Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/180

144 the case, it can hardly be hoped that any one American will be found to have preserved in its words indisputable affinities with any one Asiatic language. An investigation of the grammatical character of the Asiatic languages, with which we are as yet but imperfectly acquainted, may perhaps lead to a more satisfactory result. Even then, the questions would arise, whether a similarity in that respect does not ascend to the most remote antiquity; whether the first emigrants to America were much superior to the present inhabitants of the northeastern parts of Asia; how, if they brought with them a superior degree of civilization, no trace of it is to be found in those northern parts of America, which they must have inhabited in their passage towards a more southern region; and why the civilization which they brought with them was ultimately confined to certain favored spots.

We may indeed suppose, for we have no proof of the fact, that the American arts and institutions, of which we seek the origin, were introduced by subsequent migrations from the other hemisphere, which took place long after America had been first peopled, and when European and Asiatic nations were already far advanced in civilization. Without denying the possibility of such an origin; admitting, as is proved by the population found in the islands of the Pacific, that such a migration was practicable; it is equally obvious that it could, at any one time, have consisted of but few individuals. Any number, however small, might without difficulty have occupied uninhabited islands. But they might not have found a very friendly reception among the American savages; and the influence founded only on the persuasion of a few foreigners, to such an extent, as to induce a barbarous people to change their habits and social state, appears to me less probable, than a gradual progress towards civilization of domestic origin.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied, that a correspondence has already been pointed out, between the style of arts, the hieroglyphics, the calendar, the worship, and other American institutions, and those found in some parts of the other continent. Alexander Humboldt has thrown great additional light on that, as