lastly, by a conformity of social usages and manners, so striking, that the description of Montezuma's court may well pass for that of the Grand Khan's, as depicted by Maundeville and Marco Polo.* It would occupy too much room to go into details in this matter, without which, however, the strength of the argument cannot be felt, nor fully established. It has been done by others; and an occasional coincidence has been adverted to in the preceding chapters.

It is true, we should be very slow to infer identity, or even correspondence, between nations, from a partial resemblance of habits and institutions. Where this relates to manners, and is founded on caprice, it is not more conclusive than when it flows from the spontaneous suggestions of nature, common to all. The resemblance, in the one case, may be referred to accident; in the other, to the constitution of man. But there are certain arbitrary peculiarities, which, when found in different nations, reasonably suggest the idea of some previous communication between them. Who can doubt the existence of an affinity, or, at least, intercourse, between tribes, who had the same - strange habit of burying the dead in a sitting posture, as was practised, to some extent, by most, if not all, of the aborigines, from Canada to Patagonia? + The habit of burning the dead, familiar to both Mongols and Aztecs, is,

13, 14.) The Mongols, according to Sir John Maundeville, regarded the "sowced in vynegre," as a particular dainty.-Voiage, chap. 23.

ears

* Marco Polo, Viaggi, lib. 2, cap. 10.—Maundeville, Voiage, cap. 20, et alibi. See also a striking parallel between the Eastern Asiatics and Americans, in the Supplement to Ranking's "Historical Researches ;" a work embodying many curious details of Oriental history and manners, in support of a whimsical theory.

Morton, Crania Americana, (Philadelphia, 1839,) pp. 224-246. The industrious author establishes this singular fact, by examples drawn from a great number of nations in North and South America.

in itself, but slender proof of a common origin. The body must be disposed of in some way; and this, perhaps, is as natural as any other. But when to this is added the circumstance of collecting the ashes in a vase, and depositing the single article of a precious stone along with them, the coincidence is remarkable.* Such minute coincidences are not unfrequent; while the accumulation of those of a more general character, though individually of little account, greatly strengthens the probability of a communication with the East.

A proof of a higher kind is found in the analogies of science. We have seen the peculiar chronological system of the Aztecs; their method of distributing the years into cycles, and of reckoning by means of periodical series, instead of numbers. A similar process was used by the various Asiatic nations of the Mongol family, from India to Japan. Their cycles, indeed, consisted of sixty, instead of fifty-two years; and, for the terms of their periodical series, they employed the names of the elements, and the signs of the zodiac, of which latter the Mexicans, probably, had no knowledge. But the principle was precisely the same.†

A correspondence quite as extraordinary is found between the hieroglyphics used by the Aztecs for the signs of the days, and those zodiacal signs which the Eastern Asiatics

*Gomara, Crónica de la Nueva España, cap. 202, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.— Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. i. pp. 94, 95.-M'Culloh, (Researches, p. 198,) who cites the Asiatic Researches. Dr. M'Culloh, in his single volume, has probably brought together a larger mass of materials for the illustration of the aboriginal history of the continent, than any other writer in the language. In the selection of his facts, he has shown much sagacity, as well as industry; and, if the formal and somewhat repulsive character of the style has been unfavourable to a popular interest, the work must always have an interest for those who are engaged in the study of Indian antiquities. His fanciful speculations on the subject of Mexican mythology may amuse those whom they fail to convince.

Ante, vol. i. p. 93, et seq.

employed as one of the terms of their series. The symbols in the Mongolian calendar are borrowed from animals. Four of the twelve are the same as the Aztec. Three others are as nearly the same as the different species of animals in the two hemispheres would allow. The remaining five refer to no creature then found in Anahuac.* The resemblance went as far as it could. † conventional symbols, among the East, can hardly fail to carry conviction of a common origin

The similarity of these several nations of the

* This will be better shown by enumerating the zodiacal signs, used as the names of the years by the Eastern Asiatics. Among the Mongols, these were-1, mouse; 2, ox; 3, leopard; 4, hare; 5, crocodile; 6, serpent; 7, horse; 8, sheep; 9, monkey; 10, hen; 11, dog; 12, hog. The Mantchou Tartars, Japanese, and Thibetians, have nearly the same terms, substituting, however, for No. 3, tiger; 5, dragon; 8, goat. In the Mexican signs, for the names of the days, we also meet with hare, serpent, monkey, dog. Instead of the "leopard," "crocodile,” and “hen,”— neither of which animals were known in Mexico at the time of the Conquest,—we find the ocelotl, the lizard, and the eagle. The lunar calendar of the Hindoos exhibits a correspondence equally extraordinary. Seven of the terms agree with those of the Aztecs, namely, serpent, cane, razor, path of the sun, dog's tail, house. (Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 152.) These terms, it will be observed, are still more arbitrarily selected, not being confined to animals; as, indeed, the hieroglyphics of the Aztec calendar were derived indifferently from them, and other objects, like the signs of our zodiac. These scientific analogies are set in the strongest light by M. de Humboldt, and occupy a large, and, to the philosophical inquirer, the most interesting, portion of his great work. (Vues des Cordillères, pp. 125-194.) He has not embraced in his tables, however, the Mongol calendar, which affords even a closer approximation to the Mexican, than that of the other Tartar races.-Conf. Ranking, Researches, pp. 370, 371, note.

There is some inaccuracy in Humboldt's definition of the ocelotl, as "the tiger," "the jaguar." (Ibid., p. 159.) It is smaller than the jaguar, though quite as ferocious, and is as graceful and beautiful as the leopard, which it more nearly resembles. It is a native of New Spain, where the tiger is not known. (See Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, [Paris, An. 8,] tom. ii., vox, Ocelotl.) The adoption of this latter name, therefore, in the Aztec calendar, leads to an inference somewhat exaggerated.

VOL. III.

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for the system, as regards them. Why should not a similar conclusion be applied to the Aztec calendar, which, although relating to days, instead of years, was, like the Asiatic, equally appropriated to chronological uses, and to those of divination.*

I shall pass over the further resemblance to the Persians, shown in the adjustment of time by a similar system of intercalation; and to the Egyptians, in the celebration of the remarkable festival of the winter solstice; since, although sufficiently curious, the coincidences might be accidental, and add little to the weight of evidence offered by an agreement in combinations, of so complex and artificial a character, as those before stated.

Amidst these intellectual analogies, one would expect to meet with that of language, the vehicle of intellectual communication, which usually exhibits traces of its origin, even when the science and literature, that are embodied in it, have widely diverged. No inquiry, however, has led to less satisfactory results. The languages spread over the western continent far exceed in number those found in any equal population in the eastern.§ They exhibit the remark

*Both the Tartars and the Aztecs indicated the year by its sign; as the " year of the hare," or "rabbit," &c. The Asiatic signs, likewise, far from being limited to the years and months, presided, also, over days and even hours. (Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 165.) The Mexicans had also astrological symbols appropriated to the hours.-Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, p. 117.

Ante, vol. i. p. 93, note.

Achilles Tatius notices a custom of the Egyptians,-who, as the sun descended towards Capricorn, put on mourning; but, as the days lengthened, their fears subsided, they robed themselves in white, and, crowned with flowers, gave themselves up to jubilee, like the Aztecs. This account, transcribed by Carli's French translator, and by M. de Humboldt, is more fully criticised by M. Jomard in the Vues des Cordillères, p. 309, et seq.

§ Jefferson, (Notes on Virginia, [London, 1787,] p. 164,) confirmed by Humboldt (Essai Politique, tom. i. p. 353). Mr. Gallatin comes to a

able anomaly of differing as widely in etymology as they agree in organisation; and on the other hand, while they bear some slight affinity to the languages of the Old World in the former particular, they have no resemblance to them whatever in the latter.* The Mexican was spoken for an extent of three hundred leagues. But within the boundaries of New Spain more than twenty languages were found; not simply dialects, but, in many instances, radically different. All these idioms, however, with one exception, conformed to that peculiar synthetic structure, by which every Indian dialect appears to have been fashioned, from the land of the Esquimaux to Terra del Fuego ; a system, which, bringing the greatest number of ideas within the smallest possible compass, condenses whole sentences into a single word, § displaying a curious mechanism, in which

different conclusion. (Transactions of American Antiquarian Society, [Cambridge, 1836,] vol. ii. p. 161.) The great number of American dialects and languages is well explained by the unsocial nature of a hunter's life, requiring the country to be parcelled out into small and separate territories for the means of subsistence.

* Philologists have, indeed, detected two curious exceptions, in the Congo and primitive Basque; from which, however, the Indian languages differ in many essential points.-See Duponceau's Report, ap. Transactions of the Lit. and Hist. Committee of the Am. Phil. Society, vol. 1.

Vater (Mithridates, theil iii. abtheil 3, p. 70,) who fixes on the Rio Gila and the Isthmus of Darien, as the boundaries, within which traces of the Mexican language were to be discerned. Clavigero estimates the number of dialects at thirty-five. I have used the more guarded statement of M. de Humboldt, who adds, that fourteen of these languages have been digested into dictionaries and grammars.-Essai Politique, tom. i. P. 352.

No one has done so much towards establishing this important fact, as that estimable scholar, Mr. Duponceau. And the frankness with which he has admitted the exception that disturbed his favourite hypothesis, shows that he is far more wedded to science than to system. See an interesting account of it, in his prize essay before the Institute.-Mémoire sur le Système Grammatical des Langues de quelques Nations Indiennes de l'Amérique. (Paris, 1838.)

§ The Mexican language, in particular, is most flexible; admitting of