CHAPTER 2 ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA?

SCHOOL children are usually taught that Columbus discovered America. Actually, as will be shown later in this chapter, people from northeastern Asia discovered this continent some twenty thousand years ago. These Asiatics are called American Indians. It is possible also that a small outrigger canoe, sailing from one of the Pacific islands, was now and then blown off its course and landed by chance on the western shores of the New World. The number of people who came ashore here in this way must have been small. Columbus cannot really be given credit for being the first European to discover America, because the Norsemen beat him to it. They discovered Greenland as early as A.D. 985, establishing colonies there by1350. They also reached "Vinland" (the coast of North America somewhere north of Cape Cod9 Massachusetts) about A.D. 1000. It is most probable that exploring parties of Norsemen reached the regions of the upper Great Lakes and the Hudson's Bay areas, for several Norse axes (dating from about A.D. 1350) and one or two runic inscriptions on stone have been excavated in those areas. The number of men in these exploring bands could not have been large, as no Norse influences can be recognized in Indian cultures. Norse settlements in Greenland and their explorations in North America died out about A.D. 1400. Knowledge of America was then forgotten in Europe.

SPECULATIONS CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF THE INDIANS Ever since Columbus discovered America and misnamed the New World aborigines "Indians," the question as to when America was first peopled has been of great interest to both students and laymen who have been and are studying the history of the American Indian. The term "Indian," although patently a misnomer, is still so commonly used and popularly understood that it seems preferable to continue its use rather than to substitute "Amerind" or any other term.

Naturally, a subject which cannot be verified by documentary evidence has produced many theories, wild guesses, and endless speculations. One of the first explanations of the origin of the American aborigine was that the Indians were the direct descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. In some unexplained manner, it is stated, some of the tribes became lost and eventually turned up in North America. No account of the legends concerning the origin of the Indians would be complete without mention of the story of the so-called "lost continent" of Atlantis. The proponents of this fable saw a fancied resemblance between the civilization of the Egyptians and that of the Maya Indians of Central America. To explain this imagined similarity and the peopling of the New World, they revived the legend of the lost continent of Atlantis, which had been described by Plato, who probably had the island of Crete in mind. Not to be outdone, the Pan-Pacific enthusiasts concocted the unfounded story of the hypothetical continent of "Mu," which was supposed to have existed in the Pacific Ocean. Just prior to the "catastrophe"that caused Mu to sink, the "highly intelligent natives" had a premonition concerning their impending doom and were wise enough to take to boats that finally drifted to the New World. Still other professional guessers, seeking for a logical source for the Indians, have derived them to their own satisfaction from the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Aryans, Japanese, Polynesians, Phoenicians,and Irish. Most of these hypotheses are based on flimsy andchance analogies in languages, arts, customs, elements of culture, and myths. Needless to state, all these ideas are pure fiction, founded not on provable observations but on superficial resemblances, worthless opinions, and arbitrary fancies.

Before any theory can be advanced concerning the origin of the American Indian, it is necessary to gather some facts, the first of which should be concerned with the question as to whether or not the Indians represent one or more racial stocks. The best available evidencecomes from a detailed study of the identities and similarities ofthe body and skeleton. It is not possible here to enter into a detailed, technical discussion of this subject, but this much may be said: The American Indians probably represent several different racial types. It is not surprising,therefore, to learn that the Indians are similar in some physical characteristicsand dissimilar in others. There is no racial unity amongthem, and they vary considerably. We present here a list of the physical traits that are similar and stable in many American Indian groups (Hooton, 1933) : 1. The hair tends to be blue-black, straight, and coarse. (Hair samples of "mummies' from Peru and the Southwest are often reddish-brown, probably because of post-mortem changes.) Although hair on the head is thick, hair on the body and face is scant. 2. Skin color ranges from light yellow-brown through darker yellowbrown to red-brown. 3. Eyes are nearly always dark. 4. Cheekbones are usually prominent, causing the face to appear broad in respect to the width of the head. 5. Prognathism (projecting jaws) is present to a moderate degree. 6. Chins are not very prominent. 7. The face size is generally large.

The following features vary greatly from one Indian group to another: 1. Head shapes range from extreme longheads to extreme roundheads. The longheads seem to have been the earliest migrants from Asia to the New World. 2. The nose form varies greatly. 3. The so-called slanting or "almond-shaped" eye (caused by the epicanthic fold) is frequent among the Eskimos but is lacking in most Indians. 4. The mouth opening is generally wide, but the lips vary from very thin to more than average thickness. 5. Height ranges from about five feet to five feet eight inches. It should be apparent that, while the American Indians have several physical or anatomical traits in common, there are some features which show great diversity. But if the American Indians represent several diverse physical types, with which of the primary groups White, Negroid, and Mongoloid are they most closely allied? Do the Indians represent a composite group derived from intermixtures of the primary stocks? In skin, eye, and hair color, Indians are most like the Mongoloids. Hair form and scant bodily and facial hair also align them with the Mongoloids. Large faces and cheekbone projections are typical of both American Indians and Mongoloids (Fig. 4). Some features on the skull such as horizontal axes of the eye sockets, projection of the upper jaw (prognathism), spacious palates, and shovel-shaped incisor teeth are fairly typical of American Indians and Mongoloids. Thus these features, which are the most stable and the most characteristic

physical traits of the American Indians, are likewise the most characteristic of the Mongoloids. There seems to be little doubt, then, that the American Indians, physically at least, present more fundamental parallels and marked affinities with the Mongoloid division of mankind than with the Negroid or the White divisions. This does not mean that the Indian is Chinese; it implies that there was, long ago, a proto-Mongoloid stem and that from it branched on the one side the Mongoloids (to which division belong the Chinese) and on the other the American Indians. Although most or all Indians have Mongoloid features, some of them show some strains that are non-Mongoloid. The non-Mongoloid strains may represent some Mediterranean (a branch of the White group) and some Oceanic Negroid elements. In the South American forests one sometimes finds Indians with coarse noses, thick lips, and some prognathism (projection of upper jaws), which hint at Oceanic Negroid elements. The possibility that there are some non-Mongoloid traits in American Indians explains an earlier statement of ours, namely, that the American Indians represent several different physical types and that they do not all show uniform physical characteristics by any means. There is great variability among the Indians; so much, in fact, that it is impossible to characterize an "Indian" in any brief, general manner. The Indian as we know him today is not pure Mongoloid or pure anything else. He represents a fusion of several strains. And it is not surprising to discover in the South American forests, for example, some Indians possessing traits that are rather more Negroid than Mongoloid.

If the New World was peopled by successive waves of immigrants from Asia, one would expect to find that the most "primitive"or the earliest comers were pushed into remote areas by laterimmigrants and that these earliest comers would persist longest inisolated areas. The Oceanic Negroid elements, hinted at before, were probably brought in by some of the earliest invaders who may have been Asiatics with some Negroid characteristics. Thus the diversity or lack of homogeneity of American Indians may be due to the fact that the American continent (via Bering Strait) was invaded many times by successive waves of Asiatic migrants. These represented a composite of several racial strains, some bearing Mediterranean strains, some bearing Oceanic Negroid strains, and most of them bearing Mongoloid strains. In other words,the primary divergences of physical types, now observable in theAmerican Indians, first appeared in Asia and then were perpetuated in the New World. Since there is not a shred of evidence for supposing that the American Indian originated in the New World (no modern or fossil forms of anthropoid apes have ever been found in the New World) and inasmuch as he belongs to the Mongoloid branch that originated in Asia, the questions arise as to how and why he emigrated from Asia to the American continent. Prehistoric man had such limited and primitive methods of transportation at his disposal that he must have entered by the easiest and shortest route. The only region in the New World which lies in close proximity to the Old is that which is adjacent to Bering Strait, for the least distance between South America and Africa is about fourteen hundred miles, and the distance between the closest Pacific islands and the west coast of South America is more than two thousand miles.

These great distances would have made it practically impossible for wanderers to emigrate to the New World unless by chance or unless they were well equipped for a long voyage. Moreover, all the evidence at hand seems to indicate that the Pacific islands were settled only in comparatively recent times, perhaps a few thousand years ago. Therefore, it is necessary to suppose that the peopling of the New World took place by way of Bering Strait, a channel of water about sixty miles wide which separates Alaska from Siberia. This channel is narrow enough so that on clear days the shores of Alaska are visible from the Siberian side. It is possible that the original groups of settlers (without realizing that they were settling new territory) came across to the new land by boat or even on foot, because the strait freezes over a few months each year, at which time crossing on foot would be feasible. It is possible that the strait was narrower in those days or that a land bridge existed. In connection with this question of the peopling of the New World it is interesting to point out that many students of zoogeography believe that, during the periods of glaciation in Europe, part of the animal population retreated to southern Europe and part, by way of a route south of the Ural Mountains, to northern Asia, which was probably not glaciated. This wholesale migration to northern Asia was easily possible because of the east-west trends of the Eurasian mountain systems. It is probable that nomadic groups of Asiaticpeoples were attracted to northern Asia because of the existence of a superabundance of game, which insured a steadier supply of food. After the ice sheets receded, and the animals began to move north, west, and east, man probably followed the chase, as many nomadic peoples do, and some groups may have surged up into northeastern Siberia and spilled over into North America. The reasons for emigrating were probably those that have reacted on man and beast alike in all times: pressure by other stocks,

dissatisfaction, wandering propensities, or need for new hunting and fishing grounds. Once in the New World, where food was more plentiful and climate more inviting, man stayed. It should be understood that the Americas were not settled within a short time or by one group of people. This immigration was a slow, prolonged dribbling and spread of successive waves of peoples. There was no mass migration. We must not believe that after the New World was populated it marched along in splendid isolation without receiving certain Asiatic traits from time to time through the agency of diffusion. It seems certain that the following traits found in portions of the New World are directly due to Asiatic influences: cord-marked pottery (see chap. 7),the composite bow, the moccasin, tailored clothing, ivory carving, and many folk tales. Practically all the other cultural traits, such as agriculture, architecture, pottery-making, and writing, which the Spaniards found when they first entered and explored America, were invented, discovered,or developed in the New World. As the people multiplied, they spread ever east and south, and, when Columbus arrived, the greater part of both the Americas was well settled. The population of North America alone (north of Mexico) is estimated to have been about a million or a million and a half. We do not know how long it took these invading bands to spread over two continents. At first, it may have been a slow process; but, as more arrivals drifted in, the tendency was to push southward, since there was little resistance from established camps either at the gateway to the New World or to the south. It has been estimated that if a tribe of people moved camp but three miles each week, the southernmost tip of South America could be reached in about seventy years. Although such an event probably never took place, it is unnecessary to postulate thousands of years of moving and multiplying to account for the peopling of the New World,there are many fairy tales, speculations without foundations, and yarns concerning the origin of the American Indian and the peopling of the New World.

A few of the worst of these theories the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, the mythical continents of Atlantis and Mu (which never existed) have been briefly alluded to. None of these guesses has any foundation in reality and fact; they are all figments of the imagination. Some of them still make good "copy" for newspaper stories, but they are, nevertheless, rubbish. No reputable anthropologist accepts them. Racially the American Indians do not manifest uniform physical characteristics. They represent several different physical types, which originated, probably, in northern, central, and eastern Asia. Since they show great physical variability, it is impossible to characterize them briefly. Many of us think of the "buffalo-nickel" Indian as typical, which he certainly is not. This diversity of types is explained by assuming that the Indians came to the New World from Asia via the Bering Strait. These migrants represented a composite of several strains, the most important of which is Mongoloid. Therefore, we may speak of the Indians as being related to the Mongoloid division of the human race. The American Indian did not originate in the New World. Since he is most closely related to Asiatic peoples, it is logical to assume that he came from Asia. The easiest route for entry to the New World would have been by Bering Strait. These explanations are now generally accepted.

FALLACIES CONCERNING THE AMERICAN INDIAN North American Indian has played an important role in the JL conquest, history, and expansion of the United States. He has become a legendary person, cursed and denounced as being cruel, bloodthirsty, dirty, and lazy, or defended and extolled as being chivalrous, kindly, and noble. Needless to state, neither conception is correct or fair. Indians are human beings with all their faults and virtues. Some were undoubtedly dishonest, cruel, and warlike; but in many instances the Indians were forced to resort to cruel, retaliatory raids in order to defend themselves, their families, and their lands from an ever increasing flood of White settlers who were determined to grab what lands they could and to push the Indian off the continent. It may be interesting, therefore, as well as profitable, to examine a few of the popular but incorrect ideas concerning the American Indian,his way of living, his philosophy, and the implements he has made. Some Indian tribes deformed their heads by artificial means. Very often such deformation was unintentional and was caused by a hard cradleboard that pressed against the skull of the infant. In other instances the forehead was intentionally flattened by means of pressure from a board or by means of bandages or wrappings. Intentional head-flattening was probably practiced because the result was considered smart, fashionable, or becoming. However, it has been stated that this custom was practiced so that the Indians could spy from behind trees or peek over logs without displaying their heads as a target for the enemy to shoot at. Such a notion is manifestly absurd.

Stone drill points are sometimes called hairpins. It is extremely unlikely that the drills which are to be seen in many private and public collections were ever used in that manner. The Indians bored holes with them. One often hears that arrowheads and spearheads were chipped by means of fire and water. As stated on page 30, such a method would have been positively disastrous and would not have produced any sort of implement. The Indians possessed no secret for tempering copper to make it as hard as steel. They did harden it somewhat by beating and pounding it. Legend has it that the American Indian was taciturn. Doubtless some Indians were reserved, but, on the other hand, many of them were gay, friendly, fond of jokes, and talkative. It is sometimes stated that an Indian suffered less from torture than would a White man. Such an idea arose from the accounts of early travelers who related bloodcurdling tales of the various torments that Indian braves underwent in ceremonies. Many of the ordeals required by tribal custom were painful. They were borne uncomplainingly,not because the victims enjoyed being tortured or because they were incapable of feeling pain, but because they were proud to exhibit self-command and personal strength in this manner. It is to be remembered that certain religious fanatics in the Old World customarily exhibited fortitude and contempt for pain by various sorts of self-torture. Therefore, such stoicism was a matter of training, pride, and philosophy rather than liking for torture. Indians were supposed to possess extraordinarily keen senses which enabled them to see farther, and hear and smell better, than could Whites. Such differences are probably more imaginary than real. Tests have shown that keen vision is largely due to practice in interpreting familiar objects.

The same may be said of hearing and smelling. Special interests and training would account for many of the feats of the Indians in hearing and smelling.

White people who have lived with the Indians for many years have developed as keen senses of vision, hearing, and smelling as the Indian was supposed to enjoy. It has often been stated that Indian men allowed the women to do all the hard work. Among most tribes the division of labor was strict and fair. To the women fell the duties of caring for the children, tending the crops (in a sedentary economy), cooking, erecting the habitation, preparing skins, and making basketry and pottery (in an economy that included pottery) . To the men were allotted the tasks of hunting, fishing, trapping, defending the camp, and making war, all of which were dangerous, exhausting, and time-consuming duties. To us, hunting and fishing are pleasurable pastimes; to them, these occupations were extremely important as a means of obtaining food. All sedentary groups of Indians were supposed to have been agriculturists.However, the sedentary tribes that inhabited the Pacific Coast region did not practice agriculture but subsisted on roots, berries, acorns, fish, and game. In addition to these more common fallacies concerning the American Indian, a few more have been pointed out by Charles Amsden : A mysterious race lived in America before the Indians came. Races of giants and pigmies once lived in North America. Disease and illnesswere almost unknown in ancient times. Every scratch made byprimitive man has a meaning; every figure or design created by him, a symbolic meaning. Indian pictographs are a system of writing that will one day be deciphered and tell wonderful tales. All Indians understand and frequently use the expressions "How!9 ' "Ugh!""papoose," and "squaw."

Most of these ideas have sprung from ignorance, garbled stories, or misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Indian customs and manners.

Needless to state, they are incorrect. However, because many of the ideas given here are embodied in novels, poems, and essays about the American Indian, and, because it is often difficult to know which is fact and which fancy, these fallacies and erroneous impressions are submitted. It is hoped that these explanations will aid in branding these legends as false and in erasing them from people's minds.