Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/113

Rh waif nor a “come-by-chance.” Their own account of themselves was that they were indigenous, — true aborigines. With this now agree the conclusions of wise and judicious authorities. Dr. S. G. Morton, writing of the “Aboriginal Race of North America,” says: “Our conclusion, long ago adduced from a patient examination of facts, is, that the American race is essentially separate and peculiar, whether we regard it in its physical, its moral, or its intellectual relations. To us there are no direct or obvious links between the people of the Old World and the New.” It is generally admitted that there is more similarity between the Indians over all North America than there is among the inhabitants of Europe. Agassiz regarded it as proved that this is the oldest of the continents. If so, the burden is now shifted to Europeans, Asiatics, and Africans to account for themselves as offspring, wanderers, vagabonds, or exiles. The Mound Builders form the heroes of much ingenious speculation. So far, little has come of it but relics of crude pottery. Loskiel, the Moravian missionary, speaks very lightly of these puzzling relics. Referring to what the Indians told him, of traditions of former more frequent and ferocious wars — some hereditary — among them, he writes: —

After the Indians are all gone, we may perhaps be able to tell whence they came.