a slant in one direction or another. He must also 
know the paths by which the inhabitants have reached their present homes, 
for the influence of former environments upon them may be more important 
than their immediate surroundings. In fact, the history of North America 
has been perhaps more profoundly influenced by man's inheritance from his 
past homes than by the physical features of his present home. It is indeed 
of vast importance that trade can move freely through such natural 
channels as New York Harbor, the Mohawk Valley, and the Great Lakes. It is 
equally important that the eastern highlands of the United States are full 
of the world's finest coal, while the central plains raise some of the 
world's most lavish crops. Yet it is probably even more important that 
because of his inheritance from a remote ancestral environment man is 
energetic, inventive, and long-lived in certain parts of the American 
continent, while elsewhere he has not the strength and mental vigor to 
maintain even the degree of civilization to which he seems to have risen. 

Three streams of migration have mainly determined the history of America. 
One was an ancient and comparatively insignificant stream from Asia. It 
brought the Indian to the two great continents which the white man has now 
practically wrested from him. A second and later stream was the great tide 
which rolled in from Europe. It is as different from the other as West is 
from East. Thus far it has not wholly obliterated the native people, for 
between the southern border of the United States on the one hand, and the 
northern borders of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay on the other, the vast 
proportion of the blood is still Indian. The European tide may in time 
dominate even this region, but for centuries to come the poor, 
disinherited Indians will continue to form the bulk of the population. The 
third stream flowed from Africa and was as different from either of the 
others as South is from North. 

The differences between one and another of these three streams of 
population and the antagonisms which they have involved have greatly 
colored American history. The Indian, the European, and the Negro 
apparently differ not only in outward appearance but in the much more 
important matter of mentality. According to Brinton(*) the average brain 
capacity of Parisians, including adults of both sexes, is 1448 cubic 
centimeters. That of the American Indian is 1376, and that of the Negro 
1344 cubic centimeters. With this difference in size there appears to be a 
corresponding difference in function. Thus far not enough accurate tests 
have been made upon Indians to enable us to draw reliable conclusions. The 
Negro, however, has been tested on an extensive scale. The results seem to 
leave little doubt that there are real and measurable differences in the 
mental powers of races, just as we know to be the case among individuals. 
The matter is so important that we may well dwell on it a moment before 
turning to the cause of the differences in the three streams of American 
immigrants. If there is a measurable difference between the inherent brain 
power of the white race and the black, it is practically certain that 
there are also measurable differences between the white and the red. 

(* D. G. Brinton. "The American Race")

Numerous tests indicate that in the lower mental powers there is no great 
difference between the black and the white. In physical reactions one is 
as quick as the other. In the capacity of the senses and in the power to 
perceive and to discriminate between different kinds of objects there is 
also practical equality. When it comes to the higher faculties, however, 
such as judgment, inventiveness, and the power of organization, a 
difference begins to be apparent. These, as Ferguson(*) says, are the 
traits that "divide mankind into the able and the mediocre, the brilliant 
and the dull, and they determine the progress of civilization more 
directly than do the simple fundamental powers which man has in common 
with the lower animals." On the basis of the most exhaustive study yet 
made, Ferguson believes that, apart from all differences due to home 
training and environment, the average intellectual power of the colored 
people of this country is only about three-fourths as great as that of 
white persons of the same amount of training. He believes it probable, 
indeed, that this estimate is too high rather than too low. As to the 
Indian, his past achievements and present condition indicate that 
intellectually he stands between the white man and the Negro in about the 
position that would be expected from the capacity of his brain. If this is 
so, the mental differences in the three streams of migration to America 
are fully as great as the outward and manifest physical differences and 
far more important. 

(* G. O. Ferguson. "The Psychology of the Negro," New York, 1916)

Why does the American Indian differ from the Negro, and the European from 
both? This is a question on which we can only speculate. But we shall find 
it profitable to study the paths by which these diverse races found their 
way to America from man's primeval home. According to the now almost 
universally accepted theory, all the races of mankind had a common origin. 
But where did man make the change from a four-handed, tree-dwelling little 
ape to a much larger, upright creature with two hands and two feet? It is 
a mistake to suppose that because he is hairless he must have originated 
in a warm climate. In fact quite the opposite seems to be the case, for 
apparently he lost his hair because he took to wearing the skins of slain 
beasts in order that he might have not only his own hair but that of other 
animals as a protection from the cold. 

In our search for the starting-place of man's slow migration to America 
our first step should be to ascertain what responses to physical 
environment are common to all men. If we find that all men live and thrive 
best under certain climatic conditions, it is fair to assume that those 
conditions prevailed in man's original home, and this conclusion will 
enable us to cast out of the reckoning the regions where they do not 
prevail. A study of the relations of millions of deaths to weather 
conditions indicates that the white race is physically at its best when 
the average temperature for night and day ranges from about 50 to 73 
degrees F. and when the air is neither extremely moist nor extremely dry. 
In addition to these conditions there must be not only seasonal changes 
but frequent changes from day to day. Such changes are possible only where 
there is a distinct winter and where storms are of frequent occurrence. 
The best climate is, therefore, one where the temperature ranges from not 
much below the freezing-point at night in winter to about 80 degrees F. by 
day in summer, and where the storms which bring daily changes are frequent 
at all seasons. 

Surprising as it may seem, this study indicates that similar conditions 
are best for all sorts of races. Finns from the Arctic Circle and Italians 
of sunny Sicily have the best health and greatest energy under practically 
the same conditions; so too with Frenchmen, Japanese, and Americans. Most 
surprising of all, the African black man in the United States is likewise 
at his best in essentially the same kind of weather that is most favorable 
for his white fellow-citizens, and for Finns, Italians, and other races. 
For the red race, no exact figures are available, but general observation 
of the Indian's health and activity suggests that in this respect he is at 
one with the rest of mankind. 

For the source of any characteristic so widespread and uniform as this 
adaptation to environment we must go back to the very beginning of the 
human race. Such a characteristic must have become firmly fixed in the 
human constitution before primitive man became divided into races, or at 
least before any of the races had left their original home and started on 
their long journey to America. On the way to this continent one race took 
on a dark reddish or brownish hue and its hair grew straight and black; 
another became black skinned and crinkly-haired, while a third developed a 
white skin and wavy blonde hair. Yet throughout the thousands of years 
which brought about these changes, all the races apparently retained the 
indelible constitutional impress of the climate of their common 
birthplace. Man's physical adaptation to climate seems to be a deep-seated 
physiological fact like the uniformity of the temperature of the blood in 
all races. Just as a change in the temperature of the blood brings 
distress to the individual, so a change of climate apparently brings 
distress to a race. Again and again, to be sure, on the way to America, 
and under many other circumstances, man has passed through the most 
adverse climates and has survived, but he has flourished and waxed strong 
only in certain zones. 

Curiously enough man's body and his mind appear to differ in their 
climatic adaptations. Moreover, in this respect the black race, and 
perhaps the red, appears to be diverse from the white. In America an 
investigation of the marks of students at West Point and Annapolis 
indicates that the best mental work is done when the temperature averages 
not much above 40 degrees F. for night and day together. Tests of school 
children in Denmark point to a similar conclusion. On the other hand, 
daily tests of twenty-two Negroes at Hampton Institute for sixteen months 
suggest that their mental ability may be greatest at a temperature only a 
little lower than that which is best for the most efficient physical 
activity. No tests of this sort have ever been made upon Indians, but such 
facts as the inventiveness of the Eskimo, the artistic development of the 
people of northern British Columbia and southern Alaska, and the 
relatively high civilization of the cold regions of the Peruvian plateau 
suggest that the Indian in this respect is more like the white race than 
the black. Perhaps man's mental powers underwent their chief evolution 
after the various races had left the aboriginal home in which the physical 
characteristics becamefixed. Thus the races, though alike in their 
physical response to climate, may possibly be different in their mental 
response because they have approached America by different paths. 

Before we can understand how man may have been modified on his way from 
his original home to America, we must inquire as to the geographical 
situation of that home. Judging by the climate which mankind now finds 
most favorable, the human race must have originated in the temperate 
regions of Europe, Asia, or North America. We are not entirely without 
evidence to guide to a choice of one of the three continents. There is a 
scarcity of indications of preglacial man in the New World and an 
abundance of such indications in the Old. To be sure, several skulls found 
in America have been supposed to belong to a time before the last glacial 
epoch. In every case, however, there has been something to throw doubt on 
the conclusion. For instance, some human bones found at Vero in Florida in 
1915 seem to be very old. Certain circumstances, however, suggest that 
possibly they may not really belong to the layers of gravel in which they 
were discovered but may have been inserted at some later time. In the Old 
World, on the contrary, no one doubts that many human skulls and other 
parts of skeletons belong to the interglacial epoch preceding the last 
glacial epoch, while some appear to date from still more remote periods. 
Therefore no matter at what date man may have come to America, it seems 
clear that he existed in the Old World much earlier. This leaves us to 
choose between Europe and Asia. The evidence points to central Asia as 
man's original home, for the general movement of human migrations has been 
outward from that region and not inward. So, too, with the great families 
of mammals, as we know from fossil remains. From the earliest geological 
times the vast interior of Asia has been the great mother of the world, 
the source from which the most important families of living things have 
come. 

Suppose, then, that we place in central Asia the primitive home of the 
thin-skinned, hairless human race with its adaptation to a highly variable 
climate with temperatures ranging from freezing to eighty degrees. Man 
could not stay there forever. He was bound to spread to new regions, 
partly because of his innate migratory tendency and partly because of 
Nature's stern urgency. Geologists are rapidly becoming convinced that the 
mammals spread from their central Asian point of origin largely because of 
great variations in climate.(*) Such variations have taken place on an 
enormous scale during geological times. They seem, indeed, to be one of 
the most important factors in evolution. Since early man lived through the 
successive epochs of the glacial period, he must have been subject to the 
urgency of vast climatic changes. During the half million years more or 
less of his existence, cold, stormy, glacial epochs lasting tens of 
thousands of years have again and again been succeeded by warm, dry, 
interglacial epochs of equal duration. 

(* W. D. Matthew. "Climate and Evolution," N. Y. Acad. Sci., 1915)

During the glacial epochs the interior of Asia was well watered and full 
of game which supplied the primitive human hunters. With the advent of 
each interglacial epoch the rains diminished, grass and trees disappeared, 
and the desert spread over enormous tracts. Both men and animals must have 
been driven to sore straits for lack of food. Migration to better regions 
was the only recourse. Thus for hundreds of thousands of years there 
appears to have been a constantly recurring outward push from the center 
of the world's greatest land mass. That push, with the consequent 
overcrowding of other regions, seems to have been one of the chief forces 
impelling people to migrate and cover the earth. 

Among the primitive men who were pushed outward from the Asian deserts 
during a period of aridity, one group migrated northeastward toward the 
Kamchatkan corner of Asia. Whether they reached Bering Sea and the 
Kamchatkan shore before the next epoch of glaciation we do not know. 
Doubtless they moved slowly, perhaps averaging only a few score or a 
hundred miles per generation, for that is generally the way with 
migrations of primitive people advancing into unoccupied territory. Yet 
sometimes they may have moved with comparative rapidity. I have seen a 
tribe of herdsmen in central Asia abandon its ancestral home and start on 
a zigzag march of a thousand miles because of a great drought. The grass 
was so scanty that there was not enough to support the animals. The tribe 
left a trail of blood, for wherever it moved it infringed upon the rights 
of others and so with conflict was driven onward. In some such way the 
primitive wanderers were kept in movement until at last they reached the 
bleak shores of the North Pacific. Even there something--perhaps sheer 
curiosity--still urged them on. The green island across the bay may have 
been so enticing that at last a raft of logs was knotted together with 
stout withes. Perhaps at first the men paddled themselves across alone, 
but the hunting and fishing proved so good that at length they took the 
women and children with them, and so advanced another step along the route 
toward America. At other times distress, strife, or the search for game 
may have led the primitive nomads on and on along the coast until a day 
came when the Asian home was left and the New World was entered. The route 
by which primitive man entered America is important because it determined 
the surroundings among which the first Americans lived for many 
generations. It has sometimes been thought that the red men came to 
America by way of the Kurile Islands, Kamchatka, and the Aleutian Islands. 
If this was their route, they avoided a migration of two or three thousand 
miles through one of the coldest and most inhospitable of regions. This, 
however, is far from probable. The distance from Kamchatka to the first of 
the Aleutian Islands is over one hundred miles. As the island is not in 
sight from the mainland, there is little chance that a band of savages, 
including women, would deliberately sail thither. There is equally little 
probability that they walked to the island on the ice, for the sea is 
never frozen across the whole width. Nevertheless the climate may at that 
time have been colder than now. There is also a chance that a party of 
savages may have been blown across to the island in a storm. Suppose that 
they succeeded in reaching Bering Island, as the most Asiatic of the 
Aleutians is called, the next step to Copper Island would be easy. Then, 
however, there comes a stretch of more than two hundred miles. The chances 
that a family would ever cross this waste of ocean are much smaller than 
in the first case. Still another possibility remains. Was there once a 
bridge of land from Asia to America in this region? There is no evidence 
of such a link between the two continents, for a few raised beaches 
indicate that during recent geological times the Aleutian Islands have 
been uplifted rather than depressed. 

The passage from Asia to America at Bering Strait, on the other hand, is 
comparatively easy. The Strait itself is fifty-six miles wide, but in the 
middle there are two small islands so that the longest stretch of water is 
only about thirty-five miles. Moreover the Strait is usually full of ice, 
which frequently becomes a solid mass from shore to shore. Therefore it 
would be no strange thing if some primitive savages, in hunting for seals 
or polar bears, crossed the Strait, even though they had no boats. Today 
the people on both sides of the Strait belong to the American race. They 
still retain traditions of a time when their ancestors crossed this narrow 
strip of water. The Thilanottines have a legend that two giants once 
fought fiercely on the Arctic Ocean. One would have been defeated had not 
a man whom he had befriended cut the tendon of his adversary's leg. The 
wounded giant fell into Bering Strait and formed a bridge across which the 
reindeer entered America. Later came a strange woman bringing iron and 
copper. She repeated her visits until the natives insulted her, whereupon 
she went underground with her fire-made treasures and came back no more. 
Whatever may have been the circumstances that led the earliest families to 
cross from Asia to America, they little recked that they had found a new 
continent and that they were the first of the red race. 

Unless the first Americans came to the new continent by way of the Kurile 
and Aleutian Islands, it was probably their misfortune to spend many 
generations in the cold regions of northeastern Asia and northwestern 
America. Even if they reached Alaska by the Aleutian route but came to the 
islands by way of the northern end of the Kamchatkan Peninsula, they must 
have dwelt in a place where the January temperature averages - 10 degrees 
F. and where there are frosts every month in the year. If they came across 
Bering Strait, they encountered a still more severe climate. The winters 
there are scarcely worse than in northern Kamchatka, but the summers are 
as cold as the month of March in New York or Chicago. 

Perhaps a prolonged sojourn in such a climate is one reason for the stolid 
character of the Indians. Of course we cannot speak with certainty, but we 
must, in our search for an explanation, consider the conditions of life in 
the far north. Food is scanty at all times, and starvation is a frequent 
visitor, especially in winter when game is hard to get. The long periods 
of cold and darkness are terribly enervating. The nervous white man goes 
crazy if he stays too long in Alaska. Every spring the first boats 
returning to civilization carry an unduly large proportion of men who have 
lost their minds because they have endured too many dark, cold winters. 
His companions say of such a man, "The North has got him." Almost every 
Alaskan recognizes the danger. As one man said to a friend, "It is time I 
got out of here." 

"Why?" said the friend, "you seem all right. What's the matter?" 

"Well," said the other, "you see I begin to like the smell of skunk 
cabbage, and, when a man gets that way, it's time he went somewhere else." 

The skunk cabbage, by the way, grows in Alaska in great thickets ten feet 
high. The man was perfectly serious, for he meant that his mind was 
beginning to act in ways that were not normal. Nowhere is the strain of 
life in the far north better described than in the poems of Robert W. 
Service. 

Oh, the awful hush that seemed to crush me down on every hand,
As I blundered blind with a trail to find through that blank and bitter 
land;
Half dazed, half crazed in the winter wild, with its grim heartbreaking 
woes,
And the ruthless strife for a grip on life that only the sourdough knows!
North by the compass, North I pressed; river and peak and plain
Passed like a dream I slept to lose and waked to dream again.
River and plain and mighty peak--and who could stand unawed?
As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed at the foot of the throne 
of God.
North, aye, North, through a land accurst, shunned by the scouring brutes,
And all I heard was my own harsh word and the whine of the malamutes,
Till at last I came to a cabin squat, built in the side of a hill,
And I burst in the door, and there on the floor, frozen to death, lay 
Bill.(*)

(* From "Ballads of a Cheechako")

The human organism inherits so delicate an adjustment to climate that, in 
spite of man's boasted ability to live anywhere, the strain of the frozen 
North eliminates the more nervous and active types of mind. Only those can 
endure whose nerves lack sensitiveness and who are able to bear long 
privation and the strain of hunger and cold and darkness. Though the 
Indian may differ from the white man in many respects, such conditions are 
probably as bad for him as for any race. For this reason it is not 
improbable that long sojourns at way stations on the cold, Alaskan route 
from central Asia may have weeded out certain types of minds. Perhaps that 
is why the Indian, though brave, stoical, and hardy, does not possess the 
alert, nervous temperament which leads to invention and progress. 

The ancestors of the red man unwittingly chose the easiest path to America 
and so entered the continent first, but this was their misfortune. They 
could not inherit the land because they chose a path whose unfavorable 
influence, exerted throughout centuries, left them unable to cope with 
later arrivals from other directions. The parts of America most favorable 
for the Indian are also best for the white man and Negro. There the 
alerter minds of the Europeans who migrated in the other direction have 
quickly eliminated the Indian. His long northern sojourn may be the reason 
why farther south in tropical lands he is even now at a disadvantage 
compared with the Negro or with the coolie from the East Indies. In 
Central America, for instance, it is generally recognized that Negroes 
stand the heat and moisture of the lowlands better than Indians. According 
to a competent authority: "The American Indians cannot bear the heat of 
the tropics even as well as the European, not to speak of the African 
race. They perspire little, their skin becomes hot, and they are easily 
prostrated by exertion in an elevated temperature. They are peculiarly 
subject to diseases of hot climates, as hepatic disorders, showing none of 
the immunity of the African. Furthermore, the finest physical specimens of 
the race are found in the colder regions of the temperate zones, the 
Pampas and Patagonian Indians in the south, the Iroquois and Algonkins in 
the north; whereas, in the tropics they are generally undersized, short-
lived, of inferior muscular force and with slight tolerance of 
disease."(*) "No one," adds another observer, "could live among the 
Indians of the Upper Amazon without being struck with their constitutional 
dislike to heat. The impression forced itself upon my mind that the Indian 
lives as a stranger or immigrant in these hot regions."(**) Thus when 
compared with the other inhabitants of America, from every point of view 
the Indian seems to be at a disadvantage, much of which may be due to the 
path which he took from the Old World to the New.

(* D. G. Brinton, "The American Race," pp. 34, 35)

(** H. W. Bates, "The Naturalist on the River Amazons." vol.II, pp. 200, 
201)

Before the red man lost his American heritage, he must have enjoyed it for 
thousands upon thousands of years. Otherwise he never could have become so 
different from his nearest relative, the Mongol. The two are as truly 
distinct races as are the white man and the Malay. Nor could the Indians 
themselves have become so extraordinarily diverse except during the lapse 
of thousands of years. The Quichua of the cold highlands of Peru is as 
different from the Maya of Yucatan or the Huron of southern Canada as the 
Swede is from the Armenian or the Jew. The separation of one stock from 
another has gone so far that almost countless languages have been 
developed. In the United States alone the Indians have fifty-five 
"families" of languages and in the whole of America there are nearly two 
hundred such groups. These comprise over one thousand distinct languages 
which are mutually unintelligible and at least as different as Spanish and 
Italian. Such differences might arise in a day at the Tower of Babel, but 
in the processes of evolution they take thousands of years. 

During those thousands of years the red man, in spite of his Arctic 
handicap, by no means showed himself wholly lacking in originality and 
inventive ability. In Yucatan two or three thousand years ago the Mayas 
were such good scientists and recorded their observations of the stars so 
accurately that they framed a calendar more exact than any except the one 
that we have used for the last two centuries. They showed still greater 
powers of mind in inventing the art of writing and in their architecture. 
Later we shall depict the environment under which these things occurred; 
it is enough to suggest in passing that perhaps at this period the 
ancestors of the Indians had capacities as great as those of any people. 
Today they might possibly hold their own against the white man, were it 
not for the great handicap which they once suffered because Asia 
approaches America only in the cold, depressing north. 

The Indians were not the only primitive people who were driven from 
central Asia by aridity. Another group pushed westward toward Europe. They 
fared far better than their Indian cousins who went to the northeast. 
These prospective Europeans never encountered benumbing physical 
conditions like those of northeastern Asia and northwestern America. Even 
when ice shrouded the northern part of Europe, the rest of the continent 
was apparently favored with a stimulating climate. Then as now, Europe was 
probably one of the regions where storms are most frequent. Hence it was 
free from the monotony which is so deadly in other regions. When the ice 
retreated our European ancestors doubtless followed slowly in its wake. 
Thus their racial character was evolved in one of the world's most 
stimulating regions. Privation they must have suffered, and hardihood and 
boldness were absolutely essential in the combat with storms, cold, wild 
beasts, fierce winds, and raging waves. But under the spur of constant 
variety and change, these difficulties were merely incentives to progress. 
When the time came for the people of the west of Europe to cross to 
America, they were of a different caliber from the previous immigrants. 

Two facts of physical geography brought Europe into contact with America. 
One of these was the islands of the North, the other the trade-winds of 
the South. Each seems to have caused a preliminary contact which failed to 
produce important results. As in the northern Pacific, so in the northern 
Atlantic, islands are stepping-stones from the Old World to the New. Yet 
because in the latter case the islands are far apart, it is harder to 
cross the water from Norway and the Lofoten Islands to Iceland and 
Greenland than it is to cross from Asia by way of the Aleutian Islands or 
Bering Strait. Nevertheless in the tenth century of the Christian era bold 
Norse vikings made the passage in the face of storm and wind. In their 
slender open ships they braved the elements on voyage after voyage. We 
think of the vikings as pirates, and so they were. But they were also 
diligent colonists who tilled the ground wherever it would yield even the 
scantiest living. In Iceland and Greenland they must have labored mightily 
to carry on the farms of which the Sagas tell us. When they made their 
voyages, honest commerce was generally in their minds quite as much as was 
plunder. Leif, the son of that rough Red Eric who first settled Greenland, 
made a famous voyage to Vinland, the mainland of America. Like so many 
other voyagers he was bent on finding a region where men could live 
happily and on filling his boats with grapes, wood, or other commodities 
worth carrying home. 

In view of the energy of the Norsemen, the traces of their presence in the 
Western Hemisphere are amazingly slight. In Greenland a few insignificant 
heaps of stones are supposed to show where some of them built small 
villages. Far in the north Stefansson found fair-haired, blue-eyed 
Eskimos. These may be descendants of the Norsemen, although they have 
migrated thousands of miles from Greenland. In Maine the Micmac Indians 
are said to have had a curious custom which they may have learned from the 
vikings. When a chief died, they chose his largest canoe. On it they piled 
dry wood, and on the wood they placed the body. Then they set fire to the 
pile and sent the blazing boat out to sea. Perhaps in earlier times the 
Micmacs once watched the flaming funeral pyre of a fair-haired viking. As 
the ruddy flames leaped skyward and were reflected in the shimmering waves 
of the great waters the tribesmen must have felt that the Great Spirit 
would gladly welcome a chief who came in such a blaze of glory.(*)

(* For this information I am indebted to Mr. Stansbury Hagar)

It seems strange that almost no other traces of the strong vikings are 
found in America. The explanation lies partly in the length and difficulty 
of the ocean voyage, and partly in the inhospitable character of the two 
great islands that served as stepping-stones from the Old World to the 
New. Iceland with its glaciers, storms, and long dreary winters is bad 
enough. Greenland is worse. Merely the tip of that island was known to the 
Norse --and small wonder, for then as now most of Greenland was shrouded 
in ice. Various Scandinavian authors, however, have thought that during 
the most prosperous days of the vikings the conditions in Greenland were 
not quite so bad as at the present day. One settlement, Osterbyden, 
numbered 190 farms, 12 churches, 2 monasteries, and 1 bishopric. It is 
even stated that apple-trees bore fruit and that some wheat was raised. 
"Cattle- raising and fishing," says Pettersson, "appear to have procured a 
good living . . . . At present the whole stock of cattle in Greenland does 
not amount to 100 animals."(*) In those days the ice which borders all the 
east coast and much of the west seems to have been less troublesome than 
now. In the earliest accounts nothing is said of this ice as a danger to 
navigation. We are told that the best sailing route was through the strait 
north of Cape Farewell Island, where today no ships can pass because of 
the ice. Since the days of the Norsemen the glaciers have increased in 
size, for the natives say that certain ruins are now buried beneath the 
ice, while elsewhere ruins can be seen which have been cut off from the 
rest of the country by advancing glacial tongues.

(* O. Pettersson, "Climatic Variations in Historic and Prehistoric Times." 
Svenska Hydrogrifisk--Biologiska Kommissioneur Skrifter, Haft V. 
Stockholm.)

Why the Norsemen disappeared from the Western Hemisphere we do not exactly 
know, but there are interesting hints of an explanation. It appears that 
the fourteenth century was a time of great distress. In Norway the crops 
failed year after year because of cold and storms. Provinces which were 
formerly able to support themselves by agriculture were obliged to import 
food. The people at home were no longer able to keep in touch with the 
struggling colony in Greenland. No supplies came from the home land, no 
reenforcements to strengthen the colonists and make them feel that they 
were a part of the great world. Moreover in the late Norse sagas much is 
said about the ice along the Greenland coast, which seems to have been 
more abundant than formerly. Even the Eskimos seem to have been causing 
trouble, though formerly they had been a friendly, peaceable people who 
lived far to the north and did not disturb the settlers. In the fourteenth 
century, however, they began to make raids such as are common when 
primitive people fall into distress. Perhaps the storms and the advancing 
ice drove away the seals and other animals, so that the Eskimos were left 
hungry. They consequently migrated south and, in the fifteenth century, 
finally wiped out the last of the old Norse settlers. If the Norse had 
established permanent settlements on the mainland of North America, they 
might have persisted to this day. As it was, the cold, bleak climate of 
the northern route across the Atlantic checked their progress. Like the 
Indians, they had the misfortune of finding a route to America through 
regions that are not good for man. 

Though islands may be stepping-stones between the Old World and the New, 
they have not been the bringers of civilization. That function in the 
history of man has been left to the winds. The westerlies, however, which 
are the prevailing winds in the latitude of the United States and Europe, 
have not been of much importance. On the Atlantic side they were for many 
centuries a barrier to contact between the Old World and the New. On the 
Pacific side they have been known to blow Japanese vessels to the shores 
of America contrary to the will of the mariners. Perhaps the same thing 
may have happened in earlier times. Asia may thus have made some slight 
contribution to primitive America, but no important elements of 
civilization can be traced to this source. 

From latitude 30 degrees N. to 30 degrees S. the tradewinds prevail. As 
they blow from the east, they make it easy for boats to come from Africa 
to America. In comparatively recent times they brought the slave ships 
from the Guinea coast to our Southern States. The African, like the 
Indian, has passed through a most unfavorable environment on his way from 
central Asia to America. For ages he was doomed to live in a climate where 
high temperature and humidity weed out the active type of human being. 
Since activity like that of Europe means death in a tropical climate, the 
route by way of Africa has been if anything worse than by Bering Strait. 

By far the most important occurrence which can be laid at the door of the 
trade-winds is the bringing of the civilization of Europe and the 
Mediterranean to the New World. Twice this may have happened, but the 
first occurrence is doubtful and left only a slight impress. For thousands 
of years the people around the Mediterranean Sea have been bold sailors. 
Before 600 B.C. Pharaoh Necho, so Herodotus says, had sent Phenician ships 
on a three-year cruise entirely around Africa. The Phenicians also sailed 
by way of Gibraltar to England to bring tin from Cornwall, and by 500 B.C. 
the Carthaginians were well acquainted with the Atlantic coast of northern 
Africa. 

At some time or other, long before the Christian era, a ship belonging to 
one of the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean was probably blown to the 
shores of America by the steady trade-winds. Of course, no one can say 
positively that such a voyage occurred. Yet certain curious similarities 
between the Old World and the New enable us to infer with a great deal of 
probability that it actually happened. The mere fact, for example, that 
the adobe houses of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico are strikingly like 
the houses of northern Africa and Persia is no proof that the civilization 
of the Old World and the New are related. A similar physical environment 
might readily cause the same type of house to be evolved in both places. 
When we find striking similarities of other kinds, however, the case 
becomes quite different. The constellations of the zodiac, for instance, 
are typified by twelve living creatures, such as the twins, the bull, the 
lion, the virgin, the crab, and the goat. Only one of the constellations, 
the scorpion, presents any real resemblance to the animal for which it is 
named. Yet the signs of the zodiac in Mediterranean lands and in pre-
Columbian America from Peru to southern Mexico are almost identical. Here 
is a list showing the Latin and English names of the constellations and 
their equivalents in the calendars of the Peruvians, Mexicans, and 
Mayas.(*)

(* See S. Hagar, "The Bearing of Astronomy on the Problems of the Unity or 
Plurality and the Probable Place of Origin of the American Aborigines, in 
American Anthropologist," vol. XIV (1912), pp. 43-48.)

Sign          English       Peruvian           Mexican         Maya
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aries         Ram             Llama             Flayer           --

Taurus        Bull(1)         Stag            Stag or Deer      Stag

Gemini        Twins       Man and Woman          Twins      Two Generals

Cancer        Crab         Cuttlefish          Cuttlefish    Cuttlefish

Leo           Lion            Puma               Ocelot        Ocelot

Virgo         Virgin(2)    Maize Mother       Maize Mother   Maize Mother

Libra         Scales(3)       Forks              Scorpion     Scorpion

Scorpio       Scorpion        Mummy              Scorpion     Scorpion

Sagittarius   Bowman      Arrows or Spears   Hunter & War God    (4)

Capricornus   Sea Goat        Beard             Bearded God       --

Aquarius      Water Pourer    Water                Water         Water

Pisces        Fishes & Knot   Knot             Twisted Reeds      --

(1. originally Stag)
(2. Mother Goddess of Cereals)
(3. originally part of Scorpio)
(4. Hunter & War God)

Notice how closely these lists are alike. The ram does not appear in 
America because no such animal was known there. The nearest substitute was 
the llama. In the Old World the second constellation is now called the 
bull, but curiously enough in earlier days it was called the stag in 
Mesopotamia. The twins, instead of being Castor and Pollux, may equally 
well be a man and a woman or two generals. To landsmen not familiar with 
creatures of the deep, the crab and the cuttlefish would not seem greatly 
different. The lion is unknown in America, but the creature which most 
nearly takes his place is the puma or ocelot. So it goes with all the 
signs of the zodiac. There are little differences between the Old World 
and the New, but they only emphasize the resemblance. Mathematically there 
is not one chance in thousands or even millions that such a resemblance 
could grow up by accident. Other similarities between ceremonies or 
religious words in the Old World and the New might be pointed out, but the 
zodiac is illustration enough. 

Such resemblances, however, do not indicate a permanent connection between 
Mediterranean civilization and that of Central America. They do not even 
indicate that any one ever returned from the Western Hemisphere to the 
Eastern previous to Columbus. Nor do they indicate that the civilization 
of the New World arose from that of the Old. They simply suggest that 
after the people of the Mediterranean regions had become well civilized 
and after those of America were also sufficiently civilized to assimilate 
new ideas, a stray ship or two was blown by the trade-winds across the 
Atlantic. That hypothetical voyage was the precursor of the great journey 
of Columbus. Without the tradewinds this historic discoverer never could 
have found the West Indies. Suppose that a strong west wind had blown him 
backward on his course when his men were mutinous. Suppose that he had 
been forced to beat against head winds week after week. Is there one 
chance in a thousand that even his indomitable spirit could have kept his 
craft headed steadily into the west? But because there were the trade-
winds to bring him, the way was opened for the energetic people of Europe 
to possess the new continent. Thus the greatest stream of immigration 
commenced to flow, and the New World began to take on a European aspect. 



CHAPTER II.
THE FORM OF THE CONTINENT 

America forms the longest and straightest bone in the earth's skeleton. 
The skeleton consists of six great bones, which may be said to form a 
spheroidal tetrahedron, or pyramid with a triangular base, for when a 
globe with a fairly rigid surface collapses because of shrinkage, it tends 
to assume this form. That is what has happened to the earth. Geologists 
tell us that during the thousand million years, more or less, since 
geological history began, the earth has grown cooler and hence has 
contracted. Moreover some of the chemical compounds of the interior have 
been transformed into other compounds which occupy less space. For these 
reasons the earth appears to have diminished in size until now its 
diameter is from two hundred to four hundred miles less than formerly. 
During the process of contraction the crust has collapsed in four main 
areas, roughly triangular in shape. Between these stand the six ridges 
which we have called the bones. Each of the four depressed areas forms a 
side of our tetrahedron and is occupied by an ocean. The ridges and the 
areas immediately flanking the oceans form the continents. The side which 
we may think of as the base contains the Arctic Ocean. The ridges 
surrounding it are broad and flat. Large parts of them stand above sea-
level and form the northern portions of North America, Europe, and Asia. A 
second side is the Pacific Ocean with the great ridge of the two Americas 
on one hand and Asia and Australia on the other. Next comes the side 
containing the Indian Ocean in the hollow and the ridges of Africa and 
Australia on either hand. The last of the four sides contains the Atlantic 
Ocean and is bounded by Africa and Europe on one hand and North and South 
America on the other. Finally the tip of the pyramid projects above the 
surrounding waters, and forms the continent of Antarctica. 

It may seem a mere accident that this tip lies near the South Pole, while 
the center of the opposite face lies near the North Pole. Yet this has 
been of almost infinite importance in the evolution not only of plants and 
animals but of men. The reason is that this arrangement gives rise to a 
vast and almost continuous land mass in comparatively high latitudes. Only 
in such places does evolution appear to make rapid progress.(*)

(* W. D. Matthew, "Climate and Evolution," N. Y. Acad. Sci., 1915)

Evolution is especially stimulated by two conditions. The first is that 
there shall be marked changes in the environment so that the process of 
natural selection has full opportunity to do its work. The second is that 
numerous new forms or mutants, as the biologists call them, shall be 
produced. Both of these conditions are most fully met in large continents 
in the temperate zone, for in such places climatic variations are most 
extreme. Such variations may take the form of extreme changes either from 
day to night, from season to season, or from one century to another. In 
any case, as Darwin long ago pointed out, they cause some forms of life to 
perish while others survive. Thus climatic variations are among the most 
powerful factors in causing natural selection and hence in stimulating 
evolution. Moreover it has lately been shown that variations in 
temperature are one of the chief causes of organic variation. Morgan and 
Plough,(*) for example, have discovered that when a certain fly, called 
the drosophila, is subjected to extremes of heat or cold, the offspring 
show an unusually strong tendency to differ from the parents. Hence the 
climatic variability of the interior of large continents in temperate 
latitudes provides new forms of life and then selects some of them for 
preservation. The fossils found in the rocks of the earth's crust support 
this view. They indicate that most of the great families of higher animals 
originated in the central part of the great land mass of Europe and Asia. 
A second but much smaller area of evolution was situated in the similar 
part of North America. From these two centers new forms of life spread 
outward to other continents. Their movements were helped by the fact that 
the tetrahedral form of the earth causes almost all the continents to be 
united by bridges of land. 

(* Unpublished manuscript)

If any one doubts the importance of the tetrahedral form, let him consider 
how evolution would have been hampered if the land of the globe were 
arranged as isolated masses in low latitudes, while oceans took the place 
of the present northern continents. The backwardness of the indigenous 
life of Africa shows how an equatorial position retards evolution. The 
still more marked backwardness of Australia with its kangaroos and duck-
billed platypuses shows how much greater is the retardation when a 
continent is also small and isolated. Today, no less than in the past, the 
tetrahedral form of the earth and the relation of the tetrahedron to the 
poles and to the equator preserve the conditions that favor rapid 
evolution. They are the dominant factors in determining that America shall 
be one of the two great centers of civilization. 

If North and South America be counted as one major land mass, and Europe, 
Asia, and Africa as another, the two present the same general features. 
Yet their mountains, plains, and coastal indentations are so arranged that 
what is on the east in one is on the west in the other. Their similarity 
is somewhat like that of a man's two hands placed palms down on a table. 

On a map of the world place a finger of one hand on the western end of 
Alaska and a finger of the other on the northeastern tip of Asia and 
follow the main bones of the two continents. See how the chief mountain 
systems, the Pacific "cordilleras," trend away from one another, 
southeastward and southwestward. In the centers of the continents they 
expand into vast plateaus. That of America in the Rocky Mountain region of 
the United States reaches a width of over a thousand miles, while that of 
Asia in Tibet and western China expands to far greater proportions. 

From the plateaus the two cordilleras swing abruptly Atlantic- ward. The 
Eurasian cordillera extends through the Hindu Kush, Caucasus, and Asia 
Minor ranges to southern Europe and the Alps. Then it passes on into Spain 
and ends in the volcanoes of the Canary Islands. The American cordillera 
swings eastward in Mexico and continues as the isolated ranges of the West 
Indies until it ends in the volcanoes of Martinique. Central America 
appears at first sight to be a continuation of the great cordillera, but 
really it is something quite different--a mass of volcanic material poured 
out in the gap where the main chain of mountains breaks down for a space. 
In neither hemisphere, however, is the main southward sweep of the 
mountains really lost. In the Old World the cordillera revives in the 
mountains of Syria and southern Arabia and then runs southward along the 
whole length of eastern Africa. In America it likewise revives in the 
mighty Andes, which take their rise fifteen hundred miles east of the 
broken end of the northern cordillera in Mexico. In the Andes even more 
distinctly than in Africa the cordillera forms a mighty wall running north 
and south. It expands into the plateau of Peru and Bolivia, just as its 
African compeer expands into that of Abyssinia, but this is a mere 
incident. The main bone, so to speak, keeps on in each case till it 
disappears in the great southern ocean. Even there, however, it is not 
wholly lost, for it revives in the cold, lofty continent of Antarctica, 
where it coalesces once more with the other great tetrahedral ridges of 
Africa and Australia. 

It is easy to see that these great cordilleras have turned most of the 
earth's chief rivers toward the Atlantic and the Arctic Oceans. That is 
why these two oceans with an area of only forty-three million square miles 
receive the drainage from twenty million square miles of land, while the 
far larger Indian and Pacific Oceans with an area of ninety-one million 
square miles receive the rivers of only ten million square miles. The 
world's streams of civilization, like the rivers of water, have flowed 
from the great cordilleras toward the Atlantic. Half of the world's 
people, to be sure, are lodged in the relatively small areas known as 
China and India on the Pacific side of the Old World cordillera. 
Nevertheless the active streams of civilization have flowed mainly on the 
other side--the side where man apparently originated. From the earliest 
times the mountains have served to determine man's chief migrations. Their 
rugged fastnesses hinder human movements and thereby give rise to a strong 
tendency to move parallel to their bases. During the days of primitive man 
the trend of the mountains apparently directed his migrations 
northeastward to Bering Strait and then southeastward and southward from 
one end of America to the other. In the same way the migrations to Europe 
and Africa which ultimately reached America moved mainly parallel to the 
mountains. 

From end to end of America the great mountains form a sharp dividing line. 
The aboriginal tribes on the Pacific slope are markedly different from 
those farther east across the mountains. Brinton sums the case up 
admirably: 

"As a rule the tribes of the western coast are not connected with any east 
of the mountains. What is more singular, although they differ surprisingly 
among themselves in language, they have marked anthropologic similarities, 
physical and psychical. Virchow has emphasized the fact that the skulls 
from the northern point of Vancouver's Island reveal an unmistakable 
analogy to those from the southern coast of California; and this is to a 
degree true of many intermediate points. Not that the crania have the same 
indices. On the contrary, they present great and constant differences 
within the same tribe; but these differences are analogous one to the 
other, and on fixed lines. 

"There are many other physical similarities which mark the Pacific Indians 
and contrast them with those east of the mountains. The eyes are less 
oblique, the nose flatter, the lips fuller, the chin more pointed, the 
face wider. There is more hair on the face and in the axilla, and the 
difference between the sexes is much more obvious. 

"The mental character is also in contrast. The Pacific tribes are more 
quiet, submissive, and docile; they have less courage, and less of that 
untamable independence which is so constant a feature in the history of 
the Algonquins and Iroquois."(*)

(* D. G. Brinton, "The American Race," pp. 103-4)

Although mountains may guide migrations, the plains are the regions where 
people dwell in greatest numbers. The plains in the two great land masses 
of the Old World and the New have the same inverse or right- and left-
handed symmetry as the mountains. In the north the vast stretches from the 
Mackenzie River to the Gulf of Mexico correspond to the plains of Siberia 
and Russia from the Lena to the Black Sea. Both regions have a vast sweep 
of monotonous tundras at the north and both become fertile granaries in 
the center. Before the white man introduced the horse, the ox, and iron 
ploughs, there prevailed an extraordinary similarity in the habits of the 
plains Indians from Texas to Alberta. All alike depended on the buffalo; 
all hunted him in much the same way; all used his skins for tents and 
robes, his bones for tools, and his horns for utensils. All alike made him 
the center of their elaborate rituals and dances. Because the plains of 
North America were easy to traverse, the relatively high culture of the 
ancient people of the South spread into the Mississippi Valley. Hence the 
Natchez tribe of Mississippi had a highly developed form of sun-worship 
and a well-defined caste system with three grades of nobility in addition 
to the common people. Even farther north, almost to the Ohio River, traces 
of the sun-worship of Mexico had penetrated along the easy pathway of the 
plains. 

South of the great granaries of North America and Eurasia the plains are 
broken, but occur again in the Orinoco region of South America and the 
Sahara of Africa. Thence they stretch almost unbroken toward the southern 
end of the continents. In view of the fertility of the plains it is 
strange that the centers of civilization have so rarely been formed in 
these vast level expanses. 

The most striking of the inverse resemblances between America and the Old 
World are found along the Atlantic border. In the north of Europe the 
White Sea corresponds to Hudson Bay in America. Farther toward the 
Atlantic Ocean Scandinavia with its mountains, glaciers, and fiords is 
similar to Labrador, although more favored because warmer. Next the 
islands of Great Britain occupy a position similar to that of Newfoundland 
and Prince Edward Island. But here again the eastern climate is much more 
favorable than the western. Although practically all of Newfoundland is 
south of England, the American island has only six inhabitants per square 
mile, while the European country has six hundred. To the east of the 
British Isles the North Sea, the Baltic, and Lakes Ladoga and Onega 
correspond in striking fashion to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the river of 
the same name, and the Great Lakes from Ontario to Superior. Next the 
indented shores of western France and the peninsula of Spain resemble our 
own indented coast and the peninsula of Florida. Here at last the American 
regions are as favored as the European. Farther south the Mediterranean 
and Black seas penetrate far into the interior just as does the Gulf of 
Mexico, and each continent is nearly cut in two where the canals of Suez 
and Panama respectively have been trenched. Finally in the southern 
continents a long swing eastward in America balances a similar swing 
westward in Africa. Thus Cape Saint Roque and Cape Verde are separated by 
scarcely 16 degrees of longitude, although the extreme points of the Gulf 
of Mexico and the Black Sea are 140 degrees apart. Finally to the south of 
the equator the continents swing away from one another once more, 
preserving everywhere the same curious inverse relationship. 

Even more striking than the inverse resemblance of the New World to the 
Old is the direct similarity of North and South America. In physical form 
the two continents are astonishingly alike. Not only does each have the 
typical triangular form which would naturally arise from tetrahedral 
shrinking of the globe, but there are four other cardinal points of 
resemblance. First, in the northeast each possesses an area of extremely 
ancient rocks, the Laurentian highlands of Quebec and Labrador in North 
America and the highlands of Guiana in South America. Second, in the 
southeast lie highlands of old but not the most ancient rocks stretching 
from northeast to southwest in the Appalachian region of North America, 
and in the Brazilian mountains of the southern continent. Third, along the 
western side of each continent recent crustal movements supplemented by 
volcanic action on a magnificent scale have given rise to a complex series 
of younger mountains, the two great cordilleras. Finally, the spaces 
between the three mountain masses are occupied by a series of vast 
confluent plains which in each case extend from the northern ocean to the 
southern and bend around the southeastern highlands. These plains are the 
newest part of America, for many of them have emerged from the sea only in 
recent geological times. Taken as a whole the resemblance between the two 
continents is striking. 

If these four physiographic provinces of North and South America lay in 
similar latitudes in the respective continents we might expect each pair 
to have a closely similar effect on life. In fauna, flora, and even in 
human history they would present broad and important resemblances. As a 
matter of fact, however, they are as different as can well be imagined. 
Where North America, is bathed by icy waters full of seals and floating 
ice South America is bathed by warm seas full of flying-fish and coral 
reefs. The northern continent is broadest in the cool latitudes that are 
most favorable for human activity. The southern expands most widely in 
latitudes whose debilitating monotony of heat and moisture is the worst of 
handicaps to human progress. The great rivers of the northern continent 
correspond very closely to those of the southern. The Mackenzie, however, 
is bound in the rigid bands of winter for eight months each year, while 
the Orinoco, the corresponding South American river, lies sweltering under 
a tropical sun which burns its grassy plains to bitter dust even as the 
sharp cold reduced the Mackenzie region to barren tundra. The St. Lawrence 
flows through fertile grain fields and the homes of an active people of 
the temperate zone, but the Amazon winds its slow way amid the malarious 
languor of vast tropical forests in which the trees shut out the sky and 
the few natives are apathetic with the eternal inertia of the hot, damp 
tropics. 

Only when we come to the Mississippi in the northern continent and the Rio 
de la Plata in the southern do we find a pair of rivers which correspond 
to any degree in the character of the life surrounding them, as well as in 
their physiographic character. Yet even here there is a vast difference, 
especially in the upper courses of the river. Each at its mouth flows 
through a rich, fertile plain occupied by a progressive, prosperous 
people. But the Rio de la Plata takes its rise in one of the world's most 
backward plains, the home of uncivilized Indians, heartless rubber 
adventurers, and the most rapacious of officials. Not infrequently, the 
degenerate white men of these regions, yielding to the subtle and 
insidious influence of the tropics, inflict the most outrageous abuses 
upon the natives, and even kill them on slight provocation. The natives in 
turn hate their oppressors, and when the chance comes betray them or leave 
them to perish in sickness and misery. The upper Mississippi, on the other 
hand, comes from a plain where agriculture is carried on with more labor-
saving devices than are found anywhere else in the world. There States 
like Wisconsin and Minnesota stand in the forefront of educational and 
social progress. The contrasts between the corresponding rivers of the two 
Americas are typical of the contrasts in the history of the two 
continents.