Part 10
But it is not merely the designs of the buildings and their association with the practice of mummification (and later, in Mexico, with cremation), but the nature of the cult of the temples and all the traditions associated with them that add further corroboration. Thus, for example, Wake (=103=, p. 383), describing the geographical distribution of serpent-worship (the intimate bond of which with sun-worship and in fact the whole “heliolithic” cult was forged in Egypt, as I have already explained), writes:—“Quetzalcoatl, the divine benefactor of the Mexicans, was an incarnation of the serpent-sun Tonacatlcoatl, who thus became the great father, as the female serpent Cihuacoatl was the great mother, of the human race.” “The solar character of the serpent-god appears to be placed beyond all doubt.... The kings and priests of ancient peoples claimed this divine origin, and ‘children of the sun’ was the title of the members of the sacred caste. When the actual ancestral character of the deity is hidden he is regarded as ‘the father of his people’ and their divine benefactor. He is the introducer of agriculture, the inventor of arts and sciences, and the civilizer of mankind.”
Writing of the Maya empire, Bancroft (=3=, Vol. V., p. 233) says:—“The Plumed Serpent, known in different tongues as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz, and Cukulcan, was the being who traditionally founded the new order of things.”
Even the most trivial features of the “heliolithic” culture-complex make their appearance in America. Thus, for example, Harrison tells us that:—
“The artificial enlargement of the lobe [of the ear] appears originally to have been adopted in India for the purpose of receiving a solar disc” (=29=, p. 193).
“The early Spanish historian mentioned that an elaborate religious ceremony took place in the temple of the Sun at Cuzco, on the occasion of boring the ears of the young Peruvian nobles” (p. 196).
“The practice of enlarging the ear lobes was connected with Sun-worship” (p. 198).
So also in the case of circumcision, tattooing, and almost every one of the curious customs I have enumerated in the foregoing account. Then, again, all the characteristic stories of the creation, the deluge, the petrifaction of human beings and of spirits dwelling in rocks, and of the origin of the chosen people from an incestuous union make their appearance in Mexico, Peru and elsewhere.
The peculiar Swastika symbol, associated with the “heliolithic” cult by pure chance in the place of its origin, which the people of Timor, in Indonesia, regard as the ancient emblem of fire, the Son of the Sun, also appears in America.
Even so bizarre a practice as the artificial deformation of the head (=48=, pp. 515 to 519), which seems to have originated in Armenia, became added to the repertoire of the fantastic collection of tricks of the “heliolithic” wanderers, and was adopted sporadically by numerous isolated groups of people along the great migration route. For some reason this strange idea “caught on” in America to a greater extent than elsewhere and spread far and wide throughout the greater part of the continent.
Many other curious customs might be cited as straws that indicate clearly which way the stream of culture has flowed. For instance Keane (=42=, p. 264) states that “like the Burmese the Nicobarese place a piece of money in the mouth of a corpse before burial to help it in the other world”; and Hutchinson (=38=, p. 448) supplies the link across the Pacific:—“Men, women and children [in ancient Peru] had frequently a bit of copper between the teeth, like the obolus which the pagan Romans used to place in the mouth to pay ferry to the boatman Charon for passage across the Styx.”
This reference to Charon reminds us also of the widespread custom, apparently originating in Egypt and spread far and wide, right out into the Pacific and America, of the association of a boat with the funerary ritual, to ferry the mummy to the west.
Certain distinctive aspects of phallism in America might also be mentioned as evidence of the influence of Old World practices.
In the appendix (part 1) to his “Conquest of Mexico,” Prescott (=59=) summarises fully and fairly the large and highly suggestive mass of evidence available at the time when he wrote in favour of the view that the pre-Columbian civilization of Mexico and Peru had been inspired from Asia. In view of the apparent conclusiveness of his statement of the evidence it becomes a matter of some interest and importance to enquire into the reasons which, in the face of the apparently overwhelming testimony of the facts he has summarised, restrained him from adopting the obvious conclusion to which his whole argument points.
Referring to the numerous islands of the Pacific as one means of access of population to America, Prescott quotes Cook’s voyages to illustrate how easily the Polynesians travelled from island to island hundreds of miles apart, and adds, “it would be strange if these wandering barks should not sometimes have been intercepted by the great continent, which stretches across the globe, in unbroken continuity, almost from pole to pole.
“Whence did the refinement of these more polished races [of America] come? Was it only a higher development of the same Indian character, which we see, in the more northern latitudes, defying every attempt at permanent civilization? Was it engrafted on a race of higher order in the scale originally, but self-instructed, working its way upward by its own powers? Was it, in short, an indigenous civilization? or was it borrowed, in some degree, from the nations of the Eastern world? If indigenous, how are we to explain the singular coincidence with the East in institutions and opinions? If Oriental, how shall we account for the great dissimilarity in language, and for the ignorance of some of the most simple and useful arts, which, once known, it would seem scarcely possible should have been forgotten? This is the riddle of the Sphinx, which no Œdipus has yet had the ingenuity to solve.”
In the light of the facts brought together in the present memoir, it requires no Œdipus to answer the riddle. For the only two objections which Prescott raises in opposition to the great mass of evidence he cites in favour of the derivation of American civilization from the Old World can easily be disposed of. Rivers has completely disposed of one by his demonstration of the fact that people—moreover those on the direct route across the Pacific to America—do actually “forget simple and useful arts” (=65=). The other objection is equally easily disposed of, when it is remembered that it requires only a few people of higher culture to leaven a large mass of lower culture with the elements of a higher civilization (see also on this point, Rivers, =68=). Moreover, if language is made a test, the affinities of the various American tribes one with the other would have to be denied. Thus, the language difficulty cuts both ways. But when we have disposed of his objections, the whole of his admirable summary then becomes valid as an argument in favour of the derivation of American culture from Asia across the Pacific.
Since then it has become the fashion on the part of most ethnologists either contemptuously to put aside the probability or even the possibility of the derivation of American civilization from the Old World (characteristic examples of this attitude will be found in Fewkes’ address, =18=, and Keane’s text-book, =41=). On the other side the discussion has been seriously compromised from time to time by a wholly uncritical and often recklessly inexact use of the evidence in support of the reality of the contact, which has to some extent prejudiced the serious discussion of the problem. Perhaps the least objectionable of such unfortunate attempts are Macmillan Brown’s (=7=) and Enoch’s books (=16=). The former has been led astray by grotesque errors in chronology and the failure to realize that useful arts can be lost. Enoch, on the other hand, has collected a large series of interesting but incompatible statements, and has made no serious attempt to sift or assimilate them.
But from time to time serious students, proceeding with the caution befitting the discussion of so difficult a problem, have definitely expressed their adherence to the view that elements of culture did spread across, or around, the Pacific from Asia to America (=8=; =9=; =10=; =15=; =20=; =21=; =29=; =30=; =38=; =48=; =49=; =50=; =51=; =60=; =73=; =102=; =103= and =105=). Among modern demonstrations I would especially call attention to the evidence collected by Dall (=73=, p. 395), Cyrus Thomas (=73=, p. 396), Tylor (=102=) and Zelia Nuttall (=49= and =50=), and of the older literature the remarkable statement of Ellis (=15=, p. 117). [In Mrs. Nuttall’s monograph (=49=) there is a great deal, especially in the introductory part, to which serious objection must be taken: but in spite of the strong bias in favour of “psychological explanation” with which she started, eventually she was compelled to admit the force of the evidence for the spread of culture.]
For detailed statements concerning the discussions of this problem in the past the reader is referred to Bancroft’s excellent summary (=3=), which also supplies a wonderfully rich storehouse of facts and traditions wholly corroborative of the conclusions at which I have arrived in the present memoir.
I find it difficult to conceive how there could ever have been any doubt about the matter on the part of anyone who knows his “Bancroft.”
It will naturally be asked, if the case in proof of the actual diffusion of culture from Asia to America is so overwhelmingly convincing, on what grounds is assent refused? One school (of which the most characteristic utterance that I know of is Fewkes’ presidential address, =18=) refuses to discuss the evidence: with pontifical solemnity it lays down the dogma of independent evolution as an infallible principle which it is almost sacrilege to question. I can best illustrate the methods of the other school of reactionaries by a sample of its dialectic.
No single incident in the discussion of the origin of American civilization has given rise to greater consternation in the ranks of the “orthodox” ethnologists than Tylor’s statement (=102=):—
“The conception of weighing in a spiritual balance in the judgment of the dead, which makes its earliest appearance in the Egyptian religion, was traced thence into a series of variants, serving to draw lines of intercourse through the Vedic and Zoroastrian religions, extending from Eastern Buddhism to Western Christendom. The associated doctrine of the Bridge of the Dead, which separates the good, who pass over, from the wicked, who fall into the abyss, appears first in ancient Persian religion, reaching in like manner to the extremities of Asia and Europe. By these mythical beliefs historical ties are practically constituted, connecting the great religions of the world, and serving as lines along which their interdependence is to be followed out. Evidence of the same kind was brought forward in support of the theory, not sufficiently recognised by writers on culture history, of the Asiatic influences under which the pre-Columbian culture of America took shape. In the religion of old Mexico four great scenes in the journey of the soul in the land of the dead are mentioned by early Spanish writers after the conquest, and are depicted in a group in the Aztec picture-writing known as the Vatican Codex. The four scenes are, first, the crossing of the river; second, the fearful passage of the soul between the two mountains which clash together; third, the soul’s climbing up the mountain set with sharp obsidian knives; fourth, the dangers of the wind carrying such knives on its blast. The Mexican pictures of these four scenes were compared with more or less closely corresponding pictures representing scenes from the Buddhist hells or purgatories as depicted on Japanese temple scrolls. Here, first, the river of death is shown, where the souls wade across; second, the souls have to pass between two huge iron mountains, which are pushed together by two demons; third, the guilty souls climb the mountain of knives, whose blades cut their hands and feet; fourth, fierce blasts of wind drive against their lacerated forms, the blades of knives flying through the air. It was argued that the appearance of analogues so close and complex of Buddhist ideas in Mexico constituted a correspondence of so high an order as to preclude any explanation except direct transmission from one religion to another. The writer, referring also to Humboldt’s argument from the calendars and mythic catastrophes in Mexico and Asia, and to the correspondence in Bronze Age work and in games in both regions, expressed the opinion that on these cumulative proofs anthropologists might well feel justified in treating the nations of America as having reached their level of culture under Asiatic influence.”
One might have imagined that such an instance, especially when backed with the authority[18] of our greatest anthropologist, who certainly has no bias in favour of the views I am promulgating, would have carried conviction to the mind of anyone willing to be convinced by precise evidence. But not to Mr. Keane! In endeavouring to whittle down the significance of this crucial case, he incidentally illustrates the lengths of unreason to which this school of ethnologists will push their argument, when driven to formulate a _reductio ad absurdum_ without realizing the magnitude of the absurdity their blind devotion to a catch-word impels them to perpetrate.
In Keane’s “Ethnology” (=41=, pp. 217-219) the following passages are found:—
“It is further to be noticed that religious ideas, like social usages, are easily transmitted from tribe to tribe, from race to race. [Most of my critics base their opposition on a denial of these very assumptions!] Hence resemblances in this order, where they arise, must rank very low as ethnical tests. If not the product of a common cerebral structure, they can prove little beyond social contact in remote or later times. A case in point is [Tylor’s statement, which I have just quoted].
“The parallelism is complete; but the range of thought is extremely limited—nothing but mountains and knives, beside the river of death common to Egyptians, Greeks, and all peoples endowed with a little imagination.” “Hence Prof. E. B. Tylor, who calls attention to the points of resemblance, builds far too much on them when he adduces them as convincing evidence of pre-Columbian culture in America taking shape under Asiatic influences. In the same place he refers to Humboldt’s argument based on the similarity of calendars and of mythical catastrophes. But the ‘mythical catastrophes,’ floods and the like, have long been discounted, while the Mexican calendar, despite the authority of Humboldt’s name, presents no resemblance whatsoever to those of the ‘Tibetan and Tartar tribes,’ or to any other of the Asiatic calendars with which it has been compared. ‘There is absolutely no similarity between the Tibetan calendar and the primitive form of the American,’ which, ‘was not intended as a year-count, but as a ritual and formulary,’ and whose signs ‘had nothing to do with the signs of the zodiac, as had all those of the Tibetan and Tartar calendars’ (D. G. Brinton, ‘On various supposed Relations between the American and Asian races,’ from _Memoirs of the International Congress of Anthropology_, Chicago, p. 148). Regarding all such analogies as may exist ‘between the culture and customs of Mexico and those of China, Cambodia, Assyria, Chaldæa, and Asia Minor,’ Dr. Brinton asks pertinently, ‘Are we, therefore, to transport all these ancient peoples, or representatives of them, into Mexico?’ (_ib._ p, 147). So Lefevre, who regards as ‘quite chimerical’ the attempts made to trace such resemblances to the Old World. ‘If there are coincidences, they are fortuitous, or they result from evolution, which leads all the human group through the same stages and by the same steps’ (‘Race and Language,’ p. 185).
“Many far more inexplicable coincidencies than any of those here referred to occur in different regions, where not even contact can be suspected. Such is the strange custom of _Couvade_, which is found to prevail among peoples so widely separated as the Basques and Guiana Indians, who could never have either directly or indirectly in any way influenced each other” (=34=).
It is surely unnecessary to comment at length upon this quibbling, which is a fair sample of the kind of self-destructive criticism one meets in ethnological discussions nowadays. Talking of the “limitation of the range of thought” when out of the unlimited possibilities for its unhampered activities the human mind hit upon four episodes of such a fantastic nature, Keane taxes the credulity of his readers altogether too much when he solemnly tries to persuade them that such ideas are the most natural things in the world for mankind to imagine!
Surely it would have been better tactics frankly to admit the identity of origin, and then, following the example of Hough (=35=), minimize its importance by indicating the variety of possible ways by which Asiatic influence may have influenced America sporadically in comparatively recent times.
But instead of this, Keane insisted upon pushing his refusal to admit the most obvious inferences to the extreme limit and invoked the practice of _Couvade_ as the _coup de grâce_ to the views he was criticizing. But it was singularly unfortunate for his argument that he selected _Couvade_. His dogmatic assertion that the two peoples he selected are “so widely separated” that they could “never have either directly or indirectly in any way influenced one another” is entirely controverted by the fact that, although _Couvade_ is, or was, a widespread custom, all the places where it occurred are either within the main route of the great “heliolithic culture-wave” or so near as easily to be within its sphere of influence. Thus it is recorded among the Basques,[19] in Africa, India, the Nicobar Islands, Borneo, China, Peru, Mexico, Central California, Brazil and Guiana. Instead of being a “knockout blow” to the view I am maintaining, the geographical distribution of this singularly ludicrous practice is a very welcome addition to the list of peculiar baggage which the “heliolithic” traveller carried with him in his wanderings, and a striking confirmation of the fact that in the spread from its centre of origin this custom must have travelled along the same route as the other practices we are examining.
After the artificialities of Keane and Fewkes, it is a satisfaction to turn back to the writings of the old ethnologists who lived in the days before the so-called “psychological” and “evolutionary explanations” were invented, and were content to accept the obvious interpretation of the known facts.
More than eighty years ago, Ellis (=15=, p. 117) with remarkable insight explained the relationships of the Polynesians and their wanderings, from Western Asia to America, with a lucidity and definiteness which must excite the enthusiastic admiration of those familiar with the fuller information now available. On p. 119 he cites an interesting series of racial factors, usages and beliefs in substantiation of the cultural link between the Pacific Islands and America.
Quite apart from the mere evidence provided by the arts, customs and beliefs in favour of the transmission of certain of the essential elements of American civilization from the Old World, there is a considerable amount of evidence of another kind, consisting no doubt to a large extent of mere scraps. For instance, there are not only the stories of Chinese and Japanese junks arriving on the American shore and of American traditions of the coming of pale-faced bearded men from the east,[20] but there is also a certain amount of evidence from the physical characters of the population themselves. It has been raised as an objection by many people that if there had been any considerable emigration of Polynesians into America they would have left a much more definite trace of their coming in the physical characters of the people of America than is supposed the case. But this argument does not necessarily carry very much weight, for the number of such Polynesians who reached America would have been a mere drop in the ocean of the vast aboriginal population of the Americas. Moreover, there is a certain amount of evidence of the presence of people with Polynesian traits in certain parts of the Pacific littoral. Von Humboldt stated the people of Mexico and Peru had much larger beards and moustaches than the rest of the Indians. But there is a more striking instance in substantiation of the reality of this mixture of Pacific people in America which raises the possibility that a certain number of Melanesians, whose physical characters, being more obtrusive by contrast than those of the Polynesians, were more easily detected. In Allen’s memoir (=2=, p. 47) the following statements are found:—
“Sir Arthur Helps tells us in his ‘History of Spanish Conquest in America’ that the Spaniards, when they first visited Darien under Vasco Nunez, found there a race of black men, whom they (gratuitously as it seems to me) supposed to be descended from a cargo of shipwrecked negroes; this race was living distinct from the other races and at enmity with them,”
and on page 48,
“Perhaps other black tribes may be discovered upon a more careful enquiry, and if the theory of Crawford be accepted, which represents the inhabitants of Polynesia in Ante-historic times as being a great semi-civilized nation who had made some progress in agriculture and understood the use of gold and iron, were clothed ‘with a fabric made of the fibrous bark of plants which they wove in the loom,’ and had several domesticated animals, a new and unexpected light may possibly be thrown upon the origin of primitive American culture. It is certain that massive ruins and remains of pyramidal structures and terraced buildings closely analogous to those of India, Java and Cambodia, as well as to those of Central America, Mexico and Peru, exist in many islands of Polynesia, such as the Ladrone Islands, Tahiti, Fiji, Easter Island and the Sandwich Islands, and the customs of the Polynesians are almost all of them found to exist also amongst the American races.”
“Perhaps here, then, we have the ‘missing link’ between the Old World civilizations and the mysterious civilizations of America.”
SUMMARY.
Between 4000 B.C. and 900 B.C. a highly complex culture compounded of a remarkable series of peculiar elements, which were associated the one with the other in Egypt largely by chance, became intimately interwoven to form the curious texture of a cult which Brockwell has labelled “heliolithic,” in reference to the fact that it includes sun-worship, the custom of building megalithic monuments, and certain extraordinary beliefs concerning stones. An even more peculiar and distinctive feature, genetically related to the development of megalithic practices and the belief that human beings could dwell in stones, is the custom of mummification.