John T. Short

“ Because the polished nations of the new world, and particularly those of Mexico, preserve in their traditions and in their paintings the memory of the creation of the world and of the building of the Tower of Babel, the confusion of languages and the dispersion of the people, though blended with some fables, and had no knowledge of the events which happened afterwards in Asia, in Africa, or in Europe, although many of them were so great and remarkable that they could not easily have gone from their memories. ”

“ We have already alluded to the development in architecture and art which marked the possible transition of this people from north to south. Here we see but the rude beginnings of a civilization which no doubt subsequently unfolded in its fuller glory in the valley of Anahuac, and spreading southward engrafted a new life upon the wreck of Xibalba. Though there is no evidence that the Mound-builders were indigenous, we must admit that their civilization was purely such—the natural product of climate and the conditions surrounding them. ”

“ A common language between all men, shared even by beasts, was one of the strongest possible bonds of peace.
But at last this paradisiacal age was ended by a great deluge in which all men and living creatures perished. Only Montezuma and his friend, the coyote—a prairie-wolf—escaped. This wonderful animal, with semi-divine attributes, plays a remarkable part in the religion of many of the Pacific tribes, and furnishes us a parallel in our Occidental mythology with the half-human, half-brute combinations of Greco-Roman mythology. ”

“ This singular Codex, which appears to the eyes of the uninitiated to be only “A History of the Kingdoms of Culhuacan and Mexico,” he considers susceptible of an allegorical interpretation, in which he reads the history and fate of that first of the continents, on whose soil originated all civilization and whose inhabitants were the genii of the arts, the origin of which are without even a tradition. ”

“ The spacious gateways—one of which has embankments on both sides measuring thirty-five feet in height from the bottom of the interior trench—the labyrinthine system of avenues, the strangely-shaped mounds, one of which resembles a huge bird-track with a middle toe 155 feet in length and the remaining two each 110 feet in length—together with the solitude of the ancient forest which entombed this buried city, we confess impressed us with a sense of wonderment and that strange perplexity which an insoluble mystery exercises over the mind. ”

“ Yet I cannot conceal my satisfaction that the age of North American Antiquity is not all darkness, but on the contrary is rapidly growing radiant with light, while a host of patient searchers for its truths roll up the obscuring curtain. ”

“ Architecture.—The works of the Mound-builders and Pueblos have already been described and their transitional forms or stages noted. To seek for parallelisms or analogies between the Mound-builders and the people of Asia because mounds are common to both continents, or to seek to identify them with the people of Northern Europe because the shell-heaps of our sea-board resemble those of Denmark, would certainly be an unjustifiable use of the imagination, in anything like a serious discussion of the question. ”

“ At this, Montezuma became enraged, collected the tribes around him, and set about the construction of a house which should reach heaven. The builders had already completed several apartments, lined with gold and silver and precious stones, and progressed to a point which encouraged all to believe that their defiant purpose would be accomplished, when the Great Spirit smote it to the earth amid the crash of his thunder. ”

“ The doctrines of the benign and saintly Quetzalcoatl or Cukulcan must be classed among the great faiths of mankind, and their author, alone of all the great teachers of morals except Christ himself, inculcating a positive morality, must be granted a precedence of most of the great teachers of Chinese and Hindoo antiquity. It is the custom of many Europeans to regard America as having no heroic or legendary period, no heroes like Achilles, Æneas, Sigfried, Beowolf, Arthur and the Cid; but who will review the romance of American antiquity and longer entertain this view? ”

“ CONCLUSION. THE dim uncertainty which envelopes the most ancient period of American antiquity, like that which obscures the beginnings of Egyptian, Assyrian and Trojan history, to say nothing of the origin of the venerable Asiatic civilizations, renders much of the effort in this field unsatisfactory. Still the results are of surpassing interest. A new cosmogony, mythology and traditional history full of weird poetic inspiration, an inspiration such as is begotten in contemplating the struggles of nature’s children after a higher development, is added to the fund of human knowledge. ”

“ Although this civilization was indigenous and peculiar to itself, we find all of the American tribes possessed of certain arts and traditions which seem common to mankind in all parts of the world. The character of flint weapons and implements are the same among all primitive peoples. The modes of producing fire by friction and of grinding grain differ little, if any, in America, from those employed by ancient peoples elsewhere. The first efforts toward the development of the architectural idea all round the globe, seem to find expression in the rude mound and then in the more perfect pyramid. ”

“ Then they returned thanks to those who had made the world and all therein was: we offer up our thanks, twice—yea, verily, thrice; we have received life, we speak, we walk, we taste, we hear and understand, we know both that which is near and that which is far off, we see all things, great and small, in all the heaven and earth. Thanks, then, Maker and Former, Father and Mother of our life, we have been created—we are. ”

“ ON that eventful morning nearly four centuries ago, when the spell of uncertainty and mystery which enshrouded the Atlantic was broken, and the darkness of the deep vanished with the darkness of the night, the illustrious admiral discovered a world populated with beings like himself. They were male and female, with all the physical characteristics common to the rest of mankind, and differed from the Spaniards only in that their skin was of a copper hue, and their cheek bones more prominent. ”

“ The old religion and civilization of the Votanites were compelled to yield to the vigorous and warlike power which brought with it a religion which has ever commended itself to the senses and impulses of semi-civilized peoples. The worship of the sun-symbol of the Heart of Heaven was destined to supplant all other faiths.
It will be remembered that Quetzalcoatl was the leader and deity of the Nahuas, and that in their language his name signified “plumed serpent,” while Gucumatz, leader and patron deity of the Xibalban conquerors has precisely the same significance in the Quiché language. ”

“ When it was definitely determined that America was a continent of itself and not the eastern extremity of India, the fact that it was inhabited gave rise to speculations which have since been often repeated. Through an unaccountable misapprehension, not only the questions of the origin of the Americans, but the manner of their separation from the rest of the race, together with the routes they pursued in reaching the new world—all were thought to be capable of solution by the light of Scripture. ”

“ Supposing that the sweeping assumption of the northern origin so persistently adhered to by native and Spanish writers is nothing but a priestly fabrication, be admitted, simply that our attention may be turned to other testimony, still the evidence is against the southern origin theory. The material relics of Honduras and Nicaragua absolutely disprove the positive supposition that they were ever the work of the people who figured in Anahuac, and no transition from one style of sculpture to the other has ever been discovered, nor could be imagined. ”

“ THE most ancient civilization on this continent, judging from the combined testimony of tradition, records, and architectural remains, was that which grew up under the favorable climate and geographical surroundings which the Central American Region southward of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec afforded. The great Maya family with its numerous branches, each in time developing its own dialect if not its own peculiar language, at an early date fixed itself in the fertile valley of the River Usumasinta, and produced a civilization which was old and ripe when the Toltecs came in contact with it. ”

“ The only remaining theory, and probably the most important of all, because of its purely scientific character, which presents itself for our consideration, is that which not only considers the civilization of ancient America to have been indigenous, but also claims the inhabitants themselves to have been autochthonic; in a word, that by process of evolution or in some other way, the first Americans were either developed from a lower order in the animal kingdom or were created on the soil of this continent. ”

“ It remains for some one to compare the Aztec with the languages of the southern Indians before the investigation is complete. While the probability is pre-eminent that the ancient Americans are of old world origin and that the519 Mayas and Nahuas reached this continent from opposite directions, it is certain that the civilization developed by each people is indigenous—that it grew up on the soil where we find it, and was shaped by the wants of man as influenced and modified by the conditions of nature and physical surroundings. ”

“ In view of the wide differences existing between the native Americans themselves in every feature which admits of being subjected to a scientific test, we are forced to the conclusion, solely resting on the evidence in the case, that the theory of American ethnic unity is a delusion, an infatuating theory which served only to blind its advocates as to the plain facts, and led them into grave errors which will become all the more palpable as scientific investigation progresses. ”

“ If we look upon the so-called creations as simply tribal origins and not as mythical accounts of the origin of man, there is room for the heroic period before the days of the four ancestors of the Quichés; but if, on the contrary, the two creations preceding that of Balam-Quitzé and his associates are mythical, are the legendary accounts of a fancied order in creation and not the origin of tribes, the view taken by the Abbé is the only one which can be accepted. ”

“ They cultivated the valley, fashioned whatever utensils and tools they needed very neatly and handsomely out of clay and wood and stone, not knowing any of the useful metals; built their homes and kept their flocks and herds in the fertile river-bottoms, and worshipped the sun. They were an eminently peaceful and prosperous people, living by agriculture rather than by the chase. About a thousand years ago, however, they were visited by savage strangers from the North, whom they treated hospitably. ”

“ Smith, Cesnola, and Schliemann naturally cause us to turn with national pride to the rich antiquarian fields in our own land. Very satisfactory results have been obtained within a few years in the exploration of Mound-works and the Cliff-dwellings of the West. A just view of the civilization of the builders of these remains, however, requires that it be considered in connection with the traditional history and civilization of the ancient races of Mexico and Central America, so marked was the influence of the ancient peoples of this continent upon each other. ”

“ The remains of this mysterious people known as the mound-builders are spread over thousands of square miles of the United States, and it is a question whether the antiquarian is more surprised at the greatness of their number than in many instances at the immensity of their proportions. The entire valley region of the Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio rivers with that of their affluents was occupied by this remarkable people—presenting us with a parallel to the ancient civilization which flourished in the earliest times on the watercourses of the old world. ”

“ The possibility that an unskillful artist should unintentionally represent a tree of which he had no knowledge is so great, that any argument dependent upon it hangs upon a slender thread. Over against Mr. Squier’s claim we desire to place the simple inquiry, Does the Elephant Mound of Wisconsin indicate that its constructors were natives of Asia, where the elephant is common, or that they lived in the epoch of the American Mastodon? It is well-known that the latter phase of the question could not be true, since the condition of the mound contradicts such great antiquity. ”