our era ; that of the Tahitans in about 701 ; Karika must
have colonized Rarotonga in 1207, and the Gambicr Islands
have been peopled in-1270.
For New Zealand we have a double source of information,
Polynesian Migrations. 195
.'ind the results thus obtained agree so well that we cannot
doubt their accuracy. The genealogies of the greater number
of the Maori chiefs go back as far as those bold pioneers
whose history I have related. Thomson, who has examined
several, considers that the number of chiefs who have
succeeded each other in every family since the colonization,
may be estimated at about twenty. Taking the kings of
England as a term of comparison, he attributes to the rthjn
of each cJdef a duration of 22Vt years. These data took
him back to the year 1419. The list of French kings would
only give the year 14o7.
On the other hand, in one of the songs preserved by Sir
George Grey, there is an account of the history of the son of
Hotunui, one of the colonizing chiefs of New Zealand, and of
his immediate descendants. At the fourth generation a
daughter was born, "from whom," the legend adds, "are
descended in eleven generations all the principal chiefs now
living of the tribe of Ngalipaoa." Taking thirty years for
each generation, we find that the migration of Hotunui took
place 4o0 years before tlie time when Sir George Grey re-
ceived the document (about 1850), which carries us back to
the year 1400.
Thus, these Maories, whom autochthonists regard as
children of the soil, cannot have hmded in New Zealand
earlier than the beginning of the fifteenth century.
VII. I have hitherto only spoken of more or less voluntary
migrations, such as might be induced by a spirit of adventure,
civil troubles, or the authority of a priest despatching an
excess of population in search of new countries. But in
treating of Polynesia, we must, as I have already remarked,
take accidents by sea into consideration. Several examples
are known. It was in this manner that Toubouai was
peopled, which at the close of the last century, within an
interval of a few years, received three canoes from different
islands, one of which was Tahiti. All three had been carried
away by a storm and driven ashore upon this island, which,
till then, had been uninhabited.
196 The Httman Species.
Such, again, is the history of the chief Touwari and his
companions, men, women, and children, discovered by Cap-
tain Beechey upon Byam- Martin Island, which they had
begun to colonize. Tliey had started from Anaa, an island
situated two hundred and forty-five miles to the east of
Tahiti, to go and pay homage to Pomare, but were surprised
at Maiatea by tUe, monsoon, ivhich had come sooner than
usual. Driven to the south-east into the midst of the
Pomatou Islands, they landed at first on Barrow Island.
Finding, however, no means of subsistence, they took to the
sea again, and fell in with the island where they were found
by the English navigator.
This example is perfect, since it realises all the circum-
stances indicated by the theory. It establishes the existence
of regular relations between islands situated at great
distances from each other ; it proves one of those occurrences
which must more than once have caused these bold naviga-
tors to wander from the usual route ; it shows how a
remote island was able to receive all the elements of a
colony ; it leaves no doubt as to the possibility of dispersion
going on in an exactly opposite direction to that of the trade
Avinds. We need only add that the passage from Maiatea to
Barrow and Byam-Martin Islands is more than five hundred
and sixty miles, and we shall understand without any
difficulty how Polynesia was peopled by voluntary or
accidental colonization.
VII I. There is one more circumstance which it is impor-
tant to observe, and which is completely at variance with all
autochthonist hypotheses, that, namely, on approaching the
islands where they have been discovered by us, the Polyne-
sian found them vuiinhabitcd.
Tlie songs, for which we are indebted to Sir George Grey,
show that in New Zealand the greater number of the first
emigrants met with no traces of a previous population. One
only, named Manaia, found upon a promontory aborigines
of the country. This exception, from the very reason that
it is unique, proves that this population could not have
Polynesian Migrations. 197
been very numerous. It has slightly altered the type of
the lowest grades of the Maories, to which it has been
confined. The portrait published by Hamilton Smith, and
one of the skulls in the possession of the Museum, inform
us that these supposed aborigines were Papuans. It is
evident that they had reached New Zealand in consequence
of some mischance similar to those I have just mentioned,
and had not even had time to multiply sufficiently to occupy
the entire shores of the North Island.
The traditions of the Sandwich Islands furnish us with a
fact of the same nature. They tell us that the first colonists
coming from Tahiti found in these islands cjods and »j)iv'itii,
who inhabited the caves and with whom they entered into
alliance. It? is evident that Ave have here a troglodyte people,
whose importance the legend has been pleased to exaggerate,
and whose origin it is not difficult to find. If Kadou, whose
history has been preserved by Kotzebue, instead of leaving
the Caroline Islands for the Radak Islands, had started from
the latter, and if he had made almost the same passage in
the same direction, he Avould have landed in the Sandwich
Islands.
The mixture of Polynesian and Micronesian races at once
explains the darkness of colour and Avant of purity in the
features of the HaAvaians. Perhaps the same cause may
account for the difference in features, manners, and industry
Avhich is presented by some tribes of the Loav Archipelago.
Apart from these few and, as Ave see, very feeble exceptions,
all the i.slands of Polynesia appear to have been uninhabited
when the navigators from Boeroe or their descendants landed.
This fact is distinctly proved by traditions in Kingsmill,
Rarotonga, MangarcAva, the Toubouai Islands, etc. Purity
of race testifies that this AA'as also the case Avith the Tonga,
Samoa, and Marquesas Islands.
IX. Finally, the facts to Avhich I have been obliged to
confine myself are entirely opposed to the theories of autoch-
thonists, and lead to the foUoAving conclusions : Polynesia, a
region Avhich, from its geographical conditions, seems at first
198 The Human Species.
sight to be isolated from the rest of the Avorld, has been
peopled by means of voluntary migrations and accidental dis-
persion, passing from west to east, at least as a general rule.
The Polynesians, coming from Malaya, and the Isle of
Boeroe in particular, first established and settled themselves
in the Archipelagos of Samoa and Tonga. Thence they in-
vaded by degrees the maritime world open before them; they
found, almost without an exception, that all the countries
where they landed were uninhabited, and only on two or
three occasions met with very small tribes of a more or less
black type.
CHAPTER XVIII.
MIGRATIONS BY SEA. — MIGRATIONS IN AMERICA.
I. The peopling of Polynesia and America is a problem
â– which presents, if I may use the expression, inverse condi-
tions. There is, in reality, no geographical difficulty in the
latter. The proximity of the two continents at Behring Straits,
the existence in this channel of the Saint Laurence islands,
the largest of which is situated exactly half-way between the
two opposite continents, the connection formed between
Kamschatka and the peninsula of Alaska by the Aleutian
Islands; the maritime habits of all these peoples; the presence
of the Tchukchees on the two opposite shores ; the voyages
which they undertake from one continent to the other on
simple matters of commerce, leave no doubt as to the facility
with which the Asiatic races could pass into North America
through the Polar Regions,
More to the south, the current of Tessan, the Jcouro-sivo,
or black stream of the Japanese, opens a great route for
navigators. This current has frequently cast floating bodies
and abandoned junks upon the shores of California. Instances
of this fact have been observed in our own time. It is im-
possible that they should not also have happened before the
period of European discoveries. Asiatic maritime nations
must at all times have been carried to America from all those
places which are washed by the Black Stream.
The Equatorial current of the Atlantic opens a similar
route leading from Africa to America, and there are some
evidences, rare it is true, showing that wrecks have been
carried in this direction. It is possible, therefore, that the
same may also have happened to man.
200 The Human Species.
II. We shall not, therefore, be surprised at finding in the New
World representatives of races which seem to belong originally
to the Old World ; we shall easily understand the multiplicity
of American races, which is perhaps still contested bj' some
of Morton's followers, but firmly established in the opinion of
every unprejudiced person by the testimony of Humboldt and
d'Orbigny's classical work on L'Homme Americain.
Black populations have been found in America in very
small numbers only, and as isolated tribes in the midst of
very different nations. Such are the Charruas of Brazil, the
black Carabees of Saint Vincent in the Gulf of Mexico, the
Jamassi of Florida, the dark-complexioned Californians, who
are, perhaps, the dark men mentioned in Quiche traditions,
and by some old Spanish adventurers.
Such, again, is the tribe of which Balbao saw some repre-
sentatives in his passage of the Isthmus of Darien in 1513.
Yet it would seem, from the expressions made use of by
Gomara, that these were true Negroes. This type was well
known to the Spaniards, and if they had encountered black
men with glossy hair, like the Charruas, they would un-
doubtedly have been much impressed by it, and would have
mentioned the fact.
The white type is more widely represented in America
than the black. Along the whole of the north-west coast,
Meares, Marchand, La Perouse, Dixon and Maurelle have
observed populations, which, judging from some of their des-
criptions, would seem to be of pure white race. Upon the
Upper Missouri, the Kiawas, Kaskaias and the Lee Panis
possess, we are assured, the attributes of the purest white
races, including their fair hair. The Mandans have, from our
present point of view, always attracted attention. Captain
Graa, again, found in Greenland men speaking Esquimau,
but tall, thin, and fair. In South America, Ferdinand
Columbus, in his relation of his father's voyages, compares
the inhabitants of Guanaani to the Canary Islanders, and
describes tlie inhabitants of San Domingo as still more
beautiful and fair. In Peru, the Chaiazanis, studied by
Mis^ralions in Amci'ica. 201
•<b
M. Angrand, also resemble the Canary Islanders, and differ
from, all the surrounding tribes. L'Abbe Brasseur de Bour-
bourg imagined himself surrounded by Arabs when all his
Indians of llabinal -were around him, for they had, he says,
their complexion, features, ^nd beard. Finally, Gomara and
Pieri-e Martyr offer a similar testimony, and the latter
speaks of the Indians of the Parian Gulf as having fair hair
{cajdllis jUivib).
It is useless to insist upon the anthropological relations
between America and Asia. Most travellers have insisted
upon this point. I have heard M. de Castelnau say, " When
I was surrounded by my Siamese servants, I imagined myself
in America;" and M. Vavasseur, assisting at the visit of the
Siamese ambassadors, remarked, "But those are my Boto-
cudos." I should, however, observe that the skull in the
Collection in the Paris Museum indicates less resemblance
than the external characters.
America has, moreover, its distinct races with which the
foreign elements have more or less bleiided. She has also
had her quaternary man. This is a fact which must not be
overlooked, and by which the problem is singularly compli-
cated. We shall presently see that geological revolutions do
not involve the disappearance of existing human races. There
can be no doubt that in America there are descendants of
men who were contemporary with the mastodon, just as, in
Europe, we find the descendants of those who were contem-
poraries of the mammoth. Unfortunately our knowledge of
the physical characters of the American fossil man is as yet
very slight.
Ill, It does not, however, seem to me the less probable
that the most pronounced ethnological elements, such as
White, Yellow, and Black, which we encounter at the present
time, have overspread this continent by means of migration.
This fact is proved by history in a certain number of cases ;
and some very simple considerations seem to me to render
others no less probable.
For example, we only find black men in America in those
202 The Hiivian Species.
places which are washed by either the Koiiro-sivo, or the Equa-
torial Current of the Atlantic or its divisions. A glance at the
maps of Captain Kerhallet will at once show us the rarity
and the distribution of these tribes. It is evident that the
more or less pure black elements have been brought from
the Asiatic Archipelagos and from Africa through some
accident at sea ; they have there mixed with the local races,
and have formed those small isolated groups which are dis-
tinguished by their colour from the surrounding tribes.
The presence of Semitic types in America, certain tradi-
tions of Guiana, and the use in this country of a weapon
entirely characteristic of the ancient Canary Islanders, can
be easily explained in the same manner, and the explanation
rests upon positive facts. Twice during the last century, in
1731 and 1764, small ships passing from one point of the
Canary Islands to another have been driven by storms into
the region of the trade winds and equatorial current, and
have drifted as far as America. What has happened in our
time must often have happened before. We cannot then be
surprised at finding upon the shores of the Gulf of Mexico,
tribes which are more or less related to the African Whites
by their physical characters.
IV. The geographical position of the continents at once
explains why the yellow type has so many representatives in
America. Supposing, which seems to be contradicted by
some evidences, that the coast-lines have not altered since
the latest geological era, the facilities presented by the
passage are quite sufficient, and the Asiatic races have
profited by them to a considerable extent. America was
known to them long before Europeans possessed anything
beyond legends on this subject, the meaning of which is still
hotly disputed.
It is to De Guigncs that we owe the discovery of this fact,
the importance of which is evident. He revealed to Europe
what he had learnt in Cliincse books. Tlicse books speak of
a country called Fou-Sang, situated at a distance, to the
east of Cliina far boyond the limits of Asia. De Guignes
Migrations in America. 203
(lid not hesitate to identify it with America. To the proofs
drawn from the Chinese books, he added some isolated and
hitherto forgotten facts which were borrowed from Europeans,
from George Home, Gomara, etc.
The work of the French Orientalist was received with a
very singular, yet accountable repugnance. Apart from the
mistrust excited by every unexpected discovery, many people
were annoyed to find that Europeans had been preceded by
Asiatics in the New World ; it seemed to them to be de-
throning Christopher Columbus. A Prussian, who had
become a naturalized Frenchman, gave the support of his
great learning to all who required no more than the contra-
diction of the fact, and it was almost unanimously agreed
that De Guignes had deceived himself. More justice is
now done to him, and anyone who will study the question
in an unprejudiced spirit, cannot but acknowledge that he
is right.
Klaproth held that Fou-Sang was nothing else than
Japan. He forgot that the country of which the Chinese
writers spoke contained copper, gold and silver, but no
iron. This characteristic, which is inapplicable to Japan,
agrees, on the contrary, in every respect with America. To
support his assertion^ he maintained that the Chinese could
neither recognize their direction nor measure distances in
their voyages with precision. He forgot that they were
acquainted with the compass 2000 years before our era, and
that they possessed maps far superior to the vague conjec-
tures of the Middle Ages,
As to the supposed error in distance of which Klaproth
speaks, there was no such thing. Paravey informs us that
Fou-Sang was placed at a distance of 20,000 Li from China.
Now a Li, according to M. Pothier, is equal to 4440 metres
(•iSG yards). In following the course of the Kouro-Sivo,
these numbers would exactly bring us to California, where
the abandoned junks were stranded ; they prove what was
indicated by the theory, that this current had been the route
for voyages to and from America.
204 The Human Species.
Paravcy has published a facsimile of a Chinese drawing
representing a lama. This at once answers one of the objec-
tions of Kiaproth, and carries us considerably to the south
of California. Amongst the productions of Fou-Sang the
Chinese authors mention the horse, which, as we know, did
not exist in America. It is clear that they called by this
name the animal which in Peru was used as a beast of
burden. This habit of calling by a common name species
which are known and new species which resemble them in
certain respects, certainly existed elsewhere than in China.
This habit led the Conquestadores to call the puma a lion,
and the bison a coiv.
But did the Chinese then extend their voyages as far as
Peru ? This can hardly be doubted after the preceding testi-
mony, and after that which is contained in the Geograjia
del Peru by Paz Soldan. The following is the translation
of a passage for which I am indebted to M. Pinart : " The
inhabitants of the village of Eten in the province of Lam-
baydque, and the department of Libertad, seem to belong
to a different race from those of the surrounding countries.
They live, and intermarry, only amongst themselves, and
speak a language which is perfectly understood by the
Chinese, who have been brought to Peru during the last
few years."
The Chinese books studied by De Guigncs and Paravey
speak of religious missions, which, towards the close of the
fifth century, left the country of Ki-Pin to carry to Fou-
Sang the doctrines of Buddha. The researches of M. G.
d'Fichthal have fully confirmed these accounts. The strong-
est resemblances have been pointed out between the monu-
ments and the Buddhist figures of Asia and the same
products of American art. The comparison of legends has
led the author to the same result.
Finally, according to an encyclopaidia, from which M. de
Risny has translated a passage, the Japanese were acquainted
with Fou-Sang, which they called Fou-So, and with the
missions which had left the land Ki-Pin for that country.
Migrations in America. 205
Although its real position must still be doubtful, they show
that Fou-So and Japan are two different countries.
To this formal testimony derived from the Chinese, we
must add that of Europeans. The first is Gomara, who
witnessed the conquest of Mexico, and was a contemporary
of the expedition which followed. He tells us that cora-
])anions of Francesco- Vasquez de Coronado, in sailing up the
Western Sea as far as 40° N. lat., met Avith ships laden with
merchandise, Avhich, as they were led to understand by the
sailors, had been at sea for more than a month. The
Spaniards concluded that they had come from Cathay or
Sina.
The primary object of the ships in question was evidently
that of commerce. Such pacific relations did not, however,
always exist between the native Americans and the strangers
jrom the west. This is proved by the testimony of an Indian
traveller, preserved by Le Page du Prat. Moncacht-Ape
{the pain-killer) was certainly a remarkable man. Impelled
by the desire which drove Cosma from Koros to Thibet, the
wish to discover the original home of his tribe, he went at
first in a north-easterly direction as far as the mouth of the
St. Lawrence, returned to Louisiana and started again for
the north-west. Having ascended the Missouri to its source,
he crossed the Rocky Mountains and reached the Pacific
Ocean by descending a river, which he called the beautiful
river, and which can be no other than the Oregon.
There he heard of white, bearded men, provided with arms
hurling thunder, who came every year in a great boat to
look for wood which they used for dyeing, and carried off the
natives to reduce them to a state of slavery. Moncacht-Apd,
who was acquainted with the nature of firearms, advised his
friends to prepare an ambuscade. The plans which he
suggested were a complete success. Several of the aggressors
were slain. The Americans at once saw that they were not
Europeans. Their clothes were quite different, and their
arms more clumsy, while their powder was coarser, and
did not carry so far. Everything tended to show they were
2o6 The Htunan Species,
Japanese, accustomed to make descents upon this coast of
America exactly similar to those undertaken by some crews
in search of sandal wood in Melanesia, who seize the blacks
whenever they have an opportunity, aud give them up to
cotton planters under the name of coolies.
The narrative of Moncacht-Apd was given in the year
1725, three or four years before the discovery of the Behring
Straits, and more than thirty years before European voyages
had acquainted us with the north-west of America. The
exact details which he gives as to the general direction of
tlie coast, and of its bend at the peninsula of Alaska, are a
sure proof of the correctness and truth of this narrative.
Thus, however much it may wound European pride, we
must acknowledge that Chinese and Japanese Asiatics
knew and, in different ways, explored America long before
Europeans.
V. Nevertheless, these civilized nations, whose ships visited
America, do not seem to have founded large settlements,
which could become the starting point of a new colony.
Had it been so, they would have left more traces of their
passage in the language. Now, with the exception of tlie
small Chinese colony of which I have spoken above, there is
scarcely one fact of this nature which can be considered as
established. Some Califoruian colonies are mentioned as
speaking a Japanese dialect. M. Guillemin Taraire has re-
produced this information in reference to a tribe of Santa
Barbara ; he adds that the lanouage of some others includes
Japanese and Chinese words. Unfortunately the researches
of M. Pinart, far from confirming these results, only tend to
contradict them ; we can, therefore, only speak with great
reserve upon this point.
It seems to me to have been principally in the north that
the great migrations took place, and that they were under-
taken by savage nations. The traditions borrowed by I'Abbe
Brasseur de Bourbourg from the sacred books of the Quichds,
and those of the Dclawurcs which have been preserved by
Heckewclder, api)ear to me to offer much information on
Migrations in America. 207
this point. By comparing tho missionary's narrative with
some fixcts of Mexican history anterior to the conquest, I have
been enabled to determine approximately the dcite of the
arrival of the Red-Skins in the basin of the Missouri. It
seems to me that we cannot refer it to an earlier date than
the ninth, or at most the eighth, century.
These traditions bring to light another and no less impor-
tant fact : namely, that the Alonquins and Iroquois, after
having crossed the valley of the Mississippi, from which they
drove the people, whose singular monuments are now the
object of study, had no more fighting to do, and found the
country uninhabited as far as the coast, and far away to the
south. The traditions of some tribes of South America
point, though not so plainly, to the same conclusion. Thus,
probably in the two halves of the New World, and certainly
in the northern portion, those uninhabited lands existed
which we have already noticed in Polynesia, and the pre-
tended American autocJdhon of Agassiz, Morton, Nott, and
Gliddon was, on the contrary, one of the latest arrivals upon
this continent.
These facts of thin populations, and of their low social
condition, which was everywhere the case except in those