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 anthropology]

AMERICA

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of certain abnormalities of the skull, the hyoid bone, the it convenient to have in mind some such scheme of prohumerus, and the tibia. Viability, by which are meant vinces as the following, named partly after the dominant fecundity, longevity, and vigour, was low in average. ethnic groups :—Eskimo, on Arctic shores ; Dene, Culture The death-rate was high, through lack of proper weaning in North-western Canada ; Algonkin-Iroquois, provinces. foods, and hard life. The readiness with which the Canada and Eastern United States ; Sioux, plains American Indian succumbed to disease is well known. of the west; Muskhogee, Gulf States; Tlinkit-Haida, For these reasons there was not, outside of southern North Pacific coast; Salish-Chinook, Fraser-Columbia coasts Mexico, northern Central America, and Peru, a dense and basins; Shoshone, interior basin; California-Oregon, population. In the whole hemisphere there were not mixed tribes; Pueblo province, South-western United States and Northern Mexico; Nahuatla-Maya, Southern over ten million souls. The materials for studying the American man zoologically Mexico and Central America; Chibcha-Kechua, the Corexist in the form of collections in Peabody Museum, Cam- dilleras of South America; Carib-Arawak, about Caribbean Tupi-Guarani, Amazon drainage; Araucanian, Pampas; bridge, Massachusetts, the Academy of Natural Sciences Sea; Patagonian, peninsula; Fuegian, Magellan Strait. It is in Philadelphia, and the United States National Museum necessary to use geographical terms in the case of Caliin Washington. Professor Putnam measured for the fornia and the North Pacific, the Caucasus or cloaca gentium World’s Columbian Exposition 17,000 living Indians, the western hemisphere, where were pocketed forty and the results have been summed up by Boas. The of out of one hundred or more families of native tribes. breadth of the Indian face is one centimetre more than that of the whites, and the half-breeds are nearer the The same is true in a limited sense of Matto. Grosso. Indian standard; this last is true also of colour in the That these areas had deep significance for the native races shown by the results, both in biology and culture. The skin, eyes, and hair. In stature, the tall tribes exceed is presence or absence of useful minerals, plants, and animals 170 cm.; middle stature ranges between 166 and 170; rendered some congenial, others unfriendly; some areas and short tribes are under 166 cm. The Indians are on were the the whole a tall people. Tribes that have changed resi- pursuits. patrons of virile occupations, others of feminine dence have changed stature. The tallest statures are on Among the languages of America great differences exist the plains. The mountains of the south-east and of the in the sounds used. A collection of all the phonetic west reveal the shortest statures. The whole Mississippi elements exhausts the standard alphabets and Laaguagem Valley was occupied by tall peoples. The Athapascans of calls for new letters. A comparison of one family New Mexico are of middle stature, the Pueblo peoples are another shows also that some are vocalic and soft, short. The Shoshone, Shahaptin, and Salish tribes are of with middle stature; on the coast of British Columbia, Puget others wide in the range of sounds, while a third set are Sound, in Oregon, and Northern California, are the shortest harsh and guttural, the speaking of them (according Payne) resembling coughing, barking, and sneezing. of all the North Americans save the Eskimo, while to Powell thinks that man lived in America before he among them, on the Columbia, are taller tribes. The acquiredalso articulate speech. The utterance of these speech comparison of cranial indexes is rendered difficult by intentional flattening of the forehead and undesigned elements in definite order constitutes the roots and sentences flattening of the occiput by the hard cradle-board. The of the various tongues. From the manner of assemblage, Mississippi Valley tribes are nearly brachycephahc; the all American languages are agglutinative, or holophrastic, but they should not be called polysynthetic or incorporaindex increases around the Great Lakes, and lessens farther tive or inflexional. They were more or less on the way east. The eastern Eskimo are dolichocephalic, the western are less so, and the Aleuts brachycephalic. On to such organized forms, in which the world’s literatures are preserved. As in all other languages, so in those of the North Pacific coast, and in spots down to the Rio aboriginal America, the sentence is the unit. Words and Grande, are short heads, but scattered among these are phrases are the organic parts of the sentence, on which, long heads, frequent in Southern California, but seen therefore, the languages are classified. It is on this basis northward to Oregon, as well as in Sonora and some Rio sentential elements that Powell has arranged the Grande pueblos. In the regions of greatest linguistic of linguistic families of North America. He has brought mixture is the greatest heterogeneity of cephalic index. together, in the Bureau of Ethnology in Washington, The concepts on which the peoples of the Old World many hundreds of manuscripts, written by travellers, have been classified, such as stature, colour, skeleta traders, missionaries, and scholars; and, better still, in measurements, nationality, and so on, cannot as Classifica- t |je useq in America with success. The only response to circulars, carefully-prepared vocabularies, texts, and long native stories have been written out by trained tloa ' basis of division practicable is language, which collectors. A corps of specialists—Boas, Dorsey, Gatschet, must be kept separate in the mind from the others. How- Hewitt, Mooney, Pilling —have studied many of these ever before the conquest, in no other part of the globe did languages analytically and comparatively. Other institulanguage tally so nearly with kinship. Marriage was tional investigations have been prosecuted, the result of exogamic among clans in a tribe, but practically, though all which will be an intelligent comprehension of the not wholly, endogamic as between tribes, wife and slave philology of a primitive race. capture being common in places. In his family tree o Attention is frequently called to the large number of Homo Americanus Keane follows out such a plan, placing linguistic families in America, nearly 200 having been the chief linguistic family names on the mam limbs, named, embracing over 1000 languages and diaNorth American on one side, and South American on the lects. A few of them, however, occupied the uJ ]stic , other. Deniker groups mankind into twenty-nine races greater part of the lands both north and south fa ilies and sub-races. Americans are numbered thus boutH Panama; the others were encysted in the territory of American sub-race; Palseo-Americans and South Americans. of the prevailing families, or concealed in culs-de-sac. of the 22, North American sub-race; tall, mesocephahc. mountains. They are, through poverty of material, unCentral American race; short, brachycephahc. _ 24, Pata- classed languages, merely outstanding phenomena. I acgonian race; tall, brachycephalic. 25, Eskimo race; tions separated from the parent body developed dialects short, dolichocephalic. ., . . languages by contact, intermarriage, and incorporation Zoologists divide the earth into biological areas or or with foreign tribes. To the old-time belief that languages regions, so both archaeologists and ethnologists may find