Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/69

 "Irland it mikla," or "Hvitramannaland" of the early Icelandic chroniclers, was a colony founded by Irish missionaries, apparently near the mouth of the St. Lawrence, long before even the Norseman knew anything of America. One cannot but admire the learning, ingenuity, and enthusiasm of M. Beauvois, but the verdict must be the Scotch one of "not proven," with a note that it was scarcely worth while calling together an international congress to listen to a paper of this kind.

This may be regarded as a type, and rather a favorable one, of a large number of the papers read at the Nancy congress, papers whose object was to show the intimate connection which in prehistoric times existed between the peoples of the Old World and those of the New. A paper by Prof. Paul Gaffarel of Dijon, for example, had for its object to show the great probability that the Phœnicians had found their way across the Atlantic to America, North and South, and that in various ways they left traces of their presence behind. This is a somewhat more sober paper than that of M. Beauvois, still the verdict must be essentially the same.

Of course the questions of Buddhists in America and of "Fu-Sang" got their share of attention, with the usual unsatisfactory result. Fortunately there were some solid men at the congress who were able to perceive the utter futility of discussions of this kind. M. de Rosny, for example, had frequent occasion to recall the attention of the congress to its main purpose, and to remind the members that while we knew comparatively so little of the American aborigines and of their remains, it was a waste of time and energy to discuss the civilization of any other country. "Our duty," he said, "is to establish formally, against all the crotchets which have hitherto infested the domain of Americanism, a method. Every hypothesis which is not based on certain proofs is of no scientific value;" and Dr. Dally justly remarked that there is no special "Americanist method," but that there is a scientific method, whose rules are quite sufficient for this new department of science. "No documents," Dr. Dally continued, "are adduced in support of these connections between the Old and the New Worlds; we must, therefore, provisionally consider them as non-existent. All the alleged analogies are only vain appearances. The presumptions are, on the contrary, against the hypotheses of an analogy or a filiation between the religions of Mexico or of Peru and those of eastern Asia. The solution of the question is that the Americans are neither Indians, Phœnicians, Chinese, nor Europeans; they are Americans." "All these hypotheses," M. de Rosny remarked again, "of Asiatic influences in America are very piquant: it is the proof which is always wanting." What a pity a few men like M. de Rosny and Dr. Dally were not appointed beforehand to decide on what papers were deserving of the serious attention of the congress! However, wisdom comes by experience. The fairly moderate paper on Fu-Sang, by M. Lucien Adam, might have been admitted, as might also that of M. Gravier on the Deighton Rock inscription, but we are sure that all the papers thus admitted could have been published in one-third of the space of these two volumes.

M. Lévy-Bing brought much learning to bear on the Grave Creek inscription for the purpose of proving it to be Phœnician, with the usual unsatisfactory result, we are sure, on all unbiased listeners. Perhaps the most deliberate and cold-blooded attempt to prove an intimate connection between America and Old World civilization was made by Prof. Campbell, of the Theological College, Montreal, in his paper "The Traditions of the Ancient Races of Peru and Mexico identified with those of the Historical Peoples of the Old World." His object is to prove that the Peruvians and Mexicans had "their original home on the banks of the Nile, and that their traditions relate primarily to an early national existence either in Egypt or the neighboring region of Palestine;" and besides various other conclusions, "that there is the strongest reason for finding the affinities of the civilized races of ancient America, not among the Turanian or Semitic, but among the Aryan or Indo-European families of the world." This is rushing to a conclusion with a vengeance, and some of the more sober members of the congress had good reason to animadvert on the "haste to conclude" manifested by many of the Americanists, and the want of patience to wait for more light. An idea of the value of the "facts" on which Prof. Campbell, builds his sweeping conclusions may be gathered from the following extracts: "Animal worship prevailed, in Peru, and it is worthy of note that flies, called cuspi (a word of the same origin as the Semitic zebub, the Latin vespa, and the English wasp) were offered in sacrifice, thus recalling the Baal-zebub of the Phili-sheth." "In Manco I find 