Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/119

Rh after many common analogies between similar customs of people of different countries, as painting or scarifying their bodies, because there are so many of these so obviously common to man, in every age and quarter of the world, as to be rather inherent instincts of his nature than peculiar national distinctions. But there are others of a strange and extraordinary, some even of a revolting character, which must be supposed to have originated from some peculiar idiopathy, rather than from the suggestions of our common nature or human feeling. In these respects, then, while we find the nations of the east and west sides of North America equally savage and bloodthirsty, yet those on the east had some particular customs or practices unknown to those of the west; or, if not unknown, yet not in general use among them; such as the wampum, the calumet or pipe of peace, the shaving of the head, the practice of scalping, the rite of circumcision, and the building of mounds. All these customs or practices are clearly traceable throughout what we may call Scythia or Tartary, especially that of building mounds, which, common as they are in the eastern half of North America, are still more common throughout Siberia and all Tartary, from which quarter, therefore, we may conclude that the progenitors of that family of American Indians originally came. With regard to the mounds, a late American writer has observed — "From Dr. Clarke's travels it appears ancient works exist in various parts of Asia, similar to those of North America. His description of them reads as though he was contemplating some of those mounds. Vast numbers of them have been discovered in Siberia and the deserts bordering on the empire to the south. The situation, construction, appearance, and general contents of these Asiatic tumuli and the American mounds are so nearly alike, that there can be no hesitation in ascribing them to the same race." (Priest's "American Antiquities," Albany, 1838, p. 56.) The other practices are equally identical, and that one of scalping is mentioned by Herodotus, so far back as his time, as Scythian. It is true that the American mounds are less in number and magnitude in those parts now constituting the British provinces and the northern states of the Union; but when we consider the rigour of the climate, impelling the wandering tribes to seek more genial habitations to the south, we may reasonably judge they had passed hastily through the northern provinces in their journeyings over the frozen regions; and it was only when they arrived in what they considered settled abodes that they reverted to their old national customs. It is also in this way we are to ac-