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124 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS

THE MAYAS, THE CARIBS, THE ARRAWAKS AND

THE MOSQUITOS.

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BEFORE THE ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY

THE 14th MAY, 1856.

On the 15th March 1854 I submitted to the judgment of this Society a paper on the probable origin of the American Indians, the object of which was 1st to combat the theory put forward by some writers, that there had been in the beginning of time several distinct creations, of what they pleased to call "primitive men" to account for the apparent diversities observed among the various races of mankind: and 2d to show that the numerously different nations of America had not sprung from any one single source as other writers had imagined, but that they had severally proceeded from different parts of the Old World at different periods of time, and at different stages of barbarism or semicivilization.

In support of the first assumption I contended that if for the sake of argument it could be supposed probable, that there had been originally such distinct creations of primitive men, then that the New World so recently opened forth to the notice of civilized observers might be certainly expected to afford the clearest and most satisfactory evidences of the fact. Instead however of any such evidences being found, and notwithstanding that the animal and vegetable kingdoms there presented entirely new forms of life to those known in the other Continents, the human race alone presented no new type whatever peculiar to that Continent, or in any respect different from what was observed in the Old World. As in the Old World there were varieties of make and color found there, but all evidently the effect of natural causes, as some tribes were found speaking the same language and thereby evincing the same immediate origin, who yet were