ANALYSIS. and ceilings being plastered, and the floors of hard mor. tar. Their only opening is a circular hole at the top, barely large enough to admit a man. The object of these chambers is unknown. Some have supposed them intended as cisterns, or reservoirs ; and others, that they were built for granaries, or storehouses.

1. Ruins, south and

Uxmal.

12. 'South and south-east of Uxmal is a large extent of southwest of country which is literally covered with ruins, but few of 3. At Labna. Which have yet been thoroughly explored. At Labna a. See Map, there are several curious structures as extraordinary as those of Uxmal, one of which is represented by the following engraving.

page 74.

BUILDING AT LABNA, 40 feet high, placed on an artificial elevation 45 feet high.

8. Description of the building.

4. Ruins at Kewick.

page 74.

13. This building, which stands on an artificial mound, faced with stone, forty-five feet high, rises nearly forty feet above the summit of the mound, making in all a height of more than eighty feet. The building is forty three feet in front, and twenty in depth; and the exterior walls were once covered with colossal figures and ornaments in stucco, most of which are now broken and in fragments. Along the top, standing out on the wall, is a row of death's heads; and underneath are two lines of human figures, of which scattered arms and legs alone

remain.

14. 'At Kewick," a short distance south of Labna, are b. See Map, numerous ancient buildings, now mostly in ruins, but re markable for the neatness and simplicity of their archi tecture, and the grandeur of their proportions. An engraving of the principal doorway of one of these buildings is given on the opposite page.

ANALYSIS.

this Chapter.

1. 'We have now closed our descriptive account of Object of American Antiquities, and shall proceed, in the same prief manner, to consider the question of their origin, and the origin of the Indian tribes.

With regard to most, if not all, of the ruined structures 2. found in Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America; and also in Peru; there appears now but little difficulty in satisfactorily ascribing their origin to the aborigines who were in possession of those countries at the time of their discovery by Europeans. It is known that, at the time of the conquest of Mexico and the adjacent provinces, edifices, similar to those whose ruins have been described, were in the possession and actual occupation of the native inhabitants. Some of these structures already bore the marks of antiquity, while others were evidently of recent construction.

The ruined in Mexico, attributed to the aborig

edifices found

Yucatan, &-c.

3.

ines.

Known to their posses time of the

have been in

sion at the

conquest.

4. The ac

by Cortez

counts giren

panions;

2. The glowing accounts which Cortez and his companions gave of the existence of extensive cities, and magnificent buildings and temples, in the actual use and and his com occupation of the Indians, were so far beyond what could why discred be conceived as the works of "ignorant savages," that ern writers. modern historians, Robertson among the number, have been inclined to give little credit to their statements.

ited by mod

1. Evidences

ANALYSIS. 'But the wrecks of a former civilization which now strew the plains of Yucatan and Central America, confirm the in favor of accounts of the early historians; for these buildings, whether desolate or inhabited, were then there, and at least more perfect than they are now; and some of them were described as occupying the same localities where they have since been found.

those ac

counts.

2. First discoveries in

account of Yucatan.

3. When the Spaniards first discovered the coast of Yucatan. Yucatan, they observed, along its shores, "villages in which they could distinguish houses of stone that appeared 3. Herrera's white and lofty at a distance." "Herrera, a Spanish historian, says of Yucatan,-"The whole country is divided into eighteen districts; and in all of them were so many and such stately stone buildings that it was amazing; and the greatest wonder is, that having no use of any metal, they were able to raise such structures, which seem to have been temples; for their houses were always of timber, and thatched."

4. The account given

by Bernal natives of

Diaz, of the

Yucatan.

4. Another writer, Bernal Diaz, who accompanied the expeditions of Cortez, speaks of the Indians of a large town in Yucatan, as being "dressed in cotton mantles,"and of their buildings as being "constructed of lime and stone, with figures of serpents and of idols painted upon the walls." "At another place he saw "two buildings of lime and stone, well constructed, each with steps, and an altar placed before certain figures, the representations of the 6. Of the gods of these Indians." "Approaching Mexico, he says,

5. Of the buildings which he salo there.

country nearer Mexico.

7. Of the city of Cholula

character of

Spanish

trilers.

appearances demonstrated that we had entered a new country; for the temples were very lofty; and, together with the terraced buildings, and the houses of the caciques, being plastered and whitewashed, appeared very well, and resembled some of our towns in Spain."

lid.

5. "The city of Cholula was said to resemble Vallado. It had at that time above a hundred lofty white 8. General towers, which were the temples of their idols." "The the accounts Spanish historians speak repeatedly of buildings of lime given by the and stone, painted and sculptured ornaments, and plastered walls; idols, courts, strong walls, and lofty temples, with high ranges of steps,-all the work of the Indians, the in9. The con habitants of the country. In all these accounts we easily recognize the ruined edifices which have been recently discovered; and cannot doubt that they owe their origin to the ancestors of the Indians who now reside there-subdued -broken in spirit-and degraded, and still held in a sort of vassalage by the Spanish inhabitants.

clusion arrived at.

10. Supposed common ori

6.

Nor indeed is there any proof that the semi-civil. in of all the ized inhabitants of Mexico, Yucatan, and Central Ameri. ca, were a race different from the more savage tribes by

American

which they were surrounded: but, on the contrary, there ANALYSIS. is much evidence in favor of their common origin, and in proof that the present tribes, or at least many of them, are but the dismembered fragments of former nations.

ilar natural

7. 'The present natives of Yucatan and Central Amer. 1. Their sim, ica, after a remove of only three centuries from their capacities. more civilized ancestors, present no diversities, in their natural capacities, to distinguish them from the race of the common Indian. And if the Mexicans and the Peru- 2 Supposed vians could have arisen from the savage state, it is not improbable that the present rude tribes may have remained in it; or, if the latter were once more civilized than at present, as they have relapsed into barbarism-so others may have done.

8. The anatomical structure of the skeletons found within the ancient mounds of the United States, does not differ more from that of the present Indians than tribes of the latter, admitted to be of the same race, differ from each other. In the physical appearance of all the American aborigines, embracing the semi-civilized Mexicans, the Peruvians, and the wandering savage tribes, there is a striking uniformity; nor can any distinction of races here be made.

changes through which they may have passed.

3 Anatomical and present physical ap pearances.

structure,

4.

Great anti perind of peothe

quity of the

ica, and common origin of the aborigines,

languages of

the tribes.

9. 'In their languages there is a general unity of structure, and a great similarity in grammatical forms, which prove their common origin; while the great diversity in the words of the different languages, shows the great antiquity of the period of peopling America. In the gene-shown by the rally uniform character of their religious opinions and rites, we discover original unity and an identity of origin; 5. By their while the diversities here found, likewise indicate the very early period of the separation and dispersion of tribes. "Throughout most of the American tribes have been found 6. By their traces of the pictorial delineations, and hieroglyphical sym-lineations. bols, by which the Mexicans and the Peruvians communicated ideas, and preserved the memory of events.*

7

opinions.

religious

pictorial de

By the sim their tradi

ilarity of

tions.

10. The mythological traditions of the savage tribes, and the semi-civilized nations, have general features of resemblance, generally implying a migration from some other country,-containing distinct allusions to a deluge -and attributing their knowledge of the arts to some fabulous teacher in remote ages. Throughout nearly the whole continent, the dead were buried in a sitting posture; the smoking of tobacco was a prevalent custom, other striking and the calumet, or pipe of peace, was everywhere deemed sacred. And, in fine, the numerous and striking analogies

See Mexican History, page 562.

8. By their

common

mode of bu

rial, and

analogies.

ANALYSIS. between the barbarous and the cultivated tribes, are sufficient to justify the belief in their primitive relationship and common origin.

1. Condition of the earliest

of America unknown.

11. 'But whether the first inhabitants were rude and inhabitants barbarous tribes, as has been generally supposed, or were more enlightened than even the Mexicans and the Peruvians, is a point which cannot be so satisfactorily determined. But, whichever may have been the case, it is to that of the certain that these nations were not the founders of civilizaMericans and tion on this continent; for they could point to antiquities which were the remains of a former civilization.

2. A civiliza

tion anterior

the Peruvians.

3. Ancient structures

South America.

12. The Incas of Peru, at the time of the conquest, acthroughout knowledged the existence of ancient structures, of more remote origin than the era of the foundation of their empire; and these were undoubtedly the models from which they copied; and throughout an extent of more than three thousand miles, in South America, ancient ruins have been discovered, which cannot be attributed to the Peruvians, and which afford indubitable evidence of the previous existence of a numerous, agricultural, and highly civilized people.

4. Ancient edifices in Mex

ico attribued

Toltecs.

5 May not

the Toltecs

13. "The Mexicans attributed many ancient edifices in their country to the Toltecs, a people who are supposed to have arrived in Mexico during the latter part of the sixth century. 'It is said that the Toltecs came from the north; have been the and it is highly probable, although but mere conjecture, 10orks found that they previously occupied the valley of the MissisStates? sippi and the adjacent country, as far as the Alleghanies on the east, the Lakes on the north, and Florida on the south, and that they were the authors of the works whose remains have been found in the United States.

authors of the

in the United

6. Another question:

tled America?

14. 'But still another question arises: when, how, and Who first set by whom was America first settled?—and who were the ancestors of the present Indian tribes? We shall notice the most prominent of the many theories that have been advanced upon this subject, and close with that which appears to us the most reasonable.

Believed by

many that

'It is believed by many that the ancients were not unthe ancients acquainted with the American continent; and there are quainted with indeed some plausible reasons for believing that an extensive island, or continent, once existed in the Atlantic Ocean, between Europe and America, but which afterwards disappeared.

America.

Ꭶ. Ꭺ dialogue

by Theopompus.

15. In a dialogue written by Theopompus, a learned historian who lived in the time of Alexander the Great, one of the speakers gives an account of a continent of very The Car great dimensions, larger than either Asia or Africa, and situated beyond these in the ocean. 'It is said that Hanno,