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Show ARE THEY COUSINS? . 1 A Claim That the Noble Eed Man of the Forest is of Mongol .Descent. SEASONS EOE THINKING THEY AEE The Striking Eesemblaece in Language and Appearance Aztec Traditions, HAVING iu youth visited the upper Missouri, a n,d obtained ob-tained considerable knowledge know-ledge of the tribes" who dwelt on that river, I have always felt a deep interest in the investigations as to the origin of tho American Indians, says a writer in ho New York Star. From tho settlement oi tms country down to our own time all sorts of theories have been advanced, some of them of the wildest character, and others plausible and reasonable. rea-sonable. Catlin tells the story of Prince Modoc and his Welshmen, and speaks of blue eyed and light haired Indians of the Maudan tribe in support of the legend. Neither Catlin nor any of his critics seem to have thought of the simple fact that the pure blooded Welshman is neither blue eyed nor light haired. And this is but a sample of the way in which the subject has been dealt with even by careful and inquiring writers. SIMILAR WORDS. My own opinion if it is of any value is that the North American Indians, or the greater part of them, are descend-rtd descend-rtd from Asiatic immigrants and closely ikin to the Mongolian race. In the Sioux language, with which I have some acquaintance, the word for a chief, or head man, is "eetoncha." Among certain cer-tain tribes of Alaska the chief is called "eeton" and "tyone." This certainly brings usyery near the Japanese word "tycoon." I have mentioned this word in particular because it is one of the terms likely to be perpetuated under any change of circumstances, just as the Saxon word "king," in England, survived like Norman conquest and Celtic admixture. ad-mixture. The Sioux word for a tent, or homo, i3 "teepee," and this is very similar simi-lar to tho Tartar word, while there is also a marked similarity in the appearance appear-ance of the tents alike of the Tartars and tho American Indians. Tho photographs brought by travelers from Siberia of the tribes there subject to Russian authority might well be mistaken for pictures of American Indians in unusual attire. It is true that the Indians are, as a rule, superior in physique to the average Mongolian, at least to tho specimens of the Mongolian race that we meet iu America, hut tho difference is no greater than between the average Celtic immigrant immi-grant of fifty years ago and his grandson of today; whereas the Indian immigration probably took place many hundreds of years ago. The writer has uot been the only traveler impressed by the resemblance resem-blance of Indians to the Mongols. Both in Central and South America tribes have been found whose likeness, in language, lan-guage, physique and manner, to the Mongolian race ha.s lately been the subject sub-ject of considerable observation and remark. re-mark. One of these tribes the Guara-ris Guara-ris has its seat on the far confines of Paraguay; yet, in the opinion of a gen-:.leman gen-:.leman acquainted with tha Tartar tongue, their speech is distinctly Mon-tolian. Mon-tolian. It does not follow that all the aboriginal aborig-inal inhabitants of America are of Mongolian Mon-golian descent, even if they all came from Asia. The writer has seen the descendants de-scendants of the Aztecs in Mexico, and it is difficult to imagine any relationship between them and the Mongolian. Yet Aztec tradition points to tho north as their original seat, and among a people who had no method of transmitting history his-tory by writing tradition is likely to have been fairly accurate. Europe was not all settled by one blood. The fair and tho dark haired, the Celt and the Goth, swept over tho contineut, the current eddying hero and there, where a wandering wan-dering horde waa tempted or compelled to rest. So that other races besides Mongols Mon-gols may have emigrated from Asia to Amorica. AZTEC TRADITION. The Aztec tradition of northern migration mi-gration is supported by various circumstances, circum-stances, and one to the bearing of which, I think, attention has never before been called. It is well known that the Aztecs hiive a slanting forehead or, in other words, they have no forehead at all the skull being depressed in front almost on an angle with tho noso, A tribe in British Columbia has for ages practiced the custom of depressing by artificial means the foreheads of children so as to make the head look very like that of an Aztec. This is not done to the heads of children of the lowest class in the tribe the depressed forehead being a sign of at least respectable rank. It is not unreasonable un-reasonable to suppose that the origin of this singular habit may have had some connection with Aztec supremacy in that region at a far remote period, when it became to the interest of a subject clan to have as near a physical resemblance ai possible to the conquering race. The American Indians are passing away. Cities have grown whore I have shot the prairie chickens chased the buf-faio buf-faio aud kept midnight watch for the prowling Sioux a few years ago. Another An-other ton years and it will be difficult to find an Indian of the sort that followed Sitting Bull, and harassed the infant settlements of Dakota. They will have become half civilized specimens of humanity, hu-manity, living on the charity of the government, gov-ernment, without the virtues of independence, indepen-dence, and with numerous vices of which iu freedom they were happily ignorant. Theee Indians have traditions that are worthy of being handed down; their lan--"". CAln to nerish. are worth preserving.- ' ' |